Before we begin, let me make one thing clear—this is not my preferred method of communication. All things being equal, I would have spoken more freely when you visited me earlier. I would have said exactly what needed saying, exactly how it needed to be said. But right now? Things are not equal. Not even close. Nevertheless, those listening will have been left in no uncertainty as to the seriousness of my message. If things play out how I would now expect, I would anticipate the return of what was taken… very shortly. Those who took it may seek to replace me, but they will not countenance the destruction of Soar. In this, you played your part admirably.

  There was no way for Lowe to respond to Arkola’s message—it was just a notification, after all. A line of text flickering at the edge of his vision. But still, his fists clenched, and Slugger activated. A useless, physical reaction to something he couldn’t touch. Something he couldn’t fight.

  Because that was the thing, wasn’t it?

  This entire situation—this entire fucking case—was just him reacting. Being used. Chasing. Trying to outthink, outplay and outmaneuver forces that seemed to have already mapped out every route before he even knew what game they were playing. Cenorth had been moving him for years before Lowe had even known he was a piece on the board. And Arkola? Arkola was hardly even pretending that Lowe’s choices were his own. He’d summoned him to the fucking First Floor to play a game of Whisper Mr Dullard with the end of Soar as his stake.

  And the worst part? It was working. It was still fucking working.

  Lowe hated this. Hated the knowledge that he was being nudged with just enough breadcrumbs laid out to make him feel like he was the one solving things. And now, what? He was just supposed to sit back, keep his mouth shut, and let events play out like Arkola had already decided they would?

  But there no response. Of course there was no fucking response. He dismissed the message and a second later, the next notification in the sequence replaced it. Because, of course, it did. Because nothing in this world was going to stop just because Jana Lowe was pissed off about it.

  I am not sorry to have used you once more. Your arrival on the First Floor will have set all the right tongues wagging, stirring the precise conversations I required. And now, the conclusion I sought - have desired for so long - will shortly be reached. A wrong will soon be—partially—righted. And, for that, I am pleased.

  Well, as long as you are happy, you fucking smug bastard, Lowe thought. Glad to have been of help.

  If I know you—and I believe I do—you will find being used in such a way infuriating. You will convince yourself that I am responsible for any number of deaths, but that is simply not the truth. Something of mine was stolen. And the guilt for what followed lies solely with those who took it. It is not my role in all this to intercede in the choices of men. You must have faith there will be a reckoning for that. And soon. But that is, of course, by the by. No more of that.

  Yeah, sure, Lowe though. Let’s not focus on all the people who had died to get their hands on Arkola’s fucking bird. Wouldn’t want to bring the atmosphere down, would we? He dismissed the third message, but they kept on coming.

  My little gift from the Dungeon saved you this time. A necessary intervention—after all, I would hate for you to fall before you’ve seen this story through to its conclusion. But do not mistake that reprieve for protection. It will not be enough should what I have foreseen come to pass.

  Now, whilst even I have certain restrictions on what I am allowed to do, there are always loopholes. And when it comes to rewards? My parameters are pleasingly… broad. Especially when a plucky little Level 26 somehow manages to drop a foe above Level 50. Oh, yes. On that occasion, no-one on the Council is going to raise a single complaint if I decide to get my sticky little fingers involved. Particularly if I get creative.

  A jolt ran through Lowe as his Core screen was suddenly opened.

  Name: Jana Lowe

  Level: 26

  Class: Removed

  Primary Attributes:

  - Strength: 120

  - Dexterity: 90

  - Intelligence: 295

  - Wisdom: 238

  - Charisma: 60

  - Constitution: 76

  Secondary Attributes:

  - Perception: 95

  - Willpower: 99

  - Luck: 63

  Hmm. I do find all these numbers quite fascinating. Such an efficient little system—neatly tracking who holds power and who does not. But you’ve been cheating a little, haven’t you? Someone’s found access to Level 2, have they? Oh, what fun. Well, I suppose dropping someone nearly twice your Level deserves some sort of recognition, does it not? Let’s say, I don’t know, 105 Progress Points? Now, if I were you—though, of course, I am not—I might suggest putting those into Perception and seeing what happens. But what do I know? I’m just a supreme being.

  Lowe rolled his eyes. Did he really want to put 105 Progress Points into Perception. He had never heard of anyone investing that heavily into a Secondary Attribute. Fuck it, he’d barely heard of anyone putting anything into them beyond the usual rounding out. Secondary Attributes were the scaffolding, the extra bits you considered, not the thing you poured into.

  But here he was. Holding a hand over a decision that no one else had ever made.

  I’m just a supreme being, Arkola had said, so damn amused with himself. Well, at some stage, you just had to take things on faith. Fuck. He hated that word. Faith was what got people killed. Faith was what made them stop asking questions, stop looking for the trap. Faith was what had made Lowe trust the system. Trust Coda. Trust Cenorth.

  It was faith that had gotten his entire team killed.

  But, before he could second-guess himself, he slammed the points in Perception. The effect was immediate and the number in his Core started to climb. Fast. Lowe barely had time to register it when, just as it had twice before, the number slammed to a halt the moment it hit 200.

  Then, another screen materialised before him.

  Allocated Progress Points have reached the maximum.

  Do you wish to rank Perception up?

  Lowe did. Immediately, the text around Perception – 200 turned gold, the same colour as his Intelligence and Wisdom..

  Then he got the next message

  Bonus +50 PP for bringing third Core Attribute to Level 2.

  Please note that these P.P. must be allocated to a Level 1 Core Attribute.

  I am going to assume you have done that, the penultimate message in the queue declared, and you are now more, erm… Perceptive than you were before. To be honest, it doesn't really matter where you put the other 50. Although, considering your various… personality defaults, I might suggest Charisma. But that’s all by-the-by. Use them up so we can finish this little charade.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Lowe dropped the fifty points in Dexterity - just because he had a powerful healing Skill didn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to be able to dodge out of the way occasionally - and considered leaving the final message in this little bundle of joy from Arkola well alone.

  It felt like, for his entire fucking life, he’d been used. First by Cenorth. His boss. His mentor. A man he’d pretty much idolised. Pulled into whatever off-the-books, long-game, backroom bullshit he’d been orchestrating. Manipulated from the start and, apparently, chosen for ir all without even knowing it.

  And now? Arkola was having a go. A god who didn’t even pretend it was anything other than a game. Who spoke like all of this—Lowe’s choices. His struggles. Fuck, his life!—was some amusing curiosity to be prodded and experimented on. A little diversion to pass the time. Lowe felt something hot and furious rise in his chest. Was that it, then? Was he ever going to be anything more than a useful little piece on someone else’s fucking board?

  A knight, nudged into place.

  A rook, standing in the way of something bigger.

  A pawn, pushed just far enough to be sacrificed.

  He was fucked off about it. More than fucked off. It sat wrong in him, like something rotting. Like something deep in his gut was curling in protest. He hated this. But more than that? He hated that it kept working.

  Lowe opened the final message that had accompanied his reward for defeating the Shimmerskin.

  And now that is done, let us turn to the serious part. What was mine will find its way back to me ahead of the deadline. You can be sure of that. I am. But it will be to your advantage to pretend you do not know that is to come to pass. I imagine those still searching for it will become… frantic. Pay attention to those who appear to know such a deadline exists and should not. This may well be that this is the last, true advantage I can give you. Make best use of the boons I have provided - the relic and the Progress Points. Powerful forces are at play, Jana Lowe, and I would have you find your peace. But be aware. I am not the only one in Soar from whom something precious has recently been taken.

  Lowe dismissed the message, and turned back to watch the removal of the Shimmerskin’s body from the hospital corridor.

  Lowe had seen a lot of weird shit in his life.

  He'd seen a man swallow a mana grenade by accident and burp out a localised time loop. He’d watched a Pickpocket try to rob a Priest and get shocked so thoroughly that, for a week, he could only speak in religious doctrine. Which wouldn’t have been a problem had it been his god he was quoting. Apparently, though, the god he worshipped looked askance at that sort of thing and had taken . . . umbrage. And about three years ago he’d arrested a man for trying to smuggle himself across Soar’s border inside an enchanted beer keg which had turned out to be a rather innovative mimic that had lawyered up effectively.

  But right now, watching the Shimmerskin’s body being wheeled to the mortuary by two - at least according to them - profoundly underpaid Morgue Attendants, Lowe had to admit what he was seeing right now was pretty freaky.

  Because the corpse wasn’t settling. It was still changing.

  Lowe squinted. One moment, it was the featureless form of a dead Shimmerskin. A man so utterly non-descript that he was barely distinguishable from a badly drawn mannequin. The next, it flickered. Its arms twitched, its legs moving, as if some part of it hadn’t gotten the memo that it was supposed to stay dead.

  One of the Attendants nudged the other and muttered, “You seeing that?”

  “Oh yeah,” the second one said, glancing at the shifting corpse, then at the three-quarters of a cup of coffee still left in his hand, before setting it down very deliberately on a nearby counter. “Yep. That’s me done drinking caffeine today.”

  “I better go tell Lant,” the first one sighed, shaking his head. “This always seems to fucking happen when we get called to a body from your lot.”

  Lowe realised he was being obliquely addressed. “Excuse me? Define your lot.”

  “Security Services. When you people drop corpses, it’s like a dog leaving chewed-up slippers on the doorstep, and half the time they’re not entirely finished with whatever they were doing in life.”

  “I mean,” Lowe said, raising a hand, “technically I didn’t kill it—”

  Everyone in the corridor turned to stare at him. “Okay, yes, I did. But only after it tried to kill me first.”

  Neither of the two were impressed. The first one shrugged, “Uh-huh. Well, it’s not our problem. Not our godsdamned problem at all. Lant will have a report for you soon.” They vanished, leaving Lowe and Rook in the corridor. Then, without further warning, Lowe’s entire world broke open.

  And it wasn’t subtle. It was like his skull was wrenched open at the seams, and the whole universe was shoved inside.

  Suddenly, everything was too much.

  The hospital corridor stretched, deepened and unfolded into infinite detail. In a blink of an eye, Lowe could see individual fibres in the floor tiles and microscopic cracks in the paint on the walls. All around him heat signatures were radiating from the people around him, through the coffee cup left behind by the orderly was warmer than Rook.

  A clock ticked inside a room four doors down suddenly became the loudest fucking sound in all of Lowe’s world.

  A breath.

  Someone inhaled three rooms away.

  Another exhaled.

  Another.

  Another.

  The entire heartbeat of the hospital rushed in and out. An intricate, chaotic symphony of motion and sound and life and—

  And—

  And—

  Lowe’s knees buckled as the sensory overload threatened to swamp him, but Rook caught him before he hit the floor. “What the fuck, Jana?”

  Lowe didn’t hear him. Well, he did, but he was too busy drowning in raw input to give the words any especial attention. The sudden increase in his Perception - not just a hundred points, but moving into Level 2 - was proving to be a lot. Every single one of those extra points was screaming for his attention.

  His brain—his very high-Intelligence, very high-Wisdom brain—was doing its best to process everything, but just for the moment, everything was too fast. He was seeing everything too thoroughly.

  The weirdest analogy popped into his head, and he grasped on to it. Anything to distract him from the noise. And the sights. And the smells. For the first time in his life, Lowe thought he truly understood what it meant to be a spider.

  To feel the vibration of every footstep in the building. To hear the static charge flicker between mana-powered lights. To smell lingering traces of every conversation that had passed through the hall in the last hour—coffee, mana, the weirdly floral scent of someone’s shampoo, the Shimmerskin’s blood.

  It was too much.

  “Jana? Jana! What the fuck is going on?”

  “Make it stop!”

  “Make what stop?”

  “All of it.”

  Rook narrowed his eyes. “Hold on. You levelled up, didn’t you?”

  Lowe made a noise that might have been agreement or suffering. Hard to tell.

  “What did you do?”

  Lowe managed to form his mouth into the right shape to make some words. “Perception. Lots of it.”

  “Perc - Okay. Well, yes. That was fucking stupid, wasn’t it? Let me guess, your brain’s trying to perceive literally everything.”

  “YES!”

  “Sucks to be you,” Rook said, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’ll settle. You’ve just got a bit of altitude sickness right now. It’ll fade.”

  Lowe groaned, pressing his palms into his temples. His skull was buzzing. Every cell in his body was too aware. He needed to— Then, just as Rook had said it would, his Wisdom and Intelligence kicked in, and sheer mental horsepower slammed into overdrive as the need for him to retain his sanity. He felt his mind begin to categorise everything he was experiencing.

  Step one: Prioritise immediate threats. None. (if the epic stink eye Staffen was throwing his way didn’t count as an imminent threat to life . . .)

  Step two: Sort sensory information by relevance: Way too much of it.

  Step three: Fucking filter it!

  Okay. Okay, he could do this. Lowe focused on individual sensations. On learning them. He catalogued the flickering of the manalights, the scent-trails of the passing Orderlies, the whispered breath of a Nurse in the next hallway, and the distant vibrations of a leyline running beneath the floor. Lowe found himself naming them. Boxing them. Organised them like a filing cabinet, until his mind could start dismissing the unnecessary noise.

  Slowly—painfully—his senses began to adjust.

  After what felt like an eternity, Lowe felt himself able to straighten out. The world was still too sharp, but at least it was no longer crushing him to death.

  “You good, Jana?”

  Lowe took a moment.

  Listened.

  Watched.

  Saw the faint tremors in Rook’s fingers—the way his body was still tensed from what he had needed to do in order to get into Coda’s mind.

  Saw the Orderlies at the far end of the corridor, pausing just long enough outside a supply room before moving on, as if making sure no one was watching.

  Saw the tiny, almost imperceptible flicker in the manalights along the corridor. An energy shift that, if he really focused, he figured he could trace back to the manawell beneath the hospital.

  Saw—

  He swallowed.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”

  “You sure, Jana? Because for about two minutes there, you looked like you were about to vibrate out of your own fucking skull.”

  “Fuck off, Rook. I’m okay.”

  “But feeling extra perceptive, right?”

  “Yes. In fact, I just perceived that you’re a wanker.”

  Rook clapped a hand on his shoulder, the impact vibrating up and down his body. “Welcome to your new nightmare, Inspector.”

  Lowe sighed. This was going to take some getting used to.