DEAD PACIFICA

  Part 4

  I had about twenty-eight days until Dylan Griffin and his gaggle of cameras and influencers arrived at my dungeon.

  Lights, camera, action, and all that jazz.

  Truth was, I had no clue how their delving night would unfold. Besides my special plan of “peeling back the curtain” so to speak of what’s going on around here (and enticing more delvers in the future), my goal was to collect eighty-nine essences.

  Eighty-nine.

  That’s the magic number to bring the war closer to the cult.

  Hit that mark and I could push the war closer to the cult’s front door, maybe shove it straight down their throat. And if I earned a few extra essences along the way? Well, then I could upgrade some traits on my archetypes. Sharpen the edges. Add a little bite.

  “Such a bold plan, my lord,” Elvis said from the armchair opposite of me, and took a sip of his black tea in the lake house living room. I didn’t know if he was being sarcastic or not. I couldn’t read their minds. I wasn’t allowed to.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “That’s all you’re going to say? Nothing about what traps to build? What monsters to unleash? I’ve got essences, crystals! I can make a whole new archetype right now. Throw me a bone. What should I summon?”

  Instead of answering, Elvis picked up a scone—the Administrator’s favorite Terran dessert, or so he claimed—and took a thoughtful bite. He chewed slowly. He made me watch.

  “You know I can’t give you ideas on how to run your dungeon,” he said eventually. “I am only here as an advisor.”

  “And my therapist.”

  He blinked. “What’s a thera—oh! Yes. I am, sort of, like that, I guess?”

  “You don’t have therapists where you’re from?”

  “We don’t believe in it.” A beat. “We have no need for it.”

  “Really?” I raised an eyebrow. “With the amount of culling and genocide your people do for sport, I’d say you all need it desperately. Go ahead. Tell your Elders, whoever they are. Maybe they’ve got a suggestion box back home. ‘Please stop murdering your neighbors just to impress my species.’ Or something like that.”

  Elvis glanced up from his cup but stayed quiet. He didn’t take the bait.

  I noticed my discussing his world was a very touchy subject. I might not be able to read his mind, but I could still read his body language, the way his shoulders tightened under the fabricated human musculature and the slight stiffening around the eyes when I talked about the Administrators. He had told me too much once before. And he knew it.

  Too late for that, buddy, I thought.

  As my point-of-contact Administrator, Elvis visited my domain once every two months with a posse of his armored guards just to check up on my progress as a Dungeon Lord, saw to my needs and little upgrades, and sometimes gave me compliments and occasional commentary from his homeworld about his people’s opinions about my domain, especially how important my ratings were. Apparently, an almost arcane-deficient world like Earth was a very interesting concept to most of his kin, and they could always rely on me to deliver the violence and brutality they hungered for. Other worlds had too many overpowered adventurers that would make dungeons a cakewalk, according to Elvis. When I asked about Death Cores and how often they got wiped out by “overpowered delvers,” Elvis shut down and refused to tell me more. (Demon hinted Death Cores still had a pretty high success rates against highly-skilled delvers).

  Elvis prattled on—guild missions, commitment to excellence, quarterly metrics, the usual. I’d heard the spiel so many times it was practically background noise. My ears tuned him out. My attention drifted to the menu hovering in the corner of my vision that read: [ GUILD ].

  After three months of my grace period, I finally debuted in the rankings within the guild based on how many viewers I had over the past six weeks in the air. I debuted at thirteenth then quickly climbed to fourth place and stayed there consistently over the past year.

  A part of me was a tiny bit disappointed that they just put “Mark Castle” as my channel name. You’d think with all their dimensional technology and universe-spanning entertainment empires, the guild could come up with something more imaginative than just “Mark Castle” as my channel name. Unfortunately, I couldn’t change it to something badass or funny like a dumb pun (now that I thought about it, it’s probably for a good reason). The information they allowed me to see wasn’t much: rankings, viewer counts, a few metrics here and there.

  I’d never met the other Cores. Didn’t know what they looked like. Didn’t know what type they were. And none of them lived anywhere near me. Certainly not on Earth. The Immaran Guild kept about three dozen Cores under contract. Technically, thirty-eight. All I knew (thanks to Elvis’s previous slip-ups) was that I was one of two Death Cores under the Immaran Guild’s banner, and not the dozens he claimed to have when I signed up. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but I fell for the sales pitch. When I called him out on the bait-and-switch, Elvis insisted it was “a rounding error.” Which was bold, even for him.

  Death Cores were rare but very popular in the universe, so one of these four unfortunates from the top five bracket were like me: ritually sacrificed or died so horribly they turned into a Death Core by the System. We weren’t allowed to see each other’s stats. Couldn’t see class, moral affinity, or even their region in the cosmos. Not even their favorite color. Apparently, it was very common in the universe for a powerful Core to hunt and cannibalize the others for power, crystals, and essences. This was meant to keep everyone in check within the guild. Wars often break out in crowded worlds consistently, which was a popular genre in itself, called Battle Worlds, which pulled obscene ratings. Entire planetary wars sparked just because some hotshot Core decided their neighbor tasted like prime rib XP.

  I was glad I didn’t reincarnate in one of those planets, and I hated thanking Astaroth for making sure it stayed that way during the ritual process.

  I shut the guild tab, feeling the faint hum of the System recoil and fade.

  “So,” Elvis said lightly and leaned forward, as if he hadn’t been rattling off corporate propaganda for the past five minutes, “may I count on you, my lord?”

  I blinked. “For what now?”

  “For the next cycle. Can I count on your appearance?”

  “Um, sure. Whatever you say.”

  “Wonderful! I’ll send a teleportation gate the day before the festivities begin. I’m sure the attendance will be crazy once word gets out that you’ll be part of the line-up.”

  I squinted at him. “I’m sorry. Back track for a sec. What festivities? What line-up?”

  Elvis sighed deeply. He realized I hadn’t been listening. “Every six years, The Consortium of Guild masters hosts a…what’s the good word for it here on Earth…ah! A convention. Other Cores gather with some of their archetypes to a designated, but secret, location where you get to meet your fans and mingle with the other Cores. You also get to know a few people behind the scenes and, if you are unlucky, meet other Cores from the other guilds. Although we do not recommend that you do.”

  “Er…like Comic-Con?”

  “I don’t know what that is, but sure,” he said flatly. “It’s like Comic-Con.”

  I couldn’t hold it in and I burst out laughing. Elvis, however, wasn’t. “I’m so sorry. Man, that’s just too funny for me. You’re telling me that your world has a galactic version of Comic-con? Panels and autographs and everything? Aren’t Cores not allowed to associate with each other?”

  “I didn’t say they were not allowed to. If you choose to reveal that you are a Death Core, then, that is your choice, and will be met with the same level of consequence. However, they are not going to waste resources, much less travel the vast distance of the universe, to kill and eat a single Core without knowing what they are, okay?”

  “Unless they are powerful enough to do so.” Hm. I wondered what Cores taste like. How many are on Earth? How many are part of the Immaran Guild?

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Fortunately, no one knows who you are except for a pair of elven archmages—”

  “Sorry, elven—what?”

  He ignored me. “—which actually brings me to my next point. Do you think it’s wise to push for such an escalation now, your grace? So soon?” Elvis asked.

  “Is that what the Elders told you? To question my judgement?” I asked half-jokingly, but Elvis took it more seriously. “And backup again for a sec. Elves, like Tolkien-elves, exist?”

  He ignored that, too. “We’ve both benefitted from our deal in one solar rotation alone,” Elvis said. “You have received a generous compensation package, enough to make you the richest man on this planet, for the carnage you wrought, and as your growing population of monsters can attest. Why not enjoy the next four years of our contract this way? You are, by this world’s standards, unstoppable. Why not enjoy these next four years and relax? Enjoy your new fame and power. Why the rush to risk it all?”

  “What? The Administrators don’t like a little bit of a shake-up on their TV shows?”

  “We live long lives, my lord. We wanted to enjoy the new shiny thing on the street a bit more.”

  I pierced my gaze into his human disguise just for a hint of who—or what—he was. “Are you an elf? Be honest.”

  “Answer the question, your grace.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Look, if you’re worried I’ll get myself killed before Cosmic-Con or whatever, don’t be. I’ve got plans to stick around longer. No need to worry, my elven buddy.”

  “I am not an elf,” he muttered.

  I grinned. “Sure thing, Legolas. Listen, Astaroth hasn’t made a single move in a year.”

  Elvis raised an eyebrow. “Does that frighten the Dungeon Lord?”

  “I am not scared,” I said too quickly. “And besides, he kidnapped three survivors and went sniffing after the others. I don’t know what that horn-fuck is planning, but I don’t appreciate him poaching from me.”

  “Kidnapped? Poached?” Elvis tilted his head. “Is that what the kids are now calling it these days?”

  “What should I call them then?”

  Elvis paused for a moment. “Recruits? You are at war with them, after all. If they are going to stand a chance against you, they need soldiers, and they are very special soldiers, my lord.”

  “No kidding. I suspect they’re trying to tap into my bond with them. So far, they haven’t found it yet. Which is why I haven’t wandered into Kevin Yates’s dreams lately. No sense in handing them a loaded gun.”

  Elvis raised his cup. “They haven’t gotten to the others, at least.”

  “And cheers to that! I shielded them from scrying, thanks to Mother Gertrude.”

  Out of the more than three hundred delvers who clawed their way out of my domain, only thirteen had managed to stay alive and made it until dawn—a nearly five percent survival rate. All of them immediately left my orbit, but none of them had returned yet, resisting the call to delve and face the horrors once again. I let them rest and recuperate their Resolve wherever they were; let them deal with the trauma, pain, and guilt. And guilt was the magic sauce I could provide for the survivors. It builds Resolve fast like wildfire. So when they failed, and I reaped them, I could gain so much more power.

  In theory.

  I hadn’t tested it yet. This was all just theories between Duke Henry, Lord Zal, and Demon were throwing around. I hadn’t fed on a former survivor before, but it was very tempting to lure them back in like some sort of Delve of Champions. I reckoned that time was coming though. All they needed from me was to give them a ring.

  “And that’s what the Seat wants me to do,” I continued. “They expected me to lay low and grow slowly. What better surprise than to stab them in the balls when they least expect it?”

  “Ah. That’s why you are so eager to feast. What your world called influencers? What do they influence anyway? The weak-minded?”

  “Not just them,” I said. “Sure, they’re bringing a whole crew, but that’s not enough. I wanted to attack Astaroth by the next winter equinox.” Elvis raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue, but I shook my head. If he’s not willing to tell me more about his world, then I’m not sharing my thoughts to him. I realized the Administrators also couldn’t read my thoughts. “Why spoil all the fun, eh, Elvis?”

  Elvis chuckled. “Mother Gertrude’s rituals, I presume?”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “How are you going to get the rest of the delvers?” Elvis asked.

  “Simple,” I said. “I have half of the continent to explore.”

  Elvis nodded, satisfied. “Since I still have your ears, my lord, do you want me to tell you now what to expect during the convention or shall I wait until before the day you travel?”

  “When’s that again?”

  “Next local solar rotation.”

  So, next year. I sighed. “You know what, Elvis? I have nothing better to do around here until Griffin and his friends arrive, so, shoot. Tell me what I need to know so I can prepare.”

  “Excellent!” Elvis clapped his hands excitedly as his face brightened. “So, you get paid to appear, including me for taking you. I take a big percentage.”

  “Of course,” I said dryly. “Now it makes sense.”

  Elvis grinned. “You may also bring along seven archetypes with you to the festival, which should be your seven popular archetypes for your fans to meet. Don’t worry. Before we travel, I’ll give you a laundry list of what the viewers like and hope to see from our favorite dungeon lord…”

  Elvis talked for another two hours.

  I regretted every second of it.

  After Elvis and his guards left through a teleportation portal, I began to do my usual routine of preparing the delvers for Act One—the pre-game. In Demon’s words, I was seasoning them with a special spice of paranoia, some creepiness here and there, and apprehension. Then, I’d move to Act Two: Baiting them toward their eventual doom. The part when their fear and anxiety lured them to make mistakes, and would build and build to a bloody crescendo until, eventually, the delvers ended up screaming, groveling, and running for their lives before being picked off one by one.

  And, of course, the most important part: the introduction of the main villains.

  Then the final step—Act Three: The Bloodbath.

  There’s no need for an explanation once this phase commenced.

  It had been a successful formula for most of the scenarios I had run. There’s no need to divert away from it now. And it seemed like my future delvers didn’t need help from me to prod them to the first step.

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  Triggering [ Fractal Omniscience ], I watched as Heidi Birchall snuck out of Dylan Griffin’s bedroom in the early hours of the morning. She was bleary-eyed, sour-mouthed, and hungover just enough to regret last night but not enough to dwell on it. There was only one thing on her mind right now: getting to Sacramento for her cousin’s wedding. A few of the guests had stayed the night too, scattered across Griffin’s mansion, laying on the floor, the couch, and one man dozed off on an inflatable lounger on the pool. She was relieved Anton didn’t stay the night.

  She hugged her coat close as the early-morning chill rolled down from the hills. The Uber she’d called sat idled at the curb; a silver sedan with the driver half awake.

  She slid into the back seat and the car pulled out.

  For a few minutes, everything was normal. Streetlights flickered past in a measured rhythm. The driver didn’t speak much.. Heidi didn’t, either. She just stared out the window, thumb doom-scrolling, face lit by the cold blue of her phone’s screen.

  Then her phone buzzed.

  UNKNOWN ID.

  She frowned. Let it ring. It stopped eventually.

  Thirty seconds later, it buzzed again.

  She pressed her lips together and declined the call with a flick of her thumb.

  The driver glanced at her through the mirror. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Heidi said. “Just some spam calls.”

  “Lots of that happening lately.”

  She gave the man a polite smile. Looked back down.

  Ten minutes later, they were turning into familiar streets with her neighborhood coming up fast when her phone rang again. This time she didn’t even look at the screen.

  “Jesus Christ,” she swore under her breath, and stabbed the accept button. “Hello? This is Heidi Birchall. Who is this?” She didn’t mean to sound tired and annoyed, but it was too late now. She hoped the person on the other line didn’t take offense.

  A pause. Then a woman’s voice spoke. “Is this Dead Pacifica? Um, the podcast?”

  Heidi blinked, thrown for half a second. People were always contacting her. Journalists. Independent researchers. Amateur investigators who thought they had a lead for the show. She was used to giving out her number, too often and too easily, always trying to be helpful. Assistant producers didn’t get to hide behind layers of staff like Dylan Griffin or Retto Kearns. She took those calls and filtered them. And on mornings like this, she didn’t like taking such business calls when she would rather do something else.

  “Yes,” she said carefully, snapping back to business-mode. “I’m the assistant producer of the show. Who am I speaking with?”

  The woman didn’t answer for a beat.

  “Hello?” Heidi asked, growing more impatient. She looked up to the front and realized that she was only three minutes away from her house.

  “Listen, if this is important, you can call or email me. My contact info is on the website, but if you don’t know, it is—”

  “Don’t go to North Cedar Lake,” the woman said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s not too late, Ms. Birchall.”

  Heidi sat up straighter. A chill slid down the inside of her ribs, but she kept her voice even. “Ma’am, can you tell me who this is? How did you get—”

  “You need to warn them,” the woman said, cutting her off. “Warn Dylan, Retto, and your boss. Everyone. Tell them to cancel the livestream. Do you understand? You’re drawing Him to you. Cancel it.”

  “Drawing who?”

  “Him.”

  “Miss, if this is some sort of joke—”

  “It is not a joke. I’m risking my life just telling you this, okay? Look, if Dylan goes there…if any of you go there…you’ll be good as dead. Do you hear me?”

  Heidi’s eyes gleamed. “Ma’am, are you from Point Hope? A potential witness? Hold on, if I can get your contact information and where I can get a hold of you—”

  “—I’ve said too much on the line. He’s listening. They always are.”

  “Um, who’s listening?”

  A tense pause. “The monsters.”

  “The monsters?”

  “I have to go. It’s not too late. I have to go.”

  “Wait—!” Before Heidi could respond, the line clicked dead. She stared at the phone for a beat, then two. Hit redial. No answer. Tried again. Straight to voicemail.

  They pulled up in front of her building. She climbed out and thanked the driver automatically, barely aware of her own voice. Walking up the stairs to her unit, she replayed the conversation again and again.

  By the time she unlocked her apartment door, she’d forced the whole thing into a corner of her mind. Hard day ahead. A wedding to get ready for. No room for weirdos and strange cryptic warnings from nobodies. There were a lot of freaks these days who would go to extreme lengths just to scare people.

  Still, even as she set her phone down on the kitchen counter, part of her brain wondered: Didn’t that woman sounded scared? Like genuinely scared? Or was it some sick prank? She wouldn’t let it past Dylan Griffin to pull a stunt like that. Hell, he’d done it before. But right after they hooked up? Was he upset that she snuck out? It’s not like they’re a thing or whatever.

  This was just a one time thing. Not happening again. Ever, she thought. But that’s what she said last time, too.

  She exhaled slowly, her heartbeat pushing hard against her sternum. People said weird things to the show all the time, sure. It often lead to nothing. But this felt different. Stranger.

  It gave her the creeps.

  With Oracle, I followed the call to its source.

  North.

  In Seattle.

  In the hands of Vivian Yates.

  She ended the call and immediately regretted it. Her fingers hovered over the phone like they wanted to snatch the words back out of the air. Too late now. The room felt colder than it had a minute ago. She was sitting cross-legged on the faded quilt of an upstairs bedroom just outside of the city. Through the window, there was nothing but trees. Dark pines crowding the slope, their branches pressed up against the horizon like eavesdropping giants.

  Her laptop sat open on the bed beside her, frozen on the Dead Pacifica homepage. Dylan Griffin’s face grinning handsomely. Retto Kearns leaning back in his chair, smirking with a beer in hand.

  They shouldn’t go. They couldn’t go, she thought. Not after what she’d seen that night. Not after—

  “Vivian?”

  A soft knock. Then the door cracked open.

  Lauren Toomes poked her head inside with her dark curls pinned up messily. She went by Madame Dallaire to most people, but to the coven she was just Lauren. “Breakfast is ready,” she said. Then her gaze slid to the laptop and to Vivian’s phone.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she sighed. “You called them?”

  “I had to,” Vivian whispered. “They’re going to North Cedar Lake. I—I saw—”

  “I know what you saw.” Lauren moved into the room, closing the door behind her. “We both watched the livestream. And we all heard what Mother Elaine said when we brought it up to her.”

  Vivian swallowed. Guilt sat like a stone behind her stomach. “They are going to rip them apart. I’ve shown you several of the missing posters. The freak accidents! The entity is still there.”

  “I know, I know.” Lauren let out another sigh.

  “But why aren’t you listening?”

  “I am listening, Vivian. She said not to interfere,” Lauren reminded gently.

  “But they’re going to die.”

  “Well, plenty of people have gone up there and didn’t. If every single person that went into the McLaren forest disappear, we’d be hearing about it on the news daily.”

  “It chooses them. It knows how to cover its tracks. We know that.”

  Lauren extended a hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go downstairs. Eat something. Whatever happens next, you’ll face it better with food in you.”

  “Fine.”

  Vivian closed the laptop and followed her.

  Downstairs smelled like toasted bread, fresh eggs, pancakes, coffee, and bacon. There were little charms hanging from cabinet knobs, bundles of rosemary tied with twine above the kitchen island, and a single crow feather placed reverently above the mantle.

  Most of the coven was already gathered around the long wooden table.

  Elaine Krane sat at the head, her spine straight as a fence post, silver hair braided down her back like a rope. Sixty-three and sharper than anyone half her age. She glanced up with glacier-clear eyes when the girls entered.

  “Good morning, Vivian,” she said. “Kind of you to join us this morning. I half-expect to see you again until noon.”

  “Sorry, mother. I overslept.”

  “Thrice in a week now, it seems.” Elaine took a slow sip of her coffee.

  Beside Elaine sat Joanna Pierce, bright-eyed and smiling as always. A Black woman in her early-fifties but with soft laugh lines and the chipper energy of someone who spent her life talking to plants. She wore a sunflower-yellow sweater over a shirt that said World’s Okayest Cookie Monster in peeling turquoise letters. She waved with both hands enthusiastically as if she hadn’t seen Lauren and Vivian for years.

  “Vivian! Lauren! Morning, honey. I let Adrian know to make your favorite blueberry pancakes.” Joanna patted the empty seat next to hers. “Come sit with me, Vivian.”

  Chloe Foster, the second youngest in the coven at twenty-two (besides Vivian), was already nose deep in a romance book even as she used her free hand to scoop up bits of scrambled eggs with a fork. For Vivian, Sometimes it was hard to tell if Chloe was shy or just thinking on a different wavelength. They never spoke to each other much since Vivian joined the coven, and Vivian suspected Chloe saw her as competition, which was not her full intention. She just wanted to be friends with someone close to her age. Chloe didn’t even look up from her book when Vivian eased into the chair across from her.

  Adrian Cardenas floated between chairs like a benevolent, cardigan-wrapped kitchen spirit, singing a Taylor Swift song. He set plates in front of Lauren and Vivian with the grace of a ma?tre d’, then peeled off his apron to reveal a snowy turtleneck and a gray cardigan that somehow made his handlebar mustache look even more impressive. He looked like he just walked out of a hipster barbershop.

  “Sweetheart, you look pale,” Adrian said, leaning in to inspect Vivian with exaggerated concern. “Hopefully this warms you up. Do you want some orange juice? Maybe coffee?”

  “Orange juice, please,” Vivian murmured.

  “I’ll get it,” Lauren cut in, gently easing him into the seat beside her. “Adrian, sit. You’ve cooked enough.”

  He obeyed, but not before giving her a theatrical little bow.

  The sound of heavy footsteps thumped down the stairs.

  Karen Sanderson appeared on the landing, Farrah Fawcett dark hair gone feral and her mascara smudged below her eyes, wearing a spaghetti-stained white Rage Against the Machine T-shirt. She was awake in the technical sense of the word. She trudged over to the counter and grabbed a mug. Tilted the coffee pot.

  Nothing.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Karen glared at the empty carafe like it had personally wounded her. “Didn’t save enough for me, Adrian?”

  “Hm, I assumed you’d be asleep the rest of the day after arriving at—what was it—two? Hm, no, that’s not right. Ah! Three in the morning? Where were you last night?”

  Karen didn’t even look at him and threw the middle finger. “Fuck off, Adrian.”

  “Language, Karen,” Elaine said softly. “And Adrian, be nice. It’s too early for this in the morning.”

  “Sorry, mother,” Adrian said.

  “Sorry, mother,” Karen said as well. “I’ll make a new batch.” Karen banged around the kitchen supplies until she found the grounds, muttering under her breath as she started a new pot.

  Every weekend, the coven slept here at Elaine’s house, an old craftsman nestled among towering evergreens in Pleasant Hill, just a few miles outside of Seattle. The kind of place where fog drifted low across the yard in the mornings and the forest pressed right up to the windows. It was private, quiet, no neighbors for a mile or two, and more importantly, warded to hell and back.

  Lucky for me, they were weak-ass-shit wards against a Dungeon Core’s gaze. Against my powers. But to an ordinary demon, a ghost, or whatever supernatural critter were out there, they wouldn’t make it across the fence.

  But they didn’t know that, and I’d like to keep it that way. It gave me a glimpse into the other groups who were practicing magic besides the Cult of Astaroth. The one Vivian found decided to push me back at arm’s reach.

  Sunday mornings were their ritual comfort: breakfast, gossip, planning some travel, maybe a few light spellwork. A found-family Sabbath. They used to meet only on the first Sunday of each month.

  But that changed a year ago.

  Because their powers—real, arcane magic—had begun to grow. Awakening in ways even Mother Elaine refused to elaborate, and even feared. They all did.

  And I had a pretty strong suspicion why.

  When a Dungeon Core was born, the world bend its will to it. Or more accurately: it got juiced up. Earth was known to be magically anemic. Parched. Practically a desert. Sure there were a few sorcerers, witches, mediums, and occultists. They’ve always existed, but most of them pulled sparks from fumes, working with the magical equivalent of a busted car battery. And the gifted ones were very rare.

  A Dungeon Core could change that.

  I changed that.

  My presence saturated the arcane field of this planet like a leaking reactor. Not enough to turn Earth into some spell-slinging fantasy kingdom or to turn a person into an archmage overnight, but enough that people sensitive to that stuff suddenly found they could move a pencil with their minds or hear the surface thoughts of their classmates and co-workers. Slumbering arcane talents from people with 9-5 jobs suddenly awakened. Magic that were just party tricks now actually…worked.

  And the closer they were to me, the stronger that influence became.

  Even here, in Pleasant Hill—what, less than four hundred miles north from North Cedar Lake? The coven felt it. Enough juice to push the coven’s abilities past whatever plateau they’d been stuck on for decades.

  I’d been watching it happen for months across the country, little sparks of arcane resonance lighting up like fireflies.

  And if they wanted to learn more magic and gain power…

  Well, all they had to do was come to me.

  Fortunately for them, I wasn’t exactly in a hurry for the coven to delve. Eventually they would. Curiosity was like a gravitational force, and ambition hit harder than any spell. Vivian especially. She’d convinced herself she could weaponize the coven against me, that the combined strength of her little circle was enough to crack apart my Core and pry her brother out from under my influence.

  Naive, yes. Almost endearing. But I wasn’t going to stop her from marching back here with her chest puffed out. In fact, I was counting on it. She was already stirring up the covens around Seattle, and reaching out to the other ones Lauren knew in the other cities.

  An army of mages? Now that could make things interesting. Might even push me to create that second dungeon in New York I’d been toying with after I’m finished with them, of course.

  Vivian wanted to tell Mother Elaine about the livestream. Maybe it would convince her to stop the madness that Vivian knew was going to happen once Dylan Griffin and Retto Kearns unleashed the portals of the monsters. But she also learned that the entity was not that reckless to reveal itself publicly. Maybe she was imagining scenarios of the worst kind. Maybe nothing bad would happen.

  Lauren placed a hand on Vivian’s shoulder to reassure her. To calm her down.

  Vivian decided to keep her mouth shut and ate her breakfast in silence.

  Unbeknownst to her, Mother Elaine had noticed her unease.

  I kept a close eye on Vivian and the others for the past few months. Not because I feared them, but because her brother had turned into…well, a nuisance. That tends to happen to any powerful entity: people flocked to you. They assigned meaning to you. And sometimes, if you let things grow unchecked, you woke up one day with a cult of your own. How’s that for ironic? I’m fighting a demonic cult and I gained one.

  How fucked is that?

  I opened the [ Pantheon ] tab on my menu.

  The thing still gave me a weird chill every time I clicked on it. It hadn’t been there one day, then—BAM!—Xavier Yates convinced a handful of mentally unstable folks that I’m some kind of divine forest cryptid, and suddenly I’ve got a whole UI page dedicated to my “faith community.”

  According to Demon and Elvis, this was one of the big universal constants across every world where a Dungeon Core was born: wherever you dropped a Core, sooner or later some group of mortals would decide you were worth worshipping.

  Sometimes it turned into a nice little candle-lighting book club.

  Sometimes a genocidal army.

  But always growing to become powerful enough to change the fate of entire civilizations.

  And the followers of a Death Core?

  They were the worst of the worst. Most of the times. Elvis explained that a death cult usually popped up, sometimes out of nowhere, in all worlds a Death Core existed. They were powerful. Scary. And downright homicidal. Although, in rare occasions, other worlds worshipped a Death Core with care, respect, and kindness instead.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t that lucky.

  I had little control over the [ Pantheon ] and how it developed. That was the kicker. Sure, I was the “god,” technically, but the way this system worked, it wasn’t me shaping them.

  It was them shaping me.

  It was up to my followers to carve me into their image, and I am left to their whims with how I manifested to them. Xavier and the others’ imaginations were stuck between a Wendigo and a heavily antlered Muppet. In their eyes, I was a fifteen-foot-tall lanky creature covered in brambles, deer fur, dirt, and moss with large antlers sticking out of my head. I didn’t know whether I should be offended they saw me this way.

  Each follower were automatically slotted into a hidden tier based on the level of their devotion, psychological vulnerability, and exposure to my dungeon’s influence. They produced Faith, could spread the doctrine but weren’t granted supernatural abilities like my archetypes, and they were susceptible to visions from me (both intentional and accidental).

  If the mortals wanted to, they could develop different Aspects of myself—a kind, nurturing forest spirit here, a cold and detached entity up there, or a wrathful antlered death god back there—multiple faces under one Core. But right now, I only had one active religion, and they’d already locked in the evil aesthetic. Not much wiggle room there but become an evil entity.

  Their devotion got funneled into Faith Points, and every thousand points earned me one essence. Slow but steady like a cosmic passive income. Over the past few months they’d made me a neat little stack without even realizing it.

  But the thing that annoyed me the most?

  The part that made my jaw clench every time I saw them?

  They expressed their devotion through murder.

  Xavier and his merry band of dipshits had decided that killing strangers or non-delvers “for the Dungeon Lord” was the quickest way to show their love. I didn’t get essences from their murder sprees, but the System happily converted all that spilled blood into Faith Points anyway. But due to how small the cult was, I only had the [ Divine Visions ] ability to enjoy.

  Mostly I just sent them visions that I was very annoyed by them and how they had conducted themselves, which they interpreted that I was angry about their offerings and that they weren’t enough, and that usually triggered another killing spree.

  I stopped giving them visions since then.

  I actually tried to stop them at first. I really did. But, like the Dead Pacifica crew, they eventually proved themselves useful. A messy, unstable resource for essence with a lot of untapped potential. Demon also agreed. Mostly because they, Lord Zal, and Duke Henry found it funny to have a cult under my name.

  Xavier Yates especially. The guy wanted to be an archetype so badly he practically prayed to me in a job-application format. All that was missing was his LinkedIn profile. What he didn’t understand—and what I couldn’t exactly explain—was that it wasn’t my call. The creatures occupying the archetypes I created weren’t directly chosen by me. They were chosen by the System. Anyone, anywhere in the universe can be offered a contract to become an archetype. Even him. It was just a lucky draw of a cosmic lottery. He didn’t seem to understand that.

  I pitied Vivian. She had been searching for her brother ever since he escaped the juvenile corrections facility with several others after an “accidental” fire last March. I didn’t think it was accidental, by the way. What Vivian didn’t know was that they came to me after their escape. To North Cedar Lake. Xavier begging me to take him back into the fold and the people he brought with him were his offerings to me.

  They triggered a scenario, and I fed on most of them. I couldn’t collect Xavier’s though. I realized that his fearless worship and devotion to me (and his nonexistent Resolve) rendered him immune to the dungeon’s influence during the delving night. The others survived and were granted rewards (except for him), and together with Xavier, they formed a cult under my name.

  The rest was history.

  Now, Xavier and his followers were currently squatting at a huge mansion in the outskirts of Point Hope (after killing the rich owners, who only visited it during the summer). They’d been hopping from one house to another, sometimes robbing and looting their victims, and this was how they lived for months.

  What a caring god I truly am.

  I didn’t notice Mother Gertrude standing next to me until she cleared her throat, interrupting my omniscient stalking of Xavier and Vivian. Oracle and I turned to look at her.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  The old hag looked worried. “You’ve asked me to place some wards over the Cascades earlier in the spring.”

  “Yes? What of it?”

  “It has been breached, my lord,” Mother Gertrude said. “It has been breached by the cult.”

  Before I could respond, the cabin’s landline rang. No one really used it unless its people who were renting the cabin outside of delving days. Yes, I turned the murder cabin into an AirBnB because I still got to make real-world money somewhere, and not waste the stash of crystals by converting them into dollars all the time. Plus, it was a good way for me to screen potential delvers.

  I activated [ Shapechanger ] and snapped into my homeless man form with a buzz-cut hair, thick beard, and a Vietnam-era field jacket, just so I could use his deep, booming voice. I picked up the phone.

  “Ah! The number actually worked!” a man crowed on the other end. A familiar voice. I jerked my chin toward Oracle, who immediately pulled up a video feed of a dash cam in the interior of the car. I recognize the same man who took Kevin Yates last year. He was part of the Havashar Society. And judging by the map overlay Oracle displayed, they were already pushing past Bend on their way north.

  Toward me.

  I chuckled. “You’ve got some balls to cross the country just to die, mister.”

  “Oh, let’s not be too hasty, my lord,” he said. “And you sound different.”

  My lord. I’ve never heard the cult regarded me that way. That was…new.

  “What do you want?”

  “The Society wishes to speak with you. I was sent here as an emissary. For good will.” He waved a white handkerchief to the dash cam. “See? We mean you no harm.”

  “Your men are armed.”

  “If you were in my shoes, it’s nice to carry extra protection too.”

  I snorted. “It won’t help.”

  “Again, we only want to talk. Really. That’s all we ask. A very pleasant conversation.”

  “Or I can just kill you. Make your car crash over that upcoming curve on the road and slide down the mountain.”

  I saw the driver getting nervous.

  But a slow smile split the emissary’s face. “Oh, but we have a gift for you, my lord.”

  I raised a brow. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

  “How would you feel,” he said lightly, almost in a sing-song way, “about knowing the identities…of the other Seat members?”

  “I’d call you desperate,” I said.

  “The Collector would like to make a deal, my lord,” the man said. “Don’t you want to hear it?”

  I turned to Mother Gertrude and Oracle. They both nodded. It wouldn’t hurt to hear what they had to say before I’d eventually kill them. It wouldn’t hurt to know the other identities of the Seat.

  “Fine. You may approach.”

  “Fantastic! Can’t wait to meet you!” The man hung up.

  He didn’t sound scared. Should I be concerned?

  Oracle pointed to the screen on the computer from various highway cameras. It pointed to the emissary’s vehicle, followed by two more SUVs. Above them were two helicopters following their trail.

  “Alert the others,” I said. “Tell them we have visitors.”