Jax's intercepted communications told the full story of Voss's tribute system four days before Ethan would have discovered it himself.

The data was meticulous — Voss was nothing if not organized. A spreadsheet. Actual cells and columns. Names, levels, Classes, dates of "deployment." And in the final column, a status: "Returned" or "Harvested." Of seventy-three entries, eleven said "Returned." The rest said "Harvested."

Sixty-two people. Fed to the System like coins into a slot machine.

"He's accelerating," Jax said, his face pale in the monitor light. "Since the broadcast, since losing half his people — he's doubled the tribute rate. Two deployments a day now. Level 2s and 3s. People with no combat training, no equipment. Sent into Level 10-plus dungeons."

"He's desperate," Ethan said. "Buying power to compensate for losing numbers."

"It gets worse." Jax pulled up a communication log — encrypted, decrypted by his algorithms. Voss's voice, flat and professional:

*"System Administrator Voss requesting enhanced asset allocation. Current tribute rate: 2/day. Requesting confirmation of Enforcer deployment timeline for Anomaly Cole. Will increase tribute rate to 4/day if deployment is accelerated."*

And the System's response — not a voice, but text, displayed on Voss's terminal:

``` REQUEST ACKNOWLEDGED. ENFORCER DEPLOYMENT: RECALCULATED. ESTIMATED ACTIVATION: ANOMALY LEVEL 15. TRIBUTE RATE INCREASE: ACCEPTED. ENHANCED ALLOCATION: GRANTED. ```

"He's buying the Enforcer," Ethan said quietly. "Trading human lives to get me killed faster."

"Level 15. That's your new deadline." Jax's voice was strained. "You're at 11. Four more levels before the Enforcer comes."

Four levels. At his current pace — two to three dungeons per level — that was maybe two weeks. Maybe less if he pushed harder.

"We need to stop the tributes first," Ethan said. "People are dying."

"If we attack the Bastion, Voss—"

"Not attack. Rescue." Ethan looked at his party roster — the small group that had formed around him. Diana, the Guardian. Sparks, the lightning kid. Professor Kim, the Analyst. Gerald, the Builder. And Maya, still inside the Bastion, still healing, still refusing to leave.

"Jax, can you identify where the next tribute is being deployed?"

Typing. Screens flickering. "Tomorrow morning. Industrial district. Level 11 dungeon — a converted steel mill. Voss is sending eight people. Lowest level: a Level 2 Farmer named Carlos Reyes."

Carlos Reyes. A name. A person. Not a line in a spreadsheet.

"Then we'll be there first."

---

The steel mill dungeon was exactly as horrible as its location suggested.

The System had transformed an already grim industrial space into something out of a nightmare — molten metal flowing in channels through the dungeon floors, the air thick with heat and sulfur, and enemies that matched the environment: Slag Golems, Level 9-11, bodies of semi-molten rock and metal that reformed when damaged.

Ethan's team arrived at dawn, two hours before Voss's tribute convoy. They entered the dungeon through the main portal, cleared the first floor in thirty minutes — Exploit Window on the Golems' cooling cycles, Fracture Blade targeting the solid cores hidden inside their molten shells.

By the time Voss's convoy arrived with eight terrified, under-leveled tribute candidates, Ethan's team was already inside, waiting.

The Bastion escort — six soldiers, one lieutenant — opened the dungeon portal and pushed the tributes through. Standard procedure: open the door, shove the sacrifices in, close the door, report "deployed."

What they didn't expect was for the tributes to walk into a cleared dungeon with Ethan standing in the boss room, surrounded by dissolved Golem remains.

"Anyone here named Carlos Reyes?" Ethan called out.

A man stepped forward — young, scared, calloused hands of someone who'd been farming Rosa-style gardens. "That's me."

"You're not dying today, Carlos. No one is." Ethan looked past the tributes at the Bastion escort, visible through the still-open portal. "Tell Voss I said hi."

The lieutenant's face went through a rapid sequence — confusion, recognition, fury, and finally the pragmatic calculation of a soldier who didn't want to fight someone who'd just solo-cleared a Level 11 dungeon.

They left.

The eight tributes stayed. Three of them cried. One — a teenage girl with a Scout Class — threw up from sheer relief. Carlos Reyes sat down on the dungeon floor and stared at his hands.

"Where do we go now?" he asked.

"Baker Street," Ethan said. "Permanent Safe Zone. No tributes. No spreadsheets. No one gets fed to the System."

---

They rescued tributes four more times over the next three days. Forty-one people total — each one plucked from a dungeon before Voss's system could consume them. Each rescue was a raid, a race, a calculated gamble. Ethan leveled twice.

``` ETHAN COLE — STATUS UPDATE LEVEL: 13 CORRECTION PROBABILITY: 41.7% ARBITER STATUS: CATALOGING (93% COMPLETE) ```

Forty-one percent. The number haunted him.

But forty-one people, alive, in Baker Street's Safe Zone — that number mattered more.

The Safe Zone had grown. A hundred and sixty survivors now, with Gerald's construction expanding the community center into a proper settlement. Rosa's farms produced enough food. Sparks had rigged a power grid from salvaged solar panels. Diana trained volunteer guards. And Jax ran intelligence, monitoring Voss's every move.

It was beginning to feel like a community. Like hope.

And then Maya walked through the Safe Zone barrier.

She appeared at dusk — alone, on foot, medical bag over her shoulder, exhaustion written into every line of her face. No Bastion escort. No guards. Just Maya, walking south, walking home.

Ethan met her at the entrance.

"They didn't try to stop you?"

"Voss is losing control. Half his remaining soldiers are questioning orders. The medical staff walked out yesterday." She looked at him. Dark circles under her eyes. Hands shaking from overuse of her healing Class. But her spine was straight. "I stayed as long as I could. I healed everyone I could. And then—" Her voice cracked. Just slightly. "I needed to come home."

Ethan didn't say anything. He took the medical bag from her shoulder. Put his arm around her — awkwardly, carefully, like someone who'd spent two weeks fighting monsters and had forgotten how to be gentle.

She leaned into him. Just for a moment. Brief, exhausted, real.

Then she straightened, pulled back, and looked at the community center — the lights, the gardens, the children playing in the courtyard. The life they'd built from nothing.

"I need sleep," she said. "And then — tell me everything."

"We have a lot to tell."

She almost smiled. "We always do."