Croc, Drumbo, and Synthia, had managed to cut the cocoons down from the ceiling and now Croc was using metal claws to delicately slice through the silken casings.

  After seeing the first Delver, I didn’t have high hopes.

  The Howler was decked out in a possum fursuit with a shock of purple hair, but when I pulled the mask off, the scent of rotting flesh hit me in the nose like a fist. It was a woman, late thirties or early forties, though it was hard to tell since she looked like mummified corpse. Her skin was paper thin and stretched tight across her bones. There wasn’t an ounce of meat on her and it didn’t take me long to find the deep puncture wound in her abdomen. Most disturbingly, her legs didn’t appear to have any bones at all.

  Her torso was gaunt and skeletal, but everything below the waist was just… skin. As though her bones had been dissolved then sucked out through the gash in her gut.

  Croc had been right, and I really wished I could unsee this. But it was too late.

  Although her Spatial Core was intact and filled with a full compliment of Relics, I didn’t loot the body. It didn’t seem right. I wasn’t sure who this woman was or if she had family, but her remains belonged with the Howlers and that included her Relics.

  The second body was Fenrir, though the only way I could tell was because of his fursuit. Unlike the first victim, there was nothing left but a pile of flappy, rubbery skin. Everything inside him—from organs and blood to bone and muscle—had been pulped, emulsified, and sucked out. There was nothing left but a puddle of skin and his suit. He was an empty husk and I was disheartened to see that his Spatial Core was gone, too.

  That happened sometimes, when a body was obliterated even beyond looting.

  I reverently collected both bodies and added them to my Spatial Storage so they could be returned to the Howlers for burial, or whatever ritual they did with their dead.

  After seeing the state Fenrir was in, I prepared for the worst, but the last two victims surprised me. Both were alive. One, a man clad in military gear with the furry head of a bear, was alive though badly injured. Like the others, he had a huge puncture wound in his stomach and looked more like a skeleton than a human. One of his legs had been liquified and I wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to use the limb again. He was alive, though, and that had to count for something.

  His breathing was ragged and shallow and although his eyes were open, they appeared glassy and unaware—almost as though he was in some sort of coma or seeing the ghosts of distant horrors.

  “Hey, you okay,” I asked, shaking his shoulder gently as I tried to get some sort of response out of him. The Howler grunted noncommittally but his eyes never lost that glossy sheen, and they never focused on me. Not even for a second. Considering the state he was in, I idly wondered if Fenrir and the Possum lady hadn’t been the lucky ones.

  I gently coaxed his mouth open and forced him to drink a Greater Zima. He coughed and sputtered, though managed to keep down most of the elixir. His HP bar rose then stabilized and the wound in his gut vanished, transforming into a pink puckered scar. Some of the color returned to his skin but he still looked like death warmed over and, despite the healing tonic, he remained unblinking and seemingly catatonic.

  It was possible the physical and mental stress had been so great that he’d simply dissociated as a coping mechanism. I’d seen something like that once before, back in my Marine Corps days. I’d spent most of my time in Iraq chain smoking cigarettes and doing resupply runs to the forward operating bases set up north of Fallujah. Sure, we had to deal with the constant threat of snipers, roadside IEDs, and suicide car bombers, but that was nothing compared to what the grunts at the FOBs endured.

  Those unlucky sons of bitches were kicking in doors and clearing houses daily, as they searched for insurgents and weapon caches. A buddy of mine, a terminal Lance named Jackson, had lost every member of his fire team when a little kid with a soccer ball ran up to them on the street and immediately triggered a bomb hidden inside the ball. The ensuing blast had turned the kid into pink mist and killed everyone except Jackson—though he’d lost one leg in the explosion.

  After the Corpsmen did what they could for him, I’d driven Jackson back to Fallujah for evac, and he’d looked just like the guy in the cocoon. Dazed and a thousand miles away. Alive but unaware and strangely hollow.

  Although this whole culsterfuck wasn’t entirely my fault, I was at least partially to blame, and I aimed to make it up to him if I could.

  The last victim was a woman, younger than the others. Mid-twenties if I had to hazard a guess.

  I was momentarily caught off guard when I realized she wasn’t a human at all, but a Transmog. She had messy brown hair, porcelain white skin with a faintly iridescent sheen, fine pixie-like features, pointed ears, and a pair of delicate dragonfly wings protruding from her back. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen one of these things. Temp and I had killed one a few weeks back—an Aspirant, who’d tried to blockade one of my doors. I was pretty sure they were called Ideens or Ilithe or Elirids. Something like that, though I couldn’t quite remember.

  I focused on the girl and willed my Codex to respond.

  After just a few seconds of concentration, the familiar prompt appeared.

  Delver #07T - 04 - B0D3FMDBS2 – Iride, Transmog [Level 19]

  Meet the Irides, the prettiest little porcelain figurines in the Backrooms.

  With their fine elf-like features and dazzling dragonfly wings, these magical powerhouses look like they belong in a fairy tale. Not the nice kind, though. The twisted, fucked-up kind from Germany where the monsters win and the hero gets chopped up into little pieces and eaten by birds. The Irides consider themselves ethereal beings of pure magic.

  Honestly? They’re not wrong.

  These glitter-skinned dickwads can blast out magic like a goddamned confetti cannon. But what they make up for in Mana capacity, they lack in pretty much every other arena. They have the upper body strength of a seven-year-old and are complete glass cannons. Literally, since their bones are made from hollow tubes of crystal. It makes them light enough to fly, but the downside is that they’re about as durable as a soggy paper bag.

  Have you ever seen glass bones punch through paper-thin skin? It ain’t pretty, I can tell you that much, though they do bleed iridescent, which is kinda cool.

  That was it, Irides. Iridescent, like their skin.

  I waved the codex entry away only for another prompt to appear a moment later.

  Would you like to use the Codex to examine this Delver’s Spatial Core? Yes/No?

  This time I hesitated.

  She was more than twenty levels lower than me, so I knew I could’ve taken a peek at her core if I had half a mind too, but I selected No anyway. I’d been on the receiving end of a Spatial Core Scan once before, and it was a deeply unsettling sensation. Like having a voyeur catch a glimpse of you changing through a keyhole. This lady had been through a lot already and I didn’t need to inflict that on her, too.

  “I’m alive,” she said, batting dazzling blue-green eyes at me as she struggled her way free from the gossamer threads still clinging to her body. “You saved us,” she added breathlessly before faltering. “Well, you saved me, anyway. Are… Are the others, okay?” she asked, the words somehow hopeful and sad at the same time.

  I wanted to reassure her, but I also didn’t want to lie. I pursued my lips and tried to think of a way to tell her the truth without also sounding like a callous dickhead. Apparently, my hesitation was enough for her to figure things out all on her own.

  “That bad, huh?” She asked dropping her gaze and plucking at the edge of her outfit—she wore nurse scrubs, with random bits of armor strapped on here and there.

  “It’s not good,” I confirmed. “One other person survived, though he seems to be in rough shape.”

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  “Fenrir?” she asked.

  I shook my head, “No, sorry. A guy wearing a bear head.”

  “Roy,” she replied with a nod. “Honestly, I’m not surprised he made it. He’s tougher than the rest of us put together and his Health Regen rate is through the roof.”

  “And what about you?” I asked, more than a little curious about how she’d managed to survive. Unlike the others, she seemed to be… completely fine. She wasn’t emaciated and I didn’t even see a wound on her belly, though there was a slash in her scrubs and dried blood on the grubby blue fabric. “Did the Matriarch just not get to you?”

  The woman looked away then finally shook her head as she held up her hand. Her fingers glimmered with threads of silver-white light. “I have a bunch of healing and support Relics. I’m not much of a fighter, but my racial class makes me an ideal healer. I wanted to help the others, but most of my skills are touch or line of sight. Being stuck in that cocoon…” she trailed off and shivered, guilt etched into the lines of her face. “Well, there was nothing I could do. I failed. Failed everyone.”

  As the weight of that realization seemed to set in, her shoulders drooped and she curled in on herself, crying softly.

  Croc padded over and dropped down beside the distraught Delver, pressing one rubbery shoulder against her side. At first, she flinched away from the contact, but she didn’t seem to have the energy or the will to move any further.

  “For what it’s worth, I’ve lost a lot of people, too,” the dog said. “It doesn’t really get any easier, but beating yourself up isn’t going to make things any better. And you have to remember that it’s not your fault. Not really. We all try our best, but the Backrooms have claimed more lives than you could possibly imagine.”

  “But it was my job to keep them alive,” she whimpered, wrapping her arms around her knees then pulling them into her chest. “That’s what a healer is supposed to do.”

  “And I’m sure you did everything you could,” Croc replied reassuringly. “Sometimes that’s just not enough, but that’s not your fault. I can’t tell you the number of Delvers I tried to help before I met Dan—hundreds of them, and none of them survived no matter what I did.”

  “Wait… Dan?” the woman said, lifting her head. She glanced between Croc and me, her eyes widening as they landed on my bathrobe and the ridiculous paper crown perched on my head. It was like she was just noticing them for the first time. “Like the Discount Dan.”

  “One and the same,” I said with a grim nod. “Unless I owe you money,” I added, “or if you want revenge for something I did. Then no, I am definitely not the Discount Dan.”

  She sniffled and let out a small giggle. “I’m Harper,” she said, tucking a lose strand of hair behind one ear. “And that must make you, Croc,” she said, turning to the mimic and running a hand along its head. “We’ve never actually met, but the Howler kids have told me all about you.” She grinned and it was obvious that Croc’s presence was making her feel better already. In my experience, dogs had an odd way of doing that. Even ones that were blue and made from rubber. “They all say you’re the best doggo.”

  That got Croc’s tail waggling happily. “Did Sam say that or was it Lucy? It could be either, but it sounds like Sam to me. Or Collin, I supposed it could be Collin. He does always say I’m the bestest boy, even though mimics don’t technically have a gender.”

  “How do you know the kids?” I asked, trying to keep her talking.

  “I’m a pediatric nurse,” she said, before pausing. “Or I was before noclipping, anyway. Now, I help run the Howler clinic—though, it’s not nearly as busy as it used to be. Not since you and your store.” She paused and looked down. “I’m in your debt. All of us are. The Howlers, I mean. I can’t even begin to tell you how bad things were before you came along.”

  I didn’t say anything in reply because although I knew that was probably true, I didn’t think Fenrir or the other dead Delver would agree. Despite Croc’s insistence that this wasn’t her fault, it still felt like mine.

  “Come on,” I finally said, offering her a hand then helping her to her feet. “Let’s get you and Roy back to the store. I’m sure there are a lot of people who are missing you.”

  I attached my custom VIP Doorway Anchor to a small closet filled with towels and bathrobes, then activated the spatial magic inherent in the plaque.

  Despite the healing elixir I’d given Roy, he was still out of it. I had Drumbo scoop him up, then ordered the Horror to escort both Harper and the injured Delver to Jakob. If anyone could figure out what was wrong with Roy and how to fix it, it was him. Harper offered me one last sad smile and a small wave before stepping through the door and disappearing into the shop beyond.

  Once both Delvers were safely away, I removed the Doorway Anchor and pushed down the tangle of emotions swirling inside me. I felt awful about what had happened to Fenrir and his team—there was no denying that. But at the same time, I couldn’t afford to ignore a golden opportunity when it landed in my lap. And despite the horrors that had unfolded here, this place was simply too valuable to pass up.

  Croc and I swept through the rest of the spa, making sure there were no lingering threats waiting to ambush us. Thankfully, the floor was clear, and the showers? They were absolutely immaculate. There were thirty private stalls—fifteen in the men’s changing room, fifteen in the women’s—each outfitted with frosted glass doors, marble floors, and a mix of showerheads and water jets that nearly put my own setup to shame. Thirty public showers might not be enough to cover all our sanitation needs, but it was a damn good start.

  Once we were done with that, the mimic and I headed back down to the lounge to check in on the Rat Pack.

  They’d finished their grisly task and had looted the mimics then stacked the usable corpses into one huge pile of gelatinous limbs and twitching tentacles. I collected the Relics and Shards—all Common-Grade—sent them to Spatial Storage for later, then unsummoned my scavenger minions, their job done for the time being. The longue was a mess, but the damage we’d dealt to the place during our battle was already starting to mend and heal—the not-so-subtle magic of the Backrooms at work in real time.

  I could’ve annexed just the spa, but adding the entire lounge just made sense.

  Aside from the store’s converted storage room, which we’d repurposed into a sleeping area, there weren’t many places for my customers to hang out. The lounge would help fix that. Plus, I already had plenty of ideas for the fully stocked bar, though that was bound to ruffle a few feathers. Or fur, in this case. Specifically, Ajax’s fur. The fox furry was one of the three tribunes governing Howlers Hold, and he also happened to run the Muzzle and Mast—the Hold’s only bar.

  Something told me he wasn’t going to be thrilled about the competition.

  Maybe there was a way I could use that you my advantage, though.

  Ajax was a devious cunning little shit, but he was generally true to his word and would help me so long as I made it worthwhile for him. And I was sure I could find a way to make it worthwhile.

  I left Croc in the lounge to devour the mound of unsalvageable mimic corpses, then backtracked toward the front reception desk where Little Timmy was still standing guard over the elevator.

  “You’re with me,” I said, nodding at the towering Horror.

  The creature didn’t even grunt, but its demonic red eyes flared to life with terrible understanding as it moved to obey.

  Together, the two of us piled into the elevator—though it was a tight fit for Timmy—and rode up to the second floor, which was the only stop.

  The doors slid open with a soft ping, dumping us into a spacious employee breakroom. The place was well-furnished with a few sofas, several tables, and a sleek, modern kitchen outfitted with a microwave, an oversized fridge, and a fully stocked coffee bar. Adjacent to the breakroom was an equally polished office, though the computer sitting on the desk was laughably outdated.

  Strictly speaking, I didn’t need another breakroom or office, but my gut told me that would change in the not-too-distant future. Especially with all the new additions.

  Sure, I could make more Cannon Fodder Golems to help manage things, but as useful as they were, they didn’t quite have the same charm as a real human being. Even the competent ones, like Princess Ponypuff, were terrifying and she was also meaner than a back-alley drunk. Baby Hands was a sweetheart, but he was dumber than a wet mop and couldn’t be trusted with anything beyond cleaning up spills or restocking shelves. Nope, I needed Employees to manage my minions, and that meant I needed places for those employees to stay.

  I’d already done something to help alleviate that issue.

  During another search and rescue mission on the fifth floor, I’d taken to time to clear and acquire a dozen more hotel rooms. Four of them were two-bedroom suites with full kitchens, just like mine, while the rest were single rooms with a simple bathroom, a basic minibar, and a pair of queen beds. The expansion had eased some of the strain, but not enough—especially since I’d already given two of the suites to Temp and Jakob, and set another aside for my current human employees, Taylor and Stephanie.

  Admittedly, giving the two college girls their own suit was a big upgrade, but they’d been working their asses off and deserved better than a shared cot in the back of a supply room.

  I enlarged my mini-map and carefully selected all of the space I wanted to annex, including the office, breakroom, reception area, lounge, kitchen, and spa. I whistled through my teeth when I saw the total square footage, 10,500. That was just a few thousand square feet less than the Mediocre Mart itself, which made up the core of the shopping complex. If I pulled the trigger, this would be my second largest acquisition ever.

  This was a big decision, but I knew it wouldn’t go to waste.

  The truth was, my little roadside convenience store was rapidly evolving into a small city and if I wanted to keep growing my trading empire, I had to fix my infrastructure problems. This was a step in the right direction. I could integrate the kitchen and bar into my newly acquired loot arcade, transforming it into a full-fledged restaurant. The lounge could serve as both a common area and overflow sleeping quarters. As for the spa and showers—well, those needed no explanation.

  I would win the war against BO one way or another.

  After hemming and hawing for a few more moments, I confirmed my selection on the map and activated my Blanket Fort ability.

  You’ve selected 10,500 square feet of eligible Progenerated Material Resource Space. Would you like to use Corvo’s Blanket Fort to convert the selected material into a Personal Superspace Dwelling? You will have 70,317 available square feet remaining at your current Variant Assimilation Level. Proceed Yes/No?

  Mentally, I selected Yes and braced myself.

  The ground trembled, the walls shuddered, and lighting fixtures rattled as the entire lounge and spa were cut from existence and seamlessly grafted onto the shop—with us still inside. It only took a handful of seconds and then the tremors subsided. Letting out a deep sigh, equal parts relief and exhaustion, I shuffled through the sliding glass lounge doors, which now connected to my shop and not the endless terminal of Concourse Null.

  “Damn does it feel good to be home,” I mumbled, taking in the neatly stocked aisles and the bustling hum of happy shoppers.