New chapters as promised, plus a quick update. After a great comment from Nilbog, I'm going to go back and update the Initial Report from Cendral to human. I thought it was an oppurtunity for some cool world building, but Dan would 100% be more interested in why the Researchers selected humanity. I'll post the updated report tomorrow.
Chapter Forty-Two – Pathogen Containment Vault
The door sealed shut behind us as we moved into the connecting corridor, cutting off any chance of retreat. The hallway sloped downward and the air grew noticeable warmer as we descended—thick with a sharp, metallic tang mixed with a cloying sweetness that turned my stomach. Unlike the sterile, scrubbed-white hallways we’d slogged through so far, this place was brimming with life, though somehow I doubted that was a good thing.
Thick tangles of blue and green vines grew over everything, snaking along the walls and ceilings. Huge violet flowers budded in spots, dripping glowing green sap that pooled on the grated floor. The catwalk beneath our boots was mercifully clear of foliage, but the rest of the corridor looked like it had been overtaken by some alien jungle nightmare that might come alive and eat us at any moment.
I focused on one of the flowers and a pop-up appeared.
Violet Crown Lily
Rare Alchemical Resource
Type: Harvestable Plant
The Violet Crown Lily is an alien horror masquerading as a flower, a monstrous blossom from Hydrosyne IV that looks more like a deep-sea predator than your garden variety petunia. Each petal curves inward and is covered in tiny barbs that are sharp enough to shred anything foolish enough to touch it barehanded. At its center lies a glistening core that constantly weeps a viscous, green ooze.
The ooze itself is laced with psychedelic properties so strong that accidental ingestion will drag your mind into a kaleidoscopic hellscape of shrieking colors and howling faces. It’s not the “find yourself” kind of trip—it’s the “wake up three days later screaming about the teeth in the walls” kind.
And yet, beneath all the horror, the Violet Crown Lily is incredibly valuable.
Its leaves can be carefully harvested and refined into alchemical reagents that purge Stage One Blight, counteract hallucinogenic effects, and drastically shorten the duration of active Afflictions. When dried and powdered, the petals can also be brewed into a strong restorative tonic that boosts natural recovery—assuming you don’t mind a side effect or two, like mild paranoia or the temporary sensation of having bugs inside your skin.
Jakob had already beelined straight toward one of the blooms and was busy harvesting the flower with delicate care, making sure not to touch the petals without protective gloves.
“I’m thinking you might be right about the lack of Froyo,” Croc said, as I dismissed the prompt with a wave of my hand. “This isn’t even Froyo-adjacent. Unless you count those puddles of goo.” The dog squinted its nose sniffing in curiosity. “I suppose they sort of look lime-flavored”—the mimic wrinkled its rubbery muzzle—“though it smells like rotten goat milk.”
“Don’t eat the goo,” I replied, never taking my eyes off the path ahead. “In fact, as a general rule of thumb, don’t eat anything in here.”
“But mimic’s have—” the dog began to say.
“I know about your industrial strength stomach lining,” I replied, cutting Croc off mid-sentence, “but trust me when I say you don’t want any part of that shit.”
“Fine,” Croc grumbled dejectedly, ears sagging, “I won’t eat the ooze.”
As we pushed forward, deeper into the corridor, inbuilt loudspeakers crackled to life overhead with a voice that sounded far too calm considering its message.
“Warning: Biohazard breach detected in Pathogen Containment Vault – Sector 3. Blight corruption at 87%. Recommend immediate evacuation. You have 54:59 seconds before lockdown protocols will engage…”
A literal ticking clock appeared in the corner of my vision, spiraling inevitably downward toward zero.
“Does anyone else see a timer?” Harper asked.
Everyone else nodded.
“Yeah, me too,” I said, swallowing hard. “That’s probably bad.”
“No kidding,” Harper muttered, her eyes darting nervously to the vines overhead. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve seen what Blight can do to a Delver—and it’s not something you can just shrug off with a few medical grade Zimas.”
“Then I’m guessing that’s our cue to pick up the pace,” I replied softly, already moving faster.
We followed the plant-filled corridor for two hundred meters or so, before we found ourselves in front of a set of heavy steel doors, partially jammed open by twisted vines and a spattering of Violet Crown Lilies. The sign overhead read, Biomass Containment Chamber: Tier-2 Hazard, which sounded exactly like the kind of place I never wanted to visit. Even worse, shapes moved behind the half-open doors, lurching in the dark. I caught a flash of glistening flesh and heard a wet, guttural sound like someone gargling nails and raw hamburger.
“We have company,” Temperance said softly, already stroking her blade in anticipation of violence to come.
And I was sure there would be violence.
Problem was, the room beyond was almost pitch black, and though I could hear the scuttle of feet, I couldn’t get a good look at what was waiting for us within.
“How’s about we get a little looksee before we blunder in there like a bunch of assholes,” I whispered, raising one arm to stop her. “Jakob?” I asked quietly. “Don’t suppose you have anything that might be able to help us?”
“I could always just hurl a fireball, if that would help?” Temperance suggested.
“I have something that might be a touch more subtle, Kleiner Hase,” Jakob replied. He reached into his bandolier and pulled out a thin glass vial filled with a glowing blue substance. “Ghostlight Tonic,” he said. “Once the vial is broken, it will shed spectral light that only allies can see. The things inside won’t even know we’re here.” He grinned. “Very handy for sneaking through places where we’d rather not announce we’re on the menu.”
He tossed the vial through the gap in the door, and it shattered against the floor with a sharp crack. The substance inside the vial exploded outward covering the floors in a glowing liquid, lighting up the room beyond with a ghostly, azure glow.
And that’s when we saw what waited for us.
There was an entire platoon worth of them—twenty on the low end, thirty on the high end—and they weren’t human. Not even in the same ballpark.
Each creature stood on three long, jointed legs, balanced like grotesque tripods, their bodies hunched and asymmetrical. Where their heads should have been, there was only a flower of fleshy petals peeling back to reveal a circular mouth filled with teeth like obsidian knives. Their bodies were carpeted in the same twisting vines that covered the walls and ceilings. The closest one turned toward the sound of breaking glass, its petal-maw opening in a silent scream before snapping shut again with a wet clap.
I immediately recognized them from the holo-vids I’d seen in the Splicer chamber.
Drekhnaar Drones. The same invasive species that seemed to be responsible for spreading the Blight in the first place—though the ones in the vids weren’t cover in plant life. They must’ve assimilated the foliage after a containment break.
A notification quickly confirmed my suspicion.
Dweller 0.750345C – Drekhnaar Drone – Hive Construct (Blighted) [Level 45]
Born from the blasphemous assimilation of whatever unlucky biomass the hive can get its claws on, Drekhnaar Drones are a Frankenstein patchwork of chitin plates, twitching sinew, and whatever organic or inorganic material the hive found lying around. They don’t just wear armor—they grow it, their outer shell hardening into a glossy, black carapace that looks like a roach and a crab had a baby and then immediately dunked it in acid.
Drones aren’t subtle. They’re fast, nasty, and single-minded, sprinting and skittering across walls and ceilings like giant spiders on Bath Salts. You don’t get the sense they’re hunting for food—they’re hunting for building materials. Your face, your legs, that shiny new VRD-issued security golem? All just future components for the hive’s next ugly upgrade.
And don’t let the word “drone” fool you. These things think. Not in the “reading Proust” kind of way, but in the ambush predator kind of way. They react to threats with coordinated precision that makes a pack of wolves look like disorganized toddlers.
The only good news is that they’re relatively lightly armored, at least compared to the Sentinels and Hive Minds. A few well-placed hits will put them down. Unfortunately, keeping them down is a lot harder. Since all Drekhnaar are inherently infested with Blight, their cells regenerate faster than Stripper Glitter—no matter how often you scrub, the glitter just keeps coming back. Unless you burn what’s left, you might find the pieces slithering back together, even stronger than before.
One of the creatures lurched toward the door, its tripod legs scraping against the glowing blue liquid Jakob had tossed, oblivious to the light but curious about the commotion. More creatures shuffled and swayed behind the first, several of them crawling along the walls like that hadn’t read the memo on gravity.
“They don’t look very nice at all,” Corc said, its googly eyes tracking the strange creatures. “But they also say you should never judge a book by its cover. Maybe they know something useful about this level? If you want, Dan, I could try talking with them? Dweller to Dweller?”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, bud,” I replied. “And also, that’s a stupid saying. The one about covers. Book covers are literally designed so you can judge books. Would you have picked up Twilight if the cover was a couple of hand-drawn stick figures on lined notebook paper?”
“I’d like to think that Twilight transcends mere cover art,” Croc replied, before hesitating. “But no, I probably wouldn’t have tried it. That apple on the cover just looked so delicious. Plus, those hands.” The mimic’s ears drooped in shame. “I wanted to eat those, too.”
“See? Covers matter,” I said. “And this cover screams I’m going to peel off your skin and eat your organs, then give you incurable, super cancer. I think Temp had the right idea. Let’s slow roast these fuckers with a giant fireball. Anyone have Charbroil Inferno equipped?”
“No,” Temperance replied, “but I can easily swap it in, if that will help things along.”
“Yeah, that should do the trick,” I whispered. “I’ll form an ice barrier and spam balloon bombs. Jakob, you get ready with Quantum Entanglement—just in case they get too close. Harper, Shadow Eagles. Let’s tear these things a couple of new assholes.” I paused. “But from a safe distance, okay?”
“What about me, Dan?” Croc asked, tail waggling in excitement.
“Uh… You could always use Remy, I guess?” I replied. “Just wait for the initial blaze to die down.”
With the orders set, I cast Frostfang Spire at the mouth of the door, conjuring a barricade of razor-sharp ice javelins that would be a bitch and a half to climb over. Then, without waiting for the others, I sent half a deck of Balloon Menagerie Spell Cards flying forward on strings of telekinesis. The cards fanned out through the room in a rough arc, then erupted on impact, filling the room with squeaky neon balloon animals which promptly exploded in the unholy conflagrations to end all unholy conflagrations.
The room erupted with searing flames and the Drekhnaar Drones shrieked in agony as the blaze licked over armor plating and engulfed the vines carpeting the room.
Several Drones shot toward us like blazing homing missiles, but Temp and Jakob managed to lock ’em down with ease, using a combination of Quantum Entanglement and Puritanical Chains. Temperance rotated to the front of the formation and unleashed a fresh round of Charbroiled Inferno, adding even more fuel to the already raging fire. Harper triggered Arcane Jumper Cables, allowing the furry war-machine to pull mana straight from the healer’s formidable spell pool.
After a solid two minutes, Temp slipped to one side, her body trembling from the exertion, and Harper took her place, firing off round after round of Shadow Eagles which shrieked through the enclosed room detonating in clouds of inky shrapnel, which mowed down foliage and tore through hardened carapaces with equal ease.
Experience points started rolling in as the Drones died along with a new Research Achievement.
Research Achievement Unlocked!
Bug Zapper
Hey, look at you go! You’ve just killed your first Drekhnaar Drone, and you didn’t even lose a limb. That’s moderately impressive, considering these things were custom built to dismantle combat constructs, flay armored targets, and play Jenga with your vertebrae. Most first-time encounters end in screaming, flailing, or assimilation into the ever-expanding Hive.
Well, that’s one less flesh-cobbled nightmare skittering around the walls… though, there are probably twenty more already on the way. Did I mention these things are pack hunters with a physic link to the rest of their brood? Because, yeah, they totally are. And you’ve officially earned your place on the Hive’s shit list. Word of advice? Don’t stop moving. The others felt that one die and the Hive knows how to hold a grudge...
Reward: 2,500 Experience Points, 1 x Gold Blight Killer Loot Token
Title: Bug Zapper – Gain +10% bonus damage against all Hive Constructs and
+10 Preservation when in areas with an active Swarm Presence. Nearby Hive creatures are also 10% more likely to prioritize you over lower-threat targets. You’re officially that guy now.
When Harper’s Mana eventually started to dwindle, she scooted to one side and Croc and I replaced her by the door’s entrance. Between the blue glow coating the floor and the raging inferno lighting the room, it was easy to see what was left.
It wasn’t much. Of the original swarm, only ten or so remained.
“Time for Remy?” Croc asked hopefully, desperately wanting to contribute to the fight.
“Yeah,” I confirmed with a nod, “time for Remy.”
Croc opened its maw and vomited a gross blub of wriggling red tissue onto the far side of the ice barricade, which was already starting to melt under the intense heat of the flames.
I used Hydrokinesis to reinforce the barrier as the slug—easily as long as my forearm—crawled across the flame scarred floor with frightening speed. Remy launched itself at one of the Drones and began to chew through its abdomen, quickly burrowing its way inward. With a snarl, I unleashed Hydro Fracking Blast as the slug ate, splitting the beam into three separate strands that sliced and diced, punctured and ruptured.
The remaining Drones were already badly damaged from the murderous firebomb, and though they fought desperately to get at us, but the odds were stacked against them.
Quantum Entanglement and burning blue Puritanical Chains continued to hold, and my Hydro Beams cut ’em down like a scythe blade swinging through a field of wheat. The single Drone who did manage to break through the crowd control spells, met a swift and gristly end as Remy wriggled up its back then unceremoniously chewed through the creature’s spine, dropping it on the spot.
The slug grew the more it ate, and now it was roughly the size of a pitbull with inch long spikes covering its back and sides like a sentient cactus. I just sort of stood there in a mixture of mute horror and fascination as I watched it bodily slide over one of the Drone’s tripod legs like someone throating a Costco hot dog, before clapping down with enormous mandibles. The entire limb vanished, and the Drone toppled over, suddenly unbalanced, as Remy swelled in size again.
The Drones were weak, almost dead, and I probably could’ve finished them off without too much trouble. A round of StainSlayer Maelstrom, a few Hydro Blasts, and a couple of Balloon Menagerie Spell Cards would’ve done the trick.
But I didn’t kill them. This was the first time I’d ever run across the creatures, so instead I waited. Biding my time as I watched how they operated.
The handful of remaining Drones turned their full, nightmarish attention on the massive slug.
Moving with eerie unspoken coordination, they circled Remy like a pack of wolves, snapping and striking in perfectly timed waves meant to overwhelm and wear him down. Some hurled sizzling globs of acid that hissed and ate through leathery hide where they landed, while others darted forward to slash with serrated claws or ram the monstrous worm with jagged, chitinous spears. A few of the bolder ones lunged forward with their petal-like mouths, tearing off chunks of flesh in wet, meaty bites.
But Remy was built for punishment. He wasn’t just a slug. No, he was a certified siege engine, designed to soak up damage like a sponge. Every blow the Drone’s landed barely made a dent, and even as chunks of his flesh were bitten away, the big guy just kept on rolling forward, eating its way through the Drones in retaliation. Remy continued to grow at an astonishing rate, and once it got big enough the slug had another nasty surprise waiting for these floral shitheels…
There was one rather concerning thing, though. Something I’d never seen before.
As Remy grew, giant tumors started to sprout across its wriggling body—even the smallest growth was the size of my fist, while the large ones were bigger than my skull.
I’d seen Blight before, and those tumors were its calling card.
“Here it comes,” Croc said excitedly, googly eyes wide with wonder.
A second later Remy reached critical mass—now even larger than the Drones—and exploded in a shower of blood, guts, and spikey bone fragments, dishing out fifty percent of the damage it had already dealt. Which, in this case, was a metric shitload.
The Drones nearest the blast were turned into ragged corpses, while those further back were hurled against the walls with bone breaking force. It was a thing of grisly beauty.
There were only two left alive after the eruption, and both were below ten percent, so I quickly sent my hammer flying forward, triggering Gavel of Get Fucked as it obliterated the flowery head of the first Drone. The monster dropped dead as Killing Blow procced and triggered Wave of Justice, dropping the second Drone below 5%. I finished that one off with a quick blast of Hyrdo Fracking Blast, leaving the room beyond silent and motionless.
“Well, that was easier than expected,” I said, melting the spikey ice barricade then slipping sideways through the door.
“We Germans have a saying,” Jakob muttered, as he followed me into the room. “Man soll das Unglück nicht heraufbeschwören. You shouldn’t tempt fate.”
“We make our own fate,” I replied, padding forward to the nearest corpse, which was badly burned and still smoldering.
I’d earned a decent amount of experience for the massacre, but not enough to push me up another level. These things were Dwellers, though, which meant they had Spatial Cores—and Spatial Cores meant Relics.
But the clock was ticking, so we didn’t have time to putz around, twiddling our collective thumbs. Still, despite the time crunch, I didn’t summon the Rat Pack. These things were all clearly infected with Blight and after witnessing the tumors on Remy, I didn’t want to gamble on accidentally infecting my Horrors.
“Everyone, take what you can,” I barked. “And try to be quick about it. We don’t have long.”
I crouched down beside the first Drone, burnt almost beyond recognition, and accessed its Core, looting the handful of Relics within. I grimaced when I saw all of them were Blighted. That wasn’t a problem, unless you wanted to end up as an inhuman drone with tentacles and a bunch of extra limbs growing from places they didn’t strictly belong. The worst part was, the Relics were good, but completely unusable.
The first was one called Viscera Assimilation. Whenever an ally or enemy died within thirty feet, the user automatically “assimilated” a portion of the victim’s biomass, restoring 10% of their Max Health, and gaining a Biomass Stack, which increased all melee damage and Blight Afflictions by an additional 10%.
Hive Link was another Passive, which operated similar to Insurance Pact, allowing all Drones within 50 meters of one another to share 25% of their total Health and Mana Pools. And when one Drone died, the surviving members of the Link gained Hive Frenzy, increasing Attack and Movement Speed by 15% for 30 seconds. Something like that would be incredibly useful for my Horrors, assuming I could find a way to strip the Relic of Blight first.
The last Relic I found—at least on this corpse—was a Rare-grade Attack Relic, called Blighted Vines.
Rare Relic – Level 1
Range: 15 Meters
Cost: 50 Mana
Duration: 25 Seconds
Cooldown: 2 Minutes
Turn the forces of nature into your bitch by summoning a writhing nest of corrupted plant life that sprouts from the ground like living razor wire. Each vine is slick with black-green sap and covered in barbs sharp enough to peel skin from bone. Once ensnared, targets find themselves rooted in place, quite literally, struggling against the crushing grip of the vines while being slowly infected with the creeping corruption of the Blight.
Every 10 seconds, all enemies bound by the blighted vines gain 1 stack of Blight Corruption. The stacks themselves don’t deal any direct damage, but the infection begins gnawing at the target’s essence, transforming them in unspeakable ways. If the number of stacks exceeds the target’s Preservation Stat, they’ll contract Stage One Blight—a delightful condition where the body starts mutating in ways best described as horrifyingly non-Euclidean.
While stage one Blight is treatable with proper antidotes or cleansing magic, failure to address it can escalate to more advanced stages where you’re less “person” and more “Cronenberg nightmare.” As an added bonus, enemies who attempt to struggle free take 5 points of Piercing Damage per second from the barbs, making the whole experience a painful, anxiety-inducing mess—unless you enjoy being bound and slowly strangled. If that’s your kink, enjoy!
This Relic enables Mana usage.
I sent all three Relics off to Storage then quickly moved on to the next body as the others did the same. The whole while, I kept one eye glued to the countdown timer in the corner of my vision.
Forty-three minutes and change left to go.
I wasn’t sure what everyone else collected, but the rest of the Drones I looted each had both Viscera Harvest and Hive Link, though the third Relic was typically a tossup. A few more had Blighted Vines, while there were a handful of other varieties mixed in—Chitin Spike Barrage, Corrosive Bloodletting, and an ultimate AoE called Viral Outbreak which increased the number of Corrupted Stacks a target had by 2% for every second they remained inside the area of effect.
Like the others, those were all Blighted and seemed to specialize in dealing Blight-related damage. In other words, utterly useless. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if I could safely sacrifice them to power my other Relics. But that was a worry for later.
Working fast, it took us all of five minutes to loot the corpses—everyone was moving with a certain speed and intensity they didn’t usually have, and it wasn’t hard to guess why.
Knowing we could compare notes later, we left the pile of Drone corpses behind and exited through the far door, which dumped us into another yawning corridor, filled with even more foliage. Harper equipped the stripped candy cane staff I’d taken off the Snowmaw Hag and cast Blessing of the White Hunt to increase our base Athleticism and movement speed by 20% for the next ten minutes—which was great because we needed all the extra endurance and horsepower we could get our hands on.
We sprinted along the catwalk, boots clanging softly with every step, though the sound was quickly swallowed by the humid, oppressive air. I’d deployed with the MEU, and on our way over to Iraq, we’d stopped briefly in Thailand—this felt a lot like that.
Hot, sweaty, and uncomfortably moist.
Several sealed doors lined the passageway, each one stenciled with ominous warnings, including one particularly charming label that read DANGER: ACTIVE HIVE ZONE. Through the reinforced glass of some doors, I caught glimpses of more Drone-like shapes skittering around in the dark. Most of these chambers were single-entry death traps—one way in, no way out—which meant easy Experience if we had the time to spare.
We didn’t.
Not with the countdown clock ticking away.
Eventually, the corridor funneled us toward a larger open doorway that stood yawning and unguarded, like a mouth daring us to step inside. It was much larger than the other doors we passed and looked more like some kind of receiving bay than a research lab. We slowed, and I instinctively glanced through the opening as it lit up with a hazy red aura, courtesy of the Spelunker’s Sixth Sense.
My gut did a somersault the second I saw what was waiting beyond.
The room was massive and lit by a half-dozen flickering overhead lights that were on their last legs. What little illumination they provided revealed the skeletons of old transport ships and dismantled VRD security golems strewn across the floor. Most of them were stripped for parts, their chassis cracked open like broken ribcages, while others were nothing more than rusting hulks. A graveyard of futuristic tech and iron skeletons.
But despite the desolation, the room wasn’t empty.
There was a swarm of lesser Drekhnaar Drones crawling across the wreckage, skittering over metal beams and shredded hull plating like ants dismantling a carcass. That was bad enough, but the thing lurking in the corner of the room was a whole new category of oh, shit.
It was enormous, easily three times the size of the lesser Drones.
Part centaur, all nightmare-fuel, its lower body was built like a rhino on an overdose of growth hormones, while its upper half mimicked a grotesque parody of a human torso, packed with slabs of corded muscle.
Three fleshy, petal-lined flower heads sprouted from a thick neck, identical to the smaller Drones but scaled up to match the beast’s monstrous frame. Overlapping chitin plates covered its body like tank armor, the gaps between them writhing with jagged vines and clusters of pulsating Blight tumors. Two heavy, shoulder-mounted plasma cannons—salvaged straight from the VRD security golems—rested on its back, humming faintly with lethal energy.
Dweller 0.750879B – Drekhnaar Sentinel – Hive Behemoth (Blighted) [Level 79]
If the lesser Drones are the Hive’s rabid hunting dogs, the Drekhnaar Sentinel is the armored war elephant they call in when they really want something—or someone—reduced to a pile of smoldering paste. Built like a nightmare fortress on legs, Sentinels are beefed-up monstrosities, forged from the same vile Blight corruption as the Drones but dialed to eleven.
On the plus side, Sentinels are slow, though only compared to their smaller cousins. When a Sentinel charges, you’ll feel the ground shake long before you hear the bone-rattling impact. They don’t bother with skittering across ceilings or walls—they flatten the walls. The three petal-maws on its neck work like industrial meat grinders, and are more than capable of chewing through bone, steel, or whatever else is unfortunate enough to be caught in its grip.
Oh, and it heals. A lot. Hack it apart, and the flesh just wriggles back together. Unless you burn it, blast it, or nuke it into chunky salsa, this thing is going to keep coming—and it’s not the forgiving type.
The breath caught in my throat. Holy hell. Level 79? Yeah. There was no way in hell we were beating that. Not on our best day.
My real question was how in the world had this thing gotten so strong? As I understood it, the ambient Mana Levels grew stronger the deeper down you ventured—but the inverse was also true. The closer you moved toward the Lobby, the weaker the ambient Mana and the weaker the monsters. Sure, this was the 75th floor, but I had it on good authority that the Franchisor was only in the mid-sixties.
This thing too powerful to be here…
Then a terrible idea occurred to me. I already knew the Research floors were different than other floors, so what if the ambient Mana here was much higher than its respective level indicated?
Assuming that was true, it meant we could stumble across damned near anything.
Regardless of the reason, though, I knew we couldn’t beat this thing in a fight anymore than we could beat the Polaris Vora. We had to pass the receiving bay, but if that thing got wind of our presence, I had no doubt it would turn us into meat paste.
We tried to slink past the doorway, hugging the wall and moving like ghosts to avoid drawing its attention, but the soft crunch of a boot on scattered debris echoed just enough to ruin everything. The Sentinel’s head—or heads, I suppose—swiveled in our direction with a low rumbling growl, and the petals of its maw peeled back to reveal rows of gleaming teeth. Every single one of the Drones also stopped what they were doing, swiveling to focus on the doorway.
“Aw, shit,” I muttered.
The Sentinel let out a deep, guttural roar that shook the walls, and the plasma cannons rotated toward us like vultures spotting roadkill. The hairs on my arms stood up, and the timer in the corner of my vision suddenly felt like it was moving way too fast.
“What do we do?” Croc asked, its googly eyes darting between me and the monster.
“We run!” I barked, already turning on my heel. “We definitely run!”
Chapter Forty-Three – Die, Spawn, Repeat
No one argued.
We bolted, sprinting down the catwalk like the hallway itself was on fire. Harper recast Blessing of the White Hunt, increasing our movement speed as blue sparks of energy trailed off her staff. Temperance didn’t even bother to sheath her blade, clutching it as she ran, ready to hack through anything that tried to get in our way.
Behind us, I heard the scrape of metal and the pounding of heavy limbs. The Sentinel was coming, and from the sound of it, it was a hell of a lot faster than anything that size had a right to be.
I threw a glance over my shoulder and immediately wished I hadn’t. The hulking mass of the Sentinel filled the corridor behind us, its heavily muscles legs pumping rhythmically as its three petal-maws snapped open and shut like the jaws of an arboreal Tyrannosaurus Rex. Plasma cannons whined as they charged, and every instinct in my body screamed that we were one bad step away from being roasted alive.
The lesser drones skittered behind it, like a living shadow of scampering legs and hungry mouths.
“Keep moving!” I yelled, already ripping a stack of spell cards from my belt. “And Jakob, get ready with Gravity Well for when it fires those plasma cannons.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I sent a trio of Balloon Menagerie Spell Cards spinning out, along with a single Hurt Locker Spell Card, which would slow the Sentinel by 15% and make it 20% more vulnerable to elemental damage… like fire. Next time I was manufacturing cards, however, I planned to make a deck that specialized in crowd control. Honestly, I’d spent enough time running from monsters that I probably should’ve already had something like that in my arsenal.
Temperance quick cast Puritanical Chains, momentarily slowing the creature, but it quickly shrugged off the spell as though the chains were nothing more than fine strands of spider silk.
My Hurt Locker Spell Card hit first, rippling out in a wave of emerald light, followed in short succession by Balloon Menagerie. Flames erupted behind us, bathing us in uncomfortable heat. A few of the lesser Drones shrieked and faltered, but the Sentinel powered through the curtain of fire, undeterred.
If anything, it was moving faster than before.
I spammed Frostfang Spire, filling the corridor behind us with multiple layers of icy spikes, hoping to buy us a little extra time. It worked. Sort of. The Sentinel ploughed into the barriers like a freight train, momentarily slowing, but not stopping. Still, the few seconds it spent smashing through bought us just enough time to pull ahead.
I yanked several tools from my belt and sent them into a telekinetic orbit around me, “juggling” them in order to repeatedly proc Wild Surge, keeping my mana topped off as I cast Frostfang Spire again and again.
More icy barriers to keep the Sentinel from gaining extra momentum. This time I also reinforced the spell, laying a thick slab of water over the top then flash-freezing it using Hydrokinesis. The newly formed wall cracked under the Sentinel’s bulk but didn’t shatter outright. I felt the pressure of its weight and fury vibrating through my mana link like I was holding the world’s angriest jackhammer.
“Dan,” Harper called, breathless but still running strong. “It’s gaining on us.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I growled, summoning another round of Frostfang Spire just to keep the ugly bastard at bay. “Any ideas? Maybe something that involves not getting turned into roadkill?”
“Murder it?” Temperance offered dryly.
“Love the enthusiasm,” I snapped. “Terrible plan.”
I knew we needed more time. More distance. The ice barricades were working, but they weren’t enough. I had another trick up my sleeve—one I’d never used before—but now seemed like the appropriate time for a Hail Mary.
With a slight effort of will, I summoned Rudolpho the Grippledip and swung up onto its back before giving it the command to run, but also to keep pace with the others. I couldn’t afford to leave them in the dust. Then I pulled both Collective Consciousness and Sleepwalker from Spatial Storage, swapping them into my core for Echoed Aura and Neural Slipstream.
Sleepwalker was a conditional skill that automatically triggered whenever the user fell asleep or was rendered unconscious, allowing their physical body to enter a “semi-autonomous state”—instinctively dodging, parrying, attacking, or even activating Relic abilities, though with reduced precision and general effectiveness.
It was basically autopilot mode.
A solid skill on its own, but downright broken when paired with Collective Consciousness, which let me slip into a trance, merge my mind with my summoned minions, and go full-on mental puppet master. I’d be able to see what they saw, do what they did, and feel what they felt—though that last one was less more horrifying-design-flaw than feature. And, since I’d bumped Collective Consciousness up to level 10, I’d unlocked a nasty little secondary ability called Relic Relay, which let me channel spells from my Spatial Core directly through my minions, turning them into an extension of my own will.
I summoned another ice barrier, then called forth a single Sunnysider Kevin and sent it shambling forward on a suicide mission toward the Sentinel. I didn’t expect him to kill the monster, or even hurt it much. My only goal was to slow it down.
The second the Sunnysider was in range, I activated Collective Consciousness and the world lurched and swayed.
One second, I was sitting on the back of the Rudolpho, the next I found myself in the body of a hulking monstrosity, towering behind the ice barrier, my muscles straining with power and burning with barely constrained rage. I immediately wished I could rewind the last minute and make different choices, as an overwhelming sense of pain and emptiness settled over me.
As I looked at my crude, malformed hands I had a dawning revelation that I was an abomination. A malformed thing that simply should not be. Death was supposed to be the end for a reason…
The weight of mere existence hung around my neck like a millstone, threatening to pull me under a churning tide of emotions. Thankfully, the experience didn’t last long. I was so captivated by the inrush of jarring physical and psychological sensations, that I just stood there like a moron—staring at my own giant oven mitts. By the time I finally looked up, I was just in time to see the molten glow of a plasma cannon barrel…
Right before a beam of liquid fire punched through my head.
The Horror dropped, dead before he hit the ground, and I gasped and shuddered in a momentary blaze of agony as my consciousness zipped back into my own body.
“What the fuck was that?” I gasped, drawing in a ragged breath as Rudolpho continued to race along the corridor, hooves pounding against the floor.
“You okay, Dan?” Croc asked, looping easily along beside me on all fours. The mimic had abandoned blue dog form, in favor for something that looked more like a cross between an elk and a dire-wolf—though still made from blue Croc material with stupid googly eyes in place.
“Nope, not even a little,” I said, shaking my head, “but that’s pretty much par for the course, at this point. Let’s try that again.”
I summoned yet another icy blockade and summoned my next Sunnysider.
I slipped inside the Horror’s head and skin much easier this time, and though the crushing weight of my own existence still hammered down on me, I pushed it to the back of my mind and focused all my attention on the encroaching Sentinel.
Its plasma cannons glowed white hot again, but I activated the Relics back inside my human body and channeled them through the Horror, conjuring a floating ice shield. The plasma cannon roared again, but I yanked the barrel a hair off target with Psychic Sovereignty, and deflected the blast with the ice shield, which let off a gout of steam that momentarily obscured the hallway.
The blast lit the corridor like a miniature sun, melting a section of the wall behind me.
I cast Stainslayer Malestrom next, blue super bleach raining down on the Sentinel and its army of Drones.
They howled and shrieked, which didn’t bother me in the least, and I thrust one mishappen hand forward, activating Hydro Fracking Blast—targeting the thickly corded neck of the Sentinel. Hoping to decapitate it in one fell swoop. The water chewed through vines but seemed woefully unable to penetrate the thick chitinous plating below.
The Sentinel crashed into the ice barrier, attempting to bulldozed its way through, but I rushed forward and threw a punishing blow as I activated Whiteout Haymaker—the single active Relic the Sunnysider had at his disposal. My fist burned with artic white power and slammed into the Sentinel’s chest, knocking the creature back a step as a slick coat of frost spread across its plates.
The bastard just snarled and kept right on coming.
“Alright, dicknoodle,” I growled through the Sunnysider’s teeth, which felt disturbingly like my own, “you want some? Then come get some!”
The Sentinel swung one of its massive claws down at me, but I slid to the side, barely avoiding the crushing blow. My whole body trembled with the impact as its claws smashed through the steel plating where I’d been standing. The Sentinel lunged again, and I reacted on pure instinct, forming another jagged forest of ice spikes directly beneath the lumbering monstrosity. They ripped through its feet and belly, but dealt less than a single percentage point of damage.
Still, it was temporarily distracted, so I dropped low and shot forward again, driving a series of lightning fast blows into the creature’s chest and face, before activating Lawn Mower Wind Blade. A razor-sharp projectile of hardened air erupted from my chest and carved through more of the thick foliage, knocking off another fraction of its health.
My rampaging assault was cut short as vines exploded from the floor beneath me, pulsing with sickly green light as they wrapped around my arms and legs, pinning me in place. I could feel the wicked barbs shredding my flesh, but that wasn’t the worst of it. It was the terrible pressure pulling at me. I tried to activate Psychic Sovereignty again, hoping to wrench the vines free, but the Sentinel was stronger—much stronger.
“Oh shit,” I muttered, right before it tore my left arm clean off.
The pain hit like a sledgehammer, radiating through my mind, and for a second I forgot that this wasn’t technically my body. It sure as shit felt like my body. Then the second arm went. And the legs. And, just for good measure, the Sentinel drove one of its fist through my chest and ripped the torso apart like a bag of rotten meat.
I screamed then snapped back into my own body, every nerve in my system firing as if I’d just been hit by a lightning bolt. My stomach churned violently, and I barely leaned over Rudolpho’s side before I vomited onto the catwalk.
“Dying sucks,” I gasped, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve. “A lot.”
“Dan, what’s happening—” Harper began.
“Don’t ask,” I croaked. “Just keep running, I’ll be fine.”
I knew the words were a lie the second they left my mouth. My whole body was trembling, my vision swimming in and out of focus. And it wasn’t just physical pain—dying, even in a borrowed body, left a mental scar that gnawed at the edges of my mind.
Still, my plan was working.
I glanced back. The Sentinel was still coming, but slower now. The constant ice barriers and my Sunnysider distractions were chipping away at its momentum. Not enough, but more than nothing. We were finally gaining ground.
“Again,” I muttered, already summoning another Sunnysider and stacking fresh layers of Frostfang Spire behind us. One more. Just one more. Maybe two. But definitely no more than three. I could die three more times, right?
I slipped back into the next Sunnysider, pushing down the creeping dread that came with it, and prepared to meet the Sentinel head-on once again.
And so it went, for the next ten minutes. Running manically forward, guided by Unerring Arrow, as I spammed Frostfange Spire and died on repeat, like a record skipping over and over again.
…Seven times in total—though each death was slightly different than the one before it. Sometimes, the fleshy petal maws ripped out my throat. Other times the Drones got to me, ripping me apart an inch at a time. Once, the plasma cannon vaporized me at the waist, and I fought while my guts trailed across the floor like a gory slip’n’slide.
But with each death, I gained us a little extra breathing room.
By the time the countdown clock ticked below ten minutes, we finally burst free of the corridor and into a vast metal chamber that gleamed with clinical precision. The vines were gone. No more Blight tumors, no more spattered ooze or tangled flora. Just polished white walls, harsh overhead lights, and the low whir of machinery. It was like stumbling out of a jungle and straight into an airport terminal—assuming the airport came with plasma turrets and a kill-on-sight policy.
And just when I thought we’d escaped one nightmare, another stood waiting to tag in.
Ahead of us, guarding a massive access door, was a full squad of VRD Security Golems, just like the one we’d fought back in the breakroom—though these were all level 60. There were five in total, their armored chassis gleaming, each one was bristling with a full armory worth of weapons. Arm-mounted energy blades, shoulder turrets, cannons, and enough red glowing eyes to power a rave.
The lead Golem’s head swiveled in our direction, its targeting sensors locking onto us with cold precision.
“UNAUTHORIZED PRESENCE DETECTED,” it announced, its voice flat and robotic. “PLEASE STAND BY FOR LIQUIDATION.”
“Oh, come on!” I shouted, slipping off Rudolpho’s back, preparing to fight even knowing we couldn’t win. Not with five VRD Golems at our front and a Drekhnaar Sentinel closing in on our rear. I also wasn’t in great shape. Though the legion of deaths hadn’t actually happened to me, my entire nervous system felt like someone had used it to jumpstart a tractor. “Give us a fucking break! Is that really too much to ask for?”
Harper reached for her spell focus. Temperance raised her blade. Jakob primed Quantum Entanglement. Croc growled as the mimic pushed itself onto two feet.
It couldn’t end like this. Not here on the 75th floor, before we’d even had a chance to take on the Franchisor. Under other circumstances, I would’ve activated a Doorway Anchor and retreated—live to fight another day and all that—but spatial magics didn’t work here.
But there had to be something we could do. My mind raced through options, and all of them were shitty. There was one thing, though. A long shot that probably wouldn’t work—but the other option was a quick death if we were lucky, and a long, agonizingly slow one if we weren’t.
With shaking hands, I reached into my Spatial Storage and pulled out a trinket I’d earned as a Loot Token Reward. It was a golden medallion, suspended from a golden chain, etched with a giant thumbs-up. On the back were the words, “Researcher Approved!”
“Please work,” I grumbled, holding it out in offering like it was a holy relic. “Please, for the love of every god, eldritch and otherwise, just fucking work.”
The lead Golem froze mid-step. Its sensor array scanned the medallion, red light flickering over the polished surface.
“IDENTITY TOKEN CONFIRMED,” it said after a long pause. “RESEARCHER CLASS: TIER ONE. ACCESS GRANTED.”
The red lights flicked to blue and, one by one, the other Golems followed suit.
“Welcome,” the lead Golem said, stepping aside. “Your credentials have been approved. Please proceed.”
The massive access doors behind whooshed opened, hydraulics groaning as the metal slabs split with all the urgency of a bureaucratic yawn.
Not a moment too soon.
Because, as if right on cue, the Sentinel barreled into the chamber behind us. Its claws tore gouges into the floor, and its plasma cannons whined with murderous intent.
We didn’t wait.
We sprinted through the doorway like our lives depended on it—because they absolutely did—and just as the last of us cleared the threshold, the Golems opened fire of the encroaching monsters.
Twin streams of plasma lit up the room like a miniature supernova. The Sentinel howled in fury as it crashed into the killzone, and then—
Whump.
The doors slid shut behind us.
And just like that, the noise was gone. Silence fell, sharp and sudden.
I collapsed to my knees, gasping, soaked in sweat, my body still trembling from phantom death spasms.
“Remind me,” I croaked, “to send the Researcher a nice fruit basket the next time we bump into him.”
Croc panted beside me, tail wagging weakly. “Oh my god, Dan, I thought we were going to die!”
“We were going to die,” Temperance said grimly, cleaning her blade with steady hands. “And we still might. But at least now we’ll die in a new room.”
“Well,” Jakob added helpfully, “progress is progress.”
I didn’t have the strength to argue.
Chapter Forty-Four – Dire News
As the silence settled around us, it was like someone had hit pause on the chaos. No more shrieking drones, no more thundering footsteps, no more nerve-searing plasma fire. Just the faint, echoing hum of the sealed chamber and the collective wheeze of people who had very nearly been turned into untimely corpses. The Blight countdown timer had vanished, which was another small relief on top of our narrow escape.
Still trembling, we staggered forward into the connecting room.
This one wasn’t like the vine-choked corridors or half-devoured research labs we’d passed through in the Pathogen Containment Vault. Rather, it had the same clean lines and sterile severity I’d seen displayed throughout the rest of the floor. It was a massive, open space lined with rows of long metal desks and sleek holo-terminals, all flickering with low-power system warnings and corrupted data streams.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we’d just wandered into a NASA mission control room mid-apocalypse.
It looked like someone—or more likely, a whole team of someones—had been working here in a frenzy. Frantic, desperate. Pages of printed notes were scattered across every flat surface, some crumpled, others scrawled with shaky handwriting in a language I didn’t know. Dog-eared manuals sat open, bookmarked with snack wrappers and torn badge lanyards. Empty coffee cups—some tipped, some moldy—sat beside workspaces, accompanied by half-eaten vending machine meals.
The whole place smelled like stress sweat and failed caffeine dependency.
There were no bodies, though. That was the weird part. No blood. No viscera. No sign of a last stand. Just the ghost of panic clinging to every surface.
“Well,” Croc said, peering at a terminal that had a GIF of a burning calendar looping endlessly, “this looks a lot better than the last area.” The mimic’s googly eyes landed on a package of Biofractional Synth-Meat, still in the wrapper. “Hey, Dan? I know you said not to eat anything here, but do you think that’s fair game? I mean, whoever left that probably won’t miss it, right?”
I rolled my eyes and let out a shaky chuckle. “Yeah, knock yourself out, bud.”
The room seemed to be self-contained, no other hallways or doors branching off, so I cast Unerring Arrow and it immediately zigzagged between the rows of desks and workstations, around a stack of chairs and a whiteboard covered in barely legible equations, and directly toward a small coffee stall covered in sleek, chrome paneling near the back of the room. A glowing sign attached to the front read AutoBar – Fresh Brewed, No Questions Asked!
The arrow of blue light led to a small hatch set in its side, though it would be a struggle to get through. Looked more like a storage compartment for cups and filters than a proper door, but that seemed to be our way out of this hellhole and down to the next floor. We’d finally found the kiosk, and though it was significantly smaller than any of the other kiosks we’d run across so far, I knew size didn’t really matter.
I was curious about why the kiosks worked on this level, since other forms of Spatial magic seemed so heavily restricted, but that was just one of those questions I wasn’t sure I’d ever get an answer to. I knew a lot more now than I had when we’d first entered the level—what the purpose of the Backrooms were and where the Blight had initially come from—but this place was still a mystery with a world of secrets to unravel.
Jakob was already picking through the notes scattered around the space, while Croc threw itself at the leftovers, but I was more interested in a video that seemed to be looping on one of the terminals.
Weary of traps, alarms, or other failsafe’s, I cautiously padded over and plopped into a chair in front of the holo-terminal and immediately regretted the decision. The seat—clearly not designed with human anatomy in mind—had the ergonomic sensibility of a torture rack. No real back support, no cushions, the arm rests shaped like spiral corkscrews with weird notches of material poking into places they didn’t belong.
I shifted until the least painful bits aligned then reached for the computer in front of me. There was something akin to a keyboard and though none of the keys were where they should be—or in English—it didn’t take me long to find a toggle to unmute the screen. The video started over, this time with sound.
A mass of tentacles filled the view, and I recoiled on instinct.
The thing on the screen was vaguely humanoid in structure, but only in the most liberal sense of the word. Mostly, its body was a tangle of writhing appendages and flapping gray tentacles, its torso covered by a sleek white smock that might’ve passed for a lab coat of some sort. A badge was clipped to the garment, displaying a complex runic sigil and a barcode running along the top.
A single, massive eye, wet and glistening, sat dead center where a head should’ve been. There was no eyelid to speak of, and the pupil was an enormous ring of gold, the size of a small dinner plate. The creature had no visible mouth that I could see, but it spoke anyway—a set of odd, hairy tufts on either side of its eye wriggling as it talked.
I recognized the voice, even though I’d only heard it a handful of times before. It was the same voice that had greeted me upon arrival. The Researcher.
“If you’re seeing this message,” he said, “then containment protocols have utterly failed and I’m leaving this recording for posterity’s sake. I am—or was—the Head Researcher of assigned to the Progenitor Ship, KAIROS Carrier, NIC-001V.”
The screen crackled. In the background, alarms flared dimly and something screeched behind the camera. The lights flickered as shadows moved in the reflection of the viewport behind the researcher.
“The Blight, first brought on board by the Drekhnaar, has spread beyond VRD control. We underestimated its rate of replication… and its intelligence. It’s not a pathogen—at least not in the strictest sense of the word. Nor even a lifeform. Not the way we understand them. It’s a vector for entropy disguised as biology. After copious study, we’ve found that the Drekhnaar themselves are not the source of the infection. Rather, they were just a pathogen vessel, their species co-opted by the Bight at some distant point in the past.”
The eye narrowed.
“We thought the Quarantine Vaults would be sufficient. They weren’t. Our initial assumptions about the pathogen lead us to several false conclusions, which resulted in the initial quarantine breach. Several sublevels have already been contaminated and our best efforts to cordon off the floors have proven to be insufficient to the task. As of now, we’ve confirmed there are several active Blight colonies on multiple unconnected floors… including the unindexed zones and even the Midrange Memory Pools. Worse still…”
The Researcher hesitated, his tentacles curling tighter around the desk he stood behind.
“The Progenitor Ship itself has been compromised.” I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but the Researcher sounded devastated. “Its neural core is no longer responding to system overrides. It is continuing to fabricate materials and environments, but it’s doing so without oversight. We think it’s trying to stay true to its primary directives: stimulation, growth, iteration. But it’s… off. The Dwellers aren’t stable. Subspaces are overlapping. The simulation parameters are degrading. Essentially, what it’s creating isn’t what we programmed—it’s what it remembers from past simulations.” He faltered. “The truth is, we don’t actually know what it is doing.”
The screen shook. Something slammed into the far wall of the recording room, but the Researcher didn’t flinch.
“The others are dead,” he continued. “Most of them, anyway. Some are… no longer themselves.” His voice softened and the enormous pupil dilated. “Until containment is restored, the Ship will remain moored indefinitely on Earth 367, Multiversal Grid 18-Kappa / Quadrant Cascade 8001 / Anchor Point: 7.421.ΘΔ. We cannot risk another jump. Cannot risk taking this… this infection to another world, much less our home world. If the Blight managed to spread through our dimension interface, it could mean a galactic extinction level event.
“And to the people of Earth, for what it’s worth, know that you have our deepest condolences and apologies. We never meant your world harm—just the opposite. Please believe that our purpose is a noble one, even if our methods may seem strange. The long-standing mission of the VRD is the betterment of all sapient galactic life. Those abducted were simply the forerunners of your species. Heralds designed to allow your world to integrate with the advanced technology of our own. To harness our magic as we introduced it slowly to your planet.”
The creature’s body seemed to droop in defeat.
“But now we may very well have consigned your world to destruction. I will do my utmost to contain the Blight and get the ship back under my control, but it could take time. Perhaps even a very long time—assuming it is possible at all. And without the rest of the Researchers, I may need to employ some rather unorthodox methods, including utilization of test subjects. Regardless of the outcome, the Blight can not be allowed to leave the ship.
“If it breaches these walls and germinates, Earth could very well end up like the Drekhnaar home world. This may come as bitter news, but under no circumstances should the Delvers or Dwellers on this vessel be allowed to leave until the ship has been entirely purged. Even if you are not currently infected with Blight, it is entirely possible that the contagion could spread anyway. To leave is to endanger your very world. Your entire system.”
There was another crash followed by a chorus of screams and wet, organic tearing noises.
Then the video cut off before looping again.
I hit the mute button before it could autoplay again.
But the silence that followed wasn’t peaceful. It was heavy. Suffocating. It was the same silence that had settled over our convoy after Sergeant Martain had died, blown apart in the sands of a country far from home. It was the sound of defeat. I sat there in that hideous alien chair, unable—or maybe unwilling—to move.
We couldn’t go home.
Not now.
Maybe not ever.
The Blight was far worse than any of us had thought, contaminating floors and systems we didn’t even know existed. Hell, it had infected the ship itself, which explained a lot. It also meant every floor, every progenerated Dweller, every glitchy corridor could be a vector. We were vectors. And if we left—if anyone left—there was a real chance we wouldn’t just doom ourselves.
We’d doom the entire planet.
My planet.
A low thump echoed through the room. I stole a look over one shoulder and saw that Jakob had finally stopped rifling through notes. The Cendral sank into a chair across the aisle like a puppet with its cut strings—all of his hopes burned in the wake of the revelation.
Harper leaned against a desk with both hands, her brow furrowed in disbelief. “So that’s it? We’re just stuck here forever? There’s no going back? No one’s coming to save us…” Her voice trembled and I could hear the unshed tears in her voice. “That was always the fallback, you know? That someone—somehow—would find a way to pull us back. But they can’t. Not now.”
Croc was quiet, which was more unsettling than anything. The mimic cradled the package of Synth-Meat like a stuffed animal, its googly eyes unusually still and contemplative.
Temperance said nothing. She just stared at the floor, her blade still cradled in her arms, shoulders slumped in quiet devastation. She looked… broken. She’d always viewed this place as a divine trial, a crucible of growth and transformation. A proving ground built by something bigger than any of us. Her faith had kept her steady and resolute when nothing else did.
But now she knew the truth.
We all did.
This was no godly forge. This was a lab experiment that had gone off the rails.
When she finally spoke, her voice was brittle. Fragile.
“All this time,” she said, “I thought… I thought we were chosen. That the Backrooms had saved us for something greater. A way to test us because we were worthy somehow…” she faltered. “But I was wrong. It’s all just a mistake. One, colossal mistake.”
“Well,” Croc offered helpfully, “maybe it’s still a test? Like… a really, really awful one?”
“No.” She shook her head, a bitter smile tugging at her lips. “There is no greater meaning to be found here. This, all of this”—she waved a hand around—“is pointless.”
I cleared my throat.
“There’s more that you don’t know,” I said, since it seemed like a moment for hard truths. I explained to them what I’d seen back in the Splicer Chamber. The reason for the ship. The way they abducted different races and replicated their environments so that the VRD could monetize and weaponize the discoveries they found scattered across the multiverse.
No one responded, still too shell-shocked to say more.
“What do we do now?” Temperance finally asked, raising her head to meet my eyes. “There’s no way home and nothing waiting for us below, expect more nightmares. Do we… just give up?”
“No,” I replied immediately, steel in my voice. “We aren’t just going to roll over and die, even if things seem bleak. Obviously, this changes things, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. The idea that we could ever make it back home, maybe with a story to tell or a scar to show off… that was something to hold onto.”
I looked around at my team—my friends. The people who’d followed me this far despite every reason not to.
“But we’re still here,” I continued. “Still alive despite everything. And it doesn’t change the mission right in front of us. Fact is, the Monarch is still out there. Still hunting us. He’s still trying to murder our friends and break everything we’ve worked so hard to build—and I’m not gonna let that happen. The Marine Corps taught me that you can’t always control your situation, but you never stop fighting for your brothers and sisters on your left and right. I might never see my family again, but you all are family too, and I’ll be damned if I let this place take that from me.”
“Dan,” Harper said, her voice rough. “Even if we kill the Franchisor, even if we make it to the 1000th floor and find the Progenitor Engine, what then? There’s no finish line.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I said with a shrug. “Sure, this place isn’t what any of us thought, but there’s still a chance. The Researcher is still alive and trying to figure out a way to cleanse this ship. He hasn’t given up hope—not even after thousands of years—so I’m not going to give up either.”
Jakob rubbed his temples. “Do you really think there’s anything we can do?” he asked. “To kill the Monarch. To stop the Blight?”
“Hell if I know,” I replied, “but here’s what I do know. This place might be a nightmare, but it’s a nightmare with rules. With systems designed to make us stronger. The Researcher wouldn’t be going through all this trouble if there was no hope at all. So maybe it’s going to take a while before we figure out how to cleanse the Blight. Maybe we never do. But we definitely won’t get the chance if we’re dead. And right now, stopping the Monarch means killing the Franchisor. Period. End of story. That’s our mission and we need to see it through.”
Temperance just stared at me. Her expression wasn’t serene. It wasn’t devout.
It was hard. Cold. Focused.
“Then let’s kill something,” she said.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” I replied, standing.
I headed for the kiosk, stepping around overturned chairs and metal workstations. The AutoBar stood innocently at the far end of the chamber, its chrome exterior gleaming under the flickering fluorescents like a polished coffin.
The hatch that Unerring Arrow had marked was no bigger than a dishwasher door—certainly not something meant for a full-sized adult—but I’d learned to stop being surprised by the kiosk network’s spatial fuckery. I crouched down and gave it a gentle push. The metal panel swung open on silent hinges, revealing a smooth metallic tunnel that shimmered faintly with spatial magic.
I stared into the narrow passage, the space between floors, and braced myself. The weight of the Researcher’s message still clung to my bones like wet concrete. We weren’t just running anymore. We weren’t even just surviving.
Now we were containment—and maybe, just maybe, the first step in a long, bloody redemption arc for the entire galaxy.
I squatted down and crawled into the light, ready to face whatever the 99th floor could throw at us.