THREAD: CrushDaddyXx is going to get Zeke killed.

  USER: CrateBurner

  CrateBurner (Original Poster)

  I want it on the record that this entire plan of Crush’s is how Zeke dies and the fanfic ends.

  Sending him after the Reclaimer is completely unhinged. I know Crush wants more combat in this fanfic, but he’s just tossing Zeke into a gladiator pit with a knife and hoping he survives.

  I think Mushroom called exactly what is gonna happen back when Zeke was first writing this fic. He joked that Zeke was going to turn the entire story into a rogue-lite, back when Zeke was climbing his way out of the Glens. Mushroom said something about us not giving him enough advice, and it would get Zeke killed and we wouldn’t get an ending to the fic.

  I wouldn’t be shocked if Z3ke just kills off his character, rolls a new one, and then picks the story back up with Z4ke or something. It would be a way to get the Primaries to take their responsibility more seriously.

  JawbreakerMaker

  A rogue-lite fanfic would slap. Imagine it’s all the same world and everything that Zeke did would have consequences. Cole would still know about the House of Seasons and all that. But Z3ke is dead and a new character comes in and they’ve got a whole different class and everything.

  CrimsonProphecy88

  I don’t think the plan is entirely bad. Sure, it’s dangerous, but it’s also one of the few paths available to Zeke that could get him stronger faster. At his current strength, there’s entire regions of the Deadlands that he can’t survive in, no matter how much cheats this forum gives him.

  Think about if the next Primary sent him after one of the Cathedrals of Ash. He’d just get chewed up and spit out. What if Zeke has some lore about those Cathedrals? What if he’s discovered something we haven’t? He can’t reveal what he knows because there’s no possible way his current OC can get out there and still survive.

  Say what you will about Crush’s plan, but it helps Zeke unlock the rest of the map right now instead of twenty arcs from now.

  1650

  When you get advice from murder hobos

  Diosholgazan

  I think it’s a very stupid plan from a realistic point of view. First, give extremely dangerous plans to someone you don’t know? That could end up creating a very powerful enemy.

  Second, demonstrate completely innovative knowledge in an area? Zeke is weak and unsupported; if powerful people find out about his knowledge, he will definitely end up in trouble.

  Third, trying to attack the body of a creature THAT ADAPTS? Yes, it will definitely end up making that thing even more dangerous.

  Novalis

  There are far too many single points of failure. What if the delver fucks up once? They all die. What if the mage fails once? They all die. What if the negotiations with the subterranean folks break down? What if draining the Reclaimer makes him go on a rampage? What if the mage can’t understand the instructions? Zeke is supposed to bribe/pay his mercs with loot, right? What if he can’t find enough? There are far too many what ifs.

  Angurvddel

  Honestly, the most dangerous thing to Zeke towards the middle/end part of this is actually *success*. Suddenly knowing the contents and codes to a bunch of vaults is going to get him noticed, and being tortured or imprisoned until he coughs up more doesn’t sound like a good time.

  Releasing all that glyph info to someone you hired two weeks ago and basically letting them head off into the wild from there where anyone can whatever with it also doesn’t sound like a good time.

  And sitting on a giant ass pile of loot down in the middle of the technoapocalypse underdark alone with 3 people who all can probably kill you and you barely know extra doesn’t sound like a good time.

  Lopaka

  All these points about trust are very valid. I’d rather have Zeke learn how to make glyphs than to hire some random and give them hax matrix glyphs. Yea, a bunch of you will bitch and moan, but I think in the long run, this will be good for Zeke. It’ll be a way for him to do magical stuff without accidentally killing himself through mana depletion.

  Much better than having a random guy running around The MIZ with that information and putting a massive target on Zeke’s back for anyone with power to snatch him up.

  IHAVEAIDEA

  | Releasing all that glyph info to someone you hired two weeks ago…|

  Yea, it’s like: “Here’s how to get near-unlimited mana. Where did it come from? Why did I give it to you? Nah, don’t worry about that, you’ll be fineee.”

  LuckyKP

  I’m assuming Zeke isn’t supposed to tell the Glyphwright what the glyphs do or how they work, just provide them with the designs. But I had a similar initial reservation.

  Lilium_Mortem

  The smart plan would be to build up Zeke’s foundation. Work on his class skills, figure out what Persona can do, teach him busted glyph magic in the safety of a rented home. But no. People want a *story*. But it’s going to go wrong. The only questions are how, how badly, and what Zeke has to pay for it.

  ThreadbareTom

  You don’t get stronger by playing it safe. If Zeke is serious about wanting to get back to NYC, he’s going to need to take some risks. I’m not saying that Crush’s plan is perfect or anything. Far from it. But what it is, is efficient. It has the greatest chance at boosting Zeke’s strength to levels where he could survive.

  And let’s be honest here, Zeke is definitely going to survive this. Maybe he writes that he gets injured and has to spend a bunch of time with some healers. But nothing too bad is going to happen to him. And when he comes out the other end, he’ll be stronger and better positioned for what we all want him to do.

  Ch3micalBurst93

  | putting a massive target on Zeke’s back for anyone with power to snatch him up. |

  Okay, but…who exactly is supposed to be hunting Z3ke? Seriously, the list of people who even know who he is is tiny as hell. He hasn’t exactly made his presence known throughout The MIZ.

  Patch and Cole know about him, but they’re not a threat. Cole is still reeling about the whole Corva thing, and Patch has been actively helping him out. Neither is going to betray him.

  Daryl and Jared are too afraid of Patch to even think about screwing over Zeke. And Milicent only cares about that book of glyph info that Zeke promised her. She knows (wrongly) that the book isn’t on Zeke’s person, and the only way she can get access to it is if Zeke makes it back to the Roaring Drake alive.

  You’re all catastrophizing and seeing danger around every corner. Info about Zeke isn’t going to magically get out there. And even if it did, it’s not like he’s got a long list of enemies. Plus, if Zeke manages to kill the Reclaimer and get all that loot, he’ll be strong enough that no one would dare to challenge him.

  GrognarTheGreen

  Ch3mical, have you already forgotten one of the biggest controversies in this story? NPCs have already betrayed Zeke before. He took one of the most chill and universally loved characters in the Fracture-verse and turned him into a murderous scumbag, all because he wanted to get Zeke’s dimensional storage space.

  Which, by the way, the guy could’ve gotten for free if he simply completed the House of Seasons.

  Now compare that dimensional storage space to a book filled with glyph info that Zeke is sitting on. That stuff is worth soooo much more. It wouldn’t be surprising if one of the mercs tried something, and the next arc is going to see Zeke stranded in the Under-MIZ after getting stabbed in the back. He’s got no way back to The MIZ, and we’re all scrambling to figure out how to help him survive and make it back to Patch.

  BrokenKing42

  I think Zeke is going to use this whole arc as something like a wake-up call to everyone.

  Crush wants this big spectacle with fights and monsters, and Zeke is tired of telling everyone that this world is dangerous. He’s gonna punish the primaries somehow.

  CrateBurner (Original Poster)

  Exactly what I said earlier. He’s turning this fic into a rogue-lite.

  BrokenKing42

  I don’t think he’s actually going to kill off his character. I doubt Zeke goes that far. Instead, I think he’s going to try and show this world is a lot more difficult than what Crush and the other combat goblins think it is.

  We all agree that Zeke is focused more on gritty realism than wish fulfillment. Right? The way I see it, this fic is like Zeke playing the game on Hard Mode. That means he needs different strategies to beat everything.

  I’m not great at explaining this, but I’ll try.

  Okay. I normally play games on Easy. I know you’re all going to shit on me for that, but I’ve got a life and I don’t want to grind for ten hours just to challenge one dungeon. I want to play the story and enjoy myself, not claim bragging rights.

  The first time I played a Fracture-verse game on Hard Mode, that was a completely different beast. With Easy, five minutes into the game you’re slapping people aside and swimming in loot. But with Hard, if you try to jump into a fight without preparation, you get your teeth kicked in.

  I bet Crush and the other Primaries are treating Zeke like he’s playing on Easy Mode. They’re having him stroll into the Under-MIZ without a care in the world, because it’s only Easy Mode. How hard could it be?

  Zeke is about to show everyone how dangerous this world can become. It’s going to be a huge thing and it’ll end up with Zeke getting all injured. But it’ll also teach future Primaries that if they don’t plan everything carefully, Zeke gets punished for it.

  WhippleBlue

  Why are you all acting like this plan is Reclaimer or bust? If everyone is genuinely worried that Zeke is going to kill off his own character, why not talk him into staying in the Crushed Skirt a bit longer?

  There’s tons of loot spots that he could clear out down there. I know of at least a half a dozen hidden caches off the top of my head. We could all guide him to a bunch of different money-makers that wouldn’t require him to poke at an adaptive nightmare creature.

  TwoGirlsOneCuphead

  ^ Whipple

  The Skirt isn’t the safest place for him, but it’s probably the best environment he’s got going on right now. Crush and the other Primaries could absolutely build a plan around Zeke stacking credits, leveling his skills, and even testing out the glyphs in a “safe” environment.

  Kachajal

  If the glyphs actually work as described, then shouldn’t we be trying to get Zeke to learn to use glyphs himself?

  This forum designing ludicrously optimized spells for him is the closest he could get to a cheat.

  SoftLocked

  The problem with that is we don’t know how Zeke is going to write about the glyphs in his fanfic. Sure, he could have his OC write glyphs and then activate them. Maybe. But if he fucks up a line, or if he writes down the glyph and makes a mistake, that could be horrible.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  In canon, your character needed a higher level glyphwriting skill to not fuck up the glyph and potentially kill yourself. That was the lore reason for not letting people just use glyphs willy-nilly that they picked up on the forum. Zeke doesn’t even have a glyphwriting skill unlocked, and if he does unlock it, it wouldn’t be high enough to do much with it right now.

  Glyphs are safer to work with than learned magic, but they’re still dangerous as hell if you don’t know what you’re doing. My guess is that Crush wanted Zeke to hire a glyphwright so he could offload most of that risk. ALSO, he probably didn’t want Zeke writing ten chapters of grinding the skill before anything interesting happened.

  BabyInTheCorner

  Meh. I still think Zeke should spend time leveling the glyph skill instead of chasing after the Reclaimer. That would have made for such a better arc. We could have had some real progression.

  Numbers go up!

  Josh183rd

  What I think Zeke should do is let the Reclaimer loose, throw it into the Deadlands, and see what happens. Maybe it would clean up all the pollution around there.

  BabyBloos

  Yea, and have it wipe out all life while it’s at it.

  Has everyone forgotten that this is the Reclaimer that we’re talking about here? Helix didn’t exactly install guardrails when they came up with that creature. The thing works a little too well.

  It mutates everyone and everything around it into warped, broken versions of life. It’s this big, cancerous growth, and if it gets free and heads out into the Deadlands, it would turn into a massive runaway endgame monster. It would be so much worse than the Black Teeth or the Shard Choir or anything else out there.

  HelpfullyUnhelpful

  OOO. What if that’s the endgame for Zeke’s fanfic?

  Zeke releases the Reclaimer and can’t kill it with the forum glyphs. It breaks out of the Under-MIZ and tears through everything. Zeke can’t chase after it because, during the fight he gets all injured. He heals up with his group and then follows the trail of devastation that the Reclaimer leaves behind as it climbs its way up through the Under-MIZ.

  Eventually, Zeke makes his way back to The MIZ and goes to the Roaring Drake, but the place is completely gone. Patch is dead and the Reclaimer has taken over the taxidermied corpse of the Drake. Now, it’s a race between the Reclaimer in its massive Drake form consuming the world, and Zeke pushing himself hard to grow strong enough to finally take it down solo.

  SoftLocked

  Jesus Helpfully…you just wrote a whole fanfic for a fanfic.

  Binary_Arcana

  Okay. I’ve been staying quiet because this is a thread outside the main fanfic one and I don’t want to get involved. But it feels like you’re all about to drift towards doing something incredibly stupid.

  Reminder: the Primary system exists for a reason. It was put there to protect Zeke from getting dragged in ten different directions by people giving him conflicting advice.

  You all haven’t crossed the line yet, but it feels like you’re all getting really close. I’m going to message Gravemind after this because it feels like we need to set clear boundaries with regards to the Primary system.

  Let me say this: like it or not, Crush, Mushroom, and 7Spirals are the current Primaries. That doesn’t mean they’re perfect, but it does mean that we can’t shit all over their plan. ESPECIALLY since the arc has already begun.

  If you want to improve Crush’s plan by adding contingencies and safeguards for Zeke, then do that. That’s fine. But what’s NOT fine is to repeatedly tell Zeke that the plan is stupid, or that he’s going to die, or try to steer him away from something that he’s already agreed to do.

  Crush wants him going after the Reclaimer. Both Mushroom and 7Spirals have worked together to shape the plan into something that doesn’t immediately get Zeke killed. Then, Zeke signed off on it. Undermining all that work doesn’t help anyone.

  FaithInMuscles

  The Primary System doesn’t seem to help him very much. All it does is force this forum to follow a plan that turns terrible and gets half of us to turn on Zeke for how he resolves it.

  Binary_Arcana

  It’s how the whole thing has been set up. It’s what we all agreed to. If you’ve got a better idea for how the system could work, then talk to Grave about it. If you have an idea for how to mitigate some of the problems you see in Crush’s plan, then bring it up to Crush. And if you want to change how the Primary system works, wait until you’re Primary and let everyone jump in and mess with your ideas.

  I’m saying that we all still have to yes-and Crush and the other Primaries, and not sabotage their story arc. If every plan that a Primary creates gets dogpiled because it looks dangerous, or because you all don’t like it, then the Primary system becomes meaningless. Zeke would end up paralyzed and second-guessing everything, or worse, trying to please everyone with his story and not satisfying anyone.

  ***

  THREAD: UNDER-MIZ ADVENTURES

  USER: Z3ke

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  We didn’t hang around the Anchor Guild for long. Once Daryl and Jared had wrapped up their negotiations and had their accounts credited with all their loot, we quickly left. People kept staring at us and I wasn’t a fan of all the looks we were getting. I knew the reason for them. Dumping all that loot on Rowan had been a stupid idea on my part, and I didn’t want to put a larger target on our backs than already existed.

  After we put a bit of distance between ourselves and the Guild, I asked Jared to lead us into a quiet corner of the Under-MIZ. Then I pulled out my Tech Slate and checked in with the forum.

  Back at the Anchor Guild I’d posted a rough description of the map that Rowan had given me. That included landmarks and descent points and notable spots on our way to the Flooded Neighborhoods. It was enough that Mushroom and 7 were able to zero in on something that might be useful.

  The rest of you…well, the nicest way to put it was that you were all enthusiastic about my posts. I was forced to scroll past several dozen replies pointing me to spots in the Under-MIZ that were nowhere near us, warnings about monsters that I could stumble across, and a bunch of arguments that had nothing to do with me at all.

  MushroomCleric: your best bet for more loot than you could sell in the Holdfast is the Bethashba Tower. It was a pre-Fracture corporate research facility, and it’s pretty easy to spot in the Under-MIZ. It’s going to be one of the tallest structures still standing. If you’re fanfic is treating the Under-MIZ like a living world instead of a videogame, then scavenger crews have no doubt stripped the Bethashba Tower down to the bedrock. BUT, I doubt anyone has made it to the very top floors. The uppermost floors are sealed behind an architectural puzzle, and it’s pretty easy to miss if you don’t already know it exists.

  I tucked my Tech Slate away and waved Jared over. “Hey. You know the Bethashba Tower? Could we reach it on our way to the Flooded Neighborhoods?”

  I handed him the map I got from the Anchor Guild and he studied it in silence, tracing a path from where we were all the way through the Crushed Skirt and to the nearest descent point. Then he looked back up to me and nodded.

  “We can get there. But why? It’s been picked clean.”

  “Hmm,” I hmm’d. “Well…it’s on the way. And I’ve got a good feeling about it.”

  Jared gave me a look and then just shrugged his shoulders and got to work guiding us to the Tower.

  The route he chose took us past a bunch of relics in the city. There were collapsed transit tunnels that were choked with rubble, and fallen buildings that made me think of them as the exposed skeleton of the city. Every so often we were forced to climb over partially collapsed floors and up through broken stairwells and through old maintenance corridors.

  When Bethashba Tower finally came into view, my first thought was fuck Mushroom and 7 for forcing me to visit this place.

  The tower rose up out of the wreckage of the Under-MIZ and I did not want to venture inside. The place should have been condemned, and if the Under-MIZ still had a functioning government I’m sure the whole thing would have been torn down decades ago. Entire sections of the building had been peeled away. Where there should have been large skyscraper-style windows, instead there were just jagged gaps in the building, exposing everything to the wind and elements.

  It was like a rusted honeycomb sticking up out of the ground, and I couldn’t imagine anything of value being stashed inside it.

  Jared paused at the base of the tower and squinted up at it.

  “Still standing. That’s something.”

  The surprise in his voice wasn’t exactly the most reassuring thing.

  The lobby of the building had a ton of furniture scattered around the place. It was obvious that scavenger crews had dragged the couches and chairs down from the higher floors and had created a makeshift resting spot there. Firepits were next to the furniture, but none of them was currently in use. Behind the front desk was an old Bethashba logo on the wall, but it had been painted over with warning symbols.

  I glanced over at the firepits and the furniture and mumbled out loud “what’s up with this place? How come it looks so lived in?”

  “It’s a safe area,” said Milicent. “Structurally, I mean. The place hasn’t collapsed yet and the Anchor Guild often sends teams out here to check on it from time to time. Expeditions use the Tower as a landmark and a rest stop when coming to this part of the Crushed Skirt.”

  In the corner of the building was a stairwell that would lead us up to the top of the tower. We started climbing. Two floors in and the tower started to move. It was this slow, subtle sway that sent my heart racing. Jared noticed the surprise evident on my face.

  “You get used to it,” he explained.

  “I don’t think I really want to,” I muttered.

  The stairwell kept climbing and so did we. And as we climbed, the wind grew louder and louder. It howled through the broken windows and open elevator shafts. Somewhere above us I heard doors slamming shut.

  When we got to the tenth floor, a massive gust of wind slammed into the building and the entire tower shuddered. I wanted to curse out Mushroom and turn us all around, but we kept going. Dust shook loose from the ceiling and rained down on us. Old papers that had been tossed aside were lifted into the air and spun through the stairwell, caught by the crosswinds that raced through the tower.

  By the twentieth floor, the wind had become a constant annoyance. It ripped through the hallways and turned everything into a massive wind tunnel. Doors banged open and slammed shut. Somewhere nearby, something heavy scraped across the floor and tipped over with a crash that echoed through the stairwell.

  “This is safe?” I asked.

  “Ish,” came the answer from Jared.

  By the time we got to the top of the tower, the wind was so loud that it drowned out any and all conversation. It screamed through the exposed floor and tugged at our clothes. I swear I felt the wind try and pick me up and slam me into the wall. But we kept climbing.

  When we hit floor 41, everyone was breathing a little heavier. And by everyone, I mean mostly me. I’d gotten a bunch of exercise over the past month or so while running through the Deadlands, but there were still remnants of my previous life - namely my cigarette addiction - that were still playing havoc with my lungs.

  “Hold up,” I said, raising a hand as Jared started towards the next flight of stairs. “We’re here.”

  Jared studied my face and Milicent frowned at me.

  “There’s forty three floors to the tower,” she said. “We’re not at the top yet.”

  “Nope. But a friend had a theory that he wanted me to check out,” I lied. “He’s sure there’s actually a forty fourth floor that scavenger crews have never found because it’s hidden behind a puzzle.”

  I turned towards the interior hallway instead of the stairwell. “The lock to the forty-fourth floor isn’t at the top. It’s down here.”

  Jared, seemingly having started to trust my looting instincts after the Halcyon Annex wing, gave me a look of interest as we stepped onto Floor 41. The place was labeled Facilities and Compliance, and the whole floor was completely empty. It had no doubt been stripped lean decades ago. There was nothing of interest…except for the hallway.

  It formed a ring around a central shaft, the smooth walls of the hall broken up by identical wall paneling and evenly spaced ceiling lights. It looked like any other corporate office building, except it was decayed and empty.

  I guided us to an electrical wall panel and asked Milicent to work her magic and power it up. She gave me a blank look before turning to the wall panel and sketching a small glyph around it. After a couple minutes, enough power had leaked into it from the ambient mana of her glyph that the panel lit up.

  Then, I walked slowly along the hallway, trailing my fingers along the wall. 7Spirals had been pretty precise in his explanation of the puzzle. I want to say that he was annoyingly precise, but at the same time I’m benefiting from his knowledge of the Under-MIZ and I don’t want to piss him off and have him stop helping me.

  “There,” I said quietly. One panel in the hallway was sat just a fraction off from the others. It was raised just enough that I could feel the difference. I pressed both palms flat against the panel and pushed in.

  “Ten seconds,” I muttered under my breath. After ten seconds - and no click or vibration coming from the panel - I pulled my hands away, turned to the right, and started walking clockwise around the corridor.

  “One…two…three…” I counted the ceiling lights as I walked, stopping under the twelfth one. Then I just stood there with my hands at my sides and waited. By now, the rest of my team was looking at me with concern, wondering if I’d lost my mind. I just waited for fifteen seconds, then I turned back to the electrical wall panel.

  I reset the breaker on the wall panel and somewhere above us, we all heard metal shift.

  Jared’s head snapped up. “What was that?”

  I just grinned, happy that the forum’s info was good. The sound was of something heavy sliding into place, and then nothing.

  We took the stairs two floors up and spilled out onto what everyone thought was the top floor of the Bethashba Tower. Floor Forty-Three. When we stepped out of the stairwell and into the open floor, the first surprise hit us immediately. The walls at the far end of the stairwell weren’t where they were supposed to be.

  Massive slabs of reinforced concrete had retracted into the surrounding walls, leaving behind a massive opening that led upwards.

  I stopped and Daryl let out a low whistle as we stared at the opening. That’s when we heard the second surprise. Boots scraped across concrete and I turned to the sound, already knowing what I was about to see.

  A scavenger team stood across the floor from us. They were spread out and half-looked like they didn’t know what to do, trying to decide whether to rush at us or bolt for the new opening in the wall.

  There were four of them. Their gear was mismatched, obviously having been scavenged and repaired a dozen times over. But it all looked well cared for. Weapons were already unsheathed and in their hands, and I knew that this was bad.

  I recognized them from the Anchor Guild. They’d been hanging around one of the side tables where the independent crews were all seated. My eyes locked onto the man at the front, who I took to be their leader.

  He was older, with a craggy face. Deep lines were cut into his skin and his gray-streaked hair was pulled back tight. If this were back in my previous life, the guy would have been retired by now, living in Florida and collecting Social Security checks and arguing with waiters about senior discounts.

  He gave me a slow grin, his eyes flicking from my team to the opening in the wall and then back again.

  “Well,” he said, spreading his hands, his voice raised to carry over the wind that was screaming through the building. “Looks like we weren’t wrong. You really are lucky with your loot.”

  “You followed us,” I said flatly.

  He shrugged at that, completely unbothered. “You don’t dump that much salvage at the Guild without someone getting curious. Now. The way I see it-”

  He never got to finish his sentence. Daryl unholstered his sawed-off shotgun and fired. The blast was deafening in the open space. The man’s head vanished in a spray of blood and bone and his body dropped to the floor as concrete exploded behind him.

  Then everything went to hell. The remaining scavengers scattered, shouting and diving for cover. Milicent moved and pulled out her machete as she charged. She went straight for the biggest of the scavengers, a towering slab of muscle who had to be pushing seven feet and three hundred pounds. He roared and swung, but Milicent slipped inside his reach and swiped out with her machete.

  Daryl fired again, forcing the giant scavenger to retreat as Milicent chased at him with her blade.

  That left two scavengers and Jared and I attacked. I reached into my dimensional storage and pulled out my guitar. It materialized into my hands and it felt…right. Swinging it around felt more natural than when I used either my knife or Corva’s hand axe.

  The scavenger coming at me hesitated just long enough for me to swing my guitar - he was probably shocked that I was using an instrument as a weapon. The guitar slammed into his chest with a meaty thud. He staggered back as the air left his lungs in a strangled gasp.

  Gunfire cracked somewhere behind me and everything started blurring together. The sound of shots and shouting merged with the wind screaming through the broken windows. Loose paper and debris whipped into violent spirals as the tower swayed beneath us, reacting to the chaos like a living thing.

  The scavenger staggered to his feet and drew a long knife from his belt. The thing was jagged and chipped and looked vicious to me. He lunged and I swung. My guitar whistled through the air, missing him by inches. He ducked under it and drove forward, slamming a shoulder into my ribs.

  I lost my footing and stumbled and he was on me instantly. His blade flashed towards me and I threw up my arm instinctively, my new leather jacket taking the hit. The knife slashed but stopped short of drawing blood. Some stupid, disconnected part of my brain thought I really need to thank Riley’s friend for this jacket.

  The scavenger snarled and tried again and he was too close to me to let me hit him with my guitar. We grabbled and I kicked out and he slammed a fist in my side. He punched and I kicked and he slashed and I tried kneeing him in the gut. His knife found an opening and bit into my shoulder, finding a gap in my armor.

  I cried out as blood spilled down my arm and my legs buckled and I was pressed to the floor. The scavenger loomed over me, his knife raised for the killing strike. That’s when the tower screamed. Literally.

  A massive gust of wind slammed into the building, and it was so much stronger than anything I’d felt before during our climb. The air shifted and the floor turned into a wind funnel. Paper and dust and loose debris shot upwards in a sudden, violent surge. I kicked out from where I was laying on the ground, catching the scavenger in the chest.

  It wasn’t a planned thing. I was just trying to get space. I was just trying to defend myself.

  The wind took him. His feet left the floor and the wind roared. He shouted, his arms flailing as he was dragged back by the wind. He reached out, his fingers clawing at the empty air, struggling to find something to latch onto. But there was nothing.

  He was yanked past me and slammed into the shattered remains of a window. And then he was gone, sucked out into the screaming void beyond the tower. All I could do was sit there on the ground and try and brace myself against the wind and stare out at where the scavenger used to be.

  I couldn’t hear anymore fighting, and I was sure that we had won. But instead of checking on the rest of my team all I did was sit there. A thought drifted into my mind as I stared out the window. How long does it take to fall forty-three floors?