I sent messages to Tony and my team, explaining what I’d discovered and what seemed to be happening, along with the waypoint I’d just marked.

  “I do not like going high above the ground,” Nigel said.

  I ruffled behind his ears and passed him a Water Flight potion while I took another. “You don’t have to go high. Think of it as leaping really, really far and being able to change directions mid-jump if you want to.”

  “That does make hunting easier,” he admitted.

  I hoped he wouldn’t lag, because I couldn’t waste a second. The heavy rain kept the air so saturated, the Water Flight spells worked great. I launched into the air, but kept only slightly above the ruined terrain, barely registering how awesome it felt to fly.

  I made a beeline for Ed, with Nigel flying close behind, his little legs extended like he really was mid-jump. He looked like a kitten Superman. As we flew, response messages arrived.

  Tony: “I’m already on my way. My team will follow.”

  Tomas: “We’ll meet you there.”

  I pushed the limits of Water Flight’s speed, hurtling through the driving rain just above the ruined buildings and streets. Every second seemed to stretch into eternity, but soon we drew within 500 yards of the waypoint. In the distance, the flat space became visible, but I didn’t waste time zooming in my vision.

  Instead, I grabbed Nigel and triggered one of my scrolls of teleport. The world lurched, and Nigel and I nearly shot past the open square before we could stop. Just north of the flat area where Ed had been facing Burns, a fast-moving canal rushed past, with more empty, rubble-strewn streets stretching away toward a cliff faintly visible to the north.

  Below us, a nightmare scene sprawled across the flat area. All of the broken classers were down, their blood mixing with the rain in vast pools. Ed had fallen onto his back and Burns was just yanking his thick boar spear from Ed’s chest.

  Liz and Adam were prowling among the other corpses, clearly looting and finishing off anyone who might still live. The sight filled me with towering rage and I swooped down, roaring in wordless fury.

  Burns looked up just as I punched him with all my Strength and momentum. The blow caved in his chest and catapulted him all the way across the open square to smash in a lifeless heap onto a pile of rubble. I growled, chest heaving with rage, barely resisting the urge to go rip his corpse limb from limb.

  Part of me realized I might have overreacted. Burns might have been putting down possessed people, but Ed hadn’t sounded possessed in that message. He’d sounded confused and afraid.

  “You Bermuda!” Adam shouted, and abruptly the shadows all around me condensed into spikes and drove at me from every angle.

  The attack totally surprised me. I knew nothing about Adam, had only seen him but never interacted with him. I hadn’t even known he had shadow powers, or at least a cool shadow blades spell.

  The shadow spikes shattered against my armor, and much of their energy was absorbed by my Colossus Mantle and Shadow Cuisses, pouring power into my KEG pool, while my Magical Resistance poured in a bunch more to my MRE energy pool. Most of the rest was rebounded back on Adam from my Amulet of the Rebound.

  “Congratulations, Lucas! Mimic has captured Shadow Blade. Time remaining to re-cast the spell: 15 seconds.”

  I spun to face him as he grunted and stumbled. Liz was raising a finger to point at me, her expression determined.

  “Stop, unless you want me to kill you now,” I growled, perfectly happy to give in to my murderous rage and kill them both.

  Behind me, Ed coughed weakly. He wasn’t dead!

  I spun to him and dropped to 1 knee, pulling a full regeneration potion from my inventory. Before I could pour it into his mouth, Burns shouted behind me.

  “Lucas, don’t! He’s possessed.”

  I glanced behind me, shocked to see Burns not only alive, but striding toward me, a faint golden glow surrounding his entire body. No way he healed that fast. I would have sworn he’d died instantly. Must have a final defense item like my Death Catcher Waffles or my Last Chance ring. He didn’t seem to notice Nigel padding behind him, still in kitten size, but ready to pounce if he made a wrong move.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do. I’ll put Ed out of his misery myself after I prove he can’t be saved.”

  I poured the potion in. Burns started to protest, but a whooshing of air interrupted us as Tony flew in, settling to the stones nearby, the silver trim of his fantasy Iron Man suit glittering in the rain.

  Up close, I marveled at the incredible blend of engineering and magic that went into that suit. He was totally encased in metal, mostly black, complete with angular helmet and thrusters built into his feet and hands. The suit looked slick and deadly.

  Tony’s voice rang from the suit with a slightly metallic sound. “Burns, what the Prague is going on here?”

  “Besides Lucas overreacting and nearly killing me?” Burns demanded.

  “You’re lucky he recovered, or you’d be next,” Adam growled, still glaring daggers at me. Usually I appreciated stupid optimism, but today it just made me want to punch off his face.

  Color was starting to return to Ed’s face, and the ghastly wound in his chest was closing. I’d gotten to him just barely in time. He still looked barely a hair’s breadth shy of death, but he’d survive.

  Tomas can swooping in just then at the head of the rest of my team. Adam looked disgusted by the sight of more people arriving, while Liz looked fearful. Tomas immediately rushed to Ed, while Ruby started checking other fallen. Lana and Andy flanked Tomas, weapons out, warily watching in every direction.

  Tomas’s eyes blazed with white light as he activated his powers, and invisible hands began tearing away Ed’s armor and clothing to reveal his badly wounded chest. I left Tomas to his work. His choice of the unique Pawn Shop Tinkerer class might just save Ed’s life. I could focus on figuring out what the hell was going on here.

  Jane snarled at Burns, “You London Bermuda! I’ll rip out your heart.”

  Tony moved to block her advance on Burns and held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Everyone calm down until we know what’s going on here.”

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  “Looks like mass murder to me,” Steve said from his position at the edge of the square. With my enhanced sight, I spotted clones standing ready farther back, bows in most of their hands.

  “Stop jumping to the wrong conclusions,” Burns said, remarkably calm. Could he possibly be somehow innocent?

  “Then give us alternatives,” Tony stated, his voice hard, tone clipped.

  “A few minutes ago, we were attacked by a horde of those stone gargoyles we saw in one of those visions of Queen Marisara. While we were taking them out, some ghost creatures hit the others from behind. Possessed most of them before we even knew what happened.”

  Liz and Adam nodded, but they did not look shell-shocked like I’d expect of folks suddenly forced to defend themselves from teammates possessed by monsters. The snapshot in time my Pulse had given me didn’t jive with what Burns was saying either.

  So I silently applied a scroll of Veracity’s Tongue to my goggles.

  “Scroll of Veracity’s Tongue. Epic. Apply to any piece of equipped gear to see notifications if people are speaking truth or lies. Truth will outline the speaker in green, lies in red, partial truths in brown. Will last for the duration of one conversation.”

  At the same time, Identify triggered on Burns and his team.

  “Burns Turner. Baby human level 76. Team Pirates of the Caribbean. Class: Warbringer Vanguard. As one of the humans who has risen through the ranks to a leadership position, Burns is melding a powerful elemental build with his no-nonsense, gritty resolve that has won him unique benefits and set him up to be one of the contenders as Earth’s final champion.”

  “Elizabeth Stevenson. Baby human level 65. Team Pirates of the Caribbean. Class: Non-profit Wizard. Her build hasn’t changed, although the glimpses into the wider world will no doubt affect her future evolutions.”

  “Adam Teach. Baby human level 69. Team Pirates of the Caribbean. Class: Graveyard Shift Exorcist. Adam likes to keep to the shadows. Literally. His unique build makes him the ideal hunter on this level, with his shadow mastery and related spells and abilities.”

  I blinked as I scanned the descriptions. Burns had jumped all the way up to level 76 and hit his next class evolution, and even Liz had climbed several levels since I saw her just hours ago. They must have killed something big to win all those levels.

  “So where are the monsters and the signs of battle?” Jane demanded.

  Good point. I didn’t see anything suggesting a battle with gargoyles, nor did I remember any evidence from my Pulse, although that information was still percolating down through my subconscious.

  Adam interjected, scowling. “Drop it. We killed them all, looted them, and had to deal with most of our team getting possessed. We don’t want to talk about it.”

  As he spoke, a red halo shimmered around him. Liar. No one else reacted to it, so must be visible only to me.

  Even more telltale, Liz glanced at Adam and Burns, then at Tomas crouched over Ed, working to save his life, a guilty hunch in her shoulders.

  Burns said, “This has been a terrible tragedy. We’ve had a tough day. We just want to go home.”

  Another red glow.

  On high alert for the first signs of aggression, I said, “Well, Tomas should have Ed back on his feet soon and we can question him and verify he’s possessed. With Ruby’s help, we might be able to cast out the monster, or at least learn more about it.”

  While I talked, my mind raced with questions. Why would Burns and his team murder everyone? It made no sense.

  “Unless you three are the ones possessed,” Jane growled.

  “We’re not possessed,” Liz snapped.

  A green glow.

  “How about you Adam? Burns?”

  “Of course not,” Adam snapped. Burns shook his head. That was enough for both of them to glow green.

  So not possessed, or so thoroughly possessed they believed it to be false. Would the spell pick up on the difference? It was an epic-grade spell. Assuming it was accurate, what other motivation could cause them to kill everyone, then lie about it?

  “I’ve got Ed stable,” Tomas announced with obvious relief. “Give me a few minutes and I can get him to wake up.”

  Burns sighed. “I cannot allow you to restore him and put all of us at risk.”

  Brown glow. Partial truth.

  “You don’t get a say in the matter,” Jane snapped.

  Ruby interjected from the far side of the sprawling pile of corpses. “Everyone else is dead, but not yet looted.”

  “I don’t want to hurt any of you,” Burns said, still strangely calm. “I need every single one of you to help me win this game, but the stakes are too high for personal feelings to interfere. If I must, I will go on alone.”

  Green glow. He honestly believed what he was saying.

  I took a step closer to Burns, holding his gaze. “You were not attacked. You chose to kill all these broken classers. I cast a spell. I know you’re lying.”

  He sighed again. “I did.”

  “Why?” Tony cried, again forced to block Jane from charging Burns. She scowled, but thankfully didn’t use her mind powers to simply throw him out of the way.

  “Because they are going to die anyway!” Burns shouted, his calm cracking. “Don’t you see? They can’t grow fast enough to be useful, which means in 5 days, they’ll die useless deaths. This way, at least no life is wasted and their deaths can serve a purpose.”

  Green glow.

  “What purpose?” Jane hissed, her rapid-fire Wrathspire Crossbow of Conflict appearing in her hands.

  It would deal pure spiritual damage, which would hurt a lot. The idea of Burns screaming in agony didn’t bother me, but there was still something we didn’t understand. I forced my raging fury under control. Violence would erupt any second, but I needed to think. What was Burns not telling us?

  Burns ran a calloused hand through his thinning brown hair, frustration flitting across his face. “I can’t actually tell you that.”

  “That’s not nearly good enough,” Tony said, but a green glow appeared around Burns. That could only mean one thing.

  Cyrus was playing another game.

  I held up a hand and said, “Hold on,” interrupting a budding shouting match between Jane and Liz and Lana. Then I looked up and asked, “Cyrus, what’s going on?”

  Thankfully, the AI responded immediately. “Oh, no,” he chortled with undisguised glee. “This isn’t one of my experiments. Burns has fallen into a classic no-win situation where he’s shared the fact that he has classified information, but is prevented from sharing it with those who lack access. This is 100% core game mechanics.”

  No glow, since Cyrus wasn’t actually physically there. Everyone was looking at me, reactions ranging from incredulity to anger.

  Burns pointed at me and exclaimed. “Exactly! You know things you can’t share. I have valid reasons for what I did.”

  Green glow.

  “That’s all I need to know,” Adam said simply. “You say the word, and we do the work.”

  That kind of unwavering loyalty would usually inspire me, but not when we were talking about murdering innocent people, including my friend.

  “Not good enough,” Jane said. “We were going to help them salvage their classes. You just confessed to committing mass murder. I don’t care about your reasons. Every psychopath thinks They’re justified. You’re going to pay the price.”

  “Lucas already killed me once,” Burns said. “Justice served.”

  “Looks like it didn’t take,” she said, voice hard. “I aim to fix that oversight.”

  Tony looked torn. He and Burns had become as close as brothers, but this was insane. I wasn’t sure what to think. My rage still coiled within like a serpent, ready to flare and make me lash out with killing intent, but my mind raced.

  Cyrus loved to play his games, but he didn’t like players getting killed for no reason. Why let Burns commit murder, though. In what way could Burns ever claim his actions were justified? I just couldn’t figure it out.

  “Last warning,” Burns said. “Do not interfere with me.”

  “You don’t get to decide that,” Tony declared angrily.

  Jane started forward, but shadow blades appeared all around her, driving in from all sides. They stopped an inch from her body. She must have already cast a psychic wall around herself.

  Adam cursed at the same time Andy shouted in anger and started rushing at Burns’s teammate, but Steve beat him to it. Arrows whistled in, half a dozen striking Adam before he could move or cast another spell. He staggered as a cyclone of ice and fire and lightning formed around him, roaring like a lion.

  Then Adam appeared behind Steve, stepping out of suddenly-billowing shadows, and drove a dagger into his back. It bounced off and one of the distant clones vanished as the damage Steve should have taken radiated out to it. Steve spun, his burning Inferno Fang Scimitar dropping into his hand, but Adam vanished in a cloud of shadow again.

  He had a similar Shadow Walk to me, and was very skilled with it. He appeared next to Tony, who was sprinting at Burns, black Mark III sword in hand. More shadow blades stabbed at Tony, but most deflected off his armor. At the same time, something slammed into the back of my head so hard my Embersteel Battle Helm rang loudly and flashed into view. Both Lana and Andy cried out in pain at the same time.

  “Congratulations, Lucas! Mimic has captured Shadow Blade. Time remaining to re-cast the spell: 15 seconds.”

  Shadow Blade again. That was a more versatile spell than I’d realized. Adam was multi-tasking and getting really annoying. He shouldn’t have chosen to fight. I unleashed my anger.