Flor rolled up to the entrance to the Widow’s Siege Monument.

  Flor - Sparks: Here. I’ll meet you at the gift shop.

  Flor worked her way in and saw the Clerk Ja behind the counter. “Good morning. I have a few chronos I’d like to sell.”

  “Oh, show me. We don’t often get new chronos in the shop.”

  Flor pulled out the items she had constructed that morning and placed them on the counter.

  “I’ll give you five for the both of them?”

  “What!? No. They go for more than that in the city.”

  “You’re not in the city, though,” said Ja.

  “Call it nine and I’ll accept.”

  “You wouldn’t even get that in the city. Six. And only that because I can’t give you a half coin.”

  “Six and a token to the exhibits?”

  “Fine. I guess maybe that counts as a half coin anyway.” Ja pulled out the coins and handed them to Flor, then placed the exhibit token on the counter just as Sparks walked in.

  “Good morning to you, shopkeeper Jagoda.”

  “And good morning to you, too, Sparks. Wandering through the exhibits and monument today?”

  “Today and every day I can. See you later,” he said as he walked toward the entry. Flor followed along. He turned toward her. “Good morning, Clerk Jadzia. I hope your day is pleasant.”

  “And yours, Mr. Sparks.”

  “Please, it’s just Sparks. I’ll see you later,” he said as he walked into the exhibit spaces.

  Flor gave over her entry token, smiled at Clerk Ja, and said, “One entry. Shouldn’t be long.”

  The Clerk nodded and Flor entered, then followed Sparks up to the third deck, where she had not yet been, to the Widow’s Run.

  They arrived at the Widow Spider exhibit. Fortunately, even though it was still imposing, the displays didn’t frighten her again. She did look carefully at them as she walked by, though.

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  “They seem to move, but I’ve watched them for a while and they don’t,” said Sparks. “I can only imagine how horrible it is having several of these things come at you and being defenseless against them.”

  “Yeah,” said Flor. “I hate to admit, but I almost fainted the first time I came to this floor.”

  “There is a tourist who comes here every day after lunch who does faint. I’ve watched it a couple of times, and if you help her when she faints she buys a pre-dinner drink and then talks your ear off after.”

  “You know, I don’t think I ever noticed any repeat events in the city.”

  “It is a pretty large place. And probably unreasonable to go back to the same place more than once.”

  “Yeah. So, what will you tell me about Combine sliders?”

  “Huh, it’s kinda hard to explain. Did you ever play that game Threes? Or 2048? You slide numbers across a grid and combine them into larger numbers. No? There is a little tutorial map up outside the Widow’s Run event. Anyway, those games were intuitive. This builds on it by adding an opponent piece which you can crush and takes away a bit of progress.”

  “That…doesn’t make sense at all.”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Oh, wait, with my last interface update I have a puzzle tutorial function. I bet I could use that to understand.”

  “Or you could just try it and realize it’s not so terrible. The Widow’s Run is a bit immersive, but once you get it, it translates directly to the puzzle you complete to unlock the monument interface, which is a puzzle slider.”

  “I’m not a fan of puzzle sliders. But I guess it’s for onward progress, right?”

  “Yeah. Anyway, here is the tutorial and entrance. Or do the one in your interface. I want a quick chat with Jacek. He normally comes through this event around now. But we should be ready to go to the monument interface no later than 10:30. ” Sparks gave a little wave as he walked away.

  Flor looked at the tutorial board on the wall, which showed a sequence of four-by-four grids. The first showed a single pawn one down from the top left. Above it was an up arrow with a second pawn behind it and the text “Swipe up/down/left/right to introduce new units.” The second grid had two pawns joining to form a knight and text “Combine like units to make stronger units.” The third grid showed what looked like a Widow Spider introduced to the board with the text “Enemies will occasionally be introduced.” The fourth grid showed the knight smiting the Widow Spider alongside “Use your units to defeat the enemies. Your attacking units atrophy with each attack.”

  Underneath the grid was a progressive list of the units, ranging from a zero-value villager to a duke with a value of thirteen. Below that was a list of four levels of Widow Spiders: spiderlings, adults, magicals, and giants. Finally, at the bottom was an objective: “Create a Duke or defeat a Giant Spider.”

  Alright, let’s see this immersion. She walked to the event and found herself in a small, dimly lit room with murals of a peaceful village on the wall. An illuminated four-by-four grid about two meters across filled the middle of the room. A timer was on the wall over a scoreboard that listed the fastest times to completion, the fastest being just over three minutes.

  How do I start? She stepped on the grid to see if that started the game, but nothing happened before she noticed a small raised platform with a little console with directional arrows, a larger blue button next to it, and a move counter. Oh!