There really should be a word for when you know you have never been someplace before, but when you go there, it all feels eerily familiar.

Truth walked silently down the long corridors. Brightly lit, clean, with enchanted windows showing views from various Starbrite resorts from around the world. Look out one, and it was a tropical beach. Look out the next, and you were watching laughing kids learn how to ski. It felt like half the offices he had visited on the job. Even some of the private homes looked like this.

It was pretty nice. Which felt horrible. He couldn’t hear the violence going on above. There was a literal mountain in between him and the pounding explosions. To say nothing of all the magical wards. It was warm but not hot, the air tasted fresh, it was clean, well lit and cheery from all the windows. It didn’t have that “Doomed Bunker” feel that he had been expecting.

He felt cheated. Truth walked a little further down the hall, making way for staff making their way to the bathroom. They didn’t see him. At Level Two, they would have a better chance of jumping to the moon. He examined the cheated feeling a bit more. It wasn’t so much cheated as feeling wronged. He wanted them scared. Hurting. They deserved to be scared!

“Sooooo. You and Tommy?”

“Oh God. Look, right now, there is no “Me and Tommy,” okay?”

“Uhuh. You gave him a look at breakfast.”

“I did not.”

“You did. I had to pretend to look away for, like, ten seconds. It was an intense look.”

“Oh god. Seriously. There is no us. We are just…”

“Figuring things out? Friends with benefits? In a situationship?”

“I don’t even know. He’s coming off that thing with Ling, and I don’t want to be the rebound chick, but at the same time-”

“You have wanted him for a year now, and are one hundred percent ready to be there for him in his emotionally vulnerable, exploitable, moment of need.”

“I hate you. And it’s not like that!”

“Uhuh. He a cuddler?”

Truth sped up. Why was he the one suffering here? Why? They had a secret volcano lair where they were keeping a girl prisoner for medi-magic experimentation and who knows what else! Look stressed, you bastards!

Could it be the System keeping them calm? It wouldn’t be out of the question, right? Truth flat out refused to believe there was anyone in this Volcano who didn’t have the System, with the possible exception of the Shattervoid girl.

He really didn’t know. The System had been training him like a dog. Maybe it did the same to these people. Keep them content, keep them productive.

Incisive gave him a little warning. He launched himself up to the ceiling and pressed himself into the corner, trying to be as invisible as possible. A pair of PMC soldiers walked down the hall, “Security” armband on display. They kept their eyes moving around, making sure everything was as it should be. They didn’t spot him.

The same thing happened when a handler with a pack of spell hounds went past, but Incisive was a lot more insistent the third time. He followed some staffers into a store room. Just as it was closing behind him, he thought he caught a whiff of a troll.

This was going to be exhausting. And slow. He had no idea what the base even looked like, and he was mortally certain that there wasn’t going to be a handy wall map anywhere.

“Any idea what the alarm was about earlier?”

“Nah. I mean, I assume someone broke in.”

“Well, yeah, obviously, but… how?”

“I dunno. Usual way?”

“Which is?”

“I dunno.” The staffer appeared to be inventorying a shelf of parts. Truth would not have appreciated someone talking to him while he was trying to count, but apparently the staffer was made of sterner stuff.

“But, like, why even break in here?” The other staffer was also inventorying parts. Based on the conversion so far, Truth was amazed his intellect could handle the strain.

“My guy. We are sitting on insane amount of highly stealable, highly saleable parts here. Never mind industrial espionage or whatever.”

“I mean, how much is any of this stuff really worth though?” He was counting metal brackets. Truth understood his point.

“Those brackets? Look ‘em up in the shop.”

There was a pause. “Worthless. I can get a whole box for a credit.”

“Ask for the price in Wen.”

There was another pause.

“FUCKING TWENTY THOUSAND WEN?!”

Truth nodded. The price in the store bore no relation to outside prices. It was presented as a discount, but he had quickly discovered that there were things in the shop that you simply couldn't buy in the outside world at any price. At least the cultivation aids he poured his money into couldn’t be bought retail.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Like I said. Thieves, industrial spies. The usual.”

“Twenty thousand wen!”

“Special alloy, they use ‘em in the Prototype Lab, I think.”

“It’s a damn bracket. Bent metal with holes in it.”

“Mmm. Special alloy though. What shelf are you on?”

“Seven.”

“Think you are going to get your side done by dinner?”

“Should do.”

They nattered on while Truth eavesdropped, hoping they would come back to the “Prototype Lab.” Sounded relevant. They did not.

He sighed and made his way out. The very frequent patrols made the going slow, and their irregular timing suggested someone was keeping very focused. Nothing more frustrating to an attacker than a complete absence of regular patrol times. And Truth was getting very, very frustrated.

It was a simple, and simply enraging, system. It was all based on the System. Every door was locked. There were no signs for anything, anywhere. Was this the windowless door to the Top Secret Room With The Top Secret Project, or the linen closet? The system knows. And if you needed to know, you would. Every door you needed to open would be unlocked for you.

Truth got uncomfortably used to drifting in behind people when they opened and closed doors. He also got very used to quickly peeking inside, then walking straight past. So many generic looking offices. So many.

In one particular office, he was momentarily distracted by a conversation about a “certain young lady,” occasionally referred to as “Princess” who was chained up somewhere. There could be no greater proof of his development of character, Truth felt, no greater proof of his tolerance for his fellow rats, than the fact he didn’t slap the bastard dead when it became clear the man was talking about his dog.

His distraction resulted in him missing the door closing behind him. Truth was now trapped in here with the nattering office workers, discussing their pampered pooches. The other man, not the princess chainer, was a grooming enthusiast. He apparently stressed the need to start grooming them when they were young. That way the dog got used to the combs, shampoos and hair dryers.

He had bought his primped up poodle a nicer apartment than Truth lived in, even when he was working for the PMC. Apparently a Starbrite subsidiary made luxury dog houses, and this… gentleman… invested. As he had apparently invested in quality coffee. That was an awfully big mug he was drinking.

“You know, coffee just runs right through you. Delicious, but it seems like it’s only minutes until you are dying for a piss. Yeah, you both raced to the bottom of your drinks, but now? Now you really, really need the toilet. Look at you squirm. You must be seconds from pissing yourselves.”

Were there other ways to get out of the room? Yes. He chose this one. A little whispered poison, a lot of private enjoyment, and his exploration continued.

He almost missed it. The glance through the door showed a scene so prosaic, his mind almost deleted it without comprehending it. His hand made a hissing noise as it caught the door just before it closed. Sometimes it was fun to remind himself just how fast he could move.

He found… the stairs.

What do you need in an era of unreliable magic? Stairs. Wide, well lit, with glow in the dark rubberized grips for feet and, Truth was happy to see, glow in the dark floor numbers, all in case the lights went out. Which, of course, they would if the magic went out.

No idea how the glow in the dark stuff worked without magic, but hell, the Anti-Thiests had figured something out, and they were operating out of a gift shop. This was an authentic volcano lair. A higher standard could be expected. He was apparently on floor number two. And the stairs went both up and down from here.

Desperate to set some kind of scope on his search, he raced upwards. As advertised- there was only one floor above him. Delighted, he raced in the opposite direction. Three more below. A total of five floors. Sizable floors too, if the second floor was anything to go by. He was a long way from having searched the whole thing. But at least he had some sense of scope, now. Had some sense of the size of the problem in front of him.

Five floors. He didn’t know if the top or bottom floor was the most likely one to hold the Shattervoid girl. Arguably directly in the middle was the most secure, but, equally arguably, so was the bottom floor. Anything capable of tunneling through that much rock and magma wasn’t going to be kid friendly.

She must be… what… Eleven by now? Twelve? Truth vaguely remembered someone yelling that she was a six year old girl.

<>

Truth nodded. Still. Five, almost six, years. That’s got to be a big chunk of life for her. It would be a big chunk of life for me, and I don’t even want to guess what my “natural” lifespan would be at this point. Certainly more than a hundred and fifty. Maybe even closing in on two hundred. For a Level Five? Not crazy with the body cultivation.

<>

Truth got to the bottom door… and waited. And waited. Someone must be coming through at some point, right?

<>

Truth laughed a little at that. I have all the time in the world. Months, even.

The little light above the door started flashing red. There was no alarm, just a red flash.

You know, it suddenly occurs to me that there is absolutely nowhere to hide in this stairwell.

Truth did the only thing he could think of and flattened himself against the wall. The door swung into the stairwell, so hopefully-

The door smashed open. Truth grabbed the handle just before it would smack into his gut. The noise must have satisfied whoever was on the other side, because boots came pounding through without any further investigation.

“Go! Go go go!”

“Sargeants, check charm loadouts! Everyone check their potion kits! THERE WILL BE NO FATALITIES ON THIS OP, AM I CLEAR?!”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

<>

Fingers crossed.

Truth waited until they were a couple flights up before peering around the door. More anonymous looking hallways. Fantastic. He squinted, then crouched down.

There were rubber marks on the floor. Quite a few of them. One might almost guess…. A place where a lot of people wearing boots went running past. Truth grinned and followed the trail. Where there were soldiers, there was equipment. Where there were guards, there were things that needed protecting from villains like him.