He was probably still outside, making his way through the line.

What now, indeed.

Until I spotted the other Parcae team, the only point of bringing him into this was to draw attention to the tower itself, make things difficult for Aaron, and by extension, Hastur. Hastur had said nothing about the tower, meaning cleaning house was more important to him than whatever the plan was here. Spotting the high level team and learning their destination presented a rare opportunity.

With pug-face on the roster, the team was probably Sunny’s. Which sent something of a mixed message, but I still wasn’t willing to let the opportunity slide.

All I had to do was get Miles snooping around the twenty-eighth floor. He’d gotten here quickly, but there was no way he came unprepared. If it was anyone but Miles, I would have hesitated. I was about to lure him into a trap. The trap wasn’t for him, exactly, but it could spring back on him just as easily. But Miles wasn’t an idiot. And I got the feeling, seeing him work, that he learned from his mistakes. No matter how rushed he seemed, he’d be fully prepared this time. Best part was, I could be certain neither side would tell the other fuck-all.

Miles didn’t respond, which spoke for itself.

Again, Miles didn’t respond. This time, it felt like a minor misplay on my part. Guys like Miles were used to existential threats. They trained them to be comfortable with the big scary shit and kind of pressure that could paralyze the average person, so long as it was abstract. Needed to make it personal. Break his composure, somehow.

But did I really want to go there?

No choice.

Nothing.

There it was. Hawkins really was the chink in his armor.

I closed the window, even as a cascade of messages came in, and the notification light rapidly blinked. No matter how much I’d just pissed him off, Miles was just as manipulative as me, and I didn’t trust myself to not get baited into a response.

Miles was biblically pissed. That was both a good and bad thing. My method of provoking him was crass, and it wasn’t subtle. But that was fine. I had no intention of meeting him on the upper floor. And if it pissed Miles off enough—which I suspected it had—the Adventurer’s Guild, along with whoever else Miles could scrounge up would trawl around the tower en masse.

It’d take him a while to get into the tower and buy a pass. Once he arrived at the twenty-eighth floor and found it cleared out and empty, he’d backtrack. Reread the message I sent to Kinsley. Eventually he’d figure it out. And there was absolutely no way he’d be bringing any less than the largest group allowed. A full team of five.

His people would catch the high level team with their hands in the cookie jar and either wipe them out, force a retreat, or capture them.

In terms of the overall goal, it accomplished little more than putting the order on Miles' radar. But every avalanche started small. As we moved towards the front of the line, I took several deep breaths, trying to steady myself and lower my heart rate.

I caught Nick staring a hole into the back of Keith’s head. I elbowed him. “Zoning out?”

Nick jumped, a flash of guilt playing across his features before he settled back into an amiable smile, somehow less authentic than before. “Just… soaking in the ambience. You know what this place reminds me of?”

Wizard Quest

“Medieval Times?”

“Nah man.” Nick looked around as the peasant droned on. “Well, sort of. But no. Couple years ago I was chilling in the Midwest over the summer, hanging with this girl I met at an away game. The entire visit—literal weeks—she kept saying “We’ve got to go to Wizard Quest.” And I’m like, “Do we have to leave the bedroom to get there?” But she’s insistent. Like it’s this Wisconsin Mecca or something. Anyway, she’s obviously excited about it, and I figure, even if it’s lame it’ll probably make for a good story.”

“Was it lame?” I asked, knowing the answer.

Nick’s eyes unfocused, his smile slipping. “Took like two hours to get there, so the drive kinda tapped me out, wasn’t in the best mood. We uh, we checked into the hotel. I wanted to linger a bit, settle, but she pushed me out the door. Didn’t help that they charged extra to rent tablets that looked like they came out of a Best Buy bargain bin, running a mobile game from 2010.”

“So far it sounds lame.”

“But then I got inside. And it was a total maze. I found out later it was huge, like half the size of a football stadium. Way bigger than it looked on the outside. There were all these hidden doors, and secret passageways, and mysteries, in the middle of all this art and like, hand carved statues and miniatures. They had a shire, and like a unicorn sky thing…”

“Volcano biome?” I prompted.

Nick punched me in the shoulder. “Hell yeah, he gets it. The volcano biome was sick. There was this small open-holed mountain there up on a platform, and I’m just staring at it, like “Is it going to erupt?” Then this grandma in a Slytherin robe hops up on the platform, walks to the top of the mountain and drops in, like it's nothing. Anyway, bullshit black-light room that took all our “lives” aside, it really was the best. Made me feel like a kid again. And when our time was up, I didn’t want to leave.”

It differed from the first time he’d told me the story, back when he still needed two horizontal support poles to stay upright and struggled, sweating and crying, fighting for every inch of distance. A few details had changed, but more than anything else it felt melancholy. Almost painful. What was happening to him? Was he just tired and nostalgic? Or was there something else going on beneath the surface?

I tried to encourage him. “Dome’s not gonna last forever. Maybe when it’s gone, you can take a road trip. See it again.”

“…Nah.”

Alarm bells tripped in my head. Nick brought the place up three times a year minimum, always intending to go back.

“Why?” I asked.

Nick’s smile flayed me. “Even if it was miraculously still in one piece and up and running after these aliens, or whatever the hell, are done with us, I like the memories I have of it, you know? And I think, if I went back, it wouldn’t be the same. I… I think—“

“Next party of heroes, please step onto the lift.” A man in a tunic gestured towards the spotlight. The lift was covered in spiraling circles of runes, each smaller layer more complex than the last. I stepped forward, squinting as the overbright beam of white light poured down on us from above. It had the same effect as a flashbang, minus the noise. Keith and Halima followed looking equally discomfited. Nick stepped on last, and no matter how hard I squinted, I couldn’t see his face.

“Stay within the third ring and keep your arms to your side. The gilded tower is not responsible for any damages to your person or loss of possessions.”

I stepped back. As the elevator rose, my stomach plunged. From the grimace on Nick’s face, he was thinking the same thing.

I hope this goes better than the last time I took a group into a dungeon.