“Tell me about this hierarchy again.”

Bruce kept his voice—or rather Evelyn’s voice—as even as he could as he stared Cedric in the eye. The man stared right back as a smile drew across his twisted face. They were back in the virtual therapy session room. This time it was a log cabin interior with a winter snow scape outside. Bruce had to admit, that if he were subjected to this kind of confinement, he’d be going a bit crazy too.

“Where are you going with this, doc?” Cedric asked.

“Just trying to understand. Humor me…please.”

Cedric snorted. “Your insincerity mocks the Great Ones, doctor. You don’t care about any of it. But you’ll feel the truth soon enough.”

Damn, this guy, Bruce thought. Same old story each time.

Bruce exhaled trying to think of another strategy. He needed real answers. Quickly. His window of opportunity was nearly up already. Soon the real Evelyn would be logging in to make her scheduled visit. Perhaps her last one before Dennis connected Cedric to the Crystal Shards.

Perhaps he could use that somehow.

“You’re right,” Bruce said. “I don’t really believe you. But I’m starting to believe that you think that what you say is absolutely true. So I’m giving you an opportunity to convince me. Just this once.” Bruce glanced at the metaphorical watch on Evelyn’s slender wrist. “In 40 minutes I’m going to switch back to my usual methods. But if you’re willing to open up, I’ll give you a reward.”

The man raised a brow. “A reward?”

“You heard me. If you tell me openly and honestly about the things you believe to be true, I’ll see to it that you get to stretch your legs a bit. Virtually anyway. Get out of these stupid vacation home post cards for a bit. Maybe even a game. What do you say?”

Cedric scoffed. “What’s the catch, doc?”

“No catch. I’m going to take everything you say at face value. No judgment. No tricks.” He then chuckled. “I honestly just want to understand. Do we have a deal?”

Cedric glanced at the virtual snow falling outside the frosted window and grimaced. “Deal…”

“So…” Bruce leaned forward and folded his hands under his chin. “What are these great ones and what do they truly want?”

* * *

“This is not good…”

My hopes fade as the morning sun silhouettes the line of Nether Trolls cresting the horizon about half a mile away. My friends and I are gathered on the parapets of the Western wall of Brookrun, summoned by the town bell still ringing from the city center behind me.

I wipe the sleep from my eyes to make sure I’m seeing things straight. “How many of them are there?”

“At least a hundred,” Blacktop says, peering through a small telescope. “And that’s not counting the gobs that you can’t see.”

“Damn it,” Maxis curses next to me. “Guess we must have pissed the Gob Queen off by killing too many of her minions.”

I didn’t anticipate that outcome. Although we’ve been XPing for three days straight, I was careful to be selective about where we camped, keeping well out of sight of the Goblin Queen’s army in general. But I suppose we must have tipped the scales at some point.

“Looks like a major attack,” Lady Diana says with a frown. She then looks to me with a squint of her cop eyes. “Have you prepared enough? Are you ready?”

“I think so.”

I check my character sheet and hope that I’m right.

Name: Reece

Class: Ninja

Level: 97

Strength: 6+200

Dexterity: 99+270

Agility: 99+80

Intelligence: 44

Mind: 6

Vitality: 31+20

HP: 1962/1962

Stamina: 417/417 (+50)

TP: 246/246 (+30)

“Not Max level like I had hoped,” I say. “But close.”

I’d dumped all my extra attribute points into Intelligence. I was almost at the 50 pioint mark where by casting tines would decrease by another full second or two. But of more advantage was access to the new abilities I had. I just wish I had time to find scrolls for all the new ninja techniques I could be missing out on as well.

“Hey,” Maxis says with grin as he slams his fists together. “Let’s look at this another way. We kill all those trolls and we’ll all be max level. I say that Gobbo Queen just did us a favor by bringing the XP spot closer to home.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Aiko says dryly. “We can’t XP those things in packs of five and six. This is an all-out assault. We need to think about protecting the town now.”

Although my brother was probably just trying to lighten the mood, Aiko’s words bring us all back to the harsh reality of the situation.

“We have the cannons, at least,” Gilly says optimistically. Her eyes then glow with her HUD as she brings up what looks like the interface for the town. “The walls are fully repaired and reinforced too. And we have at least one tunnel to use if everything goes south.”

“I think they just did,” Val Helena says from above us. She then extenders her arm towards the East. “Look!”

We turn away from the approaching Trolls and towards the direction the Half-giantess is pointing. My heart freezes as a line a mammoths and Hill giants a mile long crests the opposite horizon.

“This can’t be happening,” Gilly says. “Both of them attacking…at the same time?”

“Talk about crap luck,” Maxis mutters.

“No,” Lady Diana says. “This is not happenstance. King Braxus would only attack during a period of advantage. He may have been waiting for such an attack from the Goblin Queen to reveal himself.”

“You mean he could have been waiting here the whole time?” Maxis says.

I nod. “That sounds about right.”

I exhale an anxiety filled breath. The time for preparation is over. We’re in the real deal now. I turn to my friends to address them as confidently as I can. “This is not how I would have planned it, but we’re still prepared. I know this looks bleak, but Braxus showing up with that army is actually just what we need.”

“What are you talking about?” Blacktop says. “We can’t fight the both of them.”

“We won’t be,” I say. “Not if we do this right.”

* * *

“I told you,” Cedric said. “They have come for the feast.”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “But why? What makes them want to consume us? Are we just food?”

A blank expression crossed Cedric’s face, as if the idea never presented itself to him before. “I don’t try to understand their ways. We’re like ants compared to them, understand?”

“So if we’re just ants, how do you know they won’t just consume you like everyone else? What makes you so special?”

“Because I have the sight. I passed the test.”

“And so you cut a deal with them? Can they even be reasoned with?”

“Would you reason with an ant, doc? They set the rules not me.”

Bruce sighed. He needed to get onto new territory here. “You mentioned that some are stronger than others, right? Smarter. A hierarchy. Tell me about it.”

His eyes shifted to the side but he didn’t answer.

“What? Don’t clam up on me now. We had a deal.”

“It’s not something I know a lot about,” he said. “I don’t like to speak half-truths.”

“I won’t take it as gospel them. Just tell me what you know.”

Cedric huffed but still remained silent.

“You really think they care what an ant thinks?”

Cedric’s eyes narrowed, spurred by the taunt. “They have a system, all right…”

“What system?”

“Like…” He gestured nondescriptly with his hands. “A structure.”

“Like order?”

“Like an army. Ranks and classes. All that. There are some that are more powerful than others. There might even be a thing that eats them.”

This was new. “What?”

Cedric again diverted his gaze. “I don’t want to speak blasphemy.”

“Blasphemy?”

“It’s not something I was told…it was something… I saw.”

“And what did you see?”

Cedric licked his lips. Bruce held off prodding, sensing the situation. Cedric’s demeanor had changed. He seemed nervous, his knee bouncing with the desperation of a man finally willing to spill dark secrets that had been eating him alive.

There was a long pause, but eventually Bruce’s patience paid off.

“Once,” Cedric said. “While I was in commune, I saw something in the distance that reached the sky. I thought it was a mountain at first. But then it moved. It was the only time I’d ever sensed fear from the Great Ones.”

“What was it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. But they feared it. They feared it and fled.”

“What does that mean to you?”

“It means we need to fear the great ones even more…because I think that they may be the only thing standing between us and something even worse.”

“So that’s the purpose of the feast? To protect us?”

“To save some of us. Like a harvest. Keep the good grain to grow more.”

That was certainly a different angle.

“Is there a way to avoid this feast?” Bruce asked.

“There was always a way,” he said. “Apparently we broke some rule…or law. If we don’t offer ourselves willingly, then they will simply take.”

“Offer?”

“The best…an offering requires the best. The good grain.”

Was that it…? Was that what Dennis was intending? To make an offering of Citadel to these monsters?

The buzzer on his timer chimed.

“I need to go.”

“Hey,” Cedric said. “What about what your promised me?”

“I’ll go and set it up.” Bruce said. “I’ll be right back.”

As he disconnected from the VR space, Bruce heaved with a heavy sigh. The AIs were looking at them like grain? And what could that thing be that Cedric had described? Some kind of omni AI perhaps? The legends did say that some Builders were more powerful than others.

“Hey you okay?” Carl asked, a look of concern on his brow.

“Not really,” Bruce said. “I think I know what Dennis is planning now.”

“What?”

“It’ll probably sound crazy,” Bruce said. “But I think he intends to harvest the Crystal Shards.”