A mishmash of images passed meaninglessly before my eyes as my mind sat completely still. Thoughts happened in my head, but none were saved to my short-term memory. My perception was buried at the bottom of a well, unable to grip the wet sides and climb out.

  Then, like surfacing from a deep black pool, I was back, in a manner that felt similar to waking up—but given my eyes were already open, felt off in a way I couldn’t quite describe. I knew intellectually that time had passed, but not how much.

  I raised my hand to my face and stared at it. Things still felt slightly off, like I had taken a quarter step out of reality and then forgotten to step back.

  The worst part was that I felt like I had forgotten something important.

  The mere act of sitting on the throne had taken so much power… I had no idea if I had a limit to my well of power or if I could just yoink myself out of reality for the rest of my life by accident.

  But what was that thing I was supposed to…

  Shit! Aurin!

  I bolted upright and saw Aurin was still lying limp on the ground. There was a knife in her hand, buzzing with static; the blade was still coated in my blood.

  Looking at her construct on my stage, it seemed to be crawling with little broken ideas, both inside and out. I crawled over to her and pulled her into my arms. She was completely unresponsive, even as I held her against my chest. I took a big breath as I squeezed her and listened to her quiet breathing.

  Repairing her would take some time, so I closed her lockbox, and she vanished from reality.

  Letting out that breath, I turned to the porcelain figure. It was stock-still, its mind was completely frozen right where I left it, an image of me taking a seat on the throne, and its physical body had little golden flecks of light dancing across its surface. If I really wanted to, I could probably fix it and take control of it for myself.

  But I wasn't really interested in working out how to do that. My role on the team wasn't related to anything it could do, and it would probably just end up sitting around wasting space.

  Also, I really wanted to advance my Grade and unlock new Manifests.

  Actually, that might be the entire reason I didn’t want to fix it.

  Moving over to it, I placed my hand on its back and accessed my System. The anomaly was already under my complete control, so all I had to do was choose to recycle it.

  On activation of the recycling command, the golden flakes flowed from the statue up into my arm, tingling with pleasure along the way. Alongside the Dust, I felt something else get pulled into me, but I was distracted from whatever that was by the number that appeared in front of me.

  +2475 Dust

  Dust: 2800

  Damn, that's a lot!

  In fact, it was so much that it was suspicious. Natural anomalies weren't supposed to be able to become fat piles of loot until the world was practically beyond saving. Given what Makesi taught me, this meant someone had invested a fuckload of Dust into making this thing.

  Without any proper techniques for creating anomalies, the creation process meant investing a huge amount into making something that could have been effectively useless. An anomaly could be anything, though the scale of that anything was obviously affected by the amount of Dust invested.

  Then there’s the fact that Yuxie referred to it in a way that implied this wasn’t even the highest level of officer in the stone army they had lying around. Did they turn the entire terracotta army into an anomaly or something?

  That was a problem for a later me, though. Now that I had a chunk of change, I could buy a Stat point even though they cost a lot more. From the experience I just went through, I knew exactly what I was going to put that point into.

  My eyes still hurt even after the awake-nap I just had, after all. Though that might be because I didn’t blink during that whole ‘nap’.

  System Console

  Name: Ren

  Archetype: Noememetic Architect (Eunoic)

  Grade: 0 (2637/10000)

  Charisma (Glamour): 2

  Venust: 1

  Noesis: 2

  Entelechy: 1

  Dust: 1800

  Lives: 2

  Weight: 1/6

  Charisma would ensure this process was far easier in the future if it ever happened again. I didn’t want to be caught in a situation where I could potentially lose a contest of will versus my eyes ever again.

  Not to mention the parasite that was contained within the statue’s mind… which didn’t seem natural. That was definitely placed there by someone. I wasn’t sure if they had another Dustborn like us who was capable of something like that or if it was some kind of anomaly.

  Letting out a sigh, I buried my face in my hands, then opened up the team chat.

  Ren: I’m never doing one of these alone again. I mean, holy shit, I wasn’t prepared for them to have an anomaly with almost 2500 Dust infused into it. I nearly had my head cut off by this thing. It moved faster than even Aisling is capable of when someone scares her.

  Vivi: A Class 3? Already? Fuuuuck… @Makesi, why did we take this contract?

  Makesi: You were the one who begged for us to take it because the pay was good…

  Vivi: Past me was a fool. The fact that you listened to her makes this your fault.

  Makesi: …Whatever the case, this means I’ll be raising the Threshold State to nine. You should receive a notification in a moment about the restriction being partially lifted, Ren.

  Ren: Aight, I’m almost done here. I’ll be heading back right after I blow up their trucks.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I closed the chat and leaned my head back, taking a moment to apply the eyedrops I bought. The ad didn't lie, they were pretty good eyedrops. Given how often my eyes have hurt or leaked blood over the past few days, maybe I should carry these around with me more often.

  Blinking a few times, I stood and walked through the still-open door to the chamber. As I walked out the exit, there was a crack, and a gust of wind exploded out the door with me as the chamber’s spatial expansion broke. I was thrown forward by the air pressure, only for one of the guards that had been standing by the door to catch me mid-stumble.

  “Oh, thanks—wait, you aren’t alive, how did…?” I said, looking over the polished statue. While I did so, I noticed there was some kind of connection between me and the construct.

  Actually, not to me, it was a connection between the construct and something on my stage. I had forgotten I felt something move from the porcelain officer into me, and it was apparently added to my prop department.

  From there, it dropped onto the stage in my mind in the form of a tablet made out of a pearlescent, almost crystal-like material that radiated pure energy. A golden script was inlaid onto the front, the only symbol I could read from the script meant ‘authority’ in an older form of Mandarin, the rest were symbols that the person I pulled the language from didn’t really know.

  I didn’t even realize I had a prop department, so this was a bit of a surprise. Intuitively, I understood that if I wanted to pull the symbol out through the prop department into the real world. This worked similarly to how Aurin did, but this prop’s conceptual form was also its physical form. Did that mean I could keep other things in there? Would they remain after death? Surely not, because this didn’t take up any Weight, and that was the measure of what I carried with me after death.

  Maybe I could smash it for some more Dust, that would be nice.

  The soldier was connected to that prop via a thin wire. I didn’t really have any use for them, but I sent an order for it to lead the way anyway. I didn’t know if the Show had ended yet, after all, and being shot by someone who was disappointed in the lack of any kind of performance would kind of suck.

  They would know it was me who put on the show after all. Because the ad said it was my production.

  Walking down the stairs with my guards, I wondered where the hell the trucks were being kept in this building. Aurin said they were sectioned off somewhere, and I assumed that would be on the ground floor.

  I could check her mind… if she wasn't broken at the moment. I didn’t dare mess with her until I had time to study what was wrong.

  Which meant I had to wander around checking every room along the way. As I walked, I dug through my Manifest, hoping to find something that could broaden what I could do. I wanted an anomalous item like the one Vivi showed me.

  She had a pair of shoes that, when she clicked the heels together, would make her incredibly lucky for a few minutes. Bullets would miss her, people would conveniently be exactly where she needed them, it was like reality rearranged itself to do exactly what she needed at the moment, though what she needed didn’t always align with what she wanted. That last part kind of annoyed her, as sometimes she ‘needed’ things that she absolutely didn’t want. She didn’t like using them unless necessary because of that.

  Those shoes were how she found me in the first place. She just waltzed into Atlas’ headquarters and shadowed people through doors, cameras stopped functioning exactly when she needed them to, and I arrived perfectly on time before her power ran out.

  I wanted something on that level of power, which, according to Vivi, usually started around one thousand Dust. So I started searching on the Stream for something interesting.

  Halfway through, there was a pop-up about the Threshold State being increased to nine, and suddenly, there were way more options showing up every search I made.

  Still, none of my search results gave me something I really wanted until I tried incorporating my Aspect into it. After all, if I could steal a tablet from an anomaly and incorporate it as a prop, that meant there should be more functionality in that.

  A costume that is connected to my stage and would be immediately useful for me while also providing long-term benefits. This object should also cost less than 1000 Dust, but I am amenable to paying slightly more for something worthwhile.

  That finally resulted in something interesting.

  For eleven hundred and fifteen Dust, I could buy a coat with pockets that contained a limitless supply of playbills. They were sheets handed out before a play that detailed the cast that would be in the play. Except these playbills only listed a single character and their actor.

  The playbills could be handed out, and the person given the playbill would become the character listed on the sheet. Whatever character that was given, they would play that role to the best of their ability.

  There was one downside to it, though. Because for the role to stick, I had to build a mental construct within their mind to fit the role before handing out the playbill. This construct would be taxing to build, but I was fairly certain it would be worth it.

  The description of the item also said ‘the role will guide the actor towards a fitting performance,’ to which I had no idea what that actually meant. What was a fitting performance? Was it something I ascribed to them, or did the role guide them like fate?

  I could just hear Aurin asking me to choose something else. Something more grounded, like the hat that makes people more likely to follow instructions I give them, like they're stage directions. But I could already do that with my eyes. I didn't need a stupid hat.

  And Aurin was indisposed at the moment…

  I quashed the emotional spiral that was just starting to wind up at the thought of what happened to her. She would be fixed soon, and I would hug her and apologize for not protecting her. That would make me feel better.

  I purchased the item after ensuring it came in the form of the sweater I was wearing at the moment. Spending an extra hundred Dust to make sure it would automatically repair when sitting in the prop department. Then pulled the sweater with a bullet hole in it off and changed into my new magical sweater that looked exactly the same.

  -1250 Dust

  Dust: 550

  Reaching into my pocket, I could feel a brochure, and pulling it out, I looked over the blank piece of paper. I needed to focus on a person and a role to get an actual playbill, but this would do.

  Finally, after what felt like the hundredth room I checked, this castle was way too big. I found a dozen trucks and a few armoured personnel carriers alongside an armoured car I was supposed to destroy.

  With a mental command, I had the two stone soldiers start unloading the trucks. It didn't take long for them to find a box of the Tiānlǜ variety of explosive devices. Type 88-9 gel-based explosives, nicknamed thunder charges, which, from what I knew of Tiānlǜ munitions, were fairly nasty.

  Not that I knew much, but it was almost impossible to avoid military hardware enthusiasts bragging about how whatever military information of the week leaked meant that it was completely over for every other megacorp in conventional warfare. Thunder charges were just one among many.

  For some reason, it always leaked through people arguing online about specifications of equipment or vehicles in mil-sim games. I could kind of understand being so dedicated to winning an argument that you commit treason. It was an admirable quality in a person.

  With a thought, I had the stone soldiers unpack the explosives and begin mounting them to each of the vehicles, and inside the boxes of supplies.

  I felt a twinge of something weird, like hundreds of souls just had a miserable time, and it was entirely my fault. That was my cue to get the fuck out of here.

  Once mounted, I stepped out of the room with the two guards, had one of them hand me the detonator, then, while walking down the hall towards the front door, I hit the switch and immediately understood why they were called thunder charges.

  There was an explosive crack followed by a rumbling like thunder, the building shook, and tiles fell from the ceiling as a dust cloud billowed outward. The rumbling continued as the rest of the munitions started going off as well. I dropped the detonator on the floor and made my way out of the building, my objective was complete—

  “Hey! It's the bitch who promised an experience of our lifetime, then delivered nothing!” a man yelled from down the hallway. Turning around, dozens of people had just turned a corner towards me. They all looked furious, and their mental models all focused on me.

  I was being hung, drawn and quartered, tied to a chair, having my flesh stripped off, whatever kind of torment or death you could think of. These people had made it their entire personality.

  Uh, oh.

  A moment later, someone opened fire as I ran towards the exit. I sent the two stone guards to hold back the crowd as I tried to duck and zigzag through the hall.

  Wild screams of fury came from behind me as I burst out of the front entrance. Running out across the stone tiles towards the karst forest, I heard gunshots being fired my way, cracking off tiles around me as they unloaded in my direction. Luckily, the fury they felt kind of fucked up their aim.

  Unluckily, attempting to dodge gunfire meant I didn't notice the ground underneath me moulding into shapes that defied human comprehension. It was only when the trees I was running towards started melting into a soup of non-colours that I realized I might be in more trouble than I could handle.

  Discord Server if you'd like to chat with other fans of my work!