Some say nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  They believe that a fulfilling life requires risk.

  The rest of us live long lives.

  —Unknown Lancer

  Violet wasn’t certain why the hedron hadn’t attacked her. She was wary of pushing it further. It was foolish to take a new risk when she’d barely survived the last one. But she could see the path that had been left for her. She’d survived, and she was safe. But she’d been sacrificed to the mist for a purpose. The first reason was simple. The people of Roseville saw no value in her.

  At first glance, it would have been easy to believe this had been solved. She’d found her calling and made an alarming rate of progress in a short amount of time. All the way to degree six in a single moment. She could hardly be seen as useless anymore. But, of course, the circumstances of her breakthrough would be examined. The way she made no progress until the day she was supposed to die. No matter what she did, it would be assumed she belonged in the mist. It would seem reasonable that she needed to enter the mist, or fight hedron, or risk her life in general to advance. Her future had been locked into place. Her future was in the mist.

  She could accept that. If it was on her terms, at least. She could think of a few ways to spin it to work in her favor. But there had been a second reason to sacrifice her. The same reason the Lancers returned repeatedly, despite losing one of their number every time they tried. They never waited for backup, and they never waited more than a day between attempts. Violet had been chosen because she was expendable, but the people of Roseville were no more inclined to monstrosity than any other town. No one would have been so purposefully sacrificed, under normal circumstances.

  Whatever they were after, it was important, and it was urgent. So surviving wouldn’t be enough. If she survived and returned, she would be chosen again. She would be sent back again, and again, until she either died or succeeded. Especially because she had found a calling, rather than despite it. There would be no waiting for new Lancers. No time to rest. If she went home, she would be back. She needed to solve the problem now.

  And the hedron didn’t want to hurt her. So, as she watched the hedron shamble away, she made a choice. She glanced one last time at Derek’s corpse. For one final moment, she felt a little remorse and a surge of thrill at the sight. Then, she kicked what looked like a load-bearing but bent length of rebar. As Derek’s corpse was loudly buried, Violet took a deep breath and a step forward, following the massive creature deeper into the building. Her body felt light, and it ached at the same time. She couldn’t get her heartbeat to slow, and she could feel it in the veins of her head and neck. It was a confusing sensation, strength like she’d never experienced before, and pain like she’d never imagined with each step. Enhanced muscles and cracked ribs kept the reality of the day’s strange events at the front of her mind as the massive moose led her through the casino and toward the southern wall.

  “That really fucking hurt, you know,” she grumbled, addressing the monster directly. “The hell did I ever do to you?” The moose made no indication that it heard her at all, much less understood her. She groaned into the frustrating silence, already aware of a cornucopia of bruises forming all over her body. She needed a distraction, and her mind landed on her new talents. She’d never used a talent before, but she had a strange awareness of them. It was like moving a finger. She couldn’t explicitly describe how to move any given finger, or to curl her lip, or close her eyes. All actions that were the result of dozens of complex interactions in her body. None of which she understood on any deep level, but she didn’t have to. She knew she could move her pinky finger because she could. She sent the command, and it happened, and talents felt the same way.

  As they passed a stand with some kind of building directory inside, she stopped, pressing her right hand to the glass and activating “Obfuscate.” The tree extended from her palm as usual, but the displayed results were completely different than they’d been a few moments before. Her calling, at least at the moment, was “Manic Pixie,” her talents were “Hot,” and “Smart,” and all of her attributes were displayed as 1000. That last one was actually less than she’d intended, but apparently the talent wouldn’t exceed the maximum possible value for those. An interesting quirk to note. Everything else, of course, was exactly what she’d intended. Just like the flick of a finger, she hadn’t needed to think about how; she’d only had to do it.

  She didn’t linger long; the hedron hadn’t stopped to wait, and she wanted to know where it was going. Ideally, it would lead her to whatever she was after. She let her hand fall from the glass, and the false summary of her soul to fade.

  “So, where are we going?” she asked. Again, the creature ignored her. “Not a talkative one, are you? Well, that’s alright. I’d have a lot more friends if more people would shut the fuck up, truth be told.” They walked in silence for a few seconds before she spoke again. “No, I’m not a hypocrite, alright? I just rarely get the chance to talk without playing pretend for some other asshole. Enough with the judgy shit. You’re literally a moose; I don’t want to hear that garbage from you, of all people.” The loose hedron continued to be a moose, and failed to care what Violet was saying. But the faux conversation was easing her mind anyway. Just speaking without a dozen filters and dangerous eyes choking her… it had a healing effect. It felt better than her injuries hurt, even without a sapient partner to listen to her. It was helping to finally slow her heartbeat.

  That was, at least until they reached the dilapidated wall, and she saw the mist pouring in. She didn’t know what had happened to her gas mask, but she certainly didn’t have it anymore. She almost started choking by reflex as she breathed in the mist. But after a confused moment, she realized her throat barely burned more than it did back home. And of course it didn’t. She was only so sensitive to the poison in the mist because she’d been a category white. She’d had no Clarity to protect her from the mist. But that wasn’t the case anymore. As the hedron walked easily through the hole in the south wall, Violet followed without an issue. It was a surreal experience, entering the mist of her own free will and not suffering for it. She even realized that she could see far better than she had before. The mist was still thick, and her vision was hardly clear, but she could make out a good fifteen-foot diameter around her. A gift of her perception attribute. It did seem to be her priority attribute, putting her perception at the median level of an Orange one, an entire category above her.

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  As she followed the monster through the mist, she almost enjoyed the environment. It was hardly safe. The mauve mist had been the symbol of death since she was a child, only ever entered to retrieve necessary resources. But to her, it felt like safety. Certainly not physically, but the thick mist protected her from the need to pretend. From her own persona and from expectations. Those expectations would change, surely. But she had a feeling the persona would still be necessary. Even then, some part of her had accepted that she was going to kill again. What guilt she felt simply wasn’t enough to fend off the already-calling temptation to repeat the deed. To feel that pure, unadulterated control.

  She glanced at the hedron as she considered testing her second talent. She didn’t want to risk its ire again, but she didn’t want to be caught unsure of the abilities' limits either. She was going to have to take that risk anyway—when she reached whatever it was guarding. “Hey, bud, you mind if I create some bullshit with crystal magic?” she asked. “I mean, clearly you had a damn field day doing the same. Got some Christmas-tree-looking-ass antlers going on up there. Mine will probably be red, but that won’t bother you, right? I know bulls don’t love that color. Or they do? I don’t know how it works; the books always take it for granted. But you’re not a bull, are you? You are a noble moose. A noble moose wouldn’t throw a fit over some red shit, right?” After a moment of silence, Violet sighed. She was stalling.

  Finally, she decided to just try it. She wouldn’t create a weapon. Just a tool. “Tools of the Trade” was actually a fairly common talent across different callings. There were a lot of callings that offered it. Jobs needed tools. It did limit a person to the tools that they could use for their calling, however. Violet was curious what that meant—for a so-called “Reaper.” First, she created something simple. Something small. She held her palm open, and a red crystal formed in the middle, thin and less than three-quarters of an inch. A handcuff key. She grinned. She quickly freed herself from the murder weapon she’d been dragging with one arm, rubbing her wrist as soon as it was free. “Not to worry, there are perfectly legitimate reasons the means to escape police custody would be considered a tool of my trade. Perfectly legitimate. Scathingly legitimate, really,” she explained to the hedron, which continued to ignore her.

  She was going to risk a weapon next, when the hedron walked past another now-used brick wall, entering the building across the highway from the casino she’d been in before. As she followed, she immediately understood why she was there. Not in the building specifically, but in the mist at all. The glowing and green octahedron embedded in one wall, crystals leading into the brick like blood veins, told the entire story.

  She’d never seen one in person, of course. But there was no one alive who didn’t recognize the heart of a crystal nest. This was what the Lancers had come for. It was early, and the nest hadn’t developed around it. Now was the easiest time to destroy it. And it wasn’t just a nest, it was a green nest. In an area that had only ever dealt with orange nests, at worst. It would fuel Roseville’s defenses for months, if they brought it back, but that didn’t matter.

  One green hedron had killed multiple Lancers, and the town wasn’t getting replacements any time soon. A fully formed green nest? Within a day’s walk of the town? That would be the end of Roseville. Every man, woman, and child would flee, or they would die. And the trains weren’t large enough to evacuate an entire town. That was why they had resorted to sacrificing Violet. It was a last resort, because failure meant death either way. For everyone.

  She glanced at the hedron that had led her to the crystal. “So, if I take this, you’re gonna kill me, right?” she asked. The moose was settling down, folding its legs in and preparing to sleep. “I kind of need to take it, or they’re just gonna send me back here for it. I’d really rather not come back like this; that omelet garbage they tried to feed me tasted like bagged soup. I’d hate to spoil this blossoming friendship with violence, wouldn’t you?” Violet’s eyes warily tracked the hedron’s breathing as it appeared to drift into unconsciousness. Somehow, the sense of danger in the air only grew sharper, like she might cut herself on the tension if she stepped in the wrong direction. “Alright, asshole, I know what putting on airs looks like. If you’re gonna be a little dick about it, I won’t take it. I don’t know how to get that crap out of the wall, anyway,” she said. Still, the crystal beast ignored her.

  She considered just destroying it, but she couldn’t think of a way. She’d seen yellow crystal shatter against the hedron’s green defenses before. That was perhaps due to the opposing force, but Violet only had red crystal at her disposal. That was three full categories below green; it wouldn’t stand a chance. She crossed her arms and tapped her lip with one finger as she stared at the glowing wall. The way it grew into the wall was interesting, like it was a body part. She understood why it was referred to as a “heart’.” “Alright. So, walk away and get sent back here tomorrow, along with two just absolutely lovely piece-of-shit Lancers, or try to destroy this on my own now, while I have the chance,” she thought aloud. Her eyes scanned the wall as she spoke, until they landed on a mounted sign, largely covered with crystal and with only a few words visible. What she could make out was easy enough to understand, however.

  Suite 15 - Resear—

  Suite 16 - Chem—

  Suite 17 - Labor—

  She tilted her head, glanced at the hedron, and shrugged. She’d read that more than a few cities had been largely littered with technology, chemical, and other research facilities before the crystallization. That, and various chemical plants and waste disposal facilities. But all things considered, a research facility had the least impact on passersby. This made it the most likely to appear near a casino.

  “Fuck it, it’s worth a shot,” she murmured.