“Well, for one thing, power-levelling even a single warden takes massive resources. Usually only high-ranking Party officers reassigned from real-world to Nova detail would get access. Getting one player to max represents months of collection duty for junior wardens. These mobs don’t respawn, after all. This is all manual. So, levelling more than the occasional officer is hugely inefficient. You would have to reassign hundreds of patrolling wardens from their usual duties just to keep it running.”
Thorne paused, looking back at him, her expression pained. “Second, it defeats the purpose of the program. The warden program’s primary goal is to rehabilitate prisoners. Turns out spending hundreds of hours grinding in an isolated room on a backwater planet really doesn’t do a stellar job of preparing convicts to reenter society.” She shook her head. “Of course, now that Moran’s on his power trip and dying to find us, I figured he’d be using this place. It doesn’t really matter that having a hundred wardens in here will deplete the stocked mobs faster than grunts can replenish them. Or that huge areas of Nova are probably going unprotected as he reassigns good, honest wardens to mob pick-up for his power-levelling cronies. Moran knows he’s on the clock to find us. I doubt the long-term viability of this facility – or its effectiveness in rehabilitating convicts – is his top priority. When Werner said the Corps was power-leveling, it clicked instantly that this would be where they were doing it.”
“There’s no way we go unnoticed here, though,” Kaiden said. “I mean, there’s a hundred wardens here.”
“We can make this work,” Titus said. Kaiden looked over and found a hunger in the big man’s eyes. And a determination. “Back in the day, when I was preparing for a fight, I’d cut everything else out. Train like it was life or death.” He didn’t need to say more for Kaiden to remember that the sort of boxing Titus had fought had very often been life or death.
“I’d work out all day then study everything I could about my opponent by night. Complete and utter obsession.” He looked out at the hallways around them. “Kinda like what this place is.”
“Pretty much the idea,” Thorne said with a nod. “And it’s risky being here, sure. But as long as we’re careful moving from room to room, we should be fine. The whole of the Warden Corps is looking for us, right? Well, something tells me the last place they’re going to look is here. I mean, who in their right minds would try to hide so close to their enemies?”
“Yeah, who in their right mind would do tha—” Kaiden stopped as a thunk echoed out through the hallway. One of the nearby doors opened and a group of five or six wardens piled out.
Thorne grabbed Kaiden’s shoulder and yanked him back around the corner, then jammed him into a crevice in the carved-out stone wall before finding one for herself. Zelda and Titus did the same with differing levels of success, particularly for the big man.
“Whew,” one of the nearby wardens said through proximity chat. “Gonna need a shower in the real world after that one. That was tense!”
The wardens passed through the intersection and kept going, heading down an offshoot hallway.
“You ain’t kidding,” another voice agreed as they passed. “This virtual reality gaming stuff is pretty impressive, actually. Tell you what, it’s a far better job than pushing papers all day up at the state house. Kinda wish we’d been reassigned here sooner.”
The voices dwindled as the wardens walked further away down the hallway. Soon only the distant thunking of their boots was audible and then even that faded.
“Thorne,” Zelda hissed. She was talking through group comms so she didn’t need to be quiet. but considering the circumstances, Kaiden hardly blamed her. “This is crazy.”
“Yeah, we’re totally going to get caught,” Kaiden said.
“Crazy,” Zelda said again. “But just crazy enough to work.”
“Oh, hell yes,” Titus said. “I’m tired of flying all across the galaxy just to shoot down a few pirates for weak EXP. It’s time we did some true training.” He stepped away from the wall and looked toward the closest door.
Room status: Unoccupied.
Mob status: 30/30 Voidspawn **Elite**, Level: 20
“Not that one,” Thorne said, directing his attention away from it. “Those voidspawn are too low-level. They’re Elites, so they’ll be worth more EXP, but still not the sort of EXP we need.” She gestured toward a door further down.
Room status: Unoccupied.
Mob status: 20/20 Cryo-mummies **Huntsman** Level: 38
“Eh, actually, those have the Huntsman tag so they’re only going to focus on the highest-level player. I’d rather not go in there just so they can zerg me,” Thorne replied.
“Fair enough. That one, then?” Kaiden asked, pointing to a door several more paces down the hallway – in the direction the power-leveling wardens had gone just a few moments ago, too, Kaiden noticed.
“Unoccupied. Twenty out of twenty Grachnids. Level forty. Yeah,” Thorne said striding toward it. “This’ll do nicely.” She touched her hand to the door’s display and there was a heavy thunk as it unlocked.
“In we go,” she said, giving a half bow. “Last one in be sure to lock the door behind you. We don’t want any of these buggers getting out to roam the halls.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Bring him down!” Zelda shouted, retreating from the gobber in front of her. A good decision, considering she was down to five percent health and the furious gobber was level forty-six. Kaiden hadn’t even realized gobbers could spawn at such a high level. The dozen they’d already killed in this room proved they did.
“I got it,” Kaiden said and darted forward, using the final seconds of Lightspeed. He moved so fast the room around him was a blur – not that it mattered. He’d stopped paying attention to the different rooms
