I raise an arm, shielding my eyes from the worst of the blizzard and silently cursing my life choices. When Breath warned me against leaving Peace Hill, I had thought whatever trouble waiting in the wings was something far more mundane. Like a hit squad sent by the Fat Man. Dangerous sure, but understandable.

I'm well into uncharted, unknown territory at this point. I had left my own sense of logic behind to avoid driving myself insane.

The breach in Padu's penthouse had led me to the interior of a unfinished skyscraper. Everything around me is unpainted concrete with most of the innards like piping and electricals left exposed. The cavernous interior is lighted by a number of emergency lights placed at periodic intervals, the building's actual electricals obviously not functioning. Makes sense, leaving live wires exposed to the blizzard like this was just asking for trouble. The center of the building had been hollowed out like a cylinder and I hear the occasional sharp crackle coming from within the depths.

Padu's penthouse is held aloft by a crudely constructed platform, keeping it away from the rest of the floor. A set of concrete stairs links the platform to the rest of the building, before splitting off at the center of the room and spiraling down the hollow.

Before I can puzzle out where I am, Padu's saferoom door finally yields to the battering ram with a resounding crash. With a sinking feeling in my heart, I realize that time's run out. I don't have the fitness or class skills to outrun the Warriors or Gunslingers sent to hunt me down like a dog.

"Fortune favors the bold." I mutter, trying to psych myself up as I lean over the staircase's railing. The hollow terminates at another floor below. But its a long drop. Most probably around twenty stories worth. I hear pounding footsteps approaching from the penthouse.

No time to hesitate.

Vaulting over the staircase's railing, I let myself plummet down the hollow as gravity takes over. My stomach drops and I barely manage to stop myself from pissing my pants again. As my descent accelerates at a sickening rate, I seize control of my fear, forcing it to the back of my mind. Magic cannot be cast while distracted after all.

"Fortress!" I hiss, willing my casting focus to activate.

Heat erupts from the focus and the protective spell wraps itself around my entire body with its tyrannical grasp. Muscles and joints are locked in place, turning me into a falling paper weight. I slam into the ground with an audible thud, fortress tanking all the damage from the fall. A headache starts creeping up the base of my skull, the first sign of mental strain from using class skills. Wasting no time, I take cover beneath the stairwell, hoping it is enough to hide me from the pursuers.

"Damn it! He's not here." Excelsior's angry voice echoes down the stairwell. I even hear him click his tongue petulantly.

"Not surprising. Everett has a lead over us." Latour comments in his steady tone, "We should not have assumed he would be trapped in Padu's Haven."

"He's slippery." Excelsior curses, "All the more reason we need to chase after him now!"

"No." Latour shoots down that suggestion with stony calm.

"What do you mean, no?" Excelsior snaps, almost ready to start a fight there and then.

"Padu's Haven is barely holding together as it is." Latour explains, "Bringing all the men through it would kill Padu. We should turn back and enter through the bunker entrance."

Good on you Latour. Three cheers for being a decent human being. As long as it helps me escape you pack of numbskulls.

"I suppose ... " Excelsior's voice trails off unhappily, ".... that is acceptable. Everett has nowhere to run anyway."

Now that comment sends a shaft of fear through my heart. Don't tell me I have backed myself into another dead end.

"We'll leave behind a force outside the Haven to prevent Everett from doubling back," Latour continues explaining his plan while I curse the day that man was born, "It is only a matter of time before we flush Everett out from wherever he's hiding."

And with that I hear their echoing footsteps fade away.

"Shit, shit, shit." I mutter, hurriedly taking in my surroundings. I've just got a short reprieve from pursuit before Latour and Excelsior show up again. They obviously know this place better than I do, so there's very little chance I can outmaneuver them while flying blind. With some of the pressure off, I notice several thick cables lined under the staircase, most likely leading all the way back up to the penthouse. The cables are protected by transparent plastic casing, meaning that these cables are live and meant to be inspected regularly.

Stolen story; please report.

Shifting to my Awakened senses, I note the thrum of ethereal power flowing through the cables. And the cables continue down a nearby corridor, towards the source of the crackling noise. Looks like I'm closing in on the aux power source of the penthouse. I've no idea how tracking the aux power source down is going to help me but it beats hanging out under the stairwell.

Readying Love, I begin trekking down the corridor while keeping low. The crackling grows louder and louder, almost to the point I have trouble thinking. Occasional flashes of turbulent green energy leap out from the end of the corridor and the air feels charged, even to the point I feel some of my hair start to stand.

"Damn." I exhale in disbelief at the sight greeting me at the end of the corridor.

This part of the building is bare of even concrete, with the superstructure left open to the elements. Several sturdily constructed catwalks are built over the superstructure, letting a small team of men in Guild arctic uniforms scurry about, minding the various pieces of machinery installed across the girders. There's a large control terminal in the center of the ensemble, coupled with multiple monitors displaying a steady stream of incomprehensible data.

But none of those pieces of equipment is the star of the show.

Suspended above control center is a device that resembles a chandelier but instead of holding bulbs, the contraption carries multiple canisters that appear to be made out of lead. Some of the canisters have been opened, with mechanical arms extending from the inside holding aloft small pieces of rock blazing with emerald energy. The chandelier shudders as it releases another crackle of power, causing me to wince at the noise. The men tending to the machine are clearly used to it and keep puttering about as if nothing had happened.

WARNING: POWER LEAK DETECTED. STABILITY DROPPED BY 2%

One of the monitors flashes orange, displaying the offending message. The supervisor of this group glances up from his touchpad before grumbling out an order.

"Increase output please." he directs, "And tell maintenance to run a diagnostic as soon as possible. I swear, this place is always falling apart."

One of the guys walks over to the control terminal and flicks a few switches. The chandelier groans to life as another canister opens, exposing one more piece of blazing rock.

Starfall fragments. I finally manage to recognize those pieces of rock from my nearly forgotten school books. And those flashes of energy must be Starfall radiation discharge. I better not become impotent after this misadventure. That would suck.

"All green." the terminal guy reports, "you think another runner tried to break into the tower?"

"You would have thought they learned the lesson by now." the boss man shrugs, "Whatever, leave it to General and Combatant Departments to clean up that mess. Not our problem."

Hugging the edge of the corridor, I sneak along the outermost girder, careful not to be seen by the men milling about. Thankfully, they are all too preoccupied with the various machinery constantly demanding their attention over something or other. Peering over the edge of the girder, I finally work out where I've managed to wind up in.

The landscape is unmistakable. I'm in the Winter Rift. That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm trapped on what is essentially the ground floor of this building. Because the building I'm in isn't actually a skyscraper.

Its a piece of a skyscraper hovering in midair, right in front of a rift portal.

"This is a stable reality drift." I mutter to myself, understanding what's going on. The chunk of skyscraper is a piece of another reality that had settled into the Winter Rift. And from the looks of things, the Guild had decided to set up shop in the skyscraper, turning it into a base.

Of course, I could easily escape by swan diving off the girder and protecting myself with Fortress. But that leads to the second problem I've discovered.

Ground level is absolutely teeming with activity.

Surrounding the tower and stretching for what's likely miles is a massive tent city, filled with bedraggled looking refugees slouching about with hunched shoulders. And given the fact that the other side of the rift portal is a metropolis getting blasted into oblivion by an out of control ion storm, it doesn't take me many guesses to grasp where all the unfortunates came from.

The insignia of General Department is plastered all over the refugee tent city and I can see Guild members bringing crates of supplies and fresh water to the refugees huddling in their tents. Several other General Department guys are picking out other refugees, guiding towards the cleared area just underneath the tower.

The cleared area is hemmed by a quad of watchtowers, each manned by someone from Combatant Department. Under the harsh spotlights, a mixture of General and Combatant Department guys sort through the refugees sent to the clearing, sorting them out into different rows. Two sets of heavy chains anchor the tower to the ground, with a pair of gondolas working alternately, one bringing human cargo to the upper levels of the tower, the other arriving at the clearing empty and ready for the next shipment.

A humanitarian mission launched by the Guild? I mean, from my experience working for the Guild, spending money on charity is the last thing management would do. While ruminating, the obvious hits me in the face.

"They're all kids. Everyone being brought into the tower isn't even in their teens." I breathe in shock.

As my mind whirls about why only kids are being allowed in, a pair of adults push past the perimeter of the clearing manned by General Department. And from the way they try to grab one of the kids, the smart money is that duo are the parents. Some General Department personnel approach and try to calm the duo down, but they aren't having it. The kid also doesn't seem to want to take the magical gondola into the tower either, hanging like a barnacle on the mother's leg.

Finally the General Department people lose their patience and without another word, one of them draws a pistol and empties it into the parents.

"Holy shit!" I bite my tongue to stop myself from shouting but other than some crying here and there from the assembled kids, no one seems particularly shocked at this event.

As the General Department unceremoniously drags the corpses away, the truth sinks in. This isn't the first time a killing like this has happened. It probably won't be the last.

So not a humanitarian mission then. And more to the point, given how tense everyone is right now, I doubt those guards will take kindly to a mystery man swan diving off the tower into the clearing. That would just make me the next casualty to be dragged away.

So I can't go down. Latour and Excelsior were right, this is a dead end. That just leaves one direction open to me.

Up.