Each footfall went faster than the last, and I darted through the giant opening and to the right. I huddled against the wall as soon as I turned the corner.

  Kabi kept going down the hall a bit before pausing. Lenna, then finally Dengu went by.

  I waited, ready, knife in hand.

  The Forger made it to the walkway. It paused close to the edge of the walkway, like it was observing the room below.

  Still, I waited. If we needed to take care of them, a surprise on this side would go better. A nice little shove off the edge would be helpful.

  The Forger didn’t move.

  The walls shook again as a massive explosion rocked the room behind us. Something large crashed, and the floor under our feet actually shook.

  The Forger rushed back the way they’d come, instead of advancing.

  Shaking my head, I motioned for us to continue.

  This corridor had a few open doorways leading off of it. Most were open, showing small, empty rooms, while a few had closed doors. No one was inside the small rooms we passed.

  Strange wasn’t too far ahead, and he hid within the room that held our target, the Shard.

  Screams and shouts chased us as we all sped up again. Way more than two presences joined the room we left. Hopefully, those folks were on our side.

  Kabi went right past the door we needed to turn in, and once I stopped he skidded to a halt several doors ahead. Of course, near one of the other rooms that had an orange presence in it, and a freaking open door.

  A knife passed through the opening, but Kabi dodged.

  I stepped in that direction, but he shook his head and all four swords appeared in his hands.

  Dengu growled behind me and sprinted down the hallway.

  I grumbled as I instead opened the door that held The Shard. Lenna shoved me and closed the door behind us. I almost stumbled into the bars, but caught myself at the last moment.

  Strange chirped at me as he stood next to… a jungle folk?

  Green skinned, and shorter than most Forgers, with double pointed ears, plus white hair and dark brown eyes. Yet, unlike Lenna’s people, each of his fingers ended in claws.

  “Strange said you might be willing to free me,” he said, focusing only on me.

  Lenna behind me was stiff as a board.

  “Free you?” I asked, trying to understand what Strange had gotten me into this time.

  “Yes, so I can get my offender status removed.” His dark eyes stared at me unblinking. “I know you can see it.”

  “That’s not possible…” I blinked. Or at least, I didn’t think it was. Was it?

  “It is.” He suddenly clenched the bars in front of me, eyes wide. “I didn’t ask to be cloned… I think if I get rid of the other copies, it will work. The System even gave me a quest.”

  “You’re like me…” whispered Lenna, taking a step closer to him.

  “My father was,” he said, turning away from her and glancing down at Strange. “He helped create me, and now I’m stuck serving them.”

  Strange nodded his head.

  “I can’t keep going like this,” he said, turning to me. His brown eyes glowed with an orange tint. “I can’t.”

  A notification popped up.

  [Asceto sent you a quest: Remove Offender Status. Remove Offender Status: Destroy the five copies in storage, and the DNA profile in the lab.]

  I didn’t think that was possible. Yet, the System didn’t lie. Or, at least, it hadn’t lied yet. I had to trust something, and the System that controlled the galaxy seemed like a reasonable place to start.

  “You’re telling the truth…” the words slipped out before I could stop them.

  Lenna grabbed my wrist. “We need to help him.”

  “How does this open?” I asked, studying the bars. There wasn’t a doorway that I could see.

  “One of my guards can open it with an ability,” he grumbled.

  “What about crystals?” I asked, pulling my knife off my belt. He didn’t have any on him that I could sense.

  “They don’t dare leave me with anything.” He chuckled darkly. “That’s how I got away last time…”

  I chuckled and heated my knife up before touching it to the bar. Thankfully, the metal started to melt as I pressed the knife through it. I repeated it again farther up, then on to the next one.

  “I should only need to do a few,” I said with a grin.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Hopefully quickly, since I think Kabi and Dengu need help,” muttered Lenna as she headed to the door. She gave one last glance at Asceto before opening the door and joining the fight. She shot an arrow out of sight, and the door closed.

  Two bars later and Asceto squeezed through.

  “Delivery!” chirped Strange.

  My jaw dropped, but I of course accepted it.

  Smart little Strange.

  “Where do we need to go?” I asked as I peeked out the hallway.

  The Forger was locked in a battle of swords with Kabi. Dengu leaped in and swiped at his back while Lenna fired an arrow. He ignored Dengu, but dodged the arrow, only taking a small cut from Kabi. Kabi held his own, with four swords to one, and he didn’t appear worried at all.

  As Asceto stepped out of the room, the Forger glared, completely ignoring everything around him for a moment.

  “Don’t you dare! I’ll be booted out if you leave!” He kicked Kabi back into a wall, and rushed in our direction.

  [Galliano, The Lookout, Level 135, Unknown, Unknown, OFFENDER.]

  Great.

  “Not doing this,” muttered Asceto, then he took off down the hallway, back the direction we’d come.

  I let out a sigh, and hoped this worked out as I gripped my knife, ready to lengthen it into a spear. In my left hand I snagged one of the exploding crystals, ready to go.

  Lenna fired several arrows as she backed down the hallway after Asceto.

  Strange darted into my shadow with a huff of glee.

  Galliano swiped at me with his sword, but I blocked and slammed my hand into his side. The now gooey crystal stuck on his belt as I shoved him through the doorway into the room with the cage.

  He stumbled in that direction, not expecting the move. Or my strength from my stats.

  I rolled away as fast as I could.

  Then it blew.

  My ears rang, yet I didn’t get a notification as the door flew through the air. Dust went in every direction, along with a strong wave of force. It helped me get farther down the hallway, away from Galliano.

  Asceto opened a door and dove inside as Lenna followed.

  “We got this go!” Kabi’s voice came from the mess as the presence of the Forger moved. Somehow, he wasn’t dead.

  I scrambled to my feet and fled after Lenna. The now opened door led to a set of stone steps that I almost stumbled down. Thankfully, I gained my balance and chased after them. They kept going and going.

  The stairs ended in a barely lit hallway with glowing mushrooms in every corner.

  I’d caught up to Lenna and Asceto at this point, but there was no sign of Kabi.

  “This way, we need to hurry,” the half-Forger-half-Jungle-Folk whispered as he rushed into another giant archway.

  A hum came from beyond the opening.

  I skidded to a stop as tubes lined the walls like bookshelves. They were much like the ones from the cloning lab, yet they didn't have any windows or piping.

  [Sleeping Chamber.]

  “What the fuck?” The question slipped out.

  “Can I borrow your knife?” he asked, approaching one of them. “I need to take care of this problem.”

  “Wait… are there clones in each of them?” Nothing appeared on my radar. No presence.

  “Come here…” He motioned with a hand.

  I slowly approached, my hand still on my knife.

  Then he touched the lid. The metal melted away from the top to reveal a face, just like his. The eyes were closed and they didn’t look like they were breathing.

  “These are spares, cloned at different levels and kept, just in case I rebel… That way they still have my abilities at a moment's notice.” He shook his head. “The first time I killed myself, they learned to keep spares close.”

  “Do you keep your memories?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around all of this.

  “Only up to when the last snapshot was taken, but I had been planning that escape for a long time. I knew what happened when I woke up as a clone.” He shook his head and held out his hand. “Knife please… I need to end this.”

  I hesitated.

  Even with his quest, giving him a crystal knife felt like a bad idea.

  “Trust him,” whispered Lenna. Her eyes went that silver color.

  Pressing my lips together, I handed over my Stormlash knife.

  He gave me a nod, then stabbed into the metal tube.

  [Quest Update: 1/5 destroyed]

  The notifications rolled in as he moved down the line, thrusting his knife into each metal casing.

  Yet, more than those five tubes covered the walls. There were other clones here, too.

  I swallowed hard, thinking of Dilom. Was this how they resurrected him after we’d destroyed the cloning lab?

  “Who are in the rest of these?” asked Lenna, taking a closer step.

  “Various important Forgers,” said Asceto as his blade went into the fifth case. He moved to the next and stabbed it in. “All of them need to be destroyed. It's the only way to remove them from existence.”

  All that went through my mind was traveling through space in a similar tube, and potentially never waking up. I pushed back on that. I did wake up, and I wasn’t going to create multiple clones of myself.

  I inched closer and touched one near me. The metal didn’t move.

  “It only works if it's one of your own…” he said, watching my movements. “I can take care of this.”

  Another smaller doorway stood across the room, with a soft blue light coming from under the metal door. It didn’t fit in with the rest of the stone.

  “What’s that way?” I asked, stretching out my senses.

  Strange stepped out of my shadow and crept to the door, eyeing the light coming from underneath. He sent me a curious thought of squeezing under and checking it out.

  “Diloms lab,” said Asceto, with such hate it almost curled the air in front of him. “The bastard was brought back after someone did him in for good and destroyed the cloning facility. It's the only reason this will work for me.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said in a low voice, as I took a few steps closer to the opening. Someone wasn’t far away and moved back and forth in the other room. That had to be him.

  “That… that was you?” He stumbled over his words. “Makes sense, given how much crystal you’re carrying.”

  I nodded, pulling out my Whiplash knife and stepping closer to the door, along with Strange. I gave him a nod, and he hurried closer to see if he could fit.

  The Forger in the other room didn’t change his pacing, just stayed in the general vicinity.

  Lenna joined me near the door and I flashed her a smile. One more target to go, though I wasn’t sure what we were going to do about Asceto. He didn’t look like a Forger, or act like one, but I just didn’t know.

  He also had my other blade.

  “He needs to go to our world,” she whispered with a frown. “Learn what it means to be one of us.”

  She kept him in view as he traveled around the room, stabbing each of the tubes. It seemed to take a long time, but was probably only a few minutes, then they were all done. Holes were in each tube, centering in the chest area, but nothing came out of them.

  Thankfully.

  I didn’t need to smell that. No one did.

  Asceto smiled as he stepped closer to us. “Almost done. We need to destroy the data storage in his lab, just in case he builds another facility.”

  “Don’t stop on my account,” said a deep voice behind us that I didn’t recognize, sending a shiver down my spine.