text: Dhane had one massive benefit wrapped into a tiny package. His Ring of Rest combined with the fact that he had only really been awake for a few hours—death wasn't without its perks—meant he had the entire night of full, restless energy to prepare.
  
  This combined with the tiny and oddly overlooked fact that he was of Shadow, gave him an element of surprise. No one knew what he could do. To shove him into a tiny, weak cage and leave him far away from supervision, only revealed arrogance and stupidity.
  
  But he only had one chance here. They wouldn't make this mistake twice in a row. If a spider bit you, it was only human nature to avoid the spider in the future. Then again, this was a heaven of people who had died, so perhaps such reasoning wasn't sound.
  
  The monsters in the closest pen to Dhane's cage were growling, reaching long claws through their bars, as if they had any hope of succeeding in snagging a midnight snack. But no, they were a good six feet away, controlled by their programming despite the impossibility of their desired task.
  
  When he summoned Octoralis, the growling immediately cut off. Her form, nearly a dozen feet tall, dwarfed all of them, and soon thereafter, the monsters were huddled on the far end of their pen.
  
  "Push me over," Dhane said.
  
  I can do it! Octoralis projected. She tentatively touched the cage and pushed. It shifted once and clanged like a gong. Well, so much for being quiet.
  
  She then stuck her ugly face— Sorry! he thought back to the flood of emotions that swirled in his chest. She . . . broke the lock on the cage while Dhane kept his eyes pinched shut.
  
  It was one thing to ride the top of a giant spider, and another to have a staring contest with all of those . . . eyes, inches away from his face. "And I can't help what I think, okay?"
  
  Daddy no like me. . ..
  
  "I like you perfectly fine," he said, then did his best to roll out of the cage, which turned out to be a pain in the ass, smashing fingers, scraping knees as he tried to wiggle out of the tight confines.
  
  Finally, he stood and stretched and breathed, savoring the tingling sensation of freedom. Well, freedom from the tiny cage. He still had the damn electrical rope around his wrists and was somewhere deep below the arena, full of guards and challengers.
  
  Octoralis projected an emotion of disbelief, accented with sadness and a feeling of being unwanted.
  
  "Hey," he said, standing a few feet from the thing of nightmares. Looking up at her face, her eyes, her fangs, made his skin crawl. "I mean it. I like you. I trust you. I'm just also a bit terrified of you. Are you scared of me?"
  
  Octoralis shifted left, then right. Yes. . ..
  
  "Do you like me?"
  
  Of course, Daddy!
  
  "Well, it's a lot like that for me. Now, shall we go say hello to our warden?"
  
  Octoralis projected a smile and crouched. He jumped onto her back, careful not to give the electrical eels around his wrists a reason to be perturbed, and she sprinted forward.
  
  This massive chamber was divided into eight pens, each large enough to hold a dozen or two monsters of a single type. Octoralis moved down the center path, then veered to the left, following a smaller path to a dead end.
  
  She shifted up the wall without a bit of trouble, and with Dhane being an arachnomancer, even one without the use of his hands, he had no problem holding on with his supernatural, gravity-defying ability.
  
  They shot across the wall, onto the ceiling fifty feet up, and eventually found themselves above an unsuspecting, chubby guard, eating what looked like a slice of cake while reading something on his phone and chuckling.
  
  Octoralis crept forward along the wall and down toward the guard. They were perfectly silent and practically invisible. Even if the guard looked up to see what that sense of doom was all about, he probably would have shrugged and gone back to stuffing his face.
  
  They could kill the man and escape through the labyrinth of tunnels. But Dhane had a different plan, one that didn't get him surrounded by enemies and a swift kick to the realm of unliving for eight or so hours.
  
  Besides, there was no knowing what would happen if he killed the guard. Maybe they had an alarm system of sorts that would send out a text message to everyone. Killing would be the last resort.
  
  Dhane let go, flipped, and turned in the air, landing in front of a very surprised guard. The guard immediately coughed a chunk of cake that splattered on Dhane's black shirt.
  
  "Dude!"
  
  "Oh-oh! I'm so, so-so-so sorry!" the man said, doing his best to smear half dissolved white . . . stuff into Dhane's shirt. "I mean, you scared the—"
  
  "— cake out of you?"
  
  The guard stopped, then started to smile, almost looked like he'd laugh, but then something must have tickled his brain because it all shifted to a scrunched-up forehead. "Wait a single lickin' minute, y-you are supposed to be in a c-c-cage."
  
  "I had to go to the bathroom."
  
  "Huh?"
  
  "It's a joke," Dhane said and sighed. "Here's the deal. Actually, what's your name?"
  
  "Tom."
  
  "Here's the deal, Tom. I didn't like that cage. Can you blame me?"
  
  "Oh-oh, nooo, not at all."
  
  "It was a bit small, you know?"
  
  "Yeah! I had the per-perfect cage for you."
  
  "I saw that. It was nice. Everything a monster, such as I am, would want. It had a bed, fresh water, and space to move about." As he explained these good elements of the larger cage, Tom nodded, as if he had thought through these things and was in complete agreement.
  
  "So," Dhane said, "would it be too terribly out of the question to request that as my cage?"
  
  "Not a . . . problem! I'd be ha-happy to assist." While such a statement routinely found its place in bland customer service, Tom seemed to really mean it.
  
  The guy deposited his slice of cake to his phone, dismissed the phone, then turned and regarded the torch mounted on the wall. He took hold of the thick shaft that was very much bolted into place and started yanking.
  
  "I don't . . ." Dhane started, but then the torch snapped in half and Tom smiled like he had won another participation prize.
  
  Tom waved Dhane to follow and so he did. They walked down the main path, Octoralis a few feet behind them, only noticeable by how the different monsters reacted.
  
  Some monsters had high levels and were not bothered by a giant spider. Other monsters enjoyed their fight or flight programming, sprinting outright into the bars at the far ends of their pens.
  
  Tom laughed. "They uh, sure are acting strange around you."
  
  "I doubt it's me," Dhane said, glancing back at Octoralis. She laughed, much like a smile, though more bubbly.
  
  "You kidding me? They've never been like this. I think you've got to be the real de-deal. Got to trust the instincts of monsters, ya know?" He reached the large cage and summoned his ring of keys.
  
  "Hey, can you free my wrists?"
  
  "Well, don't know about that."
  
  "I'm going to be in a cage, aren't I? Have you tried to sleep with your arms tied behind your back?"
  
  "Plenty of times!"
  
  "Oh, really?" That seemed rather unexpected. "Why would you do that to yourself?"
  
  "You do what your dominatrix says...."
  
  There was an awkward pause, then Dhane said, "Well . . . how did you like it?"
  
  He shrugged and looked down. Apparently, he didn't like it much at all. "I'll ta-take it off once you're inside, ya?" Then he froze like someone paused an old VHS video, right down to the slight twitching.
  
  Octoralis was looking over Dhane's shoulder, giving poor Tom the stink eye, or the you-better-do-what-Daddy-says eye . . . eyes? The simple knowledge that she was there, peeking over Dhane's shoulder, visible by the hundreds of tiny, dim vibration lines, was almost enough to get him to take two leaping steps away, but he held his ground.
  
  Evidently, there was something between fight and flight, for it didn't appear Tom was breathing. Maybe this had something to do with his death, his inability to move despite something very dangerous looming overhead.
  
  "Tom?" Dhane tried.
  
  "Aiwawoo...."
  
  "I love you, too. . . ." Dammit! His hands were still bound behind him and now Tom was unresponsive. One would think a keeper of monsters would be more accustomed to such things.
  
  "Tom!" Nothing. "Tommm?" More nothing. "If you don't take off my bindings, I'm going to feed you to my spider. You understand?"
  
  This seemed to break his infinite loop of big-spider big-spider big-spider. He jumped into action, eagerly removing the lightning rope.
  
  And it was about damn time. If Dhane was never again bound by one of these terrible ropes, it'd be too soon. They were the invention of an evil madman. But . . . it might come in handy.
  
  "Alright, now give me the rope and the keys."
  
  "Th-the . . . keys?"
  
  "Yes. Tom, I am giving you a choice. You can either be spider food, or—since you seem like a decent guy—you can step into this fine cage, and not have to worry about a painful end."
  
  Tom unlocked the cage, dropped both the lightning rope and keys into Dhane's hand, then stepped inside. He didn't even wait for Dhane to close the door, opting to do it himself in an energetically swift fashion.
  
  "Smart guy," Dhane said, then mentally deposited the rope and keys to his inventory. This got Tom to raise his eyebrows.
  
  "How did you do-do that?"
  
  Dhane snapped his fingers, pointed, and smiled. "Come to the dark side, we've got cookies."
  
  "Do you have dominatrixes?"
  
  "No. . . . Not yet?"
  
  "Do I get my own spider?"
  
  "Maybe. . .? What's your Intelligence?"
  
  Tom lit up with a bit of excitement, before spurting, "It's a four!"
  
  Dhane made a few Ahhs and Uhhs before saying, "Sure can. But I have to be honest with you, I didn't think you'd be interested at all."
  
  "No one likes me here," Tom said. "I get the most bo-boring work. Don't even think this place had a gu-guard before me."
  
  "You're the only one?"
  
  "Ya. I sleep down here, too."
  
  "Oh, damn, that's rough. So why do you do it?"
  
  Tom frowned and shrugged. "Pays well. No one . . . will pa-party with me. I'm only a level 4 ta-tank. They say I ta-talk funny, but I can't help it! It's who . . . I am."
  
  Stuttering was a speech disorder, though this was heaven. Shouldn't such things be cured? Maybe they were and Tom didn't realize it. He was stuttering out of habit?
  
  "Tom," Dhane said, "you can party with me."
  
  "Really?"
  
  "Of course. That is . . . if I can escape...."
  
  Tom shook his head adamantly. "There's no way. There are a do-dozen gu-gu-guards between here and . . . the Hall of Guilds."
  
  Well, damn, back to Plan A.
  
  Dhane scratched at the leather collar around his neck. It surged with hot energy, promising him a great sense of pain should he try to remove it. If it were anything like the electrical ropes, having an explosion of energy shoot up into his skull would be most un-fun.
  
  "Alright," Dhane said. "Can you take this collar off?"
  
  "I think so. . .?" Tom said and reached through the bars.
  
  Dhane backed away, holding up a hand. "Whoa-whoa-whoa, think? This thing is packed with a nuclear reactor. Can you show more confidence than that?"
  
  Tom grinned, and it was a good look for the guy. "I've ne-never removed one before, but from what I've heard, it only prevents the wearer from ta-tampering with it."
  
  Dhane considered this for a moment, then decided it was worth the risk. But just in case the man tried anything funny, Dhane unsummoned Octoralis and summoned her again inside the cage.
  
  Tom watched the trails of smoke shift through the bars, then he dropped his jaw as a slightly smaller version of Octoralis materialized directly behind him. "So . . . co-co-co-cool...."
  
  Maybe Tom really did want to be of Shadow. Dhane said, "She's just there for insurance, okay? Go ahead and take this thing off me."
  
  Tom nodded and reached through the bars again. He tugged on something, making the collar tighter, its hot energy vibrating into his spine, running feelers up into his brain. Then it was off. It didn't so much as release a static shock.
  
  Tom held the wicked device out, expecting Dhane to take it as he did with the rope and keys.
  
  "Put it on," Dhane said.
  
  "Huh?"
  
  Tom might be a trustworthy fellow, sincere in becoming a follower of Shadow, but after Devron's betrayal and Leon's tricks with his drugs, trusting wasn't high on Dhane's list right now.
  
  Assume they are out to get you, he thought, because it's probably true.
  
  "It prevents you from summoning your phone," he said. "Or really, it dissuades you from summoning your phone. And take it from me, if it's anything like the prison, you really shouldn't summon your phone once you are wearing it."
  
  "But—"
  
  "Tom. When the others come down to get me, if you don't have that collar on, they'll wonder why you didn't contact them, right?"
  
  "I-I . . . see," Tom said, shoulders slumping. Perhaps he saw the implied distrust, saw that Dhane still had Octoralis in Tom's cage, waiting for the guard to wrap the device around his throat instead of doing it in the morning.
  
  "Hey, I didn't lie. If I somehow get out of this, you're welcome to join my party."
  
  Tom nodded and smiled. "So what are you go-going to do?"
  
  Dhane raised his arms and looked about the massive chamber full of neatly prepared monsters. "Enjoy the all you can eat buffet."