ENGINEER – LIORA BEVINS
BRICK – BORZEN KAIN
RAY – DRAVVEN SOL
HEALER – ALLOV
WILDCARD – UNKNOWN
WILDCARD – UNKNOWN
BONUS CANNON FODDER – CIVILIANS
“Bonus CANNONT FODDER?” I say aloud. “What the hell kind of?—”
Dirk’s voice booms overhead. “That’s the beauty of this game,sweetheart. Don’t worry! You’ll stay alive if you keep moving. If not—” The voice makes a game-show buzzer sound. “You’ll be the fodder.”
Borzen smashes the nearest wall with his fist. The wall dents but doesn’t break. He grunts. “This is a cage.”
Dravven Sol leans casually against a pillar like we’re not trapped in a death labyrinth. His long coat swishes as he flips his blaster in one hand, casual and graceful. Alzhon—gunslinger species. They make sarcasm look like a martial art.
“You’re just figuring that out?” he says.
“Knock it off,” I mutter, staring at the console again. The screen flickers, reshaping into a three-dimensional schematic. My schematic. The structure ofMonstrous Mazes.Except... wrong. The rooms have changed. The trap parameters have evolved beyond anything I ever coded.
“Oh, no,” I whisper. “He didn’t just copy it. He expanded it.”
Allov kneels beside me, her half-grolgath features twisting in concern. She’s got the kind of calm presence you’d expect from a priestess—until you look into her eyes and realize she’s just as scared as the rest of us. “Liora,” she says softly, “you understand this place?”
“Not anymore.”
We move out as a group, though “group” might be too generous. The civilians trail behind us, murmuring and shuffling like they think being quiet will make them invisible. They’re wrong. The maze hums—hungry. Watching.
The first room looks like one of my older levels. TheGravity Reversal Chamber.I designed it as a puzzle—safe, elegant, clever. You step on the wrong tile, you float for a few seconds, maybe get dizzy. Nothing lethal.
Husker turned it into a blender.
The floor is black glass, the ceiling a mirror. The far exit glows with a faint amber light. Simple, right? Except my gut’s already screaming.
“Stay close,” I say. “Don’t move till I say so.”
A man in the back—thin, terrified, clutching a compad that doesn’t work—murmurs, “Why are we listening to her?”
“Because she built this,” Borzen rumbles. “You want to live, you listen.”
“Built it?” the man gasps. “You—youdid this?”
I freeze. The civilians all turn to look at me like I’m the one holding the knife. And maybe I am, metaphorically speaking.
“I didn’t makethis,” I say quickly. “Husker took my designs and?—”
But I don’t finish. Because one of the civilians—blonde, shaking, crying quietly—takes a step forward.
“Please, I just want out,” she whispers, and runs.
“Wait—!” I shout.
Her foot hits a tile. The world flips.
