Alpho sat behind his desk waiting for the first meeting of the day to start. It wasn’t originally on his calendar, but you never turn down a meeting with your executive leader, no matter how disturbing their appearance. There were still five minutes before the meeting was scheduled to start but he couldn’t wait. He knew this was going to be good news for him. It just had to be.

  Standing, he turned around and adjusted his trophy’s positioning for the seventeenth time this morning. He sat back down and double-checked the camera angles. Satisfied that the trophy would show over his left shoulder, he tried to do some work but just could not concentrate. He was too excited.

  Finally, he downed the drink that Edgemont had left for him with a note that simply said, “Drink this before your meeting.” He didn’t know what was in the drink but he knew Edgemont had steered him right at every turn, so he trusted the man almost implicitly now. Despite sitting on his desk for at least an hour, if not longer, the drink was still cool as it slid down his throat and sent a coolness flowing out from his stomach.

  The coolness from the drink suffused his body almost instantly and Alpho nearly panicked at it being some kind of poison, but then the cooling sensation settled into his brain and his mind calmed. He felt a sense of calm focus settle over him and he immediately knew that Edgemont had, once again, come through for him. All the external concerns slipped away, and he put his full mind towards the meeting, letting everything else fade into indistinct background, effortlessly ignored.

  A sharp electronic chirp sounded in the room, and he instinctively reacted, activating his holoprojector for the meeting. The meeting hadn’t started yet, but one did not leave their executive waiting. He mentally thanked Edgemont yet again for setting up the reminder tone to start his holo system in advance. Even though the man had the day off – a reward Alpho had insisted upon, he had still made sure everything was set up perfectly for him. Alpho adjusted his appearance one last time and set in to wait for the meeting to start.

  There was no warning before the holoprojector started to form into an image. Thanks to the calming nature of the drink Edgemont had left for him, he didn’t react when his executive appeared in the room. The being that was his executive was like nothing he had encountered before but he was prepared by both the background images Edgemont had provided and the wonderful drink.

  Floating before him was a creature of darkness and tentacles. It was a dark mass the size of his torso with hundreds of black tentacles. The exact count of tentacles was impossible to ascertain as they kept growing and retracting, hiding their number. Where the voice came from, Alpho had no idea, but the voice had a distinctly female timbre.

  “Greetings Alpho. How are you adjusting to your role as sector commander?”

  “Quite well, Rynis. It is not without its challenges but for every challenge there is a solution.”

  “So, it would seem the rumors are true. You have eliminated the mass-murderer. That is his head on your shelf behind you, is it not?”

  “It is. The murderer has been dealt with. It was so cooperative for him to take my bait and walk into the trap set for him.”

  “I understand you contracted an immortal assassin to perform the task. Is that correct?”

  “It is. I felt the one-time expense was less of an impact to our long-term profitability than to continue the ineffective low-tier tactics that my predecessor attempted which simply compounded losses with no measurable results.”

  Rynis laughed, its tentacles shaking and shuddering in their expanding and contracting dance. “Yes, this was the smarter path. I commend you on your decisive action and rapid results. Have you made a determination on his plant of origin?”

  “My original inclination was to liquidate all the planet’s assets and resources but my scouts have detected some interesting anomalies that bear investigation instead.”

  “Anomalies? What anomalies have been detected?”

  “We are still in the preliminary stages of investigation, but it appears that there is some sort of planetwide productivity boost. It is too early to tell if it’s technical, magical, or some other form or function, but output of goods production seems to be orders of magnitude beyond where it should be for such a primitive planet.”

  “Oh, that is interesting. Send a more robust investigative team and report back to me. Your sector may have something more to offer than just the Core Production Station. I am well-pleased with your performance thus far. Expect a Tier boosting bonus to arrive as soon as a courier can reach you. Continue the good work.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Alpho had no chance to respond before the holographic image vanished. Despite the drink’s calming effects, he felt his heart racing with excitement. He was getting a Tier-boost! The resources to reach Tier Six were well beyond the means of even a sector commander. There were a number who could do so on their own, but that required significant combat against increasingly difficult foes. Something no corporate manager, no matter how senior, could do on their own. There were groups you could hire to pull you along with them but they were exorbitantly expensive and took years – something that Alpho was just not able to do.

  Full of energy, Alpho left his office and went for an inspection tour of his station. It was the largest in the entire sector with over thirty million lifeforms living on it. The vast majority were some strain of human or other, but there were quite a few more exotic lifeforms as well. He did not know or particularly care why the Cosmos seemed to be human-dominant since he was a human after all. He just figured that they were the superior lifeform.

  His tour took him through several areas using his personal station transport. He stopped at the most important areas including the magitech laboratory where the security was so tight even he needed several steps to be vetted for entry and even then, he needed to be escorted through the area by a pair of Tier Seven guards. Up until then, he didn’t know there were any Tier Seven guards on the whole station!

  Meanwhile, the beeping in his office continued to increase in both frequency and urgency. The office was locked and sealed while both he and Edgemont were out so no sound filtered out at all. Even the flashing red light did not make it beyond Alpho’s desk despite the cycling of electromagnetic spectra that the alarm tried to use to sound out its warning. The sealing of the office prevented that as well. No one was going to spy on the office while neither were there by design.

  Finally, the alarm silenced in mid tone as its power was fully exhausted. The Tier Two core that had been powering it finally shattered as even the Mana holding it together was drained. With a pop, the stasis field failed, spilling Duke’s head onto the shelf where it rolled briefly before making the unceremonious drop to the floor to roll under the desk.

  Duke was disoriented as he slammed his head into the underside of the desk. Everything about where he was had changed and he had no idea how it happened. He could feel the residual tingle of his body REGENERATING. The tingle covered almost his entire body which was something in itself.

  He pushed the chair out of his way and levered himself out from under the desk and to his feet. “Where the fuck am I and why am I naked? Did I just? No, I would have remembered if I was with someone.” He retrieved some clothes from his INVENTORY and proceeded to get dressed while looking around at what he now realized was a Syndicate office.

  He stopped short when he saw the oddly thick golden platter that had held a rather specific notation on it that grabbed his interest. “Duke, Tier Nine mass-murderer and former Champion of the Cosmic Contest.” He looked at it again with renewed interest. Picking it up, he saw the shattered and fading remains of a Mana Core and all sorts of runescripting that he didn’t recognize. He could read it thanks to his XENOGLOSSIA but it didn’t show him what it actually did in the literal translation. Instead of messing with it, he tossed it into his INVENTORY and moved on. He had notifications to read and he was hoping he would gain some insight as to how he had gotten wherever he was.

  *** You have slain 66 Syndicate officers and crew ranging from Tier One to Six. You gain 13,400 (17,740) Experience. By destroying one of the Syndicate Core Harvesting fleets, you have reduced their operational capacity. You have only lost 597 dungeons due to their continued operations. Despite these losses, you still maintain 21,041 active dungeons under your control. ***

  Duke nodded along, realizing that while he was still relatively safe from his title downgrading, he had to still both put a stop to the dungeon destruction and create more. While he continued reading his notifications, he started pouring Mana into his DUNGEON CORE CREATION Ability. Many of his notifications were inconsequential but eventually, he came to the important stuff.

  *** You have been beheaded. While this would not normally be fatal given your Master-ranked REGENERATION, both your head and body have been separated and placed in stasis. If either is removed from stasis in the next ten days, it will become your primary self and REGENERATION will restore the missing parts. If neither has been removed from stasis, your head will become the primary self until such a time as it leaves stasis or another body part is removed from stasis first. ***

  Well, that explains what the hell happened. Kinda. I still have no idea who got me, or even how. None of the Syndicate forces were getting through my DUNGEON AURA so what hit me? This still doesn’t explain how I got out of stasis. Time to read on, I suppose.

  *** You have successfully absorbed the effect “Stasis” and can now use it as an Ability. This Ability allows you to enter a state where time does not pass for you. You cannot be physically harmed while in the state by anything less than five ranks higher than the Ability. The duration of the timeless state is based on your Rank and the Level of the Ability. You have gained this Ability at Untrained, Level 1. At Untrained Rank, you can maintain this state for up to one second per Level of the Ability. You must choose the duration at activation. ***

  Well, that’s something. I have no clue when I could use such a thing, but I suppose it could be useful in surviving an explosion or something like that. Not that one second is a lot of time to be timeless. I suppose I can train it up. And I suppose that also explains the shattered core pieces. I must have drained the Mana out of the core while absorbing the effect. Glad to re-affirm that passive still works. It doesn’t show up anywhere on my stat or Ability sheets but I’m damned glad it’s there. OK, now to figure out where I am and what the hell is going on!