Night rolled in. The little barred window’s glow slid from the hallway floor to the wall, then directly across from it. Sundown approached, and no one had stopped by since they brought us food.

  I’d noticed something on the wall in the bullpen that stuck with me, beyond all the other things. They had a calendar. It seemed to track the blue sun, counting the days. My guess was it was Zayan’s work, with his skills from a time before pre-established calendars and digital timekeeping.

  I paced the floor. With intent. I looked for structural problems to exploit, while acting like a caged tiger.

  Another thing that kept coming back to mind was Savage’s notebook. I wanted one of those. I was quickly slipping. Forgetting how many days we’d been in the System. It wasn’t a new thing. I rarely remembered my own birthday and often rushed to get to work. Time had less meaning to me than to some people.

  And yet, I’d always checked the clock. What time did I have to sleep by, what time to get up, and how much time I had to do something before I had to go to work. Typical stuff, I imagined. Keeping track of the days would help me stay grounded.

  Stuck in a jail cell wasn’t grounding. I had finished my sweep of the wall and floor and had figured out a few options for how we were going to get out. I didn’t tell Jake. He might act nervous and spill the tea if someone pressured him.

  We entertained ourselves by talking about books. Along with games, Jake liked to read. A rare quality in the days and times we came from.

  “Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles,” I said.

  “Nope. Alice in Wonderland is the first portal fantasy.”

  I cocked a brow. “Really?”

  He snickered, a grin showing his fangs. “1865. Like, a hundred years before isekai was invented.”

  “And no one dreamed of worlds before that?”

  He turned his palm to the sky and shrugged. “Depends. If you think of the Tuatha De Dannan, I mean, you could say it predates writing. They’re supposedly from another world, and people could get taken there. Concepts of Hell kind of fit, too. ”

  “Rip Van Winkle kind of stuff?” I suggested.

  He waved it off, explaining, “More like the Norse gods and Asgard, right? Or the Jade Emperor. These stories are like, stories of gods that could give and take lives, move people like chess pieces and stuff.”

  My lip curled against my tusks. It was too close to the situation we were in for comfort, so I changed the subject.

  “Sushi or pizza?”

  “Ooo, I want sushi on pizza,” his eyes went round, then he scowled and struck the floor with his fist. “Dammit. I want real food.”

  “I’ve been eating potatoes in buffalo lizard gravy. Sometimes there’s mutton in there.”

  His nose scrunched up, “What’s mutton?”

  “Sheep meat,” I explained, thinking about the sheep herds and the stinking buffalo lizards. The rumble of Orcish spoken around Bauring Dath’s tables. Right now, Alga would be sliding me a horn cup of bracing liquor and a bowl of mystery potatoes, if I was there. Wait—was I getting nostalgic for that place? I might as well dream of my little apartment. It had a nice shower.

  “I’d kill for a real shower,” I sighed, leaning back against the wooden boards of the wall. Quick wash-ups with a bucket of cold water didn’t leave me feeling clean. Especially after the sewer incident. The baths were alright. Not warm, though.

  Jake hummed noncommittally. I shot him a sharp look but didn’t say anything. He hadn’t collected any strange smells, so maybe demons burned their dirt away. I didn’t know. It would be weird to ask.

  I had to pee, and there was a small gap between us in the wall that someone clearly used as a makeshift latrine before. Still. It was painfully awkward. I’d adjusted to not having to squat, and I appreciated it a lot. I just hated having to go while someone was in the cell, and the whole time I kept telling myself that Jake wasn’t watching. I was so pee shy, I felt the weight of eyes that weren’t on me, and I couldn’t pee for a few minutes before my screaming bladder got relief.

  Why would a digital form even have to urinate? Because I was programmed to? Annoying.

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  The little square of light on the wall dimmed. The elf came by again, leaving us another serving of bread and water. Before he slipped away, I asked, “When are we going to hear the verdict?”

  On the heels of my question, Jake asked, “Are they going to question us again?”

  The deputy shrugged and said something in Elvish.

  I bared my teeth at the retreating form of the deputy, pressing my face against the bars. I couldn’t fit my whole arm through, but I stuck my hand through far enough to make a fist in his direction. “You little shitbird! Come back and say that to my face in a language I can understand!”

  “We’ll get our punishment in the morning,” Jake translated.

  I snorted hard, sounding like an angry bull. Growling low in my throat, I flung myself back to my corner and scowled at the bars. After a few moments, I calmed down enough to take stock of the situation, and myself.

  Anger has always been in me, but something about this half-orc existence made it explosive. As a human, I’d been able to contain it. It couldn’t be the extra testosterone, because I was a digital construct now, not an organic one. Hormones had no sway over me, but programming did.

  My aspect screen held no answers. Though it was something of a search engine, it couldn’t call up answers to any of my questions.

  I sat upright suddenly enough to make Jake twitch with surprise. “We have to meet a programmer. Someone who understands the ins and outs of building complex Systems.”

  “I don’t think anyone can build something like this System,” Jake said.

  He probably knew programming, but I meant the deep, gritty algorithm stuff. Code editing software supports most programmers these days. I wanted someone who went further than that.

  “Not someone that can build it. Someone who can break into it, maybe take control—nope. Terrible idea. Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” I said, swinging my arm through the air to brush away the idea.

  “Maybe…”

  “Nope. Bad idea,” I dismissed it. But what were the alternatives?

  I tilted an ear toward the window. People were moving out the front door. What I wanted to hear didn’t happen until our dishes were taken away.

  The heavy creak of a board, the whisper of feline paws carrying great weight, and the creak of a door. The sphinx was leaving. I put my finger to my lips, and Jake’s eyes went wide, glowing softly in the darkness.

  We stayed completely still, enough that I could hear my own heartbeat. How could I hear what wasn’t real? I tried not to distract myself with my incessant internal dialogue, instead focusing on the sound of movement.

  When the night was most quiet, I nudged Jake. He’d fallen asleep in his corner, curled in a ball with his wings like a blanket. His head lifted and he looked at me.

  I pulled the axe out of my inventory and started prying at the boards I’d taken a leak on earlier. Jake hissed when the nails squealed. We both jumped when the board made a pop. I paused there, letting the board rest, and listened.

  I counted to one thousand before doing the next board. Jake held the boards back so I could stick my head through to see what was under the building. It stank, but not like a cat hole. It smelled more like an abandoned outhouse, all cobwebs and faded acidity.

  “We aren’t getting out that way,” I whispered, easing out of the gap. Jake carefully lowered the boards back into place. Without Jake’s wings, we could have fit, but I wasn’t prying him through that snake-infested crawlspace.

  I started work on the wall, hooking the blade of the axe into the gap between boards and slowly, steadily applying pressure until the nails squealed free. Each time I stopped, waiting with agonizing patience, listening. I pried the lower boards free and left them to dangle from the top nails.

  “Look out the window. Is there anyone out there?”

  Jake gripped the windowsill and pressed his chin to the edge, peering out. “Nobody.”

  “Okay. This is the risky part. Once these boards start coming off, someone might see,” I warned. That no one had heard yet was nothing short of a miracle.

  Unless they were all around the corner, snickering and waiting for us to make our break.

  I whispered a prayer to the orcish chaos god, one I heard all the time at the compound.

  “Tan’fukshan, kafahz armauk’ai.”

  I knew better than to put faith in it, but desperation makes believers of us all. So they say. At that moment, I felt it was true. Slipping my arms around a few of the boards, I yanked with all my might. The boards squealed as they tore free, clattering to the floor.

  “Run,” I breathed, and jumped out.

  I hit the ground at a sprint, darting towards the shadows of buildings. Skimming along the side of a cartwright’s workshop, I glanced back at Jake. Horror spiked through my blood—he flashed a red aura. I glanced at the shop as I passed a window, catching the faint pulse of my own beacon.

  Unacceptable. I had to get rid of it—wait. That girl in purple. She hadn’t flashed a beacon. There was a way to turn it off.

  We just had to keep running until we figured it out. Ha. Just.

  I’d hit the next district before Thorn Ridge even started scrambling after us, Jake fast behind me. The Termite Mounds. There were a lot of different bug species in this city, and termites were one of them. Plants grew here, but the locals trimmed them to nubs. By eating them.

  It showed as a hostile area on my map. [Insectoids:-2 REP]

  “Jake, termites like you?”

  “Uh, neutral,” Jake panted, the thudding of his hooves following me louder than my own heavy footsteps.

  “They hate me,” I shot back.

  I’d only been in the System for three days. Four days? Each one was progressively worse than the last. I wanted a beach day of sun and alcohol.

  Thankfully, I only saw one termite, and it ran in the other direction as soon as it saw me. It was the dead of night, so it was safe to say the bug people didn’t have a busy nightlife.

  The mounds loomed dark and still, but I could hear a faint skittering as I dashed between the towering structures. Tiny echoes from black holes set my skin crawling. I tried to push back the thought of how far below us they might be and if they could dig upward and ambush us.

  The Colosseum revealed itself from behind the termite mounds. I raced for the street of the next district: Higashiyama. The ground changed to cobblestones at the district’s edge. Just had to make it. With a strangled gasp, I leapt the last few feet onto the old Japanese street. I angled up the slope for Kiyomizu Temple.

  A shadow crossed over me. Staggering, I swerved towards an overhang. The recent memory of the hawk attack drove me to take cover.

  By the light of three moons, I saw Zayan soaring above, massive white wings spread wide.

  There was no way he hadn’t seen us. These stupid beacons made sure of that. I forced my legs to move faster. If Jake couldn’t power up the stairs to the temple, we were done.

  We had seconds before the Sheriff of Convergent City swooped back around to cut us off.

  -ARCHIVE_

  ?

  What if power had a cost?

  Slow-Burn Progression Fantasy Competent FMC Epic Fantasy

  In Hillcrest, power is currency—and Fulminancy is its ruthless king. Underground fighting rings offer a brutal path to the top, where strength is crowned and the weak are shattered. For Kess, a cursed yet supremely talented fighter, Fulminancy isn’t a gift—it’s a gamble. Its volatile surge, tinged with whispers of madness, already cost her everything once. Born with power most would kill for, Kess should be one of Hillcrest’s rising stars. Instead, she’s branded its biggest fraud. Every battle is a perilous dance with destiny—and every misstep, a step toward oblivion.

  Desperate to escape a past that haunts her and a future dictated by dangerous magic, Kess stakes everything on a deadly bout against a Fulminancer, seeking the coveted escape promised by a single sash. But when her brother vanishes on that fateful night, she’s forced to unleash her hidden powers to survive—and in doing so, becomes the city’s most wanted.

  Her only hope lies with Rowan of Northmont, a disgraced noble inventor whose obsession with Fulminancy is as intoxicating as it is deadly. As Fulminancy unravels into chaos and the city trembles on the brink of destruction, Kess and Rowan must uncover the ancient mysteries of their capricious power before the Ashfall consumes them all.

  In a city where every storm might herald the end, can Kess master the magic that both damns and defines her—or will it ultimately be her undoing?