Hell looked a lot like California.

The towering basalt formations below were like pictures I’d seen of the Devil’s Postpile monument, only warped by nightmares and blown up to a hundred times the scale. A sprawling wasteland of hexagonal red beams bigger than redwood trees formed treacherous, uneven paths that frequently plunged downward, some coming to abrupt dead ends that plunged into black chasms.

Battle sounds.

I paused, the mental equivalent of my finger on the button to access the Ordinator interface. What stopped me was the local message that promised an artifact, combined with the personal message that promised increased XP. The system had tried to incentivize killing Users before, during the trial, an option I’d easily turned down.

If push came to shove, I’d use it, but it was better to wait until I had a better grasp of the situation.

It was tempting to head directly down the main path. Miles had called for help some time ago, and in a fight for your life, every second counts. But I needed to scout first. Get a measure of the situation.

I looked upward, searching for a vantage. Around a hundred feet up, there was a thin pathway only three or four posts wide that hung over the stone platforms. I stared at it for a little too long, looking for movement, anything to betray that the pathway wasn’t as empty as it looked, or for <Jaded Eye> to warn me.

“Audrey,” I whispered and held my arms out.

Audrey hopped up onto my back, fixing her vines around my waist and beneath my arms in an impromptu harness.

I glanced at Talia. “Gonna get up there. You want to scout on your own or hitch a ride?”

Talia peeked over the edge and balked. “I’ll stay here. Multiple perspectives could help.”

Her reaction struck me as off. “You realize if I fall to my death, you die too?”

She gave me a dirty look. “Yes. But I’ll die peacefully, rather than screaming into the void.”

Fair enough.

“Stay low, stay smart.”

“Always do.”

Talia took off down the descending platforms, timing her run perfectly to avoid tripping on the uneven terrain. As she ran, her fur rustled, taking on a muddy red hue that blended in with the environment not unlike a chameleon’s natural camouflage.

Given the daunting verticality of my destination, I almost envied her. I’d used Audrey to maneuver during the Transposition to great effect, as there were a wealth of crags and ledges she could easily hold on to.

This would be harder.

“Any ideas?” I asked.

Audrey bobbed, considering the gap and our impending climb. Then she turned toward the ground and stabbed the platform below our feet. Her hardened vine tip pierced several inches into the platform. She tugged at it and it didn’t budge. Which meant we had a way forward. Just one that left a queasy feeling in my stomach.

“Sure your vine won’t snap?”

The plant summon leveraged the tips of three vines toward me. “They should be… enough. Yes. But, belt. Just in case.”

Taking heed, I toggled the <Operator’s Belt>. Then walked to the edge of the platform, gauging the distance. Every part of me wanted to use the flight charm instead and skip the high-wire act entirely. But there’s nowhere to hide when you’re flying around in the air, and I was counting on it for an emergency escape if I ran into anything I couldn’t handle that could outrun me.

Or saving me if I fell into an endless abyss.

I backed up to the far edge of the platform until my heel was almost hanging off the edge, then got down into a runner’s position.

“Onward, steed!” Audrey commanded, shattering my concentration. She turned away innocently when I looked at her.

Dammit. I was stalling. I looped the flight charm around my arm as a final precaution and focused on my goal. Clearing this gap.

It was nothing. Just a little jump. Angle was important, because hitting it straight on with all the momentum from the jump was a quick ticket to concussion town, assuming I didn’t break my arms. But if I jumped too wide, Audrey might not punch through at all.

I pushed off, sprinting toward the ledge, arms pumping, gaining as much speed as possible before I leapt. Air rushed past my face, ruffling the fabric of my armor as I reached the apex of the jump and plunged.

Shink!

Audrey’s vines took purchase, makeshift harness jarring me as they halted the downward momentum and I swung upward, bouncing against the segmented posts hard enough to rattle my teeth. Two more vines shot upward, anchoring into the formation and lifting me higher. Audrey pulled her three anchoring vines free and repeated the maneuver until I could reach out and touch the ledge.

I grabbed it and hauled myself up, breathing hard. The ordeal took years off my life, but it was worth it. The winding paths were far easier to discern from above.

Audrey snacked on a strip of raw sirloin I’d pulled from my inventory as I moved on, staying crouched—giving nothing to anyone who was looking up. The last thing I wanted was a vampire’s attention, let alone one of Sunny’s people.

“Any sign of Miles?” I reached out to Talia.

“No. But I found the Adventurers’ Guild. And Tyler is here.” Something in Talia’s tone sounded exceptionally worried.

There was a clustered column blocking my view of the direction she’d gone. I hauled ass down the path until I had a vantage. And what I saw made my heart drop.

The Adventurers’ Guild had assembled in mass. There were at least twenty of them, maybe more. They’d either abused the hell out of the four-man team, splitting up in quads and reassembling once they ascended, or the Gilded Tower’s leadership made an exception. The group was both large and cohesive, full of high-level Users, Tyler at their front.

And they were still getting shit on.

Vampires railed against a small assembly of heavily armorer Users, all snarls and guttural screams, literally throwing themselves against shields and swords, pushing the tanks back. That wouldn’t have been a problem if they had an effective back line—but small red creatures wreathed in flame flanked their casters. A few spellswords and hybrids had pivoted to fight the imps—Sara among them, but they weren’t tanks. Any second now they’d break, crushed beneath between the two.

Fuck it.

I opened my UI and tabbed into the Ordinator Interface, hoping for a quick solution.

Instead, I found a staggering list.

<Ordinator Interface>

<Dungeon Level: ???>

<Rewards: Random Allotment>

<Traps: Unavailable>

<Monster Directives: (All) Seek and Destroy>

<Monster Behavior: Aggressive>

<Monster Placement>

<Boss Directives: ???>

<Win Condition: Boss Clear, Last User Standing>

Not every option was active. Dungeon level, rewards, traps, monster placement, and win condition were all grayed out and unresponsive. Monster directives, however, had a dropdown longer than the fucking bible. I scanned it, looking for keywords. Inactive, catatonic, cowardly, and terminally suicidal were all frustratingly absent from the list. Lacking a better option, I picked Assign, hoping to find Users in the dropdown list.

Again, it was extensive.

Assign to Boss

Assign to Entrance

Assign to Territory

Assign to Ordinator

Oh.

Not what I had in mind, but there was no way in hell I was turning it down.

<WARNING: The current selection will result in terminal mana drain. Narrow Selection or Continue?>

I ground my teeth and opted for not dying, narrowing the selection. “Vampires” weren’t present on the list, but “Nosferatu” was. Selection called up a percentage slider, which I lowered by increments of ten percent, heart dropping as the percentage grew lower and lower. When it hit twenty percent, the selection finally went through. A mind-splitting headache hit me like a hurricane and I fell to my hands and knees. The world seemed grayer, drained of color, the once-dark red basalt below me a muted wine.

With considerable effort, I raised my head.

At first glance, nothing changed. The Adventurers’ Guild was still beset on both sides, struggling against an endless tide of monsters. Imps on one side, vampires on the other. But a small portion of vampires, scattered throughout the seething mass, were completely motionless. They stood still, arms limp at their sides. Like they were waiting for something.

And they were staring directly at me.

I reached out, as I did with Talia and Audrey, directing my thoughts to them.

“Fall to the back of the group, discreetly.”

The vampires didn’t give any sort of confirmation they’d heard. Instead, they carefully waded backward through the melee, until they stood at the rear of the battle.

“Now. Kill your friends.”