I came to on the cold floor of the pharmacy, cheek pressed against the linoleum. My arm was a cauterized stump—angry, red-edged, and still smoking slightly.

  Croc was beside me.

  Chewing.

  “What… What, are you doing?” I asked groggily.

  The mimic looked up, slightly ashamed, sinew stuck in its teeth.

  “Eating your hand?” The dog replied, equal parts question and answer. “Didn’t want it to go to waste.”

  I groaned and pushed myself upright. “I feel like I should be outraged, but I know better at this point. Still, we should probably get you some deworming medication.” I paused and frowned. “I think we have some in the pharmacy somewhere.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Croc replied cheerily. “We mimic’s have industrial-strength digestive linings. There’s pretty much nothing we can’t eat. Rocks. Old tires. Decaying flesh. Moldy cheese—and not a little moldy cheese. A comically-sized wheel of moldy cheese.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?” I asked.

  The dog grinned. “Eating that wheel of cheese was one of my proudest moments, Dan, but there’s not a lot of organic conversation openings to brag about an accomplishment like that. Wheel of cheese aside, the point is, I’ll be fine—though your concern is heartwarming.”

  The sentiment was ruined a little when the dog burped.

  A pair of scale-covered hands slipped beneath my armpits and Jakob easily hauled me from the floor, then helped me over to a nearby chair. I plopped down, cradling my stump against my chest, before activating Molt and Mend as I focused on the missing limb.

  The effect was instant, but not pleasant.

  Warmth flooded through my arm—an unnatural heat, like molten gold poured directly into my veins. My skin prickled, and tight bands of muscle flexed beneath the surface. New flesh began to crawl over exposed nerve endings, replacing charred tissue with waxy, pink skin that reminded me of a newborn. Another jolt of pain flashed along the limb as a tiny nub, no larger than the tip of my pinky finger emerged from where my hand had been before.

  Five tiny bumps, almost like pimples, dotted the numb.

  I was guessing that, in time, those would form into fingers. For now, they were just gross.

  Admittedly, the Relic had warned that the regeneration process wasn’t a quick one. Since I’d upgraded the Relic to Level 5, in theory, the process should go “quicker,” but in my experience, quick was an extremely subjective term. At least for a few days, I’d be down a hand. And the Relic had warned that regrowing a limb wouldn’t be painless. Not as nearly as bad as the amputation itself, but not a walk in the park either. Forming new bones, muscles, and connective ligaments was an intense and physically demanding process.

  As Harper’s spell lapsed, the pain spiked—the fire in my arm joined by a low throbbing ache that pulsed behind my eyes like a migraine trying to batter its way through my skull.

  Part of me wanted to ask her to cast Painkiller OD again and again, but I knew that road would end in a bad place. The effects of the spell were deliciously sweet, but that was the problem. The relief was too good. Addictively so. Like real life painkillers, if I kept using Painkiller OD as a crutch, there was a damned good chance I wouldn’t be able to stop. Growing up in rural Ohio, I’d seen enough friends wander down that path and never come back.

  I didn’t want to end up like them, so instead I grit my teeth and suffered through the worst of it.

  Harper knelt beside me and gingerly examined the stump and the newly protruding nub. She probed the tissue with delicate fingers, searching for wounds or other signs of infection.

  “Looks good,” she finally declared.

  I gave her flat a look. “Doesn’t feel good. I’m naming the nub Hurtie.”

  She patted my shoulder. “That’s really dumb. Maybe don’t make life decisions right now.” She reached into Spatial Storage and pulled out several pill bottles and a tube of antibacterial ointment. “These”—she set the pills down on a nearby table—“should help. Nothing too dangerous. Just Ibuprofen to help with the inflammation and some Tylenol with Codeine to help manage the pain. Make sure to rub that cream on a couple of times a day.” She grimaced, her lips stretched into a thin line. “You might also want to wrap an Ace bandage around it.”

  “To keep it clean?” I asked.

  She snorted and shook her head. “No, because it’s pretty gross looking.” But then she offered me a sympathetic smile and squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “Jokes aside, I’m really sorry for what you’re going through. If you need anything, you know where to find me.” Her eyes flashed in something that might’ve been invitation. Or pity. Probably pity. “Now, unless you need me for anything else, I’m going to catch a shower and get some sleep.”

  “Thanks,” I said, “for everything. I was wrong about you,” I added. “I’m glad you came.”

  “Probably just the pain talking,” she said with a grin, before turning and walking out. I noticed there was an extra little bounce in her step that hadn’t been there before.

  With Harper gone, Jakob quickly excused himself while muttering about getting another beer, before shaking his head and adding “Verrückte Amerikaner.” Wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded faintly derogatory. In a matter of minutes, only Croc remained. Staying for emotional support. I assured the dog I was fine, but the mimic was insistent that it wasn’t leaving my side.

  I was fine, but it was nice having the mimic by my side.

  Although I wanted to head back to my room and grab a shower and a bit of shuteye, the pain was too intense, and I doubted I’d be able to sleep much. So instead, I popped a handful of pills, then decided to use some of my downtime to take care of the pile of corpses in the freezer. My Horrors were in rough shape after the battle with the Yetis, and it was high time I crafted some new minions to add to the arsenal.

  Eldritch Taxidermist allowed me to summon up to five Horrors per Relic level and I wasn’t putting it to good use.

  I had Drumbo and Synthia—my two Necromarashalls—Timmy, the three members of my Rat Pack, the truly cursed Ice Cream Truck, and a total of five Doorway Sentinels—four of which were currently deployed on various levels. That was eleven in total. But with Eldritch Taxidermist now maxed out at level 15, I still had an eyewatering number of unused slots. Maybe if I’d been more diligent in building my army, I wouldn’t have lost a hand to the Yeti ambush.

  That wasn’t a mistake I planned to make again.

  I popped the door to the freezer and waltzed into a jumbled mess of bodies, all stacked up like cordwood. Yeti corpses. Dismembered Sunnysiders. Butchered Wardogs. What was left of Uncle Sam. Plus more than a few miscellaneous arms and legs I hadn’t cataloged yet. The air was cold enough to make my teeth ache, but the pain in my stump drowned it out.

  Tired and injured as I was, physically moving the bodies was out of the question, so I activated Psychic Sovereignty, letting my mind do the heavy lifting.

  One by one, the corpses levitated into the air, dangling by invisible threads, as I slowly cataloged and sorted them, hanging most onto meat hooks along the far wall with eerie, clinical precision. Limbs aligned. Heads turned in unison. Dead eyes staring off into the distance. Not for the first time, I felt like a serial killer surveying a roomful of trophies. It was creepy, but it was also my life now.

  I tossed the badly damaged parts to Croc, who slurped them down with a gusto, lips smacking as the mimic chewed.

  Sorting the corpses took almost an hour, but the pain in my arm still hadn’t abated. Fighting through the dull ache, I set to work refurbishing my current minions before adding a few more into the lineup.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Thanks to her ranged attack capabilities—and Harper’s constant supply of heals—Synthia was in surprisingly good shape. Timmy was missing an arm, but I had plenty replacement Kannibal Kid corpses littering the freezer, so finding a new limb didn’t take long. Drumbo, however, was in painfully bad shape after his tussle with the Snawmaw Yetis. It looked like someone had forcefully shoved his legs and arms into a woodchipper before taking a rusty hatchet to his torso.

  His left hand, which had formally had an angle-grinder attachment, was just gone. No doubt buried in a snowbank back on the 49th floor, and most of his left leg was missing. Just ragged flaps of skin trailing down below the kneecap.

  I laid Drumbo out on the metal-topped worktable and activated Minion Masher, allowing me to make upgrades with relative ease.

  A holographic overlay stretched across the Horror’s brutalized body, and he became as malleable as soft clay. I left the elephant head intact but popped off all four of his mangled limbs like some sort of oversized Ken Doll, then started stitching him back together. I replaced his arms and legs with Yeti limbs, then added two extra arms to his rib cage, turning him into a bastardized, off-brand version of Goro from Mortal Kombat. I fit one hand with the Gauntlet of Fist Shaped Problems, then fed the ruined limbs to Croc.

  Next, I attached several metal plates, forming a rudimentary set of steel shoulder pads, covered in spikes, and some metal greaves to protect his legs. With Drumbo’s body more or less reformed, I took a few minutes to tweak his available Relics. Currently, Lawnmower Wind Blade powered his core—transforming his torso into the underside of a Lawnmower—and he had access to Bare-Knuckle Brawler and the Common-grade ability, Shoulder Check.

  Both were good fits for a melee brawler like Drumbo, but I could do better.

  I swapped Bare-Knuckle Brawler for Jacked Frost then briefly considered adding in Whiteout Haymaker to round out his build. But then another idea occurred to me. Instead, I gave him Apex Ascension—a Relic I’d picked up from a dead Kannibal Kid that doubled the user’s base Athleticism, Toughness, and Perception, and tripled their total Health Pool and Health Regeneration Rate, while also granting an extra five levels.

  Problem was, the ability only activated under the light of the full moon.

  But I had a work around for that.

  I dismissed a Drumbo and dragged the Snowmaw Hag—who I’d taken to calling Meemaw—onto the worktable. She would be both my next Horror and my newest Necromarshall.

  I left her torso and head intact, then added the yoga-toned limbs of a Sunnysider Kathy to help with her mobility and speed. I augmented the corpse with a variety of hydraulic fluid lines and piston rods—all scavenged from the endless garage on the first floor—to help reinforce her joints, then slapped on some crude armor, fashioned from car doors. I decided to use an Eldritch Hair Tonic to power her Core, officially bringing her online.

  Using the Minions Management Tab, I quickly promoted her to the Necromarshal role, then added in two additional Relics to her rudimentary Spatial Core.

  The first was the disgusting Yellow Snowball, which would offer her a ranged damaged ability, then I added Night Light, which let her summon a tiny, fist-sized moon that floated above the battlefield. When active, the moon’s light had a 25% percent chance to reveal invisible enemies or dispel illusions, and though I hadn’t seen it in action yet, I had a strong hunch it would also trigger the Apex Ascension Relic.

  With that in place, Drumbo would be damned-near unstoppable.

  Once I was finished with the Hag, I spent the next few hours turning the pile of Yeti corpses into usable cannon fodder that I could throw at enemies. I made a dozen Yeti Horrors, utilizing a standard template to help streamline the rather time intensive process. Sucker Punch was an abundant, Common-grade Relic—the shop was practically overflowing with them—which served as the power source for each of my newest meat shields. Then, because these basic troops only had access to a single Relic slot, I spilt them into three groups of four.

  I equipped the first group with Whiteout Haymaker, while the second received Avalanche Body Slam. The third all got Apex Ascension—just like Drumbo.

  The ability wouldn’t give them much versatility in the regular course of combat, but when things really went tits up, it would be a great ace in the hole. A Break-Glass in Case of Emergency spell to help even the odds.

  By then, the exhaustion was really starting to settle in, and I found it hard to focus, but there were still a handful of new additions I wanted for the team. At the top of the list was Rudolpho. I pulled the Grippledip’s corpse from Spatial Storage and dropped his body onto the workbench before raiding its spatial core. The creature had four Relics—three Rare-grade while the last was a powerful Uncommon.

  Prancer’s Blitz was a Stamina-based mobility skill that let the user dash across hardened platforms of air almost indefinitely. It wasn’t true flight, but it was the next best thing and a significantly upgraded version of Temperance’s Fuck You, Newton ability. The next was Crimson Gamma Burst—a powerful AoE spell that dealt 35 points of Radiation Damage to all enemies within a twenty-foot radius and Afflicted them with progressively worsening Gamma Blight until cured.

  I’d been on the receiving end of that spell and knew exactly how devastating it could be under the right circumstances.

  The third, Merry Massacre, was a Rare-grade passive aura that automatically added one stack of Festive Frenzy whenever an enemy died within 30 feet of the user. Once the caster gained five stacks, the next Relic they used had no Mana cost and dealt an additional 50% damage, before resetting the stack count. The spell was powerful but extremely situational, especially for someone like me with such an enormous Mana Pool.

  If I could pair it with a Relic like Form-Flesh Tron, Go!, however, it could be extremely valuable.

  The last was an Uncommon ranged spell called Rack the Halls that allowed the user to launch a pair of barbed Antlers, forged from blackened metal. The javelins dealt heavy Piercing and Bleed damage on contact and had a 50% chance to pin enemy targets in place for three seconds. Although it was, objectively, the least powerful of the four Relics, it synergized extremely well with Spike Fault and Icicle Barrage, which I’d looted from the Snawmaw Hag.

  When I ran an Analysis on the potential combo, I liked what I saw.

  Frostfang Spire

  Fabled Relic – Level 2 (Fully Tempered)

  Range: Line of Sight

  Cost: 5 – 50 Mana

  Cast Time: 2 Seconds

  Duration: Permanent Terrain Alteration

  Why settle for simply stabbing someone when you could impale their soul and give them hypothermia at the same time? Frostfang Spire lets you summon 1 to 10 jagged frost-covered spikes, cold enough to make your butthole pucker. Each spike erupts from the ground in a crunch of frozen air, dealing 45 Piercing and 20 Cold Damage on contact, while applying a stack of Frostbite Foreplay to any creature it touches, slowing movement and attack speed by 15%.

  Once the target has accumulated 5 stacks of Frostbite Foreplay, they are flash-frozen into a meat popsicle, suffering the Cyro-Prison Affliction for 15 seconds—or until someone applies 50 points of Fire Damage. While frozen, targets are immune to knockback but extremely vulnerable to shatter effects. The spikes themselves are considered permanent terrain alterations and will remain indefinitely—unless the Backrooms decides to redecorate. Don’t place them somewhere important, unless you’re really into regrettable interior design.

  This Relic enables Mana usage.

  I whistled. It was perfect.

  It gave me the same versatility of Fault Spike, just better in every way. Without giving it much thought, I forged the three abilities and examined the new Relic, which looked like a festive snow-globe with an angry reindeer trapped inside.

  I added it to my Spatial Core and resisted the nearly overpowering urge to take the Relic out for a test drive. There would be plenty of time for that later and I didn’t want to permanently alter my meat locker with a bunch of icy floor javelins.

  It was already cramped enough as it was.

  With the Grippledip already on the slab, I took some time to prepare him for battle. I doubted he would be as physically powerful as Drumbo, but Rudolpho would make one hell of a war mount.

  I opted to power the creature with an Uncommon-grade charge skill called Rockabilly Rollout, then quickly prompted Rudolpho to the Necromarshall role, so I could equip two additional Relics to his Spatial Core. Since the Grippledip was already the perfect killing machine, I decided to reequip both Prancer’s Blitz and Crimson Gamma Burse. He wouldn’t be quite as deadly as he had in life, but it would be close.

  And close would have to be good enough.

  Last but not least in the new lineup was Uncle Sam and the three War Dogs I’d managed to recover from the Pyro Emporium.

  The War Dogs would serve as excellent fighters, but they were also fast and deadly silent, which would make them perfect for stealth attackers. I outfitted each with a variety of metal plates and some tactical survival gear—camo ponchos and night vision googles—then used an Uncommon Relic called Silent Step to power them. They each had a single Relic slot available as well, so I added in Camo Kit, which granted limited stealth, allowing them to blend more seamlessly into the background.

  The War Dogs certainly wouldn’t win any beauty contests, but they’d move fast, hit hard, and be gone before the enemy knew realized they been neutered.

  As for Uncle Sam, he got the deluxe treatment.

  I immediately bumped him up to the Necromarshal Role, then outfitted his core with Arsonist Accelerant—a volatile power source that drastically increased all Fire Damage.

  For ranged offense, I slotted in Charbroil Inferno, then added a second Rare-grade Relic that fit with his fiery theme. Burning Ring of Fire was a crowd control ability that conjured a ten-foot diameter circle of roaring flame that lasted for 25 seconds. Enemies caught inside the ring took 50% more fire damage, and anyone dumb enough to cross the blazing threshold took a flat 50 points of flame damage and had a 10% chance of spontaneous combustion.

  Here one second, ash the next.

  I wasn’t sure if Johnny Cash would be proud or horrified, but either way, Uncle Sam was about to become the world’s most patriotic bonfire.

  By the time I’d finished, the painkillers were finally kicking in, the pain in my hand had dulled to a low throb, and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. I’d done everything I could for the time being, so I figured it was finally time to call it a night. Dismissing Uncle Sam, I stumbled away from the work bench and staggered out of the meat locker with Croc following on my heels.