Chapter 1: Enter Nathan
Nathan ran through the city. A dozen monsters followed.
His legs worked at the pace of a motor, kicking his shoes against the cobbled streets like alternating pistons, left after right, slamming down and shooting up. With every step, his heart took another beat into its rhythm, quickening itself into a rapid drumming so loud that he could hardly hear his own shallow, panicked breaths or the monsters screeching behind him.
He whipped around a corner and turned onto an overgrown avenue, muscles burning, sweat rolling down his face. The city loomed around him — a mass of tall and crumbling buildings tenanted by nature, curtained by vines falling down and creeping up their heights. Trees broke through the streets, joined by seas of colorful flowers and tall grass that peeked through cracks and holes, sucking up the dusky sunlight.
Oxygen flooded his lungs as quickly as it could manage, but its stockpiles were running thin. Every breath came out like the last wheeze of a dying man. He was running on fumes. The monsters weren't too far behind, and he knew that if he kept straight, he'd burn out before he lost them.
"The alley to your left," yelled a voice from the rooftops. "Come on! Hurry!"
There was no time to think it over. He spotted the alley between two stocky, half-collapsed buildings and bolted for it before the monsters caught sight of him again. Only after he got halfway down its length did he realize something.
The alley was a dead end. No doors, no ladders, no stairs, not even any holes he could squeeze into to try to hide — everything was blocked by rubble.
He spun around in a panic, hoping he had time to turn back, but several of the monsters had somehow caught up to him. They were less than two dozen yards away, their empty, black eyes fixed on him so intently that his heart nearly stopped with fear.
They sprang after him, and the primitive part of his brain took the reins, setting him in a dash down the remainder of the dead-end alley in an effort to tap another few seconds of life from the keg of destiny.
"The wall on the right," came the voice again, sounding like it was right above him this time. "The glyph! Hit the glyph!"
Nathan was in so frenzied a state that he didn't even bother to question the odd command. His eyes worked frantically, scanning the wall for the glyph he was meant to be looking for — whatever a glyph even was.
He spotted what he assumed was it just moments before the monsters reached him — two glowing circles the size of a hand, one drawn around the other, both holding collections of strange symbols. When he slapped his palm against it, the world seemed to shift. It felt as though he had shot down the steep part of a rollercoaster at the speed of light, like a million butterflies had gone to flapping in his gut. It was a rush that ended before it began.
He toppled onto the ground with a hard thump, lay there panting like a dog in the heat, too tired to try to stand. His vision was blurry with sweat, but he could make out the room he'd wound up in well enough. It was in a miserable state, lit faintly by sunlight and filled with the same invasive plants that the city streets had been conquered by. Its floor was a mess of broken tiles, the walls were rich with cracks, and half of the second story had collapsed upon the first.
In summary, it was not a luxury penthouse.
Two people stood in front of him, both dressed in dirty clothes with bulky rucksacks strapped to their backs. One was a woman. She had the physique and tan of a summer athlete, with long brown hair tied into a ponytail and a face fit to be on the cover of a magazine. The other was a man who might have seemed awfully plain standing next to her were it not for his exceptional stature.
"Where am I?" he asked, his words coming out as a gasp.
"Does it matter?" the woman said. "Just be glad you're still alive."
"Easy, Annie. He's tired and scared — no need to make things worse for him," said the man. He pulled Nathan to his feet. "Glad you're okay. We thought those husks were going to get you."
"So did I," Nathan said, still working to catch his breath.
Annie gave her companion a nasty look and started to speak, but before she could say anything, someone came rushing down the stairs into the room.
"Is he alive? Is he, Graham?" he asked. He was a ghost-pale, hairless kid — twelve years, at the oldest — with long, sharp ears and a small, quick-looking frame. Nathan recognised his squeaky voice as the one that guided him into the alley.
"Yes, he's alive, Wink," the man replied, looking very amused.
Wink ran up to Nathan, a winsome smile on his round face that could only be called endearing.
"Hi, I'm Wink, nice to meet you. Those husks are creepy, aren't they?" The words flew from his mouth quicker than bullets from a machine gun. "I think the eyes are the worst part about them. Or maybe it's their screams. Then there's the smell, too, though — all their rotted skin and stuff. How long were you running from them? Did you come from another circle? Where did you find them? How did they — "
"We don't have time for this," Annie interjected. "Those husks will lure in more monsters with their screaming, so we need to go. Now."
"Annie's right. Wink, double-check the drop glyph and we'll get moving."
"I already double-checked it. Quadruple-checked it, actually."
"Then quintuple-check it. I'd rather get through it looking exactly like I do now, ten fingers and all. Don't want to end up like your friend Billy Half-face."
Wink rolled his eyes and walked to a glyph on the floor, this one larger than the one that Nathan had seen on the wall. He gave it a good look then groaned, pulled out a blue piece of chalk from his pocket, and drew another symbol inside of its circle.
"Seriously?" Annie put a hand on her hip. "You're going to kill someone one day, I swear."
"It wouldn't have killed anyone." Wink's cheeks had turned a bright red. "Well, unless being turned inside out kills people."
Graham laughed. Nathan wagered that he was a very difficult man to upset if nearly being magically dismembered didn't do the trick.
"Haven't run the tests myself, but I think it might," he said. "Is it good now? Alright, I'm going through first, then." He positioned himself in the center of the glyph, stomped a foot on it, then disappeared in a mist of blue sparkles.
Nathan looked on, utterly awed as one naturally would be upon witnessing magic for the first time.
"Wait, hold on a second. How does this thing work?"
"You stand in the center then stomp your foot on it." Annie gave him a sideways look. "Haven't you used a drop glyph before?"
"No, definitely not."
"Whatever. Just do what I do."
She moved atop the glyph and stomped a foot on it just as Graham did. Not a nanosecond after, she burst into sparkles, disappearing from the room.
"I don't know about this," Nathan said. "What is that thing even doing? Why did they turn into glitter?"
Wink looked at him oddly, quirking an eyebrow he didn't have.
"It's just a drop glyph — a telly like the one you used earlier. Simple stuff, second-order magic. Have you been living under a rock or something? They're all over the Ring." He pointed to the characters in the glyph's circle. "See the script? Just tells the magic to shift whatever trips it about sixty feet straight down. It'll land you right in the Maze."
Nathan nodded. He barely understood what Wink was saying, but if monsters were on their trail, then they had to move. Besides, he'd apparently already used one, so it couldn't be that dangerous. He stood on the glyph, took a deep breath, then stomped a foot against it.
That same rollercoaster rush from earlier hit him again, making him feel like he'd been launched from a catapult then shot from a cannon. He nearly keeled over when he came out the other side, but Graham was there in an instant, propping him up.
"I've got you," he said. "You must not use tellies very much."
"He said he's never used a drop glyph before," Annie said.
"What? Is that even possible?"
Wink came through the glyph in a familiar mist of sparkles, looking very concerned.
"I think I heard hounds," he said. "We should hurry."
The three of them grabbed glow sticks from their rucksacks and kicked off into a jog. What Wink had said proved true — the glyph had definitely thrown them into a maze. Its corridors were innumerable, snaking and twisting, empty and dark, made entirely of cracked, mossy stone and furnished only with pillars that held the earth above their heads. Nathan found himself lagging behind his companions as they ran through its endless turns.
"Just a little further," Graham reassured him. "We were in the first circle, so the enry point will be nearby."
He and the others kept glancing at the odd, watch-like devices on their wrists every time they came upon a fork in the maze. Nathan was sure they were used for navigation, but he had no idea how they might work.
A few minutes later, they hit a dead end. Nathan looked as though he'd run a marathon through Hell, barely able to even shamble, sucking in air like a landed fish, sweat coating every inch of his body. The others hardly even seemed winded.
"Fire, Wink — one gate glyph for table five," Graham said, pushing the kid forward by his bald head.
"Roger, Chef, putting it on the burner right now." Wink raced forward and took the blue chalk from his pocket. He drew five circles on the wall at the corridor's end, each progressively smaller and drawn inside of the last, then began scribbling symbols — script, he had called it — inside of them.
"Are you two going to make that joke every time we sweep?" Annie asked.
"Until it stops being funny, yes," Graham said, giving her a smart smile.
Nathan took a step toward Wink, enthralled by his skill. He made it look easy, filling the gaps between the circles like a living typewriter. A closer look revealed that his chalk was glowing like the glyphs, only fainter.
"You act like you've never seen someone draw a glyph before," Graham said.
"I haven't," Nathan said between his still heavy breaths. His answer earned him some very curious looks.
"Done. Wait, no. Okay, now it's done." Wink spun around with a grin. "Order up — one serving of gate glyph."
"Out of the way, underling — the chef tastes the dish first." Graham gave Wink a playful shove to the side then pulled a chain from his pocket. At the end of it was a rectangle that gave off a brightness greater than either the chalk or the glyphs. He unsnapped it and held it against the glyph's smallest circle.
It was a marvelous display. The glyph hummed when the rectangle touched it, hummed like a swarm of bees, like power was raging inside of it. The power burst out as light, brighter than a star — a cool blue that usurped the white light of the glow sticks and painted the whole corridor. It expanded and stretched into a tall rectangle, then shaped itself and dimmed and finally faded until all that remained was a white-bricked arch with a room peeking from between its piers.
Nathan was sure that it was the most wonderful thing he'd ever seen.
"I can never get it centered right," Wink said, throwing his arms up in frustration. "I mean, look at it. It's way too far to the left. What self-respecting arch would be that far from the center of a wall?"
"You'll get it one day, I'm sure. For now, though, let's just work on going through it before it closes." Graham gestured for him to go through. "Ladies first."
"That'd be you." Wink returned the gesture.
Annie passed by them and walked straight through the arch. Judging from the frown on her face, she wasn't too pleased by their antics.
"I forgot she's a lady," Wink said.
"I'm sure she'd love to know that."
Graham and Wink went through the arch, and Nathan followed them.
They came into a dim and cramped room with a ceiling so low that Graham had to slouch to avoid rubbing his head against it. The walls and floor were made of stone bricks, cracked and scarred and chipped. No furniture, no windows, no doors. The greatest architect in the world couldn't have designed something more pitiful.
They all took a seat on the cold floor. Seconds after, the arch disappeared with a sound like a distant gunshot.
"Now that we aren't being chased by monsters," Graham began, smiling at Nathan, "I've got to know — why were you in the city? No offense, but with how you run, I figure you aren't a sweeper. Did you sneak out the Ring or something?"
"I don't know how I ended up there," Nathan said. "One second I was in my house, and the next I was in a giant city, running from monsters — or husks, I mean. Thanks for helping me, by the way. You, especially, Wink. I really wasn't in the mood to get eaten."
Wink's persistent smile grew wider.
"Nathan won't save us, right?" He tossed the sentence from his mouth as though it were a casual remark about the weather. "We've got to watch each other's backs."
Nathan furrowed his brow.
"Wait, what did you say?"
"I said we've got to watch each other's backs."
"No, no — before that. I think you said my name."
"You didn't even tell us your name, genius," Annie said with more than a little attitude. "How could he have said it?"
"Well, I don't know, but he did. He said Nathan — Nathan won't save us."
They all stared at him for a moment, silent as corpses, then Graham broke out into laughter. Annie's frown seemed to deepen. Wink looked terribly excited.
"What? What's so funny?" he asked. It was a confusing sort of scenario in which one's name became a thing of great hilarity.
"Oh, that's good," Graham said, his laughter dying down. "Can't say I've heard that one before. People usually get upset when you joke about Nathan. Glad there's at least one person around here with a sense of humor."
Annie cast a cool glare at Nathan, her green eyes working to analyze every detail on his face.
"I told you guys that his spirit felt weird," Wink said. "Remember, Gray? Annie? I totally told you that earlier. Maybe he really is Nathan."
She turned her cruel gaze onto him.
"For the last time, Wink — Nathan isn't real."
"Says who?"
"How about everybody in the Ring?"
"What about the Church of Nathan? They think he's real, and they're in the Ring."
"You're right," Annie said. "What I meant to say was that every sane
person in the Ring doesn't think he's real. That church is full of zealous lunatics. Are you sure you want to back them on anything?"
Graham chuckled and held up a hand to stop them.
"Calm down, you two. You're always butting heads now, I swear. I think our new friend here was just trying to make a joke."
"I'm too tired to be making jokes," Nathan said. "Nathan really is my name, but I doubt I'm the same one you guys are talking about."
His mind was working hard to process all of the data put before him. The monsters that had chased him through the city were not normal, and the strange glyphs that had been teleporting him around definitely weren't either. Put with the huge jungle city, the underground maze, and Wink's borderline alien appearance, he felt he could safely guess that he wasn't on Earth anymore. Or if he was, then he was on a very odd and unfamiliar portion of it where his name seemed to be the keystone of a contentious religion. That somehow seemed even more unlikely, though.
"See? His parents just named him after a stupid legend," Annie said. "Besides, if he really were some great hero from another world, he wouldn't be running from husks. And he certainly wouldn't be dressed like that."
"I have to agree," Nathan said, unaffected by her insults. "I'm no hero. Pretty sure I'm from another world, though. We don't have glyphs on Earth, as far as I'm aware. No husks, either. What are those things, anyway?"
"Some sweepers who had their spirits eaten," Wink answered.
More questions popped into Nathan's head. He felt they'd never stop coming.
"What's a sweeper?"
"Oh, you're so full of slark," Annie said. "Do you really expect us to believe you're from another world? I know your type — you're just some idiot that took an illegal sweep gig to make rent. Probably didn't expect to see husks, did you?"
"Sweepers," began Graham, "are the guys who keep the Ring running. We go into the city and bring back whatever resources we can find. Usually it's just monster cores, but we find some other neat stuff every now and then."
"Great. You're buying his story too, Graham? Seriously?"
"Well, he already said he wasn't the real Nathan — just some guy with the same name. It might be a little hard to believe he's from another world, but I can't imagine what he'd gain from lying about something like that. Plus, Wink did say his spirit felt weird. Said it before we even met the guy, too. Maybe that's because he's not from here."
"You were listening," Wink said, looking very happy. Nathan got the idea that the kid was accustomed to being ignored.
"Sure was, buddy. What exactly did you say about it again?"
"It's got a strange sort of feel to it. Super unique. Could be a spirit quirk, but I've only ever felt one of those, so I don't have much to compare it to."
"See, Ann? Wink's the best scry I know, so if he says the guy's spirit is weird, then it's weird. Remember that time he — "
"Fine," Annie said. "Believe him if you want. When the wall opens, I'm going to the barracks to find another team. Better yet, I'll get a leader license and form my own. Consider this my formal resignation."
Nathan thought she had made quite a good quitting speech. Firm, concise, and remarking on future prospects while staying professional — one for the textbook. There was one major problem, however.
After quitting a job, one typically didn't have to sit right next to their boss in a room no bigger than the back of a van. A few moments of awkward silence and averted eyes naturally followed.
"So, are you really from another world?" Wink asked, breaking the silence. He was shifting around with a big smile on his face, jittery with excitement. Speaking to someone who was essentially an alien was clearly very entertaining to him.
Nathan couldn't resist smiling back at him.
"Yes, I think so. Mine isn't nearly as exciting as this one, though. Could you tell me a little about this place? Where are we, exactly?"
"An entry box on the outskirts of the Underground, about ten miles from the Ring." His eyes widened, and Nathan could almost see the lightbulb shining above his head. "You don't even know what the Ring is. Don't worry — I'll show you all the coolest places. We'll go to the Barbone Strip first, definitely. Pretty much everything awesome is there: glyph shows, core boasts, spell slings, avatar duels, you name it. And once every month, they have a huge open marketplace where people sell icons."
"I don't know what any of that stuff is," Nathan said, feeling more than a little overwhelmed.
"The glyph shows are my favorite. A bunch of glyphmakers go down into the Brights to show off their best work for donations. It's mostly just second and third-order stuff, but Graham and I saw a fourth-order piece once."
Graham chuckled. The embarrassment of his interaction with Annie seemed to have faded. He didn't seem like the sort of person to be troubled by anything for very long.
"That was nuts, wasn't it? Guy summoned a huge dragon made of fire that nearly killed everyone around him. I heard he got banned from the Strip for it."
"I heard he got his license revoked too."
"Yeah, right. The League isn't going to revoke someone's license for using magic of the fourth order. They promoted him, I bet — gave him a nice, cushy job in the labs as a head geek. Who told you that?"
"Cram did."
"Cram," Graham said, testing the name. "Is that the kid who blew his fingers off with fireworks while pretending to be a spellslinger?"
Wink shook his head.
"That was Nubs. Cram is the fat one who stole the Maven's syrup jars. He lives in the Warrens with Rocky the Toad."
"Oh, I remember him. He's not exactly a reliable source of information, you know. Tried to tell me that lift cables are coated with butter every night to keep them slick."
"They might be."
"What's an entry box, and why are we in one?" Nathan asked, shoving his way into their dialogue. He felt as though he would explode if he didn't figure out what was going on.
"Quarantine, basically," Graham said. "Everyone who goes up top has to stay in one of these things when they come back down. It's to make sure no monsters or contagious curses get near the Ring."
Monsters, curses, people living underground — Nathan was certain that whatever world he'd landed in was more than a little unsafe. Then again, maybe Earth sounded unsafe when you listed some of its uglier features aloud.
"And the Ring — that's the city you guys live in, I'm assuming."
Graham nodded.
"It's the city that everyone lives in. Well, almost everyone. There's scalpers and gangs who keep to the outskirts, but that's because they're scared of getting exiled."
"Bunch of losers," Wink said with a nod. "The Guardians would put them in their place if the League would let them."
"You'll see it soon. When the sentries open up the wall, we'll take a lift down and you'll see everything. The whole Underground." Graham adopted a pensive look and ran a hand through his messy hair. "The sentries will ask for your name, though. I'm wondering how exactly that's going to work out."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you aren't a sweeper, so your name won't be on their list. They'll think you got up top illegally. Might call the Keepers to arrest you, might just send you back up to die if they don't feel like doing paperwork. Not sure, really. This is pretty unusual."
"So, what should I do?"
"I could give you another sweeper's name. You could say you got separated from your team and met up with us. That might work."
"Not a chance," Annie said, fixing a mean look upon them. "I won't allow someone like him to pretend to be a sweeper. And I won't allow you to help him do it."
Graham met her look with a hard one of his own.
"So now you care about bending the rules. You can pretend to be a stickler all you want, but we both know the truth. Do I need to remind you how you got your sweeper license?"
Annie's cold demeanor had faltered for the first time since Nathan had seen her. She looked vulnerable, afraid of Graham revealing whatever he had in his deck of cards.
"I can see that I don't. You don't approve of us helping Nathan, and that's fine. Leave and start a new team if you want to. But if you try to stop us, I'll make sure you never work as a sweeper again."
The bricks of one wall of the room began to wobble, crying out a loud scraping noise as they shifted and crumbled apart. Dust fell onto the floor and formed mounds of gray grains that disintegrated, disappeared without a trace. In seconds, there was a hole big enough to be a window, rapidly getting larger.
Graham gave Nathan a grin and rose to his feet.
"No more time to strategize, I guess. Just follow my lead, and I'll get us past the sentries."
Nathan steeled himself for the uncertain future. He was either going to begin a new adventure, get arrested, or be sentenced to death. It wasn't the best selection of possibilities, but at least things were staying interesting.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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