Blake was starting to think they were all going to die.

Well, everyone but him. Probably. He didn't see how he’d get out of this, exactly, but he expected he'd find a way when everything went tits up.

The puzzles were far more elaborate than he'd expected. Only he could see the actual symbols, which basically meant only he could do the damn things without painful trial and error. Meanwhile, every moment seemed to bring the giant demon closer to breaking out and slaughtering them.

Oh. And demons were pouring out of a handful of portals.

"Pliny!" Blake shouted. "How's the left side doing?"

"Close now, Patron," shouted the goblin, the sound of the square runes being shifted a constant noise from the goblin's side. Blake understood his pain. The goblin was basically trying to solve a rubik’s cube color blind. They'd recognized four different 'sets' of patterns they had to line up to keep the energy river flowing, but only Blake could actually see the sets.

The goblin had to turn tiles over and over until he saw the energy move. But they sometimes moved into something of a dead-end, and Pliny would have to go back and figure out which branch was wrong. Once in awhile Blake would run over and inspect, telling Pliny where certain symbols were, trying to guide him forward. Then the engineer would have to go by memory.

"I need assistance!" called the orc lord, another seven foot tall...man-rat...coming through his portal as he tangled with a smaller demon. The goblin assassin was busy with his own portal. Annie was...somewhere.

Blake winced and directed another construct in his direction. But he was using most of them to defend himself and Pliny as they did their work.

"Another portal," Seul-ki called, running behind him and grabbing his arm.

Blake didn't look up from his task as he started channeling True Making with his Partitioned Mind. He still had more than half mana, but this was no time for waste, so he was using Seul-ki's pool plus a boost to make the occasional monstrous construct with a short duration and Duality of Ambition.

He flipped through the options, settling on a pre-made Arcane Defender. A typical blade wielding 'centurion' would usually have been fine, but demons came in a wild variety that sometimes resisted slashing or stabbing weapons.

One constant he'd learned, however—they seemed never to much like the innate Arcane ability to melt things in their bare hands.

His channel wrapped him in power, blue energy swirling before his eyes as he stared at the runes, turning and twisting the lines of power to wrap beneath the demon's chains. He felt Seul-ki's power kick in like a turbo boost, his Duality of Ambition spiraling as his creation stood and unfolded itself like a damn terminator.

It charged the new portal, and Blake put it from his mind. He'd set its personality for constant aggression. The new portal wouldn't be bothering them again. At least not for about four minutes.

He returned both halves of his mind to his task, flinching as he sensed the giant demon's mind powers yet again recharging.

"This is pointless," the voice boomed, psionic energies washing over the room. "I will break your minds. Then I will break your bodies."

"Mind Rend, Master! Moderate power! Area targeting!" Navi cried in automated concern as she identified the spell. Blake grit his teeth and prepared his shield.

In the past few minutes he'd discovered he'd been something of an idiot.

Perhaps it was obvious that a Psion would have exceptional mind defences. But Blake had yet to take any kind of specific power to do such things, so he'd assumed it would just come later.

Turned out all his defences gave him some version of mind resistance. All he needed to do was direct it.

You know, with his mind.

Knowing the exact magic helped—hence Navi shouting it out like some kind of magic scout.

Blake cast out his shield with a flick of his wrist, his own purple magic flickering with a visual effect like a ball of lightning. The demon's magic struck it and crackled, Blake's mind and mana straining and losing a good 10%. He pushed it all to Seul-ki, and the spell fizzled and died.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I'm going to enjoy killing you, the demon whispered just in Blake's mind. I'm going to keep you alive as long as possible. I'm going to...

Blake flicked out the minor telepathy and focused on his task.

He'd never played sports, but he imagined this was what it felt like to be a quarterback in the center of a swirling maelstrom of giant bodies trying to break you. Knowing for all the help of the others, nothing else mattered if you went down.

Another demon leapt at his side, and he realized there were no free constructs to do a damn thing about it.

He held up a panicked hand, then blinked as the demon smashed from the air with a growl. A flash of red and black zipped across the room as Annie's frightening axe buried in the thing's chest, then the little red head kicked it straight back.

The girl used to growl and scream during combat. Now she didn't make a sound. She simply walked up and yanked her axe from the demon's ribcage before swiping off its head. Then without even glancing at Blake, turned and ran at another creature coming out of a portal.

He shook his head. Now wasn’t the time to worry about her.

He turned a final piece of the puzzle, watching his 'river' flow up and around a complex dam, flowing down into the aligned set with a very satisfying, audible ching. Blake watched the runes on one of the demon's chains light like Christmas lights, the demon's eyes following and squinting in rage.

Blake met its eyes, and smiled.

"Right side done," he called, "coming to you now, Pliny, then we..."

"Left done!"

The other side glowed and chinged again, the same river of power flowing to another chain with a flash of light. The goblin turned to Blake and grinned with his awful fangs, for a moment puffed up and almost a different being—an image, perhaps, of the brilliant, theoretically saner engineer he once was. Then he shrunk and loped towards another area of the puzzle.

"Two down, two to go," Blake muttered, then a little louder: "With me, Seul-ki. Heading to the top!"

He arrived at the closest 'puzzle' to the demon, trying not to be terrified as the creature reached for him, arm and claws jangling the chain until it went taut and stopped his reach only a few feet from Blake's flesh. The creature growled and pulled back, likely preparing to take another run at it.

Blake put the creature from his mind. He counted the symbols and let his vision go wide, letting patterns emerge as he stared.

He heard another demon leap for him and get swatted down by a construct. The other players were shouting in pain and mortal combat. Pliny was calling for his help. And Navi was telling him the likely timer before another blast.

Things were bad. But it wasn't over yet...

* * *

"God fucking damnit." Mason gripped the 'closed' demon portal entrance and tried again to rip it open.

He and Ilya had entered the Stoneblood tower easily enough. They'd been escorted by a cluster of somewhat confused and impressed orcs, all of whom treated Ilya like a delicate flower, and Mason like the shit it had grown in.

Not that he cared. They'd hadn't tried to kill him (yet), so that was pretty much as good as he expected. He'd followed along, keeping the route firmly locked in his mind, ready to hack and slash his way back to the exit if required.

But the orcs had eventually taken them to a very obvious...portal, the same circular pattern he'd seen in the Nexus test and the elven city. Though this one was dark as a lake at night, and when he tried to touch it the thing sent a system message much like the one he'd found at the tower when Blake was locked inside.

[Event currently in progress. Please try again later.]

He hadn’t taken that particularly well. After the nearby orcs had scattered at his growl, Ilya suggested she could maybe use her magic to let them see. He nodded, trying to get himself under control, not sure if he was angry at being helpless or angry at Blake for being such an uncontrollable lunatic.

But with a crowd of staring orcs still surrounding them, they'd sat down, and Ilya had (awkwardly) taken Mason's hand, then put the other to the closed portal.

And the damn thing actually worked.

Mason opened his eyes inside a dark cavern swirling with magic and combat. He soon saw his brother and the other players. An orc warrior. A goblin assassin. A lot of…monstrous creatures.

And a giant fucking demon in chains.

[Event currently in progress. Please try again later.]

[Event currently in progress. Please try again later.]

"Fuck off," Mason swore for the fifth or sixth time, breaking contact with Ilya and pacing around the portal. "You need to get me in there."

"I..." the orc shrugged. "I can try. But I have no such power. I would have to pray to my ancestors for assistance. This is dangerous, and they may not be able to help. They aren’t exactly…cooperative."

Mason practically grabbed her by the throat and ordered her to do it. But he took a few calming breaths. He was surrounded by orcs who'd likely attack him just for touching her. And if he asked her to do this, he might 'owe' another favor like he still did with the nymphs.

He knew this was all system bullshit designed to increase drama and probably fuck with him. He'd been watched as he entered the tower. It was test after test, fiction mixed with reality. He had to be patient. Clever. To think like Blake.

"It's up to you," he said with a shrug. "But he may die in there without my help. They all may. I don't imagine your towers will last long after that."

One of the fancier dressed orcs in the escort growled.

"We have survived thousands of years without humans. We will survive this."

"Please," said Ilya, her tone soothing, "your son is also inside, my lord. I will gladly do what I can for the Stoneblood tribe."

The older orc paused, but eventually nodded, and Ilya took a deep breath. She held out a hand, Mason blinking as a staff appeared from nothing just like his own innate weapons. She again took his with the other, a bit less awkwardly this time. He found it already slick with sweat.

"If I fail," she whispered, just for Mason's ears, "tell Blake...it was my own choice. And I will see him in the hall of the gods."

Mason nodded, the small urge to stop her from taking this risk quickly drowned out by the growing, much harder, much more necessary piece of him.

The orc's beautiful eyes glazed.