With nowhere to go, I crawl out of my pigeonhole and face the woman who claims to be Jessica. Her body is covered crown to toe in waxy reddish-black armor. The armor that shields her vitals is made thicker by hexagon plates that build upon one another. She wears a helmet that covers her face and is inset into the chest plate around her collar by spikes. Unique symbols are etched where her eyes and mouth should be. Those symbols shimmer with a red light that clouds everything underneath the helmet. With every breath, the armor pieces around her chest creak outward and resettle into flawlessly cut grooves.

Jessica aims the cannon at my stomach. “This will turn just about anything to charcoal. If by some miracle it doesn’t, then it’ll just straight up blow your wispy body away.” Motioning toward my waist with her cannon, she continues, “Now, toss the sword on the ground and put your freaky tentacle away.”

My heart sinks as I remove my sword from my waist. The sword stabs into the stage’s wreckage, and the cattail retreats into my arc suit. Between the red trees, I glimpse yet more trucks advancing toward Sheep Meadow.

I smear the blood-spatter on my whiteboard, writing only the word, “Why?”

As screams and blasts mingle in the distance, we watch one another in silence.

She removes an orange pistol from a pouch at her side. ”Y’know, Red... it irritates me that you apparently believe you’re some kind of innocent victim in all of this. So, let me enlighten you on a few things you seem to be oblivious to.” Aiming the orange pistol skyward, she launches a bright red light into the air. “A while ago, I heard a rumor through the Maw’s grapevine that someone had dodged a Hex Church Bishop and destroyed one of their dens. It took more money than I had, but I was able to identify who that ‘person’ was.”

My eyes drift toward three bodies. Two are Galtry Syndicate guards and one is Leo’s unconscious figure.

“Art thou here for Leo?” I smear across the whiteboard.

A dozen people walk out of the burning forests. They carry long firearms and are almost certainly ruffians of the Pit’s Maw, yet all resemble common people.

“Leo’s just an ordinary human, Red—he has kids and everything. I only joined up with Leo after I discovered he was in bed with the Espositos. Being in the Esposito’s network was super helpful for me. It gave me access to more resources and could help me elevate my position in the Maw. Thus, Leo was originally just my bridge to get in bed with the Espositos.”

Jessica sighs. “But, in time, Leo did become more than that. Him, his wife, and his kids became something resembling a family.” The Pit ruffians gather at Jessica’s side with somber glares. “Many of us have humans we’d consider akin to family; connections like that aren’t uncommon for us.”

There’s another explosion in the distance. “But we’re getting a little off track. Let me fill you in on things from my perspective.” A truck rounds the corner carrying a heavy cage swung from a hook. “After hearing the rumors, I kept trying to find and meet you. Yet, every single time I thought I was close, you’d hide or run away from me. Then the Consortium came, complicating things way more. I took a pretty big risk the first night and jostled a skin malison into one of their floating balls to keep it from working properly.” [1]

Several more ‘cars’ round the corner blinking with red and blue lights. “You aren’t exactly subtle, so inevitably, I realized someone had to be covering your movements. Me being an idiot, I thought that maybe someone might be plotting to make you disappear before I could meet you.”

The truck beeps and reverses toward where Jessica and I are standing.

“Then the whole Consortium gas leak incident happened. I wasn’t prepared to meet you at all that night, so you shocked me when you showed up and rescued me... And watching you do your best to fix things while also trying to help everyone was—” Her voice lowers as she says, “—adorable. I’ll admit I may have been just a little smitten.”

The cars circle around us, more Pit ruffians exit, bolstering the perimeter around me. At least two dozen firearms train themselves upon my abdomen.

“But, guess what happened next? ...A few days later, I found out who was covering your tracts—fuckin’ Galtry! Fuckin’ Galtry, a Spirit Flogger, and worse yet! She had kidnapped or even hurt my new buddy Red. Goddam, did I feel stupid when the contracts came out and you were sittin’ pretty next to Galtry. ...I mean, I was in denial that it was even really you because while all this absurdity was happening, you barely spared me a cold glance.” Jessica boots my sword into a burning heap of debris. “It really hurt me that you just stomped on me like that, Red; I won’t lie.”

Stopping, the truck drops the cage into the snow with a heavy thunk. Now that it’s nearer, I can see the cage itself is a monstrosity. Its bars look as if they are crafted from shellfish legs, and along the outside bars, a row of eyeballs begin to open.

“So, don’t ask me ‘why,’ like I betrayed you or some crap! Because it was you who sat there and said nothing while Galtry and her thug held a fucking gun to my head.”

The cage’s many eyes scrutinize me; they blink as if in approval. Its front opens with a boney crack.

“But hey! Thanks to what I learned from you, I recognized I lacked insurance when dealing with your ilk. So, I decided to involve a wider part of the Maw.” The Pit ruffians advance toward me. They goad me into the monstrous cage as if I am some sort of dangerous beast. “Thanks to that decision, Mithridates and the others were formally taken into the fold, and my status was elevated in the Maw.”

The back of my heel hits the cage’s bottom bar. “If it’s a personal matter, why involve other people? Why not be discreet?” I hastily scratch on the whiteboard.

“It’s only personal for me,” Jessica scoffs. “And the Maw wanted to be discreet, and I tried to be. That was the whole point of the stinking rats weeks ago and the underground expansion of Mithridates’s Domain.”

My back bumps against the rear of the cage. Veins of boney red grow around my arc suit.

The veins stiffen along my arms. They shiver and grate as I attempt to write, “What of the Pilgrim—”

Jessica lowers her cannon and steps toward the outside of the cage. “Pilgrims? Ehhh, this mission is about encampment dispersal, not killing. We’re just here to salt the Earth and remove their primary purpose for loitering, which is you. As long as they abandon the park and don’t congregate, we can both be on our merry way.”

Veins of boney red spread as Jessica shuts the cage door. The bones grow into the hole at the back of my head and creep toward my kiln.

“Back when I heard you had escaped a Hex Church Bishop, I had high hopes for you.” Jessica raises a hand and makes a circular motion with her hand. The cage is drawn upward. “As time passed, I began to think it was a fluke; that you were just a wishy-washy coward.”

There’s a click when the cage reaches the top. A few of the Pit ruffians climb into and onto the truck. ”Yet in the end, you nutted up and took revenge on Mithridates—the Maw respects that you finally showed a sliver of backbone.”

Ash begins to rain down from above as Jessica whistles and makes a thumbs-up to the driver. “So, I guess all that’s left to say is kudos. The Maw is gonna allow you to join our family. So yeah, like you once told me, don’t panic and stay calm.” Jessica turns and, with a wave of her hand, walks toward Leo, saying, “But if you can’t help yourself, the cage will keep you relaxed until you reach your destination. So just enjoy the ride, Red.”

The cage trembles. We pull away from the stage's flaming debris.

A strange sensation flows through my kiln as the bone wraps around it. ‘...Earl, I am sorry. Prithee, take care of Sir Mouser until I return.’

A Malison has limited the Entity.

Effect: Entity’s passive functions have been reduced.

A Malison has limited the Entity.

Effect: Mental communication has been barred.

A Malison has limited the Entity.

Effect: Emotional faculties have been restrained. Impulse control greatly reduced.

My internal thoughts muddle, yet my worldly perception persists.

Jessica lifts Leo with a shake of her head. “Stop trying to find me, stupid.” Removing a jar with a single multi-colored jellyfish inside, she continues in a gentle voice, “This won’t fix your brain, but it’ll at least make you the way you were before.”

The truck roars, its wheels squeak as we roll forward.

Something beats against the nose of the truck. Steaming liquid splatters—stringy masses of algae begin to paint the truck.

“Two O’clock,” a Pit ruffian states.

Their weapons discharge into bushes. The bushes yelp.

The truck struggles, and black smoke spits from its front. We rumble to a standstill, and the ruffians hop down with a collective scoff.

A Pit ruffian hits the side of the truck. “Goddammit! Drag whoever that is over here!”

Several Pit ruffians run toward the bushes and vanish.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Jessica places Leo in a cruiser by himself. She watches the jellyfish pull its way into Leo’s vacant eye socket. “Are you fucking serious?” she shouts at the ruffians. “Didn’t you come from that direction? How are you all so incompetent?”

“It was Dennis’s fault,” they shout, motioning toward a pile of smoldering coals. “If the fool had done his simple job, we could have launched the Xingtai while the crowd was still together.”

“Just, shit, whatever! This is why we have backups.“ Jessica raises the orange pistol and launches a blue light. “And find out how they weaponized the Paradox-Arcadia. Might be able to use the tech.” Jessica glances at the yellow spores venting from the snow. “Same as the Consortium canisters.”

At the same time, the ruffians reappear, dragging two bound people, one of which dyes the snow red. They drop the pair near my cage.

“It’s one of those Helping Hand guys,” Jessica says with a sigh.

“Sometimes a star can attract a wasp, Miss Nightingale, but it’s not your fault,” Owl whispers.

“And the other one is named Chance, I think,” a Pit ruffian says. “A guy from Pilgrim Hill Schematics or something.”

Chance is bleeding from a hole in his shoulder and thigh. “That’s…” He coughs, a bit of blood leaking from his mouth. “T-that’s me.”

A second truck plows through the snow, stopping just short of us. Two box trucks accompany it. The truck crippled by Paradox-Arcadia drops my cage back into the snow.

“Toss the bleeder into a cruiser; we’ll milk him for information later. As for the Owl, ehh, I don’t know. We could just leave him….” Jessica stares at Owl for a second and then shrugs. “...Or shoot him.”

A ruffian places their firearm against Owl’s temple.

“Oh, how unnecessary, Miss Valentine,” Owl says with a stern face.

Jessica crosses her arms. “Not frightened, Owl?”

“I am an artist, Miss Valentine.” Owl glances toward a snowdrift where a red dot flickers. “I’ve had people threaten to kill me for my art many times.”

Pivoting on her heel, she shakes her head and says, “Bury him in the snow….” Jessica sighs, watching as Chance and his belongings are thrown into the back of a cruiser. “Actually, we don’t really have time. We’ll just take him with us too.”

The person atop my cage hooks it to the newly arrived truck and jumps down. My cage rises off the ground once again as they toss Owl into a cruiser.

The ground rumbles. In the distance, Node 8 climbs higher into the air, and the trees around it begin to shed their bark, exposing glistening glass beneath.

Heliotrope haze pours off their branches.

“Welp, Red, your Interface is awake.” While the waves of heliotrope approach, Jessica twirls her finger. Both she and the ruffians split between the rides. “Too little, too late, though. Our job here is done.”

As one of the ruffians passes by the stage’s debris pile, a single piece of wood skids down the side.

A bronze arm composed of cogwheels stretches from the debris. It snatches the ruffian’s legs, twisting it snaps the leg’s bone.

In a smoldering suit, Lincoln bursts from the pile.

He keeps his grip on the leg, wielding the ruffian as an inverted shield.

Jessica aims her cannon at him, and he a pistol of cogwheels at her. A blinding orb meets a scorching inferno.

Once the light clears, Lincoln has vanished; all that remains is the fiery corpse of a Pit ruffian.

The Pit ruffians lay heavily wounded in the snow, wearing waxy masks that appeared on their faces. Like Lincoln, Jessica has also vanished.

Coughing, the Pit ruffians toss off masks.

Their skin is Greenish-gray and black bone plates grow from a blue jewel embedded in their brows. Simple patterns are drawn around the black bone using a sort of glowing red paint. Their eyeball is light green with a black iris and a black line running through the center. It’s a face similar to the deceased non-humans I saw outside Mithridates’s vault.

Removing small jars of jellyfish, the Pit ruffians drink it in a single gulp. Their wounds begin to glow and seal themselves.

Jessica’s arm rises out of a slush of snow. She crawls out; her armor is scorched yet intact. “Where’s the Solicitor!?” Jessica asks.

They spread out, looking for him.

I hear the snow crinkle. Hiding behind the truck next to me, I see Lincoln peek out. He has a cut on his face—it does not leak blood but elixir. “I suppose I should say congratulations,” Lincoln whispers next to me. He flips his hand, revealing the Associate Cog has linked itself into the lattice of spinning gears in his palm. “You found the source of a lot of your recent bad luck. Most everyone dies long before they ever get a chance to peek behind the Maw’s curtain.”

Elixir runs from Lincoln’s arm into the tiny cog and then into his pistol. I glance toward the trees and notice shadows moving within the widening heliotrope.

One ruffian points toward me. “Search near the truck—”

A javelin skewers the ruffian’s throat.

“They’re using the gas as cover!” Jessica whistles toward the box trucks. “Keep ‘em busy! Everyone else, fuck it, let’s go!”

Both box truck doors rise upward. The box trucks buck as two immense men covered in the same all-encompassing armor as Jessica jump out.

I glance toward where Lincoln was, finding him gone.

A chilly gust of wind sweeps across the field. Heliotrope haze is cast over everything.

Within the heliotrope, the world dulls, becoming almost isolated. I witness tiny flashes of violet fire passing between specks of purple dust.

Looking deeper, I notice hazy apparitions of three familiar colors: sable, vermillion, and then a darker heliotrope.

I focus on the nearest black and purple.

“Helvete,” Nyle’s voice whispers. “I think you killed that guy with a blind javelin.”

“I-I-I don’t want to think about it right now,” Ethan responds. “What do we do about the Fairy!? We need to buy more time!”

“I mean, there are still twenty more guys; you got twenty more javelins?”

The truck shakes, but my eyes are fixed upon the apparitions. I cannot help but feel the apparitions are off-kilter—unfinished.

My eyes drift to their chests, where haze looks to have tangled together. A sense of incredible discomfort wails up within me.

As if responding to my will, a violet flame sparks within Nyle and Ethan. They stiffen as the haze within burns. The burning grows and spreads within their bodies.

A compulsion to repeat this seeps into my very being. Every apparition I can find, I burn the haze deep into their bodies.

My worldly perception is rekindled as we leave the fog of heliotrope. The truck bounces as we travel along the wintery park roads. Cruisers trail close behind and watch me with fixed gazes.

“Hey, are you listening?” I catch Lincoln asking.

My eyes drift downward. There I see Lincoln’s head poking out from underneath the truck.

“We’re passing by Pilgrim Hill. Should be more people nearby to lend a hand.” We round a corner. Lincoln takes the opportunity to slink out and cling to my cage. Aiming his pistol at the hook that holds my cage fixed to the truck, he says, “And it’s about to get bumpy.”

Lincoln strengthens his grip. There’s a bronze light and the hook shatters like glass.

My face is pelted by rent snow as the cage grinds at the icy roads. Bullets swat at the earth around me.

A bang. Blood dyes the snow around the edges of my cage.

Someone’s feet crunch in the snow. “Consortium, fuc-oof!”

A Pit ruffian’s face slams into the stiff ice adjacent to me. Lincoln’s heel stomps their temple—the bone on their face breaks.

I hear the sound of feet crunching in the snow. “I-it’s the F-Fairy!” a cacophony of voices yells in tandem.

My cage jostles. The immediate confusion of battle abates as several people struggle to drag me elsewhere.

“T-that guy’s arm was like the inside of a clock!”

“Forget that! This cage is like a nightmare’s nightmare!”

Dozens of people tug at the cage’s back while others lift the front. They draw the cage upright, revealing the black smoke and red flames billowing from Pilgrim Hill.

Soldiers fire upon Pit ruffians ducking behind trucks. A bullet pierces a soldier’s shoulder.

“We gotta go!” a Pit ruffian shouts. The ground quakes. An explosion sends a truck spinning. “The spider is about to be here!”

There’s a deafening shriek from a building. A giant spidery black leg reaches over the top of a building.

The body of a seven-legged spider crawls onto the building’s glass facade. Its body is plagued by potato-like spuds that leak yellow clouds of spores.

The people’s screams grow louder.

“Get an ax or something; h-hurry!” a Pilgrim yells, tugging at the cage.

A drone speeds by, leaving fiery plumes along the spider’s body. The spider’s body cloaks itself in a shimmering blue mana shield. It shows no sign of pain. Clickers race up the side of the building as more drones fly in. The drones and clickers achieve naught but stalling the colossal spider’s approach.

Brave Pilgrims pass around dozens of tools and mob my cage. Together they cut and hack at the cage’s exterior. The cage repairs as fast as they strike it.

My cage shakes. A needle fires from one of the eyes, piercing the neck of a Pilgrim. The Pilgrim collapses as red veins spread. While one Pilgrim is dragged away, another takes his place without hesitation.

“Miss Nightingale!” I hear someone shout. Rabbit runs over, pushing everyone out of her way. She aims her pistol at a cruiser that’s trying to squeeze by the crowds. “Don’t blink if Owl’s in that cruiser!”

Unable to respond, I simply stare.

The cruiser darts around the crowd.

Rabbit bites the tip of her tongue. “I understand!”

A bang echoes.

The cruiser’s inside is stained red; it spins to a stop.

Many in the crowd scream. “S-sorry, everybody!” Rabbit shouts. “It was an emergency, I promise!”

Owl kicks the cruiser’s door open and rolls out. His blood-spattered clothes stain the snow.

Giggling to herself, Rabbit removes a saw from her leather coat and says, “And sorry to you too, Miss Nightingale. I already knew it was that cruiser; Owl filmed everything.”

Owl runs and gets Rabbit to cut his restraints. “I think Jessica’s and poor Chance’s car went a different direction.”

Rabbit starts sawing at the cage as fast as she can. “Owl, I’m sawing, but I don’t think this is gonna work.”

With a nod, Owl removes a knife and starts cutting at the cage’s eyes. “I concur. What did Wolf say?”

“Wolf spoke to Ferret since he’s the collector of mortsafes and an expert on this kinda stuff.” Rabbit tilts her head; a needle shoots by her. “And Ferret said he saw something similar to this at the Museum of Carnie Living.” [2]

Owl snaps his fingers together. “Of course! But did Ferret mention how to open it?”

“Uhmm, Ferret said there was supposedly a mummified corpse inside the one he saw,” Rabbit tries to whisper. “Soo, nothing specific, no.”

“Then we may just need to focus on moving or hiding Miss Nightingale.” Droplets of ice sprinkle over the crowd as a drone smashes into the Pilgrim Hill pond. “Do you know where Miss Galtry is?”

“Last I heard, Miss Galtry and the Bishops were all somewhere between Sheep Meadow and the Terrace!” Rabbit answers.

A woman’s voice yells, “Everyone out of the way!”

“Move it, people!” a man’s voice shouts.

Summer and Noah shove their way through the masses.

“Miss Nightingale, long time no see; Miss Galtry sent us!” Noah says with a line of blood running down his cheek. “We need to pull the Fairy toward the Tower, closer to the trees!”

“Everyone, listen up!” Summer yells at the Pilgrims that hack at my cage. “We need to drag the Fairy toward the Tower!”

The word spreads until the masses all chant the same message.

“To the Tower!”

“To the Tower!”

“To the Tower!”

My cage shivers as hundreds of hands grab at its bars. I rise through the masses of people and into the air.

Bullets whizz through the air. Drones and clickers dart to and fro. Smoke clouds all.

And a colossi’s shadow stretches far.