In an eyeblink, we transferred back to our outpost. One second I’d been touching Vortali’s node, now I stood beside our own, staring out.

Juana looked up from the strategy table, confused. "What just happened?" she asked. "You're not dead, are you?"

A system message popped up. [Challenge mode. Existalis has challenged you as owner of the other alpha node in this area for dominance. This will be resolved before Phase Three begins. Special rule set will apply. You have 5 minutes to confirm your agreement or you will forfeit the challenge.]

"No," I reassured her. At the same time, my chat notifications popped up with a dozen different messages from outside. "Looks like the restrictions have been removed." I tabbed over. There was a heading at the top. [You have six hours until the challenge mode begins. At that time, communication with the outside will once again be cut off. Until then, you may communicate and bring in people and supplies.]

I dumped everything we knew into a message to Veda, then looked up. "Can everyone see this information?" I asked. Juana stared into space as she made a flicking gesture with her fingers. "Yeah," she said.

"There's a lot here. I'm pulling up the overview.”

The challenge mode was an option chosen by Existalis. As the strongest remaining player on the map, they were throwing down a gauntlet to us. Either we ceded all of our holdings to them or they would take it. I checked. The Grignarians were included in this challenge as side players. "We didn't actually claim the node," I said, reading through. "We just triggered it to go back into claiming mode.”

“Looks like that was enough," Juana said. "Shad, if we don't accept this, we forfeit everything. How is that fair?"

"Since when have the people with all of the guns made things fair on those they were taking from?" Grandpa asked cynically.

“It’s a no-holds-barred challenge.” Smith frowned as he read over the ruleset. “Whoever destroys the other’s outpost wins. They’ve got a huge advantage there. Their outpost is way stronger than ours.”

“But we can send creep at theirs, and they can’t counter,” I pointed out. “The alpha creep won’t go after our outpost. That means they’ll have to come right at us. Or there’ll be a twist.”

“It’ll be a twist,” Sage predicted. “It’ll be some weird game mode nobody actually likes. I’ve seen that in the MOBAs I’ve been watching. You think you know the game and boom, the developers throw in Blitz or Dominion and nobody knows what they’re doing.”

I looked at the countdown. Four minutes, 30 seconds remained. It seemed like a no-brainer to accept the challenge. "We've got to get it through enough of the small print to make sure that there's no gotcha here for us," I said. "Everybody start looking."

Veda sent me a message. We've got to accept. Otherwise, we lose everything.

We're going to lose everything anyway, I said in frustration. They'll take what we've got.

No, look at paragraph 42C.

I called that up. How did you read this so fast?

I have algorithms to do it for me. Look it over.

I called everyone's attention to the paragraph in question. "The challenge itself is over possession of the other alpha node and for prime positioning in Phase Three. If we refuse to accept it all, we forfeit our current holdings and Existalis takes everything. If we accept but lose, we will have to suffer through whatever punishment Existalis dishes out, but they'll be required to pay reparations for anything they destroy. So we're out of the game either way, but at least they'll have to pay us for our stuff."

"Right," Juana agreed. "At least we'll have money for a new start."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Not good enough," I said. I smacked my fist against my open palm. "Not after what we just went through to earn a Phase Three sponsor.” I sent Veda a nasty note. How is this even possible? Can we lodge a complaint?

I'll see what I can do, she said. Meanwhile—

Meanwhile, we'll take the challenge. I looked to Grandpa. "I don't see any alternative. We've got to fight."

He nodded. "Of course," he said.

"I want to know how are we going to win. I haven’t come this far just to give up because a bunch of bullies started pushing me around. We've got six hours to come up with a strategy," I said, as I accepted the challenge offers. "Let's start looking over the rule set right now and figure this out."

The challenge terms were fairly straightforward. Six hours from now, the spawn points would activate once more. Creep would head for nodes again. Vortali’s outpost would remain unclaimed, so all the alpha creep on the map would head for Existalis. That was in our favor.

At the same time, a boss mob would spawn somewhere near the central part of the lagoon. Both sides could fight over the boss. Whoever won the fight would have the boss under their control for 30 minutes. They would be able to use it to take out their opponents.

When one outpost was destroyed, the survivors would go to Phase Three.

“So, take out the enemy with creep, by direct attack, or take control of this boss,” I said, ticking off my fingers.

"Look at this," Sage said, calling up a paragraph and sharing it with the rest of us. "Death and respawn timer mechanics have changed. All deaths now incur a 20-minute respawn penalty. The dead player will be able to see and respond to what's going on.”

“That'll make getting back into the fight easier," I commented.

Grandpa scratched his head. "We need intel. We need all the intel we can get.”

“Existalis is a space orc company,” Juana said. “They refused to even talk to me while we were fighting Vortali because I wasn’t a combat miner. Said they don’t deal with underlings. I think they said I didn’t have ‘blood in the fight’, whatever that means.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to get the picture,” I said, thinking about the orcs I’d met. I liked them, but even Mak’gar had only listened to suggestions from those he considered honorable warriors. They certainly weren’t very devious.

I checked the ruleset, looking for details. Only reality engine generated characters can harm outposts during this phase.

That meant the creep and the boss. So the good news was we didn't have to worry too much about our defenses. The alpha and beta level creep couldn't touch us and neither could Existalis' miners. Our fortifications would be more than enough to hold against our usual creep. They wouldn't do much good against this boss though.

On the other hand, we could take all the creep spawn points and send them at Existalis. They’d have to answer that threat, surely?

I queried the system, and it gave some basic rundowns. No details on the boss's ability or appearance, just that it would have over 9000 hit points and do commensurate damage. That would go through any of our defenses in one hit. Or through us.

Existalis had one shot to win: take the boss and send it against us. We could try to steal it from them, or we could let creep chip away at their outpost and hope to wear them down before they could take us out. I wasn’t sure that was a good bet.

"Any chance you can build really, really big bombs?" I asked Dwight.

"Looking into it right now," he said, frowning. "We need mats. We need people. Even if I could, I need about a hundred sets of hands."

That gave me an idea. I checked. There was no limit on how many people we could bring in. I briefly entertained the idea of surrounding our defenses with a couple thousand human shields but wrote that off. It felt like a cheat, and I was sure the system would have a way around it. “Bring them in,” I told Dwight. “Ask Mama Grace to find people. Everyone we can find in the next four hours.”

“On it.”

“We need Arjun,” I said.

"Arjun? I don't think he'd ever set foot inside one of the reality engine levels,”Juana said doubtfully. “And the others, how much can they really do?”

“Think about it.” I spoke quickly, trying to convince myself as much as the others. “What’s our big advantage? In this whole exploit, going forward? It’s our people. We have lots of allies, support staff. So let’s make use of that. We have fifteen warriors. So do they. Their gear is better, their outpost stronger. The only way to beat them is to make use of our people.”

“What we really need is comms and intel gear,” Sage said. “Let’s see what Veda can get for us.” Sage sat down on the ground, her brow furrowing as she presumably began composing her messages.

I paced, feeling useless as I watched my team settling into their tasks. Grandpa looked up from where he’d been talking intently with Smith. He crooked a finger and I came over. “Yes, sir?” I said.

“There’s going to be lots for you to do once the excitement starts. Don’t fret if you feel at loose ends right now. Should I order you to get some rack time?”

“Actually, I had a thought.” I glanced toward the node. “I’m going to double check that I’m allowed to leave and return but — I need to pop out to Threshold. Everyone else is busy working here and it’s something I can handle.”

“Go ahead, then,” Grandpa said, and turned back to Smith so quickly I knew he’d just been trying to keep me occupied. It was a little painful, knowing even Sage was more useful right now than me, but so be it.