For one timeless instant, I was suspended in the void.

The complete absence of light and sense of weightlessness made me shiver, bringing to mind unwelcome memories of wretched starspawn and cosmic insects that sought my head.

But this was no vision. I had my wits about me, this time, and managed to still my shaking somewhat in the endless night. Slowly, painfully slowly, in unhurried bits and pieces, the darkness around me retreated, and reality revealed itself once more.

My prior environs, and companions, were nowhere to be seen. Instead, I was surrounded by four perfectly square walls which worked in tandem with the similarly shaped ceiling and floor to make up a giant cube, perhaps one hundred feet in all dimensions. Each of its surfaces were white as snow, absolutely unblemished, save for the side I faced currently, which was emboldened in bright green lighting with the words:

RUBIK’S WARREN

I paused, and glanced briefly back and forth. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

I screamed, and slammed a fist into the immaculate flooring, dealing no damage at all except to my own cracked knuckles.

I screamed in rage and frustration, in failure and shame. I howled in recognition, and in regret. Vox’s betrayal was my fault. I’d suspected him from the very beginning, time and again, yet, time and again, I’d failed to take action against him. I’d hidden, simpering cowardly behind the possibility of being discovered.

As if such a thing would matter when I was dead.

I’d known hiding my Blessings would hamper my own strength, but I’d failed to appreciate their true value. The ability to see other’s powers was perhaps the single most valuable aspect of my own, and I’d completely ignored it. The moment, the very moment that Vox had lied in the beginning, should have tipped me off. I should have watched his every move.

I should have never taken my eyes off him.

But I hadn’t. I’d learned nothing from my first delve. I’d hesitated, now, just as I’d hesitated, then. And yet again, my allies were the ones who’d suffered for my mistakes, not me.

I screamed out my failure to my empty surroundings, and the song joined my wail.

Never again.

For the first time in weeks, all five of my active Shards spun up within my soul, heeding the call. I closed my eyes, giving in to the rush of power and purpose. Sea-green Entropy roared like a hurricane inside of me, churning and frothing my inner ocean, swelling my Blessings with might, perfusing them throughout.

Waves of water leagues high smashed wrothfully against the midnight obsidian of Draconic Blood’s volcanic form, but they only increased the incandescence of its belching inferno. From on high, Flash Step joined in the song, its crimson fulminations an ear-shattering staccato added to the pulsing beat of crashing waves and seismic shudders.

Fang frolicked freely in the Entropic storm, relishing my newfound determination and the promise of violence that accompanied it, howling joyously at thunderous skies, adding chorus to the wordless music. Every other moment, the song would slur, and the torrid scene within me would freeze, as Bullet Time made its invisible presence known.

Never again would I walk alone.

My Blessings were a part of me, stitched into my soul by ancient power, sutured to me in the Shardsong. To deny them would mean death.

Gritting my teeth as the throes of power echoed vengefully within me, I allowed the sea to calm, and the song to become a whisper in the back of mind, once more. My Blessings quieted peacefully, but remained ever-ready. A promise had been made, and vows renewed to their liege-lord.

Taking a deep, deep breath, and letting it out slowly, I reigned my temper back in. All was not lost, not yet. Our situation was my fault, true, but I could fix it, too. With a flex of will, I compressed the seething hatred within me.

I would not lose myself to it, but neither would I let it disappear. It was useful. I kept me focused. With Flash Step and Bullet Time together, the only chance the traitorous Master had against me would be if he caught me off guard. And the next time I saw him, I would be ready.

Vox would pay.

But he’d pay later. Right now, I was probably alone, almost certainly on the second floor, and completely and entirely lost. Lost in the Labyrinth, deeper than I’d ever been before. Succumbing to my own temper in these conditions would be an excellent way to get myself killed. And if that happened, Vox would walk right out of the World Titan’s Maw with a smile on his smug, backstabbing face. With a final sigh, I narrowed my eyes.

Now was not the time for action, or violence. Now was the time to consider what I knew.

Clearly, we’d been separated. It didn’t take a Thinker to divine that. No doubt that creature, that robot, that Cirque was the cause. It’d teleported me to somewhere else in the Dungeon. Split us up.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Or, had it?

Technically, all I knew was that I was alone. And for all I knew, I was the only one on my own. My other companions could have, just as easily, been teleported together. I frowned, and my stomach clenched anxiously.

That was the worst-case scenario.

Last I saw, Thaum, albeit Mastered, had effectively killed Quarrel. Glare’s injury at Rover’s similarly puppeted hands hadn’t seemed quite as mortal, perhaps, but he wouldn’t have been in any condition to do battle, let alone with an Attunement 14 Master/Blaster. The two would have been easy pickings for Vox.

If they’d all ended up together, then the next time I saw them, they’d either be Mastered, or dead. I grit my teeth hard, and suppressing the seed of hatred in my gut became a herculean task.

That was the worst-case scenario, but the others weren’t much better.

We could just as easily have been teleported individually, each one of us. If so, Quarrel and Glare were likely also dead. They were incapacitated, each sporting grievous injury. If they didn’t expire on their own, the Dungeon would no doubt see to them soon enough. As for Thaum and Rover, well…I wasn’t sure.

Was there a range to Vox’s Mastery? Could he control Blessed across vast distances? If he couldn’t, were there aftereffects of being Mastered? I could easily see the sadistic man wiping their minds clean, if such a thing was even possible. Had they effectively died the moment he Mastered them?

I shook my head. I couldn’t know. I still didn’t understand enough about Blessings, or Blessed themselves, and Masters were one of the rarest kind. I couldn’t just assume the worst, but was there even a best-case scenario?

One, two, three.

Those words. They were what the creature had repeated, time and again, before casting us into the bowels of the World Titan. Could there be some meaning secreted away, within them? What if they were a warning, like the mimic painting had been, an eternity ago?

Had Cirque split us up into groups of one, and two, and three?

It was impossible to say. The creature was artificial, wholly and entirely alien, a construct, a creation of an incomprehensible entity. Its words may have held great meaning, or meant nothing at all. Maybe it was referring to the first three floors of the Dungeon. Maybe it was counting down to its arrival. Then again, maybe it just fucking enjoyed counting, and the numbers themselves were gibberish.

There was no point to this. I was thinking in circles.

I tried hard to repress the growing nerves and anxiety, forcibly driving the thought of my comrades and their fates from my mind. I’d find them out eventually, one way or another. My worry wouldn’t help them, anyway. And there were better questions to ask. Such as, how?

How had Cirque teleported us?

The ability, itself, wasn’t altogether unbelievable. The being was powerful, that much was clear. Powerful enough to stop my Lightning without damage, in slowed time, no less. Meaning, in all likelihood, that Cirque was a floor Champion.

But, therein lay the problem.

It made sense, except–it didn’t. Cirque couldn’t be the first floor’s Champion, that had been the Titanoboa, and we’d already slain it. Therefore, the android could only be the Champion of floor 2.

But how could a Champion affect things outside of it’s own floor?

How could a Champion even travel outside of its own floor? I’d certainly never heard of such a thing. What would be the point of it? At that point, why even separate the floors, at all? It went against the very nature of the World Titan.

And, more concretely, why?

Why would the creature do such a thing? Champions never left their room; one single, penultimate challenge to serve as the climax of a Dungeon’s floor. Like all Labyrinthine creatures, if they had intelligence, it was only within the context of their own roles.

Why would they stray from their position? They didn’t possess agency, or motives. They weren’t even really alive–not like people were. They couldn’t be. After all, they were artificial, nothing more than constructs of the World Titan…weren’t they?

First, you’ll play my game.

Was that what this was, to the thing? A game? In that case, was it the game’s master? The ringleader? Was it controlling our surroundings from afar, choosing what challenges we were each pitted against?

Was it watching me, right now?

My head whipped around, the song spreading out, its awareness covering the room like an ethereal blanket, scouring every crack and crevice, searching for anything that didn’t belong.

I saw nothing. I heard nothing, other than the scarcely perceptible hum of green lights. No enemies emerged from the floor, or walls, or ceiling to attack me. No traps activated. The room was silent as the grave.

Cautiously, Bullet Time ready and waiting, I approached the center wall. The words, writ in fluorescent lighting, glared at me forebodingly. The hum increased slightly, now that I was closer to its source, but other than that, nothing happened.

RUBIK’S WARREN

I pursed my lips, considering the writing, idly tapping a foot as I attempted to unearth whatsoever meaning might be secreted within. The first word, Rubik, was alien to me, but the second I recognized well enough.

A warren was a type of dwelling, generally enclosed. Looking around, the description matched my surroundings well enough. But a warren wasn’t for humans, not usually. It was for animals. It was where you kept them, where you farmed them, where you housed them. Burrick’s butcher had one.

It was where you stored them, before the slaughter.

I frowned, the implication making me uneasy. Glancing around nervously once more revealed that my surroundings still refused to change. I was close enough to the wall, though, to behold what lay beneath the words, a single symbol hardly the size of my own clenched fist. It was a lattice of squares, a two-dimensional, three-by-three matrix of them, to be precise. Nine squares, arranged such that they, together, made up a single, larger, square.

Each of them were red, except the one directly to the left of the center, which lit up intermittently, blinking with the same green light as the words above it.

Incomprehensible, as usual.

“Priest damn this Dungeon to all the Hells,” I cursed, relishing the feeling of satisfaction it gave me. Sighing, with seemingly no other choice to progress, I reluctantly placed my hand upon the glowing square.

It was ever so slightly warm to the touch.

The room blurred, and twisted, and dissolved into countless bits and pieces in an effect I now recognized, precisely the same manner of teleportation as that which Cirque had inflicted upon me before. Thankfully, the effect this time was a good deal less disorienting, that abominable void seamlessly giving way to an all-new locale.

Another fucking cube.