Sam hit the floor hard, turned his fall into a roll, and came back to his feet with Thumb Bane in his hand and his heart in his throat. He spun around, ready to fight whatever might have followed him through the door—

But the door was gone. Instead the endless abyss of the White Room stretched out in all directions, the soft omnipresent light banishing all shadows and making him slightly dizzy as he spun around to make sure he was alone.

“Cora? Sally! Can you guys hear me?”

-Butter-boy! Where the hell did you go? It was like you stepped through death’s door or something. The second you told us you were opening a door, your body disappeared and we’ve been trying like hell to get in touch with you.-

=Yes, your mother threatened to stove in Sally’s core if she didn’t explain what had happened.=

Sam breathed out a sigh of relief. At least this was working the way he expected it to.

“I’m alright,” he said to the white sky where the voices emanated from. “I just…” he trailed off. He’d just what, met God? A god, perhaps. Something near to one for certain. The power in that voice… He couldn’t have been anything else. And the talk of the Tinkerer skill…

“I think I just had a conversation with one of the men who created reality,” he finished quietly, staring off into the distance. “It was weird.”

-WHAT? Sam, what the fuck are you—No, no we don’t have time. It’s been almost an hour since we started the process. Time’s wasting. You need to finish up there in the White Room then get your happy ass back here and feed a dragon. We can figure out this whole God thing after that.-

=I… Concur. Though I am concerned. Do you truly—=

-Hey. Sis. What did I just say? Dragon? Bonding? Tick-tock tick-tock?-

=Yes. Of course. But afterwards, we must talk.=

“Right,” Sam sucked in a breath and shook his limbs out, getting rid of the last lingering creepies that had settled on him during his conversation with the mad creator. “Okay, so what’s next?”

-Well you ain’t gotta go through the whole Creation thing again, I don’t think… Lemme see here… Okay, I think I got it. I’m pulling up a menu for you. See it?-

Sam frowned and turned… And then let out a yelp as a giant golden menu pane slammed into existence a bare inch from the end of his nose. The thing shone golden and bright as the noon sun, and left an afterimage so loud he could taste it as he snapped his eyes shut and raised a hand to shield his face.

“Sally! Are you trying to blind me? Turn the brightness down, will ya?”

-My bad, my bad. Haven’t had to do this manually before. I think this stuff would have happened automatically if you’d bonded to me when I was still part of us. Okay, how’s this?-

The brightness dimmed noticeably, and Sam risked a glance through cracked eyelids. It was still bright, but now merely annoying and not melt-your-eyeballs. He took a few steps back, and the pane remained in place. He took a few more, and then looked up and down at the menu and the words it displayed.

INTRUDER ALERT

Sam blinked. The single line of text flashed on and off in the golden menu pane, slowly at first, but then with increasing speed.

“Uh, guys?” He took a step back and looked around. “This thing is saying there’s an intruder in here. You see anything?”

=That is curious. I detect no other sapients besides yourself. Sally, do you have any senses that might detect what mine cannot?=

-Gimme a second here, this circuitry is all fucked up. Okay, so if this goes here, and that goes there, then this must be…-

-… Uh-oh.-

“No ‘uh-oh’s, please,” Sam said, turning in place, seeking the threat. “This is really not the time for ‘uh-oh’. What’s going on?”

-Um, haha, so, funny story, it looks like when we pair-bonded one of the mana circuits didn’t close properly, and that led to a kinda cascade failure in a very, um, specific logic tree inside my automated systems.-

Sam frowned, parsing out what Sally was telling him. Then his eyes closed and he let out a soft curse.

“I’m the intruder, aren’t I?”

-Yup. Sorry about that.-

=What? What does that mean? I don’t have access to your protocols.=

-Um… I’m not entirely— -

The flashing text on the menu pane suddenly stopped flashing and a deep thrumming klaxon sounded through the Room, starting in bass notes so deep it twisted Sam’s bowels and rising in pitch until he could feel it vibrating in his molars. He swore aloud and clapped his hands over his ears, trying to drown it out.

“Sally!” he hollered to be heard over the alarm. “Turn this off, dammit!”

-Working on i-Oh shit!-

The floor of the White Room opened beneath his feet, swallowing him up in a yawning abyss before he even registered the movement. His scream was perfectly involuntary as he dropped, limbs pinwheeling, desperately seeking purchase.

And above him, the opening snapped shut, plunging him into darkness.

And he fell.

He woke with a start, going from flat on his back to standing straight up in the time it takes to blink. Hands patted at himself, seeking injury or damage. Nothing seemed broken. Even his glasses were still on his face, displaying a full health bar and mana bar like they always did.

-Sam! Hey, Sam, answer me buddy! Are you there?-

“Yeah,” he drew in a breath and blew it out in relief. “I’m here. What the hell was that?”

=It is likely that you and Sally inadvertently tripped some sort of anti-tamper response, perhaps due to the damage she sustained upon awakening.=

“Because this was supposed to all be done at once, not piece by piece,” Sam nodded. It made sense. He glanced around, saw Thumb Bane on the floor next to where he had landed, and bent to pick it up.

Then he stopped when his brain registered what his eyes were seeing. He looked up and around, just to make sure.

If the White Room had been colored arterial-spray crimson, that’s what this place would have looked like. It was the same featureless expanse, the same omni-present lighting, just an alarming new color.

It was not an improvement.

“Oh-kay,” he breathed, turning slowly, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck raise up. “This just got a little creepy. Sally? Where the hell am I and how do I get out of here?”

-Looks like some kind of holding area… Hang on, I’ve got some protocols here I can dig through. One second.-

Sam waited as patiently as he could, the feeling of dread only increasing with each beat of the clock. He turned in place, trying to look everywhere at once.

“Okay this is stupid,” he grumbled to himself. There was no reason to feel this much unease. He was still inside whatever reality Cora and Sally controlled, that was obvious enough given the similarities between the White Room and this, right down to their voices seeming to come from nowhere and the—

He stopped, eyes going back to his display.

“Hey Sally?”

-One second. I think I’ve got something here.-

“Sally, why’s my health bar visible in here?”

-Hah, got it. Let’s see if—wait what?-

The ground beneath Sam’s boots suddenly bucked and heaved, throwing him off his feet to land on his back. The flat surface roiled like the waters of a lake in a storm, then sections of the floor erupted skyward, turning into walls a hundred feet high at least. He had a brief moment to watch as dozens, hundreds, thousands of walls slammed up from the floor, making hallways and rooms and intersections.

Then three walls surged up behind him and to the sides, cutting off his vision and encasing him in a dead-end hallway.

-Oops.-

=What did you do?=

-Uh… Lemme get back to you. Sam, you still okay?=

“For very loose definitions of ‘okay’, sure,” Sam said, glaring at the walls as he clambered back to his feet. “You mind cluing me in to what’s going on?”

INTRUDER EXPLOITATION SYSTEMS ACTIVATED. ‘MAZE OF DEATH’ PROTOCOL INITIATED.

The voice belonged to neither Cora nor Sally. It was deep and coldly male and utterly devoid of emotion.

“Maze of what?” Sam squawked.

MINOTAURS ARE IN THE MAZE.

RUN.

-Oh damn. No, wait, I can fix this. Gimme one second-

From somewhere nearby, Sam heard a bellow that sounded like a gnomish steam whistle being crushed by an enraged bull.

“Sally,” Sam growled, hefting his hammer, “you and I are going to have a very long talk if I survive this.”