“If fighting is sure to result in victory then you must fight! Sun Tzu said that! And I think he knew a little more about fighting than you do!” -The Soldier, Team Fortress 2; Meet The Soldier-

  _____

  The paladin monthly security briefing was tomorrow. One more day, and James could have sat down with Spire-Cast-Behind, Alex, Simon, and a collection of the smartest and most up to date people in the Order to discuss their next moves. Picking targets and projects, splitting up who went where, and generally maintaining forward momentum for the Order without pushing so hard they burned out.

  The last time they’d done one of these, it had just been James, and he’d opted to ignore five other low-risk disasters in favor of getting in a fight with a secret cabal inside the Mormon Church. It had been working out okay, though the young people who’d been rescued from the process of self-inflicted magical conditioning were… well they needed time. Time the Order was happy to give them to heal and relax. The fact that James had also gotten them access to two dungeons and maybe a fairly strategic ally (or at least not enemy) was a bonus. A really, really good bonus.

  This time, there was just as much to consider. James was looking forward to seeing how Ishah had grown into the role, and also to seeing if he could bait Jim into an argument about the definition of anarchy in front of everyone. He was also mildly anxious in the way that just constantly made him feel like he had really bad heartburn every half hour. Because at a certain point, they needed to actually make a decision on what they were doing about Priority Earth, and James didn’t know what they were doing. Also there were items on the agenda for negotiating with a foreign government, tracking down pillars and their activities, spying on those potential strategic allies, hunting down more dangerous dungeons, making contact with a new delver group James wasn’t even aware of somehow, and probably a few other things on top of that.

  In reality, the Order didn’t have a lot of pressing threats for paladins to handle. There was definitely stuff to do, but it seemed likely that Alex was gonna go off with Spire to investigate where the hell the giant memory eating worm thing came from, and Simon and James would be devoting their time to tracking down pillars and dungeons. Other stuff would probably come up, but there wasn’t a target right now. Even the Priority Earth people had been just doing what they’d been doing from the start; nothing. Sitting in their camp, sometimes trekking into the nearest town for supplies, and presumably paying the Wolfpack unit with them a ton of money to do nothing. It was weird.

  It was also probably not going to happen tomorrow. Which was a shame.

  James’ teleport terminated somewhere in Springfield, Missouri. He knew nothing about the geography of this place, beyond a cursory look at Google Maps back before Alanna and Anesh had firmly asked him to take himself off the list of people hunting for the Underburbs.

  So really, he knew two things about this place, of differing levels of import. One; it had a castle in it somewhere. And two; it might be where the Underburbs breached into reality. Since he was here, now, answering a distress call, it seemed likely that he could update datum number two.

  “Alice!” James was moving as soon as his feet were on different ground, which was basically right away. The scout was sitting on a park bench across the street, and she looked hurt. Quick stepping across the empty road, James got intercepted by a camraconda’s stare before he could get within twenty feet of the woman. He tried to comment on how jarring that was, but couldn’t move until Alex sprinted over to him from the side and held a hand in front of his armored chest.

  ”Spire, let him go. Hey.” Alex greeted him. “Hi. Yeah. Don’t get near her.” She kept flicking her head over to look at Alice like she was afraid that taking her eyes off the woman would be disastrous. “She’s contagious.”

  The implication of that was instantly clear, and when Alice looked up to show off red eyes and grey skin, it kind of undercut the shaky thumbs up she shot James’ way. ”Shit.” James said bluntly. “Underburbs?”

  ”We think so.” Simon said, joining them along with Spire-Cast-Behind. All three other paladins were also already armed and armored, standing in the middle of a public street with no concern. “If it is, it’s probably coming either east or south,” he pointed into the distance, past clumps of trees, weathered buildings, and curving roads, “since that’s where the nearest suburbs are. Also… listen.”

  James did, focusing into the distance with his ears to pick up the sounds of shouts, screams, and sometimes, gunfire. “Okay.” He reached through his skulljack to his phone and pressed a button that he was hoping to not have to use for a lot longer. “Mobilization call put out. What happened to Alice? Where’s Charlie and Dance?” God he hoped they were okay, especially the young camraconda girl.

  ”We don’t know. Alice can’t talk right now, and we don’t actually know what to do.” Alex was doing a great job of keeping it together, but it was clear that she was starting to crack. And James couldn’t really blame her; if he wasn’t as much of a dungeon and crisis veteran as he was, he might be falling apart right now too.

  But as it was, he felt like he knew exactly where to start.

  ”Simon, follow the road, Alex, cut across that field and check that way. Look for anything moving, any signs of people, and especially any mist. Do not touch anything, come back as soon as you spot anything.” James ordered. “Spire, you’re on guard duty for a sec until someone else shows up; keep anyone away from Alice. Alice!” He called over and the woman raised her head, clearly dizzy from the effort. “Sit tight, help is on the way!”

  ”What about her partners?” Simon asked quietly.

  ”Find them.” James said. “Fast.” He unclipped the drones from their carrying cases on his belt and lobbed them one a time into the air, putting his overwatch on standby while he prepared to make a call. “We need to know where this is coming from, and why it’s happening now. Go.” The paladins moved, Alex especially seeming to explode into motion as she cleared the distance to the corner of what looked like an old church building in a a couple seconds.

  ”It’s so quiet.” Spire-Cast-Behind said, armored tail tense on the ground next to James.

  The comment wasn’t meant for him, so he just nodded grimly, and opened the conference call that had started. “Hi. James here.” He started with, and got sudden silence from the other voices on the line. “We have a bit of a worst case scenario on our hands. I know we haven’t done any mass deployment scenario practice, but I’m gonna need everyone to do their best, okay? Because it looks like people are counting on us.”

  A dozen voices gave him assent, and James almost smiled as he continued, half his focus on the view from the drones overhead. There was a car approaching from the other direction, and he stepped into the way to make sure he’d block it from progressing, one hand out while he kept talking. “We’re in Springfield Missouri, check with Spire for specific coordinates. We think we’re on the edge of an Underburbs breach.” James didn’t pause to let that sink in, just started stating what was needed. “We need all available shield and response teams, in maximum protective gear available. Prioritize anti-pathogen over armor. We’re going to need a quarantine and medical space set up nearby, because there are likely civilians still alive. If Sarah is listening or-“

  ”I am!”

  ”-good. If you have that anti-dungeon weapon done that I asked about literally two hours ago, now would be the time to tell me. Also begin preparing benefactors for avatar activity. If anyone in Research has been preparing some kind of irresponsibly dangerous dungeontech, now is the time to tell me and I won’t even be mad.” He took a breath as the pickup truck that he was now actively obstructing tried to swerve around him, and James stepped into its way again. “I know we didn’t plan for this exactly. I’m sorry if I’m fucking up your plans. But we need everyone we can get.”

  From the call, someone else spoke up. Nate, a voice that James hadn’t heard in a while, asking his own string of questions. “Any pillar activity in the area? Memeplexes or infomorph action?”

  ”Doesn’t feel like I’m having trouble telling you anything, so maybe no memeplexes.” James said as he winced to see the drivers door of the pickup open and a burly bearded man get out with a twisted expression on his face. He didn’t really want to pick a fight right now. But then the guy just turned and ran the other direction, which solved a problem, but introduced a whole new question. “Hang on.” James looked over his shoulder; the road looked normal, if still empty, the surrounding area not especially scary. “Why…”

  Then the passenger door of the truck popped open, and a woman in grey plate mail stepped heavily onto the truck’s runner, before her armored boot hit the pavement with an audible thud.

  ”Oh good.” Spire-Cast-Behind said, somehow affecting a deeply exasperated tone with just the modulation of her digital voice. “Camille is here.”

  Spire’s voice was unique among camracondas and humans both, but it wasn’t hard for James to pick up on the sarcasm. “Hey, Nate? Yeah, I’m gonna say yes to the pillar thing.” He said as the Camille approached him with a casual walk that still made her seem like an unstoppable juggernaut. “Lloyd at least, possibly more. Dungeon breach suggests Blitzkrieg. I’ve gotta go right now, I’ll see everyone when you arrive.”

  It wasn’t the way these discussions were supposed to go. And if he’d had more time, James would have wanted to open the floor for dissenting voices or alternate plans. But they didn’t have time, and he specifically had even less.

  ”Get out of my way.” Camille said as she strode up to James, an imperious stare that somehow felt like it was coming from someone five feet taller than him, even though every single Camille was exactly five foot ten.

  Unfortunately for this Camille, James had experience verbally disarming them. “I’m really hoping you’re a Violet” He said plainly, and the girl’s frown twitched just enough that James knew he’d both surprised her and hit the mark. “Okay, good. Congratulations, you’re temporarily drafted. Wait here.” She opened her mouth like she was going to speak, and James just rolled over her. “You’ll still be able to accomplish your objective of shutting down this breach, you’ll just be able to do it faster with us. Also you’ll get to feel actually heroic, which I know is important to you.” James stared at her like he was challenging the daughter of the Last Line of Defense to contradict him. “I can also tell you right now we have no intention of interfering with your patron pillar for the duration of this crisis.”

  ”…Who…” She stopped, and then stiffened like she’d had a lesson drilled into her and almost messed it up. “I am Camille the Violet. Might I know your name?”

  ”James Lyle. Paladin of the Order of Endless Rooms.” James said the words, and almost, almost didn’t feel silly about them. “This is Spire-Cast-Behind, same title. Are you willing-“ a hundred feet away, six people in armor and carrying rifles popped into existence. “-to help us-“ another telepad displacement and there was a group of knights spreading out and searching the immediate area, as well as someone in a heavy white protective suit and a matte glowing green mask rushing toward Alice with a medical kit. “-fix this problem?”

  The Camille’s eyes widened slightly as she looked around at the incoming members of the Order and their uncoordinated but forcefully intentional actions. “You.” She said. “You stole my sisters.” The words were part challenge, all accusation.

  ”No. Sort of. You can talk to them about it later if you want.” James offered. “Now yes or no? Because I’m busy and I don’t have time for you if you’re just going to go in there to die.” He stabbed a finger to point down the road to where a creeping sense of something virulent and painful was waiting for him.

  ”…Yes.” She said, like she was entirely unprepared for this. Which she was. That was why it worked, and James took advantage of his prior knowledge of the Daughters to apply an onslaught of social pressure that most of them would have a hard time managing.

  He nodded and left her to wait, while he and Spire moved toward the rest of the incoming Order. James wasn’t in charge of organization or the more military option, but he could help with his overhead map of the area. He spotted Alex coming back with a cluster of people in tow the same time that Simon was returning from the other direction down the street. The other two paladins intersected him while Alex left her people with the small medical team.

  ”There’s a hilly field and a little creek that way, found these idiots having a knife fight there.” Alex said. “For fun, you know, like people do. No sign of the dungeon. Simon?”

  ”I found Dance.” He said, voice tight. “She was hurt. Doesn’t remember how they got separated. I think there’s Underburbs creatures out. Definite fighting going on deeper in that way.”

  In his quest to read every demographic statistic that he could, James had picked up a rough estimation of what parts of the US were the most armed. As someone who somewhat hypocritically hated guns, he was disappointed with the numbers, but right now he felt like having half the state armed might actually save lives.

  James resisted taking a deep breath; even with the delver mask on, he felt like he was exposing himself to something bad here. Maybe that was just paranoia from his last time with this dungeon. “Okay.” He said, anger surging through his veins but not reaching his tone. “We need to get in there. Two options we know of; either this is because the dungeon got kicked out of its home territory, so we should be prepared for Blitzkrieg or something like her, or it’s someone anchoring it here, so we need to find that anchor and shoot it.” He looked at them, and saw that despite the danger and the horror, they were looking back with determination. “At the very least, we can take territory, and the shield teams can hold it.” James said. “Any other suggestions?”

  ”Spire and I have authorities, we can seal against pathogens.” Alex said. “Deb taught me this trick. It’s not quite as effective if we spread it to other people, but we can do it.”

  ”Mine can’t do that yet.” Simon frowned. “I’ve gotta pick that up.”

  ”Yes. Later. Authority, protect us from disease and other infection. Focus myself and James.” Spire-Cast-Behind said, the green ribbon around her neck twisting and spinning until part of it split off to wrap around James’ wrist. Next to her, Alex gave a similar command and passed part of hers off to Simon. “Someone approaches.” Spire pointed one of the mechanical limbs down the street. “Could we be better armed?” She asked. Her personal modified pack had been rebuilt by an enthusiastic engineering student to have a special motor on it just for reloading her crossbow, but that felt… inadequate, in the face of the Underburbs. And the gun bracelet worn like a torque over the ribbon of her authority wasn’t going to be doing that much with its limited charges.

  ”Ethan’s fetching us the dangerous stuff. Simon, hammer. Alex, fireball gun. I’ll have the cell phone, so if anyone has a problem with existential dread, tell me now.” James had a problem with existential dread, but he’d drop that if it meant solving a practical problem.

  ”James!” The voice of the approaching out-of-breath man drew the group’s attention as Nik dropped his hands to his knees and gasped. “Reed sends a thing!” He fumbled out a trio of small objects from his pocket.

  They looked like a metal plate the size of two fingers, with a pair of gears and little latch on them. “What is this?” He asked.

  ”Dungeon detector.” Nik said between gasps. “Uh… Reed says it’s a shit one. It only detects if you’re in a dungeon. Which is why he didn’t tell anyone; he’s kind of embarrassed.”

  ”This is perfect.” James’ grinned behind the mask as someone else teleported in fumbling with a series of cases, the other young man running their way with a much more athletic fluidity. Ethan dropped off the weapons and dungeon tools with them, including a real battle rifle and matching gun bracelet for James. The group did a last minute check of themselves and each other’s armor, the actual practice they’d put in as a team coming together with a sudden rush of competent and quick motions.

  For just a moment, James stood in what felt like the eye of a storm. Around him, knights and support staff rushed to and fro, as more and more people appeared. Snippets of conversation came to his ears as he centered himself.

  ”Local police are responding. No calls coming out of the area, but people around it are reporting gunshots. JP’s on it, but Long might be in play.”

  ”See if anyone’s in that church. We’re building a quarantine setup off site, we can swap the whole field with it.”

  ”Traffic is stopped on these four streets, but we don’t know how wide the zone is. Move new arrivals to these spots and have teams two and four move out to keep adding blockades.”

  ”Casualties spotted three blocks in. Vehicle collision. Might be survivors.”

  ”Pendragon loading up for search and rescue. ETA ten minutes.”

  ”Hello sister.” James turned at the last one to see Cam - their Cam - approaching her sister who was still standing where James had left her. The fresh Camille stared at the form of her copy with something approaching open disgust, before turning away silently.

  As more and more people arrived, the need to wait for anything rapidly dropped to nothing. Anything past this point would be stalling, and James knew it. From his overhead drones, he watched as the Order fanned out and created a block facing outward across multiple streets, while teams began probing inward to evacuate people that weren’t yet inside the dungeon’s reach. “Okay.” He started to say, opening with his favorite time wasting word.

  And then he saw the thing moving across a series of slanted rooftops. Old shingles and built up mast shoved aside as a sticky black line like a worm made of tar hopped from one roof to the next in a fountaining arc.

  At least, until James was watching it. Because abruptly, as if it could sense his eyes on it, it pooled flat, wrapping in on itself and arranging into a ring shape on the roof where James was observing from overhead. Black lines flowed from the inside of the ring to connect to each other, forming a kind of jagged forked lightning bolt symbol.

  And James’ tibia exploded.

  The attack went straight through the normal purple orb protection, though the shards of the bone were rapidly pulled back together and fused like nothing had ever happened. It hadn’t been violent enough to send bone shards into his muscles, but it hurt. A lot. To the point that he screamed and tumbled forward before cutting connection with the drones and letting them fall from the sky somewhere in the distance.

  [Watcher - Shallow : +2 Skill Points]

  ”Ow.” James said as someone dropped next to him and helped him up. “I’m good. Down one get-out-of-boneitus-free card. But I’m good.” By his very meticulous count, he had exactly one stockpiled effect from that kind of purple orb. Despite the healing, he still took his time putting pressure on his leg, just in case. But it seemed like he was restored, even if the lingering specter of pain remained, like his body was convinced it should still be hurting. Broadcasting to the whole Order, he added an important directive. “No skulljack drone use. All operators, switch to analog control now. There are visual hazards in the area, and they can hit through skulljack links.” He paused and then added. “And maybe also through screens. Maybe cut drone use entirely. If you see something black and slimy forming patterns, cut immediately.”

  Simon let go of him as he stabilized on his feet, the other man looking down the road. “So what now? Do we just go and hope we find something?” He asked.

  ”Almost.” James said, looking back at the abandoned pickup truck before turning back to address the pillar minion he’d recruited. “Camille. How strong is your assault sense?” She clearly didn’t expect him to know about that, even though James felt like it would be obvious that their Cam would have told them a few things. “If I ask, for example, for you to give us a route to something that could stop this?”

  ”No.” Camille’s answer was simple and almost disappointed. “I would need a general direction at least.” She spoke, as every Cam James had known did, with a lot more energy when she was being actively given a task.

  James nodded and closed his eyes, dipping forward into the sensation of being somewhere else, and of needing to go somewhere. A terrifying adventure ahead, but an adventure nonetheless, and one with some roads involved even. And from the depths of his thoughts, something hooked onto him and came back up as he opened his eyes; an orange mantle of feathers and eyes manifesting as Zhu woke up. “Hey buddy.” James said. “Good news.”

  ”You fucking liar.” Zhu challenged with thin humor. He could feel James’ surface thoughts and mood, and knew that things were tense. “What are you lying about?”

  ”Underburbs is doing something. And we need to stop it.”

  ”Ah.” Zhu’s feathers flattened against James’ armor, some of them sinking through to tickle against his skin in a nervous fluttering. “I… I hate this place.” He said. “I don’t know if I can.” The navigator whispered.

  ”It’s-“

  Zhu cut him off. ”But I’m going to try. Because I want to hurt it back.” Zhu’s feathers splayed outward, his eyes twisting like he was scanning something in the air around them, the deep pools of his pupils flicking back and forth as they tracked things no human could see. Paths, maps, opportunities, obstacles, maybe even the future itself and certainly a little of the past too. “Oh. That’s… easy. Five and a half miles that way, there’s… something. Oh there’s a lot of problems getting there, but it’s there…”

  ”Camille?” James prompted as he started walking, the other paladins trailing him as he approached the truck and checked the back; the bed was empty, which was perfect.

  The armored girl who looked human nodded once. “Location unsecured by conventional military force, but there is a swarm around a valuable target. Fragile enough for me. Something is adding to the ranks. There are six guardians that I would have issue with. And one that will challenge our… group. If it manages to spot us. It is inattentive.” She said the last word with a frown.

  ”Great. Get in the back, help Spire up. Alex, shotgun. Simon…”

  ”There’s room in the back.” He said. “If this Cam isn’t going to murder me. She looks like she’s going to try to murder me.”

  ”I will not.” Camille said, having heard him clearly despite the distance. Simon winced, closing his eyes but not reacting aside from that and a small sigh. And the silliness of the small moment actually did a lot of work in adding to how prepared they all felt. “Are we going? Time is wasting.”

  James checked the messages on the local skulljack network; someone had moved fast and set up a relay here, and it was being used to organize things a lot faster than he could have done himself. There were police on the other side of their barricades, but the shield teams were so far doing a good job of impersonating the national guard and retasking the emergency responders to help contain the situation. No sign of the Long Arm of the Law, yet, which was probably good. There were also two alerts he was tagged in telling him that Sarah and the avatar choir was filtering in and setting up, so that was available as an option to himself and Spire. And also that the remaining mortar ammo that they had left after killing the worm thing in Montana was ready to go up to an effective range of about five miles.

  ”Ready as we’re going to be.” James said, stepping up on the absurdly lifted truck and looking back at the Order’s chaotic deployment one last time. He caught sight of Anesh, his boyfriend moving with purpose and directing people who looked like civilians from a nearby apartment building to clear the area. Anesh looked over his way, maybe sensing James’ gaze, and James smiled behind his mask. It was a bit awkward with the protective gear in the way, but he mimed blowing Anesh a kiss, and saw his partner’s shoulders relax a little as he shook his head in a moment of wry amusement while they both still had time.

  Then James dropped into the driver’s seat, shoving his weapons around wherever they’d fit and feeling way too clunky sitting here in his armor. The truck was still running from when Camille had scared off the driver, and so it wasn’t like he had to do much except throw it in drive, share a grim look of determination with Alex, and hit the gas.

  The sooner they found and broke the anchor, the sooner they could stop whatever was creeping out. And going in first was what paladins like them were for.

  _____

  James drove illegally fast for the mixed residential area, barely slowing down for stop signs as they headed toward the direction Zhu had indicated. There was no final spot on the map, but he had a feeling that they’d know it when they saw it, and getting close enough would be a good start.

  They weren’t alone on the road either. A few drivers that were going their direction honked or flipped off James’ masterful driving skills, but after barely a mile, they passed the first sign of trouble.

  Two cop cars, lights still flaring blue and red painful enough to sting the eyes, sat abandoned on the side of the road. Doors hanging open, no sign of their drivers. Some kind of little hand cart sat on the cracked sidewalk, overturned and spilling bits of cloth everywhere. The silent scene had James slow, but not stop.

  It wasn’t long before he had to slow again to navigate around where a car had slammed into a telephone pole outside a corner convenience store. A few other cars in the parking lot should have led to a few gawkers standing around or even trying to help, but there was no sign of anyone in the smoking vehicle, nor in the store itself.

  Alex’s voice made James twitch, the rhythmic sound of the engine the only thing they’d been listening to so far, with the car’s thick windows blocking out any noise from outside. “Update.” She said, closing her eyes. “Want me to read it?”

  ”Go for it.” James said, grateful he didn’t have to drive and use his skulljack at the same time. He was getting better at multitasking, but he wasn’t comfortable with that yet.

  “They were down here sweeping for the Underburbs again. Alice and Dance split off to go check out a construction site, while Charlie went to talk to a guy they’d heard about. Uh… lotta details, hang on.” Alex skimmed the slapped together report. “Right. Charlie doesn’t know what hit him, but he got a watcher notification, and got out of there. Wherever he was, it was already covered in the fog. He knows where Alice was supposed to be, so a team is heading there to look for where Dance got hurt.” Alex’s voice tightened. She didn’t know these people, but no one wanted to coldly read off reports about a comrade dying alone.

  James didn’t really have anyone to pray to, but he silently hoped Dance would be alright. Camracondas were immune to what felt like half the Underburbs diseases anyway, so she’d be fine. She had to be fine.

  But in trying to turn his thoughts away from that, he landed on something else. Equally grim, the idea hit him as he actually stopped to let a car fly past on a cross street. What if they had done this? Not specifically the scout team, but they were here on Order business. Was the Underburbs reacting to their search? Lashing out because of them? If a Camille was here that meant that it had obviously drawn attention, but the Order had been fucking around trying to find it so they could either delve the place or burn it to the ground, and it had been months. Ample time for the dungeon to try to fight back, and be noticed by a pillar.

  The question of what they did wrong, what they missed, lingered in James’ mind as Alex read off other bits and pieces of reports from the mobilized Order behind them. A rogue had gotten into the local police, and was trying to get them to assist more coherently, but they were hesitant because there was no sign of any problem; the opposite in fact, zero emergency calls from the area. Which should have been a huge issue, but a slight statistical oddity wasn’t enough to convince anyone, and that was probably reasonable, even if James did think the national guard should be moving tanks to the boundary.

  “You awake?” Alex asked, snapping James back to the conversation. She’d said something about knight numbers and James had been busy worrying if the Order was going to end the world.

  ”I’m good.” James said tersely. “It’s fine. Kill the anchor, kick the dungeon back, repeatedly shoot whatever pillar is here in the knees. Easy.” Zhu fluttered against him, the navigator staying quiet but awake to conserve his energy, pressing his manifested body against James with a deep soothing pulse of orange light.

  ”Knees?”

  ”Don’t ‘kill’ pillars.” James said, wondering if it would be morally wrong to ask Kiki if she could come help. Actually it would probably be the stupidest fucking idea possible, given that pillars were apparently unable to touch dungeons without some kind of unknown consequence. “It makes them leak magic somehow.”

  ”Oh.” Alex said, looking out the back window of the pickup truck to check on the others. Spire-Cast-Behind was curled over the edge watching the right side, while Simon was sitting and gripping the left. Camille was just standing in the bed, and blocking James’ rearview line of sight, and Alex almost smirked at her thought that Camilles were just like that until they got deprogrammed. Almost. “Wait, is that why you’re… you know.”

  ”Me?” James asked.

  ”Yeah, you-“ Alex cut off with a wet choke as James whipped the truck’s wheel to the right, the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror swaying as he angled the car and slammed the gas pedal down. Zhu’s own noise of surprise was like a revved caw as James accelerated.

  God he hoped the Violet could hold on when he did this, because he didn’t have enough time to call anything except a general alert to his skulljacked squad. James only barely noticed what was going on because his brain literally worked faster than it should, and he didn’t hesitate to divert from their objective to do what he felt needed to be done.

  The front bumper of the pickup truck came within inches of murdering the man running down the unmaintained asphalt of the cross street. Ignoring the stop sign, ignoring the road itself, James whipped past the terrified and bleeding human at fifty miles an hour. He did not miss the black quadruped chasing him; his eyes processing just enough to get the impression that it was furry, the size of a great dane, and that it’s head was just a black mass with a conical depression in it, similar to all the spiral divots that ran up its back and flank.

  It made a sound like stereo feedback for a brief moment, loud enough that it pierced through the truck’s comfortable cab.

  Then it was dead, the truck barely bouncing as James flattened it and then slid the wheel in his hands to put them back on the street, its pristine white paint job now sporting a smear and a ding. He missed his target by a few inches, annihilating the right side wing mirror on a wooden telephone pole that looked like it had weathered worse than this apocalypse and was unimpressed with James vehicular assault. Behind them, the smear of black blood from the mangled corpse that tumbled out behind the wheels painted the sidewalk as the man who’d been running dropped to his knees and vomited into a storm drain.

  [Killer - Low : +1 Skill Point]

  ”Oh god. Was that-“ Alex craned her neck to look behind them, the other three still secure in the pickup’s bed.

  ”We can’t stop.” James said. “If he’s just panicking, maybe he’ll be okay, but we can’t risk him being infected with something. Not now.” He felt sick, and not because he’d just killed an Underburbs creature.

  James was all for giving dungeon life a chance. The Order as a whole had cut down how much actual hunting they did in the dungeons, and they could make room for anyone who could play nice. But the Underburbs?

  He didn’t think anything here would be asking to parlay anytime soon.

  “Everyone okay back there?” Alex’s yell accompanied her opening the little flap of a window between the cab and the bed and letting in more sound from outside.

  Simon replied with something that James didn’t hear, but that made Alex give a surprised laugh. Under normal circumstances James would have liked that energy, but the Underburbs were a sore spot for him, so he just let them have their moment while he kept driving.

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  The laugh was short though, and the angry spitting of the pickup truck’s engine took over again for a few blocks until an oncoming car started flashing its lights and honking at James. He slowed, rolling down the window, as the driver of the minivan did the same; a pudgy woman’s wide eyed and flushed face greeting him. “Turn around!” She screamed. “Don’t go that way! Turn around!”

  ”Head that way!” James called, pointing back where he’d come from. “Straight line, you’ll run into people who can help you!”

  She looked at him like he was crazy, before jerking back from the window and speeding off, her minivan lurching forward. “Hope she’ll be okay.” Zhu mumbled lightly.

  ”Same.” James added weakly.

  They got another block before he wanted to hit the brakes again; rolling past the turn for a neighborhood and seeing a garage door that had been hit by something hard enough to crater it. That could just be someone backing into it though, he’d only been driving in this city for five minutes and he already didn’t trust anyone else in a car here.

  James almost voiced the joke, but stopped when a metallic clack made him jump. It came again a moment later, and then again, rhythmic and steady.

  Outside the vehicle, nothing changed exactly. And James couldn’t feel any difference. But the small device that he’d been handed and told was a dungeon detector was, currently, detecting a dungeon.

  They were in the Underburbs.

  ”It’s getting dark ahead.” Alex pointed out, but James had already seen it. It might be evening in October, but it wasn’t night here yet. However, the fading daylight was completely gone from the next street onward. At least as far as they could see. A wall of dark that was split only by defiant streetlights and the muffled glow from some of the nearby windows.

  ”Everyone hang on tight.” James said as he flicked on the high beams and washing away the gloom ahead. He’d never been so glad for the existence of painfully overpowered truck headlights in his life. But then his eyes flicked to the odometer for a moment. “Three miles. This is gonna get slower. Shit.”

  ”No new Route spells I don’t know about? Please?” Alex gave him an expectant look. “Some kind of deus ex mechanical?”

  ”Wow, okay, that’s really good, write that down.” James worked on smiling as he kept his eyes sharp; both of them enhanced in different ways, but amusingly, the one that was just a normal Earth-evolved eye doing the better job of seeing through the darkness.

  When they hit the line where the light ended, it felt like the dungeon swallowed them up. And for a moment, James and Zhu shivered in unison as they were plunged back into the favored environment of the Underburbs. The light from the truck wasn’t impeded though; just because the dungeon was making things darker didn’t mean it was strong enough out here to supernaturally ruin headlights. And so far, there wasn’t anything hostile except one pancaked dungeon creation. So driving was really more like just rolling down the street late at night, rather than a high speed incursion into dungeon territory.

  James frowned, hands wringing the wheel. “T coming up. Zhu?”

  ”Right.”

  ”…As in turn right?”

  ”Yes.” The navigator’s voice was far from his normal sound of tires on gravel. He was tired, and he was nervous, and he was angry. And he needed James to turn right and stop asking questions.

  So James turned right, and then slammed the brakes hard enough that someone thumped into the back window of the truck. Coming nose to nose with another vehicle was enough to make him jerk in surprise, but the other car being on its side didn’t bode well at all. It looked like it had been t-boned and just left there. No sign of motion from the vehicle, and the back door was sticking up in the air like someone had climbed out.

  ”Fuck.” James maneuvered around it. The dungeon was here, now, and he had the instinctive feeling that they did not have time to stop to check for people to help. He hated it. He wanted to help everyone. But right now, if they didn’t keep moving, there wouldn’t be an everyone left surviving to help.

  It did help that Alex tagged their location and sent it back to the others. There were already knight teams moving into the rough quarantine zone, starting a rapid evacuation of the outside edge. She checked their group channels and saw multiple instances of people fighting Underburbs creatures, and a few of knights getting shot at by locals who were on edge from the nearby chaos. She kept quiet about it; they couldn’t do anything. Instead, she fidgeted with the fireball gun.

  In the back, Simon and Spire-Cast-Behind kept their collective eyes out on the truck’s flanks, watching houses and sometimes small businesses roll by. The street was lined with parked cars and RVs, or sometimes a dumpster. The human kept the barrel of his gun aimed low, but outward, and the camraconda just watched and saved the battery on her arms. Neither of them talked to the Camille, because what did you say in this situation.

  They stopped one more time a mile further in to give directions to a confused looking family on foot. The parents had hardened up as soon as James said ‘quarantine’, but when he told them they weren’t with the government and that they were also heavily armed, it seemed to make the dad a lot more comfortable taking all his kids to the Order checkpoint. James didn’t have time to be annoyed, he’d take it.

  The worst part, as they got closer and closer, was that things got worse. Not just feeling more like a dungeon, but not a street went by where there wasn’t at least one car with the doors ripped open and bloodstains or bodies. People shouted for help from the windows, one small apartment complex looked like they’d tried to use cars to form a barricade that hadn’t worked, and the smell of smoke and the flickering orange of nearby structure fires joined the ambiance.

  And there was dungeon life now. Quadruped forms with spiral divots or bulbous distensions, eyes glowing in the headlights before they flung themselves back into the shadows. Nothing that challenged the paladins and their guest, but they were out there. Lurking.

  Until the house, that is.

  It was the same kind of single story ranch house as everything else in the neighborhood they were passing through. But there was a car idling in the driveway, and a man half standing out of the driver’s side door, screaming and waving to the people struggling to get out from the house’s front door to hurry up. The moving pale shapes creeping around the building homing in rapidly with hungry intent.

  Simon’s hand hitting the roof made James set his mouth in a line. Next to him, Alex shot him a look. “Come on, we can’t…”

  He sighed, and stopped the truck as smoothly as he could just past their driveway. “Here.” He struggled out of the chest strap for his rifle and handed it to Alex, calling back behind to the others. “Stay in the truck, cover them!”

  “This will alert-“ Camille’s attempt to warn them stopped as Alex pulled herself into a kneeling position on the passenger seat and started shooting at the left side of the house. Her aim wasn’t the best, but it really only took a single one of the .308 rounds to pop open one of the bulbous dog-things with their skin like bad upholstery.

  From the bed of the truck, Simon yelled for the people to move, to get in the car and drive like hell, but of the two people leaving the house one of them was very old and being helped along frantically by someone that was maybe her granddaughter or maybe her in-home nurse. Walkers and oxygen tanks weren’t good for speed, exactly, and Simon added his own gunfire to the mix as the people they were saving started screaming louder while he and Spire did a more proficient job of locking down and eliminating the closest targets, leaving Alex to suppress her side of the house.

  By the time the rifle clicked empty, a whole pack of the dog things was forming and starting to move at them, and she started frantically looking for a reload before James triggered the bracelet’s ability. Sixteen charges of that left, but this seemed like a good time for it.

  It was only seconds, but it felt like an hour before the two made it to the car and the younger woman practically shoved the elder into the back seat. James heard Simon yelling directions, but the other driver was already speeding out of his driveway and down the street.

  And that left all the things around here focused on them.

  ”Well, we’re nearby at least.” James tried to be enthusiastic as he set them in motion. Fast. Simon kept firing as the quadrupedal horde started converging on the pickup. A thump nearly made his heart stop as something hit his driver’s side door, and James snarled in abrupt anger as he pulled to the left and nearly sent Alex out of the window she was firing through. Another thump, this one with an associated crunch from under the tires, got him a satisfying conclusion.

  [Killer - Low : +1 Skill Point]

  ”Almost there.” Zhu said as they blew past a gas station that had a burning puddle in the middle of its concrete lot. The truck wasn’t the only source of light now. Fire and also the mist that they were now cutting through, all of it was creating a canvas of eye strain. Dark, light, dark, light. Flickers of motion and the bark of gunfire marking threats as they rushed the moving vehicle. Most of them fell behind because James was just trusting his enhanced reflexes and Zhus guidance at this point, but sometimes things would rush the side of the car and Alex would shoot it or he’d dodge it. Or run it down.

  ”Oh fuck!” Alex laughed hysterically from next to him, turning to look at James with wide eyes. “It’s a school!”

  ”What?!”

  ”There’s only one thing on the map in this direction! It’s a school!”

  ”My academic career is never going to recover from this!” James said at the same time that another thump hit the roof of the truck.

  An armored hand roughly grabbed and then snapped off the small window to the truck’s bed. “Guardian!” Camille’s voice sounded. “Ahead, closing! It knows we are here for it!”

  ”What kind of-“ A power cable, sparking and fizzing, slapped down onto the street in front of them, and James’ skill had him almost instantly pulling the handbrake and bringin the truck into a slide that stopped them parallel and just shy of hitting the downed line. Except… “There’s no pole!” He yelled as motion in the darkness ahead of them stirred. “Alex, out!”

  The driver’s door was fortunately not too dented, and opened smoothly as James leapt from the truck just before another power line came down on it. The metal cable whistled as it carved through the air, and hit the pickup with a bang as it shattered the windshield and crushed a line into the vehicle, shards of glass and plastic spraying out from the impact. At least the others had already gotten clear, but when James followed the cable backward, he could just make out the shape it had come from.

  It was a tangled ball twenty feet across, and it was hovering in the air over a two story home that was currently getting scorch marks from the blue crackle of electricity that came from dangling power lines just like the ones it was whipping at them. It was hard to tell if it was looking at them, because the mist didn’t reach that high, but James felt like he could see liquid pools on its surface that might be eyes.

  A gout of fire formed and spat from the other side of the truck as Alex started shooting, while James got his feet and dashed around the back to find the others. Zhu’s claw pointed into the dark, mirroring the dotted line he was showing James, and the human relayed the navigator’s instructions. “That way. Close.”

  ”It is indoors.” Camille said with clear displeasure. “And there is open occupied ground between us and the target.”

  James started to reply when Alex ran past them, “Move!” She shouted, grabbing Simon’s arm and pulling him along, as one of the power line tentacles jerked, wrapped around the pickup, and lifted the whole multi-ton vehicle off the ground by a foot before flicking it in their direction.

  Twisting and planting his feet, James spread his arms in a posture that felt wrong for defending but was intentional to make sure his limbs didn’t sink into the oncoming projectile, and then called up his Breath. Mountain of the Self, for just a couple seconds, let the car hit him, crash back to the pavement, and roll to a stop, with only a scattering of glass, metal fragments, and whatever was in the toolboxes in the back, flying past him and threatening his companions. “Move!” James repeated what Alex had said as he threw himself sideways to dodge a crackling strike, coming up from the roll that left bits of broken glass in his hair and catching the rifle Alex threw his way and adding bullets to the fireballs she was spraying into the thing’s form.

  It died almost anticlimactically. One fireball punching through enough of it that it couldn’t keep going, and then the arm-thick cords just unwound and poured to the ground, some kind of fumes billowing out of the corpse in the light of the nearby flames.

  [Killer - Abyssal: +10 Skill Points]

  “Die, powerball!” Alex yelled in triumph as James shouldered his rifle and turned to run past her, catching up to the others who were moving way too fast though the dark toward what seemed like an open athletic field. The smell of wet grass overwhelmed by the smell of urine and blood. Camille was leading them, but Simon and Spire-Cast-Behind were only lagging because the duo had been snapped at by a translucent set of teeth dangling from a dead streetlight, the camraconda freezing it at the last second while Simon just kicked the hollow metal pole over and sent it clattering to the sidewalk.

  Legs pumped as James ascended the dirt and barkdust slope, stopping with the others by a chain link fence. “Anyone see what’s out there?” He asked, staring into the pitch blackness past the dimly illuminated metal fence.

  ”Problems.” Zhu said.

  At the same time, Camille shook her head, but answered in a very low tone, “Interceptors.” She cocked her head, a small flicker in her eyes barely visible in the darkness. “The other guardians are alerted, but closing slowly.”

  ”Great.” James nodded, and made a call through his skulljack, waving everyone to get back down to the bottom of the hill.

  A voice that was clearly using humor to stave off how grim things looked answered. “Express artillery, you denote it we explode it, what can I do for ya?”

  ”Hey Myles.” James’ mouth quirked upward as he answered without speaking. “Got a target for you.” He double checked their current gps coordinates, glad that the dungeon was ‘out in the open’ so to speak, and didn’t seem to be messing with either that or their phones. Verifying where he wanted the explosions to go, James took a breath and relayed the target, wishing that he was the one doing the firing so he could put a little more confidence on the accuracy. “Use three shots. Thanks Myles.” He said, before speaking up out loud. “Everyone set at least one bracer to… uh… M934 High Explosive 120mm. Cam, get cl- sorry, Camille, if you want an extra layer of protection, stay in the middle of us.”

  ”…You are far too casual with me.” The armored woman said. But she still shifted back into the middle of the others.

  ”I used to hear that a lot.” James nodded. “We can talk later. As soon as the second shot hits, we move.”

  ”I’ll get the fence.” Simon offered, hand wringing on the grip of the sledgehammer he was carrying.

  James gave him a pat on his armor’s shoulder. ”Thanks. When we get in, you and Cam find and demolish the thing. We’ll cover you. Spire, you think you can make this run?”

  ”Yes. I have been equipping several spells.” The camraconda answered flatly. “And I-“ her voice faltered into a burst of feedback. “-I do not feel well. Ah.” Spire-Cast-Behind pivoted her head around to sweep the darkness, the only light coming from Zhu’s glow, the flashlights on their chest armor, and the fire behind them. “I will keep up. And then you can get me to Deb to solve whatever new problem this is.”

  ”Got it.” James said, opening up another call. “Hey Sarah. Sorry to bother you, I know you’re probably really busy-“

  ”Shut up dummy.” His friend didn’t sound like she was having fun. “Avatar time?”

  ”Please.” James said as he looked up into the starry sky.

  Spire also looked up. “I hear a whistling.”

  ”Relax your jaws.” James offered the group advice as Sarah started humming in his ear, and a network of channels opened up to him.

  The first shell hit ahead of them by about fifty meters, and the night lit up like an inferno. If they hadn’t put themselves at a lower elevation, then James knew they would have been at serious risk of losing shield charges to either the explosion itself, or the shrapnel from whatever it hit. The other paladins flattened themselves to the ground in something close to panic, while he stayed in a crouch and Camille just stood in her normal impassive resting stance.

  He couldn’t hear anything, except Sarah’s voice in his head, but he could see the message from the artillery crew about confirmed kills. Which was a good thing to know about this stupid dungeon.

  Then the second shell hit, and another wave of sound and pressure slapped across them. The third one was off target on the far side of the building they were heading toward, but the light from its blast showed off the silhouette of the school, the covered recess area outside, and a small stretch of trees on the far side that had been undeveloped land and were now shredded and burning.

  James started running forward up the slope, and the others followed. Simon hit the fence with some blue effect that shifted it around to let them through, and their group started a steady pace across the wet grass that had bits of burning material strewn across it to mess with their night vision.

  They didn’t get to any monster corpses before something came into view in the beams of their lights. It was a human child, crouched down with hands pulling at the grass, red shirt in tatters. Screaming, screaming so loud that it was audible even over the temporary deafening from the nearby explosions.

  James shot it in the chest, a burst of gore coming out from the crater the high caliber round put in it. A spike of guilt and shame infiltrating his thoughts just as the smell of ammonia and blood leaked into his nose.

  Then they were running past the body, and the oblong grey head and mouth full of fangs made it clear that feeling was artificial. His instinctive reaction had overridden the facade the creature put up. Which was good, because while the field had been swept by the mortar team, there were a lot more of these things.

  The scream rose from all around them, a fragmented wall of sound that bypassed ears and went straight for the brain. Alex and Spire both recoiled as their authorities struggled to fend off a parallel infection, and James started firing into the dark.

  It wasn’t hard. They were small, but they weren’t expecting to be targeted, so his Aim let him pinpoint and drop them one after another. He drew on his link with Sarah for focus, steadiness, finesse, even hydration as his mouth got dry. And with every footfall in their jog, he put another bullet out into the artificial night toward one of the sources of the scream that were making themselves so easy to target. When he ran out of bullets, he reloaded with the bracer. When that ran out, he switched to his pistol. On the other side of the group, Spire played a similar sharpshooter role, crossbows firing and reloading in sequence as she digitally pointed at things she wanted dead. The camraconda kept up with repeated casts of Move Person and Appointed Arrival, flickering into existence near the group and planting herself to fire over and over before falling behind and then repeating the process.

  A group of the child things rushed them out of the dark just before they got near where James estimated the covered recess courtyard was, five screaming faces with circular mouths full of slimy teeth. Camille just whipped her mace sideways, acting aggressively for the first time, and removing the threat; the first one was simply bisected by the hit, while the next was caved inward and then flung into the other three before the Last Line’s daughter abruptly stopped her swing and let them all tumble away. Simon hit one with a Pave on the way, its skull bursting open like a ripe melon and spraying grey sludge outward.

  They passed a concrete cylinder with a metal pole coming out of it, the edge of the overhang, and one of the child things leapt at James screaming. He cast on reflex, two spells in unison; Pave to arrest its motion, Frost Vector to keep him moving as he sighted with his pistol and put two new holes in the creature.

  Alex fired a single fireball back behind them, the clack of the gun swallowed by the screams, the red plasma orb lighting up the scene as it charred flesh and bone from the swarm that was after them. It lit up enough of the scene to see at least two hundred of the grey figures in their scraps of red clothing, predatory eyes dilating against the sudden burst of light as they rushed the team on all fours, mouths open in psychic screams.

  The first door to the school they found was a teacher’s entrance, a flat metal door with a keycard reader and not even a handle. Before James could try anything, Simon punched it on the edge hard enough to leave a dent, his authority wrapping his hand in green spectral cloth before a thin blue afterimage indicated his use of an Office effect and he smoothly pulled the door open. “Go!” He said, holding the door as the swarm closed in despite Alex’s attempts to annihilate as many of them per shot as possible.

  Spire went first, then Alex, then Camille. Simon yanked his hand out of the indented metal with a spray of his own blood before following, while James brought up the rear.

  It felt so effortless. Like the false children throwing themselves at him were made of paper. He drew on strength and vigor, speed and precision. The collective might of thirty benefactors sitting five miles away from them and lending their power to one singular person.

  Zhu’s talons pierced through an eye socket and held one off while James grabbed a bony arm from the other side and snapped it in his grip before using it to swing its owner like a club into two more. One dove for his legs and he pivoted by exactly the right distance before kicking forward and snapping its neck. Another replaced it, and James just repeated the gesture, breaking ribs before a more focused strike caved in its skull.

  Over and over; they tried to overwhelm the duo with numbers and it didn’t work. James called up another arm, and then a second, icy limbs with claws of his own waving with enough sharp force to slice through flesh like it was soft butter. But the bestial children didn’t stop. They didn’t care about how many of them died. They didn’t care about anything, except sinking their dripping fangs into James.

  One of them wriggled out of Zhu’s grip and did exactly that, teeth threatening to pierce the armor they skittered across, only to be stopped by the pure chime of one of Kiki’s charms shattering. Another wrapped arms around James’ plate armored leg, holding on even as it died and weighing him down.

  ”Come on!” A voice behind him shouted, and James realized he was wasting time. He’d built a wall of bodies up to his chest, but it wasn’t enough. Even like this, they’d just bury him before he got them all.

  So he slammed the last one against the door, throwing himself backward to crush the one trying to climb his back with a pained squeal before he wriggled to the side and hit it in the head with his elbow until it was silent.

  Simon slammed the door, Camille holding it shut as a series of steady thuds and feral pressure came from the other side.

  [Killer - Shallow : +2 Skill Points]

  The intrusive message repeated in James mind. It repeated thirty six times. He didn’t know how many actual kills equated to a ‘shallow’ rate, but it was at least three.

  ”Haaaaah.” Zhu made a noise like a rumbling exhale. “So close.”

  ”Camille, hold the door.” James ordered, putting force in his voice that she wouldn’t question him. “Let’s go. Zhu, directions.”

  Orange lines lit up James’ vision, and he rose to take a step away from the spreading puddle of piss-scented blood coming from the child corpse. The school had its lights on, fluorescent bars overhead making the group’s motion down the hallways and letting them move a lot more confidently than they had been when running across the cratered and occupied field.

  The building was pretty big, probably meant for a lot of grade school students and their teachers, but it wasn’t like anything would be too far away from a group moving at a jog through its halls. But as they ran, it quickly became clear the building had not been empty when this had started. Bodies of mostly adults but a few children as well were dragged into corners or by walls. Red marks on their fallen forms showing where things had been, if not eating them, then at least ripping pieces off.

  Trails of smeared red also marked where bodies had been moved, dragged across the smooth tile of the halls and away into different parts of the building. It was horrid. It was disgusting. It was also going to be impossible to fix, not with the Order’s resources.

  But at least they could stop the spread.

  Rounding a corner, Zhu kept his feathers splayed out in a vivid orange array around James as the navigator pointed them forward. But a child’s scream and an adult man’s defiant shout drew their attention to the other side of the staircase up to the second floor that they were aiming for.

  Something had just ripped away the door to a janitor’s supply closet. None of them had noticed it because when it wasn’t moving, it looked like it was just part of the structure. Blocky flesh that stuck out from a barrel body covered in mouths. No head to speak of, just multiple eight foot long drywall arms that were in the process of throwing aside the locked door the survivors were hiding behind and reaching forward.

  “Get away!” The man who was probably one of the school’s janitors was one of those people James would hire in a heartbeat. As soon as the door was down, he was swinging a shovel at the invading creature, putting himself between the kids he’d hidden in the back of the room and the monster. Maybe he didn’t expect a literal monster, but it didn’t change the courage.

  It also didn’t help. His shovel hit the protruding brick of the thing’s body just over the largest mouth it had, and clanged off. The man’s grip stayed firm and he tried to hit one of the hands, but he was too slow, and a second later, as James was four steps up the stairs, it lifted the struggling and shouting janitor up to that long toothy gash. A tongue slipped out and licked the side of the now panicked man’s face, before the dungeon life spoke.

  ”Too. Old.” It said, sounding like a disappointed child only with a deep bassy voice that hurt to listen to. “Need young.” It raised a hand to hit the captive human.

  All that happened in a moment. And in that moment, James made a quick call to split their forces. “Alex! Kill!” He barked the order.

  And the paladin moved. Static electricity filling the air as she pulled on her own new magic, Alex’s limbs and reflexes amped up to an extreme that was well past what even James could manage with the avatar thing. It cost, and it wasn’t renewable as far as James knew, but it got the job done.

  In a flicker, Alex was standing on top of the monster, her new razor sharp rapier in her grip. Then she vanished again for a second, and two of the monster’s arms dropped limp to its side, one arm just falling off. The squat little legs keeping it up snapping as Alex probably just tapped them at high speed.

  She even caught the janitor as he fell from the slack grip.

  “Keep moving!” James told the others as they vaulted up the stairs, curving around on the landing, proceeding to the second floor and getting closer and closer to the target. “It’s always… schools.” He panted as they ran down the hall toward a computer lab. “Why can’t we… do this… in a fucking… Wal Mart?”

  ”You’re going to regret saying that within a year.” Spire-Cast-Behind warned him, her own voice stable again and unaffected by her physical exertion. “Oh. Incoming, left side.” The statement was casual, but she’d made a mistake. The thing they all turned to look at, pressed up against the window of an art class, was one of those static blurs in the shape of a person.

  Simon was suddenly standing right next to the window, staring at it with the same blank look James felt he had himself. Then he was at the window, while Camille shifted forward a foot herself. James understood something was wrong, but his brain wasn’t working right. He could feel something trying to pull Zhu away, and he and the navigator were both abruptly trying to hold on to each other mentally, with no clear idea of what was happening. Only the vague impression that, one at a time, everyone was being pulled bit by bit toward that window.

  But then Simon just stopped. “I think not.” Spire-Cast-Behind said bluntly. James didn’t see her, for some reason, but he was glad the camraconda was on it. Whatever it was.

  When the temperature of the air dropped, and the human shaped black and white figure suddenly twitched repeatedly, James’ thoughts were abruptly his own again. The creature on the other side of the window opened its mouth in a silent wail, but the fuzzy white of its insides that it showed off were rapidly becoming its outsides as gashes appeared across its body and it leaked liquid static onto the floor.

  It dropped, and everyone collectively shifted posture as control of their bodies was returned to them fully. “Spire?!” James asked, whipping his head around to look for the camraconda. She was on their link, but nowhere to be seen.

  She reappeared at his elbow, earring’s glint fading as she did. “Keep moving.” She repeated.

  The computer lab was in ruins, tables overturned and monitors smashed. Both the classrooms past it had their doors broken open, the padded rolling wall between them bent out of position and stuck in place among the strewn papers and backpacks. But those doors weren’t their destination.

  As Simon nearly tripped over a power cable stretched across the floor and Cam just bulldozed through it, James led their group to the door to the roof access. It was already open, though more intact than most of the doors they’d seen so far. Beyond it, an undecorated concrete room with metal steps that looked like a cheese grater led upward.

  ”Threat.” Camille said flatly as she stared up the stairwell.

  ”What?” Even borrowing hearing and reaction and attention and grace from several people, James still felt like he had misheard her.

  When a human figure slammed into the Camille’s armored chest in a drop kick, sending both her and her assailant skidding back across the floor through the wrecked technology, he figured out what she’d meant. Camille struck back, her mace slamming into the man’s head twice before he stomped on her arm and kicked the weapon aside. Both of them rolled, fists darting to impact each other with enough force to make sharp cracks in the air.

  ”He isn’t stopping!” Spire informed them as she locked onto the figure. James had his pistol out and was putting bullets into the man, but his Aim faltered after the first burst when the bullets failed to connect with the figure’s back.

  ”Simon, stairs! Break it!” Simon sprinted past James with the weightless sledgehammer held ready, boosted up the steps by a use of Move Person from Zhu as James and Spire closed ranks to screen against the person who was currently hitting a Camille hard enough to dent her armor.

  No, not dent. His fists were leaving rust behind. Pitted red-brown marks across her plate mail.

  ”Keep slowing him.” James told Spire through the link. And then he slapped the side of his mask to vent a potion into his air supply, and went to be a distraction.

  Appointed Arrival was a lot easier to use than Move Person. He just took a step, and was between Camille and the attacker. It was human, he realized as he slapped his palms on the man’s ears with a powerful clap. This was just a guy. Unless it was a dungeon life like Ben or the Utah shifters, but it didn’t really matter. The man was thin to the point of being emaciated, had a braided beard countermanded by unkempt sideburns, and sunken wild eyes like he’d spent the last decade in search of the purest possible meth he could get. He was also grinning, a gap toothed smile that seemed genuinely sincere. He was loving this fight. Maybe not the whole situation, but as James jammed a fist into his nose and then started ducking return blows, the dude was loving what was going on.

  Camille backed away from the fight, circling but being kept in the enemy’s sight as he pressured James to circle too. But James was proving to be a lot harder to hit than Cam was; he didn’t rely on his armor to survive, he relied on magical coffee, precise martial arts skills, Zhu’s dodging instincts, and borrowed swiftness from a lot of people who were going to be feeling woozy for the next couple days.

  He could see his target getting frustrated when he slipped past a spin kick without even being touched. Which was good because it meant that the other human - they must be a delver - was focused fully on James. Exactly where he needed them. Because so far, only one thing had actually hurt him. Cam’s awkward and pulled strike from her mace had left a bleeding mark on his head.

  So James maneuvered him into position where Cam could take another swing. Though that was only his first plan. He had a backup, relayed through the skulljack link, just in case.

  From upstairs, there was a scream of metal warping and then the crash of a heavy object falling off a roof. The assailant’s smile turned into a snarl in an instant, his head turning toward the stairs and the camraconda between them. He got one step before Camille took the opening and swung a wide arc of her mace at his head again.

  This time, he caught it in one hand, rust creeping up the weapon and sending flecks of red metal spilling to the ground in a dusty stream. His other hand grabbed the Camille’s face, and James could see a similar rust-red spreading from his fingers as she struggled to pull back.

  He tried shooting the man again, and succeeded in at least getting his attention as he dropped Camille and rounded on James, the smile competing with an annoyed growl. His looked seemed to ask if James had any idea how annoying that was, as he sprung forward to try to stop the dodging with a bear hug that was sure to kill James quickly if he let the man’s magical skin make contact with him.

  Which was when Alex, having cleared her problem and caught up, stabbed through James’ chest and into the man’s heart.

  James grinned back at the faltering expression on the attacker’s face as he looked down at the sword pierced through him. Spreading his hands and stepping backward, James let the incorporeality potion he’d been breathing the whole time do its job as he phased through Alex, who stood pinning their enemy with her blade. “Gotcha.” James said quietly. It had been hard to keep from being touched long enough to keep the deception up, but it had worked.

  Then while he was distracted Simon hit him in the head. Leverage, the sledgehammer’s selective weightlessness, and Simon's own strength pumped up to an absurd degree by the cold fury he’d been cultivating through this entire incursion, all coming together to make his strike a lot harder than even Camille’s best.

  Whatever the other delver was prepared to survive, having his head pasted half in flat and ripped from his shoulders with a wet snapping wasn’t on the list.

  ”Try it now.” Simon sent over the link, his previous attempt to dispel the dungeon on the roof not having worked.

  James held a hand out in front of himself, palm down and fingers spread, the gesture seeming somehow appropriate even though he wasn’t sure if it actually mattered. Zhu’s talons overlaying his own armored flesh as James intoned. “We claim this territory in the name of the Order of Endless Rooms. You. Are. Not. Welcome.”

  Silence greeted him.

  After a long pause, Alex stopped staring at the human corpse on the floor, and looked up at James. “Did it… work?”

  He fished the dungeon detector out of his armor. “No clicking.” He said. “Which means either yes, or I sat on this wrong and broke it.”

  No, wait, there was an easier way to check. He tapped into the Order’s network, getting updates in real time. Overhead observation, which was still risky but being done anyway, showed that the imposed darkness was gone. The light-mist was still lingering, but spreading outward from what looked like a shockwave from the central point where they’d killed the anchor. Lots of movement, but it was all heading away from them; spotters were tracking two more of the giant powerball creatures floating away from the affected area, with a third one having dropped and seemingly died without the dungeon to sustain it.

  Which was great.

  Of course, the great news stopped there. Because they weren’t floating back to the dungeon. Or, they were, but they didn’t have that far to go. The anchor had claimed several square miles around itself. And in the direction of the Order’s perimeter, there was no dungeon left. But on the other side…

  The Underburbs life forms were fleeing back into the dark. Back into the dungeon. Back across the boundary line where more of Earth had been claimed by the dungeon and its minions.

  At least, as the Underburbs was kicked out of this sliver of his world, James got one last gift from the shit dungeon.

  [Intruder - Aphotic : +23 Skill Points]

  “What… what now?” Simon asked, his arms feeling like jelly as his strength left him. Anger replaced by hollow despair as the reality of the situation came into focus. “…I killed a guy…”

  ”…we could… we could maybe…” Alex looked around at the others, almost raising a hand to her face before realizing her glove was sopping wet with blood and other liquids, and there was no way she should remove her mask in these conditions.

  ”Is this new?” Spire-Cast-Behind asked. “Is this normal? What is it doing. We have to kill it. We need larger weapons. What do we do. Oh no, what do we do?” The camraconda’s mechanical arm pack folded in on her back as she slithered over to the fallen delver. “What was this one doing. He betrayed his world. Why. Why.”

  ”All good questions.” James said, glancing Camille’s way and sucking in a harsh breath as he saw that she had dropped to her knees and was clearly trying to manage an extreme level of pain. “Which we can answer from our front line. Pendragon is inbound, and we’re getting out of here. Alex, grab that guy’s loot drop.” He pointed to where a chunky barbed crystal had fallen from the corpse and into the pool of blood spreading across the thin carpet. “Let’s get to the roof and we can figure out our next move when we’ve had a chance to get hosed down.” He winced as he watched Camille pull a strip of skin off her face and flick it away. “And get some medical attention.” James added.

  Alex was also looking at Camille, and her own hands too. “Is it even safe for us to touch Pen like this?” She asked.

  ”Medical authority onboard.” Simon answered. “She’ll be… I mean, she won’t be screwed.” He tapped his own breathing mask, venting exercise potion into his breath to alleviate the exhaustion he was feeling. “We’re going to have to do this again.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  And it also wasn’t wrong.

  But at least, right now, they’d stopped one. Whether that would be enough to matter, they’d have to figure out real fast.

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