I searched the faces of the crowd, trying to find an appropriate target. Someone cruel or angry, someone who would test me through nothing more than existing. Leaving them be, without accidentally using or or even would serve as a test of my self-control with the ring equipped.

And yes, I know how that sounds. I’ve always seen other people as the enemy, the other, the competition. If they couldn’t trade favors, influence, or be useful, they were nothing but the potential to hinder—and I was better off stepping on them than over.

It should have been easy to find a target. Someone. Anyone.

But I couldn’t. As I scanned the tired, worried faces, I couldn’t single anyone out. Which should have been impossible with this crowd. The best of them are people who gained User status post transposition. Everyone else was a slacker, a nothing, an idiot waste of space frittering away precious hours before the next event hit. And when it did, they’d be worse than deadweight.

So why didn’t I hate them?

Maybe because their once smug and carefree faces were laden with worry, but it didn’t feel that simple. It felt… systemic. As if something within me had shifted. It wasn’t Hastur. His influence on my mind had long since faded. It was something else. The people in line were just that. People. They got scared, and didn’t manage their time properly, and fell back on vices and empty comforts when they had nothing else.

When did I change?

I shoved the troubling line of thought down, sidelining it for later when I had time to consider it properly, and disappeared further into the forest.

/////

After a few minutes of walking, I found it. An oval clearing in the trees, still partially covered by canopy above. At least a half-dozen abnormally long sprouts of green stuck up out of the ground, scattered around the fringes. Mandrakes.

The Mandrakes themselves weren’t particularly threatening. Even in a larger group, I doubted they’d do little more than scream and run away. But we’d dealt with them one at a time for a reason. The few times we’d gotten hasty, their screams had grated together, combining into a stomach churning screech with an effect that was more exponential than additive. And seeing as how I only had a single chance to get this right, I needed as much sensory overload as possible.

Nothing yet. Good. Now the actual test.

I braced myself. Then leaned down to grab the leafy sprout at the root and yanked it out of the ground.

The mandrake squealed immediately. Its grubby fingers latched onto my gauntlet and tried to free itself. I briefly considered using to silence it, then checked the Uses Remaining and found them unchanged. I repeated the process again, uprooting another mandrake with my free hand and feeling my gut tighten as their shrieks ground together.

It was worse than I remembered. The pitch and cadence varied, mixed in with words, but they were always discordant to each other, and the discordance swelled in volume until I could barely hear my own grunts of discomfort. This would probably damage my hearing, but considering the sheer amount of deafening chaos during the transposition and my hearing’s currently undamaged state, it was a given that a health potion would mitigate damage, as long as I took it immediately after.

I placed the second mandrake alongside its neighbor, taking small satisfaction from watching them smack together as the sprouts on their head formed a strange, flowerless bouquet and pulled the third.

Again the volume grew exponentially. But despite the pounding in my head and the growing pain in my ears, the increase wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected. It occurred to me that there might be a safety cap on how much impairment the mandrakes could cause. This was the first floor of the tower—and while I could hardly classify the system as lenient, the early tower floors seemed like a significant step down from anything I’d faced in the adaptive dungeon.

With that disarming notion in mind, I yanked at the largest of the remaining roots. It took several attempts. Eventually, a large clump of earth came free, yielding a plump mandrake, nearly double the size of the rest. It stretched in an exaggerated yawn, and its beady eyes blinked open, looking around in lazy bewilderment until its gaze finally settled on me.

It opened its mouth.

Pure white agony shot through my mind. I’d been through a lot since the dome came down, experienced more than my share of injuries and pain, topping out with the divine damage I’d taken forcing my way through the barrier around region 14.

If I compared the two, the divine damage was still worse. But it wasn’t constant. Not like this. The mandrake quartet screamed in coordinated discordance, sending the profoundly excruciating jolts that accompany a broken bone through my ears and mind and throughout my entire body. My presence of mind and sense of self shattered.

All I wanted was for it to stop. But my hand wouldn’t open, paralyzed in place. I opened my eyes to slits, searching for the fourth mandrake in the bundle. If I could shatter its focus with —

My vision was gray.

I searched for the overlay in a panic.

Then there was a sickening pop as my eardrums blew simultaneously.

The world upended itself, and I lost my balance, stumbling face first into the grass. I fought an endless wave of vertigo as I watched the three normal mandrakes beat a hasty retreat in opposite directions, completely uncoordinated in their mad scramble out of the clearing.

Alone now, the large mandrake planted its hands on its hips and screamed once more, though I could barely hear it. Realizing it wasn’t having as much of an effect, the mandrake pulled its leg back and kicked my gauntlet—making no more impact than a thrown pebble—then jogged away at a relaxed clip.

“Fuck you too.” I mumbled after it. Then searched again for the overlay.

Relief washed over me, despite the pain. My mana was low, but I hadn’t casted. And despite wanting, no, needing them to stop, now that I was aware of what the Artifact did, I managed not to use it. The mandrakes scream must have had a mana draining effect. When we were dealing with them one at a time, it must have been minuscule, but like the screams, the effect was exponential when there were more of them.

I swallowed two health potions. Eventually, the pain faded, and the hazy underwater quality of my hearing sharpened, fully restored. As shaky as I felt, the memory of the pain still lingering at the forefront of my mind, I had to remember that this was a win.

It wouldn’t break me, or render me dangerous or out of control. The ring was usable. There was a part of me that still wasn’t sure if it was worth the risk, but I was leaning more towards equipping it than casting it away.

There was only one last piece of housekeeping left.

I pulled up my class information, fully prepared to face a gauntlet of vague multiple-choice questions.

None came.

That was… a lot. More than I could even process. The notification centered on increasing my shielding from the divine concerned me. Because the system wasn’t exactly big on handouts. If it was giving me increased protection, it was out of necessity. And from prior experience, it wouldn’t come close to adequate. I drew up my ability list, checking the default ability first.

I read the description once. Then again. And again. A cold lance of fear pierced me, chilling me to the bone.

Slowly, I pulled free from my finger and secured it in my pocket, testing to make sure I could feel it through my gauntlet’s padding. Its circular outline stood out clearly. I’d need to check it constantly until I could properly secure it.

Especially now.

From the beginning it was difficult to understand why the Ordinator class was so singled out. If anything, it felt underpowered and had a highly specific use-case, sacrificing almost all offensive potential for the promise of eventual power creep. The details were spotty, vague. And while everyone alive in the dome saw the same footage of Ordinators wreaking havoc, my predecessors had clearly reached their endgame. And it stood to reason that there were more than a few other carry classes—such as necromancers—that didn’t fully come into their own until endgame.

Why were gods themselves seem so keen to take me off the board? I’d wanted an explanation more than almost anything.

And now, I had one.