Pedro Guttierez sat on the bumper of the technical he’d driven down to Lake Calumet, tapping his fingers on the worn spots on his jeans, just above his knees. He hadn’t stopped since they left Museumtown.

  Tori watched him. He was overweight, nervous, and kind of nerdy—but not in the gaming way. More in a ‘math and sweatervests’ way. She didn’t have a high opinion of him so far. But then again, she didn’t have a high opinion of Calvin or Hal right now, either. They’d sent her off to sit in the middle of a lake, with a middle-aged dude who, a month into Integration, was still wearing a ripped-up button-down shirt. It didn’t even have Bobby’s white suit’s ridiculous style.

  She wanted to be in the fight. That was where her ridiculous level and area control could do the most work. Not here. There. It was bullshit. And it was Calvin’s bullshit.

  He’d explained it in a hurry. The other five technicals were going to do what they’d been built to do—move relatively quickly, provide long-range fire support, and act like a raiding force—and keep the Fireborn Crusade’s flank from wrapping around Whiting.

  Her job was very different. If she did it right, she’d only see the enemy through Pedro’s class skill. But she’d do plenty. The hastily-welded packages stacked in the back of the sixth technical were proof of that.

  Tori Vanderbilt closed her eyes. She’d come a long way in the last month—from emo chick sophomore to hardened dungeon-delver. She’d killed someone. At least one someone for sure. Maybe more—when the Fireborn Crusade had tried to get through the wall outside of the Reliquary of Bones. She hadn’t liked it. But she’d liked leaving them alive even less.

  What she was about to do would be different, but it’d also be much less personal, and she wasn’t sure how that would feel.

  The good news was that the Fireborn Crusade hadn’t dug in when we got to Whiting.

  The bad news was a pair of system messages.

  Waypoint Detected

  An inactive Waypoint Beacon has been detected in a dungeon within one mile of your location.

  Waypoint Contested

  An inactive Waypoint Beacon within a nearby dungeon is currently in proximity to another delver faction. Enter the dungeon and secure it from hostile forces to gain control over the Beacon.

  And the worst news was the tall, helmetless man in the massive armor, flanked by a pair of snakes made from burning bone. They were both Level Sixty-Four now, while Taven Liu’s nameplate showed the Fireborn Crusader at Level Seventy-Seven. He stood with his massive sword over his shoulder, facing Museumtown’s lines, about a hundred yards away.

  “Hal Riley,” Taven Liu shouted across the road. We’d set up on opposite sides of the highway, just north of the casino dungeon we’d cleared after our last meeting, “you and I have a lot to talk about.”

  “Damn right we do,” I shouted back. Then I lowered my voice. “Carol, I’m going to talk to him. Get Museumtown’s people set up, and try your best to keep the West Side delvers from jumping the gun on this. I’d rather try to avoid this fight if I can.”

  “Think there’s a chance of that?” Carol asked. Her eyes glistened with something, and her face looked hopeful for a moment.

  I shook my head and crushed that hope. “Nope.”

  Then I strode out onto the checkerboarded combination highway and dirt path, pushed past a mound of bramble, and came face-to-face with the Fireborn Crusader.

  He’d left his Flamecallers behind. His sword was still on his shoulder, and he looked relaxed. My hammer was in my inventory, and the Fabrication Engine’s trio of drones were waiting in their backpack Charge ports. “Taven.”

  “Hal.”

  “What do you think?” I said. “Think we can resolve this without getting people killed?”

  I really hoped so. There were too many people in danger right now—and too many of those didn’t have a choice in the matter. The Fireborn Crusade was, as far as I could tell, not made from volunteers, but from magical conscripts. And Tori was out there, ready to take action. She might even be watching this conversation right now. If she was, and she and the Telescopist decided it was time, I wouldn’t have another chance to talk him down.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “No,” Taven said. Then he stopped and considered. “I propose you surrender. That’s the only way I see of this ending without bloodshed.”

  I stared at him. Then I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I wouldn’t actually need you to give up Museumtown. You could keep it. The only thing I need from you is the Waypoint Beacon. Once I have that, we don’t have to fight.” Taven offered me a hand.

  “No.” I took a step back, but the way the conversation had gone wasn’t how I’d expected it to go. Taven Liu had been all intimidation and looming threat the last time we’d met. He’d played all his cards to increase his apparent power. But now, with only the two of us facing off alone, he seemed…not desperate. Desperate was definitely the wrong word. But willing to find a solution that wasn’t violence.

  So, after thinking, I cleared my throat. “I can’t let you take the beacon. Museumtown needs it. So do I. Phase Three’s going to have something to do with it, and I want to know how it works. I think that’s the key to surviving. And no one’s got a better class to figure it out than me.”

  I wasn’t lying. I wanted that beacon—bad. If I could get it in the Voltsmith’s Laboratory and start playing with it, I’d at the very least get some new insights into resonance and Charge. But I also wanted to survive Phase Two.

  Taven, to my surprise, considered it. Then he shook his head. “No, I can’t. It belongs to the Fireborn Crusade.”

  “Then we have nothing else to talk about.” I took another step back, then a third. When the Fireborn Crusader started leaving, too, I relaxed. This hadn’t been a truce or anything, but it had stalled just the right amount.

  Tori was probably done setting up.

  “Okay, enough waiting around, time to get started,” Tori said.

  She was done setting up.

  Her part of the operation was complicated. Calvin had needed to explain it twice.

  Two low-level delvers with lots of Body points moved the metal containers off her technical and onto the lakeshore next to her. They’d ridden in with two of the scout rigs. Each package was square, roughly the size of a five-gallon bucket, and made out of aluminum. They were also heavy—like solid lead.

  That was, in fact, what they were made of.

  The key was the River Guide’s Grip—that and Pedro. The first allowed her to extend control over her telekinetic spells at longer ranges. She’d been experimenting, and the effect didn’t seem to drop off until near the end of her clear line of sight. If she could clearly identify the target, she could direct a spell all the way there. But she couldn’t start a spell there. It had to be within her normal casting range.

  Pedro, however, let her work around her restrictions. She never lost line of sight thanks to his skill. It had a range of about three miles, and so far, he hadn’t found anything to do with it except let his nonexistent teammates scry different locations. But with Tori, that had changed.

  Tori started with Levitate. She picked up a single cube, lifted it up about thirty feet, then dropped it. A split-second later, before it could gain too much downward speed, she Pushed it, then Pushed it again. Each Push accelerated the box, and she maintained the pressure on it even as her vision blurred around the edges. The cube made a horrific ripping sound as it tore through the air.

  She hardly heard it. All her focus was on the three foot by six foot ‘screen’ in the air in front of her, and on guiding the box toward its final destination.

  There were maybe a hundred delvers from Museumtown with enough levels to be here. Add a similar number from the West End, and we had two hundred. Against us, the Fireborn Crusade had brought a couple hundred more, and they were digging in. But that was okay—and it was okay that I’d decided to talk instead of starting the fight early.

  Calvin and I had talked about war. He’d been reluctant at first, but eventually, he’d told me two numbers that defined warfare. The first was one to one hundred. If Taven Liu took over, he’d need a soldier for every one hundred civilians in Museumtown to occupy it—that is, without his power, he’d need that. With it, all bets were off. That first number didn’t apply when you could brainwash, or brainburn, people into following you.

  But the second ratio still did. Between two and four to one. That’s how much the attacker had to outnumber the defender in order to win, all else being equal.

  The technicals were…not ready to do what we were asking them to do. They might equalize the ratio. But they wouldn’t give us the advantage we needed on the offensive. Soon. Soon, I’d have the Charge and the Principles to warp battlefields. I was already feeling that; Carol was probably a better fighter than me, and Tori and Zane were miles ahead on control, damage, and how cool their spells were. I couldn’t compete by swinging a hammer for much longer, and I wouldn’t have to.

  But Calvin had said that if all else was equal, the ratio was between two and four to one. One moment, the Fireborn Crusader had every advantage. The next, the battlefield shifted under him.

  I heard it before I saw it.

  And I only saw it because the evening sun was just right to glint off the poorly-welded cube before it slammed into the ground ten feet from the Fireborn Crusader.

  The howl was unholy—like a demon descending from the sky, or a twister coming in over the field. Taven Liu reacted instantly. He threw himself onto the asphalt hard enough to shake the ground. I did, too. The box slammed into the ground later, filling the air with ball bearings, chunks of steel, and bits of whatever we could find. Taven rolled, gasped in pain, and pushed himself to his feet. “Fine. Let’s get started then!”