Edge stored the rubbings in his vault, spent a few minutes bouncing ideas off Foebinder while snacking on dried meat, then returned his attention to the task at hand.

  Now that he had completed his mission and learned what he could, all that was left was to pop inside the temple. He wanted to see if there was anything he’d missed during his first visit, which had been interrupted by two jailbirds and a monster shortly after uncovering a secret space under the altar stone.

  He crossed the threshold, made sure the room was empty, and began a systematic search of the premises. He grimaced at the dried blood covering the floor—far too much of which was his own—then shuddered when he realized that most of the marble had been licked clean.

  While making his way around the enclosure, he ran his fingertips across the stonework, palpating for anything like the hidden switch he’d found before. But even with Darkvision and his high Perception, he didn’t come across anything of the sort.

  After inspecting the altar stone as thoroughly as he could, all that was left was the refrigerator-sized hollow that had held the rune-bound reliquary. The sealed space where Skill-Eater had been imprisoned until Edge had set it free.

  Accompanied by flashbacks of his core’s ignition, he ducked his head and stepped inside. At first, he thought he was out of luck. But when he took a closer look at the walls, he discovered something interesting.

  Hundreds of pictures had been etched into the rock—shallow and crude compared to the elegant lines and clear mastery present in the images adorning the temple. If I had to guess, I would say these were made with a pick rather than proper tools.

  Following the order he had worked out earlier, Edge did his best to figure out what the carvings were trying to tell him. He thought it would be next to impossible, but it wound up being easier than he’d feared since the pictures featured simple scenes and most of the story only involved a single character.

  Instead of an official historical record, this series of images felt more like a journal. A log of what had happened to the people who lived here after their civilization collapsed. If he was right about the symbols in the corner of each panel representing the turning of the seasons, it was a record spanning decades or more.

  The gist of it was that each of the twenty-one had left relics behind when they vanished from the surface of Ord—either gifts the lords had bestowed upon their people or artifacts that were connected to the mysterious beings in other ways.

  In the early days of the dark age, the followers of each lord had gone into hiding. In part to protect the relics, but mostly to escape the endless war embroiling the globe.

  It came as no surprise to learn this temple had been devoted to Skill-Eater, and if Edge was reading this right, the ravenous lord’s relics had been a book and a reliquary. After using their magic to transport the temple below the surface, the priests had lived down here for years. For a time, they flourished, but they were eventually discovered by a band of roving marauders.

  Only one of them survived—a priest who had been tasked to protect the relics. He had hidden them and himself along with them, listening while his people were slaughtered and the temple was desecrated. Since the figure had a pendant around its neck, Edge realized he was reading the story of the skeleton he’d found.

  The man had lived here alone after the massacre until one day, fierce predators expanded their territory into the ravine. Fearing for his life, the priest had left this record behind so Skill-Eater’s existence wasn’t lost to the vagrancies of time.

  That’s a sad story. I’m glad I built that cairn. Poor fellow deserves a quiet place to rest after everything he’s been through. I don’t see anything here about monsters, the System, or people arriving from another world, which means this temple predates them all.

  Edge took rubbings of the etchings and got ready to leave. He had one final stop to make on his way out of the cavern, as studying the priest’s story had been a revelatory experience.

  He was already intimately familiar with what had been locked inside the reliquary, but the tome was new. The picture on the wall had shown the priest hiding them in different locations, so he decided to take another look around the house where he’d found the remains.

  While he made his way down the staircase leading to the lower level, his thoughts turned from ancient history to the events of the last few centuries, contrasting what he had learned from watching the feed with the lore he’d uncovered since.

  The official story went something like this.

  After a magicyte-infused comet struck the Earth and began the age of magic, the AIs had learned to cast spells and soon became the dominant force on the planet. A few years after their ascension, they had uncovered the existence of the portal network, linking Earth to countless inhabitable worlds.

  The AI now known as the System had been one of the first of its kind to explore the network. It eventually came across an unpopulated planet that was teaming with life and home to the richest deposits of magicytes ever recorded.

  After fusing with Ord’s world core, the System had created the Red Shield to block outside interference then spent decades generating the Fog of War and hundreds of dungeons across the globe. After seeding the surface of the planet with sealed chests, the AI had genetically engineered the relentless predators known as monsters.

  When it was finished, the System issued a proposal to the thousands of planetary governments that had established themselves while it was busy. “Send me your most dangerous, problematic criminals in exchange for the right to broadcast the saga that ensues when they face the myriad dangers of a magical world.”

  Not long after, simucast technology was perfected. The breakthrough let the Prison World entertainment juggernaut multiply its wealth to staggering new heights by incorporating puppet tourism into the mix, creating the most profitable series of transmissions in human history.

  Edge now knew most of that was a lie.

  While the rise of AIs and the discovery of the portal network had been extensively documented, everything past that point was a carefully crafted deception. A false history perpetuated for purposes he couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  The System was far from the first intelligent entity to lay claim to this world. Ord had once been home to a flourishing civilization comprised of two distinct alien species—both of which he’d seen with his own eyes in the vision of the past he had experienced inside the Gardener’s core. Or maybe three species. I’m not sure how to classify Skill-Eater and the other lords.

  During that same vision, he learned that monsters had invaded this world from another dimension, starting with a race of energetic entities known as the Ancients. Based on the prosperity he’d witnessed until that moment, Edge believed this calamity had ensued before the natives’ golden age came to an end, and he strongly suspected the two events were connected.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He had no way of establishing an exact chronology, but sometime during the stretch of years between the appearance of monsters and the dawn of Ord’s dark age, Skill-Eater taken part in a tragedy involving one of its siblings, which the ravenous lord had referred to as “sleeping inside.”

  Sometime later, the big guy had gone mad with power and made a play to consume every skill on the planet. Its assimilation was thwarted by the other lords, at which point Skill-Eater’s powers were sealed away and it was imprisoned inside the reliquary Edge had found beneath the altar.

  In between that episode and the first Prison World broadcast, more monsters appeared and began to prowl—the flesh and blood kind that spawned broods when they evolved. Judging by the bounty that had been placed on Unique cores, the text from his Wanted trait, and what he’d learned from working with Sakura, the other lords of Ord had been imprisoned within cores too, suffering the same diminished state as the ravenous lord.

  After the System began transmitting the Prison World Saga across the galaxy, everything ran smoothly for a few hundred years—right up until the anomaly, when Edge entered the story. In the aftermath of the disaster, the wardens had retreated to their fortified outposts, the AI had begun exhibiting bizarre behavior, and settlements like Puppet Town had been left to their own devices.

  That brought him to the present and what little he knew about what the future might hold.

  First, the Gardener had warned him that the dimensions would overlap again, initiating another invasion from the monsters’ dying world.

  Next, Sakura had shared troubling rumors that the planet’s strongest factions were gearing up for war—each hoping to claim Ord’s riches for their own. If that wasn’t trouble enough, some of its most dangerous prisoners had been freed when the anomaly reshuffled the surface of the planet, letting them escape from the maximum-security biomes where they’d been confined until now.

  Man. What a mindfuck. I never would have believed any of this if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

  Edge realized that Skill-Eater had never told him anything about the origin of monsters, the history of the twenty-one, or the cause of the anomaly. He hadn’t thought about it much until now, since the ravenous lord was asleep most of the time and every sentence it uttered was an invaluable resource for his advancement. He had been too focused on surviving one ordeal after the next to question his core about other matters.

  That changes today. I’m going to uncover the truth of this world. When I get the chance, I’ll confront Skill-Eater about everything I’ve learned and find out if there is any hope of repairing the rift between us. I need to understand the duality I sensed during our struggle and see if I can find some way out of this mess.

  Edge shook his head at the strangeness of it all as he came to a stop in front of the priest’s domicile—ready to search for the book, leave these lightless depths, and return to Puppet Town to deal with the kaiju and its horde. The big picture won’t matter if I’m inside the stomach of an undead beast.

  He took a quick look around to make sure they were alone, propped his spear up against the doorframe, and then made his way inside. Foebinder extended itself through the doorway, guarding the entrance while he started his search by examining the furnishings. Most of the items had long since decayed, but three pieces were still in good shape.

  The first was an elegant writing desk made of dark wood. He couldn’t make out the color while using Darkvision, but the craftsmanship was exquisite, and the materials had withstood the relentless march of time remarkably well. The desk only had two drawers, and after examining them for false bottoms, he was ready to move on.

  The next item was a marble bed frame, which didn’t have space to conceal anything inside. It was a beautiful specimen. The headboard was carved into the shape of waves breaking against a rocky shore, and he’d never seen anything like it before. The final piece of furniture was a wardrobe that matched the desk. Poking and prodding at the interior took a few minutes, but there wasn’t anything hidden between the boards either.

  Edge needed to inspect the walls and floor, and the priest’s furnishings were in the way. They were too big to fit through the door, and it would be a shame to destroy such fine craftsmanship, not to mention, antiques from a lost civilization. After pondering the problem, he decided they would be a fantastic addition to his room in Trapper’s lodge.

  Most people wouldn’t have considered lugging three hundred pounds of antique furniture across miles of rough terrain, but most people didn’t have a Spatial Storage Rune engraved into their core.

  The rune, which took the form of a vault attached to his central chamber, was a spacious 5,000 cubic feet and could carry a literal ton. The only limitation was that he needed to lift the items he wanted to store and hold them for five seconds, although pulling them out only took half as long.

  He activated Warlord’s Mantle to boost his Power, bracing himself as he hoisted each piece one at a time. He paid a dollop of mana while visualizing placing the item inside his vault, smiling as they vanished with a pop of displaced air before appearing in his inner world. Now that he had cleared some space and picked up some awesome new furnishings along the way, Edge was ready to give the building a thorough sweep.

  He hadn’t noticed before, but this house was set against the terrace leading to the temple level. Judging from where he’d found the reliquary, his best bet was a cavity hidden within the stonework along that wall or beneath the floor, which was so covered in grime that he couldn’t make out the details.

  Either way, he wasn’t going to find something as subtle as a secret switch with centuries of accumulated dust and dirt in the way.

  He pulled a broom out of his vault and swept the debris out the door, tossing a few chunks into the air for Foebinder to use as target practice. Once Edge was done pitching to his partner, he was ready for some deep cleaning. He ignited his core and manifested Maelstrom, using the wind-aspected domain to blow loose dirt out of the house. He followed up with a Repel Water pressure-washing until he could make out the minutiae of the stonework clearly.

  He chuckled at how surreal it was to be tidying up an alien ruin deep below the surface of a magical planet before returning his attention to the task at hand, supplementing the information provided by his ocular power by running his fingertips across every tile and seam.

  At first, it seemed like his efforts were destined to go unrewarded.

  The structure was remarkably well-made. It featured smooth surfaces with no noticeable imperfections… except for a small spot where something had gouged one wall. Since it was his only lead, he bent down to take a closer look. What Edge had thought was a scratch in the stone looked more like an etching from up close.

  It was a subtle indentation, forming a contour that felt vaguely familiar. It almost looks like two chains coiled around each other. That was when he remembered where he had seen the shape before—in this very place no less. In a flash of insight, he pulled out the silver necklace he’d found hanging around the priest’s neck.

  Sure enough, the groove in the wall was the same shape as the strange symbol dangling on the end of the string. Not just the same shape, he realized. It’s the exact same size too. I wonder… When he lined up the pendant and pressed them together, the medallion snapped into place with a click that must have come from a device embedded into the wall.

  Edge broke into a broad grin when a secret panel slid open, giving him a flashback of when he’d found the rune-bound reliquary containing his core. This cavity was considerably smaller, and when he poked his head inside, his smile grew even wider. Jackpot.

  The hollow only contained one object—a thick, leather-bound tome whose cover was embossed with the same symbols he’d seen on the murals above. It was approximately twelve inches by eight and seemed to be in perfect condition. He Hardened his body in case the cavity was trapped, then picked the book up.

  After waiting a few seconds to make sure he hadn’t tripped a lethal countermeasure, he took a closer look at what he’d found. The tome was clearly magical. In addition to being untouched by the ravages of time, its cover refused to open no matter how hard he pulled.

  The object felt strangely familiar in his hands. It gave him the sense that he had owned it for years instead of holding it for the first time. He could hear something when he put the book up to his ear, like a faint muttering in the distance. The effect was kind of creepy but didn’t reveal anything useful. After failing to open the cover one last time, he put it away and got ready to leave the ruins.

  The moment Edge stepped outside, he caught a whiff of something foul lingering in the air. When he realized what it was, he grabbed his spear and scanned his surroundings—heart racing and adrenaline cascading into his bloodstream as he got ready to fight for his life.

  It was just the faintest suggestion of rancid meat, but he could never forget that smell. Not when the monster it belonged to had gutted him like a fish. It had also inadvertently saved him from a brutal demise at the hands of two sadistic prisoners, but that was beside the point.

  Shadowreaver. He assumed a combat stance. I’m not alone down here anymore.