I snorted, "Yeah, sure you will," loud enough for the folks surrounding us to hear. Signe, by then, had closed ranks beside me. Her eyes locked on mine, her words hissed sharp and low: "He's stalling. They're repositioning."

  “I know.” I didn’t need [All-Seeing Eye] to confirm. Even as Signe spoke, the auras began to shift, crawling at the periphery of our position, tightening the noose around our collective necks.

  "They're circling, I can see them," I said, voice calm as ice. I would prefer it if Signe and the rest didn't die, but I didn't make empty threats. I was absolutely certain that I could kill the man below and the rest of the Vish present. It might not be easy, it might take a little time, but I could do it. I could make the victory completely pyrrhic for them. That much I was confident of, but it rubbed me the wrong way. It felt like losing.

  "What do you want to do, Kaesor?" I glanced over at Kels, where he waited calmly, crouching behind one of Signe's barriers.

  I didn't answer, looking down at the accumulators bunched in the middle of our little barrier fortress, and the black body bag that contained Felix's body. There weren't any good answers here that I could see. It was feeling more like a lose-lose situation by the minute.

  Then something shifted.

  I could feel something on the extreme edge of my senses; it was coming from the west, from the direction of Yellowknife.

  It was coming fast. Very fast. My head snapped to my left to track whatever was coming my way, as my vision telescoped out with [All-Seeing Eye]. It took a moment, but I found what I was looking for.

  I grinned.

  I straightened up and stared down at the Vish man below, still grinning. "No dice, sunshine," I called down, middle finger held up proudly, "you can go kick rocks!"

  The jovial facade the man had adopted crumbled in an instant, leaving nothing behind but anger and spite. I watched as, for a moment, the Vish captain just stood there at the bottom of the rocks—eyes pinched, lip curled, every part of him radiating rage and sudden, animal calculation. Something told me he hadn't expected me to tell him to get bent, not when he had the numbers and what he must have thought was an inescapable pin on our position.

  The standoff broke all at once. I felt the ripple travel through the Vish lines—a coordinated surge, all or nothing. Spellfire and bullets screamed in from every angle; the cold air hummed with the kinetic violence of the world's worst Fourth of July. Signe and the other Banner mage desperately tried to conjure up new barriers to protect us from the destruction being unleashed on us. Behind us, the survivors and Angus hunkered tight under cover, Kels hunkered down holding up his shield.

  None of it mattered.

  Nothing reached us.

  It didn't even come close.

  The collective wrath of the Vish surrounding us slammed harmlessly into a barrier built from translucent blue hexagons that came to life in a split second. Bullets bounced away, ricocheting into the trees. Spells plastered harmlessly against the barrier. There wasn't a flicker or a crack anywhere to be seen. I didn't need to probe the barrier at all; I could sense the power radiating off of it. There wasn't a damn thing the Vish surrounding us could do to get through it.

  The shield that surrounded us was followed up by the roar of helicopter blades slicing the air, as a pair of the Banner's System modified attack choppers pulled to a stop overhead, kicking snow into the air. I grinned down at the man from behind the barrier while the choppers pointed their own arsenal of likely System-Enhanced firepower down at the surrounding Vish. Ropes dropped down from the choppers, and Banner Rankers began rappelling down under cover from more barriers that snapped into place with a well-practiced efficiency that was impressive. All of them wore a mix of tactical gear with either plate or leather that the Banner seemed to favour, a familiar patch bright on their right shoulders.

  My gaze was drawn to the man in a charcoal grey suit, who stepped directly out of the helicopter and onto a pale blue hexagon while others snapped into existence around him. He didn't wear tactical gear like the other Rankers exiting the choppers; he was wearing a damn suit that looked like it cost a few grand just to get an appointment to be measured for. Well, that answered the question about who summoned the barriers. The man's aura was dense and quite strong. I would put him around my own level if I had to guess, perhaps one or two in either direction. Hands folded behind his back, ignoring the storm of snow and rotor-blade wind. He did not look like a man who had ever been in a fight, or would ever need to. He just looked… settled.

  That certainly changed the situation.

  I kept my eyes on the Vish captain at the bottom of the rocks. His attention jerked to the sky as the helicopters braved the dawn glare, blades shattering the silence the way only an overbuilt military vehicle can. I could feel, even from up here, the collective shudder of the Vish line as the support they really, truly hadn't counted on arrived. The man's aura, so greedy and sure a minute ago, shrank back in on itself. I watched him weigh the odds, his mind flipping through whatever plan B, C, and D he had hidden behind that bluff exterior. After a couple of seconds, his expression collapsed. He began barking orders at his men. I watched with interest as he reached into his coat and withdrew a small object I could see, but the moment it was exposed to my senses, I felt it. It was everything wrong about the Vish member's auras magnified a thousand times. It made my stomach churn from the sight of it.

  He crushed the object in his hand and tossed it into the air, barking out a command I couldn't understand. The word itself crawled into my ear and took root in my brain for a moment; my skin crawled, and a shudder rolled up and down my spine before passing. A sound that was like a shattering pane of glass preceded reality itself, tearing open around the object the Vish captain had broken and tossed. The portal flickered black and grey, like static on an old television. The man stepped into it without hesitation, and the rest of his nearby forces soon piled in after him in rapid fashion. It was almost as if they were afraid of being left behind or rushing in blindly to avoid thinking about what they were doing.

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  I watched the enemy blink away by the dozen, eyes catching the last of them as they vanished, like rats rushing off a sinking ship. I wanted to say it was an anticlimax, but the hairs on my neck said otherwise—the thing these bastards had jumped through wasn't quite a dungeon entrance, wasn't quite a Spell or Skill, and certainly wasn't good news. I felt Vipera's unease ripple up my spine, a warning not to follow, not even to approach too closely. Whatever flavour of System fuckery the Vish were using, it felt old, ugly, and left fingerprints across the slimy underbelly of reality. If it even was System fuckery, it didn't feel like anything I knew that had the System's fingerprints on it.

  The helicopters settled, cutting their blades enough to allow the chattering troops to touch down at a run. The effect was immediate: Banner Rankers spilled out of each helicopter and set up a perimeter in less than thirty seconds. While the group that had dropped on the ropes had already vanished from sight into the surrounding woods, presumably hunting after whatever Vish remained, unable to reach the portal in time to escape with the others.

  My gaze flicked back to the man in the suit to find him slowly descending from the air, step by step, platform by platform, as if he had all the time in the world. To be fair, he probably did. I noted the way Kels, Signe, and Angus watched the man, they knew each other. After a few moments, the man arrived on the ground with the rest of us and sauntered over. For a moment, I wondered how he wasn't sinking into the snow or even leaving footprints. I realized the answer was obvious and shook my head.

  "Regional Commander." Kels drew himself up to salute when the man came to a stop; Angus and Signe also drew themselves up into salutes.

  "Do I need to beat that bad habit out of you again, Kels?" The man snickered, waving off the Rankers who tried to surround him as he approached. "It's Kostick, you know, I can't stand that stuffy title they attached to my name."

  Then his attention settled on me, "So you're Kaesor." He said it as if that look answered whatever unasked questions he had. I just shook my head briefly; this was becoming a far more common occurrence than I was sure I liked. I had a feeling it was going to be an omen of things to come.

  “Feels like I’ve been meeting lots of people who know who I am today, people I’ve never met before.” I shrugged, meeting Kostick’s gaze steadily. “Seems I’ve picked up a bit of a reputation.”

  Kostick let out an undignified snicker, "That's what happens when you start moving up in the world. Our 'community', if you want to call it that, is still fairly insular, so people in the know tend to know names and faces." The man certainly had an easy-going demeanour. Even his aura matched, placid and still like a lake on a calm morning. If the man were any more lax, it would be unsettling. "You, Kaesor, have developed a reputation for strangeness and getting the job done. It makes some people nervous, but it's not a bad reputation to have, honestly."

  My answer was another shrug. So far, I had played the hand I was dealt, I did what felt right and went where I was asked when I felt it would benefit me. As long as it didn't impact my ability to continue growing stronger, I didn't much care about the particulars of my reputation. I was just surprised that I had gained one so quickly.

  "This dungeon, being the latest example." Kostick continued, pointing at the dungeon entrance. "They pulled me over here when the bureaucrats thought you were cutting it too close. It's why they moved me up here in the first place, good at containing things." He grinned easily while several of his hex-tiles floated together, forming a sort of cage made of the smaller barriers. It was a good visual example, if nothing else.

  "Ah…" It took a moment, but I cottoned onto the idea. This Kostick was a walking extension to the timer we worked under for any dungeon he could get close enough to. That explained why he was in the north, where there were currently more and stronger dungeons than usual.

  "There it is, yeah. I can delay a breach." Kostick's grin grew wider. He didn't seem the type to be overly self-impressed, but there was no denying the nugget of pride that was there. Even if it was hidden behind the lax demeanour. "If I'm present before the timer runs out, I can hold it closed long enough to get a team in there."

  While I was absorbing that little bit of information, Kostick's attention drifted away, looking around the area like he was searching for something. Or someone.

  “Where’s Felix?”

  I didn't need to be able to feel the auras of everyone present to notice the way everyone froze at Kostick's question. Though it did make the moment more poignant for me. I had been intentionally ignoring the auras of Kels and the others, avoiding the streak of grief that ran through them like lightning through a moonless night. There was something deeply discomforting about their grief to me; I wasn't sure what to do with it. So it went into a box where I could avoid looking at it too closely.

  I watched as Kel's pointed, following Kostick's line of sight as it made its way over to the pile of mana accumulators that we had brought with us out of the dungeon. As well as the black body bag that was all too familiar to anyone who was in combat or saw its aftermath. I felt the deep ripple pass through Kostick's aura; there were deep waters there. He was not as calm as he looked.

  “Well, shit.”

  That was the signal for the four of them to huddle together. That left me alone with my thoughts. That was fine with me; I'd prefer to avoid an interrogation from Kostick. Not that I blamed any of them. That was just the way people were. I just didn't have any need, desire or want to be involved. Thus, I happily stepped back from the group of Rankers as they huddled together while Kostick launched into something that seemed almost like an inquisition, with slightly more sympathy. I watched the whole thing unfold with a mild disinterest; I had plenty of other things to think about.

  While this whole situation had been disastrous, or at least nearly so, there had been some silver linings. I knew more now than I did when I had arrived; there was that at least. There were still too many things I was in the dark about, however. My eyes landed on the mana accumulators; they were a new piece to the puzzle of the Vish I was still trying to figure out. A piece that made no sense, as it belonged in the middle of a jigsaw, when I was still trying to work out the edges. They threw a wrench into things simply by virtue of how little sense they made for the Vish to be involved with them.

  Everything that was collectively known about the Vish pegged them as being the weakest of the magical factions when it came to sheer force and numbers. Why would a faction in that position want to supercharge dungeons? They didn't have the people or resources to deal with the problems that created. Not without hurling a ridiculous amount of bodies at the problem, making every dungeon clear a meat grinder. The cost would be far, far too high. That wasn't from a moralistic perspective, either; it was simple economics. Spending lives that way was foolish for the Vish, who were a fundamentally criminal organization. They had fewer bodies to call on than an organization like the White Banner, or even the Unseen. They were also weaker on average in direct conflicts.

  It made no sense. The Vish didn't have the people to handle the supercharged dungeons. They didn't have the facilities or means to handle the majority of the resources that came from the dungeons, as far as anyone knew. Were they hoping that the few who would emerge from such a meat grinder would be strong enough to make up for the loss of the rest? Separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were, and the Banner was intruding on their operations? It was true that the System made numbers less relevant to a fight, but that wasn't the only thing that mattered to an organization. No matter which way I looked at it, from which angle I considered the information I had, it still made little sense.

  I couldn't help the way my eyes tracked back towards the pile of accumulators and the body bag. Overall, this had been a victory, yet I couldn't help but still feel like it had been a loss on a more personal level. It was a reminder that I was neither invincible nor all-powerful. I let out a sigh, misting in the cold air of dawn.

  There is one possibility you have not yet considered.

  Vipera's voice slipped in between my thoughts, breaking my introspection. What might that be?

  What if they aren't doing these things to benefit themselves?

  What if they are doing it to hurt everyone else?

  That was a chilling thought.