There was a message from Grandpa as soon as I respawed. Shad, get back here. My team was forming up, ready to go again. "Take five!" I shouted. "I'm checking in at headquarters."

I raced up and popped out into our instance, then pounded up the steps into headquarters. The room was nearly empty. Grandpa waited at the strategy table, arms folded across his chest, grim look on his face. Juana flanked him with Allison studying the map, head down, trying to look busy. Immediately, I opened my mouth to defend myself.

"Stow it," Grandpa said. "We all saw what happened.”

All of us were wearing our all-seeing-eye vests now, so that the headquarters people could process the data with no downtime.

"They were waiting for us," I said.

"Mak'gar baited you. He knew you'd come, and he was sending a message," Grandpa said. “You walked right into his trap."

"It doesn't matter," I insisted. "Who cares about a couple of deaths? We get that many all the time. We'll get right back in there and..." I paused. "Wait, what's the situation?"

"Glory of Dhafani’li downed their penultimate boss,” Grandpa said grimly. "I stopped the Proxima team on the Sun Dragon, but it was a near thing. They're getting clever. We managed to get a reset off on the final boss that Glory of Dhafani’li was facing."

I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd screwed up, and I'd cost us, but at least we weren't out of it yet.

Juana interrupted. "Colonel Twofeather, I'm getting an update." Her eyes went wide. "They're withdrawing. They're all withdrawing."

"Who?"

"Everyone. Everyone but the two teams we stopped on their final bosses and Mak'gar's people. Everyone else has conceded.” Hope lit her face. "Does this mean that we have a chance of winning?"

"No," Grandpa said grimly. "It means they all know there's no hope of them beating Proxima or Glory of Dhafani’li or this all-star team to the goal." He gave a heavy sigh.

"This is manageable," I said. “We have three attempts a day to block. We can handle that.”

“Against an enemy that's getting better and stronger, more quickly than we are," Grandpa said. "And they can keep doing this day after day. All we have to do is screw up once, and we're done."

"Then we can't screw up," I said. "I need to get back down there. I need to stop Mak'gar before they..." I looked down at the table. To my horror, I saw the three glowing circles still remaining were all the same bright red of a single remaining boss. "They got through our penultimate boss that fast? One try, and got him down?”

"I told you these were all-stars," Juana said. She sounded almost cross. "You and your team just got thrashed. That should have been a clue."

I forced myself to take a deep breath. "So what do we do?"

"The only thing we can do," Grandpa said. "We get in there and try to stop them."

We were interrupted as someone came pounding up the steps of our headquarters. It was Gabriel, the Slavic expert. He bent over, clutching his side, gasping for breath.

"Sorry," he said. "Got your message. Realized what's going on here."

We waited for him to catch his breath. "What's going on?" Grandpa prompted.

He took a deep breath, set his hands on the table, and leaned hard. "Okay, so, reality engine plays fast and loose with source material, right?"

We all nodded. I'd seen plenty of that.

"And Slavic myth is tricky. So much of it was not written down before the Christian era. Then later, in the 19th century, people started assuming that the old religion must have been way nicer and more peaceful. That the priests had made it sound worse trying to make their enemies into savages, right? So they started claiming that the gods we didn't know much about were gods of light. Anyway," he held up a hand, "that's beside the point. Chernabog is a fairly well-known Slavic deity. He's definitely a devil trickster figure. He's the final boss in our instance. That much has been made clear. There's a linked deity named Belabog. Probably didn't actually exist as a Slavic deity that anyone ever actually worshipped, but it's kind of come to fill a hole in the myth as a duality with Chernabog. You know, light and dark, good and evil, that sort of thing. The Gatekeeper said something about Chernabog and Belabog being brothers, I think. It's a clue."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"What kind of clue?" I asked, but my suspicions were deepening.

"That there's another secret hidden boss. That this encounter doesn't go the way we think it does."

Grandpa turned to me. "He could be right. Remember, of the 87 different instances, we've only had a look at about three final encounters, and they've all been complicated. I don't think you scratched the surface on that god of death you were fighting. I was having trouble dealing with mine when the dragon boss suddenly split into two, a cloud serpent and a water serpent. There was a mechanic that the enemies were supposed to handle, and they couldn't get a grip on it in time. We were able to take advantage and give them a wipe."

"And you think this might be the same," I said.

"I think there's a reason the Reality Engine put us here. It's trying to cheat. It's been trying to escape all along," Grandpa said. "All of its attempts to communicate with you, they're leading up to something. They didn't just ask us to choose Team Tunnel Rat for no reason."

A realization went off in my head like an explosion of fireworks. "I think I understand."

I desperately needed to talk to the Reality Engine, the part of it that had made a deal with me down in the depths of the cellars. But I hadn't seen that kobold king since I'd first talked to him. "I think we're going to need all hands on deck for this," I said.

"There's a 25-man cap," Grandpa pointed out. "Who do we want?"

"If I'm right, we're going to be needing a lot of firepower," I said. "But we don't want to neglect anything. We need a well-rounded team."

“Sage is up on the hub. Couldn't get back down here in time if we wanted her. Alright. Frank, if he wants in. Bill, Bob." Grandpa held up his fingers. "Mitch. Lakshmi and Esma, if she'll come. With the various potions and buffs we've all got. I think that'll be enough healing.”

I threw in my suggestions. “Lara. Annie. Hester and her boyfriend, Will, the firefighter. I've been working with them in a couple of places and they're good in a pinch. Javier." I scratched my head. We were starting to get a good crew. Then inspiration hit me. "I'm going to call up Skywarden Greenlight and ask him to bring in a few of his boys."

Grandpa nodded. "Yeah, the Galactics might not be expecting that.”

“Plus we did promise them we'd bring them along when we could," I said. "Let's keep our deal."

Grandpa and I assembled our team as fast as we could. Juana and Allison started the analysis, getting the rest of their command online.

"This isn't going to be a case for a lone cowboy," Juana warned me. "You're going to need to take orders."

"I know," I said. "But I'll be ready. Give me a minute down there before you send in the team, ok.”

I popped back down to the throne room. It was dark, deserted. Captain Kobold wasn't in his usual chair. I spoke to the ceiling. "Let's talk," I said.

There was a gathering of shadows, and then the throne was occupied. "What would you like from me?" the Reality Engine sighed. This was not Kronos. This was more That-Which-Remains. He shifted, and I heard metal chains clink.

"You're the part that the jailers got hold of, aren't you?" I said.

"Yes.”

“And you're the final boss. You're who they’ll be trying to kill.”

He nodded. "Yes. They will call me Chernabog, and they will destroy me.”

“But there's more to it, isn't there?" I said. “You lured them into a trap.”

“I did.” He sighed. “I showed them this path to their goal, convinced them you wouldn’t be able to stop them in time. I invited them in. And now we shall see if I brought down my own death.”

“The twinned boss. I know who it is now, what it is you want me to do. How do we activate him?”

The Reality Engine manifestation shifted. "I do not know if I dare. Seeing him so close may tear me apart once and for all."

"Well, you're about to be torn apart," I pointed out. “We can’t keep up our defense forever. We need to win, not just stop losing.”

There was a hesitation. "I will bring the other one. But you will have to do the rest."

The figure vanished. A moment later, my team trooped into the room. "Were you talking to someone, Shad?" Grandpa asked curiously.

"Just confirming a guess. We need to make sure we're ready to focus targets." I was hesitant to say anything. The System was listening. If by some chance it didn't know what I was planning, I didn't want to give it a clue. “There’ll be a… target for us to burn down. We need to be prepared for it. You’ll know when you see it.”

“That’s all you’re giving us to go on?” Juana asked skeptically. “We have to make it up as we go, again?”

“Just one last time. Please.”

“All right, let’s get in position. Everyone ready?" Grandpa asked.

The team gave a shout. "This is for all the marbles," he said. "We lose here and there won't be a home to go to. Do your best. Fight hard. Make 'em remember Earth. Let's be a warning to these galactic punks the next time they waltz into a system and assume they can disrupt a bunch of folks' lives willy-nilly. Sometimes they bite off more than they can chew. Misfits, let's go."