“When System identifies potential, it presents a choice. The nature of that potential varies. So do the survival rates.”— System Mechanics: An Unauthorized AnalysisWe found the next pack twelve minutes later, deeper in the canyon where the walls had narrowed enough that the sky, or whatever passed for sky in this place, was just a sliver of wrong-colored light far above us.The stone had changed too.The rust and amber of the entrance had given way to something darker, a deep burgundy threaded with veins of faint luminescence that pulsed in slow, sporadic rhythms.Three of them this time.They emerged from a crevice in the canyon wall, one after another, the same species as before, bipedal and plated. Their digit-claws clicked against the stone as they spread out, sensory pits pulsing with that unsettling bioluminescence, triangulating our position.“O1,” Alfa said. “Delta, you’re on the left. Beta, center. Charlie, hold the right.”My fingers were already on the coilgun. Standard power this time; no point repeating the embarrassment of plinking uselessly against armored plating with the low setting.The leftmost creature surged forward, and I squeezed the trigger.The difference was deeply satisfying.The round punched through the overlapping plates with a crack that echoed off the canyon walls, and the creature staggered sideways, a chunk of carapace spinning away trailing ichor. Not a kill shot, but actual damage, which made the thing reconsider its target choice for a fraction of a second before instinct overrode whatever passed for self-preservation in a chaos-spawned predator.I fired again.And again.The coilgun’s recoil was not the sharp kick of a plasma rifle, which punched back against your shoulder as if it were angry at you for pulling the trigger.This was a push, (...)