Getting the entirety of the first area population into a party was shockingly straightforward.

  The Union had notified all the players in the first area earlier that day, and had spent the morning setting up hundreds of banners, posters, and tables for the event, several of which displayed either the heroes, or a picture that somebody had taken of the Core at its full height towering over the entire city.

  The same person had also taken a photo of the carcass, with bits of glowing rainbow fire outlining a huddled mass of biomass.

  Evidently, the union had a photographer.

  “I wasn’t expecting this to be such a big deal,” I admitted.

  Mall chuckled. “The Union has somebody for everything. You see the party planners?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s their entire job,” Mall stated. “They get paid in orbs for setting up parties, instead of running dungeons. Apparently it’s a pretty good gig.”

  “Wild.”

  “I know, right?” she asked, pulling Sern closer toward us. Sern squirmed around, craning her neck to get a better view of the sky. She pointed to the distance, then made a big whooshing sound.

  “I don’t know when the fireworks are going off,” I said.

  Mall smiled. “Those are at three.”

  “In the morning?”

  “Yeah.”

  I suppressed a grimace, and Mall continued.

  “They're supposed to be the closing act for the party,” she said, giving me and Sern an apologetic smile. “Well, a closing for the first day of the party, anyway. Dexten’s with them now, squabbling over which colors to use when and where.”

  “How’d they rope him into that?” I asked.

  “Oh he volunteered. I’m just hoping they don’t burn down the village,” Mall said, with a quiet chuckle. She adjusted Sern, bopping her on the nose. “Now who’s ready to eat a ridiculously unhealthy amount of food?”

  Sern let out a squeak, and the two wandered off to a buffet table, leaving me stranded in the middle of a sea of people.

  One guy looked up at the posters. Then at me.

  “YOU!” He shouted. “You’re that guy!”

  “Yup,” I said.

  “You killed that thing?” He looked me up and down with a scoff, tossing back his luscious gold hair, then taking a swig from a plastic cup. “I could’ve taken it, no problem.”

  “I'm sure you could’ve.”

  “Hey, you’re a pretty smart guy,” the golden-haired guy said. “Wanna join my team?”

  “I’m already in a team.”

  He blinked. “Is that a no?”

  “It’s a no.”

  “Weird. See you around!” He waved, disappearing into the crowd.

  The next fifty people I met talked in much the same manner.

  Something, something congratulations...some form of request—from the reasonable joining for a dungeon co-op to the less reasonable selling an assortment of organs in the world black market equivalent—before ending with my polite decline of said request, and their disappearance back into the writhing crowd.

  By the end of the first hour, I was getting sick of people.

  “You’re Grind?”

  “Yes,” I sighed, turning to the newest stranger.

  “The Grind?” He clarified, his voice hard and cold. From the gray suit and brimmed hat, but also from how he carried himself, it was clear he meant business.

  Actual business.

  “...Yes,” I said, straightening my back. “Can I help you?”

  He smiled, or forced a smile, extending a hand. “Terror Williams, nice to finally meet you.”

  Terror?

  That wasn’t so unusual, really. If anything…

  “You have a last name?” I asked, shaking his hand. “I don’t hear lots of those.”

  “Most people don’t have a need for one,” Terror stated. “Though my first name usually raises eyebrows.”

  “It’s odd, but not the wildest I’ve seen,” I stated. “Besides, with a name like Grind, you can’t be pointing fingers. What do you want?”

  “Yeah that’s a verb, isn’t it? Not even past-tense.” He let out what had to be a genuine chuckle. “I’m here to ask about your becoming a union agent. Someone with your abilities could prove invaluable.”

  “Respawning?”

  “Exactly,” Terror said, hands clasped behind his back. “That is an ability with potential. What concerns me, however, is the nature of the ability."

  “Oh?”

  “You respawn on death with your stats and memory intact, yes?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Terror sighed. “I’m merely worried about balance.”

  “...Balance?”

  “Balancing, as in the video game term,” Terror said. “For all natural abilities in the game, they have a strong element, and a weak element. Sometimes literally. If you have fire breath, then drinking water is dangerous, if not lethal. Due to balance, the hotter that breath, the more dangerous water becomes.”

  I started following his train of logic. “I have immortality, in addition to a time-manipulation ability, then I’ve got to have a weakness that’s just as bad as all that is good.”

  “That’s my theory, anyway,” Terror stated.

  “So you want to figure out how my weakness works, before we learn the hard way?”

  Terror smiled. “Smart boy.” He flicked a card into my hand. “Once you reach the second area, give me a call, would you? I’ll be at the Second Area Union Office. That’s SAUO, right in the capital. If you lose the card, just tell them ‘you’re a friend of Terror.’ I’ll be there, and I’d love to have a chat.”

  He nodded once and disappeared into the crowd.

  While we were talking, I hadn’t been able to see his stats, which meant they were probably well above anything in the first area.

  I tucked the card into a pocket.

  Terror Williams would be a good friend to have.

  Mall and Sern eventually found me again, and dragged me away, for which I would be eternally grateful.

  “Why do you keep talking with everybody?” Mall asked. “If you want time alone, then just hunker down by the dessert table.”

  I chuckled. “It’s just the burden I have to bear.”

  Mall rolled her eyes. “At least people talk to you. Nobody even remembers me. Did you see the poster they put up? Most of the team wasn’t even in it. Just you, Dexten, and the three from the Union.”

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  “I’m still curious how they managed to get a picture of me without my knowledge,” I muttered. “Might be some kind of ability…”

  “They’re the union,” Mall stated. “From what I understand, they’re all basically wizards.”

  The music, previously upbeat, settled to a slow jazz. Couples started pairing up.

  “Come’on!” Mall chirped, jabbing me in the side.

  My stomach churned.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “It’s getting kinda late—

  She dragged me onto the floor and next thing I knew, we’d started dancing.

  Of course, I say “dancing” in the loosest of terms.

  Mall winced, flinching back as I stepped on her toes for what had to be the eighth time in the last three minutes.“Grind. Buddy. You’re going to need to work on this.”

  “I told you I wasn't much of a dancer,” I muttered, grimacing.

  “You just need some confidence,” Mall stated.

  “I’m confident I’m not very good at this.”

  She huffed. “That’s not at all what I mean. Everybody dies, you know? If you’ve just got one life then you’d better be making the most of it, or you’ll have nothing but regrets.”

  “I don’t have just one life.”

  “Shut up,” Mall snapped. “You do have just one life, only yours is broken up differently than anyone else's.” as we moved through the steps, she gave me a conspiratorial little smirk. “Next time we wind up here, you’d better have taken some lessons.”

  Sern spent this time huddled by the dessert table, eating anything that would fit in her mouth—which was most everything—and attempting to eat the things that wouldn’t—which was most everything else.

  When the music finally ended, I suppressed a sigh of relief.

  That didn’t last long, because another dance started within a matter of seconds, and I was soon forced through an hour or more of one bumbling step after another.

  When it was all finally done, Mall dragged me up to the rooftops, where we waited for the fireworks.

  She let out a sigh, collapsing next to me in a heap. “Can you believe there’s going to be a week of this? It’s night one and I’m already beat.”

  “You’re beat?” I scoffed. “Three hours and I can’t even sit up. And we’re supposed to go through a week of it? I’m all for faking my identity and skipping town until this all blows over.”

  “Bah,” Mall grunted. “Too much work.”

  Sern trundled a short distance behind us, falling asleep into Mall’s shoulder.

  “Isn’t she precious?” Mall whispered, bopping Sern on the nose. Sern jolted, making angry incoherent chittering at the two of us, and gesturing toward the sky.

  “The fireworks will start soon,” I said.

  Sern threw her hands in the air, curled up into a ball, and fell asleep again.

  “It’s way past your bedtime, isn’t it?” Mall chuckled. “You know, she’s going to be furious once she’s slept through the whole show.”

  “And then she’ll probably blame us,” I said.

  “Probably.”

  Mall let out a sigh, lifting Sern into her lap. “Of course Dexten was involved in the preparations, so once the ground starts shaking and our ears start bleeding, she’ll probably wake up.”

  As if on cue, the first firework shot into the sky.

  It was a piddly little thing, barely rising into the sky.

  “Huh,” I muttered. “Maybe they used all their budget on the food—”

  It exploded into a field of sparkling light that enveloped the entire city, scorching the air with gunpowder.

  Others soon joined it, each larger than before, until the sky and the ground were shaking with energy, covered in bright gold and silver sparkling patterns.

  The magical pressure reached a point where the rooftiles began cracking, and at least one distinct shack collapsed.

  “Quite the show!” Mall shouted, barely audible over the hissing air..

  “Yeah!”

  Sern yawned, opening one eye.

  She took one glance at the explosive color in the sky, shrugged, and huddled back to bed, sound asleep.

  Mall and I glanced at one another, and we started laughing.

  Then the sky cleared, leaving behind just one small purple speck, likely miles and miles away from the city. It started dropping, as if it wouldn’t finish its ascent, before the first stage propelled it further into the air, crackling with mana. It exploded a second time, and then another, over and over again, until it was a rocket, glowering bright and stronger with every sequence.

  “And that’s the finale," Mall whispered, leaning close.

  The line of purple exploded outward enveloping the forest for miles. Fire ripped up from the ground in a deafening roar that toppled buildings in its raw magical power.

  But it still wasn’t done. The speck was getting bigger and bigger.

  It was moving closer.

  “Ah crap, I’m going to kill Dexten the next time I meet him,” Mall hissed, wrapping on arm around Sern.

  “It’s not supposed to do that, is it?” I mumbled.

  “Of course not, idiot!” She shouted.

  There was a flash of light, and a third of the city disappeared.

  Not broken.

  Not exploded.

  There was a perfectly spherical crater that cut clean through metal, rock, stone, and wood, stretching on and on and on.

  I rolled my eyes. “How do you even mess up that bad?”

  Mall let out a sigh. “At the very least, everybody was in the town square, so I don’t think anyone got hurt.”

  Then the screaming started.

  Black rolling energy washed over the city, followed by a particular stench of mana, fueled with brimstone and acid.

  Monsters.

  I snatched Sern from Mall, and jumped off the rooftop, cracking the stone below. She landed a moment behind me, glancing around at the crowd of players, fleeing the scene.

  “We’re being attacked,” I hissed.

  “Whoever it was, they must be a real piece of work,” Mall said, with a chuckle. “Attacking during the middle of a party with all the union officials present.”

  In the distance, plumes of dust and mana burst forth, one after the other, growing closer.

  “Something tells me the union isn’t much of a concern,” I muttered..

  After a week of adventuring and dungeon raids, I’d started to pick up the differences between types of mana. Calm people make calm mana. Violent people make violent mana.

  Mana was energy to be used, like a battery, and the intention that people have behind the mana that they create reflects their own nature.

  This mana felt arrogant, if that was even possible, and thick, like tar, choking out the air from my lungs.

  It felt nauseatingly familiar, though I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  Mall jabbed me in the side. “Hey, Grind?”

  “Is that familiar to you?” I asked. “The air?”

  She frowned. “What in the air?”

  “You don’t feel that?”

  “A little?” Mall sighed, grabbing me by the arm. “Grind, we need to get going. We can’t fight until we know what’s going on.”

  I reached into the air, pushing back against the acrid mana with my own. “You don’t recognize this at all? sensation isn’t familiar?”

  Mall rolled her eyes. “No, a wave of murderous energy is very much something that I haven’t felt before. Are we going—”

  “That’s what I was worried about,” I muttered. “If you never felt it, but I did, then narrows the options.”

  “To how low?” Mall asked.

  “Three?”

  “Three. Two are good, but they’re supposed to be in area five at the moment, and if they’re attacking, then we’re all probably dead.”

  Mall nodded. “So three is bad but not that bad?”

  A wave of chains rose up from the ground, tearing houses from their foundations.

  “Run,” I hissed.

  Mall scoffed. “I got paid, remember? Two tantalum rings and I spent them well. I’ve got a thousand health and strength, so I’d like to see whatever monster, dragon, or Core there is take me on.”

  I grabbed her by the arm and began sprinting, skirting across rooftops. “She’s a person.”

  “She?” Mall frowned. “How strong?”

  A section of road soared over our heads, cutting through several buildings and a length through solid ground.

  “Sorry,” Mall said, with a sigh. “Stupid question.”

  The roof beneath us caved in, and we started falling, cracking against the ground.

  A young woman, perhaps twenty-three or a little younger, stood in the road, her arms slung around a twelve foot scythe.

  Since we’d last met, it’d grown in size, picking up new edges and a golden trim. Her chains, before silver and gold, were full black with only hints of metal. Her hair had undergone a similar process, gone pitch black save a few golden strands.

  But her eyes were another story entirely.

  They were voids, eternal black with a speck of golden starlight in the very center, emitting an energy I didn’t recognize, but one with enough force to blow past any monster I’d ever encountered.

  I stood my ground, squeezing Sern a little tighter.

  We would survive. We would all survive.

  The woman chuckled, mouth splitting open for a grin far too large and wide to be human, and with sharp pearly teeth too white to be real. “Sorry, did I walk in on something?”