At the temple entrance, Mother Marteen listened to our plight. The tone of her response sounded so rigid that, at first, I didn’t think she’d provide safe harbor. “Children, Our Lady of Balance is the venerable house of the goddess of vengeance.” She directed her gaze to the white marble statues in the courtyard. “You are where you belong. Of course, you are welcome. We are observing a religious rite, so we cannot let non-followers in the inner sanctum, but you may stay on the temple grounds as long as you wish.”

  We thanked her and followed her into the temple.

  She gestured to various statues set into alcoves inside the temple’s main hallway. “Many of these marble figures struggled against their enemies. Just as yourselves. People wronged or betrayed—who have suffered at the hands of others.”

  All except one statue had a name chiseled into a scroll design beneath its alcove. Its blank surface exhibited no name. The figure looked like a monk performing an oratory act, pointing to the sky as if making a profound argument.

  Mother Marteen gave the statue’s story. “This temple belonged to the pontifex long before my time. His family built it, so it’s no surprise they appointed him its first steward. Though controversial, he has always been a favorite of mine. You passed the statue of the pontifex’s rival in the garden—Adrian the Lame, a prohibitionist during a period when alcohol counted as a heresy. The city executed and cremated the pontifex after Adrian exposed him as a winemaker. Unrepentant, they erased records of his name, and this unnamed statue is all that remains of his identity.”

  She touched the statue with reverence, her fingertips caressing the blank marble scroll chiseled beneath its pedestal. The blank scrollwork struck me as sad. “Did Adrian replace the pontifex?”

  “No. That was the strange thing—Adrian disappeared. The fundamentalists canonized him to sainthood when he never returned. They placed his statue outside.” Mother Marteen patted the blank scroll once more before withdrawing her hand. “The pontifex lost his name, and the friend who betrayed him became St. Adrian the Lame. Two great men—one sinner, one saint—fell on opposite sides of a schism. A tragic end of a friendship.”

  Mother Marteen pointed to an inscription beneath the pontifex—Judge no one until you stand in their place. “You are on one side of a coin. Do what you must do, but don’t judge your rivals, for they are on the other side of the same coin.” She turned to the life-sized statue looming in an overhead alcove. “The pontifex, the so-called sinner, is a favorite of mine. He defied the prohibitionist edicts, and the fundamentalists martyred him. I pity villains, and you should pity yours, for only then can you understand them—and in doing so yourself.”

  Her advice dumbfounded us.

  Mother Marteen genuflected before the effigy of the pontifex standing in his alcove. Before returning to her offices, she laid down her rules. “I must attend observances now. You may not disturb the library, the rectory, or the temple offices. But non-followers to Her Lady of Balance may shelter anywhere else. The public grounds are providence for all. Farewell, young rivals.” She disappeared behind a heavy office door, locking it behind her.

  Fabulosa wiped her eyes. “She could’ve been more helpful.”

  Charitybelle and I didn’t know what to think. Was there a double meaning in that story somewhere? I dismissed the thought. More pressing issues than historical parallels dominated our thoughts. We discussed options.

  I shook my head at the temple’s sparse interior. I saw no features that might optimize defense—no chokepoints, hiding places, or high ground. “Maybe this isn’t the place to fight.”

  “No matter where we go, that stupid dog of theirs will track me.”

  I turned to Fabulosa. “What about the river? Do you think we can lose our scent in water?”

  Fabulosa shook her head. “I tried crossing water on the way here. Besides, the Grayton River current is too slow.”

  Charitybelle’s brow furrowed as she reasoned out the situation like an engineering puzzle. “Given—We can’t abandon Fab. But we can’t outwait them. And it’s a given that we can’t shake them. Our protection buff goes away if we try to defend her.”

  Fabulosa put her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry, you guys. I didn’t mean to drag y’all into this.”

  Charitybelle shook her head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. We’re leaving Belden anyway. They could have backstabbed us 12 hours after we left. Without you, there would have been no advanced warning.”

  Fabulosa opened her mouth, then closed it. She still looked guilty for having drawn them to us.

  I echoed my girlfriend’s sentiment. “We can make a stand here. It’s three against three. At least we have weapons.”

  My companions didn’t look convinced.

  I pointed to Charitybelle’s swords. “What? My practice spear isn’t sharp, but I can use it as a staff. You have swords. We can do this, maybe.”

  Charitybelle pulled out boffers from her scabbards and held them aloft, showing what she’d carried from the drill yard. Her wooden practice swords served as weak clubs at best.

  After a year of walking around campus, we’d gotten complacent.

  “I have one set of extra gear, at least. I don’t have any more armor. RIP carried all our armor.” Fabulosa gave Charitybelle a mace and a medium shield. At least my companions had weapons. She handed me a heavy leather helmet.

  Charitybelle shook her head. “How are we going to do this? We’re level 4. Fab’s 13, but all three of them are 16.”

  I shrugged and shook my head.

  A low growl from a tiny throat interrupted our moment of silence. The sound preceded a small mutt standing at the temple’s entrance.

  A young man called out in a sing-song falsetto voice. “Woo-ho! Is there anyone in here?” The voice reverberated in the large, vacant, marble hall. He cackled outside the entrance, projecting enough to make an echo.

  The dog barked before disappearing in a puff of green vapor. Rather than yell at it to be quiet, its owner had unsummoned the Familiar. The pet had done its job.

  A handsome young man poked his curly blond head into the temple’s open doorway. His nameplate bore the word Tardee. He tilted his head sideways along the door, widening his eyes in exaggerated caution. The door creaked as he leaned against it. When he entered, he gawked at the temple’s decorative interior in mock awe.

  He dropped his charade and plodded inside. He swung his hands theatrically and slapped his feet on the marble floor—the echoes of his footfalls made an unnecessary noise that felt disrespectful to the temple’s decorative ambiance.

  Stolen story; please report.

  My heart beat so loud I felt it in my ears, but my anger at this person for ganking my friends held my fear in check. During our hunting trips, anxiousness often unsettled me before combat, but I felt ready to face danger. Tardee wasn’t just a random game entity wandering the hillside—he was an opponent I wanted to knock out of the contest.

  Fabulosa curled her lip at the trespasser.

  The warrior stopped 20 yards away from us, beneath the pontifex’s statue where Mother Marteen warned me not to judge my adversary. The three of us stood further into the temple near the middle of the open floor. Without pews or columns near us, it allowed for plenty of space to fight.

  I stepped forward. The intruder’s decorated armor complemented the decor of the temple’s ornate hallway trim. His nameplate gave his particulars.

  I cast my only buff, Heavenly Favor. Its effects were hardly negligible, with my 15 ranks in light magic. It increased my health from 60 to 100 and my mana from 90 to 130. All my stats increased by 4—the equivalent of five levels’ worth of stat increases.

  Tardee gave a fake laugh, a guffaw daring anyone to shush the unlikable noise. “Oh, that’s so precious! You ran home to your widdle friends.” He doubled over, as if his stomach ached from laughing. “Fabby-girl and I have unfinished business. What business is that you may ask? Why it’s Hit Squad business.” He waved his short sword, and danced a jig, singing off-key. “You’re a-rollin’ with the Hit Squad! Uh-huh! Just a-rollin’ with the Hit Squad! Whoa!”

  As Tardee shuffled back and forth and wailed to a tune playing only in his head, the hallway surfaces dimmed—as if a global shadow had fallen across the white marble. The darkening hallway felt like an impending gloom closing in on us.

  But the ominous feel conflicted with Tardee’s brash and juvenile taunts.

  Why did he act so strange, braying like a jackass?

  It amounted to no small irony that I came to this conclusion before the effigy of the disgraced pontifex. The statue’s index finger pointed toward heaven in an elocutionary pose. I mentally apologized to the pontifex for judging my enemies, but morons like Tardee made for such a temptation.

  Mother Marteen’s lesson about empathizing with the enemy echoed in my thoughts, but putting myself in his place wasn’t easy. If he wasn’t a jackass, then what did he hope to accomplish with this display?

  I opened my interface and slowed time to a crawl to get a moment to think. At least, the quietude spared me from Tardee’s caterwauling. Why taunt us? Fabulosa mentioned they teased her when they ganked ArtGirl, PinkFox, and RIP.

  Was this guy hamming it up for the camera? Did he want Crimson to feature him as the reality show’s villain? His outrageous behavior screamed for attention, and it made sense. Crimson needed to edit the contest’s narrative heavily. He wasn’t just competing for money—he also wanted attention. An audience couldn’t follow 64 contestants, and the more airtime devoted to Tardee’s antics, the more he could become a household name and bad boy personality. He wanted to endorse energy drinks, introduce professional wrestlers, or appear in campy horror movies.

  Tardee and his friends wanted to become a brand. But where had his friends gone? Stained glass covered the temple’s only windows, and Mother Marteen had closed the only other door.

  Fabulosa mentioned three gankers attacking with backstabs. She also said they used Stealth.

  If these guys had Stealth, maybe Tardee wasn’t as silly as he let on. His performance bought time for his friends to sneak into the building and position themselves behind us. They, not Tardee, posed the most threat. How do we deal with stealthers? None of our group used dark magic, so the only possible answers lay in the available powers tab of my interface.

  Having unspent power points handy in emergencies became another reason to hoard them. Many of the powers promised advantages, but only under specific conditions. Picking the right power could tip the scale in our favor, so I carefully studied ability and spell descriptions.

  My menu listed three deus ex machinas to Stealth.

  Light might counter the darkening temple. Since I unlocked Dim, I knew how it behaved and realized Tardee used it in the hallway. Besides making an ominous entrance, it gave his friends ideal conditions for Stealth.

  To counteract this, I could cast Light to remove their advantage. But wouldn’t that escalate into a Light versus Dim situation? And if multiple Lights and Dims stacked, then a level 4 like me would lose out to a level 16 player who almost certainly had more mana.

  I checked out how Detect Stealth worked.

  Detect Stealth came from the school of light magic. It wasn’t divine in the holy sense—it revealed things like a divining rod.

  At rank 15, the duration lasted only 60 seconds, and the chance they could resist Stealth Detection worried me. But if willpower contributed to spell resistance, what were the chances these dorks had advanced willpower? Once I cast Detect Stealth, I had only a minute to foil their attacks. After that, I had a ten-minute wait to cast it again, which amounted to eons in combat time.

  Detect Stealth seemed a better way to counter their infiltration, but I looked into a third option called Faerie Flames.

  Faerie Flames exposed stealthers for a long duration, but I wanted these players to overextend themselves and lure them inside the temple. They wouldn’t do this if I openly foiled their trap. I spent a power point on Detect Stealth.

  After looking at my options, I purchased another power, an air-based environmental spell called Compression Sphere.

  I’d been eyeing this spell for a long time. It scaled and introduced effects like falling damage, especially against monsters on a cliff. It wasn’t as good at crowd control as Tangling Roots, but any gamer could see its potential for versatility. Abilities that affected an enemy’s position could be game changers. It involved a pure guess if its strength could knock out an assassin for a short while. For a spell that unlocked at rank 8, my nature rank of 15 ought to be high enough to make it potent. Compression Sphere ultimately seemed worth a shot, so I spent my last power point on it.

  I readied myself for combat and closed my interface.