1

Brett stood at the base of the tower in the cool morning mist, surrounded by his wolves. He had asked the Wendigo for permission to enter the tower.

“You may go,” the dark voice had warned him, “but do not interfere.”

He’d expected the Wendigo’s response. Brett had been told that he would have a greater role soon, but for now, the Wendigo only allowed him to observe. Brett wondered if he could “play” with some of the Inmates without getting caught.

It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, he mused. He yearned to further exercise his powers. Even more, he wanted to show them off. He was certain it would impress Emma. But he was warned not to alter the day’s events.

Still, Brett was concerned about Emma. His master had assured him that she wasn’t in danger.

But what if he’s wrong? he wondered. What if the Wendigo is not as powerful as I think? Could something happen to Em—

The sound of a twig snapping came from his left. Brett spun around, full of fear. Aside from the wolves at his side, the area was deserted. Is it the Wendigo? Brett panicked. Is he watching and listening to me right now?

“Master?” he asked tentatively.

The forest was eerily quiet. He scanned the landscape as small beads of mist dampened the skin on his neck.

“To the Wendigo, I give my life,” he said, trying to appease what might have been only his imagination.

More dead silence. If the Wendigo was there, he wasn’t responding.

“You… you said I could go in,” Brett whispered.

Far away, a bird squawked. Brett jumped, startled by the sound. He thought about the man buried alive in the tower. I don’t want to end up like him. He waited for the Wendigo to reveal himself. As the seconds passed, Brett became more certain that it was just his imagination.

He exhaled and knelt beside his alpha wolf. “Go back to the den. I will join you there later.” The wolf turned and led the pack into the eastern forest. Unable to shake the suspicion he was being watched and judged, Brett searched the landscape once more. The sun was higher now, burning away the mist, and Brett could feel it warming his skin.

To his right, the river flowed past, producing a churning noise. The large black glitch, the one that had transformed him, loomed over it. Unsure of himself, Brett stepped through the portal and into the tower. In the silent forest, another twig snapped.

2

The first glimmers of sunlight streamed through the aperture above the Inmates and they woke, feeling warm and rested. Zack got up and stoked the fire with more wood. A few minutes later, Angie rose and joined him. She pulled two salmon from her food inventory and they cooked a light breakfast meal for the Inmates.

The other members awakened to the smell of the fish and sat in a circle near the fire, except for Janna, who remained in her bed. As the teammates picked at the cooked salmon, the nurse told them she wanted to go with the team into the final room. “I think my bones are strong enough,” she said. “I’ve been casting healing spells all night.”

Harper and Damon wouldn’t even humor the idea.

“No way,” he said. “Zack and I will come to get you when it’s over.”

Janna argued, but they wouldn’t budge on the issue. Eventually, she resigned herself to their decision. Damon informed the group he’d gained 500 XP from the Nokrast kill, which raised him to level 61. He dropped his 8 attribute points into dexterity. With one more battle ahead of them, Harper asked the Inmates to pull up their stats, and she examined them carefully.

3

Brett shuddered once he was in the tower. It was a reflexive reaction, similar to the feeling a person would have after narrowly avoiding a car accident. He stepped to the edge of the courtyard and looked up.

The Inmates were up there, on the seventeenth floor. He had counted the floors while observing them the previous night. He spent most of his nights staring through the tower walls at Emma. Then he would sleep in the early morning before dawn.

“Gonna be a hell of a day,” Brett muttered as he grinned up at the rays of sunlight spilling through the aperture. He rubbed away the mist that had collected on his neck, turned, and walked through the first portal. He made his way to the sixth room and stayed there for thirty minutes, killing the respawning skeletons to boost his level. He had seen Harper’s ingenuity, dispatching the mobs with her spell.

Brett had an even better method. As soon as the skeletons rose from the dirt, he levitated the entire pack at a very high speed. Their bones would crash against the ceiling and a new horde would rise from the ground. It made for quick work and a lot of XP. Brett killed one hundred and fifty-two skeletons, earning 3,800 experience points that moved him to level 66. He split his 56 attribute points evenly into constitution, strength, dexterity, and endurance.

4

Damon’s speech returned in the morning. Harper wasn’t so lucky. She couldn’t even emit a croak, so she communicated to the group telepathically. As you know, I have added your attribute points with groups of three, but have concentrated on the third stat with different strategies in mind. For the hunters, I focused on Jordan’s strength stat and Angie’s dexterity stat.

She urged them to be conscious of those greater capabilities when determining who might engage with a melee weapon versus using a ranged weapon. Emma, I’ve only started building on your intelligence and wisdom stats. That will be helpful now, since you’re performing more of a healer/mage role.

Ethan was maxed on strength, while the other two orcs were dropping a third of their points into their constitution stats. So Damon and Zack are more suited to taking a beating and drawing the boss’s aggro, she telepathed. Ethan, I want you to be the primary attacker.

The orcs nodded.

I’ll try to guide you through the course of this campaign, she continued, but please keep these strengths in mind.

Following the discussion, the team said goodbye to Janna again. Harper crossed the bridge first, using her vine spell to aid her. The other Inmates made it over in forty minutes. When they arrived at the eighteenth chamber; the boss rush room, they loaded the giant skeleton’s bones against the far wall to reach the second level. The orcs didn’t attempt to climb up this time, and resigned themselves to using Harper’s elevator bowling ball.

5

Janna felt the urge to get moving twenty minutes after the team left the room. It was a strange phenomenon for her. She didn’t believe in intuition, or that “mumbo-jumbo bullshit,” as she liked to call it, the self-help community peddled. As a nurse, she only believed in cold, hard facts. She had witnessed her patients dying and knew there was nothing magical about that passage.

So, just ignore the hunch, then.

But she couldn’t. The precognition had stabbed through her slumber and gripped her with such intensity that Janna refused to dismiss it. She didn’t know where it came from, this sense that the Inmates needed her. She didn’t know whether it was an actual premonition or just some flight of fancy.

“But I do know I wanted to go with them,” she muttered to herself. And, for Janna, that was real.

So, now what?

“I get going,” she answered herself bluntly.

She equipped her leather armor automatically. Most of the team members took their armor off the old-fashioned way, mostly out of habit. But since her injuries, Janna had started using the system.

Using her less-injured right arm, she hauled her swollen body off the canvas bedding and toward the guardrail. She could have walked if she had to, but she didn’t want to stress her femurs any more than necessary.

She winced painfully as she dragged herself across the cold stone floor, feeling the hard surface pressing against her fragile ribs. “God damn,” she muttered, but she kept pulling. At the guardrail, she craned her neck to look across the vast opening. Her fear of heights came rushing back, overwhelming her, but she pushed her terror away.

“I can do this,” she said.

Janna pulled her body off the raised platform of the seventeenth room and onto the colder surface of the bridge, dragging herself across. As she moved ahead, she tried not to look over the edge but couldn’t help herself. She peeked and instantly felt dizzy. Janna squinted her eyes and pressed on. By the time she reached the middle of the bridge, she was freezing. The morning chill still hung in the air, and now there was a wind that seemed to circle the tower.

“Come on, girl,” she tried to encouraged herself. She dragged herself further ahead. Her entire body ached. She cast Intermediate Heal and felt some relief. She moved her arm forward and her hand bumped into something soft. Janna craned her head up. It was a leather boot. Before she could register the image, Brett’s voice floated down to her. “Hey there, girlfriend,” he said mockingly.

6

The Inmates stood near the last portal in the dingy nineteenth room, preparing for the last room. Jordan equipped his sword while Angie opted for her bow and quiver. Emma and Zack chose their Skelchions while the other two orcs readied their hammers. Harper had her staff.

They cast the defensive and offensive buff spells from their own MPRs.

Emma, I want you close to me, Harper instructed. Everyone else, monitor your visual display: your hit points, the enemy hit points, and your teammates’ too. Angie and Jordan, stay on the perimeter unless I advise you otherwise. Orcs, establish a base close to the boss. She glanced around at the Inmates. Are there any questions?

Zack and Damon shook their heads while the others remained silent.

7

Having used his telekinesis to levitate onto the second bridge, Brett waited for Janna to react. She struggled to lift her torso to see him and the look of shock was apparent on her face. It pleased Brett greatly.

“Yeah, I’ve changed a bit since our days at the hospital,” he teased. Janna continued to stare at him, at a loss for words. He knelt beside her. “You have always impressed me, Janna. I like… what do they call it…” He touched his chin, feigning contemplation. “… that’s it. Moxy. I like your moxy.”

“Let me pass, Brett,” Janna said forcefully.

He ignored her. “And as much as I like you, I would still rather kill you.” His orange pupils shone from his black eyeballs. “But the master has refused my wishes, so instead—”

“Who is your master, Brett?” Janna interrupted.

Brett slipped his legs over the sides of the bridge, squatting lower to look at Janna. He smiled at her. It sent chills down her spine. “Why, he is the one you are looking for, dear nurse.”

Janna gasped. “You know where Harris is?”

His orange eyes blazed at her. “Only he is not the one you speak of anymore. He has evolved into something greater…” He leaned forward. His face was just a couple of inches from Janna’s. “Like me,” he said proudly.

“Brett, please let me—”

“Allow me to demonstrate.” He flicked his hand at her. An invisible force pushed Janna off the bridge. She screamed as she plummeted to the courtyard.

Brett casually raised his palm, and her free fall stopped. Janna hung suspended in the air. She started hyperventilating. “You almost got out of my range,” Brett called down to her. “If that had happened, you would have gone splat-o.” He emphasized the last word and chuckled.

Brett moved his hand up. Janna rose in the air and moaned, terrified. He spun her body around the tower. The circular walls swept rapidly by her.

“Oh, god,” she cried.

Brett stopped her momentum and tilted her body vertically. Janna stared into the eyes of her tormentor. They were void of any traces of humanity. He swung his arm, and her body shot to the other side of the courtyard. The vastness of the open courtyard overwhelmed her fears. Janna’s bladder wanted to let go, but she held it in. She wouldn’t allow him to humiliate her.

“Isn’t this fun?” he cooed.

“Fuck you!” she screamed.

Brett let her drop again. Janna’s hair flew behind her as the chilly air pressed against her descending body. She came to a dead stop again. She rose more quickly this time, having to face Brett once more.

“What do you think of my new powers?” he asked.

“Fuck you!” she screamed a second time.

Brett laughed, but his playful mood dissipated and he became deadly serious. “Tell that little fucker, Zack, I say ‘hi.’” He raised his arm and guided Janna’s body to the room she had been trying to reach. He dropped her unceremoniously in front of the portal. She landed with a painful thud. “Now, off you go to your little roach errands,” he taunted. “I have other work to do.”

Janna lay there, trembling, not sure what to do. She realized that she had to tell the team about Brett, about Harris and whatever this new “master” was. Just as important, she still felt the urge to get to the last room as quickly as possible. Someone was going to need her help.

She stumbled through the portal.

On the other side of the bridge, Brett pointed his arm at the Rukh’s remains that sealed the hole in the wall. The lumber groaned and creaked as it pulled inward. The buttress gave way as chunks of wood rolled back into the small room. Brett directed them into the corner and walked to the enormous hole in the wall.

Like the Inmates before him, he gazed down at the landscape as a cold wind blew against his face. The stone bricks that remained attached to the wall were one foot wide. He stepped forward and planted both feet onto one brick. He gazed down at the grass three hundred feet below, feeling a delicious surge of dizziness.

“Let the show begin,” Brett said as he skipped off the ledge.