The Junction Tower was just in sight, and it looked like it would stay that way until we figured out what to do about the demons swarming around the bottom of it.

“All I’m saying is that we should keep someone back in case the deal doesn’t go our way, then we can erase them all,” Markus offered.

“No,” I replied for the thirtieth time. “We remain civil. There are too many of them and we don’t know what rabdoses they have. Besides, I have this sneaking suspicion that you’ll make the deal go wrong, and I’m not giving you the satisfaction.”

Toll had perched atop a tree and was staring towards the tower, trying to glean any necessary information they could before we waltzed in. “Until we have full information on what they have, a trap may prove to be pointless.”

Markus tossed a hand up in exasperation. “Then hurry up and ask the questions, human.”

I shook my head. “There are too many of them and they’re collecting rabdoses. We don’t need Toll to know that.”

Sitting cross-legged in the dirt, Enzi hurled a knife in the air. It came flying point down at Volce, who sat perfectly still with his hands laid out with a few small gaps between his fingers. The knife struck right between the smallest gap, causing the deuce to let out a frustrated, “Again?”

“We’re even on points,” said Enzi. Then she turned to me with a beaming smile across her face. “Not to be rude, but I’m not fully convinced of your logic. Even if we try to negotiate, there’s no reason they wouldn’t spring an ambush on us before a deal is made.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d made a similar objection. As odd as it was, Enzi was the most stoic hold out of the lot. Between her endless queries, Toll’s nonstop prods to ask them questions, and Markus stirring the pot with various plots to engage in indiscriminate slaughter, everyone had made themselves comfortable around one of the many trees that had been toppled by digresser movement.

Enzi and Volce were playing a game where they tossed a sharp object in between each others’ fingers. Smaller targets scored more points, and the winner was the one who accumulated the most without injuring the other. The object they were throwing, of course, was a knife. It may have looked ridiculous, but they were both honing their talents. And they were taking it very seriously.

We’d had no incidences since the estray fight. As in, literally nothing. No hostile parties, no digressers, no rabdoses lying around for us to grab. Nothing. It made sense: the digressers in the area had all fallen under Silica’s control now that the estray was gone, and if there was anyone in the area, they would have been swallowed whole. And even if a rabdos was lying around, it was likely to be buried in the destruction that the digressers left in their wake.

I was grateful for the break. After what had transpired during the fight with the estray—and the events following—I was still in shock. The ash had numbed most of my fear to the point where I couldn’t even feel traumatised by it, so it was all catching up on me now. I’d been a lot testier that morning, and every complaint that the demons made about my plans had me really considering whether I should abandon them and join the party at Junction Tower.

Letting out a long and frustrated sigh, I tried to explain my rationale again. “Fighting is bad for both us and the party at the Tower. They’ve set up a toll, and if we pay the fee, they’ll let us pass. I know this because it happens whenever a Ring of Betrayal is included in any Culling. There are—actually, Enzi, since you wanted to know the reason why, let me borrow ††† Here be plunder! †††”

I was careful about how I phrased that sentence. So long as it sounded like I was doing Enzi the favour and not the other way around, I was unlikely to owe her one. At least, that’s what I was hoping for. There was still plenty of leeway regarding what was considered a favour or not, but given that I was a human, I could interpret that a little more liberally than Enzi could.

The enepsi wouldn’t be deterred, of course. From her cross-legged position, she leaned forward, rested an elbows on her knees, and cupped her chin in her hands. She gave me the biggest puppy dog eyes she could manage, even going so far as to physically increase the size of her eyes to really sell the effect.

“But—but—you can’t just take my precious belongings. I worked so hard to get them.”

I stared at her deadpan. “Enzi, I already think so little of you. But even so, that was really low.”

She blinked at me a couple times before turning away and pouting in a display of offense. To rub ash into her wounds, Volce thrust a finger at Enzi and shouted, “Hah!”

“Well at least I didn’t have to be saved in order to get close to him,” she shot back at Volce.

I folded my arms and drummed my fingers on my triceps. “So you admit that the whole damsel in distress thing you’d put on when we first met was an act?”

Hell, not only had she pretended to be beaten by a few digressers—mind you, she’d pommelled a bunch of them to smithereens right before my eyes—but she even used that whole show as a pretence to throw herself on top of me. As “thanks”.

Enzi’s pout became even more indignant and she pointedly turned away from me. Volce followed up with more pointing and a louder, “Ha hah!”

Of course, Enzi wouldn’t just embarrass herself like that if not to gain something. However, I was struggling to figure out exactly what that was. I decided to play the diplomat in the hopes I could offer her a reason not to protest.

“Listen, Enzi,” I began. “Usually it’s Markus that I have to talk out of committing genocide.”

The haures in question gave a shrug. “All I’m saying is that I like to cut deals and necks. I can go either way.”

Ignoring him, I continued, “The last thing I—we all need is a second elimination hobo. So please try to cooperate with me.”

The enepsi stood, dusted off her blue dress, then clasped her hands behind her back. That act had the effect of causing her chest to pop out, a sight which I pointedly refused to witness. Offering me a beaming smile, she chimed, “I understand. I’ll try not to become like that.”

With a flourish, she drew out the map and placed it on the floor. We all gathered as close to each other as we dared, which meant that, aside from myself and Volce, everyone was keeping their distance. Even Enzi didn’t get too close to me.

I leaned over the map. My mother’s pendant slipped out of my shirt. In my haste to stuff it back in, I’d released Möbius, leaving it floating in the air. Honestly, I had grown so used to it always being there that I often forgot I was holding it. Once I was ready, I started tweaking with the symbols of ††† Here be plunder! †††.

A model of the Ring of Betrayal rose out of the parchment. With a couple more presses of the icons, details such as trees and buildings started to dot its landscape. This was now the difficult part, on account of me having forgotten it. I tried a couple of different icons and the parchment repeatedly warped and folded. After a few minutes of fumbling, however, I hit the right setting. Four pylons rose from spots in the middle of the Ring’s thickness, each located along the four the cardinal directions.

“Alright,” I announced, inviting the demons to listen. “Here you can see the four Junction Towers. Each of these Towers has two functions. Firstly, they can allow you to form a party. In order for us all to pass the first Ring”—and, more importantly, to reduce the chances of me getting murdered in my sleep—“we need to become a party. This will cause all of our points to be shared between the party.

“The second function is teleportation. Each of these Junction Towers allows you to teleport to any of the other Towers for a fee of fifty points. Just like with the exit fee of five hundred points, it can be paid by the party.”

Enzi was sitting on her shins at the adjacent end of the map. She leaned in closer and stared hard at the map. “I’m assuming that you believe the Junctions are all occupied by demons looking to monopolise the teleport function.”

“Yes, literally so. Think about it like this.” I pointed to one of the Junctions. “Say there are fifty demons in a party that own this Junction. Between them, they’d have a lot of firepower and a lot of points.” I pointed to the Junction opposite. “Then say this one was guarded by a party of twelve. If the party of fifty teleported to the one with the part of twelve, they’d be able to mop them up pretty quickly.”

“Of course, but then they may just choose to avoid conflict so as not to lose any of their party members.”

I folded my arms. “But they don’t have to worry about that. There’s a fresh supply of party members at the opposite Junction. If they can gain the upper hand, they can push the remaining survivors into accepting a deal. Something like, give us all your rabdoses and become a member of our party so that we can use your points.”

Volce scoffed. “It’s like a perpetual point machine. They can just keep repeating that over and over. They don’t even have to worry about the costs, because every time they conquer another party, they just get more points.”

“Correct. Which is why you inevitably end up with one large party taking over all the major control points in the Ring of Betrayal. However, there’s another problem here.

“Let’s say that the larger party leaves one Junction open to raid every once in a while. They show up periodically to attack anyone who tries to take it for themselves, but sometimes there’ll be no one there. Now they’re wasting points. Alright, no issue. Instead of leaving it open, they decide to keep scouts nearby to warn them when another party tries to take over the Tower. However, if the scout gets caught, they’ll give away a portion of the party’s total points when they’re eliminated. Remember, in this party arrangement, every member has equal ownership of points, so if one out of ten dies, you lose ten percent of your total points regardless of how valuable that member is to the party. Therefore, the obvious play is to just take it over and keep it.”

“And cut a deal with any poor sap who wants to beat the odds by partying up,” Markus added.

“Exactly. Since they have all the firepower, they can easily bully them out of a lot of their rabdoses, or even demand they join their party instead.”

Enzi glared even harder at the map. “I’m still not convinced,” she said. “If they’re so strong, they could just eliminate the competition there and then. I see no reason why they would choose to let them live.”

It was Toll who answered. “I believe the humans call this practice, ‘Fattening up the pig.’ Do I have that correct, Algier?”

Obviously, the balaam was trying to bait me into playing their game by correcting a wrong answer. There isn’t really a term for it, though. I responded, “We don’t eat piglets. We let them grow and slaughter them when they’re adults. It’s a similar principle.”

Volce face scrunched up in disgust. “Why the fuck would you eat pigs? They’re adorable.”

“And delicious,” I answered before Toll could. “There’s no point in eliminating weak Participants when you can wait for them to collect a few more points and rabdoses in later rounds. It saves you the trouble of collecting them yourself.”

Enzi burned a stare into the map. “There’s also nothing to stop them from demanding that we join them.”

“Actually, there are two things. One, we’re a threat. A large party needs to have a clear chain of command, and having too many strong players will guarantee a betrayal. On account of that, two, it’s better to weaken strong parties than risk a fight.”

Enzi hummed a hesitant agreement. That was a good sign, but still, it was bothering me as to why Enzi was trying to sabotage the deal. She was out of ash, so Gale could only do so much for her. Furthermore, I doubted she had another rabdos anywhere near as good as Gale. There was little advantage in this for her.

The enepsi sat up straight and donned an unimpressed glare. “Well, that is a fair point. However, growing a party to enormous sizes is ridiculous because the members will betray each other. They are simply delaying the inevitable. As will you if you continue to pursue these sorts of deals.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Explain.”

“All I am saying is that we are a strong party and can grow stronger if we defeat this party ahead. I see no reason to risk getting caught up with a group like this, especially if they try to force us into obeying the whims of the party’s leader or giving up what rabdoses we have. I’d rather not lose more than what is necessary.”

That was when it struck me. Enzi wasn’t seeking an advantage—she was trying to hold me back. Had she actually acknowledged me as a legitimate threat, or was she trying to keep a leash on me for when Silica next came slithering up to us?

If it were the former, that could have spelled bad news for me. She was the only demon of the four who I thought I understood. My belief was that, by keeping a human close, Enzi was strengthening herself through my connection to her. Without someone latched onto her, those transformations of hers might slow and her form might become a little less bound to this world. In other words, she was using me to chase her hound. If she feared me, that relationship could break.

However, if she was afraid of Silica, that made things simple. Though I still wasn’t too sure as to why Silica was so focused on me, I could offer protection against the Valax’s attacks.

Well, those were my thoughts at the time. The real reason for her shift in attitude was something much more terrible. The fight with the estray had changed a lot of things, and it’s only looking back on it that I start to question how much of this was by design.

Or more accurately, how much of it was that Marquis’ design?

Regardless, I needed Enzi on board. After a couple seconds of consideration, I explained, “The greater issue is that these demons most likely guard the exit. Remember what that demon we’d captured”—who was subsequently burnt alive, I realised bitterly—“had told us about the group guarding the exit. They’re a strong party. The best way through that mess may be to cut a deal with them as well.”

Enzi folded her arms. “That’s a mighty assumption.”

“And it’s made with good reason. In almost every Ring of Betrayal, the party that controls the Junctions is also the party that controls the exit. I’d rather not take a risk.”

“We have a means for learning of such things.”

She was right. We could always ask Toll. And by we, it almost always implied me. After all, the answers a balaam gives to a human will always be more accurate than those given to demons.

I wouldn’t have been so opposed to the idea either had the Marquis’ words not been playing on my mind. Keep my corruption low or… something. I missed that part. More questions owed to Toll could increase corruption. That being said, this path was going to guarantee more corruption as a consequence of cutting a deal. More likely than not, they would have a haures making a deal with the victims who rolled on by. Even if they didn’t, Markus would.

Speaking of which, Markus stepped forward and clapped his hands. “Alright, since we’re more or less settled on our course of action, I’ll need a show of rabdoses.”

Naturally, all the demons denied him. Markus stared at them all deadpan.

“Listen, idiots,” he sighed. “If they have a competent haures, they’ll quickly find out we have a lot of rabdoses and demand a steep price. Furthermore, since we know so little about what’s happening outside of our little party, they’ll use our knowledge gap to exploit us further. Therefore, if we want to cut a deal, we need as much information as we can get before we waltz in. I can fill in most of the gaps in our knowledge as I haggle with the demons, including,” he shot myself and Toll equal death stares, “how many members they have and of what cantos they are.”

I butted in. “By deduction alone, they’ll at least have a haures for cutting deals and an iuda or aratosa for sending messages, respectively by sound or sight. We should go in assuming they have both those bases covered. If they don’t, we’re at an enormous advantage.”

“Yes, deduction,” Markus said, rolling his glowing red eyes. “The point is, I will be at an enormous disadvantage if I don’t know what rabdoses you have.”

Enzi narrowed her eyes. “And I’m assuming you won’t tell us what rabdoses you have.”

Turning slowly towards her, Markus flashed his fangs and the glow behind his eyes flared brightly. “You shouldn’t expect kindness from a demon who you tried to erase.”

They glared at each other for a long while, both refusing to back down. An awkward silence descended on our little camp within the woods.

“Wait, hold on a second,” Volce called, waving his pudgy arms. “Something seems a little bullshit to me. Algier, how many rabdoses do you have?”

I dipped my head towards Möbius. Of course, Toll took the opportunity and answered as well.

“All that which you can see on him,” the balaam replied.

Though nothing prevented Toll from answering a question after it had already been answered, the balaam tended to avoid doing so after I’d suggested we make a habit of hurling abuse at them. The fights, and the extra noise made consequently, were enough of a reason for Toll to reconsider. This time, however, there was a good reason to answer such a mundane question: peace of form against a lying human.

Volce’s mouth dropped to the floor—or the sky, given that he was currently floating upside down. “That’s total bullshit!”

“Then maybe some asshole shouldn’t have stolen the only other rabdos I had,” I said bitterly, shooting each of them an equally cold stare. Though I had my suspicions about who was most likely to take it, these were demons. If they saw an advantage in an action, they’d take it, social consequences be damned.

“Then I guess he’ll just have to give up the one rabdos he does have,” Markus stated.

I cocked an eyebrow and gestured towards Möbius, which was currently suspended in the air beside me. “Go ahead.”

Markus crossed his arms. “Ha ha. Jokes are for laughing at.”

“Fine!” Volce burst out, flipping back around. “I’ll tell you what I have but I’m also telling you what I’m not trading. There’s no way I’m giving away anything I have an affinity with!”

“But of course!” Markus replied. “We’d lose far too much of our strength if I were to do that.”

Enzi’s back straightened and she glared up at him. “Yes, that would be very convenient for certain members of our group. It’s best we don’t allow certain individuals to gain such an enormous advantage.”

Well, at least they were starting to get craftier in their dealings with Markus. It saved me the trouble of having to explain it to them. Giving away any rabdos you had an affinity with was idiotic—for many reasons.

Affinities are weird and not properly understood. Supposedly, they are a measure of your understanding of a rabdos, but my own observations have demonstrated that thinking to be in complete disregard for the rabdos itself. For all intents and purposes, a rabdos is a demon. If you need any further evidence of that, refer to the time that Everwant almost drowned me to death in a dreamscape. That’s not something an inanimate object can do.

The point is, affinities are a connection of sorts. Once you form a connection with the rabdos, it becomes easier to use them, or more of its properties are revealed to you, or any other number of strange occurrences may take place.

Möbius revealing its [Suspension] feat, which was the reason for it remaining suspended in space beside me, is one such example. Likewise, Markus had demonstrated a technique with Monk and Penny that had never been recorded during the Culling. When he’d pointed one finger of Monk at the palm of Penny, something akin to a black hole formed between the two gloves. My guess was that Markus had previously used Monk and Penny and had lost the rabdos at some point, resulting in it ending up in the Culling.

But who’s the one doing the connecting, you ask? If I were to guess, I’d say it’s all on the side of the rabdos. But for what reason and under what set of rules? Those questions I can’t even imagine an answer for.

Toll leapt down from the tree and approached the rest of us gathered around the map. They fixed their golden gaze on Markus, stabbed Briary into the earth, then leaned onto it.

“Since there is little chance of you all asking me a question,” they said, “I shall tell you this freely. It is within my interest, as well as yours, for you to know this.”

“Do tell,” Markus said, wiggling his brows.

“Amongst the party at the Junction, there is a balaam. I would suggest taking the human with you when negotiating a deal. Humans are of great importance to balaams. There is much you will be able to trade with them in exchange for questions asked.”

The party all faced me. What did they expect, that I would go along with their plans without hesitation? Well, if they did, that was all the better for me.

“Sounds like a great idea,” I told them.