1

Walking to the guardrail, the team realized they were at the tower’s lower third. They were also very close to the lowest bridge, which was just two stories below them.

“You know,” Zack said, “Jordan could climb down there and have a look. Maybe it’s a shortcut and we can avoid some rooms.”

The Inmates considered his suggestion. “No. I don’t like it,” Harper said. “I don’t want us separated, and one person climbing down there alone is dangerous. Something might attack him.”

“That won’t happen,” Emma countered. “The monsters are confined to their spaces.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The Thorn Spiders,” Emma answered. “They didn’t advance past the seventh room. Even back home, spiders are known to spread out.” She gestured at the courtyard. “There should be webs all over this tower, especially near the top, but the cobwebs only exist in that one room.”

The Inmates agreed.

“We should still take the rooms in the order they appear,” Harper said. “If we bypass rooms, we may run into a mob that is beyond our strength or level. And besides, we have to complete all the rooms because we’re looking for Harris… or his remains.”

The team stared blankly at her.

Harper became frustrated. “We are still searching for him, aren’t we?” She saw pained expressions from the silent crew.

Finally, Damon answered for them. “I think that boat has sailed,” he said awkwardly. He glanced at the brothers. “At this point, I don’t think we’re going to find him.”

Harper scoffed. “Jordan, Ethan, do you share that assessment?”

The brothers glanced at each other uneasily. “I hope we find him,” Ethan said hesitantly, “but with every step we take, it appears less likely.”

“I agree,” Jordan muttered.

Although Harper would never tell them, she had the same feelings herself. They had found no traces of Harris and she suspected he was dead.

“So, is there any reason to continue then?” Janna asked.

Again, there was a long hush.

“We continue because that’s our job,” Damon replied.

Janna laughed bitterly. “If we think Harris is dead,” she said, turning to the brothers, “then, no offense, why are we risking our lives?”

“She’s got a point,” Zack added.

The Inmates stared at each other quietly.

“We keep going,” Angie replied, “because Cloud Nine could be watching us.”

Janna laughed. “No. They can’t track what we’re doing beyond the landing zone.”

Angie shook her head. “That’s what they told us,” she said deliberately, “but they’ve already lied to us and withheld information many times.”

Janna opened her mouth to argue but stopped.

“Angie’s right,” Harper said. “For all we know, they could throw us in jail if they’re unhappy with our work.”

Janna smirked. “They can’t do that!”

“They can,” Damon said, “and no one would know about it. They selected us carefully, remember?”

Janna’s expression shifted from exasperation to fear.

“In case you guys forgot,” Angie said, “we are currently breaking the law. Epiphany is banned. Illegal.” She paused as she glanced at the Inmates. “And that’s not even the half of it. They could claim we’re terrorists.”

“Oh my god,” Emma whispered. Her eyes watered. “I’m so sorry I agreed to this.”

Angie frowned and continued. “The point is, we are just pawns in this game, pun not intended. Cloud Nine is a powerful corporation, and the DNC is nothing to sneeze at either. They can do whatever they want if they think we haven’t lived up to our end of the bargain.” The team was utterly quiet again. “Let’s get this god-forsaken tower done,” Angie went on. “We’ll have that under our belts when we go back and tell them we never found him. We’ll show that we acted in good faith. That will be the end of it and we will return to our lives.”

The Inmates agreed they would finish the tower, then go back, putting Epiphany behind them forever. However, seeds of doubt lingered in their minds, germinating from the edges of their consciousness, creating a constant dread that subtly distracted their focus in many small ways.

2

Standing near the guardrail of the stoner room, Harper concluded that both portals in the Thorn Spider chamber led to divergent paths and different destinations. “Let’s take the portal on the right side of the room,” she advised, “That will lead us past the kobold room. If we come to another fork in the road, we stick to the right.” She glanced at the team. “I’ve seen this before in games. Forks in the road are designed to get us lost and confused, so we need a consistent methodology or we’re just going to run around in circles.”

“Yup, I’ve experienced the same thing,” Emma added.

“If we exhaust one path,” Harper continued, “and we don’t get to the boss, or it leads to a dead-end, we backtrack to the last fork in the road.” The team agreed with her premise. “One more thing. I want to start numbering the rooms. In case we get transported to an earlier room, we’ll be able to identify which room we’re in.”

“What do you suggest?” Damon asked.

“The Acid Fly spell. It should burn into the stone.” As the rest of the team entered the portal leading back to the spider room, Harper tapped Janna on the shoulder. “Can you stay behind for a minute?” Harper asked.

The nurse looked at her suspiciously, but stayed.

“Pull up your stats,” Harper told Janna, and she obliged.

Janna (Level 27)

RACE: Human

CLASS: Healer

STATUS: Normal

HP: 151

HPR: 2.02/s

MP: 152

MPR: 3.74/s

STRENGTH: 75

CONSTITUTION: 101

DEXTERITY: 79

INTELLIGENCE: 190

WISDOM: 187

ENDURANCE: 95

XP: 670

ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 0

Looking over her numbers, Harper became concerned. “I know you have an aversion to killing things, Janna,” she said gently, “but I’m worried about your safety. You’re falling behind everyone else as far as levels go.”

Janna crossed her arms over her chest.

Harper raised her hands in a disarming gesture. “Janna, please listen to me. The last mobs you killed were the skeletons, am I right?”

The nurse nodded.

“Since then, we’ve battled spiders, kobolds, and those stoner head things. Could you have killed any of those?”

“Maybe the stoners. They’re not like any animal I’ve ever seen. But, Harper, I’m not a killer or a fighter,” she said, exasperated. “It’s not what I signed up for. I thought my task would be healing you guys. Not to mention getting close to those things scares the hell out of me.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I… I… I would just freeze and not be of any use to anyone.”

Harper rested her palm on Janna’s shoulder. She could feel the nurse’s body trembling. “Use your spells, Janna. You have the acid and poison spells and can attack from a distance.”

The nurse’s face constricted as she struggled to contain her emotions. Harper lowered and tilted her head to peer at Janna, who was shorter than her. The nurse turned her face away. “If you have the opportunity to finish something off, will you take it?”

Janna nodded hastily. The tears were coming now.

“I need you to be a more active participant,” Harper whispered, stroking the nurse’s shoulder. “Both for the team’s sake and your own.”

Janna, still not facing Harper, nodded again. “Okay… okay,” she said thickly.

Harper relented, sensing that was all the nurse could muster. She waited patiently for Janna to collect herself. Eventually, Janna raised her head and nodded resolutely. Harper felt the need to say something more, a platitude or an acknowledgment, but she was reluctant to go further. Janna was a stoic woman who kept strong boundaries.

Instead, they walked to the portal and Janna passed through ahead of her.

Harper thought of Miguel as she stepped through. I never would’ve been able to have this conversation with Janna without you, Miguel. Not like this. It was Miguel’s urging and his wisdom that provided her the ability to tread so carefully with Janna. Harper’s wounded heart ached for him, and sadness washed over her again as she transported back to the seventh room.

3

Once they were back in the spider chamber, Harper and Emma backtracked to the earlier rooms, marking them in numerical order. They discovered that the Acid Fly spell was ineffective against the regular stone walls, but those walls were so filthy that the fly produced a legible clean spot. Meanwhile, the spell worked against the marble walls near the top of the tower, extracting parts of the surface that dropped to the floor and looked like salt. The result was a lightened etching on the wall that was perfectly legible. They numbered the rooms in the order they had entered them:

Dioskilos room - 4

Star-nosed mole & chest mimic room - 5

(Respawning) skeleton room - 6

Thorn spider room - 7

Kobold warrior room - 8

Stoner heads room – 9