The flip of a single word on the new Fabrication Engine had caused me all sorts of headaches. The previous, Mana-powered Crystal had created magic-powered minions. However, the Charge-based Engine only allowed me to power the minions I had created. What should have been a quick project turned into yet another engineering problem on a similar scale to the Ford Explorer.

  And before I could get more than a basic fabrication bot running using Emitters, Charge batteries, and multiple parts of shredded Mana Coils, Tori arrived.

  Tori still reminded me of my sister. In fact, the resemblance was even more striking now that she seemed…not happy, but content. The carefully dyed and hairsprayed emo haircut she’d had the first time I met her was long gone, and she’d grown out of the ‘distressed’ jeans, too. The teenager wore leather armor, a few different trinkets—the orrery I’d gotten from the Void dungeon among them—and carried the Queen’s Blessing, a staff I still wished I had access to.

  And she had something new: a title next to her name.

  Tori Vanderbilt, Tower’s Bane: Level 60 (Rank One)

  Class: Telekineticist

  “One second, Tori,” I said. I grabbed the Trip-Hammer—I still hadn’t applied my own Title Stone—and held the title stone out. The System asked if I wanted to confirm the upgrade. I did.

  The hammer glowed a golden-orange light, and a moment later, its name changed.

  The Trip Hammer, Tower’s Bane, by Hal Riley (Created Item, Charge 25, Rank One)

  The Trip-Hammer uses magical energy, external power sources, and salvaged parts to apply incredible destructive force to a small area. First created by Hal Riley of Earth.

  This upgraded version includes two separate hammers, one with the Hemorrhage debuff and the other with increased piercing damage in addition to the Trip-Hammer’s already-potent armor-crushing effect.

  Rank One Upgrade: The hammers continue spinning until stopped by the user—or by a target capable of surviving multiple impacts.

  Tower’s Bane (Legendary): +5 Awareness. Adds fire damage and additional speed and handling to the weapon.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t add that right away,” Tori said. “It was always going to be the Trip-Hammer.”

  “Well, some of us like to think about our options. What spell did you pick?” I asked as I put my tools back. The fabrication bot wasn’t enough to do more than set up basic battery bombs, so I put in an order for three of the fragment variety, and the disk-shaped machine got to work, driving along the ground on wheels made from Mana Coils.

  “Crush. It wouldn’t let me pick Gravity Well because I don’t actually know the spell,” Tori pouted. “But that’s okay. Crush is pretty cool. The speed really matters. I can Crush things way faster—usually before they have a chance to brace themselves.”

  “That sounds useful, Tori, but don’t—“

  She rolled her eyes and cut me off. “First, I’m building Telekineticist as a builder/spender class, with a lot of set-up before big hits. Crush is the big hit, and some of my new spells are the setup. You’ll see them soon. Second, you put your Title Stone on the Trip-Hammer. Talk about a one-trick pony class. You could build anything, but you insist on a giant club.”

  “Okay, okay.” I held up my hands. “I’m working on some new stuff, but it’s all complicated and takes more than a couple of hours of work. Is Jessica up?”

  “Yeah, Mom’s awake, and she wants to discuss next steps. She asked for you and Calvin—and Bobby.” Tori’s face darkened for a moment. “But he wasn’t here, so it’ll just be you three since she didn’t ask for me. In fact, she very specifically told me to go run an easy Tier Two with Carol and Zane. Guess I’m not mature enough for a council meeting or something. The canyon country’s wild—I almost missed your lab.”

  “Alright. We’ll head back soon.” I had a few more things to clean up, and I refused to leave my workspace a mess. The fabrication bot would do that just fine on its own.

  A half-hour later, I climbed the rickety stairs in the Field Museum fortress’s tower. There was too much chaos down below—some people were trying to clear the rubble from the Fireborn Crusade’s attack, while others were building new defenses—so we couldn’t meet on the stairs.

  Jessica sat on the plywood bed that I’d used briefly as a work table. It was still stained and burned from my Voltsmithing, but she didn’t seem to mind. Even the few hours of sleep she’d gotten seemed to have helped; her eyes were hooded and ringed with black, but she was awake.

  “Check the System message,” she said without any preamble. “The Phase Two announcement.”

  I pulled the entire message up and read through it. I’d already seen it, and the news wasn’t good.

  [Five hundred sixty-four] Tier Three Dungeons were defeated during Phase One of Integration—a new record for a Death World! [Earth’s] surviving population, [1.8 billion], has successfully moved on to Phase Two.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  In order to stabilize [Earth] and the Tier Three: Primitive World [Solemnus Six], various regions of each planet will be grafted into each other. This process is both energy and resource-intensive, and both planets will experience terrain loss as a result of the graft. Over the next [one week], your planet’s currently-occupied safe zones and dungeons will graft with uncorrupted regions of [Solemnus Six.]

  To survive the second phase of Integration, you and your team must either secure a Waypoint somewhere in the [Solemnus Six] region of your newly-grafted planet or must ally with a team that already possesses one.

  Tier Two and Tier Three Dungeons will continue to operate in all grafted areas.

  The Consortium wishes all remaining [Homo sapiens] luck with Phase Two.

  We’d lost nearly half of the people who’d survived the Tutorial Dungeons, and over two-thirds of Earth’s pre-Integration population. And it wasn’t a faceless number for me, either. I closed my eyes, trying to stop seeing Brian’s face—and his corpse. He’d been making it, but he’d been killed by a gangster I should have killed earlier. I’d solved that problem. But it had been too late.

  That wouldn’t happen again.

  Then there was Leana Collins. She’d died in the Watery Grave dungeon, though her potions had saved my life and helped us beat the dungeon’s final boss—and save Museumtown. I hadn’t been able to do anything for her except give her a final send-off in a small cave somewhere in the dungeon. I had no idea what had happened to her body after that.

  That would happen again, but I was going to do my damnedest to save as many people as I could.

  And Tommy. The biker had been a bad man at the beginning of the apocalypse, but he’d been trying to turn himself around, and his sacrificial suicide attack had opened up a chance for me to push the cultists out of Museumtown and kill their leader.

  None of them should have been dead. And there was a fourth face I couldn’t help but see. Large eyes, oily, iridescent suit, and an after-image that followed her around. Voril. The Consortium Integration Specialist in charge of the Chicago region’s Integration. She wasn’t dead. But she bore some responsibility for Brian, Leana, and Tommy’s deaths.

  The message continued.

  World Graft Commencing: Hybridizing [Earth] and [Solemnus Six]

  Tier One Dungeons Disabled

  Unclaimed Safe Zones Disabled

  Terraforming in Progress

  Welcome to Phase Two, [Hal Riley]!

  Team: Hal Riley, Tori Vanderbilt, Museumtown Safe Zone

  Objective: Secure and power a Waypoint (564 Remaining) (0/1)

  Time Limit: Two Weeks

  Time Until Graft Completes: One Week

  Time Until Waypoints Appear: One Week

  Jessica waited until Calvin and I had finished reading, then cleared her throat. “Based on Phase One, I think we have a serious problem on our hands. There were one thousand, three hundred twenty-two Tier Three dungeons, and the only one in Chicago was the Seared Wilds Tower. There are less than half that many Waypoints, and that means it’s not likely that there’s one for Chicago and for the Fireborn Crusade.”

  “You think we’re going to have to go to war,” Calvin said. It wasn’t a question.

  Jessica answered it like it was, though. “No. I know we’re going to have to go to war. Even if the trial wasn’t at stake, we’d need to fight them. No matter who’s in charge over there, they want us dead. They didn’t even bother talking. That’s not someone we can just be good neighbors with. But if we want to fight them, we’ll need friends. That’s why I wanted Bobby to be here. He knows everyone in Chicago.”

  “I can put some feelers out,” Calvin said.

  “Let’s call the Fireborn Crusade our second-biggest problem over the next week,” I said. Then I told them about the Orc Harvester. When I finished explaining what I’d seen, I hesitated. “I hate to say this, but I think Tori’s our best bet for an expert at ‘orc culture.’

  “The only thing she knows is from video games and books,” Jessica said.

  “Maybe. But the System is based on video games. Why not the people who live on Solemnus Six? Let’s get her up here and hear what she has to say about orcs—and elves, and whatever other fantasy races we’re likely to encounter.”

  “I sent her off to find a Tier Two Dungeon. She’ll be back once it’s done.”

  “She said that, but I figured we’d need her for this conversation, so I’m having her wait downstairs.” I stuck my head out the door and called her name.

  Tori arrived a minute later. “Is this about the orc?”

  “Yes. Tell us everything you know about them,” I said.

  “Which universe’s orc? Tolkien had goblins, Uruk-Hai, and a bunch of other breeds. Then there are Orsimer from the Elder Scrolls, Orks from Warhammer, demon-tainted, purified, and uncorrupted Mag’har from World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons orcs, half-orcs, and goblin races—“

  “Do you have a short version?” Calvin asked. “I read Lord of the Rings in the ‘70s, but I don’t think all your details are gonna matter.”

  “Okay.” Tori closed her eyes. I could practically hear the gears grinding as she tried to put together a quick summary for Calvin. And for me. “Orcs in almost every universe are chaotic, tribe-based, nomadic warriors or hunter-gatherers. They’re usually bad guys, and they’re either pure evil or have a different sense of morality than the ‘civilized’ races do. And they almost always like fighting. Not always war, but always fighting.”

  “Not war, huh?” Calvin asked.

  “No. They’re usually—but not always—too chaotic for war.”

  I raised a hand. “The one I saw didn’t try to fight. She just disappeared.”

  We argued about the orcs for a while—about what to do with them. Eventually, Calvin and Jessica hammered out an agreement about our priorities.

  The biggest one was making sure Museumtown was safe from both the unknown creatures that’d been grafted onto Earth and from other people—including the Fireborn Crusade. That meant tightening up the defenses, having all four of the Rank Ones—Tori, myself, and both Zane and Carol—ready to rip through the Reliquary of Bones dungeon as soon as it reset, and most importantly, scouting the canyon-and-jungle mess that had been Chicago for both enemies and new opportunities.

  Second, we needed to deal with the Fireborn Crusade. We had one week to do it, and so far, we hadn’t gotten any of the few prisoners we’d taken to talk. They didn’t seem like they were being stubborn, either. According to Calvin, it felt more like they couldn’t.

  And finally, I wanted to get a good picture of the world outside of Chicago. We might need to roam for a while to grab one of these Waypoints, and I wanted to be ready for that.

  My personal priorities—building a robot army to help around the shop and getting the Explorer running—were part of the picture, but they weren’t all of it.

  Tori and I needed to get out there, grind monsters for a while, and see the lay of the land.