1

As the team conducted a Basic-Heal-athon following the Thorn Spider battle, Emma and Jordan freed Harper and Damon from their web prisons on the marble floor. Among the walking wounded, Angie was the only one to get through the battle unscathed. Damon, who’d spent the entire encounter with his face glued to the floor, almost had the same distinction, but his head was burned from the acid splatter that had released the team from the web.

Zack’s injuries were the most serious. His lung had been punctured, but as Janna indicated, it wasn’t beyond healing. “Had the spider’s thorns been any thicker,” she told the group. “Zack would be dead.”

After a few rounds of Intermediate Heal, Harper’s left shoulder was a twisted mess of burnt tissue. That side of her armor had disintegrated, exposing her bare shoulder. She covered it with her enchanter’s cape.

Ethan and Janna had new scars. His was a large mark gouged across his chest and hers was scrawled down her leg. Meanwhile, Jordan was bleeding from his hands, arms, thighs, and, worst of all, his groin. They spoke about the battlefield shock they were experiencing. It was still early morning, but they were already weary from the trauma and stress they had been through. “You know, every room has had something that came close to killing one of us,” Jordan remarked gloomily.

“Did Cloud Nine put us on the hard setting?” Emma quipped. No one laughed.

“Seriously, I feel like I’m on death row,” Jordan replied. “Like I’m a dead man walking.”

Zack laughed shallowly. “Maybe that should be the name of the team,” he said in a hoarse voice. The members scoffed at the idea, but Zack pressed on. “I mean it. We’re a bunch of dead men, or women, walking,” he explained in a voice that was scarcely above a whisper. “Look at the hell we’ve been already through. You think Walker didn’t know what he was sending us into? He fucking did, and we’ll be lucky to make it out of here alive.”

He glanced at the group, which was staring at him attentively. “So, I say ‘fuck it.’ Let’s name ourselves ‘Inmates’ or ‘Expendables’ or something.”

Harper rolled her eyes.

“I like it,” Janna said. “We’d be throwing it back into the company’s face. If nothing else, it might break our bad luck and prevent us from getting our asses kicked.”

Zack grinned. “We can call the team ‘Death Row’ from now on.”

Harper shook her head. “Let’s not and say that we did.”

Janna raised her lower lip and glanced at the group. “I think we should take a vote.”

They debated it for another ten minutes before taking a vote. Harper argued vehemently against it but lost the decision. Janna, Zack, Damon, Angie, and Jordan voted for the new name. Harper thought it was a stupid moniker and walked up to Zack afterward, frowning at him. “You just won because you got the sympathy vote,” she commented dryly.

Zack chuckled weakly.

2

They separated their boots from the floor before gathering their weapons.

“Yo, Inmates,” Zack said huskily. He pointed at the guardrail. “Let’s see how high we are.”

They walked to the edge.

“Holy high rise,” Janna whispered as her stomach heaved and she quickly turned away.

From their vantage point, they counted four floors above them before the ceiling curled in a dome shape toward the aperture. The sun was shining outside and they could feel a breeze wafting down from the opening. As Harper alluded to earlier, the top floors were completely open with no walls partitioning the ring-shaped rooms. They counted ten open floors below them, but couldn’t see any creatures inside. Much further below, they saw the two bridges that spanned over the courtyard.

“I’d say we’re sixty stories up from ground level,” Damon guessed

As they turned away from the rail, Harper noticed movement on one of the bridges and quickly looked back. But whatever had moved was gone.

“Could be Brett?” Angie wondered once Harper told them.

Damon shook his head. “No, he would’ve had to go through us.”

“Maybe there’s a secret passageway we missed,” Emma said.

3

Jordan killed the Thorn Spider, which gave him 59 experience points to go along with the 72 XP he collected from two brood spiders. That brought him to 801 XP, which bumped him six levels to 33. Harper told him to drop his 24 attribute points evenly into constitution, strength, and endurance. Ethan took down seven of the mini spiders, which bagged him 252 XP. That raised his total to 842 and bumped him to level 34. He dropped his 40 attribute points as 13, 13, and 14 into strength, dexterity, and endurance. Angie killed five mobs, delivering 180 XP and lifting her to level 35. She placed her 28 points as 9, 9, and 10 into constitution, dexterity, and endurance.

Zack sniped four brood spiders, which raised him to level 34. He dropped his 24 points evenly into constitution, dexterity, and endurance. Finally, Emma bagged three spiders, giving her 108 XP and raising her total to 1451. Under the new leveling system, that bumped her one level to 51. She dropped her 4 attribute points into endurance.

4

They walked around the entire circular chamber as Harper burned away the remaining cobwebs with her Fire Scorch spell. They discovered spider nests attached to the ceiling. Fully enclosed, the cobweb bubbles were three feet in diameter and very thick. Under the silk, they saw fist-sized spiders scurrying inside.

“That is disgusting,” Angie muttered.

Harper unleashed Fire Scorch on the nests. Once the fire burned through the web casing, twenty to thirty black insects scattered hastily on the exterior wall and ceiling.

Behind her, the Inmates shuddered. Harper could sympathize. It creeped her out.

She tracked and burned each of the offspring. The spider babies delivered 5 experience points each, and she found eight nests throughout the rounded chamber. The whole exercise brought Harper another 1010 experience points, raising her to level 58. She dropped her 20 attribute points as 7, 7, and 6 into intelligence, wisdom, and constitution.

5

It was the second discovery that jarred the Inmates. The room had two exit portals, one on the north side and one on the south side. “Do the portals take us to different areas?” Damon asked Harper.

“Probably,” she sighed.

“Well, what do we do now?” Ethan asked.

Harper suggested they start with the portal to their right side, the south-facing one. “We clear whatever is in that room,” she said, “then come back and try the second portal to see if it’s different. I’m sure it will be, but at least then, we’ll know the two portals represent different paths and likely different destinations.”

“Oh, man. What a pain in the ass,” Zack muttered.

His voice was still very hoarse.