"Oh no!" the Rork exclaimed, though her tone didn’t match her words. She sounded flat, like someone reciting a lesson learned by heart. "This is terrible! Smith Ajaz has returned! He will unleash a scourge upon this world if he is not stopped!"

"Who is Ajaz Rick asked.

The Rork sighed and rolled her eyes. "What more do you need to know? He’s High Smith..." Her voice shifted from exasperated to mildly concerned, which indicated to Rick that the system was pushing her to say something scripted.

"Smith Ajaz is the high smith who was created the levistone forge and crafted the scourge of the Empire of blah blah blah. Yada yada yada. Seriously, you don’t need to know this stuff." Her voice shifted back into unconcerned. "You should be worrying about helping me! That isn’t your quest!"

"Someone else has that quest, then…" Rick said. It had to be Team Technique.

“Obviously,” she replied. "Some other party must have finished the miners’ daily quests and summoned him. He’s the final boss, see. For them, anyway. I mean, you could go after it, but it’d almost certainly be dead by the time you get there. Unless you were… "

She cocked her head and looked up toward the ceiling as if listening. "Funny, I would have expected them to engage him by now. He says all kinds of other annoying stuff once that happens." She shrugged her lower arms. "But really, that’s none of our business. Not unless you were going to go up there and kill him." She snorted. "Oh boy, that would make them mad."

"So you’re saying we could go up there and fight him?” Rick asked.

"Sure, if they just left it there long enough," she laughed. "I can see it now. Some fools summoned the smith and left him lying around, while you sneak in and steal him from under their noses."

Rick started to grin as a warm thought tickled his brain.He sent a message to Slate. Hey, you were talking about how to get the upgrade token we need to expand the caravan. You said they drop from certain world bosses.

Yeah. Sure. Why?

Is High Smith Ajaz one of them?

Let me check. There was a pause, and Slate sent back, Yeah, he is. Only you guys picked the wrong faction. That’s a miners’ quest chain. These pathetic dirtsucking farmers don’t have anything to match it.

He turned back to the group. “I think we ought to try him.”

"You really should bring me back my resonator first," she added, looking at each of them. "I don’t know if your party could even defeat that Ajaz. He’s no slouch, and there’s only four of you. And your gear..." She grimaced as she looked them over. "It’s dismal."

Rick sighed. "Can you tell us how to get there? Just in case?”

The Rork waved a hand, and an icon appeared on Rick’s minimap.

“There, just follow that. That’s way better than that stupid description they make me read off, which does more harm than good.”

Rick nodded, already thinking about their next move.

As they set off, Rick pulled up his chat and sent a message. Hey Sam. Do you happen to know what Technique is up to?

The reply came back almost at once. No. Why? Are you up to something?

No. Just curious.

…. What are you planning, Rick?

I’ll tell you if it works. Talk later. He minimized his window, ignoring the glowing icon that told him Sam had sent a reply.

The passageways and corridors of the dead city were an endless labyrinth. In some places, they almost felt familiar—long stretches with doors on either side, like an apartment complex or hotel. Elsewhere, they twisted and turned with no semblance of plan or structure, often opening out into wide spaces filled with moldering equipment, indecipherable in its decay.

There was no way they’d have found the right path without the Rork scientist’s waypoint. It bobbed along ahead of them, highlighting ladders and intersections. Rick realized he hadn’t actually gotten the scientist’s name. Oh well. Crazy Rork science lady would have to do.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Daniel asked, not for the first time.

"It’s not a good idea, it’s a brilliant idea," Gambit said. He had been enthusiastic since the first mention of stealing a match from Team Technique.

"Sure, but only if we can find the thing," Nia commented. She hadn't been in favor of this course of action. Ever since they left her camp, she had been wanting to get back to Angels Landing to check on Theo.

As they paused at a junction of five different passageways Daniel shot Rick a pointed look. “Are you sure this isn’t just because you want to get one up on Technique?”

Rick made a pretense of looking in each of the passages that branched off the atrium. From the map and the waypoint, he was pretty sure they wanted the one directly opposite where they had come in. Mostly, he was stalling. Rick didn't want Daniel to see how close to home his question had hit. He went for the casual, nonchalant angle. "Look, this upgrade is something we need long-term. It benefits us, and it benefits the other Martian expedition survivors, which is the whole reason we're here. People like Theo. The sooner we get the upgrade, the faster we can help them.” But mostly, he added in his head, it screws over Pratt and his flunkies.

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Nia’s face went through a series of contortions. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

“This world boss drops the token we need to expand our retinue. We’re at max right now, except for the one more combat player we can put in our party. This will let us add more – both NCPs and combat players.”

“I’ll eat my hat if there’s more than two other combat players left from our expedition beside me and Sam,” Nia muttered. “But… ok, you have my attention.”

"This way," Rick pointed, and Gambit led off again, going down the passageway. Rick followed, with Daniel and Nia right behind.

"I'm not saying it's not a good idea," Daniel said, refusing to drop the subject. "I'm just concerned this is too personal."

"Look, Pratt's a jerk, and I don't like him. That's no secret. But this really is a great opportunity for us, so just drop it, alright?"

From the back of the group, Nia spoke up. "Does anyone else feel a breeze?"

They paused in the corridor. “Yeah, I agree,” Daniel said after a minute. Rick nodded and they moved forward more cautiously. The smell of fresh air grew stronger with each intersection they passed.

They had been climbing steadily up through the city, so it was only a slight surprise when the hallway ended in a wide space open to the sky. They emerged onto a balcony with a knee-high railing around it, but otherwise clear.

They stood overlooking an atrium, open on one side. Windows yawned from the three surrounding walls, stretching up above five. One floor below them was a garden that had turned over the centuries into a tangled jungle. They were just high enough to see over the tops of the trees.

In the bottom of the atrium, a huge blue translucent crystal was embedded partway into the floor. It leaned to one side. Its top had crushed its way through the walls four stories above. Bands of green metal wrapped around the crystal, and to these were fastened lengths of chain. The chains ran down into puddles of metal links at its base. Once, this crystal had floated high above. It had fallen, and violently from the look of it, long ago. Sparks of blue light drifted lazily inside the translucent blue crystal, wandering about like bored fish in an aquarium.

The whole team stood in stunned silence at the spectacle. “That’s one of the levistones that lifted this whole place. It must be,” Nia said after a moment.

“The what?” Gambit asked.

Nia sighed. “Never mind. Backstory Theo let out while we – never mind. That’s what broken when the city fell.”

Rick pulled up his map again and spun it around. "Give me a second." He turned it and zoomed it several different ways. At first, he thought this atrium wasn’t on the map at all. But then he spun it around and got a look from above, comparing it to the view from the side. It was there, faint among the tangle of lines.

He supposed that made sense. If you couldn’t walk up or down here, then it wasn’t important on a map intended to show where you could go. The map did detail multiple passages off the bottom floor and another balcony on the far side, higher up and not connected with this one.

He couldn’t tell much from the map other than that they needed to get to the other side, so he closed it.

"Let’s see how far we can go on this," Rick said, turning and starting down the narrow balcony.

They made it a few yards down the platform before Nia called, "Look!" She pointed across the bay.

Rick could see something flying around the side of the gigantic levistone crystal. It had insect wings, and he could just make out the faint buzzing. They all stopped, frozen, watching it fly around before it finally vanished around the side of the crystal. They waited another few moments before continuing on.

The walkway took them a quarter of the way around the atrium before ending in a tangle of metal and debris where the walkway had torn away from the wall and fallen into the atrium below. They could go no farther.

"Well, so much for that," Nia muttered. They had all been keeping their voices down.

"Does anyone have some rope?" Rick asked.

Gambit shook his head. "A little, but I don’t think it’s enough."

Daniel was leaning forward, studying the debris intently. "I don’t think it would take much. If we can toss it over that railing there, we can crawl across to the fallen section of balcony and work our way down from there."

The distance was short enough they could have almost jumped it, but their landing point was a tangled mess of metal. Rick didn’t have a better idea and didn’t feel like going back. “I’m game if you are,” he said, and waited while Gambit and Daniel compared inventories. Daniel crafted a fairly impressive grappling hook attached to 20 feet of rope. After a couple of tries, Rick hooked the grappling hook over a bent section of railing and tied it off to the rail near them.

Nia eyed it suspiciously. "You sure that’ll hold?"

Daniel nodded. "Here, let me show you." He leaned forward and draped himself over the top of the rope. Then, with an arm and leg hanging down and a toe hooked over the rope, he started inching his way along the upper side.

"Well, that’s a neat trick," Gambit commented. "How does he keep from flipping over and falling off?" Nia asked.

Rick just shook his head, trying to decide if it would be safer to hang underneath or try to learn Daniel’s rope-crawling trick.

Daniel reached the other side and scrambled off the rope onto the twisted wreck of the balcony. With him standing there, it was clear there was room to walk and move, though from a distance the space hadn’t looked like much.

Gambit went next. He grabbed the rope and hung on, going hand over hand across while dangling from the cord. He reached the other side and dropped down with a grunt. Nia was dubious, and Rick was worried she would freeze up, but he had underestimated her. She pulled some items out of her inventory and fashioned a harness, which she draped over the rope. She looped it around her body and then went down the rope upside down, hand over hand with legs hooked—tree sloth fashion.

The technique looked pretty good, and it got her across quickly, though she had to get help disentangling herself from the harness at the other end, where there wasn’t much room to move around.

Rick followed in the same fashion, hanging below with arms and legs but without using a safety harness. It wasn’t that far a drop, and he thought he could get his shield up in time if he did miss his grip.

By the time he had gotten across, Gambit had climbed down. Rick and Nia followed while Daniel removed his grappling hook before joining them. The rope was still tied at the other end, so it was a loss. Daniel took a minute and removed the grappling hook before tied the rope off to some debris. When he saw Rick watching, he shrugged, "We might come back this way."*

They worked their way along the edge of the atrium, looking for an exit. It wasn't long until they found one. A wide archway led into a large corridor, heading deeper into the city. Just inside, Gambit hesitated.

Rick stopped. "What is it?"

"I'm just thinking. What we're going after is a boss, right?"

Rick nodded. "As far as we know, a world boss. Probably intended for a full party."

"Right," Gambit said. "And we don't have a tank. What we do have is traps." He jerked a thumb at Daniel, who perked up.

Nina had been looking back and forth between Gambit and Rick. Now she spoke up. "What did you have in mind?"

"A world boss might not be leashed to a particular location or gated in any way, which means we can kite him."

Daniel frowned slightly. "Kite? What do you mean?"

Nina glanced at him, surprised. "It's a gaming term. It means to drag something."

"It's a moving battle," Rick said. "Instead of fighting something head-on, you harass it and run away. You use various abilities to slow it down."

Daniel's face lit up. "Oh, I see. Perfect for traps, then."

"Exactly."

"But I only have 5 left, and they're not as good as that one I used on the robot."

"Which gets back to my thinking," Gambit said. "We saw that insect, right?"

Rick nodded.

"And insects could mean stingers or pieces of carapace. Do you think you could use any of that for your traps?" Gambit asked Daniel.

Daniel considered and then nodded. "Could be. It's worth a try."

Rick agreed since they could all benefit from more experience.

The group started toward the fallen colossal crystal. They were ten feet away when the pile of scrap metal piled at its based exploded and released a cloud of glowing blue, very angry, flying bugs.