A hundred thousand voices roared, guttural battle cries and the clang of weapon on armor vibrating through the bedrock of Floor 88. Teleportation gates, now fully formed and humming with sick green light, disgorged an endless torrent of Apex troops. They formed a glinting tide of steel, a living storm descending upon the tranquil absurdity of Tarlok’s farm. Their target, the Dread Lord, stood precisely where they’d last seen him: by his prize-winning, if recently incinerated, cabbage patch. Tarlok Vosh, however, wasn't looking at them. He was staring at his sprinkler system. Or, rather, the spot where his sprinkler system *should* have been. He sighed, a sound of deep, put-upon annoyance that seemed remarkably out of place amidst the war horns and thundering boots. “Honestly, the inefficiency,” Tarlok grumbled, adjusting the brim of his straw hat. “You’d think with all this... *activity*, they’d have better water pressure for the lower levels. It’s always a hassle to get the irrigation going.” He gestured dismissively at the encroaching army, a sea of helmed figures now mere hundreds of yards from his neatly tilled fields. Orikala, her hand unconsciously hovering near the hilt of a knife she wasn’t supposed to have anymore, watched Tarlok with a mix of awe and bewildered terror. The sheer scale of the armed invasion was staggering, an overwhelming force meant to crush all resistance. Yet, Tarlok was checking his water pressure. “Sir, they’re… they’re almost here,” Orikala managed, her voice tight. “Yes, yes, I see them,” Tarlok said, his tone dry as the ash-laden air. “Look at all that foot traffic. They’ll compact the soil. And tracking in all that… *foreign* sediment. We’ll need to put up a ‘Please Wipe Your Boots’ sign.” He strode purposefully towards a rust-encrusted valve attached to a thick, pulsating vein of what looked suspiciously like frozen magma. With a grunt, he wrenched it open. There was a high-pitched shriek, like metal tearing, and then a blinding, white mist erupted from the ground. It wasn’t water. It was a searingly cold geyser, a column of absolute zero liquid nitrogen that shot fifty feet into the air before arcing down in a shimmering, lethal spray. It washed over the first third of the charging Vanguard army like an unholy blizzard. [MASSACRE ACHIEVED] [ENEMY COMBATANTS EXTERMINATED: 33,333] [BLOOD POINTS AWARDED: 3,333,300] [NEW SYSTEM TITLE UNLOCKED: THE CHASM’S CHILLY HAND OF DOOM] [TAX REBATE RECEIVED: 3,333,300 CREDITS] [WATER BILL PAID IN FULL. ENJOY YOUR BOUNTIFUL YIELDS!] Tarlok read the messages on his translucent System panel, visible only to him, and nodded. “There we go. Took long enough. Always a fuss getting the water company to acknowledge the automated payments.” He surveyed the landscape with satisfaction. Where moments before had been thousands of screaming, charging soldiers, now stood an array of flawlessly preserved, ice-sculpture figures, locked mid-stride, mid-shout, mid-swing. Their faces were captured in expressions of pure shock, their armor coated in rime—a vast, macabre art installation, dead silent save for the hiss of the geyser. Orikala stared, her jaw slack. Not a single scream had escaped the frosted troops. They were just… *there*. A monument to Tarlok’s casual disregard for apocalyptic violence. From the army's rear, a figure cloaked in midnight black, his armor gleaming with arcane inscriptions, burst forward. This was the warlord Vorlag, his face a mask of incandescent fury. He was renowned across the planes for his unwavering resolve and his legendary blade, ‘Soul Cleaver,’ which now crackled with dark lightning. He stopped at the edge of the frozen field, his gaze searing the back of Tarlok’s head. “Dread Lord!” the officer's voice boomed, amplified by an ancient enchantment, shaking the very bones of the lava-field. “I am Vorlag, leader of the Apex Vanguard! I challenge you to a duel! Face me, you fiend, and answer for your atrocities!” Tarlok didn't even turn around. He was too busy poking at a frosted soldier’s boot with his rusty hoe. “Orikala, can you make a note?” he called over his shoulder, his voice level. “These boots are clearly designed for rocky terrain, not agricultural plots. We’ve got an unauthorized soil contamination issue brewing. And this chap’s laces are untied. That’s a tripping hazard, honestly.” Vorlag’s eye twitched. His legendary patience, honed over centuries of brutal campaigns, snapped like a dry twig. “You DARE ignore me?!” he roared, and with a surge of dark power, he launched himself forward. The dark blade arced, a streak of pure night aimed directly at Tarlok’s blind side, intending to cleave him in two before the Dread Lord could even register the strike. But before the blade could connect, a blur of pink and purple streaked into the warrior's path. Xarivath, still dusted with flour from the morning’s baking, her demon wings fluttering with surprising speed, intercepted the attack. She wasn’t holding a weapon, or even her usual soul-binding chains. She was holding a pie: a golden, impossibly flaky hell-berry confection. “Oh no you don’t!” Xarivath shrieked, her voice high-pitched with indignation. “He owes me for the barn! And you’re not getting a slice of this pie! It’s still cooling!” With a surprisingly dainty, yet incredibly forceful, flick of her wrist, Xarivath *slapped* the pie onto the broad side of Soul Cleaver. There was a sound like shattering diamond, a high-pitched *CRACK* that echoed across the silent battlefield. The legendary blade, the very symbol of guild authority, snapped cleanly in half, reduced to a sparking hilt and a useless shard of metal, both now thoroughly coated in warm, sticky, hell-berry filling. The pie itself, an unyielding disc of baked flour and demonic will, remained pristine, not even a crumb dislodged. Vorlag skidded to a halt, pupils contracting, staring first at his broken sword, then at the impudent succubus, and finally at the intact pastry. Humiliation, hot and searing, washed over his face. He had been disarmed by a *dessert*. “My pie!” Xarivath wailed, retrieving it carefully. “You almost made me drop it, you brute! Now I have to re-evaluate the structural integrity of the crust!” The warrior stood rigid, pie filling dripping from his gauntlet, his tactical mind unable to process this absurd defeat. This wasn’t battle. This was… a nightmare of domestic inconvenience. Then, Orikala moved. She stepped forward, deliberately placing herself between Tarlok, who was still inspecting the frosted boots, and the bewildered officer. Her gaze locked onto Tarlok’s back for a moment, then shifted to Maximus, her face set with a newfound, fierce resolve. The time for pretense was over. The game was up. This wasn’t just about survival anymore; it was about choosing a side, truly choosing one. Her heart thumped with a frantic, exhilarating rhythm. “Vorlag,” Orikala said, her voice ringing out across the quiet field, clear and strong, “I am Orikala Zev, Apex Operative 734, and I officially denounce the Guild’s actions and declare my defection. I will not allow you to harm him. And Tarlok…” She turned fully, her eyes brimming with an emotion that had blossomed in the midst of fire and ice, a warmth that defied the chilling air. “Tarlok, I… I love you.” Vorlag, momentarily jolted out of his pie-induced stupor by the betrayal, snarled. This was unacceptable. This was insubordination of the highest order. His mind, though reeling, latched onto a desperate, final solution. His hand shot to a hidden pouch on his belt, withdrawing a small, intricately carved orb of shimmering Chronium. With a guttural cry of “No more!” he crushed it in his fist. A ripple of distortion tore through the air, blossoming outwards from the warlord. The geyser of liquid nitrogen locked mid-spray. Xarivath, mid-scolding, her pie clutched to her chest, became a statue. Orikala, her confession hanging in the air, her lips parted, her gaze locked on Tarlok’s oblivious back, was caught completely still in the precise moment of her words. The entire battlefield, the charging army, the rime-covered figures, the very dust motes in the air, all suspended. All, that is, except for Vorlag and the chronically annoyed botanist, Tarlok Vosh.

Paying the Water Bill