"You look like you're working hard."

"Very," Cayden replied dryly. "I can practically hear you pouting Des."

"Was I even close?"

"If Celia were a bit better at sneaking, maybe."

The two had walked by a minute earlier, their voices echoing through the hall long before they passed by the library doors. Upon seeing Cayden with his feet up, eyes closed and chair back on two legs, they had made the silent agreement to mess with him, disappearing down the hallway only to slink back in a failed attempt to startle him.

"And you're doing what?" Celia asked, pride only moderately hurt by the rebuke. "Sitting in the moonlight and brooding? Leveling your perception skill?"

"Trying to be clever."

"How's that going for you?" Des grinned.

Cayden could only sigh. "Not well, if I'm being honest."

His booted feet swept off the table as he leaned forward and incanted two words that lit a nearby candlestick, inviting the two to come sit with him.

"Feeling upstaged by someone else for once?" Celia asked.

"Something like that." He nodded. "Shifty was right, I guess I just don't like it when things are going our way."

"There are worse attitudes to have," Desdaemona noted. "Come up with anything?"

"Absolutely nothing." He said with a shake of his head. "I keep looking at the grand quest and thinking 'wow, that'd be a lot of XP if we could finish it'. Not to mention any other possible rewards. Might be enough there that we could be strong enough to go headhunt Temujin as a backup plan."

"But to complete the quest-"

"-I have to be higher level. Yeah. Real catch-22." Cayden laughed. "If we weren't locked to the floor then maybe I could come up with some risky high-risk, high-reward plan. Or at least look at the damn internet to see if there is something obvious I'm missing."

"God I miss the internet," Celia murmured.

"I know, right?" Des laughed. "I can't decide if the first thing I'm going to watch is a cat video or p-"

The other two looked at her expectantly.

"-Anyways," Des said, idly tugging on one of her rebellious blue curls as she rapidly changed the subject. "Hmm. Have you tried killing a lot of monsters?"

Cayden gave her a look.

"Just a suggestion, it's how I got to this level."

"I think the issue is more quality than quantity," Celia observed. "Some of the higher-end Warden troops still give us XP, but to get four levels worth I'm pretty sure he'd more or less have to solo a decent chunk of their army."

"See," Des said. "We work the problem, and the problem is solved. Go get'em, tiger."

"I thought about farming the really weak stuff, but then I did some back-of-the-envelope math. I get about 3 XP on average from a normally leveled floor mob. I'd need about 40,000 of those. Which would be about four every minute for the next week. Without sleeping."

"Yeah, that isn't going to work." Celia agreed. "I'm guessing quests and bosses aren't going to make a difference either. Hmm."

"Hense the need for something clever," Cayden said.

"What if we were to-" Celia began to suggest before Cayden stopped her with an upraised finger.

He snapped his fingers twice and swiped on his AR display to answer the unexpected call. "It's late. Everything okay?"

"No." Silver said bluntly. "Get down here now."

"How is this even possible?" Desdaemona asked. "I thought neither side could move during the night phase."

Cayden and Silver exchanged glances with one another, as well as with their remaining Elan advisor, Roberta. None of them seemed ready to provide an answer, but it was Cayden who ultimately replied.

"They can't. But as far as we know they shouldn't be able to teleport their whole damn army either."

The attack was over an hour old. With no one watching the War Table during their supposed downtime, the first warning that anything was amiss had come from the Goon Squad member who had been sent to replace Shifty. The fires from the Elan camp could be seen from kilometers away, and the situation looked progressively more dire the closer he drew.

By the time he found a safe vantage point to confirm it, the outcome was already no longer in doubt. The entire field HQ had been wiped out.

For once, the War Table was not of much use parsing what had happened. The bulk of the Warden army had moved, but the table had not recorded the movement. It had been in one place, then suddenly it was in another. Worse yet, the enchantments upon it were bound by the turn schedule, which was causing it to glitch badly. The two hexes of the HQ, the ones they needed to know the most about, were entirely useless as the War Table kept trying to display two mutually exclusive sets of visuals. The Warden and Elan troops kept clipping in and out of one another, their stats corrupted and illegible. The only useful information to be gleaned was that the three warden units that had attacked during the evening turn had not moved and that the nine hex deep wall of single Elan units that served as their defense in depth was entirely undisturbed.

"Could they have copied what we did when we evacuated Islo?" Celia asked. "A teleportation circle?"

Roberta shook her head. "I don't think so. We needed several mages in tandem to manage it, and near as we can tell, you killed off their only mage in Islo. That, and you need a destination circle. It wasn't hard to communicate with a player outside the city and have them draw the circle, but I can't even think of how they'd get one inside our field headquarters.

"We already have one player holding on to the relic that started this whole mess. I wouldn't put treachery past anyone." Silver spat.

"An illusion, maybe?" Desdaemona suggested.

"That was what I was thinking," Cayden said through a clenched jaw. "The three Warden units that attacked are still there. They might have been the only thing there since yesterday while the rest of the army walked around to perform this ambush."

"That explains everything but how they attacked at night." Silver said.

"Does it matter?!" Cayden shot back.

"Kind of, yeah." Silver replied indignantly. "Unless you think we can survive having this happen again."

"Can we even-" Cayden began, only to wave off the argument before it could devolve into a full screaming match. "We can figure out the how later. For now, we need a solution."

"A solution to what, Cayden?" Silver asked.

"If Bammer's goon is to be believed, we just lost our field headquarters. Probably all of our cavalry. That is what, a quarter of the damn army. We need to fix this!"

"How?!" Silver retorted. She looked ready to say more before something in his expression caused her gaze to soften. "Cayden-"

"We can rewind the turn." He offered, turning to Celia. "We can still manage that, even outside of our turn, right?"

"We can, but then what?" Celia asked.

"Then we..." Cayden started. When he couldn't find an immediate answer he let the words trail off, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. "We could..."

He flinched at the touch of Desdaemona's hand on his shoulder and took a half step away. He just needed a moment to concentrate.

The room grew deathly silent as they waited. Not for some clever tactic or innovative solution. Just for the realization to sink in.

"Son of a bitch..." Cayden swore before he turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

The double doors to Cayden’s personal quarters were open as Silver and Des arrived. For the notoriously private young man that was already a bad sign. One made all the worse by the realization that they were open because one of the two had been torn nearly clear from its hinges in a bout of haste and frustration.

The dim interior was no less a wreck. Broken glass from an overturned mirror had scattered across much of the floor, crunching underfoot as the pair eased their way through the shattered hardwood doors. A chair had been upended and broken, while the contents of the already messy desk had been scattered around haphazardly.

Cayden sat on the floor in the far corner of the room, amidst the wreckage of his tantrum, one knee pulled tight to his chest. His eyes were red and hollow as he looked up toward his friends, but they quickly focused. “I…”

“Stop.” Des interrupted before he could say anymore. She moved gracefully across the littered floor, one slippered foot sweeping away broken glass from his side so she could kneel beside him. “I get it.”

His eyes glistened anew. “I don’t have time to-“

“Stop.” Her voice was firmer this time. “This isn't your fault.”

"She's right." Silver reiterated, moving into view, her body silhouetted by the light shining in from the hallway. "There is blame enough to go around for this whole event, but it doesn't belong to any of us. There is no way you could have predicted that."

"I should have-"

"Cayden. Stop." Silver said sharply. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"What? No."

"Do you think I let it happen?"

"No."

"Then accept that if I couldn't stop it, you couldn't either." Her voice softened as she added. "Stop taking this all on yourself. You're a decent guy, but sometimes... things just happen. Either learn to accept that, or leave the game when this event is done. Because getting wound up in grief and perfectionism, I've lost friends to that. I'd rather not lose another."

"We're friends now, huh?“ Cayden asked with a weak smile that drew only a reproachful glare. “I get it. And I’m sorry about all of…this.”

That made Des laugh. “Cayden it is easy for me to forget you are not nearly old enough for the responsibilities you’ve put on yourself. Sometimes you need to act your age. This temper tantrum feels appropriate.”

Silver snorted in amusement but said nothing.

“What time is it anyway,” Cayden asked at last. He wasn’t wearing his AR glasses, and the windowless room had a certain timelessness to it.

“A little bit after noon.” Silver replied. When his expression shifted to one of concern she quickly added. “I handled the morning turn without you when you didn’t show up.”

"Valserys?" He asked.

Her pained look told him enough, but she said it anyway. "The Frame included him in our losses at the start of the turn once it finished glitching."

A dozen expressions flitted across Cayden’s face as he sought for the right words to say. Some were clearly still in the depths of anger or self-pity before he eventually settled on a simple. “Thank you. I don't know that I'd have had the courage to look.”

“You’ve got a few hours yet before you have to lock in orders. If you need to take a little more personal time, I’ll handle it.”

Silver’s less than accepting tone drew a sharp look from Desdaemona, but before the other woman could offer any rebuke, Cayden spoke. “I think I'll let you handle it until the evening turn at least. I didn't sleep well. Or at all."

"It is funny that you think I'm doing any better." Silver grinned as Cayden finally noticed the bags under her eyes. "Get some rest, but make sure you're up before the evening turn starts."

"Right," Cayden said. "Any reason in particular?"

"Remember that whole conversation we just had about not putting everything on yourself? That other people can have good ideas too?" Des asked.

"Vaguely."

"Well pay attention this time. Because Celia came up with a solution that might just get you to level 30."