The City of the Unmade didn’t just look dead; it looked like it had been murdered, buried, and then dug up just to be murdered again.

  The sky above us was a bruised, angry purple, swirling with clouds that looked less like water vapor and more like curdled milk. We had been walking for hours through the ruins of the outer districts—places where the buildings twisted into impossible spirals or simply floated a few feet off the ground, tethered by chains of black iron.

  But now, we stood before the heart of it.

  The Keep.

  It was a jagged black tooth punching into the sky, a monstrosity of obsidian and bone that seemed to suck the light out of the air. Surrounding it was a petrified forest where the trees weren’t made of wood, but of gray stone that wept a thick, black sludge. The air crackled with a malevolent energy that smelled faintly of ozone and old, dried blood.

  Directly in front of us stood the gate.

  It wasn't a normal gate. It was a barricade of rusted iron and sharpened bone, woven together in a messy, chaotic lattice that suggested it had grown out of the ground like a metallic tumor rather than been built by hands.

  We huddled behind a cluster of petrified tree stumps, catching our breath. The march through the city had been grueling, but the silence here was worse. It was the silence of a held breath before a scream.

  I looked at my team. They looked ragged.

  Faelar’s armor was dented in three places from the Siege Breakers we’d fought at the bridge. Willow’s robes were stained with mud and the glowing blue ichor of a Void Stalker. Liam was meticulously cleaning his fingernails with the tip of Soul-Drinker, looking bored, though I noticed the slight tremor in his left hand. Elmsworth was muttering to himself, sketching equations in the dirt with his staff while Nugget—currently a small, brown, unassuming hen—pecked at the lines.

  We were tired. We were hurt. But we were here.

  "Right," I said, my voice low. I realized I was polishing the head of The Sun-Piercer with a small rag again. I stopped, shoving the rag into my pocket. It was a nervous habit from the Citadel—clean gear, clean mind—but out here, nothing stayed clean.

  I looked at the gate again. Beyond it, I could see movement in the courtyard. Cultists in robes that seemed to shift and shimmer like oil on water. Hulking, horned shapes that I really hoped were statues but knew were demons.

  "So the plan is simple," I began, trying to sound like the Commander I was supposed to be. "Liam, you scale the eastern wall, get a vantage point. Take out any sentries with the bow. Willow, prepare a spell to obscure our entry—fog, shadows, whatever you have left in the tank. Elmsworth, once we're in, I need you to destabilize that archway to cut off reinforcements."

  I looked at Faelar. The dwarf was swaying slightly. He unstoppered his massive flask—the one that held an impossible amount of liquid—and took a long, gurgling pull. Cider ran down his beard. He wiped it away with a gauntlet that sounded like grinding stones.

  "Faelar," I said. "You stick with me. We hold the front."

  Faelar burped. It was a resonant, bass-heavy sound that probably echoed off the distant mountains.

  "Plan?" he scoffed, his voice booming way too loud in the quiet forest. "Bah! The only plan a gate like that needs is a dwarven battering ram!"

  He spat on his hands and rubbed them together. The sound was like two bricks being clapped.

  "Faelar, wait for the signal!" I hissed, reaching out to grab his shoulder.

  But it was like trying to tell the tide not to come in.

  "FOR OAKHAVEN! FOR THE BEER! FOR THE SHINY THINGS!" Faelar roared.

  It wasn’t a war cry; it was a belch of defiance. He didn't run so much as he fell forward with conviction, his short legs churning like pistons, his heavy axe, Bessie, bouncing against his back.

  "Oh, for the love of..." Liam sighed, standing up and sheathing his dagger. "He’s doing the thing again."

  "He is definitely doing the thing," Willow agreed, sounding more amused than worried.

  "Well," I said, grabbing my spear and feeling the weight of the white metal settle into my grip. "Misfits. Play the music."

  Chaos didn't just erupt; it detonated.

  Faelar hit the gate. He didn’t bother with the latch or the hinges. He engaged Indomitable Might, his body glowing with a faint, ruddy aura of pure stubbornness, and lowered his shoulder into the rusted iron.

  CRUNCH.

  The gate exploded inward. Metal screamed, bone shattered, and a dwarf-shaped hole appeared in the blockade. Faelar tumbled through, rolled to his feet, and immediately swung his axe into the knees of a surprised cultist.

  "KNOCK KNOCK, YOU ROBED WEIRDOS!" Faelar bellowed.

  "Well, the door's open!" Liam chirped.

  The elf sprinted past me. He vaulted gracefully over a pile of debris, using a petrified stump as a springboard. He launched himself toward the eastern wall, just as I had asked, but he did it with zero subtlety. He landed in a crouch on top of a gargoyle, spun, and reached for his quiver.

  "Time to delete some assets," Liam muttered.

  He reached for a shadow arrow. But the chaotic energies of the Spire were thick here, twisting reality like a wet rag. The Quiver of Whispers sparked. Instead of a silent arrow of darkness, it produced a bouquet of wilted flowers.

  Liam stared at the flowers. The cultist below him stared at the flowers.

  "Glitch!" Liam shouted, eyes widening.

  He improvised. He grabbed a loose slate shingle from the roof and flung it like a discus.

  It was a terrible throw. It ricocheted off the gargoyle's head with a loud PING, spun through the air, and sliced cleanly through a thick rope holding a large, netted cage suspended above the courtyard.

  The cage dropped.

  It hit the ground and burst open. I expected a beast. I expected a prisoner.

  I did not expect a torrent of angry, hissing, multi-legged badgers.

  "Calculated!" Liam lied, drawing his daggers as he leaped from the roof. "Release the hounds!"

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  The badgers, furious at the sudden change in elevation, swarmed the nearest cultists.

  I charged into the breach.

  The courtyard was a nightmare of geometry. The ground wasn't level; it undulated like a breathing chest. The air was filled with violet motes of light that tasted like copper when you inhaled them.

  Three cultists rushed me. They wielded jagged daggers that dripped with black smoke.

  "Die, interloper!" the lead one hissed, his face hidden behind a mask of stitched human skin.

  "Not today," I grunted.

  I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just moved. The Sun-Piercer became a blur of white light. I parried the first dagger, the metal ringing like a bell. I spun, using the momentum to sweep the legs of the second cultist with the shaft of the spear. As the third lunged, I thrust.

  The spear moved faster than my arms. It felt weightless, eager. It pierced the cultist's shoulder, and a pulse of kinetic energy—my Spear Return acting up—blasted him backward into a stone pillar.

  "Willow! Support Faelar!" I shouted over the din of battle.

  "On it!" she cried.

  She rushed past me, her bare feet seemingly immune to the sharp stones and debris. She completely ignored the screaming cultists who were currently being mauled by Liam’s tactical badgers. She skidded to a halt beside Faelar, who was currently wrestling a goat-demon that was twice his size.

  "Did you hurt your handsome face?" Willow cooed, leaning in to inspect a small scratch on Faelar's cheek while the demon tried to bite his head off.

  "Willow! A little busy here!" Faelar grunted, headbutting the demon in the stomach.

  "Hold still!"

  She slammed her palms onto the ground. "Grow!"

  She meant to summon vines to bind the demon. She meant to create a barrier.

  But we were in the City of the Unmade. Magic here was like pouring gasoline on a grease fire.

  The cobblestones exploded.

  Thick, thorny vines didn't just sprout; they erupted like geysers. But instead of binding the enemy, the aggressive flora wrapped lovingly around Faelar's legs, anchoring him to the ground. The vines then continued their enthusiastic growth, snaking out to entangle the two closest demons, hoisting them upside down by their ankles.

  The demons bleated in confusion, dangling like fleshy pi?atas.

  "That's... not what I was trying to do," Willow mumbled, patting a thorny vine apologetically as it squeezed Faelar’s calf.

  "I'm stuck!" Faelar roared, hacking at the vines with The Toothpick—his obsidian pickaxe. "Willow! I appreciate the support, but I am not a trellis!"

  "Just fight from there! You’re a turret now!" Liam shouted, running past them. He jumped onto the back of a dangling demon, stabbed it, and backflipped off. "Parkour!"

  From the shattered gateway shuffled Elmsworth. The wizard paid no mind to the battle. He was walking calmly through the melee, dodging sword swings and flying badger parts with an air of distracted academic curiosity. His eyes were focused entirely on Nugget, who was perched on his shoulder.

  "You see, Nugget," Elmsworth lectured, tapping his staff on the stones as a fireball whizzed past his ear, singeing his beard. "The change in barometric pressure caused by the breach has clearly created a momentary distortion in your plumage's chronal alignment!"

  Nugget, who had been a sleek, brown chicken moments before, blinked.

  The bird shuddered. Then, with a sound like a balloon inflating, Nugget transformed.

  He didn't turn into a dragon this time. He didn't turn into the Void-Eater.

  He turned into a ball of fluff. A bright, neon-pink, perfectly spherical ball of feathers roughly the size of a beach ball.

  Nugget cocked his head, looked at his own pink feathers, and let out a sound like a bicycle horn.

  HONK.

  Then, he took flight.

  The chicken flew in a wobbly, impossible loop—defying all laws of aerodynamics and several laws of decency—before dive-bombing a Cultist Leader who was trying to rally his forces near the altar at the back of the courtyard.

  Nugget landed squarely on the man's head. He flapped his pink wings, blinding the man with neon fluff, and began pecking furiously at his scalp.

  "Get it off! Get this infernal, rose-colored beast off me!" the cultist shrieked, running in circles while batting at the angry pink sphere Velcroed to his hair.

  "Focus!" I yelled, dropping another cultist with a shield bash. "Clear the yard!"

  "Fireball!" Elmsworth announced suddenly.

  The wizard had found his spot in the center of the chaos. He planted his feet. He began to chant, his hands weaving intricate patterns in the air. A ball of orange energy started to form between his palms, growing larger and hotter. The air warped around him.

  The remaining cultists backed away in terror. They knew what a fireball looked like. They knew that when a wizard started chanting in a high-magic zone, you ran.

  "Finally," I breathed, dispatching my last opponent with a quick thrust to the chest. "Burn them, Elmsworth!"

  The fireball swelled to the size of a pumpkin. It pulsed with destructive potential. Elmsworth drew his hands back for the final thrust, his eyes glowing with arcane power.

  At that exact moment, Nugget—who was now shimmering with all the colors of an oil slick—chose to swoop down.

  The chicken saw the glowing orange ball. He thought it was the sun. Or maybe a very large piece of corn.

  "No, Nugget, that's not a seed!" Elmsworth cried.

  It was too late. The chicken's beak made contact with the unstable magic.

  The fireball didn't explode. It imploded.

  It collapsed in on itself with a sound like a giant sucking his teeth.

  SHLOOMP.

  Silence fell over the courtyard.

  Then, the magic released.

  But not as fire.

  In its place, a thousand tiny, harmless, multicolored bubbles floated out into the courtyard.

  They drifted gently on the wind, shimmering with iridescent light. They popped on bewildered demonic horns. They bounced off confused cultist noses. One of the goat-demons, entranced by the pretty lights, reached out a clawed hand to poke one.

  Pop.

  The battlefield didn't freeze in time. It froze in confusion.

  The cultists stopped chanting. The demons stopped growling. The badgers stopped biting. Everyone just stared at the bubbles.

  It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen. And it was exactly the opening we needed.

  "NOW!" I roared, my voice breaking the spell of absurdity.

  Faelar gave a mighty heave, ripping his legs free from Willow's vines with a sound like tearing canvas.

  "I'm free!" the dwarf bellowed.

  He didn't run; he engaged his Indomitable Might. He lowered his shoulder and charged the main keep door like a runaway mine cart.

  Liam kicked the barracks door open, stumbling out covered in straw and coughing up dust, but his daggers were in his hands. He slashed the ankles of the distracted demon poking the bubbles.

  "Down you go, ugly!" Liam laughed.

  Willow, realizing her mistake with the vines, clapped her hands.

  "Sleep!" she squeaked.

  The aggressive mushrooms that had sprouted alongside the vines released a puff of neon-green spores. The badgers sneezed, yawned, and immediately curled up for a nap on top of the mauled cultists.

  Elmsworth was busy trying to catch the bubbles. "Fascinating! Surface tension anomaly! Nugget, you are a catalyst for joy!"

  I sprinted toward the center, my spear glowing with the white light of Truth. The Cultist Leader, finally free of the pink chicken, looked up just in time to see me coming. His face was scratched, his robes were torn, and he looked thoroughly done with this day.

  He raised his hand to cast a spell. Black lightning crackled at his fingertips.

  I didn't slow down. I drove the Sun-Piercer through his staff, shattering the wood, and continued the motion to slam the butt of the weapon into his chest.

  Ribs cracked. He went down hard, gasping for air.

  "Stay down," I growled.

  "Clear!" I shouted to the team.

  Faelar reached the heavy oak door of the Keep. It was a massive thing, reinforced with bands of dark iron and carved with screaming faces.

  "Open up!" Faelar shouted.

  He swung The Toothpick. The obsidian beak of the Kraken slammed into the wood with the force of a falling star.

  CRASH.

  The wood splintered. The iron bands groaned and snapped like dry twigs. The door flew open, hanging off one twisted hinge.

  The courtyard behind us was a mess of bubbles, sleeping badgers, unconscious cultists, and aggressive vegetation. But the path forward was clear.

  I walked up to the shattered door, stepping over the threshold. Beyond it lay a long, dark hallway lit by violet torches that burned without smoke. The air smelled of ozone and wrongness, a metallic tang that coated the back of my throat.

  Liam walked up beside me, brushing straw from his hair and sheathing his daggers.

  "So," Liam said, looking back at the chaos we had caused. "That felt familiar."

  "Déjà vu," I agreed, wiping sweat from my forehead.

  "Did we do it right this time?" Willow asked, joining us. She had a streak of blue demon blood on her cheek, but she was smiling.

  "We won," Faelar grunted, wiping slime off his armor and taking another swig from his flask. "That counts as right. And nobody died. Except the bad guys."

  Elmsworth trotted up, Nugget back on his shoulder. The chicken was now a calm, professional white, looking as if he hadn't just turned into a pink sphere of terror.

  "The probability of that sequence of events recurring was approximately one in four million!" Elmsworth beamed, adjusting his glasses. "We are statistically significant!"

  I looked into the dark hallway. At the end of it, Malacor was waiting. I could feel him. The Editor. The one who wanted to delete us.

  I thought back to the Citadel. To the drills. To the manuals. I thought about how terrified I would have been of this mess back then. A disorderly combat? A failed plan? It would have broken me.

  But now?

  Now I looked at the bubbles floating past the corpse of a demon, and I smiled.

  "Let's go," I said, stepping fully into the Keep.

  We marched into the dark, leaving the sunlight and the bubbles behind.