I pulled out another potion Jeeves had picked up for me and handed it to Martin. “Drink this. It’ll counter the poison before you melt from the inside."

  Potion of Truth. Rare. Must be drunk willingly. Will compel one to speak only truth for 30 seconds.

  I wasn’t the one drinking the potion, and I didn’t feel bad lying to Martin. He chugged it without bothering to identify it. His eyes glazed a little with a soft, blue glow.

  “So, Martin, you never told me how you escaped stage 1.”

  “Pure dumb luck. That slime gobbled up me and Trish, but didn’t kill us. Spit us out later in front of the countess.”

  “What deal did she offer you?”

  “Simple. She promised everyone else would die. She’d be happy to kill us right there if we preferred, but if we worked for her to speed up the inevitable, she’d reward us.”

  “What kind of rewards?”

  “Not dying, better gear, chances to level up, and teleportation home as the only survivors after the game. We’d be heroes back on Earth.”

  “She lied. She can’t send you back to Earth.”

  He started to respond, then blinked a few times, frowning. “Why am I telling you all this?”

  “Because you know you’re a traitor and you want to confess before you die.”

  “I don’t want to confess. No one back on Earth will know,” he protested, then frowned again. “Stop asking questions.”

  He tried to rise, but I pushed him back down. “Not yet. Who else turned traitor, and who is Syvelis extracting information from?”

  He tried to punch me, but I caught his fist. Growling, he tried to keep his mouth closed, but still hissed between clenched teeth, “I don’t know them all. Syvelis isn’t stupid enough to let us know everything she’s doing, but we had to meet a couple of them to coordinate rumors and make trouble.”

  “Who?”

  He shouted in frustration, then exclaimed, “Carrie Nowak, George Dunning.”

  I knew those names. George was the older, fat tourist guy. I hadn’t seen him since way back on stage 1 when I’d helped Catelyn Smith and some of the other weak folks in his group start hunting. The group had been escorted back to Stepstone, but they hadn’t wanted to take responsibility for their own safety. They wanted everyone to do the work. I could see how someone like that would fall to Syvelis’s lies of easy salvation.

  Carrie was the thick-set woman in that group of Teamsters who liked to give me trouble. She was surly woman. Had Martin and Trish tricked her into turning, or had she volunteered to join them?

  Knowing the names of other traitors made me sick, but also furious. The selfish bastards were putting everyone and the entire planet at risk in an effort to save themselves. I pushed the anger aside for now. The potion would wear off soon, and Martin would never drink a second one.

  “Who is she pulling information from, and how does she do it?”

  Martin struggled mightily, but I held him down. He tried to bite me, gnawing at my armored forearm, but the potion still made him speak.

  “Some idiots like to talk a lot more than think. Some of the countess’s spies have an ability to spoof text messages as long as they keep the target in sight. They have long-vision abilities that let them watch from far out in Ruin. That idiot David Collins is the worst. He spills everything he hears in council meetings. It’s as good as having a spy sitting right in on all the meetings. Liz Stevenson was the best source I knew about from the scout teams. Told us everything they were planning, including patrol routes. And you wonder why I sided with the countess?”

  If he wasn’t forced to tell truth, I wouldn’t have believed it. Well, David Collins had definitely seemed like an idiot, but Liz had seemed genuine, if misguided for letting Burns convince her to help kill all those broken classers.

  “Did Syvelis get Liz to convince Burns to start murdering people?”

  Martin spat at me, then said, “I don’t know nothin’ about that.”

  “What do you know of Queen Marisara’s court?”

  Just then, the potion wore off and Martin barked a vicious laugh. “You Bastia! I’m not telling you jack.”

  “More like you don’t know jack. You’re a meaningless pawn she’s using before she throws you away. Nothing you said was worth the time I’ve invested.”

  That last bit wasn’t true, but digging at the arrogant idiot’s pride might get me a final bit of info.

  “I know you’re on the run, being hunted by the court. You can’t escape them. They’re closing in, and then they’ll own you and make you their slave.”

  If he only knew.

  “Where is my sword?”

  He grinned, showing partiall-healed teeth. The potions hadn’t been enough to quite finish the job. “Gotta pay a price for something that epic.”

  “Or I could just kill you like I just did your wife, then loot your corpse.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Martin gasped, then scowled. “You lie! I saw her teleport.”

  I held his gaze. “I figured she’d run like a coward again, so I sent a little present back with her.”

  “I’ll kill you!” Martin roared, a dagger appearing in his hand.

  I slapped it away. “You can do better than that.”

  He was so angry, his entire body quivered. He tried to surge to his feet, but I pressed him back down. He screamed, “If she’s hurt, next time I see you, I’ll drive that fancy blade of yours through your spleen.”

  “As if you could find a spleen. Where’s my blade?”

  “I don’t have it, or I would have already used it,” he spat.

  “Then go get it and come back when you’re ready to die.”

  The timer on Nullwake expired and he noticed. In a more confident tone, he growled, “You’re dead.”

  Then he disappeared.

  I sighed. Not quite as fruitful a visit as I’d hoped, but still satisfying. One of the 2 murdering traitors was dead, the other angry enough to try something stupid, hopefully with Soulrend. Once I got my blade back, I’d put him out of his misery. More importantly, I knew a little about how they were operating.

  Syvelis would know in seconds that I was the one who sent the Trish-bomb and interrogated Martin. We had to act fast, so I sent a message to Tony.

  Lucas: I got some intel from the Briggs, the traitors I told you about. They identified 2 other traitors. Send people to capture them before they receive orders to run or to trigger a suicide bomb, or something. Their handler is about to know that I know. Names are Carrie Nowak and George Dunning.

  It took Tony a moment to respond. By the time he did, I had already returned to the blasted section of the boulevard. I probably woke him up.

  Tony: How good is this intel?

  Lucas: Reliable. I used a truth potion. Hurry.

  Tony: On it.

  Lucas: I also learned Marisara has spies who can spoof messages to trick folks into sharing information they shouldn’t. But they need line of sight, although apparently they can watch from a great distance. We need to find a way to block their views into town.

  Tony: There’s an upgrade to the town defenses that makes the protective dome translucent. That would block line of sight, but Elizabeth won’t buy it.

  Lucas: We can’t afford to wait. They’re gaining way too much intel on us.

  Tony: Fine. If you trust the information, I do too. I’ll buy it myself.

  Lucas: Do you need help paying for it?

  Tony: No. I can handle it.

  I shared with Tony the info about how David Collins on the council was sharing a lot of information to the spies. Someone needed to warn him to be more careful. Even with the translucent barrier, I bet the spies would find ways to keep messing with people.

  Tony: Thanks for telling me. I don’t think he’ll listen to me. I’ll have to go through Elizabeth.

  Lucas: Good luck.

  Would Elizabeth take care of it, or look for ways to twist the intel into a way to create drama in hopes of generating more VIP points?

  I then sent a quick group message to my team, explaining everything I’d learned and what Tony was doing. Tomas and Andy promised to find Tony and help with the captures.

  Lucas: Ruby, if I have Jeeves give you one of my Truth potions, can you replicate it? We need reliable confessions from the traitors. Maybe they’ll reveal other traitors or ways Queen Marisara’s forces are infiltrating the town.

  Ruby: I’ll do it right now.

  I sent a message to Jeeves to give Ruby the potion, then went to check on Nigel. He was fully healed, and all the steaks and fish fillets were gone. He jumped to my shoulder and nuzzled the side of my face.

  “Sorry about catching you in that spell, buddy.”

  “I might need twice as many steaks for a few days to finish healing.”

  I chuckled. “That can be arranged.”

  “Did you kill them both?”

  “One. I let the other go so he can bring me my sword.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he’s angry, and angry people often don’t think straight.”

  “Then we need to make more people angry.”

  “Working on it,” I promised.

  Then I remembered I got a loot box from that bomb. With a thought, the emerald Mockingjay loot box appeared in the air nearby, casting brilliant green light across the damaged boulevard. When it flashed and disappeared, it left behind a small leather tome and a metallic silver box about half the size of a shoe box.

  I focused on the tome first, expecting another of the rune mastery books. This one was much smaller than the others, though, made out of a glossy, black leather.

  Varrik’s Explosives Companion Guide. Rare. As one of the insane individuals with a death wish, you’ve shown interest in explosives. You’ve also progressed far enough in your rune studies that mistakes will likely no longer just kill you. Embrace the danger with Eldira Varrik’s companion guide to explosive runes.

  The description with its weird mix of cheery doom gave me pause, but it was too late to back down. As soon as I finished reading the description, the little tome flipped open and pages flipped in a blur, vomiting golden letters that condensed into beams of golden light that speared into my eyes.

  I was used to the experience, and this one passed far more quickly since the sheer volume of information was barely a tenth of the other tomes. What it lacked in quantity it made up for in quality, though. Pure information poured into my mind, slotting in among the other rune lore I’d already learned, adding a delightful new level of lethal potential.

  New runes snapped into my mind with perfect clarity. Runes that could add delay timers to turn rune scripts into grenades, along with a bunch of runes to add creative and explosive twists to concepts I already knew. Some helped gather pure force for powerful explosions. They felt effective, but I sensed they would result in extremely resource-intensive rune scripts.

  Other modifiers could help mix usually-incompatible mana types to create explosive reactions. One of the most complex runes, which pushed my rune mastery to the limits, called The Flood, was a very subtle, higher-level rune script that sent a chill creeping up my spine as I studied it more closely. When it was applied to a weapon that stabbed an enemy, it would brand their internals with a copy of itself so even when the weapon was removed, the rune would remain active.

  Other modifiers could be added to The Flood to help it resist being removed by healing potions, spells, or natural regeneration. Depending on how long it remained, it would begin transforming the target’s personal mana into a different type, causing tons of internal chaos and disrupting spell casting. It would have to be customized for each enemy I planned to hit it with, but if it lasted long enough, it could push that internal chaos to explosive destabilization of their mana channels and even their mana pool.

  It was sinister and devious, but possibly game-changing. If I could stab a stronger enemy with that rune, it might weaken them enough for me to win. I’d have to think about the best way to use it, and under what circumstances I’d be willing to.

  The second item proved far more straight-forward, but just as interesting in its own way. The metallic box had a small slot on the top and a larger opening on the front.

  Blazecradle Brigadier Personal Grenade Manufacturing Engine, often simply called a Boombox, this ultra portable DIY bomb-making kit turns anyone with the right raw ingredients into a one-person engine of absolute destruction.

  Input a mana crystal up to tier-3, along with any potion to produce explosive magical grenades. Possible effects are endless, from area healing to elemental attacks, to pure force if no potion is included. Use your imagination.

  “Huh. That’s . . . Kind of freaky.”

  And perfect for Ruby. Although the box was shiny and metal, it was definitely not jewelry. See if Steve could tease me about this present. With her potion-replicating ability, she could pump out endless varieties of grenades to hurl across a battlefield with her grenade launcher.

  I sent a message to Jeeves, asking him to pass the box to Ruby.