“This looks more like a bachelor’s pad than a prison,” Kinsley complained. She lugged a bag of freeze-dried food behind her, readjusting her grip. “And seriously? You’re letting him keep his pet?”

I took it from her and placed it next to the litter box and a small basket of cat toys, ignoring Shiva as she clawed at the bag, then surveyed the room. There were a handful of chairs, along with a console connected to a small wide-screen tv, and a long twin bed in the corner. “It plays better this way.”

“Because he still has something to lose?” Sae lugged Cameron in like a sack of vegetables, tossing his unconscious body onto the bed. He was blindfolded, and a pair of noise-cancelling earmuffs blocked out all sound. Unceremoniously, Sae shrugged him off her shoulder.

“Not exactly.”

Even though she hadn’t explicitly stated it, I knew Sae was unhappy with my decision to let Cameron live. I wasn’t happy with it either. Sparing him felt like unearned clemency. Still, I was about to enter a Trojan horse scenario where I couldn’t trust anyone around me, and I’d inevitably run into unknown variables. Having access to someone with intimate knowledge of the organization would be incredibly valuable.

Cameron probably wouldn’t cooperate. The beauty of it was, he didn’t have to. There was no need to resort to brute torture or intimidation tactics.

I could just ask him questions and let Azure sieve out the answers from the surface of his mind.

“Hey.” Kinsley backed away in alarm. “He’s stirring.”

Sure enough, Cameron let out an audible groan. He reached his bandaged hand up toward the blindfold on his eyes, but the morphine won out before he reached it and his arm dropped.

Sae turned to me, her mouth turned downward. “If he wakes up and sees me, solid chance he goes for round two.”

“Wouldn’t want to undo the mercenary healer’s hard work.” I fished the tape recorder out of my inventory, pausing briefly. With all the magic and Technomancer stuff going around, Aaron hadn’t even bothered to consider the far more grounded possibility I’d wear an old-school wire. Less wire than lapel mic taped to the collar of my hoodie. It’d taken a half hour to copy the original message to another device and scrub the original of anything I didn’t want Cameron to know. The process was old school—recording over the parts I needed to abridge with dead air. While the result wasn’t exactly clean, and a mildly attentive listener would realize there were redactions, what I left painted an obvious truth in broad strokes.

That Aaron had sold Cameron down the river without a second thought.

I made sure the tape was rewound and left the device on the table in the center of the room.

* * *

Kinsley doored me back to the old safe house. I scrolled past several quest complete notifications and a few messages before finding what I was looking for.

<Meet with Sunny for debrief and entry into ???>

Time Limit: 1:59:21

Location: 3271 Talmont Avenue.

It was a mixed bag. Though I wasn’t certain, the continuation of the quest chain likely meant my calling an audible and taking Cameron prisoner hadn’t broken the quest chain, or was, at the very least, an acceptable result. The address and the imminent time limit to progress the quest were more difficult right yeah to parse in terms of positive and negative.

On one hand, it saved me the inconvenience of tracking Sunny down, or worse, waiting for him to drop in on me. On the other, that the time and place of the meeting was delivered via the quest in a decidedly non-negotiable way was concerning.

Still, I couldn’t back out now. I was committed. Now it was a matter of making sure I was fully prepared.

Matt

Level 14 Ordinator

Identity: Myrddin, Level 14 ???

Strength: 6

Toughness: 8

Agility: 20+

Intelligence: 17+

Perception: 8

Will: 21

Companionship: 3

Active Title: Born Nihilist

Feats: Double-Blind, Ordinator’s Guile I, Ordinator’s Emulation, Stealth I, Awareness I, Harrowing Anticipation, Page’s Quickdraw, Vindictive, Squelch, Acclimation.

Skills: Probability Cascade, LVL 5. Suggestion, LVL 21. One-handed, LVL 19. Negotiation, LVL 16. Unsparing Fang (Emulated), Level 13, Bow Adept, LVL 5.

Boons: Nychta’s Veil, Eldritch Favor, Ordinator’s Implements,

Summons: Audrey — Flowerfang Hybrid, Bond LVL 5. Talia — Eidolon Wolf, Bond LVL 9. Azure — Abrogated Lithid, Bond LVL 20.

Skill Points Available: 0. Feat points available: 2.

The point in agility was obvious. Putting two points into toughness though? Well, it felt like the end of an era. I’d taken too many dings, had too many close calls over the last month to justify the semi-purist approach I’d taken before. I was going to get hit. It was an unfortunate byproduct of my tendency to be in the thick of harrowing situations complicated enough that I couldn’t control every variable with my abilities. There was no point in denying it, clinging to the theoretical ideal where I never took damage.

I moved on from the stat allocations to the feats, narrowing my options down to two.

<Hinder: Actively weakens the target and reduces the efficacy of passive abilities. Effected targets will be considerably more susceptible to stealth and surprise attacks and more vulnerable to the psychological toll of inflicted wounds. The latter effect, as well as the chance of detection, increases with each consecutive reapplication of this ability until the ability expires. >

<Escalating Fire: A King’s Ranger is the pinnacle of precision. Every bolt, arrow, or stone that lands on the same target does exponentially more damage than the last. As their potency grows, these empowered projectiles require more focus and concentration to aim. The accumulated bonus is lost with the first projectile that misses the intended target or in the event of the target’s expiration. Any ranged attack may be imbued with this ability.>

After brief consideration, I took <Hinder>.

So yes, if you wanted to be technical about it, it was yet another debuff skill. But it was still closer to a direct damage buff than almost anything else I had. Automatic shoo-in.

But not a goddamn thing in the world could stop me from taking <Escalating Fire> next level.

Enough was enough.

It was time to put some actual cannon into the glass cannon.

The ability had the potential to combine with <Page’s Quickdraw> in a way I couldn’t ignore. This was the advantage of forcing a multi-class, especially when the game system wasn’t designed for it—it was possible to string together unintended abilities the creators didn’t account for. Some of which could be powerful, borderline broken combinations together if you were willing to get creative.

I locked in the changes and braced myself. It still hurt—but the pain faded much faster than before.

An hour before the meeting time, I left the safe house and headed toward the address.

* * *

Driving through the city on the cusp of evening felt strange. Given how I caught myself looking toward my UI for a timer that was no longer there, it wasn’t hard to pinpoint why. I’d barely touched my motorcycle since the Transposition. My injury and sudden shift in position meant I was rarely driving myself.

Fear gripped me tightly as I came to a stop down the street from the address. It was an old office park, illuminated by dozens of over-bright security lamps, although it was completely empty.

I scanned the surroundings. There was no hint of Sunny or his pampered car. Also, I was all-but-certain the underground facility Azure hinted at couldn’t be here.

I turned the corner and pulled the motorcycle into my inventory, then turned my mask to full power. With that done, I walked down the sidewalk across the street, watching for any discernible movement, taking great care to check the shrubs and greenery for the camouflaged Users from before, finding none.

From what I could tell, there was nothing out of the ordinary. If anyone was watching me, there was a chance the effectiveness of the <Allfather’s Mask> had already worn off on them. Higher if it was Sunny. I sat at the bus stop on the corner and planned my next move.

“Where are you going?” a monotone voice pierced the silence.

I jumped, turning toward the edge of the bench. A small woman in a robe and hood, her dark hair done up in pigtails, was staring at me. At first I thought she was a child. And I was entirely sure she hadn’t been there when I sat down. “I’m not sure.”

“You… don’t… know?” the girl asked, saying the words slowly.

“I’m looking for my friend.”

“What’s his name?”

“No idea.”

“You don’t know your friend’s name?” She tilted her head, revealing the left side of her face. It was deeply scarred with crisscrossing red marks, and the milky eye was clearly sightless.

I ignored the question, focusing on the woman. “He asked me to meet him.”

“So you know where you’re going,” the woman concluded with a dreamy smile. Her straightforwardness took me by surprise.

I nodded. “Maybe. I just have no idea how to get there.”

“Curious. You do not look at us as the others look at us,” the woman observed, then added, “do you know the words?”

“No.”

Slowly, she reached out and pressed a hand to my chest. “The mark is undeniable. Her blessing is upon you.”

I bore with it, uncomfortable with the contact. As out of it as she appeared, the timing of our meeting was too suspect.

“Any chance you can point me in the right direction?” I asked.

“I will take you to what you truly seek,” the woman said. Her sightless eyes glinted in the dark.

I had no idea what the difference was but didn’t see any reason not to play along. “That would be ideal. Though I’m curious why you’re willing to do so.”

“I sense neither avoidance nor repulse in your gaze. You simply see us as we are.” The woman held out a gloved hand. Her palm split as she pressed it toward me, an oval pupil, cerulean eye blinked twice and, when it focused on me, the pupil narrowed.

“Grasp the aether.” Her hand reached up toward my forehead, taking up my entire view. The cerulean eye darted back and forth, as if it was desperately searching for an escape. Tears leaked from its edges, soaked up by the cloth of the woman’s gloves.

“Wait—” Before I could stop her, the woman pressed her palm against my forehead with an audible squelch. I barely had enough time to register that the <Allfather’s Mask> had voluntarily allowed her hand to pass through before my body twisted and shrunk, my organs pressed together tightly until it was like I could feel them all individually, each about to burst.

My perspective narrowed as my twisted body hurtled through a black space at a speed I couldn’t begin to quantify. Every so often, a glint of light would reflect off rounded walls, so darkly red they were almost brown, that led to openings that created what seemed like an infinite number of branching paths and highways.

It looked more organic than constructed, and the way some paths were jagged and never asymmetrical felt reminiscent of a circulatory system on a larger scale.

The darkness gave way to blinding light as I was more sprayed out than shot out—I felt parts of myself that had no business being as far away as they were struggle to return to the whole.

When I finally hit solid ground, I swooned on my feet, struggling to stay upright. My limbs and body appeared to be intact.

“Now, keep your guard up!” a familiar voice called.

“Yes, Ceaseless Knight,” someone panted.

“We’ve been over this, Enid. Drop the title. It’s—”

Nick.