Jack’s finger trailed through the air as he studied his system-displayed quest. He stood beside the exposed metal doors in the garden, eyes absent as he murmured.

“Examine the hidden bunker behind the polyp. This was the base of operations for the viziers of the last mayor. It’s drawing energy that is preventing the polyp from expanding the safe zone. ”

Anton sat beside Jack as his eyes examined the flowers bowing over with the weight of their pollen.

“What the hell is a vizier?” he asked.

“Advisor-type character. Usually evil.” Jack said. “Funny that isn’t your rank.”

“What do you mean?”

“Check for yourself.”

Anton frowned but reached through his system connection to the polyp. A notification waited.

[Noble Anton Biggs, because of your connection to Mayor Zoe Chambers, I have awarded you the title of Ratcatcher]

A subtle tingle secured around his shoulders like a mantle of soft tinsel. The polyp sighed through their connection, or was that him?

As his new title settled into him, he felt more secure in the garden, and the town. With his help, this could become a beacon of civilization, safe for all. He frowned and cast the altruistic thought aside. Nobody would control him, and he flipped off the polyp as he walked over to the metal door.

“What’s underneath?”

“Polyp doesn’t know,” Jack said. “The quest is to find whatever’s draining power and shut it down.”

Search and destroy. It could be simple a task.

“What do you think?” he asked Jack, curious about the man now. “Worth trying before the Gambler snatches us up?”

“Quick little power boost couldn’t hurt, right?”

Anton gestured at the doors.

“Go on then.”

“I can’t. They coded the door to only let in elites…”

“Well, well, well —”

“Shut up and open the door.”

“Is that any way to speak to your betters?”

Anton leaned down and gripped the hatch. The metal was cool, gritty with dirt, and felt entirely artificial. The doors opened without effort, as though mechanized. They reminded him of the Mirrobell Dungeon’s restroom. The small cave with the orchard of dungeon fruit, and everything set in place as though recently composed.

Jack leaned over the hole. Sunlight spilled and lit a staircase that descended into the dark chute. No end to the stairs.

Anton’s eye dove and scanned by its silvery light.

“I don’t see anybody, but… doesn’t mean there’s nobody down there.”

They stood still for a moment and watched the stairs, both no doubt thinking of the hidden sniper’s attack on the diner. That life-ending thunder came from nowhere. Anton, for all the flash of his technique, hadn’t seen the sniper coming.

And Jack knew that.

Though Anton wasn’t sure if the other man still saw that as a crack in the armor to exploit. He could feel something growing between them. Perhaps violence wasn’t always the answer. He shrugged. Time travel was weird.

At least he knew he could destroy Jack if needed. He had suspected before, but it made things easier, especially with the gun and the axe secured to his belt.

“So what do we do?” Jack asked.

“We go down, of course.”

“Of course.”

“After you, Deputy,” Anton said with a grin.

“Of course, Mr Ratcatcher, sir.”

###

The depths were indeed empty. As they walked down the stairs, they found some light switches, and the bulbs above them flickered yellow until with a series of cracks they glowed bright white. The lights guided them down a spiraled staircase until it reached a ladder. From there the lights sat on the rungs, glowing and guiding them down.

About halfway down the several hundred-foot ladder, Anton recalled the lack of electricity in the new world. The only way the gas station had lights and air conditioning and refrigeration was through the lies of the One-Eyed Crow.

He eyed the lightbulb in front of him. A small glass bulb with a tapered tip, and two little whirls of wire inside shining a comfortable creamy light. It even warmed his hands slightly as he gripped the cold metal. Though some rungs still held the warmth of Jack’s hands before him, most sucked at his palms as though they had come from the depths of a freezer.

Jack seemed to realize the same thing.

The young man paused below him on the ladder.

“Is this a trap?” he asked, his voice echoing down the chute.

“I don’t know.”

Anton’s eyes whizzed around him. Jack’s petals spun out in clouds to light the space. The walls were close, not much wider than an elevator shaft, and heavily reinforced. Something had cut the rock with laserlike precision. The smooth walls glinted in the lights of silver and scarlet.

Though the ladder was long, exhaustion wasn’t the problem. Neither was grip strength. They might even survive a jump, though Anton’s brain resisted trusting such a drop.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

If this was a trap, what was its nature? Was it better for them to retreat, or to continue?

He growled.

“I’m used to Zoe acting like this, not acting like this.”

“What does that mean?”

Anton’s eyes spiraled down the chute.

“I don’t see anything.”

“So what’s your plan?”

Anton leaped from the ladder.

“What are you doing?” Jack called down.

The wind whipped his hair, and he reached out with his mind.

[Level up! You are now level 20]

[Please select an element to incorporate]

[Air: Dexterity +2, Insight +2]

[Stone: Dexterity -2, Might +2, Willpower +4 ]

[Shadow: Dexterity +2, Might -2, Willpower +2, Insight +2]

He reached into the Air with his Dexterity. His Insight raced as the element unpacked itself.

[Wind: Dexterity +2, Might +2]

He selected Wind, and the rushing air pierced his pores and stitched itself to his Skein.

As it blew through him he spun in the air and landed light as a feather upon the shaft’s dark stone floor. Before him lay a large door of black stone. In front of the door, a creature sat in repose, its sickly white skin stark against the chamber of polished midnight. The creature was human, but stretched out, with a long neck and tail and folded limbs like those of a giraffe. Lips ran up the side of a snoutlike head, and they twitched into a smile as it turned toward Anton.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the new Ratcatcher, so open that door.”

It sighed and unpacked itself until it towered twice as tall as Anton.

A deep purple silk robe edged with gold wrapped around its body and draped from its four arms. Long black hair hanging straight down from its head. It sniffed him, paused, and leaned forward in a slight bow. As the robe fell open, Anton realized it was a woman.

“My apologies, Ratcatcher. Greetings, and welcome.”

“Greetings,” said Anton. “Now, what’s on the other side?”

“You are the new nobility,” she said with a slight bow. “But the old nobility locked this chamber with a blood lock. While they remain alive, the way remains closed.”

Anton tapped his chin.

“Sounds like you want me to go kill someone.”

Her long lips curled up in a grin that revealed too many teeth.

“Perhaps, perhaps, but in any case, without their blood or permission, I deny you entrance.”

“Can you at least tell me what’s on the other side?”

She smiled but remained silent.

Anton scanned the creature.

[Lower Blood Lock Guardian: this corporeal phantasm will protect a location or item. Capable of sustaining itself through duty, it needs no food, water, or sleep]

[Level 23]

“So I get the vizier’s blood, and then what?”

“I let you through the door.”

Its level wasn’t much higher than his. His palms itched with the roots of his new technique. It wanted to be used. With Jack’s help, they could take this thing.

“And what if I kill you?”

She straightened and looked down at him from her significant height.

“I may die defending the door,” she said as she tapped her staff on the floor. “But before I die I will shatter this floor and send us all into the ocean below.”

A chill ran down Anton’s spine.

“What?” Jack said with surprise as he climbed down into the discussion.

The guardian smiled long and toothy.

“You didn’t know where you were? You’re at the bottom of the island.”

Jack leaned against the wall, panting slightly, a look of horror on his face as he took in the elongated woman guarding the door.

“What do we do now?” he whispered to Anton.

Anton’s jaw clenched. He could see his way through. Kill the monster, and open the door. He just had to stop the floor dropping out. And even if it did, with his Dexterity and elemental affinity, he wasn’t worried about falling.

But Jack wouldn’t survive, and what would Zoe say to that?

“Whose blood do you want?” he asked the guardian.

“Excellent.”

[Nobless Oblige Sub-Quest: Blood for the Blood Lock]

[The door in the basement cannot be opened without the blood or death of the previous vizier: Severin Charlene]

[Objective: retrieve his blood to open the door.

[Bonus Objective: bring the head of the vizier to receive a reward from the guardian]

The guardian grinned.

“Some extra incentive,” she purred.

“What is the reward?” Anton asked as he climbed the ladder.

She sat back down, limbs folding into place.

“Me.”

Anton kept an eye on the phantasm as he climbed up the ladder. It watched his silvery orb without blinking, a blank smile of too many teeth upon its long face.

They almost reached the top of the ladder before the Gambler scooped them up

###

The grey, timeless void wrapped up Zoe like a comfortable blanket, something worn until there were more holes than threads. Still warm enough, still large enough that she could snuggle deep into the folds and make the world beyond a warbling place of indistinct voices and distant pain.

She almost slept, turning in that place, a moment of rest for a weary soul — but there is only one such sleep that lasts forever, and so, like all others, this one ended.

The void left her like steam rising from a pot and she stood on a floor of hexagonal crystal tiles. The room itself was shaped like a hexagon and was as large as a football field. The walls were of a thick and pitted red sandstone. Countless scars littered the fortified barrier that rose higher than Zoe could hope to leap even with her advanced Might.

Though with the [Silverbud] in her possession, such a height might no longer be an obstacle…

The walls were undecorated, brutal barriers, stained by endless bloodshed. Beyond them rose stands carved into the stone. They sat empty, and Zoe was alone.

She turned, observing the space, when Rue strode toward her with his hands clasped behind his back. A young woman walked behind him, at least, she looked young. She was slight, with skin so pale it was almost translucent. Her hair stuck up in a shock like bristled ice. From the way she smiled at Rue, it was clear there was some form of infatuation.

Zoe wondered if Rue was aware. Then, with more glee than she would have expected, she wondered what Lorilla thought.

Then she smiled and wondered when she grew so casual around beings of world-ending power. Maybe it was when Lorrilla had carried her through the treasury with all the grace of a gossipy older sister.

The younger woman eyed Zoe, and their gazes met and —

Time sliced itself apart again and again as a tongue probing at a splinter of glass caught in the gums between two teeth and the blood flowed down Zoe’s throat until she drowned but she couldn’t move as she was trapped between two windows like a cell on a microscope and staring down, so high above her, was the pale young woman with a —

“Enough, Glassik,” Rue said. “We do not have time for such posturing.”

The young woman scowled at Zoe, as though it were her fault she was reprimanded. Zoe, feeling more reckless than usual, glared back.

“We only have ten minutes until the Gambler summons us,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

But her heart beat wildly, uncontrollably, not even her [Our Hearts Toll as One] kept in it place. It raced inside her ribcage like a moth trapped in cupped hands.

What had she gotten herself into now?