The thief looked through the car’s window. Really, who just left a purse on a seat? That was an invitation. An invitation he had no intention of turning down.

He reached a hand through the window and flicked the Unlock button. That would disable the alarm on most cars; if it went off, all he had to do was swear at it and most people would ignore it anyway. He pulled his hand back through the glass and opened the door.

It was so very convenient to be able to do that now. He didn’t know what most people were doing with the abilities they’d picked up from the Tutorial, but he was making sure that the wealth people left unattended didn’t go unappreciated.

The purse had several hundred dollars in cash; today was a big payday. He left the credit cards; yes, they were worth money, but they weren’t worth the headache. Not when cash was so easy to get. He wanted to try an ATM soon; he was pretty sure there had to be an access panel to get at the cash, and if he could get into that, he’d really be sitting pretty. The only reason he’d waited was that he wasn’t sure how to block the cameras yet.

He was very, very close to getting his next Skill, and Obscured Features would be perfect. It was amazing that he could get XP for stealing things without being noticed; this theft and one or two more would probably get him there.

He rifled through the glove box, but only found useless things like the car manual and an insurance card. Where else might someone have hidden valuables? A moment’s searching revealed a compartment between the seats, behind the cupholders. It looked like a simple armrest, but the top flipped up to reveal a larger compartment.

The only thing in the compartment was a small box. It reminded the thief of a jewelry box, so he opened it.

The box didn’t hold jewelry. Instead, there was a small, squat clay vase with what looked like a clay plug in it. The plug was as large as the vase and didn’t seem to be nearly as well made; it was simply some clay that had been stuffed in the mouth of the vase.

The thief didn’t pay much attention to the symbol stamped into the clay; why should he care that the clay showing a six-pointed star with a circle around it and some form of writing he didn’t recognize was cracked?

He tapped the plug, disappointed. He might have been able to safely dispose of some jewelry, but this wasn’t something he could easily sell. It was better left behind.

Mist eddied out of the vase and headed for the man’s face as he set the box back in the compartment. It was better to make it look like there hadn’t been a robbery; that way, they might blame a pickpocket or carelessness. Even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t know where to start looking.

The thief froze as he was about to close the box. He couldn’t move and everything went dark. A voice came out of the darkness. “Yes, yes, what have we here? Oh, a little thief. No wonder the seal finally gave. It’s been so long! And not only a thief, I see, but one who has started to learn some of the Greater Tricks!”

The thief suddenly saw everything that happened in the Tutorial as though it were a movie in fast forward. It wasn’t the same as remembering it; the emotions he’d felt were nearly completely missing.

“A way to gain the Greater Tricks more easily. I do not like this. Still, at least you have some. I can teach you more, if you will listen. You will be an acceptable host for now. What else has changed while I was trapped?”

The thief tried to break free of whatever had him, but there was nothing to break free of, simply mist and darkness. He started to panic, but even that didn’t work; he couldn’t even feel his body. There was simply nothingness.

“You wish to be broken to my control instead of helping me? Well, I always did prefer that. I wonder, should I leave you with nothing or give you pain? Perhaps trade back and forth? Or would pleasure be a better option? It’s not my preference but rewarding can work, especially when it’s unpredictable.” The possessed thief muttered to himself as he turned and walked away from the car. He didn’t even close the car door, but he did take the vase with him for a short distance.

The roll of money he’d taken from the purse sat on the seat next to the purse.

There was a crash as the clay vase shattered on the asphalt. A small glob of darkness gathered from the remaining shards and began to eat its way up the side of a vehicle.

Serenity heard the doorbell ring while he was still on the phone with the very eager man from the Metro. He didn’t have answers to most of the man’s questions, but he thought he’d answered the most important ones by telling him that the skills needed to enter were simple mana control; the dungeon didn’t seem to require anything else.

He suspected that the man planned to set an entrance fee for the dungeon. Serenity wasn’t sure how that would work, since hundreds or maybe thousands of people would pass by the dungeon entrance on the subway every day. There wasn’t a route around it.

He knew it would be optional for anyone else who went to enter; “surprise” dungeons like their entrance to the Blue Line Enigma were rare, and usually meant the dungeon was either a field dungeon like the Last Refuge of the Deathless or that it was new.

The doorbell rang again. “I need to go, my lift is here. We’re more than an hour past the time I had anyway.”

“I know, but-”

Serenity hung up the phone to stop the other man’s talking and headed to the door. He attempted to look through the peephole in the door only to be reminded that he couldn’t see through glass.

Opening the door revealed a pair of friendly faces: Phoebe and Russell Latimer. Serenity had only met them a couple of times, but they looked like Rissa and that was enough to make it clear who they were. “Come on in! I made lunch. Garlic-lime chicken, it’s almost ready. It just needs a couple minutes in the skillet.” There was also bread, but Serenity didn’t mention that.

“We can do lunch,” Phoebe said, “but we need to make it quick. We need to be on the road by one fifteen. If we don’t, we’ll miss something important.”

When Serenity tried to ask what, she didn’t let him get the question out. “I don’t know what. I try not to look; it’s better not to look too far ahead.”

They left with time to spare.

The trip was uneventful until they were close to home. The first hour saw Raz asking questions about everything they passed; it was all very different from what he was used to. Serenity answered many of the questions, but it wasn’t long before Russ took over. He seemed to enjoy talking about everything around them, and Serenity found himself tuning out.

Serenity spent his time concentrating on the electronics around him; they were what he really needed to come to terms with, and several hours of time would help, even though it wouldn’t be enough.

They were past the exit to Thomas’s apartment and getting close to Rissa’s house when Phoebe suddenly said “Take the next exit. Then turn left.” She gave directions as her husband drove and the group ended up in a mall parking lot.

Serenity hadn’t expected to see a mall any time soon. He did need new clothes and a pair of sunglasses, but he didn’t think that was why they were there.

His suspicion was confirmed when they came around a corner of the parking lot and saw an expanse of cars that looked like they’d been sitting there for decades instead of minutes or hours. Russ Latimer wove up and down the rows of rusted-out cars, searching for the source of the decay.

It was only a few minutes before they came to a person sitting on the roof of one of the cars. He seemed to cry, but the tears were thick and seemed black even to Serenity’s vision, like an absence of substance even though there was clearly something there. He looked up as they approached, and Serenity could see the same strange substance running down the man’s face like tear tracks and coating his hands.

“So slow. I remember when the servants of the gods were not so slow. Once they were able to bind me. Once, they were able to lock me away. No more! For I am corruption, I am dissolution, I am Decay! I will stand against the gods and tear down their works!” The man stood as he made his pronouncement. He seemed oddly stretched and partially melted at the same time. His features were elongated and twisted, as were his arms and legs, but he seemed strangely thin yet short. It was as though he were all arms and legs with very little torso.

Serenity didn’t understand what was going on, but it needed to be stopped. As Russ halted the car, he hopped out, only to find that Russ had done the same - and Russ had somehow pulled a softly-glowing sword out of nowhere. There hadn’t been room for it in the car, not within reach of the driver; how had he done that? Russ hadn’t been through the Tutorial yet; where would he have gotten a storage item?

“Oho, a Guardian! Long has it been since I faced one of you, yet you came too late! I have had time to-”

It was irritatingly inclined to monologue. Serenity didn’t intend to teach it better; he simply intended to kill it.

The strange twisted creature’s boasting stopped as it dove off the car to avoid the sword made of light that Russ threw at it. “It’s corruption and decay! Attack it with anything that opposes that!” Russ yelled as he ran towards where his sword landed.

Time was the first thing that sprang to mind, but Serenity discarded it immediately. Change was a part of Time, not its opposite. No, he was going to have to reach for something that was part of his Concept of Death and not depend on what others thought about it.

Serenity pulled his Death Incarnate towards himself.

Decay was a biological process. It didn’t happen if everything was dead. Death was preservation and stasis. Serenity pushed his knowledge into his Incarnate and let it settle over himself.

Whatever this was, if it was a creature of Decay, it was alive. Anything that was alive could die.