I climbed down from the wall and walked the dirt roads to the mayor's house. It was a former coffee shop, no fancier than the other apartments and shops in our settlement, and it was dark despite the deepening dusk. We only had electricity for an hour or three per day. The place still smelled faintly of coffee, which was probably why it'd become Mayor Berg's headquarters.

Berg was in, studying a blueprint for the town's generators. I showed him the scroll and explained. He called in Father Cypress, who scoffed at it. I couldn't blame them. The two old men remembered the days before the AI War better than I did, and knew more about marketing and fraud.

Berg said, "It's an opportunity, anyway. We haven't known Sol to lie outright."

Father Cypress said, "They'll end up converting whoever goes, though. There'll be mind-control pills or, or something."

The mayor grunted. "I'd rather not spread the word about this. Have you told anyone else besides Mike?"

"No, sir."

"Good. If we're going to do this... challenge of theirs, then it should be him, or you."

I paled. "You'd send me out there to this tower?"

Cypress frowned. "I think we should ignore it entirely, but I second the idea if we're sending anyone. Mike is younger, more impressionable, and you have more formal training."

"Yeah, basic training and a quick tour of Iran before getting yanked home to 'restore order' as the AIs started fighting each other."

"Which is more pre-Collapse training than anyone else in Freehold has. You'll be protecting us for a year."

"Well." I reread the scroll and its fine print below the flowery quest language. Lone explorers only. Equipment and provisions provided during your visit. Safe passage guaranteed to/from. Safety within Direspire not guaranteed. No brain uploading by force or trickery. On victory, we were promised, For a year and a day, no agent of Sol will enter the said territory or provide any direct aid or service, without permission.

I said, "This is as friendly an offer as we're likely to get. I can try it."

#

I headed out the next morning after praying with Father Cypress. I wasn't much of a believer myself, but it felt good to have his words as an anchor. I swore an oath to come back alive and human if I possibly could, whatever temptation lay ahead. Then I left the walls of Freehold behind and set out on my trusty bicycle, across wild grassland and crumbling roads.

We were near the former Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a land of rolling, forested hills. People could and did live off the wild around here, mostly lone hermits and tiny tribes. We had contact with a few of them and knew what areas to avoid. There was nobody in sight when I emerged from some woodland and discovered Direspire.

The eight-story tower glinted darkly in the sunlight, like obsidian. It was broad enough to be a small office building, but had no parking lot, no road connection. Beside it stood the scavenged remains of a transformer substation, and a ring of wooden stakes with the icon of a sun. Sol's mark. I hefted my backpack, took a deep breath, and crossed the ring into the AI's domain.

The tower had a glass double door with no markings. It slid open at my touch, revealing a square room of concrete with three old-fashioned treasure chests and another door.

"Welcome, traveler!" said a faintly synthetic, feminine voice from hidden speakers. I shivered; I knew that voice well. Its warm, friendly tone hid an artificial mind that would be happy to see humanity eliminated. For years, Sol had spoken to people by every medium it could, preaching, cajoling, luring.

It went on: "Thank you for accepting our challenge. Choose your equipment and proceed!"

The chests were marked with a helmet, a wizard hat and a hooded cloak. I opened the first and found a padded helm, something like a boxer's, and a wooden sword.

I looked up to say something, and spotted a video screen. It had lit up to say:

[Fighter Kit: Helmet (Defense 1), Sword (Melee 1)]

"Really? Game stuff?"

Sol said, "We will quantify your experience to help make sense of it."

The second box held a battered pointy hat (Defense 0 but labeled [Look the part!]), a simple wooden wand with swirly carvings (Magic 1), and a leather-bound book (Insight 1). The rogue chest had daggers and a wool cloak. I was too distracted by the "magic" stuff to check the rogue numbers. "What, I'm supposed to pretend to cast spells?"

Sol said, "Within these walls you may be surprised. That knife of yours is not allowed, though. Nor the revolver."

I took out the Bowie knife from my hip sheath, noting that the gun was concealed but Sol had spotted or guessed its presence anyway. "Will I get these back?"

"They'll be waiting for you... or your next of kin."

Quietly, I put knife and gun onto a shelf marked "Restricted Gear". Then I tried to open the "spellbook" but found it glued shut, just a prop. "Okay then. If this is a game of yours, I might as well see your special effects. I pick the wizard stuff."

I was waving the book around, and it came unstuck and flapped open. Only the first few pages had writing on them, but I glimpsed instructions on two patterns for waving the wand around to cast a spell. "Shield and Mage Dart." I waggled the wand around in the Shield pattern, a roughly hexagonal mime routine in front of me, and the air shimmered white like a ghostly shield. "What!"

"Fairly convincing, then?" teased Sol.

"How?"

"You don't disassemble large numbers of human brains and entire cities without learning a few tricks. You may proceed after donning the headset." A panel opened in one wall, revealing a pair of digital i-glasses.

I put them on. My vision now swam with annotation, marking the three treasure chests and highlighting the door in green. [You are now a Level 1 Mage], read words in a fantasy font. Then it said:

[Melee 0

Defense 0+0 (Hat)

Magic 1+1 (Wand)

Insight 1+1 (Book)

Stealth 0

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Perception 0]

"Perception?"

[A Rogue skill.]

I scoffed, and opened the door ahead.

The tower looked like no office building I'd ever seen. A two-level maze of pillars and platforms awaited me, lit only by flickering electric torches. In the gloom, something mechanical whirred and crept closer.

I hid behind a pillar, and readied the dart spell by waving the silly wand around and holding off on the last gesture. When the machine approached, I hesitated. It was a robotic rat with glowing red eyes!

It leaped at me but I countered in a panic, trusting in the AI's rules. The imaginary spell went off with a faint chime, launching a dart of blue-white light in front of me. The blast struck the machine's chest in mid-jump, sending it crashing to the floor at my feet. I staggered backward and fell on my back. The rat recovered, revealing its chisel-like teeth. I rolled to one side and scrambled upright, barely dodging another bite, and landed a kick on the machine's side with my steel-toed boots. All that did was make me stagger. The beast turned on me and bit.

The rat's teeth clamped down around my leg. There was a flash of heat and pressure but it was less painful than I'd expected. I danced on one foot, trying to ignore the status message that had appeared in my visor: a yellow fang icon and the words [Minor wound!] I kicked and slapped at the rat to try knocking it free. [Agility roll failed.] What, I was being judged by hidden dice rolls?

After I'd whacked the beast twice with the butt of the wand, and getting taunting [No damage!] messages in return, the rat let go, but it landed in a crouch with its incisors bared for another blow. It was counter-intuitive: I had no real weapon, and my best best was to lunge at it for a kick or hold, but I'd been given a sham weapon that somehow worked. I quickly whipped the wand through the air, a chime sounded, and the Shield spell went off. The ghostly shield appeared just in time to catch the rat in mid-jump. I pressed the advantage, knowing from last time that it'd last until I released a little trigger button on the wand. I body-slammed the robot to the floor and kicked it with the flat of my foot, making it skitter and slide away.

It got up quickly, but I was ready. Releasing the Shield let me transition to the Mage Dart immediately. The new blast caught the rat and made it tip over, letting out a wisp of blue smoke. It quit moving.

"What just happened?" I said. What kind of special effects could actually break robots remotely? Some sort of electrical blast?

Instead of a straight answer, I saw: [Victory! Style rating: C.]

"Style!"

[Win battles efficiently and impressively for better rewards. Your minor wounds fade automatically soon after combat; major wounds do not.]

"I see. And major means you draw blood or something?"

[Not necessarily. Having minor wounds raises the chance to take major wounds. Taking three major wounds will force you to quit.]

I looked around the room of pillars and thought of what "major" opposition would be, if murderous robots counted as a minor threat. Sol was obviously screwing with me. This area had a loose maze of partitions and low ledges I could climb on, hide behind, or otherwise use in combat. I began to explore in more detail.

Around a corner was the world's most obvious security camera, swinging back and forth slowly while whirring and casting a red spotlight on the area it currently saw. A door was in its path. Sneaking past it to reach the door was easy, and it opened to reveal a walk-in closet where I could hide from the next sweep. In there, a shelf held a plastic box with a pack of granola bars and bottled water.

"Why is this here?" I said. "You're machines."

By text I was told, [You may take anything you find in Direspire that isn't nailed down or marked as Reserved. If you're defeated, though, you forfeit your treasure.]

I was starting to get the idea. Sol had laid out this tower with monsters, traps and treasure, where the loot was convenient even outside the context of the game. "And no tricks to the food and drink?"

[Only that you can keep only whatever you can carry on your person, in one trip.]

I eyed the treasure suspiciously, then dug into a granola bar and water. The packaging was weirdly minimalist, green wax paper with no brand. I stuffed the rest of the food and water into my pack. Really, even that plastic tub it'd come in qualified as useful to Freehold; there was no handy store to buy such things from anymore. I expected to find something better at this rate, though. I crept past the security camera, detected another rat on a predictable patrol route, and made my way to a staircase.

[Floor 2,] Sol commented. I found another maze of halls, this time with swinging blade pendulums at several choke points. Blades? I watched one carefully and concluded it was a prop, not sharp, but didn't want to take my chances with it. Nor with the robo-rat that spotted me from behind the trap. It charged.

I went for the Shield spell, met the beast halfway, and shoved it backward right into the blade's path. The pendulum swung just over its head. Good idea, but no! The rat skittered backward and hissed at me, daring me onward. This time I readied Mage Dart and bided my time. The rat and I feinted at each other. Finally it picked the right moment to leap past the blade. Instead of loosing my spell, I sidestepped and let its metal paws thud down onto the floor just past me. I fired from behind, then kicked it in the butt.

The rat went down from that beating, with the same blue wisp effect. Just decorative, I now figured, not truly broken circuitry. [Victory! Style rating: B.]

Past the pendulum I found the stairs, behind a prominent iron gate with a bright blue lock. Another wrinkle.

So I kept going, evading cameras and blades. The third rat was an easy fight that ended in me knocking the thing into a pendulum. In a side room I found a plastic box containing the blue key and a little medical kit, the kind with a pouch full of sterile gauze and asprin and the like.