Chương 71: 70-Under Siege

The Losers watched the distant horde of Timespiders from the safety of the top of the Lamplight.

"Scary buggers, aren't they?" Slenn said as he studied them with his spyglass.

"Fear not, there is no way they can pass the force field around the building."

"Even so, we must leave this place, Slenn," Billy told him.

"It is only one step in our journey."

"About that, you must have also noticed there is a dimensional barrier in place," Slenn answered.

"It is passively generated by the tower. The whole purpose of the tower is to stop dimensional travel through the breach that connects this plane and Belona."

"I am afraid we need that breach, Slenn," Jenna told him.

"Can't you deactivate the dimensional barrier, even if only for a few seconds?"

"It is not that easy, Jenna. The mechanism is in the cellar, the safest part of the building, and it has an inbuilt safety switch. I have already programmed it to deactivate for thirty seconds, but it will not go into effect until three hours have passed since I started the process."

"Makes sense," said Bob as he nodded.

"It is a good anti-infiltration measure. Works like a time-delay lock in a modern bank."

"You have nothing to worry about. With the artificial blizzard activated, it will take the Timespiders around a couple of hours to get here. They will be stopped by the force field. You can amuse yourself by watching them try to tear it down—they won't. Somewhat later, the dimensional barrier will go down for thirty seconds; you can use that window to travel into Belona, carrying that damned artifact with you. Once you are no longer here, the spiders will return to the time dungeon. Everybody wins."

Billy remained silent. There was more here than met the eye, but they had agreed not to discuss the Essential nature of their hosts in front of them.

"Do you like board games?" Slenn asked them.

"Yes. More or less," Billy said doubtfully.

"Good. I will be in your room in ten minutes, and we will play some Dominion. That will be a good distraction until the Spiders arrive." Slenn accompanied them to the assigned room. The mess hall was still filled with soldiers, playing cards, singing, and telling jokes. They seemed to be having a great time.

"Your men do not seem concerned with the attack, Slenn," Bob noted.

"Bah. Seen one, seen all," answered Slenn.

"We get all sorts of dimensional breaches here. They have never taken down the force field. Ever. They will scream and howl for a couple of days and then leave the way they came. Probably sooner, if they are after you and we send you away." The room was small but cozy, with bunk beds lining one wall.

"I will come back with the board," Slenn said, smiling as he left.

"This whole thing has a very surreal vibe," Bob said.

"We are about to get swarmed with Timespiders, and this guy only cares about beating us at Dominion, which is probably another dimensional variant of Monopoly— I don't like this."

"Add the fact that they are Essentials on a planet with no dungeons," Jenna added, studying the Icosahedron in her hand.

"Where have all these guys come from? Can you read their stats, Billy?"

"Tried to, but I am in my real body. Their stats are much higher than mine. They are resisting my probes. I am one hundred per cent sure they are Dungeonborn, though—they do not emit Essence." There was a knock. Billy opened the door and let an enthusiastic Slenn come in, carrying a board game.

"I am a master at this," he announced, smiling.

"I will make you weep!" The Losers looked at each other briefly.

"I am sorry, Slenn, we are going to have to take a rain check on that. We are not in the mood." Slenn totally ignored her, setting the board on the table.

"Okay, Jenna to my right, Bob to my left, Billy in front—let's play!" The Losers did not move from where they were standing.

"You are not playing?" Slenn asked, looking confounded.

"No, Slenn. I do not understand what your deal with that game is, but we are certainly not playing it."

"Yes, you are," Slenn answered, his face darkening by the moment.

"We are going to play Dominion for fifty-two minutes and thirteen seconds. Jenna is going to dominate most of the game, but Billy will win at the end. Then we will go downstairs to mingle with the men. Jon will tell his jokes about Bundarians, and you will find the third one particularly funny. Berag will drink too much, and he will spill some liquor on Bob in eighty-four minutes and three seconds, but everything will be all right because Bob will magic it away with that die of his.

Then we will climb to the top to watch the attack of the Timespiders on the force field. This will happen in one hour, thirty-four minutes, and fifty-two seconds. We will do all these things, and we will do them in the correct order and at the precise time."

"No," said Jenna, looking coldly at him.

"Not going to happen."

"But you have to!" Slenn almost pleaded.

"You don't understand. If I go out there without having played Dominion with you, my men are going to eat me alive in front of you."

"You just made it much less weird, man," Billy exclaimed. Slenn threw the board on the table. His body tensed, emitting cracking noises. It began to grow.

"Play—play the game, or I will remove you myself," he said, his voice growing more metallic and higher-pitched. Bob threw Alarel's Palooga ball at him, but the captain vanished just before it hit him.

"Has he become invisible? Where is he?" asked Bob.

"No, he hasn't. I have maxed out my Spirit. I would detect him if he were here. He is just gone." Suddenly, he wasn't. Slenn reappeared just behind Jenna, but he no longer looked human. His skin was covered in thick bristles, and he had two extra pairs of arms, tipped with claws that dripped glistening liquid.

"Jenna, look out," Bob shouted. Jenna reduced her size to that of a doll while the claws zoomed through the space she had just been occupying. Slenn vanished again. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Backs to the wall," Jenna ordered. They did so, keeping their spears in front of them to fend off attacks. Then Slenn reappeared. And again. And again. And again. Four Slenns faced them simultaneously. A flash of red caught Bob's attention. Truth Reveals Itself was drawing it toward Alarel's ball, which was lying on the ground. Bob extended his hand and activated The Match Begins, summoning the ball to his hand.

Alarel's ball hit the back of one of the Slenns' heads, not hard enough to harm him, but it still counted as a hit. All the information provided by the Gaze of the Eternal Warrior suddenly became available to Bob. Pattern Combat 1: Slenn does not teleport or become invisible. It travels back in time to a point when the room is empty and repositions itself. Pattern Combat 2: All the copies are Slenn, from different points in time. Weakness Detected: Hitting the first copy will affect all copies created after it.

"Jenna, two-leaved clover," Bob said in code. Two-leaved clover asked for a moderate amount of luck, enough to get a single job done but not enough to worry about karmic backlash. Bob felt Jenna's spirit enter his, granting him +1 Rapport and +1 Luck. Idrial's Cunning (Palooga 4): Throw the ball marked with Idrial's name. It will strike the target from a totally unexpected direction. If the target does not see it coming, it behaves as if thrown with a 50% bonus to Body. Usable once per fight.

The ball disappeared after leaving Bob's hand. It struck one of the Slenns from an unseen angle, cracking his head open. A random Slenn. Similar wounds appeared on the heads of the other three. They all fell to the ground and started to dissolve. Billy quickly touched one of the dissolving bodies.

"Jenna, some luck for me too, please," he said as he implanted a loot charge in it. The four bodies erupted into a shower of sparks that coalesced into a single metallic rune that lay on the floor. Billy touched the rune and watched it disappear into his flesh.

"What was that thing, Billy?" asked Jenna, alarmed.

"What has it done to you?"

"No worries, Jenna, it just added Slenn's shape to my Akashic Library. He was a Timespider, a variant of the ones we met at the Web of Ananke—an Assassin Timespider. I think they all are." They all took that in.

"Okay, that seriously changes things," said Jenna.

"First order of business: check that the dimensional lock is going to deactivate itself for thirty seconds just as Slenn said. I have a hunch it is probably baloney."

"He said that the lock was located in the cellar. We are going to have to walk past all those guys to get there," said Billy.

"Let's just try to act casual," Jenna said. They opened the door cautiously. They had to pass through the mess hall to reach the stairs leading to the cellar.

"Let me talk if we are interrupted. Let's hope Spirit can take us through this one," Jenna said. They entered the mess hall; a jolly scene awaited them there. Two of the prisoners were playing Beli instruments, singing a bawdy song, while many danced. Three tables were occupied by people playing Eat Your Card! Jon had already started to tell jokes about Bundarians—he was good. Some of his listeners were crying with laughter. Suddenly, they all stopped moving. Their heads turned towards them in perfect synchrony.

Forty-two pairs of eyes glanced at the Losers for a moment. Then they returned to their previous activities: the jokes, the music, and the betting continued. The Losers might as well have been invisible as they crossed the hall and went down the stairs. A scene of horror awaited them there. Dozens of silk cocoons hung from the ceiling. There were bodies inside. It was not hard to imagine who they belonged to. Jenna summoned one of her daggers and sliced open one of the easier-to-reach cocoons.

A mummified corpse, totally drained of fluids, lay inside.

"I recognize his clothes," Billy said.

"He is Tol; he was the one playing the accordion just two minutes ago. He gave me his cup of hot cocoa when I first arrived at the Lamplight."

"The original Tol," Bob said.

"The one upstairs is a Timespider taking his place."

"Let's find the lock," Jenna said.

"The horde will reach the tower in less than ninety minutes. We do not have much time." The cellar was vast and filled with all sorts of junk. Time was not on their side. They had already given up any hope of finding the device in time when Jenna decided to push her luck. She upped it to +3 and pointed in a random direction with her index finger. The device was just where she was pointing, hidden under a tarpaulin. It was a mechanical contraption the size of a boiler, located at the far end of the room.

A point of light hummed a few feet over it, hidden by the tarpaulin.

"I think that wisp of light is the breach. This thing keeps it closed. That is our way out," said Jenna.

"Well, this is surprising," said Bob as he studied the machine.

"Slenn was telling the truth. He programmed it to deactivate for thirty seconds. He did give us our window."

"But why? It makes no sense. We are their enemies. Why are they helping us escape?" asked Billy.

"Billy, please, project your Respawn screen. I want to examine the shape you just acquired," Bob said. Akashic Analysis (Truthfinding 3): Examine one of Billy's Akashic Templates. Gain all possible information from it. Will only work if Billy is projecting his Respawn Screen. Bob examined Billy's new Assassin Timespider form.

"It is as you feared. They can jump back and forth in time. Sounds powerful, but Dissonance keeps it from becoming too overpowered. These beasts are absolutely forbidden from becoming Dissonant. They become mad and attack each other if they do so."

"What about the garrison, Bob?" Jenna asked.

"They are shapeshifters, too. They can attack people in the past and supplant them, but they must respect the observer effect: they must mimic all the actions the victims would have performed if they had not been supplanted. That is, until the past catches up with the present again—until they reach the moment when they jumped back in time. At that point, the observer effect dies, and they are free to act again."

"That is why the lock is programmed to grant us a window of opportunity—it is what the real Slenn would have done if he had not been supplanted." Suddenly, Bob paled.

"Oh, my God, I understand it now. The Timespiders out there are the same as the ones impersonating the garrison. Slenn told us the precise moment they will meet the force field—they will not go through it. They will travel back in time to the point at which the force field had not yet been activated. They will devour the crew in the past and supplant them, waiting for us to come."

"And when we reach the moment at which the spiders jump back in time, they will be free to act—no longer subject to the observer effect. We will be surrounded by hostile Timespiders, trapped by the force field which was supposed to protect us from them," concluded Jenna.

"Brilliant, though it pains me to admit it."

"But something failed," added Bob.

"It was Billy. He is not supposed to have Essence Eyes; it is a restricted power. He noticed our captors were Essentials, and everything went off script. They are caught in a play in which some of the actors are missing, but they are bound to play it to the very end."

"How much time have we got, Jenna?" Billy asked.

"Jesus, only minutes; we spent more time exploring this room than I initially thought we would," she exclaimed. Her eyes glazed as she calculated possibilities.

"The moment the Timespiders reach the force field is only minutes away. There is only something we can do. Up we go!" she said, heading to the stairs. Billy and Bob followed her, running as fast as they could. They ran through the mess hall, being carefully ignored by all the crewmen there. Billy felt horrified when he realized that some of them were interacting with people who were not present: their temporal twins.

"Go faster," Jenna shouted.

"We have less than a minute left." Seconds seemed to stretch forever as they finally reached the Lamplight's top. An army of Timespiders surrounded the building, converging from all sides. They only had five seconds left. 5… 4… 3 Jenna pushed down the lever, taking down the force field two seconds before the spiders jumped back in time. The spiders inside looked at the spiders outside. All felt the sweet, cloying smell of paradox enter their very bones. They had sinned. They had sinned against time.

With a howl of rage, they attacked everything in sight.

"Well, this is a good news/bad news situation. On the one hand, the Timespiders have become mad and are attacking anything, even each other. We are no longer targets; we are only bystanders," Jenna said.

"On the other hand, we have to go through them to reach the dimensional lock, and we have only twenty-three minutes before it deactivates," she went on.

"It will then reactivate in thirty seconds."

"Okay," said Bob, trying to look tough.

"And the bad news is…?" Look, Bob. Just drop it, will you? You were not born for this, whispered Charlie Vaughn.