“Because I think the Boiling Plains is a supervolcano. And I think it’s erupting.”

As she spoke, the column of lava towered in the sky, defying gravity. A breeze tugged at her hair as the air from miles around was pulled into a fiery vortex whipping around the vast pillar, the night obliterated by its blaze. It hung there, suspended for what seemed eternity, before the top began to bend, to arc over the cratered landscape with a kind of relentless patience, as if nodding, as if…

It was at that point that Lilijoy put it together.

Oh crap.

“Anda, I think that’s the Regional Lord!” she yelled over a suddenly noisy environment. Standing at the very edge of the Rotted Lands as they were, they couldn’t see the ground forces involved in the combat, but Lilijoy was pretty sure they weren’t enjoying life at the moment, that is, if any of them were still alive. As if to punctuate her thought, a massive eruption of steam and gas roared forth, countless explosions chained together that sent boulders hurtling, meteors in reverse as far as she could see.

Above it all the vast neck of the Wyrm twisted and swayed, internal heat outlining huge, craggy scales in orange and yellow in a pattern like a desiccated riverbed.

I guess I should have known when I saw the word ‘Spawn’ in it’s description. Looks like baby’s all grown up now.

The air was growing thick with ash and fumes as great clouds rolled forth from a thousand new fissures and the ground rumbled in sympathy with a great call from the enormous beast. The barely visible forms of people fleeing, running into the Rotted Land, became apparent here and there. It appeared that the battle was not going well for the clans. Through it all, Anda stood, his eyes fixed on the Regional Lord, a look of palpable longing on his face.

Then he began to walk.

“Um, Anda,” she began, hurrying after him. “Maybe the other direction would be better?”

He stumbled as the earth quaked and shook beneath their feet. “No. They want to go there. All of them.”

A flaming boulder the size of a car flew over their heads as they moved onto the stony ground that marked the end of the Rotted Lands.

“That’s… nice? But you aren’t going to make it much farther without being crushed, burned or boiled!” she yelled over the tumult of hisses, cracks and rumbles. “Never mind the Regional Lord, this whole place is going to blow.”

“They want to return to the crater, is what they keep saying,” Anda said in a calm voice, jumping over a widening fissure. “It’s my people’s origin myth. But I think they might be right.”

As was often the case on the Inside, it was hard for Lilijoy to wrap her head around the stakes involved. There was a clarity Outside, life and death, permanent consequences. The repercussions for Inside decisions were murky, the consequences real, but often undefined. Even if Anda lost control of the Etalaki and they took over a new section of the boiling plains, it wasn’t like anyone would be moving into the area anytime soon.

It’s up to him anyway, I guess, she decided. “Hey Anda!” she called. “If you’re set on getting to the giant lava dragon thing in a hurry, I have an idea.”

He looked at her and nodded.

She cast her barrier spell, wondering if she would ever use it for its intended purpose. Her ‘wall’ sprung from the quaking, heaving land, an expanse of flat cutting across steam and fire. Even as it emerged it cracked and crumbled, beset by the tremors and small eruptions. That was fine by her though. The effort was less for purposes of mobility and more a message to a certain titan lighting the sky with its fiery presence.

Nonetheless, Anda ran out onto the path she had created, his long legs leaping over the constantly fracturing surface. Far above, Lilijoy saw the head of the Regional Lord turn toward them. She couldn’t help but give a saucy wave.

But it was Anda who captured its attention, the lone figure exposed on a flat plain that stretched for hundreds of meters. Slowly at first, the head began to plunge, a fiery comet with a tail of red and black falling out of the predawn sky. Despite herself, Lilijoy took a step back, head craned to follow the coming cataclysm.

Well, Anda, she thought, I guess the Etalaki are getting what they want.

With a roar that crushed Anda to the ground, the Regional Lord opened its mouth and fell upon him, engulfing him as it plunged into the earth. She had just a moment to register that it was truly passing through the earth, without the explosive impact she had expected, before a shockwave of superheated air picked her up and hurtled her body across the waste.

You have died!

Death Counter: 5

She opened her eyes on the Outside. Her need for sleep was gone, but that didn’t mean her eyes didn’t feel fatigue, and she had taken the opportunity of the dark and hushed atmosphere to rest her body while focusing on the Inside events.

Now that she was riding the white, she thought it might be nice to be all in one place. Even if that place was a dark assault craft on its way to nowhere. She didn’t log out as much as thoroughly ignore.

she sent, fingers crossed.

he replied.

Her feeling of relief was probably unnecessary, but powerful anyway.

“Where are we?” was the next thing she heard, now in his voice, quickly followed by, “I really hope there’s somewhere to go the bathroom.”

“Welcome back!” she called.

Nykka stirred and grumbled. Maria and Attaboy stayed fast asleep, but Mo sat up a bit. “Looks like sleeping beauty didn’t need a kiss,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Could have used some help back there, you know.”

Anda rubbed his eyes, still acclimating, and looked over at Mo. “It does appear that way,” he said, taking in the man’s injuries.

They pulled over for a minute so that Anda, and as it turned out, almost everyone else could take turns relieving themselves. Then they were on the move again.

“So, wandering around to avoid being pinned down again doesn’t seem like a good long term strategy,” Anda said. “Do we know how they found us?”

Nykka shook her head. “They had something in the air with good surveillance. I suppose they could have been up there for a while, looking for us.”

“That wouldn’t tell them shit,” said Mo. “Nah, they smelled us out.”

Lilijoy turned that over in her mind. Would her chemical sensing abilities been up to the task? She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded plausible.

“It’s probably some combination,” she said. “But how they did it initially doesn’t matter so much now. The problem is that they could be actively tracking us, and there’s not much we can do about it.”

“If these were mercs, they probably won’t have a whole ‘nother team ready to go,” Mo said. “We’re probably good for a bit.”

Anda looked concerned. “We can’t rule out escalation. If Walden sent them, and they know where we are, they could decide to bring their own forces. We wouldn’t stand much of a chance against their upper echelon.”

“As long as they don’t have gas masks...” Lilijoy began. She stopped when she saw Anda shake his head.

“Your system, our system I guess, is a frightening trump card, but I’m very reluctant to engage with a higher Rank. By the time you infiltrated their bodies, they could have killed us all. If they are forewarned… well, I think that assuming you will always be able to subvert your opponent could be a dangerous notion.”

Nykka nodded. “There’s a huge gap between the fighting abilities of Rank Seven and Rank Eight. Bigger than between any other Ranks, maybe even bigger than between the Ranked and the unaugmented. A good Rank Eight could kill us all in seconds.”

“Oh,” was all Lilijoy could say, unhappy to learn that the situation was possibly worse than she had thought.

“The odds of that coming to pass are slim,” Anda added, seeing her reaction.

“Unless it’s personal. Better hope the kid that tough guy here beat up wasn’t too well connected.” Mo added, gesturing to Attaboy, the only member of their little group still to stir.

“Thanks for that, Mo,” Lilijoy replied. “Not to change the subject, but how did you manage to survive back there?”

“I was wondering that myself,” Nykka added.

Mo shifted uncomfortably.

“It was his gods who saved him,” Maria said.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then she continued. “They saved me and probably you too,” she said, pointing at Anda. Then she looked at Lilijoy. She didn’t say anything, but Lilijoy could see hurt in her eyes, an unspoken question.

Lilijoy realized that she had literally leapt over Maria pursuing Attaboy’s captor. “I’m sorry, Maria...” she started.

“We’re all fine, and that’s what matters,” Mo broke in. “I had some weird shit going down in my head. I don’t know what it was, I don’t know what it means, and frankly, I don’t want to talk about it.” Seeing their expressions he added, “...now.”

“I know what you mean,” said Anda. “I’m going to be sorting through what happened to me for years. So let's get back to our current circumstance. I let Kurtz know we’ve held up our end of the bargain just a few hours ago. He said we can do a trade through Sothechrist’s within the week.”

“So what, we drive in circles for a week? That sounds fun,” said Nykka.

“We have about eight hours of power left, so no,” Anda replied. “The problem seems to be, as long as we stay in here we can be tracked from above, but if we move on foot we can be tracked chemically or by smell.”

“We could try to outrun them,” Nykka suggested. “It’s got to be an airship of some kind, big enough to drop gas canisters.”

“Probably better to put some space between us and the city, too,” Mo added.

Anda shook his head. “What’s restraining Walden is the Corp rules. If we go too far, we may find ourselves in much worse trouble.”

“I just thought of another problem,” said Lilijoy. It had been niggling away at the back of her mind. “That gas had nanomachines in it. I destroyed them and only kept a few to analyze, but Mo and Maria probably have tons in them.”

“Shit!” Mo exclaimed. “Like I don’t have enough to worry about.”

“We’ll get them out of both of you,” Lilijoy reassured him. “I just wish I knew what they did.”

“Trackers, would be my guess,” Anda said. “Harmful nanotech is very rare, and very expensive. Not something you would casually throw away in a gas attack.”

At that point, Attaboy awoke. “Where am I?” he asked.

Nykka prodded him with her toe. “Finally pulled it together, eh? We’re in the assault vehicle, genius.”

He batted her foot away and sat up. “Oh, hi, everyone,” he said, rubbing his head with one hand. “Sorry for sleeping in. I guess we beat the bad guys?”

They brought him up to speed.

He shook his head at their predicament, then turned to Mo.

“Uh uh,” Mo said, before Attaboy could open his mouth. “Not talking about it.”

“Sorry,” he said, looking abashed for about a millisecond. “But you did something impossible. I can’t let that go. I need to understand.”

Mo narrowed his eyes. “You. Need to understand.”

Attaboy looked back at him.

Oh no. I know that expression.

Maria broke in, as she had before. “It was his gods. They gave him strength and showed him what was to come.”

“Gods,” Attaboy repeated. “Right.”

“Believe what you want,” Mo said. “I sure as hell don’t know.”

Attaboy looked at Lilijoy, and she was alarmed to see panic in his eyes. “None of this is real, is it?”

She wasn’t sure how to reply, perhaps because his question wasn’t that far off from her own thoughts at times. To her surprise Nykka answered him.

“Do you exist?”

Attaboy’s eyes darted over to hers.

“I don’t know who I am," he said.

“Pfft. Get over yourself. You exist, that’s what matters. The rest is just details. Inside, Outside, it’s all just senses. You’re panicking because you don’t know what any of it means. Well, guess what, it means whatever the hell you want it to. There is no external meaning. What does it matter if you’re hallucinating, or a brain in a vat, or a butterfly? It’s all input to process.”

She turned to Mo. “I get why you don’t want to talk about it. Losing your mind is some scary shit. Been there done that. But now I have to agree with Attaboy. Whatever is going on inside of you is starting to come out to play with the rest of us. Good thing too, because without you, we wouldn’t all be here, stuck in this stupid car.”

There was a brief silence when she finished.

“Fine,” said Mo at last. “You all know I hallucinate random Mayan gods. Sometimes they warn me when things are about to happen, but never soon enough to do anything about it. Until today anyway. Before that, I figured it was just my own intuition or some shit, you know, repackaged. Tonight, Ixtlab, who’s one scary...” he glanced toward Maria, “...lady, talked to me directly. She told me I could be her priest, thanks but no thanks, said my ‘walls were thin’, said that madness was required to approach the divine. So… feeling pretty good about that, on the whole.”

He flashed a humorless smile. “Then shit got crazy...er. That whole time I knew where they were going to attack. Sometimes, it felt like my body was moving on its own. Obviously it wasn’t perfect,” he indicated his many wounds, “but it sure messed with their heads.”

“What confuses me,” Anda interjected, “is why. Even if we accept that there are something like gods, external beings floating around the world, or back after a nice nap, why show up in this way?”

“I think it’s way too soon to consider this as something external,” said Lilijoy. “Or maybe I mean separate? Let me tell you what I’ve learned.”

She went on to tell them about Sarah’s letter, and about Rule Two as she understood it, throwing all of Marcus’ notions about the Rules out the window. She told them her theory about Guardian itself being a tool wielded by something greater still. She had shared bits and pieces with one or another of them, but this was the first time she had ever spoken with abandon, and it felt good to finally set down the burden of caution and secrecy.

As she spoke, red and orange began to filter through the edge of the horizon, the dull glow of dawn. The others nodded and shook their heads at various times, and there was a gasp or two, usually from Maria.

“Let me get this straight,” said Nykka, after she was finished. “You or Attaboy could disappear without warning at some point in the near future. Like, vanish.”

Lilijoy shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. That’s what Emily said happened to her son.”

“Was anyone watching? Maybe he just fell in a hole or something. Seems more plausible”

Again Lilijoy shrugged.

“Well,” Nykka continued, “better get cracking on making more Suenos System.”

Lilijoy didn’t think she was kidding.

At that point, Attaboy spoke up. “There’s been something off with me for a while now. I wasn’t seeing things though, not exactly, not until this business with Mo anyway. I wonder if it’s the beginning of what Sarah was describing?”

Lilijoy nodded. “I’ve been wondering too, if this isn’t the answer to Anda’s earlier question, that Mo’s gods are actually the beginning of the process. Signs and portents.”

“Well that’s… just peachy,” said Mo. “I can’t even go crazy without it involving you two.”

“So now what?” asked Maria.

“I don’t think it really changes much,” said Anda. “Now we know that something is going on, something far bigger than any of us. Mo, I think you need to tell us everything you can remember, maybe once we’ve found a place to settle, and Attaboy, keep us posted on what’s happening with you.”

“Anda,” Lilijoy said, “do you think what you went through with the Etalaki is related? There certainly seem to be some parallels with Mo’s experience.”

“It’s something I was thinking about while you were talking,” he replied. “There’s also the question of Emily and Shadow, and what it is that they’re up to and how it may relate.”

Nykka was looking back and forth between them as they talked. “Sounds like Mo isn’t the only one who has more stories to tell,” she noted. “Who’s Shadow?”

“That’s a long story,” Lilijoy said. “Quimea has had dealings with his organization, but you may not have been in that loop. Shadow set up the whole situation at Averdale, as far as I can tell. He’s an Insider who has figured out some way to influence the Outside directly, has a whole organization in both worlds. He sent an Outsider girl to befriend me and manipulate events.”

“Maybe you should contact her?” Nykka suggested.

Lilijoy grimaced, and at that moment a message entered her system.

Sender: Amihan Matapang (Magpie)

Subject: You’ll never believe this...

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