Hunting orcs wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be.

  Sure, the Bio-Electric scanner went nuts anytime we strayed even a step into Solemnus Six’s parts of the graft, but even though I knew the orcs were out there, I didn’t see any of them. The thick brush and sharp leaves forced us to move across the other planet’s surface at a slow walk, even though we could both push a lot faster than that.

  I was starting to see why the Consortium had a couple of phases before this. Fighting horrors from the deepest abysses on Earth and invincible, freight-engine-sized polar bears in football fields while tens of thousands of aliens screamed and cheered had prepped me for this.

  I should have been horrified. Half of Chicago was gone; if anyone was outside of the safe zones, there was a chance they’d been grafted with a tree or something. The Consortium hadn’t warned anyone about that; heck, Calvin and I had been outside of Museumtown, on the beach.

  But I wasn’t. The grafting was one puzzle I didn’t have the solution for, and I knew it. It was too big for me right now, just like coming up with a better solution to Integration—or stopping the Consortium from destroying Earth. But I knew that I could find it, and that was enough for now. I couldn’t do anything about any of these horrors.

  But I could hunt orcs.

  If I could ever see any of the damn things.

  My grandma had been a quilter. She’d made dozens or hundreds of the things; most of them were pastel-colored monstrosities that could still fit on a bed folded in half. But there was one Dad kept in their bedroom. Not on the bed, but on the wall. It was brown and green, and it looked just like our cornfields, a patchwork of planted and unplanted squares that stretched so far it covered the whole wall.

  As we climbed a slippery, narrow path up the waterfall that Tori was sure would lead us to ‘something interesting,’ I looked down on eastern Chicago. It looked a lot like that quilt; squares of gray and black buildings mixed with the canyon-and-bramble maze that was Solemnus Six.

  They weren’t as square as the quilt had been, but they were close.

  “There,” Tori said, pointing at something. It took me a moment to pick it out against the gray background, but once I saw it, it was obvious: smoke. “That’s a safe zone. It’s up the coast, probably past Andersonville. If this was a game, I’d go there first to pick up quests.”

  “Who’s to say it’s not?” I asked.

  She didn’t laugh. “I wish it was. I’d understand the rules better.”

  “We’ll visit them later. It’s about time to start reaching out to the rest of Chicago.” I kept climbing the path, one hand helping to make sure I didn’t slip.

  The summit was no different than below had been: a single Chicago River bridge, then more brambles. The earthy smell of Solemnus Six mixed with a sharp, acrid smoke coming from the west. I pointed with the hammer. “That way.”

  “We’re going to deal with the orcs now?” Tori asked.

  “Why not? We don’t know anything about them, but they’re hostile and aggressive. We need to learn why, and if we can come to an understanding with them. If not…” I hesitated, looking back toward Museumtown.

  “If not, then we have to do what we have to do,” Tori finished. “Surviving is what matters.”

  “Yeah. That.”

  We pushed further into the brambles, heading west.

  We were near the Union Center, where the Bulls used to play, when the orcs stopped running away and started fighting back.

  Tori and I handled them a lot better after seeing them for the first time. They didn’t do anything; they were just tough, and tough was no match for the Trip-Hammer or Tori’s magic. She could lock down most of them, leaving only a couple for me to fight, then release them in waves. But just the fact that the Orc Harvesters had started to fight back instead of fleeing told me plenty about where we were heading.

  They had a settlement of their own.

  “These guys really need to learn about clothes,” Tori said as she pancaked an orc with Crush. Guts spewed out onto the bare dirt surrounding a column of smoke that all but obscured the Union Center. She jumped back to avoid the stinking spray. “Gross!”

  We hadn’t leveled. That wasn’t a surprise; a couple of Level Fifty orcs wouldn’t be enough to push me higher in the low sixties. I finished clubbing a monster to death with the Trip-Hammer and stared at the Union Center. It had been a Tier Two Dungeon in Phase One, but if the orcs’ world had grafted right on top of it, who knew what we were up against now?

  “What are you thinking, Hal?” Tori asked, waving at the arena.

  “I’m thinking that the Union Center was a dungeon with a break condition. It released its boss when Zane and Carol got too close, but that had to be a coincidence. I’m also thinking that we’ve never been inside it. I know the last boss is the GOAT, but I don’t know anything past that. We should get in there and check it out.”

  “Yep. This is a chance to check out the Phase Two loot, too.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Another pair of orcs charged us, screaming. A second later, they were both dead. I sighed. Tori was right; I needed the loot these orcs had if I wanted to work toward any of my goals. But Museumtown also needed the information. If Calvin knew what was out here, he’d be able to make a plan to defend the town.

  I strode toward the basketball arena.

  But I hadn’t even gone around the corner before I encountered a problem.

  A gray fog wall of a problem.

  Tier Four Dungeon: The Stronghold (Floor One)

  Objective: Defeat The Warlord (0/1)

  Objective: Breach the Inner Gate (0/1)

  Objective: Survive (0/1)

  Completion: 0%

  Open Environment: Dungeon monsters can leave this dungeon for limited time periods.

  Open Floor: Once triggered, the dungeon’s bosses will roam freely.

  Alarmed: This dungeon’s monsters will alert other monsters near them, and will flee to find reinforcement.

  The fog wall had covered everything around Union Center. Tori had tried Levitating us over the barrier, but the moment we crossed it, the dungeon message appeared, and we were inside the belly of the beast.

  A monster roared, and the Trip-Hammer revved in time with it. I swung, and as I did, a nameplate appeared.

  Orc Juggernaut: Level 65 Monster

  The Trip-Hammer thudded into place with a wet smacking sound, and something sprayed across my face. I cracked my eyes open, then spun as the orc’s backhand cracked across my face.

  It had caught the Trip-Hammer. Blood gushed from its split and shredded hand, but the hammers had stopped spinning, and the blow hadn’t destroyed the monster’s whole arm. What was this guy made of? I whirled, head spinning from the blow to my skull. My jaw felt wrong; when I flexed it, it popped painfully. Then the juggernaut was on me, and I brought the Trip-Hammer up to block the blow.

  The engine howled, and the whirling hammers stopped the orc, but the shock from the impact rippled down my arms. Behind me, Tori cast Push and threw the monster away from me, then followed it up with a Gravity Well to lock it in place. “You good?”

  “Yeah, I’m good,” I mumbled. My jaw was definitely dislocated. I squared up, wishing I had my Autoplate Pauldron. This guy was going to take more firepower than I had right now—at least if I wanted to kill it comfortably.

  “Regular dungeon monsters shouldn’t be this strong,” Tori said as the orc ripped itself free from the Gravity Well, then from the second one she layered on top of it. “Mini-boss?”

  “I don’t know!” The orc charged, this time at Tori. I lowered my shoulder and slammed into it, already whirling my weapon with every ounce of strength I had. The monster crashed into a wall; the cinderblock dented and shattered from the impact, but all three of us were still up and fighting. It punched toward me. I took the blow in the center of my chest, and something cracked.

  We weren’t ready for this. A Tier Four dungeon was too much for us right now.

  The orc’s fist slammed into me again, and I dropped the Trip-Hammer. Tori double-cast Levitate; we both rose off the ground, and the monster’s next blow sent me flying right back into the tile floor. It cracked under me.

  Tori’s spell broke as I raised the Voltsmith’s Grasp and fired a pair of rail gun bolts into the monster. At this range, I couldn’t miss. Both bolts hit, tearing chunks out of the monster’s torso and shredding a knee. It landed on me a second later, but it didn’t punch.

  It didn’t need to. The weight was enough to shatter something in my leg. Pain exploded across my hip and down my knee, and I screamed. The orc rolled the other way, also screaming, and Tori ran toward me. Then she ran past me. I saw her lift something. The Trip-Hammer.

  Remote Voltsmithing activated, and the weapon revved in Tori’s hands. She brought it down again and again, pulping the Orc Juggernaut until a single blood-red experience orb appeared. The second it did, she sprinted away from it. “Take it!”

  I rolled onto my stomach and clawed my way toward the experience. Blood and gore covered my hands and single working leg, but after a few seconds of struggle, the orb disappeared into my chest.

  Level Up! Sixty-Two to Sixty-Three.

  Both points went into Body, and my knee and chest stitched themselves back together. As the agony faded, I pushed myself back to my feet and got my first good look around.

  It was the Union Center. Or at least, most of it was.

  The arena’s outside walls had been partially grafted with a bramble-and-wood barrier, and most of the inside was gutted. In its place stood dozens—maybe hundreds—of wooden buildings. From our vantage point high above the now-missing hardwood floor, we could see hundreds of orcs. They were working on something; a massive, half-built machine sat in the center of the makeshift village, orange Charge sparks pouring from it.

  And heading our way were three more orcs. Two hulking, semi-armored Orc Juggernauts—each the same level as the one that had almost killed me—and one who leaned on a staff as he hobbled toward us. His level was seventy.

  We needed to leave. I turned toward the fog wall and grabbed Tori’s hand, pulling her through. And when we exited the dungeon, I kept running until I was pretty sure we were safe.

  Then I finally caught my breath for a moment.

  “Tier Four Dungeons, huh?” Tori asked.

  “Yeah.” I sucked in another lungful of air. My ribs were still sore from the orc’s massive blow. “We have no business dealing with the orcs. Not yet.”

  “So what do we do?”

  I looked over my shoulder at the column of smoke. “They were making something in there. Whatever it is, it’s a threat to everyone in Chicago, but it’s also an opportunity for me. We need to get stronger, and then we need to be the ones who clear this dungeon.”

  Tori nodded seriously. She was out of breath, too, and it took her a moment to reply. “So, Tier Twos?”

  “And Threes, yes.” I slung my hammer over my shoulder and started walking back toward the east side of Chicago, where I knew we’d find some dungeons—and had a good guess of what to expect in them.

  Jessica was deep in thought in the tower room overlooking the Field Museum when the City Key vibrated.

  She reached for it like it was a phone before she even realized what she was doing. It was so stupid. She couldn’t pick it up and answer it, and even if she could, who could possibly have her number? Calvin was out at the field, working on getting the lower-leveled Delvers lined out on their Tier Two Dungeons, and Tori and Hal were both out scouting. So were Zane and Carol, but toward the north.

  No one else even knew she was here. Certainly not her husband or her ex. They were stuck elsewhere, and might not even be alive.

  Still, the key kept buzzing. She reached out and touched it.

  A man appeared, armored from neck to toe, with no helmet. She almost screamed, but the nameplate over his head and faint shimmer around his body gave her just enough reassurance to keep her composure. She’d dealt with powerful people before, and this one couldn’t hurt her. Not now. Hopefully not ever.

  Manifestation of Mayor Taven Liu: Level Seventy-One (Rank One)

  Class: Fireborn Crusader

  Still, the illusion of heat pouring off the ghostly, armored man was almost real. She wiped an imagined bead of sweat from her scalp.

  “Ms. Silvers,” Taven Liu rumbled. His voice sounded like an earthquake. “On behalf of the Fireborn Crusade, I would like to apologize for the unprovoked attack on your settlement and propose a meeting between us, in Joliet, outside the Hollywood Casino Dungeon.”