Candra wears the shield and belt. She holds a lantern in her shield hand, it has an uncomfortably bright glowing crystal inside. She twirls her scepter and taps her toe on the ground.

  Joe carries his two handed sword over his shoulder. He wears a new set of leather armor. He cracks his neck and bounces on the balls of his feet.

  Ranger Drew stands stock still. A ruthless, predatory expression is baldly on his face. He has his gleaming spear and his other hand rests on the hilt of his sword.

  Todd feels inadequate with his little ixwa.

  Section four didn’t get enough time to really provide advice or instructions to all of the groups. He, nosering Martin, toker Jingshu, and a few others had tried to shout out general ideas to the groups. The pixies were answering questions too. However, now their grace period has expired.

  Soon, Todd hears the impassionate voice of the system announcing his teleport. He swallows and the liminal space briefly takes him.

  It lasts only a blink before Todd and his teammates reappear on a raised sandstone platform next to a large, hovering black crystal. A metallic chemical smell overwhelms Todd’s nostrils and he pinches his nose in self-defense.

  He looks out and sees through a slight yellow haze that they are surrounded by blue stone columns and arches that stretch into the distance in all directions until they terminate into a series of totally black tunnels.

  It’s a lot of open space, without any choke points to speak of.

  Todd doesn’t know what kind of purpose such a space would serve. It wasn’t a sewer or a power conduit. Maybe it didn’t have a purpose at all, maybe it only existed for this challenge and for nothing else.

  The elevated platform they are on rises like a sloped ziggurat, in a series of three receding stepped tiers. At least it will provide a slight obstacle to oncoming bugs.

  A prompt appears in front of Todd’s vision.

  (Hard) Defend the array hub from all enemies for three days – First Wave (00:14:58), Reward: Quest chain (town establishment), mid-grade [constitution pill]x3, mid-grade [level pill]x2, mid-grade [venom antidote pill]x15, [Belminar chain armor piece voucher]x1

  Todd breathes through his mouth and the acrid taste goes down his tube just as caustically. He coughs violently.

  “What the fuck,” Candra gasps, “what is wrong with the air?”

  Joe waves a hand in front of his face rapidly. He makes a sour expression. “It’s pretty awful, for sure.”

  Ranger Drew inhales deeply and smoothly. “Suck it up,” he says, “this may be normal down here.”

  Todd makes to steady his lungs. They still want to rebel against him, in protest for clean air. There’s none to be found.

  Four wicker boxes lay at the feet of the cultivators with the small items they purchased with the reward advance. Their glow lanterns appear to have been an unnecessary purchase, but they collect their other things and put them on.

  “We have less than fifteen minutes. We have to build up our base now,” Todd says nasally. “How do we access the build interface?”

  Joe moves over and lays a hand on the hovering crystal. “There’s a menu here!”

  His eyelids flutter as he reviews the options.

  “It says we have five hundred build points,” he informs, “and there’s a big list of things with prices listed. The bad news is that we can’t afford most of them. Here, check it out.”

  They take turns laying hands on the crystal.

  Todd reviews the long list of grayed out entries. There are items labeled [lesser barrier wall], and [lesser bubble shield], [lesser chain lightning turret] and [lesser snipe arrow turret]. Greater variants exist, and dozens of options are there, out of reach. At the top of the list, there are only three items which are affordably priced at four hundred fifty. [lesser burst turret], [lesser force arrow turret], and [lesser webbing turret].

  Todd waits until everyone has taken a look before he motions them to huddle up.

  “This looks weirdly familiar,” he says. “I’ve played games similar to this, I think.”

  “Why is everything like a videogame here,” Candra gripes. “Why can’t we get a game of flag football or something?”

  Todd waits for her to finish and then clears his throat. “Anyway. The way I think it works is that we choose a starting turret and it helps us fight the monsters.”

  “What’s the difference between the three turrets?” Joe asks.

  “Well, based on the names, and based on how things normally work, I can guess. I think the force arrow one shoots individual force arrows at targets. The burst turret is area of effect, able to hit multiple targets at the same time.”

  “That sounds good, why don’t we pick that?” Joe excitedly suggests.

  Todd throws his bags down next to the crystal. “Because there’s usually a tradeoff. Maybe it does less damage, or it fires slower, something that balances it.”

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  “What does the last turret do?” Candra asks.

  “I’m guessing it slows monsters down. It makes it easier for us to take them out, at the cost of doing less or no damage.”

  Ranger Drew swipes his beard. “That one would be better for our levels. Better than having the turret stealing our kills.”

  Todd shakes his head. “Eventually we’re going to have to rely on these things, I think. We also need to consider what we’re going to do when we need to sleep. I think we’ve got to have enough turrets and shields built up to cover us.”

  “Okay. How do we get more build points?” Joe asks.

  “Usually in the games you get them every time you kill an enemy,” Todd replies.

  “Are you confident about all this?” Candra voices.

  “No. I’m making a lot of assumptions,” Todd says. “It seems the same though. I wonder if they copied us, made something familiar so it would be easier for us to handle it.”

  Joe throws his bag back and returns to the huddle. ”So what do we build first?”

  “The webbing turret,” Ranger Drew rumbles.

  “We could build the webbing turret first,” Todd agrees. “That sounds fine.”

  Joe waves a hand back. “Do you want to do the honors, Drips?”

  Todd approaches the crystal and makes the selection, purchasing the turret. Immediately, a strange holographic overlay appears in his vision, overlapping the crystal with a prohibitive red.

  Todd is taken aback. It takes him a second to reorient. Then he concentrates and finds that he’s able to move the location of the holograph. Once it’s out into the empty space of the plaza, the illusive image turns blue and the details of the pillar grow more clear.

  “I have to put it somewhere!” Todd calls out.

  Joe repeats his words. “You have to put it somewhere?”

  “I need to know where I should put it,” Todd explains, “if it’s not in range of the bugs, it isn’t going to do us any good.”

  “Put it close to the crystal,” Candra recommends. “We want it to hit in every direction.”

  Joe peers into the distance. His new skill [scout’s perception] apparently gives him telescopic vision. It serves him well now. He points.

  “There’s a glow coming from a tunnel this way!” he says.

  Todd repositions the turret to face the direction that Joe has signaled. He tucks it nearly up against the crystal and signals his confirmation. He figures out the right command and then the turret locks into place.

  It erupts slowly from the stone ground like a blade of grass through mud. It appears to be a tall, curling finger of segmented chitin with tiny, weaving appendages extended near the top. Sharp hairs emerge in a prickling point off of the tip, near an ugly double sphinctered spiracle. It raises to its full height and its little fingers dance unnervingly.

  “Gross,” Candra judges.

  Todd finds he has to agree. But if it proves useful, he’ll be glad of it.

  There are only a few short minutes left before the wave begins. Joe talks calmly and reassuringly and keeps the conversation going.

  “How do you think Toast and 4H are doing?” he asks.

  Todd replies with certainty. “Randall will be good at this. He loves tower defense too. He’ll probably do better than we will.”

  “I’m worried about some of the older groups though,” Joe entrusts. “Do you think they’ll understand this scenario?”

  Todd raps on his helmet. He adjusts his new gloves and his wooden chest plate. He shakes out his legs with his new leather greaves. The gas in the chamber still affects him terribly, but he stifles a cough and sucks in a gulp of chemical air.

  “We just have to hope they figure it out,” Todd wishes. “The pixies didn’t give us enough time.”

  “Like we discussed. Group up behind Drew when we can. Spread out when we have to,” Joe reiterates.

  The four of them form a wedge, aiming towards the glowing tunnel. Todd remains in the back, checking to make sure that the bugs don’t come from one of the other directions.

  Suddenly, Joe pushes his way forwards. He pauses still.

  “There’s something there, out near the mouth of the tunnel,” he announces.

  “A monster?” Candra asks.

  “No, it’s something glowing,” Joe mutters, “like a ball of light with a symbol in it. It came out of one of the pillars.”

  “We still have a minute,” Candra bemoans, “are they allowed to come early?”

  “What does it look like?” Todd asks.

  “Like I said, it’s just a ball. It’s gold colored, with black squiggles in the middle.”

  Todd considers it and comes to a conclusion. “It’s a powerup! We should grab it before it disappears!”

  “A what?” Ranger Drew interrupts.

  “Something like giving us extra damage, or increased speed. It’ll either be temporary or last for the full duration of the expedition. We should get it!”

  Todd scooches forward. He looks expectantly at Joe.

  The young man looks at Todd and nods his head. “I’ve got it,” he says.

  Joe turns on his heel and starts jogging off into the distance, he breaks into a run. He weaves around pillars and breaks into a wracking cough.

  The timer on the quest ticks down. Joe approaches the glowing orb and slows down. He reaches out, hesitates, and edges towards it with hand outstretched. When his fingers make contact with the light, the ball swooshes and flies off towards the rest of the group. It shoots towards them at a blitz. Ranger Drew throws himself to the ground. Candra sidles.

  Todd watches the orb as it flies into the crystal and is absorbed.

  Joe shouts from a distance, but they can’t understand him with the chaotic acoustics in the chamber.

  Candra hollers in return. “Get fucking back here!”

  The timer on the wave clock depletes to zero.

  The tunnel nearest to Joe erupts with a dull red mass. It’s hard to see in the distance through the haze, but it’s distinguishable. Joe makes a sharp noise that echoes through to Todd, and then he bolts. Leaning into his sprint, he keeps at the forefront of a pursuing swarm.

  Todd and Candra shout to him. Encourage him.

  Joe pulls away. He makes it back to Ranger Drew and falls in behind him. He wheezes painfully and leans over.

  “I thought… you said it was… a powerup,” Joe gasps.

  The redburr crabs skitter towards them in a clustered formation, their long antennae lashing and tasting the air. Individual bugs are clearly visible. Their ten legs pump in insectile coordination. These specimens are larger than the ones that attacked the plaza on the second day.

  Their hefty weight barrels forward and Todd clutches his ixwa tight. Ranger Drew lowers his spear and lunges forward.

  Todd shouts, “don’t push up too far, let the turret do its job!”

  Ranger Drew freezes and then backs up. The crabs crawl up the first step, pushing each other from behind. They approach the second step. The webbing turret twitches violently. Its fingers start extracting wads of sticky thread.

  Joe points his sword forward in a double-handed grip. Candra holds her shield in front of her. Todd extends his left arm, palm forward, and his right with his weapon.

  A wall of exoskeleton rushes towards them with menace in their alien, faceted eyes.

  “This will be a mess,” Todd murmurs under his breath.