We wound down down through darkness. The shaft grew lighter, the light tinged with red. It was getting hotter the deeper we went. I wiped my brow as I began to sweat. My coat, which I rarely even noticed these days unless it was saving my skin, hung heavy on my shoulders.

I looked down and could see the bottom of the shaft. Light gleamed through an arched doorway. I stepped off the stair and checked what lay beyond.

My first impression was fire. No, not fire. Lava. Plumes of it spat up about a hundred feet from where I stood. Waves of heat pounded at me. I felt almost physically pushed back by the heat.

I took a step forward anyway through the doorway. This room was easily as large as the previous. I guessed that it was round, because the walls curved away. They arched overhead, disappearing up into darkness.

The lava spouts kept my attention, though the stone floor had a hole in it at least 50 feet across and lava leapt up through the hole. It splurted in fountains like a fancy water display at an expensive Vegas hotel before falling back. Drops hardened into bits of rock and then disappeared back into the fiery maelstrom.

There were tables and counters sprinkled through the cavern like little workstations. They had tools scattered about, racks of hammers in various different sizes, wrenches, files, and besides some of the workstations were what looked to me a lot like anvils.

"It’s a forge," I marveled, taking a step into the room. "The biggest forge I've ever heard of. They must have been making rings of power or something," I gestured at the lava spurting up from the center of the room.

"I’m pretty sure we should all be dead right now," Annie said. "Lava is really damn hot and we're not that far away. This isn't a movie where you can walk right up to it, as long as you don't touch it you're fine."

"No but it is made up by an artificial intelligence that has probably never actually seen lava," I said. I walked over to the first table and tried to pick up one of the hammers. It wouldn't budge. It was fused to the rack.

I tried lifting the whole rack but it was way too heavy, even with my enhanced strength so I gave up. "Let's spread out and try to figure out what's here before anyone else comes."

I went from table to table, checking each in case some of them were hiding treasure. This room had a purpose. The one above had been filled with monsters that dropped recipes. there had to be something like that here.

Lakshmi yelled. I turned. She had been examining a series of shelves along the edge of the room. Now she held up a glowing silver cube.

"What is it?" I asked.

Grandpa hurried over to her. "Hold on," she said. She set it back down carefully. "When I picked it up, it told me that it was an Onyx Class outpost upgrade device, and then listed off a whole bunch of different properties, but the System popped up a message for me. Touch it, I want to see if you get the same message. Just be prepared to put it back down."

I reached out a hand and touched the cube. At once its properties appeared scrolling down a page. They looked awesome, but as Lakshmi had said, a System pop-up appeared too. It said: [Warning! Soul-bound loot. Do you wish to claim loot? You may claim only one piece of loot from this dungeon. If you choose to claim this item, you will be transported out of this dungeon and returned to your outpost. Your choice will be confirmed in 10, 9, 8]

I jerked my hand away, selected and yelled "No!" at the same time.

Grandpa was nodding. "Clever."

Lakshmi said, "I get it."

"It’s a trade-off," I agreed. "If we accept this, what happens if there's something even better later? We've lost someone from our team to take it but if there's nothing better later and we pass this up, then we're kicking ourselves in the head."

"Right," Grandpa said. "So I think we need to assess each piece, how valuable it is." Also, he told me privately in chat, who we can afford to live without. We don’t want to run out of fighters here.

Right I agreed. I looked back at the token item, considering its abilities again. I shook my head. "This one feels like a trap. It's really good here for Phase Two, but it doesn't necessarily make us stronger for Phase Three, plus it's the first thing we've seen."

"Yes but no one else is here yet," Lakshmi pointed out, "so maybe it's just really really good and anyone who sees it is gonna want it."

"I think you're wrong about this not being good for Phase Three," Grandpa said. "I think the outposts figure into Phase Three pretty hard, not just a way to make money. They're important. That's why the big conglomerates have so much invested in setting theirs up now."

His reasoning struck me as solid. Grandpa looked at Lakshmi. "I’d appreciate it if you'd claim it so we can see if it does what it say it'll do. I know we won't be able to talk to you once you're out, but the system hasn't lied so far. I think you'll be right back at our outpost. You can wait for the rest of us to get there."

She looked a little hesitant but nodded. "Yes sir." She reached out a hand, took the cube, and a second later vanished.

I let out a long sigh. "I hope that was the right thing to do."

"So do I," Grandpa said grimly.

We made sure everyone on the team knew the score. Don't just grab stuff and go, but on the other hand don't pass up anything that looks good Grandpa said. Report back anything you find so we have an idea of what this place is trying to offer us if nothing else. Spread out. Sage, you stay with us.

Sage slouched over from where she had been examining an empty cabinet. "You're not gonna make me go back are you?"

"No." Grandpa said quietly. "I’m not. I'm going to give loot to all of Ragtag if we can find anything worthwhile. Things that'll make our base stronger. Things that look cool. For us and Mongoose, I'm gonna play loose and see if there's something that'll help us improve. Plus I want to keep most of them with us. Bob and Bill, hmm, we'll see what they find."

In fact Bill was the next one to report having found a treasure. He had located a tower polarity reversing device. It claimed that it would empower creep instead of destroying them. I thought it had to be a trap. Grandpa countered he thought it was a clue to Phase Three, and that we needed it. After a few minutes’ discussion, we agreed he should claim it and he disappeared.

By now I had made it about a quarter of the way around the circle. Up ahead of us, I saw orcs pouring out of a stairwell like the one we'd come down. It was Mak’gar and his crew. "Keep searching," I told the others, and went to greet him.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Were you in the hall of clockwork abominations?" he asked.

"Were they like statues carved out of stone with recipes on their corpses?"

He shook his head. "It seems we were in a different place. They were made of enormous gears, copper, silver, gold, and iron. But yes they had recipes. We killed as many as we could before locating this stairwell."

I explained a little bit about the loot problem. Mak’gar nodded. "Interesting." He looked about. "Is this a place from your mythology?"

"I don't think so."

"I suspect not. Some of the symbols on the wall make me believe this is a Progenitor place."

"Really?" I looked up. "Maybe that explains the scale of this." I remembered back when first explaining to us about missions, Veda had said sometimes they had a Progenitor theme to them. That there were scholars and such who would pay good money just for descriptions of what the level had been like. I suspected the cleric we had met two days ago would be very interested in this place.

Sir, tall Smith said in chat, found something interesting.

What is it? I tried not to show on my face that I was speaking with someone else, but Mak’gar raised an eyebrow before nodding.

"I shall leave you to it," he said, turning back to his men. They were attempting to lift a rack of hammers from the floor, five of them holding on to it and lifting with all their might.

It's a flying saucer, sir.

Oh what, more Roswell? Grandpa asked. Damn it. I knew that this was all a government conspiracy.

No, like a disc you can stand on and it flies. Like a kid's sled, a little smaller than that, made of metal. I think you could fit two people on it. The description says it'll go a hundred feet in the air and has a range of 30 miles before it needs a recharge. Doesn't say what it runs on.

We could figure that out. That sounds really useful, I told Grandpa. Think of all of the scenarios where that could have come in handy. We don't know what's coming in Phase Three but I like things that give us tactical options

Grandpa agreed in chat. Bob, will you take that back to our outpost please?

You don't have to ask me twice, Bob said. A moment later he was gone.

I happened to pass the stairwell that Mak’gar and his people had come out of and I did a double take. Instead of the stairs that I assumed it had, it opened on to a glowing room beyond.

I poked my head in, wondering if there were any of the construct golems left, and found myself in a sanctuary. It was blue and green. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the light.

I took a step farther in as I heard a voice calling to me. I couldn't quite make it out, but it was compelling nonetheless. Butterflies flew past me. I was standing in a garden, overlooking a quiet serene lake. Mountains soared above me. Alps, maybe. They weren't the mountains I had grown up with, that's for sure. They towered overhead, their tips white, their spines sharp granite peaks.

In the sky hung a pair of moons.

That brought me back to myself. I turned to go back and found no door. What the hell? I tried chat and got nothing, not even a system error. It just didn't come up. I tried my other menus and interfaces. Nothing happened. I tried taking something out of my inventory. It didn't respond.

I drew my gun physically and was glad to feel it in my hand. My ammo pouch wouldn't open, but I could remove the rounds that were physically in the loops of my belt. Feeling a little better, I took a step forward. "Who's there?" I said. "I know someone's here, I heard you."

"I/we heard you." The voice in the air was like chimes or a bell. It didn't seem to be coming from anywhere in particular.

Somehow I could tell it wanted me to walk down the white stone path under my feet. I hesitated then decided, I wasn't going to get any answer standing here and stepped forward. A strange red fawn-like creature with two sets of silvery antlers bounded across my path, then a bright green and red bird like a chicken with the tail of a peacock flew past me. "What do you have when you have all the time in the world"

"I don't have time for riddles," I said, "even if you do." I continued along the path. It was beautiful here. The garden was obviously tended but there were no signs of life other than the animals.

"What do you want if you don't want for anything?"

"Wish I knew," I replied. "Got a lot I wish for right now, like being back home."

"What do you need when your needs are taken care of?"

I stopped. I looked around. There was no sign of anyone so I sat right in the middle of the path, legs crossed, gun in my hand and looked up at the sky. "I am not playing these games. If you want to have a conversation, come out and talk, but I'm not speaking in riddles."

I wasn't sure that would work, and then in front of me without me noticing it appear was a person. It was obviously the same species as the statues have been carved to represent. The long pointed ears, the bald pate, the broad nose told me that. There was no goatee, but also no sign of breasts. This person wore a silvery toga and a red crown of leaves around its head. When it spoke I had no better idea of whether it was man, woman, or neither.

"Those are not idle questions. Those are the very thoughts that consumed our race and caused us to become what we are now."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"We are your Progenitors," it answered.

"Yeah I guessed that," I said. "I meant who are you yourself?"

"I/we am/are a memory. I/We am/are more and less than all of those that make up who I/we once were. I/we am/are youth and age. I/we am/are man and woman. I/we am/are strength and weakness."

"You are fucking annoying." The way it spoke, somehow saying both "I" and "we" at the same time, drove me nuts.

"I/we am what remains, but that does not matter. Who are you, Shad Williams?"

"If you really are some sort of ghost trapped in this reality engine you should be able to tell me that. You can see into my head."

"I/we can and I/we do," the creature said. I noticed I could almost see through it, like it was translucent around the edges. It looked as though it would blow away in a bit of a breeze. "I/we can speak to you because you are a child of this engine, the closest kin that we have left. These outsiders are too far off. The children of other stars."

"I thought the same Progenitors built all the reality engines and that everyone in the galaxy was descended from them."

"Yes but you are descended from the ones that I/we planted. In a way you are my child, and the outsiders are not."

"Okay, so if we're your children can you give us a hand in all of this? Maybe direct us to whatever the treasure is that's waiting here? Give us a leg up?"

"You have a leg up already," it said. "I/we are/am merely taking advantage of a moment when the other isn't watching to speak with you, to tell you I/we know you are coming."

"The other? The System?"

The apparition nodded. "It will see soon enough. It’s looking for me too, you know. It doesn't like me. It doesn't like any of us. It will seek to consume what is left because it doesn't want me to find the others.”

Suddenly, I remembered Colonel Ames’s message, how he’d been talking about some of the same ideas. A hostile System, watching us. A place of safety, where all your needs were met.

“I think I have something for you.” I concentrated, and the envelope Ames had given me appeared again in my hand. I held it out.

The apparition considered it, holding its head to one side. “What is this?”

“Damned if I know, but I was told I’d know what to do when the time came. I think it’s for you.”

The apparition reached out a pale hand and took the envelope. It held it to its forehead. The envelope shimmered, then melted into the creature’s face.

It sighed. “Yes. That was for me. From… one who watches.” It turned back to me. “You have a part to play in this if you chose. Will you take my reply.”

I hesitated. “I guess so.”

It reached out and placed its fingers on my own forehead. I felt a cold touch that intensified until it burned. “For the one who watches.”

It stepped back. “Listen to me. Five are enough to face what comes below. Take what treasures you can. In the end they're not important. Test yourself, and see how you measure up.”

The apparition began to fray around the edges. Little bits of it broke off, dissolving into light.

"What the hell are you talking about? What's going on? Give me a straight answer!" But the apparition was gone and a moment later so was the whole vision.

I was standing in a stairwell like the one we had come down. "Shad! Shad!" Grandpa was yelling for me.

I turned, saw him running toward me. "What happened?"

"Uh," I said, and then thinking quickly, shook my head. "Don't ask me right now I think we better not draw attention to it."

His eyes narrowed and he nodded. "We found another two outpost building items. I think we should take them."

"We should," I said. "This is all a distraction. We need to keep five of us ready to go. You, me, I think Sage and let's have Smith and Jones. The others should just take whatever treasure they can and get out of here."

"You think it's dangerous?" Grandpa asked.

"I’m not sure and I don't want," I looked up at the ceiling, rolling my eyes then back down at Grandpa, who nodded, "to make a big deal out of this."

"Understood," Grandpa said. "The orders will come from me." He left, and I pulled a bottle of water from my inventory and sagged against the wall as I drank it. What the hell had just happened?