The Last Experience Point #101-200
Date: 2026-02-10T21:01:14.188000+00:00

Information

Table of Contents URL: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/56710/the-last-experience-point

The Last Experience Point
by
Parogar

Original ONGOING LitRPG
Urban Fantasy
Super Heroes
Kingdom Building
Martial Arts
Action
Adventure
Fantasy
Sci-fi
Dungeon Crawler
Strong Lead

Warning
This fiction contains:

- Profanity

The days where adventurers would roam the land and grow strong are long gone. More than 99.9% of the world's population is level 1, and in fact, leveling just isn't something people think about anymore, as almost every spawn point on the planet has been gone for close to a thousand years. Only the elites, the super rich, or the super lucky have access to spawn points, and because of this, they are like Gods among men: like superheroes. For people like Zach, life is a mundane, ordinary experience of getting up, going to school, working, and then going back to bed. But that's all about to change when he stumbles upon one of the only unknown spawn points in existence. And in doing so, his life is about to descend into a wild chaos he never could have expected. (Lit RPG, fantasy, action, slow burn). WEAK TO STRONG.

Chapter 101: The Dragon's Spite

Chapter 101: The Dragon's Spite

“Do you see now, my beloved? Do you see how your impatience and emotions have blinded you?”

What I see, Adamus, is one of your creations performing an act of global terrorism on an innocent population because you’re too much of a Gods-damned extremist to realize what a force of evil you’ve become.

“You are angry. I understand. No one enjoys being wrong.”

Did you contact me just to gloat?

“Of course not. I still believe you are capable of so much more, my beloved. You are a bright, creative, and very talented—”

Don’t condescend to me, Adamus! Spare me your patronizing, demeaning rubbish. I won’t hear another word of it. Begone!

Eilea snarled and ejected Adamus from her mind, but not before spitefully giving him four more brain tumors, a backache, and erectile dysfunction. She doubted he’d even care about the last of those enough to bother fixing it—or even realize the impairment existed at all. The last hint of manly passions within Adamus had faded away thousands of years ago. He showed no interest in anything other than his system: his instrument of torture to billions of lives. He had become so focused on his system that he had neglected his own self, allowing his body to age, become old, and wither away, whereas Eilea still looked as though she had just turned eighteen despite being held in captivity for a millennium.

“Is everything okay?” Francis asked her, looking concerned.

She closed her eyes a moment. “I’m caught between two extremes: the humiliation of being wrong and a sudden rush of hope that the boy might live after all. Why do you even…?” She let her words trail off, realizing the question she’d been about to ask was a stupid and embarrassing one. Francis, however, leaned in towards her, his eyes aglow with curiosity.

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“No, please, ask me.”

She sighed. “Why do you even side with me? I’ve just humiliated myself and allowed a young science teacher in his twenties to make me look like a complete fool. I missed so many things I should have seen. I’ve given Adamus more fuel to his fire. But even worse, I’m incompetent despite being so egotistical, arrogant, and—”

“Loving,” Franics interjected, causing Eilea to feel a sudden, unexpected rush of heat into her cheeks.

“W-what do you mean by that?”

Francis smiled. “Much of what you’ve said about yourself is true. You are indeed flawed, Eilea.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you trying to get on my bad side, too? Rub it in how wrong I was?”

“No, not at all,” he said. He placed his hand on top of her own, and even more heat entered her face. “I mentioned it only because I am flawed, too. Putting aside the question of whether or not you’re actually a Goddess, you are also definitely a person. And all people are flawed, Eilea.”

“No, not all people. Not Adamus. I can never win against him. If he has some flaw to be found, I’ve never been able to find it.”

“Exactly. And that right there is my point.”

“Your point?” she asked, unsure where he was going with this and becoming oddly nervous for some reason. This only increased as his tone became darker and more serious as he continued to speak.

“I knew Adamus for many, many years before meeting you,” he began. “When I say that you are flawed because you are a person, that is not an insult, but a compliment.”

“How is it a compliment to say that I am a person?”

Francis gently squeezed her hand. “Because Adamus can hardly be called a person anymore. That’s why. He is empty inside. He sold his soul to his dream, which has become a nightmare of his own making; only, unlike a nightmare, it’s real to those who live under his shadow. A man like Adamus is only able to ‘win’ as he does because there are no lines he won’t cross. For as far as you’re willing to go, Eilea, I have personally witnessed with my own two eyes that there are things you simply will not do.”

The two of them were standing in front of the viewing dome, which continued to output a life-like image of the raid taking place on the surface of Galterra far, far above them. For the first time today, Eilea found something other than the raid occupying her mind, and she took her eyes off the viewing dome so that she could regard Francis. She was glad he was no longer wearing the serpentine mask. A man with such beautiful, amber-colored eyes ought not keep them hidden.

“Why are you here, Eilea?” he asked her.

She chewed her bottom lip, nervous in a way she hadn’t been in a very long time. “Because Adamus trapped me and vowed to keep me sealed away unless I agree to play by his rules.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“What I’m saying,” he explained, “is that you care so much for the pain of innocents that you have willingly allowed yourself to be locked away like an animal in a dark and terrible place for a thousand years just out of a refusal to abandon them. That, Eilea, is why I side with you. Because you could make this torment stop in an instant if you wanted to. But you refuse to do so.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond. She had never even thought of things that way. In truth, she had not viewed her presence here as a sacrifice, but rather as a result of her refusing to budge on her principles. She had not done it out of a sense of moral superiority. Only that she believed so firmly that Adamus was wrong and cruel that the mere notion of accepting his way sickened her.

“Francis, I…” Once more, her words trailed off, but this time it was due to something catching her eye in the corner of her vision: from the viewing dome. Francis turned his head to look as well, releasing her hand. Secretly, she wished he hadn’t. Together, they once more observed the situation on Galterra. Things had just taken an interesting turn. One of her kin, the girl, Kalana Vayra, had unexpectedly thrown herself into the fight with Ziragoth. Now, she was shoulder to shoulder with the boy, and the two were about to square off against the wyvern together.

“In a way, this is almost poetic, isn’t it?” Francis asked her.

At this, Eilea laughed. “It is, isn’t it? Your kin and mine, standing side by side just as we are.”

“A Calador and a Vayra,” Francis whispered. Then he chuckled and made a whistling sound with his lips. “Once upon a time, even just the suggestion of that kind of pairing would start a war. It’s amazing how the times have changed.” With a sudden, soft-spoken sadness, Francis closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Goddamn you, Moldark,” he whispered. “God will never forgive you for what you did.”

“God?” Eilea asked. “Which one do you claim will never forgive him? Do you imply the others will?”

Francis let out a somewhat livelier laugh. “I’ve told you this before, Eilea. In my day, we only believed in one.”

“Ah, right. I’d all but forgotten with everything else happening. Apologies, Francis.”

“It’s not a problem.”

Eilea recalled that Francis did not believe in the Greater Gods or the Lesser Gods—which included figures such as herself and Adamus—but rather he believed in the Old God, which come to think of it, was likely why he wore that strange pendant of a man hanging from a cross on his chest. She did not know what that symbolized. Truth be told, she knew very little about the ancient religion or the God Francis worshipped. One day, she would like to ask him more about his beliefs. For now, the two of them once more cast their gaze upon the viewing dome, watching as the sands within painted a picture of the battle with the dragon.

Only a few minutes ago, Adamus had told her that Zach had a one in three chance of success. But Eilea did not accept this. Sure, Adamus knew his numbers: but she knew people. Earlier, she had simply not known that it was even possible for Zach to win. But now that she knew otherwise—that there was a realistic, real chance he could emerge victorious—she knew that he would do so.

Contrary to what Adamus likely suspected, Eilea had not chosen Zach for his potential alone. No, that was certainly not the sole and only reason. And that was something not even the all-knowing Adamus could ever understand. Because as illogical as it may have seemed, Eilea rejected his calculations of a one-in-three chance. For someone like Zach, there was either zero or a hundred. And even despite how wrong she’d been thus far, this time around, she had absolute confidence that she knew which it would be. Or maybe that was just her emotions talking. Either way, whatever happened next would be fate.

******

Ziragoth approached, and the world rumbled with each of the dragon’s steps. Standing so close to Kalana that their shoulders were touching, Zach’s thoughts turned from victory to protecting her. Although he was cognizant of the fact that Olivir—or her cousin—could resurrect her if the worst happened, the very idea of her dying even a single time was completely, totally unacceptable. Zach knew that he would lose his Gods-be-damned mind if he witnessed such a thing. He wished she was somewhere safer. Hers was the only life in this world he valued more than his own, as she meant more to him than anything else. The result of this was the return of fear. Unlike before, however, none of it was out of concern for his own safety.

“Stop it,” Kalana growled at him.

“Stop what? I’m not doing anything.”

“Nah-uh. I know you way too well, Zach. Stop worrying about me.”

“I can’t.”

“You better.”

There were numerous things Zach would have liked to say to her in reply, but his attention was far too focused on Ziragoth, who was approaching with unusual slowness. Then the dragon stopped in its tracks about a dozen feet before the two of them, and in an exact repeat of earlier, it remained motionless, its mouth open and its forked tongue flicking back and forth in a way that made it seem as though the creature was thinking.

“Whenever you’re ready, give the word,” said the voice of Fylwen over the Comm. She, Peter, and Vim had now given him and Kalana enough space that it was likely easier for them to communicate over the Comm as opposed to shouting. Even still, the three of them remained fairly close by, as they had to keep within casting range.

“Understood,” Zach replied. He closed his mouth, but then he opened it again straight away as an idea came to him. “Wait, why doesn’t Vim just use the debuff on the dragon itself? Then we can have the whole raid attack it.”

“Won’t work,” Vim said. “My ability has a limitation on it that specifically states it doesn’t work on bosses. And even if it did, it still wouldn’t matter. Ziragoth is too strong and it would just be resisted. It’s why you don’t see any of the other mages casting debuffs on it like before. I’m willing to bet that if they could help you, they would.”

“Didn’t know that,” Zach admitted, releasing a disappointed sigh.

If only Vim could cut the dragon’s stats in half, they might’ve been able to just bombard it to death with the mages and archers atop the wall, who had finally gained the upper hand against the adds they were fighting. In fact, they were gradually starting to make good on their promise to help those down below once they were free to do so. Already, several tanks and melee DPS had leapt off the top of the wall and rushed forward to assist the struggling BG5, while a few of the Elvish archers began shredding apart the adds overwhelming BG2 and BG3 with their precisely aimed arrows. As soon as BG5 and BG6 were clear of adds and good to go, Zach imagined they could once more act as a unified division and begin clearing out whatever else remained. Really, the primary problem now was the dragon itself.

They’re doing their part, Zach thought. It’s all on me and Kal now to do ours.

In total, Zach estimated that slightly fewer than half the raid members had died. Yet as implausible and miraculous as it seemed, Olivir and Kolona’s infrequent reports over the Comm appeared to imply that they had yet to permanently lose a life. Even those who had been delivered to the vampires as nothing more than a head attached to a piece of neck were apparently recovering.

If me and Kal actually kill this thing…if we can just somehow pull this off…we might end up coming out of this with every single one of us still alive.

The thought of all five-hundred-thirty-five raid members living to see tomorrow emboldened Zach. It helped him to move beyond his worries over Kalana’s safety. Truly, there was nothing he could do to change her mind, and being afraid wouldn’t make it any less likely that she got hurt, either. All he could do now was fight as hard as he could and try to eliminate the dragon from this world. And that, he was certain, would happen right now or not at all. Zach had the sense that everything would be settled within the next few minutes. This was it. Here and now, today. Either he slayed the dragon with Kal, or he lost everything—including her. It was a zero-sum game. There would be only one winner, and he refused to let it be Ziragoth.

I’ve got to kill it. I’ve got to!

With Vim having enough stamina to cast his debuff, Zach knew he could attack the dragon any time he wanted. Right now, he had the option of either taking the fight directly to Ziragoth or waiting for Ziragoth to take the fight to him. Part of him wanted to charge in headfirst and launch another assault, but he decided against it, as that could potentially be costlier in terms of both risk and time, since Zone of Enfeeblement only lasted ten seconds.

Zach, regrettably, had wasted its earlier use, as he’d been acting off emotion and ended up hitting the wyvern with it just once. That, however, was not a mistake he could afford to repeat. It was imperative that he made every last second count. Zach figured he’d get the most out of it if he waited for the perfect opening to counterattack. He needed to be spot-on: especially given how much HP the damn thing still had.

HP

23,215,888/25,000,000

Name

(T10) Ziragoth the Awoken

Level

70

For sure, it was a daunting number, but if nothing else, at least it was steadily going down, however slowly. At the moment, only two of his Cursed Defender of Ziragoth cards were still in the fight, with one nipping away to the dragon’s left side and one to its right. The five remaining Valkyries, on the other hand, were all spread out evenly and laying into the dragon one strike after the next. Through it all, Ziragoth remained motionless, and Zach was left to wonder what in the name of the Gods it was doing. Kalana seemed to wonder the same, as well.

He felt her placing her hand on the side of his face so that she could cup it over his ear as she leaned in close to him. “Hey, what’s it doing?” she asked in a very muted whisper like she was telling him some kind of secret in class. Despite everything else going on, Zach, for a reason he didn’t even know, released an honest, genuine, and loud cackle. “What’s so funny?” she whispered again, this time sounding aggravated.

“Why’re you whispering?” he asked, trying very hard to stifle his laughter.

She frowned. “It’s ‘cause it might be able to understand us, remember?”

“Gee, Kalana, do you think it’ll want to kill us less if it doesn’t overhear us openly speculating about what it’s doing?”

Kalana’s frown deepened. “You’re starting to talk like your mean guild-leader.”

“Okay, now hold up,” Zach said angrily, his humor evaporating. Kalana had really pinched a nerve there. “Do not call Vim my guild-leader. That’s a low-blow.”

“Sorry,” she whispered again. “But that’s the kind of mean thing he’d say.”

Zach waved off the nonsensical comparison. “Anyways, I don’t know what it’s doing. It was doing this same thing before, too. It’s just kind of staring at me. Or actually…wait a second.”

Something changed. Even while keeping its head pointed directly at Zach, Ziragoth began to turn its eyes downward and to its left, where a Valkyrie with a large, two-handed longsword was slicing away furiously at its side and even managing to draw blood. At some point, someone or something had caused the longsword to become encased in a glowing, luminescent type of frost. Zach had no idea whether it was a caster from one of the other battlegroups or, hell, maybe it had even been one of the other Valkyries. But regardless of whoever had enchanted the weapon, the frost-imbued blade was clearly making a huge difference.

One time after the next, the Valkyrie struck out for over twenty-thousand damage. This, she did again, and again, and again—until Ziragoth whipped its head in her direction, opened its mouth wide, twisted its body, and snapped its jaw shut, splitting the armored, winged NPC into two separate pieces, both of which promptly turned into streaks of white light that beamed up into the sky before vanishing.

“What the fuck?” Zach snapped. “Bullshit! I know I had aggro.”

“Language!” came Mr. Oren’s voice over the Comm, reminding Zach that he had once again forgotten to switch it off transmission mode. The problem was that the Comm required the use of a facial gesture that was difficult to remember and kind of finnicky, and Zach often lost track of whether or not it was on Transmit or Mute.

“Sorry,” Zach said.

“It’s fine. And to your point, you should—hold on a moment.” Mr. Oren chanted something, and Zach turned his head and looked off to his right to see his science teacher standing just in front of the wall. He had summoned about fifteen arrows made of pure light, all of which were floating in the air and lined up above his head; then, one by one, he sent them streaking forward and into a mob named “Cursed Defender of Ziragoth 2D.”

Blasting forward like miniature rockets, the arrows made an incredibly high-pitched whistling sound as they tore through the air, and Zach observed as they ripped the creature apart, shredding parts of its face until its head became completely deformed while simultaneously puncturing so many holes in its body that the grass beneath the lizard-avian hybrid became fully stained in its blood. Come to think of it, Zach actually remembered that ability, as he’d used it on Varsh when the two had fought one another.

“Zach,” he continued, “you and Kalana should operate off the assumption that no one has aggro. I’ve been watching the dragon as best I can while handling adds. I don’t believe it is any longer bound by the rules of the s…of the universe,” he finished.

Zach and Kalana exchanged a knowing look. Mr. Oren had almost accidentally said the word “system,” which was one of those things they were not supposed to know and were definitely not supposed to say outside of the spy-proof privacy room in Angelica’s.

“You’re probably right,” Zach replied over the Comm. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“It started gradually, but I’ve noticed it’s been displaying odd behavior since becoming T10. I think it’s now reached a point where you should cease treating it like a mob and instead like a living creature. In other words, don’t try to predict mob-like patterns of attack. It has likely gained the ability to fight wholly according to its own whims.”

“Yeah,” Zach agreed with a frustrated grunt, “that’s what I’m thinking, too. Okay, got it. I’ll be careful, Mr. Oren, thanks.”

“You’ve got this, my man.” Upon those words, Mr. Oren charged forward and began striking out with his summoned sword, delivering the killing blow to the mob he was fighting before starting on another nearby.

Now that Zach finally understood the cause of Ziragoth’s strange behavior, he was not surprised to see the dragon turn its body fully around so that it could begin attacking the other NPCs. It had likely come to the conclusion that their constant pecking away at its HP would prove to be a very big threat over time. Thus, taking its focus off Zach completely, the dragon appeared to make killing them its sole, current priority.

Shit, what do I do in this situation?

Zach struggled to think of how he should proceed as Ziragoth roared, lifted its massive left leg, and then stomped down on top of the Valkyries. Though its foot failed to hit a single target, it caused the four armored NPCs to fly upwards and away, their wings flapping. Unfortunately, this only made things even easier for the wyvern, as he was able to then bite one of them right out of the air, killing it with a single crunch.

Seeing the way things were going, Zach had to begrudgingly accept that he would not be able to rely on the cards or NPCs for damage anymore. That was simply no longer an option. And as though to demonstrate this fact, Ziragoth slammed its tail down onto the ground so hard that the resulting quake caused more of the wall to fall apart while killing one of Zach’s two remaining cards. Seeing his level-90 minion become crushed and deformed, he realized there would be no point in letting the other one die as well. He might as well recall it.

No way I’m letting it destroy all five of my cards!

Assuming he and Kal made it through this—and he fully intended to do so—it would suck to leave here with nothing gained. And so, targeting the lone remaining Cursed Defender of Ziragoth, which was still at full health—and thus would not cost Zach any stamina—he activated Card Dismiss, causing it to revert to a white wisp of light that sailed across the air towards his open, waiting palm, where it then transformed back into card form. And with that, he stuffed it inside his pocket. At the same time, the three airborne Valkyries also disappeared. This confused Zach, as they hadn’t even been touched yet. How had Ziragoth taken them out?

“I have dismissed them,” Peter said over the Comm as though wishing to prevent any confusion.

Zach risked a quick peek over his shoulder. “Why?”

“Because, like you, Zach, I too sensed the utter pointlessness in them remaining, and for each Valkyrie that dies, it adds one year of recast time to the ability which summons them.”

Zach winced. “So you won’t be able to use that again for…”

“Six years,” Peter confirmed. “I shall indeed miss my winged warriors.”

With the NPCs now gone, Ziragoth darted its head around as if to ensure it had really killed them all. This not only reminded Zach of real animal behavior but also confirmed that Mr. Oren’s theory was correct. Mobs, Zach knew, did not ever have to look for targets within their aggro range. Hearing or seeing was not required. They just knew where someone was. But Ziragoth was clearly searching. Finally, as if seemingly convinced that its targets were well and truly gone, it once more spun itself around and faced Zach and Kalana’s direction. And this time, when it moved towards them, it did not hesitate or pause to think. Oh, no. Clearly, its mind was now made up.

“Get ready!” Zach shouted to Kal in warning.

Kalana raised both her daggers with her elbows pointed down, her blades pointed up, and her arms parallel. “Mhm!”

Just two kids from Whispery Woods fighting alone against a dragon, Zach thought, wondering how this was not just some wild dream. What could possibly go wrong?

Ziragoth released a tremendous roar and then abruptly took off, heading straight for the two of them. The ground shook each time its clawed feet stamped down, leaving massive patches of flattened grass in its wake. Numerous rocks, several quite large, were smashed into countless pieces as it charged, and several were incidentally kicked, causing them to fly like meteorites in Zach’s general direction. He actually had to duck beneath two and strike a third, splitting it in half—all while keeping his eyes focused on the approaching threat. As Ziragoth continued to race towards them, Zach could see the intense, murderous fury within its golden, lizard-like eyes. It wanted them dead: both of them.

“I’ll go right,” Kalana said. “You split left.”

Nodding, Zach darted off towards his left side as Kalana dashed to the right. Along with a trail of impossibly black smoke that exited Zach’s lips, he left behind in his wake a cloudy streak like the contrails of a jet, which formed a line between where he’d been and where he was now standing. An instant later, Ziragoth shot right past them both and ran through it. Then the dragon halted its movement by planting its feet, causing it to kick up literally tons of dirt—enough to fill in a community swimming pool—as it skidded to a halt and turned itself around. Peter, Vim, and Fylwen were forced to scramble out of the way or risk being buried by it as it then showered back down where they’d been residing.

Now, a few-dozen feet away and facing in their direction, Ziragoth opened its mouth wide, and the inside of its throat began to light up a bright orange. Zach gasped. He knew what would come next. This was either going to be a fireball capable of exploding like a missile or an inferno of flame breath—neither of which he felt like dealing with.

But as it turned out, it was both.

With a dull, ominous-sounding foosh, a massive ball of fire much like the two that had left gigantic holes in the wall came flying across the grasslands in their direction. Despite traveling several feet above the ground, it was so fiercely hot that it caused all the grass beneath it to catch flame as it passed by. Zach tensed up as he watched it near him and Kalana. It came at them so fast he wasn’t even sure that either of them would have the time to react. The fireball, Zach knew, would be so powerful that it wouldn’t even need to hit them directly in order to kill them: it would only need to land somewhere in their general vicinity—and not even all that close by, at that. Even if he and Kal both dodged and ran as fast as they possibly could, they would still be killed in the subsequent explosion.

Yet, before Zach could think of how to deal with the approaching threat, the dragon lifted its head as though drawing a breath. Then, making matters even worse, it unleashed an absolute firestorm upon the two of them. The heat was so intense that, even before the flames had fully exited Ziragoth’s mouth, Zach immediately struggled to breathe and had to fight just to keep his burning eyes open.

No choice. I’ve got no choice!

“Now!” he cried over the Comm.

At the exact same time that he spoke that word, he used Phase Rescue on Kalana. The situation was so critical that he didn’t even have the time to wait for her to get to him. The moment he activated his ability, a blue orb formed around the entirety of Kalana’s body. This orb then shrank until seemingly vanishing from existence itself—only to reappear by Zach’s side an instant later, bringing Kal to him.

Now, the two of them exchanged a glance; it was a look that lasted for a duration so short it would be difficult to measure. Yet in just that one, transient moment in time, he saw several things in her beautiful, wonderous eyes. He saw confusion, alarm, and a great deal of concern. But he did not see any of the fear that he himself currently felt, reminding Zach that she was far braver than he was. But more importantly, he hoped that the look he sent her way in this fleeting instant would convey to her that he wanted, no, needed her to trust him.

And with that, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into him. Then he threw the both of them down onto the ground, holding her as close to him as he possibly could. Thankfully, she cooperated. If anything, she snuggled even closer into him. Even with certain death a split-second away, she trusted him enough with her life not to get up and run. Even with the sensation of heat so terrible that Zach began to scream as he felt himself being cooked alive, he continued to endure. He had to wait for Vim, then Fylwen, and finally Peter to all cast on him before he took any actions. Both his life and Kal’s depended on it. Thankfully, his three compatriots in BG7 did not keep him waiting.

Unlike their first use of the combo, this time, all three spells came in so quickly that it was almost impossible to tell the order they arrived. Zach did not feel even so much as a moment’s worth of sickness or confusion. He felt only strength: pure, godlike power. And with that, he activated Phase Shield.

Immediately, a brilliant shield made of a pure golden light appeared in the world before him, one so magnificently bright that it drowned out the light of the flames. It covered the two of them, serving as a solid, truly impenetrable barrier that nothing could break. Yet even despite its brightness, it did not hurt to stare directly at; if anything, it was comforting. Right away, the feeling of unbearable heat cut off. And then there was a boom, and with it came the sensation of the world shifting around him along with a loud ringing in his eardrums that made him hope he had not just permanently deafened himself. From the fact that he could hear the sound of Kalana’s startled scream, he didn’t think so.

From the vicious shaking and rumbling alone, Zach assumed the fireball must have landed. But he could not see it: or anything for that matter. The combination of the shield and the flames erased virtually any sight of the world around him. But for sure he could feel the secondary effects of it. It was like he was sinking with Kalana into the ground: fast enough that it actually felt more like falling. The terrain was becoming deformed all around him, the result of an explosion that would have claimed their lives if he had not shielded them from it.

And then, just as it had come, the shield faded, and immediately, Zach threw himself on top of Kalana and covered her body with his. Despite the disappearance of the golden light, Zach could still see absolutely nothing around him, as the world was completely, totally encased in an almost perfect screen of orange, which meant that Zach was now inside the inferno with her. The sound of it was so loud. It was a crackling and hissing and whooshing that deafened him as much as the flames blinded him. Yet eventually, it came to an end, and sparing only the slightest of moments, he glanced down to ensure Kalana was okay. With a relieved exhale that caused more black smoke to exit his lips, he saw that she was just fine.

“Thanks, babe,” she said cheerfully, blowing him a kiss.

Now, the clock was ticking. At best—and this was being optimistic—Zach had about five and a half, maybe six seconds before the buffs wore off. He also noticed something: something that he hadn’t noticed before. It seemed that, while Blessing of the Angels was active on him, every inch of his body gave off a golden glow that was similar to the light of his Phase Shield, only slightly less bright. It was enough so that it almost masked the flames shooting from his hands and feet. Of course, that didn’t really matter right now, and so he put it out of mind.

Not willing to waste even a fraction of a fraction of a second, he bolted right up to his feet. He then spared only enough time to flick his eyes quickly to the left, then quickly right in order to take in his surroundings. It appeared he was in a crater nearly fifty feet deep with Kalana, the result of the detonation from Ziragoth’s fireball. In the very corner of his vision, he briefly caught sight of his stats, which he kept down and to the right of his field of view. What he saw sent a jolt of shock and disbelief coursing into him: one that he did not allow himself to dwell on.

Name

Zachys Calador

Level

21

EXP

83,500/170,000

Armor Bonus

336

Strength

414

Dexterity

384

Constitution

380

Intelligence

450

Speed

350

Luck

280

Bending his knees, he launched himself up into the air, the black robe Fylwen had given him flapping as a rush of wind met his rapid ascent. Within a quarter of a second, Zach reemerged, leaving behind a jet-like, cloudy trail in his wake as he flew out of the hole then landed on the grass in front of it. The moment he touched down, he frantically exploded forward at full speed, his body shining with a golden light as he blasted his way towards Ziragoth for all he was worth. He now likely had five or fewer seconds. He had to make them count. He must make every one of them worth it! Thus, even as he soared across the distance between himself and the dragon, he swung his blade downwards diagonally and shouted, “Phase Slash!”

Then he did it a second time. “Phase Slash!”

As fast as he was moving, the ripple-like distortions he’d formed in the air moved even faster. More gasps of surprise came from over the Comm as a high-pitched, zipper-like noise drowned out every other sound on the battlefield. Faster and faster Zach ran, his windswept robe and hood feeling as though they would fly off him as the air attempted—and failed—to resist his forward momentum.

A moment before he reached the wyvern, his first Phase Slash hit. And Gods…if Zach had only known in advance what it would do to the dragon, he would have done nothing else aside from it. Even before the distortion collided with Ziragoth, the dragon let out a preemptive, high-pitched shriek in advance: as though it understood that it was in serious trouble.

The dragon had two protrusions on each side of its face that were sort of, but not quite horns. They were curved, the color of bone, and if they served any practical use as a weapon, Zach had yet to see the fire wyvern use them that way. Regardless, the first Phase Slash landed on the right side of Ziragoth’s face, and then it erupted into a miniature explosion. The horn-like appendage, along with what looked like several gallons of dark red blood, as well as a solid chunk of the lower-right corner of Ziragoth’s mouth, simply exploded off its face, causing the dragon to unleash a cry of such agony that had Zach hated this beast even slightly less, it might have caused him to feel pity for the creature.

3,211,492

The impact blasted Ziragoth several feet backwards, forcing the dragon to once more plant its feet in order to slide to a halt: only for the second Phase Slash to hit. This one hit dead center in its chest, and then came another intensely loud shriek of pain as muscle, tissue, cartilage, and a piece of its intestinal tract were exploded off it while the dragon was sent hurtling away once again. This time, it rolled along the ground several times before crashing into a thankfully unoccupied section of the wall, destroying it completely and sending thousands of pieces of stone scattering up into the air.

2,911,152

Sensing blood in the water, Zach forced his body to run even faster. He nearly took down several members of BG3 and BG4 as he zipped by them. Numerous adventurers, political guild members, and a couple of Elvish warriors were scrambling to get out of the way, clearly wanting to be nowhere near the dragon. They seemed fully content to let Zach handle it.

With around two-and-a-half seconds remaining on this ungodly powerful combination, Zach reached the dragon just as it was picking itself up. It was missing part of its face and upper chest, and blood was absolutely pouring out of its body. In this moment, Zach felt a piece of himself become restored. He felt as though he’d regained something he’d lost when this horrendous, vile piece of shit spawned in the Den of Ziragoth and hurt him so badly. He’d feared this creature so much. It had terrified him. It had wounded him. It had made him cry. It had stolen from him, breaking the sword he’d earned for saving his friends. It had taunted him and tortured him. This was payback. This was justice!

“How does it feel to be the prey?” Zach screamed at it.

The terror in the wyvern’s eyes elicited no sympathy from Zach: no pity at all. With hatred flowing through his veins like a poison, he unleashed as many strikes as he could in the little time he had, putting all of his energy into each one of them. Raising his sword over his head, he brought it down on top of Ziragoth, adding another beautiful wound to its body and hitting for 351,222. Ziragoth quickly swung its wing, but Zach ducked—and lost precious time in the process. Straightening his back, he delivered an overhanded slash, causing the dragon to cry out in anguish and suffer another 301,951. It began to back away, heading beyond the destroyed section of the wall and towards the camp. It was retreating. Actually retreating! Zach, naturally, pursued.

Down to the final moment, he performed a three-slash combination, hoping to inflict as much damage as he possibly could. First, he bent his knees then sprang back up, sending out a rising slash that chopped off another piece of the wyvern’s lower mouth as well as carving out two of its lethally sharp fangs. Then he spun himself around full circle and delivered a spinning slice.

In response, Ziragoth brought both of its wings around—but not to attack. It pressed them together in front of its body, and the serrated edges of both wings actually seemed to fit together like pieces of a puzzle, creating what resembled a fleshy, scaly shield. To Zach’s dismay, his sword bounced right off the wing-shield, hitting for 0 damage. Growling, Zach spun yet a second time, and on this go around, the moment his body had turned full circle, he hopped slightly into the air, spinning a third time and grunting with exertion as he used all his strength in delivering a downward, spinning slash that made a loud, unexpected crack as he struck the dragon. Yet, even as he struck with so much raw force that he blasted the dragon more than fifteen feet in the opposite direction, he still hit for nothing at all. And with that, Zach realized the dragon had just discovered how to defend itself.

Now, the golden aura around him vanished, and his stats, while still hugely elevated from Phase Unleashed 3, were now half of what they had only just been; this, as Peter, Fylwen, Vim, and Kalana only first caught up and the rest of the raid actually reorganized itself just in response to Ziragoth’s presence, with everyone moving as far as they could out of the way.

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Ziragoth knew that the assault was over. And it was angry. So, so angry. Zach did not have to be a mind reader to tell that much. It was obvious in the way its eyes bulged, and the look cast off from those cold-blooded pupils changed from one of terror to rage.

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

One thing was for sure, though: Zach had hurt it—badly. There was no denying that fact. The dragon was in real pain, and unlike an unfeeling mob, Zach now knew beyond all doubt that Ziragoth could be rattled. Sure, one of the advantages of sentience was unpredictability and the gift of decision-making, but on the other hand, it came with some cons as well; namely, the dragon was susceptible to all the same psychological horrors as any other participant in a battle. And right now, Zach imagined the wyvern was only first coming to truly understand this.

HP

16,442,122/25,000,000

Name

(T10) Ziragoth the Awoken

Level

70

“I don’t know if you can understand me,” Zach said to it, “but you’re going to die, and I’m going to kill you.”

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Ziragoth made as if to attack. It spread its wings, uncoupling them and essentially ridding itself of its shield, and then it paused a moment as if in hesitation. Though, unlike the previous two times, it did not remain unmoving, nor did it seem as though it were taking a moment to think. Instead, it was darting its eyes between Zach and something else. Zach wasn’t sure what. It would require him to take his eyes off the dragon to find out for certain, which would be suicidal while in such close proximity. Yet for some reason, he thought he knew. And it sent an explosion of terror coursing through him. Zach wasn’t even sure how he was able to figure it out without looking. Perhaps it was the hatred in its eyes. It wanted to hurt Zach. It wanted to hurt Zach badly. And it seemed to know how it could do that in the worst way possible.

Kalana!

Ignoring him completely, Ziragoth flapped its wings and took off into the air, then slammed itself down fewer than three second afterwards, causing a shower of dirt and rock to rain over Zach. Horrified, he spun himself around to see that Ziragoth was now towering over Kalana, who for some reason stood her ground defiantly before it.

“Run!” Zach shouted.

“Nah-uh.”

“Gods-dammit, Kalana! You have to—”

Ziragoth lunged at Kalana with its mouth opened, ready to bite, and thankfully, she backflipped out of the way. But even still, Zach felt a rush of fear travel straight into his heart, which began to pound in his chest as he wondered what the hell he was supposed to do. He currently had 10:05 remaining on his current duration of Unleashed Phase, which meant he could afford to Phase Rescue Kalana if the need arose. The question was knowing whether or not such a need existed. Obviously, he couldn’t just Phase Rescue her every single time the dragon launched an attack, or he’d end up burning up the rest of his time and dying of a heart attack.

Yet, as Ziragoth went all in on Kalana, almost certainly for no other reason than to spite Zach, he came so close to activating Phase Rescue so many times that he lost count, as what he saw caused him so much anxiety it was amazing that he didn’t suffer a total breakdown as a result of it.

It began with Ziragoth lunging at Kalana a second time, trying its best to rip her apart with its teeth. Even while missing three fangs, and even with its mouth oozing blood, Zach had no doubt that Kalana would perish if the dragon managed to bite her a single time. Her mother, too, seemed to share the same fear, because right now, Fylwen’s face had gone white with terror. Yet Kalana did not seem afraid. Either because she was being dumb and had no idea how much danger she was in, or because she really was just that fearless.

To make things even worse, she toyed with the Gods-cursed dragon.

Ziragoth snapped its mouth shut, then looked around, confused. It appeared to be wondering whether or not it succeeded in killing its target, because Kal was no longer in front of it. That, of course, was because Kal was now running along its back. It almost seemed to take Ziragoth a second to realize this, and when it did, the dragon hissed in rage. Flapping its wings, it rocketed itself up into the sky, its body positioned perfectly vertically as though hoping to cause Kal to fly off—which she did.

Now, with the two of them nearly fifty feet in the air, Zach was ready pull the trigger on Phase Rescue on a moment’s notice. He watched as Kalana began to fall and Ziragoth, having pulled away from her a bit, now flew directly towards her, its mouth opened wide as if to snatch her up midair and devour her.

Okay, I’ve got to use it now, right? Surely I do.

Even midair, where it should have had an overwhelming advantage, Ziragoth was denied its meal. The moment it snapped its jaws shut, Kalana tucked her knees into her chest, narrowly avoiding being eaten. Then she kicked off the dragon’s face and entered a backflip before falling dozens of feet and landing dexterously atop a still-intact section of the wall. At least, intact for the moment.

Clearly frustrated, Ziragoth roared and flew directly at Kal, who then leapt into the air a second time as the dragon crashed directly into—then through—the stone-built fortification, absolutely obliterating another large section of it and causing two of the towers built on top of it to collapse; this, as Kalana landed next to Zach in a crouch, her eyes deadly serious and her expression tight as though deep in concentration.

“I think it’s mad at me,” Kalana said.

Zach sighed. “I think it’s mad at me.”

She gave him a confused look, but rather than explain, he called out to Vim over the Comm. “How long?” he asked.

“A b…a bit more,” the leader of the Royal-Roses said, panting.

Dammit!

An ear-piercing screech came from the wyvern, and along with it a bright flash of orange. It was now flying several-hundred feet up in the air, and it was launching multiple fireballs at the two of them. Thankfully, however, the distance between them and Ziragoth meant that, unlike before, there was actually time for them to get away—albeit not a whole lot. Together with Kalana, Zach sprinted as fast as he could as a wave of heat, light, and an earthquake-like trembling punctuated each massive explosion as the wyvern attempted to bomb them from the sky. Zach did his best to run in a direction that was away from the other members of the raid, who were all still occupied fighting the adds.

“Holy shit!” Zach cried, looking over his shoulder.

Behind him, there were now multiple sites of fire and destruction, six in total, and all but one was still on fire. Each site consisted of basically a deep crater in the ground that was shooting out flames like a firepit. Zach hoped nobody had plans to build a home or a community in these grasslands any time soon, because between this and the shit he’d done yesterday, it was going to take like a century of landscaping to get this stretch of land back in serviceable order.

As though realizing it was getting nowhere with attacks from the sky, Ziragoth turned its body in their direction and began diving at breakneck speed towards the two of them. Glancing over his shoulder as he ran, Zach yelped as he realized the dragon was gaining on him. It was too fast. There was no way he could outrun it. And so, he stopped short, and Kal also halted alongside him. Then he grabbed her, picked her up, and an instant before the dragon slammed down on top of them, he activated Phase Blink, carrying them both to safety.

The sound of the sonic boom coincidentally synced with the wyvern’s impact with the ground, and together, the combined noise was enough to create a thunderous echo that Zach imagined could be heard for a hundred miles. It elicited another round of terrified questions from the raid, to whom Zach was now likely proving to be an even greater source of horror than the dragon.

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The dragon’s eyes were locked on Kalana. Clearly, this was personal. It was intent on making Zach watch her die. The fact it was such a chickenshit that it had to resort to this only made him hate it more. “I don’t know how to get it off you,” Zach said nervously.

“I’m gonna be fine,” Kalana said. “Is there any way you can hurt it while I distract it.”

Zach opened his mouth to deny the possibility, then paused as he realized that there was, in fact, a way. “Actually…well, yeah. I mean, if I had enough distance and could get behind it. But I don’t like the idea of you—”

“Okay, then do it!”

Before Zach could utter another word to her, Kalana was sprinting towards the dragon, who itself was charging towards Kalana, giving Zach exactly the distance, space, and positioning that he needed. Even still, it was incredibly hard for him to focus when the love of his life was perpetually just a single bite, scratch, stomp, or fireball away from being turned into roadkill or a burnt piece of toast.

Almost from the moment the two clashed, things ended up back in the air again. For some reason, it seemed like any time Kalana tussled with the dragon, things inevitably ended up in the sky. Zach wasn’t sure if that was just a biproduct of both their temperaments or maybe some other factor, but the two of them just did not seem capable of keeping the fight on the ground. Seriously!

The exact instant that the two met, Ziragoth struck out with its wing, Kalana flipped over it and landed onto its back, causing Ziragoth to again take to the skies, and now, Zach was left down here shaking his head in absolute disbelief as Kalana did cartwheels on its back, pissing it off even more while it flew through a cloud. Why couldn’t she just fight like a normal person? The two of them and their fucking sky acrobatics. Zach had enough of this already!

Every second brought Zach closer to the verge of panic as the strangest back-and-forth he’d ever witnessed played out in the North-Bastian summer sky. At an almost predictable interval, Ziragoth would flip its body violently, launching Kal off of it, then try to snatch her out of the air with its mouth. Somehow, Kal would always manage to jump off its mouth—and in one instance, its fang—and put herself out of harm’s way as it snapped shut. This would typically see her landing once more on its back, repeating the process all over again.

It did help Zach to understand one thing, however. Up until now, he hadn’t been sure if Kal had the same penchant for predicting enemy attacks that he did. But now, he could clearly see that the two of them were different. Whereas Zach was able to evade the dragon by reading its body language, Kalana was just so damn fast and had such incredible cat-like reflexes that she was able to more-or-less survive attack after attack even while having no clue what was coming at her.

The problem with this, however, was that as a result of it, every time she avoided something the dragon sent her way, she did so at the last possible second, making it virtually impossible for Zach to know whether or not he should Phase Rescue. And that was why, after the absolute circus taking place in the skies became too much for him to mentally handle another second of, he activated boundless and then Phase Rescue, pulling her back to his side.

Predictably, she reappeared grumpy. Somehow, even before the blue light faded and deposited her next to him, her arms were already pre-folded in disapproval and she was giving him an icy glare.

“Zach! Why’d you blue-thing warp me? I was doing perfectly—”

“I don’t even want to hear it!” he shouted at her. “Kal, can you please stop fighting the thing in the Gods-damned sky? I’m serious!”

“But it’s fun,” she grumbled, pouting.

“FUN?” he screamed at her. Then he pointed to the dragon, which was trying yet again to divebomb the two of them. “I thought I was going to have a fucking heart attack, Kal. It almost ate you like fifteen times.”

“Zach, please, language,” Mr. Oren said over the Comm.

“Gods-dammit leave me alone with your fucking language rules!” he screamed back, ripping the Comm out of his ear and throwing it onto the ground before stepping on it and smashing it to pieces. “Shit, I actually needed that.”

Kalana tsked. “See? You broke it. This is why I said you need—”

“I DON’T NEED FUCKING ANGER MANAGEMENT! Now run.”

Yet again, Zach tried—and failed—to outrun the dragon-turned-homing-missile, and instead, he was forced to scoop up Kalana and Phase Blink away with her a second time as Ziragoth crashed into the terrain with explosive force. And also like before, upon turning itself around to face in their direction, it proved itself to still be totally fixated on killing Kalana.

“Listen, Kal,” Zach said to her, even as the dragon began to charge. “If I use a maximum-distance wave slash and aim for its weak point, I think I can—oh, no. Oh, you mother….!”

Even before he’d finished speaking, Kalana was back in the Gods-damned-mother-fucking sky! Had she listened to nothing he said? Why did she have to fight it up there? The wyvern had the advantage in any kind of aerial encounter. Did Kalana not know that? Was Kalana not actually aware that she was not a dragon? This was some kind of disease or mental illness. It had to be. Because she was definitely doing this on purpose. Zach had managed to fight Ziragoth way more than she had—across two different regions, nonetheless—without ever once ending up in the sky. (Doomsday Slash doesn’t count, that’s different!) This was just too aggravating. No man should have to deal with this level of stress.

Why the hell did she have to keep fighting in the sky? This was bullshit!

Chapter 102: SYSTEM BREACH

Chapter 102: SYSTEM BREACH

Adamus opened his eyes. He had seen more than enough. There was now sufficient data for him to know how events would conclude with near certainty. At this point, continuing to watch would serve no purpose other than entertainment, and that, without question, was unethical. His system was not designed to be “entertainment” for self-proclaimed “Gods” to watch as if for sport. His creations did not spill blood so that he could draw some kind of sick, twisted enjoyment from it. No, he found that so utterly distasteful. His responsibility was to observe only that which was sufficient to form an understanding of Galterra’s probable trajectory and to uphold the system.

Of course, not everyone agreed with him. That much was obvious from the raucous shouting, cheering, and gasps from his OMP agents, which were loud enough that he could hear them through several solid walls. He imagined nearly every eye was glued to a terminal screen, watching as the raid entered its final stage. Yet Adamus did not interfere with their desires. If they wished to observe, so be it. It was more a personal dislike, and one that Adamus did not make the issue of others.

For the time being, he had far greater matters to attend to. There was a problem that had arisen, though he did not yet know what it might be. He could only sense that something had gone wrong as his mind detected a presence about to board his station. One of his best trackers had returned, and he seemed distressed.

Adamus could feel him—and his precise location—as the man’s small, single-person shuttle docked. Then, Adamus sat at his desk and waited patiently as the man underwent arrival procedures, passed through several airlocks, and began making his way down many of the narrow corridors that eventually led to his office. Even before the sound of a knock came from his door, Adamus called out and said, “Come in, Zylor.”

The door opened, and into Adamus’s office strode Zylor Ursock, one of Adamus’s most proficient agents from the secretive OMP station 7. He was a man who looked to be in his early thirties despite pushing three hundred, with spiky black hair, scars that ran down both sides of his face, and a crooked chin. When Adamus had found him, he had been a gang member and killer for hire. But now, he served the system. And he did so from a genuine place of support. Much like Adamus, he understood that the system was the way forward for sentient life and the goodness of all people.

“Adamus,” he said, offering a respectful bow of his head.

“Has something happened, dear boy? You are troubled.”

Zylor nodded. “Yeah, something’s happened, all right.” He curled his nose as though in disgust. “There’s been a system breach.”

Adamus sat up straighter. Though hardly ever perturbed, if there was one thing that could cause him some degree of upset, it was hearing one of his trackers say those words. “Of what sort?”

Zylor hesitated a moment, then licked his bottom lip as though nervous. “Outside intrusion.”

“What?” Adamus lowered his eyes a moment and slowly shook his head. “Surely not.”

“Wish it wasn’t so, but…it’s true.”

“You are positive of this, dear boy? An outside intrusion?”

“That’s not even the half of it, actually,” Zylor said, becoming visibly disturbed.

“What has happened? Please, tell me what you know.”

“It’s your wife, Eilea. She’s gone and messed with things real bad.”

“How badly?”

He drew a breath. “She’s brought a Gods-be-damned original here.”

Adamus coughed, then excused himself and covered his mouth. The man’s words had caused him a rare moment of shock. “It cannot be. She would not!”

“She has.”

“Do you mean to tell me there is an actual human being on Galterra?”

“That’s right. Fully unmodified. A Psych, as they would have called him in his time.”

The words struck Adamus hard. Putting their thousand-year squabble aside, how could Eilea even begin to do something of this nature? This extended so far beyond treacherous it bordered on outright madness. Aside from the lizardmen, all sentient life on Galterra hailed from a progenitor species known as homo sapiens. Superficially, they were a species that looked, acted, and behaved like Galterran humans, which were modeled after them. But none of them were meant to exist in this time. In fact, the average homo sapien was not even compatible with the system, as the original human race contained no inner potential.

If an ordinary human were to appear on Galterra, they would die within moments. Only a very specific and rare type of human could possibly stand upon Galterran soil and live: the type whose genetics formed the basis of all living Galterrans today, including those that had been spliced within the lizardmen. They were people who in a far less sophisticated, unscientific age were called “wizards” or “sorcerers,” and then a great deal later were known as “Psychs.” These were people born with specific abilities that could not be stripped away from them even if integrated into the system.

If a Psych were to find its way into the system, the individual would be able to unlock both the powers gained from leveling as well as draw upon their own natural abilities, such as the ability to move objects with their mind, manipulate chemical compositions, assassinate others with just their thoughts, or harden their bodies into something far stronger than steel. The system was not built to handle this. The entire purpose of it was to unlock the potential within beings through effort and cooperation: not be born with it. Such an unfair advantage: it offended Adamus so deeply that it moved him to actual anger.

“Who is this intruder?” he asked.

“I know his name and a basic description, but not his current whereabouts. He’s been shielded from tracking.”

“Tell me. Who is he and what does he look like?”

“His name is Jimmy Thomas Green. He’s nineteen years old, black, of average height with short black hair, brown eyes, and a birthmark below his belly button. At least…based on the autopsy report filed thousands of years ago.”

Adamus closed his eyes a moment. “I doubt he is complicit in any of this,” he whispered.

“So what do ya want me to do?”

“You must handle this, Zylor. But I ask you to please not be barbaric with the boy. This is most certainly no fault of his own. If possible, I should like you to handle it such that he does not feel any pain.”

“You got it. I just need to find him first.”

Adamus sat back in his chair and rubbed his forehead. Eilea had gone too far this time. Locking her away did not appear to be sufficient. He now had to make a very consequential decision as to whether or not the woman needed to be erased for good. How could she ever imagine that he would let her get away with a crime of this magnitude? If the Great Ones from that era ever caught wind of what she’d done, it could result in the elimination of the system and everyone in it. She had crossed too big a line, and now, he needed time to think.

*****

A stranger to this world, Jimmy had no idea what was going on or what the significance of the shit on TV was. Whatever it was, though, it was definitely having a powerful impact on the way everyone around here was acting. To be clear, this wasn’t the first time he’d seen a bunch of old people go from hysterical crying to cheering. That was just called watching football. But even then, it sure wasn’t like this. These people were losing their minds.

To be fair to them, though, Jimmy had a sense that if he understood more about this world, he might be just as worried as they were. He might not have known just what in the hell any of this meant, but he had a pretty good sense of danger, and the way they were acting made him feel like he might be caught up in this too.

If I wasn’t so busy trying to figure so many things out, I might even care.

When he’d woken up this morning, he’d really hoped it would be in his own bed. He’d hoped this would all have been some kind of crazy dream. But nope. He was still here, in this…in wherever this was. But he was taking it in stride, all things considered. Mom taught him to be a survivor, and that was what he was. That was why, rather than pester these nice people with another million questions, he decided to appreciate their hospitality and do his best to contribute while piecing things together for himself.

Yesterday, upon realizing he had no place to go and no one to call, they’d actually offered him a job and a place to stay. They said the pay wouldn’t be much, but he’d have a bed to sleep in at night and three-square meals. For the sake of survival, Jimmy immediately took them up on the offer. He would seek out answers to his questions in time, but for now, before he did a single other thing, he needed to make sure he had food and shelter. Only then could he worry about wrapping his mind around how and why he was here at all.

One thing was for sure, though: he knew he wasn’t crazy. Even if no one believed him, he would not doubt himself. He knew who he was, and he knew where he came from. He also could vividly recall the events that took place just before coming here. He was not crazy. He was Jimmy Green, and he was damn well going to get through this.

At any rate, things were getting stranger around here. After a pretty good breakfast—they had eggs and toast here, thank God—he began the day by mopping the floors and finishing up whatever dishes hadn’t been washed the night before. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the kind of work he imagined doing when he’d taken out all those student loans so he could work towards getting a STEM degree, but it would be all right at least for the moment. The key was survival. Everything he did for the time being had to be towards that goal.

So, yeah, Jimmy did what he had to do. He cleaned, he mopped, and the early-morning routine distracted him enough that, his current situation aside, things actually started to approach something in the ballpark of “normal.” But then everyone had run over to the TVs—or whatever they were called—and that was when the overall mood changed. Real talk for a second? Jimmy was starting to think the dragon was real. Like in Skyrim or some shit.

Honestly, it was wild. They had the news on, right? And it was like regular news, except they were talking like it was a video game. Talking about things like “level 70” and “mobs.” They were making it sound like this was some kind of MMO. God, Jimmy hoped so. If that was the case, it might even make sense why he was here. He was perpetually the top on any server of any game he played. It was amazing he managed to do well in his classes with how much time he spent gaming. And while he was probably just misunderstanding what he was hearing or seeing, he couldn’t help but hope that, as impossible as such a thing seemed, there really was a world out there that worked like an MMO. He would be so damn good at it. If that was the case, this would turn from a nightmare to a dream.

There’s no way that can be real, though. It ain’t possible.

It sure did seem real, though. They were even calling the fight with the dragon a “raid.” Actually, not to be a dick, but whoever their raid leaders were, they were bad. Like terrible. It was like they’d never done this before. What were they even doing? The mages clearly had the ability to cast AOEs. That much was obvious from the big, terrifyingly realistic explosions that came through the TV speakers. So what was going on here, then?

What they should have done was have the tanks aggro as many of those raptor-looking things as possible and try to clump them all together into a tight killbox. Then they could’ve had the mages spam AOEs on them all at the same time. Problem solved. Why in the hell were they trying to take them on in separate groups like that? These dudes were bad. It was actually disgusting to watch. He even started yelling at the TV with all the old people.

That one kid looked pretty good, though. And who was that chick jumping all over the dragon? When the cameras had zoomed in on her earlier, she kind of looked like that one girl who—

Jimmy gasped as something important came back to him: something he’d forgotten amid the shock of it all.

“If you find yourself lost and confused, tap your shoulder three times and read the note I left you.”

Did she mean that literally? Jimmy looked around. No one was paying attention to him. Even still, he went into the bathroom down at the other end of the inn, shut the door, flicked the light-switch, and then stared at himself in the mirror.

“This is dumb as hell,” he muttered, lifting his hand. “But whatever.” And with that, he gave himself three quick taps on his shoulder—causing absolutely nothing to happen. “Of course not,” he said, laughing at his own stupidity. Even still, for the sake of humoring himself, he decided to try the other shoulder instead.

Then he stopped laughing.

Chapter 103: Nightmare’s End

Chapter 103: Nightmare’s End

Every year, at the beginning of the semester, the students at Zach’s high school had the option to join a club as an extracurricular activity. Zach had always thought it seemed like a fun, interesting thing to do, but between studying for tests and his then-job delivering pizzas via bicycle, he never really had the spare time to participate. But one of his friends had. His name was Laran Olentar, and he’d joined the archery club. And he was good, too: so good, in fact, that he wound up being recruited by a scouter to play for the Whispery Woods in the professional marksmanship tournaments.

Some people, it seemed, just had a natural gift for it. And of these people, those who spent their time practicing and refining their abilities could go on to perform stunning feats. Zach distinctly remembered him and his dad sitting around the viewing screen and watching Laran hit targets the size of an orange with a rifle from almost 4,000 feet away. But as amazing as he was, Laran wasn’t even in the top 100 humanity-wide. There were better, even more talented people out there: people whose entire lives were dedicated to doing nothing other than getting good at just that one activity.

And why did this matter?

Because, fair or not, with 192 points into dexterity, Zach was probably thousands of times better than the best level-1 marksman in the entire world. Hell, even with 10 dex, he would still probably be able to outcompete the greatest sharpshooter who’d ever lived: someone who’d dedicated their entire life to it. No matter how much practice, it wasn’t actually possible for his high-school friend—or any level 1—to achieve the level of ability that was earned simply through increasing stats. And this was something that Zach needed to remind himself of as he watched Kalana bounce and flip around Ziragoth, the two of them scuffling in the sky.

I need to learn to stop thinking like a level 1, Zach told himself. Every time I get into a mess like this, there’s always so many things I don’t even consider doing because I’m still not used to the fact that they’re even possible.

Zach switched his grip on his sword so that he held it in just his left hand. Then he fully extended his arm in front of him so that it was perfectly level with his chest, the end of his blade pointing straight up. Now, he closed his left eye and focused on the back edge of the blade almost as though it were the sights of a gun. Slowly, he moved his arm up and down, adjusting its positioning while also keeping track of the dragon’s location in the sky. It was a fair bit of distance away, and its back was turned to him. Every other second, Zach rotated his body left or right, getting everything lined up exactly as needed.

Even though he’d never been trained or instructed on how to do what he was about to attempt, Zach’s body just “knew” what needed to be done. It was simply a feeling—a sense—that he had. And it was one that likely became stronger and more accurate with each point into dexterity. That, coupled with his natural gift for predicting movement, made him realize that he was perfectly suited for this kind of task—as long as he could get his concern for Kalana under control.

The fear that something terrible could happen to her at any given moment made it hard for him to remain patient and concentrate. But patience and concentration were exactly what he needed in order to make sure he didn’t mess this up. As unsettling as it was to watch her narrowly avoid the dragon’s snapping jaws time and time again, it would serve neither of them any good if it ended up affecting his judgement. After all, what he was about to attempt was something that no level 1 in existence could ever achieve through anything other than pure luck. This would be like trying to throw a rubber ball into a plastic cup from a mile away. Actually, no—that was a really bad example, because that wouldn’t be difficult for him at all. Not with 192 dex, anyway. This, on the other hand, would be way, way harder, because he’d be trying to hit a very fast target that was soaring through the skies with an attack that began slow and ended fast.

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Ziragoth’s roars had been picking up in both volume and frequency. Whatever Kalana was doing, it was really upsetting the wyvern. Oddly enough, however, Zach almost thought he could detect a note of frustration in each of Ziragoth’s cries. At this point, Zach was either losing his mind, or he’d actually heard enough of them that he was beginning to discern emotion from the variations in pitch, duration, and volume. Either way, it was something for him to store in his mind for later, when the adventuring guilds would ask about it.

Assuming Zach lived to see tomorrow, he and everyone on this raid—including the political guild members—had all promised to cooperate with the adventuring guilds in creating a comprehensive document of all their findings and experiences to pass on to successive generations. It would be added together with the existing documentation and duplicated. One of the errors of the past that Mr. Oren and others were working to correct was the lack of information on boss spawns. For this reason, adventurers, especially those in Zephyr’s Explorers Brigade, were meticulous about taking note of everything they could for every boss they came across.

I’m just glad this thing probably won’t spawn again in my lifetime. Fucking Gods-cursed dragon!

Zach continued to study his target while he waited for the perfect moment to attack. Ziragoth was flying off to his left and flipping itself completely around midair, causing Kalana to pop up even higher. For a second, Zach felt a tremendous flood of fear burst in his chest as Ziragoth appeared to adjust its tactics, delivering a powerful flap of its wings and ascending at a much faster speed so that it actually flew up and above Kalana, who herself was still rising. Now, positioned above her, it snapped down at her—and missed.

Gods, that was close!

Kalana had yet again somehow outmaneuvered the dragon. A moment before she flew up—and into—Ziragoth’s waiting, opened mouth, her entire body transformed into a literal blaze of fire, something that Zach had actually seen her do for the first time yesterday. Thus, rather than find herself turned into a snack for the wyvern, she instead burned through it and reappeared as her usual self above, landing once more on its back. She also healed it for 9,211 damage but, all things considered, that really didn’t mean a thing. It was well worth it to avoid being eaten alive.

Now, continuing their back-and-forth, Ziragoth spun itself around midair, and it began to fly at an even faster speed in the opposite direction—to Zach’s right. Right away, Zach knew that this would be a really great opportunity: the fourth of such opportunities, as he’d been forced to pass up the other three due to Vim recovering.

“Vim!” he called out. “Are you ready yet? I’ve got another perfect shot coming up!”

When Vim didn’t reply, Zach glanced over his shoulder while doing his best to keep the rest of his body in the same position. Vim, along with Peter and Fylwen, were standing in a line together about twenty-five feet away in the direction of the wall. At the moment, Vim was holding something in his hand, which he waved in the air. It was a small electronic device—a Comm, it looked like—which he then flung at Zach. Zach caught it with his right hand then placed the device in his ear.

“Try not to break this one as well, Zach,” he said.

“Yeah, sorry, uhh…my last Comm fell out and I accidentally stepped on it. Anyway, are you ready yet?”

Vim released an exhausted sigh, but then surprised Zach with his reply. “Yes, I think I can handle another cast.”

“Finally!”

A rush of energy traveled down his back in the form of a nervous, excited shiver. This was it. This was the moment Zach had been waiting for. Within the next minute, he planned on finishing Ziragoth once and for all. The very thought of it filled him with equal parts hope and fear. But he was confident in his decision. Having survived combat with the dragon longer than anybody else, he was sure he understood the creature enough to know this would work.

And so, now that Vim was ready to go, he carefully pivoted on his heels, positioning his blade around 60 degrees clockwise to where Ziragoth’s current position was in the sky. He ignored the part of his brain telling him that what he was attempting to do was an impossible, laughable waste of time. After all, an unhelpful thought like that was exactly the kind of level-1 thinking he was trying to get rid of.

“Kal, are you ready?” he asked, fully aware of the slight tremble in his voice.

“Yup!”

Zach inhaled deeply, then held the breath as his nerves made him jittery. He fought not to let it get to his head. If they pulled this off, the nightmare would finally be over. He would never have to worry about this evil, piece-of-shit dragon ever again for the rest of his life. He could spend his whole summer with Kal. He could hang out with her in Angelica’s. He could do whatever he wanted! The dragon was the only thing standing in his way. With that thought in mind, he continued to hold the breath within him, and then, with an exhale, he shouted out, “Wave Slash!” and swung his sword downwards.

Following the motion of his blade, a green, patchy, cloud-like clump of energy formed in an S-shape in the air before him. But it did not hold this shape for long at all. No, at a speed even faster than Zach had calculated, it reformed itself into the shape of a disc before becoming solid, metallic, and double-bladed.

One thing Zach had learned from past experiences was that, the higher his strength, the faster it solidified and the faster it initially moved. Although all uses of Wave Slash—if given enough distance—would eventually reach the same absurdly fast speed, it would always initially begin painfully slow before accelerating to something faster than the eye could follow. With 209 points into strength, Zach had assumed this overall process would take place far faster than it usually did when calling upon this ability.

As it turned out, it was way faster than even his fairly high estimates.

Turning into the double-bladed, metallic disc significantly ahead of Zach’s projections, he swore loudly in vexation as he watched his projectile blast off into the sky and begin to pick up speed. Along with a whistling sound that gradually increased in volume, a trail of smoke—eventually flame—followed on its heels as the Wave Slash literally burned its way through the air.

Zach, filling with utter self-loathing, could not believe he had failed. Not only was he poised to miss the dragon’s weak spot, but his Wave Slash was likely to miss the dragon entirely. Even worse, it had cost him 1:10 of his remaining time on Unleashed Phase, and now he was down to just 7:22. Gods, he was royally pissed at himself right now. At a time like this, and on a day like today, this was the kind of mistake that he could not afford to make—and yet that was exactly what he had done. Or at least, that was how it seemed at first. But then Kalana ran along the dragon’s back, spat in its face, and then kicked off its head with such force that it sent her hurtling hundreds of feet ahead of it at an even faster rate than it was flying.

Ziragoth, having been provoked, roared and began to fly even faster as though intent on finally catching its Elvish tormenter and teaching her a lesson. Zach could see the grin on Kalana’s face even as it began to catch up. She’d actually done it. She’d baited the dragon right into position.

“That good, Zach?”

“I…I think so!”

He now had to speak a bit more loudly to be heard over the high-pitched whistling that was beginning to drown out all other sounds. It became so loud, and the flame trailing behind it became so profound, that even as Ziragoth flew forward at Kalana, its eyes turned in the direction of the projectile. And then it stopped short and released yet another, startled-sounding roar as though finally realizing what was coming its way. Extending its wings, it brought itself to a halt midair, causing a blast of air to rush forward and send Kalana even farther away.

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

In a way that actually appeared frantic, Ziragoth began wildly flapping its wings as though attempting to spin itself around and avoid the double-bladed disc, which was ripping through the air as it approached closer and closer. It almost succeeded, too: almost. But at a speed so fast that it was just about to the point of breaking apart, the double-bladed disc landed exactly where Zach had hoped, striking the wyvern in the area three-quarters of the way down its back. And with that came the cry of pain and surprise.

Take that, you bastard!

Although Zach would have liked to see his Wave Slash cleave the dragon cleanly into two separate pieces, he had absolutely no expectation of that taking place—and indeed, it didn’t. Regardless, he was more than satisfied by the nine or maybe even ten individual scales that were ripped off its body, as well as a thick volume of dark red blood that leaked out of the beast, which had just taken 611,251 damage. Yet as satisfying as it was to see Ziragoth experience more pain, it was not actually the purpose of Zach’s attack. No, the purpose was to create the opportunity he needed to unleash a full, devastating ten seconds of torment on the dragon: enough to kill the son of a bitch so that it never caused anyone to suffer ever again. From the looks of things, Zach was about to get exactly what he wanted.

He released a cheer as he saw that he’d succeeded in knocking the wyvern right out of the sky, and his cheer was soon echoed by almost every surviving raid member. Taken completely off balance by the impact with the disc, Ziragoth tried to compensate by flapping its wings even harder. But this only caused it to spin faster and faster as it plunged down for an incredibly ungraceful landing, suffering yet another 11,410 damage as a result of its hard, uncontrolled impact. The sound of its body hitting the ground was more of a thwap this time around than a boom.

HP

15,828,672/25,000,000

Name

(T10) Ziragoth the Awoken

Level

70

A moment after Ziragoth slammed into the dirt, gravity seemed to finally assert itself, and Kalana began to fall back down to the surface as well. Yet even as she picked up speed, she flipped her body right-side up, looking well positioned for a controlled, smooth landing. Despite knowing she would be absolutely fine, there was still a part of Zach that grew uncomfortable at the idea of his girlfriend falling out of the sky and plummeting hundreds of feet. But that, as always, was the product of level-1 thinking.

Kal could probably fall from orbit and be fine.

With the end at last in sight, Zach released a breath he was unaware he’d been holding, and then he drew another one immediately. “Now!” he cried over the Comm as the dragon began to pick itself up. This was it. This was the moment to end the horror. The dragon had been knocked out of the sky, and Zach was ready to finally slay it once and for all. Everything had worked out the way he’d planned. He needed to seize the opportunity. He was hungry for victory. He wanted this to finally be over!

All three buffs landed on him in the same instant, and like before, his body was now encased in a golden halo of brilliant light. And with that, he burst forward into a full-on sprint in the direction of the dragon. It was time to kill this awful creature. It was time to be free of this nightmare! The desperation to rid the world of the atrocious wyvern drove him forward, making him feel even more alive, awake, and alert.

“Phase Slash!” he cried out as he ran, slashing down against the air. “Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash!”

As he struck four times on his way to the dragon, forming four distortions in the air, he was aware that he’d now brought himself down to just 2:31 remaining on Unleashed Phase. But at the same time, he didn’t care. This might be his only chance to kill Ziragoth. He doubted there would be another. He had to do as much as he possibly could during these ten seconds, during which he’d be powerful enough to actually put it down. He could spare nothing: not time, not effort. He was going to kill it. He was going to fucking kill it!

More than three-quarters of the way to Ziragoth, whose partially destroyed face came across as somewhat dazed as it picked itself up, he rejoiced as his first Phase Slash found its target. Like before, it exploded. And now, with the second one following right on the heels of the first, Zach watched gleefully as the wyvern was pushed back several feet and suffered a massive…

…

0…damage?

Panic, confusion, hatred, and desperation all melded together in Zach’s brain as his Phase Slash failed to deliver so much as a scratch to the vile dragon. Even worse, the second one met the same result—and so did the third and the fourth. Sure, each impact pushed it farther and farther back, causing it to leave behind dual streaks in the ground that ran several feet deep as it slid away on its feet, but that was about all it did. Now, Zach saw that its wings had once more become interlocked, serving as a sort of shield that not even his Phase Slash could break apart.

Horrified, baffled, and even a bit nauseous, Zach refused to believe what his eyes were seeing. Having spent a combined total of four minutes and forty seconds on just those few abilities alone, a sense of overwhelming doom and defeat began to creep up on him. Yet he held it at bay. He forced himself to tamp down on it. By the time he reached Ziragoth, he still had eight seconds left. Maybe if he pummeled it hard enough, he could still kill it. Right now, he couldn’t afford to think. He couldn’t afford to speculate. He could only afford to act.

And act, he did.

Zach threw all caution to the wind and unleashed everything he had into Ziragoth with reckless abandon. Having entered into a state of total panic and denial, he wielded his sword more like a hammer than a blade as he bludgeoned it over and over against Ziragoth’s wings, caring little for form or elegance. Striking so hard he grunted loudly each time, he pummeled it again and again and again, and for his efforts, he was rewarded with the sound of a louder and louder crack each time. Maybe if he hit it even harder it would break! And so that was exactly what he did.

With sweat now pouring down his forehead from both exertion and the rapidly rising summer temperature, Zach groaned and grunted as he hit the dragon one time after the next as the seconds counted down. Crack, crack, crack. Why wouldn’t it break? He hit it even harder. He was now crying out with the exertion of it all. He was losing his shit. Why wouldn’t this fucking thing die? Why wouldn’t it break. Argh! Argh! Argh! He hit it more and more, but it just wouldn’t give.

0

0

0

0

0

And then his time ran out, the golden light faded, and the dragon seemed to understand what this meant, because as soon as it was over, Ziragoth pulled its wings apart and glared at Zach through misery-filled eyes, even as blood continued to pour out of the missing chunk of its mouth and from portions of its stomach. Zach, having applied such relentless brute force, had exhausted himself, too. And now he was panting and in a weakened, vulnerable state.

“I guess…” Zach huffed. “I guess you’re going to attack Kalana again, right?”

“GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Yeah…I didn’t think so.”

Crestfallen, Zach wasn’t sure how he still had the willpower to back away and out of range of the dragon’s serrated wing, which came closer to splitting open his stomach than at any point since the raid had begun. Clearly sensing Zach’s weakness, it had once more chosen to make him its sole and only target, and given what had just happened, he couldn’t fault the wyvern’s decision. The level of hopelessness and fatigue he felt were such that if not for Kalana screaming at him to dodge, he might’ve wearily let the dragon smash him into the ground with its barbed tail. But this, too, he somehow avoided.

It's hopeless. We can’t win. There’s nothing we can do!

Zach’s morale didn’t just plummet: it faded entirely. Even though there was still so much fire inside of him—a deep, motivating desire to kill this filthy, winged rat—there was nothing he could possibly do that would work anymore. The dragon had learned that all it had to do was block when Zach gave off the gold light. And even if Zach built up a few more minutes’ worth of Unleashed Phase with his stamina proc and tried again, it would only be a repeat of what just happened.

Sure, he could use Phase Blink to get behind Ziragoth and try getting at it that way, but the dragon was too fast, and even if he scored a lucky hit or two, it would still turn around quickly enough to block any follow-up strikes. And if he tried to combine Phase Blink with Phase Slash, he was going to need way more time to pull that off: and that would require a level of luck he didn’t think was with him today. Put simply, ten seconds just wasn’t a long enough duration to get the job done. For Zach to win using any combination involving Phase Blink, Vim would probably have to cast the fucking thing ten more times, and what was the chance of that happening? No, there was just nothing he could do. Nothing!

“Zach, you have brought so much honor to yourself,” Fylwen said over the Comm, her words coming across as odd and unexpected. “You fought bravely, young man, and I am proud of you. What is happening now is no fault of your own. Take my daughter and come with me back to my domain. You will be welcome in my kingdom in Archian Prime, and of course, I will heal you. But I believe it is time for us to leave.”

Her words shocked Zach. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. In particular, because she'd been so adamant about not fleeing just a few moments ago. For her to come out and say this must have meant she genuinely did not believe this fight was winnable.

“Y-you’re leaving us?” one of the adventurers cried.

“We can’t give up yet!” Mr. Oren snapped. “Your Majesty, please!”

Bickering and fighting immediately took over the Comm chatter the moment Fylwen had finished speaking, and Zach was too exhausted by this point to even bother interjecting. And, what was more, he couldn’t even deny that Fylwen was right. Maybe it really was time to grab Kalana and go. Of course, that would be easier said than done, since she clearly didn’t agree. Right away, Kalana began protesting and swearing that she wouldn’t abandon the raid.

“You and Zach can go, mom. But l have to stay.”

“Nonsense! You are coming with us. Even if we have to drag you!”

More and more voices got involved in the argument, and more and more of Ziragoth’s ruthless attacks were sent Zach’s way. Worst of all, even with the few weak, half-hearted counterstrikes Zach managed to retaliate with, his stamina buff was simply not proc’ing. It was as though his luck had run out in the literal sense. He was actually so exhausted now that he’d likely need to proc it multiple times just to refill his own stamina, let alone add time to his Unleashed Phase, which was now down to 2:15.

Gods, what was he supposed to do? If only there was a way. If only there was something he had in his bag of tricks that might still work. He had his ring, of course, but he doubted even that would break through the dragon’s impenetrable wing-shield. Truly, as long as the dragon was able to block, he would be unable to hurt it. And since stuns and whatever else wouldn’t work due to everyone’s stats being too low, there was no way that Zach could—

Wait a minute! Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute!

Like a lightbulb going off in his head, an idea blasted into Zach with the force of a fireball from Ziragoth. Even as he was leaping into the air and twisting his body to narrowly avoid being caught by one of the serrated wings, he felt an immediate return of his willpower: of his hope.

“Everyone shut up!” he shouted into the Comm. “Please, listen to me. We can still win!” To his surprise, everyone did shut up and listen to him: all of them. Suddenly, there was quiet. “Vim. Are you there?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m right behind you where I was before. Do you have a plan?”

“Yeah, actually, I really do. But first I need you to tell me something: can you cast ZOE twice in a row?”

“No, not a chance,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll die.”

Zach whipped his blade across Ziragoth’s face. He was so exhausted he only hit for 810, but as though the Gods had chosen to finally give him a gift, the dark green aura surrounded his body, and the subsequent rush of energy managed to chase away his gloom all on its own. In a mere instant, Zach went from feeling haggard and about to collapse to feeling as though he’d just woken up this morning from a deep, satisfying sleep. It also added about 4 seconds to his current duration of Unleashed Phase.

“I didn’t ask if you’d die,” Zach said, now speaking more confidently. “I asked if you could just, you know, do it.”

“Well, if put in those terms, I guess I could.”

Zach felt the rising hope within him explode and become ten times greater at Vim’s answer. “I need you to do that, then.”

Vim made a slight grunt. “Do you know what you’re doing? Are you sure about this?”

Zach nodded despite the fact that Vim likely couldn’t even see it. But it did somewhat confuse Ziragoth, which was evident from the way the dragon slightly pulled back as if wondering whether or not the gesture was a form of attack. “I know how to kill it now. I really do. It just came to me.”

Vim sighed. “Well, shit. I guess I’m going to die today after all. Just be sure you know what you’re doing. You’re asking us to put the fate of all our lives in this one decision. If you’re wrong, that’s the end of us.”

“It’s the end of us either way at this rate. But I’m telling you: I know how to kill it. I just need to—”

Zach’s words cut off as he dashed forward at full speed, threw himself onto his back, and then literally slid forward beneath the dragon, who had come so close just now to stomping him into the dirt that Zach had to wiggle his neck and rotate his shoulder muscles just to reassure himself he was actually unharmed. Upon shooting back up to his feet, he continued, “If you do this, I promise you we’ll win. Believe me: no one wants to make it through this as much as I do. But I need you guys to have my back on this.”

Peter’s voice was next to come through the Comm, and of all things, he preceded his words with a hearty chuckle. “Well said, Zach. You have my full support. I will aid you in any way that you require.”

“I trust you as well, young man,” Fylwen added. “Tell me: what are you planning? Do you want us to buff you twice in a row? Is that what you’re asking?”

“No, actually. I need you to buff me and someone else at the same time.”

“Someone else?” Vim asked. “Who?”

In truth, Zach realized that his idea could be carried out numerous ways by numerous different individuals. Right now, of those still alive on the raid, there were about three-hundred people he could ask for help, and any number of them might be able to do what he required. Yet with time no longer on his side, and with desperation weighing heavily on his mind, he decided to go with what he knew. And what he knew for sure was that there was one person here who could definitely help put an end to this once and for all. Not only had Zach personally witnessed him use the particular ability he required, but he was someone Zach was sure he could trust not to fail.

“Donovan,” he said over the Comm. “Please. I need your help.”

Donovan replied immediately. He did not ask questions. He did not make inquiries. Without even a tenth of a second of hesitation, he said, “You don’t even gotta ask.” And with that, Zach could see him breaking away from the add he was fighting so that he could hurry over in his direction. Even as he ran towards where Zach was busy squaring off against the dragon, he said, “Just tell me what you need.”

Out of everything that had transpired so far, explaining his plan to Donovan should have been the easy part. Yet as Zach began to speak, he realized that, while everything made clear sense in his head, actually trying to convey this information while a dragon was attempting to eviscerate you was actually really hard, and so he struggled a bit.

“I need…I need you to use that uhh…gahh, fuck! I don’t know how to explain it while I’m fighting this Gods-damned—”

“I can explain,” Mr. Oren quickly interjected. “I know exactly what Zach’s thinking. As soon as he mentioned casting the combination twice, it clicked in my head. It’s brilliant. Honestly, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this myself. Zach, I’m proud of you, my man.”

Zach came so close to having his head bit off that he could only pray that Mr. Oren really did understand his intentions, because right now, he was too preoccupied to reply. Thankfully, as Mr. Oren began to speak, Zach saw that he did indeed understand what he had been thinking—well, sort of. He took things a bit further and ended up making Zach seem smarter than he actually was.

“Donovan,” Mr. Oren began, “Zach wants Sir Brayspark, Sir Alazar, and Her Majesty to use the combination on you so that your stats will be sufficient enough to inflict status effects. In particular, I believe Zach wants you to use your ability ‘Falling Mountain’ on the dragon, stunning it for ten seconds and rendering it defenseless. He chose you—wisely—because you have the second-highest strength out of all of us, and you are likely the only person on the entire raid whose strength stat will be high enough following the combination to land your stun. You also open up the possibility of creating a chain.”

Wow, Zach thought, feeling somewhat embarrassed. I knew almost none of that. I only picked Donovan because I don’t know what anyone else here can do. I had no idea he was the only one who could actually succeed.

With a nervous, slight laugh that no one including Ziragoth could overhear, Zach decided he wasn’t going to mention any of that to them right now—or ever. In truth, he was just glad to have the big guy by his side. Despite having only met him recently, Zach could tell that Donovan was one of the most dependable people he was likely to ever encounter, and also one of the most selfless as well. That was why, as he drew nearer, Zach felt a nervous pinch of acid in his stomach. If the choice Zach made ended up getting Donovan killed, he would never forgive himself for having made it. But what else could he do? He was desperate, and there were no longer any other options.

I doubt he’d even blame me if I caused him to die. No, he definitely wouldn’t. That’s not the kind of person he is.

As Donovan at last reached Zach’s location then ran behind the dragon to get himself into position, he gave Zach a quick, confident nod of the head, and the certainty in his expression provided a great sense of reassurance. It was something Zach really needed right around now.

“Let’s do this, kiddo. You and me, buddy. I’ll stun that fucker like he’s never been stunned before.”

Zach smiled, feeling a rush of enthusiasm. “I really think we can do this.”

“You’re damn right we can. You ready?”

“I am.”

Donovan shifted his eyes to Kalana, who was also behind the dragon not far from him. “Kid, you attack as well the moment he’s immobilized, all right?”

“Mhm!”

“I’m gonna try a little something as well, and if it works, use your Weakening Embrace.”

“Um, that’s not gonna work.”

“It just might,” Donovan said with a grunt. “Your boyfriend’s a genius. He figured it out.”

Zach laughed awkwardly. He had no idea what any of that even meant. But he was now too complicit in the lie to back out. “It’s going to work, Kalana.”

She eyed him skeptically—and playfully—but said nothing else on the topic. And with that, Zach sucked another deep breath of air into his lungs. Gods, he had so many conflicting emotions running through him right now. He was so nervous, but also so energized. He was so afraid, but also so emboldened. This really was their last chance. With only enough time to use one final Phase Slash, he’d have to strike out with the same intensity as before, maybe even harder now, too. Hopefully, he and Kal could hit the thing hard enough together to kill it. This really was it: the last chance they would likely ever get. It was now or never, do or die.

“Okay,” Donovan said, speaking over the Comm. “BG7, count to three and hit me with the buffs. Timing is everything, got it?”

“Understood,” Vim replied.

“Consider it done,” said Peter.

Fylwen also chimed in to give an affirmative.

“Oh, and kiddo, use your sword slash thing targeting me, not the dragon. Also on three.”

“Wait, what?” Zach replied, confused.

“Just do it!”

“I’m not even sure I fully understand what you just asked me to—”

Now, Zach felt every muscle in his body stiffen as Donovan made his move. His heart was beating so fast that he could hear it in his ears. And yet it began to pound even harder in his chest as he watched Donovan bend his knees and then launch himself high up into the air—nearly a hundred feet. Then, as he started to fall back down, his entire body began to glow with a reddish aura while electric-like sparks began to jump off his plate armor. An instant later, Zach saw all three spell effects land almost simultaneously on the leader of the God-Slayers Guild. And now, he was shining with both a reddish and golden aura. Zach, too, began to glow with the golden aura, meaning that his ten final seconds had now begun.

Did I even understand him? Zach wondered. He said that so fast. Does he want me to literally hit him with Phase Slash? Gods-dammit! What a fucking thing to throw on me at the last second.

Zach was so clueless and lost. He suddenly felt anxious and uncertain. But this all came to an immediate end as, in the fleeting instant before Donovan began to fall, he met the man’s eyes, and just by that one shared gaze alone, he understood that Donovan was serious and he’d heard him correctly. Gods, this was insane.

“Phase Slash!” Zach cried out, targeting his own ally.

He swung his blade downwards diagonally, and along with a freakishly loud, high-pitched noise like that of a jacket zipper being opened, a visible, ripple-like disturbance was sent soaring up and across the air, crossing the distance between Zach and the leader of the GSG in about a quarter of a second. And now, Zach braced himself, praying to the Gods he was not about to pop Donovan like he’d done to those zombies on Archian Prime. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how he’d feel if the man exploded into a billion pieces while his sizzling, steaming insides rained down on Zach.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen.

Extending his arms, he somehow caught the Phase Slash with his axe, and so now, in addition to being encompassed by a reddish, electrical aura, the entire bladed axe began to shake and ripple as though it were caught between worlds.

How the hell did he do that? What kind of ability is it?

If not for Zach being caught up in such a mess of nerves, hope, and excitement, he might have laughed at the stupid look on Ziragoth’s face as the Phase Slash completely missed him and instead went to Donovan. The dragon roared, and while Zach would never be able to truly know for sure, he kind of thought he detected a note of mockery in the sound of it. Not that it mattered, though. At this point, it wasn’t even physically possible for Zach to hate the dragon any more than he already did. He’d already maxed out the amount of hatred it was possible for a human to feel towards something.

Get him, Donovan!

Gaining speed as he plummeted down towards the dragon, Donovan lifted his double-bladed battleaxe high above his head as he fell faster and faster. At the same time, Ziragoth reacted—but not to him, but to Zach. The wyvern, clearly aware of the fact that Zach was now shining with the golden light, made as if to once more form his wings into the impenetrable shield. But this time around, it failed, either because it was not aware that Donovan was about to attack it from behind or because it simply did not care to pay the man any mind, perhaps viewing Donovan as nothing more than an insect beneath its notice: a nuisance, a pest, something to be dealt with later on. For this reason, the dragon completely failed to anticipate what came next—and to be fair, so too did Zach.

Now, to be clear, Zach knew that Donovan was a strong adventurer. He knew that Donovan was not the leader of the God Slayers Guild for no reason. Clearly, he was someone very powerful to be in that role. That was why Zach trusted him: that was why Zach fully expected Donovan to succeed in landing his stun and bringing the dragon to an immediate halt.

But even taking into account that Donovan’s strength was now doubled, and even taking into account that Zach had enhanced his double-bladed battle axe with a Phase Slash, what Zach had not expected—and what he could not have foreseen—was that Donovan’s ability would crack Ziragoth over the head so unfathomably hard that it would cave in the entire back of the wyvern’s skull, cause brain matter to ooze out of the wyvern’s ears, and deliver a blow mightier than the smiting of a God for 5,115,321 damage while sending the beast crashing headfirst into the ground as tendrils of electricity snaked all the way through its body, the sign of a successful stun.

“It’s stunned for ten seconds!” Donovan roared over the Comm. Then, quickly, his axe turning blue, he slammed it down a second time on top of Ziragoth, causing a blueish-white down arrow with the word “RES” to appear above its head. Immediately, as though recognizing this as some kind of call to action, Kalana darted forward, both her daggers glowing red, and following a dual slashing attack, a down arrow with the word “DEF” joined “RES” above the dragon’s caved-in head. And with that, Donovan put out a call to arms that Zach would remember for the rest of his life.

“ALL BATTLEGROUPS!” he roared. “ATTACK THE DRAGON NOW! EVERYONE! ATTACK!”

Upon those words, a beatdown of historic proportions took place under the early-morning, summer sun, one that was formally kicked off with an explosive combination from Donovan. And it was in this moment, right here and now, that Zach truly realized how badly—and unintentionally—he’d underestimated the man.

When Zach had asked for his help, he had only done so because he needed Donovan to deliver the ten-second stun. But he had never bothered to factor in what else he could bring to the table, because Zach just plain didn’t know. But now it really made sense why Mr. Oren was so impressed with him. It was no wonder why he thought that Zach had been suddenly struck with some kind of stroke of genius.

Before his very eyes, Zach watched as Donovan showed a side of himself in battle that Zach had not before seen and could hardly believe. Given that Donovan was a man who wore incredibly heavy armor and tended to deliver slow, powerful blows with his battle-axe, he could never have imagined seeing this kind of ferocity that Donovan was putting on display. Right now, Zach was able to discover exactly what it looked like when Donovan did not hold anything back: when he did not bother to pace himself whatsoever, conserve his energy, or fight with any regard for what might come next.

With the same reckless abandon that Zach himself had just displayed, Donovan whirled his axe around and chopped apart the dragon with such lethal fury it was as awesome as it was frightening. The man’s lips were peeled back, his teeth bared, and with such a frenetic, out-of-place speed, he hacked and hacked and hacked away, ripping apart the dragon’s flesh so fast his axe appeared a blur, growling as he bashed its head in over and over, causing so much blood to splatter all over his armor he was practically painted red.

“All those people, you fuckin’ bastard,” he growled as he bashed the hissing, whining, immobilized dragon over the head. “All those children!”

Zach, too, joined him, screaming out his rage as he began ripping the dragon apart. And then came the arrows. And then came the magic. And with the dragon’s resistances and defenses now lowered, it opened up other mages to cast other debuffs, which Zach had never even thought could happen. One by one, more down arrows began to appear. And then Ziragoth’s mouth and nose—whatever little was left of it—turned purple as though poisoned. While this was happening, an army of melee DPS wielding every manner of weapon began occupying the space all around Zach, attacking it. Before Zach even fully realized what was happening, every last adventurer, political guild member, and Elf turned all their fire onto the dragon.

Even with a handful of adds still left alive, the tanks also joined in. In the span of mere moments, they went from a raid to an organized mob, conducting a ruthless, merciless beatdown on a never-before seen scale. Kalana, Mr. Oren, Alixa, even Fluffles, Chumpkenwiffles, Fylwen, Peter, and Grundor: everyone seemed to appear in a gigantic ring around Ziragoth, and everyone vented their disgust and outrage onto it. But also their fear and their desire to live to tomorrow. Thanks to the debuffs, everyone was now able to contribute. And though it was Donovan and Zach who did the majority of the damage, the combined force of all the others contributed massively to the effort.

As Zach ripped his sword across the dragon one time after the next, he eyed the dragon's HP in the corner of his vision, and he saw it begin to decrease fast: very, very fast. He was striking for over 300,000 damage a hit, and he was hitting multiple times in one second. The same was true of Donovan, who struck for over 200,000. Everyone else did between one and fifteen thousand depending on the attack. "We can actually kill it!" Zach screamed triumphantly. "We have the time! Don't stop until your arms fall off!"

"He's right!" Donovan yelled in agreement. "Attack it until you pass out. Just don't stop!"

After so many setbacks and so much suffering, it was almost too difficult to believe. Could this really be the chance to end the nightmare? He wondered if this was some kind of trap or illusion. He assumed it couldn't possibly end in these mad, wild ten seconds. But the more its HP decreased, the more he realized that this was really, truly happening. If they were able to keep up this level of damage, they would actually kill it. And everyone seemed to realize this. The sense of exhilaration and urgency could be felt in the air. Everyone understood: with the few seconds they still had left, they could save the world and everyone they loved. All they had to do was lash out with the ferocity of a murderer having a temper tantrum. They needed to keep going. They couldn't stop for even a millisecond.

With the fate of the world on their shoulders, and the lives of everyone and everything in the palms of their hands, they bashed and slashed and kicked and chopped and hacked and ripped and tore and spat and screamed—until finally, when the stun had worn off, they were left with something no longer even recognizable as a dragon lying unmoving by their feet. And yet, even still, they all continued to cut it into even more pieces, likely due just as much to fear as to anger. Zach was no mind reader, but he was fairly sure that no one wanted to take any chances with what was quite possibly the most terrifying thing many of them might ever encounter.

That was why, even after having already been reduced to mush, a series of lightning bolts, boulders, meteors, ice spears, and dozens of other weirdly shaped or weirdly colored things continued falling out of the sky, tearing the dragon into even more and more pieces. It was a frenzy. And it was beautiful. Never, had Zach felt so wonderful doing something so violent. Even Kalana was covered in the blood of the dragon, having every reason of her own to hate it.

One day, Zach would come to learn that there had been eight possible combinations that could have been used to defeat the dragon. And it had been him, of all people, who had discovered the second most powerful of the eight, even if by accident. But for now, Zach, having worn himself out, sheathed his blade and wept openly as he saw that they had finally succeeded. Actually, they’d succeeded some time ago, and like the others, he had continued to vent his anger and hatred long after the point of victory. But at last, he was well and truly spent.

HP

0/25,000,000

Name

(T10) Ziragoth the Awoken

Level

70

“We did it,” he said, grabbing Kalana and pulling her into a hug. “We actually did it.”

He sobbed. She sobbed. And then his tears dried immediately and his mood changed on a dime, as whatever remained of the dragon exploded with a loud squish, causing untold amounts of blood, guts, and gore to fire upwards into the air. Yet when it all rained back down just a few seconds later, it came back to them as something far, far different: and better.

Every head glanced upwards, countless mouths popped open widely in surprise, “oohs” and “aahs” and gasps could be heard aplenty, and Zach wondered if his eyes were glowing with greed as an absolute torrential downpour: a veritable mountain of shining, glimmering loot began to rain down on them like a storm of treasure. Several of the mages actually had to be shielded by tanks as some of it was quite large, sharp, or heavy. There were items, weapons, armor, hundreds of card-shaped pieces of metal, hundreds of roundish, egg-shaped pieces of plastic, and finally, they became bathed in what looked like tens of millions of gold. Yet no one spoke a word as it poured down on their blood-soaked bodies; it was as if they were all sharing a moment of pure, collective awe. Even after the last golden coin had fallen down, there was a period of silence. And then it was Alixa who broke it.

The woman snapped her fingers and said, “Fluffles, drop it! Bad!”

“No!” Fluffles said with angry meow. He was back to his normal size, and he had a pair of gloves in his mouth as though he were trying to steal it. What good what that even be to him?

“Drop it, Fluffles! That’s bad!”

“Not bad! Alixa mind own business. Zach say all the treasure belong to Fluffles. Right, Zach?”

Zach opened his mouth to reply, but he released only a cough and a choking gasp as it was in this moment that his Unleashed Phase came to an end. His knees gave, his chest began to ache, and he fell backwards, causing Fylwen to rush over and catch him just before he hit the ground. A moment later, he fainted in her arms, but not before weakly reaching out for a piece of loot and failing to grab it.

“Treasure,” he muttered as he lost consciousness. “I want…all of it.”

The nightmare was over.

Chapter 104: The King's Court

Chapter 104: The King's Court

Eilea needed to sit down. Her mind and heart were both still racing from the stressful, nerve-wracking, but ultimately cathartic series of events that had transpired. Today had really been a rough day as far as her sanity was concerned. Thus, making her way over dilapidated floorboards and over to the old, dusty, cobweb-ridden throne, she took a seat and smiled at Francis, who moved closer to join her.

“Thank God,” he said. “That could’ve gone a whole lot worse. You were right, Eilea. He did it.”

She nodded. But then her smile faded, and her moment of joy and relief proved to be short-lived. She was reminded that things only seemed so positive because of how dire the situation had been. As though taking note of her change in expression, Francis himself now frowned.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

She sighed. “This isn’t good, Francis. There’s even more work to be done than I realized.”

“What do you mean?”

Having long become accustomed to living in such repugnant conditions, Eilea was no longer bothered by the grimy, dusty, bug-ridden headrest of what had long-ago been a glamorous throne. She sat back in it and briefly closed her eyes, reflecting on all she had seen. Reopening them a moment later, she met Francis’s gaze.

“Ziragoth the Awoken is a T10 boss,” she said. “But a T10 boss of a T1 world. In the grand scheme of things, it is nothing. Adamus, for all his cruelty, did not design Ziragoth to pose an imminent threat to life itself. The fact that Galterrans only narrowly survived an apocalypse means they have so much ground they need to make up before the World Eater spawns.”

“I don't understand,” Franics said, becoming visibly alarmed.

“No Galterran in the entire history of the system has ever ventured to a T2 or higher planet,” she explained. “The Great Ones have created wonders and works of art that would make even the heartless weep, and not a single Galterran has ever laid eyes on any of it. Not even you, Francis.”

“Well, we tried,” Francis said, now sounding somewhat defensive. “If not for Moldark, we would have completed the quest that opens the gate to Albion-4. That aside, you made the requirements to reach a higher-tier planet too steep.”

“Me?” Eilea asked, frowning. “No, not me. Adamus did.”

“Sorry,” he whispered.

She waved her hand apologetically, realizing she’d been a bit snippy. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just anxious about the future. The World Eater spawns in five years, and the Galterrans aren’t anywhere near ready. They’re too low level, and they’ve just barely survived a near-extinction event to a bland, straight-forward boss.”

“Meaning…the dragon?”

“Yes.”

Francis tilted his head as though confused. “What do you mean by that? Are we talking about the same dragon?”

“Yes, Francis. I understand your confusion, though. You’ve never seen what’s out there, so you have no frame of reference.” Eilea drew a breath as she attempted to explain. “Even a T1 boss on a T2 planet has more tricks up its sleeve than a T10 boss on a T1 planet. Ziragoth had nothing more than raw power and its adds.”

“What else…what else is there?”

At this, Eilea chuckled. “Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes—everything. Debuffs, crowd control, poisons, environmental hazards…there are even bosses that require puzzle solving. Mechanically, Galterran bosses are tame and simple. They are uncomplicated. Beginning with Albion-4, things start to become more challenging. Some bosses require quests to be completed to take beyond a certain threshold of health. There are bosses that actually consist of thousands of smaller mobs. What you’ve seen on Galterra is just a slice of the world Adamus envisioned in his mind, and the World Eater, which we did not create, is more powerful than anything he ever dreamt up. In five years, the Galterrans are going to have to catch up to thousands of years of stalled progress.”

Francis fixed her with a hard, unblinking stare as though deeply reflecting on her words. Then, with a determined, confident nod, he said, “But you believe we can do it, don’t you?”

And now, once more, Eilea smiled. “I do. I believe it can be done.”

“What would it take?”

“A few-thousand people sufficiently leveled and geared. But for that to happen, someone is going to need to open the gate, and for that to happen, things might become ugly.”

“I’m afraid so,” Francis whispered. Now, the man looked like he himself needed to sit down. “There is no way of bringing about that level of cooperation without force. I despise violence, but…it must be done.”

Eilea yawned. “It’s early in the morning, but down here, it’s always dark. I may need to rest.”

Francis nodded. “I’ll return later, then. There’s a man I’d like to speak with, at any rate.”

As he backed away, something within Eilea spurned her on. Hastily, she jumped up to her feet and darted forward, grabbing his hand. He let her take it. “There’s only one clean place in the entirety of this filthy tomb I’ve been buried in. Keeping it tidy is a daily effort. From the moment I was locked away here, I chose a single, humbly sized room and spent years turning it into something half decent.”

Obviously confused, Francis bowed his head. “That’s…good, I suppose. Why do you mention this?”

Eilea felt her face redden. “Would you like to see it?”

Francis looked at her, and then he grinned. “I’ll take a look.”

And with that, she led him to her bedroom.

*****

Sir Alistair Morrison lowered his finger to press the “end call” button on his phone, which was laid flat around a large marble dining table in his headquarters located in central Shadowfall Coast. With that, he turned his attention to the nine high-ranking members of the Guild of Gentlemen, four of whom sat to his left and four to his right, with one seated across. They were his men well and truly: sworn to him through an oath of blood. He trusted them in a way he could trust no other. For that reason, he could speak freely only among those in this room.

At the other end of the table and sitting directly opposite to him, wearing a white military coat adorned with various medals and a ceremonial sword at his side, was Major Kenth Baxtra, the leader of the 131st brigade responsible for defending the city’s ports from attack. He was also Alistair’s most trusted military advisor. It had been so many years since humans had last needed to form a conventional army for conventional warfare. Thankfully, Major Baxtra had learned much from the historical documents, and he was instrumental in helping prepare the city for the coming siege.

“What I am about to say cannot leave this room,” Alistair said. He was immediately given a round of affirmatives from the people around him. They understood what was at risk. He had made certain that they did.

Alistair paused a moment to choose his words carefully. Yet no matter how long he thought on them, he realized there would be no easy way to sugarcoat what had to be said. And thus, he decided to be blunt and straightforward. As it so happened, that was his preferred way of communicating as it were. It was his comfort zone.

“The nuclear warhead has now been completed,” he said. “And thanks to the extra time, our scientists have learned how to replicate it. It will take months to build a second ICBM, but rest assured, humanity will persevere.”

There were nods of approval from all nine of his men. Major Baxtra grunted. “Sir Morrison,” he said, “how long can we keep this information from getting out?”

“As long as required,” he replied.

“I trust your judgement, Sir Morrison. I always have. But the king is going to become a problem before long.”

At this, Alistair released a saddened, bitter sigh. There was simply no excuse for King Brayspark’s behavior. The men in this room had dedicated their entire lives to protecting humanity. They had sacrificed so much in the pursuit of human greatness. And now, when the Guild of Gentlemen faced its greatest crisis since its creation, their king was choosing to be soft, weak, and incapable of seeing basic logic.

“Have you tried to convince him, Sir Morrison?” one of his officers asked.

At this, Alistair gave a firm nod. “Many times. But the king has now become so stubborn he won’t even entertain the discussion. In his last transmission, he ordered me to destroy the weapon and bury it.”

This elicited groans from the officers and Major Baxtra. “Does he want us to lose?” the major asked. “Does he want us to roll over and let some fucking Gnome walk around on our streets, eat our food, and sleep in our beds?”

Though Alistair did not personally hold much disdain towards other races, it could not be denied that the vast majority of Shadowfall Coast’s citizens did. Sure, they made some exceptions, such as for Kalana Vayra, who was quite popular, but when it came to the Dwarves, Orcs, Gnomes, and the Lizardmen, in particular, there was nothing short of outright hatred. Under no circumstance would they ever allow the Royal Roses to rule the city. Thus far, the Royal Roses had allowed Orcish refugees from the recent volcanic eruption and Lizardmen tribal exiles to flood into the cities they controlled. That would not be acceptable here. They even had a Goblin and an Orc in their officer rank. And from the sound of it, now they had a Gods-cursed zombie, too.

“I’m afraid so,” he said after a brief moment. “That’s exactly what will happen.”

“This is betrayal!” the major snapped. “That weapon is all we have. How can he side with a fucking cavern demon!”

At this, even some of his officers shifted uncomfortably in their seats. The term “cavern demon” was just about the single-most racist term that could ever be used on the Gnomish people. It was a pejorative that hailed from the days when Gnomes would live in underground, cavernous kingdoms built far beneath Galterra’s surface. Of course, today, Gnomes lived in cities and towns hardly dissimilar to those dwelled in by members of humanity. The chief difference being, of course, their ceilings were lower to accommodate their smaller stature.

Although it was not common knowledge that Vim Alazar was half Gnome, a great many ordinary citizens suspected it, and in truth, it was hardly a very well-kept secret. According to privately conducted polling data from Giant’s Fall and Spider’s Eye Oasis, 89% of the citizens who lived there stated that they would not care if Vim Alazar was revealed to have Gnomish blood. Among those living in the Guild-of-Gentlemen-controlled territories Tomb of Fire and Shadowfall Coast, 92% said that they would care. For this reason, it was only natural that their two guilds had perpetually maintained such awful relations throughout the years. It wasn’t just the guilds themselves that hated each other, but the citizens hated each other too. This was unusual in guild politics and almost unheard of historically speaking.

It was not difficult to imagine a situation in which conventional warfare spiraled out of control, and millions of humans began to fight millions of other humans. This was not an escalation that could be tolerated, and it was yet another reason why the weapon was needed: to bring a quick, decisive, and permanent end to hostilities before they could be allowed to grow.

“Believe me, Major,” Alistair said. “I fully understand your frustration. That is why I have taken it upon myself to ignore those orders. For the good of humanity.”

Major Baxtra gasped. “You…you what?”

“I’ve ignored them.”

“But…but you can’t just ignore the king.”

“Why not?”

At this, Major Baxtra released a small, dark chuckle. “No reason, I guess. Good point.”

Folding his hands on the table, Sir Alistair Morrison took a moment to meet the eyes of each one of them. “If King Brayspark does not wish to protect his people, then that responsibility falls to us. So let me make a promise to each of you right here and now. If Vim Alazar pushes us too far, we will launch. This city will never be touched by Gnomish hands.”

“How can we be sure the weapon will even work?” another asked.

This was one of the easier questions to answer. “The technology was left to us by Moldark the Unbanished. That’s not a name many of you will recognize because you are not cleared to know of him. Let me just say that he was one of humanity’s greatest saviors and leave it at that. He would not have entrusted this to us if it was a dud.”

“And how powerful is it?”

“Very. From what my scientists tell me, it has the power to destroy an entire city in the blink of an eye.”

“Truly?” Major Baxtra asked, his eyed widening.

Alistair nodded. “I swear it. But most incredibly of all, we can fire it from right here in Shadowfall Coast. If the enemy seems to be gaining the upper hand, we can strike Giant’s Fall directly: likely Ogre’s Axe, the smaller of the two cities. Then we can threaten to strike the primary city if the enemy does not surrender. It is our ace in the hole.”

“Incredible,” the major whispered. “If that’s true, we should launch preemptively.”

At this, Alistair gave a shake of the head. “No. We must have the proper justification if and when we use this weapon. But mark my words: I am prepared to do this if it is what must be done to protect humanity. And I need to know all of you will stand by me in that event.”

In unison, his officers and the major voiced their enthusiastic agreement. With any luck, their defenses would hold in the event that the Royal Roses did not reconsider their plans for an invasion. But if they went through with it, and if it truly looked like the city would fall, Alistair was prepared to unleash the gates of hell on Ogre’s Axe and show the world that humanity still had teeth.

Hopefully, Peter would not become an issue.

Chapter 105: GET’CHA!

Chapter 105: GET’CHA!

Zach opened his eyes and drew a deep breath. Where was he? His mind was blank, and he blinked several times to rid himself of his blurry vision. It took him a second or two to realize he was lying down, and he could feel someone holding his hand. Craning his neck to look over to his right, he saw the face of Kalana, who beamed a smile down at him and immediately planted a kiss on his lips. At the moment, he appeared to be on some kind of cot in a very large camo-green-colored tent. He was confused, too. There was a small weight on his chest as well, and glancing downward, he saw Fluffles purring and napping on top of him. Instinctually, he pet the cat a few times then turned his attention towards the world around him.

“What’s…going on?” he asked, feeling a bit dazed and out of it.

Kalana stroked his hair. “Are you feeling okay?”

Zach nodded. “I’m just confused. Where are we? How did I get here?” Kalana moved her lips as though to explain, but then Zach recalled everything at once. The events that had transpired flooded into his brain, and he took another deep, sudden inhale and asked, “Is it over? Is it really, finally over?”

In response, Kalana excitedly squeezed his hand—a bit too hard, to be honest—and made a giddy, happy squeak. “It’s really over, baby. We survived. You were so awesome!”

“So…so we’re free now, you and me?”

“Mhm! Yup!”

It’s finally over. Oh, thank the Gods!

Zach shook his head to clear some of his drowsiness. His brain was becoming less foggy by the moment, and he took a few seconds to really let it all sink in. The dragon was finally dead, and he had his entire summer ahead of him. Kalana was now back in his life, the two were no longer separated, and likewise, there was no longer any big threat—at least not in the immediate present—keeping them apart or forcing them into some awful nightmare. His mood brightened at the realization of all this, and for the first time in a while, he felt truly happy.

“Who brought me here?” he asked. “And where even is here? Where are we?”

“We’re still in the camp,” Kalana said. “You’re in the infirmary recovering with everybody else.”

“How long was I out?”

“A little more than six hours.”

Zach widened his eyes. “W-what? Six hours? But that means…” He released a slight yelp. “The loot!”

“It’s okay, relax. We didn’t do it yet.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yah. I’d know if we did it, you dork.”

Zach breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank the Gods. Whew. Okay, tell everyone I’m ready to start.”

Kalana gave him a pinch on the cheek. “We’re actually not gonna do it until tomorrow night.”

Zach flinched. “Why the hell not?”

“Alex and the political guilds decided that, um, because of what the public went through, they wanted to invite the media or something tomorrow and put everything on display so that everyone could see it. They’re being like really open about all this. They’re flying in all these fancy tables and glass cases and putting on this really big exhibit, and they’re even gonna let the public enter the camp to come look.”

“Wow,” Zach said. That was not something he expected to hear. “And Donovan’s okay with this?”

“Well, he didn’t seem really happy at first, but Alex convinced him that, technically, it doesn’t violate any of the rules. I guess there’s nothing in their ‘law of loot’ that says it has to be rolled on right after the raid. Alex also says this is something that can help people feel happy and give them something to celebrate. He actually cares a lot about the average person, Zach.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zach said, recalling his own experiences with the man. “When we went to rescue you from Varsh, he got mad at me for damaging the stairwell. He’s really big on the whole ethics thing.”

Zach yawned and stretched his arms out. “Man, I can’t believe I was out for six hours. Your mom must’ve healed me wrong or something.”

“Nah-uh!” Kalana said with an unexpected heat in her voice. Zach was taken aback. “She died healing you.”

“She what?” Zach asked, his body twitching and causing Fluffles to grumble to himself. “What do you mean she—”

“No, no,” Kalana interrupted hurriedly. “She’s okay. Kolona agreed to bring her back even though…even though all that stuff happened between them.”

“But what even happened? How did she die?”

“After you passed out, she was so exhausted from casting her ability on you so many times that she had to die to pay off your exertion debt, but she still couldn’t get rid of all of it. She actually collapsed right next to you, Zach, and she even begged everybody to heal you first. I was so, so scared, but everyone was saying you guys were gonna be just fine. They had to use a purple and a yellow stone on you. Don’t worry: you don’t gotta pay for them. Lots of people volunteered to donate.”

“No way,” Zach said, a wave of guilt and disbelief crashing into him as he repeated each one of Kalana’s words in his mind. “How can that even be? She looked fine. She was barely even sweating.”

Kalana lowered her voice somewhat, and her tone became oddly reflective in nature. “I’m still getting to know her after all these years, but…I think she’s really good at hiding her pain when she has to. She told me she feels so guilty about what she did. I believe her, too. My dad on the other hand…he was trying to get Kolona to let her stay dead.” Kalana scrunched up her lips as though annoyed. “Now me and him are having a bit of a fight.”

She died the same way I did.

Zach remembered how terrible it felt to suffer a death via exertion debt. Because of his insistence, Vim had been forced to experience it—he’d basically demanded it of the man—and now he found out that Fylwen had, too. But why did this bother him so much? If he had been told just two days ago that Fylwen would end up dying a death the same exact way that he had, he would’ve cheered it on. Now, he wanted to find where she was and apologize to her. What was wrong with him?

I guess it’s because I’ve seen her good qualities and her bad ones, Zach thought. And I like her good ones too much. She’s so damn reliable when she’s actually on your side. She’s like Donovan in that sense.

It really was true, too. When Queen Vayra actually had your back—instead of trying to put a knife in it—she was like the best Gods-be-damned ally in the entire world. This much, she’d managed to prove to Zach in a very short time. And that might have even been understating it.

She’d given him an amazing weapon and a new suit of gear. She’d stood by his side and helped him battle his father’s murderer. She’d brought him back from the brink of death twice. She’d given him the strength to stand back up to his feet when he’d been cowering in fear. Having someone like her on his side—dare he say it—might even be worth the horror she’d put him through. Her value was immense and something he needed to remind himself not to take for granted. Having a woman like her choosing to side with him was something he now realized could turn out to be priceless.

“I just can’t believe she went through that for me,” Zach said. “That’s a lot to take in, Kal. But wait a second. Why didn’t one of the other Elves just heal her? I thought you guys have healing abilities that are superior or something.”

At this, Kalana shrugged. “I dunno. I’m only first catching up with my people for the first time since I was a little girl. You gotta remember that, until you came through that dungeon yesterday, I hadn’t seen another Elf besides my dad in basically my whole life.”

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Forgot about that.”

She kissed him again. “It’s okay. Anyways, if I had to guess, um, maybe there weren’t any Elvish healers around to heal her. A lot of them died when Ziragoth attacked the wall, and most of them are still knocked out cold.”

“That makes sense. Olivir once told me that people usually sleep like a whole day after they’ve been resurrected.”

As Zach continued to take in all the things he’d been told, he was surprised by how badly he wanted to go find wherever Fylwen was right now and give her the tightest hug of all time. Once more, he was left to question how much of that stemmed from him missing his mother. Or was it because of the things she’d told him that she’d endured as a child? That was certainly part of it. Maybe that was even why Kolona had forgiven her enough to bring her back to the world of the living.

“Oh, guess what, Zach,” Kalana said cheerfully, taking him from his thoughts. “Alex told me nobody on the raid died. Well…forever, I mean. Everyone made it! They’re calling it a miracle.”

Sitting up slowly so as not to disturb Fluffles, Zach inspected his surroundings. Everywhere he looked, he saw various adventurers, political guild members, and about three or four white-cloaked Elvish warriors along with a greater number of greens in various states of recuperation. All things considered, they looked a whole lot better than they had six hours ago.

“Incredible,” Zach said. “Some of these people were in like fifteen different pieces. You’d never be able to tell that from how they look now.”

“I know, right? It turns out a single bite from Olivir or my cousin is more powerful than any of the stones. I actually saw people grow their whole body back.”

“I think I’m one of those people,” said the voice of Kesten, who Zach hadn’t even realized until now was occupying the neighboring cot right beside him.

Zach turned his head towards the sound of his voice, and for the first time, Zach saw Kesten without his leather jacket. He was instead wearing nothing but a gown that looked thrown on more for modesty than medical necessity.

“Hey, Kalana,” Kesten said, grinning. “Do me a favor.”

“Hm?”

“Ask your cousin if she can bite me a second time.”

Kalana frowned. “She has a boyfriend, you dope.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m just kidding,” he said with a cackle.

Zach scratched his chin. “I didn’t even realize you died during the raid. I guess I must not have seen Ziragoth get you.”

“It didn’t, actually. Kalana killed me.”

“Wait, what?”

Kesten laughed a second time. “Murdered me in cold blood.”

Kalana folded her arms and made her grumpy face. “You were in two different pieces! You begged me to do it.”

“I know, I know. I’m just messing with you. Truth is, my mind is all kinds of fucked up right now and I’m trying to hold it all together. Honestly, Zach, I get you now. I really do.” The humor left his voice, and his throat briefly expanded as he swallowed a lump that had formed. “I’m gonna visit a shrink as soon as I can next week. I think a lot of us are. The political guilds even offered to pay for mental-health services for every single one of us who participated in the raid. Even the Elvish if they want it.”

Zach wasn’t sure how to respond. The idea of such a thing always made him feel uncomfortable and weak. It was only because of a deal he’d made with Kalana that he’d even agreed to go along with it in a week or two from now when she’d booked his first “appointment.” Still, as hard as he’d had it lately, many of the raid members went through way worse. They’d been ripped apart, burned alive, crushed to death, bled out, torn to pieces…it was way worse than his own death, which was almost pleasant by comparison.

“You look surprised,” Kesten said.

“It’s just…you’re a pretty tough guy. It’s hard to think of someone like you going to, you know, that.”

“That?”

Kalana huffed. “Zach doesn’t even feel comfortable saying the word therapy.”

Zach twisted his lips. “Not true.”

“Oh yeah? Then say it. Say the word ‘therapy’.”

Raising his fist to his mouth, he released a cough at the same time he said, “Ughhrrrupy.”

“See?” she asked, turning her eyes on Kesten. “Please explain to Zach it’s not unmanly to see a therapist.”

“Zach,” Kesten began, his tone earnest. “She’s right.”

He rolled his eyes. “We’ll talk about it later.”

Kalana leaned in closer and eyed him skeptically. He could tell that she still wasn’t convinced that he was going to keep his end of the deal. In truth, he was already thinking about ways to get out of it. Gods, he so didn’t want to have to sit through something like that.

“You better keep your promise,” she warned.

“I will.”

“You better.”

“Like I said. I will, okay?” Averting his eyes, he lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “But…you know…it wouldn’t be the worst idea ever to let me off the hook after everything that’s happened.”

“Huh?”

He pointed to himself. “I made peace with your mom—and actually like her now—and got to witness Ziragoth die. I’m basically healed. All my problems are over with now. Whatever was messing me up before—that’s all in the past.”

“Trauma doesn’t work like that.”

“It does, though. Don’t get me wrong: I’ll still do it because I promised, but I’m just saying, like…if we’re being honest about it, there’s basically no point now. I can feel that I’m fine again. It’s like nothing bad ever happened.”

She extended her pointer finger and poked him in the chest. “That’s not how it works. Do you really think you’re okay now just ‘cause you drenched yourself from head to toe in the blood of your enemy?”

With a nervous swallow, Zach said, “Actually, yeah.”

“Well, you’re not.”

He moaned. This was such an uncomfortable conversation. This was the last thing he wanted to talk about right now. Thankfully, of all people, it was his cat who saved him from having to endure another moment of it.

With a yawn and a stretch, Fluffles lifted his head. Then he immediately became excited and hyper. “Zach!” he said with a meow. “Look what Fluffles get!”

The cat stood up on his chest then remained completely still for a moment. Confused, Zach opened his mouth to ask what Fluffles wanted to show him. But then he saw it. Out of nowhere, words just simply appeared midair right above the cat’s head.

Fluffles Ultdern the Dragon Slayer

“Whoah, cool!” Zach exclaimed. “How did you…how can you do that?”

“I can do it too,” Kalana said. And then she did.

Kalana Vayra the Dragon Slayer.

“How are you guys doing that?” he asked them, amazed.

Kalana snickered. “Here ya go, Zach.” And before uttering another word, she leaned over the side of the chair she was sitting in as though to grab something off the floor. Then she put two items down on Zach’s stomach below where Fluffles was sitting. “Since the dragon dropped exactly 535 of each of these items,” she explained, “everybody agreed it meant that we were all supposed to get one of each and nobody has to roll for it.”

Zach’s lips formed into an o-shape. Loot! Gods! It was loot! He picked up the two items she’d given him, one in each hand. The first item was something roughly the shape of a card, but it was made of a silver, highly reflective metal, one that had a sort of prismatic shine when moved around. And etched into it in a way that could be felt with his finger was “+2.”

The other item was a flimsy-feeling piece of plastic in the shape of an egg. “Crush that,” Kalana said. “Just do it. Trust me.”

Zach shrugged. “Uh, okay.” Seeing no reason not to trust Kalana, he did what she said. He crushed the egg in his hand. Predictably, it broke into a whole bunch of pieces, but then those pieces vanished, and the moment they disappeared completely, something popped up before his eyes.

TITLE UNLOCKED

Dragon Slayer

“Ohh, cool!”

“There are two ways you can put that on,” Kesten said. “You can either do the shoulder-tapping thing and check the new option under equipment, or you can conjure forward the title menu. Olivir’s the one who told us.”

“Olivir?”

Kesten nodded. “Yeah, he was the only person on the entire raid—including the Elves—who’d ever even heard of such a thing as a title before. We were shocked, honestly. We just never knew something like this existed.”

“Does it do anything?”

“Don’t think so. The vampire kid said it’s just for show.”

“He’s actually like hundreds of years old,” Zach said. “But yeah, it’s still pretty cool. I don’t know if I feel like ‘wearing’ it right now, though. Something tells me every single last political guild person has it on, and that makes it feel played out despite me just learning about it five seconds ago.”

Kesten released a laugh. At the same time, Kalana nodded and Fluffles meowed in agreement; this, as both dismissed their titles, the words disappearing from above their heads.

“How’d you know?” Kalana asked, sounding genuinely impressed. “About the political guilds, I mean.”

Zach chuckled. “It just seems like the kind of thing they’d do.”

Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if the vast majority of political guild members left that title up twenty-four-seven. He would bet on it, actually. They’d probably eat with it, sleep with it, shower with it, and they’d definitely have sex while it was still on top of their heads. For the rest of their entire lives, they’d probably walk around with their name and the words “dragon slayer” permanently on display everywhere they went. Hell, that title alone probably now made the majority of them feel like the raid was worth it. Zach was sure of it. Unlike the adventurers, they wanted public approval and attention.

Zach laughed out loud, and upon receiving a questioning look from Kalana and Kesten, he explained to them what he’d just been thinking. This caused them both to laugh as well, as each of them seemed to agree.

There’s no way they ever remove those titles. Gods, this is probably the best day of their lives. Even the ones who died are probably going to wake up later and cry tears of joy. I bet they can’t wait to stroll through crowded city streets just so people will look and see that they’re dragon slayers. Ah well. They earned it, I guess.

Putting his attention on the other item, he lifted up his hood, pulling it over his head, which granted him his increased helm sight level; then, with the metal card in his hand, he called forward the information on it, sending the item’s description to the center of his vision.

Name

Level Up! +2

Item Level

80

Description

Upon use: immediately raises the user’s level by 2. All existing experience points prior to use are saved and carried over to the user’s new current level. Cannot be used at level 80 or higher. If used at level 79, only one level will be granted.

“This is awesome,” Zach said, reading it over multiple times approvingly. “I can’t believe this. Two free levels. Amazing! I guess this is why we didn’t get any xp just for killing the boss.”

Kalana smiled at him. “It’s cool, right? Are you gonna save yours?”

Zach gave her a thumbs-up. “Definitely. It doesn’t even make sense for me to use it now. I’ll regret it later. What about you?”

“I might wait until I’m 78,” Kalana said.

“I don’t know if I can wait that long,” Zach admitted. “Sucks for anyone who’s already over…” His words trailed off as a thought came to him, and then a rush of excitement flew into his stomach. Zach happened to know someone who could not use this item and thus would have no use for it.

“Kal, where’s your mom?”

Of all things, she glared at him. “You’re not getting her item!”

“H-how’d you know I was—”

“It’s ‘cause you’re so greedy, Zach. She gave you so much stuff and you want more.”

“Okay, but to be fair, Kal, she can’t even use it.”

“Yah, I know. That’s why she gave it to me.”

“Oh,” Zach said, scratching an itch behind his ear and releasing an embarrassed half-chuckle. “Okay, well, that makes sense, then. You’re getting way too defensive. Sheesh. Anyway, enjoy the four free levels.”

“Two levels,” Kalana said. “I’m not gonna use the one my mom gave me.”

A sudden rush of indignation slammed into Zach. “The hell do you mean by that? Wait, are you giving it away to someone else? Seriously? Okay, look. If anyone gets it, it should be me. I did way more work than anyone else, and I wasn’t going to pull that card, but since it came up, I mean, I did kind of do the most out of everyone, and not only that, but—”

“Zach, stop,” she said, somewhat angrily. “I’m not giving it away either.”

“Well then what the hell?” He threw up his arms in a gesture of outrage. “Why do you even care, then? You might as well let me have it. Why would you even want it?”

“Because,” she said, frowning at him, “it’s the first present my mom ever gave me in my entire life, and I want to keep it forever.”

Zach slammed his mouth shut. He’d been about to say something, but it ended in a quick, high-pitched croak.

Oh, fuck, Zach thought. Oh, boy did I step in that one. How do I even begin to get my foot out of my mouth this time?

“That was a test,” he said. “You passed.”

Kalana rolled her eyes at him. “You gotta stop being so greedy. This is actually really important to me. My mom gave it to me, and I don’t have anything else from her. So, I wanna put this in a frame and cherish it. It’s a memory now that I’ll always have. We defeated a dragon together. Maybe it’s not the usual kinda’ memory a girl has with her mom, but it’s a start.”

After a brief period of silence, Zach took her hand and apologized. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’ve always been really greedy, and you know that.”

“Yeah, but you should try to be more generous.”

Yawning and hoping to change topics, Zach asked, “Are you hungry? We were supposed to go to Angelica’s tonight with Olivir and Kolona. That was always the plan if we won, right? Do you still want to?”

She beamed at him. “Yup! I sure do. Olivir told me an hour ago actually that if you’re still up for it tonight they’ll come with us whenever you feel ready. But this time, I don’t wanna rush. I wanna wear something nice.”

Zach let out a moan. “Kal, that means five hours with you.”

“Don’t care! I wanna look decent.” More quietly, but with a level of defensiveness, she added, “And I don’t take five hours, thank you very much.”

She’s so cute sometimes, he thought. He couldn’t help but pick on her. Even now, after becoming a globally recognized and accepted princess of an entire race, she was still just the same old Kal in his eyes.

At any rate, lying back in the cot, he decided he’d check out his new ability while he still had the chance. With his eyes pointed up towards the roof of the tent, he willed forward the information so that it appeared directly above him. It was kind of like lying down and holding a cell phone up while texting someone in bed, only it was hands-free, and he couldn’t doze off and drop it on his face.

Inner Ability (LEGENDARY UNIQUE)

Gacha Get’cha

Exertion Cost

None

Cooldown

1 week / 604,800 seconds

Description

This ability may be used 3 times and does not enter cooldown until all 3 are used. Upon activation, Gacha Get’cha conjures one item at random from all valid, non-crafted items that have ever existed. This includes mob drops, boss drops, field treasures, quest items, limited-time event items, crafting items, and dungeon keys. The cooldown cannot be reset by other abilities (Confliction Level: Z) (there are no instances in which this cooldown may be reset by any other items, abilities, spells, or effects outside of those contained here).

The cooldown on Gacha Get’cha can only be refreshed early by increasing the cooldown from one week to one month. Or from one month to one year. Or from one year to ten years. Or from ten years to one-hundred years. If Gacha Get’cha has a cooldown longer than one week and generates an item of “legendary” or higher rarity, the cooldown is reset immediately and will revert back to one week following 3 more uses.

“Wow,” Zach said, immediately drawing the attention of Kalana and Kesten. “You guys gotta see this.”

“See what?” Kesten asked.

“Yeah, see what, Zach?”

“Join my party.”

Even though Kesten was not exactly in the circle of people Zach had put his total trust in, this was not the kind of ability he thought could pose him in any danger if discovered by others. It was “cool” more than it was anything else. For this reason, he didn’t mind showing Kesten. And so, the two of them having joined his party, he watched as they both began to read it over where it floated in the air above Zach’s chest. They actually had to bend their necks back at uncomfortable-looking angles to read it, yet Zach was too lazy to sit up. And besides, it would disturb Fluffles, who was once more napping.

“That’s amazing,” Kesten said. “I just don’t understand how you get abilities like these. This shouldn’t even be possible. I’ve genuinely never seen anything like this before.”

“It’s so cool!” Kalana said. “Are you gonna use it? You gotta.”

Zach laughed. “I might as well.”

“But don’t go resetting it and getting addicted to it,” she said. “It feels like gambling. I can definitely see you resetting it if you don’t get anything you like. Then you’ll cry to me later that you have to wait 100 years to use it again.”

Zach wanted to disagree with her, but she was right. He was definitely the kind of person who would reset the ability over and over again until he’d screwed himself and never got to use again for a century, assuming he could even live that long. Then again, he just might. People who leveled up got to live a whole lot longer than those who didn’t. Another bit of unfairness to it all, he supposed.

Licking his lips greedily, he said, “I’m going to use it. Ready?”

“Do it, do it!” Kalana cheered a bit too loudly. Then she apologized to the man sleeping on the cot behind her, who Zach recalled had had his limbs ripped off by the Cursed Defender of Ziragoth mobs.

Now, filling with enthusiasm, Zach dismissed the ability information screen then once more sat up extra carefully so as not to wake Fluffles. With that, he activated Gacha Get’cha, and right away, the ability began to take form. Materializing in the air before him and floating above the cot, a golden slot machine the size of a cash register simply popped into existence—and then remained there, perfectly stationary, doing absolutely nothing.

Wow, he thought. It looks so cool.

Aside from the frame being made of what looked like pure gold, it had a big, red, circular handle on its right side, and a colorful screen, behind which looked like 2 different rows, inside of each were tiny little symbols. On the left row, Zach could spot what looked like a brown satchel with a string, a sword, a shield, a suit of armor, a cartoonish picture that looked like a giant steak, a ring, and finally a gold coin. Taking what was purely just a guess, Zach assumed it stood for item, weapon, defensive weapon, armor, food, accessory, and money. The second row, on the other hand, contained the letter “C” with a white background, “U” with a green background, “R” with a blue background, “ER” with a purple background, “LGD” with a gold—and star-studded—background, “ART” with a silver, shimmering background, and then “LGDART” with a pure black background.

From what Rian had taught him, he took this to mean common, uncommon, rare, epic rare, legendary, artifact, and…and the last one, he had no idea. There wasn’t supposed to be anything after artifact quality. So it was anyone’s guess what the hell “LGDART” was supposed to mean. But more importantly, why was nothing happening? The machine was just remaining stationary, floating in the air in front of him.

“Umm…” Zach stared at it expectantly, waiting for it to produce an item or at least do something. When nothing happened after several more moments, he scratched his head. “I think it’s broken.”

Kesten rubbed his chin. “Maybe you need to pull the lever, Zach.”

“Oh, shit, good idea. Duh.” He laughed at his own stupidity. Though, in fairness, why would he just naturally assume he could physically interact with an ability like this? He’d certainly never seen anything that functioned in such a way before. Hell, he could hardly believe this was even possible, let alone come to the natural assumption it required his own, physical input. Especially since it didn’t say so on the ability description. But whatever. He liked it better this way. With a grin, he reached out, placed his hand over the right side of the floating, cash-register-sized slot machine, gripped the big red lever, and then pulled.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!

Kalana clapped her hands together with glee as the machine began making loud, casino-like dings while playing an electronic jingle that made a playful “bu-du-du-du-bu-du-du-du” sound. The two rows also began to spin, causing every symbol to blur together. At the same time, two buttons that Zach hadn’t realized existed until now lit up with a brownish-grey light just below the spinning rows.

“Have you ever gambled at a casino before, Zach?” Kesten asked.

“Uh, no. I’m not old enough yet to be let in the door, and even if I was, I’m from Whispery Woods, Kesten— I’ve never even seen a real casino.”

“It’s all good. So, basically, you have to push that button when you want the spinning to stop,” he explained. “But usually, it doesn’t matter when you do it. I’ve got no idea how your ability works, but in the real world, it’s just for show. It knows what you’re going to get from the moment you spin by generating a random number.”

Zach made a “hm” sound and briefly raised his eyebrows. Then he pressed the first light on the left. The row of spinning symbols stopped instantly when the button was pressed, landing on the picture of the brown satchel with a string.

“An item, I bet,” Kalana said. Then she squeaked. “This is so exciting. I love your ability!”

“Thanks,” Zach said. “But let’s hope I don’t get something shitty.”

Nervously, he placed his finger over the second button. The last thing he wanted to do was land on white—or “C” for common. He became somewhat dazed as he watched it spin over and over and over again. He wanted to land on silver or at least gold. The highest-rarity item he had on him was purple—epic rare—and it was the sword Fylwen had given him. The idea of actually getting something legendary or better made his stomach flutter with butterflies of anticipation.

“Here I go,” he said. And with that, he pressed the button. Straight away, the row stopped spinning. And then Zach hissed aloud, following the sound with a terrible swear word as he landed on C despite trying so hard not to.

“Fuck!” he shouted.

“Don’t be upset, baby,” Kalana said. “Maybe you’ll get something good. Just ‘cause it’s common doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

Even as she was speaking, the machine disappeared into a batch of firework-like sparks, which crackled and woke up about four different people nearby, all of whom seemed too fascinated in Zach’s ability to be angry. Then, as the sparkling, bright, and golden crackling lights faded away, something began to float down towards Zach. It was so light that a passing breeze nearly carried it away and off to the other end of the tent, but Zach managed to reach out and grab it first.

“What in the hell is this?” he said aloud. In his hand, he held a thin, rectangular strip of paper that looked like a ticket to see a movie or a maybe an entry to a raffle. Curious to find out what he’d gotten, he called forward its information—or at least he was about to. But now that he saw he had gathered a small crowd desperate to know what was going on, he sighed and said, “Fine, you can all join my party. Is there a way I can just make it open so anyone who wants can join?”

“Just will it so,” Kesten said.

“Got it.”

Now, with nine adventurers he didn’t know and another five he did know having all joined his party—with more approaching each second—Zach brought up the information on the item he’d just “won.”

Name

1X Meal Coupon (T2 only)

Rarity

Common

Item Level

N/A

Description

Turn this in to Claudine Teresa in central Albion city to receive one free meal. The meal coupon can also be traded for 7 gem points or scrapped for ship parts. Can be sold to any merchant in Albion City for 8000 gold.

“Wow, that sucked,” Zach said, trying his best not to let his disappointment get him down. “I guess that’s a useless—”

Just as he was about to dismiss the item information, a chorus of excited voices all broke out simultaneously. As though they were reading something entirely different from Zach, there was an explosion of noise that erupted in the infirmary as adventurers, particularly those from the Explorers Brigade, all began shouting at each other so loudly it caused anyone not completely knocked out to wake up.

“Albion-4 is real!” someone cried. “Zephyr! Zephyr, you were right!”

“I always knew it,” said Zephyr’s voice from behind Zach, his words coming across as emotional and triumphant. Zach looked over his shoulder, having not even realized that the hooded, charismatic guild-leader with the striking blue eyes and short curly hair was standing right behind him. His chin resting on his left thumb and forefinger, he looked like he was trying to burn every detail in his mind as he seemingly read the item over again and again and again.

While this was going on, people began hugging each other, a few shed tears, and Zach was absolutely mind blown by the reaction he was seeing to such a shitty common item that, from the looks of it, was only good for a meal—something he could get at Angelica’s any time he wanted. Clearly, he was missing something here.

Based on the murmuring coming from Zephyr, it looked like he was now reading the description yet again, for like the tenth time. “Hey, Zephyr,” Zach said, drawing his attention. “Do you uh…do you just, like, want it? This is totally useless to me. You can just have it.”

Zach thought the man’s eyes would bulge out of their sockets. “You’re serious? You’ll give that to me?”

“Uh, yeah, why wouldn’t I? It doesn’t look like it’s worth anything, and I only care about money and power.” Zach didn’t realize how poorly his words came across until after he spoke them, but thankfully, nobody seemed to comment on it.

“Well, it probably doesn’t have much value in terms of coin,” Zephyr said. Then he raised his index finger. “But the information on there is so valuable I couldn’t put a price on it even if I wanted to.”

“Really?” Zach asked, reading it over one last time. “Yeah, I just don’t see it. Here ya go.”

Zach handed him the “meal coupon.” And as though Zach were an old man in a park feeding a pack of hungry ducks, the other adventurers practically fell on top of one another trying to get closer to it. “Okay, seriously, what gives?”

“I can explain,” a familiar voice said to Zach’s left. He turned his head to see who’d spoken to him—and then he smiled with relief.

“Spider, you’re okay. Thank the Gods.”

The large, tough-as-nails man who ranked second-in-command of the GSG elbowed him affectionately in the ribs. “Eh, somehow.”

“I saw what happened to you. Man, I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Could’ve been worse.”

Zach laughed. “Worse than having your arms and legs ripped off and being set on fire?”

Spider turned over his palms as if to suggest indifference. “Shit happens.”

That guy is tough as hell, Zach thought. No wonder Donovan made him 2nd in command.

“So, why’s everyone going nuts over this lame common item?” Zach asked him.

At this, Spider became enthusiastic. He pointed upwards as if to the sky. “We’ve never been able to prove this, kid, but the folks in Explorers Brigade have this theory, right? They think there are tiered planets out there, and that all the ones we’ve been to so far have been tier 1.”

“What makes them think that?”

“So much shit,” Spider said. “Too much to go over. But we’ve been thinking for a long time that there’s a planet called Albion-4 based on a few discreet mentions in some old text. It also only makes sense. Ya see, once people—or humans, at least—get into the 60s, leveling becomes slow as hell. Almost doesn’t even matter what you do. You’re looking at years per level. That’s why we think Albion-4 is what’s supposed to come next. Everything we’ve ever seen makes it seem like we hit a ceiling here and on the other planets we’ve been to.”

Even as Spider was speaking, an adventurer wearing a heavier set of plate armor than Donovan started pointing at the meal coupon before shouting, “It definitely said city, right? That’s the word it used. What do you think it meant by ‘city’?”

This question caused even more giddiness from the Explorers Brigade. “There must be an actual city out there,” Zephyr said. “What else could it mean? There must be an entire, giant city that no one has ever seen or stepped foot in. It’s probably filled with all NPCs. Claudine Teresa must be one of them.”

“Gods, I want to see it so bad,” a young female adventurer with a bow on her back said.

“You know what you have to do then, don’t you?” Zephyr asked. Then he grinned. “You have to explore and find it.”

This earned him a round of cheers, causing even more people to come strolling over and more people to want to know what was going on. Zach became surrounded in a way that reminded him of the hospital room after he’d first encountered Ziragoth. Sure enough, it wasn’t long at all before Donovan and Mr. Oren came in as though worried about the cause of the commotion. Neither seemed surprised to discover that Zach had once again caused it, but both appeared shocked as Zephyr handed them the meal coupon.

“It’s fuckin’ real?” Donovan asked. “No way.”

“You owe me 500g,” Zephyr said.

“Buddy, I’d give you every gold I have to see it for myself.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to that, Don. Because now that we know for sure it’s out there, we’re going to try ten times as hard to find it.”

“Does that say ‘city’?” Mr. Oren asked.

“Yep!”

Like a child’s game of telephone, people kept whispering to those not in the loop what had happened and what Zach’s ability did. Mr. Oren stared at Zach in disbelief after an adventurer Zach didn’t even know explained it to him.

“How many more spins do you have?” he asked.

“Two.”

“Can I…?”

“Yeah, you can watch.” He sighed. “I was actually worried you’d be upset I gave up info on my ability. I know you said not to do that.”

Mr. Oren shook his head. “That really doesn’t apply to something like this. You don’t want a potential enemy to know what you can use against them in combat. Someone knowing you can do this, my man, does not give away any kind of vital information that could compromise you.”

“That’s that I was thinking. All right, I’ll spin again.”

All voices quieted at once as Zach activated Gacha Get’cha. But then the quiet came to an abrupt end the moment the slot machine appeared, and now, like before, came the cheering and expectation. Releasing a small guffaw, Zach pulled the lever and spun the wheel, causing the two stop buttons to light up. For the sake of experimentation, he tried to press the rarity button first—but it did nothing. This meant he needed to go in order.

Here we go.

Zach pressed the left button, causing the light to go out and the row to stop spinning. This time, it settled upon the picture of a sword. “A weapon,” he said aloud. He couldn’t deny he was enjoying how fun this was. Everyone seemed to like spectating, as well. Kalana grabbed his forearms with both hands and shook him a bit. “You got it, baby. Get something good!”

Holding his breath, Zach pressed the second button.

C

“Dammit!” he shouted as a chorus of “awwwwwhhhs” echoed from behind him. At least it mirrored his own disappointment.

Like before, the slot machine vanished, and the infirmary lit up with golden, sparkling, and crackling display of fireworks that soon faded away, and in their wake, a large shadow formed over Zach’s cot. Now, an entire fucking axe began to spin and fall as it dropped straight down on top of him. “Fluffles!” he cried, leaning forward and covering the cat reflexively.

Thankfully, rather than fall on top of the cot, Donovan reached out and grabbed it midair. “Heh. I’ve had this one before,” he said before handing it to Zach.

Name

Axe of the Murky Crypt

Rarity

Common

Item Level

15

Bonus Damage

100-250

“Well, this is garbage,” Zach muttered.

“Can I have it for my son?” a woman asked. “He’s only level 12.”

“Sure. Fifteen-thousand gold.”

Kalana slapped his palm. “Zaaaach!”

He sighed. “Fine, you can just have it.”

Now, Kalana kissed the spot on his palm she’d slapped. “Better.”

“Okay, last spin,” he said.

Activating Gacha Get’cha for the last time—unless he wanted to risk waiting a month, which he was now badly tempted to do, he crossed his fingers for something good. Zach could feel the energy in the room skyrocket with anticipation as the jingle and dings began to play. Even though his odds of getting anything worthwhile appeared to be pretty low, Zach consoled himself with the knowledge he would get to do this every week from now on. It would be something he’d look forward to.

Maybe I can even sell spins to people for a huge profit, he thought greedily.

For now, though, he eagerly pressed the button on the left, causing an immediate halting to the spinning row. And like it had on the first use, the wheel-like spinning device landed on the picture of the satchel with a string.

“An item,” he said with a depressed sigh.

“Don’t be upset,” Kalana said, smiling at him as though to encourage him. “It could be a good one.”

“Let’s see.”

He pressed the second button. The spinning came to a stop. For a second, it looked like it would halt on white. Then it slipped past it, albeit barely. And now, Zach’s eyes widened as the color gold filled his vision.

LGD

The explosion of noise was like a bomb made of sound going off—and this time, Zach contributed to it. “Legendary!” he shouted. “Holy shit, holy shit! Legendary!”

He had no idea what it could be, or what use it might have, but he’d never even seen a legendary item before, let alone imagined he’d be getting one any time soon. And this time, when the slot machine vanished, it did so with an even more magnificent display of fireworks, this one lasting significantly longer and including multiple colors, secondary pops, way more crackling, and oddly enough, music playing. Then, finally, it too faded, and now something fell down towards him.

“What is this?” Zach asked, perplexed.

He picked up the item he’d won. It was shaped like—no, it was a horn. It was a brass-colored horn like the kind one might see in an orchestra. “It’s a horn,” he said.

“No, not a horn,” corrected one of the adventurers. “That there’s a bugle.”

“A bugle?”

“Yep.”

“Ah. All right.”

Completely clueless as to what good a “bugle” would do for him, Zach decided to pull it up and take a look at it. If it was legendary, it had to at least be good for something. And if it wasn’t something Zach needed or cared about, he could at least sell it. As a legendary item, there was no way in hell he was letting Kalana convince him to be charitable. He wanted gold: and lots of it. Millions, maybe! Still, he hoped for something he could use.

Name

Call of Kralzek’s Beast

Rarity

Legendary

Item Level

85

Description

Blow into this item to consume it and learn the ability Summon Kralzek’s Beast.

“Not exactly very informative, is it?” Zephyr asked. “Why don’t you blow into it, Zach?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Zach raised it to his lips. Then, following the item description’s brief instructions, he blew into it like a musical instrument. Multiple gasps came from clearly startled adventurers as a sound almost as loud as Ziragoth’s roar filled not just the infirmary but likely the entire camp. Zach wouldn’t be surprised if people going about their business in the city of Shadowfall Coast didn’t also hear it. It was the sound of a war trumpet, and it was deep, booming, and ominous. VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. Then, just like that, it vanished from his very fingers, and before him, he saw the following.

Summon Kralzek’s Beast Acquired!

Having no idea what that actually meant, Zach decided to see if he could pull it up like an ability, as he wanted to know what it was before taking the risk in using it. Ever since the incident with Doomsday Slash, Zach decided to always read the damn things before he tried calling upon them to prevent causing any unnecessary chaos.

I wonder if I should be letting all these people see? he asked himself. But with a calm exhale, he decided it barely mattered anymore. And so, he brought forth the information.

Mount Ability (LEGENDARY)

Summon Kralzek’s Beast

Exertion Cost

None

Cooldown

1200 seconds

Description

Sets Kralzek’s Beast as user’s active war-mount. Only one war-mount and one standard mount may be active at a time. A 24-hour cooldown is applied each time a mount slot is switched. Mounts may be summoned with Summon Active Mount or Summon Active War-Mount. These abilities are unlocked only after the user has acquired one or more mounts. All mounts have a twenty-minute cooldown regardless if they are freely dismissed or killed. This mount may be upgraded by following the quest chain “Kralzek the Conquer.” (Level 85+ recommended)

“Hey, guys,” Zach said. “What’s a war-mount?”

The silence he got back from the other adventurers was deafening. Glancing over his shoulder, he found the looks on their faces jarring. Even Donovan was staring at Zach as though speechless. This confused him. Why were they acting all strange all of a sudden?

“Is anyone going to tell me?”

“We…we got no idea,” Donovan said. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yes,” Zephyr answered. “A war-mount? A mount slot?” He inhaled sharply. “How much is there that we don’t know about?”

Zach shrugged. “No idea. Let’s see what it does.”

Zach activated Summon Kralzek’s Beast, then flinched as a loud click came from inside his brain, one that he doubted anyone else could hear. And that…was pretty much it. Nothing else appeared to happen, which confused him. But upon rereading the ability, this soon made sense as he more carefully went over the description.

Oh, right, he thought. That just sets it as my active war-mount, whatever that is. I have to use the ability Summon Active War-Mount now.

And so, intrigued and wanting to see what this was, Zach activated Summon Active War-Mount.

This time around, something definitely happened all right.

Shouts of alarm and surprise came from multiple adventurers. For a reason Zach could not understand, a series of bangs and booms and shattered glass erupted all at once behind him, causing Fluffles to nervously jump off his stomach and Zach to follow suit, leaping out of the cot and spinning around to see just what in the hell was going on. Adventurers were now on the floor as though something had shoved them forcefully out of the way. Many of those who were knocked down were scrambling fearfully away, crawling on their backs as if to gain distance from something.

“Th-that thing’s friendly, right?” shouted a woman.

And then Zach saw it. Standing in the middle of the infirmary, so massive it could barely even fit, was an enormous, behemoth-sized cat with orange, black-striped skin and two humongous saber teeth jutting out of its drooling, ferocious mouth. It was nearly twice as big as Fluffles when the cat transformed, and it was even more intimidating, too. It let out a loud, defiant roar, which caused every adventurer nearby to immediately back away as though afraid of what it might do to them. Yet all it did was simply stand in place.

Amazing! Zach thought. No fucking way!

HP

225,000/225,000

Name

Kralzek’s Beast

Level

85

Zach marveled at the “war-mount” that took up almost all the free space between the two row of infirmary cots in the large tent. He was in absolute awe of it. Was that his? Did that thing actually belong to him? Could he…could he ride it? After all, it was called a mount, wasn’t it?

Despite the creature apparently being his, Zach was hesitant to get near it or touch it. What if it turned on him and snapped at him? He wasn’t currently in Unleashed Phase, and the beast was level 85. It would bite his face off and kill him instantly. There was no way he could survive an attack from it. Nevertheless, he was so intrigued he risked taking a few steps closer to it, even as Kalana tugged on him gently as though warning him to stay away.

“It’s okay,” he said to her. “I don’t think it has a will of its own. It’s like one of my cards, only different somehow.”

“Be careful,” she said.

He held out a hand in front of himself as he approached like a trainer attempting to soothe a wild animal. Not that it would matter. This was either going to be a sentient—and dangerous—animal, or it was going to be something with no mind of its own that posed no threat to anyone Zach did not wish to attack. And with that thought in mind, he came even closer to it. And then closer still. Then, finally, he placed one nervous, shaking hand on top of its head to pet it. It showed no sign that it understood it was being touched or cared. It simply continued to drool with its tongue sticking out of its mouth.

“Okay,” Zach said, petting it some more. “I think this is just a brainless—”

“Zach betray Fluffles!” his other cat shouted furiously. “He pet different cat!”

A bolt of lighting from within the tent manifested from the roof of it, then streaked down and hit the Kralzek’s Beast for 1,200 damage. Stunned, stupefied, and caught up in a moment of sheer disbelief, Zach watched as the Kralzek’s Beast released a hideously loud roar, bared its teeth, and then blasted itself forward so fast that it knocked over eight different cots and caused eight different people, most of them unconscious, to be flung randomly around the infirmary.

Oh, Gods! No!

“Fluffles, what have you done?” Zach cried.

The saber-toothed animal exploded forward past Zephyr and Donovan, who stared at one another in confusion. All at once, a series of crashing, more glass shattering, and the distinct sound of liquid spilling came from one end of the infirmary to the other as tables were knocked over, medical trays were thrown to the floor, and even more unconscious people were tossed around like ragdolls.

“Fluffles, run!” Zach screamed.

Fluffles hopped his way out of the infirmary, and Zach’s mount pursued. Thus, Zach now pursued. Shouting out an apology, he took off at a sprint after the creature, which Fluffles had stupidly aggroed for no damn reason. “Come back!” he cried at it, mentally ordering it to return. It did not obey. “Come back, come back!”

Terror racing in his heart, Zach chased the mount into the hot, humid, early summer evening. Grass flattened beneath his feet as he watched the creature rip apart four tents, accidentally exposing a nude woman from a political guild who covered her top with one hand and bottom with another as Fluffles, then Kralzek’s Beast, then finally Zach raced past her.

“Sorry!” he shouted. “I never meant for this to happen!”

The sounds of shouts came from behind him, and before long, Kalana, Kesten, and now Donovan and Zephyr were chasing behind him. “What have you done, Fluffles!” he shouted. “Why did you attack it?”

“Fluffles did nothing wrong!” his cat shouted back, leaping over a tent that the war-mount flattened instantly. “Other cat started it and hit first.”

“It did not!” Zach practically shrieked.

“Yes! Yes it did!”

“Zach, what are you doing?” Fylwen called out in alarm. “What is that beast and why is it—?”

Her words cut off as Fluffles jumped into her arms and shouted, “Mean Elf lady save Fluffles.” Then, with a yelp, Fylwen was forced to dash backwards and away as the mount unsheathed eight—yes, eight—inch claws and tried to scratch her face off.

“What in the name of the Gods is the meaning of this?” she cried. “Zach, what have you done this time?”

“Nothing! It was Fluffles, I swear!”

Now, Fylwen began dashing away with the cat in her arms while the other cat pursued right on her tail, with Zach right on its tail, and everyone else behind him. And just when Zach thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, his mount opened its mouth, made a choking sound, and seemingly vomited up a metal, tube-shaped object, which soon revealed itself to be some kind of cannon that fired off explosive shells out of its throat; each time it fired, it gave off a flash and emitted a loud, echoing crack that was louder than a gunshot.

Fylwen, growling, jumped high into the air as one of the explosive shells detonated the ground beneath her feet with enough power to utterly evaporate three nearby tents while destroying everything within. When the smoke cleared, there was now a sizeable hole in the ground. Scraps of, cloth, ruined pieces of the tent, and random belongings showered down over on top of it, including toilet paper, pillow stuffing, and spare clothing.

Gods, what have I done? Why did this have to happen?

“Come back here!” he shouted at the mount. “Why won’t you obey me?”

The mount was gaining on Fylwen, who began calling for the help of her dog. Now, Zach watched as Chumpkenwiffles, as though waking from a nap, lazily exited a tent farther to the north. The dog stretched her back, lifted her head, yawned, and then as though finally realizing what was going on, turned her body in the direction of the incoming train of madness and began to bark, loudly.

“Awoof! Awoof-woof-woof! I will save you, mommy! I always knew this day would come. Fluffles summoned an evil cat to hurt you. Awoof woof!”

“Chumpkenwiffles lying!” Fluffles said with a loud, desperate meow. “Zach summon evil cat.”

“Zach…do this?”

“Yes!”

Chumpkenwiffles fired off a barrage of lasers from her eyes—at Zach for some reason. This meant he was forced to stop his pursuit, bend his knees, and then throw himself out of the way of a pair of dual eye-lasers, which then struck Donovan, who was running behind him. This caused the leader of the GSG to swear loudly as he was flung directly into Zephyr, and the two of them together were blasted into another tent, causing that one to knock over as well.

“Zach!” called Peter, exiting a tent not far from where Chumpkenwiffles was continuing to fire on Zach. “Tell me. Is that a war-mount which you have summoned?”

“Yes!” Zach cried back to him. “You know what those are?”

“Indeed I do. My steed is one as well. For the sake of the Gods, boy, put your beast of war on passive!”

“On what?”

“On passive!”

Zach didn’t know what that meant, but lacking any better ideas, he mentally shouted the word passive at the Kralzek’s Beast. And oh, thank the Gods, for it worked. It actually worked! Immediately, and without a single second’s delay, the Kralzek’s Beast came to a total, abrupt stop, ending its pursuit right away. Fylwen, as though not willing to take chances, nearly fled the entire camp while still carrying Fluffles, stopping only after she had put considerable distance between herself and the rampaging tiger-thing with the saber teeth.

“Oh, Gods,” Zach whispered to himself, panting. “It’s over. Thank the Gods it’s—”

The Kralzek’s Beast spun around, and now, with another roar, it began to charge Zach. “Wh-wh-what the fuck!” Zach cried, backing away—and into—Donovan, who’d only first managed to pick himself up and hurry over to Zach. Now, with a painful thud that sent a ringing into his ears, the two of them were knocked down onto the grass. Yet with the vicious creature gunning straight for him, all he could do was crawl over Donovan’s groaning form and continue to run in the opposite direction; this, while Peter was once more calling out to him. Now, it sounded like he was telling Zach not to flee.

“Cease!” Peter yelled out to him. “You ought not flee. It merely seeks to return to its master.”

Zach swore aloud, not knowing if he should trust Peter or not. Kalana certainly didn’t, because appearing in front of him out of a literal blaze of fire, she dove at the mount and began slashing wildly at it, dishing out thousands of damage with each hit. She whirled her hands around, entering into a wild combination of slashes and thrusts. And through it all, the mount did…well, it did nothing.

It slowed from a run to a walk, and it remained quiet as it simply “allowed” Kalana to enact blood revenge against it, striking it time after time until it had fallen below half health. All while it continued to walk the last few feet of distance between itself and Zach then finally come to a total halt.

“Kal, stop. Stop!”

“B-but I’m winning.”

“No, I…I think I’ve got it under control.”

Hesitantly, she lowered her daggers. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Zach took a long, deep breath, which he released in an equally slow exhale. And as he did so, Peter came running over, now with his own creature following in tow. It was the Pegasus mount that Zach had seen yesterday, the one with the flaming hooves.

“I hope the others shall forgive you your ignorance on the topic of mounts. It is little known, and there are few who can claim to have one.” Peter placed his hand on top of the Kralzek’s Beast, which did not react to his touch in any way. He then explained to Zach exactly how to use a mount properly, which was something Zach would’ve really liked to know beforehand. Some of the words sounded familiar, as he recalled seeing them in the description of his card abilities. But unlike his cards, it seemed that mounts were much less sophisticated in terms of control.

There were only four commands that could be given: attack, neutral, passive, or go. Sometimes, there was a fifth, called "aggressive," but that one was rarer and did not work for every mount. Peter then explained that war-mounts were summoned in the neutral state by default, which meant that if either they or their rider was dismounted and came under attack, the mount would respond defensively. On the other hand, a mount put in passive mode would never attack regardless of what was happening to it or its master. Finally, a mount could be ordered to initiate an attack on something or “go” to a certain place. These four commands, Peter explained, made up the entirety of what could be done when Zach was not riding.

“I hope that, having said this, I have managed to banish your confusion. I dare say your war-mount has created quite the commotion here.”

Zach looked around, realizing that a fair bit of the camp had been completely destroyed. Now, he released a nervous laugh. “Well, at least the camp isn’t going to be needed for much longer, right?”

“I suppose. Regardless, take care not to lose control of it in the future. Had I not been on hand, I fear for what may have been.”

“Thank you.”

“All is well.”

With that out of the way, Zach looked at his badly butchered mount which, if nothing else, began to gradually heal after about a minute or two had come and gone. Not that it would matter if it died. It seemed like he could summon it forever with no cost to him other than twenty minutes of time if it was slain. This was in stark contrast to the mounts Olivir had or even his cards.

“Kal, I’m gonna try riding it!”

She folded her arms. “Not until you help us put out all the fires.”

Zach took a look around him and surveyed the camp. Only now did he realize that half of it was burning up. “Uhh…" Exhausted, he nodded to Kalana, but not before glaring at Fluffles, who Fylwen was carrying back into the camp as he jogged over to join the others in battling the rapidly spreading flames. He had company, too. The moment Fylwen released the cat, he came hopping over to Zach as though he had something he wanted to say. He likely wanted to apologize.

“What is it?” Zach asked, annoyed.

Fluffles meowed. “Where Fluffles' dinner?”

Zach sighed. Cats.

Chapter 106: Bitter Enemies

Chapter 106: Bitter Enemies

Night had fallen. Loud, boisterous voices filled the camp. In an act of unity that Zach never would have imagined seeing, political guild members, Elvish warriors, and adventurers were all engaging in drunken singing, dancing, and in some cases, slightly more intimate acts as an incredible sense of joy and relief came over the raid—assuming they could still be called a “raid.” Though so much suffering and hardship had been endured, what had taken place today had done more to heal the discontent between adventurers and the political guilds than pretty much anything else ever had or could. As a direct result of their joined cooperation, the adventurers now had a better understanding of the difficulties of maintaining public order, and the political guilds now truly understood the risks that adventurers regularly undertook fighting boss spawns.

There would always be disagreements, of course. Zach doubted the adventuring guilds would ever approve of the secrecy, dishonesty, and other methods used by the political guilds, and likewise, he doubted the political guilds would ever approve of the frat-like, unstructured, and admittedly undisciplined culture of the adventurers. Regardless, on this night, everyone seemed willing to let loose: well, almost everyone. Sir Peter Brayspark and Vim Alazar were approaching one another, alone and in a poorly lit section of the camp. Zach hoped they weren’t about to try to murder one another. Especially since things had become so peaceful.

With near total darkness having settled over the camp, the world was now lit by various campfires. And of course, as they had been lit, just about every adventurer in the camp—and even some of the political guilders—had teased Zach about almost burning the whole place down a few hours prior. His excuse that it was his cat’s fault didn’t seem to lessen the insults. Zach knew they were made purely in jest and not meant to be taken harshly, but it rubbed him the wrong way how everyone—especially Vim—had decided to seize on the incident.

“Zach, I think you missed a spot,” Vim had said to him about an hour ago in passing. “I saw some tents over on the north end of camp you forgot to burn down.”

He rubbed his forehead, chuckling quietly to himself. At least no one was seriously upset about it. Everyone was too happy: especially the Elvish, who were partying in a way that went even harder than the adventurers. They had good reason, though. They had been given a region that Zach recently learned many of them considered both a homeland and a former prison. Right now, there were hundreds of them here, including many young children, whose parents would be leaving soon as the night carried on. Every one of the green-cloaks had shown up from Archian Prime—which Peter begrudgingly allowed—in order to celebrate with the raid.

As for Zach, he was simply waiting around for Kalana to finish getting ready. As soon as she was done getting changed, he, Olivir, her, and Kolona were all going to head out towards Angelica’s for a festive night out. Then, tomorrow night, they’d return here for the loot before boarding a plane the following morning and going to her island. Zach was really looking forward to it, truth be told. He was also looking forward to riding his new mount, but everyone had demanded he dismiss it, fearful that it might cause another scene.

I’ll test it out when I get to Kalana’s new place, Zach thought.

“You should go adventuring while you’re on the island,” Mr. Oren said, surprising him. Zach hadn’t heard him approaching.

“How’d you know I was thinking about that?” he asked.

Mr. Oren laughed. “I know my students.”

Zach took his word for it. He was clearly smart enough to get a good read on people. Even still, one part of what he’d said confused Zach. “I thought it was bad to grind off the mobs on the island. It’s not what we do, I thought.”

“It’s fine, actually. Especially for where you’re at, currently.”

Tilting his head slightly and somewhat stunned, he asked, “How so?”

Mr. Oren gave him a pat on the shoulder. “There’s no actual rule about how an adventurer chooses to go adventuring. But it’s really looked down upon to do what the political guilds do, which is to put a pen around a lucrative spawn specifically chosen for the relative lack of danger of the mob. It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to hear this, but the locations they choose to build their estates are actually based around the spawn point. They only live where they live because of what spawns there.”

“And the Elvish are—were, I mean—different?”

Mr. Oren nodded. “The island Kalana lives on is, essentially, just a chunk of land that gives a reasonable look into what all of Galterra was like before the spawn points were destroyed. That’s why I think you should feel free to roam around it without shame. You’ve already passed the unofficial test of being an adventurer—hitting level 10 on your own. There’s nothing really wrong with you toughening up on the island. If you had landed there by ship thousands of years ago, it would be like anywhere else on Galterra. The Elvish did not pick that location because of what spawned there—Kalana has shown me indisputable proof of this. They picked it because of its beauty.”

“So it doesn’t go against the spirit of being an adventurer is what you’re saying?”

“Exactly. The political guilds struggle to keep pace with us precisely because they spend their lives farming one or two different mobs that have been curated specifically for them. As long as you don’t decide to spend the rest of your life leveling off the same few mobs on the island, never branching out, you won’t lose that spirit. I’m sure of it.”

“Does it even…” Zach lowered his voice. “Does it even matter anymore what the spirit of an adventurer is? Now that we know—”

Mr. Oren widened his eyes and held his finger up to his nose, and Zach cut himself off, giving a silent, apologetic nod, having almost said too much in a place where that “Adamus” guy could apparently pick up on it.

Meeting his eyes for a moment, Mr. Oren visibly relaxed, and then, with a friendly squeeze of the shoulder, he said, “One thing you need to never forget, Zach. The culture of adventuring was made by adventurers. People like Donovan, me, and even you. We’re the ones who made our own society and our own culture and not…”

And not the buff—that is what he would say to me next if he could, Zach thought. Not the OMP. Not Adamus.

For a time, Mr. Oren said nothing. Yet he remained where he was. It was as though he had something deeper on his mind. Then, after the lingering quiet stretched on almost to the point it became uncomfortable, he averted his eyes and lowered his voice.

“Listen, Zach. I…”

“What’s wrong?”

Mr. Oren looked troubled. It gave Zach an ominous feeling. Despite the two of them being mostly alone in this section of the camp, he darted his head around as if to ensure they were out of range of anyone who might wish to eavesdrop. “In a few days,” he said, “you might see some things about me on the news. Donovan’s going to have his heart broken. I want you to know that I’m still the person you knew.”

“Wait a minute,” Zach said. “What’re you trying to say? You’re confusing me.”

Mr. Oren wet his lips as though he was going to explain, but if so, he must have had a change of heart, because he released only a sigh. Then, after a pause, he said, “I want to make a difference in the world. I want to contribute in ways that I’m best at. And I’ve…I feel like I know the path my life needs to take. But I will make sure there’s always a way we can keep in touch.”

What the hell is he trying to tell me?

“Mr. Oren, I don’t understand.”

“You’ll understand soon. It’s something I need to discuss with Donovan before anyone else.”

Was he quitting the GSG or something to start his own guild? Or was he retiring from adventuring entirely? It sounded like maybe Mr. Oren was planning to dedicate his life to science. What else could he mean by “contribute in the way he is best at?” Whatever he had planned, Zach would try to support his decision. And though he was tempted to pry, he knew that he needed to respect Mr. Oren’s wishes and let him deal with Donovan first.

“Try to have some fun over the summer. Regardless of where my path leads, we have a much bigger responsibility to deal with. When the summer ends, I’m expecting you to work towards that goal.”

Mr. Oren didn’t need to specify what he was talking about. Zach understood perfectly. He was referring to the tremendous threat that Galterra would be facing in X years, where X was a number in years that Zach was forcibly being blocked off from remembering, and where the “threat” was a similarly obscured thing. Gods, it really annoyed him how he could remember every single other detail about their meeting in the privacy-room in Angelica’s. The only two things he could not recall were the threat itself and the time until it arrived.

“I’ve got to go talk to some people,” Mr. Oren said. “Have fun tonight.”

“You too.”

Mr. Oren smiled, his face only partially visible from a small streak of light given off by a distant campfire. The look in his eyes was bittersweet, and Zach couldn’t shake the feeling that something was way off. With that, he left Zach there to ponder things over. Or at least, that was what Zach would’ve liked to do. But the sight of Vim and Peter was making him nervous. Though it was truly none of his concern, having been through such an ordeal with them, Zach didn’t want to see either of them kill the other.

How can they even think about war after what we all just went through together? Zach wondered.

Slowly, he approached the two of them, and he could tell that they were not getting along; worse, the situation between the two of them was deteriorating rapidly. Both of them were animate. They waved their arms around as they spoke at a rising volume to one another.

“You’ve the audacity—the egregiousness—to appeal to my sense of decency?” Peter snapped, clearly already in the middle of a heated argument between the two of them.

“Yes, actually,” Vim replied. “After what we went through today, I was hoping we could be at peace.”

“As it were, you are not alone in that thinking—yet you stand in the way and impede such a peace. Had you truly wished for an end to conflict, you would spare us this invasion. What man of peace marches his people into the city of another? Tell me, Vim?”

“You know why I have to do this, Peter.”

Zach was fascinated to see that, when the two of them were alone, they did not use titles or formalities. Even still, it made them no less hostile towards one another.

“There is no reason for this. None!”

Vim swore. “That’s bullshit. There’s every reason. You know damn well there is no universe where the world lets humanity rejoin global trade while one of the most significant shipping ports in North Bastia is controlled by the Guild of Gentlemen.”

“So you would sell out a human territory at the behest of foreign interests.”

“Sell out? Really? My people would be furious with me if they knew I’d offered to give you back Dragon Squire and the Plains of Mist in exchange for it. We’d even vow to never come near Tomb of Fire. All we want is Shadowfall Coast so we can restore the economy to the way it was before.”

“And what of the people who live there?” Peter asked. “What of their lives?”

“Uh, what of them?” Vim asked, his tone becoming sharper. “Do you think we’re going to exterminate them all or something? Get real. They will be treated as any other citizen in our territories. Even you can’t actually believe we would harm them.”

“Physically? Nay, I do not. You would instead bring unspeakable harm to their dignity.”

Even in the scant light, Zach could see Vim furrowing his brows angrily. “How so?”

“You know how.”

“Say it, Peter. Don’t couch it. Say what you’re going to say.”

His teeth bared, Peter obliged. “You would allow Orcs, Gnomes, and any other manner of creature to waltz through our streets and attack our people.”

“Oh, give me a fucking break, Peter. Orcs, you’re worried about? Seriously? You’re worried about Orcs now? The people who spend all day on social media asking everyone not to use insensitive words that hurt people’s feelings? You think they’re going to, what, exactly? Shame you all to death?”

“We don’t want them!” Peter snapped, a wad of spit flying out of his lips. “We don’t want to live among other races. Why can you not respect that?”

“Because it’s not what’s best for humanity.”

“You’re not even human! Can you not imagine the offense I take at hearing you suggest such a thing?”

Vim scowled. “I’m tired of this, Peter. I’m really tired of this.” Vim pointed his finger at Peter. “I knew your father since we were both little boys. This ‘philosophy’ of his you believe in—it’s nothing more than the sickness of his mind in the last year of his life.”

“How dare you insult my father. He was a man of honor and bravery. You, your media, your people: they spread these lies about him. All my life, I’ve had to listen to this disgusting slander.”

“It’s not a fucking lie!” Vim shouted. Zach had never heard this kind of rage in his voice, either privately or in the media. This was the angriest he’d ever seen the man. “I knew him my whole Gods-damned life, Peter. I grew up with him. Do you think he didn’t know I was half-Gnome when he supported me against challengers within my own guild? You were only fifteen years old and too young to understand. I watched him decline. He was sick. Something was wrong with him. I don’t know what or why, but you’re going to make every mistake he did. He wanted us to declare war on the other races. He wanted to enslave the world.”

“Lies!”

Vim waved his hand dismissively. “Believe whatever the hell you want. I don’t care anymore. I thought maybe you could come to your senses for once. You like to act like you’re this big, chivalrous knight, but you’re going to cause so much unnecessary bloodshed. And another thing: your threats are meaningless. Trying to bluff us with some city-destroying weapon. Do you think we’re idiots?”

Peter reacted to the accusation as though he’d been struck. “I have not nor have I ever threatened such a thing. I do not know from whom you have heard such an outrageous threat, but no one in my kingdom has ever or would ever target a civilian population.”

Vim laughed, but it was not genuine. It was an angry, harsh guffaw. “That’s not what I hear. Regardless, I’m done talking about this. Either meet us in sane, time-honored open-field combat in accordance with the rules of war, or we’re going conventional and invading. That’s all there is to say.”

“Good,” Peter replied. “May you and your invading force plead your case to the Gods, as you will surely be meeting them.”

And with that, the two of them stormed away in opposite directions as Zach heard Kalana calling his name. Neither had noticed him standing there, as they’d been so absorbed in their confrontation, they didn’t even see him. Of all things, it was sadness that Zach felt as he watched them go their own ways. Was Zach in denial? He must have been. Because even after having witnessed their back-and-forth, he still did not believe there was any way Vim and Peter would really kick off a true, conventional war, something not seen in Galterra for a hundred years.

Surely, they would find some compromise. They had to.

Chapter 107: The Way Forward

Chapter 107: The Way Forward

Kalana squeaked with delight, and Zach laughed. Wind blasted into the two of them, and she held on tightly with her arms around his waist as the Kralzek’s Beast jumped up on its powerful legs, ascending almost fifty feet into the air before landing on top of a rocky ledge. Then it roared and continued to dash forward, the rocks beneath its feet turning soon to a mixture of grass, sand, and gravel. “This is so much fun!” Kalana shouted, having to speak loudly to be heard over the blast of air in their faces.

It was a beautiful day, and Zach was so glad that Olivir had come up with this idea. He and Kolona rode alongside Zach on much fancier skeleton horses than the ones they’d used in Archian Prime. Zach got the sense that these were “luxury” horses used only for leisure. Both were adorned with jeweled and gem-studded armor and leather saddles; they were also level 50.

This is the best morning ever, Zach thought, smiling. He inhaled, enjoying the fresh scent of the ocean breeze in the distance. He was positively giddy—especially as he thought of all the gold he’d just acquired. Maybe even the best day of my life!

The past three hours had been pure bliss. After an amazing dinner with Olivir and Kolona, the four of them had spent the night in Angelica’s, but not before amusingly watching Grundor flirt with a blushing Angelica, who had warmed up to him as the night had gone on. The service had actually slowed a bit compared to usual as Angelica gave Grundor extra attention and seemed to find any excuse she could to be around him. Kalana had thought this was adorable, and when one of the adventurers complained, Zach had to beg her not to start a fistfight as she lectured him on being nice. Thankfully, he’d backed down and even apologized profusely to “the princess.” Kalana was becoming too powerful!

At any rate, they’d woken up just before sunrise Galterran time. Running a bit low on points, Zach had stepped out for about five minutes to kill Moldark, which put him back over two-thousand and gave him a few pieces of relatively useless gear between level 25 and level 30 that didn’t suit him; nevertheless, he was more than happy to chuck it into his mostly empty storage box with the hope of selling it later on.

It was just too bad both the adventurer and the political guilds were intensely opposed to allowing the sale of gear or items to normal, level-1 people, because even the worst item—hell, even Frog Snax—could probably fetch millions of gold from someone desperate for a taste of the adventuring world. A single piece of Zach’s old decaying armor set would probably make him rich, as even something with just +1 str would transform the ordinary person into something far greater. Sadly, the adventurers were opposed to it because it would “destroy” their precious “adventurer economy,” and the political guilds were opposed to it because it would create “public mayhem on an untold scale.” Still, Zach supposed he could get a few thousand for each of these things, hopefully. Yet, honestly, he didn’t even care because his attention had been diverted by something far more important. Moldark had once again dropped 50 thousand gold. Yes, 50 thousand gold—and it was all his.

After quickly disposing of the boss in three fast slashes—and avoiding getting any blood on him this time in the process—Zach had laughed maniacally as the coins pinged against the flooring, with several rolling away and causing Zach to greedily reach out and slap his palm down on top of them. His eyes had lit up when he’d seen multiple of the highest-denomination coin in existence: the 5,000-gold coin. Distantly, Zach had wondered how such a very old “system” was able to keep current with regards to what coins to drop, as it seemed like the coins should have been ancient and from thousands of years ago. Regardless, it was something he’d have to ask Prila, who wasn’t around at the moment. And so, discarding the question, he’d happily deposited all but two-thousand gold into his bank, bringing his life savings up to an astonishing 62,511 gold—or about half of what a middle-class family earned in an entire year.

Feeling victorious, Zach had then hurried back to Angelica’s and had spent 500 points ordering a bunch of different food to go before returning with the others to Shadowfall Coast, where they’d dipped into a supermarket to buy plastic goods, a picnic blanket, napkins, and a few other supplies. This took a bit longer than expected due to everyone coming up to talk to them, but given that it was very early in the morning, they didn’t have to endure too much of it. Finally, with food and supplies secured, they’d taken a local bus to the first stop outside of the city then exited together near the expressway that ran all the way north to the Arid Dunes of Bastia.

Not far from them had been a parking lot with a shopping center. Zach had actually been the one to request they stop here, but when he’d done so, he’d only intended to spend about five minutes grabbing a few things. Honestly, he should’ve known better. Kolona and Kalana had turned that into more than an hour. They just had to look at everything in the store. This meant him and Olivir sitting in two adjacent chairs making idle chat while waiting for them to pick out new outfits.

By the time the girls were finally done shopping, Zach’s Bank and Storage had come off cooldown. He’d quickly ducked into a changing room, and then he’d thrown every piece of his equipment into storage including his sword and necklace, slipping instead into a much more comfortable—and weather appropriate—pair of shorts and a grey t-shirt. He’d also picked up a pair of black sneakers, too. Although he’d felt himself become way less powerful, the sensation of losing strength was something he adapted to within just a few minutes, and what he was instead left with was a much more freeing feeling of comfort as he had finally returned to wearing normal, everyday clothing.

Kalana’s gear, on the other hand, was already perfectly suited for the weather and had been transmuted by Alixa into normal, casual wear. But of course, that didn’t stop her from wanting to change into something completely different, likely even more than Zach had. She’d looked stunning last night, having worn a gown similar to that worn by her mother, yet she’d reverted back to her equipment after they’d gotten out of bed.

It had been at this point, however, that she’d reappeared wearing a sleeveless white camisole and a pair of tight denim jean shorts that made Zach hate himself for once again exhaustedly falling asleep the night prior. Oh well. They’d have all summer.

With all that out of the way, they’d walked about ten minutes off to the side of the expressway until arriving at a clearing where no one was around. Then Zach had summoned his war-mount while Kolona and Kalana conjured their skeleton horses. They’d invited Grundor and Fluffles to come with them as well, but Fluffles had a “play date” with Chumpkenwiffles, and Grundor had chosen to stay behind and hang out with Angelica rather than tag along, which seemed to make Kalana very happy.

Having changed clothing and completed their preparations, the four of them rode off from eastern Shadowfall Coast, heading all the way to the western coast located in Tomb of Fire. They were going to a place that Olivir had claimed was one of his favorite spots when he’d lived on Galterra centuries prior.

Over the course of the next three perfect, joyful hours, they had raced across the countryside traveling at DEHV-like speeds. Using conventional roads, this would have been a six-hour journey. Instead, moving in a mostly straight line from origin to destination, they had made the trip in just three, and along the way, Zach had been treated to a variety of sights such as farmland, small towns, a brief stretch around one of the smaller cities in northwest Tomb of Fire, and a whole lot of nature.

For the most part, they traveled with few breaks, stopping only briefly right around the halfway mark so that Olivir and Kolona could knock two birds out of the sky and drink their blood. He and Kal had chosen to look away for this part. He’d almost forgotten that this was something they had to do every so often, especially since they seemed to enjoy eating regular food the normal way—whether it did anything for them nutritionally or not. Even still, they were fast about it, and they thankfully killed the animals quickly and without suffering. Afterwards, they hopped back on their skeleton mounts and the four of them once more blasted off.

Now, finally, as they neared their destination, Olivir turned his head to Zach and said, “You guys will love this place. It really is, uhm, just like the coolest picnic spot in North Bastia. Oh, and best part of all is that nobody even knows about it. It was my own secret spot I used to go to.”

“I’m so happy I get to see it,” Kolona said. “I’ve always wanted to know more about your life before Archian Prime.”

Olivir shrugged. “Eh, it wasn’t all that interesting. I was the son of a noble and a member of the Guild of Gentlemen, which controlled the region of Giant’s Fall when I was a kid. I used to vacation all the time in Tomb of Fire, though, and whenever I came here, I’d sneak away and go where I’m taking you guys: to the Bluffs of Fire.”

Zach became eager to see the place for himself as they drew nearer and the smell of the ocean grew stronger. “And nobody knows about this spot?”

“Yeah, people have no idea it’s here at all.”

“Really?”

“Pretty sure, dude,” Olivir said, nodding.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Zach said with a laugh. He extended his arm and pointed into the distance ahead of them. “That doesn’t look like nobody to me.”

Olivir’s mouth fell open as the end of their journey was just about upon them. “No way.”

The closer they got to the bluffs overlooking the ocean, the more people they saw. Many turned to look, and nearly all expressed some degree of shock or fear at the sight of the Kralzek’s Beast, but in most cases, this turned soon into awe and then excitement as their eyes fell over Zach and Kalana. Clearly, not only had this spot become better well known since Olivir last lived on Galterra, but on a gorgeous day like today, hundreds of people had come out to do exactly what they were doing. Everywhere Zach looked, picnic blankets, lawn chairs, or in some cases small, portable tables could be seen. Kids were playing various games with a beach ball, and few people had even hauled entire barbecues out here.

I definitely see why Olivir liked this place, though.

Kalana seemed to agree. Even as Olivir was apologizing for being wrong, she was waving him off as though he was being ridiculous and cupping her forehead as if to filter out the sun. “Wow,” she said. “I love it.”

The view of the ocean was staggering. They could see out into the distance for miles and miles, including the beach far below. Surfers and swimmers kept close to the shore, but further out, there were plenty of large boats. There were also a great many birds flying over the water, and the cry of seagulls were perpetually a part of the background noise. There were also various small islands in the distance, as well as entrances to mouth-shaped caves. Zach imagined those must have, long ago, been great places to explore for mobs and treasure.

“Dismiss the mounts so we don’t scare anybody, you guys,” Kalana said. With a look of warning to Zach, she added, “And be nice. If someone wants to say hi, you better be friendly.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Just making sure.” Then she whispered seductively into his ear, “I’ll be friendly later tonight.”

Zach felt a jolt run down his chest. He decided he was going to be extra, extra, extra friendly to anyone and everyone. And sure enough, he had his opportunity to prove that to her right off the bat. In fact, they hadn’t even finished setting down the blanket over a mostly smooth surface of stone and sand before a shirtless young man and his girlfriend approached.

“Hey, uhh…okay, so…so uh, wow,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Sorry, I know you guys are just here to have some fun and relaxation away from it all.” He swallowed as though nervous. “And I’m so sorry to bother you, and I know you’re—”

“You’re not a bother at all,” Kalana said cheerfully. “Nice to meet you two. I’m Kalana, this is Zach, and”—she twisted her body and pointed behind herself—“that’s Olivir and that’s my cousin, Kolona.”

The guy and his girlfriend looked like they’d be moved to tears. “Gods, it’s such an honor,” he said. “I can’t even begin to…I’m so shocked. I can’t believe it’s really the two of you! Oh, wow, and I recognize you two from a few days ago,” he finished, referring to Olivir and Kolona, both of whom seemed more than happy to wave. “Is…is Grundor here too?”

“Grund’s off…doing some other stuff,” Olivir said. Then he grinned. “I’ll tell him I met you two though and that you’re both cool.”

This caused the two of them to grab one another’s arms and practically bounce with giddiness. “Thank you!” With that, they walked away, and even as they did so, Zach could see the man pulling a phone out of his shorts as though to text his friends and tell them what’d just happened. This then became something of a fairly common routine.

Before long, Zach was shaking hands and chatting away with stranger after stranger. Yet, thankfully, they were all really considerate and respectful, and after each one of them had said a few words or asked for a picture, they went back to their own picnics. Sure, they continued to look every now and again, but they at least gave the four of them some space.

When the four of them had finally been left at peace, Zach sighed. “Is this going to be how it is forever?”

“Probably,” Olivir said. “Especially after yesterday. You just have to learn to live with it.”

Zach sighed a second time. “Maybe after a few months, everyone will move on and something else will catch their interest. But whatever. At least on Kal’s island we’ll be all alone. It’ll just be us two for miles and miles.”

“Nah-uh,” she said, causing Zach to snap his head in her direction.

“What do you mean?” he asked, growing worried.

“My island belongs to all the Elvish people now. It was something I told my mom last night. So, um, they’re gonna be coming and going a lot of the time. We’ll still have the privacy of my house, but any Elf who wants to build a summer home or even live there can do it. But I think most want to live in the Whispery Woods and stay just for visits.”

Zach couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Did your mom make you do this because she’s the queen or something?”

“Nope. I wanted to.”

“Seriously?” Zach grumbled. “You need to stop sharing. You had an entire island.”

“Well, we’ll still have privacy in my estate. I had a super-big house built for me, and I got it done in just a week, too. And it’ll be nice not to be all alone. You’ll even see your friends there. They asked if they could come.”

“My friends?” Zach asked.

Kalana nodded. “Yep. Lienne and uh…um, what was his name again?”

“Rian,” Zach said.

“Oh yeah! That was it.” She continued to speak as the four of them began carefully removing the food and setting it down on the picnic blanket. “I never really got a chance to meet them properly, so I was actually really happy when your friend texted me and asked if he can come and fight mobs there to get stronger over the summer. He told me he felt like he’s really fallen behind.”

“What’d you tell him?”

Kalana, having been about to put down a plastic serving spoon, paused and gave Zach an expectant look. “Well, obviously I told him he could come. He’s already there, actually. Lienne is, too. Oh, but she’s only staying for a few days, though. I think her boyfriend is taking her to Archian Prime, and my mom’s already approved her entry. She’s gonna teach a class or something to the natives about what life is like on Galterra. She might even move there, since the boy she’s with is a white-cloak.”

Zach shook his head in disbelief. “That’s just…incredible. I can’t believe this is the same Lienne we’re talking about.”

“Why’s that?”

Zach chuckled. “Heh. If only you knew how racist she was against the Elves before meeting that guy, you would be in shock.”

Kolona hummed in agreement. “She did say some really harsh things when I met her…”

“Well, people change,” Kalana said.

“Oh, she’s changed all right.”

Zach again chuckled to himself as he recalled seeing her social media profile last night before leaving for Angelica’s. She’d yanked down all her pro-human stuff and had replaced it with Orcish memes and calls for justice for the Elvish people. She’d fallen absolutely head-over-heels for this new boyfriend of hers. In just three days, he’d swept her off her feet. Rian, on the other hand, had already split ways with the red-haired Elvish chick, and now, unbelievably, he was dating her sister. That was sure to end well.

I hope he doesn’t end up getting himself killed, Zach thought worriedly. He needs to be careful about pissing off Elvish girls multiple times his level. I don’t want to have to embark on a revenge quest.

For the next few hours, the four of them ate, laughed, chatted, and relaxed in the sun. Olivir also pointed out numerous spots from his memories. Apparently, there used to be multiple spawns of deer-like, level-38 mobs that roamed the area, though Olivir claimed they were passive and didn’t bother anybody who didn’t attack first. He also remarked that there didn’t used to be any safety railings preventing people from falling or jumping off the steep bluffs, which would probably kill or seriously injure a level 1.

Together with Kal and her cousin, he listened to Olivir’s fascinating stories about the way Galterra used to be. It was both different and similar. The fact that there were still spawns to be found, however rare, was what struck him most about Olivir’s stories. And it was this piece of casual conversation that led to Zach making one of the most important discoveries of his life.

“Do you think the guilds today still know how to destroy them?” he asked.

“I sure hope so,” Olivir replied. “But I doubt it.”

Before bed last night, Zach had pulled Olivir and Kolona into the “privacy room” in Angelica’s and had told the two of them about everything they’d discovered: both about the past but also the threats of the future. Zach had also remembered that the…the “something” was coming. He could no longer remember what it was, and as usual, it annoyed him. But what had surprised Zach so much was just how cavalier Olivir was to all the news. Whereas Kolona had been just as shocked as Zach and Kalana had been, Olivir, on the other hand, had merely nodded as though he’d either already suspected as much or just plain didn’t find any of it surprising. Oh, he was certainly intrigued, yes. Curious, of course. But there was a total lack of emotional response from him.

“So, we’ve been abandoned, huh?” he’d asked. “Yeah, that about checks out. I believe it.”

And regarding the impending spawn point crisis, he’d said, “That’s probably what that woman you told me about—Prila—is off trying to deal with. Sounds like there’s nothing you guys can do about it.”

Finally, on the topic of the…the…Gods, what the hell was it called again? Whatever it was called, Olivir had said, “Yeah, that seems like the big problem you guys need to worry about. If I can help, let me know. I’m almost certain I don’t have any records of it, though.”

Now, speaking in a somewhat coded manner, Olivir asked Zach a question, and it was something that was so obvious he was surprised he’d never asked it of himself. It was also the question that opened up an entire new pathway in Zach’s life.

“Hey, Zach,” he said, putting down his fork and knife.

“Yeah?”

“You ever try reaching out to your mysterious friend?”

By “mysterious friend,” he obviously meant Eilea Vayra. Zach had told him how she’d spoken to him several times in his head. He’d also informed Olivir that Angelica said she had a way of listening in on whatever was said in that room despite having no way of speaking or interacting with Angelica’s. Yet, she clearly did have a way of doing so with people on Galterra, as she’d communicated with Zach several times—even if most of it was still fuzzy in his mind.

Zach tapped on his chin with his pointer finger as he thought over the question. He also needed to ensure he worded his reply carefully so as to say nothing whatsoever that could cause trouble with any space-spies at the OMP.

“I don’t really see how I could,” he said. “I don’t know how any of this stuff works to begin with.”

Olivir shrugged. “Why not just try really, really hard to call out to your friend in your mind?”

Kalana shot Olivir a look of warning, as did Kolona. Zach understood why; though he was not outright saying anything that went too far, he was beginning to border on the point where, if Adamus really was eavesdropping at this very moment, it might make him suspicious. For this reason, Zach decided to bring the conversation to a very quick close.

“I never tried it,” he said brusquely. “I doubt it’d work.”

“What’ve you got to lose?” Olivir asked, becoming somewhat persistent. “It sounds like you need a…a friend’s advice. Might as well give it a go.”

“How would that even work?”

“No idea. It’s just weird you never tried it.”

Hoping to end this conversation before one of them slipped up, he said, “Okay, fine, I’ll try it.” Then he made a dismissive laugh, as he was highly skeptical that something so simple could ever work.

Closing his eyes, he tuned out the three of them and slowed his breathing. And then, sharply and forcefully, he thought, EILEA. If you’re real, and you can really communicate with me, give me a sign. Hello? Anyone there?

Nothing happened, so he tried even harder. Eilea Vayra! Miss Goddess chick! Are you there? Angelica says you care about our lives and stuff, and we found out Adamus is going to do something crazy. Ah, what the hell am I even doing? There’s no way you can—

“ZACH!” a voice cried out in his head, causing him to become immediately startled if not terrified. He leapt to his feet and gasped, even as Kalana jumped up after him, and so too did Olivir and Kolona, the three of them surrounding him and immediately pestering him with questions, which he ignored.

Holy shit! This actually worked? Impossible. Impossible!

“I am so happy!” the voice said, ringing inside his ears. “I had hoped beyond hope you would attempt to open communication with me, but I never dared to believe it could happen so soon. Please. If you ever need anything at all—no matter what it is—you can always reach out to me, and I will answer you as long as it is safe to do so. The only thing I want in this whole world is to be of use to you.”

Why me?

“You know why.”

Her voice came across as kind: kinder than he’d expected given that she was apparently some all-powerful Goddess. Or at least that was what Kalana claimed her to be. This, despite Angelica explicitly saying the Great Ones were not actually Gods. Kalana still clung to the idea of it, though. And in a weird, nonsensical way, too. While Kalana did now agree that Adamus was not a God, she somehow continued to insist Eilea Vayra was indeed a Goddess. Nevertheless, whether Eilea was an actual deity or not, she was still a being of incomprehensible power that, for whatever reason, Angelica seemed adamant wanted to help them. Still, Zach couldn’t help feel nervous as he spoke to her.

So, all this time, have you been reading my thoughts? he asked, becoming worried that she was privy to every awful thing to ever kick around his brain.

“I can see why that’d trouble you, but the answer is no, Zach. I can’t hear your thoughts unless you deliberately send them to me.”

Have you been watching me?

“Yes, I’ve watched over you. But I assure you: not in a way you would find…intimate or indecent. I am not so immodest as to intrude upon you in such a personal way. It’s more that I’ve vaguely kept in mind what you’ve been up to, and only in moments of peril have I peered further.”

From the tone of her voice, she sounded oddly excited and cheerful, but in a way that suggested she was trying to hide it. Zach had the sense that this conversation was very, very important to her. The enthusiasm was practically bleeding into each one of her words.

Now, making a waving motion with his hands at the others that he hoped would convey he was okay and they should stop badgering him for a Gods-be-damned second, he returned his attention to the Goddess, who was somehow mentally communicating with him. Though he had nothing to go on but her word alone, Zach decided, at least for now, to trust her when she said she was not spying in a way that was weird or overly intrusive. This, naturally, led to his second concern, which dealt with much the same.

Can Adamus hear us right now?

“No, Zach. We’re safe. At least for a few minutes. I know you must have so many questions, and I do as well. But we cannot speak for more than five minutes a week without risking that awful, heartless creature intercepting us.”

Damn. I really did have so much I wanted to say to you. I would’ve liked to take a minute to process the fact that we can even do this and that this isn’t just me going crazy. But since we don’t have a lot of time, I’ll get straight to the point. Did you know that Adamus was going to reactivate the spawn points?

“I did not,” she said, and unless Zach was just imagining it, there was a note of shame, if not embarrassment in her voice. It was as though she felt stupid for being unaware.

Weren't you listening in when we were all together in Angelica's?

"I was. I did not hear everything, though. I missed much of the end of your conversation. It's like a signal that can go in and out."

That makes sense, he told her. So you had no idea about that?

“Truthfully, I did not. But this fails to surprise me. Let me guess: he intends to do so completely at random and with total indifference to the lives that will be erased as a result of these actions?”

Yeah, actually, Zach thought, surprised. How did you know?

“I’m married to him.”

Oh, right.

Zach laughed: both aloud and internally, which he could see caused even more confusion among Kal and his two vampire friends. He held up his finger, hoping to indicate to them that he wouldn’t be much longer.

I can’t…okay, I have to relay this or else she won’t stop. My girlfriend wants you to know she hopes to meet you.

“The feeling is mutual. Tell Kalana she’s made the Gods of Elvadin proud, and that I too am proud of her.”

Not even really knowing what that meant, he mumbled it quickly to Kalana. “Uh, hey, Kal, my old friend from school says you’ve made the Gods of Elvadin proud, and she’s proud of you too.”

For whatever reason, this caused both her and Kolona to yelp in delight. What was it with those two? Ah well. At the very least, they backed off him a bit and let him concentrate on the conversation.

So, is it true what Angelica said? he asked. You’re trapped way down below the surface of Galterra?

“Yes, I’m afraid so. I thought I’d be able to escape by now. An ancestor of yours—a many-times great grandfather, to be specific—is helping me escape, but the situation has proved more difficult than we at first expected.”

“My what?” he shouted, not even realizing he’d spoken aloud. This required him to once more hold up his finger at the others, who were pestering him for some kind of clue as to what they were discussing. The fact they outright believed him and didn’t assume he was losing his mind made him realize how badly he could play evil jokes on them if he ever wanted to. Kal would take a long time to forgive him, though if he ever did, so he decided to definitely not do that.

“I wish I had enough time so that I could explain. As it is, I can, at most, answer one more question. You can always reach out to me, but until I know it’s safe, I cannot reply. Know this, however: I can always hear you if you address me with the explicit intention for me to hear it. Though we’ll have to communicate in parts and pieces, we can talk for at least five minutes a week. That much, I can manage.”

Zach, now faced with a sudden urgency, tried to think up what to ask or what to say. There was so much he wished to cover: so many questions. Yet he decided to stick to the most pertinent for the time being. Angelica said you were the one who taught Galterrans how to deactivate spawn points. Can you teach us again before people wake up to find zombies or skeletons in bed with them?

“Yes. I absolutely can. Next week, we will dispense with any formalities and keep the entire conversation dedicated just to the instructions of how it’s done. And also, time allowing, how to possibly prevent it from happening in the first place, if necessary.”

Before you go, I have to know. Please, tell me. What am I supposed to do about the thing I can’t remember?

“I’m sorry. For now, I can no longer reply. I’ll leave you with one word: Albion-4. Be well, Zach. And thank you: this means more to me than you could ever possibly know. You’ve made my dark existence a great deal brighter today. Speak soon.”

And with that, she was gone. He could actually feel her presence fading. One thing was for sure: she did not come across to Zach as divine, all-knowing, or anything he typically associated with Godhood. But she did appear caring and genuine. There was something about her: a sincerity that could actually be felt. It reminded him in a very eerie way of Kalana, only Eilea seemed far more scarred and not nearly as carefree. But there was definitely a part of her that reminded him of Kal.

There was also something else though, too. While connected to her, he could very distantly feel some of what she felt. And Gods, there was such an incredible, almost profoundly soul-crushing loneliness in her heart. He wasn’t sure why, and he hoped to find out in the coming weeks. But the pain in her was immense.

“Okay,” Zach said, drawing their attention immediately. “Let’s head back early. We’ll swing through Angelica’s, and I’ll tell you everything that just happened. If we leave now, we can have time to chat and still make it back for loot. I’ll text Donovan and Mr. Oren, too.”

They'd given him a code he could use should he ever need to meet them in Angelica’s to discuss anything important related to Adamus, the OMP, or the thing he couldn’t remember. Adding them both to a text chain, he typed the following.

>#104. Angelica’s, three hours.

>Mr. Oren: Urgent?

>Yeah

>Donovan: 4 real?

>Yes!!!

>Donovan: shit ok relax. brt 3 hrs.

>Mr. Oren: I shall do my utmost to be there as promptly as possible. If I’m a few minutes late, forgive me. I’m attending to some sensitive matters.

>Donovan: Alex u type like a fuckng nerd

>LOL! He does right

>Donovan: He thinks its a book report or smth

> LMFAO Donovans the best

>Mr. Oren: Enough!

“Okay, let’s hurry back so we can do this and not miss loot.”

Zach must have truly been greedy, because despite having a telepathic conversation with an ancient deity trapped miles below Galterra’s surface, he suddenly cared more about the rolls tonight than he did anything else. All this other stuff was important too, but there was no way he was missing his roll. Apparently, something of artifact quality had even dropped. Other than Fluffles’ collar, Zach knew of no other items of that rarity. Gods, he’d like to win it.

Chapter 108: Power

Chapter 108: Power

Everything was itching like crazy. From the middle of his neck down to the center of his chest, Zach’s skin was irritated by the fabric of the outfit he’d been basically forced to wear. It caused him to squirm around uncomfortably in the back of the limousine he’d found himself in, wishing he could be wearing anything other than this way-too-formal, custom-tailored, navy-blue suit; along with slacks and a matching tie, his sneakers had been replaced with a pair of tight, pitch-black dress shoes, the laces of which someone else—a staff member of the Royal Roses—had insisted she tie for him. As he glanced at the mirror in the back of the limo DEHV, he couldn’t believe the sight that greeted him. His hair had been slicked up with gel, and a touch of concealer had been applied to his neck to cover up Olivir’s bite. He’d also been spritzed with various colognes. He barely recognized himself.

“This feels all wrong,” he muttered.

Donovan grunted in agreement. “We just gotta put up with it for tonight, kiddo.”

Zach was actually surprised by how decent Donovan looked all dressed up in formalwear. He’d have thought the large man would come across like a bear in a sports jacket, but far from it, he looked more like the boss of an organized crime ring minus the malevolence. He was sitting to Zach’s right with his hands on his lap, and though he didn’t show it, Zach had the sense he felt just as awkward on the inside as Zach himself did. Mr. Oren, on the other hand, who sat to Zach’s left, looked more or less exactly as Zach had expected: like he belonged in the suit and was meant to wear it. The same could be said for Olivir, who sat in the leather-covered seat across from Zach. Though, to be fair, Olivir always seemed to dress exceptionally well.

I can’t believe how far the political guilds are taking this.

After a brief meeting in Angelica’s, in which Zach had recounted to everyone what had taken place in his mind while picnicking earlier in the day at the Bluffs of Fire, there hadn’t been much time to really discuss the specifics of it, and they’d instead decided to follow up again sometime later when Zach learned more about how to solve the impending spawn-point crisis. As it turned out, the political guilds had demanded that they show up to a “staging point” two hours ahead of schedule to “rehearse” and “go through wardrobe.” This meant they’d had even less time than Zach had originally anticipated, and thus only moments after finishing his story, all six of them had needed to get up and hurry back to Shadowfall Coast.

Due to the wide range of expressions on everyone’s faces, Zach had left things off without really knowing how anyone actually felt about what he’d told them, and since they couldn’t really talk about it outside of that one little room, he realized it might be some time before he was ultimately able to find out. If nothing else, though, he certainly wouldn’t be short of things to keep his mind occupied. The political guilds, it seemed, had planned one hell of an evening, and as a poor kid from the Whispery Woods, it was honestly unlike anything Zach could’ve ever imagined taking part in.

Working together with Mr. Oren, the political guilds had managed to get Donovan and Zephyr to agree to their plans, and if not for Mr. Oren facilitating everything, Zach doubted events would be going so smoothly. What was incredible about this whole situation was that none of it—not even a single aspect—violated anything as far as “the law of loot” was concerned. And to their credit, the political guilds had meticulously adhered to it while still managing to come up with an admittedly perfect fusion of their way combined with the adventurer way. It was like the blending of two completely different cultures but in a manner that somehow actually worked.

Tonight, there was going to be a resplendent affair: a globally broadcast “loot raffle” with celebrities in attendance, news media, cameras, a gigantic guest list, and various types of entertainment. There was also going to be a five-course, gourmet dinner, with wine-tasting, a cocktail bar, party favors, speeches, and everything else one would expect from an affair of such pomp and circumstance.

And they did it without breaking a single one of Donovan’s rules, Zach thought, astonished. I guess we owe it to them to at least play nice.

Upon returning from Angelica’s, he and Olivir had been forced to temporarily part ways with Kolona and Kalana, as the two had joined all the other female raid participants in a separate wing of a large warehouse that had been converted on the fly to attend to their “needs.” Briefly, he’d caught sight of what that entailed, at least so far as the women were concerned. Before being led away, he’d spotted Alixa, Kalana, Queen Vayra, and Kolona as they engaged in animated discussions with their personal “stylists.” One thing was for sure: the girls were into it—like really into it. They were discussing various outfits and details with the same zeal that many of them had discussed the dragon itself yesterday morning.

The guys, however, had a very different experience. Unlike the girls, they’d all been treated like a bunch of walking mannequins. With the exception of Olivir and a few others, no one seemed to argue or have any kind of back-and-forth with their personal stylists. Everyone just sort of cooperated and did what they were told, Zach included. The only time most of them had spoken to one of the staff had typically been to say that something was too tight or too loose and to request a bigger or smaller size. But outside of that, the vast majority of conversation had consisted of adventurers making the sort of crude jokes they’d never make around the women. Hell, Kalana would’ve killed Zach if she’d known he’d laughed at nearly all of them.

“…so the guy takes it out, right? And he just starts flapping it around like a lasso, and then he looks at her, and with a straight face, he says, ‘Yeah, I think I’ll take it to go.’”

A roar of laughter—including from Zach—had followed the guy’s joke, and Zach couldn’t help but look around to make sure none of the girls were around to witness him laughing at something like that.

“Stop me if you fuckers have heard this one before,” Donovan had then begun. Upon those words, he’d unleashed a vile, shocking, but hilarious joke from the depths of hell; it was one so filthy some of the guys had even blushed.

For the next hour or two, things had mostly continued like this, yet as different, unique, and unusual a situation as this was, Zach didn’t think the other adventurers minded very much. Actually, if anything, the adventurers seemed to be enjoying all the spectacle and looking forward to being part of high society for once. Up until the moment they’d split up into even smaller groups to begin filing into the waiting limousine DEHVs, everyone had been chatting excitedly with smiles and laughs to go around aplenty. During this time, Zach had made light conversation with some of the adventurers he recognized—along with a few he didn’t—but before long, they’d all been herded into one of dozens of limo DEHVs that formed a parade-like line down four separate blocks.

Now, on their way to the camp—which had apparently been declared a historical monument earlier in the day—Zach scratched at his itchy, irritated chest and frowned. “How come the girls get to choose what they wear and we don’t?”

“Because if they allowed us to wear whatever we wanted,” Mr. Oren replied, his tone serious, “you and Donovan would probably show up wearing sweatpants and tank-tops.”

Donovan barked out a laugh. “Fuck yeah we would.”

To Zach, Mr. Oren said, “Just try to endure the spectacle, my man. Believe it or not, the millions of people who’ll be watching this from home and celebrating along with us will likely be throwing their own parties with friends, family, and neighbors. I’ve been told the guilds are even going to make this an official yearly holiday as well.”

“Wait, seriously?” Zach asked. “Like, the kind that work and school close down for?”

“That’s right.”

“No way.”

Mr. Oren sighed, and his tone became contemplative. “It’s easy to forget that, even though we were the ones fighting in the raid, it doesn’t mean we were the only ones experiencing hardship. Think of how many families were cowering around their viewing screens in abject terror, not knowing if they were going to live or die based on our actions. Do you see, Zach? The people need this, and the political guilds understand that. That’s why we’re doing things this way.”

Abruptly, all the humor faded from Donovan’s voice, and a strange combination of anger and sadness came over him. “I bet you know exactly what the political guilds are thinking now, don’t you, Alex?”

Mr. Oren sighed a second time. “Boss, please don’t—”

“Don’t call me that anymore,” Donovan snapped. “Never again.”

Zach, seated in the middle between them, shifted uncomfortably. This was not the first flare-up these two had had today. Earlier, in Angelica’s, they had exchanged troubled looks with one another all throughout his story, and in way that Zach had the sense had nothing to do with what he was saying. Clearly, something serious had happened between the two of them. And while Zach wasn’t sure, he was beginning to very strongly suspect that Mr. Oren would either be leaving—or had already left—the GSG. As far as why, though, he had no idea.

I wish he’d tell me already.

Looking out of the window, it was difficult to make out anything beyond the glass other than perfect darkness. They were now well into night, and the limousine DEHV was moving along at barely thirty miles per hour as it navigated along a very recently paved trail that led to the camp.

“Zach,” Mr. Oren said, drawing his attention.

“Yeah?”

“You forgot to put your title up.”

He grumbled. “Seriously? It’s lame if everyone’s doing it.”

“Just for tonight, put it up, please.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine.”

Tapping his shoulder four times, Zach brought up his stats, inventory, and gear options; then, tapping on the new option at the bottom labeled “titles,” he selected “dragon slayer” so that, now, like every other passenger in the DEHV with him, it appeared in the air above his head.

Zachys Calador the Dragon Slayer

With that, a painful silence settled over the four of them, as for almost two consecutive minutes, the only sounds to be heard were the dull blasting of the DEHV’s hover engines and Donovan muttering unintelligibly to himself. Finally, when Zach could no longer bear it, he decided to speak up—even if he knew it wasn’t his place to do so.

“Mr. Oren?” he said.

“Yes?”

Zach took a breath and held it a moment. “Can…can you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Meaning?”

“Don’t play dumb, come on. You’ve been really cryptic with me lately. You told me I was going to ‘find out’ something about you on the news in a few days, but…honestly? I’d really rather hear it from you.”

Mr. Oren stirred as though himself becoming uncomfortable, and Zach could not be sure if it was due to his question, the sudden, intense glare from Donovan, or a mixture of both. When Mr. Oren did not reply, Zach decided to press him harder and more directly.

“Are you leaving the GSG?” he asked. “Because it really sounds to me like you are.”

Mr. Oren opened his mouth, yet like before, he did not reply. And as if in response to this, Donovan released a loud, angry grunt and said, “You might as well tell the kid, Alex. You kind of owe him that much at least.”

Mr. Oren, briefly, averted his gaze, but then soon after returned it. Now, as he regarded Zach, he had a peculiar look in his eyes, one that was almost a perfect, fifty-fifty split between determination and guilt. “You’re correct. I am leaving the God Slayers Guild,” he at last confirmed.

“But why?” Zach asked. Even though he’d figured that much out already, it was still a shock to hear him say it. “Did…did you and Donovan have a fight or something?”

Mr. Oren shook his head. “No, no, it isn’t anything like that at all, my man.”

“Then why? Can’t you just tell me?”

“It may be difficult for you to hear, and it will likely be even more difficult for you to understand.”

“Just tell me. Please.”

Mr. Oren nodded. “Very well, Zach. I’m leaving the GSG because I’m leaving adventuring entirely, and I’m giving up the buff in the process.”

If not for the safety harness, Zach would have jumped up out of his seat in the limo DEHV. “But why?” he shouted, taken aback. “Why the hell would you do that?”

Mr. Oren adjusted his cat-eye glasses, and then he fixed Zach with a serious look. For a moment, he stared into Zach’s eyes without blinking, and Zach could just tell that Mr. Oren was about to say something he wasn’t going to want to hear.

“The reason I’m leaving,” he began, “is because I’ve accepted a position to join the Lords of Justice as their new third-ranking member, replacing the recently deceased Lord Palnor. Along with it, I will also be accepting the role of Chief Human Ambassador in the hopes of helping reunite humanity with the rest of the world.”

Zach shook his head, slowly at first, but then even faster. It was true that he’d always felt Mr. Oren was out of place among adventurers, and he’d even thought on numerous occasions that he almost seemed better suited to one of the political guilds, but those had always just been idle, amused thoughts, and they were in no way a reflection of what he actually believed should happen.

“I can’t accept this,” he said adamantly.

“That was my reaction, too,” Donovan added with a grunt.

Pointing his finger at his former science teacher, he continued to shake his head. “You’re the one who told me that the political guilds aren’t even real guilds. You’re the one who told me how terrible they are, and how we, adventurers, are against everything they stand for.”

“I did,” Mr. Oren confirmed, once again adjusting his glasses almost as though it were a defensive reflex. “Yet at the same time, I’ve expanded the way I view the world. I've seen a lot these past few weeks, and I truly believe I can be an advocate for the common man. I believe I can work to make life better for all Galterrans. This isn’t something I’ve decided lightly.”

Zach, still shaking his head, had to resist the temptation to cover his ears so as not to hear any more of this garbage. “This is bullshit, Mr. Oren. This is total bullshit. And don’t say a Gods-damned thing about my language. This is bullshit. You’re an adventurer. We’re not like those people. We don’t belong in that world. How can you do this? Is this…” Lowering his voice and choosing his words very, very carefully, he asked, “Is this because your faith has been shaken by…by stuff?”

He knew that Mr. Oren would understand what he was referring to: that he was referring to the way Mr. Oren had been emotionally manipulated by Prila into obtaining the buff and beginning his journey into the world of adventuring, a discovery that shattered all his beliefs and had left him—at least at the time—looking hollow and empty, as though his life’s purpose had been just a joke.

“I won’t pretend that’s not a part of it, Zach,” Mr. Oren said, now speaking at barely above a whisper. “But only the smallest part, and even had that not been a factor at all, I would still be choosing this path.”

“But why? I just don’t understand why.”

“You might not ever understand. The easiest way I can explain it is to say that I feel this is how I can do the most good with my life. I’m not requiring you to agree with that, Zach, but I’d really like you to accept it.”

“And what about…what about our stuff? You know, meeting in Angelica’s and stuff.”

“Naturally, I won’t be able to join you anymore. But I believe you are fully capable of handling things on that end. And don't forget: you'll still have Donovan and your friends to support you.”

Rubbing his eyes, Zach struggled to take all of this in. “This is bullshit,” he said again. “This isn’t right. What if…what if I need you for something?”

“I’ll make sure we can still keep in contact. But given my new station, I can’t always guarantee I will be able to reply to you immediately. There might be days or weeks when I cannot reply at all, or there might be times you might have to leave a message with someone under me. This is going to be a very big change for me. I’m going to be responsible for tens of millions of lives.”

Zach opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off by Donovan, who with a shaky, unsteady voice, begged, “Don’t do this, Alex. You’re one of my best. You’ve got such a great future. I’ve given you a lot of shit for your fuck-ups, but only ‘cause I always saw you taking over some day when I retire. You don’t gotta go down this path.”

“I do,” Mr. Oren insisted. “Look…here’s something neither of you know. I can’t promise that hearing this will make things any clearer, and in fact, you might not understand for a long time why I’m telling you this. Also, what I’m about to say cannot leave this limousine. It’ll all be public eventually anyway, but for now, it must stay here.”

Begrudgingly, Zach nodded, and so too did Donovan. And with that, Mr. Oren continued. “They’re starting to find bodies.”

“Bodies?” Zach asked.

“Yes. You see, during those five minutes yesterday when it looked like the raid was going to wipe, apparently a number of people—some, entire families—took their own lives. No one knows how many people committed suicide, but it’s a lot. More than fifty, at least. Every few hours, more are found. I'm told there is currently no estimate for just how many people died during what the media's now calling the 'five minutes of silence.'”

Zach gasped, and so did Donovan. “And before you blame yourselves,” Mr. Oren continued. “None of you are responsible for this, and do not ever think otherwise.”

“Are you sure about this?” Zach asked breathlessly.

“I am.”

“That’s…that’s terrible. If I hadn’t…” His heart began to pound faster in his chest. “If I hadn’t collapsed like a coward, maybe they wouldn’t—”

“You are not at fault,” Mr. Oren said, and this, he spoke with a heat and force in his words. “I did not tell you this so that you would blame yourself, Zach.”

“Then why did you tell me this? What does this even have to do with your reason for leaving? I don’t see the connection at all.”

Now, Mr. Oren fixed Zach with yet another of his unblinking stares. “When people with power take actions," he said, "it can often affect the lives of others in ways that aren’t always clear until much later. The things we do matter, Zach. The more power someone has, both in the social as well as the physical sense, the more a single word can cause a life to end or a life to be saved. We live in a world where there are so many people who are powerless to defend themselves, and a world like that cries out for order and decency.”

“I…I still don’t understand,” Zach whispered. “I don’t understand at all.”

“Someday, I hope you will. I hope you both will.”

If Mr. Oren had anything further to say, he did not have the chance to voice it, as from the sudden bright lights streaking in from both sides of the DEHV, they had arrived at the camp. Music was playing, people were dancing, and Gods, was it a fancy, high-class, and noisy affair. This was no longer a discussion it was possible to have. Olivir, who had remained silent through all of it, gave Zach a reassuring nod as if to suggest he'd like to talk with Zach about it later, though in truth, Zach wasn't sure he ever wanted to talk about it again or even think about it.

How could Mr. Oren do this?

Chapter 109: Blood in the Water

Chapter 109: Blood in the Water

Even with the uncomfortable suit irritating his skin and the conversation he’d had with Mr. Oren still running through his head, Zach was surprised to find that he didn’t absolutely hate the “party” or “affair” or whatever this event was formally called. Despite how at odds it was with his core personality, he just couldn’t deny that there was a part of him, however small, that appreciated the sheer importance of what it meant to actually be here around all of these people. At the moment, he was sitting with Kalana to his left and Olivir to his right while slowly sipping at a bowl of soup good enough to make him wonder if they’d stolen it from Angelica’s.

The camp had gone through numerous changes since he’d been here yesterday. It now looked more like an outdoor wedding venue for billionaires than it did the rugged, thrown-together assortment of tents that it had been during the raid. All around Zach, fancily dressed serving staff hustled from one table to the next asking to refill drinks or if they could be of help to any of their guests. Zach was sitting at one of the more “important” tables positioned closer to a stage that had been erected on the east end of the camp, and aside from Kalana, he dined along with Kolona, Olivir, Queen Vayra, Grundor—who had taken very well to wearing a tuxedo—and a host of other highly important, level-1 celebrities, some of whom Zach not only recognized but struggled to breathe when speaking to.

Chal Brillstar was one of them. Everyone on Galterra knew who Chal was. How couldn’t they? He was the star of the “Gun Racers” franchise and probably one of the highest-profile action stars in the world. The fact that Zach was sitting directly across from someone like this blew his fucking mind. Like, there he was! The Chal Brillstar. The same guy he and Kal had ditched school last year to see star in Gun Racers IV on its opening day.

“I rather like this song, don’t you?” he asked Zach as the band began to play something from his father’s era.

Zach nodded meekly. “Yep.”

He was being a terrible conversationalist, but what could someone like him possibly say to someone like Chal Brillstar? Kalana, on the other hand, had no such shyness. If not for her, Zach would likely forgo making conversation entirely. Gods, she looked beautiful tonight, too. She was wearing a black lace popover dress and had put on two diamond earrings. She positively glowed. Yet she seemed to find—or at least she claimed to find—Zach just as impressive, remarking that he needed “to wear suits more often” and that he “looked so amazing.”

Never wearing this again, he thought to himself.

As music played, people danced, and speeches were given during intermittent pauses in the festivities, one of the bowtie-wearing serving staff at last gave Zach the thing he actually wanted above all: the catalogue. In their typical “political guild way,” they’d put together a digital catalogue of every item that was up for grabs in tonight’s roll. The dragon had dropped not one, but two artifact-quality items, as well as five legendary items, eight ultra-rare, fifty rare, eighty uncommon, and a hundred common items.

“Ooh, I want that one,” Kalana said, flipping through the virtual catalogue on the tablet and pointing at a gemstone the size of a human thumb that looked a lot like an ordinary diamond. It appeared to be purple—ultra rare—quality, and Kalana’s mom, as though noticing her looking over it, smiled at her daughter.

“Do you have a dog now, Kalana?”

She shook her head. “Nope. I got a cat. Her name’s Nila, and she’s so precious.”

“Ahh. Well, having a Shadowfang is a big responsibility.”

“I know, it is,” Kalana said. “But I really want one. Zach has Fluffles!”

So that’s what that is, Zach thought. He recalled Mr. Oren and the others telling him about Fluffles swallowing a gemstone that matched this description, which they said had transformed Fluffles from an ordinary house cat into the mischief-making terror that Zach nevertheless loved to pieces.

“Zach not allowed to pet Nila,” Fluffles grumbled. The cat was sitting on his lap at the table, and rather than have his own plate, Zach was simply sharing whatever he got with him. Ripping off a piece of bread, he placed it flat in the palm of his hand and moved it towards Fluffles’ face. Fluffles meowed and gobbled it up.

“Be nice, kitty,” Kalana said to him. “You’re going to meet her this summer, too. You’re coming with Zach, right?”

“I’m coming too,” Fluffles confirmed.

“So you better be nice to my cat.”

“Fluffles will scratch and start fight.”

“You better not!”

Fluffles looked up at Zach. “Why Kalana bullying me?”

Zach laughed but decided not to answer such a ridiculous question. At any rate, the moment his own tablet was set down before him, he immediately let go of his soup spoon and began scrolling excitedly to the very end, interested in feasting his eyes on the artifact-quality items that had dropped. And Gods, he wanted them both so badly.

The first was a level-105 staff that was slightly curved and looked made of a sort of grey, polished stone, the base of which had been carved into the head of a dragon. In addition to giving +90 to intelligence, +85 to dexterity, and +85 to constitution—absurdly high stat bonuses—it had a twenty-minute ability on it that claimed it would “call down an inferno from above” and deal “50,000 damage per second + additional damage that scaled highly with intelligence.”

Yet it also had a second ability, too. This one could only be used once a week, which for five minutes would transform the staff into a “flaming sword” and “grant the user +85 strength and a 45% chance to light their target on fire with melee attacks.”

Zach practically salivated at the thought of how much a staff like that was worth. Yet it was the other item that really got him drooling. The other item was a ring—which come to think of it, he could have two of those equipped and still only had one, making this perfect for him. Gods, he wanted this one really badly. The ring appeared to be made of some kind of shiny, greyish metal with a big red ruby inlaid in a slot in the middle of it. It was also described—though not shown—to give off a “permanent golden shine of approximately 400 lumens in brightness.” But the really important details were in its stats. Zach’s entire body shook with greed as he read them over.

The ring was level 115, and it gave +90str, +90dex, +90speed, +45int, and once every month, it allowed its user to summon a level-190 “sky drake,” which would last for fifteen minutes or until killed, and could be ridden or used in battle. The sky drake also came with a list of five different attack abilities, all of which sounded awesome, such as something called “Burning Ray” which apparently allowed the sky drake to call down a “beam of fire” to burn its target. Each of the five abilities could only be used once, and could only be used within the fifteen minutes during which the sky drake remained in existence.

“Gods, I want that!” Zach blurted out. “Fuck, I need to have that ring.”

“Let’s hope you get lucky and win it then, young man,” Fylwen said to him, sipping at her wine.

Zach shifted his eyes in her direction. “Say…”

“No,” both Kalana and Fylwen replied in unison. “You’re not getting my roll or my mom’s roll.”

“But, baby,” Zach said with intentionally false cuteness. He touched the screen, tapping his finger on the ring. “I want it.”

She kissed him on his cheek. “Then win it.”

Zach sighed. That was going to be easier said than done with 535 raid members here. Well…technically, that wasn’t true. The actual number was 534, since Peter Brayspark had chosen not to attend the ceremony. He was the only one of them who had not shown up, and as far as Zach was aware, the other guilds weren’t complaining.

“Do the people who died get to roll, too?” Zach asked.

“You know they do,” Kalana said.

“Pfft. That’s not fair.”

“Nah-uh. They gave their life fighting the dragon.”

“Yeah, but they came back.”

“Zach…”

He again sighed. “Fine, I’ll be nice.”

Olivir chuckled, and so did Grundor. Those two and Kolona seemed to be having the best time of them all. And shockingly, they’d even made—however brief—some conversation with Queen Vayra. Kalana claimed that, in a few days, she and her mother were going to talk over everything that had taken place over the past few years, and that she’d finally learn exactly what had happened to her mother and why. Zach was hoping Kal would fill him in when that happened, but he decided he would not pry and would let her tell him when she felt comfortable. For now, he was content to just take in the sheer grandeur of everything around him.

I never imagined being in a place like this, he told Eilea. I don’t know if you can see all this stuff, but it’s so different from what I’m used to. When I was growing up, the fanciest party I ever went to was a birthday party at a skating rink.

Ever since earlier today, when Zach had felt just the tiniest slice of the sheer, utter, burning loneliness that Eilea Vayra was forced to endure in her confinement down beneath the surface, Zach had decided to talk to her every now and again. Somehow, he just knew that she would appreciate it. He knew that it would help ease her pain and discomfort—even if just a little. It was unusual for him to care so much about strangers, especially ones who were self-proclaimed Gods. But having actually gotten to feel her pain, even if just a fraction of it, he partially understood what she was going through. He knew that, every time he spoke to her, it eased her suffering at least a little.

I shouldn’t complain, though, he said. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be trapped in one place for a thousand years. I’d lose my mind after a month. I’d try to end it after a year. I don’t know how you’ve been down there for a thousand years, Eilea. You must be so strong. I can’t even comprehend that much time, let alone imagine spending it locked away in a dark place. I wonder if there’s a way I can help you get out.

As he returned his attention to the tablet to see what legendary items had dropped, he felt something. It was brief. It was so slight it could almost have been his imagination. It was like a tightening of his chest, but not in an uncomfortable or scary way. But in a way that felt more like an embrace. It was fleeting, and it was gone so quickly it had vanished in the same moment he had become aware of it. But he was sure: Eilea had reached out to him, if only for a split second.

Even as he continued to read through the catalogue—which would also be the device using for rolling—Zach pushed it over slightly to the side so that a server could place the first course down in front of him: smoked lamb served in a tomato sauce. Zach had never tasted lamb before. With a shrug, he decided to dig in.

******

“The lamb is delicious, isn’t it?” a finely dressed woman asked. She was attractive, but he was uninterested in her. Yet he still smiled politely and nodded in agreement, knowing her father had taken great pains—and expense—to ensure his daughter sat near him during this occasion.

Meeting her eyes, Haisel Ragora, second-in-command of the Royal Roses, wet his lips in preparation to make polite, idle chat as a vibration from his pocket indicated that something significant either had or was in the process of occurring. “Forgive me one moment, madam,” he said, removing the napkin from his lap and standing up from the table. “I have to take this call.”

“Hurry back,” she said flirtatiously.

Quickly walking away from the table so as to put himself out of earshot, he headed in the opposite direction of the stage to a somewhat quieter area of the camp. Then he removed his cell to see who’d contacted him. Immediately, he felt a thudding begin to beat in his chest as he saw the caller was none other than Commander Hazroth, calling him from aboard the Piercing Thorn: the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier he had painstakingly recreated but never in his life expected to have to use. The same was true of the F-15E Strike Eagles, twelve of which were docked and aboard the ship.

“This is Senior Lieutenant Ragora,” he said, answering the call.

“Sir,” came Hazroth’s voice. “We found ‘em.”

Haisel looked around once again, ensuring that no one was observing him. Aside from the boss, who was peering at him with expectant, knowing eyes from the table he’d just departed, he appeared to be in complete privacy.

“Are you sure? You have to be one-hundred percent certain, Commander Hazroth.”

“It’s the fleet, sir. I’m positive.”

Of all the times for this to happen, why did it have to be now? Haisel had been essentially living aboard the Piercing Thorn, spending every day, evening, and night there. It just figured that this had to come up the one time he was away. Yet he knew that he needed to trust Commander Hazroth and seize upon this opportunity now, lest he lose it. Although Commander Hazroth was a level 1, he was nevertheless a capable, intelligent man who was more than able to handle things in Haisel’s absence. Even still, he wished he could teleport over there right now. To hell with the loot!

“You’re positive?” he asked again. “Well and truly positive?”

“Absolutely, sir. It’s their coastal fleet. We found ‘em.”

With Vim’s eyes still trained on him, Haisel turned his head to meet his guild-leader’s gaze, and with that, he gave a quick, firm nod of the head. And then, in turn, Vim gave him one right back. Confirmation. Good. Tightening his grip on his phone, he said, “Commence the operation. Attack the enemy fleet.”

******

For the second night in a row, Dolir Renfar had to resist the urge to vomit off the side of the battlecruiser’s deck as the perpetual motion of the ship caused his seasickness to worsen. Why in the name of the Gods had Major Baxtra redeployed him from the 131st brigade to this aging, barely serviceable vessel?

He wasn’t alone in his discontent, either. More than three-thousand infantry had been thrust in a totally unfamiliar role in a totally unfamiliar location, and all because just two radar and sonar operators claimed to have detected an anomaly last week off the coast near the Arid Dunes of Bastia, which only one of the two of them thought implied the existence of enemy naval ships. This, of course, was preposterous, as it would mean the Royal Roses had somehow assembled a fully functioning navy. Not to mention any and all attempts to relocate the signal had failed.

No way in hell, he thought to himself.

Though they were experiencing some hard times, everyone knew that the Guild of Gentlemen remained the only force in humanity with a working, functioning fleet of battleships. The technology just to repair, let alone build new ships had been lost ages ago, and the funding required to research, as well as the sheer number of scientists and manpower…this kind of development could not possibly have taken place undetected.

“You okay, son?” Sergeant Matrick asked him.

Wiping his lips, Dolir nodded. “I’m fine, sarg. No fucking idea what I’m even puking up. I haven’t eaten shit since I got here.”

The sergeant laughed. “You’ll get used to it. It takes time, but before long, you’ll get your sea legs.”

“I don’t even want them. I hope I get sent back in the city, to be honest.”

“We all do, son. But right now, humanity needs us to—”

The sergeant’s words cut off and Dolir’s eyed widened in confusion as a terrifyingly loud boom along with an intense, bright orange glow lit up the dark sky; from seemingly out of nowhere, an orange ball of flame was now hovering above the ocean to the west of their ship, which caused him to reflexively drop to his knees and cover his head with his hands.

“Wh-wh-what the fuck was that?” he screamed.

Caught in a moment of confusion and disorientation, he wondered if that Gods-cursed dragon was still alive as both he and the sergeant exchanged perplexed, anxious glances with one another. And then the sirens began to blare, the confusion ramped up tenfold, and a complete sense of chaos came over the crew.

“Ocean's Perl has been hit!” a voice cried behind him. “Ocean’s Perl has been hit!”

“By fucking what?” shouted another, panicked voice.

Still in a crouch, Dolir partially turned his body around, and now he realized that the giant streak of orange hovering over the water was the Ocean’s Perl—all of it—completely set aflame. Men and women were shouting in agony over the communications line, with many jumping overboard while others screamed that they were trapped beneath the deck.

“This is Captain Lola Gursk. Ocean’s Perl, what is your status. Do you copy, over?”

“This…” Crackling. “…Perl…been hit…all engines out. Taking on water!”

Dolir grabbed his rifle and looked around as hundreds of men and women stormed the deck with their guns at the ready. This, as more sirens went off and another, similar explosion created a large wave in the ocean that rocked their ship and nearly knocked Dolir off his feet. His heart raced with terror. Was this really happening? He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to be here at all.

What’s going on? What’s happening? I don’t know what to do.

More voices cried out in alarm, and now, all guns were pointed towards the north, where a number of large, barely visible shadows were looming on the horizon. With terrified, shaking hands, Dolir lowered his rifle and grabbed the binoculars that dangled from a strap around his chest. Looking through the lens, he shook his head in both denial and fear as he spotted what could only be called an approaching naval fleet consisting of new, polished-looking ships, with one in particular dead center that was so large it had to be the biggest artificial, sea-faring structure that Dolir had ever before witnessed.

Shaped like a dagger and many times the size of even their largest ship, it appeared to have…no, that couldn’t be. Were those runways on top of it? And were those jets that were taking off? What in the name of the Gods was that thing? Who or what was attacking them? This couldn’t have been the Royal Roses, surely.

Screaming, panicked voices cried over the communications line, and soon, the screech of jets came from the skies above. In unison, twelve of them soared over their fleet and continued right on in that direction until they were out of sight. Then came the explosions.

As Dolir hugged his knees into his chest and lowered his head, whimpering, he prayed to the Gods to save him. He’d never been so afraid in his entire life. Not even as he’d watched Sir Brayspark fight the dragon. His lips quivering and his heart pounding, he lost control of his bowels and defecated in his breaches as he cried out for his mother. He wanted to go home. He didn’t understand what was happening. Were those airplanes dropping bombs on top of them? Since when did such a weapon exist?

“Return fire!” the sarg cried. More noise erupted around him as an entire row of soldiers began emptying round after round into the approaching force. What they were aiming at or what they hoped to accomplish, Dolir could not say. Even as people shouted at him to stand up and fight, he could only remain where he was and cower in fear. He’d never asked for this. He’d never wanted to be a part of any of this.

“Gods dammit, Renfar!” the sergeant cried. “Get off your ass and—”

There was a ping, and then the sergeant fell lifelessly to the floor, a bullet-shaped hole in the center of his forehead. Blood leaked out of him, creating a pool that was washed away only as another wave caused water to splash up and onto the deck. At the same time, the roar of machine-gun fire came from what he presumed to be mounted guns on the enemy ships. Before his very eyes, the entire deck was ripped apart, and everyone to both his left and right were gunned down, their bodies shredded by incoming fire. The lucky ones died immediately; the rest suffered.

Dolir buried his face into the deck and tried to wish himself away as more screams, more death, and more explosions followed. The airplanes came back around for another attack. How were they supposed to deal with this? How could they shoot down such fast-moving weapons? He screamed as the most violent bang yet caused him to nearly fall overboard. The ship he was stationed on was split in half, and water began to rush in. This, as a woman clutching her stomach reached out as if to grab hold of something as blood poured out of her and spilled off the deck, draining her insides into the ocean.

“Medic,” she begged, her voice weak. “Medic.”

He was going to die. There was no escaping this. This was the end of his life!

*****

Sir Allistair Morrison slammed his fist down onto his desk. “They have a fleet?” he shouted in disbelief.

His officers said nothing, many looking away in shame. Major General Baxtra exhaled. “The cowards attacked us during a celebration, too,” he said. “While they use our land to hold their party.”

“What were we even attacked with?”

“It appears…” He shifted nervously. “It appears the Royal Roses have somehow built an ancient aircraft carrier. I don’t know how they did it, but it appears new, too.”

Alistair swore. “What’s the damage so far?”

“They’ve sunk half our fleet. We’re trying to evacuate the other half, but the enemy appears to have F15 fighter jets, and they’re pursuing successfully.”

“H-how?” Alistair asked with a gasp. “How can this even be? Those don’t exist anymore. If they did, we’d be the ones to have them.”

“I don’t know,” Major Baxtra said. “But this is a devastating blow, and we’ll be unable to reinforce our front-line troops from the sea when the invasion begins.”

“No,” he growled. “No, no, I won’t accept this. We need to retaliate. Activate the cell in Giant’s Fall.”

“S-sir!” Major Baxtra said sharply. “For what purpose?”

“Have them attack Lion’s Square.”

“Lion’s Square? There are no valid targets there.”

“I don’t care. Attack the square itself!”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning what I said. Attack. The. Square!”

Major Baxtra held up his hand as though in a gesture of hesitance. “That’s a civilian target. There are no military forces there.”

“I don’t care. We must strike back. Order our sleeper cells to activate and put the fear of the Gods into the Royal Roses and those who support the enemies of humanity.”

Even though he could see his officers were visibly uncomfortable, Alistair Morrison would refuse to budge. Those Royal Rose cowards were massacring his people. This could not go unanswered. There was no way he could allow them to spill this much blood without their retaliation.

“Order them to activate,” he said again. “Target the civilian population.”

“Sir, please, hear me,” Major Baxtra said. “What you are asking me to do is literally an act of terror. You’re asking us to commit terrorism.”

“It’s an act of survival. Activate them now. Do you understand me, Major?”

“As you wish, sir.”

*****

Jessi was not sure at what point, exactly, everything went wrong. Together with her two children, she had gathered in Lion’s Square for a massive celebration. There was music, games, and street performers. Cotton candy was being given freely to anyone under 12 years of age, and the ice cream trucks had come out to satisfy the sugar-cravings of those who wanted something a bit colder. Everyone was happy, and everyone was expressing joy that the dragon had finally been dealt with: that their heroes had triumphed against an ancient evil she hoped to never again see.

And then a series of loud cracks, which she had at first thought were fireworks, began permeating the air. All at once, shouts of joy turned to screams of terror as a group of trench-coat-wearing men wielding assault rifles began randomly opening fire on everyone in her vicinity. At first, she remained frozen where she was, unsure if this was some kind of demonstration or prank or something other than what it seemed. But it was only after a bullet hit her husband’s throat and he began to gurgle as blood spilled out of his open wound that she realized something truly terrible was happening. Something that she could neither understand nor believe was really happening.

“Run!” shouted voices all around her, crying out fearfully. “Shooter! Shooter!”

Making the hardest decision of her life, she scooped up her son in one hand and her daughter in the other, and she left the love of her life to die alone while writhing in pain near the center of the square. But what could she do? What could she possibly do? She still couldn’t fully understand what was happening. How could she know how to react to something like this?

As people ran frantically in every direction, she chose to move as fast as she was able towards the rear of the square. Panting heavily, she shouted for her children not to look back and to keep running as she pushed them forward with an arm around each of them. Everywhere around her, people were falling down and ceasing to move. Some were shot multiple times: enough so that their clothing was torn away from the repeated impact of bullets. A musician that had been entertaining children was twitching his fingers and shaking uncontrollably. And through it all, Jessi ran as fast as she could.

Then something happened, and she realized she could no longer feel her arms or legs. She was now lying down with her face on the pavement. What happened? Was she hurt? She didn’t understand. She could no longer move. Had she been shot?

“Mommy! Mommy, please!”

She tried to tell her children to run. She hoped they did. Everything faded, and then there was nothing.

*****

Zach laughed happily. “Kal, you’ve got to try this salmon. It’s amazing.”

She smiled at him. “I don’t like fish that much.”

“Just try it!”

“Oh, okay.”

The more the night went on, the more Zach relaxed and allowed himself to enjoy it. After all, why not? The world was saved, and he deserved a moment of peace.

Chapter 110: The End of an Era

Chapter 110: The End of an Era

Adamus lowered his eyes a moment as he watched the events play out in both his mind and on the terminal in front of him. His disappointment was immense.

It was going to be another one of these, was it? Humans and their wars. He sighed. If only Eilea had not taught them how to deactivate the spawn points, perhaps they would be too busy surviving to start this kind of conflict up again.

As it were, he knew his system was not at fault. No, the blame for this could be laid squarely on Eilea. Adamus had a fairly solid knack for predicting what was to come based on what was, and though he was not perfect, he was good enough that he could tell this would be a particularly ugly one.

Galterra, in all likelihood, was doomed.

*****

Even as Zach held Kalana's hand and laughed at a joke told by Olivir, he couldn’t shake the growing sense that something wasn’t quite right. It was a nagging feeling Zach had in the back of his head. He wasn’t sure when it began, and he wasn’t sure what caused it, but somewhere between the third and fourth course, things had begun to feel just a little bit…well, “off,” for lack of a better word. For starters, the mayor of Ogre’s Axe—the smaller of the two cities in Giant’s Fall—had stopped speaking mid-speech. One of his aides had run up to him and had hastily whispered something into his ear. Whatever it was had clearly startled the man, because he’d accidentally dropped the microphone and had hurried off the stage.

At the same time, Vim Alazar, the leader of the Royal Roses, had gone pale, and a look of disbelief came across his face, one that was soon replaced by rage. He, along with Haisel Ragora, had then gotten up and had moved in unison towards another area of the camp, where both men had begun speaking to one another in hushed whispers. Zach could not make out what they were saying.

Even still, it was a minor blip in what was otherwise turning out to be a really nice night. It was probably just boring guild politics stuff that wasn’t of any interest to him. What was of interest to him was this outstanding veal, which both he and Fluffles were loving.

“Zach give another piece,” Fluffles begged with a loud meow.

“Your dad’s going to kill me if I keep giving you.” Even now, he could see Maric glaring over at Zach from where he sat five tables down the line.

“One more piece, then this Fluffles’ last,” the cat said. “I promise.”

Zach sighed. “Okay, fine.”

Cutting off a small piece, he lifted the fork towards Fluffles, and the cat bit the meat right off it. Most people seemed to be fine with the cat doing this, but there were a few snobby people who seemed to think it was gross that Zach was sharing the same fork with his cat. Well, they were probably animal haters and could all go to hell. Honestly, his patience for cat-haters had gone to zero ever since he’d adopted the cat—or rather, the cat had adopted his own self.

Don’t care what they think, Zach thought. Fluffles was on the raid too. He can eat whatever he wants. Look at them staring down their nose at him. Gods, some of these people piss me off.

Wanting to steer his thoughts in a more positive direction, he flipped through the document on the tablet once again: the so-called catalogue. As much as he was hoping to win the artifact-quality items, Zach realized the legendary items were also really fantastic, and even the epic-rare ones were, too. Hell, even the rare and uncommon items were great, as they’d been dropped from such a high-level boss that many of them were improvements over his current equipment despite their rarity. When all was said and done, Zach just hoped to walk away with something that was an improvement over what he already had.

“Hey, Kal,” he said with a chuckle.

“Yeah?”

“If I win that ring, I’ll be able to summon my war-mount and a sky drake at the same time.”

She pressed her palm against his shoulder and gave him a playful push. “You need to stop causing so much mayhem, Zach. I dunno if you should even be allowed to have that ring.”

“I hope I get it now even more,” Zach said. “I earned it. And you know what? I only have one ring as is, so I need it more than anyone else. After all the effort I put in, I should be the one to…hm?”

“What?” Kalana asked, having just eaten a forkful of veal.

Zach nodded with his head in the direction of something behind her. “What’s going on over there?”

She turned her body around in her chair so that she could look behind herself. “Umm, not sure. Mom?”

Queen Vayra tensed. “I don’t know. Something feels wrong…”

“I was just thinking that, actually,” Zach said.

Right now, Kolorn Besh, the ostensible “leader of humanity” and guild-leader of the Lords of Justice, had sprung out of his chair and had stormed over to Vim Alazar, and so too had Abram Gespon. It wasn’t long before Fionna Darkmae, the young female leader of the Children of the Order joined them, and then so too did the leader of Defenders of Peace. The five of them were exchanging glances that ranged from outrage to shock, and though they were whispering, they were speaking at such an intensity that he could actually hear their voices even if he could not make out any words.

“No one seems to be paying it much attention,” Zach said. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

The other guests, be they celebrities, business tycoons, rank-and-file guild members or those who’d participated in the raid—all seemed to pay little heed to what was going on with those five, so Zach thought it was probably safe to assume that nothing all that serious was happening. And as though to reassure them all of this fact, Vim Alazar approached the stage, picked up the microphone off the floor, and began to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I hope you’re enjoying yourselves this evening. We were all faced with a terrible threat, something unlike anything we’ve ever been forced to deal with in any of our lives. And yet, we persevered!”

A round of applause came from the crowd, including Zach. Then Vim continued to speak, and upon his next few words, the mood changed immediately and dramatically. “Due to some unforeseen circumstances,” he said, “we’re going to have to cut the night a bit short. We’ll be commencing the loot-rolling now, and the fifth course will not be served. Preparations are being made to have you all sent home as soon as possible.”

Murmurs of confusion and disappointment came from the guests all around Zach, as well as whispered questions demanding to know what was going on and why. And though Zach could not object to cutting straight to the loot, he certainly couldn’t deny the pinch of uneasiness he began feeling in the pit of his belly.

“I’d also ask you all to please remain calm,” Vim continued. And it was here that Zach felt a nervous chill run down his back. “You may be about to hear some very loud noises. I want you to understand that you are in no danger.”

Vim continued to speak, but whatever Vim had said next, Zach did not hear it. His attention was instead diverted off to his right, specifically in the direction of the city, where the sound of twelve jets streaking across the sky created a noise so loud that it caused every head to turn and every eye to stare in the direction of it.

“What’s this, some kind of airshow?” a woman wearing a fancy white dress exclaimed. “How lovely. I’ve not seen that type of aircraft before. What manner of—”

Her words finished in a scream, and then a loud gasp came from hundreds of people all at once. Kalana grabbed his hand and squeezed hard enough to cause pain, and Zach felt his entire body tighten in apprehension. There was a bang, and it was unlike any Zach had ever before heard. It was raw, deep in pitch, and though it did not cause the ground to rumble, it did cause the tables to shake and the silverware everywhere to jingle against plates. Then there was a bright orange ball of flame coming from the city, and Zach peeled his lips back in both fear and shock.

“Is it Ziragoth?” he shouted. “Did it come back somehow?”

It was the question on everyone’s lips: everyone except Vim, who spoke into the microphone, this time even louder. “Everyone, please, I assure you. This is not the dragon.”

“What’s going on?” Donovan yelled, scrambling up to his feet. “Why the fuck is shit exploding in the city?”

Vim looked around as though for support, and the other guild-leaders joined him on stage. With his left hand, he made a gesture, and abruptly, all media cameras turned off. Then he continued to speak. “Around one hour ago, the Guild of Gentlemen launched a terrorist attack in Giant’s Fall targeting a civilian population,” he said. “We have been informed that it has resulted in a mass-casualty event. There are over five-hundred dead or wounded.”

More gasps of horror came from the crowd. Icy tendrils of fear erupted inside Zach at these words, as well as a feeling of disbelief and disgust. It was a revulsion so deep he struggled not to vomit up his food. Kalana squeezed his hand even more tightly, and Fylwen, along with Olivir and Kolona, all appeared to have the same reaction: they began shifting their eyes around as though wondering which direction was best to exit.

“In retaliation,” Vim said, “we have ordered a series of airstrikes. What you have all just witnessed are our newly reborn F15E Strike Eagles, a weapon of humanity’s past capable of launching pinpoint strikes on military targets while minimizing collateral damage and civilian death.”

Zach frowned skeptically. From the intense plumes of smoke emanating from the northern part of the city, he somehow found it very hard to believe that civilians had not just been killed. But most of all, he could not fucking believe that, after everything they’d gone through together—after all the ways in which they’d suffered to fight for their future—the guilds would pull this shit. How could they do this? How could they look at themselves in the mirror? Did they not experience even an iota of shame?

Donovan, now on his feet, looked around as if to meet the eyes of every other adventurer, Zach included, and with an angry, bitter grunt, he said, “This don’t involve us. If shit gets out of hand, we’re leaving. With that, he sat back down—then immediately popped right back up to his feet as though startled as another series of massive explosions came from the city three-and-a-half miles southeast of them, and now, out of nowhere, what sounded like an absolute calamity of gunfire and smaller, miniature explosions began to echo endlessly in the air.

“Kal, I don’t like this,” Zach whispered.

“Me neither.”

Fylwen scowled. “Humans,” she said, the word coming across like acid on her tongue. “Always the same with them.”

In addition to the drumbeat of gunfire and bombs, the sound of ambulances and peacekeeper sirens added to the growing chorus of madness. This, as Vim said, “Let’s continue with our evening and try our best not to pay too much attention to the noise. Again, I apologize for this.”

For the first time since Zach had become a part of the adventuring world, the prospect of loot did not succeed at distracting him from what was taking place around him. Incredibly, he found it hard to care right now. Before his very eyes, he witnessed an entire ten-story building simply crumple into dust, and Kalana leaped out of her seat and yelled out in terror as she watched it implode in the distance.

“What are you doing?” she shouted at Vim while pointing in its direction. “Stop it! Stop it right now!”

At this, Fylwen grabbed her arm and yanked her back down into a seated position. “You mustn’t!” she hissed at her daughter. “You’re an Elvish princess, and you cannot speak out of turn.”

“But, mom, he just—”

“I know what the human did,” she said. “But you must not get involved. The same for you, young man,” she said, her eyes settling worryingly over Zach.

The fact that she glared at him actually provided a sole moment of warmth in what had just turned into a bone-chilling display of coldness, as the anger in her eyes came across as motherly—as though she feared he would do something foolish, and that the idea of it angered her in the same way it would if Kalana had done it.

“Forget the loot,” Fylwen said, shifting her eyes between the two of them. “Kalana, Zach: we are leaving. I’ll order my Elvish warriors to escort us safely out of here. I want neither of you to be anywhere in the vicinity of what is happening. This will turn ugly quickly.”

“But we can’t just leave,” Zach said.

“Yes, yes we can. This is not our concern. You and Kalana have nothing to do with this. Let’s return to Whispery Woods, and we can—”

A series of explosions, each louder than anything that had come from Ziragoth, at last caused the ground to rumble and several plates to fall off the tables as multiple balls of fire appeared in the distance. The entire northern part of the city was now aflame, and even from this far away, Zach could somehow hear screaming. There were so many gunshots, and distantly, he could now see an entire column of tanks beginning to exchange fire with another column. This was nothing like the fair, open-field combat that had dominated North Bastia for a hundred years. This was wild and out of control.

“Let’s get the loot over and done with,” Donovan growled. “Alex, let’s…Alex?”

Donovan closed his mouth and spat into the dirt. A pain entered into his expression as he seemingly realized that Alex had separated himself from the adventurers and had hurried over to reside among the political guild members, who accepted him as though he were one of their own. He joined a huddle of the highest-ranking of them, joining in an exchange of words.

“We need to focus everything now on ensuring the safety of non-combatants,” he said, to which those near him agreed. “Call an emergency meeting of the UCH and see if we can’t rush humanitarian aid into the region.”

“Understood.”

Donovan seemed so taken aback he came across as momentarily paralyzed. But then, quickly, as though finding his strength, he shook his head and continued. “Everyone who wants to roll, we’re doing this the old-fashioned way. Everyone rolls once, and then from highest to lowest roll, the winners pick out what they want in that order. I want this done within ten, and then we’re getting the fuck out of here.”

“We’re not doing it per item?” Kesten asked.

“Naw, not this time. That takes too long, and we’re in a Gods-cursed fuckin’ warzone.”

Donovan said something else, but Zach didn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear anything at all, actually. Because abruptly, a series of gunshots rang out in the air, and now, it was so close that it startled him and caused him to yelp. An instant later, to both his right and his left, he watched as two women in attendance went from glancing at one another fearfully to being ripped open from the neck down, their shoulders twisting and turning in opposite directions as someone—or something—gunned them down, causing a spray of blood to whip across the table and splash in Zach’s face.

“What…what’s happening?” he cried.

With that came the screaming. Plates, glasses, and bottles of wine shattered. A bowtie-wearing waiter clutched his chest and fell backward. Two more women near the cocktail bar let out brief gasps as they slid down to their knees on a trail of their own blood. A famous actor bolted up from a table and began to run, only to be shot in the back.

“Get down!” Kalana shouted. “Everyone, get down!”

"I've been shot!" someone yelled in pain. "Somebody shot me. Please, help!"

Jumping out of his seat, Zach saw multiple men in military uniforms rushing the camp, but it was at him who they pointed their guns. He didn’t understand why. He still wasn’t sure what the hell was taking place. “What are you doing?” he called to them, stunned by the sight of death around him. Then Zach cried out in terror, extending both his hands and bracing himself as they took aim and pulled the trigger. Multiple flashes of light came from the barrels of their rifles, and now, without mercy, Zach found himself riddled with bullets—and because of his level-1 thinking, he truly, however briefly, thought that his life was about to end.

Instead, hundreds of rounds bounced harmlessly off Zach’s face and body, but not before ripping an equal number of tears into his suit, leaving him standing there half naked—and still very much in shock. As though finally realizing who they had just shot at, the soldiers backed away as if terrified of reprisal. “What are you doing, you idiots?” one of them cried. “That’s Zachys Calador you morons just shot at!”

“So? He’s a member of the Royal Roses,” grunted another. “That makes him a valid target. Switching to armor-piercing rounds.”

More soldiers arrived and more bullets were fired, and now, Zach watched on in confusion and shock as he was covered in yet another volley of gunfire, only this time, it sort of tickled. Yet even as he was assaulted in this storm of bullets, he turned his head to look as dozens of the guests, especially those not directly behind him, were cut down one after the next. Men, women, and even a few children were obliterated before his very eyes—even as many tried to hide beneath tables and others fled for their lives. Why were they doing this? Why were they killing all these innocent people?

“Stop,” Zach pleaded, watching as life after life was snuffed out. “Stop it,” he said again. Then he raised his voice, loudly. “I said—”

“STOP IT!” Olivir roared.

The vampire, now shielded by a black, semi-transparent barrier, lifted his arm high into the air and then swung it downwards. Materializing in the air above the firing soldiers, a scythe popped into existence, and then more screams and more cries of terror drowned out almost all other sounds as it began moving up and down on its own, slicing the firing soldiers into numerous pieces while hacking off limbs, faces, fingers, toes, legs, and in some cases severing their heads from their bodies. Many turned their fire onto the vampire instead, but Olivir’s barrier deflected each gunshot, and in some cases, the bullets even ricocheted and returned to he or she who’d fired it, striking them dead instead.

Throughout it all, Zach trembled in confusion, sadness, regret, and a refusal to believe that this could even be really happening. Not after everything that had taken place: not after all they’d endured. How could Peter Brayspark allow this? Sure, the man wasn’t perfect, but he would never do this. Never! So why was this happening?

More soldiers began cresting the hill that led up to the camp, and then more soon behind even those. Anyone not above level-1 was forced to scramble away or face imminent death. Yet the soldiers did not come alone. Now, men and women wearing coats emblazoned with a logo of crossed swords began making their way towards the camp on the heels of what Zach took to be infantry.

“Young man: run!” Fylwen cried as these figures approached. She drew her shortsword and Kalana drew her daggers. “Without gear or your ability, you’re not going to be able to—”

“Get away from him!” Kalana shrieked.

Things happened so fast they were almost impossible to keep up with. One moment, Zach was standing perfectly still in whatever scraps remained of his suit, and in the next, no fewer than ten different people wielding various weapons were charging directly at him while another handful were chanting words with their staffs aglow.

I’m being attacked!

As a sizzling, reddish, plasma-like beam of energy struck down at him in a way similar to lightning, Zach had just enough time to lift his left hand upwards, palm open, and call upon his Bank and Storage. Lacking any time whatsoever to take anything more than his sword and his card, he grabbed his blade out of the box and then backflipped out of the way just as the reddish plasma struck, burning a small, smoking hole in the spot he’d just been standing. Then, with his blade in his left hand and his card in his right, he gave his arm a sturdy jerk forward to detach the weapon from its sheathe, raising it promptly thereafter to defend against a sword strike from a blonde-haired man just in front of him, who was slicing it downwards towards the top of Zach’s head.

“Stop!” Zach shouted at him. “What the fuck are you doing, man? Hey! What's your problem? Stop it!”

Their two blades connected, and it became immediately, abundantly clear that, stats-wise, Zach was outmatched. The man struck so hard it nearly knocked the sword out of his grip. Yet even still, it didn’t stop Zach from noticing the way he then pivoted on his hips as though intent on delivering a horizontal, follow-up strike that would tear open Zach’s chest deeply enough to kill him outright.

For this reason, while still in such a bewildered, detached, and borderline emotionless state of pure shock, and while still attempting to process everything that was going on around him, Zach acted without malice, intention, or purpose. Driven by nothing but reflex and reflex alone, he kicked off his front foot, dashing backwards, and he spun out of the way of a third strike before lashing out with one of his own.

It was only as he heard a moan of pain that he realized what he’d done. The blonde-haired, sword-wielding man dropped his weapon and clutched his neck with both hands as blood spurted out from between his fingers, which were grasping at the spot where Zach had struck him across the throat. He gurgled, fell to his knees, and seemed to be trying to keep any more from leaking out as he fell face forward onto the ground and died.

No! Zach thought to himself, his voice coming through as a scream in his own mind. No, no, no! I didn’t mean to do that! I didn’t…!

Still wielding his weapon in just one hand, he twisted his body around a spear he noticed lunging towards him, then ducked down beneath the strike of a sword to his left. He was being attacked from both sides. Fear raced through him, and it prompted him to retaliate immediately. He struck upwards to parry a second downward slash, and then, upon knocking the sword away, he stepped forward and into a lunging thrust, piercing the woman through the heart before ripping his blade away. Then, even as she fell lifelessly forward, he whirled his body around as fast as he could and just barely managed to parry the spear, hitting it hard enough that it flew out of the hand of the man wielding it, and with that, Zach struck out yet again, but this time, he only managed to graze the man who’d attacked him, slicing him in a way that was shallow and left but a small cut on his left bicep.

Unfortunately for him, however, the light ability of his weapon proc’d.

At once, more than fifty star-shaped emblems made of pure light appeared out of thin air and surrounded his attacker, and then all coalesced into a single point, creating something of a shimmering orb around this black, curly-haired man that lit up the surrounding darkness. “No, please!” he cried. “Wait! Please, kid! W—”

The orb shattered, and so did the man. Now, human remains showered all over Zach, drenching him in blood, bone, and human tissue. He shook his head. He didn’t mean to do that. It wasn’t even his fault. Gods-dammit, it wasn’t! Yet before he could even mentally process the pain of it all, his eyes turned in the direction of a massive, heavyset man wearing a black helmet and a full suit of armor who was wielding a bastard sword that was almost as big as Zach. With a grunt, he slammed it straight down on top of where Zach was standing.

“Why are you doing this?” Zach shouted at him as he backed away. “Please, I don’t want to kill you!”

The sword struck the ground, and the result was a column of dirt, grass, and dust that began showering down on top of the two of them. His adrenaline pumping, and his will to survive drowning out all feelings of remorse, Zach activated Card Summon, calling forth his level-90, Cursed Defender of Ziragoth, and at the same time, he activated his war-mount, causing his Kralzek’s beast to appear from out of a void of nothingness.

There had to be close to twenty people now focused entirely on killing just him. In fact, from what Zach could tell, he’d now become the primary target of whatever the hell this was. He didn’t even know if this was by intention or by chance. Maybe it was because they viewed him as the biggest threat, or maybe this was something they'd set out to do. He had no way of knowing. Either way, at least he was not all alone. Right now, Fylwen and her Elvish warriors, despite being totally ungeared, leapt into action and began assaulting many of the high-level warriors while hundreds of political guild members and adventurers watched on as though completely uncertain as to what they should be doing. Even Donovan remained where he was—at least at first.

Right now, a battle had just begun, and the lines were clear. It was Zach, Fylwen, Kalana, Kolona, Olivir, and an assortment of Elvish warriors versus an entire fucking army. If not for the fact that they were all dressed in formalwear—and thus limited only to the stats granted by their weapons—the Elves alone would’ve been enough to obliterate the Guild of Gentlemen's forces. Yet they’d been caught off guard and unequipped, and so now, it was nothing more than Zach’s ardent, desperate desire to survive that enabled him to do what needed to be done.

“This is an act of war!” Fylwen howled aloud as she split a man open by running her shortsword vertically down the middle of his face. “Archers! Fire on the human infantry!”

Arrows streaked across the night, and rifle-wielding humans cried out in alarm and suffering as a barrage cut them to pieces. At the same time, Zach was forced to contend with a rush of armed attackers heading towards him while an even greater threat was revealed to him in the form of mages, who had begun casting on him. Continuously, he dodged out of the way of various clouds of dark-colored mist, each making a loud popping sound as they detonated like smoke bombs. Though he succeeded in evading quite a few of them, eventually, he got careless and was caught. Now, he coughed as a purple mist exploded on top of him, causing his head to ache, his eyes to tear up, and a feeling of weakness to come over him. He nearly collapsed, too, but Fylwen, casting her Gift of Nature’s Embrace, relieved him of the poison, and he nodded to her in thanks.

I need to deal with those mages!

Immediately, Zach bolted into action. Lacking access to Phase Blink, he dashed forward at full speed then leapt into the air, flipping over a rush of incoming warriors, who instead ran headfirst into his level-90 card and his level-85, saber-toothed cat. He could tell from the sound of screaming that his two minions were on the winning side of that fight. He could hear the snapping of their jaws, which were followed by the subsequent sounds of crunching bones and begging for mercy.

“Get it off me!” one of them cried. “GET IT OFF ME!”

Landing in a crouch, Zach exploded forward at the line of undefended casters, whose mouths popped open as they saw him coming. “W-wait!”

Now, wielding his blade in a two-handed grip, Zach brought down his fury on the nearest mage to him, slashing diagonally downwards in such a way as to open the man up like a stuffed animal from the point of his left shoulder all the way down to his right knee. Zach did not let his gaze linger on the innards that fell out of the mage like a gutted fish. He knew that this wasn't his fault or his doing. Even if the memory of these deeds would end up hurting him terribly later, he was driven on by an absolute sense that he truly was fighting in self-defense.

With a collective shriek of terror, five more of the mages stopped casting at once and began fleeing in more or less a single-file line. Now, rather than pursue, Zach deliberately allowed them to gain a bit of distance, and then he swung his blade down a second time and shouted, “Wave Slash!”

From the point of his sword, a green, cloud-like energy materialized and quickly formed into a spinning disc, which gained speed as it soared towards the fleeing mages, who had made the grave error of standing in a straight line. Zach watched as his Wave Slash cut through all five, slicing the men into various pieces, the sizes of which differed only based on the height of the mage. One after the next, his Wave Slash did its job, and each time, there was an awful tearing sound of both cloth and flesh. Before long, all five were left crumpled on the ground, and all were split in half.

Then, noticing a shadow approaching thanks to the light of a nearby torch, Zach spun back around, raised his guard, and with a shower of sparks, barely managed to block a downward slash from a Gentleman wearing an officer’s insignia, which was identical to the crossed swords but had a golden stitching. From this one exchange alone, Zach knew that he had found a far, far more skilled and dangerous foe than those who’d assaulted him thus far.

With what appeared to be actual swordsmanship, the youthful, brown-haired officer began unleashing one strike after the next at Zach, and for the first time in a while, Zach found himself suddenly engaged in an actual battle of swords. The first slash, which came in high and to his left, Zach managed to guard against but not parry. The second, he managed to bend his knees and duck beneath, but the third one almost hit him. Though he deflected this as well, he did so in a way that left him unable to retaliate, as he was now slightly off balance. Still, the officer pressed the attack.

Zach dashed backwards and tried to steady himself as the man rushed forward. He needed a second to reset. He needed to collect himself. But his foe seemed to sense his moment of weakness. Zach swore. If only he could activate Unleashed Phase or at least use his gear. Though his Phase Level had decreased by one since his last use, he would still be tacking on a Very High exertion debt if he reset and decided to chance it. Given how much Fylwen was exerting herself, there was no guarantee she'd be able to heal him and also survive. Thus, all he had was his blade and the skin on his back, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d lose both. So now, nearly naked, he was forced to enter into a series of backwards hops time and time again as he was pressed without mercy. Thrice, he narrowly avoided being sliced apart, and on the fourth time, he had to drop all the way down to his knees as someone—and he had no idea who—sent a blast of green, pulsating energy hurtling straight towards him.

Rather than hit Zach, it sailed over his head and instead struck the caster’s ally, a dagger-wielding woman who Zach hadn’t even realized was sneaking up behind him. The impact caused her entire midsection to begin smoking, bubbling, and finally melting. Zach watched as she screamed in agony as her entire body was burned away as though she were a bug being tortured under a magnifying glass.

“Nialara!” the officer cried. “Gods, I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

“Why won’t you stop!” Zach shouted. “Why are you doing this? Why?”

Taking advantage of his momentarily stunned enemy, Zach dashed forward and swung his sword downwards with all his might. But the officer opposite him raised his sword to guard, and their two blades met yet again, though Zach was glad to note that it did cause the brown-haired officer of the Guild of Gentlemen to grunt and slightly bend his knees. Zach, striking a second time, found himself again clashing steel against steel. So he took a different approach. He feinted, making as though he were going in for a third, similar attack, only this time, he paused halfway through, spun his body around, and delivered a back-kick into the officer’s midsection, sending him reeling away just as yet another member of the Guild of Gentlemen charged at him, this one wielding a polearm, which gave him incredible reach.

Zach had to spin his entire body to the left, then to the right in order to avoid two thrusts from the bladed end of the pole-based weapon that were sent his way; this, while he could hear the footsteps of the officer he’d just kicked approaching closer to him. Knowing he was in a jam, Zach became aggressive. When the polearm wielding attacker tried to skewer him a third time, he combined two actions into one: spinning and striking. He both spun out of the way while slicing down on the weapon, causing it to temporarily become lodged into the ground. As its wielder yanked his arms back to free it, Zach ran forward and unleashed a three-slash combo, cutting off his right arm, his left leg, and finally stabbing him directly into the mouth, causing his blood-soaked blade to appear out of the back of his head. Then he yanked it free and turned around just in time to once again deflect a heavy, powerful, right-to-left slice of the officer’s blade.

Now, once more, the two resumed their dance. The officer ripped his blade across horizontally, and Zach ducked. Zach retaliated with a thrust, and the brown-haired officer was able to back away. But then Zach noticed the way he shifted the weight off his front foot and placed it on his back leg—he was going for a rising, upward slash. Zach was sure of it!

Ready for the strike, Zach bent backwards, but only just enough so that the blade cleared his body and face by less than an inch. The closeness was intentional, however, as it enabled him to react with much faster speed. Now, before the officer could readjust his position, Zach wound his arms back, bent his legs, and prepared to deliver the finishing blow—only to be blasted in the opposite direction after a missile made of flame came from out of nowhere and struck him dead center in his chest, causing him immense, unbearable pain as he was thrown ten feet away and planted onto his back, the few scraps of clothing left on his upper body burned away and smoking.

“Got you, you little shit!” the caster who’d downed him cried. He hovered over Zach, his staff pointed at Zach’s face. It began to glow red—and then so too did the man’s skull, as Donovan’s axe crashed down on top of it just as it had done to the dragon, causing his head to similarly explode like a watermelon while his brains splattered and dripped down the side of his face.

“Get up, kiddo!” Donovan growled.

Zach nodded. “Thank you. Gods, thank you so much, Donovan.”

“Any time. Now get up!”

Zach shot back up to his feet, dashed forward, and for the third time, he locked swords with the officer. But now, he was pissed. Now, he’d had enough. He exploded into a frenzy of quick, yet accurate and precise strikes. He came in fast towards the man’s left. The officer was forced to tuck his elbows into his sides and hold his blade straight up to guard. Zach then hit at the opposite side, forcing him to repeat the action. Then, finally, after bringing his blade straight down on top of the man’s face, their two blades clashed one final time in a shower of sparks, and now, Zach struggled to overpower his foe—or at least to make him believe that was Zach's intention.

In truth, Zach recognized his stats were too low to win an outright battle of strength. If he had been wearing his equipment, this fight would have been trivial. But he wasn’t, and so he had to rely on other means of getting ahead. Understanding this, he pressed down on the man’s blade with all his might, and the officer met his challenge. For a moment, the two struggled, both gritting their teeth as they fought to overpower the other.

Then, abruptly, Zach eased up completely and pulled away, causing the officer, who was exerting pressure in the opposite direction, to swing both his arms up, nearly losing his grip on his weapon in the process. With that, Zach ripped his blade perfectly across the officer’s stomach, watching as his guts were emptied out and he released a cry of pain. Then he spun around and struck again with a circular slash, cutting off both the man’s legs at the point above his kneecap. Finally, with the legless officer now falling flat onto his back, moaning in pain, and begging to be put out of his misery, Zach granted his request. He turned his blade so that it pointed downwards, and then he screamed out his fury before plunging it into his heart. Yet no sooner had he finished off the officer than he was forced to rip his blade free, whirl back around, and parry the dagger of a scowling woman in a white coat, who had snuck up on him from behind. Upon contact, the dagger flew out of her hands, and Zach decapitated her in one clean slice, her head hitting the grass before the rest of her body followed suit.

And it was in that moment that Zach finally took a hit. Having become exhausted and gasping for air, another fire missile struck him off guard, and once again, Zach was taken off his feet. But even with his body smoking and pain shooting through him, he managed to scramble back up to his feet—only to have a gigantic chunk of flesh ripped off his body as he was struck dead-on by a humongous, axe-wielding man. Wearing a red, scale-covered breastplate along with a pair of padded trousers, the man scored a devastating, crushing attack on Zach, who let out an anguished cry as he saw blood splattering off his own body while he could feel his bones being crushed.

I’m dead, he realized. He got me! I’m fucking d—

Not a half-second after sustaining such a crushing attack, Fylwen cried out, “Val En Maxili Lor!”

Whatever she cast on him, it was unlike anything he’d seen from her to this point. Both her eyes shone with a green light, and then the world brightened with what looked like an equally green spotlight that was beaming down directly on top of him. Sweat began dripping down Fylwen’s forehead, and she began breathing heavily, but the result of her exertion was a complete and total reversal of the damage Zach had just sustained. In less than an instant, his bones regrew and his wounds healed, and observing this, this axe-wielding man growled and tried to repeat the whole process a second time. Yet before he could even so much as raise his axe, Alixa, who was now nearby, opened up her book, and a gust of ghostly wind that was somehow visible to the naked eye popped out of it. The wind reformed itself, growing a pair of teeth and eyes, and it wrapped around the axe-wielding warrior before biting the man’s entire face off. Then the book snapped shut, essentially swallowing the man’s face inside of it.

Panting, Zach nodded his head at Alixa. “Thank you,” he said.

She merely grunted.

Now, five more Gentlemen approached him: three men and two women. Panting heavily, Zach jumped backwards and away from the strike of a massive hammer, then squatted down to avoid the lethal end of a flail, and finally he ran forward to pierce the stomach of a man wielding a shortsword. Ripping it free, he about-faced, raised his blade, and swatted away the head of a flail that was once more hurtling towards him. This time, he batted it away successfully, and he did so with enough force that he caused it to fire right back into the face of the woman who’d launched it at an even greater speed than it'd been moving Zach's way; this caused an absolute downpour of blood to gush out of her forehead as she fell backwards and either died outright or was knocked out cold, likely with permanent brain damage.

“Fucking kid!” one of them shouted, this one an officer. He wielded a longsword in both hands, but unlike the previous officer, his skill was nowhere near on par. He clumsily struck out with a slash that started high and ended low. Zach, effortlessly, countered with a parry—in the form of an upward slash—knocking the sword clean out of the man’s arms. Then he slashed him across the throat, causing yet another spray of blood, before kicking out with his foot and knocking him into the hammer-wielding maniac behind him. The result was that he collided with his ally and put the both of them off balance while he choked on his own blood.

Taking advantage of the situation, Zach lunged ahead and thrust his sword forward and through the both of them, piercing each of them at the same time and killing both. Finally, without even turning around to look, he spun in a half circle and sliced off the head of the final guild-member behind him. And through it all, a never-ending hail of bullets continued to bounce off his skin, some going wide and killing innocent civilians who had done nothing more than attend the ceremony.

Actually, now that Zach had a chance to glance at his surroundings, he realized that just about every single level 1 was dead. Almost none of the guests had survived, including the children. All that remained now were the adventurers, the political guild members, and the guild-leaders—and all had just been unwittingly dragged into an actual war. That was what this was, wasn’t it? War. Zach was fighting in an actual war. An actual battle. Not by choice. Not by intent. But by being forced into it against his own will.

And so, nearly out of breath, he continued to fight for his survival as more and more troops marched up the hill, a seemingly insurmountable, never-ending parade that was wearing him—and from the looks of things, everyone else as well—down. Now, barely managing to avoid a bolt of lightning, which managed to strike the front tip of one of his dress shoes, he charged forward at the caster who’d sent it his way and chopped the staff-wielding woman into little pieces as she shrieked and screamed. Even as her top half was folding over and separating from her bottom half, a green aura was surrounding Zach’s now completely shirtless body, and all at once, his stamina was greatly restored. Though he was not brought back to full energy, his panting stopped, and he felt enlivened.

This was a good thing, too, because he soon found himself chasing after another batch of casters, all of whom sent various missiles or projectiles streaking towards him as they fled. Zach batted away some with his sword, and others, he was forced to jump to one side or the other to avoid, such as right now, as he was forced to put himself out of the way of a cone-shaped blast of fire. Then, closing the distance, he struck out in an attempt to destroy the staff that was producing it, but instead, he took off the entire arm of its wielder.

With blood spurting out of his arm sockets, the mage cried out in misery, screaming about his missing arms and how much it hurt. It caused Zach to hesitate despite being painfully aware of how stupid a thing that was to do, though in this case, it ended up making no difference, as the mage soon died, though it was not by Zach’s hand. Londril, the massive, behemoth-sized, white-cloaked Elvish warrior, bashed him one time over the head with his shield, and he went down for good.

Having been so focused on his own battle for survival, Zach failed to realize just how involved everyone else had now become in the fight. Though the battle had begun with him as one of the only participants, it had now roped in every raid member, who once more fought together in a state of unity. In what was perhaps the only positive thing he was likely to see from this entire ordeal, Zach was heartened to discover that, be they Elf, political guild member, or adventurer—the fight against Ziragoth had tied these people together in a way that nothing else in this world likely ever would or could. They had transcended their differences, their affiliations, their upbringings, and their circumstances, and all would likely remain lifelong friends. If Adamus had any point at all to make, Zach supposed this would be the one and only example of it: at least in his personal opinion, anyway.

But for now, more than anything else, it would turn out to be the single-greatest asset they had. For while the Guild of Gentlemen seemed to have an absurd number of leveled warriors on hand, the raid group had built a form of unit cohesion together—one that had been birthed by a harrowing fight against an impossible enemy. And in a way that almost seemed poetic, they called out to one another as though they were still fighting that very same dragon. Even without the Comms, they spoke as though the communication came naturally to them now.

“BG1!” an adventurer cried. “Attack the casters!”

“BG4, protect the archers!” an Elvish warrior added.

“I got you! BG3, I’m coming to assist.”

“Don’t fuck with BG2!” yelled an officer from the People of Virtue.

Unlike during the raid, what had once been BG8 were now active participants in the combat. This meant Fluffles and Chumpkenwiffles, as well as Grundor, were going wild. The dog, in particular, was cleaning up the armed, level-one infantry, who had regrettably finished slaying the last of the guests, and Fluffles, having transformed himself, was roaring as he ripped apart or in some cases bit entire heads off people.

During all the commotion, Zach had almost forgotten about his card and his mount, both of which were taking on about twenty of the Guild of Gentlemen’s warriors all on their own, and a steadily growing mountain of corpses was starting to pile up by the sides of each.

Everywhere Zach looked, people killed. Even Mr. Oren was stabbing and slashing multiple Gentlemen at once, his face soaked in blood as he stood before Kolorn Besh protectively. No one, it seemed was getting out of this without killing. Well, almost no one. Somehow, once again, Kalana proved to be the exception to the rule. She stood alone as the only combatant who had yet to end a single life. Whether she struck a level-one soldier or a higher-leveled member of the guild, she knocked out her targets by clomping them over the head while yanking away others a moment before her mother killed them—knocking them out in turn and saving their lives.

Taking a moment to watch her, Zach made the mistake of removing his eyes from his enemy. And now, he paid the price for it. Rising up from the ground beneath, a number of branches and roots sprouted into existence, which then wrapped around his body and rooted him in place while an officer with short black hair wielding a very heavy-looking claymore charged straight at him.

“I’m rooted!” he shouted out.

“Zach, I’m coming!” Vim called to him as dozens more men and women surrounded his position. “Royal Roses! Protect your guild-mate. Go!”

If Zach had been in the right state of mind, he would’ve cared to correct Vim. But as it were, he was only glad for the assistance as a veritable swarm of Gentlemen continued to surround him while he was unable to move. Now, nearly forty in number, with more units both level-one and leveled climbing up the hill that led to the camp, Zach realized his luck was bound to run out soon enough.

Thankfully, at least for now, his death was staved off. Before the claymore-wielding officer could close even half the distance between where he charged and where Zach was rooted in place, Vim summoned a slew of ground-splitting boulders, all of which crashed down on top of him and crushed him to death like an insect. At the same time, Haisel Ragora leapt in front of him, a dagger in each hand, and he slit the throats of the next few to approach.

Zach, struggling, was finally able to break free of his restraints. He ripped apart the vines and branches or whatever-the-fuck was binding him then went back on the assault, killing more men and women and drenching himself in more blood. He darted forward and cut deeply into the forehead of boy who looked the same age as him, slicing off the top portion of his head. Then he dismantled a heavily plate-armored tank wielding an axe and shield, his blade easily cutting through the armor. Lastly, he turned to face several more attackers—and it was in that moment that a loud, thunderous voice cried out. And with its appearance, all at once, everything came to a pause.

“What is the meaning of this?” called down a clearly enraged Peter Brayspark, who flew in the air above them all on his flaming Pegasus. “Stand down! Everyone, stand down! By what manner of devil from hell—by what form of demonic possession has this madness been allowed to spread? Why are you all doing this?”

Zach paused mid-swing. His blade was mere inches—perhaps even centimeters—from decapitating a young, red-haired woman only a year or two older than him who’d dropped her sword a moment ago in surrender, only Zach hadn’t even noticed or seen it. Horrified, he backed away from her and lowered his weapon.

“Peter!” Fylwen shouted. “Why have you ordered your men to attack us?”

“I’ve done no such thing,” he replied, landing beside Zach. Despite being their enemy, Zach did not become defensive despite their close proximity. For some reason, he still trusted the man. He observed as Peter removed what looked like a war helmet then surveyed the blood-soaked grasslands all around him. His lips peeled back as though he were horrified. “Gods, there is so much death here. Why? Tell me! How could this have happened? How could this have—”

“You son of a bitch!” Vim screamed. “You attacked Lion’s square!”

Peter, as though appalled, shook his head furiously. “You dare accuse me of such? I have heard your lies, Sir Alazar. I have heard it claimed that we, of the noble Guild of Gentlemen, have launched an act of terror on your city. Tell me: how can you spread such evil lies and not detest yourself for it? Where is the humanity you claim to possess?”

“Lies?” Vim shouted. “Do you want to see the photographs of the dead!”

Peter dismounted his Pegasus then placed his fist over his chest. “With my honor in the hands of the Gods, I swear that what Sir Alazar says is untrue. Nay, I would never allow such an attack in the name of my kingdom. More so, I outright refuse to believe that—”

Peter’s eyes widened, and for a reason Zach could not understand, a wad of blood exited his throat. Behind him, a man clad head to toe in dark, plate armor had his arms extended. Now, Zach realized that a spear had been plunged into the man from behind. He’d been stabbed, quite literally, in the back, and from the looks of things, his heart had been punctured. And just like that, without so much as another word, he died on the spot, the light leaving his eyes.

“No!” shouted Fylwen, grief and misery in her voice. Kalana reached out and grabbed her with both arms, holding her back as she lunged at the black-armored man who had killed Peter. “Peter!” she screamed, a level of agony beyond comprehension coming across in the way she shouted out the name. “Peter! My Peter, no!”

The black-armored man removed his own helmet, and now, Zach recognized him immediately. He was Sir Alistair Morrison of the Dark-Water Depths, legendary hero of the Guild of Gentlemen and second in command. And by all accounts, he had just murdered his own king.

“I offer all of you a chance to withdraw,” he said. “I see my odds as fifty-fifty here. We vastly outnumber you, but you have advantages on your side that make me uncertain. Truth be told, I’d rather recommit my forces to defending the city and the good people who live within it. So, if you leave now and head north, we will not pursue. If you are wise, you will call off this invasion as well.”

Kalana looked to be struggling for all she was worth to restrain her mother, who was swiping viciously at the empty air in front of her with tears falling down her face. Though she was a good thirty feet away, she continued to stab at the nothingness before her as if willing her blade to connect with the man. “I’ll kill you! In the name of every God of Elvadin, I do swear it! I declare war on you, human. Do you hear me?”

Sir Morrison opened his mouth to reply, but it was a man to his right who spoke in his place. “Good, you dirty, Elvish bitch,” the man spat. “Fucking Elf whore. You and all your kind should’ve been wiped out of existence. The only thing you’re good for is suck—”

Zach, flaring with an unspeakable rage, extended his fist, planted his feet into the ground, and then activated the blasting ability on his ring: the sole and only piece of equipment he still had on and had actually forgotten he was wearing at all. Donovan, rushing forward, prevented him from flying off as a gigantic, tube-shaped beam of pure, laser-like energy exploded out of his ring, evaporating the son of a bitch and two of those nearest him. By the time the beam faded, there was nothing that remained of the man but a pair of legs attached to no body.

Without batting an eye at the death of his men, Sir Morrison sighed. “I suppose he deserved that. My offer still stands.”

If I didn’t do that, the Elves would’ve charged. Or am I just justifying it to myself?

Though Zach felt nothing at the moment, he knew this was going to hit him very hard later on. He had killed so many people. He had ended so many lives. And worse: he didn’t feel satisfied yet. He wanted more. Yet even as he struggled to pull himself back under control, he noticed the way that even Eldora was looking at Sir Morrison as if ready to die if it meant taking him out too.

“We’re leaving!” Donovan shouted, releasing Zach. Then he narrowed his eyes at Sir Morrison. “But let me just say this. In the entire history of adventuring guilds, we’ve never gone to war with anybody. Not even once.” Donovan held out his pointer finger threateningly. “But that might just have to change after this shit you pulled, little man. You caught us in suits and slacks. Gods help you if I decide to come marching back down here in my ass-kicking boots.”

“He's right. You’ve just made an error the likes of which you can never recover from,” Fionna Darkmae said. “My guild hasn’t been in a war in decades. As soon as I return to the Faded Island, that changes.”

“You should surrender yourself now,” Kolorn Besh agreed. He lowered his eyes at the dead, unmoving Peter Brayspark. And then he sighed. “I held no affection for your king, but to have ended him in such a treacherous way…you are little more than a common criminal in my eyes. The Lords of Justice will enter the war if you do not surrender.”

“I don't care about your threats," Sir Morrison said in reply, seemingly unfazed. "Do what you will. Right now, the clock is ticking. Leave, or we continue this bloodbath and see which side comes out on top.”

With an angry, hateful glare, Donovan turned his head to Zach and said, “Help get your girlfriend’s mom under control. We’re getting out of here.”

“What about the loot?” Zach asked.

“Leave it.”

He scowled. “We fought—and a lot of us died—for it.”

Donovan grunted. “Less you want us dying again—for good, this time—leave it. Let the fuckers take it.”

“Donovan is right,” Mr. Oren said. “It might be very powerful, but in the hands of filth like this, it will do them no good. Zach, you are, at most, a quarter of the level of their average leveled fighter, and you fought them without your gear, and yet you wiped out several squads' worth of them. Gear is only so important.” He turned his head to Fylwen. “Your Majesty, your day will come, but please, it’s not today.”

Fylwen continued to writhe and twist in Kalana’s grip, still slashing at the air. She was having a full-on breakdown. Zach didn’t fully understand why. It had never really been clear to him what Peter Brayspark meant to her. There were times they seemed to hate one another, and yet she had also told him that they’d grown up together, and that he was her sworn brother in name, though not blood. Their complicated past aside, he could see that she was feeling immense pain at the loss.

“Mom, please, stop! I don’t wanna lose you!” Kalana begged as she struggled to keep her mother from charging at the second-in-command—and now likely first-in-command—of the Guild of Gentlemen.

As though finding the strength to compose herself, Fylwen at last calmed herself down, but not before glaring at Sir Morrison. “If you are stealing our treasure, then I demand you give us the king.”

“Hm?”

She pointed at Sir Brayspark. “He is my sworn brother. Give him back to me.”

Sir Morrison shrugged. “You can take him if you want. The fact you care so much for him is proof of his betrayal. I’m glad my officers can witness this for themselves and see that I was right.”

As though not wanting to take the chance of letting Fylwen get anywhere near Sir Morrison, Donovan risked coming dangerously close to the enemy so that he could bend down, retrieve the king’s corpse, and carry it away back to their side of the field.

Her face contorting with rage, Fylwen said, “We will return here with an army, and I will burn you and everyone you love to the ground, you vile, poisonous, human filth.”

Her words earned equally hateful glares from everyone other than Sir Morrison, who clearly did not seem personally offended by what she’d said. Turning to her warriors, both those in the green and white, she said, “These men! These are the ones who tortured and raped us! We will return!”

The Elvish warriors released a simultaneous battle cry. Then, backing away slowly without turning away from the potential threat, they all began to move northward as a single group: as a raid. Somehow, Zach had the sense that this wasn’t going to be the last time he fought in a battle against these people. He also realized something else, too: the Guild of Gentlemen had essentially just declared war on civilization itself. They must have been mad. How could they ever believe they could do something like this and get away with it? Though the live feed had stopped broadcasting, the murder of their own king was still caught on video, and if that was shown to the public, there would be no one left in any territory other than Tomb of Fire and here in Shadowfall Coast that would be sympathetic to the Guild of Gentlemen.

Zach realized something else, too. Something dangerous.

If he had cards—lots and lots of cards—he could destroy them all by himself. It was a thought he could only think while the adrenaline was still pumping through him. He’d hate himself for thinking of it later. Even still, it was an idea that would now linger on his mind.

Much like he had with Varsh, he recognized true evil when he saw it. And right now, he was staring at it. The political guilds were corrupt, sure, and there were more things wrong with them than right—at least in Zach’s personal, biased opinion—but even still, what he saw from people like Vim was not evil. Immoral, perhaps. But not outright evil.

This man, however? He was evil. And men like him were a bane to existence itself.

Chapter 111: Break

Chapter 111: Break

Zach didn’t feel well, and he wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with him. With each step he took, his adrenaline lessened, and an overall sense of wrongness came upon him: a sickness in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t think he’d been injured, yet he felt as though he were becoming weaker and weaker by the second. Eventually, he leapt up on top of his Kralzek’s Beast and followed behind everyone else, as even walking became difficult. Beside him, his Cursed Defender of Ziragoth carried the corpse of Peter Brayspark.

Moving together as one large group, they marched northward as quickly as possible while the sounds of explosions and gunfire continued to ring out in the distance. Despite the total darkness of night, the Elves used their racial light abilities to create something almost akin to an artificial sun that illuminated everything in a dome-like shape around them, making it easy to see one another.

About ten minutes following the start of their retreat, Donovan raised up his palm and signaled for a halt. At the moment, they were nearly to the spot that Ziragoth had been put to sleep, as evident by the gargantuan crater ahead of them that Zach had created with his Doomsday Slash; it looked as though someone had punched a hole into the planet itself. It was so massive they’d have to walk around it, as the mages would likely get stuck on the inside.

“Quickly,” Donovan said as everyone came to a stop. “I don’t wanna linger here in case those bastards change their minds and pursue.” He gestured with his chin at Peter. “Olivir, get him up.”

The young-looking vampire nodded. “Got it.”

Zach craned his neck to glance down at the deceased guild-leader. With his head feeling fuzzy and his thinking somewhat dulled, he’d forgotten all about Olivir and Kolona’s ability to resurrect the dead. Thank the Gods. At least there would be a bright spot after all that darkness. Yet for some reason, as Olivir made his way over to Peter, Fylwen did not seem to show any sign of relief. She once again began weeping.

“No,” Fylwen said, shaking her head. “You won’t. You can’t.”

Her eyes had gone red from crying and looked swollen, and there was immense hurt in her voice: but also anger. Olivir fired her a questioning look, and she said, “You can’t revive Peter.”

“Why not?” he asked. “Do you not want him to come back or something? I thought you were upset that he died.”

“Of course I am, vampire!” she snapped. Then, as though realizing she was taking her anger out on the wrong person, she bowed her head as if in apology and spoke at a somewhat more conversational tone, though with each word, more pain bled through her voice. “Peter can’t come back.”

“Why not?” Kalana asked.

The ache in Fylwen’s heart shone through on her eyes as she answered her daughter’s question. “Because he’s already been revived once before.”

With that, confused murmurs came from several of the adventurers, including Donovan. Not Zach, though. For some reason, he just plain didn’t give a shit about any of this. Actually, he wasn’t really feeling anything at all on an emotional level right now. He was numb: completely, totally numb. And it was strange, too. It was strange how he felt almost nothing at all. He was just tired. Just wanted to sleep. He wouldn’t mind lying down right here in the grass and being left alone. He almost thought of doing that. Just lying under the moonlight, closing his eyes, and being left there with nobody to bother him.

“What do you mean, Your Majesty?” Mr. Oren asked. “I am sure he survived the raid.”

Fylwen turned her head to look at Peter’s unmoving form, then half closed her eyes. “It was a very, very long time ago,” she said. “When Peter was a boy, he had a rare genetic disease called muscular dystrophy. It is a terrible, progressive illness. By the age of five, he could no longer walk unassisted, and by the time he was eight years old, he was wheelchair bound. Shortly after his tenth birthday, his lungs began to fail. He had but a few months left to live, and not even the stones could heal him. I did not know this at the time, but I had always suspected something was wrong when he stopped coming outside to play. Later, I would learn that his father had taken him to Archian Prime, but the Elvish there were unable to help him, either. The Vampires were also highly reluctant to help, as they consider it taboo to help non-Vampires cheat death.”

Fylwen’s voice broke as she continued to speak. “One, however, by the name of Count Izex, was willing to make a deal. He agreed to heal Peter in exchange for nothing more than some ancient books to add to his library and a promise to spend the night having tea and conversation. It was such a small request: a pittance for what Peter IV was given in return.”

Even as she spoke, Zach heard Olivir sigh, nod, and under his breath, whisper, “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

Walking over to his body, Fylwen placed her hands on his lifeless cheeks as a tear dripped down one of her own. “From what Pete told me, he was given a potion that put him to sleep, and then another to stop his heart. By the next morning, he was a healthy little boy, and by the week after, he ran for the first time in his life: with me, in the fields of Whispery Woods not far from here, where I intend to bury him in a place we used to play as children.”

She placed her head on his chest and sobbed. “I loved him so much,” she said with agonized, uneven breaths. “Even though I hated him.”

“I’m truly sorry for your loss,” Mr. Oren said compassionately. “I know this can’t be…” His words trailed off as Zach released a loud bout of laughter, which caused his former science teacher to stare at him, along with Olivir, Kalana, a half-dozen adventurers, but oddly enough, not Fylwen. This only made him laugh even harder.

“Sorry,” he said, chuckling. “My bad.”

“You okay?” Olivir asked at just above a whisper.

Zach opened his mouth to reply—but instead burst out with more laughter. Then he snorted and began laughing so hard he almost fell off his mount. It wasn’t that he found any of this funny at all. His state of mind did not at all reflect the cackling that was coming out of his mouth. He barely felt anything, actually. He had no idea why he was laughing or what was causing it. He just sort of…was.

I’m just tired, he thought. A bit out of it. I’m fine.

“Zach, why’re you doing that?” Kalana asked him, sounding more shocked than angry. “This isn’t funny. Why would you laugh at my mom when she’s hurting so badly? I thought you forgave her.”

“I did,” he replied, giggling. “I don’t know why I’m—gahahahah!—laughing. I’m just…just having a weird day.” He had to struggle to finish that sentence. He was laughing so hard it was almost difficult to breathe.

Donovan pursed his lips and glanced over at Zach as though worried. “We should keep moving.”

At this, Abram Gespon cleared his throat and said, “We won’t have to go a whole lot farther. I’m having an armored convoy pick us up not far from here. We’ll head due north to Whispery Woods, and from there, we can each catch a flight to wherever it is we have to go.” Immediately following those words, Abram turned his head in the direction of Zach, who raised his finger questioningly to catch the man’s attention. “Yes, Zach?”

“Whispery Woods doesn’t do cross-continental flights,” he said. “Me and Kal are going to her island in South B—” Rather than say “Bastia,” he released a wad of spit as the word erupted from his lips with such intense laughter he began to wheeze. “B-Bastia,” he finished, laughing even harder and grabbing his sides, which began to ache.

Abram nodded. “Uh, sure, that’s fine. You two can board a flight with me to Varda’s Lair, and then I’ll personally arrange your flight to—”

Zach again burst out laughing, and now, even Abram Gespon narrowed his eyes as though somewhat alarmed. Still seated aback his mount, Zach held up his palm to indicate he was just fine, even as he continued to laugh so hard that he almost choked. Then he started to speak, and even as he did so, he tried to make himself stop. He didn’t know why he was behaving this way. He didn’t understand what compelled him to do any of this. Yet he continued nonetheless.

“Hey, you guys want to hear something fucking nuts?” he asked, drawing their attention. After a few more giggles, he lifted his arm, turned his wrist, and pointed his index finger straight up at the sky. “There’s this crazy old asshole, right? His name’s Adamus, and he’s watching us right now. And he’s—”

“Zach!” Donovan, Mr. Oren, Kalana, Olivir, and Kolona all shouted at him furiously.

This only caused him to laugh even harder. “He’s a God,” Zach said, ignoring them. “And he’s toying with us. This is all just a game to him.” He laughed so hard he had to grab the sides of his mount to stop himself from falling off it. “He’s enjoying this right now. He made Ziragoth on purpose. Believe it or not, everything we’ve had to go through is all just him fucking with us. Seriously, guys. This raid, our suffering, this whole damn world—it’s all just been him fucking with us. Hahahaha! Isn’t that crazy?” Zach cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled up at the sky, “Fuck you, Adamus! You piece of shit!”

“I see,” Abram replied, clearly not believing a word that Zach was saying.

“Kiddo, stop talking or I might have to knock you out for a few hours,” Donovan growled into his ear, having stormed over to his side. “I’m serious. Get a Gods-damned grip.”

Fylwen also reacted to Zach’s words, though in her case, she merely hummed to herself curiously a moment before saying, “I’m quite surprised that a human knows about Adamus.”

“Wait, you mean what he just said was true?” Abram asked, surprise popping up on his face as well as the faces of many of the political guild members.

Mr. Oren, as though in an attempt to do “damage control,” seized on the opportunity Fylwen had just provided. And as though he were operating under the assumption he was being watched, he then spoke loudly and clearly so that he could be easily heard and understood. “This is something we like to keep secret,” he began, “but in the interest of mutual trust, allow me to explain.”

From the rise of his chest, he seemed to draw a deep breath. “Zach,” he continued, “is referring to something every adventurer learns while traveling through dungeons. Specifically, that there are powerful beings called ‘Great Ones’ who made the world, and one of the most important of them is a man named Adamus. We don’t know much about him aside from that, sadly. But his existence all on its own is one of our secrets that Zach has—regrettably—just leaked.”

“Sorry,” Zach whispered. “I don’t know why I did that.”

Donovan, as though also improvising, made a point of agreeing with Mr. Oren, and then he too spoke loudly and clearly. “Yeah, not too happy about him blabbering, but it’s true. When ya run through the dungeons, sometimes you find out little stories from the past, like the fact there’s this fucker named ‘Adamus.’”

“And who is he, exactly?” Kolorn Besh asked. “What is his role in our world?”

Donovan shrugged. “No idea,” he said, speaking the lie in a way that sounded convincing and genuine. “We just know that there are beings out there of a higher power that made our world, and they’re different from the Gods most people worship.”

Clearly, Donovan and Mr. Oren were trying to make it seem to Adamus—if he was actually listening in—that they only knew things they were supposed to know or whatever. Zach felt bad for making them have to do this—or at least he should have felt bad. Instead, he felt nothing. It was actually frustrating just how numb he was emotionally.

The moment Donovan finished speaking, Fylwen chimed in next, and the things she said only strengthened what Donovan and Mr. Oren were trying to do, although likely unintentionally, as she had no idea what they’d been up to in Angelica’s or any of the existentially horrifying truths they’d learned. “I must say, I’m actually shocked to hear that you humans know of this. Indeed, Elvish archives indicate much the same. I do know more about this than even you adventurers, of course.”

“Really?” Mr. Oren asked, looking convincingly intrigued. “You know who Adamus actually is?”

At this, some of the strength seemed to return to Fylwen’s eyes, mixing in with her grief. But for just the moment, she became somewhat livelier and more energetic. “I do, human. He is one of the Elvish, like me, except he is our holy and Great Lord. His name—and I speak this truly—is Adamus Vayra. All the Great Ones are Elvish, actually, and all of them rule from heaven as Gods. That is why humans have feared us all throughout our history. We have the blood of the Gods in our veins.”

Everyone except Kolona, Kalana, Zach, Olivir, Donovan, and Mr. Oren released gasps of awe and surprise, as no one else besides them knew that this was slightly off even if partially true. The other adventurers in particular seemed floored by these revelations.

“All the Great Ones are Elvish?” Reni Sarwin asked.

“That’s correct,” Fylwen said.

“Even Olandrin?”

At this, Fylwen actually smiled. “You know of him?”

In response to her question, nearly every adventurer nodded vigorously. “He’s everyone’s favorite,” Reni said. “We all love him.”

“That’s no surprise. He does so love humans. He was a writer, a poet, and an entertainer before ascending to Godhood, and he loved putting on performances for humans. I’m sure he’s watching us right now, actually, granting us his favor.”

“I knew it!” one of the adventurers from Boss Rush cried out. “That’s why his dungeons are the best.”

“I wish I could meet him.”

“Perhaps you might someday,” Fylwen said. For some reason, the human adventurers taking an interest in the Elvish Great Ones seemed to be something Fylwen not only found delightful, but she actually seemed eager to spread what she knew, much of which was probably even true, yet none of it was part of the “forbidden knowledge” that Zach had thankfully not leaked. He just was finding himself a bit…off right now.

As they continued onwards and resumed their journey northwards, the conversation shifted and became centered around adventurers asking Fylwen questions while the political guild members scrambled to play “catch-up” with all the things they didn’t know. Following a sigh, Donovan walked alongside Zach’s mount, and with a threatening glare, he said, “Get. A. Grip.”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t even mean to…I don’t know what’s going on with me.”

“You’re a great kid. I know you didn’t mean nothing. Just hold it together for a little longer. I know you’ve got it in you.”

“Yeah, I do.”

But how many people did I kill today? I can’t remember any of them or their faces. How many?

Gods, he’d killed so many people. And here he was, practically in his underwear, riding a giant beast while the dried blood of so many different humans covered him like a tight-fitting bodysuit. It was all over his hands, his fingers, his chest, his face, his hair. He didn’t even know how many people he killed. Wasn’t that crazy? Think about that. No, wait, seriously. Actually stop and think about that for a second. Zach had killed so many people that he didn’t even know how many he’d just killed. Was it five? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? Who knew! He sure didn’t. He burst out laughing at the thought, once more drawing unwanted attention onto himself.

“Zach,” Kalana whispered. “It’s gonna be okay.” She hopped up onto the mount behind him so that she rode with him, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and placed her head down on his bare back despite the filth and blood all over it.

“Of course it is. I’m fine.” He snickered. Then he sighed. “Kal, let’s go back to the way things were before.”

“Before?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’m serious. Let’s go to school tomorrow. We can move into the same apartment, mine or yours, I don’t care. I miss that building. Let’s just say to hell with all of this bullshit and go back to before any of this ever happened.”

“Zach…”

“No, I’m being serious. I really am.” He really was. “This was a mistake. You’ve got to realize that now too, right? This was my fault. I take responsibility for all of it. You said not to go down there. You told me not to hit those FUCKING!”—his tone went from bubbly and conversational to intense and rage-filled so quickly it caused several people to flinch—“mobs!” Once more, his tone became neutral. “And I didn’t listen. That was my mistake. I never, ever should have done that. I just want to go back to how everything was before.”

Kalana said nothing. With her riding behind him, he couldn’t see her face, and thus he couldn’t tell if it was because she had nothing to say or simply didn’t know how to respond. Mr. Oren, however, did. He met Zach’s gaze, and the two stared at one another for a moment before he said, “That’s not how the world works, Zach. You can’t just go back.”

“Says who? What law says I can’t show up to class tomorrow for summer school and pick up where I left off?”

“You have responsibilities now.”

“Says who!” he shouted, and out of nowhere, his emotions returned in a flood, but only for a moment. A quick bout of rage came then quickly receded, and once more, he became numb. “Kal and I are going back to school. We’re putting this behind us.”

She squeezed him more tightly. “Zach, we can’t.”

“Why?”

“For so many reasons big and small. We can’t just show up to school, silly.”

“Yes we can. We’re going to. If the other kids want to stare, let them stare. We’ll just ignore them until they get used to it and start treating us like they did before. Everyone gets used to stuff like that eventually. I mean, I never thought I could casually talk to someone like Vim Alazar, but now we call each other names and I have his cell number. It’ll be just like that. We’ll go back, and we’ll be okay.”

“That won’t ever work, baby.”

“Yes it will,” Zach said. “I want to go back to how things were before.”

“We can’t.”

“We will!”

She squeezed him even more tightly. “We can’t,” she said again.

He refused to accept this. “Is it because we’re so-called ‘celebrities’ now? So what. Like I just said, people can learn to deal with it.”

Vim Alazar cleared his throat. “Actually, if he cares that much, he can go to a private guild school.”

“That’s clearly not the issue,” Mr. Oren said with a sigh. “And I don’t think Zach even cares about school. What he wants—and is perfectly understandable—is to retreat into a familiar comfort zone. He wants his old school. But notice, Zach, I can’t go back either. I too enjoyed teaching. As hard as this might be to believe, I’m also nostalgic for the two years I spent studying the Leviathan spawn and relaxing in my office.”

“Leviathan spawn?” Fylwen asked.

Mr. Oren nodded. “Oh, right. There’s a big one spawning in a few months in the city: specifically, the Leviathan River. But there’s no cause for alarm, Your Majesty. It’s a very well documented boss, and your Elves should be able to kill it easily. In fact, it has such an extreme weakness to electricity that it can be hit for five times normal damage with electric-based attacks. Originally, we assumed the Leviathan would take out much of the city even as we defeated it, but you and your Elvish warriors can likely kill it before it ever crawls out of the river. It's lucrative, too. It drops hundreds of the healing stones as well as between two and five light stones.”

“True,” Olivir confirmed. “I’ve seen that thing spawn. Gods, it’s massive. It’s like ten times the size of Ziragoth, but like fifty times easier. I remember watching the Guild of Gentlemen kill it. Everything Alex just said is true.”

Fylwen nodded. “Very well. We’ll make sure to warn the people ahead of time and then—”

“Actually,” Mr. Oren interrupted, and now Zach could sense that things were becoming awkward. “The political guilds insist on covering up boss spawns. It’s actually a major point of contention between us and them—or rather them and us, I suppose is more accurate for me to say now. That’ll take me some getting used to.”

“It’s to prevent the breakdown of public order,” Abram Gespon replied. “We are planning—or at least were planning—to stage a fake emergency of some sort to evacuate the city for a few days, likely revolving around the possibility of an impending series of building collapse.”

Fylwen released a bitter grunt. “Well, I for one shall not be covering up anything,” she said darkly. “Now that I’m aware of this, one of my first orders of business will be to spread awareness and safety information so that the people can take precautions ahead of time and not be caught unaware. Even if the boss is as non-threatening as you say, I will not allow my citizens to have their lives uprooted and plunged into terror by surprise.”

“If we were living in the world of a few weeks ago, I’d have to fight you on that,” Abram said. “But given we’re now in a post-Ziragoth era, I guess we can come up with some reason for why another boss is spawning. We’ll think up something.”

Vim scratched his chin. “Say, you wouldn’t be opposed to our raid group joining in on that, would you?”

At this, Donovan actually smiled. “You fuckers wouldn’t mind getting your hands dirty again?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think things have changed now. It’s hard to believe, but I think this little group of ours…it’s a sense I have, but I think the dynamic has changed between us. Hell, I never thought there’d even be an ‘us’ between our guilds and your guilds, but it feels like there is now.”

“I agree, actually,” Donovan said. “And if it were up to me, I’d never decline raid participation for qualified members. But it’s up to Her Majesty, of course.”

Fylwen nodded. “Of course. We can all gather together again for this boss. That’s perfectly acceptable.” Then she looked at Zach, and she made a sad, bittersweet smile. “And to return to the earlier conversation. Young man, there’s no going backwards in life. What has happened has happened. Even if you had never begun the path that you’ve found yourself on, I was only a year or two away from coming to find Kalana and my husband. In this alternate world, in which you never began this journey, you would wake up one day to find her gone.”

“Worse than that, actually,” Donovan said with a grunt. “He’d wake up one day to find Whispery Woods being burned down by a dragon, and you’d show up one day to find your daughter and the rest of Galterra burned to a crisp.”

Fylwen shuddered. “Excellent point, Donovan, though a chilling one.”

Zach heard what they were saying, and he knew they were right, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to accept that. He moaned quietly to himself. He was so tired. He wanted to sleep. He felt like all his motivation had been drained out of him. Maybe this was just a slump he’d gotten himself in. He couldn’t feel things properly. He didn’t want to think. He wanted to turn his brain off and leave it that way. Maybe for good.

Chapter 112: Doom Phase

Chapter 112: Doom Phase

It wasn’t until Kalana began gently stroking his hair that Zach opened his eyes and realized they’d landed. “Did I seriously just sleep through that?” he asked.

“Uh-huh. You sure did.” She kissed him on his cheek.

Zach wiped his eyes and leaned forward in the leather seat towards the rear of the private jet that had taken him and Kal to the city of Varda’s Lair. He was kind of amazed, really. This had been the first time he’d ever been on an airplane—let alone such a fancy plane that was more like a flying resort—and yet, despite this, he’d basically fainted a quarter of the way through the three-and-a-half-hour flight. Then again, it was completely dark outside, so it wasn’t like there’d been a whole lot to see beyond the window, anyway. Unclipping his seatbelt, he stretched his arms and yawned while the jet was slowly taxied to the gate that would take them into the airport. Turning on the light above him, he glanced down at his hands and arms to convince himself they were really clean. They certainly didn’t feel clean.

Why did this have to happen? he wondered, the thought painful and growing more so.

He was steadily becoming less numb, and he found that he actually preferred it better the way he’d been earlier when for some reason—likely shock—he’d been unable to feel or care about anything. Really, up until about twenty-five minutes into the flight, Zach had continued to remain in that detached, somewhat foggy-headed state. But it was only after the plane had climbed to above 18,000 feet in altitude that he’d started to feel an ache in his chest over the events that had occurred tonight.

It had begun after Abram Gespon had told him that it was safe for him to take a shower. For whatever reason, Zach was asked not to move around until the plane had climbed to a high-enough “cruising altitude.” Before then, he’d been instructed to keep his seatbelt on at all times. Yet as though finally breaking free of his level-1 pattern of thinking, Zach realized that these rules were silly to someone like him or Kal. Even if the airplane exploded, the two of them would just fall all the way to the ground and land unharmed. Zach supposed there would always be a part of him that would find that unbelievable.

At any rate, once the plane had gone above 18,000 feet, he’d stepped into an unexpectedly luxurious and spacious bathroom. Once there, he’d gotten into the shower, stood directly under the nozzle, and had then begun to breathe heavily and fearfully as he watched the water turn from clear to red as it ran down his body and into the drain. Disgusted, he’d begun scrubbing himself furiously. In some spots, he scrubbed hard enough to break the skin and draw blood of his own. But he wasn’t concerned about hurting himself, though, because he knew that after he got dressed and his constitution went back over 50, passive HP regeneration would heal him in less than a few seconds given he was only inflicting shallow cuts to his skin. At the time, he’d cared only for getting every last trace of other people’s blood off his body.

“Are you feeling okay, Zach?” Kalana asked him, unfastening her own seatbelt and then standing up to stretch.

He forced a smile onto his lips that he didn’t really feel. “I’m actually doing pretty good.”

She frowned at him in a way that came across as both sad and skeptical. “Things are gonna get so much better real soon.”

He nodded. “I know they will.”

“They really will,” she said. “I…I know that you um…that you had to do some things tonight that—”

“Kal,” he interrupted. “I’m fine.”

She paused a moment, then smiled, and Zach wondered if hers was forced as well. “You’re gonna love my island once we get there.”

“If we ever get there,” he grumbled. He removed his phone and checked the time. It was already well after midnight. “I can’t believe we had to fly almost four hours north just to have to fly the same way back south all over again.”

Kalana released a soft, brief chuckle. “It’s okay. You can sleep on the plane. The next one, I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Together with Kalana, the two of them made their way down the narrow aisle and towards the front of the jet to join Abram Gespon; the man was making small talk with a flight attendant that appeared to work for The People of Virtue. The woman told them that they were connecting the door to the airbridge now, and that they’d be able to depart in just a minute or two. Even while standing upright on his feet, Zach came close to nodding off while he waited.

Fuck, I’m so damned tired, he thought with another yawn. I can’t believe tonight ended with me jogging half naked for miles in the dark.

Although they’d all managed to get to Whispery Woods in one piece, the armored convoy had ended up taking longer to arrive than expected, and what was more, for security reasons, they’d had to travel farther than originally planned as well. Thus, in near-total darkness, the five-hundred-thirty-four members of the raid that had slain Ziragoth, as well as some additional visitors from Archian Prime, had moved—once more as a team—northward and through the grasslands.

At first, they’d at least had the light provided by the Elvish torch ability which, come to think of it, was the first ability Zach had ever seen another living being use back when he’d plunged into the depths beneath Whispery Woods with Kalana. It had been incredibly useful in making it easy for them all to see their surroundings. But after they’d gotten about ten miles away from the city, Donovan had called for them to go dark, as their path had unexpectedly taken them within five miles of a Guild of Gentleman outpost. Also, having moved well out of sight, Donovan had thought it would be better to proceed stealthily from that point on.

Fearful of a potential ambush, they’d been required to move at a brisk, hurried pace, and because of this, Zach had eventually been asked to let two exhausted adventurers with very few points into speed ride on his war-mount; though he himself was exhausted as well, his was more emotional than physical, so he’d obliged. Also, he’d been too drained to spare the energy required to argue. It had actually been easier for him to just hop off the side of the Kralzek’s Beast and proceed on foot than it would’ve been to disagree.

Despite the sun having gone down, the night’s humidity had caused Zach to sweat and pant as he proceeded with the others through the grasslands. And though Donovan had claimed he’d wanted everyone to move stealthily, that did not, apparently, mean quietly. All throughout their so-called “retreat,” the adventurers had jabbered on excitedly, and it was all about one and exclusively one topic. In fact, other than this one topic, Zach could not recall a single other thing being discussed. And that topic was the Great One known as Olandrin, who Fylwen had claimed to know a few things about.

Zach had not—and still did not—really understand what was so special about this particular Great One. He’d only ever heard the name spoken once before, and that was at Angelica’s, where Donovan and Mr. Oren had told him that every adventurer loved him, including Fluffles, and that if Zach continued to adventure, it was inevitable that he himself would understand why. Mr. Oren claimed every adventurer eventually became familiar with that name. From what he observed, it appeared to be the truth.

Focusing on keeping his legs moving, Zach had let his mind drift off as he jogged his way with the others through the uncomfortably warm night with no breaks or pauses to rest. They’d simply powered straight through, stopping only a single time around an hour later when everyone’s Bank and Storage was off cooldown. Understandably, everyone—Zach included—had wanted to get back into their fighting equipment just in case. It was also here that Zach learned the Elvish also had the Bank and Storage ability despite it being a human racial passive. As it turned out, theirs had a slightly different name and was earned at level 30, but it was functionally identical.

Once re-equipped, everyone had continued onwards, and along with them, Zach had trekked his way through an increasingly rocky and uneven terrain that it was too dark to see until, finally, at long last, the appearance of numerous bright lights in the distance had signaled the arrival of the armored caravan. Given the awful shit everyone had just gone through, nobody wanted to linger around for long, and everyone had hurried into whatever vehicle was either nearest or had space, and with that, they’d quickly headed off, riding at full DEHV speed together to Whispery Woods. Two hours later, they were crossing the Leviathan Bridge.

Zach had felt nothing upon returning to the city he had called home for nearly every day of his life. He’d still been too numb: too shocked. He hadn’t even bothered to say his goodbyes to anyone, either. He, Kalana, and Abram Gespon—and anyone else needing to catch an immediate flight—had separated from the others, and then they’d separated even further, as only the three of them were heading to Varda’s lair.

Now, having arrived, Zach watched as the jet’s door was opened and the three of them were waved through. Holding Kalana’s hand, they followed Abram onto the airbridge, which took them through a blue, hallway-like tunnel and let out into an incredibly upscale airport that was nothing at all like the rundown, musty-smelling one they’d departed a few hours ago.

Everywhere Zach looked, there were fine-dining establishments, leather lounge chairs, people sitting at marble tables sipping wine, men in business suits typing away on portable computers while drinking coffee, and of course, a fair number of Galterrans hurrying back and forth across the wide, open center of the airport—even at this time—moving towards dozens of gates to board one flight or another along the clean, polished floor.

“I can’t believe we’re actually in Varda’s lair,” Kalana said somewhat excitedly.

Zach had to agree. This was the farthest he’d even been away from home, and he was about to go a whole lot farther, too. “How long did you say our next flight was, Kal?”

She squeezed his hand. “About ten hours from here, I think. Then it’s another hour-and-a-half helicopter ride, since we gotta land in the Shores of Wrath first.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Kalana snickered. “Aww, Zach,” she said sweetly, “you didn’t really think the flight was gonna land on my island, did you, baby? We don’t have a runway, you dork. At least not yet. We gotta touch down in South Bastia first.”

Zach released a slow, defeated sigh. “I’m just so tired and want to lie down.”

Kalana tapped her chin then raised her eyebrows. “Well, umm, we can still spend a few days here in the city if you don’t wanna catch another flight right away.”

Zach pursed his lips as he thought again on the offer Abram had made to them. Abram had said that Kal and him could relax a few days in the city and that they’d be treated “exceptionally” well for however long they stayed. This was, truthfully, a very tempting offer. Varda’s Lair was one of the places Zach had always wanted to visit. Actually, he wanted to visit all the major cities of humanity. But this one, in particular, had stood out to him due to it being the most expensive, richest city in all of humanity.

Unlike Tomb of Fire, which was known for its extravagant display of color and its myriad of bright, shiny entertainment spots, Varda’s Lair was not really a place that attracted all that much tourist attention. Though the city was certainly beautiful with tall, sleek buildings, several world-renowned museums, and the largest bank in North Bastia, it was far more commercially oriented in nature than Tomb of Fire was. In fact, Zach recalled once reading online that the vast majority of people to be found in Varda’s Lair on any given day didn’t even live there: they were simply workers who entered the city during the day and went home at night.

Even the smallest apartment here costs more a month than most families make in a year, he thought, having once gawked at the price of real-estate after curiously searching it up online.

More so than anywhere else in North or South Bastia, only the extremely wealthy or lucky could live in Varda’s Lair. Due to the lack of tourism, the only hotels to be found were of the absurdly expensive kind, with rooms bigger than some people’s houses, if not larger; clearly, they were lavish suites intended for those here on business. Outside of hotels, there were only a few districts that were residential in nature. Most properties served as corporate headquarters for various businesses. Even still, it was a city Zach would’ve loved to tour. Yet it was the People of Virtue’s own stupid laws that made him reject the idea.

Unlike the other guilds, the People of Virtue stood alone as the only human guild that enforced a dress code for anyone over the age of thirteen while located within its primary city. Modesty was not a choice but a law, and there didn’t appear to be exceptions to this rule: not even for people who knew Abram Gespon personally, it seemed. Actually, Abram stressed that it was especially important for “people in positions of power” to be seen obeying the law. Thus, unless Zach wanted to get out of his equipment and back into a suit, he’d been asked, politely, not to leave the airport, where the rules were suspended for people mid travel or simply transferring through Varda’s Lair as a hub before heading on towards their next destination.

So dumb that they make people dress a certain way, he thought as he ventured further into the airport with Kalana. He had to step quickly to the side to avoid walking headfirst into an oblivious couple that were both looking down at their phones.

Having only just been caught and attacked with his gear off, he wasn’t comfortable removing it yet and probably wouldn’t be until he got to Kalana’s island. Thus, with a sigh, he said, “Let’s just get there. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can finally relax.”

She smiled, and then with a genuine-sounding squeak, she said, “I’m so excited! You’re finally gonna see it. I haven’t lived there long, but I already made it feel like home.”

Abram, as though first catching wind of their conversation, slowed down somewhat and partially turned his neck to look back at them. “So, I take it you guys aren’t staying?”

“Nope,” Kalana said. “We just wanna go home.”

He nodded. “All right. Well, unfortunately, I can’t get you a private jet right now. First class will have to do.”

At this, Zach laughed. “In my whole life, I’ve never been able to afford to be in any airplane seat, let alone first class. That’s fine.”

“You’re welcome, then.”

Kalana nudged him in the ribs. “You didn’t say thank you,” she whispered.

“He put a bounty hunter on my ass,” Zach whispered back. “Guy owes me.”

“Okay, but still, that was rude.”

Zach ignored her. He instead followed Abram all the way across the stunningly large airport and onto an automated walkway, which ran for what looked like an entire mile. At the end of the walkway, there was an entirely separate, albeit slightly smaller section of the airport, this one for cross-continental flights to South Bastia. Through the wide glass windows that served in place of walls to both his left and his right, Zach was able to get a full view of the city in the distance.

Though nowhere near as flashy as Tomb of Fire, it really did have a very modern, crisp feel to it. Varda’s Lair was known for, among other things, being the cleanest human city. It was commonly said that someone could walk up and down a city block with a magnifying glass and not find a single piece of litter. That would’ve been hard to believe if not for the fact that the same was true right here in the airport. The People of Virtue were apparently barbarically harsh when it came to punishing people who littered. For them, it was prison time as well as a cane lashing, as corporal punishment was a value to which their guild adhered.

“Head to terminal 51 just ahead,” Abram told them once they’d reached the end of the walkway. “It’s just straight that way.” He pointed. “Actually, you know what? Wait a second.” He snapped his fingers, and as though the gesture were magic, a woman Zach didn’t even see until just now practically popped into existence in front of them.

“Sir Gespon the Virtuous!” she exclaimed, bowing her head. Then she took in Zach and Kalana and he honestly thought she’d faint. “H-how may I help you?”

“I need you to get these two kids on a first-class flight to Shores of Wrath. When’s the next plane go out?”

She removed a tablet from inside her uniform and began tapping on it. Then she swallowed as though nervous. “I’m afraid not for another few hours, Sir Gespon the Virtuous. You only just missed a flight.”

Zach swore—then apologized immediately for the gesture, as Abram glared at him. Despite being warned in advance, he’d forgotten that these fucking people didn’t allow cursing in their city, either. It was like a city of Mr. Orens. It was bullshit, too, because before falling asleep on the flight over here, he’d listened to Abram Gespon make numerous phone calls, and his language was foul and awful. He frequently called people “assholes” or “dumb shits” as he made angry demands of them. Hypocrites, seriously.

“How long ago was the flight?” Abram asked.

“Well, flight SOW-21 just finished final boarding and is already moving towards the runway.”

For some reason, this made Abram sigh with relief. “Oh, great. It’s still here.”

“Well, yes, Sir Gespon the Virtuous, but—”

“Good, halt it immediately and have it come back to the gate. Then put these two in first class and have it bumped to the front of the runway line.” The woman stared at him as though unsure if he was being serious or not. When he turned over his palm as though impatient, she again swallowed nervously and continued to type into her tablet.

“I’m…I’m afraid there are no available seats,” she said.

Abram shrugged. “Throw two people off the flight then.”

“But, Sir Gespon, that’s—”

“Do it.”

“Yes, Sir Gespon the Virtuous.”

Upon hearing this conversation, it was physically impossible for Zach’s reaction to be any more different from Kalana’s. Whereas Kalana placed her hand over her mouth, mouthed the word “no” over and over, and began assuring Abram that they could wait for tomorrow with guilt coming across in each of her words, Zach crossed his arms smugly and nodded his head, absolutely loving what just happened. Now that was being rich. Gods, this was cool.

“Stop loving this,” Kalana said, frowning at him.

“Let me enjoy this, Kal. This is VIP treatment. Finally!”

“Nah-uh. It’s mean. I don’t wanna steal their seats.”

“It’s even better because we’re stealing their seats,” Zach said with an intentionally evil laugh.

“Don’t worry,” Abram said. “I’m going to pay for inconveniencing them. They’ll each be given fifty-thousand gold.”

“Wait, what?” Zach blurted out. “Let’s back up a second. They’re each going to be getting how much? Kal, stop,” he said as she began shoving him away towards their gate.

“Nah-uh. All those people already waited long enough. If we’re gonna go, then we’re not gonna hold them up even longer.”

Even as Kalana began pushing him away towards the gate. He actually tried to drag his feet as he found himself getting farther and farther away from Abram. “Maybe we can wait until tomorrow after all!” he shouted. “That gold would be so much better in our hands. We’re dragon slayers!”

“What?” Abram called back, now out of earshot.

Zach sighed. “Stop pushing me, Kal. I can walk.”

And walk, they did—right onto a plane filled with angry, inconvenienced passengers, whose attitudes changed immediately from annoyance to excitement when they realized why—or specifically, who—their plane had been turned around for. “I’m so sorry, everyone!” Kalana said, sounding all bubbly and cheerful. “I’ll sign autographs for you all. Me and Zach will come through the whole plane, we promise.”

Fuck.

******

With a grunt of self-disgust, Francis Calador killed the rifle-wielding soldier guarding the sole entrance to a city street in northern Shadow Fall Coast. He’d had no choice. The armed man had spotted him as he’d been attempting to covertly pass by. Using his four fingers like the point of a blade, he jabbed his arm forward and stabbed the soldier—a member of the Royal Roses from the look of his uniform—straight through the chest. Gurgling, the man dropped his rifle and clutched his heart, blood pouring out of the gaping hole, and then he fell onto his back, his eyes opened wide in confusion. This caused an attention-drawing shout from his four nearby companions, and Francis was forced to deal with them, too. And fast. He could see that one had crooked their neck as if to speak into a Comm attached to the left breast pocket of his uniform.

I have to stop him. Quickly!

Francis dashed forward at the man, who reacted with a confused sort of clumsiness. As though unsure of what to do, he swung his gun at Francis’ face rather than fire it—as if he were acting off nerves, fear, and reflex as opposed to logical thought. Lifting both his hands, Francis stopped the horizontally oriented weapon by grabbing it on both ends. Then he delivered a front-kick into the chest of the soldier who’d swung it, sending the man careening backwards while he simultaneously yanked the weapon away, prying it free of the man’s fingers. Upon this, Francis dismissively tossed the rifle away and off to the side.

“Shh,” he said, placing his finger to his nose.

He should’ve known that wouldn’t work. Another of the men opened his mouth as if to scream, as then so too did both of the other soldiers. Francis extended his arm and pointed his finger at the three of them. “Here, look,” he said, calmly. Even mid cry, they all turned their eyes to look at his index finger. With that, he activated Vow of Secrecy, causing a brief, almost imperceptible flash of dull light to emit from the point of his finger, but only for a fraction of a second. Thankfully, during that brief moment in time, all three were looking right at it and now they were silenced, unable to speak. The fourth man—the one he’d kicked—managed to avoid looking, but it did not matter, because he appeared to have died from internal injuries only a second or two ago.

Now, as they made the physical motions of screaming: heaving, mouths opened widely, heads shaking—nothing at all came out. “I’m so sorry for this,” he said to the three of them. And he really did mean it. He thrust his hand, palm open, into the forehead of the soldier nearest to him, hitting hard enough that the impact and shock to the man’s brain killed him instantly. The other two spun around to retreat, but Francis got them both as well. He made sure it was quick.

“Forgive me,” he apologized again. “I’m truly sorry.”

In the background, the sounds of gunshots, explosions, and screaming settled over the northern part of the city in Shadowfall Coast as a permanent melody of pain and death that played out all around him. Francis did not want to be here. He would get in and get out. The fact that this was where he needed to be was purely a coincidence and unrelated to the war that had sprouted up in what was typically among the quietest, most peaceful regions in North Bastia.

“You didn’t have to do that, Francis.”

I did.

“You’re being too paranoid.”

You’re not being paranoid enough, Eilea.

Though there existed not a single Galterran born this century who could recognize him, there were those out there—the servants of Adamus—who most certainly would. For this reason, Francis chose to wear his serpentine mask to conceal his face. But even that would not be good enough. He had no choice but to eliminate anyone who spotted him, as if word of his appearance spread, then even without being able to describe his face, there was still a fair chance that Adamus would put two and two together.

That was why, at the end of a somewhat narrow pedestrian street with blood covering the homely, stone-tiled pavement, Francis gritted his teeth as a man in another squad of infantry—this one belonging to the Guild of Gentlemen—unluckily happened to spin around such that the flashlight on his rifle briefly illuminated Francis before passing over him. Francis froze, hoping he hadn’t been seen amid the dark of night. Gunfire had taken out most of the streetlights around him, and it was possible he’d been overlooked. Sadly, he had no such luck, as the light immediately swung back around, settling upon him.

“Whoah, whoah, whoah, stop right there, buddy!” he shouted at Franics. He was a young man with blond-colored hair who raised his rifle threateningly. This caused those around him to also turn and look. “Show me your hands! I said show me your fucking hands!” He began to approach, cautiously, his arms quivering. “Turn around slowly and then get on the ground—now, Gods dammit! Or I will open fire!”

Francis showed them his hands—or hand, rather. He lifted it, then made a waving motion, and simultaneously, the heads of all eleven men began to glow from a bright white light that shined through their eyes that Francis hoped wouldn’t attract even more attention. Their mouths popped open as if to scream in pain, but no sound escaped them. Quickly, Francis squeezed his hand into a fist, and following that gesture, their heads exploded, sending blood, brain matter, teeth, and eyeballs scattering as their bodies plopped over lifelessly. Once more, the small, residential street became dark. Now, praying to God for forgiveness, he walked over their corpses and into a much wider and far more trafficked avenue. Still, he hoped he could use the darkness to get by without any further bloodshed.

“Francis, please! There will be more than enough death when we are forced to turn to conquest. We need not spill a drop more blood than is absolutely necessary.”

Do you think I wanted to do that? he asked her, somewhat offended that she would react as though his attitude towards murder was somehow cavalier. If Adamus knows I was here, he will come for you. Even the two of us together cannot match him if it comes to a physical confrontation.

“For the man who allowed Moldark to kill him rather than fight back and perpetuate the violence, I cannot understand your sudden turn towards such an all-or-nothing approach.”

Franics didn’t bother to reply despite knowing perfectly well the reason why. He, like his father before him, had inherited the same weakness that seemed to affect all Calador men. Although he’d never intended his cooperation with Eilea to be anything more than an impersonal, mutual way of advancing both of their goals, he had now fallen in love with the woman, and because of this, he would not allow harm to come to her.

“I can feel that,” she said, somewhat softly.

Don’t pry.

“I still wish you’d not do this. Certainly not for my sake.”

I’m trying my best.

From the looks of things, he might not have much of a choice. For starters, the fighting here was intense, and from one end of the street to the other, bullets were ripping apart street signs, trashcans, dumpsters, and shattering the windows of parked DEHVs. Francis did have the benefit, however, of the fact that the two sides were far more focused on each other right now than on one bizarrely dressed man—assuming they could even see him. In addition to the night, visibility was also very poor, as a five-story building two blocks north of here was completely on fire, generating so much smoke it was difficult to breathe. It also overpowered the ever-present smell of the ocean.

So much bloodshed, he thought, sadly.

A bang came from nearby as a grenade was thrown and exploded. Soldiers shouted at one another. People were hit, and they screamed for aid as medics risked leaving cover to drag their dying comrades to safety. God, Francis hated war. He hated all war, but in particular, he was sad to see that Galterra had resorted to fighting this manner of battle again. At least the open-field combat established by Peter I was sensible, sane, and fair. And if someone was shot, the guns had smart chips that would prevent them from firing on someone already hit. Furthermore, leveled participants were forbidden from attacking level 1s. That much was clearly not being obeyed any longer.

Three blocks down, a man wearing the insignia of crossed swords was summoning vicious, tornado-like winds that were ripping apart gun-wielding infantry while causing their severed body parts to join a collection of swirling, spinning limbs. This continued until a woman wearing the officer’s outfit of the Royal Roses twirled her staff and then released a beam of orange-colored energy that punched a hole directly through the other mage’s stomach, killing him and two Ones behind him. Then she, in turn, was taken out by what appeared to be an armor-piercing round fired by a level-1 sniper, which struck her in the middle of her forehead, causing her to wobble away until her back hit the side of a building before sliding down into a sitting position as she died.

Francis shook his head at all of it. He’d always known the ugly face of true war would one day return. The fact that the era of open-field combat had lasted as long as it had was nothing short of a miracle. He had observed from the shadows as it was born roughly a century ago, and at the time, he had never imagined it would have taken off the way it had or lasted as long as it did. Truly, it was all because of the integrity of Peter I. His actions solidified it in a way that nothing else could have.

Not long after conquering all of North and South Bastia, Peter I had forced every human guild to sign what he’d called the SOHLA: The Sanctity of Human Life Accords. In this, he’d outlined a new method of warfare. It was a system of rules and laws that radically changed what was permissible and how war was to be conducted. He had, in essence, gamified the very nature of war.

At the time, the very idea of it had seemed outrageous: laughable, even. By all accounts, it truly should not have succeeded. It was one thing to force the guilds to use it against each other—as even with all of humanity ostensibly united under the Brayspark monarchy, it was inevitable that factional struggles within guilds would lead to guild-on-on guild warring—but it was another thing to replace traditional warfare entirely, which it had. And what truly solidified its place was a war that soon followed, which was unlike any in known human history to have come before it.

After an economic downturn caused a build-up of frustration with the monarchy, every guild had simultaneously declared war on King Peter I, testing the limits of the king’s honesty and sincerity. At this point in history, Peter I had the infrastructure, military equipment, resources, and men necessary to defend each and every territory under his control, and not even their combined efforts would have stood a chance of regaining control of even a single region. But, in what came as a shock to the entire world, Peter I had abided by his own rules, and his guild met each and every contest on the open-field in fair, moderated contests with neutral observers that could act as referees and even call a stop to the fighting if death tolls rose too high.

As a result of this, the war, which took place across two continents and should have resulted in casualties in the millions along with untold destruction, resulted instead in the deaths of fewer than eight-hundred combatants albeit with thousands more injured. Zero civilians had been killed during the war, zero cities had been destroyed, and not a single man, woman, or child had been forced to participate against their will. Child soldiers, in fact, had been outlawed entirely.

Not only did Peter I adhere strictly to the rules of battle, but he also accepted his defeats, as well. By the war’s conclusion, he’d ended up losing control of every region in South Bastia; even despite each region having been reinforced with everything needed to withstand a siege, Peter had ordered his guild to pack up and leave wherever he lost in accordance with his own rules. His willingness to stand by his principles cemented him into legend and established his way as the new way; before long, the rest of the world would adopt this method as well—all except the Orcs, who had outright abolished war altogether.

For a hundred years, humanity was spared the brutality of war. And now, this week, it had finally returned. And it was looking like this could be a terrible one, too. Just from the smoldering remains of several toppled buildings and the countless corpses strewn along the streets, Francis could tell that, already, in just the first day of this war, several-thousand lives had been lost, maybe even tens of thousands: a number far greater than the combined loss of everyone who had fought in a war spanning two continents a century ago. Many of the dead were likely innocent people, too, making it all worse.

“When Zach is made emperor, I truly believe he’ll reestablish the SOHLA,” Eilea said to him. Francis had willingly allowed her into his mind, as he felt her presence comforting and reassuring. He missed her, and she missed him. “Even I’m not naïve enough to believe in a Galterra with no war. But the SOHLA worked well, and we will bring it back.”

I hope so.

Eager to be gone from this place as quickly as possible, Francis proceeded onwards, heading in the direction of a four-story apartment complex two blocks west that had only just been set aflame. He needed to get inside of it before it was completely burned to the ground. Assuming Eilea’s spies had provided accurate information, then on the third floor, in room 307, there was a thumb drive located somewhere under the floorboards. And this thumb drive, it was believed, contained the single-most comprehensive list of details regarding the last known location of The Book of Elementals.

Although there had been numerous times in his life he'd been forced to take lives, under many other circumstances, Francis would willingly—and had once willingly—allowed himself to be killed to prevent taking the life of another. Murder was something that Francis despised more than just about anything even as he'd been forced to deal in it, particularly in his youth. But for this? For this, Francis was willing to both die and kill for. They needed to locate the Book of Elementals before Adamus or any of his malicious “trackers” got to it first. They needed to acquire it at any cost—no matter how steep.

God, I sound like some of the worst people in history, he thought.

Incidentally, Francis was painfully well aware that this was an attitude that’d been adopted by a great many other powerful men over many thousands of years. He wondered if any singular thing in existence had ever caused the level of bloodshed that The Book of Elementals had brought about. Had it not been for this accursed book, Peter IV’s Elvish genocide might never have occurred. And for sure, the war and subsequent genocide against the Lizardmen had been driven behind the scenes by the Goddammed book as well, even as so few knew of its role in propagating the violence.

Really, the fact that it existed at all was, in Francis’s opinion, proof that Adamus was a thoroughly sick, twisted, and evil being whose intentions were far more nefarious than even Eilea understood. There was no excuse for the book’s creation. None. Yet even still, they would need to use it if they wanted to stand any chance of saving Galterra. After that, it would be destroyed once and for all, something Moldark and him should have done a very long time ago. But first, he’d need to find it, and God willing, the path to it lay ahead.

Ducking behind a large dumpster at the end of the block to stay out of sight, Francis looked ahead to see if he could find a path that would avoid more bloodshed. But he was quickly running out of time. The flames were spreading from floor to floor, and Francis knew he needed to hurry or the data could be destroyed. With a sad and also fearful sigh, he realized that things were about to get incredibly ugly.

If not for the fact that the building was on fire, Francis would not have minded hiding in the shadows for a few hours and waiting for things to quiet down. But with the flames beginning to thicken along with the rising smoke, he knew he had to make a decision right now as to how to proceed, and he knew that this was not going to be a decision he would be happy to have made. But the situation, as it currently stood, was not one he could change by simply wishing it weren’t so.

Right now, the street-level fighting had intensified on both the sidewalk and the road immediately outside of the apartment. A greater and greater number of rifle-bearing infantry were taking cover behind DEHVs, many with their alarms going off as bullets slammed into them. Fire hydrants had also been smashed, and water was beginning to flood onto the street. Shouts and commands from sergeants could be heard in the air, as two quickly growing groups engaged in close-quarters combat. Leveled fighters were also beginning to emerge. This had all the signs of an ugly, drawn-out slog of a battle, in which many would die. Now, however, because of Francis, it looked like all were going to have to die instead of just many.

“Why do you feel so afraid?” Eilea asked.

Because I have to become strong.

“Aren’t you already strong?”

No, he said. Not enough so that I can clear myself a path, anyway.

“What are you going to do?”

Hurt myself, he told her. Badly. Very, very badly.

Francis hated this. God, he hated this so much. Even after all this time, it had never become easier to do what he was about to do. Whether for a good cause or a regrettable one, such as now, there was never a point in time when he enjoyed or looked forward to this. Though he was no expert on the nature of pain, he was reasonably sure that the pain he experienced from this was equivalent to a man being flayed alive over a period of weeks by a rusted knife. Every neuron in his brain was about to transmit pain signals to every part of his body. Normally, he needed to psyche himself up before he could bring himself to use this. But there was no time. He needed to jump right into it.

Eilea, you should get out of my head now.

“I can endure it.”

No, you can’t.

“I can only feel a fraction of what you feel.”

A fraction is too much, Eilea.

“I can endure it!”

Francis knew he shouldn’t listen to her, but he couldn’t afford the time needed to argue his point. And so, with a sense of dread in his heart, he gathered his courage and activated Doom Phase.

And then it began to hurt.

A sensation similar to pulling a calf muscle multiplied by a factor of a million felt like it was coming from every part of his body, stretching and pulling him apart. Along with this came a burning of his very skin that felt akin to being set on fire, as well as a cutting, tearing pain that made him wonder if someone was slicing him open. An intense pressure behind his eyes caused his vision to briefly blur from the force of the headache that was pounding in his skull. He knew that this was purely mental and not physical, but the feeling of it was indistinguishable from any physical reality. Distantly, amid all the agony, he heard a shriek in his head, and he immediately felt Eilea withdraw her presence, fleeing his mind. He was glad. He did not want her to experience any more of this: even a fraction of it.

Along with the pain came the other effects. His hands, arms, legs, and body began to give off a black, smoke-like mist, while at the same time, his skin and all his clothing began to switch between various states of transparency as though going in and out of existence. Veins began to pop up all over his skin, razor-sharp thorns sprouted up and down his arms and back, and his body hardened like steel. Now, any melee or ranged weapon he could think of in his mind—no matter what they may be—he could summon or dismiss at a whim. The serpentine mask on his face also fell off, but the disguise was no longer needed, as he now had the face of a true serpent. He flicked his forked tongue and hissed as acid dripped down his mouth and burned a hole on the street, sizzling through the concrete.

Hurts so bad, he thought, hissing aloud. Need to kill now so I can end the suffering!

DOOM PHASE

DOOM LEVEL 1

SUFFERING INTENSITY

50

MOB KILL

REDUCE SUFFERING BY 2

PERSON KILL

REDUCE SUFFERING BY 5

BOSS KILL

REDUCE SUFFERING BY 30

Francis called forth a black-and-red longsword into his right hand and a shortsword to his left. It hurt. God, it hurt. He needed it to end. Only killing would make the pain go away. He activated Doom Flash, increasing his suffering by 1 and causing him to hiss in pain as he mentally targeted a spot on the ground halfway across the street in front of the burning apartment complex. In particular, he chose the spot near a DEHV, behind which five uniformed soldiers were taking cover. The moment he activated his ability, there was a gigantic, disorienting flash, which ignited the air around the five infantry and caused at least three of them to suffer third-degree burns and one to die outright. A moment after the flash, the world briefly faded—and so did he—until eventually he reappeared in the location of the flash, already swinging his blade to slice the head off another man, then spinning around and disemboweling a third. The last two, he killed by bringing his arms around and slashing at them both simultaneously.

Upon those five kills, his suffering was now cut in half. He’d have to use more Doom abilities to raise it, lest he become deactivated before dealing with the vast number of people on both sides of the war who were all turning in the direction of the flash as though curious to see what had caused it.

A woman saw his face, and she howled in fear. She, and her two fellow soldiers, raised their guns and began opening fire on him. Naturally, he couldn’t even feel it. Releasing another hiss, he dropped both his weapons, and they vanished before even hitting the ground. At the same time, he spun around, raised his hands, and then began pulling the trigger even before the two magi-pistols he’d summoned appeared in his hands, blasting to pieces the three uniformed soldiers taking shots at him from across the street.

Each time he fired one of his guns, it made a bang far louder than that of a normal firearm. It also detonated upon impact, which in this case had the effect of blowing up not just the woman and her two male companions, but also the DEHV they were taking cover behind. All three died in a massive electrical inferno that caused the power to go out in the building behind them.

“What the fuck is that?” someone screamed. “WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THAT?”

Down to a suffering of just 10, Francis’ pain had dulled considerably. He was now only hurting roughly as much as someone being operated on without anesthesia. He needed more pain or he would be forced out of his Doom Phase. And so, he activated Doom Soul, which increased his suffering by 25, making him cry out in misery as about fifteen shadows formed beneath the feet of fifteen different men and women around him at random.

Many looked down in confusion, but a few others did not even see it coming. Their screams were loud and intense as ghostly hands emerged from the shadows and pulled them down into it as though it were a hole in the ground; then, along with whoever had been taken, the shadow vanished entirely. Francis did not know where they went, and he did not know what happened to them when they got there, but from the overwhelming reduction in his suffering, he had always assumed they were at the very least dead. No bodies were ever recovered and he doubted he would ever know what became of the souls of those he’d been forced to take. He doubted he wanted to know, either. Adamus had once told him they were sent to a realm of never-ending suffering that he himself had created unconsciously. He had chosen not to believe this.

Knowing that this use of Doom Soul would reduce his suffering by 50, just a moment before the shadows dragged his targets to hell, he activated Doom Whip, Doom Fire, and Doom Crush in order to prevent himself from going into the negatives and ending his Doom Phase.

Suffice to say, this was a fight he was clearly going to win: as long as he could endure how much it would hurt to do so. One thing was for certain, though: the quicker he acted, the quicker Francis reduced everyone's suffering, including his own.

Chapter 113: The Island of Elendroth

Chapter 113: The Island of Elendroth

Zach weakly lifted his head and turned his eyes as the voice of their helicopter pilot drew his attention. Yawning, he listened as, with a casual, matter-of-factly tone, the pilot informed them that they were only five minutes out from being within view of the island where Kalana lived. Immediately upon hearing these words, Zach sat up straighter and felt a rush of excitement that actually caught him totally off guard, especially given how haggard he’d been just a second ago. Until just now, he’d been feeling groggy, run-down, and so utterly exhausted that it hurt. But with the pilot’s announcement, his fatigue was chased away so fast it gave him emotional whiplash: his weariness and sluggishness vanished without a trace.

Are we really almost there? he wondered, becoming enthusiastic at the idea of finally arriving.

At the moment, he was sitting in the back of a fairly spacious private helicopter with Kalana. Due to the loud noise of the propellers and the engines, they’d both been required to wear headsets in order to communicate with each other and also the pilot. It was cute how Kalana’s headset was pink and had the shape of cat ears on the top of them. Clearly, she’d picked that one out specifically for use on these special “shuttle flights” between Shores of Wrath and her island. Zach, on the other hand, had been fine with using whatever old piece of junk the pilot had lying around.

“Coming up on the pocket,” the pilot said as the helicopter began to slow. “Zach, if you want to sit up here in a few minutes, you’ll be able to see it on the horizon. Give ya something to finally look at other than water.”

Zach smiled. He really liked the pilot. He was an older dude with a bushy white mustache, a few patches of grey hair, and a pair of black sunglasses that complemented his white uniform. He had told them funny stories and had given them interesting bits of trivia all throughout their relatively short flight.

Although Zach wasn’t sure what he meant by “the pocket,” he trusted the old guy to know what he was doing. He was clearly an experienced pilot given how surprisingly smooth this flight had been so far. It seemed helicopters in general did not experience quite as much turbulence as airplanes did, and with a good enough pilot in good enough weather conditions, they experienced virtually none at all. Thus, aside from the occasional, slight rocking motion, it had been a mostly still, calm, yet noisy experience. It’d also been really comfortable, too. The leather, marble-colored seats felt more like big office chairs than anything else; each one had attachable neck cushions, long armrests, and cup-holders.

“You’re looking pretty excited, baby,” Kalana said to him, speaking into the stick-shaped mic on the right side of her pink, cat-eared headset.

Zach nodded to her then spoke into his own mic. “I am,” he said. “I don’t even know what happened, either. I was about to pass out, and now I’m totally amped.”

Zach wasn’t exaggerating. He had no idea where this sudden reserve of energy came from. Truly, he’d been beyond spent, as the trip over here had tested his patience in a way he wasn’t accustomed to and hadn’t been expecting. Considering the sheer extent of how tired he’d been, Zach had thought it a virtual certainty he would enter into a deep sleep for either all or most of the flight down to South Bastia just as he’d done during the flight to Varda’s Lair. And yet, for Gods-knew-what reason, not only hadn’t he managed to doze off for a single minute of the ten-hour flight, but he’d ended up being one of the only passengers aboard who didn’t get any sleep, and after about five hours, he'd begun feeling claustrophobic and lonely, too.

He'd also felt like a total asshole. This was because the first-class section had been an incredible luxury, especially when contrasted with the rest of the airplane. Not only had he sat in a big, wide seat that could fully recline like a bed, but he and Kalana had been served gourmet, chef-prepared meals along with an assortment of other snacks and cheeses, whereas the hundreds of other people aboard sat in cramped quarters and were fed microwaved dinners wrapped in plastic.

Zach had been so fortunate to be in first class—he was fully aware of that fact. He understood he should be grateful. Nevertheless, he hated it. Absolutely hated it. Even as the lights darkened and nearly every passenger on the plane—first class or otherwise—drifted off to sleep, Zach was left awake with his body exhausted but his mind racing. Not wanting to bother Kalana, who’d been sleeping peacefully, he’d felt alone and trapped for nearly ten hours with nothing to do but sit there while images of all the people he’d killed kept invading his thoughts.

As the seconds had ticked by with painful, torturous slowness, he’d even started to wish one of the people from before who’d bugged him for selfies would wake up and start speaking to him just so he’d have someone to talk to. No, seriously, he really did. He’d been that desperate. And it was crazy, too, because who would have thought that after all the shit he’d endured, a routine flight to South Bastia could cause him so much distress? Yet there was something about being stuck in an airplane for ten hours that he just couldn’t handle right now. And what made it all worse was the knowledge that it likely wasn’t even necessary, either. In fact, he knew for certain it wasn’t, because Fluffles, who would probably rather die than be stuck on a long airplane flight, had insisted he would “meet them there.”

This, obviously, could only mean one of three things: one, Fluffles was lying, two, Fluffles was planning on catching a later flight, or three—the most likely case—Fluffles knew of a dungeon within a reasonable distance that ran through South Bastia, and he was planning to use it to warp across continents. Zach was nearly positive it was the last of these cases, especially given how certain Fluffles had sounded about spending summer here with them. Yet, just before flying out of Whispery Woods, when they’d asked him to come on the private jet with them, he’d meowed and said, “I don’t like airplanes. I come later to play.” With that, he’d scampered off somewhere.

At the time, Zach had been feeling too detached and numb to really care how they traveled. But in hindsight, he now realized he’d have been so much better off going to Angelica’s with Kalana and waiting until someone with an exit door to South Bastia popped into the inn, at which point they could’ve simply walked through it. Yes, it was a matter of luck, and sure, it might even take longer than flying, but even if it would end up taking days—which he doubted, but let’s just say it did—Zach would still prefer that to being trapped on an airplane for so many hours.

Of course, the best option of all would be to simply find a dungeon that ran through South Bastia, but that would be a lot harder to do since Zach had no clue where to look and there was no way any of the adventurers were going to tell him no matter how nicely he asked. Despite having more than proven himself, the adventurers were still totally inflexible when it came to their ways and their customs, which meant that, due to a combination of his age and his level, they weren’t going to dispense “the answers” to him. Honestly, the only adventurer who might just outright tell him would be Fluffles, and that would require both a bribe and for the cat to be in a generous mood.

He better tell me. Never doing this again!

As torturous a trip as it had been, eventually, the plane had landed, and when it did, the sun was only first rising in the sky despite it being closer to noon where he’d come from, reminding Zach that the time-zone here was a few hours earlier than what he was used to. Like his previous flight, shortly after touching down, the plane was taxied to the gate, and then finally, along with Kal—who was stretching, having just awoken from a deep slumber—he’d been able to disembark. Yet for all his desire to be off the airplane, the moment he’d stood up from his seat, he’d almost fallen back down.

Faced with an insurmountable level of exhaustion, he’d half-limped, half-walked through another airbridge and into another airport. Or at least he was pretty sure he did. In all honesty, he couldn’t even remember what the airport looked like or walking through it. That was how dazed and out of it he’d been. He’d felt like a zombie, and he’d relied completely on Kalana to lead him wherever they were going. She’d taken his hand and guided him along, for which he was grateful. Given how tired he’d been at the start of the flight, the fact that he hadn’t been able to sleep through any of it had given him an overwhelming and growing fatigue that only continued to worsen—until right now, at this very moment, when it vanished into nothingness.

I can’t believe how awake and alert I am all of a sudden, he thought as he got out of his seat and moved over to the cockpit. I actually can’t believe it.

He sat in the adjacent seat, taking a moment to admire the countless controls, buttons, meters, switches, screens, and gauges. It was hard to believe a person could memorize what all of these did. Then he stared out of the cockpit window and became somewhat puzzled. For some reason, they were no longer moving; the helicopter had come to a complete standstill and was simply hovering in place in the air about ten-thousand feet above the beautiful blue ocean below.

“Why’d we stop?” he asked. Despite sitting right next to the pilot, he still needed to talk over the headset to be heard.

“I need to make sure I line everything up perfectly,” the pilot replied.

“Line…everything up?”

The pilot took his hand off the control stick for a second to flash Zach a thumbs-up. “Yep.”

Confused, Zach opened his mouth to ask a follow-up question, but Kalana chimed in and cleared it up for him. “I forgot to tell you, Zach,” she said. “The island’s surrounded by an invisible barrier. There are only eight or nine entrances that we know of, and umm, if you try to fly into it or boat into it without being careful, you’ll crash. It’s strange, too, ‘cause it only seems to stop vehicles from going through, not people.”

“No shit?” Zach asked, squinting his eyes. It was definitely invisible all right. He saw nothing but open air ahead of the helicopter. “So is that what you meant by ‘the pocket’?”

“Sure is,” the pilot said. “It’s only a wee bit bigger than the heli, so I’ve gotta make sure I’m oriented perfectly.” The pilot had taken out what looked like a clipboard stuffed with pages of coordinates and other data, which he began to flip through, alternating between looking down at it and at his flight instruments. “Definitely don’t want a repeat of last time.”

“Last time?” Zach asked.

At this, the pilot stiffened as though nervous. “I clipped the propellers on the way in. Thought I was dead. Thankfully, the princess saved me, the Gods bless her heart. Even bought me a new helicopter.”

Zach shook his head. He didn’t know what surprised him more: the fact that Kal could now afford to buy helicopters, or how annoyed he was that she’d bought one out of a sense of charity. But rather than start a fight about his greed, he was far too interested in watching closely as the helicopter made tiny, barely noticeable adjustments in position, hovering up, down, and up again slightly. Then the pilot tilted the nose downwards, and they began moving forward, albeit very slowly. Even still, Zach could see the pilot bracing himself and peeling back his lips as though fearful of an impact. But soon after, he released a sigh, turned his head towards Zach, and gave him yet another thumbs-up.

“I’m getting better each time,” he said. “Oh, and there it is.” He turned his thumbs-up into a pointing gesture. “Beautiful, ain’t it?”

Zach looked ahead and into the distance at the rapidly approaching land. For more than an hour, the only thing to be seen in any direction had been an endless stretch of ocean. But now, rapidly approaching, he could see the island Kalana had pleaded with him to come visit and had talked so glowingly about. And Gods, it was indeed just as beautiful as she’d described it.

It was also far, far bigger than he’d imagined, too.

Although he’d gleaned from casual conversation that the island was about 40 square miles in size, he hadn’t really known how to conceptualize that number, and it hadn’t really sounded very big. That was why, when Kalana kept insisting that she’d “barely scratched the surface” in terms of exploring it, he’d wondered how that was even possible.

Now, he fully, truly understood. While the island may not have even been in the top-500 worldwide in terms of size, it was still a massive landform that Zach estimated could house twenty-thousand people if not for the fact that there were spawn points all over it. It was big enough that Zach, flying at what was now like fifteen-thousand feet, could only see what he estimated to be half of it as it filled his vision.

There was so much to see and do. And all of it was untouched. There were rivers, ponds, trees, and fields of green. There were several forests, and way into the distance, he spotted what he believed were a stretch of large hills that looked like they were almost tall enough to be very small mountains. There were also stunning, sand-filled beaches and what looked like a gigantic cave. And the fact that this was a truly untouched piece of land—the fact that he would get to really learn what Galterra used to be like—this, he now realized, was likely the reason his weariness and fatigue had evaporated so suddenly.

Zach became excited.

Too excited.

“How long until we land?” he asked. Then he frowned. “Why are we slowing down again? Did we just stop?” They were once more stationary and hovering in place over the ocean.

“Eh, sorry about that. Don’t worry. We’ll touch down in about thirty.”

“But why? It’s right there?”

“Gotta take her in slow, son. There are flying creatures there that’ll attack the helicopter if I don’t take a safe route around the western side of the island. Don’t worry. You’ll be there soon enough. Nothing you can do now but wait and be patient.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” he said with a sigh.

As Zach spoke those five words, he’d meant them only as a mindless, casual, and offhand remark. Yet a moment after speaking them, a sudden chill traveled down his back. Something was bothering him, and it caused him to really pause and reflect on what he’d just said. He began to seriously consider if it was actually even correct. Was it actually true? Or was that just more of his level-1 thinking?

It is, he thought. It is just level-1 thinking!

As insane and wild as it was to think such a dangerous thing, he knew that he was right. He did not have to wait and be patient. Just simply as a matter of literal truth, he objectively, demonstrably, did not have to wait. And what was more: he was tired of doing everything in his life in accordance to procedure or the wishes of others. Ever since the day that Varsh had killed his father, fate had made it so that every action he took had been either dictated to him or driven by one outside force or another. When was the last time he did something just because he wanted to do it? He honestly couldn’t remember.

But here he was now, free of the dragon, back with Kalana, and you know what? He was honestly fucking tired of doing things the way other people told him to do them. And that was why, even as batshit crazy as it might have been, he decided to give up on his level-1 thinking and commit to a foolish, stupid idea that came to his head and made him smile. He decided to do what he wanted to do. For once, he was going to take his own destiny in a path of his choosing.

“Thank you so much for the flight,” he said, patting the old guy on the head. “You’re a fantastic pilot. I hope you have a really safe flight home.”

“Huh?” the pilot asked, clearly confused. It was the same reaction Kalana had as he got up, took off his headphones, placed them gently and respectfully down on the seat, and then walked to the back of the helicopter where the love of his life was sitting.

“Zach, what’s wrong? What are you…?”

Without saying a word to her, Zach leaned forward and gently removed the headphones from her head, placing them down on her seat. Then, aggressively, he grabbed her and scooped her up into his arms, supporting her upper back with his left hand and her legs with his right before spinning around and carrying her towards the emergency exit.

“Z-Zach!” she shouted, wrapping her arms around him. “W-w-what are you doing?”

“Having fun,” he said.

Shifting her in his arms for just a moment, he turned his body slightly so that he could grab the latch and pull it. This, as he could hear the pilot shouting something at him. But he couldn’t really understand it, as without the headset, it came across as nothing but a garbled type of mumbling. Now, sliding the side door open, he was hit by a blast of very hot tropical air, a burst of sunlight that made him squint his eyes, and at once, the level of noise from the helicopter increased immensely as he took two steps forward with Kalana still in his arms until he stood on the ledge, fifteen-thousand feet above sea level and without any parachute to speak of.

“Gods, Zach!” Kalana shouted. “You’re not really gonna jump, are you? No way!”

Glancing down, he almost didn’t. A nervous hesitance caused him to feel an acidic burning in his gut: one that told him if he jumped, he’d die. But he reminded himself it was caused by level-1 thinking. He needed to break that habit, starting today.

“One,” he counted, laughing.

“Z-Zach!”

“Two!”

“Zach, you’re so crazy! You’re not really gonna—”

“Three!”

“Gyahhhhhhhh!”

Zach stepped out of the helicopter and then, with Kalana in his arms, he entered into a freefall down towards the ocean below. Within seconds, the tropical wind battered against him, invigorating him and filling his nostrils with the smell of the ocean’s breeze. It felt incredible. It felt freeing. And it was only the thought of how angry Kalana was about to be with him that made it something less than a perfect moment—at least until he met her eyes, and he could see that her screams had turned into playful laughter and soon after cheering.

“You’re so crazy!” she shouted. She pulled away from him slightly, and then she stretched her arms and legs out wide and flipped herself over so that she was in a reclining position with her belly facing upwards. The glow of the sun made her look like a divine entity, and Zach was mesmerized by the sight of her golden hair fluttering in the wind. “It feels so nice,” she said, her limbs spread wide and her eyes momentarily closing.

Zach laughed. He couldn’t believe he’d actually done it. He’d jumped right out of a helicopter. And he wasn’t afraid. He was loving every moment of it. Faster and faster, the two of them continued to pick up speed until finally reaching terminal velocity. Briefly, he met Kalana’s eyes, and she stuck out her tongue at him. Then she once more flipped herself right-side up, the wind blanketing the two of them as they continued their descent.

Right now, in this moment, Zach felt freer than he’d ever felt before in his life. He wished it would last forever. Down and down they plunged, falling for slightly more than a minute before the end of their freefall neared. Zach watched as the water approached closer and closer like a blueish-green wall. Simultaneously, he and Kal crashed down into the ocean at the exact same time with dual splashes he could only barely hear as his body became submerged beneath the water, cooling him off and refreshing him.

Moving so fast, Zach had no idea how deep he sank, but the fact he didn’t touch the bottom meant this must’ve been a very deep ocean. He had to have gone at a minimum several-hundred feet deep, maybe more. Yet eventually his motion leveled off as it became darker and darker, and the water chillier, yet even through this darkness, he could see Kalana just in front of him. He reached out with both his hands, and she took them, and then the two began to kick their feet as they swam up to the surface. As soon as their heads popped up above the water, she made a silly face at him then began to cackle.

“You’re crazy,” she said again, shaking her head as though to get water off her face as she began to tread. “I can’t believe you just did that, Zach.”

“It was fun though, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The buzz of the helicopter above was still audible, but glancing upwards, Zach could already see the pilot turning around as if to head home. “I hope that guy isn’t too pissed off.”

“Oh, Gulthor’s probably not upset at all, I don’t think.”

“No?”

“I really don’t think so,” she said. “He’s probably happy he doesn’t have to risk getting blown up by the Phoenix Fangs now.”

“The what?”

“It’s a mob. You’ll see them eventually.”

Zach smiled at her, and she smiled back at him. Then the two began swimming together towards the beach. “Fuck, I should’ve let him take us closer first,” Zach said as he realized he’d misjudged their distance. “It didn’t look so far away when I jumped.”

“Huh? It’s not. From here, it’s only a fifteen-mile swim, baby.”

“Only.”

Since she was Elvish, Kalana could hold her breath for a half hour underwater, see better in the dark, and swim far faster than Zach could. Yet, despite this, he was glad to see her choosing to keep pace with him. The joyful feeling he got as he swam side by side with her towards the shore under the early-morning sun was indescribable. He reveled in every moment of it. Having been trapped on a plane for ten hours, and having been trapped in a pattern of death and danger for weeks, he was finally, truly free. He could do anything he wanted. They both could. It was everything he’d ever wanted and hoped for. Right now, they were in charge of their own lives. No one was going to tell them what to do.

One arm in front of the other, Zach did the breast stroke, moving roughly as fast as a speedboat. After a considerable amount of swimming—all of which Zach enjoyed—the water eventually became shallow enough so that he transitioned into wading, then soon after walking. And now, emerging on a beach in a land that he could hardly believe existed on Galterra, Zach had to pause a moment and open his mouth wide to gasp in total awe at the multitude of fantastical sights that he witnessed before him.

All along the sandy shores were mobs. So many mobs. Hundreds of them. For miles! They were everywhere. Literally, everywhere. For as far as his eyes could see to both his left and right along the beach, there were a wide variety of different mobs at different levels and with greatly varying appearances. Some looked relatively normal, such as a whole lot of gigantic crab-like things that were interspersed in every direction. But others were just downright bizarre, like a pack of sharks across from Zach that were actually floating above the sand: just sort of hovering there. Some of the mobs were walking around, some of them remained perfectly still, and there were even a number of them that were fighting one another. There were also flying creatures of various shapes and sizes in the sky. But it was something about thirty feet ahead of him that really caught his eye and made his jaw drop.

“It’s…it’s a rock monster!” Zach said in disbelief as a wave crashed onto the beach and covered him up to his knees in warm water. “It’s a fucking rock monster, Kal!”

Ahead of him was a vaguely humanoid figure, only it was much, much larger and appeared to be made of nothing but large chunks of rock from its head to its toe. Its arms, legs, body, head, and face were all made out of this same, dark-blue type of rock that looked like granite, and it was just sort of…sitting down on the sand, doing nothing.

“Have you fought that before?” Zach asked her.

“Nope. Never seen that one.”

“Seriously?”

“Yah! I haven’t lived here very long, Zach. The island’s really big. It could take me a long time to see everything.”

Zach drew his sword. “I’m going to kill it!”

“Be careful!”

HP

57,300/57,300

Name

Slabert

Level

37

Soaking wet, Zach waded the rest of the way onto dry sand, then approached the rock monster even as his drenched boots made a squishing sound with each step. Upon coming within fifteen feet of the thing, it suddenly twitched, then began standing up before turning around to face him.

“Mohhhhh!” it said, moving towards him. “Mohhhhh!”

Zach studied it carefully. Though nearly ten feet in height, the monster was slow, lumbering, and it was easy to read. So easy to read, in fact, that Zach actually had to wonder if it was some sort of trap, as he knew what the thing was going to attempt to do to him well before it even got within range to do it. It was obvious from the way it’d begun drawing back its right, rock-built arm. Zach had no doubt its punches packed a great deal of power, but it performed its movements with such slowness it might as well have worn a sign announcing what attack it was going to use. Five full seconds before it even took a swing at him with its boulder-like fist, Zach was already bending his knees to dodge.

With a laugh, he moved in and sliced it across what he took to be its chest area, but he only hit for 959 damage while making a dull crunch.

“Mohhhhh!”

Zach tried again, swiping at it a few more times, more aggressively now, yet still to no avail. “Uh, Kal? I think this thing is way more powerful than I expected.”

“Nah-uh,” she said. “It’s ‘cause it’s just super resistant to sword. You probably need to use a hammer on it or magic. Can I help?”

Zach sheathed his sword, stepped to the side, and shrugged even as the mob was smashing its fist down against the sand where he’d been standing. “Let’s join a party together, first.”

“Mhm!”

Kal nodded then drew her daggers. She lifted her right arm and began to twirl her weapon around in wide semicircles. Then she swung it downwards, and along with the motion, a spear-shaped mass of what looked like red-colored water appeared in the air above and to her right. It then flew forward and crashed directly into the rock monster, eliciting a groan from the creature and hitting for 102,411. The creature then began to shake and vibrate, slowly at first, but then faster and faster until every rock that made up its form became detached, and all crumpled onto the sand. Then those, too, exploded with a poof and began rising into the air like mist.

+6000xp

“Not bad,” Zach said. “I got 6,000xp from that.”

“I got um, 11,000.”

For a moment, Zach wasn’t sure why she’d gotten so much more, but then he remembered that, while there was normally no xp penalty when it was just two adventurers in a party together, if one of the adventurers was at least two levels higher than the other and fighting a lower-level mob, it was cut in half.

Still good, though, he thought.

To Next Level

89,500/170,000

“How far away is your home, Kal?”

She grinned. “The complete opposite side of the island.”

Zach returned the grin with one of his own then looked around at the sheer amount of spectacular sights in every conceivable direction. “Let’s walk slow.”

Chapter 114: The King of the Slug Clan

Chapter 114: The King of the Slug Clan

Despite never actually having been to an amusement park, Zach was still nevertheless willing to bet that the excited flutter in his chest and the sense of wonder he felt from everything all around him was what a child might experience when entering one for the first time. Stepping over the sand where the rock monster had spawned, Zach held his hand above his eyes like a visor and then began darting his head around, absolutely captivated by the sheer number of breathtaking sights to behold. It was like he’d been transported thousands of years back through time. This was how it used to be, right? This was the world as it was originally imagined.

Everywhere he looked caused the same exact question to pop up in his head: what was over there? For instance, take that field about a mile ahead of him with the really tall stalks of grass, beyond which the terrain became elevated until running into a tall ridge. At the center of this ridge was a narrow pass that truly looked as though it’d been deliberately placed there with the intention of being entered. What was there? There had to be something, right? Or wait, what about that forest off to the right and way into the distance at the edge of his vision? What would he find there? Even though he was no longer in the sky and thus was greatly more limited in how far he could see, there was still just so much to take in. He could easily see himself exploring all summer long and still missing a whole lot of it. Realistically, he’d probably need a year.

“Kal, are there mobs everywhere on the island?” he asked as the two began to take a few small steps forward along the sand.

“Umm, well, there’s a few square miles where I live that nothing spawns, but I think besides that, there’s mobs everywhere else.” She tilted her head to the side and rubbed her index finger against her chin. “Well, okay, technically I guess you could say nothing spawns on the path, either.”

“The path?”

She nodded, then pointed off into the distance towards Zach’s left, where a wall of shrubbery acted as a sort of partition between the beach and a more elevated stretch of grassy fields. “Did you see that really long and winding pathway that cut across the island while we were in the helicopter?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, as long as you stay perfectly on that path and keep your arms and legs in it, you’re safe from aggroing anything. It actually leads to where I live. I had my estate made right next to the Elvish archives.”

“Wow,” he whispered. “So cool.” She was standing by his side, and from the look on her face, she seemed to be enjoying the look on his. “It’s just all so amazing,” he said.

“Yah, I knew you would love it. I knew it!”

“Even the skies are so beautiful here,” he said, glancing up. Then he frowned as he saw a massive field of storm clouds approaching in the distance. “There goes the day, though.”

“Oh, ah, that’s not actually how it works here,” Kalana said.

“Hm?”

“I mean, sort of.”

Scratching his head, Zach said, “You’re losing me, Kal.”

In response, she pointed at the approaching clouds. “So, um, based on what the Elvish wrote about this island—which is called Elendroth by the way—the weather here is kinda’ unique. There are definitely some days that are all sun, and there’s also times when it just rains, but that’s actually really rare. Most days here are actually just the same pattern of weather. It’s actually really cool.”

She grew excited as she explained more about her island. “So basically,” she continued, “there’s usually tons of sunshine, and then there’s a twenty-minute super-duper big thunderstorm. Then the sun comes back. And this happens like three or four times a day every single day. Then it rains all night.”

Zach thought over her words. “So basically,” he said, “except for like an hour or an hour-and-a-half each day, it’s all sun until night time?”

“Yah! Well, usually. Sometimes it can have just one or the other, but I haven’t actually seen that yet. So we’ll probably get soaked, but it’ll be over quick.”

Despite having swum here, the combination of heat and sunshine had already dried his equipment, including his waterproof phone. After his previous cell had been destroyed on that fateful day back in Whispery Woods that started it all, he’d upgraded to something more durable. Yet even if he hadn’t, he still would’ve jumped from the heli.

“Summer is so nice here,” he said as the two of them continued to walk.

At this, Kalana made an adorable little squeak. “It’s actually always like this here.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yup. It never gets cold.”

Zach stopped in his tracks and he paused to think. Then, facing Kalana’s direction, he asked, “You know what? Why don’t…why don’t we just call it in? Seriously, Kal.”

“Call it…in?” she asked him, confusion plain on her face.

“Yeah. Meaning, forget making this a summer vacation. Let’s just live here and never leave.”

“Zach…”

“What? That’s what you wanted, right? Wasn’t it basically what you were begging me to do?”

“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, but not…not now that…that things are more complicated.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She held out her hand as though wanting him to hold it, and he took it. “I haven’t told you yet, but um, I didn’t tell anybody yet. So if I tell you now, you’ll be the first I told.”

“Tell me what?” he asked, becoming somewhat nervous.

“Zach, I love you so much. So please don’t be mad.”

“What is it, Kal?” he grumbled, becoming suspicious. “Don’t prolong the torture. Whatever it is, just tell me.”

He could see her inhale based on the rising of her chest. “I’m gonna be the new governor of Whispery Woods once the summer is over.”

“The fuck?” Zach asked. “Seriously?”

“Don’t be mad!”

“I’m not. I’m just…I’m confused and shocked. Why would…for what possible reason would you want to go back to that place? I mean, I know it’s important to the green-cloaks, but you’re like me: a city rat. We need to get away from there, not go back to it.”

“Well, didn’t you say you wanted to go back too, Zach?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but as normal people. Like, to school and stuff. Not as…I mean why would you even want to be governor?”

“It’s ‘cause I can make people’s lives better. I actually care. And my mom’s gonna need my help. Starting very early in September, we’re gonna be putting together the biggest emergency aid package that they say has ever been done before.”

“Emergency aid? For what?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “For Den of Ziragoth, you dork. Obviously.”

Her words arrived on the heels of an eerily chilling breeze, likely a forerunner for the approaching storm. The sky had already begun to darken. “Your mom’s going to help those people?”

“Yup. She’s gonna have their entire town rebuilt and pay for their medical treatments, food, mental health services, and um, for all the people who can’t work anymore, she’s gonna give them money so they can still live the rest of their lives comfortably.”

“She’d do that for them?” Zach asked with a gasp. The idea of Fylwen going so far for humanity was at odds with her dark hatred of humans. He could hardly believe what he was hearing despite absolutely approving of it.

Kalana sighed. “My mom’s really complicated, and I still gotta learn so much about her. But she takes pity on people who’ve been stomped on and lost everything, especially by the powerful.”

Darkly, Zach quipped, “You should see what she did to me.”

“Stop,” Kalana said, her tone implying she wasn’t receptive to him joking about that. “I’m being serious. My cousin told me, you know. The stuff you told her but for some reason didn’t tell me.” Now, she glared at him.

“You mean about the…?”

“Yah,” she said, her words coming across as pained. “I don’t blame you or anything. I’m not mad. I’m just really…I never knew any of that. And even though I love you and hate myself for feeling this way, I’m upset you learned before I did.” Her eyes glistened with moisture, and though she did not shed any tears, Zach could tell she wasn’t far from it.

He hugged her. “I’m sorry. I don’t think she did that to hurt you. I think she did that as a sign of trust. I also don’t think she wanted you to know about what she went through.”

“But can’t you understand how that makes me feel? That that’s not a decision I got to make for myself, Zach? I know it sounds childish but I should’ve known first. Not you. I’m sorry, baby, I know that sounds so—”

“No, no, I get it,” Zach said. And he really did mean it. In all honesty, she was right. As her daughter, Fylwen should have told Kalana about her horrific past before she told Zach.

“I know you do,” she said, grabbing him back. “I just don’t know why she wouldn’t tell me that herself. I dunno if she even knows I know.” Now, she did shed a few tears. Or maybe it was the first drops of rain that began to fall from the sky. Zach actually wasn’t certain. “But the reason I’m telling you all this stuff is so you understand. I’m gonna help everybody rebuild. Before the ‘event’ last night, my mom and I had a few hours to just sit and talk. She’s got so many plans for the city, too, but the first priority is gonna be Den of Ziragoth, and I agreed with her. Before we do anything else, that’s the first thing her guild is gonna do.”

At this, Zach cracked a smile. “Her guild? Wait, she’s got a guild now?”

Kalana released a small chuckle, and a smile began beating back her sadness. “Yeah. To make it legitimate, she had to, um, adopt her monarchy to make it compatible with guild structure.”

For some reason, Zach found this so fucking funny. He released a loud guffaw and asked, “So are you, like, second-in-command of the Elvish Roses?”

She gave him a playful slap. “We’re called Elvadin, and yeah, I’m second-in-command.”

“Wait, for real?”

“Mhm.”

A crack of thunder echoed from the sky, which was now far darker than it had been, yet a bright bolt of lightning illuminated it as a torrential downpour of rain began falling down on top of them. It was almost—but not quite—the intensity of the rain he’d experienced while waiting for Ziragoth the Awoken to reform itself from phase 1 to phase 2. In a matter of seconds, Zach was once more absolutely drenched, and his feet partially sank into the sand beneath him. Even still, it cooled him off, and he actually kind of enjoyed it.

“Let’s keep walking,” Zach said, speaking a bit louder to be heard over the intense winds and pitter-patter of rain crashing down all around him. Behind him, the rock monster had respawned, reminding him that they’d barely moved from the part of the shore where they’d arrived. “Uh…Kal, strange request, but can I lead the way? If you give me a general direction, I mean.”

“I get it. You wanna explore, don’t you?”

“A bit,” he said with a laugh. “I can’t believe I’m not even tired. I’m not ready for bed just yet. It’s morning here, after all.”

She kissed him. “Go ahead.”

Zach smiled at her. Then, he flicked his eyes off to his right. “What in the Gods is that?” he asked, pointing to a group of three mobs that were lazily ambling their way down the beach.

Kalana shrugged. “Never saw those either. I haven’t really come to this side of the island much. There’s so much I gotta see.”

Due to the sudden darkness from the nightmarish—yet strangely enjoyable—storm, Zach hadn’t been able to get a good look at the mobs until just now as he moved in closer. And when he did, he saw that they were puke-green-colored creatures that reminded him a little bit of slugs, only they were tall and walked on two feet. Their eyes consisted of wide orange dots, and each had three antennas coming out of the top of their heads. They also had elongated arms, and something shining and metal-like appeared to be attached to the point of each shoulder blade as though residing inside of a socket.

“Glurblur,” they muttered to one another as they strolled across the sand, the rain washing away any residue left in the wake of their slimy feet, which gave off a sort of constant green goop. “Glurblur.”

HP

41,000/41,000

Name

Slug Clan Peon A

Level

31

Zach drew his sword. Then, his feet kicking up wet sand, he blasted off in their direction while raising his sword high above himself. All three slug-like creatures halted at once and turned in his direction. “Glurblur?”

“Zach, watch out!” Kalana called to him in alarm as two synchronized pops came from Peon A, and from the metallic sockets on its shoulders, two sharp, dagger-sized pieces of metal flew at him like arrows, whistling on the air as they headed straight for him.

Although Zach appreciated the warning, it wasn’t actually necessary. He’d seen it coming. And it was not due to his ability to read body language, either, as that did not apply here—but rather, it was his 87 points into dexterity that saved him. Despite only being level 21, the combination of the gear Fylwen had given him along with that one level-up he’d had where his stats were massively boosted across the board made it so that he was now capable of taking on things far, far higher in level relative to himself.

With a quick twist of his body, both pieces of flying metal debris whizzed past him unharmed; this, as the other two “Slug Clan Peons” turned and also fired off another four. Zach jumped to the side to put himself out of the way of the first two, and then he aggressively slashed twice with his blade, moving the weapon so fast he was able to knock away both pieces before either could hit him. Then he dashed forward once more at full speed, angled his body slightly, and brought his blade down on top of the first Peon, slicing it across the neck and sending green goop splattering all over his face.

15,281

It smelled and tasted disgusting, but thankfully, it was raining with such fierce intensity it was quickly washed away. But more importantly, the slug appeared to have no other weapons aside from its shoulder-launched metal thingies, which he could visibly see regrowing in the now empty sockets of all three mobs: and fast, too. Speedily, he whirled his blade around twice more, quickly dealing a cut for 11,291 and then another for 13,555.

HP

873/41,000

Name

Slug Clan Peon A

Level

31

Zach had a decision to make. Did he want a card, or did he want xp? Not to be mean, but truthfully, he didn’t really like these mobs. Not that that should be a criterion for something’s usefulness, either, but they were gross and he didn’t want to rely on such slimy things. For this reason, he stabbed his sword through the monster’s throat and finished it off. As it died, it did not dissolve or turn into goo like he’d expected. It instead turned from green to red as though becoming hot before evaporating into nothingness.

+4000xp

Four more pops came from the two mobs near him, firing practically at point blank, and all four hit him. Zach hissed aloud as multiple stinging pains popped over his body: two from his neck and two from his chest. Yet he didn’t think the damage was too bad. In fact, he doubted he’d even need a heal from Kalana, though that didn’t stop her from giving him one, his body beginning to glow with a dim green light. Not only had the attacks failed to do any significant damage, but they’d failed to draw any blood, either. Without Kalana’s heal, he would’ve been left with nothing more than a few minor, barely noticeable scratches. Even still, the things hurt.

OUCH!

He angrily sliced his weapon across, moving it such that the point of his blade formed a half-circle in the air before him, and with that, he cut off all three antennae of Slug Clan Peon B as well as a piece of its scalp, striking for 16,211. Then he struck out twice more, raising his blade high above him each time and swinging it down diagonally, hitting first for 13,211 and then again for 18,206.

+4000xp

Now, the creature began to turn red and evaporate even as the final one had regrown its metal shoulder-missiles. “Glurblur,” it said, as it again fired at him point blank.

Not wanting a repeat of his earlier pain, which felt exactly like a bee sting, he very quickly dropped all the way down to his knees while simultaneously twisting his body, and with a whoosh, the two metal projectiles sailed across the air above him. Then he retaliated and cut both the creature’s knees off, causing it to begin to fall down to the sand. Yet even before its body landed, Zach exploded into two fast strikes, cutting it into four pieces before it touched down.

+4000xp

“Well, that was fun,” Zach said as the rain began to slow from a downpour to a drizzle. “Those little metal things actually hurt, Kal. But at least they…” He gasped. Below him, there was a shining blue light. This meant he’d gotten a drop, and even better, it was a rare!

“Ohh, I got a drop!” Kalana exclaimed.

“Me too! Where’s yours?”

She pointed at the one Zach was about to pick up. “No, Kal, that’s mine.”

“Nah-uh, it’s glowing blue for me.”

“It’s glowing blue for me too.”

“How’s that possible?” she asked. “If it’s glowing blue for me, that means it’s mine, right?”

“Yeah, but…but it’s glowing blue for me too.”

As they argued, the clouds above began to part, and the darkness steadily gave way to light. The level of heat increased, and now, there was only an occasional droplet of rain every ten or so seconds, with the time between raindrops steadily increasing. This, as water continued to drip from Zach’s soaked equipment and also down his head and neck.

Kalana approached. “Maybe it’s for both of us?”

“Let’s find out,” Zach said excitedly. Together, they both reached for the item at the same time. It was shining so brightly it was hard to make out what it was. Zach went to grab it, and so too did Kalana—and then it vanished. It simply vanished out of existence. Zach didn’t even feel the damn thing, either. It just sort of went away as if in response to his approaching hand.

“What the fuck?” he asked, outraged. “What even just—”

Quest

The King of the Slug Clan

Given By

Drop

Recommended Level

45-50

Recommended Party Size

3-5

Description

The Avislicers have kidnapped the King of the Slug Clan. Make your way over to the Avikin Grounds before it’s too late! If the Avislicers succeed in killing the king, the island of Elendroth will experience only rain for two weeks.

Reward

21,200xp, 8000g, 2x Red Rejuvenation Stone, 1x Yellow Rejuvenation Stone

Quest Expires In

1:59.59

As the clouds fully parted, bright sunshine came over the island, and Zach and Kalana stared at one another in a mutual sense of muted shock. This lingered for longer than Zach expected, and then he and Kalana seemed to blink in unison. A palpable sense of excitement began spreading back and forth, bouncing between the two of them like a rubber ball. He could see it in her eyes, and he was sure that she could see it in his.

“Cool!” she said with a happy squeak.

At the same time, a vibration came from his phone—and one came from Kalana’s as well. Zach was fairly sure he knew why: the quest tracker app, which he no longer needed now that he had enhanced helm sight. Even still, he checked to ensure that it wasn’t another emergency sneaking up on him to ruin his day, and with a relieved sigh, he saw that it was indeed a notification from the mysterious app that appeared all on its own whenever he got a quest. The same was true for Kalana. He imagined she was also worried that Mr. Oren or someone was contacting them with some kind of news about a doomsday or apocalypse about to take place.

“Kal, this is…this is so cool that I’m actually shaking.”

“We’re gonna save the slug king, Zach!”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, that’s cool too,” he said with a laugh. “But did you see the quest rewards?”

Zach watched as Kalana conjured forward the quest information a second time, which he thought was adorable because it meant she hadn’t even cared enough to look the first time around despite it being the only part that mattered. Then she clapped her hands together. “The Rejuvenation stones!”

“You know what this means, right?” Zach asked, positively giddy. “Say it with me on three. One. Two. Three!”

The two of them spoke at the exact same time.

“We’re going to be rich!” Zach exclaimed.

“We’re gonna heal some amputee victims in Den of Ziragoth!” Kalana cheered. Then Zach’s mouth dropped open, and she folded her arms. “Right?” she asked, glaring at him.

“Kal, those stones are worth so much.”

“Don’t care. Elves can’t regrow the limbs of level 1 people with our magic. Their constitution is too low. We need those stones. My mom even told me to be on the lookout for any of them.”

Zach muttered to himself greedily. Although he, in principle, liked the idea of helping all those people, there was a part of him that was beginning to feel like he’d already paid his dues, ethically speaking. He’d put in the suffering and pain the world had required of him. Wasn’t he owed the right to be a greedy, selfish, entitled asshole now?

No, he realized with a sigh. That’s not how it works, does it?

“Let’s keep one stone then and we’ll donate the other.”

Rather than reply, Kal began typing something into her phone. Then she tapped multiple times on the screen before typing some more. Finally, she turned it around so Zach could see it. Curiously, he took a look at whatever it was she wanted to show him. When he did, his mood changed immediately. It was one thing to be selfish when the pain of others was not in front of your face, but it was another to see it and ignore it.

Right now, on her phone, were photos of the survivors from Den of Ziragoth, a few of them Zach even recognized, having saved them himself. But most were people he did not recall, such as a little boy maybe five or six years old who had only one leg and no arms, or a girl the same age missing both of her eyes, forced to wear prosthetics that looked even worse than if she’d have just kept them as empty sockets.

“Okay, you’re right,” Zach said, nodding. “Any stones we get from now on will go to them. But after they’re all healed, it’s pure greed forever, okay?”

“Fine,” she said, blowing him a kiss in the air.

He knew she was lying to either him or herself. Even if they did heal every survivor, Kal would just find some other suffering group to latch on to. See, the trick was to simply not know they existed. When you didn’t know, it couldn’t bother you, and you could do whatever you wanted. That was why Zach wanted to live on an island here with Kal and fulfill all his adventuring desires right here where the rest of the world couldn’t bother him with their problems or try to make them his.

He just doubted Kal would let him.

Chapter 115: A Life Disconnected

Chapter 115: A Life Disconnected

As the sand muted their footsteps, the world sang with the hum of a delicate breeze that rolled across the beach, creating an atmosphere of tranquility: a softness that could be both heard and felt. Walking side by side with Kalana, Zach listened intently to the ambient noises made by the various mobs all around but also above him, which strangely had the effect of contributing to the overall sense of serenity. Yet more than anything else, it was the soothing melody of the ocean that became most prominent of all. It felt peaceful in a way that few things did, and it reminded him to appreciate every moment he had with Kal.

You never know when it can all be taken away from you, he thought, vividly recalling how he’d been separated from Kalana just when he’d finally confessed to her how he felt.

Briefly, he met her eyes. She met his. Together, they exchanged a smile. Then her smile sank abruptly into a frown, she stopped short, and her expression became sharp and flushed with alarm. And it was here that Zach was reminded of an important distinction between himself and Kalana that he had discovered during their fight with the dragon: namely, that while he relied on studying his enemy’s movements to predict attacks, Kalana, on the other hand, needed only her reflexes. Though Zach’s reflexes were also pretty damn good—and how could they not be, as even without Unleashed Phase, he had 87 points into dexterity—hers were on a whole different level. This, she now clearly demonstrated.

“Get out of the way! Now!”

Zach had no idea what was wrong. He had no clue for what reason she’d shouted these words. But you know what? It really didn’t matter. Because when someone you loved and trusted shouted to get out of the way, it was generally a good idea to listen. And so, lacking even a clue as to the cause of her shout, Zach picked a direction at random and lurched his body towards it as fast as he could. And Gods, was he glad he did so.

With a dull poof followed by a louder hiss, the sand where he’d been standing exploded, and emerging from beneath it was a huge, repugnant monster that looked like a giant worm; multiple fangs the size of an adult male’s forearm along with two jarringly sharp, tusk-like spikes protruded from its eyeless face, which was rounded and lacking in any other distinct facial characteristics. Startled, Zach had to force himself to maintain his composure as the creature oriented itself in Kalana’s direction then made a series of deeply unsettling squishing sounds as it began to writhe in place.

“What in the fuck is that?” he yelled in surprise, his heart pounding in his chest. “Scared the fucking shit out of me. Gods be damned!”

Following these wet sounds, mucus began to drip down over its fangs while a thick, elastic lump formed at the base of its body—or if not the base, then at least the lowest portion of its form that was visible while jutting out of the sand. Already reaching more than eight feet in height, it was impossible to tell if the sand concealed even more of this monster beneath it. If it did, he wasn’t sure he’d even want to know. Shaking his head and forcing himself to snap out of his moment of shock, Zach observed as it continued to writhe, and then the lump began traveling upwards through various segments of this hideous worm-like creature, expanding its brown, greasy flesh while rising higher and higher towards the fang-bearing aperture that Zach supposed passed for this thing’s “mouth.” In many regards, it reminded Zach of a snake eating a meal in reverse, and this time around, it was him, not Kalana, who realized what that likely meant—and what would probably come next.

“Kal, move! Hurry!”

Much as he’d done with her warning, she too now heeded his—and not a moment too soon, either. Kalana recoiled as, from within the creature’s mouth, several gallons of a dark green spew emerged, which thankfully missed her and landed harmlessly onto the sand, causing it to sizzle, smoke, and melt before eventually creating numerous flat, hand-sized shards of glass in front of his very eyes. Zach opened his mouth to say something, but before he had the chance, he spotted another lump forming, and once more, the worm-like creature unleashed another spew of what Zach took to be some kind of acidic vomit, this time targeting him instead of Kal. Having seen it coming well in advance, though, he made sure he was nowhere near the thing by the time it was showering down onto the sand in his direction, causing more small plumes of smoke to rise in the air as another patch of sand was melted down into glass.

“Where in the hell did this thing come from?” Zach asked.

“I dunno,” Kalana said. “I got no idea how we aggroed it.”

“What even is it?”

Zach regarded the creature that’d attacked them, and when he did, he opened his mouth and inhaled sharply out of a sense of equal parts surprise, awe, and alarm.

HP

158,000/158,000

Name

(T2) Megaworm of Battle Beach

Level

45

Gods, he thought. It’s a boss. A boss is attacking us!

Zach took another deep breath to both calm and relax himself. He reminded himself that there was no reason to panic. Sure, this might have been a boss, but it was certainly no Ziragoth. Not only was it merely a T2—which, based on the formula Rian taught him, meant that it was approximately equivalent to a level-65 mob—but if it really turned out to be all that dangerous, they could always just run away in any direction of their choosing. Though Zach had no idea what this thing was, he was still fairly sure it did not urgently need to die and would not suddenly show up in North Bastia a week from now to destroy a city if the two of them decided not to bother with it.

But I still really want to kill it, Zach thought, becoming eager. Even if we don’t have to. We have the time, I think.

At the moment, he and Kal were about a half mile away from a sandy hill due west of them that gradually turned into grassier terrain as the shore gave way to a large field, which was where Kalana claimed she strongly believed their quest resided. Having been keen to head over there as quickly as possible, they hadn’t killed anything since receiving their quest, choosing instead to ignore a whole lot of really fascinating mobs along the beach, many which Kal said she was seeing for the first time. Zach wondered if this was also something she hadn’t seen before.

“Do you recognize this boss?” he asked her.

Kalana bunched up her lips as though she actually had to think about it. “Um, nope, don’t think so. I’ve seen something similar, but definitely not this one. Do you wanna fight it, Zach?”

“Yeah,” he replied as he dodged another spray of acid vomit. “Should I summon my card and my Kralzek’s Beast?”

“I dunno. Those things are both way higher level than the boss, right? They’ll help a lot but they’ll take away a lot of the xp, too.”

“Wait, seriously? War-mounts and cards leech xp?”

“Um, I think so,” she said. “I mean, I know pets and minions count as party members, so it’s just a guess. I’m really not a hundred percent sure, though. But I definitely don’t want you to not summon them if you think you need to. If it gets too tough, you should do it.”

Zach signaled his agreement in the form of a nod, his excitement growing. “Let’s do it, Kal. You and me. We got this.”

“Mhm!”

Zach was proud of the confidence he felt in himself, and no one could fairly say it was unearned. After having survived alone against Ziragoth, he didn’t think it was arrogant to assume he could handle this. He was also reassured by the fact that he had a few tricks up his sleeve if absolutely necessary, and not just his saber-toothed cat and his card, either.

With more than two full days having passed since he’d last used Unleashed Phase, his Phase Level was now down to 1. And since the cooldown on the ability itself was only twenty-four hours, he would not need to reset it to 2 if he had to use it, which would kill him, as level 2 had a Very High exertion cost. No, if it came down to it, he could call upon the ability with a Phase Level of 1, which only had an exertion cost of High. Though he’d likely pass out cold when it came time to pay up, he knew that, if nothing else, he could at least survive that level of debt. But hopefully, with Kal’s help, he wouldn’t have to use it so soon, especially since she had killed level 90 boss adds with ease, and this thing should not have been as powerful as any of those; right now, she looked like she was really fired up and willing to give it her all.

Her daggers drawn, Kalana assumed a highly aggressive stance, placing her left foot a good bit ahead of her right while bending her knees and angling her body forward somewhat as she began to make small, continuous motions by bouncing slightly up and down off her heels. She also had her left arm fully extended with the dagger pointed at the boss while her right arm was folded across her chest; she held her other dagger horizontally in front of her shoulder in a reverse grip. Zach, for his part, opted for something a bit looser in case he needed to move quickly. He kept his legs wider apart but parallel, and he held his sword low, at least for the moment.

Staring ahead, he waited for the creature to make a move—and it did. The lump forming yet again at the base of the visible portion of its body, Zach watched as, with a series of contractions and expansions, the acid climbed up through segment after segment of its torso until at last jetting out of the so-called “Megaworm’s” mouth in the form of more disgusting green spew. This time, however, rather than dodge away from it, he dodged towards it, managing to duck down into a squat so that it flew over his head. Once clear of the hideous, puke-like acid, which sizzled as it melted the sand behind him, Zach charged straight at the worm. Raising his sword high, he drew upon all his strength, and then he released a vicious slice, whirling his blade around at the “Megaworm of Battle Beach.” Unfortunately, he missed it completely. In fact, it wasn’t even there anymore.

You’ve got to be kidding me!

As quickly as the boss had appeared through the sand, it vanished right back down the way it had come up, and thus the only thing Zach cut was the air. “What the…that’s bullshit,” he growled, glancing down and searching for any sign of the boss. As things were, there wasn’t even a hole in the ground where it had disappeared. The sand had simply filled in whatever amount of it had been displaced, and by observation alone, there was no longer any sign at all that it’d ever been disturbed.

Now, there was a moment of quiet, which led to an immediate sense of foreboding as he just knew that the Gods-be-damned thing was swimming around deep beneath him like it was a pool made of sand, waiting to pop up and attack either one of them. Since neither had established solid aggro, there was no predicting which of them it’d come for.

“Shit, where is it?” he asked, darting his head around furiously. He tried to detect any sense of rumbling or movement around him, but there was nothing. He knew it was going to pop right back up. That much was obvious. It was also probably going to startle him again, too. He really, really did not like this boss. Even still, he needed to keep himself calm and slow his breathing. He couldn’t allow some stupid worm to jump-scare him, nor could he allow it to get into his head and affect how he fought. Just imagine how dumb that would be. Seriously. How dumb would that be if he, Zachys Calador, having gone toe to toe with Ziragoth, allowed a stupid worm to rattle him?

“Come back up, ugly!”

As though it were responding to his challenge, it burst up from the sand right in front of him, so close that their faces almost touched. Peeling back his lips in revulsion, Zach ducked down low as it spat out more venom, and then, already having gotten down into a squat, he threw himself backwards and rolled along the sand as the “Megaworm of Battle Beach” heaved forward and tried to bite his face off with its fangs. Shooting straight back up to his feet, Zach growled and dashed forward, ripping his blade from left to right, striking as fast as he possibly could—and yet, somehow, he was still too slow. With a speed that could rival an Elf, the mob slinked back beneath the sand, and once more, it vanished and became untraceable.

“This boss sucks,” he grumbled. “I absolutely hate it.”

“It’s okay, baby, we’ll get him,” Kalana said way too cheerfully. As if to give her a chance to prove her words, the boss burst up from the sand directly behind her while she was faced in the opposite direction and couldn’t possibly see it. Worse, the lump containing acid was rapidly approaching its mouth.

“Behind you!” Zach shouted, pointing.

Confidently, gracefully, and with a determination he couldn’t help but admire, Kalana backflipped over it even as it spat venom at her. Then, landing, she struck out with both daggers at once, her hands flashing across in opposite directions for a speedy, powerful, and impressive attack—that also missed.

“Okay, I don’t like it either,” she said as it escaped back beneath the sand.

Becoming angry, Zach snarled and said, “Now I’m pissed.”

Zach called out to it again, and it once more came at him. He knew it was just a coincidence, however. Having been proven right about Ziragoth, he decided to trust his instincts from then on regarding whether or not something was sentient. Even if it was due to just a feeling or sense that he had, he decided he was sticking with what his gut told him. And his gut told him that this boss was about as sentient as a cactus. But Gods, the thing was pissing him off so much he didn’t mind pretending otherwise. Because what happened next would not have gone any differently even if it had been a sentient boss deliberately trying to upset and humiliate him: its actions would have been exactly the same.

Appearing before him, it spat out more of its searing bile, which Zach easily avoided. Then he extended both his arms and lunged forward with his blade pointed straight ahead. Once again, the Megaworm sank back below the sand, and Zach ended up running right past it. Uttering several vulgar words, he planted his feet, stopped abruptly, ducked beneath more acid, and finally spun around and slashed at the empty air despite the thing literally having been right behind him a second earlier.

After that, the asshole started showing off, and Zach developed a true and sincere hatred for it. Twice more, it popped up around Zach, and each time, he missed. But that actually failed to really put into perspective how frustrating it was, because it didn’t just “appear twice.” It wasn’t as simple as that. The infuriating son of a bitch was surfacing and diving so fast that, upon appearing to Zach’s left, Zach’s sword was still mid-swing as it re-emerged by his right, directly opposite side, causing him to put more energy into his original slash so that he turned it into a full, three-sixty-degree spin, which also missed.

Then it appeared in front of Kalana, and she pounced on it and missed, and then it appeared behind him, and he missed. But what really caused Zach to lose his cool was when it began moving around so fast that it became disorienting and Zach lost sight of it. As the constant spinning and searching caused him a brief bout of dizziness, his situational awareness dropped for just brief moment. But it was in that moment of weakness that it bit off a chunk of his right ass cheek, causing him to howl in pain and torment and begin hopping around in agony while Kalana chased after him and told him to hold still so she could heal him.

Now, healed but humiliated, Zach had a gigantic red stain on the back right side of his trousers from where he’d been gushing blood out of his butt cheek. He was also sweating profusely, both as a result of the extreme heat and the fact that he was currently slamming his sword down against the sand so many times in so many spots that, if not for the worm, he'd honestly look like a little boy throwing a temper tantrum. In truth, he wasn’t far from acting it out for real as his patience dwindled, his temper spiked, and he wore himself out on this one Gods-cursed worm. Yet he refused to give up, and so too did Kal.

For a time long enough to be called shameful, the two of them ran around the beach and tried in vain to hit this fucking thing at least one Gods-dammed time. Kalana even resorted to using increasingly more powerful magic, such as summoning meteors down on top of it. Yet any time either of them even came close, it would dip under the sand too fast for even Kalana to damage. Finally, as Zach began to pant so hard that he was beginning to have trouble just in dodging, he realized he needed to calm down before he put himself into a legitimately perilous position. Even Kalana was showing signs of exhaustion, and if the two of them ended up dying to this fucking thing, they both honestly deserved it, because that would just be pathetic.

One thing was pretty much a certainty, though. The little trick adventurers used to calculate the “effective power” of a boss, while useful, was not as useful as he’d originally thought. Because while it was probably mostly accurate insomuch as this Megaworm likely did have stats similar to a level-65 mob, Zach would be willing to bet just about anything that an ordinary level-65 mob would not be this difficult or anywhere near it. Clearly, the fact that this was a boss mattered.

Having worn himself out to the point he was slowly losing the ability to defend himself, Zach wondered if he should finally give up. Kalana seemed to be at that point, too. “Zach, I don’t like this,” she said. “Let’s just go back to doing the quest. Or at least summon your stuff to kill it. We’ve been chasing this really gross worm for fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, to hell with this thing,” he said. “You’re right, Kal.” With that, he decided to call upon his war-mount. But he stopped when he saw the Megaworm’s stupid, acid-shooting, fang-covered face, which made him scowl. “The only problem is if we don’t kill it without summoning help, I’ll hate myself later, but on the other hand, right now, we’re just wasting time. We could just walk away, too. I doubt it can follow us if we leave the shore. It probably has to stay in the sand.”

“I think so too,” Kalana said. “There’s no way it can—”

She abruptly stopped speaking and narrowed her eyes, and for a brief instant, her expression turned ultra serious as though she sensed a sudden opportunity: a chance to finally get the damn thing. And to her credit, it had really seemed like she would, too. Zach watched as she turned her whole body slightly downwards and to her left. Then, with cat-like reflexes, she flipped sideways over the Megaworm even as it was only first breaking the surface of the sand and rising upwards. A fraction of a second later, she landed, kicked off her back foot, and sprang forward while swinging her right dagger so fast it made a whistling sound in the air. And yet, somehow, she still missed. It simply vanished once more beneath the sand.

“Okay, let’s leave it,” she said with a sigh. “We don’t have the right abilities for this one. I don’t think your mount thingy and card would make a difference, either, but I guess if you really wanna try, we can, but we might just end up getting stuck here for another fifteen minutes and still be unable to hurt it.”

“I just hate the idea of giving up,” he grumbled.

Backing away from what would’ve probably been a very, very painful bite, Kalana nodded sympathetically at him and said, “Me too, but we can’t hurt it.” More softly, she added, “But if you really wanna keep going, I’m here for you.”

Zach angrily clenched the grip of his weapon. The idea of letting this disgusting, miserable creature off the hook after already putting in so much effort filled him with disappointment. Yet even without waiting for him to respond, he could see Kal lowering her daggers as if to sheathe them. Though she’d said he could continue to try if he wanted, he doubted she really meant that, and it looked like she’d reached the end of her patience, which was not something common for her. At this point, if he didn’t sheathe his own sword and disengage, she’d likely become very upset with him. Clearly, she wanted to leave, having concluded that this was impossible. She was also sweating way more than he usually saw from her.

Even still, despite knowing she was right, it profoundly frustrated Zach to have to either flee from this stupid thing or be forced to summon aid, which in some ways felt worse than fleeing. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much, though, especially since his initial inclination right from the start had been to summon his mount and his card. So why did that idea now disturb him? He supposed it was because he had, intentionally or not, laid down a challenge for himself, and summoning meant being forced to admit defeat and acknowledge his failure of that challenge—well, at least in a sense, anyway. But was there really nothing else he could do short of summoning, fleeing, or using his Unleashed Phase too soon, which could jeopardize their ability to complete the quest?

Zach made a show of sheathing his sword, though he did so slowly to stall for time so that he could think. Mentally, he took stock of everything he had and everything he could currently do as he searched for an idea of how to beat this shitty worm. Straight away, he decided to rule out the ring, as he couldn’t imagine it working, and the most likely outcome was that he’d miss and be thrown miles away. But that wasn’t his only item ability, right?

Merely by asking himself this question, the painfully, blindingly obvious answer bopped him over the head like a ten-ton mallet and made him feel ashamed at his own shortsightedness. Immediately, he stopped sheathing his sword, and once more, he raised it at the ready, which earned him an understandable glare from Kalana. Hopefully, she’d find just a little bit more patience within herself, though he couldn’t fault her for wanting to move on and forget this boss. In all honesty, he should’ve realized fourteen minutes ago what he needed to do.

Wow, I’m an idiot, he thought, as it started to fully dawn on him how the answer had been in front of him the entire time.

“What’re you doing?” Kalana asked, the disappointment plain in her voice.

“I want to try one last thing.”

“Zaaaach.”

“Last thing, Kal. Really. This is the last thing.”

Eyeing him skeptically, she said, “Fine, but you promise this is it for real? We’ve only got an hour and twenty left on the quest now and we don’t really know how much work there’s gonna be to do once we get to it.”

“I promise!” he shouted, his voice coming across a tad bit more urgently than intended.

She sighed. “Okay, fine. What are you gonna do?”

Zach, having just evaded another spray of acid vomit, grinned as he said, “The next time it pops up, I’m going to root it.”

It took less than half a second following his words for Kalana’s mouth to fall open; she snapped her fingers. “Ohh, that’s right!” she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with understanding. “You’ve got a root, baby. I forgot. I totally forgot!”

“Yeah, well, so did I,” he admitted with a laugh. More seriously, he said, “I think it’s the kind that breaks as soon as we do any damage, though.”

“I think that’s like most of them but…” She smiled, though there was once more a fierce determination in her eyes. “All that means is we’re gonna both have to hit it really hard at the same time and hope we kill it.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” Zach tightened his grip on his blade. “As soon as I see that thing pop up, I’m rooting it. Be ready, Kal.”

“I will.”

As if on cue, the Megaworm of Battle Beach surfaced at the midpoint between him and Kalana, and it was at Zach he chose to vomit up some more of his acid. Jumping backwards, Zach avoided the scorching, foul attack. Now, it was his turn. Truly, Zach found it hard to believe how nervous he was or why it was so important to him. All things considered, this mob—this boss—did not really, actually matter. It was irrelevant. There were probably so many more bosses on this island—so many more ways to get xp and loot. This was just some random thing that’d aggroed him and Kal on their way to something more important. So why did he care so much? He didn’t know. Really, he didn’t.

You do know, he told himself, even as he tried to mentally shut himself up. You want to throw all your attention onto something else so you don’t have to think about all the people you murdered, you sick, disgusting, murderous fuck! You animal. You filth.

Shaking his head to clear his mind of the unwanted thoughts, he focused in on the Megaworm, and with that, he activated Frostbind, the ability of the robes that Fylwen had given him. With a 15:00 minute cooldown timer and a thirty-second duration of effect, if they failed to topple the boss here and now, Zach was not about to wait around for another fifteen minutes just to hurt it again. It would either die in the next half a minute or he and Kal would move on.

Okay, here goes nothing.

Rising up from the sands almost in the same manner as the boss itself, a half-dozen shackles made of pure, solid ice surrounded and then wrapped themselves around the Megaworm, binding it in place even as it continued to fire off more acid. Each of the shackles, as well as their connected chains, gave off a constant, smoke-like trail of vapor as the bright sun shined down on the ice. Zach held his breath, though only for a moment. By appearance alone, it looked to have succeeded, but even more critically, if it hadn’t, the worm would’ve vanished by now. Yet there it remained, immobilized by the icy chains. Realizing this, Zach felt a rush of energy shoot through him.

This is our chance. We’ve got it!

Having been rooted while facing in Zach’s direction, the Megaworm had no choice now but to attack him and only him. Though, given that the root was the first ability of any kind to actually land on the creature thus far, Zach was willing to bet that he’d have fully taken aggro regardless. Either way, he didn’t plan to stay within its range for much longer.

“Are you ready?” Kalana asked him. “Should we attack now?”

“No,” he replied. “Almost!”

Knowing they were going to have to do a whole lot of damage in a single instant, Zach turned around and took off at a sprint, racing across the shore and moving as fast as he possibly could while also ensuring he didn’t create an accidental sandstorm that would obscure his vision. As he ran, he counted the seconds that had elapsed in his head. He needed to make absolutely certain that he did not let the duration of Frostbind run out, which would allow the mob to break free. Given that he’d used it on something that was both a boss and had a much higher effective level than him, he highly doubted it would last for all thirty seconds. In fact, he wasn’t even willing to gamble on it lasting for more than fifteen. Thus, he allowed himself just ten seconds, and in those ten seconds, he gained as much distance as he possibly could, sparing no energy.

Zach sweat with the exertion of moving across the uneven sand, yet he paid no heed to the droplets leaking down the sides of his face, and he focused only on his goal. By the time ten seconds had come and gone, he stopped short, needing to make do with however far he’d gotten so as to not take any unnecessary risks. Yet it was only now, as he prepared to attack, that he realized he’d moved so far away from Kalana that she wouldn’t be able to hear him even if he shouted for her at the top of his lungs, making direct coordination impossible. Nevertheless, he knew he could trust Kal to pick up on his intentions. Even as he began swinging his sword downwards diagonally without uttering a single word to her, he somehow knew she wouldn’t let him down. And indeed, she didn’t.

“Wave Slash!” he shouted.

As the green, patchy energy solidified, changed colors, and transformed itself into a double-bladed, spinning disc, he could tell from Kalana’s posture alone that she understood his plan despite having spoken none of it aloud. She was down on one knee like a track racer in the seconds before taking off, and even from what had to be almost a half mile away, he could clearly see her head turning in tandem with the Wave Slash, which began to pick up speed and soon started leaving behind a trail of smoke in its wake; just before striking the Megaworm, it even broke out into flames, which seemed to serve as a sort of signal for Kalana, who launched herself forward with both her daggers raised the instant the Wave Slash became fiery.

Two events then took place at the exact same moment in time: the first was Zach’s Wave Slash colliding with the Megaworm of Battle Beach, and the second was Kalana unleashing a double-backstabbing attack, which if Zach’s memory served correctly, sometimes did bonus damage to things when the user was wielding a dagger. Having already begun racing back towards her—and in essence, attempting futilely to chase after his own Wave Slash—he moved just close enough to be within earshot as he heard her grunt with exertion as she plunged her weapons into the mob’s back with such ferocity that the worm made a slight roar, the first sound he’d actually heard vocalized from the creature.

No longer caring about causing a sandstorm, Zach blasted off at full speed in the direction of Kal and the Megaworm. As he sprinted along the sand towards where she stood behind the creature, whose shackles began to melt away so fast that they looked poised to turn completely into water before Kalana had even removed both her daggers, Zach sucked air into his lungs then nervously held it there as he observed the result of their double attack.

Thanks to Kalana, the atrocious, acid-spewing worm was punished for 66,811. Seeing this, Zach felt an explosion of optimism, one that only grew as he witnessed his Wave Slash not only hurting the Megaworm, but splitting the creature in half entirely, completely severing the top and bottom parts of its body while causing an ungodly amount of green acid to begin drenching the sand beneath it as though it were blood. Zach, having nearly returned to Kalana’s side, opened his mouth to let out a wild cross between a cheer and a battle-cry, but instead he let out only a shocked, disappointed croak as he saw the number that resulted from his attack: 81,311.

HP

9,878/158,000

Name

(T2) Megaworm of Battle Beach

Level

45

Zach disbelieved his own two eyes. He refused to accept the reality presented to him. Even as Kalana’s expression turned from fierce to conciliatory, Zach began unleashing a chain of obscenities so vulgar he hoped the Gods wouldn’t condemn him to hell for it. Not only had he come so close and failed, but the Megaworm was just a percentage point too high in terms of health for him to at least use his Card Capture. So basically, after expending all this effort, it looked like Zach would be getting nothing after all.

He refused to accept this. No, fuck that! This bastard worm started the fight, and now it was going to finish it! Having run as fast as his legs would carry him, Zach leapt into the air and dove on top of the creature, which had been cut cleanly in half. But even that did not seem to inhibit its ability to escape. Much as it had been doing all along, the worm burrowed back beneath the sand as Zach plopped down on the spot where it’d only just been.

It's not getting away! he shouted in his head. No way!

Zach, in a fit of panic and desperation, acted without thinking. Even knowing that he'd blown their one chance, and even knowing that the best course of action would be for him to pick himself up and go do something else with Kal, he simply could not accept that this gods-be-damned worm had gotten one over on him yet again. And so, in what was honestly more reflex than any contemplated decision, Zach angrily punched his fist into the sand, and with a loud, angry shout, he activated his blasting ring, firing it straight down.

And he regretted nothing.

With 120 points into intelligence—only five less than he’d had when using it against the Cursed Defender of Ziragoth in Phase Level 2—Zach was unsurprised to see he made a really, really big blast. Gods, he sure did.

The moment of activation, there was a flash of red light, and then from that point on, Zach struggled to understand if he was going up or the world was going down. He did not know if he was ascending or descending. All he knew was he could see little aside from a tremendous red beam, and that he was moving very, very fast. And only after several more seconds of this confusion did he finally come to understand that he was rising and moving away from the ground while the ground below him was vanishing, as he’d blasted a hole through it with the width of a tunnel used by industrial DEHV trucks. It was so wide and it ran so deep he couldn't even see the bottom of it. Yet sand being sand, he knew it'd all level out eventually anyway over time.

But none of that mattered, because he saw something else: something he cared about way, way more.

+52400xp

“Yes!” he cried as he continued to ascend. Now, he wondered if there was a way that he could get back down a little faster so he could see whatever loot had dropped. Having been allowed to sit up front with the pilot on the helicopter ride, Zach had learned somewhat to tell ballpark estimates with regards to altitude, which was why he was pretty sure he’d knocked himself about two-thousand feet into the air and was continuing to rise, though much more slowly now. He let out another cheer as he began to fall.

The world was good, or at least this world was good. This was the life he wanted. This, and only this. As far as he was concerned, what he was doing right now was the most important thing going on in the world, because right now, to him, there was no world outside of this island.

It simply didn't exist.

*******

With his face filthy and his uniform covered in an infernal blend of blood, ashes, and maybe even shit, Corporal Jakz Marshing popped open the lid on his canteen and downed the water contained within in four big gulps. Then he threw it over his shoulder and gestured for Private Gillards to shut the fuck up and stop yapping his Gods-be-damned mouth off. Asshole was really starting to get on his nerves. Staff Sergeant Edrax should’ve been back by now. He’d gone to meet with the lieutenant over an hour ago. What was taking him so long?

This don’t feel right to me, he thought. The fuck is going on here?

Having failed to link up with the rest of Siege Company, it wasn’t a stretch to say that not only were they behind on all their objectives, but their objectives might not even be achievable anymore. Or maybe that was just the pessimism talking. Jakz didn’t know. What he did know was that in the span of less than a day, he’d watched his closest friends die in the most horrible of ways while everything seemed to be getting worse by the minute. If the newly formed 3rd battalion didn’t find a way to get here by tomorrow night, they were going to be pushed completely out of the city. That was just the fact of the matter despite no one wanting to admit it.

“Where is that bastard?” he muttered to himself. “He needs to get his ass back here.”

Right now, Jakz was taking cover behind a burned-out bus on 4th Avenue and High Arch that’d been knocked over onto its side during a battle between two leveled fuckers. What had once been a quiet little neighborhood now qualified—at least in Jakz opinion—to legitimately be called “ruins.” To even pretend otherwise was silly. The place had been absolutely demolished. All of 4th avenue, actually, had been destroyed. There was no power or running water. Almost everyone had evacuated, and the rest were dead. Even though this was all the fault of those Guild of Gentlemen bastards, Jakz knew there was a lot of pain in Siege Company over just how many civilians had died. It was a lot. A real lot. He didn’t know the number. No one did yet. Even still, it was clear now that the number of civilian deaths exceeded ten thousand so far. Maybe fifteen. And in just a day, too. That was the worst part of it all. In just a gods-be-damned day.

Temporarily putting down his HC-58 rifle, Jakz tried again to get into contact with Staff Sergeant Edrax. Unable to raise him, he gestured for his squad to be ready to move into cover across the street in a ruined pharmacy next to an equally destroyed travel agency. The streets were covered in blood and broken glass. Every DEHV was destroyed as well, but what really unsettled Jakz was what’d happened to the school on 4th and Hill St. Jakz was afraid to look inside. He didn’t want to know what he’d find. He’d seen a lot of awful shit in his life, but that was one thing he couldn’t handle.

Gods-damned dragon. That’s why all this shit happened.

Everything had gone to hell since late last night when the Guild of Gentlemen had captured a cache of supplies, or “loot” or whatever the hell the fancy leveled people called it from that dragon the guilds had killed. And to say it turned things around in their favor was putting it mildly. Initially, during the first few hours of the invasion, the Royal Roses had held an advantage despite the fact that their most capable, highest-level fighters had been celebrating at some post-raid party. Beginning with the bombing runs from the F15s, everything had gone exactly as planned.

Shadowfall Coast was divided into twenty avenues from north to south and various streets from west to east. And during their first push, Siege Company had managed to advance as far as 9th avenue. But then came the counter attacks from the Guild of Gentlemen.

Even before they’d seized the cache of weapons—or loot, or whatever it was called—they had already had an advantage in numbers due to losing Plains of Mist and pulling completely out of Whispery Woods. But with hundreds of pieces of contraband giving them an even greater edge, things had gone downhill over the course of a single brutal, bloody night. What started as a seemingly successful military operation turned into a nightmare as they’d been pushed all the way back to 4th.

At first, it looked as though they might turn it back around in their favor, as the Royal Roses’ highest-ranking officers had tried their best to get into the battle and reinforce Rose Battalion, of which Siege Company was a part. From what Jakz understood, after falling under attack, they'd retreated north through Whispery Woods and had intended to travel east until returning to Shadowfall Coast. But Sir Alistair Morrison had ordered his garrisons in Tomb of Fire to blockade every road leading into the city, and now, with all their fancy new equipment, they’d been able to drive the Royal Roses back. The only reason that Jakz still held any hope for victory at all was the fact that they were returning with a much larger, much more powerful force.

Right now, it was just past noon, and if word spreading down the chain of command was to be believed, then only moments ago the Defenders of Peace, the Lords of Justice, and the Children of Order had all declared war on the Guild of Gentlemen, and they, along with the Royal Roses’ best warriors and their allies in the People of Virtue, were planning on breaking through with the 3rd battalion and reinforcing their gradually worsening positions.

That was why, right now, their primary objective was no longer to capture the city. They didn’t have a Gods-be-damned chance in hell of doing that. Nah, their mission was to establish a forward operating base and hold as much of Northern Shadowfall coast as they possibly could. If the enemy was able to drive them completely out of the city, it would create devastating consequences for their newly formed coalition.

The sole and only reason that they still had a foothold in the city at all—hell, the only damn reason Jakz or any of them were still breathing—was because of Senior Lieutenant Haisel Ragora and his beautiful armada blasting away the Guild of Gentlemen off the coast. Not only was Sir Ragora’s fleet singularly responsible for preventing a total collapse of Siege Company, but he’d inflicted damage on the Guild of Gentlemen beyond what anyone had even realized was possible. It seemed that the main battery on several of his warships was so powerful it could apparently kill leveled fighters. Not all, mind you, but some of the lower-level ones. The Gods bless that man. Right now, he was all they had.

Chapter 116: A Million Gold

Chapter 116: A Million Gold

Despite coming in fast, Zach did not even feel a shock in his knees as he landed upright, his two feet slamming into—and then going through—the sand so that he sank into it all the way down to his hips. For a brief moment, he’d actually feared he’d keep going and end up submerging himself just like the boss they’d killed. This caused Kalana to raise her fist to her mouth as if to hide the fact that she was obviously laughing. Did she not know he could hear her?

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, only half his body now visible. “I fell from like two-thousand feet. Of course this is going to happen.”

She removed her fist from her mouth, then uncurled her fingers so that her hand became flat, and she extended it to him. He grabbed it. With that, she yanked him up and out of the sand, now laughing openly at him. “Tell me the truth, Kal,” he said. “If you fell like that, would this have happened to you too?”

“Nope,” she said, chuckling some more.

“Why not?”

“It’s ‘cause I know how to land properly. There’s a trick to it.”

After patting himself down to shake off some of the sand, he took off both his shoes and shook out any that might’ve gotten inside before putting them back on. Then, expectantly, he fixed Kalana with a hard stare and asked, “What’d it drop?”

She made a playful face. “What’d what drop?”

“Kal…”

“Okay, okay. Here you go, baby.”

She reached into the pocket of her tan-colored shorts and produced a ring, then extended her arm and handed it to him in her open palm. Zach swelled with excitement. “It was your drop?” he asked. Since they weren’t in a raid group, things worked the way they usually did, which meant one of them would be lucky enough to see the shine and get the drop any time one resulted from the death of a mob.

“Yup. But now it’s yours. This is the only item it dropped.”

“Is it good?”

“I dunno. I didn’t look.”

“Seriously?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yeah. I mean, you’re still missing a ring, so whatever it is, you probably need it more.”

He smiled. “Gods, I love you so much! Thanks, Kal. Really.”

“Aww, stop.”

“No, you’re the best. And I’m sorry there wasn’t more loot. I’m surprised the boss only dropped one thing.”

For some reason, Kalana averted her gaze. “Well…”

“What?” Zach asked.

“I mean…”

He sighed. “Kal, what? What is it?”

In a way that came across as way too innocent, she curled her bottom lip. “It also dropped some gold, too.”

Just the word “gold” caused Zach to feel his heartrate increase. “How much?” he asked at a whisper.

“A million,” she said, speaking the two words quickly as though it were something she didn’t wish to dwell on.

Having not yet taken the ring out of her open palm, Zach met her eyes and said, “I want it.”

“Nah-uh.”

“Why? You’re already rich.”

She frowned. “It’s not for me, Zach. It’s for Den of Ziragoth.”

Zach took a deep breath to contain the rush of emotions and frustration that shot to the very center of his being. He fought to keep his voice under control and his temper even. “I thought we’re already giving our stones to them.”

“We are.”

“So…so why do we have to…you know, give a million gold?”

“You know why. You know the situation. Stop asking me stuff you already know the answer to.”

Pausing a moment before replying, Zach asked, “How about we keep the gold this time and then…” He shrugged. “You know, if we get another million later on, we give that?”

With a straight face, she replied, “We should give both.”

“Kal, babe, come on. This is getting to be ridiculous now.”

A scowl popped onto her face so suddenly it actually startled him. “I’m not gonna lie, um, your greed’s starting to really make me mad. I usually let it slide ‘cause I love you, but sometimes it gets me so frustrated.” She shook her hand holding the ring, as if gesturing for him to take it from her. “Why can’t you just be happy with this?”

“I am. It’s just a million gold…do you not understand how much that is? We could buy a fully detached, three-floor home in the suburbs of Giant’s Fall with that much gold. That’s with a swimming pool and a garage for our DEHV.”

“So what? A few minutes ago, you were saying you didn’t wanna ever leave here. Now you wanna move to Giant’s Fall?”

“No, Kal,” he said, becoming somewhat annoyed. “That’s not my point. My point is that’s a huge sum of money, so of course I’d want it.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” he asked, baffled at the question itself. “Because it’s a million gold.”

“What about the people who can’t afford dinner tonight ‘cause of the dragon?”

“Fuck them!” Zach shouted out, regretting the words even as he spoke them. Truly, he didn’t mean them. He really didn’t. That wasn’t how he actually felt. He was just frustrated and…and he didn’t know what was wrong with his head to ever say something like that. It was to such an extent that, not an instant after speaking, he immediately added, “I didn’t mean that.”

Still, the damage was done. Kalana closed her hand around the ring and then threw it at his chest. It bounced off him then landed onto the sand. With that, she turned around and stormed away. Zach looked down at the ring, then back at Kalana, who was marching her way westward without him. Quickly, he picked it up, then chased after her.

“Okay, Kal, wait. Just wait!” Running to catch up to her, he almost accidentally aggroed something that looked like a cross between a broomstick and a vacuum cleaner as he hurried over to her side. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I swear I didn’t.” She didn’t reply. She kept her head and eyes pointed straight ahead, and she ignored him. “Kal, you’re overreacting. It was just a joke. I didn’t even—”

She halted abruptly and spun around towards him, her pointer finger pressing into his chest. “It’s not a joke.”

“I swear I didn’t mean it.”

“I know you didn’t.”

He scratched his head. “Then why are you so mad?”

“Figure it out,” she growled, turning around once more and continuing to walk away.

Zach watched, filled with so many contradictory impulses, as she once more moved away from him. When she was far enough away that he could no longer speak to her at a conversational level, he shouted, “I already said I’m sorry! What the fuck do you want from me?”

What pissed him off so much was that he didn’t even really think he’d done anything all that wrong. So, okay, he’d said something insensitive about the people of Den of Ziragoth—were any of them here? Whose feelings was he actually hurting? And what about him? Did any of them care how much shit he’d gone through?

“Kal, wait!” he shouted, once more chasing after her. Even as his feet dashed across the sand, he had no idea how she did this to him. There was no one else on this planet that could have him chasing after them like some sappy idiot. “At least talk to me!”

Eventually, she did, but not before walking more than a mile westward. At the top of a hill, the terrain transitioned from sand to short stalks of grass. Now well into the morning, the sun was even brighter in the sky, and Zach began to sweat as he hurried after her through a wide area of plains covered in short grass which gradually became more of a savanna with the occasional, relatively short tree to be found with seemingly random regularity. Much, much farther into the distance was a large forest, and to his left, he could just make out what he believed to be the path she was telling him about earlier, though it was so far away he couldn’t be sure.

Ahead of him, Kalana was continuing to march away, though Zach knew if she really wanted to get away from him, she could. At one point, he worried he’d actually lose sight of her for good, as a giant herd of massive, six-legged, level-50 mobs began passing through the area immediately in front of him; each was twice the size of an elephant, though they looked nothing at all like elephants, and there were about fifteen of them in total. They were also very strange in appearance. The creatures were a dark shade of green and had six large legs that supported their roundish bodies, which had black spots running down the sides of it. They also had mouse-like ears and square-shaped teeth. Thankfully, they appeared to be passive, and so unless Zach physically touched them, they wouldn’t bother him.

HP

92,300/92,300

Name

Herding Galgor

Level

50

Fidgeting anxiously, he waited for them to pass, and as soon as they did, he would take off at a sprint in the direction Kalana had been heading. But then, once the last of them ambled along peacefully, he saw her standing there, now facing in his direction, her hands at her sides. He ran over to her, more sweat gliding down his forehead. It was so hot that he found himself looking forward to the next twenty-minute thunderstorm, which was probably a couple of hours away, assuming the pattern she told him about held.

“Look,” he said as he approached her, “I know you’re—”

“I’m sorry,” she said, confusing him.

“Wait, what?”

“I was too mean. I just got so frustrated.” She grabbed him and pulled him into a hug, and he wrapped his arms around her. “So many people are suffering, and I just wanna help them.”

“I know you do,” he said, “and I love that about you, but Kal, it’s not wrong to keep something for ourselves.”

“Of course not. But I just don’t get why you act like you don’t have anything.” Slowly, she broke off the hug, and then she waved her arms at the world around her. “I’d share all this with you. Anything I have, I’d share with you. If you ever needed gold for anything, I’d give it to you.”

Zach sighed. “I know you would, but I want to earn, too. I don’t want you to just give me everything. I want to build something for myself.”

“And I support that,” Kalana said. “But sometimes you don’t see the big picture, Zach.”

Trying not to become defensive, he asked, “How so?”

“Do you really think you’re not gonna be a billionaire?”

He snorted. “Not at this rate, no. I can’t seem to even make it to millionaire.”

“Zach, stop. Do you really not get it? You’re so powerful. You’re gonna be rich, too. Power and money are never all that far away from each other. You’re gonna have all the gold you could ever want. Everyone knows this but you. Alex knows it. Donovan knows it. Everyone knows it. You’ll probably end up being one of the richest people in history. But today, right now, there are people who are hungry. I dunno why you can’t see this.”

Zach found her words shocking, because not only did he not see things that way, but he couldn’t believe that anyone would. “Kal, you grew up in the same situation as me. We didn’t have shit. You should know what a million gold means to someone like us. I can’t even imagine seeing that amount of coin with my own eyes, let alone ever having it.”

“Fine,” she said. “You still don’t get it. That’s why I can’t stay mad at you. Here.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper that reminded Zach of the meal voucher he’d gotten from using Gacha Ge’tcha.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Use it to get a million gold. This is the other thing that dropped. Take it.”

He reached out with his hand opposite the one holding the ring, and he placed two fingers against the paper, but he did not grasp it or take it.

This is a test, isn’t it?

“I want you to have it, ‘cause maybe if you do, you’ll feel rich enough so we don’t gotta fight over the next million or the million after. But Zach, I’m gonna be the governor of Whispery Woods, and it’s my job to make sure everyone—not just the people in the city—is okay. I don’t wanna lose you over something stupid like gold. So if this will make you feel like you’re in a good place and can afford to be more generous, then take it.”

There’s no way this isn’t a test, he thought.

Studying her eyes, he could see no duplicity in them. Kalana wasn’t even the kind of person to do something like that. She wouldn’t offer this if she didn’t mean it. So then why did he feel so guilty in taking it? It was a million gold. If this wasn’t a test, and it didn’t ruin his relationship to accept it, then why did he still feel guilty at the thought of it?

“It’s not a trap,” she said, as though she were reading his mind. “Maybe the reason I can be so generous is ‘cause I have so much now. Maybe if you had a lot, you wouldn’t feel so insecure about money.”

“No,” Zach whispered, shaking his head. “That wouldn’t change a thing. The truth is I’m just plain not a good person, Kalana. I should be better than this, but I'm not.”

“Nah-uh! Don’t say that. I know you. You are a good person.”

“It’s true, though.”

I can still feel their blood on my skin.

I can feel it.

“Keep the gold. You were right. I was wrong. We were having a great time, and I screwed up the mood.” Hoping to change the subject, he finally took a good look at the ring she’d given him. It was silver with an aquamarine gemstone that had a brilliant blue shine to it. Honestly, it was quite a beautiful item for something that came from such a disgusting mob.

Name

Purified Ring of the Megaworm

Rarity

Epic Rare

Item Level

65

Luck

+50

Ability

Lucky Ducky (Passive)

Description

Increases Luck Efficacy by 2% (For each 30 points into luck, adds an additional +2% activation chance on chance-based activations)

“I thought it’d be better,” Kalana said, standing next to him and reading it over. “Usually Epic Rare items are a bit…you know, more than that.”

Zach looked at her. “This is actually incredible.”

“Stop, Zach. You don’t have to pretend.”

He shook his head. “I’m not.” He slipped the ring onto the middle finger on the same hand that he wore his blasting ring. “This is going to help me tremendously, Kal. Maybe it’s just because of how different we are in terms of our abilities and equipment, but for me, I can totally see why this is a purple item.”

He explained to her just how important it was that he proc’d his stamina regain ability on the sword her mother had given him and how much of a difference that made in fights. With this ring on, his luck increased to 80, which meant that, under normal circumstances, he’d have about a 2.6% increase to the chance of his item abilities going off. But, with this on, he now had just about an 8% chance. That meant, with the natural 8.5% chance that the stamina proc had to begin with, it was now more like 16.5%.

That was actually pretty good.

I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people.

I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I killed so many people.

I can’t sleep. I’m so tired. I can’t undo what I did. It was my fault. Those mages were running away. Could have let them go. It wasn’t just self-defense. I could’ve let them go. I didn’t have to do it. I didn’t have to finish off the officer. He was beaten. It was murder. I was angry. I was angry and chose to do it. I am a murderer. I murdered.

I killed so many people. I killed so many people. I KILLED SO MANY PEOPLE I KILLED SO MANY PEOPLE I KILLED SO MANY PEOPLE.

“Kal, let’s go do the quest!” he said excitedly, smiling at her.

She beamed at him. “Mhm.”

Zach was excited. He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t. This was a great time he was having with the person he loved. He killed a boss. He was adventuring. He was living the exact kind of life he wanted to live with the person he loved. What happened before didn't matter. He was starting over. Nothing that happened before mattered. So stop thinking about it. Please. Please just stop. It wasn't his fault. He didn't mean to do any of this. They attacked him. It was self-defense. IT WAS FUCKING SELF-DEFENSE. WHY WOULDN'T THE THOUGHTS GO AWAY?

"Hey, look at that mob, Kal."

She laughed. "Some of them are pretty funny."

He held her hand. He loved being with her. It was such a beautiful day in this tropical paradise BUT SHE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND HOW BADLY HE WAS TRYING TO HOLD IT TOGETHER. HE WAS SLIPPING.

Slipping.

"Kal," he said, shaking, barely able to remain on his feet.

"Zach, what's wrong?"

"I don't think I'm going to make it."

She grabbed him and held him. When had he begun trembling so fiercely? "Let's go home."

"But the quest."

"We can always get it to drop again. Let's go home."

"I'm fine."

"I'm calling Jascaila. You promised you'd talk to her, remember?"

He nodded, then shamefully, he began to weep. Then bawl. "I can't get their blood off my hands. I can feel it. I can't stop feeling it. I thought I washed it off on the plane but it's still there. I can feel it."

"Come on. Let's go home."

What am I doing? Why am I acting like this in front of her?

Zach pulled himself together, embarrassed. "I'm fine," he said again, wiping his eyes and regaining his composure. His moment of weakness had passed. "I want to finish the quest."

"No."

A warm breeze came over him, making him feel refreshed. "It'll rain for two weeks straight if we fail."

"Crap, you're right," Kalana said, a response that actually surprised him but he was nevertheless happy to accept. Then, as she continued to speak, her reaction made a bit more sense. "She won't be able to safely fly here in that weather, and I can't expect her to swim all the way from South Bastia. Okay, we'll finish it, but then we're going straight home and you're gonna see her tomorrow, okay?"

Zach laughed. "I'm actually fine now."

She glared at him. "You're seeing the therapist!"

"Okay, okay. Sheesh. Does it have to be tomorrow, though?"

"Yes!"

"You said my appointment was next week."

"Yah, well, now it's tomorrow."

He rolled his eyes. "Let's just do the quest."

Chapter 117: A Mistake in the System?

Chapter 117: A Mistake in the System?

Ten minutes after his little “outburst,” Zach struggled not to let the shame and self-revulsion overcome him as he internally cringed at the emotional, mewling state he’d reduced himself to right in front of Kalana. It’d just happened all at once and so unexpectedly. But, if nothing else, it’d been cathartic. It was a poison that needed to run its course—and had. He just wished it would’ve happened someplace far from Kalana where he’d been unobserved. The last thing he wanted was to be seen in such a state, especially by her. And what’d made it all so frustrating was how fine he felt now. He was back in control and he really didn’t want Kal to think he was a lunatic or that he was losing his sanity.

It's out of my system now, he thought. But even still, she’s probably going to think I have some kind of issue or something is seriously wrong with me.

Still, all things considered, she was thankfully not bringing it up—at least for now—and so he was trying his best not to dwell on it just yet; it was something for him to worry about tomorrow when her therapist came to bother him. Instead, he refocused his effort towards simply enjoying being with her on this fantastical island. At the moment, the two of them were quickly making their way through a rugged stretch of terrain covered initially with short grass that gradually became taller the farther they ventured. Halting atop the apex of a steep hill, Kal turned to her side and extended her arm in the direction ahead of her.

“Well,” she said, “here we are. These are the Avikin Grounds. I dunno where exactly we’re supposed to find the king of the slug clan, but it’ll be somewhere here, and we’ve got, um, like an hour left to find it.”

Zach, having lagged a bit behind her, hurried to the top of the hill to better see what awaited him, and when he did, he was left speechless, caught somewhere between total confusion and absolute amazement. As he observed his surroundings, he felt a rush of excitement that drowned out much of the previous ten minutes’ unpleasantness. But more than anything else, he tried to comprehend what he was even seeing.

“Kal, do people live here or something?”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

She laughed. “Yep, I’m sure. But you’re gonna end up wondering that a few times before you realize it’s all just part of the way my island works.”

Incredible, he thought. This is…this is just incredible!

Aside from the very fleeting glimpse he’d gotten after jumping out of the helicopter, Zach knew little about what he might see here. Mostly, he’d been expecting to arrive on a flattish field covered with moderately tall grass about two feet in height, which he assumed would encompass most of the three or four square miles that made up these so-called “Avikin Grounds.” Additionally, he’d expected there to be many, many mobs all over it. For the most part, that was exactly what he saw—except there was more: so, so much more. Things he hadn’t even known were possible.

Back when he’d been stuck aboard a ten-hour flight heading from Varda’s Lair to South Bastia, he’d passed some of the time by dreaming up images of what Kalana’s island might look like, his brain conjuring all sorts of ideas and possibilities, some of which had been quite fanciful or out there. But what he saw in these “Avikin Grounds” went far beyond even the wildest products of his imagination. There was “stuff” here. All kinds of stuff. Stuff he had never mentally associated with mobs or leveling, thus precluding him from ever imagining their existence in the first place.

All this is part of the adventuring world? Zach wondered, stunned. This is unbelievable.

Spread out all around this relatively flat plot of grassy land were structures that looked a lot like primitive homes. Most were made of wood and thatch, but in some cases, there were little huts, too. Some of these dwellings stood on their own, but many were grouped together and surrounded by thin fencing such that they formed small villages. And many of these villages showed active signs of life such as smoke escaping chimneys or outdoor cooking fires that actually gave off a smell of meat that drifted on the air. There were also gravel-covered roads that led between many of these villages, and there were horse-drawn wagons moving back and forth along them as well. But most noticeably, farther into the distance, Zach saw something that caused his eyebrows to rise to the top of his face.

Located dead center in the middle of these “Avikin Grounds,” there was a large cluster of more than fifty variously sized and variously shaped homes. Unlike with the smaller villages, rather than fencing, they were completely enclosed within a circular stone wall that looked to be about fifty-feet high and appeared to be defended from attack based on the visible presence of ballistae and other antiquated-looking weapons that were dotting the top of it.

From what Zach could see, the villages—as well as all the other surrounding structures—actually seemed to revolve around this central, city-like area that was enclosed within the wall. It was both incredible and bewildering. On the outskirts of it, Zach spotted small farms, a few isolated shacks, and various watchtowers that had to be close to a hundred-feet tall; they appeared sturdy despite being made of wood, and each had a ladder that led up to the top of them. There were also wells, a few windmills, and what looked like a market of some kind.

“I know I just asked you this,” Zach said, pointing at one of the wagons. He watched as the wagon stopped at the entrance to the walled-in mini city, where it halted at a wide metal gate, which was slowly opened to allow it inside before audibly being shut with a loud snap. “But you’re one-hundred percent certain that there is no one living here?”

“Yup.”

Zach eyed another wagon pulling up to the gate, which likewise opened to allow its entry before snapping shut once more. “So, all of this”—he waved his hand around at the world before them—"this is all because of the spawn points, and none of it is a place that real people call home?”

“Mhm.”

Zach blew out whatever air remained in his lungs; his mind was blown. “Whew,” he said. “That’s…a lot to take in. You don’t seem all that surprised, though. I’m guessing you’ve already been here, Kal?”

“A few times,” she said. “But I didn’t spend a whole lot of time here. I think I leveled from like, uh…I wanna say like 35 to 45, maybe? Somewhere around that. I basically did laps through a few of the villages.” She lifted her chin and looked off into the distance. “I only stopped because the mobs near that city-fort-whatever place were higher level though, and I left before exploring it. I was gonna come back when I leveled enough to take them on, but by the time that ended up happening, I already found way better stuff to hunt that was closer to home, and I kinda forgot all about this place.”

Zach blinked in awe at what he was seeing. Then he turned his attention to Kalana as her words registered in his head, which also filled him with awe but for an entirely different reason. The fact she’d casually stated she’d gained ten levels in this place despite claiming to not have spent much time here reminded him of just how different the leveling experience must have been for an Elf as opposed to a human.

“Olivir told me Elves get a huge boost to xp that no other race gets. Is that true? Is that how you were able to level so fast?”

She nodded. “Yep. Starting at level 5, we get a racial passive that makes it so that whenever we hunt something solo, we get double xp.”

“So then joining a party with me is actually bad for you, right?”

“Nah-uh! It’s more fun and I like it better.”

He laughed. “Fair enough. But seriously, Kal, that’s a hell of an ability.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” she agreed casually and with a nonchalance that Zach took as her not wanting to sound overly boastful.

Returning his attention to the Avikin Grounds, Zach noticed that there were mobs all over the place—as in everywhere. They were in the villages, on the roads, in the watchtowers, on the stone wall, and even steering the wagons. Some were eating, some were sleeping, and a few were actually dancing while others banged on drum-like instruments. All of them also looked pretty similar.

Although there were a fair number of different mobs with different names at different levels, everything but the horses pulling the wagons—which were also mobs—shared several general aspects in common. For starters, they were all tall, feathery, and winged creatures with bird-like faces and muscular, two-legged, humanoid bodies. They all walked upright and had human-like hands. But where they differed was in attire and weaponry, and sometimes in height and build. Yet they were all clearly of a certain “type” and had similar characteristics to one another, kind of like the skelly mobs in Yorna.

Not far from Zach, one of these creatures was strolling down the gravel pathway closest to where he and Kal were standing side by side at the top of the hill leading up to this place. As it drew nearer, Zach saw that it wore a pair of white, baggy trousers but was also shirtless, exposing its six-pack abs. It wielded a katana in each hand, each with a silver blade and a black, striped hilt. Its face was wholly avian in nature, and along with a yellow beak, it also had round, yellow-colored eyes.

HP

27,500/27,500

Name

Marauding Avislicer

Level

27

“All the mobs here are called ‘Avislicers,’” Kalana said, pointing at it, her voice cheerful. “They’re all over the island, but I think this is where you can find the biggest concentration of them together. Actually, that exact type of Avislicer—the Marauding Avislicer—was the first mob I ever saw when Alex brought me here. Me and my dad saw it on the Path of Peace.” Her tone turned from cheerful to bittersweet. “It made me think of you and how excited I imagined you’d be if you were there with me to see it. It also made me feel really guilty and upset that I left you behind.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Zach said. He meant those words, too: strongly. That was Mr. Oren’s fault, and it was water under the bridge as far as he was concerned. Trying to keep his mind focused on the here and now, he watched as the Avislicer strolled all the way up to where the path ended, just shy of a hundred feet ahead of Zach, before turning around and aimlessly walking back the way it had just come.

“Hey, Kal?”

“Yeah?”

“Are they aggressive?”

“Oh yeah,” she said, nodding several times as though to add emphasis. “They have a pretty big aggro range, too. We’re gonna have to fight a whole lot of them just to search the area.” She hummed to herself a second then asked, “Where do you think the slug king is being held, anyway? We definitely aren’t gonna have enough time to search everywhere in the Avikin Grounds for it.”

Zach rubbed his chin, then pointed his finger at the walled-in, miniature city at the very end of the gravel road nearest to them that served as the central-most structure. “I bet it’s in there,” he said. “The quest mob, I mean.”

“You think so?”

He nodded. “The quest said the slug king was ‘kidnapped,’ which makes me think there must be some kind of storyline to all this stuff. I bet there are even more quests on your island that explain it all. But anyway, the quest said we had to get there before they ‘succeed in killing’ it. So uh, this has me thinking, right? If this really is part of some bigger storyline, then the slug king being a king is significant. It makes me think it’s got to be like a public execution. And where else would one be held than in the center of the city? You know, maybe as some kind of spectacle that the bird-people are putting on for each other.”

Kalana turned over her palms. “Makes sense to me.”

“That’s just a guess, obviously, but if I’m right and this really is part of some sort of storyline, then that’s where we should check first.”

Scanning the gravel pathway with his eyes, Zach realized there were a tremendous number of mobs between them and their destination. Though it was only a two-mile walk, the place was absolutely littered with Avislicers. And things were even worse if they tried to go off the path, as the villages and other structures along the way were stuffed with even more of them.

Gods there are so many of them! Is an hour even long enough to fight our way to that miniature city?

It was now beyond apparent why this quest had recommended up to five people. Even if they stayed on the gravel-covered road, which had the lowest concentration of mobs, there were still so damn many of them spaced irregularly from here to the metal, gated entrance. Some were by themselves, others were in small- to mid-sized groups, and many were mobile and walking in various directions.

Taking a moment to consider their best approach, Zach wondered if he should use Shadow Merge to turn invisible and scout the way forward so as to potentially avoid unnecessary fights. It was the ability on his Epic Rare cloak that he’d yet to use thus far. If he turned invisible, he might be able to slip by a lot of these mobs without having to slow down and fight them. If he found the slug king, he could then call Kal’s cell phone and tell her to come to him.

No, that won’t work, he realized.

Although the idea had seemed good at first, the more Zach thought on it, the more he realized how impractical it would be. For one, the invisibility would only last 30 seconds, and secondly, he’d still end up having to fight everything in their way regardless, because Kalana would surely aggro them, as she could not also become invisible.

Looks like we need to fight our way through.

Zach reached behind his back and grabbed the hilt of his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness. Then, with a shing, he unsheathed his blade. “So, Kal,” he said, “are you really making me call it a day after we’re done with this quest?”

“Yes!” she replied immediately. “You need to rest, and I’m worried about you.”

“Well, in that case, I’m not holding anything back at all. Might as well go all out.”

Following those words, Zach activated Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 1, causing a steady flow of impossibly black smoke to begin escaping his hands and feet along with the occasional flickering, golden ember. His skin also began to take on a dull glow, though it was almost impossible to see amid the intensely bright sunshine from the cloudless, tropical sky.

Having totally exhausted himself thanks to that damn Megaworm, there’d been a good deal of stamina for his ability to replenish. For this reason, he wasn’t surprised to see he lost a little more than two minutes so that he started off with 12:46 remaining on his current duration or Unleashed Phase. Still, the rush of energy and the feeling of being replenished always made it feel worth it. Though the increase in stats no longer felt as big as it had when his stats were much lower, he could still feel himself becoming stronger, faster, more agile, and more capable as his stats were increased by twenty-five.

Name

Zachys Calador

Level

21

EXP

153,900/170,000

Armor Bonus

88

Strength

129

Dexterity

112

Constitution

110

Intelligence

145

Speed

95

Luck

113

“Okay, you ready?” Zach asked. Kalana offered only a determined—yet somehow cute—grunt in reply, drawing her daggers. With the clock ticking on both his Unleashed Phase as well as the quest timer, which stood at 55:51, Zach knew they’d have to move as quickly as possible. And it all began with the very first Avislicer mob, who stood alone and was only first making its way back along the gravel-covered path that led to the city.

Although Kalana had told him the Avislicers had a big aggro range, Zach still wasn’t expecting to aggro the thing from nearly eighty feet away. In total, Zach took fewer than ten quick steps before the mob abruptly came to a halt, spun around, raised both its katanas aggressively, and then began to sprint straight for him with its wings fluttering in a way that gave off a sound similar to that of a pigeon.

“Frrragh!” it cried as it raced towards Zach, who was more than willing to charge forward and meet it head on.

With a swiftness and aggression Zach did not expect, the mob raised both its arms high and then slammed down both katanas on top of him, its dual blades parallel to one another. Even still, Zach had seen it coming. Turning his sword horizontally, he lifted it and guarded against both strikes with one defensive motion, then gave a shove of his single blade against the mob’s two, easily overpowering the level-27 Avislicer and pushing it a step back. Retaliating, Zach unleashed two quick slashes, moving his blade such that he carved the letter X into the body of the tall, muscular creature, causing it to squawk loudly in pain as streaks of red poured out of its belly and chest.

19,411

21,213

HP

0/0

Name

Marauding Avislicer

Level

27

“Frrragh,” it moaned as it fell over and died. It then began to shake violently as its entire body turned into a sort of steam that did not rise on the air but rather evaporated quickly in place.

+2500xp

“One down,” he said with a wink. Kal winked back.

With her by his side, the two of them jogged their way towards the walled-in city, stopping just a handful of steps later when seven more of the Marauding Avislicers aggroed them: four on the path, and three that had been standing perfectly still on the two-feet-tall grass, which given their nearly six feet of height, only reached to their knees.

“Frrragh!”

He and Kal briefly met one another’s eyes, and then both exchanged a quick nod, communicating silently with each other. As though he could read the intent in her eyes, Zach twirled his blade then stormed forward at a confident, powerful walk towards the four katana-wielding mobs on the gravel-covered pathway while Kalana dashed off to the left and intercepted the three Avislicers who were making their way over here from the grass.

The moment Zach met his four in combat, he knew they stood little chance, especially since he struck first, ripping his blade across the throat of the Marauding Avislicer C and dealing 28,411. Though he failed to decapitate the mob, he did kill it in one hit and caused its head to hang by nothing more than a thin piece of flesh as it fell to the ground, its body making a thwap against the gravel, followed by two clunks from each katana.

+2500xp

The remaining three surrounded him, Marauding Avislicer A to his left, B in front of him, and D to his right, and all three struck out at him. Avislicer A came in with a left-right combination, B thrust just its right-hand katana forward, and C tried to slash both of its weapons downwards in a way that was similar to the first one Zach had killed.

With a speed that he’d just as much earned as acquired through stats and equipment, Zach whipped his blade around so fast that he impressed even himself. He began by blocking one of the katana’s wielded by Marauding Avislicer A while simultaneously spinning his body to the right around the thrust from B, then bending backwards and avoiding the dual downward slashes from D—only to then spin back to the left so that he returned to his original orientation in time to block the second katana from A, but this time around, he swung his own blade hard enough to turn the block into a parry and knock the katana out of the mob’s left hand.

“Frrragh!” it shouted.

Even as A’s katana was falling down to the gravel-covered pathway, Zach was tearing his blade across the air for four quick, successive movements that managed to block four swings from the dual-wielding bird-men creatures. Four loud pings filled the air as Zach deflected four subsequent strikes. Then he raised his own blade above his head, and with enough effort to make him grunt, he crashed his sword down onto the avian-like face of B, cutting its head open down the middle as though it were an apple and dealing 29,211 damage in the process. Its body began to twitch and turn into steam even before it doubled over. In fact, it never even hit the ground; the creature simply collapsed into vapor like a magician performing a trick.

+2500xp

Now, there were two remaining: one to his left, which was missing one of its two katanas, and one to his right. Both came in at him. Zach dashed backwards to reposition himself so that they were to his front as opposed to his sides, and as a result of his quick movement, they nearly ended up hitting each other. Awkwardly, they both turned in his direction then pressed him. At the same time, in the corner of his vision, Zach realized he’d earned +5000 xp from Kalana, who had effortlessly slain two of her own.

He dealt with the one on his left first, as it was the first to reach him. Having lost its left-hand weapon, it had switched its grip on its remaining blade so that it now wielded it in a two-handed grip, a behavior Zach had never before seen from a mob. With much more force, it unleashed a horizontal slash that, had this been a week ago, Zach would have stood no chance of guarding against. Yet having grown his stats a great deal in such a short time, all he had to do was tilt his blade to the right and brace himself, and the Avisicer’s katana was easily deflected. Retaliating, Zach thrust his own sword forward, and in what came as another surprise, the mob actually attempted to parry him, stepping suddenly to the side while twirling its blade in a counter-clockwise motion. Had this thing had higher stats, Zach would have definitely lost his weapon. Unfortunately for the Avislicer, Zach’s strength was way, way higher than anything a level-27 mob could challenge, and so all it did was startle him.

“Need to be careful and not underestimate shit,” he grumbled to himself. Hastily, he took a quick swing, cutting open the mob’s stomach for 16,211; then he spun his body around and took another, this one hitting for 14,721; not only did he kill Marauding Avislicer A, but he proc’d his stamina regeneration effect twice in a Gods-be-damned row, which brought his current remaining duration on Unleashed Phase all the way up to 18:17.

+2500xp

Now, with just one remaining, Zach bent his knees, turned his hands so that his blade pointed straight forward, and he prepared to engage—and end—the final enemy as Kalana dealt the killing blow to the third—and her final—one that she’d been fighting, earning Zach yet another +2500xp.

LEVEL UP!

22 (21)

Strength

+2 (131)

Dexterity

+2 (114)

Constitution

+2 (112)

Intelligence

+2 (147)

Speed

+2 (97)

Luck

+2 (115)

XP Required for Level 23

215,000

(UNLEASHED ABILITY) (Unique) Phase Cannon Acquired!

“Finally, a decent level up!” Zach shouted out victoriously and triumphantly as he tried—and succeeded, this time—in decapitating the level-27 Avislicer before him, proc’ing his stamina buff yet again and causing his body to glow with the dark green aura, which increased his remaining time on Unleashed Phase to 21:07; unless he was mistaken, that was now the new record for the most amount of time he’d ever had remaining on the buff.

Sheesh, Zach thought with a sigh. When it comes to me, lucky things either happen all at once or not at all.

“Gratz,” Kalana said with a smile, blowing him a kiss as she hurried back over towards him.

Though urgency was still important, and though time was a resource they couldn’t afford to waste, Zach decided to take just a few seconds to see what his new ability did. With over twenty-one minutes on Unleashed Phase, he honestly felt that, for once, he could spare a moment to check something out. Usually, whenever he found himself calling upon this ability, he was in a frantic state and couldn’t spare so much as a millisecond.

“Just a sec, Kal, I want to see my new ability.”

“Wait for me!” she chirped, hurrying over to his side as though interested and wanting to see it with him. Obliging her curiosity, he pulled it up so that the information floated in the air before the both of them. And with that, Zach quickly read over his new ability, eager to see what he’d unlocked for himself this time. From the sound of its name, it appeared to be a new Unleased ability, which meant he could only use it while in Unleashed Phase.

UNLEASHED Ability (UNIQUE)

Phase Cannon

Usage Cost:

1:30 (no target) / 2:00 (if no target and used with Boundless. Does not include cost of Boundless.)

2:30 (w/ target) / 3:00(if user has target and used with Boundless. Does not include cost of Boundless.)

Cooldown:

None

Range:

100

Description:

This ability may be used with a target. Fires a light-based projectile from the palm of user’s hand. If used without a target, the ability is aimed. If a target is selected, the ability’s damage is cut in half and user’s target is struck near instantly (speed of light). Deals light damage. Scales with intelligence.

Zach bit the lower corner of his lips as he read it over, then nodded to himself. “Seems okay,” he said. “What do you think, Kal?”

She gave him an approving thumbs-up. “I think it’s cool!”

“I don’t understand how it can be used with Boundless, though,” Zach said, speaking mostly to himself.

Nevertheless, Kalana answered. “Can I see the description for Boundless again, Zach?”

He shrugged. “Sure, but then after that, we’ve got to keep moving.”

In truth, Zach likely would’ve pulled up the information for Boundless regardless, as the conflicting descriptions confused him in a way that he found annoying and stressful. Unless there was some reading comprehension issue on his part, he was fairly certain he understood what Boundless could—and couldn’t—do. Even still, because he hadn’t actually read the description for it in quite some time, he decided to take a quick peek if for no other reason than to see if maybe he missed something, because seriously, this made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Rather than dismiss Phase Cannon, he pulled up the ability description for Boundless and put it alongside Phase Cannon so that both were visible in the air before him at once. And just as he’d remembered, Boundless quite clearly stated that he could not use the ability with any “damaging” spells or abilities. Surely, Phase Cannon counted as a damaging spell or ability, right? So then for what purpose would it even take Boundless into account in its description?

Inner Ability (UNIQUE)

Boundless

Exertion Cost:

Very Low

Cooldown:

None

Description:

The next non-damaging, non-repeating spell, ability, equipment ability, or item ability can be used regardless of range unless a target is required, in which case the user must be within seeing distance. Cannot be used with abilities that aid in charming or card-capture. Cannot be used to target or affect card-based summons.

Kalana puckered her lips then released an audible whooshing exhale. “I’m stumped,” she said. “I dunno, baby.”

“Me neither,” he said. Then he shook his head. “It must be a mistake.”

“Can there even be mistakes?”

“I used to not think so, but now that we know…”

Kal met his eyes, and she nodded. This told him he didn’t need to finish the thought and use the “S” word. She understood—or at least Zach assumed she understood—what he was implying; specifically, that now that they knew mobs, leveling, and adventuring were not some natural facets of life nor the creations of divine, omnipotent Gods, but rather, that they were a deliberately created “system,” it was no longer beyond question that mistakes could exist. Surely, it was possible for the Great Ones to have made a mistake, right? This had to be one of them.

Because if not, then for what possible reason would Boundless be mentioned together with Phase Cannon? No matter how much Zach thought about it, he just couldn’t imagine any way in which Phase Cannon could ever make use of Boundless.

Oh well. Maybe Kal’s therapist will help me figure it out, he thought with a dark chuckle, which caused Kalana to send him a questioning stare.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.”

“Okay.”

********

Sir Allistair Morrison frowned as he listened to Major Kenth Baxtra update him on the current status of the city. Apparently, their forces had still failed to push the enemy out of Shadowfall Coast. Having armed his leveled guild members with dragon’s loot, he had hoped to see a quick and decisive victory over the entrenched forces of the Royal Roses such that if their reinforcements did manage to break through the blockades, they would be starting over from scratch, and the Guild of Gentlemen would have a much bigger advantage.

Unfortunately, though they’d succeeded in retaking the now-destroyed 4th avenue, the enemy was holding on to 3rd with a zeal he hadn’t expected from the dogs of the Royal Roses.

“Did you transmit my warning to Sir Alazar?” he asked, becoming frustrated.

“I did, Sir Morrison.”

“And?”

He sighed. “Vim still thinks we’re bluffing.”

Alistair pursed his lips angrily. “I’ll speak with him myself.”

“Is that wise?”

He nodded. “I am the leader of the Guild of Gentlemen now. Peter is dead, and I’ve just placed the order to eliminate his spawn. This now falls under my responsibility.”

Major Baxtra gasped. “Sorry, did I hear you correctly?”

“Hm?”

“Regarding the child.”

Alistair nodded, refusing to show any weakness. “You have heard me correctly. There is no mistake.”

“But the boy is only six years old, sir.”

“I know. And it’s a regrettable, terrible deed—one I’m not happy to carry out or proud of. Yet to protect humanity, there’s nothing I won’t do. You have to understand this.”

“I do, but…but I don’t see how—”

“If the guild sees him as a legitimate heir to the monarchy, he might pose a challenge to me someday. If that happens, the values of weakness embedded into him by his father might see us put in the same Gods-cursed situation we’re in right now.” He cleared his throat. “But that is none of your concern. For now, get me on the phone with Sir Alazar. I want to warn him directly so that there are no misunderstandings between us. If that little man still thinks I’m bluffing, and if he forces my hand, I am prepared to launch the weapon on Giant’s Fall.”

“I’ll connect you now.”

*******

Ensuring the hood of her robe was drawn over her head, Fylwen made her way quickly past several peacekeepers who stared directly at her, their faces blank. This was good. It most assuredly meant they did not recognize her. It was imperative she be quick, quiet, and discreet at least for the moment. Should the human filth have any reason to suspect that she was here in Tomb of Fire, the boy might be disposed of before she could get to him.

I will save him, Peter, she said to herself, her heart aching with sadness. I will save your little boy.

That thought in mind, she maneuvered her way closer towards the massive, 80-story administration building in central Tomb of Fire, where she knew he was being held on the 75th floor in a private suite that his father had stowed him in just in case this exact scenario played out as it had.

You will be able to go to Elvadin and rest easy with the Gods, Peter. As you protected mine, I will protect yours.

Though the living conditions Kalana had endured were far from ideal, Peter had made good on his word and had kept her daughter safe while she was in Archian Prime, and until that foul beast of a man, Varsh, had discovered her identity, she had lived in peace. She had grown into a beautiful young woman. Peter had kept his word to her for nearly all of Kalana’s life.

Now, it was her turn to honor the deal they’d made long ago: to protect one another’s kin should the worst ever befall either of them. She would raise him as her own—like an Elf—and she would ensure he was loved and would want for nothing. But first, she needed to get to him, for if anything should happen to the little boy, she would have her Elves burn the entire city to the ground. On this, she did swear to the Gods! Tomb of Fire would be spared none of the darkness within her.

Chapter 118: From Ruby to Ruby

Chapter 118: From Ruby to Ruby

Having barely moved more than a hundred feet from where they started, Zach was annoyed to find himself in yet another fight as he and Kalana, for the third time, unavoidably aggroed a group of level-27 Marauding Avislicers in this incredibly packed section of her island. The mob density was simply absurd, and there was no way to get around these things. This group in particular had been spread out along the pathway as well as the nearby grass, making it impossible to sneak around their approximately eighty-foot aggro radius. They’d just been standing by idly as though waiting for him and Kalana to stumble across them, and when they did, they raised their katanas and charged.

Now, as Zach cleaved a mob called “Marauding Avislicer F” in half from the point of its hip, dealing 28,200 damage and earning him +2500xp, he raised his blade and prepared to take down another of the bird-faced, two-legged creatures. Yet he stopped as his attention was drawn to the sound of a persistent, loud ding from somewhere in the distance; the noise came across as something of a mix between a gong and a triangle dinner bell.

Ahead of him, the road split off into three directions, with the middle path heading to the city along with two more paths: one that curved off to the left and one that went right. Turning his head, he realized the sound was coming from the left, where the gravel-covered road ran upwards on sort of an incline before leading into a fenced-off village about a half a mile away. Yet it was just to the side of this village where the sound originated. Specifically, atop one of those watchtowers.

“Uh oh,” Kalana said. She’d darted into the grass and had begun engaging three of the creatures, and it had been right around that point when the ringing had begun.

“What happened?” Zach asked.

“We just triggered the alarm. Or rather, I did. Shoot!”

“Did you say the alarm?”

“Yeah, I’ve done that before,” she said with a sheepish laugh. “It happens when you get too close to the village and the Avislicers in the watchtower see you.”

“And…and what happens when you trigger the alarm?”

With lightning-quick flashes of her hands, she sliced apart the three mobs around her, earning him +7500xp then pointing her dagger in the direction of the hill that led up to the village to their left. “That,” she answered.

Zach looked in the direction indicated—then groaned, even as he raised his smoke-emitting hands to guard against a spinning attack, having to twist his blade to repeatedly block against the rapidly advancing and spinning Avislicer. Right now, racing down the hill were about fifteen more of the creatures, only not all were Marauding Avislicers. About five of them were a bit taller, bulkier, and had thicker wings. They also carried a shield and an axe as opposed to dual katanas.

HP

45,200/45,200

Name

Avislicer Guardian A

Level

35

With a sense of urgency, Zach stepped forward and thrust his blade right through the belly of the mob before him, dealing 16,511. Then he ripped it free and immediately brought it around for a decapitating slash, watching as the Avislicer’s head was not only taken off its shoulders, but was actually flung a good dozen feet or so off to Zach’s right. Like one of the Marauding Slicers he’d killed just before, this one, too, did not manage to fall to the ground. It began to do so, but before its body landed on the gravel, it had crumpled into nothing more than a clump of steam that was quick to disappear.

+2500xp

Now, turning his body in the direction of the oncoming rush of mobs, Zach gripped his blade more tightly and said, “That’s a lot of them, Kal.”

“It’s okay. We can handle them. As long as we—”

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

Zach took a deep breath, held it a moment, and then released it, slowly. “Kal?”

“Y-yeah?”

“Was that another alarm bell.”

She gulped. “Mhm.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Zach saw another fifteen mobs rushing along a field, wading through the two-foot-high stalks of grass as they charged him and Kalana. This, as a loud neigh from ahead caused him to look in the direction of the city, where he realized a wagon was rapidly approaching. Yet it was moving much faster than he’d seen from any of the wagons so far, and the horses steering it had changed somewhat; their eyes were now glowing red, and they were salivating.

Damn! We aggroed that too, didn’t we?

Inside the wagon were three more Avislicers, though they were different from the ones Zach had seen so far. They were shorter and thinner than the Marauders and the Guardians, yet they were higher level than both, and they wielded long, single-bladed spears.

HP

65,000/65,000

Name

Vengeful Avislicer

Level

40

Zach scowled. “We’ve got thirty-three mobs heading towards us. Are you sure we can—gah, shit!”

Following a brief whistling on the air, pain flared in his shoulder as an arrow—no, a crossbow bolt—struck him with enough force to plant him onto his back. With a cry of warning, Kalana ran over to him even as he was scrambling up to his feet. Though he’d been hit hard, he was okay thanks to his 112 constitution and 88 armor; from the looks of it, the bolt had not fully penetrated his skin, only managing to sink about three or four inches deep. Switching to a one-handed grip, he used his opposite hand to rip it out of his shoulder—then cried out again as another bolt he didn’t see coming struck him right in the middle of his back, sending him down to his knees. Then three more came in, hitting him in his left knee, his left shoulder, and his chest. A fourth also whizzed by overhead, though he only knew that much because he’d heard it rather than seen it.

“Zach!”

“I’m okay!” he called. “Don’t waste your stamina healing me. These aren’t serious wounds!”

“B-but you’re bleeding.”

“Barely!”

He rose back to his feet, yanked out all four bolts, then leapt to the side the moment his ears detected the sound of more bolts sailing through the air. Unable to see where they were coming from, he moved in a more or less random direction, and thankfully, it worked, and he avoided them—assuming there was more than one. He didn’t even know. Right now, he was doing his best to avoid entering into a panic and becoming reckless.

“We need to reset,” Kalana said. “There’s too many coming at us.”

“Reset?”

“Yeah. Nothing here will chase you out of the Avikin Grounds. Let’s leave, lose aggro, and then try not to aggro them on our way back in.”

Zach shook his head. “The ones we’ve killed have already respawned. Retreating means”—he dodged again in the instant he heard the sound of bolts traveling on the air towards him—“starting all over. We’ll never get anywhere.”

“But Zach, even at my level, I dunno if I can handle this many—”

“Just answer a question for me,” he interrupted. “And please, do it quick. Is it okay if I destroy some of these structures?”

“Destroy?”

“Yes, Kal!” he shouted, becoming frustrated. “Like, blow things up.” When she gave him a blank look, he struggled to hold back his anger, which was truly not directed at her, and he explained. “Because it’s your island, and you might not want me wrecking it.”

“Oh,” she said. Then her expression lit up. “Ohh! No, don’t worry about that. Spawn points always regenerate the land back to its default state over time.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yup. Even if you blew up everything here and then incinerated it, within a week, it would go back to just the way it was before.”

Assuming Kalana was correct—and he had no reason to doubt her—Zach found that fascinating. More than fascinating, even. It implied so many things about the world and the way it used to be. It also invited a whole lot of thought about the nature of spawn points. Unfortunately, now was not the time for him to ask her any follow-up questions. And so, relying on his 114 points in dexterity to do right by him, he waited a moment for the sound of whooshing in the air. As soon as he heard it, he once more jumped off to the side. Immediately after, he extended his palm, aimed, and activated his newest ability, Phase Cannon, aiming at the watchtower near the village to his left, consuming 1:30 of his current duration of Unleashed Phase and leaving him with 19:11.

Here goes nothing, he thought.

There was a boom: a loud, deep boom. Though not quite as loud as the sonic boom from Phase Blink, it came pretty close, but it was also far lower in pitch and came across as greatly more ominous. It also caused the ground to vibrate, if not outright rumble, and for a moment, Zach was blinded by a flash of light many times greater than the muzzle of a gun. With that, a spiraling, flashing, and burning ball made of a pure white fire burst out of his palm and ripped through the air, moving at an incredible speed—one he estimated to be about three quarters as fast as what his Wave Slash could achieve after reaching its maximum speed, which was the point at which the double-bladed disc typically erupted into flame.

Zach watched, amazed, as in just five or six seconds, the Phase Cannon he’d fired crossed the half a mile’s worth of distance between where he stood with Kalana and the watchtower he’d fired at. This meant it must’ve been traveling around 400 miles per hour, and when it struck, even from all the way over here, Zach could hear the collective series of snaps and cracks as the entire structure exploded, sending wooden chips and logs shooting in every direction. He saw something else, too.

+16000xp

Even as he saw the increase to his experience, it struck him as both odd and funny that he didn’t even know what the hell he’d just killed: not its name or its level. Yet based on the number of bolts and the direction they were traveling, he did at least reason he’d killed two mobs with that one attack. And as if to confirm this, he ducked down to his knees as more bolts tore across the air above his head, and this time, paying closer attention, he was sure he heard two distinct thuds as each struck the grass-covered ground ahead of him.

Now, spinning around, he extended his palm and fired off another Phase Cannon, which caused his entire hand to recoil like a gun and swing upwards and towards his shoulder as the white, spiraling ball of light blasted across the world before detonating another watchtower in another explosion of wood, which resulted in the exact same gain of xp.

+16000xp

Taking a moment to catch his breath, Zach returned to a more defensive stance with both his hands gripping his blade as he awaited the rush of enemies, which were coming at him and Kal from three separate directions. Even with all that he’d been through, he didn’t think he could handle thirty-three mobs at once, not even with Kalana here. This meant he had no choice. He had to either retreat with Kal, wasting time and effort, or he had to bring in some help.

“You know what? Screw the xp,” he said. “At this rate, we’ll be lucky to live, let alone make it to the city in time—assuming that’s even where the quest is.”

She opened her mouth, likely to question what he was planning, but she let any words she might have been about to speak fall away as Zach made his intentions obvious as he activated Summon Active War-Mount. At the same time, he removed his left hand from his sword, raised it above his head, and called upon Bank and Storage. Grabbing his card from the box, it appeared in his hand, and then he dismissed the ability. Now, he activated Card Summon.

With that, standing side by side before him were his saber-toothed, level-75 war-mount and his viciously carnivorous, level-90 card, Cursed Defender of Ziragoth.

Though his war-mount was limited in the commands he could use, Zach had far more options with his cards, and so, mentally, he used the Defend command, ordering the Cursed Defender of Ziragoth to defend Kalana. Immediately, it ran across the gravel until coming to her side. She took a step back as though in hesitance, and it took one much forward to match her movement.

“It’s defending you,” Zach said.

For some reason, Kalana’s cheeks puffed up and she said, “Aww! Cute!”

“It’s not cute, Kalana. It’s a disgusting lizard thing. I’ll hate it forever even though it’s useful to me.” He frowned. “Are you seriously petting it? It’s not sentient.”

“I know,” she said, “but it’s so cute.”

He sighed. “You take the fifteen on the left, I’ll take the wagon, and I think my war-mount can handle the ones on the right. If it dies, I don’t care. But try not to get the card killed, because I lose that for good if its HP goes to 0. My war-mount I can always get back by just waiting twenty minutes.”

“Don’t worry,” Kalana said confidently. “Ruby isn’t going to die.”

“Who?”

“Ruby.”

“Did you seriously name my card?”

“Yes.”

He laughed of all things, but said nothing else. Then, with a mere thought, he ordered his Kralzek’s Beast to attack the fifteen mobs coming from the right, which were nearly upon him. This, as he bent his knees and readied himself to take on the wagon and its occupants. For a moment, the only sound other than the grass rustling from a quick breeze was the sound of the wagon’s wheels rolling over the gravel as it approached nearer. But then there was a gagging and choking that came from his war-mount, causing Zach to wonder if the thing was okay. And it was only then that he recalled the beast having a cannon of its own.

From within its opened mouth, it vomited up a metal, tube-shaped object, and then, without any warning, it went off with a tremendous bang that was both louder and higher-pitched than Phase Cannon and resulted in an even louder explosion. Before Zach’s very eyes, four of the Marauding Avislicers were blasted into hundreds of pieces, scattering into the air along with a giant clump of grass, dirt, and dust.

+833xp

+833xp

+833xp

+833xp

The spectacle of it all both impressed yet disappointed him, because Gods, he was losing a lot of experience points. It was a shame, too, because he’d been making incredible progress towards his next level up until this point. Things had been sailing along quite nicely, in fact.

To Next Level

49,232/215,000

Oh well. We can’t do this without the mount and the card.

With 17:22 left on his Unleashed Phase, Zach wondered if he should start thinking about conserving some of his time as the wagon drew nearer. Right now, he had a perfect opportunity to hit it with a Wave Slash, which would take him down to 16:07. But that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? That was still a minute and seven seconds longer than its starting duration of fifteen minutes.

I can spare it!

“Wave Slash!” Zach cried out, swinging his sword downwards and causing a green, patchy, cloudlike clump of energy to form in the air, which soon coalesced and changed into a double-bladed disc that took off slowly then rapidly gained speed as it moved towards the oncoming wagon. With a satisfying crack, Zach watched as it split apart the wagon while skewering both horses, earning him another four-hundred experience points. What it did not do, however, was damage its occupants; all three of the Vengeful Avislicer mobs leapt out, flipped several times in the air, and then landed in a crouch.

Not only were they shorter than the other Avislicers, but they were actually shorter than Zach. And they were scrawny, too. Somehow, he did not think that meant it was wise to underestimate them: and so he didn’t. Raising his guard, he studied their movements carefully as all three darted forward at him with their spears held out as if to impale him. While this was happening, he heard a loud, cat-like growl as his war-mount leapt into action, then a chirp as well as a grunt, as Kal and his card did, too.

“Fucking mobs,” he growled. “Why can’t you just leave us alone so we can rescue the king of the slug clan!”

Then something happened. Something strange. Something he had never anticipated. As if reacting to his very words, everything came to a sudden, abrupt halt. All the mobs charging from the left and the right halted at once, and so too did the three, level-40, spear-wielding “Vengeful Avislicers” running his way. Even his card and his war-mount stopped short despite him not giving them the command to do so. Kalana, too, came to a sudden stop, though in her case, it seemed due more to confusion than anything else.

“Uh…what the hell is going on?” Zach asked, having become anxious, worried, and very confused.

“I dunno,” Kalana replied, sounding just as unsettled as Zach felt. “Why’d they stop?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that. I was about to fight these three things, when all of a sudden, they just—”

“Frrragh!” shouted the mob named Vengeful Avislicer B, who began separating from the other two to walk closer to him. “Frrragh!” it shouted again. And then it spoke: it actually spoke. Its voice was patchy, high-pitched, and not all that dissimilar from that of a parrot, only it was more intelligible and Zach did not have to struggle to understand what it was saying. What he did struggle to understand—at least at first—was how and why it was even speaking at all.

“Frrragh!” it cried. “So, if it isn’t—Zachys Calador, the human male—and if it isn’t—Kalana Vayra, the Elvish female—frrragh! You will not stop the Avislicers, frrragh!”

A: “Oh yes we will, Avislicers! The king will be freed. Now die!” [Attack]

B: “Perhaps we can resolve this in a way that helps all of us.” [hands over 25,000 gold]

C: “I don’t care much about the king. How about I work for you instead?” [Quest failed. Gain 25,000 gold and begin Quest: Betrayal on the Avikin Grounds].

D: “I believe in a world of peace. Let’s resolve this diplomatically.”

Time Remaining to Decide: 0:40

Zach’s heart lurched in his chest as these words popped up into the air in front of him while what appeared to be “seconds” counted down one by one, beginning with 0:40 and getting all the way down to 0:29 before he realized just what in the hell was actually happening. When he did, he wasn’t surprised to see Kalana storming over to him with her eyes wide and practically sparkling.

He sighed. “I know what you’re going to say, Kal.”

“You do?” she asked, her voice absolutely teeming with excitement.

“Yeah. You want to pick, don’t you?”

“Can I…baby? Please?”

He laughed. “Sure. I really don’t care. Just don’t pick B.”

She clapped. “I won’t, promise! And oh my Gods, this is so cool! I’ve never seen anything like this before. I bet even Alex and the adventuring guilds haven’t.”

Given that the adventuring guilds did nearly all their adventuring in dungeons, then the only way they’d have ever seen something like this was for there to be quests of this nature inside dungeons. For some reason, Zach doubted that there were. He wasn’t sure what gave him that idea, yet it just sort of “felt” like this was more of an “out in the world” type thing, whereas dungeons were more of a “push forward and keep going” type of affair. But what did he know? There were at least some quests in dungeons. He himself had witnessed that much. But were they like this? He couldn’t help but doubt it.

“This is so incredible,” Kalana said. “I can’t believe this.”

“It is actually pretty cool,” he agreed.

Of all things, Zach felt a sense of longing in his heart, one that sought to experience Galterra the way it was thousands of years ago. He could only imagine how spectacular it must have been. This kind of extraordinary thing…it could’ve happened anywhere, no? This was just a slice—the tiniest taste—of the Galterra that had once been and was no more. Yet even still, he refused to support an abrupt return to those ways. Adamus was wrong. Anything that caused the death of countless innocent people was wrong.

As Kalana read over the choices, she seemed to make her decision rather quickly yet still waited until they were down to ten seconds to make her selection. And when she did, Zach was totally unsurprised to see that she’d gone with option D, as that choice just screamed “Kalana.” If it had been up to him, he’d have chosen A—and then attacked immediately.

Raising her hand, she touched the spot in the air where the option was given, and then the choice, along with all the others, vanished. And Kalana’s eyes widened first in what looked to be shock and fear, but quickly changed to delight, as she began to speak. “I believe in a world of peace. Let’s resolve this diplomatically. Oh my Gods, Zach! It made me say that!”

He chuckled. “You sounded so convincing.”

The mob that had spoken to them, Vengeful Avislicer B, made a series of loud, angry squawking sounds before responding to Kalana. “Frrragh! Spare me your sentiments—Kalana Vayra, the Elvish female—we are not going to be swayed by appeals to morality!”

A: “Give us the king of the slug clan or draw your last breath.” [Attack]

B: “I want no further part in this conflict. Please, at least spare us our lives.” [Retreat. Quest failure. Title Unlocked: __the coward]

C: “If you step aside, you will not be harmed, and no one will know that you or your men ever encountered us. You have my word.”

D: “You will step aside right now and give me your rarest item, or I will kill every last one of you and your families.” [18% chance of success. Failure = T1 consequence]

Time Remaining to Decide: 1:10

“Okay, now it’s my turn to pick,” Zach said, wiping his lips as a sudden trickle of drool slid down his mouth.

Kalana folded his arms. “I can see the greed. You better not pick option D.”

He snickered. “Oh, I’m picking that one.”

“Zach, no. Don’t be a dork.”

“Kal, the worst that happens is we get a T1 consequence.”

“Okay, and um, what’s that do?”

He shrugged. “No idea. But who cares? It’s only T1.”

She glowered at him. “Don’t do it. You know better than this. Anyone can see how this is gonna end.” Zach raised his hand and extended it, even as she began to scowl at him. “Zach, this is why we always get into trouble. You know it’s not gonna work out well.”

“I’m sorry, Kal,” he said. “I have to. It’s just a T1 consequence. There’s no way we can’t handle it.”

“Zach, please. What if it puts us in danger.”

She had a point. If it turned out to be worse than he thought, and if Kal got hurt because of it, he’d never forgive himself: ever. If only there was a way to know what he was dealing with.

Wait, isn’t there?

He gasped as he recalled one of the effects of Unleashed Phase, which he never seemed to have the time to use: his glossary. There had likely been so many times where, if only he’d had the opportunity to do so, he could have learned critically important information by calling upon it. And while time was still very valuable right now, this was not quite a high-stakes, life-or-death situation like those Zach usually found himself in. This was something they were doing by choice. Thus, while failing might cause some rain, they didn’t absolutely have to succeed. Realizing this, he relaxed somewhat and took the time to call upon his glossary so that he could see if there was any information about this. And as it turned out, there in fact was!

Glossary Entry: Quest Consequences

Certain non-dungeon quests will have branching choices and possibilities; occasionally, the user may be allowed to make a gamble in exchange for something beneficial. Failure is often—but not always—punished with a consequence. When assigned a consequence, the following tiers represent some possible outcomes, of which the user will receive at LEAST one.

T1 Consequence

These consequences will NEVER increase the risk of injury or death to the user(s) and/or their party. Among others, list of possible consequences may include: reduced quest rewards, loss of gold, the blocking off of certain quest branches, and diarrhea.

T2 Consequence

May contain any T1 consequence. MAY also contain the following: automatic quest failure, mob ambush, debuff for the user and/or their party, an increase in quest difficulty, viral or bacterial infection, or a trap.

T3 Consequence

May contain one, none, or multiple T1 or T2 consequences. MAY also contain the following: bodily mutilation, cancer, 1-to-50-year dungeon imprisonment, permanent blindness, permanent deafness, permanent loss of taste or other senses, and a T5 unremovable gag debuff such as Justin Bieber’s “Baby” playing in the user’s ear for the rest of their life.

T4 Consequence

Death

“Whoah,” Kalana said.

“See?” Zach asked. Externally, he behaved confidently and acted like this was exactly what he’d expected, but internally, some of those things scared the absolute shit out of him. Luckily, T1 didn’t actually seem so bad. There was no chance of causing any harm to him or Kalana. It outright said so.

“It’s still a bad idea,” Kalana said.

“Why?”

“It’s ‘cause we might lose gold or quest rewards.”

“That’s why it’s gambling. But we’re going to win. I have a feeling.”

“We won’t.”

“We will!”

“Zach, don’t be stupid!”

Zach grinned, and with that, he pressed the option D in the air, even as Kalana slapped her own forehead and began muttering about how dumb he was being. Then the options disappeared, and Zach lost control of his body. All on its own his mouth opened, and with a tone and inflection that he did not choose, he said, “You will step aside right now and give me your rarest item, or I will kill every last one of you and your families!”

Based on the mob’s reaction, Zach couldn’t help but feel a pinch of fear, though not because of the mob itself, but from the grief he knew Kalana was about to give him as the mob widened its eyes, raised its spear, glared intensely at Zach, and then said, “F-fine, you Gods-damned barbarian! Frrragh! But don’t think you can just talk your way out of it once you get closer to the city. You might’ve intimidated me, but my brothers will have your head. Frrragh!”

With that, there was a loud popping sound like a balloon being burst—many of them, actually—and every single last mob they’d aggroed vanished into nothingness, leaving behind nothing more than a white cloud where they’d resided that disappeared in less than a second; this, as a shining, purple light came from the gravel-covered ground before Zach’s foot.

“Yes!” he shouted, raising his sword into the air and releasing an even louder cheer. “Yes! Yes! Oh, Gods! Do you see, Kal? Do you see what gambling just did? I’m so glad I gambled. It’s not even gambling when you know you’re going to win! Ahahaha!”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled, looking unimpressed. “You’re totally taking the wrong lesson away from this, you know?” With a hint of curiosity entering into her voice—which she clearly tried to hide—she asked, “So, um…what did you get?”

“No idea, Kal, but it’s an Epic Rare! Gods, I can’t believe that worked. I was so sure I was about to royally fuck us!”

Bending down, he picked up a beautiful, dark red, rectangularly shaped gemstone that was large enough so that it took up half the space of his palm. “Whoah,” he said. “It’s some kind of ruby.”

It was strange to the touch. It was extremely sticky and soft despite being a gem, and it left a gross, slimy residue on his fingers. It felt as disgusting as it looked beautiful. Without wasting another second, he called forward the information on it, eager to see what the Vengeful Avislicer B had given him. Surely, it had to be good, because it was an Epic Rare item.

Name

Enchanted Awakening Gem of Authentic Cognition

Rarity

Epic Rare

Item Level

N/A

Description

N/A

Zach frowned. “The hell?”

Kalana also frowned. “I don’t get it. What’s it do?”

“Nothing, apparently.” He looked around. “Where is that piece of shit mob? I’m going to kill it! We got screwed. It’s a Gods-be-damned fake!”

“Nah-uh. It has to do something. Can I see it, please?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever. But it’s mine, Kal.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Greedy boy. Let me see it.”

With a gentle underhanded throw, he tossed her the ruby-like item, and she caught it. “Eww, gross!” she shouted. “It’s wet and sticky. Yuck!” As though it were an insect, she flicked her wrist and threw it behind herself.

“Dammit, Kal! Don’t just throw my—n-n-no! Stop! What are you—no!” Zach yelled, his eyes widening and his lips peeling back in horror.

He watched helplessly as the ruby, thrown carelessly by Kal, ended up hurtling right towards the face of his card. Only, instead of bouncing off its mouth and then landing onto the gravel-covered road, his Cursed Defender of Ziragoth, for a reason he could not possibly understand, opened up its mouth, revealing its razor-sharp, predator teeth, and then slammed them back down, devouring the item before his very eyes, visibly swallowing it.

“N-no!” Zach screamed, as Kalana held her hand to her mouth and began apologizing profusely to him. “Kal, look what you did! That fucking thing ate it. It ate my Epic Rare item. Gods, I’m going to cut it out of its stomach. Get over here, you useless little—”

“No! Mommy, he’s going to stab me!” the Cursed Defender of Ziragoth cried out in alarm, running behind Kalana and sending such confusion through Zach’s brain it nearly caused him to faint from the shock of it.

“Did it just speak?” Zach cried.

The avian-lizard hybrid began hiding behind Kalana, whose expression mirrored the abject confusion that Zach was currently experiencing, having no idea just what in the name of the Gods was happening here. With a childish, female, and squeaky voice, the creature said, “Zach is mean. Mommy, don’t let him kill me!”

Kalana’s jaw dropped open, and amid all this confusion and chaos, the words that came out of her mouth were not a question. They were not a cry of surprise. They weren’t even an appeal to calm or to think about this rationally. Instead, she glared at Zach, protectively wrapped her arms around the Gods-cursed thing and said, “You better not!”

Zach moaned out of both frustration, disappointment, and a general sense that things had just become so perplexing he could barely withstand them. “Kal, what the fuck is going on?”

“I dunno. But you better not be mean to…umm…”

“What’s my name?” the creature asked. “Mommy Kalana hasn’t given me a name. Can I please have a name?”

“I can give you a name?” Kalana asked, her expression lighting up with glee.

“Yes. What’s my name?”

Kalana beamed. “Ruby,” she said without another moment’s delay. “Your name’s Ruby.”

“I’m Ruby!” Ruby shouted as the name popped up above her head in bold, green letters, the sign of a friendly NPC. Only, for some reason, she was now level 66, the same as Kalana, and not level 90. Why? What did that mean? What did that even imply? Hopefully, it wasn’t what it seemed. Gods help him if that was the case.

Please, no, Zach thought, horrified. Did Kal just steal my card AND my item?

Immediately, he activated Card Dismiss, yet nothing happened. Then he activated it again. And still, nothing happened. On the third try, the creature made a frightened moan, and she said, “Mommy, he’s trying to make me go away. Please protect me.”

“Zach!” Kalana hissed. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing? That’s my card, Kal. Why can’t I take it back?”

“I’m not a card,” Ruby growled, adding an angry chirp. “I’m a raptor! And I belong to mommy now, not Zach.”

“You’re a what?”

“A raptor.”

“What in the fuck is a ‘raptor?’”

“I’m a raptor. And I’m Mommy Kalana’s raptor. I’m not a card anymore.”

“That’s right,” Kalana said, scratching the creature’s rough-skinned chin as its tail began to thud appreciably against the gravel with enough force to destroy some of it in the process. “You’re my little raptor baby, aren’t you?”

“Yes I am! I will hunt for mommy, and I will protect you, too. Can I have meat? I like steak the most even though I never tried it. I know it’s my favorite. Raw, please.”

Zach was so confused it took a real effort for him not to whimper from the shock of all this. Maybe gambling didn’t pay after all.

Chapter 119: Twenty Hours to Doomsday

Chapter 119: Twenty Hours to Doomsday

Drawing upon all the restraint that Zach could will into himself—especially given the circumstances—he forced himself to take a slow, calming breath before allowing himself to speak. Even still, his words betrayed the frustration he was trying his best to tamp down on.

“Why do you belong to Kal and not me?” he asked of the Cursed Defender of Ziragoth named Ruby.

“Mommy Kalana fed me the stone,” Ruby said, licking her—no, its—lips. This, Zach could only barely see as the so-called “raptor” was still hiding behind Kalana and chirping away any time Zach tried to maneuver himself so that he could take a good look at it. There was something he needed to verify, and he was growing impatient.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Kalana said, her tone defensive. “I’m sorry I stole your card and your item. It was an accident.”

Though her words were apologetic, her behavior wasn't. From the way she was giving constant pets and hugs to the stupid thing, it was clear Kalana was far from devastated that this had happened. Seeing her happy also made it difficult for Zach to stay mad, because at the end of the day, her happiness was as important to him as his own.

“I won’t be able to get another of those cards for like a hundred or thousand or however-many years,” Zach said. Then, with a grunt, he added, “Not that I want the opportunity any time soon. I hope I never see that Gods-be-damned dragon ever again.”

“Me neither,” Ruby said. “He was so pushy.”

Zach cocked his eyebrow, genuinely surprised. “You remember Ziragoth?”

Ruby chirped. “Huh? Why wouldn’t I?”

To Kalana, Zach said, “I need to see its eyes. Why won’t it stop hiding behind you?”

“It’s ‘cause you said you were gonna stab her, you dork.”

“Kal, just let me see it.”

“Only if you promise not to be mean or try to hurt her.”

He sighed. “I won’t. Just please let me see the damn thing. I need to make sure of something.”

“I’m not a thing,” Ruby grumbled, her two sharp, black-toenailed feet tapping down on the gravel as she stepped out from behind Kalana and took a few cautious steps towards Zach.

He met her lizard-like, golden-colored eyes and fixed her with a hard, discerning stare, and then he swore under his breath. Right away, he could tell. All it took was a single glance and he could see: she was sentient. Gods damn it all. Without a shadow of a doubt, Ruby was a self-aware, feeling, thinking being of a sort similar to Angelica or Grundor, only she was more like Fluffles in her intellectual capacity and mannerisms. Zach had no idea how this whole thing worked, but it appeared humanoids were different from animals—or a raptor, in this case, though he still had no idea what in the hell that actually was, as he’d never heard the word before today.

With noon approaching and the sun burning down on them, several beads of sweat caused both by frustration and the heat more generally led him to wipe his face with his robe as he tried to consider how to proceed. With his hands and feet still emitting an impossibly black smoke, and with his time remaining on Unleashed Phase down to 14:32, he knew that he couldn’t afford to waste too much more time standing around on this gravel-covered road figuring out this whole “Ruby” situation. Especially because he likely had all the answers he was going to get.

Clearly, the drop he’d gotten was similar—but different—from the thing Fluffles had eaten that had turned him into a Shadowfang. And just like Kesten, Maric, and Mr. Oren, Zach had not known what his particular gem was intended to do before it’d accidentally been used, transforming the card into a…a what, exactly? Certainly not a Shadowfang, as NPCs were not, strictly speaking, biological in the sense that Fluffles was. But something not all that far removed, for sure.

Wiping away more sweat, he asked, “If I had been the one to feed you the ruby, would you have belonged to me and not Kalana?” Ruby chirped in a way that came across as affirmative, which prompted Zach to ask the only other thing his curiosity demanded he know right this instant. “And how much do you remember? From before you ate that ruby and became…well, ‘Ruby’?”

Ruby looked at Kalana, who nodded at her. Zach wasn’t sure what that was about. Then she said, “I remember fighting you. You turned me into a card, and…and then I was on your team for a while. We did so many things together and we fought the dragon together, and then we fought the humans, and then we came here.”

She does remember everything, he thought, an uncomfortable, existential chill traveling down his back.

“How did you feel when I made you fight Ziragoth? Or turned you into a card?”

Ruby blinked several times. “I didn’t feel anything,” she said. “I didn’t know what that was until a few minutes ago. I like thinking and feeling! It’s fun. I can smell, too.” She licked her lips. “And taste!”

“So you didn’t think or feel anything until just now?”

“I don’t think so. I just remember everything, but I don’t think I knew anything. But now I do!” She chirped happily.

Zach wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react to that, but in a strange sort of way, it caused him to feel relief, because even though what Ruby was implying meant that all mobs and NPCs probably had the capacity to be “alive,” her words confirmed to him that, up until someone made them so, they were still soulless and unfeeling. Though Zach would never claim to be a philosopher or hold any of the answers to the key questions of the universe, he was comfortable enough in his own beliefs to not feel any guilt at killing things that did not have any sense of self-awareness, the ability to feel, or the ability to think or know pain. In his view, something that had absolutely no concept of its own existence could not be considered the same as something that did. Though all of this did lead him to ask one very uncomfortable question of himself.

What if I fed that to Moldark? What would he become?

With a shrug and another, even more uneasy chill, he said, “All right. What happened, happened. Let’s just finish the quest. Oh, and Kal, you owe me for stealing my card and my item.”

“Oh, really?” she asked, frowning. “Didn’t I just give you that super-duper rare ring that you said was awesome? And didn’t my mom give you our greatest family treasure? And what about that time, umm, that woman in Angelica’s was hurt, and somebody needed to buy the stones for her, and I—”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point.”

Zach knew there was no way he could argue with Kalana here, as her defense was airtight. It didn’t make Zach any less grumpy about the fact he’d won an 18%-chance gamble and still somehow ended up losing two valuable things in the process. Nevertheless, the truth was that Kal was right. She hadn’t done this on purpose, and he could hardly claim she owed him anything. If anything, he owed a whole lot to her.

Turning his body so that he faced in the direction of the miniature city, he once more proceeded onwards, his mount, Kalana, and Ruby following along. If nothing else, at least Kalana was happy.

******

Pete was trying to be a good boy because that’s what daddy said he had to do. But it wasn’t fair, because nobody was letting him buy any toys, and Uncle Vardor wasn’t letting him go outside to play or do anything at all.

Daddy said it was only supposed to be a few days. How come I’m still here?

Pete was a big boy now. He was six and that meant he was supposed to be brave, because the other kids he knew said that, um, when you were sleeping over at someone else’s house, if you got sad and then wanted to go home, it meant you were still little. That was why he tried so hard not to cry. His dad was actually the leader of the whole guild, and not only that, but he was the leader of this city, too.

Stepping on the stool, he looked out of the window in the room he was in. He wanted to go look around the city of Tomb of Fire. There were so many people and his dad said they’d go to the toy shops—all of them—and even the ones in Diamond Paradise when he came back. Right now, though, he wasn’t being allowed to leave the room. They even locked the door. He didn’t know why they did that.

“Uncle Vardor,” he whined, becoming sad even though he tried so hard not to. “You promised I could go outside today. How come my dad’s not back yet? I don’t wanna be in here anymore because it’s boring and all…um, all my toys are still in Shadowfall Coast.”

When no one answered, Pete walked along the soft, maroon-colored carpet and stood up on his tippy toes so he could try to turn the knob. It was still locked. “Uncle Vardor?” he called.

Uncle Vardor wasn’t his real uncle, but he was his dad’s guild friend and his dad told him to call the man that. But he didn’t act like an uncle. He wasn’t being all that nice to Pete like he usually was. Placing his ear to the wooden door, he could hear what sounded like footsteps coming from the kitchen across the hall, as well as a voice that sounded really upset. It was Uncle Vardor’s voice.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Uncle Vardor said. Pete didn’t know who he was talking to, but he said a really bad word. “He’s six years old, Sir Morrison. He doesn’t know anything. He’s a clean slate. There’s no reason for this.”

There was a pause, and then he sounded even more upset than he did before. “How can you possibly say this is best for humanity? Gods damn it all. I’ve known him since he was a baby. What’s that? No. I said no. That’s definitely not something you should do. Well, obviously because I—what? No. No, what I’m—just listen, please. Obviously, I don’t want to, but I’d rather it be me than someone who’s going to make him suffer. I can make him close his eyes peacefully. That’s what you’d prefer too, right? If it has to be someone, it might as well be me. At least that way I can make sure he doesn’t—yeah. All right. Fine.”

There was a beep, which sounded like the way a phone ends a call. And then there was a loud, angry smash that startled Pete. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Uncle Vardor put his fist through one of the cabinets in the kitchen.

“He’s only six,” he said loudly, pain in his voice. Pete was also only six. Was he talking about Pete?

A few minutes went by, and Pete, losing interest in whatever was going on, went back to play with the few toys he had in here. Yet as soon as he sat down, there was yet another bang, and this one was way louder and sounded like it came from the floor below. This bang was followed by a scream. Then Pete inhaled and ran to the corner of the room as what sounded like guns started going off along with even more screaming.

“She cut my fucking dick off!” someone wailed at the top of their lungs from the floor below. “She cut my—ahhh stooooop!”

The scream reached such an intensity that Pete began to shake, fearful. Then he heard steps: powerful steps. Then there was a loud smashing sound that sounded like it came from outside Pete’s room, which was soon followed by even more screaming and more gunshots.

“You!” Uncle Vardor shouted. “You have some nerve coming in—”

His words ended in a gurgle and a tearing sound. Pete was so confused. He didn’t understand what was happening. Now, he became very, very afraid, as for a moment, all went quiet—all except the slow, steady tapping of boots against the wooden flooring in the hallway outside of his room. Then there was a click as the doorknob of the locked door was turned, followed by another loud bang as the door was then thrown completely off its hinges.

“Pete?” a womanly voice said.

Pete ran under the bed, hiding. He was very afraid. He wanted to be a big boy, but he was so scared. The footsteps continued, and now whoever was in here with him was standing in the center of the room—and coming closer. A moment later, with a creak, the entire bed was lifted off of him, and a hand reached down towards him.

“It’s okay,” a very pretty lady with golden hair, pointy ears, and green eyes said. “I’m a friend of your father’s, child.”

“You know my daddy?” he asked.

She smiled. She had a very nice, comforting smile. But there was lots of blood all over her body. Was that even blood? Maybe it was ketchup. He hoped it was ketchup. He didn’t like blood or bloody things. Nervously, he took her hand, and she gently pulled him out from under the bed before releasing it and letting it drop back down.

“Wait a minute,” Pete said. “I think I’ve seen you before, um, on the TV. Aren’t you”—he gasped—“you’re Kalana’s mommy!”

“You know of my daughter?”

He nodded. “Yeah! Everybody knows Princess Kalana.”

“Would you like to meet her?”

“Oh yeah! I can? I need to ask my dad. Do you know where he is?”

“I do,” she whispered. He wasn’t sure why she sounded sad. Did his dad upset her?

“Where is he?”

“That’s something for us to discuss later.”

“I want to see him!”

“You will.”

“He said he’d be back by now.” Pete sniffled. “He told me he would come back and then he didn’t. I want to see him.”

For some reason, she reached out and hugged him. She was very nice but he didn’t know her so well so he wasn’t sure why. “Have you ever ridden on a unicorn, child?”

“Huh? No.”

“Would you like to?”

“They’re not real.”

“But they are.”

With that, he found himself being picked up like mommy used to do before she died, and then suddenly, he was moving very fast. There was a loud crack of shattering glass, and before he realized what was even happening, he was suddenly hit with a blast of heat. Only then did he realize that Kalana’s mommy just jumped out of a window with him. But he wasn’t scared. Because he also wasn’t falling.

“Whoah!” he said, looking around. “I’m on a unicorn!”

“That’s right,” Kalana’s mommy said. “Hold on to me tight, okay? We’re going on an adventure.”

“Okay!”

******

“Fucking Elves!” Major Kenth Baxtra shouted.

Sir Alistair Morrison scowled. “Tell me she didn’t.”

“She did. She invaded Tomb of Fire, killed eleven of our men—castrating several of them—and then kidnapped the royal heir and took off to the skies in a Gods-cursed unicorn."

Sir Morrison squeezed his hands into fists, but only for a moment. Immediately after, he removed his cell phone and dialed the number of his chief diplomat. “I want you to hand-deliver something for me.”

“Yes, of course, Sir Morrison. What are your orders?”

“Inform the Elvish of my official declaration of war on Whispery Woods.”

“Understood.”

The moment he ended his call, Major Baxtra gave him a sidelong glance. “We are already fighting a war against the rest of humanity. Are you sure we should add the Elvish to our list of enemies?”

He met the major’s eyes. “Once we have the proper justification—and believe me, we’ll have it very, very soon—we will launch our weapon, and all of our enemies will surrender.”

“If we’re going to go that route anyway, Sir Morrison, then why does it even matter that we have some purported moral high ground? Wouldn’t it make sense to simply launch the thing now and put an end to this before even more of our people die?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You see, I am going to succeed where the other guilds failed. I will bring humanity back into the fold in the global trading community. And to do this, I need the perfect balance of threat and reason. If we are seen as too animalistic, they will resist us even if it means possible nuclear retribution. But if we show them that we are a people of order, they will be more willing to negotiate. That is why it’s important we declare war on our enemies before we launch, not after. If we wait to declare war on the Elvish, it will seem like any negotiation with us is just an obvious farce, and that we are simply threatening them with our weapon.”

“But isn’t that exactly what we’re doing?”

Alistair nodded. “Yes, but I prefer it to remain an unstated threat. Imagine, for a second, that we use our weapon, and then we declare war on the Elvish. It will send a signal to the world that our declaration of war itself is a threat: capitulate or die.”

“How so?” Major Baxtra asked.

“Very simply. It will invite the question of why we waited until after we unveiled our weapon. If the justification is the attack on Tomb of Fire, the world will want to know why we did not declare war right after it happened if we are so aggrieved. It will make it seem like the declaration is disingenuous and that we are merely using the threat of our weapon to force cooperation. And if so, we can’t rule out the Lizardmen and the Dwarves invading North Bastia. Let me remind you, Major Baxtra: we don’t actually have more than one missile yet. If we are attacked, we won’t be able to back up our bluff.”

The major threw up his hands. “This is all too political and confusing for me. I know war, and I know that if the Elves decide to attack us, they can take out Tomb of Fire and Shadowfall Coast all on their own without any level-1 ground troops. They will stomp on us like insects.”

“No, they won’t. They most certainly won't."

“How can you be so sure?”

Lowering his voice, Alistair said, “Because tonight, I’m ordering the blockade to ease.”

“W-what? Why?”

“So that the enemy will break through, and our city will be overrun.”

“Why?” he snapped. Then he widened his eyes and began to apologize as if realizing how massively he’d just breached protocol in speaking to Sir Morrison with such a tone. Yet, Alistair chose to ignore this slight, as it was exactly the reaction he’d expected.

Slowly, he inhaled, then again regarded the major general. “The reason, Major Baxtra, is so that very early tomorrow morning, around twenty hours from now, we can use the justification of self-preservation, and with that, we can launch our weapon, and the world will open its eyes to the power of humanity. Then, we will announce that we have made dozens—or hundreds—more of these weapons, and I promise you, the invasion will stop.”

“What if the other guilds call our bluff, sir?”

He grinned. “When they see what this weapon can do, Major Baxtra, I assure you, they will not dare.”

Chapter 120: Call to Arms

Chapter 120: Call to Arms

Alex frowned, and as though in response to his plainly displayed unhappiness, Kolorn Besh, the guild-leader of the Lords of Justice and the man whom Alex now served, gave him a fatherly pat on the back. At the moment, the two of them were standing side by side atop a hill only minimally too short to be called a mountain, which overlooked the narrow Valley of Olandrin located fifty miles northeast of Whispery Woods. As it were, the border line that divided Whispery Woods and southwest Spider’s Eye Oasis happened to run directly through the center of the riverbed several-hundred feet below.

“What do you think, Lord Oren?”

It was strange hearing himself referred to by "lord" or "sir," yet it was custom and protocol, and the last thing Alex wanted to do was disrespect the traditions of the guild he had now sworn to serve unto death. Straightening his back, he hesitated a moment before speaking, choosing instead to cup his forehead to filter out some of the sun as he gazed into the distance. It was about five hours past noon in North Bastia, and if they were going to make it to Shadowfall Coast by dark, they’d need to choose fairly soon whether or not to commit to an attack.

Abandoned, he thought as he observed what had, until an hour ago, been a fully fortified blockade complete with mechanized infantry, leveled defenders, and several officers of the Guild of Gentlemen.

“Something doesn’t feel right about this, Lord Besh,” he said. “You’re positive they’re not waiting in ambush for us somewhere?”

Lord Besh nodded. “Every one of our scouting parties has delivered the same report: the Guild of Gentlemen have eased their blockades on all nine paths. There’s nothing preventing the 3rd Battalion from marching straight to Shadowfall Coast and reinforcing our allies.”

“That’s what worries me,” Alex said. “It makes no sense. If we’re able to break through to Rose Battalion, the city is as good as ours. They must know this, so why would they make our job easier and let us through?”

Based on the latest reports, Rose Battalion had been pushed all the way back to 2nd avenue and were near to being driven out of the city. This would be disastrous, because if their forces lost their foothold into the city, it would only result in prolonged fighting and an even greater number of civilian casualties. This needed to be done with quickly. It was a nightmare that needed to end: like the dragon had been.

But am I really fit to be ending it? he wondered, frowning yet again.

Alex was conflicted: very much so. He was beginning to question his decision to join the Lords of Justice. At the time, he’d been certain his decision was the correct one. But already, he was having regrets. And how could he not? It was his first day as the third-in-command of the Lords of Justice, and yet, before he’d even been anointed and sworn in, he was already taking part in a brutally violent war—one that, in what may have been a record time, had already amassed thousands of innocent civilian casualties as a result of Vim Alazar’s indiscriminate bombing campaign, which was clearly driven more by revenge than tactical necessity.

His thoughts grew steadily more troubled as a breeze rolled through the hilltop and caused a few dried leaves to make a rustling sound as they slid across the grass-covered slope. Another moment of silence lingered, and then Lord Besh scratched the reddish-brown hair of his neatly trimmed beard and shrugged.

“I’ve got no idea what they’re up to, Lord Oren, and I’m also perturbed by their withdrawal, as it has all the makings of a trap. Yet, if it is indeed a trap, it must be very cleverly hidden, as our scouts cannot find any way they might spring it upon us.”

Shaking his head somewhat, Alex tried to rid himself of the uneasiness coursing through him. Something wasn’t right here. Sir Alistair Morrison may have been a thoroughly evil, manipulative, and literal backstabbing pile of filth, but the man was clearly not stupid. There was a reason he was doing this. It was almost as though he wanted them to attack. But why?

“Lord Besh?”

“Yes?”

“Have you considered the trap might be a diplomatic one more than a literal one?”

He scrunched his lips together as though finding the suggestion ridiculous. “With regards to what? That makes little sense.”

Having learned an extraordinary amount of patience during his time as an adventurer—which was needed when dealing with so many bellicose, drunken idiots—Alex did not find it slightly frustrating to be questioned or asked to elaborate on something said in good faith. He was more than happy to oblige.

“With regards to the weapon he claims to have,” Alex said. “This might have something to do with it. Maybe he’s looking for justification to fire it.”

At this, Kolorn Besh released a low grunt that came across as slightly dismissive. “That’s very unlikely, seeing as there is no ‘it’ for him to fire.”

“Do we really know that for certain?”

“Of course we do. Gods, it’s such an obvious bluff. Had the man threatened us with something at least plausible, it might have worked, but his threat was so childish it was comical. He actually told Sir Alazar that he had a button he was going to push that would destroy an entire city if we do not yield to him. Absurd! The Guild of Gentlemen have no such weapon. And since I can tell by the look on your face you remain skeptical, I’ve already done my due diligence and consulted with the best experts we have in munitions and explosives. There is simply no way of producing a munition capable of delivering that kind of payload.”

Alex pursed his lips. Despite the two of them being alone, he nevertheless lowered his voice. “Conventionally, perhaps.”

“Hm?”

“I’ve asked some of my own experts. Though he doesn’t look the part, my former guild-mate, Maric, is a theoretical physicist.”

Kolorn chuckled. “That has little to do with warfare.”

“Maybe. But have you ever considered the possibility that a bomb could utilize a non-conventional source of energy?” Alex’s question prompted only a sidelong glance, and so he elaborated further. “The splitting of an atom,” he continued. “It could unleash enough energy to destroy a city.”

“Ridiculous,” the leader of the Lords of Justice said. “I’m no scientist, but I know that that’s purely theoretical. Theoretically, time travel is possible. Theoretically, a weapon could exist that opens up a black hole capable of swallowing the entire solar system. There are many things that can be real in theory and perhaps in reality someday too, but we are living in the here and now.”

Alex fixed him with a serious look that he hoped would cause his new guild-leader to be a little bit less dismissive. “This is far from theoretical,” Alex said. “The technology in our lives that we use every single day is already far more advanced than what would be required to make that sort of weapon. The fission energy that powers our DEHV hovercraft is a perfect example of that. We use the energy created from the splitting of atoms to power our vehicles, charge our phones, and live our everyday life.”

“True,” he said, “but weaponizing it in the form of a bomb isn’t possible. You don’t think people have had that idea before? The humans of old spent thousands of years trying to figure out how to weaponize atomic energy, and we were unable to do it—or so the records in the guild-only archives would indicate. That, of course, is a secret not to be shared with the public.”

“One of many,” Alex muttered.

“Hm?”

He forced a smile onto his face. “It’s nothing.” Breathing out a sigh, he again scanned the valley below them, then turned his head to face his guild-leader. “Do you remember how I told you about Earth?”

The slight twitch in his shoulders indicated that Kolorn was still not over the shock of learning that adventurers regularly traveled to Earth. From what Alex had learned, the political guild leaders—and the highest-ranking members in the guilds—knew of the existence of Earth, and they knew that humans were not originally from Galterra. It was a closely guarded secret, one they feared would cause the world to revolt against humanity if it was ever discovered their species was “alien” to Galterra. But upon learning that Alex had personally been there, Kolorn had seemed genuinely fascinated.

“What of it?” he asked, his interest clearly piqued.

In response, Alex squatted down, grabbed a fist-sized rock, and then held it up to him. Lord Besh squinted at it as though confused. “Earth rocks,” Alex began, “are very, very similar to rocks on Galterra save for one very important difference. On Earth, there is an abundance of an isotope called Uranium-235 found in many rocks, and it is an isotope that is incredibly rare here on Galterra: to the extent that it may not even be present at all. What we do have is an element called thorium, which is perfectly suitable for the nuclear fission reaction that makes our energy, but not at all for the production of a weapon.”

“And this Uranium-235 is capable of being weaponized?”

Alex nodded, and as he did so, he felt a chill run down his back. “It could be. It wasn’t something I ever considered until today, but yes, it could certainly be. You see, to weaponize the splitting of an atom, what you need are atoms that will split when struck by fast-moving neutrons. There’s nothing suitable for that purpose on Galterra. But on Earth? There are two naturally occurring isotopes that I am aware of: Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239. And both could be easily fashioned into a…I suppose you could call it a ‘nuclear bomb’. Furthermore, by knowing the properties of these isotopes, it would be possible to artificially synthesize them here on Galterra.”

Kolorn Besh gasped, a reaction that Alex did not anticipate. Did this mean he was finally taking what Alex was saying seriously? It appeared so. Though, sadly, not at all for the reason that Alex had hoped. Now, he, too, lowered his voice as he spoke.

“Lord Oren, do you still have the ability to travel between worlds?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “As I’ve told you, that…that ‘power’ is from a buff that is lost upon joining a political guild.”

“Yet you have many friends who can, yes?”

“Of course. But why do you ask?” Alex regarded him skeptically.

“If you’re right about this, we should look into the production of these weapons—for purely defensive purposes, of course. Certainly, I can’t imagine that Sir Morrison has been working privately with the adventurers, nor do I believe him capable of knowing any of what you’ve just told me. Having said that, I’m going to ask you not to ever repeat what you’ve just told me to the other guilds. This is now officially a highly classified secret of the Lords of Justice.”

Alex fought for all he was worth to contain his discontent and avoid letting it spill onto his face. Lord Besh truly was a cut above the other guild leaders, but not nearly as much as Alex had hoped him to be. Under no circumstance would Alex help him introduce such a weapon into this world, even if he didn’t dare say so aloud.

“I will not speak a word of this,” Alex said—and meant it, too. It would be an easy promise to keep, since undoubtably, the reaction of the other guild leaders would be the same as Kolorn’s had been. Hopefully, the man wouldn’t press him too hard over this when the war was over. For now, though, Alex just hoped that Lord Besh was correct regarding his assessment of the Guild of Gentlemen’s capabilities. In all likelihood, the threat of city-wide annihilation was just a bluff, and it could very well be that the withdrawal of the blockade was intended only to bolster that bluff. Yet even still, Alex wasn’t entirely certain, and that worried him.

As his phone buzzed in his pocket, he was reminded that the veracity of this “weapon” wasn’t the only thing currently causing him some degree of upset. Without even bothering to remove the device from his pocket, he already knew who was contacting him—and he had thus far refused to answer.

“Your phone’s going off again,” Kolorn said with a grunt. “Vim?”

“Probably.”

“About Zach?”

“I assume so.” Alex lowered his hand down to his pocket then paused. “Actually, since it’s been brought up, I could really use your help with this issue, Lord Besh. Maybe you could speak to him.”

He sighed. “I can’t. It’s out of my hands. The boy is not a member of my guild, and were he so, I can’t truthfully say I would be acting any differently than Sir Alazar.”

“You must know he’s not really a member of the Royal Roses. That’s…for show.”

Kolorn shrugged. “Lord Alazar accepts him as one of his own. Apparently, the two bonded during the battle with the dragon.”

“True, but that doesn’t mean—”

“—and also,” he continued, holding up his hand, “you cannot deny that we may need his aid if we’re to end this quickly.”

Alex’s mouth fell open in shock and disbelief. “He’s a seventeen-year-old boy, Lord Besh.”

“Yes, he is. And he’s one who has shown himself highly proficient in dealing with these thugs. How many of the enemy did he kill singlehandedly? I was in awe watching him cut through the Gentlemen. He’s a true warrior.”

Trying to control his disgust, Alex said, “He might appear that way, but he’s also just a boy, and what he went through last night is going to take a toll on him. He needs to rest and reset, and he’s only just gotten to the Island of Elendroth after traveling for hours. In fact, it should be around noon there right now local time. He’s probably exhausted and emotionally drained. Do you think he’s going to respond well to being told to come back to North Bastia to fight in a war? If Vim had such an issue with him leaving, he should have said something before Zach left. He knew where Zach was heading and for how long.”

“I don’t believe Vim’s intentions were bad,” Lord Besh replied. “When the war began, the Royal Roses and the People of Virtue had the upper hand, and it looked like the battle would last only a few hours. Now, it’s been just about one full day and Vim has already lost thousands of troops as well as dozens of leveled guild members, and unless we hurry, our forces will be driven completely out of the city.” He sighed. “Even with the combined might of North Bastia’s guilds united as one, we aren’t likely to strike a decisive blow tonight. Most likely, we’ll be caught up in street-by-street combat. It could be weeks before we reach—and arrest—Sir Morrison.”

Alex rubbed his face, suddenly feeling weary. “It’s just that this isn’t what…”

He let the thought go unfinished, but Lord Besh finished it for him. “This isn’t what I promised you it’d be. Is that what you were going to say? Be honest.”

“It…it is what I was thinking.”

“Well, know this, Lord Oren. I did not lie to you. When I asked you to join the Lords of Justice, I meant every word of what I said to you: and my intentions are still to have you serve as the chief diplomat of humanity. I never intended to have you or my guild be caught up in this awfulness. But how was I to know that any of this would happen? The Guild of Gentlemen were at war with the Royal Roses and the People of Virtue: not the Lords of Justice. Attacking us the way they did—it was unthinkable. It was a treachery beyond imagine.”

As upsetting as all this was, Alex could not actually disagree with it. The fact that Sir Morrison would attack the other three large guilds that ruled humanity and drag them into the war was a decision that made absolutely no sense and that hardly seemed real. It only reinforced Alex’s fear that the man must have something up his sleeve to be so audacious, as he did not strike Alex as stupid or insane.

“Seeing as how you haven’t even been sworn in yet, if you would like to abandon your oath, I’ll allow it. But I must know now. If you want no part in this, I swear on the soul of my father I will not bear you any ill will, and you are free to leave.”

“No,” Alex said firmly. “I agreed to defend the guild and the people when I joined, and as much as I absolutely loathe violence, I won’t shy away from it when necessary. Sir Allistair Morrison is an abhorrent, evil stain on humanity, and he must be stopped. And if I’m there, maybe I can help minimize civilian casualties in the process.”

Alex grimaced as he reflected on the current estimate—likely on the lower side—of the number of innocent people who’d been caught in the crossfire. “I am likely speaking out of turn here, but I’m really not happy with Sir Alazar’s conduct—if I may be so bold as to say so.”

“None of us are,” Lord Besh agreed with a nod. “Those fighter jets of his…they are an abomination. Peter I rid the world of those death machines for a reason. That’s why the other guilds—and ours included, of course—fully expect Lord Alazar to destroy them after the war, and rest assured, there will be diplomatic consequences if he refuses. But more to the point”—Lord Besh grabbed his wrist and squeezed it reassuringly—“you are a good man, and I’m glad to have you among our ranks.”

Abruptly, Lord Besh’s tone became apologetic. “As far as the Zachys Calador issue is concerned, I truly wish I could do more, but I’m afraid I simply cannot.”

This is going to be a nightmare, Alex thought as his phone vibrated in his pocket yet again. Once more, he did not answer it, as he still did not know what to say.

As things were, the sharp-tongued guild-leader of the Royal Roses had been hounding him nonstop for the past few hours. He wanted Alex to get into contact with Zach and deliver his “summons” to return for battle, as he appeared to think he himself would be unable to convince him: which he definitely wouldn’t be able to. He seemed to think Alex, on the other hand, could. And he was probably right. If Alex spoke with Zach, he probably could indeed convince him to return. Yet there was no way that was happening. Not only was Zach not old enough to be fighting in a war in the first place, but what he needed most right now was to improve his state of mind, not damage it further.

Given the urgency of the situation, Alex had not been able to speak with Zach after the events of last night, and now, as he reflected on the boy’s condition during their panicked trip northward to Whispery Woods, he shuddered as he recalled the shape Zach had been in. The boy had been cackling, whispering to himself, and blurting things out. An ache of sorrow and compassion ignited in his chest as he realized he really should have spoken to him before he’d departed.

There’s no way I can allow Zach to participate in this. It’s not happening!

Given the high possibility that the 3rd Battalion would be joining the gruesome battle to retake Shadowfall Coast tonight, Alex was short on time. Even still, this was important, and he needed to deal with it. It was time for him to have a word with Vim Alazar, the leader of the Royal Roses. Zach could not be roped into this any more than he already had. Not just for his own sake, but for the sake of the world.

Chapter 121: Global Crisis

Chapter 121: Global Crisis

Charging forward along the gravel-covered road, Zach clung to the rough, coarse hair on the scruff of his war-mount’s neck with his left hand, and with his right, he both extended his arm and swung his sword in the same motion, shattering the shield of an Avislicer Guardian with an echoing crack and causing the avian-faced mob to fall over onto its back. Yet before it even hit the ground, Zach spun his body, hopped off the side of his mount, and then raced over to where it was about to pick itself back up. Quickly, he plunged his blade straight down into its chest, finishing off the creature and earning a heavily reduced +1200xp for his efforts.

As his mount continued onwards without him and began to rip apart two Marauding Avislicers that seemed intent on barring their passage, he hurried over to where Kalana and Ruby were fighting side by side. “Are you guys okay?” he asked them both.

“Mhm,” Kalana said, though she was breathing heavily.

“We’re okay,” Ruby agreed, licking her chops just before tearing into the throat of a Marauding Avislicer for 40,133 damage, killing it.

“Good job, Ruby,” Kalana said.

“Thank you, Mommy Kalana!” she replied, chirping.

Zach sighed. He’d more or less gotten over the fact that his card and item had been stolen from him in the same accidental action, and he’d become far more fascinated than anything else. At the very least, the two of them seemed to make a pretty good team. Zach watched as they finished off the small group they were battling while, right around the same time, his Kralzek’s Beast ended the two marauders it’d been dealing with; releasing a roar, the saber-toothed cat turned around and hurriedly returned to Zach’s side. Now, having cleared out yet another bunch of mobs, he turned his sights on the gate that was nearly upon them at the end of the mob-ridden path.

Can’t believe how much shit we just killed, he thought to himself, wiping sweat from his brow.

Though both he and Kal were sweating, his perspiration was due more to the heat than anything else, whereas Kal was showing clear signs of fatigue. Zach, on the other hand, was completely energized and felt like he hadn’t even begun to exert himself yet thanks to the stamina regeneration ability on his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness.

For the past thirty-five minutes, he, Kalana, Ruby, and the war-mount had torn their way through so many of the mobs that Zach couldn’t begin to guess how many they’d killed. Not only had they had to cut down group after group of the ones that either stood in their way on the path or wandered back and forth along it, but occasionally they’d triggered an alarm and had to deal with reinforcements from nearby villages. Sometimes, these alarms would even cause mobs that they’d already killed—and had recently respawned—to join the swarm of angry Avislicers. There was also the infrequent wagon that aggroed onto them, increasing the pressure and intensity of the nonstop combat.

Several times, Zach—and now Kalana, too—had tried to call out various things to the Avislicers regarding the king of the slug clan, hoping to unlock more of that weird quest stuff in order to bypass having to deal with some of the mobs in their way. But so far, they hadn’t been able to spark anything like the earlier event, which meant they’d had to fight their way all the way over here to the front gates of the walled-in mini-city.

Given the sheer number of enemies that’d stood in their path, it was incredible they’d managed to push through as fast as they had; naturally, a lot of that was due to the presence of Ruby and his war-mount. And even despite the tremendously reduced experience points per kill on each of the mobs, the four of them had slain such a ridiculous number of Avislicers that Zach had still earned more than 120k xp from it all.

To Next Level

169,632/215,000

I just can’t believe this place is real, Zach thought, caught in a perpetual state of amazement. It’s like we’re on a different planet and not Galterra.

Although slaying the same few types of Avislicer mobs over and over had quickly become monotonous, it never stopped being captivating to Zach. This was because he’d gone almost all of his life without ever seeing a mob outside of the yearly, publicly broadcast tournaments, and now here he was, finding himself inside of something akin to a little kingdom with thousands of them inhabiting it. It was yet another sharp reminder of just how different Galterra thousands of years ago must have been from the Galterra that was lived in today.

“You ready to keep going?” Zach asked. “We’re almost there.”

Fewer than two-hundred feet ahead of them was the end of the gravel-covered road, whereupon a giant metal gate served as the shuttered entrance to a miniature, city-like cluster of antiquated-looking structures. From the defenses atop the stone wall and the movement that could be seen from Avislicers scurrying about, Zach knew they would not have any easier a time getting inside than they’d had fighting their way over here.

With a nod of her head and a quickly flashed thumbs-up, Kal indicated she was good to go. Even still, Zach worried he was pushing her too hard; if not for his sword, he would be crawling on the gravel right now, too exhausted to continue walking upright on two feet let alone resume battling all these strange bird-human mobs. Yet he'd been pretty lucky with his stamina proc: very lucky, in fact. Or maybe it wasn’t luck at all and was simply the natural result of slashing so many mobs so many times with his blade that it was inevitable. Either way, the result was the same: Zach was still at full stamina and his duration of Unleashed Phase had skyrocketed to an unbelievable 1:23:04.

It was almost getting to the point of being worrying. What would he do if it continued to rise? What if he ended up with a duration lasting several days by the time they were done with this quest? Certainly, he didn’t think Kal would want to sleep in the same bed as him while he was glowing and shooting off embers and black smoke.

Realizing this, Zach had begun to liberally make use of his various abilities during the past half hour, throwing out Wave Slashes, Phase Slashes, and a few Phase Cannons with regular frequency. It was partially why they were able to push through as fast as they had. Yet even that hadn’t been enough to stop the steady increase of his remaining duration. And now that they had nearly arrived at what Zach was sure would turn out to be the quest location, he decided not to hold back and to use as many abilities as he wanted.

He eyed four mobs atop the wall ahead of them in the distance that were standing before the ballistae as though intent on firing the moment one or more eligible targets came into range. With his stats as high as they were, Zach didn’t think the ancient-looking war machines were actually capable of seriously harming him, but even still, he saw little reason to take any unnecessary chances. So with that thought in mind, he extended his palm, fired off four consecutive Phase Cannon attacks, and destroyed the machines along with the Avislicers nearby that were waiting to operate them.

Unlike his Wave Slash, which traveled—and very often cut—straight through wherever it was aimed, and unlike Phase Slash, which dealt a heavy, but concentrated burst of damage to a single target, Zach’s Phase Cannon exploded wherever it struck, and so it damaged anything near its location of impact in addition to whatever it hit, making it very useful for attacking enemies that happened to be grouped together; this, he’d learned on the way over here. Having had so much excess duration on his Unleashed Phase to spare, he’d finally gotten the chance to experiment with his abilities, and he was rapidly gaining a feel for what was best to use in any given situation. Right now, his Phase Cannon was ideal.

Thus, one after the next, his hand snapped and recoiled with each use of the ability; four consecutive bangs were followed by four consecutive booms along with a series of cracks thrown into the mix. Zach watched with satisfaction as each ballista was blown apart into many different pieces along with the unusually low-HP Avislicers that were operating them, all of which died in a single hit.

HP

0/8,000

Name

Avislicer Engineer

Level

44

Immediately after, a pillar of smoke rose from a small area on top of the wall where he’d concentrated his fire. At the same time, his war-mount gagged up its own cannon and fired it several times as well, exploding several crossbow-wielding Avislicers farther along the wall while Kalana summoned meteors down on top of several more in a separate section. Scanning the wall with his eyes, Zach began to unleash several more Phase Cannons wherever he saw trouble, and for a short while, the warm air filled with the constant sound of destruction as the three of them obliterated the mini-city’s defenses and vaporized nearby Avislicers—and all while blasting away numerous bits of stone and brick, sending plenty of both scattering.

The combined power of their assault made it so that before another half a minute had come and gone, they’d eliminated all of the defenses atop the wall and had left huge chunks of it missing near the central gate—earning Zach yet another 10k experience points in the process. And with that, he reckoned they should now be able to approach the city’s entrance safely.

Wow, we sure tore the wall up, Zach thought, amazed. They’d left holes and cracks in so many different sections that it almost looked like they’d bombed it—just like the Royal Roses had bombed Shadowfall Coast right before Zach had butchered so many people so fast that he couldn’t even recall how many of them he’d actually killed.

Stop it, he warned himself as a sinking feeling of fear entered into his chest. The fear wasn’t because of the memory in his head but more so the worry that it would cause him to become a bit “off” like before. You got this out of your system already, remember? So just stop it. Do you want her to think you’re fucking crazy? Pull it together.

For just the briefest moment, his lips sank into a frown. Yet he caught himself right away and promptly reverted to a smile before Kalana had a chance to see it. Yet even still, the dismay he felt in his heart must have somehow come through on his face, because after turning towards him, Kalana tilted her head curiously as though spotting his rising fear. Then she slightly opened her mouth as if worried; thinking quickly, Zach improvised. He took a deep breath then sighed, pushing it all away.

“Sheesh,” he said, watching as more plumes of smoke rose up into the air from the various destructive abilities dished out by him, Kal, and his war-mount. “All this effort for a few healing stones that we won’t even get to keep.”

Kalana studied his expression a moment as if uncertain. “I thought you looked upset just now. Is it ‘cause you’re mad about money again?”

Zach forced a laugh. “Just a passing thought. Don’t worry about it. I guess I’m still coping with the fact we’re giving our hard-earned healing stones away.”

Kalana elbowed him playfully, reminding Zach that, even despite her apparent exhaustion, she still had plenty of energy left in her. “It’s for a good cause!”

“That’s right,” Ruby agreed, nodding twice then licking Kalana’s face. “It’s for a good cause.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Okay, I’m fine, he thought.

Together with Kal, Ruby, and his war-mount, he proceeded down the last stretch of gravel-covered road until the gravel changed into a paved, tiled pathway as they at last arrived at the foot of the metal gate. It was a massive, impenetrable-looking structure that spanned the entire distance from the ground to the top of the wall and loomed over him like an unmovable giant. The sight of it threatened to rouse the part of Zach’s brain responsible for level-1 thinking, though not for long. He soon reminded himself that nothing was impenetrable. And hell, even if it was, it still wouldn’t matter because if he jumped as high as he could, he’d easily clear the fifty-foot wall and land back down directly inside the mini-city. Yet given that he’d have no clue what kind of situation would be waiting for him, he thought it better to first try going through the gate.

For a moment, he stared up at it in contemplation, but not a few seconds later, he turned his eyes to regard Kalana. “You know, I bet I can just kick it really hard and knock it down—or at the very least punch a hole straight through it.”

Kalana sheathed her daggers then flicked her chin with her index finger a few times as if in thought. “Umm, yeah, that’ll probably work. You could also use your ring-thingy, too.”

“True,” Zach said, nodding. “My blasting ring.”

“Ohh, is that what it’s called?”

“Yup.”

Gesturing with his chin for her and Ruby to take a few steps back, he spread his legs, planted his feet, and prayed he didn’t get sent flying. Raising his arm and making a fist, he pointed the ring directly at the metal gate and prepared to activate it. Yet a mere instant before he unleashed a massive beam almost certainly powerful enough to blast right through the entrance, he shook his head and lowered his arm, unclenching his fist in the process.

“Actually, that’s a bad idea, Kal.”

“Huh? How come?”

“Because we have no idea where the king of the slug can is, and if for some reason he’s standing on the other end of that gate, the beam from my ring will go right through it and probably kill it, and then we’ll fail the quest. The same goes for bashing or kicking the gate in and sending it flying. With my luck, it’ll end up slamming into the king of the slug clan and squishing it.”

Kalana released a nervous chuckle. “Oh, right. Good thinking, baby. You do have really bad luck when it comes to kicking down doors.”

“Don’t even remind me,” Zach grumbled as he recalled that freak, one-in-a-million “incident” in Yorna’s just a few days ago. Kalana had said something that pissed him off, and so in anger, he’d bashed in the door that led from B9 to B10 only to have it ricochet off a wall an entire flight of stairs below them and come right back up before crashing into Zach.

I definitely have bad luck with door-bashing, he thought with a shudder.

“So…what should we do?” Kalana asked. She glanced around as if searching for something. “I dunno if we can open it from this side. The chain-thingy that makes it go up and down is on the other end.”

Zach thought for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers as an idea popped into his head relatively quickly. “I can use my Phase Cannon,” he said. “It’ll probably destroy it without risking too much damage to whatever—or whoever—is inside the city. It’s not completely risk-free, but it’s better than kicking it in or using my ring.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said with a cute smile.

Zach nodded at her, and she returned with a nod of her own. Then he oriented his body so that he once more faced the metal gate. With that, he lifted his arm yet again, though this time, instead of making a fist, he extended his hand with his palm flat and pointing in the direction of the gate. Now, with his target before him, he activated Phase Cannon. Right away, his arm jolted backwards as a deep, ominous boom echoed off the wall and gate in front of him while a muzzle-like flash—only far brighter—briefly flickered in front of his hand.

Given the very short distance between where he stood and the gate he was firing on, almost instantly after the boom came a loud cross between a bang and a ping, one that actually seemed to reverberate and have a louder echo than the initial sound. Following this, a screeching, grating sort of noise briefly rang out as the gate became dislodged from its roundish frame; then, finally, there was another loud, startling bang as it flopped backwards and crashed into the ground, causing a slight sensation of vibration beneath Zach’s two feet. The impact with the ground also caused a screen of dust to rise into the area, obscuring his view of whatever lay beyond, yet it only lasted a few moments and quickly settled. But as it faded, Zach’s eyes detected motion, and now, he could see that several forms were heading their way.

“It looks like we’ve got a bunch of mobs coming,” he said, readying his sword. To his side, he could hear Kalana unsheathe her daggers. “I guess knocking down the gate caused me to aggro whatever was right behind it.”

“Be careful, Zach,” Kalana said in warning. “These ones are higher level.”

“How do you know?”

“I can see them.”

“Through the dust?”

“Mhm. Elvish eyes, remember?”

“Oh yeah, right.”

Due to the dust that’d been kicked up, it took Zach a bit longer than Kalana to see what was heading their way, and when he did, he saw that Kalana was indeed correct—and that these were definitely higher-level mobs. Thus far, everything they had fought in the Avikin Grounds had been between levels 27 and 40 and were not particularly difficult to deal with. Zach didn’t think the pack of mobs sallying out to face them would be too much worse, either, but he decided to be cautious and stay on guard just in case.

As mob after mob emerged from within the city, Zach wasn’t able to tell just yet how many of them were coming at them, but it was definitely more than a dozen. And as the first of them came into view, his eyes were immediately drawn to it. Keenly, he observed the bird-headed, human-bodied mob that was moving directly towards him.

These guys look like they mean business.

HP

95,000/95,000

Name

Avislicer Guardsman A

Level

52

Unlike the other Avislicers he’d fought so far, these ones were taller, bulkier, and had thicker patches of hair on their shoulders along with thicker wings. They also wore armor, too: shiny, glistening armor that cast off the sun’s rays and could actually sting Zach’s eyes if observed from certain angles. They also wielded massive, two-handed greatswords that looked daunting and deadly. There were five of these creatures in total—at least so far that Zach could see—and each one made loud, angry squawks as they stormed their way over to Zach. Oh, and one of them spoke.

“Defend the city!” the leading one cried. “Zachys Caldor, the human, and Kalana Vayra, the Elvish female, and Ruby Vayra, the raptor female, have all come for the slug king. They will not succeed!”

Upon hearing these words, Zach had really hoped it’d be like before where he’d have options of things to say in response that he could pick from, but nope, the bird guy just kept marching his way towards him and Kalana with four others behind him and quite a few more behind those. And though Zach did not require their confirmation—as he had already decided to rely on his own judgement regarding something’s sentience—the fact that Ruby’s name had been mentioned but not his war-mount strongly suggested that Zach was correct about the uh…the hell was it called again? The thing that Ruby was. It was on the tip of his tongue. Oh, for fuck’s sake, the bird thing just said it a second ago. It was something with an “r.” What the hell was she…oh, oh yeah, right! Raptor. It suggested that he was right about the raptor having become self-aware. Zach flicked his eyes in Kalana’s direction to glean if she was thinking the same thing.

She wasn’t. Her mind was on something else entirely.

“Awwh!” she squeaked excitedly. “He called you Ruby Vayra. That means you have my last name. That’s so, so cute. I love you, Ruby.”

“I love you too, mommy Kalana. We’re best friends now.”

Kalana’s cheeks puffed up. “Zach! Zach, look at how adorable and well-behaved Ruby is,” she said, petting the top of her rough, scaly head. Each pat caused the raptor’s tongue to lick the air almost as if it were an automatic reaction to being pet. “Do you see how cute she is?”

“Yeah, so cute,” Zach muttered dryly.

“She’s such a good girl. Maybe she can set a good example for Fluffles.”

“Totally,” he said with a roll of his eyes.

Fluffles is just as well-behaved, he thought to himself defiantly and defensively. He is! Kind of. Sometimes. He’s just as good a boy. I don’t care what anybody says. My cat is the best.

With a rush of enemies closing in, Zach shut down the extraneous thoughts and focused his attention on fighting. “Focus up, Kal. We’ve got mobs to fight.” He inhaled. “Wave Slash!”

Several of the mobs were oriented in a line, and Zach saw this as an opportunity to hit a bunch of them. He sliced the air diagonally downwards with his blade, leaving behind a green, patchy, cloud-like clump of energy, which quickly reformed itself into a double-bladed disc that took off in the direction of the rapidly approaching mobs.

Though there wasn’t enough distance for the Wave Slash to reach maximum speed—the point at which it would ignite and shoot flames and likewise deal its maximum damage—it did come close. At the very least, it traveled fast enough to begin giving off its high-pitched whine when it tore a hole directly through the armored chest of the leading Avislicer Guardsman—Avislicer Guardsman A—dealing 32,900 damage and causing a spray of blood to stain the paved entryway along with several feathers that floated slowly to the ground.

Continuing onwards, the Wave Slash struck Guardsman B for 19,211 damage, C for 17,403, and it narrowly missed D—but did manage to cut off a piece of E’s shoulder blade for 11,405 before at last breaking apart midair and fading from existence. The impact also caused all four of the struck mobs to stagger somewhat, putting them outside of the straight line needed to hit them all with a second Wave Slash. Thankfully, their proximity to one another was still close enough for Zach to use his newest ability: Phase Cannon.

Removing his right hand from his blade and throwing his palm forward, he fired his Phase Cannon three times in a row, which gave way to three booms and three flashes. Each Phase Cannon was then accompanied by a chorus of loud squawks as well as a scattering of blood and numerous bundles of feathers and hair. Zach’s primary target, Avislicer Guardsman A, suffered a perfectly even 22,000 damage from the first blast, whereas B took 10,405, C took 11,506, and there was just too much going on for Zach to both see and mentally register what D and E took, though he was sure from the way they flinched, bled, and lost feathers, he’d hit them both as well.

Because of how quickly the second Phase Cannon landed after the first, the damage numbers all seemed to blend together, making it far more difficult for Zach to continue mentally taking stock of which mob took what. He was sure that A was hit for 20,007 and E was hit for 13,210, but the rest was just a blur. The same was true of the third blast, in which Avislicer Guardsman A was punished for another 20,110, and E was like…uh, maybe 12,500 or somewhere abouts. There were too many feathers floating around and blurred numbers for him to be sure.

Now, slowed—but not halted—the five Avislicer Guardsmen quickly recovered and continued their charge, each having been depleted to some extent—especially Avislicer Guardsman A, who had gaping wounds all over his body, which was leaving behind puddles of blood as it hurried forward somewhat unevenly, squawking each step of the way.

HP

20,093/95,000

Name

Avislicer Guardsman

Level

52

Flourishing his blade several times, Zach then slashed it downwards and yelled out, “Phase Slash!”

From the tip of his sword, a visible, rippling distortion in the air made its way with incredible speed towards the badly damaged Avislicer mob, and along with it came the eerily loud, high-pitched sound that was akin to closing a zipper on a jacket, only tremendously louder. In less time than the blink of an eye, the Phase Slash reached Zach’s target, and in way that was similar to what had happened when using it on the roller-skating mobs in Archian Prime, the Avislicer popped upon impact—simply popped, sending steaming, smoking clumps of gore and bone a short distance up into the air before thankfully landing onto the paved entryway to the city without any getting on Zach. A big piece of arm did come close, though; with a thwack, it landed right in front of his feet.

+2050xp

Zach could only imagine how much more the mob would have been worth if it hadn’t been for Kalana, his war-mount, and Ruby. Since all three were higher level than both Zach and the mobs they were fighting, the xp penalty was pretty steep. Even still, it was better than nothing, and Zach had plenty of time left on Unleashed Phase to quickly earn himself some more: over an hour, in fact.

Unleashed Phase Duration

1:07:05 Remaining

Grinning, Zach eyed Avislicer Guardsman B. This one was also pretty banged up, though not quite to the extent A had been, which was to be expected since it hadn’t been the primary target of any of the attacks. Nevertheless, Zach didn’t think he’d have too much of an issue putting a quick end to the creature.

HP

54,384/95,000

Name

Avislicer Guardsman

Level

52

Swinging his sword, raising it, and then swinging it a second time, Zach threw out another two rapid Phase Slashes, both of them aimed at Avislicer Guardsman B. The first one caused its entire upper torso to detonate and rip open, revealing bones, a heart, and its ribcage while dealing 39,310, and the second hit for 36, 207 and resulted in the “pop,” which Zach was beginning to realize happened whenever his Phase Slash struck the killing blow on a mob for significantly more HP than it had left to give. He saw the +2050xp pop up into the air as the mob’s superheated, sizzling, and smoking insides splattered randomly down in all directions.

With so much time to work with, Zach let loose a chain of abilities with a seamless rapidity that he never would’ve imagined doing before today. With no concern for time, he sent another Wave Slash hurtling forward, followed by two more uses of Phase Cannon, and then a couple of Phase Slashes to clean up. By the time he was done, all but Avislicer Guardsman E had perished, and this one did actually manage to make it to Zach, albeit in awful shape. The creature’s armor was mostly gone—having been blown off—and it was bloodied in more places than Zach could count. It was also down to less than 8,000HP.

With a squawk, it raised both its arms and whirled its blade with tremendous force down on Zach. Given that this was a creature in its 50s, Zach was not willing to take any chances. With careful precision, and using all of his strength, he swung his sword from right to left, striking his enemy’s greatsword and succeeding in knocking it away. Then he swung in the opposite direction—left to right—and ripped his blade across the mob’s chest, dealing 17,903 damage and eliminating it.

+2,050xp

As it vanished from the world, Zach again flourished his sword. The first five out of the gate were dead, and many more were approaching: a far more significant number of them, in fact. Too many for him to bother stopping to count. Thankfully, he was not alone. Ruby and his Kralzek’s Beast both darted forward into battle, and so too did Kalana. Zach began to charge in with them, but he stopped as Kalana called out to him in warning.

“No! We’ve got the Guardsmen mobs covered,” she said. “You gotta go after the sorcerers and the healers!”

“The what?”

She pointed with her dagger. Just beyond the gate, Zach saw that several small groupings of mobs were hanging back and not coming any closer. Both looked very similar: they were stubby, far shorter than the Guardsman, wore robes, and all were carrying a staff. But there was one difference to behold: some of these mobs had long, human-like beards hanging down from their beaks, whereas others didn’t. Aside from that, it was difficult to tell them apart other than looking at their name, level, and HP, which were decidedly different. The ones with the beards were sorcerers, which Zach assumed meant they’d fight like mages, and the ones without them were healers.

I had no idea mobs could heal other mobs.

HP

55,000/55,000

Name

Avislicer Sorcerer

Level

55

HP

35,000/35,000

Name

Avislicer Cleric

Level

50

“Are you sure you’ll be okay, Kal?” he asked.

“I will. Promise!”

“I will protect mommy Kalana,” Ruby assured him.

He smiled at her, and it wasn’t forced. Then he used Phase Blink to quickly move beyond the rush of greatsword-wielding, Avian warriors that were gunning for Kalana, Ruby, and his war-mount. Now, following the sensation of the world shifting, he found himself behind all of them and directly in front of a loudly squawking, staff-wielding Avislicer, whose staff began to glow a bright fiery orange as though it were casting something.

“Oh no you don’t!” Zach shouted. He had no idea what the creature was doing, but he was not going to simply stand by and let it happen. Lashing out with his blade, he was pleased to discover that, despite being a level-55 mob, the Avislicer Sorcerer took far more damage from his blade than he would have expected, proving itself to be weak to melee attacks. Even with 55,000HP, it only took two strikes of Zach’s blade to put an end to the mob, the first hitting for 43,700 and the second hitting for 40,107.

+2500xp

The same was true about the angrily squawking sorcerer beside it. Much like its friend, its staff began to shine a fiery orange, and Zach took it down in two quick strikes—or at least, he should have. But after his first strike nearly decapitated the robe-wearing, bipedal avian, its body began to light up and give off little blue sparkling lights, and its HP miraculously rose back to full. It was only after paying attention to his peripheral vision that Zach saw one of the healers off to his right casting a spell on it.

With an even greater speed, Zach struck out twice more, landing each hit fast enough so that he killed the sorcerer before it could be healed, the first ripping open its throat and the second carving a crater into its chest. It also caused a return of the green aura as his stamina buff proc’d, helping him to regain some of the considerable time he’d spent just in the past few moments; still, he had just shy of an hour left on his duration.

“This shouldn’t be too hard,” he whispered to himself. “I’ve been in tough spots before. This isn’t one of them. All I need to do is—wait a minute, is that…? Oh, shit. It is!”

Zach’s thoughts took a sudden, immediate turn as he spotted something ahead of him. For the first time, he was able to really take a look at the walled-in city, and it was so breathtakingly incredible. He just couldn’t believe that this was real. There were several streets with “homes” lining both sides, and all along these streets as well as in front of each home—and likely inside—were mobs. There were mobs everywhere. There were carts and wagons riding up and down the streets, and there were a few open spaces that had large concentrations of them just standing around and sort of…well, “existing.”

Many of these mobs had likely been standing in one spot and doing nothing for thousands of years. And the ones casually walking up and down the streets had likely been pacing back and forth for just as long. Just waiting: for thousands of years. Waiting for someone to come into this surreal mini-city and fight them. Unfortunately, they’d be waiting a bit longer—or maybe forever—because the idea of fighting his way through this walled-in den of Avislicers was not one he could entertain. This place was jam-packed with so many mobs he actually became intimidated at the idea of what would happen if they all aggroed him at once. Despite having just gotten here, he was more than ready to leave.

And then he saw it.

In the center of the city just at the end of a two-way street lined with primitive, cabin-like homes on both sides, and tied to a chair large enough to seat ten normal-sized people, Zach spotted a tremendous, neon-blue-colored, crown-wearing slug creature with a name above his head that was visible even from this distance written in bold green lettering.

HP

??/??

Name

Rup-Rup, the King of the Slug Clan

Level

85

Even as Zach was casually flicking his wrist and decapitating a healer with his sword, which earned him +1500xp, he widened his eyes at the sight of slug king. Finally, he found the guy. Though, all things considered, he—or it—was really hard to miss. Like the “peons” that Zach had fought with Kalana, the “slug” king looked more humanoid than slug. Though it had two long antennae attached to the top of its vaguely slug-like face, and though it peered out at the world from behind two big orange dots that passed for eyes, the slug king had hands, feet, and a torso. It was actually kind of like the Avislicer mobs in that regard; though, in all honesty, the Avislicer mobs did look more bird than the slug king looked slug. If nothing else, it did give off a constant dripping of slime.

By far, however, the slug king’s most noticeable feature was its size. Ten people combined would still be smaller than the massive, neon-blue NPC that they had been searching for. Gods, it was huge. But even more important than its size was its distance. A nervous pinch worked its way into Zach’s stomach as he stared in awe at the sheer number of various Avislicer mobs that separated where he currently stood with where he’d need to go in order to reach the slug king.

Ducking down to his knees, a spinning, rotating disc made of an eerily reddish fire sailed over his head. Jumping back up, Zach spun around and swung his sword in a circular arc, cutting the entire head off the sorcerer that had fired it before lunging towards another.

This is bad, he thought. I don’t think we can do this.

As Zach craned his neck and took in his immediate surroundings, he became confused: very much so. Something wasn’t quite adding up.

Right now, Kalana, Ruby, and his war-mount were doing just fine: better than fine, actually. The three were making steady progress killing off the remaining few mobs that had charged out of the gate, and at their current pace, they’d be entering the city shortly. Even still, it was not nearly good enough.

Already, Zach could see mobs respawning from the direction of the gravel-covered road behind them, and he could hear an alarm being activated from a nearby village—which meant even more mobs were heading to Kalana. Naturally, she’d have to deal with them. But by the time she did that, some of the ones Zach had killed would probably have respawned. And assuming she killed all of those, they’d have to then begin an incredibly slow and difficult journey towards the slug king, who was only a few blocks away but may as well have been a few-hundred miles away for all that it mattered.

This can’t be right, he thought.

The sheer, unfathomable number of mobs that they would have to deal with to get to their quest NPC was such that Zach was forced to conclude the task was well and truly impossible. Despite the quest recommending just three to five adventurers between levels 45 and 50, Zach estimated that fighting their way through would require something closer to fifteen or maybe even twenty. There were just that many of them.

In fact, even now, as he fought to take down more of the healers before they could aid their fellow Avislicers, in the corner of his eyes, Zach spotted nine Avislicer Guardsmen exiting a medium-sized hut not far from the two-way street that led to the king of the slug clan. All nine turned and charged in Zach’s direction. He had no idea whatsoever how he’d aggroed them, but clearly, he had.

This is actually impossible, he thought.

Unless he was missing something here—and he didn’t think he was—then even with the help of Ruby and his war-mount, the best he and Kal could hope for would be to fight to a constant standstill right by the entrance to the city, never making any progress forward but managing to avoid being pushed back. Given the fairly expedient respawn rate of the Avislicers, there was no chance in hell that they could actually push through.

And even if they did, what then? How were they even supposed to save the king? Were they supposed to untie him and then slowly lead him out while fighting their way back through everything which would have respawned by that point?

Why would the quest say 3-5 members? Zach wondered, becoming agitated and frustrated at the same time. It’s clearly impossible. There’s just no way.

Backing away slightly, Zach chewed on his lip as he tried to make sense of things. Then the first of the Avislicer Guardsman mobs reached him, and from the way its two-handed greatsword caused the air to whine as it cut straight downwards through it, Zach didn’t even bother to risk blocking. He instead leapt backwards and out of harm’s way.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw that, as predicted, the first 5 Avislicer Guardsman mobs he’d killed had now respawned, forcing Kalana, Ruby, and the war-mount to deal with them. They hadn’t even entered the city yet. From the look of disappointment on Kal’s face, Zach could tell that she, too, was realizing that this was a task that they simply did not have the numbers for.

So was the quest lying? Or mistaken?

Assuming it wasn’t, then what the hell were they expected to do here? With absolute certainty, fighting their way to the slug king was something he could rule out. Not with hundreds of mobs in the 50s to beat their way through. So what did that leave? Sneaking? Sure, he could turn invisible or Phase Blink his way there, but given the size of the mob, what would it matter? If he tried to carry that huge mob out he’d just end up getting stabbed over and over while his arms were wrapped around it.

He could potentially use Boundless and Phase Rescue, and in fact, with the gate knocked down, that would actually not be a terrible idea since the only requirement for Boundless was that he could physically see whatever he was targeting. Done that way, he could easily bring the king of the slug clan straight to him from a much safer position. But that just didn’t feel right. Not because he thought of it as “cheating” or whatever, but because the quest couldn’t possibly have intended for that to be the solution. For all he knew, the quest might not even “work” properly unless he physically moved to the king’s location. How could he be sure the king would even follow him and not stand around like a statue if he used Phase Rescue?

These, along with numerous other questions, plagued his mind and made him feel uncertain. Put simply, it just wasn’t clear what, specifically, they were meant to do. In fact, the only thing that was clear was what they could not do, and in that case, it was any attempt at fighting their way to the king and back. It was out of the question. But then…if fighting could be ruled out, what did that leave them as far as their options were concerned?

Maybe we have to try talking to these things again, he thought. It’s at least worth a shot now that we know it’s something that can actually matter and lead to things happening.

Scrambling back and away from the nine greatsword-wielding, armor-wearing bird-men, all of which were gunning straight for him, Zach sucked air into his lungs and then opened his mouth. As loudly as he could, he shouted, “Hand over the king of the slug clan!”

Zach waited a moment—and nothing happened. Then he waited another moment, but still, there was no discernible change around him. Finally, realizing that nothing was going to happen, he swore viciously at the mobs. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t react to that either. But Kalana, on the other hand, did. At the moment, she was still just outside the toppled gate, which was close enough to Zach’s position so as to be within earshot. And having clearly overheard what Zach had just attempted to do, she now seemed like she wanted to give it a try of her own.

“Give us the king of the slug clan, you mean birds!” she shouted. Like Zach, her words were clearly intended for no specific mob and were instead meant for the general area around her. “We want the king of the slug clan!”

“Give us that,” Ruby chirped in agreement. “Give us the thing mommy Kalana says she wants!”

Following this, a few seconds came and went before Zach felt comfortable concluding that their attempts had also failed. As he continued to think on the problem, he dashed backwards to evade a strike from the massive sword of the mob in front of him, which slammed into the pavement with such force that a piece of stone actually got kicked up and bopped him painlessly on the side of his head.

“Did you hear us?” Zach shouted, ignoring it and trying yet again. “We’re here for the king of the…”

Zach ended his words with a sigh, and he shook his head rather than finish his sentence. This was because he realized he was only wasting his time, energy and breath. Why even bother? They’d just tried that and it didn’t work. All he’d end up doing would be yelling and making himself desperate as he shouted the same thing at a bunch of lifeless mobs over and over again. So instead, he tried a different, but similar course of action.

“Hand over the king of the slug clan, or I’ll kill you all!” he threatened. He held his breath and waited for a reply, but still there was no reaction from any of the mobs. Nothing at all. Annoyed, he cursed in frustration as he guarded against a greatsword attack that was so powerful it caused his arms and wrists to ache with the shock of absorbing it. “Give us the king of the slug clan and uh…I’ll give you a rare item.”

When that also didn’t work, he licked his lips and thought of something else he could try saying; before he had the chance, however, Kalana beat him to it. “Umm, please give us the king of the slug clan and we’ll be your friend,” he heard her say from behind him.

Nothing.

“Give us the king of the slug clan and we’ll give you gold,” Zach half-shouted, half spoke.

Nothing.

Kalana grunted with what sounded like combat-related exertion then called out, “Give us the king of the slug clan and we won’t hurt anybody.”

Nothing.

Zach thought for a second before trying again as he and Kal settled into a pattern of taking turns trying whatever they could come up with. “If you give us the…” Zach cut himself off mid-sentence and reworded his statement into a question. Loudly, he said, “What do you want in exchange for the king of the slug clan? Can we trade you something for the king?”

In truth, Zach genuinely did not believe that was going to work either, and indeed, like all the attempts before, he concluded after just a second or two that this attempt had also failed. Yet as Kalana began to voice another question of her own, the Avislicer Guardsman in front of Zach made a strange movement. Rather than press forward, the mob, whose greatsword was held high and was about to be slammed down on top of Zach, decided to take a full step backwards before lowering the weapon. And as it did so, the entire city abruptly became quiet. All at once, the noise from everything around him dropped off so suddenly that it was actually startling.

In unison, the sorcerers and healers stopped casting, the nine mobs that’d been pressing Zach came to a halt, and looking over his shoulder again, he saw that every one of them that’d been attacking Kal now stood down. His war-mount had also stopped attacking—even without his command to do so—but Ruby, on the other hand, made as if to bite a now stationary Avislicer Guardsman. She stopped only as Kal gave her a gentle but firm pat on the top of her head as if to indicate that she should pause.

Now, all three of them came hurrying over to Zach. He watched as they waded right through the mobs in front of them, which made no attempt to bar their passage. They remained perfectly frozen in some kind of inactive state. “Is it happening?” she asked, excitement in her voice and a smile on her face. “Did we…did we do it again?”

“I think so, Kal.”

She sheathed her daggers, he sheathed his sword, and then she wrapped her arms around his waist and briefly pulled him into a hug. “How did you know that would work?”

“I didn’t, but I kept trying it anyway because there’s no way this quest can be done with just three to five people: not if it requires fighting our way in and out. I figured there had to be some other way we were supposed to do this, and after the first couple of things didn’t work, I knew we still had to cross everything off the list before we concluded that speaking to them wouldn’t work either. That was why I—”

“So, you have come to barter with us!” interrupted an Avislicer sorcerer, which caused both Zach and Kalana to snap their heads in the direction of its voice. He watched as it exited one of the small wooden homes located along the two-way street about halfway to the king of the slug clan. It looked indistinguishable from any of the others, and it made a loud, angry squawking sound and flapped its wings in place before walking closer to where Zach stood next to Kalana, Ruby, and his war-mount.

“That is a bold move after all of our blood that you’ve spilled, Zachys Calador, the human male!”

Zach laughed. But on the inside, he was actually offended. For real. Something about the accusation rubbed him the wrong way and made him feel as if the blood in his face was draining away. Still, he got over it quickly and said, “And I’ll spill a lot more of it if you don’t give us what we want.” His words caused Kalana to glare at him. “What?” he said defensively, curling his lower-right lip. “It doesn’t matter what we say. You know that.”

“Nah-uh. It might. Don’t go accidentally getting us into trouble, you dork.”

“I’m not.”

“You better not.”

Taking her gaze off Zach, a look of wonder came across her eyes as she, along with Zach, watched the Avislicer Sorcerer draw nearer. It paused when it was only a few feet from the two of them.

“Frrragh! Why should we listen to anything you have to say?”

Zach excitedly waited for the list of possible replies to pop up, eager to see if he could scam these stupid birds out of another rare item. Yet, when nothing happened, he exchanged a confused look with Kalana as the two remained silent for nearly ten more seconds. Just as he was about to wonder aloud if something had gone wrong, the Avislicer continued to speak.

“Tell us why we should barter instead of killing you where you stand. Frrragh!”

And now, upon these words, they were finally given a chance to choose a response. Appearing out of thin air slightly ahead and above them, Zach was presented with a list of options to choose from, and with limited time to make a choice, he immediately began reading them over.

A: “Because there must be something in this world that will make you set aside your five-thousand-year-long war with the slug clan. Wouldn’t it be great to finally end the bloodshed?”

B: “Let us settle this with honor, then. Summon your strongest warrior and allow us to battle it!” [Teleport to Avislicer Arena]

C: “You’re right. We shouldn’t barter, and this isn’t a negotiation. Now, hand over a legendary item, 100,000 gold, and the king of the slug clan or mark my words: I shall slay every single one of you!” [50% chance of success. Failure = T2 (75%) or T3 (25%) consequence]

Time Remaining to Decide: 2:50

Almost at the exact same time that Zach finished reading, Kalana flashed him a look of dire warning, and before she said a word, Zach was already extending both his palms in her direction. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t worry, Kal. I’m not going with option C. Even I know that’s too risky.”

As tempting as a legendary item and 100k gold might have been, now that Zach knew what could possibly happen in the event of a T2 or T3 consequence, he was firmly against the idea of rolling the dice on it. Not even a 50% chance of success was high enough for him to risk him or Kal being sent to a “dungeon” for up to fifty years or having their body parts mutilated. No way. Not for just a 50% chance of success. Now, if it had been more like, say, 75% or higher…

As he chuckled at the thought, Kalana’s skepticism deepened, and he waved at her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Option C is definitely out of the question, I promise. I know it’s either got to be A or B.”

“It should be the first one,” Kalana said. “We should choose A.”

“Think so?”

She gave a quick bow of her head. “Yeah, ‘cause we have no idea what kind of thing we might be forced to fight if we choose B.”

“Yeah, but B seems like a way cooler option. Just think, Kal. We’ll be teleported to an arena. Maybe there’ll be thousands of mobs in seats watching us fight. It could be awesome.”

“I guess so, but Zach, it could also be death, too.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I think we should do A. If you really wanna try B, I guess I’m okay with it, but umm, definitely not C.”

“Fine, we’ll go with choice A.”

At this, her eyes seemed to light up. “Can I do it, baby?”

Zach again chuckled, but this time it was because he found her cute. “Go ahead.”

She made a giddy sound and stepped forward to tap her finger against the first selection. Then the choices screen vanished, her hands moved down to her sides, her body posture became more rigid, and with an impassioned, overly dramatic tone of voice, she said, “Because! There must be something in this world that will make you set aside your five-thousand-year-long war with the slug clan.”

Kalana stopped speaking and took several steps forward. She extended her hand and placed it on the Avislicer Sorcerer’s feathery shoulder. And honest to God, no bullshit: she actually shed several tears out of both of her eyes as she gritted her teeth a moment before saying, “Wouldn’t it be great? To finally end this bloodshed!”

The moment she finished speaking, she wiped her eyes, turned to Zach, and began to laugh uproariously, and so did he. “Holy shit,” he said. “I can’t believe what I just saw.”

“I can’t believe what I just did!”

“Were you actually sad, Kal?”

“Nope. I wasn’t even sure until just now I was crying. I just felt water in my eyes.”

Ruby made a moan and a grunt, causing both him and Kalana to look at the creature. “Is Mommy Kalana okay?”

“Ohhh, no, no, everything’s fine,” Kalana said, hurrying towards the raptor and kissing its nose. “I’m sorry if I scared you, Ruby. That’s supposed to happen. It’s how the quest works.”

The Avislicer Sorcerer shifted slightly so that it stood with a somewhat looser posture. Then its beak opened as it began to speak. “It’s not that we don’t want peace. It’s that the crimes of the slug clan’s ancestors still haunt us to this day.” Having spoken those words, it closed its mouth, felt silent, and did little for the moment but stare vacantly into the distance.

Kalana tapped Zach on the shoulder, and he turned to look at her. “I wonder what the slug clan did,” she whispered to him. Zach had to stifle a chuckle at the realization that Kalana was actually “getting into” this dumb storyline, which was clearly fictitious and not based on any real historical events. “What do you think they did, Zach?”

“I’ll tell you what they did!” the Avislicer shouted, abruptly becoming animated and causing Ruby to chirp in what Zach took as a sign of surprise. It then spread its wings, squawking loudly. “Frrragh! They robbed our people of our treasure and our lives. For centuries, the Avislicers were slaves to the slug clan. That is what they did!”

Once more, the mob stopped speaking. Zach and Kalana exchanged a brief glance. Then Kalana’s expression lit up. “It…it just answered my question,” she said, sounding shocked. “I thought it couldn’t understand anything we said. That was so cool!”

“It didn’t actually answer your question,” Zach said, feeling bad for putting an end to her awe and excitement. She scrunched her lips at him.

“What do you mean? You saw what just happened.”

Zach nodded. “Yeah, and I would’ve thought the same as you if I didn’t already know better. But the truth is that even if you’d said nothing at all, it still would’ve replied with the exact same words in the exact same way. It only said what it said based on the assumption that anyone standing where we’re standing would be likely to say we—or in this case, you—said.”

“And how do you know that?” Kalana asked, looking plainly unconvinced. Zach was more than happy to explain.

“The only reason I know this is because I learned it in Yorna during my fight with Moldark. Basically, some mobs or bosses or whatever go on these long-winded speeches, and then they pause in a way that seems really awkward until you realize why they do it. Basically, it’s to let adventurers, like, ‘participate’ in the story or whatever. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s weird. But it’s almost like they expect you to shout out responses or, I don’t know, ‘roleplay’ or something like that, which is just way too cheesy for me.”

“That sounds so fun!” Kalana said giddily and enthusiastically. “I didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t either until Moldark. He kept pausing each time he spoke about—”

Zach closed his mouth and let his words fall off as the Avislicer Sorcerer chose that exact moment to continue speaking. “Yes. I know it’s awful what they did to us. I don’t need you to tell me that. Frrragh!”

“See?” Zach asked with a smirk, extending his hand at the creature. Kalana’s only reply was to give him a playful smack on his butt.

Now, the two of them waited around for the Avislicer Sorcerer to continue speaking, though they did not wait very long. Just a handful of seconds passed, and the creature again flapped its wings. “Very well. There is perhaps one thing you can do to end this war and free the king of the slug clan, but it will not be so simple a task.”

A: “Name it and it shall be done.”

B: “On second thought, I’ve decided I feel like killing everyone and looting your corpses. Time for genocide! Prepare to die!” [Attack]

C: “Too much effort.” [Quest Failed]

Time Remaining to Decide: 0:45

“Not much to discuss on this one, yeah?” Zach asked.

“Mhm, this one seems pretty obvious.”

Not even needing five seconds of the time they’d been given to choose, Zach tapped the first option with his index finger, causing the options to fade away as he said, “Name it and it shall be done. Wow, no dramatic speech for me, huh?”

Kalana giggled. “Don’t pretend you wanted that.”

He shrugged. “I wanted to do it in the name of irony, Kal.”

“Maybe next time.”

Having made their selection, it was here that things started to become very, very strange as a spectacular series of events unfolded: one that happened fast and caused no shortage of confusion and amazement in equal measure. And it all began with a squawk as the creature came even closer to them.

Now, lifting its beak somewhat, the Avislicer Sorcerer said, “We of the Avislicers require the Eye of the Ohorja. It is the only thing that will convince me and my brothers to free the king and return him to you. Until you retrieve it, the king will be kept here—unharmed. But! As a gesture of good faith, you may feel free to reside here as a guest, and you may come and go as you please. You may also make use of our inn, our blacksmith, and our town’s item and weapon shops. Good luck, adventurers!”

FACTION INFORMATION AND STATUS UNLOCKED

Faction Added

Avislicers (Town Only)

Faction Status

Friendly

Without rhyme, reason, or explanation, so much happened all at once that Zach thought he’d become dizzy. From the moment the mob had finished speaking, the name of every single Avislicer inside this city—or “town,” whatever—turned green as if to symbolize that they were “friendly.” From a peek behind him, he saw that this didn’t appear to be true of any of those outside of the walls, such as all of the ones they’d had to fight through to get here. But wait. Did that then mean that all of the Avislicers within these walls would no longer attack or aggro onto them? That they could walk right up to the creatures without fear? It sure seemed to be the case—as difficult as it was to believe. Yet before Zach could even begin to process the significance of this, even more stuff started happening.

All around the mini-city or “town” or whatever the hell this place was, several Avislicers located in seemingly random locations now had shimmering, golden exclamation points floating above their heads. Zach had never seen anything like it before. And in fact, the king of the slug clan also had a floating, golden exclamation point above his head. What was that all about? And why did the “Avislicer Blacksmith” now have a giant, cartoonish illustration of a hammer and anvil above his head? This was just so Gods-be-damned confusing.

Yet before Zach could dedicate even a single brain cell to understanding what he was seeing, a musical, joyful, and celebratory jingle played for just a few seconds, coming out of nowhere and startling him. It seemed to have an echo to it as well, and it took Zach a moment to realize that this was because he was hearing it twice at the same time: one from the spot in front of his face, and one from where Kalana stood next to him.

“Da-da-da-duuum!”

The upbeat little jingle ended, and it was soon followed by a screen of information that materialized in the air.

QUEST COMPLETE! The King of the Slug Clan

Reward: +21,200xp, 8000g, 2x Red Rejuvenation Stone, 1x Yellow Rejuvenation Stone

For once, the utter, all-consuming confusion he felt was also on Kalana’s face; her mouth had popped wide open in what Zach took to be stunned surprise. Then Zach guffawed in both shock and glee as he realized that both he and Kalana had each gotten their own rewards. “Wait, time out. We don’t have to share the rewards?” he asked as three beautiful gemstones and a satchel filled with coins came into existence and landed softly onto the paved ground just as the same took place before Kalana.

“I…I guess not!” Kalana replied, sounding just as joyful. Then she poked him in the chest. “But you’re still giving me those stones to help heal the people in Den of Ziragoth.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m keeping the coins.”

She gave him a peck on the cheek. “Fine.”

Putting aside the loss of his beautiful stones—that could’ve made him filthy rich—he opened his mouth slightly as he attempted to word one of a series of questions, all of which he was sure was on Kalana’s mind, too: namely, what in the hell was going on here, why the hell was it going on, and most importantly, what did all of it mean? But he didn’t get a chance to ask it, as two more things happened, one followed by the next.

LEVEL UP!

23(22)

Intelligence

+20(167)

Dexterity

+10(124)

XP Required for Level 24

265,000

Kalana made what Zach could only describe as an “incomplete” gasp. She started to gasp, but then she quickly covered her mouth to stop herself. And though it was only there for a brief moment, Zach knew he did not mistake the flash of fear and uncertainty in her eyes that she wiped away so quickly he almost didn’t see it. Yet he chose not to dwell on it because, truthfully, his level up made him a little nervous, too. But only a little.

Reverting somewhat to the way he’d been feeling before the incident with Doomsday Slash, Zach was slowly coming to crave the power more than he feared it. But most of all, he was glad to finally have one of the “good” level ups. Though very slight, he could feel the increased hand-eye coordination from his +10 to dexterity, but only just barely, as it was relative to his current stats. And since the “Intelligence” stat did not refer to literal intelligence, he naturally felt no smarter than he did before. Yet he knew his Phase Cannon and blasting ring would now be moderately more powerful when used, and his Phase Slash would get a small boost as well.

“I was hoping for some more points into strength and constitution,” he said. Then he shrugged. “But this is still a pretty good level up.”

“Zach,” Kalana said. “That’s…that’s beyond ‘good.’ I can’t believe you can get that many points into anything on just one level up. I just hope you remember to—”

She gave up on whatever she’d been about to say as even more information popped into existence in front of the both of them.

Quest

Eye of Ohorja

Given By

Avislicer Sorcerer

Recommended Level

45-60

Recommended Raid Size

30+

Description

(Galterra-Wide): Congratulations to Zachys Calador, Kalana Vayra, and Ruby Vayra for discovering an event chain and unlocking the portal to Ohorja. Adventurers may now participate in the Ohorja Raid Event by speaking with Avislicer Mystic Saliquar in the Whispery Woods region and completing his quest to activate the portal.

Please note: to tamp down on excessive disturbances, Galterra-Wide Events can now only be triggered once every 7 days and remain active until the next update unless event conditions state otherwise. Likewise, unless stated, you are not required to have completed earlier quests in the chain to participate and continue on with the quests in this event chain.

It has been: 196504 days since the last update.

It has been: 356484 days since the last event.

Reward:

Eye of Ohorja, 1x Light Stone, Happy Monkey Companion

Quest Expires In

N/A

Zach felt like he needed to sit down. So much was happening around him, and he was so confused yet so stunned—and even a bit unsettled. And this only became more so the case as his phone began to ring while text messages and other notifications began flooding in. It started off slowly, yet it only took around thirty seconds before his phone began to freeze from the utter deluge of people all trying to contact him right this moment for some reason. At the exact same time, Kalana’s phone also began to ring and receive an influx of messages.

“The hell does everyone want all of a sudden?” Zach asked, ignoring it. It was probably political guild nonsense. He wanted no part of that.

Standing there with Kalana, he reread the quest a second time while trying to process the sheer magnitude of what was happening around him. He decided to just pause for a moment to slow down his thoughts and observe the town, which he was still not fully convinced was safe; actually, he really wanted to test that to be sure. And so, cautiously, he approached one of the greatsword-wielding Avislicer Guardsman mobs—in fact, one of the exact ones that had tried to kill him only moments ago—that was standing with its back to the western side of a primitive-looking cabin nearby.

“Hail, adventurer,” it said as Zach approached. It made no other moves and spoke no other words—at least not until Kalana walked over to Zach, at which point it once again said, “Hail, adventurer.” Aside from that, it stared vacantly out into the distance, completely unmoving.

“This is so crazy,” Zach said.

“I know, right? But it’s exciting, too.”

For several minutes, his phone continued to buzz and ring in his pocket, and now, even with all the questions burning a hole in his brain, Zach had a very bad feeling growing in the pit of his belly. For his and Kalana’s phones to be going nuts like this, something very serious must have happened. Maybe he should stop ignoring it. As he glanced down to see who was contacting him, he became even more nervous, and he knew right away that he would need to answer. With an uneasy look towards Kalana, he answered the call, put the caller on speaker, and then winced in anticipation of what he was about to hear.

“Mr. Oren,” he began. “Is everything all—”

“Zach!” Mr. Oren exclaimed. “Did…did you and Kalana just do something quest-related?”

“Yeah, but…wait, you know about that?” he asked with a gasp, confused.

“Yes, Zach! Everyone on the entire planet ‘knows’ about that, as every living being on Galterra just received the same quest. There’s mass panic going on right now all across the world. People are scared and confused, and we’re likely now in a state of global emergency. Every world leader across all races is now going to have to react to this and calm their people.”

As Zach stared at Kalana, he might as well have been looking into a mirror, because he knew that everything he was feeling was perfectly reflected on her face. In her visage, he saw the disbelief, bafflement, and shock that he too was feeling. He tensed up, struggling to believe what he was hearing even as he replied to it. And when he did, he spoke with a weaker voice than he intended, suddenly feeling a bit ill.

“Why?” he asked.

It was not the word he intended to speak. Really, he surprised his own self by asking this in the face of several other possible questions. And yet, of all things, his primary source of confusion was not about the nature of what had taken place, but rather, it was of the way that Mr. Oren claimed people were reacting to it.

“Why?” he asked again. “I don’t get it. It’s just a quest notification. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Not to you, my man. But to an elementary school teacher, a construction worker, or anyone else going about their daily lives, it’s a moment of confusion and terror, and people now need to be given answers. And with war breaking out, this is really not a good time for something like this to have happened.”

Blowing the air out of his lungs as it all seemed to hit him at once, Zach said, “Well, I didn’t do it on purpose, Mr. Oren. I swear to the Gods.”

“It’s true!” Kalana exclaimed, speaking up from where she stood next to him. “How were we supposed to know this was gonna happen?”

“You couldn’t,” Mr. Oren said. “Please don’t think I’m implying you’ve done something wrong. I for one did not know something like this could happen either or I would’ve warned you against it. So, to be perfectly clear, I don’t blame either of you, and I’m absolutely not upset. But this is a very, very, very serious issue even if it seems nonsensical to you. Right now, there are massive, worldwide disruptions taking place, and let’s just pray to the Gods there haven’t been any major DEHV or airplane accidents due to vision obstruction. Fortunately, the quest seemed to come in slightly above and partially outside of the peripheral vision of someone looking straight ahead, so my first instinct is to think that no one was blinded by it. Wait, hold on. Donovan’s calling. I’m conferencing him in.”

A moment later, Donovan’s voice bellowed over the speakers. “Zach, you amazing son of a bitch! The GSG’s losing their fuckin’ minds over here right now, kiddo. Gods, just when I thought I couldn’t love you any more than I already do, you go off and spawn a Gods-cursed world event you beautiful little bastard, you!”

“Donovan,” Mr. Oren said sternly, sounding both frustrated and annoyed. “That is absolutely not the takeaway that we should be—”

“Oh, shove it up your ass, Alex. I’m talking to the kid, not you. Hey, Zach, can you hear me?””

“Y-yeah,” he stammered nervously.

“Zephyr was with me when that quest popped up. Don’t you worry. We’re gonna find out how to unlock that portal, and I just wanna let you know, kiddo, you’ve got a guaranteed slot in reserve on the raid when we do. You’ll be with me in the very first raid group to take it down. No way anyone’s denying you that honor. The both of you will. When you get a chance, the Explorers Brigade wants to know everything that happened to unlock this. Oh, and don’t worry about the queen, Kalana. Your mom’s a nice girl deep down. She’ll get over it.”

“Get…over it?” Kalana asked. Now, she sounded nervous. And confused. They were both so confused—and nervous. And worried. Zach held her hand with the one opposite that which he was using to hold the phone, and he gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“What do you mean by that?” Kalana asked.

Rather than immediately reply, Donovan first let out a long, drawn-out, annoyed-sounding sigh. “Yeah, well…we just found out some bird fucker’s spawned right in the middle of the Bridge of Torment in Whispery Woods, and it’s caused a complete traffic standstill.”

“That’s a gross understatement of what’s happening,” Mr. Oren cut in. “The entire city of Whispery Woods is essentially shut down on the very first week of her mother’s new administration. Luckily, no one was harmed and the new Elvish authorities are rushing in to cordon off the bridge to prevent anyone from crashing into—and possibly aggroing—the quest NPC.”

At a whisper, Kalana said, “Uh oh. My mom’s calling me. And she’s sent me like five texts just now. She’s really, really mad, Zach.”

Zach rubbed his eyes, his hands still giving off impossibly black smoke. “Okay, look. She can’t blame us for this. And if she does, don’t forget she killed me and we can use guilt as a weapon against her if we have to.”

“Stop. That’s not funny.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“That’s totally inappropriate,” Mr. Oren said. “Absolutely not okay, Zach, either as a joke or otherwise.” He grumbled something that almost sounded like profanity but probably wasn’t. “Look, I have to go. I’m about to enter a zone of war, and now I have to deal with this on top of everything else. People are terrified and don’t understand what’s happening.”

The phone call ended before Zach could say another word. And now it was Kalana who put her phone on speaker. “Where are you two?” Fylwen’s irate voice blared through the speakers. “Do either of you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Mom, it wasn’t our fault. How were we supposed to know that—”

“You just shut down our entire economy, caused a level of panic greater than the dragon, and spawned a level-270…bird creature that’s walking around our most vital roadway and giving random level-1 humans quests. Kalana, I know this wasn’t intentional, and I know you didn’t mean for this to happen, but for the immediate future, if you and Zach wish to adventure outside of a dungeon, you’ll do so only on Archian Prime. You simply cannot gamble with the lives of billions by playing with ancient forces that no one has understood for nearly a thousand years.”

“All we did was a quest!” Kalana shouted, heat in her voice.

Somewhat more softly, her mother said, “I know, Kalana. I understand. If we’d had more time to talk, I could have told you from my experiences on Archian Prime that in the world of leveling—or what you call ‘adventuring’—there are unpredictable oddities and unforeseen consequences that can happen on occasion. Yet that is of no concern to us now. For the moment, you two shall do no further quests until I’ve had a chance to sort through all this. We’re already in the middle of a war to begin with, and now I must fly all the way to the Slopes of Dal’Zarrah for an all-hands emergency meeting over such insignificant rubbish while also trying to facilitate the construction of an entirely new bridge lane just to prevent the collapse of our economy. Take Zach home with you and rest. The both of you. Touch nothing else until I stop by later next week.”

Zach couldn’t take much more of this. “Uh, Fylwen, what do you mean no more quests?”

“My words were not unclear, young man.”

Zach swore. “Fine, but can we still hunt regular—”

“Absolutely not!”

“Why the hell can’t we?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” she asked. She sounded exhausted, frustrated, and overworked. Given everything going on in the world, Zach couldn’t blame her. And was he just imagining it, or was there a little boy’s voice in the background? He could’ve sworn he heard the sound of a young child calling out to her, but maybe he was hearing things.

“What don’t I get?” Zach asked.

She sighed. “The way things work outside of dungeons is very different from the way things work within them. Unless you have prior knowledge, you can’t ever predict what circumstances your actions will cause. For example, you may slay a mob that looks like a caterpillar once, and nothing will happen. Ten times, and still nothing. But the fiftieth time? Perhaps you activate a secret, unknown quest that spawns a flying, winged demon halfway across the planet, or some other strange occurrence you could never have predicted. None of this would be cause for concern or out of the ordinary thousands of years ago. But today? Very much so.”

Zach replayed her words in his head as he filled with disappointment. This was a major let down. Defiantly, he said, “Okay, remember when you promised to be my ally, and you—”

“You cannot guilt-trip me, young man,” she interrupted as though reading his mind. “This is not a personal request but a demand on behalf of the lives of those impacted. If you’d like to continue leveling, you’re free to do whatever you wish—in one of the dungeons or on Archian Prime, as the Elves who live there are not likely to be affected, and even if they are, there’s no event you can spawn that they or the vampires cannot handle. But until further notice, the Elvish hunting grounds on Galterra must remain untouched. It will not be for long. I promise you. And…I apologize for my temper. With all that’s been occurring, I should have realized this might happen. The failure here is mine, not yours.”

“This is bullshit,” Zach grumbled. “Fylwen, if you only knew what we just discovered you might change your mind. You might even run out here to see it yourself.”

“Oh? Really?”

“Yes,” Zach said. “Right now, believe it or not, me and Kal are standing together in a town filled with mobs, but all the mobs are friendly and there’s an actual item shop and a blacksmith. I’m not making this up. I swear it. So you can’t expect us to just turn around and—”

“Yes, I absolutely can, young man. And for your information, NPC towns are not a rarity on Archian Prime. Not a hundred miles west of where we met, there’s an entire village of NPC skeletons that sell lightning maces and fire swords. You’re welcome to visit it if you’d like. In fact, I encourage you to do so. But for now, you will kill nothing and do nothing on Elendroth until I arrive. Behave yourselves! Oh, and for the love of the Goddess Helena, who or what is ‘Ruby Vayra’?”

“I’m Ruby!” Ruby chirped.

“Who said that? Kalana, who is that girl?”

Kalana snickered. “Ruby’s my raptor, mom.”

“Your what?”

“I’ll explain later. I love you. Please don’t be mad at us.”

“I’m not mad at either of you. I’m upset by the situation. Now, behave yourselves and all will be well. Shh. Settle down, Peter.”

“Huh?” Zach asked. “What was that?”

“It’s nothing. There’s too much going on for me to spend much more time on this call.” She released another sigh and her voice softened further. “Look. I don’t intend to keep either of you from exploring the hunting grounds,” she continued. “There are well-kept records on Archian Prime brought there by Elves very long ago, and I’m sure that, in consultation with the vampires, we can easily learn if anything else of danger or concern needs to be avoided to prevent this from happening again. For thousands of years, Elvish kind hunted on Elendroth, and their experiences have been reserved in our records. I am certain that sufficient information exists to safely ‘reopen’ the grounds for hunting. But that cannot be a priority right this moment. So please: be patient. Once I’ve had the chance, I’ll order an inquiry and allow you to resume your activities. But until then, do not do anything else. You will both go straight home—now.”

“We will, mom,” Kalana said.

Zach rubbed his forehead. “All right, fine.”

“I love you, Kalana.”

“I love you too,” Kalana replied. She spoke sincerely but somewhat awkwardly; Zach knew this kind of conversation was somewhat new to her. With that, she ended the call, took Zach’s hand and then gently tugged on his arm. “You heard my mom.”

“Since when do we listen to her?” he asked. “I was at war with her a few days ago. Now I have to do what she says?”

“Yes.”

“Bullshit,” he said again. “We have all these questions we need to answer. Like what are those exclamation points, and what’s an item shop? Can we really buy and sell things? You’re telling me we have to ignore all of this cool new shit because people are scared of a fucking quest popup? Give me a break, Kal! It’s not our fault that Galterrans are all just a bunch of—”

“Zach,” Kalana said, frowning. “You’re being inconsiderate again. Lots of people don’t understand what’s going on, and also, it’s not just the quest thingy. We also spawned something on the Bridge of Torment, so now a whole lot of people can’t do their jobs or get into and out of the city.” Lowering her voice, she asked, “Aren’t you the one who said that”—she lifted her eyebrows upwards as if to gesture to the heavens—“that it’s wrong to do”—she made small gestures with her head as if to point at a nearby mob—“without considering who it might hurt?”

He understood perfectly well what she was trying to say without her having to complete the thought. She was referring to Adamus’s plan to randomly reactivate all the spawn points. And what sucked was that he begrudgingly had to admit that she made a really good point, too. Because now that he understood there could be consequences elsewhere on Galterra that sprang up as a direct result of him playing around with all these non-dungeon quests and mobs, Zach would be, in a way, acting just like Adamus: inconsiderate and indifferent to the lives of others.

I’m not that kind of person, he said. I just…I really just wanted to adventure.

Learning from past mistakes, Zach carefully considered his words before replying, and so rather than reply with anger, he sighed upon the realization that Kalana was right. “You make a good point.”

She smiled. “It’s not like we knew this could happen, Zach. We didn’t do anything wrong. It’s only wrong if we keep doing it. Don’t worry. My mom said we can keep exploring soon, and I believe her. And besides, you promised we’d go back and rest after we finished this quest anyway. Oh, and don’t forget: you’ve got therapy tomorrow morning, too. Early.”

Without even meaning or consciously intending to do so, Zach blurted out, “Shit! I forgot about that.” Then he bowed his head in apology. “Sorry. It’s just that after all this stuff happened, don’t you think now’s not a good time to—”

“You’re seeing the therapist tomorrow no matter what, baby. You can’t argue your way out of it.”

“Okay. Fine. I will. I really will. It’s just that I’m healed now.”

“Sure you are.”

Zach yawned. Even with forty-five minutes left on his Unleased Phase duration, he suddenly remembered he hadn’t slept for a really long time and he was unbearably exhausted. “Okay. Fine. Just get me to a bed, okay?”

“Okay.”

With that, Zach stretched and rotated his shoulder muscles. “Uh…you sure we can’t just pop into the item shops and take a quick peek? In and out, I swear.”

“We can’t, Zach. Even if it seems impossible, what if just by buying something, we trigger a quest somewhere. It can’t be ruled out.”

“Yeah, all right, okay.” Yawning a second time, he asked, “Does this rule apply to just us or to everyone?”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you say Rian and Lienne were here?”

Kalana’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh, right! They’re hunting on the island right now too. But they told me where they were going today, so I know where they are—and it’s on the way to my home. We need to tell them to stop.”

“You mean, before we head to your house?”

“Mhm.”

Zach’s mood brightened at the thought of seeing his friends again. Suddenly wanting to get going more quickly, he hopped on top of his Kralzek’s Beast as Kal got on the back of Ruby, and together, the two of them took off at a speed far too fast for any aggroing mobs to catch them as they raced their way back along the gravel-covered path, setting off one alarm after the next.

As the world rushed by, Zach knew that the sights, sounds, and mysteries of Elendroth would be torture to his eyes, and his desire to explore would be overwhelming, so he deliberately tried not to take in too much of it for now and to let it be a surprise for later as he ordered his mount to follow behind her, which enabled him to close his eyes and bask in the warm wind as they rode onwards. Entering a somewhat tranquil, meditative state, he let what’d happened fully sink in. That quest…it had really gone out to every man, woman, child, and baby in the entire world?

Crazy, he thought. But seriously, how big a deal can it possibly be?

*****

“This has gone too far,” Misha Tenka said. Stroking her long, black beard, she looked around at the other high-ranking members of her party, and she was glad to see agreement in the eyes of all but one of them. “The Chief Engineer needs to make a statement condemning this and demanding that the Royal Roses take accountability for their out-of-control human.”

Only a hundred and ten years old, Misha had become the youngest Dwarf ever to become the highest-ranking member of the Engineering Union: the chief opposition party of which she was the head. And based on current polling, she stood a very real chance of ousting the current Chief Engineer, Ailor Lemdrach, the highest-ranking member—and head—of the Dwarvish Unity Party, whose majority-led government was responsible for an economic downturn, a rise in energy costs, and a highly unpopular trade deal with the Orcs that prohibited the Dwarves from imposing tariffs on Orcish goods but allowed the Orcs to place tariffs on Dwarven-built DEHVs and other machinery.

Despite a closer-than-expected election two summers ago, the DUP had managed to hold onto a majority of seats in the Engineering Cabinet. But now? Now, things looked like they might actually change. For the first time in twenty years, the DUP stood a real chance of losing its majority in the upcoming elections later this summer, and this latest situation involving Sir Zachys Calador might at long last be the push needed to instill some change.

“I for one can’t be arsed,” said Umptin Rickell, a miserable little fellow whose beard barely reached down to his chest. Though he belonged to the Engineering Union, he seldom behaved like it, often giving the DUP the votes needed to pass controversial legislation against their party’s interest. Some of this was excusable, as he was the representative of a very ideologically divided mine and would likely lose the mine to a member of the DUP if he was seen as being too favorable to his party. Regardless, the pudgy little Dwarf often behaved more like a member of the DUF than he did a member of the Engineering Union.

“Why am I not surprised?” Misha asked him. “Once again, Mine-Leader Rickell chooses to lick the boot of Chief Engineer Lemdrach.”

“Ain’t like that at all,” he replied. “I just think you can’t be blaming him for this.”

She scoffed at his defense of the incompetent Chief Engineer. “Twice now, that boy’s actions have created a global panic. And twice, Chief Engineer Lemdrach has failed to show any leadership during a time of crisis.”

Despite living well below the surface of a frozen, inhospitable continent far to the north of North Bastia, Sir Zachys Calador’s actions had caused more trouble for Dwarvish kind than for any other race.

For most, the damage of his antics had been entirely psychological: but not for the Dwarves. Recently, for example, he had turned the sky dark and had caused the entire world to buckle in terror at a series of rapid booming sounds far louder than thunder. And though very few Dwarfs had been topside to personally witness the sky turning dark, they had all nevertheless been alarmed and horrified by the deafeningly loud banging he’d caused, which had created earthquake-like effects in many of their underground cities—often culturally referred to as mines—that were not present on the surface. The result? Immense damage, great suffering, and ruined lives.

Eight-hundred Dwarves had died as a result of structural damage, cave-ins, or roof implosions, and there had been several-billion gold in property damage that still had to be paid for, too. Naturally, none of this had made its way into human media, which was controlled by the guilds, but it was the most important issue facing the Dwarves at this time and had received constant, daily media coverage since happening. Even in the middle of the night, Dwarvish media continued to discuss the tragic aftermath of the that day. It was a tragedy that would not be forgotten and was still very much fresh in everyone’s minds.

And now, today, just moments ago, Sir Calador had apparently gotten up to his shite all over again, this time roping the Elvish nobility into it as well! As the head of her party, Misha was privy to sensitive information before most other MLs and well ahead of the media. For this reason, she had been personally informed that, only moments ago, Chief Engineer Lemdrach had gotten off the phone with Queen Vayra of the Elves, who personally offered her apologies to the Dwarvish people in what she was referring to as a “careless, but completely unintentional mistake made by well-meaning youth.” It was likely the exact same thing she’d say in her calls to all the other races.

Misha picked up her goblet and downed her ale with a grunt. Her vest became soaked as some of it dribbled down her beard and onto her chest. The queen's apology did not go far enough, and she was not satisfied with the level of accountability being taken by the Elves. For sure, they deserved some slack, having only reemerged after being thought extinct. Nevertheless, her brief apology failed to convey any genuine sense of regret. And in what came as an even bigger surprise, it was the humans of all people who had shown her up.

Only a minute after conversing with the queen, the chief diplomat of humanity, a newcomer named Sir Alex Oren, had contacted Lemdrach and offered a much longer apology both in word and in writing that was so well constructed it almost fooled Misha with just how sincere and heartfelt it came across.

Addressed not just to the Chief Engineer but to all of Dwarvish society, Sir Alex Oren made no excuses, apologized on behalf of humanity, and stated that the world deserved better from those in power. He explained that, while it was impossible for Sir Calador of the Royal Roses or Princess Vayra of Elvadin to know that they were triggering an “event,” both would be far more careful and considerate in how they approached ancient, poorly understood hunting grounds in the future.

At any rate, Orcish and Gnomish experts were quick to reassure the global community that this quest, though unexpected and frightening to many, was likely to have no immediate or long-term effects on any lives. Accepting questions from the public, officials had very forcefully pushed back on claims that people would die or face consequences if they did not complete the quest. They also insisted that those who were stating otherwise on the internet were bad actors and trolls. For their part, the Dwarvish authorities, though generally tolerant of free speech, were rightfully shutting down those who continued to perpetuate the claim that not completing the quest would result in death, as it was causing mass hysteria in some communities.

While much of the fear was based on false information, there was still a great deal of angst that was more than warranted. In particular, there was much discomfort now about the potential dangers of this “Island of Elendroth,” and quite frankly, very few world leaders were happy that Queen Vayra had unilateral control over this small territory, which was now known to have the power to affect everyone’s lives.

The Merfolk, along with the Orcs and the Lizardmen, had called for the creation of a neutral, multi-racial committee to discuss whether or not to request Queen Vayra give the global community at least some power and authority over her island. The Orcish queen, ever the one for words, had taken great care to stress in her elegantly written proposal that Elendroth must be now and always be recognized as a cultural home and sacred ground to the Elvish. Queen Vayra had yet to reply and, in all likelihood, would not do so for several more days, but for certain, a reply would indeed come, though Misha doubted she would agree in any case. Even still, Queen Vayra would certainly be facing a great deal of pressure. Already, there were conspiracy theories and misinformation spreading around, many of which suggested that Elendroth was responsible for the dragon spawn that the humans and Elves had recently dealt with in North Bastia.

And with all of this going on, what was Chief Engineer Lemdrach doing about any of it? Absolutely nothing! It was well known that the humans were looking to regain access to the global trading community, providing him with the perfect leverage to use—a way to assert some Dwarvish influence over such a recalcitrant race. But all he did was put out meaningless statements and platitudes. Well, enough was enough.

“We need to call a press conference,” Misha said. “It’s time we go to the public with a better plan for Dwarvish kind. This is the last straw!”

Chapter 122: Official Duty

Chapter 122: Official Duty

Crossing beyond an invisible threshold that Kalana claimed marked the halfway point between the Avikin Grounds and her home, Zach observed that everything she’d said about the so-called “Path of Peace” was completely true. As long as someone kept themselves perfectly within its bounds, nothing could or would aggro onto them. Yet, at the speed he and Kal were moving, it didn’t seem to be something they needed to worry about either way, and so they only partially stayed on top of it as they made their way through this winding, turning, and twisting dirt pathway that ran through an area known as the “Windswept Plains.” The reason for this name seemed pretty obvious, as it took but a moment out here to note the existence of frequent, comfortable, and moderately strong breezes that rolled through the plains and over their bodies. The terrain was also easygoing; it alternated between gentle hills and longer stretches of flat land, all of which were covered by very short stalks of healthy green grass that naturally had a look similar to that of a freshly mowed lawn.

As he rode atop his mount, Zach yawned, stretched his arms, and then shifted a bit as the moisture on his robe made him uncomfortable. Only a few minutes ago, another one of her island’s fierce but brief thunderstorms had come and gone, drenching Zach from head to toe as well as the world around him. Yet with the intense sun and tropical heat bathing him in its glow, he’d already gone from soaked to being only slightly damp. The grass, on the other hand, was a bit slower to dry, and as his saber-toothed Kralzek’s Beast followed behind after Ruby, there was a rhythm of constant, audible squishing each time their mounts ran them slightly off the path.

It sucks that we won’t be allowed to hunt here for a while, Zach thought as he drowned in the sights of so many different mobs—or groups of them—walking or standing around to both sides of the pathway.

Much like Kalana had said, there were indeed a number of spots where Zach could see more of those level-27 Avislicer Marauders, but there were also dozens—or really, probably more like hundreds—of different types of mobs at many different levels to be found, such as gigantic, yellow-and-black hornets that were level 35, or literal shadows with faces on them that seemed to disappear and reappear every few seconds. There were level-53 trolls with big clubs, one of which aggroed as they darted by, and there was a small camp of these squirrel-like creatures that wore tiny hats and had comically oversized teeth. Becoming curious, Zach tried to learn more about the little critters, but he and Kalana ended up zipping by too quickly for him to even catch their name.

“It’s so beautiful here, right?” Kalana asked, looking over her shoulder and smiling at him.

“It is,” he agreed. “I love your island.”

“I knew you would. I actually…hm?” She looked away and faced forward, removing her phone. “Mom’s texting me.”

“What’s she want?”

“I dunno.”

As Kalana read over her mother’s messages, Zach returned his attention to the landscape around him. One thing he noted with great interest was that there weren’t just mobs out here. There was also a ton of real, biological wildlife. Everything from deer to buffalo roamed freely and without any apparent fear of predation. But what Zach found even more interesting was the way in which the mobs and wildlife seemingly ignored one another’s existence. Even bumping into a hostile mob did not cause any kind of reaction, such as a chicken off to his left that clucked as it rammed right into an Avislicer Marauder. Zach waited for the mob to go berserk and start slicing away with its dual katanas, but instead, it showed no sign it was even aware the chicken existed. Though a strange sight, this non-interaction actually made a great deal of sense, because if wildlife did disturb mobs, people would’ve probably starved to death a long time ago, as the presence of mobs would’ve surely made most wildlife extinct.

But some mobs actually do kill wildlife, he recalled. Ziragoth destroyed entire farms along with their livestock, and I think I remember Grundor talking about a boss on Archian Prime that goes around eating cows.

As they continued onwards, the sound of squishing returned as Ruby and his mount deviated from the pathway, stomping down onto the wet grass while they began traveling up a small but steady slope. Zach realized that they were now moving completely away from the Path of Peace, leaving the dirt trail entirely. Behind him, he heard what sounded like a loud, angry thudding.

Slightly turning his body and craning his neck to look over his shoulder, he saw that the level-53 troll they’d aggroed hadn’t given up just yet and was still charging after them. Then, with a loud “bawk-bawk-bawwwwwk” he watched as it ran right over a poor chicken that was in its way, smushing the creature into the grass despite lacking any deliberate intent to do so. A half second later, the troll finally decided to give up the chase, and at once, it stopped running, turned itself around, and slowly began walking back towards what Zach assumed was its spawn point, further crushing the already dead chicken in the process. Zach lost sight of the creature soon after, but not because of gaining too much distance, but because of the impossibly black smoke obscuring his vision. It reminded him that he was still in Unleashed Phase.

Unleashed Phase Duration

31:33 Remaining

Yawning yet again, he leaned forward a bit and shook his head to prevent himself from falling asleep right here on the mount. With a slight chuckle, he took a moment to appreciate the fact that it was even possible for him to nod off while he still had an active duration of Unleashed Phase in effect. Not wanting to accidentally fall off the side of his mount and wake up to the terrifying sensation of tumbling over the grass, he peered into the distance, hoping to see something that might excite him—and right away, he found it. Ahead of him, he spotted something that immediately roused him back to full alertness.

“I think that’s them,” Kalana said cheerfully, her eyes better than this own.

Up ahead, in the middle of a flat stretch of grassy field, Zach saw multiple human-sized figures, two smaller figures, and one tremendous figure that had to be at least twenty feet in height. As they drew nearer, his ears detected what sounded like battle, and he placed his hand on his sword’s hilt where it rested in the scabbard on his back—just in case he needed to draw it.

“I hope they’re okay,” he said.

As his mount approached closely enough so that he could begin to discern faces, he first took in the sight of a level-45, T2 humanoid-like boss that towered over those around it and made snarling growls as it struck out with a wooden mallet twice the size of a two-handed battleaxe. The creature was naked aside from a pair of boots and a brown-colored loincloth, and it had a face that was almost humanlike save for the fact that it only had one large, round eye with a thick black pupil. Its name was “Agrack the Cyclops,” and Zach winced nervously as it slammed its weapon down on top of a boy who Zach could now make out to be Rian.

The hell is Rian doing fighting something so high level? Zach thought, becoming worried.

The last time he’d seen Rian had been in Angelica’s before the dragon raid. Since then, Rian had apparently gotten ahold of an entirely new set of gear. He was now adorned more like a noble, dignified knight than a previously destitute boy from Shadowfall Coast. He wore a shimmering silver breastplate, a matching pair of greaves, and his look came complete with a partially face-concealing helm. Having lost his axe in B6, it appeared he’d acquired another, and this one, though lacking in any fancy effects, looked sturdy and was made of a darker-colored steel. He also had a fairly large and well-rounded metal shield, which he extended above his head as he bent his knees and absorbed the boss’s massive mallet.

A moment before impact, Zach wondered if he should use Phase Rescue and pull his friend away from the giant cyclops. After all, though Rian had apparently been here for two or three days, he couldn’t possibly have leveled up enough to tank a T2, level-45 boss. That was basically like a level-65 mob. No matter how sturdy Rian’s shield, the expected result of such an attack would be to have him crushed below the mallet like that chicken had been crushed beneath the foot of the troll.

And yet…incredibly, following a determined, confident grunt, Rian not only withstood the attack, but he responded with several fast slices of his own, his axe biting into the cyclops’s flesh and causing blood to trickle down its hip and right leg.

“Are you holding up okay, my human-pet?” asked a wickedly beautiful Elvish girl with red hair and a devilish look in her eyes who was standing behind him. She was wielding a staff, which she twirled around, casting what looked to be various buffs on both herself and Rian. “Need to trade places?”

“Pfft, I’ve got this,” he replied. “Give me a break.”

“Just making sure, human-pet,” she said with a laugh that was both dark yet playful. Her voice was confident and assertive, and her appearance was unlike that of any other Elves he’d seen. Her reddish hair had stripes of gold and black, and Zach had now ridden close enough to see that she wore a spiked collar around her neck and had applied an ample amount of black eyeshadow. It was an admittedly eye-catching look, but Zach thought it would’ve worked better without the green cloak on her back, which seemed totally out of place when contrasted with her more rebellious appearance.

So that’s Rian’s girl, huh?

As Rian shrugged off her concerns, he guarded against another downwards slam of the mallet, and then Lienne stepped forward and retaliated with an attack of her own. Much like her brother, she too had acquired a new set of equipment. At the moment, she was clad in a black and orange, full-body robe that had an illustration of flames embroidered into the fabric running down both sides. Zach watched as she threw her rod forward and unleashed a bullet-shaped flame that struck the cyclops in its eye, which made it roar and take a step back.

“Now’s your chance!” she called out. “Get him, babe!”

“On it!” cried the voice of yet another person Zach didn’t recognize—at least at first. But as he took a closer look, he recalled seeing him in a picture with Lienne on social media. He was tall—more than six feet in height—and broad-shouldered with short black hair, a diamond-shaped jawline, and slightly more rounded ears than were typical of the Elves. He also had dark blue eyes and a somewhat deeper voice. Despite wearing a white cloak, he spoke human in a way that sounded natural and ordinary.

“Let’s finish this thing, Lienne.” Following those words, he sprang into action—well, sort of.

Despite his large frame and athletic build, he “attacked” the cyclops using something that Zach had not seen used as a weapon before—and honestly wasn’t sure could even be classified as a weapon. Raising his hands to his mouth, a melody began to fill the air as he blew into a silver-gold flute; a moment later, an NPC raven perched on his right shoulder dashed into the air, leaving a trail of blue, shining dust in its wake.

“Don’t even think about it!” Rian shouted abruptly, though Zach was not sure to who. Yet it soon became clear as, a second later, he heard an annoyed meow from a cat sitting on the grass next to him.

“I want to eat the birdie,” the cat said, his head tracking the raven's motion as he licked his lips and stared hungrily at it.

“You better not do that again, Fluffles. It was cute the first ten times you did it, but now it’s starting to get really, really annoying.”

Fluffles hopped up onto all four paws and made an angry meow. “I get…I get a special buff if I eat Trelvor’s raven.”

“No you don’t, Fluffles. Liar.”

“Yes! Yes I do get! Stupid Rian is the liar, not Fluffles.”

The fact he was here meant Zach’s theory was right: Fluffles knew the location of a dungeon that ran through somewhere nearby, likely Shores of Wrath in South Bastia. It also meant that, despite his hatred of water, Fluffles must have swum across the ocean. It was at first an absurd thought, but that, of course, was level-1 thinking. Yet no matter how he got here, Zach was happy to see him—much, much more so than he was willing to let on, as Fluffles was well aware of how cute he was, and he would not hesitate to use that as a weapon to get extra food and loot. Smiling, Zach watched as the cat continued to study the raven as it dashed across the air.

Despite its comparatively small size, the raven flew directly at—then crashed into—the cyclops’ chest, and it somehow did so with enough force to push it off balance and make it stumble several steps backwards; it even came perilously close to falling over. At the same time, Fluffles released a volley of lighting while Lienne called upon more flames to burn away her target. The red-headed Elvish girl, for her part, stowed the staff she’d been wielding into a sling on her back then drew a mace from her side and began bludgeoning the cyclops along with Rian.

Before long, the question of whether or not to jump into the fight resolved itself without Zach needing to make a decision. Having only just pulled up behind them with Kalana by his side, the cyclops fell over and died, landing down onto the grass with a loud thud and causing several cracks to form in the dirt near its body. A second or two went by, and then at once, all five of them let out a cheer—which soon turned to threatening shouts as Fluffles leapt nearly twenty feet straight upwards and snatched the raven out of the air before chomping down on it, causing the creature to vanish into steam while Rian frowned at him.

“Well, at least he didn’t do it during the fight this time.”

Lienne smiled and puckered her lips, blowing the cat a kiss. “I can’t be mad at him. He’s such a cutie. I love Fluffles.”

Fluffles turned his head as if to regard Lienne. “If Lienne love Fluffles, then Fluffles get to roll ten times for loot,” he said with a self-satisfied, almost boastful-sounding purr.

Rian, clearly unmoved by the cat’s charm, growled at him and said, “You’re lucky if we even let you roll once, you little—”

“It’s okay, Rian,” the Elf that Fluffles had called “Trelvor” said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s just a five-minute cooldown. I can always summon another raven.”

“It’s the principle that matters,” Rian said. He and Fluffles glared at one another, but after a brief pause, Rian exhaled and waved his hand. “Okay, fine, I’ll let it go.”

“I let it go too,” Fluffles said with another purr, making Zach think the conflict was resolved. But after about five seconds passed, for no reason at all, Fluffles began muttering to himself before loudly saying, “Rian is fat and stupid, and I am the best cat.”

“Oh, that’s it you little—”

Zach decided to choose this moment to clear his throat, announcing his presence. The argument immediately came to a halt, and all eyes then snapped to him and Kalana. Right away, there were gasps from the two Elves, a happy meow from Fluffles, and a wide-eyed look from Rian and Lienne as each of them gave off an unexpectedly strong reaction upon seeing them.

“Buddy!” Rian cried out happily.

“Zach,” Lienne said with a smile.

Fluffles meowed loudly and jumped into his arms. He hugged the little guy—but only for a few seconds, because he knew the rules—and then put him down. The Elves, on the other hand, had an entirely different reaction. Both dropped immediately to their knees, placed their foreheads onto the grass, and prostrated themselves before Kalana.

“Your Highness!” they both cried out, practically kissing the grass-covered ground before her.

She blushed. “Ah, y-you don’t have to…no, no, you don’t gotta do that!”

“Of course we do,” Trelvor said, his voice coming across as muffled with his face buried in the short stalks of grass. “Y-you’re the princess!”

Fluffles, either not understanding or not caring about what was happening, walked right over and along the top of both of their heads then began to play with a beetle somewhere on the ground before eventually transitioning to chasing his own tail.

Kalana gave Zach a confused look, and he turned over his palms at her, having no idea how to proceed. “Please, there’s no need for this,” Kalana said. “I’m really not…umm, I’m not that type of princess. Please just act normal around me. Okay? Here, let’s try this.” She walked over to them and offered each her hand, which they looked at in awe before accepting. Then she guided them back to their feet. “My name is Kalana, and this is my boyfriend, Zach.”

Zach shook hands with both of them after Kalana let go, and they introduced themselves in kind. “I’m Trelvor 'Londril' V’alnyra,” the male said. “It is an honor.”

“Londril?” Zach whispered, repeating the name. Louder, he asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be related to the white-cloaked Elf that was on the raid with us, would you?”

Enthusiastically, the tall Elf nodded his head. “Yes. That’s my father. I’m honored you remembered his name.”

Zach smiled. “How could I forget? He tanked the dragon for the whole beginning of the fight. No one’s ever going to forget his name.”

The color seemed to drain from Trelvor’s face as he asked, “Really?”

“Of course,” Kalana said. This only made him turn even paler. It was as if he found this all to be too great of an honor to withstand. He bowed his head in thanks, and then Kal turned to face the red-headed Elvish chick with the spiked collar on her neck.

“And what’s your name?”

“My name’s Seiley Aerona,” she said. “It’s such an honor to meet you, Your Highness.”

“Please, just act normally around me,” Kalana said once more. “I’m really being honest about that. I’m not just saying it or anything. I actually mean it.”

The girl shifted her gaze as if uncertain before once more meeting Kal’s eyes. “Are…are you certain, Your Highness?”

“Yep! Just be yourself, okay?”

“It’s really okay for me to act just like I would if you weren’t the princess?”

Kalana laughed. “Mhm, it sure is.”

At this, the girl let out a sigh and said, “Well that’s a relief. My fucking back hurts from standing up so straight.”

“Seiley!” hissed Trelvor. “You cannot speak that way in front of the princess.”

“Why?” she asked, frowning. “You heard what she said.”

“Well, yes, but you’re taking too many liberties.”

Zach actually felt bad for Lienne and Rian, who were now standing behind their partners with plainly confused faces as if not knowing if they should speak up and intervene or if it clearly wasn’t their place. This, as Fluffles began to slowly crawl towards the cyclops’ loot as though he intended to steal it, which he definitely did. As the black-and-white tuxedo cat prowled through the short stalks of grass, Zach opened his mouth to tell him to cut it out, but shockingly, it was Ruby who ended up speaking first.

“Mommy Kalana!” the raptor cried out with a chirp, alarming everyone but Zach and Kalana; Fluffles’ reaction was to turn his little face towards Ruby while unsheathing his claws.

“What is it, Ruby?” Kal asked.

“The kitty cat is stealing!”

Fluffles hissed. “Who is that girl? Why she tell lies about Fluffles?”

“I’m Ruby,” Ruby said.

Fluffles’ mouth fell open as if in confusion, and his eyes darted back between Zach, Ruby, and Kalana. “Fluffles leaves his human alone for one day, and Zach replace him?”

Zach moaned. “No, no. It’s not like that at all. Put your claws away, little buddy. And stop trying to steal everyone’s loot.”

Fluffles meowed, loudly. “This bullshit!” he shouted, using language that he had clearly acquired from Zach.

“Don’t use that word. Your dad will kill me if he finds out you’ve started cursing because of me.”

“No! Fluffles curse even more. Poop, fart, ass! Zach betray.”

“I didn’t. I promise you.”

“Yes! Yes! You make stupid raptor alive.”

“I didn’t. I swear.” He pointed to Kalana. “She’s the one who made Ruby come alive.” When Fluffles said nothing and simply eyed him as though not sure whether or not to believe his words, he drew a breath and explained. "We got a rare item that we didn’t understand, and Kalana accidentally stole it and used it.”

“Kalana…steal?” Fluffles asked, his voice now innocent.

Kalana’s face lit up with indignation. “I did not. It was an accident. Umm, what happened is—”

“Fluffles love Kalana now,” the cat said, brushing up against her leg. “I am proud. I want tuna and chicken.”

Zach sighed, frustrated. “Okay, let’s just…let’s try to get things back on track. The reason we came out to find you guys is to let you know you can’t do any more quests or kill any more mobs for at least a week or two.”

“Huh?” Rian asked. “Why not?”

“Kalana’s mom said we can’t.”

“Why?” Lienne inquired.

“So, I’m guessing you guys saw that quest thing that had me and Kal’s name on it, right?”

“Actually, yeah,” Rian said, nodding. “We’ve got a bunch of questions about it.”

“Well, I’ll answer as many as I can, but for now, the short version is that everyone in the world also got it, too.”

At this, Rian gasped. “Wait, what?”

“You heard me.”

“I just assumed it was everyone on the island. We were fighting and didn’t really pay it too much attention. I figured you must’ve unlocked something specific to Elendroth. But you’re saying…dude, everyone? As in, even the other races?”

“Yeah, kind of,” Zach said at a lower tone, now realizing the enormity of it all. “So it caused a bit of a panic and because of that, just in case, Fylwen doesn’t want us to—”

“Queen Vayra,” interrupted Trelvor.

Zach closed his mouth right before he replied with something sharp and biting. He paused a moment, quickly licked his bottom lip, and then forced himself to keep his annoyance in check. He wanted to make a good impression with these Elves, and becoming confrontational and hostile would only make him seem like an immature asshole.

“Queen Vayra,” he continued, “called us and told us she doesn’t want anyone doing anything else adventure-related on this island until she’s had a chance to look into it and make sure nothing like this will happen again.”

In reaction, Rian and Lienne twisted their lips sourly, whereas Trelvor and Seiley simply nodded almost as though they were warriors who’d just been given a command.

Fluffles purred. “Zach and Fluffles ignore mean Elf lady and keep adventuring. Who care if stupid humans scared of quest?”

“I know, right?” Zach asked, surprised by how much he agreed with the cat. “That was a freak, rare thing. Kal leveled all the way into her 60s here and nothing like that happened. So she won’t even know if we just do a bit of hunting here or there. I really don’t see why…” He let his words trail off as Trelvor and Seiley both narrowed their eyes and darkened their expressions as they regarded him.

“The queen has given an order,” Trelvor said. “As honored as I am to meet you, Zach, I must now defend Elendroth even if the cost is my life. If anyone violates this edict, I am honor-bound to attack them.”

With your tiny little baby flute? Zach wanted to say. That, and fifty other provocative retorts.

At once, Lienne flared with warning then looked pleadingly at Zach, and strangely enough, so too did Rian. Both of them knew how he was. They knew that his natural instinct to this would be to become defensive, aggressive, and say something that would lead to a heated, totally avoidable confrontation with the Elf—the Elf who happened to be Lienne’s new boyfriend, which would make their friendship become awkward in turn. And the fact that he almost did it made him wonder if he was an even bigger asshole than he realized. Like, he’d always known he was one, but now it was really starting to dawn on him just how much.

And so, surprising even himself, he took a deep breath, blew it out slowly, and said, “I respect that. You’re right. I was only making a joke, and…” It actually burned him to continue speaking, but he forced the words out, and they became easier and more sincere as he spoke them. “And what I just said was really rude, and I apologize for saying something disrespectful to you and your culture, especially after just meeting you. That doesn’t cast me in a great light, and I’m sorry.”

At no point since knowing Kalana had he ever seen her beam with such relief and pride in her eyes. Trelvor, for his part, bowed his head graciously. “It’s perfectly understandable. This island is so enchanting and beautiful, and I too would love to spend many more days exploring it, but the queen’s words have so much weight to us, and it really speaks well of your character that you understand. My father spoke well of you, too. Thank you for understanding.”

That was less difficult than I thought it’d be, Zach thought, glad he’d chosen to try de-escalation for a change.

Over the next few minutes, he and Kalana took turns speaking as they explained to Trelvor, Seiley, Lienne, and Rian the precise events that had taken place to spawn the Galterra-wide event that had effectively banned them all from continuing to level-up. While they spoke, Fluffles and Ruby went off together somewhere nearby and were engaged in their own conversation about who could find the prettier pebble. Despite a harsh first introduction, they actually seemed to be getting along, for which Zach was grateful. They started to play together, digging for different rocks and comparing them. Zach actually thought it was kind of cute even if kind of stupid.

“…and that’s when these exclamation points started going up over some of their heads,” Kalana said excitedly. “I dunno what that means, but it’s so cool!”

“It means they’ve got a quest for ya—if you want it,” Seiley said, winking.

“Really?” Kalana asked, her lips forming an O-shape.

“That’s right.”

“How do you know?”

“Oh, because we’ve got loads of NPC towns on Archian Prime.” Lowering her voice, she bit her lip then whispered into Rian’s ear, but at a volume loud enough to still be heard. “There’s even one that has these very naughty mobs called succubus, and if you finish their quest, they let you use their inn for free. They have very special beds. Maybe I’ll show it to you.”

Rian coughed into his fist, then said, “Since we can’t adventure here anymore, I’m in favor of going to Archian Prime immediately. Zach?”

Zach laughed. “Can you even handle Archian Prime?”

Rian pointed a thumb towards his shining breastplate. “See my new gear? I’m not the same Rian I was a few days ago. I’m level 34 believe it or not, and I could probably even kick your ass now, Zach.”

Zach laughed a second time, shaking his head. “How the hell did you get level 34 so fast? And even at level 34, how are you tanking hits from a T2, level-45 cyclops?” Zach pointed at him accusatorially. “You got power-leveled, didn’t you?”

“No way, man. I mean, yeah, I was with the Elves, and they’re way higher level, but I contributed in every fight.”

“How?”

“Because they gave me and Lienne much more powerful equipment.”

“Oh, so you did cheat, you lazy fuck.”

Rian chuckled. “You’re one to talk, buddy. Why don’t you tell everyone what level that cloak of yours is, Zach? Or any of the items Queen Vayra gave you.”

Zach backed away a step and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, no thanks.”

“Why?” Rian asked. “Hm? Why not, Zach? I bet it’s way higher level than you are.”

“Only a little.”

“Prove it.”

“Prove what?”

“Prove that your equipment is only a little higher level.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Zach snorted. “I just don’t feel like it.”

“It’s because you know I’m right. And you know I—”

“Boys, enough,” Lienne said, placing her hand on her forehead and sighing. “The two of you, I swear.”

Zach and Rian exchanged a laugh. “We’re just playing around, Li,” Rian said.

“Yah, I know you are, but it’s still annoying.”

Kalana giggled. Then, her expression drained of mirth, and a bit more seriously, she said, “So umm, my mom wants us all to head right home and stay in the safe area away from all the mobs and quests for now. But we still have plenty of stuff we can do. The power’s working now, there’s viewing screens in most rooms, and I’ve got a huge pool, and a barbeque, and everything.”

“Wouldn’t you rather we go to Archian Prime and keep adventuring?” Zach asked her.

Kalana shook her head, and now she wore an expression that almost seemed pained. “So…my mom texted me on the way over here. She said that more Elves will be showing up here throughout the week, and umm, many of them don’t have phones yet since they’ve been in Archian Prime for so long. They don’t know they’re not supposed to hunt, so we gotta be here to tell them.” Suddenly, an apologetic look came over her face. “Also…she…she wants you four to stay as well,” Kalana said, looking at both Trelvor and Seiley, then soon after Rian and Lienne.

“Your Highness?” Trelvor asked.

The look of embarrassment and awkwardness in Kal’s eyes confused Zach. Speaking softly but clearly, she said, “I know you two came here on vacation and for fun, and I know you both wanted to go with Rian and Lienne to Archian Prime tomorrow. My mom knew that, too, which is why I’m so mad at her for making me have to be the one to tell everyone this. I was seriously dreading it, actually.”

“Tell us what, Your Highness?”

Kalana inhaled. “Okay, so, my mom wants you four—and me and Zach, too—to take turns as lookout in the watchtower on the southwest side of the island each day in order to spot any Elves who might arrive ahead of time. That way, we don’t miss them.”

The reaction from Trelvor and Seiley was immediate and lacked any hesitation whatsoever. They bowed their heads obediently, and then, in a much more formal tone of voice, the both of them said, “Her Majesty’s Orders are understood!”

“I’m sorry,” Kalana whispered.

Seiley shook her head. “You should never feel bad for giving us orders from the queen. If that’s what Her Majesty asks, then we’ll do it without question.”

“Uh, Kal,” Zach whispered. “Are you sure you didn’t misread that?”

“Nope.”

“She wants me to stand in the watchtower, too?”

“And…me?” Rian asked. At this, Kalana again tensed up. “What is it?” he asked, clearly sensing something was wrong.

Kalana, in the same low tone, said, “She says that if you and Lienne want extended-stay permits on Archian Prime, you need to help us here.”

Seiley barked a laugh. “You hear that, human pet? You’re taking a shift too.”

Rian placed his shield on his back and once more sheathed his axe. “Damn. Well, all right. If I’ve got to.”

“I’m okay with it,” Lienne said. “The island is warm and beautiful. I don’t mind staring out into the ocean for a few hours a day. As long as I don’t have to do the night shift.”

“Wait, time out,” Zach grumbled. “This is a fucking twenty-four-hour thing?”

“I think so,” Kalana said.

“Gods damn it all, Kal.”

“If it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t my mom’s idea. This was something Alex told her to ask you to do. He—and my mom—say they’re actually doing you a huge favor. Like, really huge.”

“Oh yeah? How so?”

“It’s ‘cause if you’re doing this as an official task for the Royal Roses, umm, they can’t recall you to fight in that war. At least, that’s what my mom told me Alex said, anyway.”

Zach coughed out a laugh. “Well, that’s dumb. They couldn’t have asked me to do that in the first place. I mean, okay, I guess they literally could, but it’s not like I would actually listen.”

Kalana shrugged. “I’m just the messenger.”

“What do they even mean by official task, Kal?”

Again, she shrugged. “All I know is that my mom got the Royal Roses to ‘assign’ you to this island in order to help protect Galterra from any more ‘unexpected’ events. But we don’t even have to start for another three days. Mom said nobody other than Trelvor and Seiley was cleared to come here until then, so we still have some time to just relax.”

Zach became bitter at the very notion that the Royal Roses thought they had a right to “assign” him a task. He was not a real member of their guild no matter what Vim Alazar said. And despite trying his best to sympathize with the totally understandable fear—and shock—felt around the world due to the event him and Kal had spawned, Zach really did think that, as a whole, Galterra was massively overreacting to this whole thing. Putting the disruption in Whispery Woods aside for a second, the fact of the matter was that, for the vast majority of sentient life on the planet, it really was just a simple, easily ignorable quest popup. And while it did expose the fact that the potential for danger existed, the chance of anything actually happening must’ve been so miniscule as to be not worth worrying about.

Then again, he thought, Kal might have leveled into her 60s here with her dad and not had any problems, but that still just amounted to the two of them living here alone. If fifty Elves started hunting here, the chance of them discovering something that causes a problem elsewhere probably goes up—assuming that ‘something’ like that even exists.

Zach rubbed his index finger back and forth along his chin while he thought things over. Then he grinned as an idea came to him. “Kal, I know what we can do.”

“Hm?”

He laughed. “When the first couple of Elves arrive, we can just assign them to do the work for us.”

“My human friend, we really can’t do that,” Trelvor said, his tone apologetic.

“Huh? Why not?”

“It would be dishonorable. This task was assigned to us specifically by the queen herself.”

Once more, Zach suppressed a biting remark. Though Trelvor might have behaved in a way that was very uptight for a guy roughly the same age as Zach, he came across as well-meaning, and there was no justification for Zach insulting him or pissing him off. So he let the retort die without ever being voiced, and instead he said, “You’re right. And at least we can hang out and go swimming for a few days.”

“I’m sorry,” Kalana whispered. “To all of you.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Seiley insisted. “Based on your story, you guys didn’t know this could happen. I’ll be honest: I didn’t either. Nothing like that’s ever happened on Archian Prime, at least not since I’ve been there.”

Kalana smiled at her, and she smiled back. Then Rian came and took her hand as Lienne took Trelvor’s. Zach, not wanting to be left out, offered his to Kalana—or almost did. Then he glanced at his remaining duration of Unleashed Phase and realized they’d spent so long talking he’d lost track of time.

“We should get going. I don’t want to pass out anywhere dangerous.”

“Pass out?” both Trelvor and Seiley asked.

“Too much to explain.”

Both of them exchanged a curious look, then let the matter drop. Then, as a group, they all continued the journey to where Kalana had built her newly constructed home.

*****

“Enough,” Jennali said to her class as she placed her hands on her hips and gave the thirty children in front of her a stern, strict look. Once more, she tried to direct their attention to the projected screen and refocus their attention back on math. As an upscale summer school for the children of upper-middle-class parents here in Varda’s Lair, the educational standards were higher than at other schools, and not even the excitement of today was enough to justify slacking. “The next person to bring that out is getting a call home.”

Only an hour or so ago, one of the strangest moments of her life had taken place. Gods, it had been frightening. She’d been teaching her class of ten- and eleven-year-old children how to use decimal points when a large box filled with text and information had suddenly popped out of her—and the rest of the class as well. At the time, she’d had no idea what could have caused it: what it could mean or what it implied.

The students, naturally, had all reacted with delight and childish innocence, but Jennali was left to fret over whether or not it meant that they were in any sort of danger. Naturally, as was protocol, the students had been hurried into the auditorium along with every other class, and together, all four-hundred children were made to wait quietly while they waited for word from the educational chancellor as to whether or not it was safe to resume instruction.

Thankfully, they’d learned relatively quickly that this was some kind of guild nonsense that had accidentally spilled out, and that it could be safely ignored and was of no danger to anyone. Though she’d been a bit shaken, Jennali had intended to promptly resume teaching.

And then the kids started acting up.

“I’m more like Grundor, not you,” one of the boys whispered to another.

“No, I am more like Grundor. Just ask Teena. She even says so too.”

“My name’s not Teena. It’s Kalana.”

“Okay, well my name’s Grundor.”

“The next person who speaks without raising their hand is getting five points deducted from next week’s quiz,” Jennali said, folding her arms across her chest. “The same goes for the next person to take out that…that information box. Please don’t make me have to start calling your parents.”

That did the trick. There was nothing they feared more than getting a phone call home. Even still, she knew she’d have to warn them again later on. Ever since the “event,” the children had been bringing out those information boxes during class.

It seemed that, now, when tapping one’s shoulder four times, there was something new that had never before been there. Something called “quests.” And the children were bringing out this distracting thing all class long, giggling and laughing as they did so. Without a doubt, this would be something that teachers would have to deal with all across the world. It was far larger than the stats screen, and when an entire class all had them out at the same time, it actually made it impossible to see the children or the children to see one another. Hopefully, the kids would get bored of it in a week. Until then, they were going to make her life miserable.

What in the name of the good Gods were those guilds up to?

Chapter 123: Current Events

Chapter 123: Current Events

As Zach waded through a dark hallway and bumped into one of the walls of the large estate, which still smelled of newness and fresh paint, he wasn’t sure how he knew where he was going. Actually, he couldn’t even remember how he’d gotten here. His mind was fuzzy, and he was groggy. He knew he’d been to the bathroom before—probably several times—but it was all a blur in his head. Really, everything that’d taken place since the moment after walking through the doors of Kalana’s island-paradise home yesterday seemed like one big dream.

After fumbling around for the light switch, he relieved himself in one of the largest bathrooms he’d ever been in, and then upon flushing, he stared at the massive jacuzzi and shower across from him. He’d washed up in here, hadn’t he? Right. He had. Now he remembered. Yesterday, upon coming here with Rian and the others, Kalana had refused to let him pass out in the bed until after he’d showered, so when his Unleashed Phase duration ran out, he’d instead plopped down onto a couch in the living room. Two or three hours later, she’d woken him up, seemingly becoming worried that he hadn’t already done so on his own; taking his hand, she’d led him to the shower—getting inside it with him.

Zach recalled being so exhausted that he hadn’t even really been able to “appreciate” that last bit. Operating more like a robot than a sentient being, his body had moved on autopilot until she’d shown him to the master bedroom, which she’d adorned with every manner of luxury furniture and a king-sized bed. It was here that he’d finally gotten under the covers and blanked out the moment he did so, waking up only momentarily several hours later—when night had fallen—and Kalana had joined him in bed. He remembered feeling her close to him as he drifted back off to sleep.

Now, in the very early hours of the morning, with the sky still blanketed by darkness, he made his way back to the bedroom as the intense sounds of rain and thunder blared outside. He didn’t remember changing into the loungewear he was wearing, nor did he know where his phone or weapon was, but from a digital clock on a shelf, he could see that he’d been asleep for almost fifteen straight hours. Entering the bedroom, a blueish light briefly illuminated the dark as lightning struck somewhere nearby.

Night is just as bad as she said it is, Zach thought.

Yesterday, Kalana had told him that from sundown to sunup, the island was typically in a perpetual state of stormy weather with the same intensity of the brief ones that came throughout the day; and from what Zach could tell, it was constant and unrelenting. Fortunately, given the early days and late nights at this time of the year, the nasty weather would likely stop in just shy of two hours when the earliest signs of light hit the sky. For now, it would remain miserable outside.

Zach yawned as he entered further into the well-furnished bedroom, though he was already feeling a great deal more awake. Actually, he doubted he could go back to sleep even if he tried. Even still, he climbed into bed next to Kalana and smiled at her. Then he sent his gaze to a bedside table across from him where he spotted a controller that he assumed operated the luxuriously sized viewing screen mounted on the wall across from them above a dresser. Despite wanting to disconnect from the rest of Galterra, Zach nevertheless decided to watch a bit of the news, as his curiosity and boredom won out over his societal fatigue. Given the difference in time zones, it should have been far enough into the morning in North Bastia for the news to have begun the day in full swing.

And so, ensuring that the volume was low, he activated the screen, and with a thick pillow giving him support, he lay on his back and began to watch—and Gods was there a lot to take in. There was so much going on in the world. Never once had he seen so many people covering so many different active stories all at once. And surprisingly—and thankfully—his name was mentioned minimally. It appeared that there were matters of such importance taking place that yesterday’s “quest scare” had quickly fallen from public consciousness. Even the news, celebrations, and all other matters related to the raid of Ziragoth had faded to just a blip here or there, and that was something that Zach expected would’ve remained the primary story for a good solid month or so. But no: there was too much going on aside from that, and much of it revolved around Shadowfall Coast and the outrage of the public, which apparently hadn’t even learned until early last night about the events that’d taken place a day before.

Now, however, anyone tuning it would immediately learn that Peter Brayspark was dead, the Guild of Gentlemen had “slain numerous cultural icons and business leaders,” and that a full-scale, conventional war had broken out in the city. On the screen were the faces of famous actors, actresses, and industry leaders that had been killed during the dinner two nights ago, including “Chall Brillstar,” the lead actor in the world-famous “Gun Racer” series. The man had been sitting next to him and Kal while they’d eaten and drank, and Zach recalled him falling to the floor after a bullet hit him in his spine while he’d attempted to flee.

I remember, he thought, suddenly feeling shivery and unwell. His body tensed—but only for a moment.

“It’s okay,” Kalana whispered, sitting up and wrapping her arms around him.

He looked at her, somewhat surprised. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

She smiled. “It’s okay.”

“How long have you been watching with me? I had no idea you were up.”

“Only like ten minutes.”

“I can turn it off if you want.”

She stretched her arms and yawned. “It’s okay. I wanna see what’s going on, too. You can make it a bit louder if you want.”

He nodded then slightly increased the volume. He didn’t want to make it too loud, however, because Rian, Lienne, Trelvor, and Seiley were likely still all asleep elsewhere in the home, and so were Fluffles, Ruby, and Kalana’s ordinary housecat, Nila. Zach wasn’t sure where Nila slept, but he recalled seeing Ruby and Fluffles bunking together on a large sofa in the living room. Those two were getting along dramatically better than Zach would have expected. It was probably because Fluffles had no preconceived prejudices against “raptors” like he did dogs, and also because Ruby was so exceedingly nice and polite that even Fluffles couldn’t find anything to hate about her the way he did with Chumpkenwiffles.

Assuming he even really hates that dog, Zach thought.

Despite being his “worst enemy,” Fluffles constantly talked about Chumpkenwiffles. Even during the brief trip home yesterday, he kept talking to Ruby about the dog, describing her favorite chewing toy, the difference between their paws, and other irrelevant details that only seemed to matter to animals. Zach chuckled at the idea that Fluffles secretly liked the dog, and so did Kal when he explained to her why he’d suddenly started laughing.

“My mom’s dog is so cute,” Kalana said. “She’s a good girl if you get to know her.”

“She is cute,” Zach said. “But she’s scary when she’s chasing you down a tunnel and shooting lasers at you.”

Zach returned his attention to the news broadcast as the reporter read the results of a poll that had been taken. Apparently, the number of people who now supported conventional military action against the Guild of Gentlemen had skyrocketed to over 86% among the regions not controlled by them. That number, quite obviously, went down a lot when including the territories of Tomb of Fire and Shadowfall Coast, decreasing all the way to 63%, as most of those people were loyal to the Guild of Gentlemen.

Further increasing outrage was the fact that the guild had stolen all of the dragon’s loot, of which only one member of their entire guild had taken part in slaying—the very same member whose life ended with a blade running through his turned back. Increasing the volume a bit, Zach decided to more carefully listen in.

“We go now live to our war correspondent in Shadowfall Coast, where the war against the Guild of Gentlemen has begun picking up in intensity.”

Zach sat up straighter, and any last trace of tiredness faded away as the image of Shadowfall Coast popped up onto the screen. Kalana gasped, and Zach gripped the blanket. He was in disbelief at what he saw, as he barely recognized it. A news reporter was crouched down behind an overturned school-bus as allied forces—thousands of them—could be seen hurrying down the street with rifles in hand. There were constant loud explosions and gunshots to be heard in the background, and each time one rang out nearby, the reporter, who was wearing a military-style helmet, would duck his head down before continuing to speak.

“As you can see, even here in 5th avenue, this is still very much an active battlefield. I’m told that, only moments ago, the allied North Bastian forces have managed to recapture 6th.”

Though it was early in the morning over there, the sun was out in full, and it illuminated the full scale of destruction. Though the buildings in Shadowfall Coast were not tall by most city’s standards, they were still compact and densely populated, and now, Zach could see that almost every single one of them along 5th avenue had been completely destroyed. Though most were technically still “standing,” a great deal had their entire front-facing sides ripped off, whereas others were burned out husks, and a few had collapsed completely, becoming nothing but rubble.

“They’re going too fucking far,” Zach said, finding the sight of it distasteful. “There had to be a better way than this.”

“I agree,” Kalana said, shifting closer to him on the bed. “I don’t know why they have to do all this.”

Zach filled with disgust. “This is why I don’t want anything to do with the world anymore. Just look at this. I mean, I hate the Guild of Gentlemen too, but Shadowfall Coast was beautiful, and Vim, you know, he can be a real dick, but he’s not that bad of a guy, so why would he go this far?”

“I dunno,” Kalana whispered. “My mom’s gotten dragged into it too now. The Guild of Gentlemen declared war on us yesterday.”

Zach laughed, though more from the absurdity of it than because he found it funny. “Are they out of their minds? They better hope the Elves don’t take that seriously, because your mom and ten of her best could probably singlehandedly dismantle the entire guild. And don’t even get me started on how much shit they’re in if she decides to actually attack with the full…the full…wait a second.” Zach leaned in closer and pointed. “Is that Grundor?” he asked, both shocked and confused as, behind the reporter, the NPC zombie could be seen in full officer attire walking side by side with a high-ranking member of the Royal Roses.

“And over here, behind me, you can see that Sir Grundor of the Royal Roses has just arrived, leading a full platoon of troops into battle.”

“This isn’t real,” Zach said, shaking his head. “What the hell is going on? And why don’t you seem surprised, Kal?”

Kalana frowned. “It’s ‘cause I knew this was gonna happen. I talked to Kolona about it yesterday, actually. Grundor’s not doing this for show. He’s really a member of the Royal Roses now.”

Zach snorted. “No fucking way.”

“It’s true.”

“And Oli just allowed it?”

Kalana gave him a serious look, pursing her lips before speaking. “Grundor’s not his slave, Zach. He doesn’t treat him that way. Actually, Kolona told me that, in all the years Grundor and Olivir have been together, he never once used a pet command on him—well, other than during a fight if he needed to pull Grundor out of the way of an attack he didn’t see coming. And I kinda understand that, ‘cause umm, I’ve had Ruby for only a day, and I would never force my will on her either.”

Zach thought over her words. “Wait, are you saying you can actually command Ruby like I can command my Kralzek’s Beast?”

Kalana nodded. “I think so. But it feels wrong to do it. It’s kinda like yanking hard on a leash.”

Zach took a deep breath and tried to make sense of things. “I just don’t understand any of this. Grundor was only pretending to be a member of the Royal Roses just like I was, and in his case, it was because he wanted, like, a movie deal or something.”

“That’s how it started,” Kalana replied, placing a hand on his lap. “But I know from Kolona that, umm, Grundor spent all his life on Archian Prime reading about Galterra, and that he always talked about making a difference in the world. Maybe he thinks this is how he can do that.”

“I guess that makes a bit more sense,” Zach admitted. “After what we all went through at the dinner, I wouldn’t be surprised if Grundor views the Guild of Gentlemen as a true force of evil that can’t be allowed to remain in power. Especially after what they did to you, Kolona, and the Elves.”

“Exactly,” Kalana said. “So I bet that’s why he’s become a real, true member.”

Zach wiped the crust out of his eyes as though making his vision even slightly less blurry would change the reality he saw on the screen before him. For all the horribleness of the situation, Grundor, the goofy-looking zombie, stood proud, valiant, and moved with a sense of purpose that removed any doubt from Zach’s mind that this was the path he wanted to take; still, he couldn’t bring himself to agree with it.

Is this really what he wants?

Before long, the camera cut away, and now an intimately familiar sight filled the screen. A tall reporter stood on the sidewalk of a busy street in downtown Whispery Woods, where three Elvish warriors in green cloaks were dragging a bunch of screaming men out of an apartment building while level-1 humans in peacekeeper uniforms exited the very same building with handguns wrapped in evidence bags. On the bottom of the screen were the words:

CRIME CRACKDOWN BEGINS: QUEEN VAYRA TARGETS CRIMINAL GANGS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 25 YEARS.

“Get the”—bleep—“off me, you”—bleep—“Elf son of a”—bleep—“or you’re all dead!” cried one of the arrested men. “Gods curse you, Elvish filth!”

At this, Zach couldn’t help but grin. “Wow, it looks like someone’s finally doing something about those Gods-be-damned gangs.”

“Not someone,” Kalana said, playfully bumping shoulders with him. “We are.”

“Well, I’m glad. Hey, did I ever tell you how, before my mom died, she had to close down her bakery because she couldn’t afford the protection money that they were extorting her for?”

“Mhm. I think you mentioned that once. Didn’t you say they wanted thousands of gold from her each month?”

“Yeah. Bastards extorted her until she couldn’t stay in business. If only I was…if only I could go back in time and be then the way I am now, I’d tear every one of those people apart.” The anger that rose within him came on suddenly and unexpectedly. “Thank the Gods. Your mom’s finally killing the right people.”

“That’s not true,” Kalana said, frowning. “I hope you’re joking.”

“Joking? About what?”

She nudged his elbow. “You don’t seriously think we’re executing them, do you?” she asked, her tone coming across as displeased.

“You’re not?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh. Okay, so I’m guessing you guys are throwing them in the dungeons instead, right? Hey, that’s still just as good.”

“No, Zach!”

Zach scratched his head, unsure of why she had taken such offense. “You’re confusing me.”

“We’re putting them on trial,” Kalana said.

Zach tilted his head, partially in disbelief. “Why the hell would you do something like that?”

“It’s ‘cause that’s how we do things. We’re using the same code that Elvish rulers have used all throughout history—at least back when there were such a thing as Elvish rulers.”

Zach vaguely recalled learning about this in history. “Tell me you’re not seriously bringing back that medieval crap.”

“It’s not medieval. If anything, the way you humans do things is what’s medieval. You arrest people and then they go straight to the dungeon.”

“Well, yeah,” Zach said. “Obviously. The peacekeepers know who the bad guys are. If you get arrested, it’s because you did something wrong.”

“That’s not true, though.”

“Yeah, it is. No one gets arrested because they did nothing wrong.”

“Nah-uh! You don’t even know any better. People do get arrested by mistake all the time.”

Long ago, before the guilds of humanity rose to prominence, and before the Elves vanished in what, until recently, most had believed was extinction, there used to be a convoluted system involving trials, whereby everyone arrested had to go through some kind of lengthy, drawn-out process, and even people who were obviously guilty got to sit in court and lie about what they did for hours at a time—or something to that effect. Obviously, it was way more complex than that, but he wasn’t exactly an expert in history.

At any rate, nowadays, the system was much simpler. If someone was arrested and charged with a crime, they went before a judge; this judge would then examine the evidence and determine if the person was guilty, and if so, sentence them to either a fine, a stay in the dungeons, or execution depending on the severity of the crime. Naturally, arrests in Whispery Woods were much rarer than in other, better policed regions, but even in Whispery Woods, when the peacekeepers actually managed to catch a bad guy, they made sure he was gone for good.

“If those men are found guilty at trial,” Kalana said, “they’ll go to the dungeons. But not before.”

Zach shrugged. “Fine, whatever. I mean, it sounds like a waste of time, but even still, it’s better than ignoring them. I never thought I’d live to see the day where someone actually went after the gangs.”

Kalana kissed him. “When I’m governor, I’m gonna make sure they’re all arrested.”

Zach thought to bring up the fact that her mom was no stranger to ordering the execution of people without any kind of “trial” or even real wrongdoing, but he didn’t feel like starting a fight with her over it. Clearly, she was taking a different approach to being a queen now that she had more than just a few-thousand lives to be responsible for. It was as if the weight of all those lives was pulling her towards an ideal that was greater than herself.

At first, Zach had thought this was all some kind of act, such as how she was focusing all her efforts on rebuilding the lives of people in Den of Ziragoth, or the way she seemed intent on repairing the city’s infrastructure. Yet it was becoming more and more difficult to deny that she was acting in good faith.

As if seeing the confusion on his face, Kalana said, “My mom’s the first Elf in more than a thousand years to return to real power. She told me so in Angelica’s. None of my people have had this kind of importance on the world stage in over a thousand years. She doesn’t wanna mess this up. What she does isn’t just gonna affect her legacy or mine, but it’s gonna affect the way people view Elves for a really long time to come. I dunno how she did things on Archian Prime, but this is a fresh start for her, and I know she wants to do what’s right.”

That makes a lot of sense, actually, Zach thought. She has a chance to do things differently now.

“You can’t repeat this,” Kalana continued, “but my mom wants to eventually give Archian Prime back to the white-cloaks.”

“Give it back?” Zach asked, not fully grasping what Kalana meant by that.

“Mhm. She rules there by divine right, but she caused a whole lot of trouble since showing up, and once she’s firmly resettled back in Whispery Woods with the green-cloaks, she’s gonna let them go back to being a self-governed territory of Elvadin. I think they all wanna return to their own ways and values. They’re very unhappy since she showed up, but their honor doesn’t allow them to say so.”

This, Zach found to be incredible. “Will the Elves still keep in contact with each other?”

“Oh, yep, definitely. We’re not gonna drift away like how we’ve been for so long. It’s just that a lot of the white-cloaks are really sad ‘cause my mom kinda blew up their whole understanding of society, and I think that she wants to give it back now that she has all this here on Galterra to care for. But that won’t be for a few years at least. She’s still gonna rule for now.”

“But wait. Didn’t your mom only go to Archian Prime in the first place to build a life for you and your dad?”

“Yep. But things are different now, Zach, and a lot of that’s ‘cause of you.”

Zach shivered at what Kalana was saying; it caused a chill to travel down his back. She was implying—correctly—that his actions, specifically, those that led her mother here to Galterra in the first place, were an integral part of the current outcome. This meant that Zach, unwittingly, had done something that caused a profound impact on the future of the entire world: that entire regions and the lives of millions were now permanently changed because of him.

It’s too much. I can’t think about this.

Not wanting to dwell on the idea, Zach let the thought drop and continued to watch the coverage of Whispery Woods. It was here he learned that, despite having only just taken control of the region, Queen Vayra had become immensely popular worldwide. Even though it was still her “guild’s” first week in charge, already, she was the most approved and well-liked leader in North Bastia. The media played brief snippets of an hour-long speech she’d given the day prior, in which she vowed in the name of her ancestors to care for each and every victim in Den of Ziragoth, claiming not one of them would be forgotten and left to fend for themselves.

“The cruelty towards those of you who have been left to your fate is one I seek to address,” she said, reading from a teleprompter at a press conference taken just outside the destroyed town. “No one who has suffered has done so through any fault of their own. You will be made whole, and your lives will be repaired.”

The camera cut away and once more returned to the reporter in downtown Whispery Woods. “Reactions to the queen have been mostly positive, Domanik, and people we’ve been interviewing on the street such as Zelira here have told us much the same.” Turning to face a short, elderly woman who was standing beside him outside of her shop that happened to be located at the ground level of a building adjacent to the one where the Elves were cracking down on gang activity, he said, “Can you tell us a little bit about how you’re feeling towards the guild of Elvadin?”

“I just want to thank Her Majesty,” the woman said, bowing her head graciously. “We’ve been terrorized by them for so long it’s become part of ordinary life. The kidnappings. The murders. I never thought someone would do something about it.” She smiled. “Everyone in my family is saying that Whispery Woods is going to make a comeback now. It’s going to be like how I was when I was a little girl. Things were very different back then, you know? We weren’t considered a poor city. People actually wanted to come here!”

Together with Kal, the two watched the news until the very first rays of sunshine broke through the storm clouds, which departed shortly thereafter. “We should get dressed,” Kalana said. “And you should get ready for your first session.”

“My first session?”

She twisted her lips at him. “You know, Zach.”

He moaned. “Ah, fuck. I keep forgetting about that. Therapy.”

Kalana snickered then kissed him on the forehead. “I’m having one today too, so don’t even start.”

“Can we at least eat breakfast first? I’m starving.”

“Mhm! She’s bringing it.”

“Who is?”

“Your therapist.”

“Huh?”

Rather than reply, Kalana got out of bed and started getting dressed, and Zach lay back down, suddenly becoming tired again. This was going to be annoying.

Chapter 124: Launch

Chapter 124: Launch

With his back against a double-doored entryway to a four-story apartment complex, and with a behemoth of a man bearing down on him from the front, Alex realized he was trapped in a close quarters fight. There wasn’t enough space behind him to step away or dodge, and thus, offense was now his best defense. Aggressively, he stepped forward and whirled his arms around, tearing his summoned blade across the throat of a member of the Guild of Gentlemen just as the man was set to bring his hammer slamming down on top of Alex’s skull. A splatter of blood preceded the halting of motion, and then he gargled and wheezed as he died.

At around the same time, a chorus of gunshots rang out, and Alex watched as a countless number of the enemy’s infantry were riddled with bullets. A few returned fire, and Alex managed to position himself in front of one of his men, protecting the level-1 soldier from imminent death. Yet others were not so lucky. Even still, their overwhelming force proved too much for the city’s defenders to handle, and it looked like, at least at the street level, they’d eliminated the Guild of Gentlemen’s forces here on 6th avenue and Ocean Street.

“Time to clear,” he said. Gesturing with his sword even as he spoke, he called out for various sergeants to get ready to lead their squads into the apartments for door-to-door clearing operations—but not before shouting out in warning to several of his men to get behind cover. “What do you think you’re doing standing in the middle of the street? You’re asking to get shot!”

Alex tried to remain patient. The darkness of war had a certain numbing effect on one’s civility. Yet he had made himself perfectly clear on a number of occasions: level-1 infantry and low-level guild soldiers needed to stay close to cover, and only those who were level 25 and up were permitted to march in the open—especially when capturing another street. Already, they’d sustained an unacceptable number of casualties due to fire coming from the windows.

I wasn’t meant to do this, he thought to himself. This is not what I wanted. Why am I so adept at it?

Alex had been given control of what had been called “Justice Company,” which had been merged with the remaining forces of Siege Company. The result was that he had just shy of five-hundred men and women under his command, the vast majority of which were ordinary, level-1 troops around his age or in some cases younger. In addition, he had two armored tanks and an armored personnel carrier providing him support.

Now, in what was more or less one gigantic double-sided line that stretched from the head to the foot of the block, he at last gave the command to breach. The sound of boots pattering down on concrete echoed in the early-morning light as his troops began entering the various apartment complexes three squads apiece and got to work on securing the street.

“Sergeant Marshing, you and your men are with me,” Alex said.

Jakz Marshing nodded. “Understood, Sir Oren.”

Jakz had been part of the original invasion force under the direct command of Staff Sergeant Edrax, who it was believed had likely been KIA along with his squad’s sergeant; thus, he’d been promoted from corporal and now led in the man’s place. Along with two other squads, he followed behind Alex as they quickly darted up the stairs of an old, but humble apartment complex.

“We’re doing this the same as last time,” he said, pausing. “I don’t need you to—”

He paused as a frightened scream came over their communicators along with the audible sound of gunshots from one building over. “I don’t need you to protect me,” he finished. “If we encounter any leveled fighters, back away and let me handle it.”

Having spoken those words, Alex rapped his fist against the leftmost apartment door in the first-floor hallway. “This is Sir Alex Oren with the Lords of Justice. Open up!”

“Fuck off!” screamed a woman’s voice from behind the door. “This is my home. You have no right!”

“I don’t intend to trouble you, ma’am. We just want to make sure you don’t have any weapons in there.”

“Kiss my ass! Fuck all of you!”

Alex squeezed his hands into fists and tamped down on the disgust and guilt rising within him. “Ma’am, please open the door or I’m going to break it down.”

Silence.

Steeling his resolve, Alex sent his foot crashing forward, knocking the apartment door off its hinges and sending it crashing down onto the floor. Immediately, he narrowed his eyes and shouted, “Get back!” He shoved a man to his right and a woman to his left out of the way as hail of gunfire bounced off his chest and face. Inside, he saw that a mother and her two young sons had opened fire on him. Hastily, he darted forward, reached out, and ripped the weapon free from the woman, whose eyes widened in terror as she fell backwards and landed onto her rear. One of her two children, gripped by a panic, dropped his weapon. The other did not. Thus, Alex first snapped her rifle in half before ripping away the boy’s and kicking the third out of the room.

“Please,” she begged. “Don’t kill us!”

Alex looked over his shoulder. “Sergeant Marshing.”

“Yes, Sir Oren.”

“Place these three under arrest.”

“No!" the mother screamed. “That’s worse than death!”

Alex turned his eyes on her. “You’re wrong. I’m not with the Royal Roses. You’ll be going to a POW camp run by the Lords of Justice.”

“What’s…what’s the difference?” she asked, clearly petrified.

“The difference,” Alex explained, “is that you’ll be set free unharmed once this war is over.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Alex understood her fear. It was only natural. After all, the Royal Roses, having been victims of a terrible terrorist attack, were out for blood. Reports of mistreatment, abuse, and neglect at their POW camp were not only accurate, but if anything, were likely understating the severity of the situation. The Lords of Justice, on the other hand, were not interested in revenge and could reliably be trusted to treat their prisoners with dignity.

As three of his troops moved to secure and arrest the prisoners, the sound of gunfire rang out from what he estimated to be the apartment three doors down. Alex clenched his teeth. Due to time constraints, he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Each floor of each building was virtually guaranteed to end in death or serious injury for those under his command. Yet these sweeps were entirely necessary to bringing order back to Shadowfall Coast.

What were they thinking? he wondered, shaking his head. How did the Guild of Gentlemen imagine this was going to go?

With every North Bastian guild united in opposition to the Guild of Gentlemen, there was never any chance of Shadowfall Coast enduring the siege. The capture of the city was now only a matter of when, not if. The only question that still remained was how many more people were going to have to die before this horrible chapter of human ugliness came to an end.

The combined might of their newly arrived forces, along with the continued bombardment from the sea by Sir Haisel Ragora, meant that the Guild of Gentlemen were steadily being driven back. It should be obvious to all of them by now that they had lost—yet they refused to surrender. They were going to drag this on until the bitter end, and thanks to a loyal, devoted population, the citizens were more than happy to fight and die for the guild, too.

We need to end this quickly. Let this be done with!

Speaking into his Comm, Alex said, “First floor clear. Moving to second.” He paused to briefly exchange information with Sergeant Marshing then said, “Fifteen POWs. Three enemy KIA. Two of ours wounded. Need prisoner transport and medivac.”

“Understood, Sir Oren.”

Alex left the apartment and returned to the stairwell, ready to repeat the process again.

******

With his fingers interlocked and his head resting on his chin, Vim sat in perfect silence in the 75th floor of the tallest building in the primary city of Giant’s Fall, the Rose Spire. Surrounding him were information screens and his top strategic personnel as he listened intently to each and every update. He hadn’t slept since the dinner, and he refused to rest until his body forced him to do so. Until then, he was subsisting on caffeine and amphetamines, struggling to keep alert and to manage things as best as he possibly could.

This won’t go on for much longer, he thought. It can’t possibly.

Shifting his eyes without moving his head, he briefly glanced out of the window nearest to his leather office chair where he sat at a large, oval-shaped table so that he could steal a glimpse of the metropolis he fought so hard to maintain. Though Giant’s Fall was not a flashy, glitzy city like Tomb of Fire or an upscale, elite corporate paradise like Varda’s Lair, it was still the most important place in the world to him.

To some, Giant’s Fall came across as an average city: nothing more, nothing less. It had reasonable levels of crime, a fairly strong economy, and a slightly above-average education system. It was often compared to what Whispery Woods had been more than a century ago: a reasonable, affordable city with a solid infrastructure that offered plenty of opportunities for work and growth.

To Vim, however, it was so much more. To him, it was a city of laborers and a city of grit. A resilient, strong people who worked difficult jobs and retired comfortably. He loved the people of this city. For this reason, he knew that if he were in the same position as the enemy, he would never subject them to this kind of drawn-out, unnecessary bloodshed. If there ever came a situation where Vim understood that his end was near, he would not drag the people of Giant’s Fall down with him.

But that was exactly what Sir Alistair Morrison had chosen to do. For reasons unknown, the man refused to surrender, choosing instead to arm his headstrong populace and have them die for no purpose or reason. And given his guild’s rage over the terrorist attack in Ogre’s Axe, even Vim himself could not stop the mistreatment taking place in the POW camp. His people were viciously angry and it was all Vim could do just to ensure there were no extrajudicial executions.

“How are things proceeding?” he asked.

“Steadily,” replied Norc O’cral, an Orcish intelligence officer who had also participated in the raid against the dragon. Vim had very much wanted him to participate in the siege, but he knew he’d have a better chance wringing water from a dried leaf than he did in getting an Orc to participate in a war. Instead, Norc had remained here in the central command room and helped Vim coordinate with his units on the ground.

Vim rubbed his chin as he studied a digital map that had been projected onto the middle of the table, which used color-coded dots to represent the advancement of their various forces. Although “steadily” was a fair description of the progress being made, it also failed to capture the dire insufficiency of it. Put simply, everyone—be it his guild or any of the others—had completely underestimated the willingness of the citizens of Shadowfall Coast to fight and die for the Guild of Gentlemen.

To say this was unusual would be putting it mildly. The vast majority of humans cared little which guild happened to control which territory, and such shifts in territorial possession, though much rarer in recent decades, was something that still took place every once in a while. It had always been the case that, as long as they did not feel personally under attack, humanity was willing to let the guilds play out their struggles in isolation, and they did not involve themselves personally.

But that all seemed to have changed.

Street by street, and block by block, citizens of Shadowfall Coast were firing on their forces, slowing their advance. Entire families, including children, were fighting to the death. And why?

Because gnomes had the audacity to exist. Because not everyone in North Bastia was human. Because if the territory fell into the hands of any other guild, they might have to see people who did not look like them.

Were they truly so afraid of having a Dwarf or Orcish neighbor that they were willing to die just to prevent it? By all available data, the most violent, homicidal race of people on Galterra were human beings—and it wasn’t even close. Yet the Guild of Gentlemen’s fearmongering had reached such a fever pitch that mothers were arming their pre-pubescent children with battle rifles. It was despicable. It was a bubble that would have had to burst sooner or later. But until then, it would be a painful, horrifying process.

However, as his communicator flashed red from where it rested on the table, he wondered if perhaps things might come to an end sooner than expected after all.

“It’s him,” Norc said, baring his fangs. “Sir Alistair Morrison.”

Vim nodded, though he did so slowly. Despite this being a voice call, he adjusted his tie and sat up straighter. He reached across the table and thumbed the red button. “Sir Morrison,” he said, his tone even and neutral. “I was hoping you’d call sooner. I’m guessing you’ve come to your senses.”

“I have, Sir Alazar,” said the voice on the other end of the line. He too sounded just as neutral and calm, which was remarkable for a man whose end was now set in stone. It was well beyond Vim’s power to prevent his inevitable execution. His crimes were too numerous and too heinous for the UCH to pardon.

“Too many have died. Tell me, are you ready to end this?”

“I am,” he replied.

Vim grunted. “Then let’s keep this simple, shall we? The hostilities can end at once pending your immediate, unconditional surrender. In addition, you will agree that the child of Peter Brayspark, Sir Peter V, will be rightfully made heir. We will allow your guild to keep control of Tomb of Fire despite how easily it would be for us to take it from you, and the brunt of the blame for this will be placed on you. Furthermore, I can guarantee both in voice and in writing that you will not be tortured, mistreated, or abused, and if the UCH opts for capital punishment, you will be euthanized humanely. Those are our terms.”

“I see.”

Vim waited for him to accept. Then he waited a little bit longer. A few seconds dragged on to nearly a minute, and one minute dragged on to almost two. With each passing moment, the overall mood in the room became increasingly more unsettling and bizarre. It was understandable that the man would need a moment to process all of this, but Sir Morrison’s silence was quickly escalating from uncomfortable to intolerable.

“Sir Morrison?” Vim asked.

“Yes, Sir Alazar. I hear you.”

“Do you accept our terms?”

A very slow, perhaps even bitter sigh came from the Comm, and the menace in it immediately put Vim in a state of unease. “I thought this part would be easier. Yet here I am, in the moment, and even with all my resolve, I’m still trying not to buckle under the weight of it.”

“Save it for your therapist,” Vim said curtly. “All I’d like to hear from you is a yes or a—“

“No, I will not surrender, Sir Alazar. Humanity will not concede a winning fight.”

Vim frowned, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Are you a fucking moron?” he blurted out, his patience lost. “A winning fight? I’m guessing you’ve lost a bit of your sanity in addition to your nerve. Why, if not to surrender, would you contact me and waste my time?”

“I’ve called you as an act of grace,” he said. “I’ve called to give you one final chance to surrender. You and the rest of the guilds. You will stand down and leave Shadowfall Coast immediately. If you do not, then twenty-five minutes from the moment this conversation expires, I will call down an ancient God on your city of Ogre’s Axe, and your guild will be crushed by a power greater than any dragon—a force not seen since the days of Earth.”

Vim slammed his fist down onto the table. “Cut the shit, Alistair. Now you’ve gone and pissed me off. I’m tired of this. You’re surrounded. Your city is falling. Surrender or pay the price.”

“Consider the first shot a warning,” he said. “If you do not surrender after the first, there will be a second—and then a third.”

“What in the name of the Gods are you—”

The light turned from red to yellow, and then off. The conversation had ended. “What do you think?” he asked Norc.

The Orc frowned. “I think the man has lost his wits, Sir Alazar. His sanity has clearly failed him.”

“Fucking lunatic is right,” Vim growled. “All right, continue operations as is. He asked for this.”

******

Sir Alistair Morison did not blink. He only spoke. “Launch the ICBM. Target is Ogre’s Axe.”

Chapter 125: Boom

Chapter 125: Boom

With almost perfect timing, the thunderstorms halted and the clouds parted in tandem with the first rays of early-morning sunshine. Zach, getting into casual clothing for the first time in days, noted the change of weather through one of the clear glass windows in the master bedroom as he slipped into a pair of baggy shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. Kal had left his equipment and his sword in the walk-in storage closet across the room, and his rings, necklace, and bracelets had been safely stowed in a jewelry box atop the dresser beneath the viewing screen. Zach could just as easily put everything in Bank and Storage, but since he didn’t plan on leaving the grounds of this large, three-floor, eight-bedroom home today, it wasn’t even worth the effort.

Stretching his back and neck muscles, he exited into the hallway on the first floor of this expansive, palace-like property that Kalana had somehow had built in just a matter of days. The Gods only knew how much it must have cost to not only build a home like this in the first place, but to transport the construction materials safely through the island's invisible barrier along with the construction DEHVs—while also paying an extra premium on top of it all so it would be done in under a week.

Tens of millions of gold at least, Zach thought with a shudder. She probably spent between 20 and 30 million. And to think: she lectures me about being greedy. How the hell did Kal even get that much gold so fast in the first place?

Located at the back of the home, a single wide hallway outside of the master bedroom led all the way into the living room and kitchen on the opposite side of the house. As Zach stepped over the newly laid hardwood flooring, he walked quietly so as not to wake up anyone who might still be asleep. Yet it turned out not to be necessary, because as he ambled his way into the living room, he spotted Rian, Lienne, Trelvor, and Seiley; all four were seated together on a silk, wheat-colored sofa, and they were speaking softly but animatedly to one another.

On the other end of the living room, Ruby and Fluffles were still asleep. Ruby was on her belly face-down on a separate sofa and Fluffles was passed out on the raptor’s back. “When food?” the cat moaned as he snoozed. Either through coincidence or subconscious hearing, Ruby’s tongue exited her mouth and licked the air as though in response to the question. It caused Zach to wonder why sentient NPCs like Grundor and Ruby even needed to sleep and eat in the first place since the mindless ones did not. Was something fundamentally different within them?

Probably a question for Mr. Oren, Zach thought.

Waving good morning, he entered farther into the room and said, “I didn’t think you guys would all be up so early.” As they turned to face him, he took a seat on the opposite couch across from the four of them. With a brief snicker, he added, “Well, at least not Rian and Lienne.”

Lienne folded her left leg over her right and sighed. “These two won’t let us sleep in.”

“It’s true,” Rian said, a touch of grumpiness in his words. “As soon as Seiley woke up, she made me wake up too.”

“Elvish tradition,” Trelvor said. “If a partner rises, you rise with them.”

Rian rubbed his eyes as though tired. “Okay, well, Seiley needs to stop ‘rising’ before seven.”

Zach laughed at the exchange. He was glad that Kalana either did not know or did not care about any such customs. Not wanting to disrespect the Elves, he decided not to comment on how ridiculous it sounded to him—the idea that if your partner or spouse woke up, you needed to do so as well. No way he’d ever go along with that if Kal tried to push it. That would be grounds for a fight.

Or at least a heated confrontation.

Between where he was sitting alone on the couch and where the other four were lounging together, a glass coffee table with a built-in holo-tab resided to fill the space. Zach, against his better judgment, leaned forward, extended his arm, and then thumbed the button labeled “news” on the holo-tab before sitting back up. This caused a 3D image to project into the air above the glass table. He was amazed Kal had spent the money on one of these, as in addition to being stupidly expensive—up to 15k gold for just one of them—their lackluster image quality and poor viewing angles made them less enticing to use for extended periods of time when compared to a traditional, wall-mounted screen. They were very much a novelty device.

“Why did I just do that?” Zach grumbled to himself, causing Lienne to raise a questioning eyebrow. He looked at her. “I shouldn’t have turned this thing on.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve been watching the news since I woke up a few hours ago, and now I feel like I can’t stop. It’s why I never should’ve started. Truth is, I’ve been trying to forget about all the bullshit going on in North Bastia, and now, here I am, getting roped in again.”

Lienne nodded. “I actually know exactly what you mean.” She glanced down at the 3D, holographically projected image, where the news was continuing to provide a live look from behind the battle lines in Shadowfall Coast. “Everything’s just gotten way too crazy lately. That’s why I’ve also started tuning a lot of it out, especially after I heard what happened to you a few nights ago at the…” Briefly, and without meaning to do so, Zach winced as though struck. Lienne must’ve taken notice of this because her words trailed off into silence, though only for a moment. Now, with a lower, gentler voice, she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

Rian also gave him an empathetic smile that disturbed Zach because the last thing he wanted was for them to feel bad for him. “What did you hear?” he asked them both despite the fact that he didn’t actually want to know. Truly, he didn’t. Thus, when neither of the two replied, he should have just dropped it. Instead, for a reason he did not fully understand, he felt compelled to pressure them into a response, and so for the second time, he asked, “What did you hear? Just tell me.”

Lienne licked her lips as though trying to form her words carefully, though it was Rian who ended up speaking first. “Well, we already knew the gist of it from the media, but Fluffles told us the rest of what went down. He told us how you had to…defend yourself.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Zach asked. He knew he was giving Rian an icy stare, but it wasn’t intentional. Thankfully, Rian rolled his eyes and defused some of the sudden tension that Zach could feel forming between them.

“Why wouldn’t I be? Because I’m from Shadowfall Coast? Zach, I hate that city and the people who run it a billion times more than even the Royal Roses do. Did you think I would be angry with you?”

Zach lowered his eyes. He really didn’t want to discuss this at all, but he also didn’t want to admit that to them. He’d already made himself look crazy in front of Kalana, and he didn’t want his friends to see him in that light as well. Yet, try as he might, he couldn’t control the way this topic made him feel jittery and ill.

“It’s not that I thought you’d be angry,” he explained. “I just thought that, you know, since you’re from there, Rian, and given how badly the city’s been damaged…I was worried you might feel differently about me now.”

“Huh? Why would I?” Rian asked, sounding genuinely perplexed as to why Zach would suggest such a thing.

“I don’t know,” Zach breathed out after a short pause to gather his thoughts. “Maybe because I was ‘technically’ fighting on the same side as the people who blew up—who are still blowing up—the city where you were born.”

Rian shook his head. “First of all, I know you have nothing to do with that, man. And second of all, I’m an adventurer, like you, and our people were attacked. That’s how I look at it. And I do feel bad about all the destruction, but none of that’s your fault.” Rian crooked his thumb at his sister. “And just so you know, Lienne doesn’t blame you either.”

“That’s right,” she agreed. “Not one bit.”

Rian chuckled. “She doesn’t even blame the Elves, if you can believe it. Actually, Li’s changed a lot over the past few days. She’s miraculously stopped being raci—”

There was a slap as Lienne hit Rian across the shoulder while a look of alarm and fear crossed her eyes, and as though catching himself, Rian gave her an apologetic nod and let his words cut off—but not before earning a skeptical look from Trelvor and also Seiley.

He almost called her racist, Zach realized. Right in front of her new boyfriend.

Before meeting the tall, handsome-looking Elf, Lienne had held some pretty harsh views towards the Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Merfolk, and basically all other non-human races. It was actually kind of crazy how radically she’d changed in just a matter of days. It was also pretty damn funny, too. It seemed that all it took for Lienne’s entire belief system to become completely inverted from its starting point was a kiss from a flute-playing, white-cloaked Elvish warrior with broad shoulders. Of course, this now put her in the unenviable position of having to hide all her past thoughts, views, and social-media comments from him.

At some point, Zach reckoned she would have to come clean about it with Trelvor, especially because it was only a matter of time before she failed to cover one or more of her old tracks and he found out. Honestly, this seemed like the sort of thing where, the longer she took to address this with him, the worse it would be for her relationship when she finally did. Right now, Zach could see her visibly squirm on the sofa as Trelvor leaned towards her and whispered a question into her ear. And though Zach couldn’t hear what he was telling her, he knew it was likely a question about what Rian had been about to say.

Lienne opened her mouth and raised her pointer finger, the unease plain on her face. Luckily for her, before she was forced to come up with an answer, she was saved by Kalana. Trelvor, Seiley, and Rian lifted their heads and began glancing somewhere behind Zach. Turning somewhat in the couch and looking over his shoulder, he saw her strolling down the hallway, a smile on her face. Happily, she took a seat right next to Zach, rested her head on his shoulder, and then with a bubbly tone of voice, she said, “Good morning, everyone.”

“Good morning, Your Highness,” Trelvor said, performing an awkward “sitting bow” on the couch.

“Morning,” Seiley said in a way that was moderately less formal. Rian and Lienne merely smiled politely.

For roughly half a minute, Kalana exchanged pleasantries with the two Elves, and then, with a big, happy grin, she regarded Rian and Lienne. “I’m so glad I finally have the chance to talk to you two. We only really spent a few minutes together when I met you guys in Angelica’s. But now we can finally get to know each other like we were supposed to before that mean dragon spawned.”

Zach felt a mix of contrasting emotions as her words reminded him of how things were originally meant to have gone down. Having cleared their very first dungeon boss, the three of them were supposed to have met Kalana in Den of Ziragoth. They’d been planning on spending a few days together, too, and then Zach and Kal were going to come here to the island. None of that had ended up happening, of course—at least not in the order and way it was supposed to. Instead, Zach had ended up hit with a whirlwind of pain, death, and devastation: a chain of events that were kicked off with the loss of his arm and his eye. Few people would ever know how much it hurt to have one’s eye and arm simultaneously ripped off their body while they writhed in pain on the ground of a blood-soaked street. In fact, if he allowed himself to think about it, he could still vividly recall the exact way it had felt when he’d…

Don’t think about it, he told himself. None of that matters anymore.

Zach redirected his thoughts back to the here and now, and with that, he engaged in light chatter as Rian, Lienne, and Kalana finally had the chance to interact with one another. “I wanna know everything,” Kalana said. “Tell me how you guys met Zach and what the dungeon was like.”

Rian and Lienne briefly exchanged glances, and then the two of them worked together in obliging her request; they took turns in recounting the entire ordeal in the Catacombs of Yorna. As they spoke, Kalana listened intently as Rian laughingly described his very first interaction with Zach along with how Fluffles had baited them all into PVP, which ended only after they mutually realized that none of them actually wanted to hurt the other. Afterwards, the siblings described their foray into the dungeon. A few of the things they said were things that Zach had already told Kalana, but Rian and Lienne gave a far more detailed retelling that included a lot of things Kalana was likely hearing for the first time.

“…and then we were in this staircase that went on for like ever,” Rian said. “And the only reason we ended up making it through was because Zach came up with this crazy idea with his sword to get us down safely.” He then explained the large drop at the bottom and Zach’s crazy stunt that’d allowed the three of them to survive the plunge.

“Incredibly brave,” Trelvor said, looking sincerely impressed. He nodded his head approvingly. “Daring, bold, and heroic: exactly as my father said you were.”

Zach laughed, though he couldn’t help but feel the sting of self-bitterness rising within him. It was amazing how wrong the perception was that people had of him. Anyone who could see into his heart would know that he was none of those things. They didn’t understand how many times he’d tried and failed to conquer his fears: how badly things still rattled him despite his constant attempts to mentally power through them.

“My buddy is brave all right,” Rian agreed boastfully. “You should’ve seen him run straight at the dragon all by himself. I never would’ve done something like that. I was so scared all I could do was try not to shit myself.”

“Fluffles fight the stinky dragon too and was also very brave,” the cat blurted out, his unexpected voice coming from behind and to Zach’s left.

He was now sitting directly on top of the backrest of the couch, having silently woken up at some point and making his way over to them. Zach had no idea how long he’d been there, but by now, he was used to Fluffles appearing without warning. Cats were sneaky little creatures and tended to show up wherever they pleased and whenever they wanted.

Ruby was also awake—though only slightly. She was still in the exact same position, lying on her belly on the couch on the other end of the room, but now her eyes were slightly open. She seemed content to simply lie there and watch everybody as though happy and grateful just to be here around them, desiring nothing else. As much as Zach hated Ziragoth and wanted to hate her for being a spawn of it, she was starting to win him over with the innocence and love in her eyes.

“Ruby, come hang out over here with all of us,” Kalana said, patting the couch.

Her tail started thudding against the sofa, and then she rolled off it, stood up on her two legs, and darted over as if overjoyed to be invited and wanted. A moment later, Zach realized he was patting her head without even consciously choosing to do so; it wasn’t until this point that Zach realized she’d managed to fully sway him.

For the next five minutes, Rian and Lienne told Kalana, Seiley, and Trelvor all about Yorna and their adventures in it. During this time, Zach periodically glanced downwards at the image projected by the holo-tab to see if anything new or noteworthy was going on in the world. So far, nothing much seemed to have changed. The North Bastian guilds were apparently making steady progress in Shadowfall Coast, and there was a brief update regarding the Bridge of Torment, which was now reopened for travel. Other than that, there didn’t appear to be any major developments.

Not that they’d necessarily tell us right away if there were, he reminded himself.

The troubled state of world affairs aside, Zach found himself immensely enjoying the downtime. It was nice to just sit here with Kal and the others, make small talk, laugh, exchange stories, and just generally have a good time without needing to rush off to fight some existential threat before it ended all of civilization. Slowly but surely, Zach found himself relaxing in a way that he hadn’t been able to do for a good, long while.

And that was when a knock came from the front door.

Trelvor sat up, alarmed. “Are you expecting company, Your Highness?” he asked, suddenly appearing alert; his back straight, he looked ready for combat.

Kal got up from the couch. “Yep. Everything’s fine, don’t worry.”

Trelvor did not seem entirely convinced; his eyes became narrowed, and his posture further stiffened. Seeing him in this hyper-vigilant state, Zach was simply unable to resist. “Hey, Trelvor,” he said.

“Yes, Zach?”

“Maybe you should get your flute just in case.”

Trelvor turned his head to give Zach a confused stare as Rian immediately slammed both his hands over his mouth but still ended up choking out a laugh with such force that saliva escaped from the cracks between his fingers, some of it spilling onto his pants.

“That…was a joke, I see,” Trelvor said, appearing annoyed. “You don’t think my choice of weapon is very intimidating, I take it.”

“Sorry,” Zach said, holding out his palms in a gesture of peace. “That’s just how I joke around.”

“I understand. But let me please make clear I’m not partial to that. I’ve never found insults against others or name-calling to be very funny.”

“Got it. I apologize.”

“I appreciate the apology. All is forgiven and well.”

Zach lowered his arms then made a mental note not to kid around with Trelvor in the same way he did with Rian and Lienne. Not all people were the same, and not all people could take a joke. Clearly, Trelvor was the type to take offense very easily, and Zach would respect that. Rian, on the other hand, seemed to be trying and failing to stop his giggling, but it only seemed to make things worse. In between laughing fits, Zach heard him whisper, “I’m sorry, Li, but that was so fucking funny. You have to admit it. Look. You’re trying not to laugh too. Zach’s such an asshole, hahaha.”

Taking his attention off the others, Zach watched as, with a spring in her step, Kalana hurried across the living room, through the kitchen, and towards the open foyer at the very front of the house, where she then grabbed the handles to a set of gold-adorned doors, pulling them open. Immediately, her mood seemed to become even brighter and more upbeat.

“Hi!” she called out cheerfully, letting the word drag on so it sounded more like hiiiiiii. “I’m so, so, so glad you came. Oh no! You’re soaked. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, stop, it’s fine,” said an energetic voice that was just a touch raspy. Zach leaned over in the couch to get a better look, and then his mouth opened slightly in both confusion and surprise by the sight that greeted his eyes.

Into the large home strutted a woman in a yellow raincoat who was at least six feet tall if not taller. Though the storm had stopped a short while ago, she was still a bit wet. In her left hand, she held an open umbrella, and in her right, she gripped what looked like a massive battle-axe: one even larger than the one wielded by Donovan. Its blade was alight with a smokeless flame, and the grip glowed with an on-and-off pulse that alternated between a soft reddish color and a slightly brighter orange. Quite clearly, she was an adventurer. But what was she doing here?

Surely, she’s not the…

Kicking off her combat boots, the woman gently placed the battle-axe down and then closed the umbrella, after which she peeled off her raincoat so that what stood before them on the welcome mat was a beautiful woman with an athletic build and medium-length black hair done into a ponytail. Judging from her appearance, she looked to be in her early twenties; she also wore a sleek pair of square glasses and a medium-sized backpack.

“Don’t worry,” she said as she and Kal hugged. “I got your message. I didn’t kill anything on the way over here. Had to outrun a few things, though.” Raising her hands to the length of her shoulders, she removed her backpack then held it in front of herself. “Food should still be dry, too,” she said, giving the bag a little shake.

Taking a single step into the home, she lifted her head and looked across the way to where Zach sat with the others in the living room, smiling at the six of them. Her eyes briefly passed over each of their faces, and when they settled on Zach, he felt a bit awkward and uneasy. Her gaze lingered on him for a just a moment longer than it did the others, and before looking away, she gave him a confident wink. Then she turned her attention to Fluffles.

“I brought food for everyone,” she announced. “We've got sweet honey rolls, cornbread, some muffins—tons of other goodies, too.” She looked down towards her feet, where Fluffles now stood before her almost as though he’d teleported. “Yes, Fluff, I brought you a big, juicy piece of salmon.”

He brushed against her leg. “Hi Jascaila,” he said with a purr. “Give fish.”

“In a minute, pretty boy.”

“I wait for you in the kitchen.”

“Okay, you got it.”

Fluffles turned around and ran into the kitchen and remained there as if wanting to be ready the moment she fed him. Zach watched all of this unfold with uncertainty, wariness, and a great deal of confusion. Surely, this woman couldn’t actually be the therapist that Kal had told him about. She did not look the part. She looked like an adventurer through and through. Yet…it must have been so, because the possibility of a different woman showing up with food at this time in the morning—it was unthinkable. It had to be her. Nothing else made any sense. And so now, studying her carefully, Zach felt his guard and mistrust rising.

I need to prove to Kal I’m not crazy.

Deciding to operate off the assumption that this woman was, in fact, the therapist that Kalana had brought here, Zach knew that the time had come for him to put his emotions and “jitters” on lockdown. He needed his behavior to be perfect in order to get a clean bill of health and set Kal’s mind at ease. There was no room for error or mistake. He had to present himself as the most normal person to ever walk the planet.

For the moment, however, Zach decided to remain where he was in the living room and “scope” out the situation as he prepared himself for whatever came next. Right now, Jascaila was standing across from Kalana, and the two began to snicker as they chatted about girly things for a little bit, their voices gradually rising in volume until Zach could clearly make out Jascaila excitedly describing a new dress she’d bought in Plains of Mist and Kalana asking her what she thought of the zebra-pattern countertops in the kitchen, to which this woman, this “Jascaila,” claimed she thought it was a perfect match for the cabinets.

Just from observing her briefly, Zach could tell that she was a highly sociable, intelligent, and outgoing person. She was charming, but without being too overbearing. She likely had the ability to disarm people and make them feel at ease: exactly what she’d need to break into his head and start fucking around with his thoughts. He’d need to be on guard at all times around her to prevent that from happening or else something bad could leak out of his head, exposing something he didn’t want exposed.

I just need to keep my shit together long enough to get a good report. Then we can put all this behind us for good.

Look. Here was the truth, okay? Despite what Kalana believed, Zach didn’t actually need therapy. That was just a fact, all right? Sure, he couldn’t deny that, every now and then, he had a little, uh…you know, a little “hiccup” here or there where he’d get a bit nutty. But truly, it was nothing that he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—get over all on his own with a bit of time and the growing of a thicker skin. He knew that if he just toughed it out a little bit longer, he was going to revert back to how he’d been before all the awful shit recently put these damn jitters into him. It made sense, too. After all, when something was shaken up, it needed time to settle. That was all there was to it. And as long as he kept it together today, he would prove that in good time.

“Wow, that smells so good,” Lienne said, getting up from the couch.

“Human food is my weakness,” Seiley agreed, a trickle of drool escaping her lips.

Rian patted him on the back. “Let’s eat.”

Zach nodded and followed behind them, and as he did so, he kept his cool, walked with an air of nonchalance, and tried to keep front and center in his mind why he was bothering to allow this at all. It was because, at the heart of it, the only thing he really wanted was to reassure Kal. Even more important to him than his ego was his desire for her to be happy because he loved her and didn’t want her to keep having to worry about him. That reason, and that reason alone, was the only reason he was willing to put up with any of this. And so, for that to work out, he knew he needed to behave as normally, casually, and calmly as he possibly could. He needed to present himself as the very picture of sanity, rationality, and stability.

With all these thoughts in mind, he followed the others into the kitchen and sat with them at a large rectangular dining table where Jascaila had laid out a whole bunch of sweet honey rolls for anyone to take as they pleased. Right off the bat, Zach had to try his best not to be disarmed as he was overcome by the incredible flavor. Gods be damned, it was good. He could tell from Kalana’s reaction—as well as everyone else’s—that they thought so as well.

As breakfast commenced and everybody ate, Zach was thankful for the lack of tension and the general sense of happiness from everyone in the kitchen, including Fluffles and Ruby, who were sharing a piece of salmon. Eating slowly, Zach remained mostly quiet as those around him made joyful conversations with one another, but in particular, with Jascaila, who everyone seemed to find fascinating and interesting. The woman spoke to all of them in turn, and occasionally, she’d set her gaze on Zach to ask him a benign question or two, but so far, she paid him no greater attention than she did anyone else, for which he was grateful.

“So, what do you think of those ones, Zach?” she asked him. “I bought them fresh this morning.”

“They’re great,” he said politely and softly. “Thank you.”

“You’re totally welcome. Want another?” She lifted the edge of one of the plates stacked with rolls so that it would be easier for Zach to grab. Not wanting to be rude—and also because he was really loving them—he decided to take another. And with that, she turned to look at Trelvor to resume a conversation she’d begun with him a few minutes earlier. “So, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I still can’t believe you and the other Elves were living on Archian Prime all this time and most of us had no idea at all. The Explorers Brigade sure loves keeping their secrets.”

Trelvor chuckled. “Secret-keepers or not, their guild is well liked by my people. In fact, before our Galterran brothers and sisters arrived, what little news we received of modern Galterra was thanks to Zephyr. I’ve heard we’ve traded with him on numerous occasions over the years, though it was before I was born. Truth be told, I’m actually surprised no one in your guild has ever made contact with us.”

“Former guild, actually,” she corrected.

“Oh, are you not an adventurer anymore?”

“Yes and no,” Jascaila said. “I’m mostly retired from adventuring. These days, I adventure with some of my girlfriends maybe once every two or three years to get more anti-aging creams and skincare drops from a rare spawn, but aside from that, I mostly put the adventuring world behind me somewhere around twenty or so years ago.”

Seiley, who had clearly been too busy eating to participate in the conversation about Archian Prime, suddenly put down the roll she was about to bite into, and now her eyebrows rose and her pointy ears twitched. “Wait, how many years?” she asked. “Did you just say twenty?”

“I sure did.”

Seiley blinked as if in disbelief. “And what were you back then, like four years old?”

“How old do you think I am right now?” Jascaila asked her, a look of amusement coming through clearly on her lips.

Seiley shrugged. “Twenty-five, probably. Maybe twenty-four.”

“A little bit older.”

“Twenty-six?”

“Older.”

“Twenty…seven?”

“Try adding about three decades onto that.”

“No fucking way,” Zach blurted out before Seiley could voice a reaction of her own. Immediately after speaking, he mentally chided himself for getting sucked into whatever mind game this woman was obviously playing. Now he’d be forced to interact with her unnecessarily. In order to get a perfect bill of health from her and put Kal’s mind at ease, he needed to avoid any unnecessary showing of emotion, which he worried could maybe cause her to, like, “see” something or whatever that he didn’t mean to reveal. But even still, what she was saying was so intriguing that he couldn’t help it.

“Yes fucking way,” she replied to him. “Don’t just assume an adventurer is the age they appear. We live longer lives than most people, and those of us who start at an early age end up aging even slower. For me, I not only started when I was fourteen, but I also go pretty aggressively after the cosmetic drops.”

Amazed, Zach struggled to come to grips with the idea that this woman, Jascaila, who looked like a college senior, could possibly be in her early-to-late fifties. He was equally as surprised as Seiley, who for some reason, also seemed to find this hard to believe. Zach wondered if it was because the green-cloaked Elves were less experienced and newer to the world of leveling when compared to the white-cloaks who were born into it. Or maybe it was because the cosmetics made her look too young for a woman in her fifties even taking that into account. Whichever the case, Zach remained skeptical, and as if sensing his doubt, she asked, “Just how old do you think Fluffles’ daddy is, Zach? Assuming you’ve met him, I mean.”

“Maric?” Zach asked. “Yeah, I’ve met him. And that guy’s pretty old. Maybe sixty or seventy.”

Fluffles lifted his head from the big bowl of fish he was sharing with Ruby, and then he meowed. “Zach wrong. Daddy is 122 years old.”

Zach dropped his fork on the plate. “Okay, no way,” he said, shaking his head and becoming fully drawn into the conversation. “Impossible.”

“Not impossible,” Jascaila said, also placing her fork on her plate, but only so that she could lean in and raise her pointer finger. “When I was first starting out, my guild-leader was pushing one-eighty before old age finally got to him. Right now, I think the oldest adventurer who’s still active is Miss Britethorn. She’s this really nice lady who—”

“Hey, we actually met her!” Lienne called out—then apologized directly afterwards for interrupting Jascaila.

“You did?” Jascaila asked, seemingly taking no offense.

Lienne nodded. “Yes, uh, me, Zach, and my brother met Mister and Misses Britethorn and even had tea with them in their home in Angelica’s. I think I remember them living in room 3007, right?”

Jascaila gave her a thumbs-up. “That’s right, Lienne. So, you did meet them.”

“Oh, we definitely did,” Rian said, chiming in. “I know because it’s impossible to forget the fact that they built an entire mansion in their inn room. Personally, I can’t wait until I have enough points to make my own little paradise world.”

Zach felt much the same as Rian. He too wanted to take possession of an inn room and use points to create a kingdom of his own making. There were basically limitless possibilities of what could be done within a single inn room—assuming you had the points to afford it. Of course, to even unlock the ability to transform it, Zach recalled that it first required you to “book” the room for 100 days or more, at which point the Britethorns claimed you’d receive a tablet that would contain all the functions necessary to create any kind of home you wanted.

But in what came as a genuine shock to Zach, there were actually people out there who did not absolutely love the idea of an infinitely customizable home in a room on the edge of the universe—or at least one person in particular. This, he discovered as he spotted Seiley openly frowning at Rian, who didn’t even appear to notice her glares until after he’d finished elaborating in detail on the kind of world he’d like to make inside of one of the rooms.

“I don’t like that, my human-pet,” she said.

“Don’t like what?” Rian asked her.

“You wanting to build a home there. I don’t like it.”

Rian made a strange, goofy-looking face as though he was both puzzled and outraged simultaneously. “Why the hell not?”

“Because,” she explained, “it’s wrong to live in some kind of ‘pocket dimension’ away from reality. It’s too disconnected, Rian. You should want to live in the real world.”

“Pfft. The real-world sucks. Especially now with all the shit going on. I’d rather be in my own custom ‘pocket dimension’—nice term by the way, Seiley—then be around Galterra right now. Did you see the images of those bombings?”

Seiley’s expression turned sour. “Humans,” she said. “Revolting as always.” She opened her mouth as if to say something else of a likely disparaging nature, but then abruptly, her expression shifted, and a fair degree of warmth came over her as her voice softened. “Wait, you were born there, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Rian said, his tone becoming somber. “Li and I grew up just two blocks west of 5th avenue and Ocean Street, which has been completely destroyed.” A hint of sadness entered his words as he continued to speak. “Actually, a friend of mine used to live in one of the apartment complexes that got bombed. Thank the Gods, though, because he’s okay.”

Lienne cocked an eyebrow. “Wait, you’re not talking about Ultril, are you, Rian?”

Rian met her eyes. “You remember Ultril, Li?”

“He was the boy with the really big teeth, right?”

Rian sipped some orange juice out of a glass in front of him then wiped his mouth with a napkin and nodded. “Yeah. That’s him. He posted on social media this morning that he’s all right. Apparently, he doesn’t live there anymore. But…”

“But what?” Lienne asked him, sounding worried.

Rian blew out a sigh, and there was a touch of real sadness in it. “I hear his dad got killed, though.”

“Oh no,” Lienne whispered, covering her mouth for a moment. “In the bombing?”

Rian shook his head. “No, he died a few days ago in the fight.”

“What fight?”

“The one that Z—”

Rian flinched of all things, and a look of hesitance immediately crossed his face. He and Lienne had gotten so deep into their side conversation that it was as though Rian had forgotten the existence of those around him; it gave Zach the impression that Rian had just caught himself an instant before saying something he didn't intend to say in front of the others.

No, not the others, Zach thought, feeling slightly alarmed. But me, specifically.

“Actually, I’m not sure how he died,” Rian muttered. “I think I’m confusing him with someone else.”

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean, Ri?”

“It means I don’t fucking know,” he snapped, his tone coming across as urgent, heated, and aggressive from seemingly out of nowhere. More quietly, but still audibly, he hissed, “Li, will you please shut the fuck up and drop it?” Following those words, he quickly tilted his head in Zach’s direction: fast enough so that he clearly thought Zach wouldn’t see it, but Zach did see it, and it caused a sinking feeling to begin appearing in his chest at the worst possible time.

What is Rian trying to say? he wondered. What is he trying to imply? Tell me he’s not trying to say that I’m the one who…?

Immediately, what felt like a thousand jolts of electricity shocked Zach right in his chest as it dawned on him rather quickly what was going on here—or what was being implied. It took a second for him to register it. But really, it was obvious, wasn’t it? Of course it was. This random “friend” of Rian’s—his dad must have been one of the level-1 troops that stormed the dinner party. Which meant it was very possible that Zach had been the one to kill him. That was what he was trying to say, wasn’t he? That mother fucker. Why would he start this shit now? Why would he put this in Zach’s head now of all possible times?

Just forget it. You never heard it. Everything’s going great.

Zach took a deep breath. He wasn’t bothered. Mind over matter. He was not about to lose his shit in front of this woman. Another time, sure. But not today. Literally any time but here and now. This was the absolute worst moment to have a return of the jitters. Stupid fucking Rian and his big fucking mouth. Lienne too. If only they could understand the weight on his shoulders. So, he’d killed their friend’s dad, did he? Okay, well, did they know that their friend’s dad participated in gunning down a bunch of unarmed people for no gods-be-damned reason? Did they know how badly Zach didn’t even want to be part of that in the first place?

But wait, I couldn’t have killed him, Zach realized, thinking back if for no other reason than to reassure himself. I don’t think I killed any level-1 troops. I was too busy with the members of the Guild of Gentlemen. Right? Or wait…

Horrified, Zach was once more reminded of the fact that he’d slain so many people so fast that he couldn’t even be sure that he didn’t kill any level-1 troops. He might have. He might’ve cut the man’s head right off his shoulders—and he couldn’t even know if he did or didn’t.

“You’re mad,” Rian said with a moan. “Ah, shit. I can see it on your face. Dude, it slipped out. I keep forgetting you were there because it still feels so strange to think about.”

“Huh?” Zach asked, trying his best to play it off. He remained still, calm, and he kept his voice even. Inside, however, he felt like he was plunging down a thousand-foot drop upside down. His head even began to swim as he contemplated the idea that he might’ve killed the father of one of their friends. It made it real. It made it personal. It took the distance away from the deed. Even still, he held strong. He tilted his head sideways to make it look like he was confused. “Rian, what are you talking about?”

“You’re mad that I brought up the…the you know. I can see you glaring at me.”

Zach laughed. “I’m not.”

Rian, shut the hell up, he thought, becoming irritated at his dumbass friend.

“Look, with all that’s going on right now, it’s gonna come up. I know you’re mad, but it’s the elephant in the room, buddy. And I didn’t…it wasn’t on purpose. But like how are we not going to talk about it? It’s the number-one story in the world right now.”

“I have no problem with you talking about it or about anything, Rian. It’s cool.”

Please just shut up. Why won’t you shut up?

“Really?” Rian asked him. “Because you look like you want to stab me, Zach. I’m sorry if I brought it up too soon. But like, come on. It’s impossible not to talk about.”

Zach wrapped his fingers around his glass, ready to take a sip of his own cup of juice. And for a frightening moment, he honestly feared he was going to pick it up and throw it at Rian’s face for continuing to make him look bad in front of everyone. He was doing everything he could to present himself as level-headed and calm, and Rian was provoking the shit out of him. Maybe if Rian had been forced against his will into taking part in an act of mass murder…maybe then he’d understand that it wasn’t exactly a fun thing to be reminded about—especially just days after it happened.

“You’re being crazy,” Zach said with a laugh. “Everything’s fine.”

“Okay, so we’re cool?”

“Of course we are. Talk about whatever you want.”

“You sure you don’t mind me talking about it? I hear what you’re saying, but I just feel like you’re pissed at me, man.”

“You’re imagining things. Why would I be mad about this?”

“You know,” he said, lowering his voice a bit. “The…the fact that you, um, you know, killed my friend’s dad?”

“Is…is that what you think I did?” he asked at a whisper, so close to the edge now and at such a bad time, too.

Rian’s face softened. “I’m so sorry I brought this up.”

“Why do you think I did it?” Zach demanded.

“Just forget I said anything.”

“No, it’s okay. Tell me.”

Rian stared at him as though uncertain. “You…so you kind of did do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you took out his whole squad. But…but it was self-defense, so you didn’t do anything wrong.”

He’s lying. He’s lying.

“I didn’t do it.”

Rian nodded compassionately. “You’re right,” he said, looking at Zach in a way he never had before. Was that fear in his eyes? Was he afraid? Of Zach? The person who’d saved his life? The person who’d rushed through Yorna and was willing to die for him? Was he actually afraid?

“My mistake,” Rian said, swallowing nervously. “I haven’t been sleeping. I must’ve gotten confused about the—”

And then it happened. Gods damn it all, it happened. Zach lost control and snapped—or at least he thought he did. It all came and went in a moment of confusion. He was sure he’d gotten to the point where his brain registered the action that he wanted his hand to take, and his hand had only needed to move. In this moment, his animalistic side had won out, and despite his restraint, he consciously made the decision to throw his glass at Rian’s face. Part of him tried to resist: a huge part of him. All of him, in a sense. Especially because this was the absolute worst possible time for Rian to start this shit. Yet the accusation broke through his self-control in a way he couldn’t have anticipated. He scowled, gripped the glass tighter, and even as he internally screamed at himself to chill the fuck out, his body was forcing him to vent.

But then, for some reason, he didn’t do it. It didn’t happen. And it led to a moment of confusion—a moment that lasted only until he realized that he felt a woman’s hand squeezing his own just as his arm began to move.

“Hey, you all right, kiddo?” Jascaila asked him, her tone exceedingly kind, her words soft-spoken. At some point—and Zach was not sure when—she’d reached over across the table and grabbed him.

Zach snorted as if the question was absurd. “Of course I am.”

Rather than reply, she merely smiled for a moment. “Yeah you are,” she agreed with a playful wink. Then she took on a bit more of a serious look as she turned her head towards Rian. “You’re being really inconsiderate, uh, Rian, was it?” she asked him.

As she spoke the words, she squeezed Zach’s hand with Donovan-like strength, though in a way that was more supportive and not painful. Kalana, sitting next to Zach, stared at the both of them in confusion as if wondering why she had abruptly leaned over the table and grabbed his wrist. To be honest, he was kind of wondering that himself—and so too was Rian from the equally mystified expression that was planted on his face.

“Huh?”

“I said you’re being very inconsiderate.”

“Me?” he asked, pointing a finger to himself.

“Yes, you.”

“How so?”

“Well, for starters, have you ever been in a war, Rian?”

“Well, no, but why do you—”

“Your friend has. You don’t understand the horror of battle, do you? You seem like you care about your friend, though.”

“Well, of course. Zach’s become one of my closest friends. But I don’t understand what you’re—”

“So, if you could tell that he was bothered by the way you were approaching this topic, why did you continue to push it? You embarrassed him, provoked him, and prodded at his wounds, and then you refused to take accountability after the fact, choosing instead to lie and tell him what you thought he wanted to hear, which only insulted his intelligence. That’s really unkind, Rian.”

Rian’s mouth popped open as if in shock. “It was an accident, lady. It came up naturally in conversation.”

“You seemed to know it was upsetting him, though. Right?”

“I got that sense, yeah, but…like how are we not going to talk about it?”

“By simply not talking about it,” she said. “By being considerate and realizing that maybe it’s too soon for him to discuss this with you. I think you should apologize to him and your sister for trying to divert the blame onto her as well.”

Wait, is she actually defending me? Zach wondered, bewildered. Is she on my side or something?

Rian wet his lips as both Lienne and even his girlfriend, Seiley, glowered at him. “Uh…sure. Right.” To Zach, he bowed his head. “Sorry. And sorry to you too, Li.”

Zach released his grip on the glass, and Jascaila removed her grip on his hand. “It’s fine,” he said, releasing a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. “I’m not upset.”

Rian opened his mouth to reply, but then Jascaila shot him a look of warning. “You should stop challenging him on whether or not he’s actually upset. You’re prodding.”

Whatever Rian had been about to say, the words never emerged from his lips. Instead, he merely nodded and returned to his breakfast while Kalana still looked around between all of them as if all that had transpired only served to further increase the confusion she was already feeling.

Embarrassed, Zach said, “I really am okay, though.” Now, he spoke directly to Jascaila. Having been put on the defensive, he knew he needed to address her head on. “I wasn’t going to do anything.” When she didn’t reply, he felt even more awkward and said, “I don’t know if you thought I was going to throw my…uh…never mind.”

She scrunched up her lips then made a playful laugh. “Don’t even worry about it, tough guy. You’re all good.”

Zach sighed. He hoped he didn’t just elevate his diagnosis from “a little screwy” to “batshit insane.” Somehow, this woman knew he was going to throw his glass right in Rian’s face. It wouldn’t have hurt his friend, of course. Clearly, Rian had enough constitution to where even a shard of glass directly on his eyeball could do no damage. Even still, it would’ve ruined the entire morning. Nervously, Zach hoped she didn’t tell Kalana what he was going to do. He was just so embarrassed.

“I just…” He paused, struggling to think of something he could say to talk his way out of or justify this. “Sometimes, I just get so mad, and—”

“You’re all good,” Jascaila said again with a laugh. “We’ll talk about it later.” She spoke the words as though they were not subject to debate.

“It’s just…”

“You’re good, kiddo. Relax.”

She reminds me of Donovan.

“Okay,” he whispered, feeling a bit awkward.

Trying to come up with a way to revert things back to something a bit more pleasant, Zach thought to bring up the Britethorns again. Yet before he could figure out a natural-sounding way to return to an earlier point in the conversation, something odd took place across the table, where Trelvor began to shift uncomfortably in his seat as though something was bothering him. He opened and closed his mouth several times before seemingly taking a deep breath and releasing it. And then he spoke.

“I am sorry to pour fuel on whatever fire was just put out,” he announced all of a sudden, causing all heads to turn his way. “I’ll be honest. I don’t really understand the dynamic here or what just happened. But I want to say that I like you very much, Rian, and I’m glad to have met you. Even if I had never met Lienne, I would still want to be your friend. So I say this only in the interest of friendship. Sometimes, Rian, you truly can be insensitive to the point of cruelty.”

Once again, Rian gave off a mystified, innocent look. “What do you mean?”

Thankfully, Jascaila took her eyes off Zach and began studying Rian instead. This, as Trelvor continued to speak. “I know you’re not trying to be malicious,” he continued. “And I wouldn’t bring this up at all if…if not for whatever just happened. But it bothers me greatly when you talk about my father’s sacrifice.”

“His sacrifice?”

A pained look came over Trelvor’s face. “You mean it in good faith. I know. When you pat me on the back and tell me how ‘badass’ it was when my father died during the raid. I know you mean it with honor. Yet you don’t seem to understand that, from my perspective, this was the worst thing I’ve seen in my life, Rian. I watched that happen to him live on your ‘screens’. I watched my father’s blood spill in a way I had never before seen. He was bitten in half. I can never unsee that.”

A look of guilt crossed Rian’s features. “I…I wasn’t trying to upset you, man. I was trying to compliment him. I meant he was a total badass the way he went out.”

“Oh, I know,” Trelvor said. The tall, white-cloaked warrior met Rian’s eyes. “It’s just that, to me, seeing my own father die in such a way, powerless to do aught but scream from where I observed in Whispery Woods. You cannot imagine what it felt like to see this happen to him. It’s something I carry with me. I’ve had trouble sleeping since.”

Jascaila placed a hand on his shoulder. “If you ever need someone to talk to, I’d be happy to listen.”

Trelvor turned his head to look at the woman. “Truly?”

She nodded. “What you’re feeling is actually really normal. Later today, why don’t we have a chat?”

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I’ve heard you can help.”

“I can.”

Zach, stunned by the admission, decided to volunteer a bit more than he ever would have done otherwise. Truly, seeing Trelvor state something like this openly made Zach feel a little bit more comfortable. It almost gave him “permission” in a sense to confess to his own feelings since he could now see that he wasn’t the only one in this kitchen who was a bit “off.” It made him feel less odd and a bit more normal.

“It bothered me a lot too,” he said, causing Jascaila and Kalana to look at him, as well as the others. “It bothered me more than you’d think.”

“My father’s death?” Trelvor asked him.

Zach gave a firm nod of his head. “Yeah. Because that was the moment I realized one of the bravest Elves I’d ever seen was…” He lowered his eyes a moment, unable to believe he was actually speaking about this in front of numerous people. This exact situation was the one he’d been dreading most, yet he felt compelled to continue the thought.

“Your dad, Trelvor: he was the buffer between me and that dragon. I knew that as long as he stood strong, I wouldn’t have to fight it. You called me brave before, but the truth is I’m not. The media, thank the Gods, they didn’t show what I looked like the moment after your dad died. But I am not the person your dad told you I am. I broke down and begged like a bitch. That’s the truth that you don’t know: that no one who wasn’t on that Comm line knows. When it was my turn to step up, I acted like a Gods-damned coward. I cried and begged not to fight it. Because I knew: the moment your dad died, I knew that it meant that I was going to have to fight it next. And I broke down.”

“But you ended up fighting it anyway, right?” Trelvor asked him.

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Then you are brave, Zach. Being afraid doesn’t diminish that. On Archian Prime, we are taught from a young age that bravery cannot exist in the absence of fear. That is known as stupidity.”

Jascaila laughed. “Very wisely stated.”

Zach paused for a moment before he continued speaking. He knew he’d already revealed too much, but he continued regardless. “It’s just embarrassing for me to admit that,” he said. “I humiliated myself pretty badly. I didn’t want to be so afraid.”

“Neither did I,” Trelvor said. “We are not like the green-cloaks. We are more disciplined—no offense, Seiley.”

She shrugged. “None taken. It’s true. You guys are uptight as hell.”

“It’s because we’re trained from a young age to be strong. We live in a world surrounded by hostile enemies and unpredictable events. If we are not strong, we are dead. Our villages are relatively safe, but stepping outside of them, one is immediately reminded that there is danger always and everywhere. Yet by training our bodies and our minds, we grow to become warriors and explorers of our planet. We do not have the peaceful meadows and gentle farmlands to be found here on Galterra. Here, you Galterrans can travel from one place to another on human-made roads. For us, a fifteen-minute walk can take two hours depending where we are going and what we might need to fight to get there.

“But my father, Londril, taught me to control my fear. To channel it into strength. Yet the sight of his mutilated body was a test of his teachings, and it was one that I failed. It has scarred me in a way it should not have. Like you, Zach, I did not want to be afraid. Yet unlike you, I was not there to redeem myself. I would give anything to have traded places with you.”

Zach’s mouth fell open in utter disbelief. “Even after everything I’ve told you?”

He nodded. “Even if it meant doing so with tears in my eyes and piss in my breeches, I’d have preferred to rush into battle and grant myself redemption for my fear. I do not know how I’ll ever remove this…this weight that I feel now. Shamefully, I wish for another dragon to arise and for a repeat of those awful events—just so that I could be present and prove to myself that I would have acted the same as you did in those moments.” Having spoken those words, he craned his neck to look at Jascaila of all people. “Is that normal as well, human?”

She released a good-natured chuckle. “That’s so normal,” she said with another laugh, patting him on the back. “And a very healthy thing to admit to yourself.”

“It’s shameful though, is it not?”

“Not at all,” she said with a firm shake of her head. “All thinking beings, I believe, are fundamentally the same in that regard. Wanting a ‘do-over’ is our way of coping with what we perceive as past inadequacies. A lot of times, what makes us hurt is a lack of control. The desire to change past events is just an extension of that.”

“Strange,” Zach whispered unintentionally, the word slipping out of him.

“Hm?”

“Oh, sorry. I blurted that out.”

“That’s okay,” Jascaila said. “I’m just curious why you find that strange.”

“Oh. I guess it’s because I don’t want to do anything over like Trelvor does. Not a thing, actually. For me, I’d rather just forget the bad shit entirely than experience it again attempting to make different choices.”

“That’s also normal—and unhealthy.”

“Unhealthy?” Zach asked. “How so?”

“Because you’re describing to me what is known as ‘avoidance.’ And avoidance, kiddo, is very unhealthy.” She flicked her eyes towards Trelvor. “Actually, both of your coping methods are unhealthy. They’re still really, really normal, though. Trelvor, it sounds to me like you can’t seem to get beyond what you feel you should have done or wish you had been able to do, and Zach, what I’m hearing from you is that you don’t want to even acknowledge your trauma.”

“That’s…true,” he admitted.

Kalana grinned. “I told you she was good, baby,” she whispered into his ear.

“Whatever,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Here’s something for you to consider,” Jascaila said. “For both of you, the methods are different, but your underlying issue is the same. Neither of you boys are confronting your trauma. Trelvor, you’re trying to change it, and Zach, you’re ignoring it or shoving it away.”

“It’ll go away on its own,” Zach muttered.

“It won’t. It will get worse and take over your life.”

Zach gave a firm shake of his head. “No, you’re wrong about this one. Donovan told me it would get better over time after I fought the dragon.”

“He did, did he?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you should ignore him, because my little brother’s a fuckin’ idiot who has his own problems he refuses to deal with.”

“Wait, what?” Zach exclaimed. “You’re his…”

“Sister. Right.”

Zach laughed so hard that it ended in more of a cackle. Gods it all made sense now. The fact she was over six feet tall, wielded a battle-axe, and was so self-confident. And now that he observed her facial features, he thought he could see a little Donovan in her, too.

“Is Donovan in his thirties, too?”

“Nope. He’s only three years younger than me.”

Amazed, Zach let out another laugh. “Well, this explains a lot—but also brings up so many more questions I have to ask you later. But anyways, I’m not sure what Kal has told you about me, but I’m not avoiding anything.”

“No?”

Kal glared at him. “Stop lying, Zach. You totally are.”

“How much did you tell her, anyway?”

Jascaila chimed in before Kalana could reply. “What she’s told me in our private sessions doesn’t matter. Believe me when I tell you that not a word of it factors into my judgment. Only you can speak for yourself, Zach.”

Zach looked at her. He wanted to trust her, but he wasn’t sure he could just yet. “There’s a lot of things I can’t say in front of everyone.”

“Of course.”

“And I don’t think there’s enough time for you to really hear it all, either.”

“I’ll be here for a week,” she said.

“A week?” Zach shifted his eyes to Kalana and fired her an accusatory look. “You told me I only had to do an hour.”

Once more, it was Jascaila who replied in her stead. “You don’t have to talk to me at all if you don’t want to, Zach. Kalana was wrong for trying to force you into it. But if you do, I’m not going to impose any kind of time limits. Usually, I do book hourly sessions, but for a fellow adventurer, we can talk as much or as little as ya want. I’d like you to trust me, though. If there’s a way I can earn your trust, just let me know.”

Zach puckered his lips a moment as he thought on her offer. He was surprised to discover there was actually something. “If you’re committed to therapy, then that means you’ve put it above the code of adventuring, right?”

“Hm? If I understand the question correctly, then yes, of course.”

Sensing an opportunity, Zach asked, “So, if I told you I wanted to know the location of the nearest dungeon that connected North and South Bastia, would you tell me?”

Jascaila grinned. “I take it you didn't enjoy your flight down here?”

“I hated it,” Zach admitted. “I’m never sitting on a ten-hour flight ever again.”

She sat up straighter in her chair and nodded. “I can tell you. But only if you agree to work with me and take a week off from adventuring.”

Zach shrugged. “Well, it looks like I’m stranded here for at least that long anyway, so the second part of that is something I’m going to have to do regardless.” Upon those words, he leaned in closer. “But if I agree, you’ll really tell me?”

“Will you work with me?”

He nodded. “If you tell me.”

Immediately, she said, “Okay then, kiddo, listen up. Shores of Wrath: the grand library in the primary city. In the back room, walk directly into the wall between the seventh and eighth bookshelf. You’ll find yourself on F17 in a dungeon called the Tower of Eternity. Just down the hall and to the left is a door to Angelica’s, and to the right is the Bazaar. A bit beyond that is the stairwell that leads from F17 to F18. Head up to F18 and jump into the swimming pool a bit further beyond and to the left. You’ll surface in a lake in northwest Whispery Woods not far from Pixie’s Point. You can always dive back into the lake and return to Tower of Eternity, too.”

Zach blinked. “Okay then. All right. Well, I guess…I guess a deal’s a deal.”

She laughed. “Don’t tell my brother I told you that. You’re supposed to find all that out on your own.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Now, Kalana. I’ve been ignoring you all morning, my darling. Tell me: how is your new cat, Nila? Is she being a good—”

*****

On the day that it happened, Kenzik Freelon was about to see her. That much, he would always remember. He was going to see her. Maybe if he’d left an hour sooner. Maybe if he’d gotten the kids together more quickly. There were so many maybes, and all of them were manifestations of his undeserved guilt. It wasn’t his fault. That much, he would know from the very beginning. Because how could it be? Even still, he would always shoulder the blame. And it all happened as he stepped out of his lovely home in the small township of Razor’s Peak, which sat at the top of the smallest of six mountains in northeast Giant’s Fall.

Located just thirty miles to the west of Ogre’s Axe—the smaller of the two cities in Giant’s Fall—the town of Razor’s Peak was, for the purposes of taxation, considered to be a part of Ogre’s Axe city just like the suburbs to both the immediate north and south of it. Despite this, nobody here actually thought of themselves as being part of the city, because if they had, the sentence “let’s head into the city” would be fairly meaningless, wouldn’t it?

“We should have been halfway to the city by now,” Kenzik called back into the doorway the moment he stepped out of his home. He tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for his two young sons to hurry up and get down here. “Boys, let’s go! Your mother’s going to have all our heads if we leave her waiting around again.”

“Coming, daddy!” his youngest called.

He heard the sound of footsteps thudding on the stairs as his boy ran out of the door and nearly tripped on the stairwell that led down to his front lawn. “Easy, son. Easy.”

His eldest was not far behind, and once both had exited, he closed the door and locked it. Then he paused a moment to breathe in the fresh mountain air. As a town with a population of just five hundred located in what was quite clearly not the most “convenient” of locations, there were quite a few downsides to living here.

For starters, commuting from here to anywhere—no matter the destination—always required a thirty-five-minute drive down through the DEHV-supported passes that ran down and in one case through the mountain. This meant that anytime they had to go anywhere, the absolute least amount of time their journey could take was thirty-five minutes. But typically, it was longer. Additionally, the town had a dingy little grocery store, an emergency clinic with only two doctors on staff—but no hospitals—and outside of a dentist that was only in once a month, there were very few services or decent shops up here.

But you know what it did have? A view worth all the gold on Galterra.

Every single time that Kenzik left his home, he would always pause for just a moment, turn his body to the east, and stare off the overlook right by his front yard that gave him a full, beautiful view of the entire city of Ogre’s Axe. Even in such a small town, life never felt small when all one had to do was glance out of their window at night and see the city lights that lit up the sky.

And so now, as the mountainous breeze gave him a bit of a chill and fought back against the early-morning summer heat, and with his children to both sides of him, he wrapped an arm around the shoulder of each one and smiled, taking just a quick moment to appreciate all that he had.

And then there was something bright.

A flash.

It was so bright that it defied all common sense. It was so intense that it rivaled the sun in its all-consuming nature. It rendered Kenzik momentarily stupefied, unable to process what was happening or what he was seeing—which wasn’t much, as the flash was so bright that it blinded him. It confused him. It left him addled. It was soundless, consisting of no noise. It was simply a screen of pure white that burned his eyes to stare at.

And then it became orange, and it was at this point the first sense of something horrid and wrong crept into his spine. “Daddy?” his youngest asked.

Kenzik could only remain motionless and baffled, forced to wonder why a fireball so vast it had to be larger than a mile in diameter was sitting on top of the middle of the city. No, not sitting: rising. His kids began to yell out at him, but transfixed, he remained in place, still caught in a state of shock as his brain worked overtime to translate what his stinging eyes were seeing.

More fear. More uncertainty. More confusion. More worry. Yet at this point, it still did not fully hit him. It did not register. He could not know that his wife was already dead. He could not understand that, in just those first three seconds, two-hundred and seventy-nine thousand people had already perished, and nearly two-hundred thousand more were about to die in the next three. He could not know about the radiation sickness. He could not know that a death toll of more than one million people would ultimately be recorded when the numbers finally finished tallying a month from now.

In this moment, he was simply a man standing with his two children and staring in awe at a gigantic ball of fire that appeared out of nowhere. It was a moment of wonder more than anything: a spectacle too flashy and too surreal for his brain to calculate the implications of what his eyes were observing.

But that all changed when the ground began to shake, and when nearly ten full seconds later, there came a boom to end all booms.

Like the cry of heaven, it was a sound so loud that it was like a storm unto itself, causing immense damage and suffering all on its own. The glass shattered in every window in the town, DEHV and home alike. It drew out screams from everyone on the peak—none of which could be heard over the roar of a God that filled the skies. Not knowing what to do: not knowing what he could do, Kenzik grabbed his children tightly, powerless before such an unfathomable display of destruction.

He screamed at them. They screamed at him. None could be heard. Later, he’d learn that his youngest had lost his hearing permanently. His older boy would go deaf in one ear. Somehow, Kenzik would make it out all right. Though he would trade both his eardrums to his children if such a thing were possible.

For now, he could only cry in a form of muted terror, wherein the intensity of his screams, no matter how loud, served no chance of being audibly registered. There was no outcompeting that roar. That boom. And just when his confusion hit its maximum, the shockwave rolled in, blasting him, his DEHV, and his children with such force that all three began to roll on the ground.

Even as they were thrown away, and even as the world flipped upside down and right-side up as he struggled to hold onto both his children while they, along with most of the roofing of his house, were forcibly relocated back towards the center of the town, it was in this moment that Kenzik’s brain was able to form the very first thought that his wife had just been killed. Before this point, it had simply not crossed his mind. Yet from this moment onwards, the soul-crushing sadness and the unbearable reality would at last begin to settle over him—as they tumbled and rolled, and continued to cry out in agony.

They were lucky, of course. His older child got away with a broken arm, his youngest had just a mild concussion, and he himself suffered only bruises. Other families were not so lucky. A few homes collapsed, killing all those inside. Some of those who’d rushed outside to observe the commotion were killed by DEHVs that had been picked up and thrown, crushing several people and flattening them onto the pavement.

There would also be a period of falling debris: a lot of it. Twenty-three more people would die, slain by hazards from the sky—the remnants of what had only just been a city. And as all of this occurred, a cloud of smoke tall enough to reach the heavens became the dominant sight in the world beyond, taking the form of something akin to a mushroom-shaped cloud.

But for Kenzik, he was far too preoccupied with trying to save his children and the instantaneous grief over the death of their mother to waste any time in trying to understand which God they had angered, and why that God had destroyed their city and their lives. Truly, it would not be for a week that he would come to believe that this was a weapon fired by other humans. For seven full days, he would genuinely think that one of the Gods had come down to take revenge for human transgressions.

And even still, through all his pain and suffering, he knew he was lucky. He did not lose a child. Few in Ogre’s Axe could say the same.

Yet at least those who perished immediately were able to escape the sickness that would follow.

Losing consciousness, Kenzik held his bloodied, battered, deafened children close to him as he trembled and shook on the pavement of a town that was now so badly damaged he could not recognize it or even be sure where he ended up. People were running around. Panic and cries filled the air, yet he could only barely hear them amid the intense ringing in his ears.

The city was annihilated. Nearly every tall skyscraper ripped apart in such a way that many of the structures appeared to have practically been dissolved. Simply shredded. Burned beyond recognition.

Why?

*****

“—girl?”

“She sure has,” Kalana said, looking around as if trying to find her. “Nila’s so cute. You have to meet her. She does this thing where she—”

****

Adamus gasped as a silent flash of light filled the viewing ports that ran all across the OMP’s central operating room. Doubt and disbelief merged together to create the blend known as denial as agents of the OMP along with engineers rushed to glance outwards and at Galterra, where a gigantic ball of orange coming from somewhere in North Bastia was visible even from here in space. At the exact same moment, alarms began to blare from the various terminals.

“Contact lost!” shouted one of the agents fearfully. “ALL System communications are offline. We’re completely locked out.”

Adamus ignored their cries as a level of confusion and incredulity blasted into him that he had not felt for a long time. Very, very few things in this world could still catch him off guard, and for something such as this to have taken place under his nose, it enfeebled him in a way that little else could.

How could this have happened?

How could this be?

How could he have not seen this coming?

Walking closer to the nearest viewing port, two engineers quickly parted and made room so that he could stare out of it. Adamus shook his head. This should not be taking place. Galterra had specifically been designed to prevent the creation of this. For he understood what he saw. This was, almost certainly, the result of an atomic weapon. And it was something that should never have happened. It was a matter he could have sworn he’d laid to rest in one of his rare acts of interference—back when he had personally sabotaged Moldark’s attempts to create one nearly a thousand years ago. Such weaponry was forbidden! It was firmly against the rules of the system and had been since the creation of the system.

Eilea! he shouted. What have you done? Gods, what have you done this time? Tell me at once!

“You think this was my doing, Adamus? You deranged fool!”

He could tell right away in just that one exchange that this was not his wife’s doing. My beloved, how can this have happened?

“I’ll tell you how,” she replied. “It happened because of the blind eye you willingly turn to Galterra and those you let suffer. What more is there to say?”

Now is not the time for bickering, Eilea. Even you must realize that this is an existential threat to both of our visions.

He could feel her anger as she reluctantly came to accept his words as truth. “I will find out what I can. I don’t know how I missed this. I’m guessing the same is true of yourself, Adamus?”

It is, my beloved. I’m beside myself. I had not an inkling that this was to occur.

“How much damage have they done?”

It’s only just happened. I cannot say to what extent the system infrastructure has been harmed.

“No, you fool! I meant to the lives of Galterrans. How many have died?”

Annoyed, Adamus did not bother replying. Once again, Eilea was focusing on the wrong issue here. Right now, all that mattered was assessing the infrastructural damage and preventing any further harm. Any lost lives were the fault of whoever had launched the forbidden weapon, and they were not his responsibility. Though it pained him to imagine the extent of death and pain that many on the planet were either feeling or would soon feel, it was, ultimately, a consequence of their own actions. The system, however, had now been directly threatened. This was…unacceptable.

“My children, tell me: how badly has the system been hit?”

“We don’t know,” one of his lead engineers replied. The man angrily banged his fist on one of the terminals. “We’ve lost all contact with the system. There’s no way of knowing from here.”

Adamus calmed himself and began to formulate a plan of action. Nuclear weapons could not be permitted to exist, as they did not arise from the system but from wickedness. Fundamentally, nothing that arose as a result of the system could harm the system. It was simply not possible. Even the World Eater, a so-called “hacked” creation that would inevitably erase all life on Galterra—not even this could actually damage the system itself. But a nuclear weapon, on the other hand…those could, in theory, bring the entire system offline.

Glancing out of the viewing port, Adamus set his sights on the planet before him. From where he stood, he approximated the weapon to have landed somewhere in Giant’s Fall in North Bastia, which inconveniently happened to be a region where one of the eight Nodes upholding the system in Galterra happened to be located.

Though the Node was most certainly invulnerable to the weapon itself, a blast of that magnitude had the capacity to cause seismic waves that could knock it out of alignment and disconnect it from the system along with evaporating all connected lines and infrastructure—all of which would need to be replaced. For the system to remain at optimal functionality, all eight Nodes needed to be connected and active. For the moment, it was impossible to say what parts of the system aside from monitoring and communication had been taken offline, and sending out repair crews was going to be incredibly difficult due to the nuclear fallout and radiation.

Eilea, it must have been Moldark. It could be no other. This must be his doing.

“I thought we dealt with that a long time ago.”

Clearly, we did not succeed. That man must’ve outsmarted us.

“Can…can the humans make more of these?”

I do not know. You must find out.

“I despise working with you.”

You have no choice. Neither of us will ever achieve our goals if the humans begin manufacturing nuclear warheads.

“Even if we learn, I can do little since you’ve locked me away, Adamus!”

You need not act yourself.

“Oh?”

Find out who is responsible, and then throw the boy at them. It’s what you would have done anyway, is it not?

Eilea did not reply, but she did not need to, either. Adamus could sense that his point had gotten across.

****

“—curls up into a ball, and rolls over, and then she bites me whenever I touch her tummy.”

“Fluffles does that too,” Zach said.

Fluffles meowed. “Everyone fall for my trap.”

Zach laughed then let his mind wander, and as a result of doing so, he realized it’d been a bit since he’d last checked up on the news. He decided to feed his addiction. Getting up from the table, he returned to the living room and glanced down at the holo-tab. Then he frowned.

NO CONNNECTION DETECTED

Strangely, Zach realized the same was true when trying to access the news through the viewing screens as well. “Kal, your house is offline.”

She laughed. “Boo-hoo. You’ll live.” More seriously, she said, “The network stuff, umm, they told me this might happen until we can get a proper signal receiver here, but that takes time. The people who built the house said that, until we do, sometimes we might have little outages that last a few minutes.”

Zach shrugged. “It’s fine, whatever. I’ll use my phone to see what’s going…huh? No service. The hell?”

“Use mine, baby,” Kalana said, removing her phone from her pocket and handing it to him.

Zach twisted his lips. “Yours is dead too, Kal.”

“You can use mine,” Jascaila said. “I don’t mind if you…hmm. Mine’s down too. Okay, that’s weird.”

Zach grunted. “Technology really sucks. I can’t believe it’s 7058, and we still can’t make a working phone—like we’re living in the year 6250 or some shit.”

“I know, right?” Rian asked. “Mine’s down too.”

“Caveman shit. It’s literally like living in 6250.” He sighed. Oh well. He’d wanted to be completely disconnected, and he supposed he’d gotten his wish.

Chapter 126: The Guy who Knows Everything

Last Experience Point

PART II: JOURNEY TO ALBION-4

Chapter 126: The Guy who Knows Everything

TWO WEEKS LATER

------

First came an effeminate—but honestly adorable—squeak, then came a pleading, fearful look, and finally, the girl in the blue robes with the green eyes swallowed nervously. “Jimmy, this is a really, really bad idea,” she said. She pressed her back against the brick wall and clutched her staff close to her chest as though fearful of being torn to pieces. “We’re both going to die.”

Jimmy laughed. “Oh, come on, Tena. You really think I’d bring you out here if I didn’t know what I was doing?”

“N-no, but Jimmy, this is really crazy. We should run for Angelica’s. It’s not too late!”

“Just watch the master work his magic.”

“Jimmy!”

He again chuckled, but along with it, Jimmy gave her a reassuring smile. He liked this girl, this “Tena Laielza.” How could he not? She was cute, she was his age, and she was the first true friend he’d made since finding himself stuck in this world a little more than two weeks ago. And honestly? She was his type. He could easily see himself falling for her. Yet he had a goal to accomplish. He had to get home. So he didn’t have time for any of that nonsense. Even if…even if the temptation was very real.

Not only did Jimmy like this girl, but she was also the only person he currently trusted with his secret. Despite Eilea’s letter warning him never to tell a single soul who he was, he’d somehow known from the moment he met her that she would not betray him. It was just the sense he got from her, but even more so, he needed someone he could trust. Someone who actually believed him, too.

“Just relax, all right? I’ve done this kinda’ thing a thousand times before. Trust me.”

She visibly tightened her grip on her wooden staff. “Yeah, but Jimmy, that was in your uh…what did you call them?”

“MMORPGs,” he reminded her.

She nodded. “Okay, but this is real life. This might not work the way it would in your computer games.”

“Don’t you get it? How many times I gotta tell you? This is a computer game. We’re trapped in a simulation.”

“I promise you we’re not.”

“Oh no? Watch this, then. It’s gonna work just like I’m telling you it is.”

“Gods above…”

She pressed herself even more tightly against the brick wall. Right now, the two of them were on F49 in the Tower of Eternity. From what Jimmy could tell, it was a one-hundred floor dungeon in the middle of a gas giant planet that, for all intents and purposes, was basically just an infinite blue, Earth-like sky with Earth-like clouds. Or at least the real Earth. Not whatever abomination greeted his eyes when she’d taken him through that Yorna dungeon and led him to that hellscape with the crimson sky. God damn, he regretted seeing that. He’d gone to where his apartment was supposed to be, but there wasn’t anything there but rubble and level-25 spider mobs.

My home’s still out there, he told himself. I know it is. Whatever that place was isn’t real.

Visiting the dark, twisted world she’d claimed was “Earth” had been the one—and only—time Jimmy had let himself get soft. But Tena, she’d been there for him at a time of need as he tried to make sense of how any of this was possible. Eilea had only told him the bare minimum. There was so much he didn’t know. Even still, he’d constantly recite the note she’d left him over and over in his head. He’d thought of it so much he could now recall it word for word.

Dear Jimmy Green

You may find this letter distressing, and for that I am sorry, but your survival depends on you accepting what I say as fact. Right now, you are no longer on your home planet of Earth. You are on a planet known as Galterra. You have been saved from death and brought here for a purpose greater than yourself. To know more, you must prove yourself worthy. At the bottom of this note are coordinates. Go there, defeat the enemies you find, and begin your journey towards greatness. Time is of the essence. I expect you to reach level 30 within your first three months here, and if you prove yourself capable of doing so, I will find you and tell you more. It will not be easy, but you must succeed. I leave you with one final warning, however. Tell no one the truth of how you’ve come here, and do all you can to conceal the nature of your origin. There are those who would see you slain. May you walk with the guiding hand of the Goddess.

The first time he’d read that note, he’d been in the bathroom of a nice little inn in the helpful town called “The Cursed Grounds.” Despite originally intending to stay there awhile and earn some cash—or gold in this case—he’d felt driven to pursue more: to discover more. Clearly, whatever path remained for him to return home would surely go through the one who’d brought him here. This “Eilea” chick. And so, all on his own, he’d made his way into a vast, but somewhat cruddy city twice the size of Manhattan called “Whispery Woods,” where he’d found some mobs beneath the sewers, thus beginning his journey in this simulated reality.

At least I hope that’s what it is, he thought, somewhat nervously. I can’t accept this is real.

Real or not, he had no doubt that there were consequences for failure. He could feel real pain here. He could feel thirst, hunger, and every sensation from the real world. Without a doubt, if he died in this reality, he would die in the real one. Kind of like in the Matrix, right? That had to be what was going on. Right now, his real body was currently in some Matrix-like machine connected to tubes. So, regardless of the ultimate truth behind his appearance here, he was still going to give it his all, because death would be death either way.

Can’t believe she gave me three months, he thought, concealing a snicker.

Every time Jimmy thought about Eilea’s letter, he always had the exact same reaction: amusement. Aside from the very first time he’d read it, the letter brought up nothing for him but sheer, utter amusement. And why? Because of just how badly she’d underestimated him. She thought he needed three whole damn months to get level 30? Seriously? Three whole months? Get the fuck outta here! Did she even know who he was? She must not have. Jimmy Green didn’t need three months like some seething pleb scrub to get past the fucking tutorial. Are you serious? It only took him a week to get level 30 and another to get level 43, his current level.

And now, he was planning on getting two levels in the next minute.

“Take it easy, Tena. You just gotta trust me.”

“Not like I have a choice at this point, Jimmy,” she said nervously. She looked like she’d started to hold her breath.

This dungeon they were in—the Tower of Eternity—was apparently floating on a planet ten times the size of Galterra with nothing around for tens of thousands of miles in any direction: just more empty sky. And on every floor of this dungeon—at least so far—there had been windows located at the top of the brick walls. Looking out of these windows would always give a view similar to that of looking out the window of an airplane mid-flight—only with no ground. The idea of falling out of the tower was actually kind of scary. No one he asked knew what would happen in that hypothetical. Supposedly, you’d keep falling until the atmosphere became so dense that gasses behaved like metals or something, and you’d either be crushed to death or trapped until you died of starvation or lack of oxygen.

Taking a deep breath, Jimmy shifted his eyes at the long hall directly in front of him as well as the one to his left and to his right. F49 was comprised of one gigantic, T-shaped hallway with about ninety mobs in total, many of which were easily avoidable. Jimmy had killed the few in aggro range that stood in his way while ignoring the rest. And it was all so that he could hug the corner of a wall not far from the stairwell labeled F49-F50.

“Get ready. I’m breaking my mez.” Tena’s cute face puffed up with fear, but she nodded. “Chill, Tena. It’s all good. Just make sure you’re ready with those debuffs.”

Tena had the perfect ability to complement his own. That was why, even if he hadn’t found her so adorable, he still would’ve wanted to confide in her and take her with him. For the last whole week, he’d hung out with her and her friends at Angelica’s. And against Jimmy’s better wisdom, on the last two nights, they’d slept together, too. He’d originally met her after stumbling across a boss on F20 he knew he wouldn’t be able to solo. Thus, he’d briefly joined up with her in a PUG—though they didn’t seem to understand the term “pickup group” here. Right away, he’d realized that she was someone he could do incredible things with. And so now, on his first official “test run,” he’d invited her to his party and had actually taken her out here to join him. He knew she wouldn’t refuse. She, like most of those in Angelica’s, were in awe of him. Apparently, none of these “adventurers” had ever seen anyone level up as fast as Jimmy without getting PL’d.

“Okay, here we go.”

Jimmy tapped his own staff onto the paved dungeon floor, producing a little clack, and Immediately, growls and snarls filled the entirety of the world around him as he ended his mesmerize, which he had gone around and cast on every single mob on the entire floor. Now, readying himself, Jimmy watched as a horde of gremlin-looking things with sharp teeth and even sharper claws raced down the hallway from all three directions, heading straight for them. They looked like teddy bears but with reddish-colored fur, snarling faces that dripped acidic drool, and they made a chorus of high-pitched growls

HP

41,500/41,500

Name

Romping Rodent

Level

45

Jimmy held his staff in front of him. It was an Epic Rare item he’d gotten from the boss he’d solo’d on F30. Rather than wood, it was made of a reddish metal that ended in a globe-shaped pattern of golden, shining circles. His robes were also from the very same boss, and they were of made of a white, silk-like material that made him look like the emperor of some kind of grand army.

Neither Tena—nor any of the others—could believe their eyes when he’d strutted into Angelica’s last week wearing a full set of the boss’s gear along with the staff. They also cast doubt on his claims that he’d solo’d the F30 boss—multiple times, too—given its purported difficulty and recommended raid size of 30 members. But that was because those dudes never thought to try aggroing it through the wall to avoid its adds. See, it was only even difficult because of those adds. The boss by itself was like nothing. So naturally, Jimmy tried doing what any tryhard would do: finding an exploit. And sure enough, he’d found one.

“J-Jimmy,” Tena whimpered. “This isn’t going to work. We’re gonna die!”

“Nope. Cast it now, Tena. Trust me.”

Tena twirled her staff around, causing it to light up with an orange glow as it moved around, and then she swung it downwards just as all three separate groups converged into one massive one. A blinding, dizzying number of red down arrows appeared above all ninety mobs, as well as a steady puff of silverish smoke above each one of their eyes. At the same time, Jimmy also threw out his own staff, and he felt sweat trickle down his forehead from the exertion of casting such a massive AOE debuff of his own. A second down arrow appended to the end of the first, and now in addition to the smoke above their eyes, the absolute horde of mobs began to walk slower, moving with three quarters less speed than they’d been only a second ago.

“Okay shift to the wall to your left. Now!”

Tena nodded and slid along the wall the moment Jimmy instructed her to do so. Just as he’d predicted, there was a small pocket of space that they were able to slide through to avoid the gnashing, clawing mobs, all of which were slowed and blinded. Tena squeaked again fearfully as several did manage to take several swings at her, yet all but one missed. And even then, it was a pretty nasty gash, but it was nothing Jimmy couldn’t heal up in an instant, making sure she didn’t feel the pain for all that long.

“Okay, run it down the hallway. Pause at half.”

“Okay, okay!”

Together with Tena, the two raced down the hallway opposite the exit door and then stopped together, side by side. “Poisons!” Jimmy cried. “Make sure you cast until you get ‘em all! Vel en Bled! Vel En Bled!”

“Vel en Dol!” Tena cried.

The two of them swung their staves around, and now Jimmy began to pant as he was forced to use his AOE poison several times to ensure he got each and every one of them. The same was true of Tena. Her poison appeared as a black sludge that dropped down from a bucket that materialized midair, drenching the slowed, debuffed mobs about twenty at a time. His, on the other hand, appeared as a more traditional green mist that rose up like smoke from below, not above, though it did rise on the air.

“Now what?” she asked him.

He grinned. “Now we just slowly and calmly walk backwards. Watch.”

The moment the slowed mobs were nearly upon them, the two stepped back. Every few steps, all ninety mobs simultaneously made loud, pained croaks and took anywhere between 3,000 and 5,000 damage from the double poisons. “Just keep backpedaling,” he said. “Nice and easy.”

Step by step, the mobs pursued, and as they did so, their HP continued to whittle away with each tick of the two DOTs.

“Grahhurr!” ninety animal-like voices all croaked in unison. “Grahhurr!”

Tick by tick, their HP dwindled, and now, clearly becoming more confident, Tena laughed, her fear clearly diminishing. “This is working. Wow! This is really, actually, working. I can’t believe we pulled the whole dungeon floor!”

“I’ve been doing this kinda stuff since I started. Now do you see how I’m leveling so fast?”

“It’s unbelievable!”

With a dead-end wall behind them, there was some small cause for concern, but Jimmy was confident he’d thought things out properly. He was familiar with these mobs from the previous floor, and he knew how long his poison would stick. And indeed, a moment before their two backs collided with the stone wall, about fifty of the mobs dropped dead, followed by the remaining forty a few moments later, causing an unintelligible mush of xp numbers to pop up ahead of him.

+20000xp

+20000xp

+20000xp

When the final mob died, Jimmy was temporarily blinded as two massive level up screens popped up in front of him simultaneously. Ever since he’d completed his gear set back on F30, he’d earned a bonus that upgraded his Helm Sight Level, enabling him to have a much more useful display of information. Now, with two level ups side by side, he could see that he’d increased his intelligence by another ten points overall, his dexterity by five, speed by four, and only three in total into constitution, two into luck, and one into strength. Clearly, he was a caster: that much was obvious from day 1.

Still, it’d have been nice to get a few more points into strength.

Ahead of him, several bags of loot sparkled. Looked like he was making bank today, boys and girls. Confidently, he grabbed what was his, including a rare ring that was shit compared to what he had, so he threw it in storage and figured he’d head to the bazaar later to pawn it off to some lowbie for cheap. Yawning, he asked, “Wanna grab some lunch?”

Tena smiled. “Okay.” She looked happier than he’d ever seen her. He wasn’t sure why. But it soon made sense as she said, “I just leveled up six times!”

“Gratz.”

She hugged him and kissed him, and damn, he knew he was falling for this girl. He just knew it. Especially since he’d been so lonely since his ex called it off with him. Honestly, if only he could’ve met her back on Earth, he would be ready to jump through hoops for her. But as things stood, he couldn’t even be sure she was real. Or any of this was. He doubted it very much. In fact, he was sure this was all just a simulation. It had to be.

“Let’s go before they respawn.”

Walking side by side, the two of them hurried all the way back down the hallway of F49. Then, pushing open the door to Angelica’s that was just ahead of the stairwell leading to what was—presumably—a boss fight, he said, “Ladies first,” and watched as she strutted her cute behind inside the inn. Soon after, he followed, and then he let the door shut behind him.

Right away, he knew he was going to be hassled. Every head turned towards him, and the questions began practically the moment he stepped through the door. “How’d you do it, Jimmy?” asked Reni Sarwin, an adventurer who’d actually fought against that dragon during the raid that’d been going down on the day he got here. “Just tell me. How’d you kill that boss solo?”

“Quit holding out on us,” another adventurer cried, his voice uneven. He was clearly inebriated. Jimmy winked at him where he sat with two others at one of the tables near the dance floor. “Just fuckin’ tell us, kid. Sharing is caring.”

“How much you gonna pay me, Balzor?”

He grabbed his nuts. “I’ll pay you with these, Jimmy.”

“I don’t see anything. What’re you grabbing?”

He barked out a laugh. “Oh, you little shit. You remind me of Calador.”

“Pfft. Tell me ya’ll aren’t gonna spend another night talking about him again. He’s not even that good, for real.”

“Easy now,” growled an adventurer to his left. “You have a habit of talking too much shit, Jimmy. Way too much.”

Jimmy shrugged. “What can I say? I’m honest. All you people ever talk about is Zach, Zach, Zach. Kid’s got some OP bullshit abilities, clearly doesn’t know how to use them, and all I’m staying is you give me 2 months and I’ll accomplish more than he will in 200 hundred years. I’m the fucking boss, got it? And you can laugh at me right now—I see all you guys giggling—but I’m gonna be higher level than every single one of you in a month. That’s on God. Take it to the bank. I’m crushing Galterra. This is easy to me.”

Tena gasped, and Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Oh, not you, too Tena. Don’t tell me you’re offended because I said I—”

“N-no!” she interrupted, pointing fearfully at the bar counter ahead. “Jimmy, shh!”

“Why?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “What’s going?”

“I’m what’s going on,” growled the voice of a behemoth-sized figure in full plate armor sitting at the counter downing a mug of ale. He nodded at the seat next to him. “Been wanting to have a word with you since you first walked in here, kiddo. Have a fuckin’ seat.”

Jimmy swallowed nervously. He’d only been in this world for two weeks, but in that time, he’d already mapped out the big players of the various guilds. And so he knew that the rough-edged, tough-as-steel dude sitting at the bar was none other than Donovan Iseldar, leader of the God Slayers Guild, and definitely not someone to piss off.

“Tena, get a seat at one of the tables. I’ll be right there.”

She took his hand. “Please don’t piss him off, Jimmy. You don’t want him as an enemy.”

He nodded. “I’m street smart enough to know that.”

“Street smart?”

“It’s a…it’s a term. Just go. I’ll be there in a minute, all right?”

“Okay.”

Jimmy made his way over to the counter and hopped up onto the stool. In the same moment that he sat down, Donovan snapped his fingers at the level-1027 NPC with the cat ears. “Get the kid a drink on me.”

“No can do,” Angelica said, firmly shaking her head. “Jimmy’s only nineteen years old: biologically, anyway.”

“Biologically?” Donovan asked with a grunt. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

Angelica lifted her chin. “It means he has to wait two more years to drink.”

Donovan stared confusedly at the NPC. Then, with another grunt, he said, “All right, fine. Give ‘em a cherry soda.”

“Yeah, a coke’s fine with me,” Jimmy agreed.

“A what?” Donovan asked, a perplexed look on his face.

Jimmy, realizing he’d accidentally used the wrong term, opened his mouth to correct himself, but before he could do so, Angelica said, “No Coke or Pepsi here, cutie. You’re about five-thousand years too late for that.”

A nervous jolt traveled down his spine as Donovan alternated looking between him and the NPC innkeeper. “The hell are you two talking about?”

She knows what that is? he thought to himself, practically screaming inside his mind. How does she know?

He’d been so alone here for the last two weeks that he was longing badly for home. Even though he was actually kind of enjoying the world and the experience, he missed his mom, his cat, and his school—as well as his friends. Yet for the first time since being here, someone—or something—knew terms that only he should’ve known. Yet it wasn’t something he could ask her about just yet. Not in front of Donovan.

“It’s nothing,” Jimmy said, folding his hands on the table. “So, Donovan, why don’t you just tell me whatever it is you want from me. If you’re here to threaten me, you ought to know I’m not the type to bow down.”

“Relax,” he said, pausing to gulp some of his ale. “I ain’t here to threaten you, kiddo.”

Jimmy laughed. “But you came here looking just for me, right?”

“Sure did.”

“Why?”

Donovan tapped the counter. “Because I know you’re hidin’ something, and me and Zephyr want to know what.”

Jimmy shrugged. “I’m not hiding anything.”

“Really, kiddo? Really? You show up here two weeks ago, a fresh-faced, level-5 whelp, and suddenly you’re taking down bosses solo and flying through the levels like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Something’s up with you.” He raised his pointer finger. “Everyone’s taking notice.”

Maybe I should dial it back a bit after all, Jimmy thought.

Jimmy paused a moment to consider his words. “I’m just doing things a different way than you guys do them.”

“You mean you’re getting power-leveled, yeah?”

“Hell naw. That’s weak. I’ve been solo almost the entire time I’ve been here.”

“I find that tough to believe,” Donovan said.

“Why on Earth would I lie about that?”

“On where?” Donovan asked, eying him skeptically.

Shit.

“I meant why on Galterra would I lie about that?”

He gulped down more of his ale. “Dunno, kiddo. Maybe because it’s taboo and you don’t wanna get a bad reputation.”

“Yeah, well, fuck all that noise.” Jimmy confidently pointed his thumb at himself. “I know how to get shit done. That’s why I’m leveling up. And I hear these rumors every time I come in here. All you people saying Jimmy Green got power-leveled. Well you jealous haters can fuck right off. Now where’s my Coke?”

“Here’s your soda,” Angelica said cheerfully, setting it down in front of him.

Though he’d asked in a highly aggressive way, Jimmy made sure he did not forget his manners. “Thank you very much, Angelica. You’re an angel.”

“You’re very welcome, Jimmy.” She blew a kiss at him.

Yeah, I still got it.

Angelica turned around and then leaned over as if to grab something from a shelf below the stove across from where Jimmy was seated. Yet before she could do so, she let out a chirp as a high-level zombie NPC slapped her bottom. “Grundor! Not in front of the patrons.”

“I had to come see my girl,” he said.

Jimmy laughed. He liked Grundor very much. Dude was always coming around in recent days. Ever since the Royal Roses surrendered to the Guild of Gentlemen a few days ago, the zombie had been showing up here trying to gather support for a counteroffensive in Shadowfall Coast. Apparently, his guild-leader, some dude named “Vim Alazar,” was being held captive there and was scheduled to be executed via beheading in another three days. This, of course, had nothing to do with Jimmy, and so he learned of it only to blend in better. He literally cared not an iota for these guilds or whatever. His mission was to get home.

Even still, he did feel kind of bad for the zombie. Apparently, some Hitler-wannabe named Alistair Morison was threatening to murder everyone in North Bastia if they didn’t surrender, and already, the Royal Roses, the People of Virtue, and the Children of Order had surrendered and were finalizing terms. The Elves refused, and so had guilds called “The Lords of Justice” and “Defenders of Peace.” But from the chatter he heard in here every day, it sounded like it wasn’t long before they did, too.

“Donovan,” Grundor said, bowing his head from where he stood behind the counter with Angelica. “Have you seen master or Kolona lately?”

“They’re meeting me here in a few minutes, actually,” he replied.

Grundor sighed with what looked to be relief. “Maybe master will reconsider and give his old buddy a helping hand.”

“I don’t think so, Grund,” Donovan said. “Ever since getting the buff, Oli and Kolona have been exploring the dungeons nonstop. I don’t think they want any part in Galterran shit. Neither do I, for that matter.”

Grundor frowned. “We need to save the world!” the NPC zombie insisted. He raised his arms and flexed his biceps. “I’m strong, but I need allies by my side.”

“You might as well give it up,” said the GSG leader, pausing to sip again from his mug. “Soon as those fuckers launched that ‘nuke’ weapon, it was over. No one’s gonna take ‘em on anymore. Most adventurers ain’t willing to even leave the dungeons now, let alone get involved.”

“Heh, I figured that’s why it’s been so crowded in here lately,” Jimmy said, causing both of them to look his way. “I mean, it’s why I’m staying put too. There’s no fucking way I’m catching an A-bomb in Middle-earth.”

For some reason, his comment caused Grundor to erupt with uproarious laughter. “Funny!” he said. Then his face turned serious. “Wait, how do you know that reference?”

Jimmy’s mouth fell open. “How do you know that reference?”

“Because master let me read those books.”

“You mean…Lord of the Rings?”

All of a sudden, any trace of mirth left Grundor’s expression, and Jimmy knew he’d screwed up. “You shouldn’t know that name,” he said. “Who are you? Donovan, who is he?”

“I’m just a regular adventurer,” he insisted. “That’s all.”

“No you’re not,” said a far more joyful and enthusiastic voice from behind him. Looking over his shoulder, Jimmy watched as an incredibly well-dressed kid with silver hair and vampire-like fangs hopped into the stool next to him and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m Olivir,” he said. “Like Donovan, I’ve been dying to meet ya.”

Cautiously, Jimmy shook his hand. “I’m Jimmy Green.” Becoming nervous, he said, “Don’t tell me you’re also here because of me.”

“I am,” Olivir spoke with an upbeat attitude. “Actually, I’m the one who asked Donovan to come here and wait for you.”

Looking over his shoulder to ensure he had an escape route in the event things turned ugly, he said, “Okay, well, now I’m getting a bit worried.”

“You shouldn’t. We’re on your side, friend.” He laughed. “There’s a reason why I set all this up. See, you’ve been making a lot of waves lately, and me and Kolona picked up on some of it. Your words, your mannerisms: they’re strange, but they wouldn’t ring any bells with most Galterrans. But they do with me.”

“They do?” Jimmy asked.

He nodded. “I’m a vampire from Archian Prime, and I’ve got more books on human history than anyone else in the world. And you,” he said, pointing at him, “know things you shouldn’t be able to know.”

Jimmy, with a straight face, asked, “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Like what happens at the end of Return of the Jedi.”

Jimmy lifted his shoulders. “Return of the what?”

“Kid’s lying,” growled Donovan. “I can tell. Not that I know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about, but I can tell he does.”

Angelica cleared her throat. “If you guys are gonna say anything else, you should really take it to the privacy room. This is one of those conversations.”

At this, Donovan’s eyebrows rose. “Wait, it is? For real?”

She nodded. “Sure is, sweetie. It’s definitely one of those.”

Jimmy felt his nerves begin to rise but he kept them in check. Especially as Donovan asked him to follow him behind the counter and to God knows where. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said, shaking his head. “And I’m not telling you shit.”

“Angelica, can I violate the rules of the inn and drag him there?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I can make an exception for this.”

Before Jimmy had a chance to react, Donovan was already leaning forward and seizing him. Panicked, he kicked out with both feet, yet all that did was send a terrible ache into his shins as he nearly broke multiple bones on the man’s steel-like stomach.

“We’re not your enemy,” Donovan said. “Just be cool.”

“Jimmy!” Tena cried out, running over to him. She unsheathed her staff, but Olivir made a waving motion with his hand, and then a firework-like spark lit up into the air near her wrist; her hand opened on its own, causing her to drop it.

“Master, what are you doing?” Grundor asked.

“Grund, trust me. We need to interrogate this kid. It could be more important than you think.”

The disturbance in the inn rippled from person to person like a chain reaction, and now, everyone was on their feet, clearly confused. So too was Jimmy. Fighting was not supposed to be allowed in here without taking one of those nullification grapes. Yet he was being assaulted right here in the open and Angelica wasn’t interfering to stop it.

“Tena!” he shouted. “Run!”

She made as if to flee, but it was too late. An Elvish woman, who must have been utilizing some kind of invisibility power, simply materialized into existence behind her and wrapped her arms around Tena, holding her in place.

“Kolona, take her with us to the room.”

As the other adventurers looked on in horror and uncertainty, Angelica rushed forward and began assuring them everything was fine; this, as Jimmy found himself dragged against his will to wherever it was they were taking him.

“Just don’t hurt her and I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know!”

Chapter 127: Finding a Purpose

Chapter 127: Finding a Purpose

Even as Jimmy was trying to fully contemplate the situation that he’d found himself in, he and Tena were being thrown into a smallish room devoid of any furniture aside from a decently sized dining table large enough to occupy almost all the space inside of it. Having been shoved, he needed to throw out his hands to steady himself on the table before him.

“Look, man, it doesn’t have to be like this,” Jimmy said, pushing himself back up into a standing position and turning around. Protectively, he extended an arm in front of Tena as he began to wonder if these were the threats Eilea had warned him about in her letter to him. Most likely, they were. He needed to be smart here and talk his way out of this. “Whatever it is you think I did, I’m not—”

“We’re not here to hurt you,” the one called Olivir said, a sigh added to the end of his words. “I know how this might seem, but uhm, I promise you that we didn’t take you down to this room to rough you up or anything.”

Donovan grunted. “We don’t actually know that for sure yet.”

“Stop that,” Kolona said, frowning at him. Then she turned to regard Jimmy. She, Olivir, and Donovan were standing before the door, blocking off their exit. “He doesn’t mean that.”

“Oh, I know he doesn’t,” Tena said, glaring at him. She tried to take a step forward, but Jimmy, fearful something might happen to her, barred her from getting any closer, and so she bumped into his arm instead. “Donovan won’t touch us, Jimmy. My guild-leader is his best friend, and when Zephyr finds out that you kidnapped us, he’s going to—”

“Am I late?” called a voice from the hallway beyond the door. In strode none other than Zephyr Vextran himself, the leader of the Explorers Brigade. Clad in a dark brown robe with a matching cloak, he had a resplendent, blue-and-white blade sheathed at his side. Despite his otherwise average features, his striking eyes went well with his undeniable charisma.

“Zeph!” Tena shouted. “Donovan snatched us and threw us in this weird basement. Thank the Gods you’re here.”

Zephyr made a fist, raised it to his mouth, and then he chuckled. “I’m sorry if we frightened you, Tena. I didn’t expect you to get caught up in this.”

“Get caught up in…” She gasped. “Don’t tell me you have something to do with this?”

“You’re both not understanding things. I promise. Why don’t we all sit down and talk?”

Tena hesitated a moment, but then she nodded and backed away—but not before placing her lips over Jimmy’s ear and whispering, “If Zephyr’s here, I promise everything’s okay.”

Jimmy wasn’t about to take her word for it, but either way, he didn’t think he had much of a choice, and so he walked around the table and took a seat towards the rear of it next to Tena so that he could keep his eye on the now closed door in case anyone or anything else came through. Olivir, Kolona, Donovan, and Zephyr all followed suit, sitting across from the two of them.

“It’s really good to see you again, Zeph,” Olivir said.

“You too, Oli.”

“If you’re in here with us, uhm, does that mean Donovan told you everything?”

“Sure did,” Donovan said. “Zephyr’s like a brother to me. I trust him.”

“I do too,” Olivir agreed. “But you told him…everything, though? All of it?”

I got no idea what these dudes are talking about, Jimmy thought, trying to keep his cool.

Zephyr released a somewhat pessimistic-sounding sigh, but any glumness on his part was only temporary, and his eyes were quick to once more radiate a look of confident certainty. “It was a lot to take in, Oli, but it doesn’t change much. At the end of the day, it’s the same deal as it always is: big bad boss to fight.”

“The World Eater,” Kolona whispered.

None of what they were saying registered to Jimmy or made any sense to him. At the moment, he was busy tamping down on his fear. He refused to let these people intimidate him. His mom, who raised him all on her own, was the best friend he had in this world, and she taught him to be brave, and to keep his chin up no matter how bad things looked.

Zephyr stared at Jimmy a moment, and he refused to buckle under his gaze. Then, while still keeping his eyes pinned on Jimmy, he asked, “Shouldn’t the kid be here, Don?”

Donovan shrugged and grunted in unison. “Yeah, he definitely should be. But I don’t think he will be. Especially since we’re meeting here again tomorrow.”

“Did you text him?

“Yep.”

“So why not come?”

Donovan made a waving motion with his hand. “My fuckin’ sister, that’s why.”

“Jascaila?”

“Yeah. Her.”

Zephyr again lifted his fist as if to conceal a grin behind it. “Zach’s got himself a new therapist, I take it?”

“That about sums it up.”

“Is he…doing any better?” he asked, his tone coming across as a bit more concerned. “The last time I saw him, he wasn’t looking so well.”

Donovan hesitated a moment, then he too softened his tone. “I spoke to him yesterday. He seems to be doing a bit better each time we talk. She might be a pain in my ass, but Jasc knows what she’s doing. Can’t bullshit you on that.”

Despite having absolutely no idea what any of these people were talking about, Jimmy was nevertheless content to sit silently, let them speak, and try his best to gather as much information as he could from overhearing this in the hope that he could piece together what was going on later—assuming he lived through this. Tena seemed to be taking the same approach as well. For the moment, it almost seemed like the two of them were invisible. Despite having dragged them down here, the four of them seemed to momentarily forget his and her existence.

“When’s the next contact point?” Zephyr asked.

“Tomorrow,” Donovan said. “Right before we meet. But he’s not sure what to ask her about. Five minutes just ain’t a whole lot with all the shit going on in the world. And since we can’t bring Alex in here anymore, I’ve had to be the brains of our little group.” Donovan barked a brief, but powerful laugh. “You can imagine how well that’s going.”

Zephyr also laughed, then leaned forward and rubbed his chin as he turned his eyes on Jimmy. “Depending on what we find out, we might have to use some of those five minutes asking about our new friend here.”

Jimmy said nothing in reply, though he did feel somewhat reassured as Tena grabbed his hand. He turned to smile at her, but now, for some reason, she had a look of contrition in her abruptly moistening eyes. “This is all my fault, isn’t it?” she asked at a whisper, her look of guilt and remorse deepening. “I think this is my fault, Jimmy.”

Jimmy regarded her, confused. “What do you mean?”

“I think I’m the reason you’re here.”

“Hah? How so?”

She squeezed his hand more tightly. “When we first met and you asked me to show you Earth, Zephyr asked me where I was heading. I barely knew you back then, and going off with a guy I just met…you know how it is, right? So to be safe, I told him I met a guy who claims he used to live there.”

Jimmy contemplated her words. Then he smiled at her. “That’s not your fault,” he said. “That’s mine. You didn’t do a thing wrong, Tena. Don’t even think that way. And who knows if that had anything to do with why I’m here.”

“It does, actually,” Zephyr said, taking a moment to meet both of their eyes. “But it’s only a small part of it. See, at first, I thought it was just a funny lie you were telling her to make yourself sound mysterious and cool. Hey, whatever works, right? I didn’t think much of it. But then, Jimmy, you went on that raid on F20, and that was when I first started to become suspicious enough to reach out to Olivir, Kolona, and Donovan.”

“Suspicious?” Jimmy asked. “How so?”

“Well, two members of my guild told me you came up with a…let’s call it a ‘very creative’ strategy to kill the boss. Something no one’s ever thought to try before.”

“Yeah, and so what?” Jimmy asked. “Just ‘cause I thought of something you didn’t think doesn’t mean I’m suspicious or worth dragging down here.”

“That’s not all you did.”

“Oh really?”

Zephyr nodded. “After you killed the boss, you decided to celebrate by chanting, and I quote, ‘USA! USA!’”

“Fuck,” Jimmy muttered to himself. Having become high off the thrill of a successful raid, he’d let out the first cheer that came to mind. He didn’t think it could possibly mean anything to anyone. “Okay, I admit, I did that.”

Tena lowered her eyes as though ashamed. “I’m so sorry, Jimmy.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “This is on me, not you. I was being careless. It was only a matter of time before I messed up.” He sat up straighter. “So, you’re the ones who I was warned about, huh?”

Donovan, Zephyr, Kolona, and Olivir all exchanged a worrying glance. “Warned about?”

“Yeah. You don’t gotta play dumb. You’re here to kill me, right? Just so you know, I don’t even know why I’m here at all. If you think I’m a threat to you, you’re wrong. I mean…the only thing I even want is to go home. But shit, if this is how it’s gonna be, all I ask is you let Tena go and make it quick. It’s not personal, right? So just do what you gotta do and be done with it.”

Donovan and Zephyr mutually exchanged another glance, this one even more alarmed than the previous. “Does he really think we’re here to kill him?” Zephyr asked.

“Think so,” Donovan grumbled. Clearing his throat, he looked at Jimmy once more and said, “Whoever you think we are, we aren’t.”

Flicking his tongue against his lower mouth, Jimmy eyed both of them cautiously. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah, kiddo. Pretty sure. If you think we’re here to kill ya, we’re not.”

Jimmy relaxed a bit at the man’s words, though only ever so slightly. Still, the reassurance led him to be just a touch more optimistic about how this might end, though he certainly did not fully trust any of these people. For the moment, however, he decided to run with the idea that they meant him no harm, and with that in mind, he said, “So, if you don’t got me down here to kill me, then why am I here?”

“It’s for the reasons we’ve already explained,” Zephyr replied. “We found some oddities out about you, and we needed to get to the truth about them—for a whole bunch of reasons, actually, many of which we’re not at liberty to explain just yet. All of them, at least at first, were purely academic. But as I’m sure you realize, that obviously doesn’t explain why you’re sitting in a chair down here when we could’ve just spoken to you upstairs.” He pointed his finger upwards as if to emphasize his point. “You might find it difficult to believe, but the only reason that Donovan dragged you down here is because Angelica says that your story connects to something much larger and much more important. I myself only know this because she informed me when I arrived.”

Jimmy could hardly believe what he was hearing. “So hold up. You’re saying this is all because of something that NPC said?”

“That’s right. You’re apparently connected to something important, and we’re just trying to find out what that is.”

“And what’s so special about down here?”

“Can’t tell you that just yet.”

Jimmy thought on his words. They were a lot to take in, but they were also simple in the sense that he could immediately reject most of them as being false. “Look, you guys. Whatever she told you, it’s wrong. In fact, it’s not even possible. I can tell you for sure—and I mean a hundred percent—that nothing I’ve ever done in my whole life has got anything to do with any of you. Trust me on that. Like, seriously. It’s impossible.”

“He’s telling you the truth,” Tena said, nodding along with him. “You guys don’t understand. Jimmy isn’t connected to whatever…whatever this is you’re all up to. It’s not even possible for him to be involved with any of it. He’s only been on Galterra for two weeks!”

“Huh?” Olivir, Kolona, Donovan, and Zephyr all said at the exact same time.

Jimmy hissed. “Tena, don’t.”

“It’s okay, Jimmy. I trust Zephyr with my life.”

“Yeah, but I don’t.”

“Well, do you trust me?”

Jimmy exhaled slowly. “I do, mostly. Which, actually, is kinda’ strange since I’m still not sure you’re even real—or that any of you are.”

"You what?" Donovan asked, his eyes squinting.

Zephyr inched closer to Donovan and lowered his voice. “Maybe we should get your sister in here,” he whispered to the GSG leader, which for some reason caused the large, plate-armor-wearing man to cough out a laugh. This, however, earned a glare from Olivir and Kolona, who both seemed to find the quip rude. Jimmy couldn’t tell one way or the other, since he had no means of understanding the reference, and he doubted they were going to explain it to him.

“Answer me just one question, Jimmy,” Olivir said. The boy leaned forward over the table and stared directly into his eyes. “And please be honest, because this is an important one.”

“All right.”

“Where were you born? Specifically, I mean.”

Jimmy tensed up. He wasn’t sure if this was the right time or place to share this kind of information. Yet before he could even decide, he was beginning to fear that Tena might go ahead and do so with or without his blessing. Right now, the girl was wetting her lips. Then she opened her mouth before closing it, only to open it again. It was as though she was struggling to decide whether or not to answer the question for him. But in a sign of loyalty—and one he deeply appreciated—she ended up saying nothing, choosing instead to let Jimmy decide for himself what he felt comfortable sharing.

“I dunno if I can trust you,” he said at last. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, dude. If I was in your position, I’d feel the same.”

Olivir sat up straight, closed his eyes, and then remained that way for a moment that went on way too long. Even though it ultimately lasted less than a minute, the nature of the situation made it feel like he kept that position for an hour. All throughout, Jimmy wasn't sure if he was napping, meditating, or thinking. No one else spoke during this period, either, adding a sense of eeriness on top of everything else. But then, finally, his eyes snapped back open, and when they did, his look became even sharper, darker, and a fair bit intimidating, too.

“Since you can’t answer that,” he said, “then let me ask you this one other question instead.” In this moment, Olivir stared at him in a way that made it feel as though the boy's eyes were seeing directly into his soul. “Have you ever heard the name Eilea Vayra?”

Jimmy was good at many things, but keeping a straight face was not one of them. It was why he sucked at playing poker. In many regards, he was an artist—but he was not a bullshit artist. And so, the moment the kid with the vampire-like teeth spoke that woman’s name, Jimmy’s lips peeled back in surprise all on their own, and he could feel his eyes widening. It was to such an extent that he didn’t even have to vocalize an answer. His facial reaction, all on its own, had answered the question for him.

Olivir turned to Donovan, and now his tone became deathly serious. “We need to get Zach here before we take this conversation any further. It’s risen to that level.”

“I agree,” Zephyr said. “This is concerning.”

“Are you sure this can’t wait for tomorrow?” Donovan replied with a grunt. “I already invited him out here and he didn’t show up. If he wanted to, he would have. And we’re seeing him tomorrow anyways.”

“Tell him it’s urgent.”

Jimmy didn’t like the way they were looking at him. It was making him more and more nervous. This, as Donovan stood up, muttered a few choice swear words, and then turned around. “I’ll just go get him myself. My exit’s in Shores of Wrath, anyway. Can’t believe I gotta swim across the fuckin’ ocean now.”

“Why not just call him?” Olivir asked.

“My sister’s why. She’s screening his calls now to ‘reduce his stress’ or something. She’s become like his secretary and therapist all in one. Can’t believe she’s been with him for two weeks already. She’s gonna make the kid soft.”

“That’s not true,” Kolona said sharply. “Your sister’s helped my cousin and him a whole lot.”

“Yeah, but she’s making life more difficult for me.”

“Too bad,” Kolona said, folding her arms. “You’ll just have to deal with it.”

Donovan grumbled something Jimmy couldn’t make out, then said, “I’ll be back in a half hour. Make sure they don’t go anywhere.” With that, he opened the door and began to step out—yet he halted in place at the sound of Kolona’s voice.

“W-wait, Donovan.”

“Yeah?” he asked.

Kolona made a playful smile that Jimmy had to admit was cute. “Can you bring my cousin too, please? I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

Donovan grunted. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

With that, he stepped through the door, disappeared from the room, and then the sound of his footsteps echoing down the hall quickly quieted before fading altogether. Now, Jimmy found himself staring awkwardly at the others while waiting for whatever it was that they had planned for him next. Honestly, he had no idea why any of this was happening—or did he? Maybe he did have at least some clue now that they had spoken that name. Eilea. Hearing it said aloud disturbed him deeply. It made him wonder if it was wise to say anything else to these people at all. The level of risk just skyrocketed.

But they might know something important to me too, he thought.

Unsure how to proceed, for about the next five minutes, Jimmy said nothing at all, and everyone sat in total silence, which he was perfectly fine with. The others, however, clearly were not, because eventually, Olivir began tapping his finger against the table before asking, “You are from Earth, right?”

Jimmy said nothing, choosing to continue remaining silent. This, he did from a position of previous life experience. Once, a few years ago, he’d been arrested on bogus shit that he’d had no involvement with, and his knowledge of the law had been the only reason why he hadn’t been hit with false charges that could’ve easily ruined his life. Remaining silent was key when people were asking you questions that could be incriminating even if you were innocent, and he sort of felt like that kind of applied here as well.

Thus, saying nothing, he watched as Olivir continued to tap his fingers again and again before eventually trying his luck a second time. “That’s the real reason why I came to find you,” he said. “We each had our own reasons, but just to put my cards on the table here, for me, it was that one. It’s because, as crazy as it sounds, uhm, I believe you.” He pointed at Jimmy. “I do think you’re really from there. How that’s possible? I don’t have a clue. But I believe it’s true anyway.”

Jimmy pursed his lips, preventing himself from engaging in the conversation. It was very difficult to do, as he himself was so desperately in search of answers. It was a weak spot for him. And it was one that, intentionally or not, this Olivir kid seemed to know just how to play on, because eventually, he found himself becoming baited enough to reply. In particular, it was when Olivir, with an air of nonchalance, asked, “Is the Earth that you’re from different from the one that we know? Does it have all those red clouds and dead vegetation?”

“No,” Jimmy whispered, the word escaping his lips all on its own.

Olivir gave no reaction aside from a pleasant smile. “Really? No red skies?”

“No,” Jimmy said again, shaking his head. “The sky is blue just like on Galterra. On some days, it’s real beautiful. Most of the time it is, actually.”

Olivir made a pleasant-sounding exhale. “That sounds kind of nice. I think you said you want to go back home. Is that right? You want to go back to that place?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. With a bit more heat in his voice, he said, “That’s actually all I want. It’s…it’s the only thing I’m even trying to do. So please, believe me: whoever you people are, I’m not a threat to you or whatever you’re after. The only thing I want is to go home. Nothing else. That’s why I’m racing through the levels as fast as I can.”

“Interesting,” Zephyr whispered, though Jimmy had the sense that the word was spoken mostly to himself. More loudly, he said, “You seem to think leveling up will let you go to this place you claim is your home.”

“Well, yeah, obviously. I mean, it’s clear at least to me what’s going on here.”

“Hm. And that is?”

“I gotta beat the game.”

“Game?”

“Yeah, the…”

Jimmy sighed. He could tell from the confusion in their eyes, which bordered on frustration, that nothing he was saying was making any sense to them. And so, not wishing to have to figure out a way to explain it, Jimmy instead gave a quick nod to Tena, finally deciding that, after all he’d said, he didn’t mind if she spoke to them. He could tell just from the eagerness in her eyes that she was itching to clear things up, and while Jimmy was more than capable of speaking for his own self, he knew that her perspective on the world would make it easier for her to explain things to people who saw things in a way that was similar to how she did.

“Okay, so it’s like this. Jimmy,” she began, extending her arm in his direction, “thinks that everything around us is all part of a simulated game. He thinks this because, where he’s from, the world that we live in is just like one of his fantasy simulations. So, you know how we level up and get stronger? Where he’s from, that’s considered a fantasy. Like, it exists, but it’s also not real. It’s an idea that they have, and a lot of it is freakishly similar to the way things are here, only it’s just a screen game to them. They don’t have levels in the real world there. It took me a while to get my head around that part.”

“No levels at all?" Olivir whispered, sounding shocked.

“Not the way Jimmy described it to me. They have everything that we have, but only in make-believe. But outside of that, everyone’s level 1. Or no, not even level 1, because there’s just no such thing. It’s only in the fantasy simulations.”

Olivir’s mouth dropped open. “So then…if that’s true, then we finally have an answer to a mystery that people have probably wondered for thousands of years: the source of the system’s inspiration. I think I finally get it now.”

“System?” Tena asked. “What’s that?”

Olivir gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, but I really can’t elaborate on that just yet. I’m sure it’ll be okay to tell you soon enough, but first, we need to wait for Donovan to get back. I’m still not sure how much they’re gonna want you to know.”

Taking his attention off Tena, Olivir once more took in Jimmy. “Well, now I understand how you’re aware of all these terms that only a seasoned adventurer should know. You’ve experienced the source of the Great Ones’ inspiration. Still…that fact alone adds like a billion more questions I want to ask you.”

“Can I please ask you one first?”

“Sure thing.”

Baffled, Jimmy wasn’t even sure what to ask despite requesting permission to do so. He only knew that he wanted to ask something. For the moment, however, he did not reply—at least not at first. It took him nearly a minute of churning all the possible questions over in his head before finally settling on the one he wanted to ask first. Yet before he could even begin to speak it, something happened that caused his voice to catch in his throat. He was distracted by something—by the sudden, unexpected sound of an irate, annoyed voice coming from the opposite end of the hallway down the stairs that led to this very room.

“…because I’d really like to know what’s so fucking important that I had to rush all the way over here when, like, I’m going to be here tomorrow anyway.”

“Zach, stop!” said a feminine voice. “You’re being mean.”

“I’m not being mean, Kal. I literally just got into the pool. Barely dipped my toes into the water, and I only just finished defrosting the hamburgers, and then, what do you know? I’ve got to be bothered by more bullshit that couldn’t wait literally one more day.”

“Be nice, baby. Or else I’m gonna tell Jascaila you’re ignoring your anger iceberg again.”

“You better not, Kal. You seriously better not.”

“I’m gonna.”

There was a brief pause, and then the voice appeared even closer, just barely outside the door. “My anger iceberg is about to get even bigger and icier if everyone doesn’t stop pissing me off.” The door opened, and inside stepped a kid maybe two or three years younger than Jimmy with short black hair and an ominous-looking set of gear that concealed most of his face and gave him a genuinely menacing visage. It was as though the light itself could not penetrate the hood of his cloak. A moment later, however, he pulled it down, and much of the sadistic glow faded from his eyes. Now, Jimmy could recognize him plainly and clearly: Zachys Calador, one of the most well-known adventurers on the server. Or, err…not the server. Wrong word. He was one of the most well-known adventurers in the “world.”

“Who’s he?” Zach asked as he paraded himself in the room, giving Jimmy a sidelong glance. His eyes lingered on Jimmy for only a moment before he looked away almost dismissively. “Why’s he here? Actually, you know what? It doesn’t even matter. Can we please get him out of here if we’re going to talk about sensitive issues? No disrespect or nothing, but I don’t know him.”

Jimmy, sensing an opportunity, spoke up even before Donovan had the chance to reply. “I’d be more than happy to leave, uh, Zach. I don’t even wanna be here in the first place. And I don’t know how much longer ya’ll plan to hold me here, either. But like, by all means, please kick me out. I’d love nothing more than to get out of your hair.”

“Uh, wait, what?” Zach asked, once more turning his attention on Jimmy. “Did you just say ‘hold you here?’ The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

Jimmy, becoming somewhat annoyed by his rude tone, said, “Me and Tena are being kept here by force.”

“By force?” Zach paused a moment, then winced as a look of disgust crossed his features. “Donovan, is this true? What, are we fucking taking prisoners now? What kind of sick shit is this? Not cool at all.”

Donovan grunted and narrowed his eyes, then fired Zach a sharp glare, which seemed to break through to him somewhat, because he took a cautious step backwards and even lowered his head in apology. Becoming a bit fearful, Jimmy said, “Please, just let me and Tena go.”

“Yeah, of course,” Zach said, nodding. “Nobody should be held somewhere they don’t want to be. If you want to leave, you can just go.”

For all his rudeness, he at least had some principles. Jimmy bowed his head gratefully then let out a relieved sigh. “Thank you, my guy. Finally, someone reasonable.” He began to stand up—then paused as Donovan fired him the exact same look of warning that he’d just given Zach.

“Sit your ass back down. We’re not done here.”

“But…but he said I could go.”

“He’s not in charge here, kiddo. I am.”

Jimmy, in a half-squat, half-standing position, hesitated a moment. But then Donovan turned his body angrily in his direction, and once more, he plopped back down into his seat. “Ya’ll are gonna kill me after all, aren’t you? I knew it was too good to be true.”

At this, the girl he clearly recognized as the Elvish princess gave a firm, vehement shake of her head. “Nah-uh! No way, no way. I dunno what’s going on here, but umm, I promise you that’s not even a possibility. My name’s Kalana, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Jimmy,” he said. “Jimmy Green.”

At this, Zachys Calador snapped his head in Jimmy’s direction, and now there was a scowl on his lips. “Wait a second. Jimmy Green…the adventurer? The one they told me has been talking all that shit about me behind my back in Angelica’s?” Zach pointed his finger at Jimmy. “Yeah, I heard about that. Oh you better believe I did. Hey, any time you want to go, I’m game. I’ll get those grapes right now if you want. It’s good that you’re here. I’ve been meaning to have a word with you about all that stuff you’ve been—”

“Zach!” Kalana fired in. She poked him in the chest with her pointer finger. “Remember what you learned?”

Zach stared at her blankly. Then his expression changed—though it did so slowly. At a gradual, steady pace, his scowl faded and was thereafter replaced by an apologetic frown. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have very bad anger issues, and I’m working on them. Please excuse my behavior. I’m growing as a person.”

Jimmy waved it off. “It’s all good, man. As long as I don’t end up iced.”

“Iced?”

“Dead.”

“Oh. Weird expression. But yeah, of course. It’s like Kal said. No one here’s a murderer.” Once more, he frowned as if reacting to the look of skepticism that Jimmy couldn’t help but send his way. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

“It’s nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

“It’s just that I know…I mean, I know your reputation is all.”

“Meaning what?”

Jimmy felt his throat going dry as he realized he was upsetting the kid for some reason. “I mean that I know you’re not afraid to mess up people who get on the wrong side of you.”

Zach, in a series of strange movements, closed his eyes and began counting down from ten. Jimmy had no idea what that was about. Nevertheless, he said nothing as Zach got down to zero and then blew out a sigh and took a seat before pointing at him and saying, “I’m letting that one slide, but just so you know, I’ve never killed anyone outside of self-defense.”

“Yeah, okay. I wasn’t calling you on that, bruh.”

“Bruh?”

“It means bro.”

Zach gave him a discerning look before shrugging. “Strange vocabulary, but all right.”

The tension partially diffused, Kalana took a seat next to Zach, and then finally, Donovan once more sat back down at the table. With everyone seated, Zach began tapping his fingers on the table just as Olivir had been doing only moments before. “Okay, so, let’s get right to it: why are we all here?” he asked, speaking first. “I want to get this over with so I can play net-ball with everyone in the pool.”

Donovan released a dark laugh lacking in any sense of humor. “Enjoying your vacation, Zach?”

“I sure am.”

“Good to hear. Don’t mind the rest of the world, kiddo. Just keep on playing on the beach.”

Zach opened his mouth to respond, but it was Kalana who shot in her remarks first. The girl, who had only just taken her seat after briefly hugging Kolona, looked angrily at Donovan and said, “That’s not fair. Zach’s given so much to the world.”

“I love the kid,” Donovan said. “I just think he’s digging his fuckin’ head too far into the sand. We’ve got work to do.”

“And we’re going to do it,” Zach said, now speaking more seriously. “This isn’t just about vacationing for me, okay? I’ve taken some time off from the world to recover from things that hurt me badly, and I’m not ashamed that I need to do that.”

Donovan made another dark laugh, but this time around, there appeared to be at least some degree of humor in it. “Is that you talking or my sister?”

“Me,” he said.

Donovan stared at him a moment, then abruptly, he nodded his head in a way that was oddly respectful. “All right, kiddo. That’s good enough for me.”

The two stared at one another for just a short moment longer, and then once more, Zach set his eyes on Jimmy as he asked, “So, why am I here?”

It was Zephyr who replied. “Tomorrow is your weekly five-minute conversation with Eilea, right?”

“Yeah."

“Well then, we need to discuss this situation here first. Look, I know we’ve got a lot of things to pack into those five minutes as is, but what we’ve got here might be worth asking about. Specifically, him,” Zephyr said, raising an eyebrow at Jimmy.

“Why?” Zach asked, sounding skeptical.

“I don’t fully know yet, but I think he’s involved with her somehow. He’s told us some things that defy all belief and reason, and yet, that’s with having barely told us anything at all. Before we really dug into things, we wanted to wait for you to get here first.”

Zach rubbed his chin a moment as though he had an itch. “So is this, like, an interrogation?”

“In a sense, but a friendly one, hopefully.”

“And how important is it?”

“Very.”

“Give me from a one to a ten.”

“An eight,” Zephyr said. “Actually, maybe even a nine.”

Of all things, Zach moaned and took on a look of extreme frustration. Without warning, he stood up, and his chair scraped loudly against the floor. “All right, I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t say anything else to him until I do.”

“Huh?” Donovan asked. “The hell do you think you’re going?”

“Grabbing Mr. Oren,” he said as he walked out of the room and into the hallway.

Donovan, rather than get out of his seat, spun the entire thing around on the floor, causing another metallic, shrill, and grating screech to echo in the room. “He can’t come here anymore. What makes you think you can—”

“Hey, Angelica,” he called out, his voice only just audible from wherever it was he was speaking.

“Yes, Zach?”

“Can you come over here a moment.”

“Oh, okay.”

There were footsteps, and then a brief moment of quiet.

“Okay, so I need you to do a portal for me like when I was in the hospital. I need you to bring Mr. Oren here for a few minutes to maybe an hour.”

“Zaaaach! You know I can’t do that. Adamus would—”

“No, it’s okay, actually. I cleared it with Eilea.”

“Huh?”

“There’s a truce between her and Adamus right now. Wait, did no one tell you this in last week’s meeting?”

“Nope.”

“Wait, seriously? Yeah, until this bomb thing is settled, he’s turning a blind eye as long as it’s nothing too crazy. Can you just grab him and bring him here, please?”

“Are you sure it’s gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. This time, anyway.”

“Should we really be talking about this…outside the room?”

“It’s fine. Adamus actually knows we’re meeting in secret.”

“Z-Zach! You just said that out loud.”

“Yeah, and like I said, it’s fine. He doesn’t know what we’re saying, but he knows we’ve been meeting. He’s not stupid. And you should already know that his dumb rules means he can’t do shit to us without proof that we did anything wrong. Isn’t that right, Adamus? I know you’re listening.”

“Zach, stop! You might provoke him.”

“Fuck him, I don’t care. Anyway, I need Mr. Oren.”

“Okay, okay. If you’re sure.”

“I am sure. Hey, after this is done, why don’t you take a break from the inn and come play in the pool with us?”

"Aww, shucks. I wish I could, but I'm really not allowed. If I leave here for too long, I get into trouble.”

“You know, I don’t like the way you’re treated like a slave, Angelica.”

“You’re sweet, but this is just the way it is. Anyways, I’ll go grab your friend.”

“Thanks.”

Jimmy lowered his head into his hands and squeezed his face. This was becoming way too complex and convoluted for his tastes. He just wanted to go level and figure out a way to beat this simulation so he could go home. None of this had anything to do with him. All these problems belonged to others. There was no reason for him to have to be sitting here right now. As he contemplated grabbing Tena and making a break for it, there came a strange, electric-like buzzing sound, followed by a laugh from someone other than Zach.

“There will never be a day when you don’t surprise me,” an unfamiliar voice said.

“Sorry, Mr. Oren. Been meaning to catch you up on everything anyway since I’ve got news about stuff we need to talk about in private. I was planning to bring you here at some point tomorrow. But first, there’s a situation or something going on, and you’re honestly the best person to deal with these kinds of…moments. They wanted me to do it, but I’m not even going to bother to try. This is a 'you' thing."

“Is it another…Prila-like event?”

“It’s exactly that. But I can’t say more until we get into the room.”

“All right then, my man. You’re lucky, too. I finished my last meeting for the day an hour ago. Even still, my time is incredibly limited, so let’s try to make this as brief as possible. Oh, and if you’ve got any information that can help me…” The door opened again, and Zach, along with another figure walked inside. “Please let me know.” He stopped short, eyed Jimmy, and then smiled politely.

Jimmy sort of recognized him. He was a man who tended to be on the TV a lot. His name was Sir Alex Oren of the Lords of Justice, if Jimmy recalled correctly. He was a tall, well-built man who tended to wear a nerdy pair of cat-eye glasses that disarmed what would otherwise be a pretty intimidating physique. At the moment, he was dressed in the button-up coat of a high-ranking military official adorned with numerous badges and buttons; Jimmy could tell that he was someone of extreme world importance. Likely more so than anyone in the adventuring community, including Zach.

Giving up his seat, Zach and Kal moved to the opposite side of the table so that they now sat near him and Tena, allowing Sir Oren to occupy the chair directly across from Jimmy. “Just so you know,” Zach said, his tone somewhat mischievous as he patted Jimmy on the back, “Donovan and Zephyr are holding this guy here against his will, and I had nothing to do with it.”

“Noted,” the man said.

All in all, he was only a couple of years older than Jimmy, yet he presented himself with such a rigid, professional demeanor that he actually came across as quite a bit older. Nodding his head in acknowledgement, he said, “Forgive me, as I’m catching up on things. My name is Alex Oren of the Lords of Justice, former member of the God Slayers Guild. I’m not sure why I’m speaking to you, but may I ask your name?”

“Sure,” Jimmy said with a sigh. “I’m Jimmy Green, and this is Tena Laielza. And not to be rude, but I dunno how high up the chain or how many more dudes need to walk in here before one of ya’ll finally tell me what I did wrong or why I’m really in here, but if not you, then please someone soon because, honestly? I can’t take much more of this, no disrespect.”

Sir Oren made a slight, barely audible laugh, and then he extended his hand, which Jimmy shook. “I’m the last guy,” he said. “Whatever it is that’s going on here, we’re going to solve it right now. I promise you. Okay?”

“If you say so. Uh, just so we’re on the same page, the others promised me I won’t be killed. Just hoping you’ll honor that.”

“Oh, Gods! Of course,” Sir Oren said. “It’s actually my responsibility as an ambassador of humanity to guarantee it. Now that I’m here, I wouldn’t allow that even if they’d chosen to do so—which they wouldn’t.”

“All right,” he said, breathing a bit more easily.

Clearing his throat, Sir Oren asked Donovan and Zephyr to explain the situation that had led to Jimmy being in this room and why they felt it was necessary to whisk him here across the universe to speak to him. The guy was clearly pretty damn smart, because it only took him a minute or two to both grasp and find the importance in whatever they were saying.

“That is really strange,” he said. “And this connects to Eilea?”

“I think so,” Olivir said.

Sir Oren then turned his attention back to Jimmy. “The easiest way we can resolve this is with honesty and openness. Based on what I’m hearing, it sounds like you’re hesitant to discuss things with us. This means you have a reason to be afraid. Is there an enemy out there? Someone who wants to hurt you?”

Jimmy shrugged. “No clue. But I’ve been told there is.”

“Told by who?”

Jimmy hesitated. Quietly, he said, “Eilea.”

“She speaks to you too?” Zach asked with a gasp.

“Kind of…”

Sir Oren held out his hand. “Zach, please, don’t interrupt.” To Jimmy, he said, “I swear to you that whatever enemy you think you face, they are not in this room. We’re all working together with Eilea in one way or another. And if you and your friend can give me your word that you’ll never repeat anything you hear outside of this room, we can have an open exchange of information and figure all this out.”

“I’m cool,” Jimmy said. “That’s fine with me.”

“Same,” Tena agreed.

Sir Oren bowed his head. Then, once more locking eyes with Jimmy, he said, “I’m just going to start with the most basic question, and I must admit, this is a strange one to ask even despite everything I just heard.” He folded his hands on the table and leaned in slightly closer. “Are you from the planet Earth, Jimmy?”

“Yes,” Jimmy replied immediately and without hesitation, wanting to show these people that he was willing to cooperate and meant them no harm.

There was a slight tightening of Sir Oren’s face, but it passed by so briefly that it was hard to know it was there at all. “And how did you come here to Galterra?”

“Shit, I knew this was gonna be your next question.” Jimmy drew a deep breath. “You’re not gonna believe me. I don’t even know why Tena believes me. But if you really wanna know, here’s why I’m here.”

For the next five minutes, Jimmy, already too deep to pull back, decided he had no choice but to trust these people. And so he told them not only who he was, where he was from, and how he’d been living his life up until a few days ago, but he described in great detail the night that he’d met the woman they called Eilea. The fact that he claimed to have seen her in person seemed to cause a great deal of shock from those around him. It was the only part of the story where they interrupted him to ask what she looked like, to which Jimmy said a great deal like Kalana and her cousin, Kolona. Both seemed to find this flattering.

Continuing on with his story, he explained how he’d been hit by a car going way over the speed limit, and then he’d woken up in this simulated world sometime later. Finally, with more emotion in his voice than he intended, he said, “So please, if any of you know how to get me home, I’d really appreciate it. This ain’t my world, and no disrespect, but I don’t want to be here much longer. My mom needs me. I’m all she’s got. I can’t imagine the thought of how scared she must be right now. I’m putting that woman through hell. Every day here makes me worry about her even more.”

Of all people, it was Zach who gave him a friendly fist bump on the shoulder, and abruptly, his eyes filled deeply with such an unexpected depth of compassion that Jimmy at first thought he was seeing things incorrectly. “You must really love your mom,” Zach said.

“I do. She’s my best friend in the world. She gave up her dreams for me.”

Unless he was faking it, the emotion he saw in the kid was real and sincere. Yet the way he spoke to Jimmy left him feeling incredibly uneasy and unwell. “I’ve got a friend where Kal and I are staying. I think you should talk to her.”

“Why?” Jimmy asked, becoming suspicious. “Why would I go anywhere with you?”

Softly, and with an eerie amount of kindness from someone who was so harsh only moments ago, he said, “She’s good with helping people cope with grief and loss.”

Jimmy laughed. “I didn’t lose anybody. I’m gonna level my ass out of this world and get sent home. Why else would I be here?”

“I don’t know, but…but I can tell you for sure that, you know, your mom’s probably not…”

“Not what?” he demanded, becoming angry.

Zach sighed. “I’m not qualified to…here’s the thing. I’m not a brain genius like Mr. Oren here, but even I can see what happened—at least based on your explanation.”

“You can?”

“Yeah, Jimmy,” he said, still speaking softly and calmly. “It sounds like you got dragged across a whole lot of time: thousands of years from the sound of it. So, naturally, since it’s thousands of years later, your mom’s…you know…”

Jimmy firmly shook his head. “Fuck out of here, man! You can cut that shit out right now. My mom’s not dead.”

Zach opened his mouth as if to say more, but then he closed it. This, as Kalana, Kolona, and even Donovan offered him comforting looks, all of which pissed him off. “This is just a simulation,” he said to them. “I know you don’t agree, but I’m telling you, you are all just like me. Only difference is you forgot how you got here.” As he spoke, his voice grew in volume until he eventually started shouting even without meaning to do so. “This shit ain’t real! Are you people fucking stupid? This is a fantasy. Wake up! There’s no such thing as leveling or magic or wizards. It’s a goddamn video game!”

Sir Oren reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “But based on everything I’ve heard, I have to agree with Zach. For some reason or purpose, you were ripped out of your time and brought here.”

Jimmy yanked his hand away, refusing to let these people break him. “Even if you’re right,” he said. “Even if everything you said is true. It doesn’t matter. If you can go forward in time, you can go back, too. I’m gonna find that woman, and she’s gonna send me home.”

“She can’t,” said another voice as the door creaked open. Angelica entered, shutting it behind her. “I didn’t want to tell this to you, Jimmy, but I’ve known from the day you first got here. I’m sorry. But Eilea did not rip you out of your time.”

“Huh? But they just said that—”

“They’re wrong,” Angelica whispered. She looked at him. “I don’t know the specifics, but I know what she’s capable of and what she’s not capable of. Pulling you out of the past and bringing you to the future just isn’t possible.”

“Then how am I here?” he demanded.

“She must have saved your life, put you in a suspended state, and set you to wake up two weeks ago. You’ve likely been hidden away on Galterra since the dawn of its existence in a dreamless sleep. You didn’t warp across time. You slept through it.”

Jimmy scowled. His nerves were shot. “You seem to know what’s going on here, miss. Send me back. Now!”

“There is no back, Jimmy.”

"Please," he begged her. "You're connected to all of this. I can tell. You know more than you should, Angelica. Just let me go home. Or if you can't do that, tell me what I gotta do to earn it. Why are you looking at me like you feel bad? You're an NPC. You can't feel!"

"Yes she can," Kalana said. "Please don't be mean to her. I know you're upset, but umm, it's not Angelica's fault."

"I'm really sorry," the NPC said. "And I can feel, and I know you're upset."

"Why did she do this to me?" Jimmy asked, becoming unnerved.

"I don't know why you were brought here. I only know that you wouldn't be here unless you were going to die anyway. If you're here, it's because Eilea decided to spare your life. If she didn't, you'd be dead, not home. She let you live."

"Let me?"

"That's right," Angelica said. "You were supposed to be dead. She wouldn't have done this otherwise or else she'd risk changing the fabric of reality by altering history."

Jimmy pointed his finger off to his left. “Everything you're saying just proves me right. You're saying Eilea went back in time, right? So that proves time-travel obviously exists.”

“It’s more complicated than that. And even if you don’t believe me, I’m telling you this because it’s only gonna get harder to accept the longer you chase it. Whatever Eilea did is not something you can do too or something you can undo. This is your home now. You’re never going back to the old Earth. It’s just a memory now, one shared only by you, me, Adamus, and Eilea.”

Jimmy shook his head. “This can’t be. Nah, man. Nah. I’m sorry. But you’re wrong. This is a simulation. If I gotta stab myself in the throat to prove it, I’ll do it. This isn't real. I'm positive.”

Jimmy reached down by his right side and unsheathed the dagger Tena kept in a small sheath in case of emergency. Then he lifted it to his throat. He wasn't suicidal. He wasn't trying to kill himself. He knew that this wasn't—couldn't—possibly be real. Most likely, he'd reawaken at home upon death. Right? Surely that would be the only real consequence. Even still, he hesitated, and before a half a second had come and gone, Zach, with a speed too fast for his eyes to follow, grabbed his wrist tightly enough to force his hand to open, and he dropped the weapon.

“Okay, yeah, you’re going to see the therapist,” Zach said, nodding. Kalana also nodded.

Zach kicked the dagger away so that it skidded along the floor to the other end of the room, and then he released his hand. Now, disturbed by all he'd heard, Jimmy found it difficult to get comfortable. He began to shift uneasily in his seat. “Gotta get out of this fucking planet and world. My mom wouldn’t be able to cope with me being gone. You don’t understand. She would’ve died of a heartbreak. I can’t do that to her. I won’t do that to her. Jesus take my soul too if that’s how it’s gonna go down.”

“Is that one of your Gods?” Kalana whispered softly.

He looked at her. “Yeah. Well, we only have one God. Most of us, anyway.”

She nodded empathetically. “There’s a lot we need to ask you, but if you need a break, we can pick this up tomorrow after Zach speaks with—”

“That’s right!” Jimmy exclaimed, snapping his finger. “You’re gonna be talking to her tomorrow, right? I heard them say something about that. She talks to you once a week, right?”

Zach nodded. “For five minutes, yeah.”

“Okay, well, she told me she would give me answers after I got level 30, but she also didn’t expect me to get that far for three months. Maybe you can tell her that Jimmy’s level 45 now and I’d like to have a word with her time-warping, family-separating, mom-heart-breaking ass!”

Tena wrapped her arms around him, and he let her. Right now, she was the only one Jimmy really wanted to be near to. “I told you I’m real,” she whispered to him. “But now I wish I wasn’t. I’m sorry, Jimmy.”

He wasn’t ready to reply, but he hoped the way he wrapped his own arm around her conveyed enough for her to understand he had good intentions. “What about my degree? My scholarship?”

Sir Oren lifted his pointer finger as if to get Jimmy’s attention. “I can get you into any university on the planet: assuming we save it. Actually, I realize this is highly insensitive and unfair to you, Jimmy, but there are critical matters to be addressed in what is, I assure you, a very real world. Zach, you told me you had some information for me?”

Zach gave him a thumbs-up. “Yeah, actually. I was going to come get you eventually anyway. So, last week, during my five-minute chat with Eilea, she said that she and Adamus are doing a temporary ceasefire and that she’s going to have a bit more leeway than she usually does if it means stopping the Guild of Gentlemen. So she’s been digging around, right? And uh, I don’t know how much this is going to help the situation, like, politically or whatever, but she says she doesn’t think they’ve built any more of those nuclear weapons yet and that she’s ninety-five percent sure they’re bluffing and won’t have another one for at least two more months.”

Sir Oren, “Mr. Oren,” or however he was supposed to be addressed—his reaction to this came across as so shocked it was actually funny. Even with all the heaviness of what Jimmy had just been told, he couldn’t help but find it amusing the way the dude’s mouth popped open and a drop of spit actually fell out of his lips as he recoiled as if whipped across the face. “W-w-what?” he exclaimed. “How long have you known this, Zach?”

“Only since like last week.”

Sir Oren slammed his palm down onto the table. “You knew this for a whole Gods-cursed week and I’m only hearing about this now? You didn’t think to warp me over here as soon as you found out?”

As though becoming defensive, Zach frowned and said, “Nobody told me to do that. And like I said, I was planning to tell you.”

Sir Oren moaned, though only for a moment. “Donovan, how can you not have…how can any of you not have told me this immediately? You can’t all be this lacking in political common sense. Do you realize that Sir Alazar is going to be executed in just three days? That the entire world is on the verge of surrendering to that maniac because they believe he has many more of these weapons?”

Zach tensed up, and so too did Kalana. Even Jimmy tensed a bit, because he’d seen on the news what the Guild of Gentlemen had done; only, now, it was beginning to dawn on him that it might have been real, and that more than seven-hundred-thousand real, actual people might have died. And that was just the current death toll.

“This is real, isn’t it?” he whispered, the horrible realization starting to take hold in his mind for the first time since waking up here.

“Yes!” Sir Oren said. “Very, very real.”

He made a weak chuckle. “So wait a second, then. You're telling me I got sent thousands of years into the future, and we’re still worried about the exact same shit?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sir Oren asked.

“The nukes.”

His eyes widening, he asked, “Did they have these in your time, too?”

At this, Jimmy barked out a loud, unintended laugh that came as a shock even to his own self. “You kidding me, man? Everyone’s got the bomb. America’s got the bomb. Russia’s got the bomb. China’s got the bomb. Everyone’s got it. It’s like the number-one thing everyone’s worried about. That there will be a war and we’ll blow Earth up. Oh, shit! Is that what happened? Is that why it looks like that?”

“No, actually,” Sir Oren said, his tone coming across as distant—as though he were replying even as his brain turned over the words that had just been spoken. “That was the World Eater.”

“You guys mentioned that. It’s a boss or something?”

“Yes. But…” Sir Oren rubbed his eyes, then averted his gaze a second or two before returning it. “Are you telling me that our ancestors on Earth had developed this technology too?”

“Oh, yeah. Way worse than that, actually. That’s just the start. Once they figure out A-bombs, the next thing they figure out is hydrogen bombs.”

“Hydrogen?” he half-hissed, half-shouted. “We need to stop this now!”

“You know what that is?”

“No,” Sir Oren said. “Never even considered it until just now. But I know enough science to imagine what might happen. Tell me, did anyone ever fire these weapons of yours?”

“Yep,” Jimmy said. Then he grimaced. “We fired them twice: both times on the same country.”

“Country?”

“It’s like what ya’ll call a region? But instead of a guild, it’s ruled by…well, that’s a whole different topic. Point is, everyone on Earth is afraid of getting nuked. The only reason nobody drops them anymore is the fear it’ll start a chain reaction and kill everyone. It’s called MAD: mutually assured destruction.”

Olivir shivered. “I think I just learned more in the past five minutes than I’ve learned in the past fifty years,” he said. “And I’m not so sure I was expecting to hear it told this way. So, Jimmy, it sounds like the world was a very dark place in your time.”

“Oh, no, no, not at all. In fact, where I’m from is the greatest place on Earth. Sorry, I mean the universe.”

“And where’s that?” Olivir asked.

Jimmy took a deep breath and calmed himself as he called it to mind. Thinking of home made him feel a bit better. “New York City,” he said as he exhaled. “Better than anything you guys got on Galterra. No offense. But it’s way better.”

Though intrigue was in the eyes of everyone around him, Jimmy noticed that it was Olivir and Zephyr who appeared the most fascinated. “What was it like?” they both asked him at once.

Jimmy briefly explained New York as best as he could, eliciting gasps of disbelief and wonder despite everything seeming kind of normal to him. “So, yeah, we don’t have flying cars like you guys have,” he said, “but we have the Empire State Building, and we have way better music. Like, no offense, but your music here is dog water. I wish I could play some for you.”

“He’s right about that,” Tena said, speaking up for the first time in a while. “Every now and then Jimmy hums a strange song I’ve never heard before, but every one of them gets stuck in my head. Jimmy, what’s that one about changing yourself?”

“Changing yourself?”

“Yeah, um, the one that’s like…um, I’m starting with the hum dum-dum-dum-dum…”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Man in the Mirror. A classic.”

“Wait, I think I know one of your songs, actually,” Zach announced, drawing Jimmy’s attention. Jimmy watched as he turned his head partially to the side, narrowed his eyes, and then licked the roof of his mouth as though attempting to recall something to mind. Finally, he said, “I’m pretty sure this is one of them. So, do you guys have a song that goes, like, uh…’Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the—”

“FLOOOOOOOR!” Jimmy shouted out, causing Kalana to flinch, Zephyr to blink rapidly, Sir Oren to frown, and Kolona and Olivir to jump up.

Zach began laughing. “No way! I know that song.”

“How?” Jimmy asked him.

“I heard it in the Ford Mustang.”

“Ford Mustang…you mean the car?”

“Yeah. On B2 of Yorna’s. Hey, you know what? Great idea. Why don’t we go this weekend. I’ll run you through it. Do you drive? If so, maybe taking a spin around Earth will help you feel a little better. I mean, I know it's not the nicest place anymore, but I loved those cool cars you guys had, and I bet it'll cheer you up. So, you want to?”

“Hell yeah,” Jimmy said, trying to find something to be upbeat about. Anything was better than dwelling on the topic of what might or might not have happened to those he’d left behind. “Why wait for the weekend, though. You busy tonight?”

Zach scratched his head. “No, not really. Fylwen’s not coming by until tomorrow—she was actually supposed to be here last week—you know what? Fuck it. Let’s raid the entire Yorna. B1 to B50. I haven’t adventured in two weeks. Let’s just do it. Full Yorna raid. Tonight. Me and you. Every mob, every floor. Turn the place into dust.”

Jimmy felt his mood begin to lift. A dungeon run was exactly what he needed to get his mind off recent events. “Now you’re talking my language, Zach. I’m in. Let’s take on the whole dungeon. Tena, you want in?”

“Okay.”

“I’m coming too!” Kalana said. “You can’t leave me behind.”

“Oh. Yeah, of course.”

Zephyr laughed. “Very cute, but the four of you are not going to be able to take on the final boss. Yorna’s a T5, level-55 dread type. You need fifty people for Yorna. Now, if you want to do a proper Yorna raid, you can wait a week, because that’s on my rotation, and I have spots for each of you. But if you try to do it just you four, you’re all going to die.”

“Wanna bet?” Jimmy asked, challenging him. “Guarantee we can knock her down. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I’m better than all of you at this. Like, I was watching Donovan lead the raid back when I was in Whispery Woods, and I couldn’t believe how many mistakes ya’ll made. If that was me in charge? I would’ve had that thing down in a quarter of the time with no deaths.”

“Bullshit,” Donovan growled. “You’re full of it.”

“You think so, huh? How many raids have you led? Be honest.”

“Probably close to a hundred.”

“All right, cool, cool.” Jimmy pointed to himself. “I’ve led thousands.”

Donovan snorted. “On your computer.”

“Whatever. I was one of the first players on my server to take down Deathwing: and that was before they buffed Shamans.”

“No clue what that means, but it still doesn’t make up for battlefield experience. I don’t care how much you can sit back and judge my leadership from a screen. Until you’ve taken on something actually difficult—and not some 20th floor trash—you’ve got plenty of learning to do, kiddo.”

Jimmy grinned. "You don't think I can lead raids, huh?"

"Not what I'm saying at all," Donovan replied, returning the grin. "Matter of fact, I bet you've got a shit ton of potential to be great. What I'm sayin' to you is that there's a big difference between watching one and feeling the fire on your face. I promise you that."

“He’s right,” Sir Oren said. “You likely have experience and knowledge that is invaluable, but to truly become a great raid leader, you need experience of the sort you can’t get behind a terminal. Real people die, and there’s real pain. No matter how fast you’ve leveled, you still haven’t been truly tested. Also, while I’m glad everyone here is relieving some tension, please let me remind you that the entire world is buckling under the oppression of a murderous tyrant who killed nearly—or maybe more—than a million people, and no one here aside from me seems to want to do anything about it.”

“It’s because we’re adventurers,” Donovan said. “We all feel bad, but none of us want to get too involved. And don’t forget, we’ve got our own world-saving mission.”

Zach raised his eyebrows. “That’s right. I need to get to Dragon Squire. I hate that I keep forgetting that. Tomorrow we’re actually going to discuss more about that. Eilea says the only chance we have of saving Galterra is to get to Dragon Squire and begin working to unlock the gateway to Albion IV. Actually, Zeph, have you found anything there yet?”

He lifted his arms and shook his head. “I’ve had my best explorers comb the Grand Library over and over. But there’s nothing. Not even a mention of it.”

“I’ll see if I can get more information out of Eilea when we talk.”

“Please do,” Sir Oren said. “And try to rehearse your conversation with her if you can. There are many issues, and the five minutes needs to be used efficiently. As it is, I don’t understand how you accomplished so little last week. Based on what you’ve told me, it sounds like you had, at most, a minute’s worth of productive dialogue.”

Zach snickered. “Well, that’s because we spent a few minutes talking about life.”

The expression on Sir Oren’s face darkened. “Please tell me you’re joking with me, my man.”

“Nope. She was worried about me after what I went through, and she wanted to talk about that instead.”

“Gods, Zach. I don’t mean to be selfish, but since you’re the only one with a direct line to a God-like being, I’d really hope you’d use it in a more responsible way.”

“I’ll keep focused tomorrow, I promise. Jimmy, come hang out with us. Your friend can come too.”

Kalana smiled. “We’d love to have you stay with us awhile.”

Jimmy thought it over. “I don’t know, man. I need to level up as fast as possible to get…” He let his words fall off, but Zach finished them for him.

“To get home?” he asked.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear, but that’s not going to work. You can’t go home. Believe me, if I could send you there, I’d take you myself. My mom died when I was really young, and I loved her so much, and every day I struggle with knowing I’m never going to see her again, so I feel for you, I really do. But what’s done is done. I’ve had to learn that the hard way, too.”

“But I have to be sure,” Jimmy said. “I figure if I hit the tower as soon as we get done here, I can—”

“Actually, before you say anything else,” Zephyr cut in. “Just how much time are you spending in the dungeons?”

“I dunno. Like eighteen hours a day?”

“How long are you sleeping?”

“A couple.”

“You need to slow it down. You’re going to make a mistake and die. I don’t care how gifted or knowledgeable you are. Please, Jimmy. Take a break. You’re not meant to level from 1 to 45 in two weeks. It’s unheard of.”

Tena nudged him. “We should go to Kalana’s island,” she said to him. “I’m worried about you. And Zephyr’s right. You can’t live inside the dungeons all day.”

“But this is nothing new to me. Back home, when a new expansion would come out, I’d no-life it. That’s a term that means spending fifteen to twenty hours a day grinding. “

“I’ve done that,” Zach said, smiling as though reminiscing at something from his past. “When me and Kal found the spawn in Whispery Woods, we stayed there all day and almost all night. Anyways, I want to hear more about the old world. It’d be nice having you around to tell us all this cool shit.”

Jimmy found himself in awe at how readily Zach was accepting all that he’d said. “Aren’t you a little bit…taken aback? I mean, you just found out that your whole world is based on a video game.”

“Inspired by,” Donovan corrected.

“Same difference. I just mean that I’d think you’d all be a bit more upset by this.”

“Why would we be?” Kolona asked him. “Most of civilization is built on previous civilization.”

Olivir nodded. “Like she said. This isn’t abnormal to us. The past inspires the future. But more importantly, I do think you should take a break, Jimmy. You dying would be worse than a tragedy just for yourself—because just now, in this moment, I’ve finally figured out why you’re here.”

At this, every head, including Jimmy’s turned to face Olivir. “You did?” he asked, along with Zach, Kolona, and Zephyr.

Olivir nodded. “Yeah. It’s obvious now. Of course it is.”

“So what is it? What’s my purpose?”

“To come with us to Albion IV. And to stop us from wiping.”

Jimmy felt chills run down his spine. “Can that really be it?”

“It’s definitely the reason,” Olivir said. “I might not look it, but I’ve been alive for over two-hundred years. And I’m telling you: I’ve got a really good read on stuff. If you’re here, and Eilea is the one who brought you, it’s because she wanted you to make sure we survive the journey. You might even be meant to lead the raids when Donovan says you’re ready. And since you’re convinced you can get home by leveling, it’s in your best interest to come along and try anyway, but I think you'd be better off turning towards learning to make a life for yourself here.”

“Maybe,” he said, lowering his head and averting his gaze. “Maybe if I become stronger and stronger, I can gain whatever power Eilea has and get back to my world.”

“This is your world,” Kalana said to him gently. “I hope you can find meaning in it. I’ll help you if I can. We all will.” She raised her finger. "But for now, no more dungeons until you sleep. You're gonna come hang out with us. Okay?"

Before Jimmy could respond, Sir Oren got up from the table. “I wish I could stay and chat,” he said. “And those really aren’t idle words. I really wish I could stay and chat. But Zach, my man, I’ve got a world on fire to deal with. If you can manage it without incurring the wrath of Adamus, please bring me back tomorrow with more information from Eilea. I need to know as much as I can before I figure out how to deal with all this. We’ve only got three days before the execution.”

As though somewhat surprised, Zach’s mouth fell ajar, and then he asked, “Are you planning on saving him?”

“Yes. Don’t you want to? I know you two might have had a complicated relationship, but you can’t tell me you’re comfortable with the idea of him having his head chopped off. Especially not when it’s being done for racial reasons. There’s a reason he’s the only guild-leader they’re planning to execute. His Gnomish ancestry isn’t exactly a well-guarded secret. If they get away with this, we’re going to end up at war with the Gnomes, I can almost guarantee it. They won’t be deterred by the nuclear weapons.”

Amid everything else, Jimmy couldn’t even begin to process all that, so he let it enter one ear and exit the other. “By the way, what is this room? And who’s Adamus?”

Zach gave him another pat on the shoulder. “Tomorrow, if you come back here with us, I'll tell you everything that everyone else already knows. But I think this is enough for one day, right?”

“I guess,” he said. With the exhilaration of the conversation behind him, he calmed down somewhat, and it turned out to be a bad thing, because now, the sense of something dreadful returned to the back of his mind as he thought about his mom possibly crying her eyes out night after night wondering where he went. Even still, he chose to look on the bright side. If his mom was in heaven, she was going to see him become a legend: even if it was a few-thousand years later than she’d hoped.

Chapter 128: Trackers

Chapter 128: Trackers

“Don’t even think about it,” Kalana warned—and it was obvious she meant it, too. She spoke with a sharp tone: one that strongly implied her words were not a mere suggestion. Even still, Jimmy was tempted to ignore them. After all, he was nineteen years old—an adult—and Kalana was only like, what, seventeen or so? She couldn’t just order him around like that. Yet, that was exactly what she did. “Jimmy, get back in here.”

Like an insect drawn to light, Jimmy stared hungrily at the archway labeled F49->F50 that greeted his eyes as he opened the exit door to Angelica’s, peeked his head outside, and then looked off down the hall and to his left. “I’ll only be an hour,” he promised. “Just let me get another hour or two in, and then I’ll—whoah!”

It wasn’t until he’d nearly fallen over that Jimmy realized Kalana had reached out, grabbed his upper elbow, and yanked him back inside Angelica’s and away from the exit door. Then she moved in front of him, made a swinging motion with her arm, and slammed it shut—only to immediately reopen it the exact moment it was closed; now, she shoved him outside once more so that, while still in the exact same dungeon, Jimmy found himself all the way back down on F17 instead of F49 where he’d been. It must have been the floor her and Zach’s current exit was set to. And now, having walked—or rather, been pushed—through it, Jimmy’s exit would be set to it, too.

“Kalana, what the hell?” he snapped. “That was so uncalled for.”

“Nah-uh! You were gonna go do more dungeon things, weren’t you?”

“I was only looking,” he replied innocently as she shut the door behind herself once Zach and Tena came through. Then she put her hands on her hips, and her posture stiffened.

“Yeah right! You were gonna try to solo the F50 boss even though we all agreed you’d come back to Elendroth with me and Zach.” Rather than reply, Jimmy chose to stay silent since he wasn’t good at bullshitting and Kalana was right: that was exactly what he’d been planning on doing. Hoping for some kind of support, he looked over to Zach; in response, the black-robed, hooded kid gave him an empathetic shrug that, while definitely well-meaning, came across as something much darker and unintentionally sinister due to the face-concealing, eye-glowing effect of his cloak.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I kind of wanted to see if you could really do it. I mean, I definitely don’t think I could take it solo. I was hoping to see how you’d actually kill it all by yourself.”

Kalana frowned at him. “Don’t enable him, Zach. You heard Zephyr! Jimmy’s gonna die if he doesn’t take a break.” To Jimmy, she said, “You can’t just spend eighteen hours a day in a dungeon for two whole weeks and be okay. It’s only a matter of time before you make a serious mistake—just like Zephyr said. When’s the last time you’ve been outside and got some fresh air? When’s the last time you’ve even seen the sun?”

“You mean like that sun?” Jimmy asked, pointing to a window on the other side of the hallway, which revealed an endless, blue, and cloud-covered sky illuminated by a bright yellow ball that never seemed to rise or set. He suspected this gas giant was tidally locked into position with the star in its system, which meant one side of the planet would experience permanent day whereas the other side would be forever shrouded in complete, total darkness.

“Nope. I mean a real sun. Like the one on Galterra. Or anywhere that’s not a dungeon.”

Jimmy snickered. “So that sun doesn’t count as real?”

“That’s right,” Kalana said, nodding and tapping her foot down in perfect timing with her words. “Seriously, how long has it been since you’ve been outside, Jimmy?”

Once again, Jimmy chose to remain silent. But this time, Tena went and outed him. “Truthfully, Kalana? I don’t think Jimmy’s been anywhere besides the dungeons or Angelica’s since the moment he entered his first dungeon portal.” Jimmy glared at her for exposing him, and she pouted in response to the look he sent her way. “What?” she asked, nearly flinching along with her words. “I’m just telling the truth. I’ve never seen you anywhere else.”

“Really, Tena? What about that time on Earth?”

“Oh. Oh yeah. Well, I guess that technically counts as you going outside for a few hours.”

“Barely,” Zach said. “But either way, if you’re going to spend every hour in the dungeons, at least pick a better one. This one’s so boring. Everything looks the same from floor to floor.”

“True,” Jimmy said, “it does. But that’s what makes it so great for leveling.”

Although he’d spent most of his time in Tower of Eternity, Jimmy had learned from casual conversation in Angelica’s that different dungeons could provide radically different experiences. Some dungeons got weird in ways that had to be seen to be understood, whereas other dungeons were chaotic and warped people all over the galaxy to different planets. Then there were some that were consistent for an unpredictable number of floors before unexpectedly switching things up. Naturally, there were even dungeons that did all of these things, like Yorna, as well as others that he either did not know of or had names he could not recall.

But there was another type of dungeon, too, and Jimmy was thankful for it. Because amid what many claimed were countless wild, unpredictable dungeons, there also existed places like Tower of Eternity: stable, unchanging, straightforward, and run-of-the-mill. These dungeons were linear in progression from start to finish, self-contained to one particular structure or place, and provided little in the way of surprises outside of boss fights. It had been exactly what Jimmy needed to blast forward in the levels.

So far, from F1 all the way to F49—the farthest Jimmy had gotten—every floor had contained anywhere between three-to-eight slightly narrowed hallways with a variable number of mobs to kill. Most floors had at least one or two dead-ends, a few had none, and a couple of times there had been three or more. But even if he picked the wrong direction and hit a dead-end, all that typically meant was fighting a few extra mobs, earning more xp, and if luck was on his side, maybe some additional loot, too.

Visually, there was little difference between the floors. Each had several windows at the top of their brick walls, which offered a look out at the empty, blue, and cloudy atmosphere and served as the sole but sufficient source of lighting, giving the entire dungeon a slight blue glow. Overall, Tower of Eternity was best characterized as dim but not outright dark, and Jimmy had not had any issues taking in his surroundings—not that there was actually anything other than the mobs worth seeing here in the first place. In fact, save for a few abstract, irregularly placed paintings and the occasional dusty, wooden bench, there was nothing else here in the way of furniture or décor.

Really, the only thing that actually changed as he’d climbed higher and higher had been the types—and levels—of the mobs he fought. But besides that? It’d basically been the same thing over and over again, which meant making his way across the bland, gray-marble flooring from hall to hall until getting to the next set of stairs—rinse and repeat. The only exception to this was every tenth floor, which consisted of a large, open, and square-shaped room where the ground was covered in ankle-high sand and a boss guarded the stairwell to the next floor up.

Given all this, Jimmy did not disagree with Zach’s take on things. It really was lacking in excitement when viewed from that perspective. But at least it was consistent and reliable. And while Jimmy had only gotten to the forty-ninth floor, he was reasonably certain that the pattern and consistency would hold all the way to the 100th based on little things he’d picked up here or there from other adventurers whenever they’d speak about TOE.

None of them realize how great this place actually is, he thought.

As the four of them began ambling their way down a quiet, mob-free hallway that led away from Angelica's, their feet clicked against the paved flooring, which caused the sound of their footsteps to give off a dull echo. Abruptly, Zach paused, causing the rest of them to stop behind him. Something appeared to be bothering him. Turning his head to Jimmy, he asked, “Do you really believe you can kill the boss of F50 solo?”

“Uh, well…I think so. I mean, I wouldn’t know for sure until I pulled it, but I’d be able to find out pretty quickly: fast enough so I could still run away if it was too much for me to handle.”

“Okay, come on,” he said with a disbelieving shake of his head. “Are you bullshitting me?”

Due to Zach’s cloak, the menace Jimmy saw in his glowing eyes and shadowy face was at total odds with the playful tone in which he’d asked the question. It was a hell of a visual effect and made everything he said or did seem highly intimidating. Jimmy was actually starting to find it easier to have a conversation with Zach by deliberately not looking at him whenever he spoke; it gave Jimmy a truer impression of the kid’s intent.

“I’m not lying to you, man.” Jimmy pointed to himself. “I’m a beast when it comes to this stuff.”

“Yeah, but you’re saying you can solo a fiftieth-floor boss? Come on…”

“Like I said: I think I could do it, but I’m not gonna say it’s a hundred percent. Maybe ninety.”

“Sheesh,” Zach said. “Your stats must be super high.” With that, he continued onwards, and Jimmy, Kalana, and Tena resumed their slow, relaxed, and casual walk down the dungeon hallway alongside him towards wherever it was the kid was taking them.

Only ten steps later, however, and they all paused yet again. But this time it was because Jimmy halted mid-step as he felt compelled to explain himself. “My stats aren’t all that high I don’t think. Like, I guess they’re all right for my role and for my level. But Tena says that, with equipment included, the stats most relevant to the roles you wanna play should be twice your level at the absolute, bare minimum and probably a lot higher if you actually wanna be useful.”

Jimmy could see Zach studying the staff he carried on his back. “So I’m guessing for you it’s intelligence?”

Jimmy nodded. “Yeah. And my intelligence is pretty high and all, but it’s not like insanely high. It’s decent for a hybrid support healer. Here, I’ll just show you. Party up.”

Name

Jimmy Green

Level

45

Armor Bonus

20

Strength

18

Dexterity

60

Constitution

23

Intelligence

113

Speed

40

Luck

16

“Yeah, that seems okay,” Zach agreed. Then he made a dark chuckle. “It’s way better than what my stats were until I got a huge level up fighting Ziragoth’s adds the day before the raid. But yeah, those stats aren’t too bad. But I don’t know how you’re soloing bosses with that. You must have some crazy abilities.”

“It’s the way they work together,” Jimmy explained. “Basically, there’s almost nothing I can’t solo as long as four basic conditions are met. If all four are in place, I can beat anything solo no matter what it is. But if even one of the four things is missing, I run away if it’s too dangerous.”

Clearly having become intrigued, Zach inched a bit closer to Jimmy and asked, “What are the four conditions? Now you kind of have to tell us. You can’t just mention that much and stop.”

“I wanna know too,” Kalana said.

Tena merely smiled. She already knew, as Jimmy had told her a few days ago. He saw no reason not to tell these two as well. And to be honest? He liked to talk shit and brag. It was one of his biggest flaws—and he was definitely aware of it. Even still, he couldn’t help but feel a bit energetic as Kalana and Zach stared at him as if eager to hear what he had to say.

“You really wanna know?”

“Yes, Gods damn it!” Zach shouted, sounding a touch annoyed. “Just tell us!” Kalana twisted her lips at him, and a second after, he lowered his voice and added, “Please.”

Jimmy grinned. “Okay, then. So, it’s like this.” He inhaled, and for a moment, he held the breath. Then, as he released it, he held up his index finger. “Condition one,” he began. “The mob or boss needs to be susceptible to my slows.” He lifted his middle finger so that it joined his pointer. “Two,” he continued, “it’s gotta also be susceptible to my poisons.” Next, he gestured at Zach and Kalana with three raised fingers. “Three,” he said, “there needs to be enough room for me to move around in.” Finally, he added a fourth finger so that all but his thumb were now raised. “And lastly, it can’t use magic or ranged attacks that are longer range than what I can cast or enough to get within distance of hitting me.”

Zach and Kalana both said nothing for a moment, and both turned their heads to look at the other. Jimmy could tell that they were running his words over in their minds as if trying to visualize what he’d told them. “So umm, you can kill anything like that?” Kalana asked.

He nodded. “Yup. As long as those four things are true, I can solo it. So basically, I slow it so it can’t get to me, poison it so it starts taking damage over time, and then kite it around the space as long as there’s enough room for me to move around in.”

“Wait, time out,” Zach said, his voice filling with surprise. “You’re telling me you use nothing but poisons?”

“Mostly, yeah.”

“Okay, but…but for you to take down a boss like that by yourself, that would take you like…”

“Hours,” Jimmy said, finishing the thought for him and then adding in a self-deprecating laugh. “Actually, it took me a little more than ten hours to solo the boss on F40, which I think is a fifty-person raid. But it’s just a big knight with a sword and a shield. Probably would’a killed me in one shot if it hit me, but thanks to my slows, it couldn’t ever get to me. But hey, this is the best part: even though it might seem like that’s a lot of time to spend on just one mob, you gotta realize that, for just that ten hours’ worth of time and effort, I got an entire raid’s worth of loot and gold all for myself that I didn’t even have to roll for.”

Jimmy wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or a trick of the lighting, but for just a second, he thought the shadowy effect faded away from Zach’s face, and he thought he saw the kid’s eyes bulging wide with greed and envy.

“You got to keep all that loot for yourself?” he asked, his words now higher in pitch as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How much was there?”

“A lot.”

Zach made something that sounded like a cross between a choke and a grunt. “Okay, you need to show me your methods in person.”

“Uh, sure. No problem.”

“Really?” Zach asked, his giddy voice in such dire contrast with his cloaked, hooded form.

Jimmy nodded at him. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if you can also do something similar on your own, but I don’t mind showing you.”

Zach flicked his head towards Kalana. “Maybe we should turn around and go back up to F50 after all.”

She did not appear to find his suggestion amusing, and the look on her face made that much clear, which was probably why Zach let the idea drop only a moment after raising it. Then, speaking to Jimmy, he said, “I can’t believe you really fought a boss for ten hours straight.”

“It’s intense,” he replied, “but I can handle it as long as I pace myself. In fact, as long as I keep my cool, I know I’ll come out on top every single time.”

From the way he did another double take, Jimmy could tell Zach was surprised, impressed, and probably wanting to figure out a way of soloing dungeon bosses on his own as well. “I just can’t believe that you figured out how to do all that,” he said. “So your method…it’s really as simple as it sounds?”

“Yep.”

Zach sighed, and then a dubious look crossed his features. “Not calling you a liar, but some of this still doesn’t make any sense, though.”

Jimmy tried not to take the skepticism personally. “Like what?”

“Well, you’re saying your method is to slow it down, poison it, and then run around the room for like ten hours if that’s how long it takes—right?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, cool…but what about E-debt? What about crowd control eventually not working anymore? Shouldn’t your slows lose effectiveness after you’ve used them a few times? And how are you even landing them on the bosses in the first place? They’d be reduced or resisted altogether, no? And how’re you not passing out?”

Zach raised a bunch of pretty good questions, and Jimmy did his best to answer most of them. “Okay, so, for the stamina stuff, I got that covered through an ability I’m not about to reveal just yet. I’ll probably tell you eventually, but I gotta keep at least some secrets, right? But for the other shit, it’s all possible because of my passive.”

“Your passive?”

“Yeah. It lets me use my slows on things that would normally resist them. Uh…I guess I can show you that too, whatever.”

As Jimmy called forward the ability he’d learned at level 15—the one that had enabled him to accomplish what it seemed like few—if any—other adventurers were capable of doing, he realized he was enjoying Kalana and Zach’s open-jawed reaction to it just a little bit too much. It actually made him feel guilty in a sense because, while yeah, there was nothing wrong with being a bit cocky, he knew he needed to take it all with a slice of humble pie or else he’d let it get to his head and turn him into a jerk that no one would be able to stand being around. Still, it was nice that they could see the value in his ability.

Passive Ability (LEGENDARY UNIQUE)

Scourge of Giants

Usage Cost:

None

Cooldown:

None

Range:

N/A

Description:

+50% debuff duration

+20% poison damage

Scourge of Giants grants the following three effects.

1:Whenever the user targets an enemy or a boss with crowd control, debuffs, or poisons from among the user’s available spells, abilities, item abilities, and equipment abilities, if the target is not immune, the user will bypass any increased resistances due to stat differences; this is only with regards to whether or not the ability will succeed in landing and not with regard to duration-impacted resistance or damage.

2:Non-sentient targets cannot reduce the durations of negative or stat-altering abilities and effects beyond 75% of their maximum duration.

3:Crowd control abilities other than stuns, fears, roots, charms, and mesmerizes are no longer subject to diminishing returns (this effect of Scourge of Giants applies only to inner abilities and does not apply to item or equipment abilities)

“Fucking amazing,” Zach said, whistling appreciatively as he read it over. “Well, I’m convinced now.” Jimmy watched him read it over a second time and then a third. “You really might be able to solo the boss on F50 after all. Okay, I stand corrected.”

“So, you believe me now.”

“Sure do,” he said with a nod. And with that, he turned around and again began strolling slowly down the hall towards wherever it was they were heading. “Gods, that’s a great passive,” he whispered. “I don’t have anything like that.”

“Really, really cool,” Kalana agreed, following after him. “You’re gonna end up being the most requested person for raids, I bet.”

Tena also seemed to appreciate it, though rather than vocalize it, she instead smiled at him and wrapped both of her arms around his upper bicep as they walked together, following behind Kalana and Zach. Placing his arm around her waist, he realized he was starting to really catch feelings, and in all likelihood, he was already too far down the rabbit hole to turn back. This was despite the fact that he barely knew anything about her—through no fault of her own, of course. No, that was on him.

Though Jimmy was still in some denial that this world was real, and though he was not one-hundred-percent convinced that this wasn’t all just some kind of elaborate simulation the government had cooked up, his views were shifting, and he was slowly starting to believe what he’d been told. And so now, upon this realization, he had no choice but to acknowledge that he hadn’t treated Tena as good as he should have or would have under “normal” circumstances.

Despite having essentially become her boyfriend in all but name, he had never inquired about her life, her past, her family, or even her hopes and dreams. He never once asked her about herself or her hobbies—things that he had willfully chosen not to talk about because he did not think her memories of this place or her life here could be real. But if she was real, and if this world was real, then that would have been pretty shit of him.

I’m gonna make it right, he thought. Mom raised me better than that.

At any rate, that was something to be done in private later on. For now, having demonstrably satisfied Zach and Kalana’s curiosity, the four of them resumed their slow trek down the hallway in F17 of Tower of Eternity, and a period of silence once more came upon their little group, which meant that the only sound to be heard was, for the moment, the echoing tap of their feet against the paved marble flooring. As they continued onwards, they headed all the way through to the end of the hall, at which point the path split to the left and the right. Zach chose to go right, and as he did so, Tena immediately let go of Jimmy’s arm so that she could remove her staff. Jimmy did the same.

“This next hall’s got enemies in it,” he explained, readying his weapon. “They’re not too hard but they can swarm you.”

“We know,” Zach said, giving him a reassuring thumbs-up. He and Kalana did not draw their own weapons. “Don’t worry: we aren’t going to go anywhere near their aggro range.”

“We’re not?” Jimmy asked, becoming confused. He extended his arm as they walked, pointing his staff straight ahead of him to indicate a spot about three quarters down the fairly long hallway where a large grouping of bug-like creatures with incredibly sharp-looking pincers awaited them. “They’re literally right there, Zach. You can see them.”

“Just trust me,” he said. Then, at once, he stopped short, causing Jimmy, Tena, and Kalana to halt behind him. Now, Jimmy watched as Zach stood up straighter, turned his body to his left so that he faced the wall, and while staring at it, he began rubbing his chin. “I always forget. Is it nine or ten here, Kal?”

“Ten,” she answered somewhat angrily. Jimmy had no idea why; in fact, he had absolutely no idea what she was referring to or what Zach had even asked her about. Yet, for whatever reason, it seemed to have disturbed her greatly. “Don’t even joke around about that, baby.”

“I’m not joking.”

She glared at him. “If you’re being serious, then umm, you’re never allowed to come here alone.”

He laughed. “Okay, fine, I’m just kidding.”

“Now I dunno for sure!”

“Kal, I was kidding, I swear. I’m not braindead.”

What are they even arguing about?

She eyed him with skepticism plain on her face. “You’re a jerk sometimes.”

“It was a bad joke. I’m sorry if I upset you.”

She stared daggers at him for a few moments before eventually her eyes softened. “Okay, fine,” she said with a sigh. Then, at a lower volume, she whispered, “I just love you so much, and you joking about forgetting something so important makes me scared.”

He eyed her apologetically for a moment, and the look he gave her seemed sincere, at least so far as Jimmy could tell. Then, with a level of seriousness that actually seemed a bit off-putting, he observed as Zach extended his index finger upwards and pointed it at the window near the top of the brick wall; in a very careful, slow, and deliberate manner, he began walking sideways while counting aloud. “One,” he said at the first window. “Two,” he called out at the very next window to come after it.

They’re counting windows?

Given the simplicity involved in counting to ten—something most people learn before they turn ten—Jimmy was both fascinated and alarmed at just how cautiously Zach was counting off the windows as he continued to step side-to-side. Kalana was doing it too, and both were acting like the mere act of counting was more complex or difficult than it actually was. With the level of concentration expected of a university student during finals week, the two of them methodically and meticulously counted one window after the next. It was beyond strange. And not only didn’t Jimmy understand why they were doing it in the first place, but he was bemused at how they did so in a way that was so steady and careful it bordered on surgical.

“Seven,” both Kalana and Zach counted aloud. “Eight. Nine. Ten.” They paused in front of the tenth window from the start of the hall, and then, in a way that came across as nervous, they faced one another and exchanged a very serious look that made Jimmy feel a pinch of nerves in his own belly. “There’s no chance we somehow fucked that up, right, Kal?” he asked her.

Kalana gave a firm shake of her head. “Nah-uh. Let’s not end up getting paranoid and counting to ten over and over like we did last week. That’s the tenth window. We know how to count!” The two nodded at one another. But then, a few seconds later, Kalana stirred nervously. “But…maybe we should count it again just to make sure.”

“Nah, we got it. We’re not morons.”

Jimmy raised his fist to his mouth and coughed into it, drawing their attention. “You guys mind telling me and Tena what’s…what this is?”

“Yeah. It’s our way out.”

“Huh?”

Rather than reply, Zach bent his knees and leapt upwards nearly ten feet into the air, landing cleanly down an instant later on top of the window’s ledge. Then Jimmy flinched at the sound of a loud crack: it was a sound that registered to his ears as the distinct, unmistakable noise associated with broken glass. But why? Confused, startled, and hoping his eyes were lying to him, he watched on in disbelief as Zach, for a reason he could not possibly understand, launched his fist forward and slammed it right through the window, shattering it in its entirety.

Immediately, a shrieking, howling storm drowned out all other sound as what felt like a veritable hurricane blasted into the dungeon, blanketing all of them with what was thankfully—and shockingly—breathable oxygen. It was also freezing cold, too. Jimmy immediately began shivering. The hallway plummeted from room temperature to something well below zero in a matter of seconds, and he had to wrap his arms around himself just to prevent his robes from flying off.

“Wh-wh-what the h-h-h-hell are you doing, m-man?” he shouted, folding his arms and shivering. Had Zach lost his damn mind? Why was he standing so close to the window? What if he fell out? Goddamn, it was so cold! The temperature in the hall had now become so frigid that, had Jimmy still been an ordinary guy from New York, he was positive this level of chill would be fatal and he would be entering into a state of hypothermic shock.

“It’s c-c-cold, I know,” Zach said, his own teeth chattering and his equipment flapping around him. His hood came undone, casting away the menacing shadow over his face and eerily glowing eyes. “So let’s be quick, okay? Follow me.”

“Follow you?” both he and Tena shouted out.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine. Hurry!”

“Zach,” Jimmy called out, “where exactly are you asking us to—”

Without bothering to even let him finish forming his question, Zach took one big step forward—and then walked out into the air itself, falling immediately out of sight and vanishing from view. Jimmy was so shocked that he actually squawked. Zachys Calador just…he just walked out of a window and fell into a gas giant! The very idea of it evoked a sense of horror so great it was immeasurable.

Kalana, having to yell to be heard over the absurdly powerful gusts of vicious, freezing air, said, “It’s a secret passage! Trust us! We would never hurt you!”

Stunned, he watched as she too bent her knees then launched herself forward and upwards, clearing the window and disappearing outside of it a moment later. “Are they crazy?” he shouted at Tena. “They just jumped into a…Tena, no! Not you too. Stop. I said stop!” He pointed at her. “Girl, you better get your ass back inside this—wait!”

Jimmy watched helplessly as Tena went after the two of them, jumping up and out of the window. Now, all alone, he remained where he was, shivering, confused, and wondering what in God’s name these maniacs were thinking. His rational brain fought a battle against itself, holding an internal debate over what was possible and whether or not the girl he was into was currently falling to her death through a gas giant or was somehow, inexplicably, traveling through a secret passage.

Falling through a gas giant has to be one of the scariest deaths for people like us who won’t die instantly due to the pressure, he thought, becoming queasy. But they wouldn’t have jumped if they weren’t sure they’d be okay. Right?

Jimmy took a deep breath, which was hard to do given how badly he was now shivering. “Aww, hell. I’m really doing this? Am I seriously about to…?”

Shaking his head at the absurdity of it all, Jimmy decided the worst thing that could happen to him would be a prolonged period of extreme terror and pain followed soon after by the discovery of whether or not this really was a simulation. And the best case? Well, that remained to be seen. In either event, he’d find out momentarily, wouldn’t he?

This is nuts. What am I doing?

Muttering a swear word so awful his momma would have whooped his ass if she heard him say it aloud, he bent his knees, shoved aside his restraint, and then hopped straight up into the air. Even with most of his points into intelligence, he still had way more than enough strength and speed to clear a ten-foot jump. He could probably jump higher than fifty if he really tried. Getting out was the easy part, though. It was what would happen afterwards that he was worried about.

Filled with uncertainty, he flung himself up and out of the window, and then, the moment he cleared it and realized he was now outside of the dungeon, Jimmy was gripped by a fear so terrible he could not even bring himself to scream as gravity pulled him down—and fast. Like a rock, he began dropping down through a blue, cloudy sky that had no bottom, providing him with an instant sense of regret. As he picked up speed, he hollered loudly, cursing himself for actually being stupid enough to go through with this. How the fuck did he actually let the two of them talk him into jumping into the atmosphere of a gas giant? What was he thinking? Oh, shit, this was terrifying! What had he done?

He picked up more and more speed. He sank through one cloud, then two, and then he tore through a third as gravity pulled him deeper and deeper. Yet no matter how fast he fell, there was nothing below him but more sky: more emptiness. He was so scared he couldn’t even feel the cold, which had numbed parts of his skin. With each passing moment, his brain was screaming at him that, right now, in this moment, he was literally falling through a gas giant: an actual gas giant. If he had been an ordinary person, he would have been dead instantly within a second of jumping. And as things were, he could feel the pressure beginning to squeeze his body. It was even starting to become painful too as he continued to plummet deeper and deeper. His ears popped, his heart thudded in his chest, and the wind beat against him with such intensity it soon became impossible to breathe.

Then the sights below him began to change, and as they did, it only intensified his sense of terror. The atmosphere began to darken, and what looked like the single-worst electrical storm he’d ever seen was rapidly approaching. This was the end, surely. And it was real. This was real! He was really doing this. He wasn’t going to wake up in a Matrix-like pod. He was going to die for real. This was something actually happening in the real world, wasn’t it? The thought caused him to explode with fear.

But then, there was another change: one that was even more significant. Out of nowhere, something peculiar happened as Jimmy continued to plummet. Just as he was about to fall into the beginning of this gigantic, planet-spanning lighting storm, Jimmy was instead blanketed by an intense white light so bright that it completely blinded him to everything that was around him. Everything faded. He couldn’t even see his own hands in front of his face. There was nothing but light. Yet it lasted for only a fraction of a second. Almost as soon as it had appeared, the light retreated, and what replaced it was a total darkness black enough to rival the brightness of the light. And it was upon this darkness that Jimmy felt the sensation of something solid bumping into his feet—or maybe the other way around.

“Guh!” he cried out as he slammed down onto something hard enough to bring him into a crouch.

Submerged in darkness, he became so confused that he was momentarily paralyzed. But this paralysis vanished as he felt someone or something grab hold of him. He yelped, backing away. “Jimmy, it’s okay,” a voice—Tena’s voice—said to him. “We’re fine.”

His mouth opened, his eyes struggled to adjust to this darker environment, and slowly, he realized it was not quite as dark as he thought. Breathing heavily, he panted for a few moments as things came back into focus, and now he realized he could just begin to make out the faces of Tena, Kalana, and a chuckling Zach, who received a slap on his shoulder from Kalana.

“Stop being mean. You were screaming so loud your first time, too.”

“It’s true,” Zach said, still laughing. “I thought we were done for.”

Swallowing nervously, Jimmy asked, “Am I really okay?”

“You are,” Kalana said gently.

He exhaled, then placed his hand on his chest. His heart was still drumming away furiously. “Never doing that shit again. Never.” He looked at Zach. “Where exactly are we, anyway?”

Zach pointed over his shoulder. “We’re in a secret passage. As far as I know, they’re all like this: meaning dark tunnels that connect dungeons to the outside world. We think—we meaning me and Kal—that these tunnels exist, like, between different points in spacetime, connecting long distances together in a way that our minds conceive as seamless tunnels but are actually 4th dimensional constructs beyond our comprehension.”

“Wow. Did you come up with this theory?” Jimmy asked, his body still shaking from both shock and what was probably the release of endorphins.

“Yeah,” Zach said.

Kalana again slapped him on the shoulder. “Stop taking credit for what Alex taught you, Zach. You dork.”

“You never let me have any fun.”

Giving Tena a brief hug, Jimmy calmed himself down, rotated his shoulder muscles, and then nodded. “I’m good,” he said.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m good, Zach,” he confirmed. “Lead the way.”

And so, he did. Jimmy, walking side by side with Tena, followed behind Zach and Kalana as they made their way through this very dark tunnel that they claimed was a bridge through space or something. At this point, he’d believe anything. That was why he wasn’t surprised when the two of them simply walked right through a wall as though it did not exist at all. After what he’d just been through, it failed to elicit even so much as a raised eyebrow from Jimmy. He simply willed himself to disregard its existence, and while holding hands with Tena, the two of them walked right through it as well, neither of them hesitating.

A moment later, they emerged in a much brighter location that looked a bit like a school library. There were rows upon rows of bookshelves that stored any number of books, most of which were made of paper and many that seemed incredibly old. The place was empty except for an elderly man sitting in the middle of a circularly shaped receptions desk.

The man, who looked like he was at least ninety years old, was reading a thick tome and had been in the middle of turning the page when the four of them entered wherever this was. Upon noticing them enter, he paused, lifted his head, and glanced at them disinterestedly for less than a half a second, and then he once again turned his attention to his book.

“Have fun today, Zach and Kalana?” he asked with a lazy drawl as Zach led the three of them through this strange library. The man, who was wearing a red suit with a matching tie and a thick pair of reading glasses, did not lift his head to glance at them a single additional time as they walked right by him.

“You could say that,” Zach replied. And that was the extent of their interaction.

Who is that guy?

Pushing open a set of wooden double doors, Zach led them through the large library room into another library “room” that was about fifteen times larger and looked like it’d been made of gold. His mouth dropping open, Jimmy drank in the sights of it all. There were grand staircases all around, and the place was four stories tall. There were more books here than he’d ever seen, and unlike in the previous room—which he now realized was not available to the general public—this place was crowded. Jimmy spotted everyone from scholars to children doing research. Many of the books were holographic in nature, though a great many were also paper.

“What is this place?” Jimmy asked, amazed. There were people both above and below him. Each level ran around the outer perimeter of the library, and a safety railing along the edges prevented people from falling off.

“One of the grand libraries,” Tena answered. “Every city in the entire world has one.”

“No shit…” Jimmy swallowed. “Wait, what city are we in?”

This time, it was Zach who answered. “Shores of Wrath,” he said.

“Ah, right. Of course. Shores of Wrath.”

The name, of course, meant absolutely nothing to Jimmy. Literally nothing at all. Not a thing. Zach might as well have said they were in “Zappity Zoopityville” for all the difference it would have made. As far as Galterran geography was concerned, Jimmy’s knowledge was limited to a few regions in North Bastia and that was about it. He still had a lot to learn about this planet. To be fair, he did spend a few minutes a day studying and researching at Angelica’s, but for the most part, he just wanted to grind xp and farm loot.

Maybe I should be coming here to study, he thought jokingly, marveling at the magnitude of this place.

Finally beginning to calm himself from the earlier excitement, he walked with the others down a large, wide, and golden-colored spiral staircase that ran from the third floor—where they’d found themselves—all the way down to the first. Jimmy almost bumped into several people on his way down, as he was stumbling about a bit clumsily, still trying to fully regain his footing from that fall through the gas giant.

Despite being a library, it was kind of noisy in this place. Everywhere he looked, Jimmy could see grown men and women wearing aristocratic-looking garments engaged in debates with one another. It was as though they’d shown up here specifically with the intention of arguing.

“No, you’re absolutely wrong about this,” one such man said to his peer, the two seated across from one another at a table in a café area off to Jimmy’s left. Each sipped coffee out of a plastic cup and had a pile of books occupying most of the free space on the table with just a small area in the middle providing them room to set down their beverages.

“How so?”

“The Guild of Gentlemen did in fact have justification to launch based strictly on classical notions of self-defense as laid out in article 4.2 of the…”

As Zach began walking a bit more quickly, Jimmy had to increase his own pace to keep up, and thus the men went out of earshot before he could fully understand what they were arguing about, though he doubted it would have made sense to him anyway. Together with Zach, Kalana, and Tena, they moved their way as a group over to one of six entryways into this tremendous library.

Zach, grabbing the handles of one of the doors, pulled it open and then stepped outside. Jimmy followed—and immediately, he was hit by a disgustingly, atrociously hot blast of heat that felt every bit as hot as the gas giant had felt cold. Only, he knew that couldn’t be the case, or all the level-1 people around here would be dead. Even still, it sure felt that way.

“Damn,” he moaned, raising his forearm to shield his eyes from the sheer intensity of the fierce sun. It was still very early in the day, likely a bit past noon, and it was already unbearable. “I need to get back to the dungeons,” he muttered. “I can’t take this heat, guys.”

Zach gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.”

“First time in the sun in a bit, huh?” Kalana asked him.

“Yeah, kinda.”

Tena chuckled. “Don’t be upset, Jimmy. We’re in Shores of Wrath. It’s one of my favorite cities! You can buy anything here.”

“It’s true,” Kalana agreed. Her voice became cheerful. “We should do a little shopping, you guys—you know, since we’re already here anyway.” Zach groaned as though he found the idea torturous, but ultimately, he said nothing in reply, which was probably for the best.

Curious to get a better look around him, Jimmy attempted to lower his arm—only to raise it right back up to his face. “I can’t even see it yet.”

Pausing for a moment with Zach outside of the grand library’s entrance, it took Jimmy almost half a minute for his eyes to adjust to the bright sunshine, and when they did, he found himself agreeing right away with Kalana and Tena. This was indeed an interesting sight, this “Shores of Wrath.”

It was a bright, hot, but flavorful city. Rather than any tall buildings or skyscrapers, there were colorful structures all around for miles with interesting designs that seemed to favor domes, arches, and spires. Many buildings had artwork around them consisting of layered textures that took the form of various geometric shapes and patterns. Far into the distance, Jimmy could see that, wherever this was, the terrain south of the city was likely desert in nature, and it gave everything in general a sand-swept appearance, though with a bit of shine mixed in as well.

Most notably, Jimmy could not help but find his attention drawn to the huge number of street merchants selling every conceivable matter of food or trinket from where they sat or stood under tent-like stores, many with very colorful welcome mats out front. Some streets were lined back-to-back with various merchants. There were markets absolutely everywhere, broken apart by stunning, blue-and-gold water fountains, some having their own surrounding decorations in the form of bronze animal statues or human-like figures carved out of stone. There were also no cars—or DEHVs—or whatever here. There were horse-drawn wagons, wheeled carts, and other far less sophisticated means of travel. There were even a fair number of people riding on camels. All of this added to the overall wonderous aesthetic, and Jimmy’s first impression of this place was very positive.

Ahead of him, Jimmy saw an entire street of vendors selling fancy carpets and other types of cloth, many of which were draped over a clothesline that drew the eye and put them on display. The level of buzz and activity was something he found heartening, and he smiled as he saw Kalana take Tena’s hand so that the two of them could run off and browse a nearby shop where a sweating man in loose-fitting attire immediately began trying to sell them his garments.

“That one’s so pretty,” he heard Kalana say. “You would look amazing in it, Tena.”

“Yes, she would,” the merchant agreed. “And I have a great price for that. I give you the best deal I’ve ever given, yes? Only twenty gold.”

Taking a seat with Zach on a bench in a park area where children were playing on swings, Jimmy was glad to finally be able to rest his feet for a moment. Though he was baking under the sun, he found it all a bit more tolerable due to this colorful, lively city.

“Summer here is hot as hell, man,” he said, missing his room in Angelica’s. Waving his palm, he attempted to fan his face, though it likely only made him feel even hotter.

Zach gave him an amused look. “Believe it or not, it’s actually like this all year long. We’re in South Bastia right now.”

“I’m guessing that’s the one below North Bastia?” The two shared a laugh. Then Jimmy said, “Well, summer or not, I can’t take this much heat.”

Zach nodded. “It’s definitely way too hot, but don’t worry. We’ll probably spend the day in the pool.”

“Are you sure?” Jimmy asked him.

“About…the pool?”

Lowering his voice despite Kalana and Tena being well out of earshot, Jimmy decided to bring up a conversation from earlier. “So, about that plan we had. You know…to raid Yorna’s tonight?”

Zach sighed then gave him an apologetic look. “Can’t do it.”

Jimmy frowned. “Why not? I thought you were totally up for it.”

“Oh, I am. And if it was up to me, we’d be there right now. But uh, Kalana is going to freak out if we even suggest going to Yorna tonight. Especially since we’ve all been invited to join Zephyr on his raid there next week. Kal’s going to insist we wait.”

“She doesn’t think we can do it ourselves?” Jimmy asked.

Zach twisted his lips and said nothing for a few seconds. Then he looked at Jimmy. “You know, I don’t even think it’s just that. It’s probably part of it, but I think she just really likes social activities.” He looked into the distance across from them, where Kalana and Tena were excitedly browsing different outfits. “She never used to be like that, too,” he continued. “Before she started leveling up, she was shy and only talked to me. Now she loves being around people and seeing the world. I think it was something always in her that uh, you know, she was trying to keep from getting out.”

“So why can’t we just do both?”

Zach shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess if you really want then we can try our luck, but you’re only going to end up getting chewed out by Tena. We’ll both be in trouble.”

Jimmy paused a moment before replying, and when he did, he spoke even more quietly despite how unnecessary it was. “What if…we sneak out?”

“First thing I thought of,” Zach said. “Trust me, they’ll know.” He spoke in a way that made it sound as if he had no doubt whatsoever. “Believe me, Jimmy: I’d be the first person to suggest that if I thought we could get away with it. But somehow, I just know the girls will find out, and then Kalana will be mad at me for days. We’ll get caught.”

“Yeah, probably.” Now, Jimmy also sighed. He began to sweat, too, and the front of his fancy boss-drop robes became damp. “It’s just all so weird,” he said quietly.

Zach turned to look at him. “Hm? What is?”

Jimmy extended his arms. “This,” he said. “Being here. This being real. It’s just…it just still doesn’t feel that way, I guess.”

“This doesn’t?” Zach asked, sounding perplexed. “But the dungeons do?”

“I know that sounds backwards as shit, but it’s because the dungeons are so different from what I consider normal I lose my sense of reality in them. But this…this is just normal, everyday living. It’s not even that different from home. That’s what makes it hard to believe it’s real. It’s what’s making it start to really sink in that this isn’t just some mission in a videogame. Like, take that woman over there buying that flower hat.” He pointed. “She’s an actual person who was really born and is really living her life. The fact she lives in a world with dragons and magic doesn’t even matter to her. She probably doesn’t even think about it. All she’s thinking about right now is buying that hat. That’s what’s got me all tripped up.”

“You probably have to give it time before it starts to feel normal,” Zach said, speaking a bit more softly. “And…you should probably talk to Jascaila later. I’m not going to, like, force you to do that or whatever, but she’s a great therapist, and she’s been really helping me out a ton. I thought it was lame as fuck at first, but it’s working for me.”

“Maybe I will,” he said, and though he spoke the words in a way that was non-committal, the idea actually grew on Jimmy rather fast. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

He knew he couldn’t specify much more than that. One of the “rules” they’d all made very clear to him before leaving Angelica’s was that he was, under no circumstance, to mention the names “Adamus” or “Eilea” until they were back in that room tomorrow, but it was “Eilea” in particular they didn’t want him talking about. Aside from that, the one and only piece of information they’d given him was that the room could not be spied on or something, and it was only safe to talk about her in there. Thus, despite how many burning questions he had, Jimmy knew it would have to wait.

For the next fifteen minutes, Jimmy made idle conversation with Zach, the two of them engaging in some light banter and even some good-natured trash talking until the girls finally came back holding shopping bags and ice cream cones. Thankfully, they’d even bought some for Zach and Jimmy. Getting off the bench, Jimmy looked around. Not far from them was a publicly accessible table in a separate, adjacent park, where each table thankfully resided under shade. Together, the four of them picked a square-shaped one that had a nice large and green umbrella, and then upon sitting down, they ate.

Having reached the point where he’d begun sweating profusely, the cold treat was refreshing, and Jimmy was grateful for it. “Thank God you guys got ice cream here,” he said. “I guess I could’ve ended up somewhere much worse.”

Zach nodded as if in agreement. “I’m still surprised you guys had so much of the stuff that we do. I didn’t think people would’ve had things like phones all the way back in the 2000s.”

Jimmy released a brief chuckle. “I’m actually surprised ya’ll don’t have more. The fuck were you all doing for the last five-thousand years? I mean, don’t get me wrong—the DEHVs are cool and all—but like, where are all the robots and giant mechs?”

“Mechs?” Tena asked.

“Yeah, you don’t know what those are?”

“Nope,” Kalana said.

Jimmy, becoming enthusiastic, explained to them the concept of the mech: a giant robot with massive guns that could stomp around the battlefield and flatten trees under its metallic feet. Zach seemed to find the idea awesome, but Kalana and Tena were put off by it.

“You guys had those?” Zach asked.

Jimmy shook his head. “Nah, it was just part of fiction. Like leveling up and experience points and all that. That’s why I was hoping, you know…since all that other stuff became real, maybe they made Mechs real, too. Actually, that reminds me. Something about all this doesn’t make sense.” Jimmy met Kalana’s eyes. “How’s it possible that you exist?”

“Me?” Kalana asked, tilting her head somewhat and pointing to herself.

“Yeah.”

“Umm, I don’t even understand the question.”

“You’re an Elf, right?” Jimmy asked her.

“Duh!”

“Well, that’s my point.”

“What is?”

“You’re an Elf. How do you even, like, exist? Elves ain’t real.”

Kalana’s expression darkened, and Jimmy realized he might’ve been incredibly insensitive just now without even meaning to do so. “Of course we are,” Kalana said. “We predate humans. Elves were the first race created in Elvadin.”

“But…that’s impossible,” Jimmy said.

“How so?” she asked, sounding defensive.

Jimmy wasn’t sure if he should continue this conversation, but Kalana was now giving him a demanding look. Wetting his lips, he said, “It’s just that all the ‘races’ on Galterra, meaning like the Dwarves and Elves and whatnot—those were all part of the games and fantasy stories I was telling you guys about.”

Kalana’s reaction to his words was not the one he expected. A look of a relief crossed her features, and she nodded and smiled. “See?” she asked excitedly. “That proves that we predate you. You heard all the stories about us. It was obviously based on the real thing.”

“Then how come nobody has ever seen an Elf before—in my time, I mean?”

Zach spoke before she could reply. “I was never sure the Elves were real either, and I was living across from one for three years. Just like you guys on Earth, we also heard of them mostly in legends and stuff. It sounds like the same thing must’ve happened in your time. They were probably driven underground or something.”

“Mhm,” Kalana said. "See?"

Jimmy thought to challenge their points, but he stopped when he got the sense that this was a topic that, even if he was right—and let’s face it, he definitely was—it would probably be so devastating to Kalana that it wouldn’t even be worth making her realize it. And so, rather than absolutely crush her faith and sense of identity, he decided not to give voice to what he’d been about to say next. Because his best guess? Like, if he had to put money on it? He’d go with Kalana, the Elves, and all these fantasy races being, like, genetically modified humans or something. It was the only thing made sense. It was what anyone would think, no? Like, they obviously didn’t just go out and find an Elf planet, or a Dwarf planet, or whatever else that just “coincidentally” happened to mimic popular culture.

Strangely, the more Jimmy thought on it, the more he found himself realizing it didn’t matter. If Angelica was right, and this really was the world, and the Earth he knew was long gone—and had been for thousands of years—then what did it even mean to be real anymore? Because in that case, all this was real. Kalana was as real as real got. He could see her. She was sitting right across from him: the spitting image of an Elvish girl. No one could look at her and say she didn’t exist. Did it really matter why she existed?

No, he realized.

If he was going to be forced to live in this world, he might as well accept it for what it was. This was his reality now. And here, what was “fictional” was not leveling or experience points. No, in this world, the fake world was the one in which everyone had no levels and people would line up around a block at 3AM to buy a new iPhone that was only two-percent better than the one that came out a year earlier.

“This is real,” he whispered to himself, reinforcing his new reality.

Tena placed her hand over his. “It is,” she said.

Jimmy met her eyes as he was reminded of the way he’d treated her. “I hope we can talk later, Tena.”

“About?” she asked, becoming nervous.

“Nothing bad,” he said quickly, not wanting her to get the wrong idea. “It’s actually about how I’ve been treating you lately.”

“What do you mean?”

Jimmy felt genuine shame, and it became a struggle for him not to avert his gaze. “I didn’t believe any of this was real,” he said. “That was why I…even feeling about you the way I do, I never showed interest in you or your life. I like you so much, but I know nothing about you. But you know everything about me, and you show so much interest in who I am, but I never did that for you.”

“That’s okay,” she whispered in reply. She squeezed his hand. “I knew you were struggling with a lot of things. That’s why I never…I never brought it up. But I am real, Jimmy. And I…I do care about you so much. And I hope you feel the same about me.”

“I do,” he said immediately.

Jimmy hadn’t been certain what her reaction to all this would be, and so bringing this up made him nervous. Especially since he was doing it in front of Zach and Kalana, which made it a little embarrassing. But it was also funny in a way, because he could clearly see how hard Kalana was trying to pretend she wasn’t eavesdropping even as she was grinning ear to ear and leaning in closer as if to hear their conversation better.

Zach, on the other hand, was gazing listlessly off into the distance and genuinely looked like he didn’t care. Right now, the kid was sitting back in his chair with his left foot up and on top of the table—despite Kalana continuously badgering him about how it was rude—and he looked like he could fall asleep at any moment. In fact, he even did start to doze off. His head lowered, his breathing slowed, and he yawned. But then, for no conceivable reason whatsoever, for a purpose Jimmy could not understand, he changed in an instant. And it happened the moment after a toy of some kind—one that looked like some kind of Frisbee—landed on their table.

Zach, who seemed poised to drift off into an even deeper sleep, awoke with a start. His eyes popped open widely, and a look of extreme alarm entered into his face. Then he moved so fast and so suddenly that it caused Jimmy to flinch. He bolted up out of his chair, and he did so with enough force to send it blasting behind him at a speed dangerous enough that it could have killed someone if it had crashed into them. Instead, it ended up smashing into—and knocking over—the booth of a temporarily vacant clothing merchant, whose owner was likely off getting lunch; this caused his merchandise to spill out onto the street.

At the exact same time, something very similar happened to Kalana. She went from grinning as she pretended not to eavesdrop into a state where her eyes abruptly narrowed, her pupils widened, and she peeled back her lips as though to snarl. She too burst out of her seat, only in her case, she did so with a bit more grace that saw it barely budge from where it’d been while she’d sat in it.

“Zach!”

“I know!”

Confused, Jimmy glanced back and forth between the two of them as time seemed to temporarily stand still. He didn’t understand what was going on—especially as they turned their heads towards one another, exchanged a knowing look that only they seemed to understand, and then mutually set their sights on him and Tena.

Jimmy opened his mouth to speak, but he never had the chance to form any words. Rushing straight into him, Zach bulldozed him—along with the entire table—and an intense, agonizing pain flared up in Jimmy’s chest and midsection as he was flung dozens of feet away and with enough force that he was sent rolling along the ground.

“What the fuck?” he shouted as he found himself on the other end of the park right as the table crashed back down onto the concrete ground of the nice little dining area. Tena, too, had been hurtled away, and she moaned in obvious pain from where Kalana struck her. “Why would you do that to her?” he shouted at Kalana, more upset about Tena’s treatment than his own. “What’s wrong with you two? Why would you—”

Rather than finish his thought, he jumped on top of Tena and sheltered her as an explosion lit up the center of the park's dining area. There was a boom so loud it caused his eardrums to ring, yet even still, he could audibly make out the unmistakable sounds of children crying and adults screaming. Horrified, Jimmy saw that half the tables in the park had been caught up in the blast, and they were now overturned and destroyed. Smoke, he saw, was now rising into the air.

He was so confused. What was happening? Why was shit exploding? Incredibly, no one seemed to be hurt. Through the smoke, Jimmy saw that Kalana was now rushing over with two children, one held in each arm, and Zach was carrying an elderly woman to safety. Safety from what, though? What just happened?

“We’re under attack!” Zach shouted as he set the woman down and then drew his blade. His head darted around as though searching for their assailant or whatever had caused the explosion. “I don’t know who they are, but I think it’s me they’re trying to kill.”

“No, it’s me they want!” Kalana yelled at him. “It must be. Whoever’s attacking us is probably trying to get at my mother through me. That’s why they—”

Once again, both Zach and Kalana snapped their heads in Jimmy’s direction, and then things happened so fast he could barely perceive them. All at once, Zach’s body began to take on a dull glow, and smoke began rising from his hands and feet. Then he sort of just “vanished.” There was no other way to explain it but that. He was there, and then he wasn’t. Only, he reappeared a moment later off to Jimmy’s right side. Jimmy, who at this point was still hovering over Tena and trying to protect her from a threat he did not understand and could not even see, saw her eyes go wide with fear as she looked up at something. “B-behind you, Jimmy!” she cried.

Then there was a loud clang that sounded like steel on steel, and from a number of shadows that popped into existence on the concrete, he realized there was a shower of sparks above his head. Getting off Tena and spinning around onto his butt, he glanced up and saw Zach's arms extended, locking blades with a man covered from head to toe in a brown robe, his face completely concealed behind a thin, expressionless mask. A long, curved, and wide sword was now bearing down on top of the one wielded by Zach, and for some reason, it seemed like it’d been aimed at him.

“It’s Jimmy!” Zach shouted. “Kal, this dude is trying to kill him!”

“Who is?” Jimmy asked, stunned. “What did I even—”

A boom ten times louder than the one from the earlier explosion caused his words to end in a startled cry—one that seemed to have no effect on Zach, Kalana, or the brown-draped figure who was locking blades with him. The noise was ear-piercing, and it reminded Jimmy of a sonic boom of the sort a plane might make when breaking the sound barrier, only it was closer and more intense. It seemed to come right on the heels of Zach seemingly teleporting himself over here. Now, however, there came yet another sound, this one far more muted. It was a clack of sorts. Looking down, Jimmy saw that there was another Frisbee-like toy. It was a shining red disc that was spinning like a CD rom on the ground, remaining stationary even as it continued to spin faster and faster and begin to flash.

And then three things happened in the exact same moment. Zach vanished for the second time, a blue orb popped into existence around his and Tena’s body, and finally, there was a brighter, more alarming flash. Before Jimmy could understand what was taking place, he suddenly found himself somewhere else: specifically, by Zach’s side and faced in the complete opposite direction. He was also back on his feet, too, and Tena was there with him. Now, he realized he was staring at the aftermath of yet another explosion, which was followed by another large plume of smoke rising into the air.

At this point, however, the citizens nearby had all gotten up and ran away for their lives, and thankfully the entire park was now vacant aside from the four of them and the brown-robed man. And someone else, too. Someone Jimmy had not noticed until just now. And he noticed them only because he saw Zach angrily glance upwards at the roof of a two-story home, on top of which crouched another robed man wielding a bizarre type of weapon that was shaped like a large pancake attached to a handle with a trigger.

“There’s two of them, Kal,” Zach said. “I’ll take the sword guy. You get the sniper.”

She nodded. “Got it.”

“You guys,” Zach said, looking at Jimmy and Tena. “Run! They’re after you, Jimmy.”

“But why?”

“Fuck if I know,” Zach growled. “But now I’m pissed!”

“Zach, your anger!”

“Fuck my anger!”

He blasted forward, and the brown-robed figure dashed ahead as if to meet him. Their two swords clashed somewhere in the middle of the park, and Jimmy was treated to a series of sights that made him regret every word of the shit he’d talked about the kid in Angelica's. The moment the two met, Zach leapt first onto an already overturned table, then sprang off it and hopped into the air a second time. With a speed that actually made his body blur, he spun several times front and back midair before slamming his sword down on top of the robed figure, who raised his own to block. Their two blades met, and though he did not seem to sustain any damage, the masked figure was blasted several feet backwards, his feet actually ripping up the very concrete below him as he slid backwards, leaving behind dual streaks in the ground.

The robed figure retaliated, pressing forward and making a blazingly fast slice across with his sword, which Zach ducked beneath while spinning around and kicking out with his leg. The robed figure jumped up, avoiding the sweep attempt. Then Zach rolled backwards, stood up, and launched himself forward again. Now, within the span of just two seconds, Zach both attacked and guarded about ten separate times in what was a frenzied, furious exchange of strikes.

Cling, cling, cling, cling, CLANG. Cling, cling, cling cling CLANG.

A near constant shower of sparks danced from the blades of Zach and the man who’d attacked him. At the same time, another boom came from somewhere off in the distance, and now Kalana was running along rooftops, chasing after the second robed man, who was perpetually launching disc-shaped explosives at her as he led her around. One blast after the next, various homes became damaged, trailing smoke despite lacking any fire.

As all this chaos took place around him, the thought that popped into Jimmy's head was not one of survival or even one that attempted to contemplate the nature of what was actually taking place here and why; no, it was something far less complex and far more instinctual.

Watching Zach dash forward again, raise his sword high, and meet an unnamed, unknown assailant head-on for what could very possibly be a fight to death, the only thing that went through Jimmy’s thoughts in this moment was how much he absolutely, truly, and sincerely hated PVP.

Grabbing Tena’s hand, he yanked her in his direction, and the two of them scrambled away from another shining red disc that was spinning and flashing on the ground in front of them. Somehow, the second figure had found the time to fire it even as Kalana ran after him.

This was not turning out to be a great day.

Chapter 129: Hatred

Chapter 129: Hatred

Given the extent of her wrongdoing and lingering shame from the last time she’d willfully broken a promise to the boy, Fylwen had very much wished to avoid breaking another. Yet despite promising Zach that she’d reopen the island by now, she simply had not been able to focus on such an inconsequential task: not when the humans had unleashed a weapon of mass destruction, ending what could very well turn out to be more than a million lives and threatening hundreds of millions more. Indeed, the recent act of mass killing had completely shifted her priorities. Yet, unlike her earlier broken promise, this time around, she felt no guilt and no hesitance. Without question, she knew she was doing the right thing; she also knew the young man would survive the injustice of having to wait a few more days to play on the island. Even still, he would not be happy to hear this news, which she had decided to deliver in person. She was long overdue for a visit to Elendroth, and thankfully, she’d found the time to arrive a day earlier than expected.

“That was so fun,” Peter said, smiling up at her. “Can I take all this off now, please?”

For a human, the boy was unexpectedly adorable. Really, she had taken such a liking to him these past two weeks, rarely letting him leave her sight. At the moment, he was bundled up in multiple jackets and four hats, and he glanced pleadingly up at her through his tiny blue eyes. Though Fylwen was aware she’d gone somewhat overboard, she simply could not risk the child getting frostbite. That was why one of the pairs of gloves he wore contained a fair bit of constitution and resistance to cold.

“Very well, child.”

She had worried he would be traumatized by the plunge down into the gas giant, but he had been crying out joyfully the entire way down while Fylwen held him close to her chest. He reminded her of his father when he was young. Oh, how Peter had loved the thrill of adventure. It was only in his late adolescence, as his own father forced him to focus more on politics, that he abandoned his prior nature and took to becoming such a joyless, rigid soul. Yet he could not have changed completely, for both he—and somehow, his child—each had the buff that humans required to venture into the dungeons. When and how it had been granted to the boy, Fylwen did not know, but clearly, his father had prepared him in the event of his unexpected demise.

“Lift your arms, child,” she told him.

Helping him out of his little jackets, Fylwen unzipped the backpack she’d bought him and stuffed them inside. Then she bid her respects the head librarian, who stood up from his reception desk, stepped before it, and then dropped down to one knee for a respectful bow. Fylwen had always appreciated the head librarians, as no matter where in the world one ventured, the grand libraries abided by the customs of old, and of those customs, respect to the Elvish throne remained a core part of their values. It was good to see that this continued to be true even following the thousand-year period during which the Elves were thought to have gone extinct.

“My Queen,” the human said. “I’m honored you’ve chosen to visit Shores of Wrath.”

“Thank you,” she said to the man, bidding him to rise.

“I take it you’re here to visit your daughter and her boyfriend?”

“Indeed.”

“They were just here only a short while ago,” he said. “In fact, you’ve only just missed them.”

Fylwen raised her left eyebrow. “Oh? Well, that would explain why the glass was broken and the dungeon floor was so cold. I suppose it’ll be a week or so before that resets, yes?”

“I believe so, Your Highness. If you’d like a warm beverage, you need only ask.”

“Not today, human, but thank you.”

Fylwen was still catching up on the nature of dungeons. The Elves of old had known almost all of them inside and out, and they were often the first adventurers to find and explore most of those that were known to exist. Now that Fylwen had finally taken to utilizing them for travel, she realized that it was unfair that the humans held such a monopoly on the creations of her Godly ancestors. She would begin encouraging her people to explore the dungeons alongside them. Elves, too, should have a place in the dungeons. The same was true for the other races as well. The Great Ones had created the dungeons for all to explore, yet to the best of her understanding, there was nary a Dwarf, Gnome, or any but human that made use of such ancient wonders.

Based on what she’d learned in Archian Prime, the Great Ones, for reasons lost to time, had placed the vast majority of currently discovered Galterran dungeon portals in North and South Bastia, but in particular, the north. The reason for this was likely not due to any sort of favoritism, as Fylwen had now seen enough evidence to conclude that the Elvish Great Ones never intended the world to be divided into racial categories. Had she to take a guess, Fylwen imagined it must have made a great deal more sense back when all the spawn points existed. Perhaps the layout of Galterra, when viewed from the lens of someone before the destruction of the spawns, would find that it fit well into some overall structure—one that was no longer relevant to these times.

Regardless, when peace made its return, she would set her sights on allowing members of non-human races to have access to the dungeons. It simply was not right for the humans to exclude them as they had done until this point.

“Come, Peter,” she said to the boy, extending her hand. He took it. “You’ve been wanting to meet my daughter. Now is your chance.”

His entire face lit up. “Yay!” he cheered. Then, in an equally happy tone, he asked, “Is daddy here, too?”

Fylwen winced, and she was glad he did not see it. She had still not had the heart to tell the boy of his father’s death. She’d even worked extra hard to keep him from witnessing the extensive coverage of the man’s demise on the news media. Certainly, she planned to eventually take him to the plot in Whispery Woods where she’d buried him so that he could pay his respects. But that would happen only when she felt the time was right. Perhaps, she would tell him in the coming days. She did not look forward to it. His heart was going to be so terribly broken.

I cannot hide the truth from the child for much longer, she thought. At some point, it will turn from a mercy into a cruelty.

With the little one’s hand in her own, she led him towards the exit of the head librarian’s office. Yet before she made it half way, the doors burst open all on their own as a man darted inside. “Head Librarian!” cried this young man, who wore a thin vest and a pair of blue jeans.

“What is it, boy? Can’t you see I have important company?”

The young man shifted his eyes towards Fylwen, and then he gasped, bowed, and apologized all at the same time. Upon his apology, he said, “Your Highness.” She waved at him to be at ease, and he relaxed, though only slightly. Returning his attention to the head librarian, he said, “There’s a massive commotion taking place in the city, and people are starting to flood into the grand library looking for safety and shelter until this disturbance has passed. May I have your permission to serve them cold beverages from the café free of charge?”

“What’s all this now?” the head librarian asked, sounding more annoyed than surprised. “You said there is a disturbance? What kind of disturbance?”

“Sir Zachys Calador of the Royal Roses and the Elvish Princess,” he began, immediately drawing Fylwen’s attention. He squirmed a bit under her gaze, yet he continued. “They’ve come under attack by two masked assailants and are currently battling in the dining area of the park between Golden Street and Meteor Way—along with two unknown human bystanders. It’s caused quite the stir.”

Fylwen narrowed her eyes, and she felt her ears twitch. “Where, exactly, is this park?” she asked. When his reply took longer than a half a second, she resisted the urge to grab him by the scruff of his neck and pull him towards her so that she could shake the answer out of him. “Tell me. Now!”

*****

Anger was like an iceberg. This was something Jascaila had told Zach over and over these past two weeks. Each day, she would remind him that, when anger arose, it was often the case that what was visible was only the raw emotion of anger, and that there was more buried beneath the surface—unseen, but very much real. She’d said that melting the anger on top could only come as a result of understanding and dealing with the emotions buried below. This was something Zach had come to accept as truth. And you know what? If he had been sitting in a session with Jascaila right here in this very moment, he would be able to calmly unpack the source of his rage and maybe even talk it out of his system.

But he wasn’t in a session right now, was he? No. No, he wasn’t. So all that bullshit could fuck right off, because right now, he was so piping mad that it took every last bit of effort to prevent himself from becoming reckless and getting himself and others killed. And honestly, how could he not be angry? He’d been having a nice early afternoon before all this. He’d made two new friends, they’d been having ice cream together, and through it all, Zach had become so relaxed he’d even started to doze off—only to have some kind of disc-shaped bomb launched at him.

Now, it was only due to how serious an enemy he faced that Zach was able to stop himself from flying off the handle. This guy…he was good. Very good. And it had only taken one exchange for Zach to realize this. Thanks to everything in his life that’d led up to this moment, he’d sort of developed the ability to get a fairly accurate sense of how dangerous a foe he was squaring up against. And this man—at least Zach assumed it was a man—who was standing before him in a pair of brown robes with a plain, thin mask covering all but his eyes—he was very, very powerful.

Wielding an unusually long and strangely curved sword, he struck out at Zach in a way that was almost dismissive; still, Zach gave it his all as he traded a number of blows with him. Yet even as he guarded against such effortless strikes, the difference between them could be felt so strongly, and it was a chasm that caused him to grunt with exertion. Zach had not felt this outmatched since he’d fled Archian Prime with Olivir, Rian, Lienne, and Kolona.

Even despite his high stats, which were inflated massively beyond what was normal of a level-23 adventurer, Zach estimated that the robed man’s own stats were somewhere on par—or maybe even higher—than what Zach’s had been back when he’d entered Phase Level 3 during his fight with Ziragoth. Then, he’d had over 200 strength, and his dex, con, and speed had been close to the 200 mark as well. And while he could not possibly guess specific numbers with any measure of precision, he was reasonably certain that the stats of this nameless attacker before him were pretty close to 200 as well. Assuming Zach was correct, this meant it was going to be very difficult for him to win with own stats, which were not quite high enough while in Phase Level 0.

Name

Zachys Calador

Level

23

EXP

82/265,000

Armor Bonus

83

Strength

126

Dexterity

119

Constitution

107

Intelligence

162

Speed

92

Luck

110

Although the difference in strength was noticeable and could be keenly felt with each exchange, it was the difference between his and his opponent’s speed that really made things challenging. Sure, Zach could match it if he himself was in Phase Level 3. Unfortunately, that was something that he simply could not do. His death would be a certainty. It would probably be a good long time before the perfect combination of circumstances arose such that it enabled him to push himself that far and live through it. A shame, too, because this was someone of a much, much higher level than Zach, and he could really use the boost right about now.

I feel like he’s toying with me. Who the hell is this guy? What does he want with Jimmy?

Making matters even worse, it wasn’t just the man’s stats or his level that posed such a threat, either. The masked figure was very skilled with his sword, too, and in a way that made Zach strongly doubt he was a member of a political guild. This, he could tell with each movement that the man made, such as right now, as he stepped forward, and with a speed that sent alarm bells blaring in Zach’s brain, he tore his blade horizontally across while his arms were raised at the level of his shoulders, forcing Zach to squat down to his knees then lunge backwards to gain some distance.

The man pressed onwards and whipped his long blade twice more from left to right, then right to left, each time with enough force to cause a hissing sound to form in the air. Zach, refusing to back down, swung his own blade twice, and more sparks flew as he clashed steel both times, sending a great deal of shock into his wrists and almost knocking his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness out of his hands.

“I’m not supposed to kill you,” the robed figure said, his deep, gravelly voice confirming him as male. “Don’t push me.”

“Who are you?” Zach asked him. “What do you want?”

Even as Zach spoke to the man, he took a moment to observe his surroundings. While keeping his head straight, he quickly flicked his eyes in both directions. To his right were all the burned-up, still-smoking tables, including the one where he and the others had been seated only a short while ago. A small hole could now be seen in the concrete where that first disc-shaped bomb had come down, and another crack in the ground was newly formed at the opposite end of the park where Zach had used Phase Rescue on Jimmy and Tena.

To his left, and about a block and a half away from the park, he could see Kalana jumping from the dome of a three-story building to the rounded dome of another as she pursued the second masked assailant. Her target fired one of the spinning red discs at her, which touched down right beside her feet. Kalana, as if noticing it, quickly leapt down from the dome she was standing on, landing afterwards on top a connecting archway just as the dome exploded and sent it—along with a chunk of the building—crashing down onto the front lawn of a fancy home.

We’re doing too much damage to Shores of Wrath, Zach thought. We can’t let this continue.

To Zach’s surprise—and also annoyance—a giant crowd had begun forming somewhere that, while not exactly close, was still nowhere near far enough away. Located basically on the outermost edges of the park, those who had chosen—stupidly—not to flee were now chanting his name and raising their fists in the air, cheering him on.

“Get him, Sir Calador!” one of them cried.

“Kill that Gentleman bastard!” roared another.

The fact that they thought this guy was a member of the Guild of Gentlemen made a lot of sense given that Shores of Wrath was a territory controlled by the People of Virtue, and the People of Virtue had not yet finalized its surrender, as Abram Gespon appeared to be stalling for time. This, technically, left them in an official state of war. And the general public was so enraged, humiliated, frightened, and bitter towards the Guild of Gentlemen that support for continued war was now close to a hundred percent in the territories not controlled by them. Last night, the media had shown rioting in the streets of Varda’s lair from citizens who were demanding the guilds return to war, something Zach doubted had ever before taken place in modern history. Usually, it was the other way around.

Nevertheless, they were all wrong. This clearly wasn’t a political guild member. Of that much, Zach was certain. Yet, knowing who this mysterious attacker wasn't did little to help him discern who he was.

“Who are you?” he asked again. “What do you want?”

“Doesn’t concern you,” the man replied curtly. “Step aside.”

“Who’re you here for?” Zach asked him.

“I think you know. If you're smart, you'll move.”

Jimmy.

Maneuvering himself so that he blocked the man’s path forward, he raised his weapon defensively and said, “You can’t have him. Sorry.”

“What’s he to you, kid? Why don't you just mind your own fuckin’ business? Either get out of my way, or there’ll be consequences.”

“I’ll show you consequences!"

Zach charged forward while raising his arms high, and then he slammed his sword down on top of the masked man, who was already side stepping away while retaliating with an attack of his own. Zach had to utilize every ounce of his speed to lift his own blade and raise it in time to guard, but even then, the force of impact pushed him backwards.

The masked, robed man pressed him, releasing a dizzying array of mid-to-high strikes. Zach had to plant his feet, bend his knees, and swing his sword so hard it made him grunt each time—all that just to barely guard against the onslaught of attacks. To prevent losing his grip on his weapon, he wrapped his fingers in both hands so tightly around the hilt that his knuckles were turning white. “Ngh,” he grunted as their blades clashed. “Ugh.”

Dashing backwards, he swung his blade down twice diagonally and shouted, “Phase Slash! Phase Slash!”

Two high-pitched sounds similar to a zipper being undone filled the world back-to-back as his blade created dual high-speed ripples in the air before him, both of which soared directly at the robed man, who calmly—and deftly—swung his long, curved sword at both. His weapon moving blazingly fast in front of him, he managed to absorb the force of each, essentially cutting them out of existence and leaving him unharmed.

Zach peeled his lips back in frustration. That wasn’t good. The sword-wielding, masked man had just neutralized his strongest ability in way that actually seemed casual. And it’d cost him over two minutes of time, too: time that was draining fast. Despite having only just entered Unleashed Phase, Zach was already down to 11:20 from his various use of abilities, and he’d gotten nowhere. Worse, he couldn’t even try anything else, because his other offensive abilities were too dangerous to use here. Put simply, he couldn’t risk using Wave Slash or Phase Cannon on the guy without taking the very real chance that he missed and killed one or more innocent bystanders. And the same was definitely true—probably even more so—of his blasting ring, which really sucked because, given his enemy’s strength, his blasting ring was the one ability that was likely capable of taking him down if timed properly.

“Get out of my way or die,” he warned Zach yet again as he dashed forward at him.

Crossing the distance to Zach, he then tore his blade downwards at him, and Zach swung his own sword upwards to counter. Now, he came perilously close to losing his weapon as the two blades collided. The man struck hard: very hard. It was as if to send a warning to Zach that he was even more powerful than he’d let on. Zach’s elbows and wrists flared in agony from the blow, and then he widened his eyes as he saw the man shift his position so that he could whirl himself around full circle and bring around his blade for a spinning strike.

I can’t block this!

Zach, acting off instinct, activated Phase Shield, and a moment before impact, a large, golden shield burst into existence in front of him, one that was so brilliant and bright it managed to outdo even the early-afternoon sunshine. The man’s curved sword struck and bounced right off it, and then he remained where he was, offering no-such follow up attacks during the 1.2 seconds it remained in existence.

“Phase Shield,” the man remarked. His eyes visible at the top of his mask, he stared directly into Zach’s. “Remains in effect for 1.2 seconds, but then it has a 45-second cooldown…right?”

Zach gasped, his nose began to bleed, a pain traveled down his back, and his mind erupted in confusion as the man spoke. “How do you know that?”

“I know all your abilities, kid. Even those you’ve yet to awaken.”

“Know all my…” He gasped a second time. “You’re from the OMP, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Am I?”

“Yes,” Zach said, nodding. “You are.” It all made sense now. Of course this guy was from the OMP. Jimmy had even indicated during their “interrogation” of him that he feared someone was after him. That Eilea had told him as much. And if it had something to do with Eilea, who else could it even be? And so now, realizing this, a heat entered into Zach’s voice as he extended his arm and pointed his blade at the man. “We have a truce, Gods-damn it! You’re supposed to leave me alone for now.”

“You’re the one who won’t leave me alone,” the man replied. “I told you. I’m not here for you.”

“Jimmy’s off limits too,” Zach said defiantly.

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

He dashed forward again, and Zach was completely unprepared. His arms and wrists were still recovering from the shock of the last attack that he’d blocked. He needed to buy himself some time. And so, thinking fast, he activated Frostbind, the ability on his Robes of Dark Awakening. Immediately upon activation, the concrete beneath the man’s feet erupted, and shackles made of pure ice made a crackling sound as they wrapped around and bound his feet, bringing him to a complete and total halt.

Calmly and slowly, he lowered his eyes—the only part of his face that was visible—downwards and to the left. “Tch,” he muttered. Not a half second after halting him, the man made a jerking motion with his body, and then with a low snap, he broke free, shattering the shackles binding his feet and causing the ice to immediately fade into shallow puddles of water. Then he turned his head to Zach and continued heading towards him.

Zach, caught off guard a second time, activated Phase Blink, putting himself out of harm’s way just as the robed, masked man crashed his sword down on top of where he’d been standing, blasting apart a chunk of concrete with a high-pitched “thunk” that Zach heard only as he reappeared a moment later on the opposite end of the park. Then came the sonic boom, which caused hundreds of fearful, surprised yelps from those stupid enough to be watching this fight take place.

Knowing how fast this guy could move, and filling with a sense of alarm, Zach, who now had his back turned to him, spun around and instinctively raised his sword to guard, knowing full well that the man would likely have crossed the distance between them in just the time it took him to about-face. And so, preemptively, he swung his sword while bending his knees—a defensive maneuver he hoped he would be able to pull off just in time to prevent himself from being cut into two pieces. Yet he filled with confusion upon realizing he’d hit nothing at all, and that there was no one before him. So then where was he?

Zach, puzzled, searched his immediate area for any sign of the assailant. There was none. He even looked up just to make sure he wasn’t about to come crashing down on him. But there was nothing there either. This meant that, unless he was coming from below somehow, the man was not pursuing him. But why?

Jimmy!

Looking beyond the opposite end of the park, there was a one-way street which was lined with merchants on both sides, and the masked assassin was hurrying down it. He was now far enough away that he was a mere instant from fading out of Zach’s view. Filling with panic, Zach activated Phase Blink twice, each one back-to-back. The first one took him to the other end of the park, and the second brought him to within inches of the robed man, who stopped immediately, raised his blade, spun around, and unleashed it upon Zach, who had only first arrived.

Zach, channeling every bit of strength he had, swung his own sword to meet it, and yet again, they collided. But now, as if annoyed, the robed man attacked a second and third time, and these next two contained even more strength and even some fury as he lashed out with his curved blade.

Driven by a fear of something happening to his new friends, Zach found within himself the strength to stand his ground. He cried aloud with the exertion of fighting back as he somehow managed swing his sword and meet his enemy’s twice more, causing two nearby women who were browsing bracelets at a jewelry merchant to shriek in fear, both at the sudden appearance of sparks and the dual, subsequent sonic booms that exploded behind Zach from his use of Phase Blink.

“I’ve had enough of this,” the OMP assassin said. He raised his weapon high and Zach had the sense things were about to get really, really bad for him.

And he was right.

With a ping, he caught the man’s blade with his own, and now they clashed, Zach pushing his steel against the man’s, and the man pressing down on Zach’s with enough weight that the swords felt as though they were glued together. Zach was being badly overpowered—and he was well aware of it, too. He knew he did not have the strength to survive the clash.

Thinking quickly, he decided to finally try out the one ability he’d never before had the chance to use. And so, even as his enemy’s blade was bearing down on him, Zach activated Shadow Merge while disengaging from the clash and leaping away. As he maneuvered backwards, he saw a misty, grey-colored smoke surrounding his body, and then he watched as his own limbs vanished from his view. The impossibly black smoke vanished as well as though consumed by this grey. But then the grey smoke also disappeared, and every part of him faded into nothingness in a way that was so surreal it was actually somewhat unnerving, creating a weird disconnect between mind and body. Even his sword could no longer be seen—not even by himself. From the way the robed, masked man’s eyes narrowed, Zach could tell that he too could no longer see Zach, either.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled.

He began slicing randomly with his sword as though aiming at nothing. The result was that he cut an entire booth in half, then sliced open an entire keg of beer, spilling it out onto the street; he also nearly severed the head off a camel being ridden by a merchant. Both the animal and its rider turned around and hastily made their way in the opposite direction.

Zach, amazed, realized that he was truly invisible. He knew that the ability would only last for 30 seconds, and that it would end prematurely if he took any hostile action at all. And this OMP assassin must have known that as well, which was why he was furiously—and indiscriminately—swinging his weapon around with reckless abandon as if to ward Zach away from trying anything.

Yet this was where he made his first mistake. Because now that Zach could stand there silently and watch him, he finally had the chance to make use of his disposition towards predicting enemy movement. Against someone as strong as this guy, it was somewhat diminished when directly under fire. But while hanging back and observing his target and under no direct threat? Totally different story. Zach was able to study the robed figure’s motions very, very carefully.

He watched as the man grunted and put his sword through another merchant booth, cutting it in half and causing paintbrushes and ink to spill all over the homely, granite, and square-tiled street. The nearly hundred people who’d been nearby had all fled the moment the battle had been dragged here; thus, Zach was in no rush. He could really take his time and study each movement: each swing of the sword. The man struck down, then up, then spun his body around and stabbed behind him. Then he bent his knees—and that was when Zach saw his opportunity.

Now!

Zach dashed forward, pulled back his arms, and then twisted his hips and ripped his blade across the man’s midsection, reappearing the moment his sword connected. He felt the impact—he felt his steel cut into something. Yet to his horror and disappointment, all he managed to do was slice apart the man’s robe before having his sword come to a halt against what looked like black-colored plate armor beneath it.

“Nice try, you little shit,” he said, his voice low yet full of commanding rage. “Now you’re gonna—”

He stopped speaking, and Zach was tempted to look away as about fifty star-shaped emblems of light popped into existence all around him, surrounding the man like a net. “Fuck,” Zach whispered. “I’m so sorry. Didn’t want to kill you. I really didn’t.”

The man swore. “Your weapon’s proc?” he asked, even as all fifty began to converge upon him, covering him completely. He stabbed his weapon into the ground and left it there, releasing his grip on it, and he muttered something that sounded like an incantation. Yet whatever spell or ability he was trying to cast, he was too slow. The emblems exploded, and Zach braced himself for the inevitable shower of blood, guts, and trauma that Jascaila would have to help him get through. He even raised his arms to protect his face from the splatter.

Yet, for some reason, there was no splatter. Instead, there was a loud, pained grunt as the man’s entire robe and mask were shredded to pieces, revealing a figure clad in midnight-black plate armor, which became cracked and crushed in several areas. So too did his sword: it simply shattered, suffering a full item break, resulting in it vanishing even before the pieces hit the ground. There was also a trickle of blood from the man’s lips as he glared at Zach. But aside from that, he was unharmed.

Now, what stood before Zach was an unmasked man who looked to be in his early thirties, although Jascaila warned him that could be deceiving. He had spiky black hair, scars running down the sides of his face, and a crooked chin. He reminded Zach a lot of the gang members who lived near the southern side of Whispery Woods city. Angrily, the spiky-headed assassin lifted his hands so that they were held parallel to one another. Then there was a swish, and before Zach’s eyes, two silver blades about four inches apiece unsheathed from the gauntlets on his wrists.

“I’ve had enough of you. Really, I have.”

Following those words, he launched himself at Zach, and then he made swinging motions first with his left hand, and then with his right. Zach flicked his wrists and swung his blade twice, making two loud clinks as he deflected the blade on each gauntlet with his own. But then the man spun his body completely around, raised his foot, and kicked Zach in the chest with such force that Zach coughed loudly as he was blasted away.

Zach cried out in alarm as, with a loud crash, he was sent cleanly through the wall of the two-floor apartment behind him, whereupon he briefly saw several couches and a fearful family glance up at him as he soared right across their apartment before exiting out the opposite window, landing hard on his back after crashing through the canopy of a small hut that sold souvenirs. There was another crash as Zach finally came to a stop after shattering a glass display case. Now, in addition to a frightened cry, he heard several people nervously muttering questions as commemorative coins and other little trinkets made slight patters as they fell out of the broken display case—that he was lying on top of—and began rolling all along the floor of this tiny little shop.

“You’re Zachys Calador, aren’t you?” a woman asked him.

“Y-yeah,” he said, sitting up. The motion caused a piece of glass to shake free of his head and fall onto his lap. “I’m so sorry about—”

“You’re so brave! We’re so glad you’re okay.”

“Oh. Thanks. Hey, I’m really sorry about your store. If there’s anything I can—”

“Whatever it is, you don’t have to worry about it. We support you, Zachys!”

The woman’s husband, who Zach supposed owned the business, actually began running his hand through Zach’s hair as if to wipe away some of the glass. “Are we under attack?” he asked. “I heard some of the commotion but was too busy to come see for myself. They’re saying two members of the Guild of Gentlemen are attacking us.”

Zach didn’t feel like trying to explain who these people were, so he merely nodded. This caused the man’s entire face to tighten. “Kill those mother fuckers!” he growled, his words suddenly becoming vulgar and filled with hate. “Kill them, their families, and their children! We support you, boy!”

Horrified, confused, and appalled all at once, Zach could do little more than nod politely as he backed out of the shop, which had a cloth screen for an entrance, and then he turned around and began running down the street hoping to find Jimmy before the assassin did. Yet even as he spun around an approaching cart then leapt over a stationary wagon selling carrots and other vegetables, he could not shake how disturbed he’d felt at that last interaction. Something told him that it did not bode well for society.

*****

Doma begged for them to stop. But they wouldn’t listen. Maks hit him yet again, and he went down. His nose was probably broken. He was struggling to breathe.

“Fucking piece of shit!” the boy screamed, as he along with the five other boys surrounding Doma began kicking him in his side. He could do little else but curl up into a ball and try to protect his face and groin as they all began stomping on him and kicking him time and time again.

“Please stop!” he begged, crying. “Please!”

“Fucking murderer!” they screamed.

He was only fifteen years old. He didn’t know anything about the war. He moved here to Giant’s Fall a year ago with his mother. He had nothing to do anymore with Shadowfall Coast. Why couldn’t they understand that?

School was out again today as Giant’s Fall was still in a state of emergency, and the kids had invited him to hang out in the alley behind the big park not far from the academy. He’d shown up, hoping to have some laughs and hang out for a few hours. Instead, they’d ambushed him, and now he was so scared. And everything was hurting. And he wanted his mom so bad. He couldn’t help but cry.

“Fucking Shadowfall Coaster,” one of the boys said, stomping on him. “We should piss on his face.”

“No! Please! I didn’t do nothin’, guys. I hate Shadowfall Coast too! I’m one of you.”

Alone, terrified, and wanting nothing more than to be friends with the kids from school, Doma felt his head go fuzzy as one of the boys stomped down on him in just such a way that his head banged against the pavement. Then he…confused. What? He wasn’t sure. How?

“Oh, shit. I think…oh Gods. I think we killed him.”

“He’s faking it.”

“No, Maks. Dude, he’d bleeding out of his ears. I think…oh, fuck. I think we just killed him.”

“Good. He deserves it for Ogre’s Axe!”

And with that, he died. Confused, alone, covered in filth. Degraded. And this must now be the afterlife, right? He felt an angel put his hands on his head. Or maybe it was one of the Gods. One hand was placed on the right side of his face, just above his cheek. And the other was placed on the left, not far from his scalp. Through his peripheral vision, he could see that both hands were glowing a bright green color as though they were filled with magic.

“You’re gonna be all right,” a voice said. “You’ll be okay.”

The face of the angel became clearer as his vision began to return. It was a blond-haired man in a leather jacket who looked more like a member of a rock band than an angel. Doma realized he was in some kind of facility. A hospital? He was in the hospital? It looked like one. His mother was there, too. Her eyes were so red from crying. She looked as if she’d been in the middle of an emotional breakdown. He had never seen such grief on anyone.

“Please. Please don’t let him die.”

“He’ll be all right. You’ve got my word.”

“Thank you, Doctor Ardona.” She sniffled, and Doma could see tears pouring out of her face. “I’d kill myself if I lost him.”

“Just Kesten’s fine, ma’am,” he said.

She only began to cry even harder. “Never thought a member of the guilds would come to save my boy.”

“We’re not all the same,” he said. He released Doma’s head, and now, he realized he was no longer hurting. He sat up and looked around, confused.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital,” the doctor named Kesten said. “You’re lucky I found you in that alley. Those kids left you for dead.”

“Alley?” he asked. His head still hurt a bit on second thought. “Oh, right. They got mad at me because—”

His mother lunged at him and grabbed hold in a way that was so tight it was embarrassing. Right here in front of an entire hospital room. He was 15, not 5. She didn’t have to be all…bleh.

“If there’s any way I can ever repay you,” she said as she clung to him. “Just say it. I don’t care what it is. Anything I have is yours.”

“I don’t want anything,” he said. “I’m just glad everything’s okay. I’ve got to go. I’m actually treating the radiation victims from Ogre’s Axe upstairs. I don’t have any time to stay and chat. Be well, both of you. If you need any more help, there are plenty of doctors who can take over for me now.”

With that, he walked away. Doma would never forget him.

Chapter 130: Breath of Invigoration

Chapter 130: Breath of Invigoration

Jimmy wasn’t sure how far they ran or how much farther they needed to continue running. He did not know who was after him or why. He did not even know if they were still chasing him or if he and Tena had finally gotten away. All he knew was that his life was hanging in the balance, and he was the least suitable person on Earth—err, Galterra, sorry—to engage in some kind of “superhero” brawl in the middle of this hot city that seemed to have been built on a coastal desert. His survival instinct in full gear, he pushed beyond the tiredness he felt in his legs and refused to stop. He was determined to keep going until he could not possibly move anymore.

And so, on and on he ran, Tena’s hand held in his own. The two of them raced their way from street to street while sweat poured down Jimmy’s forehead as though it were an open faucet. He had no idea where he was going; this was an unfamiliar city located in an unfamiliar world. All he knew was that he needed to keep moving. Thus, from one open-air market to the next, the two of them bolted away as far and as fast as their legs could carry them.

“You two hungry?” a merchant asked him and Tena as they darted by. He was a middle-aged man who had a large picnic blanket set down on the floor, on top of which were various sandwiches and cold beverages. He smiled at them from where he sat in a chair beneath the awning of a two-story home.

“Special price on all hand-made rugs,” another merchant said. “Hey, you two,” he called to them as they approached. “Wouldn’t you like to custom order one of these beautiful—ahh, okay, then,” he finished with a sigh as they shot right past him without paying him any notice.

They hurried through an archway that led to an incredibly narrow alley, which ran between two sand-colored apartment complexes, and then they emerged on the sidewalk of a much wider street. His feet stomping down on the pavement, Jimmy panted as he struggled to keep up the pace. He was taking deeper and deeper breaths, but he was still hanging in there. Adrenaline served as an invaluable source of fuel: one that stopped him from collapsing due to exhaustion.

As they continued onwards, he started noticing that the roads were gradually beginning to widen, and eventually, the densely packed markets became lesser so the farther they continued to move in what he assumed was a northerly direction. Eventually, the wagons, camels, and horse-drawn carriages were replaced with actual DEHVs, and though the city maintained its colorful, unique architecture, there was clearly a shift from commercial to residential as things became more spacious, more open, and overall less confined. The roads became busier, too. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be much traffic as they approached what, for the first time, looked like a modern intersection.

Tena stopped short as they drew nearer as if to gather her breath. “We don’t have the crossing light,” she said, breathing heavily.

“It’s okay,” Jimmy said, trying to pull her onwards. She stayed firm, and her hand slipped out of his. “There’s no cars. We’re good. Come on.” He waved her along. “Please. We gotta keep moving.” While still beckoning her, he continued to head towards the street.

Tena’s face flared with alarm. “Huh? Oh, n-no! Jimmy, stop! You don’t understand!”

“It’s fine!” he shouted back at her. “I’m not gonna leave you here! Come on!”

He saw her begin to approach him, but now, she held her hand out as if in warning. Jimmy wasn’t sure why. But as long as she was following him, it was all good. And so, with her once more on the move, he took off at a run—then immediately yelped in surprise, confusion, but not all that much pain as a gigantic red wall of light popped into existence from out of nowhere and physically repulsed him, throwing him backwards and onto his ass.

“What the hell is that?” he asked, pointing at the reddish barrier of energy, which disappeared shortly after he collided with it. “Goddamn! Is that a forcefield?”

“It’s a DEHV crossing barrier,” Tena said, extending her hand and helping him up. “You can’t cross until we have the crossing light. Isn’t that how it worked in your world?”

“Uh, hell no,” he said, flabbergasted. “We didn’t have no damn forcefields. We just disobey and go whenever we want. It’s called jaywalking. Everyone in New York does it.”

Tena giggled, though only slightly. Jimmy was surprised she could laugh at all given the situation.

“You probably have enough strength to break through it, but that could cause the whole intersection system to fail, and people might die.”

Jimmy looked over his shoulder, checking to see if they were being followed. It seemed that, at least for this moment, the coast was clear. “All right. We’ll wait.”

Anxiously, he waited with her for it to change and allow them to cross. Despite having completely left the massive market area behind them, he still wasn’t satisfied that they’d gone far enough away. He wanted to keep moving.

Tapping his foot as he waited, he tried to calm his nerves by making conversation. “If you guys got forcefields, why don’t people use them in wars? Like the one going on right now that they’re always talking about on TV.”

Tena averted her gaze and lowered her head as if thinking carefully before replying. “It’s hard to explain,” she said after a brief moment. “Galterran wars are not usually like this. We don’t build for things we don’t expect. Nobody ever thought there’d be another conventional war. I don’t even know if these barriers would work the way you’re thinking. I’m guessing you’re talking about using the DEHV crossing barriers to shield cities from bombs, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

She licked her upper lip, stared at him for a few seconds, then asked, “Does—or maybe I should say did—that kind of thing happen a lot in the past? Bombing places from the sky, I mean.”

“Oh yeah,” Jimmy said. “It’s never not happening. Everybody’s always bombing someone else.”

She shuddered as if at the very thought of it. “I don’t get how you miss your world so much. It sounds even more dangerous than whatever’s happening to us here.”

He sighed. “Naw, it’s not like that. It’s…complicated.”

“How so?” she asked.

“Well, the wars are always going on, but they don’t affect everyone equally. So like, if you live in America or whatever like I do, you don’t gotta worry about war.”

“I see,” she said, her tone contemplative. “So your guild doesn’t fight in wars very often?”

“Oh, no, we definitely do,” he said, nodding. “Probably more than most nations, not gonna lie.”

“But you just said…”

“Okay, let me rephrase it. We do fight in a lot of wars, Tena, but like, we’re more advanced, so we don’t have to worry about getting hit at home.” She paused as if to consider his words. Jimmy could see that she still didn’t understand. “Okay, let me put it this way. Imagine if every guild in North Bastia all joined together and became one unified guild and everyone was ruled by the same, uh, ruling guild.”

“You mean like the Brayspark monarchy?” she asked.

“I dunno, maybe. But let’s run with that. So like, imagine if all of North Bastia was just called ‘America,’ okay? And imagine if those jets they were showing on the news were used to attack the Orcs or someplace far away instead of somewhere close. That’s more like how my world is. Basically, if that happened, the Orcs can’t do shit about it because they don’t have jets of their own, right? And they obviously can’t just come here whenever they want. So while you and I eat lunch or hang out, we might not even be thinking about the fact that we’re bombing the Orcs, so it doesn’t even bother us. Hell, we might not even know at all. It’s like that.”

Tena frowned. “That sounds awful,” she said. “So you’re saying your guild was some kind of evil empire?”

Jimmy snorted. “What?” he asked, shocked by her takeaway. “No, Tena. We were the good guys.”

“But…but you just said you bombed people across the world who can’t defend themselves.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“I don’t get it. Your guild sounds evil.”

“It was for freedom,” he mumbled defensively.

“It was for what?”

“Okay, you know what? It’s one of those things you had to be there to understand. Let’s leave it at that.”

Upon those words, the crossing light finally lit up, and with a briefly exchanged nod, the two of them dashed across the intersection and made their way farther into the northern part of the city. With each step they took, Jimmy could smell the breeze of the ocean just a little bit stronger. It made him wonder if he’d made a mistake in heading north, because at some point, they’d hit the coast, and then there’d be nowhere left to run without slightly backtracking.

“We need to get back to Angelica’s,” he said. “Do you know any other ways we can get there?”

She shook her head. “I only know the way through the grand library. And also…” She lowered her voice. “I’m really worried about Zach and Kalana. I don’t want to leave here without them.”

“I kind of feel the same,” Jimmy agreed as they headed into a large community filled with massive, beautiful homes that were well distanced apart. Each had multiple domes along with rounded, colored glass windows and swimming pools the size of entire fields. Many even had circularly shaped rooftops, which gave them the appearance of miniature palaces. As Jimmy jogged his way with Tena by his side through the winding, concrete road that led to the other end of the community, he marveled both at the homes and the sizes of some their front lawns. Yet even as he took in the spectacle of it all, he couldn’t help but feel a fair bit of unease in the back of his mind as he wondered how Zach and Kalana were making out.

He felt bad for bailing on them, but what choice did he have? Zach had specifically asked him to run—demanded it, even. And truthfully, Jimmy wasn’t much of a fighter anyway. Back home, he avoided physical confrontation at all cost, as he knew he’d only get his ass whooped. As good as he was in PVE, he was equally bad in PVP. And he was even worse at fighting for real. It was just not a strength of his. He had no good instincts for fighting living, thinking, and breathing beings, and he really hated the fear that erupted in the pit of his stomach just at the thought of it.

I hope they don’t die because of me, he thought, becoming worried. I can’t have that on my conscience.

Exiting the community, he and Tena found themselves on the sidewalk of a somewhat busier street. To their right were a bunch of more traditional storefronts—as opposed to the booths, tents, or small huts of the market area—and to their left was a large, two-lane street where cars—or DEHVs, rather—were zipping along back and forth. As he and Tena continued onwards along the sidewalk, he realized he was just about out of gas. His robes were so drenched in sweat they were practically sticking to his skin, and he was becoming dehydrated.

“You think we lost them yet?” he asked as he walked, rather than sprinted down the sidewalk.

“I don’t know,” Tena said nervously. “Maybe Zach and Kalana dealt with them and everything’s okay.”

Jimmy hoped that was the case. But he just couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He was too scared to stop. Yet he was so badly drained and needed to rest. If only he had been fighting mobs, he would be able to use his “legendary unique” ability, which allowed him to cast a five-minute stamina regeneration buff each time he did a certain amount of poison damage to his target. It was how he was able to last ten hours fighting a single boss, such as the one on F40 in Tower of Eternity. Unfortunately, he couldn’t cast the buff without first dealing the requisite amount of damage.

Just got to keep going somehow, he thought. Ignore the heat. Keep moving.

At the end of the street, there was an overpass that led to a separate, similar street, as well as an immediate right turn he could make that would keep him on the same sidewalk. Not wanting to stand still and wait for the DEHV crossing light, he chose to lead Tena down the next block beside him. “We’re moving too slow,” he said, panting.

“I’m okay to start running again. Are you?”

“No, but I’m gonna do it anyway.”

And that was what he did. Clumsily, exhaustedly, and barely able to control his locomotion, Jimmy forced his aching, tired legs to obey his commands, and he entered into a pathetic half-limp, half-run that saw him staggering and stumbling. At one point, he even lost his balance, knocking over a barrel filled with water outside of a fish store, and causing people to give him dirty looks outside of a pet shop after he came very close to kicking a dog by accident.

“S-sorry,” he managed to say, limping onwards.

“Jimmy, if we need to rest, we can—”

“No, Tena. We have to keep going.”

Trying to keep his body under control, he managed to more or less head straight down to the middle of the next block. And he almost did so without stumbling at all. In fact, it was only as he nearly reached the end that he accidentally knocked over a trash can, bumped into a guy on a bicycle, who thankfully wasn’t hurt, and then accidentally kicked over some cat’s food bowl by mistake, causing heaps of chicken and tuna to spill out onto the sidewalk in front of the “cat café” where it was eating. The cat immediately hissed at him.

“Sorry,” he panted again, mostly ignoring it as he tried his best to make it to the end of the next block. To Tena, he said, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do need to—”

“Stupid human is not sorry!” a childish, male, yet eerily cartoonish voice shouted angrily at him.

Jimmy wasn’t sure who shouted it or why, but he ignored it and kept on trekking forward—until he was forced to stop on a dime, his knees nearly buckling as a random bolt of lightning simply emerged from a cloudless sky and slammed with a thwap down onto the sidewalk in front of him.

“Stop ignoring me!”

Confused and now suddenly afraid, Jimmy turned around, looking for whoever was shouting at him, terrified it was another one of those robed assassins trying to kill him. Tena also turned around, though rather than fear, her eyes lit up with recognition and hope.

“Fluffles!” she called out, running forward and dropping to her knees in front of the cat whose food bowl Jimmy had accidentally knocked over. And it was only in this moment that Jimmy realized that the cat had been the one speaking. But with everything he’d experienced this morning still fresh in his mind, this revelation somehow lacked the shock effect it might’ve had on a different day.

Mystified, Jimmy watched as Tena extended her arm, reached out, and made as if to pet the cat, but the cat raised his paw as if threatening to scratch her, and he hissed again. “Tena and Tena friend knock over Fluffles’ chicken bowl. No petting!”

“We’re so sorry, Fluffles. You don’t understand. We’re in danger.”

“That right! Humans in big danger from Fluffles. I want chicken and tuna or Fluffles scratch.”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand, little guy. We’re here with Zach and Kalana.”

“Zach…come back already?” Fluffles asked nervously. “Fluffles not supposed to sneak out for more food. I get in trouble. Tena not tell.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “But please, Fluffles, we need your help.”

“Help?”

Jimmy observed in a state of utter fascination as Tena actually prostrated herself before a cat of all things and began to beg it. Now this, he found surprising. For some reason, she actually started to plead with the animal. Jimmy loved cats too—and had one that he still refused to believe he’d never see again—but he couldn’t recall ever begging one as though it were some kind of deity whose blessing he required. Because that was how this was coming off.

“Please help us, Fluffles. Please!” she begged him.

“Why do humans need help?” the cat asked, making a meow that somehow sounded inquisitive.

“There are assassins that are trying to kill my friend Jimmy,” she said, pointing at him. Feeling awkward, he waved. “We’re too exhausted to keep running. If they come after us, I don’t know how we’ll survive. Please help us.”

Fluffles meowed. “Only if Jimmy buy ten cans of tuna and apologize.”

“Of course! Jimmy, come here and apologize to Fluffles.”

As crazy as all this seemed, Jimmy still did not fully understand the rules of this world or what was possible. And so, he felt no shame as he knelt down before the cat and did exactly what Tena asked him to do. “I’m so sorry I knocked over your bowl of food, uh…Fluffles, is it?”

“Yes.”

“Very good name,” he remarked.

Fluffles purred. “Yes it is!”

His throat having gone dry from dehydration, he found it difficult to speak. Yet he tried, anyway. And in as few words as possible, he explained to the cat what had just happened while he, Tena, Zach, and Kalana had been eating ice cream. It was almost hard to believe what he was doing: kneeling there on the sidewalk next to Tena and explaining his dire situation to a fluffy, black-and-white cat with amber-colored eyes. Yet that was exactly what he did.

When he finished, Tena said, “Everything he just told you is true. And we don’t even know if Zach and Kalana are okay.”

“I check,” Fluffles said.

“Check?” both he and Tena asked.

Fluffles closed his eyes and began to chant. “Zach, Kalana, Zach, Kalana, Zach, Kalana.” As he did so, hundreds of little specks that looked like little grains of sand began to float over his head, appearing out of thin air. Only, unlike sand, they were purple in color, and they were dark and did not cast any shadows on the sidewalk. Yet as quickly as they emerged, they vanished just the same, and then the cat reopened its eyes.

“Zach and Kalana okay,” the cat said. “I protect Tena and…” Fluffles made a loud meow that actually startled Jimmy. He got up quickly, turned his head, and then darted forward before lifting up onto his hind legs while placing his front paws on Jimmy’s knees. Now, he locked eyes with Jimmy, and it felt as though the cat was reading his soul or something.

“Jimmy Green,” Fluffles said. “Jimmy not supposed to be here.”

“Yeah, believe me, I know. How do you know that?”

The cat again meowed, and he looked confused. “I appraise. Jimmy die. Jimmy not supposed to be here.”

“Like I said. I know.”

“Jimmy cheat death.”

“That’s…right,” he whispered.

If Fluffles had anything else to say, he did not voice it, because instead, he abruptly spun around and hissed, though Jimmy was not sure why. But then Tena jumped back up to her feet, and a wave of nervous uncertainty rushed through him. This only worsened as he himself lifted his head and looked down the block in the direction that he and Tena had come from, and now, he watched as a man with spiky hair in full black plate armor with bladed gauntlets marched over to them in a way that was both intimidating and threatening. Scars running down both sides of his face, the crooked-jawed man looked like he was up to no good. It put Jimmy immediately on guard.

Is that one of them? he wondered. No robe or mask, though.

As he came a bit closer, Jimmy climbed back up to his feet and got a much better look at his eyes, and now, he could tell that this was indeed one of the two men who had attacked him: the one who’d been wielding the large, curved sword. And though he no longer wore the robe, the mask, or carried that curved, elongated blade, Jimmy was sure of it—it was definitely the same dude. The realization caused him to groan. He was now too exhausted to run. He was done for.

“Tena,” he said, fighting back the rising fear. “I think he only wants me. You have to go.”

“No!” she shouted. “Not a chance.”

“I don’t think he’s after you, Tena. If you leave, I don’t think he’ll come for you.”

“And you’d be right about that,” the man said, clearly having entered earshot as he marched closer and closer. He wore a confident, sadistic grin. “I’m not interested in anyone but you, Jimmy Green. So tell your girl and the Shadowfang to leave, and I won’t have to hurt them.”

Jimmy had absolutely no idea what a “Shadowfang” was, but based solely on the context, he ventured a guess that the man was referring to Fluffles. Standing back up, he realized there was no longer any running away. This was it for him, wasn’t it? He’d cheated death for a reason he didn’t know—only to end up killed by someone he didn’t know for a reason they probably wouldn’t tell him. Even still, he couldn’t help but ask.

“What did I do wrong? At least tell me that. I don’t got a clue what I ever did to you or anybody else to deserve this.”

“Nothing,” the spiky-haired assassin said as he approached ever closer to where Jimmy was standing behind Fluffles and Tena. “None of this is your fault. But I still gotta take care of business, and the fact of the matter is you shouldn’t be here. You’re human.”

Jimmy mouthed something in reply, then let the words fall off as it fully dawned on him what had just been said. It was so bizarre it was actually stunning. Finally, he managed to find his nerve, and he said, “Aren’t you human? What kinda bullshit reason is that?” He lifted his arms and waved them around him. “Almost everyone in this city is human. Why you picking on me?”

The man shrugged, his demeanor uncomfortably casual. “Well, Jimmy, there’s human, and then there’s human. You’re the real thing, old timer. Not supposed to be any more of you. Again, not your fault, but here we are. Just make this easy for yourself and die willingly, how about it?”

Old timer? Jimmy thought. He’d be amused if he wasn’t so terrified.

Upon coming within ten feet of where Jimmy stood, the spiky-haired assassin stopped. He lowered his eyes down to Fluffles. “Move, feline.”

Fluffles hissed. “You move, stupid man!”

Jimmy gulped. This was going to end in tragedy, wasn’t it? This guy looked like a fucking Terminator. Jimmy was in big, big trouble. “Who are you, anyway?” he asked. “Why do you even care where I’m from or how I got here?”

“None of your business,” the man replied, his voice deep and gravelly. “It would take too long to explain, anyway, and you’d end up with even more questions. You’re better off not knowing who I—”

“Mean stupid man is Zylor Ursock,” Fluffles said. “I appraise. Zylor is level 75 and has 240 strength.”

The man scowled. “Gods-cursed Shadowfangs.” He glared at the cat, who stood his ground and hissed right back at him. “Not that it matters. All he did was make it so that I can’t spare any of you now. Seeing my face is one thing: knowing my name, though? A fatal mistake.”

If Jimmy was frightened to begin with, he was doubly so now. He didn’t know how the cat was able to do what it did, but clearly, he had no reason to doubt its words. And if true, it meant he was in a whole world of trouble. More so than he’d realized.

“Level 75?” he asked, his knees trembling. Yet even as he worried that his legs would buckle, he shook with more than just fear: he trembled with rage, too. With a sense of unfairness and disbelief at just how pathetic this all was. Words began to slip out of his mouth: words he didn’t even intend to say. The juxtaposition of the reality he knew and the reality he’d found himself in merged with his moment of deathly terror, and as a result, he began to speak like someone caught between worlds.

“This isn’t even a fair fight,” he said. “What kind of level-75 scrub has to gank a dude in their 40s? You must suck ass if you have to PVP against a lowbie because you’re too bad to find someone your own level to 1v1. You're the type of shit-tier tryhard who gets stuck in bronze but still thinks he’s good.”

“Yeah!” Fluffles shouted at the man. “Zylor is a scrub and is smelly and stupid! Right, Jimmy?”

“He’s low-ELO trash,” Jimmy said with a nod, unable to believe he was provoking this man. He was simply too spent and too dehydrated to do anything but vent his exhausted frustrations. “He probably mains Karthus for R spam.”

Jimmy’s words seemed to momentarily stun the guy—the one Fluffles had called Zylor. His face cringed, and he actually stopped in his tracks. But then, a moment later, he released a bout of laughter. “That’s right,” he said, the grin returning to his lips. “This all used to be a game to you, didn’t it? I don’t know half of that jargon, and I doubt anyone else in the world does, either—probably not even Adamus. Looks like you’ll be taking it with you to the grave, huh?” He raised his bladed gauntlets threateningly. “Now let’s get this done with. I have a species to make extinct. I’m done talking.”

True to his word, he bent his knees and then took off towards Jimmy at a dash, blasting right by Fluffles and Tena. He moved so fast that Jimmy struggled to react and panicked. He reached his arm over his shoulder and tried to remove his staff, fumbling in the process. He ended up dropping it onto the sidewalk, where it then began to roll away from him; this, as the spiky-haired assassin known as “Zylor” was on him in a second, drawing back his arm and whipping it across as if to slit Jimmy’s throat with his gauntlet-blade.

Jimmy, horrified, remained perfectly still. He was like a deer caught in headlights. He didn’t know what to do. Terror raced through him. He didn’t even try to avoid the attack or move out of the way. All he could do was tremble where he stood as his body seized up and he became gripped with so much fear it rendered him immobilized.

“Jimmy!” Tena cried. “No! Stop!”

The blade tore through the air. It was coming for his throat. Jimmy bade his body to move, but it would not obey. He held his breath. Was this the moment of his death? He grinded his teeth together in anticipation of the pain that was soon to come.

Yet, rather than pain, what he instead got was surprise. A strange sound came from in front of him on the sidewalk. It was something that began as a hiss from Fluffles but soon ended as a roar from something else entirely. Before Jimmy’s eyes, the little kitty transformed itself into a much larger, much more ferocious cat. It turned fully black, its teeth sharpened, as did its claws, and it grew to a size that was unquestionably larger than a lion. Then, with another roar, it sprang forward, opened its mouth widely, and chomped down on Zylor’s upper bicep.

“Argh!” the man cried, a sound that surely indicated he felt the bite.

There was a crack that sounded a little bit like the breaking of ice, and now, Jimmy could visibly see the cat’s monstrous teeth sinking into the plate armor, cracking through it as though it were hard candy. With a vicious tug of his head, Fluffles pulled the assassin’s arm away from Jimmy’s face only a moment before the silvery blade jutting from his gauntlet opened up his throat and caused him to bleed out over the sidewalk. And with that, the man took his eyes off Jimmy—at least for the moment. Widening with rage, he refocused them on Fluffles, turning his head and scowling at the massive cat.

“Get the fuck off me,” he growled, shaking his arm. Despite Fluffles’ huge size, he managed to shake the cat wildly, yet somehow, Fluffles was able to hold on. Flailing his arm around in way that actually looked panicked, Fluffles’ body ended up knocking over a trashcan and smashing a hole in the brick wall of a nearby storefront—but still, he could not be dislodged.

“Get off!” he shouted a second time, twisting his body so that he could jab the cat in the stomach with the blade of his other gauntlet, puncturing Fluffles six or seven times in the stomach before finally succeeding in flinging him off and throwing him through a glass window, which made a noisy crack as it shattered and set off a store alarm. People on both sides of the street, as if finally becoming aware of the situation, began to flee the opposite way.

With the cat shaken free, the man, Zylor, once more faced in Jimmy’s direction—but only for the briefest of moments. Tena, having drawn her staff, held it out in front of herself horizontally in one hand with her palm facing downwards and her fingers gripping it directly in the middle. From both the very base of the staff as well as the end, two orange balls of fire erupted, and Jimmy watched as she lifted her staff-wielding arm with a dramatic motion, causing both fireballs to pop up and off the staff in a way that reminded him of two tennis balls about to be served.

Then, as both began to fall back down, Tena quickly shifted her grip on her staff so that she held it in both hands like a baseball bat, and giving two quick swings one after the next, she sent both balls of flame shooting directly at the level-75 prick who had completely ruined their day. His scowl deepening, Zylor again turned away from Jimmy, and he twisted his hips from left to right, then right to left, each time throwing a hook in the air, which he used to rip his blade through the incoming projectiles. Both erupted into an even larger flame upon contact with his bladed gauntlets, and both vanished from existence an instant after.

“You’re next,” he said to her, spitting out a wad of saliva on the concrete sidewalk.

Having warded off yet another attack against him, he made a grunt, and for the third time, he began turning his body around towards Jimmy—only to pause halfway as, with another shattering of glass, Fluffles reemerged. The cat came crashing through a window adjacent to the one he’d been thrown in, and with a loud, angry roar, he once more clung to the man’s upper arm, this time on the opposite side of his body. Jimmy noticed that a trail of blood led from the window to the spot where Fluffles was now viciously biting his way through the plate armor. Even as he hovered midair and resisted Zylor’s attempts to throw him off, there was a growing puddle of red as more and more blood leaked out of him while he continued to make grunts and roars. The sight of it was enough to finally snap Jimmy out of his stupor.

He'll die from those wounds!

Scrambling away from the sidewalk, Jimmy raced towards the street to retrieve his staff, which had rolled off the curb and was continuing to move away from him. Yet in his attempt to chase after it, he was nearly flung directly onto his back as another reddish wall of light popped into existence and barred his passage. This time, however, he refused to be stopped. He could not afford to wait; no, this was a genuine emergency. He needed to force his way through. And while he only had 18 points into strength, he knew that he was still many, many times stronger than even the greatest Olympian to ever walk the face of the Earth. There was no way the anti-entry barrier could stop him if he used every ounce of his strength and tried to break his way through. Clearly, whatever devices powered the barrier were made to ward against ordinary, level-1 people: not people like him.

And so, using his left shoulder like a battering ram, he shoved himself into the forcefield-thing with all his might, and to his satisfaction, there was a loud, electric-like snap, and with much greater ease than he expected, the energy dissipated, and his body slipped through. With that, he bolted out into the middle of traffic, threw himself onto the road, grabbed his Epic-Rare staff he’d earned from soloing the boss on F30, and then had just enough time to race back across the street before a car traveling well over 150MPH burned its way across the road where he’d been standing.

DEHV, he told himself. Not car. How many times you gonna mess that up?

Bracing himself for impact, he charged through the crossing barrier a second time, and now, raising his staff high above his head, he called down greater gift of mending, targeting Fluffles, who Zylor had once again succeeded in dislodging, throwing the cat onto the sidewalk with enough force to send him smashing through a giant chunk of it. The poor cat was now whining, clearly in pain. Thankfully, Jimmy had just the thing for him.

Like a spotlight shined down during a Broadway play, a circular green light appeared above him, and then an instant later, the more than a dozen piercing stab wounds he’d suffered closed up all on their own. Immediately, Fluffles stopped whining and once more started hissing.

“Thank you,” he said—causing Jimmy to recoil, as his words now came out in a deep, dark, masculine, and loudly booming voice that sounded more like “THANK YOU!”

Clearly feeling much better, Fluffles unsheathed his claws, roared in defiance, and ran forward as if to attack—only to stop a moment before engaging, coming to a sudden, complete halt just inches in front of the man. He’d even raised his large paw as though intent on striking with his claws. But for some reason, he’d simply…stopped. And now, after remaining frozen for several seconds, he lowered his paw, backed away a few steps, and turned his head as if to look behind him—and then he flinched and jumped off to the side for some reason. Jimmy wasn’t sure why. Was the cat still hurting? Did he need another heal?

Before he could consider the answer to these questions, he realized that Tena was rushing over to him, and now his confusion quadrupled as she leapt into him, essentially tackling him so that the two of them fell down together onto the sidewalk right next to Fluffles. “What are you doing?” he yelled at her. “Are you trying to get us—”

Jimmy shut his mouth and let his words fall off as he felt a slight vibration on the ground along with the sudden sound of thudding, one that was growing louder by the millisecond. At the same time, Zylor shifted his stance as if to brace himself. At the moment, he had his eyes pinned on something behind Jimmy, and it occurred to Jimmy that he was no longer focusing any attention on him, Tena, or Fluffles.

“Should’ve just stayed away,” he muttered, speaking the words so quietly that Jimmy wasn’t even positive he’d heard them correctly. Lifting himself up into a seated position, Jimmy glanced behind him—and gasped as a highly unusual sight greeted his eyes. It took his mind a moment to register what he was even seeing. Was there another cat heading their way?

The hell…?

There was indeed another cat heading their way, one that was moving at an immense, DEHV-like speed. It was a large, orange, black-striped saber-toothed tiger, and it was moving so fast and stomping down so hard that bits and pieces of sidewalk were being ripped up in its wake. But there was more, too: someone was mounted on top of it. With a start, Jimmy recognized the rider as he drew nearer thanks to the menacing glow in his eyes, which Jimmy knew was caused by the hood of the cloak he wore over his head.

“Get away from them!” Zach shouted as he and this tremendous cat—that looked to be an NPC called “Kralzek’s Beast”—tore their way down the street. And unless Jimmy’s eyes were playing tricks on him, the thing was level 85: fully ten levels higher than what Fluffles claimed Zylor was! The man seemed to realize this, because his demeanor rapidly changed upon seeing it. Jimmy was sure he spotted some degree of alarm in the assassin’s eyes. But the saber-toothed, monstrous beast was not what he should have been focusing on; no, it was its rider who was clearly the bigger threat.

Zach looks mad as hell!

A moment before colliding directly into Zylor, Zach stood up on the mount and launched himself into the air, flipping once before slamming his sword down on top of the man with another angry shout. Zylor, who was grappling with the tremendous saber-toothed tiger, only just had time to spin his body around and hip-throw the big cat off to the side and into—and through—a nearby wall, barely managing to then straighten his torso and raise both his gauntlets to defend himself as Zach crashed down on him; with an audible grunt, his two short blades met Zach’s sword, and the result of their collision was another shower of sparks. A scowl on his face, Jimmy thought Zylor was beginning to look increasingly nervous.

“Think you can just kick me through a fucking building?” Zach shouted at him. “Oh, you’re in for it now. I’m pissed!”

With a ferocity Jimmy could hardly believe, Zach exploded into a manic frenzy of heavy, yet blindingly fast sword strikes. From the way his body lurched with each one, Jimmy could visibly see the amount of effort and power he put into each attack. Zach raised his sword high and then slashed it down low, shouting out with the effort of doing so, but Zylor again blocked it with both of his gauntlets. This did not seem to deter Zach, however, as he struck four more subsequent times, alternating between the left and right side with each strike; each one came in harder and faster than the one prior, and Zylor now looked genuinely flustered as he defended himself. The man pivoted on his hips and raised his left hand, followed by his right, and then he repeated the movement again, making circular motions with his arms as Zach’s blade crashed into his gauntlets four times, causing a loud metallic ringing to echo on the street with each impact.

But all that seemed to serve as just some kind of warmup, because then Zach really exploded. He slashed five more times, punctuating each one with a shout, and Zylor grunted each time he moved his body to block. And though he succeeded in guarding against each blow, Zach continued to go after him with even more ferocity. Jimmy doubted he was holding anything back, and honestly, he had no idea from what place Zach was finding the strength to maintain such an intense, all-out assault against someone who was clearly the stronger of the two; yet, that was exactly what he did.

Swinging his sword upwards, Zach attempted to cut the man open from his groin to his chest. But Zylor was able to make a downward, circular motion with both his arms, this time in reverse, causing three clangs to fill the air simultaneously. Then, with Zach’s arms now raised, and his sword moving from low to high, the kid made an abrupt change in motion, cutting directly across from left to right, and Zylor was now forced to compensate with his own motion, which meant awkwardly lifting his right hand and waving it above his shoulder like someone trying to swat away a fly buzzing in their ear. Zach, with his body also now in a somewhat awkward angle, chose to reset rather than attempt a third strike. He took a step back and returned to a more defensive stance, which allowed Zylor to seize the initiative.

“I’ve had it!” the man snapped, finally finding an opening to retaliate. “I’m putting you down!”

With a speed even faster than that shown by Zach, Zylor barked out a few curse words and brought his right, gauntleted fist down on top of Zach’s skull like a hammer as if trying to slice the kid’s head apart down the middle. But Zach seemed to see this coming, because with minimal motion, he leaned over towards his left, and the gauntlet-blade cut only the air. He then retaliated with two fast strikes of his own, both of which Zylor warded off using his left hand before swinging around his right once more.

This time, not only did Zach dodge, but he did so by jumping backwards, kicking off a brick wall behind him, and then launching himself forward while slashing his sword down on top of Zylor, who despite appearing to have more speed and faster stat-based reflexes, was nevertheless caught off guard. Thus, Zach successfully scored a hit; Jimmy let out a cheer as his new friend lobbed off an entire piece of the man’s left shoulder guard, which made a soft clank as it landed onto the sidewalk and caused the man to grunt as he was thrown back with enough force that he came very close to falling over. Zach then gave a confident flourish with his blade, and it was here that Zylor made a slight, almost unnoticeable trembling motion. It was barely visible, but Jimmy was sure he saw it.

He’s shook, Jimmy realized, inhaling sharply as he also noticed a nervous crease forming on the assassin’s forehead. Zylor’s scared of him!

Zach continued his wild assault, and to Jimmy’s surprise, Zylor actually began to backpedal—but Zach pressed him, moving forward as Zylor continued to back away; this, while sparks lit up in the location of each collision of sword against gauntlet.

Eventually, Zylor began to duck, weave, and dodge, but Zach showed no sign of slowing down. The man squatted beneath a horizontal slash aimed at his throat, then bent his knees a second time to avoid a similar, follow-up attack. He tried to counter, throwing around his own blade, but Zach parried and then riposted, managing to hack off another piece of Zylor’s armor, this one near his right hip. As though becoming desperate, Zylor made a gesture with his left hand, and from somewhere behind Zach, a giant bang erupted as a crater formed in the middle of the sidewalk, and from within this crater emerged a granite boulder, which was then hurtled at Zach.

Jimmy opened his mouth to call out in warning, but it turned out not to be necessary, as Zach was somehow aware of the large rock, which was approaching him from behind. And not only was he aware of it, but he managed to deal with it as part of a four-strike combination. Coming at Zylor from both diagonals, he attacked the man’s left, then his right, then he spun around, slicing the boulder in half, and finally, he delivered a fourth attack, this one ripping free a fist-sized chunk of plate armor that had been protecting Zylor’s chest. It too joined the growing collection of scrap metal.

With sweat pouring down his face, Zylor once more resorted to backpedaling as the intensity only increased from there. Now, Jimmy had to slide farther away on his butt as they moved closer to him. God help him if he actually got caught in between those two!

Zach, whose hands and feet were continuing to release an impossibly black smoke, and whose body was glowing, continued to hammer away. He unleashed attack after attack at Zylor, including one that saw him spin completely around, hop a few inches into the air, grunt, and then crash his blade down with incredible force. Zylor, scowling, spun his own body around while raising his right hand; both forces seemed to neutralize the other upon impact, and both Zach and Zylor were each put off balance as a result of this clash. But Zach, whose eyes burned with fury, was the first to recover, charging forward again and continuing his onslaught. From the way Zylor was now wincing each time he absorbed another attack, Jimmy was beginning to get the impression the man was experiencing some degree of pain, likely from the shock of repeated, high-intensity impacts. But it seemed like the herculean effort was beginning to take its toll on the kid.

Zach was now panting, and it was clear he was burning himself out. His attacks slowed, and eventually, as if running out of energy, he stopped attacking Zylor entirely; after delivering one final slice of his sword, which Zylor succeeded in evading, he abruptly dashed backwards and pulled away from the man. Then he bent forward, opened his mouth, and began breathing heavily, yet he did so with a big grin on his face, one that seemed to egg Zylor on, because as though sensing an opportunity to turn the tables on Zach, he became the one to push forward—but only for about one or two steps.

With a roar almost as vicious as one from Fluffles, the level-85 creature known as “Kralzek’s Beast” reemerged from within the crumpled section of the wall it’d been thrown through, and it did so already at a run; racing forward on all fours, it went straight for Zylor. Jimmy watched as it opened its giant mouth, which he estimated was large enough to fit Zylor’s entire face inside of it. Its teeth were so sharp it was enough to make the beast deadly even without factoring in its claws.

“Son of a bitch,” Zylor growled.

The sight of it seemed to force the man to reconsider his plan to attack Zach; instead, he threw himself backwards and away just as the beast chomped down, causing it to bite only the empty air. But the beast, like its master, was unable to be deterred. And now, like some kind of bizarre tag-team match, it took Zach’s place, and began pressing him—and after a short moment, so too did Zach, rushing back in the moment he seemed to have regained his breath. This meant Zylor was now forced to guard against Zach’s attacks with only his his left gauntlet while keeping the Kralzek’s razor-sharp teeth and claws away with just his right. This, unfortunately, left him with nothing free to protect himself against Fluffles, who made a roar of his own and reentered the fight, lunging at the man’s right thigh and biting down on it. This time, he managed to crack all the way through the plate and sink his teeth into flesh.

“Gahhh!” he cried out. “Fucking rabid animal!”

Tena chose this moment to attack as well, swinging two more fireballs off her staff, both of which landed in the same exact spot in the middle of Zylor’s back. Each one expanded and became a much brighter, larger flame upon impact; the first vanished quickly after appearing, and though it did no damage, it seemed to dramatically weaken the armor, because the second managed to linger, burning a decent amount of it away and causing liquid metal to sizzle on the sidewalk after running down his hips.

Jimmy, sensing an opportunity for victory, decided to also pile on. Still exhausted, and way out of his element, he somehow found the strength to stand back up and fight. Drawing a deep breath, he eyed Zylor and pursed his lips. He didn’t like the idea of hurting someone. He wasn’t a violent person. But this was a matter of life or death, and he really didn’t have any choice, did he?

Gotta do it.

Now on his feet, Jimmy made a swinging motion with his staff and activated one of his three poisons; given Zylor’s close proximity to his allies, he couldn’t use anything that had an area of effect, so he went with his single-target ability called Poisonous Miasma, which functioned in a way that was similar to a landmine.

As Zylor continued to backpedal, now somewhat unsteadily due to Fluffles clinging onto his thigh, which was steadily dripping blood, he was clearly far too preoccupied to be aware of the rust-colored, oblong-shaped object that had appeared on the sidewalk immediately behind him. And just as Jimmy hoped, he stepped on it, causing it to explode into a purplish cloud, which enveloped him, turned his eyes a similar shade of purple, and caused his skin to take on a dry, flaky look as he visibly winced every few seconds as though in agony. The moment it seemed to dawn on him that he’d been poisoned, a look of absolute misery filled his expression, and soon he began to express his pain vocally, crying out each time there was another tick of the poison.

Jimmy forced himself not to look away. He watched, disturbed but vigilant, as pieces of the man’s flesh around his cheeks and forehead began to peel off and leave behind bloody, red clumps of damp skin. The man began coughing even as he struggled to keep in the fight, and Jimmy had to work extra hard not to feel any pity or sorrow over the fact that he was the one who’d caused this pain. And that was not all he did, too.

Glancing downwards, Jimmy was stunned to realize he’d somehow filled the most important bar that he kept in his field of vision at all times. In fact, it only took five ticks of the poison to fill the bar completely, which was far faster than it usually took when fighting a boss or a mob.

Breath of Invigoration: 100%

Jimmy widened his eyes in delight as he saw the bar fill. Having already exhausted himself just on the way over here, the use of his poison, which had a Moderate exertion cost, left him feeling so weak it was a miracle he was able to remain on his feet. This would have him back to full strength in no time. Straightening his back, he raised his staff high and prepared to cast what, in his opinion, was his single-greatest ability. Yet he paused as he caught sight of Zach’s condition. Despite continuing to fight, the kid looked like he was in even worse shape than Jimmy was in. He was also doing a whole lot more to contribute, too.

He needs this way more than I do, Jimmy thought.

“Zach!” he called out. “Hold still!”

“Why?” Zach shouted back, huffing as though he was failing to catch his breath.

“Just please don’t move for two seconds. You gotta trust me!”

“I only have thirty seconds before I pass out!”

“Huh?”

“My ability’s about to end!” he shouted, though Jimmy still didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Did he mean the thing with the smoke? He had no idea how that worked. Regardless, Zach’s movements were now becoming so sluggish that Jimmy feared it was only a matter of time before Zylor would somehow reclaim the advantage.

“Just trust me!” Jimmy insisted. “Please!”

Zach, looking annoyed, nevertheless relented. He halted in place, assumed a defensive position, and then eyed the battle taking place before him. Jimmy also stole a glimpse. For the moment, the two cats and Tena were able to keep Zylor occupied, and the lot of them were moving farther and farther down the sidewalk as they fought. But without Zach adding that last bit of needed pressure, it seemed like Zylor would prevail over all three of them even despite the fact that the Kralzek’s Beast had ten levels on him. Jimmy supposed this proved that level meant less than stats and skills.

At any rate, he knew he needed to act quickly, and so Jimmy forced his aching legs to move and hurried his way closer to Zach, as this spell only had a range of 8. Once he was close enough, he again raised his staff high above him, and with that, he activated Breath of Invigoration, targeting Zach. The moment he cast it, the last of his strength was spent, and he collapsed right there into a sitting position on the sidewalk and rested his staff in his lap. He knew he wouldn’t be able to move for a moment; his body was coming perilously close to passing out from E-debt.

Fighting not to lose consciousness, Jimmy turned his attention towards studying Zach’s expression as the buff took effect. Impatiently, Zach craned his neck to look upwards at the big, blue, and cartoonish depiction of a heart that was now floating just a few feet above his head. It began to spin as it dropped lower and lower onto him before simultaneously vanishing and bathing Zach in a blueish white light, which slowly faded along with the heart.

“Some kind of buff?” Zach asked, still panting. “Really didn’t have time for…huh?” He inhaled, sharply. “Did I just activate my stamina ability on my sword or something?” He gasped. “Why’s my time going up? Jimmy, what did you just do to me?”

Jimmy was too tired to answer, and so he didn’t. From the way Zach’s eyes lifted and his head turned slowly left to right, he took a guess that Zach had pulled the buff’s information up for himself. This turned out to be correct, and the level of excitement Zach gave off was almost enough to rouse Jimmy from his own state of exhaustion.

“Constant passive…stamina regeneration?” Zach finished in a shout as if in disbelief. “There’s such a thing as that? My Unleashed Phase is going up now, not down. It’s…it’s actually ticking up! This is fucking unbelievable! Jimmy! Jimmy I can’t believe this!”

Zach turned completely around and looked down at where Jimmy was sitting, and the expression on his face was one that was both unforgettable and haunting. He stared intensely at Jimmy with a look that combined wonder and gratitude, but also, there was so much more to it as well. He eyed Jimmy as though Jimmy was some kind of puzzle piece or solution to some kind of riddle. It was a strange, disconcerting look that was in no way malicious or likely even intentional but was nevertheless one he knew he would not forget for so long as he continued to live in this world. Rather than rejoin the fight, Zach stayed put for nearly half a minute, then closed his eyes and drew a full breath.

Reopening them, he said, “It’s going up even faster now that I’m back to full stamina.”

Jimmy could visibly tell that he was back to his full strength. He sure looked it. Yet, even still, he continued to stay right where he was, even as Zylor finally shook Fluffles and the Kralzek’s Beast free and turned his attention towards dealing with Tena. “You don’t understand, do you?” Zach asked, shaking his head as he looked at Jimmy.

“Understand what?” Jimmy asked nervously, becoming fearful that something might happen to her.

Zach laughed. “You don’t get it. You just don’t.”

“What don’t I get?”

Zach laughed a second time. “Do you have any—any!—idea of what a buff like this means when used on someone like me? I don’t think you can even imagine it. But she must have known.” Even without saying who “she” was, Jimmy had a fairly good idea he was referring to Eilea.

“What can you do?” Jimmy asked, genuinely curious.

Zach reached down and offered him his hand. He took it, and Zach pulled him back to his feet. “We just won the fight because of this buff. It’s over. For real.”

“Are you sure? Because he’s about to attack Tena. Please, you can’t let him hurt her. You’ve got to do something before he—”

“It’s fine,” Zach said, raising his blade.

Zylor was now charging at Tena, who sent multiple projectiles at him from the end of her staff, which consisted of green, exploding flowers, none of which stopped his momentum. Jimmy became nervous—then outright panicked as he reached her, lifted his arms, and then swung the blades down at her throat. “Zach! Please! Oh my God, man! PLEASE! You’ve got to—”

“It’s fine!” he shouted. “Trust me now, Jimmy.”

A blue orb wrapped around Tena’s body a moment before the blades attached to the gauntlet bled her dry, and then this orb began to shrink until it vanished entirely. It reappeared a moment later beside Zach, and now, standing there with them was Tena. A second later, the same became true of Fluffles, who Zach had also seemingly rescued.

“Watch this,” he whispered to Jimmy. Then he faced Zylor and cleared his throat. “You just lost!” he called to the man at the other end of the street. “Give up!”

Zylor didn’t even seem to pay attention to Zach’s words. The last tick of Jimmy’s poison elicited one final groan from Zylor while he reached out, grabbed the Kralzek’s Beast, and for the third time, he flung it through another storefront wall before turning his body to face the three of them; with that, he took off at a mad dash in their direction.

“Zach,” Jimmy said nervously, beginning to back away. “If you’ve got something up your sleeve, now’s the time to do it.”

Zach laughed confidently. “Oh you better believe I do. Just watch.”

“I’m watching, man. But that dude’s getting real close!”

“He’s done,” Zach said with absolute certainty. He assumed a combat stance, and then he raised his blade high and swung it down. “Phase Slash!” he shouted. Then he lifted it up and swung it down a second time. “Phase Slash!”

Jimmy lurched, becoming startled as he heard a loud, mysterious sound that was like…like a jacket zipper being opened or closed only a billion times louder and coming from seemingly everywhere; it rang out and filled the entire street to the extent it drowned out every other noise. He opened his mouth to ask what in the hell that was, but then he flinched a second time as he heard it yet again. Now, from the point of Zach’s blade, there seemed to be a distortion in the air itself, one that had a rippling, shimmering effect, and which moved so fast that Jimmy would’ve missed it had he blinked.

Zylor, who was three quarters of the way towards them, came to a sudden halt, and then he bent his knees, raised his bladed gauntlets, and delivered a boxer-like one-two combination into the air; the blades on his gauntlets ripped through these rippling disturbances, and both dissipated on contact. Then he lowered his gauntlets and prepared to—

“Phase slash!” Zach shouted again. “Phase slash!”

An audible, angry growl came from Zylor as, a moment from taking off at a run, he again bent his knees and again boxed down two more of whatever it was that Zach was sending at him. For the second time, he lowered his hands and—

“Phase slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash!”

His growling turned to loud, rambling and muttering as he began defending himself from—

“Phase slash! Phase slash! Phase slash! Phase slash! Phase slash! Phase slash! Phase slash! Phase slash! Phase slash! Phase sl…wait I don’t want to kill him by mistake. Okay, he’s fine. Phase slash! Phase slash! Phase slash!”

Jimmy’s mind was blown by what he saw. Zach was now sending out abilities back-to-back in a way in which his buff should not have allowed. No matter how much stamina he had, it shouldn’t have been possible for him to do this. Zylor also seemed confused, because he literally shouted out, “How is he doing this?” as he entered into a full-on panic, wildly swinging his blades around and knocking the attacks down as soon as they arrived. But eventually, as Zach kept up the intensity without faltering, one managed to slip through his guard—then two. Then three.

Now, Jimmy watched as his armor began to explode all over his body. His chest piece suffered a full break, vanishing, and so did his leggings, leaving him down to just a pair of plain brown breeches and a matching shirt. Then he was hit full on, and his nose burst as though broken, and blood escaped both it and his mouth as he was thrown backwards and onto the ground.

“Holy shit!” Jimmy shouted, unable to believe his eyes. “You’re spamming. How? My buff regens stamina fast, but not that quickly.”

“I built it up,” Zach said.

“Huh?”

“My ability is on a timer, and I learned recently it can go down or up. Earlier, when I was resting, I was letting it build up. It’s even building up right now. I’m getting like a minute of time every five seconds. This is the craziest, most unbelievable shit ever. I can’t believe you exist, Jimmy.” He rubbed his eyes with his forearm. “You and I should probably not exist in the same universe.”

“That’s…the point!” screamed Zylor as he clawed his way back to his feet. “Now you’re getting it! He’s a threat to us all.”

Zach lifted his sword and eyed Zylor. Then he looked at Tena and Fluffles. “Let’s finish this. But do not kill him. Okay?”

“Of course not,” Tena said without hesitation. “I can’t even imagine killing someone—ahh! Sorry, no offense.”

“It’s all right,” Zach said. He turned his head and glanced at Fluffles. “Understood?”

“No!” Fluffles shouted, his voice booming. “Fluffles kill stupid man.”

Zach sighed. “I’ll give you 5000g and an extra dinner tonight.”

“Three dinners,” Fluffles said.

“Two.”

“Three!”

“Two!”

Fluffles meowed, but in his current form, it sounded like a crazed screech. “Okay. Fine. Two dinners.”

Zach removed one hand from his sword, leaned over, and lifted his arm to rub the chin of the massive black cat, who purred in a way that at least sounded normal. “I also won’t ask you why you’re here as a bonus. Now come on. Let’s take him alive.”

With that, Zach moved in towards Zylor along with Tena, Fluffles, and the level-85 NPC, though the latter merely hovered around him and was no longer actively attacking the man. Jimmy backed away a bit so he could lean against and rest on the nearest wall of the store behind him. He was too exhausted to contribute. Hopefully, they had things under control now and he wouldn’t be needed. Sure, Zylor might have been really strong, but surely at this point, things were now well in their favor.

And indeed, they were. Zach raised his palm then gestured for Tena and Fluffles to surround him without attacking. Zylor, as if enraged, darted forward and moved to engage Zach with his bladed gauntlets, which had somehow not yet been destroyed. From the way he was wobbling, Jimmy could tell that the very last “Phase Slash” that Zach had used—which landed on his exposed, unarmored body—had done real damage to him, because he was coming across as significantly weakened compared to only a moment prior.

Now, the man cried out in pain as Zach easily deflected two of his desperate, throat-slitting attempts, and then methodically retaliated with a few carefully aimed and precise strikes of his own. His blade ripped off piece after piece of Zylor’s remaining armor, mostly that which was around his shoulders. He also cut into a bit of flesh, as he was wide open and exposed. Blood was dripping down his thigh from when Fluffles’ teeth had sunk deeply into him, and he had a three-inch gash on the right side of his face from an earlier swipe of the Kralzek’s Beast that Jimmy must not have seen; it was deep enough that it might possibly add a new scar to his collection.

As though finally accepting he was beaten, he released a pained groan then fell down to his knees while swearing aloud; there was no mistaking the look of genuine terror in his eyes as Zach turned his blade so that the pointed end faced forward, and with a single lunging motion, he sent it straight towards the man’s exposed chest. Jimmy wondered if he should look away. For all that talk of taking him alive, he had a feeling Zach was going to end up killing him anyway, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to see this shit. After all, Zach had a bit of a reputation for not taking any prisoners and executing his enemies in some pretty brutal ways. Jimmy knew this because everybody at Angelica’s talked about it in a way that was boastful, though he himself did not see what was so great about not showing any mercy.

Right now, the point of Zach’s sword looked like it was about to pierce Zylor straight through the heart; it was just an inch or two away from plunging into and through the skin and finishing things for good. But Zach did not press any further; he merely held it there, making contact with—but not breaking—the man’s flesh.

“Give up,” Zach said to him, his weapon pressing threateningly against the left side of the man’s chest. Jimmy was surprised to see that the bloodthirsty Zachys Calador was actually giving him this opportunity. Honestly, he thought the kid would’ve run him through without a second thought.

Zylor lowered his eyes as if to look down at the weapon that was a mere thrust away from ending his life. Then, for some reason, he grinned and began to laugh. “You should’ve just done it, you fuckin’ moron. Now you’re dead.”

“Don’t push your luck!” Zach warned. “I’ll kill you! I’m giving you a chance.”

“No, you had a chance, and you just lost it.”

Zach inched the weapon ever so slightly, just enough to scratch, but not to deeply wound. “I’m warning you!”

“You should’ve just done it, kid. You should’ve just done it.” Zylor began to laugh even harder.

As the scene unfolded before him, Jimmy blinked. And in the time between his eyelids closing and reopening, something changed—something significant. And yet, he was the only one to see it. Behind Zach, and spinning like a top, was one of those Frisbee-looking things from before. “Zach!” he yelled out, pushing himself off the wall and pointing with his staff. Zach turned his head around and looked, and the two briefly made eye contact. “Zach, behind y—”

Jimmy raised his right arm to shield his face as concrete, dirt, dust, and numerous small rocks blanketed him on the heels of a loud boom, which had enough force that it caused him to fall backwards onto his rear even despite being safely outside the blast radius. Horrified, he immediately jumped back up to his feet, and despite the fact that he was in no condition to fight, he nevertheless found his courage and took off at another limping, stumbling run towards the site of the blast, which was too obscured by smoke for him to see much of anything.

“Tena!” he yelled, terrified that something might have happened to her. “Zach! Fluffles! Tena! Oh, God. Please tell me you guys aren’t—”

“We’re okay!” she shouted back at him.

The smoke cleared just enough so that Jimmy could see the three of them sheltering behind a large, golden shield, which floated in the air above them. It vanished from existence the moment Jimmy was able to lay eyes on it. An instant after disappearing, a few spurts of blood trickled down Zach’s nose, and a scrape appeared on his forehead. Other than that, the kid looked okay. Tena was also unharmed, and so was Fluffles. The Kralzek’s Beast, on the other hand, had lost a quarter of its HP.

Thank God, he thought, breathing out a sigh of relief.

There was no longer any sign of Zylor with them. He’d somehow slipped away. Eager to help in any way that he could, Jimmy began stumbling towards Zach. “I really thought they got you guys,” he said, wiping sweat away from his forehead as he hurried over to them. “I should’a known you weren’t about to let some—”

Zach’s face tightened, and he took off like a rocket in Jimmy’s direction. Before Jimmy could understand what was happening, he found himself being shoved forcefully by Zach, which caused him to slam hard enough into a nearby wall that he left a dent in it in the shape of his body. It also hurt like hell and would likely leave him bruised all over the next day.

“Owe, shit,” he groaned as the sound of two blades clashing filled the street.

Trying to ignore the ache in his body, he lifted his head and saw Zach once more engaging Zylor. Only now, the man wasn’t alone. With him was a man covered in a brown robe wearing a plain, expressionless mask that revealed only his eyes—exactly as Zylor had appeared until shedding it at some point between now and when Jimmy had first encountered him by the park.

“Where were you, Gruesome?” he asked, his words coming across as bitter and hateful.

“Ohh, I am so very sorry, yes I am. Mhmmm! Had to deal with the little Elvish girl. She was hard to get away from, that one.” He chortled like a schoolgirl. “I’m here now. Yes, yes. We can finish the job.” He giggled some more, and the sound of it was sickening.

He pointed his weapon at Jimmy as if to launch another one of the exploding discs at him. But Zach as if noticing this, tried to charge through Zylor as if to stop him from firing. Unfortunately, even badly beaten, Zylor proved himself to still be a threat, and he intercepted Zach, the two of them locking blades with one another.

“Not this shit again,” Jimmy moaned.

Squeezing the trigger of the oddly shaped “gun,” Jimmy gritted his teeth in apprehension as a spinning red disc silently escaped the completely flat “barrel” of the weapon and headed straight for him; it moved at a speed so fast that it would likely land before Jimmy could move so much as a muscle, which meant he’d have just a second or two to get away before it detonated, and he was clearly too weak to do so.

Mesmerized, he watched as it sailed across the air, moving beyond where Zach and Zylor were dueling before flying right over Fluffles’ head. The cat tried his best to save him; Fluffles jumped up and attempted to bite it right out of the air, and he came very close, too. But his jaws slammed shut just a fraction of a second too late, and it continued onwards. Tena also tried to whack it out of the air with her staff, but she didn’t even stand a chance. It passed them both by with such speed that Fluffles was still airborne as it traveled almost the full distance to Jimmy.

As it drew nearer and nearer, Jimmy, so terribly exhausted, wondered if he even had the strength left to run. Even worse, it looked like he was being attacked from multiple angles, too. Someone—or something—had launched a second attack of some kind at him along with the red, exploding disc. This, he noticed from off to his left, where he caught a glimpse of a streak of pure flame, one that was moving even faster than the exploding disc and heading right towards him. Jimmy opened his mouth to scream. He was going to be burned alive!

In no time at all, the flames reached and surrounded him, and now Jimmy braced himself for the intense pain—and then he continued to brace himself as they passed him by completely. Or no, not passed. Went through him. The fire entered the left side of his body, vanished, and exited the right, all without harming him. It simply continued to move on until finally disappearing for good once it crossed paths with the oncoming disc about three feet in front of him.

What the…?

As the flames disappeared, they left an Elvish girl behind in their wake. She simply appeared in their absence with her daggers already drawn. Swinging them in an x-shaped arc, she cut the disc into two uneven pieces, causing both to turn from red to a lifeless dull grey as they fell to the ground before fading away into nothingness.

Kalana!

“Are you okay, Jimmy?” she asked. “I’m so sorry if I scared you!”

He nodded. “I’m okay.”

She smiled at him. Then her face became deathly serious as she turned to face Zylor and the still-anonymous sniper assassin. She pointed one of her daggers at them and frowned. “You two better surrender right now! Cause I dunno if I can save you after she gets here. I’ve only got like a fifteen second head-start on her.”

“On who?” Zach asked, bending backwards to avoid the blade of Zylor’s gauntlet and then lashing out with three quick strikes of his own, all of which were guarded against. He was no longer fighting at his best. Jimmy could tell he was deliberately holding back. He was going out of his way not to kill the man. Jimmy was sure of it.

“My mom,” Kalana said. Now, she spoke with even more urgency. “I’m serious! You guys better give up. Umm, she’s like, really mad right now, and I’ve never seen her this angry before.”

Jimmy didn’t know why Kalana was wasting her words. These men clearly weren’t the type to take threats seriously. If they were, they already would’ve surrendered after Zach came so close to killing one of them. Hell, if anything, they’d probably only fight harder as a result of her—

“Th-the queen’s here?” Zylor shouted, an overt look of fear crossing his features. “Queen Vayra is coming?”

“She’s over level 100, isn’t she?” the one Zylor had called “Gruesome” asked. “And she’s an Elf! That’s like being 150. And they say she’s brutal. I’ve heard the things the pretty queen has done, oh no-no-no. Zylor, I will call for extraction. Please hold them off!”

He nodded, and Jimmy could see him become pale as though the blood was draining from his face. Together, they both began to back away; this, as Zach started glancing around nervously while Fluffles muttered about how he was just about to unleash “a special attack” that would’ve made Zach and everyone think he was the “strongest and best cat.”

Jimmy had no idea what was going on—and he continued to remain clueless as the look of abject terror only seemed to heighten in both men as they turned their heads towards him of all people. They looked at him as though he, Jimmy, was the source of their ultimate fear. Their eyes spoke of gloom and death as they regarded him, and honestly, he wasn’t sure why—at least not until he felt a gentle hand touch down on his right shoulder blade. And then there was a small, equally gentle nudge as someone pushed him aside. No, not even “pushed.” That was too strong of a word. It was more accurate to say that someone just sort of politely inched him off to the left in a non-aggressive way so that they could pass.

“Excuse me, human,” a soft voice whispered.

“Oh, fuck,” Zach said, alarm in his words. “Fylwen, wait! No one’s died today. They didn’t succeed in killing a single person. You don’t have to do this.”

“Mom, don’t!” Kalana shouted at her. “Please!”

With a queenly grace, Jimmy watched as a beautiful woman who looked like an older version of Kalana glided calmly over to the two assassins, who began to look around themselves as if to plan an escape. He vaguely recognized her as Queen Fylwen Vayra, though he knew little about her other than that she was Kalana’s mother and the leader of the Elvish people.

Zach sheathed his sword, and in an act that was so confounding it actually hurt to watch, he positioned himself right in front of Zylor, turned his own back to the man, and then said, “You better run. I’ll try to talk her down.”

“There’s no point running,” he said. “We’ve basically already died.”

Now, Zylor shoved Zach aside just like the queen had shoved Jimmy—only a lot less politely—and with a loud battle-cry, he charged forward at the Elvish woman, who was armed only with a shortsword that looked to Jimmy like a gladius.

“Come, humans,” she said, her voice eerily lacking in emotion. “Let me show you what happens when you have the audacity to attack my daughter and start conflict on our island’s doorstep.”

Zylor swung at her with both bladed hands, primed to rip into her flesh. Unfortunately for him, both missed the mark. She effortlessly stepped back and away from the first, then angled her body to the side to avoid the second. Then, with a speed that was so fast that Jimmy’s eyes were literally unable to follow it, she somehow got behind the man, and once there, she dropped down, made a spinning motion, and then sliced open his Achillis tendon, causing him to howl in pain and fall immediately forward onto his face, which she then stomped into the concrete with so much force it went partially through it. He literally had his head in the ground.

The other one pointed his weapon at her—but before he could even squeeze the trigger, she’d already cut it in half, causing a full item break. The man made an actual squealing noise as the weapon evaporated in his hand, leaving him unarmed. Hastily, he reached inside his robe and removed a dagger, which he attempted to stab into the Elvish queen’s chest.

The queen, however, parried with her Gladius, striking the dagger hard enough that it flew out of his hand until it ricocheted off the red crossing barrier and almost ended up flying right back at him; instead, it came to a stop after landing with a clink somewhere farther down the sidewalk.

“Human,” she said to him, her tone hauntingly cold. “You would dare attack me?”

With her opposite hand, she sent her palm forward, striking him dead center in his chest, causing him to double over and gasp. Then she snapped her left foot upwards, kicking him in the chin and planting him on his back. Even as her foot was still being withdrawn, she turned her head towards Zylor, who had pulled his head out of the ground and was now attempting to crawl away like a worm while leaving a blooded trail behind him. She waved her shortsword in his direction, and then from the depths below, the forces of nature arose in the form of numerous vines, which wrapped themselves around him and bound him in place.

“Mom, please,” Kalana begged. “Don’t kill them.”

She looked at Kalana and grinned. “Of course not, my sweet daughter. That would be irresponsible.”

“It…it would?”

“Of course.” Her grin became sadistic. “First, I shall have them brutally tortured for information. Then, I shall take their heads.”

“Mom!”

Fylwen chuckled. “Oh, I’m teasing you, Kalana.” She smiled, and her sinister look was replaced with one that abruptly came across as far more motherly and warm. “They’ll be treated as any other prisoner in the newly established Elvish justice system. You didn’t think I’d worked so hard to revive our customs for nothing, did you?” She shook her head. “We have real power now, Kalana. We are not the same as we were before. I too, must change—as will all Elves.”

Kalana breathed out a sigh. Then she glared at her mother. “I really thought you were serious, mom!”

“I did too,” Zach said. He also breathed out a sigh. “But I actually do think you should torture them, Fylwen. Ouch, Kal! I’m kidding, fuck. That really hurt.”

“Sorry, baby.” Kalana looked down at both men. “They need healing, too. Jimmy, my heals aren’t so great. When you feel up to it, umm, maybe you can—”

“You’re all making a terrible mistake,” coughed Zylor. Kalana frowned at him as he glared up at her. “We were the nice guys. You’re all abetting a criminal. Jimmy is not supposed to be here. You should’ve just let us do our jobs. The next time you see someone in the brown robes, they aren’t going to do much talking. You should think twice before you challenge a God!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Queen Vayra asked, folding her arms across her chest. “Explain, human?”

Rather than talk, he merely chuckled. “I doubt we’ll meet again.”

Following those words, two bolts of perfectly golden lightning from somewhere far above streaked down at the exact same time, striking each man in unison and causing their bodies to disappear in a screen made of pure, bright gold, which soon vanished together with the two of them. They left not a trace—other than their blood, which stained most of the sidewalk.

“Who were they?” Queen Vayra asked, setting her gaze upon Zach.

Swallowing nervously, Zach shrugged. “No idea. Bandits, probably.”

She narrowed her eyes. “We’ll talk about this later. You and Kalana have some explaining to do!”

Zach groaned, and so did Kalana as she then began lecturing them both about the value of honesty and the consequences of telling lies. What should have been an upbeat mood—a celebration of survival—turned into an outright scolding of two young adventurers by the Elvish queen. As surreal as it was, Jimmy was too exhausted to attach much emotional investment to it.

“…having said all that,” the queen continued, “Kalana, there is someone who has been very much wanting to meet you.”

“Hm?”

She raised her voice. “Peter, sweetheart, you can come out now, child.”

From the opposite end of the block, a little boy crept out from the corner and began walking towards them. Kalana’s eyes lit up, her mouth dropped open, and without even seeming to know who he was, she was already reaching out as if to hug the child. “And who is this?” she asked. “Who’s the little cutie? Come here!”

Jimmy looked at Zach, who shrugged at him. “I just want to play in the pool.”

Chapter 131: Mistakes

Chapter 131: Mistakes

Was this before? Or was this now?

Vim wasn’t certain. It was all a haze. He felt shame. It was painful. Carefully, he arranged his desk in his office in Giant’s Fall. Was this the way it had been? Or was this still how it was? These thoughts became muddled and confused, but ultimately, he set them aside as his assistant informed him that his guest of honor had arrived. He used to look forward to these visits, but no longer. The boy he’d grown up with had changed, and it was only getting worse.

“Please, see him in,” Vim said.

The door to his office opened, and in walked King Peter IV. He smiled as he spotted Vim, and truly, were one to look only on a superficial level, he truly was the spitting image of magnificence. His thick locks of blond-colored hair radiated like dragon’s fire, and his determined yet perpetually youthful features managed to give him an air of both strength and innocence. Even his teeth were free of so much as a blemish, and there was nothing but optimistic hope in his azure eyes.

With him was his teenage son, who looked up upon his father with pride and reverence. “I know of your eagerness, my son, but you’ve still got some growing to do before I begin your instruction in governance.” Gently, he nudged his son. “Wait outside, Peter.”

“Father, I’m fifteen now. I ought to be here with you that I may begin to learn.”

He shook his head. “Not this time.” With a gentle laugh, he gave another nudge, and his child, Peter V, left the office, closing the door behind him.

And then, as Vim had known would be the case, the king began to fall apart. Even as he’d been speaking to his son, Vim could see the strain begin to form in his face. Through some miracle of love, he seemed capable of holding himself together when in the presence of his boy. Vim did not know how he did this. He did not understand how the man’s sickness allowed him to behave in such a normal way. It was as though some part of his unblemished self still lingered, and it was only in the presence of his child that he was able to subdue the illness.

The moment his son vacated the office, the façade fell away, and with a look of utter dread, he turned his head towards Vim and said, “They’re going to kill my boy.” Upon those words, he began to walk over towards Vim’s desk, sitting across from him. He placed his forehead in his hands, and he released an agonized moan. “Last night, the Gods came to me again, Vim. They bid me to destroy the Gnomes.”

Vim tensed. This was new. “I see,” he whispered.

Peter shook his head. “Not you of course, my dear friend. The Gods forbid such a thing! Yet they have warned me of a coming calamity. They”—abruptly, he snapped his head to the left in the direction of the office windows, which provided a view of the city of Giant’s fall—“who said that?” he shouted. “Vim, quiet them!”

Vim said nothing. What could he say? What was there to say? Thankfully, whatever demons he believed he was hearing, they seemed to quiet, because he returned his gaze to Vim, and he continued to address him. “The Gnomes must perish.”

“Perish?” Vim asked.

He nodded. “All of them but you.”

Vim tried not to take the man’s ramblings too seriously. He had always assumed that if Peter ever went too far, the members of his own guild would likely put him in check, as they must surely have grown alarmed by this point. That was why, not a week prior, Vim had taken an act that would inevitably grow to haunt him for many years to come. In secret, the guilds of North Bastia had assembled to discuss deposing the king. All needed to be united to form a council with the authority capable of removing him peacefully from power. Yet Vim had abstained, because under Peter IV’s leadership, the people of Giant’s Fall—the region in his guild’s charge—had profited greatly from this era of economic stability. Believing his duty to them first and foremost, he had thusly guided the Royal Roses towards the abstention, and his 2nd and 3rd stood by him.

Now, however, as he tried to think of a way to ease the man’s current passions, Peter regarded him with a sympathetic frown; he curled his lower lip, took upon a pained expression, and he said, “I’m afraid I’ve had to euthanize Kaz.”

The words struck Vim like a tidal wave. He inhaled. “My sister?”

“I’m sorry. A few hours ago, I had it carried out.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, keeping his voice calm. He tried to convince himself that this could very well be one of the man’s delusions. He often alluded to executing various individuals in and around North Bastia, only for Vim to see them later, unharmed and well. But no, not these days. These days, he had begun carrying out his threats. This time would be no different. His sister was, in all likelihood, no longer of this world.

“The Gnomes have to die. The Dwarves, too. We don’t have a choice. Your sister was a threat to us all.”

Should Vim have attacked the king? Should he have expressed the outrage he felt within? Yes. Yes, without question. But that was not what he had done. He had reacted calmly. He had concealed the shock and hurt, and he had done as his father had always taught him: he had played the game.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, fighting back the agony that gave rise to a tremor in his fingertips. Peter spotted this tremble, and his eyes widened—though he said nothing. And from this one gesture alone, Vim knew that he would be next.

“You are…still loyal to me?” Peter asked.

Vim nodded without hesitation. “We’ve been friends since childhood, Peter.”

Deep down, Vim knew that it would not have mattered how he replied—it would not have mattered what words he spoke. The moment the king had spotted his trembling fingers, it was too late for Vim to dissuade his paranoia. Even still, it would be two months before he was forced to defend himself against the arresting force that would come for him in the middle of the night. Yet he had been prepared, and by resisting—and killing—the king’s men, the war would kick off, and the Royal Roses would go down in history as the guild that had ended Peter IV’s reign. Vim would receive a credit he did not deserve.

Perhaps that was why he was here? This, he wondered as he opened his bruised eyes and lamented the depressing darkness of his cell. He was in a dungeon in the depths below Shadowfall Coast, one that was uniquely suited to contain those who had leveled; the bars, shackles, and even the flooring had all been crafted from high-level materials that Vim could not damage or break through. He could not even rip apart the shackles that bound his hands and feet.

Each day, numerous members of the guild had come by to beat him. He doubted it was part of any official order. It was revenge for what his guild had done in Shadowfall Coast, and Sir Allistor Morrison seemed unwilling to disallow it if he even knew—or cared. Perhaps he might even be encouraging it. Vim could not be sure either way.

He struggled with his bindings despite the futility of it, though he did so in a way that was half-hearted. He’d already given up. He knew that he was a dead man. None would come for him. The Guild of Gentlemen had won, and they knew it.

His attention was diverted by the sound of a high-pitched creak like that of an old, rusted metal door being opened. Too weak to fully lift his head, he stared down at a pair of boots that made soft thuds as they strolled across the filthy, soiled, cockroach-infested floor.

“If you would sign the declaration, this would not be happening to you,” said the voice of Sir Allistair Morrison. Vim could not see his face, and even if he could, he would only spit in it. The man’s words, combined with his lack of surprise at seeing Vim in this condition, strongly implied that he did, in fact, know of the beatings, and he was likely the one orchestrating them, probably to break Vim's will so that he would endorse the declaration.

"How much more must you endure before you agree to sign?"

“I’m almost there,” Vim replied. “I’m so close to signing it. Just two or three more beatings and we have a deal. Just make sure you get someone in here to flog my ass. I feel like it’s really being neglected in all this.”

“Sharp-tongued as always, Sir Alazar.” The man made an exaggerated sigh. “I’m only asking you to do what’s right. Accept responsibility for the bomb that you forced me to drop on Ogre’s Axe. Apologize to the people—yours and mine—and publicly declare the Guild of Gentlemen the rightful rulers of humanity. Do this for your soul. Then, I will grant you a swift, merciful death.”

Vim laughed. “Yeah, okay. Unbind me and give me a pen.”

Even without seeing Sir Alistair’s face, he could tell that the man was frowning. “You’re not being serious.”

“No, I’m totally serious,” Vim said. “You did a really good deed, killing a million people like that. You’re a hero, Sir Morrison. I’m sure everyone in Giant’s Fall is grateful for your service, and I bet they can’t wait to shake your hand.”

“I did what I had to do to save humanity.”

“Oh, I agree,” Vim said dryly. “You’re on an important mission, aren’t you? I bet the people of Varda’s Lair and Whispery Woods can’t wait to be hit with that weapon. Lots of humans there who need saving, too. You should also attack the rural areas as well. Just to make sure you don’t leave anyone unsaved.”

For a moment, there was silence. And then there were footsteps. Vim watched the man’s boots as they came closer to his face. And now, Sir Allistair crouched down and met his eyes, and in them, Vim could see genuine passion—and anger.

“You act like a million lives in Giant’s Fall are worth more than countless millions in South Bastia.”

“South Bastia?” Vim asked. “Is that what this is all about? Is that why you’re doing all of this?”

Alistair pursed his lips. It was rare for the man to show such emotion. “I was born in the Dark-Water Depths, Sir Alazar. You know this.”

Vim chuckled. “And you think…what, exactly? That by capturing all of North Bastia you can somehow make South Bastia any better? It’s a lost cause, Sir Morrison.”

“Not to me!” he shouted.

With his display of anger, Vim thought he was finally getting a sense of what drove this man. It came as a shock to him. And not because it was conceptually something that he found difficult to grasp, but because of how unforeseen it was. The last time South Bastia had played any role in the politics or minds of anyone from North Bastia…it had to have been a good hundred or so years.

“People complain often about Whispery Woods,” Allistair said. “They bemoan the conditions of the city. The crumbling infrastructure. The poverty rates. The education system. Yet not one of them has any idea what true suffering is. Every single human in Whispery Woods, from the wealthiest to the poorest, has never known a day of hunger. Their schools may not be halls of excellence, but they are adequate. Their hospitals are at the very least competent. Their roads, ultimately, are serviceable. Do you know what life is like for those in South Bastia? The forgotten people?”

Vim did know. Yet it was so seldom thought about it was barely something he ever reflected upon. It was part of how things had been for the better part of a century, and it was just kind of…the status quo.

Often, when someone said they were “going to South Bastia,” what they actually meant was that they were going to Shores of Wrath, a very wealthy, very happy northern region on the coast run by the People of Virtue. Though it was located in South Bastia, Shores of Wrath was, in essence, a direct extension of North Bastia. It was connected exclusively to North Bastian politics. The people of that region did not even consider themselves as belonging to South Bastia. In every way that mattered: culturally, economically, and politically, Shores of Wrath was wholly North Bastian. And this mattered, because the rest of South Bastia—each and every region—was as disconnected from humanity as it got.

South Bastia was a hellscape. It was a place worse than death. The guilds that controlled each region were little better than warlords and thugs. Murder and rape were ubiquitous, and the people were ungovernable. For all the fault that North Bastians could find in the political guilds, if nothing else, they maintained a mostly civilized world of mostly civilized people. Yet the average North Bastian would not survive an hour in many of the South Bastian regions. It was anarchic, lawless, and each day was filled with suffering and death.

As a matter of official record, the UCH—United Council of Humanity—was the official governing body of the semi-autonomous regions of all of North and South Bastia. Yet that was purely technical. In reality, the South Bastian guild leaders had absolutely no seat at the table, nor would they even be welcome to step foot in North Bastia. If any of them even tried, they would be arrested or killed immediately to protect innocent lives, for these were some of the most bloodthirsty, ruthless savages from the pits of hell.

The average leveled South Bastian was about fifteen times more sadistic than even someone like Varsh. For each and every character flaw to be found among the members of any North Bastian guild, it could never be said that North Bastian rulers spent their days smuggling drugs, trafficking human sex slaves, kidnapping, and beheading villagers who did not pay what they deemed sufficient tribute. They behaved in a way that was indistinguishable from organized gangs, and they were not welcome here.

“You do understand, don’t you?” Alistair asked him.

“What I understand is that you’ve committed atrocities on a never-before seen scale for a purpose that you cannot achieve. Do you think you can save South Bastia if your guild took over humanity?” Vim laughed derisively. “Nothing can save South Bastia. Not even the Gods. But even if it could be saved, you would never be the one to do it.”

Rather than reply directly to his words, Alistair asked him a question. “What percentage of humanity lives in South Bastia? Not including the Shores of Wrath, of course, as we both know that cannot be reasonably called South Bastian. Please, tell me.”

With a sigh, Vim decided to humor him. “Sixty percent, give or take.”

“Correct. That means that North Bastia and Shores of Wrath combine to make up just forty percent of the human population. Yet while we eat and drink and complain, right now, in this very moment, children are starving to death in South Bastia. Human beings. Those the Guild of Gentlemen once swore to protect at all cost. Peter V, like his father, left them ignored. You have left them ignored. But I was born there. I was among the last of those to integrate into North-Bastian society, and that was due only to my father buying my mother from a slaver and freeing her.”

If Vim could shrug, he would have. “None of this matters, Sir Morrison. If you truly gave a shit about the people of South Bastia, you wouldn’t be fighting a war to conquer humanity. If anything, you’d be fighting a war to make that new kid the king.”

“New kid?”

Vim nodded. “Sir Alex Oren. Now, he, on the other hand…I think he might actually care enough. And if there existed any way of bringing order back to that hellhole, he would be the one to do it—and I bet he’d find a way that did not include slaughtering a million innocent people. But you? No. You’re just scum. And I say that as someone who’s also scum just not to the same extent as you. At least I’ve some decency in me. You’re a pathetic shell of a man fighting a pointless battle. You can’t save South Bastia or anywhere else. So no, I will not sign your statement. Kill me, beat me, I don’t care. Either way, you can go fuck yourself.” He chuckled. “I say that respectfully, of course.”

Sir Morrison stood back up and turned around. “You’re a vile little man, and I look forward to seeing your head removed from your shoulders.” With that, he opened then slammed the metal door shut, and now, Vim was left to once more close his eyes and dream of his past mistakes.

Chapter 132: A Commitment

Chapter 132: A Commitment

As far as Zach could tell, it all began when Fluffles heard Jimmy singing in the shower. Having come home covered in sweat, some blood, and considerable grime, he, Kal, Jimmy, and Tena had all wanted to clean up before heading through the sliding-glass doors and into the spacious backyard for some swimming and barbeque. Zach and Kal had showered together in the bathroom closest to the master bedroom, and given there were two others in the house that had showers, they’d offered the other two to Tena and Jimmy, who had decided, both blushing, to also shower together, which Kalana had thought was adorable.

Now, just shy of an hour later, Fluffles would not shut up. For the moment, everyone was indoors as one of Kalana’s island’s intense, but brief storms was passing through, causing the sound of thunder and heavy rain to occupy the world. Yet those noises did not stand a chance in competing with the cat, who had somehow taken such a liking to one of Jimmy’s Earth songs that he simply would not stop.

“Fluffles don’t want no scrub! A scrub is a human who can’t give no pets to Fluffles.” He jumped up onto the kitchen counter and began running across, allowing Jascaila, who was seasoning the burgers, to pet him under the chin, and then he ran back in the opposite direction. “Hanging on the passenger side of his—”

“Enough!” Zach snapped. “Fluffles, seriously. No more singing.”

Fluffles paused mid-motion, his front paw extended as though to take another step forward. His amber-colored eyes stared directly into Zach’s, and for a few seconds, he said nothing at all. The two of them simply looked at each other. Fluffles came across as blank and expressionless.

“Of his best friend’s ride,” the cat continued, resuming right where he left off. He jumped down off the counter, darted into the living room, and hopped up onto the couch Ruby was lying on. “Trying to holler at Fluffles.”

The cat was apparently singing some weird variation of a real song that Jimmy knew, and he’d been doing it on what was basically repeat. Honestly, the cat was behaving more like a Gods-cursed parrot. It was making Zach more and more irritated. His anger was starting to rear its head. But was it really over a song? He wasn’t sure. He looked over to Jascaila. He was glad she’d stayed as long as she had. She was only supposed to be here a week, but Zach still badly needed her, and she claimed she’d remain as long as she felt it was necessary and Zach was willing to work with her.

Right now, she was organizing things they were going to take outside with them when the storm passed in a few minutes. “Do you two want me to defrost the hotdogs?” she asked Rian and Seiley, who were sitting together in the living room and watching the news on the holo-tab.

They looked at one another and both nodded. “What about you, Lienne?” she asked.

“I’m fine with whatever we’re already having,” she replied.

Lienne was helping in the kitchen with Jascaila. Trelvor, on the other hand, was at his absolute most insufferable. Ever since Fylwen had walked through the door, he had gone from an uptight, but affable new friend to like some kind of cadet in the presence of his drill sergeant.

“Would Her Majesty please allow one such as myself to serve Her Greatness a refreshment?” he asked, kneeling before his “queen.”

“That would be most appreciated, thank you,” she said.

“Yes, my queen!”

With that, he stormed his way into the kitchen, and everyone stayed out of his way as he prepared to brew her some kind of coffee mixture that he was actually pretty good at making. Honestly, if he wasn’t an Elvish warrior, he could have been a bartender or even a chef. He cooked breakfast for them a few days ago, and the Gods strike Zach down if he was lying—but it was like tasting paradise. Yet seeing him like this…it was annoying Zach. Just like Fluffles and his singing. Just like the way Lienne was making this constant tapping sound with her finger on the table. Everything was annoying him.

Jascaila seemed to pick up on this, because she winked at him. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her raspy voice oddly soothing.

“I’m pissed off and I don’t know why,” he said, walking over to her. “Everything’s making me mad. Doesn’t matter what it is.”

She gave him a playful nudge. “Should I get my battle-axe?”

“Can you? It’s still raining, though.”

“I’m okay with that, kiddo.”

He hesitated a moment then looked at Kalana, who had just finished drying her hair and had only first entered the kitchen. “Kal, I’m going to do a quick session with Jascaila, okay?”

She nodded and smiled. “Okay, baby.”

With that, Zach placed his hand over the hilt of his blade, which rested in the scabbard on his back, and he stepped out with Jascaila into the rain.

*****

In the same moment that a bolt of lightning lit up the fully overcast skies, Jascaila slammed her battle-axe down onto the top of a hill just a half a mile away from Kalana’s massive home. They’d had to travel a bit farther out than usual since another three large homes had gone up as more and more Elves were having property built here; Fylwen was paying for each and every “vacation home,” though unlike the circumstances around Kalana’s house, the Elves themselves were now doing all the building, aided in part by the white-cloaks, so the only expense was in materials.

“You almost got me with that one,” Zach said to her, laughing. He made a sudden motion forward, and then he swung his blade across, nearly succeeding at scoring a hit on Jascaila, but she was able to face her axe downward near her chest and guard against it. Although they were both attacking at full speed, and with more than enough power to kill an ordinary, level-1 person, they were not attacking with enough strength to even scratch, let alone wound one another.

Jascaila raised her axe, which she gripped in both hands, and she lifted it above her shoulders. But then she paused, took on a thoughtful demeanor, and lowered it. “So, what did you do then?” she asked him.

Zach also lowered his sword, and he explained to her how he’d kept his cool and succeeded in making sure he didn’t kill this “Zylor” guy that had attacked him. For the past few minutes, he’d been telling her as much as he could about the attack in Shores of Wrath using a method that she herself had come up with. During their first few sessions, Zach had found himself getting restless and agitated whenever they talked about anything serious, and that was when Jascaila came up with the idea to spar and talk at the same time. Not only had it worked, but it was kind of a breakthrough for Zach.

For some reason, he found it easier to think and reflect when he was outside and sparring with her. Of course, unlike a true sparring match, there were frequent breaks and pauses in the action, sometimes for many minutes at a time, such as now, as he recounted events to her.

“And do you think this is why you feel so frustrated?” she asked him once he’d finished retelling events.

Zach looked away and tried to focus his mind. He reflected on everything that had happened both during the scuffle and immediately afterwards. “Yeah,” he whispered. “It is.”

“And why is that?”

He sighed. “Because I did everything right. I spared his life. We made it through without anybody dying. I should feel…better now. After those two assassins vanished, I thought to myself that maybe things would be okay now, but then, on the way home, that guy I told you about, Jimmy, he started talking to Tena about the war going on, and it made me flash back to when I killed all those people, and I started feeling it all again.”

He was limited in what he could say regarding the nature of the two men, but he was sure Jascaila understood. In order for her to fully grasp his situation, he’d naturally needed to confide with her in Angelica’s, and so, a little more than a week ago, he’d told her everything that had been going on—about Adamus, the world, and the dangers they faced. She’d taken the news a whole lot better than her brother and Mr. Oren had, though she did seem a tiny bit shaken up. Still, she’d gotten over it fairly quickly and seemed very grateful to have been informed.

“So that’s the source of your anger,” she said. “You’re angry at yourself. At least, that’s what I’m hearing.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Because…you think you should be ‘healed’ now?” He nodded again, and she made a playful, yet scolding gesture, shaking her head at him. “You keep trying to apply quick fixes to what is a process, Zach. You need to understand that there’s no one moment or one event that’s going to revert you to how you were before. The goal isn’t to erase your trauma, but to learn to live with it and even become a stronger person in spite of it.”

“I know that,” he said weakly. “I just don’t like how I keep getting jitters. They’ve gotten better, but they’re still there.”

“It takes time.”

He exhaled. Then he clashed his sword against her axe, ducked beneath a wide swing, and saw an opportunity to step forward and cut her across the stomach—though of course, it did not even scratch her equipment, nor did it injure her. With that, he lowered his sword down to his side and said, “I just feel like I did all this to myself. Like maybe if I’d have been smarter, I wouldn’t have let all these things happen to me.”

“There’s no point thinking that way,” Jascaila said. “Wondering about what might have been is counterproductive, and from everything you’ve told me, I still stand firm that none of this was your own fault. Let’s back up a bit, though. To something we were talking about yesterday.”

He swallowed uneasily. “My dad?”

“Right. You told me you blame yourself for his death, and I feel like we didn’t really get any resolution to that conversation.”

Talking about this was still challenging for Zach, but he knew it’d be better in the long run if he did. “Kal and I were out grinding the mobs in Whispery Woods. Neither of us were there when it happened. If I was, maybe I could’ve made Varsh focus on me instead. I don’t know. I know it’s not my fault. But it feels like it is.”

Zach did not bother hiding the tears that filled his eyes as he once again recounted the horror of the fact that his father’s body had been left there on the street to rot, and that if not for Mr. Oren, no one would’ve ever bothered to pick up his remains and bury them.

After a moment, she asked him, “Have you considered, Zach, that you blame yourself because you feel more in control?”

“What do you mean?”

She stuck her axe face down into the grass then rested her palms on it as she continued to speak. “Well, is it possible you feel that by blaming yourself, it gives purpose to his death? Maybe you are caught up on the randomness and meaningless of what was done to him that you find it easier to blame yourself than to accept he was murdered simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Zach felt a pinching sensation travel from his throat down to his chest. Jascaila had a way of hitting so close to home. He had no idea how she did that or how she knew what she knew—but she was right.

“I think so,” he said, surprised by how right she was. “I can’t accept that his death…that it was for nothing. I know how weird this is to say, but I feel like I’d almost be more okay with it if at least him and Varsh had been enemies or if he was connected to something somehow. Because at least then it would have been for a reason. It makes me…it’s hard for me to accept that he died because of a whim.”

Jascaila nodded her head along with his words. “That’s understandable. But here’s the thing, Zach. It’s leading you into a very unstable place. You need to accept that your father’s death was not your fault. The more we tell ourselves lies, the harder we have to work to keep justifying them to ourselves. This creates a toxic dissonance. You’re using guilt as a bandage and that can create a very harmful cycle of blame and self-accusation. Sometimes, the most difficult but healthiest thing we can do is accept that some events—even horrible ones—happen that are completely outside of our control.”

He knew she was right. There was no denying what she said. At least not on a logical level. Even still, accepting it was easier said than done. The question over how things might have happened—as opposed to the way they did—was one that haunted him. Zach, considering her words, sheathed his blade and stood there silently in reflection. At the same time, the thunder stopped, and the rain slowed to a drizzle.

“You know,” he said, breaking the period of quiet contemplation. “What’s so crazy is that I don’t even hate the Royal Roses. I met Vim Alazar, and I actually liked the little man if you can believe it. I was really surprised by that. I expected to hate his guts, but deep down, I know he had nothing to do with it. Varsh did what he did on his own. And that’s actually the other thing that’s bothering me.”

“The execution?”

“Yeah. It’s bothering me really badly. I didn’t think it would. I mean, I barely know Vim, but I did fight by his side, and in the few days I was around him, we developed some kind of uh…a kind of weird back-and-forth jousting type of thing. He grew on me and I started to like him even though he’s a bigger asshole than I am.”

Jascaila made an amused hum. “My brother told me the same thing.”

“He did?”

She nodded. “He said he hates every one of the ‘political guild fuckers,’ but that if he had to ‘have a beer with one of them’ it would be Vim.”

Zach met her eyes, and he felt a chill go down his spine as he asked, “Do you think I should try to rescue him?”

“I can’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t do,” she replied. “Do you feel you’re ready to handle what that might entail?”

“No,” Zach said honestly. “I’d have to kill people. I don’t want to do that.”

“Then there you go.”

“But,” he continued. “I don’t want to live with the knowledge of knowing I could’ve done something but didn’t. And it’s not because Vim means all that much to me, either. Like I said, I’m not close enough with him to feel motivated to save his life. It’s more…”

“Go on,” she said after he let his words trail off.

Zach held off a moment while he tried to order his thoughts. Jascaila waited patiently for him to do so. After about twenty seconds, he opened his mouth to resume speaking, hoping that his words would make sense to her.

“Here’s the thing,” he began. “I hated the political guilds so much, and I probably always will, but I’m starting to realize that even those idiots who run them are better at what they do than anyone else I can think of would be. I mean…well, no offense, but imagine for a second if Donovan was in charge.”

Jascaila laughed so hard that she cackled. “Oh, that’d be bad all right.”

“Someone’s always going to be in charge,” Zach continued. “But the more I see of the world and stuff, the more I realize that there are different levels of ‘bad.’ I’ve seen what real evil looks like now. It’s not people like Vim, or Queen Vayra, or even the other selfish guild leaders. They’re all corrupt, but they’re not completely corrupt, you know?”

“I do know,” Jascaila said. “I understand what you’re saying completely. You’re noticing that it’s not so black and white, is it?”

“No,” Zach said, nodding. “It’s not. They’re not the best people, but I mean…they’re better than the Guild of Gentlemen. And even the Guild of Gentlemen is probably better than having nothing at all. Anyways, I just worry about what will happen to the world if Vim has his head chopped off. I saw how hateful people are getting now over this. Like that guy in Shores of Wrath who was cheering for me to kill all of them and their families. I feel like if Vim is executed, people are going to lose their minds and society might break down.”

For some reason, Jascaila shuddered. “That’s…true,” she said. As if noticing his confusion, she began to explain. “I’ve visited South Bastia a few times. So I know what that might look like.”

“We’re there right now,” Zach said with a laugh, gesturing at the world around him.

Jascaila shook her head. “No, I mean the real South Bastia. South of Shores of Wrath.”

“Oh,” Zach said. “The poor areas.”

“That’s an insensitive but fair way of putting it. How much do you know about the other regions of South Bastia?”

“Not much,” Zach said. “I just know they’re crime-ridden, dangerous, and they’re run by corrupt warlords. Like Whispery Woods.”

“No,” she said firmly. “Nothing like Whispery Woods. The reality is so much worse than you can imagine, Zach. Every bad thing you’ve ever seen: that’s daily life for people who live there. What I’ve seen there confirms to me that even a poorly run government is better than having none at all. Imagine for a second a world where everyone higher than level 1 decided they could do, take, and rape whoever they wanted. If there were no consequences for that behavior.”

Zach thought over her words, and he found he agreed. Due to his own personal experiences, he had no trouble imagining what such a hypothetical society would be like. “It’d be like encountering a Varsh every single day.”

“Exactly,” Jascaila said. “That’s exactly what it would be like. And that’s how South Bastia is. Our guild leaders might use titles like ‘sir’ and act like pompous asses, but I’d take that a hundred times over if the alternative is men who behave like animals and torture and kill at a whim.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“It’s worse. Whatever image you can draw in your mind, the reality is even worse.”

Zach could think some pretty terrible things, so the idea of how bad life must be like for most people in South Bastia sent shivers down his back. The idea of North Bastia becoming that way seemed unthinkable, but if society broke down as a result of the Guild of Gentlemen, could it not happen there, too?

“If I go to Shadowfall Coast and save Vim,” he began, struggling to keep his words audible as he felt a great sense of unease budding up from within. “Will you help me pick up the pieces?”

“Of course,” Jascaila said, a certainty in her voice. More softly she added, “But you shouldn’t go if you’re not ready.”

“Tomorrow, when I speak with my…my friend, I’m going to learn more about the situation over there. But if I do go, it might have to be really soon. Tomorrow night, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Hey, Zach?”

“Yeah?”

Jascaila’s expression hardened. “If you do decide to go, I’ll come with you.”

Taken aback, Zach felt as if her words had actually shoved him. “Wait, what?”

“I’ll come with you.”

“But why?”

“To support you.”

“And why? Why would you even care about me that much?”

“Because I know how capable you are. You were born very gifted, Zach. If I can do one thing right in my life, it’ll be making sure you don’t let the burden of it drag you under.”

Zach bowed his head, filling with a sense of utter gratitude. “If I decide to go, it’ll be dangerous. I’m already thinking of how I can get it done. I have some ideas. I know where they’re keeping him, too.”

“How do you know?”

“My ‘friend’ told me last week.”

He did not elaborate further than that, and she thankfully did not ask him to, which told Zach she understood he was referring to Eilea.

“Wouldn’t it be well defended?” she asked. “Meaning, wherever they are holding him.”

Zach felt his nerves rising but also his determination. “Very,” he said. “But if I could somehow convince your brother, my vampire friends, and a few other really powerful adventurers to come along with me, we would be able to smash our way in as long as we showed up unexpected and were quick about it.”

“Do you really want to do this?”

Becoming more certain by the second, Zach turned himself half around so that he faced the direction of Kalana’s home. The storm had passed and the sun was coming out again. “I do.”

“Then I will go with you, and whatever happens, we’ll work through it together.”

*****

Alex closed his eyes and released a slow breath. He felt as though a sickness was escaping through his lips: he was overtaken by a sense of relief so great he could hardly describe it. “You’re serious, Zach?”

“Tomorrow, when we meet, we’ll figure out a plan. But I want to get it over with.”

“You’re doing the right thing, my man. I’ve never been more proud. Tomorrow, we’ll make a plan together, and we will succeed. You have my word. At any rate, I have to go. I’m meeting with Sir Besh in a few minutes to discuss the conditions of our surrender.”

“The Lords of Justice is surrendering?”

“If things don’t change, yes. But don’t give up heart just yet. If our friend gives us the information we need, we can still stop this dystopian nightmare from becoming a reality. It’s not too late, Zach. It’s never too late.”

“Okay, then. I’ll talk to you soon.”

The call ended, and Alex sat back in his chair. He did not know what could possibly have inspired the kid to finally open his eyes, but he was glad that he did. This was the most precarious situation North Bastia had faced in a very, very long time. Driven by the threat of nuclear annihilation, the guilds were either finalizing the terms of their surrender or agreeing to surrender. It could be a matter of days, not weeks, before the Guild of Gentlemen—before Sir Morrison—was the undisputed king of humanity as the Brayspark family had once been.

There was no telling how many people would suffer if that ever came to pass. They needed to fight back, and rescuing Vim Alazar was a great place to start. Alex did not give up his life as an adventurer to bow before a tyrant. Not now. Not ever.

Chapter 133: Breakthrough

Chapter 133: Breakthrough

Prila kept her expression neutral as she sat with her hands folded on the table in the sequestered-off conference room beneath Shadowfall Coast and listened to the other project engineers and scientists discuss their progress on the development of “the weapon.” The mood was jovial. Smiling faces all around, there seemed to be nothing but pure joy over the “success” of its first usage, in which the death toll continued to increase each day, having broken the nine-hundred thousand mark only a bit earlier that morning. Her back straight, she forced an approving grin onto her lips, and she made sure that she nodded along with the rest of the men and women.

Over the past two weeks, a great deal of renovation had been done down here. No longer did it look like an old, dusty, and crumbling crypt in the way it had when she’d first shown up; now, it had been modernized. The rocky walls and dirt ground had been built around to create a sleek, polished white tiling that reminded Prila of a high-tech laboratory—which was exactly what this was. There was now working air conditioning down here, lights, entertainment rooms, comfortable beds: essentially, they’d converted the place into a proper, modern facility in its own right.

The downside, of course, was that while they were allowed to have incoming communications such as the news and other one-way broadcasts for the purposes of recreation and entertainment, they could not send anything out, and they were not permitted to leave. Until the full completion of the project, they would be forced to stay right where they were, and then even afterwards, they would be forbidden from leaving Shadowfall Coast or Tomb of Fire—their choice—for a period of two years, during which time all their phones and internet usage would be monitored.

And everyone here had agreed to those terms, including Prila—because she had her own method of communication.

“This is troubling,” Adamus’s voice whispered in her mind. “I did not expect the humans to proceed at quite this pace.”

“This could be over in the blink of an eye if you truly cared so much. It should be you down there dealing with this, Adamus. Not Prila!”

“Must we stoke this argument again, my beloved?”

Originally, Prila had been pursuing a different objective: dealing with the impending spawn-point crisis due to Adamus’s Project Rejuvenation. Yet when the bomb fell, she knew that her time was better spent here. Given her advanced technical expertise and expertly self-faked credentials, it was no surprise she’d glided through the interview process and had been placed on the main team. Her plan had been to learn all she could, find a way to escape, and then report back to Angelica. To her surprise, however, that had been completely unnecessary, as she’d found herself being supported by not one, but two “Gods,” both of whom had a tendency to bicker in her head as she tried to relay information to them on a near constant basis.

She had learned that each of them could feel the emotion of the mind they were in communication with. For this reason, she knew they were picking up on her dread as she listened to the engineers and scientists congratulate one another.

“And we’re positive this is the correct isotope?” asked a tall, lanky man in a lab coat with a thin brown mustache.

“We sure are,” replied the woman seated across from him. “Boys and girls, we did it: we synthesized Uranium-235.”

“Where do you think the original sample came from?” someone else asked.

She shrugged. “No idea.” She chuckled and looked at Prila. “I like your idea, though.”

Prila fought to keep her unease from showing in her eyes as she returned the laugh. “The remains of another planet is most likely,” she said. “Perhaps a meteor or an asteroid crashed into Galterra long ago, and it was recently found by another project team we’re unaware of. They must have built the weapon in secret but died from the radiation, and now we’re here, with better equipment, to safely continue it.”

“That is quite plausible,” said a man with a deep voice and large, broad shoulders who served as the head engineer.

They seemed to like her theory. To be fair, it contained at least some small element of truth. Naturally, she did not tell them the whole truth: that the weapon was made thousands of years ago on Galterra by a team of scientists working for one of the earliest guild leaders of the Guild of Gentlemen: a man named Moldark, who had smuggled the samples in from Earth, a planet none of them were even aware existed.

I didn't think they could make this breakthrough so quickly, she said to the two Great Ones. We have less than a week now that they can synthesize U-235 all on their own.

And it was here that the debate between Great Ones continued to rage, with both sides occupying the opposite role from the one she’d typically expect from the two.

“You must sabotage the project and kill as many of the scientists as possible,” Eilea said. “You have no choice.”

“You must not,” Adamus interjected forcefully. “Prila, you must remain safe at all cost.”

A disgusted, mentally projected laugh that was filled with loathing rang out in her brain. “So, because you have feelings for this human, you now behave in a way that is so uncharacteristic, Adamus? It is funny how you do not extend that appreciation of life to any of those you habitually watch die. It’s not often I call for a sacrifice. I do so only as a last resort. Of course, the one time I do, you’ve chosen to betray all of your cold, twisted, beliefs! Even I did not see this coming. It's astounding how you always find a new way of enraging me.”

“I…I will not deny it,” Adamus said, his voice coming across at a whisper even in Prila’s mind. “Yet I ask that you spare this woman.”

“Then go down yourself and smite the entire facility! You act as though there are no other options. We have all the information we need, yet you continue to put Prila in the position she’s in.”

Prila tried to drown out their bickering, which continued even as she was forced to make polite conversation with the others in the room with her. In truth, she was prepared to do whatever was necessary to protect the world from this awful weapon of death. And after all, this current argument was nothing new. It had been raging on for two weeks.

Eilea wanted Adamus to appear here in person, obliterate the lab, and kill the engineers and scientists working to create more of the nuclear weapon. Adamus refused each time, claiming that the moment a “God” chose to personally “smite” someone or something, it irrevocably would change the behavior of all living, sentient beings to the extent that societies might collapse, entirely new religions would pop up overnight, and there would be far-reaching consequences that could lead to even greater acts of death and murder over the long term. Prila had to reluctantly agree with him on that point, though Eilea remained unconvinced. Nevertheless, she’d fallen back on a separate plan: she wanted Prila to sabotage the project knowing full well that Prila would be captured, tortured, and likely executed as a result of this.

And Prila was willing to do it despite this. Not merely for altruistic reasons, but because she so despised life here on Galterra’s surface that she no longer cared much if she lived or died. In just her short time here, she had witnessed the worst of humanity. People were not like this at the OMP. They simply weren’t. This was a hard, cruel world filled with crueler, harder people.

Yet Adamus, in what came as a shock to both herself and Eilea, refused that plan of action. Even more surprising, when Eilea’s mind would retreat, likely turning to other matters, Adamus’s would linger, and though he often said little, Prila could feel in her heart that he was beginning to miss having her at the OMP as much as she missed being there. And that had created such an intense conflict within herself, because though she had betrayed the man, she missed seeing him each day. Before departing the OMP, there had been days where he and Prila would speak for ten or more hours on many different subjects. Her heart yearned to see him again—even though she disagreed with so many of his core beliefs.

For now, however, she was forced to continue this charade, doing as little as she could to further Sir Morrison's plans while still being useful enough not to question, dismiss, or worse. Part of her wanted to go ahead and commit an act of sabotage just to spare Zach the pain of what might happen if he was forced to come over here and do this himself. He’d been through enough—a point that Eilea did not fail to remind Adamus, and which Adamus now used as ammunition against Eilea.

“You are not different from me in this,” he said. “You care so deeply about the boy that you would ask Prila to face indescribable pain to spare him any further discomfort. You are so swayed by your emotions that there are days where you’ve even begun to reconsider your plan to have the boy conquer North Bastia. A plan that I disagree with, mind you, but nevertheless can appreciate from a tactical standpoint. Yet I can feel within you the uncertainty; as always, your emotions constrain your ability to pursue even your most sincerely held values.”

“The difference is I am consistent in my love for people and the world, you rotten bastard! I don’t make ironclad rules only to break them!”

Prila could feel Eilea’s mind abruptly vanish. This happened from time to time as well. She took it as the mental equivalent of storming off in a huff. Truthfully, Prila did not care much for Eilea. She did not understand why someone so wise, level-headed, and intellectual such as Adamus had ever fallen in love with such an overly emotional, hotheaded woman. This wasn’t to suggest that Prila herself was perfectly dispassionate. She too could find herself acting out irrationally due to her own feelings—as could anyone capable of emotion. But in Prila's case, it was a rarity, whereas Eilea seemed to habitually find herself in conflict due to her impulses.

Given that Adamus was capable of listening in on their conversations, Eilea chose to speak very little about the boy, and so too did Prila. Prila also had the sense that Eilea was keeping secrets from Adamus, but she also had a suspicion that Adamus knew exactly what those secrets happened to be—and simply could not prove them and was thus unable to act on them. Chief among them, Adamus probably knew for certain that Angelica was violating the rules of the System and both aiding and dispensing information to people she should not have. Yet because of that privacy room, Adamus could not absolutely prove this. Interestingly, Adamus knew that Prila had gone to Angelica’s and had been in one of their “meetings,” but he never raised this topic with her almost as though he knew that trying to question her about her time there would only create friction between them.

Now, with Eilea having left to do whatever it was she did in secret, Prila found herself more at ease. She actually preferred it when Eilea was not around. And it wasn't that she hated Eilea; she simply disliked the woman's eccentric personality.

Having now become acquainted with the woman who was organizing the resistance against Adamus, Prila was honestly unimpressed. Adamus was too good for her, and Prila could not control the disgust she felt over the way Eilea would routinely disrespect, talk down to, or mistreat Adamus.

Grateful for the mental privacy, Prila decided to express something that was growing within her. It was not something that would come as a surprise to Adamus, but it was something she had nevertheless deliberately avoided communicating. Yet she felt compelled. It was an intrinsic sense deep in her being, and so she exhaled slowly and, while keeping her face clear of the emotional turmoil she felt within, she decided to give voice to the one desire she held above all.

I want to come home, Prila admitted, suppressing a sigh even as she continued to smile and make small talk. One of the engineers had baked a cake, and there was laughter and cheer all around as a scientist brewed a pot of coffee.

“I know you do, child.”

I only ever did what I thought was right.

“I know that.”

Please let me come home after this. Please, Adamus. I will not betray you again. I swear it.

She felt the ache in his heart, and he felt the ache in Prila’s. She could tell, because with Eilea gone, he connected with her more deeply, and she could not hide from him the way she truly felt. “I shall consider it.”

I…I miss you.

“I miss you as well.”

I want to go home. I’ve done what I felt I had to do. I don’t want to be here anymore. Let me come home. I won’t survive down here. Please, Adamus.

He did not reply, but Prila, who could feel Adamus as though he stood there behind her chair with his arms around her shoulders, no longer needed to fake her smile. Because in that moment, she knew he would not leave her there to rot.

Chapter 134: Bittersweet

Chapter 134: Bittersweet

Every day, there was death. From morning to sunset, and then all throughout the night—death, death, and more death. As Kesten handed in a transfer form to the woman at the front desk, which called for another eight victims to be taken away to the morgue and processed, he held himself back from swearing aloud and upsetting the apprehensive families waiting in the various lobbies for news of their loved ones. All turned their eyes on him as he waded gently by and headed back into the thick of things. With a sigh, he wiped a light coating of sweat away from his forehead; the perspiration was due to nothing more than pure stress and frustration, as Hope’s Rest—one of the hospitals here in Giant’s Fall’s primary city—was kept quite cool if not borderline chilly.

“My…father?” a young woman in her late teens asked as he moved past her. She stood just outside the wide, roped-off entryway to the staff-only elevator. “Is he…?”

“I’m sorry,” Kesten whispered to her, recalling that he’d promised her three or maybe even four hours ago that he’d check in on her dad. She must have been standing right here waiting for him this whole time. He was so busy he’d nearly forgotten her. But worst of all, for all her patient waiting, Kesten could only give her terrible news. “I’m afraid he didn’t make it.”

She nodded. “And my mother?”

He tightened his grip on a clipboard he carried partially under his right arm. “She’s still alive, but her prognosis isn’t good. I don’t believe she’ll survive the night.”

“Can I see her?”

Sadly, he shook his head. “They’re not letting anyone visit the patients since we’re still not entirely sure if it’s safe for the irradiated victims to come within close proximity of others, and we just can’t spare the protective equipment right now. I realize how awful this sounds. I wish to the Gods I could do more for you or have better news, but this is just how…this is all I have for you. I’m so sorry.”

The girl again nodded her head, and Kesten was awed by her strength. Though her eyes were moist, she tightly gripped her younger brother who stood next to her and kept a strong, brave face. “I’m going to take my brother home now. Thank you for trying your best, doctor.”

“I wish I could’ve done more,” he said. “Those aren’t idle words. Gods, I mean them.”

“I understand.” With that, she turned around and left. Kesten had no idea how she had the strength to keep from breaking down. She wasn’t even going to be able to say goodbye to her mother. As though resigned to her fate, she simply turned around and made her way out of the hospital. For several seconds, Kesten stood transfixed and watched as she guided her little brother away until both pulled out of his line of sight; then he returned his thoughts towards tending to his patients, many of whom would not last much longer.

This is really taking its toll on me, he thought to himself. I can’t endure much more of it.

Everyone was all so overworked, and morale was as low as Kesten had ever seen it. Every hour, dozens more would die; the eight Kesten reported pertained only to those he had been tasked with looking after; there would likely be many more. And that was only in this hospital. Despite two weeks having passed since the bomb had been dropped on Ogre’s Axe, the death toll continued to rise by thousands each day. It was getting to the point where they were running out of space to put all the dead bodies.

When will it slow down or level off? he wondered. At this rate, the death toll is going to hit the one-million mark by this time next week.

Kesten thumbed the elevator call button and waited for it to arrive. When it did, he stepped inside and pondered where he should head next. As far as Hope’s Rest was concerned, floors 12, 13, and 14 of the hospital had been dedicated solely to the treatment of bomb patients. For the purpose of keeping things organized, the victims of Ogre’s Axe had been separated into three different categories, which determined where they were placed.

On the 12th floor were those who were not expected to live beyond another few days; it was never a happy moment when someone had to be moved down there, but the way things were heading, it wouldn’t surprise Kesten if more than ninety percent of the patients ultimately spent their last days on Galterra suffering in a bed on the twelfth floor—and things weren’t that much better for those residing one floor up, either.

On the 13th floor were victims who were in critical but stable condition—yet with a negative overall long-term outlook. The patients on the 13th floor were those likely to live at least a week to a month, but they were suffering from wounds, radiation poisoning, or a combination of both severe enough so that they were not expected to hold together for a whole lot longer than that. Early on, a wide variety of medical issues were dealt with on the 13th floor, but at this point, it was now almost exclusively down to radiation, as most people with serious blast wounds had already perished.

Finally, there was the 14th floor. This was where the patients with the most “optimistic” outlooks were being held, but even in this case, their long-term prognosis was only between one and three months. Anyone expected to live longer than that had either been transferred to a different hospital or, if they were far enough outside the blast radius, they had been discharged completely. And yet, even many of those people were unlikely to make it beyond one-to-five years due to various, incurable cancers.

If the Gods really do exist, they’ll never forgive the bastards responsible for this.

Desperate for at least a hint of something resembling hope, Kesten pressed the small, metallic round button labeled “14” and ascended up from the lobby. As the elevator climbed, his thoughts turned to the danger this weapon posed even to people like him. It caused his shoulders to tremble somewhat as he reflected on all that he’d seen since volunteering his services to this hospital. By far, what haunted him most of all was the fact that not even adventurers were safe from the effects of the nuclear bomb.

It even kills people like us…

At the time of the blast, it was believed that there were fourteen people higher than level one present in Ogre’s Axe. If there were more, then they had not yet been identified. And of these fourteen, of which four were adventurers and ten were political guild members, thirteen in total were now dead, including a fifteen-year-old girl who was only level 4 and just starting out as an adventurer. She was believed to be studying in the grand library, hopeful to find her first dungeon, when the bomb fell. She most likely died instantly—as did anyone who had less than somewhere between 40 to 50 points into constitution depending on proximity to the center of the blast.

In this case, six of the fourteen had died either immediately or within a few minutes of the nuclear bomb exploding over the city, leaving eight horrifically, lethally wounded—and badly disfigured—adventurers and political guild members writhing in pain in the city’s ruins. Of these eight, one died before they could be taken to the hospital, and the other seven had barely been clinging to life when they got here.

Yet, even despite this, there had been hope: for those first few days, at least, there had been hope. Because upon their rescue, both the political guilds and the adventuring guilds rushed forward, volunteering as many rejuvenation stones as was needed. And in the beginning, it did indeed seem like these seven souls would make it through this ordeal no worse for wear. In fact, less than two hours after the blast, these disfigured, mangled, yet somehow still-living bodies that had somehow survived the blast were brought back to their full form thanks mostly to the red stones. And though they were all shaken up, all seven men and women walked out of the hospital that afternoon in a condition that Kesten would bet looked just as healthy as they did before they were hit with the bomb.

And then, things changed.

That night, one by one, all seven returned. And the sickness was visible in their faces—in their very eyes.

Flaky, peeling skin, and open, inexplicable wounds, along with tumors growing uncontrolled—all seven were bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose, and rectum. Their heart, liver, and kidney functions were in rapid decline. They had sores all over their bodies, and they each had trouble speaking due to a terrible cough. They were sweating, exhibiting signs of tachycardia, and worst of all: the stones were no longer having an effect. At least not outside of the purely superficial.

Incredibly, the red stones became the only stones that managed to at least give the illusion of healing. Upon administering the red stones to each of these seven, their bodies, at least from a glance, returned to form. Their skin healed, their wounds closed up, and their bleeding ceased. Yet within two-to-three hours, they reverted once again. This, ultimately, did little to prolong their lives, as the real issues they suffered from were internal in nature, and the yellow and purple stones failed to assist them on that front.

Two political guild members died the first night, an adventurer died the second night, and on the third night, all but one remained: a man by the name of Aerick Ondoranth, a level-57 adventurer and horse tamer, who was 5th in command of the adventuring guild Lost and Found—and who also happened to be a personal friend of Kesten’s as well.

By all accounts, Aerick, who was on death’s doorstep, should have followed the other six to their deaths. Yet as he was mere hours from leaving this world, his guild-leader, a woman by the name of Brea Nightfel, showed up with one of the most valuable and desired items in the world of adventuring: the prized, deeply treasured light stone.

She had insisted it be tried despite nothing else thus far having worked, as it had always been taught that there was no ill the light stone could not cure. And indeed, Kesten had personally witnessed for himself what a light stone could do—and how quickly, too. When Alex had been ripped apart by the Cursed Defender of Ziragoth adds, he’d used his own light stone, which he’d been saving for years, and he had been healed back to full health within a mere twenty seconds.

Thus, Kesten had crossed his fingers and watched on hopefully as the light stone was used on Aerick, and to his relief, he would soon discover that there was at least something in this world, however rare, that was capable of saving the lives of those condemned to death by the bomb’s sickness—well, sort of.

It was often said that no matter how dire the illness or wound, all it ever took was a single light stone to heal someone back to their full capacity. That, as it turned out, was now provably false. Although Aerick’s life was spared, and though he was no longer in any danger of death, he was not able to walk, his overall condition was very poor, and he was not recovering any further.

He was stuck in a weakened, diminished state. Kesten had experimented with using more of the rejuvenation stones on him, but like before, they had little impact aside from the red stone, which could make the man appear, at least cosmetically, as his former self for a few hours before his fresh, new skin would once more peel off his face while several of his quickly regrown teeth would loosen and fall right back out almost as soon as they grew in. He would also inevitably become blind in his left eye, and his limbs would fail him after just an hour or so.

Most likely, he would need another light stone to make more progress in his recovery. But getting him one would be no simple task. For as generous as the adventurers may have been when it came to the other rejuvenation stones, trying to get one to part with a light stone was easier said than done. Those stones were so coveted that many adventurers hesitated when needing to use one on themselves. There were cases of adventurers actually dying because they chose to try “toughing it out” rather than using their light stone, which would have saved their lives. And in some ways, Kesten could not blame them. To call the light stone “rare” just did not go far enough in describing how seldom they were to come across.

By most metrics, adventurers were lucky to even see a light stone during the course of their entire lives, let alone actually possess one. It was part of the reason why the Explorers Brigade was working so hard to complete the “puzzle” in Whispery Woods and unlock the event portal that led to the Ohorja raid—an event that Zach and Kalana had somehow unlocked on the girl’s island. This was because the quest that accompanied the raid would reward each participant a light stone, and Kesten was already planning on giving his to Aerick if he was able to get a spot on the raid.

He needs it badly, Kesten thought. I’ve got to come through for him.

Stepping out of the elevator, he arrived to find the man peacefully sleeping further into the radiation ward, though his breathing was labored and uneasy. At the moment, he looked weak, frail, and he was missing nearly all of his medium-length, thick locks of brown, straight hair. He had been a very handsome man, and now he looked grotesque and disfigured. Three quarters of his teeth were missing, and those that remained were the color of charcoal. His skin was covered in lesions and sores, and he smelled of death.

Fortunately, his vitals were stable, and Kesten genuinely did not believe his condition would become any worse. He would likely be bedridden until such a day came that someone presented him with a light stone. Yet even that might not be enough. With one light stone, he would likely return to a point where he could walk, partially resemble his old self, and maybe even swing a sword—though that would be pushing it. It would probably take two light stones for him to truly make a full recovery and be back to his old self again.

“I’m gonna get you those stones, bud,” Kesten said, nodding his head at the sleeping, pitiful figure who looked more like an unwrapped mummy than a living human being. “Please just hang in there. Beg, borrow, or steal, I’ll find a way to get you better again. Promise you, Aerick.”

Kesten patted him on the shoulder then turned around and headed back to the elevator to check on the patients one floor below. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to transfer another dozen from the 13th to the 12th. Yet, deep down, he knew he’d be lucky if that was all he had to contend with. Things were as bad as they could get.

Someone needed to make the Guild of Gentlemen pay. There was no justice in a world in which this went unpunished.

******

Zach yawned.

Putting aside the violence earlier in the day, the last two weeks had been good. Really good. And not even the knowledge that society was falling apart had been enough to ruin the vacation that Zach had taken. He had needed the time off from the world so badly, and in truth, he needed more of it. He needed several months at the very least. But that wasn’t going to happen for him, was it? This, he considered as he sank lower into the pool, closing his eyes and letting the warm sunshine cover his face as the water comforted him and added a feeling of weightlessness.

The smell of barbeque in the air helped lull him further into a sense of tranquility and wellbeing. He really loved it here. Soon, he was going to have to get his hands dirty, but for now, he tried to soak up every last second of peace to be found. All things considered, the second part of today had also turned out to be really good as well, though it was a bit mired by the unavoidable sadness that had sprouted up right around the time when he and Jascaila had reentered the home following their impromptu therapy session.

Upon walking in the door, the sound of a little boy wailing had greeted the two of them. Having become nervous, he’d hurried into the living room to see Kalana and Fylwen both gripping that child Fylwen had brought here, who she'd claimed was Peter V’s only offspring. Right away, Zach had known something was out of the ordinary; he knew what it normally sounded like for a child to cry, but this was different. There was real misery in the way the child was howling. This had been no mere temper tantrum.

“No!” he’d wailed. “No, daddy promised! He promised!”

Seiley had looked mortified, and she had been profusely apologizing to Fylwen for a reason Zach, at the time, did not understand. “I’m so, so sorry, my queen,” she’d said. “It was an accident.”

“It’s not your fault,” Queen Vayra had replied, kissing the top of the boy’s head as he continued to fill the house with the sound of his crying. “You couldn’t have known, and this was bound to happen eventually. The fault, truly, is mine.”

Zach would later learn that, while him and Jascaila had been outside, Seiley, who did not even know that the boy was the child of Peter V, would make a casual remark about something on the news involving the man’s death. This would be overheard by his child, who somehow had not yet been told of his father’s passing. The result was a sadness that could be felt by everyone. Zach was just relieved that Kalana was on hand to give him hugs and support—and Ruby, as well.

Without question, Ruby’s actions today really made Zach glad for the mistake with the stone that brought her into being, as he was beginning to see that she was such a sweet, loving “dinosaur”—or at least Jimmy seemed fairly confident in proclaiming her type of species as such. It was a word Zach had only heard once or twice before, and it was apparently the category to which a “raptor” belonged. But whatever the case, Ruby was so empathetic and loving that it boggled the mind how she’d formerly been a “Cursed Defender of Ziragoth” that had contributed in tormenting the raid.

Shockingly, Ruby seemed to be the only one capable of making Peter smile. Throughout the day and into the early evening, he stopped crying only when she would play with him or nap while cuddled up with him after he’d exhausted himself from another bout of intense crying. She even planned to sleep in the bed with him tonight to comfort him. She was a good girl, and Zach was wrong to have judged her so harshly at first.

Jimmy, for his part, had his own theories about her. He claimed her behavior and mannerisms were far more in line with that of a golden retriever than what he’d learned in his time about raptors and dinosaurs, which were apparently remnants of life on Earth that had gone extinct long before the existence of people.

After explaining to Jimmy the nature of Ruby’s sentience, Jimmy hypothesized that whoever “made” the gem that turned mobs into sentient beings must not have known what psychological profile to give a raptor and, in his words: “They probably took a shortcut and made them into dogs.”

Zach himself had no clue. Though Jimmy might have been on to something, as Ruby, despite being aware that she was a “raptor,” did kind of share a lot of similarities with a common dog. She wagged her tail when happy, chirped whenever a dog would typically bark, and loved to lick people’s faces. Fortunately, if Jimmy was correct, Fluffles did not understand or realize this, because Fluffles hated dogs and that would’ve created instant conflict.

“Let’s go running outside,” she’d said to Peter earlier, inviting him to climb on her back. Zach was surprised by how gentle and patient she was with the little boy. “We’ll go on an adventure!”

“Okay, but…but I get to be the sword guy and you have to be my sidekick.”

Only a small child could smile and giggle in the same day that they’d heard such devastating news. Ruby had done laps back and forth along the front lawn with the boy holding onto her; this, while Fylwen and Jascaila had engaged in a private conversation regarding his future in the kitchen that Zach had been chastised for eavesdropping on. The dynamic there was actually another big surprise to Zach. Fylwen and Jascaila seemed to really take well to one another. The queen spoke to her as though she were an equal. As far as Zach was aware, the two had never met one another before today, and yet despite this, Fylwen was treating her like an old confidant. Fylwen had also tried to corner Zach several times for what Zach was sure would be an attempt to badger him with questions he wouldn’t be able to answer in this setting. Thankfully, he’d managed to go all day while finding excuses to slip away.

Amid all this, Zach was troubled, but he was stronger now than he’d been before; of that much, he was certain. As he relaxed in the pool and entered a somewhat meditative state, he found his heart becoming more resolute over what might—and in all likelihood would—take place tomorrow night or at the very most the next few nights thereafter. Truly, the chance of him getting through any of this without bloodshed was slim to none. But what held him together was the knowledge that no one could say he was doing the wrong thing.

What is the action I plan to take, and why do I want to take it? he asked himself—something he’d learned to do over these past two weeks.

Jascaila had taught him how to deeply reflect on his actions and consider them from the perspective of an outsider looking in: to judge himself in a way that was both impartial and logical. Doing so, he understood that what he planned to do was necessary and would save far more lives than might be ended, especially if Mr. Oren was right and the execution of Vim could lead to foreign wars with the Gnomes and inevitably their cousins, the Dwarves.

Tomorrow I’ll learn the most up-to-date information, and then we’ll come up with a plan. I have to do this. If I don’t, I’ll end up in a worse place mentally than I will if I go through with it.

Zach continued to meditate on the coming conversation with Eilea, which would happen tomorrow early in the morning. The two had a lot to discuss in just five minutes, and Zach wasn’t sure how he was going to fit all of it in. He didn’t know how he’d touch on each of the points he’d already planned to discuss while making room to talk about Jimmy, who would not be happy if he had to wait another week to get answers to the questions that were clearly burning a hole into his heart.

Right now, though, Jimmy at least seemed to be holding up well enough. He and Jascaila were swimming laps back and forth, laughing and discussing some admittedly fascinating things about Earth. Zach, passively listening in, was learning things that surprised him; for every one aspect of life on ancient Earth that was different from life here on Galterra, there was one that was just as similar.

“So wait, you and your friend did what?” she asked him, giggling.

Jimmy stopped swimming and began treading water, laughing as he reminisced about something he claimed happened only a year ago but in actuality took place such a long time ago that the history books referred to it as the dark ages and offered practically no information regarding the time period.

“So, me and Marcus,” he began, having to pause mid-sentence due to laughing. “We uh, we bought fireworks off this shady-ass dude for the 4th of July, but you’re not supposed to do that in New York because it’s illegal, right? So we had to buy them from this guy on Marcus’s block. Anyway, shit was defective as hell. And one of the bottle rockets flew right into a cop car. We both booked it out of there. We ran our asses off.”

Zach smiled, though he did so with a slight wince, as he knew exactly what Jascaila was doing. She was in the “disarming” phase of things. Her first two sessions with Zach had also been all giggles and laughs. It was only later that things would become much more serious and personal. Yet he was glad Jimmy was willing to speak to her, because Jimmy’s lingering doubts over whether or not any of this was “real” was a serious problem. While Zach genuinely did not believe Jimmy wanted to die, he might nevertheless convince himself to do something indistinguishable from suicide if he got it in his head again that this was all just a fake reality and that he’d wake up in the real one if he “died.” Zach, acting out of concern, had told Jascaila about the incident earlier today in Angelica’s with the knife, and she had seemed to agree that it was cause for concern.

If Eilea brought him here, we’re going to need him, Zach thought. For his own good and everyone else’s, he needs to accept the world for what it is.

Towards the shallower end of the pool, Peter and Ruby were swimming together under the watchful eyes of Kalana and her mother while Trelvor and Seiley tended to the barbeque. Not far from them, Fluffles—and a visiting Chumpkenwiffles—sat on their butts and stared up at the food with lust in their drooping tongues. The two Shadowfangs appeared too drawn-in by the smell of the apple sausages to feud with one another.

Chumpkenwiffles wasn’t the only guest they were having over, either. Olivir, Kolona, and Grundor had all dropped by; the two vampires were sitting in sunchairs, which Jimmy seemed to find amusing, and Grundor, for his part, was gliding back and forth from one end of the pool to the other. Kalana and her mother, on the other hand, were both sitting on the steps leading into the pool, the water reaching up to their ankles; at the moment, they were talking quietly but animatedly to one another. Zach was unable to make out what they were saying.

All in all, it was a moment Zach would characterize as bittersweet, for in the back of his mind, he knew that he would soon have to take up his sword and use it to kill. With all his heart, he wished he did not have to do this. But the world was giving him little choice. For better or worse, he was prepared to do what he must. And he was determined to come back in one piece: physically and mentally.

Chapter 135: The Third Domino

Chapter 135: The Third Domino

Few would dispute that, in the wrong hands, power could be warped into a corrupting, destructive force. But power did not need to corrupt to be destructive. Given enough power, even those with the best and purest of intentions had the potential to alter the fate of the world for the worse—but also for the better. Either outcome was possible, and so too were both outcomes occurring simultaneously. With just a whisper on the wind, an emperor could save ten lives while ending another ten: such was the weight of consequence upon the shoulders of those whose very words could part the seas or move mountains.

It would be some time before Zach would learn what the ramifications would be of the incredibly risky decision he was going to make in a few moments from now. It was an idea that had come to him shortly before going to bed and had caused him to toss and turn all night long, even waking Kalana a few times in the early-morning hours—though he did not tell her why. She had no clue what he was planning, and neither did anyone else. And truthfully? It wasn’t even until Zach arose from bed and wiped the crust out of his eyes that he came to realize, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he was actually going to go through with it.

I have to do it, he thought. Otherwise, there could be even bigger problems down the line.

A domino cannot be blamed for the existence of the one behind it, nor can the domino behind it take responsibility for any subsequent dominos farther down the line. Nevertheless, if the first one falls, they all do. And though the idea of mucking around with the fate of civilization was the furthest thing from Zach’s mind, the ability to radically transform the world was something that naturally accompanied a boy who could speak with Gods. One day, Zach would better understand this. But for today, he was focused on a much narrower set of problems.

Where in the fuck did Kal put my Gods-be-damned toothbrush?

“Kal,” he said in a whispery hiss, reentering the master bedroom after only having just left it. “Are you awake?”

She yawned. “What is it, baby?”

“Where’d you hide my toothbrush?”

She frowned. His question seemed to wipe away any drowsiness within her, and now she lifted herself up off the bed and entered into a sitting position, causing a single golden strand of her hair to fall before her right eye. “I didn’t hide your toothbrush. It’s in the brush holder in the top drawer.”

“Uh, why?”

“Why?” she repeated, sounding annoyed. “It’s ‘cause I don’t live like a slob. You can’t just leave it lying loose on the sink. That’s gross! Put your things away. Umm, you left your underwear lying on the floor last night and I had to pick it up. I’m not your maid.”

“Why don’t we just hire one, then?” he asked roguishly.

From the way her frown deepened, he knew he was better off easing up before she punished him by pretending not to be mad even though she clearly was. That was the worst punishment of them all. Zach couldn’t stand it when she did the whole “I’m not mad” routine. When Zach was mad, he just said so. Kalana, on the other hand, would say she wasn’t and then have like this weird attitude for a few hours, in which she’d talk in a more quiet, subdued tone, say things more slowly, and more forcefully punctuate her words.

Girls, he thought, rolling his eyes.

Returning to the bathroom, he located the cleverly hidden toothbrush and then cleaned himself up. Despite the safety of the island, he decided to wear his full set of equipment today—but not before pulling up his base stats. It’d been a bit of time since he’d had a look at where he stood while having no gear equipped and no buffs active on him aside from Will of the Favored, which did not grant him any kind of bonus. Tapping himself four times on the shoulder, he smiled and nodded in approval at what he saw. It was hard to believe that, not even a month ago, he’d become so upset and frustrated whenever he checked out his base stats. Boy, what a few good level ups could accomplish.

Zachys Calador: Level 23

(82/265000xp)

54 strength

52 dexterity

47 constitution

82 intelligence

42 speed

15 luck

Observing himself in the mirror, it was impossible not to notice the way his shoulders had become much broader, his jaw a bit sharper, and his chest a great deal more solid. These things had happened to Zach gradually since becoming an adventurer, but it was only during these past two weeks that he’d had the opportunity to slow himself down and really take note of his bodily changes.

I can’t believe this is me, he thought, lifting his left arm and then his right, twisting his body somewhat, amazed at the sight of his own form. His daily, intense “therapy sparring” sessions with Jascaila had also greatly benefitted his body as well as his mind.

I’m actually becoming buff.

Zach had abs now, and his muscles were far more defined. He was becoming strong: capable. It was hard to believe he was the same person who’d cried and begged Varsh to spare his life. If only he had been the person back then that he was now. Even without a single piece of gear—or hell, even without his sword—he was fairly sure he could take down Varsh in five seconds flat if the guy was still alive and tried to pull something like that again.

Don’t get overconfident, he warned himself. Then you’re just asking the universe to prove you wrong.

Still, it was difficult not to take pride in his stats as they now stood. Even without a single piece of gear equipped, his strength was slightly more than twice his level, which meant, technically, he could play the role of an average, mediocre bruiser while completely naked and unarmed. But with his gear on? That shot it up to over a hundred. He grinned as he thought about getting stronger and stronger and how much more he could still improve. Why had he feared it so much? Why had the thought of rising above the clouds caused him such trepidation and angst?

Wasn’t that what I wanted to begin with? Wasn’t that the promise I made to myself? To be strong enough so that no one could ever again do to me what Varsh did?

It was. He remembered it keenly. And truly, more than anything else, what terrified Zach was being an ant for others to step on. That was what really scared him—and always had. Even before he’d become an adventurer, that had always been his greatest fear. It was only due to the shock of discovering his own potential that he became so inwardly afraid of his own self. But those days were over. From now on, he was not going to be afraid of growing as strong as he could: he would not be afraid of himself. That, he was prepared to truly put behind him.

Maybe a bit of overconfidence is a good thing for today, he realized. But only for today. It might help me succeed in what I’m going to do. Actually, it definitely will.

Unlike his new friend, Jimmy, who had the utmost of confidence in the things he believed he was good at, Zach was naturally inclined towards pessimism and feelings of low self-esteem. But he knew that today was not the day to go down that road; no, he was about to do something crazy, and for him to succeed, he had to be confident and sure of himself. He needed to be decisive and in control of his emotions. There was absolutely no room for doubt or second-guessing himself. Actually, come to think of it, what he really needed was to channel a mix of Mr. Oren and Jimmy into himself. For what he planned to accomplish, he could not afford to show even the slightest bit of hesitance or uncertainty; if he outwardly expressed either trait, it would result in disaster, and his plans would backfire on him spectacularly and affect far more people than just himself.

I’ve got this, he told himself. I’m making the right choice. I’m sticking to it. I’m doing this!

Zach got dressed in a hurry, slipping into his dark robes, even darker cloak, and his trousers and gloves. Then he slid on his rings, bracelets, and lastly, his neck pendant. Oh, and of course, he retrieved his sword and scabbard from Bank and Storage. The increase in stats made him feel more powerful physically, which had the psychological effect of making him feel more in control mentally, as well. He was ready.

Exiting the bathroom, he noticed that it would still be about thirty minutes until sunrise. This meant the all-night-long, hellish storm was raging on the island. By now, Zach was so accustomed to the nightly storm that his brain had begun simply filtering out the very loud booms of thunder and the intense pattering of teeming rain and, in some cases, hail.

Briefly returning to the master bedroom, he kept his voice low and said, “Kal, I’m going out.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re not gonna wait for everyone to be up?”

He shook his head. “Not this time, Kal. I need to speak to Eilea alone.”

She glared at him and raised her finger to her nose, shushing him. She looked at him as though he was careless for speaking that name aloud. Yet it was intentional. But Zach was not about to tell Kal that—at least not just yet. Very, very soon, but not quite right now. If all went well, she’d understand within an hour from now, hopefully even sooner. They all would. It was a temporary secret he was keeping to avoid letting her or anyone unintentionally sow doubt in his mind.

She’ll understand, Zach thought. Well, about that secret at least. Not so sure about the other one…

Actually, there was an even more serious secret he was keeping from her, and this one made him feel legitimately guilty. It was going to make her very, very sad and angry when she found out about Zach’s mission to free Vim Alazar. At the moment, only Jascaila and Mr. Oren knew of his plans to rescue the short, sharp-tongued guild-leader of the Royal Roses. But Kalana most certainly did not know—and Zach had absolutely no intention whatsoever of informing her until after it was all over and done with. Because he knew she would try to go with him, and the idea of that disturbed him for a whole number of different reasons.

To begin with, Zach did not want her to witness him killing people again, especially since any last trace of bloodlust Kalana felt towards the guilds genuinely seemed to be long gone. The girl who had texted him back during his first foray into Yorna informing him of her plan to one day kill all the guild leaders—that Kalana clearly no longer existed. Her bitterness had seemingly come and gone, likely in part due to her sessions with Jascaila and the fact that she would soon have real, actual power in Whispery Woods. The responsibility seemed to have sobered her up to the impracticality of world domination, and even if it hadn’t, witnessing firsthand where those ambitions had led the Guild of Gentlemen would have done the job just the same.

I don’t want her to ever become like me, Zach thought. She’s innocent in a way I can never again be.

Through some miracle, Kalana had managed to get this far without ever having killed anyone, and she refused to do so, which while noble—and something Zach loved so dearly about her—would expose her to terrible danger in a life-or-death fight. After all, the enemy definitely did not subscribe to her world view, and they would not pull their punches. Honestly, Zach wasn’t sure he could bring himself to fight properly while the love of his life was there. He didn’t want to see her kill, nor did he want her to see him kill. And her pacifist method of knocking the enemy out cold…that might not fly this time around. Especially not if Zach went with a certain battle plan that he’d begun dreaming up…

There’ll be no avoiding the bloodshed if everything goes according to plan.

At any rate, the specific plan of action was a conversation to be had later today with Mr. Oren. But no matter what he ended up doing, he knew he could not be who he needed to be if Kalana was there. In order to become the person he had to become to fight a battle that had to be fought—her presence would make that impossible for him. No, if he was going to do this, he needed to be quick, efficient, and get the job done as fast as possible. For him to do so, he had to go without her. He simply would not be able to get it done otherwise. Not with her watching him. Not with him worried about her.

I hope I don’t hurt her too badly, he thought. I hope…I hope she doesn’t break up with me because of this. She’s going to take this as a betrayal.

Zach shook the worrisome thoughts from his head, as this was a monumentally bad time to even be considering something so dispiriting and paranoid. Right now, he needed to be the most confident and headstrong he’d ever been in his life. This was a do-or-die moment. And so, shoving his concerns over Kalana aside for the moment, he nodded at her then exited the bedroom, creeping silently to the front of the house so as not to wake anyone.

On his way there, however, he did end up getting spotted, but luckily, it was only by Fluffles, which meant he could buy the cat’s silence with the promise of three cans of premium tuna and Cat-Yum’s Chicken Deluxe. All in all, it only took him about half a minute to deal with Fluffles’ extortion, and then the cat went back to sleep, and Zach crept the rest of the way to the front door. Before exiting, though, he paused to open the closet near the entrance, which contained rain coats and umbrellas; he reached inside to grab himself one of each. He stopped, however, deciding he didn’t even care if he got wet. In fact, the intense rain might even get his blood pumping. He needed to really be on his game right now. Maybe a bit of rain would make him even more alert.

Here I go…I’m really doing this.

Unprotected against the elements, Zach pulled open the front door, stepped outside into the continuous, nightly storm, and was drenched from head to toe in a matter of seconds. Like, absolutely soaked. He laughed, however, as the rush of water down on top of him really did make him feel more alive, and so did the way the dark sky lit up with a brilliant blue, which was followed by a boom of thunder so loud it made the inside of his skull feel like it was vibrating.

His feet making squishing sounds against the grass, he jogged about a half a mile through the darkness before stopping, as there was no set distance he needed to travel. The only reason he’d left the home at all was to make absolutely, one-hundred percent sure that nobody distracted or bothered him as he embarked on what would either turn out to be a successful gambit or one of the dumbest mistakes he’d ever made in his life. Realizing this, he felt the first pinch of nerves enter his belly, but he clamped down on it like a security gate. This was not the time for fear, as fear could be felt. His emotions would not be private.

Be confident, he told himself, saying it over and over while gripping his hands into fists. I know I can do this. Be confident. Be confident. Be confident!

Taking just a few more seconds to let the teeming rain continuously drench him, he forced a grin onto his lips, psyched himself up, and made himself believe he was as confident as he wanted to be. Somehow, through some means, by repeating the chant in his head over and over, he actually succeeded in convincing himself. Feeling much more upbeat and positive, he decided that now was the time. And with that, he reached out.

Eilea. We need to talk. Now.

He waited. There was no reply.

I know we’re not supposed to talk for another hour, but the time’s now. Eilea, can you hear me? I need you to respond to m—

“Zach, what’s wrong?” she asked, appearing abruptly in his head. She sounded alarmed, likely offput by the unexpectedly early contact. When two or three seconds went by and Zach did not reply, she began to speak in his stead—and she spoke quickly, too. She spoke so fast it was almost difficult to comprehend her words, which fired off rapidly in his brain.

“Did you contact me by mistake?” she asked him. Then she continued on speaking without waiting for an answer. “No? So does that mean you wish to start the clock now? We’ve got so many things to discuss, so I hope you’re sure about this. In fact, you should really start talking. There’s not even time for me to ask why you’re contacting me ahead of schedule. I’ll just have to assume you have a very good reason.”

Rather than begin the conversation, Zach closed his eyes and projected a feeling of a sort of calm, confident coolness that he hoped Eilea would pick up on. Whether she did or didn’t, it did not seem to ease her, because in return, he felt her becoming worried and anxious as the seconds ticked down.

“Zach, you need to start speaking. Or should I? Okay, I’ll just talk then.” And she did. “Regarding Project Rejuvenation, you don’t have to worry about it for a bit. Adamus has no choice but to delay it as a result of the damage to the system. So, we’ll shelve that for this week, all right? Now, onto more important matters. Let’s discuss the weapons program. I have a whole lot of new and very important information about that. I also haven’t told you this yet, but Prila is actually the one who—”

Stop, he said.

“—I have working on it. And she—”

Eilea, please, stop, he said again. And now, he could actually feel her confusion.

“Stop?” she asked as if dumbstruck. “Zach, we’ve barely covered anything at all, and we’ve already wasted half a minute!”

Yeah, so uh, about that, he said to her. We’re not going to worry about that anymore. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve got all the time we want.

“Wh-what do you mean?” she asked, her confusion plainly intensifying. “Zach, I can only hold this for five minutes.”

So stop holding it.

“Huh? Am I hearing you correctly?”

Yes. Stop holding it.

“But…if I lower the mental barrier between us, my wretched husband shall overhear our conversation.”

I know. And that’s what I want.

“You what?” she asked, her words coming across as a shout in his brain. Zach wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he could’ve sworn he heard the merry sound of a man laughing in the background. It must have been Eilea’s accomplice she’d told him about: someone she’d claimed that Zach was distantly related to.

I’m tired of time limits and special meeting rooms, he said to her, sending her a strong sense of conviction in addition to his words. Actually, I’m kind of putting it lightly. The truth is I’ve had enough of this bullshit, Eilea. I’m sick and tired of skulking around like some kind of criminal. So, I want you to trust me. I’ve thought this through. Lower the barrier. Please.

“Zach, that’s insane! You can’t possibly be asking me to—”

Eilea, please! Just trust me. I’m asking you to please trust me.

“Are you…you’re serious about this, Zach?”

Very. As serious as I’ve ever been. No more secret chats. Lower the barrier. Trust me, Eilea. Please.

“Very well,” she said with a good degree of reluctance; she now came across as equal parts nervous and confused. “The barrier will be lowered in three…two…one…okay, Zach, it’s down.”

It is? Good, then we don’t have to rush. He paused to take a deep breath. This is so much better, he said. As he spoke, the grin on his lips became less forced and more genuine. For once, he felt sure of himself. His nerves had completely settled. He was growing more confident by the second, and he proceeded with a sense of clarity: a sense of purpose.

So, Eilea, he thought calmly to her. He thought his words slowly—to demonstrate that he was not in any sort of haste. The rain had begun to slow, but it still showered down with enough intensity to give him a bit of a euphoric chill as a heavy breeze rolled across the land. It’s so good to talk to you again this week. We’ve got a lot to discuss, don’t we?

“Z-Zach…”

Yes?

Eilea said nothing else in reply other than his name, though even without speaking, Zach could feel her disbelief, terror, and morbid sense of confusion. She was very worried. Zach knew she was hoping he would stop talking immediately before he said something that needed to remain private. Yet he continued anyway.

What is it? he asked her. Why’ve you gone silent, Eilea?

She said nothing back for nearly ten full seconds. But Zach was patient, projecting only calm. Finally, he heard her voice echo in his mind. “You should be careful what you say to me, Zach. It can be overheard now.”

And it was with this nervously thought message that Zach knew the moment he’d waited for had finally arrived. With an unwavering resolve, Zach addressed her concerns head on. Who cares if he can hear us? he asked her. It’s not like your husband doesn’t know we talk. I’m getting tired of pretending otherwise. I mean, think about it, Eilea. That’s all we’re really doing here: we’re pretending. And you know what? It’s getting kind of stupid, isn’t it? All this sneaking around, communicating in secret like he doesn’t know exactly what we’re up to…it just isn’t my thing. It’s childish. And believe me, I say that as someone who’s a bit immature myself. I’m just so fucking tired of it. And I bet you’re tired of it too, aren’t you, Adamus?

Instantly after speaking his name, a silence lingered both in the air and in his mind. It was as though the wind was cognizant of the situation playing out in Zach’s head, causing it to still. Or maybe it was just the fact that the very first rays of sunlight added a hint of orange to an otherwise dark sky, which signaled an impending end to the storm. Either way, the silence was brief, lasting for a mere moment—but one that indeed felt longer than it actually was. Because not a half a second had come and gone when, from somewhere deep inside Zach’s mind, he heard the calm, soft-spoken voice of what sounded like an elderly man reaching across a vast distance to communicate with him in the same manner as Eilea.

“I completely agree, my child,” the voice said. “It is a pointless, juvenile game of cat and mouse during a time when the system threatens to crumble around us.”

The moment the voice rang out in his head, Zach filled with a deep sense of satisfaction. So…I’m guessing you must be Adamus then, huh? he asked, having actually managed to draw the man out. Step one: success.

As Zach stood with his back straight and his hands at his sides, he did a remarkably—and unusually—good job of keeping himself calm and in control. It was proof that the time he’d recently spent confronting his emotions with Jascaila had really done wonders in helping him maintain a grip over them, which was why he was actually succeeding at preventing himself from not only behaving in a way that externally came across as excitable, but from feeling excitable, too.

Right now, controlling his actions alone just wouldn’t be enough. For almost every other situation in life, it would be—but not for this. Not when dealing with God-like beings who could feel what he felt. Truly, this was not a stunt he would have been able to pull off a few weeks ago. And so, as a period of quiet left him with nothing but the ambient sounds of the early-morning winds, Zach was content to wait with a heart free of tension for Adamus to reply.

As he waited, the rain at last came to an end, though the storm was not quite over; a powerful gust of wind nearly blew the hooded cloak off his head. Still, he maintained his grin and relaxed himself both physically and emotionally, refusing to transmit so much as a word until Adamus replied.

Eventually, he did.

“That is indeed who I am, my child. I…had hoped that we could speak. It seems the desire was mutual.”

Zach nodded, knowing that, despite being unable to see the gesture, Adamus and Eilea would both be able to feel it. Do you know why I want to talk to you, Adamus?

“I believe I do,” he said, now replying immediately and without delay.

Why? Zach asked, wanting to see if they were on the same page.

“You wish to strike a bargain. That is why you have sought me out this morning.”

With just those words alone, Adamus proved himself to be just as prescient and perceptive as Angelica had described him. Now, drawing upon every ounce of his willpower, Zach managed to continue exuding certainty as he asked: are you open to it?

“I am,” Adamus replied, causing Zach to sigh with relief. At the same time, he could sense Eilea’s sheer, unrestrained sense of amazement and awe. He could actually feel the fact that she was speechless. She was having trouble believing that Adamus, the stubborn man who never compromised on anything significant—that he would be willing to engage in a deal. But Zach knew that he would. Oh, yes, he did. Because Adamus needed something from Zach. Something badly enough that he would be willing to make concessions.

“That’s correct,” Adamus said, confusing him for a moment. Clearly capable of feeling this confusion, he explained, “Your read on the situation is, sadly, one that I must admit is accurate. Rarely do I entertain negotiations, but indeed, the matters at hand are dire enough that I suppose at least some flexibility is in order.”

Zach was a bit taken aback. It appeared Adamus could read him far more deeply than Eilea could, as Eilea had never shown the ability to understand the thoughts that were formulating in the back of his mind. She was only capable of picking up on what he consciously chose to transmit. It appeared Adamus was able to pick up on anything that Zach did not deliberately try to shield from him. Regardless, he refused to let it rattle him, and he forced himself to stay on topic.

If I don’t help you with this weapons problem, your system might break, right?

“That is correct, my child. The proliferation of these abhorrent creations poses a grave threat to the entire system, and the breaking of the system is something I can assure you would be the worst thing to ever happen in all of history, rivaled by nothing.”

His words caused Eilea to feel a tremendous bout of anger, one that came through so clearly it actually made Zach feel anger that wasn’t his own. Though she stayed silent, she did not need to speak for Zach to understand the cause of her rage. She was displeased by the way in which Adamus viewed his system as being more valuable than sentient life. This anger only continued to grow, and Zach could now tell that she was only a moment or two from erupting on Adamus—something that could derail things before they’d even had a chance to get off the ground.

Concentrating, Zach sent her calming thoughts, and he was surprised to see how receptive she was to it, deciding to back down rather than inflame tensions. This indicated to Zach that Eilea truly did trust him. She was willing to be guided by him if he was willing to lead. She believed in him. For this reason, Zach found himself truly appreciating her.

Though he concealed this thought such that neither Eilea or Adamus could read it, he had come to view Eilea as a somewhat “imperfect” Goddess or Great One or whatever she was. Basically, it didn’t take a genius to see she clearly had some deficiencies, insecurities, and numerous weaknesses, but she was a kind woman who Zach knew he could trust. And something told him that she would jump in front of a sword for him if she could. She was honest, heartfelt, and burned with a desire to see people happy and safe. He felt none of these things from Adamus: only a calm, calculating poise.

You need my help, Zach said. And I’ll give it. I’ll take care of the problem for you. But I want several things in return.

“I did expect that you would. If it is within reason, and if it does not violate my principles, I shall fairly consider each one.”

Good. This was the response Zach had hoped for. But the real battle would begin now. Bringing to mind his memories of Mr. Oren, Zach tried his best to let himself be guided by his former science teacher’s natural gift at this sort of thing. He asked himself how Mr. Oren would proceed if it was him engaging in this conversation and not Zach. He knew he could never truly be a stand-in for the adventurer-turned-world-leader, but if he could just come close…it might be enough.

Let’s see about that, then, he said. How about we start with the easiest thing first? Actually, I think my first demand is something we can actually reach an agreement on without much issue, and it involves all the secrecy. I’ll be honest with you: I’m tired of tiptoeing around and trying to keep secrets that you already know I know. Can we please just cut the bullshit? I’ve let way too much slip by accident over these past few weeks at various times. There’s no way you don’t know exactly what things I’ve found out about you and Galterra.

“Very well," Adamus agreed. "For the sake of proving myself an actor of good faith, I will confirm your suspicions. Though I cannot prove it to my own standards, I am well aware you’ve been apprised of numerous secrets: such as the fact that Eilea and I now stand alone as the only remaining Great Ones or the existence of my secretive-by-necessity organization known as the Orbital Monitoring Platform. You also know of more pressing matters as well, such as the World Eater spawning in five years’ time, though on that point, you are not complicit in harboring such unfairly gained knowledge, as the existence of the World Eater was put directly into your head by Eilea more than a month ago; I have done my best since then to keep it locked away. But you know this as well, do you not?”

Zach couldn’t help but laugh as Adamus demonstrated that he did, indeed, know exactly what Zach knew despite all the attempts he’d gone through to try hiding it from him. The fact that Angelica hadn’t been destroyed or that assassins hadn’t come down from the OMP to cut him apart was likely only because Adamus couldn’t absolutely prove that Zach knew these things. His own, self-imposed values required him to witness these “rule violations” taking place with his own eyes—or in this case, mind—in order for him to act upon them. Eilea had told him as much last week. The fact that Adamus was certain was still not enough to justify him “interfering.”

As Zach thought over what he’d just been told, one thing in particular stood out to him. World Eater, he mentally whispered, repeating the name to himself as it became illuminated in his mind as though he’d walked into the privacy room in Angelica’s. I guess you’re letting me remember it for the moment? Hey, that’s actually one of the things I want you to stop doing. I’m sick of having to sit in a room just to remember a name. Like I said, I’m tired of all the sneaking around, and you messing with my head is part of the reason I have to do it. I want it to stop.

He could sense something strange from Adamus. Something he took as the mental equivalent of a satisfied grunt. “And so do I, my child. That is why, despite clearly violating the rules of the system, I will agree to overlook the transgressions that you, Angelica, and all of your cohorts have made in your acquisition of multiple pieces of ill-begotten, forbidden information, and I shall even allow you to carry around the knowledge you possess under the following two conditions. One: you do not further share what you have learned from Angelica with any additional people, and two, my beloved will cease providing you with any more knowledge of the World Eater and how to proceed from this point forward.”

Zach, now having truly entered the negotiating phase of this conversation, mulled over Adamus’s conditions. I can see myself agreeing to that, but only if I can speak freely about what I already know with the others—including Angelica, too, if for any reason it comes up.

As if to confirm his earlier suspicion, Zach discovered he actually was able to feel what could only be described as a mental nod, which Adamus sent to him. “You may discuss what you have already learned with those who already know,” he said, “and you may do so openly and without fear of retribution. But in return, I must kindly ask that you refrain from further collusion in secret locations outside of the system’s range of monitoring.

“Lastly, I will even agree to allow you to spread your knowledge of the existence of the World Eater, as merely knowing its existence hardly diminishes the road ahead and may, if nothing else, provide an incentive for Galterrans to embrace a better path—though I must admit, I greatly dislike such inorganic methods of encouragement.”

Zach thought over his words. It was a bit much to take in, and he wanted to make absolutely sure he fully grasped them before agreeing to anything. It was the last point in particular that left him feeling most confused, as it seemed to contradict the first one. Wait a second, he said. You’re saying I’m allowed to discuss the World Eater even with people who don’t already know about it as long as I don’t include any information about the things that Angelica, uh…allegedly told me.

For the first time, Adamus displayed some semblance of emotion, which came in the form of a genuine-sounding chuckle in the back of Zach’s mind. “Allegedly?” he asked. “Come, boy. I thought we agreed to dispense with such ‘pretending,’ as you yourself have called it. I know that Angelica has told you much that she ought not to have spoken about, and I have already agreed to pardon her for this trespass provided it does not occur again. Yet let me reiterate that, aside from the mere existence of the World Eater and the clue to be found in Dragon Squire, I am calling upon you not to spread your prohibited knowledge any further than you have already spread it, and that you inform your friends to abide this as well.

“To that end, you may discuss all that you know openly, and you are free to speculate and extrapolate on your knowledge as you wish among those who’ve already been included. But most importantly, there can be no further assistance from my wife outside of general advice that has always been allowed to be given freely between a Great One and a user of the system. She knows quite well what she is and is not permitted to say, and it is incumbent upon her to uphold these terms.”

Zach tapped his chin as he carefully considered Adamus’s offer. Though he would be giving up the chance to learn more important secrets, he would be gaining the ability to recall the World Eater at all times. Based on his conversation with Eilea last week, Galterra was going to be doomed unless big changes started happening now. And Zach’s inability to even remember this threat was seriously hindering his ability to help deal with it. For this reason, after a brief period of contemplation, he decided that it was in his best interest to agree.

But there was one thing he needed from Adamus in order to accept this bargain, and Gods, it was a pretty big ask. Nevertheless, it was the one point he was not willing to negotiate over. If Adamus did not grant him this request, the entire conversation would have been a waste of time, and he was determined to walk away with no agreement at all rather than agree to anything that did not include its most important element. That was how serious this condition was to him. It was the entire reason he’d even taken the risk in drawing out Adamus in the first place.

Okay, he said. I’ll tell you what. I’ll accept your terms, but I can only do it under one condition of my own: and I have to warn you, it’s a big one.

“And what might that be?” the voice of Adamus asked in a whisper that seemed to eerily coincide with a slightly gentler breeze.

I need you to release Eilea, Zach said, projecting the thought sternly and in a way that he hoped would convey that, at least on this point, he was not willing to compromise Not only did he need her up here for a very important purpose, but it was the right thing to do. You’ve trapped her down there for a very, very long time, and she’s miserable and in pain. I want her suffering to stop, and I want it to stop now! I can feel it every time I talk to her. Adamus, you need to let her go.

Two foreign, conflicting emotions resonated at the same time, and he became aware of each in the exact same instant. Adamus balked as if in outrage, and from Eilea, a feeling of pure love, gratitude, and loyalty flooded into Zach’s brain. It was the closest thing he’d ever felt to a mental hug. Somehow, he could tell that, wherever Eilea was, there were tears in her eyes at this moment, and that he’d just won her undying love and support for the rest of his life.

“This is an outrageous demand. My beloved cannot be released until she agrees to cease her interference. We may not seem it, but we are both beings of power beyond mortal comprehension. Though I do not fashion myself a God in the way my beloved thinks herself a Goddess, it is undeniable that our powers are great and inconceivable to many. If I were to free her from her prison, she would use her power to bend the world to her will.”

What if she agrees not to? Zach asked.

“If my wife was willing to make such a promise, she would not be trapped down there in the first place. What you do not understand is that I have been ready to free her every second of every day since I was forced to imprison her down there. All my beloved has ever had to do was renounce her foolish ambitions and vow to abide by the rules of the system. Yet she has proven herself unwilling to see reason time and time again, and so there she lingers, trapped in a cage of her own making.”

Zach drew a breath, held it, and then slowly released it. This was it. This was the moment that he had spent so much time psyching himself up for. This was why he’d refused to tell anyone about this encounter. It was for this very specific moment in this conversation that Zach had so painstakingly dug deep to find all of his confidence, determination, and emotional restraint. All last night, as he’d tossed and turned and imagined how this conversation might play out, he knew that when he got to this part, Adamus might reject his request, and for that reason, he needed to project a level of confidence so strong that it was practically bleeding out of him, or else this was going to fail.

She will not interfere, Zach said with absolute certainty. And I’m willing to take personal responsibility for her actions. And before you ask: yes, I know what that implies. If she interferes, I pay the price, whatever it might be. I’ll accept any consequence if she does.

There was a lingering period of silence, during which Adamus said nothing, but Zach could feel the man turning over his words. “It is too risky,” he said at last. “She will interfere. She always does. She herself must agree, or I cannot release her. Her suffering shall continue.”

Zach was unsure if that last sentence was meant to test his resolve, baiting him into becoming irate and flying off the handle. If so, it almost did. Really, he found it hard to believe that Adamus could keep a woman he called his “beloved” in a state of loneliness, darkness, and misery for more than a thousand years over a disagreement, and to be quite honest, if he was not working so hard to suppress his more primal instincts, he would have snapped and started mentally shouting. In fact, as things were, some of his disgust was actually leaking through his emotions, requiring him to tamp down on it.

Taking another breath, he regained control of himself so that he did not unintentionally transmit any more of his outrage. But seriously…what even gave Adamus the right to be in charge of which Great Ones were and were not allowed to take certain actions? Who the hell made him king of the universe? For someone who was so against interfering, he sure had a lot of rules he wanted people to follow.

Once Zach was sure his emotions were in check, he responded to Adamus, choosing his words carefully. Out of curiosity, he said, are you telling me that you’d even be opposed to having Eilea use her power to eliminate the weapons all on her own?

“Absolutely,” Adamus replied. “It is imperative we put a stop to their weapons program, though any actions towards that effect must be carried out by those who reside within the system, such as yourself. I can understand why this may be difficult to accept, but know that I do not require you—or anyone—to agree with my reasoning or my beliefs; all the same, they must be abided. If the reason you wish to see my wife go free is because you plan to have her smite our common foe, I must sadly inform you that I shall never allow that to occur under any circumstance.”

Zach exhaled. That’s not my plan at all and never was, he said, knowing that Adamus could actually feel his honesty. I was just curious. And yeah, you’re right: when it comes to your beliefs, I don’t agree at all. Actually, I think it’s fucking nuts—pardon my language. But if that’s how it is, then fine, whatever. I don’t need Eilea to ‘smite’ anybody. But I do need her to be here in person to succeed with an idea I came up with.

“Have you heard nothing I just said?” Adamus asked, a hint of impatience bleeding through his mind. “Eilea must not use her power to—”

No, no, I got that, Zach interjected, fully cognizant that he was interrupting someone many considered a God. That’s not why I need her here.

“Do explain, then.”

For the first time in the conversation, Zach became uncomfortable, though it was not due to a lack of confidence or because of any innate nervousness; rather, he was forced to contend with a sudden rising feeling of guilt for a multitude of reasons as he explained to Adamus the logic behind his actions.

Okay, look, he began. Here’s the thing. Before last night, my only goal was to save a man by the name of Vim Alazar. He’s the leader of the Royal Roses. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s the sort of thing I really do believe I can pull off with just a few people. And I swear to the Gods, that was my only agenda before I went to bed last night, and if it had stayed that way, we wouldn’t be speaking right now. I don’t need to make a deal with you to do that. But things have changed now, because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that saving Vim is just not going to be enough. And if I’m going to get involved, I can’t go halfway in.

Zach shifted uncomfortably as the discomfort attempted to take further hold of him, yet he fought to clamp down on it. So many people died in that blast, he continued. Saving Vim all on its own won’t be enough to make a positive difference in the world. You can feel whatever I’m feeling, right? Then you should know I’m telling you the truth when I say that I desperately don’t want to have to go any further than that, but it’s become clear to me that we’re…we’re going to have to conquer Shadowfall Coast to truly put an end to this. Because even if I and all my strongest friends marched down there and single-handedly somehow managed to destroy every weapon they’ve built and whatever place they’re building them in, they’d probably just start over somewhere else. The Guild of Gentlemen needs to lose all power. I know it, Mr. Oren knows it—everyone knows it. If there was any other choice, I’d take it.

“It is lamentable indeed, my child, but where in this do you require the aid of my beloved?”

I think you already know, don’t you? You’re supposed to be like this super-perceptive dude who can see the big picture, right?

To his surprise, Zach felt something akin to appreciation coming from Adamus. “My child, I am fairly certain I understand your thinking, but I’d ask you to please continue nonetheless, as I still find value in hearing people speak for themselves.”

Zach nodded—both physically and mentally. Well, taking a city and holding it is probably a whole lot harder to do than rescuing just one man. That takes an act of war and a whole lot more people. But the problem is I don’t know anything about war, and the people who do aren’t going to help. They’re too scared. They’re so afraid they might get blown up with another one of those weapons that they’re going to surrender the world to the Guild of Gentlemen. But there is actually a group of people out there who might still be willing to fight: the Elves. They’re also the most powerful group of people on the planet. I don’t think anybody is as capable of quickly taking over a city as they are.

He shook his head. But no matter what I say to Queen Vayra, I just know she’s not going to order the surviving members of her race to storm the city on my word alone. She told me once that she’d stand by me if I needed an ally in war, but that was before this weapon came into being. Even just the chance that Whispery Woods could be hit will be enough for her to sit this one out. And that, Adamus, is why I need Eilea here with me. Because if I can bring her here in person, I can introduce her to Queen Vayra. And then she—and the Elves—will do literally anything Eilea says. She can ask them to help me defeat the Guild of Gentlemen, and if she does, I believe they’ll—

“That’s an incredible idea!” Eilea exclaimed, blurting the words out in Zach’s mind. Her excitement came across as both genuine and opportunistic—the latter being because of how desperately she wanted to see the light of day again, though Zach could also feel that she really was impressed by his idea. “I can convince Queen Vayra to support you, Zach. Of course I can. But why…why do you feel such guilt?”

Before Zach could mentally reply, he was surprised to find Adamus responding in his place—and accurately, too. “He feels guilt, my beloved, because though he wishes not to offend you, he knows that you are not a Goddess and I am not a God, and the idea of presenting you as such for the purpose of supplanting the natural will of the Elves is one he finds distasteful. It appears the boy and I have more in common than I at first thought.”

Eilea erupted with a sense of hurt, and now Zach felt guilt for an entirely different reason. “By any and all metrics, I am in fact a Goddess of the Elvish people and of Galterra herself,” Eilea insisted. “This is not a lie!”

To Adamus, she said, “Furthermore, as much as I long to be free again, I have waited a thousand years and I can wait a few weeks longer. It is only a matter of time before I tear down the bindings that keep me here. Zach does not need to agree to your demands if I can free myself on my own.”

As Adamus responded to her, Zach was surprised to hear what really did sound like regret in his tone. “You will not, my beloved. I know that you tug and tear, believing yourself near escape. For how many years have you cut one binding just to realize there is another beneath? You may believe yourself mere weeks away, but truly, Eilea, it is closer to centuries. And even then, it will all be just so that I will promptly return you back to your cage with an even tighter leash the moment you step foot on the surface.”

Eilea’s rage was darker than anything Zach had ever before felt from her, and honestly, he couldn’t blame her for feeling it. Yet she did not reply to Adamus’s threats despite Adamus pausing as if to allow her the chance to respond. Nevertheless, he was oddly respectful in waiting for her to voice her feelings, but when after half a minute she had still said nothing, he continued speaking.

“I wish not to engage in this tiring argument again. It always begins and ends the same. If I were to risk freeing you, there is too great a chance that you would act in your capacity as a Great One to supplant free will. I cannot allow it.”

Zach, once more, made his absolute, uncompromising position on this matter known. Then your system is fucked, he stated bluntly. Without Eilea, I won’t agree to anything. I’ll even let the system be destroyed, and then we all lose. You know I’m not bluffing or you’d be able to feel it. I came here determined to get what I wanted or walk. And my foot’s going down on this, Adamus. I need Eilea here. I want her suffering to stop.

Zach spoke the words with such conviction that even he himself could not be sure if he was telling the truth or had simply whipped himself into such a determined state of mind that he could no longer determine the veracity of his own statements. But critically, if he himself couldn’t be sure, then neither could Adamus, who was currently inside his head. For this reason, Zach felt more satisfied rather than surprised as Adamus began to “stir” in a sense, his agitation coming through clearly.

“I shall not allow a world in which a Great One—myself included—sits upon a throne and rules as a God. I cannot allow this. I am sorry. But do know that my beloved has always held the keys to her own cell. Without an oath to abstain from using her powers to interfere, I am no more capable of budging on this matter than you are, boy.”

So then…as long as she agrees, she can go free?

“Yes, my child. That has always been the case. It need not require any negotiation on your part.”'

Well, at least that made things simple. Eilea, Zach said, turning his attention towards her. You should just agree.

Her reluctance exploded like a star going nova. Even before she replied, Zach could feel her utter dissatisfaction with the suggestion. “I’ve spent a thousand years in torment because I refused to compromise on my values. You can’t ask this of me.”

I can, Zach said. Because if you trust me, we’ll work around it. Angelica told me you want a better world for us, right? We can still make it happen. We’ll find a way.

“No, you just don’t understand,” she said.

What don’t I understand? he asked.

A mixture of frustration and agitation came through as she replied to him. “The only chance Galterra has of surviving the World Eater is if I am there to join the fight in the end. No matter how much power Galterrans gain in higher-tier worlds, it still won’t be enough. There is no world without me there to fight for it. And contrary to my idiot husband's false assumption that I would ever plan to rule or sit on a throne, the entire reason I have put so much faith in you, Zach, is so that I would never have to do that. Even after all these years, he still fails to understand me.” She was quivering with rage. Zach could feel this. Eilea was not bothering to mask her emotions. "I can't agree to this, Zach. I'm sorry. I would be throwing away all my values. If I am forbidden from participating in the World Eater battle with you and the others, you will all die and then so too will everyone else on Galterra. There isn't a single way that Galterra can succeed without me there fighting alongside the rest of you. There isn't even one!"

No, Eilea, you're actually wrong about that. There is: at least one, I mean. I know for sure that at least one does exist.

“And how can you be so sure?”

Rather than reply, Zach decided to experiment with something. He had absolutely no idea if it would work, but he decided to try it anyway. Up until this point, he knew that he could share ability information with people in his party, but now he began to wonder: could he also send information about his abilities through his mind? It was an absurd idea, but he thought it just might work—and to his surprise, it did. Now, to Eilea—and by extension, Adamus—he sent a very specific piece of information.

Phase Level 6

Exertion Level: Terminal. In exchange for the life of the user, additional + 10,000 to all basic stats, and armor +10,000. User has access to every ability and every spell. User can move faster than light. User can summon up to 5 dragons. Cannot summon Elder Dragons.

“No!” she said with a mentally carried, horrified-sounding gasp. “Never. Not that.”

Only if we really have to, Zach thought back to her. I really do believe if we search hard enough, we can find even more ways. But I’m ready to die if I have to. I’m only trying to show you that there’s more ways than you think. Right now, though, I need you up here with me. And I know you’re tired of being down there. So, please: just tell him what he wants to hear. We’ve got five years to find a better way, but right now, I don’t know if Galterra is going to survive another month. Please. I need your help up here, Eilea.

Zach could feel Eilea’s emotions begin to shift in real time. She was silent for a good minute, and during this time, Zach said nothing—and neither did Adamus. Finally, with a great deal of pain in her voice, but also with a note of hope as well, she said, “Very well. I vow not to use my power to interfere, but only in the narrowly defined sense of the word 'power.' I do not agree to forgo using my power of speech, for example, to influence and pursue my goals as I deem necessary. I agree only to abstain from the use of power insomuch as the word relates to the exertion of psionic energy.”

Though he had absolutely no idea what the term “psionic energy” meant or what it related to, Zach honestly did not even care right now. He was too relieved that he’d actually managed to succeed. This had been such a tremendous gamble, and it appeared as though it was actually paying off. Even Adamus, too, felt relieved, and he did not bother to hide this from being noticed.

We accept your terms, Zach said at last, speaking on both his as well as Eilea’s behalf. Eilea just agreed not to use her powers. You heard her.

“That I did,” Adamus said, sounding surprised. “It seems your conviction won her over.”

Zach laughed. Maybe. Hey, why did you even give me a crazy ability like this, anyway?

“I have done no such thing, my child.”

Huh?

“I have not given you that power.”

Then who gave it to me?

“You did.”

I what? He sighed. Actually, I don’t even care. I’ve got too many other things I’m dealing with to bother digging into whatever you just meant by that.

Having convinced Eilea to agree to Adamus’s terms—as unfair as they might have been—he could now feel a small degree of regret and reluctance within her, but it was extensively overshadowed by an ardent, desperate desire to be free of her captivity, and an absolute rush of excitement at the idea of seeing the sun again. Her sense of gratitude towards him just at the very notion of it was so immense it was actually drowning out Zach’s own emotions and making him feel hers instead. He wasn’t sure why. Though he disagreed very strongly with Adamus’s actions, the man’s words were not a lie: she really did hold the keys to her own release.

Zach, now smiling, decided to address Adamus once more. Just to clarify something important, he said. In terms of what information Eilea can or can’t share with us, uh, anything that pertains to the nuclear weapons is now fair game, right? Because I need that.

“Yes, naturally,” Adamus said. “These weapons are clear violations of the rules of the system. They are not permitted to exist. To that end, both Eilea and even Angelica may provide any information that they can offer. But you must destroy them completely and prevent their reemergence.”

I will. I promise you. Zach paused a moment to consider his next words very carefully. There’s one more matter we have to talk about, though. I think you know what it is.

“Indeed,” Adamus whispered. “Let us please keep this segment brief. We are not likely to find resolution, and it will only cause much discomfort.” Zach was positive that he was not simply imagining the awkwardness he now felt coming off Adamus. “Nevertheless, I do feel that it was wise of you to save this for the end, my child, as this is indeed an area of disagreement I see no path towards us finding any common ground.”

Hearing these words only tightened Zach’s resolve. I figured that much, but I’m going to ask you anyway. I want you to leave my new friend Jimmy alone. Your goons almost killed the both of us in going after him.

“As I feared…this is indeed an impasse with which we cannot hope to navigate around. Please understand that James Green cannot be allowed to remain in the system. His natural psychic abilities, if awakened, provide him with an unfair advantage, and he does not belong in this world, inside of which he is an intruder. Above all, his mere presence here angers beings far greater in power than Eilea and myself. Truly, my beloved has committed a crime of immeasurable magnitude in bringing him here. If the Fox-Leader, Jack Harris, ever came to the incorrect conclusion that we have somehow kidnapped the young man, I would not be able to protect our world from his vengeance. He would overpower me in an instant and destroy the entire system in another.”

“Oh, stop, he’s harmless to us,” Eilea said. “Of all the old Gods, you should worry about him the least. It's well known he doesn’t hurt those who don't deserve to be hurt. No, it’s your half-sister, Rose who you should be worried about.”

“My beloved, I should not have to worry over either of them! You risk angering the Gods of old with such incautious recklessness that I am mesmerized by your short-sightedness.”

Zach once more gripped his hands into fists. Guys, I have no idea who ‘Rose’ or ‘Jack Harris’ or any of these people are, and I don’t really care, either. It’s got nothing to do with me—or Jimmy. All I can tell you for sure is that I’m not going to sit back and let you kill him. Having said that, I’m not so dumb that I think I can change your mind on this, Adamus. So let me offer you an alternative suggestion, instead.

“Hm?”

If nothing else, Zach continued, at least promise not to send anyone else after him until we’ve dealt with the nuclear weapons. There’s no damn way I can deal with all that while also having to worry about my friend’s safety at the same time. At least agree to let things be until this is fully over and done with. That’s all I’m asking.

Adamus’s reply came far quicker than expected. “That is both rationally stated and fair. Yes, I believe I can agree to bring no rule-enforcement-actions upon James Green until such a time as the crisis in Galterra has blown over. Afterwards, I am afraid I must exercise my duty. Now, is that all? Have we covered everything you wished to discuss?”

There’s one more thing, Zach said, knowing that he was pushing his luck. Project Rejuvenation: I want you to—

“I will not discuss this,” Adamus said, this time being the one to interrupt Zach. “You do not seem bereft of fairness or sense, my child. Thus, you must know quite well that this is not a bargaining chip I will consider under any circumstance. When my crew has repaired the damage to the system, I intend to return Galterra to its former state. It is both unfair and unacceptable to include that as part of this discussion, and I will not entertain it. That is my final word on this topic.”

Zach did not bother replying, because in truth, he’d asked more to cover every base than out of any sincere belief that Adamus would negotiate over it. According to everything Angelica had told him about the man, the fact that he’d yielded on so many things to begin with was nothing short of staggering. Or was it? Actually, in some ways, he barely yielded at all. He got what he wanted all along from Eilea, and he only made marginal, common-sense concessions with Zach. Even still, it wasn’t about “winning.” It was about getting what he needed, and Zach had now, in fact, gotten exactly what he came here for. So really, both sides got what they needed out of this.

With the sun now fully out in the sky, and Kalana almost certainly worried about him, Zach realized it was time to wrap things up and surprise the Elves with their “Goddess,” which he hoped went smoothly and didn’t cause any kind of overreaction.

Okay, so just to make sure we’re all in agreement, Zach began, looking to bring closure to his gambit, which thankfully appeared to have succeeded, I’m allowed to tell anyone I want about the World Eater, the fact I need to go to Dragon Squire, and the fact that we need to get everyone to Albion IV. Right?

“Regrettably, yes,” Adamus said, not sounding all that thrilled to be reminded of their agreement. “Provided that my wife and Angelica do not give you any more clues or assistance beyond that which you already know. Though this may seem only a small concession to you, in my eyes, it is among the largest I have ever granted. I tolerate this blatant breach of the rules only because it shall give Galterra a fighting chance, without which it has none whatsoever.”

Zach grinned. Fine by me. As long as I can remember what I’m going after, I’ll figure the rest out all on my own. Anyways, it seems like we’ve come to as much of an agreement as we can. But there is one last thing I want to say to you, Adamus.

“Please feel free to do so.”

Having succeeded in most of his goals, Zach finally allowed his darker nature to arise. He dropped the confidence, the control, and the calm, and he traded them for his oldest friend: anger. He allowed it to seep through him like a pollutant, and he not only knew that Adamus could feel it, but he was counting on it, too.

Let me just warn you here and now—and I mean every word of this—the next time you send your Gods-cursed assassins down to Galterra to hunt me or my friends, I’m not just going to give them a few bruises and let them get home in time for dinner. No, if I see Zylor or any of them down here ever again, and it’s to try to hurt Jimmy or anyone I care about, then in the name of the Gods, I swear I’ll be sending them back to you in a thousand fucking pieces. I swear this to the Gods: the real ones.

To Zach’s surprise, Adamus’s tone darkened as well as if it was to match Zach’s own change in demeanor, though in his case, it was only slight, and more than darkness, what Zach felt from Adamus was an eerie sort of sadness. “You will do what you feel you must, and so too shall I. The ability to decide one’s path is a quintessential element of freedom. But I must eliminate Jimmy from the system, and though I regret this responsibility, it is not one I can ignore. I am sorry, but I must send someone to carry out this task.”

Yeah? Zach asked, no longer bothering to suppress his temper. Well, you better try not to send anyone you care about, because I can promise you they won’t be coming home. I’m fucking warning you, Adamus! It's not his death you're ordering, but the unfortunate bastards you send down here to die!

It was in the exact moment that followed these words that Zach came to immediately regret saying them, but it was not because he didn’t mean them or because he had a change of heart or even because he would rather have chosen to rephrase his threat into something more rational and diplomatic. No, it was for none of those reasons. Instead, it was due to the reaction that Eilea had upon hearing Zach’s warning.

Something happened upon those words: something that Zach knew he would never speak of—ever. As in, literally, ever. For a brief moment—an instant in time—he could feel Eilea becoming highly aroused, which she immediately shut down the moment she seemed to become aware of it, creating a follow-up sensation of embarrassment. Zach was sure it was an accident: an impulse she could not control and was ashamed to have allowed, thus he decided never to think of it again due to how unbearably awkward it would make things.

“Your threats have been noted,” Adamus said, also seemingly unwilling to dwell on the strange sensation that he most certainly also picked up on. “Our business here is concluded. I expect you to uphold your end of our bargain.”

I will. It’s in my interest anyway. It’s in everyone’s interest.

“Indeed, it is. I wish you luck, Zachys Calador. Those words are not idle. You fascinate me. With that, I shall leave you now.”

Oh, wait! One last thing.

“Yes?”

I need you to let Angelica portal Mr. Oren to Angelica’s later today. And maybe tomorrow, I don’t know. I also need a way of bringing Eilea here.

“Allow me to simplify this for you. Provided the action you wish to take is solely and exclusively for the purpose of dismantling these abhorrent weapons, and provided that the actions you wish to take do not fall afoul of anything you and Eilea have specifically agreed not to do, I will allow the bending of the rules for that one purpose alone. I ask you to do so only in good faith, for if not, I shall consider our agreement discarded.”

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

“Regarding my beloved, the moment I leave your mind, she will be free, and she can bring her own self wheresoever she wishes to venture. And with that, this matter is concluded. Best of luck to you both.”

Following those words, Zach could sense Adamus’s presence fade, and now, he was alone with just Eilea in his mind.

“You are the most amazing boy I’ve ever met in my thousands of years of living,” she said, her voice breaking as though she were holding back tears.

Oh, come on, Zach said, laughing aloud. Then, with a groan, he said, I need to introduce you to some people now. Gods, I hope they don’t make TOO big a deal out of this.

******

“Have you lost your mind, young man?” Fylwen asked, becoming terribly concerned. She had been led to believe that the woman, Jascaila, had been helping him cope with some of his issues. But clearly, the therapist had only driven him mad. She rather liked that woman, too. A shame. Whatever she was doing, it was not succeeding, as Fylwen could scarcely believe a word she was hearing. Really, it was preposterous!

At the moment, she, her daughter, and her daughter’s two Elvish friends were sitting in the kitchen at the dining table along with Jascaila and Zach’s two human friends, whose names Fylwen could not recall. The vampires were here as well. They, along with her daughter, had tried several times to interject, but they too seemed just as mystified by what the boy was saying.

“I’m telling you the truth,” the young man said to her, his hands flat on the table. “The only reason I’m saying this before I introduce you is so that you guys won’t get all weird and go into a shock or something.”

Fylwen risked reaching out with one of her hands, placing it on top of the boy’s. “Young man, you cannot be serious. You mean me to believe that, all this time, you and my daughter have been in secret collusion with one of the most sacred of Elvish Goddesses? That you hear her voice in your head: she, the Great Steward of Elvadin herself! Come now, child. You must be suffering from some sort of delusion. I am gravely concerned.”

The young man released something that sounded like a cross between a moan and a sigh. “Okay, well, clearly there’s only one way you’re going to believe me, and it’s going to be by seeing her for yourself. Hey, Eilea? It's almost time.” To those in the kitchen with him, he said, “And remember: I don’t want any of you guys freaking out or overreacting, because I know you take this Elvish 'Great One' shit way too seriously, and the last thing in the world I want is to have you all freak out and lose your minds, all right? I want you guys to please at least try to be cool. I’m serious. I want everyone to be cool. Can you do that?”

Fylwen placed her hand on his head. "You aren't running a fever. Perhaps you've simply exhausted yourself."

"Stop," he grumbled. "I'm serious. Look, even if you don't believe me, will you at least just humor me and tell me you won't freak out?"

Fylwen did not know if it was wise to enable his delusions, but seeing as how the boy was clearly becoming agitated, she reluctantly decided to humor him. "Very well. I shall maintain my composure."

"You promise?"

"Yes."

"Okay, good. Eilea, it's time. Come say hi."

The moment he finished speaking, there was a flash of light, which both startled and confused Fylwen, as for a moment, the entire kitchen was rendered invisible as this blinding light came then faded away. And now, a figure stood in the middle of the kitchen. A figure with golden hair, pointed ears, and—

Fylwen gasped.

****

“Okay, so this is exactly what I did not want to happen,” Zach said, moaning and slapping himself on the forehead. “Will everybody please just stop? This is insane!”

Right now, Kalana, Queen Vayra, Seiley, Trelvor, and literally—yes, literally—twenty-five green-cloaked Elvish warriors and ten white-cloaks were all stuffed inside the living room and kitchen, and every single one of them were lying on their bellies, their faces actually kissing the ground in an extreme act of worship unlike anything Zach had ever before witnessed and never wanted to witness ever again.

“WE APOLOGIZE FOR ZACH’S TRANSGRESSIONS!” Trelvor screamed at the top of his lungs, reaching up and yanking Zach with all his might so that Zach came slamming down onto his own belly. Flute-boy was stronger than Zach gave him credit for, because he cracked a piece of kitchen tile as he hit the floor. “HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND OUR WAYS! PLEASE SHOW HIM MERCY, OH GREAT GODDESS!”

“Fucking ouch, Gods-dammit,” Zach muttered. “Guys, you really don’t have to—”

“FORGIVE HIM!” Kalana screamed. Yes, Kalana too. She was going along with this one-hundred percent. But the part where Zach really became uncomfortable was when her mother began kissing the kitchen floor.

This is some fucking crazy bullshit going on right here, Zach thought.

Jimmy seemed to get caught up in this too, but for a very different reason; the moment he entered into the room, his eyes widened, his lips peeled back in what was quite honestly a remarkable mixture of hope and rage, and then he extended his arm and actually snarled. “Y-you!” he shouted at Eilea. “Oh, hell nah. I dunno why you’re here or what’s going on, but bitch, you better send my ass back the fuck home right now before I open up a can of—mmvvv!”

“Forgive him!” Seiley cried, having cast some kind of magic gag on him. Now, Kalana’s brand-new kitchen floor was broken apart as roots and vines bound around him and forced him to also get on his belly. She didn’t even seem to care, either. She actually seemed to support the destruction of a hip-sized chunk of her new home. Tena, on the other hand, observing her boyfriend’s fate, apparently did not require any additional convincing. She dropped down willingly.

Zach croaked. Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, the Elves began to sing songs—for two fucking hours! And when he complained, they used magic to gag his mouth, too. Even as Eilea tried to assure them that they could rise and none of this was necessary, it only seemed to increase their religious fervor a hundredfold.

Like, Zach understood that, as a broken people and survivors of genocide whose hope had been destroyed and whose culture had been ripped from them time and time again for the past thousand years, this was probably very, very important to them. Maybe more so than he could even possibly understand. Even still…this was kind of extreme, no?

“Forgive them,” Eilea said into his mind, a chuckle in her spirit that she managed to hide on her face. “They need this badly. The tears in their eyes are genuine. You cannot imagine their pain and their joy.”

Even you must know this is stupid, Zach said to her. I’m gagged and tied by vines to a kitchen floor while they literally sing in a mixture of human and Elvish lyrics about fairies and light. Why would anyone even write a five-minute song about light? It's light, for fuck's sake. It's not that complicated. Sorry, Eilea, but if this isn’t dumb, then nothing is.

“They need this, Zach. Please understand that. Let them sing their songs. They’ve held so tightly to their sense of identity for thousands of years. And for them—for the sake of their dignity—I must now live up to their expectations and be the Goddess they have waited for. I owe that to them. It is a debt I must give my all to repay, for I have been unable to comfort them in their time of need. This is the absolute least I can do after a thousand years of imprisonment. I cannot deprive them of this. You simply do not understand what they have been through and how badly they need this.”

Does this really make them happy?

“It does,” Eilea said, speaking as though there was no doubt in her words. And indeed, Zach could see for himself that she spoke the truth.

He looked over to Kalana, who was shedding tears along with her mother. Even after everything she’d learned in Angelica’s, and all the doubt that she should now have harbored about the Great Ones, the sight of Eilea had awakened some kind of primal longing in her, and she shed tear after tear of both joy and sadness. As Zach observed her behavior, he began to realize that this ran deeper than basic questions of what was true and what was sensical. Seeing this woman here, regardless of whether or not she truly was a Goddess or merely something close—her very presence served as some sort of vindication to Kalana and the Elves. That their culture and their people endured.

“Thank you for coming back to us,” Kalana said, whimpering. “I’ve wanted to meet you so bad. I was super jealous that Zach got to talk to you. You’re my hero!”

“I am so sorry I doubted your chosen human prophet,” Queen Vayra said. “I apologize both for the young man’s rudeness and also for my lack of faith in him.”

Prophet? Zach thought—but only to himself. This better not become a thing.

“No one here has anything to apologize for,” Eilea said. “Aside from me, that is. I am sorry I was gone for so long, my young princess, my beautiful Elvish queen. You both honor me.” She waved her arms ahead of her. “You all honor me.”

Anything that made Kalana this happy—no matter how weird—was worth it, Zach supposed. Even still, he desperately hoped he was misreading the situation, because unless he was mistaken, the word had already gotten out that “The Great Goddess Eilea Vayra” had manifested “in the flesh” at “Kalana’s house,” and now every living sentient Elf in existence, including one-hundred percent of those on Archian Prime—and every single child—were apparently rushing like madmen and madwomen over here to prostrate themselves before her. At this rate, Zach would be stuck on his belly all fucking day. Gods dammit at least let him go swimming or something. Or, if nothing else, couldn’t they at least take this to a larger area? Incredibly, even amid her religious fervor, Fylwen seemed to have the same thought.

“Oh, Great Goddess,” she said, “all the living children of Elvadin come to gaze upon your beauty and splendor. May we please be given your blessing to rise so that we may relocate to a larger area? I fear that this home may not suffice to contain us all.”

“Of course,” Eilea said, nodding. Zach had to admit that she at least looked the part. In person, she moved with a grace and majesty that outdid even Fylwen’s best efforts. She also seemed to truly believe herself the part as well, so at the very least, it wasn't like she was conning these people.

Queen Vayra ordered everyone present, Elf or otherwise, to rise and prepare to decorate the “fields” with golden flower petals in anticipation of a holy welcoming party for the Goddess herself. Then she snapped her fingers, and the vines holding him and Jimmy disintegrated—without the floor repairing itself, though—and the magical gags fell away from their faces. "What're you laughing about?" Jimmy asked Rian, spitting out a piece of vine.

"Nothing," Rian said, clearly lying. "Do you think I could laugh at a time like this? I, like those around me, am appalled that you had the audacity to disrespect the Goddess, Jimmy." He waggled his finger. "I've never been so offended in my life."

Lienne rolled her eyes. "Shuttup, Ri."

"What?" he asked, his voice sounding overly innocent. "I think Jimmy needs to be punished even more. Zach too. We got ourselves a bunch of fucking Goddess-disrespectors. I'm disgusted, Li. Disgusted."

Zach laughed, then prepared to retaliate, as he had about fifty even better quips he could say to Rian in reply, but before he had the chance to sling even one of them, Fylwen approached him. Then, in quick order, she hugged him, kissed him, and slapped him. “That’s for bringing her here. That’s also for bringing her here. And that, young man, is for disrespecting her.”

“Uh, okay,” he said to her. He was just glad that she didn’t hit him with any real force, as he would’ve certainly felt it if she had. Honestly, it was like more of a “ceremonial slap” than anything. Or maybe not. Who knew? At any rate, it at least looked like he finally had the chance to slip away and do literally anything else besides this, like maybe coordinate with Mr. Oren or something.

As the Elves began to rise, Zach released an exhausted sigh, glad that this was finally over. He stood up straighter, stretched his back, scratched his chin, and then turned around to walk into the living room so that he could watch some entertainment. Maybe that new show about Grundor was on. He was dying to check that out, actually.

“Z-Zach!” Kalana shouted at him, pouting as he grabbed a bag of potato chips from out of a kitchen cabinet and began to walk away towards the living room.

He halted mid-step. “Now what is it, Kal?”

She looked at him as though he was the insane one in all this. “Where are you going? You do know you’re coming with us, right?”

“I’m what now?”

“You’re the human prophet!” she said, speaking the words as if they were something he should just, like, have known or whatever.

“I am?”

“Duh!”

Zach rubbed his eyes, frustrated. “Are you fucking kidding me, Kal?”

“No!”

“Does this mean more lying down?”

“Yes!” she said, nodding in a way that was cute for some reason that he couldn’t understand.

Lowering his voice, he said, “Kal, we’ve been in cahoots with her for like several weeks now. Why are you only now, all of a sudden, acting like this is some kind of big d—”

“Nah-uh!” she interrupted, heat behind her words. “You were the one who was in ‘cahoots’ and got to talk to the Goddess. All I ever got to do was hear about what she said afterwards.” She clapped her hands together excitedly then kissed him on the forehead. “Now we get to see her for real and talk to her for real. My mom’s going to honor for you this!”

“Isn’t she mad that you kept this a secret from her this whole time?”

“Nope. I was only going along with the Goddess’s will.”

“Were you, though?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, but here’s the thing, Kal. If you think logically about what we’re doing right now, the only reasonable conclusion is that—”

He stopped speaking as Jascaila tapped him on his back. “Let them have their happiness, kiddo,” she whispered to him. He turned to face her, and then she winked.

Lowering his voice so that only she could hear him speak, he said, “Come on, you know this is bullshit, Jacs. I know you know that.”

“Yeah, probably. But sometimes in life, we have to go along with customs we find silly in order to make the people we care about happy. And hey: I don’t think Eilea’s doing this maliciously or for want of power. I think she’s trying to live up to their dreams. But that’s just my take on it.”

“Your take is usually the right one.”

“Aw, shucks.” She gave him another pat on the back. “If lying on the grass for a few hours and singing a few songs can bring this much happiness to people who have been so badly abused for such a long time, don’t ya think it’s worth it to let them have their joy?”

Zach sighed. “I do, I guess.”

She smiled. “You’ve got so much good in you. I know you do or I wouldn’t spend my time here when there are so many other people I could help. You’re going to grow into a truly incredible man. Sometimes life is about making small sacrifices to benefit others. Try to focus on that instead of how silly you find all this.”

With that, she followed everyone outside, and begrudgingly, Zach went along with them. Hopefully, this would be done with before Zach was scheduled to meet with Mr. Oren. Actually, maybe it was best to text him now and let him know what was going on. Donovan, too.

****

How do I keep making things worse? he yelled at himself, unable to believe how he'd caused yet another escalation of events.

Zach wanted to claw out his own brain and smush it. How was he supposed to know that texting Donovan would cause the entire Explorers Brigade, Lost and Found, God Slayers Guild and…and well, basically every single adventurer who’d heard the news, which was almost all of them, to come rushing over here? And they were all here. All of them, low level and high level alike. If the raid camp had been big, there were so many people here that it defied belief. There was now an entire sea of people on the island, including even Angelica, who hugged Eilea tightly and began to weep with actual tears pouring down her eyes, something he’d never seen an NPC do before. From the smell of cooking all around on the green hills, this place had basically been turned into Angelica’s, at least for the moment. And since everyone was now here, Zach was willing to bet there was not a single—not even a single—patron at the inn, which was probably why Angelica felt free to come here.

“I missed you so much,” Angelica said to her. “You are the closest thing to a mother I’ve ever had, and I was so scared I’d never get to see ya again, Eilea.”

“I’m so glad you’re doing well, Angelica. You will always be in my heart. Thank you for looking after the adventurers.”

“Everything I am is because of you. I would be dead if you didn't save me. Adamus was gonna delete me.”

“I’ll never let him do that to you. I promise.”

The two hugged again, and then Angelica broke away. It was almost as if she knew that she could not hog all of Eilea’s time when there was a storm of people who wanted to meet her. If nothing else, at least everyone was allowed to stand up. They’d gotten the belly-lying thing out of the way early on.

After Angelica released the embrace, her gaze turned serious as she craned her neck to look at the sea of adventurers and Elves. “There are a lot of people here today,” she said.

And it was at this point that Zach gasped as he realized that his plan of action, which involved mobilizing the Elves, might just have expanded both in scope and in potential. Unlike the political guilds, adventurers were stronger, made of tougher stuff, and did not die nearly as easily.

Once he’d set Vim free and began working out the logistics with Mr. Oren as to how they would deal with Shadowfall Coast, he planned on using the Elves as the brunt of his attack force—assuming that was what Mr. Oren thought they should do, as Zach was no military person. But now, as Zach realized the potential around him, he began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the adventurers might be willing to break their ironclad rule about not becoming involved in politics and wars.

Not only did the adventurers hate and despise the Guild of Gentlemen more than anything, as they had stolen the loot of the dragon raid, which to adventurers was worse than murder, but they had also disrespected Donovan and attacked the raid members right after they'd saved the world. Seeing them all mingling and partying with the Elves made him wonder: if everyone here on this island worked as a team, how many innocent lives could be saved?

They wouldn’t need a single level-one ground troop. They wouldn’t need any air support or fire from the sea. If every capable adventurer and every Elf all joined forces, they could easily accomplish, with overwhelmingly fewer civilian deaths, what the alliance had originally set out to do.

And if people shoot at them from windows, so what? Zach realized, his eyes widening. The bullets will bounce right off most of us here. We don’t even need to retaliate. We can spare everyone who doesn’t pose us a threat. Even if they become violent!

A chill traveled down his spine. If the adventurers and the Elves went to war…

They could conquer Shadowfall Coast. And they could do it without blowing up a single building. Without killing a single level-1 civilian. Without dropping a single bomb.

Without painting the streets red in the blood of innocent people caught up in this.

A domino falls.

And then so does the next one.

And the next one.

And the next one…

And the next one.

Chapter 136: The Ancient Rules

Chapter 136: The Ancient Rules

Sometimes, emotions were complex, multi-layered, and deep. Other times, they were straightforward and easily understood. Right now, Jimmy was exhibiting the latter; in his case, Zach didn’t need to be an empath or a therapist to understand his new friend’s heightened state of agitation, frustration, and anger. Even if Zach hadn’t learned a great deal about analyzing one’s emotions from Jascaila, it would still be perfectly obvious how, from Jimmy’s perspective, he was being disrespected and was completely justified in being pissed off.

Given all his fears and questions, it was only natural that he’d want to speak with Eilea, who was responsible for bringing him here to Galterra. But he was not being allowed to see her—well, at least not yet. This was because, given the sheer volume of people who wanted to meet the Elvish Goddess, Jimmy was low on the priority list. Even still, Kalana had personally promised him that he would get the chance. She had even sworn an oath that he would have his turn eventually and would not be skipped over. But for now, he’d have to wait.

Understandably, this hadn’t gone over so well with Jimmy, who had protested to the Elves to no avail. They were refusing to listen to him, and Zach could easily imagine how unfair and infuriating this must have felt to Jimmy. In fact, he didn’t even need to imagine it, because as it turned out, Jimmy wasn’t the only one who’d found themselves rebuffed by the overly zealous Elves; incredibly, not even Zach was currently able to speak to her. Not only was this frustrating, but it was also a big part of the reason why he, along with Jimmy, were currently swimming their way across the Gods-be-damned ocean for the second time since yesterday. Stroke by stroke, the two of them were throwing arm over arm as they swam along the salty water, heading farther south towards Shores of Wrath.

“This is bullshit, dude,” Jimmy said, breathing heavily. A large wave caused both their bodies to lurch upwards before plopping back down, and Jimmy, looking a bit exhausted, had to spit water out of his mouth. “After all the shit I been through, I should be the first person she’s gonna talk to. That woman put me in the dirt for thousands of years, and she won’t even…you know what, I’m gonna drown if I keep thinking about this.”

“I’m just as pissed off,” Zach said. He was swimming extra slowly so that Jimmy could keep up, though “slow” in this context was relative, as they were still moving roughly about as fast as a speedboat. “I didn’t think I’d just get thrown aside like that either. Honestly, Jimmy? I’m mad at all of them right now. I get where you’re coming from.”

Jimmy splashed the water a bit harder as he swam; it was as though he scoffed at Zach’s words. “No disrespect, but you don’t,” he said. “I mean, you’re just mad because you were slightly inconvenienced. That’s totally different.”

Zach frowned. Jimmy’s words were true on a surface level, but they were also an oversimplification of Zach’s reasons for being irritated. “There’s more to it than that, Jimmy.”

“I’m sure there is,” he said. He halted from speaking a moment as he huffed, clearly struggling to keep pace. “But like, the reason I’m mad is because I was taken away from my mom, my cat, and my friends by that Elf woman who let me get hit by a goddamn car that she knew was coming. And the worst part of it all is that I was only one episode away from finishing Shógun, too.”

“Huh? What the hell is that?”

“What? Shógun?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. It’s a show about the samurai during feudal Japan.”

“Those words mean absolutely nothing to me, Jimmy.”

Jimmy looked like he wanted to sigh, but he was breathing too hard as they continued to swim. “I’ll tell you later.”

The two ventured onwards, and Zach reflected on his own aggravation. Honestly, he felt cheated. He really did. He’d made a deal, and he should not have to be swimming across the ocean right now. And though he liked her greatly, he was particularly angry with Angelica, who couldn’t just do the damn thing he’d asked of her and which she was definitely allowed to do.

She has to be allowed, he thought. We made a deal!

About three hours after bringing Eilea to the island and causing such a stir, Zach had approached Angelica with a simple request. “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?” he’d asked the super-high-level, cat-eared NPC.

“Sure, Zach!” she’d said cheerfully, pausing to kiss Grundor on the cheek and telling him she’d be right back.

The two had moved a bit away from the others, and Zach had spent a few minutes recapping everything that had happened to bring Eilea here. Angelica had surmised most of it on her own, as it was obvious some bargain must have been struck for Eilea to have returned to the world. Angelica also had ways of knowing most of what was going on outside of her tavern, which was partially how the word of this had spread—though Donovan deserved most of the blame for that.

After filling in what minor details Angelica did not already know, she’d thanked him for informing her and looked approvingly at him.

At that point, having required her assistance, he’d said, “Okay, so I know you’re bringing Mr. Oren here later today, but I was thinking about it, and I decided I want to fill him in on what’s going on ahead of time to prepare him for what to expect when he gets here. So uh, do you think you could please warp me over to Slopes of Dal’Zarrah? I’m pretty sure that’s where he is.”

Angelica cupped her chin as if she'd been thinking about it. “Um, I guess I could. But…is this really an emergency, Zach?”

Not wanting to lie to her, Zach had shaken his head. “No, it’d just save me a whole lot of travel time. I haven’t even gotten to hear what Eilea knows about the weapons yet, so I don’t have that much to tell him, but I just feel like I should speak with him in person. I also really need to talk to him about The World Eater now that I can remember it.”

Angelica had looked at him curiously, and he had elaborated. “Adamus said I could spread word of its existence, and that’s something I’m going to eventually have to do. But I don’t think humans alone are going to be able to stop it, and I think everyone in the world deserves to be told at some point that it’s coming. Anyways, since Mr. Oren is now the chief diplomat of humanity, I got this idea in my head that maybe he could use his position to convince the other races to cooperate with humanity when the time comes in five years from now. But, uh, with everything about to go down, I don’t think I’ll have another chance to bring this up with Mr. Oren for a good while.”

At this, Angelica’s face had tightened, and her cheer was replaced by a look that seemed overly apologetic. “I don’t think I can help you with this. I’m sorry!”

Zach had winced, unable to believe the response she’d given him. “What do you mean? Why the hell not?” Her name had briefly flashed red, and he'd immediately apologized for his disrespectful tone. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she'd said. Then she had sighed. “Based on everything you said, it would violate the bargain you made with Adamus.”

“Huh? No it won’t.”

“Yep it would!”

“No way. Maybe I explained something wrong. Basically, as long as it—”

“You just said it’s for the sake of convenience, right?”

“Okay, so?”

“And um, you also said you had other things you wanted to talk to him about that aren’t directly related to the weapons in Shadowfall Coast.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s also about dealing with the weapons, too.”

“But you still want me to bring him here later today?”

“Yeah, because it’s easier that way. It makes more sense to have him here so that he can listen to Eilea’s report about the weapons at the same time that I do. Otherwise, I’ll have to relay the information to him secondhand, which means it won’t be as accurate.”

“Okay, so, couldn’t you tell him all this stuff then?”

“I won’t have time,” Zach had explained. “Once Mr. Oren gets here, we’re going to be too focused on Shadowfall Coast to talk about anything else. So there’s a mixture of reasons I want to go over there. Just consider this the magical version of a business expense. Adamus will understand.”

Angelica had laughed at his words, which he hadn’t even intended to be funny. “Adamus wouldn’t have agreed to those terms if he didn’t know that me and Eilea have a pretty good sense of what actions he’d be okay with and what actions he wouldn’t. If you’re asking to take a portal to Slopes of Dal’Zarrah just to avoid the hassle of traveling there yourself, and um, if it’s also about things that are unrelated to destroying the weapons, he’s gonna get really mad.”

Zach had completely disagreed with her take on things. “You really think he’s going to give us an earful if you take me over to Dal’Zarrah?”

“Uhh…actually, he probably won’t say anything to us at all, but he’d still be really upset. And then, later on, if you need to skirt the line over something that’s actually important, you’ll have already burned out his good will and he’ll stop me from helping you.”

“Fuck his good will,” Zach had growled.

“I agree with you on that,” she’d said, giving him a very approving nod. “But you might need it later on. Gosh, I guess if you really want to, I can take you there and back, but I know he’s not gonna be happy about it, and later on, you might regret it.”

Zach had considered his options, becoming grumpy and annoyed. “Let me clear this with Eilea,” he’d said. “Because this is utter bullshit.”

And so, he’d tried to do exactly that: only to find himself completely blocked off by literal spear-wielding Elves, who stood at the outermost edge of a perimeter, inside of which she was having one-on-one conversations with various individuals as something of an “order” had been drawn up, by which the people who wanted an “audience” with “the Goddess” had been given a slot and a priority. Jimmy was at the bottom, and Zach, who hadn’t requested an “audience,” wasn’t on it at all. The adventurers, at least those high in rank, were sprinkled in here or there. Zach knew they were primarily interested in seeing Eilea in her capacity as a “Great One,” as opposed to the Elves, who worshipped her as a Goddess. Without a doubt, most wanted to ask her about Olandrin, the Great One everyone seemed to be obsessed with and who was no longer in this galaxy.

“Guys, I need to get through,” he’d told them. The Elves, an even mixture of green-cloaked and white, had shaken their heads firmly. The guards Fylwen had chosen were on the larger side for Elves, and among them was Londril, who towered over everyone, human and Elf alike.

Now that almost—if not every—living Elf in the universe was packed into the mob-free section of the island along with nearly every adventurer—save for those still on their way—Zach had been able to confirm that Londril was, in fact, the largest, toughest-looking Elf in existence. If Ziragoth had only been a single-phase boss, then he alone could have tanked the terrifying dragon without the aid of any others for as long as needed. He was a fiercely powerful Elf, and flute aside, his son, Trelvor, was also pretty intimidating too when he wanted to be.

“It doth bring joy to mine own eyes to see thee,” he said to Zach. “But I cannot alloweth thee passage.”

Zach had pursed his lips, and he cycled through the various breathing techniques he’d learned in order to keep his cool. “I haven’t spoken to her in over three hours. I need to touch base with Eil—err, ‘The Great Goddess’ really quickly.”

“Three whole hours, huh?” asked a green-cloaked Elf. “My people have not been able to ‘touch base with her’ for over a thousand years. I’m sure you can survive waiting until tonight or tomorrow to speak with the Goddess.”

“This isn’t a contest,” Zach said dryly. He had then tried to shove his way through, but five of them had readied their spears at him, and all had looked as though they were willing to use them. “Seriously, guys? Come on. Seriously?”

“We love you, kid,” another of the green-cloaks said. “But this is just not a fight you’re going to win. And if you think that’s unfair, just know that I haven’t gotten to meet her yet either. You must be patient and wait. Please don’t make me be the one to have to give an ass-whooping to Elvish kind’s greatest human friend.”

Zach sized him up, his anger having begun to rise up from the pit of his stomach. “If you even can,” he’d said threateningly, the words having flown out of his lips before he’d been able to tamp down on them.

“Trust me, I can,” the Elf had replied. This, of course had only served to further provoke Zach’s anger.

“Oh yeah? Well, let me tell you something, okay? You might be way higher level than me, but I bet you I could still snap that fucking spear of yours in half like a Gods-be-damned—”

“Heya, Zach, is everything all right?” a voice had called to him just as the situation had begun to escalate. Zach’s words had then cut off immediately, and he felt great shame as Jascaila strode over to him. “What’s wrong, buddy?”

“Nothing,” he’d said. “This guy’s just being a fucking dick.”

Before he could explain, the green-cloaked Elf cut in. “We’re not! We’re just not permitted to allow anyone through until it’s their turn to approach the Holy Goddess.”

“Well, I’m the reason she’s even here in the first place,” Zach had said, his frustration level having begun to skyrocket. He turned to Jascaila. “Can you please tell them?”

She gestured with her chin and put an arm around his shoulder. “Let’s go talk over there.”

“Oh, not this,” he’d moaned. “This means the answer is no. Gods-dammit!”

Nevertheless, he’d stepped off to the side, and somehow, she’d worked her magic; ten minutes later, Zach had realized he wasn’t actually angry with the Elvish warriors who he’d been about to pick a fight with, but rather, he was upset because he felt like he was being sidelined despite all that he’d done to bring this about. Jascaila agreed with him one-hundred percent, too.

“It’s total bullshit,” she’d said. “And I’m not saying that to ‘calm you down.’ It is. It’s disrespectful towards you.” She took a slow breath, then added, “But so much of life is dealing with unfairness. We can either address it sensibly, or we can get into swordfights with Elves. Which is more productive?”

Zach had laughed despite himself. “I could’ve taken that guy…maybe.” At this, Jascaila had given him one of her knowing “looks,” and Zach rolled his eyes. “There’s no way we would’ve fought to the death or anything like that. But anyways, I really wanted to see Mr. Oren sooner than later, and I know Eilea could clear this up. But they won’t let me through to see her, and she’s not receiving the thoughts I’m sending her way, either.”

It was that second point that Zach found most alarming, as he had been having no success in mentally communicating with her in the way he usually did. No matter how hard he’d tried to send thoughts out to her, she wasn’t receiving them. But what really troubled him was what this implied, as he did not think she was intentionally ignoring him. It seemed that while her attention was occupied elsewhere, she wasn’t able to communicate with him. This meant that, while trapped down below the surface, she’d been so lonely, bored, and isolated that, aside from whenever she had her “accomplice” there with her, she had literally nothing better to do than to wait on standby to see if Zach had anything to say to her. It made him feel really bad for her, which he’d expressed to Jascaila.

“That infuriates me,” Jascaila had said. “It sounds to me like Adamus thinks he has the right to ‘store’ her in some kind of subterranean cellar as though she is a piece of property to be locked away whenever convenient. That’s a toxic relationship on a universal scale.”

“I don’t get it either. How could he let her suffer like that? If it was Kal, I couldn’t even imagine doing something like that to her. No way.”

Jascaila had ruffled his hair as if pleased by his sentiment. “Kalana is very loyal to you. Make sure you always treat her well.”

“Of course,” Zach had replied, certainty in his words. Then he’d slowly released a breath as his thoughts had returned to his current dilemma. “But yeah, anyways, since nobody’s going to take me there, do you know of any dungeons that can get me from Whispery Woods to Slopes of Dal’Zarrah?”

“I do know of one, actually,” she’d replied after a brief pause to think. “But…are you sure you wouldn’t rather just wait for later when Angelica brings Lord Oren over here and Eilea gives you her report about the weapons?”

He’d sighed. “Nah, I kind of feel like I should really get him in the loop now, and I have other things I want to talk to him about, too.”

Jascaila had given him another pat on the back. “Well, if you’re insistent on going, I can give you instructions on how to get there, but…in this case, I really think you should wait, Zach.”

“And why is that?”

Her gaze had turned serious. “The closest path to Dal’Zarrah runs through a dungeon that’s rarely discussed or used, and one that I know nothing about and have never been to myself. I only know of it from a friend of a friend. I have no idea what might be in it or if it’s even safe, and I don’t know anyone who’s run it because it’s deeply unpopular. I seriously think you should just wait until later.”

Zach had laughed. “Pfft. I’ll be fine. Just tell me where I’ve gotta go.”

“Time to break the adventuring code again, huh?”

Without asking for anything in return, Jascaila had told him about the dungeon, which she claimed was called “Trials of Nolak,” and she stressed once more that she did not know what would await him. Then her attention had become diverted by Trelvor, who had wanted to talk to her again about his dad and how he felt insecure in living up to his expectations.

Bowing his head graciously, Zach had decided to get going, as he would be very busy the second half of today and needed to make every minute of the first half count. But first, a thought had come to him, and he’d decided to wade his way over to Jimmy, who was brooding by himself under the shade of a lone tree in the open fields of the mob-free zone.

“Hey, Jimmy,” he’d said to him.

“Yeah?” he’d replied, his head pointed at the outer edge of the gathered crowd while staring daggers into their backs.

“So, look, I’m heading out to go talk to a friend of mine—you met him yesterday, actually—but I need to travel through a dungeon I’ve never been to before to get there. I know you like that stuff, so is there any chance you’d want to—”

“Dungeon?” Jimmy had said, whipping his head excitably in Zach’s direction in a way that reminded him of Fluffles whenever the cat smelled food.

“Y-yeah,” Zach had said. “I was wondering if—”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then.”

Before leaving, he’d briefly told Kalana where he was going, promising to stay out of trouble and keep Jimmy safe. Jimmy had promised Tena a variant of the same thing. She’d wanted to come too, but she’d been busy helping catch Zephyr up on what had transpired yesterday with the two OMP goons. And so now, here they were, him and Jimmy, doing the breast stroke side by side as they journeyed to the capital city of humanity, where Mr. Oren would likely be waiting in his office. Zach had tried to call ahead, but trying to get through to the man was like trying to call a doctor's office and asking to speak directly to the doctor. It was impossible.

I can’t believe he’s become so important, Zach thought.

As Zach continued onwards, he noticed that Jimmy was panting and beginning to slow, so Zach slowed along with him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said, treading water a moment as if to catch his breath. His eyes started shifting downwards. “Hey, do you see any fish under us by any chance?”

Zach found his question strange. “Huh? No, why?”

“I wanna poison them so I can cast my stamina regen buff.”

Zach chuckled. “That’s a terrible idea. For all you know, you might end up going into E-debt and drowning. Then I’ll have to hold your head above the water until you wake up. Besides, that buff is probably why you’ve got so little stamina for your level to begin with. I bet the fact that you never have to really push yourself is actually stopping you from growing it.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jimmy said, angling himself so that he began to back-float. Zach allowed him the moment to rest.

“You should try pushing yourself more without relying on that buff so that you build your stamina. Especially for times like now when you can’t use it.”

“You’re probably right about that,” he agreed. Zach watched as his breathing slowly came under control. “Ah well. If nothing else, at least all this exercise is helping me take my mind off everything, know what I mean?”

“I do,” Zach said. “And I could also use a little head-clearing myself.”

“I’m just glad to be going back to a dungeon,” Jimmy remarked in between gasps of breath. “I need to touch a dungeon floor so bad. I think I’m going through dungeon withdrawal.”

“How? It’s only been a little more than a day, Jimmy.”

“That’s just how I am, man. I go hard. That’s just how it is.”

“Well, let’s hurry up and get there, then. We’re almost to Shores of Wrath. I think I can see it.”

Although Zach thought of this trip as “swimming across the ocean,” in truth, they were only swimming a tiny fraction of the overall distance that spanned the South Bastian Sea; the island of Elendroth was, geographically speaking, considered to be “just off the northern coast” of South Bastia, and on a map, the two points were so close that they almost seemed to be touching.

Ahead of them, Zach could spot the coastline, and given that it was now only two hours from noon, he was worried that he’d be pestered on arrival. The city’s beaches were very popular year-round, and Zach was concerned that he’d be spotted the moment he and Jimmy swam to shore. He seriously doubted he could continue to remain undetected as he had on his trips to Shores of Wrath during his first two weeks here.

It's probably going to be impossible to move around unnoticed, now.

Zach was unable to go anywhere in public in North Bastia without being recognized, but down here, in Shores of Wrath, things had been way different. For two weeks, he’d been able to stroll around the city at any time of the day while remaining completely unbothered. This was likely because, despite knowing who he was, no one in Shores of Wrath had actually expected him to be there, and thus even if they thought he looked similar to the “Zachys Calador” they read about in the news, they probably would not have actually thought it was really him.

But now, after yesterday’s “incident,” there was no way he wouldn’t be bothered while traversing the city, as by now, everyone would know he was staying at the relatively nearby island with Kalana. And indeed, as he and Jimmy neared land, he was already having to politely wave off a number of people.

Once the two of them swam close enough to the shore that they began to encounter other swimmers, they had to slow down to avoid accidentally hurting or killing someone. And that was when it began. Shouts and victorious fists raised in the air from numerous swimmers, as well as people on floats, who called out to him. Zach made quick nods of his head and waves of his hand to as many as possible, not wishing to come across as rude or “mean” like he’d done once before, which he knew would cause Kalana to scold him later.

“Nice to meet you too,” he said in reply to someone as he and Jimmy swam far enough that they could now stand up and wade the rest of their way to the shore in the shallow water. “Nice to meet you,” he said to someone else. “Oh, wow, that’s awesome. Good to meet you too, sir.”

Eventually, the two of them emerged on the beach in soaking-wet equipment that Zach knew would dry in a matter of minutes under the intensely hot morning sunshine. Dozens of children playing with their parents near the water turned and gasped at the sight of him. Zach could do little but wave. It was impossible not to draw their attention, too. Hell, even if they’d had no idea whatsoever who he was, their heads still would’ve turned just at the sight of two guys walking onto the shore in outfits that were anything but swimwear and were armed with a sword and staff respectively.

“You’re pretty popular out here, huh?” Jimmy asked him as he did his best to appear both polite but also in a hurry.

“Yeah, I guess,” Zach muttered. Then, to a middle-aged woman who’d sprung up from a blanket she’d laid on the sand, he said, “Sorry, ma’am, I’m actually in a hurry. I’ll take a picture with you next time. I promise.”

“Excuse me, young man. Are you Zachys Calador of the Royal Roses?” another woman asked, her three children beside her as she approached from behind him. Zach turned his head around to look at her, and he forced a smile onto his lips.

“Hi there. I am, but I can’t stay to chat. I’m really sorry, but I’m actually in a hurry. It’s uh…guild business.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I just want to say I support you!”

“Thank you so much.”

Slowed, but only slightly, Zach led Jimmy away from the beach, up a fairly steep hill, and then onto a concrete street on the outer edges of the city. Stopping to pull the hood of his cloak over his head and obscure his face, he beckoned Jimmy to follow him, and the two began making their way down a wide boulevard into a narrower one as they headed towards the market district for which Shores of Wrath was famous, at which point the DEHVs on the road would be replaced with wagons and camels, and there would be more street merchants than one could count.

Luckily, with the hood drawn, people did not appear to recognize him, though they did recoil somewhat in fear, as he knew that the cloak added a menacing, dark, and shadowy look to his visage. The farther into the city they ventured, the more crowded and densely populated the sidewalks became, and eventually, Zach began to stare down at the ground to avoid having anyone look directly at him, as he worried that, given yesterday’s excitement, the sight of him might cause an unintentional panic.

Oddly enough, however, the busier the streets became, the more anonymous he himself became in turn. Eventually, he was able to once more pull down the hood as people became too busy to bother scanning the faces of the pedestrians walking around them, and he was able to more or less “blend in” to his surroundings. In fact, it was so busy here that Zach almost lost sight of Jimmy, who was quickly beginning to vanish in the throngs of people stomping their way up and down both sides of the sidewalk.

Zach turned around and hurried over to him. “Try to keep up,” he said. “We’ve only been walking for fifteen minutes. How the hell are you this tired already?”

Jimmy, who was clearly struggling not to lag behind, now had sweat pouring down both sides of his face. “It’s just so damn hot,” he said, wiping his forehead with his arm. “I actually miss being in the water. That was better than this. I’m gonna die out here, Zach. Fuck.”

Zach paused at the end of a street not far from where he’d fought that guy, Zylor, yesterday. Briefly, he stepped into a small convenience store and purchased two bottles of water, which were 3g each—way more expensive than the price of bottled water in most of North Bastia. Likely due to its geography, the price of water in South Bastia was significantly costlier than what he was used to. And despite now having more gold than he’d ever had in his life—almost seventy-two thousand stowed away in Bank and Storage—he still hated paying 6g just for two Gods-be-damned bottles of water. Still, he had little choice. It was hot, and they were both thirsty.

“Here you go,” he said, exiting the store and tossing Jimmy one of the bottles. His new friend caught it and eyed him gratefully.

“Thanks, dude.”

“No problem.”

Zach watched as Jimmy gulped it down in a matter of seconds, and Zach joined him. Then they tossed the empty bottles in a recycling bin near the curb and continued onwards. A half hour later, they made it to the market district, and a half hour after that, they were entering the Grand Library in Shores of Wrath. Zach could audibly hear Jimmy sigh as the air-conditioned library must’ve felt like a great relief compared to the punishing, outside heat. Jimmy, who had come to shore soaked, had dried off only to become soaked again in his own sweat.

“You doing okay?” Zach asked him, concerned.

Jimmy nodded. He downed another bottle of water—the third of which they’d bought on the way over here—and disposed of it in a bin near the library’s entrance. “I’m good. Hey uh, Zach,” he said, a touch of nervousness in his voice.

“Yeah?”

“We’re not gonna have to fall through a planet again, are we?”

“I don’t think so,” Zach answered. “I mean, at least not on the way over there. We’d normally have to do that again on the way back, but I think we might be able to hitch a portal back along with Mr. Oren when Angelica comes by later to grab him.”

“Sounds good.”

With that, the two of them made their way up the tall, golden-covered, and spiral staircase that led to the third floor of the large building. Many fancily adorned men and women perusing various books and records stopped and widened their eyes as they took in the sight of Zach, and he was once again forced to politely wave and smile. Still, he managed to get where he needed to go, and a moment later, he led Jimmy through the double-doored entrance to the restricted section of the Grand Library.

Today, the head librarian was nowhere to be found; the desk the old man sat at was vacant. It was quiet in here compared to the rest of the library, and Zach found it pleasant. Calmly, he strolled over to the various bookshelves and began to count, pausing when he got to the seventh. “This is the wall,” he said to Jimmy. “Remember that in case you ever need to come back here on your own.”

“I will. Trust me.”

Walking right through the wall between the seventh and eighth bookshelf, Zach and Jimmy entered into a narrow, dark, and tunnel-like passageway that ran for a quarter of a mile. There was nothing to see amid the darkness, and as they walked, the only sound was their feet clicking against what felt like stone. Eventually, however, they emerged from another wall, and from the sight of the tiled floor and brick walls, along with the windows that gave off a view of an endless blue sky, Zach knew that they were back in F17 of Tower of Eternity.

Jimmy’s mood changed immediately. “Goddamn, it’s good to be back!” he said cheerfully.

“Don’t get too happy. We’re just passing through this dungeon. We’re not here to fight anything we don’t absolutely have to, either.”

“Yeah, yeah. But wait. Let me at least just…just hold up one second, okay?”

Zach laughed. “All right.”

He watched as Jimmy unsheathed his staff, began to pant even harder as he cast numerous poisons on three mobs nearby, and then raised his staff and called down the blue heart that Zach recalled was his stamina regen buff. A minute later, he looked refreshed, renewed, and revitalized. His entire demeanor seemed to change. He went from looking like he was about to roll over and die to marching along as if carried by a heavenly wind. As the two of them continued to walk, he no longer had any issue keeping up, and Zach was glad to see him so upbeat and optimistic. Jimmy really did love the dungeons, didn’t he?

More than anyone I’ve ever met, Zach thought. Even more than me.

“Looks like the dungeon reset since yesterday,” Jimmy said, pointing his staff at the unbroken window they’d leapt out of the day prior.

“I’m glad. It would be too cold in here otherwise.”

As the two proceeded down one of the long, typically mob-filled halls that defined this place, Zach suggested they group up and join into a party just in case they had to fight, to which Jimmy agreed. To their left was a door that led to Angelica’s, and to their right was a door that led to the bazaar, which Zach still had not had the chance to visit despite having numerous pieces of junk loot that he wanted to sell off whenever he got the opportunity to do so. Though his storage box still contained most of its empty space, he didn’t want to fill it up with what he’d begun to think of as “crap loot,” and he was eager to sell it for whatever gold he could get.

“Oh, shit, I can’t believe I forgot,” he said to himself as something came to mind, drawing Jimmy’s attention.

“What?” Jimmy asked. “What’d you forget?”

“My ability, Gacha Get’cha, is off cooldown. I forgot to use it. I got absolute garbage last week, too. I was looking forward to it.”

When Jimmy gave him a blank look, Zach explained to him what the ability did and why he was excited each week to use it. Last week, Zach had gotten three common, low-level items, which consisted of a shield and two pairs of gloves. He was hoping for a bit more luck this time around. Sadly, he’d have to wait until later to find out what fate had in store for him, as he knew Kalana would be very upset with him if she didn’t get to watch. She found the ability just as entertaining as he did, and she would kill him if she didn’t get to be there when he next used it.

“That’s incredible,” Jimmy said. “So you can just get, like, anything? Even limited-time and event items?”

“Yep. I think so, anyway.”

“Damn, man. That’s cool.”

“I just hope I don’t get screwed over again. I can’t believe how shitty my luck was last week.”

Jimmy made a tsk sound. “Yeah, RNG, man, it gets you every time.”

“R-N-what?”

“RNG. Don’t you…is that not a term you guys use over here?”

“Nope,” Zach said, searching his mind for any memory of it and finding nothing. “At least, it’s not a term I’ve ever heard of before.”

Jimmy shrugged. “Oh. Well, it just means random number generator. Chance, basically.”

“One of these days we need to just sit around and talk about everything you know about the world thousands of years ago. There are so many questions I want to ask.”

Jimmy smiled. “Sounds good to me. I’m an open book.”

Picking up the pace somewhat, the two of them moved at a brisk walk beyond the entrance to Angelica’s and the bazaar, then pulled open a metal door labeled F17->F18 and began ascending the three flights of stairs that led to the next floor up. Zach himself had never been here before, as he’d thus far had no reason to go back to Whispery Woods. Originally, when asking Jascaila about this dungeon, he’d done so with the intention of never having to board a ten-hour flight to North Bastia ever again. Ultimately, however, he hadn’t ended up using it to travel to North Bastia, but instead, he’d used it as a quick way of getting to and back from Angelica’s.

Now, however, it would serve as the first leg of a two-step journey to the northmost human region of Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, a place he had never visited. Actually, he’d never been to most regions. Despite being seventeen years old, Zach had only ever been to Whispery Woods, Shadowfall Coast, Varda’s Lair—very briefly—Tomb of Fire—also very briefly—and Shores of Wrath. And he really couldn’t count Varda’s Lair since he’d never left the airport. At least he'd actually gotten to walk through the majestically beautiful and lively city in Tomb of Fire. There was so much of the world he still needed to see, and he intended to see all of it.

“So, where is this passage, anyway?” Jimmy asked him as they climbed the stairway.

“Jascaila told me it’s in a pool that’s just to the left of the exit.”

“I think I remember seeing that when I did these lower floors, but I ignored it. I was working too hard on climbing higher and leveling as fast as I could.”

A moment later, as they shoved open the push-bar door and emerged onto the eighteenth floor, Zach heard Jimmy begin to grumble to himself. “Damn,” Jimmy said, sounding disappointed.

Just ahead of them and to their left was a small, divergent path that led to a room that, from smell alone, Zach could tell contained a chlorinated pool. As far as Zach was aware, it was the only such of its kind to be found in the dungeon, which was otherwise repetitive in structure and contained little variation in décor, style, or substance.

“What’s wrong?” Zach asked him.

He pointed. “The pool you were telling me about is right there.”

“So?”

“No mobs to fight,” he said, glancing longingly farther down the hallway, which was absolutely teeming with various creatures at differing levels.

Zach laughed. “That’s good. I’m not in the mood to start messing around with mobs.”

“Typical PVPer,” Jimmy muttered under his breath—though Zach heard him clearly. The accusation annoyed and slightly hurt him, but he decided not to make an issue of it, as he had the sense that it did not quite mean to Jimmy what it meant to Zach or the other adventurers of Galterra. Here, calling someone a “PVPer” implied someone who took joy in fighting and killing other people. He was pretty sure that wasn’t what Jimmy meant by it.

Making his way down the small path and into a larger, more open, and spacious pool room, Zach curled his lower lip and said, “Looks like we’re getting wet again.”

Jimmy leaned over the edge and looked down at the blueish, clear water. “What exactly do we gotta do?”

“Just jump in and swim straight down, I think.”

“Down to where? It’s only like six-feet deep.”

Zach rubbed his chin. “I think we just have to swim straight down and keep swimming. Forget what our eyes see.”

“Yeah, all right.”

Volunteering to go first, Zach walked forward and fell with a slight splash into the pool, treading water as he waited for Jimmy to join him. A second later, there was another splash, and now Jimmy was swimming beside him.

Without another word, Zach glanced downwards, took a deep breath, and then plunged down into the water, swimming to the bottom. Cautiously, he reached out with his palm and prepared to touch the blue-colored bottom of the pool. Yet when he swiped his hand, he felt nothing but emptiness.

Confused, he tried swiping it again, and only now he realized that what looked like the bottom of the pool was actually a cloudy, blueish emptiness, one that he could continue to swim through.

Glancing upwards to ensure that Jimmy followed along, he continued to swim down deeper into the pool, hoping it was not so deep that he ended up dying from lack of oxygen. As he went deeper and deeper, the water became warmer and warmer, heating to the point where he eventually felt like he was swimming through a bath.

It also became darker, too: turning from a blue to a dark blue, and then the water became black. Eventually, it became so dark he could not see anything at all in front or around him. He was also beginning to feel the very first ache in his lungs as his body called out to him for fresh oxygen. Even still, he kept calm and continued to swim farther and farther down—at least until it abruptly occurred to him that he wasn’t swimming downwards at all.

Zach wasn’t sure when, precisely, the shift had occurred, but it came to him as a form of bodily realization that, at some point in the past few seconds, he’d gone from swimming straight downwards to straight up. He was no longer descending: he was ascending. The water also began to cool, quickly turning from a bath-like temperature to something much chillier. It also felt a bit slimy, too, and much less sterile.

The darkness abated as well. There was a light coming from up above that looked to be like that of the Galterran sky, and Zach, becoming hungry for air, swam upwards towards it. Finally, he surfaced, drew a deep breath, and then released it just as Jimmy’s head popped up beside him, taking an even larger breath.

“God, that was close,” Jimmy said, his voice containing a mixture of excitement and fear. “I didn’t know how long that’d go on for. At one point, I wasn’t sure if I should turn back or keep going. I bet I’d have drowned if I tried to go back. It was the not-knowing that made it scary as hell.”

Zach nodded, which caused his chin to splash the water. “I got a bit nervous there too, Jimmy.”

He made a relieved-sounding sigh. “Well, we made it—somewhere, anyway. Where are we?”

Zach glanced at his surroundings. Although Jascaila had described the exit point as a “lake,” to Zach, it was more like a relatively small pond, one that was surrounded on all sides by trees, which meant this pond was located directly in the middle of a forest of some sort. It was somewhat darker here than he’d expected, but that was mostly because the weather today was nowhere near as nice as it’d been in South Bastia. Although it was clearly hot and humid outside, the skies were completely overcast with enough cloud cover that not even a hint of sunshine managed to break through. At least it wasn’t raining, though.

“We’re in Whispery Woods,” Zach said, spinning himself around to get a better look at the terrain.

“That’s where you’re from, right? Do you recognize this place?”

Zach shook his head. “Nope. Never been here before. I’m from the city. Whispery Woods is actually a really big region, though, and I think we’re all the way up northwest. A few miles north of here is probably the boundary that separates Whispery Woods from Varda’s Lair.”

“And that means…?”

“It means we’re not too far from Pixie’s Point, which is where we have to go.”

Jimmy made a grunt. “As impossible as it is, I keep hoping we’ll end up back on Earth: my Earth. If that ever happens, I’m buying you the best damn pizza you ever had in your whole life, and that’s on God.”

“You sure about that?” Zach asked him as the two slowly swam towards land. “The place I worked at all last year was pretty good.”

“You made pizza?”

“No, I was just the delivery boy. But the place I worked for made really good pizza. Might’ve been better than what you’re used to.”

Jimmy laughed. “Man, I don’t care how good it was. There ain’t no way you’ve got a slice in all of Galterra even five-percent as good as what we have in Brooklyn. I’m surprised pizza is even still a thing. I guess people love it so much it survived thousands of years. You know pizza’s an Italian food, right?”

“It’s a what?” Zach asked, genuinely curious. For some reason, it caused Jimmy to stare at Zach as if struggling once again to convince himself that any of this was real.

“You don’t even know that the food you’re eating is Italian? I just…it’s so wild. I don’t know how I’m ever gonna get used to this. Every time I’m sure this is real, I end up moments later starting to wonder again how any of this can even be possible.”

“Talk to Jascaila. She’ll help.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just…it’s gonna take me some time is all.”

“That’s normal,” Zach said, speaking from newly gained experience. “It’s all a process. You’ll see. Anyways let’s get out of this water. It’s kind of gross in here.”

Together with Jimmy, the two of them swam their way over to the muddy, leaf-covered ground, and in the process of climbing out of the lake, Zach’s knees, gloves, and footwear became covered in a blackish-green muck, which smelled strongly of moss and mud. He felt dirty and grimy, and from the look of disgust on Jimmy’s face, he could tell his recently acquired friend felt the same.

Once he was out and away from the water, Zach shook his hands to get as much of the nastiness off as he could, and then he wiped the rest of it on his sides. “We’re going to need to do some serious drycleaning when we get back,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Jimmy agreed.

Removing his phone from his pocket, Zach checked their current location, then turned halfway around and pointed. “We need to go that way,” he said, pointing to the southeast. “That’ll take us to the main road leading to Pixie’s Point.”

“How far away is it?” Jimmy asked.

“Only like thirty miles once we get out of the forest.”

For some reason, this made Jimmy swear. “That’s not exactly close. My stamina buff only lasts five minutes, dude. It’s gonna wear off in like another 50 seconds.”

Concerned, Zach asked, “You don’t think you can jog thirty miles?”

“Nah, I can, it’s just gonna be a pain in the ass without my buff. But if we gotta do it, we gotta do it.”

Zach lowered his arm and paused to think. “I could summon my Kralzek’s Beast and we could ride our way there, but Fylwen might not be happy. A few days ago, an adventurer was running across Whispery Woods in the middle of the night and he accidentally collided with a DEHV and killed three people. Since then, Fylwen’s banned anyone who isn’t Elvish or authorized from doing anything a level 1 couldn’t do. That probably also includes using my mount.”

“Can’t we get a taxi or something? You guys have those, right?”

“We do, but…” Zach performed a search on his phone. “Not in this area, no. Uh…oh, okay. There’s a bus stop only five miles from here. I’ll be honest: I don’t feel like walking either, so I think we should catch it. I’m getting a bit lazy now, too.”

“When’s it get here?”

“A half hour. And the next one isn’t for an hour after that, so we better hurry up before we miss it.”

Following those words, Zach and Jimmy walked side by side through the forest. Though it was a bit later here than it was in South Bastia, it was still in the early afternoon, yet the tree-cover, along with the overcast skies, made everything appear darker than it should’ve been for this time of the day. As they trekked through the uneven soil, a brief period of quiet came over the two of them, and for a good ten minutes, the only sounds to be heard were the occasional rustling of leaves, twigs snapping beneath their feet, and the infrequent chirp of a bird or cry of an animal.

Due to the lack of sun and high humidity, their equipment was slow to dry, creating a very uncomfortable feeling of sliminess and stickiness as everything sort of clung to Zach’s skin. He was also feeling a bit itchy, and little pieces of leaves, dirt, and other ickiness were practically glued onto his robe and his trousers. Jimmy also didn’t appear to like the hike through this forest, and in some ways, he was having an even worse time of it than Zach was.

Wincing, Zach caught sight of Jimmy as he walked face-first into—and then through—a thick cobweb he didn’t see, causing him to furiously wipe at his face and begin spitting. “Gah, the fuck is that?” he said, somewhat higher in pitch, rubbing all over his nose, mouth, and eyes. “Tell me I didn’t just eat a spider.”

“I don’t think so,” Zach said, holding back laughter.

“Ptuh!” he shouted, spitting a wad of saliva onto the forest floor. “Disgusting.” He slapped his neck, killing a fly that was buzzing around him. Then he began to walk a little bit faster, and Zach matched his pace.

Step by step, the two of them navigated their way through the forest, and as they did so, Zach couldn’t help but notice a look of consternation on Jimmy’s face. It was a look he thought he’d noticed earlier but hadn’t been certain. It’d been popping on and off Jimmy’s face for a while now, actually, and due to his own struggles, Zach was able to recognize that something was bothering Jimmy: something beyond the mere notion of his presence here on Galterra. He was tempted to ask, but he didn’t want to pry or say anything that would make Jimmy become confrontational. But as things turned out, he didn’t need to, either, because Jimmy gave voice to it all on his own.

“That guy that tried to kill me,” he said, his voice sounding shaky and distraught. “Zylor.”

“What about him?” Zach asked.

Jimmy slowed as they continued to move, but he did not stop. He ducked his head beneath a low-hanging branch as if to avoid stepping through another spiderweb, and then he craned his neck to look at Zach. “He said something that really bothered me. It didn’t mean shit to me at first, but now, I mean, now that it’s been a day, it’s starting to really get to me.”

“What’d he say?” Zach asked calmly, not trying to sound demanding or intrusive.

Jimmy’s face tightened, and he became even more visibly upset. “He said I was a human, and that’s why I gotta die.”

“Huh?” Zach asked, running the words over in his head to make absolutely sure he was comprehending them. “He said he was after you because you’re…human?”

“Yeah.”

“Wasn’t he also human?”

“Sure looked it,” Jimmy said.

“I mean, so am I. So is Tena. So is just about everyone in North and South Bastia. Why would he target you just for that?”

“I don’t know,” Jimmy whispered. “But the way he said it made me feel like…like there’s something I’m missing here.”

Zach shrugged. “You know what? Don’t even worry about it. The guy lives in a boring space station. He’s probably nuts.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Jimmy said, nodding. As though the matter was settled, the two continued onwards for about another fifty steps, but then Jimmy again slowed, and he added, “It’s just…it’s the way he said it that really got to me.” Zach offered nothing in reply, choosing instead to listen and wait for Jimmy to continue, which he soon did. “I asked him what he meant by that. I said, ‘Aren’t you human too?’ And he told me that there’s ‘human’ and then there’s human, and that I shouldn’t exist anymore.”

Zach frowned. “You mean…like there’s different kinds of humans?”

“Yeah. And the thing is, Zach, I got absolutely no idea what that dude could've meant by it. Like, none.”

“Neither do I,” Zach said. “But seriously, it’s probably best not to even worry about it then. The guy was crazy. Just forget it.”

“I’ll try.”

“Hey, look, we’re almost out!”

Ahead of them, Zach could spot the tree-line, beyond which resided a long stretch of road that he knew would run all the way across Whispery Woods from the north to the south end of the region. Glad to be out, he patted himself down, knocking off leaves, gunk, and other types of dirt, and then he traveled with Jimmy southbound down the forested road, which was lined with trees on both sides.

For the most part, they spotted few DEHVs, and it reminded Zach of the road that he’d walked along back when he’d first set out in search of xp after splitting up with Kalana. A whole lot of Whispery Woods consisted of rural land, and here in the northwestern part of the region, it was no different. Thus, for nearly ten minutes, there was nothing to see but trees and road. This changed only after a clearing entered view up ahead in the form of a rest stop, where a tiny little DEHV charging stop with a small attached store awaited parallel to a bus stop a little farther down the road.

“You wanna stop for anything?” Jimmy asked, flicking his chin in the direction of the station.

“Nah, if we need anything, we’ll buy it in town.” He removed his phone and checked the time. “I don’t want to accidentally miss our ride.”

Jimmy nodded, and the two took a seat on a bench that was framed by a dome-like piece of plastic, which was meant to shelter those waiting for the bus during times of rain. Another five minutes came and went, and then, standing up, Zach pointed. “There’s the bus DEHV,” he said.

With a bit of a screech, the large, fifty-passenger vehicle came to a halt just before them, and the door opened up on its own, inviting them inside. Zach, followed by Jimmy, ascended the three steps that led up and into the bus, and then deposited a 5g coin into the payment apparatus, instructing Jimmy to do the same, which he did.

Thankfully, the driver was not paying any attention to him. Even with a sword on his back and a staff on Jimmy’s, he did not appear to take notice or care, which meant Zach was able to grab a seat with Jimmy in the back without being hassled. There were only two other passengers riding with them: an elderly woman up front and a young man in the middle. The woman was sleeping, and the man was staring at his phone’s screen.

“I feel bad for whoever has to clean these seats tonight,” Zach whispered as the doors closed and the bus DEHV took off. Their equipment was still wet, and they would definitely leave mud stains on the seats and on the floor. “Hope they don’t think we’re animals for this.”

Jimmy turned over his palm but said nothing in reply. Once more, he seemed troubled, likely over whatever bullshit Zylor had put into his head. It was probably something he needed to ask Eilea about, though given his deal with Adamus, there was a chance now that she might not be able to tell him. Deciding to let Jimmy quietly dwell on his thoughts, Zach looked out the window and watched the landscape blaze past as they took off and headed towards Pixie’s Point.

Despite being only thirty miles away, it would probably take close to an hour for them to reach their destination, as the bus needed to make several stops along the way, and it would not be heading there in a straight line. There was also little to see outside of the forested road, and so Zach let his own mind wander. It seemed like he was in for a fairly boring ride. That was: until Jimmy decided to break the silence.

Unprompted, Jimmy, out of nowhere, began discussing his life in the days leading up to his first encounter with Eilea, and Zach found himself getting drawn into the conversation very, very quickly. “So, wait a second,” Zach said, having to force himself to keep his voice low. “You’re telling me she told you that she still loved you, but she had to break up anyway?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said, his tone turning dark. “I loved this girl like you can’t even imagine. Like you love Kalana. But she comes up one day, right? And she starts with all this ‘I’m not in a good place mentally right now’. So I’m like, that’s cool. I’ll be there for you no matter what, baby. But then two weeks later, she’s with some other dude. I guess her mental state wasn’t so bad after all. I mean she broke my goddamn heart, Zach.”

Zach gave him a pat on the shoulder. “But now you’ve got Tena, right?”

Jimmy smiled. “Yeah, I guess I do. I don’t deserve that girl. I need to make it right with her. I never treated her the way I should’ve, but I’m gonna.”

Zach listened in, fascinated, as Jimmy told him about his life, his school, and his best friends. It turned what would’ve been a long, drawn-out ride through empty scenery into something that blazed by so quickly Zach was almost disappointed as the end of their trip neared. Just shy of an hour after boarding the DEHV bus, the scenery at last changed; the forested road was gone, and ahead of them, Zach could now see farmhouses—though only a few—and these rapidly turned into two-story homes, some with backyards larger than the homes themselves. But that too changed as the landscape became more suburban, dense, and now, as the bus continued on, what Zach saw were a regular series of housing developments broken apart by shopping malls.

From what Zach could recall, Pixie’s Point was a moderately sized town with roughly two-and-a-half times the population that Den of Ziragoth used to have before the dragon spawned. It was a modest place with mostly suburban-style homes and a decent variety of services and businesses. It wasn’t exactly a place someone would visit for the purpose of tourism, but it was a decent enough town to call home, Zach supposed.

“When do we get off?” Jimmy asked, staring out the window along with Zach.

“Second to last stop,” Zach answered. He studied Jimmy a moment, noticing that he was smiling as though reminiscing about something from his past. “Does this place remind you of Earth?”

“Yeah. It reminds me a bit of New Jersey.”

“New…” Zach inhaled. “Wait, I know that place. I’ve been there before.”

“You’ve been to New Jersey?” Jimmy asked, looking just as stunned as Zach felt.

“Yeah. B2 of Yorna’s takes you there.”

“Oh, right,” Jimmy whispered, suddenly sounding deflated. “For a second, I thought you meant my New Jersey—even though I know that’s not possible. It was just an impulse I had at hearing you say you’ve been there.”

“Sorry. But…did you live around there?”

“Not that far at all, actually. A lot of express buses went through the very same road you drove on. But I guess…” His voice abruptly saddened, taking upon a mournful quality that Zach had not before seen from him. “I guess…I guess that was a long, long time ago.”

Zach said nothing for a moment. Then he whispered, “This is our stop.”

Jimmy seemed to pull himself together, nodding and standing up. Together, the two of them made their way once more to the front of the bus, bid goodbye to the driver, and it was only as they were on their way out that now, for the first time, the driver said, “Hey, wait a minute, kid. Aren’t you…?”

“No time to chat!” Zach said apologetically, hurrying off the vehicle and dashing onto the sidewalk. Jimmy followed, and then the two of them hurried away as the driver kept the door open and even got out of his seat as if to look out and follow them with his eyes. Zach waved behind him and continued to hurry away, turning the corner of a block and thankfully pulling out of sight. Then he removed his phone to get his bearings straight.

“Okay,” he said, studying the map on his screen. “We’re only like a two-minute walk to where we have to go.”

Something changed in Jimmy. Something noticeable and very apparent. Upon speaking those words, a glint seemed to pop into his eyes, and any trace of sadness vanished in an instant. “To this new dungeon?” he asked Zach.

“Yep.”

“Hell yeah.”

From what Jascaila had said, the entrance to “Trials of Nolak” was to be found in the basement boiler room of an abandoned school that was spared from being demolished thanks only to the Explorers Brigade; they had bought the building just to prevent the entrance to the dungeon from becoming difficult or impossible to access. Zach wondered if it was even worth the investment, because based on what Jascaila had told him, this was a dungeon that nobody seemed to care about or want to visit. He didn’t get the impression that it was due to its difficulty or level of danger—but he didn’t not get that impression, either.

Really, Zach had no idea why it was so unpopular, and as the prospect of entering it began to fully dawn upon him, he began to get a little bit nervous, harboring some second thoughts about all of this. As he paused at an intersection, waited for his turn to cross, and then quickly moved his way past a used DEHV lot and an old diner, he began to wonder if maybe he was about to make a terrible mistake.

“Hey, Jimmy,” he said, trying his best to keep confidence in his voice.

“Yeah, Zach?”

Zach paused, coming to a halt just outside of a shopping lot that contained a grocery store, a barbershop, and a fast-food restaurant. “Listen, we’re about to enter a place that nobody knows much about, and it could be really, really dangerous. I know you’re a bit older than me and don’t like to be bossed around, but it’s actually my responsibility to protect you, so I want you to do everything I say, okay?”

At this, Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Relax, dude.”

“No, Jimmy, I’m serious. I’m not even sure we should really be doing this. I probably should’ve thought about this more before deciding to bring you here. If anything happens to you, it’s on me. And I really don’t want to—”

“I said relax,” Jimmy fired in. For the very first time since meeting him, Zach saw a return of his confident, assertive nature.

From the moment the OMP goons had appeared until now, Jimmy had been acting in a way that could only be described as passive and somewhat timid. But something about the notion of entering this dungeon was having a dramatic effect on him. Instead of feeling like someone Zach needed to look after, Jimmy was beginning to behave like Zach was someone he needed to look after.

“This is my world we’re gonna be going into,” Jimmy said. “And I promised Tena I’d keep you safe. If I didn’t think we’d be all right, I wouldn’t let you go in there, Zach. Ya’ll don’t gotta worry about a thing.”

“Jimmy…I know you’re higher level, but trust me, this isn’t—”

“PVP,” Jimmy again shot in, raising his finger. “This isn’t PVP. If it was, I’d do any damn thing you said. But this is my world. You might not know it yet, but you will.”

Trying to keep his cool, Zach stopped himself from raising his voice. “Just do what I say, okay? Please. Or we’re not going.”

“All right. Fine.”

“Really? Because you don’t sound convincing.”

“Yeah. It’s cool.”

“So you’ll do what I say?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said dismissively.

And with that, the two of them continued onwards, only now, Zach was a great deal more uncertain. Nevertheless, having come this far already, he decided he might as well at least scope the place out. If he thought it was too dangerous, he could always have them leave and head back to Tower of Eternity and go home.

As they made their way down the final two blocks that led to the location where Jascaila claimed they’d find the dungeon entrance, Zach decided to briefly duck into a mid-sized shop and purchase a small pack, which he stuffed with a few drinks and a few snacks—just in case they were needed. With that, the two made their way down a disused service road that looked like it hadn’t been traveled in decades. Ahead of them was a rusted gate that led to a courtyard where an uneven mix of tall shrubs and dead grass dotted the grounds with seeming randomness. In the middle of it was a three-story school that looked rundown and decayed.

“This is the dungeon entrance?” Jimmy asked, his lips twisted wryly.

“Yeah, I guess,” Zach said. “It probably looked nothing like this thousands of years ago, though.”

The rusted gate creaked as Zach pushed it open, and then, after taking a deep breath, he ambled down a concrete path that was missing chunks of concrete in various places, and he approached the entrance to the school, which in this case consisted of a faded, discolored door that had likely once been beige but now looked a darker shade of yellow-brown.

Inside, there was nothing but quiet. And honestly? It was spooky: really spooky. Jimmy seemed to think so as well, because he shivered and said, “This place gives me the creeps. It’s like the scene of a horror movie.”

“I know, right?” Zach said, adding a shudder of his own.

It was very dark inside, and aside from a rattle from somewhere up above, there were few other sounds besides a constant pinging that reminded him of heat traveling through a pipe. “Okay,” Zach said, looking around. “I think we have to go down there.” He pointed to a door that said “maintenance” and had a picture of a set of stairs heading downwards.

Jimmy, for the first time, walked ahead of Zach, which he found off-putting. “Hey, wait up!”

Opening the door, Jimmy began to travel the old set of stairs down into the basement area. It was so quiet inside of this abandoned school that each time one of their feet stepped down, it created a loud echo—or at least one that seemed loud by comparison to the unsettling quiet. But Zach supposed it was still preferable to total silence.

“I don’t know about this,” he muttered to himself as he followed Jimmy down. The stairs were narrow enough so that they could not walk side by side, and Zach was forced to stay behind him—at least until they emerged into a slightly wider room, which contained old, clearly broken pipes, filthy, rotten-looking buckets, and a mop that was drier than a desert. There were many other types of maintenance equipment elsewhere, and all of it looked broken and disused. Nothing here gave off a vibe of function or health.

“So,” Jimmy began, “where’s the entrance?”

Even though he was clearly speaking at a conversational level, the ambient quiet made his words sound louder than shouts. Zach wet his lips and nervously glanced around. “I’m not sure about this anymore. I have a habit of impulsively getting myself into situations only to realize too late that I should’ve thought more about what I was doing. Jascaila taught me that, actually.”

Jimmy laughed. “Well, this time around, you’re fine, dude. I trusted you with my life, now you’re just gonna have to trust me with yours.” Jimmy’s laughter cut off abruptly, and his voice turned serious. “I’m not dumb. I know you think of me as like someone you need to baby or look out for.”

“I don’t,” Zach said.

“Yeah you do. No point lying about it.” He sighed. “But the truth is, I probably do need protecting when we’re out in the ‘real’ world. I’m not really able to defend myself. I don’t know how, and I’m not gonna bullshit and pretend otherwise. Without you, I’d be dead. But when we’re in the world of PVE, I can be the one who looks out for you.”

“I know that,” Zach lied, unwilling to break the harsh truth to Jimmy that Zach genuinely did not think he could survive on his own. Based on everything he’d seen so far from the slightly-older guy, he couldn’t help but conclude that Jimmy had been very fortunate to survive as long as he had in the dungeons. He clearly lacked the appropriate amount of stamina for someone his level, and his survival instincts were really bad, and he needed to work hard to improve himself before Zach felt he was ready to put his—or anyone’s—life in Jimmy’s hands.

But he’s got great potential, though, Zach thought. Donovan’s right about that.

“Just tell me where the dungeon is and what we have to do to get to your friend.”

Zach hesitated, and Jimmy gave him an annoyed look. “You need to listen to me, Jimmy,” Zach said. “If we do this.”

“I told you I will,” Jimmy said, and Zach had the sense he was lying, though he couldn’t be sure. Yet even still, against his better judgement, he relented.

“Okay, fine.” Zach walked past three orange valves and into a corner of the room next to two large boilers that almost certainly no longer worked. “I think it’s here,” he said, extending his arm and placing his palm flat against the grimy, dust-covered wall, which he was shocked he could actually feel. Rather than sink through it, his palm instead laid flat on the gross-feeling plaster, and he frowned. “Or at least it should’ve been.”

Jimmy approached closer. “What’s wrong?”

Zach looked at him. “The entrance is supposed to be right here. Through this wall. That’s what Jascaila said.”

Jimmy began stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger, making a slight buzzing sound as though thinking over Zach’s words. “What exactly did she tell you?”

“She gave me the address of this school, and she told me to head down to the boiler room. She told me that, in the back-left corner of the room, there’s supposed to be an entrance.”

Jimmy continued to rub his chin. “Now, when you say ‘there’s supposed to be an entrance,’ are you quoting what she said or are those your words?”

“Huh?” Zach asked. “Oh. I’m quoting what she said. Her exact words were: ‘From the stairs, at the back-left corner of the room, there’s supposed to be an entrance.’”

Jimmy licked his lips, saying nothing for a few seconds as if contemplating what Zach had told him. “If that’s how she said it, then that means she herself wasn’t sure, right?” He squinted his eyes. “Actually, can we get some fucking light in here? I can’t see shit, man.”

Zach nodded and removed his phone, and then he activated the flashlight. The boiler room had been so oppressively dark that the light was almost blinding by comparison. Jimmy pointed at something nearby, and then he asked Zach to shine it in that direction. Zach did as he asked.

“Any ideas, Jimmy?”

Jimmy did not reply right away. He moved over to where Zach had only just been standing, and then he placed his own hand on the wall. Soon after, he began whispering to himself as if working out a problem of some sort. Then he turned his body around full circle several times as if surveying the room, asking Zach to shine light on various spots. When Zach failed to light up the areas quite the way he wanted, Zach decided to just hand him the phone and let him point the flashlight wherever he pleased.

For the next five minutes, Jimmy walked around the room, studying each inch of it and running his finger along every inch of the wall before finding himself back where Zach remained frozen in place. “Well?” Zach asked.

Jimmy again licked his lips. “I don’t know. You’re sure she said the back-left corner?”

“Yeah,” Zach said. “Kind of hard to forget something so specific.”

Jimmy flashed the light in the back-left corner, then moved it over slightly to the right before subsequently shining it slightly more to the left. It was here he made a sort of curious-sounding “hmm,” which contained just a slight note of excitement and intrigue. “Wait a minute,” he said quietly. Though he spoke mostly to himself, Zach couldn’t help but question him.

“Did you figure something out?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Jimmy said, his voice becoming a bit more animate and excited.

Once more, he shined the light to the right, letting it settle over the large, metallic boiler. Specifically, he shined it towards the rear, where it spanned several feet from where Jimmy was standing to just an inch or two in front of the wall. Then, after a brief pause, he shined the light on the adjacent boiler, which actually seemed to be pressed up against the wall. “I think I got it.”

“What?” Zach asked, Jimmy’s excitement becoming infectious.

Jimmy walked around to the front of the boiler. “Shine the light on this for me, Zach.”

He handed Zach back the phone, and Zach took it. Now, Zach provided him the light exactly where he specified. Placing one hand each on the boiler’s outer plate, Jimmy made a grunt, and then he detached the outer layer, pulling it directly off before spinning around slightly and settling it down; though he did so gently, it fell over anyway and caused a loud clang, which made Zach flinch and hurt his ears amid the extreme quiet. Still, Zach did not dwell on the loud noise. Instead, he stared at the boiler’s tunnel-like inner portion, which was just large enough for a person to crawl inside.

“It’s in there, isn’t it?” Zach asked with a gasp. “We need to get inside the boiler.”

“Yup,” Jimmy said, nodding and grinning. “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but it’s my best guess.”

Without waiting for Zach’s input, Jimmy began to maneuver his body towards the boiler, but Zach, knowing it was his duty to protect him, managed to dash forward and get there first. “Stay behind me, Jimmy,” he said, giving him a stern look.

Jimmy rolled his eyes but said nothing, and Zach hopped into the cramped, uncomfortably tight boiler. On hands and knees, he crawled forward, making an echoing, disturbing banging sound with each forward movement, causing the entire thing to vibrate as he made his way inside of it. He paused once he moved as far in as he possibly could; now, he stared at the metal surface on the opposite end, skeptical that this would really work.

“Well?” Jimmy asked, his voice reverberating. “Should I come in after you?”

Nervously, Zach extended his hand, and like before, he laid his palm flat—only for it to go right through the metal, vanishing from his own eyes before he pulled his arm back. “Yup!” he called, releasing a laugh. “You were right, Jimmy.”

There wasn’t enough room for Zach to turn around, but from the sudden thud and follow-up vibration, he knew that Jimmy had climbed in behind him. “Well?” Jimmy asked. “Are we going or not?”

Zach gathered his courage. The fact that he was so hesitant was undeniable proof that the past two weeks had softened him somewhat. Because while he’d certainly been in a state of rapid mental decay before meeting Jascaila, if nothing else, he’d finally entered a state of pseudo fearlessness where death had ceased to disturb him. Now, he’d sort of pulled back a little bit. He was still a hundred—no, a million—times braver than he’d been before becoming an adventurer, but the cost of Jascaila’s therapy had been that his heart was slowly becoming whole again, and in so doing, his daring had diminished ever so slightly. He was moderately more cautious now than he’d been two weeks prior.

But I’m not really afraid for myself, Zach thought. I mean, I am just a bit. Really, though, I’m worried about Jimmy. I don’t want to get him killed.

“Zach, let’s go already,” Jimmy said impatiently, his voice now sounding much closer. He must’ve been directly behind Zach. “We’re gonna be fine.”

Exhaling slowly, Zach decided to go through with it. He crawled forward, crossed through the solid metal barrier at the opposite end of the boiler—and then he continued to crawl into what felt like a world of pure silver. It was as though he’d crawled inside the metal to the extent that it colored everything around him. To his left, his right, above and below: there was nothing but a sky and ground made of pure metal. Eventually, he realized he could stand up and that he was no longer confined to a tiny crawl space, and so he picked himself up and straightened his back.

“Jimmy, are you with me?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said, sounding close—very close. Like, arm’s length. Zach reached out and grabbed what felt like his shoulder, though he couldn’t see him. He could only see the silvery sheen of metal everywhere.

“This is new,” Zach said, trying his best to hide his nerves. “Usually, it’s a dark tunnel.”

“How do we know which way to go?” Jimmy asked. “Let’s try not to get separated.”

Zach extended the arm opposite the one he was using to grab Jimmy’s shoulder. Then he sighed with relief. “I don’t think we can,” he said. “There are walls to our left and right even if we can’t see them.”

Jimmy said nothing for a moment, and then Zach heard a slight thud—two such thuds, and Jimmy grunted in acknowledgement. “Oh yeah, you’re right.”

With that, Zach began to walk forward through this world of silver—until something changed. It took him a moment to process it. Given the disorienting, blinding effect of this mysterious, all-consuming silvery light, it took Zach’s brain just a second or two longer to realize what it would normally realize an instant after happening. Yet when it did, Zach let out a loud yelp. Zach, it seemed, had slipped. Or no, not slipped. He’d stepped off something—a ledge of some sort that he couldn’t even see. And now, falling onto his ass, he began to slide down something—a slope of some kind. And he was sliding fast. Very, very fast.

From the yelp of surprise above him, he could tell that Jimmy had fallen as well. And now, the both of them made nervous cries as they went down a slide-like slope, gaining more and more speed as they ventured into whatever dungeon awaited them below.

Though it seemed a great deal longer, it was ultimately only a few seconds before the all-consuming silver, metallic-colored light faded away, and now Zach’s eyes took note of red and golden bricks; this, he spotted for only a moment before he began to roll, the world inverting itself around him, with up becoming down and down becoming up. Finally, everything stilled, and he found himself on his back in an unfamiliar place, with Jimmy lying beside him.

Somewhat dizzy, he picked himself up and glanced around. “Well, I think we found our dungeon,” Zach said, taking in his surroundings. “Whoah,” he then whispered.

His immediate impression was one of pure fascination. He appeared to be in some kind of castle-like hall that was spacious without being overly wide. Below him, the flooring was made out of a polished golden-red tile, and there were various carpets that ran along the length of it in numerous spots. The walls were made of a very smooth sort of brick, though curtains also draped over them in multiple places. There were also a fair number of paintings to be found, all of which depicted a different landscape that Zach did not recognize, and there were decorative statues of armored knights placed irregularly off to both sides of him.

“Awesome,” Jimmy said, a mixture of cheer, confidence, and excitement in his voice. “I’m so pumped right now, Zach. This is exactly what we needed!”

This place—wherever it was—was fairly dark in lighting, though it did contain enough light so that visibility was still satisfactory. What Zach found immediately noticeable was the way in which the light seemed to contain a slight neon-reddish hue, which when combined with the overall atmosphere, gave a somewhat darker, ominous vibe to everything. In addition to this lighting, which seemed to come from the emptiness itself, there were also ledges built into the walls, where stone lanterns were lit and provided additional visibility. The place had a very clean, almost pristine look to it, though that did little to mitigate the sense of danger.

Zach took a step forward, his feet making a soft thud on the elegant, smooth carpets. “We have no idea what to expect,” he warned, meeting Jimmy’s eyes. “We need to be careful.”

Jimmy gave a confident nod. “We will be. So uh, Zach, what’s the deal? How do we get from here to where we gotta go?”

Zach took another look at the world around him. He was somewhat distressed to see that the “slide” they’d barreled down offered no way back up, as they’d fallen through a hatch in the ceiling that now seemed to be closed. This meant they were now in a partially rectangular hall with nowhere to go but forward. Ahead of them, just beyond the hall, was a door with a flat, somewhat curved handle labeled F27->F28.

“Jascaila said that the dungeon runs through Slopes of Dal’Zarrah on floor 31.”

“Runs through?” Jimmy asked.

Zach nodded. “Yeah. Um, basically, some dungeons have floors that run through outside areas, but the ones that run through Galterra were made a long time ago, and those particular floors are usually destroyed. So basically, you enter them just to find yourself back in the regular world.”

Briefly, he explained Yorna’s B7, which was just a beach in Shadowfall Coast. Once, long ago, it was likely a fully-fledged dungeon floor, but in these times, it was simply a convenient way of getting somewhere you needed to go.

“So, basically,” Zach said, concluding his explanation. “We just need to go from F27 to F31.”

“Now we’re talking!” Jimmy said with a very elated laugh, giving Zach a thumbs-up. At first, Zach wasn’t sure why he was so happy—but then it quickly became obvious as he said, “This means we’re gonna get to fight a boss together, right? On F30.”

Zach gasped. A sinking feeling of wrongness entered the pit of his stomach. It was only now that he realized that most dungeons had a boss every ten floors. It was something he knew, but was not fully cognizant of to the extent that he’d think of it. Thus, it was only now, with a mention from Jimmy, that he realized the two of them might actually have to take on an unknown dungeon boss of an unknown level of power all by themselves.

Relax, he told himself. This is no different from the way things were your first time in Yorna. You got through that just fine, didn’t you?

It was true. This was not the first time he’d gone through a dungeon portal, trapped himself inside, and needed to fight his way out. The exception this time around, however, was that he was in a very “unpopular” dungeon that little was known about and he didn’t have the time to slowly work his way through it. He had real responsibilities he had to address in a few hours from now, and he couldn’t afford to be stuck in this place as he’d been in Yorna. He needed to burn his way through here with Jimmy and get out.

I might’ve made a catastrophic mistake.

Zach shook the negative thoughts out of his head. No. This wasn’t a mistake. He needed to be confident. Just like he’d been earlier today when he’d argued with Adamus. He had survived so much shit to get to this point, including a fire wyvern that had threatened the entire world. He would be able to make it through a few floors of some shitty dungeon—and he’d do it while keeping Jimmy safe, too.

“Stay close to me,” Zach said to him, fixing Jimmy with the most serious and commanding look he could give. “If I tell you to run, you run.”

Out of an abundance of caution, Zach called upon Summon Active War-Mount, knowing that it would ease his nerves a great deal to have his level-85 war-mount around for protection. With that thing nearby, he doubted he’d have to worry about anything this dungeon might throw at him. And so, having called upon it, he waited for the mount to appear before him.

It didn’t.

Instead, the following message popped up into the air above his head, drawing not only his, but Jimmy’s attention to it as well.

Summon Mount Failed: Trials of Nolak is not a Mount-Compatible Dungeon.

“The hell?” Zach asked, perplexed and even a little bit outraged. “Why won’t it let me summon my Gods-be-damned mount!”

He looked at Jimmy, and he was surprised to see that none—not even an iota—of the shock he felt was reflected in Jimmy’s eyes. If anything, Jimmy seemed amused. “It’s not that much of a surprise to be honest,” Jimmy said to him. “Actually, I’d be more surprised if you were allowed to summon a mount in this dungeon.”

“You say that like it’s a given.”

“To me it is,” Jimmy said. Zach waited for him to explain, but he didn’t. He simply stated it as though it were an obvious fact and then made as if to continue on. But first, Zach darted forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

“I told you, Jimmy. Let me go first. And stay close. Everything else still applies. Like I just said before: if I tell you to run, you run. Okay? This isn’t a joke.”

For the third time today, Jimmy rolled his eyes. It was almost as if for each ounce of worry and caution Zach began to feel, Jimmy went on to feel the exact, diametric opposite. Before his very eyes, the nineteen-year-old guy from Earth came alive in a way that Zach was witnessing now for the first time. Even just standing still with his hands on his hips, he looked like he belonged here in the dungeon: like he was born to be here.

“Well, go ahead and lead then, dude,” he said to Zach. “But if ya’ll look like you gonna fuck up, I’m stepping in.”

“Sure thing,” Zach said, Jimmy’s words barely even registering in his head. He was far too busy scanning the room for any sign of danger or hostile mobs. Drawing his sword from his sheathe, he held it in his left hand, and with his right held out in front of him, he walked up to the door ahead, grabbed the handle, and pulled it open.

Stepping carefully inside, he was greeted with another, similar looking hall. This one was even wider, though like the previous, there only seemed to be one way that he could go: straight ahead. Glancing in that direction, he noticed that the wide hall narrowed considerably the farther one ventured into this particular area until approaching what, to Zach’s eyes, looked like a fork up ahead with a leftward path and a rightward one.

“You can come in, Jimmy,” he said, taking another step inside. Now, he gripped his sword with both hands, his eyes darting around looking for anything that might be moving or might be about to move. “I don’t think there are any mobs in here.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Jimmy said.

Zach, continuing to hold his weapon out in front of him defensively, began to make his way farther into this area. Yet he proceeded all but five steps before he was forcibly and urgently stopped—by Jimmy of all people.

“Zach!” Jimmy shouted at him, a combination of anger, disbelief, and fear in his words. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, man? Shit!”

Zach had been mid-step, and his right foot was hovering a few inches off the floor—or at least it was until Jimmy gave him a very rough yank in the opposite direction; having been pulled by surprise, Zach began to stumble. He would’ve fallen over if Jimmy did not reach out and then steady him. Now, utterly confused and very much annoyed, Zach turned his head towards Jimmy and glared at him. Jimmy glared right back.

“What was that about?” he asked.

Jimmy snorted. “I could ask you the same thing! You trying to die or something?”

“Huh? What the hell are you talking about?”

Jimmy made an annoyed-sounding moan then pointed to the floor. Zach traced his fingers with his eyes and looked where he was indicating, but it did not cause him to gain any better understanding of why Jimmy had nearly thrown him down. “What?” Zach asked, becoming frustrated. “What are you pointing at?”

“Are you…are you serious?” Jimmy asked.

“Of course I’m fucking serious!” Zach snapped. “What’s going on? Why’d you freak out just now?”

Jimmy rubbed his face as though he was the one with the right to be frustrated in this situation. He marched over to Zach, took two small steps forward, and then said, “Duck.” When Zach remained right where he was, Jimmy shouted, “Duck!”

Becoming angrier by the second, Zach decided to humor Jimmy if for no other reason than to feel totally justified in blowing up on him five seconds from now—when whatever bullshit Jimmy was trying to pull revealed itself to be nothing more than some weird paranoia. Thus, Zach bent his knees, ducked down, continued to glare at Jimmy—and then ducked even lower and yelped in surprise as a dart-shaped object that was shining with a glowing blue light ripped across the space above his head, collided with the wall behind him, and exploded into a shower of sparks and flame, sending pieces of brick and plaster crumbling down and blocking the door that the both of them had only just walked through.

“Wh-what the fuck was that?” Zach shouted, amazed and confused all at once.

Jimmy shook his head as if in frustrated disbelief. “It’s obviously a trap, dude. Are you blind or something?”

“What do you mean? Jimmy, I have absolutely no idea what just happened.”

“Fucking PVPers,” Jimmy grumbled. He entered something of a hopping, zig-zagging motion as he began to make his way farther into this area. This continued until he paused at the right side of the wall at the point where it began to narrow. “See this?” he called back to Zach, who was still standing right where he was. “Can you tell me what this is?”

“That?” Zach asked, pointing with his blade.

“Yes.”

Zach leaned forward but did not take any steps towards Jimmy. “There’s like a…a white, slit-like indent in the wall.”

“That’s right,” Jimmy said, nodding. “Now look down by your feet. Do you see how some of those tiles are a bit lighter in color and sticking out a bit: almost like a button.”

“Yeah, so?”

Jimmy made another frustrated moan. “So,” he said, “you step on tile, wall shoots dart. It’s not rocket science, dude. It’s a basic-ass trap.”

Zach stared at Jimmy, speechless for a moment. He could do little but marvel in absolute, utter awe of what he’d just both seen and heard. He tried to form words, but they failed to enter his lips. Finally, after several seconds and a drying of his throat, he gave voice to the question that was blaring in his head.

“Jimmy,” he said, “how in the fuck did you know that?”

Jimmy didn’t even vocalize a response. He simply waved his hand at the wall, pulled it back, and then waved that very same hand at the tile—as though it were somehow self-explanatory. When Zach, totally bewildered, continued to stare at him, something finally seemed to click in Jimmy’s head, as evident by the way his eyes widened.

“You don’t know how any of this works, do you, Zach?”

“How what works?”

Jimmy laughed, though rather than the sound of humor, there was more amazement in the way it came across. “None of ya’ll do. None of you know any of this. I’m an outsider to this world, but I’m the only one who knows.”

“Knows what?”

Jimmy repeated the same series of movements he’d made to travel to the wall, only now, he did so in reverse. This time, however, Zach finally understand why: he was avoiding all the elevated tiles. Once he was back by Zach’s side, he said, “Rule number one of raiding: if you see a tile sticking out of the ground, you do not step on it.”

Zach’s confusion lessened, but only barely. “Rule number one?”

“Yeah, number one. I just decided now that I’m gonna start making rules. Something tells me we’re gonna need these based on what I just saw.”

“And that’s…number one?”

“Yes,” Jimmy confirmed. Then, abruptly, he shook his head. “Actually, you know what? Wait. No. That’s gonna be like number four.”

“Then what’s number one?” Zach asked, still caught up in a haze of amazement and confusion.

At this, Jimmy made another laugh, and this one did contain a great deal of humor in it. “You never, ever, ever stand in the fire.”

“The fire?” Zach asked, his words coming out louder than he intended.

“Yeah, don’t stand in the damn fire. You’ll see that rule play out eventually. I’m sure of it.”

Zach lowered his weapon slightly. “That dart could’ve killed me,” he whispered. “I think it was magical. It might’ve actually killed me.”

“Good thing you didn’t get hit then, huh?”

“Yeah,” Zach said nervously. “Okay, stay behind me. And thanks, Jimmy. Seriously.”

“Sure.”

Now that Zach understood how things worked, he carefully navigated around any of the floor tiles that seemed to jut out more than the others. And with that, he made his way across the hall until halfway in, when the walls narrowed to where he and Jimmy had just enough space so that they could stand together side by side.

“Okay, hold on up,” Jimmy said, pointing ahead of them. “Spikes are gonna come out of these walls as soon as we get near them.”

Zach, doubly perplexed, asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, do you see those indentations? That’s a spike trap all right. Seen this in a billion games. And do you see that circular one right there, Zach?”

“Which?”

“Look closely. Halfway down this little passageway, do you see how there’s like a circularly shaped indentation in the wall?”

Zach nodded. Now that he looked closely, he could indeed see it. “Yeah.”

“That’s gonna be a saw.”

Zach blinked, too stunned to even contemplate the veracity of what Jimmy was saying. “A saw? That’s really specific, Jimmy.”

“Trust me. That’s gonna be a saw, and those other ones are going to be spikes. They’re gonna activate as soon as we get close to them.”

“Are…are you sure you haven’t been here before?”

“A hundred percent,” Jimmy said.

There’s no way. He has to either be lying or wrong.

But he wasn’t. Just as Jimmy said, the moment the two of them came within a certain proximity, Zach was forced to jump to one side with Jimmy, as a barrage of spikes popped out of the wall with a ftch! Then, once more, he had no choice but to make a sudden movement to the opposite side, as the same took place across from him. Finally, towards the end of the passageway, a loud, motorized buzzing came into being, and six yellowish, dust-colored, and fast-spinning sawblades slid out of the walls on both sides all on their own, and each began moving towards them.

“Follow me exactly,” Jimmy said.

Zach watched as Jimmy darted forward, dropped to his knees, rolled, stood back up, and then ran forward and jumped. Zach mimicked the movement exactly, and to his amazement, they both navigated beyond the saws without facing any harm—and all of this only served to heighten Zach’s disbelief and confusion. But it was only destined to become even greater from this point on, as Jimmy transitioned from someone knowledgeable into an outright seer capable of deducing future events.

Zach, eager to get out of this narrow passageway of death, was about to step into the forked part of the hall, where it split off to the left and the right. But before he could take a step forward, Jimmy again grabbed his shoulder. “Okay, stop,” he said, pulling Zach back towards him.

“Now what?” Zach asked.

Jimmy leaned forward, though he did so without taking any steps ahead. “Okay, do you see how the whole entire wall to our left is curved upwards? Almost like a giant slide?”

“Uh, yeah,” Zach said.

Now, Jimmy turned his head to the right. “And do you see how that hallway just goes straight forward for like almost a city block’s worth of distance?”

“Y-yeah,” Zach said again, not seeing where his friend was going with this.

“Well, what I think is gonna happen—and I’m like 99% sure—is that a giant-ass boulder is gonna slide down that wall as soon as we walk into the next hall, and then we’re gonna have to run as fast as we can to the opposite end before it crushes us. And it’s probably not an ordinary boulder, so we should assume it can hurt you even if you have high constitution. We’re gonna need to run as fast as we can.”

How the hell can he know this? Zach thought, simply unable to accept this was happening. It’s impossible. Something’s not right here.

Trying his best to concentrate on something other than his shock, he asked, “But where do we run to? It’s a dead end.”

“Hmm?” Jimmy shifted his position so that he stood closer to Zach, which gave him a fuller view of the hallway opposite the curved wall. “Oh, you’re right. Okay. So, when we get to the end, the floor’s probably gonna break and we’ll end up falling down to the next part of this level.”

Zach shook his head. “There’s no way you can know that, Jimmy. There’s no way.”

“Man, it’s fucking obvious. I’m telling you.”

“It’s not. You’re…you can’t know this.”

“Yeah, well, I do.”

Zach, so confounded it actually hurt, struggled to keep himself focused as he followed Jimmy into the next area. Immediately upon stepping on a maroon-colored rug decorating the floor, the entire hall began to shake, and a deep rumbling came from somewhere above and to their left. Then, just as Jimmy had said, a tremendous boulder with spikes covering it began rolling down the slope-shaped wall and heading straight towards them. It too was glowing with what Zach took to be magical energy, and while it was entirely possible Zach’s constitution was high enough to where it wouldn’t even scratch him, it was also possible it could kill him instantly. There was no way of knowing—and no reason to find out.

“Run!” Jimmy cried. “Let’s go! Come on, Zach!”

“Y-yeah,” Zach whispered.

Together with Jimmy, they dashed their way down the hall. The boulder moved far faster than Zach expected, but because Jimmy had warned him in advance, they reacted to it with a quickness that Zach doubted any other adventurer would have been able to summon. As a result, they reached the end of the hallway with ample time to spare, and when they did, another set of rumbling, this one from below, caused the ground to shift beneath their feet.

“Told you,” Jimmy said as the bottom gave out and the two plummeted straight down. Zach, along with Jimmy, fell what he estimated to be over a hundred feet. Yet what should have been a scary fall that would make him scream left him speechless as he stared at Jimmy the whole way down. Rather than release so much as a chirp, he simply studied Jimmy’s expression, mystified. Jimmy, for his part, did let out a loud whoop and a cheer as the two of them plummeted down together into another section of this strange dungeon, landing in a pit filled with water and sinking nearly a dozen feet into it.

Zach surfaced a few moments later, and so too did Jimmy. Then the both of them swam to the edge and climbed out of the water-filled pit and onto more of the elegantly tiled flooring. Now, they were in a wide, rounded room that had seemingly no way out.

“We’re trapped,” Zach said, trying not to panic. “Jimmy, I think we’re—”

“Oh, it’s one of these puzzles,” Jimmy said, sounding bored and disinterested. He even yawned.

“Jimmy, what’re you—”

“Zach, look around to see if you can find, like, I dunno, any kind of pattern or something somewhere. Basically, we have to turn those six dials which control the pillars across from them and make a pattern, but the pattern is always hidden somewhere in the area around you. Otherwise, we’d have to guess by brute force, and that could waste like an hour. Once we put the pattern in, that shutter over there is gonna open. Oh, and for real, Zach? I’d bet like 50k gold right now that mobs are gonna come through as soon as we solve the puzzle. Oh! And this is really important too. Zach, do you see those like, those rock-covered statue things over there? The ones that look like little demons holding spears? I guarantee those come to life as soon as we solve the puzzle. The rock around their bodies is gonna break apart and they’re gonna turn out to be underneath. Shit’s so basic. Who would be surprised by this?”

Zach, who now realized he was totally out of his element, no longer bothered barking any orders. He instead obeyed.

Chapter 137: Impish

Chapter 137: Impish

As Zach fought to get over his incredulity, he found himself unable to concentrate on the task that Jimmy had given him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be helpful, but it was more that he struggled to contain his amazement at just how much Jimmy seemed to know about certain aspects of a world he’d been in for less than a month. Here, before him, was a person who couldn’t tell you whether Shadowfall Coast was north or south of Giant’s Fall, and yet he seemed to understand intrinsically what needed to be done in a so-called “unpopular” dungeon that almost no one ever bothered to visit—apparently—and probably hadn’t hosted adventurers in decades if not longer.

“Are you even trying to look?” Jimmy demanded, firing Zach an irritated glare.

“Uh, yeah,” Zach said, distracted. He felt like one of the dumb kids that used to sit at the back of his second-period math class.

He shifted his body, the motion causing water to drip down his trousers. His equipment was once again soaked, as was Jimmy’s, but at least he felt a great deal “cleaner” than he had after emerging from the lake in the middle of the forest. Much of the gunk had rinsed off after the two of them had submerged all the way down into the water-filled pit that resided in the middle of this fairly large, circular room. Unfortunately, the small pack he’d bought containing snacks had become ruined. The water bottles, however, were just fine, and he twisted the lid off one and began to drink.

“Want a water?” he asked Jimmy. Rather than reply, Jimmy extended his arm even as he continued to waltz around the outer perimeter of this circular room, and Zach tossed him one of the bottles, which he caught.

“Thanks,” he said, drinking it as he continued to search for some “pattern” that he insisted must exist.

About half the space in the room was taken up by the water pit, which Zach estimated to be at least twenty-feet deep. To the front, there was an indentation in the wall that looked like a shutter, and about thirty feet in the opposite direction was a raised platform with a pedestal containing a dial. Aside from that, there wasn’t much here other than these weird stone statues that looked like fossilized, horned mini-demons. Each time Jimmy did a lap around the room, he seemed to hesitate any time he ventured near one of these cluttering of statues, which he claimed would “transform” into mobs whenever the puzzle was solved. Was he worried that they could transform even sooner? He must have been, or else he would not become so wary each time he drew near to one of them.

“So, uh, was this dungeon part of your video simulations?” Zach asked. “Is that how you know what’s going to happen?”

Jimmy paused, then looked at Zach before shaking his head. “Nah, man. Nothing I’ve seen so far is a one-to-one of anything I’ve played. It’s more that the themes and ideas are things I’ve seen before. Like, lots of games have a mechanic where you see an enemy encased in stone, and then it breaks apart when you get near it. Since these ones don’t, there’s a good chance they’ll break apart once we solve the puzzle.”

“So you don’t know for sure if we’re going to have to fight?”

“Nope. But I’m pretty certain I’m right. Especially because of the shape of the room.”

“Shape?” Zach asked, not sure what he was referring to.

Jimmy nodded then shuffled over to the front, occupying the space between the dais and the shutter. Then he extended his arms widely. “Look at how much room they’re giving us,” he said. “It’s like when you’re playing an FPS, right? And then you see a bunch of barrels and boxes to take cover behind. Even if there are no enemies around, you know there’s gonna be enemies or else why would you enter a room that just-so happens to have all these places to take cover?”

Zach was willing to assume that by “they,” Jimmy meant the Great Ones, but he had no idea what an “FPS” was or what Jimmy meant by barrels and boxes, as there weren’t any in this room. “So,” he said, trying to make sense of Jimmy’s words, “you think the reason there’s all this empty space is because we’re going to have to fight?”

“Definitely,” Jimmy said. “I mean, it’s not a hundred percent, but it’s pretty close to it.”

Zach couldn’t help but grin at the delight he saw in Jimmy’s eyes. “Looks like you’re going to get what you wanted after all.”

Jimmy laughed. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to fight some mobs too. Come on, Zach, admit it.”

Zach tried to suppress a chuckle of his own but failed. “All right. I guess I could go for a bit of exercise now that we’re here.”

“Well, let’s find the pattern and then we will.”

“You’re sure there is one?”

Jimmy gave a firm nod. “There always is. Trust me.” He jogged over to the dais, stepped onto the platform, and looked down at the pedestal with the dials. “Just to remind you: look for things shaped like a star, a half circle, a little mouse-like creature, a smiley face—that’s the best I can think of to call this one—a bean, a…”

As Jimmy continued to rattle off the list of symbols, Zach darted his head around the room, wondering where they could be. The two of them had looked everywhere, and so far, they’d found nothing. Although Jimmy had clearly proved that he had a great deal more knowledge than Zach could ever have expected, it was still possible that he was wrong, wasn’t it? What if there was no pattern to find and they were just wasting time?

I hope not, Zach thought nervously. Because then we really will be trapped here.

There didn’t seem to be any way out of this room, and it was all thanks to the water pit. This was because, although Zach had high enough stats that he could easily jump the hundred-plus feet required to leap back up to the area they’d come from, the small opening they’d fallen through was positioned dead center over the water pit, which meant he’d have to jump while under water. And that, Zach was fairly sure, he could not do. Even if he exerted every last bit of his strength, Zach did not believe it would enable him to leap over a hundred feet’s worth of distance while submerged beneath twenty feet of water—and Jimmy definitely couldn’t.

There’s no way I can angle it by jumping across, either, Zach thought, glancing upwards at the ceiling. That means we’re trapped down here unless we can—

He widened his eyes. Wait a minute. What’s that?

Placed on the ceiling above, and smeared in what looked like plain white ink, were strange, bizarre scribblings that sort of resembled little doodles, though it was impossible to be sure, as they were also mostly gibberish. Even still, it was something that stood apart from everything else in here, and Zach therefore concluded that it might be worth inquiring about.

“Jimmy, come here a second,” he called out.

“You find something?” Jimmy asked, excitedly hurrying over to Zach, who pointed directly up above him.

“Those things on the ceiling kind of look like symbols, right?”

Jimmy glanced upwards. Then his eyebrows rose, and he smiled. “Yup! That’s got to be it. Great work, Zach!”

“Yeah, but…they don’t look anything like the symbols you described.”

“Maybe not, but it’s no coincidence they’re there. They’ve definitely got something to do with it.” Jimmy pinched his chin and curled his lips. “The question is what. Hmm…”

“Do you have any idea what it could be?” Zach asked him hopefully. He was relieved to see Jimmy give a slow but confident nod.

“Okay, so it’s like this,” he began, pointing his finger at the scribblings. “Usually, when they give you symbols in a puzzle room like this, and those symbols aren’t the ones you’re looking for, it means it’s either a perspective puzzle—which is where you have to look at them by turning the camera in the exact perfect angle—or there’s some other gimmick that you have to—”

“Camera?” Zach asked, not meaning to interrupt his new friend but finding his choice of words so bizarre.

“Yeah,” Jimmy replied, speaking absentmindedly as though most of his attention was on the puzzle and not Zach’s question. Thus, with a distant-sounding tone, he dreamily whispered, “You know, like with the right stick.”

“The right stick? Jimmy, I don’t know what you’re talking about at all.”

Jimmy gave a sigh of what Zach took to be frustration. “Don’t you people got video games here?”

“We have some simple screen games. Nothing like what you told everyone about yesterday when we were swimming in the pool.”

This seemed to capture Jimmy’s full attention. “Wait a minute,” he said. “So, what about, like, PC gaming? Or consoles?”

“PC gaming or consoles?” Zach asked.

At this, Jimmy’s lips peeled back as though horrified. “Tell me I’m not trapped in a game-less world. How the hell’s it thousands of years in the future and there’s no PlayStation 70 yet?”

“Again,” Zach said, becoming a bit annoyed, “I don’t know what that means.”

Jimmy rubbed his nose and made another sigh. “It’s too much to explain right now. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Anyway, let me think for a second. That shit on the ceiling’s definitely got something to do with the puzzle.”

With that, he again began to circle around the room, though this time, he only made it half a lap before he stopped short as though changing his mind or coming up with a separate idea entirely; whichever the case, he halted completely, remained perfectly still a moment, and after a few seconds, he abruptly spun around. Then, with clear excitement in each step, he hurried his way back over to Zach, where he’d only just been standing. Now, he raised his index finger and began shaking it in the air while releasing a few short chuckles. “Actually, I know. Oh my God, it’s obvious!”

Zach watched, amazed, as Jimmy ran to the very edge of the water-pit, close enough so that, if he took just another step forward, he’d fall in. Then he began to circle it just like he’d been circling the room. He paused when he was behind and slightly off to Zach’s right, causing Zach to have to spin around to follow his motion. Jimmy now had his arm extended and he was pointing at something: at the water itself. “Aha! There it is. Zach, come here a second.”

Curious to see what he’d discovered, Zach hurried over. “Look at the reflection,” Jimmy said to him. “In the water.”

Zach glanced down at where Jimmy indicated, and then he inhaled in surprise as he saw the reflection of the ceiling in the water. Only, now, the white-painted “scribblings” looked much clearer and had more distinct shapes, all of which formed a pattern of symbols—the key that Jimmy would need to unlock the shuttered section of the wall that would hopefully lead to the next floor.

“Those look much more like the symbols,” Zach said, unsure of how this was even possible. He half turned around and looked up at the ceiling before again gazing into the water. The reflection differed from the original in a way that was not scientific or explainable—at least so far as Zach understood. It must have been dungeon weirdness in action.

“Okay, this is great,” Jimmy said enthusiastically. “I think we’re good now. So look: I’m gonna go over to the dais and operate the dials, and you let me know what symbols to put in one by one, okay? You should also get ready to fight some shit, too.”

Zach nodded. “You got it.”

He watched as Jimmy hurriedly scurried over to the pedestal, getting on top of it and leaning over the round, wheel-like board that contained the various dials that apparently controlled the symbols near the shuttered door, of which six, Jimmy had claimed, would need to be presented in the correct order.

“I’m good,” Jimmy announced. “Start giving them to me.”

“Okay,” Zach said, staring down into the water. “So…okay, so the first one, uh, it looks a lot like the letter ‘E,’ but there’s a dot above it and also below it.”

A loud, rumbling, and echoing sound came from all around the room, and then there was a pound followed by a click. “Got it. Next one?”

“Okay, so uh…this one’s the one I think you said looked like a little mouse creature, only the tail of it has three dots above it.”

“Oh, I see that,” Jimmy called back to him. More rumbling, more vibrations, and another click soon followed his words. “Next!”

Zach continued to describe the next three symbols to follow the first two, and Jimmy used the dials to make them appear near the “front” of the circular room by the shuttered exit. Then, with five entered, Zach paused on the last one. “Hey, let me come over to you before you put this last one in, okay? Since we might have to fight.”

“Yeah.”

Zach memorized what he saw, turned around, and headed directly for Jimmy, who then asked him to give him the final symbol. Rather than try to describe it, Zach simply hopped up onto the pedestal next to him, extended his finger, and pointed at one of the many symbols. “It was that one,” he said confidently.

“You sure?”

“Definitely.”

Jimmy nodded. “Okay. Get ready. I’m pretty sure I’m right about what happens next.”

Zach hopped back down off the pedestal and drew his sword, gripping it tightly in both hands. Now, he readied himself as he listened to more of the rumbling and felt more of the vibrating. Then there was another pounding noise as well as another click. But this time, there was more that came after. Following the click, there was an even louder rumbling, an even louder vibration, and then lastly a very loud grating sound as an entire section of the rounded wall in front of them began to slide directly upwards, opening a pathway into an area beyond—and also allowing something from beyond to enter inside.

“There they are!” Zach shouted as multiple creatures only about as tall as Zach’s waist came strutting into the room. At the exact same time, there was a loud crackling sound, and to both their left and right, the stone statues began to crack and shatter, and a weird sort of giddy laughing filled the entirety of the room as more of the short creatures emerged from the stone, very much animate and active.

“He-he-he-he-he!” they laughed.

Though short, they were menacing in appearance, and all of them—both those from the stone statues as well as those flooding into the room—had long, rounded ears and dual horns that protruded from their head. All of them were grinning through wicked, sharp teeth while swaying around a red, forked tail. But there appeared to be some differences among them as well: specifically, there appeared to be two different types of this creature. Zach made a quick estimation that about three quarters of these cackling, horned mobs were wielding gilded, golden spears and began to lift upwards on purplish, bat-like wings, which started to flutter and buzz as they hovered midair such that they became approximately level with Zach’s height. The rest of them were wingless, wielded daggers, and seemed to exude a sort of shadowy mist.

The ones with the wings were called “warriors,” and the ones with the daggers were called “troublemakers.”

HP

72,500/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Warrior

Level

45

HP

49,000/49,000

Name

Sneering Imp Troublemaker

Level

44

Between the ones that’d broken free of the stone-like statues to the left and right side of the room, and the bunch that were pouring in from the newly opened, previously shuttered wall, Zach felt a pinch of fear that grew exponentially as he realized the sheer number of these things that had found their way inside here with the two of them. He didn’t appear to be alone in his apprehension, either.

Zach caught a glimpse of Jimmy, who took several steps forward until he was just ahead of Zach. Now, for the first time since entering the dungeon, Zach could spot a degree of worry in Jimmy’s facial expression, though he seemed like he was trying to conceal it. Even still, it was plainly visible on his face, and it reminded Zach that, for all he might’ve known about dungeons, even he could be caught unprepared or unaware.

“Okay,” Zach said, drawing a deep breath and refusing to let fear paralyze him. “There’s…there’s definitely a lot of them, but…but we’ll just have to find a way though this.” Even as more and more continued to flood into the room, he kept his voice steady. “Here’s what we’ll do, Jimmy. First, we’ll—”

“Mezzing!” Jimmy called out suddenly. He ran forward and darted across the room until halting in place about fifty feet before the growing swarm of enemies. Once there, he made a grand, wide, and swinging motion with his staff, and then, from out of thin air, a hail of tiny yellow lights began pouring down in a wide area over all of those to the left side of the room; this, he repeated, doing the same to those on the right, and then yet again to most of the ones that’d run inside. It caused both an immediate cessation in movement and an equally sudden quieting of the high-pitched cackling, buzzing wings, and tapping feet. A moment later, Jimmy doubled over, and a steady stream of sweat began dripping all over the floor, splash after splash, as he began to pant and huff.

“So damn many of them,” he said, practically wheezing. “We’re gonna be okay, though. I promise. I mean, there’s a lot more than I was expecting, but we’re not gonna wipe to this trash. Just don’t touch them yet. Let me catch my breath.”

“Are they…are they crowd controlled?” Zach asked, doing his best to conceal his nerves.

“Yeah. For now, anyway.”

Zach gripped his sword even more tightly. Right now, there were cartoonish stars spinning around the heads of each and every mob in the room with them—and Gods, there were so many! Clearly, this was not a dungeon intended to be run with a party of just two adventurers. It took everything Zach had not to let the terror creeping inside of him take hold of his actions at the sight of how badly outnumbered they were. There was nowhere to run, either. They would have to fight: and win.

One, two, three, four, five…nineteen, twenty, twenty-one…thirty…and that’s not even all of them!

As Zach counted, he became more and more concerned that they might be in a dire situation from which they could not escape. Yet Jimmy, despite his previous display of alarm, seemed to grow bolder as he straightened his back and looked around the room at the horde of mobs to three sides of them. “Okay, follow me, Zach. We’re not gonna lose to these garbage mobs. Hell nah.”

“You sure you know what you’re doing, Jimmy?”

“Yeah, definitely. It’ll be fine.” He paused a moment and closed his eyes as he sucked air into his lungs before reopening them. “My mezz should hold for about two minutes, so we’ve got a minute and a half left to get everything set up to kill these dudes. Come here. Just trust me.”

Jimmy began to move, leaving Zach with little choice in the matter, and so Zach followed him as he maneuvered around the water pit and headed all the way to the back of the room, venturing as far inside of it as he could until they reached the wall at what would have been the backmost and rightmost “corner” if the room hadn’t been circular; still, it was a close enough approximation.

“Okay,” Jimmy said, still gasping for air between words. “Since…since there’s a big water pit in the middle of the room, they can only funnel in from the left and right side. I mezzed them, so I’m gonna have first aggro. That means most of them will probably come through the right.”

“What do we do?” Zach asked, genuinely nervous. Despite all that Jimmy had done so far, it was only really now, in this moment, that it truly registered to Zach that if he had not brought Jimmy along with him today, he would have died here. Without even a shadow of a doubt: had he not chosen on a whim to bring Jimmy along, he would not have left this place alive.

“For now, stay right here and don’t move. I gotta get the ball rolling.”

“The ball…rolling? Jimmy, what are…? What’re you going to—”

“Just trust me!”

Looking exhausted, Jimmy waded forward on somewhat shaky, unsteady legs, heading in the direction of the mobs he’d mezzed; but more importantly, he was by himself, insisting that Zach remained put. Even still, Zach kept himself at the ready so that, if anything bad ended up happening, he could leap to Jimmy’s rescue as fast as possible. For now, though, he begrudgingly chose to stand still and wait.

I really, really hope Jimmy knows what he’s doing.

Raising his staff, Zach watched as Jimmy then swung it downwards, planting one of those rust-colored, oblong-shaped traps that Zach recalled being used on Zylor earlier yesterday. Then he pointed his staff directly at just one of these many “imps” nearby it, and with that, Jimmy released a blueish ball of energy that sailed across the room and struck the creature for 9,451 damage; the moment of impact, the stars circling above its head abruptly vanished, and the creature once more became animated, the sound of its laughter filling the room.

“He-he-he-he-he!”

Even while being “mezzed,” it had somehow managed to remain airborne despite the stopping of its wings, which once more began to flutter as the imp dashed forward in the air and made straight for Jimmy. Yet, the moment it flew over the oblong-shaped object, the rust-colored trap popped up into the air as though it’d been sitting on a springboard, and it detonated into a purplish cloud, which the mob flew directly into, becoming obscured for a moment before appearing from inside of it. At first, this seemed to have no effect on the creature at all, but then after a few seconds, it made a painful-sounding laugh and suffered 4,208 damage and then another 3,105 a few moments after that.

Jimmy, who was now breathing as hard as Zach had ever seen, raised his staff a second time and swung it down, causing another purplish cloud to explode directly in the spot the mob happened to be flying towards. Now, it took another 4,211 damage as well as 3,207 at the same time. And it was here that Jimmy whispered, “Finally, thank God! The bar filled up.” Directly following those words, he raised his staff one last time, and he cast what Zach recalled was called Breath of Invigoration: his stamina regen buff.

So that’s what he was doing, Zach realized, recalling that Jimmy had to inflict a certain amount of poison damage to an enemy in order to use his buff.

Now, much more vigorously, he turned around and bolted straight towards Zach. “It’s all yours,” he said, becoming visibly more energetic with each moment. Zach could actually see him recuperating every few seconds that his stamina regeneration buff “ticked.”

“I need you to deal with that one really quick,” he said to Zach. “And try to hurry, man.”

Zach nodded, and without any hesitation, he dashed forward to meet the winged, spear-wielding imp, which ended up taking a combined total of 11,901 damage just in the time it took for Zach to reach it.

HP

36,417/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Warrior C

Level

45

“He-he-he-he-he!” the imp creature laughed as it buzzed through the air, lunging forward and sending its spear directly at Zach’s chest despite Zach not even having aggro. He supposed that was simply a result of him having put himself directly in the mob’s path. But either way, his reaction to it would’ve been the same. Zach, having anticipated the attack, spun his body around and caused the golden spear to instead pierce nothing but the empty air. Then he retaliated, whipping his sword across and slicing the creature in its throat, dealing 10,405 damage and causing a spray of red blood to stain the tiled flooring on both sides of it.

“He-he-he-he-he!”

Undeterred, the creature flew a tiny bit higher and then slammed its spear downwards. Zach raised his own sword to guard, and the creature surprised him with the amount of force in its blow. Still, he was able to endure it, his sword clanging against the gilded spear, deflecting the weapon. The imp, in a display of persistence, followed up with another quick, forward thrust, but not before suffering 4,010 damage from Jimmy’s first poison and 3,805 from his second, causing it to flinch each time and actually stagger mid-thrust, interrupting its motion and allowing Zach to thrust his own sword forward ahead of it, skewering it through the torso and dealing another 11,526, as well as another 417 when Zach yanked his sword free of the creature’s gut.

HP

6,254/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Warrior C

Level

45

The creature, now leaking blood from both its throat and the open wound in its stomach, made as if to attack Zach a third time, and Zach was prepared to defend against it. Yet just as it pulled back its bony arms as if to thrust its spear forward once more, Jimmy’s two DOTs ticked again, hitting for 4,666 and 3,655 respectively, and with that, the creature halted midair, its wings stopped fluttering, and it fell down to the floor with a plop like a swatted fly. Then it began to turn brown and shrivel up like a dying plant aging in fast-forward, leaving behind a brown, powdery residue that reminded Zach of sand only darker in color. This powdery residue did not vanish and remained where it was even after the rest of it was no more.

+18000xp

As the number of xp floated in the air before him, Zach was taken aback by the huge amount of it. How had he earned so much while partied with Jimmy? Shouldn’t the number have been reduced due to Jimmy’s much higher level?

No, he recalled, thinking all the way back to what he’d learned from Rian and Lienne during his first dungeon outing. There’s only a penalty for killing mobs with someone who’s at least two levels higher than both you and the mob. Jimmy’s only 45, and I’m 23, so only mobs that are levels 24 to 43 would give me a penalty.

“Zach, snap out of it,” Jimmy said to him, rousing him from his thoughts. “That one was just to get my buff on me. My mez is only gonna last another minute. Let’s try to take out the group on the right first. Do that thing you can do.”

“Thing? What thing?”

Without clarifying what he was talking about, Jimmy took off yet again, pausing when he was closer—but still a fair distance—away from all the ones that’d broken free from the stone statues on the right side of the rounded room. Waving his staff around, he made the same gesture twice in succession, and two gigantic clouds of smoke popped into the air, blanketing the entire group of imps and causing various red down arrows to appear after all of their names. The stars circling their heads vanished at once, and they began to move as one big group towards Jimmy—only much, much more slowly.

“Okay, they’re slowed,” he announced.

Jimmy, staying right where he was, made another gesture as he swung around his staff, reciting the words “Val en Bled” twice in a row and causing two large, green, and cloudy mists to appear beneath the general group of mobs, rising upwards until vanishing. Each blast of green mist was large enough that the two Jimmy created covered more than enough area to poison each and every imp in this particular batch of them. But Jimmy did not stop there.

Despite his stamina regen buff, he once more began to pant and sweat as he raised his staff and swung it downward four times back-to-back, causing four more purplish clouds to appear. Only then did he turn around and retreat towards Zach.

From what Zach could tell, it seemed Jimmy had three different poisons: a single-target one, which exploded when stepping or hovering over it, and two AOEs: the mid-sized purplish cloud and the much larger green one. Given its smaller area, that was likely why he needed to use the purplish one four times and the green only twice. Either way, the result was the same: a mass of poisoned, slowed mobs inching their way towards the two of them.

Zach, understanding the need to be quick, bolted forward and moved to intercept them. “Be careful!” Jimmy called out to him in warning. “They only move slower when it comes to shit like crossing physical distance. They can still attack ya’ll with full speed.”

“Got it!”

Zach realized right away what Jimmy was talking about, as despite crawling forward, the first mob he approached, an imp warrior called “Sneering Imp Warrior A,” made a blazing-fast chopping motion with its spear, which Zach had to move equally fast to deflect. Then he slashed down with his own sword, and to his surprise, the mob held its spear flat and guarded against Zach’s strike.

These ones can fight defensively? he wondered.

Even still, Zach struck with enough force that it knocked the mob downwards, causing it to briefly hover much lower to the ground. This enabled Zach to attack a second time with even more strength, coming from up high and slicing down low. The mob attempted to guard again, but this time, Zach was too fast, and he hit it for 15,451, slicing off one of its long, round earlobes and half of its cheek. For some reason, it seemed to find this funny.

“He-he-he-he-he!”

It jabbed forward with its spear, but rather than dodge, Zach parried, swinging his own blade and knocking it to the side. With that, he lashed out in three quick striking motions, the first cutting off its right arm and dealing 10,200, the second ripping open its stomach for 8,205, and the third taking off half its head, dealing 13,111. Jimmy’s DOT then ticked twice, and like the previous mob, this one died as well.

+18000xp

“Too slow,” Jimmy said. Standing beside him, Zach saw him eying the two other large groups they’d have to soon deal with. “That’s why I said to do your thing.”

“What thing?” Zach demanded as the roughly eighteen mobs they were already dealing with continued to slither closer and closer.

“Use that ability of yours: the one with the smoke.”

“My ability with the…oh, you mean Unleashed Phase? I was hoping to save that for later. I didn’t want to have to use that just yet.”

“Well, either use it or we die. Trust me: we’ll pull off the greatest combo of mass-killing mobs you’ll ever see.”

“Yeah, but…you don’t understand…!”

“I don’t have to. Just use it!”

Zach swore. Jimmy really didn’t understand why that was such a dangerous request, and there was literally no time for him to explain it, either. It was simply too complex to get across. Jimmy therefore could not understand that, right now, the ability only had twenty-five minutes left on its twenty-four-hour cooldown, which meant that, in twenty-five minutes, it would have been exactly one full day since he’d called upon Unleashed Phase to help him deal with Zylor. This was significant because, with a Phase Level of 0, the ability would only have a high exertion cost, which meant that, when it was time to pay up, Zach would likely pass out and go to sleep for a few minutes but wake up otherwise unharmed.

Yet, since the ability was on cooldown, the only way he could activate it now would be to use Phase Reset and reset the cooldown, increasing the Phase Level to 1. This also had a high exertion cost—meaning Zach could handle it if necessary. The problem? If he needed to use it again later, he’d have to Phase Reset once again, and that would just not be possible, as Phase Level 2 increased the exertion cost to Very High.

Not only wasn’t Zach capable yet of handling a Very High exertion cost, he’d discovered—much to his terror and pain—that he couldn’t even handle half of that debt without dropping dead, as his sword had a weekly ability that allowed him to use an exertion ability at half cost, and he’d once attempted to do just that—only to find he still could not cover the stamina cost. Back then, Fylwen had saved his life. But she wasn’t here now, and there would be no one able to revive him if he attempted something so suicidal.

Ultimately, what all this meant was simple: if he absolutely had to do it, Zach could use Unleashed Phase here and now. But in doing so, he’d run the risk of not having it available to him during a potential boss fight on a later floor. And what made it all the worse was that if it were only twenty-five minutes into the future, he could use the ability, pass out for a bit once they were safe, reset it, and then use it again if needed. But since he’d be resetting it just to avoid waiting a mere twenty-five minutes, he’d only get to use it this one more time.

If only Zach had a way of expressing this to Jimmy, maybe then he would change his mind. Or maybe not. It was impossible to know, actually, as there was no way Zach could explain this to him. So instead, Zach focused on surviving the here and now instead of worrying about what might come later. Thus, he gritted his teeth and said, “Fine, Gods-damn it!”

Relenting, he activated Phase Reset and then immediately activated Unleashed Phase a moment later, causing his entire body to shine with a very dull glow while a trail of impossibly black smoke escaped his hands and feet along with the occasional burning ember. At the same time, Jimmy cast Breath of Invigoration on him, causing his body to briefly come under a spotlight caused by a floating heart above his head, which cast a warm light on top of him.

Name

Breath of Invigoration

Effect

Periodically restores a portion of user’s stamina (10 second interval)

Duration

4:59

Unleashed Phase Duration

14:45 Remaining

Having barely exerted himself thus far, Zach was not surprised to see that he began with a duration of 14:45, but what did surprise him was the way in which, just ten seconds later, this turned into 16:45. Even though he’d witnessed this effect yesterday, Zach could still barely believe his eyes. He’d nearly forgotten about the incredible combination that existed between the two of them, and he grew excited even in spite of the possibility that this might jeopardize his capabilities later on.

“Cut them down!” Jimmy shouted at him as the batch of slowed mobs drew nearer and nearer. “Use that slash thing on the mobs. Hurry!”

“I’ve got something better than that, actually,” Zach said, taking note of the fact that, while not lined up directly, the entire group of mobs were more or less cluttered together.

Removing one hand from his sword, Zach extended his arm, palm flat. Then, aiming at the general direction of the mobs rather than any one in particular, he activated Phase Cannon, causing his hand to recoil, a flash to pop into existence, and a loud, echoing bang to fill the room as a projectile flew out of his hand at incredible speed and detonated, striking eight different mobs and causing blood and pieces of wing, horn, and other various body parts to join a collection of broken tiling and dust as all were sent scattering around.

Each mob was hit for a different amount of damage, but there seemed to be a general range, such as one taking 5,201, another taking an even 7000, and a third being struck for 6,485. All things considered, the numbers were lower than he would’ve expected, which meant they were either resistant to magic in general or to light damage, which was the type of magic damage dealt by his Phase Cannon. But even still, it was worth it to hit so many at once. In his peripheral vision, he noted that the use of Phase Cannon reduced his remaining duration of Unleashed Phase to 15:15, but knowing it would rise again shortly, he fired a second time, hitting eleven of the mobs this time, and then he fired again after that before unleashing a fourth, consecutive blast as well.

Spears, daggers, arms, legs, and pieces of wing were added to the explosive storm as deafening bangs erupted one after the next, echoing off the walls and causing his eardrums to ring and small holes and craters to form all along the floor accompanied by a steadily growing column of smoke. But still, each of the mobs drew nearer, laughing as though oblivious to the bloody, explosive wounds in their bony, demon-like bodies.

Throughout it all, Zach did not target any one particular mob or try to eliminate any of them in any particular order: he merely fired at the general mass of them, sometimes hitting as many as thirteen and other times hitting as few as seven as he steadied his hand and blasted five times more; at some point during his relentless barrage, five of the imps died outright, followed by two dropping dead mere seconds later from Jimmy’s poisons.

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

…

…

+18000xp

+18000xp

Though Zach remained focused and tried his best not to become distracted, he couldn’t help but notice in the corner of his vision the way his xp bar was absolutely flying where he kept it down beneath him just out of his usual line of sight. He stole a peek down at it, awed by the speed at which if was increasing.

To Next Level

162,082/265,000

As the eleven surviving mobs continued to slowly drag along, each with a varying amount of HP left before death and all with signs of serious damage, Zach took stock of his remaining duration of Unleashed Phase, which had dropped all the way down to 4:05; an instant later, it was back up to 6:05. Having become so low, Zach hesitated, and Jimmy, who clearly did not understand how his ability worked, began to holler at him.

“Keep it up! You ain’t even sweating yet. Don’t stop!”

“Jimmy, I can’t just fire it endlessly. I need to build up more time.”

“Time?” Jimmy asked, sounding confused. Even as he spoke, two of the eleven mobs collapsed and turned into more of the dry powder as his poisons finished them off, adding yet another +36000xp to Zach’s total.

I just can’t explain it to him right now, Zach thought, frustrated. To appease his friend, his hand recoiled and rocked as he fired off yet another blast of Phase Cannon; the mobs, now much closer, indirectly splattered him with gore as a much closer and more visceral bang sent another shower of guts and body parts scattering around him and left another section of the flooring ripped up with a gaping hole in it. It also caused the death of three more of the mobs.

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

With his time now down to just 4:02, Zach ignored Jimmy’s protests and criticisms and bolted forward, raising his blade as he prepared to slaughter the final six mobs all on his own. Yet the moment he came within ten feet of the lingering survivors, he had to quickly duck down as a mob called “Sneering Imp Troublemaker G” hurled one of its daggers directly at his face with such speed that it nearly succeeded in catching Zach off guard. Then another of the Troublemakers beside it also threw its knife, and Zach hurriedly slashed the air with his blade, causing a pang to resound in the room as he knocked it away. With that, he resumed his dash forward—bending backwards and away from a spinning, slicing slash of a Sneering Imp Warrior’s spear. Zach ripped his own blade directly upwards, cutting the already badly wounded mob cleanly in half for 21,500 and finishing it off. It also reminded him that, while under Phase Level 1 of Unleashed Phase, his strength had raised from 106 to 131, and it clearly made a big difference in terms of how much damage he could deal.

+180000xp

Level Up!

24 (23)

Constitution

+4 (116)

Speed

+1 (98)

XP Required for Level 25

300,000

Halting Strike Acquired!

Zach was too preoccupied with racing against the clock to pay any attention to his level-up or whatever new ability he’d acquired. Instead, he moved from mob to mob, bringing death each time he swung his sword. He stepped around a Troublemaker and decapitated a Warrior, only to whirl back around and stab the Troublemaker through the back. From there, he guarded against a lunging strike from another Troublemaker, easily brushing off both its daggers while noting that it’d somehow replaced the one it’d thrown, and then he finished this one off by cutting it along its waist, severing the top half of its body from its bottom.

This left just two: one to his immediate left and one to his right. He raised his blade to strike the one to his left, but it died on its own from Jimmy’s poisons, and then the one on the right was blasted by a blueish orb that sailed over Zach’s shoulder and crashed into its chest, which Zach assumed Jimmy had fired from his staff. In total, it’d earned him another 90000xp.

To Next Level

95,082/300,000

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Zach said, grinning as he looked over his shoulder. “I can’t believe how much xp I’m…uh, Jimmy?” Something was off with Jimmy. A fair bit of the confidence had fled his friend’s eyes, and now there was a great deal more worry. He seemed troubled and offput. “What’s wrong?”

“You’ve got to pick up the pace, Zach,” Jimmy said to him. “Why are you wasting time going in for melee kills?”

“It’s how my ability works,” Zach said. “If I had time to explain it, I would.”

Jimmy stared at him blankly, and then a knowing look came across his expression. “Wait a minute. Yesterday, I think I remember you saying something like…like it works off a timer or some shit, right? You said it could go up or down.”

“Right!” Zach exclaimed; he was glad Jimmy recalled the very brief explanation he’d given earlier yesterday. It was during such a hectic moment he was surprised Jimmy could remember it at all.

“I use time in place of stamina, and if I hit zero, that’s that.”

Jimmy mouthed something but did not voice it—at least for a moment. Glancing off at something behind Zach, he muttered something else that was inaudible before more loudly saying, “I still don’t understand it exactly, but damn, all right. How much time you at now?”

“Six minutes and fifty seconds,” Zach said.

“And I’m guessing it costs you a different amount of time to use each one of your abilities? Is that how it works?”

“Yeah,” Zach said, relieved to see Jimmy understood at least partially how it functioned.

“How much does it cost for you to do one of those bomb things?”

“Phase Cannon? It’s a minute and a half without a target, which is how I’m using it.”

“And how much time are you getting back from each tick of my buff?”

“Two minutes.”

Jimmy swore viciously, but he calmed down a moment later. “It’s all right. We’re still good. We’re gonna just have to tryhard this shit.”

“Try-what? Jimmy, I have no idea what that even means!”

“Oh no? Well, you’re about to find out.” His confidence seemed to return in a flood—but only for a moment. An instant later, his expression flared up in alarm. “Damn, I gotta hurry!”

Without another word, Jimmy sprinted around the water pit and back towards the front of the room, and he promptly began waving his staff around and causing more debilitating clouds of smoke to appear, one after the next, breaking the mez on the twenty or so mobs that’d barged their way into the room as well as the additional twenty that’d emerged from the statues a bit off towards the left; the latter group, he managed to slow just as the mez had expired all on its own, and for a brief instant, they took off at a blazing speed in the direction of Jimmy, but fortunately, they only managed to get a few feet before Jimmy halted their momentum with his slows. Now, however, having had to cast such a large AOE, he looked absolutely exhausted, and like before, he was panting and dripping sweat, though he seemed fast to recover.

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” he said, hurrying back to Zach’s side. “We’re gonna try to reposition them into one big group instead of two smaller ones, and then we’re gonna try to path them around the water pit. But there’s too many of them to do that right now.” He paused to take a breath, then as if realizing time was short, he continued to speak, even though it looked like it was a struggle for him to do so. He pointed. “There’s so many of them that if we try to run them around it right now, we’ll end up running into them and getting surrounded—like a snake eating its own tail. So we gotta reduce their number first. So let’s start killing and falling back at the same time, and then if we can group ‘em up, we can kite around the pit. Thing is, we have to kill at least a third of them before we fall all the way back to the wall or we’ll end up surrounded. Got it?”

“Yeah,” Zach lied. In truth, he only half understood what Jimmy was saying—if even that much—but he nodded and decided he’d follow along and hopefully pick up on whatever Jimmy was planning as it was actually acted out. His adrenaline pumping, he was glad to see that his remaining duration of Unleashed Phase was now back over eight minutes. Even still, he wouldn’t be able to spam senselessly. Not without first being able to gain more time.

“Okay, stick close,” Jimmy said. “I promise you we’re gonna get through this. No way in hell is Jimmy Green wiping to pre-boss trash mobs. If we’re dying, we’re at least dying to the damn boss.”

“Or maybe we don’t die at all,” Zach suggested, a touch of uneasiness coming through on his words. “Just a thought. Might as well keep it open as an option.”

Zach, following behind Jimmy, became confused as Jimmy made a series of odd motions. Rather than move away from the slowed mobs, he started off by moving towards them, in some cases dangerously so. He approached close enough that about nine of them launched daggers, and Zach had to jump in front of him and whirl his arms around as fast as he possibly could, deflecting each one. Jimmy also came close to having a few spears run him through, and Zach was amazed he was able to deflect those as well. But thankfully, after coming within kissing distance of some of the mobs, he began to move in the opposite direction, and it was only here that Zach finally understood what he was doing.

By going near one group, and then the other, he caused both to form into one larger group, and now the two of them started to gain a decent amount of distance. The cluster of mobs was not far from the dais that had controlled the shutter, and Jimmy was now at the edge of the water-filled pit. “Okay, I’m back to full stamina,” he said, raising his staff. Zach watched as he then cast four of his large, green-misty, cloud-like AOE poisons before resting a moment then casting four of his purplish ones. He halted again before casting another four; now, every one of the mobs was inflicted with both types of poison.

Zach, for his part, had broken much farther away on his own, retreating as far into the room as he could and gaining as much distance as possible. “Get clear!” he called to Jimmy, who turned his head around and raised his eyebrow at Zach. “Just get to the side. Hurry!”

Jimmy seemed reluctant, but Zach was grateful that he did as asked, especially since this might be the only time Zach would have enough distance to make use of an ability that would probably be pointless once they came any closer.

“Wave Slash!” he called out, swinging his blade downwards and leaving a streak of green, patchy, energy in the air; energy, which quickly curled in on itself, solidified, changed color, and reformed into a double-bladed disc that took off slowly at first but began to rapidly gain speed.

Having only just hit the ten-minute mark on his current duration of Unleashed Phase, he was brought back down to just under nine, but more importantly, it was worth every moment of his time, because the moment of impact, he hacked off numerous sets of legs, cut open a few torsos, and even severed a couple of wings before the Wave Slash fizzled out. And though he failed to kill any outright, he left at least five of them completely immobilized and incapacitated on the dungeon floor in crumpled, bloodied heaps, where Jimmy’s poisons would hopefully end them—eventually. At any rate, having fired off his ability, he hurriedly returned to Jimmy, who lifted his staff and cast Breath of Invigoration twice: first on himself and, after a few more ticks of his poison, on Zach, refreshing the buff.

“Get on them!”

*****

Vim spat out a wad of blood as he was struck yet again by one of his captors. This time, they hit him with enough force to cause one of his front teeth to come lose, and he coughed it out along with a wad of bloody saliva.

“Thanks,” he said weakly, his body going limp from where he was bound in a standing position, propped up by chains in this foul, filthy dungeon. “I think I had a cavity. I was hoping someone would get rid of that for me.”

His quip was rewarded with both a chuckle and a subsequent, follow-up smack across the face from the gauntleted fist of a low-ranking thug of the Guild of Gentlemen. They must have thought that it would increase the disrespect done to Vim if his torturers were men of lower stature. In truth, Vim cared little whether it was the fifth-ranking member or the fiftieth. Torture was torture.

“We can do this all day just like yesterday,” the thug said. “This ends when you make the rest of the public decree.”

Vim had surprised the Guild of Gentlemen earlier when he’d actually conceded to one of their demands: but only one. And it had not been their beatings, sleep deprivation, starvation, or dehydration that had convinced him to do so, either. Of all the things for which they demanded he admit his guilt, there was one thing and only one thing that he had agreed to confess, and he had done so willingly.

A few hours earlier, knowing the eyes of the world would be watching, he had sat down at a small table in a dark room, and with a camera trained on him, he had publicly confessed to having been the natural-born son of a Gnomish woman and a half-Gnomish, half-human father. And he had done so proudly. Honestly, it should not have shocked the world. It was the admission itself that most would find shocking: far more so than the mere fact of it. But given all that had transpired, he could no longer justify keeping it a secret. To do so would only validate his treatment: give credence to the idea that being non-human was somehow shameful and deserving of such harshness.

They were going to kill him, yes, but they would not break him. For that, they’d need to do a lot better than knocking a few teeth out of his mouth.

Chapter 138: Mushkie

Chapter 138: Mushkie

Even with all the skill and combat experience that Zach had quickly accumulated since becoming an adventurer, he knew he was still going to be in for a rough time of things as he, along with Jimmy, began backpedaling away to the rear of this circularly shaped room-turned-arena while an entire train of mobs pressed towards them. Yet, for every inch of ground gained by the mobs, Zach ceded an inch of his own, and this, of course, was not a good thing.

Rather than simply pull away, they were supposed to be performing something of a “fighting retreat” until reaching the room’s back wall, at which point Jimmy had claimed it would be critical to have reduced the number of mobs by at least a third; this, he’d explained, would make it possible for them to kite the remainder of the mobs safely around the water pit while they were dealt with. For this reason, Zach was supposed to be attacking in addition to backing away—but at the moment, he wasn’t. His instincts, which were as much a part of him as his own skin, were screaming at him not to get any closer to the large cluster of foes, all of which still had about 70% or more of their HP as Jimmy’s poisons caused a chorus of hissing-laughter to resound with each tick.

We’ll get pushed back to the wall way before any of them die from the poisons, Zach realized as he repeatedly took one backwards step after the next.

Multiple times, Zach had inched forward towards the mass of imp creatures—only to jerk abruptly away in the opposite direction. On each attempt, eight or so of the winged imps would lash out with a fast, dizzying strike of their golden spear while the wingless “Troublemakers” would fling one of their dual-wielded daggers at him before another would magically appear in their hand as though they had access to an infinite supply of the weapons. Despite the mobs being slowed and poisoned, Zach was somehow failing to find an opening as the forty-or-so horned, fork-tailed, and oftentimes winged creatures continued to sloth their way towards him and Jimmy.

“Zach, man, the hell are you doing?” Jimmy asked him angrily. “Start dropping these bitches.”

Zach clenched his teeth for a few seconds, becoming vexed. “I can’t get close to them, Jimmy.”

“Try!”

“Easier said than done!”

At the moment, Zach was standing a few feet before Jimmy, who was naturally keeping a bit of extra distance behind Zach being that he was a caster. Straight ahead of them, the legion of imps continued to either fly on buzzing wings or trudge forward on tiny feet in their direction. Sensing Jimmy’s patience beginning to dwindle, Zach tried once more to attack one of the creatures despite knowing he’d only end up meeting the same result he had with all of his previous attempts.

Studying their rhythm as he backed away a few more steps, he halted, bent his knees slightly, and then launched himself forward. And just like in his earlier endeavors, the exact moment that he entered the mobs’ attack range, ten of the imp creatures reacted concurrently, creating an unavoidable mess of swinging spears. An unbearable bout of frustration erupted within Zach, which caused him to again clench his teeth while tightening his grip on his sword.

Put simply, the number of these mobs combined with their methods of attack made it impossible for Zach to get close enough to them to do any damage. And really, it all had to do with the way in which the winged “Sneering Imp Warriors” moved and struck. The Troublemakers were not the issue; though annoying, he could evade or knock aside their thrown daggers. But the Warriors were a whole different story. Each and every time Zach entered within their range, they performed a series of movements that had a level of unpredictability he’d never before seen from a mob.

First, anywhere between seven to ten of them would fan out and enter into a crescent-shaped formation, and from there, they would dash forward towards him at full speed, as they were not affected by the slow debuff during an attack. After that, they would fly directly upwards so that the bottom of their feet became level with Zach’s forehead, and then finally, each one would scatter in a different direction before unleashing a strike from what seemed to be a randomly selected angle.

It was impossible for Zach to anticipate how they would choose to attack. Some would fly off to the left, some would fly off to the right, and others would hover a bit higher or drop a bit lower. Sometimes, they’d fly off one way, stop suddenly, and then veer off in the complete opposite direction. The result was always the same, however; following this scattering of buzzing, flying imps, they would converge upon Zach with an equally dazing mixture of attacks.

Some would swing their spear, and others would thrust, but whichever they chose, the imps lashed out at angles that were just as random as their movement patterns, such as the one moving towards Zach right now that was named “Sneering Imp Warrior R.”

The creature barreled forward through the air, stopped in an instant, then flew off towards the left before snapping back to the right almost as though it’d bounced off an invisible wall; then, with its body moving from Zach’s left to Zach's right, it whipped its spear from Zach’s right to Zach’s left—and this was just one of the ten that all struck out at him in unison.

Combined, the imps created a visually confusing, hard-to-follow, and overwhelming pattern of attack that would’ve been too much for Zach to handle even without the half-dozen daggers that made a slight hissing sound as they ripped across the air as they headed towards him.

And so, once more, Zach’s only option was to retreat; jumping backwards, he leapt away from the approaching hail of spears while simultaneously whipping his sword several times in the air before him in order to deflect the daggers flying his way.

“Zach!” Jimmy called to him, sounding even more irritated.

“I’m trying!” he shouted back to him. “I’ll get skewered or cut to pieces if I get anywhere near them!”

Unsure of what he should do, he briefly called forward his list of abilities, scanning it with his eyes for just a second before again dismissing it. Was there anything on here he could use to make his life a little easier? Thanks to Jimmy’s buff, he could now be far more generous with regards to ability usage, but even then, there was still an upper limit to how much and how frequently he could call upon his various abilities before having to wait for more time to be added to his current duration of Unleashed Phase, which as of right now, had just shy of twelve minutes remaining on it.

Unleashed Phase Duration

11:47 Remaining

Wave Slash

1:15

Boundless

0:10

Phase Cannon (No Target)

1:30/2:00 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Cannon (Targeted)

2:30/3:00 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Blink

0:20

Phase Shield (READY) (25 seconds)

0:45

Phase Rescue

0:35 / 2:15 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Slash

1:10 / 6:10 (if used with ??)

Halting Strike

0:20

Card Capture

0:00

Card Summon

0:00

Card Dismiss

0:00-X:XX

Gacha Get’cha

0:00

Even as he thought over his options, he could hear Jimmy impatiently shouting at him in the background. For the moment, Zach tuned him out and continued to backpedal towards the rear wall as he tried to think up some way of navigating around the imps’ seemingly insurmountable offense. Yet as the wall came nearer and nearer, and their available space grew smaller and smaller, he knew he would have to come up with an idea very quickly. By his best estimation, they were only around fifty feet away from reaching the wall, and once there, there’d be nowhere to go except through the throng of mobs.

“Zach, at least do something,” Jimmy pleaded, his tone urgent yet not quite panicked. “There’s gotta be something you can do.”

Maybe there is, actually, Zach thought as a particular ability came to mind. It’ll at least get Jimmy off my case for a moment.

“Okay, let me try something,” he said. In the corner of his vision, he could just make out a change in Jimmy’s expression as he glanced at Zach hopefully.

I need to time this perfectly.

Zach once more planted his feet, coming to a stop. Then, as he’d only just done, he again bent his knees and raised his sword, the point of his blade facing ahead of him with his elbows pointed away. With that, he bolted forward towards the slowly moving horde of mobs, crossing the distance in an instant. The imps reacted just as quickly, and this time, what looked like nine of the Sneering Imp Warriors and five of the Sneering Imp Troublemakers became “activated” as soon as he entered within their attack range.

At once, the buzzing of wings grew louder and more frenzied as nine winged imps rushed forward through the air, coming to an immediate halt just before Zach—only to then fly upwards and scatter in nine separate directions before again lunging at him, their weapons thrusting and slicing with enough variation so that no two imps attacked in quite the same way or at quite the same angle. Along with this, a collective whooshing sound from ahead indicated that five more daggers had been thrown and were heading straight for him.

Now, with five daggers and nine spears all closing in on him, Zach knew that, if he did not dodge immediately, he would not be able to dodge at all. This was the point where he’d typically have just a fraction of a second to choose between either getting out of the way or attempting to try guarding against the incoming storm of attacks. This time, however, he went with a third option.

Rather than retreat or lift his blade in a futile attempt to block the chaotic barrage of spear strikes, Zach instead dropped down to his knees. Once there, he forced himself to remain calm, as acting too soon could get him killed just as easily as acting too late. And so, he held his breath a moment, focused his senses, and waited until the last possible instant before he was slashed and skewered to death. Then, just before the gilded, glittering spears pierced his flesh, Zach activated Phase Shield.

Immediately, a beautiful, brilliant, and golden light chased away even the most shadowy corners of this fairly dark room, bathing all of it in its glow and causing the clear water in the water-pit to take on an amber color and reflect the shine onto the ceiling. Following the activation of his ability, a large shield made of this same pure golden light manifested into existence above and slightly in front of Zach. Appearing just in time, all five daggers collided with this shield, and all five bounced off without making so much as a sound. The same was true for the nine spears, which either thrust into or slashed against it. No matter what struck out at him, the shield deflected each and every attack used against it; then, as quickly as it had come, the shield vanished, once more allowing the room to darken.

As soon as it faded out of existence, Zach leapt into action. Hurriedly, he sprang back up to his feet. Time was short, and he would need to attack now. The window that existed between one round of the mobs’ attacks and the next was incredibly brief; if he was going to be able to get anything done, he would have to attack immediately—and he understood this, which was why Zach acted with such swiftness that he barely even paused to consider how much damage he would suffer as “payment” for the shield, which always returned a small portion of the damage it absorbed to him, the user. All things considered, he couldn’t imagine it’d be all that much.

Although Zach had no doubt that these mobs were deadly enough—and high level enough—to pierce his flesh with their weapons, in the grand scheme of things, he didn’t think they had the kind of power required to seriously injure or even slightly wound him via the returned portion of damage from using Phase Shield. And indeed, even as Zach lifted his blade and threw himself forward at his enemies, the only physical sensation of pain he felt was a slight irritation in his lower lip as well as something akin to a minor tightening of the muscles in his right shoulder blade. Neither sensation was long-lasting, either, and both were gone almost as soon as he’d realized they were there.

At any rate, having finally earned the chance to attack, Zach seized the opportunity with a vengeance. Having caused the mobs to be put somewhat off balance as a result of their spears bouncing off the shield, Zach held nothing back. He practically threw himself at the nearest Sneering Imp Warrior, this one called “Sneering Imp Warrior J.”

HP

55,510/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Warrior J

Level

45

Pressed to make every second count, Zach slashed his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness directly upwards, cutting the flying creature from its groin to its chest; then, rather than pull his blade back and go in for a second, follow-up strike, he instead pushed his sword forward, etching it deeper into the imp’s flesh while pivoting his hips and swinging his arms to the left, carving it across and over the creature’s chest; this resulted in an aerosol-like spray of blood that felt hot as it splattered across his mouth and forehead.

Despite having never pulled his sword back, the damage Zach inflicted seemed to register as two separate strikes, with the first hitting for 18,222, and the second dealing 16,010. The imp, oblivious to its condition, seemed to find this incredibly funny, as the sound of its laughter filled the rounded room, reverberated off the walls, and created an echo.

“He-he-he-he-he!”

HP

21,278/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Warrior J

Level

45

Ordering his limbs to move as fast as they could, Zach whipped his arms around twice more, striking the creature across the stomach for 17,209 and then for the second time in its chest, overkilling it with a slash that hit for 16,998. Following this second strike, the Sneering Imp Warrior’s wings stopped buzzing, its devilish pupils went blank, and with another, weaker laugh it fell to the floor like a dead bird, where it then disintegrated into a powdery residue like the others that’d died before it.

+18000xp

Despite killing Imp Warrior J as fast as he possibly could, Zach noticed that the other eight mobs had already reoriented themselves from where they were hovering midair and would launch into another of their crazy, unpredictable attacks any moment. Thus, he called upon all the speed he could muster and threw himself at another, this one called “Sneering Imp Warrior K.”

With a touch of desperation, Zach fully extended his arms and raised his blade so that the point was above his head, and then he crashed it down in an attempt at delivering a powerful, thundering blow and splitting open the creature’s skull. But to his surprise and dismay, the imp managed to shift its spear so that it wielded the weapon horizontally, raising it upwards to guard. Grunting, Zach was unable to strike fast enough to break apart the spear-wielding imp’s head, as the creature managed to block in time. Instead, Zach’s blade made a high-pitched, metallic-sounding clang that was loud enough to fill the entire room as his weapon collided with the spear. And though he did not manage to deal any direct damage with his strike, he at least hit with enough force that the spear was knocked cleanly out of the imp’s hands; more so, the intensity of the impact was enough to violently throw the imp downwards until its back slammed into the floor, causing the tile beneath it to crack and dealing 9,051 secondary damage.

Zach lowered his head and looked upon the downed imp, sensing an opportunity for an easy kill. He spun his sword around so that his blade faced downwards, and then he bent backwards slightly before throwing himself forwards in the opposite direction for momentum while also bending his knees. With incredible force, he tore his blade through the imp’s chest using all his might, actually putting out 26,500 damage as a combination of a rip and a crunch caused him to wince at the sound of his sword piercing the creature’s body. But his blade did not stop there; no, Zach ended up plunging his weapon with such power that his blade continued through the imp, exited the creature’s back, and then sank several inches into the tiled flooring beneath it with another crunch. A half-second later, a dark-green aura surrounded his own body—his stamina buff! Having proc’d it, the time remaining on his Unleashed Phase rose to 14:05, only to immediately rise up even further to 16:05 thanks to another tick coming in from Jimmy’s Breath of Invigoration.

Quickly, Zach ripped his blade free then stabbed it back down two more consecutive times, causing two geyser-like spurts of blood to shoot up and dealing 20,477 and 20,462 damage respectively, ending the imp warrior in the process and earning Zach another +18000xp. As this one, like those before it, turned from an imp into a sand-like powder, Zach lifted his blade, held it at the ready, and searched for another to kill.

Sadly, even having only killed two of the creatures, he saw that his time had run out. Seven of the original imps that had attacked him were now soaring through the air at him. Zach, taken by surprise, momentarily forgot their pattern of attack and nervously raised his blade to guard against them as each of their forms approached him at a daunting speed; this, of course, turned out to be unnecessary, as all seven of the “Sneering Imp Warriors” then came to a sudden, unnatural halt midair immediately upon reaching Zach—but only so that all of them could then scatter away in a random direction. Zach chided himself for becoming startled. He knew that it would only be after they scattered that they would attack him. Yet these damn creatures moved so fast and in such a disorienting way that it was easy to flinch at the sight of them rushing towards him.

Calm down! he warned himself. Don’t get too excited!

Zach exhaled, trying to regain his composure. But he lost it a second time as his eyes detected motion across from where he stood. Now, he took a breath so quickly he nearly choked on the oxygen as a sense of alarm and warning crept down his spine. It seemed that, ahead of him, an additional two Sneering Imp Warriors had already scattered and were coming after him—neither of which he realized were even attacking him until right now. Zach wasn’t sure how he’d missed them. Most likely, they must’ve pulled into range and begun their attack while he was still finishing off the imp warrior that he’d blasted onto the floor.

To both his immediate left and right, the two creatures were lashing out at him. The one to his left was causing a dull hiss to trail on the air as its spear made a rounded, circular slash that was heading straight for Zach’s neck. The one to his right was thrusting its spear directly forward, the pointed end of the weapon making for Zach’s heart.

With another sharp inhalation, Zach ducked beneath the circular slash from the spear to his left; he could feel the air shifting above his hair as he narrowly avoided decapitation. Then, urgently, Zach straightened his back, brought himself upright, and forcibly swung his sword to knock away the thrusting spear to his right. Immediately afterwards, he followed up with another three swings of his weapon, causing three pangs to fill the room as he blasted away three daggers he’d only just realized had been thrown and had also barely managed to ward off. Finally, feeling overwhelmed, he dashed backwards and away just as the seven other imps reconverged on his position, each striking out in an entirely different way and all thankfully missing. Then they pressed forward—only much more slowly thanks to the debuff from Jimmy. Their “attack” having been concluded, they resumed at a much more sedate pace.

“Damn, Zach, that was only two of them you got,” Jimmy said. Though the alarm in his voice had certainly amped up a bit, he still came across as cool, confident, and self-assured. “That’s not gonna cut it.” Zach watched as Jimmy glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “No pressure, but like, we gotta make something happen here. Our backs are about to hit the wall.”

Zach’s lips curled in frustration all on their own as he realized how close they were to being sandwiched between the wall and the approaching mobs. Less than twenty feet of space existed between them and the point at which they could retreat no farther. “Gods damn it all,” Zach swore with a growl.

“How much time you got on your ability?”

“Uh…like, just a bit less than sixteen minutes now.”

“Well, shit, what the hell are you waiting for, then? Go wild on them.”

“It’s not enough,” Zach said. “I need to build up a bit more time, Jimmy.”

“We don’t have any left for you to build up more of it!”

Looking again behind him at the wall, Zach could see that Jimmy was correct. Time was nearly up, and Zach needed to make at least some dent in their number. Not only that, but with each moment, Zach was also beginning to understand why Jimmy had chosen to do things this way. Only by luring these mobs and having them more-or-less bunched up would they be able to keep them under control and safely kite them around once their numbers were diminished. If Zach ended up having to Phase Blink and Phase Rescue to get him and Jimmy to the other end of the room, it could cause the mobs to spread out and end up all over the place. That would make for a totally chaotic, unmanageable mess, which in addition to heightening the level of danger, would also make it greatly more difficult for Jimmy to re-apply his poisons and his slow.

Hesitating for just a split second, Zach quickly regained control over his nerves, filling instead with determination. He nodded at Jimmy. “Yeah, you’re right. We don’t.”

Unable to stall any longer, Zach knew he’d have to make the most of the time he’d already accumulated. And so, upon speaking those words, he eyed the approaching imps, both the flying, winged warriors, and the dagger-wielding troublemakers. He raised his blade, licked his chops, and set his focus on a particular “Sneering Imp Warrior” that was up front and leading the pack. With that, he swung it diagonally downwards.

“Phase Slash!” he cried out, causing a loud, high-pitched sound like that of a zipper being opened to fill the world around them, crowding out all other noises as a visible disturbance appeared in the air in the form of a ripple, which then tore across the space between him and his target: “Sneering Imp Warrior 2A.”

Though his Phase Cannon could hit multiple mobs at once, Zach decided to try leading with a Phase Slash instead because he needed to start reducing their number immediately as opposed to simply wearing them down. For whatever reason, his Phase Cannon did a great deal less damage towards these mobs than it should have. Zach wasn’t sure if this was because the imps were resistant to magic in general or if it was the specific type of damage—light in the case of Phase Cannon—that had hindered it. But whatever the underlying reason, Zach was left hoping that his Phase Slash would prove a bit more effective against these mobs. And thank the Gods, he could see right away that it was.

Three things happened close enough together that they almost appeared simultaneous. First, his Phase Slash found its target, and with a loud, balloon-like pop, the imp exploded into a steaming, smoking, superheated shower of blood, guts, skin, and organs, all of which continued to trail more smoke as these globs of gore sizzled and crackled until eventually cooling and turning into the powdered, sand-like residue, but not before leaving scorch marks in the room’s fancily tiled flooring. Then, right after, there was a clink as the spear it’d been holding fell out of the air and landed while its wings—the only undamaged part of it—floated halfway down to the floor, ultimately disintegrating into the sand before touching down. Finally—and thirdly—a shocked-sounding gasp came from Jimmy.

Turning around, Zach saw him pointing and staring at something. Tracing it with his eyes, Zach realized it was the damage number floating in place where the mob had been: 63,998. “Goddamn,” he said, blinking as if not believing what he was seeing. “What kinda’ OP, broken-ass shit is that? Talk about unbalanced.”

+18000xp

Zach, briefly switching to a one-handed grip on his blade, gave Jimmy a shrug. He barely understood what Jimmy’s words even meant if he was being honest, but he decided now was not the best time to ask him about it, either. Thus, not bothering to reply, Zach once more gripped his blade with both hands. Raising his weapon, he swung it a second time, and then a third, calling out “Phase Slash!” with each. In the wake of these two attacks, another Sneering Imp Warrior as well as a Sneering Imp Troublemaker detonated, each making a pop and causing a hissing sound to fill the room as their superheated insides seemingly had to cool before they could disintegrate, which meant they sizzled and left char-colored marks on the tiling. Seconds after each death, another three clinks came as a spear and two daggers dropped down onto the floor.

+18000xp

+18000xp

Unleashed Phase Duration

11:12 Remaining

With more work left to be done, Zach lifted his blade a fourth time, ready to kill another. For this one, he eyed a “Sneering Imp Troublemaker” that stood just a bit before the others and seemed to be drawing back its arm as though about to toss a dagger at him. Zach decided straight away to make this pesky little imp the next one to die. However, just before attacking, he paused; instead, he frowned as he spotted something else: something that was moving his way at a great speed. It seemed one of the imps had entered within attack range, likely during the time that Zach had been standing there throwing out Phase Slashes.

Now, with its wings buzzing furiously, this Sneering Imp Warrior flew straight towards him, then halted midair in front of where he stood. From there, it lifted upwards before dropping right back down while whirling the bladed end of its spear on top of him.

Caught off guard, Zach was forced to hastily switch from offense to defense. Thankfully, having already raised his own sword, and having been only a mere moment from delivering another Phase Slash, Zach’s blade was already perfectly positioned to intercept the imp’s spear. Abandoning his planned attack, he shifted into a defensive stance, bending his knees and slightly turning his blade to block the incoming spear; this resulted in a loud ringing sound as well as an uncomfortable vibrating in his wrists from absorbing the shock of the imp’s powerful attack. Yet before Zach could assess what to do next, he spotted even more movement as another two imps soared across the room at him, scattered, and then lashed out while the one that’d only just attacked seemed to wind itself up for a second strike of its own.

Alarmed but still in control of himself, Zach kicked off his feet and hopped backwards while swinging his sword diagonally downwards in the same motion, crying out “Phase Slash!” even while a foot or two midair. Then he made a gentle clicking sound as his two feet touched down on the tiled flooring while, at that very precise instant, his Phase Slash met one of the imps head on.

The imp, which flew directly into it, was simply massacred at point-blank range. Zach became drenched in its boiling, sizzling insides, which thankfully left no stain as the imp’s nauseating innards cooled on his robe and transformed into more of the sand. It was a bizarre sight, too, because one moment he was covered from head to toe in guts, and the next, it was all just “gone.” Even more odd was that, for the first time ever, the loud, eerie, high-pitched, and zipper-like sound that typically accompanied a Phase Slash happened to arrive after the attack had already found its target, killed it, and disappeared from existence.

+18000xp

“He-he-he-he-he!” laughed the other two Sneering Imp Warriors as they both came at him, one ahead of the other.

Twice more, Zach repeated his earlier action of hopping backwards while delivering a Phase Slash, and in both cases, he again exploded his attackers, the sound of his attack coming only after it was already gone. Yet it was only upon touching down in the immediate moment following the second of his two hops that his luck turned sour. As soon as his feet found the floor, he raised his sword and scanned the incoming horde of mobs for any more signs of danger or for targets to attack. While doing so, he saw the numbers representing his experience earned floating in the air.

+18000xp

+18<--------000xp

Concealed behind the number, almost as though using it as a cloak or a stealthy screen, was a dagger launched by a “Sneering Imp Troublemaker” that Zach could neither see nor hear until it was too late. By the time Zach realized what was coming his way, he had already been struck. With an “umph,” Zach widened his eyes and then winced in agony as a searing, stabbing, and maddeningly intense pain erupted in the right side of his lower belly.

Glancing down, he saw that the dagger had not only gotten him, but it’d plunged completely inside of his flesh. Every last inch of the nearly seven-inch weapon—save for the grip—had submerged itself into his stomach, causing an indescribable pain that made him feel as though something was being ripped out of him.

Removing his right, now shaking hand from his blade, he lowered it to his stomach, grabbed the dagger, and then yanked it out. Then he howled in more agony as the entire area of his robe turned from black to red, and then soon after began to leak an even darker-colored blood all over the floor, with much of it trickling down his leg and escaping the cuff near his right foot as it trickled out of him and began to form a small pool beneath him. Zach, suffering a moment of disbelief and confusion, released the dagger, which was stained in a similar shade of crimson, letting it drop down and hit the floor.

“I…I fucked up,” he said to Jimmy, already feeling weak and wobbly. “I think I just died.” It was becoming difficult for him to remain standing. It didn’t just hurt: it burned. Zach, doing everything he could to control himself, tried to remain calm despite what may have been a mortal wound. “Jimmy, I think I just—”

“Nah, I got you, dude,” Jimmy said immediately, speaking the words confidently and in a way that seemed a bit too carefree. But as it turned out, he wasn’t unjustified in his certainty.

Jimmy extended his staff in Zach’s direction, and an instant later, the world around Zach lit up in such a way that he felt as though he were under some kind of blinding, green spotlight. A halo of green brightness surrounded him and only him, and though it lasted for less than half a second, in just that time alone, the pain subsided immediately, the wound sealed and closed up, and aside from a scar that was already beginning to fade, Zach found himself completely healed.

“I had to use a T3 heal on you,” Jimmy said, now panting. “But you’re good to go. Get back in there and fuck ‘em up.”

Zach, amazed, said nothing in reply, but he did bow his head, hoping the gesture adequately expressed his utter sense of gratitude. Then he raised his guard, unwilling to let something like that happen to him a second time. Steadying himself, he took stock of his surroundings. They were now only about ten feet from the wall, and there were still too many of the mobs heading their way for Jimmy’s plan to kite them around the water-pit to succeed. He was also down to 8:15 on Unleashed Phase, though at the same time that he checked, he saw it then tick up to 10:15 thanks yet again to Jimmy’s buff.

I need to kill them faster! Zach thought to himself as the mobs continued to close in on them. This is too slow!

With a bout of white-hot anger erupting inside of him at having been wounded, he unleashed two more Phase Slashes, one after the next, at the incoming throng of mobs. The first struck—and detonated—the Sneering Imp Troublemaker that’d pierced him with its dagger, and the second one killed a Sneering Imp Warrior that had drawn close enough to begin its disorienting attack pattern. Both mobs were vaporized upon impact, but the second one in particular had its insides splattered so far and wide that they rained down on top of the dais that Jimmy had operated to solve the puzzle. Yet even with those two dead, and even with the rest moving at a fairly sedate pace, the mobs were still approaching fast enough that, with the wall now right behind them, Zach couldn’t escape the feeling of claustrophobic anxiety that was steadily growing within him.

The closer the mobs neared, the more his sense of urgency increased. The situation was becoming dire, and he needed to be even faster. So, without any delay, he released a third, then a fourth Phase Slash, obliterating two more of the imps in the process—but still finding his progress too slow. This just wasn’t cutting it: it wasn’t enough. He needed to kill more and faster. And he knew that there was only one tool in his box—one weapon in his arsenal—that stood any real chance of accomplishing such a task. It was one he tended to hesitate before calling upon, as its destructive power could sometimes have unintended consequences. However, with no other option left to him, Zach would just have to rely on it. And with that understanding in mind, he took his right hand off his sword, clenched it into a fist, and extended it at the mobs ahead of him. Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder.

“Jimmy, do not stand behind me!” he warned. “Move off to the side.”

“Huh? Why? What’re you—”

“Just move! Now!”

“Yeah…all right,” Jimmy whispered as though uncertain.

Zach braced himself despite knowing it would do him little good; even still, he really, truly braced himself. He exerted every bit of strength he had and put all of it towards keeping himself right where he was. Would it be enough? He doubted it. But he’d try anyway. Either way, this would still be the action he had to take. And so, with an intelligence stat currently sitting at 167, and with nothing else as powerful as this that he could call upon, he activated his blasting ring, pointing it straight ahead of him at what he estimated to be the leading-most elements of the incoming horde.

A shout—likely of surprise—came from Jimmy as a reddish, laser-like light far brighter than the glow of his Phase Shield fully illuminated the rounded room to such an extent that anything and everything became tinted a neon-red. It was a light so intense that nearby objects stung just to look at. For this reason, Zach could not fault Jimmy for shouting out numerous expletives as he seemingly vented his surprise at its sudden emergence.

Maybe I should’ve warned him in advance.

The last time Zach had used this ability, he’d been fighting the “Megaworm of Battle Beach,” and he’d had an intelligence then of 120. That had been enough to create a beam with a diameter so large that an industrial DEHV truck could fit through it. With 167 points of intelligence, the beam was now large enough so that two such trucks would be able to venture inside of it while traveling side by side. This, Zach glimpsed for only a moment, marveling at the sheer massiveness of what had been produced by such a small ring. And then, despite his best efforts, the explosive power of his blasting ring blasted him away.

In all honesty, Zach never stood a chance: not a chance of holding his ground. As though he were a bullet fired out of the chamber of a gun, Zach was torpedoed backwards—and into—the room’s posterior wall with such immense speed and force that, for a moment, he lost sight of the world around him and could see only pieces of stone, dust, plaster, and cement amid an otherwise dark backdrop as he became something of a human drill, creating a tunnel of his own making right through the center of it. For several long, frightening seconds, he heard nothing but a grating, rumbling buzz as he continued to burrow deeper and deeper until, finally, he began to slow. By the time he came to a halt, he’d created a Zach-sized cavity that extended more than fifty-feet deep.

Am I hurt? he wondered, feeling around his body with his hands. I don’t think so. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of a brief bout of dizziness and disorientation. I think I’m okay but…oh, shit! Jimmy!

As dazed as Zach currently felt, he knew he could not spare even a moment to recover, as Jimmy was now all on his own. And though he was a bit out of it, he was pretty sure he wasn’t in any pain. Miraculously, he appeared to have escaped any injury at all from such an absurd experience. For all his progress in getting beyond his level-1 thinking, there were still some things in this world that could surprise him, and this appeared to be one of them. It was yet another cogent reminder that he was quite literally superhuman.

Pushing himself up into a standing position—or as much as he could—he ignored the dust and pebbles that were falling down on top of his head like little droplets of rain, and he hastily sprinted forward through this self-created tunnel, having to bend forward while he ran. “Jimmy!” he shouted at he neared the exit. “Are you—”

“Zach, you all right?” Jimmy called out. He had his staff in his hands and his back pressed flat against the wall. Only about eight feet in front of him was the horde of mobs, and from what Zach could see, he had done very little to diminish their number.

“H-how are there still so many?” he shouted out with a gasp as he exited his self-created tunnel and saw that he’d somehow failed to kill a single additional one of them with his blasting ring. Even as Jimmy quickly fired out an answer, Zach was already drawing the same conclusion with the sights taken in by his eyes.

Before him, the impact his blasting ring had on the world was obvious. From where he stood, in a wide path leading all the way to the opposite end of the room, the flooring had been completely ripped up. It was as though someone had taken a gigantic shovel, pierced it about three inches deep into the floor, and then scraped it all the way across to where it impacted the wall on the anterior end of the circular room, leaving an actual tunnel in that wall that ran at least two-hundred feet deep or perhaps even longer—it became too dark for Zach to tell. What he could tell was that his blasting ring had utterly destroyed a large section of this room.

It'll repair itself in a week, Zach thought. He was glad in a strange sort of way to know that this wouldn’t be permanent.

Although the blasting ring had absolutely wrecked this part of the dungeon, the mobs in its path, on the other hand, appeared to have survived it—though only barely. Clearly, these imp mobs had at least a moderate degree of resistance towards beam damage. But even that had not been enough to leave them unscathed. Quite a few had suffered a significant hit—just not enough to outright kill them.

With nothing more than a cursory glance, Zach could tell that nearly every one of the mobs had taken at least some amount of damage, but Zach estimated that about eleven of the mobs in particular had weathered the brunt of the blasting ring’s beam. In particular, it was those closest to the front of the mobs’ formation that’d sustained the greatest injury. Having been unable to see the damage numbers for himself, Zach was able to go by their current HP versus what he recalled them having only a moment prior, and through this, he reasoned that they’d taken anywhere between thirty and forty-thousand points of damage each. Many of the imps, both the Warriors and Troublemakers alike, were now missing ears, eyes, or other parts of their face and had signs of extreme burn damage running all over their bodies, large swaths of which now appeared blackened and charred. Yet they had nevertheless refused to die, and they were closing in on him and Jimmy.

Unsure of what to do, Zach hesitated for a second or two—time they could not afford to waste, and time which brought the mobs even closer. Now, about eight of the mobs—five winged warriors and three dagger-wielding troublemakers—approached close enough so that both he and Jimmy were within their attack range.

“Aww, shit,” Jimmy said, the very first sign of true worry he’d shown since coming here. Beside Zach and to his left, Jimmy pressed himself even more tightly against the wall and then began to pat it as if searching for somewhere to run as the Sneering Imp Warriors dashed through the air on buzzing wings towards the two of them—but not before they released a collective hiss of laughter as both of Jimmy’s poisons ticked, bringing their HP even lower than it already was. Very low, in fact. Low enough so that…

Wait a second, Zach thought, filling with a sudden excitement. They’re not just low: they’re really, really, really low!

As all five Sneering Imp Warriors flew towards him and Jimmy, then scattered and reconverged for five differently angled strikes, with three targeting Zach and two charging Jimmy, Zach called upon an ability he hadn’t used in a good while. Switching to a one-handed grip on his sword, he extended his opposite hand, palm open, and then activated Card Capture. Then he activated it again, and again, and again, and again!

Jimmy, who was now pressing himself so tightly against the wall that Zach was surprised he didn’t go through it, released a half-grunt, half-gasp as a Sneering Imp Warrior jutted its spear forward towards his belly for a thrusting strike that would’ve ripped apart his insides. Fortunately, a mere instant before the bladed end of the spear pierced his midsection, the mob imploded with an eerily cheerful sounding “poof” that saw it transform into nothing more than a tiny ball of light. Jimmy, clearly confused, looked around as though searching for some clue as to what had just happened. And this confusion only seemed to grow as the rest of the attacking imps met the same fate.

“The fuck was that?” Jimmy asked.

One by one, as the Sneering Imp Warriors came in for a series of spear strikes that would’ve wounded Zach and likely outright killed Jimmy, there were a series of “poof” sounds as they vanished into tiny little orbs: palm-sized wisps of light that hovered in place for a few seconds before zipping across the air and into Zach’s waiting, open hand, where they then reforged themselves, solidifying into cards. First came the five from the Sneering Imp Warriors, and then came three more as Zach activated his ability on the Sneering Imp Troublemakers just before they threw daggers at him and Jimmy.

Poof, poof, poof!

Now, having removed those eight mobs from the equation, the entire front line of the incoming pack of mobs had been dealt with, giving them just a little—but not much—breathing room, as there were still plenty more following behind. And though he knew now was not the most appropriate time to do so, Zach couldn’t help but steal just a quick, very fleeting glance at his newly acquired cards.

I need to start building up a collection, he thought. Given how useful this ability was, he really needed to start taking more advantage of it. I should’ve had hundreds by now.

The cards were as bedazzling as always. Both contained similar imagery, but with a few differences that were easily spotted. What they shared in common, however, was significant; on each type of card was a hand-illustrated scene depicting an imp in a hellish, fiery world torturing Orcish prisoners. The imps were drawn cartoonishly and in a way that was almost cute, their eyes and other proportions exaggerated; this created an unsettling contrast with the dark imagery depicted. For the Sneering Imp Warriors, they were shown forcing Orcs to walk off a cliff and into a lake of fire by stabbing them in the back with their spears; the Troublemakers, on the other hand, were shown on their card stabbing at the eyes of their prisoners.

“I dunno what the hell you just did,” Jimmy said to him, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, “but between the giant beam and the cards, that was pretty sick.”

“Thanks,” Zach said. Based on the context and Jimmy’s tone of voice, he assumed that the word “sick” in this case was intended to mean something positive. He was becoming accustomed to Jimmy using certain words in a way that was different from what Zach found typical. Quickly stuffing all eight cards into his black robes, Zach glanced at Jimmy once more and asked, “So, did we kill enough of them?”

Jimmy pulled himself off the wall and appeared to size-up the remaining mobs before turning his head to look at the water-filled pit. “Yeah, we did. Only problem now is that they’ve come so close we’ve got to cut ourselves a path through them to get where we need to go.” He pointed off to his left. “Listen, Zach. If we can just get through the mobs at that point right there, everything afterwards is gonna be so easy. I mean that. If you get us through there in one piece, we win. We’re so close to coming out of this on top.”

The various imp creatures behind those that had died were drawing nearer, and Zach, sensing victory, steeled himself as he thought on Jimmy’s words. Most were concentrated dead center ahead of him, but the imps were currently spread out just enough so that there was no way of getting around them without entering the attack range of at least a few. But even more critically, the longer they waited to move, the number that would end up attacking would only become larger the closer the mobs approached, enclosing them tighter and tighter. This meant they had to move now.

“Okay, follow me,” Zach said.

He lifted his foot, but before he could take a single step forward, he was interrupted by Jimmy, who grabbed the back of his robe. “No, not that way,” he said. Then he patted the wall. “Don’t break away from the wall no matter what. If you go that way, the mobs will end up scattering and all this is gonna be for nothing.” As if sensing Zach’s confusion, he continued to explain. “The point isn’t just to get around them, but to continue keeping them ordered and together.”

“Oh, right. Got it.”

Keeping the wall close to his back, Zach hurriedly shuffled his way leftwards, which put a bit of distance between himself and the mobs that were directly ahead as well as to his right while naturally causing the mobs approaching from the left to enter into attack range. There were four of them in total—or at least four that reacted—and more would likely attack if Zach did not deal with them quickly.

“Remember,” Jimmy said, his voice becoming filled with determination and charisma. “If we get through those, we win. It’s over for them. I know what I’m talking about, I swear it.”

The optimism in his voice caused some to spread to Zach, and he nodded. “Hey, Jimmy?”

“Yeah?”

“Having fun yet?”

Jimmy grinned. “Hell yeah I am! Let’s clear this floor, Zach.”

“You got it!”

Eager to break through, Zach moved to take his attackers head on. He set his gaze on the two Sneering Imp Warriors and Two Sneering Imp Troublemakers that were mutually moving towards him. Interestingly, only one of the Troublemakers threw a dagger, which Zach deftly sliced out of the air; the other began running forward on its small feet, laughing maniacally as it seemed to want to enter within melee range. But it would have to wait its turn, as the two Imp Warriors buzzed their way over to Zach, flew off in opposite directions, and then both lunged and thrust their spears with almost perfect synchronicity.

Zach readied himself. Confidently, he awaited their attacks. Dealing with a bunch of these at once might’ve been impossible for him, but just four? That, he could handle: and would handle. He kept his stance flexible as both of the winged, spear-wielding imps attempted to skewer him from each side, and as they slammed their spears down towards him, Zach leapt upwards into the air and right over them, moving beyond their winged bodies while spinning his own body around one-hundred-eighty degrees midair so that he was still facing in their direction when he touched back down. This, of course, put him in a somewhat awkward position, because now, he had two Sneering Imp Warriors ahead of him, a Troublemaker dashing at him from the side, and his back was turned to a second Troublemaker a few feet behind him.

“Watch out!” Jimmy called out to him in warning.

Zach, trusting Jimmy, dropped to his knees, and a dagger thrown by the Troublemaker behind him soared right over his head and ended up striking one of the two winged imps that’d attacked him, this one called “Sneering Imp Warrior Z.” The dagger lodged itself into the imp’s chest, dealing 7,221 damage. Then, as if in retaliation, Z, along with the other, which was called “Sneering Imp Warrior L,” both attempted to gut him a second time, once more dashing in his direction. The two of them halted mere inches before reaching him, and then both broke away, flew off to opposing ends of the room, and came back in for another attack. But first, just a few feet ahead of him, one of the Troublemakers made another snickering, menacing laugh and sprang off its small legs, hopping forward and lunging at him, its daggers raised as if intent on jamming both right into his throat.

“He-he-he-he-he!”

Zach was momentarily taken aback by the speed at which the imp had propelled itself through the air, but he quickly got over his surprise and took immediate action to defend himself. In one fast movement, he bent both his knees and his back, leaning as far away as he could so that the mob would fly right over him, and then, once it had done so, Zach snapped his body upright, turned his hips, and ripped his sword upwards with all his might, slicing the diminutive imp so ferociously that he succeeded in completely severing its body at the hip; its upper body continued to fly off into the distance, and everything below the hip plopped straight down, landing with a squish and a plop while leaking imp blood all over the flooring. Zach didn’t even bother to check how much damage he did. He knew it had been enough.

+18000xp

Having had to deal with the Troublemaker, Zach had little time to adjust his stance to defend himself from the two Sneering Imp Warriors, which were on him almost as soon as he felled their dagger-wielding brethren. Both were flying at him, and both were moving towards him from the same direction, with one flying just a little ahead of the other.

“Phase Slash!” Zach cried out, unleashing another point-blank attack that detonated Sneering Imp Warrior Z a mere instant before the mob crashed into him. In fact, the mob flew so close that its winged form filled the entirety of his vision, which meant Zach had a closeup view of the imp’s body detonating. He watched as it broke apart, going from one solid form to a thousand bloody scraps a mere instant before flying into him, earning Zach another +18000xp and a robe covered in sizzling, smoking guts.

Though it was a close call, Zach did not have the time to sigh with relief, because the moment after he killed his target, the other Sneering Imp Warrior, which had had been flying close behind the first, now came to be less than two feet in front of Zach, and like the previous one, it occupied the majority of his vision.

With the mob already in such close proximity, Zach did not have the time to guard or tear it apart with another Phase Slash. So instead, he gritted his teeth and ducked for all he was worth, dropping all the way down into a squat as it slashed its spear at his throat, causing a whooshing sound from above. Afterwards, having missed, it began to fly off, moving directly over his head as it continued onwards. But it did not get very far, as Zach had had enough of this fucking thing.

With every last bit of speed he had at his disposal, Zach brought himself back up to his feet, removed his left hand from his blade, extended his arm as far as he could reach, and then he grabbed the thing by its wing as it was flying off, squeezing his hand tightly while also bending his knees. The result was that he was nearly dragged up into the air with it. Yet he exerted all of his strength, winning out over the mob, and so rather than finding himself carried off, he instead lifted up to his tiptoes before again regaining his ground. The mob, having lost the struggle, came to a direct, jarring stop.

Then, angrily, Zach spun his entire body around full circle while whirling his arm downwards, slamming the Gods-be-damned creature as hard as he could onto the floor, causing a loud bang that made Jimmy flinch and sent multiple entire flooring tiles blasting against the wall, several bouncing off and rolling all the way over to the water-pit.

The Sneering Imp Warrior tried to wriggle out of Zach’s grip, but Zach tightened his fist around its wing then stomped his foot on the back of its neck; exerting even more strength, he groaned as he then pulled with all his might, yanking so hard that the muscles in his arm began to ache. But his effort paid off, as there soon came a loud tearing sound, followed by snap, and with that, he ripped the wing entirely off its body. Then, without wasting another moment, he released it, gripped his sword once more with both hands, and at last, he yelled out triumphantly as he sliced his weapon downwards and beheaded the creature while it was still writhing on the floor.

+18000xp

No sooner had the creature died than Jimmy was again shouting out to him in warning. But this time around, Zach did not require it, as he could hear the disturbance in the air as a dagger was hurtled at him from behind. Combining two motions into one, Zach ducked and spun around, then raised his weapon and delivered one final Phase Slash, blasting the Sneering Imp Troublemaker to pieces and killing it.

+18000xp

“This way!” Jimmy called to him the moment of its death, beckoning him. “We’re nearly there. Hurry! Before more attack!”

Zach, covered in powdery sand that had previously been blood and guts, nodded and hurried over to Jimmy as the two began shifting along the wall, pulling themselves out and away from what had been a sort of collapsing ring; now, the mobs were becoming more bunched up than ever before, and all were following after the two of them.

Carefully, Jimmy continued to slide leftwards along the wall, and Zach followed him. Then he started picking up the pace, and so Zach moved a little faster as well. The way in which Jimmy was clinging to the wall, along with his frequent, unexplained pauses, meant that the specific movements he was making were deliberate and purposeful. He clearly had some kind of route in his mind: some pathing he’d calculated in his brain that he wanted the mobs to follow. It was incredible to watch. With great attentiveness, Jimmy guided Zach—and by extension, the mobs—until they had shuffled halfway around the outer perimeter of the circular room.

“Stop for just a second,” he said. And Zach obliged. Jimmy, beginning to sweat, reapplied his slow and poisons to all of the mobs, and then he continued onwards, eventually leading them off the wall, down the left side of the rounded room, and up to—and then around—the water-filled pit.

“Okay, now what?” Zach asked, his blade still held at the ready, wondering what came next.

“Now?” Jimmy grinned. “Now, nothing.”

“Huh?”

Jimmy’s grin gave way to laughter. “That’s it. We’re good. We did it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re good.” Jimmy began to walk, slowly and calmly. “Now, we just keep strolling around and around the water-pit until they’re all dead. Like I told you before: once we killed enough of them to thin the herd, there’d be enough space so that they’d never reach us while slowed.”

Zach’s mouth fell open. “Wait, so you mean we don’t even have to fight anymore?”

“Yup. We already won. All that’s left is to wait for them to die. The only thing we gotta worry about now is making sure we set the right pace. If we push too far ahead, the ones at the rear of the line of them will break off and start going the other way around the circle, and then we’re in exactly the kind of situation we did all this to avoid.”

Zach made an O-shape with his mouth, a reflexive expression of surprise as it really dawned on him what Jimmy was implying. Up until now, he’d assumed that they were going to kite the mobs around the water-pit while also fighting them. But it was only here, in this moment, that he realized what Jimmy intended all along was for them to passively sit back and do nothing while the mobs died on their own.

Astounded, Zach struggled to believe that anything could be so simple. Yet even as began to calmly lead the pack of mobs around the water-pit with Jimmy, he could already see that it really was exactly as Jimmy had said. Together, the two of them made laps around the edges of the pit while the mobs hissed and laughed as the poisons ticked away every few moments. In the distance, the five mobs that Zach had incapacitated with his Wave Slash a little earlier finally died off, and all of their xp came in at once. Honestly, Zach had forgotten all about them. He’d left them wingless and, in some cases, legless. Having ceased to be a threat, he’d put them totally out of mind.

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

+18000xp

Level Up!

25 (24)

Dexterity

+1 (125)

Constitution

+3 (119)

XP Required for Level 26

400,000

“Gods be damned, what a shit level up,” he grumbled as him and Jimmy continued to strut mindlessly around the water pit. “Seriously, I hate when I get ones like this.”

“That…happens to you a lot?” Jimmy asked him. Since they were in the same party, Jimmy was able to see the paltry level up that he’d gotten.

Zach both nodded and sighed in reply. “Yeah, like all the time. I get garbage level ups one after the next until getting, like, a ‘super’ level-up that propels me forward. It’s been really uneven like that since I started.”

“No cap?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, no kidding?”

“Oh. Yeah, I’m being serious. I can get level after level just like this until finally getting something decent.”

Jimmy shrugged. “Well, you’re like fifty times stronger than you should be at level twenty-five, so whatever it is you’re getting, it’s clearly working out for you.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Zach said, his attention beginning to drift as the sense of danger began to lessen and they settled into a steady pattern and pace of walking.

A period of oddly peaceful and relaxing quiet transpired between the two of them. Aside from the sound of their feet tapping on the tiled flooring, the only other noises were the occasional stirring of water and, of course, the usual laughter from the mobs as they died off, sometimes one at a time and sometimes several in one go. Before long, three quarters of them had turned to the sandy, powdery residue, which could now be found spread out all along the perimeter of the water pit.

“Hey, Jimmy,” Zach said as they continued to lead the last few along.

“Yeah?”

“You notice that none of these guys are dropping any loot?”

At this, he gave a prompt nod. “Actually, yeah. These dudes suck. They’re not giving us a damn thing. Usually when I clear out an entire room full of mobs, they at least give something. You know, there might be a couple of pouches of coin or some items here or there. But these guys? Not a thing.”

Zach glanced around the entirety of the room just in case they missed something. He wasn’t about to accidentally leave treasure behind. Yet, aside from little clumps of sand, the mobs offered nothing to remember them by. “I wonder if that’s why this dungeon is so unpopular.”

“Eh, maybe,” Jimmy said, “but I don’t really know. That could be it, or there could be no real reason at all. Maybe the adventurers are just afraid to explore a place they don’t know all that much about.”

“Or maybe,” Zach added, “it’s because this place is a literal death trap for anyone who isn’t you—and uh, I guess, technically, me.”

Jimmy seemed to find this funny, as he began to laugh. “I can’t believe a dungeon like this would be too hard for Galterrans.”

Though Jimmy clearly did not mean anything bad by his words, Zach couldn’t help become a touch defensive. “Why not?” he asked. “We don’t exactly have all this super-secret dungeon knowledge like you do, Jimmy. There’s no class on dungeons that you take in school.”

This only seemed to make Jimmy laugh even harder, and Zach shot him a confused, frustrated look. Upon noticing this, Jimmy’s laughter abruptly cut off, and he quickly apologized before explaining himself.

“Look, Zach, if you came from my version of Earth, you’d realize just how ridiculous this whole conversation is. You just can’t ‘get it’ without being from where I am.”

“Maybe not,” Zach agreed, exhaling slowly as two more mobs died and left behind nothing. “But even still, I know that, however you learned all this stuff, it’s not knowledge anyone here would just automatically have access to. At least not in the way you did. Most of what adventurers know is stuff that previous adventurers had to die to find out.”

Jimmy’s expression softened. “All right. Fair enough.”

“And also,” Zach continued, “no matter how ‘ridiculous’ a lot of this stuff might seem to you, it’s not a game to us. I mean, don’t get me wrong: as adventurers, I think most of us really do enjoy this kind of danger. But even then, it’s still way more serious than a game. Honestly, Jimmy? You should try to stop thinking about it like that, because this is your reality now, too. If something had gone wrong just before, both of us would be dead. Forever.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jimmy said, speaking a bit more softly. “But like I already said, it’s gonna take time for it all to really sink in, you know?”

“I do,” Zach replied honestly as another two or three mobs died. “And I’m not trying to rush you or anything. Jascaila says it’s a process, and I think she’s right about that.”

Jimmy looked like he had more to say, as his facial features tightened and his mouth partially opened. But then he closed it, abandoning whatever had been on his mind. Zach, for his part, decided not to pry. Instead, the two of them continued to leisurely stroll around the water-pit until every remaining mob perished—just as Jimmy had said they would. And now, as the last one crumpled into sand, Zach’s mood became elevated as he took note of his current progress towards his next level.

To Next Level

371,082/400,000

It was incredible. He’d only just leveled up, and he was already so close to the next one—which he hoped would be a bit better than the one he’d just gotten. But even putting his junk level up aside…wow. Just wow. Honestly? From this one combat encounter alone, Zach no longer found it so puzzling how Jimmy, in just two weeks, had risen from level 1 to level 45. Watching him in action, it suddenly made a whole lot of sense why he was soaring ahead in the levels and could even solo bosses, a claim Zach no longer doubted. Jimmy had knowledge no one else had—he knew things nobody else knew. And he had abilities that seemed to turn even highly difficult dungeon encounters meant for entire groups of people into something that could be managed with only the two of them.

No wonder Eilea brought him here, Zach thought. Seeing him in action really puts it all into perspective.

This, of course, only highlighted Zach’s need to protect him. There was a target on his back, and if Zach was not vigilant, Adamus’s goons would find some way of putting him to death. This, Zach would not allow. Before this moment, he was against it on moral principle, but now, having seen his usefulness, there was even more on the line.

I can’t let my guard slip. Jimmy has to live.

Not wanting to let his thoughts become overly dark, Zach decided to put the conflict with Adamus out of mind for now, and he instead chose to focus more on the fact that they’d emerged victorious from a pretty tough spot. Exchanging a fist bump with Jimmy, the two of them then began making their way towards the front of the room and over to the exit, which Jimmy had unlocked via the puzzle they’d solved. As Zach walked across the circular room, he took one last look around to ensure that they weren’t leaving any drops behind, and then he proceeded with Jimmy inside the somewhat square-shaped opening that had slid aside after the completion of the puzzle.

Stepping through, the scenery changed quite significantly. Gone was the fancily tiled flooring, and also missing was the overall red-tinted, castle-like ambiance that’d made up most of F28, especially the upper section. Here, they entered something that reminded Zach a little bit of the early floors of Yorna, which was to say a relatively narrow, cavern-like area with brown, rocky walls to both his left, right, and above, and which was just well lit enough to see despite containing no obvious light sources. The floor consisted of small rocks and gravel, and their feet made a crunching sound with each step that they took. To Zach’s left, a single, large, and black arrow had been painted on the rocky wall, pointing them onwards, and below this arrow, in the same black ink, it read: F28->F29.

“I’m ready for whatever comes next,” Zach said, breaking another brief period of silence. He was feeling confident and enthusiastic. Thanks to Jimmy’s buff, which had been refreshed just before exiting the previous floor, Zach had over an hour on his current duration of Unleashed Phase, which meant his hands were still releasing impossibly black smoke along with the occasional golden ember. Although the buff had worn off, he was confident he had more than enough time now to proceed through the dungeon without having to rush. “Just let me know what we have to do, okay?”

Jimmy gave him a slight smile. “Yeah, I got you. Don’t worry.” As the two continued onward, he looked at Zach and said, “Just wanna let you know, by the way, that I couldn’t have made it through that last floor without you. So thanks.”

Zach choked out a surprised laugh, a bit stunned by his words. “Why’re you thanking me?” he asked. “I’m the one who brought you here. And if I didn’t, I might’ve died in this place.”

“Oh, nah, you definitely would’ve died,” Jimmy said, nodding his chin. “No doubt about that.”

Zach took no offense to his words, as they were the plain truth. Still, he repeated his question, as he found what Jimmy had said to him a little strange. “I don’t get why you’re thanking me, though.”

Jimmy paused a moment and gave him an amused shake of the head, as if the answer should’ve been obvious. “A raid leader always thanks his party when they do a good job. Or at least he should. I accepted the risk when I agreed to come here, so yeah, I’m giving you props for how you did back there.”

Zach wanted to ask him what “props” meant, but he decided not to badger Jimmy with too many questions, as there were a lot of things he didn’t know and would have to find out gradually through conversation. Stopping to ask Jimmy every time he used a word in an unfamiliar way or a new word entirely would only make conversations with him tedious and torturous. For this reason, Zach merely reiterated his own thanks and left it at that as they traveled side by side farther down this rocky corridor, which ran long enough that Zach could not yet spot the end of it.

Given previous dungeon experience, Zach knew that even just moving between the floors could sometimes present a great challenge. Fortunately, that did not appear to be the case this time around. Although this particular passage did stretch on a bit farther than expected, by the time they’d walked what he estimated to be half a mile or so, a wooden door with a curved handle appeared up ahead, marking the end of this cavernous path. As they approached nearer, Zach could distinctly see that written above the door was: F28->F29.

The entrance to the next floor!

“All right,” Zach said, walking a bit faster and becoming excited as he approached the door. “You ready, Jimmy?” He reached out for the curved handle, grabbed it, and then he prepared to open it. But he paused as it occurred to him that Jimmy was no longer by his side. “Uh…Jimmy?”

Receiving no answer, Zach let go of the handle, turned around, and then furrowed his brow in confusion as he spotted Jimmy standing about twenty feet away with his body turned and facing the rocky wall to their left. Had he fallen behind or something? Why was he staring at the wall?

“Hey, Jimmy, is everything okay?” Zach called to him, once again receiving no answer. Annoyed, he decided to call out a bit more loudly. “Hello? Galterra to Jimmy!”

This, finally, seemed to catch Jimmy’s attention. He turned his head to face Zach, and then he made a beckoning motion with his chin. “Zach, come here a second.”

“Why?”

“Just come here!”

Zach, perplexed, jogged the tiny bit of distance between the exit door and Jimmy, and then he came to a halt before him. “What is it?” he asked. “Why’d you stop here?”

Jimmy grinned, and then he pointed his staff at the rocky cavern wall. “That’s why.”

“What’s why?” Zach asked, beginning to wonder if maybe Jimmy hit his head or something and had become delirious.

Jimmy looked at him, and then he made a “tsk” sound before tapping his staff against the rock-solid wall. “You really don’t see it, do you?”

“See what?” Zach asked, frowning.

“Look!”

Zach looked closely at this particular section of the wall, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. “Jimmy, whatever it is you think you—”

“How you gonna say you don’t see that, Zach? Actually look. Like, really, just use your damn eyes and look.”

Zach sighed. “I am looking. What is it I’m supposed to be seeing? Is it the fact that the rock is a slightly darker shade of brown?”

“Yes!” Jimmy snapped.

“Uh…okay, so?”

“Oh, for God’s sake! You Galterran people, it’s like…shit, man.”

Cycling through a breathing technique that Jascaila had taught him, Zach inhaled, held the breath, and then released it slowly, doing all he could not to lose his patience with his newest friend. “Can you please just explain to me why we’re staring at a section of the wall?”

Jimmy, like before, tapped his staff against it. “There’s a secret passage here, and there’s probably loot or treasure behind this.”

Two conflicting feelings struck Zach at once: the first was excitement just at the word “loot,” and the second was an ardent sense of disbelief that, even after everything Jimmy had been correct about, that he could also be correct about this. Surely, he couldn’t. There was no way.

“Are you telling me,” Zach began, doing his best to maintain his composure, “that you believe there’s a secret passage in this one tiny little spot on a wall that runs for over half a mile, just because it happens to be a slightly darker color than the wall around it?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Jimmy said, firing off a confident nod on the heels of his words. “That’s always what it means.”

Zach stared back and forth between Jimmy and the slightly discolored section of the wall. Jimmy was either an absolute lunatic or he was so prophetic it was becoming scary. The worst part of it all was that, as insane as all this sounded, Zach had already seen too much to truly doubt him. Even still, it was hard not to be skeptical, and Jimmy, as though understanding this, tapped his staff against the rock for the third time and began to explain.

“In Zelda and a lot of games like that, when you see a part of a wall that’s like, you know uh, a bit different than the section around it, that’s how the game lets you know you’re supposed to break it down with bombs or some shit. That’s just how it is. Any gamer would notice this right away.”

Zach tried to reply, even going so far as to open his mouth, but all that came out was an indecisive squeak as he tried to reckon with the sheer unbelievable magnitude of knowledge Jimmy seemed to possess. He spoke with such confidence and certainty that it chased away almost all of Zach’s doubt. He really believed there was something behind this particular section of the wall, and because of everything that’d come before, Zach was starting to believe it as well—no matter how absurd.

“And you think there’ll be treasure?”

“Oh, definitely,” Jimmy said. “A hundred percent. We knock this down, and there’ll be a passage that runs like ten, maybe twenty feet, and at the end of it will be a gold-and-black treasure chest. It might even be giving off a sparkling orange light.”

“That’s…so, so specific,” Zach said, caught between amazement and a spooky sense of incredulity.

“Well, that’s what’s gonna happen.”

Zach took another deep breath, which he audibly released, making a phew sound. “Okay, well, go ahead and break it down, then.”

At this, Jimmy released a playful chuckle. “I uh, I can’t. I tried before and hurt my damn fist. I don’t think I got the strength for it.”

“Oh no? All right. Let me have a try. Here goes nothing.”

Zach sheathed his sword, drew back his right fist, and then he pivoted on his hips and twisted his body as he delivered an incredibly powerful right hook directly into the wall. On contact, there was a loud, explosive, and oddly crunch-like sound, and rather than simply sink his fist into the wall, a door-sized section of it crumbled before his very eyes into a cascade of smaller chunks of limestone, which vanished out of existence the moment they hit the ground. Just from that alone, Zach knew that Jimmy was correct. As unbelievable as it was, Jimmy had actually discovered a secret passage based on nothing but a slight discoloration of the wall.

“I…don’t fucking believe it,” Zach whispered as a much narrower, alternative path now stood before them.

“Well, I told your ass,” Jimmy said, a touch too arrogantly. “Feel like opening a treasure chest now?”

“You’re damn right I do. I love loot!”

“You wanna go first?”

“I can?” Zach asked. “Even though you found it?”

“Go ahead. It’s cool.”

Zach didn’t need to be told twice. His greed flaring to untold heights, he hastily entered the narrow passageway, and Jimmy followed him in. Since there wasn’t enough width for them to both walk side by side, Jimmy stayed a little behind. And with that, Zach went to go find his treasure chest, beaming with excitement. He wondered what would be inside. Something rare? Maybe something Epic Rare. Maybe something…legendary. It could be anything. Gods, having Jimmy around was amazing.

Eager to see what they’d found, he hurried onwards, stomping one foot in front of the other, moving deeper and deeper into this little passageway Jimmy had discovered. Except, Zach was starting to think it might not be so little, as several minutes went by and he was still heading further inward.

“Jimmy?” Zach asked after they ventured what felt like another half a mile’s worth of distance. “I thought you said the treasure chest would be like twenty or thirty feet inside.”

“It should’ve been,” Jimmy said, sounding concerned. “I…I don’t know why they’re making us walk this far.”

And far they did in fact continue to walk. Spurred on by greed, Zach ended up traveling an even greater distance down this supposedly “little” passageway than they’d walked in the main one connecting F28 to F29. Yet still, he continued on, and before long, a few minutes became five minutes, and then five minutes became ten minutes. Eventually, the narrow passage widened so that they could stand together, and it changed in other ways, too, becoming more of a gravelly hill that they had to climb for another mile and a half before leveling off and continuing on flat ground again.

“Maybe we should turn back,” Jimmy said after another few minutes had come and gone. “I hate to say it, Zach, but it looks like I was wrong.”

Zach, alarmed, asked, “About what? The treasure? Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve got to be right. And besides, we’ve already come this far.”

Jimmy winced. “Actually, I don’t think there’s even gonna be any treasure at this point. We would’ve found it by now. I dunno where the hell this is taking us, but I don’t think it’s to treasure.”

Zach cupped his hands over his forehead, not sure what he should do. He peered off into the distance, attempting to see if there was any end in sight. For now, he saw only darkness ahead. “Let’s just walk a bit farther. I feel like, uh, if we already came this far, we might as well see what’s at the end of this path, right?”

“Heh, all right,” Jimmy said.

And that was what they did. Together, they continued along the secret passageway, and all the while, Zach prayed to the Gods that he was still going to get his treasure. But as they reached the thirty-minute mark, even Zach’s greed began to take a back seat to common sense. Not only was he risking losing his Unleashed Phase and having to proceed through the next floors without it, but he had somewhere he absolutely had to be later today, and as things were, he was cutting things close enough time-wise. Maybe it’d be better if he turned back after all?

“Jimmy,” he said, his tone coming across as defeated even to his own ears. “Maybe this is a bad idea after all. It doesn’t look like we’re going to find the—”

“There’s something up ahead!” Jimmy blurted out. “Look!” He pointed.

Zach squinted his eyes. Then he inhaled, spotting something ahead that looked like an end to the passageway, though it was difficult to see amid the overall darkness of their environment. “There’s something there. You’re right!”

With much more liveliness in each step, Zach hurried with Jimmy to the end of this alternate path, hoping to see a glimmering, shiny treasure chest awaiting him. Instead, he saw something totally unexpected. Having arrived at the end of a half-hour diversion in pursuit of loot, the two of them were greeted with a wooden door that was very similar to the one they were originally meant to go through.

“What the hell?” Zach asked, unable to believe or understand the sight before him. The door wasn’t just similar: it was the same. Much like the other door, this one, also, said: F28->F29. But wait…was there something else as well?

What’s that?

On top of the wooden door, etched into the wood, there was an illustration that Zach was fairly sure did not exist on the other one he’d encountered. It was a cartoonish depiction of a hand being extended, palm facing up. And above this hand, what looked like a golden coin was falling down into its waiting clutches. Zach fired a questioning look at Jimmy, who shrugged and said, “For once, I’ve got no idea.”

Taking a breath, Zach reached out and grabbed the handle, though he did not turn it. He hesitated. “Should I?”

“We’ve come this far already,” Jimmy said.

Zach nodded. “Okay. But be ready for anything, all right?”

“I always am.”

Jimmy unsheathed his staff, and Zach, keeping one hand on the door, used the other to draw his own weapon. With that, he turned the handle and pushed it open. Then he, along with Jimmy, stepped inside—and immediately, Zach had to narrow his eyes as he was hit by a dramatic change of lighting as the two found themselves in a well-lit, room-temperature interior of what looked like a combination of a convenience store and a toy shop, one with homely blue carpeting, a large, spacious interior, and about seven aisles packed with any number of goods including clothing, candy, and very strange-looking gadgets and gizmos. But most of all, what really struck Zach was what he spotted directly across from him.

There was a shop counter, and behind this counter was an incredibly strange-looking man with two big, white puffs of hair that looked like giant cotton balls surrounding an otherwise bald scalp. The man was wearing a vibrant yellow-and-red suit, and he seemed to be clutching a rainbow-colored umbrella despite being indoors. He also reacted immediately the moment him and Jimmy entered into this bizarre, yet wonderous and homely shop.

“C-customers?” he whispered inquisitively. “C-customers?” he whispered again.

The man, whose head had been buried into the countertop, snapped upright to attention, and then a look of unfathomable glee crossed his features while tears began to run down his eyes. An instant later, he shot up out of the chair behind his counter, clasped a hand over his mouth, and then he seemed to blow into it, making something that sounded like a cross between a scream and a gasp. It was also at this point that Zach realized the man was an NPC, one who was almost certainly sentient. And unless Zach’s eyes were playing tricks on him, his level was 3,105, which was way higher than even Angelica’s.

“C-c-c-customers!” he shrieked, slapping his right palm emotionally and excitably on his countertop. “Customers, customers, customers! People! Real, actual, living people! Visiting Mushkie’s item shop! It’s been so long, my friends. So, so long. Five-hundred years. Oh, please, please, come in!” More tears fell down his eyes. “I haven’t spoken to anyone in centuries! Not a word to anyone! You are welcome. Please, please come in!”

Zach and Jimmy exchanged another look, and then Zach gently closed the door behind him. “Well, he seems nice.”

Chapter 139: Weekly Haul

Chapter 139: Weekly Haul

A cool, air-conditioned breeze left Zach feeling refreshed as he and Jimmy took their first few hesitant steps into this unexpected, NPC-run, and incredibly cozy item shop. Part of him felt like he should be a bit more taken aback, but at this point, he was accustomed to unexpected turn of events like these in the adventuring world; therefore, the fact that a place like this existed did not entirely shock him. What did shock him was the desperation, longing, and glee in the tear-filled eyes of the quirky-looking shopkeeper. Zach wasn’t sure what to make of this man, with his white puffs of hair, his vividly colored attire, and the rainbow-colored umbrella that he swayed back and forth almost as though it were an automatic reflex.

“Customers,” he said, his tone making it obvious that he was choking back even heavier tears. “I can’t believe it.”

For the second time, Zach and Jimmy exchanged a glance as though searching for answers in the eyes of the other, finding none. Zach took another step forward along the soft, clean, and navy-blue carpet. From the entrance to the counter, there was a fairly wide-open space, offering nothing in the way of furniture aside from a round stand that contained various packaged snacks along with unrefrigerated, bottled beverages. Interestingly, it seemed to consist entirely of common rarity items like Frog Snax and Skelly Chips. Off to his left was where the various aisles of other miscellaneous products awaited, and Zach was willing to bet that they, too, contained exclusively “adventuring world” items. Overall, the shop looked incredibly well maintained, fresh, and had a perfect level of cleanliness. Not a speck of dust or dirt could be seen anywhere.

“Hi there,” Zach said, unsure of how to proceed.

“Hi,” Jimmy added.

The shopkeeper, who went around the back of the counter and then reappeared out front, still holding his umbrella, wiped tears from his eyes with his opposite hand. There was a natural quiet in here, making each of his footsteps more pronounced, as well as those taken by Zach and Jimmy. Zach, filled with uncertainty, held his position and observed as this extraordinarily high-level NPC leaned slightly forward and squinted his eyes as though attempting to discern something, saying nothing for the time being.

What’s he staring at? Zach wondered.

It only then occurred to Zach that he and Jimmy still had their weapons drawn, and so, apologetically, he quickly sheathed his sword, and Jimmy, as if catching on, sheathed his staff as well. Even still, this did not bring any change in the NPC man’s demeanor; he continued to squint and stare at them as though perturbed. Finally, after several awkward seconds of this, he opened his mouth, gasped, and said, “L-let me get the fire extinguisher!”

“The what?” Zach asked him as he dropped his umbrella, ran behind the counter, and disappeared a moment before reappearing with a red mini-extinguisher.

Does he want to use that on me?

“Whoah, hold up!” Zach called out to him, backing away. “Don’t spray me with that!”

“Ehrm, why not?” the man asked, another gasp trailing his words. “Aren’t you on fire?”

“On fire? Huh? Why would you think I’m—”

“Zach, your ability,” Jimmy interrupted, nudging him.

“Oh. Ohh! Okay, no, it’s cool.” He held out both of his arms and extended his hands in the man’s direction, showing him that the smoke was coming from the center of each hand. “It’s just an ability I have. I’m not on fire. So please don’t hose me with that, okay?”

Once more, the strange shopkeeper squinted at him for several, prolonged seconds, and then he released a chirp of a laugh, returned the fire extinguisher back to wherever he’d taken it, and hurriedly came back out front, picked up his umbrella, and then gawked at the two of them. Zach, a bit offput, did his best not to offend or upset the NPC, as he was roughly three times higher level than even Angelica and the last thing Zach wanted to do was get on his bad side.

He doesn’t seem unfriendly, at least, Zach thought. Just really strange.

Clearing his throat and coughing into his fist, Zach took yet another step into the shop, and once there, he said, “So, uh, my name is—”

“I’m Mushkie!” the NPC shouted out, his volume a bit too loud for such a quiet, homely environment. Even still, Zach smiled politely at him, not bothering to mention that his name was evident as it was literally floating about six-or-so inches above his head in bold white lettering. “It’s my honor to meet the both of you: Zachys Calador and James Green.”

“You know who we are?” Jimmy asked, sounding surprised.

“Just your names. I can see that. And your levels and a few other basic details.” He began to sniffle. “I’m sorry. I apologize.” He wiped more tears that came to his eyes. “You don’t understand how lonely I’ve been. I haven’t had the chance to speak to anyone in over five centuries.”

This was something he’d mentioned earlier, but it only really sank in now. Zach found it unsettling, and it brought about an immediate compassion within him. Thanks to his connection with Eilea, he didn’t have to “imagine” what someone would feel like being alone in isolation for such a long time, because he had felt it—or at least a small portion of it—during his interactions with Eilea Vayra. For this reason, Zach found it easy to forgive him for his off-putting, somewhat manic behavior.

“I’m guessing you did something to piss Adamus off, huh?” Zach asked him.

The NPC—Mushkie—reacted with a sort of stunned bafflement to Zach’s question. His mouth dropped open, his back stiffened, and he began fervently shaking his head. “Who, me? No, no, of course not, dear customers! I’ve never been anything but good!”

“Really? Then why’d Adamus lock you up here?”

“Lock me…? No, this has always been where Mushkie belongs!” he insisted. “I’ve been here for thousands of years. I was created to be here.”

“But…if you didn’t do anything wrong, why’re you stuck here?”

“Because I was created to be here,” he repeated, speaking as though his words were more than sufficient to alleviate any confusion on the matter. They weren’t. Zach wasn’t sure if he should even bother to pry given that he was speaking with an unknown NPC with a clearly erratic temperament. Nevertheless, he decided to gently probe, as the existence of this place did much to arouse his curiosity. Yet, just before he could ask the next question on his mind, Jimmy beat him to it.

“Why don’t you just up and leave if you’re so lonely?” he asked, extending his arm towards the exit door.

“Leave?” Mushkie whispered. The way he spoke the word gave Zach the impression that it was strange on his lips: like a foreign thought. “Mushkie can’t leave. I’m not allowed!”

“But Angelica leaves her inn and tavern all the time,” Zach said. “So why can’t you leave your item shop? You should go visit Angelica.”

“I don’t even know her,” Mushkie replied curtly and a bit dismissively. This, Zach found more stunning than anything else he’d said so far.

“You…you don’t know Angelica? She’s an NPC like you.”

Mushkie tapped his umbrella against his noggin. “I know who she is. Never met her, though. She’s got nothing to do with me.”

Jimmy seemed to find all this just as strange as Zach did. He made a reflective-sounding hum then vocalized his confusion. “Do you really just stay in here all day by yourself?”

“That’s right! I’m not allowed to leave.”

Zach rubbed his chin as he thought over everything he’d just heard. After a moment, he asked, “So, you’re not allowed to leave this place, and uh, you’ve been all alone here for over five centuries. And you’re saying this is not some kind of, like, punishment or something?”

Mushkie’s response was as quirky and unusual as the NPC himself. Slowly, he closed his umbrella, and then he tapped his palm against his chest several times. “That’s right,” he whispered. Then another short period of silence transpired between the three of them, with Zach standing beside Jimmy on the carpet, and Mushkie gazing off solemnly at nothing in particular. Eventually, however, he met Zach and Jimmy’s eyes, looking at each of them for several seconds before addressing them both.

“But it wasn’t always like this!” he continued. “My shop used to be so popular. Once upon a time, Mushkie had thousands of customers a day. It was always busy in here. So lively! But something changed around a…hmm…I’d say around a thousand years ago; fewer adventurers started showing up, dropping to a few hundred a day, and then even less started coming over the following centuries. My last customer visited me five-hundred years ago. I don’t know why it happened. Trials of Nolak used to be a very busy dungeon. Why did all the adventurers stop coming?”

Zach found his words so remarkable that it took him a bit to reply as he processed what he’d heard; in particular, what stuck out to him was that Mushkie had specifically mentioned Trials of Nolak, the exact dungeon that he and Jimmy were currently running through. He’d mentioned it and it alone. Did this mean…?

“Uh, hey, Mushkie,” Zach said. “Are you telling me that the one secret passageway we used to get here is the only way to get to your item shop? That there are no other ways for someone to get here?”

Mushkie scratched the bald spot in the center of his head, which was sandwiched between two giant, cotton-ball-like puffs of pure white hair. “Well, of course,” he replied, speaking as though it were obvious.

“But Angelica’s has thousands of ways to get there. Maybe even millions. They say no one knows even a fraction of them.”

Mushkie shrugged. “Mushkie is not Angelica. My shop runs through Trials of Nolak only. But it’s hardly a secret. Everyone knows I’m here. Why don’t they come anymore?”

Zach looked at Jimmy, and then Jimmy looked at Zach, and in that moment, Zach was positive that the same chill he felt running down his spine was one that Jimmy could feel as well. “You…you don’t know what goes on outside of this place?” Zach asked him.

“Nope,” he replied immediately. “Should I?”

“Well, Angelica seems to have ways of knowing everything that’s happening around the world.”

“Mushkie is not Angelica!” he shouted as though offended. An instant later, his tone became far softer, and he asked, “Why? What doesn’t Mushkie know?”

Zach drew a deep breath and then released it slowly. “Whew, okay. This is going to be a lot for you to take in.”

“Tell me.”

Zach took a second breath, and like the previous one, he held it a moment before releasing it. “All right. So, just to come straight out with it: Galterra today is not the same as it was a long time ago. I don’t know how you don’t know this, but there are barely a thousand adventurers left in the world, and from what I’ve been told, almost no one knows anything about Trials of Nolak. Me and Jimmy are only even here because we’re using the dungeon as a way of getting to Slopes of Dal’Zarrah.”

“Slopes of Dal’Zarrah?” Mushkie asked, clearly amused. From his reaction, he seemed to ignore everything Zach had just told him except for the last few words. “You boys off to fight the minotaur?”

“The minotaur?”

His response to Zach’s question was to clasp his hand over his mouth as though he’d spilled some important secret. “Oh no! Did I just reveal a quest spawn to someone who hadn’t discovered it yet? That’s a no-no!”

“Quest…spawn?” Zach whispered. Then it truly dawned on him just how clueless Mushkie actually was. “Wait, do you think…?” Zach paused, unsure of how to word what he knew he needed to say next. But at the very least, all the pieces were finally falling into place, and he was beginning to understand Mushkie’s confusion.

“Mushkie,” Zach began, addressing him by name. “Galterra doesn’t have any ‘quest spawns’ or mobs or things like that anymore. Everyone in the world except for a few people is level 1. The average person has never seen a mob with their own naked eyes, and even fewer people are aware that the dungeons still exist at all, let alone would they ever imagine visiting one. In fact, not only don’t people level up or visit dungeons anymore, but most people couldn’t do so even if they wanted to. There’s nothing for them to kill that gives experience, and they can’t access the dungeons without a special buff. That is probably why people aren’t coming here.”

Mushkie’s eyes widened, and Zach could spot disbelief in them. “That’s ridiculous!”

“It’s the truth,” Jimmy said, chiming in. “I been out there. It’s just people living regular lives. There’s no mobs or anything in the open.”

Mushkie once more went behind his counter, and he returned a moment later with a small wooden stool, which he then sat down on. “Are you boys lying?”

“No,” both Zach and Jimmy said at the same time. Then Zach took a few minutes to calmly explain his upbringing, his life prior to becoming an adventurer, and what his view of the world was like before he’d become involved in this new one.

“So…so what do Galterrans do all day?” Mushkie asked, clearly flabbergasted.

“Just, you know…normal stuff,” Zach replied.

“Like what?”

“Uh, you know, work, go to school, sell insurance, watch movies—just normal things.”

Mushkie’s expression shifted back and forth between wonder, doubt, and then finally, after a period of apparent reflection, Zach thought he spotted something akin to acceptance. “So that’s why,” he whispered, staring at the floor a moment. “Galterrans…they actually…” He snapped his face up and once more took in him and Jimmy. “So, are you saying that Mushkie didn’t do anything wrong?”

“Of course not,” Zach said. “Did…did you think it was your own fault that people stopped coming?”

“Yes! I thought maybe I was bad.” He again shed a few tears. “So that’s why everyone went away…”

Astounded, Zach asked, “And you’ve been here all alone ever since?”

“Yes!”

“And nobody ever came by to tell you anything? You were just left here for hundreds of years to wonder what happened?”

“That’s right!”

Zach couldn’t help but feel a storm of rage growing inside of himself at how cavalier Adamus was when it came to abusing non-biological, sentient beings. Despite only having spoken to him once, and despite knowing almost nothing about him personally, Zach had now seen more than enough evidence to conclude definitively that Adamus held absolutely no regard for NPCs, and he almost certainly did not view them as being “real” or “genuine” forms of life.

For whatever reason, the so-called “Great One” placed absolutely no value whatsoever in the concept of “consciousness.” Clearly, he didn’t mind bringing thinking, feeling beings into existence only to allow—or directly cause—them to then experience great suffering. Not even those who appeared to be loyal and serve him well were granted any kind of consideration for their pain. It was sickening and irresponsible.

He brings them into the world and then doesn’t care for them, Zach thought. Worse, he doesn’t even view them as people.

No matter how different he might have been from the average person, Zach could never view someone like Grundor or even Ruby as just an inanimate object meant to serve a master. Thankfully, Olivir and Kalana couldn’t either, and both Grundor and Ruby were loved. But what if that hadn’t been the case? What if Olivir treated Grundor more like a pet—or worse? Like a meat shield to be used and then discarded? It was unthinkable. If anything, both Kalana and Olivir were more likely to throw themselves in front of their NPCs than they were to allow them to die on their behalf.

What Adamus did isn’t right, Zach thought, a belief he held down to his very core.

For a short while, Zach said nothing as Mushkie seemed to take a moment to let everything sink in. Finally, however, after almost two straight minutes of what looked like silent contemplation, Mushkie’s expression brightened; he smiled, got up from his stool, set his umbrella down, and then spread his arms widely to both sides of him. “So, do you boys want to know about my store?”

“Hell yeah,” Jimmy said. Zach wasn’t sure if he was genuinely interested or just looking to change the subject; it was probably a mixture of both.

Mushkie took several quick steps forward and then pointed. “Believe it or not, my store is one of the most important places for adventurers, and I’m not exaggerating. It really is! You’ll come back here again and again.” He wiggled his finger, his smile broadening. “You see, boys, there’s a reason Mushkie used to be so popular that adventurers would have to line up outside in the passageway because there was no room left to get in.”

Zach glanced around at the spacious interior of the NPC’s shop, finding this to be an astonishing claim. “Really?”

“Oh, yes-yes-yes! On some days, it was so crowded that adventurers would fight each other to get inside.”

Zach laughed. “Well, consider me hooked. I’m interested in hearing more.”

“Yeah, tell us what the deal is,” Jimmy said. “What’s so special about it?”

This seemed to be the question Mushkie was waiting for, because he really came alive, and now that he was stripped of his sad and defeated expression, his colorful attire and whimsical appearance began to make a bit more sense as he playfully twirled around and began discussing his item shop.

“So, as both of ya can already tell, I have a general section where you can find mundane, every-day common items that can help you in your grand adventures. As I’m sure you boys know, you can’t store regular objects in Bank and Storage: only named items from the adventuring world can go in your storage box. Luckily for you, everything in my store can accompany you on your travels. Emergency food, water, whatever you need: all of it can be placed in your storage and go with you wherever you end up. But! But! But! But! That is not why Mushkie used to have so much traffic that more than a dozen adventurers perished in brawls trying to cut the line to get in!”

Mushkie scurried back behind his counter, slapped his palms down on the countertop, and then a screen of information popped into existence out of midair, occupying what Zach now realized was a frame of sorts above and in front of the counter. “The reason Mushkie’s shop has always and will always be the number-one stop for adventurers is because of the Weekly Haul! Each and every week, my selection of special items refreshes. You can buy anything you see here, but in limited quantity, for the entire week!”

Zach glanced upwards at the screen of information—and then he felt his heart begin to kick in his chest as he came close to choking out a cough in sheer amazement at what he saw for just the first three items on this informational display; before him, amid a blue backdrop, there was a simple list of items along with a “quantity” that could be purchased per customer. And it was the first three of these that made him lean in closer while shuddering with excitement.

Item

Quantity (Per Customer)

Price

Red Rejuvenation Stone

2

20,000G

Yellow Rejuvenation Stone

2

25,000G

Purple Rejuvenation Stone

1

30,000G

There were other items, but those three struck Zach so powerfully that it was as though the words themselves had leapt off the floating display and poked him in the eyes. “J-Jimmy!” he yelped. “They’re selling rejuvenation stones for…for…”

Of all things, Mushkie sighed. “I’m sorry, boys. Usually, they’re a bit cheaper. Mushkie has no control over what appears on the list each week and how much it will cost. They’re a bit pricey this week.”

“Pricey?” Zach exclaimed, unable to control his shouting. “Those stones are worth millions of gold each!”

“Millions?” Mushkie shouted right back at him. “For mere rejuvenation stones? My, what has happened to sweet Galterra if the stones have inflated that much in cost!”

Zach couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Like a rising tide, he risked being swept away with a greed so powerful it made his hand shake as he reached across to touch the screen. “How do I buy them?” he asked urgently.

“If your money’s in Bank and Storage, you just have to tap what you want and then tap buy. I accept raw gold coins as well. Also! I forgot to mention: each and every month, I have a rare, very exclusive item for sale. I actually get to pick who I offer it to, which has always been so much fun for me. Now, the way I used to decide who gets the offer would be by holding special contests and events. But…since you’re the first face I’ve seen in centuries, and since you mentioned you visit Angelica’s a lot, I think maybe you’ll be interested in this.”

The display briefly changed, and now there was just one item shown for sale. Zach saw it, he blinked exactly three times in succession, and then there was an explosion within him: a monumental nuclear-force blast of greed that shook him so terribly he momentarily lost the ability to breathe. As the name of the item appeared before him, he did not simply reach forward to purchase it: he dove at it. He actually dove forward at the screen and slammed his palm against it with enough force that it caused his hand to ache. And then he continued to tap at it, slapping the buy button over and over and over, spending 40,000 of his 72,000 gold without even a moment’s consideration.

“Did I get it?” he shouted. “Did I get it?”

“You did, you did! Stop slapping my display!”

Zach made such a sharp inhale that it reminded him of how he sounded a bit earlier when him and Jimmy had surfaced in the pond with their lungs burning for oxygen.

This can’t be real.

Appearing before him was a certificate. And on this certificate, it said: Angelica’s Inn: 1 year paid in advance, room 8.

“You greedy motherfucker!” Jimmy hissed, clearly upset, though Zach was too elated to care. “We could’a rolled for that shit or something. Damn, man.”

Zach trembled as he looked upon the certificate. He couldn’t believe this was real. Room fucking eight! This was worth fifty, maybe sixty million gold, easy. Hell, any inn room within a twenty-minute walk was worth in the millions. Most people would fight—literally, actually fight—over getting a room in the top two thousand. And here was an item of “uncommon” rarity that might as well have been artifact quality.

The eighth inn room! Nobody’s going to believe me when I tell them I have it! This is worth more than life itself!

Despite having impulsively rushed forward, Zach audaciously turned to Jimmy and asked, “Can I borrow some money?”

“You serious?” Jimmy asked, a slight scowl on his face.

“Jimmy, I know you’re mad, but we obviously need to buy every single thing on this list. I don’t know what most of this shit is, like that ‘dungeon escape rope,’ but we have to buy everything. Especially that ‘teleport stone,’ which sounds cool as hell. Oh, Gods, Jimmy! We’re about to be the richest people in Galterran history!”

Jimmy curled his lips. The prospect of fortune and riches didn’t seem to matter much to him, and rather than reply to what Zach had just said, he seemed to be stuck on the matter of the inn room.

“I’m just gonna be real for a second,” he began, coming across as aggravated. “Zach, I don’t mind you taking the inn room if it’s because you want to use it and start building a world in there. But you’re gonna sell it. That’s why I’m kinda pissed off. I mean, don’t get me wrong: like I said, if it’s because you wanna build a pocket world of your own, I wouldn’t be saying shit to you right now. I just wanna make that clear. Thing is, Zach, that unlike you, I don’t want to live on Galterra. I wanna live inside the dungeon ecosystem, not out of it—especially if this is gonna be my life going forward. I would make so much better use of that than anyone else. Right now, I’m stuck in room thirty-eight-fucking-thousand, two-hundred-seven. It takes my ass over an hour to walk home.”

“Yeah, that sucks,” Zach said, barely paying attention to what Jimmy had said.

Hungrily, he eyed the certificate. Morally, he knew the right thing to do would be to let Jimmy have it. It was also something Jascaila would say he should do if she were here right now. But you know what? She wasn’t here right now, and progress took time, so fuck it: there was no way Jimmy was getting it; no, Zach was going to sell it and then buy ten mansions or something. Or…maybe not. That might be excessive, actually. But the point was that he could buy ten mansions if he wanted to. After all, he was holding onto the most prime real-estate in the entire adventuring world.

Inn room 8. I just can’t believe it.

The original screen having returned, Zach eyed the rejuvenation stones as well as the various other items being sold beneath them. “Damn, I need more gold,” he muttered.

Mushkie beamed, pointing somewhere at the screen. “You can also sell your unwanted items here, too.”

“I can?”

“Sure can! Just press that button there, and you’ll see an itemized list of everything in your storage box.”

Zach did as he was told, and just as Mushkie had said, he could now see his own storage box, which was mostly filled with ether low-level junk from the Moldark boss in Yorna that he’d farmed, along with the common, unneeded items he’d gotten from Gacha Get'cha. Interestingly—and disappointingly—their value here was greatly disproportionate to their real-world value. But this, of course, meant little, since selling adventuring-world items to normal level-one citizens was considered such a huge taboo and also a crime. Even still, the mace from Moldark, which was worth a mere 5,000g, was something he could probably sell for a million if not way, way more if only he was allowed to do so.

I never thought I’d see the day where 5,000 gold feels like a small amount of coin, he thought to himself. Gods, things have really changed for me.

Not wanting to waste any time making decisions, Zach lifted his hand and absentmindedly pressed sell, sell, sell, sell, sell…

It’s just junk, he told himself. Better off getting rid of it.

When all was said and done, Zach ended up with 51,229g in his Bank and Storage, and now, navigating back to the main Weekly Haul display page, he purchased a red and a purple stone for a total of 45,000g, leaving him without enough gold to buy anything else. Each time he thumbed the buy button, he heard a cash-register-like cha-ching sound, and then the amount available to purchase for each was reduced by one.

“Where are the items?” he asked.

“Unlike the special monthly item, these go straight to your box.”

“Ahh, okay.” Pleadingly, even knowing it was crass of him, he again turned to Jimmy and asked, “Is there any way I can borrow a few gold?”

“Seriously?” Jimmy replied grumpily. “Ya’ll got some nerve.” Zach opened his mouth and began to release a sigh, but before he’d fully exhaled, to his surprise, Jimmy released a sigh of his own and relented. “How much you need?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, obviously, we probably won’t be able to buy everything that’s for sale, but I think we can—”

“Actually, yeah we can,” Jimmy said, interrupting him. “I have 2.5 in my bank.”

“2.5…what?”

“Million.”

Zach squawked. “How the fuck? You’re a millionaire, Jimmy?”

“Soloing bosses is lucrative,” Jimmy said, cracking a smirk. Then his lips became flat and his expression serious. “You’re lucky I’m such a nice guy.”

More than just a little guilt erupted inside of Zach. In a way, he almost wished Jimmy would have refused him, because he was being so disgustingly greedy—he couldn’t even deny it—and Jimmy was being generous and unselfish. But the temptation to keep the inn room…it was just too high. And so, his joy was tainted as Jimmy gave him enough coin to cover a blanket purchase of everything for sale, and then Jimmy stepped up to the screen and did the same. Once both were finished shopping, the screen vanished, and Mushkie clapped his hands together.

“I’m just so happy to see people again,” he said. “Thank you for your business.”

At this, Jimmy snickered. “Oh, you’ll be seeing tons of people from now on.”

“I will?” Mushkie shouted out in surprise and hope.

Jimmy nodded. “Trust me. As soon as the adventurers know about your shop, they’re gonna be busting down the door. You’ll never have a quiet moment again. You can expect twenty-four-seven customers. There may not be as many of them as there used to be, but they really get around.”

Mushkie again clapped, this time continuously as though giving Jimmy a round of applause. “Oh, thank you! That’s all I want! To have this place come alive again!”

Zach cleared his throat. “Well, we don’t know for sure if that’s going to happen.”

“Huh? Why not?” both Mushkie and Jimmy asked him.

“Well, we can come by a lot and pay Mushkie visits regularly so that he’s not lonely anymore, but do we really want to tell everyone about this place? The price of these items will crater. Right now, we have a monopoly on this item shop. We can corner the market. We can become a bigger supplier of rare items than entire adventuring guilds. Think about what our return on investment will be each week.”

Mushkie’s face reddened, and he took on a look of devastation. “Nooo! Please, Zachys Calador. Don’t!”

“Don’t what? Corner the market.”

“No! Don’t keep this place a secret. I can’t fulfill my purpose. Every day is worse than the last. All I do is stand around waiting and waiting for someone to find me useful and visit my store. I was designed to crave social interaction. You don’t understand my pain. Please!”

Hearing the desperation and hurt in his voice, the words cut straight through Zach’s greed, which had momentarily blinded him, making him forget about how Mushkie felt about all this. But before he could reassure the quirky NPC, Jimmy decided to do so for him.

“Relax,” he said, holding up his hand to Mushkie. “We’re not keeping it a secret. I won’t let him.” To Zach, he said, “Do you really wanna make this poor dude sit here and cry every day? So what if the prices go down a little bit?”

“No, you’re right. It was a dumb idea. I wasn’t thinking.” Lifting his index finger, he added, “But just so you know, it won’t be a little drop.”

“Oh yeah?”

Zach nodded. “Mushkie implied that the stones are regularly featured on the Weekly Haul, sometimes even for cheaper. Let’s just say they pop up every two weeks—hell, let’s say three weeks—and let’s say each and every adventurer can buy two-to-five stones for between ten-to-twenty-thousand gold. You can bet that the price of a stone is going to plummet from over a million—the going rate for a red since the dragon raid—all the way down to, I don’t know, 100k at the most.”

“So?”

Zach threw his hands up. “I want to be rich.”

Jimmy made a confident, self-assured grin. “Duo some bosses with me. You’ll get all the gold you want.”

Zach pointed at him. “I’m taking you up on that.”

“Good. And you don’t know it yet, but you’re giving me that fucking inn room.”

“No way.”

“Yeah you are.”

“Never.”

“We’ll see about that. I already know how I’m getting it, too.”

Zach laughed. “Oh yeah, how?”

Now, Jimmy laughed. “I’m gonna tell Kalana.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Might as well hand it over now.”

Zach laughed yet again, but this time nervously. Jimmy had better not get Kalana involved. He clutched the inn certificate against his chest. Nobody was getting it: not without a ten-million-gold down payment.

Chapter 140: The True Value of Items

Chapter 140: The True Value of Items

Kalana crouched down, reached out with her arms, and around the neck of a little Elvish girl no older than five or six, she placed a friendship necklace manifested through magic by the Elvish Goddess, Eilea Vayra. With inquisitive, childish eyes, the girl looked up at Kalana, and then at the Goddess; her lips moved, but she said nothing. Her father, who stood beside her, used both of his hands to then gently—and expectantly—nudge her on the shoulder.

“What do you say to these two ladies?” he asked her.

“T-t-thank you,” she squeaked nervously.

“Thank you—what?”

“Thank you, Princess Kalana.” She bowed her head. “Thank you, Great Goddess.”

Kalana hugged the girl. “You’re welcome, cutie!”

With that, the girl’s father, who wore a green cloak, bowed gracefully and departed with his daughter, making room for the next in a long line of Elvish and non-Elvish visitors alike who were waiting patiently for their turn to meet the Goddess. At the moment, Kalana, along with her mother, the little human boy, Pete, Angelica, and even her dad, too, were more or less encircled with the Goddess in a guarded perimeter located in the mob-free zone of the Island of Elendroth.

As if to accompany the miracle of the Great Goddess’s return, none of her island’s periodic but brief storms had materialized so far today, and so the sky was a sunny, beautiful blue, casting golden rays of sunshine down on top of them all while the smell of cooking meat, baking bread, and even some sweets wafted on the air. It all served to put Kalana in a really happy mood. She finally got to be around the Goddess, and she was being super helpful, too!

Even dad looks happy.

The fact that dad had taken his place here was a relief but also a surprise. Given dad’s animosity, Kalana worried he’d neglect his responsibility and oathbound role as husband to the sworn queen, as it would have caused him to become scorned by all of Elvish kind. Thankfully, he seemed to understand that this was not something he could get out of, and to be honest, Kalana liked seeing her dad and her recently rediscovered mother at least managing to reside near one another without it causing a shouting match or violence to erupt between the two of them.

“Need something cold to drink, honey?” her father asked her.

“Nope, I’m fine.”

“You sure? It’s pretty damn hot out here.”

“I’m good, dad. Promise.”

Although the work of assisting her mother and the Goddess was hard—at least, socially speaking—it was really important, and she was so honored to be playing such a big role in it. And you know what else? Kalana was having lots of fun, too. She was energized by the overall festive atmosphere, finding it useful in helping to prevent her from becoming emotionally or outgoingly drained. This was good, because there sure were a whole lot of people who wanted an audience with the Elvish Goddess.

For her part, Kalana had been given the important formality of introducing them. Her job was to speak in an elevated but courteous voice and announce their name to Eilea before proceeding to announce Eilea’s name to them. At their current pace, however, it was pretty clear that this was going to be an all-day and possibly even all-night event—which was crazy when considering that it was totally unplanned and happened by surprise.

This whole thing had sort of just “come together” with no warning. Nobody—except maybe Zach—knew in advance that the Great Goddess was going to return today or even at all. Everything had to be improvised from the moment of her appearance. But, all things considered, it was mostly going smoothly so far. All around the mob-free zone, trays upon trays of delicious food were constantly being set down on impromptu tables staked into the grass. All of the food was prepared by the Elves themselves, much of it being made on large, charcoal barbeques that were not far from the seating area that had been erected in such a hurry. In a way, this kind of reminded Kalana of the camp that they’d set up prior to the Ziragoth raid—only without the tents or the fear of death.

Oh! Here come the humans, too. This is all gonna become even more hectic now.

Her mother, with permission from Eilea, had ratcheted up the stakes around an hour ago when she’d placed a diplomatic call inviting the high-ranking members of the various human guilds to visit the Elvish Goddess. Probably, mom was thinking that presenting an Elvish Great One to them would raise the diplomatic standing of the entire Elvish race. Given flight times and other factors, most weren’t expected to arrive until tomorrow evening at the earliest, but servants of the various guilds had been dispatched ahead of time to prepare, and the very first few—probably from the nearby Shores of Wrath—were beginning to trickle in; this meant that their current, “backyard-like” atmosphere was probably going to become a whole lot fancier by the time the humans got done doing their human-things to it in advance of the guild-members arriving.

Of course, not all the guilds would be sending representatives. Considering their current state of affairs, it wasn’t much of a surprise that the Guild of Gentlemen were neither invited nor willing to send so much as a single dignitary to attend; in light of what had happened to Peter V, that was probably a good thing. Kalana wasn’t too sure her mom wouldn’t do something really undiplomatic like decapitate whoever might’ve shown up. She was really, really upset about Peter's death.

I don’t wanna see anyone from that guild either, Kalana thought, curling her nose at the thought of those mean people stepping foot on their sacred hunting grounds. They declared war on us!

Anyways, with the political-guild humans on their way, her mother had ordered four of her high-level Elvish warriors to the southeast of the island a short while ago. Supposedly, there was some quest there that mom believed would make the invisible barrier around the island go away for three consecutive days. This would allow the helicopters carrying important guild members to land directly on a hastily made clearing a bit farther north set up specifically in anticipation of their arrival. Normally, coming here via air or boat required very careful navigation through a miniscule, difficult-to-find pocket that let small craft pass undamaged. Failure to do so meant crashing into the barrier, which in turn meant any level-1 humans aboard dying unnecessarily.

Everything that’s happening is ‘cause Zach brought her back to us, Kalana thought, amazed. I still can’t believe my baby brought the Elvish Goddess back to us. I just can’t believe it!

Kalana was so proud of Zach, who she cared about more than anyone else. Lately, she wondered if she told him that enough. Sometimes, she felt a bit guilty, because she knew she often spent too much time yapping at him whenever he was mean or did something that got on her nerves, and that was because he could be really mean and he did often get on her nerves! But Zach was also one of the best people Kalana had ever met, and she really needed to tell him that more often.

He saved me from the worst of my misery…

Almost four years ago, when Kalana had been relocated to the primary city of Whispery Woods with her dad, she’d found herself all alone in a new, strange world; she’d had no friends, no one to talk to, and to make it all worse, she’d still been badly reeling from several years’ worth of trauma: things that, even now, she only had the courage to really think about when Jascaila was around to help guide her. Back then, she’d been in a really bad place, plagued by nightmares every night and filled with a darkness that wouldn’t go away.

But then, one day, having shown up late for school, she’d carelessly bumped into Zach while rushing through the second-floor hallway on her way to class, causing her to drop her bag and empty all of her holobooks out onto the grimy, seldom-washed vinyl flooring. Even though Kalana had been the one at fault, it’d been Zach who apologized, bending down to help her retrieve her spilled belongings.

And just like that, she’d latched onto him. She’d become a total nuisance. She’d started following him everywhere he went, unable to stop herself. And then, a few months later, this became even easier because, through sheer coincidence, Zach and his dad moved into the apartment across the hall from her due to the price of rent increasing uptown. From that day on, she always sought him out. And a big part of this was because he allowed her. Even when he protested or called her annoying, she knew he never meant it. He always let her be near him. Gods, she’d liked him so much from the very beginning—even though it’d taken him years before he realized that he liked her too.

I loved him from the day he bumped into me, she thought, a warm feeling causing her toes to tingle as she thought about how much fun they’d had together these last two weeks. I wonder what he’s up to right now?

Kalana had been too busy to pay much mind to what he’d told her earlier: something about going with Jimmy through a dungeon to see Alex? Normally, that would’ve made her worry a bit, but the Great Goddess seemed capable of keeping tabs on him. And as if seeing Kalana’s concern for Zach popping up onto her face again, she once more offered some reassurance.

“They’re fine,” Eilea said, lowering her head and slightly closing her eyes.

“They are?” Kalana asked.

“Yes, I’d know pretty quickly if something ever happened to either of them, so there’s no reason for you to worry. They are both just fine.”

“Okay,” Kalana said, exhaling with relief. “Umm, are they with Alex?”

“I don’t think so: at least not yet. Let me see if I can find out more.” Her eyes narrowed as though deep in concentration, and for a few seconds, she was quiet. Then she turned her head off to her left in the direction of the ocean, staring at it blankly. “I found them,” she announced. “The boys, they are currently…hmm…it looks like, right now, they’re playing in one of the dungeons.”

Kalana rubbed her forehead and released a groan. “Really? I thought they were just gonna go talk to Alex. Figures they’d get bored and start messing around.” She sighed. “I’m sorry about that. I dunno why they’re wasting time when there’s so much going on here.”

Eilea again resumed her narrow-eyed look of concentration. “Well, I’m not sure if they’re actually trying to do anything more than pass through. It’s most likely the case that they’re just making their way slowly through the dungeon and it’s taking them some time.”

Angelica, who was the only non-Elf aside from Pete that was allowed to remain inside this tight-knit perimeter, seemed to stiffen somewhat, and she pouted. “This is all my fault,” she said. “Gahh! I should’a handled the situation better.”

Eilea placed her palm on Angelica’s shoulder. “It’s really not your fault, Angelica. I regret that Zach wasn’t allowed to speak to me directly, but even if he had been, I would’ve told him the same thing that you did. As much as I regret our limitations, you were correct in your assessment: no matter how small a favor it might’ve been, my worthless husband still would’ve objected to you portaling him to Slopes of Dal’Zarrah under those circumstances.”

Two audible gasps came from her mom and dad, and it reminded Kalana that they did not know everything that she knew, which was why hearing Eilea speak degradingly about Adamus, her husband, must’ve come as a shock to them. Even still, they asked no questions, and both of them probably thought it was just normal quarreling among the Gods. Kalana wished she could tell them more, but she knew she couldn’t. There was probably so much stuff they were confused about.

They don’t even know that Adamus and Eilea are the only two left, she thought, a nervous pit forming in her stomach as she was forced to grapple with such an uncomfortable truth. She decided not to let it bother her too much, though. She needed to just appreciate that the Great Goddess, Eilea Vayra, was still among them, and she was standing right next to her!

Glancing outwards at the perimeter of Elves, Eilea said, “I need to let it be known from this point on that if Zachys Calador ever needs to speak with me for any reason, no one shall bar him from doing so.” Somewhat more emotionally, she said, “I…I don’t want him to feel like I’m somehow off limits to him now, or that he’s being sidelined.”

Eilea’s words only seemed to further befuddle mom and dad, but they both nodded without question. Having become distracted by her thoughts, Kalana realized she hadn’t called the next in line, and people were starting to get anxious. She returned her attention to the list she’d been given containing the prioritized order of those wishing to see the Goddess, but before her eyes could find the next name to call, she was distracted yet again as Angelica frowned and became visibly anxious.

“Do ya know if Zach’s still angry with me?” Angelica asked, coming across as worried and a bit saddened. “He was annoyed that I wouldn’t take him to Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, and I hope he’s not too upset.”

“Can’t you see for yourself?” Kalana asked her curiously. “I thought you can see what’s going on around the world like Eilea can.”

Angelica smiled at her and raised her index finger, her expression briefly brightening. “I sure can! But only from my inn, Kalana. And even then, I can’t read emotions: just events.” Following that brief moment of cheerfulness, her glower returned, and she regarded Eilea. “So um, do you know if he’s upset with me?”

“If he is,” Eilea answered, “then I can’t imagine he’ll stay upset for long. It really wasn’t your fault, and I’m sure he knows that. But, if it’ll put your mind at ease, Angelica, I’ll see if I can find out.” With that, Eilea again lowered her head and briefly closed her eyes. “Right now, I cannot sense any ire towards you from him. It’s difficult to get an accurate read from this distance, but his mind seems oddly uncomplicated.”

“Uncomplicated?” Angelica asked.

“Yes. Typically, the mind is filled at all times with layers of complex emotions, both conscious and unconscious, and Zach is no exception to this—most of the time. But right now, I can only sense…I can only feel something that registers to me as…well, as ‘greed.’ Can this be right? All I feel is a strong, overwhelming sense of greed. I must not be getting a correct reading.”

Kalana sighed. “Nope, you definitely got it right,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Knowing my Zach, he probably either just found something really expensive in that dungeon, or uh, he’s daydreaming about loot.”

Eilea gave her an odd look as though Kalana’s words were unexpected. “Zach is greedy?” she asked.

Kalana returned her look with one of her own. The question took her by surprise. “You…you don’t know?”

“I’ve watched over him a great deal recently, but not on such a deep level that I’d know. Is he truly a greedy person?”

“Well, sometimes he is. He’s not always greedy, but whenever he does become that way, uh, he’s like really greedy. I can’t believe you dunno that.”

Eilea nodded. “For whatever reason, I simply have never felt this side of him until just now.”

“Oh. Well, umm, sometimes he can be a little greedy.” Kalana lowered her voice just a bit. “He better not be doing something bad or mean,” she grumbled. “What’s he up to, anyway? Can you find out?”

Her mother glared at her. “Kalana! Do not pester the Great Goddess with insipid, petty questions regarding such trivial concerns.”

Kalana opened her mouth to apologize, but Eilea waved her hand and spoke first. “It’s perfectly fine,” she said. “You and your daughter can ask me whatever it is you like, and if I’m able and permitted to answer it, I will.”

Following those words, she paused as if to consider Kalana’s question. Then she made a slight shake of her head. “I can’t really tell with any specificity what Zach is up to,” she continued. “The level of focus and attention required to hone my gaze to where I can clearly see his deeds is more than I can spare right now.”

“That’s all right,” Kalana said graciously. “Thank you for letting me know he’s okay.”

“Of course, young princess.”

Kalana smiled at the Great Goddess; distantly, she wondered what Zach could possibly be up to that would make it so that the only thing Eilea could sense from him was greed.

Maybe it’s nothing, she thought.

******

“—which is why if we start at five-hundred thousand a stone, and we let the political guilds and adventuring guilds get into a bidding war, we can probably capitalize on things very quickly before we go blabbering about Mushkie to everyone. Basically, you give me just a few days to sell our ‘merchandise,’ and then afterwards, we can reveal to the Explorers Brigade and everyone else that we found such an amazing—ahh, fuck! Another one!”

Zach dropped into a squat while simultaneously leaning backwards as a Sneering Imp Warrior that had been hidden in the shadows blasted forward, its wings buzzing. Annoyed and irritated, he watched as the creature made numerous zigzagging motions in the air before slicing its spear at his throat, missing him completely and flying directly past him. It then came around for a second strike, but this time, Zach managed to hop back to his feet, swing his blade upwards, and intercept its spear with his sword, the two weapons clashing above his head as it then flew off behind him for the second time.

“So, what was I saying?”

“Uh, you were talking about how we’re gonna make millions before we reveal Mushkie’s item shop,” Jimmy said.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Okay, so—fucking Gods damn these annoying things! One second!”

The Sneering Imp Warrior launched itself at Zach for the third time. Zach, following its motion the best he could in the scant light, bent his knees and stood at the ready on this faded, polished-stone flooring of what had thus far been an incredibly dark, shadowy, and tube-shaped hallway that rain straight across F29. To this point, the floor had been mostly unremarkable; it had consisted of a straight path through a damp, mossy-smelling passageway that contained irregularly located imp mobs that had jumped out at them when entering their aggro range. The first few times, it’d given Zach a scare, but he’d become accustomed to it pretty quickly.

Now, as the Sneering Imp Warrior flew until it was just an inch or two in front of him, it then dashed backwards in the air before once more bouncing itself forward while lifting its spear. Zach drew back his arms, ready to guard against its next strike. This time, however, rather than merely collide his weapon with the creature’s gilded spear, he realized that this was the perfect situation to try out his newest ability, the information of which was still hovering near the bottom of his vision from when he’d read it over a minute or two earlier.

As far as he was aware, it was the very first ability he’d ever acquired that was just an ordinary, non-unique, and non-legendary skill: one likely possessed by a number of sword-wielding adventurers. In fact, Zach was pretty sure he’d seen this very ability used by a few people during the dragon raid, but he’d decided to read it over anyway just to be safe.

Inner Ability

Halting Strike

Exertion Cost

Low-Moderate

Cooldown

60 seconds

Description

Stuns the first entity struck for a duration between 0.5 and 1.2 second(s) (T1 stun). Cannot be used on rock-based monsters or those that are incorporeal. Halting Strike has no effect if the user’s sword does not connect with a valid target, that target’s armor, or that target’s currently wielded weapon or shield. (ability must be used within 10 seconds of activation).

As the Sneering Imp Warrior released its twisted, demonic-sounding laugh and sliced its spear downwards at Zach, Zach activated Halting Strike. The moment of activation, the tiniest bit of darkness abated as his sword began to crackle with red, electric-like sparks, which were not particularly bright but still managed to cause a hint of reddish light to bounce onto the walls to both sides of him as well as the stone floor. From the base of the weapon up to the tip of the blade’s edge, these electrical tendrils now covered the entirety of his sword, which to his relief, he found to still be under his control. Unlike with Wave Slash or Phase Slash, it appeared this ability did not possess his body.

Swinging his sword upwards and outwards, a clang filled the previously quiet dungeon floor as his blade once more met the imp’s golden spear in a way similar to their previous clash only a moment prior. But this time, the mob did not simply fly off after Zach deflected its attack. Upon impact, the red tendrils bunched up at the very end of his blade, forming into a singular ball of plasma that then traveled up and along the imp’s spear before entering its body through its arms and causing it to immediately stop; now, it remained right where it was, hovering in place midair while its entire body began to randomly shoot off red sparks.

“Got you,” Zach said with a grin.

Given the stun’s short duration, Zach had no time to delay. He picked up his left foot, lurched his body forward, and then stomped that same foot back down again while twisting his hips and swinging his arms around, delivering a follow-up strike that not only cut off the imp’s entire jaw, but caused it—along with a splatter of blood—to stain the wall to his left.

26,400

HP

46,100/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Warrior

Level

45

Zach, moving as quickly as he could, struck out again, whipping his sword in the opposite direction. And Gods, he came so close to delivering another powerful hit that he could actually feel the disappointment in his arms when his sword batted away nothing more than the empty air. The imp, recovering from the stun just in time, managed to slip by, zipping behind and over Zach’s shoulders; the imp then disappeared once more into the darkness behind him—but not before Jimmy threw his staff out, grunted, and from the tip of it, he unleashed one of his blueish, ball-shaped, and fist-sized projectiles, which moved even faster than the imp. The last sight Zach had of the creature—at least for the moment—was its forked tail vanishing into the shadows while a damage number—8005—made itself visible even amid the darkness, though it cast no illumination of its own.

“All right, I lost my train of thought again. What was I saying?”

Jimmy sighed. “You were going on about how we should wait a few days to tell everybody about Mushkie’s item shop.”

“Oh yeah! Right.” Zach nodded. “So, I agree it’d be really fucked up to just keep him a secret, especially after he begged us to tell everybody and whatnot. But look: if we could wait just a couple of days before we told everyone—only like three or four at the most—we would be able to sell all this shit we just bought at a real premium. We could even make different groups bid for it, too.”

Zach studied Jimmy’s expression—or tried to, at least. This floor was so damn dark that it was actually tough to see his reaction. “Well?” he asked. “What do you think?”

Jimmy took his left hand off his staff, raised it, and then pointed over Zach’s shoulder. “I think that mob’s coming back at you. That’s what I think.”

“That’s not a real answer,” Zach grunted while ducking down low at the exact same time. The mob returned, shooting overhead, its spear cutting the emptiness above. Zach pursued, springing forward, jumping into the air, and then taking a vicious downwards swing at the creature, narrowly missing for the second time what would’ve been a very powerful hit had it connected. A small click resounded as his feet touched down onto the stone, and he regarded Jimmy. “We need to start planning what we’re going to do. That’s all I’m trying to say. We have to move quick on this.”

Given such terrible lighting, it was very hard to tell if Zach was correctly seeing what looked like an irritated glare coming off Jimmy. Honestly, this had to be the darkest dungeon floor Zach had ever visited. Of course, he wasn’t counting the one he and Kal had fallen into in Whispery Woods because there was no reason to believe it had even been a dungeon floor in the first place.

Whatever it was, it had been pitch black, and it was only thanks to Kal’s ability that they had been able to see anything at all. On this floor, however, they did at least have some light, but it was a strange sort of lighting that couldn’t be “manipulated” via external sources.

Somehow, only the area around Zach and Jimmy happened to be lit. It was as though they were traveling with an invisible torch attached to their hips or something. Everything a few feet ahead of and behind them was always submerged in darkness. Obviously, one of the first things Zach had done upon entering F29 was try to use his phone’s flashlight to scout ahead for mobs; surprisingly, that didn’t seem to work on this floor. It was as though the darkness ate the light beyond a certain point. The light simply did not illuminate anything in either direction beyond a constant threshold.

Barely able to see the finer details on his face, Zach, for the second time, tried to make out Jimmy’s expression, and like before, he just couldn’t do it. Eventually, he gave up and decided to continue badgering him until he got an answer.

“Do you get what I’m saying?” Zach asked him. “We don’t want to keep Mushkie waiting, so we have to move fast.”

“How about we make it through this dungeon first and then we worry about all that later?”

“Wouldn’t it be better to figure out the details now?”

“Nah, not really,” Jimmy said, his voice now leaving no doubt that he was annoyed. “Zach, you got to stop thinking about money all the time. For real, that shit gets tired quick. Give it a rest.”

Zach frowned. “Sheesh. Sorry you hate money.”

“I don’t hate money, dude,” Jimmy said, shaking his head. “I just don’t let that shit consume my life. I’m trying to, you know, just enjoy being in this cool-as-hell dungeon, and you’re ruining the fun of it with your greedy-ass, me-me-me bullshit. Fuck out of here with that already. It’s enough!”

Surprised—and irked—by Jimmy’s sudden eruption of anger, Zach opened his mouth to respond with equal harshness, feeling defensive. Then he became literally defensive as the imp lunged at the two of them. First Zach, then Jimmy ducked as the Sneering Imp Warrior tried taking off both their heads with the same swing. As it tended to do, upon missing, it flew off and into the darkness. Jimmy tried to sneak in a hit on its retreat, releasing another of his blue orbs from the point of his staff, but this one missed and ended up causing a small crack in the wall a bit ahead of them.

Zach waited for the exact moment that the sound of its buzzing wings faded, and once it became inaudible, he snapped his head towards Jimmy, eager to verbally retaliate, his temper rising. Put simply, he really didn’t like the way Jimmy had just spoken to him and he certainly didn’t feel that what he’d said warranted such a harsh response. Yet, as Zach inhaled, ready to unleash a ferocious string of insult-laden expletives at Jimmy, he surprised himself by instead choosing at the last minute to be productive rather than reductive—as Jascaila had taught him to do.

“That was really harsh,” he said, his tone measured. “Jimmy, I don’t just care about myself—which is what I think you’re implying with that whole ‘me-me-me’ thing—and you should know that, because if it was true, I wouldn’t have fought assassins to protect you. And yeah, I’m not perfect: I got that. But it’s not right to make it seem like I’m some heartless prick. Also, if I pissed you off, it wasn’t my intention, and I apologize.”

Once again, Zach could not properly interpret the look on Jimmy’s face due to his inability to see it clearly. Even still, it appeared as though something was bothering him. A moment later, Zach discovered precisely what it was as Jimmy made a slight grunt and said, “All right, look. I didn’t wanna do this now, but since you clearly aren’t gonna drop it on your own, I’m just gonna be real with you and get it over with.” His gaze became stern. “Zach, I’m not selling any of the items we bought, and I don’t think you should sell any of yours, either.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yes! Everything we got is the kinda shit you’re gonna regret not carrying around. And I know you wanna make bank. I get you. I do. But it’s dumb. You’re gonna need these things. So, yeah, I was hoping to talk about it later, but that’s how it is, and I’m not willing to argue over it. Okay?”

Stunned, Zach asked, “Then why did you give me your gold to buy everything in the Weekly Haul shop if you weren’t expecting me to make us both a huge profit from it? If I keep all the items, how are you even expecting me to pay you back? Kalana?”

“Man, I don’t care if you pay me back. Do what you want with your items. I’m just saying you should keep them. I’m keeping mine. Anyways, I’m not mad, so it’s all good.”

With the mob having escaped yet again, an awkward, but very brief moment of silence fell over the two of them. Or at least it was awkward to Zach. It didn’t appear to be awkward for Jimmy, though, who continued on as though it had never happened, seemingly moving on from this whole conversation the instant the sound of buzzing returned from somewhere within the darkness.

“You sure you can’t just blast that guy to hell with that slash-thing you do?” Jimmy asked, clearly putting all of his focus on the dungeon. Zach noticed he was staring into the darkness in the direction the imp had flown, and he was staring intensely, too. It reminded Zach that, even though this floor had so far been significantly easier than the previous one, Jimmy was still taking it very seriously and was giving this dungeon his all.

He's confident but not in a carefree way, Zach thought as he learned more about his new friend’s behaviors and mannerisms.

Usually—at least in Zach’s experience—when people were boastful or overly confident about something, they tended to be susceptible to underestimating a situation. Not Jimmy, though. Something told Zach that he’d be just as attentive on the first floor of Yorna as he was on this, the 29th floor of Trials of Nolak.

“I can’t spare it,” Zach said. “I’m starting to run really low on time.”

At the cost of 20 seconds, he’d been comfortable with a single usage of Halting Strike, but even that had probably not been the best idea. Right now, he had just nine minutes and eight seconds left on his current duration of Unleashed Phase, and unless their luck changed soon, he was going to hit zero.

It's this damn darkness!

Because they couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of them, every encounter with mobs on this floor happened unexpectedly and in close range. This meant Jimmy could not use his area-of-effect poisons without risking the two of them getting caught up in it, which therefore meant he couldn’t call upon his stamina regen ability. And Zach, for his part, was having the absolute worst luck in proc’ing the stamina regeneration buff on his sword. He’d gotten it off every now and again, but not to the extent that it prevented his time from gradually declining. About thirty minutes in total had elapsed since they’d left Mushkie’s item shop, and it was now an open question as to whether or not he’d be able to continue having an active duration by the time they made it to what they assumed would be a boss on the next floor.

It no longer matters so much if I don’t, he thought. I guess, technically, we do have other options now.

As if the universe was conspiring to prove Jimmy correct, Zach was reminded that, right now, sitting in his Bank and Storage, were two copies of the same consumable item called Dungeon Escape Rope, which according to its description, would “relocate” the user to the “nearest main-world exit or entry point respective to their current dungeon floor.” This meant that, if for any reason it became clear that the way ahead was too dangerous to be worth the risk, all Zach needed to do was swing the rope three times and then throw it up into the air, and it would apparently take him back to Galterra.

Right now, he and Jimmy were on F29, and two floors prior to this, F27, was the one in which they’d arrived, its entry point being located in the Whispery Woods region: specifically, the basement-level boiler room in an abandoned school. Based off what Jascaila had told Zach, they’d again return to Galterra upon reaching F31, which would let out somewhere in Slopes of Dal’Zarrah. Assuming Zach understood the item’s information correctly, then whether or not he ended up back on F27 or in F31 would depend on whichever was closer to where he used the rope.

Since F28 likely served as the halfway point in terms of raw distance to both floors, whether or not the rope took him back to Whispery Woods or forward to Dal’Zarrah would depend on how far him and Jimmy made it into this current floor—which was impossible to know. Regardless, if it looked like taking on the boss would be too difficult, they could use their Dungeon Escape Rope right at the entrance to F30 and travel instantly to their destination or at least someplace safe.

Maybe I should keep some of these items after all. I don’t even really need the money, because if I sell my inn room, these items will be chump change compared to how much gold I’ll rake in just from that.

At any rate, Zach decided to just take Jimmy’s advice for the time being and worry about it later. For the moment, he refocused his attention on dealing with the Sneering Imp Warrior, which emerged from the darkness, came to an abrupt halt before Zach, lurched downwards, and then sprang back up with a rising, whooshing slice of its spear, which Zach had to guard by whipping his own sword directly down on top of it. Another loud ring filled the otherwise quiet dungeon floor, and then the imp once more sped away.

Zach, frustrated, was not willing to let it get away yet another time without paying a price. Leaping forward, Zach actually dived after it in a desperate attempt to punish the mob for being annoying. As his body was flung after it, he swung his sword as quickly as he could before plopping straight down onto his belly on the stone floor, and then he lifted his eyes to see if he’d done any damage.

Sadly, all he managed to do was slice off about half its forked tail, which didn’t even leave behind any blood and only ended up hitting it for 4,102. With that, the creature continued on its way—only to die an instant later as the rarest ability on Zach’s sword proc’d, filling his eyes with a pillar of pure blue flame that ignited into existence: one so dark it was almost black. This tremendous, fiery spectacle, which surrounded the mob and incinerated it so thoroughly that it did not even leave behind any ashes, dealt so much damage to the creature that Zach felt the air rushing out of his lungs as he gasped in surprise.

655,209

+18000xp

“Goddamn,” Jimmy said, and this time, there was no mistaking the expression on his face. Though the fire could not illuminate anything ahead or behind them beyond a certain point, it could light up the area directly around them, which it sure did, though it was a dark, eerie sort of light. Still, it was enough so that Zach could clearly make out the impressed-looking grin that Jimmy fired Zach as he playfully then elbowed him in the side. “What the hell was that? And why is this the first time you’re using it?”

Zach hopped up to his feet then shrugged. “It’s a proc on my sword. It actually only has a 0.5% chance of proc’ing, but it’s higher than that for me because of a ring I got off a boss on Kal’s island.”

Jimmy made a “whoop” sound. “Hell yeah. That was awesome. I’m guessing these things are weak to dark-type magic, too.”

“Makes sense,” Zach said. “Especially since they’re strong against light. Hey, I wonder if that means…wait, does that mean something’s always weak to the opposite element that it’s strong against?”

Jimmy shook his head. “Not always. A lot of the times it is, but sometimes it isn’t. At least based on what I’ve seen, anyway. I found out pretty quickly that this game doesn’t have any kind of steadfast rock-paper-scissor system like in Pokémon or whatever.”

“I see,” Zach whispered. More loudly, he said, “Jimmy, I understood about ten percent of that. Also, this isn’t a game. Remember?”

For some reason, this caused Jimmy to wince. “Some things are gonna be really hard to live without,” he said with a groan. He glanced at the world around him, shaking his head as he muttered under his breath that there was “just no way this can be real.” Zach decided not to interject. Although it seemed like a regression, Zach knew that everything was a process, including Jimmy’s acceptance, and there would be some moments more than others where he would struggle to accept that he was never going home again.

I wonder how I’d feel in his shoes, Zach thought, totally unable to imagine what something like that must’ve felt like.

With Jimmy by his side, the two of them pressed on, and for the next five minutes, they continued to make their way carefully down the long, straight, and tube-shaped passage. The lack of any enemy interactions during this time made things both simpler but also a bit more unsettling as well because Zach’s current duration of Unleashed Phase was now all the way down to a mere 3:51.

Finally, however, the scenery began to change, and it did so suddenly as though it occurred between footsteps. One moment, everything ahead of them was the purest and darkest black, and then the next, a dim, but still very noticeable light lit up what appeared to be a pathway that ran about fifty feet before resulting in even more darkness. Interestingly, this light was concentrated exclusively along the floor: it was as though the dungeon were rolling out a carpet made solely of its glow. Seeing this, Zach paused, looked at Jimmy, and then the two of them exchanged a mutual shrug, and with that, they both continued on.

“Let’s move a bit faster,” Zach said. “My time’s running short.”

“Yeah, good idea. I’m gonna be pissed if we have to rope out before I get to kill the boss.”

Figures that’s what he’s worried about, Zach thought. But I want to defeat the boss, too.

Moving quickly, they half-jogged, half-ran down the light-lined path, and then shortly before reaching the end of it, Jimmy held out his staff in front of Zach, which Zach took as an indication for him to stop. Yet before Zach could ask him why, Jimmy then extended his arm and pointed it forward. “You see it?” he asked. “Right over there.”

Zach looked where Jimmy indicated, and then he nodded. Up ahead, where the light and dark seemed to transition from one to the next, there were two vaguely rectangular shadows, one directly across from the next. Both silhouettes seemed to stretch upwards from the floor to a height slightly taller than Zach, with one hugging the left side of the wall and the other hugging the right.

“Those two shadows?” Zach asked. He craned his neck and saw Jimmy bow his head in the affirmative. “Okay, yeah, I see them. Barely, though. What about it?”

“They’re probably mobs,” Jimmy said.

“You think so?”

“Mhm. What else would they be? Bookshelves?”

Zach laughed. “Good point. Since we can see them, that means you can target and poison them, right?”

“Yup.”

“Good, because I really need—”

“The stamina buff, I know. Don’t worry, I got you.”

Jimmy stood up a bit straighter. Holding his staff with both hands, he raised it above himself, and Zach watched as, right after, a giant cloud of mist popped up at what he hoped would turn out to be the end of this passageway. An instant later, another, smaller cloud followed the first. Given the modest size of the area and the fact they were only dealing with what looked like two mobs, Jimmy only had to use each ability a single time. Due to the overall darkness, Zach couldn’t make out the color of each cloud-like puff of poison; both the green and the purple appeared to his eyes as a muted grey. In fact, he wasn’t so much as seeing them as he was seeing the way they caused the world up ahead to further darken.

Breathing heavily, Jimmy panted and said, “You’re up.”

With that, the two shadows began to move towards them, proving that Jimmy was correct in his assertion that these were mobs. And though Zach could not yet make out their forms, he could actually hear them as they approached. Right away, he knew that these were not the imps they’d been dealing with, as they did not make a laughing sound, but a weird sort of…Zach wasn’t sure what to call it. It was like a chuckle and a grunt, and it was very, very deep in pitch. It also made a disturbing echo, too.

“Zur-hur-hur-hur-hur-hur.”

Eventually, the two shadows had drawn near enough that Zach could finally make out their forms—and it was difficult not to find them off-putting. What emerged from the dark were two creatures that bore very little resemblance to the mobs they’d encountered so far. Far removed from the imps they’d encountered until now, the only two things these mobs had in common were their forked tails and dual horns protruding from their heads, though theirs were substantially larger than the imps had been. In fact, everything about these mobs was larger.

They look tough, Zach thought, preparing himself for a hard fight.

The two approaching monsters were wingless yet taller than Zach by about a foot at least, and they sported large, bulging muscles, toned abs, and massive forearms. Without a doubt, they were far more human in appearance than the imps had been. Their skin was a bright red in color, their eyes were large and glowed a radiant yellow, and their faces were considerably more expressive than the mobs they’d faced in here so far; in particular, it was their facial characteristics that, in Zach’s opinion, were their most defining features.

Along with their menacing, glowing eyes, there was a constant sneer on their mouths that made them appear like a lunatic about to release a bout of maniacal, hysterical laughter. They were sneering so hard it actually looked painful. With their lips pulled back, the mobs displayed two rows of pristine white teeth. Along with the strangeness of their smile, they were oddly dressed as well. Though their bellies, chests, and most of their legs were exposed, they wore metal shoulder guards and matching metallic boots. Outside of that, the only piece of clothing to be found was a pair of human-like black shorts.

Unlike other mobs, these ones moved with a bizarre slowness and with a casual stance, which saw their long-fingernailed hands remaining at their side as they strutted towards him and Jimmy. This naturally drew Zach’s attention to the weapon they had in a large scabbard attached to their back. Here, Zach noticed that they were each carrying a massive, two-handed sword, the blade of which did not look anything like steel. It actually resembled more of a glass with a strong reflection visible even in this low level of light, and the grip on the weapon seemed to be made of some kind of bronze material. Despite this, the swords appeared no less heavy.

Zach frowned. An ominous feeling came over him. Something about these two seemed different.

*****

“He’s where?” Angelica asked.

Angelica rarely shouted. Even when angry, she tended to stop just shy of a shout. For this reason, Kalana became really scared and worried and stuff when her name briefly flashed red, then yellow before returning to white. Even Eilea seemed to become alarmed, which of course only made Kal worry even more.

Kalana had been taking a little break, as her voice was becoming sore from having to do all the formal announcements. Promising everyone that they wouldn’t lose their spot in line, the crowd had dispersed for the time being, with most moving to join the other Elves in eating and drinking. Though the density had lessened, she was still encased in a protective perimeter—albeit a smaller one for the moment, and one of mom’s Elves had gone off to get them something to drink. It had been at this point, roughly fifty seconds ago, that Angelica had made a casual remark that turned into something far scarier.

“I wonder how much longer it’s gonna take Zach to get through Hamen’s Isle,” she mused aloud in a singsong voice.

“What’s that?” Kalana had asked her.

Angelica had smiled. “It’s a low-level dungeon in Whispery Woods that lets out in a water fountain right in Knights Boulevard near downtown Slopes of Dal’Zarrah.”

Kalana had tilted her head sideways as she’d thought over Angelica’s words. “Huh? That’s not the dungeon they went to.”

“It’s…not?”

“Nah-uh. Jascaila sent him to umm…I dunno, I forgot the name. Trials of something, I think Zach said.”

Angelica’s eyes had opened more widely, which had immediately sent a warning signal into Kalana’s brain that something wasn’t right. “Trials of Nolak?” she asked.

“Y-yeah,” Kalana said, beginning to panic even before she knew if such a reaction was warranted. “Why? Is that bad?”

Angelica looked at Eilea, and the fear in her eyes had spread immediately to Eilea, who pursed her lips and said something that Kalana had not been expecting. “Angelica, is there an issue here?”

Shouldn’t she be the first to know? Kalana wondered.

As if anticipating this question, Eilea said, “I’ve always been in charge of user relations. I myself only ever made two dungeons, and both were destroyed and removed due to failing to meet my husband’s standards of quality. For once, I can’t take issue with his judgement. I’ve never liked the dungeons. But…more to the point, is this a problem? I’m familiar with the dungeon in question. It used to be a very popular dungeon. I’ve never been there myself, of course, but going off memory alone, nothing about it strikes me as being particularly worrisome. Is there something I’m missing?”

“Yes!” Angelica blurted out, and with that, fear had truly gone racing straight into Kalana’s heart.

“Why?” both she, her mother, her father, Eilea, and even the little boy, Pete, had all asked at the same time.

“Do ya not know about the specifics, Eilea? Or what’s actually inside the dungeon?”

“No, and why should I?” she had asked, just the tiniest bit defensively. “Like I said, I’m not an expert in our bestiary or dungeons. I, like the Great Ones Zana and Tarshaz, was in charge of residing right here on Galterra, making myself accessible to the adventuring public and serving as an interface between their concerns and criticisms and the other System teams.”

“System?” both Fylwen and Eldora whispered at one another. Eilea ignored them.

Mom and dad both exchanged shocked glances; it was as if everything they were hearing was causing them to become confused and unsettled. Even still, Kalana doubted it was for the reasons they should have felt that way. Most likely, they were now fretting less over the content of what Eilea was saying, and more over whether or not they were worthy to hear her speak it. Kalana, on the other hand, was focused entirely on finding out why Angelica seemed so spooked.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “What’s so bad about this dungeon?”

“On a fundamental level? Nothing’s wrong,” Angelica had explained. “But Trials of Nolak is a large-scale raiding dungeon. It’s a dungeon meant for parties of thirty or more adventurers, not two. In the old days, it used to be cleared constantly, so adventurers could make their way through it alone and unharmed on their way to the item shop. That, ya know, was its main draw. Every Monday after the dungeons reset, some guild would always run it first thing in the morning, and since the mobs there don’t have normal respawn timers, um, people would wait for the dungeon to be clear, and then it’d become one of the busiest dungeons in Galterra all week long. It got so bad at one point that Eilea snuck in a queuing system just to prevent impatient adventurers from killing each other to get ahead of the line.”

“You’re talking about Mushkie’s, yes? Now things are ringing a bell. Yes, I remember stealthily adding that. But my accursed, vile excuse for a husband removed it, claiming it was interfering. That aside, I still fail to see the cause for such alarm. I can feel that the boys are fine.”

Angelica again frowned. “I dunno what they’re up to, but they’re not gonna be fine for long. They won’t even make it past F28.”

Kalana shuddered. “Why not?” she asked at a whisper, mentally calculating how long it would take her to run to the Great Library if she swam—then sprinted—at full speed. But what about obstacles in her way? Could she get there without hurting anyone? Right now, her impulse was to get going before things worsened. And this impulse only became even more urgent as Angelica answered her question.

“On F28 alone, there’s all kinds of booby traps and deadly things set up. And then there’s this big boulder that, uh, if you don’t know it’s there, it’ll crush you to death. And even if you do, you have to solve a puzzle and then fight off a giant horde of enemies.” Her face lit up with pain. “They won’t make it past the very first floor that they arrive on.”

Kalana clutched her hand against her mouth, horrified. “No! Don’t say that!”

Angelica averted her gaze. “Even if they did make it past F28, they’re gonna get crushed on F29. But they won’t make it that far.”

Eilea, as though wanting to put an end to the discussion, lifted her palm and shook her head. “All right. Enough of this. I’ve heard enough.”

“But, Eilea,” Angelica began, “the boys won’t be able to—”

“Nonsense,” she interrupted. “Look. Everyone calm down and hear me on this: I did not go through the arduous, dangerous, and potentially world-destroying process of bringing Jimmy across time and space without having a very good reason for doing so. None of you seem to understand that what takes decades of first-hand experience for Galterrans to discover is something that comes to Jimmy as simple as breathing. Whatever dangers lurk in this dungeon, I’m devoutly certain the boy will sort it out or find a way to escape. If not, I wouldn’t have risked the destruction of our world to bring him here.”

Angelica exchanged a skeptical look with Eilea while mom and dad eyed one another a second time; during this, Kalana began turning away, ready to take off towards the dungeon. Had her mother not grabbed her wrist, she would have already been gone.

“Mom, I have to go,” she said, trying to yank away her hand.

“Trust in the Goddess,” her mother said.

“But—”

“Kalana! Do not second guess the Great Goddess’ word!”

Kalana lowered her voice, which had taken on a trembling quality. “I’m sorry…”

*****

As the two mobs pulled to within fifteen feet of him and Jimmy, both of the large, imposing, sneering, and demonic-looking creatures reached behind their backs and drew their weapons. Interestingly, though, they were still making their way at a very sluggish, relaxed pace. Since Jimmy had not cast his slow on them, this meant they were moving at their normal “pursuing” speed. Though clearly not sentient, it was still a display of confidence that made the muscles in Zach’s shoulders tighten with apprehension.

“Jimmy, I need the buff!” Zach said to him as the two mobs neared. Something about all this felt off. His internal sense of danger was skyrocketing. “Hurry!”

“Meh, I can’t yet,” Jimmy said, adding a shrug to his words.

“Wh-what? Why the hell not?”

“My bar’s not filled. These things are, like, really resistant to poison.”

Zach swore. “I thought that legendary passive of yours got around that?”

“What, Scourge of Giants? No, that’s only for the purpose of successfully landing the ability, not the damage it does—meaning if something has high resistance to poison, my poisons will still land for almost their full duration and can’t be resisted outright. It doesn’t mean they’ll do full damage.”

“Gods be damned,” Zach growled.

The proof that Jimmy was correct was right before his eyes. As the two creatures approached, they would occasionally make a minor flinching gesture and take anywhere between 400 to 720 damage before continuing on. It was an unusually low number—especially considering that the mobs had a whole lot of HP: so much so that, when Zach saw the number, he feared his heart would give out.

HP

2,108,870/2,110,000

Name

Death Harbinger A***

Level

52

HP

2,109,030/2,110,000

Name

Death Harbinger B***

Level

52

“Why is their HP so Gods-be-damned high?” he shouted, a nervous thudding coming from within his chest as he stared in disbelief at the two approaching mobs. Trying not to panic, he asked, “How long until your bar is filled? Jimmy!”

“I don’t know, man. Shit’s moving slow as hell.” Jimmy muttered something to himself about an “asterisk” then began to study the mobs with a strange calmness.

Zach, having no idea how it was possible for a level-52 mob to have over two-million HP, swore aloud a second time. “To hell with it.”

Wanting to get this over with, he dashed forward, meeting the two mobs head-on before they could cross their way over to him and Jimmy. As if welcoming this challenge, they made another of their weird laugh-grunts, and then they attacked first. Thankfully, they did not move as fast as the imp mobs had, and Zach was easily able to anticipate what came next. He filled with a very short-lasting confidence. In fact, for just this moment, he’d even had allowed himself to think he might be able to quickly tear through these two and proceed onwards.

Yeah…

Upon his approach, both mobs raised their glass-like, two-handed swords, and then both swung them Zach’s way at the same time. Zach, forcefully twisting his body first to his left, and then to his right while striking out defensively, crashed his own sword into Death Harbinger A’s, then B’s right after; the result was something that sounded more like two deep “clicks” rather than steel on steel. It also sent a considerable amount of shock into his wrists: far, far more than he’d expected. So much so that Zach felt his eyes widen with alarm, and he had to grit his teeth and squeeze his grip tighter to avoid losing control of his weapon.

My wrists, he thought, confused and awestruck. They hurt—badly. What the…?

Both mobs launched follow-up attacks immediately, and unlike their first round, which consisted of each of them striking the same way but from a different angle, this time, Death Harbinger A made three unexpectedly fast slices with his weapon: the first vertical, and the next two horizontal. At the same time, B made a somewhat longer, but even faster four-strike combination.

Zach stepped to the side to avoid A’s vertical slice, then ducked beneath the first attack from B. Then he flicked his sword about two more times, barely managing to guard against two more strikes, and following that, he leaned out of the way of the last strike from A while striking upwards defensively to protect himself from the final strike of B.

“Assholes,” he growled.

He retaliated, throwing his body around in a counter-clockwise direction and using the spinning movement to add force to his blow as he ripped his sword across and over the throat of Death Harbinger A. Though he connected and tore into the creature’s flesh, and though his efforts were rewarded with a spray of dark red blood, the creature did not even seem fazed, and its wound did not appear particularly deep.

3,421

Zach’s mouth fell open in shock. Was that all the damage he’d been able to do? Just 3,421? Had he somehow only grazed the creature without realizing he’d done so? Because he was pretty sure he’d landed a direct hit.

What the fuck? I definitely got it. I know I did.

Undeterred, Death Harbinger A merely pressed on as though shrugging off the attack; this, as a few more minor but noticeable spurts of blood trickled out of its open neck wound. Taking a swift step in Zach’s direction, it raised its sword and then delivered a daunting, chopping slash that looked to be coming in way too fast and way too powerfully for Zach to risk trying to guard against it. Zach was therefore forced to throw himself down towards the polished stone flooring with his body moving in the opposite direction. He then entered into a back-roll before hurriedly scrambling up to his feet as the other, B, dashed forward and took several very quick slashes at him with its own weapon.

These things are really tough!

Zach swung his sword to guard from the right. Click! Enormous shock jolted him, and it was a miracle he kept hold of his weapon. Yet he’d soon need another miracle as he subsequently whirled his blade to the left, resulting in another dull click, meeting a second strike with one of his own. B came in for a third attack, but now, it was aimed a bit lower as if intended to cut him open at the hip. Zach lunged his body to the right, then fully spun himself around the sword, maneuvering out of the way while unfortunately putting him squarely back in the sights of Death Harbinger A. With a neck still leaking blood, Harbinger A crashed his sword down on top of Zach while B dashed forward from behind, effectively sandwiching Zach in between the two of them.

I’m getting destroyed. What the fuck?

In two quick motions, one followed by the next, Zach raised his blade to guard against A’s attack, and at the same time, he lifted his leg and then shoved it behind himself, back-kicking B for 81 damage and effectively forcing it about five steps away. Then he was forced to grunt with exertion as he locked blades with A again. This time, “A” launched such a vicious, smashing strike that Zach croaked in horror as his sword was knocked cleanly out of his hands. The fight had only just begun, and already, he’d reached the point where he could no longer withstand the shock of guarding.

As his weapon flew off behind him, it was only due to Zach stumbling backwards in the same direction that he was coincidentally able to snatch it right back out of the air. Yet B was on him even as he was still stumbling. This was bad. Really bad. Zach was being overwhelmed. Twice more he ducked, having to drop back down the moment he straightened his back as B was really letting him have it.

“I…I don’t think I can beat these guys!” Zach shouted, flooding with alarm and doubt. “Jimmy, I…I don’t know if I can win!”

“Yeah, I don’t think so either,” Jimmy said calmly: incredibly calmly considering Zach was being absolutely thrashed right now and had no idea how to turn the tables to his advantage. These things felt like they were level 200, not 52!

“J-Jimmy!” he shouted again. “These things are way too—”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, still completely calm. Zach, whose wrists were now barely able to stay wrapped around the grip on his sword, began narrowly dodging their shredding, life-ending slices, spinning his body out of the way of two more flurries from each of the two mobs.

“You know what?” Jimmy asked. Having been pressed off to the side of him, Zach could see him tapping his chin with his left thumb as he spoke. “You see that asterisk near their name? I wasn’t sure at first, but now I am: these guys must be elites. Heh. Didn’t know you guys had that here. Kinda glad, though. Elite mobs are fun when you have the right comp. This must be a large-scale raiding dungeon.”

“What are you talking about?” Zach shouted, fighting for his very life. Yet things soon escalated, becoming even worse for him!

Up until now, there’d always been a fair and understandable distinction between different types of non-boss mobs. Melee mobs came in close with weapons, ranged ones fired at him from a distance, magic ones used magic, and healers healed. But now, however, the rules seemed to change. Immediately after ducking and twisting his body to evade three blazingly fast strikes from Death Harbinger B, Death Harbinger A halted in place as though it’d been rooted, seemingly giving up in its pursuit. Then it extended its two-handed sword, holding it straight out in front of itself.

“Zur-hur-hur-hur-hur-hur.”

The very tip of the glass-like blade began to glow. This glow soon turned into an orb of energy, one small enough to fit into the palm of the average-sized hand. But it began to grow, becoming larger and larger until it was the size of a balloon. It also began to shine more brightly with each moment, too. After just a few seconds, it also began to flash, causing a strobe-like effect that at last caused the entire tube-shaped passageway to light up: not just the immediate area, either, but all of it.

Uh-oh.

“Jimmy,” Zach whispered, swallowing nervously. “He’s gonna shoot that thing at me, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, obviously. Better get that shield thing ready.”

A buzzing sound filled the dungeon floor, but it was not like the buzz of an imp’s wings. Rather, it sounded more like that of a generator being fired up. And immediately after this sound, the muscular, dual-horned, red-skinned fiend made a flinching motion with its body, one that reminded Zach of the recoil he himself endured when using Phase Cannon only far more powerful. And with that, Zach saw this blinding white streak of energy blast off the sword, rip across the distance between him and Death Harbinger A, and all while moving so fast that it was nearly impossible to follow.

Despite already running badly low on time, Zach activated Phase Shield. It wasn’t even a choice, really. Honestly, what else would he do? Thankfully, as fast as the streak of burning light was moving, his Phase Shield appeared even faster ahead of it, emerging directly in front of Zach. And now, there was almost something of a battle of light, as this pure-white, flashing, strobing streak of energy contrasted with the emboldening, brilliant gold of his shield. The result was that half of F29 became seeped in gold, and the other in the flashing white light.

And then, just like that, it all came to an end. Zach had no idea how massive the explosion would have been if that attack had managed to land or strike somewhere nearby. He imagined it would’ve been pretty damn big, at any rate. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to find out right now, as the energy was essentially erased from existence the exact moment it struck Zach’s Phase Shield. It was an instant. It didn’t even make a sound, either. The projectile simply slammed into the shield—and then it was gone.

About three seconds later, Zach raised his fist and wiped a streak of blood from his nose. His jaw hurt, his head hurt, and oddly enough, even his ribs hurt. Actually, it took a short moment before he was truly able to feel the extent of his pain, which worsened and then peaked after about another five seconds. And while it was not even a tenth as bad as the returned portion from a Ziragoth attack, Zach felt as though he’d just taken about fifteen punches from Spider all over his face and body. As far as injuries went, it was still on the lower end of the scale; nevertheless, if this was what constituted a “tiny percentage” of the power behind their attack, it meant that these things were way more powerful than a level-52 mob had any right to be.

“Fuck, I’m hurting everywhere,” Zach groaned, finding it difficult just to keep his weapon raised. He eventually had to remove his left hand from his blade and drop to one knee while clutching his ribs. “Gods be damned, I feel beaten up.”

For a moment, he grew fearful that he’d be cut down while in a position of weakness. But as he lifted his head and looked at the approaching mobs, he realized that neither of them was actually approaching anymore. Both were now remaining completely still, and yellow, cartoonish-looking stars were dancing up and out of the top of both of their horned heads. This meant Jimmy must’ve mezzed them a second or two ago, and somehow, Zach had missed it. Jimmy had likely been waiting for his poisons to expire so that they wouldn't break his mez.

I think my ribs are broken.

Jimmy, still tapping his chin, said, “Yeah, sorry, Zach, but we’re not getting past this part.” He sighed. “Honestly, it was pretty clear from the start that this dungeon isn’t meant for two people. But that’s not really the issue, though. Like I said, I can handle a raid dungeon. Problem for us, though, is that these two jokers can resist poison, so…yeah, looks like neither of us are taking them down.” Jimmy turned his head to Zach. “Don’t even worry about it though. We’re gonna come back here with a couple of GSG dudes or maybe some of Zephyr’s guys if we wanna take on that boss—which we do. No way I’m not coming back in a few days to get revenge.” Jimmy made a confident laugh. “Now that you showed me this dungeon, I’m gonna be spending so much time here.”

Zach, wobbling his way back up to his feet on unsteady legs, fell immediately back down as a pain exploded in his ribcage. “Ahh, fuck. It hurts! My passive HP regeneration isn’t working. Why?”

“You must’ve gotten hit too hard. Uh, I don’t think that works beyond a certain level of injury. Not sure what does or doesn’t get healed passively, especially since my constitution isn’t high enough to experience it.”

“Jimmy, I need a heal.”

“Yeah, that ain’t gonna work. You broke some bones or something,” he said. “I don’t have a heal that works on that.” Jimmy tapped his shoulder with his staff in a gesture that Zach realized a moment later was meant to imitate a backpack. “Use one of your red stones. You’ll be all right in like twenty seconds.”

Zach recoiled in disgust at the suggestion. “On second thought, it doesn’t hurt that bad after all.”

“Dude…”

“I’m fine!”

“Do you even realize your face is bruised, your nose is broken, and ya’ll got like two black eyes?”

Zach tried to stand up again, and Gods, it ached badly. He grimaced, then flashed a look of anger at Jimmy, who seemed to be chuckling while he cracked a muscle in his back and stretched. “Hey, man, don’t be mad at me. You’re being stubborn. Use the goddamn rejuvenation stone and stop being a loot hoarder.”

“I’m not a…ugh. Gods, this hurts so bad.” The pain was most intense when trying to breathe, and Zach knew he wouldn’t be able to hold out for long. With each flare of agony, the temptation to use one of his reds was growing.

“All right,” Jimmy said, sheathing his staff and clapping his hands twice. “We did really good today, but we got a lot to review before we come back here for more. But yeah, let’s get gone before my mez breaks. Here, catch.”

Zach, confused, extended his right hand, the motion itself causing his ribs to flare up in pain, and then he caught something in the air that Jimmy had thrown at him. It looked like a bundle of rope. He groaned and nearly fell over just from the pain that catching it caused him. “You want us to retreat?” Zach asked, shocked.

Jimmy nodded nonchalantly. “Yep, I’m calling for a retreat or else we’re gonna wipe. My poisons aren’t working, so I’m basically neutralized. And your shit’s about to run out too, right? And you can’t even move anymore. So, yeah, we have to B.”

“We have to what?”

“It means we have to go back. It’s from League of…ah, just…come on, let’s go see your friend. We’ll come back in like two days and finish what we started. Promise.”

Without waiting to even see if Zach agreed with his decision, Zach watched as he began spinning the loose end of his bundle of rope exactly three times before throwing it up at the ceiling almost as though it contained a grappling hook at the end of it. The moment his rope made contact with the ceiling, Jimmy then vanished—he simply vanished. His body became translucent like that of a ghost, but only for an instant, and then he was…gone. Zach, glaring angrily at the two mesmerized “elites” that’d gotten the best of him, decided to take out his anger by spitting at one of them; he watched as a glob of it struck one of them in the face.

This broke its mez.

“Zur-hur-hur-hur-hur-hur.”

“Oh shit!”

Hurriedly twirling his own rope around three times, he threw up his arm, causing the rope to fly upwards almost as though pulled by an invisible magnet; it continued to rise until the top of it touched the ceiling. And then the world went white an instant before Death Harbinger B slashed its blade right down on top of his wounded form.

****

“—which is why if you don’t let me go, mom, I swear, I’ll—”

“They’re back in Galterra!” Eilea announced suddenly, causing Kalana to immediately turn her head, along with her mother, her dad, Pete, and Angelica.

“The boys are all right?” Fylwen asked, having now become drawn in to the general sense of growing worry.

Eilea nodded, a self-satisfied smile on her lips. “I can sense them far more strongly now that we’re all back on the same planet.”

“But how did they make it out?” Kalana asked. “The way Angelica made things sound, umm, it shouldn’t have been possible for them to get through.”

Angelica chimed in immediately, looking just as relieved as Kalana was beginning to feel. “They must’ve found some rope,” she whispered. “From the…” A look of excitement crossed her features, and she spoke with a louder, more upbeat tone of voice. “I think Jimmy found the item shop, you guys! That’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s not really common knowledge anymore. I think Jimmy must’ve found it all on his own.” Angelica snickered. “Ah-ha! So that’s why Zach was feeling so greedy. He must’ve found the store.”

“The store?” Fylwen asked.

“Mushkie’s shop. I can’t really tell you guys too much because you don’t know it, and it’s against Adamus’s rules to tell you about things like that before you know them.”

“True but unfortunately so,” Eilea said in agreement. “In all likelihood, Angelica and I have already dispensed more information to you than we should have.”

Kalana’s ears twitched, and she curled her lips. “Wait, tell us, please. What store? It sounds so cool!”

Angelica winced at her question as though keeping the answer from her was painful. “I’m sorry, Kalana, but I can’t! You have to discover it on your own.”

“Oh, okay. I understand. Maybe I’ll find out later from—”

Kalana cut her words off as she felt a vibration coming from her pocket. Immediately, she pulled out her phone, and then she exhaled in relief as she saw it was Zach calling her. “Baby! Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

“Uh, yeah, of course it is. Why do you sound so freaked out?”

“It’s just…”

“It’s just what? I’m only calling to let you know we’re in Slopes of Dal’Zarrah in case you were worried. Sounds like you were. Anyways, I’ll call you again in—h-hey! Stop!” he shouted. “No, don’t! Don’t you dare!”

There was a sound of a struggle, and then a voice—Jimmy’s voice—came through over the phone’s speakers amid further sounds of scuffling.

“Hey, Kalana!” he shouted. “Just wanna let you know that me and Zach found an item shop that would benefit the entire civilized world, and your boyfriend’s trying to keep it a secret because his punk-ass is being greedy. He also has like 4 spare healing stones now and he wants to sell them before you find out. Haha, get fucked, Zach. That’s for screwing me out of the inn room.”

There were more sounds of struggle, and then Kalana heard Zach saying “Jimmy, you mother f—” before the call ended.

Kalana crossed her arms and frowned. “I knew it! That’s exactly the kinda thing I thought would’ve happened.” Clearing her throat, she shouted, “Umm, Donovan! Zephyr!” Across the distance, they turned her way. Lowering her voice, she said, “Mom, let them pass, please.”

Fylwen whispered something to a nearby Elf, who reverberated her orders further down the chain. Before long, both men approached, and each stood before her awkwardly yet appearing curious, too. Kalana decided to come straight out with it. “Okay, so umm, Zach just found an item shop that sells rejuvenation stones. Can you guys please spread the word? And also tell your adventuring friends that the Elves are willing to pay a fair price for as many as they can provide, ‘cause there’s a lot of really hurt people in Den of Ziragoth waiting for them.” Her tone saddened as she added, “There’s a little human boy with really badly burned skin, and he’s been on life support for weeks. I need to get him one of each as soon as I can.”

Donovan and Zephyr looked at each other as though floored. “Did you say an item shop that sells rejuvenation stones?” Zephyr asked.

“No fuckin’ way,” Donovan added. “Impossible. Those fuckers are harder to find than diamonds. You know what we have to go through to get our hands on ‘em?”

Kalana shook her head. “Nope. But I know they’re rare. So, will you guys help me? Pretty please?”

“Gods, of course!” Zephyr said. “It’s not just Den of Ziragoth who needs them. There are a lot of wounded and disfigured survivors from the nuclear bomb, too. Especially those who survived the radiation.”

Kalana bowed her head in thanks. “Thank you! Please let everybody know, okay?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Donovan said. “Who’d even want to keep something like that a…” Donovan chuckled heartily. “Oh, yeah. Right. Well, sucks to be him.” Scratching the stubble on his chin, he asked, “How do we get there? To this shop, I mean.”

Kalana twisted her lips. “I dunno yet. I’m gonna have to force Zach to—”

She paused again as her phone blooped. Glancing down at it, she couldn’t help but frown. She’d worked so hard to keep her number private from the public, and it seemed it had finally leaked—or wait. No. Taking a second glance, she realized it was from Jimmy on a number she didn’t recognize. He must’ve finally bought himself a phone and memorized the number from seeing it used by Zach. She was glad that he’d finally bought a phone. It was one of the things Jascaila had recommended he do, claiming it would help him “establish himself” here and ease the acceptance process.

She read over the message. “Oh, okay. This is umm, really detailed stuff. Awwh! His name’s Mushkie and he has a little umbrella!”

Donovan scratched his head with his gauntlet-covered hand, which was framed by black plate armor. “Huh?”

She held up the phone to him and Zephyr so that they could read it over. “No shit,” Donovan said with another grunt. “Dungeon Escape Rope, eh? Wish I had that shit on me during that tower raid last month, ain’t that right, Zeph?” He guffawed and slapped the shorter man on his side hard enough to make him wince.

“Yep. That’s a really nice discovery they made. I wonder what…uh oh. Zach is texting me,” Zephyr said, removing his own phone.

Kalana and Donovan both turned their heads in his direction. “What’s he saying?” she asked.

“Yeah, what’s the kid want?”

“Ehh, it’s mostly just death threats telling me to keep my mouth shut or else. They’re pretty good, actually. Check this one out, Don.” He held his phone up so that Donovan could see it, and Donovan nodded with approval.

“Wow,” he said. “Yeah, that’s a pretty good threat. I like how he managed to get asshole and intestines in the same threat. Anyway, how about we round up our guilds, buy some good booze, and liven Mushkie’s shop up a bit?” He made a mighty grin. “I wanna make a good first impression, after all.”

“Okay,” Zephyr said. “I’ll spread the—”

“Donovan and Zephyr not spill Zach special item store secret!” Fluffles shouted with a hiss as he dashed around two Elvish guards that tried to stop him. He leapt over a third and called lighting down on top of a fourth as he raced his way over to them. Despite his terrible behavior, he was so cute that Kalana couldn’t resist giving him a little chin scratch.

“Zach call Fluffles and tell him everything,” the cat said, meowing first from Kalana’s chin scratch then hissing at Donovan and Zephyr.

“Awwwh! Do you have a phone, Fluffles?”

“No,” the cat said with a meow. “Fluffles’ humans tell him everything.”

“Humans? Oh. Wait. Umm, let me guess! Rian and Lienne?” She didn’t even need him to answer to know that she’d guessed correctly, because just outside the perimeter of Elves, she’d seen both of them dive at Fluffles and extend their arms as if trying to stop him from coming over here.

“Sorry,” she heard Lienne shout in the distance. “We told him not to attack!”

Fluffles gave a pleased meow as Eilea bent down and patted his head. For a moment, it looked like he was the Godly being and she his servant; the cat lifted his head in such a dignified, cute, but arrogant way. “Hi there, beautiful,” she said.

“Oh, hi, Eilea Vayra,” Fluffles replied, purring.

“Hello,” she said again, smiling. “I’ve always loved cats.”

Fluffles turned around. “I going to visit Mushkie and buy all the Weekly Haul items and snacks. Nobody else allowed in Zach and Fluffles’ special store, or I attack.”

Before Kalana could say another word, he scampered off.

Did Zach really think that would work? she wondered, amused. She did have to admit that it was kind of adorable that Zach was constantly enlisting the help of Fluffles to run mischievous errands despite it never working out for him. Last week, he’d enlisted the cat’s help in covering up the fact that he’d accidentally broken one of Kalana’s kitchen drawers by pulling on it too hard. It failed, of course, because Fluffles ended up agreeing to betray him in exchange for two pieces of turkey.

Kalana felt both guilty and giddy as the information spread from adventurer to adventurer. Ding after ding came from the phones of many of them, though the information was also beginning to visibly spread by word of mouth, as evident from the excited reactions showing up on so many different faces. Before long, all of the adventurers who’d rushed over here to meet Eilea knew of the item shop, and since most active adventurers were here, it meant that nearly the entire adventuring community became aware of it at the same time. It was now far too late to stop the spread of information even if she'd wanted to. And though Kalana suspected that the Elves would be busy for at least a few more days in honor of Eilea's return, it wouldn’t be long before they too took a trip over there as well.

“Until today, I'd forgotten Mushkie even existed,” Angelica said, her voice coming across as reflective and distant. She spoke to no one in particular, and Kalana doubted anyone but her was even paying attention as Angelica mused over something that seemed a bit personal to her. Her name turned red, and it stayed that way for a good minute. “It sounds like Mushkie hasn't lost his mind yet. I'm glad. Some of the others already have. I hate Adamus so much. I want to be the one who kills him.”

Kalana wasn't sure what that was all about, but she decided to pretend she didn't hear it. It wasn't her place to pry.

*****

“There’s what now?” Alex asked, taking off his glasses and wiping the lens with the soft part of the front of his suit. His chief secretary, a man by the name of Dalin Poltark, stood at attention before Alex as he clarified what he’d described as an “evolving situation” taking place in the city.

“Two boys believed to be high-level guild members, Lord Oren. They’re ‘fighting’ with each other—though I use that term very loosely—in a shop on Dignity Ave. and 3rd St. that sells cellular phones and subscription services.”

“Fighting?” Alex asked, becoming alarmed. “How significant is this fighting?”

“Not particularly, sir. A poor choice of words on my part. Eh, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the two boys are roughhousing around, but I’m told they’re not being overtly violent, and they’re not believed to be a threat to public safety.”

“Has anyone been hurt?”

“I don’t believe so. The peacekeeper who reported this to me claims that they’re not behaving in a way that is outright illegal. It’s more that they’re simply causing a public disturbance, though not necessarily due to their behavior. The issue, as I’m led to understand, is that they’ve gathered a steadily growing crowd, and if this continues, it could evolve from a ‘crowd’ into a ‘public gathering’ before long. That’s really the concern here.”

Alex repeated Dalin’s words in his head, finding them confusing. He was still trying to ascertain exactly what was going on. Certainly, the possibility of a sporadic public gathering was always an important one to be dealt with, as all public gatherings required advanced notice so that an appropriate number of peacekeepers could be assigned to maintain public safety and pubic order. But before Alex worried about that side of things, he needed to better understand the situation.

“Let’s back up a moment,” he said. “You’re telling me there are two boys in Slopes of Dal’Zarrah believed to be guild members, and so far, they’ve not behaved violently, threatened our citizens, or destroyed public or private property, correct?”

“That is correct, my lord,” he said. Then he held up a finger. “Ah, well, with one minor exception, but I don’t believe it rises to the level of—”

“Tell me,” Alex said.

“Of course, my lord. To be clear, this is not yet being considered an emergency, and no one has been harmed, but the boys apparently knocked over a glass display case while roughhousing, though early indications are that this was not intentional. Furthermore, these two unknown youths apologized and are even cooperating with the peacekeepers sent to investigate, which we’re taking as a sign of their non-hostility. Though, an officer did report to me that one of the boys offered both him and the store owner a bribe.”

“A…bribe?”

“Yes, Lord Oren. The young man offered five times what the merchandise was worth to, quote, ‘not tell Kalana I did that,’ end quote. He then offered the peacekeeper a sum of ten-thousand gold coins not to, quote, ‘tell Kalana I tried to illegally buy someone’s silence with a bribe,’ end quote. A third officer has regrettably been relieved of duty for accepting the bribe.”

Alex sighed. “So, we’ve established one of them is Zachys Calador.”

Dalin’s lips parted as though in surprise. “That’s actually what some of the witnesses claim to believe, Lord Oren. It’s also the cause of the growing crowd due to Sir Calador’s celebrity status. But since we’ve not yet verified it, I’ve omitted it from my report as it has not even graduated past the stage of rumor and speculation.”

“By any chance, is the other young male someone of a similar or slightly older age, a few inches taller in height, with dark skin, black hair, and armed with a staff on his back?”

“Yes! How can you possibly…?”

Alex got up from his office chair. “Please go with the first bouquet of flowers that we discussed for the Orcish queen. She’ll like those colors. If you’ll excuse me, I have to step out for a moment.”

Chapter 141: Zach's First Press Conference

Chapter 141: Zach's First Press Conference

Although the high-tech city in Tomb of Fire was indisputably the number-one tourist attraction for humanity—driven largely by its lucrative Diamond Paradise—it was common knowledge that Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, the closest thing to humanity’s “capital,” was a not-so distant second. Hell, it might’ve already pulled into first due to the unprecedented boycott taking place as a direct result of what the Guild of Gentlemen had done to Ogre’s Axe with their nuclear weapon. Earlier today, Zach recalled learning on the news that the total number of confirmed deaths in Ogre’s Axe had now exceeded nine-hundred-fifty thousand, with rescue workers warning it was likely to hit a million by the end of next week as they continued their search for survivors.

The grisly images of burned, charred bodies being pulled out of the rubble by men and women wearing strange, protective suits was so jarring that it’d actually driven the dragon out of the news cycle, something Zach honestly thought they’d be talking about for months. But…putting aside such an inconceivable amount of pain and death, which he really did not want to dwell on right this second, the point was that Zach had wanted to visit Slopes of Dal’Zarrah since he was a little boy. And as he shook hands and took a picture with yet another of its well-dressed, upscale inhabitants, he found himself thoroughly impressed.

It definitely lives up to its reputation, he thought, now shaking the hand of a woman wearing an elegant, flowing, ruby-red dress. He then turned his head to exchange pleasantries with yet another member of this rapidly growing crowd.

“I watched you on the news during that awful ordeal with the wyvern,” said a haughtily dressed man wearing a morning coat and a large hat. “A fine young man, you are.” With the hand opposite to the one shaking Zach’s, he puffed on a cigar. “Thank the Gods we’ve moved beyond that bit of trouble.”

Zach smiled. “Glad to be of service.”

At the moment, he was standing beside Jimmy towards the southwest of the city in a large public park lined with flowers and statues depicting ancient human heroes from wars and events past. It served as something of a “backyard” to the impressively huge grand library he’d appeared inside with Jimmy after roping their way out of Trials of Nolak. Much like the grand library in Shores of Wrath, the head librarian, an old man with a dusty beard, did not appear surprised to see them appear. He’d barely reacted at all, to be honest. All he’d done was lift his head out of a book and ask them to avoid an overhanging shelf not far from where they’d emerged.

“Didn’t even know there was an exit in row 29,” he’d muttered, though it’d sounded like he was speaking mostly to himself. “Must be a niche dungeon.”

Zach had opened his mouth to say something in reply, but then he’d nearly doubled over from the pain in his ribs, which seemed to worsen the longer he tried to ignore it. Thus, having reached the point he could withstand it no longer, he’d called upon Bank and Storage, and with that, he’d retrieved two items: one of his red rejuvenation stones, and a Dungeon Escape Rope, which he handed to Jimmy to replace the one Jimmy had given him.

Sighing, Zach had extended his arm holding the red stone, which was flat in his palm. He’d then clamped his hand shut, squeezing it tightly. This caused the stone to simply shatter and vanish. Within seconds, he began to feel relief spread throughout his body. His injuries, though crippling, turned out to be minor enough that a single red was sufficient. His ribs and broken nose began to heal, and the aches and pains in his body followed soon after.

“Jimmy, now that we’re done with that,” he’d said, turning his head. “I think we should probably…uh…Jimmy?"

Jimmy had somehow slinked away and had moved half the distance across the private back room of the grand library; Zach was beginning to suspect one of these rooms resided in all of the grand libraries, and they all probably contained a number of exits or entryways to various different dungeons. Both this one and the one in Shores of Wrath also contained a desk right in the middle where the head librarian sat, and that was where he’d seen Jimmy. He’d appeared to be in the middle of a conversation with the man.

“Just across the street?” Zach had heard him ask of the head librarian.

“Yes. Or if you want something cheaper, they sell decent phones four blocks down on Dignity and 7th.”

“Thanks, old dude.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“H-hey!” Zach had shouted at him. “What the hell are you—”

“Shh,” the old librarian said with a scowl as Zach saw Jimmy hurriedly exiting the grand library.

He’s going to rat on me to Kal! I know it! Zach had thought.

Zach, hoping to catch up, had raced after Jimmy, following him across the street and into a store that sold cell phones, accessories, and subscription services. In the process, he’d accidentally knocked over a glass display case, which made a loud, startling crack as it smashed against the floor. He’d sworn aloud, knowing he’d be in even more trouble if anyone told Kalana about that. He’d also realized he hadn’t checked in with her for a while. And so, knowing he couldn’t actually stop Jimmy from buying a phone if he wanted one, Zach had exited the store in defeat—but only after trying to bribe the owner—and he’d then proceeded to call his girlfriend.

Jimmy, who’d finished his transaction faster than Zach had been expecting, seemed to then choose that specific moment to emerge from the store, and since he’d been distracted, Zach did not even hear him stealthily approach from behind.

Caught off guard, Jimmy successfully snatched the device out of Zach’s hands. Before Zach could stop him, he’d spilled their secret discovery to Kal like a total dick. What followed was something of an impromptu wrestling match that saw him and Jimmy rolling over the white-painted, unusually aesthetic sidewalk as they grappled for the phone. Since Zach could easily kill him by trying to overpower him, he had to deliberately use far less than his full strength, which meant it took him longer to get back the phone. But by this point, Jimmy had already gotten Kalana’s number off it and was busy texting away on his own, newly purchased device.

During all this, Zach’s hood had slipped off his head, revealing his face, and so rather than feel fear at seeing two people who were clearly greater than level 1 tussling around on the streets, Zach’s appearance did the opposite; immediately, he had begun drawing a crowd. But instead of feeling annoyed, Zach, for once, had decided to encourage, rather than discourage, this from escalating, as he’d realized it actually served his purpose. Since he didn’t know his way around this city, and since he still wasn’t sure how to get in contact with Mr. Oren, he’d reasoned that this would be as good a way as any of making his presence known and drawing him out.

And so, patting Jimmy on the shoulder and nodding across the way at a large, fancy park in what had to be the most stylish, uniquely decorative city he’d ever visited, the two of them made their way over there while a larger and larger number of people hurried after them across a very impressive, very classy city that Zach could easily see himself wanting to live in if given his pick.

Ruled by the Lords of Justice and situated as the northern-most region in North Bastia, Dal’Zarrah was known for having bitterly cold winters and moderately warm summers. Right now, the air temperature, though warm, was significantly cooler than the unbearable heat and humidity baking all of South Bastia and about three quarters of North Bastia. By night, it would become even more crisp, to the point many of the people going about their daily activities would likely begin to don sweaters or light jackets.

Framed by numerous large groupings of mountain ranges to the north and west, and home to one of only two naturally forming hot springs on the entire planet, Dal’Zarrah was a unique region steeped in history that Zach knew had once been the site of humanity’s last stand against an invading Orcish army thousands of years ago, resulting in the holiday known as “Perseverance Day,” which involved celebratory fireworks and large feasts. At least, that was what the history books said, and you know what? Zach really wanted to just leave it at that. Because, these days, any time he found out anything about history, it always turned out to be more nuanced and less simple than what he’d been taught in school.

The pictures don’t do this place justice, Zach thought as he’d walked with Jimmy to the park, flanked by the excited, eager crowd behind him.

One of the first things that caught Zach’s eyes was the sheer number of monuments to be found all over the place. Some took the form of tall statues on islands in the middle of busy intersections, others were found along the sidewalk, and some seemed to be the sole focus of entire streets. Along with statues, there were large pieces of stones with names engraved into them, as well as stone-carved murals depicting battle scenes from ancient history.

The city itself had very smooth sidewalks made of a soft type of stone that was almost perfectly white yet free of any visible scratches or stains. A green wastebasket was never more than a few steps away, ensuring people never had a reason to litter, and plaques containing various historical documents or artifacts with descriptions inscribed into them resided at the head and foot of every block. And this was the unexciting part of the city.

One thing Slopes of Dal’Zarrah did not have was the typical jungle of tall buildings and skyscrapers. In this regard, it had a bit in common with Shores of Wrath and, to a lesser extent, Shadowfall Coast. What it did have, though, were unusual but magnificent structures the closer towards the center that one ventured, and Zach couldn’t wait to see them for himself. Apparently, the nearer one was to the center of the city, where the UCH—United Council of Humanity—assembled, the more the city transitioned into the political center of humanity. This meant even larger, more elaborate monuments, some of the most elegant cathedrals dedicated to the Gods, coliseums where the best of musicians performed, and of course, at the very center of the city, the UCH itself, which was a gigantic amphitheater where all the political guild members with any kind of status could gather to see if they could agree on something.

Now, as he continued to shake hands, take photos, and exchange words with the citizens of this city, he did so intentionally and willingly. At the worst, he might annoy Mr. Oren a tiny bit. But he knew it’d also go a long way towards making Kalana happy, as he was technically going above and beyond what she’d constantly said he needed to do while in public. Right now, he was really, really knocking it out of the park—no pun intended. In fact, Zach was doing so well he was actually shocked by how good he was doing. He never knew he had it in him.

Laughing merrily, he was pointing at a woman who herself was currently pointing at him. “No way, miss,” he said, forcing another laugh. “You’re the young one. Not me.”

She blushed furiously. “I’m sixty four years old!”

He shook his head. “Impossible. You’re twenty five at the most.”

“Oh, you charming angel! The princess is the luckiest gal in the world. Such an impressive boy, you are!”

“I’m the lucky one, actually,” he said. “Almost as lucky as your husband,” he added, giving a firm handshake to the man, who stood next to her.

“Don’t flatter her too much,” he said. “It’ll go straight to her head.”

The woman gave him a playful slap. “Oh, you stop that, Willdrith.”

Zach made another laugh and continued to flatter her while numerous members of the crowd—and now even the first reporter working for one of the news organizations—filmed every bit of it.

“Sir Calador!” called one of them, his professional demeanor evident in his tone. “Sir Calador!”

So, today’s the day, he thought. He’d been hoping to draw out Mr. Oren before something like this happened. But he wasn’t entirely upset, either. Because he knew what he had to do. He’d known this day would come.

Zach looked over at the reporter. He recognized the man and recognized him well. He was the guy Zach watched every morning after waking up next to Kalana. He was actually Zach’s “favorite.” The irony of the fact that Zach even had a favorite was not lost on him, yet it was just sort of something that had happened gradually to the point where Zach no longer watched anything else in the morning.

“Oh, hello there,” Zach said to him, waving at the reporter. Before the reporter could say another word, Zach took the initiative and actually beckoned him to come closer. “You’re with Galterra Daily News, right? I recognize you from the early-morning show. Please, come on over.”

The reporter did not need to be told a second time. Actually, he didn’t even need to be told a first time, as he’d already been moving towards Zach the moment Zach met his eyes. Now, Zach watched as the professionally dressed man glided over to him with a camera operator a bit behind. Standing to Zach’s side, he raised his hand so that the microphone he carried was situated between them while they both faced the camera.

“Yes, that’s right, Kristil. I can confirm reports that Zachys Calador has in fact appeared here in Peace Park on Dignity Avenue in Slopes of Dal'Zarrah, and what’s more, I have the privilege to be standing with him right now. It’s good to see you, Sir Calador.”

“It’s good to see—and meet—you as well, Paxton,” he said.

“Ah, you know who I am?”

Zach nodded. “I’ve actually been waking up just before sunrise local time on my girlfriend’s island to watch your morning report. You’re one of my favorites, actually.”

The reporter gave a broad smile that looked so authentic that Zach could genuinely not tell if it was real or just for the cameras. “Woooow!” he exclaimed, drawing the word out. “You heard it here first, folks, Sir Calador is a fan of the program. And for those of you who missed it, by ‘girlfriend,’ Sir Calador is referring to the Elvish princess, Kalana Vayra. Does she watch our program too, Sir Calador?”

“Just Zach is fine, actually,” he insisted. “I prefer it to be honest.”

“Humble, too! I’m so honored to have you as one of our viewers, Zach.”

“You guys are like the only thing I even watch,” Zach admitted with a laugh, making sure he looked properly into the cameras so he didn’t come off like an unhinged maniac as he had the last time reporters had stuck a camera in his face. “I stopped watching anything that’s not on GDN.”

It wasn’t a lie, either. Zach really was a fan of the program, though it wasn’t something he’d chosen to be and he was even a little bitter regarding the circumstances around it. But it was something that truly did just kind of “happen,” and it was largely due to the weird dynamic at play between the various guilds and the media. In particular, for whatever reason, different networks were unequally positive and negative towards different guilds.

From the moment Zach had been wounded by Ziragoth up until around a week ago, any time he got mentioned on the news, it was usually positive: very much so, in fact. But something changed early last week. Seemingly out of nowhere, Zach became aware of the fact that about three quarters of the various news networks had begun getting really critical of him. At first, he’d told himself he wouldn’t let it get to him, but before long, he was starting to yell at Kalana’s screens whenever they said nasty bullshit about him or raised questions about his character.

Initially, Fylwen had taken him aside and explained to him that it wasn’t actually personal. She’d explained to him the dynamics at play and how this was to be expected. Even still, it pissed Zach off so much that he’d actually had to see Jascaila over it. And even that didn’t make it any better. He’d had to avoid watching certain networks entirely. And it was all because of the weird way that the news handled politics.

Basically, even though all the North Bastian guilds were coexisting fairly well—other than the Guild of Gentlemen, their common enemy—and despite the fact that, across the board, the media censored or covered up anything catastrophically damaging, it seemed like each guild had one or two networks that were clearly on their side yet opposed to all others—despite them all claiming to be fair. And these networks could be really, really harsh when discussing Zach or pretty much anyone whose “side” they weren’t on.

But, of course, there was also the flipside of things.

Paxton, as well as his entire network, GDN, was so obviously on the side of the Royal Roses that it was kind of funny that his network pretended to be anything otherwise. Therefore, due to nothing more than human nature, Zach had begun to slowly become a bigger and bigger fan even despite knowing it was all bullshit and all part of some stupid, but admittedly nonviolent kind of tug-of-war the guilds played with each other. And Zach, who used to believe himself above all this crap, could never in his life have imagined himself getting roped into the politics of a guild he didn’t actually belong to. Yet, day after day, for more than a week, he’d shout out obscenities as the other networks called him things like “reckless,” “immature,” and “irresponsible.” But not GDN! They only said positive things about him any time he was brought up. Him or any other member of the Royal Roses. Sometimes, they even said positive things about him when he clearly didn’t deserve it.

Fuck Domanik and GNT, Zach thought bitterly, trying to keep the sudden anger off his face. N-B-O-N too.

He forced himself to terminate the chain of thoughts before he risked it showing up in his demeanor. Instead, he focused on Paxton and the question being sent his way. “So, Zach, can you tell us why you’ve shown up here to Slopes of Dal’Zarrah? I believe this is your first official visit to the capital, correct? And also, what do you think of our humble city?”

As Zach listened to the question, he found himself nodding along. He was surprisingly not nervous. In fact, of all possible things, he was even prepared. One of the side effects of having watched so much news during his two-week vacation with Kalana was that he’d seen how other guild people spoke, and he was shockingly ready to play along. To his own disbelief, he knew exactly what to say, how to say it, and where to look whenever he spoke. Incredibly, it wasn’t even until right this very moment that he even realized he was so competent at this kind of thing. It was like he’d received a stealth education in media training without knowing he’d undergone it.

Fylwen also helped me a lot, he thought, recalling his mid-afternoon conversations with Kalana’s mother. Actually, I think I learned more from her than anyone else.

Zach made sure he kept his eyes pinned to the camera. He paused a moment to breathe, exhale, and then smile politely yet firmly. “Well, Paxton,” he began, “I’m here to meet with Lord Alex Oren of the Lords of Justice. He and I have a very good working relationship, and the Royal Roses values our partnership with our friends in the Lords of Justice. But, as you said, being that this is my first official visit, I just knew I had to stop by and greet some of the wonderful citizens of your city—which I find to be beautiful and charming, by the way.”

Zach knew he nailed it even as he was still speaking. The moment he finished, the crowd let out a cheer, Paxton smiled, and Zach waved at numerous citizens, who raised their hands and cheered back at him.

No way anyone gives me shit with an answer like that, he thought.

Even though this was a completely unplanned, unofficial visit, and even though his answer had been a partial lie, Zach had learned enough about how things worked to know that, as long as he handled himself properly, it would never be questioned by anyone, and the other guilds were more likely to just roll with it. So much of politics was performative. But that had been a lesson he’d learned during the dragon raid.

I nailed that fucking question, he thought, concealing a smirk. He knew he was being stupidly proud of himself, but how could he not be? He was seventeen years old, and he just nailed it like someone who’d been doing it for years. No one in “his” guild was going to be upset with that answer. Not even Mr. Oren was going to have a problem with it—he hoped.

****

“He’s good,” Dalin said, sitting beside Alex in the DEHV limousine that was currently making its way towards Dignity Avenue. Traffic was horrendous today. Typically, it wasn’t quite this busy during the early afternoon, but ever since the city had seen a predictable uptick in tourism thanks to outrage from the nuclear blast, the city had been forced to deactivate all hover lanes and relegate DEHVs to ground travel only.

Alex gently stroked his clean-shaven chin with his thumb and forefinger as he observed Zach on the screen built into the back of the DEHV’s leather seat in front of him. Though Zach had only answered a single question, the way he spoke and the words he’d used had come as a great—but welcome—shock to Alex, who mere seconds earlier, had been on the verge of a rare panic at the thought of what Zach might do or say just for the purpose of getting his attention.

That was a very good answer, Alex thought.

Truly, it was almost as though Zach understood that, reality aside, he was publicly perceived to be a very real and very significant member of the Royal Roses. More so, given how much his recent actions made it into the news, he really did have a moral responsibility to appear before the public sooner or later. Even still, he was speaking to a very friendly member of the press right now, and Alex was certainly afraid of what might happen when more confrontational reporters began showing up—which they almost certainly would now that the dam had burst. For Zach to finally enter the public sphere and only answer questions from a friendly network, it would be worse than him saying nothing at all.

Somehow, he always ends up putting me on edge.

Whether or not Zach understood this, by performing this little stunt, he now had a very real obligation to follow through with it, and Alex was not going to be able to just show up and save him. The best Alex could do was make a joint public appearance after he’d sufficiently taken questions. But this was assuming he did not lose his cool or say something politically disastrous. For the moment, however, Alex was impressed by what he saw, and to that end, if Zach was somehow able to continue on this way, he had absolutely no problem making a public appearance with him—especially after that astonishingly skillful and perfectly spoken reply he’d given regarding the Royal Roses’ cooperation with the Lords of Justice. How did he know how to say that? Who taught him such a thing? Surely, someone must have.

“You look surprised,” Dalin said.

“I am,” Alex admitted. “I don’t know how Zach knows how to…I’ve never seen him show any kind of aptitude for this. I almost don’t recognize this version of him.” Alex had more to say, but he quieted as the reporter addressed Zach then asked another question.

“Wow, so it’s your first time in Dal’Zarrah as the newest member of the Royal Roses, and you’ve already got an audience with the third-in-command of the Lords of Justice? Sounds like a big day for you. I don’t suppose you can give our wonderful viewers an exclusive scoop on the nature of your meeting?”

Alex held his breath. “Oh no. This could be bad.”

“Not at all,” Zach replied, smiling diplomatically. “As I’m sure you guys know, um, Mister—sorry, Lord Oren.” He paused, awkwardly, and now Alex winced, terrified of what might come next. The crowd seemed to feel the same way as well, because they fell silent, and so too did the reporter. Yet Zach surprised him once again.

“Whoah, sorry about that,” he said. “My apologies to Lord Oren. I’m sure just about everyone in the world has learned by now about Lord Oren’s humble upbringing. After all, he’s the first civilian in the history of the Lords of Justice to ever be given a leadership role. But what a lot of you guys don’t know is that he used to be my science teacher. So when I say ‘Mister Oren’—and hey, I’m only human, so there’s a good chance I might make that mistake again—please understand that it’s not me disrespecting the Lords of Justice or slighting his title. It’s a completely unintentional slip from a former student who knew him by a different name.”

“Wow, he’s so good,” Dalin said, patting Alex on the knee. “I had no idea he was your former student. Looks like you’re going to be back on the front page of every news site again. But wow. You never told me this. No wonder he’s so smart.”

“Yeah,” Alex whispered, so baffled and amazed he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “It’s the kind of thing I’d have eventually mentioned anyway. But I’m glad Zach was able to use it to alleviate any tension there.”

Alex watched intensely and closely as Zach, along with Paxton of GDN, made some light back and forth conversation regarding Alex’s former life. First, he began by expressing his amazement at learning this bit of trivia, and then he asked several questions about what Alex was like as a teacher. Zach, displaying a rare level of discipline, kept his answers positive, short, and any humor to be found within them was very light-hearted and family friendly.

Through some inexplicable means, Zach somehow knew where the line was when it came to what level of “joking” was socially permissible in public from a low-rank member of one guild to a high-ranking member of a different guild. In this case, Zach’s only humorous comments pertained to the cat-eye glasses Alex used to wear. This, of course, was absolutely within the realm of acceptable, media-friendly “playful teasing” that would not be considered disrespectful and would be well-received by both the Royal Roses as well as the Lords of Justice. Alex even laughed at Zach describing the glasses in detail.

“Everyone in class loved those glasses,” Zach said. “And yes, he really did keep them on while teaching.”

As his DEHV continued southeast towards the park, Alex began to feel somewhat more at ease—but he tensed up once again when the reporter returned to his original query.

“That’s incredible, Zach. And a true example of the Gods at work. But if I may return to something from earlier: you said you’d tell us the nature of your meeting.”

“Oh yeah. Of course, sorry. So uh, I’m actually here today on very serious business. We’re meeting to discuss human outreach towards the other Galterran races.”

A good answer, Alex thought. How does he handle the obvious follow-up, though? Anxiously, Alex leaned in towards the screen, studying the interaction between Zach and the reporter.

“Ahh, so the young and talented Zachys Calador has taken an interest in foreign politics, is that it?” Paxton asked him

Zach gave a firm, confident nod. “That’s right. As you yourself reported yesterday morning, some of my recent actions have alarmed world leaders. I want to discuss with Mr—ahh! There I go again!” Rather than chide him for his breach of decorum, the loyal—and tradition-upholding—crowd erupted with heartwarming laughter and applause, and so did the reporter. By this point, peacekeepers could be seen filing into the park, keeping a low profile and maintaining public order as the size and number of citizens grew.

“I want to discuss with Lord Oren ways in which I can ease their concerns and hopefully act more as an asset rather than an obstacle as your friends over at ‘GNT’ suggested last week I’ve become. What they reported about me is false. I want to put minds at ease, not worry people.”

There was just the tiniest trace of bitterness in Zach’s voice as he spoke, but it was so minor that only someone who knew him, like Alex, would likely be able to detect it. And though harsh, the criticism from GNT was actually true. Zach had caused numerous problems worldwide: problems that Alex had spent many hours smoothing over as humanity continued to try courting better relations with the rest of the world. But more to the point: Alex was simply amazed that Zach was even aware of what was being said about him. He’d never given any kind of indication before this that he watched the news or paid any attention to it. It was good that he had. That much was obviously clear. Though the media were far from honest and could often be manipulative and duplicitous, much of what they said did contain elements of truth or reflect real concerns of the people.

“To that end, Zach, what do you make of the demands for accountability from the numerous world leaders who have called for you to appear before a council and answer some of their questions and concerns? Although we here at GDN have obviously debunked many of the dishonest things said about you, there are still those who remain unconvinced of your good intentions.”

Zach replied immediately. “I realize some of the stuff I’ve done has spooked the world a bit, but I promise everyone watching this that I’ve never intentionally tried to scare anyone. I’m being more careful with how I use my abilities now. What happened the day before the dragon raid was not on purpose.”

And there it was. Alex knew this moment would come. How could it not? The thing Zach just said was going to prompt a follow-up question. And no matter how Zach answered that follow-up question, which the reporter had clearly coaxed out of him with deliberate intent, Alex knew it was going to immediately become the top story across social media and in every single news outlet.

The reporter, as though sensing he’d just landed the most important interview of his career, changed his tone to become even more soothing and friendly as he nodded along and asked the question that Alex suspected he’d been hoping to bring up from the moment this conversation began. Even as friendly a network as GDN might have been to the Royal Roses and its members, Alex knew that a tough but fair question like this was unavoidable. To not ask it would be to invite mayhem down on their entire network.

“I’m glad you just brough that up, Zach,” he said, cleverly concealing the way he himself had wrangled it out of him. “Because for weeks, people have been asking questions about what they saw and heard that day: what we all experienced during your raid preparations against the dragon. The explosions you caused could be heard worldwide. Windows in many cities were shattered. I myself got a little frightened. Can you finally tell us, for the first time, what all of that was, Zach? Why did that happen, and was it actually necessary?”

Alex almost couldn’t breathe as he watched this unfold. He prayed to the Gods despite no longer being sure he even believed in them. This was a question Zach needed to answer seriously and without any trace of defensiveness. To do otherwise would not just further enrage the rest of the world, but it could even cost him the support of humans, too. It would also imperil any chance they had at rejoining the global community—assuming they succeeded in dealing with the nuclear issue first. For now, Alex had to force oxygen to enter and exit his lungs as he waited for Zach’s reply.

“When that happened,” Zach began after a contemplative moment, “a lot of my fellow guild members were in danger of being killed. I’d just leveled up and unlocked a new ability, and I was really desperate at the time, and I didn’t know what it would do, so…regrettably, I used the ability without reading it first. But since then, I’ve made sure never to do that again.”

“To never do what again, Zach? Use that specific ability? Or use an ability without first being aware of what it does?”

“Both, actually,” Zach said. Then Alex’s jaw dropped as he delivered a response so perfect it made Alex wonder if the kid was being coached in real time with an earpiece. “Look,” he said, contrition in his voice. “I realize I scared a lot of people, but that was never my intention. And for those who I frightened, I want you to know that I apologize, and everything I did was to protect North Bastians and their families from a terrible threat. And to your other point, Paxton: if foreign world leaders want me to appear before them to answer their questions, I’m more than happy to do it. Everyone has to be held accountable for their actions, and I, like my unfairly imprisoned guild-leader, Vim Alazar, believe we live in a civilized world, and no one of any level or race has a right to exist free of law and justice or to threaten the lives of others.”

Alex lifted his hands out of sheer awe, unable to stop himself from giving a quick round of applause. He couldn’t believe Zach was the one who’d just said those words. It was mind blowing. Yet, even amid his satisfaction and pride in his former student, he did feel just a bit of unease, because no matter how much Zach had changed, Alex knew him well enough to know that Zach was only saying what he believed Alex—and others—wanted him to say.

To be clear, Alex was certain that Zach did mean what he was saying—but the sentiment, only. And that would end up being a problem Alex had to deal with later on. Because whether Zach realized it or not, by publicly committing to appear before a special delegation of world leaders, he was now required to do it. There was no backing out of this. In the strongest of terms, he was now required by law, by honor, and by decency to appear before a delegation comprised of multiple foreign races for the purpose of providing honest answers to their questions. This, he could not possibly know.

Zach being Zach, the boy likely believed he’d be able to just say those words, make such a commitment, and then get on with his life while hoping everyone forgot about it over time. But things didn’t work like that. Simply by making that commitment, Alex, as chief diplomat, would have to immediately begin reaching out and making preparations for him to appear. In fact, Haisel Ragora, the second-in-command of the Royal Roses was already calling him.

Alex lowered the volume a moment, as the interview became much softer and more playful now that the most serious question had been asked and answered. It would likely pick up in intensity once the reporter had concluded, as a full press corps had already stormed the park, and they would be far more adversarial and demanding than anyone from GDN.

“Senior-Lieutenant Ragora,” Alex said, addressing his colleague in the Royal Roses. “Funny you should call.”

“Are you watching, Lord Oren?”

“I am.”

“Did you teach him how to do that?” he asked, sounding just as shocked as Alex felt.

“No, but I take it your guild is pleased?”

“Pleased doesn’t even begin to describe it. Folks over here in Giant’s Fall were shitting themselves when they saw him on the screen, but now we’re all drinking and cheering him on. He’s doing so good. Gods, I wish Vim could see this.”

Alex knew that the sadness that crept into his voice towards the end there was not pretend. The members of the Royal Roses, particularly those born in Giant’s Fall, actually, truly loved Vim Alazar. He was, respective to the regions he controlled, the most beloved guild-leader in all of humanity. The people of Giant’s Fall and Spider’s Eye Oasis were engaged in round-the-clock unrest as a result of his capture. That he was reportedly going to be executed in public tomorrow morning…it was going to cause a breakdown in society in those two regions.

Right now, with Vim unable to lead, Haisel was acting as the current stand-in leader of the Royal Roses. Yet, despite this, Alex knew that Haisel would sacrifice himself if it meant bringing Vim back safely. This was not something that one could take for granted in guild politics. Given the chance to rise upwards in rank, there were many whose loyalty would fall off rather quickly.

As Alex did his best to offer reassurance to Senior-Lieutenant Ragora, he became inundated with messages and texts from his various colleagues. Anyone who had ever actually met Zach in person was reacting with delight, disbelief, and shock at his unannounced media appearance, which was already being labeled a “press conference.” In fact, the news chyron at the bottom on N-B-O-N was already reading:

LIVE FROM ZACHYS CALADOR’S FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE IN HUMAN CAPITAL: SIR CALADOR VOWS INCREASED ACCOUNTABILITY

Alex tried to respond to as many people as he could, but eventually he had to end his conversation with Senior-Lieutenant Ragora and put down his phone as Zach finally concluded his conversation with the reporter from GDN. Shaking hands with the man, he seemed to partially turn away—and then came the hail of questions from the sea of reporters that Zach likely hadn’t even noticed assembling before him as he’d been so engrossed in his conversation with Paxton.

“Sir Calador! Sir Calador! Sir Calador!”

So many voices rang out at the same time that it was impossible to understand a single thing anyone said. It all came out as a jumble of words. “Where did when Ziragoth what why abilities responsible Lord Oren the dragon war Vim Alazar Sir Calador!”

Zach made a dismissive face, and a bolt of fear went straight through Alex’s heart. Zach, for as well as he’d done, did not seem to know. He did not seem to understand that he couldn’t simply just walk away now. It would reflect terribly on his guild and himself if he was said to have only been willing to deal with a friendly outlet. He could not possibly know or understand this. He was going to walk away, wasn’t he?

Alex gritted his teeth, took out his phone, and began to text. Although it was no longer possible for anyone without significant status to directly contact Alex, he could still reach out and initiate contact with others. And thank the Gods for that, because this was certainly the time for it.

*****

Zach rolled his eyes at the storm of reporters who tried every trick in the book to get his attention. He didn’t want to talk to any of those assholes. He recognized many of their faces, though he wished he didn’t. So many of them had taken shots at him last week out of nowhere. It was like someone had just decided one night that he was fair game. And he might’ve been, too. Even still, he hated it.

I kicked so much ass during that interview, he thought, pleased with himself. I bet even Mr. Oren is going to think I did good.

There’d been a few close calls there as the questions got tougher, but he trusted Paxton, having seen the guy defend him every time they said bad things about him the news. He hoped the interview he’d given served to quiet a whole lot of that. Even Jimmy looked impressed, and Jimmy probably had no idea of half of what they were talking about.

There’s no way I’m actually going to some weird world leader bullshit, though, he thought, concealing a laugh. Zach had totally bullshitted about that. Most likely, with everything that tended to go on in the world these days, people would forget it in a week or two. All that would be left would be the memory that he’d done a good interview.

At any rate, all that should’ve been more than enough to get Mr. Oren’s attention. As Zach half-turned around to see if his former teacher had shown up, he realized the crowd had grown fantastically huge. Finding him now would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

Maybe he tried to contact me, he thought.

Glancing down at his phone, he saw that Mr. Oren had, indeed, sent him a few messages: no, not a few. Many. Like more than ten. And they all said the exact same thing.

YOU HAVE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS

APOLOGIZE AND TAKE QUESTIONS

YOU HAVE TO!!!

ESPECIALLY THE ONES YOU HATE THE MOST. PICK THEM FIRST!!

YOU HAVE TO DO THIS ZACH!

Zach almost frowned, but he stopped, knowing cameras were still on him. There was nothing ambiguous or uncertain about what Mr. Oren’s texts implied. Even still, it meant he’d seen Zach’s interview and thus he’d succeeded at getting the man’s attention. Outside of that, though, he wondered why he had to talk to all these other people. Especially after he’d done such a good job with Paxton.

He wouldn’t be texting me like this if it wasn’t really important, Zach thought, breathing out a sigh. Deciding to reluctantly oblige Mr. Oren, he turned back around once more and faced the swarm of reporters that had assembled before him.

“I apologize for that,” he said. “I received an important message. I’d be happy to take a few questions.”

Once more the voices roared at him collectively, and Zach became puzzled. How was he supposed to answer them when he couldn’t even understand what they said to him? This reminded him of those press conferences, where high-ranking members of a guild would—

Oh, right! This is just like that, he realized.

He raised his right hand with his pointer finger lifted. The moment he did so, the reporters all fell quiet. Picking at random, he selected a red-headed demon-woman who he vividly remembered saying some really bullshit things about him back when he still watched GNT.

“Veskora, with GNT,” he said, remembering the way and manner in which he’d seen guild-leaders “call on” members of the press.

“Thank you, Sir Calador,” she said with incredible politeness. For a moment, Zach thought maybe she was going to be nice to him, as her tone really was friendly and pleasant. But then came the question. “You told Paxton of GDN that you believe in facing accountability. But your actions are not limited just to that one specific incident with the dragon. Just two weeks ago, you and Princess Kalana Vayra sparked a worldwide panic by triggering some kind of quest event, which not only caused global travel delays, but even led to economic disruption for the Whispery Woods region. So, when you tell us that this is all about you ‘not reading your abilities carefully,’ how can we feel comforted when your actions clearly extend beyond what you convey as one single mistake? How can humanity feel reassured when you seem to display a pattern of poor decision-making?”

****

“Uh oh,” Kalana said. “He’s mad. I can tell.”

Once again, things had ground to halt, and this time, it was Zach’s fault. From the moment an adventurer had run over and shouted out that Zach was holding a press conference—something nobody saw coming—everyone had basically glued themselves to their phones to watch. Well, everyone but Eilea, who didn’t need a phone. She claimed she could see and hear everything in real time.

“You’re right,” Eilea said with a sigh. “He’s angry.”

Kalana pursed her lips. That mean lady asked such an unfair question! Kalana wasn’t the only one who thought so, either. There was a general disgust among many of those here who knew and liked Zach, especially the adventurers. Fluffles was angriest of all. The kitty cat, who was snuggling next to Ruby and Chumpkenwiffles while the three watched on a tablet someone had set down—which Kalana thought was super-duper cute!—was hissing and meowing angrily, likely the most outraged of everyone. Ruby actually had to talk him out of going to Slopes of Dal’Zarrah and ‘eating’ her.

To Eilea, Kalana said, “Um, I got an idea.”

“Hm?”

“My mom’s really good at this stuff. Maybe she can come up with an answer, and you can transmit it to his mind. Actually, that might really work! Umm, if she tells you what to tell him, and you—”

“Absolutely not,” Fylwen replied.

“Huh? Why not”

Fylwen folded her arms and gave Kalana a stern-faced look. “He needs to be able to do this sort of thing on his own or he will never grow into the man I’ve come to believe he can be. Would you not agree, daughter?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Your mother is right, young princess,” Eilea said. “I can send him feelings of calm and let him know we’re all right there with him, but he has to face this himself.”

Kalana pouted. “So unfair.”

*****

Like a warm embrace from afar, Zach immediately became aware of Eilea’s presence, and as he did, he realized she’d reconnected with him just for the purpose of sending him her support, which he appreciated. He knew that the entire world would probably watch this. More people than he could ever envision. If he blew up and lost his cool, he’d be viewed as a dangerous threat or an incompetent fool—or both.

“Sir Calador?” the reporter asked, making him realize he’d gone silent for too long.

Zach wet his lips, realizing he couldn’t hesitate for all that much longer. “I’m only seventeen,” he began, pausing yet again as he tried to think how best to reply. It was such a brutal question. When he sensed the reporter about to cut in, he resumed, realizing that he’d paused at a bad spot. Very quickly, he added, “But that does not mean I’m making excuses because of my age.” This time, as he paused yet again, she at least had the decency of waiting for him to continue speaking, which he soon did.

“I guess I deserve some of this criticism,” he said. “Much like my former teacher, Lord Oren, I also grew up poor. My mom died before I was old enough to realize how much I lost. My dad was…” He had to really dig deep to say this next part, which was a lie by necessity. “My dad committed suicide before I got to tell him I loved him. Kalana—excuse me, Princess Vayra—she also grew up in a really tough environment, but she’s told you guys all about that, and it’s not my story to tell.”

He paused a moment to swallow; his throat had dried somewhat. “The reason I’m saying this stuff is because the two of us are still struggling with adapting to our new, elevated positions in life. In a perfect world, we would have come forward and apologized to you—and the world—personally for causing any kind of fear or disruption when we mistakenly triggered that quest. Instead, we both allowed people to do it for us. Lord Oren spoke in my defense, and Queen Vayra spoke on behalf of Kal—Princess Vayra’s. We are still young and we’re learning. I speak for both of us when I say we are sorry that we did not come forward and address the public immediately after it happened like we should have.”

Zach had no idea if that was a good or bad response. The only thing he could be absolutely certain of was that Kalana would not mind him apologizing on both of their behalves. Kalana was such a softie that she’d apologize for anything if you asked her nicely enough. And more so, Zach would willingly bet all the gold on Galterra that, if he were to take out his phone right now and check social media, Kalana had likely already drafted an apology statement and published it. Hell, she’d probably end up recording a video as well. The thought actually threatened to make him chuckle, but he stopped himself.

The moment he stopped speaking, he pointed at another reporter, and this one, an older man, seemed to pick up right where the woman left off. “You say you’re sorry, but that’s still not an explanation. We want to know why this happened and what steps are being taken to prevent this from happening again.”

These questions were actually a whole lot easier than the last one, and Zach was able to answer without having to pause for thought. “Excellent questions,” he said. “Um, so to answer the first one: Princess Vayra’s island has lots of mobs on it, and by hunting one of these mobs, we spawned a quest that led us to another area on the island. As a result of completing that quest, we triggered a worldwide event, but one that’s not dangerous to anybody.”

“And my second question?” the man asked. “Regarding what steps are being taken?”

“Oh, they’ve already been taken,” Zach assured the man. “Kalana’s mo—Queen Vayra shut her island down and won’t let us hunt there anymore until she’s consulted with her archives or something and made sure that there’s nothing else like that going on. So, until she gives us permission and reopens the island for hunting, we aren’t going to be leveling there anymore. So you don’t actually have to worry about anything like that happening again.”

Zach had hoped this question would put the issue to rest. It didn’t. And while it didn’t quite make things “worse,” it certainly didn’t help in changing the topic. The next woman he called on fired off her question immediately, and this time, it wasn’t even really about him at all.

“Sir Calador, are you saying that the decision of when—or if—this island is going to be, to quote you, ‘reopened,’ is one that is going to be made solely by the Elvish queen with no input from the other guilds or public safety advocacy groups?”

Zach’s mouth opened, but he did not release any words. How the hell was he supposed to answer something like this? Now, he was treading dangerously close to speaking for a guild that wasn’t his own. Or wait. What the fuck did he just think?

The Royal Roses isn’t my guild either, he chided himself. I can’t believe I just thought of them as ‘my own.’ Gods-be-damned!

Without any clue as to what he could say, he decided to punt the question. He’d seen people do this before on the news. “That matter is something you’ll have to consult with Queen Vayra on,” he said. “I can’t speak towards Elvish policy.”

For a moment, Zach thought that, now, surely, he’d have put the matter to rest. But Gods, it only made things way, way worse. Now, dozens of them were shouting out questions to him, all of which were about Queen Vayra, who he’d somehow brought into this conversation by mistake, and who was now facing the brunt of their attacks. As Zach tried to restore order and select someone else to call upon, he received a message on his phone. He read it. Then he read it a second time in amazement. Returning his phone to his pocket, he straightened his back and faced the crowd, his hands by his side.

“Um, excuse me,” he said. Surprisingly, they quieted upon hearing him speak. “So, I just learned that Queen Vayra will be holding a press conference at 8PM tonight in Shores of Wrath with the People of Virtue to address the issue of Elendroth’s safety.”

Oh, Gods, I hope she’s not mad, Zach thought. My press conference is creating a chain of press conferences. How the fuck did this happen? At this rate, even Fluffles is going to have one.

He decided to make absolutely sure he dd not implicate his cat in anything, because there could be no nightmare worse than Fluffles being ordered to lie on top of a podium and take questions from reporters. The cat would answer each question with a bolt of lightning, killing a number of them. Just the idea of that caused him to shiver apprehensively.

Zach’s phone vibrated twice more. “Excuse me, one moment. Guild business.”

Take two more questions. I’m almost there. Tell them I will speak briefly + questions.

Also, you’re doing great so far. You don’t have to make them love you. Your job is to make people feel heard and understood.

Zach smiled at the sign of confidence from Mr. Oren. Under such intense scrutiny, his smile did not go unnoticed, now requiring Zach to explain it. “Lord Oren will be joining me here and will speak briefly and take a few questions as well. As for me, I can take two more. Okay, you—from N-B-O-N.”

The reporter he called on was a younger woman around Mr. Oren’s age, and when she spoke, there was an earnest sincerity in her voice that set her apart from the others. “Sir Calador,” she said. “I’m Emisa from N-B-O-N. First, I just want to say that I truly feel some of my colleagues in here are being overly harsh to you. You’ve risked your life to protect us and we all owe you our gratitude.”

“Th-thanks,” Zach said, genuinely touched and a bit surprised.

“Having said that,” she continued. “We are all normal, level-1 people. And when we sit down to have lunch with our families or feed our children, and the sky goes dark, and we start hearing explosions in the sky, I really hope you can understand that this is…this is a very frightening thing to us. I say this only because I’d like you, sir, to please make a commitment to address the public and the media from now on if for any reason you plan to take—or accidentally take—actions that can startle or spread fear.”

The answer to this question was obvious, but Zach still took a moment to meet her eyes before giving it. With actual sincerity, he said, “Yes. I promise you.” He meant it, too.

Finally, he called on one last reporter, who wanted to know if it was true that the Royal Roses were going to raise regional tariffs on produce. “I’m not up to date with that information,” he replied simply and truthfully. “You’ll have to consult someone from the Royal Bureau of Taxation Policy for more information.”

The fact he knew that was a testament to how much Gods-be-damned fucking news he’d been consuming these past two weeks. He could hardly believe he was speaking those words even as he said them. “Thank you.”

As if on cue, Mr. Oren, who’d probably arrived several minutes earlier and who’d likely been waiting around for him to finish, now approached the spot in the park where Zach was currently standing, and then he took his place beside Zach, shook hands with him, nodded, and smiled. “Go easy on him,” he said to the reporters as he turned to face the bulk of them. Many of the camera operators were kneeling on the grass. “It’s his first day in Dal’Zarrah. Let’s not make him too afraid to come back.”

The press laughed immediately as though charmed. Mr. Oren, extending his arms widely, once more faced Zach. And with a much louder speaking voice, he said, “Sir Calador, it’s a pleasure to have you visit our city. I didn’t expect this particular venue to address the press, but this is far from the first impromptu press conference to be held here in Peace Park, which stands as a monument to the heroes who died for human peace in the battle against the Orcish Invaders over two-thousand years ago. Without their sacrifice, none of us would be here today.”

The audience applauded loudly. If Zach was a celebrity, then to the people of this city, Mr. Oren was a super celebrity. When he spoke, he did so with such grace, elegance, and poise that by the time he’d finished his first sentence, Zach finally understood why he’d switched professions, and now, he agreed with it, too. Mr. Oren should never have been an adventurer. He was meant to do this.

“You know,” he said, looking around and meeting the eyes of the people before him. “When I accepted the honor of my current station, I did so for one reason alone: because I believe in humanity, and I believe we can change for the better.” He closed his eyes briefly, pausing at just the right time and taking a deep breath. “When Sir Calador called me earlier today and told me he’d like to discuss reassuring humanity’s neighbors, I told him to fly up here as soon as possible. And he did, as you can all see. Because that’s the kind of young man Zach is. He recognizes his mistakes, and he grows from them.”

At first, Zach felt kind of icky, because the lie contained a compliment that he didn’t deserve. But as Mr. Oren continued to speak, Zach realized that he wasn’t really lying. Only the first few words were untrue, but they were inconsequential. From that point on, he tried not to get emotional as Mr. Oren not only defended him, but finally relieved at least some of the emotional burden of secrecy that Zach had been carrying around for a while now. Zach would never forget the words he spoke in this moment.

“Let me start by saying what Sir Calador told you about me is true. I was, until recently, his teacher. He told you much about me, but he said little about himself. For example, what he didn’t tell you was how, as a student, he nearly died one night trying to stop a vicious criminal from kidnapping one of his classmates. Earlier, I heard him tell you all that his father committed suicide. But I want you to know that this is not true, and that he was forced to tell you this. You see, Zach does not have the clearance or rank to dispense the truth. But I do.”

Mr. Oren again looked at numerous members of the crowd, including reporters. “Sir Calador’s father did not die by suicide. He was murdered—by a man you all know as Varsh Gellor, formerly of the Royal Roses!” The crowd erupted in gasps, yet Mr. Oren continued to speak, now even more loudly and more emotionally. “I know because I was there that night. His father was thrown out of the window of his apartment in cold blood. I attest to this myself. I saw his body on the concrete. Sir Calador was instructed to remain silent, and this is a wrong that has been inflicted on him. And as I promised you the day that I was given the honor of serving in the Lords of Justice, I will speak for justice!”

“Mr. Oren,” Zach whispered, trying not to be swept away by emotion. “Are you sure you’re allowed to—”

“The student Varsh tried to kidnap and sell,” he continued, “was none other than Princess Kalana Vayra.”

Now, there was a true and genuine uproar: from the crowd, from the reporters, and even from some of the peacekeepers. Mr. Oren had to practically shout to continue being heard as outrage and shock permeated the crowd, taking over one person after the next.

“Yet here he is, a loyal, dedicated servant of the Royal Roses, putting the people above himself. He’s speaking for the guild that murdered his father and tried to sell into slavery the love of his life, and he’s doing it because he feels it’s right: not because he has to. Has Sir Calador made mistakes? Yes. Has he learned from them. Yes! So let me just be clear on this one point: I am proud to work with this young man on reuniting our world, and I implore the global community, in particular the Dwarvish people, to forgive him.”

Forgive me for what? Zach wondered. I haven’t seen a Dwarf since I was a five.

“And for those of you who have been glued to your screens in recent days waiting for word of what is to come, I have a major announcement to make to all of you. This was going to be made a few hours from now, but since I am here before you, I suppose you may as well hear it early.” With strength and determination in his voice, he lifted his chin and said, “I have just spoken with High-Lord Besh. We, the Lords of Justice, officially decline to surrender, and we will never bow to the tyranny of the Guild of Gentlemen. I call upon all other guilds of humanity to stand with us and fight: just as we did when the dragon threatened to reduce our world to ash. People of North Bastia, I implore each and every one of you to remember just one thing: we, of humanity, did not bow down before a dragon, and we will not bow down before a bomb!”

An explosion of noise from the crowd reached such an intense volume that Zach could not hear what Mr. Oren said to him immediately following his remarks. As if understanding this, Mr. Oren smiled and gently shoved Zach as if to indicate he should begin walking away. Jimmy followed. That…was unexpected.

Now, out of the spotlight, he watched as Mr. Oren stood there and took questions for over forty-five minutes. Zach, who truly believed he’d done pretty well, realized Mr. Oren was on a whole different level. He really was born to do this. It was no wonder he’d ended up where he was.

As Zach watched him in action, he maintained an upright posture and continued to keep a calm, confident look on his face, as he could likely still be seen on the side of whatever screen or device people were viewing this on.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to do this again for a long, long time.

Chapter 142: Indoctrination

Chapter 142: Indoctrination

Gaelan Malakor could actually feel himself becoming stronger as he equipped the exotic-looking gauntlets given to him by his guild. Yet the palpable increase in power was still nothing when compared to how great he felt once it was joined by the rest of his new equipment. He could hardly believe it; the sense of strength running through his body was unlike anything he’d experienced before. Finally, his guild was doing right by him. Without question, he’d earned each and every piece of his new gear though so many years of loyalty and dedication.

Formerly the seventh in command of the Guild of Gentlemen, the death of the king had boosted him to sixth. And now, with the rightfully reacquired loot from the dragon having at last undergone an extensive process to properly sort and optimize it for guild distribution, Gaelan had received his allotment. Prior to this, during the siege of Shadowfall Coast, the loot had been distributed haphazardly among the guild’s defenders, as it had been a time of emergency and they hadn’t yet had the chance to figure out who was best suited to receive what. But as promised, the dragon’s loot had been reclaimed then redistributed—this time for good. Gods, it sure was one hell of a bonus.

Wife’s gonna flip when she sees me like this, he thought, grinning at himself in the mirror from the master bedroom in his three-story home in Shadowfall Coast.

“Dad, you look so cool,” said Jeanna, his 14-year-old daughter.

“Think so, honey?”

“Yah!”

Right now, he wore a shimmering breastplate made of dark silver that had the face of a dragon embossed between the chest area. His gauntlets, a matching silver in color, ran from his fingertips all the way up to his elbows, and from the top to bottom, they contained dozens of fin-like protrusions that extended an inch or two off the gauntlet and were equally spaced apart. They weren’t quite sharp enough to be called spikes, and they appeared more decorative in nature, but still, they contributed greatly towards his overall new look.

“Put on the helm!” Jeanna said.

He chuckled. “Okay, okay.”

His daughter handed him his brand-new helm, which matched the silver of the rest of his new equipment. It covered only the top half of his face, stopping just below the middle of his cheeks. It also framed his eyes in such a way as to make him seem fierce and dangerous. Two sharp, curved edges extended up and above each earlobe, and though it fit snugly, it was actually not uncomfortable. But even if it had been, he’d still wear it just the same, as it was a dramatic improvement over the junk he’d been wearing for the past twenty years. Unlike adventurers, members of political guilds rarely had a large pool of items to choose from.

I doubt I’ll ever get anything better than this, he thought.

Truly, it was difficult to believe that all of his new items—including his new leg armor—were only uncommon in rarity, as the stats on each were so much greater than even the rarest items that could drop at his family’s private mob pens on his estate in southeast Tomb of Fire. Gaelan’s father, now retired from guild life, had left the estate to him, just as his father had done before him. The Malakor line was strong, and as he looked down with love and affection at his daughter, he was pleased to see her eyes light up with pride in him.

I don’t even recognize myself, he thought, amused. He was amazed by the image reflecting back at him in the mirror.

“So cool,” Jeanna said again. “Can’t believe you’re my dad.” Upon speaking those words, her smile abruptly faded and turned to what looked like an annoyed frown.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just my friends make such gross comments about you all the time.”

“The good kind of gross or the bad kind?”

“There is no good kind!” she said, slapping at his side.

Gaelan laughed. He thought it was cute that his daughter’s friends all had crushes on him. He was a tall, powerfully built man with straight brown hair, a taut jaw, and calloused hands from so many hours spent in weapons training. He spent a great deal of time refining himself and staying sharp. Having participated in numerous open-field battles throughout his life, he kept himself strong and did not neglect the need for regular sparring sessions as far too many of his fellow guild members tended to do.

I need to make sure Jeanna learns to fight properly, too, he thought. She’s been begging me to teach her. Maybe it’s time I started training her before she picks up too many lazy habits from the pens.

Put simply, it took far more than hunting carefully curated mobs on private estates to be strong. Sure, that was great for leveling up and acquiring physical power via stats, but it was no substitute for real-world combat experience. That was likely why a level-20 adventurer could often defeat a level-40 member of a political guild in a fight. The stats themselves just weren’t enough to triumph over someone who knew their way around a blade. And this, of course, was something Gaelan had figured out early on.

From the moment he was old enough to begin leveling, Gaelan had never been satisfied with the process of safely killing mobs on his father’s estate then calling it a day. No. That didn’t cut it. For this reason, he had become one of several high-ranking members of the Guild of Gentlemen who worked hard to fight on equal footing with the adventurers. And now, at long last, he’d finally been given the kind of equipment that could really bring out the best in his skills.

“Your new weapon also looks super cool, dad,” Jeanna said, covering her mouth as though surprised. “King Alistair gave that to you?”

“He sure did,” he said, patting his daughter’s curly brown hair before bending down to pick up his powerful new weapon.

Unlike his armor, which had been delivered to his residence by a courier working for the guild, his new armament had been personally handed to him by Sir Alistair Morrison—now King Alistair Morrison—in the hours following the man’s coronation a few days earlier. This was also a rare—or blue quality—weapon. Picking it up, Gaelan glanced at it approvingly.

The weapon was a sturdy, double-bladed spear made of an even darker type of silver. Both bladed ends had highly decorative, curved handles—known as wings—that formed something vaguely similar to dual dragon’s heads, each releasing a small, but eerily cool jet of fire like that produced by a lighter. When spinning, swinging, or striking with the spear, the fire would make a “pfft” sound and begin to release smoke as well.

“I’m so, so jealous,” Jeanna said, beaming at him. “I wish I had a weapon like that.”

“But you will,” he said to his daughter, meeting her eyes. “Everything that’s mine will be yours someday, Jeanna. And then, one day, you’ll pass it down to your children, too.”

Jeanna cringed like someone becoming aware of a bad scent. “Yuck! I’m never having kids or getting married.”

At this, Gaelan couldn’t help but release a bout of deep laughter. “Oh no, sweetie? You say that now, but you’ll see.”

“Nope. I’m never getting married! I’m gonna be my own woman. I don’t need a husband.”

“Love strikes you faster than steel. You’ll understand some day.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” she said skeptically.

Gently setting down his spear so it leaned against the closet next to the mirror, he looked across his bedroom, out of the window, and saw a bunch of girls and boys Jeanna’s age forming up on the street outside of their driveway.

“Jeanna, your friends are waiting for you.”

She sighed. “I don’t wanna do cleanup today.”

He gave her a loving, but strict look. “Everyone has to do their part. We were hit very, very bad.”

“I know, but I hate shoveling rubble. The other day, I saw a dead body.” A grim look crossed her features. “I’m scared of seeing another one.”

He knelt down so that he was level with her height, and then he kissed her forehead. “Sweetie, you shouldn’t be. Every time you find one, you’re bringing closure to a family whose loved one has gone missing.”

The civilian death toll in Shadowfall Coast was so high that it sent shivers of rage traveling down Gaelan’s spine every time he was reminded of it. The Royal Roses, the Lords of Justice—all of them. They were all such terrible, despicable human beings. Shadowfall Coast was a peaceful, quiet city, and the people here had been utterly devastated. Yet all the media seemed to talk about was the victims in Ogre’s Axe. Certainly, as a father, Gaelan felt for them, and if it had been up to him, he never would’ve launched the bomb, but regardless—nobody cared about their dead citizens. The world was against the Guild of Gentlemen. And that was why, even though King Morrison was an immoral, king-slaying, murderous tyrant, Gaelan would never turn against him, as he was at least fighting for humanity: for them. He was the only one willing to stand up for their lives and their future. The future of girls like Jeanna.

“Be brave and help your friends,” he said to her. “Everyone has to do their part.”

“I know, daddy.” She made another sigh. “Can me and you and mom go out tonight? Every time you say we will, you end up having work.”

With a pained tone of voice, he shook his head. “I can’t. But I promise we will soon.”

“Why not?” she asked, pulling away from him and folding her arms.

He shrugged. “Tomorrow’s Vim’s sentencing, and we’re short-staffed. They want me on guard duty at least until tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be gone all night and all morning. Don’t worry: I swear I’ll make it up to you, Jeanna.”

“You’d better! Last time you said that, you—huh?” She paused and removed her phone from her pocket. “My phone’s been blowing up. Everyone’s texting me all of a sudden. What’s going…” She scowled, her face contorting with obvious disgust.

“What is it now?”

“It’s him.”

“Him? Who?”

She turned her phone around while putting the sound on speaker, and a rush of pure disgust immediately took hold of Gaelan as he heard the voice that came out of it. “Everyone has to be held accountable for their actions,” said the voice from his daughter’s phone. “And I, like my unfairly imprisoned guild-leader, Vim Alazar, believe we live in a civilized world, and no one of any level or race has a right to exist free of law and justice or to threaten the lives of others.”

“Turn that garbage off,” Gaelan said. “I don’t want to see or hear that murdering psychopath. Everything he says is a lie, anyway.” He pointed his finger at his daughter. “I don’t want to see you listening to that ever again or I’m taking your phone away.”

“Relax, dad, I’m just keeping up to date with what’s going on.”

“I don’t care, Jeanna. That boy’s words are poison. Look what he did to our city! Him and his…” Gaelan took a breath, trying to calm his sudden bout of rage. “Turn it off.”

“All right, Gods.”

One of the fears that many in the Guild of Gentlemen had was that the Royal Roses were using the popularity of people like the Elvish princess or the war-criminal Zachys Calador to influence young minds into being more sympathetic to their guild. But it wasn’t going to work! Not over his dead body! Gods, it was infuriating how these sick bastards always seemed to come for the kids. That was what they’d always try whenever everything else failed. It was part of their indoctrination efforts, and it served as yet another reason why King Morrison was the only man who could protect their society from the evil that lurked outside of their borders.

Having been unable to conquer their people militarily, the other guilds were now trying to influence the children by manufacturing celebrities out of whole cloth. Just look at the way they were lionizing that NPC zombie, Grundor. The dragon raid was only weeks ago, and they’d already begun airing a TV show and printing a line of clothing and other merchandise. Luckily, it was banned in Shadowfall Coast, and Tomb of Fire was doing its best to crack down on it—which was more difficult given it was a giant city. But more needed to be done to protect children from being seduced into a cult.

That’s exactly what it is, he thought. It’s a cult.

“Go join your friends,” he told his daughter, once more retrieving his spear. “And no more listening to that boy, or the Elvish girl, either.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

“I’m serious!”

“I said I won’t!”

He didn’t believe her. Tonight, he might have to reactivate the parental controls.

Chapter 143: An Uncertain World

Chapter 143: An Uncertain World

Having spent way too much time today in front of cameras, Zach was glad to be relieved of the pressure. He sank deeper into the comfortable leather seating of Mr. Oren’s luxurious limousine DEHV with Jimmy beside him, and he relaxed while Mr. Oren, who sat across from him, beamed at him with a pleasant smile. Truthfully, Zach hadn’t known how Mr. Oren was going to react, but he was glad to see him appearing pleased. It meant he must’ve done okay, right?

As if to ease Zach’s doubts, Mr. Oren fired him a thumbs-up. “You were awesome, my man. But…a little bit of warning in advance of things would’ve been nice. Even still: it was only a matter of time before you had to answer to the public, and you really acquitted yourself well.” His smile widened. “You’ve surprised a lot of people—in a good way.”

It was still shocking to see Mr. Oren in his current state. He’d changed so much so quickly. His lab coat was nowhere to be seen, and he now wore contacts instead of those quirky cat-eye glasses. His white uniform was adorned with pins and medals, and he looked like the historical depiction of a fleet admiral. As Zach sighed with relief at the positive reaction, he turned his head to the side as the last part of what Mr. Oren said caused him some confusion.

“How do you know I surprised a lot of people?” Zach asked. In response, Mr. Oren lifted his phone then shook it as if to indicate the answer was obvious—which to be fair, it was. “Oh, right. You’ve probably been talking to the other guilds about this.” He paused a moment, then said, “But just so you know, I did try calling and texting you, but you’re so hard to get in touch with these days.”

“I know I am,” he admitted, his tone apologetic. “And I’m sorry for that. Regardless, I’m not really complaining. Truth is, sooner or later you would’ve had to come here to Dal’Zarrah and address the media. It’s one less issue for me to worry about now. But above all things, I’m just so proud of how you performed. I mean that, Zach.”

The words invoked a powerful emotion within Zach that he couldn’t quite describe. It was like a mixture of joy and pride. A few seconds later, however, it faded away, and a sense of gratitude swelled inside his chest, replacing it. “Thank you for what you told them all—about my dad, I mean. I can’t believe you got away with telling everybody the truth about that.” Zach exhaled. “It was really risky of you, but Gods, I appreciate it.”

Mr. Oren nodded. “The truth deserved to be known, and you deserved to be free of keeping it secret. Having said that, if I can be honest with you, Zach, it wasn’t as risky as you might think. Naturally, I cleared it with the Royal Roses first. It would’ve been incredibly irresponsible for me to do otherwise no matter how ethically correct.”

“Wait, seriously?” Zach asked, amazed. “They actually agreed to let you say that?”

“They did,” he confirmed. “To reward you for your excellent press conference and, in my own personal opinion, to improve your view of the guild. Though you never willingly joined, their view of you changed because of your press conference. Whether you meant to do so or not, you’ve caused them to believe you are truly one of them, and in turn, they’ve enthusiastically accepted you. I believe they intended this to be a gesture of what they feel is their goodwill. The message, I think, is obvious: that ensuring you are content with the guild is worth a small hit to their image.”

“I bet it’s worth a whole lot more than just that,” said the person sitting next to Mr. Oren; he was a tall but very thin man wearing a professional, light-blue-colored business suit. He had a tablet on his lap and a pair of reading glasses on his face. Zach couldn’t quite remember his name, though he recalled Mr. Oren introducing him earlier as his chief secretary. “Zach, you’re a very brave and clever young man, and I sure wish you were with us in Lords of Justice.”

Zach paused to consider what he could and couldn’t say in front of this man. It wasn’t because he had any kind of reason not to trust him, but more so that Adamus, as part of their deal, had forbidden him from sharing or discussing certain details among anyone who had not already been included within Zach’s existing circle of contacts.

“Thank you,” Zach said to him. Then, as he contemplated what to say next, his attention became diverted as Jimmy called out to him for what had to be the tenth time in the last five minutes.

“Yo, Zach, look at that one,” he said, pressing his pointer finger against the glass window at something off to their left.

“Whoah,” Zach whispered.

Though Zach had a lot he wanted to say to Mr. Oren, for the past few minutes, both he and Jimmy had not been able to stop themselves from constantly looking out of the window. The spectacular sights as they got closer towards the center of the city were mesmerizing. Ahead and to their left was a museum so large it spanned four city blocks. Outside of it were costumed characters from humanity’s past: actors who were taking photos and in some cases dancing with the pedestrians who encountered them. Zach recognized some, but not all—though he did notice one in particular that was decidedly not a historical figure.

He barked out a laugh. “Look, Jimmy,” he said, pointing at one of the actors. “It’s Grundor.”

“Wow, they nailed that costume. They even made it seem like a name and level are floating above his head.” Jimmy laughed. “It looks just like Grundor. Shit, I didn’t know his ass was so famous here. I see that dude in Angelica’s like all the time.”

“He’s really famous now,” Zach said. “He’s like the fucking—”

“Language, both of you,” Mr. Oren said disapprovingly, to which they both apologized.

Zach found his eyes glued to the scenery as the DEHV bumped along and made jerking, unsteady motions. The vehicle was moving in a very irregular way, often slowing down or speeding up without warning. This was very different from the Whispery Woods, a region far more accustomed to unbearable traffic conditions. Back there, DEHV speed on all main roads was automated based on volume so that, no matter how bad the traffic, they traveled with only very minor fluctuations.

One of the first things Mr. Oren had said when him and Jimmy had gotten into the DEHV was to excuse the “unpleasant” travel conditions. Apparently, tourism here had picked up a lot recently, and so the DEHVs had been relegated to ground travel, something unusual for Dal’Zarrah. Interestingly, despite how jarring Zach found the irregular motion, Jimmy appeared to be totally accustomed to it. He didn’t even seem to realize anything was out of the ordinary at all. But this actually made sense to Zach, as he recalled that Jimmy had grown up traveling around the world in “cars.” So this was probably normal to him.

It’s probably the DEHVs that he finds strange.

Despite much needing to be said, Mr. Oren seemed to have no problem giving them a moment to gawk at the sights of the city. Even still, Zach felt guilty. He knew he was on a limited time budget and that he didn’t come all this way to play tourist. “You can take pictures if you want,” the secretary person said to him. “Everyone does their first time here.”

Zach shook his head. “Not until I come back with Kal. She’ll be sad that she missed out on the experience with me. In fact, I’m not looking at anything else until I bring her here and we can see everything together.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Mr. Oren said. It was a reaction that Zach found to be confusing.

“Huh? Why?”

“Because it means you’ll return with her. She needs to come eventually as well, especially since she’s slated to become the governor of humanity’s largest city, population wise. I hope you’ll be able to convince her to take the time to do so in the near future.”

At this, Zach couldn’t control the loud, but brief guffaw that escaped him. “Gods, you don’t have to worry about that at all. Kalana’s not me. She won’t take any convincing to show up here. If it’s something that she has to do, she will.”

“Good point,” Mr. Oren said, sharing a laugh with him. Then, with a bit more seriousness in his voice, he changed the topic of conversation. “Zach, I have to ask. Just how did you learn to do what you just did, my man? I think everyone who’s ever met you is wondering that right now.”

Zach had actually been expecting the question. “Believe it or not, it’s from watching a ton of news while I was on my vacation. Well, some of it is, at least. A big part of it is also because of stuff I learned from Fylwen. She’s been teaching me about how things work and all these different dynamics at play.”

“Interesting. Is that all?”

“Uh, well, I’ve also been having imaginary conversations with reporters in my head lately,” Zach said. “It’s because I knew the day would come when I got cornered by them again.” Zach shuddered at the memory of how badly he’d botched things after “escaping” his hospital room in Tomb of Fire. He’d really humiliated himself. “Anyways, I wanted to make sure I didn’t look like an idiot the way I did the last time.” Zach lifted his hand and scratched an itch on his head. “I didn’t realize I was going to end up stuck there for so long, though.”

Mr. Oren sat up straighter, and he opened his mouth, but said nothing. He held the position for a moment, and then finally, he spoke. “Zach,” he began, pausing yet again, which gave Zach the indication he was going to say something serious and potentially displeasing. “I just want you to understand the significance and importance of what you said about meeting with the various world leaders. That was a very important answer you gave—and it was the correct one, too.”

“Well, thanks,” Zach said. “It felt right to me at the time. I saw all the things GNT and N-B-O-N were saying about me, so I figured they’d lose their ability to criticize me like that if I—”

“No, wait, please,” Mr. Oren said, raising his palm. “I need you to understand, Zach, that those words must now be transformed into actions.”

Zach shrugged. “Okay, sure, whatever.”

“Meaning,” he continued, “that you’ll be expected to meet with foreign leaders and answer their questions.”

“Yep, no problem.”

“Really?”

Zach nodded. “Yeah, we’ll set something up eventually.”

At this, Mr. Oren made a slight grunt. “No, not eventually. Soon.”

“Like a few months from now, yeah.”

“No, Zach. This is what I was worried about. You’re not being serious. You probably think you can treat this with the same level of commitment as a man telling an old friend they should catch up some time. We need you to be ready to face the global community in a week or two at the most.”

Taken aback, Zach nearly leapt out of his seat. “A week or two?” he exclaimed. “Fuck that! Ahh, sorry, my language, I know. But look. I don’t have time for that. I’ve got like a billion other things I have to do.”

Mr. Oren narrowed his eyes, which told Zach he wasn’t in a very negotiating mood, at least not when it came to this topic. “It’s not a choice you need to make, Zach. You’ve already committed to doing it.”

“Yeah, but, like, you know, eventually. Why’s it got to be so soon?”

Mr. Oren shifted positions in his seat so that he leaned closer to Zach. “You scared a great many people during your two…let’s call them ‘incidents.’ But as much as that might have aroused fear in the human population, at the end of the day, you are also human. You are one of us. And you’re someone who fought to save countless human lives. For this reason, while there are many, many people who have concerns about you, on the whole of it, you’re still very popular in human society and most people have already long forgiven you for startling them. This, however, is not the case in the rest of the world.”

Zach listened intently as Mr. Oren began to speak slowly and more forcefully. “The rest of the world views you as a terrifying, dangerous human and a threat to their safety and wellbeing. And nowhere is this truer than it is in Dwarven society, where I regret to tell you that you are outright hated and despised.”

Zach threw up his arms in confusion. “Fucking why?” he asked—apologizing an instant later for his profanity. “I haven’t talked to a Dwarf, seen a Dwarf, or said anything about the Dwarves in basically forever!”

Mr. Oren knocked on the plastic divider behind him. “Pull over a second,” he ordered.

Confused and somewhat unsettled, Zach felt a rising sense of dread inside of him as the vehicle ground to a halt, pulling into a parking space just down the street from a gigantic coliseum with a tremendous banner advertising a performance from one of “Galterra’s greatest musicians” that would be taking place later tonight. As the DEHV came to a full stop, he swallowed down the nervous bile that rose up in his throat.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Here’s what you don’t seem to know…”

Mr. Oren closed his eyes a moment before reopening them and staring at Zach. He then informed Zach of something so awful it sent waves of disbelief and denial shimmering through him. He told Zach that, during their fight against the Ziragoth adds, Zach’s ability, Doomsday Slash, had caused Earthquakes in the Dwarvish continent, which resulted in numerous cave-ins of their underground dwellings. He claimed there’d been eight-hundred casualties along with thousands of injuries and the destruction of homes and businesses with damages in the billions.

“Wh-why haven’t I heard about this until now?” Zach asked, shouting out the words. “How come nobody told me? How come nobody ever reported on this?”

“The media have actually reported on it, but it’s been buried under other stories. It’s considered unimportant in human media, and so it’s no surprise you haven’t encountered it. Sadly, even if the news spent more time covering the story, most humans would still just tune it out and not care. There’s a lot of work to be done on that front.”

Zach wasn’t sure how to feel. So many thoughts raced through him. All this was a shock to him. “I think…I think I’m going to be sick,” he whispered, feeling queasy and unsettled.

“Before you do,” Mr. Oren said, “please know that there are many, many facts you’re unaware of that serve as mitigating factors.”

“Like what?” Zach asked, his throat beginning to dry.

“Well, for starters, the cave-ins were not entirely your fault. We were able to send independent investigators to the various scenes, and more are heading over there to continue researching what happened before we finally fight this out in the courts. But so far, human engineering experts found that structural inconsistencies and neglect played an outsized factor in those specific areas that saw the cave-ins. Furthermore, systematic failures on every level in the Dwarvish emergency services contributed to a slow response. So, do you see, Zach? There are numerous, pivotal details that greatly, greatly mitigate blame. If a random earthquake had occurred, the same thing would likely have happened. You are not a murderer, and you did not kill these people. What you have done is far closer in moral culpability to causing an accident by driving a faulty DEHV.”

Zach, despite Mr. Oren’s words, continued to have a lingering feeling of sickness that resided inside of him. Thank the Gods he had Jascaila in his life. Knowing he could talk to her about all this helped him keep it together despite the awful things he was being told. During all this, Jimmy was being totally quiet, showing no reaction at all as if not having any idea of what to say, and for that, Zach couldn’t blame him. He himself wasn’t sure how to respond. Thus, as he opened his mouth to speak, he decided to ask a question rather than respond directly to Mr. Oren’s claims.

“What do you mean by ‘fight it out in the courts?’”

Mr. Oren pointed towards somewhere outside of the window without even looking as if to gesture at the general city itself. “As I’m sure you know,” he said, “we’re working hard to get humanity readmitted into global trade. There are numerous obstacles to that end, and the biggest one, by a mile, is the situation with the Guild of Gentlemen. Nothing is going to happen until that’s resolved. But there are many other issues, too. One of them is humanity again submitting itself to the global courts.”

“Global courts? I think I learned about that in history. We haven’t gone there in a long time, right?”

“Correct,” Mr. Oren said. “Since before either of us were born. To put things simply, the Dwarves are suing the UCH for damages, and this, for sure, is going to be viewed as a test of humanity’s commitment towards reconnecting itself. Though it rarely makes the news, humanity is served with court orders all the time, and typically, they’re laughed off and ignored. But not this time.” Determination filled his eyes. “Zach, if we ever want to again be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the world, we need to answer their summons and show up to litigate this in the global courts, and then we need to obey the outcome as well.”

“Will we win?”

“Not a chance,” Mr. Oren replied immediately, his tone leaving no room for doubt. “At least not if by ‘winning’ you mean we are found not responsible. No, we will absolutely be ordered to pay restitution to the families of those killed and hurt, and in my opinion, that is fair and just: but the question is how much? For the first time in decades, human guild representatives have been invited to their mine-cities as required by the global courts. Had it not been for such a truly awful purpose, that fact itself would be worthy of celebration. It’s been decades, Zach: decades since humans have been granted permission to step foot in Dwarvish lands. In this case, it’s to perform our own investigation to bolster our defense in court. But this is a process that will take a long time to play out; there will be many hearings along the way as each side argues fault and blame.”

Zach rubbed his face, suddenly feeling weary. “I just wanted to save you and everybody. I never meant for any of that to happen.”

At this, Mr. Oren leaned forward, firmly grabbed his hand, and gave him a fierce look. “That’s why this is my fault too. And Donovan’s.”

“What? How do you figure?”

Mr. Oren’s gaze became even sharper. “You are not to shoulder the blame of this yourself. I may not be an adventurer anymore, but I was when this happened, and as any adventurer will attest, the actions of one member of a raid group are the actions of the entire raid group. Perhaps, if we’d listened to you warning us of Ziragoth’s sentience, we might have been better prepared. You are only as responsible as myself or Donovan or anyone else on that raid. We share this equally.”

Zach tried to make sense of what he was saying, but he found Mr. Oren’s words to be contradicting both in tone and substance. “I don’t get it. I can’t tell if you want me to feel guilty and responsible, or if you want me to feel like I didn’t do anything bad after all. Why bring this up at all just to tell me not to feel too bad about it?”

Mr. Oren released his grip and then slowly returned his hand to his lap. “I’m not telling you how you should feel at all, actually. The way you process this is personal to you. What I am telling you, Zach, is that you should consider your own culpability within the context of events. You were trying to save our lives in the moment, but on a grander scale, you were trying to—and succeeded—in saving the lives of so many more. And when viewing the entire raid as a string of events that began with putting the dragon to sleep and ended with killing it the next day”—he gestured with his hands, placing them opposite one another as if to convey the idea of something large—“this tragedy unfortunately happened as a consequence of the entire process. It was an unavoidable but nevertheless unacceptable outcome. For my part, I would have done nothing differently, yet I can still feel remorse despite this.”

As Zach carefully reflected on Mr. Oren’s words, he thought he finally understood what Mr. Oren was getting at: that it was possible for correct actions to have bad, unintended consequences, and that even if what Zach had done, in the moment, was not the wrong thing, it didn’t mean he could simply dismiss any harm he’d caused people because of it.

“I get it,” he said. “I really do.”

“I can tell. And I’m glad.” Now, lifting his hands off his lap and then slapping them back down playfully, he said, “So, with all that out of the way, what brings you here, Zach? I was going to meet you later today. To be candid, I’m pretty sure I have some idea, but I’d like to hear it from you directly.”

Zach chuckled. Amid all this, he’d almost forgotten his whole reason for visiting Mr. Oren in the first place. “I have to be careful about what I say in front of your secretary, no offense, but I actually came for two reasons. The first is to update you on what’s going on, as a lot of things happened this morning. And the second thing is to talk about the world leaders with you. I wasn’t bullshitting about what I said to those reporters. I really did come to talk about that. That really is why I’m here.”

Mr. Oren lifted his eyebrows. “You’ve got me intrigued. What in particular did you wish to discuss?”

“The World Eater,” he said, locking eyes with Mr. Oren. “See, lately, I’ve had this feeling that humans alone aren’t going to be able to stop it. For Galterra to survive, we’re going to need the rest of the world on our side. Oh, and before you flip out and start getting all worked up because I said ‘World Eater’ out loud, just know that…wait, you’re not getting worked up at all, are you? Hey, why are you so calm? I just said World Eater right in front of this guy”—he pointed at the secretary—“and you don’t even seem to care.”

Mr. Oren laughed. “It is quite a surprise, both that you can remember it and also that you’re stating it openly. But I’ve been informed as of an hour ago that our mutual friend has appeared in person on Elendroth, which I can only presume is the result of some kind of compromise. Am I close?”

“That’s…right,” Zach whispered, amazed and baffled. “But how do you know about that?”

Like before, Mr. Oren tapped on the plastic divider, which Zach took to be a signal for the driver to continue on. Zach’s body made a slight rocking motion as the vehicle pulled away and resumed heading towards wherever they were going. Then Mr. Oren responded to his question.

“I received a notification that Queen Vayra was claiming an Elvish Great One had ‘returned’ and was currently on her island, and that she’s invited all appropriately ranked guild members to visit. Obviously, the media is being completely restricted from reporting on this since the existence of the Great Ones is not common knowledge and it’s not clear how the public would react. At any rate, I’m eager to hear the details of what happened, as I don’t know anything else aside from what I just told you. Also, don’t worry about Dalin. If there’s anything sensitive you don’t feel you can say in front of him, he won’t take any offense. We can discuss such things after we reach my office.”

Zach took a moment to avert his gaze and quietly mull over what Mr. Oren had just told him. It sounded like, in the time since he and Jimmy had left the island, Fylwen had decided to use the Great One’s existence to the advantage of her people, which meant there was a whole different dimension now to all of this.

She’s really cunning, Zach thought, genuinely impressed by her instincts.

Returning back to the subject at hand, Zach nodded and said, “Well, there’s definitely a lot I can’t say in front of him. All I can tell you right now is that I’m allowed to remember the World Eater exists, and I’m allowed to talk about it now, too. I can actually tell anyone I want. Uh…but I don’t know if I should go releasing the information just yet. I hope your secretary knows not to repeat this stuff.”

“Of course I do, Sir Calador,” he said, sounding a touch offended at the suggestion that he might not.

Zach gave the man, Dalin, an awkward smile. “Sorry, just making sure.” Once more regarding Mr. Oren, he said, “But anyway, it’s something I eventually want the whole world to know about, and I need your help to get them on board.”

Mr. Oren’s demeanor became serious. “Of course,” he said. “Absolutely. But Zach, for me to do this, you’re going to need to follow through on your commitments as well. It will help the process. Before I can even broach the topic of the World Eater’s existence—let alone attempt to enlist global aid—we have to begin building mutual trust. And you’re going to have to play your part in that.”

Zach sighed. “If I really have to, I will. It just seems so dumb to waste time answering questions when everything I told the reporters before is basically all there is to know. I don’t see what else they need to—”

Jimmy cleared his throat, drawing Zach’s attention and interrupting him; both he and Mr. Oren turned their heads to look at him. For a while now, he’d been almost completely silent, typing away on his new phone nearly nonstop. “Uh, hey, Zach?” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“So uh, Angelica’s leaving Elendroth and heading back to her inn, and the adventurers aren’t staying much longer, either. Anyway, a bunch of them want me—both of us, actually—to run them through the path we took through Nolak and even take a stab at the boss on F30. But yeah. You good here? I think I’m gonna head out.”

“Head out?” Zach asked him.

“Did you just say Nolak?” Mr. Oren asked, his mouth falling slightly ajar and his eyes widening. “Did I hear that right?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “That’s how we got here.”

“You came through Trials of Nolak?” Mr. Oren asked with a gasp. “Really? Not Hamen’s Isle?”

“The hell is that?” Zach asked.

“It’s…” Mr. Oren rubbed his eyes with his right hand. “You don’t know?”

“Nope. I asked Jascaila the easiest way to get here, and she told me about Trials of Nolak.”

“Didn’t she warn you that it’s an unused dungeon?” Mr. Oren asked, sounding more surprised than he had during this entire conversation so far.

“Yeah. But so what?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Jimmy chimed in. “So what?”

Mr. Oren half-moaned, half-sighed. “Unused dungeons—sometimes called unpopular dungeons—become that way for a reason. They’re dungeons that need to be slowly, carefully, and methodically explored and documented before we would even consider instructing the grand libraries to guide adventurers to them. She shouldn’t have even told you despite the warning. I doubt she had bad intentions, but honestly, you two are so lucky to be alive. Thank the Gods that you made it here all right. You should never explore uncharted, unpopular dungeons.”

“What’s the difference?” Zach asked, confused. “We’re supposed to discover dungeons and find out what’s inside of them on our own to begin with, right? How’s this any different?”

“It’s very different,” Mr. Oren said. “We nudge adventurers towards dungeons that we believe they stand a decent chance of handling. Or…not ‘we,’ sorry—I’m not part of that group anymore—but adventurers do. The fact that so many die anyway is a testament to how dangerous this approach is to begin with. But uncharted dungeons are dungeons that we know so little about and aren’t likely to learn more of any time soon, making them incredibly dangerous.”

“How come ya’ll don’t explore them, then?”

Mr. Oren glanced expectedly at Jimmy as if he’d known Jimmy would ask him that. “Typically—but not always—unexplored dungeons remain that way because the previous exploration group never returned. In the case of Trials of Nolak, I believe the last time an adventuring party went to explore it was a few-hundred years ago, and it resulted in a total wipe. No one ever emerged. We know from records where some of its entry-points and world-exits are located, but we have no idea what goes on once inside. I strongly recommend you never go back. A dungeon like that is probably meant to remain a dead relic.”

With a tone of voice that sounded smug—way more so than Zach intended—he raised his finger and said, “Well, I’ll have you know, Mr. Oren, that Trials of Nolak used to be one of the most-popular dungeons in all of Galterra, with thousands upon thousands of adventurers fighting each other just to get inside.”

Mr. Oren blinked with skepticism and confusion plain on his face. “How can you possibly know that?”

“Mushkie told us.”

“Mushkie?”

“Yep.”

“And…who is that?”

Reacting to the question, Zach and Jimmy excitedly described to Mr. Oren exactly what they’d experienced on the way over here, which seemed to blow his former teacher’s mind. Yet for all the amazement that popped onto his expression, there was also delight. By the time he and Jimmy finished their story, Mr. Oren was grinning ear to ear.

“That’s…incredible,” he said, staring at each of them. “An item shop that sells a weekly assortment of randomly selected items? Dungeon escape ropes? Elite mobs? Gods, you two have made some discovery. And you told the others about this?”

Zach tried not to make too sour of an expression, but he failed. “Yeah, but we told them too soon.” He then explained his plan to sell the items and maybe even the information itself until Jimmy went and blabbered it as soon as they came here. Predictably—but still disappointingly—Mr. Oren agreed with Jimmy, not Zach, but it was whatever at this point.

“So that’s basically how we got here and what happened,” Zach said. “Jascaila quit adventuring a long time ago, so she probably didn’t really know how bad of an idea it was to let us come.”

“That I believe,” Mr. Oren said. “She quit before I was born, actually. Her and Donovan are older than they look.”

“I know. She told me.”

Jimmy, glancing down at his phone, lifted his head a moment later. “Anyway, they want me to start heading out and get to Angelica’s. Donovan says they can meet me there and exit-shift me back to Whispery Woods whenever we head out to the raid. And don’t worry, uh, Lord Oren, they ain’t playing around. We’re going for overkill. Since this is gonna be for exploration more than anything else, Donovan and Zephyr are saying there’s no cap on the number of raid members. They’ll bring hundreds if they can get that many people.”

Zach looked at him. “Can you tell them to wait an hour for me to finish up with Mr. Oren? I want to go too!”

Jimmy nodded. “Of course, dude. I’ll text them right now to—”

Mr. Oren held up his hand. “Zach, aren’t we meeting with the Great One to discuss the nuclear situation after this? And don’t we have more pressing matters to attend to following that?”

A nervous, unsettling, and acidic pain crept its way into Zach’s stomach, as he was now reminded of what he had to do in the coming hours. He was going to have to kill again, wasn’t he? He’d forgotten. Though, perhaps part of his reason for even coming out here in the first place was so that he would forget. He wanted nothing more than to head off with Jimmy and go back to that dungeon and continue exploring it. Yet the entire purpose he’d even gone there in the first place was to bring them here. He’d simply gotten so swept up in it all that he’d lost sight of that.

This wasn’t about adventuring or finding item shops or boss fights, he thought. This was about all the other shit I have to take care of. Gods, I don’t want to do this.

“Are you okay, Zach?” Mr. Oren asked him.

“You can see it on my face?”

“I can, my man.”

Zach drew a breath then released it slowly. “I know what we have to do.”

To Jimmy, Mr. Oren said, “Why don’t I let you and Dalin off on the next corner, and he can order you another DEHV and personally escort you back to the grand library. Row 19 leads to Hamen’s Isle. Head down two floors, ride the ferry, find ten hidden strawberries, and then win the dance competition—it’s easy, don’t worry—and you’ll be back in Angelica’s.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Jimmy said, reacting way too casually to what was, in Zach’s opinion, a wild set of instructions.

“The mobs you’ll encounter are all very low level and passive. They won't be a threat."

“Got it. Hey, um, you said something about a dance competition?”

“It’s easy, I assure you.”

Gods, that sounds so damn fun! Zach thought, trying his best to conceal his envy.

The DEHV began to slow once more, and Zach, half getting out of his seat and leaning forward, allowed Jimmy to slide behind him on his way to the passenger-side door to their left. Before doing so, Jimmy patted Zach twice on the back and said, “Next time, you’ll come. Don’t worry.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zach said sadly, watching as he exited the vehicle with Mr. Oren’s secretary. The two disappeared from view a moment later.

“Do you know what you’re feeling right now?” Mr. Oren asked him once they were gone.

“Disappointment?”

“No. Responsibility. Now, tell me everything that happened.”

******

Jimmy received what could only be described as a hero’s welcome as he opened the door and the smell of Angelica’s struck him like a bullet made of love. After a brief, hour-long traipse through a kiddie dungeon that felt more like an amusement park ride, he walked into Angelica’s to the sound of cheers, raised mugs, and musical instruments.

“There the fucker is!” Donovan cried from all the way across the tavern where he sat at the bar counter. It was so noisy and the cheering was so loud that Jimmy could only barely make out the man’s voice. “Get on over here! You’re lucky we waited for ya, you tardy prick! Angelica, let the kid have a beer.”

“Nope!” she said as Jimmy laughed and made his way over to them. “Two more years. Non-negotiable.”

“It’s all right,” Zephyr said, sitting next to Donovan. “I can give him a sip of mine.”

Angelica’s name flashed red. “You sure about that, Zephyr?”

“Nope. Not sure at all, ma'am.”

"Good."

This inspired more laughing, more toasting, and more great vibes. But the best vibe of all came in the form of Tena, who popped out from behind the counter as if wanting to surprise him. Jimmy took off at a run, scooped her up, and then hugged her tightly. “Had a lot more happen today than I was expecting,” he said to her.

“I’ve heard.”

“Are you coming with us?”

She nodded. And he hugged her again. “We found something amazing, Tena.”

“I can’t wait to see it. Mushkie, right?”

"That's right. He's a bit eccentric, but he's nice enough."

Jimmy smiled. He loved it here. Distantly, he did feel a bit of sadness—a bit of a stain on his mood—as he knew how badly Zach wanted to be a part of this but couldn’t. He didn’t know what the kid was up to, but it sounded like he was in some serious shit that Jimmy couldn’t help him with. PVP shit. Even still, he really wished he could be part of this. At the end of the day, this was as much his discovery as it was Jimmy’s. The two of them together had made it to the item shop, and Zach deserved to be here to experience the clearing of F29 and the boss on F30.

We might even push a little farther than that.

“So,” he said, hopping up to the bar counter where a cherry cola was already waiting for him, “I’m guessing I’m leading this raid, right?”

Donovan barked out a laugh. “You wish.”

Jimmy glared at him. “You serious? How have I not proved myself yet? No way any of you dudes would’ve survived the dungeon if you were there without me.”

“Maybe not,” Donovan said with a grunt, fixing him with such an abruptly serious, hard look that it caused some of Jimmy’s cockiness to abate. “But knowing things and leading a hundred men in real life ain’t the same thing. I know you think you can do this, kiddo, and I believe you can when you’re ready. Not today, though.”

Jimmy frowned. But Donovan’s jovial mood returned, and he seemed to want to cheer him back up. “But you know what you do get to be today?”

“What?”

He slapped Jimmy playfully on the shoulder, and it hurt every bit as much as Zach had warned him it would. Dude was trying to kill him or something for real. Goddamn. “You get to be a raid captain.”

“Raid captain? Aww, man, that’s not even…whatever.”

“Hey, that’s a big fuckin’ honor,” Donovan growled. Then he downed his beer and slammed it on the countertop. “I didn’t get to be a raid captain till I was twenty-five.”

Zephyr chuckled. “You’ll get there, Jimmy. But Donovan’s not wrong. I know you think you’re ready, but when someone dies on a raid, it’s not the same as dying in a simulation. Having so many lives depending on you for their survival…this is just something you need to learn slowly. It's hard to explain. You'll see it with time.”

Jimmy nodded, knowing it was best not to push the point any further. “I get you. All right. We’ll do it your way.”

As he ordered a plate of food and ate dinner with Tena, he conveyed to Donovan and Zephyr in great detail everything that he’d done with Zach with exact specificity, including even the most minor details. During his explanation, Donovan mused that the last exploration group that’d been sent hundreds of years ago likely died due to the traps and not the mobs in the puzzle room.

“They’re probably still active,” Zephyr said. “Even though he’s cleared F27, the traps themselves will likely still be just as fatal. We need to make sure no one steps in them.” He rubbed his chin a moment then got out of his stool and turned around. “Everyone going on the raid has to stop drinking now!” he shouted. This resulted in a chorus of angry swearing and a few thrown pieces of bread from the rowdy adventurers who didn’t take kindly to the suggestion. “You’ll thank me later.”

“Yeah, right!” one of them cried. “Buzz-kill!”

“Zephyr’s gone soft!” another shouted.

Angelica emerged from behind her counter and glared at them. “Boys, clean up whatever you just threw or I’m kicking you out for a week!”

“Sorry, Angelica!”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. These people were nuts, but he was all for it. He just hoped Zach was all right. Angelica was supposed to go and take him back to the island in an hour or two. Jimmy shuddered at the thought of what would happen afterwards.

*****

“If you think this makes you any better than the others, it doesn’t,” Vim said to Gaelan Malakor. He’d always gotten along well with the man in their brief interactions, yet as the seventh—or was he now the sixth?—in command of the Guild of Gentlemen dabbed at his blood-covered form with a wet, medicated cloth, he couldn’t help but sneer at the sight of him bedecked in the dragon’s equipment, which as far as Vim was concerned, was stolen from those who’d actually slain the beast.

“I’m sorry for how they’ve treated you,” he said, clearly not willing to take the bait on Vim’s provocations. “I believe in law and justice. You’ll be executed for your crimes tomorrow, but the way you’ve been tortured so far is unacceptable. You have my word that you won’t be harmed again until you face judgement in the morning.”

Vim let out a bout of scorn-filled laughter. “What a relief. I guess I can sleep easy now.”

In truth, Vim doubted he could sleep at all. Though he’d been unshackled and provided a meager cot to rest on, he could no longer walk. His legs had been broken during his previous beating, and so had his right hand. He’d been fed only once or twice in more than two weeks, losing considerable weight. He’d been small to begin with, but he was now dangerously malnourished. His body was bruised all over, his eyes blackened, and despite it all, he harbored no regrets, as it had either been this or letting his people face another of their Gods-cursed bombs.

“You stole that,” he said to Gaelan. He attempted to lift his wrist and point his finger at the man’s new gear, but he was too weak to do even that much. Instead, he merely glared at the silver, exotic-looking armor and trusted Gaelan to know what he was referring to.

“In war, these things happen,” Gaelan said. “You tried to steal our land.”

Vim didn’t feel like arguing the point. He lacked the energy to do so even if he wanted. In his current state, he wondered if he’d even live long enough to make it to the execution tomorrow. He’d taken so many hits to the head it was a miracle he still had his wits about him. Had he the vigor, perhaps he’d waste some time trying to talk sense into this oaf, who like his guild, did not understand that North Bastia had been suffering as a result of Peter IV’s insanity, and that the various global powers would never be willing to readmit humanity into the trading fold while Shadowfall Coast, a key port of entry, was still controlled by the Guild of Gentlemen.

They’re delusional, he thought. They don’t even care.

There was an unprecedented economic crisis looming on the horizon. The various guilds had staved it off as long as they could. But it was only a matter of time before the bubble burst. If they could not find some way of undoing the damage inflicted by Peter IV, then within another decade or so, North Bastia’s economy would collapse, and the Gods only knew what kind of chaos that would create.

Will I leave the world in a worse state than when I entered it? Vim wondered, contemplating on his failures.

He refused Gaelan’s attempts to make unserious, idle conversation. The two were in a small, damp room that was dimly lit by three small candles that Gaelan had placed. It sure beat the darkness he’d grown accustomed to prior to this. There even seemed to be less roaches and filth in this part of the dungeon, where he’d been “relocated” pending his execution in the coming hours.

“…and my daughter got the best grades in her class on that project, too,” he said, smiling as he bandaged one of Vim’s wounds.

“What’s the point?”

“The point?” he asked, his voice soft. “Well, it’s a leadership class. It’s designed—”

“No, you fucking halfwit! What’s the point of dressing my wounds? I’m going to die tomorrow.”

“Common decency,” he said. “And I don’t appreciate the tone.”

“Oh, really? You don’t appreciate the tone? What has come over me? My father taught me to die politely.”

“Yeah, you’re rude. But it’s all right.” He finished what he was doing then stood up. “If you really want to be alone, I’ll leave. No one will bother you. But if you want someone to talk to, I’m here.”

Vim forced out a derisive laugh. “I’d rather the silence, thank you.”

He spat after the man as he turned around and left. Or at least he tried to. He couldn’t really spit anymore as he was so badly dehydrated. He was pretty sure he was running a fever, too. With any luck, maybe he would just close his eyes and die. He was awfully tired.

Chapter 144: A Dream come True

Chapter 144: A Dream come True

With spirits so high and a sense of excitement permeating the air, the last thing Jimmy wanted to do was spoil everybody’s fun. For this reason, he avoided bitching about his current situation. Instead, he attempted to shove aside his displeasure and bask in the festive, joyous atmosphere. It was difficult, though, as he felt personally snubbed and disregarded. It left him with a general sense of discontent, which was made worse by a separate feeling of ickiness thanks to his equipment becoming once again covered in grime and muck. Still, he chose not to make a fuss about it as he walked through the forest in northwest Whispery Woods with Tena marching to his immediate left and Kalana strolling along to his right.

Here I am again, he thought.

A few minutes earlier, he’d emerged from the lake that him and Zach had swum through a couple of hours prior, and just like last time, there was a brief but terrifying moment where he thought he’d run out of oxygen and die. Only, it was slightly less scary this time around, because Kalana, as if seeing him struggle, grabbed his arm and yanked him through the water and up to the surface. Then she’d dove back down and rescued three other adventurers who would have actually drowned if she hadn’t continuously checked to ensure everyone made it through all right.

Now, as more than two-hundred filthy, yet exuberant adventurers paraded their way through the forest on this late-afternoon summer day, Jimmy tried to keep himself positive. This was going to be a fun evening, after all. And they were off to a bright start, too, because the cloudy, overcast weather that’d been present in Whispery Woods all day seemed to be giving way to something slightly clearer, allowing brief periods of sunshine amid the shade.

“Cheer up, Jimmy,” Kalana said to him, beaming a smile his way.

“Huh? I’m plenty happy,” he said back to her.

“Nope! Don’t pretend you’re not upset.” She pointed to herself. “I can tell.”

Jimmy sighed. “Fine, you caught me. How did you even know?”

“I’ve got the best grumpy radar,” Kalana said with a strange sort of proudness. “So, what’s wrong?”

“It’s…nothing. It doesn’t even really matter.”

“Nah-uh! Of course it matters.”

Jimmy shrugged. “I’m not even that upset. And I’m trying to keep it to myself, anyway, since I don’t wanna ruin this for you guys.”

“You won’t,” Kalana said convincingly. “What’s wrong?”

Relenting, Jimmy quickly explained to her how he felt like Donovan and Zephyr weren’t giving him the respect he felt he deserved, especially since, all boasting aside, he really was great at leading raids. Kalana, however, didn’t seem to find all that much about Jimmy’s circumstance worth getting upset over.

“I really think you should be happier,” she said. “Sure, you might not be a raid leader yet, but you get to be a raid captain!”

“Yeah, of the auxiliary support,” he muttered, his mood deflating as he reminded himself of how badly Donovan and Zephyr were underestimating him. They’d assigned him to BG6, which on this raid, was “off support.” Basically, a category for people who’d face the least amount of risk and thus contribute the least. He should’ve been in BG5, which was main support.

Kalana twisted her lips. “So? Why can’t you be happy about that?”

“I dunno,” he said with a sigh. “I guess it’s because they’re putting me in a position where I might not get to do anything, and it’s like, I should be leading this whole damn raid. But nah, they got me hiding behind everybody else in the loser group.”

“Hey, I’m in BG6 with you,” Tena reminded him. “And uh, based on what you told everyone about this dungeon, it sounds like we’re both too under leveled for it. You’re only in your 40s, and I’m level 37. We’re lucky Donovan’s not gonna make us rope out with the others who’re also too low level.”

Jimmy dismissively waved his hand. “Too low level? Pfft. Don’t forget, Tena, me and Zach cleared an entire damn floor by ourselves, and he’s only in his 20s.”

Tena’s words reminded Jimmy of one of the disagreements he’d had with Donovan and Zephyr back in Angelica’s before they’d all headed out here. Not long after he’d finished describing to them every single detail he could recall from earlier today—as well as answering their many, many questions—they’d decided not to allow an “uncapped” raid after all, which had been their original plan.

Initially, the idea had been to just grab everyone who wanted to come along and then, together, they’d all just steamroll their way through the dungeon. But as Jimmy had elaborated on his experiences, the two had both agreed to instead lead everyone who wanted to come along to the item shop—which was a whole lot of people—and then, once they’d all finished up, all but sixty of them, ten per BG, would be asked to “rope” out of the dungeon, a term that was already catching on to reference the item him and Zach had discovered together.

Hearing their plan, Jimmy had frowned at the both of them. It’d caused him to question their logic and capability to lead, too. And why? Because clearly, with such overwhelming numbers, there was no need to dismiss anybody at all, and he’d told them this outright.

“We should just zerg the elites and the boss,” he’d said to them. “There’s gonna be like more than two-hundred people with us. No reason we got to send anybody back.”

“Zerg?” Zephyr had asked. “I’m not familiar with the term.”

“Ah, sorry, it means to rush in with superior numbers and beat down your enemy with brute force. It’s a common tactic when you’ve got way more people than you need.”

Donovan and Zephyr had looked at one another, and as if both had wordlessly exchanged the exact same thought, they’d then turned their gaze back on Jimmy. “That’s a terrible idea, kiddo,” Donovan had said. “But I’m glad you said it, ‘cause it really helps me understand where you’re coming from and where you need to improve.”

“Improve?” Jimmy had asked, having immediately been put on the defensive. “Me?”

“Yeah you, kid.”

Jimmy had tried to control his temper. Unlike his new friend, Zach, who tended to fly off the handle just a bit too easily, it took a fair deal more to make Jimmy lose his shit. But one of the things that did it was when people tried to question his capabilities.

“No disrespect to either of you,” he’d said, “but I know more than both of you combined, and I’m way better at this than either of you are, and honestly? I should be leading this shit. But like I said, I’ll go along with your plan since I’m not looking to rock the boat.” He could feel his brow furrowing. “But just so we’re clear,” he continued, “I should be the one telling you two where you can improve. Not the other way around.”

Donovan had barked out a dangerous-sounding laugh. “Is that right, Jimmy?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Zephyr had clenched his hand into a fist, and then he’d given Jimmy a gentle bump on the shoulder. “I like your spirit,” he’d said. “But you really do need to trust us. You’re not wrong to believe in yourself, but I promise you that you’re getting ahead of yourself here.”

“Oh yeah?” Jimmy had asked, no longer bothering to hide his temper. “How so?”

“Because,” Donovan had replied, his own temper bleeding through, “in the real world, people feel pain and fear. Based on everything you said about Nolak, it sounds like it gets pretty damn rough once we get to the uh—the fuck did you call them again?”

“Elites.”

“All right. Elites. So, suppose someone gets killed and we’re lugging around a bunch of inexperienced raiders—know what happens next, kiddo?”

“What?”

Donovan had narrowed his eyes. “You get a chain reaction of people shitting their pants and fuckin’ up the entire raid. They become liabilities. They can lead to more experienced raiders getting killed: people who would’a been fine otherwise. Now, I’ll admit I don’t know shit about your simulations, but I can already tell that all the strategies you think you know don’t account for things like pain, fear, and mental stability in their calculations.”

“Exactly,” Zephyr had added. “Jimmy, a lot of the tactics from your simulations only work because the people behind their terminals can’t actually feel what they’d feel if they were really there.”

Jimmy had shaken his head. “I don’t see it that way. There’s a right way to take on bosses and a wrong way. And I’m telling you guys, you’re doing it all wrong. Raiding comes down to math and numbers. It’s all about DPS and group composition. That’s just how it is.”

Donovan had sworn at him. “You’re too smart for you own fucking good,” he’d growled. “Look. All the shit you know is gonna take you far, don’t get me wrong. But there’s a big difference in behavior between someone who knows he can’t really get hurt and somebody whose life can end painfully after a single mistake.” Donovan had leaned in closer to him and his voice had become even more serious. “You need to experience what it’s like to see people under real pressure before you can lead. You’ve got the brains and the heart, Jimmy, but you don’t have the experience.”

Jimmy hadn’t been convinced, and he’d let them know it. “This is some bullshit, man. For all you guys know, I could solo that fucking boss.”

“Maybe,” Donovan had said, following his words with a shrug. “But you ain’t gonna be able to solo every boss, and you’re either gonna wise up or end up dead. I’m hoping it won’t be the latter.” With a hard look in his eyes, he’d poked Jimmy in the chest. “We’re doing this my way or the highway, kiddo. Take it or leave it.”

“All right, fine,” Jimmy had whispered, trying to stave off the resentment he felt within himself.

As he recalled this conversation, he momentarily forgot where he was, and it was only thanks to Kalana yanking on his arm that he avoided walking headfirst into a tree branch. She then made a silly face at him, which he couldn’t help but laugh at.

“Thanks,” he said to her.

“No problem, but umm, you should watch where you’re going.”

“I know.” He breathed out the stale air in his lungs and then drew a fresh breath. “I’m sorry for having such a bad attitude about all this, it’s just they’re treating me like I’m a goddamn noob.”

Kalana tilted her head to side as though unfamiliar with the word, which prompted Tena to step ahead of Jimmy, jog to her side, and whisper something into her ear. “Oh, that’s what it means. It’s a mean way of saying someone’s new.”

“It means they’re bad, too,” Tena said. “Jimmy calls people noobs all the time. It’s like the meanest thing Earth adventurers say to each other in their simulations.”

“But…wait a minute.” Kalana glared at him, curling her bottom lip. “Yesterday, you called me and Zach noobs when we didn’t know what that term you used, umm, ‘min-maxing’ meant.”

The glare she sent his way distracted him, and he almost walked into a cob web as he’d done earlier in the day. Thankfully, this time, Jimmy saw it at the last minute and ducked beneath it. Afterwards, he shot her an apologetic, helpless shrug, and her frown turned more playful, her lips bunching up. Eventually, she seemed to let it drop entirely, deciding to press ahead and exchange words with some of the other adventurers.

Still can’t believe she came along with us, he thought. I wonder if Zach had something to do with that.

Based off what Kalana had said, Zach had returned to her island about fifteen minutes before everyone was getting ready to depart Angelica’s, and seemingly out of nowhere, Eilea had asked her if she wanted to go with the adventurers, telling her that she should feel free to do so. Kalana claimed she’d refused, saying that she would never abandon her duty, but Eilea—according to Kalana—had commanded Kalana to tag along, but only if, in her heart, it was something she truly wanted to do, which Kalana stated it was. Kalana also claimed she’d tried to get Zach to come along with her, but he was too tired, which Jimmy knew for a fact was a lie, as he’d been in the car—or DEHV, whatever—when him and his former teacher had discussed their plans.

He doesn’t want her in the room for the war stuff, he realized. He’s gonna be doing something unpleasant tonight, isn’t he?

Based on Kalana’s explanation, it seemed that Zach had insisted she go as well. She’d apparently told him that she felt guilty coming without him, to which he’d supposedly replied that it was only fair she got to meet Mushkie since he did, and that he really thought she should go if she wanted to. And so, assuming all that was true, then she’d been led to believe Zach would be spending the rest of today—and tonight—resting in bed, when in actuality, he’d be off on much darker errands. It was kind of sad, and Jimmy felt bad for them both.

“So that’s what’s going on,” he told Tena, whispering this all to her as they held hands and strolled their way through the forest.

“He shouldn’t have lied to her,” she whispered back. “But I understand why he did it.” She pursed her lips in a way that came across as sad. “Still, I really think Zach should’ve told her the truth. If you lied to me about something like that, I’d be so upset.”

“He obviously doesn’t want her to get hurt or killed.”

“Yah, but Jimmy, Kalana’s such a sweetheart, and if she finds out—and let’s face it, it’s more like when—she’s gonna be heartbroken.”

“You better not say shit, Tena.”

She shoved his arm with her elbow. “I wouldn’t!”

“Lower your voice.”

“Sorry.”

Jimmy and her continued onwards while Kalana practically bounced from adventurer to adventurer, making happy conversation with all those she came across. Up ahead was the clearing that led out of the forest and onto the road. Something told Jimmy that Donovan wasn’t going to let them comfortably ride a bus this time around. He definitely seemed more like a jogging kind of guy. Jimmy sighed. It looked like he’d have to get sweaty.

As they neared the exit to this damp, bug-ridden forest, Jimmy twitched nervously as he felt a sudden weight plop down on his right shoulder. He became aware that something, maybe even something alive, had just landed right on top of him. He croaked. Reflexively, he raised his right hand to swat it off. But he stopped an instant later as he heard a purr in his ear.

“Fluffles,” he said with a sigh, lowering his arm. “You scared the hell out of me, man. I thought you were a giant spider.”

“I’m not a spider,” the cat said with a meow. “Why humans so afraid of bugs?”

“We just are,” Jimmy said. “They’re disgusting.”

“No! Bugs are fun and yummy.”

Jimmy cringed in disgust, but he said nothing out of fear of offending the cat. Instead, he merely continued on, as he was more than happy to let Fluffles hitch a ride on his shoulder. After all, Fluffles had saved his life yesterday, and that wasn’t something he’d forget any time soon. He owed a lot to the cat. He also deeply missed his own.

I refuse to accept I can’t go back, Jimmy thought to himself. I’ll accept this is real. I’ll accept this isn’t a game or a simulation, too. I’ll do all of that. But I’m not giving up hope.

The sight of Fluffles on Jimmy’s shoulder caused Kalana to break away from an adventurer she was chatting with. She hurried over to pet him and give him chin scratches, which he allowed. Then she again smiled at Jimmy. “I’m glad you decided to choose the raid over meeting with Eilea tonight,” she said in a way that was spookily knowing and deep. It reminded him that Kalana, for all her playfulness and silliness, was deeply empathetic and more attuned to what people were feeling than she let on.

“Heh. I didn’t think anyone would realize that,” he admitted.

Kalana snickered. “Of course I would! Umm, you were making such a big fuss about meeting her, and then you stormed off with Zach when you had to wait. Of course I’m gonna notice it. But anyways, if you chose to be here, it means you’re finally accepting things, right?”

Jimmy lowered his voice a touch. “Kind of, I guess. It’s also because I know what she’s gonna say, so what’s the point? I already figured out why I’m here from that vampire guy—the one who looks like a kid. He was right all along. Besides, I can meet with her any time now that she’s here on Galterra.” He averted his gaze and stared at the leaf- and dirt-covered ground. “Thing is, Kalana, if I have to make a life for myself here, I might as well act like it. That’s why I’m here. Because if this was my world—and ya’ll keep telling me it is now—then I’d choose the raid over meeting with her. So that’s what I’m doing.”

“She mentioned you to me, ya know,” Kalana said after a few seconds of quiet had elapsed.

Jimmy once more lifted his head. “She did?”

Kalana nodded at the same time that her pointy ears twitched. “She said she’d talk to you first thing tomorrow, and that she hopes you have fun. Oh! And she said you’re doing even better than she thought you would.”

Jimmy looked over to the front of the formation, where he could just make out Donovan and Zephyr barking out laughs as they told crude jokes to those nearby them. “Maybe Eilea should tell that to those two, then,” he remarked bitterly. “Donovan really pissed me off today. I don’t get why he’s such a hotshot. He acts like he knows so much more than me, but he and the adventurers here would never have the balls to go into this dungeon if pioneers like me and your boyfriend hadn’t waltzed in like we own the place. Why’s he think he knows better than me?”

“Because he does,” Tena said, a consoling, amused expression accompanying her words as if to soften the sting of them.

“He doesn’t, though. Tena, you of all people should—”

“No, no, I get why you think he doesn’t,” she said. “But Jimmy, you’re not giving him any credit—which is the same thing you’re accusing him of doing to you. I’m sorry. I like you so much, and I don’t…the thing is I want to be on your side no matter what, but I have to be honest with you. I really think you’re being too defensive. There’s a lot you can learn from him, and I think he likes you and wants you to be a raid leader. Just not yet.”

“I am a raid leader,” Jimmy said. “I trained on more games—or simulations if you wanna call them that—than you can ever imagine. And Donovan knows this, but he won’t accept me.”

“He’ll accept you when he thinks you’re ready,” a deep, rough-edged, and masculine voice said from behind him. Looking over his shoulder—and brushing his chin against Fluffles’ soft fur in the process—Jimmy felt his nerves rise as he took in the sight of a tall, bald, and well-built man with black skin, dark sunglasses, and a crooked smile plastered on his face. Jimmy recognized him. He was the second-in-command of the God Slayers Guild: a man known only as Spider. Supposedly, he’d whooped Zach’s ass in a brawl in Angelica’s—at least based on the gossip.

Watching such an imposing figure approach, Jimmy felt himself tensing up. Between Spider and Donovan, it was difficult to say for sure who was the more intimidating of the two. Donovan was maybe half an inch taller and had a slightly wider frame, though that could have been due to his black plate armor. Spider, on the other hand, was clearly the more toned and muscular. He also had scars all over his forehead as well as several that ran down both sides of his face. Allegedly, they were from before he’d become an adventurer and couldn’t be healed via the rejuvenation stones. If the rumors were true, he’d been this world’s equivalent of a mob boss in Whispery Woods before a life-changing experience led him down the adventuring path.

He's definitely not someone to mess with.

“Sorry,” Jimmy said to him. “I didn’t mean any disrespect to your guild-leader.”

Spider chuckled, approached closer, and patted the top of Fluffles’ head. “I get where you’re coming from, son. It’s all right.”

For someone so tough with such a deep, powerful voice, Jimmy picked up a genuine sense of kindness coming off him. Having now stepped just outside of the forest and into the open, the sun peeked out from between the clouds and more fully illuminated his scars, including a deep one running all the way across his temple.

“I know you think we’re giving you the cold shoulder, but it’s not like that,” he said. “Donovan doesn’t devalue your knowledge. If anything—and you didn’t hear this from me, son—he’s likely eying you to be an officer in the God Slayers Guild someday. Maybe even taking over Alex’s old role.”

Spider’s words were shocking—and for more than one reason. The substance of what he said was a shock all on its own, but an even greater shock was the fact that he appeared to know things about Jimmy he shouldn’t have known: things that were supposed to have been kept secret for all their sakes. Had someone leaked the truth about him? The possibility of it caused him to swallow nervously.

“My knowledge?” he asked. It was a probing question designed to find out what this guy knew.

Spider grinned, and a few of his teeth were revealed as his lips pulled back. “We know, Jimmy. Everybody knows.”

Jimmy felt terror rush into his heart. “You know?” he asked at a whisper. “What do you know?”

“We know your situation,” Spider answered. “Nobody wants to bug you about it ‘cause we know it’s a sensitive subject you don’t want getting out, so the adventurers are all pretending they don’t know. But trust me: news travels real, real fast in the adventuring world. By now, everybody knows your secret. People were just too curious about you, and it was only a matter of time before lips started leaking.”

“My…secret?” Jimmy asked fearfully.

“Yep.” Spider’s face softened and his voice, though still deep and rough, contained a note of compassion. “We know you’re from an uncontacted colony on Earth that survived the red apocalypse. We know you were part of a small community of people who the Great One, Eilea Vayra, had been protecting on Earth. We even know she fed you thousands of hours of training simulations, which is how you know all this crazy shit that you do. But that’s not all. We also know…” He patted the shoulder opposite the one Fluffles was sitting on, and he exhaled sadly. “We know your parents and your community were attacked by a boss spawn while Eilea was out foraging for food. She only made it back in time to save just you, right? And then she brought you here to Galterra a few weeks ago to start over. It’s okay, son. Nobody’s gonna bother you about it, but you should know that we know.”

Jimmy looked at Tena, then Kalana, then Tena again, before finally staring back up at Spider. He drew a deep breath and released it. “Damn,” he said, nodding along. “It’s just such a sensitive subject. So, my secret’s out, huh?”

“Like I said, it’s all right, Jimmy. Everyone found out today, but they know better than to fuck with you about it. So if they act a bit weird, it’s just them trying not to upset you.”

“Thanks, Spider,” Jimmy said, doing his absolute best to conceal his surprise. He was so bad at lying, but since this wasn’t his doing, he found it easier to simply go along with it. “I appreciate that.”

“It’s all good.” Spider squeezed his shoulder more tightly. “I’m only telling you this to let you know I understand your frustration. In your eyes, you feel like you’re qualified to lead. And nobody, not me, not Donovan, not any of us—nobody doubts your knowledge. But experience? You can’t get that from a sim. It’s what Don and Zeph have been trying to tell you.”

Jimmy darted his eyes around. He couldn’t help but notice the way a whole lot—like a ton—of adventurers were walking just a little bit closer with their heads turned away as if to pretend they weren’t eavesdropping on every word. Goddamn, could they be any less obvious?

Who made up this bullshit? Jimmy wondered. Somebody must’ve. I mean, it’s a useful excuse or whatever, but I wish I would’ve known ahead of time.

Spider, as if having other matters to attend to, released his grip on Jimmy’s shoulder then hurried ahead to the front of the formation, where Donovan appeared to be waiting for him. The two exchanged a few brief words, and then both glanced at Jimmy. Then, as a group, the more than two-hundred of them headed over to the rest area not far from the bus stop that him and Zach had used to get to Pixie’s Point.

Upon arriving, Kalana broke away from him and Tena and darted over to where Donovan stood just outside the entryway to a small convenience store; several well-dressed men in business suits stood by as though waiting for her. Come to think of it, Jimmy noticed that there were no customers here at all, and the store appeared to be closed. It was as though the area had been put on lockdown or something.

“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Kalana asked, raising her voice. Donovan quickly got the crowd under control, ensuring everyone fell silent. Once the adventurers had quieted, she continued to speak. “So umm, since Whispery Woods is an Elvish territory, and since my mom and Donovan made an agreement about adventurers passing through our lands, the five-percent tax that Donovan agreed on with Queen Vayra is in effect.”

Kalana paused for a moment as if to meet everyone’s eyes, a cheerful smile on her face. “But since most of you guys are just going to the item shop and leaving, my mom decided to charge a flat rate of 10,000 gold for passage, which you can pay to one of these three nice humans. Since we think you’ll be coming through here a whole lot, every time you pay, you’ll get a digital pass good for a whole month! Oh, umm, but please remember: every single coin is going to Den of Ziragoth, and we’re not keeping a single piece of it.”

“Well, in that case, I ain’t paying ya 10k,” Reni Sarwin announced, a cocky grin on his face. Jimmy had met him a few times before. He was a decent enough guy. “I’m giving 30!”

“I’ll give 20!” a woman shouted.

“You can do better than that!” a third person hollered. “40 from me!”

One by one, the adventurers approached the men in suits. Jimmy watched as each and every one of them paid more than the 10k that was requested of them. Following this, one of the men would raise a device that looked a bit like a supermarket scanner, and with that, they’d “scan” their face while asking for their name. This, Jimmy supposed, entered them into some kind of database. It also meant there’d likely be some kind of enforcement mechanism in the near future.

I bet the Elvish queen is gonna monitor all the dungeon entrances in Whispery Woods from now on, Jimmy thought. He himself didn’t mind. It was only money. Patiently, he waited for the others to pay and move on, and then he approached with Tena. He decided to give 55k gold. Tena gave the same.

“Thank you, young man,” said an older, silver-haired gentleman wearing a tan-colored suit, who collected his payment. “Please enjoy your activities. Oh, and…thank you.” There was a sadness to his voice.

“It’s not a problem, my guy. I’m Jimmy, by the way. You look familiar. Have I seen you before?”

He made a sad smile. “You might have. I’ve been on the news a bit lately. I’m Barton Darnolomb, the mayor of Den of Ziragoth. Or at least I was. I’ve decided to dedicate the rest of my life to rebuilding it.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to ask why they wanted to rebuild in the same spot the dragon spawns, but he paused when he realized it probably wasn’t that big of a deal, at least not in the short term. One of the things that had become public knowledge thanks to the vampire guy’s “records” was that the dragon wouldn’t spawn again for between 800 and 1000 years. By the time Ziragoth reappeared, this shit wouldn’t even be a memory anymore.

Hopefully they’re at least better prepared next time.

Stretching his muscles, Jimmy waited for the last few adventurers to pay for passage, and then he readied himself for what was sure to be an exhausting, thirty-mile trek to Pixie’s Point. Fortunately, however, it seemed like he’d once again be spared having to make such an arduous trip. Donovan, along with Zephyr, wrangled the raid members into a single-file line on the sidewalk near the street, and within two minutes, numerous buses showed up out of nowhere.

“What’s going on?” he asked aloud, not expecting anyone to answer him. He stood near the middle of their assembled group with Tena to his left and Kalana having returned to his right. Fluffles had hopped off shoulder and was now in the arms of another hugely muscular adventurer known as Maric. The cat was also chatting excitedly with a goth-looking woman named Alixa, who Jimmy recalled being one of the most renown armor crafters in Galterra.

“My mom doesn’t want a big group of us to scare or disturb the human locals,” Kalana said. “So she’s gonna start working out ways to make sure any group of adventurers larger than 5 has ways to get around discreetly—included in the fee.”

Jimmy thought on Kalana’s words. “I don’t know if it’s just because I’m new to all this, but I feel like there’s a damn lot of dungeons in this region.”

“Oh, there are,” Kalana said excitedly. “We’re gonna use that fact to help us rebuild Den of Ziragoth even faster. Now that the Elves are getting the crime under control in the city, a lot of the university graduates who fled to other regions are coming back, and she’s hiring a lot of them to help her figure out all kinds of logistics and stuff. We’ve got engineers, economists, and doctors and all kinds of really smart people working for us.”

Jimmy boarded one of the buses, which were a dark grey in color and didn’t much stand out or draw the eye. Despite six bus DEHVs in total having shown up, it still ended up being a cramped fit. Jimmy, Tena, and Kalana had all squeezed into a single row on padded seats, while Maric, Alixa, and Fluffles sat across from them.

“Don’t I always see you two with another dude?” Jimmy asked them as the DEHV’s engines roared to life and they took off, traveling fast down the forested roadway.

“You sure do,” Maric said. “You’re thinking of Kesten, right? Guy with shaggy blond hair, leather coat?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said, snapping his fingers. “When I first got here, I used to see ya’ll eating in Angelica’s every day.”

Maric nodded. “He’s busy in Giant’s Fall tending to the wounded. He’s a doctor if you can believe it.” The man’s eyes lowered, and a defeated look came over his face. “He says he’s never seen death like this before.”

Alixa chewed the lower corner of her pierced lip as though agitated. “I wish he wouldn’t shut me out. He won’t even answer his phone. The few times I’ve talked to him, he doesn’t sound like his usual self.” Fluffles fell asleep in Alixa’s lap, purring as she patted his back. “It’s terrible over there right now.”

Jimmy let his mind and thoughts drift away as he, Tena, Kalana, and the other two adventurers chatted away. Given that these bus DEHVs had no other stops to make, it ended up only taking about nine minutes for them to get where they were going, as opposed to the longer ride that him and Zach had faced several hours ago. Even still, it was a nice little reprieve. Jimmy used the time to contemplate how he could convince the GSG, the Explorers Brigade—or hell, any of the adventuring guilds—to let him lead a future raid or two so that he could prove himself. They were seriously wrong about him.

If I can just show them what I can do, I know they’ll see me as being worthy.

Eilea had brought him here from thousands of years in the past, and she’d done so for a reason: a reason he now understood. Therefore, if he was to embrace his new life and his purpose, then he needed to actually be allowed to do the thing he’d been brought here to do. Otherwise, what was the point? He needed to fulfill this new purpose of his. He wasn’t sure why. Yet he felt compelled. He felt like the only way he could cope with his new life was to both have and pursue some greater aspiration—and Eilea had given him one.

While dwelling on this, the bus came to a stop, and there was a slight sinking sensation as the hover mode became disengaged and the vehicle sank down to ground level. Then the doors opened with a fwish, and Jimmy watched as a bunch of excited adventurers hopped out of their seats and seemed to wrestle one another to get off more quickly. They reminded Jimmy of kids during summer camp. It was hard to believe that Lord Oren guy had actually been an adventurer. Even Maric, who looked like he was in his seventies, seemed to leap out of his seat and laugh boisterously as he made his way to the front.

In no particular rush, Jimmy got up last and then exited while still holding Tena’s hand. Climbing down the three steps, he found himself just before the gate that led to the old, disused, and decrepit school, inside of which the entrance to the dungeon awaited.

“Sure am glad I ended up buying the property to preserve the entrance,” Jimmy heard Zephyr remark as he opened the creaky-sounding gate. He turned around and looked at Jimmy, then beckoned with his chin. “You want to lead so bad, right? You’re in luck. You can lead the way into the dungeon.”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. That wasn’t exactly what he wanted. He wanted to lead the raid, not serve as some kind of glorified tour guide. “Tena, Kalana, you two wanna come with?”

“Sure,” Tena said. Kalana nodded enthusiastically. The two followed along with him, while hundreds of eyes followed his movement as he made his way through the fairly large crowd and headed to the front, where Donovan and Zephyr were waiting for him.

“Don’t you know where the entrance is?” Jimmy asked Zephyr. He was surprised that he needed to be led at all given that he was the one who’d bought the property.

Zephyr, whose most notable features were his stunningly charismatic eyes and his breathtakingly beautiful, glistening sword, which contained a large assortment of multi-colored gemstones running up and down the blade, made a half-shrug at Jimmy. “I have an idea. It’s in the basement somewhere, right? That’s as much as I know. I’ve never actually been in Trials of Nolak. As of right now, the only two people alive who have been are you and Zach.”

A young adventurer wearing a red bandana and a chainmail breastplate clapped her hands and let out a cheer. “To Zach and Jimmy!” The rest followed suit, and Jimmy tried not to let the flattery overcome his disappointment at being relegated to such a bland role in the upcoming boss raid.

“Just out of curiosity,” he said as he walked through the gate and onto the chipped, cracked sidewalk that had withered grass and dead leaves to both sides of it, “where’s the first floor to this dungeon?”

“No idea,” Donovan said. “Zeph, do you know?”

“Nope.”

“There you have it,” Donovan said with a laughing grunt. “If Zeph doesn’t know, nobody does.”

This, Jimmy found surprising. “Wait, you mean that nobody knows how to begin this dungeon properly?”

“That’s right,” Zephyr confirmed, his feet making a soft tapping sound on the old, badly damaged concrete pavement. “If this dungeon turns out to be as important as you say, we might go looking for it. I mean, we at least know where to start.” He extended his arms widely around him. “If this area we’re in represents what used to be the 27th floor, it means that the 26th floor must let out here somewhere.”

“What about the 32nd floor?” Jimmy asked.

Once again, Zephyr shook his head. “We know that F31 begins in the grand library in the Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, but after that, we don’t know anything until F74, which is in a small farming village in the Arid Dunes of Bastia.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of missed floors.”

“That’s how it is sometimes."

Pushing open the old, discolored door that led inside, Jimmy saw Kalana shudder as she and Tena entered with him into the very dark, very creepy-looking school. “Spooky!” she said aloud. “You and Zach came here all by yourselves today?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said with a laugh. “And it gave us both the creeps. But it was way worse, because it was much quieter when it was just us two.”

If anything, his words were an understatement. As dozens upon dozens of adventurers swarmed their way into the school’s front entrance, the level of noise gradually picked up, and a party-like atmosphere completely drowned out the eeriness of the place. Though, even still, the inherent, unsettling nature of the place did not go unnoticed.

“Gods be damned! If I was a ghost, this is exactly the kind of place I’d haunt,” an adventurer Jimmy didn’t recognize said from behind him, causing about a dozen others to snicker.

Another adventurer he didn’t know, but whom he took to be the man’s wife, made a disgusted grunt and said, “If you don’t do something to fix your snoring, I might just turn you into one.”

Even more laughter arose as a result of the comment. Looking over his shoulder, Jimmy saw two more adventurers entering, and these two he did recognize. Hell, everyone would recognize them. Though they weren’t quite “famous” among adventurers in quite the way Zach or Grundor were, they were probably the two most well-known adventurers in all of Galterra outside of the guild leaders. They also happened to be the oldest people Jimmy had ever seen in his life: including his life on Earth.

They were Mister and Misses Britethorn: the oldest living adventurers other than maybe those vampires, but that was a bit of an unfair comparison. Each of the two silver-haired folk were said to be nearing two-hundred years of age, yet they moved briskly, carried heavy weapons, and wore even heavier armor. It was really an astonishing sight. They were also such kind, really nice people. The first time Jimmy had discovered Angelica’s, they’d taught him all about it. Apparently, it was something they were known for. Any time a new adventurer or group of adventurers made their way to Angelica’s, the Britethorns, who lived there, would invite them for tea and teach them all they knew about the infinite hall of rooms.

Their armor clanking as they moved their way farther into the school, the two Britethorns whispered quietly to one another about whether or not they should use their points to redecorate the living room of their home. Wherever they walked, any nearby adventurers politely moved out of the way—even Donovan and Zephyr. There seemed to be nothing short of reverence for the two of them. Jimmy thought he could understand why. He felt a protective instinct towards them despite the fact they could likely handle themselves. Even Fluffles seemed to love them.

“Hi Frederick. Hi Eetna,” the cat said, running over to them.

“Oh, Fluffles,” Frederick Britethorn said, bending down and petting him. “Hey there.”

“I can come for milk later?”

“Of course you can, cutie,” Eetna said. “You’re always welcome.”

Once the last few adventurers had filed their way inside, the door was shut behind them, and now, Jimmy felt like a guest in an amusement park visiting a giant haunted house. At once, all eyes turned towards him, putting him on the spot. “It’s this way,” he said, turning his body around and then pointing at the door that led down to the basement boiler room that also served as storage for maintenance equipment.

“Just be careful. There’s only enough room for one person to head down at a time. Uh…oh yeah, and like, don’t freak out about the dungeon’s entrance. It’s a weird one.”

“Weird how?” someone asked. Jimmy couldn’t even see who it was amid the large crowd of adventurers.

As he turned to face the speaker, he almost felt like he had truly stepped into one of his games. Clad in various types of armor, and wielding an uncountable variety of weapons, what should’ve been an incredibly dark hall was partially lit up by any number of various weapon and armor effects. There was smoke, fire, lights, streaks of energy, as well as things that flickered, blinked, or made slight sounds. Some things flipped, flapped, and rotated. Others seemed to grow or shrink in size. One adventurer had spikes coming out of his shoulder guards that spun around like little radar beacons.

“So, the dungeon’s entrance is inside of a boiler, but the thing is you end up in like this silvery world or whatever, and uh, you’re not gonna be able to see your own hands in front of your face. Just keep walking forward, and eventually you’ll just fall and slide down into the dungeon.”

“Fun!” Kalana shouted out. Since the place had gone totally quiet while Jimmy spoke, her voice created a loud, reverberating echo that made the word “fun” repeat three or four times as she clasped her hand over her mouth and blushed. This then resulted in nearly two-hundred adventurers cackling with laughter while Kalana made a squeak as though embarrassed.

Proceeding onwards, Jimmy made his way over to the stairwell’s door. “Remember, only one person can fit in at a time,” he said. “So try to be patient or you’ll fall down the stairs.”

Before another minute had come and gone, three adventurers and a cat had fallen down the stairs—and unless Jimmy was mistaken, they’d probably done it on purpose. Of all things, it reassured Jimmy that he, not Donovan, was right about leading raids. For as wacky and rowdy as the adventurers happened to be, it was nothing new to Jimmy, because this was how he and all his friends behaved on raids, only this was in real life. Much of the playfulness, banter, and overall good times were being recreated right here in front of him. He knew what he was doing. He understood this shit.

As Jimmy watched adventurer after adventurer pour into the basement-level boiler room, which was quickly starting to become cramped, he realized that, if this dungeon ended up becoming as popular as it used to be, they were going to have a problem. “There’s no way this school’s gonna be able to handle the constant activity,” he muttered.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Kalana said, her cheeks still just a touch red.

“Huh?”

She lifted her hand and then gestured at the walls around her. “My mom knows this place is gonna be really active. We’re buying the deed from Zephyr and rebuilding it from scratch into a much nicer administration building.”

Jimmy shrugged. “Sounds fine to me.”

As more adventurers descended the stairs, with most—but not all—doing so on two feet, it quickly became clear that there was not enough space in here to accommodate the more than two hundred of them. “Okay, follow me,” Jimmy said, turning around and moving towards the specific boiler that led to the dungeon, the entrance to which was still left open from when Zach and him had come earlier. Jimmy reasoned that people would be able to figure out where to go by watching those in front of them.

Getting down onto his knees, he began crawling inside of it until eventually reaching straight through to the other end. He continued from there, moving beyond the opposite end of the boiler and into another world entirely. Immediately, everything became awash in pure silver, which made it impossible for him to see anything around him—including himself. Now, he stood up, and calmly, he began to walk forward, dreading the moment the ground would vanish beneath him.

“Okay, so, be ready to watch your step,” he called back just in case someone was behind him. “There’s gonna be a—gah!”

Someone slammed right into him, blasting him forward. And then he—and they, whoever they were—began tumbling down the slope, bouncing and spinning. At some point—and Jimmy wasn’t even sure when—the spinning stopped, and he found himself once more face down on the soft, royal-red carpets in this fancy, clean, dimly lit, and palace-like dungeon floor.

“Owe,” he said. Then he scrambled out of the way as one tumbling form after the next began appearing behind him. Then came another, and another, and another. With the sole exception of Kalana, who cheered and laughed as she deftly rolled down, not a single adventurer managed to slide down gracefully. They were all pushing each other down into the depths. At some point, the adventurers even seemed to become aware of exactly how far into the silvery passage the drop appeared; but rather than use this to reduce the overall level of chaos, they seemed to delight in shoving one another just before hitting that point.

Jimmy laughed, loudly, as he watched these goofy but lovable thrill-seekers arrive one by one. He did wince, however, when he saw the spinning forms of the Britethorns come tumbling down the one-way slope that led to this dungeon. Thankfully, in complete odds with their somewhat frail appearance, they both laughed and shot up to their feet.

“Which one of you fuckers pushed me?” Donovan asked, a grin on his face as he finally came down the slide, which ran through a hatch above. His plate armor made a bang that actually caused a slight vibration beneath Jimmy’s feet. “Fess up. Was it you, Reni?” he asked, picking himself and staring at the man behind him.

“No way,” Reni said, now also returning to his feet. “Do you think I’d dare push the great GSG leader?”

“Yeah, I absolutely do.”

Reni lifted his shoulders. “Okay, well, in that case, it was me.”

“Hah! I knew it, ya bastard. You’re buying me a beer for that.” Donovan released another mighty laugh.

It was interesting how Donovan could be so strict when it came to certain things, and so lax when it came to others. Jimmy supposed that, as long as nobody was doing anything that could actually hurt a member of the raid, he didn’t mind a little disorganization and playfulness. Certainly, Jimmy couldn’t begin to imagine that someone like that “Lord Oren” person would allow people to launch each other down a slide into what was likely a portal to another planet.

No way he’d let that happen, Jimmy thought. Despite having only met him twice, he was sure that the man wouldn’t tolerate it. Was that guy really an adventurer? Jimmy wondered. I can’t even picture that in my damn head. It’s impossible to think of him ever being one of them.

Due to their eagerness, it took the adventurers a lot quicker to get down here than Jimmy had been expecting, and once they’d all arrived, he cleared his throat and raised his voice. “There’s real danger in the next room,” he said to them. “These are the traps I told Donovan and Zephyr about. Ya’ll need to be very careful where you step.”

To demonstrate this, he led them all beyond the door labeled F27->F28 and then pointed to one of the raised, square-shaped elevations in the otherwise flat floor. Then he pointed at the wall directly across from it. “Anyone here with a good shield feel like they’re brave enough to do a demonstration?”

Maric stepped forward. “What do you need?”

“Okay, so can you like, uh, get into a defensive position?”

Maric nodded. He bent his knees and lifted his large, octagonally shaped metal shield. With that, Jimmy stepped on the tile then hurried out of the way as a magical dart zipped across the room and collided with the shield, making a loud clank in the process. What sounded like fifty of the adventurers cheered just at the sight of him guarding against the dart, with many shouting out things like “nice catch.”

“Hey, honey,” a man said to his wife. “Can you do me a favor and step on that tile.” More raucous laughter came from the crowd, and then even more as she told him she’d be happy to do so as long as he went first. But following their banter, Donovan did put an end to all the silliness.

“All right, folks, no more fuckin’ around!” he roared; immediately, all fell silent. This meant Jimmy had judged him correctly. As soon as real danger was around, he shifted gears and became stricter and less flexible. Jimmy, on the other hand, tended to be more relaxed throughout, knowing that stress often made people play worse.

Unlike his earlier trip here, this time around, it took considerably longer to navigate their way through the floor. This was because Donovan was no longer willing to let people proceed unguided and at their own pace. Now, in a complete reversal of things up until this point, he began to operate with a vastly increased level of organization, calling upon his raid captains to begin guiding small groups through one at a time. Since Donovan and Zephyr were both leaders and battlegroup captains, this meant that they, along with Jimmy, Kalana, Spider, and Maric, began preparing groups of five on how to proceed and when. Interestingly, the adventurers had also become a lot more attentive and displayed a great more seriousness, too.

“Make sure you don’t forget anything you learn here,” Donvan said loudly enough so that everyone could hear him. “If what Jimmy told us is correct, we’re gonna all be coming here a lot, and I ain’t holding yer damn hands every week.”

One group after the next, the raid captains would lead five adventurers at a time—not including themselves—over the traps, and then through the spinning, bladed wall obstacles. Then the raid captain would hang back and instruct the adventurers to sprint as fast as they could down the hall. Each time, a fresh, new boulder would appear and cause the entire floor to shake and rumble as they dove into the hole that would likely not repair itself until the dungeons reset next week. Even from where Jimmy was standing, he could then hear laughter, cheering, and finally, a loud splash.

“Next!”

Due to the methodical, careful nature of their progression, it took a lot longer than Jimmy expected to get everyone down into the rounded puzzle room, where to his amusement, there were still clumps of sand all over the place from the dead imp mobs him and Zach had slain earlier. Bragging, he pointed around the room. “That’s right, we killed all of those by ourselves.”

“I bet Calador did all the work,” one of the adventurers taunted. Jimmy didn’t take it personally, though, as busting each other’s chops was just something adventurers did. He also didn’t deny the accusation, either, because he knew that, if he did, it would make it seem like he was desperate for them to think otherwise, which would invite them to pick on him even more. He merely laughed and shrugged.

Now that they were all down safely, Jimmy again raised his voice and addressed the raid. “There’s nothing dangerous between here and the item shop,” he said. “Ya’ll just gotta follow me and I’ll take you right to it. Don’t go through the door at the end of the next passageway, though. That’s not it. That, I assume, goes straight to the next floor.”

Without waiting for a reply, Jimmy turned around and began making his way down the path just as he’d done earlier. This time, he walked with Tena’s hand in his own and Fluffles once more perched on his shoulder. Behind him, he heard the loud, energized, and excited crowd following behind. Closest to him were Donovan, Maric, Zephyr, and Kalana, and Kalana in particular seemed so giddy she was practically bubbling over with excitement.

“I can’t wait, I can’t wait!”

A thought came to him—one that was closer to a concern. He came to a halt when they were around three quarters of the distance down the passageway, and he turned around to face the adventurers, who all glanced back at him with confusion in their eyes as he stopped. “Sorry, I just gotta say one thing.”

He wet his lips and thought on how to word things. “So…I’m guessing Donovan or Zephyr told most of you guys this already, but Mushkie is kinda like Angelica. He’s sentient and he has feelings, but uh, there’s a pretty big difference between them, too. This is something I don’t think I told any of you yet. I don’t even think I told Donovan. I guess it kinda slipped my mind since there was so much stuff going on.”

Donovan grunted, and now Jimmy could visibly see the adventurers moving closer to him as if eager to hear his words. Pausing yet again, Jimmy opened his mouth to speak, but it ended up being at least another five or six seconds before he managed to get out the words. “Okay, so, it’s like this. The dude who runs the shop…he’s been alone for a really, really long time. Like really long. Actually, he told us he hasn’t spoken to nobody in five hundred years. So you gotta imagine what that feels like: to be all by yourself with no one to talk to for centuries.”

Jimmy took a breath before continuing. “He’s a bit…weird because of that. But I was hoping you guys could be nice to him. All he wants is to meet new people.” Now that they were nearly there, Jimmy took his time to more carefully explain his experience with Mushkie and what the other adventurers should expect. “…anyway,” Jimmy concluded, having fully recounted his and Zach’s interactions with the NPC. “When he sees all of you, he’s probably gonna cry. Please don’t be a dick to him, all right? He’s gonna be really strange, but I gotta ask you guys to be chill about it, okay? Can everybody be chill, please?”

“Of course!” one of the adventurers replied immediately, those nearby her nodding.

“Poor NPC,” Miss Britethorn said. “That’s such a horrible thing to suffer through.” The other adventurers seemed to agree. Donovan and Zephyr looked at one another, and both nodded. Kalana, on the other hand, actually wiped her eyes with her shirt.

“Poor Mushkie,” she whimpered. “It’s too sad!”

“It sounds like he could use some company,” Donovan said. “What do you boys and girls say we make a good first impression?”

Jimmy was reassured by their cheers. Satisfied that they understood his concerns, he turned back around and began walking the last bit of distance down the passageway until finally he paused at the spot where he saw a discoloration in the rocks in the general shape of an entrance. Interestingly, the rocks had “respawned,” so to speak, and the entryway was once more sealed.

With an embarrassed laugh, he said, “Ah, so, it’s through here, but I don’t have the strength to blast this thing down.”

Donovan casually brushed him aside and sank his fist through it even before Jimmy had finished speaking. Then, together, they all continued on their way through what, at first, was a straight passage, but soon gave way to the winding, turning, sloping path through a very dark tunnel that eventually ended with the door. Given the small width, the more than two-hundred adventurers were now all lined up single file, and it was only here that Jimmy was finally able to understand why this might’ve caused adventurers to fight—or kill—each other in the past. Although he had no doubt that up to three-hundred people could comfortably fit inside the store, any more that that would simply be too much. It must’ve therefore driven people crazy to have to stand in line for what might’ve been hours at a time in this dark tunnel.

“Okay, here it is,” he said, opening the door.

Immediately, he was refreshed by a cool blast of air-conditioned air as he took several steps into the homely, bright, and well-kept item shop. Mushkie, who was seated in his stool behind the counter, immediately hopped up to his feet and widened his eyes, a smile lighting up his face.

“Jimmy!” he cried out. He hurried around and then moved in front of the counter to meet him. “You came to see Mushkie again! I’m so happy!”

“It’s not just me, dude.”

Mushkie made an O-shape with his mouth. “Zach?”

“Nope. Not this time.”

Rather than explain, he stepped aside, and Kalana strode excitedly into the item shop. “Hi, Mushkie!” she said, smiling at him.

“ANOTHER PERSON!” he shouted as though his mind was blown.

“Hey there,” Tena said, entering immediately after her. “I’m Tena. You must be Mushkie.”

“Th-three people?”

“So, this is the shop,” Zephyr said, walking in after Tena. He waved at Mushkie. “I’m Zephyr, leader of the Explorers Brigade. You’re Mushkie, right?”

Mushkie’s eyes began to glisten with tears. “F-four people,” he whispered.

Then came Donovan and Maric with Fluffles sitting on top of his head. After that were the Britethorns, and then a bunch of adventurers Jimmy didn’t know or recognize.

“There’s even more!” Mushkie cried. Now, he began to weep. He fell to his knees, his palms laid flat on his clean, spotless carpet. “I’m so honored and thankful! Please don’t go. Please talk to Mushkie! I am at your service.”

He became even more emotional as Kalana picked him up off the floor and gave him a hug. “I cant wait to start shopping here,” she said, releasing him.

This caused him to break down into an emotional mess, weeping as if it had all become too much for him to handle. His eyes ran like faucets as one adventurer after the next began filing into his shop, and all called to him by name and introduced themselves.

Jimmy had never seen someone cry so hard from tears of happiness. Mushkie eventually lost the ability to speak as he seemingly became overwhelmed by all of it. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Yet from the way he stared at Jimmy, and from the motion of his mouth, Jimmy was pretty sure he was attempting to repeatedly speak the same two words: thank you.

Eventually, every adventurer found their way inside, turning the place into something as lively as Angelica’s. Jimmy had suggested to them that, once everyone was inside, they wait for him to explain how things worked before shopping, as it seemed to bring him a lot of happiness to do so. He was glad to see that the adventurers were willing to be patient with him, as he attempted several times to address them and failed each one.

Slowly, however, he appeared to regain his composure, apologizing over and over for his poor manners. Yet just when he seemed to finally pull himself together, he buried his face in his hands and began to cry even harder. “I was going mad!” he shouted, his voice muffled by his hands. “I couldn’t take it anymore!”

Finally, he at last reined himself in, and just as Jimmy had suspected, he became ecstatic as he described the intricate working of his shop in great detail to a chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs.” His eyes swollen and red, the NPC spoke a bit more slowly than he had when it’d been just him and Zach, but Jimmy didn’t mind, because he was an entertaining little dude, and he was thorough in his explanation.

“And that’s how everything works,” he said, sniffling. “Thank you! Oh, and of course, there’s also the special items. Sorry, I forgot to mention those.”

“Special items?” Donovan asked.

“Yes-yes-yes! Unlike the weekly ones, I have a bit of control over when those go up and how. If only I’d have known there’d be so many of you, I would’ve held a contest for Inn Room 8, which was what I was supposed to do!” Very quickly, he added, “So I gave it to Zach.”

His words set off an explosion: an absolute explosion of surprised, confused, and outraged shouts that he clearly wasn’t expecting as the words “Inn Room 8” traveled from person to person until Mushkie found himself surrounded by an inquisitive mob of startled, amazed, and even angry adventurers.

“INN ROOM EIGHT?” the adventurers shouted—and in some cases screamed.

“ZACH TOOK IT JUST LIKE THAT?” another roared.

“Is that why Eilea said Zach felt so greedy?” Kalana asked, her hands on her hips.

“Calador cheated!” someone else cried. “This isn’t fair. There should’ve been a contest. He’s…he’s doing greed before need! Donovan, say something!”

Donovan grunted. “Kid pulled a fast one on us.”

Jimmy couldn’t help but chuckle as the adventurers lost their mind over this discovery, which was another thing he’d forgotten to tell everybody. Mushkie again dropped to his knees, but this time, it was to beg for forgiveness and not to be shunned and left all alone again. This prompted more than a hundred adventurers to call out to him that they’re not mad at him at all, with many of them giving him pats on the back or affectionate shoulder squeezes.

“Kalana, this isn’t fair!” others shouted, appealing to her as if she could somehow undo what’d already been done.

“Yeah, it is fair, actually,” Rian said, sticking up for his friend. “He and Jimmy discovered this place, and they were the only customers at the time, so he got it by default.” This caused dozens of envious eyes to glare at him. But he stood his ground. “Hate all you want, but you know I’m right. Zach got it fair and square. He found it first.”

“That’s not how we do things!” a teenaged adventurer snapped at him. She looked a bit younger than he was, maybe fourteen or fifteen, and she scolded him like she was twice his age. “It’s against the spirit of adventuring! If you find a rare thingy that’s supposed to be done with a contest, you’re not supposed to sneakily grab it like some political guilder!”

“That’s right!” someone shouted in agreement. “Kid’s spending too much time with that filthy turncoat, Alex!”

“Exactly,” the teen replied. She seemed to be the youngest adventurer on the raid, though it appeared her father was accompanying her. “It was a contest, and this is, like, so cheating.”

“Relax, Ishina,” Rian said to the young girl, rolling his eyes. “I doubt he even knew it was meant for a contest.”

“He knew,” Mushkie said matter-of-factly in a neutral tone of voice. “Mushkie told him.”

About three seconds of silence followed his words. Then came another explosion of noise.

“RAH RAH RAH RAH RAH!” the crowd screamed. Jimmy was no longer able to understand their words. Rian, despite their anger, still refused to change his view.

“Hey, it was still fair and square. Right, Jimmy?”

“Well…I wouldn’t exactly say it was fair, at least not to me,” Jimmy grumbled, causing all eyes to turn his way. He hadn’t even meant his words to be overheard by everyone else, and he had no idea how the raucous crowd could even hear him, yet upon speaking, everyone now stared at him as if expecting an explanation. He sighed.

“Zach didn’t give me a chance to roll for it. He just happened to be the first to get to the counter, and when Mushkie showed it to him, he bought it immediately. We actually got into an argument about that.”

“Do-over!” the adventurers roared. “Do-over! It’s not fair!”

Jimmy turned over his hands and lifted his palms. “There’s no way you’re gonna convince him to participate in a contest for it. You guys know how he is, right? Ya’ll got a better chance convincing a turtle to fly.”

Mushkie cleared his throat. “Maybe I can help make things better,” he said, once again causing him to become the center of attention. Setting down the rainbow-colored umbrella he was holding, he hurried back behind his counter and then returned a moment later with a piece of a paper, which he held close to his chest as if worried someone might see whatever was on it.

“The special items are meant to foster community events,” he began. “I get twelve of them a year, and I decide when they go up, in what order, and what contests I do to let people earn the right to buy them.” He stopped speaking a moment as he read over the list in his hand. “There are two other inn rooms up for grabs this year. Inn Room 20, and Inn Room 5. Oh, wait, no. Inn room 9, too. So Mushkie has…three inn rooms!”

As Mushkie spoke those words, Jimmy learned with absolute certainty that there was no sound associated with the widening of eyes, because if there was, he surely would’ve heard it as the adventurers all looked ravenously at Mushkie. “Contest!” they cried. “We want another contest!”

“Wouldn’t it be more fun if we at least waited for—”

“No waiting!”

Mushkie smiled as if loving the energy. “Okay. How about this! Are all of you doing the boss on F30 after this?”

“Some of us are,” Donovan said. “Why?”

“How about I add Inn Room 20 to the loot table? Guaranteed drop.”

Almost sixty of the adventurers, Jimmy included, let out a cheer of excitement and agreement. The rest, however—such as those who were either too low level, not qualified for another reason, or not willing to participate—gave the opposite reaction, shouting how that wasn’t fair because then they had no chance to win one. Mushkie seemed to have a solution to the matter, though, and he appeared both eager and proud to present it.

“Okay, okay! How about this, my new friends? I’ll put Inn Room 20 on the boss loot table, and then next week, on Monday when the store resets, I’ll hold a very special contest for Inn Room 9 that anyone level 10 or up can participate in. My contests are usually pretty safe for anyone meeting the level requirement.”

A consensus rapidly formed around this suggestion. There did, however, appear to be one question that a great many people all seemed to ask in unison: what about room 5? At this, Mushkie gave an honest answer that he likely didn’t intend to be as upsetting as it was.

“I’ll hold onto that for a later contest so I know somebody will see me again and I won’t be alone forever!” he said merrily.

The adventurers calmed down a bit at the desperation in his words. Jimmy wondered if it was starting to dawn on them—as it had with him and Zach—how strangely…how unusually cruel this was. It was impossible not to question why the Great Ones allowed this kind of suffering for one of their creations. There was simply no sense to be made of it.

Over the course of the next few minutes, many questions were asked of Mushkie, and most of them were the same questions that he and Zach had asked when they were here earlier: such as why he hadn’t just left and gone to Angelica’s, which led to them wondering why he wasn’t allowed to leave if she herself could roam freely. Jimmy hadn’t been certain earlier today, but he’d thought he detected a hint of resentment from Mushkie whenever it came to Angelica. Though he claimed to have never met her, Jimmy was beginning to doubt he was being truthful. Even still, it wasn’t his place to pry.

Whatever the case, the adventurers became wild with glee as Mushkie held up the certificate to Inn Room 20. He then extended his arm, raised his hand as far above himself as he could, and before everyone’s eyes, it vanished. “The inn room is now with the boss on F30,” Mushkie said. “Good luck, everyone!”

Chapter 145: LEAVE!

Chapter 145: LEAVE!

“Can everyone hear me?”

Zach looked around the small den; it was a meager room tucked away in the back of Kalana's large, recently constructed home. Only about twice the size of a walk-in closet, and on the second floor in the least-busy part of the house, it was the perfect place for a private meeting between a few individuals. Originally, the room had been intended to be used as a comfy little study where someone could come for a bit of quiet seclusion. That changed a short while ago when a white-cloaked Elf carried in a table and a few chairs at the request of Eilea.

“We can, Prila,” Zach said. “Or at least I can. What about you guys?”

Mr. Oren straightened his back in his chair where he sat directly across from Zach. “I’m sure we can all hear her just fine.”

“Who else is with you two? If I may ask.”

Briefly, Mr. Oren remarked that, along with himself, Eilea, and Zach, they were currently joined by Jascaila Iseldar, Count Olivir Soloux, and Countess Kolona Vayra. Zach was genuinely surprised to see the vampires show up, as they arguably had the least stake—no pun intended—in the future of Galterra. Not only could they retreat to Archian Prime whenever they pleased, but Olivir and Kolona had only just ended a war; Zach imagined the last thing they desired was to be involved in another.

I know they don’t want to be here, so why did they come?

As far as Donovan and Zephyr were concerned, their absence was in no way a mystery. Those two wanted nothing to do with war and politics, and right now, they were busy raiding Trials of Nolak—somewhere Zach himself would much rather have been. If only the world had given him that option. To his own disappointment, Zach could feel the current precarious state of Galterra pulling him away from the adventuring life he yearned to live. Hopefully, after this period of nastiness was over, he would be able to go back to raiding dungeons and living free.

This has to be the last thing, he thought. I’ll get through this and then go to their stupid world-leader-meeting-whatever, but then I’m focusing on the World Eater and nothing else! I’m done with this war bullshit!

Kalana, who’d gone along with Donovan and Zephyr, was also not present in this meeting. That had been mostly by Zach’s doing—but he’d needed to lie to her to make it happen. This left him feeling guilty. Very guilty. It hurt so much to lie to the girl he loved more than anything, but he couldn’t have her be part of this. For all that his sessions with Jascaila had strengthened his mind, there were some things he was just not ready to face and, in all honesty, would likely never be okay with facing. Kalana being involved in this kind of filth was one of those things. Keeping Kalana’s hands free of blood had become the primary motivating factor in Zach’s life.

“So, it seems all of you can hear me,” Prila said. “This is good.”

Olivir, who was wearing a gold-and-red, button-up vest with a black pair of slacks, scratched his silver hair and looked around the room as if tracing the source of the voice. “This is amazing. I can’t believe we can do this.”

“I can’t believe it either,” Kolona agreed. She was dressed far more casually, wearing a dark grey blouse and a pleated skirt.

By now, Zach had grown accustomed to these strange, telepathic antics that the Great Ones employed. That aside, this newest “trick” of theirs was wild. They’d actually managed to establish some kind of phone-like connection to Prila’s mind, enabling her to communicate across long distances without those around her having any awareness that this was taking place. Of course, this did mean that they had a new addition to their little “group,” as this feat was only possible with the help of Adamus, the Great One.

So far, he’d said but a few words, seemingly content to passively observe. Yet his presence here was something that couldn’t be ignored or forgotten. Regardless, Zach tried to act as he normally would, and with that, he smiled and said, “It’s good to hear from you, Prila.”

“And it’s so good to hear your voice again as well, Zach.”

“Are you doing okay over there?”

“I’m fine, Zach. There’s no reason for them to ever suspect me, and it’s beyond their ability to know we’re speaking.”

Zach placed his palms on the table’s edges, gripping them. “We’re going to get you out of there when this is over. I promise you.”

There was a strange, perhaps even awkward pause. Zach wasn’t sure why. A moment later, the voice of Prila returned, sounding as though she was speaking to them from all directions. “Zach, that…that won’t be necessary.” She then sighed, and it was odd how it could actually be heard along with her words.

“Hah? Of course it’s necessary,” Zach insisted. “There’s no way we’re leaving you there.”

“No, you don’t…forgive me for not being clear. I’ve made plans for my own escape.”

“Too risky. I’d rather personally go down there and—”

Mr. Oren cleared his throat. “Zach, please, that’s enough.”

“What do you mean ‘that’s enough?’ What’s gotten into you?” He pointed upwards despite knowing that there was no correlation with Prila’s actual location in the world and the direction he indicated. “She’s literally trapped in a secure location with the Guild of Gentlemen. We’re not leaving her there.”

Mr. Oren lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes. For the time being, he’d replaced his contacts with a sturdy black pair of round glasses with small lenses that fit well on his face. “Zach, you don’t understand what’s being hinted at here.”

Olivir and Kolona nodded, Eilea frowned, Jascaila gave him a calming look, and Mr. Oren made an odd expression that Zach couldn’t quite place. “Why do I feel like I’m the only one here who doesn’t get what’s going on?”

“Because ya kind of are,” Olivir said.

“Oh yeah? How so?” Zach asked, becoming annoyed.

Mr. Oren moved his lips, but he did not open his mouth. It was as though he found the answer to Zach’s question awkward. Everyone seemed to squirm a bit. This only made Zach even more unsettled and confused. What were they hiding from him? Why didn’t they want to rescue Prila? For another few seconds, these questions lingered in his brain. In the end, it was Adamus, of all people, who provided him with the answers—and in way that, for Adamus, felt unusually blunt.

“I will be bringing Prila home,” he stated. “She is returning to the OMP with me, and there she will stay. Do not concern yourself with her rescue, my child.”

Zach looked to his left, then to his right, unwilling to believe what he was hearing—and also unwilling to believe how easily the others were accepting this decision. He felt an explosion of outrage within him. “What the fuck?” he snapped. “Prila, you’re going back to the OMP?”

“Yes,” she said. There was no trace of shame or apology in her words, just a hint of sadness.

“You’re betraying us?”

“No, Zach. Of course not!”

He threw up his arms in anger. “Clearly you are! Why would you possibly want to turn against us and—”

“Zach,” Jascaila cut in, her voice soft but stern. “This may not be about you at all.”

He turned his head her way. “Of course it is. It’s not like she’s suddenly fallen in love with the guy or something.” This caused an awkward gasp to come from Prila, a wince from Olivir and Kolona, and a frustrated look from Mr. Oren. “Wait a minute. Are you…” He exhaled, trying to keep his temper under control. “Are you shitting me, Prila? Are you actually shitting me? You’re going to pull this now? You’re not allowed to…you can’t love him. He’s the guy you came down here to—”

“Zach, that’s enough,” Jascaila said. When she spoke, she did not do so with any kind of threat or anger in her words, yet they were so halting despite this. She leaned forward in her chair and placed her palm on top of his hand. “This isn’t a decision that’s yours to make for her. It’s also incredibly rude to comment further. She has the right to love who she loves, and it’s clearly not a conversation that’s appropriate to have with Eilea present.”

Of all things, Eilea rolled her eyes. Though Zach had barely spent any time with her in person, it still felt like an odd thing to see from such an ancient, powerful being—even if she did look like she was practically the same age as him or maybe Jimmy.

“That’s one concern you needn’t have,” she said to Jascaila. “I’ve moved on from him thousands of years ago. Our marriage is but in name only. Adamus is well aware I’ve found another, and I have not the slightest problem with him doing the same. Let me speak clearly: while my issues with him are numerous to the point of being uncountable, that is not one of them.”

“She speaks the truth,” Adamus said. “We are long past the point of awkwardness. So please allow me to reassure you of one thing, boy. Prila has told me nothing of what was said between her and you in confidence. She will not betray you, and I do not require her to. This, I swear.”

Zach took a moment to steady himself. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and then reopened them. “All right. I apologize. This is clearly not my business, and I’m sorry for prying. Jascaila is right. Prila has the right to choose her own path to happiness, and that’s not for me to decide for her.”

Having spoken those words, Zach watched as Jascaila removed her hand while Mr. Oren gave him a curt nod. With that, Zach sensed that this was a topic that would now be dropped and never again raised. Despite this, Zach couldn’t help but wonder what could possibly have possessed the woman to love such a heartless prick: the man she herself had acknowledged was responsible for allowing atrocities to happen.

It really is bullshit, Zach thought. Even if it’s not appropriate for me to say it. Everyone here has to know it.

Letting it go, he sat up straighter and observed Mr. Oren folding his hands on the table while pursing his lips together as though in thought. A moment later, he turned his eyes upward as though it somehow constituted looking towards Adamus. “Let’s try to limit our discussion to the reason we’re all here,” he said. “The nuclear threat. Her Greatness told us that Prila would be able to provide us with the latest, most up-to-date details.”

“Y-yes, of course,” Prila replied. Then her voice became far more serious. The emotion seemed to drain out of her words. “I’m afraid,” she began, “that things have moved faster than even I expected, and as of a few hours ago, events have taken a turn for the worse.”

“Please continue,” Mr. Oren said, keeping a straight face. Zach felt nerves rush into his abdomen, but he remained quiet and allowed Mr. Oren to lead things from here.

Zach listened in as Prila began to deliver a very technical, very scientific-sounding explanation on the current state of the research facility. Zach, for his part, had no idea what any of the stuff he was hearing meant. But he did know it must’ve been bad, because Mr. Oren’s shoulders began to tense apprehensively, and then he began to mouth something that almost looked like a swear word under his breath.

Eilea, on the other hand, was not showing any reaction at all. She seemed distant and unfocused. There was something bothering her, and Zach was pretty sure it had nothing at all to do with Prila and Adamus. It was something else. Since the start of the meeting, she’d been fidgeting and constantly changing her position in her seat. When Zach tried to focus on reading her emotions, he discovered that she’d blocked the link they shared as if not wanting him to know what she was feeling. It was all really strange.

Concerned, Zach studied her expression, but he looked away when she caught him staring at her. He returned his attention to Mr. Oren, who began looking even more tense as he asked, “Are you certain about this, Prila?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. The Guild of Gentlemen can now synthesize the isotope U-235, and they’re rushing new weapons into production. I did not believe they’d be able to create the facilities necessary to start this process for a little more time, but it appears they’ve done so, and production has begun today.”

“This is terrible news,” Mr. Oren said, a pained expression crossing his features. “This is truly, truly terrible news.”

“Why, what’s it mean?” Zach asked. In a weird way, he was actually relieved to see that Olivir, Kolona, and Jascaila also looked just as clueless as he felt. “For those of us who aren’t scientists, how does this change things?”

“The timeline has shifted dramatically,” Prila said. “Originally, we believed we’d have months. Upon this breakthrough, it became a week. But with the success the Guild of Gentlemen is having in terms of creating the infrastructure necessary to begin production, I fear we might be looking at days or…or potentially hours before they can build an untested prototype missile.”

“Fuck!” Zach shouted, slamming his fist down onto the table. “I thought we had more time!”

His outburst caused one of the Elves standing in front of the doorway to look over his shoulder as if to ensure everyone inside the room was okay. At the moment, the entrance was being guarded by a number of white- and green-cloaked Elvish warriors. Queen Vayra was also not far away. Incredibly, she seemed to have no problem allowing this private audience with the Elvish Goddess. She’d asked no questions, and she hadn’t appeared suspicious. Zach supposed she was so pious that she didn’t even consider it acceptable to privately dwell on it.

“We have to do something soon,” Olivir said. “Kolona and I won’t fight directly, but we can help in other ways.”

Kolona nodded. “Oli and I talked about it, and even though we’re not willing to get ourselves into another war, we believe what the Guild of Gentlemen is doing is wrong. So we’re willing to revive those who die in the coming fight.”

“I appreciate that very much,” Mr. Oren said. Then he turned his gaze on Zach, and there was something in his eyes that Zach found deeply disturbing. His expression had turned icy, and more so, he curled up his bottom lip as if signaling for Zach to brace himself.

“What?” Zach asked him. “What are you about to say?”

“We have to change our plans.”

“How so?”

Mr. Oren turned his head to Eilea, but only for an instant, and then he again focused in on Zach. “I know that our goals were to free Vim and then prepare for an invasion. But that’s not going to be an option anymore.” He shook his head. “We need to muster all our forces and launch an emergency attack tomorrow morning. Though it’s asking a lot, I believe if we begin moving right now, the Elves and the Lords of Justice can piece together a strike force by daybreak with the sole purpose of identifying and destroying their weapons-building infrastructure. That, right now, takes priority even over destroying or capturing the research facility.”

For a moment, Zach stared at Mr. Oren in confusion, unable to grasp what he was saying. “So what’s the issue here?” he asked. “Vim’s execution is tomorrow morning. We have plenty of time between now and then.”

“No, we don’t,” Mr. Oren said.

Still confused, Zach struggled to see the issue. “Of course we do. Weren’t we going to strike in the middle of the night? We can still do both things—just closer together.”

“You’re not getting it.” He leaned back in his chair and took several deep breaths. “We need to commit every single unit we can muster towards the dismantling and disarming of their production process. We’re going to be cutting it so close as is. If we deploy units to rescue Vim, not only do we risk losing some in the process, but even if we succeed, they won’t be ready to rejoin the invading force in time for the attack.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Zach, how are you not understanding this?”

“Because you’re talking about deploying units and this and that. Mr. Oren, exactly how did you think this night attack was going to go down?”

Now, Mr. Oren was the one who looked confused. “Isn’t it obvious? Senior-Lieutenant Haisel Ragora would launch a surprise aerial bombardment with his fighter jets around the location where he’s being held—which we believe is in a holding facility belowground in southeast Shadowfall Coast—in order to cripple their defensive capabilities in the area, and then the two of us—along with a small but competent group of leveled warriors and ground troops—were going to fly in on armored helicopters, storm the compound, rescue Sir Alazar, and make a hasty extraction.”

By the time Mr. Oren had finished speaking, Zach’s mouth had fallen open in a state of dumbfounded shock, and he found it difficult to even blink. Was this actually what Mr. Oren had been running through his head this whole time? Could that even be possible? Zach was so surprised by how far apart they were in terms of their thinking that it actually paralyzed him, albeit briefly.

“That’s what you thought I meant when I said we should attack in the night?” Mr. Oren, seemingly caught off guard, wet his lips but said nothing as if failing to find the words with which to reply. Therefore, Zach continued on without waiting for an answer. “Mr. Oren, that’s not what I ever thought we were going to do.”

“So what did you think was going to happen?”

Zach lifted his hands from the table and then extended them to both sides of himself. “Something way simpler. Me and a couple of Elves rush through Yorna, come out on the beach, break our way into the prison, grab Vim, and then I throw him on my Kralzek’s Beast and flee at full speed back to the dungeon, Phase Rescue him inside, take him down to B10, then elevator back up to the farmlands in Whispery Woods.” The moment Zach finished speaking, he realized he needed to add one more detail. “Oh yeah, right. My Unleashed Phase is on cooldown because I used it in Nolak, so add to that list me scrambling to get to Fylwen as quick as I can so she can heal me after it expires. I’m going to have to Phase Reset.”

Mr. Oren lowered his head and averted his gaze. Zach had no idea whether this was to contemplate Zach’s plan or if it was because he found it so ridiculous it’d stunned him. Yet before Zach could find out which, he was surprisingly rebuked by Adamus, who was the last person he’d expected to weigh in on something like this.

“That plan will not suffice,” Adamus said.

“Why the hell not?” he asked, tuning his head upwards out of a weird habit that had formed.

“As the young scientist has already told you, we need every available Elf to search for and destroy their weapons or the facilities that make them.”

“So…” Zach replayed his words in his head. “So you’re not saying I can’t do it, you’re just saying I can’t bring any Elves. Correct?”

“That is correct, my child.”

“So, to clarify, Adamus, you’re saying you have no problem whatsoever if I just decide to go by myself?”

“Of course not. Do as you wish. I have no problem with this.”

“Well I do!” Eilea shouted, a sudden, intense heat to her words. Hearing Zach’s plan seemed to have snapped her out of whatever trance she’d been in. Mr. Oren also seemed to disapprove, as evident by the way he narrowed his eyes and fervently shook his head. “You’re not going there by yourself,” Eilea told him. “I expressly forbid it!”

“You shall do no such thing, my beloved,” Adamus said even before Zach could challenge her. “You may not inhibit his free will. If he decides this a worthy pursuit, you’ve no right to forbid it.”

“But he’ll die, you fool!”

“I refuse to discuss this further. My interests lie solely with protecting the system from these abhorrent weapons of mass destruction. Let us not waste any more words on the topic of the boy and the guild leader. I invite you two to engage in a heated debate on the matter after we conclude our business here and I have returned myself to other tasks.”

Mr. Oren set his eyes on Zach, and in them, Zach could see worry, alarm, but also frustration. Yet he removed them a moment later and seemed to refocus his thoughts on the more serious matter of the nuclear weapons. “Adamus is right,” he said. “For the moment, let’s keep this discussion on point. To that end, little has changed.”

Eilea winced. Zach wasn’t sure why. She’d returned to fidgeting, but now, she seemed even more unnerved. Something was clearly upsetting her: that much had been obvious from the start of this meeting. And as Mr. Oren continued to speak, she only seemed to grow even more restless.

“Zach told me about your discussion with him very early this morning, Adamus. He explained to me the reason he brought Eilea here: so that she can ask the queen to deploy her Elves to war. He’s come up with a very intelligent plan, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I would very much agree,” Adamus said. “I have endorsed it wholeheartedly.”

“Good,” Mr. Oren said. “Because my plan is to simply use Zach’s existing plan but with the addition of my own forces and a very accelerated time table.” He tapped his finger against the table as he spoke. “Essentially, we’re just doing what everyone here has already agreed we should do, only we’re doing it now instead of next week or later. The only thing that’s changed is the level of urgency.”

“It seems we lack any disagreement with how to proceed from here,” Adamus said.

“Excellent.” Mr. Oren stopped tapping his finger and now placed his hands down flat on the table. “So then, what I propose now is that we execute our plan immediately so that we can hopefully be ready to strike by first light tomorrow. Right now, we should immediately have Her Greatness order Queen Vayra to begin—”

“No,” she said, abruptly cutting off Mr. Oren.

“No?”

“I refuse. I’m not doing it.”

Zach blinked at her in confusion. “Oh…oh shit. Is this my fault? Is this because of the Vim thing?”

“No,” Eilea said. “It has nothing to do with that. I simply do not think it wise to order the Elves to storm Shadowfall Coast, and I refuse.”

“Because…of me?” Zach asked. An icy sensation traveled down his spine. Eilea’s behavior was becoming increasingly strange, and he was beginning to think it was his fault. “Is this because you’re upset that I’m planning to go there alone?”

“No,” she repeated. “This has nothing to do with you at all, Zach, although I am indeed very upset about that, and I plan to talk to you about it as soon as this is done. But no, this is completely unrelated.”

Her words made no sense, and now, Zach was beyond puzzled. Mr. Oren also looked like he had no idea what she was getting at or what game she was playing. Even Adamus, from his silence alone, must have been taken aback. Or maybe there was another reason he’d gone quiet. Zach wasn’t sure. Either way, Eilea was acting off, and Zach wondered if her refusal and her earlier fidgeting were related.

They might be…

“Eilea, if you’re not doing this because you’re upset with my decision, then I don’t understand why you’re refusing. I mean, that’s why you’re even here, right? That was the whole reason you were willing to make a deal with Adamus and break your thousand years of imprisonment: so you could ask the queen to—”

“I know why I’m here!” she snapped, shouting with such unexpected, loud, and burning anger that it caused Zach, Olivir, Kolona, Jascaila, and even Mr. Oren to flinch. It also caused Zach to become lightheaded simply from the sheer level of bewilderment he felt as she displayed such erratic behavior. Zach tried to make sense of what he was seeing and hearing. What had gotten into her? Where was this emotional outburst coming from? This was a side of her he’d never before seen, and it threw him totally off.

“Eilea, I don’t…I don’t understand what—”

“And there it is,” Adamus said, his tone saddened yet oddly knowing. “My child, I fully understand your confusion, yet you are about to experience firsthand what I have had to deal with for thousands of years. You could not possibly have known, but you will soon see what befalls all those who attempt to side with my beloved.”

“I don’t get what’s going on at all,” Zach said.

“I don’t…I don’t either,” Mr. Oren replied.

Eilea began to sob, and then she used the front of her elegant dress to dab at her eyes. “I’m sorry for that outburst. Ignore my wretched, vile, vulturous husband. I apologize, Zach. I care deeply for you, and I wish not to degrade myself.”

Zach was so caught off guard he actually held his breath a moment while he tried to figure out just what in the hell he was witnessing. “Eilea, I don’t understand what’s going on here. You’re kind of…scaring me.”

“Please don’t fear me,” she said. “It’s not…it’s not what you think. I would never harm a single person in this room. I swear that for all I’m worth. I apologize for my outburst.” To the four Elves who Zach realized only now had burst into the room, she waved her hand at them, bidding them to leave. They obeyed, but there was a certain hesitance to them. They seemed just as uncertain as Zach.

After an agonizing few seconds of silence transpired, Adamus spoke once again. “There is a reason why my wife can never accomplish a single thing she sets out to do, and you are bearing witness to that now.”

The fact that Mr. Oren was darting his eyes between Zach, Eilea, and the ceiling meant that he was no closer to figuring out what the hell was happening than Zach was. “Your Greatness,” he said to her. “If you could please explain to us what—”

“I love them,” she said, her words so unexpected yet also so overflowing with passion.

“You…love them?”

“Yes,” she said to Mr. Oren, sobbing once more. “The Elves.”

Zach rested his forehead on his right palm. “I’m so lost right now.”

“Then please allow me to explain,” Adamus said, chiming in. “I had a feeling this would happen.” Even as Adamus spoke, Eilea’s face contorted into a vicious scowl. “Early this morning, you made a deal with me, Zachys. One that led to my beloved joining you there to convince the Elves to take up war against Shadowfall Coast. She—and I—agreed with this plan, and to be sure, it was a wise plan. One you should be commended for.”

His words became harsher as he spoke, though the harshness was not directed at Zach, but at Eilea. “Unfortunately, my child, you made a terrible error.”

“What error?” Zach asked.

“You allowed her to meet them. Now do you understand? In less than a day, she has grown emotionally attached to them, just as she has to you. And this, my child, is why for thousands of years, my beloved has never been able to stick to a single plan of action that she has come up with, because each and every time, she allows her emotions to derail her and everyone who puts their trust in her. This time is no exception.”

“Don’t listen to him, Zach,” she begged. “Please. We will find a much better way of dealing with the weapons. Our plan was premature and made in the spur of the moment.”

Zach was too stunned to process any of this. Once more, he felt Jascaila’s hand on top of his own. Right now, she wore a very complicated look on her face. It was as though she and she alone was able to fully comprehend all the emotional instability taking place inside of Eilea.

Of course she does, Zach thought. Who else could?

“Zach,” Eilea said to him pleadingly. “If Adamus wanted to do so, he could annihilate every weapons factory in Shadowfall Coast in the blink of an eye. He is so powerful. Far, far more than myself. He could end this in an instant!” she said, ending her words in a shout. “But instead, he asks me to send those beautiful Elves into combat against foes armed with loot from the dragon. Some will die. And their numbers, Zach, are already so few.” She shook her head. “I can’t ask them to do this.”

Still trying to process all of this, Zach continued to say nothing. Yet as he looked into Eilea’s eyes, he knew he could not be angry with her. He gently pulled his hand away from Jascaila, and much as she’d done for him, he placed his on top of Eilea’s.

“You know this isn’t easy for me either, right? I hate doing this. I never wanted to. I told you that at the time. But you assured me it was the right thing to do.”

She wiped her face. “But now that I’ve met them, they’re so happy, and they love me, and they trust me, I can’t send them into danger. Or you.”

“You’re right,” Zach said, nodding. “You can’t. I can’t even expect you to do something like that.”

“Really?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah.” He felt a heaviness in his chest. “So I know how we’re going to solve this.”

A small glimmer of hope appeared in her eyes, which reminded him so much of Kalana, Kolona, and the queen. “You do? How?”

“With the truth.”

“The truth?”

“That’s right. We’re going to tell the truth.” In Jascaila’s eyes, Zach could see her forming a slight smile, which he took as a sign of approval. “You might not be happy about this, but…but this will cause you the least pain in the long run.”

Briefly, he traded glances with Mr. Oren, and Mr. Oren gave him a slow, but similarly approving nod. It was as though Mr. Oren and Jascaila understood what he was about to do and had thought it up themselves using nothing more than common sense. And what was more: there was pride in both of their eyes. This told Zach that he had the full support of them both.

Now, likely having observed this brief, wordless exchange, Eilea was the one who seemed to recoil, her face displaying a flicker of fear as she pulled her hand away. “What…what do you plan on doing?”

Zach turned his head to look at the Elves standing guard, and he cleared his throat. “Um, excuse me,” he said to a white-cloaked Elf.

“Doth thee speaketh to me?” the Elf asked as though surprised that Zach was addressing him.

“Yep. I am.”

“What doth thee require?”

“Please tell Queen Vayra her presence is needed immediately. It’s urgent.”

Eilea’s eyes widened, her pupils becoming enlarged. “What are you doing? Don’t!”

Overhearing this, the white-cloaked Elf immediately halted; he’d been only a moment from exiting the room. This was unsurprising, as he would not refuse a direct command from the “Great Goddess.” Or at least, under most circumstances he wouldn’t. “Adamus?” Zach asked.

“Very clever, boy. You’re forcing me to shoulder the burden. I suppose I should’ve done this from the very start. Alas, I too am flawed and find this so distasteful that I’ve done all I can to avoid it. But very well. The danger to the system has now reached a level that I will cooperate.” There was a brief pause, one that lasted between two and three seconds. And then Adamus spoke again. But this time, he spoke to an even larger audience. “What is your name, child of Elvadin?” Adamus asked the man.

Now, as though he too could hear Adamus, the white-cloaked Elf immediately fell to his knees, gasping loudly and with such intensity that Zach worried he’d choke to death on his own saliva. “Doth I heareth the voice of Adamus, the Great Lord?” he shouted, causing those nearby to similarly drop to their knees. Zach wasn’t even sure they could hear him too. But after everything that’d happened, they didn’t seem to question it.

“You do, child of Elvadin. What is your name?”

“Elvaran H’ral!” he shouted

“Please bring me your queen.”

In answer to his earlier question, Zach discovered that all four of them could, in fact, hear Adamus’s voice, as each one burst to their feet as though the mere act of standing upright was the most significant thing they’d ever been instructed to do, and they moved with such haste and seriousness that they ended up destroying two doors and knocking down part of a wall in their frenzied dash to the queen.

Kal’s going to have to waste so much gold now repairing more God-related property damage, Zach thought bitterly. Such a waste of coin.

The sound of urgent footsteps echoed from outside the small room, and in a way that was somewhat more measured, Queen Vayra entered, looking anxious, worried, and a bit panicked. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Zach, have you disrespected Her Greatness?” There was shock, anger, and sadness in the queen’s expression, and Zach realized it was because of the tears in the eyes of Eilea.

“Zach, please tell me you have not done something which cannot be undone! Have you hurt or brought shame to—”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Zach said. “It’s not like that at all. Look, Fylwen, I really need to tell you something that’s going to be hard for you to hear, but I want to be honest with you.” She twisted her lips as though to form the word “what” but she remained quiet as she met his eyes.

Zach hesitated just a moment. A bunch of words came to his mind: clever things he could say or ways he could ease her into what he knew had to be said. But he decided to throw all of them away. He wanted to tell her the truth. That was the answer to all of this. The plain and simple truth.

“Okay,” he continued. “This is going to be a lot to take in, and it’s really something that should be explained to you slowly, but…but I feel like I need to just say it to you outright even though a whole lot of nuance is going to be lost and it’s going to make me look terrible. Really, really terrible.”

“Zach?” Fylwen whispered, her voice overflowing with concern. “What is it?”

I need to just say it. Just…just tell her.

Zach pointed to Eilea. “Before she came here, me and the Great Goddess had been talking to each other weekly for a while, and after the bomb dropped, we started discussing ways to protect the world from those weapons. I don’t know if you’ve been wondering how it came to be me of all people who found themselves in contact with the Great Goddess, but the truth is she’d been reaching out to me since I started adventuring. I only became aware of her later on, though. And that’s when I started talking to her every so often in my mind.”

“I see,” Fylwen said, still speaking at a whisper.

Zach paused to draw a breath before continuing. This would be the hard part. “Okay, so, in the process of discussing this, we included Adamus—sorry, the Great Lord—in our conversations. And I, not he, brought up the fact that…shit, this is harder than I thought.”

“I’m listening,” Fylwen said, her expression unreadable.

“I told him that if there’s anyone in this world who could dismantle those weapons and do it successfully, it was the Elves. But I know how protective you are of your Elves, and I know I could never convince you to send them into battle after what happened to Ogre's Axe.” He braced himself. “That’s…that’s why Eilea is here. I asked her to come here to tell you to do it. Me. I did that. I wanted to manipulate you by getting her to make you do it. Because I knew you wouldn’t if I asked. So…so she agreed to command you to do it. But neither of us were ever happy about it. And it’s eating away at us both.”

Zach stopped for just a moment and lowered his hand back down to his side. “Fylwen, from the very beginning, I was never really comfortable with this, and now that she’s met you, Eilea loves you and your Elves, and so she’s not comfortable with it anymore either. And this is actually what brings us to why you’re in here with us right now. So um, the Great Lord, Adamus? He disagrees with us both. He still believes that you should take these actions, so there’s a disagreement between the Great Goddess and the Great Lord. I should also probably let you know that he’s here with us right now and can hear you and speak to you.”

The moment Zach finished speaking, Queen Vayra calmly walked forward, pulled out a spare chair, and took a seat down at the table. And despite how ridiculous her beliefs and her religion might have been, Zach felt nothing but admiration for her internal strength. Because in just a matter of seconds, she pulled herself together. It couldn’t have been easy. To someone like Fylwen, everything he was saying was likely mentally hitting her with the force of a nuclear bomb. Yet even still, she inhaled slowly and then pulled her chair closer into the table before folding her hands on top of it.

Zach met her eyes. “I regret ever starting any of this. I don’t want you or your Elves to be hurt. The guilt is painful. So I want to look you in the eyes and let you know that it was me who did all this. I wanted to use you and your Elves. And the reason Eilea—sorry, the Great Goddess—is crying right now is because she feels the same guilt that I feel. And to be even more honest with you, I’ll just tell you that Eilea and I both believe the Great Lord is cruel. We both think he is cold, heartless, and terrible. But I also know he outranks her. And since I don’t have the courage to deceive you anymore, I would rather him force you to do this himself than spend another second playing games or lying to you. If this is what he wants, then he needs to tell you so himself.”

Fylwen remained silent, and Zach worried about what thoughts might be going through her head. For his part, he felt like a tremendous, unbearable, and crushing weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Even if she hated him for this, he’d at least confessed to his duplicity. Still, much of his relief was held back by the blank expression that suddenly popped onto Fylwen’s face. And this blank expression remained that way as she slowly craned her neck upwards.

“Is the Great Lord Adamus truly among us?” she asked softly. “Can you hear me, Lord?”

“I can, my child,” he replied.

Zach could actually hear the oxygen whoosh out of her lungs. Yet she was again quick to regain her composure. “Is everything the boy just said true? That he and Eilea had consulted with you on using my Elves for war? And that now both are having second thoughts and suffering feelings of guilt?”

“Yes, my child. Every word of what he told you is the truth.”

Fylwen nodded. And then, very simply, she said, “In that case, I deeply apologize on behalf of both of them. The boy and your wife are dear to me, and I beg you not to punish them for their horrific disobedience to your will and your word. Especially the boy. He doesn’t know our ways, and he does not understand that you, Great Lord Adamus, have always been known to be callous in the pursuit of good, putting emotion aside in your quest to do right.” She straightened her back. “I will be ready to attack on a moment’s notice, my Lord. And you,” she said to Zach, pinching his ear affectionately. “Do not disobey the Great Lord again.”

Her response stunned Zach. Though the outcome was partially as he’d expected, he thought she’d be at least a little upset with him. Instead, her only issue with Zach appeared to be that he didn’t “obey” Adamus the first time around.

It occurred to Zach that, in a way, despite telling her the truth, he’d somehow still manipulated her. Everything he’d said was true. He really did feel terrible. He really did have second thoughts. He even agreed with Eilea. He’d told Fylwen nothing but the truth. And yet, even in doing so, he still felt off. And it was because there was one last thing he hadn’t said, wasn’t there? There was. And Zach wondered if by not saying it, it constituted a lie by omission. He wanted to clear his conscience, and having omitted this one small detail…it felt wrong to him.

“Fylwen,” he whispered. “There’s one thing I forgot to say. I honestly, truly don’t believe that Adamus is a G—ahh!”

A pain erupted in his knee as someone—probably Mr. Oren—kicked him under the table. He looked at his former science teacher, who looked back at him with such a fierce intensity that Zach understood right away he needed to let that last bit go. Now, hissing, he rubbed his knee under the table.

“My Great Lord,” Mr. Oren said aloud, referring to Adamus. “I, Sir Alex Oren, pledge my guild to the eradication of these weapons.”

“This pleases me, human. You have my blessing and favor. Please join the children of Elvadin in ridding the world of these sinful abominations.”

“Thank you, my Lord.” He bowed his head in submission.

So much was taking place so fast that it was making Zach’s head spin. Right now, in front of him, Mr. Oren and Adamus appeared to be…well, to use a word Jimmy had taught him, they were roleplaying. They were fucking roleplaying with each other in order to manipulate the Elves into doing the bidding of Adamus for a purpose that was so important it was probably worth it.

It was not a stretch to say that this was the single-biggest moral dilemma that Zach had ever faced. He had no idea what was right and what was wrong anymore. Everything felt like a mixture of both. And Eilea, the only person in the room who could maybe put a stop to this, was totally unable to do so, because she, unlike Adamus, actually believed they were Gods, and therefore would not be able to honestly bring herself to tell Queen Vayra the one and only thing that might make her reconsider: that they weren’t.

So instead, she turned to the queen and decided to plead with her in a way that Zach knew from the outset would be totally, utterly ineffective. And he wasn’t the only one who knew this. Mr. Oren knew this, too. That was obviously why he was willing to remain perfectly silent and offer not so much as a word in protest as she sought to change Queen Vayra’s mind. This, Zach was completely certain of. He knew that if Mr. Oren held even the slightest inkling that Eilea might say something to dissuade the queen, he’d find some way of diverting her attention or introducing a different angle to things.

“Everything Zach told you is the truth,” Eilea said to Fylwen. That, right off the bat, only made her case worse—even if she didn’t realize it.

“I know it is,” Fylwen whispered. “I believe you, Great Goddess. I believe Zach.”

Moving closer to her, Eilea embraced Fylwen, who appeared both honored yet also surprised by the gesture. Zach doubted the queen ever imagined that she would be in a position where she needed to comfort one of her Gods, yet she did so with what looked like genuine compassion. “Your family and your people are so wonderful,” Eilea said. “I’ve watched so many Elves die over so many years. Enough is enough. We can find another way to stop the human weapons. You needn’t spill your blood over their wickedness. We will defeat the humans without spilling precious Elvish blood or risking Zach’s life.”

“Sweet Goddess,” Fylwen said. “Our Lord is right. The humans have created a weapon of evil so profound that the Gods themselves call upon my Elves to set things right again. You cannot imagine how honored I feel that you would shed tears over my people. But I can’t disobey the Lord.”

“I am a Goddess too,” Eilea told her. “I can command you to stop this.”

“You are a Goddess, but you are not the Lord. And in truth, your tears are unnecessary. And so is Zach’s guilt. If only I had known this sooner, I could have spared the both of you so much pain.” At this, both Zach and Eilea fired her a questioning glance as she returned Eilea’s embrace. “The Guild of Gentlemen have declared war on us. I would be sending my Elves to war regardless of anything that has transpired here. The only thing that appears to have changed is the timeline and the method of attack.”

“Method of attack?” Mr. Oren asked her.

“Indeed, human. My plan was to spend a year surveilling each ranking member of the guild, and then, when the time was right, I’d planned on launching a coordinated attack that killed each one of them at the exact same moment in time so that there would be none left alive with the authority to order a retaliatory strike. Clearly, things have become more urgent since then.” Her expression became sharp and determined. “From the moment my sworn brother was slain before my eyes, there was no way this could have ended without blood and fire. I am a woman who clings to revenge, and I will have the head of Alistair Morrison for what he has put me through.”

Even Mr. Oren appeared surprised by this. “Your Majesty,” he said, “I thought you informed our guilds you would not be willing to join us in any attacks.”

“Of course I did, human. And I meant that, too. I do not trust your kind. I do not for a moment trust that you or your ‘guilds’ will not turn around and join the enemy the moment my people strike. Were it not commanded to me by the Great Lord, I would still refuse.”

“But…why would we betray you? The Guild of Gentlemen destroyed Ogre’s Axe, Your Majesty. They slaughtered a million lives.”

“And? Humans have done that to each other for thousands of years. Yet still, your kind somehow unites every time you face opposition by a different race.”

Mr. Oren closed his eyes and said, “That’s…true.”

Zach knew Fylwen wasn’t lying. Her fears were justified. But at least, now, she was willing to cooperate. Even still, it did little to lessen his concerns about Eilea, who Zach now realized was not a reliable partner. Yet despite this, she was one he would not cast away regardless. He would not cast away anyone whether they were useful to him or not. He had grown to care for Eilea just as he’d come to care for everyone in this room. More and more, Zach was realizing that he was going to have to bloody his hands to protect them: human, Elf, or even Goddess. He was going to need to step up in a way that he never had before.

Getting up from the table, he pulled his hood over his head and began to leave the room. Immediately, Eilea broke away from her embrace and shouted after him. “My queen, I order you to apprehend him at once!”

Fylwen turned in Zach’s direction. Yet she hesitated and lifted her eyes, as if no longer willing to follow Eilea’s commands while in the presence of what she considered to be an even greater God. “Do not stop him,” Adamus interjected.

Mr. Oren also got up from the table, but Zach held his palm out to him. And to Jascaila as well, who seemed to want to join him. “I’m going alone,” he told all of them. “Fylwen, I’m going to return here later in Phase Level 2. When I do can you heal me without hurting yourself?”

“I can,” she said. “But please use the ability on the sword to reduce the debt by half. It’ll make it easier for me.”

“I will. That’s all I needed to know.”

“Where are you going?”

“To save Vim Alazar.”

“You ought to reconsider, young man.”

He shook his head. “Trust me. I know I can do this. Even by myself.”

Eilea ran forward towards him, and Queen Vayra surprised him by reaching out and grabbing her, holding her back. This must’ve come as a shock to Eilea, because it shocked Zach as well. Though, in fairness, she did not restrain her in a way that was aggressive or demeaning. Yet even still, her defiance of Adamus at last came at a cost, as Adamus now went out of his way to degrade her; this, he did right in front of Zach and the others.

“Queen of Elvadin,” he said. “It is only in the rarest of circumstances—and with the greatest of honor—that my voice calls down to my subjects from my throne. So I leave you with the following two instructions. The first is to no longer consider commands from my wife as sacrosanct or law. The second is to cherish her, honor her, and ensure she has a home and place among your kin. Treat her with respect, dignity, and esteem. Care for her. But lead your own people as you see fit. As for actions, my only command to you is to destroy the human weapons and to not allow any more of them to come into existence. Aside from that, my child, I bid you total freedom and independence until such a day as the Elvish hear from me again, though I cannot ensure such a day will arrive in your lifetime or even within the lifetime of your offspring. You would be wise to expect to never hear my voice again, and any who claim to speak for me are speaking false. Are my instructions understood?”

“Yes, my Lord,” Queen Vayra said, bowing.

“You don’t need to bow to him. You do not know the God my husband is. If you did, you would not find him worthy. Young queen, do you know that he imprisoned me for a thousand years? Did Zach tell you that?”

“He did not,” Fylwen said.

“It’s true. Tell her, Adamus! Admit it!”

“It is true,” he replied, causing Jascaila to scowl. “But if you wish to publicly air grievances, perhaps you should also tell the queen that you are the reason the world is bereft of mobs and that a dragon nearly destroyed all life on Galterra due to your interference with my creation. Perhaps she would like to know that the humans were only able to defeat and enslave her people because they waged ‘mob destruction warfare’ on the planet, eliminating every source of experience that the Elves once used to grow strong. Or maybe you should inform the humans that the reason why their race now requires a special buff to access the dungeons is because you damaged the permission structure in an attempt to implement a bio-respawn mechanic that prevented death.”

Eilea fell to her knees and began to weep. “Stop.”

“Perhaps the queen would like to hear about how you failed Lieiara Vayra when she needed you the most.”

“Stop.”

“Or maybe you would like the queen to be made aware of all the times your attempts to stop war led to more war. Or the time you tried to sacrifice yourself to save a child, only to end up killing both the child and his mother.”

“Please.”

“Maybe the queen would be interested in knowing how you interfered with a young man by the name of Peter Brayspark IV. You loved him, didn’t you, Eilea? And he loved you so much that he fought a war to find and give you the Book of Elemental Chaos. What happened, beloved? What became of his mind?”

“It was an accident!” she screamed. “We were trying to save the world from you! He was…he was trying to free me. He loved me.”

“And for his love, you drove him mad, didn’t you? And then what did he do to the queen and her people? What did he do to the planet? Your help is worthless, my beloved. If only they knew the truth about you. You are the greatest villain in history. The other Great Ones never respected you. Nobody but I have ever truly wanted you. Nobody but I have ever found a use for you. You’ll never be anything without me. You’re an incompetent failure. Perhaps I should send you back to your cave. In my attempt to be kind, I have perhaps done the queen a disservice by burdening her with such a waste of—”

“Enough!” Jascaila shouted, springing up from her seat and throwing her battle-axe at the ceiling, causing it to break through it with a loud crack. “You’ve made your point, you abusive, manipulative piece of shit!” she yelled furiously. “You said you were leaving, so leave!”

For a moment, a pin drop would have sounded like an explosion, and Zach, halfway out of the room, could hardly believe the ferocity and anger in Jascaila’s words as she picked Eilea up off the floor. She wrapped her arms around her, whispered something into her ear, and then berated the Elvish God so harshly that even Queen Vayra did not interfere.

“You are an evil sociopath who uses abuse tactics older than time itself. Any heaven with a God like you is hell. You are a vicious, cruel coward, and if I have to spend one more second listening to you abuse this woman, I’ll fly to your fuckin’ space station and crack open your head like it’s a Gods-be-damned watermelon. You got what you came for now leave!”

“Very well.”

And with that, he was gone.

Zach wasn’t sure what to make of all that, but he knew now wasn’t the time to figure it out. It was still mid-afternoon here on Elendroth, and the earliest signs of darkness would now be spreading over North Bastia. Zach cared about these people too much to take any of them with him. Tonight, he’d do what he had to do alone.

Chapter 146: The Return to Shadowfall Coast

Chapter 146: The Return to Shadowfall Coast

Jimmy nodded slowly, then even faster as the taste of the grape-flavored candy really started to explode. He turned the box in his hand over several times before looking at Mushkie. “Damn this shit’s good,” he said.

The box contained a picture of a cartoon grape with hands, feet, eyes, and a silly smile. The grape was dancing together with a similarly drawn strawberry and a banana in some kind of disco-looking party. In the very background of the illustration there was also a dancing watermelon with a tiny little +2xp in red lettering above its name. And indeed, any time Jimmy happened to find a red, watermelon-flavored candy in the box—which was pretty rare—he’d get two experience points once it softened enough to where he crunched it with his teeth.

“What dungeon do these come from?” he asked.

Mushkie made a huge grin, raised his finger, and waggled it. “I can’t say if you don’t already know!”

Jimmy laughed. “Right. The rules are the rules. I actually like that, though. I’d rather find out for myself anyway.”

“Does Jimmy want to buy another?”

“Yeah, I’ll buy a couple of these,” he said. “They’re worth it for only being 5g.” Turning around, he headed back to the center of the shop, where the various aisles were now teeming with adventurers.

The store was amazing, everybody seemed to love it here, and since nobody was in a rush, he was finally able to go shopping. Jimmy grabbed one of the many baskets stocked in piles around the place and started walking the aisles. Last time, he hadn’t really been able to look around, because Zach had an active timer on his uh…his power thing. Jimmy couldn’t remember the name. Phase blaster mode or something. But yeah. They’d had to wrap things up pretty fast. This time, nobody seemed to be in any kind of rush.

“Jimmy, look at this,” Kalana chirped happily.

“Yeah,” Tena said. “Look!”

He bumped into several adventurers and nudged a few others out of the way to get over to Kalana and Tena. It seemed like a rude thing to do, but it was just how adventurers behaved. They pushed, shoved, and roughhoused each other constantly. There was no aggression in it, though. It was just sort of the chummy kind of vibe that was honestly infectious.

“Are those just…regular bananas and oranges?” Jimmy asked.

Tena shook her head. “Nope. Kalana and I figured out that they never spoil.”

“Word?”

“Huh? What word?”

Jimmy chuckled. “I mean really?”

“Yeah. They never spoil,” Tena said. Jimmy inspected one of the apples. Honestly, it looked like a regular piece of fruit. With a shrug, he grabbed an assortment of a few different things and chucked it into his basket. He tended to stay a long time in dungeons, so it really was a good idea to fill his storage box with healthier things than just mob snacks—but he was planning on buying a ton of those, too.

“Watch where you’re going, dummy,” a young girl said to an older man, the two colliding off to Jimmy’s left.

“You watch where you’re going.”

Both of them locked eyes, glared, and then an instant later, their cheeks puffed up and they started laughing hysterically. Jimmy snorted then chuckled a few times as well. He really did like these people. But damn was it crowded in here. Mushkie must’ve been loving this.

Everyone rushed to the Weekly Haul, so now everyone’s shopping the regular items at once.

As far as Jimmy was aware, every last adventurer had bought each and every item on the Weekly Haul list. Well, except for Jimmy, because he’d already purchased his allotment earlier in the day. Mushkie had looked like he might die of happiness as, one by one, the adventurers purchased all that they could, which in this case was: 2x Red Rejuvenation Stones, 2x Yellow Rejuvenation Stones, 1x Purple Rejuvenation Stone, 2x Dungeon Escape Ropes, 3x Poison Cures, and a single Teleportation Stone, which had an effect that nobody but Jimmy understood. Or at least Jimmy thought he understood it: conceptually, anyway.

The Teleportation Stones, which were a one-time use consumable, claimed to teleport the user to their “bound” city. This was a term that none of the adventurers were familiar with. Unsurprisingly, this meant that the adventurers had slowly coalesced around Jimmy wanting to know if he had any idea. Despite Spider telling him that nobody would bring up his backstory or whatever, Jimmy knew it would only be a matter of time before they couldn’t resist, and honestly, it surprised him they’d even lasted several hours. Not that he cared because it was fake anyway. He just wished he knew who was responsible for making it up.

“Damn,” one of the adventurers had said loudly. He’d been a short adventurer who had a sword sheathed on each hip, and he’d begun speaking as though he were talking to himself, but it was obvious he wanted Jimmy to overhear him. “I have no idea what this does,” he’d said. “If only that Elvish Great One, Eilea Vayra, was here. She might be able to tell us. Or maybe…maybe one of her disciples. If she even has any, anyway. I mean, I wouldn’t know.”

“Yeah, I feel ya, bud,” another guy had said. “I heard that there are training simulations that give people extra knowledge about this shit. Not sure if it’s even true, but I thought I read somewhere in like maybe a book or something that there are uncontacted colonies of people on Earth and that we were wrong about nobody living there anymore. And that these uncontacted people sometimes have ancient training simulations or something that don’t exist on Galterra.”

“Really?” the first adventurer had asked in an overly dramatic way. “There’s no way that’s true.”

“Probably not, but can you imagine if there was and one of these Earthlings had access to secret training simulations that—”

At this point, Jimmy had exhaled, but what began as a sigh ended in a sharp laugh. “Yeah, okay,” he’d said. “Ya’ll can cut it out. I know everybody knows about my, uh, colony.”

“Your what?” numerous adventurers had asked, all of them forcing themselves to sound like they were actually confused. They’d even begun looking at one another and making puzzled expressions.

“What does he mean by that?” a woman had asked.

“Wait a minute,” Reni Sarwin had said. “Everyone time out. Is…is Jimmy from planet Earth or something?” He’d made a clearly fake, exaggerated gasp. “Is Jimmy trying to say he wasn’t born on this planet? Could it even be?”

Jimmy had rolled his eyes. “All right already. I’ll just tell you guys what I know.”

And that had been enough to get their attention. Jimmy, deciding not to break the cover that someone out there had meticulously crafted for him, had decided to explain how, in many of the “simulations” he’d played, there had been a concept known as “binding” oneself to a “bound city.” In these “simulations,” players could bind themselves to a city of their choice, and then that became the place they’d respawn if they died or, if they wanted, they could teleport there through various means.

Having broken the ice, the adventurers had all dropped the charade and had begun casually asking him questions without beating around the bush. “Did Eilea tell you if it’s an ability that we have to learn by leveling?”

“No,” Jimmy had replied. “The uh, the simulations I ran through as a kid were more conceptual. Meaning, they weren’t always based on the uh, the real world. They were fantasy worlds where sometimes the rules were different. Like, in many of these simulations, the…the uh, the…the ‘user’ could see their own HP, stamina, and mana—which was required to cast spells.”

“Could anyone bind in those simulations, Jimmy?” Kalana had asked him. She, Tena, Donovan, and Zephyr were the only people here who knew the real truth about him, and he was glad that all of them were being careful not to say anything that would reveal too much.

Jimmy had looked at Kalana and nodded. “Yeah, in every simulation I’ve ever experienced, binding was always just an ability you got. It was never a separate item. In one simulation, uh, called World of Warcraft, you got a free stone that you could use on a timer that teleported you to your bind point, but everybody could always bind.”

“Everybody?” numerous adventurers had asked.

Nervously, Jimmy had rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah. Ah, everybody in my community could experience the simulation together.” Jimmy had hesitated a second to think, and then, surprising his own self, he’d said something so convincing he’d almost fooled himself into thinking it was true. “Basically, life on Earth was really shit. I mean, you’ve all seen it, right? So, in order to make things easier for us, we’d all sit in front of our…our terminals and connect to each other and adventure together. And the simulations were fun. Even though we were being trained for the day when Eilea was able to reopen the portal back to Galterra—which, ahh, had been sealed for a thousand years—we still played them mostly for fun.”

Miss Britethorn had approached him and placed her arm on his shoulder. “But none of your colony ended up living to see her reopen the portal, did they, dear?”

All Jimmy had needed to do to give the most believable answer possible was think of his mom and his cat as he replied. “Nah,” he’d said. “They didn’t make it here to Galterra.”

“Why didn’t the Great One just give all of you the buff and let you come through the dungeon?” Reni Sarwin had asked him.

This question had caught Jimmy off guard, and he’d fumbled around his brain for an answer. Thankfully, Tena had come to his rescue. “Jimmy lived very, very far from any dungeons,” she’d said. “And since there’s so little food now that grows on Earth, it was too far for anyone to make the trip.”

Jimmy could see the adventurers had even more questions, though none of them doubted the story. Thankfully, Zephyr had pulled things back on topic. “Anyways, I’ve never heard of an ability like that,” he’d said, to which all the adventurers had agreed. No one, it seemed, had ever heard of a mechanic by which a user could bind themselves to a city. But Jimmy had then caused a great deal of excitement by suggesting to them that it was probably something they’d all learn on a higher-tier planet like Albion-4. He’d also suggested there could be many, many other mechanics that might just blow people’s minds.

“In many of the simulations I went through,” he’d said, “new concepts and stuff are introduced as you go through them. I bet once we get to Albion-4, we’re gonna start to see some real wild shit.”

“You bet your ass we will,” Donovan had said, barking out a laugh.

Now, As Jimmy continued to shop, he began to really get into the idea of finding these special “higher-tier” planets. The gamer in him wanted to see what was out there. For the first time since waking up in this world, he’d become really, really excited at the prospect of treading where no one in all of Galterra’s history had ever tread before.

Zach needs to get his ass in gear and help us find it, he thought.

As Jimmy returned his attention to browsing through the various items, he realized that once one of the shelves were cleared, and the items for sale were sold out, they did not simply “magically” refill, which for some reason, he’d assumed that they would. “Hey, Mushkie!” he called, watching as someone grabbed the last bag of Skelly Chips.

Mushkie, who had just finished ringing up a customer, hurried around his counter and scurried over. “Yes, Jimmy?”

“There’s no more Skelly Chips for sale.”

“Yikes. Oh well, next week!”

This, he found surprising. “Wait, items don’t restock?”

“Nope. Only weekly.”

“Damn. Well I guess I—”

“Here ya go,” a random adventurer Jimmy didn’t know said to him. He took two bags of Skelly Chips out of his basket and dropped them into Jimmy’s. Jimmy gave him his thanks, and he told Jimmy it wasn’t a problem. But what caught Jimmy’s attention was the surprise in Mushkie’s eyes.

“You…you people are so different from the other adventurers Mushkie used to know!”

His words drew the curiosity of more than just Jimmy. Nearly every nearby adventurer, including Donovan, Zephyr, Lienne, and Rian all turned their heads as if just as intrigued by what he said as Jimmy. “What do you mean by that?” Lienne asked. “How are we so different?”

Mushkie looked at the burly adventurer who’d given Jimmy the Skelly Chips and then looked at Jimmy’s basket immediately after. “You share with each other. Are you…all from the same guild?”

“Nope,” Rian said. “Me and Li are from Explorers Brigade—Zephyr’s Guild. Donovan and his people are from the GSG. You’ve also got a few guys from Lost and Found here, and that tall woman over there”—he pointed—“she’s Ophelia Graven, the leader of Boss Rush.” Rian continued to list off guilds, both large and small, who had members present here.

“So strange,” Mushkie said.

“How so?” Zephyr asked him.

“It’s just…the adventurers of old were not the ‘sharing’ type. No-whoah-nope! People used to die in Mushkie’s shop fighting over candy! Especially in the beginning when food was harder to come by. But even much later on, they’d still go at it. But you’re all so different. The adventurers I used to see didn’t even like each other.”

Donovan grunted. “We’re a different sort.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. We’re what happens when you take all the bullshit and politics out of it and just focus on the rest.”

Jimmy couldn’t help but smile. Although he’d never wanted to be part of this world, and although this wasn’t something he’d asked for, if nothing else, at least he’d woken up at a time in this planet’s history where, despite being small in number, the adventurers were tight-knit and functioned as a unified community regardless of which adventuring guild someone belonged to. Jimmy was also very pleased that, with only a very few exceptions, they were dedicated wholly to PVE. This was significant because he could easily imagine an alternate version of Galterra—or hell, just Galterra from earlier on in its history—where entering a dungeon was an inherently risky act, as someone could be camping out waiting to kill you or rob you.

Like, sure, technically speaking the rules of this world made it so that adventurers could kill one another. There was nothing that physically prevented an adventurer from drawing their weapon right now and randomly hacking the person next to them to pieces. But thank God, because Jimmy had come to this world during a time when the culture around adventuring—thanks to Donovan and Zephyr, it looked like—was such that such an act was unthinkable.

They were adventurers, after all.

Not killers.

******

To say that Zach experienced feelings of uncertainty and doubt as he began his journey to Shadowfall coast would be putting it incredibly mildly. Not only had he harbored second thoughts, but he’d also harbored third thoughts, fourth thoughts, and fifth thoughts, too. Tenth thoughts, even! And he’d had a fair bit of time to consider things as well. Despite Mr. Oren telling him there were quicker ways to get to there, Zach wanted to stick with what he knew and was comfortable with. He also didn’t want to risk any unforeseen dungeon weirdness holding him up. In other words, that meant a swim in the ocean to Shores of Wrath, a trip to the grand library, a dive into the pool on F18 in TOE, and now, he emerged, coming up for air in northwest Whispery Woods.

As he climbed out of the murky lake in the middle of the forest, his robe drenched and dripping mossy water, he shook off as much of the grime and muck as he could, and then he straightened his back. The moment he did so, he was struck with a powerful wave of heartache and regret, along with a sudden extreme feeling of loneliness. It hit him so hard that he actually remained frozen for a few moments.

Get over it, he told himself. Focus on your objective.

The sun had only just set, and only a sliver of orange remained in the sky; it was also incredibly quiet. Looking down at the leaves, twigs, and dirt, Zach realized the source of his sudden bout of sadness. It was because he knew that, a relatively short while ago, more than two-hundred adventurers, including Rian, Lienne, Jimmy, and Kalana, would all have been cheering and marching their way to Trials of Nolak in Pixie’s Point, stomping down on this very same ground. For all he knew, that broken twig right ahead of him could’ve been snapped by the boots of one of the adventurers. He, on the other hand, would be setting out for a much longer journey due southeast and all the way across the region—perhaps even longer depending on the route he took.

As he considered his options, he started at a very slow walk through the forest, watching as the orange faded in the sky, and the first few stars began to make themselves visible. One of those stars, he knew, had a planet in its solar system, and on that planet was the dungeon where he should’ve been right now.

Stop thinking about it, he told himself. This is just how it is.

Swatting away flies and mosquitoes that swarmed around his face, he ambled his way deeper into the forest and went over the facts of the matter in his head. Right now, he was far enough northwest in Whispery Woods that he was nearly on the border with Varda’s Lair. The dungeon, on the other hand, had its entrance mere miles from where Whispery Woods transitioned into Shadowfall Coast. This meant there were two ways of getting where he had to go.

The direct path would be to simply head due southeast. In terms of distance, it was clearly the shortest route. The only issue was that he’d hit numerous towns along the way and, without a doubt, would end up having to navigate his way through the gigantic city of his birth. On the other hand, he could move straight east through fields, farms, and rural land, then cut straight south through more of the same terrain. If he went with this option, he’d be traveling a considerably larger number of miles, but he could do so at a much faster speed.

No matter what route he took, he still wouldn’t be able to move at his absolute fastest. Not only would that burn through his stamina so fast he’d be unlikely to make it more than half way, but the chance of accidentally killing someone or destroying something was too great to be worth the risk. Back when Fylwen had charmed him and made him chase after her, he’d been in Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 2 and had 117 points into speed. Then, he recalled running at a speed that must’ve skirted very close to two-hundred miles per hour. But even then, he hadn’t actually been running as fast as his legs could possibly carry him, either.

Right now, with just his base stats and gear combined, he had 73 points into speed. Hypothetically, if he exerted that to its fullest potential, he could probably clear a hundred fifty while totally exhausting himself. Yet even if he could sustain the effort required to run that fast, it was still too reckless. No, he would be best off using his Kralzek’s Beast, which when commanded to travel at its fastest, could easily exceed 100MPH and do so indefinitely without ever needing to rest. This only left the question of which path to take.

If he chose to head southeast, he was looking at a two-hundred-fifty-mile slog that would frequently be interrupted by towns, a city, various communities, and roadways. And getting through Whispery Woods would add an hour or two on its own. In total, he couldn’t imagine getting to Yorna in under five hours. On the other hand, if he went east then south and stuck to open territory, he would add a hundred miles to his journey but he’d be able to maintain full speed through nearly all of it. Assuming he did everything right, it’d take him three-and-a-half hours to arrive.

Getting back, on the other hand, would be a bit more complicated. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to ride all the way back. He’d die before he ever made it a quarter of the way. He supposed he could hunt mobs in Yorna for a few hours hoping to slowly luck his way into his stamina proc until building up several hours’ worth of time, but that would be too inconvenient. No, a better idea would be to run from the Yorna entrance to the border of Shadowfall Coast, where in another few hours’ worth of time, Mr. Oren, Kolorn Besh, and Fylwen would all be gathering for an imminent attack. If he linked up with her there, Vim would be able to inspire his troops, as the Royal Roses had apparently agreed—enthusiastically, too—to join in as well, and Fylwen could heal him.

That’s what I’ll do, he thought as he exited the forest and made his way across the road. A few miles down the road to his left would be the rest area where he and Jimmy had taken the bus much earlier in the day. Zach stared longingly in that direction, his heart once again aching to throw all this aside and join his friends on their raid. He might even catch up to them assuming they were taking their sweet ass time in Mushkie’s.

I have to do this, he thought. I have to!

The sky was now fully dark, and aside from a few light poles that lined the forested road, Zach now had the benefit of being practically invisible to all but the most observant of eyes. Casting aside his sadness, he activated Summon Active War-Mount. Then, from out of nothingness, there came a snarl, and a tremendous, saber-toothed cat appeared before him. Zach hopped on top of its back, and mentally, he turned it so that it once more faced the forest, though this time, on the opposite side of the road. And now, he took off.

Wind blasted into his face, as well as the occasional branch or clutter of leaves as the mount launched itself forward, running at what Zach estimated to be three quarters of its full speed. He dialed it back just a touch, however, as it was still too fast, and he ended up bulldozing and destroying about ten trees before he even realized he’d hit one of them. Multiple snaps preceded loud thuds as they crashed down onto the forested soil, sending little critters scampering away in fear.

“Sorry!” Zach said, apologizing to a confused squirrel.

As trees raced by him, Zach slowed just enough so that he could deftly veer his mount to the left or right to avoid any more unsanctioned deforestation. Occasionally, he required it to jump over downed trees that, in the name of the Gods, he swore weren’t his doing. Above him, a flock of birds scattered, alarmed by what must have, to them, appeared to be a horrifying, unnatural sight. A few deer also took off running as they saw Zach charging forward on his war-mount.

Thud, thud, thud, thud. The sound of the cat stomping its feet down on the soil was not entirely dissimilar from the sound made by a horse’s hooves, only it was a bit more muted and caused less of an overall rocking sensation.

As the wind continued to ruffle his robe and the feeling of motion overtook him as he was propelled forward, Zach found himself actually enjoying this. And why wouldn’t he? This, too, was fun. If it were up to him, he’d much rather ride around North Bastia, aimlessly taking in the sights, than he would heading to Shadowfall Coast. But he knew there was no going back now. If he didn’t do this, nobody else would or could.

Around fifteen minutes after setting off, he exited the forest from its eastern side, and now he pulled out into a field of short grass on what was a clear, starry night. Well into the distance and to his left, he could see the outskirts of a small farming village. His current route, he was sure, would keep him well out of their way.

As his mount moved up and down numerous gentle hills while the world continued to darken, Zach decided to settle himself in for the relatively long ride ahead. And as he did so, he decided to try once more to establish communication with Eilea, who seemed to be warding off his presence ever since the incident a little earlier.

Eilea, please, he thought. Please talk to me.

He wasn’t surprised when only silence met him. Yet he refused to give up. He now had ample time to kill, and he really needed to speak with her. And it wasn’t about the accusations Adamus had made, which had reduced her to tears and which Fylwen would probably not question. No, it was something much more personal.

Eilea, I know you can hear me. And I know why you won’t speak to me. But what you don’t realize is I’m one of the few people in this whole world who can actually relate to what you’re going through. Maybe not on the same level, but please, if you can feel how sincere I am in my heart, just talk to me.

Up ahead, Zach spotted a main roadway that headed due east and was decently well trafficked with numerous DEHVS speeding along it. Not wanting to draw any attention to himself, Zach kept himself a fair distance away, as he was likely visible under the moonlight.

Eilea, I’m not going to stop until you answer me. Please!

Zach thought he felt something. It was difficult to describe. It was, in a vague way, like the reluctant opening of an eye, but only it was more of an emotion. Maybe it was more accurate to say it was like a turtle peeking out of its shell.

There you are, he said to her. Please talk to me.

“I don’t know what you could want from me,” she said to him. “I humiliated myself. I degraded myself. I had the most shameful moments of my life revealed for all to hear. I’ve likely lost your respect. I can only imagine how pathetic you must view me now.”

Zach, satisfied that the way ahead contained nothing but short grass and empty air, closed his eyes and concentrated. He visualized Eilea's face, and then he imagined himself making eye contact with her.

Do you even realize who you just said that to? he asked her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Zach sent her his feelings of amusement, though they were not at her expense. Eilea, he said, everything you just told me is the whole reason I’m even talking to you right now. Because even though I’m only 17 and you’re in your thousands, I actually understand you. Even if that seems hard to believe.

“How could you possibly?”

Zach laughed. Because, Eilea. I’m the biggest fuckup there ever was. I’ve humiliated myself so many times that I’ve lost count. I’ve failed more than I’ve succeeded. Eilea, do you even…do you even know? Zach opened his eyes and stared up at the moon as he reflected on things. Since I started adventuring, I’ve had multiple mental breakdowns. I’ve begged people for mercy. I’ve died. I lost a fight to a door. I melted down in front of an entire raid. I got my ass beat in front of my girlfriend. I’ve made decisions that were so stupid I look back and can’t even explain myself. Eilea, I’ve hit so many lows I’m surprised I didn’t reach hell. But here I am, right now, charging my way into battle.

She said nothing, so Zach continued to speak. I’m not going to lie to you. You did humiliate yourself this evening. It happened. You let that evil prick make you look weak. You ended up begging and pleading and crying. Do you know who you looked like? Me!

“Zach…”

Nobody’s perfect, Eilea. Not even a God—or a Goddess. I don’t know what your plans were, are, or may end up being, but I know all of them must involve saving Galterra and making the world a better place. Right?

“Yes,” she whispered into his mind.

So you can’t give up. No way. That’s how Adamus wins. He wins by breaking you down.

“You don’t understand,” she said to him, her words now taking on a tone of horror. “He wasn’t lying about me. I really am as awful as he says. I’ve made so many mistakes over my life. All I’ve ever done is fail. Nothing I ever do works out. Everyone I love ends up harmed because of me.”

Eilea, whatever you’ve done, I know you didn’t do anything bad on purpose. Zach, prepared to forgive her no matter what she said to him next, tightened his grip around his mount’s neck fur. I can’t pretend I didn’t hear what he said about Peter IV. But I know you have such a good heart. I don’t really understand what happened, but I know it couldn’t have been something you did on purpose.

“It wasn’t,” she said. “There are things I cannot tell you, for if I speak of them, he will know, and they are of a nature that our agreement forbids me from discussing. What I can tell you is there exists a great power in this world. And my dear Peter once tried to use this power to free me. But…”

It’s okay, Zach told her. You can tell me. I promise you I won’t shun you. I swear it!

He could feel an explosion of emotion coming from her: a storm so intense it felt like it was originating from himself. Due to the mental link, a few tears ran down Zach’s eyes even though he was not the one who was sad.

Peter, like Francis, came to rescue me far below Galterra’s surface where I had been trapped for so very long, she began. Yet my wretched, monstrous husband had laid traps for anyone who tried to undo the bindings keeping me from leaving. It happened so fast, Zach. Peter aimed this power at one of the bindings that kept me tethered to that horrid place, and through my husband’s cunning, it was reflected back at him. He died in an instant. It was so fast that I did not even realize I’d lost him until after he’d collapsed in my arms.

So I assessed this source of power. I searched within it for any way of returning him to life. I searched and I searched. And finally, I found a way. But by that point in time, his body had entered necrosis. His brain had become damaged. When he returned, he was not himself. Something within him had changed. He no longer loved me. He screamed at me and called me a usurper to his kingdom. He claimed the Elves had turned on him. He attacked me, Zach! I banished him from my underground prison and returned him to the surface. What followed is too painful for me to discuss. I’m sorry.”

Zach said nothing for a while. He was content to listen to the sound of the wind as it beat against his equipment. He felt its breeze run over him. He watched as the world sailed by him as he navigated his way farther and farther east. And during this time, he carefully considered each word she’d spoken to him. Then he recalled what Jascaila had told him. About his dad. About life. Finally, he spoke.

Sometimes, he said to her, projecting his voice softly and quoting what Jascaila had said to him. Sometimes, the most difficult but healthiest thing we can do is accept that some events—even horrible ones—happen that are completely outside of our control.

“But this was within my control,” she said. “If I had not asked him to find me that book, and I had not asked him to use it to free me, he would never have perished to one of Adamus’s traps.”

And who put that trap there? Zach asked her.

“He did…”

Exactly.

“It doesn’t matter. I am still ultimately responsible.”

Zach slowed, but only slightly, as he unfortunately had no choice but to dash through a medium-sized town. A great many people watched him as he raced by, and some even recognized him from his mount. By now his Kralzek’s Beast had become widely recognized as being associated with him. For this reason, the sight of it no longer inspired the fear it did the first time he’d used it in public. Now, it caused children to run out of their doors and into the early night, chanting his name while pedestrians all turned to face him. He waved, they waved back, and he continued on at a much, much slower pace until hopping over a fence that led to a flower-filled field and taking off once again.

Eilea, where are you right now?

“Why do you ask?”

Please, just tell me.

“I’m having tea with the queen.”

Is Jascaila still there?

“Yes.”

I want you to talk to her.

A sense of indignation popped up in the back of Zach’s mind. “That’s…that’s humiliating! I’m a deity that has roamed this world for thousands of years. She is a human who has existed for decades. The very thought that I could somehow require the counseling of a—”

Yeah, yeah, Zach said, interrupting her. Look, we’ve all got our own reasons to bullshit our way out of therapy. Tell yourself whatever you want, but you need to pull yourself together, and I know she can help you do it. You’ve got to put your ego aside and talk to her. Because I still need you. No matter how you feel about yourself, you still have so much value to me. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but you are a Great One, and there’s going to come a time in the near future when the whole world is going to know that, too. And I’m going to need you to be strong for me. Powerful. Your word is going to carry a lot of weight. I know it’s hard, Eilea, but you’ve got to get through this.

He could feel her tears, her pain, but also, her gratitude. “Should I talk to her now?”

Yes. Right now! Tell her Zach told you to do it. Also, tell her I don’t want her taking part in the battle, either. She’s the only person teaching me how to be okay. If she dies, I won’t be. Make sure she knows I said that, too.

“Okay, Zach. By the way, since I’ve told you where I am, I'd like to know where you are right now. It’s difficult for me to sense when my emotions are such a mess.”

I’m about to start heading south to Yorna.

“Please don’t do this.”

I have to.

“Over some human? Truly?”

Hey, I’m human! And to be honest, Vim’s only like a third human, anyway. He’s like sixty-six percent gnome. But the point stands.

“You’re going to hurt your beautiful Elvish princess if you do this, Zach. And thanks to my husband, I cannot order her to forgive you.”

I can’t even think about that right now. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t get Vim back to his people. Zach projected a laugh, but one that was dark and slightly bitter. Vim’s a pain in the ass, he’s a prick to everybody, and for the life of me, I can’t understand how ordinary, level-1 humans in Giant’s Fall love this guy so damn much. But they do, Eilea. They really do. Mr. Oren is right about what he told me. If Vim dies, it’s going to destabilize the region. Anyone born in Shadowfall Coast and Tomb of Fire is probably going to find an angry mob at their doorstep. Vim is the only one who can put out the fire before it turns into an inferno.

Zach felt such a strong sense of concern come over him that it almost impacted his state of mind and made him order his beast to a halt. Eilea was really worried about him. Like, really worried. But there was no possible way he could possibly put her mind at ease, and starting right now, he really needed to focus. So, he sent her his absolute strongest, most determined feeling of hope and reassurance, and he shut himself off from their mental contact. He knew she wouldn’t take it personally.

I need to quiet my mind…

Zach took small, measured breaths, and he relaxed himself. He entered a somewhat meditative state. And it was in this state that he remained as he rode along the countryside. Time passed, and the scenery remained mostly the same. Then more time passed. Minutes. Hours. Eventually, the sights became a bit more familiar. Large crop patches and other hints of farmland became more pronounced. Before long, he knew exactly where he was from sight alone. In fact, his Kralzek’s Beast was currently speeding up and down the same hills he’d biked on several weeks ago.

Here we go.

Zach gripped tightly onto his mount as it raced down a fairly steep hill. Then, leaning forward and wrapping his arm around its neck, he ordered it to come to a halt just as it flung itself into—and through—a gigantic, out-of-place boulder. And what followed was a sensation in the pit of his stomach: one of falling straight down. Seconds later, there came a splash, and all of the gunk and nastiness from the swampy, mossy water in the forest was rinsed off of him as he, along with his mount, submerged all the way down into the pool.

Even while underwater, he ordered his mount forward. He was glad to see it could swim. It launched itself up and out of the pool, landing on all fours with Zach still atop its back, and then it dashed forward, down a short flight of stairs, and halted once more upon reaching the incredibly narrow passage that Zach would typically need to shimmy through. He could even see the tiny 1xp spider crawling around inside.

20-minute cooldown if I dismiss it, he thought, frowning. Fuck it.

Zach threw his hand forward while mentally ordering his beast to blast ahead with all its strength—and it obeyed. Holding on tight, Zach braced himself, and then came the impact. There was a low, but noticeable crunch, followed by a constant, high-pitched scraping. Yet the forward momentum continued, even as, for the moment, all Zach could see was rock and darkness as his beast rammed its way through the passage.

It'll fix itself in the weekly dungeon reset, Zach thought, refusing to feel bad.

“Frrruughhh,” moaned a level-5 Skelly Grunt to his right.

“Frrruughhh,” moaned one from ahead.

Zach didn’t have time for either of these. So he lifted his right hand and made a flicking gesture, his finger causing the head to pop off the one to his right and then fly across the room with such speed that it practically disintegrated upon colliding with the wall.

+25xp

He didn’t even bother dealing with the one ahead of him. He just ignored it. Through sheer coincidence, it happened to run in front of his mount, and it was trampled for something like 20,000 damage. He wasn’t even sure, because he was barely looking.

+25xp

He may or may not have likewise trampled and killed several of those in the next room. Once again, he didn’t bother checking. He didn’t have time to care, and the xp he would’ve gained was negligible. As things stood, he’d left himself really close to his next level from his time spent much earlier today in Trials of Nolak. But the xp he could gain from a place like Yorna was so insignificant it barely mattered.

To Next Level

390,500/400,00

Moving along.

Navigating a bit slower as he made his way around a few obstacles, he soon found himself beginning the descent down the hellish stairway that’d almost killed him, Lienne, and Rian during their first outing here. Now, he rocketed his way down, moving so fast that the rapidly expanding stairs and distance between steps took on the illusion of some kind of winding, twisting, geometric shape. In less than a minute, he found himself again plummeting downwards and into the large drop after the last step. His mount landed with a gentle click.

Trotting ahead a few feet, Zach pushed open the door in front of him. Then he ordered his mount to charge through it. It was a very tight fit. But thankfully, it managed to squeeze its way through the door—and into Jimmy’s home planet of Earth.

Now, Zach was back in the creepiest fucking place he’d ever been in. It was a dark, misty dungeon that had ancient corpses trapped in cells. Typically, this floor required Zach to run away from a horde of Eeps, make his way down a very poorly lit cell block, smash his way through a cafeteria, and eventually end up in a parking garage where his favorite car, a Ford Mustang, awaited him.

This time, however, he had no patience for any of that shit, so he ordered his Kralzek’s Beast to immediately spin itself to the right, and then he had it blast forward, jump as high as it could, and crash through the window at the top of the cell ahead of him—even as about fifty Eeps aggroed him and started charging. A few even began pecking on his neck, but he didn’t feel it.

“Fuck off,” he said, making a swatting motion and killing like ten of them.

Ordering his mount to leap off the ledge of this two-story complex, it landed on a patch of dry, crunchy, and withered grass. Far up above him, a lightning storm raged amid a pure crimson sky, though no rain fell down on him. He decided to take just a few seconds to really stare off at this blood-colored horizon. He needed to really burn it into his head: that if they did not defeat the World Eater in five years, Galterra would look no different.

I can’t let that happen!

Leaving the Eeps—and the creepy dungeon—behind, Zach rode his way all the way along the New Jersey Turnpike, moving at a speed that was even faster than the car’s top speed, though not by all that much. Before long, he found himself back at a familiar door beneath an underpass. Like before, he bent forward and opened it.

“Oh no you don’t!” Angelica shouted at him. “You are not coming in here with that thing, Zach!”

“It’ll just be for a second.”

“No! No, no, no! Bad!”

“Angelica, it has a twenty-minute recast. I literally just need to come in and out.”

“I said nope!”

“Fuck it, I’m doing it anyway.”

Her name turned red.

“Okay, on second thought, I’ll just walk.”

He dismissed the beast even while astride it, causing him to fall down and land onto the pavement. Then he picked himself up, waltzed into Angelica’s, and closed the door behind him. It was crowded in here, and he received a very…strange and very noisy reception.

“There he is!” the adventurers shouted at him. “Zachys ‘Inn Room 8’ Calador!”

Uh oh.

A whole bunch of adventurers began to yell about something that Zach didn’t have time to deal with right now. So he immediately reopened the door, stepped out, and shut it before a single one of them could get anywhere near him. Whatever they were upset about, he’d deal with it later. It sounded, though, like Jimmy must’ve blabbered to them about his inn room. Most likely, a bunch of those adventurers had just come back from Trials of Nolak. But wait. Where were Jimmy and the others then?

Maybe Donovan’s leading a smaller raid into combat and the larger raid was just to the item shop.

That made the most sense. Either way, it didn’t matter because it was so fucking cold out here in Archian Prime despite it being a beautiful, sunny morning. He shivered.

“Hey!” a voice shouted to him. “Stop right there, Zach!”

Oh, no, what is it this time? he wondered. The last time he’d come here, he’d gotten involved in a vampire war.

Now, there was a cute little Elvish girl, maybe ten or eleven years old, and she was sitting behind a booth that, for some inexplicable reason, had been set up right here next to the metal door, which fell over with a plop. This meant him and Rian had been right. Having destroyed the little cottage that used to be here in a battle, it seemed a metal door would now appear and fall over whenever someone showed up.

At any rate, Zach folded his arms and shivered as he glanced curiously at this little girl, who was sitting next to what looked like her older sister, who looked to be around Zach’s age. She blushed and waved hi to him. The fact these two were on Archian prime meant that many of the Elves must have returned from the island, because not long ago, they were all there. Clearly, that was no longer the case. But why had they set up a booth here? For what possible purpose were they out here?

“Zach,” the little girl said, her voice powerful but incredibly cute for such a small thing.

“Uh, yeah?”

She held out her hand. He gave her a high-five. Then she glared at him. “The payment!” she growled.

“Payment? What payment?”

Her older sister, still blushing, said, “Are you passing through Archian Prime or here for raiding?”

“Uh, I’m just passing through.”

“Are you sure? Queen Vayra says to warn adventurers that they should go hunting in our forests just south of here and then, when they’re done, divert to Hamen’s Isle to get home because if they proceed, they’ll end up in a very bad and dangerous place.”

Zach sighed. “I know. That’s where I’m going, actually. So, yeah, just passing through.”

“Oh, okay. Well, if you're sure, then that’ll be 10,000 gold, please.”

“Wait what?” he shouted, spit flying out of his mouth as he shook his head in disbelief.

The girl flinched, but her little sister seemed to become annoyed. “Adventurers have to pay! Cough it up, pal.” She gestured towards a bucket that made Zach’s eyes water with greed, as it was absolutely filled to the brim with gold. Yorna was a fairly busy dungeon as far as he was aware, and it seemed these two little girls were making a fortune charging adventurers to come through here.

“This is a joke,” he said to her, kneeling down so he was level with her height. “It’s a joke, right?”

“Nooope! There’s a tax now.”

“A tax?”

“Yeah! But umm…don’t feel too bad. It’s a tax that goes to Den of Ziragoth.”

Zach scoffed at this. “I don’t fucking care where it goes. This is extortion!”

Angrily, with a scowl on his face that he didn’t bother to hide, he called forward Bank and Storage while draining his precious bank account of another 10k. The worst part was that all the money he even had to his name now was money Jimmy had loaned him. Gods, his finances were going in the complete wrong direction. This was bullshit! How dare Fylwen do this to him? Did her cruelty know no bounds?

“Here,” he said, forking over exactly 10k gold.

“That’s it?” the little Elvish girl said.

Confused and angry, Zach snorted at her. “What, do you want my soul, too?”

“Most adventurers give more when they come through.”

“How much more do you want?” he asked, moaning.

“50k”

Zach snorted even more loudly. “Yeah, that’s never happening. 50k gold to use a fucking pathway? Maybe when it’s lined with gold and adds four inches to my height and dick just by stepping on it. Sorry for my language. I know you’re only like ten. Here’s 5k more. Tell everyone it was 30.”

“Nope. I’m not lying.”

“Well I’m not giving more!” he shouted. Then, more softly, he asked, “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Zelina.”

Zach smiled at her. “You’re really cute, Zelina.” He patted the top of her head, and now she blushed as fiercely as her sister had. And with that, he got up, turned around, shivered a bit more from the cold, and stormed his way through the rest of this world-based dungeon floor, earning a paltry +450xp for getting through fast enough.

Scrambling through the door to B4, Zach at last felt the first few jitters in his belly as he realized he was getting closer and closer to Shadowfall Coast. Up until now, he’d been able to more-or-less push the worst of his fears out of his mind, as he’d been basking in the overall journey. But this was it, wasn’t it? There would be no going back. He’d actually gotten to the point now where he couldn’t go back even if he wanted to. There was nowhere to go from here except to B7.

I’m now at the point of no return, he thought, ignoring the little arrows being fired at him as he took the left path through a cavernous area and walked along a steep ledge, proceeding farther into the dungeon. The arrows tickled him and felt kind of cold. A few skeletons here or there tried to pester him, but he just picked them up by their shoulder bones and threw them off to his right, into a gigantic pit that looked hundreds of feet deep. The others he just ran straight through, their bodies exploding on impact, or he otherwise avoided them.

In no time at all, he found himself in B5. He ignored Moldark and whatever quest he was giving, ran down the next set of stairs, and entered B6: the several-mile-long tunnel. The last time Zach was here, he’d been fleeing from Fylwen with Rian, Lienne, Olivir, and Kolona. They’d absolutely wrecked the place. Now, however, it looked back to perfect form.

And here come more jitters, he thought, his knees suddenly feeling a bit weaker. I’m scared. And it’s okay for me to admit that. Just like Jascaila said.

Somehow, acknowledging the way he felt made it easier for him to cope with it. And with a quickness that actually felt too quick, he zipped through this floor just like he’d done the others before it. He then descended down several flights of stairs until reaching the bottom and coming face-to-face with one final door. And it was here that his nerves really took hold of him.

“Gods, I just don’t want to do this,” he said.

He knew this was going to be bad. How could it not be? This was going to be awful. It was going to be so, so terrible. But there was still at least a chance: a tiny, miniscule chance that maybe he could find some possible way of just slipping in and out unnoticed and rescuing Vim without having to harm a single person.

As Zach placed his hands on the push-bar door that led out into the beach on Shadowfall Coast, he felt his mood sink. Slowly, he opened it, seeing pure darkness on the other side of it. He didn’t want to do this. But he knew in his heart that he had no choice. If he allowed Vim to be executed tomorrow morning, he would end up hating himself. He would see society break down in Giant’s Fall and Spider’s Eye Oasis. He would see an untold amount of pain and suffering. He would wonder why he failed to act.

But this has to be the last thing, he told himself. I’m an adventurer. This…this isn’t who I am!

Drawing a deep breath, he pushed the door open the rest of the way, and he stepped out onto the soft sand of the beach, emerging from what he knew would be a portable bathroom behind him. The air was different from the last time he was here. He could smell death on it: an acrid smell that he took for the smoke of so many destroyed buildings. It would probably be a long time before that smell fully cleared. Fortunately, the breeze coming off the ocean helped mitigate it somewhat.

Here I am again, he thought. Now, where do I go to look for—

Zach gasped, and so too did two young men only slightly older than himself, who stood across from him as though waiting there just in the event someone came through the dungeon portal. Their eyes both widened in alarm, and so did his. They were both armored, carried longswords, and on their breastplates was the insignia of the Guild of Gentlemen.

They met his eyes. He met theirs. A brief moment lasting no longer than two or three seconds transpired, during which a surreal quiet settled upon all three of them. Then their mouths began to move, and so did his, yet even still, no words were spoken. Their eyes seemed to glimmer with recognition, and then they widened even more. A mixture of fear, pain, and hate entered into both of their pupils. Before Zach could even understand what was happening, they’d drawn their swords, and so had he.

The one to his left struck out recklessly, swinging his blade straight down on top of Zach. The one on his right fumbled, seemingly unable to get his blade out of his scabbard, likely due to nerves. Zach stepped forward and delivered a rising slash that struck the sword wielded by the man to his left, which caused his entire weapon to fly out of his hands. And then, with a sense of urgency, Zach whipped his arms from left to right, causing the man to cry out in pain as Zach’s blade cut right through his armor, causing his guts to spill out of his body, staining the sand red.

The other man, who continued to fumble with his weapon, began to back away. Zach, breathing heavily, lurched forward and sliced him as fast as he could across the throat just as he’d opened his mouth to scream. Instead of words, a gurgling sound escaped his lips as he clutched at his wound and fell to his knees. Then both men fell forward and face down onto the sand, and neither of them moved again.

Be calm, he told himself. Save Vim. Focus on that. Think of nothing else.

Zach, with his hood drawn, marched farther into the night as blood continued to pour out of two fresh corpses.

Chapter 147 Raid Leader Pt. I

Chapter 147 Raid Leader Pt. I

Jimmy held his tongue. As a raid leader himself, he knew not to question or undermine Donovan and Zephyr during a raid in progress. So rather than give voice to his disagreements, he chose to say nothing as the two of them began barking out orders to the other fifty-eight members of the raid while they prepared to engage the level-52 “Death Harbinger” elites. Both were concealed in shadow, making it far too difficult to discern the features of either in this nightmarishly dark, wide, and tube-shaped hall.

“So, to be clear,” Donovan said to him after shoving an adventurer back for getting too close. The GSG leader claimed he wanted to ensure they were well out of aggro range until the mobs were ready to be pulled. “This is as far as you and Zach made it. Right?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “I pulled those two things with my poison, and it barely did a damn thing. Either they’re really resistant to it, or worse, they’re so strong that my intelligence isn’t high enough to burn them. So basically, ah, me and Zach realized right away we didn’t stand a chance against these two, and we roped out.”

Zephyr flicked his chin several times as though pondering the situation. “And you say they’re elites because of that asterisk at the end of their name, right? Is this from one of your simulations?”

Jimmy looked over to the mobs. “Kind of. Like, not that exact thing in particular. It’s more like the simulations that have elites usually offer some kinda visual indication, and it’s usually in their name. Sometimes, it’s bolded or a different color. A few ga—a few simulations even just say the word elite right in the name. So I’m like one-hundred percent sure that’s what the asterisk means.”

Spider stepped forward and gave Jimmy a firm pat on the shoulder. “Did your training data contain any information on how to determine their true level, son?”

Jimmy thought on the question. He was likely referring to the fact that bosses in this world could have their “true” levels ascertained with a formula involving their tier. Jimmy assumed he understood the question correctly, and he shook his head. “Nah, it didn’t. I just know that elite mobs are uh, a ‘thing,’ and these big boys are definitely elites.”

“What attacks did you witness from them?” Spider asked. “Be very clear about it, too. Don’t spare a single detail.”

Jimmy, as he’d done earlier in Angelica’s, went exhaustively over everything he could remember from the mobs. Only, this time around, he even tried to explain the attack patterns they’d used against Zach, how they moved, and he elaborated much more on their explosive sword magic attack, which broke Zach’s ribs despite Zach using that fancy shield thing of his. It was this last part that caused a bit of apprehension among the adventurers.

“I’ve seen him use that shielding ability before,” Alixa said, shuddering. “If it hurt him enough that he had to use a red rejuvenation stone, we need to really watch out for that attack.”

For the past ten minutes, the entire raid had been held up at this exact spot in the light-resistant darkness as Donovan and Zephyr approached things with a level of care that he wasn’t used to. He understood that this was a life and death situation, but he was used to raiding being more of a fast-paced thing. It seemed that adventurers moved through dungeons with a fair bit of slowness; unless there was an external reason why time was an issue, Jimmy was beginning to get the sense that they treated every unfamiliar encounter with extreme caution. He didn’t particularly disagree with this, though, and in fact, it made sense.

What he did disagree with—and did not state—was the way in which Donovan and Zephyr placed such a heavy emphasis on “pain mitigation.” Usually, in a raid, the tanks took the hits, and the healers healed. But the two raid leaders seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about how to prevent people from mentally breaking down as a result of repeated, intense, and agonizing wounds—even if easily healed.

I myself couldn’t handle it, Jimmy thought. But I’m not a tank. I mean, that’s what they’re supposed to do. How do you raid if you can’t let a tank be a tank?

As more and more discussion went underway, Jimmy began to increasingly worry that this raid might not happen at all. In particular, it was because, as their conversations progressed, Donovan and Zephyr kept using words like “if we” such as: “if we come back” or “if we choose to progress today.” They’d scheduled this to be a boss raid. Jimmy assumed that meant they’d be raiding a boss today. How could they get all these people together, form a nice, formidable, sixty-person raid group, and all just to be like: see ya tomorrow! To be sure, some raids did take days or weeks, but never had Jimmy been on a raid where they didn’t even attempt anything.

I guess it makes sense, he thought, bringing his past experiences to mind. In games, we learn by wiping and coming back. But that’s obviously not an option here.

As Jimmy listened to the conversations continuing around him, he remained quiet and respectful. Finally, however, Donovan addressed him and asked him a question he was desperately hoping to hear.

“What do you think we should do, Jimmy?” he asked.

Jimmy raised his voice though only enough so that he could be easily heard without shouting. “If it was up to me,” he said, “I’d opt for a close-range battle instead of pulling them. Meaning, we go to them. That big sword magic attack they use is ranged. If we get our tanks up in their face, they’re gonna have to stick to melee. What I’d do is have Maric, Spider, Ophelia, and Mister Britethorn tag them and then wriggle around behind them so they show the rest of the raid their back. Then I’d have the raid use single-target magic, arrows, and whatever else we can throw at them without friendly fire. Support can veer off to the side so we have line of sight to heal if we have to. But yeah. The primary goal should be preventing them from hitting us with that magic sword thing because just based on looks alone that’ll kill a third of us if we get hit with it.”

“Not a bad idea, kiddo,” Donovan said with a grunt. “But inefficient.”

Jimmy frowned. “How so?”

“Your way leaves too many people unable to do anything. The mobs aren’t large enough. Half our melee DPS will be idling. If we split them up, we can make use of everybody.”

“True,” Jimmy said, “but if you split them up, you might give them the distance they need to shoot that shit out of their swords. We’re not gonna be able to take a hit from that. Somebody’s gotta be in their face at all times with aggro.”

To demonstrate, he pointed his finger at the mobs. “Say we aggro them there.” He began pulling his hand back, drawing an invisible line on the floor. “These mobs move really slowly. So as the tank begins pulling back, there’s a huge chance the mob will just stop short, extend its sword, and start charging up the attack. I’m willing to bet the attack can get launched as long as it’s pursuing someone.”

Donovan nodded. “Yeah, Jimmy, I bet you’re right about that. That’s why…” He raised his voice, now addressing everyone. “That’s why we’re gonna do it like this. BG1 and BG2 are gonna go after Death Harbinger A and try to stick to the left as they do it. BGs 3, 4, and 5 will all focus on Death Harbinger B, but only after the tanks in those BGs have been able to pull the mob from there”—he pointed to where Jimmy had just pointed—“to down over there,” he finished, indicating a position about twenty feet down the tube-shaped hall behind them into total darkness. “BG1 and BG2,” he continued, “will pull theirs right here to where I’m standing right now.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to voice his concerns about the magical sword attack, which he genuinely believed would be fatal to anyone caught in its path. But as if to preempt his concern, Donovan loudly and firmly stated, “Nobody is to use any gods-be-damned stuns unless Zephyr or I call for it. Stuns are only gonna be used if they start going into that charge-up attack Jimmy was talking about.”

“And don’t forget, boys and girls,” Zephyr added with a difficult-to-see grin in this appalling lighting. “When we do call for a stun, remember to rotate between melee-based and magic-based to reduce diminishing returns. For obvious reasons, we don’t want any slows. It’s probably not a coincidence they move slowly to begin with. I’m thinking it’s to give them the opportunity to use that attack of theirs.”

Jimmy raised his hand like he was in school, then lowered it, feeling stupid. But not before Zephyr saw him, and with a chuckle, asked, “Yeah, Jimmy?”

“It just seems like a really big risk to pull them instead of charging them. Even if ya’ll wanna split them up, then at least you’d only have one of them walking around and not two.”

“It is a risk,” Zephyr agreed. “But is it a bigger risk?”

The way he spoke was almost like he was testing Jimmy. Jimmy made a serious expression, hoping Zephyr could see it amid the darkness. “Of course it is.”

“You sure?”

“Of course.”

Zephyr shrugged. “Well, someone might argue that, since this exact spot you’re standing in is the farthest you’ve come with Zach, you don’t actually know what happens if you move farther in the direction of those mobs. We know this dungeon has traps—can we say for sure we won’t step on any ahead of us that are too hard to spot? Do we know we won’t trigger any adds to spawn? I’d say the only thing we really know for sure is that we’re in safe ground up until this very spot here. Everything ahead is uncharted water. Wouldn’t it be better to bring them to where we know we won’t be surprised than to go to them and whatever else might await?”

Although Zephyr spoke the words in a way that suggested they were open to interpretation and disagreement, his tone was more like that of a college professor who already believed he was right and was trying to educate a student. Jimmy found this insulting. If class was in session, he should be the Goddamn teacher, not these middle-aged worrywarts.

Jimmy really wanted to challenge him on each and every point, but he knew that would escalate things from an honest but permissible question into something more oppositional and disrespectful. As he tried to contemplate a way that he could bring this back up without coming across as obstinate, the thoughts fell out of his head as Donovan extended his arm in Jimmy’s direction and praised him.

“Thanks to this kid and Zach, we now have a whole new tool in our kit: the escape rope. It’s gonna take some getting used to, but from now on, if me or Zephyr shouts to rope out, I want everyone to grab their ropes and leave in an orderly fashion. First, everyone but the tanks and healers, and then the healers and tanks at the same time. Got it?” A cheer along with a chorus of vocal affirmatives led to Donovan nodding to himself as if satisfied with their collective response. “These ropes are gonna make raiding a whole lot safer for us from now on—well, assuming we can keep getting ‘em. Point is, if we say to rope out, you bastards better rope out. If anyone doesn’t have one—and I’m pretty sure you all do—tell me now.” He paused as if to wait for anyone to chime in. When no one did, he clapped his hands together and said, “Before we get going, any last questions?”

“Um, just one,” Rian said. “What’s BG6 supposed to do in all this?”

Donvan walked over to Rian and gave him a playful—but very painful-looking—bump on the chest. “You guys hang tight and be ready to act if we need ya. Once the mobs get below forty-percent HP, you folks can jump in and start wailing on them if you want.”

If you want, Jimmy thought angrily, repeating the demeaning words in his head.

He was once again reminded of the shameful, pitiable battlegroup he was the “captain” of. Apparently, when Donovan and Zephyr ran raids together, they often included a battlegroup comprised of “lucky” lower-level adventurers who functioned more as “trainees” to “learn” from the higher-level and more-experienced ones. In the case of BG6, everyone in the battlegroup aside from Jimmy was in either the GSG or the Explorers Brigade, and everyone in the BG ranged from levels 30 to 45 except for a fifteen-year-old girl named “Ishina” who was level 29, which Jimmy now knew because the adventurers had turned on name and level visibility in their raid settings after splitting off from the original huge group.

Much like most of the other adventurers that’d been asked to either rope out—as most had done—or wait in Mushkie’s until or unless given the all-clear, no one in BG6, including even Jimmy, was technically “qualified” for the raid. Everyone in this BG, called “auxiliary support,” was being coddled and protected. And no one seemed to mind, either. Rian, Lienne, Ishina, Tena, and the other five teen- and young-adult-aged members seemed overjoyed to be part of this. It didn’t seem to bother them that they were basically unimportant to the raid itself.

Well, it sure bothers me, he thought.

The fact that Jimmy was stuck in this group like he was some goddamn noob made him feel so disrespected and insulted. He’d soloed raid bosses. He’d burst down the walls to this place—metaphorically speaking—after nobody had the balls to come here in centuries! And what? Now he was going to be forced to tiptoe around in the kiddie group? Why even let BG6 roll equally for loot, then? They certainly weren’t going to do equal work. It was just all so damn demeaning, you know? Yes, Jimmy was well aware that real life was different from a video game. He wasn’t stupid. He got it. All right? He did. But the fact of the matter was that he was a natural at this, he knew things that nobody here could even begin to guess, and he should be playing a more important role than being Captain Baby in the “I need to be babysat” group.

Stop thinking like that, he told himself. If you act like a baby, you deserve to be treated like one.

Though only nineteen, Jimmy was still an adult, and he knew it would be unbecoming of him to whine and bitch like a child. Thus, despite his dissatisfaction, he once again shelved his discontent and tried to go along with the flow. In a way, he sort of envied how free someone like Zach felt to just blow up at anyone or anything whenever something even slightly upset him. It must’ve felt good to stomp his foot down and tell everyone to fuck off and eat shit whenever things didn’t go his way. But that just wasn’t Jimmy’s nature, and it wasn’t how his momma brought him up. Jimmy wanted to honor her by living up to being the man she raised him to be. And so, as he led his nine raid members through the darkness so that their back was against the right side of the wall and away from the soon-to-begin action, he did so unhappily, but willingly. He felt humiliated, disregarded, and totally undervalued, but he would cooperate.

Still, I kinda wish I was here on my own with Zach like before, he thought, doing his best to conceal his bitterness and resentment. At least I’m useful to him.

Jimmy crossed his arms over his chest and rested his back against the wall as he watched all the tanks on the raid—except Rian and another kid his age in BG6—draw their swords, axes, short spears, or hammers while raising their shields of varying sizes. Two among them—Maric Ultdern and Frederic Britethorn—spread out to opposite sides of the hall and stood just a bit in front of the others.

“Division 1: I’m pulling,” Maric announced. “Okay, it’s taunted.”

“Division 2: I’m pulling,” Mister Britethorn’s elderly, yet commanding and powerful voice followed soon after. “I taunted it!”

What followed was a split second of silence, and then two dark laughs.

“Zur-hur-hur-hur-hur-hur!”

“Zur-hur-hur-hur-hur-hur!”

Ambling forward, and emerging from shadow and darkness, were the two large elite mobs that him and Zach had “roped” away from earlier in the day. Just as they’d been then, each stood larger than seven feet in height and sported such outrageously muscular forms that they made Spider look like a twig. Their eyes glowed a constant yellow, and a menacing sneer was planted on their lips. Most of their bright red skin was visible except for the few locations in which they donned armor, such as on their shoulders, shins, and feet, or where they were covered with a modest pair of black shorts. As they approached, they unsheathed tremendous, two-handed swords that had bronze-like grips and blades that looked made of a fine, reflective glass.

HP

2,110,000/2,110,000

Name

Death Harbinger A***

Level

52

HP

2,110,000/2,110,000

Name

Death Harbinger B***

Level

52

Maric and Mister Britethorn began moving slowly forward towards the mobs with their knees bent and their bodies slumped slightly forward, their shields held out defensively in front of them. They stopped after reaching the point that Jimmy and Zach had failed to move beyond. The mobs, for their part, began moving towards the two of them as if eager to meet, though they became even more spread out as the two taunting tanks began to position them for distance. They also moved considerably slowly. Jimmy could not think of any mobs he’d encountered so far that moved this slow without first being debuffed.

And there one of them goes, he thought, rolling his eyes. Knew that would happen.

Although Death Harbinger A continued to make his way closer to Maric, Death Harbinger B came to an abrupt halt. It then extended its sword in front of itself, and the tip of the blade began to glow brightly—and in a way that the general darkness of this floor did not seem to resist; a great deal of light was cast all around, and to Jimmy’s embarrassment, the sudden increase in visibility enabled him to see that, indeed, in several locations that spanned the distance between Maric, Mister Britethorn, and the two mobs, there were a couple of square-shaped, raised elevations that were consistent with what Jimmy expected traps to look like.

I didn’t think there’d actually be floor traps here, he thought, surprised but not totally shocked.

Given the incredibly low level of light here, but even more specifically, the fact that one’s own sources of light could not extend beyond a certain point, it seemed downright unfair for there to be traps on a dungeon floor like this. It wasn’t a reasonable thing to do. It didn’t give the player—or user, whatever—a fair chance of surviving it. If not for this sword attack, Jimmy probably wouldn’t have seen it.

He flicked his eyes nervously over to Zephyr, worried the leader of the Explorers Brigade was going to gloat or do an “I told you so.” Thankfully, he seemed too busy concentrating on the elites to bother. Not that Jimmy could see anything more from him than his vague outline. He also probably wouldn’t have done so anyway, but there was no real way of knowing for sure.

“Stun Death Harbinger B!” Donovan’s voice roared out.

As the sword began to glow with an increasing intensity, a flash of something white appeared from one of the raid members in Division 2. And although the flash was bright enough to be visible, it appeared to cast no light around itself, which meant Jimmy could not see anything beyond the silhouette of whoever had created it. This was interesting, because from the perspective of the person who’d created it, the flash would almost certainly have lit up their immediate area. But to anyone more than a few feet away, it would utterly fail to lift the veil of darkness. This floor really did play with light in unusual ways.

The flash, which Jimmy soon realized was some kind of projectile, burned across the distance between its caster and Death Harbinger B, and all without ever spreading a single ray of light or creating any shadows. A moment later, it collided with the mob, and the glowing from the tip of the blade vanished even as the mob kept its arms extended as though frozen in place; with the intensely bright, strobing light having been extinguished, once more, much of the hall became buried in darkness.

About five seconds came and went, and then the mob, Death Harbinger B, lowered its arms and continued to march slowly onwards, having clearly given up its desire to launch its incredibly powerful ranged attack. Unfortunately, it had a change of heart yet again; not five steps later, it once more halted, lifted its arms, extended its blade, and began to charge up another one. “Stun it again,” Donovan said with a growl. “Melee this time.”

Even as he spoke those words, Death Harbinger A had also halted and was now charging up the same attack at Division 1 across the hall. Rather than call for a stun on this one as well, Jimmy spotted the outline of Donovan’s massive form—easily identifiable by silhouette alone—speeding across the dungeon floor, where he then bent his knees, leapt into the air high enough that he almost crashed into the ceiling, and then began to release reddish sparks from his axe. Descending down on top of the mob, he crashed his axe through the creature’s skull, causing a spray of blood to shoot out of the top of its dual-horned forehead while dealing 21,511 damage.

Now, red tendrils of electricity began dancing off its skin as it remained perfectly still. Maric laughed and said, “I’m gonna have to taunt it twice as much now to pull it off you, Don.”

“Yeah, well, shit.”

During all this, Frederick Britethorn had pivoted his hips, swung around his right elbow, and slammed his shield into the face of Death Harbinger B, stunning it for several seconds as well while dealing 4,211 damage.

After a short moment, both mobs lowered their swords and again began to press the adventurers, and all while Jimmy was forced to watch and do nothing. This really did suck. He hated being a spectator. He wondered if he’d even bother to roll later on if they made it to the boss or if any other loot dropped. At this point, he was not only uncomfortable with the idea of rolling for items, but if things continued this way, it would end up feeling more like charity than something he’d earned.

This is pathetic.

With the stuns serving as interrupts, the two mobs continued to go where the tanks were attempting to lead them. Every so often, the Death Harbinger mobs decided to try charging up another of their super powerful sword-beam attacks, and they’d be stunned yet again. And even as the diminishing returns on the various stuns became more noticeable, they still served to halt the mobs from launching the ranged magical attacks, which in turn reset them back into their “pursuing” state.

As Jimmy watched them advance, it only just occurred to him right now that there was, in fact, a potentially huge flaw in Donovan and Zephyr’s plan—well, sort of. Their ideas were clearly working out so far, and because of this, Jimmy would be petty to bring it up after the fact, but he actually did see a real problem with their thinking, and he wished he’d realized it sooner, as it would’ve made him come across better. He hadn’t had any kind of answer to Zephyr at the time, but if his damn brain had only thought this up earlier, he would have.

Put simply, while it turned out that, yes, stuns interrupted and reset the mobs, they actually couldn’t have known that would be the case ahead of time. Sure, most mobs likely would abandon a charged-up attack by being stunned, as that was true in Galterra as well as most games. But! In nearly all the games that Jimmy had played, online and off, there were in fact mobs that could and would resume their attack the moment crowd control expired. Hell, there were even some that had “uninterruptable attacks” that couldn’t even be delayed with CC, let alone reset. Either Don and Zephyr didn’t know this or had never even considered it.

But I didn’t consider it until now either, Jimmy thought, filling with regret. But…whatever. Things are going well enough for now, I guess.

The two mobs were pulled away from one another, and eventually, they were in position, far enough away so that most of the raid could get to work. With that, a steady, constant, and stable rhythm began to unfold, whereby the DPS and off-tanks would rush in, take a few high-intensity shots for a few consecutive seconds, and then all would duck out so that the archers and mages could have a go: rinse and repeat.

Jimmy watched as fire, ice, water, lava, rocks, purple missiles, and even bees were fired out of more than a dozen staves, rods, spell daggers, spell swords, and books while about eight more bows unleashed arrows at the mobs. Then the archers and mages rested while the melee DPS rushed in. The healers and support continued to debuff or heal at irregular intervals whenever it seemed necessary.

By far, Kalana, Donovan, and Zephyr hit the hardest of everyone on the raid. Every attack from Kalana—all of which landed on Death Harbinger B’s back—seemed to hit for around 8000-10,500 damage, but she was able to perform numerous such slices with her daggers during the few seconds the DPS would engage before switching. Donovan, on the other hand, only got in one or two mighty swings with his axe on Death Harbinger A, but they landed really hard, dealing upwards of 15,000 each time. And then there was Zephyr, whose sword strikes landed with a stunning level of variability, ranging from just 500 damage with some hits to slashes as high as 37,000.

Jimmy was pretty sure it all had something to do with the man’s sword. It was, put simply, one of the coolest weapons he’d ever seen, including in any of the games he’d played back home. Zephyr’s weapon, a two-handed blade that was slightly smaller than a claymore but larger and thicker than a longsword, took on a white-and-silver appearance while sheathed by the man’s side. Once drawn, however, it was constantly lighting up different colors—but with a distinct pattern that incorporated a degree of randomness. Jimmy thought he had it mostly figured out just from watching him fight for a short while.

Whenever he entered combat, the base of the sword and the grip would glow intensely with a color such as red, blue, green, yellow, orange, or silver—and in some cases black or pure white. There may have been others, as well. But those were the ones Jimmy saw most often. And each time Zephyr struck with this sword of his, the blade would further change properties. And this happened consistently and in sequences of four.

Each and every time, the first strike would cause the blade of his weapon to dimly glow with the exact same color as that which was currently lighting up the weapon’s base. The second strike would then cause the blade to shine even more intensely to where the entire sword became evenly basked in the glow of whatever color happened to be in effect. After the third strike, the blade would light up even more brightly so that it would actually outshine the grip. It would also cause the weapon to begin giving off certain visual effects: when red, it was little balls of fire, when green, little puddle-like botches of goop, when yellow, electrical sparks, etc. Finally, on the fourth strike, there would be a reasonably loud noise that was different for each color, such as a zap for yellow or a whoosh for red—and then the blade would return to its default white state and the base would begin glowing a different, seemingly random color. Most times, anyway. It seemed possible that it would also sometimes glow the same color twice in a row.

I think I remember someone saying that’s an Artifact-rarity weapon, Jimmy thought.

Supposedly, Zephyr was the only adventurer in the entire world known to possess a weapon with a rarity of Artifact, which was above even Legendary. Artifact-quality items were the rarest of the rare, and based on the gossip that went around Angelica’s, only a few were known to exist in any category, with Zephyr’s being the only weapon anyone knew for sure existed outside of the level-105 staff that dropped from the dragon and was now in the hands of the Guild of Gentlemen. Fluffles, apparently, was another adventurer with such an incredibly rare item, which the cat made sure everybody knew and bragged about often. His collar, which was Artifact rarity, supposedly allowed him to turn invisible whenever he hadn’t been in combat for thirty seconds or longer, and there was no recast timer on it or limit to how long he could stay invisible.

Lucky cat…

Right now, Fluffles was sitting back with the other mages in Division 1 and calling down single-target lightning, which while only able to dish out around 800 damage per bolt, was coming in so fast he might have actually been out DPS'ing all the other mages. In some cases, he was striking ten, maybe even eleven times each second.

Due to the fact that Fluffles had been staying at Elendroth during most of the time that Jimmy had been on Galterra, Jimmy had not known Fluffles existed until very recently despite him being one of the most infamous adventures. After Fluffles had saved his life in Shores of Wrath, Tena had told Jimmy all about the cat, and a lot of it was surprising.

Apparently, despite having the worst behavior and raid etiquette of pretty much everyone, the level-51 cat was one of the most heavily requested and desired adventurers for raid groups. This, according to Tena, was because he had the perfect hybrid set of abilities that allowed him to play ranged DPS, melee DPS, off-tank, and surprisingly even healer in some rare circumstances.

From Jimmy’s own experiences, the vast majority of healing magic regardless of tier was suited towards healing lacerations, cuts, slices, scrapes, etc. The higher the tier, the more serious the type of wound it was effective against. However, far rarer was magic that could heal concussions, fractured or broken bones, muscle tears, or severe bruises.

Fluffles, however, apparently had a unique weekly ability that cast an AOE healing mist of T2.5 potency capable of healing minor-to-moderate brain trauma, minor-to-moderate broken bones, major bruising, and lastly—though Jimmy found this one befuddling—it provided 24-48 hours of relief for moderate symptoms of depression, ADHD, and other moderate, non-cognitively impairing mental disorders.

As Jimmy watched Fluffles zap so fast and with such frequency that the mob actually de-aggroed the tank, he saw firsthand just how much the cat could contribute to a raid. Incredibly, the moment the mob disengaged from Mister Britethorn and started shuffling over to Fluffles, the cat transformed itself into a giant panther and then launched itself at the sword-wielding creature. With an agility that made sense of a cat, Fluffles began to evade sword strike after sword strike while hissing and clawing the creature’s face apart for two-to-three-thousand damage a swipe. This, as Maric, his “daddy,” began to show signs of strain across the hall where he was being worn down.

“These things hit so damn hard!” he groaned, his entire body shaking each time he absorbed the power of a two-handed slash on his shield. “I can’t keep this up!”

“Alixa!” Donovan barked.

“Yeah?’

“Spam Amnesia on Harbinger A!”

“Got it!”

Alixa bent her knees, twisted her body somewhat, and her book snapped shut all on its own. Then she turned it so it was held sideways while throwing out her left forearm almost as though protecting it from something. Honestly, the closest thing Jimmy could think to describe her strange posture was that she looked exactly like a basketball player trying to pass the ball while surrounded by players from the opposing team. She even then made “passing” gestures, only without actually throwing the book. And each time she made one of these gestures, a pin-wheel shaped mass of energy that was very light blue in color would be “flung” out of the book like water from a pail. This energy would then spin wildly fast until flying across the hall to Death Harbinger A, where it would make a gentle humming sound after disappearing around its general head area.

After four or five of these pinwheel-shaped oddities, the mob suddenly disengaged from Maric and made as if to turn around. “Ophelia!” Donovan called. “Now!”

Before the seven-foot-tall mob could spin around and find someone else to attack, its attention was diverted by a beautiful woman with flowing locks of light-blonde hair wearing eyeshadow, red lipstick, and gazing out at it from blue, cloudy eyes. In her left hand was a curved scimitar, and in her right was an unexpectedly small buckler shield with a circumference not all that much larger than a frying pan. With a pained-sounding grunt, she swung her scimitar and parried a vicious slash that started high and came down low, and then she adjusted her stance to swipe away a similar strike that came from the opposite end, this time using her shield like a catcher’s mitt and blasting it away with a ding.

“Bring it on!” she taunted. Jimmy recognized this woman. She was Ophelia Graven, the leader of Boss Rush.

Although Jimmy had never spoken to her in person, one of the first things he’d done after discovering Angelica’s early on in his first week here was familiarize himself with the important players in the adventuring community, gathering as much intel as he could from the drunken patrons in Angelica’s. What he’d learned was that she was one of the leaders of what could be called the four primary adventuring guilds in Galterra.

To be clear, Jimmy could not say this with any measure of certainty, but if he was forced to take a guess, he’d feel comfortable betting that 90-95% of adventurers belonged to one of the four “big” adventuring guilds, which were: The Explorers Brigade, The God Slayers Guild, Boss Rush, and Lost and Found.

Of these four, the biggest, by far, was Zephyr Vextran’s Explorers Brigade. Once again, Jimmy couldn’t actually state this as fact, but he was pretty sure more than half of all adventurers were a member of just that one guild alone. Boss Rush and Lost and Found were probably tied for the second- and third-biggest guild, and then in fourth place was the elite, boss-killing guild, the GSG. After that, there were a few-dozen tiny guilds that contained maybe two, but usually one member. The one and sole exception—if you could really call it that—was a guild called “I did your mom” which, depending on the day of the week, contained either one member or three quarters of the entire adventuring community.

Given how easily people could leave and rejoin guilds provided they were invited, it seemed that many, many adventurers liked to occasionally leave their guild and join “I did your mom” for a few minutes to a few hours. Based on a story he’d eavesdropped on last week, a month before Jimmy had shown up in Galterra, almost the entire adventuring community had briefly quit their respective guilds to join “I did your mom,” and the reason they’d done this was specifically to upset Lord Alex Oren, who’d claimed it was immature, offensive, and childish. The moment he’d made that remark, it supposedly caused “I did your mom” to, for at least an hour, become the single-largest adventuring guild in anyone’s memory, including the Britethorns, who’d also shockingly joined.

And why was he thinking about all of this bullshit now during a raid? Why was he letting his mind wander and reflect on all these irrelevant details? Because thanks to Donovan and Zephyr, he had literally nothing better to do. Their plan, which Jimmy still disagreed with, did at least seem to be working. The two elites were being whittled down at a slow, but reasonable pace. And while they appeared to hit crazily hard in melee—as Zach himself would likely attest if he were here—the real threat was their ranged attack, which seemed to no longer be an issue now that they were both in position.

Jimmy watched as A’s HP fell to around 55% and B’s approached the 40% mark. Halfheartedly, he said, “Guys, you can go attack B now if you want.” He finished his words with a bored sigh.

“YEAH!” Rian roared, pumping his chest like a drum with his left hand while wildly swinging his shield as he chaotically flung himself into battle. A similar, but not quite as enthusiastic battle cry was released by Tena, Lienne, and the others as they bolted into the fray and weakly started putting out damage in the low 2-300 range. Yet despite delivering such paltry and borderline insignificant numbers, BG6 went at it like they were fighting that dragon everyone was always talking about. Jimmy, for his part, delivered a few projectiles from his staff that hit for like 800 whenever the melee DPS backed off B and it became the turn for ranged DPS to attack.

Sure enough, the two elites were crushed due to superior firepower, and aside from some sore bodies, it looked like their first big fight was a success. B died shortly before A, which made sense since 3 BGs—four if you counted BG6—were on it, but both were dead soon enough.

HP

0/2,110,000

Name

Death Harbinger B***

Level

52

Interestingly, upon dying, their corpses remained where they were: fully intact, bleeding, and unmoving. Neither dropped any loot, either. And though the raid was set up with xp-share to be raid-wide instead of BG wide, since there were sixty of them, that only ended up being a total of +2750xp for Jimmy. Since he was level 45 and they were 52, it was probably less than half of what he’d have gotten if he himself was 52 or higher. But it still wouldn’t have been enough to be worth much.

But anyways, yeah. Having done almost nothing to contribute, he forced himself to join in celebration with the others over the fact that the two elites were dead. Afterwards, Jimmy sighed again, pushed himself off the wall, and quietly made his way over to Donovan and Zephyr, who were both giving him a very strange, concerning, and unsettling look that he didn’t particularly care for.

What’s their issue?

Donovan opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he shut it as something changed: something in their environment. About ten seconds after both elites were felled, the entire world lit up with a natural, comfortable light, which illuminated the entirety of the tube-shaped passage with something comparable to an adequately lit room. In terms of visibility, it went from so dark one could not see the finer details on the face of a person right beside them to being on par with any normal indoor area.

Now, Jimmy could see far ahead of him into the distance. “There are some traps on the floor,” he warned, pointing.

“Yep, we see them,” Zephyr said.

“And it looks like—”

He gasped as he lifted his head and actually surveilled what was ahead of him. Now that the world was fully illuminated, it revealed itself to be far, far larger than anything he could’ve expected while submerged in the darkness. To say he was shocked at what had been lurking in the shadows was not going far enough. God, this place was mind-blowingly huge!

No way!

Just beyond the traps, the tube-shaped hall expanded to become even wider, and then it really opened up such that there appeared to be a vast, tremendous series of red-carpeted steps—tens of thousands of them—that were equally distant apart and about as wide as half of a sports stadium. Jimmy craned his neck all the way upwards to look at the top of where it led, which in his best estimation, had to be at least fifty stories’ worth of height, and they all converged around a massive door. Or maybe it was more accurate to call it a gate. It was a gigantic, birch-colored entrance the size of an IMAX screen, only made of wood. Written across the door were words in black ink and bold font that would almost certainly be too large to read once they approached too close. But from here, Jimmy could read them just fine.

F29->F30

Boss Ahead. 35+ Party Advised. (Recommended min: level 50. Level 58+ Recommended).

Donovan grunted. “That’s a high requirement, but not a terrible party-size number. We should definitely be able to handle that.”

“Agreed,” Zephyr said. He sheathed his sword, which caused the grip to cease glowing. “What say we go take a look? Watch your step for traps, though. I think there are some just between here and where those mobs spawned, but in this lighting, they should be easy to avoid now.”

Luckily, there turned out not to be any more traps aside from the few that Jimmy had spotted. Unluckily, Jimmy, like Rian, quickly found himself panting and out of breath as the sixty of them began climbing up something so magnificently huge, curved, and stadium-shaped that Jimmy wasn’t even sure what to call something so bizarre and out of place. It certainly wasn’t correct to call it a stairway. It was like having seats at the very top row of a concert and having to walk up from the bottom floor, only it was way taller than that, and his ankles and knees began to hurt before they’d even made it a quarter way.

“Holy fuck,” Rian said, gasping. “Li, this is gonna kill me.”

“Suck it up,” she said, also breathing heavily. "Don't you want to look good for Seiley?"

Rian patted his stomach through his leather brigandine armor. "Yeah. Good point."

Jimmy, just as exhausted as everyone else, could not allow himself to show it because he was the raid captain of BG6—as insignificant as they were—and that would reflect badly on him. Even still, he was not having a good time. If only he could poison something and use his stamina buff, this would’ve been a cinch. He could ignore the muscle aches. It was the cardio that was killing him.

Zach did say I need to build up stamina, he thought. But damn.

Fluffles seemed to be having no issue climbing, but that was because the cat wasn’t climbing. He hitched a ride on whoever was nearby. Right now, he was perched on Spider’s right shoulder, and Spider was tickling his chin as he easily made his way up red step after red step, his boots making a soft thud. The same soft thudding was echoed over and over from fifty-nine other people including Jimmy himself. When put all together, it became loud enough that it actually drowned out some of the ambient sounds of breathing and grunts of exertion coming off numerous adventurers, particularly those in BG6.

Yet through it all, Donovan and Zephyr would not stop staring at Jimmy. As he continued onwards along this ludicrous, stadium-like hike to the next floor, he couldn’t help but see the way both men continuously looked at him, frowned, and then began to animatedly discuss things with one another. At one point, Jimmy caught wind of just a bit of what they were saying, but he couldn’t really make out much. In fact, amid all the thudding of so many people stomping down on the red, carpeted steps, Jimmy wasn’t even sure he was hearing them correctly. He thought he heard one particular bit of it, though.

“…you really sure that’s what he needs?” Jimmy was pretty sure Zephyr said to Donovan.

“Yeah, Zeph. I know his type.”

“Kid’s doing everything we say, and he’s not complaining. Why’s that not good enough?”

“It just isn’t,” Donovan growled. Then he said a bunch more words that Jimmy couldn’t hear. In fact, for the next few minutes, everything Donovan said was unintelligible. But eventually, when the two began to argue a bit more loudly, he picked up on another snippet of their conversation.

“I can tell from his eyes. The fucker’s not getting it. And if I was him, I wouldn’t get it either. Zeph, I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think it was worth it.”

“It’s cruel.”

“Naw it ain’t. What my dad did to me? Now that was fuckin’ cruel.”

“I know. I was there. Gods, I’ll never forget that awful day. You sure you won’t be accidentally recreating it here and now?”

Donovan made a brief, confident-sounding chuckle. “Definitely not or I wouldn’t do it.”

Zephyr seemed to sigh. “If you really say so. I think it’s a bad idea.”

“Has to be done,” Donovan insisted. “It just has to be.”

Jimmy, after an exhaustive climb, finally reached the top, and then he did his absolute best to avoid gasping loudly for air in front of everyone, and instead, he tried to take calm, measured breaths. It took him a good bit to get his breathing under control. He took a seat on what looked like an area rug—well, for an area the size of a football field. Many of the other adventurers, a number of them covered in sweat, joined him. Then Donovan and Zephyr began whistling and clapping to get everyone’s attention.

“I got an important announcement to make,” Donovan said, causing every head to turn his way. “Everybody listen up, ‘cause this is important! Very, very important!”

“What is it?” Kalana asked, likely offput by the seriousness in his tone. Jimmy was as well.

Rather than reply, Donovan pursed his lips and seemed to take a moment to look at each one of the other adventurers, Zephyr included. Well, all except Jimmy, who he seemed to skip for some reason. Then he placed his hands on his hips, lowered his head as if to stare at the ground, and he held that position for about ten seconds before lifting his gaze once more.

“Major shakeup in the command structure,” he said. Now, finally, he met Jimmy’s eyes. “I’m stepping down as raid leader for this next boss. Your new raid leader will be him”—he pointed—“Jimmy Green!”

Jimmy opened his mouth to gasp but ended up coughing and spluttering, hit by a whirlwind of confusion and awe. “R-really?” he asked—and so did many others.

“Yup.”

Jimmy shook his head as if to clear it of any fog that might’ve settled into it due to the exhausting trip up here. It also didn’t help that, now that they were all the way up here, the ceiling had been replaced by a round, massive glass dome, which served as like a window into the outside world: a world that was covered in mist and mountains made of pure ice that looked lifeless and dead. It was also a world that appeared to be upside down, causing his stomach to make a flipping sensation as his body did not seem to understand what strange trick of gravity was being played here.

“Are you serious?” Jimmy asked, taking his attention off the sights above—below?—him. "Or are you just messing with me?"

“Nope.”

With nearly all the adventurers now seated and taking a few minutes to rest, Jimmy could actually hear them shift as they turned on their asses to look at him. And of all things, as he came to grips with what he’d just been told, his immediate reaction was to smile. Even amid all his confusion and struggle to understand why Donovan would do this, it was giddiness he felt above all.

“Well, all right then,” he said, nodding and grinning. Confidently, he stood up and dusted off his knees and thighs. “About time these two came to their senses. Don’t gotta ask me twice. Everybody, rest up for twenty, and then get ready to raid properly. We’re gonna murder this thing so bad it’ll refuse to respawn!”

The adventurers cheered and Jimmy’s smile broadened. Now this was more like it.

Chapter 148: This is War. This Happens in War

Chapter 148: This is War. This Happens in War

For a time long enough to make him look weak, King Alistair Morrison of the Dark-Water Depths remained motionless as all the various reports hit his desk in central Shadowfall Coast at the same time. He was flabbergasted. He was in a state of denial, which he was cognizant of yet powerless to break himself free from even as Major General Kenth Baxtra and his other ranking commanders continued to shout and pester and demand things of him while he sat with his head resting in his hands in the situation room. Over and over, he tried to make sense of what he was hearing, which caused him to question how it could be possible. Yet it was happening. But it couldn’t.

But it was.

“Tell me again,” he said, lifting his head and looking into the eyes of his leading military advisor.

“Like I said,” Major Baxtra repeated. “If I combine what’s left of the 6th and merge them with the 131st brigade, we can move our available—”

“No, no, from the beginning.”

“S-sir?” he asked. A moment later, he croaked and corrected himself. “I mean, Your Grace?”

Alistair waved dismissively at him. Now wasn’t the time for formality. More importantly was the fact that he was coming across as very weak in a moment of true peril and he needed to pull himself together now. “I’m just juggling a lot of thoughts at once. Tell me again. One more time.”

With a note of uncertainty in his voice, Major Baxtra nodded and said, “We’ve detected unusual flight activity from the Slopes of Dal’Zarrah—of the sort that would only be possible if the Lords of Justice commandeered every single airliner and routed them all to southeast Varda’s Lair, which indicates People of Virtue's complicity in what is almost certainly a rapid and drastic troop deployment. An attack is likely imminent after sunrise tomorrow.”

Even though he knew Major Baxtra was correct in all that he said, Alistair continued to shake his head in disbelief. “But why?”

“I don’t know, Your Grace.”

This just didn’t make sense. Earlier yesterday afternoon, when Sir Oren, the newly anointed third-in-command of the Lords of Justice, had announced his guild’s desire to continue the war effort in lieu of surrendering, it had been the opinion of all his military advisors—as well as his own opinion—that this was mere bluster designed to put their guild in what they perceived as a better negotiating position; never, did he imagine that this was an actual, credible threat.

“Don’t they know…don’t they know I’ll kill every single one of them?” Sir Morrison asked.

“Their motivations are as much a mystery to me as they are to you, Your Grace.”

Sir Morrison rubbed his chin as he again looked over the various reports projected onto a digital screen built into the desk itself. A moment later, he fixed each of his top military advisers with a hard, angry glare. “Can they know?” he asked at a whisper. Having coming this far, the words he had to say next were so dangerous that even alone with his most trusted people he dared not speak them—yet he did. “Can they know that we have bluffed?”

“That is impossible,” Colonel Dakrit stated. He spoke in a way that was both certain and even reassuring, yet, it failed to reassure King Morrison because clearly something here was amiss. No matter how confident Colonel Dakrit was in the security of their research lab and the weapons facilities, it simply would not put Sir Morrison at ease, because it kept leading to the central question behind all of this: why. If the enemy believed the Guild of Gentlemen had an arsenal of nuclear missiles at their disposal, for what possible reason would they risk such reckless, hostile action?

As though in response to the dubious way in which Alistair was staring at him, Colonel Dakrit sat up straighter and said, “Your Grace, it is truly impossible for anyone to have leaked to the enemy. There is simply no way. Not a single researcher has been permitted to leave or make contact with the outside world, and as far as the men we’ve got working on the weapons facilities are aware, they're building additional facilities, and others have already existed elsewhere. In other words, they don’t know that they are currently working on the first true batch of new weapons.”

Alistair continued to make slight shaking motions of his head. He heard what the colonel was saying, but still: it didn’t add up. It just didn’t. “Place a call to High-Lord Besh,” he ordered. “Tell him that if he even thinks of stepping foot in Shadowfall Coast, I will launch a missile at Slopes of Dal’Zarrah directly.”

For some reason, this seemed to cause Major Baxtra to squirm uneasily in his chair. “What is it?” Alistair asked him. “What?” he demanded angrily.

“Your Grace, I’ve already done that.”

“You what?” he snapped. “And they’re still attacking?

“I…I’m afraid so.”

Alistair swore, then picked a paperweight off his desk and threw it at the wall. “How long until our next weapon is ready?”

“We can complete an untested protype by the middle of the day, but I must stress, Your Grace, it is untested.”

“They’ll be here by then,” he growled. “Can we not have a weapon ready to fire sooner?”

“I'm sorry to say it can't be done. The process necessary to enrich the uranium is time-consuming, though we’re working on ways of speeding that up in the future.”

“Little good that does us now!” he shouted, half getting up from the table. Then he took a deep breath, forced himself to remain calm, and he retook his seat. More sedately, he said, “We’re going to defend our city. The Lords of Justice are strong, but we have dragon’s loot. We will triumph.”

This now caused Major Baxtra to look even more unsettled—to the point he actually appeared sickly and frail, characteristics that Alistair would not typically associate with him. “Your Grace…”

“Now what is it?” he replied, doing his best to suppress the rising anxiety within himself.

“There are reports of unusual movements among the Elves as well. Though it might be hard to believe—and we should not assume this to be the case—we must begin to consider the possibility that Queen Vayra will be joining the Lords of Justice in their attack. The same is true of the Royal Roses, who are showing some signs of atypical troop movement in Giant’s Fall.”

Alistair had come too far. He was not going to let anyone set humanity back. Not when they’d worked so hard to regain the weapons necessary to ensure the survival of humans and their offspring. Not when he was finally in a position to reunite and civilize South Bastia and restore the glorious empire that Peter I had built.

“If the Elves attack, we will call our dragon,” he said, massaging the Artifact-quality ring he now wore on his finger, which constantly released a shine so bright that, at night, he needed to wrap a cloth around it so that he could sleep. He never took it off: he would never risk having it leave his finger. As the rarest piece of loot from the raid, it was his final defense in the event that all else failed. The ring, with a thirty-day cooldown, gave Alistair an ability that allowed him to summon a level-190 sky drake, something that not even the wretched Elves would be able to overcome so easily, especially if caught off guard.

The ring’s power was so immense that Alistair’s speed, dex, and strength had almost doubled simply by equipping it, as the ring provided +90 to all three stats as well as +45 int, the last of which he did not really have use of. Bar none, he was now the strongest member of his guild thanks to this ring. In combination with his other dragon equipment, his stats now exceeded 250 in all areas except luck.

If I have to get in the fight myself, I will, he thought. We’re not going back to a position of weakness!

******

Captain Greshek Mink, the 37th in command of the Guild of Gentleman, frowned as he tried yet again to raise coastal patrol group 7 over the Comm. “Coastal Patrol Group 7,” he said, becoming more alarmed by the moment. “Report!”

Nothing. Silence.

He looked around the confines of the dark, filthy dungeon entrance, which was secured behind a metal vault made of ancient, high-level materials. This dungeon had been built thousands of years ago, which was why it was in such a state of disrepair; put simply, nobody knew how to repair it. Thankfully, the spoken code that opened the vault still functioned, but aside from that, so much of the place was run down, cockroach infested, molded, and foul smelling.

“I’m reporting this up the chain,” he said to his partner, a young woman who was practicing swinging her sword at the empty air.

“Go ahead,” she said. “But you’re worrying over nothing.”

“Am I?”

She nodded. “They’re probably just fucking around.”

He grunted. “I don’t think so.”

She laughed. “What, you think adventurers are gonna come through that portal and attack us? Those boys are there as a precaution. Just to have our bases covered. They probably got bored and wandered off.”

“They’re not boys,” he scolded. “They’re disciplined young men, and they understand the importance of securing our city.”

Despite many of his peers viewing it as unnecessary, Greshek had stationed two young warriors, levels 25 and 26 respectively, to guard the area right around where the adventurers had all coalesced a few weeks ago, which confirmed to the political guilds that dungeons actually did exist. Of course, since then, so much more had been confirmed—things that were hard to believe, such as rumors that the former king, Peter Brayspark, had used such dungeons himself. This, of course, was just speculation, and it was likely rude of him to keep dwelling on it. It was disrespectful to the dead.

Can’t help but wonder if things might’ve been better if he was still alive, Greshek thought. Clearly, Peter was going to lead them all to a defeat at the hands of the Royal Roses and People of Virtue, but something just felt off now that they’d dropped that bomb on Ogre’s Axe. Greshek couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d committed an unforgivable act that the Gods would not turn a blind eye to.

Was it really okay to do that?

At any rate, out of an abundance of caution, he made the facial gestures required to change the output frequency of the micro-Comm in his ear. “Sir Malakor,” he said, hoping to raise the man, who was currently much deeper inside the human-built dungeon—or maybe he should start calling it a prison to avoid confusing himself and others. “Do you read me? This is Captain Greshek Mink with the front guard. Sir Malakor? Do you…”

*******

“…read me?”

Gaelan sighed. Turning away from Vim, who in his last moments, was finally beginning to make decent conversation, he leaned his head to the side and responded. “I read you, Captain Mink. What is it?”

“Two of my men haven’t reported in, sir.”

“Which men?”

“Coastal Patrol Group 7.”

“Patrol group 7…wait, are those the boys you have standing around the civilian area of the beach?”

“Yes, sir.”

He chuckled. “They’re probably just messing around. Discipline them later for leaving their post. But don’t be overly harsh. They’re young. They will learn. But don’t be too easy either. They’ve got a silly job, but during times like these, it’s important our young understand the importance of responsibility.”

“Sir, it’s just that…I know these kids. They’re very dedicated. They wouldn’t just—”

“What,” Gaelan interrupted. “Do you think some adventurer decided to come through and smack them around? The adventurers don’t want anything to do with war. Relax, boy.”

“I apologize, Sir Malakor. May I at least send another group to check in on them?”

“No. It’s an unnecessary distraction. Right now, I’m hearing some really scary-sounding reports that we might have a fresh round of fighting on our hands—but you didn’t hear that from me. For now, concentrate on ensuring the execution tomorrow goes smoothly in the morning. Remain at your post and focus on your duties.”

“Understood, sir. Over and out.”

Gaelan turned to Vim. He was starting to worry the little Gnome might not make it to his execution. He was very weak. And though he’d finally become more talkative, he was also a bit delirious and his health was in real peril. Gaelan could not allow him to die here in this dungeon. That was not justice. He would die in accordance with the law, which meant that, tomorrow morning, he would be given the choice between a hanging and a beheading, and his sentence would be carried out quickly and humanely.

“So, you were saying?”

Vim coughed. “Right,” he said weakly, gazing off at the wall as if looking at something that wasn’t there. “So, Peter, before all this, he was one of my best friends. Before he went mad. And he had this—”

“He never went mad,” Gaelan interrupted. “That’s a lie told by guild media.”

Vim coughed again, but this time, there was a sound of mirth in it: of laughter. “I can’t tell if you’re lying or you believe what you’re saying, but that man lost it. Anyways, stop interrupting me you fuck!” Vim closed his eyes and stopped speaking. For a moment, Gaelan feared he might not again reopen them. But slowly, he did, and he peered out at Gaelan from his bruised lids. “So, Peter had this big dog. I used to call it a giant rat. Thing would slobber all over you. When I used to come by for supper, he’d always order it to jump on me and start licking my face. He thought it was so funny. So, one day, the dog knocks over a 10k bottle of wine, and it spilled all over Peter III’s attire. Gods, the old king was angry. He forced Peter to spend ten hours cleaning graffiti off the buildings in Tomb of Fire.”

Gaelan smiled. He liked hearing these positive old stories about King Peter IV. So much of his legacy had been tainted by smears and lies from the other guilds. Though Gaelan had never met the man, his father knew him well, and his father told him that Peter IV was an honorable, kind, and at many times soft-hearted man who believed strongly in justice and decency. And he trusted the word of his father over the lies uttered by the enemies of humanity. That was why he was willing to believe some of what Vim said, but he was not willing to believe—

“Sir Malakor! Sir Malakor! Sir Malakor! Do you read me?”

“What is it now?” he growled into the Comm. “You’re starting to remind me of my daughter, Jeanna. What is it, boy?”

“Coastal Patrol Group 8 is not reporting in!”

“Seriously? This again?”

“No, s-sir, you don’t understand. They started to transmit something that sounded like a warning. I couldn’t catch what they said, but their voices were cut off mid-transmission.”

“Boys being boys,” he said. “No one is going to attack from the direction of the beach. Least of all adventurers. You’re being—”

“Gods, I can’t raise Coastal Patrol Group 9, either! I’m going to alert 10! Something’s happening.”

“Captain Mink. Enough!” Gaelan shouted. “You’re letting hysteria drive your actions. Another word about this, and I will relieve you of your position. Do you understand me?”

“Y-yes, sir. Sorry.”

“Good. Now focus on your own duties and stop micro-managing coastal patrol. Enough!”

“Understood.”

Gaelan needed a vacation after all this was done. The real threats that they were already facing were bad enough without having to calm young guild members every time some random thing spooked their imaginations. Gaelan understood. He was their age once. Even still, there was too much awfulness going on right now to put up with the young and their silliness. It would be impossible to maintain order if an alarm went off every time a Comm frequency became interrupted due to magnetic interference or connection was lost. Too much was happening to be rattled over nonsense. Captain Mink needed to calm the hell down before he worked himself up into a frenzy and ended up harming his career and shaming his family.

He was a good kid, and Gaelan didn’t want that for him.

*****

The last sound the young woman made was a groan as Zach’s Sword of Light Amidst Darkness cut deeply into her cranium and took off the top third portion of her scalp. Her brains spilling onto the sand, the rest of her body followed suit as she fell over and plopped down silently. Zach tried his best to avert his gaze and not look at the blood hemorrhaging out of her open head wound.

“Say one word into that Comm and you’re next,” he threatened the lightly armored man she’d been guarding the beach with. Surprisingly, he hadn’t even put up a fight. The guy simply dropped his sword and then held up his hands in surrender.

“Please don’t kill me,” he begged. “Please.”

Zach narrowed his eyes. “Take the fucking Comm out of your ear. Now!”

His hand shaking, tears running down his face, he removed the small device and extended his hand. Zach snatched it from him and crushed it. Then the guy fell to his knees and cried, holding his hands out defensively as Zach knelt down and pressed the edge of his blade against the man’s throat. Like the others Zach had killed, he was only a few years older than Zach himself.

This is war. This happens in war. This is war. This happens in war.

“Where is Vim Alazar being held?”

Sniffling, sobbing, and begging, he turned his head around. “Th-th-th-three m-m-m-miles w-w-w-west, Sir Ca-Calador. In th-the d-dungeon. P-please. I don’t wanna die. Please. I’m so sc-scared. Please!”

He’ll call for help if I let him go.

Zach slit his throat, and then he proceeded onwards.

Chapter 149: Technical Incompatibility

Chapter 149: Technical Incompatibility

With tremendous feelings of confidence and optimism coursing throughout his body and mind, Jimmy extended both his arms and placed his palms flat on the smooth and mysteriously cool birchwood that made up the gargantuan entryway to F30.

“You really think this’ll work?” he asked Tena.

“I bet it will. Just try!”

Jimmy laughed and gave it a heavy shove. Despite its massive size, the huge, theater-screen-sized gate surprisingly began to move; a loud, ominous creak filled the world as it slowly continued to slide, first becoming ajar and then revealing something of a golden light that seeped into this wide, flat, carpeted area that they’d all summited like a mountain. Clearly, the gate was designed to be pushed open just like a great many of the other doors to be found in dungeons. Without using much strength at all, the door continued to swing the rest of the way open until, finally, he and his raid members could make their way inside. But first, his eyes were met with a stunning sight that greeted him from beyond this giant door: one that caused the other adventurers to release audible murmurs that suggested they too were impressed with what they saw.

Inside was a beautiful, massive, and royal hallway wide enough so that twenty people could stand shoulder to shoulder and still not cover half the width of it. Amazed, Jimmy saw that the hall was resplendent with dazzling, golden chandeliers that cast a nurturing glow about the place, as well as to-scale, ceramic statues depicting various types of horses. There were numerous wool carpets with intricate, geometric patterns woven into the fabric, and they were laid on top of shiny, polished-looking hardwood flooring. There was even a piano not far from the entrance in the back-left corner that was partially covered by an elegant, silk-like cloth draped over the top. In front of it was a leather-studded bench with a stack of what looked like musical compositions laid down on it. But the most noticeable thing of all was the sound of music: specifically, a fancy melody that sounded composed by a small, violin-centric orchestra. Where it originated from, Jimmy could not tell, as the notes seemed to be produced by the very air itself.

“Well, what do we have here?” Reni Sarwin asked.

Mister and Misses Britethorn stepped inside and then both visibly inhaled deep breaths of air through their noses. “The smell here is wonderful.”

It did smell very pleasant. The air was cool, fresh, and invigorating, and it contained a hint of perfume. But there was more, too: there was the smell of freshly-cooked meat among other types of food. And indeed, on the right side of the hall, about fifty feet in, there were tables upon tables stacked to the brim with numerous tin-covered trays. From the smell alone, Jimmy was willing to bet that entire chickens, ham, pork, and other meats could be found beneath the lids of those trays. He also thought he caught a whiff of chocolate cake or brownies—or something of the sort.

“Now this ain’t something I’ve seen before,” Donovan said with a grunt.

Zephyr, who stood by his side, nodded. “Not your typical boss floor.”

One by one, the members of the raid poured into F30, and all fanned out around Jimmy, who stood frontmost to them all. With so many eyes now focused upon him, he quickly searched the fancy area ahead of him for any signs of traps. Content there were none, he took a step forward. Then a second. Then a third. And then a fourth. But on the fifth, something happened the moment he lifted his foot. Something he didn’t expect.

The music stopped abruptly, cutting off mid-note, and a twisted, evil laughter replaced it. It was loud, shrill, and seemed to come from everywhere at once: in front of them, behind them, above and even below them. It boomed with such intensity that, the moment of its appearance, several adventurers flinched, others drew their weapons, and a few even made ducking motions as though reflexively trying to avoid an attack. Thankfully, the laughter cut off after a few seconds, and now, a voice replaced it.

“Welcome, adventurers!” it said. The voice was very deep, highly masculine, and it sounded like a demon out of hell. “I am glad that you all have arrived. Please! Make yourselves at home, hah-heh-heh! Let me assure you all that you will find no traps or trickery here in my royal palace. For I, the Imp Lord Tzumazleth, have awaited such worthy challengers as yourselves. At the end of this hall, you shall find me waiting. But I do not bid that you rush! Feel free to rest. Eat. You may even sleep if you so wish. I seek a challenge and want to face you at your best. But I do warn you, adventurers: do not approach my chambers until you are prepared—to die! Hah-heh-heh-hah! Ahhh-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!”

Jimmy scratched his head. Then he turned around to face the others. “So, I think ya’ll will agree with me that we can’t trust a goddamn word that dude just said, right?”

“Hell no!” Rian shouted in agreement. “I’m just going to assume the food is poison.” He grinned mischievously. “I might still try it anyway though just to be sure.”

Lienne punched his arm. “Not funny! I so don’t trust you not to give into the temptation, Ri.” To Jimmy, she said, “And yeah, I’m not big on trusting spooky imp creatures either.”

Donovan barked out a laugh. “I agree with the kids. We should stay away from the food and the—”

Dear Adventurers: welcome to F30 in Trials of Nolak! Although other forms of teleportation are functional, due to an unforeseen technical incompatibility that arose long after this dungeon’s creation, we were unable to build a direct doorway-link to Angelica’s anywhere in Trials of Nolak. To compensate, please enjoy a forever-fresh meal before each boss fight beginning on F30 as well as always clean inn rooms down the hall and to your right past the cafeteria. A FREE teleportation to the grand library in Slopes of Dal’Zarrah can be activated by speaking to the inn-master and saying “teleport,” however this function, along with the existence of all food, beverage, and lodgings, will only remain in existence while the boss is spawned. Otherwise, it will return following the weekly dungeon reset. Thank you for understanding. (Message will auto close in 30…29…28…)

It was almost comical how silent the entire raid became as each and every adventurer—including Fluffles—halted whatever they were doing to read the floating message that’d popped up in the air. Once Jimmy himself had finished reading it, he coughed into his hand then said, “Okay, I guess we can trust the food after all.”

“Hurray!” Fluffles shouted out. And without another word, he took off like a bullet down the hall, even as Maric called at him to wait up. A moment later, there was a blinding flash, and a bolt of lightning struck down from the ceiling, knocking the tin lid off one of the trays. Then Jimmy saw him scampering away along the floor with his mouth wrapped around the leg of an entire cooked chicken.

“Fluffles get back here!” Kalana shouted at him.

Fluffles moved even faster, retreating into a room on the right. The last sight Jimmy had of him was his little body scurrying into the room with a whole damn chicken dragging along the carpet behind him. With a laugh, he said, “I could eat. Anyone else?”

The question wasn’t even necessary. By the time five minutes had come and gone, all sixty raid members were sitting at long, white tables that reminded him of those found in a high-school cafeteria, with plates that were stocked high with food. All around them on little shelves built into the walls were plastic cups, straws, and machines that dispensed soda, juice, water, ice, and other various drinks such as teas and coffees. There were also little plastic bins that could be pushed aside to reveal cakes, sweets, and candy. Food wasn’t half bad, either. Still, it was no Angelica’s.

Can’t complain when it’s free, though, Jimmy thought with a grin.

At the back of the room, with his hands at his side, was a level-250 NPC named “Inn-Master George.” Though Jimmy was hardly an expert in the matters of sentience, he felt pretty comfortable stating the NPC was emphatically not “alive” in the way that Grundor, Angelica, and that dinosaur, Ruby, happened to be. This one simply stared out at the world with vacant eyes and a permanent, almost plastic smile plastered onto its face, saying nothing and doing nothing—never moving from that one spot with its back against the rear of the cafeteria’s wall.

“Everybody, eat up and rest for a bit,” Jimmy said. “Relax, chat, drink, and digest. Because then we’re moving out and taking down that imp son of a bitch. You got it?”

The entire cafeteria filled with roars and cheers from the other adventurers, many of whom were holding chicken or turkey legs in their greasy hands as they raised their fists up in excitement. This was going well. He had no idea why Donovan had finally allowed him to take charge. He didn’t understand what had finally caused the man to see the value in him. But Jimmy was glad that he had, because there was no better choice to lead this raid than he, one of just two people in hundreds of years who’d actually been willing to brave it in the first place.

“Jimmy, I can’t believe they made you raid leader,” Tena said to him. “I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m happy for me too,” he admitted.

Seated next to him, she grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I’m so excited for you. You’re gonna do so great. I’ve seen what you’re capable of. You’re going to blow everyone’s minds.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “Of course I will.”

“Why won’t you eat, though? You’ve barely touched your food. Is it because of the time?”

“The…time?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “It’s like 1AM back on Galterra right now.”

“Oh, right,” he said, releasing a quiet chuckle. “Nah, it’s not that at all. I’m just excited.”

“Well, try to eat.”

“I will.”

At the moment, Jimmy wasn’t that hungry, yet he forced himself to eat anyway, because he knew he needed to keep his strength up and fuel his brain. And it really, truly wasn’t the time of the day that hindered his appetite, because both here in this new world and back at home, he was no stranger to getting the munchies at 1AM while raiding a dungeon. It was actually why he’d fallen out of the gym and had gotten a bit flabby in the first place in the days leading up to his “death” on Earth. No, in this case, what held back his appetite was pure, sheer excitement. One that he was sure could be felt by all those around him. It was obvious just by looking.

I’m finally gonna show them what I know!

Jimmy had a really good feeling about this. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits and willing to cooperate with him and each other. Even Fluffles was behaving to the best of his ability, as despite threatening to “kill” his “daddy,” he ended up relinquishing half of his chicken after running away with it while Maric chased him around the room.

“I get the other half later,” Fluffles said. “Daddy gives me the other half later.”

“All right, but only if you promise not to eat anything else until our next meal.”

“I promise.”

The cat jumped up onto one of the tables, then hopped from one to the next until sitting down in front of Jimmy, staring into his eyes. “Why Jimmy have weird powers?” he asked, the question coming seemingly out of nowhere. “Jimmy move things and read minds?”

“Huh?” Jimmy asked. “Is that supposed to be some kinda riddle?

“Jimmy not the same as everyone.”

“How so?” Jimmy asked, confused.

“I appraise.”

“What do you even mean when you say ‘appraised?’ You said that to me once before, and back then, I also didn’t—hey, wait! Why’re you running off while I’m…ah, whatever.”

Fluffles didn’t seem to want to elaborate. He ran off to go play with Kalana. Jimmy shrugged and forgot all about it. He was finally leading a raid! The thing he’d been sent here to do. It was one of the reasons he was so confident. It was why he knew he would succeed. That woman, Eilea—she hadn’t chosen to drag him thousands of years into the future unless he really was born to do this: unless he really was the person meant to be leading these raids. Thus, putting Fluffles out of mind, Jimmy decided that, for the time being, he would continue to think up possible raid strategies to keep himself sharp up until the moment it all began. He was ready to kick some ass.

******

Having nearly made his way off the beach and into the city, Zach stopped in his tracks as a large patrol consisting of four leveled guild-members and eight, armed, level-1 infantry chose that exact moment to turn the corner off a neighboring block and begin making their way onto the boardwalk; the bunch of them were passing by right near a ramp that led directly down onto the sand where Zach was standing. Though it was now after midnight, the city had put up work lights and spotlights everywhere, and there was no singular place this close to the city that was dark enough to be completely obscured.

Thinking fast, Zach dashed backwards, the sand muting any sound of his movement, and then he hid behind a pay-to-use shower: the very same one that he’d washed himself inside the last time he was here; it’d been just before he’d taken Kalana to Angelica’s for the first time. Holding his breath, he listened as the sound of their footsteps tapped softly against the wooden boardwalk. Peeking out his head just slightly, he saw that all eight of the rifle-wielding troops had lights shining from out of the barrels of their guns, and two of the guild-members—low rank from their plain coats—were using flashlights. Were they looking for him? Had they already been alerted?

“Why are we out here?” one of them asked, grunting and spitting a wad of saliva off the boardwalk and onto the sand. It ended up landing not far from Zach’s right foot. “We should be bolstering the city’s defenses with the others.”

“Shut your damn mouth, Kolen,” a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties said. She too appeared to be a leveled member of the guild. “It’s your fault. You and your Gods-be-damned mouth got us into trouble in the first place. That’s why. Now you’ve got all of us stranded here with you policing drunks out past curfew.” For a few seconds, there was quiet, and then the woman made a guttural-sounding growl. “Gods! Why couldn’t you just stay quiet? Why did you have to comment on Major Baxtra’s receding hairline?”

“I didn’t think he’d find out!”

“Yeah, well, he did.”

Still holding his breath, Zach released it very slowly before carefully drawing another. As he observed the twelve members of this patrol group, he noticed one of them beginning to turn their head in his direction. Quickly, Zach slinked once more behind the showering and restroom area, pressing his back flat against the door of the one behind him.

Just move on, Gods damn you. Just move on!

If necessary, Zach could use the ability on his cloak, Shadow Merge, to make himself invisible for thirty seconds. The only problem was the ability came saddled with a half-hour cooldown, and if Zach ended up needing it later on, it wouldn’t be available to him. Realizing this, he decided to play it cool for now and see if he could keep out of sight. Hopefully, they would linger here for only a short while longer and then go about their business.

“I gotta take a shit,” the guy who’d been called Kolen said.

“You are a shit.”

If not for the need to be silent, Zach would’ve hissed out a choice swear word or two. Why couldn’t these idiots just move along? And why did he have to learn the guy’s name? He didn’t want to know the man’s name. That was going to make this so much harder now. He began to feel his anxiety rising, but he tamped down on it. Though faint, he could hear the man’s footsteps as they stepped down the rickety ramp and then became much, much quieter once reaching sand.

“No, I’m the shit,” the idiot said with a chuckle, his voice drawing nearer and nearer. He was so close now. How close? Zach wasn’t sure. Inches? Feet? Even closer than that? He didn’t know. But he soon found out. Oh, he sure did.

For some reason, the man’s footsteps actually quieted the nearer he got. It’d been incredibly difficult to hear him in the first place. The only reason Zach had been able to do so at all was because there was crunchy war debris all over the beach that made a very slight sound whenever walked over, and this stuff was basically everywhere—well, not everywhere, apparently. As it turned out, there was none in the spot just to Zach’s left and to the side of the four showering units and two bathroom stalls, behind which he was hiding. This meant that, unable to hear his approach, Zach was caught off guard as the guy abruptly stepped around the bend, came into view, and recoiled immediately upon seeing Zach.

“Whoah, buddy,” he said, surprise on his face. “Scared the hell out of me. I didn’t even know there was someone using the…” His eyes lowered down to Zach’s blood-stained hands, and then they bulged. He inhaled. He opened his mouth. He was going to scream for help!

“He—uhhghhh!”

In one swift motion, Zach drew his sword then sent it jutting forward; it disappeared an instant later, traveling into the guy’s mouth until exiting the back of his head with a terrible-sounding tearing and a horrific, but thankfully brief gagging sound unlike anything Zach had heard before. An instant later, Zach yanked his arm back and pulled his blade right back out the way it’d gone in. The full length of it was once again stained in blood, which he shook off.

This was bad. Very bad. Because now he would have to kill every single one of them.

“Kolen?” the woman’s voice called, sounding amused. “The hell was that noise?” She muttered something Zach couldn’t decipher. And now, she, too, began to make her way over, as evident by the similar crunching sound as she stepped on debris. This time, Zach was not about to let himself be surprised a second time.

“Kolen, what the fuck was that sound?” she asked, her voice now sounding closer. She rounded the bend. “Kolen, you’re—”

Fear and recognition lit up in her eyes, but both came too late. With his right hand, Zach smacked his palm onto her lips, shushing her, and then he squeezed, spinning her around and crashing her with a far-too loud thud into the door behind her. He ended up using way more force than he’d intended, as not only did he fail to be quiet, he ended up putting her through the door, sending wood chips and beams scattering with a gigantic crack before slamming her down onto her back on the damp portable-shower flooring. Then, with his sword gripped in his left hand, he thrust it straight down, running her through the heart, killing her.

“What the fuck?” shouted voices: many of them. All were approaching.

Gods dammit!

Rather than wait for them to come to him, Zach backed out of the portable shower, then darted forward while leaping high into the air. In an instant, he cleared twenty feet, sailed up and over the ramp, and then he landed near the middle of the pack of the eight level-1 troops. Turning his sword so that it faced downwards, he fell practically on the back of one of the men, driving his sword straight through the soldier’s spine while simultaneously causing him to be slammed down onto the boardwalk. Getting up as fast as he could, Zach pulled his sword out of the man’s corpse, then spun around and decapitated the soldier behind him—and all in what felt like one fluid motion.

Without pause, Zach continued his assault. He slashed a level-1 troop three times, carving him apart and sending three sprays of blood in opposite directions. Then he swung his blade twice more and killed another two men. In total, he’d killed five of the eight troops before the other three could even mentally process his presence. And then he took them down too before they could react to it.

Now, there was just a young man and a young woman who both flinched and grabbed at one another the moment they saw him. They were so afraid they didn’t even reach for their weapons. Zach would’ve liked to believe it was due to the effect of his cloak, which gave him a truly evil, menacing look, but he knew they’d have reacted this way even without it.

The one on the left, a young woman, opened her mouth to scream into her Comm. Zach quickly whipped his blade upwards and to the right, slicing off her entire jaw, tongue included. The little piece of tongue that did remain then flapped around in the bloodied, destroyed hole that now made up her face. It was too cruel. Zach couldn’t stand the sight of it. As an act of mercy, he removed the rest of her head to put her out of her misery. The one who remained, however, finally seemed to find his nerve. Rage in his eyes, he reached for two daggers at each of his sides, and he did manage to scream—though not into a Comm.

“You murdered my sister you fucking piece of shit! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you! You gods-be-damned son of a whore!”

He lunged at Zach, who side-stepped while delivering a downwards strike, which cleanly knocked both daggers out of the man’s hands in one fast attack. Then he struck again, this time in the opposite direction, which sliced off both his attacker’s arms, causing him to scream even more loudly. He wailed in pain. Zach leaned forward while thrusting out his blade, running him through his belly before ripping his sword free. Now, raising his arms high, he made one final cut, which took off the unfortunate soul’s head; it landed right next to his sister’s.

Like before, he proceeded onwards.

This was war. This happened in war.

Chapter 150: Raid Leader Pt. II

Chapter 150: Raid Leader Pt. II

The stakes were high, and the time had come. He, Jimmy Green, a guy born thousands of years ago on another planet, was about to have his make-it-or-break-it moment. He knew this. He understood it. And yet, he was prepared to face this trial without fear or reluctance, because this was something he was born to do. And right now, in front of fifty-nine other people, he’d been given an opportunity to prove it: to prove to Donovan, Zephyr, and all of them that he belonged on this raid—that he deserved to be here leading it.

This is my shot, he thought, flooding with determination. This is it!

Jimmy raised his hand, gesturing for all those following behind him to stop. Abruptly, the sound of dozens of marching feet came to a halt. His posture firm, he stared ahead of him, and there it was, looming large in the distance. With eager eyes, he spotted the boss: and God, it was a pretty damn big one, too.

“Yeesh,” Kalana said, cupping her hands over her forehead and gazing at the raid boss from where she stood a bit off to his right.

To his left, Tena nervously pinched his bicep as though grabbing at him reflexively. “Wow, that’s a big boss.”

Having led the raid down the fancy hall while the sound of orchestral music played on the air, they’d quickly reached their destination; the walls, which had been parallel to one another, had begun to curve inwardly until eventually forming something of a door-less archway, which let out into a fishbowl-shaped room that had little in the way of furnishings aside from a ring of tall, metal, and spike-shaped objects that wrapped around the entire room and had a constant deep blue flame shooting out the top of them. The ground beneath their feet also shifted from the polished hardwood flooring and wool carpets to something decidedly closer in nature to concrete. But most strikingly, the tall ceiling above their heads was once more constructed of the same type of glass that Jimmy had seen at the end of F29, which meant that, glancing upwards, he could see ranges of mountains created out of pure ice in what looked like a cold, dead world.

Are we the ones upside-down or is it the mountains that are? Jimmy wondered. If someone threw me two-hundred feet up and sent me smashing through that glass, would I fall right back down into this room, or would I ‘fall’ upwards into those glaciers?

Jimmy didn’t dwell long on the question, because naturally, the only thing that really mattered in here was not the bizarre nature of their position in relation to whatever planet they were on—or in the atmosphere of—but rather the formidable-looking creature that awaited them on the opposite end of what was clearly going to be the boss-encounter room.

Sucking on his tooth, which had a piece of meat stuck beside it, Jimmy studied the sight of this creature. Bar none, it was definitely the largest of any mobs or bosses that Jimmy had ever seen since coming to Galterra. It was clearly big enough to be called a giant. And though Jimmy had fought one or two creatures of such size before, this one clearly had them all beat out.

My passive isn’t called Scourge of Giants for no reason, he thought with a grin.

Despite how intimidating his foe, he was not cowed. He was not afraid. He was ready. He was determined. This was why he was even here, right? Eilea didn’t fling his ass across time, space, and planetary bodies just because he was some regular kid from Brooklyn who spent too much of his free time on his PC. Hell nah. She’d told him so herself on the night they’d met: that he’d been exactly who she’d been looking for. And if her words were the truth, then Jimmy was someone she’d felt was worthy enough that she’d literally saved his life just to ensure that he lived to stand right here in this dungeon floor today as the leader of this raid. Could the same be said of anyone else?

Nope.

Still, though, while Jimmy was unafraid, he couldn’t deny that the boss was a nasty, deadly-looking son of a bitch. Its skin was bright red just like the Death Harbingers, and it also wore a permanent sneer almost as though it was unable to make any other facial expression. Its body, too, was every bit as muscular in relation to its size, and it even donned similar-looking metallic armor on its shoulders, shins, and feet. But unlike the Death Harbingers, this mob had two massive, demonic wings, which protruded from its back and ran approximately from the top of its shoulders down to its waist—as opposed to extending out widely like a dragon’s. Jimmy did not know if those would play a role in how the mob would fight. What would certainly play a role would be the two dual-edged swords sheathed on its back, which in terms of length, were each about as long as a jousting lance.

This is one big dude.

Not only did the boss tower over the raid, but making it even more intimidating was the fact that, right now, it wasn’t even standing upright. It was currently in some form of meditative pose, with its legs folded and its right and left arm extended to opposite sides of its body, its palms facing upwards while its thumb, index, and middle finger were pressed together. Its eyes were closed despite the maniacal sneer on its face, and it remained perfectly still. The creature was so tall that, if it did stand up, Jimmy estimated that even the tallest adventurer present would only be level with its ankles. If five or six people stood on top of one another to form a human ladder, the one highest up probably wouldn’t even reach this monstrous thing’s hips!

I don’t care how big that thing is, he thought, nodding to himself and getting himself pumped up. We got this. We got this!

HP

5,600,000/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

“All things considered,” he heard Zephyr whisper from where he stood a bit behind Jimmy, “this doesn’t look too bad: especially since we’re a sixty-person raid. If we’d come with the minimum-recommended size of 35, I’d probably call this off, or at least I’d be close to sixty-forty about calling it a day.”

Jimmy frowned but said nothing. Though he highly doubted Zephyr intended it, the fact he was acting like such a thing was still his call to make was kind of disrespectful. Him and Donovan had voluntarily vacated their positions as leaders of the raid, and when they had been the leaders, Jimmy hadn’t undermined their own authority—not even a single time. Yet, because he genuinely did not think any disrespect was intended, he decided to let it slide. But it was hard, as Donovan seemed to possess the same sort of attitude.

“Yeah, I agree,” the GSG leader grunted. “Let this play itself out, Zeph. It’s T5, level 55. That’s like, what, level 130? A bit high, but we don’t usually bring this many people along with us to a raid, either.”

Jimmy looked over his shoulder and saw Zephyr and Donovan nod in agreement. This further irked him, but in the interest of keeping everyone together and cohesive, he did not utter a word of his displeasure. Most likely, the two men were just so used to being leaders that it hadn’t really sunk in yet that they were not currently in command: something they’d willingly chosen to give up and had even been their own idea. That was on them.

And good for them, too, Jimmy thought, his confidence rising. They’re both all right, but they still ain’t that great. Gonna show them how it’s done.

Jimmy cleared his throat. Every member of the raid had now fallen silent. He knew all ears were awaiting his commands, and he was ready to lead them. He did not hesitate, either. He would not allow himself to come across as looking nervous or uncertain. Jimmy knew enough about things to know that a leader needed to inspire confidence, and with each word he spoke, he projected his own.

“All right, guys,” he began.

Fully turning his back to the boss, which he was devoutly sure would not attack until someone either entered its aggro range or, if it was passive, slapped it first, he opened his mouth and said, “Raise your hand if ya’ll can conjure a pet that you can control using pet commands. And I don’t care if it’s a combat pet or not. Anything you can fully control.”

Donovan and Zephyr seemed to find the request very odd, as they exchanged confused glances with one another as though completely oblivious as to why Jimmy would ask for such a thing. This forced him to stop a smug grin from spreading on his face. They might’ve done this a whole lot longer, but they didn’t know what he knew. At any rate, he craned his neck to fully observe the raid as six hands went up and a seventh seemed to be wavering; a strangely youthful-looking woman wearing a one-piece, elegant, red, and flower-embroidered dress raised, then lowered, then raised her hand. Jimmy addressed her directly.

“You seem unsure,” he said to her.

She nodded. “I summon level-45 exploding wisps,” she said to him. “I can control where they are sent by picking a target. Is that what you mean?”

Jimmy shook his head. “Not if you’re saying you cast it and then, uh, what happens next is out of your control. Actually, everybody: lower your hand if that’s the case.” This caused not only this woman to drop her hand to her side, but so did another woman who was wearing brown, druidic-like robes whom he recalled summoning bees earlier. Seeking to avoid any additional confusion, Jimmy decided to clarify even further. “Only raise your hand if you can summon a pet with a level and name that you can control and move around even after you’ve brought it out.”

The rest kept their hands raised: five in total. This was good. Jimmy again cleared his throat. “Now lower your hand if you lose your pet forever when it dies or if it has a recast timer.”

Three hands went down. Two left.

“Lower your hand if your pet passively deals damage in any way, shape, or form.”

Another hand went down. Now, there was just one. The only adventurer left was Ishina, the level-29, fifteen-year-old girl who stood next to her father and suddenly began to blush as everyone turned their head her way. Jimmy smiled at her. “Ishina,” he said. “What’ve you got?”

Sounding both confused and shy, she said, “I can make a level-15 Slime Soldier, but like, so…okay, so I don’t really use it all that much, because it has a Moderate-High exertion cost and it’s not that strong anymore. I used to use it all the time when I first learned it but I outgrew the ability.”

“And you can control it?”

“Yeah.”

“By control, I mean you can put it on passive and order it to move to certain locations?”

Ishina flicked her eyes to the right as though carefully considering his question. “You mean like if I pick a place to go, it goes there?”

“Exactly. Even if you’re not sending it to fight anything, can you make it go where you want it to go?”

“Oh,” she said. She looked at Jimmy once again and bowed her head. “Yeah, I can, but only up to a range of 2000. After that, it dies if I get any farther away from it.”

Jimmy tapped his finger against the side of his head as he considered how to proceed. He knew what he wanted to do, but he had to figure out the best way to do it. “How many can you summon?”

“Oh, um, I can only have one out at a time. If I summon another one while the first is out, the first Slime Soldier dies and is replaced.”

Her answer confused Jimmy, but Jimmy realized in an instant it was actually his own fault for how he’d chosen to phrase the question. “No, uh, my bad,” he said. “I didn’t mean how many you can use at once. I meant how many times can you summon one without passing out from E-debt.”

She gave him a questioning look. “You mean like if I summon them back-to-back?”

“Kinda. Assume something like thirty seconds in between each summoning.”

It was obvious from the way Ishina’s words fell off in volume that she was becoming nervous and hesitant due to this line of questioning. “Well…well I guess, like, I could make three of them if I push myself really hard, but…but why?”

Jimmy smiled at her. “You’ll see. Go ahead and summon your first one for now.”

Rather than obey, she did something that Jimmy really didn’t like. She craned her neck so that she looked at something off to the right. Jimmy turned his head to figure out what she was searching for, and he saw it right away. Both Donovan and Zephyr gave her a brief, quick nod, and it was only after they’d done so that she said, “Okay, I’ll summon it.”

Man that pisses me off, Jimmy thought, once more holding his tongue. Totally disrespectful.

Trying not to become upset, Jimmy watched as she called upon the Moderate-High exertion ability. Much like Alixa, she too used a tome as her weapon, but hers was dramatically smaller; whereas Alixa’s was like a gigantic, two-thousand-page encyclopedia the size of a board game, hers was like a brief paperback novel, perhaps a bit larger.

“Are you all right, sweetie?” her father asked her as sweat began to drip down her forehead. Though he spoke at a whisper so low that it was only by sheer chance and proximity that Jimmy could hear him, the girl nevertheless acted as though he’d just screamed the words out at the top of his lungs.

“Yah, dad, I’ve done this like a billion times before. Get off my case. Gods! You’re embarrassing me in front of everyone.”

“Ahh! Sorry.”

Her words prompted chuckles from numerous nearby adventurers, who thankfully said nothing to her. Then, all on its own, her book opened up and pages began flipping, slowly at first but then faster and faster. Eventually, a transparent, dark-green, and smoke-like substance began rising out of her book before stretching and extending like a snake leaving a cave. It traveled forward more than a dozen feet ahead of her, all while still attached to the book, and then, finally, it stopped extending and took a nosedive, heading straight down to the concrete flooring. Once there, the smoky, dark-green substance solidified and took shape, starting off as something rounded before becoming further defined in a way that brought it closer towards a square or a cube.

Jimmy watched as, in just a few seconds, it completed its transformation, turning into a gelatinous, cube-shaped blob of green gunk about half the size of a cardboard box that had no other discernable features aside from two black dots that passed for eyes and a smiley face that looked as though it’d been drawn on with a black crayon. Above its flat, square-shaped head were two words: Slime Soldier. And below those words was: “level 15.”

Briefly lifting her right eyebrow, Ishina waved her hand at the creature, which rather than remain still, endlessly bounced up and down despite not having any feet. Each time the slime landed, it made a comical thwapping sound. “Well?” she asked him. “Now what?”

“Okay, this is the fun part,” Jimmy said. He followed his words with a chuckle. “I’m gonna need everybody on the raid but Ishina to line up on the far side of the wall to my left—your right.” He extended his arm in the stated direction. “Ishina, you stay where you are.”

Jimmy waited for his command to be obeyed. Yet several seconds went by, and no one moved. “By that I mean today,” he added, having become annoyed. And was it his imagination or was everyone now once more looking at Donovan and Zephyr?

This time, rather than nod, Donovan barked out, “Well? You heard the kid.” And with that, he turned around and began making his way to the wall. That seemed to be all it took. Everyone followed after him, and now, just shy of sixty people lined the wall single-file save for the few who couldn’t fit due to the—hopefully—decorative, tall, and metal spikes that circled the room and continuously shot six-foot streaks of blue flame above themselves like stovetop burners.

One by one, Jimmy watched as all the other adventurers got into position except for Ishina and one other: her father. Though he’d been asked to go with the rest of the adventurers, he’d nevertheless stayed, and honestly? Jimmy didn’t have a problem with it since that was her dad and she was only 15. She, however, did seem to take issue with his presence.

“Dad?” she hissed at him. “Why’re you still here?”

Rather than answer her, the girl’s father looked at Jimmy. He had a kind, but concerned face. He was of average height with short black hair and skin that was the same olive color as his daughter. He wore studded leather armor and had a bow at his back, which Jimmy noticed as he approached a little closer as if intent on speaking to him from a distance where he could do so quietly and discreetly.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” he said, his words coming out at just a touch above a whisper, “but as her father, I obviously have to ask you: are you planning to put her in any kind of danger?”

“You mean…other than the danger that naturally comes with fighting something like that?” Jimmy pointed at the gigantic, meditating raid boss, where its eyes remained closed yet it continued to sneer madly. Then he shook his head. “No.”

He definitely looked like he had more to say, but Ishina angrily stormed over to him even as he was opening his mouth to say it. With her lips pursed, she tucked her tome under her left arm, and with her right, she reached out and grabbed his elbow, pulling him back. “Dad!” she yelled at him.

“Sweetie, I have to make sure that—”

“No you don’t!” she interrupted, darting her eyes around nervously as if worried people were watching this spectacle—which they obviously were. More quietly but with equal frustration, she said, “I’m freaking fifteen now, dad. That’s basically an adult. And Falgon’s dad lets him solo on Archian Prime. So stop treating me like a child.”

Jimmy made a fist and coughed into it, drawing their attention. While he was sure this was an important discussion for the both of them, he had a raid to lead and now wasn’t the time for this. Thankfully, they both stopped arguing and seemed willing to listen to him. “Everything’s gonna be fine,” he said, speaking to them both. He also spoke loudly enough so that the rest of the raid could hear him as well since this was relevant to all. “What we need from Ishina,” he continued, “is something that’s not only not gonna be dangerous, but it’s gonna make things safer for everybody including herself.”

“With…a level-15 slime?” her father asked incredulously.

“Yup. You’ll see.”

Walking past the slime pet that was still bouncing up and down in place, Jimmy moved a bit farther to the other end of the room in the direction directly opposite the one the adventurers had gone. Then, with a curl of his fingers, he beckoned Ishina to follow. She moved towards him—and so did her dad. He led them both a bit closer to the entrance archway before gesturing at them to stop.

“Okay,” he said. “Ishina, disband from the raid group and get one of your ropes out of Bank and Storage. Leave any other groups you’re in, too.”

“Wh-why?” both she and her father asked at the exact same time.

“Just a precaution, though I seriously doubt you’re gonna need it.”

Her father looked taken aback. “But you said you weren’t putting her in any danger.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, alternating between looking at Jimmy and at the massive T5 raid boss all the way across the boss room. At once, Jimmy could visibly see the defiance she’d directed towards her father drain out of her face, and a nervous, hesitant look took its place. “You said that this isn’t anything dangerous.”

“It’s not,” Jimmy said again, sighing. “Just listen to me, okay? Disband from the raid group.”

“Why?” she asked a second time. “And why do I need the rope if it’s not something really risky?”

“It’s just a damn precaution,” Jimmy insisted. “Also, I guarantee you won’t need it. What, you’re not convinced? Okay, I’ll tell you what, Ishina. I’m actually so sure you won’t need it that if you do end up having to rope out because of what I’m about to ask you to do, then uh, know what? When we kill this boss, you automatically get the inn room—if that happens, I mean. If you end up having to rope out because of this, you just get it, no rolling.”

Her jaw dropped, her father frowned, and the adventurers erupted into shouts of confusion and protest. Jimmy, sensing things getting out of control, tried to calm everyone down, but to his dismay, they couldn’t even hear him because of their own shouting. Question after question lifted off their lips and made their way to his ears, yet it was only after Donovan and Zephyr began pushing some of them around that they became quiet.

“You know what you’re doing, Jimmy?” Donovan asked him once he’d gotten everyone else to be quiet.

“I do.”

“Then it’s fine,” he said. And once again, the matter was settled just like that. And though Jimmy was grateful for his help, he was also really upset and annoyed, because he was the leader right now, not Donovan, so why was Donovan still saying what was or wasn’t “fine?” It wasn’t his call to make!

Gods be damned! Jimmy thought to himself angrily. Then his anger faded immediately when he realized what he’d just done. Did I seriously just think that? he wondered. He was more amazed at himself than anything else. As if a testament to his changing life, he had, for the first time, mentally thought one of their polytheistic expressions of exasperation instead of something more in line with what he was accustomed to. It was something Jimmy would’ve taken another few seconds to contemplate if not for all the eager stares being sent his way from Ishina, her father, Donovan, Zephyr, and even Tena. Basically, everyone.

I can’t mess this up. This is my chance to prove myself!

“Okay,” he said, trying to rein things back in. “Did you leave the raid?”

“Yeah,” she said. He noticed she also now had one of the ropes from Mushkie’s draped over her shoulder. “I left your BG, too.”

“Don’t worry, you’re gonna get put right back in.”

Her tone becoming uncertain, she asked, “So…what do you need me to do?”

Jimmy grinned. This was the part he’d been waiting for. Everybody right now was doubting him. He could see it in their eyes. Donovan and Zephyr were probably very, very worried they’d made a serious mistake in appointing him raid leader. The other adventurers were looking at him with a mixture of optimism and skepticism, which made sense, since they’d been told a half-lie about him having “secret” knowledge. Therefore, it was only natural that they’d regard him with an equal mixture of excitement and doubt. But they were about to lose that doubt. He was going to give everybody a leg up on this boss.

“Here’s what you gotta do,” he said to Ishina. “First—and this is the most important damn thing of all—make absolutely sure your pet is on passive.”

“It is,” she said.

“And just for peace of mind, tell me again that you’re positive that slime doesn’t have anything that does any kind of passive damage. I don’t just mean like abilities. I mean things like damage shields—where an enemy gets hurt by attacking it—or a counter attack or anything. Nothing that can even do a single point of damage.”

“I said no.” Ishina glared at him. “I’m not stupid.”

“Chill. I’m just making sure we’re good.” Jimmy turned around to face the boss, and then he pointed. “Here’s what you’re gonna do, Ishina. You’re gonna send the slime straight forward until it activates the boss. If the boss doesn’t activate, then that means we gotta hit it first, and all of this was just a waste of time. But if it does activate and aggro onto your pet, I want you to send it as fast as you can to the left side of the room by the wall and leave it there until it dies.”

Ishina’s mouth fell open, and a gasp came from the other adventurers. “Are you nuts?” she asked, practically shrieking. “No way! That’s suicide!”

“Jimmy, this is outrageous!” her father shouted at him. “How can you possibly ask my daughter to solo engage the raid boss?

Murmurs of incredulity and suspicion filled the boss room. “Is he serious?” one of the adventurers asked.

“He wants her to pull the boss?” queried another.

“I know Jimmy had access to special training simulations, but there’s no way he’s seriously asking Ishina to—”

“Shut it!” Jimmy shouted, the words coming from a place of extreme frustration. To his shock, the sharpness and heat in it actually caused the raid to fall silent. And now, seizing this moment to speak, he chose to do so while he could still get a few words in. “If she sends her pet over to the boss, and she’s not in any kind of raid group, then what the hell is everybody hollering about?” he asked. Seeing confusion on their faces, he grunted in annoyance. “Ya’ll are a bunch of noobs, for real.” He pointed at the boss, and he explained. “If the pet doesn’t do any damage, and she’s all the way over here by the entrance when it dies, the boss is just gonna de-aggro and sit its ass back down since there’s nothing left on its hate table to go after.”

“Hate table?” the adventurers began all muttering in unison.

“Aggro tables, whatever.”

“Aggro tables?” they now muttered.

“Seriously? None of you know about aggro or hate tables?” Jimmy sighed. “Look, guys. Mobs keep a list of numerical values of everyone they ‘hate,’ and different actions affect the numbers differently. It’s like a hidden stat. Whoever’s the highest on the table is the one who’s got the aggro. Whenever a pet hits a mob, it adds hate points to both the pet and the user who controls it. But if the pet is on passive and gets within a mob’s aggro range, only the pet receives ‘trespass’ hate, and if it dies, the hate tables are clear, and the mob goes back to spawn. How do none of you know this?”

“I don’t know anything about any tables,” Reni Sarwin said, “but now that I think about it, you might be right. I think I’ve been in a situation like this before. I remember once, on an Earth raid, we left a disposable pet behind by mistake. It aggroed a whole camp of mobs that respawned while we ourselves were already well out of its initial aggro range. The pet wasn’t on passive, but it did die before it could attack anything. The mobs didn’t come after us afterwards.”

“I’ve seen that once too, I think,” another person said. “I just never paid any notice to it. Now that you mention it, that is kind of a thing that happens, isn’t it? But what’s the purpose here, Jimmy?”

Jimmy pressed his palm into his face and moaned into his hand. “Do you seriously not even know why I’m doing this? No?” Looking around at the various adventures and then at Ishina, he said, “I’m doing this so we can see some of what this thing’s made of before we attack it. Maybe we’ll see a few of its attacks and we can watch out for them.”

Like a room full of lights all turning on at the same time, Jimmy could see understanding begin to reflect back at him from the dozens of adventurers who, until that very moment, seemed to be growing anxious and distrustful. Yet now they seemed to make a collective “ohh!” as they looked first at Jimmy and then at one another as it dawned on them what he was actually trying to do here.

“So that’s why!” Kalana blurted out cheerfully. “Jimmy’s smart!”

“I never even thought of that,” Donovan admitted, speaking only slightly above a whisper.

More words of surprise and thankfully approval resonated from around the boss room. During this time, Tena smiled at him and winked, but she said nothing. Jimmy returned the wink and then spun himself around to address Ishina. “So? Happy now? Let’s get going. We got a raid boss to beat.”

“S-sure,” she said. She still looked nervous, though now, she seemed much less so. Staying right where she was, she said nothing and did not move, yet she had clearly begun mentally commanding her pet, because the perpetually bouncing Slime Soldier began to move forward as it continued to bounce, its feet going thwack, thwack, thwack on the concrete as it hopped its way closer and closer towards the boss.

“Make sure you watch what happens closely!” Jimmy shouted. He was glad to see that they were. Each and every adventurer was quiet and clearly paying close attention as the gelatinous, cube-shaped slime creature made its way over to the boss. Jimmy, too, began to watch it, taking his focus off the other adventurers. This was something that, normally, he would never even consider doing in a game. But since, in this world, raid failure could mean death, he wanted to know a bit about the boss they were fighting before he went up against it.

Now, as the Slime Soldier bounced its way more than halfway across the boss-room floor, it took a great amount of effort for Jimmy to prevent an overconfident, smug, “I told you so” grin from forming on his lips as the boss, at last, finally became activated. It was right around the halfway point, too. And boy was it dramatic as far as bosses went.

Its eyes popped open and began to glow, giving off an intense orange light. From its sneering mouth, it released a dark, wicked, and evil laugh. And then it began to stand up, and just as Jimmy had imagined, he could see that the boss was so tall that the top of his head only reached the boss’s ankles. “So!” it cried out as it made its way to its feet. “Finally, I’ve found myself a group of worthy adversaries! Prepare to die with honor to Imp Lord Tzumazleth!”

It reached behind itself and drew both of its jousting-lance-sized swords; both weapons immediately became awash in glowing, dark-purple energy that surrounded them from the base of their grip to the point of their blade. And as it removed these two swords, Jimmy snapped his fingers at Ishina, who seemed to have become distracted while watching it. “Move it!” he said. “To the left!”

But it was too late. As the Slime Soldier began hopping its way to the left wall, it was clear it would be dead in just another second or two; this, as the boss launched an attack even as it spoke. “For so long, I have waited for a fight!” it shouted.

The raid boss fully extended its arms, pointing the swords to both sides of itself, and then it began spinning around fast—so fast that its body, face, front, and back all became just a blur. Its swords, too, rotated with such speed that both created an illusion similar to that of a helicopter’s propellers, only it was angled downwards and glowed purple, clearly designed to strike something small in comparison to its giant body. And as if the sight of it alone was not enough proof of its absurd momentum, Jimmy could actually feel a small gust of displaced air even from all the way over here near the entrance. His robes fluttered, and so did a few of the pages in Ishina’s book. The boss also began to move while rotating, too, like a spinning top; in this case, it was in the direction of the Slime Soldier.

“But finally!” it said, sounding excited and optimistic. “Finally, I have found a group of—”

The Slime Soldier was hit for 207,396 damage, dying instantly upon contact while sending dark-green gunk splattering all over the place. Then, in an unnatural, jarring way, the boss’s words, tone, volume of speech, and even topic changed instantly upon its death. It was almost as though there was a second boss somewhere that was speaking out of the first one’s mouth, as there was even a brief period lasting less than a second during which the boss carried on its original sentence as a completely separate one emerged from its sneering lips at the exact same time. Jimmy was sure of it. For just the tiniest of moments, there were two voices speaking completely different words. But then the first cut abruptly off.

“And this concludes our battle!” the boss called out. “You fought well, adventurers. But death is the consequence of failure in this dungeon. Ahh-hahaha-hahaha!”

It stopped spinning immediately, sheathed its swords, and marched over to the exact spot it’d only just been seated. It then plopped itself down, its form so massive and heavy it caused a slight vibration beneath Jimmy’s feet. Once there, it closed its eyes, extended its arms, and returned to its meditative pose.

Now, there was a moment of almost total silence. The only sound was the dull hissing and the occasional crackle from the flame-shooting spikes located all around the boss room. Looks of astonishment were sent Jimmy’s way. To break the quiet, he flicked his chin at the boss and said, “See? I told you guys so.”

The adventurers seemed stunned. It was as though they didn’t know what to make of any of this. “Incredible,” Zephyr said. “A whole new tactic to ascertain an unknown dungeon boss’s potential. I’m impressed. I never thought to try that.”

“I can’t believe you even know how to do that,” Miss Britethorn said. “Amazing!”

“Pretty good,” Donovan agreed. Then he let out a harsh laugh. “Ishina screwed it all up for ya, though.”

Ishina, who was still sweating, glared at her father of all people. And her father, after an awkward moment during which a bit of fear ran across his face, turned his head to Donovan and said, “Donovan, you can’t talk that way to—”

“Oh yeah?” he growled at the man.

The man immediately fell silent. Despite being all the way on the opposite end of the room, he took a step backwards. Ishina rolled her eyes and grumbled something about her dad being a coward. Then, with even more sweat falling down her face, her breathing became heavy, and she called upon another of her Slime Soldiers. This one was identical to the one before it, having the same name and level.

“Remember to pull it away from the boss this time,” Jimmy said. “To the left wall.”

“I know,” she said, sounding annoyed.

Jimmy watched as her slime bounced its way over to the boss. And once again, the so-called lord of the imps cried out, “So! Finally, I’ve found myself a group of worthy adversaries! Prepare to die with honor to Imp Lord Tzumazleth!”

Like before, it stood up. It extended its arms, and it repeated the exact same attack that it had with the previous bouncing slime. But on this go around, Ishina’s pet survived simply by having already begun bouncing its way over to the left wall. For a moment, it looked like the spinning, wind-blasting boss would catch up. Certainly, it moved fast enough that it definitely could have overtaken the slime in a matter of moments. But luckily for the slime, it seemed the boss was not targeting it specifically, but rather, the general area around where it had begun its spin.

Rotating itself around in a circular direction not far from its spawn point, Jimmy watched the spinning mob also slide around in a near-perfect circle, hitting nothing. Around and around it spun, and then, after about eight seconds—the duration of the attack, most likely—it ceased spinning and came to a sudden halt. Now, it remained still for an additional second or two, but soon after, it turned its body in the direction of the slime that had only just reached the wall. Jimmy observed carefully, watching to see what it did next.

A loud, buzzing sound that reminded Jimmy of a chainsaw filled the boss room. He quickly realized it was the boss’s wings, which made a much greater noise than the wings of the imps him and Zach had encountered earlier today—or yesterday, rather, since it was after midnight Galterra time. Lifting off the ground slightly, Imp Lord Tzumazleth blasted across the room with intimidating speed. This was important to note, however, because it told Jimmy that, when they engaged this thing, the tanks needed to establish aggro very firmly because it would be able to get on a healer or caster very quickly if it chose to do so.

What else you got, big boy?

The imp lord flew across the room in less than a second. Then it landed in front of the slime, and its wings stopped buzzing. Jimmy studied it carefully. The boss lifted its arms, it angled its gigantic body towards the slime, and with that, it launched an incredibly barbarous seven-hit combination attack. First, it sliced its left sword down on the slime, killing it instantly and sending more goop spraying for 162,589 damage. Then it crashed its right sword down in the exact same way. Despite the pet having already been killed by this point, it continued on, which told Jimmy this was all part of one big attack it “had” to finish.

Using both swords at once, it raised its arms and sliced them both straight down—at nothing. After this, its wings started buzzing, only even more loudly than before. Abruptly, it dashed backwards, sailing across the boss room. Numerous adventurers gasped and pressed themselves into the wall behind them as the boss approached close enough to startle several of them. But just as it seemed it might actually fly over to the adventurers, it stopped itself midair only to fling itself forward again until returning to the dark-green-stained concrete where the slime had died; once there, it flew upwards in the air, spun itself twice, then dropped down and slammed both of its swords on top of it. This time, the swords actually made contact with the floor, sending huge chunks of concrete shooting straight up as it broke through and left a four-inch, dark-green-stained hole. Then it brought its left arm around for another left slash, its right around for a right slash, and finally, it lifted its foot up to its waist and stomped it back down, smashing through even more concrete.

“And this concludes our battle! You fought well, adventurers. But death is the consequence of failure in this dungeon. Ahh-hahaha-hahaha!”

Sneering, it returned to its spawn point, sat down, crossed its legs, and resumed its meditation, closing its eyes once more. As it did so, nervous murmurs erupted among the adventurers.

“That’s one hell of an attack,” a woman said. “Maybe we should let Donovan and Zephyr handle things this time. Jimmy can always lead the next one.”

“You may be right,” Miss Britethorn said. “I don’t doubt his abilities, but being that he’s never actually led a real raid before, maybe this isn’t the best one to make his debut.”

Jimmy again had to suppress his frustration. He knew he’d prove them wrong—all of them. Yet it really got to him the way this sort of “narrative” began to quickly spread from adventurer to adventurer. On the lips of many came similar words: that Jimmy was young, talented, and promising, but that he’d never led a real raid before and shouldn’t be starting out with this one.

“Donovan, what kind of game are you playing here?” Ophelia asked him, sounding annoyed. “Are you trying to sabotage him because you think he’s a future ‘rival’ to you or something?”

Donovan actually seemed to flinch at the accusation as though finding it so absurd that it was painful. “I only ever do what I think will help the young meet their potential. Gods, woman!”

She poked him in the chest. “Even if your motivations are good, I’m skeptical about what you’re doing here.”

The two began to argue, but Jimmy tuned it out. It was nonsense, after all. The sheer fact of the matter was that it wasn’t even possible for Donovan to set Jimmy up for failure, because Jimmy wasn’t going to fail. It simply wasn’t an option. Donovan’s intentions were irrelevant. Sure, Jimmy was more than just a little confused as to why him and Zephyr had suddenly decided to call it quits and hand him the leadership role, but at the end of the day, it didn’t actually matter why: they had given it to him, and that was that.

“Ishina?” he asked, returning his attention to the young girl. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” she gasped in reply, breathing very heavily. Her face and the front of her blouse were covered in sweat. With a snap, she closed her book, having succeeded in summoning yet another Slime Soldier. Then she bent over, panted, and wiped more sweat off her forehead before rubbing it on her jeans. She, like a not-insignificant number of adventurers, had used Alixa or another crafter’s services to turn her equipment into more “normal” clothing. This only seemed to be possible, however, for lighter equipment.

“Okay, I’m ready,” she said after a moment, straightening her back.

“You sure?”

“I’m fine.”

Following those words, her new—and third—Slime Soldier began to bounce its way towards the raid boss, and like the previous two times, everyone quieted up and seemed to focus in on watching things unfold; Jimmy knew the others were just as eager as him to see if they could learn more about their enemy before facing it. And so, as though mesmerized by its very motion, Jimmy watched as the Slime Soldier bounced time and time again until crossing the threshold into aggro radius. And once more, the boss opened its eyes and reacted.

“So!” the boss shouted. “Finally, I’ve found myself a group of worthy adversaries! Prepare to die with honor to Imp Lord Tzumazleth!”

“Remember,” Jimmy whispered. “Make sure you immediately send the slime to the—”

“The left wall. I know, Jimmy, sheesh,” she muttered. “I’m not stupid.”

Having begun with its spinning attack the previous two times, Jimmy naturally wondered if such an attack was a predetermined “opener” or whatever. Yet with a sample size of just two, he knew better than to draw any conclusions. This turned out to be wise, because this time around, the raid boss opted for something else entirely. It turned around to face the slime, which was bouncing its way as fast as it could to the left wall. Jimmy expected the boss to take off and fly towards it with its wings—but this, too, it did not do. Instead, it moved at something of a jog towards the slime.

“For so long, I have waited for a fight!” the boss cried out as it pursued Ishina’s pet.

Though the distance it traveled in comparison to its size was not, on its own, spectacularly fast, the fact that it was so gigantic meant it was able to cross much more space much more quickly. A small tremor shook the boss room each time one of its feet stomped down as it ran over to the slime. With a sword gripped in each of its hands, it then lashed out with what looked to be an ordinary, one-two combination from its left, then right sword. This, obviously, should have put an end to their little experiment.

And yet, through sheer coincidence, the slime happened to bounce away just a split second before the swords swung the air where it’d just been. This totally unexpected “dodge” caused the adventurers to go absolutely wild. Simultaneously, they all erupted into cheers and laughter.

Everyone began to cackle and shout out their feelings of amusement, with some cracking jokes about how they should build a statue in the slime’s honor. They called the slime a hero. Some of them even started to name it. Yet for as intense as their brief bout of levity might have been, it all came crashing down around them an instant later as Ishina made an abrupt, horrified-sounding gasp. And this gasp came just an instant after the slime, once more through sheer coincidence, managed to bounce away from a third downward slice from the boss’s right-handed sword.

The sword narrowly missed the slime, and this attack cracked down onto the concrete, sending numerous pieces of it skittering in multiple directions. One of these pieces, however, was propelled forward and into the slime, striking the gelatinous-like pet for 541 damage. And it was here that the slime abruptly stopped fleeing.

“No!” Ishina called out. “Oh shoot. Oh no! No!”

Jimmy felt his heart begin to beat faster in his chest as he watched the slime’s retreat—or lack of one. For some reason, it was now bouncing towards the raid boss. In fact, it was currently midair and about an inch or two away from colliding with it directly. “Ishina!” he called out to her. “What the hell is—”

“I forgot to put it on passive!” she yelled, tears raining down her eyes.

“You didn’t,” Jimmy said in disbelief. “Ishina, tell me you didn’t!”

“I’m so, so sorry! I’m so—”

The slime slammed into the metal-armored shin of Imp Lord Tzumazleth, dealing 9 damage and bouncing right off it. It landed back on the concrete floor, where it bounced once more. Twice more. Then, on the third hop, Tzumazleth struck out a single time with its left sword, cutting the slime directly in half midair and killing it, dealing 177,771 damage in the process of spraying its slimy insides to both the left and rights sides of itself. And then…it turned around to face Ishina.

React! Jimmy shouted inside his own head as he forced himself not to dwell on the fact of what just happened. Doesn’t matter. No hesitation: just reaction. React!

He willed his body to move. He did not have the time to feel upset or afraid or to question whether or not Ishina had really just been so stupid as to fuck something like this up. He was the leader. It was his responsibility. Ishina was a fifteen-year-old girl. He should’ve checked with her each time to make sure her pet was on passive. This was on him not her. There was no time to consider anything else. He only had time to take immediate action.

And so, driven on by an ardent desire to succeed and prove that he was meant to be a leader, he threw himself in front of Ishina protectively. “Rope out!” he shouted at her as he reached for his staff. Time seemed to come to a standstill. There was movement from the right side of the boss room—the wall. He saw adventurers begin to draw their weapons in unison and launch themselves towards the raid boss. His heart hammering away in his chest, Jimmy grabbed his staff, removed it from its sheath, and gripped it with both hands. “I said rope out, goddammit!” Yet even as he did so, he knew she would not be able to move fast enough to escape.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her fumbling with the rope, her fingers shaking as though so nervous she’d lost all coordination. All she needed to do was form a loop at the end, swing it three times, and then throw it upwards. Yet the girl had entered into such a panic that she was struggling to do even that. Her father, however, moved quickly to protect his daughter. He dashed forward to stand beside Jimmy as he too called for her to rope out.

I gotta slow it!

Jimmy raised his staff and cast Crippling Haze right by the raid boss’s feet. Given it was a large area-of-effect spell and the boss itself was enormous, he didn’t have any problem hitting his target. Not that it mattered. Even as a big cloud of crackling smoke covered the boss before quickly dissipating, Jimmy swore aloud as he saw a brief but unmistakable red “X” appear above Imp Lord Tzumazleth’s head. This meant the boss was immune to slows. Jimmy knew this because had his spell merely been resisted—something very, very unlikely to happen due to his passive, Scourge of Giants—it would have appeared as a yellow “!” instead.

Thus, completely uninhibited, Imp Lord Tzumazleth’s wings began to make its loud, chainsaw-like buzzing, and it began rising up one, then two, then several feet above the floor. “But finally!” the boss shouted out. “Finally, I have found a group of adventurers willing to risk everything for the glory of combat!”

The moment the raid boss finished speaking those words, it blasted forward, absolutely burning its way across the boss room so fast that Jimmy could barely follow the motion with his eyes, let alone react to it. He wasn’t like Kalana or even Zach. His skills weren’t based in having great reflexes and pulling off crazy-ass bullshit feats of acrobatics. No, he was more of a methodical, stay-in-the-back kind of fighter. So there wasn’t a whole lot he could do other than gawk in horror as the nightmarish, horned, and ridiculously huge raid boss began diving down at him—or at Ishina, rather.

You’re the raid leader! he shouted to himself. Lead! Don’t just stare at it like a moron. Lead!

Jimmy found his nerve. “Maric!” he shouted out. He saw the large, muscular old man sprinting towards them, his shield already raised. “Taunt it!”

“On it!”

A giant shadow caused the whole area around Jimmy to darken as Tzumazleth descended upon him, both its blades extended in front of itself as if content on skewering or crushing not just Ishina but anyone who just so happened to be near her whether they were on its hate table or not. Jimmy felt his muscles begin to tighten apprehensively as it came nearer and nearer. In a mere instant, it had dropped so low that its body was now the only thing Jimmy could see in front of them.

But then, miraculously, it stopped. It simply stopped. Halting midair, its paused less than ten feet above and in front of where Jimmy stood before Ishina. Now that it was so close, its wings made such a loud buzzing that it actually hurt his ears and made him feel like he was in some kind of factory that worked with heavy machinery. It drowned out all other noise and made it so that, for at least a brief moment, Jimmy could hear nothing else. But then the boss pulled away, turned its body midair, and soared forward and off to Jimmy’s right, landing with a loud crunch onto the concrete. It then whipped its right arm around and attempted to slice Maric in half. Maric, however, grunted and absorbed the blow of it on his shield, though it did cause him to stumble several feet back.

“I’ve got it!” he half-shouted, half-growled.

Lead! Lead now before you look like an idiot and Donovan takes back control!

Jimmy inhaled. “BG1! Engage the raid boss. BG2, move behind it and attack its flank. BG3, BG4: do not cast any magic for now other than debuffs and heals if needed. Find what works on it, and then stack everything you can. BG5, hang back and be ready to charge in case it moves or flies off. BG6, stay put: and Ishina, rejoin the raid!”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, full-on crying. “Jimmy, I’m so, so—”

“It’s fine! Rejoin!” She sniffled, but she obeyed.

It took a moment to ease into things following a totally, wholly unexpected, and chaotic start to the encounter, but what happened, happened, and it was time to concentrate on killing this thing. It was just too damn important for Jimmy to fail. And so, he started off by shuffling around any way that he could to get a decent vantage point where he could clearly see what was going on. It was only really now, during an actual raid, that he was starting to realize just how difficult it was to really see what was happening. If only he could “zoom out” like in a game.

It's not a game, he reminded himself.

From what he could gather, Maric had established firm aggro, but it became clear right away that this was not going to be the kind of raid boss one tank all alone could manage. Jimmy watched as Imp Lord Tzumazleth unleashed its seven-hit combination attack. Maric, groaning, absorbed the left strike, then the right, and then the double. But then, as Tzumazleth blasted off backwards, its wings buzzing, Jimmy could see that, from just those three strikes alone, Maric was already badly positioned to absorb any more strikes.

“Alixa!” he called out. “Channel on him—now! Hurry!”

During everyone’s meal here together, Jimmy had realized he needed to get caught up on what resources he had available to him during the raid. And with that in mind, he’d spoken to some of the more powerful support mages. And this ability was one that he’d known right away would be invaluable. Watching closely, he saw Alixa open up her massive tome, the pages of which began flipping all on their own. Then, from within this book, a blueish-white tendril of electricity snaked its way across the short distance between her and Maric until the electricity “struck” him in his back. Now, a light, blueish-white “bubble” of sorts surrounded his body.

At the same time, there were shouts of pain and surprise as the backwards-flying imp lord slammed into two tanks and an off-tank that happened to be in the boss’s path, sending them literally careening away. The off-tank crashed into the wall, near the entrance archway, causing a hole to form in it, and the two tanks merely rolled along the ground. All three were moaning but looked okay.

There it goes, Jimmy thought nervously. You’ve got to hold, Maric!

Imp Lord Tzumazleth flung himself back in the direction he’d only just come while slamming both his swords down on top of Maric for the fourth strike of his seven-hit combination. The moment of impact, both swords were deflected, the bubble broke, and the tendril of electricity snapped and disappeared. Still, the hit had been almost entirely absorbed. This left just the last three attacks in its sequence; grunting, Maric suffered its left sword again, then it’s right, but when the final attack came—the stomping down of an armored foot almost as big as Maric himself—the man surprised Jimmy.

He threw his weapon and shield behind himself, and then, despite his heavy armor, he launched himself into a quick roll, hurrying out of the way as the foot stomped down, crushing through more concrete. With that, Maric retrieved his weapon and shield just in time to get up and raise his guard against another two-hit combination. Unfortunately, he only succeeded in blocking the first of these hits.

The boss’s sword bounced off Maric's shield with an echoing thunk, and though Maric succeeded in defending himself, the man seemed to finally reach his limits. His guard slipped then became broken, and as the boss attacked his other side, Maric was at last overwhelmed. With a loud howl of pain, Jimmy watched as the imp lord’s blade, glowing a purple, evil-looking color, cut right through Maric’s armor and sliced the man from his right shoulder all the way down to his right hip.

“Gods!” he roared, blood emptying out of him as he limped several steps back, causing even more to rush out of body. “I need a heal!”

“Heal him!” Jimmy shouted.

One of the healers obeyed, and a pillar-shaped beacon of green light surrounded Maric. His expression turned immediately from one of pain to relief—and then back to pain again as he guarded against two more strikes only to have half his stomach ripped open with the third. This, too, was healed. But then he was cut open again—and then again and again. Despite being fully healed each time, he was beginning to perform worse and become sloppier with every wound.

So this is why Donovan tries to mitigate pain, Jimmy thought, absolutely refusing to admit aloud that the guy might have had a point.

“I need to rotate out!” Maric said, his tone pained and desperate. “I can’t handle much more.”

“Spider,” Jimmy called out. “Swap with him! Maric, use de-taunts. Spider, taunt!”

Although Spider was technically an off-tank, Jimmy knew he was exceptionally strong and could play the role of a main tank if required. And since he was the closest to Maric, he seemed like a logical source to buy Jimmy some time so he could contemplate how to proceed. So far, everything Jimmy had done had been for the sake of recovering from an unexpected encounter start, stabilizing the situation, and trying to get—and keep—everyone in a steady formation.

The problem, which he now saw, was that because all of his attention had been diverted to micro-managing which tank had aggro, almost no progress was being made on the raid itself. This was not a problem he was alone in noticing, either. In the corner of his vision, he could see Donovan and Zephyr evaluating his every move and every word. He knew they would jump in if they felt he wasn’t succeeding. God, he couldn’t let that happen. Meeting Donovan’s eyes, he saw Donovan tap his wrist and then point at the gigantic, towering imp lord. The meaning of the gesture was obvious: hurry up and start killing it.

Don’t need you to ‘guide’ me, Jimmy thought bitterly. I got this shit!

Right now, the entire raid was attacking the boss. Given its size, there was no issue with “room,” and so everyone could attack it as they pleased. Due to its height, the tanks, off-tanks, and melee DPS were almost literally nipping away at its heels: forced to slash, cut, bludgeon, or otherwise pierce its armor-covered shins, ankles, and feet. The mages and archers, on the other hand, were able to use their most-powerful spells and strike wherever they pleased, which in many cases was the head. The problem was that nobody was doing any real goddamn damage.

Fluffles was calling down lightning that struck for between 100 and 110 damage per bolt. Donovan’s axe was crushing its ankles for about 600 per swing, Zephyr’s blade, currently glowing green, was barely doing a thing at around 300 a hit, even as he made an elegant series of slices from his sword with a near-perfect form that saw every attack glide into the next. Not even Kalana, who was unleashing a blazingly fast combination of dagger strikes, was able to land anything that struck for more than 450.

For some adventurers, the output was even worse. Jimmy noted an adventurer not far ahead of him wearing a dark green wool sweater with a matching hood pulled over his head. The adventurer was making grunts of exertion as he thrust a long, diamond-colored spear repeatedly into the lower knee of the T5, level-55 raid boss, hitting for only 32 damage each time. Though it did manage to draw a fair bit of blood, that was only when compared to a normal-sized being. Thus, the pool of red building up around the man’s feet was but a few drops to something so massive

The archers and mages, however, were faring a bit better. Striking out at its unarmored head and torso, the mages were calling down a wide variety of magic, such as big, amethyst-like crystals that fell down from the ceiling and shattered for almost a thousand damage a piece, or in the case of Alixa, a series of crescent-shaped “wind blades” that fired out of her book and made loud snapping sounds as they collided with the imp lord’s crimson-colored face for 650 a hit. There were also two archers shooting flaming arrows that struck the mob between the eyes for 800 if not more.

But all of this combined was just not good enough. Seriously, it wasn’t.

HP

5,517,420/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

Donovan, along with Spider, jumped backwards as the mob tried to stomp Spider into the ground. Then he raised both his hands high enough that his fists, which were gripping his humongous battle-axe, were both above the top of his scalp, and with a mean-sounding grunt, he slammed it down, breaking off a piece of the side of the mob’s shin armor and hitting for 1,322. Then he turned to look at Jimmy. And it was a look that Jimmy understood very well. He opened his mouth to speak. And Jimmy, realizing his position was in jeopardy, decided to beat him to it.

“I know!”

“Do you? You need to multi-task, kiddo. You’re focusing too much on one aspect of the raid. That’s what a raid captain does. Not a raid leader.”

Jimmy nodded. “Fine. Donovan, I’m delegating you to handle rotating aggro among the tanks.”

“All right then. Better fix this problem soon, though. Just so you know, the reason—”

Jimmy flicked his eyes upwards to the top of the imp lord’s head. And thank God, he could see for himself what the issue was before Donovan actually gave voice to it. This was good, because he was not about to be continually one-upped by this dude.

“BG3!” he shouted out. “BG4!” The moment he called out the names of those battlegroups, Donovan closed his mouth and gave him a nod, which Jimmy did not require as he didn’t need Donovan or Zephyr’s goddamn fucking help to be a raid leader! He was getting tired of them acting like they were still in charge and could rip control of the raid back from him at any moment for any reason. This was such disrespect. He didn’t need their goddamn supervision, okay? Why would he? In terms of dungeon knowledge, those two were like cavemen compared to him despite doing this all their life!

I need to just cool it, he told himself. Those two don’t know shit, and they’re trying to make me look like a rookie. I know way more than they do, and I gotta just be confident in that fact.

Yeah. He needed to not let it get under his skin. At any rate, he was more than happy to turn all that frustration and energy into a loud, angry demand as he addressed the members of BG3 and BG4. “Guys! What gives, man?” He pointed his staff above, gesturing at the top of the raid boss’s head, where a bunch of red down arrows should have been. “I told ya’ll to debuff the boss. Now we’re wasting our energy hitting this thing and it ain’t doing shit!”

“We did debuff,” one of the members of BG4 argued. “Everyone did. And then we buffed our own and started shuffling around. They must’ve worn off before we could—”

Donovan and Zephyr both darted their heads Jimmy’s way. Kalana stopped what she was doing, narrowed her eyes, and dashed backwards. Once again, it felt like time had paused, but only for a moment. Something was about to happen: something that both of them saw but Jimmy saw, too. And unless he gave the command to deal with it immediately, they were going to wrest control of the raid away from him. He was sure of it. He had to deal with it right now.

“Everyone get behind a shield now!” he cried out. “Do it right now. Stop what you’re doing and get behind a shield. Go, go, go!” he shouted at them.

Ishina’s father looked around as though confused. “Why, what’s—”

“Go now or you’re dead!” Jimmy interrupted. “Tanks, raise your shields high! Protect whoever’s behind you!”

In a mad scramble, Jimmy watched as every adventurer without a shield other than Donovan and Kalana made a wild rush towards those who had one. Jimmy shouted at them to move even faster. Because he, like Donovan and Zephyr, knew exactly what was about to happen. And to Jimmy’s utter misery, it seemed that Donovan and Zephyr had picked up on it even faster than he had. By several entire, valuable seconds, too.

It's because they got in my head. That’s the only reason. They’re making me play worse by getting me tilted! Jimmy shook his head and chided himself for still acting like this was a video game. It wasn’t. But even still, that was what happened. It had to be. Those two clueless, babysitting idiots couldn’t possibly—under normal circumstances—have picked up on this before him.

Right now, above the imp lord’s head, a series of white, elongated strips of light were rotating around and around, faster and faster. As they did so, they continued to split, creating more white strips and then even more thereafter. Just from the shape and outline of the light, Jimmy knew they were going to transform into some kind of sharp projectile: and that was exactly what they did.

Becoming silvery, metallic, and very, very sharp, there were more than a hundred of these objects now floating up above. Each one looked identical to the other: like someone broke off just the blade part of a shortsword and discarded the rest. And these blades were beginning to turn, tilting downwards.

“Take cover!” Jimmy cried. “If you’re not a tank, get down! If you’re a tank, cover us!”

Even as the imp lord continued to deliver a punishing series of sword slashes to Spider, who seemed mentally capable of taking any amount of pain, a series of hissing noises filled the air: a distinct sound that reminded Jimmy of incoming missiles. Jimmy took cover behind Ophelia Graven, who knelt down and raised her shield above them both. The hissing then grew louder, taking on more of a whine. And this continued unabated for just a few moments. And then came the contact.

CLACK!

CLACK!

CLACK!

A genuine sense of terror spread among the raid as the shield-less adventurers tucked their heads into their chests, placed their hands over their heads, and kept low to the floor, forced to rely on their fellow adventurer to survive. One after the next—and then many all at once—a series of cracks created an almost firecracker-like symphony of noises as these blades came raining down. And though it was probably only about five seconds between the moment the first landed and the moment the last did, it felt way, way longer.

CLACK!

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

Just a moment before the last few had fallen, the sound of a man crying out in pain and anguish reached his ears. Jimmy, risking leaving cover, ran over to him. “Oh, shit! Hey. Hey!”

He was an older-looking man wearing a set of chainmail armor. One of the blades had pierced him directly through the heart, and blood was dripping out of his mouth. He looked as though he wanted to speak, but he couldn’t. And it was only right now, after all this time, that it actually, truly occurred to Jimmy that people really could die from this. People did die from this. And if this man died, he would be the reason for it. There would be no respawning. There would be no “come back next week.” If this man died, Jimmy would be the reason it happened.

I can’t let him die!

Jimmy, acting quickly, yanked the blade right out of the man’s chest. He knew he probably had a minute—or maybe even just seconds—to save this man’s life before it was too late. And healing magic was not going to cut it: not for a wound this serious and deadly. No, that would require something far, far more powerful than what any of the healers on this raid could provide: even the best of them.

Having yanked the blade out of the man’s chest, Jimmy threw it off to the side. Then he called on Bank of Storage. Acting as expediently as he could, he grabbed one of his Red Rejuvenation Stones and his only purple Rejuvenation stone out of storage. He doubted he’d need the yellow. The man hadn’t lost that much blood. The damage was more to his internal organs.

Without wasting another moment, Jimmy slapped the purple down onto his chest. It shattered upon impact and disappeared. Then he did the same with the red. Now, he stared into the man’s eyes, desperately hoping not to see the light of life leaving them. For a few seconds, it seemed as though it might have been too late after all. But then the man coughed. Soon after, he choked. And about five seconds following that, he sat up, grabbed his axe, wiped his bloodied mouth with his opposite hand, grabbed his shield, and returned to his feet.

“Thanks, kid.” With that, he just went straight back into the fight.

“You’re welcome,” Jimmy muttered.

Getting back to his own feet, Jimmy was glad to see that BG3 and BG4 had finally issued a fresh round of debuffs, reducing the boss’s armor, magic resistance, strength, dexterity, and even poison resistance. This was good. Jimmy raised his staff and called down a mine right below where the boss was already stepping. He followed it up by casting his other two area-of-effect poisons, though he cast them high up in the air near the boss’s face to prevent any friendly fire. Now, with all three on the boss, and each ticking away for around 2,500 damage a pop, his Breath of Invigoration bar filled up in no time flat, and he buffed himself.

There we go, he thought, feeling rejuvenated. Not long after that, he decided to give the buff to Kalana, who was going absolutely wild now that she was doing a bit more damage. In fact, everyone was. All at once, the entire raid’s output seemed to multiply tremendously. But the distribution wasn’t equal by any means. Though the adventurers using melee weapons were now able to at least make a dent, it still wasn’t anything significant. But the archers and mages, on the other hand, were absolutely annihilating the imp lord.

Jimmy watched as a tall man in a white cloak wielding a spell sword slashed at the air; each time he slashed, a wave of fire in the shape of the blade would whoosh through the air and slam into the raid boss. The first of these waves hit for 5,207 damage, the second hit for 4,911, and the rest fell somewhere between. Fluffles, too, was now back to dealing rapid-fire damage, more than 1,200 a lightning bolt. Almost—but not quite—every mage was now delivering a real hurting to the boss, whose HP was finally starting to steadily decrease.

HP

4,937,006/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

“Keep it up!” Jimmy shouted out. “Actually, no, wait. Stop! It’s gonna spin! Change formation! Tanks line up, everyone back!”

Imp Lord Tzumazleth extended its arms to both sides of itself and began to spin on them, his purple-glowing blades blurring together. A bit slow, but still on time, every tank and off-tank on the raid—all fifteen—formed a ring with one another and got behind their shields, trapping the boss inside while everyone else stayed behind them. The result was that the boss bounced around the hastily established perimeter like a ping-pong ball, slamming into one tank, blasting in the opposite direction, and then finding itself pinging off another.

This continued for the full eight seconds, and then things returned to “normal,” with Maric feeling ready to once more take point on main tanking. This was good. Jimmy smiled. He was finally succeeding. The mages and archers began once more unleashing hell on the boss, dropping him even lower and lower as the tanks had everything under control. The only thing they needed to watch out for was that damn blade-summoning attack. But having survived it once, they were all prepared for it—at least Jimmy was pretty sure that they were.

“Oh wow!” an adventurer cried out after Jimmy cast Breath of Invigoration on him. “How is this even a real buff?”

“I know, it’s amazing, right?” Kalana asked. With virtually unlimited stamina, the girl was now doing cartwheels, backflips, and any other manner of ridiculous acrobatic stunts in an attempt to hurt the boss a little quicker. It was also terrifying to watch, because for some reason, she seemed to want to climb up to the thing’s face while insisting everybody keep attacking as normal. This was beyond unnerving to watch. Jimmy found himself in utter awe as Kalana dodged incoming arrows and magic from her allies with an almost casual ease while she tore into the back of Imp Lord Tzumazleth’s neck, hitting for an astonishing 8,255 or more each time she pulled one out and plunged the other in.

Slowly but surely, the adventurers became accustomed to the imp lord’s variety of attacks. And though Jimmy had hoped the boss wouldn’t call upon it, the boss did end up using the rain of blades thing twice more in the next few minutes, though unlike the first time, everyone managed to get out unscathed. For now, things were starting to go really smoothly. The support was continually debuffing, ensuring they were constantly able to actually hurt the thing, and the tanks were doing a pretty okay job of holding it together. Though some were faring worse than others.

Thus far, no one had died, but given the boss’s tremendous strength and fast strikes, numerous adventurers had taken incredibly painful-looking hits, and on three occasions, a red stone had needed to be an administered. And on one very scary occasion, Ophelia had mis-timed a block and ended up losing an arm, a leg, and a big piece of her jaw. Jimmy was sure she’d end up dead. She’d been horribly disfigured and gushing so much blood it looked like a murder scene. Yet incredibly, with two yellows, two reds, and a single purple, she was back to her beautiful self within three minutes.

“Nothing compared to that fucking dragon,” she’d muttered, still missing a piece of her chin at this point. It had been regrowing even as she spoke. “Compared to that, this isn’t a damn thing.”

Donovan grunted in agreement. “Fucker changed us all, that’s for sure.”

With things mostly under control, Jimmy began looking around for any inefficiency he could find in an attempt to hopefully speed things up and get this over with. Each second this dragged on was a second where it all had the potential of falling apart, and God, he was so eager to succeed. He wanted so badly to complete his first raid as raid leader: especially a high level one. This would open up so many doors for him in the adventuring world. All he had to do was get through this boss, which was steadily approaching death—just not quite fast enough for Jimmy’s taste.

HP

3,774,577/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

Reapplying his poisons and spreading around his buff whenever possible, Jimmy carefully concentrated on the outgoing magic damage, particularly from BG3 and BG4. Frowning, he was gripped with the same problem as earlier: it was too damn hard to see everything. He had to constantly turn his head around, lean over people, shove people aside, etc. It was so hard to tell what was going on. Eventually, however, he was able to get a good enough look at things to spot a very real and very serious problem. And it was only now that he remembered something he honestly should’ve considered this entire time.

Light magic.

Two of the mages were dramatically underperforming compared to their peers. One, a man in a very flashy golden robe, was extending his staff and firing off bullet-shaped streaks of light that were actually too bright to look directly at; these only hit for around 900 damage, which posed as one piece of evidence that Tzumazleth was light resistant just like the Sneering Imp Warriors and Sneering Imp Troublemakers had been. This was doubly confirmed as he saw another person, the woman in the elegant, red, and flower-embroidered dress, sending out those exploding, level-45 wisps she’d told him about earlier. Each time one would sail across the boss room, fly upwards, and detonate with a blinding flash, the boss would be struck for less than 500 despite it looking like such a devastating attack.

Tzumazleth is light resistant. There’s no doubt about it.

As Jimmy recalled, Zach discovered that at least some of the imps were actually weak to dark. And though that didn’t definitively imply that Imp Lord Tzumazleth would also turn out to be weak to dark, there was certainly a decent possibility, and it was a great place to start.

“BG3, BG4!” he called out. “Stop using light magic if you can avoid it. In fact, this is for the whole raid: if you can use dark, use it!”

“Well, isn’t that a coincidence,” Zephyr said with a chuckle. Jimmy turned his head. The man had just finished delivering the fourth in a chain of attacks with his Artifact-rarity sword, and now, after yet another, quick slash, the base of it had turned a very dark, shadowy black. Jimmy observed as Zephyr, with a shrug, jumped forward and whipped his blade across at the level of his chest, moving from left to right and delivering a powerful, rushing slash that incredibly struck the boss for 6,200 damage despite only hitting its knee. It also caused the same darkness to be found in the base of the weapon to filter upwards and cover the entirety of the blade.

It’s weak to dark all right.

The moment Zephyr landed, he hopped up again while slashing directly upwards; for the first time, his sword was cleanly cutting straight through the armor, leaving a nasty-looking trail of bloodied, exposed skin from its lower ankles and up to the front of its shins. It also did 12,925 damage.

Now, the bladed part of Zephyr’s sword was even darker and more shadowy than the base of the weapon, and as he began to fall back down, he swung his weapon yet again, but this time in the reverse direction, slicing his sword right back downwards. This caused an actual spray of blood to shoot out of boss’s lower leg while dealing an incredible 17,621. This also put his sword in its final stage of its four elemental stages. Zephyr’s entire weapon had become darker than night itself, and it was casting shadows along the concrete flooring. And unless Jimmy was hallucinating, there seemed to be ghostly whispers coming off the blade, too.

God that weapon is sweet.

Delivering one final, dark-infused slash, Zephyr sliced open the boss’s ankle, cutting so deeply and with such force that, along with dealing a simply mind-blowing 105,211 damage, it caused Imp Lord Tzumazleth to briefly fall to one knee, where it remained for several seconds before picking itself back up again. Unfortunately, following Zephyr’s next attack, the grip of the weapon lit up green, which meant it had shifted, probably to wind.

“Who here can use dark?” Jimmy called out, satisfied that he was right about the boss’s weakness.

“I can’t,” one of the mages replied. “Sorry, Jimmy.”

“Me neither,” said another adventurer: an axe-wielding off-tank who was putting out fairly respectable numbers while sparks danced off his weapon. “Sorry, bud. Dark and light are kinda rare. I can only use fire and lightning.”

“Wind only for me,” Alixa said, shrugging.

Hearing denial after denial, Jimmy felt his hopes begin to slump: until a woman’s voice called out to him. “I can make use of dark magic,” she said.

Jimmy turned to look at her. She’d been the woman in the elegant, red, one-piece dress who’d been summoning the level-45 exploding wisps from a plain wooden staff that was rounded on both ends. “I can use dark wisps instead of the light ones,” she said. As if to demonstrate, she waved her staff in the air above her back and forth. Smoke then began to trail from the tip of her staff as a bead of sweat slid down her face. This smoke coalesced, became rounded, and now, a level-45 wisp that was every bit as dark as the ones earlier had been light took off with a dull buzzing in the direction of the raid boss.

Jimmy felt a degree of satisfaction as he saw the wisp collide with the right side of Imp Lord Tzumazleth’s face, detonating with a pure black explosion for 44,210 damage. But that wasn’t all. The area of impact continued to burn with black flames for around five seconds after the explosion, and each second, it seemed to deal another 8,200 damage to the boss.

“Will that do?”

“Yep. Sure will! Thank you, uh…” Jimmy read the name above her head, visible only because of the fact they were in a raid together. “Thank you, Emala.”

“You’re welcome!”

“Keep it up,” he said, smiling politely. She seemed like a sweet, but somewhat eerie woman: one that was incredibly powerful and clearly had magical abilities that were almost certainly “unique.” Jimmy was surprised he had never heard her name come up in conversation before, as she struck him as someone who was unusually powerful for a mage: enough so that, by now, someone ought to have caught wind of just how freakishly strong she was.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t even primarily a user of magic, was she? She’d been buffing earlier, hadn’t she? And debuffing. And healing. And unless he was mistaken, she’d even briefly gone in for melee attacks on the boss at one point. She was really gifted. Someone to keep an eye on for future raids. For now, though, he decided to cast Breath of Invigoration on her, as she looked like she was becoming a bit exhausted.

“Hey, Jimmy, I can also use dark,” a male voice said, the sound of it coming from somewhere behind and to his left.

Jimmy turned around to see Ishina’s father removing his arrowless quiver from his back. His muttered something under his breath, and then his left hand began to darken until it became covered in a sort of shadowy haze, which lasted only until he tapped his palm three times against the quiver. Afterwards, it returned to its normal color, and he once more strapped the quiver to his back. Now, whenever he reached behind, made a pinching gesture, and pulled an arrow into existence from out of nothingness, the arrow seemed to be giving off some of that same, shadowy aura. And boy did it hurt the raid boss. Firing one straight between Tzumazleth’s eyes, he contributed a very-much appreciated 18,225 damage.

Okay, now we’re in business. Yeah boy!

Things were going very good now: very, very good. As Jimmy ordered BG3 and BG4 to apply a fresh set of debuffs, and as he himself reapplied his poisons and offered Breath of Invigoration to whoever he felt was struggling the most, he was starting to feel extremely positive about the way things were going. Too good, actually. No, wait, seriously. Too good. Way too damn good. He frowned as he saw the boss’s HP draining in a way that was just too fast. And yes, that was a problem.

HP

2,605,001/5,600,000

Name

(T5) Imp Lord Tzumazleth

Level

55

Jimmy spun back around, and sure enough, the source of the massive increase in damage was none other than Emala, who aided by Breath of Invigoration, had begun launching an endless volley of level-45 dark wisps at the raid boss. This, on the surface, seemed like it should be a good thing. But it wasn’t. God, it really wasn’t. And thus, amid all the triumph he had only just been feeling, a fresh wave of panic crashed into him, but he nevertheless kept himself from drowning beneath it.

“Emala, slow the hell down!” he shouted at her. “You too, Ishina’s dad!”

“My name’s Frenk.”

“I know, I can see that. But look, dude, you and Emala need to slow down now. You’re gonna pull aggro off the tanks if you don’t chill. I know I said I wanted you both to do more damage, but not this much this fast.”

“Understood. Sorry,” Frenk said. His daughter had gone completely quiet and still looked terribly embarrassed.

Jimmy turned back around—only to see more of the wisps flying at an even faster rate. Now, with a growl, he spun himself one-eighty and glared at the woman. “What did I just say, Emala?”

Emala’s face had become flush with what Jimmy took to be worry. “I…I can’t control it,” she said.

“Stop sending those out!” He pointed at the gigantic ring of wisps that were surrounding her like some kind of army. There were dozens of them.

Emala visibly gulped. “You don’t understand,” she said, as one of the wisps broke apart and buzzed their way over to the raid boss. “Once I summon them, they go to their target after a random delay, and they do this no matter what. I can’t control them anymore.”

A sinking feeling erupted in Jimmy’s stomach. A sense of wrongness too great to ignore. “Rope out!”

“I can’t,” she said. She glanced downwards, and Jimmy saw that there was a rope by her feet. “For some reason it’s not working!”

Because she’s technically still attacking. It probably doesn’t work if you’re still actively launching an attack!

Jimmy swore. How could he possibly know this would be a consequence of him giving her the buff? He tried to keep himself calm. Nervously, he glanced over his shoulder. The rate things were going, there was no way the tanks were going to be able to taunt aggro off her. “Is there anything you can do?” Jimmy asked her. “To stop or slow down.”

She shook her head. Then her face turned a very sickly, pale shade. “Am…am I going to die, Jimmy?”

“Absolutely not.”

She trembled as two more of the wisps broke free of the ring around her and slammed into the boss for extraordinary damage. Jimmy tried to think. In the past, no matter how serious a situation or how deep of shit he stepped in, he always found a way out of it. It just had to come to him. So he thought, and he thought, and he thought, and as he did, more wisps continued to rapid fire off the stockpile of them she’d summoned. And it was only after another five had erupted into black flames, which left a lingering, powerful DOT, that Jimmy, to his own horror, realized he couldn’t think of anything. Nothing at all.

“Maric!” he called out.

“Yeah?”

“Taunt harder. You’re gonna lose aggro!”

“Huh? Why?”

He pointed at Emala. “Because she’s doing a third of all the damage that’s being put into the boss right now.”

Donovan and Zephyr snapped their heads in Jimmy’s direction, and they did so in such a way that told Jimmy they were genuinely surprised. Up until now, they’d been acting as though they were “secretly” in control despite Jimmy refusing to let that be the case. But now, they gave up the charade.

“How the hell is she doing that?” Donovan shouted out.

“My buff,” Jimmy told him. “Oh, wait, I never told you about Breath of Invigoration.”

Briefly, he described it, and a look of both amazement and immediate frustration came over Donovan—and Zephyr, too. They began exchanging concerned glances, and then Donovan, without even asking for Jimmy’s input, said, “Emala, rope out.”

“Like I told Jimmy, I can’t.” Another wisp shot forward, hitting the raid boss for 21,600 damage. “Don, please, I don’t wanna die. I didn’t mean to screw up. I swear.”

“It’s all right. Here’s what we’re gonna—”

“I am the raid leader,” Jimmy insisted, speaking over him. “You said so yourself. Here’s what we’re actually gonna do. We’re gonna assign you two tanks, and—”

“It’s on me!” she shrieked, even as Jimmy was speaking.

Out of nowhere, literally between one hit and the next, the gigantic raid boss stopped attacking Maric, pulled back a bit, and then turned its body towards Emala. And now, for the first time during this raid, Jimmy felt true fear. Because if there was one thing an entire lifetime of gaming had taught him, it was how terrible a nightmare it was whenever a caster got aggro during a raid or even just a normal encounter fighting mobs.

For every ten people who played ranged DPS, eight of them would begin running around in circles like a headless chicken instead of standing still and waiting for a tank to peel. Or better yet, running to a tank. They all did the headless chicken run thing. And that was in a game. If people in a video game were too scared to control their impulses not to push buttons on a keyboard, how much worse would it be in real life? It could spiral into a raid wipe very, very easily as the healers struggled to keep up, then ended up inadvertently pulling aggro onto themselves, as well.

Oh no, he thought. Please, God, tell me this one bitch’s wisp spell ain’t about to fuck over the entire raid.

Its wings buzzing loudly and in a way that mimicked a chainsaw, Imp Lord Tzumazleth lifted up into the air and then soared across the room in her direction. “Do not run,” Jimmy said to her. “Emala, please, listen to me. Do not—”

“Help me!” she shrieked, taking off at a sprint in the wrong goddamn direction—completely opposite to where the tanks were residing.

“Don’t run!” Jimmy cried, chasing after her. God, what he wouldn’t give to be able to use an ability like Phase Rescue right now—assuming he was recalling the name of Zach’s ability correctly. “Emala, stop!”

The boss flew over his head, and then it slammed itself down in front of her. Jimmy didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to get to her in time. The boss raised its swords. This was it. He was going to be responsible for this girl’s death. He’d given her the buff that she’d used to pull the aggro. He’d basically caused this. His desire to be a raid leader…the only thing he was going to lead was to this girl’s brutal, violent death.

“Please!” she screamed. “I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna—”

The boss slammed its swords down, and then it was done. Or at least it should have been. It really, really should have been. Yet against all odds, Emala, at least for the time being, continued to live and breathe. And it was all because Kalana existed.

On the heels of a bright orange flame that ripped across the world even faster than the boss and even burned itself through the boss for 8,211 damage, Kalana appeared from out of this flame. She then spun her body around, yelled out a battle cry at a volume louder than what Jimmy thought her capable of producing, and she swung her two comparatively tiny daggers at the two incoming swords, which were so large when contrasted with her own weapons that it was almost comical.

Yet incredibly, as Kalana shouted out with the exertion and effort of her dual parrying strikes, her two daggers knocked away the two blades and temporarily put the raid boss off balance. She then seized on this moment to sheathe her daggers, pick up Emala, throw the girl over her shoulders, and take off like a rocket; this, as more wisps continued to shoot out from a cluster of them that maintained a constant position above Emala, where they would then explode against the out-of-control raid boss. Worse, the mad dash to keep Emala away was starting to have unintended consequences. Jimmy screamed for them to stop as the boss, in its pursuit of Emala, knocked over and badly injured several out-of-place adventurers as it ran, rather than flew after her.

“Looks like ya need some help,” Donovan said to him. “You did good for your first time. Zeph and I got it from here.”

“Nah, man!” he shouted at them, furious more so at Donovan than Zephyr. “Don’t fucking ask me to call it quits. All right? It’s starting to look like ya’ll want me to fail.”

Donovan glared at him, and it was intimidating to say the least, but Jimmy was now too charged up to care. “What I wanted was for you to experience a challenge so you could see shit’s not as easy as you think it is, kiddo.”

Jimmy looked over his shoulder and witnessed the raid turn to chaos as ten adventurers were trampled; he hoped to God they didn’t die. He rubbed his head in frustration. Everything was going to hell. And so quickly, too. “Well, you got what you wanted.”

“No, you fuckin’ idiot!” Donovan growled at him. He even struck Jimmy, hard, across the back, and it almost took Jimmy off his feet. “You met every damn challenge Zeph and I expected you to stumble on. This ain’t one of them.”

“It’s true,” Zephyr said. “We wanted you to learn some humility, Jimmy, but you were better than we thought you’d be. Much better. We fully expected to step in at some point, but as of just a few minutes ago, we realized you really were about to lead this raid to success. But this is not something you could’ve predicted, and neither could we—so we need to take control of this situation. You’re just not ready to handle a raid crisis like this yet.”

Jimmy exploded with anger. “I am! The two of ya’ll don’t realize I was brought here by a literal God to do this.”

“Don’t mean shit,” Donovan said, spitting out a wad of saliva. “If you don’t step aside, you’re gonna learn the lesson Zeph and I wanted you to learn, but it ain’t gonna be the way we wanted you to learn it, kiddo.”

“You’re wrong. I’ve got this.”

Donovan and Zephyr exchanged glances. “If it looks like he’s going to get a single one of us killed, we’re taking back leadership,” Zephyr said.

“Obviously.”

Jimmy ignored their bullshit. He was the raid leader, and he was going to fix this. Yet to his horror, he noticed that at least twenty members of the raid—a full third—were currently desperately calling upon their recently purchased red stones to either mend their own broken bones or the bones of those nearby. The boss’s wild dashing around had somehow done more damage than any of its actual, deliberate attacks. “Did anyone die?” he shouted as he ran past the bunch of them. “Please tell me!”

“I think we’re all okay,” Reni Sarwin moaned. “You did good. Get Don back in charge now.”

Jimmy hissed angrily. “I’ve got everything under control.”

Reni sat up, looked at him, and then plopped himself right back down. “We’re all dead.”

I’ll show them, Jimmy thought frantically. I know I can do this. I’m not gonna humiliate myself in front of everybody!

To Kalana, Jimmy shouted, “Kal, you need to stop running!”

Without looking back as she led the boss on this wild chase, she said, “I can’t! Emala will die!”

“Yeah, but…but we gotta figure something else—”

Jimmy dove forward and hugged his knees into his chest as Imp Lord Tzumazleth stormed by. He came so close to being trampled to death that it didn’t seem real. To both sides of him were small craters in the concrete, mere inches from where he was standing. He’d literally slipped through the gap in the thing’s two legs. Quickly, he scrambled back up to his feet. Then he saw another explosion of black flame as the imp lord was hit yet again.

Maybe I can work with this, he thought, as a return of his confidence and enthusiasm began to pick up. I can! I can actually work with this!

“Kal! Change of plans. Don’t stop!”

“Wasn’t gonna!”

“Tell Emala to keep summoning wisps.”

“Ask him if he’s crazy,” he barely heard Emala say while she continued to ride on Kalana’s back.

“Jimmy! Emala wants to know if you’re—”

“I heard! And nah, I’m not. I know how we can beat this thing now!”

“How?”

Jimmy had to really raise his voice to be heard as they were now on direct opposite sides of the large, fishbowl-shaped room. “You’re just gonna kite it while we blast it away from behind!”

“Great idea!” Kalana shouted back to him. “But first we need to—uh oh. Jimmy! Above you!”

“Above me?”

Jimmy looked up. And then he recoiled in horror as he saw dozens upon dozens of the blades floating stationary near the ceiling in the middle of the boss-encounter room. They were nowhere near the boss itself, yet they nevertheless had been summoned. Jimmy had no idea that was possible. He thought the boss summoned them over its own head—which was how it’d happened the past few times. But now, with the boss running around, it somehow left its own attack behind, which meant Jimmy wasn’t paying attention and didn’t see it.

Oh fuck. Fuck this is so bad. I really don’t know what to do this time.

“Get behind the tanks!” Jimmy called out. “Everybody, hide behind tanks! We all about to get hit with that rain of blades attack!”

“Again?” a bunch of them cried out as they glanced upwards.

Adventurers, many with broken or fractured bones, all picked themselves up and either walked, limped, or ran towards whatever tank or off-tank they could reach. Yet it wasn’t clear they’d make it in time as the blades began shooting straight down as though attached to a propulsion system. Hissing sounds formed in the air, and the adventurers, some with shattered legs, nevertheless dove to cover near the tanks. Jimmy looked around, terrified that some would die—that even one would die. But thank God. Thank the dear Lord in heaven—everyone made it to cover.

Wait. Not everyone.

Why am I still standing out in the open?

Something flicked by Jimmy’s vision. Something moving fast and making a loud hiss. Then something else crossed his vision to his side. “Move!” Donovan shouted, shoving him. With a pain so great it made Jimmy wonder if he’d just broken his ribs, Donovan bulldozed him out of the way of a falling blade that would have gone straight through the top of his head, likely killing him instantly with no chance to use a healing stone. Yet even as his body was thrown off to the side, he still did not escape unscathed. And now, for the very first time since not only coming to Galterra, but in Jimmy’s entire damn life, he discovered what “pain” was.

Having narrowly avoided decapitation, the blade, which moved too fast for Jimmy to track with his eyes, began to spin as it fell its last bit of distance. This spinning gave it a slicing force. And slice was exactly what it did. From the top of his left breast all the way down to his hip, Jimmy was opened up like a man on an operating table. He could see it as it happened. He could feel it as it happened, too. He witnessed his robe slice clean off his body, suffering a full armor break, and then the skin cut off in tandem.

What…?

Jimmy’s mouth opened. His lips quivered. He trembled. He glanced downward. He could now see into his own ribcage. He could see the bone. He could see the blood flooding out of him. And it hurt. It hurt so much he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even react. But more than anything else, he now truly, without even a shadow of a doubt, knew that everything that was happening to him was and had been real.

The pain was so intense on such a level that even the slightest lingering doubt was chased right out of him. The pain activated something inside of him that he didn’t even know was there at all. Just yesterday, when an assassin had come to claim his life, he had stood up to the man bravely. Because there was this tiny part of him: this tiny, but very significant part that did not believe any of this was or could be real.

But the pain? It made it real. He took a hit so bad that it made it real. He screamed out in agony. This wasn’t a simulation. No computer program could hurt this bad. He was really here, in real life, in this dungeon, and he was dying. His biological processes kicked the ever-loving shit out of his brain, and it took control over him. In this moment, he feared death. He was afraid. Nothing in his entire life had ever hurt him this badly. With his hand trembling as fiercely as someone suffering from hypothermia, he touched his bloodied, torn, and ripped flesh. Then he fell onto his side, shaking fiercely.

I’m dying. Momma, please help me.

It hurt. The burning. The squeezing. It was a deep, fiery, unbearable sensation as blood drained out of him. He’d failed. He’d been too confident. He tried so hard, but that woman was wrong about him. He was no leader. He didn’t belong here. Why did he ever think he could do this?

Momma, please, it hurts.

He was delusional. He was a joke. He wanted his mother. He felt cold. So cold. The pain started to lessen a little bit the more he bled.

But he didn’t cry. That just wasn’t his way. No, instead he merely hated himself. Donovan and Zephyr were right. Even as he bled out onto the concrete, he could see the raid falling into shambles. Or it almost did. Maybe that would’ve been better in a sick sort of way. With him having been downed, the two guild-leaders regained control. With powerful, booming voices, they began barking out commands. Donovan shouted that if Kalana didn’t stop running immediately, he’d “cut Zach’s balls off.” This seemed to work. Donovan managed to wrangle a bunch of tanks to form a protective wall in front of Emala, and slowly, control was regained. Expertly, too. They knew what they were doing.

I’m a fucking fraud, Jimmy thought. He watched enviously as Donovan and Zephyr performed so well as raid leaders that they almost made it seem boring and uneventful. Was that how easy this raid would have been all along if they’d been leading from the start? Had this raid only been challenging because Jimmy had been the one leading it? It sure seemed that way.

I’ve been lying to myself. I’m nothing!

What a shame that the last thing he’d do before he closed his eyes forever was open them properly for the first time. Donovan and Zephyr managed to get things back under control in a way that actually seemed trivial.

Why couldn’t I do that? How did this happen? Goddammit! Why couldn’t that be me?

“Zephyr, handle shit here.”

“I got it. Take care of Jimmy.”

“Jimmy?” Kalana and Tena asked. Then both turned their heads in his direction, and both yelled more loudly than even he had after being struck, storming their way over to him along with Donovan. Jimmy could only see Donovan’s plate-covered feet as they ran across the concrete towards him. He already had a red stone in his hand. “You’re all right, kiddo,” he said.

If I somehow live through this, no one is gonna ever trust me again after this. I blew it.

Resentment and anger boiled over, and Jimmy, with the last bit of his strength, actually tried to swat the red stone out of Donovan’s hand. This seemed to make the man laugh. It was almost as though he approved of Jimmy doing that. Painfully, Donovan pressed the red stone down onto Jimmy’s torn apart skin. And now the pain increased tenfold as his body began to heal itself. At least before, the blood loss had made him numb. Now, the burning, stinging, and aching were back. He screamed. How could he not? It was like being cut open in reverse. It burned. It sizzled.

“Jimmy, baby,” Tena said. “What happened?”

“Talk to us,” Kalana added.

“No thanks.”

He looked away from them. He called upon Bank of Storage even as he was healing. It didn’t work. It had an hour cooldown and he’d used it just before. But wait. On the ground next to Ishina was the rope she’d dropped at the start of the raid. He crawled along the concrete over to it, and he grabbed it. Then they tried to grab him, but it was Donovan of all people who pushed them away. “Let him go.”

As bad as that just hurt, the agonizing pain was somehow still not even a fraction as crippling as the humiliation. He didn’t want the girls pitying him. That made it a billion times worse. He couldn’t stand being here a second longer. He’d disgraced himself. Luckily, Ishina didn’t seem to mind if he borrowed her rope. She said nothing to him. He didn’t care either way. He was going to use it no matter what. He wanted out. Because fuck all this.

He was done.

He was done with this.

No more dungeons. No more raids. He was quitting. He was done. Donovan got what he wanted after all. He was calling it quits. He didn’t want to see or speak to anyone. Maybe ever again. He just suffered a humiliation so terrible he doubted anyone in this world could understand it. All that confidence. All that bluster. Only to be proven wrong in such a pathetic way.

“Done with all this shit,” he muttered weakly, barely able to remain standing. Even as the boss was being finished off, he roped out. “I’m done.”

“Jimmy, you can’t—”

“Get back to the raid, Kalana,” Donovan growled at her. “I’ll deal with him later.”

*****

He’d made too much noise. Now, Zach steeled himself as he heard what sounded like hundreds of marching boots, and he spotted dozens of flashlights approaching the boardwalk. It was okay, though. He was prepared for this happening. Right now, he needed his heart to be cold, so it was. He needed his senses to be sharp, and so they were, too. What drove him was knowing that, despite the horrors he’d inflicted so far tonight, he truly was doing what was right.

He didn’t want to do this. He hated it. He hated it so much. But it was right. Because if not him, then who?

As shouting voices, marching boots, and more flashlights approached, Zach activated Shadow Merge. His hands, feet, and even his equipment all faded out of existence. He was like a ghost. For thirty seconds, he was completely invisible to the eyes of anyone who wasn’t an Elf or a Gnome. He needed to move fast.

Chapter 151: One-Man Army

Chapter 151: One-Man Army

Zach needed to hurry.

They found the bodies.

Sirens rang out in the middle of the night, alarming an already traumatized population. Whistles were blown. Spotlights erected. But all of that was behind him now on the beach from where he’d exited Yorna’s. He’d hoped to be farther along by this point, yet he’d done as much as he could with the half a minute of invisibility that he’d had. Luckily, only very, very few of the structures in Shadowfall Coast were taller than five or six stories. This made it relatively easy for Zach to proceed unnoticed as he journeyed farther into the city.

With a soft click, he landed in a crouch atop a four-story building. He immediately sprang back up, sprinted to the other end of the roof, and leapt into the air. The ocean’s breeze and the smell of burnt ash melded together as the wind blasted into his face. Having flung himself forward, he could see troops and a few guild members patrolling the street below even this late at night. He was grateful that they didn’t look up as he flew over them. A moment later, he landed on the railed-off rooftop of a three-story school building. He continued to sprint ahead the instant his feet touched down. Pumping his arms as he ran, he dashed his way along it, then jumped forward and off the other end.

Have to be careful here.

There was a pretty big, wide-open park between the school and the next building in the distance, and it appeared to be very lightly patrolled. Thus, he let his momentum carry him as far as it could. Once he began to fall, Zach flipped his body face-down and extended his right palm, slapping it on top of a set of monkey bars in an enclosed, fenced-in playground, which brought him to a halt. Bending his elbow, he performed something of a one-armed, upside-down pushup, which sprang him back up and off the monkey bars, where he then spun himself right-side up midair before dropping down onto the soft grass below. Wasting no time, he took off farther into the night, but not before sending his foot forward and kicking down the locked fence barring his passage. Afterwards, he began racing through the park.

They don’t know it’s me, he thought as the sound of emergency vehicles echoed from the street behind him. They all sounded like they were heading towards the beach. They don’t know why I’m here.

As Zach stormed his way across the park, he tried not to focus on the jarring sounds of distress coming across over the Comm that he’d stolen. He was hearing a whole lot of things that he’d really much rather not listen to, yet it was important that he continue to eavesdrop just in case something came up related to Vim. So far, nothing relating to the leader of the Royal Roses had been said over the Comm. It’d mostly just been a bunch of chatter from primarily young guild members and troops that gave off a steadily increasing level of shock and fear.

Even before the bodies had been found, there’d been a significant amount of panic coming from the Guild of Gentlemen. They seemed to be aware that Mr. Oren and the Elves were about to launch another attack on the city, and it had been the only topic of discussion up until a patrol group stumbled upon a few of the corpses that Zach had left behind. This led to them immediately searching the area—only to find even more of them. Each time, Zach felt a tugging sensation in his chest as he listened to their reactions upon finding the people he’d butchered. But now, one in particular really tested the limits of his resolve.

“Gods, no, please!” a woman screamed into the Comm. “Aelor’s dead!” What followed was a moment of shrieking, then wailing, and finally, sobbing.

“Please, you have to calm down,” a male voice said to her. “You were ordered to remain at your post. You can’t just—”

“My husband! They killed my husband! I want the queen’s head for this! I want Elf blood!”

“Calm down!” ordered the commanding voice of someone Zach believed was named Gaelan Malakor, the sixth in command of the Guild of Gentlemen. This, Zach had picked up just by listening to them for the past few minutes. It’d been enough to piece out a few details, including the man’s rank, his name, and the fact that he seemed to be in charge of the patrols in the city.

“Forgive her, Sir Malakor,” a man said over the Comm. “One of the KIA is her husband.”

“You have my condolences,” Sir Malakor said, now seemingly addressing her directly. “But this is a hard time for us all. You have my leave to take as much time off as you need to mourn. But please: you need to abstain from speaking again on this Comm frequency. Clear communication is the best way for us to find the rotten, Elvish son of a bitch who killed your loved one.”

Zach knew he should be relieved by the fact that they suspected an “Elvish infiltrator” of being responsible for the things he’d done. And in a way, he was glad—at least from a mission standpoint—that they had no clue he was here or what he was attempting to do. But from a different, more emotional position, he felt guilty that his deeds were being blamed on the Elves. Not that Queen Vayra would mind, of course. She definitely wouldn’t. If anything, she’d want them to think she’d killed their kin. It was more that Zach, on a deeper level, felt like he deserved to be blamed for what he’d done, justified or not.

I can’t pretend I’m not doing what I’m doing.

As he made his way across the park unseen, he reached the point where a row of large bushes in front of a chest-high fence marked the dividing line between the park and the sidewalk. A moment before he would’ve dashed right through the fence, onto the street, into traffic, and possibly roaming patrols, Zach stopped, squatted down to his knees, and then jumped into the air while propelling himself forward, exerting a great deal of strength in his legs in the process.

In defiance of gravity, he launched himself upwards and into the air, feeling a churning sensation in his stomach as he rose more than eighty feet in height. Then he began to plummet, falling faster and faster until touching down with a hasty forward-roll onto the top of a five-story apartment complex. Very quickly, he completed his roll, jumped straight back up to his feet, drew his sword, spun around full circle, and delivered a fast and lethal cleaving strike into the belly of a level-1 guard stationed on the rooftop.

The sight of a fast-moving splash of blood accompanied the sound of tearing flesh and ripping cloth as Zach fatally opened the man up before he could react. His guts and intestines spilled out of him, and he stared at Zach as though confused. Then, the man, armed with a prehistoric-looking, bolt-action rifle, murmured something indecipherable and fell over on his side, his weapon dropping out of his arms and landing beside him.

“The Gods damn it all,” Zach muttered to himself, wiping off his blood-soaked blade on the deceased troop’s uniform. Most likely, with the expectation of an impending invasion, they’d once more begun the process of relocating forces onto rooftops to serve as snipers. Zach needed to get in and get out before this place became any more locked down than it already was.

Sheathing his blade, he stepped around the dead soldier and walked slowly to the opposite end of the roof. As best he could amid the dark of night, he peered out into the distance, searching for where to proceed. He knew they were storing Vim in the very southwestern reaches of the city in a human-made dungeon constructed out of ancient building materials from the adventuring world that could contain someone higher than level 1. Zach was well aware that such things existed, as Olivir had bound him with restraints back on Archian Prime that he could not break free of. Hopefully, Zach had enough strength to break whatever needed breaking when he got to Vim.

I didn’t come all this way to fail! Now, where is this place?

One of the members of the Guild of Gentlemen that he’d interrogated had claimed that the dungeon’s entrance looked like a giant, round, and metal vault door, and that it was partially obscured, nestled between two large, but single-story warehouses at the end of a row of factories in Shadowfall Coast’s manufacturing district. If so, he wasn’t far. Ahead of him, he could see smoke, though not the smoke of war: but of engineering. Incidentally, this would be one of the places Fylwen and Mr. Oren would be striking in a few hours, as it was one of the locations they seemed to believe had a high chance of being used for weapons manufacturing. Personally, Zach thought it seemed a bit too obvious.

This would be the first place an enemy would check.

Stepping forward, he wrapped both his hands around the rooftop’s rusted, metal safety railing, and then he hopped over it and quicky turned himself around. Now, dangling over the edge, he held himself in place just until his legs stopped swaying, and then he released the safety railing and let himself go; this, he did to ensure that he fell straight downwards in a controlled and careful way. The wind beat against him as he picked up speed; given it was only five stories, he landed in just a few seconds. Though it wasn’t necessary, he touched down in a crouch, something he’d actually learned from observing Kalana. By doing so, it dampened some of the sound. And thus, there was only a small click as he found himself facing the part of the city where homes and businesses slowly gave way to more industrial manufacturing centers.

“Are we sure an Elf did this?” a man asked over the Comm. “If the intruder came through the dungeons, it was probably one of Donovan’s people, no?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gaelan Malakor replied. “Adventurers wouldn’t dare. We know from the dragon incident that the Elvish can use the portals too. Almost certainly, we’re dealing with a scouting party sent to cause chaos ahead of the invading force coming our way. We must not give in to hysteria or absurd conspiracy theories.”

“Understood, Sir Malakor.”

“Keep strong and keep vigilant!”

Zach, with his hood drawn, began to walk casually and calmly down the nearest sidewalk as he made his way to where he was fairly sure he’d find the “dungeon” entrance. Though he definitely stood out, it was well after midnight, his face was concealed, and they were looking out for an Elf, not him. Also, there didn’t appear to be any patrols in this particular part of the city right now. It was just ordinary citizens, which meant the level of risk to him was low.

With that in mind, Zach risked openly strolling down one street after the next, and to his surprise, though he was given sidelong glances from numerous citizens along the way, no one actually bothered him. They must have assumed him to be a member of the guild dressed in non-standard attire or something. Even with his sword visible on his back, they simply avoided him. Thanks to the hood of his cloak, which concealed his face in shadow, they would not recognize him even if they looked directly at him. Really, it was only his adventuring equipment that threatened to draw suspicion.

“We’re closed,” an obnoxious-sounding man said to him literally out of nowhere, drawing Zach’s attention. He was standing in the frame of a dusty old shop halfway down this particular city block that sold rare electronic parts for antique devices. “Did you hear me, kid, I said we’re closed!”

“The fuck? I wasn’t planning on going in your store, sir. I didn’t even look at your store.”

“Yeah? Well, you can’t come in, so…”

“So nothing,” Zach said. “I wasn’t planning on entering.”

“Doesn’t matter if you were or weren’t. You can’t.” He tapped the door to his shop like it was an old, trusted vessel that had sailed the world’s seas. He laughed smugly. “Nope. You’re not allowed in.”

Dismissively, Zach flicked his hand at the man and continued on his way. The guy was clearly just some lunatic. Ignoring him, he marched about ten or so steps down the block. Then he stopped, tensed up angrily, and took another few steps—only to stop in place yet again. Now, he muttered a swear under his breath and began walking directly backwards to where he’d just been. “Okay, you know what? Fuck your stupid shitty store,” he said with a growl. “Is this like some kind of power trip or something?” he asked the chubby, disgruntled-looking man. “Do you just randomly tell people they can’t come into your store because it makes you feel, like, I don’t know, powerful or something?”

“Yes.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes.”

Zach shrugged. “Okay. Well, that argument is over with.”

“Haha! You’ll never get to know just how good our prices are,” he taunted.

Zach continued on his way. Yet even as he did so, he was mad at himself, because now he wanted to go into the store just to see what was so special. It wasn’t until he’d crossed another two blocks that he realized the mean, bitter store owner was actually some kind of sales super genius. When Shadowfall Coast was peaceful again, and all this horribleness was over, Zach now had to come back and see what that Gods-be-damned guy was selling. In fact, he would much rather think about the man’s prices than the soldier he’d just gutted a few blocks away. He’d rather think about anything than that.

How good can the prices possibly be? he wondered. He’s bluffing.

For the next half hour, Zach continued his way southwest, and in doing so, it reminded him of something very important: something he hoped others could bring themselves to see. In particular, that the people of Shadowfall Coast were odd. They were a bit quirky. They had very weird ways of interacting with each other and tourists alike—especially potential customers. But they were good people. They were really good people. Even that store owner who put on an act just to get him interested in his wares: he, and those like him, were a big part of what gave this homely city such a distinct feel.

Yes, the citizens here were miserably racist towards anyone not human, but that was something instilled into them by the Guild of Gentlemen. They were indoctrinated, likely from birth, and it wasn’t all their fault. Some of it, maybe. But the ordinary people couldn’t just be condemned. How could they be? Their whole lives, they’d been told that their struggles with upward mobility were the fault of the Dwarves, or the Lizardmen, or the Orcs. This, despite it clearly being the fault of Peter IV—or maybe not. That actually wasn’t clear anymore. What was clear was that, at their core, Zach did not believe them to be deserving of what had and what would happen to them. They were good people at heart. He knew it. This caused him to feel even more conflicted about things.

He knew what needed to be done. There would be no future for humanity or even the world while the Guild of Gentlemen remained in control of this city. Even still, the coming battles would be nothing like the organized, small-scale, open-field combat fought primarily along political grounds for a century. And they wouldn’t even be like the battles that had only just taken place—and which left a smell in the air that still had yet to fade. No, something far worse was coming. He could feel it in his gut. Anyone could. Even just a cursory glance at social media was enough for Zach to realize this.

I’ve never seen people hate each other this much before, he thought.

Right now, ordinary citizens from regions controlled by the Royal Roses, People of Virtue, and other non-Guild-of-Gentlemen territories were calling for war. This was something that would never feel normal to him. It was so strange that it felt totally unreal. It was at odds with how things usually were and were meant to be.

It had always been the case that war was the sort of thing the guilds did with each other and normal people just shrugged off. Like, when Zach was a small boy and the Whispery Woods region—then controlled by the Guild of Gentlemen—had hosted a field battle against the forces of the Royal Roses from Giant’s Fall, nobody actually cared who won. Only guild nerds and fanboys actually paid attention to that. It was all ego-based bullshit between rich, powerful, and leveled men and women.

Therefore, when the Royal Roses had won a battle against the Guild of Gentlemen, nobody in Whispery Woods hated the citizens of Giant’s Fall as a result of it. Even the thought of that was outrageous. Of course it was! After all, the people were not at war with each other: the guilds were. The only ordinary people who fought were those who voluntarily chose to do so for money, and they had to sign waiver after waiver acknowledging the risk and their desire to participate. When a loved one died in a war, it was viewed as something they chose to do, not something they had to do. But Gods, this was different. The attack on Ogre’s Axe had sparked something completely new—something terrifying.

As a result of the nuclear weapon, normal, ordinary people were speaking like they themselves were part of the guilds. Pulling out his phone, Zach could see it for himself, and it was undeniable. It had spread even down to his friends from school, who not long ago, couldn’t be paid to care about these kinds of matters.

“We need to kill every fucking one of them,” was one comment Zach spotted in his feed.

“@AvengeTheDeaddd Agree fuck racist POS Shadowfall Coast. Can’t wait to see Lord Oren stomp them into the ground. #WEDONOTSURRENDER.”

“@FuckShadowfallcoast no fuck YOU bitch! U r a piece of shit go live with the dwarves and orcs if u love them so much LEAVE OUR PEOPLE ALONE!!!!”

Zach sighed and put away his phone. It actually hurt to read this garbage. And really, who the hell was “we?” People kept using that word. “We.” They were saying things like “we” need to kill them, or “we” need to do this or that. The idea of there being some kind of “we” was definitely new to him. He couldn’t believe how the entire continent of North Bastia—and Shores of Wrath—had gotten so swept up in this war.

The bomb changed everything.

As Zach continued his trek through the city, he was able to really see for himself the toll that the prior battles had taken on Shadowfall Coast—and how uneven that toll was distributed. Constantly, he’d alternate between blocks that still looked exactly as they had before the war and ones that were so damaged that, if the sky had been red, you could have fooled him into thinking he was on Earth. At one point, he actually had to duck down and then slide through the middle of a downed building, which completely blocked the road and had yet to be cleared out.

Through it all, he glided from street to street undisturbed. In some places, the people were so beaten down, exhausted, and depressed, that they did not even seem capable of arousing the level of emotion necessary to form a suspicious or alarmed feeling in response to seeing a strangely dressed person with a sword wandering down their sidewalk. It was almost bizarre just how much ground Zach was able to cover without issue. Yet he knew that, eventually, his luck would run out.

And it did.

As the city finally began to fully transition away from apartment complexes and businesses, he navigated his way down a very wide street lined with warehouses to his left and a single, massive factory to his right, and it was here that a lone infantryman approached him warily. “Hey!” he shouted. Zach paused and turned in his direction. “Who the fuck are you? Show me your face!”

Zach looked at him, and the man stirred uneasily. “Is there a problem?”

“I can’t see your face,” he said, coming across as nervous and uncertain. He pointed his rifle at Zach, then made a swinging gesture with it. “Take off that hood,” he said, gesturing a second time. “You’re not supposed to be out past curfew, and this area’s off limits. Is that…is that a sword on your back?”

“Yeah,” Zach said, nodding. “Let me show you.”

Zach reached for the hilt with his right hand. Then, in one fluid motion, he drew his sword and slashed it directly upwards, cutting the man’s rifle in two pieces; both fell out of his hands, and as expected, the soldier opened his mouth to scream. Immediately, Zach swung his blade back downwards, splitting the man’s head open vertically right down the middle of his scalp and causing a puddle of very dark red blood to stain the pavement as he collapsed.

The man’s body hit the ground. Zach lifted his arm and turned his blade around, reaching behind himself to once again sheathe it. But then he stopped—and grinded his teeth in frustration. In what could only be described as an absurd bout of bad luck, an entire fucking armored tank, which just-so-happened to be turning the corner to roll down the block at the precise moment Zach killed the rifleman, somehow managed to catch a glimpse of Zach in the act of doing so. The tank literally arrived just in time to witness his bloody deed. And now, all at once, the world around him lit up so brightly that he had to narrow his eyes just to see as the tank shined some kind of spotlight on him. An instant later, a terrified-sounding voice began to scream into the Comm he’d almost forgotten was in his ear.

“THIS IS FIRE TEAM 8 WITH THE 201ST BRIGADE!” a man yelled into the Comm. Somehow, Zach had the feeling it was the tank operator, as a mechanical hum began to fill the night as it turned its long cannon in his direction. A mounted machine gun also began to spin near a hatch atop the vehicle.

“What is it now?” Sir Malakor asked.

This is bad.

“THERE APPEARS TO BE A—”

Zach couldn’t allow them to give away his position. Assuming a fighting stance, he lifted his sword and then slashed it downwards while shouting, “Wave Slash!”

At the exact same time, the cannon fired, missing him narrowly and blowing a tremendous hole into the warehouse behind him. The machine guns also began opening up fire. What had, only moments ago, been a quiet city block, turned instead into a war zone as a repeating crack of gunfire rang out with an echo while another flash preceded a loud bang as the cannon fired on him a second time.

"What are you doing!" a factory worker shouted at the tank. "Stop it! You're killing us! You're—"

The man's words ended in a gargle as a bullet whizzed by Zach's right ear and struck him in the throat. Frowning, he realized there was no longer any chance of him keeping a low profile until reaching Vim, because in addition to the gunshots that riddled him with a storm of bullets that he could barely feel—and that his equipment was too powerful to be damaged by—there was now yet another explosion behind him. There was just no way it wouldn’t cause hundreds or thousands of people to rush their way over here. Even still, Zach put a stop to it fairly quickly as his Wave Slash, which had finally finished forming, tore its way across the street and viciously cut straight through the tank, lobbing off half its nose-like cannon before sinking right through the armor and making its way inside.

A half—maybe even a quarter—of a second went by. And then, abruptly, the sound of screaming, agonized voices filled the night; it sounded like there were three of them, in total, and all seemed to be coming from inside the tank. Due to the fact that the Wave Slash left behind a tear too small to see through, Zach wasn’t able to visually tell what happened to the men. He also didn’t want to know, either. Not that Zach actually needed to witness the source of their anguish to understand it. No, he could tell from the blood-curdling pain in their voices that the Wave Slash had continued on, ripped them to pieces without fully killing them, and from the sound of subsequent cries coming from the factory across the street, it was still flying off somewhere and still causing more suffering.

I hope it doesn’t kill any civilians, he thought, becoming worried. I can’t use that again no matter what.

Zach, with a few beads of sweat now gliding down his forehead from using the Moderate exertion ability, remained focused on his task and continued on his way even as the sound of tortured screams from numerous individuals inside the tank all continued to cry out, howling and in some cases whimpering.

As Zach hurried his way beyond the tank—and those inside of it—a highly disturbing sight filled his eyes. From the side of the tank, and through the curved, punctured tear in the armor caused by his Wave Slash, a steady stream of blood was now spilling out. This blood then trickled all the way down the side of the camo-colored vehicle in a straight line before pooling up at the base, where it would then turn into bloody droplets—droplets that grew in size until finally dripping off the tank and joining a rapidly forming puddle on the concrete road below the vehicle. Even without being able to see the carnage done to their bodies, he was still made to see their blood.

Zach ripped his head away, not wanting to see any more of this. Now, with a growing sound of activity as the guild sent people here to investigate, Zach fled the scene before he ended up starting a battle that he either couldn't win or, even worse, wouldn't be able to forgive himself for winning. With haste, he took off at a mad dash, leaving this street behind. Even as he fled, he could still hear the men inside the tank moaning, their voices growing softer as they died a terrible death.

I’m sorry.

Chapter 152: The Demon Commander

Chapter 152: The Demon Commander

Gaelan didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. Not only had he totally failed to heed the warnings of coastal patrol, but he was starting to wonder if they were even correct about the assumed motivations of the Elvish scouting party. One thing was clear, however: the Elves were creating absolute havoc in the city, and word was spreading very quickly among the populace that the enemy had already invaded, which risked sending Shadowfall Coast into yet another state of all-out panic.

“Something…wrong?” Vim asked weakly. It was incredible how a man so close to death could still wear such a smug grin, though it did look like it took everything he had just to display it.

“A couple of Elves are running around slaughtering people in the city,” Gaelan said, seeing no reason to lie to him.

“You brought this on yourself,” Vim said with a cough. His skin was discolored, and his eyes had become a touch yellow.

The man was not dying because of his injuries. Though he’d suffered numerous beatings, the ones who’d administered them had appeared very careful to inflict maximum pain without compromising his life. No, it was his utter dehydration, lack of food, pneumonia, and other various illnesses that were bringing him closer to the verge of death. Now that Gaelan had taken point on guarding him, he’d sought to correct such abuses, but Vim was refusing to eat or drink. It was almost as though the tiny little man hoped to die before his execution out of spite. On the floor before him was an uneaten tray filled with gravy-covered turkey, mashed potatoes, and a very tall glass of mixed juices containing essential nutrients.

“Eat,” Gaelan said, getting up from a small, fold-out metal chair he’d had brought into the cell. He’d quickly learned that he needed to be near the man at all times to prevent any more deliberate acts of torture. Even some of the most loyal and obedient men and women under his command had gone against his orders and had kicked, slapped, punched, or otherwise spat at him the moment Gaelan took his eyes off of Vim. “You need to eat.”

“Eh, I’m trying to watch my weight,” Vim said, coughing again. “I bet I look so hot.” With his bruised, swollen, badly beaten face, Vim tilted his head to the side and fluttered his eyelashes. A moment later, he choked out something that started off as a crazed laugh but ended in another coughing fit.

“Gods have mercy on this Gnomish miscreant,” Galean muttered under his breath, frowning.

Promising to return, he stepped outside of the cell where Vim was being held. Then, shutting the sliding, solid-stone panel door behind him, he took a moment to collect his thoughts without the man’s mockery-filled questions digging into him. Based off the Comm chatter in his ear, it seemed like the Elvish scouting party—assuming it was more than one, which was likely—had just destroyed an H22 Guiding Angel battle tank, murdering all three of its occupants as well as a new recruit of the 6th brigade who’d been tasked with helping cover some of the areas the 133rd had already been spread too thin to patrol.

The Lords of Justice and the Elves are going to be here in a few hours, he thought, becoming frustrated. We don’t need this crap now!

What really worried him though was the possibility that the Elvish scouting party was interested in something other than finding and reporting possible nuclear weapons facilities—which was the assumption that came down from up the chain. Yes, the fact that they were rampaging through the southwest of the city was in line with that theory, and Gaelan agreed with the assessment that their goal was to flag attack targets for the rapidly approaching force that was marching through Whispery Woods and was expected to arrive from the northwest. But what disturbed him was the way in which each subsequent report seemed to be popping up closer and closer to this very prison, where Vim Alazar, the leader of the Royal Roses, was clinging to life as he awaited his execution.

Could the Elves be staging a rescue operation?

With a steadily growing apprehension, Gaelan contemplated such a possibility. What if the Elves really were here for Vim? Could it truly be just a coincidence that, if charted, each reported “incident” would form a direct line pointing in their direction? And this showed no sign of changing, either, as even more reports started flooding in over the Comm line.

“THERE IT IS!” a rattled, terrified woman screamed into the Comm. “That’s it! It’s right there! Between Warehouses 39 and 40! It’s the thing in the cloak! Kill it! Kill the fucking Elf!”

“Who said that?” Sir Malakor asked as the sound of gunshots rang out over the Comm. “What do you see? What’s happening? Report!”

“Arghhhhh!”

Static.

Gaelan scowled. Why could nobody keep track of a few Gods-be-damned Elves? Given just how militarized and heavily fortified Shadowfall Coast had become in recent weeks, it truly did not bode well for their survival—or the survival of humanity as a whole—if just a handful of Elvish warriors were able to essentially roam around the city and kill as they pleased.

“Report!” he shouted again. “I said report!”

Again, just static.

Now, Gaelan became even more worried. It really did seem like the Elvish scouting party was making their way over here. Yes, it was unlikely. In fact, it was very unlikely. But Gaelan could no longer afford to simply shrug off the very real and growing possibility. No, he needed to act immediately in order to improve security. “This is Sir Malakor,” he said into the Comm. “I want everyone assigned to the prison to be on high alert in the event that the enemy’s goal is to extract the prisoner.”

“Sir Malakor,” said a man stationed several floors above. “You think they’re coming here?”

“No, I don’t, but it’s possible. Pull every patrol unit within three city blocks off the street and use them to beef up security on the inside. Have a full team stationed near the entrance in the unlikely event of a breach. Be ready for combat!”

“U-understood.”

*******

The moonlight cast a slight glow on the surface of the filthy, chipped flooring as a grating sound joined the opening of the large, rounded door. Peeking his head outside, Captain Greshek Mink extended his hand and began to wave it at the gathering of troops and leveled guild members waiting just beyond the vault door that led into the dungeon-like prison where the murderous, Gnomish devil was being held.

Why don’t they just kill him now? he wondered nervously. Why even leave things to chance?

Greshek was annoyed and worried in equal measure. Not only hadn’t Sir Malakor listened to him when he’d warned the man that something was amiss with the coastal patrol groups—which could have prevented so much of this—but now, out of nowhere, he was saying that a bunch of Elves might try attacking them. Gods, he hoped that wasn’t the case.

Greshek had deliberately worked hard and pulled every string he had to get himself assigned here to the front guard in the prison. And why? Because he couldn’t ever imagine this happening. He was sure that guarding the prisoner meant he wouldn’t have to personally see combat. Despite being level 28, his stats were pretty trash and his equipment was fourth-hand and barely serviceable: all except his rare-quality bandana, which had an advanced level of Helm Sight. The last thing he wanted was to have to use his great grandfather’s common-rarity hammer against a pack of feral, Elvish demons.

“Hurry up, you idiots! Get inside so we can seal the entrance!”

A bunch of alarmed, but resolute troops and guild members made their way towards him and into the dark, human-built dungeon. Yet in their faces, he could see panic. Continuing to wave them on, he paused when a particular individual caught his eyes: someone who absolutely should not have been here. And Greshek, caught off guard, could do little but hold out his palm to stop her from getting any closer.

“Jeanna, what in the name of the Gods are you doing here?”

“I came to see my dad,” the girl said.

“You what?”

“I’m gonna help.”

“Jeanna, you’re fourteen years old. Go home!”

The girl was wearing a starter set of flimsy-looking cloth armor. Atop her head was a small leather skullcap, which also looked like a starter item. Even her weapon looked like a banal, level-1 piece of stat-less, crafted gear; it was a spear, though it was nothing like the new one her father had gotten from the dragon. It was just a plain, level-1 spear that, visually, at least, was indistinct from one made by humans, as was often the case with many low-level pieces of equipment.

“I heard there’s like Elves or something running around,” the girl said. “That true?”

“Who told you that?”

“Not telling.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway.” He sighed. “Jeanna, go home.”

She shook her head. “What’s my dad gonna do if the Elves catch me and my dad finds out you wouldn’t let me inside?”

Greshek groaned. He was in a real bind here. He lowered the arm that was barring her passage, and then he beckoned her in. “Fine. But go straight to your dad.”

“That’s why I’m here,” she said cheerfully.

Greshek watched as she went down the wrong stairwell. He called out to her, but she was already gone. Whatever. She’d find her way on her own eventually. He had more important things to worry about than the girl. For starters: closing that damn door.

“We’re open and exposed!” he shouted. “Shut the damn entrance!”

Another grating came from the round metal door, and it wasn’t until the moment after it was sealed completely shut with an echoing thunk that Greshek let himself relax somewhat. Just a bit of the tightness faded in his shoulders now that they were once more protected behind an ancient barrier—one that hopefully not even an Elf could break into. In truth, he had no idea how much strength it would actually require to knock down or a punch a hole in the dungeon door. Certainly, he couldn’t do it.

Hope the Elves can’t, either.

Tamping down on his fears, he returned to his task of dealing with the newcomers. Having been put in charge of the front guard, he took a few units from their recent arrivals and sent the rest of them on their way, allowing others to decide how best to disperse the remainder of their added security throughout the “facility.” Afterwards, he set his eyes on two eighteen-year-old, low-ranking members who were clearly slacking off; the two boys were chatting away like schoolchildren just a few feet behind the shuttered door.

“Zol! Skent! What the hell do you two think you’re doing? Get off your asses and look alive!”

The two were sitting on the filthy floor and laughing at one another, engaged in a chat about girls or something. Greshek didn’t understand how they could be so carefree at a time like this. He snapped his fingers at them. Despite rolling their eyes, they stood up and at least pretended to look ready for combat should the need arise. Greshek knew both their fathers, and if either of the men saw their sons behaving like this, they’d receive a horrific beating.

Maybe that’s what they need.

Not wanting to take any chances, Greshek decided to carefully inspect and speak with each of the fifteen guild members and twenty-five soldiers who were here in the entrance with him. It was a pretty significant force for what was essentially the guarding of a single Gnome, but if Sir Malakor’s concerns turned out to have merit, not only wouldn’t it be overkill, but Greshek doubted it’d even be enough.

Even just a single Elf is vastly stronger than everyone here.

With the Guild of Gentlemen and Shadowfall Coast on full alert, all the strongest, highest-level, and most-capable members of the guild had been dispatched to the outer-city perimeter to await the arrival of Lord Oren and Queen Vayra’s joint, attacking force. Therefore, even though they’d gathered an impressive number of leveled fighters, the quantity didn’t mean all that much when considering most of them were under level 25 and under 20 years of age. They were kids with no experience. The only exception was Sir Malakor himself, who was all the way down at the bottom of the belowground dungeon with the prisoner.

We’ll make do with what we’ve got.

Complicating matters was the dire lack of ammunition, medical supplies, and body armor for the Ones serving in the guild’s military. Greshek pitied them in many regards. What could be worse than being level 1 and fighting in a war with people who’d leveled? Their only purpose was to neutralize enemy troops, control and contain territory, and take shots at casters or others with low enough constitution that their bullets could penetrate flesh. Yet he doubted there was a single Elf anywhere susceptible to their weapons. For all intents and purposes, the troops here were just fodder.

Life must seem so unfair to them. It would to me if I were in their shoes.

Greshek made his rounds, exchanging a few words with each of the forces stationed here at the entrance. Then he once more berated the two idiots, who had yet again decided to slack off. “Zol! Skent! What are you two fucking buffoons giggling about?”

“Nothing,” Zol said.

Greshek lowered his eyes and saw that the kid was lying. The two of them had kicked around some of the dirt and dust on the floor to form a very crude “drawing” of a woman’s breasts. Greshek peeled back his lips, glaring at the morons. “You’re both getting written up for this.”

For the first time, a level of seriousness came upon the two. “No, wait,” Skent said. “We were just messing around.”

“Yeah, come on, man.”

“It’s too late.”

Zol’s tone became desperate. “Gresh, don’t be like that. I swear to the Gods, it won’t happen again.”

“Please don’t,” Skent pleaded.

Greshek took a deep breath, which he released slowly. “Fine. But if I see even one more thing from you two that I don’t like, I’m not only writing you up, but I’m letting your fathers know how you behaved during a time of crisis.”

Both boys bowed formally. “We won’t. We swear.”

“I’m serious! Our guild, our region, and all of humanity itself is at stake here. You think I like working hard? I hate it too. I’d much rather be home right now. I didn’t get myself stationed here because I want to end up dead in a ditch somewhere. But right now, Sir Malakor has called upon us to serve our guild with dignity. And I’ll tell you what: the things we do here today are going to be remembered. Our families and our descendants will be shamed or honored based on how we—”

BANG!!!!!!!!!!!

Greshek’s words cut off, Zol fell backwards, several guild members drew their weapons, and numerous troops gasped and looked around at each other. An unsettling quiet immediately came upon the front guard. An atmosphere of fear blanketed all forty of them: one so thick it could be felt—and smelled, as evident by a young man behind him who’d clearly shit his pants. Several seconds came and went—then several more after the first few. Finally, someone spoke.

“What was that sound?” Zol whispered.

Greshek didn’t know. It sounded like the fist of a God had just pounded on the vault door, creating an explosively, deafeningly loud echo that had left him feeling just as shocked as anyone else in here. Even still, he had a responsibility. He might not have wanted to be the one to deal with this, but someone had to take charge, and that was him.

“Sir Malakor,” he whispered into his Comm. “This is Captain Greshek Mink, front guard. Do you copy?”

“I do,” the man’s voice replied. “Anything to report?”

“Yes, sir. We just heard a very, very loud pounding sound on the vault door. Like somebody hit it with their fist.”

“Any signs of damage?” Sir Malakor asked, his voice becoming commanding and firm.

“None that I can see, sir. But…” Greshek had to force himself to continue speaking. This was, truly, the most afraid he’d ever been in his life. The quiet had only made it worse, and so too did the fear in the eyes of those here with him. Something had clearly struck the door. Yet in his terror, he searched for some alternative explanation. “Can…can you check to see if maybe this was something from our side?”

“Meaning what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that was supposed to happen? Maybe someone dropped something on the door?”

“Dropped something on the…Captain Mink, get ahold of yourself. I’m sending out an emergency alert now. It’s likely the enemy is trying to breach.”

That was the last thing he wanted to hear. His knees began to go weak, but he was able to hide it from the others. “Okay, well, can you please tell them to hurry? None of us are really equipped to handle Elves, and the thing is that if they get in here, I’m not sure how we can—”

BANG!!!!!!!!!!!

This one was even louder than the previous, and now, the two troublemakers, Zol and Skent, both seemingly began to appreciate the severity of the situation they were in. They began to shake, shudder, and whimper. Skent looked like he could barely keep his grip on his staff, and Zol’s rapier visibly shook as he held it out in front of himself with his arm extended.

“Is that the enemy?” Zol asked, quivering. He began to shake his head. “I’m only level 22. I can’t…I should be sent down to reinforce the lower levels.”

“Stay put,” Greshek ordered. “If you flee, you disgrace your father.”

“Man, I’m just…” He sniffled and began sobbing. “I’m just really fucking scared. I’m sorry. I wanna go home.”

“Be strong for me, Zol. You have to be strong.”

The two were standing just a few feet away from the middle of the massive, round door, which thankfully showed no signs of damage or denting. Whatever had struck it—twice now—seemed to have been repelled. And as a torturous, nerve-wracking minute came and went in total silence, Greshek began to pray to the Gods that whatever invaders had caused such loud bangs had reconsidered and left to go fuck with someone else instead. He wasn’t alone in his prayers, either; he knew this because both the boys, along with numerous other guild members and soldiers, were also quietly chanting prayers under their breath. The boys even had their eyes closed and were breathing unevenly, fear evident in every rise and fall of their chest.

“Please, Raurum, protect me,” Zol begged. “Raurum, please look after us.”

It became so quiet in here. For a time, the only sound was the shifting of feet and the continued whispering of prayers. Maybe the invaders really had moved on. Maybe the door really was strong enough to withstand even the incredibly powerful Elvish. It made sense, too. It had been built by ancient humans during a time when humanity regularly faced conflicts with various races. Surely, humanity’s ancestors would have wanted to construct something that could withstand assault. This, Greshek began to ardently hope as one minute slowly and painfully turned into two, and then two became two-and-a-half.

“Maybe they’re gone,” Skent whispered, his knuckles having turned white from how tightly he was gripping his staff. “Maybe they’re—”

Something happened. Something Greshek did not at first understand.

All along the round frame that housed the metal door, where one could spot what little light was allowed to make its way into the dungeon from the outside, there was now an eerily bright, crimson-colored glow: one so intense that from the tiny, eighth-of-an-inch crack that ran in a circle around the entrance, enough of this red light breached the inside of the dungeon that it actually lit up the entire room. And though only a tenth of a second had transpired from the moment Greshek saw this light, it was still just enough time for his brain to form a questioning thought—and then came the screams.

With the loudest bang yet, the entire vault door was blasted off its hinges, and before Greshek’s eyes, he saw both Skent and Zol crushed like insects as it rammed directly into them, flattening and compacting their skulls, slamming them both down onto the filthy flooring. Greshek shouted out their names. He called out to them—or tried to. Yet he was yanked backwards by a member of the guild—a woman he did not recognize—who’d been standing behind him.

Then, emerging from behind the vault door was a…it was some kind of wall of red light—one rounded and laser-like and almost half the size of the room itself. And this red, blinding light—it struck like a tidal wave, absolutely vaporizing everyone who stood in its path, which was nearly half of them. Skent and Zol, who were already dead, were disintegrated, as were six more members of the guild and three quarters of the soldiers. In the blink of an eye, nearly two-dozen voices were silenced mid-scream, which came across in a way horrifyingly similar to pressing pause during a music track. It was as though they were erased from existence itself.

It’s a beam!

Even amid the confusion, the shock, and the body-paralyzing fear that threatened to break through every last trace of his courage, there was something that emerged in his mind: something vaguely familiar. Something he realized was recognition. Somehow, even as he endured the single-greatest moment of pure, nauseating fright he’d ever before experienced, he still had just enough wits about him for his brain to piece together something of such immense importance that it managed to rise within him directly alongside the overwhelming dread.

I’ve seen that before, Greshek thought as a terror so great he could no longer withstand it consumed him completely. I’ve—I’ve seen that before! On the live feed of the…

“SIR MALAKOR!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “WE HAVE BEEN BREACHED BY ZACHYS CALADOR OF THE ROYAL ROSES!”

The name spread from the lips of all those who still lived, which in this case was anyone who’d taken up a position to the left and right side of the room. The level of fear rose exponentially. “Impossible,” a man said.

“Why would he risk our retaliation on Giant’s Fall?” asked another.

Weapons were drawn, and rifles were raised. Yet all looked to Greshek for how to proceed. But Greshek did not know what to do. How could he? Everyone here knew what that Elvish-loving son of a bitch had done to their people at the raid camp. He had single-handedly slaughtered dozens of them. There wasn’t a single member of the guild who did not shake in fear at the boy’s name. He was a psychopathic, murderous maniac on a scale that few in history had ever rivaled. And he was here.

“Z-Zachys Calador?” Greshek called out—to silence. His throat having gone dry, he forced moisture into it. “Zachys Calador!” he cried out, his fear activating his fight-or-flight response. He moved back towards the center of the room and over the incinerated, powdery ashes of what had just been human beings. The red, laser-like blast had incinerated them to such an extent that there were hardly even “remains” to be found.

“Zachys Calador!” Greshek shouted again, entering something of a craze as goosebumps traveled down his back and his heart beat furiously in his chest. “Answer me, coward! I know you’re there!”

Due to the age of this place and the sudden shock it had sustained as a result of the blast, a thick screen of smoke and dust had been kicked up, and it made it impossible to see anything beyond the entrance and from the outside world. Yet as it began to settle, Greshek thought he saw something moving: the outline of something he could not discern. Now, in a cross between hysterical fear and vengeful wrath, he lifted his hammer and screamed, “Zachys Calador! Answer me you fucking coward!”

And finally, he received a reply. But it was not the one he’d expected. It was, however, a reply. At least insomuch as something could be called a “reply.” It was a reply that could be heard by all, yet resounded off the walls and caused an even greater, more crippling fear to come upon the faces of those around him.

“He-he-he-he-he!”

“What…what is that?” someone asked. He was a nineteen-year-old kid Greshek recognized as being Haril Yifan, a boy whose parents had already died in the prior fighting that had taken place during the initial invasion. Perhaps that was why he stood alone as the only person brave enough to move towards the screen of dust and investigate. His sword raised, he made his way closer. “Is that Zachys Calador?” He raised his sword even higher as though ready to strike. “You murdered both of my parents! Come out here, you piece of shit!”

“He-he-he-he-he!”

“He-he-he-he-he!”

“He-he-he-he-he!”

“Come out here!” he shouted.

And then something did emerge. But it was not Zachys Calador.

HP

72,500/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Warrior A

Level

45

“W-what the fuck is that?” one of the soldiers screamed. “What the fuck is—”

The man’s words ended in a gargle as a dagger sailed across the dungeon’s entrance, nearly hitting Greshek in the process. Instead, it ended up going straight into and through the man’s face, likely puncturing his brain, the base of it sticking out of his forehead. He fell over onto the side.

“What…?” Haril’s mouth fell open, and he retreated a step. “What are these? Are these mobs? But…but how? How can there be—”

“Watch out!” Greshek cried as one of these creatures, which looked like flying, winged demons wielding gilded spears, began to make a loud buzzing sound as it dashed forward in the air and went straight for Haril. “Watch out!” Greshek yelled again. “Haril!”

“I’m okay!” he replied, swinging his blade upwards as if to parry. But he missed. Or rather, the creature missed—or sort of. It wasn’t really clear what happened, for an instant before their two weapons clashed, the creature suddenly veered widely off to the right, causing Greshek and two members of the guild near him to drop down to their knees. Yet they, too, were not attacked, as the creature then reversed its motion and buzzed its way right back over to Haril, who simply could not react fast enough. The boy’s entire head was separated from his shoulders as the mob made a spinning slash that cleanly severed it from the neck up.

“He-he-he-he-he!”

In the same moment that the boy’s bloodied head fell to the ancient, roach-infested flooring, what looked like seven more of these creatures entered the prison, with half of them being more of the winged, flying monstrosities, and a few of them being dagger-wielding demons that were shorter than the shortest of Gnomes. These launched several daggers, which ripped across the room and ended up lodged in the chests, faces, or groins of two guild members and another infantryman.

With that, all order and discipline were abandoned, and every man and woman entered into a wild panic. Many attempted to flee, knocking others down in the process, but a few did at least try to stand and fight. Numerous loud, buzzing sounds came upon the entrance as these creatures flew across and around in unpredictable, blazingly fast ways.

Now, there were screams. So many screams. The level-45 mobs began slaughtering the front guard. The imps zipped around so fast it was almost impossible to follow them with one’s eyes. Every time it looked like they’d strike, they’d fly off elsewhere only to come unpredictably buzzing back. Men and women, leveled and un-leveled alike, were skewered, disemboweled, or otherwise cut apart and mutilated.

Out of sheer desperation, Greshek swung his hammer and managed to actually hit one—for just 587 damage. This, combined with the sight of one of the smaller, dagger-wielding ones jumping onto a soldier and ripping apart his face was more than Greshek could emotionally withstand; in particular, it was upon witnessing the horned, sneering creature slice out both the soldier’s eyeballs that Greshek broke.

Gods!

The imp creature had its legs wrapped around the man’s neck, and it was stabbing its daggers time and time again into the man’s now-empty eye sockets, all while laughing with sadistic glee. The man screamed, the pain and fear coming through very clearly on the sound of it. Greshek had now seen enough.

“R-run!” he cried. “Retreat!”

The last of his courage spent, he made a reckless dash for the left stairwell, and in the process of doing so, he felt something grab his arm. Shrieking in terror, he spun around and slammed his hammer into it with all his might—and then he shrieked a second time as he mistakenly murdered the woman who’d only just saved his life, bashing in her skull. Yet he was too terrified to feel any kind of remorse. In a total panic, he fled for his life as the rest of them attempted to do the same.

Only he made it.

*****

“What is going on up there?” Gaelan shouted. “Will one of you idiots answer me? Did you say Zachys Calador?”

“Zach’s here?” Vim asked. He coughed. “That little brat really came for his dear guild leader, huh?” Vim weakly smiled. “You’re so fucked, Malakor.”

Gaelan grabbed his spear. “We’ll see about that.”

Chapter 153: The Rescue Pt I

Chapter 153: The Rescue Pt. I

There were screams: a lot of screams. Zach could hear them clearly as he sped his way down a narrow, spiraling flight of stairs. At first, the pained, howling cries seemed to be calling out one after the next, but soon, Zach started hearing them at irregular intervals. Sometimes, there’d be stretches of quiet where the only sounds were his measured breathing and his feet stepping on what looked like ancient stone. Other times, there’d be a series of yelling voices all blaring out at once as his eight imp cards, which he’d set to Besiege mode, dealt with the Guild of Gentlemen’s forces up above that had tried to slow him down.

“No!” a high-pitched, male voice yelled out, his words carrying far enough that Zach could hear it even as he continued to descend lower into this dungeon-prison. “No! Wait! Noooooooo!”

“He-he-he-he-he!”

Zach gritted his teeth. To say he did not like doing this would be a vast understatement of his disgust. He hated this. And with each death, the weight in his chest grew heavier. Yet he could not afford to slow down. This wasn’t the time to regret his actions. By now, the Guild of Gentlemen were aware of his presence and what he’d come to do. More so, he could hear from the Comm chatter in his ear that they were planning to shift some of their higher level and more formidable forces over here to deal with him. This meant he had to get in and out as fast as humanly possible if he wanted to be gone before they arrived.

“We need backup!” a voice shouted over the Comm.

“What’s going on down there?” asked another voice. “An entire compound up against one boy. How are you all failing so miserably?”

“You don’t understand! You—”

“He-he-he-he-he!”

Numerous voices all flooded the Comm line, and for the moment, Zach was unable to understand what any of them were saying as they all shouted over one another. But it didn’t matter, did it? No, Zach didn’t need to hear what they were saying to understand the sentiment. The people he’d unleashed his cards on were totally unprepared. They were inexperienced and, in many cases, young guild members who had never before stepped foot in a dungeon in their entire life. These were people whose only real connection to the adventuring world was leveling up via carefully curated mobs on private estates while under the guidance of an instructor. These were not people capable of dealing with more vicious, aggressive mobs such as those found in dungeons or basically anywhere else.

Moving as quickly as he could, Zach continued to hurry his way downwards. Due to the shape of the stairwell, this wasn’t as easy as it normally would’ve been. The space around him was so narrow that an average-sized person wouldn’t be able to fully extend their arms to both sides of themselves. And given the fact that the stairs were spiraling, this meant his body was in a constant state of making one big, sharp turn, limiting how quickly he was able to progress farther into this subterranean, human-built dungeon.

As he neared the bottom, it occurred to him that the screaming seemed to have come to an end. Zach turned his head to glance upwards. In a way that was similar to the dragon raid, he could now see the names and outlines of his cards even through walls. Far up above, he saw a swarm of moving, solid-green-colored shapes that seemed to be dropping lower and lower towards his position. This, Zach took to mean that they’d finished off any last traces of resistance and were now making their way back to him, traveling the very same stairwell that he himself was currently moving through. Due to his head start, his cards were all lagging a bit behind. Hopefully, they’d catch up, because he couldn’t afford to slow down and wait for them. He needed to keep going.

This’ll all be over soon.

Reaching the bottom of the cramped, spiral stairwell, he rushed out of a rounded entryway and into a long, narrow, and uncomfortably humid hall with prison-like cages to both sides of him. The cells looked as though no one had occupied them in many centuries. Actually, this place kind of reminded Zach of B2 in Yorna’s, except it wasn’t nearly as dark or haunting in appearance, and there were no skeletal remains or scenes of torture and death to be found. No, there was just one empty, decrepit cage after the next. But more importantly, now that he’d exited the stairwell, he was finally able to take off at a run.

With little time to spare, Zach darted his way across the stone-floored, ancient hallway, starting off at a jog and then blasting forward. To both his left and right, he zipped by cell after cell, all of which looked to be crumbling and inhumane for modern use. Eager to be done with this, Zach allowed himself to travel as fast as his legs could move—or at least he intended to do so. Yet just when he finally began to pick up speed, he reached the end of the hallway and bolted straight into another stairwell, this one virtually identical to the previous.

Now, Zach found himself once more slowing down and making a constant “turn” as he descended deeper into this labyrinthine-like, hellish place. Fortunately, this particular spiral staircase was a great deal shorter than the last one, and in no time at all, Zach reached the bottom. Once there, he hurried his way through another open entryway and into another hall. And this one, he noted, was darker, damper, and wider than the previous had been. It was also hotter and more humid and seemed to continue on for longer.

Gods, just how big is this place? he wondered, becoming both worried and annoyed. Pressed for time, he moved even faster.

Like before, he raced his way across yet another corridor, taking note of how much worse things seemed to get the farther in he traveled. The lighting was poorer, and the cells were now so degraded that, in some cases, a hypothetical prisoner would be able to simply slip out from between large gaps in the bars, which had become warped and bent or were missing entirely in some cases. Clearly, however it was that this archaic, antiquated prison had been built, modern-day Galterrans—or at least those in the Guild of Gentleman—did not know how to repair it. And the deeper Zach went, the worse this state of disrepair seemed to become. Realizing that Vim had spent more than two weeks in this place, a chill snaked its way down Zach’s spine.

I don’t even want to be here for five minutes, he thought as he spotted numerous cockroaches crawling up and down the mossy, cracked, and dilapidated stone walls. I can’t imagine actually spending weeks here.

Unless the prison radically changed once Zach got farther inside, he was beginning to get the sense that Vim Alazar must have been subject to some really horrific treatment—that he’d willingly submitted himself too as well, Zach recalled.

Right around a day and a half after the nuclear weapon struck Ogre’s Axe, the little man had surrendered of his own will in order to spare his people from being hit with a second bomb, and he’d been held here ever since. Actually, now that Zach thought about it, what if Vim refused to leave when Zach got to him?

Shit! I should’ve thought about that beforehand!

Since Vim had voluntarily surrendered himself to the Guild of Gentleman, it occurred to Zach that he might not be willing to escape. After all, from Vim’s perspective, doing so might provoke the Guild of Gentleman into launching another one of their repugnant weapons at Giant’s Fall. And although no such weapon existed—at least not yet, anyway—Vim could not possibly know that. Zach could tell him, of course, but the time needed to both explain this and convince him it was the truth might be more than Zach could afford. Therefore, Zach decided that if Vim wouldn’t go with him the first time he was asked, he would just pick him up and carry him out of here. “No” was not an answer he was willing to accept. Zach had killed so many people already tonight, and he had not done so just to leave Vim here in this dungeon.

There’s no way I’m going back without him. No way in hell!

Zach reached the end of the hall, and this time, he was not greeted with another stairwell to descend. Instead, there was a large, double-doored entryway into another section of the dungeon. Holding his forearm out in front of himself, Zach blasted through it, causing a bang from the impact and a secondary bang as the doors were flung open and each slammed into opposite sides of the wall. With that, Zach continued on, running down a stretch of quiet hall that was perfectly identical to the one he’d just traversed. Each of his footsteps left an echo as his feet stomped down on the stone.

Moving faster and faster, the world around Zach began to take on a slight blur as he was finally able to enter into a blazing-fast sprint. Now, the cells to his left and right whipped by way too quickly for him to see them as anything more than a passing blip. They simply rushed by him as he ran forward. Then, at the end of this hallway, there was another double-doored entryway, and Zach really let this one have it. Not bothering to slow down even slightly, he bashed his way through it, knocking both doors off their hinges and sending them slamming into the already chipped stone wall on both sides. This happened yet again as he reached another end, and another after that one.

Distantly, Zach marveled at just how different Galterra must have been thousands of years ago if the humans of that time had felt it necessary to build a dungeon-prison that could house so many damn people. Nowadays, Zach doubted this place ever got used except for extraordinary circumstances. But thousands of years ago, during a time where everyone either leveled up or died, a place like this must’ve been necessary for dealing with dangerous people or criminals.

It’s hard to imagine hundreds or thousands of adventurers locked away at once.

Now that he was charging forward as fast as he could possibly run while still also keeping his balance, Zach barged his way through four more identical sections of hallway before at last seeing what looked like a single-doored entrance to another stairwell ahead. In anticipation, he began to slow down, cutting his speed significantly right around the halfway point through the corridor. He then slowed even more as he crossed the three-quarters mark. But as he did so, a loud, startling voice cried out.

“Now!” the voice shouted. “Attack!”

Zach, seeing movement in the corner of his eyes, hurriedly drew his sword as he spotted two men leap out of an opened cell to his left while two more leapt out of the one to his right. All four were wielding falchions, all four had been completely hidden inside the cell, and all four attacked him in unison. At the same time, the single-doored entryway to the stairwell burst open, and two additional men and a woman filed into the room. One of the men was wielding a spear, and the other gripped a wooden staff in both his hands. The woman accompanying them also had a staff.

They’re trying to ambush me.

“Big mistake!” Zach shouted at them.

The first guy to reach him was the youngest of the bunch: probably just a few months older than Zach if not the exact same age. He was short with red hair and brown eyes. He struck out from Zach’s left while a similarly young swordsman attacked from his right. Zach watched as the sword to his left approached from above and streaked down towards his head while the one to his right was jutting out forward for a lunging attack. He swore. Once again, he’d have to stain himself in blood.

Defensively, Zach swung his blade upwards and knocked aside the falchion off to his left, then immediately swung it back down onto the one lunging towards him. This one, he struck with enough force that he not only succeeded in guarding against the attack, but he caused the falchion’s wielder to half turn around and nearly fall over as his body followed his sword and both were sent low to the floor.

The other two falchion-wielding men, whose attacks immediately followed the first two, rushed in and lashed out at Zach with two high-to-low slices, both of which were clumsy, poorly executed, and not synchronized. All Zach had to do to defend himself was lean backwards and to his left two times one after the other, and the result was that both swords cut the air in front of his chin. Farther ahead, near the stairwell, a man was rushing at him with a spear while another man and a woman, both wielding a staff, were chanting, their staves aglow.

“Get him!” the red-haired guy with the brown eyes yelled. He spun his torso around and lifted his blade high, and he delivered an incredibly powerful slash that caused the air to make a swooshing sound as the blade ripped its way towards Zach’s neck. Rather than dodge, Zach raised his own sword to guard, absorbing the attack. Then he blocked another slash coming in from his right—and then another on his left. Before long, he began to slowly backpedal while whipping his blade around to defend against four different people at once. This resulted in a near-constant clanging of sword against sword as Zach, with his back straight, and his mind focused, deflected dozens of fast strikes one after the next.

The red-haired guy came in low, so Zach, who’d only just raised his blade to the level of his forehead to block a different attack from another of his assailants, made a very fast circular motion with his sword by quickly spinning his wrists, enabling him to block the red-haired man’s blade in time, the two swords clashing right near Zach’s hip. Then, an instant later, the red-haired guy’s buddy tried to cut off Zach’s right ear, so Zach flicked his wrists a second time, rotating his blade and easily deflecting the falchion before it could cut into him. After this, Zach ducked beneath a third strike from another young member of the guild and swatted away a fourth. This, he repeated several times over, as the four sword-wielding guild-members pressed him.

Eventually, two of the guild members made as if to attack—only for it to turn out to be a feint. Abruptly, both leapt off to each side of Zach, opening a path; concealed behind them emerged a slightly older—but still young—brown-haired man wearing a bandana; the man was charging forward with a spear, and he seemed to want to have taken Zach by surprise. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t work. Zach leapt up into the air, high enough so that he rose above the man’s shoulders, while the man, whose spear was still fully held out with his arms extended, ran straight past him. Zach then landed while the man came to a rough, sudden stop, and now he turned back around, lurched forward, and tried to run Zach through yet again. But this time, Zach wasn’t having it.

Zach spun his body around full circle while dropping down to his knees. Then, continuing his spin, he kicked out his left foot and delivered a powerful sweep, which connected with both of the man’s ankles and knocked him cleanly off his feet. Even as he fell, Zach was already shooting back up to his own feet and flipping over his blade so that it pointed downwards with his wrists wrapped tightly around the base of his sword. With that, the moment the man’s back hit the floor, Zach dropped down to his knees a second time, plunging his blade directly into the man’s chest, piercing him all the way through as the man spat out blood and made gargling sounds.

“Tem!” the staff-wielding woman cried. “No! Gods, no!”

Zach spared a quick glance over his shoulder. From the end of this woman’s staff came a high-pitched whistling sound, and now, an elongated, zig-zagging, and crackling projectile of brightly glowing green energy snapped its way across the hall, moving from where she stood before the stairwell’s entrance door to where Zach was ripping his blade free of the spear-wielding man’s chest while the four falchion-armed guys closed in on him again. All four fanned out and struck out at him at the same time.

Keeping his cool, Zach made quick, decisive, and calculated movements. Above him and to his left, he raised his weapon and blocked a sword strike that looked aimed at his forehead. A clang filled the room as he knocked the weapon away. Then he jumped directly backwards; an instant later, the red-haired guy’s sword made a perfectly downwards slice, the tip of his sword just a few inches away from Zach’s nose. At this point, the other two moved in to deliver sword attacks of their own—but they did not reach him before the mage-woman’s green, zigzagging projectile did.

Zach shifted his body forward, taking a fast, wide step in the direction of the magical attack, and then he sliced it with his blade, causing it to dissipate into nothingness. Using all his speed, Zach then whipped his blade as fast as he could, blocking two fast falchion strikes from the red-haired kid, the first heading towards his right hip and the second bearing down on his scalp. Then the red-haired guy, as though panicked, unleashed four more strikes back-to-back, and Zach matched each one of them with a counter attack of his own, causing four pings to ring out in the hallway.

“Fuck!” he shouted out, his eyes becoming enlarged with fear.

He pulled back, and Zach sensed an opportunity to strike. But first, he paused to drop all the way down to his knees while simultaneously leaning backwards as what appeared to be a fiery projectile in the shape of a gigantic, clenched fist twice the size of Zach’s head scorched the air above him before disappearing farther down the hallway behind. Then Zach threw himself flat onto his back and rolled away from the four falchion-wielding guild members who seemed to sense an opportunity of their own. Unfortunately for them, Zach was back on his feet before they could reach him.

“I’ve had enough of this shit,” he growled. “That’s it!”

Having decided to put an end to this, Zach whipped his sword with tremendous ferocity, crashing it into a rival attack that came from one of the falchion-wielding guild members to his left. Their two swords collided, and the man’s weapon was not only deflected, but he lost his grip on the blade. An instant later, Zach heard it crash onto the stone floor some distance away. Having disarmed the man, Zach then shot out his right leg and delivered a front kick into his chest, causing the man’s entire body to blast backwards and crash into the prison bars of an adjacent cell. At the same time, one of the falchion-wielding men to his right went at him again.

This time, Zach weaved to the right, dodging a vertical slash, and then he returned with a slash of his own, attacking the man’s left side. The man, to his credit, managed to shift his stance and turn his own blade to guard. So Zach shifted his in turn and went at his right side. This, too, he managed to guard against. Zach ducked beneath a return strike aimed at his head, then clashed with the man once more before finally finding an opening. Spinning half around, he cut the man’s midsection fully open, and the man screamed as he dropped his sword and grabbed at his stomach. Zach lifted his blade high and brought it down straight on top of his scalp, splitting it apart and killing him.

“No!” the female mage screamed. “No! Panny! No, Gods, why!” Tears in her eyes, she extended her staff and unleashed another zigzagging, brightly glowing streak of energy at him, which he jumped to the side to avoid.

“You bastard!” shouted the man to his left, whom he’d kicked into the cell. He reached out and tried to grab Zach despite being unarmed. In response, Zach twirled his blade so that it pointed straight in front of him, and then he stepped forward and towards the man while running his sword into his gut, piercing it all the way through and killing him.

But something happened upon this man’s death. Rather than fall to his knees, he somehow collapsed in such a way that his arms got caught on the prison cell's bars, and his mouth drooped all the way open. The result was that he died in the throes of a violent scream, the pain in his expression preserved even in death. Held up by the bars, he became something of a sick, dead ornament: a testament to Zach’s violence and ruthlessness.

And Zach couldn’t stand it. He’d had enough. The sight of another ended life—one slain by his hand—became too much for him to keep going on the way he currently was. Everything he’d done until now was by necessity. But the three people he’d just killed—did they really have to die? Did he need to kill them the way he’d killed so many others tonight? Suddenly, Zach realized something important. He realized that that the situation had now changed from what it had been on his way over here.

Before deciding to rescue Vim, he’d known what was at risk. He known what he would have to do. And he’d done it. He’d done what it had taken for him to get here without being identified and hindered. And now…now he was here. He’d made it.

I don’t need to keep killing these people, he realized. They already know I’m here. I made it. I don’t have to do this anymore!

Dodging a neck-level strike that came from one of the two surviving, sword-wielding members of the Guild of Gentlemen, Zach switched to a one-handed grip on his sword and took a quick, powerful step forward. He bent his knees, pivoted his hips, spun his body from left to right, and then rammed his forearm directly into the man’s sternum, causing the man to release a whoosh of air and backpedal a few steps. Recklessly—and with overt fear in his eyes—the man made a wide, circular strike that almost clipped Zach’s chin, but Zach leaned backwards away from it. Then, continuing to stumble away, the man, as though panicked, began wildly swinging around his falchion. Zach eyed his body movements carefully, dodging four or five times in a row before hastily moving inside the man’s guard and crashing his own sword into his enemy’s, knocking it fully out of his grip.

Having disarmed his opponent, Zach dashed forward and jumped straight upwards while lifting his right leg, bludgeoning the man’s face with his knee. This caused the man’s eyes to roll to the back of his head while he collapsed unconscious onto the stone floor.

“Shit!” the kid with the red hair and brown eyes swore. Then he howled in rage and swung his blade back and forth several times. But for each of his attacks, Zach only needed to twist his body to evade. Following a fourth futile strike, Zach clashed blades with the kid, and making use of his clearly superior strength, he pushed the kid’s blade so that it began to press against his throat with Zach’s blade locked on top of it.

“Don’t make me do this,” Zach warned. “Just drop it and go.”

“Fuck you!” he screamed, pulling away. He raised his sword and slammed it down. Now, with just one hand, Zach flicked his blade upwards and blocked.

“Don’t make me kill you!”

“You’re the one who’s going to die!”

Zach narrowed his eyes impatiently. “I won’t kill you if you stop. So fucking stop!”

“L-listen to him!” the girl cried. “I can’t lose you, Bennie!” Her eyes were soaked with tears. “Please, baby. Just let it go. Please! Before you die in front of my eyes!”

She reminds me of Kalana, Zach thought, horrified.

“Bennie, let’s just leave, man,” the mage standing across from her said.

What if this was me and Kal? What if…?

The red-haired kid they’d called “Bennie” looked over his shoulder and scowled at them then made an even more hateful expression at Zach. “I won’t surrender. I won’t!” Again, he tried to rip apart Zach, who had about eight clear openings he could’ve used to end his life.

Zach sheathed his blade, stepped to the side around a messy, awkwardly angled slash, and kicked him in the stomach, causing him to bend over and gasp. Then, with his right hand, Zach grabbed the kid’s wrist, squeezing it until he felt the bones break. The kid’s clenched grip opened on its own, and the sword dropped down to the floor with a thunk. Zach kicked it away. Now, while still holding his broken wrist, Zach used his opposite hand and decked him twice in his face, breaking his jaw, knocking out a few teeth, and causing his eyes to become unfocused. With that, Zach released him, and he dropped down, landing first on his knees and then, with an “oomph,” falling forward onto his face.

The two mages now looked at him, and both were shaking with fear. Zach gestured with his chin at the two unconscious forms nearby him. “Take these two and leave!” he shouted at them. “Go!” The mages nodded at him, and both seemed to try hugging opposite ends of the hall as though afraid Zach might cut them down as they passed him by. “Ignore those things behind me,” he said.

“Wh-what things?” the girl asked as she cradled the red-haired boy in her arms and sobbed into his low-level armor. “What are you—”

Both mages shrieked as his eight cards stampeded their way down the hallway, with some flying right over their heads and others scampering between the two mages. During the short time it took them to pass, the male and female mage let out one continuous, uninterrupted scream of terror. Then, finally, they scooped up their unconscious comrades and began hurrying their way in the direction Zach had come from. With that, Zach continued on his way. Hurrying down the next set of stairs, he proceeded to move beyond another three consecutive corridors and into yet another spiraling stairwell.

This time, Zach did not even bother drawing his sword as he stepped through the narrow passage at the bottom of a decrepit stairway and into a much wider area that contained four sealed-shut holding cells on each of the crumbling walls to his left and right. Upon his entrance, four men shouted out his name then began racing towards him with various weapons drawn; two women also began lifting staves as though to cast magic. Even still, Zach paid them little attention. He instead chose to look at something beyond them where a rounded archway led into yet another stairwell that would bring him even farther down into this labyrinthine dungeon.

It can’t possibly be much farther, he thought.

“Zachys Calador!” one of the men shouted; the man was preemptively spinning around a flail as if in anticipation of striking. Eyeing him, Zach folded his arms and struck a confident posture as all eight of his cards came either running or flying into the room. Absent Jimmy’s slow, they were very fast. And the moment the men saw his cards, their attitudes changed pretty fast. Witnessing the arrival of his Sneering Imp Warriors and Sneering Imp Troublemakers, the four men stopped charging immediately, and all four dropped their weapons. Even the casters released their grip on their staves. All held up their hands in surrender as the imps converged upon them.

“Please,” begged a tall man with a big red beard and a bushy mustache. He was backing away from an imp that was flying towards him. “Kid, please. Don’t!”

“Yeah, okay.”

Zach ordered his cards to halt a moment before they ran the men through with their spears. He also ordered his Troublemakers to stop, but not before one had already hurtled a dagger across the room, which Zach was thankfully able to spot before it was too late. Urgently, he leaned his body to the right, fully extended his hand, and caught it midair before releasing it and letting it drop to the floor.

With a mental command, Zach changed the designation of his Sneering Imp cards so that Attack Only Hostiles was set to On. This would prevent them from killing anyone who surrendered from this point forward.

“Line up against that wall,” he ordered, pointing to a spot near the stairwell. When they were slow to move, he shouted, “Now!”

With obvious terror in each step, they scampered over to the wall, and then Zach had them all place their hands in their laps and assume a seated position. After that, he ordered Warrior A to hover in place just before them.

“If any of you guys try anything, this thing will attack you automatically, got it?”

“Yes,” one of the women said, tears in her eyes.

“If you call for help or do anything to signal for reinforcements, my imps will attack. Nod if you understand.” All six nodded. “Good.”

He took a moment to meet each of their eyes so that they knew he meant business. Then he extended his hand, his palm facing up. “Comms. Now.”

With unsteady, shaking hands, they pulled their Comms out of their ears and placed them in his hand. He squeezed it shut, crushing all of them. Unclenching his fist, he turned over his hand and let the crushed devices fall down to the floor. With that, he addressed them.

“Where is Vim Alazar being held? And how many more of you will I have to go through?”

With a nervous-sounding gulp, the man who’d been wielding the flail wet his lips and answered Zach’s question. From the shaky, fearful quality to his voice, Zach did not think he was lying. Based off what he said, it sounded like Zach was very close. Apparently, there was a fairly large, organized, and defensive force barricading a final flight of stairs following this one, and then after that, the only one who’d still be standing in his way would be a man by the name of “Captain Gaelan Malakor.”

He’s the guy I’ve been hearing on the Comm.

Having come so close to his objective, Zach was ready to rescue Vim and be gone from this place. But first, he ordered the captured guild members to leave—without their weapons. They seemed all-too eager to obey. He watched as they got up, maneuvered cautiously around his cards, and then disappeared, heading up the stairwell out of here.

Zach counted to ten before proceeding. Then, with his cards flanking him, he resumed his downward trek to the bottom-most level of this filthy, disgusting, and broken-down dungeon, where he knew Vim would be waiting. Hopefully, all the blood he’d spilled would be worth it.

Chapter 154: The Rescue Pt. II

Chapter 154: The Rescue Pt. II

For the second time in five minutes, Senior-Lieutenant Haisel Ragora, the current acting leader of the Royal Roses, dismissed his call with Lord Oren of the Lords of Justice and then briefly closed his eyes as a rush of wind from the ocean blew over him. At the moment, he was standing on the deck of The Piercing Thorn, his aircraft carrier. On several occasions, the Guild of Gentleman had demanded the entire fleet be turned over, and at the risk of retaliation, Haisel had made continuous excuses, stalling and delaying while he tried to think up some kind of plan. Thankfully, the surrender of Vim Alazar had been enough to stay the enemy’s hand—or at least it’d seemed so at the time.

But now I know they never could’ve attacked us in the first place.

If only he had known what he knew now—what Lord Oren had shared with him only a few hours prior: that the Guild of Gentlemen had been bluffing all along, and that, for the past several weeks, they did not actually possess any more of those destructive weapons. If only he had known this, he would have continued his assault on Shadowfall Coast. This would have been over with already. But now, however, it, looked as though there was a real chance to set things right. At some point in the next twelve hours, the Gentlemen were expected to have another weapon ready to fire. They would not allow this to happen. Haisel could feel the million lives ended in Ogre’s Axe demanding justice from beyond the grave, and by the Gods, they would have it!

They played us like fools!

Haisel had no idea how Lord Oren’s spies had managed to gather such valuable intelligence, yet he had no doubt that the intel was correct and reliable, as Lord Oren’s actions suggested a firm certainty of it. For his guild to have not only declined surrender, but to have begun marching on the offense—it suggested he must have had a very, very high level of confidence in whatever reports he’d been receiving. Thus, if the Lords of Justice were going to act, the Royal Roses would act as well.

Haisel’s attention became diverted at the sound of boots stomping along the deck, which added a constant, thudding drumbeat to the windy night. All around him, hundreds of uniformed, level-1 troops shuffled about, attending to various tasks. It was nearly impossible to see anyone clearly, as all lights had been ordered extinguished. Between their radar-jamming equipment and the dark of night serving as cover, Haisel hoped to get into position momentarily without the enemy noticing their approach.

Why didn’t the kid tell me he was going to do this? Haisel thought to himself with a grunt, both annoyed and impressed.

Right now, Zachys Calador was on a solo mission to rescue Vim—something Haisel should have been informed of immediately and yet had only found out a short while ago. On the one hand, Haisel was heartened by his courage and willingness to act; on the other hand, this was incredibly irresponsible and irksome. Zachys needed to understand that he had an entire guild behind him: a guild that would willingly die to rescue their leader. There was never any need for him to act alone. And now, it was all Haisel could do to rush every asset under his command in to support him.

“Senior-Lieutenant Ragora, please,” the voice of Lord Oren said, having once again reestablished contact despite Haisel terminating their link for the second time in a row.

“There is nothing left to discuss, Lord Oren,” he replied curtly. “The Royal Roses will support you the moment that we can.”

“We need support immediately!” he insisted. “We must prioritize the weapon!”

Haisel folded his hands behind his back, stood up straight, and gazed out into the dark ocean before him. “We will provide you with our complete and total support the moment that Sir Alazar and Zachys Calador are safe and returned to us.”

“Zach already has a plan to escape. I implore you to let him do this his way.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m leaving nothing up to chance. Running Sir Alazar through the dungeons is too risky. We will intercept Vim and the boy with the Piercing Thorn.”

“Respectfully, I don’t believe you fully understand the nature of the situation,” Lord Oren said, his tone taking on a note of worry. “I’m expecting Zach to use a certain…ability: one that will exert him to the point of death if he’s not healed the moment it concludes.”

“Not to worry then,” Haisel said in reply. “We have everything needed for his recovery aboard, including freshly acquired healing stones. I’m not about to trust the Elvish queen with the two of them, especially in light of the fact that she’s already tried to murder one of them in a similar situation.”

“But…but things have changed since then.”

“So they have,” Haisel agreed. “Even still, I stand firm in what I’ve said. The moment Zachys Calador and Sir Alazar are in hand, we will divert all of our resources towards a bombardment of the enemy’s production facilities.”

Lord Oren sighed. “Fine. If you really won’t budge, then at least promise me you won’t get Zach killed. I genuinely believe his plan of running Vim through the dungeons and returning to Queen Vayra for healing is the best move.”

“I appreciate your input.” Haisel grinned despite knowing Lord Oren could not see it. “But I am not a man known for failure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to devote my full attention towards supporting the rescue operation.”

“Understood. May the Gods grant you favor.”

“And you, Lord Oren.”

Their discussion hopefully over—for good, this time—Haisel turned his head as his eyes barely made out the forms of several-dozen troops and a few low-ranking, leveled members of the guild dashing forward in diving gear. They marched to the end of the stern then leapt up, off, and over the safety railing; a moment later, a series of splashing sounds could be heard from where Haisel continued to stand resolutely as things proceeded.

“Diving Team 11,” the voice of a sergeant said over the Comm in his ear. “Go!”

The sounds of more running along the deck and then more splashing came, but this time from somewhere to Haisel’s left. He continued to watch and listen as the rest of the diving teams were able to get into the water and begin their swim towards the coast. Once he doubly confirmed that all diving teams were outbound and heading towards enemy territory, he felt a slight tensing in his shoulder muscles, because he knew that the moment had come to give an order—one that there would be no turning back from.

It’s time.

The significance of the action he was about to take was not lost on him. In order to assist Zachys in recovering their leader, he was about to risk far more than just the lives of himself and those here with him. No, he was essentially putting the lives of millions upon millions of innocent people in peril; for this reason, failure was unthinkable. Haisel fully understood that, once he gave the order, there would be no reversing things—no do-overs. He would reignite a flame that had only just been extinguished.

It's this or tyranny.

Keeping his back perfectly straight, and with strength and resolve in each of his words, he opened his mouth and at last gave the order that would plunge his already devastated guild back into the fires of war and death.

“All battlecruisers!” he shouted. “Open fire! Target the enemy SAM sites along the beach!”

From various positions in the water all around the aircraft carrier, the lights aboard five accompanying battlecruiser ships began to activate in such a way that they’d immediately be detected by the enemy. His aircraft carrier also lit up as well; having turned the lights back on, they were essentially announcing the presence of their forces to anyone in Shadowfall Coast who merely happened to be looking out towards the ocean. Yet it didn’t matter, because having already successfully gained the element of surprise, there would be no way for the Guild of Gentlemen to react in time to mount a defense. And so now, following a rapid period of flashing lights, a deafening series of loud bangs rang out in the night as numerous, high-caliber MK 45 artillery guns announced the Royal Roses’ defiance and resistance.

“FOR OGRE’S AXE!” soldiers cried out on the deck, throwing their arms up in cheer and a palpable sense of vengeance. Seconds later, their cheers turned into even louder shouts of victory as secondary explosions could be heard from the coast, which became absolutely hammered with the cannon-like artillery shells. All along the beach, where the Guild of Gentlemen’s anti-aircraft SAM turrets had been placed, there were now tremendous eruptions of smoke and sand. And even from here in the ocean, Haisel could also detect loud cracks as several shells strayed from targets and crashed down on civilian infrastructure, such as the nearby boardwalk.

I better not find out anyone is intentionally missing, he thought. The last thing he wanted was an all-out assault on innocent civilian life, but given the anger felt in Giant’s Fall and Spider’s Eye Oasis over the attack on Ogre’s Axe, he knew that preventing such acts of retribution was going to be a very difficult challenge.

“Watch your aim!” he angrily demanded as an MK 45 from one of the five battlecruiser warships orbiting The Piercing Thorn fired a shot that went indefensibly off course. About eight seconds after it was fired, Haisel could just make out a three-story apartment complex suffering a direct impact; the artillery shell ripped the entire structure apart, obliterating it and almost certainly killing every family that lived inside. This, he was able to see as the entire city lit up with red lights while a loud, shrill warning siren began to blare.

Now, there were several-dozen “thuds” audible from the direction of the city, and soon there came a return hissing sound as the enemy launched SSMs—Surface-to-Surface Missiles—at their position. Due to the dark of night, the smoky tails of dozens of SSMs streaking across the sky were not visible, but it made no difference, as their detection capabilities did not require eyesight in order to defend against such an attack.

“Deploy counter measures!” Haisel ordered.

The ships under his command obeyed, and they retaliated with a series of SAMs, which utilized advanced, onboard targeting computers capable of seeking out and intercepting airborne threats. Thanks to their technological superiority, they managed to shoot down the approaching SSMs; the result was numerous detonations that filled the air above them. One missile, however, did manage to slip through their guard, causing a much closer explosion that resonated from a battlecruiser a bit behind and to the left of the Piercing Thorn.

“We’ve taken a hit!” announced the captain of the vessel.

“How serious?” Haisel asked.

“We’re patching it now. The enemy missile struck the hull near the bow of the ship. There may be several KIA. The Gods curse those bastards!”

From the very same ship that had just been struck, a lone artillery cannon fired, and Haisel tensed up, as he knew right away that it portended nothing good. A few moments went by, and then very far into the distance, at what he estimated to be right near the center of the city, there was a dull boom that was only slightly audible from this distance. Despite this, he was fairly sure he knew what had just been struck. Almost certainly, the battlecruiser had targeted—and destroyed—one of the most significant cultural landmarks in Shadowfall Coast: The Garden of Ancient Kings, which was one of the only tourist spots to be found in the relatively modest city.

“The Gods help whoever fired that shell!” Haisel snapped. “I will not tolerate war crimes! Captain, get control over your men immediately or I’ll hold you responsible for their actions!”

“Y-yes, Senior-Lieutenant Ragora!”

Haisel groaned. He knew how badly the men and women serving under him wanted—craved—revenge. But he would not have his guild suffer the disgrace of it! It was bad enough he’d been forced to allow the true depths of Lieutenant Varsh’s depravity to become public knowledge, but having the world associate their guild with war crimes such as the intentional destruction of cultural or religious landmarks was a whole different level of bad. As things stood, the Royal Roses needed to clean up their act—and so did the other guilds—if they wanted the rest of the world to take humanity seriously. Humans needed to improve. They needed to be better than this!

“All gun crews, steady your aim,” he ordered into the Comm. “Military targets only! We are not going to reduce ourselves to the level of our—”

Haisel snapped his mouth shut as something caught his eyes. Far in the distance, he spotted emergency vehicles, military convoys, and a tremendously larger-than-expected number of reinforcements emerging from within the city like a nest full of disturbed bees. With a surprising quickness, they arrived on the beach, many hopping over the smashed ledges of broken and shelled sections of the boardwalk, with numerous others sliding down the sand wherever it happened to form an incline.

“Enemy reinforcements!” a woman shouted over the Comm.

“How did they get here so fast?” another asked.

Haisel clenched his hands into fists as he watched them approach. “It doesn’t matter how,” he said over the Comm. “All ship captains, take us in closer!”

“Sir?” one of them asked as though uncertain.

“You heard me!”

“Understood.”

Directing his fleet nearer to the shore, he felt the wind beat against his face as they moved perilously closer to the enemy. It was a risky move, but this was an all-or-nothing operation. Having already opened fire on the Guild of Gentlemen, the war was now back on, and surrender was off the table. They would either succeed here tonight or die. There was simply no undoing what had already been done.

“Attack the enemy reinforcements!” Haisel ordered.

All around him came the sound of electrical hums as onboard gatling guns mounted on every ship were turned at the coast. Now, the night erupted with the loud, overwhelming, and repeating crack of gunfire as munitions were set to bear against the scores of level-1 troops rushing to the beach to defend against the surprise invasion. Beneath the moonlight, Haisel could partially see the forms of human soldiers running, diving into cover, or falling dead on the sand. Right around this time, his diving teams began to surface. Several members were cut down immediately by return fire as they struggled to remove their guns from their water-proof carrying bags, but most were able to lie prone on dryer sand and use the dark as cover to avoid being easily targeted. Caught off guard, the enemy had not sent in troops with night-vision capability, and their flashlights and spotlights could only cover so much terrain.

“Protect our troops!” Haisel ordered. “Fire on the enemy!”

A storm of gunfire ripped across the sand, causing sprays of it to shoot upwards like miniature geysers. On the ocean’s wind, the sound of screams and rage managed to carry its way to his ears as his fleet unloaded upon the level-1 troops attempting to guard their shores. At the same time, his own level-1 troops began delivering a salvo of return fire while the leveled members of the diving teams dashed straight into the combat without regard for the stray bullets flying everywhere; briefly, they were permitted to rip apart the enemy’s troops uninhibited. Haisel watched with approval as the leveled members of the diving teams swung around their weapons and butchered one troop after the next. Eventually, however, they were met with leveled members from the Guild of Gentlemen, requiring them to disengage and deal with foes who could rival their own strength.

Not far from the shore, two of his men slammed their shields forward, bashing them directly into rival shields opposite them from two officers of the Guild of Gentlemen. The four men struggled, pressing their shields into one another, locked in a contest of strength. Beside them, two women, both wielding spears, whipped their weapons around in a frenzy of dodging and striking. Regrettably, it was the taller, sturdier-looking woman from the Guild of Gentlemen who won out, and with a fast, spinning slash, she decapitated her foe.

With leveled guild members facing one another in direct combat, a whole different dynamic began to play out. Now, in addition to the back-and-forth of gunfire, a variety of melee weapons were clashing together, which created an odd contrast with the tools of conventional warfare. Magic soon entered the fray, and the worlds of science and adventuring intermingled in an unsightly free-for-all that brought about a horrendous and rapidly rising death toll.

Giant balls of fire conjured out of thin air crashed down upon scores of enemy troops, setting them ablaze. At the same time, electrified rain began to pour over numerous level-1 troops from the diving teams; due to the light from the fire magic illuminating the coast, Haisel was able to see their bodies begin to smoke and char and twitch as the electric rain cooked them alive; this, as gatling guns, artillery, and counter-missiles from his fleet continued to deal with their persistent enemy. Thus far, the Gentlemen were dividing their fire between the diving teams and Haisel’s fleet, which served their purposes perfectly.

The goals here were simple and twofold: one, to clear out a path and make it easier for their divers to perform a successful land assault on the coast, which would hopefully result in the diving teams crippling whatever remnants of their recently bolstered anti-aircraft capability still existed along the southeast—and two, Haisel hoped it would make the Guild of Gentlemen pull some of their units away from their manufacturing district, where Zachys Calador was currently attempting a rescue of Vim.

At first, the enemy fared poorly and was ineffective in defending against Haisel’s forces. But then, something changed. Something that Haisel did not see coming. Abruptly, dozens of belt-fed HMGs farther inland that Haisel had not known existed began firing at his fleet, which had come close enough to be within their range. As one gun after the next began sending out a steady stream of highly lethal machine-gun rounds, he was taken by surprise.

Have they been preparing for an attack like this? Haisel wondered, shocked.

Given the Gentlemen’s belief that they had suppressed all of North Bastia via fear of their weapons, Haisel did not think they would have spent the time, gold, and effort ramping up their coastal defenses—but quite obviously, they had. Thus, despite launching such an initially strong and successful surprise attack against the Guild of Gentlemen, the guild now began putting up a formidable defense.

Having fallen into a trap of their own, Haisel now discovered that the enemy had indeed significantly improved upon their ability to deal with another naval assault. In this case, it appeared they’d merely been waiting patiently for the perfect moment with which to act. Having sailed in close, the Gentlemen launched a return attack with an intensity, far, far higher than Haisel had believed them capable of delivering.

Less than five feet to Haisel’s right, a man’s head snapped backwards as a bullet fired by the HMGs killed him instantly—as well as eight more troops on the deck behind him with more falling each second. Numerous medics rushed across the deck and dove on top of the bloodied and dying troops, but they too were blasted to pieces as they attempted to shield their comrades with their own flesh. Screams began to reverberate all around the aircraft carrier as dozens of additional men and women—including some leveled members of the guild with low constitution—were ripped apart and shredded by the heavy machine guns.

“Get behind cover!” he shouted. “Protect the fighter jets!”

A loud, constant “pop-pop-pop” continued to echo from the HMGs, ramping up the sustained pressure of the Guild of Gentlemen’s counterattack. Yet these machine guns became almost something of an afterthought as, from much farther in the distance, a number of distinct booms caused Haisel to flood with alarm. And the reason for this was simple: because they sounded very much like artillery being fired.

That’s definitely artillery!

Haisel swore. Then he swore again. Unless his ears were lying to him—and he very much wished that was the case—it meant that the Guild of Gentlemen had set up anti-naval artillery guns, and these, by far, would prove to be the most threatening new additions to their southeastern defensive capabilities. The sound of them alone signaled that the odds had just shifted wildly against him, and things were about to become immensely bloodier. Between the HMGs, the addition of artillery, and the increased barrage of incoming missiles, the level of resistance they were now encountering had not only become vastly amplified, but it was also much, much greater than it had been during their initial invasion a few weeks ago.

“No!” a voice cried. Haisel turned to look. A young man with blond-colored haired was squirming on the deck, blood hemorrhaging out of a gaping wound running from his belly to his lower chest. “No! No! N…nooo,” he finished in a whisper, becoming quiet and still.

Above, numerous detonations rang out like angry roars as another, far larger barrage of missiles and artillery shells rained down upon his fleet. Like before, they deployed their countermeasures, but this time, several shells managed to get through. Unlike guided missiles, artillery was inherently unpredictable and more difficult to neutralize, and that became readily apparent as more than a dozen shells pounded their forces. With an unusually loud bang, a shell landed directly on top of one of his precious, invaluable fighter jets, blowing it to pieces. Haisel opened his mouth to issue a command, but then he shut it as a massive explosion along with a giant ball of flame came from somewhere to the right of their formation. There was also a blast of heat that could actually be felt.

Gods damn them!

One of his five battlecruisers had gone completely up in flames. Hundreds were hastily evacuating with many desperately leaping into the ocean to escape the rapidly spreading fire. Hundreds more would inevitably be trapped inside, and many beyond that were already likely dead. Haisel tried to raise the vessel’s captain over the Comm, but he was unable to do so; this, as more troops were cut down by the HMGs the enemy had hidden along the beach.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!

Haisel leapt away from the site of another explosion, this one very close. Right in the middle of the deck, an artillery shell crashed down, and in addition to blowing a hole straight through to a lower level, it left fifteen uniformed men and women in various pieces to the extent that it became impossible to know which body part belonged to who.

“Help me!” a voice begged. “Help me!”

Haisel searched for the source of it, and the sight that greeted him caused him to recoil in horror. Two men, both struck by the HMGs, were now stuck together, their intestines literally tangled into one another. Or at least it appeared that way. Haisel did not let his gaze linger on the unfortunate souls. Peeling back his lips and snarling, he raised his hands and shielded his eyes to prevent being irritated by shrapnel as yet another shell breached their defenses and caused another section of his beautiful aircraft carrier to be destroyed.

“Senior-Lieutenant Ragora!” a moderately high-ranking member of the Royal Roses said over the Comm. “We should retreat!”

“No!” he roared defiantly. “We’re fighting to the end, Gods damn you! Hear me clearly: if you all want to live to see tomorrow, then get off your asses, get on the guns, and fire on those sons of bitches—they, who murdered a million of our people in Ogre’s Axe!”

His words seemed to restore some of the conviction in his badly rattled men. Haisel exuded as much confidence as he could muster. He stood tall, extended his arm, and pointed at the enemy even as bullets whizzed by his ears and in some cases struck him directly. “If anyone sees a dead gunner, take their place. For the love of the Gods, attack!”

His fleet’s MK 45s fired off another round of shells, and he frowned as he saw only a few of them land in close enough proximity to destroy the heavy machine guns they were targeting; the rest resulted in wayward explosions that narrowly missed the persistently flashing muzzles of the HMGs.

“Ignore the enemy’s machine guns for now!” he yelled into his Comm, as a significant portion of their outgoing firepower had been directed at them. “Focus everything on disabling their artillery!” He waved his opposite hand at a number of very shaken-looking troops hiding behind a thin wall behind him. “Low level and level-1 crew who aren’t currently manning a gun—get behind cover or retreat below deck.”

Demanding more from his forces, he wrangled them into continuing the fight as more explosions, more gunfire, and more death turned what was supposed to be a surprise attack into the single-deadliest battle he had ever borne witness to. And nowhere was this made clearer than on the beach, where a sight so horrible it would never fade from memory presented itself to him.

There were now so many bodies—on both sides. Many were piling up as though they were lifeless pieces of inventory in an open-air warehouse. Half of the members of the diving teams had been killed—more than five-hundred good men and women—and what looked like two- or three-thousand enemy troops had died across from them. For the Guild of Gentlemen to have so rapidly increased their number, it could only mean they had conscripted a great number of citizens of Shadowfall Coast. These were townspeople that were dying—and in greater and greater numbers.

Never had Haisel seen a death-toll skyrocket like this. Before his very eyes, he witnessed one person after the next perishing from existence. And the bitter irony of it all was that the Brayspark Monarchy’s defining achievement had been to create a world where this didn’t happen anymore—where this kind of barbaric inhumanity had been replaced with voluntary open-field combat. The Guild of Gentlemen had turned war from this into something that could almost be called a deadly sport or a contest, one in which everyone understood and obeyed the rules of the game, and all participants knew beforehand what they were getting into. But humans being humans, Haisel supposed it was inevitable that things would revert right back to the ways of old. A century of a more sophisticated, honorable means of battle—lost in a matter of weeks.

We can't let this become the new normal, he thought, disturbed and disgusted. We must come back from this.

Piles of corpses. Literal piles of corpses were filling up on the beach. And that was assuming the bodies were all, in fact, corpses. This was actually something that couldn’t be taken for granted. Many of the level-1 troops were only half dead: young men and women left to squirm bloodied on the sand, moaning and crying for their mothers and fathers or their Gods as their allies abandoned them to focus on saving those less critically wounded.

In this moment, Haisel realized that the people of Shadowfall Coast were actually willing to die down to the last man and woman just to avoid having to live next door to a Dwarf or a Lizardman. That was what all this was about, wasn’t it? Their hatred and disgust and paranoia of the global world: a loathing so powerful that they were willing to drop something called a “nuclear bomb” on a human city just to prevent the very possibility of having to live in a world where their children learned math from an Orcish teacher.

Haisel pitied them. He truly pitied them. But this was war.

“Keep firing!”

As the battle raged on around him, he paused just a moment to switch to a private Comm channel, and quickly, he asked, “Have you made contact yet?”

“Almost,” replied a female voice. “Hang tight.”

******

In the exact instant that Zach darted through another door-less entryway and into a very narrow passage, a constant, powerful chain of successive explosions caused an earthquake-like shifting of everything around him. Zach halted immediately and threw out his arms so that his palms pressed against the walls to both sides of him. Steadying himself, he maintained his balance as the world continued to shake while the loud, rumbling booms continued to rock the filthy flooring beneath him. Dust and pebbles also leaked down from the stone ceiling above. Moments later, a siren of some sort became activated, one loud enough that he could hear it even from all the way down here.

The fuck is going on up there? he thought, confused and worried. It sounds like a war is going on, but Mr. Oren’s not supposed to be invading yet.

With his eight cards in tow, he waited for the shaking to stop, and then he proceeded onwards, only to pause again as it worsened. Eventually, he realized these ground-shaking detonations were likely to continue intermittently for at least a good while, so he adapted to it, running more carefully even as subsequent explosions rocked the entire subterranean prison-dungeon.

Troubled, he listened more attentively to the distressed voices blaring through his stolen Comm as he moved. Initially, it was difficult to decipher exactly what was being said, as too many voices were saying too many things at once, but eventually, some semblance of order was established, and Zach was able to piece together what was happening as a panicked-sounding man began to air his fears over the Comm.

“They won’t tell us shit,” a young and male voice said. “Are we winning? Losing? I’m so fucking nervous. I can’t take this anymore.”

“Then stop thinking about it!” an older, female voice ordered. “I know everyone is worried, but this Comm line is exclusively for patrol and prison-guard squads. Focus on dealing with our own crisis, and let others worry about the Royal Roses.”

“I’m sorry, Captain. It’s just my brother’s down there fighting on the southeast coast.”

“Yeah, well, my brother’s already dead. And so are both my parents. Deal with it!”

From this—as well as other bits and pieces—it sounded like the Royal Roses had launched some kind of surprise naval attack on the city of Shadowfall Coast not all that far from the Yorna exit. This alone was shocking, but even more so was the fact that they’d apparently done so ahead of the arrival of the Lords of Justice and the Elves. What were they up to?

I’ll find out later.

Right now, he had to focus on getting to Vim, and he knew he was close. The people he’d spared on the floor above this one had told him that he’d only have to travel down two more flights of stairs, and that the entrance to the final one would be well guarded. Luckily, he had his eight cards from Trials of Nolak with him. Four of them, the Sneering Imp Troublemakers, made soft, mischievous-sounding tapping noises as they scampered along beside him. His other four—called Sneering Imp Warriors—filled the quiet passage with a slight buzzing as they flew forward, maintaining a constant few feet of distance behind Zach.

As he reached the end of this narrow passage, he bolted down an equally narrow ramp until arriving upon another framed entryway that let out into a much wider, square-shaped area containing rusted, ancient-looking gymnastics equipment, none of which appeared operable. Thus far, it was the single-largest individual area that Zach had seen since breaking his way in, and from looks alone, Zach figured it had been a place for the prisoners kept here a very long time ago to exercise and work out. It was also a place he was likely to encounter one of the last remaining obstacles between himself and Vim Alazar.

There they are, he thought, his body tightening apprehensively.

There were only two entrances into this disused gym room: the one that Zach had come in from and the one that led to what he presumed would be the final, spiraling staircase, beyond which Vim would be waiting. And in front of this staircase, just as he’d been told, an entire formation of guild members stood at the ready as though waiting specifically for Zach to arrive. And Gods, there were a lot of them.

By Zach’s estimation, there appeared to be about twenty-one people blocking off the small entrance he needed to travel through, and all of them were arrayed in a tight, orderly formation. Five burly men stood frontmost, each lined up side by side. Their bodies were partially concealed behind gigantic shields; in fact, their shields were so large that they didn’t so much as “hold them” as they did rest the base of them on the grimy dungeon flooring like improvised barricades, spanning from the floor all the way up to their chests. All five men were also heavily armored, and they did not look like they were willing to budge.

Behind these five men were another five people, and these were a mix of two men and three women. They were slightly less armored but carried larger weapons, such as two-handed swords, long spears, and one woman had a trident. Through the eye sockets in her helmet, Zach could see her pupils enlarge as she spotted Zach’s arrival. Was it because of fear? Maybe. But to Zach, it seemed far more suggestive of determination as opposed to terror or surprise, which made sense since she—along with the rest of them—had been both expecting and awaiting Zach’s appearance here.

A few feet behind the trident-wielding woman and the four beside her was another line of five of the guild’s members, four of which were men. All five wielded small, rounded shields in one hand and a modestly sized, one-handed weapon in the other, and the one in the middle had a golden insignia of crossed swords tattooed on his forehead, which Zach took to imply he was an officer in the guild. Of the entire group, it was his eyes that seemed to burn with the harshest intensity.

Finally, behind this officer, there were six more members of the guild, two of them equipped with bows and the other four with staves. These stood closest to the entrance to the staircase, with a woman in white robes physically positioned such that she was standing right between the frame of it; with her curved, short staff gripped tightly in both of her hands, Zach thought he detected her shoulders trembling.

Put together, the twenty-one guild members created a large enough obstacle that Zach could not simply charge his way through them. And as Zach came blasting into this ancient prison gym at a run, he was forced to plant his feet and come to such an abrupt and harsh stop that his shoes actually dug into the stone flooring and created a trail of sparks as he skidded to a halt.

Every head turned to look at him, which caused numerous clanking sounds from the large helmets worn by the shield-bearing men positioned up front. There was recognition in all of their eyes. Clearly, they knew who he was and why he had come. Zach might have even heard some of them over the Comm on his way down here.

I don’t want to kill these people, he thought to himself as his eyes studied the significant force barring his passage. I’m tired of all the killing!

Zach kept his arms at his sides. He did not draw his weapon. Instead, he struck a firm, upright posture and addressed them without fear or hesitation. “Listen to me,” he began. “You don’t have to die today. The truth is I don’t actually want to kill any of you, and I won’t if you drop your weapons and—”

“Attack!” shouted the officer with the golden tattoo on his forehead. “Kill him!”

Idiots!

Zach scowled as he watched two of the men up front pull away from one another, their shields creating an opening similar to the parting of elevator doors. Directly behind them, a man with a large sword and the woman with the trident also stepped away in opposite directions, and so too did the two men with smaller shields even farther behind them. Now, a tiny pocket leading all the way to the back of their formation opened up, and it all happened so quickly, too.

In total, this “opening” of their formation lasted less than a second, and it was all so that the two archers in the back could fire off dual arrows that had already been nocked and drawn, which resulted in two distinct snaps followed by a whistling on the air as they made straight for Zach.

With almost perfect timing, the guild members returned to their earlier position, sealing the hole in their formation at nearly the precise instant in time that the arrows crossed the air of the rotten gym room directly in front of the five large, shield-bearing men. Given how fast the arrows were traveling, this level of coordination was impressive and unexpected after facing so many unprepared kids who hadn’t stood a chance against him.

But it still wouldn’t be good enough.

Reacting with an even greater speed than the projectiles, Zach whipped his right hand over his left shoulder, grabbed the hilt of his sword, ripped it free of its scabbard, and then made two slashes back and forth in the empty space before him that were so fast that they created a hissing sound even louder than the arrows, both of which were cut right out of the air and snapped in half.

From the tightening of faces Zach saw popping up in numerous guild members, he could tell that they were intimidated by his display of swordsmanship. And this, Zach was glad to see, because he reckoned it meant they might be a bit more persuadable having seen firsthand what he was capable of. And so, once more, Zach tried to convince them to stand down.

“Don’t make me do this,” he pleaded with them. “I really don’t want to hurt any of you.” As he spoke, there were a few slight clacks as multiple pieces of wood from the destroyed arrows landed on the floor. “But I have to get to Vim, and I’m running out of time. So if you people don’t get out of my way, I’m sorry, but…” He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll carve my way through you!”

“Attack!” the officer shouted again, not even bothering to consider his words.

Zach squeezed his hands around his sword. It looked like they were going to force him into ending their lives. It wasn’t what he wanted, but he simply did not have the time to beat them down until they submitted. No, if they weren’t willing to let him pass uninhibited, then the only choice left to him was to slay those who stood in his way. This meant that things were about to turn incredibly bloody. Truly, he wished these morons would’ve just thrown down their weapons, because not only would he now have to take away their lives, but also of concern was the fact that Zach truly did not know if he could handle this many of them at once without entering Unleashed Phase, which would start the clock on it well before he intended to use it.

If I have to use it now, I might not have enough time to make it back with Vim!

From the moment he activated his ability, he would have somewhere around fifteen minutes—plus or minus the use of abilities or procs on his sword—to free Vim, run him through the city, get to Yorna’s, whisk him down to B10, elevator him back up to the Whispery Woods entrance, and then finally rendezvous with Queen Vayra for healing. It was a lot.

I have my cards, he reminded himself. And these are members of a political guild I’m dealing with. I’ll be fine as is.

After a very quick, internal deliberation, Zach decided to hold off on using Unleashed Phase just yet. Sure, there were a lot of enemies in his path, and yes, they appeared to be a bit older, stronger, and overall more experienced than their younger counterparts, whose lives they had used as fodder up until this point, but even considering all those factors, these were still just pampered, political guild members. He would cut right through them!

First, however, he needed to kick off his front foot and retreat backwards as the formation opened up yet again to allow two mages in the back to launch two large, cannon-ball-like masses of orange-colored energy at him. Each moved as though it were a heavy, weighty object, traveling upwards at an arc before dropping down with a loud thud onto the antiquated stone flooring, leaving a crack in it before rolling several feet forward. For two or perhaps three seconds, these cannon-like balls then began to shine very brightly before turning from orange to pure white—and then they both exploded with a painful-to-look-at flash.

Zach removed his left hand from his blade and then raised it to shield his eyes. A moment later, the light faded, but by this point, the formation had already once again tightened—only to open up a third time. Now, Zach had to urgently jump to his left side as, from the tip of a staff, one of the mages fired out a thin, laser-like projectile about the size and width of a piece of straw; it traveled towards him with a genuinely surprising speed and made a subtle fush sound as it came within inches of striking his belly. It then continued onwards until hitting the wall behind him with an equally soft pfft.

Risking a very quick peek over his shoulder, Zach saw that there was now a very small hole in the wall that, in terms of width, was just as thin as the projectile. Nevertheless, it seemed to penetrate very, very deeply into the stone, and that much, at least, was worrying. Growling, he looked ahead of him and said, “You asked for this!”

Zach prepared himself to charge his enemy, but once again, they managed to strike first. Like with the previous attempts, the first three rows parted to allow those in the rear to attack, but this time, all six mages and archers struck out at him at once. Now, Zach was forced to contend with two arrows, two more cannonball-like clumps of green energy, another small, thin, and laser-like beam, and a missile-shaped bolt of fire. There was also one other magical attack, but it was one that he was not aware had been cast until he looked down and realized he was standing on a circular shadow of sorts that made him feel like he was under some kind of spotlight, only one that drained light as opposed to shining it.

Having no idea what he was about to be hit with, he hurriedly dashed away just as the outer edges of the shadow darkened and a semi-transparent pillar made of steaming-hot mist began shooting upwards, covering the area in a width three times his body and at a height of about ten feet. This mist then continued to shoot out and upwards at a faster and faster rate like gas being ejected from a shower hose until, finally, it began to fizzle out. Had Zach been standing within its perimeter, he might well have been boiled to death.

Having escaped the attack, he readied himself as, from beyond this mist, which partially obscured his visibility, he reacted the moment the small, laser-like beam zipped across the gym room, spinning around it. Then, following this, the two arrows emerged, and like before, Zach cut them down. Finally, he leaned backwards and out of the way of the firebolt before back-flipping away from the two heavy, cannon-ball-shaped masses of energy that plopped down and cracked more of the stone before detonating with a painful flash.

I don’t have time for this shit! he thought to himself. I need to get to Vim!

Mentally targeting the casters in the back row, Zach ordered all four of his Sneering Imp Warriors to attack. At the same time, he sent his Troublemakers forward as well. And now, with an ominous “He-he-he-he-he!” his cards soared into action, moving far, far faster than they had back in Trials of Nolak when Jimmy had slowed them. The Troublemakers threw daggers while running along the roach-infested stone flooring, and the Warriors made much louder buzzing sounds from their wings as they raced across the air. Zach joined them in their charge, once more gripping his sword with both hands and rushing at his enemy. Through narrow slits in their thick helmets, he could see their eyes begin to widen with fear.

They had their chance.

“Tanks!” the officer cried aloud as Zach and his cards sprinted across the room. “Taunt!”

Zach felt a pinch of nerves in his belly as the word “taunt” reached his ears. Could pets be taunted like mobs? Could cards be? Was that even something that could happen? He knew that regular mobs and even bosses could be taunted, but one thing he’d never before seen was whether or not it was possible for something like a card to be—

FORGET ALL THAT! WHAT REALLY MATTERED WAS THAT ZACH REALLY, REALLY HATED THAT ONE GUY OVER THERE! THE SECOND ONE IN THE FIRST ROW. YES, HIM! ZACH HATED HIM MORE THAN HE’D EVER HATED ANYONE! HE HAD TO DIE! NOW!

Feeling his eyes bulge with a tremendous wrath for a reason he did not understand, Zach suddenly realized that he would willingly trade the life of himself and everyone he’d ever loved if, in return, it meant that the man would be given so much as a paper cut: that was the extent to which Zach hated the heavily armored, shield-bearing son of a bitch. Screaming in outrage, Zach forgot everything he’d just been thinking—including why he was here—and with his mouth literally drooling with hatred, he stomped his feet down onto the stone hard enough to leave permanent, foot-shaped cracks in it as he burned his way over to the man with the massive shield who dared to exist in the same universe as him!

“You mother fucker!” Zach roared, overflowing with white-hot rage. His imps, too, seemed to find the shield-bearing tanks up front to be just as insufferable and intolerable as Zach did, because the whole lot of them disregarded all the orders he’d given them and instead focused on attacking one of the five tanks. Now, just ahead of Zach, four daggers thrown by Sneering Imp Troublemakers sailed across the room and made echoing thuds as they bounced off the shields of the five men that formed the heavily armored front line of the guild members’ formation. An instant following that, Zach reached his target.

With reckless abandon, he lifted his sword high and then screamed in fury as he swung it back downwards with all his strength. In response, the man he was targeting dropped down to a crouch, lifted his shield off the ground, and hid behind it; the shield was so massive it managed to protect his entire body. This meant that Zach’s blade, which very much craved blood, instead slammed furiously into the metal shield, resulting in a high-pitched crack that was so loud it sounded like a gunshot.

“Die!” Zach screamed at him, lifting his blade and striking a second time. Then a third. Then a fourth. In a total mad frenzy, he began hammering away at the shield. On the fifth and sixth hits, the man began to grunt, and Zach could tell he was beginning to hurt. At the same time, his Sneering Imp warriors were flying all over the place, causing total disarray. Yet no matter where they flew, they always seemed to converge upon one of the heavily armored tanks up front, causing a constant pang, pang, pang as their gilded spears met one of these massive, mighty shields.

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that all four of his winged cards were suffering an unsustainable amount of damage from a constant barrage of arrow-fire and magic, as well as the occasional pierce from a spear or swipe of an axe as they flew low above the formation. To be sure, his cards, by virtue of their speed and unpredictable movements, did manage to avoid most things sent their way. Yet amid a flurry of arrows, a multitude of stabbing attempts, and a large, variously colored assortment of magical projectiles that brightened the room, a certain percentage of attacks did manage to land, and given the sheer number of them, this meant that his cards were plummeting in HP. Still, Zach did not care. All he cared about was killing this son of a bitch before him.

“Why!” he shouted, slamming his sword down. “Won’t!” he yelled, bashing it a second time. The man grunted, then wheezed. “You!” He brought his sword down again, and now the crack sounded a bit different than any of those that had come before. It was deeper and lower pitched. “Just. Die!” he finished in a scream, bludgeoning the man’s shield twice more. Now, following the second of these two strikes, there was a lower, but far more satisfying-sounding snap, and the man’s shield at last broke, splitting down the middle and causing both pieces to vanish shortly after, suffering a full break.

Zach hatefully eyed the man, whose eyes shone back with an equal hate—but also fear. And then Zach lifted his blade one final time and crashed it down over the side of the man’s neck, cutting deeply into it and causing the man’s fingers to make a strange twitching gesture before he fell forward, plopping down onto his stomach. With Zach’s blade practically stuck in the back-right corner of his neck, Zach was almost pulled down to the floor along with him. Exerting his own strength in the opposite direction, he yanked his sword, ripping it free, and then he stared at it a moment in confusion as it dripped blood.

What the fuck am I doing? he asked himself, having become very confused.

Zach shook his head, realizing he’d been taunted. Yet the taunt must have ended when he killed the tank who’d used it on him. Now, he became aware that he was staring directly into the vengeful face of the woman with the trident in the second row who’d been standing behind the man. She shouted out in rage and took a swipe at him. Having returned to his senses, Zach hopped backwards and away from the weapon, then sprang forwards again to deliver a follow-up, counter slash. But it was too late; despite having lost a comrade, the four remaining tanks, showing no hesitation, swiftly pressed in closer together, recreating the closed-wall formation even if now a bit less effectively. The result was that Zach’s blade crashed into another shield and made another loud crack.

Retreating a bit, Zach ducked beneath a missile-shaped firebolt and cut down another arrow before scanning the gym room with his eyes, attempting to reassess the situation. But by this point, the damage had already been done. Ahead of him and a bit off to his right, he now saw the HP of one of his Sneering Imp Warriors reach 0, and then, with a rush of dread sweeping over him, Zach watched as his card turned to sand and fell out of the air as it was killed. Then another died immediately after, this one also transforming into sand, which glided softly down to the stone. A moment later, his two remaining Sneering Imp Warriors, which had both been attacking the same target but from completely opposite ends, managed to score a killing blow on another of the heavily armored, shield-bearing tanks.

The first Warrior attacked from ahead, striking the man’s shield, but the second one at last flew around his guard and pierced him straight through his spine. His mouth opened for a silent scream, and then he too fell forward and died. Any sense of victory was short-lived, however, as less than a half-second later, both of those imps were incinerated by a massive ball of fire that appeared from out of nothingness several feet above the stone floor, which burned and consumed them midair for a short while before both ultimately transformed into two more clumps of ordinary-looking sand, which trickled down onto the stone. And it was here that Zach realized things had just gone terribly, terribly wrong.

I screwed up. I really screwed up bad!

With just two of the guild members dead and all four of his four Sneering Imp Warrior cards destroyed, it finally occurred to Zach that he’d badly underestimated his enemy—maybe to the extent that he’d botched the entire rescue operation. It wasn’t just because he’d been overconfident, either, but also because he’d been in a rush. Hell, he was still in a rush, only now, he had no idea how he was supposed to break through and get to Vim.

As though sensing the momentum had shifted to their side, the front of the enemy’s formation, which now consisted of just three shield-bearing men, began to “push” their shields forward, which caused a grating sound to fill the room as they slid their shields along the stone ground, advancing slowly towards Zach. Behind them, the three women and two men followed closely, as did the line of five guild members carrying rounded shields; all three groups maintained a set, constant amount of distance from one another as they pressed forward towards Zach in a way that seemed cautious and careful, all while holding their formation steady. The back-most row, however, remained right where they were, and as a gradually increasing space began to form between them and their allies, the extra room enabled them to fire upon Zach and his four Sneering Elf Troublemakers without the risk of hitting their allies, though it was the Troublemakers in particular that absorbed the brunt of their onslaught.

Much less nimble and not nearly as fast as the winged Warriors, the Troublemakers continued to launch dagger after dagger at the enemy while doing little to avoid the sudden storm of incoming arrows and magic that struck at them for thousands of points of damage with each hit. Numerous such attacks were also sent Zach’s way as well, but he managed to dodge or cut them down as he backpedaled towards the entrance he’d used to get here. Yet for all the incoming threats coming his way, one woman in particular was clearly giving him the hardest time.

Zach frowned at the mage closest to the staircase, who was clearly the most powerful of the bunch. She was also the oldest, too: possibly even in her late twenties, though looks could be deceiving. She had cherry-blonde hair, and she was chanting something while the bulbous tip of her oaken staff began to glow. Then, several blue streaks began shooting off her staff, curving themselves midair and traveling halfway towards the ceiling before coming to a stop; the streaks, Zach noted, also moved in a bizarre way that briefly caused objects in front of them to become invisible as though they were causing light to bend around their location.

Very quickly, all these streaks began accumulating together, creating a giant, sparking, flickering, and spherical-shaped mass roughly three times the size of a large beach ball. Eventually, the woman raised her staff and swung it downwards, and following that gesture, the giant blue ball began to slowly shrink in size as, one after the next, at random points along its surface, it unleashed beams that moved incredibly fast across the room, causing miniature explosions wherever they struck.

Faced with a volley of powerful, unexpected attacks, Zach was now forced to duck, leap, side-step, or otherwise roll his way around this impressive but destructive spell while his Troublemakers continued to obliviously throw more daggers as they sustained intense damage from numerous direct hits of the beam, with one beam in particular blowing the entire nose off a Troublemaker and causing blood to drip down its chin and onto the floor.

6,217

HP

18,555/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Troublemaker B

Level

45

At the same time, the Troublemakers were also assaulted by fire, arrows, exploding cannonballs, and even water, as powerful jets of boiling liquid that materialized out of thin air above the mobs poured down on top of them, causing their red skin to smoke and sizzle while dealing between four- and five-thousand damage to each one. To make things worse, none of their thrown daggers were doing any damage to the enemy either, as every single one ended up absorbed by one shield or another with a loud thud that rang out with each impact.

In disbelief, Zach watched as his cards were at last killed, each one turning to clumps of sand and leaving him to fight alone against the nineteen advancing, angry, and vengeful members of the Guild of Gentlemen. Yet, despite this, Zach’s mind did not at all fill with thoughts of retreat or surrender, and he did not once consider turning around and fleeing in the direction he had come. No, the stakes were too high, and he’d already spilled too much blood to leave here empty handed.

And so, rather than retreat a single additional step, Zach came to a halt, raised his blade, and made the decision to risk his life by activating Unleashed Phase significantly earlier than he’d hoped for. He knew it might get him killed. He knew that he might not be able to get back to Queen Vayra in time. But he also knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with the knowledge that he’d killed so many people tonight for nothing.

I have to see this through to the end!

Truly, if he fled and survived, he’d be forced to witness his failures play out over the coming years and decades, and he’d know that all the pain would be his fault. Day after day, he’d watch the news and see society break down in multiple regions. He’d see the hate and vitriol skyrocket among the people of Giant’s Fall and Spider’s Eye Oasis as they vented their rage at the slaying of their guild leader, who they for some strange reason actually liked and cherished. And through it all, he’d think back to today, wondering if he could’ve prevented it by having succeeded instead of failing.

I can survive this, he thought. I really can. If I get to B8 and realize I’m running too low on time, I can always just hit mobs and proc my stamina regen to build it back up.

It was true. If absolutely necessary, there were ways for Zach to prolong Unleashed Phase. But then he remembered something else: an incredibly important detail that he couldn’t believe he only recalled right now. Feeling around the chest area of his robes for something concealed inside, his hand brushed against several items that provided him the greatest reassurance of all.

Right! he thought to himself, filling with relief. How could I forget? I also still have a red stone, two yellows, and a purple on me if I absolutely need them. And the purple will definitely stop me from dying if I don’t make it far enough in time. Especially if I only have to pay half of a Very High debt.

Though a Very High exertion debt might be too much for a single purple stone to heal, surely it would at least be able to keep him from dying if he cut the debt in half and then tried to use one. It likely wouldn’t be enough to prevent him from taking a several-hour-long, unconscious nap, but surely it would keep his heart from failing.

With that thought in mind, Zach activated Phase Reset followed by the weekly ability on his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness, which made it so that the next ability he used had its exertion cost cut in half. Then, his mind fully made up, he activated Unleashed Phase. Or, at the very least, he mentally commanded himself to do so. Yet something happened. Something he did not foresee. Something that caused him to become overwhelmed with panic and disbelief.

In the mere instant before he activated his ability, one of the mages extended their arm in his direction, and the tip of her staff began to glow a very bright whitish color. Then, a moment later, an equally bright halo appeared around Zach’s neck just as he’d activated Unleashed Phase.

And nothing happened. His hands did not begin spraying embers, his stats did not rise, and his skin did not take on a dull glow. His ability, quite simply, did not activate.

Zach tensed up, becoming confused and alarmed. Instinctively, he tried to dodge, pulling backwards and away, but the halo moved right along with him. He soon realized that this was because the shining halo was wrapped tightly around his throat like a collar, though he couldn’t feel its presence and it caused him no pain whatsoever. On edge, he wondered what the hell it was and what it would do to him. Would it explode and take his head off? Would it tighten and choke him out? With a sense of desperation creeping into him, he again tried to activate Unleashed Phase, and like before, it failed to go off.

“I’ve got him silenced!” the woman who’d casted the spell shouted.

So that’s why!

Very quickly, Zach pulled forward the information, as he now realized there was a red icon on the bar of buffs that he kept above him and in his peripheral vision.

Name

(T2) Promise of Silence

Effect

The user is silenced. While silenced, the user is unable to activate abilities, item abilities, equipment abilities, or spells.

Duration

0:55

Zach swore. This was badly inconvenient but not life-endingly so. Perhaps he did need to retreat after all, but only just for a minute until this fucking thing wore off. And so that was what he continued to do. But first, he cut down yet another two arrows, leapt aside to get out of the way of another missile-shaped flame, pulled himself back and away from another cannon-ball-like bomb, and then just as he was about to turn around and make a run for the frameless entrance and the ramp that’d taken him down here, a speeding ball made of pure grey smoke streaked across the room and struck him dead center in his chest, entering inside of him and vanishing.

Terrified, Zach wondered what in the name of the Gods had hit him this time. Once again, there was no pain. But he knew right away that something was seriously wrong with him. It became immediately obvious that something had changed. And it didn’t take him long to figure out what it was as he tried to get himself out of here before he took any more hits from any more strange shit.

As Zach commanded his body to move, he found that it was no longer obeying him. It wasn’t quite that he was “stuck” the way he typically was when hit with a root, but rather, he felt sluggish in an unbearable, horrifying sort of way. Every time he tried to move his body or one of his limbs, it reminded him very much of trying to wade through neck-high water. There was a certain resistance to the air around him. Even just lowering or raising his arms required him to fight with gravity.

I’m slowed! he shouted in his head. They slowed me!

He opened his mouth to shout, but he soon realized the silence was also a literal silence, as he could no longer do even that. Rattled, he tried to force himself to run towards the entrance as fast as he could. Yet it was like trying to run in a nightmare. His body was moving too slowly. He was barely even able to turn around, and he did so in such an uncoordinated way that he actually ended up tripping over his own two feet and falling down onto his side while dropping his sword. This actually turned out to be a miracle, however, because two arrows and one of those straw-sized lasers zipped across the air where his head had been, and all three met their end upon colliding into the wall behind him.

“Finish him off!” the officer with the tattoo shouted. “Before he recovers!”

Zach very slowly turned himself so that he was sitting up on his rear end with his palms laid flat on the stone floor while his body faced the direction of the guild members, who were now beginning to break away from one another as though sensing it was no longer necessary for them to maintain their formation. Quite a few of them began charging Zach, shouting out obscenities and hateful threats as they eagerly rushed towards him as though wishing desperately to be the one to deliver the killing blow. One of them in particular seemed to have already gotten ahead of the pack: the girl wielding the trident. With the weapon extended fully in both hands, she charged forward at Zach, clearly intending to skewer him right then and there.

Despite fighting for all he was worth, Zach was simply unable to maneuver his body in any meaningful way, nor was he able to shout out in horror as he watched the woman draw closer and closer and closer. Finally, she arrived before him: she, in a standing position, and he, still sitting on the floor and helplessly gazing up at her. With a loud grunt, she hopped into the air, angled the trident downwards, began falling straight on top of Zach, and then right before her trident tore through his flesh, she immediately changed directions mid-fall, flinging confusingly backwards and away from Zach in the opposite direction as a loud, startling bang filled the room.

Coinciding with this loud, echoing crack, the woman’s entire forehead exploded, sending brain matter, blood, and tissue all over a man wielding a two-handed sword that had been charging right behind her. Confused and clearly frightened, the man made a baffled-sounding half-yell, half-cry that was almost comical as he came to an immediate stop. He then looked around as though to ascertain just what in the Gods was happening. He never found out. A quarter of a second later, there was another stunningly loud bang, and now this man’s head was blown apart even worse than hers was. Following the bang, all that remained was a piece of mouth barely attached to a section of jaw on top of a stump of neck. With that, the man fell backwards and landed with a plop on the stone.

“What are you doing to them, you bastard!” cried a man wielding a small round shield and a similarly small hand axe. Zach tried to crawl backwards away from him as he closed enough distance that he was now only a few feet away. Yet his body would not respond, and he was unable to gain any meaningful distance from the howling man.

“What the fuck did you do, you Gods-be-damned devil! What did you—”

BANG!

The man dropped his axe, and then his shield. He fell forward, his jaw hitting the stone floor. Zach looked at the top of his head—or rather, he looked through the top of his head, as it had been cracked open just like an egg.

“What’s going on?” another of the men shouted. “What the fuck is—”

BANG, BANG!

A hole erupted in the man’s chest, blood spraying out of it. Then another one opened up in his belly, and he clutched it and made a strange groaning noise as he squatted down, whimpering as all the blood in him seemed to rush out at once. He fell over onto his side, and he began to shake. “Wh-what’s…”

“Kill him!” the officer shouted. “Kill him before he kills us all!”

At once, all four mages unleashed their most powerful spells—and all at the same time, too. A blinding array of light and color made it so that Zach couldn’t even be sure what was heading towards him, yet he had to imagine it would be deadly enough to take him out of his world in an instant. Yet, somehow, he was spared from facing death. He felt something strange on his back—and then he felt a tightening on his neck, which he soon realized was the result of someone grabbing the back of his robe and dragging him. He felt himself moving backwards along the stone flooring.

Then there were two successive bangs, one after the next, followed by an eruption of sounds, light, and vibrations as whatever magic the mages had used on him all seemed to go off at once, creating a nightmare that his eyes could barely discern. Eventually, however, things settled, and when they did, Zach realized he was now safely inside a bubble of some kind: a barrier made of green, wavy light that surrounded him entirely. He vaguely recognized it. He’d seen something like this before, hadn’t he?

“Barely made it,” a familiar-sounding voice said with a sigh.

Zach looked to his left, where someone was now standing inside the bubble beside him. It was a man whose entire face aside from his nose and mouth was concealed behind a scale helmet, and whose body was covered from head to toe in the very same silvery armor. His rescuer, whoever he was, appeared to be a large man with broad shoulders and a large, muscular frame, and he appeared to have saved Zach from certain death.

No, not ‘he,’ Zach thought with a gasp as he finally recognized the individual beside him. She!

Without a shadow of a doubt, the armored figure next to him was none other than Anelia Hellcrest, the bounty hunter and hitwoman who had been trying to kill Zach in the Den of Ziragoth. The two had been locked into a pretty brutal battle, but they’d mutually agreed to a truce after the dragon had spawned, because at that point, everything else had stopped mattering. He never thought he'd see her again after that day. Why had she come? What was she doing here? Was it to finish what she’d started last time?

No, he thought. She’s clearly here to help me. But why?

In both of her hands, she wielded large pistols that looked more like hand cannons, the grips of which were decorated with fiery streaks that actually glowed a bright orange, indicating that they were not regular guns, but equipment from the adventuring world. With her knees bent, she had both arms extended and the barrels of her guns pressed against the barrier as though they were the source of its existence. She grunted as several more deadly attacks pummeled the green, wavy protective bubble, causing it to flicker but not fade.

“Anelia,” he said, unable to control the astonishment in his voice as the silence debuff finally wore off. “Why’re you here? Why are you helping me?”

“Why do ya think, kid?” she asked, spitting out a wad of saliva as sweat ran out of the openings in her helmet. “It’s ‘cause I got paid a lot of fuckin’ money to be here, that’s why. Now shut your trap and get back on your feet.”

Zach had a billion questions he wanted to ask her, but none of them were appropriate right now, so instead, he tried to explain his situation to the woman. “I can barely move. I got hit with a slow.”

“No shit? How much longer until it’s over?”

Zach quickly checked. “Twenty-five seconds.”

Several more bangs followed shortly by an equal number of zaps came from the barrier as Anelia’s guns continued to produce and reinforce the protective, wavy-green bubble, which clearly had some kind of constant exertion requirement to keep active judging by the increasing amount of sweat pouring out of the few openings in her large, armored helm.

“Why are you here?” he asked her again.

“I told ya. Work.”

“Someone paid you to help me?” he asked. She nodded, and the motion of her head caused sweat to fall down her nose and plop onto the stone. “Who paid you?”

“Who do you think? Your guild.”

This, Zach found hard to believe. “Meaning the Royal Roses? Wait, they know that I’m here?”

“Guess so,” she said with an exhausted-sounding sigh.

“But how?” Zach asked, shocked.

The question seemed to annoy her. “Kid, I don’t know. I’m not an encyclopedia of guild decision-making. I get a job, I do a job. That’s as far as I know about any of this shit.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, sheesh,” Zach said as she glanced down at him with an angry stare. Zach averted his gaze and instead decided to try looking around himself. Right now, the world outside of the bubble appeared just as wavy as the light surrounding them, which was likely an illusion caused by it. “So, what’s the plan then, Anelia?”

“Uh…plan?”

“Y-yeah. You came here with a plan, right?”

“Mhm.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t get myself killed.”

“Thanks, that’s really helpful,” Zach said dryly. “How did you come up with something so clever?"

Anelia grunted. “Hey, kid, you can kiss my ass with an attitude like that. Let me make something clear to you: I’m paid to shoot people, beat people, and steal from people. I’m not some tactician like your fancy-pants ex professor—or whatever the fuck that glasses-wearing nerdy bitch was to you.”

“But you’re here to help me, right?” Zach asked, ignoring her rudeness.

“This time, yeah.”

Zach slowly lifted his arm, which required a great deal of effort. He pointed. “Those people are guarding the staircase that leads right to Vim Alazar. We need to fight our way through them to get to him.”

“Dumb,” she said dismissively in reply. “You want a plan? Here’s a plan. I’ll hold them off up here, and you go on and save your Gnome. Sound good?”

Zach eyed the woman skeptically. “Do you really believe you can handle all these people by yourself?”

“I just need to keep ‘em busy, right? Make sure they don’t follow you down? I can handle it.”

The slow finally having ended, Zach sprang right back up to his feet with a sense of urgency, but not before grabbing his sword off the floor. Now, gripping it with both hands, he nodded at Anelia. “Let’s do it.”

His sense of hope renewed, Zach activated Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 2 as Anelia released the triggers on both her guns, causing the green, wavy barrier to fade. The moment that it vanished out of existence, the scale-armored woman began shooting.

Say what you will, but she clearly works hard for her gold.

Zach smirked. Now that was something he could respect.

Chapter 155: Noon Ultimatum

Chapter 155: Noon Ultimatum

No matter how uncomfortable or unsettling the circumstances, one needed to always take responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions. This was a moral philosophy that Alex had tried to live by since he was a child. For most of his life, this had been something that came easy to him, especially during his time spent as an adventurer in the God Slayers Guild. But now? Now, things had become murkier and more complicated, as it was not yet clear how today would end, and the decisions he now had to make could radically shift the outcome in such a way that thousands upon thousands of lives could perish as a direct result of it.

I am the one who brought this about, he thought to himself. Whatever happens next, it’s on me.

Alex knew with absolute conviction that his decision to march a historically large army on Shadowfall Coast was the right one. Behind him, and continuing on for miles, were columns of tanks, APCs, and other transport vehicles for the various troop regiments. There was also an extensive array of modern military equipment such as mobile artillery, radar scanners, and pallets filled with food and medicine. Due to the unprecedented and unique threat the Guild of Gentlemen posed to the world, Alex had convinced High-Lord Kolorn Besh to do the unthinkable: divert almost every available unit available to the cause, leaving behind almost nothing and no one.

Right now, the absolute minimum number of leveled defenders and armed personnel necessary were protecting the Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, the capital of humanity. This, naturally, meant that more than three quarters of the entire guild was here, including Lord Besh himself. Even low-level members had been asked to come and fight.

In the more than two-thousand years of the Lords of Justice’s history, there were only a tiny handful of occasions where a guild leader had been willing to authorize an attack on another guild’s territory that risked this much in terms of manpower, material, and fellow guild members. It was a gamble of proportions not seen in a very long time. And make no mistake: if the Guild of Gentlemen were to decisively defeat the Lords of Justice in the coming battle, it would spell the end of the entire guild. Alex, a man who had only joined the storied guild a short while ago, would ultimately be responsible for its permanent collapse and erasure—as well as the fall of Slopes of Dal’Zarrah itself.

And yet, even with the weight of all of this on his shoulders, this was somehow not the cause of Alex’s current unease and discomfort. No, he remained unwavering in his belief that this was right: that this was necessary. The Guild of Gentlemen had somehow discovered a way to use a particle from Earth to create a weapon so devastating it had ended more than a million innocent lives. For this reason, Alex truly believed the risky decision would be not to attack. No matter the outcome, he would stand by this decision and feel secure in the choices that had brought it about.

No, it was something else that bothered him. Something that was entirely his fault, yet he would still choose to do things the same way over again if he was forced to relive his prior actions. And so, with that thought, he shifted his gaze to his immediate right, where Queen Vayra, who stood shoulder to shoulder with him, was frowning impatiently as her eyes scanned the tops of the numerous, thousand-foot-tall mesas that formed a wide valley large enough to allow their massive, human-Elvish military convoy to reach Shadowfall Coast.

“If we keep stopping like this, you know what the consequence will be, human,” she said to him, her tone cold and determined.

Alex felt the muscles in his shoulders tightening. Everything that could possibly happen in the early hours of this morning as a result of the Elvish interference was his fault—or at least largely so. And it was all because of the hijinks that he and Zach had pulled with Adamus, the Great One. Though it had resulted in the Elvish joining the war effort and granting them a dramatically higher chance of success, it was not without its unintended consequences, and the queen’s words made that very, very clear.

We did what was right, he told himself, though he was still not entirely convinced.

Meeting the queen’s eyes, he asked, “Have your scouts still not found them?”

“No, human,” she said, sounding annoyed. “I would have told you so if they had.”

Not far from where Alex was currently standing, a very young man, perhaps only a few days older than eighteen, was surrounded by medics, who were working tirelessly to patch him up. A few minutes prior, he became yet another—among dozens—of level-1 troops to have been shot by a sniper hidden amid the brush on top of one of the very tall mesas surrounding them. Alex regretted their guild’s limited number of healing stones, as well as the taboo of using them on ordinary, level-1 people. Already, numerous young men—and a young woman—had died because their wounds were too severe to save them with conventional medicine.

Her tone and demeanor becoming even more impatient, Fylwen said, “We must continue on. We cannot halt every time some insignificant worm fires a gun at one of your humans.”

Alex tamped down on his rising nerves. For the past hour, their progress had slowed dramatically, as they could never seem to travel more than a few miles without a small group of snipers from the Guild of Gentlemen opening fire on them. Each time this happened—and it had happened quite a bit by now—the Elvish would send out scouts to find and kill their attackers, rarely taking any prisoner. Then they’d proceed onwards again, only to be held up by another group a bit farther on.

“We can’t just travel straight through,” Alex said uneasily. “If we do, we’ll leave a trail of dead bodies behind: people who don’t need to die.”

“If you are unable to pay that price, then you know what I must do.”

Alex balled his hands into fists, but he said nothing in reply. Thanks to what he and Zach had done—which again, he truly did stand by—the Elves were behaving in a fanatical way that he was positive would not leave room for negotiation or reasoning. But it wasn’t so much that Alex could not have seen this coming, but more so, it was the way in which things had transpired that took him by surprise. And why? Incredibly, it was all because of a single sentence that Adamus had spoken. All that currently troubled Alex was due to a single spoken sentence.

“My only command to you is to destroy the human weapons and to not allow any more of them to come into existence,” Adamus had said to her early last night. At the time, Alex had been silently celebrating, as that was exactly what he, too, had wanted from her and the Elves. And it was because of this that he had set his mind at ease, believing that things were working themselves out. Sadly, he had utterly failed to account for how the Elvish people as a whole would react to this “commandment.”

To begin with, not only did Queen Vayra allow word of Adamus’s command to spread among the high-ranking Elves, but she allowed it to spread among all of them, and she’d even spread it herself. This, by itself, was not an issue. What was an issue was how rigid, hyper-literal, and stringent the Elves had become over this. And it wasn’t the first part of Adamus’s command that provided the issue either, but the second. Specifically: “to not allow any more of them come into existence.”

To a rational individual, one would naturally assume that, should they and their forces successfully attack Shadowfall Coast, destroy their weapons facilities, apprehend any scientific personnel involved in the weapons’ creation, and dispose of anything either just having been made or near completion, this would constitute a job well done, yes?

No. It wouldn’t.

To the Elves, such an outcome would constitute a total and complete failure. Why? Because in this scenario, if they were to eradicate any of the weapons that had only just been created, it would technically mean that more of the weapons had been created, and in the eyes of the Elves, Adamus had specifically asked them not to allow that—even if it didn’t matter or was totally inconsequential in any conceivable way. Even if the weapons had yet to undergo the process of being mounted to a rocket, programmed, and made ready to fire—to the Elves, this didn’t matter. Because their “God” had told them so.

I cannot believe this is the situation I’m in, he thought, exasperated.

“Please try to rethink your position on this," Alex said, despite knowing it would not sway the queen. "The Great Lord Adamus, when issuing our instructions, did not actually mean to imply that we—”

Alex’s words ended abruptly, and a white-hot pain entered his face as Queen Vayra struck him, hard, right across the side of his cheek—and with enough force to knock his new pair of glasses off his face. All things considered, Alex supposed he was lucky she did not do worse to him. He merely bent down and retrieved his glasses from the rocky, arid ground here in the river-less valley where Shadowfall Coast bordered Whispery Woods. Several of his fellow guild members observed this exchange, yet they wisely chose to remain silent and allow Alex to handle the situation.

“Human, do not dare attempt to twist the words of the Great Lord for your own desires!” she shouted, as nearby Elves, both those with green cloaks and white alike, all sent him angry stares.

“I apologize,” he said, bowing his head.

Fylwen glared at him a moment. Then her expression softened, and she wiped his reddened cheek with her hand, displaying a surprising gentleness. “It’s just a little slap,” she said. “You’re all right.”

“I am,” he confirmed.

Speaking in a way that was a bit more motherly, she said, “I understand you wish to spare as many humans as you can. Though I harbor great hatred for your kind, I too would prefer we shed as little blood as possible. That is why I am willing to cooperate fully with your plan up until noon. Until that exact moment in time, the Elves will defer to your methods and your tactics. However, come noon, if we have not succeeded in our shared goal, you know what I must do.”

Alex frowned. When he did not speak, she spoke for him. “We will level the entire city and leave nothing standing. It is the only way to ensure we live up to the direct command of the Lord. For the first time in many millennia, Lord Adamus has actually spoken to us. There is not an Elf alive who would dare disappoint him.”

Not wishing to direct any more of her ire his way, Alex nodded, though he did not agree. Her plan was in no way sensible or reasonable. The most logical and moral thing to do in this situation was obvious and foolproof. They should blitz the city and capture any possible nuclear launching sites, which would guarantee that, no matter what had or had not been created by that point, nothing could or would launch. From there, they would begin an exhaustive search of every building in the entire city, a process that could take significantly longer, but would be done in a controlled manner. With the Elves by their side, capturing the city could be done in a day: and searching the city for the weapons could be done in a few months—time that they would be able to afford once they fully disabled the enemy’s ability to launch.

Was it the greatest plan ever created? Perhaps not. But it was a good one; of that, Alex was certain. Yet because of the queen’s utter devotion to a hyper literalized interpretation of a man that Alex was sure could care less about how they succeeded as long as they did succeed, it seemed like the queen was planning to destroy the entire city and possibly end every life within its bounds unless Alex did the impossible and somehow rooted out every vector of weapon production and every uranium storage facility within the next seven hours. It was an impossible task.

“Sir, should we have the men press onwards, Lord Oren?” asked Lord Lansen Kranzifaust, the sixth-in-command of the Lords of Justice.

Alex lifted his head and scanned the tops of the mesas. They still hadn’t found the sniper team that’d just put a bullet through the chest of one of their men. With a touch of bitterness, he nodded. “We need to keep going, yes. We can’t let them delay us.”

“As you wish.”

Chapter 156: The Rescue Pt III

Chapter 156: The Rescue Pt III

It had been a little while since Zach entered Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 2: just long enough so that he’d forgotten how it felt. He’d forgotten the rush of exhilaration that caused his chest to lurch like a jolt straight into his heart, or the way his senses sharpened as he became more keenly aware of the world around him. He’d almost forgotten how the impossibly black smoke was traded away for a constant jet of burning embers that fired off from both his hands and feet. He’d even forgotten just how markedly it raised his stats.

Name

Zachys Calador

Level

25

EXP

371,082/400,000

Armor Bonus

118

Strength

161

Dexterity

155

Constitution

149

Intelligence

197

Speed

128

Luck

145

The sensation, as intense as it may have been, was still not quite to the same degree as it had been when he’d entered Phase Level 3 during his fight with Ziragoth the Awoken. This was somewhat odd considering that Phase Levels 2 and 3 had the exact same exertion cost. Honestly, it was a real shame that Zach couldn’t just skip right over Phase Level 2 and go straight to Phase Level 3 instead. If only such a thing were possible, he’d be almost untouchable right now—at least when dealing with political guild members, anyway. Still, this would have to be good enough.

Of course it will be, he thought, surging with determination. With his sword currently gripped in just one hand, he swung it at the air several times so that he could feel his increase in speed.

Inhaling a breath of the prison’s damp, stale air, he eyed the staff-wielding mage who was guarding the final staircase that he would need to descend in order to reach Vim, who was hopefully still alive and well. Looking her way, he noticed that the woman was still standing in the narrow frame that led to the staircase with her staff still clutched tightly in both her hands. Of the four mages from the Guild of Gentlemen, she was clearly the most powerful, and as she noticed Zach staring at her, she began to squirm somewhat. She also averted her gaze as though frightened as Zach took a step towards her—but he stopped as Anelia called after him.

“Before you go,” she said, throwing both her arms forward and firing a shot from each of her guns.

“Yeah?” he asked her.

Before answering, she turned her body to face a man wielding a large claymore who was charging at her. She withdrew her arms, bent backwards, and then kicked him right in his face, sending him backwards before extending her right arm again and popping off a shot that exploded his face even as he was stumbling away. His nose, his eyes, and a piece of his left ear joined a pool of blood that splattered off the rest of his skull. Afterwards, she fired off another two shots and then turned her neck so that she looked quickly at Zach.

“I almost forgot,” she continued. “They told me to tell you that there’s been a change of plans. You’re supposed to take Vim to the aircraft carrier, not the dungeon.”

“Huh?” Zach asked, confused. How could there be a change of plans when he was the one who’d come up with his own plan and hadn’t involved anybody else in them?

Anelia shrugged indifferently, then continued to blast the members of the Guild of Gentlemen, who were now fighting way less effectively due to the fact that they were no longer in any kind of formation and had sort of scattered around the gym room. “That’s all I know. Now get going.”

Zach gave her a return shrug. Whatever it was, he’d worry about it in a short while from now. After all, there was no sense thinking about reconsidering his escape plan before he’d even managed to rescue Vim. And so, once more locking eyes with the terrified-looking mage, he took off at a run in her direction, as he did not want to waste another second of his current duration of Unleashed Phase, which appeared to have used up about twenty seconds in replenishing the stamina that Zach had expended while making his way down here.

Unleashed Phase Duration

14:39 Remaining

I’ve got to move fast!

As Zach tore his way across the room, the two shield-bearing tanks that still lived lifted their massive shields and moved quickly to position themselves in front of him. A moment before Zach collided with them, he sprang upwards while tucking his knees into his chest so that he could clear the top of their heads, and then he sailed over them with ease. A half-second later, he landed back down in a crouch. Hurriedly, he stood back up and darted forward as another man scrambled to impede him. This time around, he used the arm opposite to the one gripping his sword to extend his elbow, and with that, he slammed his body into the smaller, rounder shield of a man wielding an axe. The man was blasted away, his body making a painful-sounding thwap as he collided with a wall not far from the four mages and two archers, one of which was about to launch a close-range arrow at him.

Snapping up his foot, Zach delivered a powerful kick to an exercise bench with completely rusted legs and torn padding that coincidentally happened to be in front of him, causing it to go careening off towards the archer with a meteor-like speed. It then struck the archer with such force that it broke in half over the man’s body and caused him to drop his bow. He then fell backwards, groaning.

Continuing onwards, Zach watched as the mage woman’s eyes widened in terror as he approached. “Move,” he demanded, reaching her. “Right now. Or I’ll kill you.” Her body shaking, she stepped to the side and got out of his way, so Zach ignored her and began hurrying down this final flight of spiraling stairs as fast as he possibly could.

Given the constant need to turn around and around as he descended, he was limited in how fast he could move. Thankfully, however, it wasn’t as large a flight as some of the others he’d ventured down thus far, and in less than half a minute, he was able to reach the bottom to see what looked like another narrow frame that led to another area—hopefully the last one. With each step that he took, he kept his eyes on his current duration of Unleashed Phase, knowing that time was now too valuable to waste.

Unleashed Phase Duration

14:02 Remaining

Directly above Zach, the sound of screams and gunshots played out as Anelia dealt with the Guild of Gentlemen’s forces, and then coming from even farther above that point—much, much farther—there were still regular explosive, rattling booms as the Royal Roses created mayhem in the city. But none of that mattered to him right now. He needed to focus on what was ahead—and in this case, it was a fairly narrow hallway with a width large enough so that only two people his size could comfortably stand side by side. It was also not particularly long, spanning perhaps forty feet in length, and it ended in a stone wall that served as a dead-end.

The hallway, as filthy and in as much disrepair as any other around this place, had a flat, empty stone wall that ran along its right side; on its left, there were exactly four doors equally spaced apart, the first three of which were shuttered and closed. The fourth, however, was fully open, and even from where Zach was standing, he could see a shriveled, weak, and sickly-looking little man that he only barely recognized as Vim Alazar lying in a cot, which was illuminated by numerous candles attached at various points around a grimy, uncomfortably small cell.

Gods, what did they do to him? he thought. Rather than rejoicing at finally finding the person he’d come here to find, he instead filled with disbelief and a sense of moral revulsion, which sparked an anger deep within him.

The man looked as though he were in his dying moments. He’d clearly been badly abused and tortured. His face was bruised all over, yet it was still utterly lacking in color save for his eyes, which had turned an unhealthy yellow. His lip was split, his nose was likely broken, and he was barely moving. He was also a great deal thinner than he’d been to the point he appeared malnourished and badly dehydrated. He was breathing very, very slowly, and the only sound to come from him was the occasional weak cough. To see Vim in such a diminished state was truly shocking.

Can…can he recover from this? Zach wondered, becoming very uneasy.

Due to the emptiness in Vim’s eyes, it was only natural for Zach to worry that he might have arrived too late and that there might not be anything left here to save. He feared Vim might already be in some kind of brain dead, vegetative state, from which not even a light stone would be able to revive him. But then, something happened: something very slight, but nevertheless enough to reassure Zach. For just a moment, Vim lowered his eyes and met his, and in them, Zach could see recognition—and even a slight glimpse of waning, but persistent strength.

“What the hell did you do to him?” Zach shouted out. His question was not directed at Vim but at the only other individual to be found down here. “What did you do?” he demanded.

Across from where Vim lay in the small cell, there was a tall man with a large frame who sat upright on a metal stool and faced in Vim’s direction. The sight of him caused Zach to shift his stance so that he once more held his blade with both hands, as with just one look at the man, he could tell right away that this was a person unlike any of those he’d encountered so far. Even without the unexpectedly elegant and intimidating equipment that adorned his body, the fact that he had the face of a man in his mid-thirties whose straight brown hair contained minimal signs of early graying was enough to make him stand out. But to be sure, his armor was certainly a very big part of what immediately separated him from the other guild members that Zach had encountered in Shadowfall Coast. It was also enough to further enrage Zach.

He stole that from us! Zach shouted in his mind. He stole all of it!

From head to toe, the man was bedecked in the armor of Ziragoth the Awoken. His entire body was covered in a silvery sheen that looked every bit as grandiose as it did powerful and effective. A potent reminder of the enemy Zach had helped to slay, the image of a dragon was embossed on the breastplate of his gear, and the fin-like spikes that protruded on the elbow-length gauntlets were reminiscent of the dragon’s scales. His helm, which only covered the top half of his face, framed his eyes in such a way as to make them appear more lizard-like and ruthless. But more than anything else, it was the spear that lay flat across his knees as he sat in the stool that drew most of Zach’s attention.

The weapon was a double-bladed spear that appeared to be made of a darkish silver with two middle grips and two outer grips on both ends of the weapon. The middle grips were rigid, and the outer ones were curved, and right near these curved grips there were small, decorative constructs that looked like miniature dragon heads, and each spit out a steady, small, but noticeable stream of orange flame that added to the illumination from the candles inside the cell.

With burning embers of his own flickering off his hands and feet, Zach approached, moving cautiously down the hall in Vim’s direction. He stopped, however, as the man spoke to him without even turning his head or twisting his body to look Zach’s way. “I didn’t do this to him,” he said, his voice powerful but earnest, lacking in any overtly detectable malice. “I also don’t approve of it. It’s not something I would ever support.”

“Oh no? Well, I doubt you’re shedding any tears over it,” Zach replied scornfully. Glaring at the man’s armor-covered back, he said, “I’m guessing you’re Gaelan Malakor, right?”

At the mention of his name, the man slowly stood up, straightened his posture, and then turned himself around. Now, with just one look into his eyes, Zach knew that the man was not going to surrender or stay out of his way. There was a very real edge in his demeanor—one that Zach did not take for mere bluster, but one that spoke for experience earned through hard work. What Zach saw in him was something that he found lacking in most of the other political guild members he’d come across. This was clearly a guy who knew how to fight.

“That’s right,” he said to Zach. “I am Gaelan Malakor. And you, I take it, are Zachys Calador, correct?”

Zach nodded. “That’s right.”

Upon Zach acknowledging his identity, the man gave him a nod in return. “Well, here you are, then. You look as menacing as they said. It’s that cloak of yours, isn’t it?” He met Zach’s eyes. “It shouldn’t surprise you that I expected you to show up here eventually. But what is surprising is that it seems like you were expecting to meet me down here as well. You even knew my name.”

“Captain Gaelan Malakor, sixth in command of the Guild of Gentlemen,” Zach stated. Since it no longer mattered if he kept the information a secret, Zach turned his head slightly, gesturing at his ear. “I’ve been listening in for a bit. That’s how I know about you.”

“Ah,” he said, “it looks like you got one of our Comms.” His gaze darkened. “I guess you grabbed it off one of the kids you killed on your way over here, right? As I hear it, you killed a lot of really good kids today: kids with bright futures that you’ve robbed them of, Zach. Are you proud of that? Are you proud of what you’ve done?”

“Are you?” Zach shouted, becoming immediately defensive and furious.

“Of course I’m not. But having said that, I’m not the one who killed them.”

Zach became so outraged that he actually guffawed. “The fucking nerve of you. You and your guild made this happen! Are you too stupid to realize that? Or are you just in total denial?” Zach felt his lips peel back in disgust. “Of course I’m not proud of what I had to do to get here. What, do you think I wanted to butcher a bunch of kids my own age? Because of course I didn’t. But it was you and your bloodthirsty, good-for-shit guild who made them fight—who put them in danger.”

“Deflecting the blame onto me won’t absolve you of your guilt, Zach.”

“What guilt?” Zach shouted at him. “I have none!” He removed his left hand from his blade so that he could point it accusatorily at the man. “It was you who put them in that position, you Gods damned coward!” Having become so angry that it’d caused him to breathe more heavily, Zach took a second to cool off. Then he lowered his voice and shook his head. “I don’t want to be here right now. I shouldn’t be here right now. I’m a Gods-be-damned adventurer. This is no place for people like me. But because of your guild, I ended up here.”

“Sorry, but I don’t buy that,” the man, Gaelan, said to him.

“Buy what? That you and your terrible, murderous guild are at fault for all of this?”

“No. Well…actually, yes, that too. But what I was specifically referring to is that I don’t buy that you’re still ‘just’ an adventurer.” He gave a dismissive shake of his head. “You’re no adventurer. You’re too far down the rabbit hole at this point to say that with a straight face.” Upon these words, Zach felt his eyes widen in rage, but to his surprise, the man then waved at him apologetically. This intrigued Zach just enough so that his anger faded slightly, allowing curiosity to take its place.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s nothing,” he replied. “Forget about it. It was rude of me to say.”

Slowly, the man exited the cell, then turned his body to face Zach, the two of them standing on opposite sides of the hall. Thus far, Zach’s words—and precious time—had been totally wasted on the man. In all likelihood, they were not going to agree on a single thing no matter what either of them said. There would be no way of convincing a man like this that he was the one in the wrong. From his perspective, he likely felt that Zach was wrong with the same degree of certainty. And yet, despite knowing it would get him nowhere, Zach knew he had a responsibility to at least ask him to stand down.

“I don’t want to kill you,” he said. “If you let me take Vim and go, I won’t harm you.”

Gaelan raised his double-bladed spear. “I offer you something similar. If you surrender and do not resist arrest, I will ensure you are treated fairly. Your deeds during the fight against Ziragoth will surely factor into any sentencing.” He made a reluctant-sounding grunt. “Gods, you’re just a few years older than my daughter. As a father, I desperately don’t want to have to end such a young life, but I will if you refuse to drop your sword in the name of humanity.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Zach said defiantly, once more gripping his blade with both hands. “Like it or not, I’m leaving here with Vim. Whether you’re dead or alive when that happens is completely up to you; either way, I’m taking him out of this place and ending this bullshit.”

Gaelan sighed. “If that’s how you feel about it, then so be it. If you want to escape here with the Gnome, you’ll have to go through me first, and mark my words, you will die. I don’t care how tough you think you are, sonny, I’m going to spill your guts all over that stone floor if you don’t wise up.”

Zach felt a brief moment of hesitance due solely to the sheer confidence the man exuded. But he’d been through way too much at this point to let himself be shaken. “You had your chance,” Zach told him.

“And you had yours,” he replied.

The man shifted his position, entering into a combat stance that saw him place his left foot before his right while he spun around his weapon several times fast enough to make a whooshing sound on the air. Zach raised his blade in kind. He readied himself. This would not be easy. He purged all extraneous thoughts from his brain and focused solely on defeating this dragon-armored, very high-ranking officer of the Guild of Gentlemen, who now stood in his way. Zach held his breath a moment, realizing this could well be the most difficult fight of his life.

“You can make the first move if you’d like,” Gaelan said.

Zach beckoned him with his chin, his hands gripped tightly around his blade. “No, you go on ahead.”

“Very bold of you, but…”

Gaelan raised both his arms and spun his double-bladed spear numerous times over his head at a speed that made it appear a blur, and then he lowered it back down and jabbed it out at the air in front of himself as though pointing it at Zach. “If you insist.” With that, there was a flash from the bladed end of his spear, and following this, an incredibly fast-moving torrent of dark-blue energy shot forward with a “fwoomp” sound that was similar to a dart being fired through a metal tube. This sound was followed by a static-like hiss as it rushed across the narrow hall and made straight for him.

Zach reacted as best he could, but the energy moved so fast that he struggled just to follow it with his eyes. Yet, somehow, he managed. Urgently, he twisted his hips and leaned backwards, narrowly avoiding the projectile, which zipped across the air over his left shoulder and ended up blasting several entire stones out of the wall behind him with a dull crunching sound, which Zach was able to see because he was now partially turned around.

Straightening his body and once more facing his enemy, he ducked beneath a second, then third such attack before realizing he could hardly keep up with the speed and rate of these dark-blue, bullet-like blasts of energy. Needing to close the distance, he activated Phase Blink in the intervening moments before the man fired off three more consecutive bolts.

At a speed great enough to be near instantaneous, Zach found himself relocated so that he was now behind Gaelan. Having used Phase Blink with a target, he ended up facing Gaelan’s back, with Gaelan still facing the direction he had Phase Blinked from. Sensing an opportunity to end this in an instant, Zach took a single lunging step and stabbed his blade forward, hoping to pierce the man’s armor, rip it into his back, and plunge it straight through his spine. But his hopes were soon dashed.

With a speed and preparedness that he was not expecting, Galean whirled around so fast that it actually startled Zach, and then he spun around his double-bladed spear defensively, causing each of the two bladed ends to clash against Zach’s sword, deflecting it. He then spun it around a second time, and Zach had to make two large, zigzagging motions to avoid each of its bladed ends before dashing backwards to give himself some breathing room.

It was at this point that the sonic boom from Phase Blink erupted in this previously quiet, subterranean prison cell. The resulting bang therefore came across as so loud that it caused Vim to twitch, stone and dust to leak down from the ceiling, and a colony of rats to squeak as they scurried out of hiding holes and went to live somewhere else. What it did not do, however, was startle or rattle Gaelan, who must have studied the feed of Zach’s encounter with the dragon and therefore knew to expect it.

Gaelan twirled his weapon, creating yet another series of whooshing sounds. “Come,” he said. Now, he was the one beckoning Zach. “Show me this ‘monster’ that so many in my guild fear. I see just a boy!”

Zach scowled and threw himself forward, going on the offensive. He raised his blade and struck down hard, trying to split open the man’s scalp. But the man spun his weapon upwards, causing it to crack twice more against Zach’s blade. Afterwards, he retaliated with another two strikes, and Zach had to work extra hard to meet both, as he was attacking with wide, circular motions that were difficult to match. Each time he struck out at Zach, he’d first spin around his spear so fast and so continuously it gave off a look similar to that of a helicopter’s propeller, seemingly turning from one object into numerous. It also didn’t help that his weapon also had much greater reach than Zach’s Sword of Light Amidst Darkness.

He really does know how to fight, Zach thought, leaning his body out of the way of the dual blades from the man’s fearsome, stolen weapon.

Spinning his body around full circle, the air whooshed as Gaelan struck out with a neck-level slash from his double-bladed spear. Zach dropped to his knees, dodging both blades, and then he jumped back up while slashing his sword above himself, attempting to rip Gaelan open from his belly to his chest. Galean then took one quick step backwards, avoiding the strike, before jutting his spear forward.

If not for the fact that Zach had become so proficient in reading body language, he would almost certainly have been hit by what came next. Yet he knew what the man was intending to do based on the way he angled his wrists along with the distance between the two of them. He could tell that he planned to stab one of the ends of his spear forward, yet he was doing so from a distance where the weapon would fall short and fail to connect with its target. This could only mean one thing: that he was not trying to stab Zach, but launch another one of his magical attacks, this time at point-blank range. And all of this, Zach calculated in a fraction of a second based on nothing more than distance and body language.

Having seen through the attack, Zach took his left hand off his blade and threw himself forward into something that was practically a one-handed pushup position, and he did so even before one of the bladed ends of the man’s spear flashed and unleashed another dark-blue bullet of energy, which he fired in such close proximity it would've been virtually impossible for Zach to avoid had he not done so well in advance.

Scrambling back up to his feet, Zach charged forward again, raising his blade to strike. From the way the man’s eyes became enlarged behind his helmet, Zach could tell that he was surprised—that he genuinely believed he’d put an end to Zach right then and there.

Well, sorry to disappoint!

Zach was on him quickly, seizing upon the man’s stunned reaction. Yet the man, Gaelan, began to light up. A yellow glow came upon his entire body, surrounding him like an aura, and then it grew in brightness—but only for a moment. This yellow aura then vanished as quickly as it appeared, but not before fully illuminating the poorly lit hallway as though it had been dispersed or projected outwards. Zach had no idea what that was or what it even did, but he was too committed to his current attack to stop. Swinging his blade, he attempted to…

Wait. What was he doing?

A moment before striking, Zach pulled himself back. What the fuck was he doing? This was crazy. It occurred to him that he really shouldn’t be here. Like, he really shouldn’t be here. He was going to die…wasn’t he? He was! He just realized that right now. Just now, right in this very moment—Zach now realized that he was going to die. And he’d never been so scared before. He’d never been so afraid. He had to flee! He had to get the hell out of here!

Spinning around so fast that he almost tripped over his own two feet, Zach took off at a full-on sprint, screaming out in terror as he ran across the relatively short hall. He didn’t even care that he was about to run headfirst into a dead-end and have nowhere left to go. His panic-stricken mind demanded that he run. It didn’t matter where he ran. He just needed to run.

Control your emotions! he screamed in his mind as he rapidly approached the stone-walled dead end. What did Jascaila teach you?

Zach continued to scream and shout out in terror as he plopped face-first into the wall. Then he turned around again and saw that Gaelan was already upon him, his double-bladed spear ready to strike a killing blow. Zach did not bother to defend himself. He only wanted to flee. He only wanted to keep running.

Pull yourself together, Gods-dammit! Take control!

He was right. What was he doing? Why was he fleeing? For what possible reason would he behave this way after taking so many lives and spilling so much blood just to make it this far? This wasn’t who he was. It was who he’d been. And he was damned if he was going to go back to being such a mewling coward. No, to hell with that!

Zach’s screams turned into growls, and then there was a snap as a bunch of yellow, jagged shards shot off his body and dissipated as though he’d just jumped through a glass window. It wasn’t until this moment that he realized the man had landed a fear on him. That son of a bitch! Now Zach was really going to let him have it. But first, he was going to have to endure a bit of pain, because the man’s double-bladed spear found its mark; Zach attempted to pull away, but it was too late. Both of the weapon’s blades were able to taste his flesh.

The first blade hurt the most, as it left a tremendous gash in his stomach and caused him to cry out in agony. The second blade bit into his shoulder, and this one might’ve caused him to yelp but he barely felt it in lieu of how much the first one had hurt him. Yet, if nothing else, Zach was fairly sure he’d pulled far enough away to prevent either of the weapon’s blades from wounding him deeply enough that it couldn’t be dealt with via passive HP regeneration. But before that point, he needed to strike back—and vengefully.

Dripping blood from his shoulder and stomach, Zach activated Halting Strike at the cost of 20 seconds of time. Immediately, his entire blade lit up with red sparks. With anger fueling him, he struck out, hard, ripping his blade from the right to the left. In response, Gaelan made a rotating motion with both his arms, spinning his weapon such that it traveled up, around, and back down like an upside-down “U.” It was essentially a maneuver that allowed him to deflect attacks from everywhere before him, as his spear, once more whooshing the air as it functioned like a propeller, had enough length and momentum to deflect just about anything.

As Zach’s sparking blade collided with Gaelan’s spear, Zach thought he detected more surprise in the older man’s eyes—likely at how quickly Zach had snapped out of his fear. This surprise seemed to become amplified as, despite guarding against Zach’s sword, it still caused every tendril of reddish electricity to channel off Zach’s blade, into and through Gaelan’s spear, up his arms, and finally into his body.

I can use crowd control too, you son of a bitch!

All at once, Gaelan released a terrified gasp, and then his body froze, becoming perfectly rigid. Zach knew he needed to act fast: as in very fast. His stun only lasted between 0.5 and 1.2 seconds, and given how tough an enemy he faced, he would wager that it would ultimately end up being closer to the former than the latter.

Having been disrespected, Zach unleashed his rage on his enemy. With all his strength, he ripped his blade through the air, sending it straight across the man’s chest. Then he watched as his enemy’s eyes lowered, looking down at the approaching weapon, and he began to make a loud, pained-sounding grunt, which increased in both volume and intensity as his body began to vibrate and shake.

A moment before impact, the red tendrils of electricity snapped, breaking the very brief stun, and just as Zach had done, the man rushed backwards and away, but not fast enough to prevent Zach’s sword from tearing into his flesh and cutting him open across the chest. He hissed in pain as Zach’s sword sliced through the illustration of the dragon’s face on his breastplate while sending a spray of blood off to the wall to Zach’s left, decorating it like a freeform, abstract painting.

Now, without saying a single word, the man jumped backwards thrice more, then held out his weapon defensively, remaining in that position unmoving. Zach, for his part, did not pursue. He merely lowered his sword, steadied his breathing, and also said nothing. He remained completely motionless—at least for the moment.

I see what he’s doing, Zach thought. It works to my benefit as well.

Fifteen seconds came and went, during which Zach locked eyes with Gaelan, never saying a single word to the man. The man also never said a word to him. For the entire fifteen seconds, they merely stared at one another. Zach used the time to run ideas and calculations in his head on how to proceed. He imagined the guild captain was doing the same. Either way, he would be ready for whatever came next. For now, though, he felt an intense itching from his stomach and his shoulder, as the bleeding in both came to a sudden halt.

Across from him, in his peripheral vision, Zach could see the wound he’d left in Gaelan’s chest begin to close all on its own while he continued to lock eyes with the man. The very same thing was likely happening with his own wounds. He could feel the heat and itchiness grow as passive HP regeneration repaired both of the injuries on his body, either one of which could have caused him to bleed out to death all on their own over a short period of time.

I have to end this quick, Zach thought. This guy’s dangerous. He’s a real threat!

This was about as precarious as any situation that Zach had been in to this point. The man he was facing off against was clearly capable of killing him, and it would only take a single misstep for him to succeed in doing so. With just the few quick exchanges the two had made, Zach could tell that he was dealing with a man who had already been very experienced in combat to begin with and had now been made even more lethal thanks to the dragon loot the Guild of Gentlemen had stolen. If only Zach could make use of everything he had at his disposal, such as the ability on his blasting ring, which had just come off cooldown, this would’ve been a much simpler and easier fight. Unfortunately, the possibility of unintentionally killing Vim or, even worse, causing a massive cave-in that suffocated all three of them to death was just too high.

I’ve got to find some way of killing him before he kills me!

Still locking eyes with Gaelan, he could see the conviction in the man’s eyes—he could see how, despite his personal desires to the contrary, he was both ready and willing to kill Zach in order to fight for what he believed was right, however stupid and misguided that might have been. But so too was Zach. The consequences of allowing the execution to proceed…they would result in a seismic shift in society that would make life virtually unlivable in North Bastia. They would result in an eruption of the sort that would destabilize the civilized world—at least as far as humanity was concerned.

And even if they didn’t, it would make it almost impossible for humans to convince the other races to join their side when the World Eater inevitably spawned. There were a great number of other consequences as well—too many for Zach to recall in this moment. He only needed to remind himself of the most significant of them in order to fill himself with the same conviction that he saw in his enemy.

I have to kill him, and I have to do it quick. I’ve only got about eleven-and-a-half minutes left on Unleashed Phase. I need to end this!

Zach’s body healed at the exact point in time that Gaelan’s did, and without a word or trace of hesitance, Gaelan sprang back into action—and Zach was ready for him. Their positions were now the opposite of where each had been standing at the start. Zach was now facing the entrance that led into this bottom-most prison level, his back to the dead-end, and Gaelan was standing not far from the way in. A brief flicker crossed his features, and then he made the next move.

With a grunt, he jabbed his arms forward, and the bladed end of his spear that pointed towards Zach gave off a flash as another of his impossibly fast, dark-blue torrents of energy ripped across the hallway, crossing the distance between himself and Zach in what felt like a microsecond. Zach, having expected such an attack, threw himself off to the left, slamming his own body into the wall just to get out of the way. His eyes visibly narrowed through his helmet, Gaelan turned his spear like it was the barrel of a rifle, and then he fired again.

Scrambling to avoid the blast, Zach ducked down to his knees, and with another crunch, an entire section of the wall was blown to bits, raining stone bricks down on top of him. Then Zach was forced to leap his way to the other side of the narrow hall, his black slamming into a shuttered cell as the projectile missed him again.

“Phase Slash!” he shouted in retaliation, swinging his sword diagonally downwards—at the exact same time that Gaelan launched yet another dark-blue bolt at him.

The world was overcome with a high-pitched squeal like that of a zipper being opened only a thousand times louder and all-consuming. Then, a visible disturbance came upon the air in front of Zach, one that took off with a speed twice as fast as the dark-blue energy cruising towards him. The result was that both he and his enemy was struck. Gaelan was struck dead center in his breastplate, which already had a visible, blood-stained tear running through it from Zach’s previous attack.

Now, an entire chunk of it shattered and broke apart, and Gaelan made a “guh” sound as he was shoved backwards and off his feet, crashing on his back and dropping his spear in the process. Zach could even see it rolling along the stone floor. It was also the last thing Zach saw as the dark-blue energy slammed into his own chest, causing him to be blasted through the shuttered door with an ear-splitting crack as he was knocked through the air.

There was a secondary bang as he continued to travel farther into the cell, coming to a stop after crashing into another wall, at which point he fell forward and dropped his own sword. Pain flooded into his senses, his chest feeling as though it had taken punch from Donovan. He struggled to catch his breath. Yet he knew he couldn’t spare a moment—not even a moment—to steady himself. And so, fighting through the pain, Zach grabbed his sword and raced to get back on his feet, and then, with his equipment covered in dust, dried blood, and pieces of stone, he bolted out of the destroyed cell—which happened to be adjacent to Vim’s—and flung himself at Gaelan, who was also once more upright and seemingly waiting for him, having also retrieved his own weapon.

Rather than fight him head-on, Gaelan took another leap backwards as though to put more distance between the two of them so that he could continue to use more of that difficult-to-avoid, ranged magical attack on Zach. But Zach was not about to let him get away with it. Activating Frostbind, the ability on his robes, Gaelan was brought to an immediate halt as, with multiple loud cracks, a number of shackles made of pure ice sprang up from the stone flooring and began wrapping themselves around his feet, rooting him in place.

Gaelan gasped, having been stopped, and Zach was able to catch up to him. And while Zach had absolutely no doubt that Frostbind would not last for very long, it would still have served its purpose. And indeed, not even a full second went by before, with several audible snaps, Gaelan ripped his feet free of the shackles. But Zach was already on him.

With a growing urgency to end this as quickly as possible, Zach held nothing back. He swung his sword with all the strength he could exert, delivering a sweeping slash aimed right for Gaelan’s throat. Gaelan, spinning his double-bladed spear, managed to guard at the last possible moment, but from the loud clack that filled the hallway, as well as a pained-sounding grunt, Zach could tell that his strike had definitely had at least some impact.

Gaelan retaliated, spinning his body full circle, then dropping suddenly down and delivering a sweeping slash of his own, this one aimed at severing Zach’s legs below the kneecap. Zach responded by hopping above the spear, then swinging his own sword straight down on top of the crouching man. Gaelan, quick to react, kicked off the flooring and flung himself backwards, but not before Zach’s blade managed to slice cleanly through the armor on his left shoulder and bite into his flesh.

The man continued to back away, and Zach pursued. But then, as though having a sudden change of heart, he abruptly stopped backpedaling and began performing elaborate, martial-arts-like motions with his double-bladed spear, spinning it above his head, around his body, and making twirling motions that threw off Zach’s ability to anticipate where and when he would strike.

Grunting, he ended up stepping forward and into a lunging thrust, which Zach side-stepped. Zach countered with a downward slash, which he spun upwards to meet. Sparks erupted as his sword clashed against the far-side of the spear, and then Gaelan somehow managed to slip through Zach’s guard, spinning around and slicing him twice in the same spot on his midsection.

“Fuck,” Zach groaned, once again gushing blood. But he was angry now: very angry.

He lashed out recklessly and thoughtlessly, unleashing an incredibly stupid attack that he would normally hate himself for making. In this case, that meant wildly swinging around his sword at Gaelan’s stomach while dropping his guard and leaving himself completely open to attack.

And somehow, it worked.

Gaelan, as though himself surprised that Zach would lash out with such a desperate strike, was utterly taken by surprise, and Zach cut through more of his armor as he gave the man’s belly a nice, deep wound to mirror Zach’s own. Gaelan hissed in pain and then made a dizzying twirling motion that was so fast that it somehow gave his weapon the illusion of “bending,” which meant that it now looked, from Zach’s perspective, like there were two different blades coming at him from two different angles. Zach raised his sword, and with a clack, guarded against the first. Then he leaned to the side to dodge the second—only to have his entire right earlobe sliced off his face, as a tiny part of the spear managed to make contact.

“The gods damn you!” he shouted, kicking out with his front foot and slamming it into Gaelan’s stomach.

The man made an “oomph” and stumbled backwards, and Zach brought his sword streaking down. Gaelan tried to take a quick step backwards to get out of the way, but once again, he did not move fast enough, and Zach was able to slice him from the right corner of his forehead and diagonally down across his face, ending by his lower-left cheek. Unfortunately, it was not deep enough to constitute a serious wound, but it did cause a constant, heavy flow of blood to pour over his eyes and nose.

“I’ve had enough of you,” the man growled, shaking his head like a dog and causing blood to splatter off to both sides of his face. Then, Gaelan’s body began to glow with another yellow aura that looked identical to the one he’d just used before. But this time, at least, Zach knew in advance what he was about to do.

He’s trying to use his fear on me again!

Having likely already drawn too close to get out of the ability’s range in time, Zach instead defended himself by trying to strengthen his mind while calling upon all of his willpower—and to his surprise, it actually worked. Well…sort of. Though he did begin screaming and fleeing the moment after the yellow aura turned into a bright flash and vanished, he was able to snap out of it in just a couple of seconds. But unlike before, Gaelan was much quicker to capitalize on the opening provided by his ability. He rushed forward, whipping his double-bladed spear around.

Snapping out of the fear, Zach regained control of his body just in time to duck and weave his way out of an exhaustive number of back-to-back slashes that Gaelan sent his way, and though Zach succeeded in dancing around the fast-moving blades, he was now off balance and awkwardly backpedaling. Thanks to the fear, Zach had lost his footing, and he was trying desperately to regain it as he continued to expend all of his energy just on avoiding the man’s ferocious, double-bladed dragon spear.

One attack after the next, Zach was pushed farther and farther back until, eventually, forgetting just how short the length of the hallway was, Zach bumped into the stone-walled dead-end, which threw him completely off balance. As a result, he was caught off guard and forced to endure a full three-hit combination attack from Gaelan’s double-bladed spear, in which each one hurt more than the previous.

First, the spear took a bite out of his midsection. Then, it opened him up deeply across his chest. Finally, the spear struck him yet again across the stomach, spilling out more of his blood and making him feel lightheaded. Hurting badly from all three cuts, he weakly raised his guard to block a strike that spun from high to low. And though he succeeded in deflecting the attack, Zach’s sword was knocked out of his hands. In the corner of his eyes, he saw it bounce off the stone wall behind him and then disappear somewhere off to his left and in front of him.

Now, Gaelan, as though sensing victory, went in for what looked like a killing blow. Backing up slightly, he then jutted forward, attempting to run Zach through with his spear. But Zach refused to submit. He refused to let this bastard kill him. Was he disarmed? Yes. Was he in a really shit position? Obviously. But no matter how experienced Gaelan might have been, Zach didn’t think there was anybody in Galterra who had been through as much harrowing shit as frequently as he had in such a short span of time. He doubted this “Captain Gaelan Malakor” had ever been mutilated by a dragon or literally killed by an Elf. Zach had been worse off than this: so much worse. This was nothing!

His survival instinct fully kicking into gear, Zach shifted his entire body to the right, causing Gaelan’s spear to narrowly miss its target and instead plunge deeply into the stone wall behind Zach. Then, before Gaelan could pull his weapon free, Zach balled both his hands into fists and delivered a powerful right hook into the man’s nose, which he followed up with a left, striking him on the side of his cheek and causing him to unleash a wad of spit as his entire head snapped in the opposite direction from the strength of the punch.

Zach continued, delivering an uppercut right below the chin, and then he pivoted on his hips and delivered yet another powerful blow, bashing him over the right side again with a hook and actually feeling his jaw break. One strike after the next he began to beat the ever-loving shit out of Gaelan, who eventually gave up on trying to retrieve his spear as though realizing it was no longer worth it. Now, he surprised Zach as he balled his own hands into fists and raised his forearms to guard, causing Zach’s next punch to be absorbed. He countered, and Zach was bludgeoned in the face, his nose breaking and the wind knocking out of him. He was hit so hard he barely felt the follow-up jab, which struck him in the mouth.

Angrily, Zach delivered a round kick to the man’s right side, catching him in the ribs and making him grunt—yet it did not throw him off balance. He slammed his fist again into Zach’s face, and this time, Zach felt dizzy. So he decided to share that dizziness. He grabbed Gaelan’s shoulder armor, and then he slammed his entire face into Gaelan’s, headbutting him so hard that he actually cracked through the man’s helmet—though at the cost of opening up his own forehead. He could even see his blood splattering all over the man’s silvery dragon helm.

Dizzy, tipsy, and having lost a great deal of blood, Zach let his body go on autopilot. Powered by nothing but previous experience, his body seemingly ducked all on its own as Gaelan delivered a five-punch combination, none of his blows connecting. He ended this combination with a hook that went wide, which gave Zach exactly the opportunity he needed. He ducked beneath the man’s fist and then dove forward at the stone floor, coming into a roll while simultaneously scooping up his sword. Noticing this, Gaelan spun around and retrieved his double-bladed spear, and then the two weapons clashed yet again, with Zach’s back now to the entrance and Gaelan’s to the dead-end.

Weak and wounded, Zach was now struggling to defend himself effectively. He gritted his teeth as Gaelan struck out twice—and connected twice, ripping off a piece of Zach’s cheek and cutting him open again at the hip. Luckily, Zach was able to dodge a piercing thrust that definitely would’ve been fatal. But Gaelan was also in a poor state, and this became obvious as Zach countered and succeeded in slashing him across the throat, though his blade ended up digging just an inch too shallow to kill him. Gaelan tried to lacerate Zach’s own throat in retaliation. Zach bent backwards and away, then delivered another follow-up slice, which badly missed his intended target but did somehow manage to cut off three of the man’s fingers on his right hand.

This back-and-forth continued, and now Zach entered into what could only be described as the single-greatest struggle for survival he had ever faced. One time after the next, he would strike Gaelan and draw blood, only for the same to be done to him. At this rate, both of them would end up dying. Zach had no idea how he was even still alive. He was cut open in so many places he couldn’t even keep track of them all. His ear had been chopped off, and his belly, chest, hips, throat, and face were all pouring blood. And worst of all, he was down to just eight minutes on Unleashed Phase, virtually ensuring he would not have the time to escape.

Seeing this number drove him into a frenzy. Something snapped inside of him. He’d had enough. He’d fucking had enough!

Taking the biggest risk so far, he dove into—rather than away from—a thrusting attack that Gaelan sent towards his chest. Then he dropped to the ground, sliding behind the man. Filled with desperation and bleeding from seemingly everywhere, he lifted himself up into a crouch and spun himself around while raising his arms and swinging his sword, cutting deeply into Gaelan’s heel and causing him to howl in pain while immediately dropping down, almost certainly immobilized and no longer able to remain standing.

I’ve got him! Zach screamed in his mind.

Zach darted back up to his feet. Now, he was the one who sensed victory. Striking out with his sword, Gaelan, in a kneeling position, defensively swung around his spear, deflecting a number of Zach’s blows, yet Zach now clearly had the advantage. He struck time and time again, hammering away until, eventually, Gaelan became the one whose weapon was knocked out of his grasp.

I’ve fucking got him! Zach thought as he saw the spear rolling away.

On the verge of ending this, Zach slashed again at his throat, and the man, now defenseless could only lean backwards. Though Zach did not get in a clean shot, he caused another spray of blood to stain the walls, nearly killing the man yet again. Having been sliced across the throat one too many times, the man now began to wheeze, and there was terror in his eyes.

Zach, caught up in the rage of battle, screamed out a battle cry and then cut him again across the forehead, taking a chunk of flesh out of his head in the process and knocking off his helm. Yet still, he lived, as his armor stat and constitution appeared to be just high enough to prevent Zach from landing any outright killing blows. Still, with each attack Zach was able to land deeper and deeper cuts.

Slash, slash, slash!

Blood streaked across the hall, splattering to the left, the right, and behind the man as Zach carved him apart. Finally, Zach turned his blade so that it faced the floor, and then he plunged it straight down—and through—Gaelan’s armor, puncturing his lungs. Yet still, incredibly, Gaelan refused to die. But he was close. He must have been. And so Zach tore his blade free, raised it up high, and readied himself for another plunging attack. This was it. He finally had him. His hands gripped tightly on the base of his sword, he drove it down and into—

“DAD!” screamed a voice from somewhere behind Zach. “NO!”

Taken by surprise, Zach hesitated just before delivering the final blow as Gaelan wheezed, coughed up blood, and then fell forward onto his stomach, his flesh making a plopping sound as he dropped down onto the stone floor. And then, an instant later, Zach felt something sharp pressing into his back—though it was not painful. He spun around to face his attacker.

At the moment, his vision was blurry and obscured by a combination of sweat and blood—and not all of the blood was his own. With his impaired vision, he struggled to clearly see who was attacking him, though he could just make out the shadowy form of someone—likely a woman—wielding a spear, though she did not appear to have the strength to actually puncture his flesh. She was certainly trying, though, thrusting a spear repeatedly into him yet failing to cause him any harm.

No time for this, he thought, badly wounded and needing to get a move on. Zach raised his blade, aiming to kill the woman in one swift blow.

“Pl-please,” wheezed Gaelan. “Daughter. No. Pl-please.”

Zach again hesitated. “What?” He wiped his eyes, then glanced over his shoulder to see the dying, gasping man extending his hand urgently with tears now in his eyes—not of pain, but of what looked like fear.

“Pl—”

He gagged, likely on his own blood, unable to finish the word, though Zach knew what he was trying to say. He once again faced forward, and now, with his vision slightly clearer, he nearly dropped his sword in horror as he realized he’d been about to strike down a very, very young girl—probably only fourteen years old from the looks of her—who was trying to skewer him with what looked like a level-1 starter weapon. The girl herself was clad in level-1 cloth armor. Or if not level 1, something very close to it from its unimpressive, bland, and plain appearance.

“Stop that,” he told her.

She continued to scream and attack him, so Zach raised his blade and delivered a strike, though it was one aimed at the spear rather than the girl. With ease, he split the weapon into two even pieces, and it suffered a full break, vanishing a moment later.

“Get out of my way, you monster!” she screamed as she began hammering his chest with her fists, which he also did not feel. He grabbed her wrists, holding them tightly.

“Stop it,” he ordered. She struggled and tried to yank her hands out of his grip.

“Let me go!”

I don’t have time for this.

Zach released her then stepped to the side, allowing her run to her downed father’s side. She dove at him, and she began to wail hysterically. “Gods, please, don’t let this be real,” she begged. “What did you do!” she screamed at Zach, her eyes becoming soaked. “You killed my dad.” She sobbed into his armor. “Please don’t die. Please. I’m begging you. Please!”

Zach was struck by the sight of this. It caused a trauma he thought he’d put behind him to explode in his brain with such vivid detail he felt like he was being transported back in time. He was there again, on that street in Whispery Woods, witnessing his father’s crumpled, broken corpse lying in a pool of glass and his own blood. The jitters returned, though he was far more in control of them than he was before meeting Jascaila. Even still, he’d had an entire week without them, and he’d almost hoped they would never return.

It's a process, he reminded himself.

The girl began to cry harder, wailing and pleading for her father not to die. “I’m…I’m sorry,” Zach whispered to her, though he doubted she could even hear his words right now. He also knew he couldn’t afford to stand around here and watch this, either. With just 7:35 left on his current duration of Unleashed Phase, he was going to have to move faster than a God if he wanted to get Vim out of here and far enough away that he’d still be safe when Zach collapsed from E-debt. He would also probably need to use a few stones on himself, too. Hell, he might need to use some right now, as he was badly, badly wounded, and clearly, passive HP regeneration was not “covering” all of these injuries.

Actually, speaking of stones…

Becoming mindful of Vim’s critical state, Zach rushed over to Vim’s cell, his body leaving behind little splotches of blood in a trail wherever it was that he moved. Yet even as he did so, he could not get the sound of the girl’s endless wailing out of his mind. He struggled to ignore it, but he just couldn’t. Even despite his lack of time, he felt compelled to look over his shoulder. The girl was still by her father’s side, and she was pleading with him to live.

“Daddy, please. Please!”

The man was as good as dead. This much, Zach knew for certain. It was the way he wheezed. The sound of it alone was enough to know his fate was sealed. Still, a rush of guilt pounded into him. He swore. Then he swore even more loudly. Hurrying over to Vim’s side, he knelt down, and with urgency in his tone, he asked, “If you can talk to me, tell me quickly: what, specifically, is wrong with you?”

Vim opened his mouth, his lips quivering, his body shaking. And with a weak, very ill-sounding voice, he whispered, “I’ve got a little headache.”

“Don’t start your shit with me now, Vim, please! Just tell me what’s wrong with you.”

Vim coughed out a laugh—or choked one out was a more apt way of describing it. “Very sick,” he whispered. “Dying.”

Zach felt his spirits lift even as his blood continued oozing out of his many wounds, some of it dripping down and splashing on top of Vim’s face. “So wait a second. Do you have any, like, serious internal injuries?”

Vim mouthed the word no. And now that Zach got a closer look at him, he could see that, while yes, Vim was badly beaten and wounded, his wounds were not in vital areas; no, what was killing the wiry guild leader was almost certainly a combination of disease, starvation, dehydration, and infection—literally everything that a yellow rejuvenation stone was designed to heal.

By now, Zach had learned the purpose for each. Reds were for regrowing limbs and non-vital organs, as well as general-purpose healing. Yellows were for replenishing bodily resources and curing disease, both viral and bacterial in nature, and purples were for repairing internal organs. There were more uses for each, but Zach could not recall them all. Fundamentally, he understood that what Vim needed was a yellow.

He reached into his robe and scooped out all four that he had on him: a red, two yellows, and a purple. Vim would likely need a single red and three yellows to be back to full health. But for now, Zach decided to use just one yellow.

“Gods,” Vim whispered, a note of excitement entering his voice. “You…you have stones?”

It was only now that Zach realized Vim did not expect Zach to actually show up with any. And his expression lit up with pure gratitude as Zach pressed one against his forehead, seeing it disappear. Now, before Zach’s eyes, he watched as some of the color visibly returned to Vim’s face. His cheeks became slightly redder, his eyes less yellow, and he was at last able to speak in more or less complete sentences. In just a matter of seconds, he transformed from someone on death’s doorstep to someone who resembled a very, very sick hospital patient who had just undergone surgery and was now in recovery, albeit with a long road ahead of them.

“Oh, Gods, the relief,” he said, sighing. “I’m still weak, but I feel so much better now than I did a few seconds ago. Zach, do you have another yellow?” He greedily eyed the one in Zach's palm.

Another yellow would fix him up perfectly, but…

Zach looked over his shoulder and at the girl, who was soaking her father in her tears. “Please!” she shouted, likely speaking to the Gods. “Please don’t take my daddy away from me,” she begged as her father wheezed, and now made gargling sounds that sounded horrific and struck at Zach’s very soul. “Please! Daddy, please. You promised me you wouldn’t die. You promised. You said you’d be home tomorrow. Please, daddy. Please. Please!”

Fuck.

“I know what you’re thinking, Zach.”

“Vim,” Zach said, meeting the eyes of the leader of the Royal Roses. “I have to.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

He sighed. “Fine. I’ll just suffer, then.”

“Don’t be a dick. You’re not dying anymore.”

He coughed. “You sure about that?”

“Mostly.”

“Why did you come here? They might hit us with another of the weapons because you—”

“No, there’s…there’s a lot of things that happened you don’t know about. I’ll tell you later. But…but for now just…hold on. I’ll be right back.”

Zach got up, spun around, and trailing more blood behind him on the stone flooring, he walked over to his downed enemy. The girl turned her head as she saw him coming, and she shrieked. “Get away!” she screamed. “Get away from my dad! Noooo! Get away!”

He brushed her aside. Then, with a bit more force than he’d used on Vim, he slapped a purple stone right down on the man’s chest, as well as a red and finally the other yellow. This, as his daughter began again punching his chest with her fists, which would likely only cause her pain, as he could barely feel it.

“I’m helping him, you dummy,” he said to her.

“Huh?” She stopped abruptly. “Helping him?”

Zach looked at her. “Your dad’s hurt real, real bad. I gave him three healing stones but even that…I don’t think what I gave him will be enough to save his life. But it should make it so that, uh, instead of dying in the next ten seconds, you have at least two hours to get him to a hospital or something. It’s all I can do now. I’m sorry.”

The girl looked at him as though absolutely mystified. Then she spun around and once more looked at her father. The man’s wheezing and gargling had stopped, and already, the rise and fall of his chest seemed a great deal more normal. Perhaps too normal. Actually, was he already moving?

Oh no.

As a sign of his strength and willpower, the man sat up—and then stood up. Now, Zach, still dripping blood, backed away as he actually returned to his feet, retrieved his spear, and looked as though he had been fully healed.

“I have a unique passive that boosts the effectiveness of healing magic and stones on me by three-hundred percent,” he said as though sensing Zach’s confusion. He bent down, retrieved his helmet, and placed it on his head. The front of his breastplate was already almost repaired, as armor tended to repair itself much faster while out of combat—assuming it had not suffered a full break.

“I didn’t know that,” Zach whispered.

“Now you do.”

Zach cursed himself for being so stupid. Fear exploded within him. Gods, what had he done? The man should’ve been incapacitated and in critical condition. And yet, already, not even a minute had gone by, and he was back on his feet and staring at Zach. And then he began to lift his spear, extending it in Zach’s direction.

And it was here where Zach truly came to accept that he now deserved whatever happened to him. Because he knew better. This wasn’t his first screwup of this caliber. That was the worst part of it all. It was that Zach knew better. How many fucking times did he have to have his acts of kindness turned against him? How many times did he need to have his deeds backfire before he finally learned not to do shit like this? Before he finally understood that people couldn’t be trusted?

Time and time again, he made stupid, thoughtless decisions, and then he promised himself he would become smarter, wiser, and not fall for the same pitfalls. He swore he’d never trust people again, only to end up trusting. He promised he would stop sticking his neck out for others, only to have it nearly decapitated. The lessons he was supposed to learn—why couldn’t he learn them?

By now, Zach should have known that any time he risked himself for dangerous people, they were going to turn on him. Because people, ultimately, could not be trusted. He needed to purge the weakness within him. He needed to give up on the idea that people deep down were good and naturally inclined to—

“That way,” Gaelan said, extending his spear towards the dead-end wall rather than stabbing him with it.

Zach stared at him, confused. “What?”

“There’s a hidden passage. It’ll take you back to the surface. You should be able to get a head start in taking the Gnome wherever it is you intend to go.”

Swallowing nervously, Zach asked, “You’re…you’re not going to kill me?”

Gaelan visibly cringed as though he found the suggestion disgusting. “What kind of…what kind of monster would do that? You defeated me in combat and then spared my life. What manner of beast would even begin to think of doing something so treacherous and dishonorable? Imagine the world we’d live in if that was how people behaved?”

Tell that to Fylwen, Zach thought to himself, resisting the temptation to roll his eyes. He had to mentally remind himself that he’d already let this go and had come to admire and like the woman. Even still, it was a sore spot.

“You’re really just going to let me and Vim go?”

He nodded—no, he did more than nod. He bowed. “Peter respected you. Now, I can see why. Thank you for not harming my daughter. I was wrong about you.”

Zach shook his head. “You weren’t. I killed so many people today.”

“War,” he said, speaking as though that one word alone was enough to convey an entire sentence. In a way, it was.

Not wanting to give the man a chance to change his mind, Zach scooped up Vim and threw him over his shoulder despite his angry protestations and demands to be let down. This, as the man activated a hidden button built in the stone wall that caused the wall to slide to the side, revealing a stairway that went straight up to the surface and thankfully didn’t spiral.

“Your chance of making it out alive is still quite low,” Gaelan said to him. “You’re badly wounded and there’s a whole lot of enemies between you and a way out of this city. You’ll probably pass out from blood loss very soon and die even sooner. I wish I could do more for you. I mean that.”

Zach shrugged, causing Vim to groan as he carried the little man. “I’ve been in worse spots than this.”

“I see…”

With only six minutes left on Unleashed Phase, and a rapidly growing feeling of lightheadedness overcoming him, Zach actually wondered if that was true. Deep down, he knew he was probably going to die again today. He had come to save Vim, but now he had no healing stones, no time, and he was half dead.

Okay, this time, I think I’m actually screwed. I think I really might have…this might be it.

He was alone in enemy territory with a very ill—though not deathly ill—guild leader and he was leaving a trail of blood with every step that he took. The situation was probably hopeless. Even still, he continued to try his best.

I need to let the others know how I made out, he realized.

Taking off at a run, he placed a call to Mr. Oren to let him know the situation in the hope that, should the worst happen, at least Vim could be rescued and humanity could still have a future. It wasn’t that this kind of selflessness came easy to Zach, either. Had he been in a normal state of mind, he’d be freaking out right about now.

But he’d lost so much blood, and it was starting to have an almost calming, drowsy effect on him. He was in so much pain, but he was also becoming woozy and detached. With Vim over his right shoulder, he used his left hand to dial Mr. Oren. The conversation was surprisingly brief, though there was no mistaking the worry in Mr. Oren’s voice. Finishing up quickly, he then called Queen Vayra, as there was one last thing he absolutely had to do. He spoke to her quickly, summarizing events as fast as he could.

“I just need you to let her know I love her in case, you know.”

“How bad is it, young man?”

“I’m uh…it’s bad.”

“How bad?”

“Let’s just say…” He paused to breathe, suddenly feeling weak and short of breath. It was a struggle just to speak, but still he continued to ascend step after step with Vim on his shoulder. “Let’s just say I’ve only got five minutes left on Unleashed Phase, and it still probably won’t be the thing that kills me.”

“Very well. I’ll send for help.”

“Don’t bother. I’m in way too deep. I’m only calling you so you’ll give Kal my last words if…you know. In case. Make sure she knows I love her.”

“Okay, I’ll call her and let her know now.”

“W-wait!” he shouted, suddenly becoming far more awake and alert. Her words caused him to feel such a spike in anxiety that he nearly tripped over the top step. Or maybe it was because things ahead were starting to blur. It was becoming a struggle to keep conscious. “Definitely not now, Gods dammit!”

“Oh? I should wait?”

“Obviously!”

“Very well. I won’t say a word for now.”

Zach sighed. “Okay, thanks.”

With that, he ended the call and continued on. He couldn’t believe Fylwen almost dialed Kal. That would have been real, real bad.

******

“He’s where?” Kalana screamed into her phone, unable to believe what her mother had hidden from her. Pain exploded in her chest as Donovan and Zephyr continued to stand by her side, both of them silent. They, along with all the raiders, had now returned to Galterra together and had gathered in a large pub in one of the quieter areas of Slopes of Dal'Zarrah to await the roll for loot.

“My daughter, cease your dramatic howling. This is precisely why he asked me not to tell you any of this. Truly, you must stop these theatrics, Kalana. I’m betraying his trust just in telling you this.”

“I don’t care about that right now!” she shouted. “Tell me where he is, or I swear, mom, I’ll never forgive you!”

She explained, and Kalana had to resist the urge to scream yet again as all the adventurers eagerly awaiting the loot roll turned their heads to look at her, concern in their eyes. The more her mother explained, the more upset she became, and the more betrayed she felt. “He’s fighting a war by himself?”

“He’s fuckin’ what?” Donovan asked, slamming a big mug of beer onto the countertop.

Kalana couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Mom, tell me everything. Please!”

“Perhaps this was indeed a mistake…”

“Mom!”

“Very well,” she said with slight grunt. “But only since your petulance comes at such an abhorrent time. Zach called me perhaps a minute or so ago. He’s succeeded in rescuing Vim Alazar, and now he’s planning to fight his way to the Piercing Thorn.”

Kalana felt tears roll down her eyes. “But he told me he was going to bed. He…he lied to me.”

“Of course he did,” her mother stated bluntly. “He’s a brave boy, and he wished to spare you the pain of experiencing war. Honestly, Kalana, he has grown so much on me. I fully approve of him now as though he were an Elf. He brings us—and you—honor.”

“But he lied to me, mom!”

“As he should have,” she said, her words striking Kalana deeply. “You stand alone as the only Elf to ignore the call to action. You stand alone as the only Elf whose heart is too soft to appease the Gods. You have much growing up to do, daughter.”

As insulting and irritating as her mom’s words might’ve been, Kalana didn’t even care about them right now. She was too worried about Zach to focus on her mom’s stupid war that stupid Adamus told her to fight in. As far as Kalana was concerned, only Eilea was a real Goddess. Adamus was just a jerk. Even Jascaila thought so. Everybody was making a really big mistake in listening to him. But that was a whole different thing.

He doesn’t trust me, she thought, an ache in her chest. He doesn’t even trust me.

She wiped her eyes. “Why did he lie to me?” she asked her mother, sobbing. It hurt so bad.

“Because he doesn’t want you there, Kalana. Can you truly not see why he’s done this? It’s quite obvious. He loves you. And he knows you cannot—”

“Just tell me where he is now!” she screamed.

Her mother made another angry grunt, which came through over the phone. “As I said, that is the reason I’ve called you against his wishes and confidence. Right now, he is about to fight his way to the shore, but he claims to have been badly wounded.”

“How badly?” she asked, her heart beginning to pound faster and faster as she awaited her mother’s reply. “How badly!” she shouted into the phone.

“Very badly,” her mother stated.

“He’s in the southwest of the city?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

Kalana hung up, ignoring whatever mom had to say next. She met Donovan’s eyes. “I have to go immediately. Zach’s hurt bad. Do the roll without me.”

He opened his mouth to question her, but she’d already grabbed her daggers off the counter and re-sheathed them at her sides. She eyed the window and looked outside the pub. If she leapt across the rooftops, she could make it to the Grand Library in under two minutes. From there, she could pick any reasonable dungeon that had a nearby door to Angelica’s, and she could get one of the adventurers with an exit door near Shadowfall Coast to let her out. That should get her within a few miles. It would be a difficult trip to make in such a short time, but it could be done. Of course it could.

I can get there in under five minutes, she thought. But I need more stones.

“Please,” she begged, looking at the faces of the human adventurers around her. “Please. If any of you could umm, if you guys could please just lend me a few of your stones, I would repay you, I promise, and I’d give you more than they’re worth. And I’d also—”

Before she could even finish speaking, hands were extending towards her from every angle: dozens of them. She nodded her head graciously. She could see why Zach had fallen in love with this community. She really understood now. He belonged here among the adventurers. He should’ve been here with them right now. Maybe if he’d come along, Jimmy wouldn’t have gotten hurt and run off. He should have been here!

Why did you have to lie?

Accepting only what she believed she might need, she stuffed a few stones into her pockets and graciously thanked those that’d given them to her. Many of the adventurers were also asking if they could accompany her, especially Rian and Lienne, but Kalana politely refused. She had made up her mind to travel alone—well, almost alone. One of the adventurers insisted on tagging along, and she knew he wouldn’t be stopped.

“Fluffles coming too,” the cat said with a meow. “I fight.”

She knelt down before him. “If I let you come, kitty, you have to promise me you’re not gonna kill anybody, okay?”

He hissed. “I kill five.”

“No! Zero people. Promise me.” She frowned at him. “You gotta promise.”

“Okay,” the cat said, purring. “I promise. Fluffles not kill.”

“Good kitty,” she said. Then she grimaced. “We need to get there before Zach kills anybody either. I don’t wanna see him in pain, and there’s a better way. We don’t gotta kill.”

Fluffles meowed. “Kalana too late. Zach kill.”

“Huh?” she asked, looking at him.

“Zach already kill 107 humans today.” Then he meowed. “Now kill 108. 110. 114.”

Kalana—and every adventurer including Donovan—gasped in disbelief. “Are you serious?” Donovan asked.

Fluffles meowed happily. “Zach already kill 119 humans. Fluffles so proud! He the best hunter.”

Donovan made a low groan, then shook his head. “The fuck is going on with him?” He scowled. “This is Alex’s fault. I know it is. That fucker’s gonna ruin him. Ah, shit, I’ve had it! I’m gonna rip that prick’s head off if he keeps corrupting the kid like this. We’re gonna lose him as an adventurer if this keeps up. Ain’t possible for him to keep doing shit like this. Not if he wants to be part of us. He’s going in the wrong direction.”

Kalana didn’t know what was going on or why, but she knew she needed to leave immediately. Checking quickly to ensure she had everything that she needed, she took off, leapt to the top of the three-story pub, and then dashed to another roof across the road. If there was no straight path, she would make one.

Zach had lied to her. She was hurting. She felt betrayed and untrusted. But all of that was secondary right now, because she loved him, and he wasn’t okay. She just wanted him to be okay. Gods, please, protect him until she got there.

*****

There was an explosion, and Zach held on more tightly to his Kralzek’s Beast, as the cannon inside its throat launched an explosive shell that blasted apart the third floor of an apartment building, where three leveled archers were firing arrows down on him and Vim. Afterwards, he ordered his beast to spin violently around and move in the opposite direction as several armored tanks and a legion of infantry, as well as a number of leveled defenders, turned the corner of the street in front of him and tried to cut him off.

“This is bad, Vim,” he said, having his mount instead dash through an alley as he continued to try to evade the tightening net closing in around them. The entire city seemed to be aware that he and Vim were out and about, and there were hostile forces everywhere.

“If we live through his,” Vim said weakly, “you know you’re being promoted, right?”

Zach barked out a laugh. “Promoted? I’m not even really a member of your guild.”

“Mhm. Sure.”

“Stop that,” Zach said.

Now, Vim made a laugh as well, though his was weak and strained. “You’re taking Varsh’s role: fourth-in-command of the Royal Roses.”

Zach felt his jaw drop. “You’re fucking with me.”

“Not this time,” Vim said as the mount leapt through the second-story window of another apartment, causing a father and a mother to scream at the top of their lungs, grab their children, and hide behind a green couch as Zach shouted out an apology and raced across their living room, knocking over their coffee table, causing their screen to fall off the wall, and tearing up a section of their area rug. His mount then jumped through another window, bringing them back outside into the very early morning darkness, falling back down to the street.

“I’m an adventurer,” Zach insisted. “I’ll never be a member of a political guild.”

“So I take it you won’t be moving into your three-hundred-acre estate in Giant’s Fall, then? And you’ll be rejecting your monthly gold stipends?”

His words roused Zach so much that his blurred vision cleared for a moment. Gods, he was in so much pain. He was also so tired. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep. He was fighting to stay awake and guide his mount. Yet Vim’s words, at least for a few moments, managed to bring him back into the present.

“I get that?”

“Yes.”

Zach cleared his throat. “Well, since you’re forcing it on me, I’ll obviously take it. Doesn’t mean I’m really a member of your shitty guild.”

“Of course not,” Vim said. “Now stay awake and fight the embrace of death. Haisel will take care of us if we can just get to the shore.”

From the constant sounds of explosions and gunfire, Zach knew in which direction he needed to head. But honestly? He really, really didn’t think he was going to make it there. He was just so tired. Even as he leaned over to his right side, extended his sword-carrying arm, and decapitated a motorcycle-riding member of the Guild of Gentleman who pulled up beside him, he felt like he was about to slump over and pass out.

I just need to get Vim close enough to where someone else can rescue him. Then…then whatever happens, happens. So tired. I want to sleep.

Chapter 157: Calamity of Stars

Chapter 157: Calamity of Stars

It wasn’t until the first shots were fired that Alex finally felt the pressure descend upon him. With the earliest signs of morning light peeking over the horizon, the quiet grasslands outside the city in Shadowfall Coast became explosively noisy with gunfire. What began as a few reports from a few different guns escalated to becoming something so much more chaotic. Alex was now witnessing firsthand the start of what he had unleashed upon this city: what he had been instrumental in bringing about.

“We’re taking small-arms fire!” cried one of the level-1 troops of the Lords of Justice. He, along with numerous others, lay flat at the base of one of the rolling hills. To distinguish combatants from civilians, he wore a camo-colored uniform and a helmet with matching stripes, as did all the infantry who fought on their side.

At the moment, they were about three miles west of the city, and the enemy, too far away for Alex to even properly see, began to unleash a hail of bullets from their outermost defensive positions about a half-mile from the city’s outskirts. Crossing his arms as he stood out and in the open, Alex ignored the bullets that bounced off his body and flicked off his forehead as he studied the situation. They needed to move quickly and without delay, but from this point forward, they wouldn’t be able to simply rush recklessly on ahead unless they wanted to lose an absurdly unnecessary number of soldiers.

If only I’d had more time to research ancient tactics.

A hundred years ago, someone like Alex would not be leading an attack of this sort. In those days, experts who’d been educated in military schools that focused specifically on the topic of conventional warfare would be the ones making decisions and calculating the best approach. Yet after a century of moderated, open-field combat—a system designed by Peter I—there were very few alive who could claim proficiency in these matters. Thus, the various guilds now relied on documentation and written accounts for knowledge on how to conduct this ugly, regrettably revived form of combat.

In the case of a city siege, it was written that the advancing force should look to gain between half a mile and a mile’s worth of territory per day. This, of course, was not acceptable, as by shortly after noon today, the enemy would have another of their weapons ready to fire. It absolutely would not suffice to begin a slow trudge towards the city. But that was certainly how things were looking as the battle began in earnest.

“What do you think, Lord Oren?” asked High-Lord Kolorn Besh, the leader of the Lords of Justice. The man was standing to Alex’s left side. Alex watched as he rubbed his right eye as a round from a machine gun thudded against his lid; he brushed his face with his palm the way that one might brush away a mosquito or deal with a small itch.

Alex frowned. “It’s certainly not going to be as simple as the last invasion. That much is abundantly clear.”

When the Royal Roses had invaded a few weeks ago, they had done so before the enemy’s anti-aircraft SAM turrets had been brought online. Conducted in the aftermath of a sanctioned terrorist attack carried out by the Guild of Gentlemen in Giant’s Fall, the Royal Roses had blitzed the city and managed to take all of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Avenue before the Guild of Gentlemen were able to mount a resistance. This time around, however, it looked like they were going to have to put in extra legwork just to get within the city’s bounds.

“Can we order a charge?” Queen Vayra asked. She was standing to his right. “Your humans are more than happy to do it. By all accounts, they desire revenge. Why not let them have it?”

Alex shook his head. “We’ll lose so many of them. Maybe even most of them.”

Putting aside the morality of ordering a suicidal charge, the fact of the matter was that they needed people—and a lot of them—in order to eventually occupy, secure, and contain the city. The considerations extended beyond simply this current crisis, too. The city itself was still a vital target in the quest to restore trade relationships with the rest of the world, as Shadowfall Coast served as far too important a port of entry to be left in the hands of the xenophobic Guild of Gentlemen.

How can we speed things up?

He knew that the queen would make good on her promise to flatten the entire city if he did not have the nuclear problem solved in less than six hours from now. Truly, it was an impossible task. But he had to try his best anyway—as impossible as it may have been. And to that end, he had the people, the equipment, and the ammunition. What he didn’t have was the time.

Alex looked over his shoulder and stared at the massive force approaching behind him. I can’t be reckless with all of their lives.

He had brought a staggering, historically large number of level-1 troops down to Shadowfall Coast, and he’d done so without any advance warning or notice. Typically, such an operation would require months of planning and logistics to work out. But somehow, Alex had actually managed to perform what was, in his honest assessment, a miracle—or perhaps it was simply that the impossible tended to become possible when it served as a matter of life and death. In this case, by commandeering all public and private aircraft in the Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, Alex had actually found a way to rush around 45,000 personnel here for this emergency invasion of Shadowfall Coast, of which 30,000 were performing combat-oriented roles and the rest would be utilized as inspectors, medics, engineers, and various other vitally important positions.

When he’d pitched this idea to the guild shortly before midnight, the primary concern among the Lords of Justice was the disarray and public disorder that might result from the sudden, unannounced, and unexpected seizure of all airports and aircraft in Dal’Zarrah. Alex himself had been bracing for such chaos; instead, as civilians caught sight of their forces, in uniform, rushing inside, they were met with cheers and faces that became alight with gratitude. Shockingly, the people wanted this war. They wanted their region and governing guild to fight to avenge those who had perished. It seemed that this was now the dominant view among many in North Bastia—though it would have been unthinkable as recently as a month ago.

At any rate, thanks to snipers along the valley, they were down around 200 soldiers, with about 40 of them dying outright and the rest being too wounded to continue fighting. Most of that death had been preventable, but Alex had needed to keep everyone moving. The consequences of trying that again, however, would be far more dire. Unlike the valley route they’d taken to get here, if he ordered his men to storm the city, more than half would likely be cut down.

With signs of impatience visibly causing her features to tighten, Queen Vayra narrowed her eyes and said, “Why don’t I simply have my Elves go in, then? Honestly, I fail to see why we cannot leave the level-1 humans behind for now and quickly take out their front lines on our own. Certainly, it beats standing around here waiting for your humans to play bullet tag with their little weapons.”

Alex opened his mouth to reply, but it was High-Lord Besh who replied for him. “That won’t work,” he said. “You’d lose a great many of your Elves that way.”

“Oh? Are you quite sure, human?” she asked, her tone a bit on the snippy side. Actually, her mood had grown very bitter as of a short while ago, and Alex didn’t blame her for it. She, like Alex, was very concerned about Zach, and it was clearly affecting her patience. Thankfully, High-Lord Besh’s patience was fully intact, and he answered her calmly.

“There’s a reason we still use guns, level-1 troops, battle tanks, and artillery in conventional warfare—and have done so historically. The troops are not just fodder, and they do serve a greater purpose than simply acting as a peacekeeping force to maintain order and hold territory.” He inhaled slowly, then turned his face so that he stared at the modest city in the distance, where a nonstop chorus of gunshots were exchanged with their forces. He pointed in the direction of the battle.

“It seems almost obvious,” he continued. “By that I mean the idea to forgo fielding armies and to instead send in leveled fighters to deal with things on their own. It’s the first thing most people would think—you could even say it’s the natural, common-sense solution to warfare. But,” he said, raising his pointer finger, “if you were to have access to the guild archives, you’d see that this is a mistake that humans have made time and time and time again all throughout history for as far back as our records date.”

“Explain,” the queen demanded, though she did now come across as a bit intrigued. Alex was fairly sure he knew what High-Lord Besh was going to say, and indeed, it was something he himself only learned very recently when researching combat tactics, specifically a very old book from five-hundred years ago called Theory of Unit Formation.

High-Lord Besh turned his body slightly so that he was now facing the queen. “For starters,” he began, “in any large-scale battle that pits leveled fighters against other level fighters, the backbone of any unit is going to be the mages in that unit. They are capable of turning around any fight, no matter how poorly things have been going. And while tanks—in the leveling sense—can protect their mages from other leveled fighters, a fairly large majority of spell-casters are susceptible to high-caliber, armor-piercing rounds. Sure, they can repel basic types of anti-personnel ammunition. But unless they have an unusually high constitution stat, they can be picked off by snipers using bolt-action, armor-piercing rounds. And if they are picked off, the rest of the leveled fighters are put at a tremendous disadvantage. So, where did that lead us historically, Your Majesty? Well, it led armies to begin enlisting level-1 snipers to take down mages and healers. Some very early guild battles were won using this method.”

Kolorn paused to take a breath before continuing. “According to historical records, snipers became a regular part of war. And there in turn came the only next logical step: making use of counter snipers designed solely to take down other snipers—along with light infantry to flush out those in more elaborate forms of cover such as towers or in difficult-to-reach places. And with the light infantry came heavy infantry, and with that came the introduction of armored vehicles. And because of armored vehicles, the next step was artillery, and so on and so forth. Now do you see?”

Queen Vayra did not look impressed. “How does any of this apply to my Elves? None of them can be harmed by your bullets, including those of us more inclined to magic. This, it seems to me, is a human problem.”

“There are other factors,” Alex said, chiming in. This caused the queen to shift her stance such that she now set her gaze upon Alex instead of his guild leader.

“Such as?”

Alex gestured with his hands, which he pressed together then slowly pulled apart. “Smoke, chemical irritants, and other tools they will use on you if you go in there alone,” he explained. “As powerful as your Elves are, the enemy has dragon equipment now. That still won’t be enough to overcome any of you. I understand this. But when you’ve got swarms of level-1 troops throwing flashbangs, gas grenades, or firing smoke-pellets directly into your eyes at a sustained rate, even humans will be able to get the better of you. I assure you, Your Majesty, the enemy has definitely prepared for the possibility of an Elvish attack. If you lead your Elves in there alone, they will utilize a host of unexpected tools to put you at a disadvantage.”

“Utter rubbish,” Queen Vayra said, scoffing dismissively at the suggestion that her Elves could be made vulnerable.

Alex held his ground. “I’m telling you the truth,” he insisted. “For as strong as your Elves may be, there are certain biological processes and responses that, for reasons unknown, do not change as a result of leveling.”

Queen Vayra fired him a skeptical, annoyed look. “That’s quite the cryptic explanation. Do you care to be more specific, human?”

Alex nodded. “Sure. So, hmm…okay, so how about this? Let’s take pepper spray for example. No amount of leveling will stop the stinging and unpleasant effects of being struck with a canister of pepper spray or hit with a pepper bomb. Given the fact that even the best bullets will fail to so much as tickle an Elf, it might seem absurd or counterintuitive that something so benign as pepper spray might severely hinder a sufficiently leveled fighter; yet, upon contact with the eyes, the brain transmits all the same signals that it does for a level 1. So what I’m hoping to make clear here, Your Majesty, is that while your Elves are out there wiping at their stinging eyes, it leaves open the opportunity for a leveled human to creep up from behind and plunge a knife deep into their backs.”

Queen Vayra said nothing for a moment, and Alex could tell by the contemplating look on her face that she was considering his words. Twisting her lips somewhat, she asked, “And are these the sorts of weapons and ‘techniques’ that you encountered on your previous foray into Shadowfall Coast?”

“No,” Alex said. “And if that sounds surprising, it is. For months leading up to these recent events, the threat of conventional warfare has been lingering on the air and discussed openly among the Royal Roses. Despite this, the Guild of Gentlemen were not prepared to fight in one. It’s only recently that they’ve completely restructured their defenses to deal with a more historical military threat.” He frowned. “I don’t know why, though. I can’t understand why they waited so long.”

“I’m fairly sure I know,” the queen said, and now a bitter sadness crept into her face, which softened somewhat. “Peter likely didn’t believe it would ever truly come to this, and even if he had, he likely viewed relying on such tactics to be beneath his dignity. Perhaps, it was only after they murdered him that the humans began preparing for this sort of war.”

Alex had to admit that he found her explanation plausible, especially because it would help paint a clearer picture of the circumstances that had led to Sir Alistair Morrison betraying his king. Even still, it was shocking how quickly the rest of the Guild of Gentlemen had accepted it. Alex would have thought there would have been a bit more outrage over what the man had done.

There is probably more I don’t know, he thought. But finding out will have to wait for later.

As bullets flew black and forth across several miles’ worth of distance, soldiers scrambled to take cover behind anything they could, including tanks, armored transport vehicles, large rocks, and sloped portions of the land. From this distance, most shots failed to find their targets, though more perilous were the explosions that began to deform the land as the enemy launched rockets and shells at them, slowing their advance.

They’re clearly playing for time, Alex thought. They don’t have to defeat us. They just need to bog us down.

The Guild of Gentlemen was mounting an unexpectedly strong defense. The only possible explanation was that they’d recruited a great many men and women from within their city while also bringing in more manpower from Tomb of Fire, including leveled defenders and equipment. Thus, Alex returned his attention towards thinking up a solution. He needed to move significantly faster, yet he couldn’t just order a full-on charge.

We need aerial bombardment from Haisel Ragora. We need those jets!

The one possible game-changer—the wild card, so to speak—was the existence of fighter jets: those F-15E Strike Eagles that Haisel had miraculously resurrected, though making use of them would require his forces to first disable the enemy’s anti-aircraft capability along the northwestern front. Instead, Haisel had chosen to bombard the southeastern coast in a separate operation to assist Zach and rescue their guild leader.

A tremendous mistake, he thought angrily.

The more Alex considered the dilemma, the more he realized that he was going to need the assistance of the Royal Roses. Even from the completely opposite side of the city, he could hear them fighting their own battle. Hopefully, they would get their leader back soon and make good on their promise. The two sides were in constant communication and were technically operating as allies even if their efforts were not entirely coordinated.

One thing was for sure, however. If they did not find a way to break through—and into—the city in an unprecedented, historically fast timescale, the Elves—along with the rest of them—really would have to make a mad dash towards the city, indiscriminately flattening it before they were able to launch another weapon and murder another million people. If push came to shove, it was an option Alex was prepared to take even if it haunted him for the rest of his days.

And so, for their sake as well, Alex prayed to the Gods for a swift, decisive victory.

*******

Vim held on tightly to the back of the boy’s blood-stained robe as the large, saber-toothed cat made unsteady motions while it sprinted over the uneven rubble of a destroyed building. Just a few moments ago, both the north and south sides of the street they’d been running down had been cut off by a mass of troops, leveled fighters, and armored tanks. Thankfully, there had been a way to slip through the tightening net that would be difficult for those behind them to pursue, as their vehicles were not suited to ride through such treacherous terrain.

As the boy’s mount dashed its way across the remnants of the destroyed apartment complex, Vim soon found himself on a quieter, residential street in downtown Shadowfall Coast. But he knew it wouldn’t remain quiet for long. At most, it would take a minute or possibly even less for the Guild of Gentlemen to begin swarming them here as well. After all, both he and Zach were high-value, high-priority targets, and the Gentlemen would desperately try to prevent either of them from escaping.

What’s even going on? he wondered, trying to piece things together.

His head was fuzzy, his body was weak, and a pain flared in his chest whenever he tried to breathe. He was also cold and shivering despite the warm, humid, early-morning air, which when combined with his general sense of dizziness, told him that he probably had a fever. Even still, he felt tremendously better right now than he had before the boy had used one of the yellow stones on him. Though he still felt awful, it was nothing compared to how poorly he’d been faring a few minutes ago. He had been delirious, unable to speak, and mere moments from death. It was to the extent that, at first, he’d thought the sight of Zach to be a hallucination.

Now, however, as he and the boy rode their way down a two-way street that had apartments and storefronts lining both sides of it, Vim tried to deduce what had taken place and why it had happened. The boy had told him very little, and he didn’t appear to be in a speaking mood right now—nor did he look capable of making conversation. Vim feared he would not last much longer at this rate.

Why did he rescue me?

Passing a two-story medical building that seemed to serve as a hub for cardiology and radiology, Vim struggled to connect the dots. Normally, this would be easy for him, but he was still incredibly unwell and felt as though his mind was fogged up. He concentrated in order to try clearing it. Were there any assumptions he could make?

Yes. A few.

For starters, the fact that Zach was here at all—along with the Piercing Thorn, from the few comments Zach had made—meant that his guild must have had some reason for believing they could attempt a rescue without inviting nuclear retaliation from the Guild of Gentlemen. But as far as what that reason might be, Vim could not say. Still, he thought it safe to assume there was at least some reason behind it. Secondly, he also felt comfortable assuming based on their current trajectory that Zach was trying to lead them to the shore. From the sounds of explosion and gunfire, it seemed like they were meant to make straight for The Piercing Thorn.

Can he even make it that far?

As bad a shape as Vim was currently in, the boy’s condition was significantly worse. Though his bleeding had slowed from a heavy rush into more of a gradual trickle, he did not look well at all. He was missing an ear, his nose was visibly broken, and there were red, damp spots of blood all over his black robes. Due to the self-repairing nature of equipment—provided it did not suffer a full break—the blood was no longer leaking directly out of Zach in the places where he had been wounded; instead, it seemed to be running down his body and dripping out near his ankles. He also seemed to be trying his best to hide his pain.

For the past minute or so, with his hands and feet continuing to fire off a steady stream of burning embers, Zach had been making very quiet moans and hisses, which tended to be followed by grunts. Yet these sounds had now quieted a bit, and Vim did not imagine that was a good thing. Continuing to say nothing, the boy’s mount raced the two of them down several streets one after the next. To both sides of Vim, civilians exiting their homes glared at them with expressions made of pure hatred as they passed by.

“Get the fuck out of here!” an old man shouted from an opened window on the second floor of a three-story apartment building. “You sons of bitches!”

Vim ignored them and kept his focus on what lay ahead as he and Zach continued down a third block—only to come to a sudden, unexpected stop. Right in the middle of the street, not far from the sidewalk and directly across from a shuttered clothing boutique, the saber-toothed cat, for reasons unknown, halted itself and then remained that way. Vim said nothing, assuming that this was perhaps due to Zach attempting to figure out how to proceed or something of that nature. Yet for nearly twenty seconds, the two of them remained seated on its back, remaining perfectly still as the sound of shouting voices in pursuit began to echo from behind them.

“Zach?” Vim asked.

He did not reply. Vim looked over his shoulder. Two blocks down, he could see numerous tanks riding towards them, flanked by a significant number of ground troops. Having never expected to live to see the open air again, Vim realized it would be such a disappointing shame to be caught or killed mere moments after escaping the torturous dungeon. And so, with urgency in his voice, he said, “Hey, Zach. Zach!”

The boy’s head slumped down, and that was not a good sign. “Zach!” Vim shouted. As weak as he was, he found the strength to begin shaking the boy, causing his head to droop even more, sparking concern for both of their lives. Vim shook him even more violently. “Zach! Wake up! Do not fall asleep. Zach!”

“Wh…”

Very, very weakly, Zach raised his head. Then, as though it required all the strength in the world to do so, his hand began to shake as he lifted his arm, extended his pointer finger, and gestured somewhere much farther down the road. With a sudden forward momentum that almost caused Vim to fall off the mount, the beast again took off at full speed, and once again, they began to put distance between themselves and those hunting for them.

“Stay awake,” Vim said to him. “If we can just get to Haisel, everything will be fine.”

Zach did not reply, which made Vim even more worried. This worry turned out to be justified as, upon sprinting down another two streets, the mount stopped once more. And now, something even worse happened. With what sounded like a groan, Zach released his hands on the scruff of the mount’s neck, tilted over to the side, and fell off it completely, landing onto the sidewalk with a plop.

Forcing his own weakened body to move, Vim slid off the mount and knelt down next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got to get up.”

He wasn’t moving. Shaking him this time did nothing, either. The boy refused to stir. The rise and fall of his chest had become very shallow; he was near death. Vim cursed at the Gods, listening as the sound of their pursuers grew louder as they neared. They were going to be attacked very soon, and there would be nothing that Vim could do to protect either of them.

Even had his body not been in such a weakened state, Vim still wouldn’t be able to defend himself or the boy. This was because, shortly before turning himself in, Vim had stripped everything out of bank and storage and had stored it in a physical guild vault in Giant’s Fall instead; this way, even if they tortured him—and Gods, they sure had—he would be unable to give them anything of material value aside from his life. That being the case, he was therefore without a staff or any kind of weapon he could use to fight back.

Pressing down harder on Zach’s shoulder, Vim continued to shake him. “Get up,” he said again. “Or you’ll die!”

It was no use. Zach was completely nonresponsive. He was dying, and from the way the color was draining from his face, he had very little time left in this world. Vim himself was still critically ill. Even as he shook the boy, he began to unleash a hacking, painful cough that made his lungs feel like they were on fire.

“Get up,” he demanded despite knowing the futility of it. Again and again, he shook the boy as civilians who’d been standing outside and watching the spectacle began rushing back inside their homes as though sensing things were about to get ugly and dangerous. The sound of shouting voices drew ever nearer. All the while, Zach’s breathing became even shallower.

If only he hadn’t wasted his stones on the enemy, Vim thought angrily. A purple and a red would’ve kept him going long enough to get him to our allies. Gods damn it!

Even in the best-case scenario, Zach had maybe a few minutes left to live. He was no longer even moaning. He lay completely still on the sidewalk, though his hands and feet did continue to fire off the embers, which were now the only way that Vim could easily confirm that he still lived. Aside from that, he was beginning to go cold.

Giving up, Vim stopped shaking him, turned himself around, and sat on his ass on the ground. He sighed. “Guess this is it,” he said. And then he chuckled. “At least we made them work for it. Right, Zach?” Unsurprisingly, the boy said nothing in reply. Vim didn’t even know how he was still alive. He must’ve been clinging to life, though his grasp was clearly slipping. His mount also disappeared into a puff of smoke, which Vim took as further evidence that the boy was in his final moments of life.

Ahead of Vim, the first of their enemies came racing down the street and into view. Now, Vim watched as three men wielding axes and two women—one with a staff, and the other with a spell dagger—all widened their eyes at the sight of Vim sitting there and Zach lying unmoving on his belly with his face buried into the concrete ground. It was as though they did not expect to see them in such a vulnerable position, which told Vim that the Guild of Gentlemen had been unaware of the extent of how debilitated the two of them were.

“Contact!” shouted one of the axe-wielding men. He was young, perhaps nineteen or twenty years of age, and he had short black hair that jutted out from the front of a light leather helmet. “Both targets spotted,” he said with a sense of seriousness and urgency into what Vim assumed was a Comm in his ear. “They…they appear to be wounded and defenseless. Should I move to apprehend?”

He and the four with him slowed as they neared Vim and Zach. “What’s that? But…but they’re literally on the ground already. All right. Understood, sir. You’re right. Best to not take any chances.” He turned his head left then right, glancing at each of his allies. Far behind him, a much larger group could be seen approaching, along with a number of combat vehicles. “Orders from up top: kill them immediately. We can’t take any more risks.”

“Got it,” the woman with the spell dagger said. Holding it in her right hand, she lifted the weapon then turned it so that it was flat before pressing it against her left shoulder. Afterwards, she began to chant. Now, a reddish aura began to glow all around each of the three axe-wielding men, covering them from head to toe. Following this, each began charging at Vim and Zach, their axes raised as if ready to kill.

“Is that some kind of strength buff?” Vim asked, coughing even as he spoke. “Pathetic. We’re already almost dead.” The three ignored him and continued to charge. Vim scooted on his rear closer to Zach, and he placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t know if you can hear me, Zach, but despite how it turned out, I appreciate what you tried to do.” He coughed. “Sorry it cost you everything.”

Of the three axe-wielding fighters from the Guild of Gentlemen, it was the black-haired one with the leather helm who reached Vim first, his body glowing with a wavy, visible red energy—the result of whatever buff the spell-dagger-wielding mage had cast on him. With Vim in a seated position, the young man had to bend his knees and squat down as he swung his axe, which ripped across the air as it headed straight for Vim’s forehead.

With all options exhausted and all hope extinguished, he braced himself for the end. And as though the universe itself had decided to play him a song of farewell, Vim could swear he heard the sound of an enchanting melody on the air. In fact, he was sure of it. His ears clearly detected what sounded like a flute, one that was playing some kind of whimsical marching song. He didn’t think he was imagining it, either, because if so, it would be a shared hallucination from the way the other two axe-wielding men turned their heads and scowled at something behind Vim.

“Shit!” one of them cried.

It was at this point that Vim wondered why he was still alive. By now, the axe should have split his skull apart. In front of him, he saw that the man had paused, his knees still bent and his arms still raised above his head. Yet something was off about him, and in the darkish, pre-dawn morning glow, it took Vim a second to realize that his attacker’s eyes were closed; even more strangely, Vim was fairly certain the man was snoring!

He…fell asleep?

“Who are you?” shouted the woman with the spell dagger. Vim did not think it was him that she was speaking to. Her head was tilted up and her eyes raised as though she was glancing at the top of the home behind Vim on this side of the street.

Giving off a clear sense of frustration, the woman began swinging her arm around and making slicing motions with her spell dagger in the air before her, causing it to glow brighter and brighter with each slice. Vim supposed this was her way of “winding up” another spell. If so, she never got around to casting it, as once more, the sound of a flute resumed, and this time, it played an entirely different melody. It also wasn’t the only sound to reach Vim’s ears.

The early-morning air filled with the distinct, shrill croak of a raven, and then came another sound along with it: the unmistakable fluttering of wings. At a speed far faster than a bird could naturally fly, a winged creature zipped by Vim’s right ear, slipped between the other two axe-wielding men, and then flew right into the chest of the woman wielding the spell dagger, punching a hole straight through it. This caused her to spit out a wad of blood and then clutch her chest as she fell forward onto the pavement.

“What the fuck?” the woman with the staff yelled. “G-get it away from me!”

She began to run off as the melody resumed, and following another croak, the raven pursued her. Vim watched the raven chase after her at a speed much greater than she seemed capable of fleeing, and though he assumed from the sound of her screams that she perished soon after, he did not ultimately see what fate befell her, as his attention refocused on the two axe-wielding men, who were now rushing at him as though to do what their snoozing friend had failed to accomplish. But they, too, were stopped.

The sidewalk beneath their very feet erupted, and then dozens of sharp, long, white, and metallic spikes popped out of the ground and rose straight upwards, piercing both men in multiple areas. Each spike ended up being over five feet in length. Both men cried out in agony as they were skewered alive, and Vim actually pitied the one on the left, who was run through by a spike that penetrated into his groin at an angle that saw it finding an exit between his shoulder blades. What an awful way to die.

Now, with four of the five of them dead, Vim heard feet clicking down onto the sidewalk from what sounded like two individuals. Turning around, he gasped as he saw two very young Elvish warriors approaching him with worry and fear in their eyes—worry that seemed to be directed at Zach.

Who are they?

The one on the left was a young girl. Though undeniably Elvish, the green cloak she wore was the only part of her that dressed like it. The girl had ruby-red hair with streaks of gold and black, along with a spiked collar around her neck and a generous application of black eyeshadow on her face. In both her hands, she gripped a black staff with white stripes. “Zach!” she cried out, running over to him and squatting down. She placed two fingers on his neck. “Trelvor, he’s alive, but…but barely!”

“What happened to him?” the young man accompanying her shouted. Unlike the girl, he was far more formal in his Elvish appearance. He was tall, with broad shoulders, black hair, and a diamond-shaped jawline. He wore a white cloak and held a flute in his right hand; the black raven was perched on his shoulder. Based on the girl’s words, Vim assumed his name to be “Trelvor.”

“Can you heal him, Seiley?”

She shook her head. “No. He needs the stones or a more powerful Elvish healer. But don’t worry! Kalana should be here very, very soon. She should be here any second, actually.” Grabbing Zach’s shoulders and shaking him the way Vim had, she said, “You have to hold on!”

Amid all this, Vim had almost forgotten about the snoring, axe-wielding man before him—as well as the insurmountable number of leveled fighters, troops, armored vehicles, and other nuisances hurrying their way over here. But it was the sleeping, black-haired man who Vim diverted his attention to, as he began to make a series of grunts before waking up. The young man then shook his head, his eyes snapping open. He looked around himself, noticing his dead allies. He howled in misery.

“You bastards!” he cried.

Vim scooted away backwards on his rump as the man resumed where he’d left off, raising his axe and swinging it downwards. But he fared no better this time around than he had before. Now, the girl called “Seiley” got back to her feet and darted forward at an impossibly fast speed, her staff held horizontally. Moving herself protectively in front of Vim, she blocked the axe with a clack, and then she glared at its wielder, who made a terrified-sounding, high-pitched squeak as if realizing how dire a situation he’d found himself in.

“You’re dead,” she growled at him. “You humans are gonna pay!” With hatred in her eyes, she removed one hand from her staff, threw her hand forward, and used it to grab his throat, which she began to squeeze. His eyes bulging, the man began to gasp and choke. She squeezed even more tightly. “Did you do this to Zach? Huh? Now you’re gonna die for it! You’re gonna—”

“No!” shouted another voice, this one familiar.

At a speed so fast it caused a gust of wind to blow over Vim, another Elvish girl seemingly just “appeared” beside him, and this one, he recognized: Kalana Vayra, the Elvish princess. Vim had no idea why she was here or what she’d come to do, but to his surprise, she shoved Seiley out of the way, causing her hand to release the throat of the axe-wielding man, whose face had turned blue and who then began to take heavy, desperate gulps of air. Seeing her, his fear seemed to triple in intensity.

“P-p-please don’t k-k-kill me!” he begged.

“Then drop your weapon!” Kalana shouted at him.

The young man obeyed her demand. Releasing his hold on the axe, he let it drop down to the sidewalk, and with that, he turned around and fled in the opposite direction, which Kalana seemed to allow. For a brief moment, she watched him scamper off, her eyes sharp like a hawk. But then her expression changed abruptly, and in a mere instant, it looked as though all the fear and worry in the world struck her in unison. Darting her head around, she asked, “Where is he? Where’s Zach? Please, tell me!”

“You ran right past him,” Seiley told her. “He’s right there next to Vim.” She pointed.

Kalana spun around so fast that the motion almost appeared a blur, her eyes honing in where Seiley indicated. Now, taking on a look of horror and heartbreak so strong that Vim was pretty sure he could actually feel a portion of it, she gasped, shouted out in anguish, and then she dove at Zach, launching herself at him and grabbing him with both her arms. A mixture of misery and pain was in her eyes. “What did you do to yourself?” she shouted at him, holding him tightly. “My baby, what did you do?”

Clutching him to her chest with just her right arm, she removed her left, reached into her pocket, and produced several of the highly coveted, invaluable rejuvenation stones. “You’re gonna be okay, baby. You’re gonna be okay.” Tears ran down her eyes, her hands trembled, yet she steadied herself, and then, one after the next, she began slapping various healing stones down onto him. “You’re still alive. I’ve got you.”

Zach began to moan, but he said nothing, still completely unconscious as she hugged him tightly while administering two reds, three yellows, and two purples. Once more with both hands, she wrapped him into a hug, and she began to sob into the back of his neck. Vim could tell the girl really, truly loved him. She tussled his hair and cradled him, weeping for what was probably a number of different reasons. “I love you so much,” she said, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, and then hugging him tightly once more. “Why would you put me through this again? Why don’t you trust me? You gotta stop this, Zach. Please!”

Though he continued to remain unmoving, Vim exhaled with relief as he saw Zach’s ear begin to regrow, his face become much less pale, and his breathing return to a normal intensity. He probably wouldn’t wake up for a bit, but at least with the Elves around, he was in better hands now. Devoted ones, too. Vim couldn’t help but wish for a woman who loved him as much as Kalana loved the boy. His own wife despised him, their marriage entirely political.

He’s lucky, Vim thought. He probably has no idea how much.

Kissing him several more times, Kalana eventually set him very gently back down onto the sidewalk, and upon doing so, her expression turned from one of despair into one of strength. “Trelvor,” she said.

“Yes, Your Highness!”

She handed him two purple stones. “As soon as his hands stop shooting the umm, the fire thingies, you gotta give him two of these, okay?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Please. It’s really, really important. It’s ‘cause he’ll have a heart attack if you don’t.”

“I will not fail either of you, Your Highness. You have my word.”

“Thank you.” Kalana now turned her attention to Seiley. “Okay, so…what happened here? Tell me everything.”

“I dunno,” Seiley said, bowing apologetically. “I only just got here. The queen told me and Trelvor that you were coming and that Zach needed help. I don’t know why he’s here or what the Gnome is doing here, either.”

“She speaks the truth,” Trelvor said. “Whatever trouble Zach has gotten himself into, Seiley and myself knew nothing of it and played no part. We arrived here only a moment before you did, Your Highness.”

Kalana gave Seiley a pat on the shoulder. “Okay. Got it.” She quickly turned her attention towards Vim, firing him a discerning glance. “And are you okay?”

Vim nodded—then coughed. “Now that you mention it,” he said to her, his eyes zeroing in on the stones in her right hand. “I don’t suppose you’d let me buy two more of those yellows off you, eh? And maybe a red, too? I’d make it worth your while.”

“Oh umm, you can just have them. Here ya go,” she said, extending her palm his way. “Take whatever you need. I brought lots just in case.”

Vim felt his mouth fall open with shock and gratitude as the girl simply handed over three more of the highly coveted stones. Without waiting another moment, Vim slapped each of them into his chest, and then, in the immediate moments that followed, he finally found true relief after weeks of torture and brutality. Right away, his head cleared, his fever receded, and it no longer hurt to breathe. His stamina returned in a flood, too. His broken nose healed, and so did his cracked ribs. From the easing of pressure in his eye sockets, he was willing to bet that his blackened eyes were finally returning to normal.

“Thank you so much, Kalana,” he whispered, in total disbelief at how much better he felt. “That was a rough two weeks.”

She shook her head. “Don’t thank me. I’m not the one who saved you. He did,” she said, pointing at the unconscious boy lying on the sidewalk, where a black-and-white cat was now licking his forehead. Vim recognized it from the dragon raid. Fluffles, wasn’t it?

“I have to ask,” Vim said to her, “how did you know to come here? And why did Zach risk another nuclear bomb in coming here to save me?”

Kalana rubbed her chin as though thinking up how to word her reply. “My mom told me he needed help. That’s why I’m here. And umm, all that other stuff is really complicated. I don’t know that much either, and this is all a shock to me, too. I was doing a raid when I found out all these terrible things are happening. Umm, I’ll tell you all the stuff I know, but first, we should really get out of here before we have to—Fluffles, no! You promised!”

There was an explosion, one so loud and so unexpected it caused Vim to flinch and shield his face. From out of the clear, dark, early-morning sky, ten individual bolts of lightning slammed down onto the leading battle tank one after the next, each one brighter and more forceful than the previous. The last one in particular caused the entire vehicle to explode, almost certainly killing everyone inside. It also caused the entire advancing force to halt, as the destroyed remains of the tank gave off a hot, intense fire that threatened to spread to nearby buildings.

“Fluffles!” Kalana yelled, placing her hands on her hips and staring down at him.

Fluffles meowed. “It wasn’t me. It was the mean guild man. Mean guild man do that.”

Vim chuckled. “Me?”

“Yes! Mean guild man kill five people. Fluffles was a good cat.”

Kalana grunted angrily. “Don’t do that again!” Then she looked at Trelvor and Seiley. “Same for you guys. No more killing. There’s enough of that in the world. I’m here to get all you guys out without…without any more of that. Oh! Guess what? I found out a way we can escape the city without using the dungeons.” She pointed behind herself. “Everybody follow me, okay?”

Another series of explosions rang out, but this time, from much farther in the distance. Vim frowned. “Take Zach and go,” he said. “And if possible, can one of you please lend me a staff? Any magic-capable one of any level will do.”

Seiley made a humming sound then shrugged. “I’ve got a crappy one in storage I can summon for you. But why?”

Vim turned his head towards the sounds of battle coming from what he believed was the southeast. “It’s my guild,” he said. “I don’t know why they’re here, and I don’t know why Zach’s here, but they appear to be in a very serious battle, and I can’t let them fight it alone.”

Kalana narrowed her eyes at him and folded her arms. “Nah-uh. After what Zach did to save you, you’re not just gonna run off and go right back into danger. No way! Do you even know how hurt and upset I am right now? I just found out my boyfriend lied to me and…and didn’t trust me, and he did it for you. So you better not throw away your life after he hurt himself so bad saving it.”

Vim met her eyes. “I have to get to the Piercing Thorn. My people are dying, and I’m a lot stronger than I look. Give me a staff, and I give you my word that everything Zach put himself through will have been worth it.”

Kalana made a groaning sound. “How do I know you’re not gonna just go off and get yourself killed?”

“I voluntarily surrendered the first time around,” Vim said, speaking honestly. “This time, I will not go willingly. I must get to my fleet!”

“Are you gonna use it to kill people?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“Obviously! Now give me a fucking staff and I’ll make sure you’re not followed. There’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a while now.” His lips peeled back in anger as his strength continued to return to him in a flood. “If you love the boy, you’ll want to take him away from this place. I can guarantee you’ll get out just as easily as you seem to have gotten in. I just need a staff. Please.”

Kalana fixed him with a very intense look, and she held it for a moment until finally, with a sigh, she turned her head to face Seiley. “Can you let him borrow a staff?”

“Yep. It’s not gonna be a good one, though. It’s pretty trash.”

“That’s fine,” Vim said. “Please, just give me something I can use to cast spells, and then take the boy and leave this city. Also, be very careful with him. He’s now the fourth-highest-ranking member of the Royal Roses.” Vim grinned. “As of this morning, he’s now to be known as Lieutenant Zachys Calador or Sir Calador. Either will do.”

Kalana shot him a glare that suggested she was neither amused nor appreciative of the title. Turning her back to him, she bent down, tenderly scooped him up, and put him over her shoulder. “Remember to give him the stones as soon as he stops shooting the fire thingies,” she said to Trelvor.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to carry him, Your Highness?”

She shook her head. “Nope. It’s okay. Just keep watching him.”

“Understood.”

Seiley handed him what looked like an ordinary, unremarkable wooden staff, which may well have even been level 1. Yet the moment Vim took it from her, he felt empowered, dangerous, and starving for some payback and revenge. With that, he waited for all three Elves to leap up then across a nearby rooftop, and all three vanished from his sight in moments, having taken Zach with them. Vim’s last sight of them was that of Fluffles’ bushy tail as he hopped from one building to another.

Now, Vim turned to face the stampede of people and vehicles heading towards him from farther down the road. They had maneuvered around the destroyed tank and were nearly upon him. Vim gripped the staff very tightly in his hands, and mentally, he recalled all the torture, pain, and abuse he’d taken at the hands of these bastards. He recalled the things they’d done to him, some of which he would never speak of and would do all he could to lock away in his brain. But for the moment, he allowed himself to relive it in full. It caused him to erupt with an anger greater than he’d ever before felt.

Walking into the middle of the street, he turned to face the incoming column of guild fighters, troops, and tanks. Several guns began firing at him, and though he was technically a mage, his constitution was high enough so that the bullets merely bounced off him.

“This is personal,” he whispered, watching as they drew closer and closer.

He lowered his grip down towards the base of the staff, and then he held it above himself. And now, for just a moment, he closed his eyes. He readied himself. He was going to use something for the first time: something he’d unlocked in the aftermath of the dragon raid.

Having slayed the beast, every member of the raid had been given a metal, card-shaped object called “Level Up! +2.” Many chose to save it for future use, whereas others, like Vim, having not leveled up in years, had used his immediately. Thus, for the first time in decades, he’d acquired a new ability. And it was not just any new ability, either. With the exception of Zach, it was an ability of a specific type that he doubted was possessed by any other member of any political guild, including his own. It was a type he had never even known existed until he’d unlocked it.

Legendary Unique.

Of course, Vim did not know for certain that Zach possessed abilities of this type, but having seen the boy in action, it was certainly a safe assumption to make. Regardless, he too had somehow been found worthy by the Gods of harboring such a power, and in his case, the power granted to him came in the form of an ability called: Calamity of Stars.

With an exertion cost of Very High, and a monthly recast timer, Vim had not yet found the excuse to use what he was fairly certain would prove to be a destructive, heinous power. But now, with a desire for revenge burning in his heart, he had at last found the perfect moment to unveil his newest ability to the world. And so, with his staff raised and his body rejuvenated, he activated Calamity of Stars.

Immediately, numerous beads of sweat began to fall down his face, and a heaviness came upon his shoulders. He also began to groan with exertion, and his chest began to ache. A Very High exertion cost was no joking matter, especially for someone as unpracticed as himself. It was no wonder a single use of it was able to kill someone as young as Zachys Calador. Despite having numerous decades as a head start, he himself could only just barely handle it.

With perspiration dripping down the sides of his face, he pushed himself just to the brink of exertion debt as he called upon this new ability. At the same time, every inch of the plain, ordinary staff Seiley had loaned him began to shine with a bright white light as though it were a flashlight, casting a glow all around him. But as bright as this glow may have been, it paled in comparison to the glow that suddenly came from far up above.

A few minutes away from sunrise, the sky was still mostly dark. But now, all across the horizon, dozens of white, star-like objects popped into existence, causing the entire city to become illuminated by a dazzling number of burning lights that would likely be visible for several-hundred miles. It also caused the entire column of approaching guild forces to halt in place and turn their heads nervously upwards.

In total, there were more than thirty of these lights, with each taking the form of an individual, miniature star. They were all positioned in a way that was seemingly random, too. Some of these miniature stars were grouped close to one another, whereas others were a bit distanced apart. Together, they formed multiple constellations; in Vim’s opinion, there was one set in particular that, if connected by a line, he would swear represented the shape of a falcon.

“This is for Ogre’s Axe!” he shouted, mostly to himself as only a few of them were close enough to hear his furious words. “This is for all one million!”

A flash came from just one of the miniature stars. Following this flash, a beam of pure-white light streaked down from the sky. Moving far, far faster than lightning, this wide, heavenly beam made a screeching, shrieking sound as it blasted its way downwards and struck the top of a tank, causing the entire vehicle to become absolutely obliterated; the vehicle detonated into thousands of individual pieces, along with an uncountable number of scraps from the torn-apart bodies of its occupants; combined, the shredded remnants of the tank and those inside were scattered in every direction while a screen of pure white light followed the explosion, creating a blinding effect that made it painful to regard with fully opened eyes.

“W-what the fuck is that?” screamed one of the soldiers. A moment later, there was another of the maddening, shrieking noises, and then he and the ten people nearest to him were vaporized as a second white beam of light slapped down from the sky and wiped them out of existence.

Then there was another—and another. Then several at the same time. Now, the ground shook and the city became bathed in light so intense that Vim had to close his eyes. One after the next, white beams of light from the miniature stars above battered the immediate area in front of Vim. Each time, a subsequent explosion would rock the city street, vaporizing everything it came into contact with. Some beams struck a bit farther away than intended and wiped out whatever—or whoever—happened to have the misfortune of being in its vicinity, including a pharmacy, several homes, a movie theater, and a four-story apartment building. Most, however, struck their target area.

Panting, Vim observed the destruction through narrowed eyes, though even then, he often had to close them when things became too bright. As best he could tell, there didn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to how many times each star fired, as well as when it would choose to do so, in what order, and with what timing. Sometimes, four or five would go off at once, and other times, it would happen one after the next or there might even be a brief pause. There were moments when the beams were near to one another, and there were other times when they were spaced far apart. And though none of the beams appeared to be fired with any great precision, the combined force of such destructive blasts managed to eventually strike almost every target in the vicinity of the spell’s area.

By the time the ability concluded, Vim did not know how many people he’d killed or how much of the enemy’s military capacity he’d diminished. Yet when the blinding light at last faded, Vim knew the number of dead must have been close to a thousand. Now, the entire city street before him was missing almost all of its pavement, leaving behind something of a gigantic, block-spanning ditch—an indentation in the land that stretched from one end of it to the next save for just a tiny few and rare spots that were akin to jagged, upraised “islands” of concrete surrounded by depressions at least ten feet deep. The street beyond this one fared only slightly better, though not by much.

Surveying the destruction, Vim observed the armored remains of what he estimated to be twenty battle tanks, along with the blown apart pieces of hundreds of bodies lining this “ditch.” Vim marveled at the sheer depth of power he had brought to bear. He had killed every single one of their pursuers. Sweating, panting, yet feeling so much better than he had in weeks, he turned his back to the devastation he’d caused, and with that, he made his way to Haisel Ragora and his fleet. It was time to find out what was going on—and to lead his people.

Chapter 158: All-In

Chapter 158: All-In

Amid a rapidly intensifying struggle that saw uniformed men and women exchanging gunfire, launching rockets, and in some cases bleeding out all over the grass, Olivir realized he was dressed far too fancily for such a terrible occasion. At the moment, he wore a brocade vest over a white silk shirt along with a hand-tailored pair of black trousers. This, combined with his polished, black dress shoes, meant the sight of Olivir was likely to immediately catch the eye—or at least it might have if he’d been anywhere remotely near the action.

Along with Kolona, who stood by his side, Olivir kept himself two miles behind the back lines of Lord Oren’s forces, a precaution he took out of necessity. After all, the only thing it would take to end Olivir’s life would be one stray bullet, and that wasn’t an exaggeration, either. It would only take a lone round from just one gun to erase his existence from the universe.

As a vampire, Olivir was perpetually locked into having just a single point of constitution, and while he was no slouch when it came to fighting up close and personal, the chaotic nature of war made it so that there were simply too many threatening things flying in too many different directions for him to risk getting any closer than this. A lucky shot by an opportunistic gunman could therefore easily cause him to end up in the history books for being one of the shortest-lived vampires to ever exist. No, this was close enough indeed. It also happened to be the perfect spot to surveil the battle.

Here we are again, he thought.

As though he’d been pulled back to this spot by fate, Olivir was now just a few feet from where he had been standing when he’d put the dragon to sleep. Not all that far behind him, the massive, gargantuan impact crater that Zach had created with his ability acted as both a spectacular sight to behold as well as a very real hazard for anyone who might accidentally fall inside. In all likelihood, the deep, stunning deformation in the terrain would remain there for the rest of the planet’s existence. There were also smaller holes dotting the scenery as well: scars in the land that would probably likewise serve as an eternal memorial to that day. But it was not for reasons of sentimentality that Olivir had chosen this spot.

Given the elevation at this precise location, it made for the perfect vantage point through which Olivir could study the progression of the war effort without placing himself or Kolona in harm’s way, something he refused to allow. And really, why should he? Of all those currently present in the region of Shadowfall Coast, there existed no two beings aside from himself and Kolona who could truly say they had no stake in this war. The fact Olivir had come along at all was due to nothing more than moral disgust at the Guild of Gentlemen—combined with a healthy dose of curiosity.

“What do you think, Oli?” Kolona asked him.

Olivir felt warmth as she grabbed his hand, reminding him that she’d recently eaten. The body of a vampire tended to elevate several degrees after drinking the blood of a fresh lifeform, and in this case, Olivir welcomed it. He himself had been too uneasy to feast with her on the turkey she’d caught in the countryside on their way over here. After she’d ethically and painlessly killed the creature, she’d insisted several times that he have a drink, but he’d declined to share it with her.

“I’m not sure yet,” he replied. “But I have a bad feeling about this.”

She grimaced. “How come?”

“It’s just…”

“Just what?”

He pursed his lips a moment as he looked out and over the field of battle, watching as the soldiers advanced at a crawl, barely making any progress as things at last began in earnest. Armored tanks fired their main cannons while columns of troops trailed behind the vehicles for cover. Inch by inch, the scores of various units marched, rolled, or otherwise thudded their way closer to the city.

At the moment, a great deal of the incoming fire was coming from the highway leading out of the city’s northern entrance, where trenches had been dug. Capturing the roads would be their first strategic objective. And though their progress was far too slow, it was at least consistent and somewhat uneventful. But Olivir was worried it wouldn’t remain that way.

Meeting Kolona’s eyes, he said, “I’m worried that the Lords of Justice aren’t as prepared as they need to be for this.”

“What makes you think they might not be?”

Olivir sighed. “There’s a few things, actually, but…I might just be overthinking things. I’m hoping I’m wrong.”

Rubbing his chin with his free hand while holding Kolona’s with his other, Olivir watched as the battle continued to play out ahead of him. For the time being, he was content to observe the situation from a safe distance while he contemplated just how involved he felt like getting in this war. From the outset, he’d made it very clear that he and Kolona would be joining strictly as non-combatants, and to that end, he'd chosen to venture here separately from the others, arriving a bit late as he and Kolona had taken a roundabout path that avoided hazards or threats to their lives. Yet, for all his insistence that they not become dragged too deeply into this conflict, Olivir knew there was always a chance he could opt to do a little more if he really felt he had to.

Only if there’s no other way…

It was strange how Olivir could even entertain the thought of joining in on the attack. It certainly wasn’t because he held any desire to fight in a war on a planet that he no longer considered home; no, it was something far simpler in nature. Basically, what motivated Olivir’s actions was how incredibly, downright difficult he found it to stand passively by and watch evil win. It felt wrong on an innate level.

How can anyone forgive them after what they did? he wondered, recalling the sick feeling that’d entered his stomach when news of the bomb had reached him.

The photographs and video clips that had begun trickling out of Ogre’s Axe haunted Olivir. Though he was young for a vampire, he was surely older than all living humans, and he had extensive knowledge of history: knowledge that only the vampires possessed. Therefore, Olivir felt pretty confident in saying that, never, in the entire history of Galterra, had any act of aggression murdered so many people all at once. Even the worst atrocities in known Galterran history had taken time. Yet, somehow, in the blink of an eye, the Guild of Gentlemen had managed to eradicate hundreds of thousands of people in an instant. It was disgusting. It was unforgivable!

“You’re angry,” Kolona said.

“Hmm?” He forced a smile onto his lips. “What do you mean?”

“You’re squeezing my hand really tightly, Oli.”

Olivir made a nervous croak and released his grip. “Sorry.”

She smiled back at him. “I’m fine. I just don’t want my shield going off and startling you. It will if you squeeze any tighter, honey.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

As the first—and only—Elvish vampire to ever exist, Kolona’s powerful, Elvish blood had taken well to the vampirism, manifesting a unique passive that Olivir found remarkable. It was called “Shield of the Agile Goddess.” Anything in the world that could hurt Kolona, no matter what it happened to be, could only inflict harm upon her after five attempts unless the cause of attempted harm had a dexterity and speed stat that were both higher than Kolona’s. There didn’t seem to be any exceptions, either. Any attacking force would be repelled on contact.

Hypothetically, if Kolona had been in Ogre’s Axe and had been standing right in the center of the blast when the nuclear weapon had fallen on the city, Olivir was pretty sure that the initial blast itself would probably have been completely deflected by her shield, leaving her unharmed—for the moment, anyway. He and Kolona actually disagreed on what would’ve happened next.

In Olivir’s opinion, following the blast, she would have then immediately taken four more hits to her shield, one after the next, as a result of the radiation. He even suspected the shield would go off so fast that all four subsequent hits would happen in less than a microsecond, appearing visually as a single hit instead of multiple.

Kolona, on the other hand, took the position that the bomb would count as one hit, the radiation as a separate hit, and following that, she’d be left unharmed unless she left and reentered the area again, at which point she'd be “hit” by the radiation. But this made little sense, because if Kolona was correct, did that imply she could survive any form of sustained, continuous damage? Did that mean she could swim in lava or float in the void of space in her pajamas? Either way, no matter who was right, it was still one of the most incredible abilities he’d ever encountered.

Maybe a bit too incredible, he thought, suppressing a groan.

Though Olivir would never admit this to anyone due to the humiliation, there’d been a few “accidents” between him and Kolona as a result of her shield, particularly during their more “intimate” moments in the master bedroom of his home. He shuddered as he recalled these uncommon, but traumatizing mishaps.

On several occasions, as he’d been in the throes of passion, he’d somehow caused her just a tiny bit of “pain” during their private encounters. Not enough so that any reasonable person would call it “harm,” but enough to pass whatever threshold her ability seemed to designate, which in some cases could be anything slightly more intense than a pinch. During these times, Olivir found himself thrown right off his bed, where he’d once even collided with his ceiling and ended up with a sore, badly bruised body, unable to walk properly for a week. Another time, he’d been thrown naked out of a window. Eventually, Olivir decided to just let her be on top. It wasn’t worth the very real risk of death.

“Now you’re grinning,” Kolona said to him. “What’re you thinking about?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Sure it isn’t,” she said playfully. As the sound of gunshots increased in volume ahead of them, her grin faded and her tone became darker. “So anyways, why do you think the Lords of Justice might not be able to pull this off?”

Olivir kept his eyes trained on the battle as he replied to her. “Well,” he began, “to start with, uhm, they’ve really—whoah!”

Protectively, he threw out his arm and wrapped it around Kolona as the entire scenery before him changed radically from one moment to the next. Very early in the morning, the sun was still a few minutes from rising, which meant that, until this second, the sky had been mostly dark. But now, inexplicably, the entire horizon lit up with what looked like dozens of bright, unnatural stars that all appeared at once and definitely hadn’t been there before.

“What in the name of the Gods is that?” Olivir asked, raising his voice.

The stars were so bright that they caused a white glow to stretch over and across the land for miles in every direction. But this was nothing compared to the intensity of light that filled the world as fast-moving beams struck down from the sky like some kind of angelic storm. Deep, rumbling booms caused vibrations beneath his feet along with dome-shaped, expanding spheres made of light that appeared briefly before vanishing following each impact.

One after the next, these massive beams of light slammed down into the city, resulting in multiple explosions and presumably more death. The jarring spectacle seemed to shock everyone on either side of the battlefield, as for the next few seconds, all gunfire came to a halt, and all movement ceased. Everyone seemed to be glancing up at the unbelievable display of magical might.

“Oli, what’s happening?” Kolona asked, sounding alarmed. The two looked at one another, and in her eyes, Olivir could see uncertainty and worry. But then, Olivir realized something, and she seemed to realize it as well. Almost at the exact same time, Kolona became visibly relaxed, and Olivir felt himself relaxing as well. He nodded at Kolona, and she at him. She must have come to the same conclusion.

“It’s obviously Zach doing that,” Olivir said. “He must have unlocked some incredible new power. Right?”

“It’s got to be,” Kolona agreed. “Who else could do something like that?”

Olivir shrugged. “Nobody I can think of. This just seems like a ‘him’ kind of thing.” He tsked. “That dude’s getting scarily powerful. You ever see anything like this before?”

“Nope,” Kolona said, shaking her head. “Not even from the Elves.”

Listening in to the chatter from the Lords of Justice via the Comm he’d been provided, Olivir discovered that Lord Oren and most of the others in positions of command promptly came to the same conclusion, and Lord Oren in particular seemed to harbor a mixture of conflicting emotions in response to whatever ability they were witnessing.

“He needs to be more careful,” Lord Oren said over the Comm. “I’m glad he’s taking this seriously, but he’s striking way too many civilian buildings.”

“Lord Oren,” said a female voice that Olivir did not recognize. She was likely a high-ranking member of the guild since she was able to speak over the command channel. “Are you positive that this is even the boy’s doing?”

“No, but…who else could it be?” he asked.

“I agree,” the Elvish queen chimed in. “I’m glad to see the young man is doling out vengeance upon the humans. He would be wise to level the entire city and save us all a great deal of time.”

Lord Oren audibly grunted in disapproval. “I don’t know why he’s doing this or why your daughter is even letting him, but…if nothing else, it means he’s okay and no longer on the verge of death. So at least there’s that.” A brief pause followed his words, and then he continued to speak. “At any rate, we should seize on the enemy’s confusion and press the attack. Now’s our chance to gain some ground!”

Olivir felt his muscles stiffen anxiously as he listened to Lord Oren and the other commanders issue orders to the fourteen assembled brigades that made up the entirety of their fighting force; each brigade contained a mixture of anywhere between one- to three-thousand troops along with a few squads composed of leveled fighters. In their current formation, they were spread out enough that they covered the entire western side of the city from the northernmost tip to the southernmost, yet it was the roads to the north and south they sought to capture.

In terms of geography, the city itself curved somewhat inwardly as one approached from the direction of the grasslands, and the outskirts contained little more than a few small farms or other humble residences; beyond this point, however, was essentially a densely packed wall of two-story or three-story buildings that had no gaps in them with which to allow the vehicles of their forces to find entry. For this reason, they needed to funnel in through either the north or the south highways. And as though in pursuit of that goal, Lord Oren cautiously ordered just one brigade to try shaking things up.

This isn’t going to work, Olivir thought, frowning. They’re making a mistake!

As Olivir watched the 12th infantry brigade break off and begin a far more aggressive attack, the bad feeling in his chest only continued to grow. Trying not to fidget, he observed as the leveled members of this brigade took point and began to charge in headfirst as though to set an example of courage for the others to follow.

“After me, 12th mechanized infantry!” a man raising a katana above his head roared as he began to charge into gunfire and make his way directly towards one of the two massive stretches of DEHV highway that the Guild of Gentlemen relied upon for supplies.

Grenades, tank cannons, small-arms fire, and even a direct blast from an artillery strike could not stop the katana-wielding man as well as seven other leveled members from his squad who ran alongside him. Together, all eight of them broke away, moving well ahead of the others and directly into the enemy’s defenses. Not long after, the other leveled squads of the 12th brigade took off in pursuit.

“Pull them back!” Olivir shouted into the Comm as he watched this unfold. “Order them to stop!”

His words were ignored. As though chasing honor and glory itself, the katana-wielding man and his seven comrades raced across the grasslands and at last seemed poised to crash into an entire line of rifle-wielding defenders peeking out from behind a row of sandbags. All now abruptly stopped firing as though realizing their weapons were useless against leveled fighters. They did not flee, however. With a robotic sort of discipline, they held their ground and began to reload.

Olivir narrowed his eyes, watching as the men from Lords of Justice leapt over several barricades and actually made it all the way to an enemy encampment that’d been built ahead of the roads. There was shouting, which was only slightly audible from such a far distance, and it came across with the sound of fear. From the looks of things, the eight, leveled fighters were about to rampage through the encampment and open up a path—perhaps even rousing others to join in and finally make real progress towards the city.

Unfortunately, what instead happened was what Olivir had been fearing all along.

Rather than send out any significant counter-force of leveled fighters to meet the eight charging men in battle, the Guild of Gentlemen produced only two: both women, and both wearing identical robes with a rich purple color. At least it looked that way. From this distance, it was very hard to be sure. But Olivir was sure that each wielded a staff, and each then raised that staff.

Two swirling vortexes of energy began spinning around the feet of each woman; this energy then rose up along their bodies and into the air, only to come crashing right back down near the eight men. And though none were struck directly, the energy shifted the moment it hit the ground. It expanded, became smoke-like, and briefly covered all eight of them in a shroud of mist that made them difficult to see. They soon emerged from it, however, looking completely unharmed. With that, the mages shouted something aloud that Olivir could not discern, and upon this, the gunfire resumed once more.

“Oli!” Kolona cried, a gasp following her words.

The bullets, as though fired at mere level-1 soldiers, began ripping apart each and every one of the eight men. Their forward momentum was stopped immediately, and their bodies began to twitch and jerk as the enemy’s troops lit into them without any trace of mercy. One bullet after the next, the men were shot so many times by so many different guns that several had limbs detached just from the armor-piercing bullets being used against them. Heads were caved in, brains were spilled onto the grass, and in a matter of seconds, all eight perished.

“This,” Olivir whispered, “was exactly what I was worried about.”

Kolona grabbed his sleeve and tugged on it. “What just happened?”

Olivir sighed. “This is what I was about to tell you,” he explained. “The Guild of Gentlemen is either the oldest or one of the oldest guilds in history. So, naturally, they have war compendiums filled with tactics and information that are far more detailed and creative than what any other guild has. With Peter dead, this new ‘king’ they’ve got replacing him is clearly letting it all loose. They’ve probably been preparing for this kind of attack since Peter V’s death.”

“But what did they even just do?” Kolona asked. “How did a bunch of level ones kill all of those higher-level men?”

Olivir winced at the torn-apart bodies, which were staining the grass red. “I’m guessing those two mages used a debuff that lowers their targets’ resistance to piercing damage—one that was strong enough to make those eight men susceptible to armor-piercing bullets. We should expect them to have a bunch more clever tricks like that up their sleeve.”

Kolona’s mouth moved but sound did not emerge from her lips; it was as though she was silently repeating the words Olivir had just spoken in her mind. Finally, she said, “Debuff their pierce resistance and kill them with ordinary weapons…that’s a really scary combo, Oli.”

“And an obvious one, too,” Olivir replied. He raised his pointer finger. “But only in hindsight. I guess it’s not something you’d automatically think to try if you’ve never fought in a battle like this before. I’m sure they’ve got lots of ‘techniques’ like that waiting for Lord Oren’s army.”

“So then…should we do something?”

Olivir folded his arms, and rather than reply just yet, he continued to observe. The other leveled-fighter squads, which had been charging behind the first, came to an abrupt halt and retreated back to the 12th brigade; accordingly, the level-1 troops that made up the brigade also halted their charge, though now, a fair number were cut down by gunfire as they tried to get back into cover. Clearly, they were faring less well than their leveled counterparts.

“Pull back!” Lord Oren commanded, frustration and confusion evident in his voice.

The sounds of battle intensified as the enemy retaliated, training all their guns on the vulnerable targets of the retreating 12th brigade. Orange flames lit up the field of battle as three armored tanks were struck by shells and blown to bits while numerous pieces of artillery equipment were likewise destroyed. In less than a minute, what looked like two-hundred infantry, along with three mages from the Lords of Justice, were cut down and left for dead on the grassy hills while the destroyed battle tanks continued to release smoke, still partly aflame. Several men and a few women crawled along the grass before either bleeding out or getting struck by a second round of gunfire.

“Can the vampire save them?” a man asked over the Comm. It was another voice Olivir did not recognize. In truth, Olivir knew very few of the people he’d found himself siding with.

“I can’t,” he answered into the Comm. “Not unless you can bring them to me. Otherwise, I’m sorry, but I’m not coming any closer than where I am right now. I won’t risk my life, and I won’t risk Kolona’s.”

Though Olivir had come here for the sole purpose of resurrecting the dead, the troops and leveled members of the Lords of Justice who’d fallen thus far had gone too deep to be retrieved and brought back to him without the risk of losing even more in the process. Therefore, those who perished were regrettably left to their eternal fate.

“Regroup,” Lord Oren said over the Comm. “All squad captains, watch out for more debuffs or any other tactics the enemy might’ve come up with that we didn’t game out.”

The frustration in Lord Oren’s voice grew considerably with each word he spoke, but Olivir understood his frustration—and it was more than justifiable. After all, the Elves had not been shy in communicating what they intended to do if the Lords of Justice failed to break into the city within just a couple of hours from now—a virtually impossible task, in Olivir’s opinion. For this reason, he couldn’t possibly blame Lord Oren for getting caught between the competing forces of hesitation and desperation. If Olivir had been in his shoes, he too would be finding all of this mentally trying.

Not many good options for that kid, is there? Olivir wondered.

Though he had not gotten to know him all that well, Olivir nevertheless admired Lord Alex Oren. For someone in his early twenties, he was formidable and wise. He lacked only in experience, yet he seemed capable of improvising well enough. It must’ve taken a lot of guts, confidence, and conviction to lead an army into battle without any prior training or ever having done so before.

Yet as smart as that dude is, I still think he’s going to fall short…

As the 12th infantry brigade pulled back farther into the grasslands, the enemy’s infantry continued to fire at their retreating forms, but their leveled fighters did not pursue. This confirmed to Olivir that Lord Oren’s theory was indeed correct, and that the Guild of Gentlemen were merely stalling for time and held no real hope of actually defeating the Lords of Justice’s larger force militarily. This was especially true thanks to the Royal Roses attacking the southeastern coast, forcing the Guild of Gentlemen to divide their available units in half and place them at two opposite ends of the city. For this reason, Olivir was not as bothered by the Royal Roses’ method of attack as Lord Oren seemed to be. Certainly, it would’ve been better to launch a combined attack on the northwest, but even still, the split, two-sided assault worked well enough.

Regardless, the fact of the matter was clear: that no matter what tactics they had or what preparations they made, the best the Guild of Gentlemen could likely do in this situation was make defensive plays rather than go on the offense. And if not for the severe and near-impossible time restraints unique to this situation, Olivir would naturally expect the conclusion to be a long, drawn-out slog of attrition over the course of several weeks or months, in which the Royal Roses and Lords of Justice eventually emerged the triumphant victors, but only after the Guild of Gentlemen had inflicted a heavy cost on both guilds, making them pay dearly for every inch of territory they gained.

But Lord Oren doesn’t have the time to wait for that.

Olivir made a slight grunt as it dawned on him that he might really have to become personally involved in this battle. But if so, then to what extent? He was reluctant to join in the fighting. He did not like killing people, and this really wasn’t his fight. On the other hand, it was difficult to overstate the revulsion he felt towards the Guild of Gentlemen—the guild his biological father had been part of more than two centuries ago. The guild he had grown up in as a very young boy. They had turned wicked—and that was putting it mildly.

And I’m one of the few people here who can do anything about it…

Olivir was not the boastful type, and so it was without exaggeration or arrogance that he reminded himself just how perfectly suited he was towards a battle like this. After all, while it was true that he could fight at just about every range, Olivir’s true specialty had always been in the field of artillery magic. More than anything else, Olivir excelled at fighting enemies from several miles away, and he had a large number of different abilities he could call upon to aid him in that effort.

“Kolona,” he said. She snapped her head towards him and immediately met his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Do you think I should attack?” he asked at a whisper.

She nodded without any detectable hesitation. “If you’re willing to do it, you should.”

Olivir exhaled sadly. “I’m surprised. You’d usually be the last person to suggest a violent solution.”

Kolona ran her hands down both her sides and gripped the two sheathed daggers at her hips. “This time, it’s different.”

“It is,” he agreed.

Having only begun to replenish his summoning pool, Olivir decided against conjuring skeletons, zombies, or demons to fight the enemy. His battle against the Elves had cost him years’ worth of experience points, and it would take him a long time to build his summoning pool back up to what it’d been. Still, there was a great deal he could do that did not require him to summon. Readying himself, he took several deep breaths as he reluctantly committed himself towards the path of war.

At least Grundor will be proud of me, he thought.

At the moment, Grundor was helping clear out the rubble in Ogre’s Axe in an attempt to find any survivors who might have been trapped beneath the numerous collapsed buildings. Thus far, rescuers had only succeeded in finding body after body, and Olivir knew Grundor would much rather be here fighting. Olivir, however, was relieved that he was not. If possible, he’d have kept Kolona away from all of this, too. He did not want those he cared about wrapped up in such an ugly, blood-soaked mess.

The sooner this is over with, the better.

Olivir inhaled. “Lord Oren,” he spoke into the Comm, “please have everyone ready for another assault on the north highway.”

“Sorry, what’s that?” he replied, coming across as both confused and overwhelmed.

“I’ve decided I’m going to attack the city.”

“Attack…the city?”

“That’s right. I’m going to attack. And when I do, it’s gonna give you the opening you need to capture the north highway. Have every brigade ready to advance quickly once I begin, all right?”

“Wait, please, slow down a moment. I have no idea what you’re planning on doing, and deploying even one brigade, let alone all of them without understanding how you intend to use them is a very serious and dangerous request.”

Olivir understood his hesitance, and so he remained patient. “I know it is,” he agreed. “And I realize it’s especially risky after what just happened, but please, trust me.”

“Where are you right now?” Lord Oren asked, sounding intrigued as well as a bit skeptical. “And what do you plan to do?”

“I’m still back by the crater. And what I plan to do is provide you the exact opening you need to move your men from the grasslands to the northern highway without having to fight for every inch along the way.”

“Really?" he asked, a note of optimism joining his open skepticism. “All right. Well, I’d be happy to hear your plan if you’re willing to come here and discuss it with me. I don’t know how you intend to get close enough to—”

“Actually, I’m attacking right from where I am.”

“…come again?”

Olivir kept his voice firm so that his words were decisive and unambiguous. “I can hit the enemy from many miles away.”

The entire Comm line went quiet upon those words, and Olivir imagined it was due to a mixture of awe and confusion. After several more moments of this, Lord Oren finally replied to him.

“Did you just say you can strike the enemy from ‘miles’ away? As in, you’re able to cast offensive magic on entities within Shadowfall Coast even all the way from where you’re currently—”

“He speaks the truth,” Queen Vayra said over the Comm, interrupting Lord Oren with a grunt of indignation. “The vampire can do what he claims.”

“Your Majesty?"

There was bitterness in her voice as she explained. “During my recent war with him, I experienced this for myself. He bombarded my kin with a debuff from a vast distance just before sending a legion of monstrous creatures at us. Vampires excel at attacking from very far away. It is rare to face one up close, for in such a circumstance, it is likely they have already lost.”

Olivir did not fully agree with her words. She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t entirely correct, either. Yes, it was indeed true many vampires preferred to fight at great distances due to having only a single point of constitution, but that did not mean a vampire was defenseless in close range, either. Some, like his dear Kolona, were specifically suited for close-range combat, though she was an exceptionally rare case. Either way, however, it wasn’t something worth bickering about, as the queen had verified the larger, more important point, which seemed to bring about an even greater sense of stress in Lord Oren as he was forced to consider taking what, to him, was a very risky action.

“Olivir, if I order every brigade to storm the northern highway and the attack fails, we could be crippled so badly that the entire offensive might come to an end. That’s a lot to ask on nothing but your assurance.”

Olivir, continuing to speak softly and patiently, said, “At this rate, it’s gonna come down to an all-in charge no matter what you do. There’s no way you’ll be able to capture the northern highway, let alone the city in just three or four hours from now. Not the way you’re going. That’ll take weeks. So, it’s up to you, dude. At least with me you’ve got a real chance.”

Lord Oren’s hesitation was plain from the way he made slight groans into the Comm before replying. “When do you want us to move?”

“Now.”

“Right…now?”

“Yes!”

“Very well,” he replied, an uneasy quality to his voice. “May the Gods help us if you’re wrong.”

******

King Alistair Morrison had heard more than enough. For the past ten minutes, he’d sat patiently with his arms on the rests of his cushioned chair in his underground command bunker as he listened to his officers fervently ramble off one denial after the next. Completely trapped in their rigid way of thinking, they were unable to offer Alistair anything aside from the same tired excuses. Yet, no matter what they said to him, Alistair knew that they were incorrect. They simply had to be. For all their smarts, his officers—like far too many in his guild—lacked basic common sense. And it was indeed basic common sense that dictated that all fourteen men sitting around the table with him were wrong.

“…which is why,” Colonel Dakrit concluded for the fifth or maybe even sixth time, “what you are suggesting is impossible—ah, Your Grace.”

“But it’s not,” Alistair replied. “It’s the only logical conclusion, and it’s the theory we should be basing our strategy on.”

“B-but—”

“Enough!” he snapped, the lone-spoken word proving sufficient to quiet the man, who until just now, had been coming off a touch too defensive for Alistair’s liking. Yet, much to even his own consternation, Alistair knew that he could no longer entertain his officers’ joint, unified assessment of their enemies’ motives, as it was rooted in a false premise: namely, that no element of their weapons program had leaked.

“From this point forward, we must operate off the assumption that the Royal Roses and the Lords of Justice have somehow become aware of our current limitations. We must assume that they know we do not possess any launchable nuclear weapons and are on the verge of creating more.”

From the silent mouth movements of Major Kenth Baxter and Colonel Dakrit, Alistair could sense that the two were itching to begin another round of second-guessing and backtalk. Quickly, Alistair darted his eyes around the table, making contact with several of his men, offering them what reassurance he could. And now, once again, he reiterated his reasoning. But this would be the last time he did so, as his city was in a total state of crisis and the survival of humanity itself depended on these next few hours.

“Let me begin by saying I don’t doubt anything you’ve told me, and that goes for all of you,” Alistair said. “You’ve told me that there is no chance any of our scientists and engineers have escaped isolation from the labs or production facilities. And I do believe you. You’ve also told me that the communication jammers in our facilities make it impossible for any communications devices to function. Once again, I’m not doubting your word.”

Alistair leaned back in his chair, and for just a moment, he closed his eyes and released a breath before reopening them. “Still,” he continued, “someone—or multiple people—have clearly found a way to communicate our most sensitive secrets with the outside world. I understand that you find this to be impossible, but that’s only because you’ve limited yourselves to narrow thinking.” Alistair threw his arms up into the air. “I don’t claim to know how it was done, but it must be so.”

He clenched his hand into a fist and then raised just three fingers. “There are only three possibilities for why the Royal Roses, the Lords of Justice, and the Elves have decided to attack us. The first is that they’ve collectively lost their minds along with the ability to think rationally, and they no longer care if we launch a nuclear weapon at one of their cities. The second possibility is that they think we are only bluffing and would not risk firing another. And lastly, the final possibility is that they know we do not have any more to fire, but they recently discovered we will have another ready in several hours from now.”

Major Kenth Baxtra squeezed the ends of the table as though anxious. “It just doesn’t make any sense, Your Grace. There’s no logical explanation for how our security might have become compromised. Even if a scientist or engineer got it in their heads to betray us, it simply shouldn’t be possible for them to contact anyone outside of their stationed facility. We’ve thought up every possible point of failure and accounted for all of it.”

Alistair shrugged. “Once again, Major Baxtra, I’m not claiming I know how this was done. But if you walked into an airlock and entered a completely sealed hatch only to find it crawling with ants, you’d have to assume it wasn’t sealed after all no matter what your eyes told you, correct?”

“I uh…well, yes, Your Grace, that’s true.”

Alistair nodded. “Then this is no different. Our enemies, logically, are targeting us because they now know we’ve been bluffing, but more so, that we will have another weapon to use against them soon. For this reason, we must focus all of our efforts on delaying them for as long as we can. A military victory should not be our goal. Our sole and primary objective must be to buy ourselves time. Once we have another weapon ready to fire, we will use it to force the enemy to stand down.”

“What if they know we’ll only have one today?” Colonel Dakrit asked as he stroked his beard. “Let’s assume they know as much as you think they do. Would they then not also be aware that only one prototype will be operational by the early afternoon?”

“It won’t matter if they do,” Alistair said.

“What do you mean, Your Grace?”

Alistair leaned forward and placed his clenched fists on the table. “Even with just one missile, the threat of being hit should suffice to make all of our enemies stand down since they cannot know what we will choose to target if we launch.”

There were murmurs of agreement from his officers beside him as they contemplated his words. “We must hold on for as long as we can. And to that end, we must—hmm? Major Baxtra? Is there a problem?”

His face had reddened, and he was tapping the touch-screen before him that was built into the desk. Holographic images and a three-dimensional map popped up and off the table, showing off a view of the southeast coast, where little red streaks of light served as icons for rockets being fired back and forth. The battle there had become exceedingly bloody, and a great many men and women had died on both sides.

“Your Grace,” he whispered, fear evident in the way his hand jittered.

“What is it?”

“I’ve just received a disturbing report. Zachys Calador has escaped the city with Kalana Vayra, but even more troubling is the report that Vim Alazar has successfully linked up with Senior-Lieutenant Haisel Ragora and is now aboard the Piercing Thorn and rallying his men.”

Alistair felt the blood drain out of his cheeks. “He’s not dead? I ordered him dead!”

“He was saved, Your Grace. By Kalana Vayra and two other Elves. Then there was some kind of…some kind of attack, the likes of which we have never seen before.”

As Major Baxtra explained, Alistair felt like he needed to sit down despite the fact that he was already seated. “May the Gods inflict every manner of curse and misfortune upon that boy!” he spat as Major Baxtra gave him an estimate of casualties and destroyed equipment. “That Elf-loving son of a—”

“Your Grace, the few survivors of the attack do not believe it was him.”

“What do you mean?” Alistair demanded. “What wasn’t him?”

“The source of the lights in the sky, Your Grace.”

Alistair was now even more taken aback. “Then Gods, who was it?”

Major Baxtra’s fingers became a blur as he tapped the built-in screen faster and faster, sorting through reports and extraneous information until apparently stumbling upon something he was searching for. With a sliding swipe of his thumb, he caused the data to pop up and off the screen, where it floated in the air above him. He began to read it. Then he said, “It appears it was Vim Alazar.”

“Impossible.”

“That’s what…that’s what those who survived the attack claim.”

Alistair shook his head. Then he massaged his temples as he tried to think. Things were becoming more difficult by the second. To the northwest, the Lords of Justice were attacking with the Elves. To the southeast, the Royal Roses’ entire fleet was bombarding their shores, and a ground invasion was underway from various diving teams. To make matters worse, he was now learning that the leader of the Royal Roses had conjured some kind of heavenly, God-like magical storm of light that had wiped out an entire battalion. How much worse would things get?

He shouldn’t have asked.

“Your Grace!” Colonel Dakrit shouted, his posture becoming rigid and tense.

“Now what is it?”

“All anti-aircraft systems in the southeast are offline. I've just received intelligence that Haisel Ragora is about to begin!”

“Begin?” Alistair asked.

Swallowing nervously, the man nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. His fighter jets have taken to the skies. He's going to send his planes up through the southeast corridor and bypass our northwestern batteries completely. He'll be able to bomb us freely!”

"No, not freely." Alistair massaged the ring on his finger. Then he stood up from his chair. “It's time for me to get directly involved. Call the elevator. I’ve got a surprise for the Royal Roses, and I want to deliver it personally.” With that, he retrieved his midnight-black, faceless dragon armor from the opposite end of the bunker, where it waited for him in various pieces on top of another table, and now, he began to equip himself.

He would deal with this new problem. He was likely the only one who could.

Chapter 159: Powerful Ambitions

Chapter 159: Powerful Ambitions

Even without the morbid sights of the blood-covered deck, the scores of dead bodies, and the smoke billowing out of multiple cracks in the hull, Vim suspected his mood would still have darkened the moment his second-in-command, Senior-Lieutenant Haisel Ragora, began catching him up to speed with all the events he’d missed during his miserable stay in the dungeons of Shadowfall Coast.

“They’ve been doing what this whole time?” he snapped, becoming absolutely consumed with a nauseating mixture of both rage and astonishment. “Say that last part again.”

Haisel replied, but the sound of F-15E Strike Eagles dropping bombs on suspected artillery sites farther inland was so loud that Vim didn’t hear it. Thus, for the third time, he demanded that the man repeat himself as more anger rose to the surface.

“They’ve been bluffing us, Vim,” Haisel said. He was standing at attention with his hands at his sides while he spoke. “All along, they had just the one weapon. It’s only now that we face the threat of a second.”

Vim felt suddenly short of breath. He grabbed a railing behind him on the upper deck of the aircraft carrier and steadied himself. “So…all this time…you mean to tell me I’ve been suffering in there for nothing?”

Haisel opened his mouth, but as though his words got caught in his throat, he released only a guttural-sounding grunt before again shuttering his lips as if deciding that the answer to Vim’s question was better left unsaid. Not that Vim actually needed to hear it to know the truth of the matter. It quickly became apparent that all of his suffering and torture had been so utterly unnecessary; even worse, had they only known this, they never would’ve pulled out of Shadowfall Coast in the first place, as they’d been on the verge of victory during their initial invasion.

This could’ve been over with weeks ago, he realized. Fucking weeks ago!

Shortly before the Guild of Gentlemen had fired their weapon, the joint coalition of the Royal Roses, the Lords of Justice, People of Virtue, the Defenders of Peace, and Children of Order had been just days or, at worst, weeks away from securing the city. But all of their progress had immediately been reversed due to that Gods-cursed weapon! Vim had turned himself in after ordering his forces to vacate the city, and everything that transpired afterwards he was only first learning about now.

“Sir Alistair Morrison is going to pay for this,” Vim said, doing his best to suppress his icy rage so that he would not end up snarling on the deck and causing those nearby to become unsettled. “But I want him taken alive. I’d like to spend a few weeks ‘entertaining’ him like he ‘entertained’ me. Yes, I’ll make sure to give him first-class treatment.”

“He’s actually calling himself ‘King Morrison’ now,” Haisel corrected. “And are you really suggesting we stoop to his level and engage in torture?”

Vim glared at Haisel. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting! Oh, and I don’t give a damn what he's calling himself. He can call himself ‘Emperor Morrison’ for all I care. No matter what title he holds, it won’t make the pinecones I’ll be having shoved up his ass any smaller or less sharp!”

Vim wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead. The earliest rays of morning sunshine were filling the skies, and the light reminded him that he was truly free of that horrible place. The psychological damage done to him would probably take months if not years to unwind, but at least, for now, in this very moment, he could let himself exhale with relief at the brightening horizon.

I’m alive, he thought. And I’m back with my guild.

Immediately following his first-ever use of Calamity of Stars, Vim had taken advantage of the chaos he’d caused to slip away and proceed southeast to the coastline, where he was pleased to discover that the Royal Roses had only just succeeded in capturing the beachhead, though he observed it had come at a horrible cost. Bodies had been stacked and piled on both sides, and the number of injured was staggering. Even still, his guild had managed to gain a very real foothold on land, and from there, they could soon begin to press forward and into the city itself.

Upon his arrival, Vim had noticed that smaller, amphibious boats loaded with level-1 infantry were riding up to the shore, and helmet-wearing, better-equipped troops were rushing onto the beach. This, clearly, was all thanks to the faster, mobile, and lightweight diving teams; having succeeded in their mission, they’d made it so that the Royal Roses’ more properly outfitted ground troops could now safely board the very lightly armored personnel craft and take the short ride over here without immediately being gunned down from the Guild of Gentlemen’s defensive formations.

Still, he had thought to himself, shocked by the sheer number of dead troops. We lost more than half the men and women in the diving teams.

Scattered here and there amidst the corpses, many on their bellies with their faces buried into the sand, Vim had also spotted a few leveled members of his guild, their various weapons either near their fallen bodies or, in some cases, still gripped in their hands. As Vim had taken a moment to appreciate their sacrifice, his presence had soon become observed by a single level-1 soldier of his guild—a young woman who’d released a yelp that drew the attention of others nearby. This had caused a chain reaction, and within ten seconds, scores of heads were turning his way.

“Is that…Gods, it’s him!” a level-1, rifle-wielding woman had exclaimed upon seeing him stumbling off the boardwalk and onto the beach. Initially, she’d raised her weapon and pointed it at him, but she only needed to scan his face for a quarter of a second before lowering her gun.

Her words had drawn the attention of the man next to her and then the man next to him. Before long, every soldier on the beach had become aware of his presence, and just like that, morale had simply exploded. Cheers and rapturous cries of joy had accompanied him as he’d awkwardly made his way closer to the shoreline. Hundreds of voices had been shouting out about accomplishing their “primary objective.” Up until this moment, Vim had been badly exhausted due to the Very High exertion cost of Calamity of Stars, and yet, somehow, just by being reunited with his guild, it had restored much of his drained stamina.

“The Gods be praised from now unto eternity…Sir Alazar, you’ve returned!” a man had cried.

“So…so we actually did it?” another asked as though in a state of elated disbelief. “We rescued Sir Alazar? Gods, it’s really him!” He released a victorious scream, which caused an explosive bout of cheering from nearly all of the others. Even those who had been weeping over the corpses of friends and loved ones stopped what they were doing to stand, salute, and let their joy be known.

I mean more to them than I realized, Vim thought, suddenly feeling unworthy of such praise or adoration.

Breaking their formations, they’d all then surrounded him, level-1 troops and leveled members alike, and feeling indebted to them, Vim had taken a few moments to say a few words and offer them reassurances. He’d kept it brief, however, as while they may have captured this small area of the beach, they were still very much in enemy territory, and he couldn’t allow his presence here to be a distraction. And so, a few minutes later, Vim had boarded one of the amphibious craft on the beach and had used it to return to the Piercing Thorn, where he’d been given an even more boisterous welcome by just about everyone aboard, many of them having rushed up from the lower decks just to see him.

Not a half a minute after coming aboard, the entire crew of the Piercing Thorn had been on their feet, erupting into a constant round of applause, as well as whoops and cheers that had gone on for just a little too long. Yet although this was hardly a good moment for them to leave their stations, Vim let them have their celebration. He could see with his own two eyes just how much they had sacrificed in blood and pain to bring him here.

Thus, even as he’d smiled, Vim had felt a strong sense of misgiving in the back of his mind, as it had been clear that this battle had so far been very, very costly for the Royal Roses. The Piercing Thorn had taken a great many hits, and he would soon discover that its primary engines were offline and would take days to fix, ensuring that retreating from this battle was not an option—not that he’d choose to retreat at this point even he could do so. Furthermore, he’d lamented the loss of two of their precious battlecruisers as well as the countless lives aboard who had been unable to evacuate. Perhaps worst of all—at least in the material sense—the enemy had destroyed four of their fighter jets. Yet, all losses aside, he had at least arrived just in time to witness the remaining eight take to the sky, the planes screeching across the air above.

Now, as Vim reflected on the utter nightmare that had been his time in captivity, he did his best to refocus his attention towards their current, new primary objective: assisting the Lords of Justice and the Elvish with dismantling the Guild of Gentlemen’s ability to produce more of their treacherous, evil weapons. To that end, Vim was willing to take any amount of material losses. There could be no objective more important than stopping ‘King’ Morrison.

“…so unless I forgot something,” Haisel concluded, “that’s about everything that happened while you were gone.” He turned his head towards the city as if looking off at something far into the distance. “Where’s the boy? Is he all right?”

“Yes, he’s fine.”

“He’s…he’s not with you?”

“No.”

“I see…”

“You look troubled,” Vim remarked.

Haisel bowed his head. “It’s just that I didn’t expect him to abandon us in the middle of a war. We could really use someone with his talents to finish the job here.”

“I agree,” Vim said, “but for what it’s worth, Zach didn’t abandon us. Not really, anyway.”

“Then where is he?”

Vim shrugged. “I dunno. I think his girlfriend kidnapped him or something.”

“She what?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just let him be for now. Trust me when I say he’s done more than enough—and we have more important things to discuss.”

Haisel grunted in what Vim took to be agreement. “Fair enough. At least he was kind enough to call down the light from heaven itself to scorch those murderous bastards before he left. Gods, what an ability that was. He must’ve destroyed an entire battalion by himself!”

“Oh?” Vim asked, concealing a grin. “He did, did he?”

Haisel’s eyes widened. “Didn’t you see it? Gods, Vim. How did you miss it? The boy made all these beams of light crash down from the sky, one after the next.” He gestured with his hands, pantomiming explosions. “Even from here, we could see it happening. It was incredible.”

“It sounds like I missed quite the show, then. Oh well. It’s just a good thing he’s on our side, hm?”

“It sure is.”

For literally no other reason besides amusement, Vim decided to allow Haisel’s current assumption to stand. He was willing to guess Haisel had not been alone in coming to this conclusion, either. Perhaps, later on, he’d enlighten them all to the truth—or maybe not. Who knew? Either way, starting a conversation about his new ability would only invite a flurry of questions and waste valuable time. Thus, turning his body so that he faced the front of the aircraft carrier, he folded his arms and considered their current situation.

“How should we proceed?” Haisel asked him.

Vim curled his lips a moment as he thought on it, but there wasn’t really much to dwell on. The answer came to him fairly quickly. “You’re a better war-time commander than I am, all things considered,” he said to the sturdy man. “Continue on as you were before I arrived.”

“Understood! In that case, we’ll continue to push into the city and try to pincer the enemy’s forces. I’ve also just received word that Lord Oren is committing all his men to immediately taking the northern highway, and they’re about to be on the move any second now.”

Vim tilted his head to glance upwards, noticing that four of the F-15s that had been bombing various artillery sites had now broken off and were instead beginning to fly to the northwest. “I’m guessing those four birds are being diverted to assist our allies?”

“Exactly.”

Vim nodded. “Good thinking. Now let’s win this fight—for Ogre’s Axe.”

With that, he observed from the deck as things continued to unfold. Yet, in the very recesses of his mind, tucked away in a locked drawer that he would not let be opened until after they’d won the day, Vim began to prepare himself for the coming negotiations after they and their allies had prevailed. It would be ugly, but hopefully it would not cross over into violence.

After all, while the Royal Roses were indeed an ally and friend to the Lords of Justice—especially now during a time of war—they had lost an entire city and had so many mouths to feed and so many lives to rebuild. That was why, when things concluded, it was of vital importance that the territory ended up in the hands of the Royal Roses, which would give his guild complete and total control of the entire eastern seaboard of North Bastia aside from a stretch of inconsequential territory controlled by Defenders of Peace, which Vim was unconcerned with. This was because the coast along the Arid Dunes of Bastia was far too rocky to ever be used as a port of entry, and the currents off the coast along with the dangerous winds made it prohibitively unsuited for shipping routes.

Provided the Royal Roses ended up the uncontested ruling guild of Shadowfall Coast, seizing this city would not only grant them an unprecedented leverage in global trade once the Elves helped readmit humanity, but it would ensure that his people could be fairly compensated for suffering the brunt of the Guild of Gentlemen’s illegal and unthinkable aggressions. A reasonable, fair tax on imports and exports would be necessary to begin to heal from the wound they’d suffered.

But to do that…

“Actually, Haisel?” Vim remarked as several concerns began to run through his head.

“Yes, sir?” he asked, turning a questioning glance Vim’s way.

Vim narrowed his eyes. “There is actually one thing I would like you to do differently. I want you to order every officer in the field not to communicate anything they find related to the weapon over any joint, strategic Comm lines.”

“Meaning…we should not coordinate with Lord Oren?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. But only with stuff that has to do with the weapon. Everything else goes on as normal.”

“But…why?”

Vim lowered his voice despite it already being difficult enough to be heard with the sounds of battle raging on in the distance. The ocean’s breeze also picked up, muffling his words. But still, Haisel was able to hear him.

“We need to find that weapon first,” he explained. “Before they do. As well as any research documentation.”

Haisel hesitated a moment as though troubled, but after a brief second, he nodded. “Ahh, right. Good point. We can’t trust the Lords of Justice to destroy it. We need to do the job ourselves.”

“No,” Vim said, shaking his head. “We need to responsibly and rationally tuck it away and study it. To ensure that if anything like this ever happens again, we won’t be defenseless.”

Haisel winced as though Vim had bashed him in the face with the shitty, level-1 staff he’d borrowed from the Elvish girl. “Crude humor at a time like now? Really, Vim?” he asked, using Vim’s first name without any honorifics, which was fine, as they were now standing alone and speaking quietly.

“It’s not humor. I’m being serious.”

Haisel recoiled somewhat. “You’re not.”

Vim sighed. “Look, we were hit very, very badly, and right now, we are weak. And to be clear, you did a great job, and I’m proud of the work you’ve done here, Haisel.” He spread his arms open, widely. “But look at the damage to our fleet: our ultimate weapon. It’s been ravaged. We’ve lost so many people both in battle and in Ogre’s Axe. We’re weak, and the world is filled with vultures. Even the People of Virtue, our greatest ally, might begin strongarming us when this war is over. We need reassurance. When this is done, every guild in North Bastia that suffered as a result of the Gentlemen—and that’s all of us—are going to have a legitimate claim to the land.”

“That’s not a problem,” Haisel said, now speaking a bit more urgently. “Once this is over, I would fully expect every guild to obey the traditional rules of war. We’re only weak in the conventional sense. In an open-field battle with five-hundred of our best against five-hundred of theirs, we will win every time.”

“You’re being childish,” Vim said. “Those days are done. Organized, open-field battles are dead. The SOHLA accords are dead.”

“Why?” Haisel asked, coming across as aggravated. “Because of what one man did? Are we really going to memorialize his actions by letting him change us for the worse?”

“The fact you use the word ‘let’ proves to me you don’t understand anything at all.”

Haisel began to stir, which was unusual for a man who rarely struggled to keep a firm posture. “Vim, please.” He pointed at the city. “If the other guilds won’t yield the city to us, and if we need to fight for it, then let’s fight the way we’ve always fought our entire lives: two equally sized armies in an isolated field of combat with fair, independent observers to keep things sane.”

Vim resisted the urge to shove the tall, robust man, as his naivety was becoming annoying. “You’re being a fool. Get it through your mind that those days are over, Haisel. Society only goes in one direction, and it’s never backwards. The cat is out of the bag. The box has been opened. This,” he said, extending his arm, his palm flat, “this is what war is now.”

“And it’s also what it used to be,” his second-in-command retorted. “That sounds a lot like ‘backwards’ to me.”

“Yeah, well, backwards is forwards again when only a few people are still alive who can remember it.”

“I disagree,” Haisel replied, appearing frustrated. “Things can only become this way if we allow it. Vim, please: don’t make the same mistake that he made.”

By “he,” Vim assumed Haisel was referring to King Morrison. But in this case, Vim adamantly rejected the comparison, as he had nothing in common with such a traitorous, back-stabbing, king-slaying piece of shit.

“We are not them, Haisel. I’ll forgive you for even suggesting such a moronic thing because I don’t think you intended to come across that way.”

“Of course I didn’t. And I know we’re not. I just meant that we, as a guild, need to be careful not to re—”

“I know what you meant,” he interrupted. “And it’s been noted. Now, enough of this sentimental, weak bullshit. Win me this war, and bring justice to the murdered—those are your tasks. And let me handle the logistics of what happens in the days, weeks, and years afterward. That’s how this has always worked between us, hasn’t it? You win the fights, and I govern.”

“Yes, Sir Alazar,” Haisel said, his tone plainly bitter. “As you command.”

“Good.”

Chapter 160: The Ritual Sacrifice

Chapter 160: The Ritual Sacrifice

Like a raft about to go over a waterfall, Alex felt himself teetering on edge as he spoke into his Comm. “All brigades,” he said into the device—but then he hesitated.

He could sense the anticipation around him as he paused. He couldn’t believe he was really about to take a risk of this magnitude, and he could scarcely help but second-guess what, under any other circumstance, would be the kind of decision he’d scoff at had someone else made it. And yet, faced with seemingly insurmountable time constraints, he’d known on some level that it was always going to come down to this. There was never going to be another way.

But so many will die because of this…

Indeed, from the very start of this operation, there was a part of him that knew an all-out, reckless, and head-on assault would be the only way to emerge victorious today outside of indiscriminate killing. Still, he didn’t expect to go through with it on nothing more than the word of a vampire from another planet that he hardly knew. And he certainly didn’t expect to feel such a powerful sense of hesitation in the seconds before giving the order.

Is it really right to ask them to do this? he wondered, suffering a brief, but powerful moment of doubt.

In many ways, Alex was torn. Truly, there was so much internal conflict within himself. Putting aside those who’d already died, there would be many more yet to perish in the coming moments. And what made all of this weigh so heavily on his heart was the plain fact that, strictly speaking, none of them actually needed to die or be put in harm’s way due to the presence of Queen Vayra and her Elvish warriors.

With the Elves fighting on their side, it actually wasn’t necessary for anyone here to sacrifice themselves. And that was not an exaggeration, either. Quite literally, not a single leveled member or soldier fighting here on behalf of the Lords of Justice genuinely needed to take part in this battle—well, at least in the technical sense. The moral one, however, was another story.

The dilemma here was simpler than it seemed for being so ethically perilous. Basically, Queen Vayra and the more than three-hundred Elvish warriors she’d brought along with her could accomplish their shared mission here all on their own. As a matter of fact, Alex was fairly certain that, freed of all constraints, they could annihilate the entire city and turn it into rubble in less than a half hour. They could knock down every building and snuff out every life in Shadowfall Coast, and it wouldn’t even be difficult for them. That was the extent of how powerful the Elvish were in comparison to humanity.

And yet, for the sake of the countless innocent people residing helplessly inside the city, Alex was prepared to spend the lives of his own side in order to ensure such a scenario did not come to pass. But was that truly fair? Was it fair to ask so many young men and women to die? Was it fair to lead them to their death when the Guild of Gentlemen were responsible for all of this? When the Elves were more than willing to solve this problem for them immediately and decisively?

Complicating matters even further was the possibility that, even if they did everything perfectly, they might still run out of time and end up watching the Elves annihilate the city. In this hypothetical scenario, their deaths would be a waste. So yes, the temptation to merely sit back and let Queen Vayra take care of everything was growing on him. Nevertheless, in the name of decency, it was resisted.

We can’t go that route, Alex thought to himself. We can’t kill indiscriminately just because it’s easier for us. Our humanity depends on it!

Of course, it wasn’t just human lives he risked, either. The Elves, too, would be put in mortal danger by virtue of having to be careful in their targeting. If they were able to use their full speed to rampage through the city while killing everything in their path, they would be at their most unstoppable and untouchable. Horribly enough, it was exactly that kind of scenario for which their abilities seemed best suited. No, the threat to them was in slowing down: in being selective.

By being selective, discerning, and fighting in a more conventional way, the Elves would be susceptible to falling for traps, ambushes, unexpected “tricks,” and other fatal machinations the enemy had planned for them. Restraining themselves from going overboard would be the very thing that opened them up to the possibility of suffering casualties—perhaps many. This, put simply, would not be the case if they were allowed to bulldoze their way through the city, destroying every structure without regard for who might be inside; of course, this was something they were going to do anyway if the situation was not resolved very, very soon.

There’s no easy path out of this, Alex thought, the pressure of this moment bearing down on him. There’s no situation where this ends without thousands of more lives being extinguished.

Looking ahead of him at the northern highway in the distance, Alex could hardly control his rising doubt over whether Olivir could actually do as he claimed: whether he was truly capable of helping the Lords of Justice’s army charge the highway without being massacred and wiped out. And much of that doubt was due to the enemy’s superior rocket artillery, which made up the backbone of their outer defenses.

Unlike the Lords of Justice's artillery that had been dug out of storage from the last conventional war more than a century ago, and which, by any measure, had been considered antiquated and obsolete even all the way back then, the Guild of Gentlemen had access to H207 MLRS vehicles, which were essentially trucks with multiple high-tech launchers that had better range and deadlier force than their own shoulder-mounted RPGs.

Thus far, all the orders Alex had given had been for the sole purpose of trying to gain a strategic and tactical positioning advantage over the enemy, and the reasoning for this was obvious. As things stood, if he ordered his forces to charge the north highway, the MLRS units would rain down so many rockets so fast that every infantry brigade under his command would be wiped out before they could even cross half the distance.

Aware of this, Alex had been moving slowly and methodically. The goal until now had been to maneuver their own artillery within range so that they could begin attacking the enemy’s frontline troops while keeping their own forces just out of range of direct fire from the MLRS artillery. The only problem with this strategy, however, was that it was a tactic meant for a typical, conventional siege battle expected to play out during the following days and weeks. But he didn’t have that long. And the people of Shadowfall Coast didn’t have that long, either!

For this reason, Alex found the conviction he needed to proceed with such a reckless course of action. In a world where there were no good choices, the only sensible one was that which was least bad.

I’m trusting you, Olivir, he thought as he filled his lungs with air. Please don’t let me down.

Following that final thought, he at last gave the command.

“All brigades, this is Command One!” Alex said powerfully into his Comm. “All brigades, advance to Highway North! 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th artillery: advance to Vantage Point A and concentrate all fire on the enemy’s MLRS! 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th light infantry: withdraw from Highway South and advance immediately to Highway North. Prepare for a full-scale frontal assault. 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th mechanized infantry brigades: advance on Highway North and engage from the left flank with maximum force! Get moving! Go, go, go!”

The sound of armored battle tanks revving up their engines joined a storm of running feet, and together, it was like a collective stampede. Before his very eyes, tens of thousands of men and women, along with numerous vehicles, all began to make directly for the northern highway.

“Queen Vayra,” he said to the woman. He spoke quickly to her, not even bothering to turn his head and look at where she stood right beside him. “Can your Elves capture the south highway on their own?”

Initially, half their force was going to push north, and the other half was going to push south. That had changed thanks to Olivir. Now, it would fall upon the Elves to capture the southern highway all on their own. Fortunately, they seemed up to the task. Without even replying, Queen Vayra nodded then slipped away, likely to rally her Elves. Alex was now too focused looking north to pay her much heed.

“Here we go,” said High-Lord Kolorn Besh. Alex quickly glanced at him, and for just an instant, the level of trust he saw in the older man’s eyes floored him. Not only was Alex a new member of the man’s guild—and the political world itself—but he, a man with no familial ties to anyone of import, had been made third-in-command, and now he was being entrusted with steering the fate of the entire guild and possibly even North Bastia itself. It was truly remarkable.

“Thank you for trusting me,” Alex said, speaking a bit loudly to be heard over the storm of troops to both their left and right, who passed them by as they stood together a moment unmoving.

High-Lord Besh reached out, cupped his right shoulder blade, and squeezed. “I know this was the last thing in the world you wanted to end up doing when I convinced you to join. Believe me when I say it's not lost on me just how much you’re being made to endure.”

Alex lowered his head respectfully to his guild leader. “None of this is your fault. No one could have predicted the Guild of Gentlemen would rope us into this madness. When I joined the Lords of Justice, we were neutral in the war between the Guild of Gentlemen and the Royal Roses. It’s not your fault that that’s changed.”

Kolorn released his grip on Alex’s shoulder and then patted it a few times before returning his arm to his side. “I know that,” he said. “Even still, I want you to be aware that I’m not blind to how much you must be hating this right now. Just know that the feeling is mutual.”

“I appreciate that,” Alex replied, meaning it sincerely.

Returning his attention ahead of him, he watched eagerly and nervously as his forces advanced. Due to the abrupt and chaotic change in strategy, the light infantry brigades, which had been approaching towards the southern end of the city, were hurrying to change course and catch up. The mechanized infantry brigades, on the other hand, were about to be entering what was likely to be a very heavy, very intense combat area ahead of them. But not all moved with equal enthusiasm; one brigade in particular seemed to be lagging behind the others.

The 12th…

Given the shellacking they’d sustained during Alex’s earlier failed, experimental charge, the battalions that made up the 12th mechanized infantry brigade, along with their armored vehicles, were proceeding at slightly less than full speed towards the northern highway, and it was probably deliberate on their part, too. It was also not entirely unexpected, either.

Having sustained heavy casualties during such a humiliating retreat, it was difficult to blame the 12th for being more hesitant this time around. Thus, rather than leading the charge yet again, the other brigades took point, and like before, each brigade was accompanied by a few small squads that were made up entirely of leveled guild members, and it was these squads that led the pack.

Alex opened his mouth to order the colonel leading the 12th to wrangle his lieutenants to move faster, yet before he managed to speak, his attention was diverted by the sight of multiple smoke trails that appeared parallel to one another along the section of road where the highway met the city—right around the entrance to 1st Avenue. What followed this smoke was the sound of hissing, and glancing upwards, Alex could see that a massive volley of rockets had just been fired.

In a trance-like state, Alex then watched as these rockets reached the apex of their climb before turning downwards and dropping through the air towards his rapidly advancing troops—many of whom were now beginning to enter within direct range of fire from the Guild of Gentlemen’s forces that were dug into trenches or behind sandbags in the heavily fortified portion of the north highway. This, of course, was exactly what Alex had known would happen if he ordered them to charge straight in—it was also what he’d feared would happen. Aside from the Guild of Gentlemen succeeding in acquiring another nuclear weapon, it was his worst-case scenario come to life.

And yet, despite this, as Alex watched the rockets descend, he had a somewhat muted reaction as he observed them coming closer. Lower and lower they fell, along with the tell-tale, high-pitched whistling, which grew in volume as they seemed poised to make impact. But even as they drew ever nearer, Alex did not fret or worry, because he naturally just assumed that Olivir had something up his sleeve. After all, the vampire had promised him as much. Because of this, even as several of the rockets were about to touch down, Alex still did not feel any great sense of concern. The confidence and certainty with which Olivir had assured Alex of success had actually managed to convince him to ignore what his own two eyes were seeing.

But that all changed immediately as the very first rocket at last made impact.

For just an instant, the initial emotion Alex felt was confusion—and then despair. Raising his arms, Alex shielded his eyes as an explosion of orange flame as well as a blast of dirt and grass rocked the field of battle. This was followed by another blast, and then another after that. Then there were dozens of explosions taking place all at once, and all concentrated in one specific area. The ground trembled, screaming voices filled the air, and a screen of dust so thick it momentarily obscured the entire battlefield was kicked up, taking nearly a half minute to recede and return some degree of visibility to the grasslands. When it did, Alex felt an avalanche of nerves and disbelief go off inside of him like a DEHV alarm.

What…what just happened? he thought, the muscles in his jaw spasming in shock and denial at what he saw.

“Olivir!” he shouted into the Comm. “Olivir, what’s going on?”

Having run right into the enemy’s line of fire, the result was as Alex should’ve expected it to be—yet for some reason, he had not. Was he stupid? He must have been, because of course this was what happened. Of course it did! How could it not? This was the expected, predictable outcome. Why would he assume it would have gone any other way?

With the dust finally settled, Alex was now able to perceive the mangled, blasted-apart corpses of what looked like more than two-thousand men and women along with the smoking husks of dozens of their battle tanks and APCs. Some troops were crawling on the ground with missing limbs, and a great many were screaming, whimpering, or moaning.

“Bells,” someone moaned. He was a middle-aged, level-1 man whose arms had been blown off and who was wriggling on the ground. “Bells, help me! Where are you, Bells?”

Alex didn’t know who he was referring to, be they a fellow soldier or someone from his memories. The man just kept on wriggling along the ground until, finally, he simply stopped moving. It was impossible to say if he’d died or if he was merely unconscious. Blood poured out of the stumps where his arms had been, and his face was now buried into the dirt. If he was indeed alive, it wouldn’t be long before that ceased to be the case.

Speechless, Alex struggled to comprehend the horror he had just witnessed firsthand: the sickening sight of what looked like the aftermath of two-and-a-half battalions from the 11th brigade finding themselves caught directly in the middle of an artillery strike. Blameless men and women who were only here because Alex had brought them. People who were fighting for a future that Alex had promised.

What have I done?

Alex shook his head. He needed to be strong, yet he was momentarily left stunned by the number of people who had just died. And things were only going to get worse at this rate, not better. Right now, even many of those in the impact area who had somehow miraculously survived the rockets were finding themselves cut down by the enormous barrage of gunfire coming from the entrenched troops in the northern highway. The Guild of Gentlemen were clearly not in a merciful mood. With a seeming deliberateness, gunners were targeting the downed and wounded as if to hatefully ensure they never stood up again.

Did I really expect something different?

Up until the moment that Alex had seen their bodies, he’d honestly thought…he’d actually been so stupid as to think that the vampire would somehow utilize some kind of incredible, long-range magic and…and do what, exactly? Alex didn’t even know. He had no idea what he’d been expecting. He’d just been so taken in by Olivir’s confidence that he’d allowed himself to be swayed into making such a deadly, irresponsible gamble with the lives of so many people: one that had clearly not paid off.

So many of them just died in an instant, and it’s my fault, because I knew it would happen. I ordered them to run out into artillery fire while praying for a miracle. I took the word of one person on faith, demanding no evidence or explanation before taking such a huge risk. How could I have been so stupid? What has happened to my judgment?

Beyond the impact area, the rest of the mechanized infantry weren’t faring all that much better as they pressed on ahead into a steady storm of gunfire. Though most of the advancing infantry did their best to keep themselves behind or to the side of the nearest tank or APC, they were still out in the open and in a target-rich environment. Therefore, even though a good three-quarters of incoming enemy gunfire pinged off the armored vehicles rather than strike at flesh, a significant number of bullets nevertheless managed to find their way into warm bodies.

“Gahh!” screamed a young man who appeared to be only slighter older than 18. He clutched his chest and fell forward onto the ground, writhing in agony. “I’m hit! I’m hit! Fucker got me. Medic! Medic!”

“I’m coming!” shouted a rifle-wielding medic who’d been running along behind the rear of an armored tank. “You’re gonna be okay, my guy.” She dived at the ground and came into a sliding, crouching position, and then she pulled around the pack on her shoulder, unzipped it, and began removing various medical devices as she hovered over the young man. “Just lie there still and—”

Her words fell silent, and suddenly, the medic fell forward onto her face as a bullet penetrated the back of her skull before entering into her brain and killing her instantly; this, as the young man released a blood-curdling scream as both his legs were stricken with bullets, wounding but not killing him. Then his screams turned into howling wails of pain as a round fired from the enemy seemingly pierced his groin and castrated him. This scene, and many more like it, repeated itself all over as the barrage of gunfire continued to cut down more of the brave, level-1 soldiers of the Lords of Justice.

Alex trembled with rage and self-disappointment. This was his own fault. He had caused this. And as bad as things were, this was actually something of a reprieve, for it would only get worse once the MLRS were reloaded and ready to fire another barrage of rocket artillery.

Why did I trust Olivir with this? Gods, what have I done?

Alex struggled to pull himself together, but it was difficult. This, after all, was the exact type of disaster he had so desperately wanted to avoid bringing about. Of course this plan was never going to work. What could just one man—who looked like a boy—possibly do to have such an outsized impact on the war effort? What trick could he possibly have up his sleeve that would be so significant and vast that it would warrant Alex sending scores of level-1 people to their death in such a stupid way? Put simply, Alex had been desperate, and he’d wanted to trust the vampire. He’d let his emotions and not his brain do the thinking for him. And this was the result.

“Olivir!” Alex shouted. “Answer me!”

No reply came from the Comm, and now, Alex had to struggle to contain himself. His shock, disbelief, and disappointment were consuming him. His mind became awash with theories, possibilities, and explanations for whatever just happened, and none of them were helpful.

Did Olivir flee? Or did he simply fail? Or was it possible he never intended to help in the first place? Maybe he’d simply made an honest miscalculation. Or worse, perhaps he’d been attacked by surprise. Maybe the enemy had sent a covert unit to deal with him. There were so many reasons this could have happened. So many possibilities.

But none of them mattered right now, did they?

No. No, not right now. I can figure this out later. Knowing what just happened won’t change anything.

Ultimately, Alex knew that this was hardly the time to find answers. Therefore, he gave up on calling out to the vampire, who was not bothering to answer him back anyway. Instead, he turned his head to look at High-Lord Besh, whose face had gone white with fear. It was as though he sensed that the end of his guild was imminent. There was real confusion in his eyes: true uncertainty. Did he regret trusting Alex as much as Alex now regretted trusting Olivir?

It doesn’t matter!

Alex ripped his mind away from his insecurities and channeled all his focus on evaluating their current position, and Gods, it was not good. The mechanized infantry were getting demolished, and many were no longer pushing forward. Tanks were exploding, and APCs caught on fire were burning troops stuck inside alive. Though return fire was sent the enemy’s way, their forces were shooting from an open field at enemies behind well-fortified cover. Worse, the Guild of Gentlemen chose this moment to finally send out some of its leveled members, and now, glittering blue wisps of magic were whipping across the grasslands and detonating more armored tanks and infantry.

They were losing.

“Queen Vayra,” Alex said into the Comm. “Please respond.”

“What is it?” she replied, sounding annoyed.

“We need backup. We…we’re getting slaughtered. Can you return?”

“No. We’re busy, human. Deal with your own problems.” There was a grunt followed by the sound of a man crying out in pain. “We have our hands full. I’ve already lost two of my precious Elves. These humans have come up with treacherous schemes to trap us. They will suffer!”

Alex scowled defiantly. He refused to lose this fight. Everything was on the line. If he had to run in there himself, he would. In fact, that probably wasn’t a bad idea. Right now, anything he could do would be better than doing nothing at all. If they did not break through immediately, the enemy’s rocket artillery would soon be ready to fire again, and at that point, they’d sustain losses so great they’d have no choice but to call off the entire invasion and instead let the Elves massacre hundreds of thousands of people.

“All brigades,” he said into his Comm. “Listen closely! We need to—”

“I know this might be tough to accept,” a youthful voice said over the Comm, interrupting him. “But I guarantee, once you’ve had time to really think about it, you’ll agree I did the right thing.”

“Olivir?” Alex shouted into the Comm, surprised to suddenly hear his voice. “Where are you? What happened?” There was no reply, so Alex again called out to him. “Olivir,” he repeated. “Why did you tell me to order a charge? Why didn’t you help us? I thought you said you—”

Alex gasped. Whatever he’d been about to say was swiftly forgotten. Above him, well ahead of his estimates, he spotted yet another incoming barrage of rockets, and this one seemed even larger than the last. How had they reloaded so quickly? How were there even more in this attack? And why were they a bright orange in color? What in the name of the Gods was going on here?

“All brigades listen carefully,” Olivir said, surprising Alex yet again, this time by speaking as though he were in command. “Get out of the way. Anyone standing near the dead is going to join them. Stand back and then be ready to breach!”

Alex was so bewildered he wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t sure how to react, either. Should he cut Olivir off from the Comm line? Or question him? Alex was starting to wonder if he’d been outright betrayed. Exactly what had Olivir done—and why? These were questions that burned in his mind. And at the very least, they were soon answered. Alex did not have to wait very long to find out.

As the second volley of rockets crashed down onto the field of battle, it was at this point that Alex realized, much to his amazement, that they were not rockets at all. He wasn’t exactly sure what they were. Hundreds of bright orange balls with black, smoking tails made sizzling, hissing sounds as they flew directly down onto the battlefield—and made straight for the previous impact zone. For whatever reason, they were striking an already struck target, within which all people were already either dead or so badly wounded they would no longer be able to fight.

What’s going on here?

Much like the rockets had only just done, these orange-bodied, black-tailed, vaguely rocket-shaped masses of energy slammed into the ground, one after the next. But that was emphatically where the similarities ended, because unlike the rockets, the explosions did not result in more kinetic damage being done to the terrain, nor did they cause the ground to rumble or a boom to echo in the morning sun.

Instead, these orange, sizzling projectiles bounced directly off the ground, and it was only then that they exploded, each one turning into what looked like a shower of a thousand individual orange sparks, bright enough to be well visible even amid the early daylight. Once “exploded,” these sparks reminded Alex of a colony of fireflies, only tremendously denser and glowing far brighter. For a time, these orange, glowing lights hovered in place several feet above the ground before, all at once, they were gone, vanishing into the air.

And then, suddenly, there was movement.

A lot of movement.

Screams filled the world, but this time of pure horror as opposed to pain. Some even came from High-Lord Besh, who stood beside Alex. He couldn’t blame the man. Alex himself was tempted to release a cry of terror. Before his very eyes, the mangled, destroyed, battered, and butchered corpses of more than a thousand dead level-1 soldiers began to twitch and stir. With audible crackles, this movement continued, until in defiance of all decency, the dead literally began to rise again.

They’re getting up!

Anything with at least one arm and one leg began to return to its feet or foot. Even with brain matter oozing out of heads or blood dripping out of destroyed eye sockets, the men and women who’d perished only moments ago in battle were now in the process of standing upright. Only, they were no longer the people they had just been. They were changed, now. In a way that Alex had never before seen—in a way that he had never even known was possible. In a way that horrified him.

HP

52/52

Name

Private Hersh Linzeg

Level

5

HP

52/52

Name

Corporal Valina M’inzala

Level

5

There were so many of them, and all were level 5. They differed only in name and appearance. Some did not manage to rise to their feet due to bodily injury, and they instead disintegrated, fading away into a sand-like substance, leaving nothing behind—not even ashes for their family to bury. The rest, however, began orienting their bodies towards the north. And since they were in the same condition they’d died in, merely looking at them filled Alex with a natural sense of terror and disgust. Still, he maintained his composure, as he thought he was finally piecing together what had happened.

“What have you done?” Alex asked over the Comm, barely able to find his voice. “Please tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”

Once more, Olivir did not reply. Yet Alex had the sense his questions were going to be answered via a very public demonstration, as this newly raised army of resurrected corpses began to make loud, angry growling sounds, their bodies causing snapping and popping noises as well. With that, they all began to move. And at first, they merely shambled—but soon after they then began sprinting at stunningly inhuman speeds towards the north highway.

As they ran, they reached out with their arms as though desperate to grab onto something. Everyone, be they a level-1 troop or a leveled member of the guild—everyone did their utmost to scramble out of the way as these…these things raced past. And as though finally seeing what was heading towards them, all gunfire from the north highway came to an immediate halt as these snarling, highly vocal creatures began growling even louder and louder with an unmistakable note of hunger and desperation.

“GREEEAAAAAAHHH!” they screamed. “GREAAAAAAHHHH!”

Whatever these things were, Alex felt safe assuming they were no longer the men and women they’d been. No, there was no trace of humanity in their purely animal-like behavior. They continued to viciously growl as they sprinted or hopped forward, and then finally, after ten seconds that felt a great deal longer, the first of them reached a barricade, behind which was a trench where about twenty members of the Guild of Gentlemen could be seen confusingly staring at the creature.

“GREEEAAAAAAHHH!” it screamed.

And then it began to flash like a light switched on and off, its entire body glowing a darkish red. With that, it ran headfirst into one of the many sections of the barricade—and it exploded like a miniature rocket, blasting around a mixture of sand, concrete, and in some cases, steel. This first explosion was followed by a second, and then by a third. All along the western flank of the northern highway, these monstrous, resurrected corpses began slamming into the barricades that served as a divider between them and the enemy, and piece by piece, it became undone.

But there were still plenty of the monsters left.

These creatures continued on, all while releasing their nonstop growling shouts. One by one, they jumped into the trenches, disappearing from view. Each time, the sound of an agonized scream would follow, and then came another explosion. These things were literally leaping onto people and self-destructing. One after the next, a creature would jump inside a trench, and then a mixture of blood and body parts would get kicked up into the air before falling back down into the trench and out of view.

And yet, still there was more to come. Alex, never blinking once, watched in utter disbelief as the monsters invaded the enemy’s fortification, jumping headfirst at their armored vehicles and destroying them the same way the Guild of Gentlemen’s rocket artillery had destroyed so many of their own. These formerly human creatures…they were creating an absolute calamity of fear and destruction.

“Lord Oren,” High-Lord Besh whispered to him.

“I know,” Alex replied, nodding. “I know.”

There were no other words for the sight of this.

“GREEEAAAAAAHHH” they screamed as terrified, confused, and badly panicked men and women either fled or began opening fire onto the creatures, causing 1s and 2s to pop up above numerous heads and occasionally inflict significant damage, but never enough to slow or deter these twisted, demonic entities.

The level of fear was so great that it caused a young man to scream loudly enough that Alex could hear his words even from all the way over here. “Get it off me!” the man screamed. “No! No! Noooooo—”

Boom!

Alex shook his head. “Olivir, this isn’t right.”

“This is the path to the fewest deaths,” he replied, finally deciding to speak. “I’m sorry if it isn’t pretty. I hate doing this more than you hate seeing it, dude. I promise. Now please tell your guys to get in there and fight. That’s all that really matters in the end, doesn’t it?”

Alex had to begrudgingly admit that Olivir was correct. Completely without regard for the morality of what he’d done, the fact of the matter was that, true to his word, he’d given them a way in. A real chance to breach the city. To actually succeed at what had seemed impossible as recently as thirty seconds ago.

“You…you turned people into mobs.”

“No,” Olivir replied over the Comm. From the way he was speaking, he sounded out of breath. “I just reanimated their corpses. That’s not the same thing.”

Alex clenched his hands into fists. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all. How much of all this was Olivir’s intention? Did he intend to sacrifice all those people? He must have. He must have deliberately convinced Alex to send them in with the knowledge that they would die to the MLRS systems. This just didn’t sit right with him. It didn’t sit right with him at all. But what really unsettled Alex—chief above everything else—was that Olivir was probably right about what he’d said: that if Alex ended up dwelling on this situation for a few days, he would probably end up agreeing with the vampire’s actions, as horrible as they were.

And that frightened him far more than these disfigured monstrosities that wore the faces and wounds of fallen heroes.

Chapter 161: Empathy

Chapter 161: Empathy

Why would anyone in their right mind think they could charge 21000g for a single bottle of water? Zach didn’t care if this was the middle of the desert. He’d rather lie right here on this rock and die than give 21k to a wandering merchant for just one bottle of water. And why was it so noisy out here? This was the noisiest desert ever. All around him, he heard the sounds of laughing and of mugs slapping down against tables. It also smelled exactly like Angelica’s, too.

Am I dreaming?

Zach groaned. He was so tired. He wasn’t sure what was going on or where he was. He could’ve sworn he’d been lost in the sands of a massive desert that spanned almost an entire planet except for the very center, where a high-tech, NPC-run city infinitely larger than Whispery Woods awaited the first batch of adventurers to ever set foot on it. Yet he’d had no water, and he’d been dying of thirst. That was when the predatory, wandering NPC merchant had tried to swindle him. Even if Zach was the richest guy to ever exist, he still wouldn’t cough up that much for a Gods-be-damned bottle of water. Fuck that NPC! It was so outrageous that it was still unacceptable even if he was just a character in a dream…

I’m confused.

As lucidity began to return to him, Zach became aware that he was not, in fact, in a desert. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed on what felt like a table, and he was clearly in Angelica’s judging by the smell of the place. The question then became: why. Why was he here and not in bed with Kal on her island, Elendroth? Did something happen? His mind was still clouded, and he was so tired that he actually lost his train of thought and drifted in and out of a few more brief dreams before at last he truly awakened.

He opened his eyes, slightly, and then he spoke. “Hello?” he croaked. “Am I in Angelica’s?”

Immediately, all chatter fell off. The music in the background stopped playing. Arguments between various adventurers were put on hold. And now, the sound of bodies shifting or turning in chairs temporarily became the dominant sound. What felt like more than a hundred pairs of eyes settled over him. This only made him even more confused. He genuinely had no idea why he was here or how he’d arrived. He couldn’t even be sure this wasn’t yet another dream.

It’s not a dream, he thought. I’m actually here.

Rubbing his face, he slowly sat up so that he was now seated directly atop a table. Still groggy, his eyes were struggling to focus. Had he gotten into a fight and lost? Was that how he ended up here? What was the last thing he remembered? He tried to think. He’d…wait. Hadn’t he been in Shadowfall Coast? Yeah. He had. He remembered. He’d gone to rescue Vim. Did he succeed?

Maybe?

Shit, how had that turned out? He didn’t know. Really, he didn’t. He strained to recall every detail he could. He remembered fighting that big guy and then sparing him because of his daughter. He’d been hurt pretty badly, too. So he’d carried Vim up the stairs of a secret, hidden exit, after which he had summoned his mount…and then? Well, that was when everything really started to get fuzzy in his head. He had no memories other than little flashes of running through the streets with his Kralzek’s Beast.

“Here,” said a voice, one he recognized as belonging to Angelica. He turned his head her way, but he still couldn’t quite see her just yet. Somewhat dazed and out of it, Zach raised his hand and accepted whatever she had given him, which felt like a cold glass. He took a sip. It was her custom-made cherry cola. Overcome with thirst, he downed the entire glass in just a few seconds. “Are you okay?” she then asked him.

Incredibly confused, Zach nodded. “Yeah. Why…why am I here?”

Angelica said nothing and gave him a very strange look. Then her cat ears twitched, and she turned around and walked away without answering. Reni Sarwin, who stood off to his side, also seemed to back away. Zach glanced around, hoping to glean some kind of understanding from the eyes of the adventurers nearest him, yet all of them turned their heads awkwardly. All except one.

“Zach in big trouble,” Fluffles said with a meow. Only now did he realize the cat was standing on the floor in front of him. “Zach lie to Kalana.”

“I what?” he shouted, immediately shaking his head. “I did not.”

“Yes. Yes, Zach lie.”

The accusation roused him, chasing away whatever sleepiness remained. It also caused the rest of the fog to escape his head. Scooting forward, he hopped off the table and landed on both of his feet. Then he knelt down and pet his cat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes! Yes Zach know.”

“Nope.”

“Yes you do,” said a voice from behind him that sent shivers down his spine. Standing back up, Zach turned around, and there was Kalana. She was across from him, her hands on her hips, a sadness in her eyes. “You do know.”

Zach opened his mouth, but his words got caught in his throat. What did she know? Or better yet, how much did she know? And how had she found out? Was it because of his call to Fylwen? She’d promised not to say anything unless Zach died, which he clearly hadn’t. Come to think of it, why hadn’t he died? He was so confused. He still had no idea why he was here or how he’d arrived. Did Kalana have something to do with it?

“Kal,” he at last said, meeting her eyes. “It’s…it’s crazy meeting you here.”

“Stop,” she said angrily. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

She stepped forward so that she now stood just an inch before him. And there was so much sadness within her. “You lied to me. You almost died. If I didn’t get there when I did, then, umm, you wouldn’t be here anymore, and I’d be all alone. Why didn’t you trust me?”

“Yeah, why didn’t you trust her, asshole?” a random adventurer he didn’t know shouted, causing murmurs of agreement.

Why can’t we do this in private? he thought, groaning for the third time in as many minutes. Do these people always need to pry into everything?

Zach snapped his head around and glared at the adventurer who’d shouted at him. “Mind your own business or we’re fighting.”

He fully expected the adventurer to take the challenge and ask for the grapes. But to his surprise, the guy, who from the looks of things was fairly well experienced, instead averted his gaze, muttered something into his mug of ale, and piped down. This, Zach could hardly believe. Was he afraid? That was unusual.

Never thought one of these guys would back down like that.

Returning his attention to Kalana, he placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to speak softly. “Look, I’m really confused right now. I don’t know why I’m here or how I got here. I…I don’t know what to say, but I’m sure I can—”

“I’ll tell you why you’re here,” she interrupted. “You’re here ‘cause you were bleeding out on a sidewalk in Shadowfall Coast. And…and you were gonna die.” Her eyes dampened. “And you went there without telling me even though I’d do anything in the world to help you. And you didn’t care. And you lied. You told me you were gonna rest, but you were really plotting with my mom to go and kill people. You lied to me!”

“I didn’t lie to you,” Zach lied. “Don’t be ridiculous, Kal.”

She pushed his arms off her shoulders. “Oh really? Then why were you there? Why were you in Shadowfall Coast?”

Zach drew a breath, held it a moment, and then released it. “It was a pottery convention,” he said with a shrug. “It happens once a year downtown in the city. Rian told me about it. I was there to do pottery. And then the last thing I remember is that a, uh, uh…”

“A pottery terrorist attacked,” someone chimed in. Zach turned his head, and he sighed with relief. Rian actually happened to be here with them in the flesh. His buddy. He’d come to bail him out of this mess or at least give him some moral support. Zach watched as his wide-framed friend strode over and slapped his palm down on Zach’s shoulder. “It’s true. Zach was the victim of pottery terrorism.”

“Oh, shut it, Ri,” Lienne said, joining them. She stood side by side with Trelvor. “Both of you boys think it’s just so funny and such a joke, but you hurt Kalana’s feelings really bad.”

“Exactly,” Seiley added, and now Zach realized that she was present as well. “Me and Trelvor saw the state you were in. I don’t think you understand how close you were to dying. Or what you did to Her Highness. Do you know how much pain you caused her? So, both of you need to shut up and stop making jokes.”

Zach flicked his eyes over to Rian, who gave him a very short, but noticeable nod. They were both likely thinking up a plan of escape. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have right now. Because he really did lie to Kalana, but for important reasons—and he didn’t know how to explain that to her.

Honestly, before he said anything that could get him into trouble, he really needed to first consult with Jascaila, who was like a lawyer but for his mind. He didn’t want to have this conversation before speaking with her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t here in Angelica’s with them, which was disappointing. He even glanced around the tavern just to make sure. All around him, there were a whole lot of familiar faces, but hers was not among them. Her brother was certainly here, though, and he did not look pleased.

Together with Zephyr, Donovan began stomping his way over to Zach, and when he did, every adventurer nearby got out of the way to let him pass.

“There you are,” Donovan said to him. Zach turned to face the larger, plate-armor-wearing man.

“Donovan,” Zach said to him in greeting. “It’s good to—gahh!”

Donovan cracked him over the side of the face, hard. Hard enough that Zach tasted blood. Immediately afterwards, the GSG leader reached forward with both arms and grabbed Zach, pulling him into a hug. “Dumb kid, the fuck were you thinking? What kinda’ shit did Alex put in your mind that you’d go out and fuck around in a war zone?” He released Zach, and despite his incredible heavy-handedness, there was a startling amount of affection in the way he now spoke and acted.

“You know what kinda’ trouble this can bring on the adventuring community? And yourself? We don’t do this kinda’ shit, Zach. You’re smarter than this. You know better!” He grunted, loudly. “You gotta cut it out. No more.”

Zach rubbed his inflamed cheek. “That was the last time. I promise.”

“It better be. Or you’re exiled.”

“Exiled?” Zach asked, speaking the one-word question with an unusually high pitch. “What do you mean exiled?”

“I mean out. Out of the adventuring community.”

Zach threw up his arms in outrage. “The fuck? Why? For what?”

“For what, he says,” Donovan mocked scornfully. “For what. I’ll tell you for what.” He poked Zach in the midsection hard enough that Zach was surprised he didn’t crack a rib. “For fuckin’ around, that’s for what.”

Zach took note of his surroundings. This was really not a great spot to have this kind of conversation. But then again, one thing he’d noticed about the adventuring community was that it did sort of operate like one big extended family. Grievances were very often aired right out in the open and among fellow adventurers, and aside from “leaking” adventuring-related information to new or low-level adventurers, secrets rarely remained such for very long. Even still, a bit of privacy would’ve been nice.

With a sigh, Zach met Donovan’s eyes and said, “I didn’t have a choice. You don’t understand what’s happening in the world right now.”

“And you don’t understand that it ain’t none of your gods-be-damned business. We. Don’t. Get. Involved!”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Zach said again, this time more forcefully. “They were going to execute Vim!”

Donovan leaned his entire body back and widened his eyes as though the words Zach had just spoken were so surprising they nearly blew him away. “So the hell what? Are you kidding me, kiddo? Why do you even care? Let the prick die. He’s political guild trash the same as any other. It’d be doing the world a favor.”

“Yeah, but…”

Zach didn’t finish his thought. Because he now realized there was no point in arguing this with Donovan. He just wouldn’t understand. He didn’t live in the same world that everybody else did. None of the adventurers did. It was what made them so amazing but also so detached from the truth. They just didn’t understand what Zach was slowly beginning to learn—from people like Jascaila, Mr. Oren, and even Vim.

Having lost his father to the whims of a member of the guild he’d just fought to save, there were few people who could understand hatred of the political guilds quite like Zach could. They were corrupt, hypocritical, and there certainly did exist members of these guilds who were pure evil and used their power to take advantage and harm others. But deep below the surface, if one were to cut through every layer, there was something not one-hundred-percent terrible there. Deep within most—but not all—political guild members there was, in fact, a genuine, true, and sincere desire to see the level-1 people they governed prosper. Yes, it could be lost sometimes amid their own greed and corruption. But that will did exist. Zach had seen it now too many times to deny it.

They aren’t exclusively bad.

Donovan and the other adventurers…they just wouldn’t understand. Kalana would, though. Yet right now, he had the sense she was refusing to back him up out of anger and disappointment for being lied to. But he could tell from the subtle shifts in her facial expression that she too disagreed with Donovan’s assertion that what happened in Galterra was none of their concern. Rian and Lienne, on the other hand, sided with Donovan.

“I hate to go against you, but he does have a point,” Rian said. “I know you were only there because you got guilted into it by ‘Lord’ Oren—what an asshole to call himself that by the way—but I know this wasn’t your fault. You need to just block his number and stop listening to him.”

“Yeah,” Lienne agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “That guy is a huge dick. Don’t forget the way he abandoned you and didn’t even give you a proper orientation into the adventuring world. And remember how he made you feel like you were worthless?”

Lienne and Rian were the first friends that Zach had made in the world of adventuring besides Fluffles, and they were together with him for his first “true” adventure. Therefore, they knew better than anyone alive what his state of mind had been in the days after Kalana had left with Mr. Oren. He’d told them all about how he’d been given nothing more than a couple of gold and a few barely helpful tips before essentially being left to his fate. Due to this, they had never liked Mr. Oren.

“Don’t let him involve you in anything else,” Rian said. “Okay?”

Zach wasn’t sure how to respond. The situation was far more nuanced and complicated now than it’d been back then. Moistening his lips, he tried to think of some way to explain this. Yet, having said nothing in a while, it was Kalana who decided to speak next.

“Alex is a good man,” she said, a bit of the sadness leaving her voice. “I dunno why you guys hate him so much. You don’t understand him or what he’s trying to do.”

“That’s not it at all,” Lienne replied. “It’s more that we don’t care, and he keeps trying to involve us. It’s fine that he left the adventuring world, but he keeps trying to involve himself in it. If he’s gone, then he should be gone.”

Kalana’s facial features tightened. “So you’re saying somebody can’t, umm, be an adventurer and still care about the world? ‘Cause I do. Should I leave too?”

“N-no,” Lienne quickly replied, her face flushing with color. “That’s not what I meant, Kalana.”

“Well it sounds like you did, and it’s mean to say that about him. And don’t forget that I’m gonna be the governor of Whispery Woods very soon, and I’m still not gonna quit adventuring.”

Lienne held up her finger and stammered out a few nonsensical words before seemingly finding herself. “Ahh…well, okay, but…okay. Yeah. But don’t forget, you’re an Elf. So it’s different.”

Zach could see the transition in her face as she shifted gears as though surprised to stumble on an actually good argument. As she continued to speak, she spoke with even more confidence. “Elves don’t even need the buff to get here,” she said. “My boyfriend doesn’t have it, for example.” She patted Trelvor’s hip, and Zach had to suppress a chuckle.

As a loyal, dedicated, white-cloaked Elvish warrior, Trelvor was now caught watching an argument between his girlfriend and the princess. Zach doubted he would say a word from this point forward. His face had hardened like stone, and aside from a general look of discomfort, there was no indication he planned to chime in.

“All I’m saying,” Lienne continued, “is that humans have a different set of rules, and we don’t mix adventuring and politics. That’s all I meant by that. Of course it’s different for you.”

Kalana’s expression softened, though Zach wasn’t sure why. He knew she couldn’t have agreed whatsoever with what Lienne was saying. If anything, what Lienne had just said was more likely to increase the level of disagreement between the two. So maybe it wasn’t based on that at all. Knowing Kalana, she probably detected that Lienne was struggling for an offramp and was willing to give her one. It was the kind of thing she’d do.

“I understand,” Kalana said. She held out her hand and took Lienne’s. “We can be friends and disagree. Right?”

“O-of course!” Lienne replied. “Also, I never got around to telling you how beautiful your curtains are.”

“Really?” Kalana exclaimed. “Zach never even noticed them and he’s been there for weeks. Wow. You like the dark red?”

As the two suddenly blasted the conversation into orbit, Zach leaned in closer to Rian and whispered, “We should escape.”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“What do you say we take the cat and get out of here?”

Rian snickered, and then so too did Zach. And it was only in this moment that Zach became aware of how…how “okay” he was. And the fact that he was so okay actually disturbed him. Unlike the last time he’d had to bloody his hands, he’d begun very numb before the pain built up and had driven him crazy, both increasing his overall jitters and causing him to have several meltdowns. But right now? He wasn’t numb. Truly, he wasn’t. He just didn’t…care?

Why am I not more upset?

He’d killed so many people. Far more than the last time. Maybe even more than a hundred. So why wasn’t he thinking about it? He wasn’t avoiding it, either. He wanted to think about it. He wanted to feel something about it. But he just plain didn’t feel like any of it was his own fault—because it wasn’t. It just felt like a continuation of sorts: another example of him being forced to deal with the Guild of Gentlemen’s evil. They really were responsible for this. It wasn’t something Zach questioned anymore. He might have struck the blow, but the people he’d killed were murdered by their own guild, not him.

And yet, despite it all, it actually bothered Zach how not upset he was. He wanted to be upset. For the sake of his own humanity, he wanted to feel at least something. The fact he didn’t made him question if he was wrong and if he was, in fact, numb. But when he thought about Kalana’s island, his plans for the future, and what was very much a desire for him to continue adventuring and grow, he realized he reflected upon these things with hope and optimism. He also knew he had very important tasks to attend to, such as heading to Dragon’s Squire and beginning the next step of his journey. He wasn’t numb. He was just…over it.

But first I have to make things right with Kalana, he realized. That’s more important than anything else.

“Kal,” he said—and she turned her head towards him. She’d been animatedly discussing tapestry or some other boring topic with Lienne, but now she looked over to him instead.

“Mhm?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

He didn’t want to do this in front of everyone. He moved towards her and lowered his voice so that only she could hear him. “Do you still love me?”

She slapped him across the face, though not nearly as hard as Donovan had. It didn’t even seem intentional. “Of course, you dork! How could you even…how could you ask that?”

Zach rubbed his cheek. “I’m just worried that, you know, because of this…”

“That I’d leave you?”

“Yeah.”

His words caused an even greater pain to flare up in her, which was evident from the look of shock that became painted onto her expression. “That’s not how this works! Why are you so dumb all the time?”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m really sorry that I hurt you. I know I lied to you. I even knew it was wrong when I did it. It hurt me to do it.”

“So why did you?”

“Because I just didn’t agree with you.”

“You what?” she asked, appearing genuinely perplexed. “Agree with me about what?”

Zach, still keeping his voice low, tried his best to explain. “It’s an argument we didn’t have. But we would have had.”

“Nah-uh.”

“No, Kal, listen, we would have. If I had told you what I felt I had to do, you—”

“—would have supported you!” she insisted, cutting him off.

Zach grabbed her hips and leaned forward, resting his forehead on hers. “No, you wouldn’t,” he whispered. “You would have supported a different version. You would’ve tried to save Vim without killing anybody.”

“Yeah. And we could’ve.”

“And that, Kal. That’s why I lied to you. That’s the only reason. If you really want to know that badly why I lied, now you do. That’s literally the only reason why.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, pain in her voice.

Zach closed his eyes and continued to rest his forehead against hers. “I don’t care how much you think otherwise. Trying to do what I did while not killing anybody…that’s impossible. Even if you’re a hundred-percent sure we could’ve made it work, you’d still be wrong.”

She placed her hands on his cheeks. “Why didn’t you trust me enough to try, baby? I dunno why you couldn’t just give me a chance to prove it to you.”

“Because I knew how that would end.”

“How?”

“With you in a position where you either had to kill dozens of people or watch them kill me. That’s how that ends. With your beautiful face covered in blood. With your hands just…just drenched in it. I can’t live with seeing you that way. I lied to you because I love you. That’s the only reason. I’m telling you the truth.”

“I believe you,” she said, a slight whimper in her words. “But if you don’t at least try, you’ll never know that I was right.”

“You’re not right.”

“I am! We don’t gotta kill people.”

“We don’t. I do.”

“No!”

Zach pulled away from her. This would be a conversation they’d have to resume later. Too many people were trying to eavesdrop, and this was none of their business. Even still, he felt relieved to have been able to explain himself to her, and though her eyes were once again damp, he could tell that she was relieved to understand. Even if she disagreed with him, he could see that it mattered very much to her that, if nothing else, she understood why he’d done what he’d done, and his reasons for doing so.

Looking around, and eager to change the subject to something a bit brighter and more fun, Zach sighed and asked, “Hey, where’s Jimmy? I bet he kicked so much ass at your raid.” And it was upon this question that the expressions on those around him became soured and uneasy, which caused a sinking feeling to appear in Zach’s stomach. “Uh…guys?”

Donovan’s expression hardened, and Zephyr’s tightened as well. Kalana began chewing her bottom lip, and both Lienne and Rian exchanged uncertain glances. Trelvor and Seiley, on the other hand, looked just as confused as Zach did. The rest of the adventurers also had various traces of concern entering their eyes as they regarded Zach and one another.

“Where is Jimmy?” Zach repeated, now speaking more loudly and demandingly. “What happened?”

“He’s fine, physically,” Zephyr answered. “He’s definitely alive.”

Zach flinched. “What the hell kind of reply is that?”

“He just needs time.”

Time?

Something wasn’t right. These replies were so unusual and strange. The way Zephyr had answered his questions confirmed to him that something had clearly happened, and Zach needed to know what it was. “Guys, what happened? Seriously.”

Kalana placed two of her fingers on his arm, and she scrunched up her lips a moment as though trying to figure out how to word her reply. Eventually, she said, “Jimmy got hurt really badly, but he’s okay. Umm, but he says he quit.”

“Quit?” Zach exclaimed. “The fuck is that supposed to mean? Just tell me what happened. Stop being so weird and cryptic. Come on, guys. Out with it.”

And so, for the next ten minutes, Zach listened in as Donovan, Zephyr, Kalana, Rian, Lienne, and even Fluffles all recounted the boss raid that Jimmy had apparently led in Trials of Nolak. With each subsequent detail, Zach felt more and more physically disturbed as the story progressed. With an unusual degree of empathy, he could actually feel the embarrassment Jimmy must have suffered.

Angrily, he pointed a finger at Donovan. “Why did you do that to him? Fucking dick!”

“Watch it,” Donovan snapped back at him with a low grunt. “This was the best thing that could’a happened. He needed to understand that real life ain’t the same as some fuckin’ simulation. Now he knows.”

Zach slammed his fist on the table. “How is this good? He quit.”

“He’s not quitting shit. He’ll lick his wounds, and he’ll come back.”

“And you know this how?”

“I just do.”

Zach waved his hand at Donovan, not even willing to hear this bullshit. It also made him feel truly guilty for not being there. If Zach had been present, this never would’ve happened. He wouldn’t have let it. Perhaps more so than anyone else in Angelica’s, Zach knew what embarrassment felt like. He understood what being robbed of dignity felt like. Being humiliated or disgracing oneself in front of others…he’d been there too many times to count.

“Where is he now?”

“Nobody knows,” Kalana said. “Tena’s been looking for him everywhere, but we can’t find him.”

Donovan ordered another mug of ale and then glared at Zach. “Let him be. He needs to lick his wounds. He learned a hard lesson, and it’s gonna be for the best.”

“Yeah, I don’t agree, sorry.” Zach got up from the table and looked around. “One of you is going to tell me where he is or, or I’m going to start flipping tables.”

“Zach, nobody knows,” Zephyr insisted. “We’re not lying to you. He roped out of the dungeon and just…vanished. He could be anywhere on Galterra. Or not on Galterra at all. Either is possible.”

Zach reached into his pocket and removed his phone. He glanced down at it, then thumbed through his contacts. He found Jimmy’s new number and sent a message consisting of nothing more than a dot, then waited to see if one or two checkmarks appeared at the bottom right. “Okay. He’s definitely not on Galterra.”

“Really? How do you know?” Zephyr asked.

Zach looked at the man. “Because I texted him and his phone didn't receive it.”

“Uh...we are in Angelica's, bud. We are outside of the universe right now.”

"Oh yeah. Right."

Stretching his back a moment, he took another slow breath and then turned to Kalana, extending his hand to her. “Want to help me find him? Wherever he is.”

Some of the sadness retreated from her eyes, and she nodded enthusiastically, taking his hand. “Mhm!”

Donovan protested, and so did many of the other adventurers, but Zach didn’t care. The last thing he wanted was to let Jimmy fester in his own misery. He’d been there. It sucked. Yet he didn’t want to overwhelm the guy, either, which was why he was taking Kalana and no one else. Well, maybe Fluffles. But that wasn’t really up to him. He couldn’t control where the cat went or what the cat did. No one could. It was impossible.

“We must accompany you,” Trelvor said, and so did Seiley as they made their way to the door. “Our orders were to keep an eye on you and the princess.”

“Well, if they’re going, so are we,” Rian and Lienne insisted. From the urgency in their step, it only first occurred now to Zach just how much fear and anxiety the siblings must’ve been suffering through in the past few hours. The Elves they had fallen for had been called into a war zone. They must have felt at least some of what Kalana had endured. Only, unlike Kalana, they were not at a level where they could rush in and defend the people they cared about.

Zach rubbed his eyes a moment to ward off the stress he felt rising within himself. “Fine,” he at last agreed. “But I have no idea where I’m even going. Or where to begin looking.”

“Fluffles know,” the cat said proudly.

“You do?” Zach asked, kneeling down next to him.

Fluffles meowed. “Jimmy Green on Faded Island.”

“Faded Island?” Zach repeated, the name surprising him. “The hell’s he doing all the way over there?”

Faded Island was an island region of North Bastia, though it was monumentally larger than Elendroth and was home to a great many people. It was the sole region controlled by the Children of Order, whose leader, Fiona Darkmae, was both the youngest guild leader in recorded history and likely the most beautiful, too. But why had Jimmy gone there? Sure, it was a decent enough place from what Zach had heard, but there wasn’t anything “special” there in particular.

Faded Island was known, among other things, as being the happiest region in all of humanity. Due to its isolation, the politics of the rest of the world had rarely affected it throughout history. Outside of the conquest of Peter I and the establishment of the monarchy, Zach recalled learning in history class that Faded Island had been under the stable rule of the Children of Order for a very, very, very long time. In fact, the Children of Order had been in charge of Faded Island so long that their continuous control over the region stretched for an even longer consecutive period than the Royal Roses’ rule of Giant’s Fall did.

Going off memory alone, Zach was fairly certain there were no large cities to be found on Faded Island, and there wasn’t a great deal of tourism. Yet the island was also virtually devoid of any rural areas or meaningfully large stretches of nature or wilderness. The entire island, from top to bottom, was essentially one gigantic suburbia. No matter where one happened to be on the island, they were never more than a mile away from a nearby supermarket or movie theater. Shopping lots were ubiquitous, and wherever a community of homes was to be found, one would never be far.

The people of Faded Island tended to live as though the rest of the world did not exist, and rarely were they troubled by global events. Zach wouldn’t be surprised if most of them even tuned out the dragon. They didn’t tend to take anything seriously unless it happened in their own region. So, in that light, perhaps it did explain why Jimmy had chosen to go there. A place like that could be a magnet to someone like him.

“Fluffles, help us find him, okay?”

“Okay. I help.”

*******

“I can’t believe I’m in New Jersey,” Jimmy cackled, laughing aloud as his new friends cheered him on. “This whole region is just like New Jersey. I swear. Yo, bartender. Hook me up with another.” He tapped his shot glass on the table. “Another round for everybody. On me.”

Unlike Angelica’s, they didn’t care that he was underage here. Like, they would have cared, but because he wasn’t level 1, the rules didn’t apply to him, apparently. Actually, people had been scared shitless of him at first, everybody calling his ass “sir” and shit like. But you know what? They were cool. Once they all started drinking together, they mellowed out. And now, with the sun having risen, the party was still going on. But first he had to vomit.

Hopping out of his stool, he rushed into the bathroom in the back, leaned over the sink, and then let it all purge out of him. In the background, he could hear the guys laughing. “Jimmy’s puking again!”

Whatever. At least he was having fun. He was done with the adventuring world. But he was still stuck here. So he might as well find a place that most reminded him of something from home, and he might as well get drunk in it. He had enough gold that he could outright buy a fully detached home with enough left over to live and get drunk for a few years on top of that.

He was trapped here. He was never going home.

Might as well get drunk.

Chapter 162: Tickets

Chapter 162: Tickets

In the immediate aftermath of Olivir’s cruel, heinous “sacrifice,” the way ahead was now open—but only for the moment. The disruption and disarray caused by the army of self-destructing, reanimated corpses, combined with the small delay before the enemy managed to load another round of rockets onto their MLRS, meant that a window now existed in which the badly battered remnants of the mechanized infantry brigades, as well as the fresh—and far more numerous—light infantry troops stood a very real chance of getting in and capturing the objective. Even better, their artillery had now gotten into place and had begun shelling the highway, clearing their way forward.

But victory was still far from certain.

A twisting, burning sourness spread through Alex’s insides as he took in the corpse-strewn battlefield. It wasn’t even because the number of dead on both sides was higher than he’d anticipated, but rather, it was more that actually seeing it for himself brought things into perspective in a way that little else could. It really highlighted Alex’s feeling of extreme desire to finally end this wickedness. He had joined the Lords of Justice to serve as a conduit between human beings and the other races of Galterra: not to slaughter people or…or “sacrifice” them. He’d quit adventuring and had left behind his old life out of a desire to make the world a more peaceful place for everyone.

And yet, here he was, doing this.

“Advance!” he shouted into the Comm. “Leveled squads, get in there and batter your way through. Go now while you still can! Watch out for enemy trickery!”

If there is one moment in my entire life where I make a difference, then please, Gods, let it be this one.

Alex raised his right hand as high as he could, reaching above the top of his head. He held his breath a moment as he concentrated. Mentally, he focused on what he wanted: what he yearned for. Less than a mile ahead of him was a section of the northern highway, and bodies littered it as well as the grasslands before it. But beyond this was where the Guild of Gentlemen’s defensive perimeter had moved. And from the looks of things, they’d finally brought out their truly powerful assets.

Until now, anyone with any real status in the guild had remained hunkered down somewhere much deeper inside the city. But that seemed to have changed. Even from this distance, Alex could vaguely recognize numerous individuals who ranked in the top 50 of the Guild of Gentlemen’s hierarchy. And although he would not be certain until he ventured nearer, Alex was fairly sure that, among this defensive line of leveled fighters, was a man he believed to be none other than the third-in-command of the Guild of Gentlemen. And he was also someone Alex knew very, very well.

Strong as an ox, braver than a bear, and looming larger than most, the third-ranking member of the Guild of Gentlemen wasn’t just someone that Alex knew due to his significance on the world stage or by virtue of his rank, nor was it someone Alex knew out of mere responsibility given his new role in life. No, this was a man Alex had dined with, laughed with, and whose estate he’d visited on holidays. For he was none other than Wexzel Ultdern, the younger brother to the cat-loving adventurer, Maric Ultdern, though “younger” in this context meant that the man was only around a century old.

They really don’t want to let us through here. They’re starting to bring out the big players.

Supposedly, for the first 80 years of his life, Maric had been one of the highest-ranking members of the Guild of Gentlemen, before inexplicably and bafflingly throwing it all away to become an adventurer and, even more confusingly, a university graduate in the field of nuclear science—at the age of around 90, nonetheless. After joining the GSG, Alex had fast become friends with Maric, and occasionally, Maric would invite Alex to his family’s estate, where he’d dine with Maric and Wexzel, a man Alex had always found surprisingly tolerable and kind for being a political guild member.

And now I’ll have to kill him.

Wexzel, along with a well-armored, well-equipped, and sturdy-looking row of other leveled members of the Guild of Gentlemen, were now standing frontmost ahead of 1st Avenue and forming almost a barricade of their own. A great number of the enemy’s troops were sheltered behind them, having ceded much of the northern highway. And behind all of them were the MLRS systems that would be firing again at any moment.

Though it was difficult to make out, Alex was sure he spotted two large columns of MLRS occupying the entirety of the two-way street that made up 1st and Haven St. as well as 1st and New Town. It may well have even extended into 1st and Killington, but Alex was unable to see that far. Interestingly, the artillery was being manually reloaded as opposed to machine loaded; hundreds of burly, level-1 men were carrying the rockets and attaching them in person. Yet they were moving fast, which meant their forces had no time to waste in storming forward. No matter what, they simply couldn’t afford to eat another barrage of rocket fire. It was going to take everything they had—Alex included.

And so, with his hand still raised, Alex activated his one and only unique ability: Summon Blade of Soul. Immediately, four blue rings came into existence above his hand, and all four popped straight up, with one stacked on top of the other. All four rings then fell as Alex clenched his open hand into a fist, causing the first ring to travel down his arm and stop just above his shoulder. The second then slid down to his upper arm, the third to his forearm, and the last by his wrist.

Now, all four rings began to spin, faster and faster, shooting out orange-colored sparks until they flew up and off his arm a second time, heading straight upwards. But this time, rather than fall, they bunched up together, and all four rings combined into one solid mass of liquidized metal—which began to stretch, elongate, and shape itself into something larger, solid, and sword-shaped. The blade of this sword turned from a blue-orange into a shimmering, sharp silver, and the hilt became black and polished. Once it had completed forming, Alex swiped his floating blade out of the air in front of him, and to stretch his muscles, he swung it several times back and forth at the emptiness ahead, the sound of a whoosh following each slash. Then, weapon in hand, he craned his neck to look at High-Lord Besh, who was still standing beside him.

“You should stay here,” he said. “Or better yet, move a bit farther back.”

Kolorn seemed to balk at this. “Excuse yourself, Lord Oren. I’m the leader of this damned guild. I can’t cower in the back while I watch the rest of us die!”

“Yes, you can,” Alex insisted. “Sir, you’re not just the leader of the Lords of Justice. You’re also the closest thing humanity has to a leader as well.” Alex shook his head. “You can’t be allowed to die in this battle. Please don’t risk plunging us into an even more unstable world by dying and creating a power struggle for control of Dal’Zarrah.”

There was reluctance in Kolorn’s eyes as he spat out a wad of saliva but nevertheless obliged Alex’s request. “We’ve paid a grave price so far,” he said as he began to back away. “Just make sure it ends up being worth it in the end, Lord Oren. The future of humanity depends on it—and on you.”

“Of course.”

High-Lord Besh pressed his clenched fist against his chest. “Show them your conviction, Lord Oren.”

His guild-leader’s words spurring him on, Alex bent his knees a moment then blasted forward, running as fast as his legs would carry him. This would be the second time in recent memory where he’d allow himself to run at such a reckless, dangerous speed. But he needed to get in the fight as fast as he could. He needed to give every last bit of himself, sparing nothing. Because that, and only that, stood any chance of leading to the kind of world he wanted to live in.

Thus, with his sword held in a reverse grip in his right hand, he pumped his arms as he ran, his feet stomping down on the grass with enough force to send constant, massive clumps of dirt behind him like a watercraft zipping through the ocean. The world whipped by as he tore ahead, and for every bit of speed he gained, the wind seemed to pick up and try to match him, losing out each time. Sparing no exertion, he raced towards the battle.

Finally, as he darted onto the highway, and his feet began to rip up asphalt while simultaneously creating sparks, he dug both of them into the ground and came into a sliding stop, leaving a trail behind himself as he slowed and then came to a halt just before colliding with a bunch of level-1 troops, whose terrified faces seemed to become just the slightest bit more emboldened upon seeing him.

“Lord Oren!” a young man shouted. He was almost the exact same age as Zach. He looked like he belonged in Alex’s classroom, not here on the battlefield. It was another reminder of the ugliness of war. “Thank the Gods,” he said. “You’re joining us!”

Alex offered the kid a confident smile as well as a friendly rap with his fist on the helmet. “Who’re you with?”

“I’m Private Kenseg Nisha, sir,” he said. “I’m with Hope Company, 3rd infantry brigade.”

“It’s good to meet you, Kenseg. Hey, do you mind if I borrow those?” Alex pointed to the binoculars secured around the boy’s chest by a strap.

“Uh, sure! Wow. Yeah. Of course you can!”

He removed them and handed them to Alex, who lifted them to his face and peered through the eyepieces. Though he was eager to charge right in to the fight, he needed to make sure he did not waste his potential reinforcing at the wrong spot. He was positive he had the strength to have a significant impact on the battle, but only if he struck exactly where he was needed the most. And so, with a much clearer view now of the city, he took a look around, honing in on where the highway transitioned to 1st Avenue, as that was there the leveled squads were just about to be facing off against the…hey, wait a second. What…what was that behind them? It looked like the MLRS were…

Gods, no! Alex shouted in his mind as he realized he’d wildly miscalculated. It’s too soon!

Alex saw something: something he did not wish to see. Immediately, his heart began pounding in his chest. He blinked. Then he blinked again. Yet neither contraction of his eyes changed the truth of what they saw.

Turning on a dime, his mood, morale, and confidence plummeted. His muscles tensed so tightly his body began to ache. He even chewed his bottom lip to the point he tasted blood. For all that he’d tried to hurry, it seemed he was too late. The MLRS had finished reloading, as evident by the sight of all nearby troops on 1st Avenue squatting down, their chins tucked into their chests, many with their hands covering their ears; this meant that, at any second now, they were expecting the artillery to fire. And when it did, thousands more on Alex’s side were going to die. But even more troubling would be the psychological impact it had on the troops.

The first barrage had badly rattled the infantry and even many of the leveled squads. The second barrage? It would cause a tremendous number of them to break. They would turn around and flee. Alex was certain of this. No matter the stakes at hand, they simply would not be able to withstand the terror that came with another bombardment. Truly, it was a miracle that the men and women fighting for the Lords of Justice had managed to keep pressing on as they had after the first such bombardment. But asking them to endure yet another hammering from the enemy’s rocket artillery? For sure, that would spell the end of the invasion. At that point, it would be all up to Queen Vayra—which meant a complete eradication of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives caught in the crossfire.

What can I do? Alex thought, dejected and frustrated, a sick feeling snaking down his throat. I can’t stop it. We’re just too late. The only thing I can still do is warn the troops to brace themselves for artillery fire, but there’s no stopping what happens next. The Gods curse me!

Faced with an unstoppable, imminent threat, Alex took the only action he still could. If it even saved one single life, it would be still be for the better. “All brigades!” he called into his Comm. “Get to cover immediately! The enemy is about to fire another barrage of…another barrage of…”

Alex’s words quieted then trailed off completely as his eyes caught sight of something in the corner of his vision: something far up above that caused his head to turn skyward. It was something he saw first and then heard, though the sound of it came very soon after. It was the high-pitched, thunderous whine of four supersonic aircraft blazing across the sky.

The fighter jets!

With a screech as they carved a path through the air, the four F-15E Strike Eagles flew low over 1st Avenue, then continued on right past it, causing thousands of heads to look upwards as they soared directly overhead before continuing on their way, now moving in the direction of the grasslands. Yet it was what they left behind in their wake that Alex was more interested in. Even as they only first began to turn around midair and reverse direction, the first of the giant booms echoed throughout the city. Then came the rest.

Now, it was the Guild of Gentlemen who were forced to endure the horror of a bombardment. Multiple deafening blasts filled the world along with several flashes of light and fire; yet, even still, the equally loud cheering from the troops storming the city managed to somehow rival it. Many raised their rifles above their heads and roared out in celebration as all of 1st and Haven St. went up in fire and smoke.

“Kill them all!” the young man next to Alex screamed. “Send them to hell, Royal Roses! Yeahhhh!”

Reversing their direction, the planes came back around, and now they flew once more over 1st Avenue, moving so fast that they had practically disappeared out of sight when yet another series of explosions rocked the city street, one even taking down a two-story residential building. Though Alex said nothing, he did not appreciate the way the men and women cheered for that as well. But at least…at least the Gods had sent them a miracle.

“How you holding up, Lord Oren?” asked Vim Alazar over the Comm line. Never had Alex wanted to hear his voice so badly. “You were sounding pretty gloomy there a second ago.”

“You just…you saved us, Sir Alazar,” Alex breathed out, suddenly realizing he felt low on oxygen for having held his breath through most of this.

“You bet your ass I did. Don’t worry: we’re just getting started, so keep pushing! As for us, we emptied out the Piercing Thorn, and everyone who can hold a gun, a sword, or a staff is joining me in the attack. We’re ending this today! Anyways, the Royal Roses always take care of our allies. Never forget that.”

“Thank you. On behalf of everyone in the Lords of Justice, you have my utmost gratitude.”

“Don’t mention it. And like I said, we’re just getting started.”

True to his word, the fighter jets wrapped around and commenced a third, then fourth bombing run. Then, rather than resupply for more bombs and missiles, they began extending their flaps, which slowed them down enough so that they could begin firing their six-barrel gatling guns, absolutely ripping apart and shredding legions of level-1s who had the misfortune of being out in the open. Many of the shots went wide and killed innocent people sheltering inside nearby buildings. It was a scene of absolute devastation, yet the men and women of the Lords of Justice, both leveled and infantry alike, were absolutely loving every moment of it.

The cheering intensified, and morale skyrocketed. Alex was far too disgusted by the entire affair to feel any sort of cheer. It was a tragedy that so many were dying. All he wanted was for this to be dealt with: for the Guild of Gentlemen to cease being a threat. Humans deserved better than the way they treated each other. Gods, please, what would it take for humans to finally tire of this? To finally put war behind them for good?

We’ll do what we have to do, and then we’ll pick up the pieces, Alex thought.

With the F-15E Strike Eagles entering the fray, Alex’s entire plan now had to change to accommodate their arrival. All around him, level-1 troops were gazing up at the aircraft as though they were winged angels sent by the Gods themselves to personally deliver them to salvation. But to Alex, they were just more pieces of an ever-expanding puzzle. A puzzle that had so many moving parts it was difficult to keep track of them all. Truly, it was.

With so many variables and so many factors, no one could reasonably be expected to account for everything. And that was why Alex did not end up blaming himself for forgetting about the ring. That was why he did not end up chastising either himself or any of those below him for failing to mention it, nor would he point the finger at the Royal Roses, who above all, should have considered it. Because why would they? Why would anyone be expected to remember the ring?

Yes, that ring from several weeks ago that had dropped from the dragon. That ring from an event that had taken place before a nuclear bomb had eradicated a city, and before a war had been reignited, and before Alex had come to discover the truth of King Morrison’s bluff. With so much going on in the world, and far too many factors to consider, how could anyone fault him, his guild, the Royal Roses, or really anyone for completely forgetting that the Guild of Gentlemen had stolen an artifact-quality ring? That they had in their possession a level-115 item that had a particular ability usable just once every month: an ability that summoned a level-190 sky drake? But now, Alex sure did remember it, and so did just about everyone else, too. All it took to jog everyone's memory was a single, terrifying scream.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

********

“I won!” Zach cheered. He stood up from the table in this casino-like card parlor, which was decorated all around with flashing lights and had dozens of random, non-sentient NPCs in fancy, flashy dresses doing any number of silly activities. With a big grin, he extended his arm and high-fived Kalana, as well as Tena, whom they’d managed to pick up before coming here. Gods, was this place incredible. It might’ve been the best place. Zach couldn’t believe he hadn’t come here until now.

“Ding-ding-ding,” the machine at the table beeped as little, square-shaped, and orange tickets began sliding out of a slot beneath it.

The cowboy-hat-wearing NPC, a handsome-looking man in rodeo gear chewing a toothpick, dramatically threw down his stack of cards and said, “Gosh-darn it! I fold. Ya’ll gonna run me out of Texas!”

The six of them had been sitting at the table playing a game called “Texas Hold ’em.” At first, Fluffles had been playing as well, but he’d given up after complaining that it was “stupid and boring.” Zach actually found himself really liking it once he’d gotten into the groove, though he had no idea what a “Texas” was or why anybody needed to “hold it.” Either way, he laughed as he greedily scooped up his tickets.

“I lost again,” Trelvor said, scratching his head. “This game is…not for me.”

“Oh, come on. Enjoy it.”

Zach fucking loved this place, this so-called “dungeon.” Despite never having come here until now, he’d learned recently that Hamen’s Isle was actually the most traveled dungeon in all of Galterra, even more than Yorna’s or Tower of Eternity. Or at least it was the most-popular dungeon until Trials of Nolak was put back on the map thanks to him and Jimmy. But all that aside, it was still a very close second, and honestly, it was always only a matter of time before Zach ended up here.

I love it so much!

Since becoming an adventurer, if there was one name the other adventurers could never shut up about, it was the Great One known as “Olandrin.” Everyone was obsessed with him, even Fluffles. All they ever wanted to do was talk about Olandrin and his amazing dungeons, with this being one of them. And now, finally, Zach could understand why. This was the safest he’d ever felt in a dungeon. Honestly, you’d probably have to try to die in a place like this. The few mobs that even existed were just slimes lower than level 5, and they weren’t even really meant to be attacked. They were passive and only seemed to serve as like a sort of “decoration” in certain locations.

Aside from the slimes, there were no bosses to fight, and there was also shockingly no “order” in which an adventurer needed to traverse the floors. The entire dungeon was just an amusement-park-like island, where each “attraction” had a number that stood in place of a floor, and each floor could be accessed from the central hub whenever you wanted. There were even metal placards, billboards, and other guiding signs all over the island with arrows indicating where you were currently and where you had to go depending on the “floor” you wanted to reach.

Based on what Zach could see, the entire dungeon served as the central transit hub for North Bastia, even more so than Yorna’s and TOE. It was, as far as he was aware, the only known way to get to and from Faded Island. But it also wasn’t as simple as merely moving through it, either. Unlike with Yorna’s, where you just had to proceed from one location to the next, in Hamen’s Isle, you had to earn your passage by playing games or satisfying other requirements. And yes, failing did in fact come with certain consequences, only they weren’t of the dangerous, dying kind.

For example, right now, in this very moment, Zach and Kal were both “suffering” the consequence of failure. And anyone who looked at them would be aware of this, as giant, four-foot-tall, blue steeple hats with the word “dunce” was glued to the top their heads. For the next twenty minutes, they would be unable to remove them. And that, by the way, was all the fault of Fluffles, who had somehow ended up on their team during a match of “Galterran Trivia” against an NPC on F11.

During the game, Fluffles, who had his own little cat chair next to him, Kalana, and Tena, kept on using his paw on the buzzer whenever it lit up, and each time, he answered “give tuna” no matter the question. Oh, he was also wearing one of the hats too, by the way. And in his case, he might’ve been the only adventurer in history who genuinely considered it a real form of serious punishment.

“Get it off!” he hissed, rolling around on the multi-colored, whimsically tiled flooring in this wide, open, and spacious gaming hall on F5. “Fluffles suffering! I suffer!”

Kalana knelt down and scratched his chin. “Awwh! I’m sorry. It’ll come off on its own in fifteen more minutes.”

“Kalana kill Fluffles,” the cat begged. “I hate hats!”

Zach turned his head away and pressed his fist to his mouth so he could conceal his laughter, as he knew Fluffles would take it personally. As Lienne, Tena, and Kalana all tried to comfort the cat, he, Rian, and Trelvor had to turn away so that they wouldn’t be spotted giggling. Fluffles was clearly not appreciating this place as much as Zach did. Honestly, Zach couldn’t believe that something this fun could actually be called a dungeon. A dungeon!

“So, what should we do next?” he asked as he stretched his shoulder muscles and looked around. He raised his index finger and an attractive, non-sentient, female NPC wearing a glitzy red dress came by, snatched five of his tickets out of his hand, and returned less than a minute later with a regular cola.

“How many more tickets does everybody still need to get to Faded Island?” Tena asked. She spoke as though she were trying her hardest to sound patient, though it was obvious that she clearly wasn’t. Before Fluffles had earned his “punishment hat,” she had been the only one of them who Zach could tell wasn’t having any fun, though in her case, it was totally understandable. She probably wanted everybody to hurry up and get the tickets needed to buy passage to Faded Island so she could get to Jimmy.

In this dungeon, it seemed that each destination had its own set of requirements for passage, which often depended on where you were heading but could sometimes even take into account where you’d started off, too. And though it was possible to permanently unlock any given destination, doing so required a very significant amount of time and effort as opposed to merely earning a one-time travel pass. But yeah, the requirements really did depend on where you were going and sometimes your point of origin.

Case in point: going from Dal’Zarrah to Angelica’s required you to ride a ferry and then win a dance competition. But going from Whispery Woods—which served as the point of origin for all seven of them thanks to everyone using Rian’s exit door—and heading to Faded Island required a flat 500 tickets. And tickets could be earned just about everywhere. Right now, Zach had 240 tickets, but a short while ago, he’d had 550. This was because he’d needed to spend a few of his tickets, though it had been for a very good cause.

“Oh, I just love my stuffed animal,” Kalana said, cradling the gigantic pink teddy bear that Zach had bought for her at the prize booth.

“Me too,” Lienne said, cradling her own. “Thank you, Trelvor.”

Seiley glared at Rian. She had no stuffed animal. Rian turned over his palms and shrugged. “I wanna save my tickets,” he said. “What? Stop looking at me like that.”

“Buy me a stuffed animal, Rian.”

“Buy your own.”

Seiley’s glare intensified. “Buy it or I’ll cut your balls off.”

“Okay fine.”

Now, as they exited F5 and returned to the beautiful outdoor beachfront on a planet where it was apparently always daytime, summer, and sunny—yes, this place was that great—Zach reached into his pocket and studied the brochure he’d gotten at the entrance. They were all over the place, actually. Stands with brochures could be found just about anywhere you went. And as Rian had found out the hard way, since this place did not reset weekly like other dungeons, littering came with severe consequences.

Rian had thrown his on the ground instead of using one of the numerous wastebaskets all over the place, and because of this, he now wore clown makeup that couldn’t be removed for another half hour. He even had a rubber nose.

“Umm, can we try the game on F3?” Kalana asked.

Zach lifted his brochure and studied it. “Karaoke?”

“Mhm!”

“What’s ‘Take on Me’ by ‘a-ha’?” Lienne asked with a grumble. Zach assumed she was scanning through the list of weekly-changing songs. “Where are all the good songs we actually know? All this music is weird, and I’ve never heard of any of it before. I think this one song is sung by a dragon.”

“Which one?” Rian asked. For seemingly no reason, he squeezed his nose, making a “honk-honk” sound. This caused Seiley to laugh every time.

“That one,” Lienne said, pointing. “It says the artist is a Drake.”

Rian shrugged. “Who the fuck knows? Hey, we should try the F7 game.”

“Yeah, we can do that, but umm, please, F3 first?” Kalana asked.

“Pfft, forget F3. Let’s just do F7.”

“Rian!” Trelvor snapped. “How dare you disobey Her Highness? We shall only do F3 until or unless Her Highness says otherwise.” He bowed to Kalana. “Lead the way.”

Zach snickered, and Rian grunted. Through it all, Tena had remained silent. She was clearly trying not to pout, but over the last few minutes, her general sense of desperation had been growing. And now, finally, she seemed to snap.

“Can we please just get the fucking tickets and go?” she shouted seemingly out of nowhere. Then she covered her mouth, shook her head, and made a squeak. “I’m so sorry. I never talk like that.”

Zach looked at her, as did all of the others, even Fluffles. “You’re worried about Jimmy. I get that."

“I am,” she said. “I know he’s probably fine, but…but imagine if it was Kalana. Would you be in the mood for games?”

Zach sighed. Kalana put her arm around Tena’s shoulder and began profusely apologizing. Even Seiley and Trelvor were sending out guilty looks, and those two were the least responsible, as they were only here because Queen Vayra had ordered them to stay with Kalana. Only Rian looked annoyed at the idea of rushing through this place.

“Okay, let’s just farm tickets on F5 and then hurry on our way," Zach said. "Tena is right. We can come back here and spend all the time we want once we've found Jimmy."

“Thank you,” Tena said, bowing her head. “I’m so sorry to…to ruin everyone’s fun. I really am. It’s just that Jimmy…you don’t understand how much this must’ve hurt him.” Saying a touch more than she should have around Trelvor and Seiley, she added, “Eilea told him that she brought him here for a special reason, and now he feels like it was a lie, so he's really upset.”

Trelvor and Seiley looked at one another, and then both set their gaze on Tena. “Is that why he’s so upset?” Trelvor asked.

“It must be,” Seiley said. “He feels as though he has disappointed the Great Goddess.”

“Of course,” Trelvor agreed. “No wonder. I too would be in despair. We must go to him at once. I had no idea this was something so important. If Her Greatness is involved, then we must see to it that he continues her mission.”

Zach scratched the side of his head, unable to decide if it was a good or bad thing that those two overheard just enough to convince them that Jimmy had been given a mission from their Goddess that he was now running from. On the one hand, it meant they’d do pretty much anything to help lift him out of his current funk and get him back in gear. On the other hand, however, they might also kill, torture, maim, or otherwise brutalize him if he refused. It was a real coin toss.

We’ll play it by ear.

That thought in mind, Zach proceeded with the others to try earning some more tickets. But damn, he needed to bring Kal back here. It was too great a place not to return.

Chapter 163: The Angry Little Man

Chapter 163: The Angry Little Man

In the worlds of leveling, adventuring, and politics, there were a lot of different fellows with a lot of different temperaments. But among the especially powerful and great, there were—and would naturally always be—those with severely violent and unhinged streaks. People who, justified or not, tended to become increasingly volatile and dangerous the more they were angered, disappointed, or otherwise dissatisfied with any given situation.

Throughout his life, Haisel had known many of these people. His father had been one of them. As a child, his mother used to suffer terribly under the fist or palm of the irate man, who when angered, would rapidly turn from a calm husband into an abusive, wife-beating piece of filth. The power given to him by the Royal Roses had only made things worse, enabling his most nefarious instincts in both private and public.

Through his father, Haisel had learned to identify and recognize the signs and mannerisms of those predisposed to violent aggression so that when it came to detecting the dangerously unhinged, Haisel had a freakishly good sense. He knew their type and could spot them a mile away. He could pick these people out of a crowd and be right 100 out of 100 times. And it was for this very reason that Haisel could say with devout certainty that Vim Alazar, the leader of the Royal Roses, was emphatically, unquestionably, and unequivocally not one of these men.

No, he most certainly was not—and it was because he didn’t need to be.

In contrast to those who opted to be physically abusive, Vim’s weapon of choice had always been his mouth. In fact, in all the years that Haisel had known Vim, he had never once seen the man strike another person solely due to anger. But that was not to say that Vim could not become angry. Gods, no. If anything, the man had a deeply rooted issue with anger. It was simply the case that violence was not his outlet for expressing it. Instead, Vim chose to be ruthless with his speech.

Often, the angrier Vim became, the harsher his rhetoric. There seemed to be no upper limit to this, either: no point whereby he became so enraged that he switched over from words to seeking blood. No, he would simply continue to escalate verbally until the situation either resolved on its own or he had created an enemy for life.

And why did all this matter? Why did Haisel care? Why would he even bother to reflect upon this now, of all times? The answer was actually very simple. The reason for Haisel mulling over Vim’s temperament was because, right now, in the skies above, one of their precious, invaluable fighter jets had just been split into two separate pieces and then subsequently exploded into a ball of fire. And it was upon seeing the destroyed jet’s blasted-apart wreckage falling down to the surface that Haisel recalled Vim’s quick temper—because he just knew that Vim was going to take this very, very poorly.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” cried a type of creature that Haisel never wanted to see again.

Slightly less than half the size of Ziragoth, yet still large enough to be clearly seen even all the way across the city and off the coast, a large, crystal-colored drake had taken command of the skies, and at the moment, it was soaring after one of their fighter jets having only just blown to bits another of their F15s, destroying it completely. Smoke trailing out of its partially opened mouth, the creature released another roar as it flapped its powerful, spiked wings and sped up in pursuit of the three supersonic aircraft that were retreating from northwest Shadowfall Coast. Yet despite the incredible speed of the F-15E Strike Eagles, the Sky Drake was faster.

“Command, I can’t…I can’t get it off me!” one of the pilots screamed. “I’m ejecting!”

The dragon attacked with a powerful, chomping bite, snapping its jaws shut and obliterating the aircraft. The plane was too far away for Haisel to see if the pilot had ejected, but even if he had, Haisel doubted it would’ve made much of a difference. The man was inside the belly of that beast in either circumstance. And Vim Alazar, the leader of the Royal Roses, was clearly displeased to see this.

“I’m guessing you didn’t plan for this possibility?” he asked Haisel, cocking his right eyebrow. The diminutive man’s gaze had turned sharp and was now focused solely upon him. Haisel could therefore visually see his mood souring.

Until just this moment, Vim had been in high spirits. He’d also looked far more alive, too, though that was partly because he was back in his best equipment and had been reacquainted with his favorite staff. Haisel, deciding to plan for success and not failure, had retrieved all of Vim’s belongings from guild storage and had brought them here in the event they succeeded in rescuing him. And so now, Vim stood on the deck of the Piercing Thorn bedecked in tulle, red-and-brown robes, with the glowing red insignia of the Royal Roses on the front of the right breast; his rings, bracelets, and other gear were also back where they belonged.

With a clear sense of momentum on their side, Vim had scraped together every available fighter they could find aboard the Piercing Thorn and the surviving battlecruisers, and he himself had been just about to head to the shore to join in the fighting. But then that damn dragon appeared, and now, Haisel had the very strong sense that the occasionally foul-tempered guild leader was about to let himself loose.

And he was right.

“I…I’d forgotten all about that artifact-quality ring,” Haisel said, even as he knew the explanation wouldn’t suffice. “I believed that with the enemy’s anti-aircraft capabilities so severely diminished, our fighter jets would be clear to attack. I regrettably forgot all about the ring that was stolen.”

Vim dismissively shook his head. “Oh, you forgot, did you? And what else of importance have you forgotten, you potato-brained, moronic imbecile? The Gods curse you for letting this happen! Oh, and look. Look, Haisel! There goes a third fighter jet. Ka-boom. And…yep, there goes the fourth. Congratulations. You just cost our allies their lifeline and put our guild at an even bigger disadvantage. Well done. I’m ordering my tailor to make you a suit with a big gold star on it because at least you ‘tried your best.’”

To Haisel’s shame, Vim actually began to enthusiastically clap, releasing a completely insincere round of applause. “What a good job you did.”

Haisel held his breath a moment before releasing it. “I apologize for not anticipating this, Vim, but you can’t blame me for it. A lot was going on.”

“Not in your brain, it wasn’t,” he replied viciously. “And look, it’s coming straight for us now.”

The dragon’s form appeared to grow as it flew nearer. The beast was clearly heading in their direction, as whoever was controlling it had decided to put the Royal Roses in his or her sights. Most likely, the dragon’s controller was none other than King Morrison himself.

“That thing will destroy the entire fleet,” Haisel said. Then he gasped. “We need to evacuate everyone immediately while there’s still time. We’ll all have to push to the city together, combatant and non-combatant alike.”

Vim’s face turned so red that, for a moment, Haisel worried it would pop. “So this battle is not only costing us all of our fighters but our entire fleet as well? Wonderfully done, Haisel. Wonderful. My ace commander, everyone. Haisel Ragora.” He spat on the deck. "Just stay put. I'll handle this. But you just cost us more than you know. We're already close to poor!"

Vim rubbed his face as though frustrated. "You don't even know what this will cost me now," he grumbled. Then he began muttering about gold.

Haisel held his tongue, not wishing to further provoke the man, who would only ratchet things up more and more. At the very least, if Vim’s rage was contained to him and him alone, it wouldn’t cause any problems, as he’d long learned to shoulder the brunt of the little man’s invective. But then Vim did something truly unwise: something spectacularly terrible, even. Vim tilted his ear slightly and decided to use his Comm.

“Queen Vayra,” he said. “Do you read me?”

“What is it now?” the Elvish queen replied. She grunted several times over the Comm and then released what sounded like an angry battle-cry. A moment later, she asked, “What is it? What do you want?”

“I need you to get over here immediately,” Vim said to her. “The Guild of Gentlemen just summoned a dragon and they’re ripping apart priceless assets of ours.”

“And? I fail to see how that’s my problem. Honestly, what is it with you and the young one that you both keep hassling me each time you fail to stand on your own two feet?”

A wrinkle formed in Vim’s forehead, and it caused Haisel to involuntarily strain the muscles in his body apprehensively, as he knew that this could turn very bad, very fast. He tried to give Vim his most ardent “calm down” look, but this seemed to have the opposite effect.

“A hassle, is it?” he asked.

“Yes. Quite the hassle.”

The wrinkle deepened. Vim was getting angry. Gods, this wasn’t good! His ability to remain civil could typically be measured in seconds—and that was on a good day. But when disrespected as he’d just been, Vim often tended to go overboard in retaliation. Haisel prayed he did not make this one of those times.

“Maybe I wasn’t clear,” he said. “Right now, and without delay, Fylwen, you need to get your fat fucking Elvish ass on one of your dainty little unicorns, and you need to fight that dragon. And I don’t give a damn if that’s a hassle for you, sweetheart.”

“Excuse yourself!” the queen shouted over the Comm. “In what universe do you find yourself audacious enough to take that tone with me, Gnome? I’ve killed for far, far less!”

Vim scowled as he spoke to her. “Yes, you have, and that’s not exactly something you should be bragging about, you psychopathic, crazy-brained lunatic. Now get that fat ass on a unicorn right now or I’ll increase the cost of shipping freight out of Whispery Woods by 800% and then some.”

“YOU DARE!” she yelled at him. “I warn you, Sir Alazar. Continue to use that tone with me, and I shall do as you ask, but only so that I may sink your fleet and then feast on your bones!”

Vim rolled his eyes as he replied to her over the Comm. “Oh yeah? Well, maybe you should start feasting on bones, Fylwen. You’ve clearly been having too much cake lately. If that fat ass of yours gets any bigger, the unicorn won’t be able to fly with you sitting on it.”

Haisel trembled as he listened to this conversation continue. Why did Vim have to be like this? Why, why, why? Did he not understand that he was dealing with one of the most dangerous and powerful people on Galterra? Did he have no idea how foolish, absurd, and suicidal it was to provoke the Elvish queen? Why couldn’t he just control himself?

He’ll get us all killed!

Haisel tried gesturing with his hands for Vim to calm down, and in addition, he shot his guild leader such powerfully strong looks of warning that the muscles in his face began to ache. But Vim merely scowled at him, and in all honesty, the damage was probably already done. Even as she engaged in battle with enemies from the Guild of Gentlemen, Haisel could actually hear the Elvish queen hiss with anger.

“You shall pay dearly for your words, you insolent, disrespectful, vulgar little Gnome!”

Vim made a “pfft” sound into the Comm. “Oh, I’m vulgar? Really? Didn’t you murder Zach and your own niece? That sounds pretty vulgar to me, so spare me your bullshit, Fylwen. Right now, our most important weapons are being eaten by a Gods-be-damned dragon, and your Elves are the only ones who can do anything about it. So do it. Now.”

“Never!” she actually shrieked into the Comm. “I shall never aid you! And when this war is over, perhaps my Elves will pay a visit to Giant’s Fall and burn it to the ground!”

Vim pulled back his lips and shouted right back at her. “You want to burn something so badly, Fylwen? How about a few calories, you fat bitch!”

“YOU WILL PAY WITH YOUR LIFE FOR THAT REMARK, VIM ALAZAR!”

“Fuck you too!” he yelled at her.

He disconnected her from the Comm line, cutting off all communication. And then, as Haisel stared at him in absolute bewilderment—a state of shock so powerful that he could no longer even blink, let alone move—Vim continued on nonchalantly as though nothing at all had happened. In fact, with an air of something close to indifference, he began resuming preparations make his way to the shore with Haisel while humming a shanty. It was as though his fierce anger had just abated into nothing: like he didn’t care one way or another about the conversation he’d just had.

“We’re going to end this today, Haisel,” he said. “Even if we lose every ship and every plane: the Guild of Gentlemen are done for.”

Haisel was still far too overcome with disbelief to reply. He watched in awe as Vim carried on like nothing had happened. Where had all his anger gone? Had it really just vanished? He was back to how he’d been before the dragon appeared. He was calm, collected, and seemingly unconcerned in the slightest about the consequences he might face as a result of spewing such venom at the Elvish queen. His anger was just…gone.

Until it wasn’t.

Somehow, Queen Vayra managed to get around whatever Vim had done to disconnect her, and her voice began blaring over the Comm. And the moment it did, Vim’s anger reignited so quickly it was like turning on a light switch.

“You’re about to be in even more trouble than the Guild of Gentlemen, you foolish little Gnome! Did you really just disconnect me? Now you’ve done it. Your impudence will cost you everything, little man!”

“Oh, spare me the outrage, you twisted little Elvish demon!” he shouted back at Fylwen, his anger just outright reappearing without any kind of ramp-up or transition. “I have nothing to say to you until you deal with the dragon. I need to see some unicorns flying at the dragon before I’m willing to listen to more of your whining.”

“That you think there’s even a chance, however remote, that I would help you after the way you’ve disrespected me is so outrageous that it calls into question your sanity. At this point, you should be begging for your life, though even then I cannot fathom the idea of sparing it. You’ve crossed a line!”

“Oh, I’m so scared, Fylwen,” he said mockingly. “I’m so scared.”

Haisel was so stunned by the way the two of them were acting that he was just about mesmerized by it. And what made everything even more surprising was that, prior to a minute or two ago, Vim and Queen Vayra had not had any bad blood between one another or any kind of history that would’ve led to something like this.

Unless Haisel was severely mistaken about the facts, what he was witnessing was not the result of some long-simmering dispute or discontent between the two. For the most part, they’d only interacted a few times with one another outside of fighting in close proximity during the dragon raid. Besides that, there’d been a few spirited negotiations between the Royal Roses and the Elvish, but really, things had been fine and cordial. This meant that their sudden feud really was an impromptu, organic, and spontaneous explosion of anger that was likely the direct result of two hotheaded personalities setting one another off without any pretext or prior motivating factors. It was just so unnecessary.

“I will rip off your limbs one at a time,” Queen Vayra threatened over the Comm. I will dig my thumbs into your eye-sockets just like I’m doing to this human here.” A man’s screaming could be heard in the background. “You’ll pay for your disrespect.”

Vim’s response was to yawn into the Comm. “I’m looking up, but I still just see the dragon. Where are my unicorn-mounted warriors?”

His words caused the queen to growl over the Comm. He was provoking her, and she was provoking him. And then things became so bizarre that Haisel gave up trying to understand what wild thoughts and impulses were running through the heads of either of these two individuals.

“You’ll be seeing them soon enough!” she threatened.

Vim opened his mouth as though to shout, but then he paused as the level-190 Sky Drake roared as it flew ever closer. Now, he sighed. “Okay, fine. I give up, Fylwen. How much?”

“Excuse me?” Fylwen asked, her tone heated.

“Gods-dammit, Fylwen! How much?”

“Hmm?”

“Stop playing dumb,” he growled. “How much?”

There was a pause. A long, lingering pause, during which the dragon roared again and continued to fly close enough so that its full form was visible, and its wings were audibly thwapping against the air.

“Two-hundred million.”

Vim swore, loudly and angrily. “For killing a mob?”

“It’s a level-190 Sky Drake.”

“We’re supposed to be allies!”

“Perhaps. But that’s still the price.”

“My guild is already close to bankrupt!”

“Is that so? How horrid. If only I cared. Pity you had to go calling me fat. Perhaps it’d only be half otherwise.”

"Does it help if I admit how much I enjoy staring at that big booty?"

"It makes it worse."

Vim released a loud groan. “Fine. Just get over here already. You get nothing if our aircraft carrier sinks.”

“Very well. I’ll deal with it personally.”

Haisel blinked, confused. What the hell just happened? Why had it happened? What had he just been listening to? He had no idea what kind of conversation he’d just overheard or what had even just taken place. But at least it seemed like somehow, inexplicably, the Elvish queen was going to heed Vim’s call for aid after all.

Haisel opened his mouth to ask Vim to explain just what in the name of the Gods he’d witnessed, but he shut it and decided he likely still wouldn’t get it even if Vim was charitable enough to offer a non-malicious answer. Vim was an angry little man.

But he was effective.

Chapter 164: A Will That Burns Hotter than Fire

Chapter 164: A Will That Burns Hotter than Fire

Explosions rang out in the sky, crushing their newly lifted morale while simultaneously serving as a very much unneeded distraction. Alex craned his neck to look upwards as a large shadow momentarily blocked out the morning sun. Frowning, he watched as a tremendous, crystal-colored drake flew swiftly past the air directly above him before continuing onwards towards the southeast as though to pursue the three remaining fighter jets that the Royal Roses had sent to assist them in their time of need.

“Gods, what is that thing?” Lady Richel Theolina cried over the Comm.

Lady Theolina was the fifth-ranking member of the Lords of Justice and a woman Alex had only recently become better acquainted with. She was tall for a female, and she wore a full, heavy suit of metal armor and fought with a large claymore. At the moment, she was well ahead of Alex and closer towards the city where she was protecting a squad of level-1 infantry from a sadistic-looking, behemoth-sized officer of the Guild of Gentleman, who wielded a sledgehammer meant for two hands in just one while defending himself with a round shield in the opposite.

The man, who Alex believed was the 9th ranking member, Nedge Cullroth, had a massive beard, an even more massive belly, and looked like he lived in a cave. Presently, he was dripping with sweat from the blows he’d been trading with Lady Theolina. But now, both paused to stare upwards at the summoned, level-190 drake.

Warily, Alex observed as the dragon flew off into the distance as it chased after the retreating fighter jets. Unfortunately, the drake was faster than the aircraft, and Alex winced as it snatched one out of the air like a cat hunting a bird. Its jaws closing tight, the plane was crushed by its teeth. A piece of the right wing even dribbled out of the drake’s mouth like a crumb, and it fell several-hundred feet before crashing against the third-story window of an apartment building in the city, leaving a nasty crack in the glass. It then fell the rest of the way before landing on the roof of a parked DEHV, smashing in its hood.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

Clearly unwilling to let the other jets escape, the dragon proceeded onwards. Alex continued to watch it fly off until it ventured beyond 3rd Avenue. Silently, he said a prayer for his allies in the Royal Roses who would now have the misfortune of needing to deal with the beast. But that was something that, sadly, he could not help them with, so for the moment, he ripped all thoughts of it out of his head in order to better focus on what was actually relevant to those fighting with him up here in the northern highway right on the edge of the city.

“All brigades, continue to press the attack,” he ordered into the Comm. “The sky drake is not our priority.”

“But what if it comes back around?” asked one of the junior lords over the command line.

“We’ll worry about that if and when it happens. For now, we must break into the city!”

His blade gripped tightly in his right hand, and a pair of borrowed binoculars still in his left, Alex set out to resume what he’d been about to do only a moment prior. Once more raising them to his face, he observed the field of battle in order to assess the fighting and discover where he might be able to make the greatest impact. He did wonder, however, if perhaps it was still a bit too soon to tell. Though a lot of hectic things had happened in a very short period of time, it had actually only been around five minutes since Olivir had willfully sacrificed thousands of lives to give their forces a way of capturing the northern highway, and it had taken most of that time for his units to get into position.

They’re probably not even warmed up yet.

Due to mages and healers typically having a lower speed stat, the leveled squads hurrying towards the city had been required to collectively move slower than what their fastest members were capable of achieving all on their own. This, quite obviously, was done to prevent anyone from getting left behind or easily picked off. Therefore, it had taken longer than absolutely necessary for many of them to begin reaching their designated zones, which were uncomfortably far apart from one another, making it so that, once split up, supporting each other would be difficult.

I have to be very careful in where I choose to go, Alex thought.

The northern highway, constructed long before he was born, ended just before entering the city itself, where it split apart into several smaller but still significant roads, each heading to a different main street that ran from north to south, providing multiple points of entry into Shadowfall Coast and, by extension, to 1st Avenue. For this reason, it was only now that the leveled members of the Lords of Justice were first beginning to clash with the leveled members of the Guild of Gentlemen. Because of this, Alex knew it might take a little longer before he could get a read on how each side was doing. Still, he decided to look anyway, and he began by observing Lady Theolina.

If we succeed today, it might just end up being because of her, Alex thought, focusing the binoculars on where the metal-armor-wearing Lady of Justice was fighting her heart out all by herself in order to forge a path through 1st and Corner Street.

Although it was a target considered to be of lesser importance than some of the other main roads, it could serve as a very important backup to cut through to the city center if resistance proved too significant elsewhere. If nothing else, the Guild of Gentlemen must have also viewed it as valuable if they were willing to send their 9th ranking member along with about a hundred infantry to defend it. Thus, if the enemy feared it being taken, it was therefore worth the attempt to take. And Lady Theolina looked more than capable of accomplishing this goal.

“Stay behind me!” she commanded the level-one troops taking up positions of cover at her flank. Alex was able to overhear her, as he tuned to her channel on the Comm. There was something so very enchanting about the woman: about her courage. Though her stunning face was concealed behind her helm, Alex could still imagine her soft cheeks and her cherry locks of hair beneath the armor. “I’ll deal with this monster!”

“The Gods bless you, Lady Theolina!”

Of all the leveled guild members taking part in today’s battle, Lady Theolina was the one Alex had fast decided to bestow his highest level of trust. Although he didn’t know her very well, he had quickly found her to be intelligent, strong, capable, and incredibly noble and brave. She was also beautiful as well—and unmarried, to boot. She carried herself with dignity and decency, and it was for this reason that Alex felt disgusted that she was having to interact with such a repulsive creature like Nedge Cullroth, a filthy, grimy, and decidedly unworthy ogre of a man who was currently making loud, insufferable sounds of glee as he swung his sledgehammer around as though he were actually enjoying this—which he very well might have been.

“Come on, sweetheart!” he shouted out, his voice being unintentionally picked up on Lady Theolina’s Comm. “Come here. I just wanna play with you a bit. Mmm…I bet you’ve got nice tits under all that armor. Can I lick them? I wanna suck on each one, hahaha!”

“I’ll have your tongue for that, pig!”

To the extent that anyone could be compared to the horrifically vile—and thankfully deceased—Varsh Gellor of the Royal Roses, the Guild of Gentlemen’s closest match would be Nedge Cullroth, a boor of a man known more for his stench than for his views and beliefs. Sir Cullroth was a large, typically drunken slob who differed from the likes of Varsh only due to his penchant for reluctantly following the law. But Alex knew he would fit much better into a more anarchic region such as one of those in South Bastia, because there, the man would likely be able to relish in his true nature, which Alex suspected of being even worse than Varsh’s. There were credible sources that claimed Sir Cullroth liked to pay women to let him viciously beat them and scar them up. There were also reports that he regularly tortured animals for sport. Truly, a man like that had no place in this world.

He's in for such a rude awakening, Alex thought, concealing a grin. Lady Theolina will put him in his place.

It was rare for Alex to find himself so smitten with someone, especially a person he barely knew. He’d spoken to the woman all of three times since joining the Lords of Justice, and yet there was something about her that immediately attracted him. Perhaps it was the fact that she was an award-winning poet. Or maybe it was the fact she was one of the biggest donors in Dal'Zarrah when it came to funding science education for minors. Or…or maybe, well, it was just simply because of how incredibly beautiful Alex found her, inside and out. Honestly, it was probably a mix of all three. But no matter the reason, Alex was thoroughly offput by the thought of her having to be in the presence of this loathsome creature, who was so evidently beneath her.

She should not have to be anywhere near such a disgusting man.

Alex actually growled aloud as he watched the repugnant man quickly hold his shield using his chin so that he could then take his free hand, pull down his trousers, and expose his genitals, all while Lady Theolina continued to comport herself with dignity and honor as this savage subhuman began fondling himself—at least until she took a swing at him and he was forced to backpedal away and once again take up his shield. Alex completely despised the man. In this moment, he badly wanted to trade places with her.

But, at the very least, she wouldn’t have to linger around the atrocious man for very long. No, Alex knew her claymore would soon be permanently separating his pudgy, scarred-up, giddily laughing face from his shoulders. The two had only just begun to fight, and already, they were each attacking with what looked like full intensity, sparing little exertion as they traded blows.

Nodding to himself approvingly, Alex watched on as Lady Theolina, displaying her quick reflexes, bent backwards and evaded a horizontal swing from the massive sledgehammer. The weapon was so large that she even had to remain in that position while waiting for it to fully clear the air above her. Once it had, she straightened her back, bent her front leg, twisted her hips, and swung her own massive weapon with a great deal of force—and that was putting it mildly. The brave woman put so much power into the blow that the mere pivoting of her heels actually caused her feet to crack through several inches of the pavement beneath her while kicking up several rock-sized chunks of concrete.

Even still, Sir Cullroth, seemingly unworried, responded by barking out a laugh loud enough that Alex could hear it from all the way over here. Despite his size, he somehow managed to similarly duck, and then, predictably, he responded with another massive swing of his sledgehammer, which Lady Theolina…?

Huh?

…which Lady Theolina for some reason did not dodge and instead tried to parry despite the awkward position she was in. Unable to raise her weapon in time, the sledgehammer found its mark. The weapon struck her dead center on the right side of her face, and Alex saw what followed in great detail through the binoculars almost as though it’d occurred in slow motion. He also heard it, too. And it all happened so quickly. Without reason. Without explanation.

Everything just happened so fast.

It began with a sound. Two sounds, actually. Initially, there was a very quick thunk as the sledgehammer crashed into her metal helm. But following this was a strange sound. And what made it strange was how ordinary it came across—how mundane. It came from Lady Theolina herself. She had released a grunt, one that was deep yet not entirely troubling. It was a sound that contained a far greater note of surprise than pain. It was also incredibly brief.

“Ugh!” she vocalized.

And then Alex was confused. He did not understand what he was seeing. He did not understand why her helmet flew off her face at the speed of a bullet, and why the very shape of her head seemed to change. Her head…the shape of it…it changed. The shape of her head had changed. It changed completely, having become caved in on the side as though someone had created a depression in it. Her entire right cheek had been relocated to the center of her skull.

At the same time, her right eye popped free from its socket and dangled from a thin piece of flesh outside of her face. Dozens of cracked teeth flew out of her mouth. Her tongue began to dangle lifelessly out of her lips as the changing shape of her head no longer provided a means with which to keep it inside. And then she fell and hit the ground hard while her body began to violently twitch and convulse as a white foam began oozing out of her jaw, which had been forcefully opened wide and could not be shut. For around five seconds, she flapped around on the ground, shaking even harder and spewing even more white foam. Then, finally, she stilled.

What…? I don’t…this isn’t…but how?

Then it hit Alex: the shock of it. The sheer unfairness of it. She was dead, and her killer was now stomping on her deceased skull while laughing maniacally. “Look what I did to your whore!” he shouted at the terrified level-one troops, every single one of whom were almost certain to be slaughtered by his sledgehammer. “Uh oh! I think she stopped breathing. Hahahaha! I’m gonna do the same to all of you.” He pointed his sledgehammer at them. “Then I’m going to find your friends and family, and I’ll—”

His foot, which had been repeatedly stomping down on Lady Theolina’s lifeless skull, at last managed to flatten her head into the pavement such that it crushed the Comm in her ear, cutting off his voice. And just like that, Alex became so filled with rage and disbelief he began to tremble.

“That animal,” he whispered, causing the confused young man whose binoculars he’d borrowed to glance uneasily at him. Clearly, he did not see what had just happened—nor did he yet know. “That…that animal!”

Alex had to fight every instinct within him: every urge that demanded him to head straight for 1st and Corner Street and to avenge her personally. But if he did so, it would expose him as a hypocrite, for he had spent so much of his life advocating for the greater good over personal interests. Yet, by far, this was among the most difficult impulses he’d ever had to battle.

Focus, he told—no, demanded of himself. 1st and Corner Street is not a core objective. Calm down! Think clearly!

Alex suffered. Truly, he suffered with the pain and sense of wrongness that burst within him and caused a knot to tighten in his stomach. It had all happened so fast. All the woman had needed to do was duck. Why did she think she could parry in time? What had been going through her mind? Why did she risk it? Was she angry because of his taunting? Was she thinking clearly? How could something like this happen to someone like her?

Not now! he warned himself. You need to stop!

Forcing himself to once more raise the binoculars to his eyes, he decided to rip his mind away from the tragedy and instead observe the more significant and important fights currently taking place along the main roads. It wasn’t easy, of course. He had just witnessed something beyond awful: a sight so terrible that it left Alex feeling rattled and shaken. Surely, it was only natural that he felt as though he needed to take a moment—to at least make an attempt at processing what he’d seen. But he knew he couldn’t.

And why?

Because Alex, more than anyone else present on this battlefield, had a responsibility to remain focused: a responsibility he’d accepted by choice. Regardless of why he joined the Lords of Justice, it was now his duty to keep pressing forward no matter how horrible or how painful it became. Quite simply, a man in his position didn’t have the right to slow down just because something had upset him. He’d known this would be the case when he, a twenty-four-year-old, former high-school science teacher, had willingly accepted the role of a world leader—along with whatever baggage that happened to come with.

And so, for the sake of the bigger picture, he put all his attention on surveilling the war effort—even knowing that it likely wouldn’t matter. Once again, he had to remind himself that it was still probably far too early to learn anything useful, and that the leveled members of the Lords of Justice were probably only first getting started. In all likelihood, he wouldn’t be able to draw a clear picture for at least another few minutes.

At least, that was what common sense would dictate.

But common sense would be wrong, thus by extension, he was wrong. Once again, Alex was wildly off the mark. And now, becoming unsteady on his feet, Alex swelled with anguish as he realized straight off the bat that he wasn’t just wrong; to the contrary, he was very, very wrong. Not only wasn’t the fight in its earliest opening stages, but in some places, it had already concluded.

Alex’s fingers trembled on the binoculars as he observed the battle taking place on 1st and East Cadence, which caused his vision to blur. Then, he nearly dropped them entirely as, in a panic, he began swiveling his head from left to right, then back again, trying his best to understand just what he was seeing and why he was seeing it. For as he surveilled the field of battle, the results were dramatically, overwhelmingly worse than what he’d been expecting. It was to the extent that he struggled to comprehend how his forces were performing so terribly.

The Lords of Justice…is this really the best my guild can do? Gods, please tell me this isn’t so.

To be clear, things were still significantly better than they would have been if the Royal Roses had not managed to perform several full, merciless bombing runs on the MLRS artillery that had, until moments ago, been their greatest threat. Compared to that, they were now a great deal better off. But by no means whatsoever did that make their current situation good or even remotely acceptable. Even going with the most optimistic of outlooks, one could possibly say that things had gone from catastrophic to merely terrible.

They’re not cut out for this. These people…they’re inept!

With the MLRS systems being either destroyed, disabled, or presently out of commission, a brand-new problem had emerged, and it was one that Alex had not foreseen existing—at least not to this extent. Right now, all along the frontlines, the leveled members of the Lords of Justice were getting absolutely pulverized. And this was true no matter where he scouted with the binoculars. Everywhere he checked, they were losing. And they were losing so badly that the sight of it sent nervous sweat trickling down his back.

Why is this happening?

Although the level-1 troops that made up the mechanized infantry brigades had taken a tremendous beating on their charge to the highway, only a single leveled-squad from the 12th brigade had suffered any real damage; thus, the other squads that had now fanned out and had begun to engage the Gentlemen in PVP were going into the battle perhaps somewhat rattled, but otherwise fresh and unharmed.

Yet, at the foot of every tactically significant street that intersected with 1st Avenue, the men and women of the Lords of Justice were getting their tails handed to them so viciously that Alex was tempted to look away. And it wasn’t even that Alex had expected his new guild to crush the enemy in leveled PVP combat, either. He just hadn’t expected them to perform this terribly: to lose this badly. It was so one-sided that Alex genuinely wasn’t sure whether or not it was still possible for them to turn things around. And as it turned out, he was not alone in this concern.

“Pull them out!” Olivir shouted over the Comm. The vampire’s voice came across as stunned and alarmed. “They’re not fit for war. I can’t even believe what the hell I’m seeing. Lord Oren, get them out! This is unwinnable—and also unwatchable!”

“It’s…it’s not,” Alex whispered into the Comm, caught in a state of shock, even as he observed the absolute carnage being inflicted upon his guild.

To the west, just three leveled members of the Guild of Gentlemen were annihilating a full squad of ten from the Lords of Justice—of which only four were actively participating in the fighting, as the enemy’s lone mage had successfully landed an AOE mesmerize on the other six, causing them to become dazed, motionless, and totally zoned out of it. The four men and two women simply stood by, their mouths drooling as their four compatriots were torn apart by two men with greatswords.

With those four dead, the two men calmly went around to the other mesmerized six, and they methodically executed them one at a time. They likely were not even aware that it was happening, too. And as Alex watched them die, one by one, the most horrifying part of all was that he felt relief of all things, because at least they were being killed professionally and quickly with some semblance of dignity as compared to what had happened to Lady Theolina.

The same was not true elsewhere, unfortunately. It seemed the treatment faced by the Lords of Justice came down to the whims of whoever they fought. Many members of the guild did in fact fight honorably. Yet, on some streets, the Gentlemen behaved like crazed marauders, doing their utmost to humiliate and brutalize their foes, even those who had already been beaten and incapacitated, such as a man who screeched in terror as he crawled along the street. Both of his legs had been sliced off, and now, wounded, he attempted to flee on his belly.

“No, no please!” he begged as a woman wielding a spear sadistically walked slowly behind him, deliberately letting him crawl away for a bit as if to make him think he had a chance to survive before at last moving in to claim her kill. “Please, no! N—agghh!”

She ran him through, slamming her spear down such that it pierced his spine and exited through his belly on the other end of his body. Yet still, he did not die. So she pulled it out, laughed at him, and then ran him through once more, only this time, she sodomized him with the weapon. Alex recoiled and briefly lowered the binoculars as he was gripped by a wave of pure revulsion. The world was reverting to its old ways.

One common theme Alex had seen described very often in books about ancient wars was that, in these kinds of battles, the side that believed it was winning often committed acts of cruelty that violated every known norm of human decency, and indeed, he had now just witnessed two such instances back-to-back of members of the Guild of Gentlemen deliberately sexually humiliating their victims. Thus, Alex was left to wonder: should he be as shocked as he was by all this? Was he a fool for thinking that this kind of behavior was a relic of the past, and that even in the worst-case scenario, surely, humanity would not regress back to this level of barbarism?

Of course we are, Alex thought, struggling to take in the entire, overall situation. This is what the Guild of Gentlemen have done to us. And we’re letting them get away way it. Gods, how is it even possible for the Lords of Justice be so unbelievably incompetent?

To Alex’s eyes, both sides were comprised of rich elites who leveled up off carefully curated mobs on their private estates, and therefore, to him, neither the Gentlemen nor the Lords of Justice came across as particularly adept. But even then, a disparity still very much existed, as the Lords of Justice were uniquely lacking in skill. They did not even seem to know how to properly use their own abilities.

Towards 1st and Main Street, the 6th ranking member of the Lords of Justice shouted out, “Blade Lunge!” and began to perform a series of motions. Yet Alex did not need to hear him shout those two words to know that he had just activated that ability, as it was an extremely common sword skill that any adventurer would have encountered time and time again in their travels. The moment he’d raised his right arm at a slight angle while shifting his back foot, Alex had known exactly what ability he’d activated. Any experienced adventurer would. And likewise, any adventurer would know never to use it in the way that the man had just used it.

What is he doing? Alex wondered, baffled by the display of ineptitude.

Although it was a common ability, Blade Lunge was still a fairly powerful, three-hit combination skill. But because it took away control of the user’s body and locked them into a specific series of exact, precise movements, it was imperative that one never, ever activate it on targets—neither sentient nor mob—that were not crowd controlled. The only exception was in circumstances where a mob’s attack patterns were so well known that its movements could be predicted with certainty.

Outside of that, locking one's body up in an ability was among the easiest ways to die in the adventuring world. And it wouldn’t even necessarily be a death in the conventional sense, either. Several years ago, Alex had personally witnessed an adventurer use this very same ability, Blade Lunge, to inadvertently run himself out of a dungeon and into the void of space, where he died within seconds and floated off towards the infinity.

For this reason, Alex was not surprised by what happened next. The man, having activated the ability, performed the three-hit motion exactly as any other would. His sword began to glow a dark purple color, and he delivered two very fast slashes, one upwards, and one downwards. Both missed, though it did not look as though it was due to his opponent’s familiarity with the ability, but rather, it came across as more like two lucky dodges. Not that it mattered. The result was still the same.

Having missed the first two of three total attacks, the ability continued. The man bent his knees, extended his sword in front of him with both arms, and then he was blasted forward, his feet skating across the ground as though there were wheels beneath them, pushed ahead by an unknowable force. His opponent merely jumped out of the way, and then a mage from the Guild of Gentlemen emerged from behind two tanks to begin firing off exploding balls of light, all of which landed squarely in the middle of the man’s back, as he was unable to turn himself around or control his movements until the ability completed.

Paralyzed by his own attack, the unfortunate man ended up in about fifteen different pieces as the mage’s projectiles detonated against him upon impact, turning him from a singular entity into mere chunks of human flesh. And through it all, Alex was taken over by a sense of denial: a sense that things could not be as they currently seemed.

“It’s over,” Olivir said to him. “Accept it.”

“This is not over,” Alex insisted. “We will not concede!”

“Are you nuts?” Olivir asked. “Gods, open your eyes! This is unwinnable, Lord Oren. I’ve never seen anything so one-sided. I didn’t expect your guild to do this badly, but they are. We’ll just have to let the Elves handle this.”

Alex firmly shook his head. “And allow hundreds of thousands of innocent people to die? Absolutely not! How can you say this is over, Olivir? We’ve only just begun fighting a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah, and that already seems too long as is. Listen to me, Lord Oren. I might look like a kid, but I’m over two-hundred-years old, and while that’s young for a vampire, it’s still given me a great deal of wisdom. Right now, your entire guild is on the verge of being wiped out. And what then? The Elves will still erase Shadowfall Coast from the map just the same. The only thing you can change right now is the number of people who die today. You honestly need to just get your people the hell out of there while you still can. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”

Alex struggled to tamp down on his anger. “You want me to order them to retreat after you sacrificed so many of their lives?”

“I never would’ve done that if I realized how…how incapable your guild is.”

“A bit late for that now, isn’t it?” Alex asked. He opened his mouth to say something else, but he paused as High-Lord Kolorn Besh’s voice erupted over the line. The man was now screaming into the Comm, demanding that Alex order a full retreat and let the Elves demolish the city instead. Plainly, he agreed with what Olivir was saying on the Comm, and now he was becoming desperate to salvage as many lives as he could.

“We must pull back!” he shouted. “Lord Oren, this is unwinnable!”

Unwinnable, Alex thought. There’s that word again.

It was an awful word. It was a word that repeated several more times in his brain.

Unwinnable. Unwinnable. Unwinnable.

Alex tuned his guild-leader out, as the man continued to demand he order a full retreat of every soldier in every brigade. Not only would that be a disgrace worse than death, but it would be giving the Guild of Gentlemen a win on a scale that would haunt the Lords of Justice for the rest of history. Yes, things were very bad, but giving up was not the answer! Even if…even if it was beginning to look like this really was as unwinnable as Olivir and High-Lord Besh were claiming.

And to make matters all the more humiliating, the Guild of Gentlemen weren’t even resorting to any of their clever, yet underhanded “tricks.” They were simply winning fights through sheer superiority, the extent of which seemed to surprise even them, as they began to shift strategy, going from defensive to offensive. It was as though they suddenly sensed that they had the ability to end the Lords of Justice in its entirety right here and now: to completely eradicate the entire guild.

Alex gripped his blade even more tightly as he noticed that several-hundred troops—and a few leveled squads, as well—were currently storming their way back through the grasslands, retreating all on their own. Fleeing. Many of these cowards even shamelessly darted right past him as they ran for their lives. But they were few in number, as the vast majority of the leveled squads were currently too entrenched to disengage from combat even if Alex gave the order. It was likely impossible for them to retreat now: the enemy wasn’t going to allow them to leave.

“Lord Oren, I order you to declare a retreat!” Kolorn yelled at him over the Comm. “Do it now! While there’s still something left of our guild to save!”

Not only did High-Lord Besh fail to realize the futility of his demand, but he—like Olivir—did not seem to grasp that, from the outset, giving up had never been an option today. Everyone should have known the stakes of coming here. This was an all-or-nothing battle to determine the worthiness of humanity: to prove to the rest of the world that humans still had the ability to correct, self-improve, and change. If they fled like cowards and allowed the Elves to do their dirty work in the worst way possible, it would not only reflect poorly on the human race, but it would destabilize all of North Bastia, too.

Right now, the world was on fire. An entire city had been destroyed by a weapon of evil. The hatred and vitriol this had caused was reverberating through every level of society. People everywhere were on edge. And what no one seemed to understand—what no one seemed to get—was that destroying a second city in its entirety was not going to help mend these problems. If anything, it would only make them worse.

Why couldn’t people understand this? Why couldn’t they see?

It did not take a genius to predict the consequences of another mass killing. If the Elves destroyed the city, then west of here, in the Guild of Gentlemen’s capital region of Tomb of Fire, the people would launch an uprising, which would perpetuate the cycle of violence and revenge. No matter how it may have seemed in the moment, annihilating Shadowfall Coast would not truly go down as a victory in the long run. It would only make things better in the short term before gradually making them even worse than they currently were.

They just don’t understand. They just don’t get it!

With High-Lord Besh’s increasingly frantic voice still shouting into his ear, Alex continued to take in the situation through the camo-colored binoculars pressed against his face. And there was just no sugar-coating what he saw. Things were bad: really bad.

It wasn’t even just that they were losing, but more so that the areas where they were being crushed the worst were the sites of their most-significant objectives, with their biggest—and probably most decisive—failure taking place on the most important target of all: 1st and Haven Street, an objective of such vast, incalculable value that merely calling it the “most important” failed to convey the sheer depth of its significance to them. It was for this reason that the plurality of their forces had been dispatched there—and also the reason why the enemy had placed its strongest units there as well, including their MLRS systems.

Though victory did not absolutely require they succeed on 1st and Haven, the fact of the matter was that if they did manage to capture it, then everything would change. It was to such a degree that even if they failed everywhere else—and to be clear, they were failing everywhere else—the Lords of Justice would nevertheless still prevail if only they could achieve success on that one main road.

But right now, they were failing there as well, and to Alex’s distress, he realized that the extent of their failure was larger on 1st and Haven than anywhere else they were fighting. Of all the locations where battle was taking place, it was 1st and Haven where the Lords of Justice had suffered their highest number of casualties in the shortest span of time.

With a start, Alex saw that just about all of the leveled members dispatched to 1st and Haven had already been killed. They’d just been totally slaughtered. Their brightest flame of hope…extinguished. And much like the death of Lady Theolina, it had all happened so fast.

Becoming enraged, Alex nearly crushed the binoculars as his hand clenched up with fury as he took in the sight of the mass number of bodies littering the street. It wasn’t just a “few.” It wasn’t even just a “lot.” It was most: most of their people. Their deceased forms were now decorating the foot of the road like pieces of discarded litter, and their equipment and weapons were being greedily scavenged by level-1 infantry in the Guild of Gentlemen who were starving to experience a taste of leveled life.

Disgusted, Alex witnessed several young men literally shoot, stab, and kill each other as they fought like vultures over a low-level headband that probably only gave just a point or two into strength. As a testament to how badly the Lords of Justice had been stomped, the Guild of Gentlemen were now actually being forced to divert resources into stopping their own side from infighting as young men and women—but mostly men in this case—tore each other apart in some kind of insane, corpse-looting frenzy.

One kid managed to pry a pair of gloves off the dead hands of the 16th ranking member of the Lords of Justice. And then, as he broke away from the crowd, tears emerged from his eyes as he stared at the equipment as though it were a religious artifact. Yet before he managed to slide his hands into them, a short, stocky pal of his approached from behind, jammed his knife into the kid’s neck, and then ripped them free before turning around and fleeing the battle entirely. The look of glee on his face was haunting. But it didn’t last. An officer of the Guild of Gentlemen pointed his staff at the boy and vaporized him before he could turn the corner.

We’ve fared so poorly that they’ve turned to killing each other for the right to loot our corpses.

Alex struggled to come to terms with how poorly they had done: this, despite the fact that the Royal Roses had bombed 1st and Haven into oblivion. Yet it didn’t seem to matter. They had been utterly crushed. In fact, it was difficult to understate just how many people the Lords of Justice had actually lost.

Given that some number of their members naturally had to stay behind to maintain order, the roughly 35% of those Alex had sent to 1st and Haven proportionally represented about 25% of the whole guild. And nearly all of them were dead. Meaning, in other words, that a quarter of the entire guild was now gone—dead. Alex, who High-Lord Besh had placed his trust in, had used this trust to lead an entire fourth of the whole Gods-be-cursed guild into damnation.

But it had not been without cause.

No, there was a very justifiable reason why 1st and Haven Street was so important, for it was their quickest path to victory. And this was all because the road led straight down to 5th and Haven Street, the location where King Morrison and all of his top commanders and strategists resided directly in middle of the city in their command structures.

From the very beginning of this operation, Alex had known that their only realistic—and narrow—path to success involved capturing King Morrison and his closest allies, forcing them to disclose everything they knew about the weapon, and making use of this information to disarm and destroy their production capabilities before Queen Vayra’s religiously self-imposed deadline came to pass. It was almost certainly their only way of earning a true victory in this war.

And all because the zealous woman misinterpreted what Adamus actually wanted from her…

Well aware of his inability to change her mind, Alex had been forced to concoct a strategy of not just preventing any more weapons from being launched, but from any coming into existence in the first place—even if they were immediately contained and destroyed. And it was all because Queen Vayra—and by extension, all of her Elves—genuinely, sincerely believed that “their Lord” would be offended over such semantics.

And so, the plan was for the Lords of Justice to push from 1st Avenue down to 5th and Haven Street while the Elvish were meant to push up from the south highway through 10th Avenue, and together, they were supposed to surround, capture, and interrogate the top brass of the Guild of Gentlemen. It truly was the only way.

Yet now, in this very moment, as High-Lord Besh and Olivir chewed him out over the Comm, and as Alex continued to watch the men and women of the Lords of Justice endure a stunning, crushing defeat of proportions rarely seen throughout history, it was here that he spotted something else through the eyepieces of the young soldier’s binoculars. It was here that he finally snapped.

And it was all because of something that, on first glance, one might consider innocuous, but on a deeper level, implied so much more about the situation than it might at first seem. And of all things, it was the sight of ten or so flying unicorns dashing across the sky that ended up setting Alex off. It was the sight of Queen Vayra herself, leading a band of her best green- and white-cloaked warriors southeast in pursuit of the dragon, which at this point, was now circling around the Piercing Thorn while magical projectiles launched by mages aboard kept it at bay.

Seeing this, Alex lost his cool—and nearly his mind as well. Because there was significance in this: significance that was not readily apparent at first, but was very much there. Yet through this one act alone, the ugly truth was revealed: that Queen Vayra, as well as her Elves, had given up on saving the city.

And they were done pretending otherwise.

“Why?” Alex asked into the Comm, after quickly switching frequencies. It was the only word he could think to speak. Yet to his aggravation, Queen Vayra acted as though she had no idea what he was talking about. And maybe she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t even realize what her own actions were conveying.

“Hello?” she replied. “Human boy, I’m busy. What is it now?”

“Why!” Alex shouted at her. “Tell me why!”

“Why what?” she asked, sounding bitter and annoyed.

Alex lowered the binoculars, and now he did crush them in his fingers. “Why are you and your Elves chasing after that drake?”

“Isn’t it obvious, human? Our esteemed allies in the Royal Roses require our assistance.”

Alex’s temper and emotions spiked to such as degree that it took all of his self-control not to scream. “You’re supposed to be pushing north towards 5th and Haven. Why are you there and not where you’re supposed to be?”

“And who are you to tell me where I'm meant to be?” she snapped.

Barely able to contain himself, Alex massaged his temples as he felt both overwhelmed and confused. He opened his mouth to reply, but then he closed it, as he realized this argument would be a waste of time. Unbeknownst to even her own self, Queen Vayra had let slip more than she realized. Namely, that she no longer had any intention of saving Shadowfall Coast, and she likely never did.

Even from the very start of this operation, all of her gestures of cooperation—they were likely intended as nothing more than a way to later justify her actions to the global community. They were so that she could claim she had done all she could, but that there was no other way to stop the Guild of Gentlemen aside from bombarding the city with magic from a safe distance and then running through and knocking down whatever remained.

In fact, Alex didn’t even need to investigate the situation to know exactly what happened, because the more he thought about it, the more obvious it became. Queen Vayra, stubborn and hardheaded, had ignored literally all of his warnings. She likely had gotten reckless while fighting in the south highway, and Alex was now willing to bet she’d lost a significant number of her Elves, maybe as many as ten, which to their race, was a lot.

That’s exactly what must’ve happened, he thought.

Yes. It was the only logical conclusion. She had stormed the south highway, underestimated her enemy, and having lost an unacceptable number of Elves, she was now biding her time and attending to other tasks, and all for the sake of building up the necessary moral justification she’d need to later excuse her command to launch what was, essentially, an Elvish nuke on the city: more complex, but with the same ultimate outcome. Only worse in some regards, because as terrible as the nuke had been, there were survivors, however few. No one was going to survive this.

I’ve had it. That's it. I've had it!

Alex raised his sword. He’d had enough. He wasn’t going to lose. He wasn’t willing to lose. He didn’t care if he had to go in there and save the city by himself. He didn’t care if he died. He wasn’t giving up. He wasn’t surrendering. Not even the Gods were going to stop him. He’d had enough!

“All units,” he said into the Comm. “Listen to me, and listen to me carefully! Every single one of you now has a choice to make.” With his feet tapping against the street, he began to walk towards the city, slowly at first, but soon he entered into a jog.

“You can retreat if you want,” he continued. “You can run. You can go home to your mothers. Or you can pull off and follow behind me to 1st and Haven Street. I am going to break through—even if I have to do it by myself. If you’re still willing to fight, then stand with me. I’m either going to succeed or die.”

“Alex, what are you doing?” High-Lord Besh shouted at him. “Where are you going? We’ve lost far too many good people today as it is. Stop!”

Alex ignored him, and now, he went from a jog to a sprint—exploding forward in the direction of the city. Deftly, he hopped over a trench, then hopped again over a series of sandbags, and then he sprinted dead center on the northern highway. Like before, he burst forward with such speed that, each time his feet slammed down against the road, he blasted through a chunk of it and then kicked it behind him as he tore up an entire section on his way to where it split via several exits. He took the one that said Haven St. North.

He knew he was being reckless. He understood this could be the moment of his death. But his will was simply too strong. He knew what he wanted to achieve. He understood the world he wanted to create: to live in. But even more than anything else, it was his time to step up: the same way his former student, Zachys Calador, had been called to do on multiple occasions now.

How many times had it been?

How many times had Alex watched that seventeen-year-old boy put his head on the chopping block so that no one else had to suffer? If Alex had only been capable of doing so, he would have taken the boy’s place every single time. Yet the opportunity had never arisen. But now, he could feel in his heart that this was his do-or-die moment. And he was okay with dying. Because truly: it would be so much better to die than to live in the world he’d glimpsed just a few moments ago. A world where people were slaughtered in awful wars, but only after being tortured or sexually abused. Where animals calling themselves men stomped in the heads of brave women for having the courage to stand up to them. If this was the direction Galterra was heading, then all the better to die here today.

I’m coming for you, Allistair Morrison of the Guild of Gentlemen!

In no time at all, Alex arrived at the foot of the entrance to 1st and Haven, yet even as fast as he’d made it, there were no living members of the Lords of Justice by the time of his arrival. There were, however, about thirty-five members of the Guild of Gentlemen guarding the city’s entrance, and every single one of them reacted with the same look of bewilderment and disbelief as they noticed him arrive all alone by himself.

“Is that Lord Oren?” a short man wielding two purple swords asked aloud. “The 3rd ranking member of LOJ? Surely it’s not…”

“I think it is!” a broad-shouldered woman armed with a slingshot announced cheerfully.

“A…Alex?” exclaimed an immeasurably sad, confused voice that belonged to none other than Wexzel Ultdern, Maric’s younger brother. The hurt in his eyes was unmistakable. Immediately before him were corpses: or rather, a pile of corpses. None of them were recognizable, as they were all charred, burned, and blackened. Even their equipment was missing, which indicated that, not only had they been roasted alive, but whatever had burned them had been strong enough to cause all of their equipment to suffer a full break.

And it was only now, as Alex narrowed his eyes discerningly, that a piece of the puzzle became solved. At last, he understood why his guild had failed so miserably. The answer was obvious in hindsight. Up close and personal, he could now see that, mixed in with all the usual junk-tier guild equipment, the Gentlemen had also armed themselves with various pieces of dragon loot. But as far as the burned members of the Lords of Justice were concerned, their deaths were clearly due to the second-most powerful piece of equipment that had dropped during the raid.

The staff.

Alex remembered it now: he remembered it vividly and in great detail. Upon Ziragoth’s death, there had been two artifact-quality items that had dropped. The first had been the ring, and the second had been the staff. Alex had even personally inspected the staff with his own two hands, bringing up its stats and marveling at them shortly before the festive dinner event. In fact, he could even visualize it in his mind. He could actually recall the item as though its information was floating before his eyes at this very moment.

Name

Ziragoth’s Staff of Eternal Dragon’s Fire

Level

105

Rarity

Artifact

Dexterity

+85

Constitution

+85

Intelligence

+90

Ability 1

Dragon’s Inferno

Cooldown

20:00 (minutes)

Range

500

Description

The user calls down a massive inferno from above in target area, dealing 50,000 damage per second + additional damage that scales highly with intelligence for 5 seconds. Each second, all affected targets suffer -5% to magic and armor resistance for 10 seconds, stacking each tick.

Ability 2

Dragon’s Retaliation

Cooldown

1 (week)

Duration

5:00 (minutes)

Description

Transforms “Ziragoth’s Staff of Dragon’s Fire” into a flaming sword, immediately granting its user an additional +85 strength, dexterity, and speed; additionally, the user now has a 45% (non-luck-scaling) chance to ignite their target upon any successful contact with any non-ability-modified melee attack. Ignited targets are burned from the inside, suffering 20% direct HP damage each second for 5 seconds (limited to 4% on non-sentients and 0.4% on bosses). This damage cannot be mitigated with resistances. Against bosses higher than T3, this proc can only occur once every 180 seconds.

So that’s how he did it, Alex thought, the truth finally becoming illuminated before him. That’s how they died so fast that I didn’t catch it happening.

Alex, who now stood a mere fifty feet away from the edge of the city street, glared defiantly at the much larger force of Gentlemen who hungrily eyed him. From the way they were acting, it was as though they could hardly believe their luck. He was, after all, the 3rd ranking member of a guild they were at war with. He supposed that, from their perspective, the fact that he’d shown up here all alone was an act of extreme fortune. Hell, for all Alex knew, they might’ve been right. He just didn’t care anymore.

“Thank you for making our life so much easier,” a tall, muscular man wielding a greenish longsword and wearing a set of hardened, brown-leather armor said to him. He began to take several steps forward, and so did an equally tall, equally strong man beside him. The two of them broke away from the pack and began to approach, and there was murder in their eyes. The fact that they looked so similar indicated they were twins. The man’s brother wielded a morning star as a weapon, and the spikes atop it radiated a constant red fire, suggesting it came from the dragon, as typically guild weapons were low-level and lacking in the kind of visual effects often seen on dungeon gear.

The fact that Alex did not recognize either of the two meant that they must have been low-ranking. He doubted either were even in the guild’s top 50. But from their arrogant attitudes, one might think they were in the top ten.

“Easy, Daviks,” Wexzel said, caution in his words. “You and your brother have no business fighting him.”

“This little bitch?” Daviks, the sword-wielding one, asked angrily, causing his identical twin to laugh. “The science nerd?”

“He’ll kill you in a heartbeat. We should attack together.”

“Thirty-five on one?” he exclaimed, sounding outraged. “We can take him.” Greedily, he licked his lips. “Lots of ranks gonna be up for promotion when this war is over. I hear the Royal Roses just snuffed out a few of the top 20s down on the coast. I bet if me and my bro are the ones to bag the third-in-command, maybe we finally crack the top 30.”

Wexzel grunted. “If you attack him without the rest of us, you will die.”

The man called Daviks laughed. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes. The reason being is that the man’s—”

“A former adventurer,” Alex finished for him, widening his stance and measuring his breathing as the tall, sword-wielding guild member approached, his brother occupying the space opposite him. Alex ignored them and stared directly at Wexzel. “I want all of you to stand aside and let me through. I’ve come to kill your king.”

Upon his words, around three quarters of them erupted into a bout of hysterical laughter. He didn’t blame them. It was tough talk coming from a lone science teacher at the end of his rope. Still, Alex meant every word, however suicidal. But of course, they did not take him seriously. But what they did not know—and what Alex did know—was that following a brief nod Daviks sent his brother’s way, his brother was going to use an ability called Morning Breaker.

How did Alex know this? Very simply. That ability, which only worked when using a morning star as a weapon, had an unusual range requirement. Rather than have a maximum range, the user needed to be exactly between a range of 50 and 55. It would then launch the user upwards, into the air, cause him to flip twice, and then the user would descend with incredible force, slamming the spiked weapon down on whatever surface was beneath the user in the targeted area. Then, any targets in the general area—including those not directly struck—would be stunned for up to 6 seconds.

Shifting his eyes to the right while keeping his head straight, Alex noticed the position Daviks was taking. He’d slowed, hanging just a bit back. Alex doubted trash like him had any genuinely threatening ranged abilities, so most likely, he was going to wait for his brother to attack and either kill or stun Alex. If the latter, he would then advance, and from there, he’d likely dash forward and slice his sword around a few times. But if he did opt to use abilities, Alex was willing to bet he’d open up with either Sword Rush II or Berating Slice.

Alex took a deep breath, and then he released it.

He was different from the likes of Zach. Zach, based on everything Alex had seen from the boy, was exceptionally talented when it came to reading his opponent’s body language. And while Alex himself was fairly adept at dueling and reacting, he had never before seen anyone with Zach’s raw talent for predicting enemy movements. It was a natural gift that he was born with: and Alex was not on that level whatsoever.

What Alex did have, however, was a near encyclopedic knowledge of every non-unique ability he’d ever come across in the world of adventuring. He knew them well. He knew them very, very well. He knew them so well that, often, other adventurers would approach him and use him for a reference when they themselves could not recall certain details.

As far as Alex was aware, there were only four types of inner exertion abilities. There were the normal ones that everyone had, the unique ones that were incredibly rare and that few people had, and then there was legendary non-unique, which was even rarer than baseline unique. Finally, there was a type that was so rare Alex had not even known it existed at all until Zach had come around: legendary unique. He still couldn’t believe that was a thing.

Regardless, the point was that more than 99% of inner exertion abilities were simply called inner exertion abilities, and not all were made equal. In truth, these abilities deserved a rarity system all on their own, and over the years, many adventurers had tried to come up with one, but few could agree on how to rate and grade them. But going off a general sense, Alex doubted that anything these two had would have been classified as anything other than the most common of common—by any adventurer’s standards.

Ahead of him, Wexzel stepped forward and extended his hand as if to gesture for caution. “Don’t do it,” he warned. “I can’t save you.”

“We don’t need saving.” Once again, as though he believed he was being clever, Daviks gave another very quick, very brief nod to his brother, and then the man began to move—and fast.

Without a single word of warning, the spiked end of his morning star began to light up with reddish-colored sparks of energy, which danced off the end of his weapon, the very first sign that he was about to use Morning Breaker. And indeed, within just a mere fraction of a second following these sparks, the man launched himself into the air, rising nearly fifty feet above the ground, where he promptly forward-flipped twice and roared out, “MORNING BR—”

Before he could finish speaking, Alex had already whirled his body to the left, removed his left hand from his blade, and then made a waving, flicking motion with it while activating the Medium-Low exertion ability, Light Dart II.

As he flicked his wrist, an incredibly fast-moving dart made of pure light popped into existence between his pinched thumb and index finger, and he threw it. With a high-pitched whistling, the dart zipped upwards and across the air, penetrating the man’s throat even as he was still calling out the name of his ability. Alex watched as it went straight through his neck, exiting the back of his head a moment later. Now, his words ended with a gurgle, and then he fell back to the ground, already dead upon impact. His morning star fell out of his uncurling fingers, rolling a few times along the street and nearly making it to the sidewalk.

“No!” Daviks screamed, rushing forward.

Recklessly, he swung out with his blade. Alex sidestepped, causing him to go running straight past him, and while still wielding his blade in just his right hand, he then made a spinning, downward slash, cutting the man open along the back of his neck and causing him to drop to the ground and begin writhing in pain on the concrete, fatally wounded but not dead. Luckily, Alex was nothing like these animals, and he quickly plunged his blade downwards and through the man’s brain to end his suffering.

“Next.” Alex beckoned as he pulled his summoned blade free and shook off the blood. “I’ll take on every single one of you at once. Just know that there’s nothing in all of existence that’s going to stop me from reaching your king. I don’t care what it takes: you’re going to let me through.”

The thirty-three members of the Guild of Gentlemen widened their eyes. It seemed that, now, at least, they were willing to take him as seriously as their 3rd in command, Wexzel Ultdern, did. Good. Alex wouldn’t have it any other way at this point. This was what he should’ve just done from the start.

It was what Zach would’ve done.

Chapter 165: The Path of Destruction

Chapter 165: The Path of Destruction

As he restlessly continued to observe what could only be described as an unspeakably awful tragedy, Olivir did not think there was anything in this world that could pull his attention away from the terrible yet captivating bloodbath that was taking place ahead of him in the distance.

And then Kolona spoke, and Olivir could focus on nothing else.

The moment she finished speaking, he released a displeasured groan. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “Geeze, Kolona,” he said. He stared at her a moment then began rubbing the back of his head as he released a nervous exhale. “You’re actually serious about this?”

She reached out to him, and then he felt her hand wrapping around his, still warm as she clutched his tightly and nodded. “We have to, Oli.”

Olivir muttered to himself. Suffice it to say, he did not agree whatsoever with the wild, insane thing she’d just suggested to him. It was even more harrowing that it’d come from her mouth of all people, as such a thing was so unlike her. But most importantly, it was an easy way for one or both of them to get killed.

“So, you know that, uhm, if we play our cards right, we can live for thousands of years, yeah? Do you really want to risk all of that on this one little epoch?”

“Don’t you?”

“Of course not,” Olivir said, frowning. “Epochs pass, Kolona. And unlike the rest of the world, we remain.”

Kolona squeezed his hand more tightly. “You know what your problem is, Oli?”

“What?”

“You’re a big-picture thinker. And that’s a good thing a lot of the time. But sometimes it’s not.”

“What do you mean?”

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “You can’t always view life as one big timeline that you can just wait out, where you assume that nothing that happens matters if you just wait long enough for it to be a distant memory. Because you know what, Oli? Sometimes, it really does matter what happens in the small moments. Even if it all ends up fading with time. Yeah, we can live for thousands of years, but is that the only thing in the world that’s important?”

“Eventually, yes.”

Kolona playfully shoved him. “Well, I don’t live for the eventually or for the forever. I live for the now. That’s where you and I are always going to be different.”

Olivir looked beyond the grasslands and at the city, which was under siege from three different directions yet somehow seemed to be holding out. Honestly? The most likely conclusion to all of this was its total destruction, and that was becoming clearer and more obvious by the moment. Of all the possible ways things could play out, everything was shaping up to conclude with the Elvish annihilating all non-allied life in the city: everyone from the guild’s soldiers to the children hiding in their homes. Hell, probably even their pets, too.

It was terrible. There was no doubting that. By no means was Olivir unbothered by the prospect of yet another city falling victim to a mass-extinction event. For this reason, he was willing to do whatever he could to help steer events away from that outcome—as long as he could do it safely and without jeopardizing his or Kolona’s life.

But Kolona…she was starting to come down with whatever craziness was running through Lord Oren’s head, and this, Olivir found incredibly perplexing since she wasn’t even human to begin with and had no reason to care for their lives. Not to mention the region was controlled by the Guild of Gentlemen—those responsible for the torture and cruelty she’d experienced in her early upbringing.

The humans here hate and despise her kind, and yet she still wants to get involved…

Olivir shook his head. Her idea was ridiculous. It was nuts! But…it might actually work. He had to at least give her that. It could actually work for how utterly insane it was.

“I’m crazy for even considering this,” Olivir said to her. “My sole priority is to protect you.”

“Then nothing changes,” she said. “I’m going no matter what. So if you want to protect me, you’ll just have to come too.”

Olivir sighed. “So…that’s how it is, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said, folding her arms. “That’s how it is.”

“Gods damn it all.” Olivir stretched his back and neck muscles as he mentally prepared himself to become even more involved in this heinous fiasco. He couldn’t believe he was really about to try something so wild. “This might be the dumbest thing a pair of vampires has attempted in thousands of years.”

Kolona made a cute, squeaky laugh. “Only if we fail.”

“Yeah…only if we fail…”

*****

For all his determination, Alex was not an idiot. Logically, he knew that he wasn’t likely to live beyond the next few moments. He knew that he, a man who had decided to stand alone against thirty-three leveled members of the Guild of Gentlemen, could not rely solely on his experience and knowledge to endure the coming onslaught from such an overwhelming number of enemies.

He knew these things. He understood them. There was no issue with his brain comprehending the facts.

And yet, his ironclad will to persevere was so strong that it overwrote his common sense. It wasn’t that he didn’t grasp his situation, but more that his heart was signaling so strongly that he needed to stand and fight that he was willing to disregard all logic and rationality out of a sheer refusal to give up or abandon what he knew was right. His heart and mind were in conflict, and the former had won out.

Switching back to a two-handed grip on his blade, he held the weapon towards the base with his left hand positioned directly above his right. He bent his knees slightly, extended his arms a bit farther, and now he scanned the foot of the street before him, where various lights, sounds, and colors were entering the world as staff-wielding healers and support began to cast a wide array of numerous different buffs on their allies, who then began to fan out, creating the start of what would likely turn into a wide net headed his way.

I won’t be stopped here, Alex vowed to himself. I don’t care how many of them there are!

It wasn’t just their buffs he had to worry about. If anything, those would be the least of his problems. No, it was everything else that Alex needed to be mindful of, and in this context, everything else really did in fact mean everything. As in: all of it. All the “roles” or “archetypes” that made up the world of adventuring were represented before him, and this was true even if the men and women he’d be facing did not label themselves adventurers.

Aside from the obvious threats of melee weapons and magical projectiles, Alex would also have to contend with crowd control, debuffs, curses, poisons, enemy healing, ranged physical attacks—all of it. There was enough plainly visible variety in the enemy’s defenses here on 1st and Haven Street that Alex was fairly sure they had everything covered. And as for Alex? He had only himself. He was fighting alone.

Thus far, no one from the Lords of Justice had shown up to assist him despite his ardent plea over the Comm. Not even one of them. And Alex didn’t need to risk stealing a peek over his shoulder to know that nobody was on their way to back him up, either. No, Alex could tell that much just from the chatter coming over the Comm in his ear. He was able to listen in as those who could disengage safely announced they were doing so, and he highly doubted any of them were about to have a sudden, imminent change of heart just for his sake. Sadly, Alex couldn’t even really blame them for choosing not to stand with him. Or at least…he couldn’t blame them as much as he blamed the Elvish.

The Elves made it impossible for them to resist the urge to flee, Alex thought.

Simply by virtue of knowing what the Elves had planned, the leveled members—as well as the level-1 troops—were naturally choosing to retreat. And why wouldn’t they? Because of the Elves, they knew that their homes and families were not in peril—they knew that they didn’t absolutely have to continue fighting and dying to the last one of them. Given the option, of course they would choose to return to their families, especially after so many had already been brutalized in what was shaping up to be a historic defeat.

Thanks to Queen Vayra’s shocking level of transparency regarding her intentions, every last one of them knew that even if they failed in their plans, the problem would still be resolved anyway, as the Elves would simply blow up the city. Faced with such knowledge, the desire to avoid fighting had likely been overwhelming from the start. In fact, now that Alex thought about it, it suddenly dawned on him that it probably played at least some role in why the Lords of Justice had performed so poorly to begin with. Indeed, the Elvish had created a disparity, because in the minds of those on the battlefield, the Guild of Gentlemen were fighting for their continued existence, whereas their own side had been fighting out of a sense of morality, duty, and honor.

“Lord Oren, please, retreat!” cried Lord Quillisk, the fourth-ranking member of the Lords of Justice. “We’ve lost a quarter of the guild already. These people aren’t worth fighting for. Leave them to their fate!”

As others chimed in with agreement, Alex removed his left hand from his sword, lifted it to the side of his face, plucked the Comm out of his ear, and in a very defiant yet admittedly Zach-like fashion, he crushed it between his fingers then opened his palm to let the various pieces fall to the street.

This did not go unnoticed.

“Hear something ya didn’t like?” taunted a woman wielding a mid-sized shield in her right hand and a broadsword in her left. The sight of her caused Alex to tense up, though it was not because he found her intimidating but because the tall, armored woman had an appearance that greatly reminded him of Lady Theolina; she even had the same emerald-green eyes. Her mannerisms, however, were completely different, which she demonstrated after Alex had gazed at her a bit too long.

“What’re you looking at, sugar?” she asked. She made a cruel, wicked grin. “Something catch your interest?”

Alex ignored her and instead locked eyes with Wexzel Ultdern, who stood in the middle of their rapidly widening formation. His serpentine, artifact-quality staff, which glowed with an intense, red aura, appeared at odds with his blue-white set of plate armor and his full helm.

“It’s not too late to surrender,” he said, a sadness in his voice. “But I’m not going to make any real effort to convince you, because I already know that nothing I say will deter you from your decision to choose death over life.”

His remark angered Alex to a much greater degree than it should have. Really, it was the audacity of it more than anything else. His brow furrowing, Alex regarded Lord Ultdern. He did not bother to hide the displeasure he knew must’ve been creeping onto his face. “That’s a disgusting remark,” Alex replied bitterly. “A horribly shortsighted thing to say, especially coming from your side.”

“Is it?”

“Of course it is, Sir Ultdern. After all, the whole reason I’m here at all is because I’ve chosen to take the side of the living.”

“The thousands of corpses you’ve left in our streets suggest otherwise, Lord Oren. All of that wasted life—and for what?”

“For what?” Alex snapped, unable to believe what he was hearing. “To save the lives of your citizens. That’s for what!”

A look of surprise flashed across Wexzel’s eyes, and it caused Alex’s anger to fall away immediately and for curiosity to take its place, as Alex did not understand the man’s stunned reaction. For some reason, what Alex had just said seemed to have had an impact on the large, plate-armor-wearing man, for he seemed so taken aback by Alex’s words that he actually paused a moment, halting in place. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. “Are you actually making the outrageous claim that your violent presence here is of some benefit to our people?”

The man’s confusion caused a secondary confusion in Alex, as Alex had thought his words were quite clear—or at least they should have been. Yet it was only now that he spoke them aloud that he realized the Guild of Gentlemen likely had no idea what was about to happen to them, and it came to Alex as something of a revelation, though it should’ve been obvious from the start.

Does he not even know? Alex wondered, suddenly coming to grips with the possibility that it might truly not have occurred to the Gentlemen what the consequences of their “victory” over the Lords of Justice might be. Gods, they don’t even know!

“Listen to me, Sir Ultdern,” Alex said to him, sensing a very real opportunity to negotiate his way out of this conflict. “Please: hear me for just a moment.”

In what seemed to come as a surprise to his allies, Sir Ultdern raised his gauntleted palm in a gesture signaling for the others to halt. This caused numerous, dissatisfied-sounding murmurs from his fellow guild members, which he seemingly ignored as he fixed Alex with a stern, unblinking stare.

“What is it?” he asked.

Alex knew that, much like his brother, Maric, the man’s patience could only be stretched so far. Thus, he wasted no time in cutting right to the chase. He didn’t know if anything he said would be believed, but it was surely the kind of thing they’d at least have to take seriously.

“The reason I’m fighting so hard to get to your king,” Alex began, “is not because I’m trying to win a war or conquer your city. It’s because, if I fail, every single innocent life in Shadowfall Coast is going to die in just a short while from now—along with the rest of you.”

Upon these words, all muttering ceased, and all eyes focused more intently upon him. If nothing else, Alex could tell he’d succeeded in gaining their undivided attention. This was good. Seizing upon this, he continued to truthfully explain the dilemma they were in—one that they were seemingly not even aware of.

“By now, I’m sure your guild has figured out that we know you don’t have any more of your new weapon ready to fire—but that you will have more very, very soon.”

“He said what now?” a man wielding two purple swords whispered to a sickly-looking man in black robes carrying a scythe.

From the blank stares and turned heads, Alex got the impression that many of those here did not know what he was talking about. This made sense, as such a thing would likely have been a well-guarded secret known only by those high up in rank such as Sir Wexzel Ultdern, the guild’s third-in-command. Offering Alex a grunt along with a quick, curt nod, he acknowledged what Alex was saying to him. In the same instant, his fellow guild members became agitated as though they were hearing this for the first time.

“The hell is he talking about?” asked the broad-shouldered woman wielding a slingshot.

“He’s full of shit!” shouted a man with white hair and crimson-colored eyes. Alex wasn’t positive, but he believed the man to be the 13th in command, Gentleman Baine Restlocht. Visually, Gentleman Restlocht looked like the oldest of the bunch of them with his fully silver hair and his wrinkled face. Oddly enough, however, Alex was fairly sure the man was only in his early seventies. Yet he looked like he was thrice the age of someone like Wexzel Ultdern, who was over a hundred years old.

“I’m not lying to you,” Alex told him.

“Like hell you aren’t,” Gentleman Restlocht growled in response, reacting as though he were deeply offended by Alex’s words. He began to massage the large, orange-red-colored crossbow he carried in his arms. Judging off the ornamental dragon’s head mounted near the foregrip, Alex was willing to bet it was yet another item that’d been stolen from the raid. He scowled at Alex as though desperately wanting to fire the weapon, but in short order, his scowl was replaced with a shocked gasp as Wexzel decided to confirm every word of what Alex was telling them.

“What he’s saying is true,” Sir Ultdern said, speaking loudly enough so that the thirty-two other members of his guild on the street with him could hear his words. “This may come as a surprise, but since it’s hardly a secret worth keeping anymore, you may as well hear it from me and not him. Despite what you’ve been told, the intercontinental ballistic missile we fired at Ogre’s Axe was in fact the only one we possessed.”

“Wait, seriously?” coughed out a woman with the Guild of Gentlemen’s emblem tattooed on her forehead. Her voice became high in pitch as though she’d spoken out of a sense of disbelief. “I thought we had hundreds ready to fire: enough to destroy anyone who dared to stand in the way of humanity’s progress a thousand times over!”

“No,” Sir Ultdern replied. “That was a necessary lie we told in order to keep humanity safe. Yet, somehow, the enemy discovered otherwise. They’ve also discovered our timetable for building more of the weapon, too. If we faced any less dangerous a foe, I’d be inclined to try taking him alive for questioning, as we have no idea how such well-guarded secrets were able to leak.”

Alex made a slight gesture with his chin. “Actually, Sir Ultdern, if you really want to know so badly, I could just tell you how it happened. I really don’t mind.”

Sir Ultdern cocked his left eyebrow. “Oh? You’d just come right out and tell me?” he asked, his tone implying he had serious doubts that Alex was being genuine. “You’d tell us just like that?”

“I would,” Alex confirmed. “If you really want to know, you can just ask. I actually have no reason to keep it a secret. Not that it really matters, though.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

Clearly skeptical, Sir Ultdern narrowed his eyes and said, “Nevertheless, if you’re actually volunteering this information for free, then tell me, Lord Oren: how did your guild learn what it knows? How could it possibly have penetrated the numerous layers of airtight security we’d set up?”

As Alex replied, he kept a perfectly straight face. “The Gods told us so,” he explained, stating it bluntly.

“The…Gods told you?”

“Correct. To be exact, they communicated telepathically with someone on the inside here in Shadowfall Coast, and then they relayed that information back to us: also telepathically. That was how we found out.”

There was silence for a moment, and Lord Ultdern stared at him with a dumbfounded look. But this quickly fell off his face, and now, the man clenched his jaw tightly as though angered. “I thought you far too mature and dignified to play these kinds of childish games with me, Lord Oren—Alex.”

“This isn’t a game, and what I told you is the truth.”

“Preposterous! This is a crude attempt at mockery.”

Alex sighed, and then he shrugged. “Like I told you: you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Of course I don’t.” His frown deepened. “Who would?” Sensing the question was rhetorical, Alex did not reply, and instead, he allowed the man to continue speaking. He watched as Sir Ultdern made yet another waving motion with his armored hand, but this time, it was one that he took to be a dismissive gesture. “However it is your guild came upon this information, there’s no longer any reason for either of our guilds to be coy about the facts here: they are what they are. Somehow, you found out.”

Alex nodded. “And that’s why we’ve come,” he said, though he was now speaking more to the thirty-two other guild members than to Sir Ultdern. “From your perspective, it must have seemed like an act of suicide, no?” he asked them. “For us to show up here and attack your city despite the likelihood of total destruction we would face? But now all of you should understand why we’ve come. It’s because we discovered the truth, but even more importantly, we’ve become aware that, in slightly more than an hour from now, your guild will have another weapon built and ready to launch. We’ve come to stop that from happening.”

Another short moment of relative silence lingered over 1st and Haven Street, though in this case, perhaps “silence” was too strong a word; the sounds of war and death were continuing to play out in every direction, with explosions and gunfire coming from sources both near and distant. There was also the occasional cry of pain from the sky drake as Queen Vayra and a group of her Elves dealt with it above the ocean.

“So…wait a minute,” the woman with the tattoo on her forehead said after a moment as though puzzling something out. She looked over her shoulder and in the direction of the city, and then she looked back at Alex. Her mood seemed to suddenly lift, and so did the spirits of all of those around her as they seemingly stumbled upon the same idea at the same time. “So, if everything you’re saying is true, then that really does explain why the Lords of Justice and the Royal Roses chose to attack us. It means you’re not crazy after all. You were all just jumping at an opportunity. But then…but then wait a minute, because if that’s the case, it sounds like what you’re actually saying is…”

“…that all we have to do is hold off the invasion for another hour and we win!” cheered one of the men, his tone exuberant. Others joined in soon after.

“That’s exactly what he’s saying,” the woman replied. Then she too cheered. “There’s no way they’ll break through by then, and then they’ll all have to surrender once we have another weapon to defend ourselves with. We’re going to win!”

“Gods, you’re right!” Gentleman Restlocht shouted, raising his crossbow victoriously. “They’ll all be licking our boots and begging us for forgiveness once we cook up another weapon. The Gods be praised! Humanity is going to win this fight!”

As the various members of the Guild of Gentlemen vocalized their joy, one could be forgiven if, just for a moment, it seemed more like a party or a celebration was taking place on 1st and Haven as opposed to something far darker and bloodier. Alex sighed. He tried to continue speaking but he actually had to wait for the nearly three-dozen members of the Guild of Gentlemen to cease their abrupt cheering and gloating before he could even be heard.

“You’re wrong,” he said to them when they finally quieted down. “All of you are so completely, totally wrong, and you still don’t get it.”

“What don’t we get?” asked Sir Ultdern. “My patience is growing thin. Explain it now, Alex.”

“Very well,” Alex said. With his weapon still gripped tightly in both hands, he raised his voice and continued to explain it to them. “Right now,” he began, “you’re not just fighting a battle against humans, but you’re fighting against Elves, too—Elves that have thus far fought you conventionally, pitting their strength against yours. But they also know what I know. So why don’t you tell me: what do you think they will do if we don’t find and destroy your weapons before the next one is ready to fire?”

Even before he’d finished speaking, he could see that a great many of them were beginning to stir and shift their feet as though becoming nervous, yet it was only in a slight way that suggested to Alex they still did not understand the full gravity of the situation. And so, he decided to illuminate it for them. Taking just a moment to scan the numerous faces before him, he once more settled his gaze on Sir Ultdern and laid it out as simply as he could.

“By defeating us here,” Alex said, using the most serious tone of voice he could conjure, “you have just made it more likely that the Elves will resort to their backup plan.”

“Which is?” asked a short man with curly red hair and a face full of freckles. He was wielding crystal-colored staff, his knuckles turning white as he clung to the weapon. Understanding was beginning to work its way into his expression, but it was important that he heard it said aloud despite this.

Alex looked at him and said, “Their plan is to bombard your city from a distance with magic and then run through it again and again at full speed until they’ve leveled all of it: until every single human in Shadowfall Coast is dead along with whatever you were building. That is what every slain member of my guild was fighting to prevent, and that is what fate awaits Shadowfall Coast if I can’t find and destroy your weapons before the Elves run out of patience.”

The reaction from the Guild of Gentlemen came in all at once, and it began in the form of murmurs that progressed into a chorus of loud, angry shouts from so many people at once that Alex could hardly make out what any individual person was saying. Their reaction was exactly what he’d been hoping for: it was exactly what he’d need to convince them to stand down. At least…among the majority of them. But there was one man who did not seem shaken, and he was the man who most needed convincing.

“So that’s what you meant,” Sir Ultdern whispered. Given the increase in the level of noise, Alex was amazed he could hear him at all. Thankfully, his fellow guild members quickly began to quiet as he started speaking. His face softened ever so slightly, and he gave Alex a brief but meaningful nod. “So that’s why you didn’t retreat with the rest of your guild.”

“Correct.”

He smiled. “Very noble of you, Sir Oren. I always knew you’d be better off in a real guild as opposed to mingling around with those silly little ‘adventurer’ gangs my brother loves so much.” Though harsh, the words were spoken with a fair degree of mirth, but the playfulness in his voice did not last; at once, his tone became darker and far more serious. “This at least tells me one very important detail.”

“Hm?”

His expression turned grim yet also eerily pleased; it was as though something Alex had said had caused him to become less worried as opposed to more. Alex had no idea why or how that was even possible, but it did cause a sense of foreboding to take hold of him—one he had to fight to keep at bay.

Sir Ultdern lifted his chin somewhat, and he did not blink a single time as he spoke. “Through some means, you discovered our bluff and even the nature of our production capabilities, and yet…despite this, I’ve just learned that you don’t actually know where to find our weapon facilities.”

“That’s…true,” Alex admitted. “We don’t know where they are. But that is not something that should cause you any degree of relief. Like I said, the Elves are going to—”

“It’s strange, though,” he continued, either deliberately interrupting Alex or no longer listening to him in the first place. “How can you find out the first two but not the third?” he asked, the question again seeming more rhetorical than inquisitive. He lifted his shoulders. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I now understand the situation so much better.”

“Then what will you do?” Alex asked him—or meant to ask, anyway. Although he spoke the words, his voice was drowned out as nearly ten members of the Guild of Gentlemen all called out the exact same question via slightly different wording.

“What do we do, Sir Ultdern?” one asked.

“What should we do?” another asked at the same time, a trembling quality in his voice.

Sir Ultdern raised his staff as though to signal for their attention. “We continue on,” he said. A very dangerous glint entered his eyes. “Don’t worry about the Elves. Of all the possibilities we have feared coming to pass, the one that high-command has spent the most time considering these past few weeks is the possibility of an indiscriminate Elvish attack directly on our city. Rest assured: we have already taken precautions.”

Is he serious? Alex wondered to himself, trying not to fret as the man’s confidence began to worry him. There’s nothing they could possibly do to stop the Elves. He’s either delusional or a fool.

Of all the ways that things today could end, the destruction of Shadowfall Coast was only the second worst among them. The worst, by a far greater magnitude, would be any event in which the Guild of Gentlemen was somehow able to build another nuclear weapon. Compared to that, even the utter annihilation of the city was preferable. Therefore, just the mere suggestion, however implausible, that his guild might have some defense against the far-superior Elves…it was enough to roil Alex and make his knees feel weak.

They can’t. There’s no way that they could.

Sir Ultdern looked to his left and nodded, then he glanced to his right and did the same. Finally, he met Alex’s eyes. “This conversation is now over. You’re either going to surrender immediately or die. If you choose the latter, then forgive me, Alex, but I will do what I must.”

As he spoke, the leveled members of the Guild of Gentlemen once more began inching towards him. In response, Alex took several big hops backwards to gain some distance while raising his blade. It looked like he was going to have to kill his way through after all.

*****

With the lance of a unicorn-mounted, white-cloaked Elf running through its belly, the sky drake suffered 42,627 points of damage and at last died. It released one finally cry, and then, following a loud boom that could likely be heard two regions over, the entirety of it vanished into what looked like a combination of fire and haze. Unfortunately, it was not kind enough to also take with it everything it’d consumed on its way over here—including about fifty level-1 troops of the Royal Roses.

Now, raising his hands above his head like two miniature umbrellas, Vim ducked as bones, guts, pieces of destroyed fighter jets, and gallons upon gallons of blood rained down upon the Piercing Thorn. Even though most of it thankfully drifted on the wind and ended up in the ocean, there was still enough left over to paint a significant portion of the upper deck red.

“Fucking dragons,” he muttered. “I’m sick of them.”

“As are we all,” said an effeminate voice that was accompanied by a flapping, wing-like sound. Glancing upwards, Vim watched as Queen Vayra, flanked by seven of her Elves, landed their unicorn mounts atop the deck. She too was covered in blood, but she gave no indication that it bothered her in the slightest. Hell, it definitely didn’t. The woman was insane. She probably liked being covered in it. But at least she killed the damned thing.

At the cost of a fortune…

With the sky drake having been dealt with, Vim sighed with relief. All things considered, they’d made out okay. His mages had managed to hold the sky drake off long enough for the Elves to come and pull aggro, and through some miracle, they hadn’t lost any additional battlecruisers. They even had four fighter jets left, which was certainly better than zero.

“Haisel, tell the pilots they can return now.”

The last four remaining jets had been ordered to pick a direction and keep flying in it until the situation here had been resolved. This was because, clearly, they were the drake’s primary objective. It was only through a healthy combination of taunts and crowd control that they’d managed to save the four jets and their pilots along with them.

“They’re on their way,” Haisel replied. “The pilots are requesting we give them a rest.”

Vim shook his head. “We can’t spare it. They can have whatever time it takes us to refuel and rearm their aircraft, but then we need them back in the air. Even just four bombers are enough to make a critical difference in this war.”

“I agree,” Haisel said. He turned his body to face the queen, her winged, white-haired mount staring at him. “Thank you for your aid, Your Majesty.” He bowed to her, and she lowered her head in acknowledgement. Then Haisel shot Vim a stern, expectant glare. “Sir Alazar?”

“Yes, yes.”

With the beast slain and gone, Vim extended his hand towards Queen Vayra to show his gratitude—and then he swore loudly and vengefully as her Gods-cursed fucking unicorn opened its mouth, extended its neck, and chomped down, biting his middle finger clean off his right hand. Vim cried out in pain as his guild reacted immediately to the slight, with several of them drawing their weapons including Haisel Ragora.

“Sir Alazar!” a mage shouted, his expression lighting up with raw hatred as he glared at the unicorn. The sound of boots rushing along the deck followed his shout.

With the same hand that had been bitten, Vim waved him—and all the others—down. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll use a stone to grow it back. Everyone, calm down! It clearly wasn’t on purpose.”

“Oh yes it was,” Queen Vayra said. “It was very much deliberate. Good girl, Snowcone.” She began patting the top of the beast’s head.

Her words caused many of those aboard with him to become fiery and indignant, so Vim had to once again demand that they cool their temper. He wasn’t about to get into a war with the Elves over a finger—although he was definitely not going to forget this any time soon.

His hand dripping blood, he stared daggers at the woman. “I’m deducting the cost of a red rejuvenation stone from whatever I owe you.”

Queen Vayra smirked. “You’d actually waste one of your ‘precious’ little jewels on a missing finger?”

Vim nodded. “Of course. I have to have some way of flipping you off after what your flying rat just did to me.”

Clearly possessing some rudimentary level of intelligence, the unicorn made a loud huffing noise. Vim glared at it and decided that if he ever had the chance to do so, he was definitely going to kill it and eat it. Waving his throbbing hand, he waited for someone to bring him one of the red stones, and then he crushed it with his hand. Although it would take a bit to grow back his finger, the pain at least came to an immediate end.

Compared to what the Guild of Gentlemen put me through, this is nothing, he thought.

For the second time—and also to ease tensions—Vim slowly and cautiously extended his hand in the queen’s direction. This time around, she made a cooing sound and patted the top of her mount’s head, and then she offered her own hand in return. Vim took it and kissed the back of it as a show of respect, but very quietly, he said, “I’m never forgiving you for that you fucking bitch!”

“Careful,” she whispered, glee in her eyes. “I’ll have to take another finger if you continue with that tone.”

Vim gave her his most hateful expression. Never had he been so angry—and aroused—at the exact same time. But that was something he really couldn’t afford to reflect upon right now. No, there was a war going on, and there were big things happening all over the place. He needed to keep his focus on what was most important. To that end, he let the entire thing slide for the moment.

“Your Majesty,” he said, doing his best to keep his temper in check.

“Yes?”

Vim took a step backwards before he continued speaking, not wishing to stand anywhere near her mount. “Since you’re here already,” he continued, “you might as well push west with my forces rather than fly all the way back to where—”

“No, that’s ill-advised, Sir Alazar,” she said, cutting him off. “As a matter of fact, I would strongly suggest you begin winding down your operations.”

Vim frowned. “And why would you suggest that?”

Queen Vayra dismounted, her boots clicking down on the deck of the Piercing Thorn. She turned around, cupped her hand over her forehead as if to filter out the powerful, morning summer sun, and then she gazed in the direction of the city.

“Because it’s getting late,” she said. “Yes, I think it’s indeed time you recalled your forces.”

“It’s getting…?” Vim narrowed his eyes as it occurred to him what she was implying. Immediately, his temper returned with a fury, shooting from a three up to a nine. “Now just wait a damned second here!” he shouted at her. “It’s still way too early for you to be talking about that.”

Fylwen’s expression turned icy. “No, it’s not,” she said. “Time is just about up.”

Vim lifted his foot and slammed it down hard enough to crack through a piece of the upper deck. “Don’t you even think of blowing up the Gods-be-damned city, Fylwen! You’re being an idiot!”

Upon these words, every one of her Elvish warriors—and their unicorns, too—spun their heads towards him as if wanting to either bite, stab, shoot, or magic him to death for having the audacity to talk to their queen in such a way. Still, Vim ignored all of them. He kept his focus solely on the woman. “You’d be making a very serious mistake.”

“How so?” she asked, appearing a great deal calmer and more collected than he currently was. Yet in her eyes, there was now a deadliness that could not be ignored: a resolve to commit an unspeakable and ruinous act. And an entirely unnecessary one, too!

Becoming frustrated, Vim pointed his finger across the short stretch of water and at the city. “Unlike the Lords of Justice, my boys and gals are kicking ass right now. We’ve got the situation well under control. There’s no damn reason for you to go blowing everything up. If you do that, it’ll make the entire city worthless. This place will be a goldmine under my leadership, and you aren’t going to ruin that for us.”

Fylwen chuckled. “So, this is more about your want of coin than out of any concern for the lives of those who live here?”

Vim actually snorted in response to her ridiculous question. “Of course it is. I’m half Gnome—three quarters if we’re being technical. These people hate me. They hate me so much that they beat me and maimed me and…” He ripped the rest of the statement out of his mind, not willing to recall some of the more profane indignities that had been inflicted upon him. “The people who live here are garbage,” Vim finished. “I don’t care what you do to them. But I need the infrastructure intact.”

Fylwen chuckled once again. “All you care about is coin. Truly, it amazes me. It’s no wonder my daughter’s mate is so well-suited for the Royal Roses. The two of you are a match made in the heavens.”

Vim scoffed at the comparison, as it was actually unfair and totally off basis. “It’s true I want the gold, but it’s not for lining my pockets. I have mouths to feed, homes to rebuild, and people who rely on me. If I don’t earn, they don’t eat. Ever since Peter IV got us cut out of global trade, it’s been a nightmare keeping everything from falling apart. I’m probably the only guild leader in the history of North Bastia who lives in a one-bedroom apartment. I give everything I can spare to my people. I rented out my entire estate just to salvage every coin I can.”

Rather than reply, Fylwen seemed to be studying his expression. Vim locked eyes with her, and he too said nothing for a moment. He took a short break to calm himself before continuing to speak. Then, lowering his voice somewhat, he said, “Look, my people are the ones who were hit by their weapon. Believe me: if I thought there was any chance that they might get ahold of another, I’d join you in wiping out the city. But we are winning this fight! There’s no need for you to destroy Shadowfall Coast.”

His words were not a bluff: they were quite literally the truth. Unlike the Lords of Justice, which had gotten absolutely obliterated in what might just be one of the most-humiliating defeats in the past few centuries, the Royal Roses were thrashing the Guild of Gentlemen. And this really did not come as much of a surprise to Vim, either.

Of all the guilds in North Bastia, none had been put through what the Royal Roses had been forced to endure over the past few decades—Peter IV had made sure of that much. His members knew how to fight, and how to fight well. Maybe nowhere near the level of the average adventurer, but compared to the softhearted Lords of Justice with their upscale lifestyles, aristocratic temperaments, and silly idealism? There was simply no contest between them. And yes, the Guild of Gentlemen had tried to deploy all the same kinds of little “tricks” and “tactics” on them that they’d used on the LOJ, but it was not working on the Royal Roses.

“We’re winning,” he repeated, speaking even more enthusiastically. “I reckon that within two hours from now, we’ll have conquered enough of the city to occupy any possible launch sites. Meaning, even if they do finish one of their weapons, there won’t be a single spot they can launch it, effectively neutering them until we can search every nook and cranny of this place.”

Of all the things Vim had said to her since she’d landed aboard their aircraft carrier, it was this for some reason that brought about her anger. Whirling her body around to face him, she opened her mouth and shouted, “That is not acceptable!”

Confused and startled, Vim blinked several times before responding. “Huh? Why not?”

“Because, Gnome, we cannot allow them—or anyone—to ever create such a weapon in the first place.”

Vim, becoming even more confused, pursed his lips together to form a question, but he was so puzzled by her actions and sudden shift in tone that he wasn’t even sure what to ask. It actually took him a good few seconds before he could put into words what he was trying to say.

“I don’t get it,” he spoke at last. “If we make it impossible for them to launch, who gives a shit if we find their weapons today, tomorrow, or two months from now? What does it even matter? Who cares?”

“Our God cares!” snapped one of the green-cloaked Elves.

“Precisely,” Fylwen agreed. “That’s exactly why we cannot wait.”

If her words—and the words of the green-cloaked Elf—were meant to, like, you know, “clear things up” or whatever, it was actually having the opposite effect. Vim once again found himself with his lips pursed and a question on the tip of his tongue that he wasn’t quite sure how to get out.

“I’m not understanding,” he said. “This makes no sense.”

“It is not that complicated, little man.” Fylwen moved closer to him so that she was towering over him and staring down at his face. “We have been given a direct order from our God to disallow even a single new weapon from entering this world.”

Vim turned her words over in his head. “Now wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me that the inconsequential technicalities of how we dispose of their weapon matters just as much as actually doing so?”

“Correct.”

“…and this is because your ‘God’ told you so?”

“Correct.”

Vim drew a deep breath, which he released slowly. “Okay, two problems with that, Fylwen. One: Gods and Goddesses aren’t actually real. They’re fairy tales our parents tell us to make us behave. And two, if you’re hearing voices in your head, you should really talk to someone about that.”

Fylwen folded her arms as if to suggest she was not impressed by his choice of words or his tone. Vim didn’t care. He knew he was correct. She didn’t seem so convinced, though. “I intensely dislike you, Gnome. Not only do you call me a liar, but you inquire about my sanity, to boot! If you do not believe me, then ask the boy—ask Zach. He was there for this.”

Vim shook his head and tried to avoid chuckling. “Oh really? So you’re telling me Zach heard this imaginary voice too?”

“Heard it? He was the one who introduced us.”

Vim’s mouth fell open. “Wait, what?”

As though she were losing patience, Fylwen snarled at him. “It doesn’t matter whether or not you understand or believe what I’ve told you. The Great Lord Adamus has commanded us, and we will not disobey the orders of a God.”

Of all the things she’d just said, it was the name Adamus that most stood out to Vim, as he’d heard it once before—on the night they were attacked during their celebration. As they’d retreated north, a badly rattled Zach had been shouting about him. Subsequently, Vim and the other political guild members on the raid had learned that he was something called a “Great One.” Supposedly, he was a very powerful individual that had played a role in forming the world.

But to the Elvish, he is a God?

Vim looked away a moment so that he could rub his eyes to relieve some of the stress that had suddenly begun building up. “Are you sure your ‘God’ actually cares about the trivial details of how and when we dispose of this weapon?”

“Yes!”

Exasperated, Vim’s words nearly got caught in his throat. “Well…well I don’t care! You’re not blowing up Shadowfall Coast!” He extended his arm and pointed in a general northern direction. “I already lost an entire city. A million of my people. Can you even imagine a number that large?”

“Yes,” Fylwen said, her face abruptly turning red. A look of fury came upon her, though Vim realized after a short moment it was not directed at him. “Yes, I can, little Gnome. Humans are awful creatures.” The fury vanished, and now a strange, seemingly out-of-place softness entered into her eyes as she looked down upon him. “I will help you rebuild.”

“Help me rebuild?” Vim asked, repeating her words. “I’m already in debt to you for—”

“I will waive the debt, and I will find a way to provide you with the gold you need to rebuild. We will work together and come up with a solution, but I must not disobey our Lord, Adamus.”

Her turn from cold and ruthless to warm and compassionate occurred so quickly and without warning that Vim was thrown off by it. He tried to speak, but he stammered, having become confused by her behavior. But in no time at all, she reverted to her typical self, and she stood up straighter, glancing at him haughtily.

“Now, I’ve heard enough from you on this subject,” she said. “Besides, I’ve already given the order. My Elves will begin bombarding the city momentarily, though they will begin in the southwest and the northwest. You ought to have enough time to pull your people back and get them to the coast. I’m being more than reasonable here. Continue to badger me, and I might just stomp you into the deck as punishment.”

Vim scratched his ear. “How in the hell is that a punishment? I want that to happen. Do it, Fylwen. Do it. Stomp on me right now. I want everyone to see it happen, too. Make sure you don’t miss the balls.”

Her lips twisted sourly, and she turned away in apparent disgust. “Vulgar, perverted, vile little Gnome.”

*****

Alex concentrated. Despite his racing heart, and despite the fact that the hairs all along his arms and legs were standing on end, he somehow managed to focus. Right now, there was zero room for error. He had to function more like a machine than a man: he needed to have every single sense in his body at full capacity, analyzing, studying, and interpreting. He needed to be in a constant state of full alertness—to keep his head moving, allowing his eyes to take in every last possible bit of data. And he needed to do all of this without letting up for even a microsecond, for to do so would mean an instant death.

The only thing that would keep him alive now—the one and only chance he had at surviving—would be his vast knowledge of abilities and how they functioned. If even the smallest chance of victory existed, it would without question come as a result of using the enemy’s lack of skill and experience against them. Alex would not be able to go on the attack; no, he would only be able to capitalize on their mistakes. To defeat them, he would need to catch them out of position or in the process of making a fatal error. Outside of that, every muscle in his body needed to be devoted solely towards defense. This was not going to be simple. This was not going to be easy.

They’re coming.

Even as they began encircling him, Alex kept his eyeballs moving. He needed to be fast not only on his feet but in his brain, too. He needed to be sharp: he needed to be mentally agile. He took note of things as fast as it was humanely possible to do so, such as the fact that of the eight casters that made up the leveled defenders on 1st and Haven Street, five of them were likely mages, three were healers, and two were support—and all of them were casting a spell.

At the same time, two archers and Gentleman Restlocht were opening fire as well as the broad-shouldered woman wielding a slingshot; this, as the rest of them began moving towards him from three directions: to his left, his right, and from the front. But those he would have to worry about in a moment from now. For the time being, he had too many other things to contend with.

Right now, Alex stood at the very foot of the street. Since 1st and Haven was also a main road, it was far wider than most, which meant there were four wide lanes for dual-directional traffic, and he was in the middle of all of four. Beside him were several burned-out husks of civilian DEHVs that had been destroyed in the earlier aerial bombardment by the Royal Roses’ fighter jets. To his left was a badly damaged two-story apartment building, and to his right was a three-story complex with a demolished storefront; what had once been a clothing boutique was now a demolished, charred tomb of death. Smoke was still rising out from within.

Farther ahead of him was where the level-1 troops were residing next to the bombed MLRS units. The troops, wisely, were choosing to stay out of this confrontation, likely knowing that there was very little—if anything—they would be able to do other than get in the way and die. Alex was glad for it. This was going to be bloody enough without having to stomp on a bunch of 18-year-old kids who had no business being out here.

I have to be precise. I have to be fast!

Thinking as quickly as he could—as fast as he had ever before commanded his brain to think—Alex made several hasty yet hopefully accurate determinations. For one, it seemed like both of the support mages were about to cast Daze II on him. This, he determined by the yellowish aura that came upon the staff wielded by a lanky man with a seemingly permanent grin affixed to his lips, as well as a similar glow that lit up a shimmering spell sword gripped in the right hand of a woman with dark braided hair. Judging by both the luminosity and the size of the aura, Alex could rule out Daze III or—Gods forbid!—Daze IV. And since it was too intense a glow to be Daze I, he felt comfortable in his prediction.

Another sight worthy of note was the third of the five mages counting from the left. Alex wasn’t entirely certain, but from the way he was twirling his raised staff around in circles, combined with the total lack of any noticeable physical effects, it seemed like he was about to cast Glacial Vortex, a relatively uncommon ability in the adventuring world and one he did not expect to see from a member of a political guild.

There were other hazards, too, such as the fact that Alex suddenly wanted to abandon everything in the world that he cared about in order to charge forward and rip apart the woman with the sword and shield who’d reminded him of Lady Theolina. This, he surmised, meant she was actively using a taunt on him.

I don’t care about her, he told himself. I don’t need to attack her. I don’t!

Taunts were a pain in the behind because they were instant-cast and could not be dodged or even detected ahead of time. Their weakness, of course, was that with a sufficient-enough willpower and a determined state of mind, they could be mentally resisted, as Alex was doing now. The same was true of fears, though fears were significantly more difficult to resist.

Hyper vigilance, he told himself. That’s the key to survival. That’s the key to everything. Hyper vigilance!

Fast. He needed to be quicker. He needed to think quicker. What was the plan? What was he up against? Okay, so there were two mesmerize spells being cast, but they’d come in last. One of the mages was clearly, overtly casting Seismic Reckoning, two others were angling for some kind of Firebolt variant—there were so many but most were essentially the same, differing only in color—he already knew about the Glacial Vortex, and he wasn’t quite sure what the fifth mage was doing. It looked like he was going to cast Scorching Bolt II but it might’ve also been Crack of Thunder. That left only the two healers, who were once again buffing their allies and not an immediate threat.

Okay.

There were also some projectiles zipping across the air towards him and they were traveling at great speed. This was…this was tough. But doable. He could do this. He had to do this. But first things first: dealing with Seismic Reckoning. That was going to come in first. And indeed, the concrete split apart not far from where he stood, and eleven flat, pancake-shaped rocks burst up from the ground with a dull crunch. They hovered about ten feet above the street for just an instant before they made a screeching sound as they hissed down the road moving towards him. They took off in a way that was staggered so that a few tenths of a second separated each.

Thankfully, Alex had already lifted his sword and had begun to swing it around the air above him, quickly casting Elemental Ward on himself as well as Barrier of the Brave, which increased his magic resistance by 5% and his physical resistance by 8% respectively. His one and only unique ability—his summoned blade—allowed him to cast spells despite being a traditional melee weapon. He could spot the surprise in his enemies’ faces as a golden aura briefly wrapped around his body before vanishing.

The two spells wouldn’t provide much in the way of defense, but they would at least make some difference if he ended up taking a few hits. But as things stood, the gravest threat to him—by far—was crowd control. Alex might survive a bit of damage here or there, but if he became mesmerized, his death was assured. The same was true for most other crowd-control effect as well.

The only thing I absolutely cannot let them land on me is CC!

His eyes continuously moving, Alex kept a careful watch on the melee-oriented members of the guild closing in on him while simultaneously keeping tabs on the incoming, pancake-shaped rocks that zipped across the air and over the heads of numerous members of the Guild of Gentlemen as they made their way to Alex. They moved so fast that they even pulled ahead of two arrows, a flaming crossbow bolt, and a large, ball-shaped pellet fired by the slingshot.

Alex activated Light Volley. Above his head and in a horizontal row, sixteen arrows made of pure light materialized in the air. Removing his left hand from his blade, Alex thrust his palm forward, and following this gesture, all sixteen of them fired off, each making a high-pitched whistling in the air as they raced to intercept the numerous sources of danger heading his way.

Only a fraction of a second came and went before the first of his arrows collided with the nearest rock, causing the rock to shatter into pebbles and the arrow to vanish into nothingness. The same was true for the second and also the third arrow. The fourth missed, and Alex was forced to bend his body backwards to avoid being struck in the face. Thankfully, his arrows managed to take out the remainder of the attack as well as the crossbow bolt, one of the two bow-fired arrows, and even the slug from the slingshot. The remainder went wayward and whistled off into the distance, leaving Alex with no choice but to narrowly avoid the second of the two arrows that had been heading straight at him by lurching off to the side.

Now, his first hurdle cleared, he was immediately faced with another. Not a half-second following the first round of attacks, three separate bolts of fire converged upon his location all at the same time, two being a bright orange in color and one a dark red. The archers, the woman with the slingshot, and Gentleman Restlocht were also already firing another round of ranged attacks, too, keeping up the pressure.

Abruptly, the early yet hot summer air suddenly began to feel a whole lot colder; an arctic-like wind began to blow, and in spite of the current season, a snowy, blizzard-like haze came upon the world from seemingly out of nowhere, one which only affected a small section of the overall street. In the span of a few seconds, an entire coating of snow dusted the concrete below his feet while the hazy wind slightly reduced visibility, though not to the degree it posed a threat. What did pose a threat, however, was the sudden rampaging tornado of ice and snow that appeared roughly twenty feet away and grew larger and larger as it blasted icy gusts of wind while making its way towards him.

Before Alex could even consider what to do about the incoming twister, he first had to contend with the brief flicker of bluish-red light that emanated from above, signaling to him that the mage with freckles and curly red hair had indeed activated Scorching Bolt II. Having seen that ability spammed on electric- or fire-weak bosses thousands upon thousands of times, Alex knew very well that it would present itself as a blue-red flicker before striking directly downward a quarter of a second after.

Unfortunately, the timing of it was bad: really, really bad. Because all around him, about a dozen or so orbs of perfectly yellow, pulsating, electric-like energy were releasing little sparks that quickly grew and expanded until they joined together to form something akin to an electric fence, one that surrounded him like a ring; each orb floated a few inches above the fresh coating of snow, and now that they were linked together, time was growing very short. Because this, he knew, was the crowd-control ability called Daze II, and anyone susceptible, be they mob or a living creature alike, would be mesmerized if they remained within the fenced-in area.

In this moment, Alex’s greatest weapon was his brain. Even with so much to contend with coming at him all at once, he processed the situation to the best of his ability and made a very quick determination on the best course of action.

Priority one: avoiding the Scorching Bolt and the mesmerize. This, he could do with the exact same movement.

Bending his knees, he leapt upwards and back-flipped out of the way as a combined crack of electrical energy intermingled with fire struck down from the sky and slammed into the snow, not only melting through a fair bit of it but even leaving a rush from orange flames in its wake.

Flipping his body right-side up, Alex landed back down onto the street just outside the electrical, fence-like perimeter of Daze II, which at last activated, causing an entire screen of blueish static to fill the area within its bounds before quickly fading away along with the yellow orbs surrounding it; had Alex still been standing there when it had gone off, he would have been mesmerized and killed.

For this reason, even as his feet touched down softly on the snow, he was forced to immediately and urgently spring forward yet again, as the second Daze II had been deviously placed behind the first. Had the two support mages been slightly more coordinated, both would have gone off at the same time, and Alex would have been trapped. Thankfully, a tiny window of time existed wherein Alex could jump back and then forward again, avoiding both.

The downside, of course, was that Alex would have to absorb all three Firebolt attacks. This, he’d been expecting. He knew he would have to take a few hits. It was either this or be mesmerized. It was simply how the timing worked out.

Gritting his teeth, he braced himself as he launched himself forward and into the three magical projectiles, each one exploding on his body upon impact. The first two socked him in the stomach and third one got him right in the face. Alex closed his eyes briefly before it smacked into him, and he hissed in pain as a searing, burning sensation came upon his skin. A moment later, he landed on his feet exactly in the spot he’d been standing when the first Daze II had been activated.

I’m okay, he told himself as a stinging, throbbing pain spread all over his face while a lesser but still intense ache filled his midsection. Though it hurt, Alex did not believe he was critically wounded; it seemed the mages here were not—at least individually—all that powerful. It reminded Alex that, even while he was so overwhelmingly outnumbered, there was still at least a chance, especially since he’d just taken three direct hits and was only mildly hurt.

I have to stay focused. There’s a lot more coming!

Whipping his arms to the left and then to the right, he slashed his blade back then forth, cutting two more arrows out of the air, and then he side-stepped around another crossbow bolt that whizzed by his ear. Once more, he braced himself yet again for a hit he wouldn’t be able to avoid as a slug from the slingshot cracked right into his chest, and this, he really, really felt.

Alex groaned as he was pushed back, stumbling. It was only through sheer willpower that he remained on his feet and was not toppled. This time around, the result was agony. The pain in his chest felt like an intense throbbing combined with a burning. Yet somehow, he regained his composure immediately, and this was a good thing, too, as the tornado from Glacial Vortex was upon him—and with it, Alex sensed his very first opportunity.

Rather than flee from the tornado, Alex instead leapt closer towards it—so close, in fact, that he accidentally drew too near such that the spinning vortex of ice and snow made contact with the skin on his forearm, cutting into him like a sawblade and ripping up a shallow but painful layer of his skin. Even still, Alex kept close, backing slowly away from the tornado while keeping it very near to him. And for this, he was rewarded.

Three more Firebolts came in around the same time, and all three slammed into the tornado instead of Alex, each one dissipating into nothingness upon contact. The same was true for another two arrows as well as a slingshot slug and another crossbow bolt. And with the tornado directly in front of him, Alex knew he was too obscured for the curly, red-haired mage with the freckles to visually target him, which was required in order to use Scorching Bolt II.

What a foolish thing to use in a human-on-human combat encounter, he thought as he caught his breath. Many, many more attacks came in, and the fast-spinning tornado repelled each and all. This ability is meant to be used on big, slow-moving bosses or large clumps of mobs—not people.

It was a sign of the mage’s ignorance that he had actually called upon such a powerful but incorrect ability to use on Alex. The tornado, though incredibly deadly, was simply too slow to be of any practical use in this form of combat, and so for the moment, Alex continued to back measuredly away from it without straying too far, ensuring it provided him cover while trying not to get cut again.

“I can’t hit him!” a voice shouted. Alex couldn’t tell who the voice belonged to with the tornado in front of his face.

“Gods-dammit, Kerle!” a different voice yelled. “Your stupid fucking tornado just gave him a lifeline. You dumb shit!”

“I’m sorry!” a frail-sounding voice replied. “I thought it would rip him apart.”

“How is he even still alive?” another person asked. “How is he doing this.”

“I don’t know, but I think he—”

“Quiet!” commanded the voice of Sir Ultdern. “I warned you—all of you—to take him seriously. The gap between us and the adventurers is enormous. It’s bigger than any of you think. Now stay sharp and hold back until Gentleman Kerle’s…whatever that thing is called goes away.”

Sir Ultdern’s words astonished Alex, as even he, being the best of them, and being a man who’d been alive for over a century, did not know that the ability in question was called “Glacial Vortex.” The mere fact of it filled Alex with hope that he could still pull this off and prevent a human catastrophe in the making. Even still, it wouldn’t be easy. On their own, Alex was sure he could slaughter any one of them while blindfolded, but thirty-three leveled fighters all together was still close to insurmountable—and his reprieve was about to end.

Before long, the tornado halted in its pursuit of Alex, and then without any kind of gradual slowdown, its spinning simply came to a stop and the whole of it vanished away just as quickly as it had appeared; a few plumes of dust-like snow rose up on the air, shimmering, sparkling, but ultimately disappearing along with it. But the shallow snow that was now covering an entire quarter of the street, however, remained, though with the haze dissipating and the very hot summer sun in the sky, it would likely all melt within five minutes.

“There he is!” someone shouted. It was the man wielding two glowing, purple swords.

“Resume the attack!” Sir Ultdern called.

Alex readied himself. The melee had closed in on him now, and the casters were all whipping up more nastiness for him to deal with. Things were about to get even worse.

*****

With her right hand, Kalana cupped her palm over her mouth, and with her left, she squeezed Zach’s wrist tightly enough to cut off circulation. “Come on,” she chanted as a big metal ball rolled down a slippery narrow alleyway and headed towards ten white pins that stood defiantly at the end of it. “Come on, come on, come on…”

The ball struck the pins, and all ten collapsed. “Yes!” Kalana cheered. “I did it, Zach! I did it!”

“Yep, you sure did. Good work, Kal.”

“I think that’s it, too,” she said cheerfully. “I think we have enough tickets now, you guys!”

Zach smiled. He was actually impressed. Kalana turned out to be really good at this “bowling” game that the dungeon creator, Olandrin, had invented. How had he even thought something like this up? Even Jimmy, who claimed to love games, would have to admit that this was a fun and unique one: something he definitely couldn’t get back in his old, boring world of the past. Zach couldn’t wait to tell him about it when they found him.

“Good job, Your Highness,” Trelvor said, bowing. Seiley echoed her agreement, though just the slightest bit less formally.

Rian, on the other hand, merely formed a sour expression, as he hadn’t been able to hit a single pin. Lienne didn’t fare that much better, but she nevertheless seemed to be having a good time despite this, and she shared in Kalana’s cheer. Zach, for his part, had done okay, but he wasn’t trying all that hard, and Tena had done slightly worse, but she had a lot on her mind. Fluffles, who had done as badly as Rian, was still muttering that the game was rigged and that “Olandrin cheat Fluffles.”

“I appreciate all you guys hurrying for me,” Tena said, placing her hand over her heart as if to impress upon them that her words were sincere. It wasn’t necessary. Zach believed her. How couldn’t he? She was right about what she’d said earlier: if it had been him in her shoes, he’d be bashing down walls trying to get to Kal.

“How long until the grape wears off?” Rian asked.

“Not sure,” Zach said, rubbing his chin. “The ones at Angelica’s usually only last a few minutes, but we’ve been here a half hour and we’re still in a reduced state.”

In order to ensure “fairness,” this particular “floor” of the “dungeon” required two things from all participants: that they consume a nullification grape upon entering, reducing all their stats to 1 and purging all their abilities, and that they change into a “bowling outfit” complete with special shoes that were actually kind of fun to wear.

“Everybody, let’s umm, let’s go back to the locker rooms and change quickly so we can get to Faded Island," Kalana said. "We all promised Tena we'd hurry."

Seiley and Trelvor nodded; both had become incredibly eager to find Jimmy, seemingly thinking that it was now their “mission” to see that he “adhered to the Goddess’s plan for him.” It was enough to make Zach laugh, though he did so quietly so as not to upset the easily offended Trelvor. The guy could not take a joke and had almost no sense of humor.

“Come, let’s make haste,” the young, white-cloaked Elf said, turning and walking back towards the lockers and beyond numerous round dining tables. But he stopped and paused a moment. Zach watched as Trelvor then bowed his head at a group of seven older adventurers seated together and sharing a meal. “Oh, and once again, happy birthday to you, Lensella. It was a pleasure meeting you and your friends.”

“Thank you, dear. The same to you.”

Zach smiled at the group of them. At first, he had been surprised to run into them here—until he remembered how popular this place actually was. They weren’t even the first group of adventurers they’d stumbled across since arriving. Not even close, actually. This was like the ninth bunch! What was unique, however, was that this group was the first Zach had seen that had come here for the sole purpose of throwing a small birthday party, something he still couldn’t believe happened in a Gods-be-damned dungeon of all places.

I just can’t think of this as a dungeon. I just can’t do it.

He, Rian, and Fluffles followed behind Trelvor and made their way to the male locker rooms while Kalana, Tena, Seiley, and Lienne huddled together and became all talkative as they giggled their way to the girl’s one across this wide, party-like “floor” of this dungeon. Actually, the whole place had a party-like atmosphere, but this so-called “bowling alley” really topped it off. NPCs here sold pizza, soda, and tons of different types of junk food, and there were even little boxes that for 5g would play a song for you.

“So, Fluffles,” Rian said as they strolled into the blue-tiled locker room, “where in Faded Island is Jimmy hanging around, anyway?”

Fluffles meowed and didn’t reply, and Zach had the sense it was either because he either didn’t “feel” like saying for whatever reason or, as was more likely the case, he didn’t know how to describe it in a way that would make sense to the human brain. Whenever Fluffles ignored questions or didn’t reply, a lot of the time it really was because he couldn’t be bothered, but there were times when he didn’t know how.

“He’ll show us when we’re there,” Zach said. “Right, Fluffles?”

Fluffles stopped short. He sniffed the air, and then he spun around. “No.”

“No?” Zach asked, surprised. “The hell do you mean ‘no?’”

Fluffles meowed a second time. “I go play with Ruby now. I’m bored!”

“Wait, what?” Rian asked grumpily.

“Fluffles want to do something else now!” the cat replied with a hiss.

“But didn’t you come with us just to help us out?”

“Yes.”

“But…you’re leaving before you actually even do it?”

“Yes! You all take too much time. Fluffles have fun but I want to play with Ruby now. And also Fluffles hate stupid smelly horsie!”

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" Zach asked.

Rian shrugged. "No idea."

Zach craned his neck to look down at the cat. “Fluffles, you can’t just—wait! Ahh, shit!”

It was too late. Fluffles turned around and practically vanished. He was gone so fast that Zach couldn’t have grabbed him even if he’d tried—which he wouldn’t because that would only get him scratched, bitten, or both. Even still, he was annoyed that Fluffles would just bail on them—but he certainly wasn’t surprised, though. That was just something to be expected from the cat. He did what he wanted and that was just the way of it. Still, it was kind of bullshit that he ditched them after they played with him and fed him all day.

Zach sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to find him on our own. I've got no idea how we're going to do that, though. It's a pretty big region for something that's technically just an island.”

“Eh, relax,” Rian said. “I’m pretty sure he's not gonna be all that hard to find.”

“How do you figure? He can be literally anywhere on Faded Island. Where do we even begin to look?”

“Obviously, the pubs and wherever else they sell booze. Duh.”

Zach shook his head. “No, I doubt it. He’s only nineteen, so he’s too young to drink.”

“So? It’s not Angelica’s out there, Zach. You realize there’s not going to be, like, a level-thousand-plus NPC stopping him, dumbass.”

“You’re the dumbass,” Zach grumbled. He had no other comeback beside that, though, because he had to secretly admit Rian was probably right. Given his situation, it probably wouldn’t be all that difficult for Jimmy to get a drink, especially if he flashed his level or was wearing something from the adventuring world. That alone would be enough to make just about any level-1 obey any request he actually had.

“All right. Let’s just get over there and we’ll see what we can turn up.”

Zach reached into his locker and grabbed his adventuring gear. He’d thought of putting it in Bank and Storage until he realized stealing from this place was virtually impossible and that, even if it could be done, the adventurers would never, ever steal from one another. The very idea of it was almost impossible to imagine. They lived in such a different reality than the rest of the world, and this was despite the fact that most of them had once been normal, level-1 people, too. Only a few adventurers were born into the world of adventuring as the children of existing adventurers: the rest were guided into it by the OMP. Therefore, Zach found it amazing how they could so easily cast aside all the worries and pain and suffering in the world and live as though none of it mattered or existed.

Boss fighting is the only thing they do that in any way connects them to the rest of society.

Zach did not voice these thoughts aloud, and he doubted he ever would—at least in front of the adventurers, anyway. As things stood, there was already a risk that they were starting to see him as not quite being one of them anymore. The last thing he wanted to do was further that impression by talking like Mr. Oren. But he knew he was right. And what was more, he was beginning to fear that he couldn’t live that way: that he couldn’t just pretend that level-1 people didn’t exist and that their lives were of no concern.

To be clear, he certainly wanted to. He'd been seeking an “offramp” almost since the day the dragon had spawned; ever since then, all Zach had wanted to do was “clear the final hurdle” that would allow him to make a clean break from responsibility so that he could live a life of pleasure and riches with Kalana. But with each passing day, he was starting to wonder if he was ever going to be able to sever himself from the responsibilities of society in such a broken world.

He was starting to feel a sense of duty, and it frightened him. But what lay beneath all of it was the simple fact that any given level 1 in this world could have been him. If his life had taken even a slightly different turn, they could have been him. He could be them, and they could be standing where he was in his place. And that thought alone was enough to weigh heavily on his shoulders.

*****

Jimmy slammed his cup down onto the bar table, and he released a hiccup. “Ahh, shit, man, sorry dude. Sometimes I forget my own strength.”

He didn’t even really have that many points into strength, and somehow, he not only broke the cup, but he put his hand through a big chunk of the table. The glass-coating shattered, and a chunk of the wood broke off. Several patrons he’d become chummy with lowered their drinks and stared at him in fear as though only first remembering who he was and what he was capable of doing; until this point, he’d totally erased the tension with them. But damn did it come roaring back as he unintentionally reminded them.

“I’m so sorry about that,” he said to the bartender. Was it just him or was the room spinning? It was probably just him. He wiped his lips and then he pointed at the man. “I’m gonna pay for that. Don’t even worry about it.”

The bartender swallowed nervously. “There’s no need,” he said. He lowered his eyes and glanced down at the destroyed table, and he surprised Jimmy, bowing before him apologetically. “It wasn’t very sturdy. It’s my fault if anything.”

Jimmy laughed. “Nah, dude, it was obviously my bad. I’m gonna pay for that. Seriously.”

The man bowed yet again, this time even more apologetically and graciously. What was with these people?

******

As Fiona Darkmae, guild leader of the Children of Order, listened to her personal secretary deliver a completely unexpected report, she couldn’t help but ask him to repeat it for clarification. “Whoah, seriously?” she asked, lowering the speed on her treadmill in the newly modernized aerobics gym on her dead-father’s estate. She continued to do so until it came to a stop, and then she turned to face the man. “What kind of disturbance?”

Wiping her forehead, she got off the machine and then draped her red towel around the back of her neck while she continued to listen in. “So is he threatening anybody?”

“No, Madam Darkmae, but he has become slightly destructive.”

“And he’s definitely an adventurer?”

“Yes, Madam Darkmae.”

She scratched her chin. “That’s weird. Usually, they don’t show up and cause disturbances like this. They have their own secret hangouts or whatever. Okay, you know what? I’ll go check it out myself.”

“Are you sure? We could send someone to—”

“No, no, it’s okay. Let me get my staff.”

Fiona was soaked in sweat, her clothing clinging to her as she strutted across the gym. As the protector of Faded Island, she wasn’t about to let any adventurers show up here and cause a ruckus—if that was what this “Jimmy” was indeed doing.

Nope. Not on her watch, anyway.

Chapter 166: Yes

Chapter 166: Yes

This was supposed to be a quick, simple job.

It wasn’t.

With just three small, fast, and energy-efficient motions, Anelia ducked beneath the swing of an axe, took a lunging step forward, and then spun her body around so that she now stood behind its wielder. Lifting her arm as fast as she could, she pointed the ether cannon gripped in her right hand at the man before her, and with that, she squeezed the trigger.

Got’cha.

A loud bang echoed off the walls of the graffiti-stained buildings to both sides of her. Having fired the weapon so close to the back of the axe-wielding man's head that the barrel was practically touching it, Anelia had to lean her body sideways to avoid the splatter of blood, which would surely have covered her entire face. Now, as the man fell immediately forward and collapsed onto the filthy, diseased, and chipped-away pavement, Anelia extended both her arms, fired off two more shots, and killed two more leveled defenders of the Guild of Gentlemen before they even had time to react. Both were struck in the chest, and both collapsed backwards into opposite buildings before sliding down the walls onto their knees.

What the hell is going on?

The Guild of Gentlemen’s defenses here on 10th and 94th were absurdly heavier than they said they would be—and in a way that didn’t even make sense, either. This foul-smelling, crime-laden, and thoroughly unpleasant corner of the city was, at best, a rundown, impoverished cesspit that served as a seedy den of prostitution and illegal gambling and, at worst, the poisonous epicenter of a burgeoning illegal drug trade in Shadowfall Coast that provided the city's most depraved degenerates a place to buy the most illicit substances in North Bastia.

The unsavory area that ran from 10th and 94th to 10th and 92nd wasn’t just considered bad, but notoriously bad. Even during times of peace, the Guild of Gentlemen couldn’t seem to spare the resources to police this place, so what the hell was going on? Why were they here now? And how many were left? Had she gotten them all?

Anelia panted. She was exhausted and close to the point of E-debt. Adding in the three men she’d just killed, there were now eleven dead bodies around her, and every single one of them belonged to a member of the Guild of Gentlemen. Low-ranking? Yeah, maybe. But still, that was a ridiculously high number of leveled members to stash away on the most dangerous street in the most dangerous part of the city.

I could’ve died there. Why are there so many of them here?

Anelia wasn’t happy about this, and Gods, you better believe Vim Alazar was going to hear about this from her later today. For starters, she didn’t even want this fucking job in the first place. The only reason she’d decided to take it was because they’d kept nagging her and nagging her. So, to get the Royal Roses off her ass, she’d agreed to clear this one minor street on 10th Avenue before heading home. Now, she regretted it.

Desperate to catch her breath, she remained motionless to let her stamina regenerate. She didn’t plan to remain this way for long. Really, she just needed a few seconds—a moment or two to let herself recover. But she didn’t get it. Her moment was cut short almost as soon as it began, and once more, she had to raise her guard.

Ahead of her, a discolored, rusty, and puke-stained door burst open, and another four members of the guild burst out of the lobby of the apartment building they’d been hiding in. Seeing the eleven corpses, rage erupted on their faces, and one of them fearfully shouted, “Does he know?”

“It doesn’t matter!” cried another, sounding equally on edge. “Kill him! We’ll worry about what to do later!”

Anelia growled, and not because they thought she was a man. Most people made that mistake until getting a better look at her. No, she was just annoyed at the prospect of having to deal with yet another four pests—assuming she even had the stamina to take care of them. For sure, there was no way she could fire her ether cannons. She was far too exhausted for that. To deal with these assholes, she would have to go with something a little bit less taxing.

Dexterously, she spun both her medium-low exertion guns fast enough that the weapons became a blur, and then with a whip-like gesture, she holstered each while drawing her low-exertion-per-shot pistols in the exact same motion as though she had four hands and not two. Then she extended her arms and took aim.

“Kill him!” one of them shouted.

All four men came for her at once, two up front with swords, one hanging back with a dagger, and the fourth winding up some kind of magical spell from a brownish-yellow staff. She needed to be careful. She was badly tired and they weren’t.

Kicking off both her feet, Anelia threw herself backwards at the ground while pointing both her guns ahead of her and firing off numerous shots as she gained distance from them. Even as she landed on her ass on the filthy street, she continued to shoot. And Gods did she feel each and every shot.

Every time her fingers squeezed the trigger, she further lost her breath and an increasing, painful squeezing sensation spread throughout the left side of her chest. Still, she kept it up, unleashing shot after shot into the two charging swordsmen. Yet with weaker guns came less damage, and with less damage came more shots. Still, the job eventually got done.

Right before reaching her, the two men succumbed to the myriad of holes she’d opened up in their chests, heads, and throats. Just as they came into striking range, both simultaneously fell forward onto their faces, with one even coincidentally kicking her shin with his deceased corpse as it rolled twice along the street.

Painfully exhausted, and still in a sitting position, Anelia lowered her arms slightly, took aim, and began to fire off another volley of shots at the spellcaster and the dagger-wielder, both of whom had only just unleashed attacks her way. Actually, the mage pulled off two attacks, with one coming in slightly earlier than the second.

First, a red light similar to a barcode scanner appeared above her and then crisscrossed her body until forming what looked like a targeting reticle. It disappeared directly afterwards, and now, Anelia felt a sensation of cold travel through her—one that she knew, even without checking, meant her RES had just been debuffed. There was a certain distinct, icy sensation that was impossible to mistake when one’s magic resistances had been lowered, and this was unquestionably it.

Following this debuff, the tip of the mage’s staff lit up purple, and then three amethyst-colored crystals blasted forward at Anelia while the man across from the mage threw one of his daggers. And all this happened in the precise instant that multiple shots from her pistols—three each—quickly put the two of them permanently out of commission.

With blood splattering out of numerous bullet holes, they dropped onto their backs, dead and unmoving—but their attacks lived on. Now, three sharp, amethyst-colored, crystal projectiles as well as a thrown dagger sailed across the air at her.

“Shit,” she said in a low, deep groan.

Anelia was terribly exhausted. Even still, she found the strength to lean backwards as the dagger flew right through the air where her chin had been. Then she hurriedly straightened her back and extended her right hand, and against the wishes of her tired, badly exerted heart, she squeezed the trigger.

Bang!

Her aim true, she blasted apart one of the three magical crystals, causing it to explode into a firework-like shower of purple and gold that soon disappeared. Unfortunately, the exertion of it made her widely open her mouth and begin huffing in as much air as she could fill her lungs with.

And yet, she somehow managed to squeeze the trigger and fire again.

Like before, her aim was impeccable, and she blasted another of the crystals out of the air. But this time around, the toll was finally more than she could pay. Though she did not pass out into E-debt, both her arms fell down to her sides on their own, and she became virtually paralyzed.

Bracing herself, Anelia released a grunt of pain as the third crystal blasted into her, and thanks to the magic debuff, it not only left a fist-sized crack in her armor, but it penetrated into her skin and then detonated, sending pieces of magical shrapnel further into her body and causing her to groan aloud.

“Ah, shit,” she moaned.

Gasping for air and now bleeding both internally and externally, she fought against her E-debt and struggled to raise her left hand. It didn’t want to move. So she fought even harder. She gritted her teeth and demanded her body to move, unwilling to kick the bucket to an attack fired by an enemy she’d already killed.

Blood was dripping out of her, making her even more exhausted. If she passed out here, she would never wake up. Her desire to live spiking her adrenaline, she managed at last to lift her shaking, trembling left hand, and then she reached inside her armor near her chest, fishing out a locket attached to a chain around her neck.

Her fingers shaking so fiercely, she somehow managed to pop open the locket, and her emergency red stone spilled out of it from within. A jolt of fear racing through her, she watched it fall straight downwards. If it hit the ground and rolled away, she would die before she summoned the strength to move after it. Yet through a miracle from the Gods, it landed with a very soft clack between her legs, remaining still. With her opposite yet equally trembling hand, she picked up the stone and pressed it into her chest, feeling it dissolve into nothingness.

And then she inhaled several times before falling over onto her side and passing out into E-debt. The world went dark, reality seemed to fade away, and right there, in perhaps the filthiest street in Shadowfall Coast, she slept—though it was a shallow sleep, one in which she remained partially conscious. Thus, in the back of her mind, she could even hear herself snoring.

If anyone else from the Guild of Gentlemen happened to emerge right now, she knew she would die. She had no idea if there even were any more enemies left to kill. If so, she didn’t see how she could survive them. Her only option was to pray that she’d gotten them all while her body went through this mandatory process.

Thus, she lay there for a while, eventually falling into a true sleep, one in which she dreamed, though she could not remember of what she dreamt when she finally woke up. Her eyes popping open, she lifted herself up into a seated position and raised her guns, her head darting nervously around her. There were five men in front of her, and all were—

No, you idiot! You’re still sleeping. Get the fuck up!

Her eyes popping open—this time for real—she brought herself into a sitting position. How long was she out? Groggy, she checked her phone. It had only been about two minutes, yet the sleep had distorted her sense of time and made it feel far longer. The situation around her, however, remained unchanged. She was still right where she'd been, and the corpses all around her were fresh.

In a weakened state, she gave her body an additional few minutes to recover, dozing off twice more, though this time in a very light sleep. By the time five minutes had come and gone, she was ready to get back to her feet. She’d lost a considerable amount of blood, but she did not have a yellow stone to replenish it. She’d just have to tough it out.

I should just go home, she thought to herself. Fuck Vim Alazar and the Royal Roses.

Had Anelia been even the slightest bit less of a professional, that was indeed what she would’ve done. Yet she had a reputation to uphold, and for that reason alone, she stumbled her way into the apartment from where the four men had emerged. They had paid her to clear this area, and until she knew what was inside, she couldn’t honestly say she’d completed her mission.

Pausing a moment just before entering, she shook her head to wake herself up. Though still a bit weak, she did regain enough of her strength to where she felt confident that she could handle herself if she had any more run-ins. She decided to stick with her low-exertion guns for the time being, however, as she stepped inside the apartment, extended her arms, and kept her eyes moving as she searched for any targets.

“Disgusting,” she muttered as she entered into a living room. The place was filthier than most. In addition to the typical cockroach-infestations to be found in this part of the city, Anelia was fairly sure the carpets were stained with piss and shit. The stench was horrendous. The kitchen was also so filthy that the thought of eating anything in here made her want to puke.

Why were they even here? she wondered.

She took a look around at her surroundings. There was nothing special about this place. The apartment consisted of a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom. There was nothing else of note. She had no idea why the Guild of Gentlemen had been hiding in here, but it also wasn’t her business and, to be honest? She didn’t care, either. As far as she was concerned, she’d done her job and now it was time to go home. She doubted she’d ever want to return to Shadowfall Coast again.

“What a miserable city,” she muttered. Having cleared the apartment, she turned around and prepared to leave.

Crack!

Anelia stopped short at the sound of something breaking: something that sounded like shattered glass. A terrified-sounding gasp followed, and then after the gasp there was the distinct, unmistakable sound of a man making a “shh” sound along with what sounded like whimpering from several female voices.

What the hell?

Slowly, stealthily, Anelia moved in the direction of the sound. She was careful not to make any noise as she crept along the floor, the disgusting carpet muting the thud of her boots. She took her time as she made her way back across the living room, and now, there was total silence as she moved. But this silence did not last. No, eventually Anelia could hear several people whisper, though she wasn’t quite sure from where their voices originated.

“Be calm,” a voice said.

“I’m so scared. I’m so scared.”

“Shh. Please. Be calm.”

Anelia continued to make her way in the direction of the voices, but she came to a stop upon reaching a stained, deteriorating wall. Was someone hiding behind there? It sure sounded like it. Holstering just one of her weapons, she gripped her right hand into a fist and then smashed it forward, blasting it right through the wall and causing about two-dozen voices to all release a scream in unison.

Anelia’s mouth fell open in shock. The entire wall collapsed in on itself, revealing another, secondary kitchen, but this one was pristine, immaculate, and looked as though it had been built extremely recently. It was also very large, contained about ten full-sized tables, and there were people here: more than twenty of them.

“It’s the Royal Roses!” a woman wearing what looked like a lab coat screamed. She, along with many other similarly dressed individuals turned around and began to flee. Anelia pointed her guns at them.

“Don’t move!” she shouted. “I said don’t fucking—Gods dammit!”

She chased after them. And this was where things began to get really weird, as they fled down a staircase: a very, very long staircase. One that not only led down, but seemed to run as deep as the one from the prison from her last job she’d done earlier in the middle of the night.

Only, whereas the prison had been a filthy, rotting place every bit as disgusting as the apartment, what she found as she descended the stairs was a fresh, clean, and incredibly well-furnished lobby, one which led to numerous corridors, some containing opened doors. Inside these doors was what looked like individual laborites complete with scientific instruments, testing stations, and other research equipment.

“Nobody better fucking move,” Anelia said as she began to corner and wrangle her captives. “Or I’ll start blowing brains out.”

“Please!” a woman begged. “We’re friends of Prila! She was working with you, right? We saw her vanish. We know she’s with you.”

“We aren’t loyal to them!” a man shouted. “Ask Prila! Prila will vouch for us!”

“I don’t know who the fuck that is and I don’t give a shit,” Anelia growled. “Every single one of you better come out and sit down right here”—she shook her gun at a spot in the middle of the lobby—“or I’m going to have to start exploding heads. Don’t test me. Do yourselves a favor and just don’t test me.”

The whimpering, begging, and crying began immediately. Yet it was something another of the women said to her that drew Anelia’s attention and made her realize that this must have been the real reason she’d been sent here.

“We’ll give you all the research if you let us live. Please! Please!”

“Research?”

“Yes!”

Anelia sighed. “It looks like I need to make a call.”

She tried to raise Vim, but unsurprisingly, he was busy. The Orc wasn’t, though. He’d have to do.

******

The moment that Norc O’cral, the 9th ranking member of the Royal Roses and Vim’s chief intelligence officer, emerged from below deck and came scampering over in a hurry, Vim knew that he was at last going to be privy to some good news. He could tell this just from the way the gigantic Orc made such big, excitable thudding sounds as he ran barefoot along the deck.

Unlike the other high-level members of his guild, Norc was not participating—nor would he ever participate—in any combat that wasn’t strictly PVE in nature, but this was merely what one would expect from an Orc. Attempting to get an Orc to fight in a battle was a hopeless endeavor; they simply wouldn’t do it. Almost as a whole, their race was a fairly soft-hearted group—or at least they were when it came to matters of war and violence. On other issues? Not so much.

While it might have been nearly impossible to enlist an Orc to use their considerable strength and brute force on the field of battle, that didn’t mean Orcs did not constantly partake in fights; no, one could often find them engaging in constant battle on social media, where they were known to scold and shame people for using offensive language or engaging in “problematic” behavior. Vim himself had personally been condemned by the Orcish queen for his social media posts on twenty-seven separate occasions, and that was just in the past six months.

“Sir Alazar,” Norc said cheerfully as he approached.

The nearly eight-foot-tall Orc tended to tower over most people who stood next to him, but to someone like Vim, it was more like being in the shadow of a giant. He actually had to stretch his neck just to look up at the man, his dual tusks protruding from his mouth, his upper lip naturally raised enough to provide a clear view of his sharp, dangerous teeth. It was said that, long ago, Orcs were a warrior race, and on the one hand, Vim could totally see why.

For starters, Orcs were the only race of beings on all of Galterra that did not enter this world with a mere 1 point in every stat; to the contrary, a level-1 Orc was born with 3 points into strength. They were also born with a passive ability that gave them a five-minute, stacking buff to their strength whenever they personally landed the killing blow on a target, sentient or otherwise. Thus, it made sense that pre-civilized Orcs were as ruthless as history claimed. Yet…on the other hand, it was just so hard to visualize them behaving in such a way. They were just so Gods-be-damned pacifist that mentally drawing a picture of them charging into battle was too hard a thing for Vim to do.

As Norc approached, he paused a moment to bow to the queen. She lowered her head slightly in acknowledgement. Then he turned to face Vim. “I bring good news your way, Sir Alazar,” he said.

This, Vim was pleased to hear. “Your agents have located which bunker Sir Morrison is cowardly hiding in?”

“Huh? Oh, no, no. It’s about the—”

“Quiet!” Vim shouted, suddenly realizing what Norc was about to say. It clicked in the back of his head as though hit by a bolt of lightning. Awareness flooded into him, and it caused his heart to pound in his chest. “Say nothing!”

Vim’s shout came out as louder and more frantic than he’d intended, and it caused Norc to twitch, Fylwen to take a reflective step backwards, and Haisel Ragora to lift his eyebrows. Norc, seemingly confused, tilted his head to the side and said, “Sir Alazar, I don’t understand what…did I perhaps say something to offend you? If so, I apologize.”

Vim nervously glanced off to his left, where Queen Vayra was glancing back at him as though perplexed and mildly annoyed. This wasn’t good. Or…or it was good, rather, but it was bad that Norc had stupidly almost blurted out what Vim strongly suspected Norc was about to say: that someone from their side had located where the Guild of Gentlemen were building the weapons, something he’d specifically asked not to be announced over the Comm.

“Let’s talk in private,” he said. “Excuse me a moment, Fylwen.”

“Do hurry,” she replied, her tone dry. “I’ve elsewhere to be, and there are a few more issues I wish to discuss with you. I sincerely hope this matter between you and the Orc is urgent enough to keep me waiting.”

“It is,” Vim said.

Norc nodded. “Oh, rest assured that it is, Your Majesty.”

He half-turned away, and Vim filled with an icy sense of fear and apprehension as Fylwen took a suspicious step towards them. “Why?”

“Why what?” Vim asked her defensively.

“Why is it so important you cannot speak in front of me?”

“Private guild matters,” Vim said. “Obviously.”

“Hm?” Norc tapped his sharp-fingernailed thumb against the side of his head. “Oh, no, no, no, that’s not it at all, Sir Alazar. If that’s why you’re leading me away, I can assure you, this is by no means a private—”

“Will you shut the fuck up!” Vim hissed at him under his breath.

“What’s that? I didn’t hear you, Sir Alazar.” Then, before Vim could stop him, he turned to the Gods-damned queen and said, “Don’t worry, Your Majesty. This is nothing nefarious. I’ve just received a wonderful report that we—”

“Shut up!” Vim hissed again.

“—have located their primary nuclear research facility!” he finished, excitement and merriment in his every word.

Vim scowled, and so too did Fylwen, only hers was darker, more sinister, and incredibly dangerous. “You’ve what?” she yelled. “What is the meaning of this, Orc!”

Norc’s jaw dropped. “Why do you look so displeased?”

Fylwen took several quick, urgent steps in his direction until she practically bumped into his impossibly muscular midsection while she stared fearlessly up at him. “I heard nothing of this over the Comm. How can this be so? One of you had better answer me at once!”

Vim felt a mixture of both outrage and misery as Norc smiled down at the Elvish queen. “It’s nothing nefarious at all, Your Majesty. Sir Alazar ordered us—wisely, I might add—to say nothing over the Comm in the event that we found anything pertaining to that awful, dreadful weapon, and though he did not state why, it was understood by me and those under my command that this was to ensure it was properly destroyed and that the Lords of Justice did not attempt to whisk such abhorrent technology back to Dal’Zarrah.”

Vim clenched his teeth furiously. That big fucking idiot! How could he be so stupid? Did he actually have to spell everything out? He supposed that, in some way, this was his own fault. He should have been clearer in what he wanted from Norc. But wait…no, that still wouldn’t have helped the situation, because if Norc knew what he’d actually intended to do, then unlike Haisel, who also took issue with it, he wouldn’t have gone along with it. It made Vim curse the fact that he’d ever appointed an Orc to be his chief intelligence officer in the first place, a decision he’d only made because it meant he could be absolutely certain he wouldn’t be backstabbed or plotted against—but alas, here was the “con” part of that to complement the “pro.”

He probably just got me killed, the big idiot!

Now, thanks to Norc, the queen might actually murder him right here in font of everyone, especially since Queen Vayra was far too intelligent to be fooled. She would likely understand exactly what had taken place—probably right away, too. And as understanding flashed across her face in a matter of mere seconds, Vim could see that was exactly what was happening. He could not help but feel the slightest pinch of fear in his belly as her pupils dilated and her brow furrowed.

“I believe you, noble Orc,” she said, her tone softening. “At least, I believe that is how you interpreted our little Gnome’s instructions.” Now, Fylwen turned her icy, angry eyes his way. “But rest assured: Sir Alazar’s intentions were not to destroy whatever research you may have stumbled upon.”

“What do you mean, Your Majesty?” Norc asked, sounding worried.

Fylwen knelt down so that her face was right in front of Vim’s. She poked him hard in the chest. “You were going to attempt to secretly build more of the human weapon in Giant’s Fall, weren’t you? Do not lie to me, Gnome!”

Vim scowled at her. “Of course I was, Gods-dammit!” he shouted, no longer bothering to hide it. She’d figured it out, and there was no point in attempting to deceive her. So instead, he became angry and indignant. “What else would I do? Leave my people defenseless? Leave them in a state of helplessness so that the next time this happens we’re forced to endure the brunt of it all over again with no means of retaliation? No! I will never let my people be in that position ever again!”

The sound of a gasp came from behind him—from Norc. “Sir Alazar,” he whispered. “That is an incredibly toxic thing to say. Tell me it’s not true! Have you learned nothing from the destruction of Ogre’s Axe?”

Vim grunted but did not reply—something he did only because he was being lectured to by an Orc. Had it been anyone else from any other race on the planet, he would not hesitate to engage in a prolonged defense of his actions. But if there was one thing in this world that Vim could not bring himself to do, it was get into an exhausting argument over morals and ethics with your typical self-righteous, holier-than-thou Orc. Why would he even bother? It was a fruitless endeavor, as nothing he could possibly say would ever stand any chance of penetrating their literally thick skulls; even worse, every word he used in his defense would only be turned against him in ridiculous ways to somehow imply that he hated this group or that group.

Once, Vim had asked an Orc if he could have a glass of water. The Orc had then spent over an hour accusing Vim of hating women. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t be spun into some kind of personal moral failure. And right now, Norc was demonstrating that first hand.

And here he goes…

Norc opened his mouth and began to speak. And then he continued to speak. And then he continued to speak after that. And still, he continued to speak. Words came out of his mouth one after the next, and Vim groaned as he was forced to endure it.

“…and none of this is to mention the inherent fascistic nature of your duplicitous actions, which reeks of toxic masculinity. Did you ever stop to consider what the women of the guild would think of your actions? Have you ever stopped to consider how it is women who are hurt most by these weapons? You didn’t even think of that, did you? Of course not. Of course you didn’t. Heavens, if only you knew how…”

He continued. And then he continued to continue.

“…in 6582, the oppression of the merfolk was also tied to the patriarchal, hetero-normative behavior that…”

Unbelievably, right here, in the middle of a warzone, with the sound of gunfire plainly audible from the city, he continued.

“…and Peter IV’s actions were only possible because of his enablers. How many times did you yourself, Sir Alazar, excuse his madness as mere ‘jokes’ and try to say that he ‘wasn’t actually serious about destroying the other races?’ Have you heard what he did to the Elvish in secret? All along, we’d believed them to be extinct, and we’d have been right, too, if his barbaric treatment had gone on for any longer. So, I don’t see how I can continue to serve as your—”

“I’ll write a fucking apology letter!” Vim snapped at him. “Just shut the fuck up!” To Fylwen, who was still kneeling in front of him, he said, “If you’re going to kill me, then just do it already. I’m not going to beg for my life. But if you have any mercy in your heart, then do it now so I don’t have to listen to another fucking word from this tusk-faced beast of a—”

Fylwen began to move, and Vim snapped his mouth shut and braced himself. Now, he awaited the end. This would be the point where the Elvish queen executed him. Right here in front of all of his people.

Except…she didn’t.

No, Fylwen did not kill him. She didn’t even strike him or take another finger. She merely rolled her eyes and got back to her feet. “You and your paranoia.” She straightened her back. “Get it through your head, little Gnome: the Gods have personally tasked the Elvish with defending the world from the existence of such vile and cruel tools of humanity. You must trust in us. What we do, we do to protect all of Galterra, and that includes your regions as well.”

Vim, confused, raised his pointer finger. “Wait, so you’re not going to kill me?”

“Not this time, no.”

And then Vim finally understood. Just like that, it dawned on him.

He wasn’t sure why he only understood things now, yet for whatever reason, it wasn’t until this moment that it really occurred to Vim that Queen Vayra didn’t treat him quite the same way that she treated most others—and no, it was not because she secretly wanted to get him naked and ravage him, unfortunately.

It was something else: something that should’ve been obvious from the start. It was something Vim should’ve realized when she did not kill him earlier despite the way he’d spoken to her. He’d thought his rank and status had shielded him, and even more foolishly, he’d also thought there was a part of her that secretly enjoyed their little banter despite pretending otherwise, but he could see now that he was mistaken about both things. It was something so much more fundamental and basic.

It's because I’m not fully human, he realized with a sharp inhalation of breath.

Though Vim did have some human blood in his veins, and though he had masqueraded as human for most of his life, it was difficult to dispute he was primarily of Gnomish ancestry. And that fact alone was likely why he could get away with speaking to her the way that he did, and it was also why she displayed no such desire to slaughter him in front of his guild. It was humanity that she reserved such impulses for. That was the only possible explanation. There must have been a very real compassion and patience within her that she held for non-humans as well as the very few humans that she actually liked, such as the boy.

Still, this didn’t mean she was willing to compromise on her ridiculous, stupid beliefs. And this, Vim was reminded of as she crossed her arms and gave a demanding yet not quite menacing look to Norc. “You seem like a caring, morally upstanding Orc.”

“But of course I am, Your Majesty. Being a good person is my ultimate pursuit in life.”

"Then please do tell me all that you have learned regarding the humans' weapon."

“With pleasure, Your Majesty.”

Look at him, betraying the guild right in front of me, Vim thought ruefully. And to make matters worse, Haisel was just standing there and letting it happen. He looked relieved of all things, the short-sighted idiot.

As Norc explained in detail what he’d learned, Fylwen listened intently, never interrupting a single time—not even when he went on a totally unrelated tangent about the way animals were treated at the Whispery Woods Zoo, even demanding the queen do something about it. Vim seethed listening to this. The worst part was that he couldn’t even demote the Orc as the mere fact that an Orc held such a high rank in a powerful North Bastian guild was going to help big time when it came to repairing their image with the rest of the world.

“I hear your concerns, noble Orc,” Fylwen said. “Perhaps we can discuss this matter at a more opportune time.”

Norc bowed. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Wasting not another word, Fylwen craned her neck to look at her Elves, who were standing at attention near their unicorn mounts. Having been quietly listening in to each and every word, they seemed unsurprised by what she had to say next.

“I want all of you to fly immediately to this research facility and destroy any documents related to—or no, wait a moment.” She wet her lips and shook her head. “No, we must be thorough. Destroy the entire compound and make absolutely certain you slay everyone inside of it except the mercenary, as we cannot know what information they hold in their minds, and the risk of them dispersing it if they somehow survive our upcoming bombardment is far too great.”

To Vim, she said, “I’ve shown you an overwhelming amount of grace and forgiveness. As undignified as it may be, I tolerate your disgusting vulgarity and your disrespect towards me. But I cannot and will not allow you to stand against the Gods, and if anything like this should ever be attempted again, you will be killed without a second thought. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Vim said, bowing before the queen. “You win. Thank you for sparing my life.”

“Very well.”

“I’ll be right back. I need to use the bathroom. I thought for sure I was going to die, and my bladder is barely holding.”

Vim turned away and stormed off towards a quieter section of the ship. “Anelia, are you there?” he asked into the Comm on the private channel Haisel had told him about.

“Yah, and I got a lot of shit to say to you. I don’t know what the hell is going on. You told me this would be an easy job, and then I get fucking ambushed, and now I’m hearing that Elves are on their way to—”

“Listen to me,” Vim interrupted. “I don’t have much time. I need you to take a picture of every document you found. As many as you can in the time it takes the Elves to get there. You should have at least two minutes.”

“Huh? Why? Look, I’m not about to get involved in—”

“Fifty-thousand gold for each picture. That’s what I’m paying. Enough for you to retire for good if you get enough photos. They have to be legible, though. I need my scientists to be able to see what’s on the page. And if you agree, just say the word ‘yes’ and get to work because you’ve got almost no time.”

“Yes.”

Vim smiled. Things were going to work out after all.

Chapter 167: The Fate of Shadowfall Coast

Chapter 167: The Fate of Shadowfall Coast

Angelica’s was always noisy. That was a rule of life—hell, it was a rule of the universe. But Gods-be-damned, it suddenly became extra loud in here. Sitting next to Zephyr, Donovan growled as a ruckus was being stirred up. “Fuck’s going on over there?”

“Donovan!” several adventurers shouted. “Donovan, emergency!”

“Huh?”

He and Zephyr turned around in their swivel stools and looked at one of the adventurers calling out to him, his face having gone pale. He was out of breath. He even had to bend over and hold up a finger while he gasped. Finally, he was able to speak. And when he did, Donovan wasn’t sure he was willing to believe a Gods-damned word of it.

“No fuckin’ way. You’re shitting me.”

“It’s true!” the kid insisted. “I swear it on my momma’s life.”

Donovan stared at him. “If this is a joke, I’m seriously gonna tear you ten different assholes. Maybe even eleven.” He pointed threateningly at the kid. “Because you just told me ten heart attacks’ worth of shit. There’s no damn way all of those things are true at once.”

“I spoke to Zach myself. He said you need to get down there immediately.”

“It’s true!” another adventurer cried. “I spoke to Zach too. It’s true!”

Donovan looked at Zephyr in disbelief—and rage. “Jimmy lost his fuckin’ mind!” he shouted. “I’m gonna kill that kid.”

“Not if I get to him first.”

“That punk!”

Zephyr chuckled. “Why’re you smiling?”

“I’m not.”

“Yeah you are. Admit it.”

“Fuck that. I’m pissed right now.” He grabbed his mug and prepared to down the rest of the beverage, but Zephyr grabbed it and threw it—then apologized profusely to Angelica, whose name stayed red for over ten seconds. “Sorry, Angelica. But this is a real emergency.”

“Throw a mug at one of my freshly cleaned walls again, and you’re gonna have an entirely separate emergency, buster!”

“I know, I know, sorry!” He grabbed Donovan’s wrist. “We really have to go. This is bad.”

Donovan grunted. “Yep. Let’s go.”

******

Fylwen placed her hands on the railing near the bow of the large, human-built aircraft carrier. Though she projected confidence and coldness, there truly was a part of her that did bemoan the actions she was now forced to take. Had it been possible and reasonable, she would have chosen to spare the lives of the citizens—those whom she hesitated to refer to as “innocent,” as she felt that was far too strong and freeing of a word to describe the hateful humans who occupied this city.

The Guild of Gentlemen…they had robbed her and her family of so much. And their citizens, though ignorant of the Elvish suffering at the time, would doubtless have supported the guild’s actions had they discovered or been told of them. Of this, Fylwen was certain. They were cretins who did not believe in the sanctity of non-human life, and for that reason alone, she should not have cared much for their fate.

But she did feel an inkling of sadness. Remorse? Not quite. This was not a decision that she had made but an order from the Gods themselves. It was not her place to feel guilt over a choice that was not hers to make. Unlike far too many other times in her life when she had acted brutally towards others, she would not lose sleep over what was to come, as the Great Lord Adamus himself had personally tasked her with delivering this justice.

“So, you’re really going to do this, huh?” asked the Gnome, his voice coming from somewhere behind her. She did not bother to turn her head or look at him. The fool was lucky her mother had always told her to have a soft spot for the Gnomish or he might very well have ended up among the countless lives that were soon to be extinguished.

“Even if I had chosen otherwise, you would not have been able to stop them from firing their weapon.”

“Yes, we could have,” he insisted, approaching her. Sparing a quick glance over her shoulder, Fylwen noticed he was dragging a stool with him, which he set down so that he could stand beside her and similarly dangle his arms over the railing. “We’ve taken out their research facility. We’re practically halfway there. All they have left is wherever they’re manufacturing the ICBMs. Speaking of which, did your Elves find anything out?”

“No,” she replied truthfully. “And do believe me when I say that my warriors were not gentle in their torture. I am therefore certain that the researchers were not told where the weapons are being made. If they had been able to discover that information, things might be different. But it’s too late now.”

“I just don’t know how you can say that, Fylwen. If we found their researchers, we could’ve found their weapons, too. It would’ve only been a matter of time.”

“Yes. Time that we do not have.”

The Gnome sighed. “Yeah, well…fair enough, I guess. Hey, can I ask you something?”

Becoming suspicious, she frowned at the small man. “If you must.”

Vim shifted as though he were nervous. “I’m not trying to be an asshole here, but my question might piss you off. I really do mean it in good faith, though. It’s about your Gods, but I know you get a bit…heated when anyone talks about them.”

“If you truly intend no harm, I will do my utmost to react with civility.”

He hesitated, and Fylwen waited for him to speak. Yet when he said nothing for nearly half a minute, she became impatient and twirled her finger indicating for him to get on with it. He complied, and with a cautious quality to his voice, he asked, “If your Gods are so just and wise, then why do they care so much about how, specifically, we solve this problem? Why do they put so much stock in formality and semantics? It just sounds petty to me.”

Given his hesitance, Fylwen had been expecting a far, far more offensive question from the Gnome. Not only did she not find this question offensive, but it was exactly the kind of question she expected young Elvish children to ask during schooling for the next thousand years when today’s events would inevitably be discussed. The few Elvish scholars that still remained in the world were no doubt already carefully choosing how to inscribe and explain this day to future generations.

“The Great Lord Adamus is callous,” she began, “and this is written about him and known, and it is such that I witnessed it for myself. However, it is also known that he is not petty, and he is most certainly not superfluous. His decisions are rooted in a much deeper understanding of humanity than you or I possess, but one that becomes clear if you think a little more deeply on it.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Fylwen, sensing that he was indeed asking in good faith, decided to reward him with elaboration. “I know you believe what you say. It is actually the same idea that the young scientist boy also tried to impress upon me.”

“Lord Oren?”

“Yes.”

Vim laughed. “So, he also wanted to cover the launch sites?”

“He did. His argument and reasoning were much the same as your own.”

“Good,” Vim said. “That kid’s pretty smart, so if I came up with the same idea as him, it means I must be pretty smart, too.”

“You’re both actually quite intelligent,” Fylwen admitted, “and the logic behind your plan is sound. By capturing any possible sites that could be used to launch their weapon, one would naturally assume that it would make the possession of such a weapon useless, thus removing the need to lose thousands of lives to recklessness as our combined forces rush head-first in to disarm.”

She waited for a gust of warm air to finish gliding over her before she resumed speaking. “But what the Great Lord Adamus understands and what you do not,” she continued, “is that wherever and whenever such a weapon exists, it will find a way to be used. And you yourself have proven this, Gnome.”

“How so?”

“Do you truly not know?” She watched as he shook his head. “It’s obvious. Had that warm-hearted Orc not alerted me to your incredibly foolish idea, you may well have prolonged this nightmare despite your best intentions. Do you see? Simply by its existence, the weapon is destined to continue to exist and to be used. This, I do believe, is why our God has commanded us to prevent such an occurrence.”

Vim nodded, and unless Fylwen was falling for some expert-level manipulation, she believed he was being sincere. “You might be right,” he said to her. “In fact, you probably are.”

The man’s tone had changed. Something was odd with him. He now sounded…resigned. As though he’d accepted her course of action and had given up trying to fight it. Even as he continued to argue with her, there was no longer any heat behind his words. He spoke in a way that was far more conversational than confrontational.

The Gnome tapped his palms idly on the railing. “So, you’re going to watch it happen?”

“Of course,” Fylwen said. “How could I not? I ordered my Elves to carry out such an attack, and I will not turn my head from it. I will witness the destruction with my own two eyes.”

“When’s it going to happen?”

“Any moment now.”

“Well, I’ve already ordered a full retreat, so this boat’s about to get a whole lot more crowded. But for the time being, I guess I’ll stand here and watch the death of Shadowfall Coast with you.”

Fylwen briefly looked away from the sandy shores and stared at the little Gnome. There was something about him that’d been bothering her. It was a sense that she had, one that had only begun to register a short while ago but had grown and continued to grow. She decided to voice it.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” she asked him.

“Huh?” he croaked out, his eyebrows rising and color seemingly draining from his face. Fear was now evident in his shocked expression. “What was me? What’re you talking about?”

“Those…those magnificent lights of destruction that filled the early-morning sky. That was you, was it not?”

The Gnome exhaled with what Fylwen assumed to be relief. “Ah, so that’s what you’re talking about.” His posture shifted, and his fear was seemingly exchanged for surprise and a touch of amusement. “How did you know?”

“I take it I am correct, then?”

“Yeah, but…how did you find out?”

She leaned forward a bit into another warm breeze that rolled along the ocean and caused her hair to flutter. “At first, I believed it to be the boy’s doing.”

“So did everyone else—hell, they still do,” he said, a snicker following his words. “What made you change your mind?”

“My daughter.”

“Kalana? She…told you that it was me?”

Fylwen made a slight shaking motion with her head. “No, it’s more the fact that she was there at all. I simply cannot imagine her allowing the young man to have done something like that, nor can I imagine him doing such a thing in front of her. It’s not that I think the boy incapable of carrying out an attack of that magnitude if he came to believe it was necessary, but what I couldn’t envision is him allowing my daughter to witness it.”

Vim made an “ahh” sound and then snapped his fingers. “That’s right. I’m actually impressed. So, that’s how you figured it out. But why bring it up now? It’s a bit strange, no? That of all the things going through your mind, you’re thinking about Calamity of the Stars.”

“Is that what it’s called?”

“Yep.”

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “The name.”

“Well, if I knew you’d like it so much, I would’ve taken credit for it earlier.” He laughed. “But my question still stands, Fylwen: why is that what’s on your mind?"

The question caused Fylwen to feel her heart turning just a little bit colder. “Because what you are about to see is going to be quite similar in nature albeit less impressive and brilliant to behold. I imagine it has been centuries since anyone on Galterra has seen runic artillery magic.”

Vim seemed to have some familiarity with the term, as the moment she’d spoken it, his face visibly cringed. “My great grandfather told me about that. He was born back when the history books were a bit more honest. Elves used that to control all of Galterra more than a thousand years ago, didn’t they?”

Fylwen smiled. She was glad to see there were still those who knew the truth. “That’s right, little Gnome. Every continent and every region.”

“Runic artillery magic used to brighten the skies quite a bit, I bet.”

“Only to those who deserved to see it.”

“Does that mean I’m deserving?”

Fylwen rolled her eyes. “I was referring to our enemies.”

“I know,” Vim said, releasing a dour chuckle. Now, he too leaned a bit more over the railing. “I won’t lie and say I know what kind of hell the Guild of Gentlemen put you through, and I won’t pretend that what they’ve put me through is even close to the same thing, but…”

In what came as a surprise to Fylwen, his expression now darkened to the point she thought she might be looking into a miniature reflection of herself. “They did some pretty bad things to me over the past few weeks. I’ve seen for myself now how the guild treats those they hate. So, I for one won’t be shedding any tears over this. If anything, I’m just glad it’s all finally going to be over. Ever since the dragon spawned, it’s just been chaos nonstop, you know? One horrible thing after the next. But finally, it’ll all be over.”

“Yes,” Fylwen agreed. “You’re right to take comfort in that. Truly, it’s all about to be over. And then you can rest and rebuild.”

Fylwen meant every word of what she told him. She could feel it deep in her heart. This was all about to be over. Any moment now, the runic magic would rain down upon the city and annihilate it. The ghosts of her ancestors would rise again, as a form of warfare not seen for more than a thousand years was about to make its bold reappearance.

“It’s all about to be over,” she whispered.

******

They had him surrounded. No longer was Alex just dealing with enemies to his front and both sides, but now, a few of his foes had managed to get behind his guard as well. There were four of them in total, and all four must have thought they were being crafty, having slipped to his flank while the Glacial Vortex ability had created a screen of haze and snow. But Alex knew they were there, and what was more: he’d deliberately allowed it to happen. It was what he needed to happen.

If I don’t risk everything, I lose everything!

The five mages, two support, and three healers stayed where they were along with the two archers, the slingshot-wielding woman, and Gentleman Restlocht, and all seemed primed to unleash another round of projectiles at him. Unfortunately, Alex couldn’t even consider the option of going after them. They were well-protected by three tanks who had stayed behind to guard them. Sir Ultdern, who occupied the center of the enemy’s formation, remained where he was as well. But the rest of the Guild of Gentlemen’s forces on 1st and Haven Street were now all closing in on Alex, their net tightening more and more with each step they took.

It was here that he would either turn the tables or die. The next few seconds would be the most critical of all. Things were probably going to happen very, very fast the moment they began attacking. And that moment appeared to be now.

This is it!

The mages, healers, and the support all began to cast as the two archers, the slingshot-wielding woman, and Gentleman Restlocht fired their weapons. All the while, the tall, dark-skinned man wielding two purple-colored swords pressed closer towards him alongside a woman dual-wielding combat staves. Beside those two was the tall woman bearing a sword and shield who resembled Lady Theolina, and to Alex’s left was a man in black robes brandishing a scythe who was approaching him alongside a spear-wielding man with very sharp-looking, spiked boots.

To his right, a wiry, bald-headed man with an eyepatch drew nearer, a sword in his hand, and accompanying this man was a woman in ornate, golden robes wielding a rapier. It was only now that Alex recalled that she was the 10th ranking member of the Guild of Gentlemen, though he failed to remember her name. Finally, along with the four Gentlemen slinking up behind him, there were another four a bit farther back near Sir Ultdern, and these four appeared to be following a small distance behind and waiting to see if they were needed.

Alex held his breath. This was the riskiest gamble he’d ever taken. A brief, coincidental lull in the war gave way to a very short period of quiet, and it was during this period he could hear the snapping thwunk of a crossbow bolt being released as well as two twangs followed by the soft hiss of dual arrows traveling across the air. The mages were sticking to their previous failed attacks, all except for the curly-haired, freckle-faced mage who’d casted Glacial Vortex. He seemed to have learned his lesson, and now, Alex heard him chant, “Val En Icen Comme.”

Ice comet.

A brief flicker of light emanated from above, indicating that another Scorching Bolt II was about to drop down on him, and now three more Firebolts were racing just behind the ranged projectiles. Yet it was what he saw from the support mages that elevated things most of all, providing Alex with the biggest sense of hope—yet also risk.

Unlike earlier, the support mages had given up on attempting to use Daze II, and they likely believed themselves to be intelligent and tactically wise for doing so, as the ability’s radius was large enough that, even if they succeeded in landing their mesmerize on Alex, they would likely also mez a whole bunch of their own people as well. For this reason, they had switched things up; Alex was certain that the woman with the dark, braided hair and the shimmering blue spell sword was casting Stunning Silence, which was a single-target, four-second stun along with a thirty-second silence, and the younger, blond-haired man beside her was casting a root, Earthly Confinement.

And both of them were fools for doing so.

Because while it may have seemed logical to avoid mesmerizing their allies, Alex was now effectively trapped and could not possibly escape. Therefore, what did it matter if they mezzed their own allies? It did no damage on its own and caused no pain or long-term health effects. A successful mez would mean that just one of them could calmly approach Alex and slit his throat while he stared blankly off into the distance, entranced and unaware.

Instead, they were adding even more abilities to the clutter that was heading Alex’s way. And Gods, he could not believe Sir Ultdern was allowing this to happen. As opposed to underestimating Maric’s younger, century-old brother, he’d overestimated him. It was to the extent that Alex worried there was something here he did not see: something vital he was missing. Surely, the guild’s third-in-command could not be so inept. Especially not with the same blood in his veins that ran through his incredibly gifted older brother. It had to be a trap—or part of some grander plan. Because if it was not a trap of his own making, then all these people that now surrounded Alex were about to fall into one of his.

Can this really work?

Alex, in total disbelief, watched as the black-robed man wielding the scythe to his left swung the weapon up and down while calling out, “Reaping Shadow!”

They’re really going to…

A surge of confidence and optimism detonated within Alex as the man leapt forward at him while his body began to spin so fast that he appeared as nothing but a blurry, black shadow, one that moved with tremendous speed towards him, closing the distance immediately.

Equally shocking, at the same time, the eyepatch-wearing man to his right jumped forward and shouted out, “Blade Lunge!” It was the exact same common, three-hit combination sword ability that had gotten a high-ranking member of the Lords of Justice killed. Were the Guild of Gentlemen truly no better? Could it be that their superior performance in battle was solely due to stronger willpower combined with a smattering of dragon equipment? He thought his eyes would pop out of his head as the woman with the sword and shield who looked like Lady Theolina charged forward at him, her shield glowing a bright red. There were many, many different shield slams, and most of them stunned for five seconds. This was for sure one of them. And she was actually going to use it on him now of all times.

This has to be a trap. It can’t be real. I can’t let myself think this is real.

The Guild of Gentlemen were making such unbelievably foolish attacks that Alex knew he could not assume that everything was as it appeared. Though not typically superstitious, with everything that had gone wrong today, it simply did not seem real or possible. Yet with no idea what, if any, deeper tricks were about to be sprung on him, Alex had no choice but to react as though everything was really as simple as it seemed.

He took his eyes off the bald-headed, eyepatch-wearing man with the sword. Even as the man’s blade turned purple and he made a very fast upwards slash, Alex looked away from him, ignoring him completely. After all, he knew the ability by heart: he knew the exact pattern and its timing. It was not an exaggeration to say that he could be soundly asleep and still avoid both sword strikes along with the subsequent lunge. And the same was true for Reaping Shadow, which turned its user into a hollow, misty, ghost-like figure while launching them forward—and through—any obstacles ahead of them before once more becoming corporeal, at which point the user would viciously slash the scythe downwards.

This can’t possibly be as it seems, Alex thought in a state of absolute amazement. The universe would never be so kind to me.

Stunned and baffled, Alex made several minimal motions as he twisted his body away from the eyepatch-wearing man’s first slash, and then from the second one, and he did this without even bothering to look in the direction each came from. And now, as the black-robed man’s hollow, ghost-like form solidified in the air above and to his left, Alex only had to take a small step to his right to avoid the downward slice of the scythe, which cracked straight into the street and cut several inches into it rather than come anywhere near his body. Likewise, he only needed to ever-so-slightly step to the side to avoid the shield bash from the woman charging at him—but he didn’t.

Instead, he dropped his own sword and reached out with both his arms to grab the shoulders of the black-robed man while simultaneously lurching his body violently to the right, causing the man to yelp in surprise as Alex forced both him and the man to move out of the way of the charging woman, who was about to run right past him. But Alex quickly stuck out his opposite foot and tripped her as she darted past, and now she too yelped as she fell forward.

Having been knocked off balance, the woman was on course to face-plant onto the street—but Alex could not allow that to happen. Thus, with a very powerful shove, he launched the black-robed man forward, causing him to stumble away—and right into the path of two arrows, a slingshot slug, and a crossbow bolt while Alex himself whirled his body around, grabbed the woman who had only half fallen over, and tore her back up to her feet, spun her around, and now shoved her body directly in the path of three flaming missiles, Scorching Bolt II, a root, a stun, a silence, and an icy comet that appeared from above and smashed down into her.

“Fuck!” she shrieked in terror as it all struck her at once. The sky flashed as the flaming bolt of electricity crashed down alongside the ice comet. Her body made several jerking motions as the Firebolts blasted her apart. An arm flew off to Alex’s left, a foot flew off to Alex’s right, and the rest of her simply became mush. The black-robed, scythe-wielding man, however, remained mostly intact, though his death was a bit slower and more painful. Alex could actually hear the sound of his flesh being punctured as all four projectiles tore into him. “Ugh!” he said upon taking the first arrow. “Ugh,” he said again.

“Ugh! Ugh!”

And then he fell forward onto his belly, and he did not move again.

Alex, having closed himself off to emotion, took his mind off the two and dashed to the side as the eyepatch-wearing man flew right past where he was standing, his sword extended as his body was lunged uncontrollably to Alex’s rear.

“Stop! Don’t!” cried two of the assassins sneaking up from behind. The man, totally incapable of controlling his own motion, released a horrified, sorrow-filled scream as his blade ripped right through both of his allies, killing one and mortally wounding the other before continuing on. And Alex knew exactly where he’d stop, too. And he decided to make an example of the man. Not for the sake of punishment, but to let his enemies know that they had a lot more to fear than they might’ve realized—heck, than even he realized.

As the man continued to skid along the road with his blade extended, Alex, still unarmed, quickly bent down and picked up his dropped blade with his right hand, enabling him to cast spells, and then with his left, he shot his palm directly backwards behind him and squeezed it shut. Several beads of sweat trickled down his forehead as he activated Black Spiral Blender in the precise location the man would come to a halt.

When he did, the man found himself standing on top of a black, perfectly flat circle while another, identical one loomed above the top of his head. Both were so thin that they were practically two-dimensional in nature. And as both formed, the man was, at least for this very brief moment, still locked into his own attack and unable to control his own body. Yet his eyes rose to the top of his head and then down to his feet, and Alex could tell that he knew he was done for. “H-help!” he cried. “Someone help!”

“The fuck is going on?” the man with the two purple swords screamed. “I’m so confused. Did he just kill Gentlewoman Manalexa and Gentleman Seevor? What…what’s happening!” He turned his head and only seemed to first notice the two dead assassins. Then he howled in fear and confusion. “Sir Ultdern! Sir Ultdern, I don’t understand, what did he just—”

“Help me!” the man screamed as the two-dimensional black circles finally entered the third dimension, with one expanding downwards and the other expanding upwards until both met and formed a solid object: a cylindrical chamber from which there was no escape, nor was there any place to hide from the various cutting instruments that could only slightly be seen within the newly formed chamber; though transparent, it was only slightly so. It was like looking at a film-roll canister. Only the outline of the man could be seen, and only faintly even under the bright morning sun.

Then came the sound of buzzing, shredding, and grinding, which brought about the subsequent sounds of shrieking and agony as the entire tube began to fill with a dark red liquid from the screaming, howling man, whose voice became so high in pitch that it broke while he was blended alive.

“SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME! PLEASE! PLEASSSSSEEEEEEE! IT HURRRRRRRTTTTSS!”

The man with the two purple swords wet himself as a moist spot formed on his crotch. He even looked down at it as though ashamed. But wait, this meant…this meant he wasn’t currently paying attention. So Alex took one quick step towards him, whipped his arms from right to left, and cut his entire head off at the point of the neck right then and there during his moment of paralysis. This caused the man next to him to shriek, and that meant Alex could disembowel him with one clean strike and dispose of him as well, since he too was now frozen in terror.

Even as Alex tore apart both men, he was still in a state of absolute bewilderment that any of this was happening. This would never have worked on an adventurer. But somehow, it was working on the Guild of Gentlemen. And it seemed like…wait, were they routing? Gods, they were. They were actually routing.

They’re routing!

The two assassins behind him backed away so suddenly that one bumped into the other and both fell on their backside. The woman holding a combat staff in each hand along with the robed woman bearing a rapier also threw themselves away from him, providing two very easy targets he could not afford to let escape. Every single one of them had, in just a single instant, become broken. He could not let this moment pass. He could not give them a chance to recover their wits and attack him in unison. Right now, despite still having an overwhelming advantage over him, the psychological damage he’d inflicted upon them with Black Spiral Blender had unfathomably turned each and every one of them into a free target.

Alex, raising his weapon high and ready to kill, bolted forward at the two women, both of whom screamed and failed to even raise their guard intelligibly as Alex cut open the scalp of the one wielding the two staffs. The other clumsily attempted to swing her rapier, but Alex parried, knocking it out of her hand, and then he riposted, slashing her across the neck and downing her. One of her allies seemed to find their courage, and he charged in from Alex’s right side. But the terror had made him clumsy and disorganized, and so the man, who attempted to bludgeon him with a great-hammer, actually stumbled over a dead ally he clearly didn’t realize was in front of him, and he ended up tumbling forward and impaling his own self on Alex’s sword as he tripped.

I’m winning this! Alex thought. I’ve got them! I’m going to be able to—

Alex coughed. Something happened. He wasn’t sure what. He didn’t understand. He was confused. There was pain. Or was there? He didn’t even know. He lowered his eyes. What was he seeing? His eyes had suddenly gone out of focus. It looked like there was…

Huh? When did that happen?

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Sir Ultdern said. “But you left yourself open.”

There was a sword—and it was inside of him. But it wasn’t just any sword. It was a flaming, brilliant weapon made of steel and fire. Alex coughed a second time, and blood shot out of his mouth. Even despite this, his mind continued to work in his current state of shock. He realized that Sir Ultdern had activated the ability on his staff, which turned the weapon into a sword and boosted his stats to such a high level that they likely rivaled what Zach’s had been in Phase Level 3 during the battle with Ziragoth’s second phase.

He must’ve moved faster than an Elf, Alex thought, losing sensation in his fingers. His arms went limp and fell down to his sides. He now held his weapon in just his right hand, but his grasp on the blade was tenuous at best. The flames from the blade felt cold on his chest despite causing a burning sensation on his chin as they flickered and danced.

“It’s through your heart,” Sir Ultdern said. “This is over.”

Alex nodded. He tried to speak and failed several times. He opened his mouth and used every bit of strength he had left to croak out a single sentence. “Let me die on my belly so I can at least be at rest.”

“Very well,” Sir Ultdern said to his nonsensical, ridiculous request. He took a half-step back while yanking the weapon free from Alex’s chest, causing blood to pour out of him and leak all over the road. Alex then fell forward onto his face, his forehead crashing down and cracking a portion of the street. He landed in such a way that his left hand folded and tucked into his belly as he remained seemingly motionless. The blow was fatal. Alex was now on the verge of death.

I…can’t…believe that it…

As Alex continued to die, he very carefully moved his hand upwards, which was tucked underneath his guild coat, until it lay flat over his left breast. And then he applied whatever pressure he could with his last remaining strength. And as the light began to turn dark, he experienced a degree of true relief, because upon that application of pressure, he could feel several objects he’d sewn into the fabric of his guild coat become crushed and shattered.

…worked…

Two Red Rejuvenation Stones.

Two Yellow Rejuvenation Stones.

And two Purple Rejuvenation Stones.

Six remnants from his days spent as an adventurer: six prizes he’d saved and had never spent. All six were now gone. Now, Alex remained perfectly still, kept his eyes closed, and played dead. He was lucky. The weapon had a 45% chance to burn its targets from the inside. Had that activated, Alex would not have lived long enough to use the stones. Keeping quiet and motionless, he listened as Sir Ultdern began to literally whimper as the man seemingly took stock of his losses. It seemed that he was not as cold and dispassionate towards those who had just perished as he’d been towards Daviks and Daviks’ brother, whom Alex had killed upon arrival.

“I’m so sorry,” Sir Ultdern whimpered, crying openly. His voice breaking, Alex could finally hear the man’s advanced age as he spoke. Much like Maric, he did a great job in hiding it. Yet it now came through quite clearly. “Gods, I’m so sorry. This was all my fault. He was so much stronger than I thought he’d be. I never thought…I never thought we’d lose Gentlewoman Manalexa. Daviks and his disgraceful brother…I can live with that. But that sweet woman didn’t deserve this.”

Another voice, also full-on crying, joined Sir Ultdern in his grief. “She was pregnant,” he said. His voice then became angered, rising in volume. “Why in the fuck was she out here, Sir Ultdern? Tell me!”

“You know why!” he shouted, not even bothering to scold the man for taking such a tone with the 3rd ranking member of his guild. “She died to protect the future of humanity!”

They even began to yell at one another. This was good. It meant Alex could take his time as he lay there and recovered. He was at the point where he could, technically, get up and continue to fight, though he wasn’t back to his full strength yet. But even more importantly, he stood absolutely no chance whatsoever of taking on Sir Ultdern while the active ability on his staff was in play. Even without that ability, the stats provided to him from his full set of dragon armor were such that Alex would need to clear the field just to go toe to toe with him. But with it? It was undoable. And so, Alex waited.

“High Command, this is Sir Wexzel Ultdern,” Sir Ultdern said, misery coming across very strongly in each spoken word. “Yes. The Lords of Justice have been defeated, but…b-but Sir Rikel’s daughter is dead, and so is Gentleman Huntsvel’s son.”

He paused for a moment, likely listening to a reply that Alex could not hear. If so, it was a long reply, which suited Alex quite well. At the moment, with his eyes closed, he relied on his ears to inform him. Specifically, he was listening to the sound of flickering from the man’s staff-turned-blade. He could not make a move until that had come to an end.

In the old days, playing dead was a war crime, he thought. But these are not the old days.

“No,” Sir Ultdern said. His tone became uneven. First, it grew in strength and decisiveness as he said, “Believe me, my old friend, I understand your grief. But your daughter died a hero. You must stay at your post. We do not need any reinforcements here. I’m sending almost everyone down south to repel the Royal Roses. We’re not sure why, but they’ve entered a full retreat. We’re on the verge of winning this war for good. I promise you her death will be paid for in the blood of our enemies.”

But then it broke just as suddenly, and the whimpering and crying returned. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry to make you do this. It’s your daughter and I won’t even let you come here. I’m so sorry my friend. I know how heartless”—he sniffled—“I know how heartless, I’m so sorry.” His voice abruptly returned, again becoming commanding and powerful. “We must be stoic. There will be a time for mourning when this is over. Until then we endure and we finish the job!”

As Alex lay frozen and unmoving, his heart began to pound faster and faster as confusion swirled around in his head. In particular, it was because of one specific thing he’d just overheard: that the Royal Roses were…retreating? It couldn’t be. Vim Alazar wouldn’t. Not after what his guild had endured—what his people had endured. Not when he knew the consequences of failure. Could Sir Ultdern have been mistaken? But how could he be mistaken? He’d specifically stated that the Royal Roses had entered a full retreat. That was not an easy thing to be confused about. All of this…it made Alex restless. It became a challenge for him to remain still. Alex was becoming agitated.

But then the sound of flickering came to an end. Sir Ultdern’s weapon had returned to its normal staff form. It was time.

Now!

Without any warning, without any preamble, and without any opportunity for the enemy to react, Alex exploded back up to his feet so fast that every single nearby member of the Guild of Gentlemen flinched, with several making loud, startled shouts. Alex ignored each and every one of them. He narrowed his eyes, bent his knees slightly, and then with every ounce of willpower and determination it was possible for him to draw upon, he launched himself forward into a desperate sprint, blasting straight by and then beyond them.

A woman, this one also wielding a sword and shield, happened to be in his way, so Alex jumped into the air, sailed right over her head, and then landed upright behind her, where he continued to run straight for—and at—the eight mages and four ranged fighters that had thus far been sheltering behind their allies while trying to blast him to pieces. There were screams of fear and alarm as he approached, his feet stomping down onto the road and then eventually onto the sidewalk, ripping apart numerous sections of it in the process. Nearly upon them, many of their lips twisted into the exact same position, forming the “h” sound as they seemingly attempted to cry for help.

Alex activated Light Volley. Sixteen arrows made of pure light materialized above him, and he sent all sixteen at the eight spell-casters, two per target, causing the air to fill with a high-pitched whistling. Spinning his body to the left, Alex then began wildly swinging his sword with an extreme sense of urgency at Gentleman Restlocht, the woman with the slingshot, and the two archers. He acted with such haste and with such desperation that he became reckless, yet if ever there was a time to do so, it was now. One time after the next, he sliced and sliced and sliced, carving apart all four of them into various pieces, becoming drenched in their blood. He exerted so much effort so quickly that, for the first time in this fight, he began to seriously pant, his mouth opened widely so that he could take larger and larger breaths as he butchered all of them, including Gentleman Restlocht. They screamed as they died.

By the time he was finished, he had ripped apart his enemy with such frenzied ruthlessness that he was mentally unable to distinguish between what was blood and what was perspiration leaking down his face. With body parts scattered all around him, and with his head and hair absolutely soaked in blood, he craned his neck to ensure that the mages and healers were either dead or wounded to the point they couldn’t be healed. They were. None of them were moving.

“You…you dishonorable son of a bitch!” Sir Ultdern roared at him, tears of rage in his eyes. "You’re not the Alex I knew. You’re a Gods-be-damned monster!”

“Dishonorable?” Alex said as thick, crimson-colored liquid fell down the sides of his face just like sweat. “You mean like fighting one man thirty-three against one?”

“You had far more than that at the start of the battle!” Sir Ultdern shouted. “This is a war!”

“You’re right, actually,” Alex said. “That was a terrible example. I’m not quite myself right now. Very well. Here’s a better one.” He inhaled and then released just two words in a vengeful, wrath-filled shout: “Ogre’s Axe!”

Taking his left hand off his blade, he flicked his wrist and activated Light Dart. His hand brightening, a dart made of light appeared between his fingers, and then he threw it, watching as it whisked over the sidewalk, traveled halfway across the street, and then struck the last remaining assassin in the throat, causing him to gurgle and collapse right by Sir Ultdern’s side. He even reached out and grabbed the man’s armor-covered knee as he died, his hand eventually going limp and resting against the concrete as he let go of the old man.

Now, only a few more members of the guild remained with Sir Ultdern, and to Alex’s satisfaction, each one of them at last turned and fled, running right past Alex. They had given up, which meant Alex did not need to kill them. Ethically, it was best to allow them to escape. But he didn’t. He instead activated Light Dart several more times and struck each one of them in the back while they ran for their lives.

He wasn’t even sure why he did that. It wasn’t out of hatred. It wasn’t out of justice. It wasn’t out of revenge. It wasn’t even that he wanted to kill or felt some deep desire to drink in more blood. Strangely, it was that it simply felt “incomplete” for him not to do so.

I’ve let myself become pushed too far.

Something of a duality formed in Alex, in which his logical, rational mind continued to operate at its full capacity whereas his actions, emotions, and impulses seemed to be traveling on their own track. It was an incredibly strange sensation, and one he had not before experienced. As a man of science and an avid reader across numerous different fields of study, including those which did not pertain to his own, Alex was able to rationally assess his own irrationality, and he determined that the emotional turmoil beginning with Lady Theolina’s death and leading up to now had brought him into a state of disassociation or perhaps emotional dysregulation. He needed to be careful, as he knew from studies that both, if further intensified, could easily lead to psychosis.

Alex took a deep, slow breath, and then he released it. The level-1 troops, witnessing his actions, had fled along with handful of horribly wounded survivors who probably would not make it much farther. It was now just him and Sir Ultdern here on 1st and Haven Street. That was for the best.

“Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself,” Sir Ultdern said to him, his eyes flicking back and forth between various dead bodies. “Whether you live or die today, they’re going to write poems about what you just did. A thousand years from now, they’ll still be talking about it.” The man’s lips trembled. “Did it feel good?”

“No.”

The man knelt down and placed his arm on the shoulder of one of the slain women, and then he quickly returned to his feet, his eyes dripping tears. Even while still holding his staff, he raised both his hands, held them parallel to one another as though to indicate size, and he released more whimpering as he continued to speak.

“I knew her when she was a baby,” he said, gesturing at Alex. “She was only this big, Alex. She was a tiny thing. Her mother loved her so much.”

“She shouldn’t have let her fight,” Alex said coldly.

“She’s not alive anymore. The demon child killed her weeks ago.”

“Demon child?” Alex asked, frowning. “You mean Zach?”

“Of course I do.” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Only, everyone has it backwards. They’re all wrong about you and him.”

“Hm?”

“They say that you’re the softhearted nerd, and he’s the ruthless, unfeeling killer. But that’s not what I hear. Gods, they have it so backwards. At least, if you can trust the word of Sir Gaelan Malakor—known as Captain Malakor to some.”

Alex felt his body tense. He’d never met the man, but he was definitely familiar with his reputation. “Zach encountered Captain Malakor?”

“Yes. It wasn’t all that long ago, in fact.”

“No wonder he came so close to death,” Alex said. “I cannot believe he fought the man and lived. He’s one of the few members of your guild that I know for certain can fight on equal footing with an adventurer. Given the level difference, Zach is very lucky to have escaped with his life.”

“He won, actually.”

“Zach did?”

“Yes. And his wounds were due to his selflessness as I hear.”

This really wasn’t the right time to be discussing this, but Alex, still catching his breath, decided to use the time to further recover. “What’s that mean?”

Sir Ultdern answered him, and in the process, he told Alex a brief but detailed story of a boy garbed in black who, like Alex, had challenged impossible odds singlehandedly and had triumphed over a stronger foe. In spite of every horrible thing Alex had seen and heard today, the tale brought him very close to smiling—at least until Sir Ultdern got to the end of it, and Alex became awash with such profound disappointment.

“He used his stones on Sir Malakor instead of himself?”

“That’s right.”

“Because his daughter cried?”

“Yes.”

Alex could hardly believe what he was hearing. That was such an incomprehensibly stupid, foolish, and irresponsible thing to do. If—and that was a very big if—Alex somehow managed to live beyond this day, he would need to have another long chat with the kid. He was learning all the wrong lessons. Alex wanted him to be compassionate and had tried his best to instill a sense of compassion within him, but not to the extent that he became nonsensically soft-hearted and foolish. He gave his only healing stones up to an enemy: an enemy that was likely now fighting the Royal Roses in the south. Their strongest player had been taken off the board, and Zach put him right back on. Alex’s disappointment was immense.

“Tell me one thing, Sir Ultdern. Is it true what you said into the Comm? That the Royal Roses are retreating?”

“It is true.”

Alex felt pain flare in his chest. “So then…”

“You’re all alone here, now. Or at least you will be very soon. Even the Elvish have retreated. We’ve essentially won the day—and the war. You should know that, without the Royal Roses fighting in the south, you have no realistic chance of getting to King Morrison. Even if you somehow get through me, you’re not going to be able to take on him and everyone else in the guild. You’ve lost.”

“No,” Alex whispered, sadly. He dropped his blade, listening as it clacked against the road. And then he took a seat, which seemed to surprise Sir Ultdern. More loudly, he said, “Shadowfall Coast lost.”

Sir Ultdern widened his eyes. “You’re sitting down? In front of an enemy?” he shouted. “Do you think I won’t kill you?”

“It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t,” Alex said softly. “We’re both already dead.”

“Dead?”

He nodded. “I just realized why the Royal Roses retreated. It’s obvious. Especially if the Elves have retreated as well.” Something caught his eye. Something far above. He pointed at it. “It looks like nothing I did here mattered. I could try running, but…it’s too late. It looks like we’re going to die together.”

Sir Ultdern glanced upwards, and then he pulled back his lips, clenched his teeth, and several beads of sweat slid down his right cheek. “So this is the moment I find out,” he said.

“Find out what?” Alex asked.

He briefly turned his head to meet Alex’s eyes. “Whether or not Peter V had any redeeming qualities whatsoever as a king or whether he was indeed a total waste of flesh who weakened and nearly destroyed our guild—and our kingdom.”

Alex wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter anymore, did it? Far up above in the sky, a sight that was both terrible yet beautiful filled his vision. Dozens—and then many dozens—of multi-colored lights were crossing the horizon like streaks, each one bright enough to be easily, readily seen even among the bright morning sunshine.

The streaks were like comets only with a much longer tail and with a very differently shaped head. Rather than something roundish or even misshapen, every single tail connected to a head that was perfectly square in shape, and each of these square-shaped beams had some kind of letter or symbol on it in a language that Alex had never before seen.

Almost every color was represented, though each was uniform and contained just a single one. There was blue, pink, orange, yellow, red—all of it. The color stretched from the tail of these flying magic beams all the way to the square-shaped head, covering it completely except for the letter or symbol, which was white.

So many of them, Alex thought.

Closer and closer, they came. Each one would likely have a power and impact far, far greater than a bomb dropped by one of the Royal Rose’s fighter jets. Alex couldn’t imagine surviving the next few moments. He accepted that this was the end. It was a tragic ending, but at least he would die knowing he’d done his best and…and that there was still hope left in the world, however bleak the future might become.

“Goodbye, Sir Ultdern,” he said, relaxing his muscles and placing his palms on the street as he stared upwards and watched the incoming lights like they were part of a display of fireworks.

“Don’t count us out just yet!” Sir Ultdern shouted, though more sweat was now pouring down his face and he was visibly trembling. The lights came closer and closer and closer, appearing larger and larger. And now, Sir Ultdern began to loudly pray. “Gods, please! Please! We are your children! Spare us! Raurum, see us through this monstrous and wicked assault on our home and families!” He got down to his knees and began to scream. “Please, Raurum! Please spare us, your faithful children of men! PLEASE SPARE US!”

It became difficult to keep his eyes open as the lights now approached so close that the brightness began to cause an ache in his pupils. Alex could no longer see more than just a single of the lights, and in this case, it was the one heading towards their immediate section of the city. It was far, far larger than he’d realized. Maybe even the size of a house. It seemed the color of their death was going to be red. And indeed, a very bright, reddish light filled the entirety of the street to the extent that, a moment before impact, the entire world became bathed in the color to where it was the only thing Alex could now see.

I’m finally going to see you again, Alex thought, visualizing his mother and father, his two brothers, his sister. Each had died in front of him when a boss had spawned outside of the rural town in Whispery Woods where he’d grown up: an event that, like all such boss spawns aside from the dragon, had been covered up and blamed on a natural disaster. If only the OMP had manipulated him into becoming an adventurer before that point, perhaps he would’ve been able to save them.

Like Donovan saved my life, Alex thought. I never really thanked him properly. I was hurting too much at the time.

In his final moments, Alex made peace with himself—and with all that he’d done to bring himself here. He was going to die young, but at least he’d literally go out with a bang. The thought even made him smile, though it was a bitter-tasting smile, as the movement of his lips caused some of the blood on his face to get on his lips and into his mouth, reminding him of the extraordinarily violent way in which he was exiting this world.

A moment from the end, he stood back up to his feet, extended his arms widely, and he embraced the light. Despite how badly it blinded him, he could still see a faint outline of the strange symbol on the end of it. Now just above him, the light became so intense that it went from red to pure white. The scientist in him mused that it wasn’t a change in color but a change in his eyes’ ability to perceive a color with such blinding brightness. It was the last thought he had time to think before impact.

There was an explosion.

Alex braced himself. So did Sir Ultdern.

The world shook.

There was so much sound. His ears began to ring. He closed his eyes.

He wondered if he was already dead.

It didn’t quite hurt.

He opened his eyes.

And then…

Then all the desperation, misery, and gloom in the world ripped through him in such a violent fashion that Alex fell back down into a seated position, though this time due to losing his footing. His body trembled. Confusion erupted inside of him. He struggled to understand what just happened. He tried so hard to make sense of things. The rational portion of his brain was completely shut off by such a morbid, all-encompassing feeling of utter hopelessness.

Above him, perhaps only twenty feet above the tallest of buildings, there was now a shimmering, rippling, wavy barrier of energy, which looked not all that dissimilar from a DEHV crossing barrier only it hummed and pulsed and even made a slight screech, all of which came to an end a moment later as it disappeared—only to reappear within an instant as a green comet-like beam of magic again slammed down, similarly meeting its end as it crashed into the same kind of invisible force that appeared to surround the entire city.

“It worked!” Sir Ultdern yelled, tears once again in his eyes. “It wasn’t for nothing. Gods, it worked!”

Alex, in a state of total despair, shook his head. “What happened? I don’t understand!”

Sir Ultdern looked at him. “All his life, Peter V neglected us and left us weak. He left us to the predations of the other guilds. He was feeble. He was unlike his father and his grandfather in just about every single way—except for one: his distrust of the other, predatory races of Galterra. It was the only part of him that showed any sign of the true spirit of the Guild of Gentlemen. Except, even in that, he had failed. Because despite the absurdity of it, he spent his life fearing the Elves of all beings. Not the Dwarves, which have driven our economy into the ground and replaced human engineers. Not the Orcs, who have outpaced us in internet technology. No, the Elves. It was unthinkable!”

He wiped his eyes as more tears fell. “But we were wrong about him. He knew this day would come. In secret, he spent more than a decade using a rare form of spell-craft to construct an anti-runic barrier above Tomb of Fire and Shadowfall Coast: a magical forcefield useful only against long-range Elvish attacks. He must have completed it shortly before we…before he passed away.”

Sir Ultdern again wiped his face. “Gods, he was right all along. He spent so much money on crafting materials, buying much of it from adventurers. He demanded his project remain secret. But we viewed it as so ridiculous that there would be no temptation to spill it. Who would want to admit that their leader is wasting the precious treasure of his people on some delusional belief that we would one day face an Elvish attack? But Gods, he was right. He was right!”

Alex didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. He had never found himself in such a state of sordid denial. Yet all around the city, everywhere he looked, the Elvish magic was failing to inflict even a modicum of damage. But that wasn’t even the worst part. No there was something even more terrible…

“The Royal Roses have fled,” he said with a gasp. “The Elvish must’ve told them to flee, and now…”

“Now they won’t be able to come back,” Sir Ultdern said with a boastful yet somehow also grief-filled laugh. “The Lords of Justice have been thrashed, and with all of our forces on the southern coast, the Royal Roses will have no choice but to flee out to sea.”

At once, his words became somber. “You should know what your actions have cost this world, Alex. After the amount of pain, suffering, and terror your guild and the Royal Roses have inflicted, I can promise you there will be retribution.”

“Retribution?” Alex asked, whispering.

“Yes. We are going to have to punish you.”

“I accept,” he said. “Take me and torture me. Do what you will. I will submit myself to any—”

“Stop,” Sir Ultdern said. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

Alex, trembling, began shaking his head. “Do not attack another city. Please!”

“It’s not up to me. But even if it was, I wouldn’t disagree. Most likely, it’s going to be the Lords of Justice hit this time, and it won’t be a small city. It might be Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, in fact I would bet on it.”

“You can’t!” Alex shouted. “There are 11 million people who live there!”

“Yes, and when they are gone, the lesson will hopefully be learned.”

“Please, sir Ultdern! Punish me instead. You cannot do this! Please!”

Sir Ultdern glared at him. “You murdered the ones I care about. I promise you that you will be punished just the same. I have a very real desire now to take you alive. I want you to see the toll you’ve inflicted on this world, Alex. And notice, I will no longer call you Lord Oren. The Lords of Justice will be eradicated for what has happened here today.”

Alex swelled with all the misery in the world. This was really happening, wasn’t it? It was. And it was hopeless. They were going to acquire another nuclear weapon, and there was nothing in this world he could do about it. The Elvish had somehow failed. All hope was lost.

This was the end of humanity.

******

The fear Vim felt was showing on Fylwen’s face as well, and that was not a good sign.

“Fylwen! What’s happening?” Vim screamed.

“I don’t know,” she said, covering her mouth. “They…I don’t know what they have done! I don’t understand!”

The few Elvish on the ship with him were weeping, and that was also not a good sign. It really helped sink in how fucked they were. Vim wished he had more hair, as this would be a good time to begin maniacally ripping it out of his head.

“You’ve killed us all!” Vim screamed, losing his mind. “My people will be eradicated like insects! I’ll be tortured again!” His body began to shake. “I trusted you. We all trusted you.”

She grabbed his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

He was shocked—so shocked it temporarily knocked him out of his mania. The remorse in her eyes was genuine. “I failed the Gods. I failed my allies. We will try to make this right. We will storm the city.”

“They will kill every single one of you with their traps.”

“It doesn’t matter. It…”

The look of pain and misery on her face was so intense it managed to further break his hysteria. “We’ll just have to charge together. All of my people and yours.”

“Yes. Yes, indeed.”

Vim knew it was hopeless, though. The enemy’s morale was likely skyrocketing. His own people were now in utter shambles and despair. The Lords of Justice had fled back into the grasslands and were probably still running.

It was done. Vim would be brutally tortured and killed, his guild would be dissolved, and King Morrison would rule humanity.

That was how this was going to go.

It was over.

*****

King Morrison cheered. “We did it!” He pumped his fist in the air. “Those Elvish-loving sons of bitches!”

His top commanders and strategists all celebrated with him. Even though they had lost so much, Alistair knew it was all going to be worth it when they ushered in a new era of human rule. Everyone who had died today would be honored as a hero. Even those who had fled. He was going to pardon every criminal in Shadowfall Coast as well. He was going to heap rewards and praise upon the people of this city.

We did it. We really did it.

“You never lost faith in us,” Colonel Dakrit said. “Even when it seemed like the worst was upon us. You and you alone believed we could beat two guilds and the fucking Elves! Gods, we are amazing.”

“No,” Alistair said, lifting his pointer finger. “Humanity is amazing. And that’s why—wait, one moment.”

He pressed his hand to his ear while making several facial gestures, switching Comm line frequencies. A man’s voice spoke to him. He smiled. “Great, send it down.” His commanders all turned their heads his way.

“What is it?” they asked.

Alistair clapped his hands together. “Champagne. For each and every one of you!”

All of those in the bunker with him cheered. This could quite literally be the greatest moment of victory his guild had experienced in a thousand years, especially when factoring in the odds against them and the sheer number of enemies who wanted them dead. But they triumphed. They won despite all of it. And that was certainly worthy of celebration.

“There’s something I wanted to say almost all my life,” he began. “Something we were never allowed to say. Something society banned us from saying. But those days are over.” He opened his mouth and shouted, “Peter IV was right!”

The applause and cheers gave way to tear-filled eyes as for the first time in so very long, they were finally able to speak those forbidden words. And then he said the most taboo thing of all: a phrase that was so prohibited that merely writing it could invoke a ten-year dungeon sentence in many of the other regions. A phrase that was even illegal here but would no longer be.

“SELF-DEFENSE ISN’T GENOCIDE!” he roared, crying out the final words Peter IV had spoken before his execution.

It felt so liberating to finally say it. And the energy in the room exploded. Men and women slammed their fists down upon tables while crying it out in a beautiful chant.

“SELF-DEFENSE ISN’T GENOCIDE!”

“SELF-DEFENSE ISN’T GENOCIDE!”

“SELF-DEFENSE ISN’T GENOCIDE!”

Turning towards the elevator doors, he watched as the red arrow lowered and lowered. He couldn’t wait to have a drink. He bet they all felt the same. The bunker, located quite deep beneath the surface, required nearly a minute’s worth of travel via elevator.

“Who’d they get to haul our champagne down here?” one of his commanders asked.

“Sammie,” another replied with a chuckle.

“That dumb kid?”

King Morrison tsked. “Be nice to your fellow guild member. Especially after how many we lost. In fact, let’s all release a cheer when he walks through the door.”

Laughter and eager nods came and went around the room. Sammie was someone Alistair actually liked a fair bit. The boy was only the 65th in terms of rank, whereas his father—a great friend of Alistair’s who was killed in action during the first invasion, sadly—had been 14th. But the boy had a lot of grit. Still a virgin, though, Alistair was willing to bet. Perhaps it was time Alistair did something about that. There were some very beautiful, widowed women in need of a new husband. The boy was always so depressed since his father’s death. Maybe that would cheer him up.

“Okay, everyone, get ready,” Alistair said as the down arrow on the display indicator was nearly to ground level. “Release a big cheer for the future of humanity on three.”

“One.”

The elevator lowered.

“Two.”

It came to a halt. There was a ding.

“Three!”

The entire bunker released a cheer. Or at least, something that started as a cheer. It began as a happy, loud, good-natured, giggly cheer—and ended as a wild, terrified, utterly confused scream of fear and shock as two forms emerged from the elevator. One was Sammie’s severed head. It rolled out of the elevator all on its own and then came to a halt. The eyes were missing from the skull, and the boy’s tongue was sticking out.

“What the fuck?” someone shouted.

“What the fuck! What the fuck!”

The second form to emerge from the elevator was a small bat, which flew over their heads and disappeared to some other corner of the bunker. Given the horrifying sight of the severed head, Alistair could not spare the mental energy needed to contemplate why a bat had flown in here. There weren’t even bats in this region.

“Sammie!” he shouted in disbelief. “What’s going on? Colonel Dakrit, call up to the surface now!”

“I can’t!” he shouted. “Our Comm lines just went dead!”

“Gods dammit, find out what happened at once!”

“I’m trying!”

Alistair marched his way over to the severed head. He knelt down, still not entirely sure if this was real and not some elaborate prank. It made no sense. How had this happened? What were the idiots near the surface entrance doing? Had something happened?

“Is that really you, Sammie?” he asked. Growling, he shouted, “Colonel Dakrit! I thought I told you to contact the the fucking surface! What is taking so—”

“Aghhhh!” he screamed in reply.

And so did many, many others. A chorus of agonized screams filled the room, each one louder than the previous. “No! Please, no!”

A shiver traveled down Alistair’s spine. Hurriedly, he climbed back to his feet and spun around to see that almost everyone—nearly every single last member of high command—was as dead as Sammie. Horrified, mortified, and so totally perplexed that he wasn’t sure any of this was even real, Alistair realized that there were now two new people in the bunker with him: people he was positive he’d never seen before.

One was a young Elvish woman who looked an awful lot like Kalana Vayra, and the other was a human, immaculately well dressed almost to the point of perfection. He looked to be just a boy, perhaps no older than fourteen or fifteen. And he, much like the Elvish girl beside him, were staring at him with red, glowing eyes.

What…what are they? he screamed in his mind.

Never had Alistair been so frightened. These were monsters. As in, the actual monsters one’s parents might tell them about in the form of a scary story before bed: the kind that wasn’t supposed to exist. The fictional kind. These were actual, literal monsters!

The boy and the Elvish girl had fangs: dual, sharp teeth that protruded from their mouths. Blood was dripping down the chins of both almost as though they’d been drinking it. In fact, in his haze, it was only now that Alistair realized the young boy had his hand gripping the hair atop the scalp of Colonel Dakrit, who was wobbling on his feet but still alive, his fingers twitching as though he were in his death throes.

The boy looked at Alistair, and then, without breaking eye contact even once, he moved his mouth closer to Colonel Dakrit, opened it, and then ripped into his throat, biting deeply and making numerous gulping sounds while…while drinking his blood!

What is this? What kind of horrid monster is this?

“What are you?” he asked fearfully, attempting to back away.

“Vampires,” the girl said. “And we’ve come for your head.”

“You what?” he shouted. “How did you get in here? I am the king, Gods-dammit! Who are you?”

The boy wiped his lips. “Hi there!” he said cheerfully. “Forgive my soul mate’s rudeness. Kolona, you know you’re supposed to introduce yourself first.” He bowed. “I am Count Olivir Rudolph Soloux, and this beautiful woman by my side is Countess Kolona Vayra of the royal Vayra line. It is an honor to make your acquaintance, King Alistair Morrison of the Guild of Gentlemen.”

He released his hold on Colonel Dakrit, whose eyes had already rolled into the back of his head. Blood still oozing out of his throat, he fell face forward on the semi-clean bunker floor. The boy wiped his lips a second time. “Here’s what’s going to happen now,” he said. He raised his pointer finger. “First, you’re going to tell me and my lovely partner where your guild is producing your nuclear weapons. And then, we’re going to eat you.”

“That’s right!” the female said cheerfully. “And it’ll be really, really slow and painful…well, unless you surrender, I guess. But we really hope you don’t. Taking you alive would be so boring.”

“Yes, we love when they don't cooperate. Don’t we, sweetheart?”

“We sure do.”

Astounded and terrified all at once, Alistair stood up straighter. “I’m in full dragon armor. If you value your lives, you’ll leave and pray I don’t come hunting for you!”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna work on us, bud.” The boy shrugged. “You’re kind of messing up the entire planet, and I have friends who live on it. So, yeah. Whatever it is you had going, it ends now.”

Alistair reached behind his back and drew his double-bladed battle axe. He couldn’t believe he was actually going to have to fight these two. It seemed the Gods had one last test for him. Surely, he would win. There was no way the Gods had put him on this world to die to a boy and his Elvish whore!

“I don’t know who you are, but you just made the biggest mistake of your lives.”

“I told you who we are,” the boy, Olivir said. “And I’m several times your age, young man. Do not talk to me like a child.”

“Are you mocking me?” he screamed. And then he charged at them.

How could he even possibly lose?

******

Alex sank deeper and deeper into his hopelessness. He wanted to die now. Not later. But perhaps, for his failure, he deserved the torture. Sir Ultdern cracked him across the side of his face. He didn’t defend himself. He’d lost the will to fight.

“I can’t believe what you’ve done!” he shouted. “Taking you alive is not a mercy. If I had any desire to show you such, I’d have already killed you. But I want you to live just long enough to see the consequences of your actions. I want you to live long enough to—”

“No,” he said, suddenly backing away. He began screaming. What was going on? Was someone telling him something over the Comm? “No, he can’t. No!” he screamed even more loudly. “No! How can the king be dead?”

******

Vim gasped. “Wait, so we’re not fucked?” he shouted.

He exchanged an uncertain glance with Fylwen, the two of them still at the bow of the ship. The information was coming in fast—far too fast to follow. He tried to recall the person he was speaking with. He vaguely remembered him from the dragon raid. The boy—no, man—who had brought him back to life after he’d sacrificed himself via E-debt to help Zach pull off one final assault on the dragon. He was also related to Grundor somehow.

“Yeah, well, it was a real pain in the ass,” said the very young voice, almost sounding bored of all things. “I didn’t really want to get involved, but you guys were screwing up left and right. It goes against most of what I believe in, actually. But yeah, we went in and got ‘em. I tried to scare him into surrendering because we wanted to take him alive, but he was a real fanatic so uh…yeah, he’s dead. I got his head right here, actually. Oh, and very important: the terminal down here says the weapons are on 8th and 17th street. They didn’t finish it yet, so the Elves can still—”

The entire Piercing Thorn shook. A rumbling came upon the world, and Vim actually fell over and onto his side. He shouted in terror. What now? What other horror awaited them? As it turned out, it was nothing at all this time. It actually took him a few moments to realize what had happened, but it seemed that Queen Vayra and her little band of Elves had blasted off at full speed, leaving a gigantic series of cracks in the upper deck.

As hundreds of gallons of water now poured over his head—so much that his guild would now have to actually remove it or risk real damage to the ship including sinking—Vim realized that the Elvish had jumped into the water and had made a tremendous splash as they swam to shore as though their lives depended on it. They moved so swiftly and so urgently that Vim didn’t even get to see them in the water at all. By the time he’d actually figured out what they’d done, they were already kicking up a sandstorm and then blasting apart the boardwalk. There was another loud boom as they seemingly took down an entire building.

“Don’t destroy the city!” he shouted despite knowing they couldn’t hear him and wouldn’t listen to him even if they could. They even left their unicorns behind. Really, he was still trying to catch up with whatever the hell was happening, as it was all too much for him. “Does nothing ever fucking let up?”

He didn’t know what to feel. He didn’t know what to expect. Never had a series of events hit him so hard that he got whiplash from it. But was it safe to say that now, finally it was over? Maybe it was. Maybe it finally was.

He was going to do it. Mentally, he needed to do it. Yes, there were still a ton of questions he wanted answered, especially about what had just happened and why. One moment, the world was ending, and in the blink of an eye, it was saved maybe—hopefully. He needed to know all these things. But for the sake of his mental state, he needed, needed to just say it. The lack of catharsis was killing him.

I’m going to say it. I have to.

“It’s finally over,” he said. “It’s finally—”

An urgent, panicked, and gruff voice shouted in his ear over the Comm. Vim was taken by such surprise he almost fell over the railing and into the water. He didn’t even realize who was speaking at first. And when he did, he wondered just why in the name of the Gods a fucking adventurer would dare have the audacity to waste his time. Even someone as important to that community as Donovan had no business bothering him right now.

“Who the hell is Jimmy?” he shouted. “And why should I care?” Vim resisted the urge to whimper as he found out. “Oh, Gods, no. Not again. Not again! And what do you mean when you say he’s ‘soloing’ it? What does that term mean?”

Donovan angrily barked more things at him, and Vim held out his palm despite the man being unable to see it. “He fucking what?” Vim shouted. “Wait, you mean he’s doing this on purpose? Is he suicidal? Gods dammit!”

******

“…and that’s why you’re at fault for everything!” Sir Ultdern screamed. “You are the reason humanity—”

Alex’s heart came close to stopping as his phone made a loud, siren-like noise in his pocket, and in that moment, everything changed.

His mood.

His sense of reality

His purpose.

He’d made an oath. One that could not be broken even after leaving the adventuring community. There was only one way that his phone could possibly ring in the middle of a warzone. There was only one single, lone circumstance by which it could actually go off during a moment like this. And that was if something even more serious than a war was going on. For this reason, a whole different kind of terror exploded within him as he answered immediately.

“Please don’t tell me what I think you’re going to say, Donovan.”

Donovan shouted loudly at him. He was in a ferocious mood—but not with him. With that kid who Zach had been hanging around with lately. But why? What could possibly be so important the he—

“He what?” Alex shouted at the top of his lungs.

“He won’t tell us where it is!” Donovan screamed. “And the fucking auto censorship from the political guilds is making us have to search everywhere!”

So completely confounded, Alex actually pulled on his own hair. “But…but why?”

“Fucking maniac says he’s solo’ing it!” Donovan screamed. “This is the craziest, dumbest shit I ever seen in my life. Get over here NOW!”

“…and when my father passed away, I swore to him that—”

“I have to go,” Alex said, picking up his blade and taking off at a run. “Something came up, sorry.”

“W-what?” Sir Ultdern shouted. “Wait, seriously? You’re leaving?”

Alex ignored him. “Donovan, get in contact with Vim again. Maybe he can access the censored social media information to find out where it is.”

“Alex! You can’t seriously be leaving!”

Alex left.

*****

“Did we not just have this conversation?” Vim said into the Comm, irritated. He had a billion things he had to do right now. He still didn’t even fully understand what the hell had happened here and how it was possible that they’d “won” practically all of a sudden. He had a thousand-and-one questions he needed answers to. He just could not deal with this right now.

Yet Donovan’s voice continued to bark at him.

Vim gestured for his men to continue readying a boat to take him to shore. Though they might have “won”—and that in itself was something he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to believe until he saw proof with his own two eyes—there would still be about two-to-three months of fighting to fully take over the city and oust the entrenched resistance. Only, if they truly had disarmed the enemy, it could be done slowly, methodically, sensibly, and without any kind of city-wide destruction. But to even begin thinking of these things, he needed Donovan to stop harassing him.

“Okay, I hear you,” Vim said. “But I can’t help you. Like I said, Abram Gespon is in charge of that. You’ll need to speak with him. So I—” Vim scowled. “What did you just say about my mother you five-IQ-having bitch!”

Did he seriously just call me that?

“Oh, you would, would you? Well my mother wouldn’t even feel that limp-dick of yours.”

“Sir Alazar!” Haisel Ragora said, his words coming in almost as background noise. “Just disconnect. You don’t always have to engage with childish insults.”

“Yes I do!” he snapped at his second-in-command. To Donovan, he said, “Your face looks like an overcooked baked potato. And have you ever smelled yourself? Honestly, standing next to you for thirty seconds traumatized me more than the entire dragon raid. You smell like you bathe in commercially sold pig shit that’s specifically sold to enhance the stench.” He cringed as the man barked even more loudly into his ear. “Go ahead and scream, animal. You’re only making a fool of yourself. Why don’t you just—all right!” he shouted at Haisel and now Norc as both were actually trying to snatch the Comm out of his ear. “I have things to do. Go fuck yourself, Donovan!”

I won anyway. I made him angrier than he made me.

He climbed down the side ladder and into the speedboat. “Let’s go.”

*****

Abram Gespon did not expect this. He’d been monitoring the war from his office in Varda’s Lair when such an unexpected call had come in. “Firstly, who is Jimmy?” he asked Donovan. “And secondly, please tell me: what can I do for you, Donovan?”

******

(One hour earlier)

Jimmy had done enough damage to the bar—and probably to his liver as well. He could tell they wanted him out of here but were too afraid to ask. He couldn’t blame them. He’d been here all night and into the morning, and he’d made a total mess of the place. Still, he needed to grab something to go, so he bought a nice big bottle of wine, left everybody a real generous tip, and then he stumbled out the front door and left to go sulk somewhere else.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered as he learned how hard walking could be sometimes. He was feeling really tipsy and had to try his best not to fall over. He giggled even though he wanted to cry.

I humiliated myself. In front of everyone. I’m no fucking good, man. I’m no fucking good.

His phone was going off nonstop. Most of it was from Zach. What did he want now? The kid had been texting him about wanting to talk, and wanting to “be there for him.” Kalana too. Even Tena. Well, especially Tena. Jimmy was way too ashamed to look her in the eyes right now. Honestly, Jimmy didn’t feel like talking to nobody. He decided to take a walk and see some sights, nearly falling over a second time as he stepped onto the sidewalk and into the hot morning sun. Giggling for no conceivable reason, he lifted the bottle of wine to his lips and took another gulp.

“Beautiful day in the fantasy world!” he shouted, laughing. “Oh, wait, I’m sorry. Did I scare you, ma’am? Nah, it’s cool you don’t gotta…pfft, fine, whatever.”

Some mean old bitch was screaming at him and waving her hands around frantically while running away. Honestly, that was going overboard. Actually, it wasn’t just her, either. There was like fifty dudes running down the block. And they weren’t just screaming but like they were really screaming. Like full-on “ahhh ahhh” shit. Was this because of him?

It turned out that the answer to that question was no.

“Someone save us!” a person cried. It was a man—someone Jimmy actually recognized from the bar earlier in the night. He stopped short, grabbed Jimmy’s shoulders, and actually began to weep as he started to beg Jimmy for some reason. Jimmy hiccupped in his face by accident.

“Please. Please help us, please.”

“Help you?” Jimmy hiccupped again. “I don’t know what your…oh, shit. Yo, is that giant-ass horse demon supposed to be there?”

“No!”

“Oh. Ohhh! Okay. I got you.” He took another swig. “I almost understand what’s going on here. Almost. Sir, I had a lot to drink tonight—I mean this morning. That’s right. It’s day now. Haha.”

The man merely took off crying and hysterical. Jimmy was so drunk that he stood there for nearly twenty seconds before it finally clicked in his head what was actually happening. And when it did, it sobered him up—but only slightly. Because as a horse taller than most buildings began stomping down on cars—or DEHVs, whatever—while shooting lasers out of its eyes and exploding parts of the sidewalk, Jimmy realized he was looking at the one thing he wanted more than anything right now. Even more than going home.

Redemption.

Maybe this could work. Maybe he could actually restore the dignity he’d lost.

“I’m gonna solo it!”

Chapter 168: How Jimmy Got his Groove Back

Chapter 168: How Jimmy Got his Groove Back

A loud cross between a neigh and a roar filled the air as the heat from a nearby explosion added to the rapidly warming summer morning. Following this ear-splitting boom, the sight of dozens of people fleeing for their lives became apparent as their various forms emerged from within a large cloud of smoke and ash. The entire front side of a quaint diner had crumpled into nothing, simply collapsing onto itself. And amid all of this, on the opposite side of the street, a sterile buzzing came from a downed electrical wire, which shot sparks that caused a fire to erupt and consume three small decorative trees in front of a laundromat.

Damn, Jimmy thought. That sucks.

He wasn’t referring to the destruction, although that sucked too, obviously. No, his thoughts regarded the fair bit of wine he lost as he stumbled while trying to stand up straight, causing several ounces of it to splash onto the street as well as onto the front of his already liquor-stained shirt. As Jimmy tried to regain his balance, another, even angrier neigh-roar blared out, and now, the overall sense of panic among the level-1 civilians increased tenfold.

Just when it was starting to feel like home…

There was so much about this strange world that Jimmy didn’t know. There was so much he was trying to learn in a hurry. He did know a few things, though. He knew that most of the world was only level 1, and he knew that they lived lives that weren’t all that different from people back home. For most of those on Galterra—as in, everyone on the planet but him—the existence of mobs and bosses was not a surprise. But actually seeing one out and about in the open? That, it seemed, was shocking to them. It was also probably why their reaction to the sudden emergence of a gigantic, three-story-tall horse was exactly what Jimmy would expect it to be if the thing had spawned out of nowhere in the middle of Midtown Manhattan.

“Oh my Gods!” a woman screamed as a giant hoof just smashed right down on top of her. She managed to run ahead of it but only barely; the hoof instead cracked several inches into the street and left a print of itself behind in its wake, one that took the form of a depression in the ground. “Gods, save us!”

Opposite this, a spacious, dark brown DEHV came to a halt beneath the creature, putting its terrified occupants—which in this case appeared to be a family of four—at serious, immediate risk. At first, Jimmy wasn’t sure why anyone would stop right beneath a giant monster, but then he realized the vehicle’s front-right side had actually gotten stuck in an existing crater, one too deep for it to hover itself out of.

“Take the kids!” a man screamed as he fumbled his way out of the vehicle—but not before passing two pint-sized children to a young mother. Then he and the woman, who Jimmy assumed to be his wife, scrambled down the road and also narrowly avoided being crushed as the giant horse-monster stomped down on the DEHV, causing all its windows to blow out as it became compacted like scrap.

“No!” a little girl cried to her father from the sidewalk. “Daddy!”

It seemed that, for such an unlucky event, the people of Faded Island were experiencing some pretty lucky outcomes. Ninety-nine out of one-hundred times, that little girl’s pops should’ve been dead. But not this time. Incredibly, as the tremendous, equine-like monster released twin red lasers from its eyes, both of which were aimed at the man, the terrified-looking father managed to survive the ordeal solely because, while screaming in terror, he stumbled backwards away and accidentally fell into an opened sewer grate. The lasers missed him by half an inch and instead exploded an appliance store that happened to be closed for the day, and as for the man, Jimmy heard a faint plop as he landed into the sewage below. It was probably a very unpleasant experience, but Jimmy had to imagine it was preferable to death.

I don’t think it got anybody yet, Jimmy realized as he looked around. I don’t see any dead bodies.

Call it a miracle or call it random chance: either way, it was incredible and fortunate that seemingly zero people had died so far despite the absurd amounts of damage. Even the diner having had its entire entrance blown apart did not result in any obvious casualties or injuries. Inside, a bunch of trembling men and women—a mixture of diners and staff—were clinging to one another by the back wall near the bakery beside an entrance to the kitchen. Numerous tables had been overturned or knocked onto their side, though that looked due more to people fleeing in a state of panic than because of anything this horse-thing had done.

Actually, what the hell is this thing? Jimmy wondered.

Though the creature assumed a shape that was extremely similar to that of a horse, it was very dark in appearance, its skin being black with an ominous, purplish hue. It was also wide of frame, sinewy, and had very angry eyes, from which Jimmy could see more red laser beams firing out across the street. Occasionally, it would make loud sniffing noises from its large nostrils, and whenever it happened to open its mouth, Jimmy could spot an eerie, reddish light shining out from within its throat.

HP

13,225,000/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Jimmy stared dumbfounded at the boss’s tier. Using the trick he’d learned to approximate a boss’s true level relative to its base level and tier, he calculated it as being…uh…wow. Okay, so this was harder than it should’ve been. This shouldn’t have been difficult at all. Was he stupid or something? Why was this so hard all of a sudden? A child should be able to do this kind of math. This was like 2nd grade shit.

Wait, wait. This was easy. He could do this. Just think: tiers 7 through 9 had a base modifier of 25, right? Yeah, so then, it was nine multiplied by 25, which was uh…225! And then you add the 85 back on to get an effective level of 310. Damn, that actually took him a second to figure out. It wasn’t his fault, though. Sure, it may have been a very, very simple calculation involving only basic arithmetic, but Jimmy’s brain wasn’t exactly operating at full capacity right now.

Jimmy giggled then released another hiccup. Following this, he chugged down another gulp of wine as a swarm of people cried out in terror and desperation while running right past where he was standing. This was definitely a hell of a serious situation going on. It sure was. And the sight of it all was just terrible. Really, it was. This was nothing to be happy about. So why was Jimmy smiling and cackling?

Because this could be my chance, he thought. I can basically erase my shame if I solo it!

Jimmy knew it was a strange thing for him to be thinking, especially since it hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since he’d “quit” adventuring forever out of sheer humiliation and frustration, so it surprised him how strong of an impulse he felt to jump right back into things by taking on this super-powerful boss. But how could he not? It just felt so much like fate.

Seriously though, this was like God holding up a sign for him—telling him to get his dumb ass back in the game and stop being a little bitch about what happened last night. Like, just look around! How could Jimmy even possibly ignore such an opportunity? Everything was just so perfect and in place. You had a massive, gigantic boss that was only just beginning its rampage, you had people screaming and fleeing everywhere, and finally, you had Jimmy, who happened to end up in the area right as it all went down.

It was kind of like what’d happened to Zach in a sense, no?

Actually, it really was like that. Jimmy knew that Zach had been in a situation like this, and just look at how that had worked out for him. It’d transformed him into a globally known celebrity, earned him the respect of his peers, and made people take him way more seriously than they would’ve taken him otherwise. But most importantly, it stopped his fellow adventurers from questioning his competency.

Thanks to his run-in with the dragon, you never saw Donovan and Zephyr worrying that Zach was too “inexperienced” or “not ready” for this or that. Nah, never. And you know what the craziest part of it all was? He ain’t even do a single goddamn damage to the fucking thing. Jimmy knew because he’d watched it on TV. They apparently played that whole “minute and forty-two seconds” clip all the time, and Jimmy had caught it on a few occasions already despite him barely watching TV and spending most of his time in the dungeons. And Jimmy couldn’t help but notice each time he saw it that Zach didn’t do any damage at all to Ziragoth.

Or actually I think he did do exactly one damage to it, Jimmy thought. But still, that’s basically zero.

For sure, Zach was cool and all, but let’s be real: all Zach really did was jump around and get his ass beat into the ground. He was nearly eaten, too. And look how popular he became. The kid was basically famous for not dying. That was his amazing feat of courage. He fought something and only ended up in critical condition. But Jimmy? Jimmy intended to kill this giant horse creature. Forget merely surviving it. He would kill that thing dead.

Then I can face everybody again without shame.

The stars seemed to be aligning right now. It was as if the universe had guided him to this boss with the intention for him to kill it. But…on the other hand, Jimmy did have to admit that he was the tiniest, teensiest, littlest-bit drunk. Therefore, he couldn’t be certain his decision-making skills weren’t badly compromised and that this was something he wouldn’t be considering if he was sober. He doubted it, though. He loved soloing and taking on these kinds of challenges. Yet the fear of pain and death that’d been instilled into him was totally gone right now.

Am I too drunk for this? he wondered.

He decided to administer the QF test. It was a test he’d come up with as a joke with his buddies in university. He had no idea if there was any validity to this test whatsoever, but he didn’t care. He decided he was going to do it anyway. And the test was simple, too: if Jimmy could correctly recall the quadratic formula, he wasn’t too drunk.

He cleared his throat as screaming voices shouted while more men and women darted past him as they fled from the monster. Jimmy ignored them. “Negative B,” he said aloud, concentrating. “Plus or minus…”

“WHAT IS THAT THING! OH MY GODS NO! NOT HERE! PLEASE GODS NO!”

“…the square root of B squared…”

A woman carrying a very young, blonde-haired boy bumped into Jimmy and nearly made him lose his focus. But he really wanted to do this, so he needed to pass this self-administered test. He focused even harder. But it was hard because shit was getting crazy.

Boom!

Three parked DEHVs went up in flames as the mare’s eye-fired lasers left a gaping hole in the side of the street to Jimmy’s left.

“Malari!” a woman shouted. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It didn’t get me. Just keep running!”

One woman ran to another, grabbed her, and then both fled towards the opposite end of the street behind the mare. There were still a few people attempting to escape. Jimmy would—hopefully—be able to help them momentarily. He was having trouble. And he found it hilarious. He was once again giggling. But he chided himself and forced his mind to focus.

“Minus 4AC!” he shouted out, causing an already scared couple to recoil with even more fear as they seemingly tried to avoid both the T9 boss as well as Jimmy. But Jimmy was feeling pretty confident. Grinning, he added, “Over 2A!”

And with that, he knew it was on. He wasn’t that drunk. He wasn’t! If he was, how could he possibly recite the quadratic formula? He couldn’t. And no, that wasn’t backed up by science, but it was still good enough for him. He’d passed the quadratic-formula-alcohol test. All that was left now was to very hurriedly prepare for battle—but first he needed to vomit.

Taken by surprise, Jimmy bent forward, opened his mouth wide, and spewed so much puke on the sidewalk all at once that he began to panic, worrying he’d run out of oxygen and die. Thankfully, he was able to inhale one large gasp of breath—but only just the one—before puking a second time. Still, this didn’t mean he was drunk. He passed the qua-blaptic-whatever-the-fuck-it-was-called test.

Straightening his back, Jimmy walked into the middle of the street. He needed to pull aggro soon before someone actually died. He couldn’t believe that, through sheer coincidence, there still wasn’t a single dead body despite it looking like someone dropped a bunch of bombs all around him. It was a catastrophe.

I got this, he thought as he wiped his lip with his sleeve. It was gross but he was getting rid of the shirt anyway.

With everyone in the area far too concerned with their lives to bother paying him any mind, Jimmy stripped all the way down to his underwear—which only meant removing a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and some sneakers. He was in civilian clothing, after all. With that, he raised his left hand and activated Bank and Storage.

Although his Epic-Rare robes had been destroyed in the raid last night, suffering the dreaded Full Break, he actually had four more identical robes in storage, as he’d farmed the shit out of the boss in Tower of Eternity that dropped it in order to get the full set of caster gear. Actually, he had a lot of good stuff he was hoarding. He hadn’t wanted to flood the bazaar with too much at once, so he’d kept a lot of it in his box, which was nearly full and definitely needed emptying sometime soon despite him constantly giving away stuff to people for free.

As quickly as he could, Jimmy grabbed his rings, his necklace, and his bracers along with the rest of his gear and his staff. In somewhat backwards order, he put on his robes first, which were elegant and made of a soft, white, and silk-like material. The back of the robes contained a very cool pattern that looked like a combination of a clock and a compass. He didn’t know what it meant or was but he liked it. The robes were also quite powerful, but that was also because it counted for both the chest and head slot, as an optional hood could also be drawn over his head if desired, but that was purely a choice of style and not required for him to gain access to Helm Sight.

All right. Let me just get on the trousers and boots.

Jimmy lifted his left leg—and then fell completely over onto his side as his coordination seemed to fail him. Plopping hard onto the ground, he lost his grip on the wine bottle and it shattered with a crack behind him. But Jimmy ignored it and was quick to hurry back to his feet. But maybe he was too quick, because for some reason, the world began to spin. Or…not even really “spin.” It sort of just seemed to turn sideways or something.

Jimmy vomited yet again.

With only one leg inside his trousers, he ignored the sick feeling coming over him and did his best to get into his equipment. But this time, even though he managed to pull up the left side of his trousers, he somehow forgot he’d placed his boots on the ground, and he tripped over one of them and fell onto his back a second time, which resulted in another desperate climb up to his feet but thankfully not another round of puking. It was better to call it a near vomit. Because he didn’t vomit. Really, he didn’t. He just almost did.

“Maybe I did drink too much,” he said aloud. “I just don’t see how that can be if I know the quadratic equation. Haha. Hah…ha.”

Jimmy shook his head and slapped himself on the cheeks. Then he slipped into his boots—almost falling but managing to remain upright—and he grabbed his staff. Now, he was ready: it was time to show Donovan and Zephyr how badly wrong they were about him.

Now, how was that whole “walking” thing done again? He forgot for a second. But then he remembered so he was fine.

“Everyone, be calm!” he shouted as he marched farther into the street. “I’ve come to save…”

Jimmy let his voice fall off. Nobody was listening to him. Everyone who hadn’t already fled to a different street was currently in the process of doing so, and the shouting and screaming was so loud they couldn’t hear anything he said anyway. He sighed. So much for making a heroic splash like Zach had done. But really? Jimmy didn’t care about that. He didn’t want or need to become a celebrity. He just wanted the respect of the adventuring community. That was all he actually cared about.

And I’m about to get it!

Jimmy waded his way past the frantically running civilians and moved towards the center of the block. The fact that still no one had died was just…it was astounding. But it wouldn’t be long before they did. Jimmy needed to get the ball rolling. And this was actually the most critical moment of all, because it was here that he’d find out if he even could solo the boss. As usual, Jimmy had four conditions that absolutely needed to be met in order for him to solo something. And despite his drunken state, he had no problem remembering each of them.

Condition 1: no slow immunity.

Raising his staff and waving it back and forth twice in the air, Jimmy activated Crippling Mist. Immediately, a massive cloud of sizzling, crackling smoke popped into existence right on top of the so-called “Mare of the Primordial Void,” blanketing the entire creature before quickly dissipating. Jimmy tensed nervously as he waited to see if that beautiful red down arrow would now appear above its equine face and its angry, animalistic eyes.

It did!

A red, upside-down arrow now resided directly above the T9 boss, which indicated that his slow had successfully been applied to his enemy—thanks, of course, to his Legendary Unique passive, Scourge of Giants. If not for that, then even despite being susceptible to slows—as most bosses were—it would have been resisted outright due to the stat difference caused by his and the mob’s effective level of 310.

Here it comes.

As the very first person to actually “do” anything to the boss—even something non-damaging—Jimmy immediately became the sole focus of its aggro. The giant horse monster, which had been about two seconds from chomping down on a slow-moving old woman and earning its first actual kill, halted immediately and turned its head Jimmy’s way. Jimmy stood at the foot of the block opposite it. And now, at a speed that was dramatically slower than what it was likely capable of moving, the mare approached.

Condition one, check.

Condition 2: could it be poisoned?

Jimmy, eager to find out if he could actually solo this boss, activated Poisonous Miasma, which created a small, rust-colored, and oblong-shaped object directly in the boss’s path, one that functioned similarly to a landmine. As the boss’s incredibly large front-left hoof stomped down on it, his ability exploded into a purple cloud that enveloped the creature, causing it to release a loud neighing roar and suffer 225 damage. Not a lot by any means. But damage was damage. And that was still 225 times more damage than what Zach did to the dragon during his solo boss fight.

I bet I could’ve solo’d Ziragoth, Jimmy thought smugly. He wasn’t sure if that was the booze making him overconfident or if it was something he’d think normally. It was probably the latter but it was impossible for him to be sure in his current state of mind. He chuckled. He was going to show everybody how Jimmy Green got things done.

As the boss continued to slowly move towards him, Jimmy made another two large motions with his staff, and now he cast both of his AOE poisons despite facing only a single target. Since these spells didn’t have a single-target variant, and since all three of his poisons stacked, he was forced to simply endure the extra exertion cost that came with using large, area-of-effect magic.

At any rate, Jimmy was happy to see that both poisons landed and both poisons took effect, but now, he began to sweat profusely and breathe heavily. He suddenly became exhausted and drained. But it was fine. Because with the poisons ticking away, the bar he kept at the bottom of his vision was quickly filling.

Breath of Invigoration: 100%

Jimmy cast Breath of Invigoration. A big, blue, and cartoonish-looking heart materialized above his head, shining a reassuring blue-and-white light down on top of him, one which brightened as the heart spun faster and faster until bathing him in its glow. Eventually, it vanished—and so too did Jimmy’s fatigue, as within just one tick, he was feeling back to full strength and ready for anything.

Conditions 1 and 2: check and check.

Condition 3: did he have space?

Jimmy looked around. Despite how much he’d had to drink, he thankfully still knew where he was. That actually wasn’t always something he could take for granted, sadly. But in this case, it wasn’t something he had to worry about. Jimmy knew that he was standing at the intersection of a place called Grove and Market in the very suburban region of Faded Island. In particular, he was in the commercial district of a nice little town in the northeast part of the island, which was made up of several streets containing various stores and eateries and the like, all of which wrapped around a central market.

Jimmy didn’t have to spend long contemplating his location. It was obvious that he had plenty of space to move around in. In fact, as long as he didn’t trip over himself again, he could easily loop the boss around the same four streets over and over as needed. He could also try pulling it out towards the main road, but that risked bringing it to a nearby community and destroying people’s homes. Either way, he felt comfortable in giving this condition a check

So finally, condition 4: attack range.

Did Jimmy’s attacks outrange that of the boss’s that he was trying to solo? This one was always tricky to determine at first, but his instinct right now said yes. The boss had those eye laser things, and rather than use them, it was continuing to slowly make its way towards him. If it could have attacked him, it probably would’ve. Like, yeah, some of that seemed to be down to RNG, but Jimmy’s impression was that the game was skewed so that if something was being slowed and kited, it would be more likely to use a ranged attack if it had one.

It's not a game! he scolded himself. How many times you gonna make that mistake?

Jimmy moved steadily backwards and away, keeping himself out of range of the boss’s attacks while preparing to settle in for a very, very long and protracted fight. This was not going to be quick. This was going to be one of the longer boss marathons. He hoped nobody came along and fucked with him while he was dealing with this thing. Right now, he had it completely under control. And as he continuously backed away, he did cringe somewhat as the boss obliterated so much private property in its pursuit of him. He even tried to keep it centered in the middle of the street, but at best, its damage was limited to tearing down street poles, power lines, and crushing more DEHVs, and at worse, it would rip entire sections off stores and restaurants.

Turning the corner and leading the mob down the start of another—and as of yet untouched—block, Jimmy struggled not to lose his balance and fall. That actually could kill him. Right now, the biggest risk to Jimmy was Jimmy. He needed to stay concentrated and focused, but that was difficult to do since he had maybe a little bit more to drink than he wanted to admit, and also, because his Goddamn phone would not stop going off.

They’re probably really worried about me, he thought, becoming emotional out of nowhere, likely also due to the alcohol.

Flooded with a sudden guilt, he held his staff with one hand and removed his phone with the other. Then he tucked it into the side of his face as he waved his staff around to reapply his poisons, his slow, and his Breath of Invigoration. There were several gasps on the other end of the line as though they were surprised that Jimmy had picked up.

“J-Jimmy?” cried Zach’s voice.

“Yeah, what’s up, man?”

“Finally! Oh my Gods, Jimmy. Please don’t hang up. Everybody is so worried about you. Look, I heard what happened, but I need to talk to you, okay?”

“Nah, man, it’s all good.”

“Listen to me, please. I know how it feels to be in your shoes. I’ve…I’ve had a whole lot of low points recently myself. But the thing is—”

“Zach, yo, chill. You’re not listening to me. I’m fixing it all right now.”

“Huh? What’s that mean? Jimmy, I can barely understand what you’re saying. You sound drunk.”

“Hah! I was right,” said another voice in the background. It sounded like Rian. “I told you he was gonna be shitfaced.”

“Can I please talk to him?” said an effeminate voice that caused Jimmy’s heart to swell in a way that it normally wouldn’t without booze. It was Tena. He wasn’t ready to face her.

“Zach, tell her I love her and I’ll talk to her real soon, but I gotta do something first before I can face her.”

There was a moment of quiet from the other end of the line, and then Zach asked, “What exactly are you doing? Why can’t we come see you?”

He laughed. “Believe it or not, I’m soloing a rare spawn. And when I get this done, I’m going in your history books!”

“Not funny, Jimmy.”

“Huh? I’m not making a joke.”

Zach’s voice became angered and heated. “Are you fucking serious? Don’t tell me we came all the way here just for you to run off back into a dungeon.”

His words confused Jimmy. “The hell you talking about? I’m not in a dungeon. And what do you mean ‘here?’ Wait. Don’t tell me you’re on…”

“That’s right!” Kalana shouted in the background. “We came to see you ‘cause we were worried about you. I also have something really special for you from the raid, so tell us where you are.”

Jimmy couldn’t believe they’d tracked him here to Faded Island. He was both touched and annoyed—and curious as to how in the hell they’d done it. “Look, guys, I’m taking care of something. I gotta get my mojo back. Once I finish with this boss, we’ll all hang out or whatever, but I gotta deal with this first.”

“Jimmy, enough with the lying. Seriously, you’re a worse bullshitter than me.”

“Fuck outta here. I’m not lying.”

“Oh really?” Zach asked him. “You’re fighting a boss? Where, in public?”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause. “Not funny.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m not joking. I really am fighting a boss.”

“Oh, come on. Can you knock it off?”

“Zach, will you listen to me? Damn, man. I’m not lying. Do I need to send you a picture of it or something?”

“Yeah,” he replied with a laugh. “Send me a picture. Go ahead.”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. He almost fell over as he tried to aim the phone at the boss. Then he froze up like an idiot as his brain completely forgot how to take a picture on these dumb Galterra phones. Even an Android was better than this. Actually nah. That was going too far. But still he hated this unfamiliar OS.

How the hell do I…? Oh, right. It’s that app.

He snapped a photo, opened a message, attached the photo, and pressed send. “Okay, happy? See? I told you I was fighting a boss. Hey, Zach, do you think I should buy a suit for when they interview me about this? Haha. Well, Do you? Uh…Zach? Hello?”

*****

Zach couldn’t be sure who was shouting the loudest. It might’ve been him. It might’ve been Tena. It was probably Kalana. But even Lienne and Rian were losing their shit—and for good reason, too. Zach waved at all of them, however, giving each a look of urgency so they would quiet down and let him try again to reason with this maniac.

“Jimmy!” he yelled into his phone. “Tell us where you are right fucking now!”

Instead of a reply, there was only giggling. Zach swore. Jimmy was like really drunk. He opened his mouth to shout at him yet again but Kalana snatched the phone out of his hand, glaring at it furiously. “Where is the boss!” she yelled. “You can’t just…you can’t just solo it ‘cause you feel like it! Are you out of your mind?”

“Jimmy, I’m normally not the scolding type,” Rian added. “But this is the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh, bullshit!” he snapped at them. “Zach did the same shit a few weeks ago!”

Zach wanted to pull the hair out of his head. He couldn’t believe how stressful things had just become over the past minute. They had gone from calm but worried to a state of all-out panic in a matter of moments. And all because Jimmy was somehow actually telling the truth. He was fighting a boss all on his own. And worse, it was a Gods-be-damned T9! What was wrong with him?

“What I did was way different, Jimmy!” Zach shouted, grabbing the phone back from Kalana. “I didn’t have a choice. I wanted help. I held it off only for as long as I had to. You’re…you’re trying to solo it! What in the fuck is…I can’t even believe this is really happening. Where are you? Tell us!”

“I got this,” he said. “Don’t even worry about it.” A loud neigh from somewhere in the background was picked up over the phone, and what followed it was a tremendous bang.

“Jimmy!” Tena cried.

“Are you okay?” Kalana asked. “Jimmy!”

“Guys, I’m fine, damn.”

“What was that sound?” Zach asked him.

“Oh, that was just some dance studio that it stepped on.”

Kalana actually howled into the phone. “It’s destroying people’s things, Jimmy! You’re drunk and not thinking. Please. Please tell us where you are so we can help you stop it!”

“I don’t need nobody’s help!”

Lowering his voice, Zach said, “Rian, you need to contact the EEU immediately. As in like this second. Take out your phone and dial #518 and say that we’ve got a level-3 apocalyptic event in progress.”

“What the hell did I just hear?” demanded Jimmy angrily over the phone. “Oh, no. Oh, I know ya’ll aren’t snitching on me. Somebody tell me I’m not being snitched on right now. Jesus have mercy on me if I find out Zach snitched.”

Zach ignored him as an entirely separate voice shouted out over Rian’s phone and Rian replied. “Yes, that’s correct. Not a false alarm,” he said.

“And where is it?” a panicked, urgent voice cried. “Every second counts. Tell me. Now!”

“Yeah, uh…so about that, uh…we don’t actually know, sir.”

“…you what?”

“We don’t know where it is.”

“…come again?”

Zach snatched the phone away from Rian so that he now held one in his left hand and one in his right. “We don’t know because Jimmy won’t tell us.”

“What do you mean he won’t tell you?” asked the responding adventurer.

“What are you saying to that dude?” Jimmy angrily shouted. “You better not be saying shit, Zach!”

“Who said that? Is that Jimmy?”

“Oh, shit. Is that you, Dalora? We grouped up on F30 in TOE, right? What’s happening?”

“Jimmy! Thank the Gods you’re all right.”

Zach moaned as the situation began to spiral so confusingly out of control that he didn’t know what to do. Right now, he was standing there awkwardly in the middle of an island suburbia while holding two phones close together on speaker.

“I’m good.”

“Has there truly been a T9 spawn?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. I got it.”

“You…got it?”

“Yeah, it’s being handled.”

“Where?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Jimmy! Are you…are you refusing to say?”

“Yeah.”

“WHAT?” the voice shouted.

“Okay, clearly this…this is getting us nowhere. Let me state this another way. Jimmy, tell me where you are right now or I’ll lose my cool.”

“No.”

Zach’s temper flared. And Kalana reminding him of his “breathing exercises” only made it worse. “Jimmy, I’ll kick your ass all the way back to the past if you don’t start talking! Do you know how bad you have to be to make me look like the responsible adult in a situation? Gods, I feel like Mr. Oren. Where are you, Jimmy? Don’t make me ask again!”

Jimmy hung up on him, and now Zach was so, so close to crushing the phones—both of them—in his hands, but this time, he did remember his breathing exercises. And he was going to need them, too. Because as five very painful and confusing minutes came and went, he now received a call on his own phone, which turned out to be a very angry and impatient Donovan. The man was demanding he start a conference call with Jimmy on the line. Zach tried to tell him there was no chance Jimmy was going to pick up, but Donovan started threatening him. So he tried anyway, and to his surprise, Jimmy actually did pick up.

“Jimmy?” Zach asked. “Are you there?”

It did not help soothe Donovan’s own heightened temper that the very first sound on the call from Jimmy's end wasn’t the word “hello” being spoken but instead some kind of super-explosion.

“ARE YOU FUCKIN’ KIDDING ME, JIMMY!” Donovan roared over the line. “This is the stupidest Gods-be-damned thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. You better give up your location right now or I’ll backhand you so hard you’ll be slapped back to your own time!”

Zach cleared his throat. “I uh…I already used that joke.”

He knew he should’ve kept his mouth shut. He knew it. But he had to say it. And Rian seemed to sympathize with him, too. But no one else did, not even Kalana. The result was an unholy, vitriol-laden tearing down from Donovan that contained words so terrible even he wouldn’t use them. Even Trelvor and Seiley were upset with him.

“Not helpful,” Trelvor said, shaking his head at Zach.

Sensing that his commentary was not being appropriately appreciated, Zach decided to remain quiet and let Donovan try to talk sense into Jimmy. But that didn’t seem to be working, either. Jimmy kept going on about how he was “soloing” it and threatening Donovan not to “assjam” on his “1v1.” These were terms Zach was not familiar with, but they seemed fairly easy to understand in context. What was not easy to understand was how, even drunk, anyone could be dumb enough to earn Donovan’s wrath and ire. Jimmy was only making it worse for himself, too.

“Jimmy, this ain’t the way to go about dealing with things,” Donovan said. “Now you listen to me, Gods-dammit. If you tell us where it is right now, then the way this goes down is simple: you pulled aggro, you saved some lives, and you held it for us until we got there. Everybody also forgives and forgets whatever crazy shit you just tried to pull. But if you don’t and I gotta find it through other means…” He grunted. “You don’t wanna find out.”

Another loud bang came from the speaker of Zach’s phone, increasing the urgency of the situation. “Just out of curiosity,” Zach said, “how close is it to dying? How long would it even take you to solo something like that?”

“Like, 22 hours.”

“Gods dammit Jimmy!” Zach snapped. “Are you f…you know what? Now I’m mad all over again. You can’t just fight that for 22 hours while everybody’s property is destroyed.”

Jimmy said nothing for yet another moment, and another loud bang came across over the speakers. “Fine. You guys can come help. If you promise not to tell anyone else, you get half the loot, Zach.”

Zach scowled. “Jimmy, are you seriously trying to fucking…” The scowl fell off his face. “Wait, what was that last part?”

Kalana glared at him, and so did Trelvor, Seiley, Lienne, Tena, and even Rian this time. Even Donovan, too. And he wasn’t even there but somehow Zach could feel it.

As his friends closed in on him, Zach had to run halfway down the block to gain some distance from them as they demanded he turn over the phone. “Say that part again?”

“I’ll let you and the others come help if you don’t tell nobody else where I’m at. You guys can even have half the loot.”

Zach opened his mouth, then shut it as Kalana grabbed his wrist, brought him to a stop, and looked threateningly at him. “Zach, umm, you better not make a deal like that! I’m gonna be so upset with you if you do.”

“Don’t make me have to beat two kids today!” Donovan threatened.

Rian merely shrugged and whispered, “Why not just agree to get his location and then tell Donovan?”

“That’s a good idea,” Tena said. “I hate to lie to Jimmy, but…but this is insane.”

The idea riddled Zach with guilt. That was betrayal in a sense. He wasn’t the kind of person to do that to someone. But this was a very unusual circumstance. He was torn. He wasn’t sure what to say. “Jimmy, listen to me. Whatever it is you’re—”

*****

“—trying to accomplish here, it’s not going to actually change anything. Please. Just let us—”

Without actually meaning to, Jimmy hung up on Zach, but it was only because he was uncoordinated. Honestly, it was amazing he was doing as well as he currently was. Things had become almost boringly stable. In fact, Jimmy actually had to fight off a touch of drowsiness as he kited the large, lumbering creature down a slightly narrowed street containing a mixture of street merchants and small, mom-and-pop stores including a cute little place that only sold fruit. Or used to only sell fruit. Now, unfortunately, it sold nothing. Because, you know, there was nothing left of it.

Ahead of him, the boss made very slight flinching motions three times in quick succession as all three ticks of the poison came in one after the next.

298

416

356

HP

13,055,620/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Jimmy’s mood deflated somewhat as he realized he’d reduced the boss’s health by only slightly more than 1%. This really was going to be one hell of a long, drawn-out fight. And the longer he went without alcohol, the more he was wondering if maybe he should call for help or something. It was just that he wanted so badly to prove himself capable. It was beginning to bother him.

A lot of people would be dead if I wasn’t here, though.

It wasn’t a boast or a lie. If Jimmy hadn’t pulled the boss, it was quite literally the case that dozens of people would’ve been dead who were currently alive. And that wasn’t even including those who’d gotten trapped inside damaged buildings or near burning vehicles. Emergency personnel had begun showing up: level 1 cops in what looked like Galterran police uniforms along with orange-vested rescue workers. They had different names for those types of people here, but Jimmy couldn’t remember what they were called, but they all seemed grateful to him. Jimmy had even briefly communicated with them, telling them that the boss was focused only on him and they could rescue whoever needed rescuing once he passed them by.

“Thank you so much!” one of them called to him.

“You’re very brave!” cried another.

But yeah, at any rate, with all four conditions met, Jimmy was basically just chilling at this point. It was definitely going to take a bit, but he had the situation completely under his control. The boss was ambling towards him, he was backing away, and everything was going smoothly. Sure, a few cars and some buildings were getting crushed, but by now, everyone in the immediate area had either already evacuated or was in the process of being rescued and removed, right?

Apparently not. There was someone approaching—and very, very fast.

At first, Jimmy wasn’t sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him or if he was so drunk he was hallucinating. Because it looked to him like there was a young woman leaping from rooftop to rooftop along the street as she headed his way. She was gripping what looked like a long, wooden combat staff in both hands, and it wasn’t until she forward-flipped and landed on both feet atop a convenience store to his immediate right that Jimmy was able to get a look at her face.

And when he did, he recognized her immediately.

Oh, shit, it’s her.

Jimmy knew who she was. How could he not? How could anyone not? Jimmy wasn’t even from this planet, and even he knew who the woman was. Aside from Kalana, she had to be one of—if not the—most famous women on the entire planet. Her name was Duchess Fiona Darkmae, and she was the leader of the Children of Order: the guild that controlled this region. And how did Jimmy know this?

Because she was everywhere. On posters, on TV ads, on billboards. She was what, back on Earth, they would have called a “sex symbol,” though that name appeared to be offensive and confusing to the people here, as Jimmy had found out one night when he’d used the term in Angelica’s. Regardless, Fiona Darkmae was so ubiquitous that even Jimmy knew her name and her life story just from the little bit of Galterran TV he’d actually consumed.

He knew that she was only twenty-three years old, for example. He knew that she was a former child actress and later a full-fledged movie star. He knew that she was never meant to be the leader of the Children of Order, but that her older brother had recently died unexpectedly of a rare, incurable neurological illness and her father had committed suicide from grief, making her the unexpected leader of her guild and also the youngest guild leader in recorded history.

This, Jimmy had somehow gleaned despite barely knowing anything about Galterra. He’d even come to learn just in passing that she had her own clothing, jewelry, and perfume line. But more than anything else, he recognized her as being the most absurdly, stunningly, ridiculously attractive girl he’d ever seen in his entire damn life, including his life on Earth. The girl was so unreasonably hot it was actually mind blowing. And she was just as incredible to behold in person as she was on the billboards.

Her blonde hair, which was currently done into a ponytail, her supple cheeks…she didn’t even need the makeup she was wearing. It was overkill. And complementing all of this was a body so curvaceous and well-proportioned it was like God had specifically decided to sculpt her manually rather than let her form through the usual, natural processes. Her build was athletic and yet she was well-endowed, and her backside was…well, it was impossible not to look at if it happened to be in front of you.

But because Tena existed, Jimmy was not tempted by her appearance. No, not even slightly. Because while Tena was a cute, but overall average-looking girl, to Jimmy’s eyes, she was the one with the most beautiful face in Galterra, and she was the one he wanted above all—even as he’d shunned her to sulk here in his own shame and humiliation. So no, not even the sight of such a jaw-droppingly perfect girl could take his heart away from Tena. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t rouse other emotions in Jimmy, such as a sudden rush of distrust, fear, and a territorial, animal-like aggression.

Jimmy peeled back his lips and scowled at her the moment she launched herself into another forward-flip off the top of the convenience store and landed with a soft tapping sound across from him. She opened her mouth to say something to him—but he wouldn’t hear it. Hell no. He was furious! And so, loudly, drunkenly, and with far more aggression than he realized he was capable of, he pointed his staff at her and shouted.

“Camped!”

Her eyebrows rose, her head tilted to the side, and she again opened her mouth to speak. But Jimmy yelled at her before she could utter even a single word to him. Taking his eyes off the slowed but approaching horse boss, he shouted, “This spawn is already camped! I claimed it. I was here first when it spawned, and I already aggroed it. It’s mine!”

She better not be trying to kill-steal, he thought as an evacuated school-bus DEHV was crushed beneath the hoofs of the approaching boss just as thoroughly as the car-sized ones had been. I didn’t think I’d have to deal with this problem in Galterra. I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later.

Jimmy knew he was risking a lot by taking such a hostile tone with the leader of a uh…what were they called again? “Political guilds” or some shit? Something like that, right? In all honesty, he still didn’t really understand what the whole deal was between them and the adventurers. He’d noticed that the adventurers seemed to control the dungeons and Angelica’s, and the “political guilds” were like in charge of running the regions and served as semi-autonomous governing bodies. Outside of that, Jimmy wasn’t really sure what the specifics were or who outranked who. He didn’t care, either. He was here first. Even if she did control the region, she couldn’t just be allowed to come KS him.

He stared at the woman. She didn’t seem angry—just concerned. She was only four years older than him, but she regarded him with a strange look of amusement as though he were some troublemaking little brother of hers. It was a surreal, knowing expression despite him never having met her before.

“Whoah there,” she said, removing her right hand from her staff and holding it out as if in a gesture of peace. “I have no idea what any of that means.” She turned her head towards the boss and frowned at it before looking back at him. “You must be Jimmy, I take it, huh?”

“You…know me?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“How do you know who I am?”

She again looked at the T9 boss, apprehension flashing across her delicate features. “Well, I was on my way here to make sure you were behaving. See, I got a report that an adventurer was getting a little bit out of hand at a bar, but when I showed up, I…I saw that.” Her tone shifted greatly, becoming filled with worry and fear. “Is it happening again?”

“Is what happening again?”

“Another…another major boss spawn.” The fear left her eyes and words, and strength took its place as she seemingly scanned the destroyed block. “How many are dead? More emergency services are on the way if we can hold it off for a bit. Also, how many are injured? And why are you alone? Where are the rest of your adventurers? Do you want me to have my guild help you hold it off while you wait for them to arrive?”

Jimmy stared at her blankly. “Huh? What? What are you…?” He shook his head. “I’m so confused.”

“You’re…an adventurer, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And you’re a member of the EEU, right?”

“The what?” Jimmy exclaimed, his head beginning to ache and the world beginning to spin again.

“The emergency extraction unit—you know, the people who show up whenever a boss spawns in public.”

Jimmy continued to stare at her with the same blank expression, and now it caused even more concern to rush onto her face. He had no idea what she was talking about, and as he tried to ask her to elaborate, she seemed to have no idea what he was saying, either. But in his case, that was his own fault, because even to his own ears, he could hear that his words were slurred and nonsensical. He tried to gesture with his staff, but he nearly lost his grip on it.

“Are you drunk?” she asked him.

“I’ve got a little buzz going on,” he said, managing to get the words out.

“Oh, dude. No wonder. Here, my T2 cure works on that.” She changed her grip on her combat staff so that she pointed it at Jimmy, and the tip of the weapon facing him began to take on a white, comforting glow. Suddenly, his entire sense of being changed. It felt like waking up from a dream. The spinning stopped, his emotions shifted, his sense of awareness became greatly heightened, and he was suddenly very, very, very thirsty. But also alert. In mere moments, he became so much more attuned with his surroundings, and his sense of balance and coordination was greatly restored, too.

“Did you just make me sober?”

“Almost,” she said. “You look like you’ve still got some left.” She raised her staff a second time.

“Ah, w-wait!” Jimmy released a nervous laugh. “I think that’s enough, actually. Let me at least keep some of my—”

Her staff flashed a second time, and despite his protests, she removed whatever buzz remained. Now, Jimmy was truly, one-hundred percent sober. And it was only now that it really started to dawn on him what he’d just done: what he was doing. And you know what? It really didn’t change anything. Sure, his level of caution went up a great deal, and his sense of danger and fear went along right with it, but everything he’d felt while drunk was still right there inside of him: including his desire to kill this boss and earn redemption.

“Okay, so let’s start over,” she said to him. “Oh, and I’m sorry if I seem pushy. I’m normally really cool and calm and sociable, but…” She made a gesture with her chin at the T9 boss. “I have no idea what that thing is and how much danger my region is in—or why you’re here. I don’t even know if we can talk while it’s coming right at us.”

“Oh, no we can definitely talk,” Jimmy said, nodding as he spoke the words. “I got so much time right now. Here, move back a bit before it shoots you with its lasers.”

“Its what?”

Jimmy reached out, grabbed her arm, and yanked her towards him just as the ground near her feet detonated upon being struck by two more of the creature’s lasers. Her mouth falling open slightly, she regarded him a moment as though in shock, but then she slowly made a gracious bow of her head. “Thanks, Jimmy.”

“It’s all good.”

Jimmy backed away, keeping a constant distance from the boss, and now, she followed alongside him, staying close by. “Are we…okay?” she asked.

“Oh, for sure, we’re good.”

“I’m so confused and have so many questions of you.”

“I kinda have a few as well.”

“Well, let me just start by introducing myself. My name’s Fiona Darkmae, and I’m the leader of the Children of Order.”

He nodded. “I know. I see you all over the place.”

“Ohh? You’re a fan?”

“Of course,” Jimmy lied. Who would answer no to that? That would only make things awkward.

“Well, it’s good to meet you. So, uh…” Hesitantly, she looked ahead of her as Jimmy continued to backpedal. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here, what happened, and where the other adventurers are. They should’ve been here by now.”

“I came here for a drink, and this thing spawned by pure coincidence. And what other adventurers are you talking about?”

He could sense his question confused her. She puckered her lips for a few seconds before responding. “You called them to come help, right?”

Jimmy snorted. “Hell no.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re joking, right?”

“Why would I be?”

“I…I’m so confused. Can you start from the beginning and tell me everything that happened? And again, not to be pushy, but quickly.”

“Like I said, we’ve got plenty of time, but if you really wanna know why I’m out here…” He sighed. “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

As Jimmy began to speak, he surprised himself by how open he was being. The alcohol having been vaporized out of his system, it was not responsible for his loose lips. Holding back only the parts that he absolutely could not speak aloud, he decided, for a reason unknown to him, to tell this girl exactly what had happened to bring him here. Maybe it was just because he felt like talking about it. Or maybe it was to pass the time, of which he now had a great deal. Either way, he decided to fill her in.

“…and that was when I decided to show the other adventurers where the dungeon was. Because like, at this point, you know, I’m still thinking I’m worth something, because Eilea—oh, right. You don’t know who that is. So uh, Eilea’s like a—”

“Oh, I know Eilea!” Fiona shot in, sounding almost cheerful at the name.

“Wait, you do?”

She nodded. “Yeah. The Elves invited all of us to come meet her the moment she reappeared. A lot of high-ranking guild members haven’t gone yet because they were busy with the war, but I showed up there yesterday and met her. I must’ve just missed you. You remind me a lot of—” she made an “ohh” sound—“wait, you’re that boy they were talking about!”

“That who was talking about?” Jimmy asked, becoming self-conscious. “Who is it you think I am?”

“The boy who came from Earth!” she said, smiling at him.

Jimmy inhaled. “Wait, you know about that?”

“Yep. I overheard Eilea talking to the adventurers about it,” she explained. “How you were born of a colony of Earth survivors, and you trained in all those simulations and stuff. Right?”

So that’s how that got started, Jimmy thought, finally discovering the origin of his semi-fictional “backstory.”

Yesterday, Spider had approached him to let him know that he and the other adventurers had become aware of Jimmy’s upbringing on Earth. At the time, he’d become fearful that somehow secrets that really weren’t supposed to spill had, well, spilled. But he’d soon discovered that what the adventurers actually “knew” was a completely modified, fabricated version of events that claimed Jimmy was rescued from a modern-day, destroyed Earth by Eilea and taken here via a portal or something. At the time, Jimmy had been wondering who’d created this fictional—but very useful—backstory, which enabled him to be a little more comfortable around the adventurers and worry less about slipping up while also concealing the more sensitive details. Now, he knew.

It was Eilea.

Jimmy reapplied his slow, his poisons, and his stamina-regen buff, then said, “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Wow. Okay! Eilea talked really highly about you.”

“She did?”

“Mhm. She sure did. But go on. What happened next?” She frowned, but not at him, as a jewelry store went up in flames. “And maybe be a bit quicker. Sorry.”

Given her sense of urgency, Jimmy did his best to fill her in on the rest of the story as quickly as he could without leaving out any important details. By the time he’d finished, he was surprised to see the genuine look of compassion on her face. Fiona clearly stood in contrast to all the bad things he’d heard from adventurers about the so-called “political guilds.”

“Oh, dude, I’m so sorry,” she said. Then she again looked at the giant horse. “So that’s why you’re fighting it alone?”

“That’s right. I gotta solo it.”

“To prove yourself, right?”

“Yep.”

She gave him a pat on the shoulder. “I get where you’re coming from. I really do. Everybody thinks I’m just a pretty face. Nobody believes I’m actually a strong, capable leader. Not just because of my age, but because of who I am and how I look. I’m constantly fighting to prove I belong in my position. But…”

“But what?”

She squeezed his right shoulder blade. “I really need you to call your adventurer friends over here, or if you want, I can call them.”

Jimmy flared in outrage. “Wait, what?”

“Look, I totally get where you’re coming from. I really do. I mean that. But here’s the thing, Jimmy. I love this region. I love it so much. I love the people here. Do you see that restaurant right there”—she pointed—“that just got crushed by the boss? I used to eat there when I was a kid. And I know the owners. They’re a really great family.”

She released his shoulder as the two continued to back away and turn around before heading down the next block. “I understand that you have something to prove. But my region is being destroyed right now. You have to understand you can’t just…you can’t just turn a whole district into your own personal arena for…how long is it going to take you to kill that, anyway?”

Jimmy looked at the boss’s HP. All his poisons combined were doing around 800 damage each tick. He made a very uneasy chuckle. “About 21-and-a-half hours,” he said.

“Yeah…Jimmy, I’m sorry, but you need to call this one in.”

Having used magic to rid the alcohol from his system, Jimmy was far too sensible now to argue his way out of it. Actually, he couldn’t believe he’d ever resisted in the first place. The alcohol had made him act irrationally and ridiculously. “They’re gonna kill me, Fiona.” He briefly told her of his conversation with his friends over the phone.

“No they’re not. They can’t kill their raid leader.”

“Raid leader?” Jimmy repeated with a guffaw. “I’ll be lucky if I’m not thrown out of the adventuring community for this. No way they let me lead a raid ever again—and that was before I started soloing this.”

Fiona raised her right hand, lifted her index finger, and then she wiggled it at him. “Nope. You forget, this is my island, Jimmy. And if I say that only you’re permitted to lead a raid here, then that is law.”

Jimmy gasped. “Wait, you can do that?”

“I sure can.”

He felt his spirits rising—only to sink. “But I’m not a good raid leader. I told you what happened yesterday.”

“Today isn’t yesterday, though. And isn’t there some part of you that wants to try again? Based on everything you told me, I don’t even think killing this giant horse all by yourself is gonna make you feel better.”

This, he found strange. “What do you mean?”

She shook her head confidently. “Well, it sounds to me like you could already do this kind of one-on-one boss fighting from the start. Maybe I’m, like, totally off base here, but I kind of think the only thing that’ll help you feel better is if you try to lead another raid—and get it right this time.”

Her words struck him deeply. “And you’d trust me to do that?”

“Why not?”

“B-because you don’t even know me, and why would you care at all? You’re the leader of a guild, and the property of your people is being trampled on. Why would you risk losing even more on some unknown nobody like me?”

“Good question,” she said, sounding reflective. “Hmm. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just intuition. Or maybe because I get it. I really get it. Every day of my life I feel like I have to prove myself to someone who thinks I’m too young and too pretty to be taken seriously. I kind of want to see you win.”

Jimmy was shocked: so much so that he wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. Part of him wondered if he was even worthy of ever leading a raid again. Without the alcohol, his confidence had taken a hit. Still, he couldn’t deny that the idea appealed to him on a very deep level, and so he accepted her offer immediately.

“If you’re really serious about this, then yeah, I’ll…I’ll do it. And I guess I can call Zach and Kalana back and tell them where I—”

“Wait, wait, Kalana is here?” Fiona exclaimed. “On Faded Island?”

“Well, yeah, she and Zach and some others came looking for me. Why?” In response, Fiona removed her own phone and began hastily making a call. “What are you—”

“Kalana?” Fiona said aloud. “Thank the Gods I got you. No, this isn’t about the fruit basket, but I’m glad you enjoyed it. Thank you! Awwhh, you’re so sweet. But seriously, there’s a reason I’m calling you. Um, you’ll never guess who I just ran into.”

The two began speaking as though they knew one another, and through their animated chatter, Jimmy learned that they had become friends during the dragon raid and had begun keeping in contact on social media ever since, in some cases speaking daily. Jimmy watched all of this in a state of sober bewilderment. It also occurred to him that he was going to have to deal with Donovan in a very short while from now.

Damn, that wasn’t going to be fun.

Chapter 169: Elemental Shift

Chapter 169: Elemental Shift

With noon only two hours away, the Galterran summer heat was making itself known. Perspiration caused a dampness to form on the back of Zach’s neck as the cloudless sky provided no shade or respite from the high temperature nor from the burning sun that scorched with an unprovoked vengeance. Still, Zach paid it little mind. He was far more focused on getting to Jimmy, and so were the others. But they were beginning to slow, as not all of them were able to move at quite the same pace.

At the moment, Rian was panting, and Lienne was, too. But Zach was still fine, and so was Kalana, Tena, Trelvor, and Seiley. All seven of them had been sprinting down one of the main roads in the region of Faded Island, this one in particular spanning across the middle of the huge island from the west to the east. A few minutes ago, Zach had been relieved to learn some very important details from a miraculously sobered up Jimmy, beginning with the fact that he was back in a rational state of mind and was willing to work together.

This is the last thing I thought was going to happen out here, Zach thought with a sigh. I’m going to need another vacation after what these past twenty-four hours put me through.

Zach periodically glanced at his phone to ensure he was moving in the right direction. This was his very first time ever visiting Faded Island, a region that was known to have the happiest population in all of North Bastia. Just off the western coast, the island housed something that could almost be called one gigantic pseudo-suburbia. There were no cities on Faded Island and no tall buildings. Instead, low-density communities filled with single-family homes were broken up by strip malls, shopping plazas, and other types of commercialized areas. There were also a few stretches of farmland and other more open, natural, and scenic spots to take in, such as the fields to the left and right of them as they ran off to the side of the main road.

“That’s where all the chocolate comes from, right?” Rian asked, gazing longingly at the cocoa bean farms.

“Rian, you’ve had enough chocolate in your life,” Zach muttered. “Now run faster or I’m leaving you behind.” A DEHV zipped by, blasting them with a gust of wind and moving at a speed fast enough to plainly put into focus how slow the six of them were moving in comparison. “Come on, let’s go!”

“It’s not me,” Rian said, clearly lying. “It’s Lienne. I’m only slowing down for her.” This, he said as beads of sweat rained down the front and both sides of his face.

“L-liar,” Lienne huffed, obviously struggling. “Trelvor…baby, will you buy me chocolate after we kill the boss?”

“Of course I will, my Lienne.”

Zach decided he’d buy Kalana a bunch of it too assuming this boss didn’t destroy the region or the entire world before that point, though from what he was hearing, everything seemed pretty well contained. This was good, because although she’d set it aside for now, he knew that Kalana was still really mad at him for lying to her, and though it would definitely take more than a couple of boxes of chocolate to get back on her good side, it would surely be a start. Of course, even if she wasn’t mad at him, he’d still buy them for her.

The idea of coming here to Faded Island and not buying the sweets was actually unthinkable. After all, the entire region was only able to sustain its upper-middle-class lifestyle due to being the sole exporter of all the cocoa beans used on Galterra. From what Zach had learned in school, it seemed that the nitrogen-rich soil enabled the crop’s growth, and it couldn’t be grown anywhere else. As a matter of fact, it reminded Zach that the rest of the entire world likely hadn’t gotten to taste chocolate since Peter IV.

That’s right, he thought to himself. It doesn’t grow anywhere else on this planet. That means only humans have eaten it in decades since nobody else trades with us anymore.

Thanks to its relative position of isolation respective to the rest of the world, Faded Island had been involved in very few conflicts throughout history. Its ruling guild, Children of Order, had also been its steward for as far back as history could tell, but this was also due to the guild’s total and complete rejection of any kind of expansionist philosophy, something it had consistently stuck to for all—or nearly all—of its existence. As a result, Children of Order made very few enemies, and according to history, they’d maintained their position of power here and had only ever lost control of it briefly during the height of the Brayspark monarchy. Hence, the guild became synonymous with Faded Island, and it was impossible to imagine anyone else ruling over this peaceful but mostly unspectacular region.

It's so different here from where I grew up, Zach thought.

Farmers looked on incuriously as Zach and his friends darted by. A few even waved as though recognizing him. People here didn’t seem to have all that much interaction with guild members, which was similar to how things had been all Zach’s life in Whispery Woods, only in this case, it wasn’t because the region had been abandoned and left in disrepair; rather, it was because their ruling guild, Children of Order, were known to be extraordinarily mindful of disturbing their citizens. The only other guild like that was the Royal Roses, who also prioritized values such as putting the personal liberty of their citizens above things like custom and decorum. But unlike the Royal Roses, the Children of Order did not collect any property tax and instead sourced all of their money through export fees. They also weren’t quite as unrestrictive as the Royal Roses when it came to personal morality.

Just like most guilds, the Children of Order did have some, albeit looser, laws around obscenity and lewd public conduct. The Royal Roses, on the other hand, did not even arrest people who walked around naked. If they did, they would’ve had to arrest Vim Alazar, their leader, who had nakedly and drunkenly stumbled around Giant’s Fall on so many different occasions that even guild censorship had given up trying to cover it up. It was just another quirky thing he was known for, and people in Giant’s Fall had just come to accept it. Everybody knew that, legally speaking, just about anything that didn’t involve children was fair game in Giant’s Fall. And anything that did was punishable by death. This was a universe away from Varda’s Lair, where the People of Virtue imposed a strict, formal dress code and arrested people for walking around non-beachfront or pool areas in shorts.

They even have brothels in Giant’s Fall, Zach thought, something boys in his class had always snickered about and discussed wanting to go visit. Not Zach, though. He was an angel who never said anything wrong, and if anyone ever told Kalana otherwise, he’d stab them in the face!

In a strange way, the Children of Order were similar to the adventurers in the sense that they were very unaffected by world events, and this attitude seemed to carry over, culturally speaking, to the people they governed. Right now, all throughout North Bastia, there were riots, violence, and widespread public disorder as a response to the attack on Ogre’s Axe and the broader war going on between the Guild of Gentlemen and basically everybody else. But Zach doubted any of that disorder was happening over here. Faded Island was practically disconnected from the politics of the world. Although, unlike the adventurers, they did have at least some involvement, though it was rarely anything that brought much attention or scrutiny down upon them.

“Rian, try to keep up,” Trelvor said. “Lienne, you can hop on my back if you want.”

She blew him a kiss and did exactly that, causing Rian to cock his right eyebrow at Seiley. “Not a chance,” she growled. “You should be carrying me.”

“Fucking whatever,” Rian huffed out, taking bigger and bigger breaths. “Gods, how did we end up on the completely wrong side of the island?”

“Because Fluffles bailed on us and we had no idea where to look,” Zach said, becoming disappointed. He came to a halt to let Rian rest for a moment, and the others stopped with him.

“Why did he go and ditch us, anyway?” Kalana asked. She gave Zach a way-too discerning look. “Did you or Rian do something to upset the kitty?”

“What? No, of course not,” Zach said defensively.

“Then why’d he leave?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Cat reasons, I guess. He said something about being bored and hating…” Zach’s words trailed off as a strange sensation like that of a chill slithered down his spine. Kalana, noticing this, came a little closer and lowered her voice.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s nothing. It’s just something that Fluffles said.”

“What’d he say?”

Abruptly, Rian and Trelvor also seemed to become paler as though they were now recalling what Zach had only just remembered. Zach turned his head down and stared at the grass beside the curb as he thought on the cat’s words. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding or misconstruing things. Afterwards, he looked at Kalana. “He said that he was leaving because he…hates horses.”

Kalana wet her lips like she had something she wanted to say but then seemingly froze as though it had taken a few seconds for the implications to really dawn on her. She was quiet a moment, and then she said, “Wait, you don’t think…?”

“He knew,” Rian said, still trying to catch his breath as they rested for the time being. “That damn cat knew the boss was going to spawn right on top of Jimmy. That’s why he didn’t want to come.”

“But how?” Lienne asked. “How can he possibly know something like that? Do Shadowfangs have access to spawn dates or something?”

At this, both Trelvor and Seiley shook their heads at the same time. “No,” Seiley said. “Um, at least I’m pretty sure they don’t. I know that Chumpkenwiffles, at least, doesn’t. I play with her all the time and she tells me everything. And she’s always surprised when there’s a rare spawn somewhere near the village.”

Hearing this, Zach turned to look at the eyeshadow-wearing Elvish girl. “Wait, seriously? You’re saying they’re not all weirdly omniscient like Fluffles is?”

The question didn’t appear to register to her, because she made an uncertain-sounding hum. “Meaning what?”

“Well, Fluffles can do all kinds of crazy things. Like, he can ‘appraise’ people and see their level, abilities, their potential…you know, all that kind of stuff.”

“Yeah, Chumpkenwiffles can do that too. I’m pretty sure they can all do that, actually.”

“Oh, right,” Zach said. “I forgot for a second that it was actually the dog’s appraisal of me that got me killed.” Zach shuddered at the memory, and Seiley also made a similar gesture, though in her case, Zach had to imagine it was more due to a sense of underlying shame over how her queen had betrayed him. He also sensed that she didn’t feel like rehashing it, which was good, because he didn’t, either. Thus, eager to move the conversation along, he said, “Fluffles can do other things, too. Like, he can also find people wherever they are in the world. Can Chumpkenwiffles do that?”

“She can, yes. She can track people almost anywhere as long as she’s met them before. So that’s not anything strange, either. What else?”

Zach thought on it. “Fluffles knows whenever someone’s leveled up or what level they are even when they’re far away.”

“You mean he doesn’t need to be near them to know what level they are?”

“Yup. He can tell you someone’s current level even if they’re on a different planet.”

“Hmm.” Seiley tapped her chin. “Okay, so on that one, I think you’ve got something.”

“Really?”

“Uh…yeah, I don’t think Chumpkenwiffles can do that. I say this because whenever I used to level up and come home a higher level than I was when I left, she’d come running up to me all happy and surprised and excited.” Seiley’s expression warmed. “She’s so cute. She wags her tail and congratulates me and then asks me if she can have a new toy or beef.”

Zach chuckled. “Fluffles is always asking me for food, too. And I mean like always. I don’t know how the cat is so hungry. And you know what?”

“What?”

“If I don’t dangerously overfeed him well beyond what’s reasonable or healthy, Fluffles goes around telling everyone that I’m abusing and starving him. He actually goes and says, ‘Zach abuse and starve Fluffles.’ Like I’d ever do that.”

Seiley laughed. “No way! Whenever I don’t give the doggie extra meat, she uses guilt on me too! Ah, maybe not to that extreme, but one time, around a year and a half ago, back when my mom asked me to patrol the Skelly Highlands, Chumpkenwiffles came along with me, okay? So get this. Halfway through our patrol, she starts sniffing, right? And then she just—”

“Well, I’m glad to see you all have the time to sit around and make idle chat,” a no-nonsense voice said from behind them. Zach looked over his shoulder then fully turned around to see Mr. Oren sprinting in their direction. But it was through his voice alone that Zach was able to identify his former science teacher—and not at all through sight. Because the man heading towards them was almost unrecognizable, at least at first.

What the…?

The sight of Mr. Oren was incredibly jarring. Zach could hear Lienne gasp as he drew nearer. The man was absolutely covered in blood. From head to toe, it was all over him. It was even covering both lenses of his glasses. But what made it so jarring wasn’t even just the blood itself but also the fact that, from his behavior and mannerisms, he seemed to have absolutely no idea the state he was in.

“We have a responsibility,” he said. “All of us do. I understand you want to tell each other funny stories about your Shadowfangs, but Zach, my man, this is not the time to be doing it.”

“Are…are you okay?” Zach asked him warily.

“Hm? I’m fine,” Mr. Oren said. He paused just in front of where Zach was currently standing. Despite speaking as he normally spoke, there was a strange, detectable edge to him that Zach didn’t recognize. He seemed off, though Zach wasn’t sure if this was because of any real deviation from his typical behavior or if it was simply a psychological effect of seeing the man covered in so much blood that it was hard to make out his distinct facial features. Clearly, Zach wasn’t the only one of the two who’d had a rough go of things since they’d last seen one another the previous evening. But since Zach hardly had the right to judge, he tried his best not to dwell on it. What he did dwell on, however, was how the man could even possibly be standing here in front of him.

How can he be here?

Forgetting for the moment that Mr. Oren was now a very high-ranking member of a political guild and had dire responsibilities to take care of elsewhere, the man had still been in Shadowfall Coast the last time Zach had checked. For him to have arrived here at all, he'd have had to travel to an airport, board an eight-hour flight, land, and then hurry his way to this main road. There was no way he should've been able to get here so fast unless he had traveled through the dungeons, which was no longer something he had the ability to do. That was why his presence put Zach somewhat off guard.

“It’s uh, it's really good to see that you’re okay,” Zach said to him, filling with uncertainty. “I’m surprised you were able to come at all with the war stuff going on and whatnot. Also, I thought you quit adventuring, so how exactly did you get here? I thought you gave up the buff. And when did you get here?”

“I only arrived just a few minutes ago,” he replied, “and I don’t consider this ‘adventuring’ but rather an important function of public safety. As far as how, it was quite simple. I managed to establish contact with Eilea Vayra, and I politely asked her to reinstate the buff. She agreed without any hesitation and impressively did so from afar. I don't intend to keep it, however. I will rid myself of it once again after events here conclude."

Even while Zach was still processing what Mr. Oren had told him, a ferocious scowl popped onto the face of Trelvor, whose white cloak swayed somewhat as a warm breeze drifted across the land. "Human," he said, practically snarling at Mr. Oren. "While I admit I've no idea what 'buff' you are referring to, I hardly care. If you've been given a gift by the Great Goddess, I had best not discover you've thrown it away. I cannot forgive any who would eschew Her Greatness's benediction."

Mr. Oren lowered his head. "Forgive me for any offense I may have caused. I shall greatly consider what you've told me."

Trelvor released a semi-satisfied grunt, clearly having no idea that Mr. Oren had basically just pulled a politician's wool over his eyes and gave him a totally dismissive, noncommittal reply designed to put him at ease while promising him nothing. Hell, the fact Zach himself even realized what he'd done was nothing short of astounding. Still, it was better than having some kind of ridiculous conflict erupt at a time like now. It was probably smart of Mr. Oren not to piss off the Elves unnecessarily.

"Anyway," his former science teacher continued, "I’m glad I could catch up to all of you. Has Donovan arrived yet?”

“Well, no,” Kalana said worryingly. “He's not here yet, but…”

“But what?” Mr. Oren asked her.

Kalana pointed at his face. “What happened to you, Alex? You’re covered in dried blood. It’s even on your ears! You look like you were having, umm, a bath in it or something.”

He sniffed. “Is that really what you should be worried about right now?”

“I’m just concerned is all.” Kalana began to speak a touch more softly. “Alex, I can’t even see your eyes because your lenses are covered with it. How do you even see out of those glasses?”

“I see just fine, Kalana, and there was no time to change or get cleaned up. As a matter of fact, my guild is enraged that I’m even here at all. We need to deal with the T9 immediately so I can return.”

“What’s going on over there, anyway?” Zach asked, a nervous, squeezing sensation forming in his stomach as he recalled the stakes of the war. “Did you guys find the weapons?”

Even as he spoke the questions, it suddenly occurred to Zach that, aside from his initial chat with Kalana, he hadn’t thought about the war a single time since he’d woken up in Angelica’s, and this really did come as a huge shock to him. Considering the fact that he himself had gotten so personally involved, and also the fact that the Guild of Gentlemen were posing an existential threat to life itself, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that virtually nothing happening anywhere was more important than the events taking place in Shadowfall Coast. And for these reasons as well as many others, Zach was utterly stunned that he hadn’t spent even a little time thinking about it these past few hours.

Now, as he reminded himself of both the stakes and the consequences of failure, an overanxious, morbid sense of dread began to occupy his sense of being. At once, Zach found himself holding his breath and studying Mr. Oren’s blood-stained face for any hint of answers or reassurance even as the man was already opening his mouth to reply to him.

“We did,” he replied curtly. “We found them, and they’ve been destroyed.”

Zach exhaled with relief, and he could see the same relief in everyone else’s faces as well. “Thank the Gods,” he said, feeling himself becoming more upbeat. It almost sounded too good to be true. “How did it all go down?” he asked as a rush of questions stampeded through his brain. “Is Vim still okay? I went through hell to save him. And where were all the weapons being hidden? Did most of your guild make it out okay? How’s the city doing? Oh, and how close were they to finishing it when you—”

“Zach, please,” Mr. Oren said, holding out his palm. “Sir Alazar is fine to the best of my knowledge, and as to the rest of your questions…” He averted his gaze for a moment and closed his eyes. With a lowered voice, he continued, “Look, Zach. Given how much you contributed and participated, you absolutely do deserve a full accounting of all events—truly, you do. But I just don’t feel now is the appropriate time to discuss it. Later, perhaps. The battle isn’t over yet, and there’s still so much to do. More than any of you can imagine.”

Zach reached out to give Mr. Oren a friendly pat on the shoulder but then withdrew his hand after realizing he’d rather not touch his guild coat, which looked like it had been fully dipped into a barrel containing nothing but blood. “I understand,” he said cautiously, reining in his curiosity for the time being. “However it all happened, I knew you’d get it done, Mr. Oren. I believed in you.”

For some reason, his words caused Mr. Oren to wince as though he’d been cut or struck. “I…I didn’t.”

“You what?”

“I…I didn’t succeed.”

Zach tilted his head to the side. “But you just said the weapons were—”

“The Guild of Gentlemen lost,” he said quickly, wincing yet again. The mask he was wearing was slipping, and Zach could now begin to see the pain beneath it. “But not because of anything I did. I led my guild to ruination.” He clenched his hands into fists, his lips stiffening. “I really don’t want to get into this now, Zach. I told you.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…I wasn’t trying to get you to speak more about it. I was only just trying to—”

“To be encouraging, I know,” Mr. Oren said. “And I appreciate that. But I can’t have you thinking I’ve done some great thing.” He stared directly at Zach, and Zach could see in his eyes that something was disturbing him. “A quarter of my guild is dead.”

Lienne stirred, Rian coughed, Trelvor and Seiley remained motionless, and Zach, along with Kalana and Tena, looked at one another before all three set their eyes on Mr. Oren. “You mean a quarter of your whole guild?”

“That’s right,” Mr. Oren said, a scowl on his face. “They were slaughtered. I led them to their death. We weren’t just defeated. We were annihilated. That’s what happened. Now you know.”

For some reason, Kalana clasped her hand over her own mouth and began shaking her head. “Oh no!” she cried out, confusing just about everyone as far as Zach could tell, especially him.

“Kal? What’s wrong?”

Now, she seemed just as disturbed as Mr. Oren. She grabbed his wrist. “Zach, if the Lords of Justice got beat, then that means my mom probably…” She inhaled sharply. “The city’s probably been completely destroyed.”

Trelvor lowered his head as though in shame, and so did Seiley. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but that is what I believe will have happened.”

Seiley made a mournful-sounding groan. “It’s really nothing to be proud of, but the Great Lord demanded it of us.”

Kalana trembled. “How many people? How many people did my mom—”

“The city is fine,” Mr. Oren fired in, causing everyone to once again turn their heads his way, Zach included. “The Elves attempted to destroy the city, but they failed just as my guild attempted to breach the city and likewise failed. Everyone failed. Even the Royal Roses. None of us were able to succeed. In all honesty, we don’t deserve the victory we found ourselves with. We certainly did not earn it.” Zach opened his mouth to ask what he was talking about, but Mr. Oren preempted him. “Yes, Zach, I know what you’re wondering. I didn’t want to get into this now, but I suppose since I’m the one who keeps bringing it up, I might as well tell you at least a little more.”

Mr. Oren took on an even stronger look of self-resentment as he continued speaking. “Your vampire friends: Olivir and Kalana’s cousin.”

“Kolona?” she whispered, her pointed ears suddenly perking up. “What about Kolona?”

“Those two,” Mr. Oren said, “they simply waltzed in and decapitated the king as though it were a trivial task. So many tens of thousands of people died trying to fight their way to the newly crowned king, but to them…to those two, they were able to put an end to the man all on their own.”

“But how?” Zach, Kalana, Rian, and Lienne all asked at once.

“From what I know, Kolona turned herself invisible, Olivir turned into a bat, and they infiltrated his bunker almost effortlessly. And for this, I’m both grateful to them yet outraged. If they had only done this from the start, so many men and women would still be alive.”

Zach couldn’t believe what he was hearing. An even larger flurry of questions blasted into him. Why had Olivir and Kolona gotten involved in the fighting? That was the one thing that they absolutely did not want to do, or at least so they’d made very clear. And when Mr. Oren said they “decapitated” the king, did he mean that figuratively or literally? And turned into a bat? Zach knew that Kolona could turn invisible, as Fluffles had “leaked” that about her on their ride through that big forest on the skelly horses. But he didn’t know Olivir could shapeshift into a Gods-be-damned bat!

“I don’t understand how—”

“Not now, Zach,” Mr. Oren interrupted. “We’ve wasted far too much time as it is, and that’s my fault, not yours. I just can’t bring myself to discuss this anymore right now. Even if there wasn’t a boss to kill, I don’t think I’d want to talk about it just this second. I’ve had a very bad day.”

Zach scanned Mr. Oren with his eyes, taking in the man from the top of his head down to his boots. There wasn’t a single part of him that hadn’t become coated in blood. “I can see that,” he whispered.

Mr. Oren turned his body so that he faced east along the road. “We’ll definitely talk later, my man. But for now, we have a job to do. I’ll meet all of you there. Try to hurry if you can.”

With that, he took off at a run all on his own, not even bothering to wait for any of them or to encourage them to catch up. Zach would’ve thought he’d have liked to at least hang around them and travel together as a group, but no, he just trekked right on by them all on his own.

“He’s…not himself,” Kalana said. “What happened to him in Shadowfall Coast?”

“War,” Trelvor said. “It changes people.”

Zach nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. But he’s really different right now. He’s going to scare the shit out of people if they see him up close. He usually cares a lot about that kind of thing, too.” Zach cringed. “Gods, he looks like a total psychopath right now: like some maniac who just murdered his wife and chopped her into little pieces. We need to go after him. I don’t feel comfortable having him show up alone like that. He’ll probably give Jimmy a heart attack.”

“Yeah, seriously,” Rian agreed. “I did not like the vibe I just got from him.”

Lienne grabbed her brother’s arm. “Same,” she whispered.

“Mhm,” Kalana said. “Okay, I’ll get his attention.” Loudly, she shouted after him. “Hey, Alex, wait!”

“You’re just wasting your breath, Kal,” Zach said. “He’s not going to stop.”

“Alex, wait up!” she shouted again, seemingly ignoring Zach.

To Zach’s surprise, Mr. Oren actually did pause, and now Zach watched as Kal took off after him at a run, prompting him, Rian, Lienne, Trelvor, Seiley, and Tena to follow along behind her as they made their way to Mr. Oren. The moment Zach reached his side, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. It was Jimmy, likely calling for another check-in. Zach answered.

******

Until just this second—until this exact moment in time right here and right now—the sole and only issue of Jimmy’s concern had been his drowsiness. Having stayed up all night drinking, and having entered a very stable, calm, and steady kiting maneuver with the T9 horse boss, Jimmy had begun to yawn every now and again, earning him what could only be called “amazed” stares from Fiona Darkmae, who continually sent him such shocked, open-mouthed looks that eventually he had to bring it up with her.

“Okay, what is it?” he asked. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

Fiona smiled at him in a way that seemed apologetic. “Sorry, bud, it’s just that every time you yawn, I have to ask myself if I’m imagining it or not. Because you’re literally fighting a…a that,” she said, pointing at the slowly moving and slowly approaching Mare of the Primordial Void. “I just can’t believe you can yawn at a time like this.”

Just saying the word “yawn” caused it to happen again. Jimmy said “excuse me” and then patted his mouth with his hand as he released another one. Then, lazily, he reapplied his slow and three poisons. “There’s not much going on here,” he said. “I’m just a bit sleepy. But it’s all good. I’m not gonna actually fall asleep. You don’t gotta worry about that.”

“Are you sure?” she asked with a mildly playful chuckle.

He replied with one as well. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Okay, then.” Her chin flicked in the direction of the boss. “Hey, is it just me, or is the boss starting to look different to you?”

“Different?” he asked.

Jimmy, groggily, turned his eyes towards the boss—and then every last trace of sleepiness was exorcised from him like an ancient demonic entity. His drowsiness was simply jettisoned out of him, and now, all at once, a monstrous, overwhelming bout of dismay, disappointment, and realization all mixed together to create something akin to a bomb of misery that went off right in the center of his chest.

He couldn’t believe his luck—or lack of it. He couldn’t understand why nothing seemed to be going his way these days. Did something like this really have to happen? Did it, though? Really? The Galterrans claimed there existed like a thousand different Gods: are you telling him not even one of them could throw him a bone?

“God-dammit!” he shouted, unable to control himself. “You’ve got to be kidding me, man. Fuck!”

His outburst seemed to cause Fiona’s face to drain of color. “Wh-what? What’s wrong? Is everything still okay?”

“No!” he shouted. “Not even close!” The boss released a loud mix of a neigh and a roar. “Oh…oh shit, oh shit oh shit oh shit!”

“What is it?” Fiona demanded. “Jimmy, talk to me. Should we run?”

“In like a second, yeah.”

“I’m so confused!”

“The adventurers are gonna be as well.”

He pulled out his phone as he watched the gigantic horse monster change before his very eyes; seemingly out of nowhere, it turned from a solid black-purple into a puke green. Beginning with its torso, this shift in color spread outwards running up the center of its body and down along its back, changing not only the color of it but also the shape of its face, making it appear sleeker. Large green bubbles were now constantly flying upwards off the top of its scalp before “popping” and releasing green smoke. Its entire body had become a little larger, too, its nostrils widening as well.

“What just happened to it?” Fiona asked. “What does that mean?”

“I’ll tell you what it means,” Jimmy said, swearing angrily. “This boss has elemental shift!”

“Is that bad?”

“Yeah, really bad. Such a lame fucking mechanic. I hate elemental shift! Look, Fiona, we need to de-aggro this thing like right now, ‘cause it’ll kill us. I can’t solo it. I was wrong. Just look.”

He pointed with his staff, where the number 0 was popping up above the boss at steady intervals: his poisons. They were now hitting for nothing at all. God, this sucked. Stupidly—and yeah, he knew this was just him being dumb—but a big part of what upset him so much was the fact that he couldn’t solo it. And not even in the sense that he couldn’t solo it right now, as he’d already agreed to involve the other adventurers. Hell, not even in the sense that he’d intended to solo it at all, as this thing probably had like a thousand-year respawn timer or something crazy. It was more the fact that, speaking purely in hypotheticals, if he had chosen to solo it, he now knew he couldn’t ever have done it under any circumstance at all—meaning it was never possible in the first place despite him talking so much shit. And that, for some reason, hurt his already badly damaged ego.

Even though nobody will probably even think of it that way.

Jimmy, knowing he had no other choice, removed his phone and dialed Zach’s number. The kid picked up immediately. Then he hesitated and braced himself before conferencing in a second number. Now, a very, very angry voice answered within a split second. He knew that Zach and the others were probably already on their way, but this just couldn’t wait.

“Jimmy!” Donovan barked over the phone’s speaker. “I told you to call me back five minutes ago! Kid, I swear to the Gods when I get there I’m gonna—”

“Donovan, it’s got elemental shift!” he shouted, interrupting the man.

“—wrap my hands around yer neck and—huh? Elemental shift? Fuck’s that?”

Jimmy gestured to Fiona then spun around and began to flee, pausing only to ensure that the extraordinarily beautiful girl was able to keep pace with him. As it turned out, she was even faster than he was. Now, just as Jimmy feared, a gigantic, massive cloud of green, poisonous mist began filling the entire block, one that was spreading very, very quickly—so quickly that Jimmy wasn’t sure he could outrun it.

Ah, damn. I think it’s gonna get me.

“Donovan!” he shouted. “Donovan, listen to me. I’m sorry I pissed you off. I’m paying for it right now, I promise. I need to tell you some important things because I’m…” Fear jolted through him, but having already so thoroughly humiliated himself, he refused to give in to it as he had last night. He refused to let it paralyze him. “I’m not in a good spot.”

“Jimmy, what’s wrong?” Donovan asked, now sounding far, far more concerned than angry.

“Mr. Oren, run! Go, go, go! He needs us!” a voice that sounded like Zach shouted over the line, though Jimmy doubted Zach was speaking to him. “I don’t know what’s going on but something sounds like it went wrong.”

“Understood. Zach, can you patch me in?”

“Y-yeah.”

Jimmy tried to tune both of them out so that he could focus on communicating directly with Donovan. But it was difficult to do while a rapidly expanding green mist was beginning to cover the world like a dense fog, one that was coming closer and closer to him. To make matters worse, he ran the wrong way. He split right, and Fiona split left.

“Jimmy, no! Don’t go that way!” she shouted at him. But of course it was too late. He was now traveling down a one-way street with a furniture store to his left and a gigantic bed and linen warehouse to his right. The green mist expanded in both directions, cutting him off from Fiona. He hoped she’d be okay. She was faster than him, so he assumed she would be. Once more, he fought to suppress his fear and focus on giving Donovan the information he needed just in case Jimmy suffered a terribly painful death in a few moments from now.

“I’m guessing you don’t know what elemental shift is, Don?”

“Never heard of it."

“Wait, really? Are you sure you've never heard of it?”

“Yes!” he snapped.

Jimmy resisted the urge to swear at him for being such a damn noob. How come nobody on Galterra never knew a got-dang thing? “All right, listen to me. What I’m about to say I’m only like ninety-percent sure of. Actually, not even. Call it eighty-five to be safe. If I’m right, though, whenever a certain type of damage is used beyond a threshold on this boss, the thing becomes immune to it.”

“What?” Donovan cried—and so too did a voice Jimmy recognized as belonging to Zephyr, and another from Reni Sarwin. It seemed that, the moment Jimmy had called Donovan, he’d patched in all his adventuring buddies. It sure would’ve been nice to know ahead of time that Jimmy wasn’t speaking just to Donovan and Zach. From the sound of all the voices shouting back at him, it sounded like he had the ear of the entire damn adventuring community.

“Jimmy,” Lord Oren said to him. “Is there any way you can elaborate on what you just said?”

Jimmy looked over his shoulder. He was beginning to pant as he ran farther down this one-way street. He spoke as quickly as he could while the mist gained on him. “It’s called elemental shift. It’s a mechanic where bosses gain immunities throughout a fight. But it’s not usually based on the amount of damage but the number of times that type is dealt. And it…it looks like it gains the powers of that element or damage type, too. I’ve dealt with this shit before in my ga—in my simulations. It’s one of the most annoying goddamn types ‘cause you gotta use math and only let certain DPS hit it or you run out of ways to hurt it before it’s dead. Again, I can’t say for sure, but if I had to bet, I’d drop a million gold that this thing probably stays immune to that damage type for the rest of the fight. Only way to reset it is to de-aggro and let it go back to spawn. Meaning, it’s not gonna be a determined roamer like that dragon ya’ll dealt with. So at least you don’t gotta worry about this being a world-ending threat.”

A myriad of voices all began shouting out questions to him. Thankfully, neither Donovan nor any of the others were acting as though they were still mad at him. No, it seemed like they were all back to business as usual.

“Jimmy,” Lord Oren’s voice said over the phone's speaker, “just to clarify, are you actually telling us that the T9 mare can become immune to every single element and damage type over the course of a single encounter?”

“I’m saying it probably can,” Jimmy replied. “Like I told you, I’ve dealt with this before in my simulations. These bosses are annoying as hell. You need to calculate damage in real time and make sure everything you hit it with hurts it as much as it can, because otherwise you gotta reset the fight or wipe and come back. I don’t think this thing is gonna roam anywhere. I’m trying to de-aggro it now.”

Jimmy looked over his shoulder. He was running so frantically that, even with his Breath of Invigoration, he was still panting, as his stamina regen buff was unable to replenish him fast enough each tick, though it did at least give him enough energy to keep up his sustained flight. The only real problem was that he was scampering off in random directions to escape the fast, constantly spreading mist, which was about to overwhelm him. And now, his lack of knowledge of the surrounding area finally bit him in the ass as he hit a dead end. With the fog taking over more and more of the street, visibility was now so poor that he could no longer tell where he was or what was happening.

“I think I just died,” he said into his phone, his knees trembling. He was trying really hard not to give in to it like he did last night. But now that he knew this was real—that he could really die—it changed everything. He no longer had any doubt that he was living in the real world with a real body. Any last trace of belief in the idea that this was some kind of high-tech virtual reality experience had been burned out of him last night when he’d been writhing in so much pain. His survival instincts were kicking in, and along with them came terror.

“I’m dead,” he said into his phone. “It got me. I can’t escape. I can’t…” He felt his body shaking. “I can’t escape!”

“The hell do you mean?” Donovan shouted, sounding alarmed.

“I fucked up. I ran into a dead end and it’s…it’s spreading like a poison fog all over the area.” Jimmy backed up until he’d pinned himself against a large, decorative stone wall that served as a partition between two large stores of some kind. The fog had become so dense that he couldn’t even see the writing above him. He could no longer see Fiona, either, having become separated with her during his scramble. He had no idea where she was or if she was even okay.

“I deserve this,” he muttered. “I did this to myself. I’m sorry, guys.”

Ahead of him, a small miracle was followed by a greater disaster—and in that order, too. Because the fog, which had been traveling faster than he could move, had at last ceased spreading. It came to a halt not even eight feet ahead of him. It was so dense and cloudy that nothing—not a single thing—could be seen beyond it. The fact that it had stopped before it came near enough to smother him in its toxic fumes should have been a good thing. But it wasn’t, because emerging from within this fog was the T9 mare, roaring and neighing at the same time.

As it approached, Jimmy realized the situation was no longer quite so well under control. For the first time since it’d spawned, Jimmy learned to fear this boss—but it was a fear he was managing to keep in check as he swallowed nervously and tried to accept his fate. If he was going to die, he couldn’t let it go down the way it’d happened yesterday. He had to at least go down with a little dignity. Something to make up for all this.

“I’m sorry I got drunk and tried to solo a T9 world boss,” he said to Donovan. “Congrats on getting to be right yet again, Donovan. Tell Tena I love her. And I hope you don’t gloat too much after I’m gone.”

“Jimmy, just hold on!” he shouted. “You better not fuckin’ die you little prick! Zephyr, move your ass! Jimmy, where exactly are you? Look around. Do you see any—”

The world shook, and the call became disconnected. Jimmy shouted into the phone, but there was no longer any response. He tried in a panic to redial, but it just wasn’t going through. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe they’d hung up on him. Maybe they’d assumed it was too late. After all, if he just died here and now, there’d be nothing left for the boss to aggro, and it’d go marching right back to its spawn point. That was what would be best for everyone, right? He couldn’t blame them for making the right decision. This was his own fault. He’d gotten drunk and behaved like an idiot. But how could he have known the boss would be able to perform an elemental shift? He’d never seen anything like that so far in Galterra.

The horse approached, and though it was still slowed, Jimmy had nowhere left to run. And due to having insufficient points into strength, he couldn’t even jump his way up and out of this situation, as the top of the wall behind him was more than five stories tall which translated into around fifty feet in height: too tall for him to leap. He could clear two, maybe three stories. But five? Not a chance. Five stories was well outside of his reach.

“All things considered,” he said aloud, returning his phone to his pocket so he could grip his staff with both hands. He surprised himself by releasing a terrified but genuine chuckle. “When I was back on Earth, if you asked me how I wanted to go out, it’d be like this.”

This was it. This was the moment. Right?

How bad is this gonna hurt?

The mare opened its mouth wide, and then, lunging forward, it made as if to bite him, its jaw approaching so quickly that Jimmy saw it sinking down from above like a descending maw in a free-fall. He yelled at it defiantly. He was scared. He couldn’t deny that. But at least he’d probably go quickly. It wouldn’t be like last night. It’d happen so fast he wouldn’t even feel it.

The giant mare’s mouth snapped down at him, and his body froze. He clenched his teeth together, and then he closed his eyes as the sound of several tapping feet and shouting voices caused him to immediately reopen them. Now, his vision was filled with white teeth—and something else. The sight of a dagger and a blade straining against said teeth. Kalana was now standing to his left and Zach was to his right. Then came the sound of more feet dropping down from somewhere above.

“Rian, help!” Zach cried. “This thing’s so fucking strong!” He made a loud groaning cry. “Rian!”

“I’m coming!”

A much louder, heavier thud along with a clank echoed from in front of Jimmy, and a piece of the pavement became cracked as the rotund boy slammed down like a cannonball, landing on both his feet yet in a way that was anything but graceful. Immediately, he ran forward and slammed his shield into two of the horse monster’s chiseled teeth.

“Oh, shit,” Rian said with a grunt. “Y-y-you weren’t kidding. Gahh. This thing’s strong as hell! Why’s it trying to eat us? Horses are herbivores.”

“It probably thinks you’re a giant fat tomato,” Zach replied, coughing out a laugh.

Rian let out a cackle of his own. “Fuck you, Zach.”

The two began grunting and audibly straining as Rian’s shield joined Zach’s blade and Kalana’s dagger: all three began forcibly shoving back on it, and all three, like Jimmy, were partially inside of its mouth. But although they’d held it at bay thus far, it quickly became apparent that their strength and their strength alone was not going to be enough to stop it from chomping down. Right now, however, their efforts were the only thing keeping Jimmy—and now them, too—from being eaten alive. Jimmy didn’t deserve their help. They should’ve let him die. They shouldn’t have put themselves in this situation.

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said. It was all he could think in the moment.

“Don’t be,” Zach growled at him. “It’s not your fault that this happened!”

Zach was still straining: that much was obvious. His knees were buckling, and his arms were trembling. But even still, he didn’t seem to blame Jimmy for this situation. But Jimmy blamed himself. The least he could do was help. And so, hurrying forward, Jimmy tried to contribute what little he could. Despite barely making any difference, he held his staff horizontally and began to push against one of the horse’s teeth.

“This thing’s super-duper strong,” Kalana said. She was also making agonized-sounding groans.

“I c-can’t hold it!” Rian cried in alarm. His arms began wavering, and so too did Zach’s and Kalana’s. “Guys, I can’t—”

“We’re here!” cried Lienne, Trelvor, Seiley, and Tena.

All four of them leapt down from the top of the wall, and together, they darted forward and joined the rest of them in pushing back on the boss. For an instant, it almost looked like their combined efforts would be enough to overpower the monster. But it soon became clear that, even all together, they were going to be overwhelmed.

“Jimmy,” Tena said, looking at him and meeting his eyes as she shoved her own staff against one of its teeth. Her eyes seemed to shimmer a moment, and in them, he could see pain and hurt—that he’d caused to her. It led to a rush of guilt crashing into him, adding to his shame. “Why didn’t you trust me?” she asked. “I care about you more than anyone else on Galterra, so why couldn’t you believe and trust in me?”

Jimmy opened his mouth to reply, his heart now hammering in his chest for an entirely separate reason. He couldn’t believe she’d ask him this right here and right now of all times. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to say. Yet, incredibly, Zach came to his rescue once again, and this time for an entirely separate matter.

“Don’t answer that question until you talk to Jascaila!” he shouted as he fought to hold off the mare. “I’m in the exact same kind of trouble with Kal that you’re in. Refuse to say anything until we figure out what words will trick them into forgiving us!”

Both girls glared at Zach, causing Jimmy to chuckle despite the absurdity of the entire situation—and that in turn caused Kalana and Tena to once again shift their disapproving gaze off of Zach and onto him. Things were just so out of hand. They even began discussing plans to have him and Zach “sleep out in the rain tonight” or something.

“I think I just aggroed Kalana and Tena,” Jimmy said. “Now I’ve got them and the boss on me.”

Upon those words, Rian and Zach exploded into riotous, full-belly laughter to such an extent that they almost lost their grips on their weapons and got all of them killed. Jimmy hadn’t even meant the comment to be funny, but the two coughed up spit from laughing so hard.

“It’s true!” Rian practically squealed, a few tears falling out of his eyes. “Jimmy aggroed the girls. He has aggro.”

“It’s not funny,” Kalana said. “Rian, you’re being mean. And so is Zach. And…and so is Jimmy! All of you are being mean—except Trelvor. He’s being nice.”

“Thank you, your Highness,” the Elf said, bowing even as he fought against the T9 boss mare. He angled his body somewhat as he struggled along with the rest of them, and it was only now that Jimmy noticed something strange from the white-cloaked Elvish warrior.

“Hey, uh, Trelvor,” Jimmy said. “Uh…are you…are you pushing against its tooth with a flute?”

“Yes.”

For some inexplicable reason that made absolutely no sense whatsoever to Jimmy, his question—along with its answer—invoked another round of belly-laughter from Zach and Rian, and once more, Jimmy wasn’t sure why any of that was so funny to them, but it did cause Trelvor’s expression to darken as he gave both of them a disapproving glare.

“More flute mockery, yes?” he asked, his tone suggesting he was not impressed. “I do not appreciate the insult from either of you. If it continues, I shall play you a song of attack.”

“Oh, no, don’t play a beautiful melody for me,” Rian said sarcastically, choking on laughter. This caused Lienne to take one hand off her staff and slap him—all while still pushing back against the thing trying to kill them all. What the hell was going on here? How were they acting like this?

As the seven of them—and Jimmy—continued to struggle against the boss, the green, poisonous mist at last ran its course, and his view of the town cleared up. Now, Jimmy could see dozens of fast-moving shadows above him as a legion of adventurers poured down off the wall behind them like raindrops with Donovan leading the charge.

“Get this damn thing off of them!” he shouted as he slammed a glowing, sparking axe over the mare’s head—dealing a simply unbelievable 9,911 damage against something so much stronger than himself but also failing to stun it in the process. And not because of stat or level difference, either. It appeared the boss was stun immune, but not because of elemental shift; it must have been naturally immune to stuns.

“We need to de-aggro and reset!” Jimmy cried out. “A boss like this requires a proper engage and careful positioning. This isn’t a fight we can just zerg and win!”

“Zerg?” Donovan asked, his massive, plate-covered arms contributing significantly in the attempt to shove the horse away—and actually succeeding. But now there were a great many adventurers here with them, and the horse began to slide backwards like a dog being dragged on a leash.

“It…it’s just a word that means to rush at something with a bunch of people all at once. It's from a simulation called Starcraft.”

As though finally giving up on this game of tug of war, the horse retreated back a few steps. And then it fired more of its lasers at Jimmy, which Rian attempted to intercept, running in front of him. But then Rian himself was shoved out of the way as Maric Ultdern, wielding a much larger, much more capable shield dropped down from the ledge behind them and absorbed both blasts. The first laser he took with a grunt, and the second one shattered his shield into pieces, the defensive weapon suffering a full break.

“That…would’ve killed me,” Rian said, sounding horrified. “Thanks, Maric.”

He ruffled Rian’s hair. “Any time. Now someone get me a spare shield!”

Donovan looked down at Jimmy, and for a moment, Jimmy feared the man would strike him. But instead, he only laughed. “Can’t believe you tried to solo a T9, you crazy fuck. You look like you pissed yourself.”

Far from anger, the adventurers actually began to roar with laughter, with many even giving him playful shoves in a chummy sort of way. Jimmy was so confused. They weren’t mad at him?

“I don’t always understand them either,” Zach said as though reading his mind. “But I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Jimmy nodded. “It’s slowed, so we can actually just run away from it any time we want if you guys can help us get around this dead-end. That way we can—”

Jimmy yelped in surprise as Trelvor grabbed him without warning and then leapt directly upwards, causing his stomach to lurch and churn. Before Jimmy realized what was happening, he’d been deposited into a sitting position all the way atop the wall. Then Trelvor went back down to help grab other mages who couldn’t make the jump, several of whom had leapt down to help without any realistic plan to escape.

"Are you okay?" asked a man standing upright to his left. Jimmy realized it was that Lord Oren guy. He turned his head to nod and confirm that he was indeed okay, but as soon as he did so, he flinched and almost fell right back off the slanted wall. The dude was absolutely covered in blood. He looked like he'd been using a chainsaw to kill zombies or some shit. What the hell was with him? Even his glasses were bloodied. Jimmy hope that wasn't human blood and that it was just mob blood. Immediately, he became unsettled. He decided to turn his attention away from the guy and instead look down upon the adventurers, who were once again cleaning up his mess.

“Tanks, hold the thing off while we extract!” Donovan roared from below. “I don’t think this one’s a roamer. Jimmy’s probably right, and I’ve always had a good sense of these things. It’ll probably go back to its spawn once we’re off it. Jimmy!”

“Y-yeah?”

“You’re gonna tell us everything you know about ‘elemental shifting’ and what it means once we de-aggro. This time, calmly and slowly.”

“Sure,” he said, nodding. “I’ll explain it while I lead the raid.”

Donovan made a difficult-to-read expression. “You? Lead the raid?”

“Yeah.”

He grunted. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

Chapter 170: Responsibility

Chapter 170: Responsibility

Zach waved his hand in thanks as a waitress in a red apron placed a few more items down on his and other various tables before moving along and eventually bowing to Fiona Darkmae, who was standing near glass sliding doors towards the front of the large, pleasant-smelling eatery. Afterwards, like the rest of the staff here in “Gall's Grille,” she left the premises completely. Apparently, the owner and staff were being well compensated by the Children of Order in exchange for renting out the diner for the rest of the day.

Now, with a degree of privacy, the adventurers began eating, getting rowdy, and displaying their usual drunken antics—only without actually being drunk, as Donovan and Zephyr had, for the moment, banned all alcoholic beverages pending a decision on whether or not a takedown would be attempted later this evening. But that, of course, was a discussion that probably wouldn’t take place until bellies became fuller and things settled down a bit.

It's getting a bit overcrowded in here, Zach thought as the diner quickly filled to maximum capacity.

Right now, the place was packed. More than eighty adventurers had shown up with more still arriving as well as a dozen members of Children of Order thrown into the mix. A sense of cheer filled the air as people dug into their food at tables large enough to seat eight apiece. Not everyone was seated, though, as a few of the late arrivals had to stand and lean against the wall while holding plates. Even the nine stools across from the bar were occupied despite liquor being prohibited for the moment.

“Mmm,” Kalana said appreciatively as she bit into a large cheeseburger with ketchup, lettuce, pickles, and a fried onion ring tucked away in the middle. She dabbed her chin with a napkin. “It’s good! Jimmy, quit being so gloomy and try yours.”

Located almost perfectly in the middle of the diner, Zach sat with Kalana to his immediate right and Rian and Seiley to his left. Lienne, Trelvor, Jimmy, and Tena were across from him. Everyone including Zach was chowing down—except Jimmy, who seemed to have become overtaken with a sudden gloominess during the past few minutes. He and Zach had actually both ordered the grilled chicken club sandwich, but he wasn’t even touching his.

“Food’s not what I need,” he said, rubbing his face. Though cramped, the place was well air conditioned, yet Jimmy was sweating. “What I really need is a drink.”

“You didn’t even finish the one you’ve got,” Zach said to him.

He made a back-and-forth waving motion with his left hand. “I’m not talking about soda, Zach.” Quickly, his eyes shifted to the bar, which Donovan and Zephyr were standing around as though guarding it from the wild adventurers.

At this, both Kalana and Tena frowned at him. “You’re not even legally allowed to drink yet,” Kalana said in a way that came across as scolding but was not exactly uncalled for. “And umm, even if you were, nobody else is allowed to drink right now, either.”

Rian laughed at Jimmy. “You of all people should totally understand why that is. Especially after what just happened.”

“You don’t understand,” Jimmy said, continuing to bury his face and eyes in his hands. “Once I get started, it’s real hard for me to stop.”

Again, Rian laughed. “Not gonna lie, dude, but what you just said makes you sound like you’re an alcoholic or something.”

Jimmy lifted his head, and his face flushed with what Zach assumed to be irritation. “No shit, man, that’s because I am an alcoholic.” At this, Zach could see Rian’s lips part as though shocked; the others gave off a similar look. Zach was surprised as well, though he wasn’t even sure if Jimmy was joking around or not—at least at first. But then Jimmy seemed to retreat a bit, sinking lower into his seat, and Zach realized he was being serious.

“I don’t even know how I made it weeks here without a drink,” he spoke at barely above a whisper. “I had a bit of a drinking problem before I came to Galterra. I guess the shock of all this shit was so big it took my mind off it. I swear I never would’ve gone that long without at least a few sips to get me by. But now that I’m starting to accept this as my new reality and the uh, the you know, the ‘novelty’ of it is starting to wear off, I’m starting to return to my ways from back home.”

“You mean Earth?” Rian asked him.

“Yeah.”

He shrugged. “Well, I guess I can’t blame you for that. It sounds like there was nothing to do over there but play simulations and get wasted.”

For just the slightest instant, Rian’s words confused Zach, but then he remembered what Jimmy had told him a very short while earlier. Taking him aside so that the two could briefly speak in private, Jimmy had informed Zach that Eilea had come up with a very clever “backstory” for him so that he could more openly be himself without giving away extremely sensitive information that it was too dangerous to discuss in front of anyone who didn’t already know it.

That was really nice of her, he thought.

Eilea had informed the adventurers that Jimmy was born on Earth—but the Earth of today and not whatever it was when he’d actually been living on it. She’d told them that he was part of a colony of Earth survivors that had existed there since ancient times and that he had been trained in various simulations which was why he held so much knowledge about the world of adventuring. She’d also told everyone that Jimmy’s colony was destroyed by a boss spawn and that he was the only survivor, and that she’d shown up too late to rescue the others or something like that. It really was clever on her part, and it seemed to be doing the trick.

Lienne sat up straighter and looked across the table at Jimmy. “No matter what caused it,” she said, “you need to try to quit. And I don’t mean to sound like I’m lecturing you—and yeah, I get it, that’s exactly how I sound—but you’re only two years older than me and Rian and Zach. That’s way too young to be addicted to alcohol.”

Jimmy chuckled. “Not where I come from. And that’s not all I’m into. Fuck it, I might as well just be straight up with you guys. I love drugs, too.”

Zach flinched, and so did Kalana. “D-don’t say it so proudly,” Kalana hissed at him, even going so far as to look around nervously in case other people might be overhearing their conversation. Zach did the same. What kind of maniac would admit to using drugs in public—or at all? Yet from Jimmy’s baffled look of cluelessness, it was almost as though he had no idea how seriously illegal it was to use drugs in Galterra. Even adventurers didn’t touch that stuff.

Did they just let people do drugs thousands of years ago or something?

“Jimmy,” Tena whispered, grabbing his shoulders. “I had no idea you struggled so much. There are so many things I wish you would have confided in me.”

Jimmy laughed, clearly not taking the situation as seriously as it was. “What’s with all these crazy looks? It was just weed.”

“Weed?” Zach asked.

“Yeah, you know.”

“No, we don’t know,” Rian said. “I’ve never heard of ‘weed’ unless you’re talking about the things you need to rip out in your garden.”

Jimmy seemed to find this humorous, because he coughed out several more laughs one after the next. “Look, I am what I am. I love playing games, partying, getting drunk, and smoking weed. That’s not even, like, bad where I come from. That’s normal for someone my age. What’s weird is how ya’ll sit around drinking soda and talking about the news on a Friday night. That’s what’s weird. What I did was pretty normal,” he insisted.

“Well, it’s not normal here,” Kalana said, narrowing her eyes. She leaned over the table and poked him in the shoulder, and from the way he winced, it must’ve hurt him a bit. “No more drugs and alcohol for you if you’re gonna adventure and risk people’s lives.”

“I’m an adult,” Jimmy replied to her, sounding somewhat annoyed. “If anything, until you turn 18, I should be the one telling you what you can—ouch!”

She poked him a second time. “No more drugs and alcohol!”

“I concur,” Trelvor said. “And not simply because Her Highness demands it, but because you’ve been blessed by the Great Goddess, and I cannot have you falter on your purpose because you’re poisoning your mind with alcohol and illicit substances. Seiley and I will help teach you how to be strong the Elvish way if you prefer, but we will not let you fail the Great Goddess.”

Rian nodded. “Yeah, stop failing the Goddess, Jimmy,” he said, overtly pretending to be outraged. “Can you guys believe he’s failing the Goddess?” He waggled his finger at Jimmy. “Drinking is bad for you.”

“So is cholesterol,” Jimmy retorted. Then he grumbled a few words Zach couldn’t hear as though agitated before becoming just a bit more volatile. “You need to shut your bitch-ass up, Rian. Always talking shit. I guarantee your heart gives out way before my liver.”

Though Jimmy spoke the words from a position of anger, and though he was clearly annoyed, Zach was relieved to see Rian did not take his words personally whatsoever—which was good because he’d clearly provoked Jimmy. Thankfully, Rian was basically immune to insults due to his very rough upbringing. He was almost like Vim Alazar in a sense, except unlike Vim, he didn’t often seem to feel the need to escalate, and in this case, he simply laughed off the diss. Jimmy also seemed unwilling to take things any further, and Zach noted the way he now avoided making eye contact with Rian.

Are those two becoming enemies or something?

It was hard to believe that most of them had only known Jimmy for around three days, but as a testament to how much had happened in such a short time, it felt way, way, way longer, and the ice had been broken very quickly, particularly during the time they spent barbequing and swimming together on that first day. Rian, being the chops buster that he was, had quickly gotten to work taunting Jimmy, but Jimmy was starting to snap back at him. Zach hoped it didn’t evolve and become a problem.

Rian and Lienne have no idea what Jimmy’s actually been through. Maybe they’d go easier on him if they did…

It wasn’t that Zach wanted to keep secrets from the siblings. If anything, the opposite was true. From the very outset, it had always been Zach’s intention to take the two of them into the “privacy room” in Angelica’s and reveal to them everything that he’d recently learned. And not even just about Jimmy, but also about the world, the system, and the truth about the Great Ones. Unfortunately, Zach’s deal with Adamus had been struck before he’d gotten the chance, and since part of that deal was to abstain from further spreading his so-called “illicitly gained knowledge” with any additional people, he could no longer tell them what he’d discovered. The same was true for Seiley and Trelvor. Tena was also in the dark about much of it, though she did happen to know slightly more than Rian and his sister such as the real nature of Jimmy’s origin, but she did not know much beyond that.

With a sigh, Zach set his sandwich back down on his plate and then studied Jimmy’s plainly tortured expression. “Do you still feel like you’re up to leading the raid?” he asked.

The question itself seemed to have an outsized, mood-altering effect, because Jimmy’s gloom gave way to a strong look of determination. “Hell yeah I do,” he said. “How could you even ask me that, Zach?”

“It’s just because you seem like you’re…”

“Like I’m what?”

“Struggling a bit.”

“Pfft. Maybe I am, but there’s no way I’m throwing away this second chance. Not when I got the blessing of a guild leader.”

Jimmy had told them all about how Duchess Fiona Darkmae had claimed that she would ensure he got to lead the raid. Zach thought that was nice of her, though he was also a bit skeptical of Fiona—as he was when it came to all of the guild leaders. He just couldn’t be sure if her intentions were actually good, though Kal seemed to like her a lot. The two had somehow become friends after the dragon raid, which in some ways was reassuring considering Kal’s earlier plans to kill every guild leader and rule Galterra.

I’m glad she changed her mind about all that, Zach thought, suppressing a shudder.

Not long after she’d begun gaining levels, Kal had sent him some really crazy texts about “bringing everything back” and “taking down the guild leaders.” She’d seemed nothing like her usual self. But then everything seemed to have changed a second time after her mother returned. Zach’s best guess? Seeing how twisted her mother had become through her ambitions had repulsed Kalana to the point she’d swiftly changed direction and was back to her original stance on being devoutly opposed to killing.

I doubt she would’ve ever gone through with her plans anyway, Zach thought. I just can’t see her doing that.

As Zach continued to make idle chatter and eat his lunch, his thoughts began to turn towards the T9 raid boss that they’d possibly be going after as soon as a few hours from now. Much like Jimmy and Donovan had anticipated, the moment they’d pulled off the gigantic, equine monster and gained some distance—thanks to Jimmy’s slows—it had abruptly halted, turned back to its original color, and calmly walked back to its spawn point, which in this case was the rubble and ruins of a specialty shop that only sold area rugs about two miles east of here.

At the moment, Zach, the adventurers, and a select number of guild members from Children of Order were coordinating inside of a diner located in a small strip mall containing just the diner, a hardware store, and a place that tutored children who were struggling with math and reading. The strip mall itself was just off one of the main roads, and due east of here was the market-square district that had been badly, if not completely, destroyed by the T9 world boss, which was now standing in its spawn unmoving, frozen, and waiting for someone to challenge it.

Incredibly, news of this had not leaked out. For the first time, Zach was able to see guild censorship working in real time. As terrible as it was, he couldn’t help but be impressed just on the basis that the guilds actually managed to contain this sort of information so successfully, as there were hundreds of level-1 witnesses out there that were aware of its existence, which was many more than there might have been if Jimmy had not come along. Though Jimmy had failed to protect—and likely was the cause of—the destruction of much of their property, he was also responsible for saving a great number of their lives.

Now, even as Zach removed his phone and carefully scanned all the news both regional, local, and North-Bastian-wide, he could find no references anywhere to what was happening. Almost everything was devoted to talking about the war, with news of the “glorious, Gods-inspired victory” serving as the dominant headline. With the sole exception of Tomb of Fire, which was now the last remaining region controlled by the Guild of Gentlemen, the rest of North Bastia was likely erupting into celebrations as they were rapidly beginning to learn that their collective terror had ended and that the biggest current threat to their lives—and world stability—was safely behind them.

Amid this news, the rescue of Vim was also close to the top of the headlines, and so too was Zach himself and the role he’d played in it. Numerous articles were referring to him as “Sir Calador,” the “newly promoted fourth-in-command of the Royal Roses.” He rolled his eyes at all that.

Curiously, he searched various social media sites for phrases such as “boss spawn” and “Faded Island boss” to see if anything came up. Sorting the posts in order from newest to oldest, he was surprised to see that a few did in fact pop up relating to the T9 boss, and even more surprisingly, there were several pictures and videos as well. Not many, of course, but a few. This meant that if a significant enough number of people all spammed at once, some posts would get through the censorship.

And yet…none of these posts were gaining any traction. Zach couldn’t be sure, but he guessed that, as a secondary measure, the social media algorithms were able to suppress their rise to the top by preventing them from appearing automatically on feeds or gaining more exposure. In other words, these posts might as well not have existed at all, as they had no means of spreading. There were also accounts that Zach took to be bots replying and calling them fake or manipulated. To the very few people who might somehow possibly stumble across these posts, the combination of the bot accounts calling them fake along with the fact that the news media wasn’t reporting any of the information—it would likely be enough to convince them it was indeed not real.

The guilds really know how to keep these things secret.

The Children of Order, for their part, had apparently evacuated everyone within two miles of the boss and, in conjunction with regional peacekeepers, were preventing anyone from getting close enough to see the boss or become aware of its existence. For this reason, Zach knew that they were eager to have the adventurers take care of this today and not put it off for later. The longer the boss remained alive, the greater the chance the information could break out into the general public. It also led to the possibility of a new term that Zach had only heard a few minutes ago for the first time from a member of the Children of Order.

Aggro terrorism.

Supposedly, every so often during a boss spawn, a level-1 lunatic would go and piss off the boss then intentionally run it through civilian areas just to cause chaos and mayhem. And this, apparently, was something that had happened all across North Bastia on multiple occasions. Zach found this hard to believe—at least until he thought about it. Sadly, he realized he actually could picture people doing something so stupid and horrible.

“…which is why we need to make sure nobody gets through. The last thing we need now is to deal with aggro terrorism,” a young, red-haired member of the Children of Order said to her colleague. The two were standing fairly near to Zach’s table, so he was able to discern their words amid the raucous noise coming from the adventurers in the diner.

“We’re calling up all the peacekeepers we can. But there are a whole lot of ways people can get in.”

“I know, but as long as we—”

Whatever the guild-member had been about to say became drowned out as the entire diner suddenly erupted into a loud, boisterous bout of cheering and hollering, which came across to Zach’s ears as both genuine and also filled with mockery. Confused, he looked around to see what was going on—and then he found the source of it all. Mr. Oren, now bedecked in his white lab coat, cat-eye glasses, and the rest of his adventuring gear, had emerged from the bathroom, having cleaned himself up. All of the blood was now gone from his face and other areas of exposed flesh.

“There he is!” Donovan shouted. “We knew you’d be back, you bastard! The real you!”

Mr. Oren ignored him and strolled his way through the diner. In his eyes, Zach could see that it was only his clothing that had changed. He also looked uncomfortable as though the adventurers were getting the wrong idea about him—which clearly, they were. His old adventuring outfit was likely the only thing he had in storage that he could wear that wasn’t coated in other people’s blood. That much was obvious. But to the adventurers, they were taking it as a sign that he was destined to return to them.

They should’ve known better.

As Mr. Oren ventured farther into the diner in the direction of the entrance, Kalana shouted out to him. “Sit with us, Alex!”

He paused in place, turned his head, and then even as the adventurers continued to shout, mock, and in many cases, genuinely cheer him on, he seemingly ignored all of it and moved over towards where Kalana was sitting next to Zach.

“Your table’s full,” he said.

“Every table’s full. Pull up a chair!”

“Are you sure, Kalana?”

“Mhm!”

He nodded as though grateful. “All right.”

He looked around as if to search for a chair. None were available, and there was no way an adventurer was going to give one up—not to him, at least. But then Zach noticed that, almost in unison, every member of Children of Order stood upright and made a motioning gesture towards their seat. At first, this struck Zach as odd, but then he realized that, as the third-ranking member of the Lords of Justice, he was a world leader and a man of incredible importance. Thus, while his status and stature had essentially cratered among the adventurers, they had risen proportionally among the political guilds, who respected his rank and status in a way the adventurers never could or would.

“Thank you very kindly,” Mr. Oren said to a middle-aged guild member who had practically begged him to take it. The entire thing seemed performative, though, almost as if it was a mandatory back-and-forth in the world of guild politics. It began with Mr. Oren refusing to take the seat despite clearly wanting it, which then led to the guild member insisting otherwise, and it was only after repeating this act three or four more times that Mr. Oren finally accepted. And so, with that, he slid the chair up to the edge of the table so that Lienne was to his left and Rian was to his right, and then he began to greet each of them individually.

“Jimmy, it’s good to see you again,” he said.

“Hey, you too.”

This round of greeting continued on until he hesitated when getting to Rian and Lienne, who regarded him with open disdain. Lienne crossed her arms, and Rian just had a general look of nastiness to him. The siblings had never liked Mr. Oren, and they seemed to like him even less now than they had before. Thankfully, however, neither of them said anything that would make the situation between the three of them any more awkward than it already was.

“Do you wanna get something to eat?” Kalana asked. “I can ask Fi if she can get the chef back in here to make ya something.”

Mr. Oren held up his palm as if to politely decline. “That’s all right.”

“Are you sure? I only ask ‘cause I know it wouldn’t be a problem for them to—”

“Truly, I’m not hungry at all right now, Kalana. But I really appreciate the concern.”

“All right, if you say so.”

Mr. Oren looked around the table, his eyes moving from face to face before settling on Zach’s. When they did, they became demanding in an uncomfortable sort of way. Although he was typically a pretty serious guy, Mr. Oren took on a heightened look of seriousness that caused a prickly sensation to spread all over Zach’s shoulders and back. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what Mr. Oren was about to tell him.

“Congratulations on your promotion, Sir Calador,” he said. “I’ve only just heard the news, my man. You’ve just become the youngest member in the history of the Royal Roses to hold a rank that high. Well done. You’ve earned it.”

Zach’s feeling of discomfort became much greater as his brain registered the words Mr. Oren had spoken to him. It suddenly required effort on his part not to squirm or look away. “Thanks, but uh, you’re taking that whole thing a bit too seriously, don’t you think?”

“Am I?”

Zach released a laugh, though it was more to calm his uneasiness than for reasons of amusement. “Well, yeah. You were an adventurer until recently, so you know that it’s not actually real, right? This is just something that happens to adventurers sometimes and that we have to play along with.”

Mr. Oren held his gaze, and if anything, it became even stronger and sharper as he continued to stare at Zach. “Obviously, I’m well aware that, on occasion, when adventurers unintentionally end up in the news, a guild might claim them as a member in order to explain their existence to the public and maintain public order. Though not exactly a common occurrence, it happens from time to time.”

Zach nodded. “Right, so then, why are you acting like this is—”

“Because this is different,” Mr. Oren replied immediately. “Zach, I don’t know where exactly the line is between pretend-member of a guild and genuine one, but you’ve most certainly crossed it by now. You can’t storm a battlefield to rescue your guild leader or hold an impromptu press conference in the capital of humanity and then dismiss it all as ‘playing along.’ Surely, you must realize this by now.”

Firmly shaking his head, Zach tried to keep himself from shouting in response. “Nothing’s changed. I’m still an adventurer. I’m not really a member of the Royal Roses. It’s just not…it’s not true.”

“That’s right,” Rian said, chiming in with agreement. So too did Lienne and Tena. Jimmy stayed silent, and Trelvor and Seiley looked as though this conversation was of no concern of their own, and neither of the two seemed to be paying any attention to it at all. Kalana, however, had her bottom lip curled and her eyes lowered as though in deep contemplation. She looked troubled, and Zach could not ascertain if she agreed or disagreed with what Mr. Oren was saying to him.

His eyes still focused solely on Zach, Mr. Oren pushed his chair just a little closer towards the table and then leaned slightly forward. “Whether you meant to do so or not, Zach, you’ve taken on a responsibility that you can’t simply throw away. But please understand this doesn’t mean you have to quit being an adventurer.”

“It doesn’t?” Zach asked, genuinely surprised to hear him say this.

“Not at all. Peter IV had the buff. Right now, I have the buff. If you still feel like an adventurer at heart, you don’t actually have to rid yourself of it. The reason I’ve chosen to do so is simply because it no longer reflects who I am inside, and that’s a personal choice I decided to make—a symbol of my commitment to my guild and to humanity, if you will.”

He does have a point there, Zach realized. But then he became irritated, although it was for an entirely different reason.

“Varsh killed my dad,” he said. “You didn’t forget that, did you?”

“Of course not. How could I? We fought him together. But he’s dead now, and it’s only fitting you take his place and everything that once belonged to him.”

Zach slowed his breathing to keep his emotions in check. “What makes you think I want anything that piece of shit touched? Forget for a second the fact that I don’t even want to be a member of any political guild in the first place, no matter which one, and let’s also forget for a second that, well, that I don’t even like the political guilds…” He paused to breathe. “Even if in some alternate universe I decided to join one, what in the name of the Gods would make you think I’d go with the Royal Roses?”

“Because you already have, Zach. You just don’t fully realize it yet.”

Upon these words, Zach pressed his lips together and fought even harder to keep his temper from rising. He wasn’t sure why he felt such a great sense of restless agitation. Maybe it was because there was some truth to what Mr. Oren was saying—truth that he would much prefer to be false. But all of this only served to remind him of how complex a path he was now finding himself on. Lately, the idea had been growing on him that he could not simply ignore the problems of the world in the way that the other adventurers did, nor could he pretend he wasn’t part of it. Yet, at the same time, he still valued his own independence. But how could that even work? How could he eschew the governing bodies of society while also contributing to issues he deemed to be of importance?

“I appreciate the congratulations,” Zach said to him after a moment of self-contemplation. “But I’m not sure why you’re bringing this up now.”

Up until this point, Mr. Oren had worn a very serious expression that strongly suggested he had something to say that would upset or annoy Zach. And now, Zach finally discovered why. Mr. Oren slowly moved his upper lip back and forth across his lower one as if carefully choosing his words before deciding to speak them. When he did, Zach felt his stomach sink.

“After we’re done here, I think you really should head back to Dal’Zarrah again and sit for a few press briefings to ensure that the Royal Roses will continue to support the families of the dead and wounded, and I think you should state that you’re doing everything you can to ensure that public order is maintained for all people living in Giant’s Fall, even those born in Shadowfall Coast and Tomb of Fire. In every region, we’re seeing mob violence and, in some cases, outright murder of completely innocent individuals based on their region of birth.”

“That’s terrible,” Zach said, already well aware of this. “But how can I possibly do anything?”

Mr. Oren’s expression somehow became even firmer. “Because as the fourth in command of the Royal Roses, you’re in charge of the entire peacekeeper force in Giant’s Fall, Spider’s Eye Oasis, Dragon Squire, and quite possibly also Shadowfall Coast depending on how negotiations over that region’s new controlling guild proceed. You’re also the commanding officer of regional defense, the secretary of your guild’s Bureau of Justice, and the chief warden of all regional prisons.”

If not for the sudden, intensely painful burning pain in his lungs, Zach might not have remembered to breathe. The things Mr. Oren just said to him—they crashed into Zach as though they were a sack filled with bricks that’d been swung at his face. Not only did Zach not know these things, as they were the kinds of minutiae of government he normally didn’t care to learn about, but he still wasn’t even sure what some of them were or meant.

Unable to think of how to respond, Zach failed to reply the first few times he attempted. It was only after Kalana placed her hand on top of his own that he found the means to speak. “I’m only seventeen years old,” he said at last.

Mr. Oren nodded. “It’s a very unusual circumstance, my man. I’m not denying that.”

“And I don’t even…I don’t even really know beyond a surface level what most of those things are.”

“That’s okay too,” Mr. Oren said. “A lot of it is handled by bureaucracy.”

Zach coughed out an unintentional, shocked laugh. “I don’t even really know what the word ‘bureaucracy’ means!”

“You’ll learn.”

Like before, Zach shook his head. “This isn’t for me. I don’t know why Vim…I don’t understand why he’d put this on me, but I’m already so close to being thrown out of the adventuring community. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

Mr. Oren sighed. “You say that now, but…I think you’ll realize before long what I came around to realizing.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

Finally, the tightness in Mr. Oren’s expression went away, and now he smiled. “If not you, then who?”

Chapter 171: The Rule of the System

Chapter 171: The Rule of the System

Standing upright with his hands folded behind his back, his eyes closed, and his breathing calm, Adamus set his gaze upon the world. Alone in his office, he concentrated on the people of Galterra, but more specifically, on the continent of North Bastia, where great progress had been made in pursuit of ridding the world of the accursed nuclear weapons that served as the last of Moldark’s legacy. Thanks to the two vampires from Archian Prime, the threat to the system looked near to ending. Yes…yes, the threat had mostly passed. All that remained was a bit of diligence to ensure no remnants yet lingered, and it appeared the Elvish were leaving no stone unturned to that effect. Adamus was pleased. The moment of crisis was just about beyond them.

…but still, it had been a great deal closer than he’d anticipated.

Although Adamus could see far and wide, even his extraordinary gaze could not see all. Thus, no matter how prescient and observing, there were always things that slipped his attention—that sailed beyond his notice. For this reason, he had been caught unaware by the runic-disabling shields that the deceased Peter V had erected shortly before his passing, and for a short while earlier, he’d feared that the Galterrans would fail in the critically important task he’d bestowed upon them. This, of course, would have been a terribly unpleasant outcome, for it would have required Adamus to “escalate” the situation.

Wanting to interfere with the system’s users as little as possible, Adamus naturally preferred the sort of solutions that saw the Galterrans themselves serving as the agents of change. In so doing, he could simultaneously achieve his objective while ensuring such objective was achieved in the fairest way possible. Yet in the event the Galterrans failed, he had indeed been prepared to act: first with his trackers and then, should they not succeed, personally if such a dramatic, remarkable intervention was absolutely required. Thankfully, that had not come to pass, and as things were, it did not seem as though any further involvement would be required on his part.

Thus, he turned his attention elsewhere.

Since the dawn of this crisis, Adamus had neglected other matters of great importance, of which there were many, but one in particular stood out most to him—the boy from the old times whom Eilea had used to breach the system: James Green, as he was known. His very existence here was an affront to all that Adamus had created, and Adamus was beside himself at the audacity Eilea had displayed in bringing him to Galterra. Meddling unforgivably with the strands of time, fate, and reality, his beloved had foolishly brought him here in direct opposition to not only the principles of the system but to the rules established by the old Gods. The woman risked so much to pluck the boy from his time and transport him to their world. But it was in this act itself where the conundrum had now begun to grow, for a puzzle was beginning to form: one that was becoming more alarming and confusing the more Adamus delved into it.

Initially, Adamus had believed his beloved’s intentions to be clear, obvious, and straightforward. Given that James Green was an unmodified, system-compatible, true-human specimen, he naturally had direct access to his internal psionic abilities in the same way that Adamus himself or Eilea did, providing this young man an incredibly unfair advantage that simply could not be allowed to stand. For he, unlike all other participants in the system, was capable of drawing directly upon his power and harnessing the four basic affinities.

From the moment Adamus had detected the boy’s appearance and learned who—and what—had invaded the system, he had naturally and logically assumed that it was for this very reason that Eilea had risked the wrath of the old Gods in bringing him here. Adamus had been certain that her goal had been to have him call upon these abilities in order to either advance her own agenda or perhaps aid Zachys Calador in whatever foul schemes she had planned for the boy.

And yet, incredibly, from the small bit of observation Adamus had been able to manage amid the larger threat of nuclear weaponry, he had thus far not been able to obtain any evidence whatsoever to suggest that Jimmy was utilizing these advantages, nor had he been able to conclude from his admittedly brief monitoring that the young man was even aware of his talents. Even more baffling was that Eilea didn’t appear to be informing him or guiding him towards them, either.

And this was where Adamus was now finding himself at a total loss to explain his beloved’s motivation.

Eilea was many things, but his beloved was most certainly not crafty, overly clever, or deceitful. Subterfuge, layered plans, and veiled desires were not things Adamus expected of her. Even now, he still believed this to be the case. But if so, it only further clouded the nature of the boy’s presence here, for if Eilea had not brought him here to make use of his innate access to psionic abilities, then for what purpose had she brought him to Galterra? For what possible reason could she have to take such an obscene, grotesque, and dangerous action if not to make use of his unique disposition?

Why? Why had Eilea done it? Why had Eilea put so much on the line to save the life of a random Psych who was meant to die thousands of years ago yet was now walking among them? Was she merely waiting for a future date to guide him in the ways of his innate abilities? Or was there some other purpose entirely that Adamus had not yet been able to see due to his very, very limited observations of the young man?

Though Adamus had certainly not spent enough time studying the situation to definitively conclude that another purpose existed, the little he’d seen so far strongly suggested that James Green was doing nothing untoward and was, quite to the contrary, an enthusiastic, ideal specimen of the sort his system was originally designed to cater to. Adamus had only checked in on him a few times, and each time he’d done so, the boy had been happily traipsing through a dungeon, relishing in the world the Great Ones had created. He had adapted far better to the system than Adamus would’ve expected, and by all accounts, he was, at least to this point, behaving as a gifted, but ordinary adventurer.

But there had to be more. There had to be a reason.

Sadly, Adamus would likely never learn of it, for the boy—along with nearly all the most powerful or important adventurers in Galterra—were about to die; this, he realized as he switched his gaze to the west, to Faded Island off the coast in North Bastia. Flashing, unstable images flooded his mind as he concentrated, bringing these moving pictures into focus until they settled to become an accurate representation of the world far below. Having been focused so intensely on Shadowfall Coast these past few weeks, Adamus had all but forgotten that the T9 boss called "Mare of the Primordial Void" was due to spawn.

“Come in,” Adamus said with a smile forming on his face. Even as he kept his eyes closed, he could sense the presence on the other side of the door. A moment later, he felt two warm hands settle down on his shoulders, massaging him.

“I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” Prila said. Her voice dropped in volume. “I…missed you.”

“You can always be with me,” he said to her. “Your presence comforts me like no others.”

She spoke nothing in reply. Adamus could sense she was troubled. “Are you concerned about the mare?”

“I am,” she said.

Adamus placed his right hand on top of her left, which was still on his shoulder. “Prila, you agreed to recommit to my vision as a condition for rejoining us here…and for being together with me.”

Her grip became firmer. “I know, and I haven’t gone back on that, Adamus. I’m just saddened. I’ve grown to care so much for Zach.”

“So you have…but you must let him go. We must not interfere.”

She sighed. “Are you sure they have no chance?”

“Yes,” Adamus whispered. “This is unlike the dragon. I told you why when last we spoke.”

“You did…”

She quieted, seemingly content just to be with him and requiring little else, though her sadness stung at Adamus. Truly, he did feel for Prila, but the system demanded impartiality, and he could not allow her—or anyone—to interfere. In the coming moments, he fully expected a massive, devastating raid wipe to take place, one in which there would be few—if any—survivors, for the boss they were about to attack was unlike any others that spawned on Galterra.

Like all T1 planets and moons, Galterran bosses were typically straightforward and only seldomly contained much in the way of complexity. There were some exceptions, of course, but even in those cases, such bosses contained one or, at most, two features that separated them from other such bosses. But Mare of the Primordial Void was different—and in a way that would simply prove itself to be insurmountable for the adventurers.

“Delreza,” Adamus whispered, speaking the name of the beautiful, orange-haired Elvish Great One who had created the boss in question.

“Hmm?” Prila asked.

“It’s nothing,” Adamus whispered. “Just my thoughts.”

Delreza had created Mare of the Primordial Void, and it had been highly controversial among the Great Ones at the time. In clear violation of accepted protocol, she had given into her creative streak, and she had crafted a boss with a level of complexity far more befitting a T2 planet than a place like Galterra. Its stats were in line with other, similar bosses of its type, but its abilities and features went well beyond what was considered standard and acceptable for a Galterran boss. Thus, all but Adamus had immediately rejected her idea, claiming it violated the spirit of tiered planets and that superbosses were far too dangerous as is.

Typically, a superboss—defined internally as any boss T8 or greater that spawned out in the world as opposed to one of the dungeons—was a boss designed to force a confrontation between itself and the citizens of Galterra. For this reason, superbosses had very long spawn timers, roamed from area to area based on population density, and left the people of Galterra with no choice but to band together in order to end the grave threat it posed to life.

But Mare of the Primordial Void had been different. And for this reason, a compromise had been made. In exchange for allowing this boss to spawn on Galterra, it would be given a flat, 4,000-year spawn timer and, in addition, it not only would not roam or be a determined roamer, but it would have a vastly reduced aggro radius and a small, but slightly larger de-aggro radius, essentially isolating it to one spot. In other words, it would not pose a society-ending threat to the people of Galterra, nor would they be absolutely required to destroy it in the event they were unable to do so.

Only having ever spawned once before in the history of the system, the Mare of the Primordial Void had a number of abilities that no one on Galterra had ever before seen, and thus, they would have no understanding of how to confront it. Adamus, whose ability to predict and assign an accurate probability to most events had always served him well, gave the adventurers less than a one-percent chance to defeat it, and perhaps ten percent for at least a quarter of them to survive via fleeing. The odds of half or more escaping with their lives…hmm…perhaps five percent thereabout.

“I don’t want Zach to die,” Prila whispered sadly.

“I know you don’t, and…I am sorry.”

There were numerous ways the raid could wipe depending on chance and what abilities happened to come up first; this would also greatly influence the number of potential escapees. For example, if the small, reddish-green ring appeared near the boss, that would almost certainly spell the imminent death of every single last raid member bar none. They would not know how to react. Adamus was sure of it.

And because of this, he would likely never come to learn what it was that Eilea had actually intended James Green to do. For with an almost guaranteed level of certainty, he would be dying in the coming moments. But, if nothing else, it absolved Adamus of having to see to his death via the use of more trackers. With their truce nearly over, the time was soon to come where he’d have to dispatch more of his people to put the boy down for the sake of the system. At least, this way, he could die as the system intended: fairly. This was so much more preferable to the alternative.

Yet, there was something strange going on now that Adamus more fully focused on the adventurers that had gathered down there in Faded Island. With a greater level of concentration, he began to absorb more information, with some now hitting him in the form of sound. From the looks of things, it seemed that the young man was going to lead the raid.

Was Adamus interpreting this correctly? Was he misunderstanding something?

This was…odd. James Green was a newer adventurer. Though his ability set appeared to allow him to propel himself forward in the levels far, far faster than most adventurers could, he was still a fresh adventurer whose level was in the mid-40s and who presumably did not know enough about the world of Galterra to be worthy of leading even a small raid, let alone one that sought to take on a superboss.

“Why would they allow him to lead?” Adamus whispered to himself.

“What’s that?” Prila asked, overhearing him.

He explained the situation to her and then said, “With an inexperienced, unknowledgeable young man taking the reins, I am afraid the chance of survival has now plummeted even closer to zero.”

“But…but why would they even allow this?”

“I cannot say. It is unusual.”

“Do you think it factors into Eilea’s plan?” she asked.

Adamus shook his head—and then he even laughed. “No, of course not. Unless you’re suggesting my beloved’s plan was to bring the boy thousands of years forward in time just to have him lead raids as a completely inexperienced newcomer to what must be a frightening, unfamiliar world.”

Prila also released a chuckle, though in her case, it came across as far more saddened than amused. “I guess you’re right. But…Adamus?”

“Yes?”

“Do you really still have to call Eilea your beloved? It makes me feel so unwanted.”

He opened his eyes, turned around, and looked at her. The girl’s face was truly a thing of beauty. He could not remember the last time he had felt any passion in his heart—even if he lacked it in other areas, as his body had wilted away with age.

“You are my most favored now,” he said to her. “Your jealousy is unnecessary.”

Prila frowned. “Then prove it.”

“Prove it?”

She nodded. “You know what I want.”

Adamus briefly averted his gaze. He did know. It was something he had declined several times by this point. “That is not to my liking.”

“Why?” she asked. “Is it…is it because of me?”

“No, not at all,” he said, speaking in a calm whisper. “It is simply that I decided long ago not to run from age as others do.”

“But…could you really do it? Reset yourself?”

In some ways, Adamus regretted telling her about any of this. Although he’d only rescued her from the research facility last night, the two had been in constant communication all throughout her stay there. She’d fall asleep every night during their discussions, and it was during one of these talks he’d told her that the reason why he was old and frail and Eilea was young and beautiful was simply that she had rejected aging and had chosen to keep her body at the ripe young age of eighteen.

Adamus, on the other hand, wore his age like a badge of wisdom. His skin was thousands of years old, and he maintained it only to the extent that it was necessary to ensure function. But he could, indeed, reverse himself if he chose, and upon arriving back home last night, Prila had found a picture of him from his youth. It had…stirred the passions within her. Passions he could no longer feel due to his age.

“Please,” she said to him. “Let me be with you in the way that you were with Eilea for so long.”

Adamus considered her request. “If I reset myself, this will be the final time. I do not enjoy concealing the truth of myself behind a false youth. Also, you must understand, that with a young, virile body comes a certain brashness that I must temper, for the frailty of age calms me and keeps me rational.”

Prila chuckled, and this time, it seemed genuine. “Are you saying you’ll go crazy if you revert to your younger self?”

Adamus smiled. “Not quite, Prila. My mind is unchanging. It is more that the feeling of being inside a youthful body propels oneself in a way that my current form does not. I might find myself jogging around the halls, for example. And I would certainly feel a return to that which you seek from me…”

He watched as Prila chewed her bottom lip, a gesture that meant nothing to him now but would certainly incite his passions if he indeed rejuvenated himself. “Do it,” she said. “I want to see that half-elf from the picture.”

“You may find him more than you can handle…my Prila.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Very well. I wish to continue my observations a bit longer, but tonight, at midnight North Bastian time, I shall begin the meditations. You will be unable to reach me for twenty-four hours. Yet when I awaken, I will be as I was.”

Prila seemed excited. She kissed the side of his cheek and then returned to her station. Her coworkers were all overjoyed to have her back, and Adamus was glad they were willing to accept her as one of them again.

Now, closing his eyes once more, he honed his senses in on Faded Island, where he knew that the adventuring community was about to suffer a tremendous blow from which it might never recover, especially if the two de facto leaders, Donovan Iseldar and Zephyr Vextran, perished in the coming battle—which they likely would. None of them would be able to rise to the challenge they would soon be up against. They simply would not know what to do or understand what was happening, and having an inexperienced young man in charge—for some inconceivable reason—would only make things worse for them.

Death was now their fate, and though such a thing was sad and regrettable, Adamus would not permit anyone to interfere. Such was the rule of the system.

Chapter 172: The Argument

Chapter 172: The Argument

The infectious sound of a bored, tired yawn spread from person to person like an instantaneous plague. It began with Miss Britethorn and continued on to her husband. Reni Sarwin yawned right after, followed by a young adventurer girl named Ishina. Before long, Zach too was opening his mouth wide and adding one of his own. It reminded him of how long it’d been since he’d last slept—and how badly he wanted to lie down and close his eyes. Especially since they were basically doing nothing right now but standing around and waiting.

The hell are we doing out here? he wondered, disgruntled and exhausted.

Glancing at the time on his phone, Zach found it hard to believe he’d wasted four hours idly baking in the ruthless summer heat while Jimmy, Donovan, Zephyr, Fiona, Kal, and Mr. Oren repeated the same arguments over and over to the point that Zach could practically recite each of them from memory. It made Zach wonder why they couldn’t have resolved their disagreements back at the diner where at least it was air conditioned and cool. Why did they have to come out here just to subject him and all the other adventurers—of which there were now more than a hundred—to this inferno-like temperature while they figured this shit out? Seriously, this was ridiculous.

Why can’t we just pick this back up tomorrow?

Zach was getting sick of hearing the six of them go at it, and to be honest, if they didn’t come to a consensus soon, he was considering speaking up and demanding they leave. In fact, that was what Donovan, Zephyr, and Kalana wanted to do. Despite his desire to support Jimmy, Zach found himself siding with those three, though he didn’t dare say it out loud. It was just that he was worn-out and fatigued, and this boss clearly wasn’t an imminent threat in the way the dragon had been. There was no reason they had to take it down today. Well, at least in his opinion. This was not, however, a view that was shared by Mr. Oren, Jimmy, and Fiona Darkmae; to the contrary, all three seemed united in opposition to that idea.

“You’re telling me we can’t keep the situation here under control for one fuckin’ day?” asked Donovan, an exasperated growl following his words. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“That’s an incredibly shallow and inaccurate summation of what we’ve been saying,” Mr. Oren replied, his eyes locked with Donovan’s as though the two were engaging in some kind of heated staring contest. “You’re misrepresenting the views of Duchess Darkmae—and also my own.”

There seemed to be two “teams” at play here, with Donovan, Kalana, and Zephyr wanting to err on the side of caution and call it a day so that the Explorer’s Brigade could then spend the rest of the evening—and all night—conducting “field tests” thanks to the boss’s smallish de-aggro radius. For several hours now, the three of them had been arguing that taking their time and collecting more data on the boss was the best course of action, whereas Mr. Oren, Fiona, and Jimmy had been making the case that an immediate takedown was in the best interest of the people. However, unlike Donovan, Zephyr, and Kal, who all seemed to be arguing from the same underlying position, those three clearly had very different individual reasons for wanting to slay the boss here and now.

In the case of Jimmy, Zach detected a sense of urgency to prove himself and recover from whatever had happened to him the night prior, and for Mr. Oren and Fiona Darkmae, the two seemed to be arguing from a public safety standpoint. Where they differed, however, was that Mr. Oren was also trying to press the case that he needed to return to Shadowfall Coast and required this to be over with quickly, and with Fiona, the stunningly beautiful guild leader was attempting to make clear to the others how badly her region’s economy would be harmed if this was allowed to drag on for days, weeks, or months, as she’d been required to close off several main roads that ran through here; she seemed to be worried that, if the adventurers did not kill the boss by tonight, they would find some excuse or another to drag this on for much longer than just a day. And so, unable to come to an agreement, the debate continued.

This is such a waste of time, Zach thought, releasing another yawn.

Right now, they were all gathered just a block-and-a-half away from the T9 mare’s spawn point. At first, when Zach had arrived here with the others, he’d felt invigorated and even had a bit of adrenaline rushing through his veins. This was due to a combination of seeing the boss up close and personal but also witnessing the utter destruction that it had inflicted on this market square. Destroyed structures littered the entirety of it, and though there were still a few places of business that were mostly intact, nothing had truly escaped unscathed. Even the beauty parlor across the street from them had somehow had its windows shattered and a section of the roofing torn off. But considering the size of their foe, this did not surprise him one bit. If anything, Zach was amazed the market hadn’t been damaged even worse.

Thankfully, the boss was clearly nothing like Ziragoth. In contrast to the sentient fire wyvern, the giant horse appeared to have a very close aggro range and a slightly larger—but still pretty forgiving—de-aggro range. Because of how large and tall the tremendous, equine-like monster happened to be, their current distance from the boss made it all feel way, way closer—enough so that Zach couldn’t believe they could stand this near to it and not draw aggro. For this reason alone, their close proximity to the T9 boss had, at least during the first hour, roused Zach enough that it’d kept him feeling awake and alert.

But then the arguing started, more time came and went, and the newness of the situation wore off. With no actual lives facing any immediate danger, and with no real need to carelessly rush into battle, Zach had become very tired and also a bit grumpy as he realized he’d much prefer to go back to Elendroth with Kalana and pass out on a warm bed before returning tomorrow.

I’ve spent all night fighting in a war, then all day chasing after Jimmy. I need a break!

It wasn’t like he could do all that much before tomorrow anyway. His Unleashed Phase was still on cooldown and wouldn’t reset until sometime in the middle of the night, at which point his Phase Level would drop from 2 to 1, meaning he could safely use it and withstand the High exertion cost required of the ability. On the other hand, he supposed he could technically use it now if he activated Phase Reset and brought his Phase Level up to 3, which had the exact same Very High exertion cost as Phase Level 2. But with the weekly ability of his sword on cooldown, it would mean having to pay the entire Very High exertion cost instead of just half. And since half a Very High was still somehow enough to kill him—without the use of rejuvenation stones, of course—Zach wasn’t willing to gamble his life on the stones being enough to save him if he attempted to pay off the entire thing at once.

So, yeah, he wouldn’t be able to contribute a whole lot until tomorrow. His overall tiredness and lack of access to his best abilities meant he’d be fighting at a diminished capacity if he needed to partake in the raid today. But even still, if that was how things had to be, then you know what? Fine, whatever. He was ready if that turned out to be the case. But seriously, for the love of the Gods, could the six of them please just get on with it already? Enough was enough!

Zach groaned quietly so that no one could hear it as he watched the argument loop back around without settling any of the outstanding problems between the six of them. As fierce a debate as they were having regarding the “when” of it all, they were also bickering over the “how” and the “who” in addition. Specifically, they argued over the role that Jimmy was meant to play as well as the overall strategy for the raid, and it was those last two topics in particular that really got Jimmy all agitated and worked up.

“The fuck you mean co-leader?” Jimmy snapped as Donovan and Zephyr floated the suggestion of having all three of them lead together. “Did you not hear what Fiona said, Donovan? This is her region which means she’s the one who says who’s allowed to lead the raid here. And she threw this ball in my court, not yours.”

Zephyr released a chuckle. “You think that’s actually how this works, huh, Jimmy?”

“Well, yeah, obviously.”

He made a waving motion with his index finger. “Well then, you’re wrong. And I say that meaning no disrespect to the beautiful Duchess Darkmae, but she needs us a lot more than we need her, and if we aren’t able to conduct the raid how we think it should be done, we’ll just leave.”

At this, Fiona seemed to stiffen, her body becoming rigid and her grip on her combat staff tightening. “Wait a sec, at least let’s talk about this first. You guys can’t just leave.”

“Actually we can,” Donovan said before opening his mouth and spitting out a wad of saliva and mucus, which made a slight plop as it hit the ground. “We don’t let the political guilds tell us how we conduct our raids. That ain’t how things go.”

Fiona said nothing a short moment as if to take in Donovan’s words. Then she gave Jimmy a resigned, apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I guess I can’t force them to make you the leader after all, buddy. Not if it means they abandon my region.”

“He can be a leader,” Zephyr clarified. “But this is a T9, and we can’t leave it all to him. By all means, he’s still not ready for that.”

Jimmy looked perplexed. “Wait, but if ya’ll are saying you don’t gotta listen to her, and if you really think I’m not ready, then why are you willing to let me lead at all? Why even capitulate?”

Zephyr’s face visibly warmed. “Because we’re not capitulating. We both think you’re very talented, Jimmy. So even if you’re not seasoned enough just yet, we’re willing to overlook your lack of real-word experience because Donovan and I know you can bring a lot to the table.”

“If that’s the case, then let me bring it. Let me be the leader. Not the ‘co’ leader or whatever the hell. Let me do this my way.”

Donovan grunted. “Kid, have you learned a damn thing since last night?”

Zach wasn’t sure exactly what Donovan meant by the question, as he hadn’t been there and had only heard a brief but succinct version of events, one which left out a great many details. From what he had heard, it seemed Jimmy had gotten badly hurt during the raid, which had become derailed during the end and required Donovan and Zephyr to step in and take charge. But as far as what, specifically, had gone wrong—or if it was even Jimmy’s fault at all—Zach was completely in the dark. Thus, all he had to go on was the pained look that popped up in Jimmy’s expression as Jimmy seemingly considered what Donovan had asked him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was actually so drunk I can’t even remember if I did or didn’t.”

Of all the possible ways in which Donovan could’ve reacted to that, he chose to bark out a laugh. “Been there, kiddo. But try to think. Surely, you must’ve learned something from what happened.”

Jimmy was silent for a bit as if reflecting on the events that had taken place during the time when Zach was busy fighting his way through Shadowfall Coast. Chewing on his lower lip, he mouthed a few syllables and then stared at the ground for another couple of seconds before finally lifting his head; now, there was a very thoughtful glint in his eyes.

“Actually, know what? I did learn a lot now that you mention it.”

Donovan grunted approvingly. “Go on.”

Zach didn’t know what Donovan expected to hear Jimmy say. He had no idea what lessons or takeaways the gruff leader of the GSG was hoping Jimmy would have gained. But whatever it was that Donovan was anticipating, Zach had to imagine it was not this. Because as Jimmy opened his mouth and replied to the question, he did not simply just answer it, but he really answered it. With his staff sheathed on his back, Jimmy lifted both hands and began to expressively gesture while speaking enthusiastically about so many different tactical points and observations that it made Zach’s head swim. Judging from the blank, incredulous stares being sent his way from Donovan, Zephyr, Kal, and even Fiona, he was willing to guess their heads were swimming as well. Right there beneath the scorching summer sun, in a market square devastated by a T9 raid boss, Jimmy launched into a lengthy, exhaustive speech that was about as interesting as an instruction manual.

“…which is why we should’ve had the healers use a staggered pattern to manipulate the hate tables. That way, even if Emala still ended up pulling Imp Lord Tzumazleth’s aggro, we would’ve been able to get it off her quickly enough, especially since radial gradient decay suggests that the…”

Jimmy spoke—and spoke a lot. He began rambling off terms, directions, and endless strategic musings that must’ve went on for at least ten minutes. It had to be at least that long. And all throughout, Donovan and Zephyr would hold up a finger every now and again as if to try to interject, but Jimmy, as though seemingly caught in his own world, didn’t even appear to acknowledge them. Yet, if he was indeed in his own world, he’d clearly invited a guest to visit him, as of all those present, only one man not only seemed to actually be following along, but he was also readily offering commentary as well as the occasional question.

“That’s not a bad idea, Jimmy,” Mr. Oren said. Back in his lab coat and wearing his cat-eye glasses, he almost seemed like his former self. He rubbed his chin and nodded. Like Zach, he also had not been present during the raid last night, yet from the way he absorbed every word Jimmy had said while also filling in the blanks, it was almost as though he’d been there in spirit. “But I think I see a way in which aggro distribution can be improved beyond what you’ve stated.”

“I’m listening.”

Mr. Oren smiled. “Let’s say you’re right about the existence of these ‘hate tables’—and I have to admit, that does make a great deal of sense now that I reflect upon my own observations—but in that case, your model for maximum aggro distribution seems to imply a secondary, as-yet unstated aggro decay that is amplified by distance.” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve noticed so many things over the years that pointed me in this direction, but until now, I never imagined that each encounter with a mob held a literal table of raw numerical values assigned to each encounter participant. So then, factoring in aggro decay, if we use a model of circular, proximity-based threat modifiers, we can define a threat zone such that T=1+πd2B…”

Now, to be clear, Zach had studied hard enough in school that Kal used to call him a book nerd. And he did enjoy learning and whatnot. But the moment that Mr. Oren used the word “pi” in a discussion about fucking boss raiding, it had been then and there that Zach tuned everything else out. Because who had time for that? Why in the name of the Gods would somebody ever have to use the word “pi” when talking about fighting a boss? He didn’t know. And from the looks of things, nobody else did, either. But to Jimmy and Mr. Oren, it seemed like a vital piece of their weird conversation.

“Oh, shit,” Jimmy said, sounding excited. Then he quickly apologized to Mr. Oren for swearing. “I’ll watch my mouth, sorry, but seriously, dude—ugh, Lord Oren, sorry—you’re right. If we would’ve used a geometric distribution instead of a—”

“Enough!” Donovan snapped. “Shut the fuck up, both of you!” He drew his axe and pointed it at Jimmy. “When I asked if you learned something, I didn’t mean whatever the hell that was.”

“You didn’t?”

The question seemed to annoy Donovan. “You tryin’ to piss me off or something, kid? No I didn’t mean that. Gods in heaven, never make me sit through anything like that ever again.” His chest inflated as though taking in a deep breath, and then he made a slight whistling sound as he blew it out. “I was talking about raiding in general.”

“So was I,” Jimmy said. Donovan frowned at him, and Jimmy nervously took a step back. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about, man. I really was.”

Zephyr cleared his throat. “Jimmy, I think what Donovan is trying to get at is that your mistake wasn’t tactical or strategic. Don and I were watching you very closely, and if we’d have anticipated Emala pulling the boss’s aggro due to your stamina-regen buff, we would’ve said something to you about it. That’s not to say it’s not good of you to try to improve any way you can, but if you think the problem boils down to ‘aggro distribution,’ you’re missing the point.”

Jimmy shifted his weight somewhat as though becoming uncomfortable. “Then what is the point?”

Zephyr opened his mouth to reply, but Donovan beat him to it. Once again extending his axe towards Jimmy, he said, “That everything goes smooth until it don’t, and when shit did hit the fan, you didn’t know how to handle it.”

From the way Jimmy curled his lower lip, Zach had the impression that Donovan’s words must’ve bothered him or struck a nerve—at least in the immediate moment after hearing them. Very quickly, however, Jimmy’s defensive look vanished, and he instead flushed with what Zach took to be embarrassment.

“You’re right,” he whispered. Then, more loudly, he said, “But I can do better this time. That’s why I just want one more chance. I realize it’s only been a day or whatever, and yeah, I get that ain’t a lotta of time, but I worry if I don’t get another chance now, ya’ll might never give me one again.”

Zephyr and Donovan looked at one another as though confused, and then Zephyr said, “We are giving you another chance. I thought that was clear.”

“Nah, man, not like that.”

“Not like how?” Zephyr asked.

Jimmy made an annoyed grumble. “You wanna baby me and make me a ‘co’ leader or whatever. I meant another chance like, you know, what I had during the raid last night.”

Once again, Donovan and Zephyr exchanged a look, and then in unison, both laughed. “What exactly do you think we’re doing?” Zephyr asked. “This is the exact same thing.”

“It’s not, though,” Jimmy replied. “This time around, you two wanna—”

“It’s exactly the same,” Zephyr interrupted. “Did you really think you were the only one in charge of the raid? Donovan and I would never let you risk your life and so many others all alone before you’re ready. We were with you the entire time, ready to step in if it all went to hell. And, as it happened, things did go to hell towards the end, and we stepped in. We want you to succeed, but you need to be guided. You can’t expect us to put a hundred lives in your hands and say nothing if we feel things are going the wrong way.”

Jimmy looked taken aback. Zach still had no idea what the hell they were talking about, but even without knowing, he could tell that whatever Zephyr was saying had begun to deeply resonate with Jimmy, because slowly, he began to nod as if accepting, reluctantly at first, what he was hearing.

“So it’ll be just like last night?”

“Yeah,” Donovan said. “Don’t fuck up, and we won’t have nothin’ to say.”

Jimmy shrugged. “I guess that’s the best deal I’m gonna get out of you two.”

Kalana clapped her hands together, reminding Zach and the others she was still huddled around with the rest of them. “It sounds like we finally all agree,” she said cheerfully. “Now all we gotta do is figure out when we’re gonna fight this thing and how.”

Upon those words, the debate over scheduling resumed—or at least it was about to. But Zach had finally had enough. And so, stepping in at last, he marched up to the six of them and waved both his arms back and forth. “Okay, that’s enough.”

“Zach?” Kalana asked, sounding concerned as she turned to face him. Donovan, Zephyr, Fiona, Jimmy, and Mr. Oren all glanced in his direction as well.

“Zach, my man, what’s going on?”

Zach stood defiantly before them. “It’s been four fucking hours and I’m done listening to this shit. Make up your minds in the next five seconds or I’m leaving. And the other adventurers will probably go too. Seriously, either we fight that thing now or we do it tomorrow. But at this rate, it’s going to be tomorrow by the time you guys decide.”

In response to his demands, Fiona looked worried, Mr. Oren frowned, and Jimmy merely seemed uncertain. Donovan, Kalana, and Zephyr, on the other hand, actually bowed their heads in apparent agreement. “The kid’s right,” Donovan said. “We’re wasting time. Let the Explorer’s Brigade do their thing and we’ll go at it first thing in the morning.”

“That is not acceptable,” Mr. Oren replied. “The disruption this will cause to the citizens of Faded Island as well as the danger being faced by those under my command back in Shadowfall Coast is too great for us to delay the hunting of this raid boss. Donovan, you have a responsibility as an adventurer. The one and only responsibility you drunken fools actually have to uphold!”

As Mr. Oren spoke, he became more and more heated. “It’s fine that you’re eager to get back to drinking and fighting and pissing but you can not walk away from this and leave it for tomorrow. People are stranded because of the road closures. Do your job!”

“Take it easy,” Donovan replied. He spoke at a low volume, his eyes narrowed. “Remember who you’re talking to, Alex.”

“I do,” Mr. Oren insisted. “I’m speaking to an imbecile. A man who, like his peers, has just one single responsibility and can’t even be relied upon to do that much. Why do you think I left? The adventurers behave like oblivious, Gods-cursed fools, and you’re the king of these idiots.”

“Say that again.” Like before, Donovan spoke the words in a calm, low tone. “Go ahead, Alex. Call me that again.”

To Zach’s surprise, Mr. Oren actually stood his ground. “You, Donovan, are the king of the—”

Mr. Oren’s words ended in a croak as, with unexpected speed, Donovan’s right, gauntleted hand blazed forward, grabbing at Mr. Oren’s neck. Zach, too stunned to even process what he was seeing, let alone react, watched in absolute astonishment as Donovan’s fingers wrapped tightly around Mr. Oren’s throat, where he then began to lift his arm, causing Mr. Oren to raise up and dangle several inches in the air with his legs kicking as he continued to make gasping, choking sounds.

“Wh-what the hell?” Zach shouted, finally finding his words. “Guys, what the fuck?”

“Stop!” Kalana shouted.

Jimmy merely backed away. Now, the eyes of every adventurer out here under the early-afternoon summer sun turned towards the sudden commotion. And as anyone would expect, they began to cheer and create an absolute ruckus as Donovan continued to raise his arm, lifting Mr. Oren higher and higher, his legs kicking and the sound of his choking intensifying. Zach knew he should do something. He knew he should do something now. But he was so transfixed and shocked over the fact that something like this was even happening that it impeded his ability to react.

“Oh, wow!” cried an adventurer from somewhere behind Zach. “Science bitch is finally getting what he deserves! Always wanted to see this!”

“Fuck him up!” another adventurer shouted. “Fuck him up, Donovan!”

The several-dozen members of the Children of Order that were mixed in with the adventuring crowd all now looked to Fiona Darkmae as though for some idea of how they should proceed. She herself didn’t seem to know.

“Boys, knock it off,” she said to them. “You, big guy, let him go. You’re hurting him.”

“Donovan, let him go!” Kalana shouted, balling her hands into fists. This prompted Zach to panic. How badly could this escalate? What the fuck was even happening and why? Why now, all of a sudden? Had the bad blood between those two really gotten to such a point that something like this could happen?

What do I do? I don’t know what to do!

As the adventurers were whipped up into a frenzy, one in particular began to share in Zach’s sense of panic. “Donovan, no!” Zephyr cried. “He’s the third-in-command of the Lords of Justice now! You can’t do this! Gods, come to your senses! If you hurt or humiliate him too badly it will destroy our whole community!”

Donovan tightened his grip. “Nah, Zeph. He’s the same old Alex he always was. He needs a bit of tough love, don’t you, kiddo?”

Mr. Oren’s choking became even louder in volume, and for a moment, Zach worried that it sounded way too much like a death rattle. But then he realized it was something even worse. It was Mr. Oren laughing of all things. And now, with his throat being strangled, he somehow managed to croak out a few words. “Not…the same old,” he managed to say.

“Oh no?”

“No!”

Zach had the sense something really bad was about to happen. And he’d never wanted to be more wrong. He’d never wanted to be so off base. Yet as it all unfolded, he had his fears confirmed. And he was powerless to stop it.

Mr. Oren flicked his hand from right to left, and in that single motion, a dart made of pure light appeared between his fingers. Then, at point blank, he launched this dart into the side of Donovan’s neck, penetrating deeply into the man’s flesh and causing blood to begin pouring out and hundreds of cheers to die off and turn to screams. He released Mr. Oren immediately, who landed on his feet as Donovan stumbled backwards. Then Mr. Oren snapped up his right foot and bashed it into Donovan’s groin, causing the man to groan loudly. His knees buckled, and he entered a half-standing, half-squatting position.

And everything just sort of happened so fast from that point on.

Summoning a blade that he gripped in both hands, Mr. Oren actually took a real, genuine swing at Donovan, one that clearly held lethal intent. Donovan, still pressing his right, gauntleted hand against the dire, very serious open wound in his throat, drew his weapon with his left while continuing to stumble backwards and drip blood. Swinging it upwards, he managed to deflect Mr. Oren’s sword, the two weapons clashing in a shower of sparks.

Even with just one hand, and even while grievously wounded, Donovan struck with so much strength that the clumsy swing still almost managed to knock the sword out of Mr. Oren’s grip. But Mr. Oren repositioned himself and pressed Donovan. And it was in this moment that it finally clicked: he was really going to kill him. This wasn’t just playing around.

“Stop!” the adventurers shouted. “Alex, stop! Please!”

Mr. Oren swung his blade three times, and Donovan guarded against the first two, then stumbled and ended up being bit in the right shoulder. Mr. Oren’s blade managed to cut right through the dark plate armor and slash him deep. This, as his right hand failed to stem the flow of blood that was leaving a trail in almost a perfectly straight line in the street as he continued to stagger backwards and away.

“F-fucker,” Donovan gargled.

Zach screamed out to Mr. Oren, but there was such a dark rage in his eyes that it was impossible to get through to him. He didn’t know who to help or what to do. He just wanted this to stop. And to make matters worse, five outraged adventurers were now rushing towards Mr. Oren with their weapons drawn. One, a caster, muttered something and then extended his staff. But Mr. Oren actually seemed to know what he was going to cast before he even cast it, because he swung his sword with such perfect, effortless timing that in the same instant the mage’s purple ball of fire had ripped across the destroyed market square, it was already dissipating on the end of his sword.

“Alex, you son of a bitch!” cried the other four adventurers—and then an additional five. No, ten. No, twenty! They were all charging at him. And Zach, still, had absolutely no idea what to do in this situation. This was a catastrophe. This was beyond awful. And Mr. Oren, he…his eyes were shifting actively around, and a look of determination settled on his face. He looked convincingly like he really intended to take on the entire Gods-be-damned adventuring community all by himself.

Inexplicably, he also looked convincingly like he might win. At least if his posture and demeanor were anything to go by. He even cast several buffs on himself and entered a fighting stance. This, as Donovan, still stumbling away, dropped his axe and collapsed, likely near death. Everything was getting out of control. Everything was going to hell. And for just an instant, Zach wondered if, despite everything he’d endured, this would end up being the worst day of his life.

But then Kalana’s voice rang out louder than all others.

“Trelvor!” she shouted. “Seiley!”

“Yes, your Highness!” they replied at once, ferocity in their words.

“The humans have gone crazy! Subdue them!”

“Yes, your Highness!”

And they did. They really did.

Reminding everyone present just how much of a gap existed between themselves and the Elvish, Trelvor, Kalana, and Seiley went on a rampage, the latter two using only their fists and their speed. Blasting back and forth so fast that it seemed like a special effect in a movie, Kalana was conking people over the head left and right and putting them on their back. Many collapsed outright, including Reni Sarwin and even the incredibly stout Maric Ultdern. At the same time, Trelvor began playing a melody on his flute, and golden musical notes visible to the eye began gliding off the end of the flute and sailing over a half-dozen adventurers, causing them to immediately drop their weapons and fall onto their faces, several of them snoring.

Kalana then dashed forward towards Mr. Oren, but not before looking over her shoulder, reaching into her pockets, and producing a handful of various rejuvenation stones. She locked eyes with Zach and then she threw them at him like speeding bullets. Somehow, he managed to catch each one. And with that, he ran as fast as he could over to Donovan.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, moving as urgently as he could. “Donovan! Hey, hey, I’ve got you.” Zach, dropping down immediately by his side, began slamming the healing stones onto the man. “Here. You’re okay. Here.”

Something was wrong. Something wasn’t right.

They weren’t working. For some reason, they weren’t shattering or disappearing or being absorbed. They remained whole and unbroken. And this was true be they red, purple, or yellow.

And then it suddenly dawned on Zach. It hit him so hard that feelings he thought Jascaila had helped put past him came rushing uncontrollably back to the surface. In just that moment, so much of the progress he’d made seemed to become unraveled. His composure. His control of mind. His sense of stability. All that he’d learned to endure and cope with. It was all just gone.

“Donovan?” he whimpered.

He was dead. Right? That was why. That was why this wasn’t working. Zach screamed. It happened so quickly. Too quickly. Too quickly. Too quickly. Too quickly. Too quickly.

And you did nothing.

And you did nothing.

AND YOU DID NOTHING.

He screamed. He screamed again. He was losing it. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real. He was okay now. He’d gotten beyond this. So why? Why did he begin to tremble so terribly? Out of sheer desperation, with tears raining down his eyes, he began to smash the stones down on Donovan’s face. Harder. And then harder. And then harder. There was a snap as Donovan’s jaw broke. But he continued to slam the stones down on him over and over and over.

“No!” he screamed, bludgeoning him so hard in the face that his hands became bloodied. Again and again and again, he screamed and slammed and bludgeoned, his hands becoming bloodier and bloodier even as he began to question his own sanity.

But then something happened.

There was another crack, and the entire handful of stones vanished. Every stone at last shattered and disappeared, and the moment they did so, Zach held his breath, all while shaking uncontrollably in a state of bewildered shock.

For a terribly painful few moments, nothing happened. And then, visibly, Donovan’s just-broken jaw began to heal, the bone snapping back into place all on its own. Seeing this, Zach exhaled and then once more began to breathe. At the same time, Zach’s sanity returned to him as quickly as it had fled. He had no idea what had happened or why. Was Donovan going to live? Was he actually pulling through this? But how?

Perhaps there was some tiny, barely lit flame of life that still existed within him: one so faint that it was only by beating him mercilessly over the head with the stones that he was able to fan it just enough to where the items became usable. But with even more tears now raining down his eyes, Zach grabbed the man, whose neck wound had begun to close up and seal, and whose eyes were beginning to open. And in them, there was neither shock nor anger, just amusement.

“Fucker actually did it, huh? Good for him.”

Utterly floored by Donovan’s response, he watched as the man picked himself up off the ground, gave him a powerful pat on the back, and rose back to his feet, his axe once again in hand. Zach, still trembling, ran his mind through every breathing technique and every thought process that Jascaila had taught him. He was disappointed in himself: very disappointed. Yet perhaps that was his own fault for believing there was no more progress left to make. Even still, the fact that he’d been on the verge of a mental collapse was not the most prominent thing on his mind. No, there was something else. A realization. A terrible realization.

Donovan would never have killed Mr. Oren, he thought. He would not have actually choked him to death no matter what. I know it, Zephyr knows it, Kal knows it—everybody knows it. Even Mr. Oren probably knew it. Donovan would never, ever, ever have done that. But Mr. Oren tried to kill him anyway.

“Donovan,” Zach said, wiping his eyes. “I don’t know why he did that to you. I don’t know why he—”

There was a roar: a loud, angry roar that came from the boss. It was a loud, neighing growl that filled the air with its ominous sound. Alarmed, Zach turned his head to look in its direction, and now, floating above the top of its head more than two stories above them, he could just make out the number 491. Something—someone—had damaged it. Likely by accident. And now, it was charging them—but at an angle that saw it run directly through three still-standing buildings, toppling all three with tremendously loud crunching sounds along with subsequent snaps. It also caused a cloud of dust and debris to dirty the air.

Mr. Oren, as though finally coming to his senses, backed away from Kal just before she clobbered him over the head. “I’m fine,” he said. “Worry about that.”

His throat having gone dry, Zach waited for enough saliva to form in order to swallow. And then he said, “Donovan, I have no idea what—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, his neck stained red from all the blood that’d been pouring out of him. And just like that, he shifted gears as though everything was still as it was before. “Jimmy! You got your damn wish. Raid’s on!”

It was only now that Zach realized Jimmy had snuck away during the little brawl, having moved half a block in the opposite direction as though wanting absolutely no part in whatever the hell that was. And who could blame him? Even having brought himself fully under control, Zach was still trembling almost as though it were a physical aftershock to the mental earthquake that’d just gone off within himself.

“Don’t you wanna de-aggro it?” Jimmy called back, having to really shout to be heard from this distance.

Donovan shrugged. “You really think you can beat this thing, kiddo?”

“Hell yeah I do.”

“Then go ahead.” He rubbed the spot on his neck where Mr. Oren’s dart had almost caused him to bleed out. It was as though he could still feel the pain of it, though Zach doubted such pain was physical. “You’re in charge. No co-leadership either. It’s all you.”

Now, Jimmy, who still seemed to be slinking away, came to an abrupt halt and then immediately began running back towards them. “Wait, no cap?”

“No what?”

“I mean, seriously?”

“Yep.”

“Let’s. Fucking. Go!” he shouted, pumping his fist. Rather than head straight for him, he instead headed first for a young-looking member of Children of Order. He exchanged a few words, then shook the man’s hand, and then the man gave him a megaphone he’d been holding.

“All right, boys and girls, listen up," his voice blared over the megaphone. "We’re doing this shit. Everybody fall back to me for a de-aggro and a reset. We not starting things off like this. On me. Let’s go!”

Amid all the awful yet surprising things Zach had just witnessed, it seemed there was still room for more unexpected events. And in this case, it was the way in which Jimmy seemingly transformed himself into a more confident, capable, and genuinely inspiring figure in a matter of moments. He’d seen this from him once before, actually: when they’d entered Trials of Nolak for the first time. Almost until the exact moment in time they'd slid down into the dungeon, Jimmy had been timid and agreeable. This had begun to change as they neared the dungeon, but it was really upon entering it that this other side of him had emerged. Zach supposed that there was just something unique about the world of adventuring that turned this typically meek nineteen-year-old kid into a general-like figure with a certainty of purpose that could inspire confidence in even the most skeptical disbeliever. And it was a trait he seemed to know how to put to good use, such as right now.

Even with a nod from Zephyr, the adventurers seemed to hesitate while the giant horse boss drew nearer and nearer, making straight for whoever had launched the wayward attack that'd aggroed it. All around, there was a general sense of reluctance due to the unresolved conflict between Donovan and Mr. Oren. Clearly, their focus was now on something other than the raid. But Jimmy found a way to overcome this problem, and it was likely due to nothing more than the commanding tone he struck as he addressed them all. First, Jimmy made a tsk sound, and then, moving his lips even closer to the megaphone, he called out, “Everybody, leave your personal bullshit drama behind on my raid. I don’t give a damn what ya’ll are fighting about. You take that elsewhere or you’re kicked out. Now get your asses over here. Now!’

And to Zach’s surprise, they listened. Even Mr. Oren. All at once, everyone sort of just sheathed their weapons and moved along—all except those who’d been knocked out cold or put to sleep by Trelvor’s flute. Those, adventurers had to scoop up and carry.

Ugliness had taken place here. Real, true ugliness. And for that reason, Zach was actually glad they had a raid boss to fight. He doubted he was alone in this thinking, too. Because anything right now was better than thinking about what had just happened. Truly, anything was better than that. Anything.

*****

His hands still folded behind his back, Adamus watched carefully. His eyes closed, a vivid picture filling his mind, he was tempted to look away in disgust as the Galterrans proved themselves to be the same as they always were. Yet he also felt pleased to a degree.

Once again, had it not been for the system, people would have chosen to fight one another to the death instead of striving to survive as one. His system was constantly proved correct and just. In spite of all the naysayers and second guessers who over thousands of years had condemned it, the correctness of Adamus's philosophy prevailed. Yes indeed, as always, the system was self-vindicating.

So why, then, were those Adamus relied upon the most always the first to cast doubt? Why, then, had all the Great Ones save for Eilea chosen to abandon it? And even in the case of his beloved, she had not remained due to a lingering belief in the system but rather an emotional attachment to the people of Galterra. But why? Why, when the proof was plainly on display for any who bothered to simply look? To behold with their own eyes that the only way a world of peace could ever exist in tandem with free will was to provide its inhabitants a common enemy: to force them into cooperation or face extinction.

From the very beginning, the Great Ones had all worked against his vision. Adamus had been mortal enemies with most of them as a young man. Their conflicts had scorched the last remnants of civilization: all of it. Civilization itself had ended. For hundreds of years, a handful of magnificently powerful beings had fought one another over literally nothing, as nothing had remained with which to gain. Yet in a strange sort of harmony, all the Great Ones seemed to finally see the error of their ways, Adamus included, and they had worked as one to remake the world, and all had agreed to the fundamental basis of Adamus's vision. But they simply would not cede full control of it.

Compromise.

Compromise had yielded failure. Had Adamus only been given his way, Galterra would have been a far more brutal, far more dangerous world than that which had been created. Yet the people had been given too much slack, and they had used this slack to fight one another and perpetuate all the injustices the system had been designed to erase. Compounding these issues was his beloved's constant, never-ending interference.

But none of that truly mattered anymore. The Great Ones would never be a threat to him again, and though he alone lacked the power to create new worlds, he did have the power to begin anew on Archian Prime once the World Eater destroyed Galterra. Archian Prime, though also a T1 planet, was far more dangerous, densely packed, and inhospitable to sentient life. And this time around, Adamus would not require anyone’s agreement to seed it and start the project over from the beginning. Eagerly—yet also sadly—he longed to see the World Eater spawn and devour the failure that was Galterra. And to that end, it would begin here today as he waited to learn the manner in which these adventurers would soon face their death. He could not envision this lasting beyond the next ten or so minutes.

Would any survive? Most likely not. They would be utterly blindsided by the complexities of a boss, one equivalent to those more typically found on a T2 world.

Yes, all was as it needed to be.

Chapter 173: Broken Hearts

Chapter 173: Broken Hearts

Feeling tremendously distraught, Zach struggled to concentrate, but it wasn’t easy, and he mostly wasn’t succeeding, either. The agitation he felt was ever-present and something he was unable to tamp down on. At best, it would linger in the back of his mind for several minutes before bursting to the surface of his awareness, gripping him with a sense of wrongness and discontent. He'd then try to bury it down deep only for it to return again and again. At the moment, he really wished Jascaila was here, although…actually, on second thought, maybe not, as there was no telling how she’d have reacted to seeing Mr. Oren nearly murder her brother.

I can’t believe he did that, Zach thought, the recent violent events flashing in his mind. I really can’t believe it.

He wasn’t alone in his disbelief. The adventurers all around had become noticeably quieter as, from what Zach could tell, a general malaise seemed to have settled over just about everyone. They all looked like they were having as much trouble focusing as he was. It was difficult to think about anything else right now, and each time it popped up in his head, Zach felt as though a knot was further tightening in his stomach.

“It’s all right,” Donovan said quietly to him. The man actually happened to be standing to Zach's immediate left near the ruins of an eatery that had been completely destroyed as though bulldozed. Oddly enough, its doorway remained undamaged despite most of its foundation having been reduced to rubble. “I’m fine. Don’t let any of this get to you, kiddo.”

The fact that Donovan was here next to Zach and not across the street with Jimmy and Mr. Oren was not an accident. Despite both men assuring everyone that there would be no further issues between the two of them, Kalana, Seiley, and Trelvor were not taking any chances and seemed like they were willing to use force if necessary to keep them separated. They meant business, too. Trelvor and Seiley were constantly sending wary, distrusting glares at Donovan—but very few if any were directed at Mr. Oren. It was like they’d picked a side in the conflict.

Initially, Zach had been confused as to why Trelvor and Seiley were openly glaring at Donovan but not also at Mr. Oren. The Elves, at least as far as Zach was aware, had no real history with Donovan or any other reason to pick a favorite in this totally unexpected blood feud. But then Zach realized that they were likely just going off the general vibe being exuded by Kalana, and she, on the other hand, was clearly more sympathetic to Mr. Oren than the leader of the GSG. She didn’t even bother trying to hide it, either.

As Zach had thought on it, he recalled that Kalana had actually told him in private on numerous occasions that she disliked Donovan and thought he was a sexist, brutish man who was “very impolite” and “uncivilized.” Mr. Oren, however, had always been her favorite teacher in school, and the two had been on good terms long before Zach and Kal had come to discover anything related to the adventuring world, so in light of this, Zach supposed Kalana’s preference here wasn’t all that surprising. But even still, the openly hostile looks that she, Seiley, and Trelvor were sending to Donovan were uncalled for in Zach’s opinion. But at least she was keeping the peace. There were a whole lot of adventurers out here, and Zach knew that just about all of them would really like to take a shot at Mr. Oren on Donovan’s behalf.

They’re never going to forgive him for what he almost did.

At the moment, more than a hundred adventurers and two-dozen members of Children of Order were huddled together in groups of various sizes at different parts of a street that led directly into the next one down, which was where the boss awaited. Each group was growing or shrinking in size based on continuously changing orders from Jimmy, who seemed to be putting some kind of strategy together, though he’d yet to explain to everyone what, exactly, he was planning.

In total, another three hours had passed since the “incident” between Mr. Oren and Donovan, but unlike the four hours preceding that, the delay this time around had been for good reasons and had also been productive. Jimmy, as though realizing the impracticality of leading with a megaphone, had asked the Children of Order to procure Comms for the entire raid to use. But doing so had taken almost an hour of time. Yet even if they’d received the devices instantly, it likely would have done little to accelerate things, as Jimmy would still be doing exactly what he was doing right now: working things out with Mr. Oren. The two seemed to be getting along really well. Mr. Oren made what looked like a good-natured chuckle then gave Jimmy a pat on the back.

He doesn’t look like he’s even slightly upset, Zach thought, becoming disturbed by the sight of him.

Right now, the lab-coat-wearing former science teacher was enthusiastically lifting his finger as though making a point about something or another, and from looks alone, one would be hard-pressed to tell that there had ever been any conflict at all between him and Donovan. Put simply, he did not look like a man who had brought his former mentor to the verge of death. He seemed totally unbothered. Could it be an act? Maybe. Zach had no way of knowing. Truly, he had no possible way of peeking behind the man’s exterior curtain and into his soul. Was there a part of Mr. Oren that was deeply upset? Did he feel any guilt at all below the surface? He’d become so good at keeping his feelings sealed away that Zach couldn’t even form a gut instinct. He simply did not know the answers to these questions.

Donovan, on the other hand, had clearly been affected by the altercation, and the contrast was unmistakable, as the grief of it was written so plainly on his face it may as well have been drawn in bright ink. One thing Zach had learned about Donovan was that, while the man may not have been the type to articulate his emotional struggles—or help others do so like his sister, Jascaila—he nevertheless tended to wear his heart on his sleeve, and it was never difficult to get a read on how he was thinking or feeling.

Is he really okay? Zach wondered, becoming concerned.

Zach regarded the GSG leader, whose neck, despite having healed, was still stained with dried blood. From what Zach could tell, it really seemed like he was trying to project the very same “I’m fine” energy that Mr. Oren was giving off, but unlike Mr. Oren, Donovan’s slightly slumped shoulders and overall change in posture gave him away. Well, that and the fact that, for the past three hours, he’d been occasionally muttering swear words under his breath.

“So,” Zach said to him, his tone conversational. “Donovan, uh…”

Donovan snapped his head in Zach’s direction. “Yeah?”

Zach shrugged and tried to keep his voice casual. “You sure you still want us to do the raid today and not wait for tomorrow morning?”

Donovan looked at him a moment then chuckled. “You worried about me, Zach?”

“No, not at all.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m not, honest.”

“Kid…”

Zach sighed. “Okay, fine, maybe just a little. But if it makes you feel any better, I’m also worried about me—and everyone else, too. I think we’re all upset right now about what happened. Are you really sure we shouldn’t just call it a day and come back tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Donovan said, not volunteering an explanation or really anything beyond the one-word reply. This prompted Zach to ask the obvious follow-up question.

“So, what made you change your mind, then?”

“Eh? About what?”

“What do you think? Obviously, about us doing the raid today. And about letting Jimmy lead it all on his own. You wanted to wait until tomorrow and then, like, I don’t know, just all of a sudden, you went one-eighty on that. It’s weird and I don’t get it.”

Donovan fixed Zach with an uncomfortably serious look, but it only lasted an instant. Afterwards, his eyes briefly glanced in Mr. Oren’s direction, and now he glowered contemptuously at the man. “I don’t wanna deal with him for another day, that’s why.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Find it too hard to believe, kiddo?”

“No, it’s just…that’s a pretty small thing to base such a big decision off.”

Donovan flashed Zach a look that began as one of annoyance but quickly shifted to something closer to resigned acceptance. “Yeah, you’re probably right, but it is what it is. I don’t ever wanna speak to the fucker again after this. I saved that Gods-be-damned kid’s life when he was younger than you are now, and look at how that miserable, rotten bastard betrayed not just me but the entire fuckin’ community.”

Of all the words Donovan had just said, a few stood out to Zach to such an extent that all the others were drowned out. “Really? You saved his life?”

“Sure did. Before he was even an adventurer, too.”

Having never heard anything of this until now, Zach couldn’t help but ask about it. “What did you save him from?”

“Boss spawn,” Donovan said. He followed his words by spitting out a wad of saliva onto the paved street. “A T4 showed up one day out of the blue. Ended up killing his whole family: everyone but him.”

“I didn’t know that,” Zach whispered, shocked to be hearing this for the first time.

“Well, now ya do.”

Zach again looked over to Mr. Oren, who was still smiling as though delighted as he continued his animated, lively exchange with Jimmy. With his lab coat back on and his cat-eye glasses, he really did appear to be his old self.

But appearances can be deceiving, Zach thought, knowing better. He turned his attention to Donovan.

“I don’t understand why…why all this happened.”

“Meaning?”

Zach crossed his arms as he thought back to three hours ago and the events leading up to Mr. Oren’s near slaying of Donovan. “It bothers me. It bothers me because everyone knows you wouldn’t have actually killed or even really hurt Mr. Oren. You would’ve maybe slapped him a few times, but you never would’ve gone as far as he did. He can’t justify what he did with self-defense.”

“He doesn’t gotta justify it.”

“Of course he does.”

“Nah, he doesn’t. Because like I said: after this, I don’t intend to speak to him again. I just want to be done with it. He doesn’t owe me an explanation.” Donovan grunted. “Alex is too far gone. He ain’t one of us anymore. Just gotta accept that—and learn from it, too. Especially you.”

“Me?” Zach asked, having no idea what Donovan was trying to imply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Donovan pointed at him. “You’re getting too deep into guild politics. You need to cut it out before it’s too late. Just look at what it did to Alex. Look at how much it changed him in just a few weeks. Now imagine what the prick is gonna be like in a few years from now.” Donovan visibly shuddered. “That’ll be you if you keep on messing around.”

Zach knew that, with a man like Donovan, it was in his best interest to simply nod and agree no matter what he said so as to avoid a harsh rebuke and possibly a painful shoulder slap. But in this case, he just couldn’t. “I think Mr. Oren only joined because he wants to help people,” Zach said. “I’m not defending his decisions and stuff or trying to take his side, don’t get me wrong. But I really think he wants to—”

“No shit,” Donovan interrupted, his temper clearly having been sparked. He shook the finger he was pointing at Zach. “But that’s how they get ya. Alex probably thought he’d be different. Kid thought he wouldn’t be like the rest of them. But you can see it with your own eyes, can’t you? He’s turning into one of them.”

“Okay, but, in fairness, that by itself doesn’t mean anything since clearly they’re not all bad, right?”

Of all the things he’d said, it was this that really set Donovan off. “Of course they are!” he snapped. “Every last one of the fuckers is evil. Ask anyone with sense and they’ll tell you the same. The political guilds are corrupt shitheads who live for the power they have over folks. But I shouldn’t have to tell you this. Look what happened to your father.”

Zach had a billion things he could say in response to this, and every one of them he was sure would only serve to escalate the argument until he was the one having a potentially violent confrontation with Donovan. Only, in his case, he was sure he wouldn’t actually try killing the man no matter how heated things became. He also couldn’t really hold Donovan’s views against him because Zach himself had held those exact same views for almost his entire life. Really, the only reason Zach now thought differently was because he’d come to understand—mostly due to his own experiences but also from discussions with Jascaila—that the only thing worse than having the often-villainous political guilds in charge would be to have nobody in charge at all. But Donovan just didn’t understand that point, and it wasn’t something Zach had the ability to make him see, so he decided to deescalate the tension he could feel growing between them.

“You’re right,” Zach said to him, letting him win. “They’re all shit.”

Donovan gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder, and it hurt like hell. “That’s right. Don’t forget it. You’re an adventurer, kiddo. You’re one of us. We don’t fuck around in that world. Trust me, you don’t want that.”

Zach nodded—and meant it, too. Because on that point, Donovan was actually correct. Zach did not “want that.” Gods no. It was the last thing on Galterra he wanted! Why would anyone want to be involved in violence, killing, and global politics when the alternative was gallivanting through dungeons with your buddies all day before heading back to a bar on the edge of the universe for drinks, food, and entertainment? What sane, rational being would prefer the former to the latter?

No, Zach most certainly did not want to be dragged into the world of guild politics and the Royal Roses. But he was now more certain than ever that he was going to have to do so. And why? Because in five years from now, the World Eater was going to spawn, and he knew if he shoved this responsibility onto someone else, Galterra would be destroyed. No, they were going to need more than just human adventurers to stop it. Zach could sense that much. They were going to need everybody.

To stop the World Eater, we’re going to need the world, he thought. But to get the world, we need diplomacy. We need Mr. Oren…and me.

“You’ve gone quiet. Getting nervous?”

Zach laughed. “To fight the boss? No way.”

Donovan gave him a grunt of approval. “Good. You better not be. After taking on that dragon, I expect you to shit fire and piss steel.” He straightened his back and, at the same time, the level of noise in the general area seemed to rise along with the overall activity. “I think we’re finally about to get started.”

With the ferociously hot sun bearing down on them, Zach watched as the composition of the various groups of people here on the street began to change more rapidly, with Jimmy now constantly waving his arms around, pointing, calling out names, and ordering people to stand with others—only to move them soon after. On a surface level, it was clear that he was grouping people together based on their archetypes: healers with healers, mages with mages, tanks with tanks, etc. What was not clear, however, was why there were so many sub-groups where Jimmy seemed to be meticulously pairing groups of mages together. Fortunately, it seemed like he was about to find out.

After about twenty more minutes of constant shifting around, what remained under the hot, intense summer sun was a large “division” of tanks, a smaller one of off-tanks, and an absolute ton of miniscule groupings of mages, support, and healers, sometimes mixed in with one another, but all consisting of between five and ten apiece. The ranged DPS were also in with the mages now, including a man Zach took to be Ishina’s father. His name was Frenk, but Zach only knew this because he heard Jimmy call it. The same was true for a strangely apologetic woman wearing an elegant, one-piece red dress named Emala.

“I won’t let you down this time!” she cried out to him. Zach had no idea what that meant or why she’d said it.

Jimmy waved off her remark. “Nah, I won’t let you down this time. I should’a told you not to spam those wisps on the boss last night. It was my fault what happened, not yours.”

“No, it was mine!” she insisted. “But you’re a darling, Jimmy.”

Zach smiled. But there was a touch of sadness that he could feel within it, because it occurred to him that, in such a short time, Jimmy had become much closer with the adventuring community than he himself was. Zach couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing out. He didn’t want to alienate himself from these people, but he was slowly coming to realize that it would be in his best interest not to get too close to them, since they were inevitably going to turn on him once he got more involved in activities they forbade.

I wish that didn’t have to happen, he thought, a pain actually flaring in his chest as he knew the day would come very soon. Donovan’s going to be so upset.

For now, however, and until such a time as they would no longer have him, Zach was going to proudly identify as an adventurer. And to that end, his ears perked up and all the fatigue seemed to flee from his body as the boss battle at last neared.

“Comms on!” Jimmy shouted. “Everybody who’s gonna be on the raid, turn your Comms on. This shit’s about to go down!”

He seemed incredibly upbeat for someone who was practically begging on his knees for some booze a few hours ago. It was truly incredible just how emboldened and alive he became in the face of the adventuring world. Jimmy was probably going to live the life here that Zach wished he could live. In a way, however, neither of them would get what they truly wanted. Zach wanted to be a free, careless adventurer, and Jimmy wanted to go home. But this was the hand he’d drawn, and so be it.

Once the World Eater is killed, if I’m still alive, I’ll be free…

Making the facial gestures required to activate his Comm, Zach simultaneously accepted the invitation to join the raiding party, causing the names of more than a hundred adventurers—as well as some guild members from Children of Order—to begin popping up above their heads in green lettering. They were now visible to Zach wherever they happened to be, as even while behind a wall, he could see the outline of their body. The last time he’d joined a raiding party like this had been during the raid against the dragon. Hopefully, this would turn out to be a bit easier.

It sure looks a bit easier.

To be fair, this so-called “Mare of the Primordial Void” was in fact a daunting, intimidating-looking creature. It was incredibly large, standing more than two stories tall, and its skin was pitch black but with an eerie purplish hue that was only occasionally visible depending on the direction of the light. It also had a red glow coming from inside its mouth as though it concealed a bright ruby projector within the confines of its jaw.

But it was no Ziragoth. That was for sure. Compared to that Gods-cursed dragon, this thing was basically just a cute pony.

I shouldn’t underestimate it, he reminded himself. I know better.

From what Olivir and Kolona had explained to him, Ziragoth wasn’t even a superboss as everyone had originally called it. It had turned out to be something called a “God Boss,” which was apparently worse or whatever. This would likely turn out to be just a superboss—or maybe not. The truth was that Zach had no idea. But whatever it happened to be, he decided to treat this with the seriousness a T9 deserved. To do anything else would risk his and others’ lives.

Zach laughed quietly to himself—but also nervously. Because he realized he was starting to sound a bit like Mr. Oren.

With his Comm now turned on, things began immediately. “All right, everyone,” Jimmy said. “Here’s how we’re gonna play this. So, first I’m just gonna go over what I suspect is about to happen, and when I do, ya’ll should understand why we got you in so many different groups. But don’t worry. This is gonna be easy. We got this.”

“That sounds wonderful, but Jimmy, could you perchance start from the beginning?” asked the humble, kind, but deceptively strong voice of Miss Britethorn. Zach looked over to her. The poor old woman was absolutely soaked in sweat, though she gave off no sign that it bothered her. She, like her husband, Frederick, wore very heavy, massive suits of bronze-colored armor, each with a huge two-handed weapon sheathed on their backs. Considering they were rumored to be nearing two-hundred years of age—and were confirmed to be the oldest living, non-vampire adventurers—they were both in excellent shape.

“I’d be happy to,” Jimmy replied. “I’m guessing you want me to go over the whole elemental shift thing again, right?”

If Miss Britethorn replied in the affirmative, Zach was unable to hear it among nearly a hundred voices all calling out their agreement. Zach also voiced his desire to hear it again, as the only time Jimmy had actually explained it to anyone other than Mr. Oren had been during the time everybody was running around looking for him and there were still civilians in the area in need of rescue.

“Okay, so…where do I start?” Jimmy mused aloud. But if the question was rhetorical, Mr. Oren decided to answer it anyway.

“Jimmy, maybe you should begin with a formal definition of what it actually is and then explain the two possibilities that you described to me.”

“Oh yeah, good idea.” Jimmy cleared his throat. When he spoke, the adventurers remained silent as though captivated by him. “Okay, so uh, everybody listen up. Here’s the deal about elemental shift. So, in some of the games—I mean some of the simulations I’ve run through, every now and then you get a boss that has this really annoying ability where, if you hit it with a certain element or damage type enough times, it becomes immune to that type. But that’s not elemental shifting exactly. What makes something an elemental shift is when the dude you’re fighting actually becomes the element you were hitting it with.”

“Becomes the element?” Zach asked.

Jimmy, who stood on the other end of the street, cupped his hands over his face as if to filter out the sun as he regarded Zach. “Yeah. It basically takes on properties of that element. So like, after I beat up the T9 with my poisons for a bit, its entire body turned green and it started gassing up the whole market square with poison.”

“Yeah, I saw that, actually,” Zach said. “On my way over here.”

“And does this immunity last for the rest of the fight?” Lienne inquired, chiming in. She was currently grouped in with a bunch of mages Zach had never seen before—or at least only vaguely recognized.

“Good question, Lienne. That’s actually where the two possibilities I was talking about come into play.” At this, the adventurers once more became silent as they listened to him speak. “So, in most of the simulations I’ve run through, elemental shift is only permanent until the boss shifts again. Meaning, if ya’ll hit it with fire enough times while it’s gone poison, it’ll switch to fire, turn red, and poison will hurt it again like it did before. This is how it goes in like eighty percent of the cases where you see this. Actually, probably more like ninety.”

Jimmy paused for a second as though to ensure everyone was following along. He did not show even the slightest hint of nervousness or stage fight as a hundred eyes all trained on him. But Zach was one of the very few people who knew why this happened to be. He, along with only a small handful of others, knew that Jimmy’s comfort in this sort of situation was born form spending many hours on ancient-Earth internet playing what he’d called “RPG games” with his friends online. Zach still found this so hard to both comprehend and believe. That the life-and-death dangers of the world had once been nothing more than a toy that people played for fun: something called the Nintendo Box Station X, assuming Zach was correctly recalling the name Jimmy had spoken.

The biggest, baddest raid bosses of his time were just fun little images on his “computer Nintendo” or whatever you call it. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

After a brief pause, Jimmy continued his explanation. “Every now and then, you have to deal with the other type—and it’s actually really rare. Only once in a blue moon, when the devs are either being lazy or just assholes, do you get one of those fucked-up raids where bosses gain perma-immunities throughout the fight. You usually see this more in offline g…uh, offline simulations. Like Shin Megami Tensei III had one of those. Oh, shit, that guy was hard as hell. I had to reload my save so many times.”

“Reload your save?” Zephyr asked.

Jimmy sighed audibly over the Comm. “It’s…an Earth thing. Maybe I’ll talk about it some other time. The point is that there are two ways I think this could go down. If it’s the more common way, then all the formations we just set up won’t matter. We can burn the boss down in like two minutes as long as we’re careful in how we rotate our damage types.”

“And if it’s the second type?” asked a determined-sounding Ophelia Graven, who Zach recalled was the guild leader of the adventuring guild, Boss Rush.

“If it’s the second type,” Jimmy replied, “that’s why you’re all set up the way you are. Fire with fire, ice with ice, and so on. Same for those of you who’ve got elemental resistance buffs. Me and Lord Oren figured out it’s best to organize everybody by their strongest damage type. That way we can make use of all hundred-plus of you by optimizing for what you’re best at.”

“Ahh, so that’s why we’ve been standing out here sweating our asses off for all these hours,” Rian said over the Comm.

“Well, yeah, obviously. Why, what did you think we were doing?”

The sound of a slap came from somewhere in the distance, but there was no further reply from Rian. Zach concealed a chuckle. This meant he was probably going to say something truly vile but he was stopped by someone before he could do so—probably Lienne, but it could’ve also been Seiley, too.

“Jimmy,” Mr. Oren said, “why don’t you explain to everyone why you think we’re more likely to face the latter type of boss.”

“Oh, snap, I forgot. Thanks, Lord Oren.” He briefly paused to twist the cap open on a bottle of water, which he quickly drank. “So yeah, even though the first type is way more common, I think we’re gonna be dealing with the worse kind here. Not just ‘cause the boss is T9, either. But because when I hit it with poison too many times, it physically changed in ways I don’t see it reverting from. Like, it actually got bigger and shit. It wasn’t just the change in skin color. I think each time we strike this thing with enough of one damage type, it’s gonna get more powerful, its stats will go up, and it’ll gain new abilities that it can then keep until we either kill it, it kills us, or we reset.”

“So to clarify,” Zephyr said, “the physical changes it undergoes is the basis for you thinking it will likely be this ‘second type’ you’re speaking about?”

“That and just my basic intuition,” Jimmy replied. “It just seems like it.”

“Is there any way you can elaborate further?”

Jimmy again paused, and Zach watched him exchange a brief look with Mr. Oren, who nodded at him. “Well, in its base form,” he continued, “I noticed it only had three very simple, very basic attacks: a stomp, a bite, and eye lasers. To me, that doesn’t seem like a whole lot for a T9, you know? I feel like there’s no way that can be. This thing’s definitely got a bunch more up its sleeve than just that. And I’ll be real with you guys: I got a feeling that this is gonna be, like, the first actual, real raid boss most of ya’ll have ever encountered till now.”

Hearing this, Zach finally felt a small pinch of nervousness rising within himself. He opened his mouth to say something, but someone else beat him to it. Alixa, making almost the exact same remark Zach was about to make, called out, “You said this was going to be easy. This sounds like something even worse than Ziragoth!”

“Chill,” he replied to her, “it’s fine no matter what ends up happening. Also—and I’m sorry if this sounds disrespectful and whatnot—but Ziragoth wasn’t shit, ya’ll just bad. Anyway, let’s just say I’m right and it really is the second type: it’s still gonna be okay. People, just trust me on this, all right? Oh, and you know what else? I just decided right now we’re gonna try cheesing it first anyhow.”

“The fuck does that mean?” Donovan barked over the Comm, finally deciding to get involved. He was joined in by Maric and a good number of other adventurers.

“Did he just say ‘cheese?’” snickered Reni Sarwin.

Zach was also confused. But by this point, he was used to Jimmy saying strange things or speaking with strange lingo. The others not so much. They became frustrated and started demanding he explain.

“Hey, uh, Jimmy,” Rian said over the Comm. “For those of us here who were not born in an underground colony on Earth, you mind telling us what the hell that means?”

“It’s a gamer word,” Jimmy said. “It just means…don’t worry what it means, actually. I’m not stopping to explain everything I say to a bunch of noobs. If you don’t know what that word means, well, GG.”

“GG?” an adventurer near Zach whispered off-Comm. “What’s that mean?”

“No fuckin’ idea,” Donovan growled, also off-Comm. “Kid’s speaking like he’s possessed by a demon.”

Not everyone was confused, though. There was exactly one other person who knew what he was trying to say, and it wasn’t Zach or Tena. No, it was Mr. Oren, who somehow just automatically understood what he meant, likely because he was clearly the smartest person on the raid and had figured it out based solely on context clues that Zach—and everyone else—had somehow missed.

“Based on usage, tone, and prior context, I’m guessing he’s using the word ‘cheese’ as a verb to mean ‘succeed in something deliberately crafted to be difficult via a roundabout, unintended means.’ And from the dismissive tone of voice in which he said ‘GG’, it’s probably the equivalent of: ‘deal with it.’ Is this correct, Jimmy?”

Jimmy made something that sounded like a cross between a gasp and a gulp. “Y-yeah,” he said. “You’re smart as hell, dude. For real. How the hell did you know that?”

Mr. Oren adjusted his cat-eye glasses. “It was obvious. So, how do you intend to ‘cheese’ the boss?”

“Well, it’s probably not gonna work, but I’m just gonna have Zach go at it alone and see if he can solo it with his tiger mount. It probably won’t work, but even if it doesn’t, we might be able to chip away some of its HP if we stack DS and HOTs.”

All at once, more than a hundred sets of eyes shifted in Zach's direction along with anxious-sounding feet, which turned towards him. Even as they did so, Zach worried his jaw would not only drop, but fall off his face and land on the ground as he realized what was being asked of him—or partially realized. In truth, he barely even understood what the hell Jimmy had just said let alone what the implications of it happened to be. All he knew was that he was once again being asked to do something ridiculous by a raid leader. Last time, it was to tank the dragon.

And now? Now, he was being asked to do…well, something. None of what Jimmy just said made sense to him, though.

He moaned. “Not this again.”

******

Another fingernail was pulled, this time from his thumb, and the man screamed, the sound of it so horrific that even after all he’d been through, Vim was considering showing him mercy. For all his bluster about wanting to do the same to the enemy that had been done to him, actually being in here and presiding over the torture of another…it was not to his taste.

“Major Kenth Baxtra,” Vim said, glancing down at the file on the desk. “That’s your name, correct?”

“It is, you despicable fucking Gnome!” he screamed. His fingers were bloodied, his eyes bruised, and he was missing three teeth. “You’ll pay for what you did to our king and our people! The Gods will avenge us!”

Vim sighed, though not in response to the man’s invective but because Fylwen appeared to be growing impatient. She was leaning against the wall here in this dark interrogation room that had originally served as an intelligence bunker in central Shadowfall Coast.

“I grow tired of this human,” she said. “Let us remove an eye or perhaps a testicle and see if he feels like speaking.”

“Can we not?” Vim asked.

She glared at him. “Oh? Is that a degree of softness I detect in you, Sir Alazar?”

“Yeah, but never from the waist down.”

“From the…?” Her glare deepened. “You vulgar little man!”

Vim choked out a laugh. “I am what I am.” Walking over to the table, where the level-1 human was handcuffed and shackled, Vim took a seat across from him. “Look, I don’t want to be in here doing this. If you just tell us where the Guild of Gentlemen’s surviving members are hiding in the city, we can let you go.”

“Indeed,” Fylwen said. “Should you provide the information we want, your life shall be spared.”

The man, Kenth Baxtra, recoiled in his chair, his teeth actually chattering with fear. “You’re lying!”

Vim shook his head. “I’m not. She is, clearly. She definitely intends to kill you. I don’t.”

He recoiled further. “I’ll never betray my allies to an Elvish whore! A filthy, vile Elvish—”

Vim ducked as the man’s head sailed over his own head before bouncing off the wall behind him and landing on the stone floor. Outraged, he stood up, threw out his arms, and shouted. “You fucking moron! He was our best lead!”

“He disrespected me. And unlike you, he is fully human. That is a sin I cannot forgive.”

Vim slapped both his palms against the wall hard enough to leave an imprint in the stone. “Fylwen, if you’re just going to kill everyone we interrogate as soon as they insult you, then wait outside! Gods, woman! That’s the eighth one!”

“Tenth,” she corrected.

“Oh, excuse me!”

This was so frustrating. The city was putting up more resistance than they’d expected given the death of their king, and nothing short of finding the highest-ranked members of the Guild of Gentlemen embedded deep within the city was going to pacify the resistance that had begun springing up. Incredibly, the ordinary people that lived here were sheltering and actively concealing the leveled guild members who had failed to escape with their brethren and retreat back to Tomb of Fire.

“We need Lord Oren,” Vim said. “I’d bet anything that kid would know how to get these people to talk.”

Fylwen’s lips contorted so as to give off a look of disgust. “Have you not heard? He’s gone adventuring with the boy and my daughter. Imagine that! He simply abandoned his post to go play with some horse in Faded Island.”

“I know, right? What a fucking prick. But we need him. Where is Lord Kolorn Besh? I need to shout at him.”

“Don’t bother,” Fylwen said. “I’ve already spoken with the man several times. He himself cannot seem to recall Lord Oren.”

This wasn’t good. The man was disobeying his own guild leader. And to be honest? Vim couldn’t blame him for doing so. As more reports came in detailing just how badly the Lords of Justice had actually performed in combat, it was beginning to seem like Alex Oren was the only member of their guild who could actually wield a sword properly, let alone display any semblance of competence on the battlefield. He’d gone from a mere asset to the most powerful, respected, and important figure in his guild solely due to a single battle.

Had it not been for his and his actions alone, the Lords of Justice would be disgraced for how miserably they’d been defeated. Yet because of Lord Oren taking down more than a dozen members of the Guild of Gentlemen all on his own, the narrative emerging in the media was one that was a bit more balanced if not slightly tilting towards the negative—which was still better than the catastrophe they would have faced. Lord Oren’s heroic stand would now spare the Lords of Justice from collapsing under the weight of its failure. So of course the kid was going to do whatever he wanted from now on. He was worth more than his whole guild combined. They needed him far more than he needed them. Even still, it was really shitty of him to run off at a time like now.

“I need him here,” Vim grumbled. “I need Zach, too. I thought we’d be fine without him, but the situation’s changed.”

“Don’t even get me started on him or my daughter!” Fylwen said in a huff. “Oh, the absolute audacity of them both.”

Vim scratched his head. “Wait, I thought you were fine with them leaving?”

“At first, yes,” Fylwen said with a nod. “And so were you. But then, when I attempted to recall them, they both ignored me.”

“Same. I had no problem with them leaving at first, but now I can’t even reach them to demand they come back.”

Right now, Kalana more so than Zach was badly needed in Shadowfall Coast. Despite the ferocious racism its inhabitants displayed to everyone who wasn’t human, they for some reason did not extend this attitude towards Kalana Vayra. The girl was incredibly popular and had taken photographs with numerous inhabitants and their children, cementing her as a friendly, deeply caring figure.

As strange as it was, what they really needed to keep the peace—and to prevent more level 1s from needlessly dying—was to have her here so they could cry on her shoulder and tell her how sad they were feeling or whatever bullshit they needed to get off their chest.

The people of the city had gone crazy, and that was no exaggeration. They had lost their Gods damned minds. Mothers were throwing their children out of windows, people were smashing every store, setting fires, looting indiscriminately. And a whole lot of them were charging at the Royal Roses, Lords of Justice, or the Elvish, basically begging to die.

Fortunately, after having to put down about a thousand level-1 humans—an unacceptable number given the collapse of the king—even Fylwen was starting to become disgusted with all the death. She’d ordered her Elves to restrain and arrest any level 1s who attacked them. Vim, for his part, had ordered his Royal Roses to do just that from the beginning, but his own people weren't listening to him. They were too angry over Ogre's Axe.

Through it all, the citizens were screaming that they wanted to see Kalana. Why? Vim had no idea. For some reason, they had this idea that she would understand and empathize with their pain, and that she would be able to convince her mother to spare them their culture and their life, as it was she more so than any other whom they now feared. Mostly, though, with the Guild of Gentlemen’s presence here now crushed, Vim thought they just wanted someone with authority to listen, and they wanted it to be a world-famous celebrity like Kalana Vayra.

This is all their own fault, Vim thought angrily. These people are the worst.

Vim looked at Fylwen. “Please, no more interrogations until we get Lord Oren back.”

“Very well.”

“I’m serious, Fylwen. It’s getting to the point where these are just willful executions.”

Vim turned away. What a mess things had become. In the old days, victory was victory, and war was binary: you either won the contest outright or you lost, and the judges declared the victor if for some reason it wasn’t clear or decisive. Now, with conventional warfare having returned, nothing was clear anymore. It seemed like their problems were only first beginning.

Chapter 174: Mare of the Primordial Void

Chapter 174: Mare of the Primordial Void

To truly understand all the differences between Earth as he knew it and modern-day Galterra, Jimmy would need to live here a great deal longer and do a lot more research. Until that point, he couldn’t tell you with any degree of certainty the current value of a second chance. But back home? On Earth? In a world where most people didn’t get a first chance, let alone a second one? It was an opportunity you’d have to be a fool to squander. It would be a true test of his worth.

If I fuck this up, I really am quitting for good, Jimmy promised himself. The fact I get another shot at this after not even a full day…I just can’t screw this up. I can’t!

He knew he’d never be able to forgive himself if he blew it a second time. How could he? It wouldn’t matter what anyone said to him, either. If he had to be bailed out on another raid—or worse, cost people their lives—then he was just done with this shit. Nothing would change his mind at that point. He didn’t care what spawned around him or how perfect an opportunity arose. If he didn’t redeem himself here and now, he was done with this. So…yeah, he couldn’t fail. No matter what!

But Zach wasn’t making this very easy for him.

Clearly, the kid wasn’t happy, and he was definitely a little nervous despite trying to hide it. But really, Zach didn’t need to be. He was getting himself all worked up over nothing. From the overly serious look in his eyes to the way he was staring at the T9 boss, his reaction was just so unnecessary. And the only reason he was even stressing like this was because he just didn’t understand what Jimmy actually wanted from him; instead, he was drawing conclusions and getting way ahead of himself. The same was true of Kalana, who was also starting to freak out a bit.

At the moment, the Elvish girl was alternating between yelling at Jimmy and volunteering to “take Zach's place.” This naturally led to Zach starting an argument with her, insisting that such an idea was flat-out not an option. Obviously, that only caused them to argue even more. But both of them were totally misunderstanding things, yet it was difficult for Jimmy to explain this to them while they were too busy yelling at one another. It also didn’t help that the rest of the raid had begun demanding answers from him while he was busy trying to get Zach and Kalana’s attention.

“Nah-uh,” Kalana said to Zach, her tone adamant. She was responding to something Jimmy hadn’t managed to overhear.

“This isn’t an argument,” Zach replied to her. “Enough, Kal!”

“It is an argument,” she insisted. “Baby, you’re not fighting that thing alone. I won’t let you! Either you let me help, or umm, or I’ll fight it all by myself.”

“You’re not going anywhere near that fucking thing. Look, Jimmy knows what he’s doing. I don’t know why he needs me, but I’m willing to trust him on this.”

Kalana stood her ground. “Okay, well um, does Jimmy know that right now you can’t even do your special power thingy and won’t be able to do it again until tomorrow?”

Zach, whose index finger was lifted as though he were about to confidently say something in reply, lowered his hand and seemed to freeze for a few seconds before saying, “That’s actually a good point. Maybe Jimmy doesn’t realize that I can’t use my Unleashed Phase.”

“Even if he does, I still don’t care. I’m not just gonna sit back and let you—”

“Kalana, Zach, please!” Jimmy shouted. “Will both of you just listen to me for fuck’s sake!” They turned their heads his way. Having finally managed to draw their attention, Jimmy realized he might only be able to hold it for a fleeting moment, so he acted quickly. He made a waving-off gesture with both his hands and said, “I do not want Zach to fight the boss, so this whole conversation is a dumb waste of time.”

There was silence from the two of them for about eight consecutive, uninterrupted seconds, and then Kalana squinted as though confused, and so too did Zach. “You don’t?” she asked.

“No, Kalana. In fact, I don’t even need him to go anywhere near that thing.” Jimmy pointed at it. “I only need his war mount. That’s the only thing he’s got that I care about right now.”

Zach looked puzzled, but also relieved. “Wait, really?” he asked. “My Kralzek’s Beast is all you actually need from me?”

“Yes! But you two just keep on yelling and shit and I can’t get a word in.”

“Sorry,” Zach whispered. Then, once again speaking at a normal volume, he asked, “But why do you need my war mount?”

“Because,” Jimmy explained, “it’s the highest level ‘thing’ we have that can’t feel pain.”

“And that matters because…?”

Jimmy grinned. Finally, a question he actually wanted to answer. But rather than reply directly to Zach, he spoke over the Comm, as this concerned the entire raid. “Summon your mount, Zach. I’ll explain while we get things going.”

Thankfully, Zach cooperated without a fuss, and he activated his ability. Now, standing beside him on all fours was a massive cat covered in orange and black stripes; two large teeth jutted out from its mouth, which seemed to release a constant drip of drool that ran down both of its cheeks. It was a vicious, dangerous-looking tiger, and it was also the highest-level entity here on the raid with them.

HP

225,000/225,000

Name

Kralzek’s Beast

Level

85

“There we go,” Jimmy said, smiling appreciatively at the creature. The sight of it lifted his spirits to such an extent he even reached out and pet it despite it being a non-sentient, mindless pet mob. Meeting Zach’s eyes, he said, “This thing might be able to get us through the entire raid all on its own. I mean, probably not, but there’s at least a chance.”

“But how?” Zephyr asked—along with like twenty other adventurers. “Jimmy, I realize a level-85 NPC is a great asset to have on a raid, but what makes this thing so special?”

“Like I was just telling Zach: the fact it can’t feel pain.”

Jimmy could tell that his words were not alleviating any confusion, but they were going to understand soon enough. Interestingly, even Lord Oren didn’t seem like he had figured out Jimmy’s intentions yet. Jimmy half expected him to work it out just based on what had already been said. From the way his face was angled downwards as though deep in concentration, the man was probably trying to do just that. But Jimmy was planning on elaborating in any case.

“Everybody who has a DS, cast it on Zach’s mount,” Jimmy said. “As in, right now. I’m sure at least some of them must stack. For this to work, I think we need about five of them. If they don’t stack, then we can forget this little plan, but I think a few will, and it’s definitely worth trying. Oh, and don’t worry about overriding anyone else’s DS, either. I’m pretty sure the strongest ones always take priority. Okay, let’s get to it. Start casting.” Jimmy waited. And then he waited some more. But nobody was casting anything. “Well?”

“…uh, what’s a DS?” Donovan grunted over the Comm.

“Yeah, what’s that?” asked Lienne.

Jimmy exhaled slowly and reminded himself to be patient with them all. “It’s just short for damage shield. Now, come on, let’s cast ‘em. Everybody, start dropping them on the Kralzek’s Beast.” Like before, Jimmy waited—and then he continued to wait. But ten seconds came and went, and still nobody had cast a single spell. “Come on, guys, what the hell? Cast them!”

“We’re not sure what you want from us,” Alixa said. “Or at least I’m not. Am I the only one who has no idea what he’s talking about?”

“No, I don’t either,” Reni said.

“Same,” agreed Frederick Britethorn as well as his wife.

“I don’t either,” Zach whispered to him off-Comm. He and Donovan had moved much closer to him now that Lord Oren had been assigned to a group on the other end of the street.

Jimmy looked around—first at Zach, and then at many of the other various adventurers. He felt himself abruptly entering into a state of total disbelief. “Okay, time out for a second,” he said. “Time out. Are you telling me we got over a hundred got-dang adventurers here, and not one of you has a damage shield? Really? That can’t be. There’s just no way.”

“Jimmy,” Mr. Oren said, “is it possible whatever you’re referring to is something you know by a different name than we do?”

Jimmy thought on the question, and his enthusiasm returned straight away. “Oh yeah! You’re right. Maybe you guys call it something else here.”

“Can you describe the type of ability it is?”

“Uh, yeah. In most simulations, it usually has the same kind of name, like, uh, I dunno, ‘Shield of Thorns’ or ‘Ward of Bramble’ or some kinda shit like that. It’s basically a buff that makes the enemy get hurt whenever it hits you. So if you fail to evade or whatever and you get hurt, at least the mob also takes a few points of—”

“Oh, I’ve got something like that!” Alixa said excitedly. “I’ve never heard the term ‘damage shield’ before, but way back when I hit level 11, I got a buff called ‘Embrace of Wind’s Fury’ that does damage to any target that lands an attack on whoever’s buffed. I’ve maybe used it once or twice in my life.”

“I have a spell like that too,” Emala said. She began laughing. “It’s called something very similar to what you said: Coat of Thorns. That’s amazing how close you were, Jimmy!”

Jimmy spread his palms. “Eh, they always have names like that.”

“I’ve also got one,” Zephyr added. “I actually forgot all about it. No one ever uses those.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Jimmy said. “Because you all feel pain when you get hit, and the damage returned to the enemy is usually so minor that it probably isn’t worth the exertion if the only way to really make use of it is to let yourself get hit on purpose. I’m sure you guys all probably think it’s a useless spell—but it’s not.”

“So, um, what does this have to do with Zach’s mount?” Kalana asked. “What is it you’re planning?”

Before Jimmy could reply, Lord Oren snapped his fingers, and the sound of it came through over the Comm. “Of course! I can’t believe I didn’t see where you were going with this. That’s brilliant, Jimmy. I never would’ve come up with that.”

“Come up with what?” demanded Maric, Alixa, and a whole bunch of other adventurers.

“Jimmy’s planning to send in Zach’s level-85 mount and have it deliberately take hits from the boss in the hope that the reflected damage won’t have a ‘type’ and therefore it cannot become immune to it. In that case, all we’d have to do is use heal-over-time buffs supported by rotating heals to keep it alive. Am I correct, Jimmy?”

“Yep. That’s what I’m going for.”

Zach looked over to his large, drooling war mount and then he again regarded Jimmy. “Mr. Oren’s right,” he said. “You really are brilliant when it comes to this stuff.”

Jimmy laughed. “I’m not actually brilliant. Ya’ll just think that ‘cause you don’t know what I know. Believe it or not, this is actually a really common cheese tactic. There used to be this uh…this ‘simulation’ called Dark Age of Camelot, right? And if you got ML9 and threw a DS on your pet, you could solo ML10 bosses and farm the rarest loot in the…in the simulation. That game wasn’t for me, though. Too much PVP. But if you liked PVP, the RVR—realm vs. realm—was apparently the best of its kind. I can’t tell you how many times people would be like, ‘Damn, Jimmy. WOW PVP is trash since they nerfed DKs. You need to get into Dark Age.’ And I’d just be like, ‘Yeah, but that’s for tryhards anyway.’ I gotta be real with you guys: I can’t stand PVP elitists. Those bitches always acting like they somehow superior or more skilled. Like, try taking down OG Yogg-Saron and then talk shit. Actually, a long time ago, my friend Marcus, uh…”

Jimmy trailed off and then felt awkward and a fair bit embarrassed as he realized everyone was giving him the craziest looks: like just the craziest looks. Even Zach. The fact nobody was saying anything somehow made it even worse. Jimmy licked his lips and then released a nervous laugh. “Yeah, forget all that, sorry. Anyways, damage shields. Yeah. They’re good.”

Zach stared at him a moment as if to ensure he was okay. But this expression quickly shifted to one that looked a great deal more devious. “So wait,” he said over the Comm, “if my mount is doing a hundred percent of the work…”

“Zach,” Kalana grumbled.

“…does that mean I get a hundred percent of the loot?”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “You’re forgetting it’s also gonna be buffed and healed.”

“Okay, so then it should be split just between me and the people who do that and nobody else, right?”

Jimmy shrugged. “If you want. I really don’t care.”

Having always had such a relaxed attitude regarding loot—both here and in the games on Earth—Jimmy tended to forget how crazy people could get over boss drops. This, he was now reminded of as almost every adventurer at once exploded in protest and outrage. Even Fiona Darkmae and her guild members were waving their arms around and making a bunch of noise. It got so bad that Donovan and Zephyr had to step in; it served as a warning to Jimmy that, if he screwed up at any point, they’d be quick to seize back control.

They say they’ve given me sole control of the raid, he thought, but I know now that I can’t take them at their word. If they think I’m failing, they’ll grab control.

For the time being, he decided to let them do their thing. After all, he should’ve been more careful about how he replied to Zach’s greedy request, so it was his own fault that Donovan and Zephyr now had to calm the situation down. It was a reminder that he needed to stay on his game and be more careful about what he said.

“Everybody, pipe down!” Donovan shouted—and they obeyed. Then Donovan marched over to Zach, who was only a few feet away. “Kiddo, don’t start your shit! Everybody who’s here gets to roll.”

“Sorry,” Zach said.

Donovan’s lips twitched, and for just an instant, the look on his face changed from stern to amused. He then spoke to Zach off-Comm. “You’re a little prick sometimes, but I still prefer this version of you to the one Alex wants to mold. This is the real you.” He then gave Zach a friendly pat on the shoulder—or at least Jimmy assumed it was friendly. It looked hard enough to leave a bruise, and it caused Zach to wince.

With that little moment of tension behind them, Jimmy asked them to begin buffing. Then he stood back and watched as spells came in from seemingly every direction. It began with a wave-shaped beam of dark green energy that popped up into the air about ten feet above the mount and then struck down at the Kralzek’s Beast; immediately after contact, the beam turned into a silk-like substance that spread all over its body before changing yet again into a bunch of thorns that covered it all over. After a few seconds, these thorns vanished, and now, there was an up-arrow near its name, reminding Jimmy that NPCs, unlike biological beings, always had their list of buffs and debuffs visible for anyone to see.

Name

Coat of Thorns

Effect

Increases user’s armor by 25; when struck, a small portion of damage is reflected back upon the attacker.

Duration

9:59

An instant after this buff came in, more were quick to follow. One looked like a nest of bees buzzing around, and then the one after that consisted of a bunch of hollow swords that floated above the mount and spun around and around before disappearing. This one actually overwrote the previous one, but both seemed to stack with Emala’s “Coat of Thorns.” This meant that at least two could be stacked at once.

Name

Protection of Blades

Effect

Any time user is struck by a melee attack, the attacker suffers damage that scales with the attacker’s maximum HP.

Duration

19:59

The next buff to come in overwrote Emala’s. Jimmy wasn’t sure who cast it, but it looked pretty cool, visually speaking. It began with a rotating mirror that descended upon the Kralzek’s Beast, stopping just above its head. Then it exploded into what looked like thousands of shards of glass, each one vanishing upon contact with the street or with the mount. As Jimmy read over the description, it made perfect sense to him why this buff in particular had overwritten Coat of Thorns but not Protection of Blades.

Name

Armor of Fractured Glass

Effect

Increases user’s armor by 35; when struck, a small portion of damage is reflected back upon the attacker.

Duration

14:59

More and more came in, with most coming from the support, healers, and mages, but a few even coming from the tanks and DPS. Finally, when all was said and done, the Kralzek’s Beast had six DS buffs in total all stacked together. Jimmy was pleased with this result; it would definitely give them a leg up in the fight. Hopefully, a big one.

“Now what?” Zach asked over the Comm.

“Now do the same thing you guys just did, but this time with HOTs and every other buff you have. Just drop everything you have on it.” He grinned. “This should look cool.”

And it really did, though in a messy kind of way. Jimmy watched in awe as a storm of magic exploded, rained down, swirled around, or in some cases rose up from below, with all of it targeting the level-85 saber-toothed tiger. Within an instant, it became impossible to distinguish any one effect from another, as it created one giant circus of sounds and sights that looked to Jimmy like a drunken God creating a universe of chaos. Amid screens of smoke, mist, fire, and even some water, there were random things everywhere like ticking clocks, floating weapons, and showers of sparks. But eventually, all of it disappeared, and now the Kralzek’s Beast had so many up-arrows that there were more than four rows of them stacked one on top of the other spanning the entire length of its name.

With that, Jimmy looked over his shoulder and at the T9 boss waiting behind him just one street down. It stood there motionless, waiting for someone to come along and challenge it. How many years had it taken for that thing to spawn? Some of the bosses here in Galterra redefined the very meaning of the term “rare spawn,” as Jimmy had come to learn it wasn’t unheard of for things to only pop every few-thousand years. This, he was willing to bet, was one of them.

HP

13,225,000/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Kalana said over the Comm. “Jimmy, there’s something everybody wanted me to give you.”

Before Jimmy could ask what she was talking about, Donovan said, “Let him earn it.”

“He’d probably prefer it that way, actually,” agreed Zephyr. “Besides, that’ll just distract him right now.”

Kalana pouted. “It’s going to him no matter what. Everyone on the raid last night agreed.”

Zach raised his eyebrow as though curious. “What’s going to him?” the kid asked. “Is it…is it loot?”

“Yep. For Jimmy! Not you. You already have one!”

“I do? What is it?”

Jimmy immediately became intrigued, but he knew Donovan and Zephyr were right. This wasn’t the right time for this. Also, he didn’t deserve anything from the raid since he’d nearly died and had almost gotten others killed along with him. “Tell me about it after we beat this thing,” he said. Excitement beginning to rush through him, he clapped his hands together. “All right, guys. It looks like we’re all ready to go. But I gotta warn you: there’s almost no chance this is going to work for very long. So everybody should be prepared to engage the boss. Okay? Good. Now, anybody got anything they wanna say or ask before we start? Last chance.”

Looking around at the various groups of adventurers all over the street, it seemed that nobody had anything left to say—no one except Lord Oren, who gently stroked his chin as if deep in thought even while he spoke. “Jimmy,” he began, “on this point, I’m fairly sure you’re worrying over nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t get me wrong: being cautious is always the correct decision, especially when facing a T9. But one thing that’s absolutely certain is that bosses—or mobs—cannot ever be immune to their own reflected damage. Since these buffs are merely returning damage, I can confidently say you’re wrong to think the Mare of the Primordial Void will gain immunity to the damage shields.”

Jimmy tilted his head to the side. “Huh? When did I say it would?”

“Well…you didn’t, but I assume that’s what you’re referring to when you say this won’t last?”

“Huh? Uh, no, of course not. Obviously, I know that won’t happen.”

Now, it was Lord Oren who sounded confused. “Then what makes you think we can’t utilize this strategy to take the boss all the way from full HP to zero?’

Jimmy chuckled. “Oh, anti-cheese mechanics, obviously.”

“Anti-what?” barked out Donovan as though alarmed. “The fuck is that? And why are we only first hearing about this now?”

“What do you mean? I told you guys from the start not to expect Zach’s pet to solo the entire raid—that it was possible but also unlikely yet still worth trying anyway.”

“But you never mentioned any kind of ‘anti-cheese’ mechanic!” Ophelia Graven fired in, sounding aggrieved of all things.

“Whoah, chill, damn. It was implied. I clearly said from the start that this probably won’t work for long. I’m not holding back important information from you guys, seriously.”

Someone else began to speak, but Lord Oren interrupted them, albeit politely. “Excuse me one moment, but please let me ask Jimmy something.” The adventurer who’d been speaking swore at Lord Oren but then quickly acquiesced. There seemed to be a newfound fear of him as a result of his earlier violence towards Donovan. “Jimmy,” Lord Oren continued, “if you’re agreeing with me that the boss can’t become immune to its own damage, then how, exactly, will this initial plan fail? What I mean by that is what specific thing are you claiming might happen?”

Jimmy understood his confusion. In all honesty, he really needed to do better when it came to assuming that the adventurers knew almost nothing at all. Waiting for the few chattering voices to quiet over the Comm, he addressed Lord Oren directly. “Okay, so to start, I don’t think it’s gonna ‘fail’ exactly. In this context, ‘success’ means doing a fair chunk of damage to it. And as far as how it’ll come to an end? That’s simple. The Kralzek’s Beast is just gonna die.”

Lord Oren seemed taken aback, because he spoke half a word and then stopped speaking, pausing for a few seconds before trying again. “That’s not very clear, Jimmy. Die to what?”

“To nothing. It’ll just die.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand.”

Jimmy sighed, trying not to become frustrated. “Look, at some point during the fight, if this thing really is like a ‘real’ raid boss and not the bullshit you guys have been fighting all your life—and hey, I got no idea if that’s the case, I’m just over here guessing—but if this horse thing’s the real deal, then after the Kralzek’s Beast does a certain amount of damage, the anti-cheese mechanism is gonna kick in, and it’s just gonna die. There might be an attack of some sort, maybe. I don’t know how it’ll go down exactly. But it's just gonna die.”

“Meaning it’ll be too difficult to keep the mount alive?”

“Nah, man, you’re not listening. It’s just gonna insta-die. Just…you just have to see it, okay? Everybody, please stop worrying so damn much. I’m on my game today. This ain’t gonna be like last night. I’m staking everything on this.”

“If you say so,” Lord Oren relented, now sounding a touch nervous. This seemed unlike him, but since Jimmy didn’t know him all that well, he actually couldn’t really say that for certain. It was just a sense he got. It was also a quickly growing vibe, as everyone from Zach to Donovan now appeared to be a bit uneasy with the raid. Jimmy knew he needed to kick things off before anybody got cold feet and decided to back out.

“Okay,” he said, turning his body around so that he faced the large T9 mare one street down. “Everybody follow me.”

Without even looking behind to ensure they followed, Jimmy began strolling his way closer to the boss. Thankfully, after proceeding a few slow, calm steps in its direction, he heard the patter of more than a hundred pairs of feet hurrying after him. And so he continued on, leading them closer and closer to the raid boss.

As he ventured nearer, he quickly surveyed the scenery around him. The devastation the boss had caused thus far was impossible to ignore. Reaching the end of the street and the start of the next one, Jimmy stepped over a downed street light then maneuvered around an overturned, partially crushed DEHV. To his left was a shipping and postal outlet missing most of its roof, and to his right was the bar he’d been drinking in all night; though the structure itself remained standing, the window above the entrance door was shattered and the entire inside looked like someone had set off a stick of dynamite. Most likely, the T9’s lasers had blown through the window and had detonated the inside of the bar.

I liked that place, Jimmy thought. I hope I’m not the reason it got destroyed.

Though he felt slightly guilty, Jimmy knew that, even if he’d called the adventurers over more quickly, it still likely wouldn’t have made all that much of a difference, so he put the bar out of his mind and kept his focus on the boss up ahead. With the raid still following behind him in formation, he continued to amble towards the massive equine superboss until he was just outside of its aggro range, which the Explorer’s Brigade had marked with red chalk that ran from one side of the sidewalk, all the way across the street, and then to the other.

“Zach,” Jimmy said over the Comm, “you’re up!”

“Got it. Uh, so do you just want me to go ahead and send it in?”

“Yeah. Have your pet attack the raid boss and then just leave it be. Everybody else: just chill for now. Nobody should be doing anything other than rebuffing or casting small heals on it with careful rotation to avoid picking up aggro. Actually, you know what? Don’t heal it unless it falls below 50% HP. Otherwise, let the HOTs do their job.”

“Got it,” several of the healers in the back row sounded off.

To his right, Jimmy saw Zach appear beside him. The kid stopped just before the red chalk line that represented the point of aggro. Once there, he turned his head towards Jimmy and gave him a brief, but powerful nod. Jimmy returned it. And now, the feeling of excitement but also tension became so strong that Jimmy wondered if everyone else was feeling it as well, as it seemed to come from the very atmosphere.

“Okay,” Zach said, “I’m ordering it to attack.”

The moment Zach spoke those words, a total and complete silence filled the destroyed market square, one that was incredibly brief and lasted no longer than one or two seconds. Yet for just that short time, Jimmy felt as if his heart had given up beating as he held his breath and the muscles all over his body involuntarily tightened. And none of this was due to any kind of fear of the boss itself. No, what Jimmy feared was failure—shame.

I can’t fuck this up!

Breaking this short moment of silence, Zach’s Kralzek’s Beast suddenly released a vicious, angry roar, and then it began to run forward at the boss. The moment its front paws crossed the red chalk line, the boss seemingly awakened, letting out a rival cry of its own, in this case being an angry neigh. Now, it too moved towards Zach’s mount. The result was that both met somewhere in the middle, and with that, the battle at last began—and it was the saber-toothed cat that struck first.

Releasing another growl, the tremendously buffed cat lifted its front-right paw and took a mean swipe at the boss. Despite being such a large creature, it was still barely a rodent compared to the two-story-tall Mare of the Primordial Void, and so its razor-sharp claws came in just above the horse boss’s front-left hoof. The boss released another, pained-sounding neigh as the Kralzek’s Beast cut into is nightmarishly dark flesh.

3,119

For a T9 boss with a level equivalent to 310, that was actually a great deal of damage—far more than Jimmy would’ve expected, even from a level-85 pet. But it had so many buffs right now that, if Jimmy were to kneel down in front of the mount, they would actually block his vision of the world ahead. The Kralzek’s Beast had so many damn buffs it was almost impossible to keep track of them all. Jimmy was therefore content to simply assume that every single one of its stats was now elevated along with its defenses and any manner of other capabilities.

But that’s not what I care about, he told himself. Intensely, he watched as the Mare of the Primordial Void lifted up off its hind legs and prepared to stomp down. I care about what happens next.

Jimmy did not so much as blink as he watched the boss slam its front two hooves down upon Zach’s war mount, causing a loud crunching bang to emanate and the level-85, saber-toothed cat to become slammed down into a newly formed crater several feet deep. It also suffered 92,155 damage—nearly half of its HP. But this, too, was also not what Jimmy was focused on. Crossing his fingers, he glanced above the T9 mare’s head. And then he saw what he was looking for.

1,922

2,092

3,651

3,211

2,762

2,051

All at once, the various damage shields on the mount activated in response to the attack on the Kralzek's Beast, and each one nipped away at the massive T9 mare that had attacked it. Exactly as Jimmy had intended.

The Kralzek’s Beast attacked a second time, cutting deeply into the same hoof and adding another 3,004 damage. In the same instant that its attack connected, the various HOTs cast on it ticked, healing back nearly half the HP it’d lost—all of which was soon ripped away from it and then some as it suffered an additional 101,422 damage as the boss stomped down on the war mount yet again—causing the boss to neigh in pain as the six DS buffs inflicted their retaliatory damage against it. But of concern was the mount, which was now badly injured despite being buffed to the max.

HP

77,500/225,000

Name

Kralzek’s Beast

Level

85

“Dex, Florala, throw a small heal on it!” Jimmy shouted.

“On it!”

A moment later, dual splashes of mist, one colored blue and one colored green, caused the mount to turn from a bloodied, badly crushed mess into a banged up but functional-looking predator. Then another tick from the HOTs came in, and now it was back to around 80% of its max HP. It retaliated, swiping again at the T9 mare, and it scored its most powerful blow yet, dealing 4,100 damage.

“Put it on passive and have it stand in place, Zach.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want the boss to gain melee DPS immunity and power up just yet. Especially since your pet has already got aggro and it should be able to maintain it now with just the damage from the DS.”

“Gotcha.”

The Kralzek’s Beast, which was actually mid-attack, having raised its paw as though winding up another slice, abruptly lowered it back down and remained perfectly still and inactive as the horse stomped on it again, dealing 97,211 damage and suffering another round of DS counter damage. And now, after an apprehensive start to things, Jimmy could feel a general sense of excitement beginning to fill the air as the boss’s HP began to steadily drop lower and lower each time it struck the Kralzek’s Beast.

HP

13,167,710/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“I can’t fuckin’ believe what I’m seeing,” Donovan said. “How did the kid come up with something like this?”

“I can’t believe it either,” Reni agreed. “Are we seriously watching a T9 raid boss kill its own self on a passive pet?”

A roar of cheers and applause erupted from the currently idle adventurers. “This is one of the most spectacular and unbelievable things I’ve ever seen in all my years raiding,” Zephyr said. “My mind is blown.”

“Same here,” agreed Maric. “I can’t believe this is actually happening!”

Jimmy laughed. “Just don’t get too comfortable. I’m telling y’all, this ain’t gonna last.”

“It will,” Lord Oren said confidently. “Don’t be so pessimistic. You’ve somehow come up with a…a bypass to raiding. It’s like a…a…”

For once, the guy seemed to be struggling to complete a thought, but Jimmy knew why. In this world, they didn’t have words for it, so Jimmy decided to help him out a bit. “A cheat code,” he finished.

“A what?”

“Or you can call it an exploit. But that’s what we’d have called it on Earth.”

“I see…well, either way, don’t sell yourself short. This is incredible, Jimmy. It’s losing HP at a steady clip, and the majority of us haven’t had to lift a finger. Truly astounding.”

HP

13,017,006/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

The adventurers released another round of cheering, and this one was even louder than the last. But rather than elevate Jimmy’s mood, it actually had the opposite effect, causing him to worry. “You guys aren’t listening to me,” he said, feeling just a little bit nervous by their collective reaction. “How many times do I gotta tell you: don’t expect this to last. I’m not just being dramatic. If this was any modern simulation from my time, this kind of shit wouldn’t work on an end-game boss like this. It just wouldn’t. The boss would detect what we were doing and kill every pet in the encounter.”

“I only understood half of that,” Rian said, “but I just don’t see why we should expect anything to change.”

“As of now, I don’t think we should,” Lord Oren said. “Of course, we should still take the possibility very seriously, but I’ve been raiding a long time, and I’ve never encountered the kind of behavior Jimmy is describing.”

“Are you guys seriously doubting me?” Jimmy asked, becoming defensive.

“Not at all,” Lord Oren replied. “I fully respect you and the simulations you’ve trained on. I’m not at all discounting the value of your experience. Let’s not forget: it’s the only reason we have any idea what elemental shifting is, after all.”

“Then why do you think I’m wrong about this?”

“It’s not that I think you’re wrong or you’re right. Either could be the case. I’m merely siding with one possibility being far more likely than the other. The behavior you described is counterintuitive and also antithetical to what I think any of us have experienced before.”

“Because ya’ll haven’t seen shit,” Jimmy grumbled. He shook his head. “Look, I hope it stays this simple. I really do. But just be ready to take this thing on properly.”

“Of course,” Donovan agreed with a grunt. “But what you said would happen—that the boss is just gonna fuckin’ insta-kill the mount out of nowhere with no warning or whatever. That’s real specific, Jimmy. In a way that makes it sound more like a wild guess.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to defend himself, but then he closed it, as it turned out he didn’t need to. Zach, it seemed, was willing to speak up on his behalf, which he appreciated.

“Jimmy’s going to turn out right,” he said. “When I first entered Trials of Nolak with him, he was saying things that were so specific and so exact I couldn’t believe them at first. Like, he said that a boulder would roll down a wall and then we’d fall through the floor and enter another area—and that was exactly what happened. So if Jimmy says my pet’s going to die out of nowhere, it probably will.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Zephyr said, a hum following his words. “It’s just that it’s so exact that it sounds more like a man’s attempt at telling a fortune or a prophecy than a realistic outlook of raid progress.”

Jimmy turned over his palms. “Whatever, guys.”

HP

12,992,121/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“I’m not gonna sit here and keep trying to convince you of shit.”

HP

12,881,772/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“It’s either gonna happen,” he began as the horse boss continued to stomp on and pummel the level-85 war mount, suffering the consequences of doing so each time.

HP

12,573,200/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“Or it’s not gonna ha—”

Out of nowhere, while Jimmy was still speaking, and with a speed far faster than anything the boss had thus far shown itself capable of, the black horse leapt up into the air and then dove back down to the ground, landing with so much force on top of the Kralzek’s Beast that it caused two nearby, still-standing buildings to crumble into a pile of bricks, stone, and wood just from their mere proximity to the resulting tremor.

999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999

HP

0/225,000

Name

Kralzek’s Beast

Level

85

Three sounds filled the world at the same time: a multitude of horrified gasps from the raiding party, a bang as the boss smashed through the road and made dual, hoof-shaped indents into the ground nearly ten feet deep, and finally, a loud, defiant, but admittedly arrogant “hah!” as Jimmy pointed at Zach’s deceased mount, which was crushed so terribly it looked more like some kind of massive, soggy rug than a tiger—at least until it disappeared a few seconds later. Now, Jimmy shook his finger wildly at the boss, and he shouted, “I fucking told your asses! I told you! Now who’s not being realistic?”

Was it bad that he was actually glad this happened just so he could be proven right?

Probably, but I don’t care!

Even as Jimmy looked over his shoulder and saw the terror and disbelief popping up on so many faces, with numerous adventurers pointing at the damage number in a state of petrified shock, Jimmy couldn’t help but continue to gloat. “I told you!” He laughed like an evil villain. “Ha-ha-ha! Get fuuuuuuuucked! Okay, but for real, let’s get on this thing now before it aggros on Zach.”

Zach began to take several steps backwards. “Oh, shit! I think it already is. Yeah, I have aggro!”

“Zach!” Kalana cried out. She rushed to his side, and so too did Donovan, Zephyr, Rian, Seiley, and Trelvor as the T9 superboss began charging forward. In hindsight, Jimmy probably should have been applying his slow to it all this time in anticipation of this moment. He chided himself for not thinking of doing so. This thing moved fast without it. It entered into a full-on gallop and began rushing at Zach.

The situation becoming much more dangerous, Jimmy ceased his laughter and stood up straighter. He waved his hand at the raid boss. “Maric!” he called out. “Rush in with your whole group and taunt! It’s time to get serious!”

“On it!” Maric cried out as he launched himself forward.

It looked like they were going to have to do things the hard way.

Jimmy warned them.

Chapter 175: Jimmy’s Hatred

Chapter 175: Jimmy’s Hatred

The sound of four gigantic hooves slamming down against an already torn up street was far louder than a few thuds. To Zach’s ears, they were more akin to miniature booms. Yet even still, he remained perfectly motionless and stayed right where he was as the Mare of the Primordial Void made straight for him. For this, Jimmy shot him a look of utter gratitude. Zach wasn’t sure why. But he did recall Kalana saying something about the adventurer known as “Emala” fleeing after getting aggro from a dungeon boss last night, which had apparently been what had briefly derailed the entire raid. Zach supposed that was why Jimmy appeared so relieved that Zach knew better than to take off running.

Remaining still and letting the tanks peel aggro is the only way to deal with this, he thought to himself as he watched the aggroed horse come nearer.

As the boss closed in on him, Zach ignored the first signs of fear bubbling up within him and he continued to stand his ground. He didn’t even bother to draw his weapon or enter a defensive stance. He simply kept his feet planted right there in the middle of the street while fifteen adventurers rushed by him fast enough to cause a small gust of wind to ruffle his robe.

“Taunting!” Maric cried over the Comm.

Now, the massive T9 boss, which had been galloping straight for Zach, came to an abrupt, unnaturally harsh stop. Swiveling around almost robotically, it turned its body and decided to attack Maric Ultdern instead. With a loud neigh, it attempted to stomp down on him; its hoof was then deflected by the man's large, crescent-shaped shield, though at the cost of a pained-sounding groan from the brawny old adventurer.

“Are you okay, son?” asked a voice beside him. Zach turned his head to see the scarred face of Spider, the second-in-command of the God Slayers Guild, staring back at him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Zach said. “I didn’t take any hits or anything.”

“All right. Good.” Upon those words, Spider moved in with the other off-tanks, and Zach finally began to step back.

“Okay, everyone, it looks like the tanks got aggro,” Jimmy said with an approving nod. “Who’s ready to kill this thing?”

The adventurers released a cheer, but it definitely sounded deflated and unenthusiastic. Many of them looked rattled and uncertain, and several were muttering off-Comm that they should de-aggro and rethink attempting this raid today. Put simply, there was a whole lot of reluctance starting to build among the more than one-hundred people participating in this encounter, and in Zach’s honest opinion, their hesitance was entirely justified after what all of them had just witnessed happening.

It insta-killed my pet, Zach thought, feeling a nervous chill travel down his back in opposition to the intense heat that was still causing sweat to glide down his forehead and sting his eyes.

Zach had never seen a damage number anywhere near that large, which was really saying something considering he’d once done over a billion damage to a Ziragoth add with Doomsday Slash I. The number had been so large that, even if Zach had been able to see it for a little longer, he still wouldn’t know what it was, as he wasn’t sure what came after a “quintillion” and the number had been far, far bigger than that. Several orders of magnitude larger, in fact. Jimmy had therefore been correct…and that wasn’t really a good thing so far as raid morale was concerned. People were understandably worried. Something about this boss felt different.

Very different.

Zach glanced over to Jimmy, who was standing atop a DEHV truck with his hands over his forehead like a visor. Briefly, Zach met his eyes, and there wasn’t even a trace of doubt or uncertainty in them. He looked like he had things well under control. Zach hoped that was the case. Because the boss was a T9 and it could kill them all if the situation got out of hand.

“This thing hits about as hard as Phase 1 Ziragoth,” Maric grunted as the equine boss attempted to bite him but was warded off by the man’s shield. “Which is very hard!”

“Just hang in there,” Jimmy said. “Also, tanks: try to use as few melee attacks as possible. We really, really don’t want that thing to get melee immunity before the melee DPS have had a chance to unload on it.”

“So what do you want us to do for now?” asked a tank from the GSG who Zach didn’t quite recognize.

“Just establish firm aggro and hit it as little as possible. We’re gonna start our rotations now.” He laughed. “Everybody, lighten up. Stop looking so damn nervous. Guys, take a deep breath and just relax. It’s gonna be all right.”

Despite his assurances, Zach had the sense that Jimmy’s words did little to lessen the trepidation among the adventurers. Once again, Zach couldn’t blame them. Unlike the dragon, which had been an existential crisis with the potential to end civilization, this boss was not quite on that level in terms of urgency, and so of course they weren’t as motivated as they’d been during a fight for survival like the one against Ziragoth. If one tried to imagine the worst possible outcome of not killing this boss, it would be short- to mid-term economic disruption for the region of Faded Island as they ended up having to build new roads around it.

Continuing to back away, Zach observed as a group of eleven men and four women occupied most of the space in front of the boss. Although all of them had their shields raised and various weapons drawn, few were actually attacking it, and those who did were lashing out with very light attacks that only did a few-hundred damage. Zach suspected those were “taunting” strikes meant more to draw aggro than to inflict damage.

“I need a rest,” Maric said over the Comm, sounding weary and strained.

“I’ll grab it,” replied Ophelia Graven, the leader of Boss Rush. Her buckler shield was the smallest of the bunch, yet it proved no less capable of absorbing the boss’s repeated attempts to either stomp or bite her. She sliced the mare for 826 damage and then a flash of light came from her eyes, likely another form of a taunt. She now had full aggro.

HP

12,567,444/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Zach looked over to his right where Jimmy was continuing to stand atop the tall, destroyed truck DEHV while surveying the raid. As though content with the current state of things, he made a self-satisfied-looking nod and spoke up into the Comm.

“Okay,” he said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get this shit going. Group 1, get ready to attack. Group 1S, start buffing!”

Turning around slightly, Zach glanced over his shoulder to where group 1 and group 1S were waiting together near the remnants of a bakery that, from what little remained of its signage, Zach suspected had specialized in making wedding cakes. Upon being called, both groups moved as one farther down the street and closer towards the rest of the raid. Most of them were wielding staves, rods, or spell swords, but there were a few maces to be found as well. And from what Jimmy had stated while he'd been organizing the raid, Zach believed that these two groups were responsible for the element of fire.

As they drew nearer, group 1S, comprised of five adventurers and one member of Children of Order, broke away and moved to position themselves so that they stood together in an area that was almost perfectly central to the overall raid formation. From there, every other member of the raid was supposed to be within casting range.

“Start buffing,” Jimmy said. “Make sure you get everyone. If anyone is left out, speak up.”

All six began to wave or swing around staves or rods. Lienne was actually among them. Come to think of it, the blonde, steeple-hat-wearing girl was something of a hybrid caster when it came to classification. She could buff, heal, yet also had some pretty decent fire-based magic. She wouldn’t be using any offensive spells on this raid, however, as Jimmy claimed the boss shifted based on quantity of hits as opposed to damage per hit, and Lienne apparently hadn’t made the cut. This didn’t mean she’d be able to kick back and take it easy, though.

Not at all.

For the first time during the raid, numerous members began to profusely sweat due to something other than the punishing summer heat. One by one, Lienne and those in group 1S with her began casting buffs, with each of them responsible for casting a buff on around 20 other raid members not including themselves. And though all six cast a different buff, Jimmy had been meticulous in ensuring that each buff was close enough to one another so that everyone on the raid would be equally well protected.

Now, as Lienne swung her spell rod in the air, she briefly looked over towards Zach, and he gave her an empathetic smile as she began to gasp and huff from the exertion of having to buff so many people at once—and quickly, too. Then she turned away, and as she did so, a bright, orange, and candle-like flame hovered in the air just a few inches in front of Zach’s midsection. This flame then revolved around and around his body, moving in and out of Zach’s peripheral vision as it climbed higher until at last it came to a halt above the top of his head, requiring him to crane his neck to see it. It remained there for about five or six seconds before disappearing. After it vanished, Zach became aware that he had a new active buff on him right next to Will of the Favored.

Name

Flameveil II

Effect

Increases user’s resistance to fire and lava by 34%

Duration

14:59

By the time Zach finished reading the buff’s brief, straightforward description, he could see the same candle-like flame spinning around Donovan, then Zephyr, then Kalana, and eventually all the rest of those in the melee DPS group with him. Once the last of them had received the buff, a few healers—and Trelvor—left their group and began running over to Lienne and two other spellcasters who had seemingly collapsed from a combination of exertion debt and the heat. Fortunately, along with some water and a few pats on the back, they were quickly revived and refreshed, though Zach suspected the biggest help came from one of the mages in group 2S, who cast a slow spell on one of them. But it wasn’t the effect of the slow that helped, but rather the form it took; in this case, the ability caused a heavy but very brief flurry of white snow to pour down on top of the three exhausted members of 1S.

“Oh, Gods, that feels so, so good,” Lienne said over the Comm, practically rolling around in the snow, which piled almost six inches high in a tiny area on the street. Yet already, it was beginning to melt away from the burning sun. “Thank you so much, Lorik.”

Zach recognized the mage who’d cast the spell from the dragon raid. His name was Lorik Mazefel, and he was the second-in-command of the adventuring guild, “Lost and Found,” which was a guild whose members were known as “treasure hunters.” Of all the guilds that existed both political and adventure alike, if Zach had felt free to choose which to join—assuming a hypothetical in which he had to choose one—it would’ve been Lost and Found.

Farming rare items and finding rare loot was Lost and Found’s entire purpose. The guild apparently had a “guild hall” in Angelica’s room 9251 that had “public” access set to allowable, meaning anyone could walk in without a keycard or being invited. Inside this room was a museum where some of the rarest loot known to adventurers was available for all to see behind glass display cases.

And they don’t ever worry about anyone stealing anything, Zach thought, once again amazed by the “bubble” adventurers lived in, which aside from raids like these, almost totally inoculated them from the concerns, both positive and negative, of broader society.

Zach supposed that, even if someone did steal something, they wouldn’t get away with it for long. Though he hadn’t visited the guild hall himself, he knew from speaking to other adventurers that some of the items were so rare that no other copies were known to exist. Therefore, if something vanished one day and a random adventurer was wearing or wielding it the next day, it’d be obvious who’d taken it. From there, Donovan would probably personally intervene, and things would get ugly for the would-be thief.

As Lienne picked herself up and again expressed her thanks, Zach watched as Lorik removed his black, magician-like top hat and gave a regal, comedic bow. Somehow, the hat was actually the least theatric part of his ensemble. Zach couldn’t help but admire the way that members of Lost and Found, such as Lorik, always strutted around in such high-end, high-level gear, though in the case of Lorik, his equipment held a certain “sleek” sort of elegance that wasn’t often seen from adventurer loot. A black-and-red tunic adorned with silver buttons accompanied a magnificent golden cloak around his back that had brush fringes along the hem and edges, and rather than a staff, spell sword, or spell rod, the man wielded a wand that shed rose petals whenever it was waved in the air.

“Hey, Lorik,” another adventurer said over the Comm. Zach didn’t know or recognize him. He appeared to be a mage of the Explorers Brigade that had been placed in the lightning group. “Throw some snow my way too, you bastard. It’s a billion fuckin’ degrees out here.”

“Only if you agree to be buried to death beneath it,” Lorik responded.

The man coughed out a laugh. “It’s hot enough I might just take you up on that.”

Lorik also laughed, and Donovan chuckled a bit from where he stood next to Zach. Jimmy normally seemed to have no problem with that kind of banter either, but given this raid’s importance to him, Zach wasn’t surprised he was being more uptight than he usually would be. “Everybody done talking shit?” he asked. No one replied. “Okay then. Lienne, you good?”

“I’m fine,” she answered. “I just hit some E-debt there.” She was now cuddling up next to Trelvor, soaking wet and actually shivering. Zach doubted that would last. As soon as she dried off, she was going to wish there was more snow to submerge herself into. Already, most of it had melted, a testament to the intense heat.

“Everybody go back to your own groups,” Jimmy said. He then waited for the healers and Trelvor to depart before he continued speaking. Very quickly, Lienne and the Elf kissed, and then Jimmy resumed. “Okay, last chance for anybody to speak up if they don’t got a fire-resistance buff.”

Zach saw faces tightening apprehensively all around him, yet no one said anything. It was clear that the fact Jimmy thought this was even necessary was upsetting to everyone. Earlier, Jimmy had made clear that it wasn’t that he believed the boss would use AOE abilities capable of scorching the entire raid once it gained fire-immunity, but only that it might do so, which was why he wanted everyone buffed with fire resistance and he also wanted healers to be on standby to save the vulnerable, including themselves.

“All right, let’s kick this off. Group 1, unload everything you got onto the boss, and don’t stop casting until you stop doing damage. If the number ain’t zero, you keep going, got it? Now let’s go!”

There was a brief delay: a pause lasting between five and six seconds. During this time, the only sound other than a few murmurs here or there of spell chanting was the shifting of feet as everyone—including Zach—turned to watch the tanks begin to slowly back away from the T9 mare, which began to pursue them. In this case, it seemed to once again have aggroed onto Maric, who physically maneuvered it so that its side now faced the rest of the raid, exposing it to the mages of group 1 while keeping the tanks out of their line of fire.

And then it began.

A ring of fire appeared about twenty feet above the mare, one that was almost perfectly circular in nature. Then, from within this ring, an absolute slew of individual, elongated streaks of flame began to rain down over the boss, with each flame striking it for around 800 to 1000 damage. At the same time, fast-moving shadows along the street revealed themselves to be bright-red missiles of fire, which sailed across the air and struck the right side of the T9 boss, these hitting for more than a thousand a shot. Then came flames that rose up from the ground itself, as well as more projectiles and chain-links made of fire that wrapped around the boss, dealing fire damage over time. More and more fire-based magic appeared each moment, and before long, the boss was practically buried in flame.

922

1,521

1,211

2,561

751

3,641

2,455

Numbers, all of them between five-hundred and four-thousand, began to appear above the creature’s head, and they were coming in so fast that many would appear and disappear before Zach could see anything more than a glimpse of them. Though each number was small on its own, the boss was being hit so many times by so many different things that it was now losing HP even faster than it had been earlier when Zach’s Kralzek’s Beast had been tanking it with the various damage shields.

As the fire magic assaulted the boss, it continued to stomp uselessly on Maric and the other tanks, and as it did so, it released one pained-sounding groan-hiss after the next, each coming in back-to-back on the heels of yet another attack. Yet it was being hit so many times by so many different things that it couldn’t possibly manage to vocalize fast enough in response, so the result was simply the same groan-hiss being repeated over and over. Eventually, the boss even became totally set ablaze, and this caused it to begin suffering various types of secondary “burn” damage, which in turn meant its HP’s rate of decline began speeding up.

HP

12,566,729/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

HP

12,501,431/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

HP

12,332,001/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

HP

12,011,901/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“Why don’t the rest of us join in, Jimmy?” Kalana asked. “It’s starting to get hurt really bad. Maybe if we all gang up on it we can actually kill it, um, before it even does its shifty thingy.”

“Too risky, Kal,” Jimmy replied. “If this thing gets new attacks and abilities after each shift, we’re gonna need time to acclimate to each one or we’ll get overwhelmed.”

“Oh, right. Good point.”

Despite finding no fault with Jimmy’s logic, Zach actually still agreed with Kalana. He wanted this thing to just die already, because the things Jimmy had said about it were starting to get to him, and it was becoming unnerving. Thankfully, however, things were going smoother than even Jimmy seemed to expect, because a little earlier, he claimed that, with their current composition, they’d be lucky to sneak in a million damage with each type before having to move on. But right now, based on the boss’s current HP, they were already well on their way to exceeding that as every manner and form of fire rained down, shot into, engulfed, or otherwise surrounded the boss.

HP

11,400,875/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Maybe this thing doesn’t become immune to fire like it does to other stuff, Zach thought hopefully. Please, Gods, just let us burn it down right here and now so I can go home and take a nap.

******

“…so it’s the worst possible element they could’ve started with?” Prila asked sadly, denial in her voice.

“I’m afraid so, beautiful Prila,” Adamus replied in a whisper.

The woman had returned to Adamus only a few moments ago. Though she was more than capable of watching the events unfold on her terminal with the others, she had wanted to be in Adamus’s company. Thus, he had begun sending that which he saw into her mind, so that she too may see it as well. Earlier, Adamus had explained to Prila that the difference between some, most, or all of the adventurers perishing depended on which attacks they triggered from the Mare of the Primordial Void, which upon reaching immunity from any given element, would gain one—or several—additional attacks that it could then use throughout the remainder of the battle. However, it would also unleash a one-time ability for each immunity it gained.

And in the case of fire, lightning, and dark, it would retaliate with something far too devastating for even a single adventurer to see the light of another day.

“There’s…there’s really no chance for Zach and the others?” she asked.

Adamus slowly shook his head. Then he closed his eyes and observed as the mare was assaulted by a group of fire mages, who were unleashing a barrage of ruthless attacks into it. “I wish I could tell you otherwise or inspire within you some degree of hope…but this is as it will be. The adventurers are not prepared for what comes next. They will not be able to react in time. They will all die.”

Prila began to sob, and Adamus wished he could do more to comfort her. But this was an important lesson she needed to learn: that above all, her loyalty must remain with the system and not those who partook in it. She had grown far too close to Zachys Calador and the others, and she ought not be this emotionally invested in their fate. That was the mistake his wife had made so many times throughout history—and continued to make even now in this very moment.

She was watching as well. Adamus could feel her there. Though she had closed off her mind and refused to allow Adamus to speak to her, he knew that she could sense him there just as he could feel her presence in kind. And right now, the little bit of emotion that bled through was one of confidence and certainty. Once again, his beloved had allowed her feelings to cloud her judgement to the extent that she was wildly off base.

During the dragon raid, she had been certain that Zachys Calador and the other adventurers would be slain. Her emotions had kept her from seeing that a reasonable chance—nearly one in three—existed, and thus Adamus was not surprised that the adventurers triumphed. But this time around, Eilea was wrong from the opposite perspective. Judging off nothing but the confidence she was exuding, Adamus thought it fair to conclude that she believed victory against the mare to be a virtual certainty. Yet in this belief, she was more incorrect now than she’d been during the previous raid.

There was no one-in-three chance.

There was no chance at all.

In just seconds from now, a ring would appear, and then every single adventurer—every last one of them—would be obliterated in the blink of an eye such that not even a scrap of their clothing remained. They would be so totally incinerated that their friends and families would have nothing to remember them by save for indiscriminate ashes. Eilea was about to have her heart broken. She was about to scream so loudly that the sound would cause literal blood to leak out of Adamus’s ears. And it would all be her own fault for getting emotionally involved—for interfering.

The adventurers fighting the Mare of the Primordial Void were going to die. Of this, Adamus had no doubt. The ring would appear…

And then they would die.

*******

In a single, instantaneous moment, everything changed. Jimmy, still standing atop the burned-out truck DEHV, was the first to notice it. Even lacking any physical change in characteristics, his eyes detected the very clear shift as the damage numbers coming in all turned to zero.

0

0

0

0

“Group 1, stop casting!” he cried aloud. “Tanks, off-tanks, pull off!”

None of his words turned out to be necessary, as everyone was already doing exactly those things. The fire magic cut off immediately outside of a few ongoing attacks that the caster likely could no longer control, such as a fiery portal that sent continuous streaks of flame into the two-story-tall boss. But that too ended after another few seconds, and now, there was a brief moment of quiet.

A sense of worry and even fear seemed to come over the raid, as evident by the way numerous adventurers grabbed the forearms or biceps of their friends and comrades. Several murmured to one another, though they spoke off-Comm and Jimmy couldn’t overhear what they were saying. Honestly, they were being a bit overdramatic. Why couldn’t they just listen to him? They were going to be fine.

“I think I lost aggro!” Maric announced over the Comm, sounding alarmed. “Jimmy! I think I—”

“Nah, you’re good,” Jimmy said. “You didn’t lose aggro. It’s just not attacking anyone right now ‘cause it’s gonna change.”

“Change?”

“Just watch.”

And Maric watched all right. So did the entire raid. And the typically brazen, party-loving adventurers reacted in a way that was so unlike them. Rather than chuckles or even “oohs” and “ahhs” at seeing something so cool, there were gasps and a collective recoiling from the whole lot of them as the entire boss abruptly burst into flame, only unlike the fire that had only just been roasting it to death, these flames were even brighter, and the heat of them could be felt even from halfway down the next street where Jimmy was standing.

At the same time, its body became slightly larger and taller, but most significantly, its color changed completely. It had been black with the occasional purplish hew, but now it began to turn a yellowish orange, and it did so in a way that almost made it look as though the black had just been an ink that was washing off, and the yellow-orange had been there all along. The flames began to increase in intensity as well, though mostly they became concentrated near its hooves and tail.

So cool, he thought to himself even as several men and women began to tremble. Let’s see what you got in store for us.

Something changed. Something in the world around him. It was barely noticeable at first but Jimmy nevertheless saw it. It was as though a very, very slight mist had begun to fill the air. But it was a ghostly sort of mist, barely visible to the eye, and it held a slight hint of the same yellow-orange that was now surrounding the boss. It was also easier to spot on the street or ground level, though it was definitely in the air as well. While this was happening, a large ring made of a faint yellow light formed directly in front of the boss.

Oh shit! Jimmy thought to himself, his mood changing dramatically. Oh shit!

“Everybody!” Jimmy yelled into the Comm, jumping immediately down from the top of the DEHV truck. The moment he landed, he sprawled forward, moving so carelessly he’d have fallen onto his face if Donovan hadn’t reached out and steadied him. “Everybody follow me now!”

“What’s going on?” Donovan asked, his voice coming through both over the Comm and also from behind him. “Jimmy, where are you—”

“No fucking questions!” Jimmy screamed. “Get your goddamn asses in that ring right now or you’re dead instantly! This is a one-hit insta KO move! Go, go, go! NOW! NOW, MORONS! NOW!”

“Wait, what?” shouted Zach. “Jimmy, did you just say—”

“What’s the first rule of raiding, Zach?” Jimmy yelled at him. “I told you this shit in Trials of Nolak! What is it, Zach? Tell me!”

“Oh, uh…I think you said something like ‘don’t stand in the fire?’”

“Okay, now look down at your feet, dude!”

Zach lowered his eyes—and then yelped. “Oh, fuck! WE’RE STANDING IN THE FIRE! Oh shit, oh shit! Everybody, listen to Jimmy! Get in the ring! Hurry or we’re dead! He warned me that this would happen someday!”

As though finally convinced, Zach, along with every single adventurer and political guild member present, all rushed with a clear sense of fear and urgency that went well beyond the panicked response to the disarray last night when taking on Imp Lord Tzumazleth. And that was a good thing because they really, really didn’t have much time. Jimmy, arriving first, began making rowing motions with his arms, waving everybody on.

“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! I don’t care if you feel like you’re getting crushed! Donovan, Zephyr, make sure every single last one of us gets in this ring even if you have to flatten us!”

“Got it!” he shouted back.

In this moment, Jimmy was so glad to have the man on his side. Him and Zephyr. Because they were not only the last to enter, but they were literally throwing people inside who were too slow. If not for those two, Jimmy was sure there would be at least a dozen adventurers who failed to make it as well as at least three members of Children of Order. But thank God, because those two were so incredibly useful when it came to operating under stress. They pulled themselves together in a way Jimmy couldn’t imagine anyone else doing—himself included.

Very quickly, Donovan and Zephyr wrangled every last adventurer and then joined the others in the ring, which was now so tight that Jimmy groaned in physical pain as he really was being flattened. He had to imagine that if he was a normal level-1 human he would’ve been crushed to death; instead, he was merely made uncomfortable as terrified adventurers all huddled together close enough so that everyone could fit.

“Make sure nothing’s sticking out!” Jimmy cried. “There can’t be even so much as a toe or you’ll—”

The rest of what Jimmy had to say was drowned out by an explosion so loud he worried it’d permanently damage his hearing. He had no choice but to close his eyes as the entire world was just erased around him, becoming so consumed by fire that flame became the only visible sight. A heat so terrible it singed the hairs on his arms blanketed him. It felt like an uprising from hell! This only caused the adventurers to cling even more tightly together, though in this case it was likely for want of emotional support than necessity.

And then, just like that, it ended. It was gone. And what was left in its wake was…nothing at all. Everything was now gone. Forget rubble and ruins: there was nothing but perfectly level and flat terrain, which consisted of charred dirt. No buildings, no signs, no roads, not even the husks of DEHVs. It was all just one big, flat, smoke-filled field.

And Jimmy loved it.

“Fuck yeah!” he cried. “Finally. Finally! A real boss! We’re fighting a real boss! Be careful, guys. I wouldn’t be surprised if, later on, there’s gonna be like a bunch of smaller rings and we have to pick which ones we fit in. There’ll probably be less time to get inside, too.” He pumped his fist in the air. “Finally! We’re finally fighting a real boss! Oh, shit. Maric, watch out. It’s still aggroed on you. Bro, don’t just stand there. Hello?”

“S-sorry,” Maric replied as he weakly raised his shield and even lost his grip on it as the Mare of the Primordial Void caused a gigantic sword made of pure fire to appear in the air in front of itself, swinging hard enough that Maric’s shield ended up flying backwards and knocking out a healer who’d been hit unaware on the side of her head.

“Ophelia, take over!” Jimmy laughed. “Guys, chill! This is normal, I swear.”

******

Adamus blinked. “I don’t understand,” he said, gripped by such a powerful sense of doubt and disbelief.

He felt out of breath despite not having moved. He felt lost and mystified. Rarely—rarely—was he so wrong. Almost never did he face such all-encompassing confusion. Yet with Prila by his side and the suddenly obnoxious, smug presence of Eilea popping into his mind, Adamus was at a loss to explain to himself or to Prila what the two of them had just witnessed.

Eilea! You have interfered! he shouted at her. You warned them!

Even though she’d cut him off from her mind, he had a feeling she might’ve “opened the door” so-to-speak after what had just happened, if only so that she could gloat. And that was indeed the case, proving that his abilities of prediction weren’t totally malfunctioning.

“I have done no such thing, Adamus,” she replied. “You would have known it if I had.”

Then how? he demanded. How can they have known? How can they have possibly survived this?

“Because of Jimmy,” she said.

And then it finally dawned on Adamus. He finally understood. You…you did not bring him here to gain an unfair advantage with his innate psionic abilities.

“I did not.”

You brought him here to do this. To lead raids.

“Now you understand. I never tried to subvert your system. I only wanted to give them a fair chance.”

Adamus shook his head. Never mind the fact that this in and of itself was still a form of cheating—albeit far less serious—it still made no sense to him. But how can he know? How can he possibly know these things?

“Because for all your so-called ‘historical knowledge,’ you’ve never bothered to focus on anything but the big picture. You may know the date and times of every major event in human history, but you don’t know the small details that only I know, having visited the ancient times. You do not know, for example, what baseball is, or how much it cost to ride the Manhattan subway. But I do.”

And what does this have to do with anything?

“Very simply this: in the times that James Green lived, all the fundamental knowledge that we drew upon when building the system was once accessible to the general public in the form of widely distributed entertainment. Humans in the 21st century used this knowledge for games: toys for their entertainment. And Jimmy was among the top humans in the world at several of these games.”

Adamus was stunned: so much so that he could not even begin to form a reply. Could Eilea be telling the truth? That the earliest origins of the system—a system that Adamus had created from Elvish lore—had once been nothing more than a game played for enjoyment? He had heard such rumors before but had dismissed them. Such a thing would likely have been known by other Great Ones as well, but none had ever raised that point with Adamus, probably viewing such a detail as unimportant.

When setting out to design the system, Adamus had researched everything he could about the origins of the Elvish. The true origins, of course. For among all such secrets he held, there was none more painful or heartbreaking than the fact that the Elvish, like all the races on Galterra, had originated not on a fictional planet called Elvadin as was widely believed, but in a laboratory where gifted humans blessed with supernatural abilities had been experimented on and used as genetic test subjects.

The shameful and hurtful truth that made up the Elvish past was one that Adamus and all the other Great Ones had sought to conceal, and over time, as Galterrans began to rediscover things like science and technology, Adamus had covertly seeded alternative explanations for why things such as crossbreeding were possible, as the mere fact that he himself existed—a half Elf—was proof of, at the very least, shared genetic ancestry. Adamus had therefore concocted multiple explanations, several of which involved epigenetics, but it was a secret that was very difficult to keep concealed as technology advanced.

For this reason, once the World Eater spawned and wiped out the Galterrans, Adamus would need to make certain changes to Archian Prime to ensure that scientific advancement was slower and more contained. Truly, the biggest issues with the system came as a result of industrialization: cities, electricity, industry, and modern comforts. That aside, the truth of Elvish, Gnomish, and even Galterran “human” ancestry was the one bit of knowledge that could never be allowed to come to light, as it mattered both for reasons of dignity and for secrecy involving the creation of the system itself.

Out of a sense of longing to be something more than a science project, Adamus had wanted to make the Elvish a core part of his system. And so he had drawn upon as much lore regarding their kind as he could, but also for his personal understanding, for he wished to understand why it was that the humans had decided to make a previously “fictional race” a real, living, and breathing population.

In so doing, he had discovered an inextricable link between the Elvish and a form of “combat system” tied to another system called the “RPG.” Though the "G" stood for "game," he did not realize the theory behind it meant game in the sense of "fun" and "entertainment," but more so as "contest." Regardless, in nearly half of the fictional contexts that arose and in which the Elvish were mentioned, there was some underlying system: one of rules, power, and danger. And this led to him deviating his research from Elves and instead into these specific concepts. And that had been the proposal he’d brought before the Great Ones when they’d collectively decided to remake the world after bringing about its near-total destruction.

But what Adamus had not realized was that this particular lore had been so commonly known among the ordinary common folk of the past. He had always imagined it to be highly niche or very specific knowledge. Apparently, this was not the case, as he was only discovering here and now while he watched James Green react with instantaneous familiarity to something that should have killed him and all those with him.

Adamus returned his attention to Galterra, and now he studied the situation with an even greater zeal. It seemed that, at some point in the past few moments, an argument had started. Adamus tried to understand what it was they were discussing, but it had become enormously difficult to focus, as it had been a very long time since anyone, let alone someone like Eilea, had thrown him so totally off his game and had left him feeling confused and unaware.

This was not going as he’d expected.

******

“We have to de-aggro it!” insisted Kalana. “Jimmy, stop being stubborn! We’re not ready for this. Umm, if there’s more stuff like that, then you’re gonna get people killed!”

“Just time out for a second, Kal,” Zach said. “Let me try talking to him.” He paused for just a moment. “Jimmy, are you saying that, even if, theoretically, one of us had been like, I don’t know, level a million, we still would have died just now if we didn’t go in that circle? That even if we had a million points into every stat, we still would’ve died?”

“For the fifth time, yes,” Jimmy said, becoming annoyed. “That’s what one-hit insta-kill means, Zach.”

“Okay, well then Kal is right. We need to disengage and have a long talk about raids and bosses and stuff before we attempt to kill this.”

Jimmy searched the crowd for Zach just so he could glare at the kid, but then he quickly averted his gaze in fear as Zach glared right back at him, reminding Jimmy that, for all his prowess in leading raids, if he pissed off Zachys Calador, Zach could beat the soul out of him—or do worse. He was definitely someone Jimmy knew not to cross. Though he considered Zach a friend and even trusted the kid, he couldn’t just pretend that Zach wasn’t also this world’s equivalent of an elite PVP’er with a massive PK count.

“All right, look,” Jimmy said, trying his best to be calm and diplomatic. “We’ve already made great progress, so why put all of that to waste, man? I know what I’m doing. Ya’ll just got to trust me.”

“It’s not that we don’t trust ya, kid,” Donovan replied. “It’s just there’s too much shit we’ve never seen before, and the idea of ‘insta-killing’ an entire damn raid at once is new to us. I’m starting to think Zach and Kalana are right and we should de-aggro and rethink this.”

Ultimately, Jimmy knew that Donovan and Zephyr would have the final say regardless of anything he himself said or did in protest. They were—and would likely always be—the definitive leaders of the adventuring community. That was why it was those two in particular he had to convince.

For the moment, the Mare of the Primordial Void was in a more-or-less “stable” state. It had now picked up three new fire-based attacks, but the buff Lienne had given the raid was protecting the tanks caught in the midst of it, and the boss didn’t seem to be capable of targeting anyone other than whoever currently had aggro—at least with its current ability set, but that could actually change. So, yeah, for the time being, they were in something of a holding pattern. Ice was supposed to be up next, but Jimmy had yet to give the order.

Even if I do give the order, they’re not gonna follow it without Donovan and Zephyr giving the okay.

Jimmy became frustrated. He couldn’t believe they wanted to quit. They were all acting like bitches. He couldn’t let them quit. Not when Jimmy was sure he could deal with this boss—and teach them some important raiding fundamentals in the process.

“I’m gonna be real with you all,” he said over the Comm. “Three quarters of even the hardest raids can be survived just by following rule number 1: don’t stand in the fire. Now, I’ll admit, after FF14 came out, they made that a lot harder to do. In older simulations, all you had to do not to die was literally just not be one-hundred percent retarded, and even that was something a lot of blockheads couldn’t—”

“J-Jimmy!” Kalana, Lienne, Trelvor, Seiley, and about fifty other people hissed at him as though enraged.

“Please, let me finish,” Jimmy said. “Before you start denying what I’m—”

“That’s not what they’re upset about,” Lord Oren said, his tone also containing a fair bit of anger. “It’s that awful word you just used.”

“Wait, even here that’s still offensive?”

This question only made things worse. “So it was offensive back on Earth, too, and you still said it anyway!” Kalana yelled. “That’s not okay, Jimmy! That’s bad!”

“Okay, okay, let’s not go too far,” Zach chimed in. “He obviously made a mistake.”

Jimmy rubbed his eyes, unable to believe he had to deal with this right now. “Guys, look, it was my bad, okay? I’ll never use the R-word again, all right? It’s a gamer—uh, a simulation-word. I screwed up.”

“R-word?” both Zach and Kalana asked at once. “Huh?”

Jimmy’s mouth fell open in surprise and confusion. “Wait, what word is it that you guys are all mad about?”

Kalana pointed at him. “You used the B-word! That’s a racist slur against Orcs!”

“Blockhead?” Jimmy asked, flabbergasted.

This caused almost all hundred of them to groan and shout and protest in equal measure. Even Ophelia, who had just sustained a flaming sword followed by a fiery hoof stomp, grunted more over the word than the pain from the shock of having to absorb both attacks.

“Don’t say it a second time!” Kalana yelled as though it physically hurt her. “Bad!”

“I can’t believe how much Jimmy hates the Orcs,” Rian added, waggling his finger. “From where in his heart does Jimmy have all this hate? Let go of your hatred, Jimmy. We must end hate.”

“Rian, shut up,” Lienne growled at him. “And stop playing dumb. You know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not doing shit, Li. I’m taking a stand against Jimmy’s evil, racist hate. We must all work together to stop Jimmy’s hate.”

She rolled her eyes. “Rian, quit it.”

Jimmy sighed. And then he frowned as it really occurred to him that people were calling him a racist. The fuck kind of backwards world was this?

Chapter 176: Twenty-Five-Fifteen

Chapter 176: Twenty-Five-Fifteen

Its hooves emitting pure flame, the Mare of the Primordial Void charged forward, leaving a trail of fire behind it as it released an angrier neigh than any that’d come before. Immediately, four tanks jumped out of its way—but one was too slow to avoid the boss's charge. The man, who if nothing else at least had his shield raised, thankfully managed to absorb some portion of the attack before he was blasted away.

Zach, acting quickly, hurriedly flung himself to the side as the metal-armor-wearing tank was launched right where he'd been standing. An instant later, the tank crashed down onto the brown dirt, where he began rolling and tumbling along the barren landscape that the market-square had been turned into. He then groaned, alive but clearly injured.

Since acquiring its immunity to fire, the boss had picked up three new fire-based attacks: one was a dashing charge, another was a conjured sword of flame, and the last was the ability to summon rising pillars of flame directly in front of itself, which were short-lived but burned an intense reddish orange, such as the one that it now brought to bear against Ophelia Graven, who backflipped up and over it, then swung her buckler shield to deflect an ordinary stomping attack as the boss charged at her through its own flame.

“We don’t have time to be standing around here arguing,” Jimmy said over the Comm as healers attended to the downed tank. “We can beat this boss. I’m telling ya’ll right now, if we run away, I’m not coming back or helping next time, and you can figure out how to kill this thing by your own damn selves.”

“Jimmy, that’s incredibly immature,” Mr. Oren said. Zach looked behind him where Mr. Oren waited with the other melee DPS. He had a frown on his face. “And I say that as someone who actually agrees with you and does not think a retreat is warranted.”

Zach once more looked over to Jimmy, whose frustration was plainly evident on his face. For the past few minutes, during an active boss fight, the adventurers had been arguing over whether or not to retreat, regroup, and attempt this raid another time. Many wanted to pump the brakes on this battle, and though Zach was keeping it to himself for the moment, he honestly agreed with them: especially after the massive explosion that came after the appearance of that ring.

Anyone not inside the ring would’ve died instantly, Zach thought, disturbed by the existence of such an attack. Even if we had a million points into constitution, we’d still have died instantly according to Jimmy. Even if we would’ve had a billion!

Zach didn’t think they were ready for a raid like this, and just a cursory glance at the surrounding scenery—or lack of any scenery—was enough to reinforce this belief. Prior to the appearance of that “ring of safety” and the explosive attack it preceded, the market square had been badly damaged but at least looked like an area where civilization had once existed. Now, it was just dirt and the smell of ash. There were no lingering pieces of concrete or husks of destroyed buildings: it was all just dirt and empty space. It was as though they had walked into the middle of a wooded area after a forest fire—minus the tree stumps.

Yet as unsettling as that may have been, Zach also understood Jimmy’s side of things as well. Jimmy was desperately trying to prove himself, and he was clearly worried he wouldn’t get another chance to redeem himself if Donovan and Zephyr forced them all to retreat for the moment—which seemed increasingly likely, as even Fiona Darkmae, the leader of the Children of Order, and the individual who had the most to lose, seemed to be wavering about continuing on with this raid.

“If it comes down to it, retreating and building a new highway that wraps around this area is better than losing two-dozen of my guild members,” she said all of a sudden, her words unexpected. “Maybe we really should just back off for now. It sure beats every one of us dying.”

“I agree,” Kalana added. “This thing is like super dangerous, and there’s too much we dunno about it. I don’t wanna risk all of us getting killed.”

“You’re not, because that’s not gonna happen,” Jimmy insisted. Seemingly to Fiona, he asked, “Do you really wanna destroy your whole economy like that? Like you said, if we don’t kill this thing, it’s gonna mess up your whole region, right?”

“It won’t destroy us: it’ll just set us back.”

Zach could visibly see Jimmy tense at the way she was responding, and he didn’t think it was just because Fiona was now open to the idea of retreat, but also because the way in which she spoke of “building a new highway” implied that returning any time in the next few months or years was unlikely…and to be honest, it probably was. Zach could easily foresee this being one of those things where, if they did retreat, the adventurers would promise to come back, and they’d discuss it and make plans and so on and so forth, but…would it ever actually happen? Probably not. At least not for many, many years.

Everyone has to know that if we retreat, we’re probably not coming back any time soon.

This boss was not an existential threat. That was just the fact of the matter. This was something that they hadn’t known at first, but once discovered, the absolute need to kill it had evaporated. Sure, the political guilds would throw a fit about a boss existing in society where ordinary people could see it, and it would invite questions and cause some unrest, but like all things in life, Zach expected it would only be a matter of months—if not days—until it eventually just started to feel normal and ordinary.

“What about all that shit you were saying before?” Jimmy asked, an urgency now in his voice. “That uh…what was it called again? Yeah, ‘aggro terrorism.’”

Zach recalled learning that term in the diner along with Jimmy and the others. It referred to instances where ordinary level-1 people would intentionally aggro a boss during times of emergency in order to wreak havoc on their neighbors and society. He supposed they were sort of like people who intentionally started wildfires only via a different mechanism.

“Unlikely to be a problem with this one, kiddo,” Donovan said. “The boss’s level of aggression is pretty limited. You’ve gotta stick pretty close to avoid de-aggroing, and a level-1 ain’t gonna be able to kite it very far without taking an unintentional hit. Especially since they can’t slow it. I doubt they’d get more than a block’s worth of distance away before it melted ‘em.”

Zach wondered if he should say something, but he decided against it, as he didn’t want be seen taking sides in this matter. Still, while he may have agreed that a retreat was the right move to make, he did feel that Jimmy was absolutely correct about one thing: standing around and talking about it was a big mistake. They needed to either fight it or run from it, but having a debate about what to do while it was attacking the tiring, fatigued tanks was the worst possible way of handling things.

“Look, just let things play out a little longer, okay?” Jimmy asked. Though his words were spoken with an air of confidence, he failed to disguise the note of pleading that seeped into them. “I’m telling all of you right now: we got this. It ain’t as bad as it looks.”

An uneasy grunt from Donovan came over the Comm. “I’m not so sure about that, kiddo, but you might as well keep on leading while Zeph and I think about it.”

The fact that Jimmy sighed with relief and thanked Donovan was evidence that, despite Jimmy calling the shots, Donovan and Zephyr were still truly the ones in charge here, and Zach knew they could put an end to this with just a single, quickly uttered command. But, at any rate, it looked like Jimmy was in the clear to keep things going—at least for the moment—and he didn’t look like he wanted to waste any more time in that regard, either.

Jimmy clapped his hands together. “Group 2S,” he commanded, “hit everybody up with those ice buffs. Let’s get it done quick! And 1S, give us another round of fire. We wasted too much time, and I don’t wanna worry about them expiring later on. Don’t worry, though, 1S: this should be the last time you gotta buff.”

Zach could visibly see Lienne’s face swell with misery as it seemed to dawn on her that she’d have to cast her fire debuff on a significant subset of the raid all over again. As the lowest-level—and the least-experienced—member of her group, she had succumbed to the exertion debt and had passed out during the first round of buffs. Thankfully, Jimmy seemed to recall this as well, and a moment later, the sound of a strange groan came from the Mare of the Primordial Void along with a popping sound, and Zach turned his head to see several damage numbers rising above the boss just as the remnants of a greenish cloud faded away near its face.

Jimmy poisoned it.

A few seconds later, Jimmy moved closer to Lienne and cast Breath of Invigoration on her. “There,” he said to her, “that’ll keep you going, yeah?”

“Thank you,” she said, bowing her head.

“Fuckin’ buff is a miracle,” Donovan grunted over the Comm in a way that suggested he hadn’t even meant to voice the words aloud. “Can’t believe the kid can do that shit.”

Now, with constantly replenishing stamina, Lienne joined the rest of her group and began casting—but not before Zach felt a chill surrounding him, one that was actually welcome amid the punishing heat. Glancing upwards, he then noticed that a single, sparkling, snowflake-shaped object was dancing above his head while raining gold-colored glitter down on top of him, all while making fluttering, buzzing sounds.

Name

Frostward

Effect

Increases user’s resistance to frost and cold by 38%

Duration

14:59

The noises stopped, the glitter vanished, and then, no sooner had it disappeared than Lienne’s buff hit, refreshing the timer on Flameveil II back up to fifteen minutes. Darting his head around, Zach saw that the same was true of the rest of the raid; with an impressive efficiency, the members of 2S buffed and the members of 1S re-buffed the more than one-hundred raiders who had come to fight the boss. And now, with the two support groups just about finished casting, Zach once again turned his attention to Jimmy, who was eagerly and energetically bouncing on the balls of his feet as if anxious to kill the boss before Donovan and Zephyr had the chance to call this raid off.

“Okay, everybody good? If you’re not, you better tell me, ‘cause your life probably depends on it. Last chance. Anybody not buffed? All right, sweet.” Once again, he clapped his hands together. “All right, let’s do this shit! Group 2: you’re up. Cast your ice and cold magic on the—”

“Oh, shit!” a male voice cried over the Comm. Zach did not recognize the speaker, but the sound of it came from nearby in addition to the Comm. Turning his head, Zach saw that the man was a middle-aged adventurer wearing a set of mismatched-looking armor that included a red metal breastplate, yellow cloth trousers, and green sandals.

“What’s wrong?” Jimmy asked, his voice surprisingly cool.

The man pointed to a spot near the boss’s massive front-left hoof. “Is that the thing?” he asked, his index finger trembling. “The uh, the big attack thing it does!”

Numerous heads turned to look where he indicated, and the beginning of a panic started to take hold. Two more voices cried out in alarm over the Comm. Then five. In another few seconds, it would probably be dozens. The adventurers seemed to be on the verge of some kind of raid-wide mental collapse. And Zach could almost sympathize with them, as the whitish streak of light near the raid boss’s hoof kind of looked like the ring from earlier, but only just barely. Still, people were obviously feeling jumpy.

Thankfully, Jimmy was very, very quick to deal with it. “Chill,” he said calmly, almost casually. “That’s not the big attack from before. It’s just the sun doing sun shit.”

“Jimmy is correct,” Mr. Oren added. “What you’re seeing is just directional light caused by a gap between two small clouds.”

“Oh,” the man said, shedding an embarrassed-sounding laugh. “My bad.”

“You scared half of us to death, you moron,” Reni Sarwin growled over the Comm.

“Everyone, chill,” Jimmy said once again. “It’s probably not gonna do that again, for real. I think that was a one-time thing.”

Zach wasn’t sure how Jimmy could know or suspect such a thing, but he didn’t doubt that Jimmy was correct, so it was a relief to hear it. Zephyr and Mr. Oren, on the other hand, seemed much less inclined to take anything on faith alone. Both immediately started questioning him, and upon these questions, some of Jimmy’s coolness slipped away, replaced by obvious frustration.

“Look, I know it’s not obvious to you guys, but it is to me. This boss clearly does a big-ass, fuck-you-up super attack each time it picks up a new immunity, but it probably only does it once.”

“And you’re one-hundred percent certain of this, Jimmy?” Mr. Oren asked him.

“And is this separate from the other new attacks it gains?” inquired Zephyr.

Jimmy exhaled audibly into the Comm. “Nah, I’m not a hundred-percent sure, just like ninety-five, and yeah, it should be separate. It also happened when I made it poison immune too, remember? After I hit it enough times, it changed colors then turned almost all the air in the market into poison.”

“A sample size of two—not a whole lot,” Mr. Oren said.

This only seemed to further frustrate Jimmy. “I hear you, but look: if this thing actually could hit us with that again, then by now, it probably would have. The fact we haven’t seen it by now means it can’t.”

“I’m not sure I buy that.”

“Just trust me, all right? I—no, we—got this. We got this, man, seriously.”

Mr. Oren made a slight grunt, but Zach was unable to tell if it was one of agreement, approval, skepticism, or some strange mix of all three. Still, it looked like he had no further objections to raise, and so Jimmy picked up where he’d left off. Raising his voice slightly, he said, “Group 2! Attack the boss with ice and cold!”

Zach regarded the Mare of the Primordial void. So as not to grant it melee immunity, the tanks were hitting it only as much as necessary to keep it taunted. Three conjured swords made of pure fire lashed out at Ophelia Graven, who was apparently now using something called a “de-taunt” to pass the aggro onto Spider so that she could recover her stamina. At the moment, the boss loomed large. It was fiery, daunting, and would only become more lethal as the fight went on.

HP

11,400,875/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Well, Jimmy says we got this, Zach thought. Here’s to hoping we actually do.

*********

Eilea scowled and clenched her fists. How could one man possess so many insufferable qualities? How was it that, humbled and humiliated, he gave off no trace of anger or shame? For the first time in perhaps several-thousand years, Eilea had outsmarted Adamus, and although she detected a degree of surprise coming from the rotten, withering-old bastard, she did not feel any resentment directed her way. But this was deeply upsetting. She wanted to feel his resentment: his anger. Especially after the way he had shamed her in front of the Elves yesterday. For that and so much more, she wanted him to experience the sting of humiliation.

You were wrong, Adamus, she said to him. You misjudged me, my actions, and the purpose of the boy’s continued existence. I want you to think about how you were wrong. How does it feel, husband? Does it burn? Perhaps senility is beginning to take hold of you. Perhaps you are less than you were!

“Your attempts to goad me into anger are childish and shall gain no foothold upon my composure, my beloved,” his whispered voice spoke into her head. “And yet still: wrong as I may have been, the odds of success are barely above twenty percent, I am fairly certain.”

Rubbish! Zach and Jimmy will kill the boss. Twenty-percent? How insulting and offensive of you to underestimate them.

“Underestimate? If anything, I am still perhaps overestimating their odds.”

Eilea’s scowl deepened. She clenched her teeth now, too, in addition to her fists. And just as she was about to slam her coffee cup down on Kalana’s beautiful glass table—an action she would of course regret—Jascaila put a hand on hers and shook her head. “You’re talking to him again, aren’t you?”

Eilea swallowed nervously. “No.”

“Eilea?”

She hissed in vexation. “Fine, yes! But you don’t understand. He’s—”

“We talked about this. You need to—”

“—no, no, you don’t understand! Adamus is arrogant, and selfish, and—”

“Eilea!”

Eilea closed her mouth. Jascaila squeezed her hand. “No more contact,” the human woman said. “Thousands of years of pain will lead to thousands more unless you start the healing process, and that can only begin by breaking off contact and working on yourself. Forget him. You yourself said he is no threat to you as long as you keep your end of the deal. That means you have no reason to ever communicate with him again. Break off contact. Do it.”

“Very well,” Eilea muttered, closing off her mind. She seethed as she realized that Adamus wasn’t even trying to keep the communication open. He actually seemed pleased that she was yanking her mind away from his. Once again, she growled angrily. “This is what I mean! He just let me dismiss him!”

“Good.”

The two were seated in the large living room not far from the kitchen. That adorable little dinosaur—Ruby was her name?—was napping on the couch near them, and the prince boy, Peter, was in a bedroom doing schoolwork. Outside the large home, dozens of Elvish guards stood by. Eilea felt badly that the queen insisted upon it, as their population was small and there were certainly better things for them to do. But, if nothing else, at least those here with her had not been sent off to war, where they might possibly die.

“I’ve cut communication with him. For good this time.”

“You say that now…”

This was Eilea’s second “session” with Jascaila. Honestly, she couldn’t believe she’d actually agreed to something like this. She was, after all, an Elvish Goddess, and Jascaila was a mere human. Whereas she had lived for thousands of years, the tall, broad-shouldered woman had existed for five or six decades. What good were her words? What could possibly be learned from one who, comparatively speaking, was but a newborn babe when put against an ancient being such as herself? At least with Francis Calador, her ally and sort-of paramour, she dealt with a human who'd been around for longer than a thousand years, and so his advice at least had some experience behind it. But Jascaila Iseldar? What could she possibly know?

And yet, despite her age, Eilea listened. Eilea opened her mind as best she could, and she slowly set her coffee down on a napkin on the table. Then, with a calm breath, she attempted to reason with the woman. “If you would just let me explain something to you,” she whispered.

“Explain what to me?” Jascaila asked her. “How much you hate him? All the things that are wrong with him? How he’s an abusive, manipulative piece of shit that has destroyed your happiness for a time so long I can’t even comprehend it?”

“Well…well, yes,” Eilea said, shocked. Was the woman reading her mind like Adamus?

Jascaila sighed. “Look. These are topics we’ll get into. Trust me when I say that. They’re extremely important. But right now, you need to start by redefining your life without him in it. Don’t you get it? Your entire existence up until this point has just been Adamus. Adamus, Adamus, Adamus. It’s to the point where, honestly?” She chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve heard you go more than ten minutes without mentioning him.”

Eilea felt stunned. “That’s true, but…but I need him to know.”

Jascaila took a sip of her coffee. “Need him to know?”

She nodded. “Why do you think I am here? Why do you think I’ve taken such an interest in Zach? It’s all to show him that he’s wrong. To create a world far better than his own—and to know he had no hand in creating it. That he was wrong.”

Jascaila made a warm smile despite the heat that came across in the words she spoke. “So you’re telling me that you, a being with such vast, unimaginable power—your only purpose in life is to prove your estranged husband wrong?”

“Well…no. I wish to create a world of kindness, love, and—”

“Eilea…”

“Fine! Yes! I want to prove that foolish, evil, coldhearted, self-righteous, self-aggrandizing freak wrong! I want to see his mind crumble beneath the weight of this realization. Even if it takes me a million years! That’s what I want.”

“Then he’ll always have power over you.” Jascaila met her eyes, and Eilea was taken aback by the certainty in them. She pointed towards her chest. “You need to let him go. Before we can work on anything else—before we can talk about anything else, we must start with teaching you to let him go and to find yourself again. Until you know who you are without him, you’ll never be anything more than his aggrieved shadow.”

Eilea fidgeted, becoming uncomfortable. She’d ordered the Elvish guards out of the room because she’d known that Jascaila would speak to her in a way that could potentially create tension and unwanted trouble. Even still, she hadn’t expected to feel quite this…perturbed. “What are you trying to say?” she whispered, becoming a bit angered. “That I am obsessed with him?”

“Yes.”

“I am not!”

“You are.”

“No! No, I am not! You think I want him back?”

“Of course not.”

“But you just said I’m—”

“You’re obsessed, not in love. You hate him. I believe that’s genuine. But obsession doesn’t require you to want him back or to crave his company. It’s any mentally destructive pattern of thought, revenge included.”

“And how can you possibly know all of these things? You are a child compared to me.”

Jascaila shrugged then took another sip of her coffee. “I went to a good college, I guess.”

At this, Eilea laughed. “Well, perhaps I should read some of the books you’ve read. Actually, I’ve not read anything in a good long while. I hope to start again soon. Francis said he’ll…ah, sorry.”

“Hm?”

“I shouldn’t talk about him.”

“About who?”

She shook her head. Then she felt heat racing into her cheeks. “He’s this…man. Funnily enough, he’s actually related to the boy, though far removed due to the passing of time. Ah, but I’m rambling now.”

Jascaila laughed. “Speaking of Zach, how’s he doing?”

“Let me check…”

Glad for the change of conversation, she peered deeper into the world of Galterra, finding him quickly. But it was not upon him she wished her gaze to linger. She settled it upon the boy whose life she’d saved: James Green. He was feeling very, very confident. This in turn made her feel confident. “Would you like to see?”

Jascaila sat up straighter and lifted her pinky off her cup. “You can show me?”

“Yes. Open your mind. You’ll see what I see.”

“Okay. Like this?”

“Yes.”

“Whoah! You aren’t kidding. Hey, is that Zach’s friend? Jimmy?”

********

Group 2 kicked into action. Jimmy nodded as seven staves, two spell swords, a mace, and a hammer began waving around, lifting up, or otherwise pointing ahead. Some of the men and women chanted words, and others were silent. But all of them were beginning their attack. Patiently, he waited for the onslaught to begin, and when it did, it did not disappoint.

Things began with a literal bang. A gigantic block of ice, appearing out of thin air, slammed down on top of the boss, shattering over its head and body and dealing 9,124 damage. The amount was much higher than Jimmy had expected, and it filled him with a great deal of optimism. Because now, for the first time, it confirmed to him something he’d suspected—or nah, actually more like hoped—would be the case: that when picking up an elemental immunity, the boss would become weaker to its opposite. Given that the mages in the ice group weren’t meaningfully more powerful than those in Group 1—at least in terms of their intelligence stat—he hadn’t been expecting such a disparity. Yet, just in the event such a weakness existed, he’d carefully chosen spell order to accommodate it whenever possible.

And God, it was paying off.

Even the nervous adventurers began perking up a bit as the damage started rolling in. Now, after a totally unnecessary delay that’d been spent arguing and bullshitting, the raid was back on track and things were moving much faster than he’d hoped for—which in this case was a really good thing. The adventurers, as well as the participating members of Children of Order, seemed to all let out one big cheer as the cataclysmic barrage of ice and frost assailed the boss from every direction and every angle.

Star-shaped, human-sized blotches of ice would appear on the mare’s flaming, yellow-orange skin like a patch or bandage only to make a loud crack as they shattered, which caused smaller cubes of ice to go flying off in all directions while the boss flinched. At the same time, high-pitched whistling noises permeated the air as comet-like streaks made of pure ice rained down on the boss from the sky. There were also miniature tornadoes made of swirling, spiraling ice, and bolts of ice that fired directly across the air at the boss in a way analogous to common fire attacks. There were a bunch of other abilities as well that blended together, including flashing bomb-like devices that erupted into frost, and there were also sharp spikes made of ice that periodically rose up from the ground and pierced the boss’s stomach before disappearing. The mare was getting absolutely thrashed!

4,751

8,655

5,000

5,001

8,901

4,326

9,007

Like before, the damage numbers appeared so fast that most would remain in existence for less than half a second before floating up and disappearing to make room for more. This was good shit. This was really good shit. Jimmy let out a cheer as the Mare of the Primordial Void’s HP began to plummet even faster than it had before as the mages of Group 2 relentlessly hammered the boss.

HP

10,662,146/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“Wow, it’s really starting to drop,” Zephyr said over the Comm, sounding impressed. “And we only just started hitting it.”

“Hell yeah,” Rian added. “Look at its HP go down!”

HP

10,111,917/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Jimmy grinned then turned his head to look behind him at the mages. He was glad to see they were holding up well. Although his poisons on the boss had faded, his Breath of Invigoration bar was filled, and he was keeping the buff in reserve in the event any of his mages needed it to continue casting. Quickly surveying the group, he checked to see if any looked like they were struggling. So far, they seemed to be doing just fine—all but one. There was a woman standing somewhat by herself in the middle of the pack that did not appear to be casting anything. Actually, Jimmy didn’t think she’d casted a single spell yet. As in, not even one.

She okay?

The woman was the only person in Group 2 who wasn’t an adventurer. No, she was a political guild member from Children of Order, and she dressed like it, too. Rather than wearing any flashy adventurer gear, she wore standard, neat, and unremarkable guild fare. From what Jimmy understood, guild gear was mostly crafted, tended to be fairly low level, and while it looked sleek and professional, it typically had poor stats and armor when compared to the stuff adventurers earned.

Studying the woman’s appearance, Jimmy realized she was sweating profusely, and her arms were shaking as though it was requiring more than she had just to keep her staff raised. Her legs were also trembling. She looked like she was on the verge of collapse. Did this mean the adventurers were right? Many had warned him not to give any important roles to political guild members. They said those dudes were basically trash at anything involving adventuring. And with so many in the raid focusing their attention on Jimmy, several turned their heads to see who he was looking at, and when they did, they began to chuckle over the Comm.

“Is that girl passing out before she cast a single spell?” an adventurer asked, cackling.

“I think so. Holy shit. She didn’t even cast one thing yet, and she’s already about to collapse. Fucking political guild pricks. Haha.”

Jimmy ignored their jeers and spoke to the woman directly. “You all right?” he asked her. “Everything good?”

“She’s fine,” Fiona answered in the woman’s place, her voice coming through clearly over the Comm. “Nimona knows what she’s doing.”

“But she hasn’t done anything yet.”

“She will,” Fiona replied, sounding confident and cheerful.

Jimmy used his own staff to scratch his head as he continued to watch the sweating, panting, arm-shaking woman keep her staff lifted above her face, her hands gripping it by its base. Then, finally, she exhaled and fell to her knees in the same moment that a massive flash of light came from the top of her cane-shaped staff. A loud pop accompanied the flash, startling Jimmy and making him jump.

“Whoah!” he cried out.

Bewildered, he watched as a rock-shaped chunk of ice flew straight upwards rather than towards the boss—one that was barely larger than a baseball. As the relatively small rock rose up towards the clouds, the woman fell forward onto her palms, and now sweat poured off her face as she panted even more heavily as though on the verge of passing out due to being OOM. Or rather…not OOM. E-debt. There was no mana in Galterra!

“Are you sure she’s all right?” Jimmy asked again.

This time, the woman, Nimona, answered for herself. “I’m…I’m okay,” she said.

She was young, perhaps in her late twenties, and she had short, black, pixie-cut hair, and she had somewhat darker-colored skin, but she wasn’t black. Actually, she looked Native American; of course, that was a term that didn’t mean shit to anybody but Jimmy, so if there was a better way of describing her that would make sense to the residents of Galterra, he didn’t know it. Not that it mattered either way. Jimmy was more concerned that she was actually okay, as she seemed to be getting weaker rather than stronger. She looked like she was going to collapse onto her face. And rather than offer to help her, the adventurers were instead staring upwards as her rocky projectile continued to rise until disappearing into a cloud.

And then came the laughter.

“The fuck is that?” one of them asked with a guffaw.

“I don’t know,” answered another, “but I think she missed. Great aim, miss!”

Naturally, Rian couldn’t help but get in on it. “Guys, stop being mean,” he said. “There’s nothing funny about the fact that a political guild member can only shoot one palm-sized ice rock without passing out. And it’s definitely not funny that she somehow missed the gigantic boss that’s directly ahead of her and basically blocking out everything behind it.”

Kalana growled over the Comm. “Stop it, Rian.”

“Huh? Stop what?”

“You know what! You’re being mean while pretending not to be mean.”

“Who, me? How so?”

“Stop playing dumb! You’re being super-duper mean to her. Stop it!”

Rian looked like he wanted to respond with another quip, but now Seiley and Trelvor were glaring at him, and even he seemed to have enough sense to realize he shouldn’t piss off Kalana’s Elvish subjects. Jimmy shuddered just at the thought of getting on their bad side. The Elves were brokenly OP. Just totally unbalanced. But that was a whole separate matter.

“We can rotate, uh…what’s her name again?”

“My name is…Nimona,” she answered for herself.

“We can rotate you out,” Jimmy said, speaking directly to her now in order to avoid shoveling any further disrespect her way. “I think we have a spare ice mage we can—”

“I do not need to be rotated out!” she shouted, strain and exhaustion entering her expression as she awkwardly stumbled back up to her feet. She raised her hand and pointed her staff upwards at the sky. “Look!”

Once again, the adventurers turned their gaze skyward. And now, eyes widened and mouths fell as a massive boom filled the world, one which caused every nearby cloud to be “pushed” away in opposite directions as a visible ripple of energy blasted across the sky. Following this ripple, Jimmy himself gasped as he noticed there was now something floating up there in the clouds—something huge. Something ghostlike. It was a transparent, ghostly outline of a bearded man pointing a golden, ruby-tipped scepter down at the ground. And it was so large that it filled the entire sky.

Did…did this bitch just use a Final Fantasy summon? Jimmy thought to himself in disbelief.

“What the hell is that?” Alixa cried.

“It must be a unique ability,” Lord Alex Oren of the Lords of Justice said. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Fiona made a prideful, giddy laugh. “That’s what you get for doubting my Nimona. Now, all of you doubters just watch what my girl’s magic can do!”

“Thank you, Dutchess Darkmae,” Nimona said, bowing.

Jimmy looked on in amazement as one, then two, then literally dozens of spears made of ice were fired out of the ghostlike apparition’s scepter, and these were solid, tree-trunk-sized, and they moved at great speed, each one descending from the sky and tearing into the Mare of the Primordial Void with so much force it actually pushed the boss away from the tanks and nearly knocked it down.

46,500

22,100

39,500

Each spear pierced completely through the boss and sent streams of dark-red blood splashing far and wide. Even Jimmy felt some of the warm red liquid rain down upon him as the ghostly giant up in the sky sent one icy spear after the next. And although they melted very quickly after impact, they were coming in so quickly that, for at least the moment, the mare’s entire body had spears jutting out of its flesh all over—with more striking it still.

We turned it from a horse into a porcupine!

The ice spears came in faster and faster, and now, combined with all the other magic, the boss’s HP was dropping so fast that Jimmy began to wonder if they might be able to finish the raid without even needing to make use of every single group. The damage being put out right now was staggering. And since the boss’s immunity was based on the number of hits as opposed to the damage of each one, it was clear they were now going to put a massive, major dent in it.

HP

9,582,004/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

HP

8,997,221/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

HP

8,086,492/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

HP

7,755,723/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

The sound of cheering and shouted apologies flooded the Comm and drowned out everything else. Half the adventurers expressed their joy and excitement and the other half, like, really wanted to let Nimona they fucked up and misjudged her—and then they too wanted to celebrate. At first, Jimmy was glad to see it, as he knew high morale was always a great thing to have on a raid. Getting tilted and messing up was much more dangerous than a little Comm disruption. But this was going on for a bit too long, and he started to worry as any attempt to get their attention was drowned out.

“Nimona, I’ll eat my shoe for doubting you!” an adventurer shouted. “That thing is amazing!”

“I can’t believe a political guild member can do that!”

“I know, right? Hey, Nimona, you’re in the wrong profession! You should be with us!”

More and more voices joined in, but it didn’t sit right with Jimmy. It was just way too soon for this level of celebration. This was something they should be saving for after the Mare of the Primordial Void was dead. “Everyone, chill,” Jimmy said over the Comm as even more cheering and mea culpas directed at Nimona rang out. “Let’s bring it down a bit, all right?” He waited, but no one piped down; the level of background chatter and noise remained high. Jimmy sighed. “None of ya’ll can even hear me, can you?”

Jimmy tried again, this time calling for their attention a bit more loudly. But still, it was just impossible for him to get through to everyone while they were hooting and hollering. These people were getting way too excited. And like, Jimmy didn’t blame them and whatever, because it really was cool to see this big horse get blasted by the God-like spirit throwing ice spears at it from the sky. But on the other hand, any moment now, the boss was going to…

Shit, there it goes!

A sense of urgency hit Jimmy like a speeding bus. He stood up straighter. He gripped his staff more tightly. It happened immediately and without any kind of preamble. Between eye-blinks, the boss went from sustaining a volley of highly damaging magical attacks to near-instantaneously reducing all incoming damage to 0. Jimmy opened his mouth to shout at the adventurers to quiet down. Yet to their credit, he didn’t need to. As boisterous and out of control as they seemed capable of becoming, the adventurers were also seasoned enough to be aware of their surroundings, and so in the exact instant that this transition occurred, the sound of laughing, cheering, and words of praise for Nimona were wiped out of existence, and what remained was a haunting moment of quiet over the Comm as the mages abruptly stopped casting even as Nimona’s sky-summoned apparition continued to launch one ice spear after the next.

0

0

0

0

0

0

HP

6,994,941/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Group 2 did real good, Jimmy thought, readying himself. Let’s hope Donovan and Zephyr don’t bitch out now. We’re already about halfway there.

Although no one was speaking for the moment, Jimmy did not require their words to understand their sentiment. They were scared. Their optimism and morale were wiped out along with all their cheering. It was as though they had momentarily forgotten what would—or might—happen after each elemental shift, and the reality of their situation was once again dawning upon them. Now, the sense of fear grew so strong and so abruptly that Jimmy could swear it’d become palpable and that he too could feel it.

“Jimmy,” Lord Oren said.

“Yeah?”

“How certain are you in your theory from earlier? That each shift will beget a one-time, very powerful attack.”

Jimmy took a deep breath and then puckered his lips as he blew it out in a whoosh. “Man, I’m like pretty close to a hundred.”

The last thing Jimmy wanted to do was rattle the rest of the raid, but he didn’t want to lie to them, either. That would be even worse. So, yeah, he had to be straight about this, and the result was that people were beginning to shift nervously. Even Zach was glancing around as though he wanted to be anywhere else right now.

Jimmy paused for a moment to think of what he could say: what words of encouragement he could share that would hopefully lift everybody’s spirits. But before he could come up with anything, Donovan spoke first. “Fucker’s changing,” he grunted over the Comm. “There it goes.”

The level of tension increased tenfold as the Mare of the Primordial Void began to change once again. Just as it had done for fire, the color of the skin all around its body washed away like it was merely a coat of paint. The burning, bright yellow-orange gave way to a new layer of a more subdued blue beneath, and the flames that were shooting all along its face and torso cooled, turned into smoke, and then were replaced with a frosty mist. Interestingly, its hooves did still continue to emit flame, which all on its own was enough for Jimmy to be positive that it would not shed previously gained immunities throughout the battle.

As far as its physical dimensions were concerned, however, it at least did not appear—visually, anyway—to grow any larger or stronger as it had when it’d gained immunity to fire and lava. It did, however, open its mouth slightly and begin to pant out breaths of pure frost. Gusts of icy wind collapsed around the raid, and the punishingly hot summer temperature plummeted so fast that, before twenty seconds had come and gone, Jimmy shivered slightly and wished he was wearing a winter coat. It happened so fast, too. The environment around them became genuinely wintry.

“Get ready!” he warned over the Comm. “It’s gonna do something!”

Scowls of alarm and trepidation popped onto the faces of the adventurers and the Children of Order alike. Fiona Darkmae spun her staff around so that she held it out in front of herself defensively. Meanwhile, Zach and Kalana moved towards one another and held hands. As for the rest of the adventurers, their eyes seemed glued to the barren landscape as though wanting to be able to react immediately if they spotted a “ring of safety” in the dirt. But Jimmy didn’t think they’d be hit with that again. It was possible, sure, but unlikely. No, something else was going to come their way.

And it did.

If one were to draw a circle around their formation, the boss’s next attack began in the very center of them—right around where Jimmy was standing, in fact. In the air all around him were these strange, flat, paper-shaped objects that bended and folded and dispersed, breaking apart and spreading out incredibly fast while the environment itself began to gradually darken as a massive storm cloud appeared overhead and completely blocked out the sun.

“What is this?” Alixa asked, clearly frightened.

Fuck.

Jimmy chewed his lower lip a second, hoping to see something, anything that would lead him to believe this wasn’t what it looked like. Yet, the more he saw, the clearer things became. Right now, the paper-like objects had broken apart and dispersed so thoroughly that they had become indistinguishable from little floating snowflakes. But more importantly was that the temperature was dropping—and continued to drop very, very fast.

“All right, everyone, just brace yourself, okay? We’re gonna have to take a little hit here.”

“We fucking what?” Zach shouted.

Jimmy kept his cool. “This is why we had everyone buffed, remember? And not just the tanks? We’re about to get hit by a raid-wide ice attack.”

The shouts of disbelief and outrage started right away. “The hell do you mean?” one of the adventurers demanded.

“Who’s getting hit? Which one of us?”

“Uh, all of us,” Jimmy confirmed.

“You mean we’re all going to die? We’re screwed?”

“No, no, no, it ain’t like that. This isn’t like the other thing.”

“I don’t understand!”

This only caused even more outrage. It now required Donovan barking at everyone to get them to shut up. “Jimmy, how do we avoid it?” Lord Oren managed to ask despite the rapidly rising level of terror and noise coming through over the Comm.

“We don’t avoid it,” Jimmy replied. “We’re supposed to get hit. But I thought ahead, and that’s why we’re all buffed. I mean…real talk? I’ll just be straight-up and admit that I didn’t think we’d get cheesed this hard. Don’t get me wrong, I knew it could happen, but it’s still lame. Sometimes, raids do this shit to you where everyone takes damage with an unavoidable attack. It just happens. It’s something you gotta learn to accept.”

Based on the raid’s reaction to his words, Jimmy supposed it was something they’d have to learn to accept another day, because they certainly weren’t ready to accept it on this one. The panic and misery spread so quickly it felt like a weight around Jimmy’s neck. He couldn’t let the raid collapse over this. This was part of raiding. It didn’t matter how they felt about it. This was just how raids went sometimes.

“When’s it gonna happen?” Kalana asked. Jimmy looked over towards the Elvish girl. She was terrified just like everyone else, but he could see in her eyes that her fear was not for her own sake but for Zach and everybody else here with them. “When are we gonna—”

She paused. No…no! No! Not paused. She froze. Literally. Jimmy watched as her entire body, in a mere instant, became encased in a solid, all-consuming block of ice. This caused Zach’s eyes to bulge with absolute horror. He opened his mouth to shout her name. But before he could pronounce the first letter, he too became encased in a solid block of ice, one that was form-fitting and in the exact shape of his body.

He looks like Han Solo in carbonite, Jimmy thought to himself. And it almost made him laugh. In fact, it would have made him laugh if he himself hadn’t suddenly felt the world abruptly become distant and separate from everyone and everything else. Without any kind of gradual transition, his sense of reality shifted and changed. And it began with the cold.

So…so cold!

Jimmy was gripped by an unfathomable, burning feeling of freezing. And now, he became aware that he could no longer move. He couldn’t even see properly, either. And he was cold. The coldest he’d ever been. But worst of all, he couldn’t even close his eyes or blink. That was the part that bothered him the most. The world took on a strange, mirror-like quality, whereby he could now mostly see his own form reflected back at him, but he could not lift so much as a finger or even twitch his nose or lips.

With this, the fear finally got the better of Jimmy, but he couldn’t scream or make any sound at all. He couldn’t even croak. For the moment, all he could do was exist in both a literal and metaphorical frozen state. His vision was limited to whatever way his head had been turned only moments ago, and all he could hear was the sound of a hissing, icy breeze and what he took to be small cracks of ice. Yet through the reflective quality of the ice just in front of his eyes, he could see that everyone within his limited range of vision—and almost certainly the entire raid as well—were all in the very same state.

I can’t move, he thought, panicked. I can’t move! I can’t move!

He wanted out. He wanted this to end. This was torture. This had to be what hell was. An eternity of this. An eternity of being frozen, unable to move, unable to blink, and unable to even shout out the horror within himself. And it was only now that he realized he also couldn’t even breathe. This sent his terror into overload. Now, he began to wonder: how long would they stay like this? He became desperate. Desperate to get out. He struggled but to no avail. He wanted out!

He got his wish.

The ice encasing him did not melt. It did not crack. It did not even chip away. It exploded. With a loud, painful crack that left his eardrums ringing, his icy tomb detonated around him—and not just him. Everyone. The entire raid erupted with a singular, synchronized, explosive crack that saw tens of thousands of individual shards of ice blast in so many different directions it momentarily simulated the visibility of a blizzard. And God, it hurt. The pain was unbelievable. Every part of his body, but in particular, his skin, ached so fiercely it rivaled the agony he’d felt last night when he’d sustained a near-fatal injury. All around him, Jimmy saw his own blood dripping down his arms as pieces of his skin on his body, hands, legs, and face were ripped off of him. He screamed. And the sound of his own scream confused him.

Since when do I sound like that?

It only then occurred to him that, just as the ice all broke at the same time, the adventurers all screamed at the same time, too. Some more than others. What he was hearing was therefore not just his own anguished voice, but almost a hundred others beside his—and all at the same time, too. It was a symphony of pain, and it made everything so much worse. But soon, the screams gave way to words.

“Help!” cried a voice he didn’t recognize.

“Oh God, she’s not breathing!” yelled another.

“Maric!” Donovan roared. “Snap the fuck out of it and pull aggro, you son of a bitch!”

“Zach!” Kalana screamed. “Zach, are you okay? Where’d you go? You were right here!”

“I’m right here, Kal! I’m fine! Hurry. Get the stones out. Get the fucking stones out! Everybody who’s not bleeding out, get your Mushkie red stones out. Hurry!”

“How many dead?” Zephyr asked, his voice shaky but still solid.

“I don’t know yet!” Donovan replied. “I think a couple, but shit, I dunno for sure.”

A couple?

Jimmy thought he’d faint. There couldn’t be dead members. No! Not on his raid. Impossible! Yet there was blood everywhere…but most of the adventurers were on their feet, right? Yes. He counted them with his blurry but recovering eyes. One, two…thirty. They were on their feet. But not all of them, though. He now saw there were some who were kneeling, sitting, or lying down and groaning. But there were others who…who weren’t moving at all.

Jimmy felt the embrace of hopelessness, just as he had last night. He tried to fight it off, but it was wrapping around him tightly.

Had he done something wrong?

*****

“It’s what?” Prila asked, shaking her head. “But how? That doesn’t make any sense, Adamus.”

“You have invested too much emotion into these adventurers, my child,” Adamus whispered. “Are you sure you would not prefer to return to your colleagues?”

He felt her cling to his arm, and though he truly did wish to comfort her, he knew what she really needed was to witness and accept whatever outcome emerged from this raid so as to reacquaint herself with the reality of the system. “Just tell me,” Prila said to him. “How can you say what you just said?”

“I said several things. Of which do you refer?”

He felt her trembling, though only slightly. “You said that their odds are now down to just five percent even though it was only a few minutes ago that you told me they were at twenty. So how can they be down to five if they were just at twenty?”

“They were a fair bit higher than that, actually.”

“Huh?”

“Things change with new information,” Adamus replied. “Just before the Mare of the Primordial Void used its Frozen Tomb attack, I would have given them as high as fifty percent. This was due to James Green’s leadership resulting in a far more effective second round of magic than any I had anticipated.”

“You didn’t mention that to me.”

“I didn’t wish to give you hope only to have it dashed. As I said, my child, things have changed.” Adamus sighed. “The boy’s morale is crushed. I can feel it. His confidence is shattered, and the raid’s confidence is shattered as well. On the flipside, however, you need not despair just yet, as that five percent now only represents their odds of victory over the boss and not their chance of survival.”

Prila blinked as if in surprise. “Really? But I thought you said those two were the same?”

“They were, at first. But things have most certainly diverged due to the adventurer’s having a greater appreciation for the risk they are taking. Because of this, I now estimate that there is approximately an eighty-percent chance that they flee the encounter entirely with no casualties.”

“No…casualties?” she asked, repeating his words. He felt her grip on his arm tighten. “Wait, are you saying no one is dead yet?”

“That is correct,” Adamus whispered. “Several are critically wounded, and a few are on death’s doorstep, but the boy’s idea of buffing the entire raid was, to put it simply, ingenious. However,” he continued, patting the back of her wrist, “though he succeeded in correctly interpreting the nature and manner of the boss’s next attack, the boy severely underestimated the power that would be brought against him and his raid. For this reason, he was caught off guard even despite deducing in advance the danger they were soon to face. And because of this, it is my belief that he will fold under this pressure. In such a way, he is similar to my beloved, who has brought him here. The two seem to share that quality. They fold when faced with too great a challenge.”

“I hate how you call her that,” Prila said darkly. “Your ‘beloved.’” She spoke the word as though it caused poison to coat her tongue.

“Apologies. It is but a habit.”

“I know,” Prila replied softly. “Um, is there a way we can get a better view? The OMP’s sensors are still barely functional from the nuclear strike on Ogre’s Axe, and the images you’re sending in my mind are getting kind of cloudy.”

“Ah, allow me to dispense with this fog.”

Adamus closed his eyes and concentrated on creating an even clearer picture of the raid. In truth, he had grown to a point where visualizing situations no longer did much for his own personal comprehension of events. Really, it had been many, many thousands of years since he last relied on visual data as a form of information. As he became wiser and more powerful, he learned to value thoughts and emotions to paint a much clearer, more honest picture. But for just about everyone else in the world, seeing was understanding. Thus, he increased his level of concentration and brought the two of them closer and closer so that Prila could now see even the hairs on some of their arms.

The scene was hectic and chaotic. Healers were quickly sorting people into two groups: those who could be healed using magic, and those who required the stones. Healing magic either worked or it did not work. When a wound or injury reached a certain threshold, it required a higher-tier of healing spell—but even that only went so far, as the most serious injuries required a stone and were unaffected by heals of any tier—or at least those that were available to Galterrans on their currently accessible worlds. Perhaps there existed a few edge cases here or there in the form of unique abilities, but aside from that, there was a point at which healing magic could no longer improve one’s condition. But where exactly this “threshold” happened to be varied from person to person. Some could practically be torn in half and stitched together with a little green mist. Others required a red stone for a broken thumb.

“Zach! Drag them away!” Zephyr shouted at the boy. Right now, the T9 world boss was sending out regular area-of-effect pulses of frost in a three-sixty-degree arc around itself at a limited but not insignificant distance. This, it seemed, was providing the tanks with a great deal of trouble. They now required near-constant healing just to stay on the boss and maintain aggro, which was a problem at the moment, as there were many others in dire need of a healer’s time.

With a dispassionate interest, Adamus watched as the black-haired Calador boy scooped four people up at once, two on each shoulder, and then ran their unconscious forms away from the rampaging boss, who had approached closely enough that they would have been killed if they had remained where they were. At the same time, a heavyset boy was screaming at the top of his lungs; it appeared he was begging for aid for his sister.

“Somebody, please!” he howled. “Lienne’s not breathing!”

An Elvish fellow’s ears twitched upon hearing this, and he bolted over so fast that his feet destroyed several sections of the ground as he ran over to her. “Here!” the young Elvish man said, slamming a red and then a purple stone down onto the girl, whose face was so badly shredded she was practically unidentifiable. Her nose was half missing, her forehead was stained with blood, her eyes were bloody.

“We’ve gotta get out of here!” the young Elvish princess shouted. “We need to get everybody to safety!”

“No!” shouted a voice—and it surprised Adamus. “We’ve still got this! We took a bad hit, yeah, but now we fucking hit back! We’re so close to victory!”

Adamus felt another shift within the boy. It was like a cloud of fear was slowly parting. Could it be that James Green did not suffer a total collapse of his morale after all? Perhaps it had been more like a momentary shock? Hmm…

“Fifteen percent,” he whispered. “I raise my odds back up to fifteen percent.”

Chapter 177: Doomed

Chapter 177: Doomed

Moaning, groaning, cries of anguish, and every other sound of pain imaginable came from all directions around Jimmy as the raiders tried to pick themselves up in the aftermath of the Mare of the Primordial Void’s crushingly harsh ice attack. With his arm extended, Jimmy cast his heal on a moderately wounded adventurer wielding a scythe. Jimmy watched as the gashes all over his back sealed over with fresh, new skin. He’d be fine—but it was still too soon to say the same of everyone, and that was just the truth of the matter. It was impossible to sugarcoat things: the raid was in bad shape. Right now, the sounds of hurt and discomfort came from not just those who were still struggling to return to their feet, but also from those who were only first returning to consciousness as well.

“Oh, Gods, what just hit me?” moaned a confused-sounding adventurer in a starry robe who Jimmy did not recognize. He, like numerous others, was lying on the barren ground drenched in a combination of blood and cold water from the melted shards of the icy prisons that had exploded after briefly capturing all of them. The man, a spellcaster from Group 3S, was shivering. He clutched himself as a howling, icy breeze rolled over the raid. “What’s going on? Where am I? Isn’t it supposed to be summer? Why’s it so cold?”

“Relax,” one of the healers whispered soothingly to the man. “You’re fine.”

This is bad, Jimmy thought, nervously checking every face in his vicinity to ensure that signs of life remained in each of them. I hope nobody died. Please, Jesus, please don’t let anybody be dead.

The raid had taken a devastating hit, and this was true even though only about half the raid had taken any real damage. From what Jimmy could tell, the other half made out with only minor injuries or, in the case of the tanks, no injuries at all. But there were a number of people like Zach, Kalana, Donovan, and several others who had suffered, at worst, a few scratches here or there and would likely heal from passive HP regeneration within another minute or two. But that was all just in the physical sense of the word “damage.” Mentally—psychologically—every single one of them had suffered a hit. The sheer level of shock and surprise evident in many of their expressions was proof enough of that alone. It was like they couldn’t believe what’d just happened.

Did anyone die? he wondered, swiveling his head around. Is everyone still alive?

“You’re gonna be okay, Li,” Rian said with a pain in his voice that drew Jimmy’s attention. He was off to Jimmy’s left and on his hands and knees next to his sister. There was a tenderness to him that seemed out of place compared to his usual, shit-stirring self. Placing his hand on his sister’s shoulder, he gave her a nervous shake. “Right? Tell me you’re okay. Please, Li.”

She made several low groans. “Hurts. Hurts a lot.”

“I know it does, but tell me you’re okay. Please!”

“I’m…okay.”

Her steeple hat had fallen off her face, but at least her eyes were once again fully locked into place in her skull instead of bulging out as they’d been only a few minutes prior. Jimmy steeled himself as he took in her condition. He knew that her pain was on him. It was his fault she’d been in that state. And while she’d make a full, quick recovery thanks to the stones, it wouldn’t change how hurt she’d gotten. The mental trauma inflicted upon her was real. But it was also something that he’d tried his best to prevent. Without a doubt, she’d be dead if not for the ice-resistance buff.

I think…I think we’re all alive, Jimmy thought, flooding with relief. Everywhere he looked, he saw signs of life and none of death. A few moments prior, there were a few adventurers who were neither moving nor breathing, but now all were conscious. Everyone…everyone was still alive. And that meant they could continue. Right?

“I know everybody’s a bit shook,” he said, hoping to divert their attention away from their shock and pain, “but we gotta pull it together. Group 3S, start buffing.”

Jimmy looked in their direction. They were completely ignoring him as though they couldn’t hear a word he was saying or were simply too distraught to bother paying him any notice. This frustrated Jimmy and also worried him. Given the hit the raid had taken, there would be a whole lot of people wanting to quit. And now, he knew that his only chance of finishing off this boss was in getting everybody to just trudge onwards before Donovan and Zephyr were able to call it off, which they were almost definitely going to do as soon as they finished tending to the wounded and reorganizing the badly confused and fearful tanks. “Group 3S,” he repeated. “I get it. Ya’ll are rattled. But we gotta pull it together. I need you to…” Jimmy paused. “Wait, can you guys even hear me? Actually, can anybody hear me at all?”

He lifted his hand to the side of his head and removed the small Comm device from his ear. The device, which had been tiny to begin with, was now only a fraction of its normal size, and he realized that what he held was a mere piece of it. It had been destroyed.

The attack probably knocked out all our Comms, he thought.

He inhaled—then gasped as a freezing-cold breeze made him wrap his arms around himself. It was hella cold out here. Shivering, he raised his voice. “Group 3S!” he shouted. “Start buffing!” This, they heard. The whole lot of them—including the addled man in the starry robe who was now back on his feet—all turned to look at him as though he were insane. “Well? Let’s get going,” he said. “Get your shit together and—”

“Jimmy, are you crazy?” Kalana shouted, her voice ringing out from somewhere ahead. Jimmy shifted his gaze and noticed that the Elvish girl was storming over to him. “This is done! Lots of people almost died. That was like the scariest thing ever! We gotta get everybody up to their feet, and then, um, we need to retreat before anybody else gets hurt.”

Jimmy frowned at her. “But we don’t, actually.”

She frowned right back. “Of course we do!”

“Nah,” he insisted, standing his ground. “We’re still good. Trust me.”

“W-what?” she shouted again. “You’re, like, going super crazy. This isn’t the time for you to be stubborn, Jimmy. We need to get everybody up, and then we gotta de-aggro the boss.”

Jimmy ignored her. “Group 3S!” he shouted again. “I told you to—”

His words ended in a high-pitched, shouted combination of “yikes” and “yow” as Kalana grabbed and squeezed his wrist, hard. “Jimmy, stop,” she said, threat in her eyes. “You’re gonna get people killed. Don’t you get that?”

She squeezed so tightly that it was too painful for him to reply. He made an agonized yelp and dropped his staff. This caused Kalana to raise her eyebrows, and then she promptly released him and apologized. He then spent several valuable moments shaking his wrist, which she thankfully hadn’t broken. “Sorry,” she squeaked again. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “And I know what I’m doing. We’re almost there. Just look at the thing’s HP, Kalana.” He bent down, picked up his staff, extended his arm, and then gestured at the mare with his weapon.

HP

6,994,941/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Kalana folded her arms. “I don’t care if it’s 10HP! You can’t just put everybody’s lives at risk, Jimmy. This isn’t one of your simulations. If we die, it’s forever. Don’t you get that? It’s forever!” Her ears twitched in sync with her emphasis on the word forever. “Swallow your pride. It’s done.”

Jimmy didn’t want to give this up, but what the hell could he do? Though they were saying nothing, he could see her two fellow Elves slowly coming closer as if to shadow Kalana and remind him of what the consequences would be if he went against her. Not that she even needed Trelvor and Seiley. If it came down to PVP, Kalana could probably one-shot him right there on the spot. She alone was like a raid boss.

“Jimmy?” she asked expectantly. “Well?” Seiley and Trelvor drew nearer, and Jimmy didn’t think they would hesitate to punish him—or do far worse—if he disregarded their princess. Desperately, he looked over to Zach for help. And Zach merely shrugged as if to suggest that this was out of his hands and he was neutral, which was bullshit, because Jimmy could tell he wanted to withdraw from the raid just as much as many of the other adventurers did.

But like…why even bother to hide it? Did he think Jimmy couldn’t handle it if he picked a side and said what he really believed? Did he think he was being slick? He obviously didn’t want to be here anymore, and it would’ve been nice if he could just say it rather than try to pretend that he was indifferent.

“Ri, I want to leave,” Lienne moaned as Rian assisted her back to her feet. She was shivering, and she looked badly disoriented.

“Me too,” he replied. “We’re gonna leave. Don’t worry.”

“Jimmy,” Tena whispered, surprising Jimmy by abruptly appearing behind him. He quickly looked over his shoulder at her. She had apparently left group 5S to come speak with him. “Maybe we should just go and come back another time.”

Fuck, Jimmy thought as he saw her drenched hair, which contained several un-melted pieces of ice. It was only now that he realized he’d barely spared her a thought during all of this. And there was no way she wasn’t well aware of it. During the boss’s attack, Zach and Kalana had reached for one another as though it might be the final thing they’d ever do, whereas he had almost forgotten that the girl he was supposed to have fallen for was even on the raid to begin with. Once again, she’d become an afterthought to him, and it just wasn’t right.

“Tena,” he said to her, dropping his voice to speak more softly. “I was so worried about you. I was just about to come over and—”

She held out her palm. “It’s fine,” she said. “You’re running a raid. I don’t expect you to be thinking about me.”

She’s lying, he thought. I fucked up.

He struggled to come up with something to say to her, but all he could do was wet his lips and stammer out a few incoherent mutters as he was once again prodded by Kalana, who was continuing to insist that he order a retreat while dual glares from her Elvish subjects were trained his way. The only exception was from Trelvor, who looked away from Jimmy for a brief instant every few seconds to check up on Lienne.

“Call it off,” Kalana said, her tone implying that her words were not a suggestion.

Jimmy clenched his teeth. He had to make a decision—or did he? Was there even a decision to be made? Kalana and her Elves were basically forcing him. Even if he wanted to go against them, they would physically prevent him from doing so. Really, the way things looked, it was like his only two options were to either call off the raid immediately or resist—and then end up calling it off anyway after the Elves slapped him around or did worse. And so, if that was the way shit was, and if he had no other choice but to quit either way, then Jimmy realized he might as well do it now before someone else got hurt or possibly died. Especially since the boss had powered itself up and was giving the tanks a real hard time of things.

Jimmy briefly observed the way Ophelia Graven swung her small shield around and deftly blocked a fair number of raining icicles while a burly tank beside her batted away flaming swords. Then the both of them began to bleed as the Mare of the Primordial Void’s periodic, AOE blast of snow and ice expanded outwards in every direction around the boss, causing all the tanks to sustain a painful-looking hit. Every one of them now needed regular healing, as simply being within a certain proximity of the boss meant having to take a hit from each and every pulse of the T9 boss’s ice-based PBAOE.

“Jimmy,” Kalana said. Though her voice was just loud enough to make out over the sounds of fighting, groaning, and panic, it was no less firm or serious. “Nobody thinks you’re a coward. You proved how brave you are, okay? So please: just call this off. I’m gonna be really sad if I have to make you do it.”

Jimmy, still clenching his teeth, at last loosened up, and he sighed. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll call it off.”

This wasn’t what he wanted. He was being forced. And yet, for the sake of sparing the tanks any more pain, he would go through with Kalana’s demands. And then? Then he really would quit adventuring—or at least adventuring with these people—because this was straight-up bullshit. These so-called “adventurers” were never going to be able to clear real bosses if they bitched out every time a raid boss wasn’t your standard tank-and-spank fare. Mean thing to say? Yeah, probably, but you know what? It was honest. Because that really was just the truth of it. The adventurers were never going to advance as a raiding community if they refused to trust in their raid leaders, especially those like Jimmy, who knew what they were doing. But did they care? Nah, they didn’t. So you know what? Fuck it. If they were going to quit on him, he would quit on them right back.

And so, with bitterness in his veins, he sucked as much air into his lungs as he could as he prepared to yell out the order to begin a retreat. Yet before he could utter his first word, a different voice cut across the raid and drew the attention of every one of them including Donovan and Zephyr.

“Group 3S!” Lord Alex Oren shouted, his back straight, his summoned sword in his hand. Despite temporarily having exchanged his blood-soaked, military-general-like guild attire—complete with badges and medals across the chest area—for a lab coat and a goofy pair of cat-eye glasses, the man nevertheless came across as no less intimidating or commanding as he yelled, “Jimmy gave you an order! Get to it! Now!”

The jaws of Rian and Lienne both dropped at the same time, and Kalana made a surprised frown. Zach also frowned, and a short distance across the barren expanse, which had until recently been the opposite end of the street, Donovan and Zephyr were glancing at one another as though they were outraged and uncertain.

“Alex,” Kalana whispered, though she seemed to be speaking to herself, as he was too far away to hear her. “What are you…?”

Even as Kalana’s words trailed off, a cloud of dust was already surrounding Jimmy before quickly vanishing. This same dust then surrounded Zach, Kalana, Rian, Lienne, and all of those nearby. Looking around, Jimmy could see the same happening across the entire raid, and many confused faces were dotting the scene as if unable to understand why they were being given an Earth-resistance buff. Clearly, the members of the raid were expecting Jimmy—or more likely Donovan and Zephyr—to give the order to retreat. Even the tanks, who were preoccupied contending with the boss’s multiple new ice-based attacks, were worryingly looking behind themselves as if taken by the same doubt and unease that Jimmy could see gripping everybody else on the raid.

“Jimmy?” Lord Oren called to him, his voice stern and unflinching. “We’re all buffed. Now what?”

Lord Oren was staring intently at him, and rather than intimidate Jimmy, it emboldened him. He finally felt like he had a powerful, really important ally on his side—one that the others on the raid would actually listen to. This, despite their clear disdain for him. That was actually the craziest part of all. None of the adventurers seemed to like Lord Oren. Shit, they seemed to outright hate him, which Jimmy could understand since the dude had slit Donovan’s throat a few hours earlier and had almost killed him. But in a universe where fear and respect were inextricably linked together, Jimmy supposed he shouldn’t be so surprised that Lord Oren’s earlier antics now caused numerous adventurers to feel compelled to listen to him—or at least not to cross him. And thanks to that, Jimmy was in the clear to continue.

We can still do this after all, he thought excitedly. They’re actually listening!

Very briefly, Jimmy and Kalana exchanged glances, and somehow, just by looking at his face, she knew exactly what he was planning to do next. “Jimmy!” she hissed at him threateningly. “Don’t you do it! Don’t you even think about—”

“Sorry, Kalana,” he whispered to her before tuning her out. “Group 3!” he shouted, his attention refocused. “Attack!”

And they did. Even as they made no effort to hide their reluctance, they nevertheless started to cast, and they did so within just a few seconds of Jimmy giving the order.

Now, the ground began to shake, and it did so unevenly and in a way that was disorienting and made him queasy. Then, from beneath the barren landscape, a host of various, earth-based attacks all manifested at once as the ground split and terrors from below rose up to confront the boss. Much like the ice-based attacks, there were numerous spikes that stabbed through the boss, though these were made of an iron-like metal and dealt between 2- and 4-thousand damage, but there were also big chunks of stone that popped up into the air before slamming down on top of the mare, shattering over its head and causing it to hiss with pain.

“Wait, are we seriously doing this?” Maric called out in alarm as he jumped back and out of the way of one of the mare’s vicious stomps. Its flaming hoof crushed the ground where he had been standing.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” exclaimed Ophelia Graven. Given that she was the leader of the adventuring guild, Boss Rush, Jimmy would’ve thought she’d be more inclined to see this through to the end.

I guess not.

The attacks continued. Several of the mages in Group 3 were holding out their hand, palms flat, and shooting a constant stream of rock-like projectiles, all of which struck for less than a thousand damage but hit fast enough to make up the DPS by sheer speed. There were also fractures in the landscape—sections of split ground that actually seemed to “move” as though some animal just below the surface was ripping its way across the world and towards the boss. Several adventurers had to leap out of the way as these splits in the ground nearly consumed them on their way to the Mare of the Primordial Void, and upon reaching the boss, they caused massive pillars of stone to blast up from the ground and pierce cleanly through the boss. Had it been an actual, living creature and not a mob, any one of these would have been instantly or near-instantly fatal. In all, the result was a few decent damage numbers followed by a streak of fast, but smaller ones.

3,221

868, 862, 951

4,433

657, 400, 906

3,994

The damage, clearly, was not as impressive as the last volley with ice had been, but it was still substantial considering that they were not currently exploiting an elemental weakness—that would come next with Group 4: lightning. But even then, things were finally ramping up as, at last, the slower, but even more powerful earth attacks joined in with the initial flurry. Now, Jimmy grinned as he watched a massive, fist-shaped rock attached to a dirt arm spring up from the ground and sock the equestrian menace in the face for 5,211 while putting it off balance and half knocking it over.

“Group 4S!” Jimmy shouted out. He now had to practically scream to be heard over the rumbling of the terrain and the angry neigh-roars of the T9 boss. “Start buffing! I wanna get a head-start and keep things moving!”

Jimmy’s words were true but they weren’t the entire truth. While he did want to accelerate the buffing for the purpose of staying ahead of the game, the truth was that, in larger part, he wanted to steamroll forward before the sense of disorientation and shock gave way to more resistance among the raid members. Right now, many still seemed too addled to question what was happening, which in this case served Jimmy’s purposes. It was a bit manipulative, but it had to be done.

There they go.

Diverting his attention from the boss, Jimmy was glad to see that Group 4S, unlike Group 3S, got to work immediately—though they looked surprised to be doing so. It was like they couldn’t believe they were obeying even as they began casting their round of lightning-resistance buffs. And honestly? Jimmy himself didn’t even know why they were doing this. Maybe it was because they felt like they were already in too deep, or maybe they were just intimidated by Lord Oren. Hell, maybe they were still so dazed and shaken from the ice attack that they were acting on autopilot. It could’ve been any of these reasons or several of them combined. But in any and all cases, Jimmy was glad to see them cooperating, because from the way Donovan and Zephyr kept eying one another, they were clearly looking to call a stop to this raid and still very well might.

They’re talking to each other, Jimmy noticed. The two looked plainly displeased, and their eyes kept flicking Jimmy’s way. They wanna stop this.

Jimmy needed to end this fast. Because the closer the boss came to death, the more the raiders would be willing to see this through to the end. Nobody was going to want to quit once this thing got under 30% HP. Every point of damage they did served as an additional argument for why the raid should continue.

So they needed to keep things going.

As another granite fist erupted from the depths and uppercut the boss for 6,002 damage, Jimmy felt a strange sensation on the back of his neck, where he realized the hairs were now standing on end. In front of him, a blueish orb made of pure electricity was circling around him, moving faster and faster until it seemed to form a solid ring, which became fainter and fainter before disappearing completely.

Name

Anti Shock II

Effect

Increases user’s resistance to lightning and electricity by 34% and reduces the duration of all stuns by 25%

Duration

14:59

Jimmy nodded with satisfaction. Group 4S was working fast. The entire raid was buffed in under a minute while the Earth magic continued to assault the boss, resulting in a persistent, thundering rumble that coincided with a shaking, unstable terrain. Jimmy instinctively reached out to grab onto something and, finding nothing, had to awkwardly shift his stance to prevent from falling over.

“Keep it up!” he shouted.

5,555

611, 571, 602, 789

4,221

“Just like that!” he called out, hoping to encourage the raid and lift morale. “We’re all gonna feel better about ourselves for seeing this shit through after we kill the boss, so don’t stop!”

As the boss’s HP declined at a slower, but steady rate, Jimmy looked over to Kalana and Zach who were still nearby, and he gave them a reassuring smile. The smile was not returned. Kalana was back to folding her arms across her chest and grumpily frowning at him, and Zach looked awkward and like he was uncomfortable to be caught in the middle of their dispute.

“Relax,” he told them. “We already got this far, so what’s a bit more? I’m telling you guys: this raid isn’t even that hard. It’s actually just real annoying. But everybody is gonna be glad we did it when we finally get through it.”

“Nah-uh!” Kalana retorted. She then began an explanation as to why Jimmy was wrong, and the Elvish girl seemed to have plenty to say. But Jimmy couldn’t tell whether or not he agreed with her criticisms, and this was for one very simple reason: he didn’t listen to so much as a word of it—he paid attention to absolutely none of it. Because while she unfolded her arms to shake her finger at him, something unexpected was happening off behind her. Something that made absolutely no sense at all. Something that forced him to fight off self-doubt and an immediate sense of gloom. It was something that caused Jimmy’s smile to vanish off his face even while she was still speaking.

“…who got really hurt are not gonna forget it, either. And I’m not even gonna get started on how reckless it is to ignore everybody’s wishes. You’re basically forcing people to…” She glared at him. “Jimmy, are you listening to me?”

“Sorry, no,” he whispered.

She studied his face a moment, and then the worry he felt seemed to spread her way. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her overall volume dropping suddenly.

He pointed at the boss with his staff, and Kalana spun around. Then her mood changed from anger to surprise. “Already?”

0

0

0

0

0

The entire raid paused, and dread became the most common sight in all the faces around Jimmy—but there was also a fair deal of confusion. Jimmy felt this confusion as well. How could he not? This made no sense, as despite having only really just begun their attack, the Mare of the Primordial Void had already somehow gained immunity to Earth. But why? And how? What the hell happened? Jimmy was so roiled by the sight that he nearly forgot to breathe, and he started to pant in agitation.

Had he been wrong about this boss? Was he mistaken about how things worked?

No, you idiot, he scolded himself as his brain worked overtime to make sense of things. Getting over his brief moment of shock, the answer quickly became obvious to him. It was those three mages up front!

Jimmy turned his head to look at Group 3. Each and every member of the group looked just as surprised—if not more so—than Jimmy felt. Up front, and centrally positioned, three mages were still extending their arms, palms flat. Mere seconds ago, they had been shooting rock-based projectiles at the boss at machine-gun-like speeds. Now, they slowly lowered their arms and looked over to Jimmy fearfully.

“Those attacks you guys were using,” Jimmy said to them as he found his nerve. “How many of those rocks shoot out with each cast?”

“How many…huh?” one of them replied.

“You know, like, each time you cast it, how many individual rocks do you shoot at the boss?”

“One,” all three answered simultaneously.

Of all things, Jimmy felt relief at their response, because their unified answer implied that Jimmy had made a simple error as opposed to a grave miscalculation. “Ahh, all right. I should’ve been more careful about that. I thought it was like all the other attacks.”

“The other attacks?” the mage in the middle asked.

“Yeah, like, you cast it and it has a number of hits. But it sounds like you’re saying it’s one cast, one hit.”

“Yes. Does that matter?”

“Yeah, actually,” Jimmy said with a chuckle. “This mob gets immunity based on the number of skills used against it, not the number of hits. If one cast shoots, I dunno, let’s say ten rocks, then that’s still all part of one attack. But ya’ll are saying the three of you alone used up, like, three quarters of Group 3’s potential all by yourselves.”

They looked at him as though confused and not understanding what he was saying, and Jimmy didn’t think it was because they were stupid. Right now, the mages were so flushed with fear that they likely couldn’t really process anything in this moment. Jimmy tried to exude calm and confidence to prevent the situation from worsening.

“What’s the exertion cost on something like that?” he asked, speaking conversationally. It wasn’t that he was actually curious but more that he wanted to take immediate action to prevent a panic from beginning, and hopefully, by presenting himself as unworried and calm, it would send a signal to the others that everything was still okay. “I mean, if you guys are firing off ability after ability like that, I’m surprised none of you passed out.”

Their faces went blank. All three were, like, “locking up” emotionally. Jimmy had no idea if it was due solely to fear over what would come next or if they were blaming themselves for the paltry damage done to the raid boss via the earth magic group.

“How much exertion per cast?” he asked again calmly, trying to snap them out of their stupor.

“The exertion cost of Rock Gun is Very Low,” a voice answered in their stead. Jimmy craned his neck to see Lord Alex Oren approaching, having left the melee DPS group. “So, that’s what happened.”

“Yeah, my bad,” Jimmy said. Then he shouted it even louder so the entire raid could hear. “My bad! Minor mistake!”

Jimmy knew it was important he take responsibility for the blunder so as not to demoralize the participants. And honestly, it really was his fault for not asking more questions at the start before they’d begun. His words, however, failed to reassure a single person, and now, the silence was so intense that it was actually uncomfortable. Not that he would have it any other way. Without the Comms, things were now more perilous than ever, as communication was much more difficult, and even just a handful of rowdy adventurers would make it impossible for anyone else to hear him.

“Jimmy, what just happened?” Donovan asked in a way that combined a grunt and growl. “We barely hurt the fucker!”

Jimmy waved at Donovan. “Nothing, it’s seriously nothing.” He considered shouting out the explanation to the rest of the raid, but there was no time for that.

“Does this mean we’re all gonna take another hit?” a petrified-looking raid member asked. “Gods, please, don’t put me through that again!”

“Wait, are we?” another asked.

Jimmy raised his hands in a gesture of calm. “Guys, chill.”

The silence crashed like a wave against rocks, and many of them now began shouting at him, demanding to know if they were about to experience another terrifying attack. “What’s it going to do to us, Jimmy?” Ishina, the 15-year-old adventurer—and youngest member of the raid—asked him, a nervous quality to her voice.

“I don’t know yet,” he replied honestly, realizing soon after that he’d given the wrong response. The sheer extent of the terror that spread from person to person was proof enough of that. It was a miracle that all their shouting didn’t completely drown out his words.

“Just hang tight. I promise we’re gonna be fine.”

Rian and Lienne both backed away and pointed at the T9 raid boss. “It’s changing!” Lienne cried.

This caused numerous adventurers to stir. Jimmy looked over to the boss as, once again, it shifted its element.

With another loud neigh-roar, it began to grow, becoming even larger than its already massive size. Its skin, for the third time, changed completely in color, becoming a dusty, dirt-like brown. Spikes made of metal began to pop up and grow all along its back, though they were uneven and jagged. Its hooves, however, remained on fire, and a frosty combination of ice and snow began to radiate off it—proof of its two other lasting, elemental immunities.

As the T9 Mare of the Primordial Void changed to become a more earthly-looking beast, the howling winds that had been numbing Jimmy’s skin seemed to abate without warning. Visibility, which had been poor since the boss shifted to ice, began clearing up immediately, and the clouds above vanished into nothingness, which caused a return of the beautiful, summer-blue sky. The cold went away very quickly as well, and as a result, Jimmy went from shivering to wiping sweat off his brow in such short order that it gave him whiplash.

“Gods, it’s even bigger now,” Zach said. Having shuffled around a bit, he now stood directly to Jimmy’s right while Kalana was proportionally to his left. Both of them were out of formation, as he’d put the two of them in Group 0: the melee DPS group.

“But at least it’s not as cold anymore,” Kalana replied.

“True, but…I actually think now it might be too hot.”

Summer returned to the raiding area as though it had never left, and any last or lingering pieces of un-melted ice turned quickly into shallow puddles of water. In less than ten seconds, it went from feeling like winter to feeling like spring, and in another ten after that, the punishing heat once again embraced them. Staring at the boss, Jimmy did his best to stave off the disappointment he felt in Group 3’s overall impact. By this point, Group 3’s attacks had all fallen off, and overall, the damage they’d done was really quite low relative to their potential.

HP

6,122,091/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“I think it’s done changing!” Kalana said sharply. “Zach, get ready!”

He nodded. “I know.”

With the boss having shifted, there was a shift in the raid as well: a sense of gloom and trepidation that couldn’t be ignored. Everyone knew something was coming, and everybody was on edge as they wondered what it might be. And now, as the single-greatest look of “what the hell are we doing and what the hell did we just do” popped onto almost every face, many of the raiders seemed to take on a sickly appearance, particularly those with lighter skin, where the color visibly drained from many of their cheeks.

“What’s it gonna do to us this time around?” Spider asked, snarling. Jimmy could only just make out the smooth, yet deep quality of his voice from where he stood halfway between Jimmy and Donovan. He was closer to the tanks than to anyone else.

“Whatever it is, at least it’ll only happen once,” Alixa replied, though she spoke the words in a way that came across as more self-reassuring than anything else. “Jimmy told us it’ll only do its post-shifting attack once each time.”

“Yeah, true, but…once might just be enough to get the job done.” Following those words, the large, towering, scarred-up adventurer—and second-in-command of the God Slayers Guild—set his gaze on Jimmy. “Do we have enough time to get out of the way, son?"

Much like Kalana, Spider seemed far more worried for the other raiders than he did for himself. Given that Spider had been a mobster and a gang member before becoming an adventurer—at least according to rumors—the fact that he lacked a fear of death wasn’t a surprise to Jimmy. What was a surprise was to see him so eager to retreat just like the others rather than stay and fight.

Jimmy opened his mouth to reply but ultimately ended up saying nothing. He wasn’t sure how to answer the question in a way that wouldn’t upset the others. Yet even if he had been able to think of something to say, he wouldn’t have had time to utter it—because the Mare of the Primordial Void made its move, and it did so quickly.

Very, very quickly.

Things happened so fast that Jimmy didn’t even have the time to utter a word to the raid before the next attack had already come through; even worse, he didn’t have time to figure out what the attack actually even was until it was already over and done with.

Moving with a speed too great to allow his thoughts to match, the Mare of the Primordial Void released an angry neigh and then lifted up onto its hind legs and slammed both its front feet down, cracking its hooves through the land and sinking them several inches into the dirt. And this, it did with a single flowing, fluid motion—one too fast for Jimmy to contemplate in the moment. In total, the lifting and slamming movement probably transpired in under a quarter of a second if even that long. But rather than cause any kind of rumbling or tremor as a result of having such a massively gigantic horse slam the ground, there was instead a sudden shroud of pure dust and dirt that rose up from the area directly beneath Jimmy’s feet.

What’s it doing? Jimmy wondered. It was the only thought he had the time to think before he discovered the answer for himself.

Straight away, he observed that the plume of dust rising from beneath his feet was not unique to him alone. Much like the last post-shift attack, it seemed to be a raid-wide AOE, as every single raid member had their own personal cloud of dust and dirt surrounding them, one which was thickening at a rapid pace and eventually obscuring the rest of the raid from his vision. But before he lost sight of the others, Jimmy had just enough time to glimpse the way most of them froze with a mixture of easily read emotions—fear being the most predominant of them all—and many could be seen bracing themselves, their entire bodies tightening in anticipation of the pain or worse that was to come—Jimmy included.

Yet, there was no pain, and there was no “worse.” The dust, which was so thick and so all-encompassing it blocked out his view of the entire world around him, was gone as quickly as it had arrived. It simply drifted upwards and thinned until it vanished out of existence, and in its absence, an incredibly strange feeling came over Jimmy: one that was so weird it was actually difficult for him to place. It was a feeling sort of like…being “exposed” or “unprotected” in a sense. And because the attack had happened over such a small number of seconds, Jimmy’s confusion turned very quickly from “how much is this going to hurt” into “what did it even just do?”

And he was not alone in this pondering this question.

“Did we just get hit?” Reni Sarwin asked. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, is everyone all right?” Donovan barked out. “If you’re all right, then look around you and make sure your buddies are okay, too. Check your surroundings to see if anyone’s not on their feet!”

Heads began turning and eyes began scanning the empty landscape that had once been a busy shopping district. But even as the other adventurers—and several political guild members—seemed to be taking stock of the situation, Jimmy could already tell that no one was truly harmed. But if not, then what just happened? What did the boss do? He tried to think, but he was drawing a blank even as many eyes focused in on him for an answer. Yet it was Maric, the very old, muscular, and bulky adventurer, who somehow figured things out before Jimmy could, which he found impressive.

“Check your buffs and debuffs!” he said. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing!”

Jimmy quickly lowered his eyes to where he kept his—chest-level height—and saw right away what Maric was referring to as he noticed the red icon of a broken shield that had appended itself to the end of the blueish icons that made up all the beneficial buffs and resistances the raid had given him. As fast as he was able to do so without losing comprehension, he read over what appeared to be a DEF-down debuff.

Name

Curse of the Void

Effect

-30% def

-30% magic resist

User is cursed. This curse cannot be removed via spells, items, or abilities.

Duration

Life

Everyone seemed to finish reading the debuff at more or less the same time, and the raid’s reaction was exactly—and unfortunately—what Jimmy expected it to be: immediate, intense, and insane. He wasn’t sure whose voice cried out in shock first, but an eruption occurred immediately, and it was one that, if not quelled, could easily prove to be a bigger threat than the boss itself.

“Ah, shit!” Zach shouted, a look of aghast disbelief peppering his features. “Life? We’re cursed for life?”

“No way,” Rian croaked. “I’m a tank. I’m…I’m a tank! This means I’m screwed! Zach, I’m screwed! I’m a fucking tank! At least you can DPS. I’m useless now!”

“You were already useless, Rian. This changes nothing.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The two chuckled. It was an incredibly surprising yet isolated display of humor amid what quickly proved itself to be a much larger, wider-scale panic that was causing everyone to lose their shit.

“No!” another of the raiders bellowed. “My life is over!”

“Why does it say the duration is life?” Alixa asked. “Does this mean the curse is forever? As in, we’ll be debuffed until the day we die?”

“I think so,” someone answered. “I didn’t know this could even happen. I…I won’t be able to raid anymore if this is permanent.”

Jimmy shouted at them to be quiet. “Guys, relax! You’re making a big deal out of—”

It was no use. His words were completely drowned out as dozens upon dozens of adventurers let their displeasure and agony be known. The crybaby-bullshit went off all at once with the loudness of an M-80 firecracker.

“How can it be for life?” someone shouted. “And there’s no way to cure it? Jimmy!”

“Jimmy,” another voice added, calling to him. “We can never get rid of this? Is that correct?”

“Jimmy!” called a third.

“Wait, so it’s confirmed that this is forever? What did Jimmy say? Jimmy!”

“Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy!”

“If you would all let me explain,” Jimmy said. “This isn’t actually what you—”

“Jimmy!”

“Jimmy!”

He cleared his throat. “Guys, if you would please give me a chance to—”

“Jimmy!”

“Jimmy!”

“Jimmy, are we actually gonna be debuffed for life? Does this mean we can never remove the—”

“SHUT YOUR ASSES UP!” Jimmy roared, shouting more loudly than he’d even known he was capable. Until now, he had no idea his lungs and vocal cords could even produce this level of sound. It was to the extent that he needed to stop and take four full breaths before he could continue. “It’s not what you think. This’s not gonna be permanent, fools!”

Nearly every eye in the raid became fixed onto him—including those that should’ve been paying attention to the T9 raid boss, which was about to attack the tanks with an even larger arsenal of abilities now.

These people are getting to me, he thought. They’re really starting to get to me.

“Listen!” he called out, seizing the moment of silence. “When we kill this thing, the debuff is either gonna go away on its own, or, if it doesn’t, it’s gonna drop something that cures it for all of us—or if nothing else, it’ll give us an easy quest to get rid of it. That’s on God. I’m not gonna stand here and argue about it, either. You can believe me or not, but that’s how it’s gonna be.” Before an adventurer across from him with a bow and a red feather cap could voice a question that Jimmy spotted forming on the man’s lips, he pointed his staff at the archer and cut him off. “Shh! Don’t ask me how I know that. We’re not doing that anymore. I do know that, and that’s all you need to know.”

The man closed his mouth. And then it was Donovan who spoke next. “So, what you’re saying is we can’t run, huh? We gotta fight it out now no matter what?”

“Nah-uh!” Kalana said, plainly disagreeing with his take. “The debuff’s really bad and all, but umm, at least if we quit now, we’ll all still be alive. We need to end this raid or a lot of people might die. It’s not worth the risk. Life is worth more than a debuff.”

Her words, which had fallen on far more sympathetic ears just a few moments ago, now found very little support among the other raiders—even the political guild members. Jimmy could actually see it in their eyes. With this debuff now permanently attached to them all, they were far more willing to let this play out.

Good, he thought, suppressing a grin. Maybe this actually works out to my advantage.

Of course, the level of challenge had definitely just ramped up. With the T9 Mare of the Primordial Void having weakened the entire raid, Jimmy worried the tanks were going to have a much, much more difficult time keeping things under control.

And he was right.

As the boss’s flaming swords materialized in the air and swung down at Maric, it now required four grunting, shield-bearing tanks to step in front of the man and shout out with the sound of exertion as they guarded against the attack in a way that looked like it required a substantial effort. At the same time, the boss’s PBAOE ice attack did another pulse, and this one nearly took out every tank on the raid. Pieces of their armor flew off their body, chipped their helmets, and caused blood to ooze from numerous cracks in their skin. Jimmy winced, genuinely uncertain as to how they managed to keep upright. Soon after, the boss made one of its stomping attacks. Maric jumped backwards and out of the way—but unlike before, he was not in the clear. Now, upon stomping down on the ground, the land began to shake, and an entire column of dirt-colored spikes rose up from the ground beneath his feet. Had Maric been any less experienced, he would have been run through. Instead, he threw himself backwards a second time and avoided the attack.

“Gods!” several of the tanks battling the flaming swords called out. As the fiery weapons swung around the air, Jimmy realized the tanks were faring poorly. Their defenses lowered, the boss was overpowering them. Jimmy watched as one of them lost his shield, whereas another was cut badly enough that he’d likely need a red rejuvenation stone—and maybe a yellow, too—and the others were barely hanging on.

We need to change things up. All right. I got this.

Though precarious, Jimmy knew how to handle this situation. With his dignity and the fate of the raid on the line, he took off at a run, moving quickly in the boss’s direction. With his staff gripped in just one hand, he pumped his other arm as he sprinted as fast as he could. To his surprise, Zach was still by his right side and Kalana by his left, and both were moving alongside him as though to have his back. He appreciated it.

“I hope you’ve got a plan,” Zach said to him as they ran.

“I do!”

Halting once he was within range, Jimmy lifted his staff and then raised it above himself, casting Crippling Mist. Now, a sizzling, crackling cloud of thick, dense smoke briefly blanketed the boss, which like before, was not immune to its effects. It was only thanks to his passive, Scourge of Giants, that he was even able to pull off a slow on a T9 boss, something that shouldn’t have been possible at his level. Hell, none of them should’ve been able to do it.

“The boss is slowed!” he shouted, waving his staff yet again, but this time in a gesture directed at the tanks. “Donovan, have them kite it!”

“You got it!” Donovan roared back at him.

Jimmy had no idea what the man was thinking or feeling in this moment, and he certainly had no idea what the black-plate-armor-wearing GSG leader would say to him when all this was over. All Jimmy knew was that, right now, he really appreciated Donovan being here with him, because with the poise of a leader, he was able to very quickly put Jimmy’s request into action as he began barking orders at the tanks. Following another close call from another ice-based PBAOE, the tanks began carefully pulling off. Having done so, they formed something of a line of with their shields raised, backpedaling away from the boss while focusing most of their efforts on blocking its renewed use of eye lasers and other ranged attacks.

“Fuck!” one of them groaned as his shield was literally blasted out of his hands. “My Bank and Storage is on CD!” Ophelia Graven, who stood beside him, summoned a spare shield from her own storage and gave it to him. He nodded his head in thanks. Together, they continued their defensive kiting.

“Group 4!” Jimmy shouted, half turning around to face them. He was glad to see he had their undivided attention as they all turned their heads his way. “We gotta end this shit now before our tanks collapse.” He switched his staff from his left hand to his right and then pointed at an empty area of barren landscape in the direction opposite the one the boss was moving. “Get over there and reposition. Start DPS’ing the moment you all have clear shots.”

“Got it!” they shouted back at him.

Jimmy watched impatiently as the entire group moved as fast as they could. All in all, it only took around twenty seconds for them to sprint behind the boss, but in that short time, the boss, which was pursuing the tanks, sent out four more beams of dual eye lasers, and one managed to blast a hole right through Maric’s shoulder blade. He was lucky it missed his heart.

“Get going!” Jimmy said, waving his staff, though this time as an expression of his impatience. “Attack!”

Having arrived unevenly, they attacked unevenly, but at least they attacked. It all began with a jolt from a woman leading the pack. Both the top and bottom of her staff began to spark and flicker, and then, from the sunny, hot summer sky above, a massive, blinding bolt of lightning crashed down onto the boss, dealing 8,115 damage and confirming to Jimmy that they were again striking an elemental weakness.

This spurred the others on. More lightning rained down from above, some bolts being different colors, but all hitting for an impressive amount of damage. “Watch out!” one of the mages called. A few members of support hurried to reposition themselves as tendrils of electricity traveled across the ground from a very powerful attack, one which caused sparks to shoot up in a line that led from where the spell-sword-wielding caster was standing all the way to the boss. Upon reaching the mare, its entire body lit up like a Christmas tree, and it began to shake and twitch. It even became rooted in place for three seconds, which Jimmy found interesting, as in all the games he’d played in his life, he’d never before seen electricity used to root, only stun.

9,652

The boss neighed loudly once the root was broken, and it continued to move slowly after the backpedaling tanks, who in turn were flanked by the overworked healers. The boss paused only to fire off more of its eye lasers or conjure massive, flying boulders that it would then send hurtling at the tanks. It had a few other nasty ranged attacks it hadn’t been able to use when it was within melee distance, but this was still for the better, as its constant PBAOE ice attack had been dealing just too much damage to sustain.

“Almost lost an arm,” Spider growled. “I need a heal!”

“Got’cha,” replied a weary-looking healer.

Jimmy suppressed his guilt over how banged up and hurt the tanks had become. They were really taking a beating. This…this needed to end soon. But things were at least progressing well on that front. Returning his attention to Group 4, he watched as they were forced to pursue the mob from behind so as to keep in range of their own lightning attacks, all of which were starting to come in regularly. It was safe to say that Group 4 was finally beginning a full-on assault.

8,211

9,151

7,529

7,000

7,771

Nonstop, blinding flashes from above and beneath the boss made staring at it difficult. But Jimmy found it hard to look away as its HP at last began to plummet. This was going well. Really well. As long as the tanks held on, Jimmy could easily see Group 4 putting in two, maybe even three million points of damage, as through sheer coincidence, the group was made up mostly of “heavy hitters” as opposed to those whose DPS came from faster, lesser-damaging attacks. In other words, they would do more with less.

“Nice start, Group 4!” Jimmy called to them. “If anybody needs stamina regen, let me know. We gotta keep this up! I’m feeling really good about th—”

Instead of a word, Jimmy’s sentence ended in an unintentional shout. Startled, he raised his arms to shield his face as a sudden, painfully strong blast of light briefly caused him to lose sight of the boss. It was accompanied by a very strange sound: one that was like a combination of a bang and a crunch. It was a sound unlike anything he’d ever before heard, and it was so loud that he could not question the source of it until after it had faded.

“Who just did that?” he asked, his ears ringing. “What attack was—”

His words fell off a second time as he spotted blurry streaks of movement in several directions: in the corner of his vision as well as just in front of him. It looked like miniature comets were flying through the air and out of sight. But it was what lay ahead that most gripped him. It was there, sandwiched between the tanks and Group 4, that the Mare of the Primordial Void was now wobbling on its hooves before stumbling and falling down onto its belly, making pained-sounding neighs as though in the throes of death. At the same time, something bizarre and inexplicable was taking place with the lightning attacks striking it.

HP

6,000,000/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

At first—and for only about a second or two—a chain of 0s came in, beginning the exact moment in time that the boss hit an even 6-million of HP. Jimmy could hear those around him gasp as they must have been wondering the very same question that he himself was wondering: was it already shifting yet again?

Thankfully, the answer was no.

Rather than signal the start of another elemental shift, the 0s lasted only until the T9 superboss fully collapsed onto the ground, and now, on its belly, the boss’s entire body began to flash with a dark, shadowless light, flickering on and off again and again. And that was when things became really intriguing, because the moment this flashing began, the damage numbers not only returned, but they returned at double, or in some cases, triple, their earlier values. The damage numbers were red, too: something he hadn’t seen before on Galterra.

21,406

16,188

12,000

19,531

Red damage numbers? Jimmy wondered. Must be critical hits. I didn’t know we had those here.

“How are you guys critting?” he called out to Group 4.

“How are we doing what?” a mage replied to Jimmy. As he spoke, he was repeatedly lifting his staff with both hands and then slamming it into the ground, causing a bolt of lightning to strike the Mare of the Primordial Void with each movement.

“Can you repeat that, Jimmy?” Lord Oren asked, hurrying over to him. “Do you understand what’s going on? Do you know why those damage numbers are so inflated and red in color?”

“Yeah…I mean probably. I’m guessing that means it’s a critical hit. Or a crit.”

“A crit?”

“I’ll explain it later. It’s too much for right now.”

“Very well,” he replied with a curt nod. “More importantly, then, do you know why this is happening?” Jimmy felt like he was under a microscope; it was the way the high-ranking, cat-eye-glasses-wearing guild officer studied him with such a fierce gaze.

“I…I don’t. I’m not sure just yet what mechanic we triggered, but it looks like it’s to our advantage.” He raised his voice. “In the meantime, Group 4, keep attacking! Don’t stop!”

Confused, stunned, and trying to piece together what was happening, Jimmy watched as the other raiders cycled through mostly the same emotions, though to a much greater degree. The terror on their faces when the damage had cut off contrasted with a now cautious yet hopeful optimism that saw their frowns inverting into grins as the boss’s HP really started to nose dive.

HP

5,994,152/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

HP

5,104,010/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

HP

4,888,277/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Something isn’t right, Jimmy thought.

He recalled the blurred movement he’d seen in the corner of his vision. Having been less important than what was happening in front of him, he’d put it out of mind. But exactly what were those objects moving in the air? Quickly scanning the landscape, he searched around for wherever it was they might have landed. And now, he saw something that sent a wave of alarm right into his chest: something he should have caught right away. It was something beyond urgent—something potentially catastrophic if not dealt with immediately.

“Group 4, stop!” he shouted. “Stop attacking the boss now!”

To his surprise—and relief—Group 4 complied immediately, though they did so with a clear sense of agitation and worry. “What’s wrong?” Zach asked from where he was standing beside Jimmy. “Why’d you tell them to stop? We’re crushing it!”

“Because of that!” Jimmy said, swinging his staff around in a semi-circle and pointing out the four corners of the raid.

“Huh?”

“Look, Zach!” He used his finger this time and shook it. “That!”

He could hear Zach inhale. “What are those?”

In the distance, located at four separate locations, there were now four normal-sized, differently-colored mares that were slowly moving inwards and to the center of the raid’s formation where the boss itself awaited. They were almost impossible to miss, with two of them close enough to several of the raid members to spit on. One of them may well have even brushed against a woman with loose-fitting mage robes. If not for every eyeball having been trained on the T9, they would have been spotted immediately. Now, glancing around, there were more cries of concern followed by mages and healers jumping out of the way as a red mare, a blue mare, a brown mare, and a yellow mare—all the size of an ordinary, regular horse—were moving at something just below a trot to the prone, whimpering boss. As the rest of the raid became aware of their presence, another bout of confusion threatened to erupt.

Oh, I know what this is! I know exactly what this is!

“Donovan!” Jimmy yelled, his voice approaching a scream.

“Yeah, kiddo?” he grunted, his face deadly serious. “What’s going on? What are those?”

He again swung his staff at all four of the mares. “Do not let those things reach the boss! I’ve seen this shit a billion times before in boss fights. If they get to the boss, something bad is gonna happen.”

“Like what?” Zephyr asked.

Jimmy flipped over his free hand. “No idea. It could be almost anything. It could be the boss absorbs them and gets a huge heal, or buffed, or…or it could charge a new super attack that insta-kills all our asses. I got no idea what’ll happen, I just know that when you see this shit in a raid, you stop it immediately. Trust me, if they reach the boss, something really bad is gonna—”

“Say no more!” Donovan interrupted. “I got this, kiddo!” He cupped his hands over his mouth. “All battlegroups, prepare to attack the adds! Support groups, switch to offense! Aux group, now’s your chance to earn your roll! Zach, Kalana, get on the fire one with Group 0! Move it! Alixa, lead your group to the ice one! Group 1 and Group 2, get to the rear and…”

Donovan’s voice continued to bark out orders, and so too did Zephyr’s, and the entire raid sprang into action. Incredibly, in just a matter of seconds, the two were able to put together an organized, sensible attack force. This was something Jimmy knew he could never do—at least not this quickly—and so he thanked God that Donovan and Zephyr were up to the task.

Oh, shit, this might be close, he thought as he began laying poison mines down in the path of all four mares.

As he watched the four mares approach the boss, Jimmy was positive he’d made the right call. He’d seen this in a huge number of games: bosses that would summon adds after taking a certain amount of damage or after a certain amount of time went by. What separated these adds from the typical ones a boss might spawn was that they were, by themselves, no threat to the player. But if the player decided to ignore them and instead chose to keep burning down the boss, there were a very wide range of consequences that spanned everything from mere inconvenience to death.

We better not find out.

Beside him, Jimmy heard feet stomping down on the dirt as Rian moved past him with Kalana and Zach while Lienne, Trelvor, and Seiley unleashed attacks of their own. Lord Oren also joined in with this group, and together, they began putting out impressive damage numbers on the fire mare. Zach in particular was really letting the creature have it.

First, he sliced off its tail and struck for 4,240 damage, which given its HP, wasn’t all that much. But his attack seemed to proc the ability on his sword, which caused dozens of star-shaped emblems made of pure light to pop up all around the crimson-colored, flaming creature before converging and detonating in an explosion of light, which did 29,152.

HP

414,124/670,000

Name

Mare of Primordial Flame

Level

85

The blueish ice one was also taking a decent thrashing from Zephyr’s elemental blade and Alixa’s summoned tornadoes—along with dozens of others piling into it.

HP

444,846/670,000

Name

Mare of Primordial Ice

Level

85

Although four mobs with 670k HP apiece did not exactly constitute a genuine challenge for a raid of their size, the fact that these were much tinier targets combined with the initial element of surprise meant that the four elemental horses had already been able to close more than half the distance, and it was only now, in the final moments, they’d really begun getting a handle on things.

“Don’t try grabbing its hooves, you morons!” Donovan yelled as numerous adventurers were sliding along the ground and leaving imprint-trails in the shape of their bodies as they clung to the horses as if to slow them down. “Get your asses up and attack!”

Kalana, airborne, twirled several times, flipping over and over while swinging her arms around, delivering a mind-numbing number of high-damaging slices with her daggers before landing on both feet and stabbing a second time. This, as Zach unleashed what looked like pent-up agitation as he furiously butchered the fire mare with crisscrossing slashes, each of which drew blood. Rian and Lienne were doing significantly less damage, but at least they were contributing what they could, as every little point of HP counted. Panting, Rian slashed his axe against the mare over and over. Tena was also a big help, offering strength buffs to Zach and Kalana before moving on to the rest of the raid and doing the same to those who needed it most urgently to make the largest impact.

“Pick up the pace, you sorry fucks!” Donovan demanded as his large axe sent a bloody spray out of the earth mare’s neck. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

Jimmy held his breath as he watched the mares get closer and closer to the boss. But he released it when he realized that the speed at which the raid was adjusting was faster than the speed at which the horses were trotting. The result was a ramp up of damage that began steadily then accelerated into overwhelming force. Now, the biggest risk to the raid was friendly fire as explosions, flashes of lightning, plumes of fire, and every element imaginable scarred up the barren soil while arrows and crossbow bolts flew, swords were swung, and maces were bashed.

I think we got this.

HP

51,255/670,000

Name

Mare of Lightning

Level

85

With a little time to spare, all four mares eventually dropped dead, where they then rolled over onto their backs and actually sank into the terrain as though absorbed by it. And then, just like that, the big one, the T9 boss, immediately stopped flashing, ceased its whimpering, and simply got back up onto its hooves in an almost casual way, resuming the fight like nothing had happened.

It was a trap, Jimmy realized. If I had tunnel-visioned on it during its weakened state, that could’ve ended so much worse.

Reorienting himself, Jimmy re-cast his slow on the boss and then, with Donovan’s help, got everyone back into their previous formation. With that, the blast of electrical magic from Group 4 continued, only now, the boss was much more wounded than Jimmy had ever expected it to be at this point. The hammering it had taken during its vulnerable state, combined with the renewed assault, meant he felt more pride than dread when the 0s finally came in.

0

0

0

0

HP

3,001,707/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“Cut attacks!” Jimmy ordered Group 4. But they’d already begun tapering off.

The sky ceased flashing, the lightning abated, and now, the same nervousness as earlier settled in on the raid as they awaited the boss’s next elemental shift. But this time, however, Jimmy could feel an overall sense of impending victory, and he knew the other raiders were feeling it, too. Even though no one was saying it aloud—likely not wanting to test fate—Jimmy could tell their minds were very, very slowly starting to turn towards thoughts of loot and celebration.

But they weren’t there yet.

“Everyone, get ready!” Jimmy said to them all. He knew his voice would be completely gone after today, but at least it was holding up for now. He likely wouldn’t be able to speak for several days after this.

“You heard him!” Donovan roared. “Get ready for whatever this bastard throws at us next!”

Though worry was present in just about everyone, Jimmy included, there was at long last an eagerness that had been entirely absent until now. But it was here, finally, and Jimmy was glad to see it. Backs were straighter, swords were at the ready, and Group 5S—wind—was already buffing. Jimmy would’ve ordered them to start sooner, but they’d been too busy helping kill the adds.

I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if they reached the boss, he thought. Probably would’ve screwed us bad.

After a brief delay, the shifting at last began, but by this point, it was expected. The brown washed away as though it were dirt beneath rain, and much like it had done during the shift to ice, the sky above changed along with the element. Once more, clouds blocked out the sun, but in this case, the temperature did not drop; if anything, it became even hotter as the level of humidity rose dramatically. Rain then began to fall, though it was more of a summer-like shower than a downfall, and all this took place while lightning flashed across the sky.

The boss, for its part, kept its flaming hooves, its coat of ice, and its earthen spikes along its back. And now, in addition to shedding the color of dirt and taking upon a dual-colored skin of spiraling purple and yellow, the boss grew horns like a unicorn, both jutting out of the top of its head and above its ears, and these horns flashed constantly and gave off sparks.

“All right, here it comes,” Jimmy said. “Everyone, brace yourselves for whatever it does!”

“We got this!” Zach shouted out. Jimmy smiled at him. He was glad for the support. Even Kalana was nodding. Just as Jimmy had predicted, now that the mare’s HP was really low, the attitude and mood of the raid had shifted—just like the boss.

“It’s moving,” Kalana said. She grabbed Zach’s hand. “I hate this part!”

The mare lifted its front hooves and stomped down in almost the exact same way that it had after its last shift, but the effect this time was entirely different. Abruptly, more than a hundred individual flashes from the sky preceded more than a hundred individual yelps as a legion of lightning bolts streaked down from the clouds and struck every single last one of them dead center on the top of their head before they could so much as blink. Reflexively—and nervously—Jimmy dropped his staff, hopping several times on his feet. He then clutched his scalp as he felt a strong, but not quite painful flick.

“I’m hit!” he shouted as he waited for the pain—which like before, did not come.

“Gahh!” Lienne yelled as she too was struck.

“Wh-what did it do this time?” Kalana asked nervously. “Zach, baby, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Kal, are you hurt?”

“Nope. I didn’t even feel it. You?”

“Me neither.”

“I didn’t either,” Lienne whispered, speaking barely loud enough to hear.

Zach looked around. “So, is that it? Are we done? Jimmy?”

Jimmy wet his lips. Something was starting to form atop everyone’s heads. Something slowly taking form and shape. Yet even before it formed, Jimmy knew exactly what it was.

Oh no. Oh shit.

“Jimmy?” Zach asked again. “Are we okay?”

Jimmy lifted his eyes, seeing the faint outline of something misty above his face and floating above his head. It was something he couldn’t quite see above his own self, but he could easily see it above the heads of everyone else.

Oh boy. They not gonna like this.

Now, all across the raid, above everyone’s head and large enough to be unmistakable, there was the number 10 written in a bubbly, sketchy font. And this did not seem to bother anybody—anybody but Jimmy, who peeled back his lips in alarm as he tried to consider what this meant for the raid and whether or not they could deal with it. Not that they had a choice. They had to deal with it.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Kalana said, shrugging. “Just another weird debuff. Umm, what’s it do? Do you know, Jimmy?”

Rather than answer her, Jimmy turned to face Donovan and Zephyr, but first he picked up his staff. Then he pointed it at them. “Goddammit, dude! You suck, you know that? You suck!”

Donovan crooked a finger at himself. “Huh? The hell you yapping about, kiddo?”

Of all things, it was anger that burned inside Jimmy. “You…none of ya’ll bitches told me you guys had doom in this game. I hate this curse, man. Why can’t you people know a goddamn thing?”

“D-doom?” Kalana exclaimed. “What’s that?”

“And why don’t I see any debuffs on my bar?” Zephyr asked.

“Jimmy, what is this?” Lord Oren inquired. “What do you know? Please, tell us.”

Jimmy extended his arm and turned his wrist so that his staff now pointed towards his own head. “This is about to turn into a 9,” he said. “Watch.”

9

“W-what does that mean?” Kalana asked, sounding terrified.

“It means,” Jimmy explained, “that when it hits 0, we die.”

“WHAT?” shouted a multitude of voices.

“Yeah, it’s bullshit. We better move fast. No more talking or questions. Group 5, attack. Now! In fact, Group 6 attack too. Zach, go into your phase mode. Like, now. When you do, Group 0 attack. We don’t have time to wait out anymore shifts. Gotta kill it now. We’ve got like a minute, tops.”

“Wait, what?” Zach shouted back at him. “You want me to activate Unleashed Phase? I can’t do that, Jimmy. You know this.”

“If you don’t, Kalana dies.”

Zach’s face hardened, and his eyes narrowed. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“He can’t!” she snapped. “Zach will die!”

Jimmy sighed. “Nobody’s gonna die. I swear it. Now stop arguing and do it.”

This was going to be a painful finish.

*****

Eilea dropped her tea, spilling it all over poor Jascaila. But the human woman didn’t seem to mind. Eilea could tell she was just as concerned. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Eilea, how do you know?”

Eilea began to shake. “They’re all going to die,” she whimpered. “My husband was right. I overestimated them. They’ve just been doomed.”

“Doomed?”

“It’s a…it’s a type of curse you usually don’t see until Tier 2 worlds. I shouldn’t even be telling you that. I’m out of sorts. Everything was going so well, and then it all just fell apart.”

Her heart ached, and Eilea felt nauseous. She was struggling not to vomit. She’d forgotten all about this. Bosses had never been her area of knowledge or specialty. “They can’t finish the raid in time. It’s over for them. It’s over…”

Jascaila frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. They’ve been doomed, Jascaila. They won’t be able to kill the boss in time. My wretched husband was right. Curse him!”

Eilea didn’t know what stung more. The thought of poor Zach and Jimmy dying, or knowing that her wrinkly old bastard of a husband, Adamus, got to be right as he tended to be. As usual, Eilea was wrong.

Yet again.

******

“Really?” Prila asked, beaming far too much. This, despite Adamus instructing the dear girl not to be so emotionally invested. Still, he had grown attached to her, and if she was happy, then so be it.

“Yes, my child,” he said. “I have seen enough.”

With that, he turned his mind’s eye back towards Shadowfall Coast, where his real efforts were needed. All in all, this whole raid had been nothing more than a distraction: an illuminating one, of course, but a distraction nevertheless.

“What percentage?” Prila asked, giggling. “I just want to hear you say it.”

Adamus rubbed his eyes as they struggled to focus back on the real world. “A hundred,” he said. “Jimmy has succeeded. My wife was right, and I was wrong. I suppose there’s a first for everything.”

Truly, it was an astounding turn of events. For the first time in more than a thousand years, his impulsive, emotional wife had ultimately turned out to be correct.

And he had been wrong.

*****

With the 9 above his head turning into an 8, Zach scowled at Jimmy and then at the entire bullshit situation itself.

“You want me to do what?” he asked.

“Use your ability,” his new friend said, speaking it casually as though it wasn’t a death sentence. “You won’t die. I swear it. But if you don’t do it right now, everybody else will die including you. So uh, no pressure or nothing, dude. But for real. You better get your ass in there and kill that thing while there’s still time.”

Kalana was immediately opposed to the idea, and Rian didn’t seem to have an opinion either way. In fact, he used this opportunity to be an asshole rather than say anything constructive. Zach couldn’t blame him without being a hypocrite. Though he was trying to change, he’d spent much of his life with the same quirk of becoming facetious whenever things became too serious or hard to handle. But man, Rian was really letting Jimmy have it.

“Hey, great job on the raid, Jimmy,” he said. “You’ve doomed us.” He waved his flappy arms around. “I can’t believe it, you guys. Jimmy doomed us. Literally! He literally doomed us. We're doomed. Better hope I don’t leave a review for this raid.” He paused a moment then added, “The title of my review is gonna be: racist raid leader used hate speech against Orcs and then doomed us all.”

Zach felt an elbow ram into his ribs. “Don’t laugh,” Kalana whispered into his ear, sounding annoying.

“I wasn’t.”

“Yeah you were.”

Lienne, for her part, was becoming frantic, and so were many of the other raiders. Otherwise, order was at least holding up for the moment, but Zach knew it could break down in an instant. What was he supposed to do? With a Phase Level of 3, how could he possibly survive?

I should’ve just stayed in school.

Chapter 178: Phase Return

Chapter 178: Phase Return

As a T9, rampaging horse boss taller than a four-story building pursued a line of shield-bearing, backpedaling tanks, a single word bounced around Zach’s head like a rubber ball on a concrete surface.

Doomed.

Zach, along with everyone else, had actually been doomed. And it even made a sick sort of sense, you know? Like, why not? This was just what tended to happen to Zach these days. This kind of bullshit.

Doomed.

All throughout the world, people were often forced to take risks, and sometimes, these risks came with a high probability of death. But Zach envied these people, because it seemed like, every other day, he found himself in a situation where he was guaranteed to die. Seriously, how many times a month could one person be expected to survive the un-survivable? It never seemed to end.

Just for once, Zach would like to be in a situation where death was only “very likely” instead of 100% certain. Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t it just be so amazing to have someone say, “Hey, Zach, I need you to go fight this giant monster, and when you do, you only have a 99% chance of dying instead of 100%?” But nope. Once more, he was thrown into a situation where death was not only possible, but basically a promise. Hell, death was currently counting down visibly above his head. How did this always happen to him? Truly, it was a miracle from the Gods that he’d only died once so far. If he somehow lived beyond today, a second death had to be right around the corner.

And so, here he was, on this stifling, scalding afternoon, with steaming, burning rain pouring down from an artificially cloudy sky, fighting in a raid against a T9 horse from hell that could’ve been safely ignored with just a little inconvenience and some roadwork. But no, of course Zach ended up in this position. Of course he was now being asked to use an ability that would take his life with no chance of survival—all while a completely separate “ability” that also had no chance of survival ticked down above his head.

“Zach!” Jimmy called to him urgently. “The hell are you waiting for?”

Ahead of them both, the boss, which had been slowed and was now using exclusively ranged attacks, fired off its dual eye lasers at the tanks, melting the shield of Frederick Britethorn while causing Maric’s grip on his own large shield to become unsteady. Frederick summoned another shield and Maric regained his stance. Truly, it was amazing how the two best tanks on the raid were both men over the age of a hundred.

“What’s it doing?” Maric shouted as the boss opened its mouth wide like it was going to use its standard biting attack. Yet, from this distance, which Zach approximated to be half a block away, the boss would only be nipping at the empty, humid air. For this reason, Zach was not surprised when it turned out that the boss did not crunch down at all. No, it instead left its mouth open wide, and now, a bright, blueish, flickering light emanated from within its throat as it suddenly stood upright on its hind legs and made three quick jerks of its neck.

Following each motion, a perfectly round, blueish orb of electricity emerged from the boss’s mouth as though “vomited” out while a cough-like sound accompanied each. These blue orbs, which started off in a single-file line, spread apart and then began moving towards three separate tanks at a moderate, but not quite fast pace that made each appear to be floating more than flying. One of them was heading over to Maric, another to old Frederick Britethorn, and the last to Ophelia Graven.

“Back up!” Maric called out.

“We’re fine,” Ophelia said as Maric and Frederick dashed backwards. She remained where she was. “What are you two boys so afraid of? It’s moving so slow. You can just dodge the Gods-cursed fucking—”

Ophelia spun around to the side, and the round, blue orb, which still moved relatively slowly, stopped midair and veered off directly to its right in the direction Ophelia had lurched. As though surprised and caught off guard, she then remained exactly where she was.

“—ZENANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANA!” Ophelia screamed out as the orb flew into her chest, vanished, and caused her entire body to light up with various tendrils of electricity racing all across her. She shook, convulsed, drooled, and dropped her shield and weapon. Finally, she fell forward onto her face, her body smoking, her hair standing up on end, and all while about 500g, a piece of chewing gum, and a cellphone fell out of a hidden compartment in her armor’s breastplate.

“Ophelia!” one of the tanks in her guild cried, rushing over to her and dragging her away. Then he placed his ear to her mouth. “She’s alive! I can hear her breathing, but…but she needs a healing stone!”

Meanwhile, now that the blue orbs revealed themselves to be a form of homing attack, Maric and Frederick were being pushed so far back that they were about to leave aggro range. Zach had no idea for how long the electric orbs would chase after the men, but from the look of things, it didn’t seem like there was any amount of distance that would stop the two orbs from pursuing them.

“Group 5!” Jimmy’s voice shouted. “Group 6! Stop watching the goddamn tanks and attack! We’ve got less than a minute to live! Move your asses!”

A dissonant combination of organization and chaos began playing itself out as Group 5, led by Alixa, and Group 6, led by a woman in brown robes named Emala, began unleashing their magic onto the Mare of the Primordial Void. This, as the 8 above everyone’s head turned into a 7.

“Zach,” Jimmy growled, “will you please use your ability and get in there?”

“You don’t understand,” Zach replied as he watched the mages begin their assault. “If I do, I’ll die. And there’s no time for me to explain to you why that’s the case. The healing stones won’t be enough to save me.”

To this point, there had been exactly four occasions where Zach had found himself using Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 2 or 3. Despite a massive difference in power between them, they both had the exact same exertion cost: Very High. And while Zach could just manage to handle paying off a High debt, a Very High was still completely out of the question.

There’s just no way, he thought to himself.

If there was any hope at all that he could survive, he’d seriously consider using the ability. Really, he would. Even if it meant taking a huge risk, he’d still do it. But this was basically a death sentence, and he knew this because his prior experiences made such an outcome abundantly clear. Thinking quickly, the four previous experiences flashed through his mind, each of which was associated with an unpleasant conclusion.

First: Archian Prime, during the battle between Olivir and Fylwen. Zach had used Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 2. Fylwen had promised to heal him, a promise she’d then broken, and the result had been a painful, horrifying, tear-filled death on a cold, Elvish-controlled world. Zach decided not to think too much about that day, as the last thing he needed right now was to become “jittery.”

Thinking ahead, he recalled the second time: one day before the dragon raid, when Ziragoth had summoned a group of adds right before Olivir had put the dragon to sleep. Zach had used the weekly ability of his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness, which caused his next exertion ability to have its cost cut in half. At the time, he’d concluded that if he could survive a High debt, then surely, he could handle just half of a Very High, right?

Wrong.

It was on this day he’d learn that half of a Very High was still well above what he could pay off. But thankfully, this time around, Fylwen had saved him. Actually, she’d saved him on his next usage of the ability as well, which, incidentally, was only a day later.

The dragon raid: the third time.

This one happened to be the only time Zach had ever activated Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 3. It was also the most important one as far as his current situation was concerned, because unlike during the previous occasion, Zach was unable to cut the exertion cost in half since his sword’s weekly ability had still been on cooldown, meaning he’d been left with the full Very High debt to pay off. And that had turned out to be a whole lot.

Following the raid’s conclusion, Fylwen had actually died in the process of paying off his debt. The fact that there had been stones available was what made this third time so important. Because just like right now, Zach had been surrounded by people who had the healing stones on hand in the event he needed them. And yet, Zach’s exertion debt was so high that even with healing stones available for his use, Fylwen had still needed to give her life in order to save his.

And my sword’s ability is on cooldown right now—just like then, he thought.

Yeah, it’d be a full week from now before he could activate the sword-ability again. This was because he’d used the ability very early this morning with a Phase Level of 2 during his rescue operation, and because of that, Kalana had been able to save his life using nothing but the healing stones. He actually didn’t remember that part, though; he’d blacked out and had only regained consciousness later on in Angelica’s. The last thing Zach remembered was riding on his Kralzek’s Beast with Vim Alazar, leader of the Royal Roses.

Without an Elf like Fylwen around to heal me, nobody will be able to save my life. I just can’t handle a Very High debt. The stones won’t be enough.

It wasn’t even just that, either. There was also his current physical condition, too. Right now, Zach was badly sleep deprived, and his body was still exhausted from what he’d endured fighting to save Vim. And while he didn’t know the specific biological formula that determined the hidden “stamina” stat, Zach was pretty sure his max stamina was currently reduced due to his condition. This meant that a Very High exertion cost would be an even greater stress to his heart and body than it already was. And so, for this reason as well as all the others, it just wasn’t a realistic option right now.

But Jimmy doesn’t understand this.

If time allowed for it, Zach would’ve been happy to explain all of this to Jimmy. He would’ve been more than willing to calmly go through each of these four experiences to put into perspective how insufficient the stones alone would be in preventing his death. But time did not allow for it, so instead, all Zach could do was meet his friend’s eyes and say, “If I use it, I’m as good as dead.”

“Nah, man, you won’t die,” Jimmy said right away. He spoke the words quickly while darting his eyes around as if half or more of his attention was focused elsewhere. There was a great deal of impatience and even a touch of fear in the way he came across, but there was also an even larger sense of optimism and eagerness. “And I don’t have time to tell you why you won’t. Gotta trust me, dude.”

6

Zach swore. “Maybe I won’t need to use it. We might be able to finish this just fine as is.”

“Yep, that’s exactly right,” Kalana agreed. She was still standing together with the three of them, and her mind was even more made up than Zach’s. It was clear that she was firmly against the idea. “The boss’s HP is so low,” she said. “So um, we can burn it down just like you said, Jimmy. Don’t make Zach do something dumb!”

“It’s not gonna be that simple, Kalana.”

“Oh yeah? You’ll see.”

With that, she drew her daggers and began moving in with Zephyr, Donovan, Mr. Oren, and the others from Group 0: the melee DPS group. Donovan and Mr. Oren refused to make eye contact as they readied their weapons and headed towards the boss with the rest of their group. Having been assigned to Group 0, Zach went to join them, but he stopped when Jimmy grabbed his elbow as if signaling for him to wait. Curiously, he looked at Jimmy, who shook his head, a gesture Zach took to mean he should stay put for the moment.

“They’re not gonna be able to do this in time,” Jimmy said to him. “They can’t get it done.”

“Why not?” Zach asked him. “Kal’s right. The boss is so low, and we’ve got three groups going at it at once now.”

“It won’t be enough.”

“Even if I join them?”

“The way you are right now? It’s not gonna matter.”

Zach frowned. “Are you sure? My stats aren’t exactly low. Here, look.”

Name

Zachys Calador

Level

25

EXP

371,082/400,000

Armor Bonus

48 (34)

Strength

106

Dexterity

100

Constitution

94

Intelligence

142

Speed

73

Luck

90

Jimmy barely even glanced at Zach’s stats, which were hugely inflated thanks to the incredible set of equipment Fylwen had gifted to him. Because of his powerful gear, his stats were on par with an average adventurer whose level was in the low 50s or an exceptionally talented adventurer in the high 30s. But Jimmy didn’t seem to care. He only took the quickest of glances and then sighed. “You’re not hearing me, Zach. You know what? You’re just gonna have to see for yourself. Watch what happens.”

“Fine,” Zach said, suddenly becoming a bit worried. Hanging back as Jimmy requested, he observed as the mages launched their attack on the badly wounded, T9 raid boss.

HP

3,001,707/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Alixa’s massive tome opened up all on its own, and the pages within began to flip faster and faster as several visible gusts of air fired out of the book as though fanned by the pages. These gusts then grew immensely in size and began to spin until forming into full-fledged tornadoes, all of which cut through the air and moved towards the Mare of the Primordial Void. At the same time, a mage standing relatively nearby raised his staff and then swung it downwards, a motion he repeated four times in quick succession; with each one, a fast-moving “curvature” in the air struck down at the boss, with each one causing a bloody laceration on its body; it was as though the boss was being “whipped” by the air. Each lash delivered between three and four-thousand points of damage.

3,122

4,019

3,555

3,556

In the very same general area, Group 6, the smallest of all the mage groups and made up of just five staff-wielding spell casters, let off a starkly contrasting mess of darkness and light that caused large splotches of inky black flames to erupt next to bright flashes of gold and white. Group 6, from what Zach understood, consisted of three mages tasked with using dark and two with light. Since both elements seemed to be something of a rarity among adventurers, Jimmy had needed to combine them into a single group. And though Zach didn’t expect much from them at first given their small number, he became instantly amazed at how much damage they were individually putting out—especially that woman, Emala.

Wait a second…isn’t she the woman Tena said pulled the boss’s aggro off the tanks last night? Zach wondered. The one that caused Jimmy’s raid to almost wipe?

If so, it made perfect sense now that Zach could see her in action. The woman was summoning level-45 wisps that would fly forward, crash into the boss, and explode upon impact, with the latest one dealing a massive 39,245 damage while leaving behind black flames that continued to consume the boss, striking it for almost 6000 additional damage each second. She winced after each attack as though worried that she’d repeat her mistake from the night prior, and this hesitation was made even clearer as she glanced nervously over to Jimmy as if for reassurance after each wisp.

“Keep it up, Emala!” he shouted at her. “Don’t worry about the aggro!”

She nodded, summoned another wisp, and Zach followed it with his eyes as it crashed into the boss’s face an instant before it unleashed more of its eye lasers at the tanks. The impact—and subsequent black explosion—were so powerful that it not only dealt 44,654 damage, but it actually succeeded in interrupting the T9 mare’s attack and knocking its head away as though it’d been punched in the face. This also had the effect of giving a few seconds of rest to the badly exhausted and dwindling number of tanks.

The boss’s eyes, which had been glowing with a crimson heat, momentarily vanished as the entirety of its face was lost inside the black flames that surrounded its head. Zach, amazed, looked back over to the brown-robed woman, and in this moment, he wondered if the adventurers had any idea just how staggeringly powerful Emala was. Did they know what they had on their hands here? Did they not realize her potential?

This woman, who looked to be in her 30s or 40s—but could obviously be much older—came across just as plain as her seemingly tepid, meek personality. Visually, she was so unremarkable that it made sense why Zach had never really noticed her around Angelica’s and why she kind of just blended in and became invisible. She had an unthreatening, neutral face, medium-length blonde hair, and her baggy brown robes displayed a physique that was neither overweight nor thin. In a crowd of adventurers, there was nothing about her that would draw the eyes. But Gods! She was stronger than any other mage on this raid, and it wasn’t even close.

“Keep burning it down!” Jimmy shouted at her as the melee DPS sprang into action. Though such a short time had passed, the boss’s HP was dropping incredibly fast. Group 0, led by Donovan, was only first opening up on the boss, and it was already fast approaching death.

HP

2,725,551/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Attacking from the back-left side, Donovan leapt up into the air and crashed his axe down on top of the Mare of the Primordial Void, ripping through the skin above its back-right hoof and drawing its blood, hitting for 5,241. This, as Mr. Oren delivered a left-to-right slice from his summoned blade for 3,111, and Kalana stabbed both her daggers forward at once, dealing 2,115 with her left and 3,091 with her right. Zephyr, on the other hand, dealt 0 with his first strike as his sword took on a reddish glow; this glow became even more fiery as he struck again, dealing another 0 after that.

“It’s immune to almost all the elements,” he said. “I can’t hurt it with this weapon!”

“It’s okay, pull off,” Jimmy said.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s not your fault.” He cupped his hands over his mouth. “Ranged DPS! Pick up the slack!”

A melody, which had only recently begun playing, halted for just a moment as Trelvor lowered his flute and said, “Understood!” He then resumed playing, and a raven flying throughout the air began pecking at the mare faster and faster while arrows and crossbow bolts punctured its massive body and caused it to leak blood.

As the battle continued, Zephyr lowered his sword and backed away from the boss while Kal, Donovan, Mr. Oren, and the other melee DPS kept at it. And it was at this point that Jimmy tapped Zach on the shoulder as if to signal the start—or end—of something that Zach should be paying attention to. Zach opened his mouth to question what he was supposed to be observing, but he did not end up voicing the question, as it became apparent an instant before he spoke.

Two things happened at once: the 6 above everyone’s head turned to a 5, and a frosty combination of snow-and-ice burst out of the boss in a ring-like formation, extending outwards 360-degrees in every direction. Zach recognized this attack. The boss had been sending out this attack in regular pulses ever since obtaining ice immunity, but it had ceased once the tanks began kiting it and had pulled out of melee range. Now, however, with the melee DPS having moved in, the Mare of the Primordial Void was using it again.

“Gah!” one of the tanks called out as he lost an ear, a chunk of his face, and the hand that was holding his sword. The weapon—and the hand still gripping it—landed on the barren landscape as he began backing away with a heavy flow of blood shooting out of a torn stump. “Help! Oh, fuck! I lost my Gods-be-damned hand!”

“Gurth!” someone cried, rushing over to grab him and pull him back.

“Fuck,” Donovan swore. “Hurts like a bitch.” The armored GSG leader was bleeding out of both sides of his face, but still, he continued to attack. Mr. Oren was even more wounded, having shredded his lab coat in several places—but not enough to cause a full break. He had a bad-looking chest wound, his nose was gushing blood, and there were a thousand little cuts all over his body.

“See?” Jimmy whispered to him. Then, raising his voice, he called out, “Group 0! Back away!”

Group 0—along with the rest of the raid—reacted with shock and dismay. “Why?” Donovan growled out. “I’m fine!” Though he spoke these words with confidence, his armor was becoming shredded, and blood was pouring out of gaps that had formed between joints.

“Me too!” Kalana shouted. “I’m okay!”

In her case, Zach was relieved to see her words were more than bluster. Kal appeared to suffer the least amount of damage of them all: just a few scratches. Still, even just the few droplets of blood that trickled out of a few scrapes made Zach uncomfortable. Was he overprotective of Kalana? Probably. But he couldn’t help it. He drew his sword, held it before himself in one hand, and he tightly gripped the base of the weapon.

“Get it now?” Jimmy asked him. “The melee DPS can’t stay near the boss long enough to hurt it.”

“If you knew that would happen, why’d you let them even try?” Zach asked him, becoming upset. “Why let them get hurt just to prove a point to me?”

Jimmy shook his head. “Nah, that’s not why. I was hoping they could hold out long enough to at least do some damage, but with this damn debuff, they can’t stay in long enough to get it done.”

It was true. Thanks to Curse of the Void, a “permanent” debuff that reduced defense and magic resistance by 30%, the melee DPS were not able to withstand the T9 mare’s fast, periodic AOE ice blast, which delivered a heavy, painful hit to anyone within its range. And given that it pulsed every few seconds and traveled outwards a decent distance, it wasn’t the sort of thing where Group 0 could run in, hit a few times, and run out again. In other words, Group 0 was functionally useless.

Ah, shit, Zach thought to himself, his temper rising as he realized the implications. I’m really going to have to do this, aren’t I? He looked at the boss’s HP, which was still decreasing steadily thanks to Alixa’s wind group and Emala’s light and dark. The ranged DPS were also still pulling their weight, so-to-speak.

HP

2,661,825/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

HP

2,492,812/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

4

HP

2,317,021/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

“It’s not enough,” Zach concluded, nodding his head. “Gods! It’s not dying fast enough!”

“Like I told you.”

Kalana and Donovan were now attacking in way that was frenzied and relentless, but even this came to an end once Donovan finally collapsed, unable to endure any more ice blasts. This left Kalana to pause what she was doing, sheathe her daggers, grab Donovan’s wrist, and then drag him away to safety. But even as his body was scraping across the dirt, another pulse of the ice-based AOE struck him and Kalana just as they exited its range, briefly obscuring their forms within a thick shower of snow and ice. Reappearing afterwards, Zach saw Donovan’s black, plate helmet crack open and vanish, suffering a full break. The man groaned and his eyes became unfocused as he lost consciousness.

“Healers!” Kalana shouted as she dragged the man over to them. “Help him!”

“On it!” they shouted back.

With that, there were no longer any members of Group 0 DPS’ing the boss, and this meant the duration on their Doom would almost certainly run out before they were able to kill it. Worse, the boss was due for another shift pretty soon—probably wind this time around. That alone would take up enough time to ensure they all wiped. Hell, it might’ve been the biggest concern of all. Because they didn’t just need to kill the boss: they needed to kill it before it went through its shifting process. If that happened, they’d likely die as it was changing shape and form.

I’ve got not choice, Zach thought angrily. Unbelievable!

Now holding his weapon in his right hand, Zach took several steps forward and away from Jimmy and paused. “I’ll do it,” he said. “But if I die, it’s on you.”

“You won’t,” Jimmy said. “In fact, I’m so sure you won’t die that, if you do, I’ll agree to die along with you.”

Zach twisted his neck and glanced behind his shoulder at Jimmy, searching his face for any sign of humor. There was none. Jimmy was actually serious. For whatever reason, he really did believe what he was saying. Zach couldn’t imagine why this was. But hopefully, Jimmy had something up his sleeve, and it was something substantial.

Am I being an idiot in trusting him? Zach wondered.

It was a reasonable question—at least in his opinion. After all, the reason he’d literally died once before was because Fylwen had made the exact same promise to him, and against all reason, common sense, and his own instincts, he’d trusted the woman. The lesson he’d learned? Not to do that—ever again. And yet, here he was, actually about to do the exact same thing all over again.

No, not the exact same thing, he told himself. It’s different this time.

Right. This really was different now that he thought about it. For one, Jimmy was not a complete stranger like Fylwen had been at the time, and for two, there was simply no motive for Jimmy to want Zach to kill himself. This meant that, if Zach died, it would only be because Jimmy was wrong or mistaken: not malicious. And Jimmy had been right about way too many things so far for Zach not to at least take him seriously. Even still, this felt wrong. It felt like suicide. But with the doom counter above his head counting down to the imminent moment of his death, it hardly even mattered anymore, did it? No, it didn’t.

I have no choice.

Zach took a deep breath, and then he held the oxygen in his lungs as he activated Phase Reset, raising his Phase Level from 2 to 3 while resetting the cooldown of Unleashed Phase, making it available for his use. Then, he pulled forward the ability itself as if seeing it in front of him would somehow reveal some undiscovered secret that he had thus far missed. It didn’t. How could it? Even still, he glanced at it for just a second.

(UNLEASHED Ability) Phase Reset (UNIQUE)

Resets the cooldown of Unleashed Phase and increases Phase Level by 1. The Phase Level determines the following properties when using Unleashed Phase. Usage Cost: 0:00

(Phase Level decreases by 1 every twenty-four hours.)

Phase Level 0 (default)

Exertion Level: High

Phase Level 1

Exertion Level: High. Additional +5 to all basic stats and additional Armor + 5

Phase Level 2

Exertion Level: Very High. Additional + 30 to all basic stats and additional Armor + 30

Phase Level 3

Exertion Level: Very High. Additional + 50 to all basic stats and additional Armor + 50

Phase Level 4

Exertion Level: Extreme. Additional + 100 to all basic stats an additional armor + 100

Phase Level 5

Exertion Level: EXTREME+ Additional + 1000 to all basic stats and armor + 1000

Phase Level 6

Exertion Level: Terminal. In exchange for the life of the user, additional + 10,000 to all basic stats, and armor +10,000. User has access to every ability and every spell. User can move faster than light. User can summon up to 5 dragons. Cannot summon Elder Dragons.

Zach released the breath he’d been holding—only to draw another as he activated Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 3. And as he called upon his ability, he did so with a heart full of worry, angst, and doubt. He was riddled with wariness, hesitance, and even some fear. But Gods, the moment he activated Unleashed Phase, it just all went away so fast.

Too fast.

As though struck by one of Alixa’s tornadoes, every negative emotion inside Zach was blown away so quickly it was actually startling. From deep within, an explosion of energy washed over him, one so powerful that it felt as though he could lose himself inside the storm of it. It was astonishing: astounding. He inhaled, and more oxygen filled his lungs than he’d known they could carry.

Wow.

The last time he’d gone this far, he’d been battling back so much terror over the dragon that it had blunted some of the euphoria. But not this time. Things just didn’t feel the same anymore. He was used to the danger now. He was used to the fear. They didn’t quite hinder him as they once did. And so all that remained was this rush of pure, raging energy.

He could feel his eyes widening and his sense of the world around him becoming stronger and more perceptible. Everything felt enhanced and to such a magnificent degree, too. And it was in that moment that his hands and feet burst into flame just as it had done on the last—and only—occasion he’d entered Phase Level 3. These flames, which formed around and over the equipment he wore on his hands and feet, began to dance and flicker, alternating between strong and bright and weak and dull.

“Oh, shit,” Jimmy muttered, sounding as though he blurted out the words by accident. Zach looked at him, and he said, “You’re on fire this time, man. It’s not black smoke anymore?”

Zach shook his head. “Not in Phase Level 3. It changes to flame.”

“Why?”

Zach snorted. “How the fuck should I know?”

Jimmy shrugged, and Zach once again looked ahead. He then took several more steps forward, and it was here that he was reminded of the other difference between Phase Level 3 and the others. Aside from the flames, his entire body and all of his limbs now left behind a cloudy streak like the contrails of a jet airplane any time he moved. These contrails could then linger behind for almost a minute before disappearing.

Jimmy clapped his hands together. “Let’s get it done! You got this!”

Zach nodded, feeling so alive now and filled with energy. “Yep!”

Name

Zachys Calador

Level

25

EXP

371,082/400,000

Armor Bonus

168 (118)

Strength

211

Dexterity

205

Constitution

199

Intelligence

247

Speed

178

Luck

195

Unleashed Phase Duration

14:45 Remaining

Wave Slash

1:15

Boundless

0:10

Phase Cannon (No Target)

1:30/2:00 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Cannon (Targeted)

2:30/3:00 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Blink

0:20

Phase Shield (READY) (25 seconds)

0:45

Phase Rescue

0:35 / 2:15 (if used with Boundless)

Phase Slash

1:10 / 6:10 (if used with ??)

Halting Strike

0:20

Card Capture

0:00

Card Summon

0:00

Card Dismiss

0:00-X:XX

Gacha Get’cha

0:00

Before Zach could take another step forward, a sudden light bathed him in its radiance as a floating heart appeared over his head. He recognized it immediately as Jimmy’s buff, Breath of Invigoration.

Name

Breath of Invigoration

Effect

Periodically restores a portion of user’s stamina (10 second interval)

Duration

4:59

“I probably don’t need to tell you this,” Jimmy said to him, “but if I was you, I’d spam your strongest ability and then melee the boss until you get enough time back to keep spamming.”

Zach again nodded. That was obviously what he was going to do. It was a no-brainer. And so, without bothering to reply, he lifted his left hand so that it could join his right, and now he gripped his sword with both, and following that, he dashed forward and towards the massive, four-story-tall Mare of the Primordial Void, which was still taking on a great deal of damage—just not enough so that it would die before the Doom curse-thingy above all their heads hit zero.

HP

2,105,554/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Zach moved fast: or at least as fast as he reasonably could without risking slamming into someone by mistake and killing them. The wind beat against his hooded robe as he rushed onwards, but only for a moment, as he crossed the distance in less than a second. Yet, in just that time, he came to appreciate the surreal sight of the raid playing out before him. From the left side of the boss, a constant slew of dark explosions, black flames, and sharp, visible wind were ripping the mare apart, and from its right side, golden, explosive light and a barrage of arrows and crossbow bolts—and a raven—were assaulting it as well. A never-ending, fast-moving, and fast-disappearing column of damage numbers were popping up above its giant head, and it was flinching near constantly as one attack after the next caused it to make angry, yet painful-sounding neigh-roars as it continued to pursue the backpedaling tanks.

Gods, it’s even bigger than the dragon, Zach thought to himself hesitantly as he approached close enough to enter within the range of its AOE ice attack, which started up again as soon he entered the vicinity. Up close, he could see just how disorienting and frustrating this attack must’ve been for the tanks and the melee DPS, because now that he was this close, the sight of the frosty mixture obscured everything behind it. It looked like a miniature, ring-shaped storm rushing at him. He braced himself, raising his sword to guard against a tiny portion of it as he was blasted, but most of the attack still washed over him.

For a few seconds, he remained trapped in the storm. Everything became hazy as though he were in the middle of a blizzard, and a scratching, peeling sensation caused his skin to prickle as an extremely harsh and combined blast of rain, wind, snow, and ice brought a sensation of pain to his ears and forehead. But then it went away, and that was that. A few scrapes were the extent of the damage, and if not for the debuff, he probably wouldn’t have had to endure even that much.

The moment the AOE ice blast moved through—and beyond—him, the first tick of Jimmy’s buff came through.

Unleashed Phase Duration

16:40 Remaining

He made a slight smile. It truly was an amazing ability, and it worked so well with his own. With just shy of seventeen minutes on Unleashed Phase, he could probably put out a whole lot of damage before having to get in close. And this was clearly what everyone was hoping he’d do, which Zach discovered as he became aware of his name being shouted. Risking a very quick glance, he noticed that almost every eyeball was trained solely on him now as nervous, yet hopeful adventurers and political guild members watched the countdown to their death tick closer to 0.

3

“Kill it, Zach!” cried one of the adventurers. “Hurry!”

The adventurer was joined in by several-dozen others, their voices all combining into a single shout that made discerning any individual words impossible. But Zach understood what they meant to say even if he couldn’t pick apart their words individually. He sighed. Hopefully, he wouldn’t disappoint them.

Here goes nothing.

He extended his arms, his blade pointed upwards. Then he raised his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness above his head, and with a loud shout, he called out, “Phase Slash!” while swinging his weapon diagonally downwards. Following this slash, the loud neigh-roaring of the boss was temporarily overshadowed by a high-pitched sound eerily similar to zipping up a jacket, only it seemed to come from all directions and it was so loud as to be deafening. This, as a distortion formed in the air: a ripple that blasted forward and shot across the barren landscape towards the Mare of the Primordial Void, which was very slowly pursuing the few backpedaling tanks that could still fight. The rest were either resting, wounded, or being chased away by balls of electricity.

“Phase Slash!” Zach shouted out again, swinging his weapon for the second time and calling upon the ability before even bothering to wait for the impact of the first. He followed this with two more: a third and a fourth. “Phase Slash! Phase Slash!”

Now, he did pause for just a moment to observe as the first Phase Slash made contact with the boss’s knee just above its back-right, flaming hoof. The boss was so large that the visible distortion in the air actually became somewhat impossible to see once it passed beyond the flaming barrier that surrounded the hoof. In the back of his mind, Zach became amused as he realized that he and the boss actually had something in common, as his hands and feet were also shooting out fire. But this brief, distant thought was soon flushed out, and the noise that promptly filled the air gripped his full, undivided attention.

“Hiiiiihiiiiihiiiihiiiiihiiii-hi-hi-hi-HIIIIIIII!”

It was an unmistakable cry of pain that could almost pass as convincingly sentient if Zach hadn’t learned by now to tell the difference. Even still, it caused every voice behind him to fall silent. This pained cry continued, stretching on; it was a sound unlike any they’d heard from the boss thus far, and from that alone, Zach could tell he’d managed to do some real damage—which he confirmed with his eyes an instant later.

In the same moment that a massive spray of blood poured out of the mare’s back-right knee, a damage number popped up, one that caused a series of startled gasps to emanate from behind Zach: from the hundred-plus members of the raid, political and adventurer alike.

127,444

“Gods!” Zephyr shouted. “Donovan, wake up. You’ve got to see this!”

“Gods-be-damned,” Zach heard Reni cry out.

“Zach, excellent!” Mr. Oren encouraged him.

Even as they spoke, the second Phase Slash hit, adding another 100,051, and then the third, which delivered 119,590, and finally, the fourth. And this one, in addition to causing an even louder neigh-roar and further reducing the boss by 126,624, caused the entire boss to finally topple. Immediately following a disgusting pool of dark-red, almost blackish blood that gushed out of its knee, the Mare of the Primordial Void tipped over sideways and fell directly onto its side with its head slamming onto the ground, the impact causing another 2,456 damage.

Okay, I can definitely finish this, Zach thought calmly, nodding to himself.

HP

1,581,845/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Unleashed Phase Duration

12:31 Remaining

Having officially begun his assault, Zach used everything Jascaila had taught him to redirect his initial euphoric excitement and instead shift it into an almost superhuman level of concentration and focus. He honed all his senses in on the boss. He ignored the roaring cheering and applause from the adventurers, especially those in the mage groups who could no longer participate, as the boss was now immune to their strongest element. All of this, Zach set aside. Right now, there were only three things that existed in his universe: the boss, himself, and the 3 above his head.

He needed to end this now. Everyone’s life depended on it. They really didn’t have time to mess around. He didn’t know how long the 3 would take to become a 0. He didn’t have a clue how many seconds lapsed each time the counter decreased. What he did know was that it wasn’t a whole lot, but that as long as he wasted no time and gave it his all, he strongly suspected he could get the job done.

And then…die?

He shook his head. Now was a bad time to worry about that. Focus. Focus!

The boss, now wobbling somewhat, managed to climb back up into a standing position on its four hooves. But rather than continue to pursue the tanks, it instead turned its body towards Zach, who was unsurprised that he’d hit the thing so hard that he’d actually pulled aggro. Very quickly, he removed his left hand from his sword and held it up to the tanks with his palm flat. He could see that they were trying to reestablish aggro. “Stop!” he called to them. “I got this.”

“Are you…sure?” a burly man in a thick, silver metal cuirass asked him.

“Let me deal with it!”

He didn’t seem to need much convincing. He, along with the rest of the tanks, backed away. And now, slowed, the Mare of the Primordial Void began wobbling in Zach’s direction. Unfortunately, Zach was in the worst possible position he could ever be in, because with around thirty feet of distance separating him and the boss, he was in both melee and casting range. And this was something he only discovered right now, as the boss released its AOE ice pulse while simultaneously firing off its dual eye lasers.

The eye lasers, moving far, far faster than the wall of frost, reached him well ahead of the AOE. Hurriedly, Zach raised his sword and guarded; both lasers crashed into his blade, and he was flung backwards onto his ass, but he quickly jumped back to his feet in time to brace himself against the AOE, which like before, scraped but did not wound him. A few seconds later, his vision cleared, and now the gigantic Mare of the Primordial Void had closed the distance between the two of them; it was only fifteen or so feet ahead. At this distance, Zach would need to crane his neck all the way up to see the top of the mare’s head. But that was of little relevance, as it was the boss’s torn, bloody, and still-bleeding knee that interested him.

“Phase Slash!” he cried out right as another tick of Breath of Invigoration came in. “Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash! Phase Slash!”

Aiming carefully, Zach swung his blade with such ferocity that the blade made an audible whipping sound as he sliced it through the air. The weapon also moved fast enough so that all twelve of his attacks flew out of his blade close enough that they nearly formed one large, wavy distortion in the air while releasing a drawn-out, painful, zipper-like screech that tempted him to drop his blade and cover his ears.

But it appeared, at least initially, to be worth the effort as the first six struck back-to-back exactly where he’d hoped: the wounded knee.

114,613

97,302

118,007

151,663

110,111

124,214

The sight of all six Phase Slash attacks striking his target was disturbing enough that Zach struggled not to look away. The first vaporized most of the black-and-yellow skin around its knee, and then the second cleaned up whatever still remained while also draining away the last of the blood, which had become superheated and sizzled and smoked on the ground as though being cooked in a soup. This left only bone and muscle.

But then the third Phase Slash came in and cracked this bone, which was so large it could be clearly observed by anyone from any distance. It actually began as a single point that spread upwards and downwards along the bone until it resembled a splitting iceberg. Directly afterwards, the fourth Phase Slash arrived, which deepened the crack, and now, it could actually be heard: an unmistakable sound of splitting and cracking. Then, finally, the fifth and sixth blasted off the leg completely from the knee down. Zach watched as the hoof, still attached to a piece of leg, spun several times in the air before crashing down with the force of collapsing tree, causing the ground to become disturbed.

Its leg missing, the boss dropped down once more, but on its belly now instead of its side; it also landed hard enough to cause a general rumbling in the terrain, which made slight vibrations beneath his feet. This time, Zach highly doubted it would be getting back up.

HP

860,944/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Despite his success, Zach swore loudly and angrily at himself, but he could not even hear the sound of his own vulgarity amid the massive eruption of cheering and howling from the adventurers, who shouted praise at him while completely oblivious to the mistake he’d just made. For in his eagerness to end things quickly, he’d fired off too many abilities too fast. Thus, although the first six Phase Slash severed the Mare of the Primordial Void’s back-right leg at the knee, the next six, having been sent towards the same spot, went right through the air and continued onwards until Zach lost sight of them.

“Shit!”

He chewed his bottom lip and forced himself to breathe and control his temper. Especially as the 3 above his—and everyone’s—head turned at last into a 2, signaling that the end was near. The moment this happened, the cheering and applauding slowed, but did not die—though it certainly became laced with an unmistakable nervousness.

I’m still okay, he thought to himself. I can finish this!

Unleashed Phase Duration

0:16 Remaining

He would just have to cross into melee range and slice the boss a few times while waiting for his stamina to regenerate. There was no time to be angry with himself. It was a mistake, and those happened. This was hardly the first time Zach had ever fucked up. What actually mattered was how he recovered from it: and that he kept his composure.

And so, forcing himself not to dwell on his error, he launched himself forward by kicking off his back leg. The single, powerful dash was enough to put him right in front of the downed, gigantic, T9 boss, which opened its mouth and almost devoured Zach while he was still moving forward in its direction. Zach halted his momentum by kicking out in front of him with both his feet; his shoes brought him to an immediate halt as they slammed into the boss’s equine teeth, each as large as a shutter door.

Crack!

The mere impact between his body and the horse dealt an additional 5,907 damage and caused two of its front teeth to become chipped. Zach, reorienting himself, spun his body right-side up midair and landed on the dirt, and then he raised his weapon and slashed it as fast as he could downwards, tearing an entire section out of the mare’s nostril and hitting for 16,505. With that, he raised his blade to strike a second time, but he halted as five flaming swords materialized right in front of him, and all five struck out at him from a different angle.

“Zach!” Kalana screamed.

“No!” several adventurers cried.

“We have to help him!”

The hell?

Zach once again had to suppress his anger as these idiots actually thought this would be a problem for him. Seriously, were they stupid? Okay, five swords made of fire were attacking from five different directions—and? Of all the things that they had to worry about right now, did they seriously think this was going to be the end of him? Gods, Zach could handle this in his sleep! This was nothing compared to those Gods-be-damned imps that him and Jimmy had dealt with in Trials of Nolak. Hell, Fluffles had given him a harder time in their sword training back when Zach was still learning how to fight.

I’m insulted, he thought angrily as the adventurers continued to shout out at him in warning like he didn’t already see the first flaming sword whipping across the air near his throat.

With time against him, Zach ducked beneath the fiery blade, then got back up to his feet, swung his weapon around, and parried the second, and then the third. The fourth sword thrust in his direction, heading towards his belly, so he spun his body around to the side, allowing it to pass harmlessly through the air. Then he whipped his blade back and forth twice, blocking the last two. Following each failed attack, the weapons vanished, each disappearing into a brief blast of flame that did not leave behind any smoke or fumes.

“Weak,” he growled as he jumped forward, lifted his sword, and crashed it down over the Mare of the Primordial Void’s muzzle a second time, delivering another 17,206 points of damage and carving off another piece of its nostril. But that wasn’t all he did. Immediately after his strike, a green aura surrounded Zach’s body, and in the exact same instant, Breath of Invigoration ticked yet again. It seemed he’d proc’d the stamina regen on his sword at the same time that Jimmy’s buff came in. The result was a huge replenishment of his time.

Unleashed Phase Duration

5:52 Remaining

“Yes!” he shouted out as the boss half propped itself up on its front-right hoof. Though it was unable to enter into a full standing position, it was nevertheless capable of slamming its opposite hoof down at him.

Zach jumped directly upwards, flipping himself backwards midair like he was Kalana or something before landing a half-dozen feet away in the opposite direction while still facing the boss. Honestly, he didn’t even mean to do the flip. It just sort of happened as a result of the urgency of the situation. He had to get out of there fast, and the whole “backwards momentum” sort of just led him to—

Why in the hell am I trying to justify my flip to myself? he wondered, annoyed by his own thought pattern. Why would I even feel like I have to?

“Oh, wow, what a showoff,” Rian called to him, reminding Zach exactly why. “That was the least necessary flip I’ve ever seen. That was an optional flip.”

Zach growled. “Shut up, Rian!” he yelled at his friend as he made a sharp movement to the right to get around another stomping attack. The boss was able to wiggle itself forward along the ground a little bit at a time, but because of its humongous size, a “little bit” in this context meant more than ten feet. In other words, it still had a limited ability to pursue him. But it didn’t matter, because he was fine: he’d avoided yet another attack while leaving behind a still-lingering contrail that led from where he stood, off to his left, and then midair forward to where he’d been standing during the first hoof stomp. It seemed that, while in Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 3, Zach could retrace his path to wherever he’d just been up until around a minute prior, which was around how long he recalled it took for the trail to fade.

“I’ve flipped many times before!” he shouted to Rian, who was somewhere off behind him with the rest of the raid. Zach didn’t bother turning to look. He was a bit preoccupied at the moment. Even still, he muttered, “That’s not my first flip. I flip all the time while fighting, actually.”

“I’ve literally never seen you flip, Zach.”

“Bullshit.”

“Nope. You never flip.”

“I flip—I’ve flipped! Kal, haven’t I flipped?”

“Yep! You’ve flipped, baby!”

“See?”

“Pfft. He’s never flipped. She’s just saying what you want her to—”

“Will ya’ll two shut your dumb asses up?” Jimmy snapped. “Nobody cares who flips. Goddamn! We’re on 2 now and you guys wanna argue about this shit?”

Zach laughed as he launched himself backwards by kicking off his feet, gaining some distance. Then he jumped up and over the eye lasers, braced himself through another AOE ice attack, and finally, he unloaded another three more Phase Slashes while upside-down midair before flipping three times and landing right-side up on his feet—and this time, he did it intentionally to annoy Rian. His dexterity stat, now at 205, might have even been higher than Kal’s. The acrobatics he could now pull off shocked even himself.

Touching down onto the dirt, Zach observed as his first Phase Slash struck the boss for 123,241 and caused the mare’s entire right eyeball to knock right out of its face then melt just outside of its socket. The boss screamed—and then screamed again as the second Phase Slash hit for 105,002 and took out its other eye, which probably didn’t matter as non-sentient mobs didn’t require eyesight. Still, it served as a boost to Zach’s enthusiasm. And now, as Zach raised his blade and prepared to unleash a fourth Phase Slash, he watched as his third hit found its mark, striking the boss right in its forehead and doing…

Oh no! No, no, no!

0

The number caused his eyes to widen and his heart to thud like someone slamming on a door. It also caused an immediate silence from the rest of the raid, but one that lasted for a mere instant. Almost as soon as the quiet appeared, it was replaced by a sudden rush of panic, and this panic grew as a slew of additional zeroes came in from the ranged DPS and the two mage groups.

0

0

0

0

0

“It’s shifting!” Kalana cried.

“W-what happened?” Alixa asked. “Why’s it shifting already?”

“We don’t have the time for this!” Lienne shouted with a gasp. “We’re…we’re gonna die! We’re gonna—”

“Everybody chill!” Jimmy’s voice yelled into the fray, but it went ignored as more and more people began searching around themselves as though their eyes might land upon an explanation they actually wanted to hear and not the truth that was plainly visible in front of his eyes.

Zach, for his part, was not yet ready to give in to despair. Gripping his sword tightly, he slashed wildly, delivering slice after slice, each one doing exactly 0 damage. Then, backing away slowly, he moved over to Jimmy, a contrail in his image lingering behind him, and with a surprisingly calm voice, he said, “Jimmy, just give it to me straight. Are we dead? Did I fail?”

“No and no!” Jimmy said, practically shouting to be heard over the commotion that had just been raised. People were shouting nonstop: at each other, at Jimmy, and even at the boss. Zach had to lean in close to hear his reply. Then he had to reply with equal loudness to in turn be heard as Jimmy’s name was being called and adventurers were crowding around him demanding to know what they were supposed to do now. Jimmy seemingly ignored them all and focused on Zach.

“What did it?” Zach asked. “Why did it shift?”

Jimmy shrugged. “This was always a possibility, but I still think we’re gonna be all right.”

Zach guffawed. “Are you sure?” He lifted his eyes as much as he could so that he could see the outline of the number above his head in his peripheral vision. “I don’t know, Jimmy. I think we’re going to die before it even unleashes its next attack.”

Jimmy’s face tightened. “Maybe, but maybe not. I think there’s still just enough time left for you and the others to finish off the boss.” He pointed at the mare with his staff. “But you need to attack it as soon as it’s done shifting. Like, don’t even wait for it to do whatever big attack it’s got up its sleeve. As soon as it changes, get on that bitch.”

With his hands and feet still shooting flames, Zach turned back around and faced the boss. “What’s it even going to be immune to?” he asked.

“Not sure yet,” Jimmy answered. “I didn’t see which attack came in last before it started shifting, but uh, probably dark.”

“Dark?” Zach said, repeating the word. He became instantly confused. “How can it be dark? Shouldn’t it be wind? There’s only three mages here using dark, so how could they possibly be the trigger?”

“Uh, probably ‘cause I gave my buff to Emala, and she was spamming those wisps pretty fast,” he explained. But then very quickly, he added, “But she didn’t do anything wrong. I wanted her to do that. Nobody did anything wrong, actually. I kinda’ figured this shit was gonna come down to the wire.”

“To the what?”

“It’s just an expression.” Jimmy again pointed at the boss with his staff. “But don’t worry about that. It’s starting.”

As the commotion grew, so too did the Mare of the Primordial Void. Its back-right leg missing, it stayed prone on the ground as its body expanded even more, becoming so horrifyingly large now that it began to block out the sun, which had only just reappeared as the rain and thunder came to an end. Even without being able to stand upright, the mare was now nearly five stories tall, and its skin returned to a color very similar to its original coat: black. But it was a darker, inkier black than it’d been at the beginning of the raid, and it lacked any of its initial purplish hue.

It's so close to being dead, Zach thought. We’re right there!

Though its size grew, the mare itself remained in a terribly beat-up, near-death state. Its eyes did not regrow, nor did its missing leg. It was still bleeding even as its horns became sharper, the flames shooting out of its three hooves burned brighter, and the frost it was shedding poured faster and faster. But Zach didn’t care about any of that. All he cared about was its remaining HP.

HP

507,456/13,225,000

Name

(T9) Mare of the Primordial Void

Level

85

Quickly, he regarded his remaining time on Unleashed Phase, which was only going to continue increasing thanks to Breath of Invigoration.

Unleashed Phase Duration

9:00 Remaining

Turning back around, Zach said, “Jimmy, I’ve got more than enough time left on Unleashed Phase to kill this thing if there’s any chance at all to do it. You’ve just got to tell me when I can, okay? Uh, Jimmy? Hey, Jimmy, what’s…?”

Right away, Zach could see something was totally out of place in his friend’s expression, as seemingly out of nowhere, all of the optimism and still-lingering hope appeared to vanish over the course of several brief seconds. Now, Jimmy began shaking his head, and a lump formed in his throat. “It’s taking too long,” he whispered. He marched closer to Zach, and Zach felt him grab his shoulder. “Zach, it’s taking too long!”

“What is?”

“The boss! This shift is taking longer than the others!”

“Wait, is it?”

“Yes!”

“But…but you said we should still have enough time left to—”

“I know what I said!” he interrupted. “But shit, something’s not right. It should’ve shifted by now!”

Even as Jimmy spoke, the 2 above everyone’s head transformed into a 1, and now Zach, too, felt the same pinch of hopelessness that was starting to consume Jimmy. But for Zach, it was only a pinch. Yes, he felt the fear. Yes, it gnawed at his insides. But he was able to overcome it. He was able to continue to function. Whether that was due to the explosive energy of Phase Level 3 or a biproduct of his time spent with Jascaila, he didn’t know. But he did not allow it to consume him.

“Are you saying it’s too late now?” Zack asked him. “That we’re, what, exactly? Guaranteed to die?”

Jimmy opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again as if unsure how to answer. Zach took this to mean he didn’t know. And that was…upsetting. But still, the fact remained that the boss was almost dead. And if there was time—any time—Zach was going to use it. In fact, he already had an idea of how he might be able to end this thing in an instant. All he needed was to be alive when the boss became vulnerable to damage again: all he needed was for there to be an instant.

“Jimmy,” Zach said calmly. “How will I know when I can attack it again? I need to not fuck this up. I’ve got an idea, but it’s a one-shot-only kind of thing. If I end up hitting for zero, it’s all over.”

Jimmy looked at him. His eyes sank with defeat, but there was still some fight left in them. Zach was sure of it. “Um, you should probably be able to hit it once it uses its once-per-shift ability,” Jimmy said. “But dude, I dunno. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I insisted on leading this raid. I honestly thought we had this shit.” As he spoke, his voice took on a remorseful tone, and now he appeared sad rather than afraid. “I pushed everybody into this, and now, I don’t think we’re gonna be able to—”

“We will,” Zach said, gritting his teeth. “Just tell me when I can attack.”

Jimmy nodded and said nothing else: not to Zach and not to the dozens upon dozens of adventurers screaming at him. The level of noise picked up greatly in intensity, and Zach continued to fight back the sensation of fear as he knew that, at any second now, he could die instantly and without even knowing what hit him.

But still, he watched: and he waited. He studied the boss carefully, observing the way it grew and grew until finally, it grew no more. Its skin had now been completely painted over a dark, inky black—all except for the areas where it was wounded and still bleeding. And with all of that done, it remained perfectly still: motionless. Zach resisted the temptation to start pacing or bouncing on his feet. What was taking so Gods-be-damned long?

“Why won’t it do something?” he shouted, his words now completely drowned out as Donovan and Zephyr struggled to get everyone under control as the panic became full-blown and hysterical.

“Fuck! We’re gonna die!” a man from Children of Order cried.

“Oh, shit. We really stepped in it,” an adventurer moaned. “Gods, what the hell have we done?”

Zach continued to do his best to tune all of it out. He watched, and watched, and continued to watch—and then finally, something happened. Well, three things happened, actually, and they occurred back-to-back. And none of them eased the growing tension: they had the opposite effect, in fact.

First, about eight massive shadows formed all over the raid, darkening the area around Zach and the others. These shadows, which appeared to take the shape of perfect circles, were so large that just eight were enough so that every member of the raid stood within their bounds. Glancing upwards, Zach discovered that these shadows were cast by eight gigantic, black, and ball-shaped objects plummeting down towards the raid from the sky above.

“W-w-what the hell is that?” asked the voice of Lienne. “Kalana, what is that!”

“I dunno,” Kalana said. “I think it’s gonna hit us, though.”

Screams and cries echoed out from a great many raiders as it registered right away that they were being attacked by some kind of massive, absurdly huge, and unavoidably Dark-based AOE attack, which in this case meant having all eight objects crash down on them. Just from the look of them, Zach guessed that they would all likely explode upon impact, too, and thanks to the “permanent” debuff, more than half of the adventurers and probably most of the political guild members would die on contact—or no. Actually, they wouldn’t.

As several women nearby released more screams of terror, Zach now realized that, as fast as those eight massive black balls were falling down upon the raid, the more than one-hundred members would be dead before a single one of them managed to land. And this made itself perfectly clear as the 1 above everyone’s head changed into the dreaded, feared 0.

“No!” a woman just behind him cried. “No! Gods, please, no!”

“Gods forgive me,” a man with a spell sword from Group 2 muttered. “Forgive me for all my sins.”

The eight massive black balls of death from above continued to drop, but it no longer mattered, because their time had now simultaneously run out anyway. But still, Zach did not despair. Instead, he briefly met Kalana’s eyes, and of all things, she gave him a loving smile as a series of poofs began emanating from everywhere around Zach including from the spot right beside him. And following these strange sounds, the loudest screams of all filled the air as over a hundred NPCs called “The Reaper” simply popped into existence beside every adventurer and political guild member on the raid—one for each person.

HP

999,999,999,999,999,999,999/999,999,999,999,999,999,999

Name

The Reaper

Level

????

The NPC was tall—about seven feet in height—and wore a black, flowing cloth that was torn in places. It also had a large scythe. Its face was horrifying, too. It looked decayed, its mouth chipped in places and oddly plastic, but its eyes burning with an otherworldly heat. It vocalized no sounds, either, as it began to raise its scythe upwards as though intent on slashing down and decapitating him. In fact, aside from the slight rustle of its robes, it made no noise at all.

What the hell is this?

His heart thudding in his chest, Zach whirled around and ignored “The Reaper” that was beside him. Instead, he eyed the one standing next to Kalana, and he raised his blade and prepared to charge at it. In this moment, Zach didn’t care how powerful it was. If he accomplished nothing else, he would find some way to block the scythe that was targeting her!

“Kal!” he shouted out. “I’m coming!” Don’t let it—”

“Now!” Jimmy cried, causing Zach to immediately stop what he was doing and instead refocus all of his attention.

“N-now?” Zach asked urgently, his own voice rising.

“Yes!” Jimmy screamed. “Now!”

Zach didn’t need to hear another word. He didn’t need another moment of confirmation. His heart was now beating so fast that he could hear it in his ears. His composure at last broke. He was flooded from head to toe with terror, adrenaline, and even excitement. But he acted. He cut through all the uncertainty, and he acted.

Now, with all the quickness he could manage, he spun his body around—and this time, he did so with such unbelievable speed that the friction of his shoes on the ground caused sparks then flames to sprout up around him—and these had nothing to do with Unleashed Phase.

Zach knew that he had less than a second. He knew that the raid had less than a second. There was no time to think. There was no time to waste. There wasn’t even time to aim. But thank the Gods, the Mare of the Primordial Void was so large. Because thanks to that, Zach wouldn’t be able to miss.

And so, releasing his sword and letting it fall to the ground, Zach shot his arm forward with his hand clenched into a fist, which he angled in the approximate location of the boss. And then, as a majority of the raid released what well may be their final shouts, he activated his blasting ring—with no time to brace himself.

The ring fired, and then there was red.

Bright, laser-like red.

So much so that it blinded him and he had no choice but to close his eyes. He couldn’t even see the beam. He knew it must’ve been big, though: like, really, really big. With 247 points into intelligence, it must’ve been at least twice as large as his DEHV-tunnel-sized one he’d used against Ziragoth’s adds. But he didn’t actually know, because he couldn’t see. The red was too bright, and it erased any trace of the world in front of him.

Now, all Zach knew for sure was that he was moving fast: very fast. Impossibly fast. He felt warmth and wind, and spinning and turning. But he did not know if he faced up or down, and he did not know in which direction he was moving. He could no longer hear the sound of any raid members, and he was oblivious to whether or not he’d succeeded. There was also a great heat around him. And as he struggled to open his eyes, he realized he was surrounded on all sides by a massive cone of flame. He was confused. He didn’t understand what was happening. He had no idea whatsoever where he was.

But he reasoned that he was moving very, very, very fast. As in, beyond the speed of sound. Just how far had he launched himself? How fast? Clearly, it was enough so that Galterra’s atmosphere was taking issue with it, thus the fire and the heat. For him to be igniting the air itself, he must’ve been pushing Mach 5. He risked opening his eyes just a drop, but he was still blinded. He counted to ten and tried again. This, he then repeated once more. And now, finally, he was able to keep them open, and it was here he was able to confirm that he was indeed flipping through the air—and he was doing so at such breathtaking speed that he was unable to make any sense of where he was or his general direction.

Disoriented, he threw his arms out to both sides of himself while exerting his strength. It was thanks only to his massive dexterity that he was eventually able to pull himself right-side up—or at least he assumed this was right-side up, as there was now endless blue along with clouds above, and green and some brown below. And there was something else, too: something very, very significant. It was something that, all other factors aside, filled him with such relief and joy that he could barely contain himself.

Level Up!

26 (25)

Speed

+4 (182)

XP Required for Level 25

500,000

(UNLEASHED ABILITY) (Unique) Phase Return Acquired

The level up was all right. The ability? He had no idea. Neither were cause for his elation and joy. No, it was the simple fact that, for him to have leveled up, it meant that surely the boss had been killed: surely, he had somehow managed to do enough damage to it with his blasting ring that it at last perished.

But wait.

WAIT!

That meant…

Loot!

Zach began to claw and scramble at the air as he continued to be blasted away. He had no idea where he was. He had no sense of how far he’d gone. The only indication he had at all was the cloudy streak that led all the way across the sky, over the horizon, and back in the direction he’d come from. But he had no way of knowing just how far it ran or for how many miles. It was probably a great many.

Glancing downwards, he estimated that he was at least four-thousand feet in the air and traveling at several-thousand miles-per-hour. Gods, he really threw himself a hell of a distance away. Yet all he saw beneath him were patches of green grass broken apart by brown dirt. He sighed. Did he really have no way of slowing himself down or ending his flight? Or was his only option to just zip his way across the land until finally gravity crashed him down somewhere?

If I don’t get back, I’ll die from my exertion debt, he thought. Or worse! I’ll miss loot!

Unable to slow himself or quicken his descent, Zach, even knowing how ridiculous it was, figured he might as well read up on his new ability even despite the fact that his body was hurtling through the air backwards at supersonic speed. But, absurd or not, from the moment he started to read his new ability, he sure was glad that he did.

UNLEASHED Ability (UNIQUE)

Phase Return

Usage Cost:

2:25 / 3:10 (if used with Boundless)

Cooldown:

60 seconds

Range:

500

Description

Can only be used while Unleashed Phase is active with a Phase Level of 3 or a Phase Level of 4.

Teleports the user to the beginning of the user’s trail and grants +100 armor for 3 seconds.

My…trail? Zach wondered.

Then he again looked at the cloudy streak in the sky, which continued on seemingly forever. And with that, he let out a cheer—one he could not even hear over the sound of wind beating against him or the hiss of flames, which at last began to die down as his speed gradually declined.

Wait, will this bring me back? That’s what it’s implying, right?

Zach sucked on his lower lip a moment. He could definitely spare the time on Unleashed Phase thanks to Jimmy’s buff and, honestly? He really needed to get back so that Jimmy could tell him how in the hell he was supposed to survive this Very High debt. So, assuming he’d read everything correctly, he might as well give it a shot…no?

Of course I should.

Zach shrugged midair and activated Boundless followed by his newest ability, Phase Return. Then he braced himself, fully expecting to feel a huge sense of vertigo or some other nauseating sensation. Instead, he felt nothing at all. It was almost like roping out of a dungeon, only a bit stranger as the entire world seemed to “fold” in a sense, bending and curving until it became something shaped like a cone, or a funnel, which he realized he was sliding directly out the bottom of—even without feeling any sense of falling or change in speed. And all of this took place in an instant. The clouds, the grass, the sun: all of it just kind of “folded” together like he was an insect stuck to a piece of paper that was being made into a paper airplane. Yet, as quickly as it folded, it unfurled just the same, and now Zach landed in a crouch on the empty, barren landscape that used to be a market square.

“…and I’m worried too, because I have no idea where he—OH FUCK ZACH YOU SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!” Rian cried, actually jumping backwards and dropping his shield.

Zach bent down and picked up his sword, which was exactly where he’d dropped it: right in front of his feet. He carefully sheathed it, and patted some dirt out of his sides with his hands, which were still shooting out fire. Then, as Kalana sprinted towards him and a hundred eyes settled on his back, he glanced over to what looked like a fifteen-foot deep, spiral shaped indentation in the ground that ran for several miles, at the beginning of which was a massive pile of treasure.

“Loot,” he said, ignoring all the words being shouted at him. “Loot!” he yelled. “Now!”

Chapter 179: Guilt

Chapter 179: Guilt

The sky was clear, the sun was still shining brightly, and it would continue to do so for at least another three hours. Wiping a glob of sweat away from his face, Zach tried not to appear as overly impatient or rude, but it was difficult. Right now, there was a lot going on, and to be honest, it was kind of overwhelming.

As Zach eyed the mounds of loot and treasure, which sat at the bottom of the several-mile-long, spiral-shaped “trench” he’d blasted into the terrain with his ring, the adventurers, along with Fiona Darkmae and her guild, were crowding around him and Jimmy, encircling them and shouting out questions, encouragement, and many other things, only some of which Zach could actually make out.

“You did great!” Fiona said to him, her voice filled with enthusiasm. “Now we can rebuild the roads and the market square just like it was before.”

Although Zach had mostly been ignoring everyone for the past few minutes, what Fiona said to him stood out. He turned his head in her direction. “Wait, seriously? But what about when that thing spawns again? Maybe it’s not the best idea to build the market on a boss spawn, especially now that you know it’s there.”

She shrugged. “Yah, well, there’s no record of that boss in any of the guild archives, and those go back over 800 years, so…so yeah, we’ll document its existence and worry about it 800 years from now.”

Zach sighed. “That’s probably what the people in Den of Ziragoth figured, too. And it’s what they’re planning on doing again.”

Kal, who was holding his arm, squeezed a bit more tightly, though not enough to be painful. “That’s their home, Zach. Umm, you’re being really insensitive.”

I better not start this argument up again.

Zach—and incidentally, most of North Bastia—all had varying opinions about the Den of Ziragoth, as it was now a political and social issue in addition to a practical one. Many people, such as most of those who lived in Whispery Woods, felt very strongly that it should be rebuilt, but North Bastians everywhere else were opposed. Zach was in the latter camp. He just didn’t think it was all that smart to kick the can a thousand years—or however many—down the road, because people tended to forget things, and things tended to get erased with time. Next thing you knew, the tragedy was happening all over again.

Kalana, however, fully believed in restoring the town and making the citizens there whole. Fylwen did as well. In fact, in her very first address upon claiming the region of Whispery Woods, she promised to make rebuilding the town and helping the people her top priority. Kalana also planned to visit there next week, and she wanted Zach to go with her, too. Zach still did not know how to tell her the truth: that he actually couldn’t.

I’m not ready.

For all the progress he’d made, there were still some things he just knew he couldn’t do, and revisiting that place…the idea of it filled him with terror. Even thinking about it too deeply risked bringing back the “shakes” and the “jitters.”

Zach cupped and rubbed his jaw as he tried to pull his mind away from Den of Ziragoth. He turned his head to look at Fiona, the beautiful, enchanting leader of Children of Order, as she began mingling with the adventurers, who despite strongly disliking political guild people, seemed to find a soft spot for her. Whether that was due to her outrageously good looks, her major celebrity status, or simply her youthful spirit, Zach did not know. He didn’t care, either. He was too exhausted to care—but not too exhausted for loot.

“Jimmy,” he said, “let’s do the—”

“Jimmy!” Donovan’s voice shouted. It was loud enough that it made Zach’s impossible to hear. “Why’s this Gods-damned debuff still active? I thought you said it wasn’t gonna be permanent.”

“It’s not,” Jimmy said.

The two of them were clearly referring to Curse of the Void, which claimed to permanently decrease their armor and magic resistance. Zach had forgotten all about that. His body gave a slight shudder at the thought of having to deal with it forever.

As the other adventurers and political guild members were reminded of the raid-wide curse, a fair bit of the cheer and celebratory atmosphere gave way to something a little more steeped in panic, and this was particularly the case for the tanks, who had the most to lose.

“It sure seems permanent,” Maric said.

“It won’t be.”

Donovan grunted. “Then why’s it still active? Kiddo, we better not be fucked for life.”

“Nah, no way,” Jimmy said confidently. “I’m sure we’ll figure this shit out when we start sorting through the loot. Ya’ll need to chill. All of you do. Seriously, stop coming up to me and freaking out about the debuff. I promise you they not gonna do us like that.”

“Who isn’t?” Fiona asked. “Who is ‘they,’ and what won’t ‘they’ do?”

Jimmy looked frustrated, but so too did Donovan. “The Great Ones,” Jimmy answered after pausing for a moment as if to think. “The people who coded this g—ugh, I mean, the Elvish sorcerers who created this planet.”

Fiona’s expression became deeply contemplative but also a touch uneasy, and for that, Zach couldn’t really blame her. For starters, the political guilds only even discovered the existence of the Great Ones a few weeks ago—something that was actually his fault—and now, one of them, Eilea Vayra, had returned in the flesh, another thing that was his fault and a fact that still had not been made public nor would it likely be any time soon.

From what Zach had heard, the high-ranking members of the political guilds had expressed skepticism, doubt, and distrust when Fylwen had invited them over to Elendroth to meet her, and for this reason, aside from Fiona Darkmae of Children of Order, no other guild had dispatched anyone higher than 5th ranked to meet the Elvish Great One. Although, this, to be fair, had also been due to the nuclear weapon, which until just a few hours ago, had been the sole focus of everyone’s attention.

At any rate, the officers from the various guilds who had actually been sent were very quickly convinced that not only were the Great Ones real and not just an adventurer myth, but also, that Eilea was genuinely one of them. And this, supposedly, Eilea had done by actually proving it to them. Zach wished he had been there to see the look on their faces.

Not long after Zach left with Jimmy to Trials of Nolak, Eilea had invited all the visitors from the political guilds to join a battlegroup with her—or at least that was what Kal said happened, and he had no reason to doubt her. Anyways, upon joining this battlegroup, she had shown that she, unlike every other person in the entire world, had absolutely no level: none. She was like an Earth person from Jimmy’s time. This actually surprised Zach, too, because even he didn’t know this. He’d always just assumed the Great Ones were, like, super high level. But nope. They weren’t any level at all. And Kal said this blew the minds of the political guild members, and so did what she showed them next.

I really have to ask Eilea to show me it too when I see her later.

Apparently, after wowing everyone with the fact that she had no level, Eilea had made her own name appear above her head in really large purple lettering, and it had read: “[MOD] Eilea Vayra: Community Manager.”

This, according to Kal, had stunned everyone on the island including Kalana herself, the political guild members, the visiting adventurers, Fluffles, and even all the other Elves. It had even stunned Zach just in hearing about it. The only person it seemingly did not affect was Jimmy, who had actually sniffed his nose dismissively while muttering, “I can’t stand the mods” like he actually knew what a “mod” was or what it stood for.

Actually, that all led back to why Zach could totally empathize with the unease he now saw written on the face of Fiona Darkmae. Because she, like the rest of the political guilds, had just had their entire understanding of the world and of reality challenged, and Eilea had reportedly refused to answer a single question such as: “Why did you make the world this way?” Or: “What is your plan for us?”

Supposedly, the only thing Eilea would actually say was that she was neutral to all conflicts and all people’s, and that she could not interfere in their day to day lives or provide any knowledge.

Because Adamus won’t let her, Zach thought, knowing full well exactly why that was. If she could get away with it, she’d tell them everything.

Her brow furrowing somewhat, Fiona threw up her shoulders and said, “If you say so, Jimmy.”

“I do. The debuff ain’t gonna be forever. If it is, I’ll eat my own shoes.”

Donovan narrowed his eyes for just a moment, but then his face softened, and he gave Jimmy a painful-looking pat on the back. “Yeah, all right.”

What amazed Zach was how not upset the adventurers were with Jimmy for almost killing them all. To the contrary, they were extremely pleased, jovial, and full of joy and celebration. On the one hand, this was really good, because the last thing Zach wanted was for him to go through another alcohol-induced meltdown while he drowned in his sorrows at a pub somewhere. But on the other hand, it really was kind of crazy how Jimmy had actually been right.

Earlier, when everyone had wanted to retreat, he’d essentially told the raid that they’d be happy he made them go through with it once they’d succeeded, and for the most part, that was exactly what happened. In fact, Aside from Kalana, Zach was probably the only person right now who still would have preferred to go back to Elendroth and sleep rather than endure all this crap. Because honestly? Full transparency? Zach just killed a whole lot of people last night, and he really didn’t need this stress right now. He’d been through a lot since early yesterday evening, and not even the possibility of winning a piece of rare loot was enough to change that.

It helps, though, he thought greedily. He almost snickered to himself, too. But then his mood dropped, and it did so suddenly, drastically, and with such unexpected force that it actually terrified him.

I really did kill so many people, and a lot of them were my age.

Zach fought to hold in any further thoughts about what he’d done. He wanted to be happy for Jimmy. Not that Jimmy needed any more cheerleading. Because as far as all the other adventurers were concerned, they were literally thanking Jimmy for “pushing them” to go through with the raid. Zach observed as Spider, the shredded, dark, powerfully built second-in-command of the GSG approached Jimmy to shake his hand, and now the two of them were laughing together. “Son, you did good. What a hell of a raid. You’re a natural leader, and we’re all grateful you yanked us out of our comfort zone. We needed that.”

“Hell yeah,” Donovan added. “We just took down the trickiest boss of our lives. Don’t know about ‘strongest,’ but the fucker sure was a pain in the ass.”

Jimmy nodded. “I wasn’t around for Ziragoth, but from what I hear, the dragon was quite a bit stronger than the mare in terms of pure stats and level. But the horse definitely had a lot of shit up its sleeve that the dragon didn’t.”

“It sure did,” Donovan agreed with a laugh.

Zach rolled his eyes as the adventurers merrily addressed Jimmy as well as himself, with many wanting to high-five or shake hands. Zach, for his part, simply went along with it. He also enjoyed the sense of fascination each time someone shook his hand and realized the flames shooting out of it were cool to the touch. Actually, that reminded him: he had way too much time left on Unleashed Phase.

Unleashed Phase Duration

52:30 Remaining

A bit earlier, he and Kalana had argued about whether or not they should start rolling for loot right away or whether they should first wait for Jimmy to reveal whatever plan he had to help Zach deal with his exertion debt. It was an argument that still wasn’t quite settled. Zach really wanted to do the roll first. He also wanted to make it absolutely clear that anything he won was to be buried with him if he died. And he didn’t care if that was greedy! Kalana, on the other hand, wanted to address his impending E-debt immediately.

“I can’t wait to go home and go to sleep,” he groaned as more and more adventurers wanted to give him a pat or a handshake.

Suddenly, he felt a soothing pair of lips grazing his ear. “You can’t go to sleep right away,” Kalana whispered to him.

“Huh? Why?” he whispered back.

Rather than reply, she gently bit his ear, and it sent a pleasurable sensation straight down his spine while causing little bumps to form all over his skin. He was pretty sure he got the message she was sending. Loud and clear. “I guess…I can stay awake a little longer.”

Though he was far from “deprived,” if it was up to Zach, he would be at it four, five times a day. Supposedly, that’s how much Rian and Seiley went at it, but to be fair, Rian was a bullshit artist and could be totally lying just for the sake of bragging. Regardless, the point was that if there was one thing in this world he enjoyed more than loot, treasure, and gold, it was his “special” alone time with Kal. He was so lucky to have someone as beautiful as her to himself.

And…for some reason, the thought of that reminded him of a young couple he’d killed right after arriving on Shadowfall Coast. There had been a young, beautiful girl—and he’d cut her entire fucking head off right in front of her boyfriend or maybe even fiancé. That look in his eyes…what Zach had done to her had hurt him way more than the slice of Zach’s blade that subsequently disemboweled him.

But why was he thinking about this now? Why was it bothering him right this moment when he’d woken up earlier in Angelica’s and had been just fine? Why did he feel like the pain inside him was beginning a slow, but steadily increasing ramp up? And then what? Was he going to lose his shit in front of all these people? Not just Kal this time, but Jimmy, Mr. Oren, Fiona, Rian, Lienne—everyone. Just like he had on Elendroth, only with a much larger audience here to see him break down.

Come on, Zach, he begged himself. You learned to get through this already. Don’t do this now.

Somehow, the thought actually made things a million times worse, and now it became a full-intensity task just to keep the hurt in his head from showing on his face. But it was like holding back the flow of a broken dam. The pressure was immense. He couldn’t keep it in much longer.

“Be right back,” he said, smiling. “Gotta take a piss. I’m going to run back to that diner real quick and use their bathroom.”

Donovan coughed out a laugh. “Just run a mile in any direction and piss on the dirt, you son of a bitch.”

Zach didn’t say anything in response to him. He needed to get out of there—quickly. And so, without even a word to Kal, he moved, slowly at first, but then blazingly fast towards the southeast. He didn’t actually care where he ended up. He only just needed to get far enough away that he wouldn’t be observed. Of course, he couldn’t actually hide, either. Thanks to Phase Level 3, he left behind a trail that would lead directly to him.

I don’t think anybody will follow me.

Just to be safe, Zach hurried an extra mile or two away, stopping upon reaching a point where the barren dirt at last turned to grass—where the terrain was undamaged by the mare’s fire-shifting attack. Alone and unwatched, he dropped down to his knees, removed his phone, and dialed a number.

“Hey, kiddo,” Jascaila said to him. “Didn’t expect to hear from ya so soon. I was watching you out there thanks to Eilea. You did really good.”

Zach opened his mouth to reply, but all that came out was a whimper. Then a sob. And upon hearing this, her voice turned serious but also soothing.

“Hey, Zach, what’s up?”

He struggled to get a word out but couldn’t. It was all boiling up so fast, and it actually confused him, because he really had been okay. “I was fine all day,” he managed to say—but that was the extent of what he could speak. Afterwards, the harder he tried to talk, the harder tears ran down his face, and the less he was able to form words.

“It’s all right,” she said to him, speaking softly and reassuringly. “Let’s talk about it. But first, remember those breathing exercises you learned.”

Zach wiped his eyes, and the back of his hand was soaked. “I killed over a hundred people last night,” he sobbed. “A hundred. Some of them begged. But I did it anyway. They begged!”

He found his voice as he told Jascaila what he had done. And as he did so, he couldn’t help but feel gratitude towards Kalana for forcing him to meet her. Because right now, he doubted he could go through this otherwise. Yet with her, he knew he would be able to get by. Even just having her on the phone had a strange calming effect.

“…and I don’t understand why I was fine until Kal flirted with me.”

“Guilt works in funny ways, Zach. Processing our emotions can take time: very often a lot of it. But in this case, it sounds like Kalana reminded you of what you feel you stole from others. But that guilt isn’t yours to carry. You need to understand that what you did was a consequence not of your actions, but of much older men and women who should have known better.”

“But the people I killed…it wasn’t their fault either,” Zach argued. “They were my age, and they were just trying to protect their home.”

Zach knew he didn’t have much time to speak before Kal became suspicious. So even as Jascaila responded, he apologized and cut her off. “I really don’t have a lot of time, uh, I actually snuck away to call you. Is there any way you can help me hold it together until I get home? We are about to do loot.”

“You should know by now that even asking that question is silly, Zach. You need to feel what you feel. The fact you try so hard to suppress it is exactly why you have moments like this where you explode. Come on, kiddo. You know this. I shouldn’t have to tell you it.”

Zach rubbed his forehead in frustration. “Yeah, but I need to just get through this. Please. I don’t want to humiliate myself in front of everybody. Please!”

Jascaila sighed. “All right, listen. Here’s what you’ll do. Focus all your attention on the loot. Think about the loot like it’s the only thing in the world that matters. Obsess over it. Think about which piece or pieces you want to get, what you’d do with them, how much they're worth, and all that good shit. Your mind will switch over to a state of becoming goal-oriented, and you’ll forget for a while. But as soon as you come back, I want to speak with you, all right?”

“Of course! Thanks!”

Zach hung up, straightened his back, and then thought really, really hard about the loot.

And it worked.

Chapter 180: The Wayward Son

Chapter 180: The Wayward Son

Vim took a deep breath to keep his fury under control. Then, in what was somewhat uncharacteristic of him, he apologized to the aghast, horrorstruck lieutenant, whose eyes glistened as though on the verge of tears. Supposedly, this man had seen bodies torn apart and horrors untold, thus Vim did not believe he would be this wounded from a few little insults. “I…regret those things I said about your mother,” Vim began. “And also, your sister. And…your aunt.”

“And my grandmother?”

“Her as well,” Vim said as the conversation became even more awkward.

“They are all dead, Lord Alazar. I lost them all when I was a child. To a large monster that appeared suddenly in the night. They told me I was crazy, and they sent me to a psychiatric ward, but I know what I saw.”

Vim sucked on his tooth. “Well, clearly, I didn’t know those things when I said the thing about…you know, about how I’d use my…look, we don’t need to go over the exact things I said. I apologize, all right?”

“I accept your apology, Lord Alazar, and I hope you’ll pray the Gods treat them well in the world beyond. And that one day the truth will come out. Perhaps you will aid me in that.”

Great. He’s using guilt as a weapon.

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” he lied. “A boss spawning right in the middle of Nelear twenty-seven years ago? There’s no way that could ever happen in Giant’s Fall. And you should stop talking about it.” Vim cleared his throat as he tried to get things back on track. “But anyway, the point I was trying to get at,” he continued, “is that I’m very, very disappointed in the progress you and your men are making. And what’s more, I fail to understand how—”

Very quickly, Vim stopped speaking. He threw out his right hand, squeezed it into a fist, and then opened it again, letting a bullet he’d just caught fall to the ground. “Wow, that one would’ve gotten you in the head. I think we’re even since I just saved your life.”

“Th-thank you, Lord Alazar!”

Seconds after he spoke, a barrage of gunfire came from the north end of the street, where he and the lieutenant were standing face to face and discussing the current status of the war effort in this part of the city. Halfway down the elongated city street, three windows blew out from gunfire and a woman’s voice could be heard screaming.

Things were not going well right now. They were going awfully, in fact. And the situation was worsening rather than improving.

This is turning into a total mess!

What really rankled Vim was that the hard part was supposed to be over. They’d won! They’d toppled the Guild of Gentlemen’s forces here, and those who survived had escaped through tunnels like rats. Despite having every entrance and exit to the city blocked off, it seemed they had another way out, and thus a significant number of guild members managed to scamper off back to Tomb of Fire, the last remaining region under their guild’s control. But even still: with them gone, everything should’ve been much easier from here on out. But no! Things were not even close to easy.

Seemingly out of nowhere, they found themselves facing a new kind of enemy, something his top commanders were referring to as an “insurgency.” All across the city, including in places they’d already cleared, there were level-1 guerilla fighters shooting at and killing the armed troops of the Royal Roses and Lords of Justice as well as those who were unarmed. For this reason, all non-combat level-1 personnel such as social workers, doctors, engineers, and fire rescue teams had been yanked out of the city until the situation could be brought under control.

“I apologize for the slow progress, Lord Alazar,” the Lieutenant said to him. “But you’re gonna find the situation is the same everywhere, not just here on 10th and Junction.”

He wasn’t wrong. The city itself was in open revolt. And it wasn’t just adult men and women who were launching these cowardly guerilla attacks, but also children, too. And while, sure, the vast majority of leveled guild members had nothing to fear, it was impossible to control a city with guild members alone. Order and security required a large, stable presence of peacekeepers and level-1 personnel to be established. Otherwise, the city would be functionally useless as the revolting citizens turned to acts of sabotage such as destroying infrastructure, acts of terrorism against those who cooperated, and making economic activity of any kind impossible.

Where is that Gods-be-damned girl.

“Fylwen!” Vim shouted into the Comm after turning around and excusing himself.

“Hm?” she replied, her voice a buzz of coolness that did not carry the note of seriousness it should have. “What is it?”

“Where’s your daughter?”

“The same place she was the last time you asked. I believe she said they’re about to roll for loot.”

“Fuck the loot!” he shouted. “Get her over here now!”

Finally, Fylwen’s voice became heated. “Do you think I’ve not tried?”

Kalana’s presence here was vital to ensuring peace, as despite a thunderous hatred of non-human races, the people of Shadowfall Coast, for whatever reason, adored the Elvish princess. Supposedly, it had been due to her and Zach’s presence during the dragon raid, when they’d gone around the city shaking hands and taking pictures, one of which included Kalana holding up a five-year-old human child and kissing her on the forehead while she giggled. That one photo, unbelievably, had turned the Elvish princess into an icon. For there to be peace, they needed her here. Now!

If High-Lord Besh and I don’t turn this situation around soon, the People of Virtue are going to—

Almost as though on cue, he received a transmission request from his Comm, which he begrudgingly accepted. “Sir Gespon the Virtuous,” he said, not bothering to disguise his disdain. “How kind of you to call.”

“Indeed,” Abram replied in a way that came across as arrogant and smug. “I’ve come with some wonderful news for you, Sir Alazar.” Vim braced himself, as he knew exactly what the son of a bitch was going to say, and he wasn’t ready to hear it. “My sources tell me the Royal Roses and the Lords of Justice are struggling to peacefully bring the city back under civilized control. But don’t worry: I am dispatching twenty-thousand ground troops led by a hundred competent members of my guild to bolster your efforts.”

******

Abram smiled, but held back a laugh as Vim’s voice continued to howl from the speaker on his desk, releasing one vile, disgusting insult after the next. Abram was content to simply sit up straight and patiently wait for him to finish, as this was always the correct way to deal with the hot-tempered, foul-tongued little Gnome.

“—fucking son of a whore piece of shit!” he roared. “If you think you can just parade into the city after sitting this out and letting us and the Lords of Justice pay the blood price, you can fucking suck my—”

This continued for a while. Abram leaned forward and pressed the “mute voice” button then lifted his finger. His beautiful assistant strode over. “Yes, Sir Gespon the Virtuous?”

“I’ll have a coffee, please: dark, with one milk and two sugars. A gentle sprinkle of caramel, too.”

“Of course, Sir Gespon the Virtuous.”

He leaned forward a second time and unmuted himself as a panting, gasping Vim appeared to be finishing his tirade. “…which is why even your dog doesn’t love you.”

“I understand your concerns, Sir Alazar. But I assure you, this is purely a peacekeeping operation to ensure the security and wellbeing of all North Bastians.”

“Oh, cut the shit! You’re trying to gain leverage!”

Vim was right, of course. The People of Virtue, after all, had absolutely no leverage over what were sure to be upcoming negotiations regarding the future of Shadowfall Coast. For the past two decades, the Royal Roses and the People of Virtue had been extremely close allies, but something of this magnitude was naturally going to harm relations. Put simply, it was necessary, as with absolutely no presence in the city, the People of Virtue would be able to extract nothing from the conquest of Shadowfall Coast. Likewise, having chosen not to participate in such a risky military action, they lacked any kind of claim along moral grounds, either.

I made the right call not to join the initial attack, he thought to himself. If Vim, Kolorn, and the Elvish queen had failed, their cities would be up in flames right now, and everyone inside of them would be dead. No, I was right not to risk the retaliation.

Nevertheless, with their weakened, battle-damaged forces struggling to get the level-1 citizens under control, this was the perfect opportunity to send in a historic, overwhelming number of troops to help foster peace and defeat the guerilla forces that had already begun making Vim’s life hell—and not even a full day after their victory. Most likely, King Alistair had fomented such a force just in the event this happened, and it was paying off quite well.

“I don’t get it,” Tyson said with a bored-sounding drawl. The young, 29-year-old man—who behaved more like a child—was sitting on a large leather couch in the back of Abram’s office while throwing a ball up against the ceiling, waiting for it to bounce down before catching it.

“What don’t you get?” Abram asked, annoyed.

Tyson Revel was the second-in-command of the People of Virtue, and with his father’s Alzheimer’s in its final stages, he was soon to be the first-in-command. He didn’t want this position, however. The young man craved only debauchery. He lived a life of drugs, gluttony, and extremely degenerate acts with leather- and latex-clad escorts whom he paid tens of thousands of gold to humiliate him. It was a disgusting, revolting lifestyle, and it stood in opposition to everything his honorable father believed in.

For this reason, Abram had long been seen as the true leader of the People of Virtue, something he’d tried to keep under wraps. But even many of the ordinary, level-1 citizens had begun catching on, and many of the upper echelons of the guild wondered why he didn’t simply take over at this point. In truth, he could do so without any violence or struggle. Tyson, after all, would not even bother to resist. He would willingly resign and hand over control if asked. There would be no need for any kind of strife in the process. And yet, Abram simply did not find the idea of such an act sitting well with him. And there were multiple reasons for this.

For one, the “Revel” name was synonymous with the People of Virtue, as it had been for over five-hundred years. It was a cultural dynasty that Abram had no wish to break. But even more importantly, ruling the guild by proxy simply “looked” better than naming himself its new leader. There would be functionally no difference in terms of power if he removed Tyson from his role and rank, yet it would look quite poorly for Abram to actually do so. He would appear power hungry and like someone who chases glory and recognition.

He's not making this easy for me, though, Abram thought bitterly.

Getting up from the couch, Tyson walked over to Abram’s desk, where a virtual map of the city was printed on the screen before him. He tapped it. “What I don’t get is why you don’t just take it. The other guilds are weak, right? That’s what you told me before. You said we’re now the strongest guild in North Bastia because of all the people who died. So um, like…why can’t we just take it?”

Abram sighed. Tyson was such an idiot who had no understanding of the world. “After everything North Bastia has been through,” he said, “do you really think the people of our region care to see us betray our allies and take them on in open warfare? Especially with the massive outpouring of sympathy the people feel for Vim Alazar and Giant’s Fall?”

If Abram’s words registered, Tyson’s expression did not show it. “But…but you’re sending all those troops in anyway.”

“Yes, Tyson,” Abram said, nodding. Then he too tapped the screen, gesturing at the four corners of Shadowfall Coast. “But our goal is to establish a military presence.”

“Uh, okay, why?”

“To extract concessions during the negotiations. To give the People of Virtue a better deal on global shipping once we reestablish trade with the other races and Vim gets the ports back in working order.”

Tyson’s face went blank. “Yeah but…how can you extract concessions if you don’t plan to use military force?”

Abram couldn’t believe his stupidity. “It’s about the threat of military force that could happen.”

“Yeah, but, doesn’t Sir Alazar know you won’t actually do that?”

“Yes. Just as I know he will resist concessions only to the point where I would have to.”

“I don’t get it. It sounds fake.”

“It is fake,” Abram said impatiently. “The entire game is a coordinated dance that civilized regions play to avoid mass bloodshed. It’s why we had the SOHLA accords: it’s why we do things the way we do them. It’s called brinksmanship. And the entire purpose, Tyson, is to prevent what happened in Shadowfall Coast with the Guild of Gentlemen from, well, happening.”

Tyson made a sour expression. The man had bright red hair, freckles, and was wearing a grey, button-up robe. His fingers were adorned with some of the world’s most expensive jewelry, but in Abram’s opinion, it only made him look trashy and vain and narcissistic. The man simply did not understand the difference between opulence and class.

“Okay, but here’s the thing, old man,” he said to Abram. “Let’s say we did just take the city, right? And the people get mad over it. Okay, so what?” He laughed. “We’re basically Gods to them, anyway. The fuck are they gonna do to us? Drown us in tears? Who even cares what they think? I can punch a hole through a steel beam. I can weightlift a bus. Why should I care what some pissant level-1 peasant thinks about my—”

Abram couldn’t stop himself. He slapped Tyson, hard, right across the face—enough to draw blood. Tyson recoiled, then dropped down to his knees on the floor, whimpering like a child who’d just been disciplined. “W-why?” he cried, sobbing. “Why’d you hit me?”

“Because you’re a fucking idiot!” Abram shouted. “And because you’re a disappointment, and a waste of time! And if you don’t start learning fast, I will have your head removed from your shoulders!”

“W-what?” he yelped. “Why? You don’t have to do that! I’ll just step down.”

“No!” Abram thundered, displaying anger he would almost never allow to be seen in public. “You don’t get to step down! You have a responsibility to this guild, and until you father a son or a daughter, I need to know that if something were to happen to me, you will not destroy it!”

Rubbing his face, he slowly stood back to his feet. “I didn’t even mean to upset you. I was just asking a question.”

Abram forced his muscles to relax, and he lowered his voice. “Do you like to eat, Tyson?”

“Huh?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“So, are you saying you don’t like to starve?”

“Of course I don’t,” he replied, sounding confused as though he did not understand where Abram was going with this.

Abram beckoned him closer, crooking his index finger. Tyson did not budge. “Come,” he said. “I won’t hit you again. I promise.”

Slowly, cautiously, Tyson approached. Then, Abram swiped his desk with his finger, removing the map of Shadowfall Coast entirely, and instead, he pulled up a map of South Bastia. He then blanked out the happy, prosperous region of Shores of Wrath: a region the People of Virtue controlled on the very northern tip of the southern continent. Now, he pointed to the center of South Bastia, his finger coincidentally resting on a region called “Dark-Water Depths,” though it didn’t actually matter which region he picked, as his point would be made with any of them.

“What’s life like for leveled people who live here?” he asked.

“Hell,” Tyson replied immediately.

“Correct. Why?”

“Because…because they’re starving, and they kill and torture each other.”

“That’s right. And what is the most common cause of this killing and torture?”

“Lack of food and water.”

“That’s right, Tyson,” he said, speaking to the idiot as though he were a child. Abram then swiped again on his desk, and now, he brought up a map of North Bastia. He tapped on the region of Whispery Woods. “And what about for people here? Leveled or level-1, I don’t care.”

“Also hell,” he said.

“Explain.”

“They’re impoverished, the education system isn’t great, and there’s a lot of crime. I hear the Elvish queen is going to change all that, though.”

Abram smiled. “But where would you rather live if given a choice? Let’s pretend Queen Vayra never appeared in North Bastia and the Whispery Woods region was still the same as it always is. Where would you rather live?”

Tyson answered immediately. “Oh, definitely the Whispery Woods.”

“And why’s that? It’s our poorest region.”

“Because life is still a thousand times better there than anywhere in South Bastia.”

“Exactly!” Abram said. He once again brought up the map of South Bastia. “But why is that? Why is it that even someone who is level 60 and a ‘God’ as you say can starve to death like a peasant in this region but not in Whispery Woods?”

“I…I don’t know.”

Abram nodded. “So then let me explain. And listen closely, because if I ever have to tell you this again, I will kill you. And nobody—not a single man or woman of the guild—will seek justice for your death.”

Nervously, Tyson nodded. “I’m listening.”

Abram stood up, walked over to the nearest window in his office in his guild’s high-rise tower, and gestured at the people of Varda’s Lair, who could be visibly seen commuting back and forth along the streets and roads of their beautiful, clean, and orderly city.

“When people feel they are part of a society, one with laws that protect them, they are productive. They are cooperative.” He now met Tyson’s eyes, and he made sure that Tyson gazed back at the seriousness in his eyes. “Conversely,” he continued, “when people live every day in fear and terror, when lawless thugs masquerading as guild members rape, murder, and pillage, people will put their own survival and needs above all else. They will hide food, they will flee, they will rebel, they will turn on their neighbors…every action they take will be driven purely by fear. As a result, supply chains break down, food becomes scarce, and life becomes, as you said, ‘hell.’”

Abram continued, “The life of luxury that you live is only possible because North Bastia is a continent of law and order. It is why Lieutenant Varsh was so despised and, quite honestly, destined to be taken out sooner or later for his illegal and uncivilized acts of terror against ordinary civilians. You see, right now, if you wanted to, Tyson, you could easily storm one of our towns, kill a few people, and demand all their property and belongings. Perhaps kidnap a few young women while you’re at it. No one will—or can—stop you. But what happens one week later if you try the same thing again? Don’t answer until you’ve thought about it.”

Tyson, to his credit, remained silent and contemplative for nearly a minute when, nervously, he said, “They won’t be there anymore.”

Abram nodded with approval. “That’s right. They’ll pack up and flee. And what happens to the productivity and output that town was creating for Varda’s Lair?”

“It’s erased.”

“Yes, Tyson. It’s erased! Do you see now? Government is nothing more than a contract between those who govern and the people. It’s a promise: in exchange for taxes and obedience, they receive protection and community. Without that, what you are left with is the strong feasting on the weak until there is nothing left for anyone including the strong. In the absence of civilization, all go hungry.”

Abram studied Tyson’s face, and in his eyes, Abram could tell the man finally understood his point. This was further demonstrated as he said, “So that’s why you won’t just take Shadowfall Coast?”

“Correct. Given that the nuclear bomb went off in Ogre’s Axe, and given the amount of blood that the Royal Roses have shed in Shadowfall Coast, if we take the city from them by force, our own citizens will resent us, and so will the rest of North Bastia. What we can do, however, is establish a military presence and use that as leverage to extract concessions.”

“I see.”

Abram turned back around to face his desk, but then he paused as an idea came to him. A crazy, wild idea. An idea that, in all honesty, was not just scandalous, but outrageously so. It was to the extent that he couldn’t believe he’d even thought it. And yet, it grew on him: fast, impulsively, and to the degree that he could not set it aside.

Could I actually do that…?

He could. And he would.

“Tyson,” he said, a smile forming on his lips. “I’ve just decided that you’re going to be spending some time away from Varda’s Lair. Beginning next week, you’ll be leaving on an assignment.”

Tyson’s eyes went wide, flaring with obvious outrage. “What the hell? What do you mean?”

Abram’s grin widened. “I’m sending you to Sir Zachys Calador of the Royal Roses. You’re going to be his obedient servant. I want you to join the adventuring community and learn what real hardship is.”

“Th-the fucking adventuring community? Those…those crazy, wild, smelly animals? Abram, please! Anything but that!”

“I’ve made up my mind,” he said. “You are a foolish man-child with absolutely no sense of decency or reason, but I don’t think you’re beyond help. I want you to beg that boy to take you in. I’ll even clear it with Vim as one of the concessions I’m extracting.”

Tyson shook his head. “He’s only seventeen years old! Why should I listen to a brat?”

“Because I said so!” Abram snapped. “And also, because if you don’t, you won’t wake up tomorrow.”

Tyson visibly shook with fear. “Okay, but um, Sir Calador isn’t an adventurer anymore, right? He’s a high-ranking member of the Royal Roses now.”

Abram waved off the remark. “That’s just what people are told. The boy lives a double life now. He’s both. You’re going to go to him next week once I’ve cleared it, introduce yourself, be humble, and ask him to show you how the dungeons work. This will also benefit the rest of society, as those of us in real guilds have no idea what goes on in those places, and everything you learn from him will be useful information to us.”

Tyson again began to whimper. “Please, Abram. I’m a simple man. I just want to have sex and do drugs all day. I realize how that sounds, but that’s just the truth.”

“Too bad. Also, no more drugs. They’re illegal on Elendroth anyway. The Elves will kill you if they find them. If you were a level-1, you’d be killed here for them as well. Perhaps you should be.”

Abram shivered with disgust. Tyson often got away with breaking the most serious laws, often going well above and beyond what anyone else in the guild was able to get away with. Yes, Abram himself broke morality laws on occasion while relieving stress with an escort, but in his case, it was infrequent. He never touched drugs, however, or other illegal and illicit substances. The only place on Galterra that allowed that was Vim’s region of Giant’s Fall, where their laws allowed for the consumption and sale of some forbidden drugs, particularly those that were less “hard” than some of the more serious substances.

“You have no special status to the Elvish,” Abram continued. “If they find any contraband on you, they won’t spare you, and I won’t ask them to. Now start packing. And kiss your father goodbye before you leave. Sir Goron Revel the Virtuous is going to die any day now, and there’s no longer anything left we can do to stop that. Pray that you can one day become a tenth of the man he was and not this…this filth.”

“Please, Uncle Abram.”

“Leave my sight!”

“Okay!”

The fool exited his office, and Abram turned his attention back to the situation at Shadowfall Coast—and the opportunities he found there.

Chapter 181: Crisis on 10th and Junction

Chapter 181: Crisis on 10th and Junction

“There he is.”

His palm flat, Jimmy raised his hand above his forehead and peered into the distance. Though he couldn’t actually see Zach, he knew that the kid was coming. With the boss having flattened and destroyed what Jimmy estimated to be around ten-thousand acres of land, it was easy to spot the wispy, chalky line that led from where Jimmy currently stood all the way to some point directly southeast of here. And now, he could see another one forming beside it, leading right back towards him just as the other started to fade.

Eventually, Jimmy was able to make out the form of Zach, which was leading up this new, chalky, and contrail-like streak, and he was moving fast enough to blast tons of dirt and soil behind him. Slowing himself, he planted his fiery feet into the ground and skidded to a halt until eventually stopping. Then he marched directly over to Jimmy as well as Kalana who stood nearby. “I’m back,” he said. “Loot.”

Jimmy chuckled, though he did so hesitantly, as something seemed to be off with Zach, though it was so slight he couldn’t really place it. He couldn’t even be sure he wasn’t misreading things or imagining them. With his hood off, Jimmy was able to get a good look at his eyes, and there was just something about them, but it was so subtle that Jimmy genuinely couldn’t be certain if it was real or a trick of the lighting. Before Jimmy could tell for sure, Zach once more pulled the hood over his head, which obscured his face in shadow and gave him that menacing glow.

“Come on. What’re we all waiting for?”

“Zach, don’t be in such a rush,” Kalana said. “We should deal with your exertion debt first. I don’t want anything bad to happen to y—”

“Let’s at least get started,” he interrupted. “I want to see what we’ve got.” More loudly, he added, “Shouldn’t we at least take a peek first?”

The adventurers definitely felt the same way, and so too did the political guild members, and they let this be well known by shouting out their agreement. Jimmy smiled. He then looked directly ahead of himself, to where Zach’s ring had blasted a spiral-shaped trench into the ground, one that ran for several miles. At the very foot of this trench, in the spot where the boss had last resided, there were mounds upon mounds of weapons, armor, golden coins, and other such trinkets.

“All right,” Jimmy said to an applause. “Let’s at least get everything out of there and sorted.”

Jimmy, along with Donovan and Zephyr, walked their way over to the trench. The rest of the raid did not stay put, however. They followed, and now they formed something of a semicircle around the three of them as though excited and wanting to see everything that they’d earned from the boss.

Everyone’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Jimmy, having finally proven his worth, had more than enough reason to join in their cheer. Though things had been a lot closer and more difficult than they should have been, he still considered this whole raid a big “W” on his scorecard: something to erase the stain of the last one. Now, they just had to start taking him seriously. Or at least as seriously as they were taking all this loot.

Is it just me or is there a kind of nervousness about everyone all of a sudden?

It turned out there was, and the reason behind it soon became clear.

“There’s no way I’m letting anyone steal the loot this time around,” Zach said. “Not after what happened on our last big raid. You weren’t there for that, Jimmy, but the Guild of Gentlemen stole everything from us.”

“Fuckers sure did,” Donovan agreed with a grunt. “Can’t let that happen again.”

“Hell no we won’t!” one of the adventurers cried out, his words echoed by dozens of those nearby him. Jimmy couldn’t blame them. Loot ninjas were the worst. Once, back when the DKP system was still popular, his buddy, “Anthraxkillah,” tried to pull that shit. Jimmy managed to talk him out of it, but even still, the fact he’d even tried to ninja the loot got him exiled from just about every guild on the server, and to this day, he was still shunned and known as the guy who tried to steal everybody’s loot. Or…or maybe “to this day” was the wrong expression, as unless scientists discovered a cure for aging, it was safe to assume that “Anthraxkillah,” along with everyone Jimmy had ever played with, had been dead for thousands of years.

Shit, he thought to himself as a chill ran through his body. Every time I think about that, it gets to me.

Fortunately, Jimmy’s attention was taken off the uncomfortable peculiarities of his current circumstance as Zach, whistling appreciatively, pointed and said, “I think something down there is shining silver. And I see a few gold shines, too!”

“He’s right!” a woman from Children of Order called out. “Dutchess Darkmae, I believe an artifact-quality item dropped!”

This led to immediate “oohs” and “ahhs” from the entire raid. Only a few artifact-quality items were known to exist in this world, and from what Jimmy understood, one of them actually belonged to Fluffles, the cat. Supposedly, he’d won his artifact-rarity collar during a raid on Earth, and it allowed him to become invisible for periods of up to an hour. Then, of course there was the incredible sword Zephyr wielded, which could change color and element following a multi-hit combination with the weapon—which had actually made it somewhat useless against the Mare of the Primordial Void, as by the time the melee group had been called in, it was already immune to most elements.

“Looks like we got a decent haul with this boss,” Zephyr said, his stance confident, his palms on his sides. “I think I see one Artifact, two Legendary, a handful of Epic Rare, and a slew of Rares: also, plenty of Uncommons and Commons.”

Since they were all in the same raid group, the loot likely shined for everyone. And indeed, there was one silver shine, two gold, about four purple, more than a dozen blue, and then too much green and white to count. But there was something else, too. Something that immediately drew Jimmy’s eyes.

“Wait a second,” he said, his words drawing a bunch of attention onto himself. He pointed. “That’s not shining.”

Buried deep in all the loot, and difficult to see with all the shining, there was a box-shaped object that did not shine at all—and more, it was actually moving! The box, which looked to Jimmy like a miniature Jack-in-the-Box, was actually bouncing up and down off an uncommon-rarity harpoon, clacking against it repeatedly before continuing to jump. And now, having come close enough, Jimmy realized there was a small…wait, what was that?

“Is that a dialogue bubble?” he asked.

“A what?” Zephyr, Donovan, and Fiona all replied.

“Look,” Jimmy said, pointing.

Each time the Jack-in-the-Box-like object bounced upwards, a white, oval-shaped dialogue bubble filled with soundless words would then briefly appear in the air just above it, and each time, the words were exactly the same.

“Let Muk-Muk out!” it read, though there was no noise associated with the box other than the clack as it bounced continuously off the loot.

“Well,” Jimmy said, nodding, “I think we just found the answer to the debuff problem.”

“Wait, seriously?” Alixa asked, not bothering to hide her skepticism. “What makes you think that?”

“Nothing in particular other than the fact that there’s got to be something. And if it ain’t that, then what?”

“Yes, but Jimmy, what even is that?”

“We’re about to find out.”

Jimmy studied its motion carefully, then waited for it to land and pop back up. Then, quickly, he leaned forward towards the trench and went to grab it, hoping to snatch it right as it began to fall back down. But not only did Jimmy miss catching the box, he also almost fell forward and inside the trench. “W-whoah!” he cried out as he slipped and then braced himself to fall face-forward onto a very pointy-looking sword.

“Gotcha,” a female voice said from behind him. Suddenly, he realized he was hanging forward midair, and someone was grabbing the back of his robe. He looked behind himself. “Th-thanks, Kalana,” he said, swallowing nervously as Zach stepped forward and effortlessly plucked it right out of the air with his burning glove. Kalana pulled him back so that Jimmy once more stood on two feet on solid ground, and then Zach handed him the box.

“Thanks.”

Jimmy looked down at it. Much like a Jack-in-the-Box, it also had a wind up on the side. And so, naturally, he began to turn it.

“Wait!” Kalana said. “Shouldn’t we talk this over first?”

“Yeah, this could be dangerous,” Zach agreed. “What if that summons some kind of ancient evil?”

Jimmy, whose hand still gripped the crank, halted a moment. But then he continued. “Nah, it’s gonna be fine.”

Although he could spot doubt in many of the faces around him, no one seemed willing to directly intervene or challenge him. So instead, everyone merely stood by and watched as he turned the crank around and around and around. Unlike an actual Jack-in-the-Box, though, there was no music and barely any sound except for a slight creak. It also seemed to go on for a while longer, but he was persistent, and he continued to turn and turn and turn. “Just get ready for the loud pop,” Jimmy said. “I hate when these things—”

He himself yelped out, startled, as a loud, firecracker-like pop caused him and about twenty other people to jump. Following this pop, the top of the box evaporated, and a mass of white, strangely shaped energy shot out from within. This energy then traveled about twenty feet straight upwards in the air, growing larger and larger as it did, and all while arranging itself into a humanoid shape. Then the light came back down, and when it landed, it was no longer a light at all: it was a massive, muscled-up, dual-horned Orc with a clearly visible name above its head in bold green lettering, indicating friendliness.

HP

???/???

Name

Muk-Muk <Shaman>

Level

950

At once, every adventurer stepped backwards and away from this scantily clad, massive Orc, which wore nothing but a loincloth, a belt, and a decorative shawl over its shoulders. The Orc, though clearly friendly, looked incredibly vicious, and it had a massive axe attached to its belt on one side of its hip and a club on its other side. Its teeth were also yellowed except for its two large, very sharp tusks, which had little cloth emblems attached to each displaying some kind of war pattern such as a skull on the left and a crude illustration of meat on the right.

“Thank you free Muk-Muk, adventurers,” the Orc NPC barked. It then began to do an incredibly stupid-looking dance, shifting its weight from its left foot to its right then back again. It was actually kind of hilarious. “Hurray! Muk-Muk the Shaman free. Muk-Muk captured by war horse. Now Muk-Muk do battle and war again!”

As it continued to speak, something very strange began to happen to the raid: a divergence of sorts. Kalana’s entire body seemed to tighten with disgust, and so too did most of the other adventurers. But not the political guild members. Their mood was closer to Jimmy’s: amusement. And this really came into focus as the Orc unsheathed its club, roared out victoriously, and then threw its own club at the ground, causing it to bounce off the dirt, rebound, and hit its own self in the head.

“Owie, Owie! Oops! Muk-Muk big stupid!” the Orc barked out.

Jimmy, loving every moment, burst straight into laughter, and so did every single member of the political guilds including Duchess Fiona Darkmae, who applauded. At the same time, Kalana, Zach, Rian, and even Lienne—along with every other adventurer—began to shake their heads in utter disgust and revulsion—and they directed a lot of this at him, too.

“Jimmy!” Kalana snapped.

“The fuck’s wrong with you, kiddo?” Donovan demanded.

“Who, me?”

“Yeah, you.”

Utterly confused, Jimmy stared back at them blankly. “Huh? What’s…what’s with this crazy reaction?”

“Are you for real?” Kalana asked, pointing her finger at him.

“I don’t have any idea what you’re mad at me for. I didn’t do shit. Why the hell is everybody—”

Jimmy’s words cut off as he caught sight of the Orc accidentally banging his head into his club again, and he burst out laughing a second time. “Oh, damn! Look at him go.”

“That!” Kalana snapped at him. “That’s why we’re mad.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Umm, it’s ‘cause you’re being, like, super racist. I can’t believe you’re laughing at something so disgusting.”

“Disgusting?” Jimmy said, repeating the word in a much higher-pitched. “Yo, this is hilarious. What are you people talking about? This is amazing.”

“It really is,” said Nimona, the woman from Children of Order who had earlier summoned the huge man in the sky that had launched ice spears down at the boss. “Ha-ha-ha! This is fantastic.”

“It’s not!” Kalana shouted at her, angrily.

She responded by narrowing her eyes at Kalana, which caused Trelvor and Seiley to make their presence known. “Excuse me for having a sense of humor, Elf.”

“Sense of humor? That’s not a sense of humor. It’s racist.”

“She’s a hundred-percent right,” Maric said. “Everything about this is incredibly dated and hateful.”

“Yeah, this is all kinds’a fucked up,” Donovan growled.

The NPC continued on, clearly not sentient. “I am healer Orc! Muk-Muk do the healings! Haha! And the wars!” It then began another very stupid dance, spinning itself in circles until it got dizzy and collapsed. Jimmy couldn’t help it. He clapped and laughed. And now, even Zach began to glare at him. He was so confused.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Why are ya’ll acting this way? Just enjoy the cutscene, shit. The hell has gotten into everyone all of a sudden?”

As the adventurers lit up with even more ire, it was Tena who jumped in front of Jimmy and extended her arms as though shielding him from their anger, and with a sincere, but firm voice, she loudly said, “Jimmy doesn’t know any better! He doesn’t even understand that what he’s doing is wrong! So cut him some slack!”

This caused the eye of almost every adventurer to turn on her as she continued, “You guys already all know he wasn’t was born here and he’s from one of the last human colonies on Earth, right? So, he doesn’t understand that the Orcs are different today. He doesn’t even know he’s doing anything wrong. Please don’t hate him or think he’s a bad person. Jimmy’s never even met an Orc or seen one. He doesn’t know anything.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Zach said, confusing Jimmy even more. Kalana nodded as well.

“I get it,” Kalana said. “Jimmy’s just confused.”

“Okay, will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?” Jimmy demanded.

Tena lowered her arms and turned around. “Okay, so you might not know this, but Orcs are extremely sensitive, kind, sophisticated, and educated people,” she began. “And if any Orc in Galterra was here right now and saw this, they would be brought to tears and would probably never adventure ever again. You can’t even understand how much this caricature would hurt them.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to reply, but the words that came from his lips differed from those he planned on speaking. “Actually…I think I might, believe it or not.”

“Huh? How?” Kalana asked him.

Jimmy refused to get into that topic. Not here. Not now. That was thousands of years behind him. So instead, he looked again at Muk-Muk and said, “Wait, but if this is so offensive, then why are they shown this way?”

This time, it was Zephyr who answered. “This is how Orcs behaved many, many thousands of years ago. I suppose this was considered socially acceptable at the time. But it isn’t now. No one finds this funny except them,” he said, his voiced laced with bitterness as he gestured with his chin at the political guild members, all of whom reacted indignantly and with a degree of plain hostility to Zephyr’s tone.

“Guys, lighten up,” Duchess Darkmae said.

“Fi!” Kalana yelped, almost as though wounded. “I thought you were better than this! You’re being so mean.”

“Kal, you know I love you, so don’t sour our friendship over some laughs. Look, whatever ‘Great Ones’ made this mob clearly intended for us to laugh at it.” She threw out her arms as though outraged. “That kind of makes it okay, no?”

“Nah-uh!” Kalana said defiantly. "It’s really, really mean and hurtful and I don’t like it.”

Zephyr nodded. “Agreed.” The other adventurers voiced their own agreement as well.

Jimmy, finally understanding the nature of things, stopped laughing. He now found it much less funny himself. “I just wanna say I had no idea that…you know, that this was how it was.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Lienne said to him. “We know you didn’t understand. Right?” she asked, causing adventurers nearby to nod. “It’s them who are the problem. I stand with the non-human races!” Nervously, she looked over to Trelvor, who nodded at her with approval, and then she smiled back at him. Jimmy had no idea what that was about. “I used to…feel the same way,” she explained, “but I know better now, and they should too.”

Fiona shook her head dramatically. “Gods, you guys, nobody here is actually racist. You know that, right? We’re just enjoying the show: just like Jimmy said. Can’t we all just lighten up and have a laugh?”

“No, we can’t,” Alixa said, glaring at Fiona. “Not if it’s at the expense of the Orcs or any race of people. How would you feel if the Orcs thought about humans this way?”

“They probably do,” Nimona argued, speaking up for her guild leader.

“They don’t!” Alixa shouted angrily. “And you know damn well that they don’t.”

As the Orc, “Muk-Muk,” continued to bang its own head, fall over, and speak like a cave-man, a vicious political debate began heating up between the adventurers and the Children of Order, with the latter claiming that the former was “ruining the fun” of the moment, which was strange, because from what Jimmy had always heard, it was the adventurers who loved fun and the political guild members who behaved uptight.

Watching this all go down, Jimmy suddenly felt kind of dirty for all the laughing he’d just done. He reflected upon his own experiences growing up and realized he’d really come down on the wrong side of this. But how was he supposed to know? To him this really was the standard Orc behavior in all the games and movies and TV shows he’d ever encountered. Feeling self-conscious, he decided he wanted to again reassure everyone that he had no idea that what he’d said was considered unacceptable by Galterran standards. But thankfully, someone else spoke up first on his behalf.

“Clearly, Jimmy is blameless in this,” Lord Oren said, “and I honestly think he now understands the situation much better. But I just want to add that I—and my guild, Lords of Justice—firmly oppose and condemn the mockery and shameful conduct being displayed by Children of Order. There is no universe in which this kind of disgusting racism is acceptable, and Duchess Darkmae, while I respect you and your guild, I do feel that it’s unbecoming of a young guild leader such as yourself to not only condone this kind of laughter, but to promote and spread it.”

With those words, for the first time today, Lord Oren earned himself nods instead of contemptuous glares from his former fellow adventurers. This, as the argument began to heat up—or at least it would have if Jimmy didn’t happen to hear something of extreme consequence from Muk-Muk: something so important he shouted out and interrupted everybody.

“Guys, quiet!” he yelled. “What did it just say? Everyone, shut up! Seriously, shh!”

Thankfully, they all did, and every eye once more went back on the Orc NPC, who was still speaking. “Adventurers worry? Not worry! Muk-Muk not be gone! In ten minutes, he relocate to Shadowfall Coast. Muk-Muk cure boss curses up to T3! First time free!”

Upon those words, a silence seemed to settle in, one that Jimmy could sense was laced with fear and uncertainty. It was an “oh shit” kind of silence. And this, like everything else, confused him. Because to him, the significance of the Orc’s words were clear: they had ten minutes to speak to it and cure their Curse of the Void or else they would have to get up and trek their asses all the way down to Shadowfall Coast and do it there. And that was what made it so important. But to everybody else? There seemed to be a whole different meaning. Something far, far graver in consequence.

“Guys, what’s wrong?” Jimmy asked. “Why’s everybody looking like the world just ended?”

Nobody answered him. Instead, Zach and Kalana exchanged a wide-eyed, terrified stare, and then both turned to Lord Oren, who appeared equally disturbed. “It’s going to appear in Shadowfall Coast?” Lord Oren asked with a gasp. “C-can we stop it?”

“I don’t think so,” Fiona replied, no longer looking as though she found any of this entertaining.

“Oh, Gods,” Rian said, visibly shaking. “Oh no, no, no!”

Something really bad must be going on if even Rian doesn’t find this situation funny, Jimmy realized.

Jimmy asked again what was going on, and it was Tena who filled him in. She grabbed his arm and pulled on him so that he crouched, lowering himself down a bit until his ear was level with her mouth. “The people of Shadowfall Coast are going to become apoplectic if they see an Orc,” she whispered. “It could disrupt any chance the Royal Roses have of bringing peace to the city. They’re not ready for this yet.”

“How come?” Jimmy asked.

Tena began whispering animatedly to him, describing a tense regional situation that involved a culture known for intolerance of non-human races. This was exactly the kind of shit Jimmy had deliberately avoided learning about until now, but he supposed it was inevitable he learned more about this world at some point.

“Well, look,” Jimmy said, speaking loudly enough now so that everyone could hear him. “Muk-Muk isn’t even a real Orc, so I think ya’ll are overthinking things. We should all just get our debuff cured, and then uh, you know, let whoever’s in charge over there worry about it.”

“Agree,” Donovan grunted, to which Zephyr and a great many of the adventurers nodded. But not all the adventurers. And definitely not any of the former ones.

“Unfortunately, that’s not a liberty I have,” Lord Oren said, turning around and showing his back to the raid. “I’m afraid I must skip loot and return immediately. I wish all of you the best of luck.” Following those words, he hurried off. At the same time, Fiona began fumbling with her phone, and so too did Kalana and even Zach.

“Hey, uh, Vim?” Zach’s nervous voice uttered. “We got a situation here.”

“Mom?” Kalana said into her own phone, sounding very, very nervous. “Yeah…there’s something you should know,” she said.

“Hello, High-Lord Besh,” Fiona began. “Yes, this is Duchess Fiona Darkmae of the Children of Order. I have some information I feel I must share with you.”

Jimmy scratched his head. What the hell was going on?

****

“You fucking did whaaaaaaaaaat?” Vim shouted into his Comm with such anger and intensity that he could feel blood vessels popping into his face.

“It’s going to be there in like five minutes.”

Vim wiped his forehead, ridding himself of frustrated sweat. He began pacing back and forth at the foot of the war-torn street, where armed, level-1 troops were racing past him on both sides. “You…you fucking imbecile! How could you do something so stupid? Were you dropped on the head as a baby? You were, weren’t you, Zach?”

“Oh, fuck you, Vim!” Zach shouted right back at him. “We didn’t know that something like this would happen. So stop acting like it’s our fault!”

“It is your fault, Zach! Do you have any idea what is about to happen now? They say bird brains are the size of walnuts. Yours is half the size of that!”

“Your entire body is the size of a walnut, Vim!”

“Ohh, real funny, Zach. But I doubt anyone will be laughing when you have to explain to the world how you fucked up and summoned yet another NPC into another city and caused another major disruption! You brain is a burned-out lightbulb, you daft fool!”

“At least I’m tall enough to change a fucking lightbulb, you two-foot-tall bitch!”

Vim actually clapped with anger. “Too bad nobody would trust you enough to change one, you incompetent fucking brat!”

“I didn’t do shit!” Zach growled into the Comm. “This isn’t even my fault! I was just there helping. Jimmy led the raid, not me. I had, like, nothing to do with it. And that’s the truth!”

“Yes, and? Is that supposed to matter? Try to remember, Zach, that this ‘Jimmy’ you speak of is just a random adventurer with no responsibility. You are now one of the highest-ranking human officials in the world! And one with a preexisting reputation for causing this kind of mayhem. No matter what, the responsibility will fall on you! Which means me. Which means us! You and your girlfriend will—”

Vim was unable to finish what he’d been about to say as Fylwen chose that moment to chime in. Given the nature of this “incident,” it seemed more sensible to have everyone of high standing on the same call, and as a consequence of that, it seemed they had to take turns shouting at the kids.

“Kalana, this is the second time you’ve done something like this!”

“Mom, this had nothing to do with me and Zach!” she yelled back angrily. “We were just helping!”

“Oh? Just helping? Well, that’s not how the world is going to see this, you foolish little girl! I want you over here immediately. I am profoundly upset with you right now!”

“But mom, we didn’t even do loot yet!”

“I DO NOT CARE, KALANA! YOU GET OVER HERE NOW!”

“You too, Zach,” Vim added.

A derisive laugh came from his Comm. “Haha, yeah, because I’m totally going to miss out on loot. Suck my dick, Vim.”

“Wh-what vile language!” Fylwen growled, tearing down Zach before Vim even had the chance to do so. “You will not speak that way, boy! Not if you wish to be part of my daughter’s life!”

“Th-that was kind of mean and bad to say, baby,” Kalana chirped in agreement. “My mom’s right.”

Vim braced himself for the blowup he knew would be coming. But Zach actually surprised him as he audibly sighed. “You’re right. That was a childish and inappropriate response, and I shouldn’t have said that. Okay, let me be clear but respectful. I’m not coming. I’m rolling on the loot, and then I’m going home to sleep. That’s my decision, and my therapist stands by it.”

Both Vim and Fylwen shouted at him as he disconnected off the Comm line, but he was gone too fast to hear any of it. It was at this point that Lord Oren chimed in. “Let him rest,” he said. “We don’t actually need Zach to be present. It’s Kalana the people want. Also, I will claim full responsibility for this incident and get ahead of it. I will take as much heat off the Royal Roses as I can.”

“Like hell you will,” High-Lord Besh angrily said over the Comm. “Our guild is barely holding together as it is. We’ve lost more members in one day than at any point in our history. We cannot be held to account for something like this right now!”

“I understand that, High-Lord Besh, but clearly, I cannot put this all on Lord Calador and Princess Vayra. I suggest a joint press conference expressing equal responsibility among the Lords of Justice, Royal Roses, Elvadin, and the Children of Order.”

“That could work,” Vim said, “but how will we explain it while hiding the fact that a boss spawned?”

“We shall do no such thing!” Fylwen said, her voice heated. “My people tire of these lies. And while I can agree to a statement expressing mutual responsibility, what I cannot do is continue this pattern of perpetuating more ridiculous, self-serving human lies. Much as we have done in warning our human citizens of the imminent Leviathan spawn, the people of Whispery Woods shall be told the truth: that there was a boss spawn in Faded Island, that all human lives were saved with minimal and minor injuries, and lastly, that in the process of defeating this boss, an Orcish NPC was released. I will not tolerate more lies!”

“B-but wait a second,” Duchess Darkmae said urgently over the Comm. “We haven’t even told our own people about that, and they were the ones to endure it. We’re actively suppressing it!”

“Well, then, I suggest you get ahead of it, human girl. As for myself, I am ordering all news agencies operating out of Whispery Woods to tell only the truth and to begin covering the story honestly.”

Vim moaned. “Abram Gespon is going to have a fucking fit if you do that, Fylwen.”

“Good. Let him. I do not care. As I said, I tire of these human lies. And what’s more, I will no longer be a part of them. I will no longer be convinced to lie just so that the human guilds can continue their—”

Vim’s eyes widened as he looked ahead of him. “Wait, hold up! Ah, shit! It’s here. I see it.”

“It’s where?” chimed in Lord Oren, his tone serious. The sound of running footsteps could be heard in the background of his Comm.

“It reached you guys already?” Kalana asked.

Vim stood on his tiptoes to get a better view. A commotion was forming here on 10th and Junction Street. The Lieutenant in charge was shouting at him, but Vim ignored the man’s words, as he did not need to hear them to know what the man had to say. It was obvious just from a cursory glance.

Halfway across the block, with bold green letters above its name, there was now an extremely happy-looking Orcish NPC named Muk-Muk, and it was dancing and shouting something about curing boss curses.

“Oh, fucking shit!” Vim hissed. “Oh, no. We’re about to have a major situation on our hands.”

“What kind of situation?” Lord Oren asked, sounding panicked.

“Mass casualty event.”

“No!”

It began as anyone could have predicted it would. A citizen leaned out of his apartment’s third-story window and screamed. “Those Royal Roses mother fuckers! They’ve already brought Orcs here! Orcs! On our homeland!”

And then he did something so stupid it caused Vim to hold his breath. From out of his window, he threw a glass bottle at the NPC: one that exploded into fire and dealt exactly 0 damage. Having been aggroed, the NPCs name turned red, its body spun to the left, and it ran—and then smashed—through the nearest wall before disappearing inside the building. What followed were the sounds of men and women screaming and dying as they were presumably chopped in pieces. Gunshots were followed by more cries, and then there were more bangs as the NPC began knocking down any wall in its way as it eliminated each and every person foolish enough to attack.

“We have a mass casualty event in progress,” Vim whispered into his Comm as the NPC reappeared out of another, fresh hole in the wall covered in human blood.

“Muk-Muk cure boss curses!” the NPC said, its name very briefly turning green. “Adventurers say hi to Muk-Muk!”

Across the street, four ordinary, unarmed level-1s who weren’t even guerilla fighters began shouting at it, then one ran up and slapped the Orc with her purse. The orc responded by biting her entire head off. It simply opened it mouth and chomped down, causing a mass of blood and several visible pieces of lung to rain down on the pavement, along with a significant amount of it to be swallowed down the Orc’s throat.

“No!” another, younger woman cried, slapping the NPC. “Vicious, vile, Orcish animal! You killed my mother!”

Gunshots rang out from the window of the apartment behind her. And so, as the Orc bludgeoned the young woman over the head with his club, killing her instantly and causing her brains to leak out of her ears, it happily marched its way through another wall, its name once again red. It was obviously going to kill each and every person who had aggroed it, no matter how mildly or innocently. Even just throwing a pebble at it would likely result in a person’s slaughter if the NPC interpreted it as a deliberate hostile action intended to inflict DPS.

“This is going to be really, really bad,” Vim said. “I can’t stop it. It’s assassinating humans one by one. Most of them innocent civilians.”

“No!” Lord Oren yelled. “I’m hurrying as fast as I can!”

“Same!” Kalana added.

Vim rubbed his eyes, which suddenly felt heavy. This was going to be a political nightmare. Into his Comm, he said, “We need CC. Lots of CC. Nothing damaging. I think we need to put an entire city block to sleep before everyone on this block is dead. That’ll look terrible on the news.”

“How can that be what you’re worried about?” Kalana shrieked at him.

Vim knew better than to respond to her harshly, as he would suffer the wrath of her mother, so he said nothing.

Gods damned Zach!

Chapter 182: The Primordial Void Blade

Chapter 182: The Primordial Void Blade

Even as he chased alongside her for several miles, Zach already knew she wasn’t going to change her mind, but he felt he had to try anyway. “Kalana, stop,” he said to her, leaving behind a wispy, jet-like contrail in his wake as he raced across the barren landscape.

Though hardly the thing that was front and center on his mind right now, Zach would be lying if he said he didn’t secretly feel a bit of guilty pleasure at how easily he was able to keep pace with Kalana. Right now, with 205 points into dexterity and 182 points into speed, Zach was definitely faster, more agile, and swifter on his feet than even the mighty Kalana, who in such a short time, had exploded from a level-1 Elvish refugee into a superpowered princess.

“I can’t,” she said, slowing down somewhat as the dirt began to turn green, indicating a shift to grass and thus the possibility of civilization ahead. “My mom’s gonna kill me if I don’t get back.”

Zach chuckled. “Yeah, well, that’s not actually so bad.” He pointed his finger to himself even as he ran at over a hundred MPH beside her. “She’s killed me once before, and I’m just fine.”

“Not funny!”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, Kal, whatever’s going on in Shadowfall Coast, I…I don’t want you to see it or be involved with it. I’m just not okay with you going.”

Rather than earn him a smile, his words were rewarded with a surprisingly intense glare. “How can you say that to me?” she snapped. “After what you did.”

“It’s different, Kal. I’m…”

“What?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“No, say it. I want you to.”

Zach kept his mouth shut as he leapt over a fence then began zipping his way with Kalana through a section of farmland. He had to be careful now not to kick up any dirt or disturb the land as he ran.

“Say it,” she insisted. “Umm, we both know what you were gonna, like, say. So just say it.”

“Fine!” Zach said. “I don’t want you to be corrupted like me. I don’t want you to be…I don’t want you to have your innocence stolen away like mine was.”

At this, Kalana stopped short, and Zach blasted right past her. He actually had to carefully stop and then dash backwards so that he could once again be beside her. There was pain in the way she looked at him—as well as some anger. “My innocence was stolen before I could even speak, Zach! I’ve seen stuff so bad I would give you nightmares if I told you a fraction of them. Do you know what life was like for me when I was just a little girl in captivity?”

Zach knew there was very little he could possibly say in response to that, so instead, he lowered his head. “I’m sorry. I forgot about that.”

“Whatever it is you’re afraid I’ll see, I’ve already seen it. Whatever it is you’re afraid I’ll feel, I’ve already felt it. You dunno, Zach. You dunno what I’ve been through.”

“You never really tell me.”

“I can’t talk about it yet. I might never be able to.”

His hands and feet continuing to release flame, Zach grabbed his hips, lowered his head, and spat on the grassy field. “Shit,” he muttered. “I don’t know what else to say, Kal.”

“How about the truth?”

Zach met her eyes. “Fine, here’s the truth. The truth is I don’t have a reasonable or logical argument for why you shouldn’t go. I don’t have a fucking solid case I can make. There’s nothing I can ever say that relies on objective fact that you won’t be able to just shoot down. All I can say is I really, really love you, and I just don’t want you to go. That’s my only and best reason, Kal, and I’m sorry if that’s not enough. My one and only reason is selfish. I just don’t want you to do it.”

Sometimes, Zach was amazed by how badly he understood girls. Because of all things he’d just said, he expected that to be the one that upset Kalana the most. But no. Kalana actually reached out, grabbed him, hugged him tightly, and whispered “thank you” into his ear before kissing him.

“Go back and win some loot, baby,” she said to him. “There’s lots of people dying in Shadowfall Coast, and I think I’m the only person who can talk them down. It’s ‘cause they know I actually care. That’s why I have to go.”

Zach gritted his teeth. “You’re going to see some really, really bad shit, Kal. Blood, body parts, and everything in between.”

“I’ve seen all of that before, and umm, if it was gonna break me, it would’ve a long time ago.”

Zach at last backed down. He could tell her mind was made up, and there was nothing he could say that would deter her. “All right, Kal,” he relented. “Just please be careful.”

“I will. Oh! And make sure you give this to Jimmy. I completely forgot.”

She handed him an item, and as he took it, he held her hand, but only for a few moments. She then gently pulled away, turned around, and took off. Zach, watching her go, remained where he was, his shoulders slumped, his heart heavy. But he did feel a reassuring pat on his shoulder as Trelvor and Seiley, each following a respectable distance behind, stopped for a moment beside him.

“We’ll watch out for her, Zach,” Trelvor said. “I promise you.”

“Yup. Princess Kalana is in good hands with us,” Seiley agreed.

Zach nodded at them both. Afterwards he took a breath, counted to ten, released it, and then he turned himself around in the opposite direction and headed off back to the raid at a moderate pace. With over 40 minutes remaining on Unleashed Phase, he had no reason to rush.

Upon returning, he noticed that the loot had all been taken out of the trench and sorted carefully by rarity. And this certainly brightened his mood. Much as Jascaila had told him would be the case, Zach found his entire demeanor changing as he approached the loot, which, having been moved, no longer shined. As Zach came upon the raid, numerous heads turned his way, many of which were smiling.

This is only my second time ever rolling for boss loot, he realized, becoming excited.

Seven piles of loot were laid out very neatly on the dirt. The first “pile”—if you could even really call it that—contained just one item, a sword. The second contained two items, the third contained 5, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth each had too many for Zach to bother counting. Finally, there was a seventh pile, and this one really made Zach’s eyes water with desire, for in this pile, there were thousands of gold coins on top of one another.

All hundred-plus raid members, adventurer and political alike, were huddled around the loot in a circle, and as Zach squeezed his way in, he arrived to overhear Jimmy addressing the raid. He’d apparently been in the middle of speaking. “…so, I think we can all unanimously agree, right? Since we’re doing need before greed, and since there was only one of us who uses a flute, this should go to Trelvor uncontested.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he projected the item information forward, making it large enough so that everyone could see it, and dual-sided so that it would be easy to read no matter on where in the huddle one happened to reside.

Name

Song from Beyond the Void

Level

85

Rarity

Legendary

Dexterity

+40

Intelligence

+40

Familiar Type

Warrior Sprite

Ability

Refreshing Life Mist

Cooldown

60:00 (minutes)

Range

50 (Area of Effect)

Description

All allies in target area receive a 15:00 minute HP regeneration buff (type red)

Whoah, that’s got to be worth a ton, Zach thought to himself.

“Nobody else can use this, right?” Jimmy asked the raid. “So then I’m guessing nobody objects if I give this to Trelvor next time I see him.”

“That’s fine,” Zephyr said.

“Yup, no problem’s here,” Fiona Darkmae added as she flipped her hair and smiled.

“He’ll be so happy,” Lienne chirped. “Give it to me and I’ll give it to him.”

“Sure,” Jimmy said. “Whelp. If no one objects, I guess we can move on to—”

“I object!” Zach called out, raising his hand upright like he was in class. This immediately brought a chorus of varying reactions. Some adventurers moaned, most laughed, and a few, such as Donovan, shook his head and muttered a few choice swear words.

“Uh, Zach, why are you objecting?” Reni Sarwin asked.

Zach folded his arms defiantly. “Because I might need that item too. Like, are we seriously just giving shit away? What happened to the law of loot and rolling for things?”

“Kiddo, stop,” Donovan grunted. “You don’t even play the flute.”

“Okay, yeah? So what? I’ve always wanted to learn to play a musical instrument. In fact, I was just thinking about how sick I am of using a sword. Starting right now, I want to play a flute when I fight just like Trelvor, and you can’t actually prove otherwise, so I object. I want to roll for it.”

“Zach!” Donovan snapped.

Zach continued to fold his arms for several more seconds as the glare from Donovan intensified. But finally, he sighed and uncrossed them. “Okay, fine, whatever. This is bullshit. But whatever. Just give it away.”

System is totally rigged, he thought angrily to himself. I hate need before greed.

Jimmy carefully picked up the flute, which was made of pure gold and silver with various multicolored gemstones embedded into it. Lienne thanked him and put it in her Bank and Storage. And then Jimmy returned to where he had been standing and instructed everyone to take out their cell phone.

“So, we’re gonna do things a bit differently than you guys usually do them.”

“How so?” Zephyr asked.

“Well, usually you guys go item by item and have everybody roll for each one. I kinda hate this system ‘cause, let’s say you get the second highest roll on something, and then you never even come close again after that. It kinda’ sucks, right?”

“So what are you proposing?”

“Well, in some of the simulations I used to play, like DAOC, what we do is we all roll a random number between 1 and 10,000, right? All of us roll at once. Then we go down the list from highest to lowest, and any duplicates along the way reroll among themselves.”

Donovan curled his bottom lip as though surprised. “That…that’s not a bad idea. Certainly speeds shit up.”

“Hmm, but it’s less fun, no?” Maric asked. “Lacks the ceremony of it all.”

“Yeah, true,” Donovan said, “but after the dragon raid, I bet lots’a people just wanna roll and get done with it before fate puts something nasty in our way.”

Zach nodded. “That’s how I feel, actually.” To Jimmy, he said, “Can you start showing off the items? Let’s see that sword.”

Zach knew every eye was on that blade, and as Jimmy bent down and picked it up, he found himself already praying to the Gods that it would end up his. It was a damned beautiful weapon. Before even looking at its stats, Zach already found himself impressed. The sword was currently inside its scabbard, which was completely black with little white glowing dots that made it look like a scene from outer space, only there were visible golden trails that would start at the top of the scabbard and travel all the way to the hilt itself. But these golden trails vanished abruptly as, with a shing, Jimmy removed the sword from its scabbard and gently placed the scabbard on the ground.

“Wow,” several adventurers said at once—including Zach.

The blade itself was miraculous. The hilt was made of a dark silver, and the edge was made of a darker, but similar silver. Yet from the sharp, pointed end down to around halfway along the length of the blade, there were several words inscribed in what looked like Elvish writing, and these words would slowly light up a vibrant purple before becoming dull and unlit—only to light up yet again like a pulse.

“Here are the stats,” Jimmy said.

Name

The Primordial Void Blade

Level

85

Rarity

Artifact

Strength

+35

Dexterity

+35

Constitution

+35

Passive Ability

Equalize 40

Zach blinked twice, then said, “Wait, that’s it? Seriously?”

Muttering came from all around him as his fellow adventurers had the same reaction that he did. Even Jimmy made a “hmm” sound and then scratched his head right after carefully sheathing the blade and placing it back down on the ground.

“Fuckin’ thing is artifact quality?” Donovan’s deep voice grumbled to Zephyr. “Nowhere near as good as your blade. I guess not all artifacts are equal.”

“That really depends,” Zephyr replied. “What exactly is ‘Equalize 40?’”

It was a good question—and it soon became the dominant one that Zach could hear people asking as it was raised by one person after the next. Even the political guilds began discussing it amongst themselves. Eventually, everyone turned to Jimmy as if for guidance, but even he could only just shrug and say he had no idea whatsoever.

Finally, after several minutes of discussion, an idea came to Zach. “Wait, I might be able to tell you guys what it is,” he said.

“Huh? How?” Alixa asked.

“We’re all in the same raiding group, right? Tell me if you can see this.”

Zach, in a way similar to Jimmy, pulled forward a screen and enlarged it so that every single person on the raid could see it. And this, for some reason, caused a tremendous stir. Even among those who had seen it before, but exponentially more from those who had not. “Th-there’s such a thing as a glossary?” Alixa asked as though in total shock, her sword-shaped earrings swaying as she jerked her head back.

“How is there a glossary?” Zephyr asked, his mouth fully opened wide. “And how have you never bothered to tell anyone this before, Zach?”

“It’s because I can only use it while in Unleashed Phase,” he said. “And that’s not something I’m going to do just for a damn glossary. Anyway, let me search it.”

Zach mentally sent the term “Equalize” into the search, and unsurprisingly, it popped up immediately. Yet despite there being a glossary entry for the term, it still didn’t quite clear things up for him. And judging from the look on everyone else’s faces, it didn’t do much to help their understanding, either.

Glossary Entry: Equalize X

Equalize X is an ability where X = an integer representing an upper bound, which is compared against Player Level P and enemy level Y. For all enemies of level Y such that Y>P, first-order damage calculation is adjusted such that if Y – X <= P, then Y = P. Otherwise, Y = Y-X.

“What is this, homework?” Zach asked, annoyed. “It actually hurts to think about this.”

“You’re not kidding,” Rian said. He shrugged. “Guess the weapon sucks. Next!”

Rather than comply, Jimmy held up his hand, clearly signaling for patience. Zach then watched as he read it over several more times. “Okay, I get what this is saying.”

“Wait, you do?” like five people blurted out at once.

“Yeah, it’s simple once you think about it. The weapon is actually crazy good.”

“It is?” Zach asked, once again feeling the return of his greed. In a flash, he’d gone from desperately wanting the weapon to not caring about it—and now he was back to desiring it again. “Can you explain it to us?”

“Yeah, what it’s saying is actually simple, but I don’t know why it’s written so confusingly.” He pointed at the glossary entry that Zach was projecting. “Basically, as I’m sure everybody knows—and this was like the first shit I even figured out when I started adventuring—when you attack a mob, there’s like two checks that take place. Or at least, ‘check’ is the word I’m familiar with using. First, your relevant stats are checked against the mob’s level, which is why if ya’ll attack a mob that’s really high level, you can end up hitting for 0 below a certain stat cutoff.” Jimmy paused as if to breathe, then continued. “Afterwards, there’s a check against the mob’s defense, magic resist, and all that other shit. And finally, sometimes, there’s situational stuff.”

“And how does equalize fit in?” Zephyr asked.

“What this is saying,” Jimmy explained, “is that when damage is calculated, it’s treated like the mob that you’re fighting is lower level than it actually is, but never lower than your own level. So like, let’s say you swing this sword at something that’s level 100, and you’re level 60. When it checks your strength stat against the enemy’s level, the enemy’s gonna be treated like it’s also level 60 during the first DPS check. But if you’re 65, it’ll treat it like it’s 65, ‘cause it can never go lower than your own level—or I mean, you know, the level of whoever’s holding the sword.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Zephyr said, sounding content as he nodded. “So, if the mob was level 110, and you’re 60, it’d be like slashing at something that’s level 70, because at most, it can equalize by 40 levels.”

“Exactly.”

Zephyr nodded appreciatively. “That is incredibly powerful.”

Zach, listening along, thought he understood things now, though it annoyed him that it was so confusingly described. In truth, he doubted he’d have any use for the weapon, but it would definitely be worth a shit ton of gold, and who knew what the future could hold? Maybe he could learn to dual wield, or maybe he’d try soloing a boss or whatever. Or who even cared what his justification was? He wanted that weapon!

And so does everybody else who can use a sword, Zach thought, his eyes narrowing at the competition.

As Jimmy continued to show off the loot, Zach struggled to pay attention as his mind kept wandering back to that awesome-looking sword. That was the real prize here. Especially since one of the two legendary items was automatically going to Trelvor, who wasn’t even here right now to accept it. And the other Legendary Item was a steeple-hat that, when worn, caused spiral-looking galaxies to rotate around the head of whoever wore it. It was purely for mages, however, boasting high intelligence and no constitution—and no armor, either. It had an ability on it that raised magic defense significantly.

The Epic Rares were all good, but nothing exceptional or worth fawning over. It reminded him of just how great his own sword was, as despite being an Epic Rare, Zach honestly considered it more powerful and more useful than the few Artifact-quality items he’d seen. But that was also because of the way in which it was uniquely suited to his own ability set.

That sword is the only really good drop!

Jimmy continued on, showing off item after item, and then finally, he announced that for everything rare and lower, people would just have to go inspect those themselves, as there was no excitement or urgency for anyone to really care about those just yet. It was Epic Rarity and up that most people wanted.

“Everybody, open up the random number generator app on your phones,” he said. “And join my chat group.”

Zach hurriedly entered the information Jimmy provided and then felt nervous energy rushing through him as he waited for things to begin. Wanting to get this done with, he fortunately did not have to wait very long. After announcing that anyone who hadn’t yet joined needed to get in right now or miss out, Jimmy seemed ready to continue.

“All right, if everybody’s in, then on three, press generate. Ready? One…two…three!”

In near perfect harmony, every adventurer and political guild member who’d participated in the raid pressed down on their phone. And then the chat filled up all at once with more than a hundred numbers, which caused Zach’s screen to scroll so fast he didn’t even get to see what he himself rolled. This appeared to be true of everyone else as well, because the sight of agitated fingers flicking against screens immediately followed.

What did I get, what did I get, what did I get!

Zach found his name, and then his eyes darted to the right. He gasped.

Zachys Calador: 9,972

That’s a really high number!

All around him, there were disappointed groans from anyone with a number less than 9,500, which was, naturally, most of the entire raid. But following these groans, Zach could see a few individuals nervously checking all the numbers above and below theirs to see if they were the highest—or near the highest—on the list. This turned out to be a waste of time, however, for a moment later, Jimmy simply pushed a button, and the list sorted itself in descending order. And now, Zach felt both excitement as well as disappointment as the official loot order was revealed.

#1: 9,991

Lienne Astafort

#2: 9,982

Zephyr Vextran

#3: 9,972

Zachys Calador

#4: 9,800

Maric Ultdern

#5: 9,702

Fiona Darkmae

Zach swore under his breath, though he did so with just a tiny bit less anger and disappointment than he would have had he been any lower on the list. With only 1 artifact-quality item and 1 legendary item up for grabs, he was almost certainly going to have to settle for whatever Epic Rare item he could argue he needed. With lust in his eyes, he looked back over to that beautiful, super-duper rare sword, with its starry, hauntingly mystical scabbard, and its confusing, but really powerful ability.

Gods! Why am I so unlucky?

Jimmy chuckled. “All right, let’s get this done with. Lienne! You’re our top roll. What do you want?”

She squeaked happily and came running forward. “That,” she said, pointing at the legendary-rare steeple hat, which Jimmy handed to her. She immediately took off her own hat, replaced it with her new boss item, and then Zach watched her eyes lift to the top of her head as she tried to see the miniature, spiral-galaxy-like formations floating around and around her head. “Somebody go and take a picture for me. I want to see it!”

“Pfft,” an adventurer near Zach said, speaking low but still loudly enough for Zach to hear. “Lienne’s walking away with everything on this raid. The flute, the hat. This is crazy.”

“The flute’s going to Trelvor, dumbass,” Rian said, sticking up for his sister.

“So she claims. Who knows if she’ll really give it to him? And even if she does, he’s not even here. Zach was right. This is bullshit.”

Zach kept his mouth shut and decided not to intervene. Clearly, the adventurer was just having sour grapes over not getting anything, and that was something he could clearly understand. After all, he himself was now staring daggers at Zephyr Vextran, the leader of the largest adventuring guild and the man who already had the only known artifact-quality sword. Zach practically chewed his own lip off as he enviously watched the man stand up, strut over to Jimmy, and then look right down at the weapon.

“I can guess what you’ll be taking,” Jimmy said with a laugh.

Zephyr returned the laugh. “Don’t you know it!”

Then, he performed two maneuvers back-to-back. First, he spun his body around, looked Zach directly in the eyes, and winked at him. Right after, he marched all the way over to the common pile, bent down, and picked up a giant box containing 50 packages of Skelly Chips. What followed was a bout of disbelief and confusion from not just Zach but many of the political guild members—but not so much from the other adventurers, who nodded along as though they’d expected him to do just that.

“Zephyr is one hell of a guy,” Maric said with a laugh. “He sure loves us, doesn’t he?”

“Yep, he sure does,” Donovan agreed.

Zephyr chuckled. “I could actually feel Zach’s hatred on my back.”

Zach, shocked, couldn’t even believe the lack of greed shown by the man. Zephyr was like the opposite of him in every single way. The man could have had literally anything on the entire raid, and he picked the most worthless item just so that everybody below him could get something better. It was almost enough to make Zach want to do the same: to make Zach pick a common item as well.

Almost.

Zach shot forward like a rock fired by a slingshot and said, “I’m next!”

“Yup, you are,” Jimmy agreed. “I’m guessing you want the—”

“Sword! Give it, give it, give it!”

“Here ya go, man.”

Jimmy handed him the blade, and Zach swelled with an unbelievable amount of giddiness and enthusiasm. What a score. What a massive achievement. An actual artifact-quality weapon: and it was his. He’d actually won it! He removed it from the scabbard and swung it a few times while his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness was secured on his back. It felt light, fast, and powerful. After taking another few slow, experimental swings at the air, he placed it back in the scabbard, summoned Bank and Storage, and stowed it away for later, when he’d decide what to do with it.

Sell it, probably.

In this moment, Zach, overjoyed and ecstatic, had no idea just how important this sword would be in a bit of time from now. He had no idea he’d be running through a high-level raiding dungeon all alone by himself and armed with nothing but this artifact-quality weapon and a set of crafted Royal Roses junk that was almost as bad as his original set back when he’d fought through Yorna. But this, he’d discover in due time. For now, he simply bathed in the good feelings and envious stares he earned as he watched Maric Ultdern pick out a brand-new shield, and Fiona Darkmae a new staff: both Epic Rare in quality.

He let his mind drift as the loot wound down. But then he remembered: his Unleashed Phase ended in just fifteen more minutes, and there was no guarantee anyone here could save him. Once more, he became nervous.

Chapter 183: Zach's Estate

Chapter 183: Zach's Estate

It didn’t matter how much he tried to hold back the fear. It didn’t matter that he was in no greater peril now than he’d been in only a short while ago. It didn’t even matter that death was death and all death was equal. No, none of these things mattered. Because to Zach, the how of it all was still very much relevant. For this reason, he could fight against a gigantic, T9 superboss without so much as flinching, and yet in this situation, he remained totally and completely unable to control his quivering; this, as his current duration of Unleashed Phase ticked down to 0:20.

“Jimmy,” Zach said, his voice unsteady. “Am I about to die?”

“Nah, man, no way.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

Tena smiled at him. “I trust Jimmy too.” She and Jimmy then exchanged glances, and there was an awful lot of complexity in the way that they looked at each other. Tena looked like a young woman trying her best to be patient, and Jimmy gazed at her like a guy who knew he’d screwed up but wanted to do better. Neither of them seemed to pay Zach much mind despite the possible end of his life fast approaching.

At the moment, Jimmy stood just a few feet away from Zach. Over the past few minutes, he’d gathered several purple healing stones from various adventurers, which he’d then handed off to Donovan, who was now closest to Zach. Both seemed relaxed and calm: the opposite of the way he himself felt. Right now, his mind was flashing back to Archian Prime: to the pain and terror that came with a death by exertion debt.

“Please don’t do this to me,” he’d begged Queen Vayra as the seconds had ticked away. “I don’t want to die!”

This time around, there’d be no impulse to beg, because nobody here actually wanted him dead. Rather, if today ended with Zach drawing his final breath, it would be solely due to a miscalculation on the part of Jimmy. And to make it all worse, Zach still had no idea what Jimmy even planned to do. From the look of things, it appeared like he was just going to rely on purple healing stones, which was not going to be enough.

“So like, if you really do have some great idea, why do you keep refusing to tell me what it is, Jimmy?” Zach asked him.

Jimmy chuckled. “It’s because then you’ll start overthinking everything and convincing yourself it won’t work even though it definitely will.” He pointed his thumb at himself. “But I’m a master at cheesing shit, so I know this is gonna work.”

There he is again with that word, Zach thought fearfully. Cheese.

Most of the adventurers had already departed, but a number, including Rian, Lienne, Tena, Donovan, and Zephyr had stayed behind, and so too had Duchess Fiona Darkmae and a few of her guildmates. There had also been some new arrivals to the scene of the raid as well. Right now, lined up side by side behind Zach, there were three doctors standing just ahead of an ambulance.

“Don’t worry,” Fiona said to him. “Kalana would never forgive me if I let you die in my region. If whatever Jimmy is planning doesn’t work, I’ve had some of the best doctors rush out here.”

Zach looked over his shoulder where a gurney, an IV, a breathing tube, and numerous other medical devices were already set up for him in the event they were needed. Fiona, for her part, had raced to get them out here before even fully understanding the nature of Zach’s impending medical crisis. Yet Jimmy rolled his eyes at all of it, insisting it wasn’t going to be necessary.

What the hell is he planning? How am I going to make it through this?

Unable to avoid thinking back, Zach recalled vividly that it wasn’t just the betrayal that stung. No, the greatest pain of all was very much physical. He remembered just how much it hurt. That pressure in his chest. The inability to breathe. He remembered all of it. And having put himself on the verge of yet another such situation, the memories seemed to become even clearer and more vivid, almost as though this was something that had happened to him mere seconds ago.

I never should’ve used Unleashed Phase. What the hell was I thinking? I can’t handle a Very High debt! I just killed myself again, didn’t I?

Now, with ten seconds left to go, Jimmy drew his staff. “Saved up one last cast for you, Zach.”

“One last cast?”

“Yep, so get ready. Here we go. Gonna use it in five, four, three, two…one!”

A light appeared above Zach, one that coincidentally happened to be a bit more pronounced due to the passing of a large, lone, and fluffy cloud overhead. There, glancing upwards, he saw the cartoonish, blue-white heart, that began spinning faster and faster as it lowered down on top of him before disappearing with one final flash of white. By now, Zach easily recognized the buff: Breath of Invigoration.

With that, the timer on Unleashed Phase ended just as the buff hit, and now, Zach froze. He felt his skin go cold even amid the hot evening day, and it was likely due to fear alone. His throat dried, the hair on his back stood on end, and the next heartbeat or two passed in utter terror: terror that soon revealed itself to be justified and rational.

Just like that, it began.

“No!” Zach cried out in alarm as Donovan, Fiona, and the doctors began rushing towards him, but oddly enough, not Jimmy or Tena; the two of them remained where they were, confident and sure of themselves.

Oh Gods! No!

A pain gripped him immediately. And not just any pain, but the same pain as on Archian Prime—exactly the same. There was no difference in intensity: none at all. It was just as immense and all-consuming as it’d been last time. Everything hit him at once: the tightness, the squeezing sensation, and all while it felt like an elephant was sitting on his shoulders. He dropped to his knees and realized that he could no longer breathe. Hell, he couldn’t even gasp. In mere seconds, his lungs became starved for oxygen while the tightness became so agonizing it felt as though his heart were being squashed inside his chest. This was it. He was dying. He was…he was actually dying!

And then, inexplicably, he drew a massive, unexpected breath.

“Haaaaaaaaaaah!” he gasped suddenly as the first tick of Breath of Invigoration came in and fresh oxygen filled his chest. It confused him. It surprised him. He wasn’t even sure if this was happening to his own body as sweat ran down his face. How had he breathed?

“Donovan, him with the first purple!” Jimmy shouted. “Now!”

“Got it!”

Donovan slapped it down onto his shoulder, yet Zach was in such a state of fear and panic he didn’t even feel the man’s heavy-handed palm as the stone disappeared into him, and at once, the pain began to lessen very, very fast. He took a second breath, and this one came just as much a surprise to him as the first had.

“H-holy shit!” he cried out. “I can breathe! I can actually breathe! Oh my Gods, I’m breathing!” He stood upright, though he was a bit wobbly. “Jimmy, this is incredible! Whatever you’re doing it—”

His words caught in his chest, his knees collapsed once more, and the same exact, horrible, terrifyingly crushing pain returned. He fell back down, he again struggled, and once more, it was to no avail. All his relief reverted to fear as he was, like before, unable to even gasp. His eyes widened, confusion again struck, and he entered a full-blown state of panic. And then…then the buff ticked again, and instantly after it did, he was able to inhale sharply, fresh air filling his lungs as he thanked the Gods for the very existence of oxygen itself.

“Wh-what the fuck is happening?” he yelled as the pain continued to lessen once more: only to ramp up for the third time, and for his chest to tighten. But like before, the buff ticked, and he was able to breathe.

“Every time my buff ticks, it eats up your exertion debt for a few seconds, and during that time, the purple stone heals you,” Jimmy said, a smug but not entirely undeserved look on his face. “That stone’s probably gonna run out soon, though.”

Zach wasn’t even sure what the hell Jimmy was talking about until he experienced it firsthand and it clicked in his head. Following another tick of Breath of Invigoration, the pain in his chest did not lessen as it had previously. Sure, he could still breathe, yes, but now, it was more accurate to call it a desperate, half-fulfilling wheeze than a breath of air.

“Donovan, hit him with another.”

“Yup.”

Donovan slammed a second purple into him, and within seconds, it began to repair his heart—or at least he assumed that was what was going on. This assumption was based on the tightness lessening, and like before, he felt like he could easily stand up. But this time, he stayed on his knees, and he waited for the stamina granted to him by Jimmy’s buff to be consumed by his E-debt. And once it did, there were a few seconds in between each tick of Breath of Invigoration where the purple stone was unable to heal him at the same speed at which the exertion debt was damaging him, and thus, the pain returned.

But now, Zach’s fear was under control. He realized that the crazy idea Jimmy had conjured up had actually worked, so he learned to tolerate the intense pain as he gradually began to view this as something more of an “ordeal” he’d need to endure as opposed to something that would kill him.

“Jimmy,” he panted. “I think I’m going to be okay. I think I’m actually going to—gahh!” he cried out as the chest tightness felt like a fist closing around his heart. “St-stone,” he said. “Need another.”

Jimmy looked at Donovan and nodded, and Donovan clapped him over the back with it. This time, Zach winced, feeling it. Still, he gave a thumbs-up to the man in thanks as another tick of Breath of Invigoration came in, allowing his body to heal while the debt consumed the stamina it granted instead of draining the life out of his heart.

I’m going to live. I’m actually going to live.

For about a minute that felt like a year, Zach remained in place, his knees on the dirt, sweat running down the sides of his face, his heart pounding away. And then, finally, it all just seemed to stop. It was over. He’d actually made it through.

“Oh, shit, wow. I owe you one, Jimmy,” Zach panted out, barely able to form words. So instead, he looked Jimmy right in the eyes, hoping to communicate through the exchanged glance how grateful he was and how much it meant to him that Jimmy had actually kept his word. It actually seemed to restore a piece of himself: a faith in people Fylwen had robbed him of and that he’d wondered if he’d ever fully be able to get back.

“I think we should give him one more purple,” Jimmy said. “Just in case there’s any leftover heart damage or whatever. I mean, I don’t know how that shit works, but if his body takes the stone, it means he needs it. Otherwise, nothing will happen when you use it right?”

“Yeah, that’s how they work.”

Donovan’s palm crashed down on Zach’s shoulder, and now Zach wondered if he’d need a red stone to repair the bruise he’d be left with as Donovan struck him hard enough to make his body jolt. Interestingly, the stone crushed then vanished upon impact, which meant there was, in fact, some lingering damage in need of repair. Yet Zach was now flooded with such relief, gratitude, and joy at being alive that he didn’t even realize how injured he actually was until after he felt himself begin to heal. Suddenly, his wheezes reverted to breaths, and the final bit of tightness loosened, freeing him.

“You good?” Jimmy asked him.

“Yeah, I think so.” Taking another deep breath, Zach stood upright onto both feet. “I definitely think I’m good. Yeah.”

Almost as soon as Zach finished speaking those words, he felt abruptly winded, he lost his balance, and then he bent his entire body forward and rested his palms on his knees while panting.

“Or maybe not, actually,” he said, struggling to catch his breath. Fatigued, he raised his right hand, made a waving gesture at Jimmy, then placed it back on his kneecap for support. “I think I need another purple.”

“No you don’t,” Donovan said with a grunt. “You need to go to bed. You’re just exhausted.”

“Maybe. I’m feeling really weak right now.”

Fiona cleared her throat, drawing Zach’s attention. “Do you mind if I have my doctors check you out really quickly? Just so I can give Kalana peace of mind.”

Zach, unable to raise his arms, gestured by nodding his head, and then he allowed himself to be led to the back of an ambulance, where they sat him down, put a stethoscope to his chest, and asked him to breathe. Another doctor took his blood pressure, and a third asked him questions such as whether or not there was any pain when he inhaled. Very quickly, they concluded he was simply suffering from exhaustion and needed some bed rest—a diagnosis Zach himself had made hours earlier and without needing a doctor to tell it to him.

“Do you need a ride somewhere?” Fiona asked.

“Yeah, just to the Grand Library. I can dance my way home from there.”

“Is that a…euphemism for something?”

Zach shook his head. “Nope. I don’t know if this is like an adventuring secret that I’m not supposed to tell you or whatever, but to get to Elendroth from here, I literally have to win a dance competition against five mermaids and a pink, tutu-wearing rhinoceros.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Jimmy said. “That’s really something you gotta do. Well, unless you win enough tickets bowling or playing one of the other games. But the dance is probably quickest.”

Zach, still breathing heavily, made a waving motion in the air with his hand. “No, I don’t actually think you can even use tickets to go from Faded Island to Shores of Wrath, Jimmy. I’m pretty sure you need to win the dance-off. I’m not an expert on Hamen’s Isle, though, so I’m not sure.”

“Actually, I think you’re right. I never went that way before. I came here with tickets, but I haven’t tried to go back yet.”

One of the doctors, a middle-aged, red-headed woman wearing a white coat with a stethoscope around her neck, seemed to find all of this troubling. “I don’t understand how leveled people perform healing miracles like the one I just saw,” she began, “and I certainly have no idea how literally I should be taking what I just heard, but I would strongly advise against…against ‘dancing’ until you’ve rested. I also think you should get a 12-lead ECG. What I just saw looked to me like someone suffering multiple, completely separate heart attacks.”

“Because I did,” Zach said. “That’s not a joke. I actually did.”

The doctor seemed dumbfounded but did not challenge the claim. Instead, she addressed Fiona. “Duchess Darkmae, I realize leveled matters fall far outside my field of expertise, but as a physician, I cannot recommend he…dances right now.”

She nodded, then looked at Zach. “I can just have you flown back to Kalana's island on one of our jets. It’s the least we can do for all your help removing that boss from our region. You wouldn’t even need to go through Shores of Wrath. I can take you right there. Kalana gave me the coordinates when I visited a few days ago.”

Zach cringed just at the suggestion, and he declined immediately. “No thanks. I really don’t like flying. The last time I flew on an airplane, I had a really bad panic attack. It was the worst ten hours of my life, and from here to Elendroth is probably an even longer flight than that one was.”

Once again, the doctor spoke up. “Why not simply take a sedative, then? You’ll go straight to sleep and wake up almost there. In fact, I can prescribe you one and make sure you get it right before takeoff.”

Zach cringed yet again, as this sounded to him like one of the most unappealing, strangest suggestions anyone had ever made. But for some reason, this caused Jimmy’s ears to perk up like he was Elvish. “Wait, hold up, hold up,” he said. “Do ya’ll got benzos here?”

“Benzos?” the doctor asked.

“You know, like, Xanax? Benzodiazepines?”

She looked at him askance. “I’ve never heard the term.”

Jimmy, raising his finger, launched into an explanation that made Zach feel a bit worried, as given Jimmy’s drinking problems, the fact that he was suddenly able to describe exactly what he was referring to seemed to imply that Jimmy had a bit more going on with him than merely a passing hobby in learning the compounds that made up pharmaceutical agents.

“Basically,” he said, “it’s a central nervous system depressant that amps up your GABA receptors.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” the doctor replied. “And now that I think about it, the term you used, ‘benzodiazepine,’ also makes a lot more sense, too. Hmm, let me guess: it’s a chemical fusion between benzene and diazepane? Is that what you’re asking me for?”

Jimmy snapped his fingers. “Yes! That’s exactly right! Yeah. So, uh, do you guys got that?”

The doctor frowned, and this time she looked really serious in a way that was highly off-putting and made Zach nervous. “What you just described, young man, is the illegal street drug called ‘Still Rage.’”

Fiona’s mouth dropped open. “Wait, what? Is that what Still Rage is made of?”

“Yes, Duchess Darkmae. Your friend Jimmy here just requested we synthesize him the dangerous, illicit substance ‘Still Rage.’”

“I did?” Jimmy asked.

“Yes. You did.”

Now, Zach, too, felt his mouth pop open in surprise. “Wait, the stuff Jimmy just said…that’s what ‘Still Rage’ is made of? I didn’t know that.”

“I assure you that it is.”

Zach glared at Jimmy. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Jimmy? That shit has killed thousands of people. And how do you even know this? You’ve been here a few weeks and you’re already hooked on SR?”

Jimmy threw up his hands defensively. “Nah, Zach. It’s just called Xanax where I come from, and doctors hand it out all the time if you know which ones to go to.”

“And…people don’t die from it?”

“Huh? Oh, no, even more people die from it. Like 10k a year worldwide. But only if you use too much or don’t know what you’re doing like I do. I'm an expert drug user, Zach. Where I'm from, I do two things really well: game and chill with my friends on benzos.”

The doctor gave him such a disgusted look that Zach actually worried she might hit Jimmy. "That's is a terrible thing to say."

“And wait," Zach added, "did you just say doctors prescribe it?”

“Yeah, you can get a script for it.”

“But it kills people.”

“Right.”

“So why do they prescribe it?”

"For anxiety."

"Aren't there alternatives?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess."

"So why do they give out Still Rage?"

"'Cause it's the shit. And thanks for letting me know what it's called. Gotta get me some Still Rage."

"No you don't! And also, did you just call it the shit?"

Before Jimmy could answer, the doctor interjected. “What am I sitting here listening to? I seriously doubt every word of what he just said." Her frown deepened. “Even in Giant’s Fall you can’t legally purchase or prescribe Still Rage. There's nowhere in North Bastia you can get those pills: not legally, anyway.”

Zach was too exhausted to explain the half lie, half truth that Jimmy was from a colony on Earth, especially since level-1 people didn’t even know there was such a thing as Planet Earth, let alone that it was the birthplace of humanity. Instead, still seated in the back of the ambulance, he merely shrugged and said, “Well, it’s not legal anywhere around here, Jimmy. So, whoever was prescribing it to you…don’t expect anyone to prescribe it to you here.”

Jimmy chuckled. “You’re funny as hell, Zach.”

Baffled, Zach tilted his head to the side. “Funny? Funny how?”

“Imagine thinking somebody prescribed it to me. No way, man. I bought that shit.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Zach, still exhausted, took a moment to gather himself before he spoke. “Are you telling me it’s legal where you came from, but you still bought it illegally anyway?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re admitting that?”

“Yep. Now, can we get some or not?”

“Absolutely not!” Fiona, Zach, Tena, and the doctor all said at the same time.

Jimmy sighed. “Fine. Then in that case, I’ll just take some of whatever you were gonna give Zach. I’ll fly with him too. I could use some sleep.”

The doctor recoiled. “Not a chance. I’m not prescribing you anything. You’ve just revealed yourself to have an addictive tendency, and that’s a major red flag. Duchess Darkmae, I strongly suggest you let me put this young man on the regionally circulated list of drug seekers to protect him from accidentally killing himself. It's for his own good! I'm actually the one who added that other young man, Tyson, and I believe this 'Jimmy' should be added as well.”

Jimmy made a very strange, depressed “yowl” sound like he wanted to shout the words “owe” and “no” at the exact same time. “W-wait! Don’t do that. Chill.”

“No, definitely do it,” Tena said. “I’m gonna help Jimmy get off drugs and alcohol, but the last thing I need is him sneaking away to doctors to get bogus prescriptions. Especially once he learns what they’re called here.”

Rian nodded. “Yeah, put him on every list you have. Jimmy’s a dangerous, Orc-hating racist and drug addict. We can’t feel safe until he’s on all the lists. He's a danger to himself and others. Actually, I say this with love and caring: he should be locked up for a few years, too.”

“Rian, you better shut your ass up,” Jimmy said, scowling.

“What? I’m only acting out of concern for your health.” Even as he spoke, he winked at the doctor and pantomimed writing a name on an imaginary list in the air.

“If I'm banned from doctors, I want Rian banned from fast food. He's killing himself every time his fat ass orders takeout.”

“At least that's legal, Jimmy.”

Zach wanted to chuckle but he was too tired. “Everybody just chill,” he said, using Jimmy’s word, which was starting to grow on him. “I just want to go home. And I don’t want to spend hours and hours on an airplane, either. So um, is there like an inn or something where I can spend the night here? It’s already pretty late, and once I'm rested up, I can just zip through Hamen's Isle and get home that way.”

Fiona seemed to perk up at the question. “Of course, Zach! Why not stay at my estate? Not only will you be far more comfortable, but the Royal Roses is long overdue for an official visit, and there's a quick, but very important export issue we need to iron out.”

Zach moaned. “Let me guess,” he said, shocked by the words that came out of his mouth even as he spoke them, “this is about the expiring shipping contract on coco exports moving through Giant’s Fall?”

“Yep.”

Why in the fuck do I even know these things? he thought to himself, both impressed as well as disgusted. I’m seventeen, and I’m acting like I’m fifty.

Not only did Zach know about the expiring shipping permit due to his days lazily lounging around and watching the news at Kalana’s home, but he also knew that the Royal Roses badly needed to renew it, but no one of sufficient rank had been able to fly here to Faded Island for the past several weeks due to the atomic bomb and the subsequent war. He also knew that, as the fourth-in-command of the Royal Roses—sort of, as he still didn't consider this to be totally real—he actually had the power to sign the stupid contract as long as he cleared it first with either Haisel Ragora or Vim Alazar.

Gods curse me for actually getting involved in guild paperwork!

“One second,” he muttered. He removed his phone and dialed a number. A voice replied immediately.

“What the hell do you want now, Zach?” Vim growled at him. “You hang up on me, and now you’re already distracting me during a crisis. What is it this time?” Gunshots were ringing out in the distance as well as the sound of distant explosions.

“So uh, Duchess Darkmae wants me to, like, sign a renewed shipping contract extending the—”

“Yes!” he called out suddenly, his voice becoming enthusiastic. “The coco beans! I forgot about that. It’s a good thing you’re there after all. If that expires, we’re going to be out a lot of gold. We make big money shipping those out to the rest of North Bastia. For once, you’re seizing the initiative, Zach. This is what I like to see.” More gunshots rang out, and then Vim said, “Have dinner with her and her guild tonight and see if you can get our rates up to 10%. I won’t accept anything less than 7%, but go for 10% if you can. Also, I want that deal done by morning so we can announce it on the morning news.”

“Eh, I don't know if I feel like doing all that,” Zach said, another moan following his words. “Since when do I even care about fucking coco beans?”

“Since I gave you a private estate with three-hundred acres of land currently valued at fifty-million gold.”

Zach’s heart lurched with the force of a Very-High Exertion Debt. “Wait, you did what?”

“Don’t you remember? I told you this before.”

Zach, shocked, asked him for clarification. “You did?”

“Yes, you fool! Everything that was Varsh’s is now yours. You're also set to receive your first guild stipend in three days. Earn it!”

Zach's mind flashed back to when they were storming their way through Shadowfall Coast late last night atop his Kralzek's Beast, and now, he did sort of vaguely remember a conversation like that. “Oh yeah, right. You did say something about this.”

“That's right. It can think when it wants to. Good to know. Now, I have to go. Make that deal, Zach!”

Vim disconnected, and now, upon returning his phone to his pocket, Zach looked at Fiona, and he shrugged. “Okay, let’s get something to eat and talk about coco beans, I guess. But after that, I’m going on another two-week vacation. I think I'll spend the first half at Elendroth, and then the other half at my new mansion or whatever it is that I just found out I have and still can’t believe is real. Oh, wow. Even saying that feels amazing and weird.”

She smiled at him. “Sounds great. I hope you like filet mignon.”

“No clue,” he replied. “In all my life, I’ve never been able to afford it.”

“Oh! You’re in for a surprise, then. Hey, Jimmy: would you like to tag along? You and uh…was it Tena?”

Tena beamed. “Yes, Duchess Darkmae. And Jimmy and I would love to join you for dinner. It would actually be a super-huge honor. I’m…I’m a really big fan of your movies. The Blonde Dancer II is one of my favorite movies ever.”

Fiona smiled at Tena. “It was one of my favorites to make! Oh, and in private, you can just call me Fiona.” She then looked over towards Donovan, Zephyr, Rian, and Lienne. “And you four?”

“Just tag along with us,” Zach said to them. “I’m too weak to make sure Jimmy doesn’t drink tonight.”

Donovan barked out a laugh and declined, but Rian accepted, and so too did Lienne. Zephyr, like Donovan, politely declined and claimed he needed to get back to Angelica’s, a term that Fiona was clearly unfamiliar with but did not inquire about. And so, with that, she called for a DEHV to come pick them up, and Zach hoped he could keep his eyes open long enough to do whatever bullshit thing Vim and her wanted done.

I can’t believe I have to negotiate a shipping contract and sign documents for a guild I’m not even a real member of.

Zach needed to catch some sleep. At least this would be quick.

Chapter 184: Tension Between Allies

Chapter 184: Tension Between Allies

The thunder stopped, and along with it, the sound of rumbling ceased while the winds died down. This, naturally, signaled an end to the typical all-night storm that rocked the island of Elendroth from sunset to sunrise, heralding in the new day.

Awakened by a stirring motion, Zach slowly opened his eyes and groaned. “Kal?”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” she said. Even with grogginess in her eyes and her golden hair unkempt, she looked stunningly beautiful. She scrunched up her cheeks and then pinched his. “Go back to bed.”

Zach had been sleeping with his head in her chest, the blankets covering them both. “Are you seriously getting up already?”

“I gotta, I’m sorry.”

Zach rolled over onto his back, releasing a sigh. “The sun’s not even all the way up yet.”

“Yeah, but it is in Shadowfall Coast, and umm, today I have a meeting with one of the guerilla leaders in the safe zone. Also, I have to take little Pete to school.”

“He’s going to hate that. I can take him today.”

“No, it’s on my way.”

“Yeah, but he hates waking up to begin with, and it’s, like, really early, Kal.”

“Oh, he’ll get over it! I’ll run him to Varda’s Lair then circle back through Yorna’s and get to Shadowfall Coast. Everybody’s gonna be waiting for me in the safe zone.”

Zach knew all about the safe zone. The media had been going on and on about it for almost a week. Given there were no serious injuries or deaths, the story of the Mare of the Primordial Void, which Zach had taken part in defeating five days ago, had a surprisingly short-lived run, and the top news was once again dominated by the situation in Shadowfall Coast, which to her credit, Kalana had actually managed to calm down somewhat by creating an exclusive part of the city in the southeast where no guns or guild operations were permitted. To be sure, it was a good thing that she was doing, but…it also meant that Zach barely got to spend any time with her, as she got up early and came home late every single day.

Meanwhile, Zach, for his part, had been nothing but a lazy glutton since killing that oversized pony, and he was proud of it, too. He’d spent five days eating, sleeping, watching an enormous amount of news, and napping on a pool float. At no point in his life had he ever been lazier than he was being right now. He was so lazy, in fact, that when the periodic lightning storms came around, he sometimes didn’t even bother to get out of the pool. He simply continued to lie on the float while ignoring the downpouring of rain and brutally harsh winds.

Once, yesterday, he was even struck directly by lightning, but he was now at the point where that wasn’t really a concern for him, and it felt like having a fly land on his chest. In fact, with his eyes closed, that had actually been what he’d thought at first. It was only after the float started to lose air along with a smell of burning plastic that he realized he’d been struck.

“Jascaila!” he’d yelled into his water-proof phone.

“Zach, are you all right?” her barely audible voice had come from the sliding-glass door, where she called out to him rather than simply speak into her phone. But the howling winds had made it difficult to hear her.

“Hey!” he recalled calling back to her. “Uh, can you blow me up another float and throw it to me?”

Clearly annoyed, she had closed the sliding-glass door and had then responded to him over the phone. “No! Stop being lazy! We talked about this. You’ve barely moved in days.”

He’d sighed. “Okay, fine.” Then, trying his luck, he’d raised his voice. “Eilea!”

“Yes, Zach?” the Goddess’s voice had called out to him, the door opening a second time. She had no phone, but she could somehow hear him through walls and storms.

“Do you mind blowing me up another float and throwing it to me?”

In hindsight, Zach should have known that Fylwen and many of her Elvish kin would take offense to the request. But, in fairness, she’d agreed to do it! Yet her retinue of Elves, who happened to be nearby, reacted with outrage and wouldn’t let her. And because of that little incident, Zach now needed to “schedule” a visit whenever he wanted to speak with Eilea. Well, okay, it wasn’t just because of that one incident. There might have been a “couple” more, such as the Elves being horrified to walk in on Eilea making him pancakes one morning, or getting him the screen remote so he could turn up the volume to the news without getting off the couch. Honestly, there’d been a lot more just like that now that he thought about it.

Maybe asking her to scratch my back went too far.

Zach rolled over again and tried to drift off back to sleep, but it was difficult with the sound of Peter VI crying and screaming from the other room. “I DON’T WANNA GO TO SCHOOL!”

“Be a big boy, cutie,” Kalana’s voice drifted through the walls. “Ruby, please help him get packed.”

“Yes, Mommy Kalana!” the raptor chirped. “Come on, Pete!”

Although Ruby was Kalana’s pet—and formerly Zach’s—she had really become Pete’s best friend. The two slept in the same bed, and she guarded him like a family dog. She behaved like one, too, which meant Jimmy’s hypothesis about her inheriting a dog’s mind in a raptor’s body was probably correct.

Through the opened bedroom door, Zach spotted the sight of little Pete, still half asleep, riding Ruby through the hallway with his backpack on, and it made Zach laugh. But not because he thought the current situation was funny, but rather because of how different it was from his own childhood. To Pete, his daily routine was quickly becoming his new normal, but to every other level-1 child in the world, the idea of getting up early in the morning, traveling across multiple planets, and attending an exclusive, prestigious school for the children of guild members in Varda’s Lair…that was like a surreal dream life. The boy actually got to ride a level-66 raptor into his classroom, and that was just, like, allowed. And from what Kalana told him, everybody in his class including the teachers loved Ruby.

“Bye, Zach!” the boy yelled. He waved to Zach as he and Kalana headed towards the front door.

“Have fun!” Zach called back to him.

“Bleh, school’s never fun!”

Pete continued to ramble various things as the sound of his voice lowered the farther away that he became. The last thing Zach heard was “…and I’m the highest level in my class” before the distinct sound of the front door shutting reached his ears.

Okay, back to sleep.

And that was what Zach did. Closing his eyes, he rested for another hour or two, but he awoke a second time, much more unpleasantly, as he heard his name being angrily called by none other than Fylwen. Or at least that was who it sounded like.

“Zach! Enough sleeping!” she shouted from what he assumed was the kitchen.

Oh, shit.

“Coming!”

What could she possibly want?

Zach got dressed as fast as he could then yawned his way into the kitchen, gulping nervously as he saw Fylwen, Trelvor, Seiley, Jascaila, and about four Elvish guards standing there upright as though waiting for him. Eilea was nowhere in sight.

“Young man,” Fylwen said to him, her arms folded over her chest, “though I’m well aware you’ve been in need of some rest, this has simply become obscene. Everyone who stays on Elendroth contributes, even our guests. Even the children! Don’t you think it’s time you did something?”

The Elvish queen was in a very stubborn mood. Zach was actually surprised to see her here. Usually, she left early in the morning with Kal and Pete, and with negotiations over the region’s future having begun two days prior—alongside increased efforts to quell the uprisings and civil unrest—Zach would’ve expected her to be present bright and early.

“I don’t get it. Are you mad at me or something? And if so, why?”

Fylwen half turned around and pointed towards the nearest window, which revealed a beautiful, warm morning, the sun now fully in the sky. “Because you should be helping plant vegetables or teaching sword fighting to the children. I have seen you at your best, and it is not this.”

Zach frowned. “Hey, I’m just taking a break.”

“You’re retreating from life is what you’re doing! Now, I’d appreciate it if you would help the young learn the sword after their morning classes. I imagine you’d make an apt instructor.”

Zach released a long, drawn-out yawn while he stretched his arms. “Gee, you know, I wish I could, but I can’t do it. Too much trauma I’m working through. Tell her, Jascaila.”

“Actually, I agree with her, Zach,” she said, which stunned him.

“The hell do you mean you agree?”

“You’ve gone from one extreme to the other. You went from someone who refuses to rest to someone who now refuses to move.”

“This is actually my default state. It’s proof I’m healing.”

“No, it’s proof you’re trying to drown yourself in laziness. You should be doing things, Zach.”

“It’s only been five days!”

“Yep. And that’s long enough. Don’t you have to go to Dragon Squire and start figuring out how we’re going to defeat the World Eater? How long are you gonna keep putting that off for, kiddo?”

The way Zach's heart sped up in response to that question was perhaps the most strenuous activity he’d endured in the past five days. Sending Jascaila a look of extreme warning, he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He made slight twitching motions with his head in Fylwen’s direction.

Jascaila laughed. “Relax. The Elves already know. They found out a few days ago.”

“It’s true,” Fylwen said. “Eilea told us.”

“Told you…?”

“About the World Eater. And also that you do not wish this information to go public just yet, but that you have been expressly granted permission by the Great Lord to spread this word of warning to the people of Galterra.”

Zach considered her words, and his mood changed from surprise to anger. “Wait, you’re kidding me. She actually told you all of that?”

“Indeed, she has, young man.”

“Why?” Zach shouted louder than he intended, looking around the kitchen as if hoping to see her. “Eilea! I know you can hear me. Eilea, did you seriously—”

Fylwen pointed at him. “Do not disrespect Her Greatness and treat her as though she is somehow subservient to you, young man! Neither I nor any of my kin will continue to tolerate this…this blatant abuse of her kindness. She is, and has always been, a Goddess, and you, as I, are mortals.”

“My bad.”

“Your bad is correct! Now, lose the attitude, and do not dare hurt the Great Goddess’s feelings. Perhaps you should instead consider the fact that you were gifted with this incredibly sacred knowledge, and rather than act upon it, you’ve essentially done nothing. Should this continue to be the case, the Elvish stand ready to act for you. But for now, know that it will not slip from any Elvish lips.” She stared intensely at him. “The operative words there being: for now.”

Zach felt an apprehensive pinch in his stomach, much of it because everything she’d just said was true. Sure, it was definitely the case that numerous events recently had kept him away from what, honestly, should really have been his primary goal. The problem, however, was that even during moments like now, when he had an ample amount of free time, he still wasn’t doing anything. And this was actually a really urgent matter, as Zephyr’s Explorer’s Brigade had made no progress in finding anything in Dragon Squire; this was despite spending many, many hours in the Grand Library located in the only sizeable town in the sparsely inhabited, mountainous region.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am being a bit too lazy.

Though he’d been a total sloth, Zach had, until now, been able to justify this to himself because he’d succeeded in a whole bunch of stuff that surely warranted a break. He’d rescued Vim, helped Jimmy regain his confidence, defended Faded Island from a boss spawn, and he’d even gotten a great deal for the people of Giant’s Fall.

That was actually really easy.

Five days ago, after a delicious dinner, he’d managed to enter into relatively simple negotiations with Fiona Darkmae, who’d agreed to pay a 9% fee on all coco bean exports shipped through Giant’s Fall. Having come right out of the gate with such an offer, there really wasn’t much need to argue with her over that last percentage point. Zach had signed immediately after dessert, which consisted of chocolate cheesecake and vanilla wafers, and then he’d gone straight to sleep in one of the luxurious guest rooms of Fiona Darkmae’s family estate. Exhausted, Zach had slept so soundly that he was barely capable of waking up the next morning. Truly, it was only his desire to get back to Elendroth and Kalana that had willed him out of bed.

But yeah, anyway, after a shockingly huge breakfast hosted by Fiona, he’d handed Jimmy the item that Kalana had asked Zach to make sure he got: the inn room keycard to room 20 in Angelica’s, which everyone on the Trials of Nolak raid had apparently agreed should go to him.

“But I failed,” he’d argued, reluctant at first to accept it. “I don’t deserve it.”

Zach had shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t there, Jimmy, but from what everyone was saying, you’re the only one who seems to remember it that way. Everyone I spoke to seems to think you did a really good job and then got all upset over nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing. I could’ve gotten the whole raid wiped. I fucked it all up. Donovan and Zephyr had to take over.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t there, so I can’t really comment. But uh, I think you should just take it. If you really don’t want it, I’d definitely be happy to keep it.”

“You already got inn room 8!”

“Yeah, so let’s be neighbors.”

“Fine. I’ll take it. As long as you promise not to sell yours.”

Zach had agreed, though he now regretted it. At the time, his brain had been exhausted, and he’d simply wanted to end the argument. But now? Now, he realized he’d just promised not to sell his most-valuable possession, something with a value that was likely even higher than the artifact-rarity sword he’d won on the T9 boss raid. Actually, it was probably worth ten times as much.

I guess I’ll just have to make a kick-ass base, he thought. It’s not like I didn’t already want to do that.

At any rate, Zach had said his goodbyes to Fiona and her staff, and then he, Jimmy, Tena, Rian, and Lienne had all danced together in Hamen’s Isle before going their separate ways. He hadn’t seen any of them since, but Rian and Lienne were planning to come over sometime today around noon, and Jimmy, who last night, ended up going on the full Yorna’s raid without him, said he’d swing by around that time, too.

“Umm, Fylwen?”

“Yes, Zach?”

“Is Elendroth reopened for hunting yet?”

“No.”

He made a dramatic, disappointed sigh. “I don’t get it. At this rate, it could be months or years before you reopen it. I thought we were talking a few days or weeks, but now I feel like it’s going to be way longer.”

“It will be,” she replied as she opened the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice. “It’s too much of a hot-button issue right now, and our records are incomplete. We cannot have you or your friends causing more disruption.” She fixed him with a hard, somewhat frightening look, but it didn’t last. A small, but motherly smile appeared on her lips as she continued to lock eyes with him. “You and your friends should spend the day in Archian Prime. The entire planet is yours to adventure in. Why limit yourself to this one island?”

“Because it’s awesome, and there was still so much I wanted to see. Especially that town me and Kal told you about.”

“The one with all the quests?”

“Yep.”

“Perhaps you should save that for a time when my daughter isn’t so…busy. You should know she’ll be quite livid if you explore that without her.”

Zach made a nervous laugh. “You’re right, actually. Okay, maybe we will hit up Archian Prime. Everybody should be here in about five hours.”

“Good,” Fylwen said with a self-satisfied-looking nod. “That’s five hours to help Val’kora plant cabbages and to begin teaching a class to the children in how to swing a sword.”

“Uhh! I don’t want to.”

“It’ll be good for you,” Fylwen insisted, the motherly quality in her tone increasing by the second. “Surely, five days of sleeping and doing nothing has sated your desire for sluggish idleness. Honestly, Zach, at your age, it should be unbearable.”

“It should be, but…nope.” He rubbed his eyes to remove the last lingering feelings of grogginess. “All right. I guess I’m going out today. But you know what? Archian Prime should wait. You and Jascaila are right about the whole Dragon Squire thing. Actually, Jascaila?”

“Yep?”

“By any chance, do you know an easy way to get to Dragon Squire? I might as well at least take a peek since I’ll have Jimmy with me, and he’s great at finding secret stuff. I guess it can’t hurt for us to head over there.”

Jascaila curled her lips and looked off to her side as though concentrating. “I’m not sure. You can’t get there from Hamen’s?”

“I don’t know…can we?”

“I’m not the best person to ask. I do know of one slightly longer way.”

“Tell me just in case I need it.”

She laughed. “This should be safe since the dungeons don’t reset until tomorrow. Basically, you go from here to TOE, TOE to Nolak, and Nolak lets you out all the way up north in Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, which I’m sure you already know. From there, head back into Hamen’s Isle and use your tickets to get to Plains of Mist. You’ll come out near the Grand Library. Right across the street from the library, there’s a bus stop that takes you to the town of Misty Millings in western Plains of Mist, and there’s an express bus in Misty Millings that goes all the way to Drake’s Wing in Dragon Squire. It’s about a three-and-a-half-hour ride.”

“Yikes,” Zach said. “That’s a whole lot of traveling. I guess I’ll ask Jimmy if he knows a better way, but uh…if not, I guess that’s how we’ll do it. Thanks.”

“No problem! But really, Zach, try to get out today even if it’s not to Dragon Squire. You don’t need to spend another day lying around watching the news. Now, how about I make everybody breakfast?”

“You made us breakfast yesterday,” Fylwen said, her ears twitching with barely contained delight. “Are you sure you don’t mind? You’re awfully generous for a human.”

“I sure am. And I love doing it.”

Ten minutes later, sitting between Trelvor and Seiley, who were anxiously awaiting Lienne and Rian, the three of them ate breakfast across from the queen and Jascaila, who discussed various architectural topics regarding Elendroth. Jascaila had a lot of ideas on how to beautify the mob-free zone, and Queen Vayra seemed to be overjoyed to listen. Trelvor and Seiley, on the other hand, were giving off strange looks to one another. It was like a combination of optimism and guilt. They appeared reluctant, though Zach wasn’t sure why.

“What’s going on with you two?” he asked them quietly, engaging in an entirely separate conversation from the one the queen was having with Jascaila.

“It feels wrong,” Trelvor said. “Letting Princess Kalana go alone to Shadowfall Coast while I spend time with Lienne.”

“She ordered you to do that, though.”

“Yes, but only because she knows it’s what I desire.”

“So then what’s the problem?”

He sighed. “It just feels unfair.”

As though his words were a contagion, Zach found himself becoming infected. It really wasn’t fair. Kalana was getting up every morning and spending the entire day pleading with idiots and doing outreach. On numerous occasions, she’d had to save babies who were thrown out of the third-story windows by their lunatic mothers, who decided it would be better for them and their children to die than to have to live in a city that allowed Orcs and other hopeful trading partners to enter and, in some cases, live near them as neighbors. These murder-suicide attempts happened several times a day, and Kalana was not always fast enough to stop them.

The people over there have gone nuts, he thought.

Every night, Kalana would come home emotionally drained, and sometimes, she’d weep. This was partially why Zach desperately didn’t want her to go over there in the first place, and after seeing the mental toll that just a few days had inflicted upon her, Zach reconsidered and told her he’d start accompanying her—only to be shot down.

Things had changed.

Vim, Mr. Oren, and all the others in charge over there had done a total one-eighty and were now adamant that Zach not come. This was because Zach was supposedly detested and reviled in Shadowfall Coast. Word, apparently, had now spread that it was him who killed the sons of some well-regarded guild officials during his rescue operation, and they said that if he showed up, it would start a riot. Somehow, the ire towards him didn’t pass along to Kalana. They really liked her, but they sure did hate him.

“Baby, you can’t come,” Kalana had told him yesterday morning. “These people are very, very traumatized and unstable, and umm, anything that might agitate them…I’m sorry, it just won’t be good.”

Even amid his laziness, Zach worried about her all day every day. Thankfully, though, Jascaila was going to begin heading out there starting tomorrow, because Kalana, along with Jascaila and her mother, had seemingly come up with a very daring plan. They were in the process of assembling an army of social workers that would begin engaging directly with the distressed people. This was because Kalana, having spent a great deal of time with them over the past few days, had developed a very strong belief that the use of infantry in day-to-day engagements was actually making things worse, not better, and that by utilizing social workers in the safe zone she’d established, there was a real chance for things to improve.

She might even be right, Zach thought.

At first, he’d disagreed with her and thought the idea ridiculous. But the more he learned of the developing situation, the more he became convinced that Kalana was actually one of the few people who actually knew what she was doing. For starters, the citizens of Shadowfall Coast were clearly not behaving in predictable ways, and it didn’t seem to matter how many guns were pointed at them or how overwhelming the show of force was. The problem over there was, in many ways, psychological as opposed to rational. This wasn’t something the guilds could solve with bullets or magic. And that was why the Elves dispatched there were now so important.

I’m really glad Fylwen is doing the right thing.

Now that the Elves no longer faced even the remote possibility of danger, they had undergone a radical, mind-blowing shift. During the brief, but very ugly war, they had been ruthless—far more so than the human fighters, anyway. Of course, that was when there was at least some possible threat to them and their kin, and also, it was during the mad scramble to disarm Shadowfall Coast before some God-imposed deadline. But now, however, with the nuclear situation resolved and having become free of even the chance of being harmed, the Elves were displaying a stunning level of gentleness.

Whereas the Royal Roses, Lords of Justice, and People of Virtue were pacifying resistance via violent suppression, the Elves were not even utilizing measures of self-defense—because they didn’t need to. When Level-1s attacked, they were disarmed, restrained, and in some cases, arrested and then evaluated on a case-by-case basis by trained professionals brought in from the Whispery Woods, who would then decide if they posed a danger to themselves or others and, if so, the most humane way of rehabilitating them.

Whispery Woods, long ignored and underfunded, had an abundance of aging but still viable humans whose chosen professions had become untenable due to the impoverished nature of the city. But now, thanks to Fylwen, many former psychologists, social workers, and doctors were finally again able to once more return to their original line of work—often with generous pay and to much higher rates of success than the human guilds were facing.

But this was creating a whole lot of friction.

Yesterday, one of the main stories in the news had been the ongoing debate between the Elves and the other human guilds. The Elves were calling on the human guilds to show more restraint in how they operated in the city, and Queen Vayra had even called upon the Royal Roses to cease all peacekeeping activities immediately.

That was some fight they had here yesterday.

Zach wasn’t sure what the deal was between Fylwen and Vim. On the one hand, they were, by far, the two closest guild leaders in North Bastia. Despite not knowing each other very long, Fylwen and Vim had a very strange, very undeniable camaraderie that made sense to absolutely nobody and maybe not even to themselves. It wasn’t even a stretch to say that the two had become friends. But on the other hand, they really got vicious with each other sometimes.

Late yesterday evening, Vim had personally visited Elendroth to meet the Elvish Goddess but also to negotiate with Fylwen. And though there was clearly a mutual respect between the two of them, Zach, who’d eavesdropped from Kalana’s bedroom, definitely noticed there was some very real tension forming over the issue of peacekeeping efforts in Shadowfall Coast.

“Gnome, you must let me and my daughter handle this,” she’d said, having returned a bit early in order to meet him there.

“I appreciate the suggestion,” Vim had said, “but my people are doing a great job.”

“Oh really? Remind me again: how many level-ones did the Royal Roses kill today?”

From where Zach had been standing, the bedroom door slightly ajar, he’d been able to see the smile fall right off Vim’s face and turn into a vicious scowl. “Okay, cut the shit, Fylwen! You know how fucked up it is out there right now. These maniacs are firing on us all day every day. We’re trying to show restraint, but the idiots don’t care if they die. Some of them even try to kill their own children!”

“Yes, indeed, they’re quite riled up. And that is why you must cease all operations. You’re inflaming tensions.”

“Inflaming—what? Are you nuts?”

“Gnome! Do not speak to me as though I’m a fool. Or do I need to make good on my threat to cut your tongue out of your mouth and burn it?”

“Go ahead. That’s my fetish.”

“Ugh! You insufferable fool. Can you seriously not see the conversion here?”

“The conversion?”

“Yes. For every one bullet fired, you convert one previously peaceful citizen into a guerilla fighter.”

Vim had shrugged. “We’re only doing what it takes to bring peace to the region.”

Fylwen glared at him. “You’re lying. Not just to me, but to yourself. This is about revenge. This is about Ogre’s Axe. Do not think you can fool me, Vim Alazar. I too have felt the thirst for revenge. I know the craving for human blood better than any other. Your guild in particular ought to have no interaction with these people. The hatred for what they’ve done to your city makes your troops incapable of showing restraint. Even when you’ve directly ordered them to heel, they have been spotted raping, looting, burning, and indiscriminately killing. And I know that you are aware of this.”

“Are you really one to talk? Don’t forget you were the one who planned to blow up the entire city.”

“That was when I believed we were without an alternative solution.”

As the two argued, Zach knew that Fylwen was clearly right about everything she was saying. The Guild of Gentlemen had killed over a million innocent people in Ogre’s Axe, and there wasn’t a thing in this world Vim could do to stop his people from enacting revenge—even against those who were blameless. The Royal Roses wanted blood. And sending in level-1 troops whose moms, sons, fathers, and daughters had died in Ogre’s Axe…it was a recipe for disaster.

“I personally witnessed two squads of your troops pulling the clothing off a group of young captive women, some of them not even fifteen years of age.”

“Bullshit. When was this?”

“Two days ago, just before noon on 11th and Junction.”

At this, Vim’s scowl vanished, he lowered his head, began muttering something quietly to himself, and then suddenly, he snapped his head back up as his scowl returned, this time becoming even fiercer. “Wait a second. Are you the one who killed fifteen of my men?”

“Yes!”

Vim swore at her. “Fucking Gods dammit! You killed fifteen of your own allies, you moron!”

“Fifteen would-be rapists. They were lucky to die as fast as I tore them apart!”

“I can’t believe it. I can’t fucking believe it! We thought they were taken out by guerillas, but it was you?”

“Yes, you fool! And I’d do it again. Your men are out of control. And so are your women. Call them off!”

The shouting became frenzied between the two of them, and by the time Vim stormed off, nothing had been resolved. Zach chose not to get involved, however, as he doubted anything he said would have made the situation better. But it was clear, at least in his opinion, that Fylwen was in the right. Maybe not to kill a bunch of people—though who was he to judge her for that?—but certainly, that the Royal Roses were incapable of acting humanely.

As Zach thought back on their fight, he noticed that everyone at the breakfast table was staring at him. “What?” he asked. “Why’s everyone looking at me like that?”

Jascaila gave him a soft smile. “Because everybody’s been talking to you, kiddo, and you just zoned out for like thirty seconds.”

Zach exhaled slowly. “Sorry, I was just thinking about that fight Fylwen got in with Vim yesterday.”

“Hm? You saw that?” Fylwen asked.

“Yeah, it was impossible not to.”

“And?”

Zach looked directly into Fylwen’s eyes. “You’re right. My guild—err, I mean, the Royal Roses—clearly can’t be trusted to do peacekeeping operations in Shadowfall Coast. Even if Vim tries his best to prevent inhumane treatment—and I’ll be honest, I don’t think he is—the troops from Giant’s Fall aren’t going to listen. They hate the Guild of Gentlemen too much.”

From the way both Jascaila and Fylwen bowed their heads and smiled, he could tell that they were pleased by his answer. “I’m glad to hear you say that, kiddo,” Jascaila said.

“How come?” Zach asked.

“Because it means you haven’t lost your humanity. Not to get all preachy on ya, but if there’s one thing you should always remember, it’s never okay to kill innocent, defenseless people. No matter what their ruling guild did.”

Zach lost his appetite as he reflected on the supposed atrocities the Royal Roses were committing over there. “Kal told me some of the stuff they’re doing,” he began. “The Royal Roses, I mean. The thing is, I get why they’re so mad. Grundor and I talked about this on the phone a few days ago, actually. He’s still in Ogre’s Axe trying to pull bodies out of the rubble. But like…the people in Shadowfall Coast didn’t mean for that to happen. They didn’t even know about it until after it did happen. This whole situation just sucks. Look, if you want, I can try talking to Vim. I doubt he’ll listen to me, but maybe if I—”

“You should not,” Fylwen said adamantly. “You might only make things worse. It is not as though Vim isn’t trying to control his people: he cannot. Your words will change nothing.”

“Then what will?”

“Force.”

At this, Zach felt his heart sink. “Now wait a second. You can’t…you can’t go to war with the Royal Roses!”

“I do not wish it. But if they will not stop, we must act.”

“B-but why?”

“Because they are murdering, raping, and looting, and though that brilliant young man, Lord Oren, continues to try salvaging the situation, the fact of the matter is that the Lords of Justice are far too weak now to intervene, and the People of Virtue are far too indifferent to care. I cannot allow this. If he will not back down, my Elves are willing to use force. Humanity must not be allowed to behave this way.”

Yeah, Zach’s appetite was gone.

Maybe it’s best I focus on Dragon Squire.

******

Alex wasn’t the type to scream. He wasn’t the type to lose his cool. He typically had an excellent control over his temper. But as he led a patrol unit through 5th and Willow, he almost broke his composure as he spotted a uniformed sergeant of the Royal Roses crack his gun into the forehead of a very old man simply for walking too slowly.

“Sergeant!” Alex roared at him, storming beyond a destroyed fountain, two overturned, burned-out DEHVs, and a blown-apart kiosk as he made his way over to the man, who was flanked by troops of his own. An immediate tension came upon their two groups—men and women who were supposed to be allies.

“What is it now, Lord Oren?” asked a tall, blonde mage standing beside the sergeant. “Anything you want to say to him, you can say to me.”

Alex recognized her. She was Amcilla Yalldrin, the 9th in command of the Royal Roses. Alex confronted her directly. He pointed to the old man, who was now on his back, blood pouring out of a wound in his forehead. “Why did you allow your sergeant to strike this man?”

“Allow it?” she asked. “I ordered it.”

“Why?” Alex demanded.

She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask this piece of shit why he decided to murder my sister’s children while they were on their way to school in Ogre’s Axe.”

“He didn’t,” Alex said angrily. “Back off!” He turned around and called for a medic. Yet even as he did so, he knew something was wrong as he heard an electric buzzing sound behind him. Spinning back around, he was too late to intervene. Amcilla had already conjured a fast rotating, electric buzzsaw from her staff, which flew directly downwards at the wounded old man, decapitating him and causing an ungodly amount of blood to rush out of the emptiness above his shoulders.

Control your anger! Alex warned himself. Control it!

He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to hurt her badly.

“I’m reporting what you just did,” he said, though his words were barely heard over the laughter and cheering from her level-1 cohorts.

“Come on, boys,” she said to them, leading away the column of troops. “Let’s patrol a different street and let the Lords of Justice have this one. We clearly aren’t functioning as a team right now.”

Alex turned around, and he could see the same disgust and revulsion that he was currently feeling in the eyes of the troops under his command. Culturally, the men and women from Slopes of Dal’Zarrah had a very, very different take on honor than those born in Giant’s Fall, and it was on full display here and now.

“Why’d she do that?” asked one of the riflemen. “What the fuck is wrong with the Royal Roses?”

Alex shook his head. “They’re too angry. Something has to be done.”

“You could’ve killed her,” the man said. “Everyone knows how you took on like twenty of the Guild of Gentlemen’s best by yourself. You could’ve put that witch down.”

“It would only create more problems. The best thing all of you can do now is file a report with me. High-Lord Besh still doesn’t realize the extent to which Sir Alazar is losing control of his men. He doesn’t want to accept that things are as bad as they are.”

Alex shuddered. Something had to be done. Vim’s orders were not being obeyed, and how could they be? In the eyes of his guild, this was revenge, and not even their leader could dissuade them.

Chapter 185: Tyson Revel the HERO GOD

Chapter 185: Tyson Revel the HERO GOD

Oh, no, not again!

Kalana held out her hand, though she stayed a safe distance away. She hung back near the entrance to the park, which had once been beautiful and contained numerous fields and playgrounds but now was a charred, destroyed mess of rubble and ruin as a result of airstrikes it sustained during the brief, but very bloody war.

Even if I run full speed, I dunno if I can stop her.

Carefully, but more importantly, calmly, Kalana spoke to the woman. She made sure her voice lacked any aggression and was only loud enough so that she could be heard from the 100 feet or so of distance between them.

“You don’t really wanna do this, ma’am. So please don’t. I’m here to help you.”

“Don’t tell me what I want, you fucking Elf!” the woman shrieked, tears in her eyes. She looked like she was in her late twenties or earlier thirties. She was pressing a little boy to her chest with one hand, and she held a handgun to his head with the other. “I have to do this!”

“Nah-uh. You don’t. I know you don’t. That’s your son, right? You don’t wanna hurt him.”

“You people made me! You stole our homes. You bombed us. You killed our families! Fuck you all! I won’t let you turn my son against humanity.”

Kalana thought carefully about how to respond. And as she did, a human in a camo-colored uniform spoke to her. “Princess Kalana,” the human whispered to her. “My snipers have a clear shot at the target. We can take the woman out and save the child.”

“Don’t you dare,” she said back to him. “Nobody is shooting any more bullets.”

“But…but this woman has gone mad.”

“So that means she has to be executed?”

“Well, no, but…”

Kalana studied the woman’s finger on the trigger. If it moved so much as an inch, she’d take the risky approach and charge forward. Moving at full speed, she thought she stood a decent chance of crossing the distance before she could fire the weapon. On the other hand, she might be a split second too late. It would be better to try talking first.

“Get them back!” she cried, pain and despair in her words. Her eyes were darting around at the soldiers. “Get them baaaaaack!”

Kalana, keeping her own eyes pointed at the clearly distressed woman, whispered, “Umm, sergeant-person, can you please go away. You and all the other humans are making things, like, way worse.”

“I’m afraid I cannot, Princess Kalana,” said the blond-haired military man. “I serve the Lords of Justice, and I have been ordered to assist.”

“Yah, but you’re scaring her and making her more upset.”

“I am truly sorry, but I cannot withdraw.”

Begrudgingly, Kalana had to admit it was still better to have these humans than the ones from the Royal Roses. They were even crazier in some cases than the people from Shadowfall Coast. They were out for blood, and everybody knew it. They kept finding excuses and, in some cases, outright lies to shoot people. Kalana had beaten up a few of them already, and they deserved it!

Keeping all her attention on the woman, who stood directly in the middle of the park between two flowering pots and a destroyed statue, Kalana called out to her. “Please don’t hurt the little boy. I know you don’t wanna. Please don’t. He didn’t do anything wrong. And umm, I promise I wouldn’t let anybody hurt him. Please don’t shoot him.”

The woman began to cry harder and harder. “My husband, my eldest son, all gone. Fuck you! Fuck everybody!”

“Ma’am, please. You both can still have a really good future. All you have to do is put down the—”

There was motion. Kalana saw it. Her finger was moving. Act. Now!

Kalana held her breath as she launched herself forward, moving so fast that she ripped holes in the ground as she stomped her feet down. She needed to be faster. Faster! She raced ahead, crossing a distance that spanned half the length of the park in less than a quarter of a second. Then she dove to the woman’s side while reaching out, and she grabbed the weapon just as it went off. A loud pop followed, the sound of a gunshot filling the air. Urgently, Kalana, having skidded to a halt behind the woman, dropped the weapon, and then the woman screamed as she carefully grabbed the boy out of the woman’s arms.

“Are you okay?” she asked him as she dropped into a seated position while holding him. She gently grabbed his head with both hands and began to turn it around to make sure there were no bullet holes or wounds. Thank the Gods. The bullet had missed.

The mother lunged for her child. “Give him back!” she screamed.

Kalana stood back up and carried him away. She didn’t want to do that but she had to do it. As the woman pursued, she was tackled by troops from the Lords of Justice, put on her belly, and then her hands were placed behind her back and she was arrested. “Please don’t hurt her,” Kalana said, still holding the wailing boy. “Be gentle.”

“We will do our best, Princess Kalana.”

If nothing else, the men and women of the Lords of Justice could at least be trusted not to use excessive force if they didn’t absolutely have to. Yes, they were getting into firefights and killing way more people than needed to die, but nobody could argue that they weren’t acting in self-defense. The Royal Roses, on the other hand, were purposefully provoking and taunting people into shooting at them so they could justify shooting back. And sometimes they didn’t even seek that much justification.

“Momma! Momma! Momma!” the boy yelled as he squirmed in Kalana’s arms. She doubted he even understood what almost happened to him. He was too young to truly make any sense of it, and that was probably a good thing.

Kalana held firm while the boy struggled. He must have been only three or four years old. Kalana truly didn’t want to separate him from his mother, but right now, she couldn’t trust that the mother wasn’t going to try something like that again, and she herself wasn’t qualified to make that kind of determination, either. There were experts and stuff who could do that, but not her. Jascaila had told her at the start to remember that there were things she was qualified to do, and things she should leave up to people who were licensed and educated in how to make the really hard choices.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she told him. “Are you hungry? Or hurt?”

He didn’t reply. He simply cried and called for his mother while a level-1 soldier from the Lords of Justice used a glove to pick up the dropped pistol and place it into an evidence bag. “As soon as we’ve cleared the situation,” the blond-haired sergeant said to her, “we’ll be happy to hand this situation over to the professionals you brought in.”

Kalana nodded and thanked the man. He was only a few years older than she was, and she could tell he genuinely wanted to do the right thing. The experience working with the Lords of Justice was a lot better than it had been during her first two days here when she’d been patrolling the other end of the city with the Royal Roses. She’d have to work with them today, though, because her meeting with the guerilla leader was going to take place in a building they currently had under siege, and that wasn’t for another two hours, so she was getting as much done as she could before then.

“Princess Kalana!” a woman’s voice called to her, drawing her attention. “Please, can we enter the park?”

Kalana looked over her shoulder and behind herself to where a very concerned-looking woman holding a manilla folder stood next to a registered nurse. They were both from Whispery Woods, and the woman holding the folder was from CSS: Child Safety Services, an agency that used to exist before Kalana was born but had been recently resurrected by her mother. Though the woman looked to be in her sixties, there was an eagerness to her that Kalana really appreciated.

“For the sake of the Gods,” she said, “the last thing that child needs right now is to be around more guns.”

“I know, but umm…” Kalana looked at the sergeant. “Can they come in?”

“Not yet. But what you can do is take the child to her.”

“Oh, that should work.”

Kalana carried the boy over to the woman, who handed him to the nurse. “Shh, it’s okay, sweetie,” the nurse said. “I’m just going to look at you really quickly.”

As the nurse checked the boy, Kalana took the CSS worker to the side and spoke to her. “What’s gonna happen to him?” she asked.

“Well, now that we’ve got funding again, we’re going to take him back to Whispery Woods and immediately place him in a safe, war-free environment. He’ll be given schooling and care. Just like the old days.”

“What about his mom?”

“She’ll be given a court date. The court will determine what, if any requirements, she must fulfill before she’s allowed visitation rights. Custody will be determined by the judge.”

Kalana exhaled sadly. “You mean she might never get her son back?”

The woman placed her hand on Kalana’s. “That’s possible. It’s not my right to say. But remember, Princess Kalana. She intended to shoot him in the head. These decisions are incredibly difficult, and nobody wants to separate a child from his mother, but I must document everything I saw honestly.”

Kalana nodded. “I understand. It’s just…it’s so weird and hard to understand.”

“Hm? What is?”

Kalana pointed at the woman, who was still pinned down on her belly and in handcuffs as the troops cleared the area. “Why’s she screaming so loudly for him. If she loves him, why did she wanna kill him?”

The CSS worker closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s…it’s unimaginable to me. I don’t know what could be going through her mind. But just know you did a great thing. We’ll handle it from here. I have a peacekeeper escort waiting across the street to take the boy to Whispery Woods.”

Unlike the troops, the peacekeeping force brought in from the newly Elvish controlled region of Whispery Woods were not armed with rifles, but rather they were equipped with concealed, holstered handguns to be deployed only in the event they came under direct fire. They also did not participate in any suppression activities. Their only job was to guard the social workers, doctors, and other civilian personnel.

Actually, speaking of weapons, the Elves were no longer carrying them either. With the sole exception of a south-west perimeter guard that stood by in the extremely rare event forces from Tomb of Fire decided to attack, the Elves were now forbidden from brandishing or carrying any swords, maces, staves, bows, etc. All weapons were ordered to be placed in storage, as there was nothing that any level-1 in this city could still do to them that couldn’t be handled with their hands alone.

“Are you holding up okay?” the woman asked her unexpectedly. “You’re only seventeen. This is a lot for a girl your age.”

“I’m…I’m okay,” Kalana said. “But yeah, it is a lot. I’m trying to just do what I gotta do and not think about it too much.” She felt herself weakening, but only for a moment. “Okay, it looks like you’ve got everything under control,” Kalana said. “I’m gonna go back there and—”

She abruptly stopped speaking. In the process of turning herself around, a sight caught her eyes: no, two sights. She needed to move again. She needed to move fast. Without another word to the CSS worker, she bolted back into the park using as much speed as she could without endangering anyone, and then she slammed both of her feet into the grassy field, bringing herself to a stop such that she was positioned directly between the sergeant and one of his men.

Raising her arms and extending them, she slammed down the barrels of their guns just as they fired at the third story window of an apartment building across the park. Then she reached out with both hands and plucked two incoming bullets out of the air an instant before the troops were struck.

“W-what?” the sergeant cried.

“Stay right there,” Kalana said. “Don’t shoot or I’ll be really mad.”

Kalana again exploded forward, crossing the park in a fraction of a second and then rushing across the street until she was nearly upon the front entrance to the apartment building. Once there, she squatted down, leapt directly upwards, and felt the rush of air challenging her ascent as she easily cleared the first, then second story windows. Upon reaching the third, she rolled forward and inside the apartment where the shots were fired, landing upright on both feet.

“G-gah!” cried two startled, shocked voices.

Both came from boys her and Zach’s age with shaggy blond-colored hair wearing torn scraps for clothing. They lurched backwards and fell down. Each were wielding what looked like military-grade, HC-58 semiautomatic assault rifles. Their eyes wide with fear, one of them shouted, “Protect mom!” and opened fire on Kalana, who sighed and rolled her eyes at the two boys, who she assumed to be brothers. Now, both were firing at her.

“Okay, boys, give me the guns,” she said dryly. “You’re not gonna be able to hurt me with bullets.”

She waited for them to empty their entire clips. But then she frowned at them as they started to reload. “Guys, come on,” she said, extending her hand and shaking it. “Gimme the guns. This is dumb.”

“J-j-j-j-just do wh-what she says!” a terrified older woman shrieked. She jumped forward and wrapped her arms around the boys, holding one with each. “Please don’t hurt them. Please!”

“Oh, of course not,” Kalana said with a smile. “I just wanna take those away.”

The boys looked at one another fearfully. “If we give you the guns, will you leave us alone?”

Kalana shook her head. “Nope, no way.”

“Why?” they each demanded.

“Umm, I dunno, maybe ‘cause you’re shooting bullets out of windows. You can’t do that, you dork.”

The mother was trembling. “What are you gonna do to them?”

“Oh um, you guys will probably be detained and taken to Whispery Woods. Don’t worry. You’re not gonna go anywhere near the Royal Roses. You’re probably just gonna be relocated. But you guys can’t stay here.” She looked around. “There’s no power in this apartment, is there? And how are all of you eating?”

“We’re not,” the mother said. “We’ve been holed up here since the bombings last week. I told my boys the war is over and not to shoot, but they didn’t listen. Please forgive us. You are Princess Kalana, right?”

“Yup.”

The boys again looked at each other, and this time, it was in amazement. “Holy shit,” one of them whispered. “That’s…?” He pointed to her.

She crouched down. “Guys, come on. Give me the guns.”

“Please. Listen to her,” the mother begged.

Very reluctantly, the two boys handed her their guns. She promptly snapped them in half and let the pieces fall. “Do you have any other weapons in your apartment, ma’am?” she asked the mother, sensing that she was more likely to cooperate than her children.

“Yes,” she replied.

Kalana gave her a warm smile even as her boys glared at her. “Thank you for being honest. I really appreciate it. Can you tell me where they are? This is gonna help you guys out a lot, trust me. Having them can get you shot by mistake. People are all really nervous right now.”

The mother nodded. “There are two handguns under the kitchen sink.”

Kalana walked over the chipped, damaged flooring and into the unlit kitchen. She dropped down, opened the cabinet, and found the guns. She destroyed them and then returned to what she now believed had been the living room. The building had taken a hit but had not crumpled, yet the damage was visible everywhere. It definitely wasn’t safe for anybody to be living here.

“Any more guns?”

“I don’t believe so.”

Kalana gave her a thumbs up. “Um, this is Kalana,” she said into her Comm. “I have a family of three on…what room is this?”

“34.”

“I’m in room 34. The apartment with the missing roof on the south end of the street. I have a family of three. They’re unarmed. Please be gentle.”

“Understood,” Alex said. “I’ll have a team drop by in under five. Is the building clear?”

“Is the building clear?” she asked them.

“We don’t know,” the mother replied. “I…I think there might be a family below us.”

“Are they hostile?”

She said nothing and looked away. Kalana lowered her voice. “It’s okay. I won’t let anybody die. Are they hostile?”

“Y-yes,” she whispered.

“Where are they?”

“Right below us.”

Kalana nodded. “Can you guys just move back a bit.”

“Uh…sure.”

She waited for the mother and her two sons to scooch backwards. Then Kalana lifted her foot and slammed it down, crashing it through the flooring and creating a wide breach, which she leapt down into. Immediately, a mother, a father, and three teenage daughters jumped up from where they were lying on the filthy floor and turned their guns on her. All were trembling.

She smiled at them and held out her hands. “Gimme,” she said. “Gimme the guns.”

The man, clearly by accident, pulled the trigger, almost as though it had been a nervous reaction. The bullet bounced off her chin. “Oh no,” he moaned. “Oh no, oh no. Please! Don’t take it out on them!”

“It’s okay. I’m not mad. Just give me the gun.”

He complied. Good. “I think it’s clear now,” she said over the Comm. “Family of five in 22.”

“Copy.”

The two boys and their mother above looked down into the hole from the floor above. Kalana gave them another thumbs up. She made sure she kept her smile on her face to promote calm. She didn’t want to spread terror to anyone. But on the inside, she was hurting. She missed Zach. She was tired of seeing all this suffering. Maybe he was right. Maybe she had no business being here. She was tired of seeing all the pain and the fear. Things might be going well for her right now, but eventually, at some point today—and likely multiple—she wasn’t going to be able to save someone. She’d see another person die. She couldn’t always win. She couldn’t always succeed.

It was a lot. She kinda just wanted to go home.

“Are…you okay?” the man asked her as she started to sniffle. He seemed taken aback, confused.

“Mhm. I’m just so…so sorry.”

“You are?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry all this stuff happened. To everyone.”

*****

Zach jumped in just before a wooden sword slammed over the head of a seven-year-old Elvish boy. “Elas, what did I tell you? You never lower your guard. Especially when your opponent’s sword is raised and he’s in front of you.”

Rather than accept his criticism and learn from it, the boy cried. And then his opponent cried, too. Why were they both crying? Zach rubbed his eyes in frustration. “Come on, you two. Stop crying. Literally nothing happened.”

“Wahhhhhhhh!”

A chuckle from behind him drew his attention, and he smiled at the sight of Lienne and Rian, who had finally arrived. Right now, he was on a gentle slope in the mob-free zone. The grass was now dry following one of the island’s short, but intense storms, and for this reason, Zach hadn’t heard them coming.

“Having fun, Zach?” Rian asked him.

Zach approached Rian, bumped fists, and then briefly embraced Lienne. “Yeah, a bit. Just teaching these kids how to fight. I don’t know why they’re crying, though.”

“They’re so cute,” Lienne said.

There were fifteen students in total, and all of them were probably too young to be fighting with a sword, but Fylwen had insisted Zach teach them. They were able to learn some of the basics, but honestly? They needed to be a bit older before they really started making progress.

“Okay, you guys are done for the day,” Zach said to them. “Go back to your parents.” As they scampered off, he turned to Rian and Lienne. “Guys, do you mind coming with me to Dragon Squire?”

Rian made an O-shape with his mouth. “You’re finally ready?”

“Yep.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, hell yeah! So this is it. We’re finally gonna start working on getting to Albion-4!”

Rian and Lienne didn’t yet know about the World Eater. Only very few people knew—well, other than the Elves. What they did know, however, was that there was a clue in Dragon Squire that would show them how to reach a Tier-2 planet. Zach wasn’t sure what explanation Zephyr had come up with for how he’d learned this information; he only knew that Zephyr had been in charge of directing his guild to search, and that he’d explained to them what they were searching for.

“So, where’s Jimmy?” Zach asked, looking around and not seeing him anywhere.

“No idea. I didn’t see him on the way over here.”

“I thought you guys were going to meet up and come together?”

“We were,” Lienne said, “but then he just didn’t show.”

“Huh?”

********

Jimmy looked over his left shoulder. And then over his right. “Are you sure we’re good?” he asked his new best friend.

Tyson Revel, the second-in-command of the People of Virtue, nodded to him. The two were in a damp, shady alleyway in the seediest part of the market in Shores of Wrath. Jimmy had run into him by chance yesterday. He had been looking to buy a fancy wristwatch when he saw some clueless guild dude stumbling around asking how to get to Elendroth. Curious, Jimmy and him struck up a conversation, and he’d told Jimmy all about his asshole uncle and his banishment from Varda’s Lair. He turned out to be a real cool dude. Tyson even bought him beer and they chilled for a bit and talked a lot about life. Jimmy finally admitted to him that he was a guest on Elendroth and could bring the guy over. But first, he wanted to get fucked up. And Tyson, incredibly, seemed to be the first person he’d me on Galterra who spoke his language.

“Trust me, Jim-Jim,” he said, a smirk on his face. “My guy here has the best shit. Still Rage, Jumpers, he’s got it all. Okay, here he comes. Be cool. Be cool.”

Jimmy snorted. “Man, you be cool. You’re the one acting all wild.”

“Haha, that’s just my natural state.”

Tyson was about ten years older than Jimmy, but they were almost like kindred spirits. He was also a party-loving drunk who liked to take the fun kind of stuff. Apparently, he was supposed to “serve” Zach or something. Jimmy felt bad for him. The fact he’d run into the guy at all was nothing short of an amazing coincidence.

Might as well have a bit of fun before I head over there.

Jimmy kept a loose, calm posture as a figure emerged in the alleyway—and then his posture tightened right up, and he clenched his entire body as he noticed the pointy ears and the white cloak.

“Y-your contact is an Elf?” Jimmy asked with a gasp.

“No,” Tyson said, backing away until he hit a wall. “Oh, shit!”

The Elf was massive, perhaps the biggest Jimmy had ever seen. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d seen this dude before. He recognized him, actually. It was Trelvor’s pops: Londril. The fuck was he doing out here?

“How’s it going?” Jimmy asked him.

“Hail, James Green,” he said. “Hail, Tyson Revel. Is’t true that such young and virulent blooded men liketh thee boys art here to buy’eth something foul? And to bringeth such foulness to mine home in Elendroth?”

Oh, shit. We’re busted.

Jimmy shot Tyson a look of warning as he appeared to be about to say something. “Shh!” Jimmy hissed at him. “Let me handle this.” To the Elf, he said, “I plead my fifth amendment rights, and I ain’t saying shit until I speak to a lawyer.”

The man laughed at him. Then Jimmy, along with Tyson, tried to flee as he dashed forward and scooped up the both of them under one arm each. As he was carried out of the alleyway, he spotted an unconscious human being arrested by peacekeepers. “Don’t tell Zach or Tena on me!”

*****

“Are you fucking kidding me, Jimmy?” Zach shouted. “You got busted buying drugs?”

Rian was on his back—literally on his back as he laughed so hard that he started gasping for air. “J-Jimmy got arrested by Londril! Ahhhh-hahahahahaha! This is the best day of my life. It can’t get better than this. It can’t.” He was rocking back and forth on the grass, clutching his sides as he burst out laughing. “Gonna piss my pants. Can’t control it.”

“Rian, stop,” Lienne grumbled. “It’s not funny.”

“I agree,” Trelvor added. “Addiction is not that to which we laugh, but to which we show compassion.”

“That’s why I love you,” Lienne whispered into his ear. Zach was near enough to hear her. Then, to her brother, she said, “There’s nothing funny about this.”

“YES THERE IS!” he cackled, still lying on his back on the grass. They were in front of a small, recently built shack that served as the closest thing to a “sheriff’s hut” the island had. Londril was in charge of the island’s security, and he seemed to be taking his job seriously. He made a frown at Rian as Rian seemed unable to stop himself. “Jimmy got caught in an Elvish drug-smuggling bust. Ahahahahahaha! Oh, fuck! My life is complete.”

Jimmy scowled at Rian, who sat up and looked at him. Zach watched the way his eyes fell over the level-40 restraints binding his hands and feet as he was forced into a kneeling position on the grass next to a man who Zach believed may well have been Tyson Revel. He was similarly bound. Rian erupted with even more laughter.

Fylwen, who stood next to Eilea, asked, “This is the boy you were telling me about?”

“He is indeed,” Eilea said. “He is a great man. But…he has his vices.”

Not long after Rian and Lienne had arrived, Zach had taken them back to Kalana’s place to find Eilea, Fylwen, Trelvor, Jascaila, and Seiley standing outside the home as though waiting for him. Upon arrival, it had been Fylwen who informed him that they received intelligence from the People of Virtue that a young man matching Jimmy’s description was attempting to purchase extremely hard drugs in Shores of Wrath with the intent of smuggling them onto Elendroth. And Zach, for his part, refused to believe it.

Now, he groaned. This was such a pain in the ass. “Fylwen, please,” he said. “Just let Jimmy go. He’s not from here. He didn’t know any better.”

“I believe he did,” Fylwen replied. “Otherwise, why would he have met in such a shady location? Hidden away like a rat? No, the boy knew exactly what he was doing. He was going to purchase illicit substances and then bring them here to Elendroth.”

“Allegedly,” Jimmy added. “I confess to nothing. I want a lawyer. I know my rights.”

“What rights?” the guy sitting next to him asked. All of a sudden, his eyes widened with surprise and maybe even a touch of delight. “Wait, we have rights? I didn’t know that.”

“No, no you don’t,” Zach said. “Neither of you have any rights here. I don’t know what Jimmy is talking about. He’s getting confused again.”

Now, Jimmy narrowed his eyes angrily. “The hell you mean I don’t have rights? The fuck is this shit, North Korea?”

“I have no idea what that is,” Zach said. “But you guys have no rights. So please stop aggravating the queen. Sheesh.”

Panic erupting onto his face, the guy who looked like Tyson Revel said, “You cannot let these Elves harm me, Sir Calador!” The man had bright red curly hair along with a face full of freckles, and he was thin as a twig despite being close to six feet tall. He looked exactly like the twenty-nine-year-old “problem child” the media was always going on about.

“Huh? Why not?” Zach asked him.

“Because I am Tyson Revel, second-in-command of the People of Virtue, and I have been sent here against my will to serve you.”

“You what?” Zach exclaimed.

“It has already been cleared with Vim. I was sent here to learn from you. Not by choice, I assure you. I’m basically a slave.”

For some reason, his words made Jimmy squirm. “Man, don’t be saying that shit.”

“What shit?”

“You’re not a slave. Let’s not get dramatic. Don’t be calling yourself that. You don’t even know what you’re saying.”

“But it’s true!” he insisted. “I’m forced to be here.”

Zach snorted. “Well, good news. I don’t want you. You’re free. Hurray.”

“It’s not that simple,” he replied. “I have no choice. If you send me back, I’ll be killed.”

“It is actually that simple,” Zach said. “Because I don’t even care. Fylwen, please let this guy go.”

“Very well,” she said. “He’s a disgusting disgrace to his family. Everyone knows this. He’s a perverted degenerate who is a stain on his father’s legacy. I’d sooner not dirty my hands trying to help such a worthless, wretched piece of filth. Jimmy, however, is a different story. I believe the Great Goddess. She claims there is much to redeem in him.”

Sheesh, Zach thought. Tell us how you really feel.

Something shocked Zach, though. Something that caused him to hesitate. It was the fact that there was absolutely no trace of pain whatsoever in the man’s eyes as Fylwen berated him. It was almost as though he already accepted it as truth. And that, Zach found very, very interesting. So much so he couldn’t stop himself from asking about it.

“You don’t seem upset about what she just said,” Zach told him. “Aren’t you going to defend yourself?”

“Why would I?” Tyson asked. “Everything she said is true. Sir Calador, you, right now, are looking into the face of the world’s biggest loser. It’s a badge I wear with honor. I’m a fuckup among fuckups. If you killed me right now, not a single person in this world would care. Not even my own mother. Still, I’m not above begging. So I beg that you at least pretend I served you so that my uncle won’t kill and castrate me.”

Zach was floored. Was this guy for real? “So wait,” Zach said, “you really think that low of yourself?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked. “It’s true.”

“No it’s not,” Jimmy interjected. “You’re just dumb.” To Zach, he said, “This dude showed me his abilities. He might be one of the strongest mother fuckers you ever met. Zach, you gotta take him in. You don’t even know. I almost shit myself when I saw what he can do.”

Now, Zach was even more intrigued. “Wait, what?” He eyed the scrawny, red-haired, freckly-faced, self-declared degenerate. “This guy?”

Jimmy laughed. “I couldn’t believe it either. This dude’s level 35 and has the worst stats and abilities I’ve ever seen.”

Zach tilted his head sideways. “But you just said…”

“Except for one,” Jimmy continued. “Tell him about your passive.”

Tyson made an “ugh” sound. “Are we really on that again? I was drunk when I met you. It was foolish of me to show you that. I am actually quite feeble, Sir Calador. My stats are very, very low, and I will be of no use to you. I am quite rich, however, and I would pay you handsomely to lie and say I did what I was sent here to do.”

Zach nodded. “Okay, we’ll discuss my possible bribe later. But for now, Jimmy has me curious. Show me your stats.”

Tyson laughed. “I’d rather show you my tiny dick. This is really humiliating.”

With that, he brought forth his stats, and Zach actually cringed, backed up a step, and said, “Yeesh.”

Name

Tyson Revel

Level

35

Armor Bonus

18

Strength

13

Dexterity

14

Constitution

14

Intelligence

7

Speed

7

Luck

5

“Oh, Gods,” Rian said, stopping his laughing immediately, his voice filled with pity. “And you’re level 35?”

“Yep,” Tyson said. “Like I told you. World’s biggest loser.”

Zach actually felt bad for him. “Yeah, that’s…I’m not going to lie to you, Tyson—is it okay if I call you that?”

“Yeah, I don’t need any honorifics.”

“Okay, well, I’m not going to lie to you, Tyson. These stats are terrible. They’re like what mine would’ve been if I didn’t hit that ‘growth spurt’ so-to-speak. I didn’t even know it was possible to have stats this bad by your level.”

Jimmy, with his arms still bound behind his back, actually laughed. “That’s what I thought at first too. Yo, Tyson, show him your first few abilities.” To Zach, he said, “It actually gets worse.”

Tyson also laughed. “Can’t you guys give me a break?”

“Show us!” Fylwen snapped. Zach had somehow actually forgotten she was there at all. “Curse me for getting invested in this spectacle, especially when I’m late enough to Shadowfall Coast as is, but…Gods, this degenerate buffoon has me curious.”

“It doesn’t get any better no matter what Jimmy tells you,” Tyson said. “And I only have five abilities. This is the first.”

Inner Ability

Cross Slash I

Usage Cost

Moderate

Cooldown:

60 seconds

Range:

5

Description

User slashes twice with a sword in a cross-shaped pattern. The user’s strength is increased by 10 for the duration of this ability.

“Okay, that’s…I mean it’s not the worst,” Zach said, to which Rian nodded.

“Yeah, I mean, I guess for some enemies it might be a way to do a quick bit of extra damage. But the exertion cost and the cooldown make that one of the less popular abilities. Actually, I know a lot of people who have Cross Slash I and I almost never see it used.”

Tyson made a “peh” sound as he blew out a breath of air. “I told you guys.”

“Keep going,” Zach said. “Next ability.”

Inner Ability

Blessing of Strength I

Usage Cost

Low

Cooldown:

N/A

Range:

25

Description

Target’s strength is increased by 15 for 15 minutes.

“All right…a basic strength buff. Next?”

Inner Ability

Blessing of Dexterity I

Usage Cost

Low

Cooldown:

N/A

Range:

25

Description

Target’s dexterity is increased by 15 for 15 minutes.

Zach looked at Rian, who looked at Lienne. Then all three looked at each other. Zach could tell they were thinking the same thing that he was: maybe this guy really was the biggest loser in the world. “Uh, next?” Zach asked, almost not wanting to see it. Jimmy’s grin only widened.

Inner Ability

Blessing of Constitution I

Usage Cost

Low

Cooldown:

N/A

Range:

25

Description

Target’s constitution is increased by 15 for 15 minutes.

Jimmy began nodding his head. “And now, Tyson, show these people your last ability. Go ahead. Whip that thing out.”

For the first time, Tyson showed a real degree of hesitance and reluctance. “I don’t know what you see in this ability, but it won’t change anything. You’re mistaken.”

“Let them judge that for themselves.”

“You’re going to all be disappointed. That’s all I can do is disappoint. There is no point in—”

“Let us see it,” Zach interrupted. “Go on. Or I’ll send you right back to your uncle.”

Tyson sighed. “Very well.”

Tyson closed his eyes a moment before reopening them. And then, he brought out his final ability. And when he did, even Fylwen gasped.

Passive Ability (LEGENDARY UNIQUE)

ROAR OF THE HERO GOD

Usage Cost

None

Cooldown:

None

Range:

N/A

Description

Aside from ROAR OF THE HERO GOD, this user may only learn Tier I skills.

Every time the user performs a successful, non-ability-based attack with or without a weapon, the user gains 1 hero stack. Hero stacks grant the user +1 to every stat and last for 15 seconds. All hero stacks are lost upon expiration. Additional hero stacks reset this timer. Additionally, ROAR OF THE HERO GOD contains the following properties.

At 20 stacks: User’s melee attacks gain an area-of-effect wind element that damages nearby enemies while avoiding allies. Additionally, all Tier I skills are increased to Tier II.

At 40 stacks: User gains an additional +20 to all stats. User also gains an area-of-effect lightning element that further damages nearby enemies while avoiding allies. Additionally, all Tier II skills are increased to Tier III.

At 50 stacks: User gains +50 armor. User gains access to Stunning Slash IV and Dark Explosion IV. User gains a dark element that damages nearby enemies while avoiding allies. All other skills are increased to Tier IV.

At 60 stacks: User regenerates 5% (non-limited) HP every 10 seconds.

At 100 stacks: Additional stacks now grant +2 to all stats instead of +1. All skills are upgraded to Tier V.

At 200 stacks: All skills are upgraded to their maximum Tier (may vary between VI and X. Cannot upgrade skills to ULT or FIN until the user has registered as T2 and T3 respectively).

Zach inhaled. He’d forgotten to breathe. Then, his mouth opened widely, and he said, “What in the F—”

“—uck?” Rian finished for him, rubbing his eyes as though that would change the sights entering into them.

Beside him, Fylwen looked as though someone had siphoned the blood out of her face. She was as stunned as everyone else. Trelvor, Seiley, and Lienne were even rereading it several times as though they did not believe what they had seen. Even Jascaila clearly couldn’t believe what she was reading, because the woman was slowly shaking her head.

“Yeah, I know,” Tyson grumbled. “Everybody go ahead and laugh it up. Just let me go, all right? You’ve had your fun.”

Zach felt like he needed a bottle of water. This guy was in total denial over his own potential.

Holy shit. Just like I was.

Chapter 186: Potential

Chapter 186: Potential

Everyone was staring at him, and Tyson didn’t like it. His head hurt, his body was shaking, he had an itch on his left testicle that wasn’t going away, and no matter how much he struggled, he couldn’t break out of these Gods-be-damned restraints. Finally, with a whimper, Tyson began sobbing. And this only caused everyone to stare even more incredulously. What, had they never seen a man cry before? It was perfectly normal!

“Please just let me bribe you,” he begged Sir Calador as the boiling hot sun made him feel like a frog in a witch’s pot. On his knees, surrounded by Elves and a few humans, he was in a state of misery. The only person around who understood his suffering was his new—and possibly best—friend, Jimmy Green. Yet, for some reason, they’d let Jimmy go without a fuss while keeping Tyson in such an unbearable state. He was now up and about, stretching his legs. He’d agreed to fifty hours of “Elendroth service” in exchange for a pardon, and they were even allowing him to work any hours he pleased on any days he pleased.

If our crimes are the same, why am I still locked up?

As he wept, Sir Calador leaned closer to the Elvish girl called Seiley and said, “It’s a good thing Kalana isn’t here.”

The girl nodded at him. “Yeah, she’d let him go as soon as he started crying.”

Those were the only words they spoke aloud for a while as they continued to stare at him. There were occasional whispers, but aside from that, Tyson was simply being observed as he roasted in this evil, twisted heat. His emotions broke, he suffered a full meltdown, and he entered into a crying fit. “Please, please, just take my bribe, Sir Calador!” he begged.

He didn’t know if this was all some kind of ritual mockery or if they somehow believed his passive ability was truly as good as they acted as though it were. After all, it required him to successfully strike a target again and again and again. What good was that? Were these people daft? Admittedly, he didn’t know how this whole “adventuring world” worked, but surely, his ability was functionally useless on someone like Tyson. For the sake of the Gods, he didn’t even know how to properly use a weapon!

Though frowned upon even among the political guilds, Tyson had gotten to level 35 by paying lower-ranking members of the People of Virtue to power-level him. Yes, peasant, you read that correctly. Tyson was a filthy, power-leveled scoundrel. Honestly? He’d never actually farmed any of the mobs on his estate. He’d simply reclined on a lawn chair sipping spiked iced teas while someone else leveled him up. Once, he’d even hired this incredibly, head-turningly attractive escort. The sort of woman that could heat up outer space. Tyson had actually paid to build a small, cabin-sized bedroom a few feet away from his mob pen, and he’d gotten it on with the woman while two squires of the guild leveled him up.

Why are they having me sit here? Is this a form of torture?

After what had to have been 2- or 3-years baking under the unforgiving island sun, he was finally treated to a modicum of kindness and civility thanks to Jimmy Green. Oh, what a gift of the Gods he was; Jimmy, displaying his decency and righteousness, brought Tyson over a cold bottle of water and held it up to his lips. “Thank you,” he said gratefully, sipping at it.

“I’m sorry they got you here like this,” Jimmy said.

“Are they going to kill me?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then why am I tied up?”

Jimmy opened his mouth to answer, but at last, the unfeeling, malevolent wraith known as Sir Calador decided to illuminate the reason for himself. “You’re there,” he said, “because I’m not sure what to do with you yet.”

The answer frustrated and angered Tyson. “That makes no sense,” he argued. “Why do I have to be in such utter discomfort while you make your decision?”

“Because I said so.”

He again whimpered. “And why? Why are you so cruel? There’s not even any shade out here. I am being cooked. Why do this to your fellow man?”

“I’ll tell you why,” Sir Calador said as he approached closer and then squatted down so that they were both level and able to meet one another’s eyes. “I don’t trust you, and I don’t like that you tricked Jimmy into buying drugs.”

“Tricked him?” Tyson said, outraged. “The entire thing was his idea.”

Sir Calador shifted his eyes to the right. “Is this true, Jimmy?”

“I’m pleading the fifth.”

“Once again, that doesn’t mean anything here on Galterra.”

“I don’t care,” Jimmy replied. “I confess to nothing.”

“That just means you’re guilty.”

“Not where I’m from.”

“Whatever.”

Tyson, stressed and fearful, asked, “What are you planning to do with me?”

Sir Calador pursed his lips somewhat as he said, “I’m thinking of whether or not I should keep you around.”

“And if you decide not to?”

“Then I’ll let you go and lie and say you were a great servant or whatever in exchange for a big bribe. Like I want a million gold at the minimum. Maybe two.”

“Oh, I’ll pay that!”

Trelvor grunted. “No you will not! I, for one, will not allow that kind of conduct, Zach. It’s dishonorable. If you are not going to make good on this man’s offer of servitude, then you will let him go with dignity. Bribery is immoral and unjust.”

As Tyson further collapsed into despair, tears sliding down his face, he said, “I’m fine with it.”

“I don’t care. There will be no bribery.”

Tyson began to pant. He felt like he was on fire. It was just getting hotter and hotter as the day progressed. “Can we please at least speak like people and not beasts? Sir Calador, I implore you: unbind me. I’m in so much discomfort.”

Surprisingly, a touch of softness did enter Sir Calador’s face. Tyson had heard that the boy was a mass-murdering maniac, someone who would slit a throat for the most benign of reasons. Yet with a stunning amount of compassion, he whispered, “Yeah, all right” and then he asked Londril for the key to his wrist shackles. By this point, the Elvish Queen had already vacated the island, likely to attend to that nasty business over in Shadowfall Coast, and the Elvish Goddess, Eilea, had been whisked away to some other section of the island to meet with Elvish scholars.

And so now, walking around behind him, Sir Calador at last undid his restraints, which were made of high-level materials he could not break free from. Relief flooded into his aching wrists, and then into his ankles as those restraints were undone as well. Finally, he stood up, sweat pouring down his face.

“Hm?” Tyson inhaled and flinched. “Oh, Gods, what’s that?” he shouted.

“What’s what?” Sir Calador asked.

“That,” he pointed. Sir Calador looked.

“Haha, you fool!”

Tyson turned around and sprinted away. This was his chance to make a daring escape. He took off running as fast as he could, pumping his arms as he ran. He looked over his shoulder as he began to gain distance, the sun punishing him as he got farther and farther away. He was running down a gentle slope, and even with his lackluster speed, he was still at least as fast as someone peddling a bicycle, which meant in no time at all, he was putting this recently erected Elvish town out of sight. Ahead of him was the beginning of some forest. It would be the perfect place to lose his pursuers.

Wait, are they even pursuing?

Rather than chase after him, his final sight of his captors was of them merely shaking their heads. Perhaps they knew it was impossible to contain him. Hmm, yes. It seemed his will to be free and do drugs and sleep with women was far stronger than their will to coerce him into their twisted ends. That was likely the only reason why—

“SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” cried a massive, level-45 bird that swooped down at him from the top of a nearby, forty-foot-tall tree.

“SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” screeched four others, an entire flock of them descending upon him.

Tyson turned around. “Just kidding! I changed my mind!” he screamed as he ran his way back up the hill and towards the area that they’d called the…

Oh, right. The mob-free zone. So that’s why. I get it now.

“Help me!” he begged as the mobs gained on him. With his entire body now drenched from head to toe in perspiration, he dove forward, his belly slamming into the grass just behind Sir Calador. “Please! Please don’t let them kill me!”

At the same time, the Elves rushed forward. “Fear them,” a broad-shouldered Elf wearing a green cloak ordered. “But do not kill them. Her Majesty has forbidden us from hunting.”

As four additional green-cloaked and two white-cloaked Elves dashed beyond him and towards the flock of mobs that he’d accidentally aggroed, he once more climbed up to his knees, turned to Sir Calador, and said, “So…about that bribe?”

Behind him, the squawking turned fearful as the birds began flying off together in the opposite direction. Glancing over his shoulder, he realized that, upon reaching the forest, they continued to flee and did not return. The Elves, who had chased them away, then glared threateningly at him, and one even brandished his dagger and said, “Do that again and we let them eat you.”

Sir Calador, who looked amused but also frustrated, made a gesture with his chin towards a very large, two-story home. It was a gesture Tyson interpreted as meaning he should follow, and so he did. Sir Calador spoke to him as they walked.

“I get that you don’t want to be here,” he said, “but what I don’t understand is why.”

“Hm? Why what?”

He opened the front door, and the Gods-be-praised air conditioning made him sigh with relief, the cool air rejuvenating him. Sir Calador pointed to a specific spot at the dining table in the kitchen, and Tyson took a seat there. Then the boy sat across from him. “You’ve got really great potential,” he said. He leaned in closer and studied Tyson’s face in a way that made him uncomfortable. “You don’t believe I’m telling the truth though, do you?”

Tyson decided to be honest. “I believe you’re either messing with me or gravely mistaken.”

“He’s not,” Jimmy said, entering the home and taking a seat next to Sir Calador. The two were joined by the chubby boy, the pretty girl who looked like his sister, and the two Elvish youths that seemed to be inexplicably part of Sir Calador’s entourage. The other Elves, including Trelvor’s father—the one called Londril—appeared to lose interest in the overall situation and went about what Tyson assumed to be their usual business. Come to think of it, there was no longer anything keeping him captive—save for the island itself.

“Hey, uh, Zach?” Jimmy whispered nervously.

“What’s up?”

“Things have been going much better with me and Tena lately, and uh…you aren’t gonna snitch on me, are you?”

“Of course not,” Sir Calador said. “I’m certainly not going to tell her what just happened. I’m actually embarrassed over it. I can’t believe you did that, Jimmy.”

“Look, man, nobody’s perfect. But it’s not you I’m worried about. It’s you,” Jimmy said to the chubby boy, who was clearly his rival for some reason. Tyson had no idea what was going on between the two, but there was certainly some animosity there. All of these kids had problems. He needed to get away from them. Except maybe Jimmy. Jimmy was cool.

The chubby boy pressed his fist playfully against Jimmy’s chest. “I might bust your chops, but I wouldn’t ruin your relationship. I would never rat out another guy.”

“Thanks, Rian,” he said. “I actually appreciate that.”

Trelvor nodded, but the Elvish girl, Seiley, and the other pretty girl—was her name Lienne?—seemed to disapprove. “Tena puts up with so much,” she said. “You’re not treating her well.”

“No, I am, that’s the thing. I’ve finally started to really get to know her. I spent these past five days making up for a lot of my bullshit. I’ve been putting in the work. But then, like, I dunno, I came here looking to buy a gift for her while she’s off visiting her aunt in Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, just something to surprise her, right? And uh…you know, while I was here and all by myself, I…I just wanted to have some fun.”

“With drugs?” Seiley asked, her mouth twisting sourly.

“Okay, look. Where I come from, it’s not that big a deal. It’s really not.”

Tyson cleared his throat. “Can I…visit where you’re from?” he asked.

Jimmy burst out laughing. “I mean, not really.”

“Why?”

“Well, because right now it’s not really—”

“Actually you can,” Sir Calador spoke up, cutting Jimmy off. “I’d be happy to show you where Jimmy’s from.”

“Really?” Tyson asked. Finally, he was getting somewhere. “This place where it’s ‘not such a big deal?’”

“Sure.”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “It’s a trap, Tyson. I’m from another planet.”

“Oh, wow. I see. Well then, in that case, I’ll pass.”

Sir Calador laughed. “Okay, let’s get back on topic.” He leaned forward again, his elbows on the table. “You said you’re the biggest loser in the world, right? Why don’t you want to change?”

Tyson shrugged. “Because I can’t. I was born to be a fuckup. I just happen to have certain innate…preferences. I’m a simple man, Sir Calador. I just want to have sex and do drugs all day. Even if you were right about me, which you couldn’t be, it still wouldn’t matter, because I’m completely incapable of living up to any potential even if it did exist within me.”

Sir Calador nodded. “Fine, then I’ll ask you one more question, and this is the most important one of all. If you tell me the truth, I might even be able to let you go.”

Eagerly, Tyson now himself leaned in closer. “Yes, please, go on.”

“But you have to tell me the truth, all right? And if you’re lying, I’ll be pissed.”

“Of course.”

Sir Calador spoke slowly and softly, yet there was a strange power in his words as he phrased his question. “The reason you’re not interested in changing…is it because you don’t want to change, or you don’t believe that you can?”

Tyson decided to tell the truth, as he didn’t see the harm in it. “I don’t believe I can.”

Sir Calador snapped his fingers and smiled. “There we go! Well, that settles it.”

“It does?” Tyson asked hopefully.

“Yup. It definitely does.” He grinned. “I’m taking you adventuring.”

“Wh-what?” Tyson shouted—then whimpered. “No, no, no. I meant the other answer.”

“Too late.”

“My life is over,” he said, still whimpering. “This is it for me. I’m going to die with you unruly savages. Can you at least spare me one act of mercy? It is truly all I ask for.”

“Act of mercy?”

“Yes. I beg of you, Sir Calador. I beg of you please. Can you do just one thing for me? Show me just one act of kindness?”

As he’d done earlier, Sir Calador softened. “Sure, what is it?”

“Can…can you get me and Jimmy some drugs?”

“No!” he replied immediately. And so too did the two girls and the Elvish boy, Trelvor. Several of them even slapped their palms down on the table as they shouted out the word “no” to him. Tyson started to cry again. And then he began to plead. And then he prepared to shout. But all of this stopped immediately as the Goddess herself entered the home. Yes, the Goddess. The true Goddess. If only he knew her name.

“Who…who is that?” he asked, wondering what such a marvelous creature could be named.

“Huh?” Sir Calador half stood up and looked over his shoulder. “Oh, that’s Jascaila.”

Jascaila, he thought. If ever such a beautiful thing could be said to exist, would it not be Jascaila? The woman was approaching. She was coming nearer.

Tyson immediately sat up straighter, wiped a bit of sweat off his face, dried his eyes—hopefully before she saw them—and then cleared his throat. Now, with a deeper voice, he announced, “I am Tyson Revel of the People of Virtue. Someday soon, as my father passes from his illness, I will lead my guild with a stoic, iron hand. Yes, Sir Calador. I shall join you in your brave and noble quests. For my blood is the blood of lions, and my heart beats to a rhythm of legacy.”

Sir Calador scratched his head. “Yeah, okay. I mean an ‘I’m in’ would’ve been just as good.”

“Scootch over, Zach,” Jascaila said as she approached. Tyson’s heart swelled with happiness as she chose to sit directly across from him. This was going well. Could it be that she noticed him as he noticed her? And now, the mutual noticing having taken place, it was here that she would confess to him that her eyes have been unable to look away? Her raspy, sexy voice, her thin and athletic—yet curvy—frame. She was a dream of his come to life.

“Hello,” he said to her, standing upright in his chair so that he could fully bow. “I am Tyson Revel, second-in-command of the People of Virtue. May I please be given the unfathomable honor of knowing the name of such a lovely woman?”

“My name’s Jascaila Iseldar,” she said.

And just like that, his heart was broken. “Isel…dar?”

“Yep.”

“Related to…?”

“He’s my brother.”

“Shit.”

“Yep.”

He sat back down. Suddenly, she seemed a little less beautiful. Only a fool would hit on that thug’s sister. Still…

Who am I fooling? She is a Goddess.

And then she did something unexpected. She grabbed both his hands and squeezed them. She looked him directly in the eyes—in a way no one had ever looked at him before. And with no trace of lying, deception, and with such convincing authority, certainty, and understanding, she opened her mouth, and she said, “You’re not worthless.” Then she let him go, she got back up, and she walked out of the home.

And he was speechless. What did she even just do? What did she even just say? What was this pain in his chest? It wasn’t love. It wasn’t romantic. It was something internal. Now, he shed a tear, though he did so without whimpering. “Aren’t I?” he whispered, the question aimed at no one and everyone.

Sir Calador and Jimmy glanced at one another, and then both lifted their eyebrows as though confused. He too was confused.

“You’re going to come with us, all right?” Sir Calador said to him.

“Where are we going?”

“Dragon Squire.”

Still caught in a state of stunned bewilderment, he could only nod. He didn’t even bother to ask why or for what purpose. He simply agreed. Nothing could take him out of his current stupor. Nothing could snap him out of the bizarre yet enlightening trance that woman had put him in. Robotically, he said, “I’ll call my pilot and have the jet pick us up.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” Sir Calador said to him. “We’ll be taking the bus.”

His hypnotic state was broken.

“The bus?” he shouted. “Like…like commoners?”

“Well, yeah.”

He huffed. “At least let’s take a limousine DEHV. My treat.”

“Nope. We wanna take the bus,” Rian said. “It’s more fun.”

He glanced around the home, though he was actually looking beyond it. “Are there even bus stops here?”

“Nope. We’re going to swim to Shores of Wrath, hop through a few dungeons, and…well, you’ll see.”

He buried his head in his hands. This was going to be a nightmare.

Chapter 187: New Targets

Chapter 187: New Targets

Zach frowned as he was forced to pause, tread water, and look over his shoulder at the two stragglers who were splashing around like idiots.

“Guys, at least try to keep up,” he called to them. Everyone else had been following along just fine except for Tyson and Jimmy, the two sharing their mutual agony as they panted stroke after stroke while swimming through the ocean. “I don’t want to waste the whole day traveling. Move it, you two.”

“Goddamn, Zach, give us a fucking chance,” Jimmy said, looking like a man on the verge of drowning. He was breathing so hard it actually worried Zach.

“The Gods save us both!” Tyson cried out. “Why is there no mercy in this cruel world?”

Zach couldn’t believe how hard of a time they were having. They weren’t even going that fast! This should’ve been an enjoyable, relaxing swim through a calm ocean beneath a beautiful, warm, and cloudless blue sky. Instead, Jimmy wasn’t faring any better than he had the first time they’d come through here, and Tyson, amazingly, was actually performing slightly better—though emphasis here was on slightly. Both looked like they could run out of energy and drown any second.

At the moment, the seven of them were nearly to the point where the water turned shallow, and they’d get plenty of rest once they started wading to the shore. Grumpily, Zach gave them a few seconds before losing his patience and swimming off, demanding that they follow or he’d let them sink. He didn’t mean it, of course, but Jimmy and Tyson had way less stamina than they should have at their respective levels. Especially Jimmy. That buff of his, Breath of Invigoration, was incredible and astounding—but it was also like a poison to Jimmy, as he rarely pushed himself and thus was falling further and further behind where he should’ve been in terms of endurance.

“We’re almost there,” Zach called back behind to them. “Another minute. That’s all.”

Somehow, the two managed to hold out just long enough to cross the last bit of distance, and looking behind him once again, Zach could actually see the relief in their eyes as their feet touched the ocean floor. Now, walking forward through the water, it became shallower and shallower. And as was normal for him these days, Zach waved, shook hands, and greeted people all the way from the beach to the boardwalk. Upon arriving, Trelvor called for a pause.

“One moment, please,” he said, stopping. He happened to be located ahead of all of them. Everyone was still soaked, and although the intense sun was doing a good job of drying them off, Trelvor seemed to want to hurry the process as he squeezed portions of his white cloak to release the seawater faster. Then, glancing around, he said, “Our weapons may make the people here nervous. We should conceal them.”

With that, he did something that Zach couldn’t believe. He knew it was going to break him even before it happened. He could only watch in mute fascination, frozen in shock as Trelvor unstrapped his beautiful new flute from his chest, which he’d won on the Mare of the Primordial Void raid, and then tucked it inside of his vest and out of sight. Even as this was happening, Zach spared a moment to glance at Rian, whose eyes were opened so widely that, if Zach didn’t already know better, he might’ve thought Rian was afraid.

Did he just seriously…?

“There,” Trelvor said with a self-satisfied smile. “That should make the good folk here more comfortable.” And then Zach broke. He laughed so hard he actually sneezed. So did Rian. It took Trelvor a moment to realize he was the subject of their cackling. “What?” he asked. “Why are you two laughing? Is there something funny about concealing my weapon?”

“No way, bud,” Rian said through guffaws. “The last thing we’d want is to start a panic. You better keep that thing hidden.”

“Yeah,” Zach agreed. “Let’s not spread fear.”

Trelvor narrowed his eyes. “Why am I being mocked? Is this about my choice of weapon again?”

“No, no,” Zach said, laughing so hard he was starting to wheeze. “It’s got nothing to do with you or the flute.”

“Then what are you laughing at?”

He couldn’t reply he was laughing too hard. Rian said, “We saw a uh, a clown over there. And he did a funny trick.”

“Did you truly?”

Lienne elbowed him angrily. “Cut it out, Rian. You’re such a jerk.” She grabbed Trelvor’s arm, stood on her tiptoes so that she could kiss him on the cheek, and said, “You’re really considerate. Ignore my stupid brother.”

“My flute is scary, right?” Zach heard him whisper to her a little bit later, doubt and concern in his voice, like he was becoming self-conscious.

“Of course it is, babe.”

At this, Zach had to press his palm over his mouth and push down hard to prevent from howling, but in the process, he blew on his hand and caused his ears to pop. Eventually, however, Zach’s hushed, giggling fit came to an end, and so did Rian’s, and with that, the seven of them resumed their trek from the boardwalk southward through the city towards the massive, lively market, where they would find the Grand Library that would take them to F17 of Tower of Eternity.

Given how much of a trip it was just to get to Trials of Nolak, Zach estimated he had a solid five-to-seven-hour journey before they reached their destination of Drake’s Wing in the region of Dragon Squire. But with the seven of them hanging out together, he was at least having a bit of fun. Certainly, he’d take a day like this over the nightmarish, death-defying ones he’d encountered on far, far too many occasions since becoming an adventurer.

There’s way too much danger now in my life, he thought to himself.

The seven of them chatted away as they walked across Shores of Wrath, with its geometric, exotic architecture, and its many decorative, column-based structures and dome-shaped buildings. Zach greeted a number of people on the streets as he walked, and interestingly, so too did Tyson Revel. What Zach found amusing was how pointless it had become to keep his hood up. The people here were no longer thrown off by the disguise. Even though they couldn’t see his face, they now knew that the person with the shadowy visage and glowing eyes was Zach, and so they approached without fear. For this reason, he lowered the hood and didn’t bother to hide his face after the first few-dozen people came up to him.

Tyson, shockingly, was also fairly popular. Though he was almost universally despised by the media, his fellow political guild members—including those within his guild—and most of the level-1s in North Bastia, it seemed like the ordinary people here seemed to like him, though that was probably because Shores of Wrath was a territory controlled by the People of Virtue. Elsewhere, he’d probably receive a much, much chillier reception.

Culturally, it’s ingrained in them to show respect to high-ranking guild members, Zach thought. People in Whispery Woods aren’t like this at all. If they show respect, it’s only out of fear.

“Sir Tyson Revel the Virtuous,” an old man said to him with a melodious voice once they entered the market, the sight of camels and other pack animals making their reappearance. The man speaking to him was behind the register of a booth that sold necklaces and other jewelry. “Can I interest you in one of our finest new pieces? We have some very exciting merchandise in!”

Tyson scratched his chin a moment. Then his expression changed, and he beamed a smile at the old man. “Oh, hello again, Poal. What karat are the gold pieces in that bracelet?” he asked, approaching. The man was displaying one of the gaudiest bracelets Zach had ever seen. There were more diamonds and gold pieces adorning it than it could seemingly fit, making them look stuffed in together.

“Sir Tyson Revel the Virtuous,” the man said, bowing from behind the counter of his little booth-based shop. “I wouldn’t dare attempt to sell a man of your stature a bracelet containing a karat less than 18.”

“I do like it. But I wonder if—gahh!”

Zach grabbed Tyson by his elbow, yanking him back towards their group. “We’re not wasting time shopping!” he hissed.

Even as Tyson was being dragged, he waved at the merchant. “Hold it for me! We shall discuss it later!”

Tyson, straightening his back and his silken garments, grumbled about rudeness, but nevertheless obliged, and once more, they ventured onwards until at last they reached the Grand Library, where they promptly headed up and into the restricted section. It was much quieter in here, and in many ways, it was like a self-contained library within a library. There were several carts filled with paper-made books next to long shelves containing holobooks mixed with paper. The space between these shelves formed little aisles, and at the end of these aisles were walls, some containing additional shelves and some empty save for the brick they were made of. Today, they were heading towards the wall of aisle #7, which ran between the seventh and eighth bookshelf.

Tyson, who stood closest to Jimmy, began to walk a bit slower. Nervously, he asked, “So…this buff you had that Elvish woman give to me, it will enable me to do what you do? By that I mean enter the ‘dungeons’ you adventurers use?”

“Yep,” Lienne said to him. “All you have to do is follow us.”

“And what if I did not have this buff?”

“Well, you just wouldn’t be able to come with us,” she explained.

He ran his tongue over his lips in what Zach took to be a mixture of nerves and curiosity. “So, what would happen? I would simply bump headfirst into the wall?”

“That’s right,” Lienne said. “Without the Will of the Favored, you can’t come in.”

Tyson looked ahead of them and deeper into the restricted section as though dwelling on something. Afterwards, he again set his gaze on Lienne and asked, “So this buff is quite advantageous then, no?”

“Well…yeah, of course it is.”

“So then, now that we know about your dungeons, why aren’t the political guilds a bit keener to learn your ways? If there exist no negative consequences to having your buff, it seems like the sort of thing one ought to have simply as another tool in the belt. Even if we do not plan to use it, there should be no reason we wouldn’t accept it.”

Lienne shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’m not even sure anyone’s offering you guys the buff. And to be honest, we don’t even really want your people coming into our dungeons. Sorry if that sounds mean. I’m just being honest.”

Tyson raised his hand and smiled. “Oh, none taken. I assure you, we much prefer your kind stay in these otherworldly dimensions. Truth be told, I’m…not so sure I want to tag along, either. I have no shame in admitting I’m terrified.”

Zach didn’t need the admission to know that Tyson was scared; he could tell just from the quivering of the man’s knees. He couldn’t really blame him, either. The political guild members had only very recently discovered dungeons were real—something that was Zach’s fault—and as people who spent their lives hunting weak, cherry-picked mobs on resorts, they must have correctly assumed that the dungeons were of great danger to them.

They’re dangerous for Tyson too, he thought. I need to protect him but also push him. That’s not going to be easy for either of us.

Zach knew Tyson was going to have a rough time adjusting to things, but the risk was definitely worth it. The man’s passive ability made it so that he was practically born to go raiding. Sure, in a real-life fight, his abilities, kind of like Jimmy’s, were not really very useful. But in a dungeon? He could be one of the best adventurers ever.

If he can learn to ramp up his damage—if he can gain not just hundreds, but thousands of stacks—he might become a key part of beating the World Eater. I bet Jimmy is thinking the same thing.

As they entered farther into the restricted section, the Head Librarian, an older man behind the desk who always had a perpetually disinterested look on his face, picked his head up from a large, paper-based book he was reading on his messy desk and asked, “Heading out, Zach?”

“Yep.”

His eyelids dropped as though he were attempting to discern something. “Is that…”

“Yeah,” Zach said, “it’s Tyson Revel.”

The Head Librarian frowned. “In…this section?”

“He’s got the buff.”

For the first time since meeting the man, the Head Librarian looked surprised. “A political guild member has the buff? I’ve seen everything now.”

Zach laughed. “There’s nothing that says he can’t, right?”

“Nothing I know of. And I know a lot. Well, at any rate, it’s not my place to judge. If he has the buff, he’s allowed in here—ahh, for humans, I mean. I meant no disrespect to either of you young Elvish folk.”

“I have taken none, Head Librarian,” Trelvor said.

“Me neither,” Seiley agreed.

The Head Librarian smiled at the two Elves. Then he again frowned at Tyson. “Go about your business, Zach. Just…just make sure that man doesn’t steal anything.”

Tyson abruptly stopped, turned to the Head Librarian, and huffed. “I would never steal, you old codger! I could buy this whole fucking library if I wanted to and have you fired. You know what? I would like to speak to your manager. Now!”

Jimmy groaned. “Dude, don’t be a Karen.”

“A what?” Zach, Tyson, Trelvor, Seiley, Lienne, and Rian all asked at the same time.

Rather than answer, Jimmy sighed. “It’s too much to explain. I’ll tell you what that means some other time. Let’s just go.”

And so, they did. With Zach leading the pack, he walked to the end of the seventh aisle—in between the seventh and eighth bookshelves—and then paused right near the brick wall. He turned his body to the side and began to make a rowing motion with his hand, indicating for the rest of them to move. He watched as, with a cute chirp and a smile, Lienne walked into the wall, vanishing. Rian followed, then Trelvor, Seiley, and Jimmy. Finally, Tyson came to a stop just before entering.

“I’m going to hit my head if I go any farther,” he said. “And I might break these bricks.”

“No, you won’t. Just walk forward.”

“I…I want to, but my brain is telling my body not to do it. It’s telling me I will walk face first into the—”

Zach ran out of patience and pushed him. He yelped and whimpered as he stumbled forward and into the wall. Then Zach followed, entering into a very dark passageway. “Keep moving,” he said.

“Oh, Gods, where are we?” he asked with a whimper. “It’s so dark. I do not like this, Sir Calador.”

Zach laughed. “You’re going to hate the way home even more."

“Oh, shit, I forgot about that,” Jimmy said. “Yeah, Tyson’s definitely gonna hate that.”

“For sure,” Rian piled on. “We have to go through the gas giant. Tyson might have a heart attack on the way back.”

“The what?” Tyson asked, his teeth audibly chattering like he was a frightened cartoon character. How could anyone be this meek?

“You’ll see,” Rian said. “Scariest shit of your entire life the first time you jump out that window.”

Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, he ain’t kidding. That had me pissing myself. Don’t feel bad about it if you end up screaming your first time. I sure did.”

“Oh, he’ll be screaming the whole way down,” Rian said. “That’s not even a question. Hey, Jimmy, remember how cold it gets?”

“How can I forget? I thought I was gonna freeze my ass to death.”

Then Rian started to lie and make things up just to upset him. “Tyson, did you know that there’s a fifteen-percent chance of not making it? Every time we jump, we take that risk.”

“What risk?” Tyson asked, his words higher in pitch now. “What do you mean by that?”

“Should you tell him, Jimmy, or should I?”

“You tell him.”

Rian cleared his throat. “So, here’s the thing, bud. Fifteen out of every hundred adventurers disappear forever on the jump back to Shores of Wrath. They just keep falling forever into an eternal sky. You can’t even die. It’s just an eternity of falling. They say it never ends.”

The more they spoke, the more Tyson’s whimpers transformed into sobs. And despite being almost thirty years old, for some Gods knew what reason, the girls, rather than find this pathetic, began to take pity on him—and so did Trelvor.

“Guys, come on, that’s enough,” Lienne said. “Leave him alone.”

“Yeah, this is starting to feel like bullying,” agreed Seiley.

Trelvor made a slight grunt in agreement. “Princess Kalana would abhor this kind of behavior. We should be kind like the princess.”

He’s not wrong about that, Zach thought, an ache in his heart as he found himself suddenly missing her. Well, to be fair, he always missed her, but as he thought about how she’d react if she were here with them right now, it made him really want to hear her voice—even if it was to scold them for “picking on” Tyson. She only ever wants to see the best in people.

As far as Tyson was concerned, Zach wasn’t sure what his “best” even happened to be—at least in terms of his soul. Sure, that one unbelievably powerful passive gave him potential unlike anything Zach had yet to encounter from anyone aside from his own self, but beyond that, was there any more to the man than what he had thus far shown? Or was this the extent of it? Was he just a twenty-nine-year-old man-child: a cowardly degenerate who’d grown up as a princely rich kid that needed to be babied and lacked anything even resembling a spine?

Zach would try to find all of this out. But so far? It wasn’t looking good. Zach really wasn’t sure this guy had any good qualities at all. He really did just seem like a spoiled, self-centered, mewling little baby whose only true value was a massively powerful gift he happened to coincidentally be born with.

At any rate, at least he was walking forward of his own accord, though he was making very annoying “fear” sounds or whatever. “Fear sounds” was merely the only term Zach could think to describe his strange noises. He was constantly making little groans or “gyuh” noises, vocalizing how nervous he was as they trekked what he estimated to be a quarter mile through the dark, tunnel-like passageway. Eventually, however, they emerged on F17 of TOE, and Tyson, stumbling forward, took a look around him.

“Is this it?” he asked, fear and wonder mixing together in his voice as his boots clicked against the surface. “Am I in a real dungeon?”

“You sure are,” Jimmy said, patting him on the shoulder. Then he pointed to one of the large windows, showing a blue, endless sky. “And do you know what is?”

“That’s the sky, isn’t it?”

“Yup. But what sky?”

“What do you mean?”

“What kind of sky is it?”

Tyson made a stupid expression. “The uh…the sky-sky?”

Jimmy chuckled. “So, right now, Tyson, we—meaning you, me, Zach, everybody—are on a different planet.” He shook the finger that was pointing at the window. “That’s not the Galterran sky. Because we aren’t on Galterra anymore.”

“We aren’t?”

The sheer look of wonder in his eyes did soften Zach somewhat, as it was just such a raw, honest reaction to something that, even now, he himself still found amazing. And as they once again resumed walking, Zach took a moment to explain to him how, although they did not know what planet they were on or even where in the universe they happened to reside, what they knew for sure was that they were walking on a dungeon built somewhere in the atmosphere of a gas giant—one that had a breathable oxygen layer.

Now, as they ventured down the narrow, corridor-like hallway, Zach eyed the two doors located opposite from one another to his left and right: one led to the bazaar, the other to Angelica’s. “Should we take Tyson for a cola and some food?” Zach asked the rest of them.

“I don’t know, man, that’s probably not a good idea yet,” Jimmy said.

“Huh? Why not?”

“I don’t think the people in Angelica’s are gonna be cool with him being there.”

Zach thought on his words. Donovan, Zephyr, Reni, and all the others: they really, really hated the political guilds. If they waltzed inside with Tyson Revel, a face everybody would recognize, and someone who was uniquely emblematic of everything wrong with the political guilds…yeah, that might not go so well.

“Good thinking,” Zach said. “He’s not ready for that.”

“Why?” Tyson asked. “What’s beyond those doors?”

“One leads to a place where you can buy and sell stuff, and the other is a tavern and inn that makes the best food and drinks in the world. But…the people there might not be happy to see you. Actually, you shouldn’t ever come to dungeons if I’m not here with you.”

“Why?” he asked nervously. “Not that I have any desire to do so, but I’m curious.”

Zach released a breath he’d been holding, and he did so slowly. “Well, I really don’t think anybody would ever go so far as to kill you—in fact, I’d bet on it. But people will fuck with you, and if you’re spotted roaming a dungeon, they are going to bully you or beat you up or something. The adventurers really don’t like you guys.”

“Noted,” he said. “Let’s avoid that place.”

As they continued their journey and neared the top of the steps that led to F18, Jimmy said, “We’re gonna need Trelvor or Seiley to help Tyson get through this next part. He’s not gonna make it.”

“Oh, shit, good point,” Zach said. Then, noticing the way Lienne was glaring at him, he quickly added, “I’m not messing with him. Jimmy’s actually right. I don’t think he can swim underwater for that long, and Elves are amazing swimmers.”

“Why, what comes next?” Seiley asked. “This is my first time coming through this way. Dungeons are—mostly—new to me, Trelvor, and the rest of Elvish kind as well.”

Zach thought on how to explain it to her, but Jimmy beat him to it. He explained how they would be diving deep into a pool, and that as they swam downwards, eventually down would begin to feel like up, and they’d emerge in a disgusting swamp-like “lake” in Whispery Woods. He finished by asking Seiley to make sure Tyson got through without drowning. And even though every word of what he said was true—and necessary—Tyson reacted as though he’d been struck. He was barely able to walk straight when they arrived into the chlorinated pool room.

“Please,” he begged, shivering and shaking. “I don’t want to do what he just said.”

“You’ll be fine,” Seiley said to him, speaking softly. “I promise.”

“What if you decide to play a trick on me? And you leave me to die?”

She flinched. “Wh-what? Why would I?”

“I don’t know. When I was your age, the other kids would take me places and then ditch me.”

“Well, I’m not some human. I wouldn’t just let you die.”

“Yeah, that would be all kinds of fucked up,” Rian said.

“It’s just…I have this fear…”

“Fear?”

“That this is all a setup. That my uncle paid you all to take me somewhere I’d never be found and kill me. This would be the perfect spot to do it.”

“I swear on the name of my father that is not the case,” Trelvor said, his white-cloak billowing slightly as he stepped forward as though wanting to address the idea head-on. “No Elf—not a one of us—would ever take human coin in exchange for an assassination. In all our history, you cannot find a single example of an Elvish bounty hunter.”

“What about Diirva?” Seiley asked.

“Hmph. She was a Half-Elf.”

His eyes red from the crying, Tyson dipped his foot into the pool. “Can…can I go first then? So that I know I won’t get left behind to drown?”

Zach nodded. “Sure. You and Seiley can go first.” He pointed. “Just swim straight down and ignore what looks like the surface. It’s fake and you’ll go right through it. We’ll follow behind.”

Tyson hesitated, and Zach gave him a few moments to get his breathing under control. Finally, after bending and unbending his knees, he extended his arms, jumped forward, and dived straight down, vanishing into the pool and disappearing beneath the veneer of a bluish-tiled bottom. Trelvor followed, then Rian and Lienne, and Zach decided to go behind Jimmy to make sure he didn’t end up drowning, either. Less than a minute later, Zach took a sharp inhale as he surfaced in the murky, pond-like swamp water in the middle of a forest in Whispery Woods.

Unlike the last time Zach had come this way, it was not cloudy. There was nothing but beautiful sunshine above the treetops. And as he looked to his left, he saw that it was a really good decision to have Seiley help Tyson out, as he was coughing up water and she was holding him up above the surface. She even helped him get to—and on—solid ground.

“My attire is ruined,” he said between coughing fits. He was on his hands and knees, gagging up water. “This outfit cost fifty-thousand gold.”

“Holy shit,” Zach said, both impressed and aghast. This was a level of decadence even his greedy self didn’t aspire to. Sure, he wanted to be the richest person in the word, but he’d never blow money that way. If Tyson was telling the truth—and he actually had no reason to lie—then his muck-stained, silken outfit was worth more than what the average adult earned in a year in Whispery Woods.

Standing upright, Tyson grimaced as he looked down at all the blackish muck stains and dripping water. There were several leaves sticking to his clothing. “Very well,” he muttered. “I’ll buy two more to replace it.”

“That’s the spirit,” Zach said dryly and a touch hatefully. His hate was more towards himself, however: he hated the fact that it was even possible to feel jealousy—in any capacity—towards this whimpering, filthy-rich crybaby. It nearly ruined his mood as he began making his way through the forest with everybody, but eventually, he got over it.

“It’s gonna be good to see the little dude again,” Rian commented just as they were exiting the forest and stepping onto the forest-lined road.

“What little dude?” Jimmy asked. “Oh, wait, duh. You mean M—”

Panic coursed through Zach. “Shh!” he blurted out suddenly, clasping his hand over Jimmy’s mouth as it dawned upon him how bad of an idea this actually was. Jimmy, whose words ended in a mumble, looked at him with a combination of confusion and irritation.

“The fuck is your problem?” he asked.

Zach, coming to a complete halt, said, “I just realized we can’t go this way.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I…because we aren’t ready to have the political guilds know about…about that place we discovered, Jimmy.”

“Why not?” Jimmy asked, sounding even more annoyed now. But Zach, to his surprise, received backup from Rian and Lienne.

“He’s right,” Rian said. “This could seriously hurt the adventuring community.”

“Yeah,” Lienne added. “Even though it’s almost unthinkable they’d ever come here themselves, if they knew how easy acquiring certain…things have become for us, it’d cripple our operations. The political guilds would start making demands and refusing to pay our prices.”

Zach stood still a moment and contemplated their situation. Then he looked questioningly at Tyson. “Hey, Tyson?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re going to tell Abram everything you see with us, right?”

“If it’s important, yes.”

“Can you be persuaded not to do that?”

He shook his head. “I cannot. And it’s not because I have an issue with concealing things, it’s simply that if my uncle were to learn that I have done so, I would be in a very bad spot. And he can tell when I am lying or hiding something.”

Zach swore. “Shit! Then we can’t go this way. We came all the way out here for nothing.”

Rian also swore. “So, what, we have to backtrack and go home?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Tyson cleared his throat, drawing Zach’s attention. “Is there any way you can explain to me what you planned to do? At least as much as you’re comfortable revealing?”

Zach didn’t see a reason why he couldn’t, and so he told Tyson how they were going to go through a dungeon—which he was no longer willing to name—that would take them to Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, and from Slopes of Dal’Zarrah, they were going to go through another dungeon that would let out in Plains of Mist, and from there, they would take a bus to Dragon Squire.

Tyson, remaining quiet through all of this, suddenly removed his phone. From where Zach stood, he could see the man discovering their location using the map feature and his GPS. After pinching the screen and zooming out, he mumbled something indiscernible to himself before saying, “Yeah, this is exactly what I thought.” Now, he looked up at Zach. “Your idea was ridiculous.”

“How so?” Zach asked him.

He waved his phone at the general area around him. “We’re at the northern part of Whispery Woods: the very north. And just a few more miles northward, we enter my home region of Varda’s Liar. Though it pales in comparison to the one in the city, the town of Flaming Skull just a short while from here has a perfectly adequate airport, and there are always guild jets waiting to depart. With DEHV service, we can be there in an hour, and from there, it’s but a four-hour flight by jet to Drake’s Wing.”

Silence fell over their group as Zach considered his words. From the neutral expressions on Seiley and Trelvor’s faces, he didn’t think they cared much either way what path was taken. But Zach could tell that Rian and Lienne were definitely in favor of the idea. Jimmy, however, clearly wanted to run through the dungeon. And as for Zach himself? He really wasn’t a big fan of flying, but that was more due to the boredom and isolation rather than any fear of heights. Also, he’d been suffering a lot during that long flight to Shores of Wrath. This would be nothing like that.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do that.”

“Excellent. I’ll have someone pick us up. We don’t even have to move from this spot.”

And true to his word, not twenty minutes later, a limousine stopped by, its side door sliding open. “You’re all filthy,” the driver said. “You can’t get in my DEHV like that! I’m sorry, but there’s no way I can—”

“Here you go,” Tyson said, handing the man a satchel filled to the brim with golden coins. “Will this suffice?”

The man’s face paled and his mouth popped open. “Uh, y-yeah, actually. It will. Do whatever ya want.”

Tyson made a smug grin, and then with both arms, he performed a grand, elaborate motion towards the DEHV. “Shall we proceed?”

Rian nodded with approval and got inside, followed by Lienne and the others. Zach was last to board. Now, he found himself in the awkward position of being dressed in grimy, muck-stained equipment while lounging on incredibly lavish black leather seats. He was also surrounded by minifridges to both sides of him. It was so damn nice in here that it just felt wrong to dirty the interior up, which all of them were doing. Oh well. He might as well relax.

Except I can’t! he thought to himself angrily. Because of Gods-be-damned Jimmy!

“Don’t even think about it,” he growled as Jimmy was just about to pop open a bottle of wine and pour himself a glass.

Jimmy glared at him. “Are you for real, Zach?”

“Are you?”

As the limousine DEHV engaged its hover engines and blasted forward, pressing Zach into his seat, he quickly leaned to the side and swiped the entire bottle out of Jimmy’s hands. “No drinking. No drugs!”

Jimmy, who looked like he was about to have a fit, was calmed as Tyson patted him a few times as if asking Jimmy to let him handle things. Then, to Zach, he said, “I’ll give you a million gold for that wine.”

“You’ll pay a million gold for it?” he asked, utterly floored by the offer. He raised the bottle. “For this? An 800g bottle of wine? Not that that isn’t also really expensive, but Gods, you’d give me that much?”

“Yes.”

“Oh…shit, well uh, in that case, I guess Jimmy can drink after all,” he said, suddenly unable to see anything except for coin and riches. Yet now, it was him who was told off as Trelvor grabbed the bottle out of his hands just like he’d done to Jimmy.

“I do not care what Tyson does,” Trelvor said. “But the Great Goddess herself has tasked Jimmy with a mission and a purpose, and Seiley and I are willing to die or kill to prevent that mission from being sabotaged.”

Jimmy moaned, desperation in his voice. “There’s nothing wrong with me drinking.”

“Yes, there is,” Trelvor said, “and you know that there is.”

Jimmy shook his head. “Trelv, I don’t even really know for a fact that Eilea actually has any kind of—”

“Her greatness!” Seiley corrected.

“Fine,” Jimmy said with an annoyed grunt. “I don’t even know for a fact that Her Greatness has any real purpose or plan for me. I thought she did, but now I’m not even sure anymore.” Zach noticed the way his face tightened, and a bit of darkness entered into his expression. “When I first got here,” he continued, “she told me all I had to do was get level 30 and that she’d explain everything to me. Now I’m way higher than that, and she won’t talk to me. Believe me, I tried. She just won’t agree to meet me.”

“She doesn’t need to,” Trelvor explained. “You already know what you have to do. She told me you do. Everything you thought about why you are here: you were correct.”

Jimmy bolted upright, shock and surprise in his face. Zach was also surprised. “Wait, what?” they both said.

His expression remaining neutral, Trelvor said, “Why are you acting so surprised? You both reasoned that Jimmy is here to lead raids and help Galterrans advance. When I spoke to her, she told me as much. Her Greatness also told me that that you, Jimmy, have already figured this out on your own, and she even asked me and Seiley to see if we can find time to help you in between assisting Princess Kalana.”

Jimmy shook his head angrily. “And ya’ll didn’t think to tell me this shit until now? Five days later?”

“Why did it need to be said? You already knew what you had to do, and now you must act on it. No one may decline a call to service from the Gods.”

Zach raised his index finger. “This is a great conversation and all, but I just want to quickly ask Tyson: I’m still getting that million gold, right?”

Tyson, who had leaned forward and taken the bottle from Trelvor without any kind of resistance, popped open the cork and began to down the wine. After several loud gulps and a belch, he removed the bottle from his lips. “Not if Jimmy doesn’t drink,” he said. Then he resumed gulping it. Zach, feeling deflated, sank back into his seat. Why did everybody conspire to stop him from being rich?

As the ride continued, he let out a yawn, feeling a bit sleepy. He fought it for a bit, but eventually, he closed his eyes while the six of them all began to engage in chatter, discussing a number of different subjects. And it was here, drifting into a little nap, that Zach, in the back of his mind, thought he spotted the first glimmer of something somewhat “positive” about Tyson’s character.

It seemed that, during social moments such as these, Tyson actually did display a bit of likeability, as he was a fairly good storyteller and he was quick to comment and engage with other people on their own stories. Zach, for his part, decided to let his tiredness win, and he took a brief snooze throughout the hour-long drive from the outskirts of Whispery Woods to the outskirts of Varda’s Lair. Eventually, however, he awoke as the DEHV began to slow when they neared the airport.

Once more in a territory controlled by the People of Virtue, Tyson was shown respect and deference by everyone they encountered from the moment they stepped out of the limousine and into the reception terminal.

Though smaller in size than the massive one in Varda’s Lair’s primary city, the airport here in the town of Flaming Skull was still quite busy and noisy. Everywhere Zach looked, well-dressed business people were rushing by, but even as they did so, every eye that passed settled, at least briefly, on Zach and Tyson. No one stopped to bother them, however, but they certainly did not go unnoticed as they strode their way through a fairly open area, past a few small indoor shops, and into a private section of the airport reserved for members of the People of Virtue.

Yet something caught Zach’s attention.

Just before entering this smaller, but far quieter terminal, he noticed that several people of varying ages seemed to say something he found a bit strange. One woman, for example, looked at another woman walking beside her and said, “There they are.”

They.

Another woman, this one carrying a briefcase with one hand and holding the hand of a boy in the other, smiled at the child and said, “You were right, sweetheart. They’re traveling together.”

“I told you, mommy. That’s what it said online.”

Online?

Becoming uneasy, Zach removed his phone and searched his name. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he grumbled. “I should’ve known this would happen.”

“What is it?” Jimmy asked. “What happened?”

“Yeah,” Rian said, “what’s going on?”

Zach made a “eugh” sound then said, “Just search my name and check the news.” As Jimmy and Rian did so, he returned his attention to his own phone, and he tapped on the first headline that popped up. All were similar.

ZACHYS CALADOR AND TYSON REVEL SPOTTED SHOPPING TOGETHER IN SHADOWFALL COAST:

Earlier today, Sir Zachys Calador of the Royal Roses and Sir Tyson Revel the Virtuous were seen playfully nudging one another at a popular tourist area in the central market of Shores of Wrath. Sir Calador, known for his stunning acts of heroism but also his harsh temper and crude, demeaning language, and Sir Tyson Revel the Virtuous, currently embroiled in multiple sex-related scandals, were also photographed swimming ashore together from the direction of the Elvish Island of Elendroth with two low-ranking members of the Guild of Elvadin.

“They were very respectful to us,” one on-looker, a woman named Meela Manara, 25, said. “Me and my mom both got autographs. They looked like they were just hanging out and having fun. It’s really good to see the guilds getting along this way. Especially, you know, with everything that’s going on out there in the world.”

“I always thought those two would end up friends,” commented another male spectator who asked that his name remain anonymous. “But it wasn’t just the two of them. There were a bunch of guild people with them that I didn’t recognize. All of them were young, too. I guess this is just what the guilds do when they get bored and just want to hang out. Everybody here was real respectful to them, too. We didn’t push or nothing. We get that they’re people just like us who are trying to live their lives.”

When reached for comment, the Royal Roses and the People of Virtue released the following joint statement. “In today’s troubled world, our two guilds are constantly looking to seek new venues of cooperation and to bolster our existing ties as allies. Sir Calador and Sir Revel the Virtuous are currently engaged in a diplomatic mission to assess the state of North Bastia and to uncover new ways in which our historic partnership can benefit all of humanity.”

Zach cringed just reading this bullshit. It was wild that they could come up with something like this on the spot and nobody questioned it. It wasn’t even close to the truth…or at least Zach didn’t think it was. Wait, was it? The fact he himself didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t set off a whole different feeling of confusion and dread in him, as reality and fiction were blurring together more and more for him every day as it pertained to his role and status in the world of political guilds.

Putting away his phone, he allowed Tyson to take the lead, and the guy brought them all into yet another terminal, where a level-1 guild assistant stood ready to book them a private jet to Dragon Squire. “Right this way,” she said. “We have a lovely jet for you all.” She pointed at two men: a man in a chef’s outfit and a man wearing a pilot suit. The two strode over, introduced themselves, and then Rian and Lienne’s eyes lit up as it dawned on them they were going to have access to a private chef and server for the duration of the four-hour flight.

“Maybe we’re in the wrong profession, Li,” he said.

She chuckled. “Maybe!”

******

Officially, and for diplomatic reasons, it was of vital importance for Alex to be seen standing with—and taking the side of—Sir Alazar. Especially against the guerilla forces that were creating havoc in the city and had already begun resorting to acts of terrorism against their own fellow citizens. Having said that, it was easier said than done, because right now, during these tense negotiations, it was becoming clearer and clearer that Sir Alazar was the biggest obstacle to any kind of peace setting in. And everyone in this room had to know it.

“Can you please stop being so mean?” Kalana asked Vim, which stunned the little man, who gave her a look of warning. Kalana seemed to ignore it. “You’re making this really difficult.”

Vim grunted, a scowl on his face. “How so?”

“By making fun of Gunrick’s speech stutter,” she said. “That’s not okay.”

“I duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh don’t know what you’re tuh-tuh-talking about,” Vim said. “This is huh-huh-how I always speak.”

Kalana narrowed her eyes, and the guerilla leader’s seemed to bulge. The muscular, ripped-shirt-wearing, level-1 man looked like he was having a hard time just remaining seated. He pointed at Vim. “Your people are butchering innocent civilians at random. You’re commandeering people’s homes. You’re trying to th-th-th-throw people out onto the st…st…str-street.”

Vim, behaving as obstinate as Alex had ever seen him, merely shrugged. “I don’t see how you’re in a position to negotiate. Honestly, I should just kill you right now. You’re filth. It’s beneath me to even be talking to you. If not for Kalana’s insistence, I wouldn’t be here right now at all. I’d be hunting you down. The fact you not only think you have leverage to negotiate with, but that you should somehow be allowed to live after all this is over…oh, my friend, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Alex, who had been mostly quiet, decided to finally enter the discussion, as things were getting more and more off track. He needed to be careful in how he worded things. He had to try to steer the conversation without it looking—or feeling—like he was blaming Vim for the lack of progress.

“So, I think what we should try to do,” he said carefully, “is look beyond the idea of who can do more damage to each side, and maybe we can discuss how to stop all damage from happening to both. Gunrick, though I completely understand where you are coming from, surely you must realize the reality of your situation.”

“Hm?” he grunted.

“To put it bluntly, the only thing you’re capable of doing is slowing, but not impeding our efforts. You can’t actually change the trajectory of your city with violence, and your inability to accept that is only going to get you and your loved ones killed: all for the same outcome. What I recommend we discuss is ways to ensure that you and your allies are kept free from harm and imprisonment, because—and I say this with true sincerity—there is no chance anyone is going to be willing to give in to any of your demands. The war is over. The only real question now is how many more people have to die.”

Gunrick made another grunt. “I want the Royal Roses—and the rest of you guild people—out of Shadowfall Coast. I want the people of Shadowfall Coast to be in control of our own city. To be clear, we’re n-n-n-nnnnn-n-not actually asking for the Guild of Gentlemen to come b-back. We understand their presence here is unacceptable to you. We’re willing to withdraw that demand. But we w-w-w-w-want to be in c-c-c-control of our city.”

Vim barked out a laugh. “You really don’t get it, do you? You don’t get to be in control of shit, big boy. This city is mine now. You lost it. You think you can threaten my people with blood? After everything we’ve been through? There’s no reason why I should listen to this.”

Gunrick’s scowl now matched Vim’s. “We can do so much worse than we’ve done so far, Sir Alazar. You d-d-d-don’t know what else we have in st-st-st-store if we choose to act.”

“Then do it!” Vim shouted at him, slamming his fists down onto the table. “You’re a level-1 nobody. I’m the leader of the Royal Roses. Do you really think you can make demands of me?”

“I’m not sh-sh-sh-sh-sh—”

“Shuh-shuh-shut the fuck up and sit down,” Vim said. “Here’s the actual deal and the only one I’m willing to make. Surrender now, and maybe you can be relocated to Whispery Woods. Maybe you won’t be executed in public. But the time for that deal is ticking. If you don’t get out of my city soon, I’ll have my men kill every single one of you.”

“Nah uh,” Kalana chimed in. “You won’t.”

Vim glared at her. “Yes. Yes I will.”

“Nope. I won’t let you kill anybody in my safe zone.”

“Your safe zone?” Vim asked.

“Yup.”

“It’s true,” Gunrick said. “It’s K-K-K-K-Kal-Kal-Kalan-Kalana’s S-s-safe zone.”

Vim peeled back his lips. “Well I don’t fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fucking c-c—”

Alex couldn’t believe his eyes even as he watched everything happen right in front of him. Kalana, pouncing like a cat, launched herself across the round table in the meeting room of this unpowered, barely standing, three-story office building. In the blink of an eye, she hopped down from the other end of the table, grabbed one of the legs of Vim’s metal chair, and then she flung Vim’s entire seat backwards, causing him—and his chair—to crash onto the floor and roll backwards while he yelped and cried out in fear.

“Stop doing that!” she shouted, her voice rising to a volume higher than Alex had ever before heard from her. “It’s rude! It’s mean! It’s evil! Show some respect! He’s a person too!”

Vim, hurrying back to his feet, immediately threw his left and right arm out, presumably to stop Haisel Ragora and another high-ranking member of the Royal Roses from charging at Kalana and attacking her—a battle that they would absolutely lose. And while all this took place, Fylwen Vayra, the queen, merely sipped at her tea as though perfectly content to let her daughter handle things. It was an unmistakable sign of trust. Her silence actually spoke louder than any words she may have used.

“Do not retaliate!” Vim growled at his own people.

“But Sir Alazar,” Sir Ragora said. “You were just attacked.”

“By an Elf,” he replied. “With her mother sitting right there. Kalana will kill us all. This is not a fight we can win.”

“Nope you can’t,” Kalana said. “And also, umm, I wouldn’t have killed any of you, actually. I don’t do that.”

Alex, utterly stunned by the sight of a guild leader being thrown around by his former student, found himself rendered speechless as Vim picked up his metal chair, brought it back to the table, and sat down in it. And for just a second—for a split, barely perceptible instant in time—it almost seemed like he was going to take it in stride and maybe even move on towards something productive. But then he sneered at Gunrick and went right back it.

“Muh-muh-muh my name is Guh-Guh-Guh—”

This time, Kalana flipped the entire table, causing it to crack in places and smash. Drinks, papers, and maps were sent scattering everywhere, and numerous people flinched. “That’s it!” she shouted. “You’re out of this meeting! Mom, I’m kicking him out!”

Fylwen sipped her tea and said nothing, merely raising her index finger off the glass as though indicating that Kalana may do as she pleases, and Alex was once again totally stunned. Fylwen was a brutally smart woman, and her daughter and Vim were clashing in a way that was becoming dangerous and, quite honestly, unbelievable. She would not let this happen unless she had some ulterior motive. Alex struggled to think of what it could be.

Wait a minute, he thought to himself. Is she signaling that she’s ready for war?

Under no circumstance could things come to that. No more wars. There’d been enough death recently. And Fylwen had to know that, too.

“Lord Oren,” Vim said as he began picking papers up off the floor. “Do you have anything you’d like to add? I’m sensing this meeting is just about over.”

“I do, actually,” Alex said. He hesitated a moment. This was going to cause him some blowback within his own guild. But his conscience demanded he speak up. “I think your conduct in this meeting has been unbecoming of a guild leader,” he said.

Vim shrugged. “And I think you look like a—”

“Don’t make fun of Alex,” Kalana warned.

Vim growled. “Don’t tell me what to do, Kalana.” The two locked eyes while Alex lifted his glasses and rubbed his. Things were looking like they would get ugly. Vim said something—Alex didn’t even catch it—and then he watched as the man’s diminutive body rolled backwards like a ball before crashing into the wall behind them all with such force that the building shook. Only for him to stand right back up, shake it off, and return to the destroyed table. He picked up his metal seat yet again and sat down in it.

“Why are you acting like this?” Kalana asked him, having now launched Vim like a torpedo twice in a row.

Vim laughed. “Do you know what they did to me?”

“Huh?”

With a great deal of heat and anger in his words, he asked, “Do you know what they did to me, Kalana?”

“What who did?”

“The people of this city. While I was captured.”

“What…did they do?” she asked.

“They beat me. They broke bones in my body. They starved me. But that was all nothing. No, they did things that stole my dignity!” he screamed, to which Haisel Ragora’s eyes widened with rage and disbelief, and so did many of the Royal Roses guild members with him. Alex could tell that this came as a surprise to them. But it was no surprise to Alex. He was well aware of how Shadowfall Coast dealt with its defeated or captured enemies. It wasn’t difficult for him to imagine what specific actions Vim was implying. Alex himself had witnessed it during the battle. It did not need to be said.

But Vim being Vim, he ended up spelling it out anyway.

“And if anyone here doesn’t get exactly what I mean,” he continued completely unnecessarily, “let’s just say I had more things stuffed up my ass than a turkey. Real fun times!”

Kalana’s mood immediately changed. She extended her hand, though he recoiled from it. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Sir Alazar. Nobody deserves to be—”

“I’m not a victim,” he interrupted. Then he pointed at the guerilla leader. “But he’s going to be.”

In this moment, Alex was both touched but also frustrated, as Kalana, lacking experience in these matters, actually tried to talk Vim into speaking with Jascaila. It was actually adorable in a way. But it was so, so unhelpful. Vim reacted with a monstrously harsh word that caused him to go rolling across the floor for the third time. But now, he apparently had enough.

Standing back up, he fired off a round of brutally harsh insults to everyone including members of his own guild then stormed out of the meeting room and back onto the streets of Shadowfall Coast. The five high-ranking members of his guild quickly followed behind.

What’s he planning?

*******

Anelia laughed as her little buddy carefully picked up a piece of debris and then scurried over to a trash pile and deposited it. “Did I do it right, Anelia?” Adim asked.

She went over to the little boy and ruffled his hair. “Sure did. But make sure you ask me before you pick up something that looks sharp, okay?”

“But mommy says I can help.”

“Yeah, but she also told you to listen to me.”

For the past few days, she’d been volunteering with Denisoa to help clean the fields in Den of Ziragoth. There was just something about this place that she felt she couldn’t ignore. That day…when the dragon spawned…it had changed her. It had changed her in ways she could never undo. She needed to help these people rebuild. Her life meant nothing if she could not do that much. She also really loved how Adim clapped every time she lifted something that weighed several hundred—or thousand—pounds. He called her a “superhero.” She loved that.

She loved something else, too.

“Anelia?” Denisoa, the boy’s mother, called to her. She had a worried look on her face. Anelia hurried over to her.

“What is it?” Anelia asked.

Denisoa was a simple woman. She was plain of looks, she wore ordinary clothing, and she was the prototypal country-farmer type. But Anelia would never forget what she saw in her the day of the Ziragoth spawn. As all the level-1s fled for their lives, Denisoa refused to join Adim and retreat. She continued to help pull people out of collapsed homes until the very last moment when Anelia had physically picked her up and dragged her to a helicopter against her will.

Anelia never expected to see her again after that. She never expected to keep in touch. But during one of her first return visits, she’d run into the woman again. Denisoa had asked her to have lunch. She’d been flirtatious and quite bold for a commoner from the farmlands. But Anelia, naturally, had refused, as she didn’t really “do” romance. Yet upon Denisoa’s continued assistance, Anelia had eventually relented, and then things just…happened.

So fast. Too fast.

At first, it had just been fireside chats drinking tea or coffee and talking about life. And then, it was more. Now, incredibly, Anelia was genuinely beginning to consider making a life for the two of them and Adim, who would be turning seven next month. The boy’s father had died of a stroke long before the Ziragoth attack, and Denisoa was not beholden to anyone else.

Except me, she thought with a rare smile.

Now, her mood turned serious as she realized Denisoa was staring at her. Something was wrong. Anelia could tell. She looked “pre” disappointed. Like she was upset over something that hadn’t happened yet.

“Well?” Anelia asked. “What’s wrong?”

“The Royal Roses are trying to contact you,” she said. “Your Comm in the kitchen won’t stop going off.”

“I see…”

She grabbed Anelia’s shoulders. “Please don’t go. You already have so much money. You don’t need to take any more jobs.”

“What you and I consider a lot of money is very different, Denisoa.”

“Anelia! You have over a million gold to your name. That’s a sum of money so large I can’t even fathom it…it’s beyond my ability to imagine what I would do if I had that much coin.”

“Don’t you want to live somewhere nice? Somewhere far away from all these painful memories?”

“No,” she said adamantly. “This town is my life.”

Anelia pursed her lips. “It doesn’t have to be. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a beautiful city with Adim? To get away from all of this?”

“Not if it means you have to go out and kill more people.”

“It’s what I do, Denisoa. You knew that when you met me.”

“But it doesn’t have to be.”

“It does.” Anelia kissed her again, though only briefly, because the little one was turning around. “I need to at least see what they want.”

Anelia made her way into the kitchen. The heat reminded her of the fact that there was no air conditioning in most homes here in Den of Ziragoth, nor had there been even before the dragon spawned. Only businesses and inns had such a luxury.

Picking up her Comm off the table and placing it into her ear, she growled, “What is it now?”

“Anelia?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Big opportunities for you. Big, big opportunities.”

“How big?”

“A million a hit.”

Anelia did a double-take. “Wait, what? A million a pop? What are we dealing with here? They must be high level.”

“Not at all. All targets are level-1.”

“I’m listening,” she said. This was beginning to sound too good to be true.

“We need you to covertly enter the safe zone in Shadowfall Coast and take out the level-1 guerilla leaders. There should be five of them in total. We’re paying a million per assassination. You want the job?”

“I’m in,” she said. “I’ll be there in a few hours.”

“You must avoid the Elvish patrolling the safe zone. If they spot you, they will kill you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. Get spotted, die. Same as always.”

She turned around and saw Denisoa’s saddened face. “Not again.”

“This might be the last time,” Anelia said. “I just got a job worth up to 5-million gold. Enough so we’d be set for life.”

“Or you might not come back at all. Did you ever think of that?”

Anelia grinned. “I’m only going after level-1 scum.”

“Scum?”

Anelia winced. “I didn’t mean you!”

Denisoa laughed. “Sure you didn’t.” Then, more seriously, she said, “Please let this be the last time.”

“I’ll try.”

Chapter 188: An Act of Violence

Chapter 188: An Act of Violence

Zach awoke to realize he’d missed basically all of the fun—but he didn’t really care, either. He slowly opened his eyes and yawned. With his seat reclined all the way back so that it formed a kind of bed, he kicked out his legs and stretched his arms as the plane began to decrease in altitude. Then he raised it back up into a seating position. Rubbing some crust out of his eyes, he stood up and looked behind him where the others were all sitting at a large round table surrounded by screens and fancy pieces of leather furniture.

Maybe I don’t hate flying after all, he thought. Not on a jet like this.

The People of Virtue had the nicest private passenger jets in all of Galterra: that much had always been known. But until someone actually traveled aboard one, it was impossible to truly understand just how crazily luxurious these 100-million-gold jets actually were.

That smells good, Zach thought as his nose detected the pleasant scent of expertly cooked food.

Zach ambled over to the table and took a seat. There was a space in the middle of the round table where the man in the chef’s outfit resided; at the moment, he was cooking up yellow rice and seafood while lobsters boiled in a pot. “Last chance if you want anything, Sir Calador,” the chef said to him. “We’re landing in thirty minutes.”

“I’ve never had lobster before,” he said. “I’m from the Whispery Woods. We can’t afford that.”

“Would you like to try some, then? It’d be my honor to serve you your very first.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Sure. I’ve always been curious.”

Ten minutes later, as he sucked an admittedly delicious piece of meat out of the claw, he found himself hungrier than when he’d started to eat the thing. It was like a job trying to consume the lobster. It tasted really good, but it required genuine effort to eat. There were also a lot of gross looking bits he had to avoid. Overall, though? Not bad. But…certainly not worth the 35 gold a pound these things went for. No, what he really enjoyed were the various pieces of seafood cooked over rice. Now that he found really good. Jimmy seemed to agree as well.

“Oh, fuck,” Jimmy said, rubbing his belly after downing an entire plate of the stuff. “I missed that so much. I had no idea ya’ll knew how to make Spanish food here. That hit the spot.”

“Spanish?” the chef asked. “Come again?”

Jimmy pointed at his plate, which now contained just a few grains of rice and some breadcrumbs from a roll with butter. “This, my dude, is a dish from Spain.”

“I’m afraid that’s simply not true, good sir. This is a recipe from Varda’s Lair.”

“I know you think that,” Jimmy said. “But it’s not. This is from Madrid.”

“Is that somewhere in South Bastia? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Yeah, nobody but me has.”

The chef gave him a very strange look, then eyed the others as though to gauge their reaction; it was as if he was attempting to find out if he was the crazy one in this situation. Rian shrugged in response, Lienne chuckled, and the Elves remained blank in their expressions.

“I’m guessing Spain is someplace from your underground colony, Jimmy?” Lienne asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. The part of the colony we call ‘Europe’. I’ve only been there twice, though.”

“Why only twice?”

Zach could see him struggle to come up with an answer to that question. “Because…my colony was big: like really big. It went on for miles under the ground so uh, you can’t just go to different parts whenever you want. You had to plan it out weeks in advance and save up money to get there.”

Lienne scratched her head. “I just can’t believe there was this huge colony on Earth and we didn’t know about it.”

“What’s Earth?” the chef asked. “Where’s that at?”

Following the man’s question, everyone just kind of glanced at one another as though wondering what they should say or if they should say anything. It ended up being Rian who spoke.

“So…you wouldn’t believe us even if we told you what it was. And I’m not even sure we’re allowed to tell you. You’re probably not allowed to know.”

The chef laughed. “Now you’ve got me really curious. Hey, I won’t tell nobody.”

“Okay, then.” Rian sat up straighter. “The Earth is a far-away planet where all human life originated. And every now and then, we like to visit it.”

The chef rolled his eyes. “Okay, you could just tell me it’s a guild secret. No need to be a dick about it.”

Rian sighed. “Told ya you wouldn’t believe me.”

As the six of them continued to chat with one another around the table, Zach noticed that one member of their group was staying absolutely silent, and in a way that was disconcerting. “Tyson, are you all right?” Zach asked the man.

Tyson hadn’t said a single word since Zach had woken up. But that on its own wasn’t the problem. It was his facial expression that really bothered Zach. The man looked…content. Very, very content. He also looked like he was kind of out of it and half asleep. He was sitting back in his chair with a half-smile on his face, his eyes open but only partially, though they were unfocused.

“Tyson?” he asked again. He snapped his fingers in front of the guy’s face. “Hey! What’s wrong with him?”

Rian and Lienne turned their heads, and so too did Trelvor and Seiley. “I don’t know,” Rian said, now sounding equally alarmed. “I wasn’t paying that much attention to him. He looked fine to me.”

“You think this is fine?” Zach asked, getting out of his seat and waving his hands in front of Tyson’s face. “Is he even alive?”

Jimmy began cackling, which annoyed him. “How is this funny?”

“Dude’s fine,” Jimmy said, “he’s just high as fuck.”

“Wait, what?”

“I saw him go into the bathroom earlier and come out that way. He must’ve had a stash on here of something pretty strong.”

Zach paused a moment to consider what Jimmy was saying. He had no experience with drugs—nor did he want any—and so he had no idea what he was witnessing here. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yep. I wish I looked like that.”

Zach slowly shook his head. “Why, Jimmy? You think this is good? Look at him. Really look at him. He’s like not even alive.”

“Exactly. Sometimes that’s how you wanna feel. Numb. On a cloud. No more pain, no more worries.”

Seiley made a look of disgust. “That is what death is for.”

The more Zach snapped his fingers in front of Tyson’s face, the more worried he became. The man was completely out of it. “I don’t care what you say, Jimmy, I don’t like this.”

Jimmy, as if becoming annoyed, got up from the table, walked over to Tyson, and pressed two of his fingers into the man’s neck. Abruptly, Jimmy’s face filled with what looked like doubt. He pursed his lips, his movements suddenly becoming faster as he began to shake Tyson. “Wake up, dude. Wake up.” A moment later, he looked at Zach and said, “Okay, maybe he’s not all right after all.”

“Why?” Zach demanded. “What happened? What did you just do?”

“I felt his pulse through his neck. It’s like, really weak. The hell did he take?”

His level of alarm rising from a 2 to a 10, Zach asked, “Should we give him a red or purple stone or something?”

“Neither of those will work,” Jimmy replied. “You probably need to give him a yellow since this has to do with chemistry. Unless he’s wounded or has some kind of organ damage, a red or purple’s not gonna do nothing.”

Zach frowned. “Shit. I don’t have any stones left. Do you?”

“Nope,” Jimmy replied promptly. “Rian? Lienne?”

“I’ve got nothing,” Rian said. “Li?”

“I’ve still got all mine from the item shop! I can give him a yellow!”

“But wait,” Rian said. “Are we absolutely sure he needs it?”

Zach leaned close and placed his ear near the man’s mouth. He was breathing, but his breaths were shallow. Zach didn’t know how serious that was or wasn’t, as nobody here was a doctor. The chef also indicated he had no idea if the man was simply high or on the verge of death. No one among them knew what was dangerous or not dangerous. Gods, this was pissing him off. Was he okay or not?

The question was answered on its own as Tyson made a choking sound and fell onto his side.

“Lienne!” Zach shouted. “Give me the yellow! Hurry!”

“Okay!”

She raised her hand, presumably having called upon Bank and Storage, and then an instant later, one of the yellow stones appeared in her palm. She quickly handed it to Zach, who slapped it down over the man’s back. It crumpled into pieces then vanished. The fact that it was accepted meant it was clearly worth being used. Something was obviously very wrong with him.

An instant after use, foam began to pour out of Tyson’s mouth. It started as just a trickle, but before long, it looked like he’d swallowed a bar of soap. Briefly, Zach wondered if the man was getting worse, not better. Finally, however, he began coughing and gasping. Then he clutched at his throat wildly, his eyes enlarged with fear. He gasped again, choking up spittle. Then he took one more breath before he finally started to pant. Now, he looked confused and like he didn’t know where he was.

“What happened?” he asked them. “Why am I…what just happened to me?”

“You don’t know?” Rian asked.

“I’ve no idea.” The fear was slowly fading from his face. “I think I had a bad dream.”

Zach scowled at him. “I’ll tell you what ‘happened,’ Tyson,” he replied. “What happened is that you just fucking OD’d on whatever it was that you took, and you would’ve died if I hadn’t noticed.”

Tyson swallowed as though nervous. “Thanks for being a friend.”

“We’re not friends. I don’t even like you. Everything about you sickens me.”

The man nodded as though he agreed. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Shaking his head, Zach muttered a few swear words under his breath while resisting the urge to slap the man across his face. “If that ever happens again,” he said, “I’m not helping you. And if I ever find you doing any kind of drugs at all, I’m sending you back to your guild. I’m serious. You’re just such a piece of shit!”

“I know, I know.”

“Do you?” Zach shouted at him. “Do you know?”

“Zach, calm down,” Lienne said to him. Then Rian, Jimmy, and even the Elves tried to get him to ease off.

But Zach ignored all of them, and as Tyson continued to show no appreciation for the gravity of his actions, it caused Zach to snap. Now, giving in to his worse instincts, he backhanded the idiot across the face with enough force that his whole head turned. Zach regretted it immediately as he caused the man’s nose to gush blood and a tooth to fly out of his mouth. It also caused him to shed several tears, which turned into quiet sobbing.

“Zach!” Seiley and Lienne yelled at him as though in disbelief of his violent behavior. Even Rian, who normally sided with him on most things, moved to put himself between Zach and Tyson as though worried Zach would strike him a second time.

“I…I shouldn’t have done that,” Zach whispered, though it was mostly to himself.

“Ya think?” Rian asked. “Holy shit, man. You can’t do shit like that. You knocked one of his teeth out! What’s wrong with you?”

“Seriously,” Lienne said as she used a piece of gauze given to her by the chef to slow some of the blood trickling out of his mouth. “How would you feel if Jascaila knocked one of your teeth out every time you messed up or made a mistake?”

“Way to turn this around on me, everyone,” Zach grumbled, dismissing himself from the table and storming his way back over to his seat.

There’s no helping someone like Tyson, he thought. The man really is just pure shit.

Nevertheless, Zach couldn’t deny that there was a big pit of guilt in his stomach that was burning away at him like a form of corrosive acid. He looked down at his hand, which had a bit of blood on it from Tyson’s face. The man was more than a decade his senior, but even putting that aside, Zach knew he had no right to do that to someone. It was just…it was just that all the shit he’d done recently, and all the people he killed—it was making violence feel so much easier and more natural to him. The old him would never have done something like that.

That’s not who I am.

In the distance behind him, barely audible amid the roar of the plane’s engines, Zach could hear Tyson saying, “It’s fine, it’s fine. I’m fine. I honestly deserved that. Really, I did.”

Zach balled his hands into fists and squeezed as the rage welled up within him. But he was mad at himself. He was angry that he’d allowed someone like Tyson to bring out his inner demons. Gods, why had he done that? It wasn’t like he didn’t know it was wrong to just hit people. Of course, he knew that was wrong. So why would he do that? Why? Was Tyson simply toxic to a person like Zach? Was it possible that the man just naturally brought out the worst in him?

Maybe I should just get rid of him.

But this created a whole separate dilemma, because Zach didn’t think the man was exaggerating or fibbing when he said he’d be killed if Zach tossed him away. And while it might feel good to get rid of him in the moment, Zach knew that, if a week or two from then, he read in the news that Tyson Revel had passed away, it would pile more guilt onto him than he could handle right now. It would feel different from the usual guilt, too. He would deeply regret it.

Jimmy has addictions too, Zach thought, but he doesn’t fuck up that bad!

No matter how bad Jimmy’s vices might have been, Zach was one-hundred-percent certain that Jimmy would never slam down drugs to the extent that he ended up on the verge of death. He wouldn’t even get anywhere near that point. Tyson’s problems were on a whole different level. That man had real, deep, serious problems. Problems that couldn’t be compared with the issues he or Jimmy faced in their own lives. And Zach, being 17, was not qualified to fix them. He could barely fix himself. Tyson was almost 30. This shouldn’t be his fucking responsibility!

As he stewed over the events that had only just taken place, he realized they were just about to land. Frustrated, he stood upright and began pacing despite the pilot warning everyone to remain in their seats.

I can’t be killed in a plane crash, he thought, disregarding the warning. Even if the plane smashed right into the ground and exploded, I doubt I’d be scratched.

Still on his feet, he looked out the window and saw that they were flying only a few-hundred feet above a snow-topped mountain, but then, as they pulled away, the terrain became lower and lower until they were once more flying well above ground level—even as the jet descended towards the airport in Drake’s Wing in the region of Dragon Squire.

Zach decided to shake off what just happened. He needed to focus on finding whatever clue it was he was meant to discover. But the thing with Tyson left him feeling troubled, his soul unclean. It was a distraction he really didn’t need right now.

Maybe he really should just get rid of him. Maybe he should wipe his hands clean and let the man die if that was what fate had in store for Tyson. Morally, it really wouldn’t be Zach's fault, right? It would be the fault of those who’d killed him.

A moment after having this thought, Zach's phone vibrated in his pocket. He'd received a news alert. He quickly read the headline. It seemed that, just one hour ago, Tyson Revel's father had finally passed away in his sleep.

And now, the feelings of guilt became truly heavy.

Chapter 189: Dragon Squire

Chapter 189: Dragon Squire

The airport was small: much smaller than any of those Zach had been in up until this point. To that end, there wasn’t even an air bridge to connect the jet to the airport’s lone terminal. Instead, Zach now climbed down a few steps and began walking directly across the tarmac with the others. Right away, he felt somewhat underdressed as a wind that was chillier than expected for this time of the year blew over him on his way towards the very modestly sized building ahead.

So, this is Dragon Squire, huh?

Of all the regions in North Bastia, Dragon Squire was by far the least discussed and arguably the least important. Not only was it the only region that did not contain one or more cities, but Drake’s Wing was the only place in the entire region that actually had a meaningfully sized population, with just shy of 200,000 humans living here. Outside of that, Zach recalled learning that there existed no population centers where the population exceeded 50 anywhere else, and what villages did exist were few and far between. Otherwise, the rest of the region’s inhabitants were individuals or small families living by themselves in extremely remote locations where emergency services could not reach them and were essentially off the grid and on their own, completely disconnected from society.

I should try that sometime.

As Zach walked with the others through a revolving door, he noticed right away the stark contrast between Drake’s Wing’s only airport and the one he’d just departed from. The atmosphere here was incredibly laid-back. Nearly all the seats at all the gates were empty, and there only appeared to be a few departing and arriving flights per day. There wasn’t even a gift shop! At an airport! Then again, it did track with what Zach had heard about Drake’s Wing; namely, that Drake’s Wing was an extremely ordinary, mundane, and mostly uneventful town that had average food, average schools, average accommodations, and nothing particularly remarkable to make it noteworthy—except for its surrounding mountains.

As they exited the airport and stepped onto a chipped, but mostly intact sidewalk, Jimmy, Lienne, Rian, and even the Elves began spinning around with delight on their faces. “Wow,” Lienne said. “It’s beautiful!”

Zach also spun around—and he had to agree with her, for the sole defining characteristic of Drake’s Wing—and likely the only reason it got any tourism at all—was that the land was built on a mountain basin that was surrounded on every side by massively tall, snow-topped mountains. It was to the extent that no matter which direction one faced, there was always a mountain in view. This, and this alone, gave the region its one defining feature. Because other than that, there didn’t appear to be a single exceptional trait about this place.

“The Grand Library should be within walking distance from here,” Zach said. “Five miles straight down the main road.”

“Which main road?” Jimmy asked.

“Literally that one, Jimmy.”

Zach pointed to the two-lane, modestly trafficked street just ahead of them off the sidewalk where a DEHV was pulling out of a DEHV-wash before soaring down the road. Not far from them was a diner, a clothing store, and a hardware shop. And everything just had a real “old-timey” appearance about it. Nothing looked decayed or in disrepair: just really old. The signs marking each location were done in a faded paint, and the buildings themselves had a wooden, homely look. It felt like one of those rural towns in Whispery Woods.

A bit like a larger version of Den of Ziragoth, actually, Zach thought, shuddering at the memory.

“I can’t believe the Royal Roses even bothered to capture this place,” Rian said as they began walking together to the Grand Library. “Why even waste their time?”

Zach paused at a DEHV crossing, then bent slightly backwards, needing to stretch after the 4-hour flight. “I think it was more of a symbolic thing. I don’t even really see any guild presence here. It’s kind of like the way Whispery Woods was my entire life: ignored and forgotten.” After a moment, Zach added, “Well…except this place, I guess, is still much nicer and not crumbling to pieces.”

The more Zach saw of the Drake’s Wing, the more that belief became reinforced. There was nothing spectacular or great about this town. It just sort of “was.” But even that would be preferable to growing up in the crime-ridden, criminally underfunded city of Whispery Woods which, despite being the city with the largest human population in the entire continent of North Bastia, had been neglected to the point where Zach had literally fallen through the ground into his very first mob spawn. And while Drake’s Wing was equally as ignored as Whispery Woods, one could clearly make the argument it didn’t actually “require” any attention. It was the kind of place that could be safely left to its own devices. It was doing just fine on its own.

I wonder why this place even needs a Grand Library, though, Zach thought. I guess they just really wanted to have one in each region.

Coming up to their left, Zach spotted a series of four-story apartment buildings. Kids were out front running around and playing. Zach walked a bit faster, and so did the others. He wasn’t in the mood to get bogged down signing autographs. Then again, nobody would ever expect someone like him to show up here, so anyone who looked his way might just second-guess what they were seeing. The same would go for Tyson Revel as well.

Tyson…

Zach, walking frontmost, paused and turned around. “Tyson,” he said, the guilt once more rushing into him. “I just want to say that—”

“There is no need,” Tyson said, raising his palm. “I would’ve hit me too. I was quite the burden, and your disdain is warranted. You’re not wrong to hate me.”

Zach shook his head. “I don’t hate you.”

“You do, and you should,” Tyson said. “So please don’t mind me. Let’s just keep going.”

Before proceeding, Lienne gave him a strange look. Her eyes were partially narrowed, but not in an angry way, and she moved her lips as though she was going to speak, but she said nothing. Rian was also acting strangely towards him now that he thought about it. Neither of them were making much conversation with Zach, and he was pretty sure it was all because of what he’d done to Tyson.

They haven’t seen that side of me before, he thought. At least not like that.

Though they’d been with him during that daring retreat from Archian Prime, when Zach, acting purely out of self-defense, had killed several Elves, the circumstances back then had been totally different to the one in the airplane. Zach had knocked a guy’s tooth out without any real justification or right to do so. He knew it was wrong. And he felt it with every step. For this reason, he hurried forward as Tyson began gaining some distance. “No, wait. Tyson, stop.”

“Hm?” Tyson asked, turning around, a loose strand of his red hair falling in front of his eyes. “What’s wrong?” As he spoke, Zach couldn’t help but notice that he was missing a front-left tooth. It was impossible not to see. Zach winced at the sight of it.

“What I did wasn’t okay,” he said. “And I’m really sorry. And tomorrow, I’m going somewhere to get a few more healing stones. When I do, I’m going to give you a red.” He pointed. “To get your tooth back.”

“That’s a bit of a waste, no? A red just for a tooth?”

“It’s not a waste. Please use it and heal back to how you were before.”

He shrugged. “If you insist.”

“I do. And I really am sorry. And also, uh…”

“Yes?”

Zach lowered his voice. “I’m so sorry about your dad. I didn’t know he died. And I don’t know if that had something to do with why you, uh, you know…but when we get back, I think you should talk to Jascaila.”

He laughed of all things, and his mood and energy shifted immediately. His eyebrows rose, and his lips formed an O-shape. “I’d love to talk to her,” he said gleefully. “Do you think she’d be willing to talk to me? Also, why are you recommending that? Did she say something? Did she say she wants to? You can tell me if she did. I mean, you wouldn’t just tell me to talk to her for no reason, right?”

Listening to his energetic reply, it only just now occurred to Zach that Tyson had no idea what Jascaila actually did for a living. “Tyson,” he said, “Jascaila is a therapist. I’m sorry if I didn’t lead with that. It should’ve been obvious you didn’t know. Sometimes I forget that not everybody knows that. Anyway, I hope finding this out doesn’t…upset you.”

“Upset me? No, not at all,” Tyson said happily. “She’s hot and I get to trauma dump?” He actually skipped. “I cannot wait to return!” He skipped again. At this point, he was practically frolicking with happiness, moving ahead of all of them as they proceeded to the Grand Library. “I wonder if there’s something nice that I can buy for her in this dump of a city.”

“Town,” Rian corrected. “And yeah, this place does suck.”

“I think it’s fine,” Lienne said, to which Seiley and Trelvor agreed.

Tyson, practically bouncing merrily from street corner to street corner, began composing love poems to Jascaila, and for the first time, Zach actually found him to be not so entirely terrible. Because it seemed he had at least one skill, if nothing else. He was actually pretty good. And everything he said appeared to be right off the top of his head.

“A moment’s meeting,
a fleeting greeting,

Jascaila, since seeing you, my heart keeps beating.

Your eyes, an endless ocean,

On a tide that keeps me hoping,
you saw value in my soul,
your words of wisdom make me whole.

Oh, Jascaila, you are the light that shines the brightest,
and betwixt thy legs,

I bet your pu—”

“Stop!” Lienne shouted. “Don’t say it!”

“—is the tightest,” he finished. “Huh? What’s wrong?”

“You are,” Lienne said grumpily. “That was so beautiful until you ruined it at the end there. Oh, Gods, I can’t get that out of my head now. Gross, gross, gross!”

Zach twitched, Trelvor gasped, Seiley blushed, and Rian released a roar of laughter. “Best poem ever!” Rian called out, applauding in a way that actually looked sincere. Hell, it probably was. “Especially that last part. That was my favorite.”

Tyson spun around, and in front of strangers who were watching him in awe and confusion, he placed his left hand on his chest and his right by his side, and then he bowed, bending all the way forward. “Thank you,” he said.

Rian shook his finger at Tyson while nodding. “You gotta recite that to her, buddy. You have to.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. And word for word, too, make sure you don’t change anything.”

“I will not.”

“No, I’m serious. Don’t change a single word. Every part of that, especially the end. Make sure you tell it to her just like that. If you do even one thing differently, it won’t work. It has to be exactly the same. And I also have to be there to watch.”

Tyson straightened his back, but he did so almost as though Rian’s praise was a physical force that was actually uplifting him. “I will do just that,” he said, raising his hand and brushing a strand of his red hair out of his eyes.

Zach, caught between two opposing states of shock and amusement, decided to say nothing and to merely keep walking forward. He could actually see the Grand Library up ahead. It really stood out, as it was directly between a tiny little convenience store on one side and a DEHV recharge station on the other, and it formed a very harsh contrast, with its white, decorative pillars and the massive, gold-colored handles on the door of its front entrance.

Stepping inside, the six of them immediately turned to look at Zach as if for a clearer explanation of what, specifically, he wanted them to do and what they should be looking for. And it was here that Zach realized he had a bit of a dilemma, as there were some things he could say, and some things he could not say. Then there were things he was “allowed” to say but he wasn’t sure if he should. And further complicating things was that everyone with him had a different level of knowledge regarding his reason for being here. Whereas Jimmy knew almost everything, the Elves knew only about the World Eater—but not Albion-4—and Rian and Lienne knew about Albion-4 but not the World Eater. Then there was Tyson, who knew nothing at all.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed, Zach pointed to a booth large enough to fit all seven of them near the Grand Library’s cafeteria, which was almost completely empty. Actually, there were very few people in the library altogether. It once again reminded Zach of how pointless it was to have one here. Even still, the cafeteria was fully staffed, and it seemed there were a few customers eating. The people of Drake’s Wing likely viewed the entire library as nothing more than a place to grab lunch.

Well, at least we’ll have some privacy.

The seven of them approached the counter, bought some sandwiches, and grabbed a seat together at the booth. With that, they began to eat, and upon slurping some cola out of a plastic cup through a straw, it was Lienne who asked the question that Zach knew was on all of their minds.

“So,” she began, “what’s so special about this place anyway? And how does it have anything to do with Albion-4? What should we be looking for?”

“Eh, excuse me, but what exactly is Albion-4?” Tyson asked, looking at Trelvor, who happened to be across from him.

“I myself do not know,” he replied. “I’ve never heard that name before.”

“Really?” Lienne asked. “I’ve never mentioned it to you, hun?”

“No, not that I can recall, my flower-maiden.”

Zach knew he had no chance whatsoever of avoiding the laughter that came as a result of that last one, and Rian was already burying his face in his hands. Leave it to Trelvor to choose a term like “flower-maiden” over something normal like “hun.” Rushing to hide his head behind a menu, it appeared both he and Rian somehow managed to conceal their chortling—at least from Trelvor, anyway. And yet, with his eyes hidden behind the foldable menu, Zach could tell that Lienne had not been fooled; no, he could clearly hear Rian croak as Lienne either elbowed him or punched him in the gut.

“And here’s one from me,” Seiley grunted as, from the sound of things, she also jabbed him.

“Forgive me, my flower-maiden,” Rian said to her.

Zach, who had just put down the menu, had to put it right back up as even Seiley cracked a smile at that. And somehow, Trelvor remained oblivious to all of it.

“Anyways,” Lienne continued, clearing her throat. “Based on what I’ve heard, Albion-4 is a planet that the Explorer’s Brigade has spent like a really long time or something looking for. Zephyr told me that they pieced its existence together from various item descriptions over the years. And Zephyr thinks it’s a T2 planet as well: meaning it represents the next step in our journey as adventurers. But we don’t think anybody in history has ever actually made it there.”

I know for a fact they haven’t, Zach thought, though that minor detail was likely one of those “things” he was forbidden from sharing with anyone but Jimmy, Mr. Oren, Donovan, Zephyr, Kalana, Olivir, or Kolona—oh and Tena, too.

Following Lienne’s explanation, Tyson made a satisfied-sounding “hmm” and smiled, and now, once again, Zach had to suppress his guilt; the sight of the man’s missing tooth reminded him of what he’d done. “So then,” Tyson said as though seeking clarification, “we are all here to look for a planet in a…library?”

“I think so,” Lienne answered. “This is where everything becomes really confusing, though. Because we know that, for some reason, the clue to finding it is somewhere in this exact Grand Library we are currently sitting in—and only this one.” She paused to take a bite of her toasted sandwich, and a crumb fell over her cheek. She wiped it away with a napkin then added, “But I don’t know how we know that or why we know that.” Now, she looked suspiciously at Zach. “It has some to do with you though, doesn’t it, Zach?”

Put on the spot, Zach became uneasy as he struggled to think of some way of explaining this to everyone. And struggle really was the right word for it. There were so many things he wanted to say, and he actually had to carefully consider whether he was allowed to say each one. The result was everybody staring at him demandingly while he sat in absolute silence, causing them to send him questioning glances.

“Zach?”

He opened his mouth then closed it. This only caused Rian and Lienne to prod him even further. But it was Trelvor who came to his rescue.

“Wait a moment,” he said. “Zach, does this have to do with the forbidden knowledge?”

“Forbidden knowledge?” Zach asked nervously.

Trelvor nodded. “The Great Goddess told us that there exists forbidden knowledge that only you and a small number of others are permitted to freely discuss in private, and you are not permitted to share it with anyone else.”

At this, Zach gave a firm nod. “Yeah. I can only really talk about it with Jimmy,” he said, grateful that Trelvor had found a way to make this easy for him.

“That makes this very simple, then,” Trelvor continued. He gestured off to the side with the palm of his hand. “The rest of us should leave and allow you to confer with him until you both come up with a path forward that we can help you with.”

Immediately, the expression on Rian’s face turned bitter. “Wait, what? Why not us too?”

“Because the Gods didn’t will it so,” Seiley whispered to him, placing her palm on top of his and interlocking the fingers on both of their hands. “Don’t be upset.”

“Well, I am upset,” he replied defiantly. “I just plain don’t accept that.”

“Me neither,” Lienne said. “Zach, what gives?”

Zach opened his mouth to reply, but Seiley interrupted him. “Please don’t be upset, you two. Trelvor and I don’t know this forbidden knowledge either. And it’s not for us to decide who gets chosen to do what. Questioning the will of the Gods is a big no-no.”

“Yeah, but…but Jimmy knows,” Lienne argued. “Not that I’m against him knowing. I just don’t understand why we can’t also know. Did we do something wrong?”

“It’s not like that, Lienne,” Jimmy said. “And trust me, I didn’t exactly go around asking to be part of this shit. There’s more about my life that I wish I could tell you guys. Way more. Like, about how I got here and what my life was like before. But Eilea told me I would be in a shit-ton of danger if I ever revealed it.”

Trelvor gave a firm nod despite clearly having no idea what Jimmy was talking about. “And rightfully so. The Goddess is warning you that she will smite you if you betray your purpose. I am also honor-bound to attack you if you even try.”

“Man, what?” Jimmy asked, his lips peeling back as if in disgust. “Attack me? Why? How’s this got anything to do with you?”

“You have just admitted that the Goddess forbids you to speak more on your origin than she has allowed, did you not?”

“Nah, man, it’s not like that at all. You got it all ass-backwards.”

“How so?”

“Well, for one, Eilea—”

“Great Goddess!” Seiley fired in, to which Jimmy sighed.

“For one, the Great Goddess wasn’t talking about her coming after me herself. She meant that, if I started talking about it, I would end up ‘slain.’”

“Yes,” Trelvor said, his tone as rigid as his posture. “She will slay you, which would break her kind, loving heart. So please do not force her to do so.”

Jimmy groaned, and it was a sound that carried the unmistakable note of frustration. “No, no, you’re still not getting it,” he said. “She wasn’t talking about she herself slaying me. She meant it would be because of some enemy or whatever.”

“Nonsense,” Trelvor replied immediately. “The Gods have no enemies. If they did, they would simply wipe them out of existence.”

“That’s not even true, though. Actually, you know what? Fuck it. I’m about to tell you some shit that’ll blow your mind since I know none of you are my enemy. You guys are the closest friends I’ve made since I came here to Galterra: even Rian despite being a punk-ass bitch. So, there’s no reason I gotta hide this from ya’ll anymore.” His expression turned deadly serious.
“Look, I really am from Earth. That’s not a lie. But there’s a lot more to it than that. The truth is I actually traveled here from the p—ammmmvvv!”

Trelvor, gasping, reached across and slapped his hand over Jimmy’s mouth. “You must never reveal the forbidden knowledge to those who have not had God’s blessing to hear it!” he shouted way too loudly, drawing the attention of the few people who were actually in this cafeteria while simultaneously embarrassing the shit out of Zach. His embarrassment doubled as Jimmy struggled against Trelvor and knocked over a napkin holder, clinking loudly in a way that disrupted the typically quiet atmosphere of the library.

“Forgive him!” Seiley cried, folding her hands against her chest as though she were praying. “Great Lord, Great Goddess, and all the Gods and Goddesses of Elvadin—we heard nothing!”

“We heard nothing!” Trelvor added, making a scene. He screamed out the words while stifling Jimmy. “Your knowledge has not slipped from Jimmy’s lips. We beg your forgiveness!”

“We heard nothing!” Seiley shouted again as several customers began heading towards the exit door.

Jimmy stopped struggling, and Zach realized he was having a hard time breathing. But thankfully, right before he went to intervene, Trelvor released his hand, fixed Jimmy with a murderous gaze, and said, “Never, ever do that again.”

Jimmy, panting, nodded. “All right, all right. Just please don’t kill me.”

“Believe me, Jimmy, harming you is the last thing Seiley or I would ever want to do. We may have only met you recently, but we do care about you. Having said that, if it ever truly came down to it, I assure you it would be better to die by our hands than to disobey the Gods and face the eternal fire.”

“You’re right. That would be bad,” Jimmy said, clearly lying, as Zach knew for sure he didn’t believe that. “Don’t want that. So, we cool?”

“Hm? Cool?”

“He means are you two still friends and not enemies,” Seiley whispered to Trelvor.

“Oh, yes, of course. You are a good man, Jimmy, so please, do not disobey the Great Lord ever again.”

“I won’t. That was the last time.”

Throughout all of this, Rian had been completely quiet. And now, studying his face, Zach realized he actually looked really hurt, and so too did Lienne. Just from that alone, Zach knew he had to at least say something to them. But it had to be something that wouldn’t cause him to get into a wrestling match with two Elves, because Zach had his own set of issues. And he knew that if they stopped him from breathing even just for a few seconds, it might trigger something in him, and he didn’t know what he’d do if that happened: or more importantly, who he might hurt.

I’m starting to fear my own self, he thought. But he shook the thought out of his head and focused his attention on Rian and Lienne, who were definitely not happy with him right now.

Zach knew very well why they were upset—and how could he fault them for it? From their perspective, it must have felt like he’d completely shut them out of everything. Maybe they thought he didn’t trust them. Or maybe they thought that he didn’t consider them worthy of knowing these so-called “forbidden” pieces of knowledge. But the truth was something so much simpler. The truth was that it had nothing whatsoever to do with any of that. And after thinking a moment on how to word things, he finally spoke up.

“I just want to make something clear,” he said. “Rian, Lienne: it’s true that I can’t tell you many of the things I know, and unfortunately, I also can’t even tell you the entire reason of why I can’t tell you them. But there is one thing I can actually say.”

“Oh yeah?” Rian asked, frowning. “And what’s that?”

Zach took a breath before continuing, and then he released it. “The only reason you don’t know what Jimmy knows is because of pure coincidence. Seriously. It actually is because of nothing more than random chance. Here’s the thing, guys: both of you were always intended to be in my little group of, uh…of people who are allowed to know the stuff that I can’t tell you.”

Rian squinted at him. “Zach, I have no damn idea what you’re saying. Li?”

“Same. I’m completely lost.”

Rian and his sister both stared at Zach with a blank expression, so Zach tried to elaborate without running afoul of the deal he’d made with Adamus. Once more, he took a few seconds to ensure he was wording things in a way that wouldn’t create problems for him later on.

“Basically,” he explained, “for a period of time, through a means I can’t tell you, I was able to learn things in secret that aren’t allowed to be known by anyone. At first, I only told one other person what I found out. Actually, this person happened to be there with me when I found a lot of this stuff out.”

“Who was it?” Lienne asked. “Kalana?”

She was right, but Zach didn’t know if he was allowed to confirm it. “I can’t say.”

“It was, wasn’t it? Just tell us.”

Zach laughed. “Okay, yeah, fine, it was Kalana.”

“I knew it!”

“Duh, it was fucking obvious, Li.”

“Shuttup, Rian.” Lienne glared at her brother a second before returning her attention to him. “Okay, go on.”

Zach slowly nodded, and yet again, he paused and ran his words through his head just to make sure he wasn’t going to create a problem with Adamus or the two Elves sitting with him. “Okay, so anyway,” he continued, “using this method I can’t discuss, I was able to continue to find out more forbidden things. But as I learned more and more stuff, I very, very slowly began bringing in other people and expanding the number of people who were in the know. And you and Rian were going to be next. But eventually, after having a conversation with one of the, uh…with one of the Elvish Gods, I—”

“The Great Lord, Adamus,” Trelvor cut in. “I apologize for interrupting, but you are permitted to say that.”

“I am?”

“Of course,” he replied, as though these stupid “rules” made sense intrinsically and should be obvious. which they clearly weren’t! As if sensing Zach’s confusion, he said, “It is important that it be known what the Great Lord Adamus commands of us; that way, one who defies his will cannot later claim ignorance.”

“Oh,” Zach said. “Okay, well then in that case, yeah. It was the uh…the Great Lord. So…where was I?”

“You were telling us how we were about to be the next to learn your secrets,” Lienne said.

“Oh yeah, right. Okay, so, one day before I planned on filling you and your brother in on everything, I happened to have a conversation with the Great Lord, and from that point on, I wasn’t able to tell anyone else. So, in other words,” Zach concluded, “the only reason I can’t tell you what I know is because of timing and circumstance. That truly is the only reason. If my conversation with Ada—the Great Lord, I mean—had taken place just twenty-four hours later, you and Rian would know everything that Jimmy does, because you were never intended to be kept out.”

“Oh yes they were!” Seiley interjected, a sudden heat in her voice. Trelvor looked annoyed, too. “And you’re being very disrespectful, Zach. Either that, or dishonest.”

Utterly baffled, Zach looked at her. “How so? You think I’m lying?”

It was Trelvor who answered. “Not on substance, no.”

“Then on what?”

He made a slight grunt. “The very idea that any of this is ‘chance’ or ‘coincidence’ is completely false. You are being delusional, Zach. It is obviously the case that you learned only what the Great Lord allowed you to learn and when he allowed you to learn it. And while you may believe you chose the members of your inner circle, you did no such thing. The Great Lord personally selected them for you, and in your arrogance, you have dared to take credit away from our Great Lord. Honestly, I find it insulting: to actually believe that your little ‘human plotting’ was anything more than the Great Lord exercising his will—preposterous!”

“Exactly,” Seiley agreed, nodding. “The Great Lord wanted you to learn whatever it is you learned and with whoever you learned it. It was by his divine will!”

Oh boy, Zach thought. These people…

Zach knew better than to argue the point. Like, they were totally wrong, obviously. Well…mostly. They were right that Adamus did know that he was in the privacy room in Angelica’s, and Adamus probably did surmise the nature of what he was talking about in there, but it certainly wasn’t by his will or with his permission. Even still, arguing with Elves over their religious beliefs was a one-way ticket to getting kicked in the face, so he did the only sensible thing and apologized.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I forget myself sometimes. I apologize to the Great Lord.”

Seiley and Trelvor stared at him a moment, and then both slowly nodded with approval. “We all make mistakes,” Trelvor said. “It only matters that we recognize and correct them.”

“I also apologize to the Great Lord,” Tyson said.

Seiley glanced at him, confused. “For what?”

“Nothing. I just want to be included.”

Trelvor and Seiley gave Tyson a strange look as though the man had mentally put them off balance. But then, as if deciding not to waste his brain cells, Trelvor grabbed his beverage and his tray, and he stood upright. “All right,” he said. “I believe we should stop here before Zach accidentally reveals too much. Come, let us give him and Jimmy some time to discuss their knowledge. Please call us back whenever you are ready.”

Rian grumbled to himself but nevertheless stood up. Zach was relieved to see he no longer looked hurt, which meant he probably believed everything Zach had told him, which was good, because Zach had told him the truth. But while there was no longer the wounded look of betrayal in his eyes, he now appeared frustrated and annoyed. “This is bullshit,” he muttered.

Seiley chuckled. “Don’t be jealous, Rian. The Gods may choose you for something really important in the future.”

“I hope so.”

One by one, they filed out of the booth and moved to a separate booth in the opposite corner of the cafeteria. Tyson was the last to join them. Now, Zach and Jimmy were alone, and aside from a general ambience of coffee being poured and people chatting—at least those they didn’t already startle off—it was otherwise fairly quiet in the Grand Library.

“So,” Jimmy said, folding his hands on the table. “What’s the real deal?”

“I’m pretty sure you already know.”

“Yeah, I have a pretty good idea. Let me guess: we gotta find Albion-4 to power up for the World Eater?”

“Yup.”

“…and you want me to help you find it?”

“Also yup. I have no idea what to do, and I was hoping you could use your simulation knowledge to figure it out.”

“Eh, I dunno if that’s gonna work this time around.”

“Why not?” Zach asked, his mood suddenly plummeting. “That’s the whole reason I brought you here. I was sure you’d be able to figure out some secret or whatever.”

“Why, though?” Jimmy asked him. “This ain’t some video game thing, Zach. It’s library research. There’s a pretty big difference between the two. I mean, what you’re trying to do is comb through old books to find out some ancient secret, and my gaming knowledge doesn’t help with things like that. It helps with things like that,” Jimmy said, pointing casually and disinterestedly at something all the way across the library. Zach traced the direction of his finger with his eyes, but he was still unable to determine what Jimmy was indicating.

“What are you referring to? I have absolutely no idea what you’re pointing at.”

Jimmy waved his hand dismissively then ate some more of his sandwich. “Man, it doesn’t even matter. I was just trying to make a point.”

“No, tell me. I want to know.”

“It doesn’t even matter.”

“Just tell me!”

“Fine,” he said, pointing a second time. “Look.”

“Look at what?” Zach asked. “Jimmy, you know I won’t see it. Just fucking tell me.”

“Seriously? Like, for real? How do you not see that? Come on, Zach.”

“I just don’t!”

Jimmy buried his whole face in his hands for a few seconds. “Wow. You Galterrans.” For the third time, he pointed. “Look past the staircase, Zach. Like, all the way across the room. Past that dude sleeping in the chair, the two rows of bookshelves, the 3D-VR-book-section—or whatever you call those—and right across from that emergency exit door.”

“They’re called holobooks, by the way.”

“Whatever. Just look, Zach.”

Zach looked exactly where he indicated, but there was just nothing there. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway. Was he referring to the mop? Was he talking about the dirt on the floor? The LED lightbulb overhead? He had no damn idea.

“I’m not…I don’t get it.”

Finally, with a sigh, Jimmy said, “Do you really not see those five equally spaced, unlit torches?”

“Oh,” Zach said. “Yeah, but…what does that have to do with anything?”

“I got 20k gold that says if you light all five of those, that wall behind it opens up. I’m not gonna say what’s in there ‘cause I got no idea, but I bet it’s at least something related to the adventuring world.”

Zach laughed, loudly. “Oh, bullshit! No way. There’s just no way. I know you’ve been right about crazy stuff like that before, but this? Come on. That’s the most random thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Call me on it, then. Go ahead. If I’m wrong, you make 20k right now. Call my bluff, Zach.”

“Jimmy…they’re just torches!”

“No, they’re not just torches. They’re video-game torches.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Bruh, look at the top of them.”

“What about it?”

“They got that big-ass bowl that basically screams ‘light me!’ That’s how video game torches look: with that big, bowl-looking top part. And there’s an indentation in the wall behind it. That’s the smoking gun.”

Zach again laughed. “You know what? After we learn what we came here to learn, I might just call you on that. I know it’s probably dumb to doubt you after you’ve proven yourself over and over and over, but like…there’s a limit to how ridiculous things can be. Jimmy, they’re just torches.”

“Okay, and why are they there, then? Why are there just five, random-ass torches against a wall like that?”

Zach threw up his shoulders. “I don’t know. I’m not an architect. Whoever built this library just thought it looked nice.”

“Pfft. These Grand Library building’s ain’t even human made.”

Zach rolled his eyes. “Really? And how do you know that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We use the portals in these libraries to get around, right? There’s no way the devs would put portals in player-made objects.”

“I don’t know what that means, and I’m not even going to ask. But if these buildings aren’t human made, how do they have electricity and cafeterias?”

“I dunno, maybe people came along and built that shit after? Maybe they weren’t even libraries in the beginning. And also, don’t forget: Trials of Nolak was in the basement of an abandoned school, so we already know people can build around them. But whatever, Zach. You can either believe me or not. But if not, put up the 20k. I’m right, you’re wrong. End of story.”

The confidence in his voice was convincing—very convincing. But this…this was just so random and made so little sense that he just couldn’t bring himself to agree. “There’s no way you’re right.”

“Zach,” Jimmy said, frustration and annoyance now evident with each word he spoke. “I know this might sound hard for you to believe, but listen to what I’m telling you, okay? Literally any dude who’s ever played a video game before would look at that and know right away it’s a secret. An easy secret. It’s not even well hidden. It’s five torches right in front of an indentation in the wall. Everybody would know what that means. Shit, I scoped that out on the way in here.”

Could he actually be right?

Jimmy released a slow breath as though Zach’s disbelief had aggravated him. “This was a waste of time. Like I said, it doesn’t even matter, and we’re getting way off topic. The only reason I even brought that up at all is to point out that that’s what I’m good at.” Upon taking another bite of his sandwich, he sat up straighter in the booth.

Zach had to agree with that much at least. They were diverting too much from what was actually important. “So, basically, you’re saying you don’t think you can help?”

“Well, I can at least try, so don’t get all down on me just yet. Maybe you and me can figure something out that everybody else missed.”

Zach smiled. “That’s what I want to hear. But…where should we start?”

“Uhh…how about we start by talking about what we know? Yeah, let’s start with that.”

Zach twisted his lips. “Uh, okay, but what do we really know?”

“A couple of things, actually.” Jimmy raised his index finger. “One, we know that Eilea specifically asked you to come out here. Right?”

“Sure,” Zach said. “But that’s about all we know.”

“Nope, not true.”

“It’s not? Why, what else do we know?”

He held up a second finger. “We know that the Explorer’s Brigade has been scouting this place out for weeks, and that they can’t seem to find anything. That’s actually an important clue.”

“Think so?” Zach asked, leaning forward somewhat and lowering his voice. “How do you figure?”

“Well, think about it, Zach. Why is it so important that you come to Dragon Squire?”

“I don’t think it is.”

“You sure?”

“Well…well maybe, I don’t know. I got the impression that it was just important that someone comes here. I didn’t take it to mean that it had to be me and no one else.”

“Maybe, but then why hasn’t anybody found anything?”

“Like I said, I’ve got no idea. But let’s say you’re right and there’s a reason it has to be me. What do we do about it?”

Jimmy grabbed his sandwich and took a bite, then placed it back onto his tray. “I think we need to search around for information involving you or your name. I think we gotta just assume that if they had any information about Albion-4 that was searchable by something related to it, Zephyr’s boys would’ve searched it up already. The fact they ain’t found shit is kinda proof I’m right.”

Zach made a small humming sound as he thought over what Jimmy was telling him. He was skeptical. He couldn’t help but be. Why would his name have any kind of connection to Albion-4? He sighed. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to try.”

“Yeah, it’s at least worth a shot, right? Oh, and we should call the others back. Even if we can’t say why, we can at least tell them to search for any books or records by anyone named ‘Calador.’”

“No, not just ‘Calador,’” Zach said quickly. “Francis Calador.”

“Who the hell is that?” Jimmy asked.

“I don’t know. Just some ancestor of mine, apparently.”

“How do you know about him?”

Zach briefly told Jimmy about the conversation he’d had in his mind with Eilea on his way to Shadowfall Coast; specifically, he mentioned how she’d slipped that name to him while explaining how she’d screwed up and accidentally drove Peter IV mad by raising him from the dead. In earlier conversations, she’d referred to his “ancestor” but did not name him. Putting two and two together, Zach reasoned that “Francis Calador” was the name of her most trusted cohort and a likely target for investigation here.

“That’s definitely something that checks out. So, what do we do about everyone else?” Jimmy asked.

Zach looked over his shoulder. They were all staring at the booth he was sharing with Jimmy. He smiled, raised his hand, and made a waving motion, beckoning them over. To Jimmy, he said, “We’ll just have to tell them what—or rather who—to search for without telling them why.”

“Sounds good,” Jimmy said, popping the lid off his own cola and downing some of it. “But are you sure we can’t tell them why we need to get to Albion-4? You’re allowed to talk about the World Eater, after all.”

Zach considered the question. The only people who didn’t know were Rian, Lienne, and Tyson. And only Tyson couldn’t be allowed to know yet. And so, as the five of them strutted over, Zach got up from his seat and held out his palm. “Actually, Tyson, I know this might sound mean, but I have a good reason for it. Can you go back over there?”

The red-haired man shrugged. “Uh, sure.” Without a fuss, he turned back around and sat down on the table he’d only just gotten up from. Jimmy also got up, and he whispered to Zach that he was going to get a head start in their search. With that, he took off.

“So, what was that all about just now?” Rian asked. “Why’d you send Tyson away?”

“Because I want to tell you and Lienne something,” Zach said. “Something everybody in the world is going to know eventually, but for right now, I can’t risk getting out. That means you can’t repeat what you’re about to hear. Can I trust you?”

“Of course you can!” Rian rubbed his hands together. “Finally, some ‘forbidden knowledge.’”

Zach chuckled. “You won’t like hearing this.”

*********

Rian’s jaw dropped open, and Lienne was hugging Trelvor. He was right. They didn’t like it. But at least now they knew.

“So, wait a second,” Rian said. “In under five years, a boss is going to spawn that can turn our entire planet into what Earth looks like?”

Zach nodded. “That’s why Earth looks the way it does. It was the World Eater.”

Lienne gasped. “And there’s no way to stop it from spawning?”

“None. It’s coming. The only thing we can do is get to Albion-4, level up as much as we can, and get others to level up as well. If we don’t do that, we don’t stand any chance. This thing is supposed to be like the most powerful boss that has ever existed anywhere.”

Trelvor and Seiley looked at one another, and then both in turn comforted Lienne and Rian. “Don’t worry,” Trelvor whispered to Lienne. “If this world is destroyed, we have Archian Prime.”

“But it’s so cold there!”

“Only during winters. Our winter takes place during your summer. It is not always frigid, and indeed, it can be quite beautiful during its warmer months. In time, I am sure you’ll grow to love it.”

She shook her head. “I want to save this world.”

“We will try, of course. But if that doesn’t work out, you will always have Archian Prime…and me.”

Rian, having bought himself a bottle of water, gulped down a bunch of it then looked like he might cough it back up. “Gods, this sucks. How long have you known about this, Zach?”

“For a while now.”

“And this is not the forbidden knowledge that you can’t tell us?”

“It used to be, but it’s not anymore. And if that doesn’t make sense, I’m sorry.”

Rian chuckled. “Well, whatever it is you can’t say, I doubt it’s more shocking than this.”

Zack firmly shook his head. “Oh no, Rian. It is.”

“Stop fucking with me.”

“I’m not. I swear on my life. It’s ten times worse. It’s so bad that when I brought in Mr. Oren and he found out, he wasn’t able to speak for a half-hour and he almost cried. You should actually be glad you don’t know.”

“Are you screwing with me, Zach?”

“Not this time. In fact, if anything, I’m—”

“That’s enough,” Trelvor said, his lips dropping into a frown. “You’re coming dangerously close to crossing the line of disobeying the Great Lord. Can we not focus on finding out how to save Galterra?”

“Yeah, for sure,” Zach agreed. “And sorry.” With everyone having finished eating, he stood up and looked around. “So, do you guys all know what to do?”

Lienne nodded. “We need to search for anything with the name ‘Calador’, and um, if there are multiple, prioritize anything associated with the name of ‘Francis.’”

“That’s right,” Zach said, giving her a thumbs up. “We’ll go through each and every—”

“Don’t waste your time,” a glum voice said from behind him. Zach turned around to see Jimmy approaching with his hands inside his fancy-looking, boss-dropped robe and a look of defeat on his face. “There’s nothing.”

“What do you mean there’s nothing?” Zach demanded. “You couldn’t possibly have searched through everything already.”

“True,” Jimmy said. “Unless, of course, there isn’t anything to begin with.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I went to every librarian in this place while you guys were talking. There are no books written by anyone named Calador. None. At least not anything they’ve logged into their records. This is true of the ones printed on paper and the holobooks.”

Zach scratched his head. “What about books that just have the word Calador in it.”

“Checked that, too. The string ‘Francis Calador’ never appears.”

“What about just Calador?”

“Millions of times in about two-thousand books. A lot of it is nonsense, cooking books, fiction, nothing important. But there are just too many to sift through by ourselves.”

Zach swore. “So you’re telling me we failed before we even had the chance to look? No, I’m not going along with that. Jimmy, we have to at least search a little harder.”

“Okay, and where?” Jimmy asked him angrily. “Zach, dude, you’re welcome to search the same shit I just searched and see for yourself. I don’t care. But you’re not gonna find what you’re looking for that way.”

Tyson, who had finally been allowed back over, asked, “What’s everyone discussing?”

Jimmy explained to him the situation. Then he asked if the man had any ideas. “Hmm. We could pay a hundred people to search for us. I’d happily put up all the money.”

“That’s…definitely possible,” Zach said. “But I don’t know. None of this makes sense. What the hell are we supposed to find here?”

Zach walked away from the booth and decided to get some space alone where he could think. He reflected on the conversation he and Jimmy had just had, during which they had discussed the only two things they actually had to go on: the fact that he’d been asked to come here personally, and the fact that the Explorer’s Brigade had likely already tried everything obvious and failed.

This really was a dead-end, wasn’t it? But it made no sense. It just didn’t make any Gods-be-damned sense! If Jimmy was right, and it was clearly Eilea’s intention for him, personally, to come here, then what did she think he’d find? There must be a reason why. There had to be. What could he possibly do that no one else could?

Nothing, he thought. At least not when it comes to doing basic research.

There just wasn’t anything special about Zach that would enable him to find what was hidden. He was, if anything, the least suitable person. The Explorer’s Brigade were much more fitting, but they couldn’t find anything either. So why him? Did Eilea have a specific reason? Was there some…some possible, explainable purpose for which she had deliberately called upon him to head to Dragon Squire? And not only had she called upon him to do it, but it was apparently so important she’d waged a mental battle inside his head with Adamus in a desperate attempt to get him there.

Is there anything else? he asked himself. Anything. Any other fact to this. Some piece I’m missing.

Zach was becoming more and more frustrated, and his mind began to think in circular patterns. Because no matter how impossibly complex this problem seemed, he just kept coming back to two simple, yet critically important facts: the first was that getting everyone to Albion-4 was one of Eilea’s most important goals, and two, that she knew Zach’s temperament and capabilities. He considered himself to be pretty decent for a 17-year-old when it came to age-appropriate subjects in school. But he wasn’t some academic with a Ph.D. He wasn’t the type to spend days, weeks, or months perusing a library all the way out in Dragon Squire hunting for a clue. She had to know that.

So why, then? Why did she want him here? Why hadn’t she made it a priority to ensure that he knew what he was supposed to do when he got here? This was what caused Zach’s mind to circle. Because he just kept coming back to this over and over. Eilea may not have been perfect, and it was plain to see that she had numerous flaws, but she wasn’t some idiot. No, for her to want Zach to be here, it meant she must’ve assumed he would march into this library and know right away what he had to do. Sort of like the way that Jimmy had walked in here and just right away noticed that whole thing with the—

Gods! he shouted in his mind as it all slammed into his brain. Of course!

“Jimmy!” Zach shouted, curling his finger. “Come here!”

“You find something, Zach?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“You!”

Jimmy made an amused expression. “Uh, what?”

Rian, Lienne, Trelvor, Seiley, and Tyson all turned to look at him as he beckoned Jimmy to follow him to the opposite end of the café where they could once again have another chat out of earshot of the others. But this one was going to be quick.

“I figured it out,” Zach said. “I get it now.”

“Get what?”

Zach laughed. “Remember when we were going over the facts before? And we agreed there were two of them: two facts, I mean.”

“What about it?”

“There’s a third fact: you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you! Eilea did some really crazy shit to get you here, Jimmy. And the more I ask myself why she didn’t just tell me what to do when I got here, the more I realize it’s because she didn’t think she’d have to.”

For once, Jimmy seemed to be the person who was confused. “You’re losing me.”

Zach pointed to the five unlit torches. “You said that the moment you walked in here, you noticed something, right? How fast did you notice it. Just tell me.”

“Oh, right away. I walked in here, and I was like, ‘Oh, look, a torch puzzle.’ It was that fast. The door didn’t even shut behind us yet.”

“Then that’s it. That’s the answer.”

“I still don’t get what makes you say this, Zach.”

“Because it’s the only thing that makes sense. Eilea must have just assumed we’d walk in here, and you’d know right away what we were looking for.”

Jimmy was quiet a moment. He stared downwards as though in thought. Then, he lifted his chin, met Zach’s gaze, and his eyebrows raised. “Oh, shit, you might be right. Oh, damn. But I thought you didn’t believe I was right about the torches?”

“To be honest? Part of me does and part of me doesn’t. But I’m nowhere near confident enough to bet on it. But since lighting a few torches is not exactly something difficult to do, let’s just try it and see what happens.”

Jimmy made a fist and tapped it against Zach’s chest. “Hell yeah. Now we’re talking. Let’s do it.”

Filling with eagerness, Zach waved enthusiastically at the others, and they eagerly came strolling over. Their eyes were aglow with expectation and a renewed sense of optimism. It was as though the excitement in Zach had sparked some of their own. “Tell me you found something,” Lienne said.

“Jimmy did, not me. But yeah. I think we got something.”

“What is it?” she asked.

Zach grinned. “We’ll show you.”

With that, Zach and Jimmy hurried their way over to the complete opposite side of the Grand Library on the first floor, and then they paused just in front of the unlit torches. Lienne looked confused—and so did Rian, the Elves, and Tyson. Zach certainly couldn’t fault them for that, though. Because he himself would be confused if he was in their shoes. Hell, he was still confused. They really did just look like regular, decorative torches.

“In fairness,” Jimmy said, almost as though reading his mind, “without knowing the importance torches play in games, I probably shouldn’t have expected this to mean anything to you.”

“Importance?”

Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, torches have been a big part of RPG and adventure game puzzles forever. Zelda made that shit popular, but tons of games have done it since. Nowadays—or then-a-days, actually—everybody knew what to do when you saw something that looks like this.” He slid his palm down along the wall. “It’s second nature.”

“What’s Jimmy talking about?” Rian asked. “I’m so lost.”

Zach snickered. “Jimmy thinks—and now I’m starting to believe him—that if we light all five of these torches the wall will just open up and reveal a set of stairs or something.”

“Haha. Sure.”

“No, he really thinks that, Rian.”

“Why? Why would that even happen?”

Jimmy made a sneaky, devilish smile. “You’re all about to look dumb for doubting me,” he said. “Okay, who’s got a match?”

“Step aside,” Seiley said, brushing right past him. She removed her staff, chanted a few words in Elvish, and tapped it against the leftmost torch. Like a stove, it suddenly lit up, causing flame to fill the entire bowl and rise upwards, though the color of the flame was a surprising dark blue as opposed to yellow. It also generated considerable heat for a single torch.

Seiley put away her staff as Jimmy took several napkins out of his robe. He dipped the first into the flame, then dropped it into the second torch; this, as two librarians came running over and shouting. “What are you doing?” they screamed. “You’re starting a fire around books! You fools! What in the name of the Gods do you think you’re doing in our library?”

“I believe this will explain exactly what we are doing in your library,” Tyson replied merrily. He turned around and began strolling over to the men. Then he began to speak to them, though Zach didn’t pay much attention to what was said. Whatever it was, though, it actually seemed to work, because the librarians’ protests seemed to grow weaker and weaker until they stopped protesting entirely.

“Well, I guess it’s okay then,” one of them finally whispered. And then both appeared to back away. They didn’t leave the area, but they kept their mouths shut and seemed content to allow Zach and Jimmy to light fires in their precious library. Becoming curious, Zach turned around, and sure enough, he could now see a fat, gold-filled satchel in the hands of each man. Tyson had actually bribed them.

Gods, how much gold did he just give? Zach wondered as he enviously stared at the high-denomination coins visible at the top of the pile. I need to get him to start bribing me too.

With the librarians no longer making a fuss, Jimmy continued onwards, using another napkin to spread the fire from the second to the third lantern, then the third to the fourth. But now, having run out of napkins to use, he lazily grabbed a paper book, dipped it into the fire from the fourth lantern, and then, even as the librarians began screaming once more, he dropped it into the fifth. Now, all five were lit up. And it was here that Jimmy did the most arrogant, smug, but admittedly cool thing Zach had seen him do so far. He fully turned around so that his back was facing the wall, and then he made an upward swiping motion with both hands at the exact same time that the bottom of the wall began to shake and crumple.

“Told ya,” Jimmy said to them.

Dust and plaster began filling the air, though only in small quantities as the shaking and rumbling became louder and more pronounced. And then, before Zach’s very eyes, the entire wall raised upwards and upwards until there was nothing ahead of them but a vastness that went into where the wall used to be. Whatever was on the other side, it continued on far enough that Zach couldn’t see the end of it. And this was significant: extremely, extremely, significant.

Because instead of a stairwell down into some basement area, the area behind the wall went straight. And why did this matter? Quite simply, because the only thing that should have been ten feet behind the other side of that wall was the good-old outdoors. But that wasn’t what was there. No, what was there was a vast stretch of something else.

And this could only mean one thing.

“A dungeon!” exclaimed Rian and Lienne at the same time.

Jimmy; finally turning around, nodded. “A dungeon.”

Zach looked over his shoulder and at the two librarians. “Hey, uh, you guys might want to close early today.”

Chapter 190: A Reckless Decision

Chapter 190: A Reckless Decision

The debate began immediately following the opening of what was almost certainly a dungeon portal, and with it, Zach felt like he’d just been blasted several days into the past. Once again, Jimmy was in an intense shouting match with the others, and Zach was standing around saying nothing, not wishing to weigh in or takes sides.

“I can’t believe it,” Jimmy said, his voice slowly increasing in volume along with his temper. “I just can’t believe ya’ll are already starting up with this pussy shit again. I thought we were over it now. But nope, here we go again!”

“You know, you’ve really got some nerve, Jimmy!” Lienne snapped right back at him. “Look, I’m glad everything with the Mare of the Primordial Void worked out well in the end, but I almost died. My eyes were blown out of my head!”

“Yeah, so what? We rubbed a little red stone on it, and now you’re all better.”

“Jimmy, fuck off!” Rian yelled at him. There was no humor in the way he spoke. It was a rare display of anger. “I can’t believe you’re talking to my sister that way.”

“What way? I’m just being real here, dude. I said everything would turn out fine, and it did.”

“We were a half-second away from dying!”

Trelvor nodded. “It was very unwise to fight that battle, Jimmy. Yes, things ended in success, but it was unnecessary and foolish.”

“Exactly,” Seiley agreed.

Right now, the sides were clear as day. It was Jimmy versus everyone else. Even Tyson. Or maybe it was more accurate to say especially Tyson. The man was currently pleading with Jimmy not to “make them go in there” and to “rethink this madness.” It seemed he was only seeing this side of Jimmy for the first time, and he looked kind of rattled.

He’s finding out Jimmy’s not exactly like him after all, Zach thought.

Sure, Jimmy liked to engage in many of the same vices that Tyson did. That was undeniable. But what Tyson was now discovering was that Jimmy was also hugely into raiding, adventuring, and taking the kinds of risks that even the most hardcore, steel-nerved adventurers bucked at: such as entering an unknown, possibly never-heard-of-before dungeon for the first time without any kind of preparation or discussion with Donovan or Zephyr. He was also being treated to a rehashing of some of the squabbles from the raid against the Mare of the Primordial Void, and these details in particular were clearly sending Tyson into a panic.

“Is all that really true, Jimmy?” Tyson asked. “You made everyone fight a giant monster and then doomed them all to death?”

“Nah, that’s not what happened,” Jimmy said to him. “I mean, not exactly.”

Thanks to the back and forth between Jimmy, Lienne, and Rian, Tyson was now learning that everyone back then had disagreed with Jimmy’s insistence on fighting the boss, and that it had resulted in some very, very close calls.

“Jimmy, please, let us not be rash,” Tyson said. “Your adventurer friends speak wisely. There’s no need to rush into the pits of hell. Especially sober!”

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” he insisted. “We got this.”

“That’s what you said before my entire face exploded!” Lienne practically shrieked.

As Zach watched things become even more tense, he noticed the way the two librarians were standing around in fear, bewilderment, and shock. He actually felt bad for them. They couldn’t possibly understand what they were hearing or seeing. Only the Head Librarian could, and he was apparently away right now.

I hope we don’t end up traumatizing those two.

With a slow, controlled breath, Lienne began to speak a bit more softly, though it was easy to tell that she was fighting to hold back her anger. “Look, Jimmy,” she began. “Every single person here agrees one-hundred-percent that we need to go into that dungeon and see what’s there. Nobody is saying we shouldn’t.” Tyson made a nervous croak and raised his hand. Lienne sighed in frustration. “Okay, fine, nobody besides Tyson is saying we shouldn’t. Other than that, we all agree. The only thing the rest of us are saying is that we should first talk to Donovan and Zephyr, and at least let the Explorer’s Brigade investigate what they can before we go in. For all we know, there might be records or other pieces of information somewhere on what we’re dealing with.”

The moment she finished speaking, Jimmy didn’t even pause for a second before replying. He just began letting the words fly out like he’d already decided on a response even before listening to what she had to say.

“We should go in right now,” Jimmy said. “Fuck all that. Get over your dungeon fears, guys. I mean, I get that ya’ll are a bunch of bitches who like to convene councils and launch ten-year studies before dipping your toe into a new dungeon. But don’t forget that we need to get in there so we can save lives and stop the you-know-what.”

At this, Zach couldn’t help but release a very loud, but very brief laugh. It was an explosive one, too: one that sent spit flying out of his mouth. But it was over almost as soon as it had begun, and it caused the others to regard him with confusion. Even still, he wasn’t willing to explain to them why he found Jimmy’s words so funny.

I can’t even believe I laughed at that.

Put simply, Zach had laughed because he knew damn well that Jimmy didn’t actually give even the slightest shit about the World Eater. He was only bringing it up because it could mean he'd get to go inside another new dungeon. And that really amused Zach: the knowledge that they could have found any dungeon for any reason and Jimmy would still be arguing with every last bit of intensity that they needed to go inside immediately.

But not everyone was amused.

Rian was losing his patience and temper as he glared at Jimmy. “You’re a moron,” he said. “Dungeons are the most chaotic, dangerous places in all of existence, and right now, we don’t even know the name of this dungeon, and you just want to barge right on in?” Rian took a few cautious steps closer to the entrance that had formed in the wall. “We can’t even really see what’s in it, either. It’s a total black box from out here. Anything could happen when we step through the portal. The fact you don’t see how stupid this is…like, what’s wrong with you? Tell him, Zach.”

“M-me?” Zach asked, caught off guard. He hadn’t been expecting to weigh in on this just yet.

“Yeah,” Rian said. “Tell him.”

Zach wet his lips, then hesitated. He was hoping someone else would say something and take the heat off him. But now, all ears were awaiting his input, and he knew he had to be honest with where he stood at the moment. “Okay, so, the truth is, you guys, I don’t really know what I think just yet. I’m still weighing what Jimmy and all of you are saying.”

Lienne whipped her head in his direction, and so too did the Elves and Rian. If Zach had been hoping to draw a careful line of neutrality with an even, middle-of-the-road position, he’d utterly failed, and now they all began to yell at him with the same intensity that they had yelled at Jimmy. And it sucked because he didn’t even say anything wrong!

“Zach, why are you siding with Jimmy?” Seiley asked him. “Think about how Princess Kalana would feel if she knew you were in favor of running inside of a dungeon that we know nothing about.”

“It’s even worse than that, Seiley,” Rian said. “Not only don’t we know anything about this dungeon, but there’s a very good chance nobody else in the world does, either. For all we know, this could be a lost dungeon that hasn’t been accessed in thousands of years. We might end up dying horrible, painful deaths in seconds after entering.”

“Mhm. Great points,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “Zach’s being very irrational here.”

Zach, now starting to lose his own cool just like the others, shouted, “Hey! When in the fuck did I say I agreed with Jimmy? I said I don’t know how I feel yet. Stop putting words in my mouth!” Taking a moment to breathe, he squeezed his hands into fists to prevent himself from contributing any further venom towards this collective outburst.

But he failed.

“And another thing! Seiley, this might surprise you, but I don’t always believe everything Kal believes. Guess what? We’re different people! So stop trying to use Kalana as a cudgel to make me agree with you!”

“I’ll use my fist as a cudgel, human!”

“Try it.”

“Don’t even think of hitting her!” Rian threatened, placing himself between him and Seiley. “Zach, I will crack you like an egg if you hurt Seiley.”

Zach snorted. “Rian, if I was an egg, you’d have already eaten me.”

The anger fell off Rian’s face, and he laughed. Then Zach laughed, too. It was a brief moment of levity that almost seemed like it would lead to everybody calming down, but then Jimmy had to go and ramp it up again, this time by going after the Elves. He looked back and forth between Seiley and Trelvor, and he spoke directly to them.

“You guys are disobeying the Great Goddess,” he said. “She asked you to help me, remember?” Jimmy made an obviously forced, totally insincere gasp of horror. “Don’t tell me you’re not gonna help me explore this dungeon. That would be…” He made yet another theatrical gasp. “That sounds to me like it would be disobeying the Great Goddess.”

Zach didn’t know what thoughts were going through Jimmy’s mind as he said those words, but he was pretty sure he knew what was going through them immediately afterwards as Seiley and Trelvor’s eyes seemed to darken and they began to approach him without saying a single word. It was that last thing that actually added such an ominous feel. They were completely silent as they mutually walked towards him.

“Ah, shit,” Rian swore, darting forward to get in front of Seiley. “Baby, he didn’t mean it.”

“Hun, he was just venting!” Lienne said as she tried to drag Trelvor away from Jimmy. “Don’t do…whatever it is you’re about to do!”

Fear shot straight into Zach’s chest as they approached Jimmy like two predatory animals, He had no idea what they were planning to do. Would they kill him? Hurt him? The way they were behaving, it was impossible to know. They took their religious stuff to the extreme, and Zach didn’t really know how “offensive” or “wrong” Jimmy’s words had been on a scale of 1 to 10. Hurriedly, he got in front of Jimmy.

“Guys, stop,” he said. “Or at least tell me what you’re going to do.”

Jimmy, to his credit, stood his ground, but he was starting to crack as they neared, and there was great fear in his eyes. “Okay, look,” he said, holding up his hands submissively. “I maybe went too far there. I apologize. Ya’ll don’t gotta—hey, wait. Hold up. Wait!”

Zach reached out to try to grab them, but he missed as they both dashed around his side. Rian and Lienne also tried to slow them, but they too were rebuffed. Now, Zach turned around to see them approaching so close to Jimmy that he bumped into a wall and caused three holobooks to fall off a shelf above him. Finally, they stopped, their faces only inches from his own. Zach, having absolutely no idea what they might do, wasn’t sure if he should draw his sword or let the situation play out. For now, he chose the latter.

“Jimmy,” Trelvor said, an unmistakable heat in his eyes. He scowled. “Invite me.”

“I-invite you?” Jimmy croaked. “You mean to a group?”

“Yes.”

“Wait…seriously?”

“Yes!” Trelvor snapped. “You dare doubt my commitment? You think I fear death in the service to Her Greatness? You challenge my faith openly this way? Invite me. I will prove to you that the Elves are one with their word.”

“That’s right,” Seiley agreed with a grunt. “And if your foolishness gets us all killed, then so be it. We’re willing to die. Are you?”

Jimmy, nervously, wriggled his way to the side and then backed up, putting space between the three of them. “Doesn’t matter, because we won’t die.”

If Trelvor and Seiley were bluffing, now would be the time to make it known as the three of them seemingly formed a party. Jimmy turned his head to Zach. “Are you in?”

“Obviously I am,” Zach said. “I’m the one who brought us here.”

Zach mentally chose to join their party, and just like that, he did. Now, Jimmy looked at Rian and Lienne, both of whom looked discontent and upset. “And you guys?”

“I’ll join,” Lienne said, her tone cold. “But only because Trelvor is with you.”

“Same for me,” Rian said. “I’ll go along with this half-brained shit so I can be there for Seiley. But I’m really not happy to be dragged into another one of your ‘rush forward recklessly’ bullshit raids, Jimmy. If I die and you live, I’m coming back to haunt you. I will find some way of haunting you.”

Jimmy grinned. “This is gonna be easy.” He looked at Tyson. “And you, Tyson? You with us too?”

Tyson stood up perfectly straight. Then he lifted his chin high and narrowed his eyes. “Me?” he asked. “Am I in?”

“Yeah, are you in?”

Tyson’s lips twisted into a shockingly confident smile—which collapsed less than a second after it formed like an imploding bridge. “Nope, I’m out,” he said very quickly. Then he began to walk towards the library’s exit. “Good luck, everyone. I’ll meet you all at that hotel across the street.”

Zach, annoyed, actually had to reach out and grab him, pulling him back. “You’re coming too,” he growled at Tyson. “And you’re going to be fighting mobs with us if there are any.”

Just like that, the whimpering and begging returned. But with their decision made, there was nothing left to do but follow through.

Chapter 191: The Dungeon Group

Chapter 191: The Dungeon Group

Zach warily eyed the vacated space that used to be a flat wall, on top of which had rested the five unlit torches. Now, it was a rectangular opening that led to…somewhere. It was impossible to discern any more than that, as from where he stood, all he could see was a lightless, empty space, which was probably not at all representative of whatever awaited inside. Reaching over his shoulder, he drew his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness, gripping it securely. Then he looked back behind him.

“Is everyone ready?” he asked.

“You know it!” Jimmy shouted enthusiastically, grinning ear to ear.

“I guess,” Rian said with a far more subdued tone, the touch of bitterness unmistakable. Lienne, however, merely nodded, and so too did the Elves.

“Tyson?”

Rather than reply with a yes or no, the cowardly, fancily dressed man dropped to his knees and began to beg and plead. “Don’t make me do this, Sir Calador! I don’t even have a weapon. I’m a lover, not a fighter. Show mercy!” He began coughing, though it sounded forced. “I also appear to be suffering from a mysterious ailment.”

Zach rolled his eyes at the man. “Come on, Tyson. Get on your feet. We’re going in.”

He whimpered. “Okay, fine.”

Can I even trust him not to flee? Zach wondered. Probably not.

Behind them, the two librarians continued to clutch at one another, terror in their eyes. They were speechless, and Zach really did feel badly for them, as they were forced to guess as what they were seeing, lacking the knowledge that was common to adventurers. Even still, they had done an excellent job of clearing out whatever guests remained in the cafeteria as well as the serving staff. For having done so, Tyson had compensated them with even more gold, as bribing people was the one thing the man seemed to be good for. Everything else? Not so much.

“Tyson,” Zach said to him after a short moment, “you’re going to go in right after me, okay? Because it’s the only way I can be sure you won’t wait for everyone else to enter and then turn around and leave.”

The man swore. “That’s exactly what I was going to do.”

“Yeah, I figured. That’s why you’re going in second.”

Zach made a slight nod towards Rian, who nodded back. Assuming Rian understood his gesture, Rian would ensure Tyson made his way inside and did not escape. With that out of the way, Zach readied himself to enter the dungeon. He knew that this probably wasn’t the smartest idea, and he understood the inherent danger of what he was taking part in. Yet all he could do was hope that this really was connected somehow to finding Albion-4. Otherwise, it would be a tremendous risk taken for no reason.

And a huge waste of time!

Zach held his breath and stepped forward into what looked like a vast emptiness. For a moment, the world became an empty screen of grey light with nothing visible in any direction. But this emptiness soon proved to be temporary, for the exact moment he fully entered the dungeon, the entire scenery changed, and the emptiness became filled with the world: or at least a world: one that, just from his immediate impression, looked to be some kind of rounded hallway. The air temperature dropped as well, becoming slightly chilly but not quite cold.

“Whoah,” Rian said as he appeared behind Zach. His wrist was gripping Tyson’s, which meant he’d had to be dragged in. Jimmy and the Elves came through next, and finally, Lienne. All began to search their surroundings, and so too did Zach.

Right away, it became clear that they were at the very top of some kind of massive, indoor structure. Most of the walls around him were made of a very dark blue brick, but a few feet in front of Zach, there was a wall constructed out of metal bars which ran up to around chest height. A small gap existed between these metal bars and the ceiling, and through this gap, Zach could see a huge drop that looked like thousands of feet, which revealed that the overall shape of this structure was like that of a giant dome. And at the very bottom of this dome, thousands of feet below, Zach spotted what he thought to be a vaguely humanoid figure of some sort waiting on a rounded platform, but Zach could not really see a whole lot of it. The figure stood perfectly still with what looked like arms by its sides. Aside from that, Zach was far too high up to discern any greater detail than that. What he could make out, however, was the daunting, labyrinthine nature of the path downwards.

“That’s…a lot,” Seiley said, audibly exhaling.

From where Zach stood here at what appeared to be the top of the dome, he had a somewhat limited view of this place’s overall structure, but he could see a totally incomprehensible series of ramps, doors, bizarre box-shaped structures, and other strange things that wrapped around the dome leading downwards in a disorganized, seemingly random pattern from the top to the bottom. These “pathways”—if they could even be called that—lacked structure or predictability.

Confused and somewhat overwhelmed, Zach and the others all turned to look at Jimmy, who was walking forward as if to stand beside Zach. He tapped his palm against the metal bar and peered down through the gap. “Okay,” he said, “let’s see what we got here.”

Zach, standing next to him, gestured with his chin at whatever man, NPC, or “thing” awaited them all the way at the bottom. “So, what do you think, Jimmy? That’s definitely a boss down there, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Jimmy replied. “It definitely could be. But it could also not be. There’s no way to tell, and there’s nothing I can see that would make me lean one way or the other.”

Zach stepped away from the wall and again observed his surroundings. They were in a fairly narrow but rounded room that formed something of a half-circle as far as geometry was concerned. There were no visible doors or openings other than the one they’d used to arrive, nor were there any indications of where to go. Behind them, the entrance they had used was still present, which Zach took to mean they could back out and leave at any time. There was also a low, almost tranquil buzzing sound in the air, but other than that, this dungeon was very quiet.

“Does everybody still have at least one rope in case of an emergency?” Zach asked.

Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t. But we’re not gonna need one.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Seiley said—and Trelvor agreed.

Zach sighed. “I guess escaping in an emergency isn’t an option, then. Hey, this is looking really risky, Jimmy. Are you sure we’re going to be okay? We don’t even know what we’re dealing with here.”

Jimmy pressed himself more tightly against the metal bars as if to get an even better view of whatever awaited them. Then he laughed. “I know ya’ll are tired of me saying this, but it really is gonna be easy this time. This looks like a pretty straightforward, single-floor dungeon to me.”

“Single floor?” Lienne asked.

Jimmy backed away from the metal bars and turned towards her. “Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I don’t think this is like the others with all the floors and stuff. Whatever this place is, I think it’s just this.” He waved his arms around him.

“And what exactly is that?” Trelvor asked.

“Like I said, a straightforward dungeon.”

“Thanks for the detailed description,” Rian grumbled. “Jimmy, you’ve been really helpful.”

Jimmy seemed to ignore the quip and continued to study his surroundings while Rian, clad in his leather brigandine, drew his axe and shield, and Trelvor removed his flute. Seiley and Lienne had their staves at the ready, and Tyson had his tears. For a moment, no one said a word as Jimmy paced back and forth around the rounded hallway, which appeared to contain no entrances or exits aside from the one they’d used to arrive.

Zach, wanting to play things safe, decided to call upon his mount, which at level 85, could be very useful to have around in case things here turned out to be extremely dangerous. Thus, he took a few steps away from the others and activated Summon Active War-Mount. But rather than call upon his Kralzek’s Beast as it usually did, the ability instead brought forward a screen of information similar to the one he’d gotten in Trials of Nolak when he’d attempted to summon his mount.

Summon Mount Failed: Karnzon (Location 3) is not a Mount-Compatible Dungeon

“Well,” Rian said, pointing at the spot in front of Zach where the information floated, “now at least we know the name of the dungeon we’re in.”

Lienne rubbed her chin as miniature, glowing lights in the shape of stars and galaxies floated around her new head piece that she’d won from the raid five days ago. “That’s a weird name: Karnzon Location 3. Jimmy, do you have any idea what this might mean?”

“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “It means we’re not in 1 or 2.”

“Har-har,” Lienne said dryly, rolling her eyes at him. “You know what I meant.”

Jimmy waved his hand as though in apology then said, “It doesn’t really tell me much to be honest. But I’m not worried.” With that, he closed his mouth, then reopened it to release something that began as a yawn but ended as a calm, casual, and almost bored-sounding sigh. “Okay, guys,” he continued, “let’s get on with this. Let’s see if we can’t knock this one off the list before dinner.” He turned around, then nodded. “We’re gonna do this one by the book.”

“The book?” Rian asked him.

“Yeah. Basically, Rian, you’re the MT. Zach, you’re melee DPS. Seiley, I want you on heals, and Lienne, you can be off-healer but I’d prefer you stick to DPS. Trelvor, you’re ranged DPS, obviously.”

“And me?” Tyson asked.

“Uh, you can just chill for the moment.”

“I’m not that cold.”

“No, it means…just relax and hang back.”

“Very well. That, it just so happens, is my specialty, Jimmy. And I shall do it well!”

We’ll see about that, Zach thought to himself, vowing to make Tyson contribute if the opportunity for him to do so came along. For now, however, he ran his eyes around every corner of the room, searching for some idea of how to proceed.

“Jimmy, it’s great you want to start and all, but where do we even go from here?” Zach placed his palm against the brick wall behind him. “It doesn’t look like there’s anywhere for us to go but back into the Grand Library where we just came from.”

Tyson immediately and forcefully agreed with his assessment. “You are very wise in saying so, Sir Calador. As much as I was looking forward to plunging into these unknown depths, it seems we must return. Very well. Drinks are on me.” He turned around and began ambling towards the exit. Zach had to reach out and grab him.

“Not so fast. You better stay put or else,” Zach warned him. Following this warning, Zach once again addressed Jimmy. “So, uh, Jimmy…do you have any ideas about what we need to do?”

Jimmy laughed, hard. “Noobs,” he said through chuckles, offering only the one word in response to Zach’s question as he casually walked all the way to the right side of the room, humming as he did so. Once there, he bent down, extended his hand, and picked up a loose, dark-blue marble brick on the floor that seemed to have fallen off the wall at some point and happened to be lying on the floor.

What the hell is he doing?

Zach watched as Jimmy then turned around, strutted all the way to the opposite end, and with that, he extended his hand and placed the rectangular brick into a section of the wall that appeared to be missing a brick. The brick, shockingly, flew out of his hand once it came close as though it were a magnet pulled by a massively powerful force, and then it sealed itself into the wall with a click.

Immediately after this click, the room began to rumble, and then Zach was forced to hop backwards as the ground shifted beneath his feet. He watched as a small section of it began sliding over to the side as though retreating into a hidden compartment until a moderately sized, square-shaped hatch now resided in the floor, granting them all entry to some place beneath them.

“H-how did he know to do that?” Tyson exclaimed loudly with overt astonishment as he pointed to the newly formed hatch in the floor not far from Zach’s feet. “What in the name of the Gods?”

Zach shrugged. “I’ve given up bothering to ask. Jimmy just knows these things. You’ll learn to accept it.”

Carefully, Zach moved over to the hatch, bent over, and inspected this newly opened area. Peering as far as he could, he realized there was a short ramp that ran down it and into what looked like another hallway, but this one was straight and fairly wide before moving downwards and veering off in another direction entirely. However, halfway through this hall, there were three creatures that were clearly mobs, and each was moving back and forth, sliding on the ground.

“Oh, Gods!” Tyson cried, suddenly appearing beside him. “Tell me we don’t intend to confront those monstrosities!”

“What monstrosities?” Lienne asked nervously, joining the two of them.

“Those!” Tyson shouted.

The creatures were reddish-brown with rounded bodies, jelly-like eyes, and they moved on what appeared to be thousands of tiny little insect legs. Each was the size of a small dog, and on top of each was a grey, stone-like, and cone-shaped spike that looked sharp and deadly with a flat, rounded base that covered the mobs’ heads like a hat.

HP

105,000/105,000

Name

Spike-Head Critter A

Level

55

HP

105,000/105,000

Name

Spike-Head Critter B

Level

55

HP

105,000/105,000

Name

Spike-Head Critter C

Level

55

Jimmy sucked on his tooth, spat on the floor, and gently brushed Zach aside so that he could pass. “Excuse me,” he said politely. Then, with six quick strides, he ran down the ramp and entered the hall, and once there, he lifted his staff, swung it wide across, and cast a spell that caused dozens of yellow, flashing lights to appear above the heads of all three mobs. Following this, Jimmy panted, dripping several beads of sweat; the mobs, which had been robotically moving back and forth, all came to a total halt as yellow stars now spun and rotated around the heads of all three stationary creatures.

“They’re mezzed,” Jimmy said, wiping sweat off his forehead. Zach rubbed his bottom teeth uneasily against his lower lip as he watched Jimmy point his staff at the one in the middle: Spike-Head Critter B. “Okay, let’s do this. Everybody get your asses down here. Rian, I want you to pull that one. Zach, attack from the left. Lienne and Trelvor: fire at it from the right. Seiley, conserve your stamina for healing. Well? Get to it. I don’t wanna spend all day on trash mobs.”

Rian nodded, though he did so with clear hesitance. And then, after the rest of them climbed down the short ramp, Rian raised his axe-wielding hand and threw his arm forward, releasing his weapon and causing the axe to spin several times in the air until crashing into the fleshy part of Spike-Head Critter B’s body, dealing 1,544 damage and causing the stars to fade from above the creature’s spike-covered head. The axe, still spinning, then flew across the air a second time, returning with a thwack to Rian’s grip as he clutched his hand around the weapon, catching it.

“RAH-GWURB!” it cried as the mez was broken and it dashed forward towards Rian with surprising speed. Rian grinned, raised his axe, and pummeled it across the face for 2,111 the moment it reached him. And now, Zach saw his opportunity to join in. From the glint in the eyes of Lienne and Trelvor, they must have seen their own as well.

But then something happened.

The creature suddenly reversed its momentum. Without turning its body, its thousands of legs began moving in the opposite direction, and it began scurrying away from Rian back towards where it had been. It almost appeared to be running away.

It is! Does that mean Rian just used his…?

“Rian, you dumbass!” Jimmy shouted angrily. “Did you seriously just fear it?”

"Yeah, so what?”

“So what? The hell do you mean ‘so what?’ Aw, shit! Zach, now we’re in real trouble.”

Confused, Zach opened his mouth to ask why, but he closed it as he saw for himself what had alarmed Jimmy, for the moment that Spike-Head Critter B ran past the other two Spike-Head Critter mobs, the mezzes on them for some reason broke. And now, both began shuffling forward towards them. But even as they did so, the retreating, feared mob ran down a fairly narrow ramp at the end of the hallway and down another hall to the left and out of sight. It then reappeared just a moment later, but this time, it brought along with it three additional Spike-Head critter mobs, which must have picked up aggro off the feared one.

“Great job, Rian!” Jimmy growled. “You aggroed shit in the next room and broke my mez. Noob-ass bitch!”

“H-how was I supposed to know that would happen?” he cried out, appealing to his own defense.

“Common sense! Don’t be using fears for no reason! The hell is wrong with you?”

“Are we gonna be okay?” Lienne asked.

Rather than answer her question directly, Jimmy said, “I’ll slow them all, but we got nowhere to kite in this dungeon, so we need to burn them down fast. Focus A and C while B and the other adds head towards us.” Jimmy ran off to slow the others while Rian, clearly using his taunt, caused the Spike-Head Critter A and Spike-Head Critter C to slightly divulge from their path so that they moved straight towards him.

“I can handle this!” Rian called out.

The two, un-slowed mobs, made it to Rian very quickly, and immediately, the one on the left—Spike Head Critter A—jumped several feet into the air, flipped its body forward, and made a lunging, stabbing motion with the stone-like, cone-shaped spike on its head. Rian lifted his shield, bent his knees, and angled his body forward as he blocked it with a thunk, which caused the mob to bounce off the shield and flip right-side up as it landed back on its thousands of legs.

Despite its small size, the mob must have been pretty strong, because Rian stumbled a step or two backwards upon impact. And unfortunately, the other mob—Spike Head Critter C—chose this moment to attack. Like its friend, it jumped, spun forward, and lunged at Rian, who attempted to raise his shield once more. But this time, he was too slow.

“Gah!” Rian cried out as the mob’s cone-shaped spike pierced several inches into the flesh just above his belly. The mob then flew backwards, turned itself right-side up, and landed back on its feet as a frightening amount of dark red blood began leaking out of the wound in Rian’s sternum.

“Heal,” Jimmy said calmly—but he didn’t need to. Seiley was already raising her staff to do just that.

“Val En Maxi Lor!” Seiley chanted, causing her eyes to briefly shine with a green light while an even brighter green spotlight was shined on Rian as though he were the main character in a play. Within seconds, his wound closed up, he began breathing more easily, and he even managed to raise his shield and stop yet another lunging attack.

“Start DPS’ing!” Jimmy shouted at them. “Hurry! The adds are coming!”

Zach nodded, raised his blade so that the hilt was level with his eyes, and then he struck directly downwards. With a clack, his blade crashed into the spike atop the mob’s head, dealing 221 damage and causing a few flakes of stone-like material to pour off it like dust.

“Not there,” Jimmy growled. “That’s obviously its strong point! Hit anything other than the spike on its head.”

Zach nodded. In hindsight, it was obvious. He raised his blade to strike again. As he did so, a melody began to play from Trelvor’s glamorous new flute which, like Lienne’s new head piece, had come from the Mare of the Primordial Void. At once, an upbeat, marching melody filled the dungeon, and now, rather than the raven Zach had grown accustomed to, a different sort of figure emerged in the air before Trelvor.

So, that’s a ‘Warrior Sprite,’ huh? Zach thought.

The “Warrior Sprite” that appeared looked like a fairy, but it was male, had many more wings, and an angrier face. It was also tiny and could easily fit in the palm of one’s hand. Floating in the air before Trelvor, it wielded two equally tiny swords and produced a constant buzzing sound as what looked like eight wings flapped up and down fast enough to appear a blur. This buzzing then increased in volume as it took off fast, shooting across the distance and flying over Spike-Head Critter C so that it could then drop down through the air and begin swinging wildly at Spike-Head Critter A.

And for a small little thing, it could really put out some damage—and fast.

6,122

5,155

5,044

Lienne joined in, launching numerous flaming missiles.

2,591

3,022

3,000

1,992

And now, aiming more carefully, Zach ripped his blade downwards on an angle, succeeding in slicing the mob directly across the softer flesh beneath its spiked head and causing a foul-smelling, brown-colored blood to stain the tiled flooring beneath them.

8,112.

HP

69,962/105,000

Name

Spike-Head Critter A

Level

55

He raised his blade to strike again. In the corner of his eyes, he saw Spike-Head Critter B slowly moving towards them along with three new adds: D, E, and F. The four mobs moved as one big group, and from the looks of things, Jimmy was applying his poisons to all four as he backpedaled to where Zach was standing—and then continued to retreat backwards.

“Hurry up!”

“Okay, okay.”

Zach whipped his arms from left to right, then right to left, causing a tearing sound to fill the dungeon and more brown blood to shoot out of the creature as he struck for another 8,627 and 7,995. This, as the Warrior Sprite somehow managed to put out another 15,000 combined damage in just the time it took Zach to hit twice. The little thing’s arms were moving around like an industrial machine, delivering strike after strike after strike.

HP

38,340/105,000

Name

Spike-Head Critter A

Level

55

“Lienne!” Jimmy called. “Pull off A and C and start AE’ing the group of four heading our way! Now’s your chance!”

“Got it!”

Even as Zach focused on launching more attacks against his target with Trelvor, he saw Lienne casting in his peripheral vision, and he heard her chant, “Val En Maxi Flamir!”

A big circle appeared on the floor just ahead of where the mobs were heading, one big enough so that all four mobs could easily fit inside and then some. A moment after its appearance, the four mobs ran over the outer edge of the circle and soon crossed to the middle so that they were directly inside of it. Lienne, having timed the ability perfectly, grinned as a cylindrical, fifteen-foot-high pillar made of pure orange flame burst upwards, enclosing everything within the circle in fire and dealing between three- and four-thousand initial damage, which repeated several times as the slowed mobs scurried through and then outside of the attack. In total, each of them likely suffered more than 20k just from that one attack plus about another 7k from Jimmy’s three different poisons, which he’d stacked on them and had all ticked at once.

Zach, realizing the need to move quickly, delivered a three-hit combination attack at the exact same time Rian swiped with his axe—and all while the Warrior Sprite continued hacking away. Brown blood flew everywhere, some of it getting in Zach’s eyes. Delivering a fourth and final slash, Zach struck the killing blow, then took one hand off his weapon very briefly to wipe his eyes.

HP

0/105,000

Name

Spike-Head Critter A

Level

55

+7,000xp

To Next Level

7,000/500,000

Zachs scoffed at the pitiful amount of XP. As a group of seven, however, it was to be expected. Rian and Lienne had actually been the ones to teach him how XP worked backed in Yorna. With two people in a party, there was no penalty. With three to four, you lost half the XP rounded down. This increased to two-thirds if you adventured with five to seven, and with eight to ten, you only got a quarter of the mob’s XP value. Finally, with ten or more, you got nothing outside of bosses or raid mobs.

So this thing is probably worth 21k if you’re solo or duo, Zach thought. Good to know if I ever come back here.

Upon hitting zero HP, the mob toppled over onto its side and landed on the brick floor with a squish. It then began to shake and writhe before liquifying and disappearing into a form of acid, which stained the brick surface. It also left behind a shining blue light, which indicated a piece of loot had dropped. Shockingly, however, Zach barely even cared what it was, because blue meant “rare” and he had been spoiled by purple and higher to the extent that a regular-old rare didn’t even excite him anymore. Well…maybe it did a little.

I still want it!

For now, however, he’d put his curiosity aside while they dealt with Spike-Head Critter C and the four more of them that were crawling closer and closer to them.

HP

105,000/105,000

Name

Spike-Head Critter C

Level

55

Zach felt his adrenaline pick up as he realized they might not be able to deal with this one in time, which meant they’d end up having to fight five all at once. He wasn’t sure if Rian could handle that. “Let’s go!” Jimmy called out, reinforcing his worries. “Hurry up and kill it!”

“Okay, okay!”

Careful not to hit the defensive, spiked part of its head, Zach brought his sword around at an angle, cutting through the flesh on its body and hitting for 7,702. Then he raised it immediately, wasting no time at all before striking a second time. But then something caught his eye, and he immediately pulled off, grabbed Rian’s bicep, and dashed backwards, yanking his friend away from the mob.

Rian, losing his balance and falling onto his ass, yelled, “Zach, what the h—”

A circle formed on the ground, not all that dissimilar to the one Lienne’s spell had created, only this one was much smaller and seemingly tailored just to wrap around the target that had been struck. Following its appearance, a pillar of blue flame burst into existence: and one that was a shade of blue so dark that it might have been more accurate to call it black. This inferno, which trapped the creature inside the flame, not only managed to cover it entirely, but actually incinerated it. Zach watched as it burned away until nothing remained of it but ashes and a green glowing light indicating an uncommon piece of loot had dropped.

310,251

+7,000xp

“Gods!” Tyson cried out suddenly. “You’re…you really are everything they say you are!”

It took Zach a moment to realize that Tyson was speaking to him and not someone else. He must have been surprised by the damage number, though, to be fair, it was the lowest proc chance of the three abilities on his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness, so it made sense it was even more powerful than the light ability.

“Haha, nice!” Jimmy cheered. “You one-shot the thing. Attaboy! Okay, let's finish the rest off. Lienne, hit the group of four with another AOE before it gets to us.”

Lienne, who was already panting and sweating from her last area-of-effect attack, nodded as if to signal her compliance, though doing so caused sweat to roll down her forehead, trickle over her nose, and splash onto the floor. Raising her staff, she unleashed another of the attacks, and despite her exhaustion, she managed to nail them again; slowed, the mobs took several hits while passing through the pillar of flame that she’d summoned while another two ticks of Jimmy’s poison went off, causing each of them to release a synchronized “RAH-GWURB!”

Wow, Zach thought. They haven’t even reached us yet and they’re already slightly less than half HP.

“Rian, get ready!” Seiley shouted.

“I am!”

Rian pointed at one of the mobs with his left hand, likely to indicate a taunt, and then he threw his axe into the face of another, dealing 2,001 damage. Then he caught his axe, stepped forward, and clocked a third over the head just as the fourth jumped forward, spun its body, and lunged its spike into his shield, pushing him a few inches backwards. Two more then attempted the same attack, and this time around, Rian actually managed to maneuver his shield fast enough to block both. It was also here that Zach realized for the first time that Lienne and Rian were like way, way, way stronger than they’d been during Yorna.

Like way stronger.

This could only mean one thing: Seiley and Trelvor had been doing something that, while not technically power-leveling the twins, was close enough that it bordered on scandalous. Aside from Jimmy, no humans should have been able to catapult themselves through the levels as fast as Rian and Lienne had. Clearly, the two had found some additional benefits to dating Elves. Zach didn’t even want to guess what level they were right now, as it would only depress him and make him realize he was falling so far behind. He didn’t even want to know!

“Sweet!” Rian shouted out. “I just realized I leveled up to 48 on that last mob Zach killed.”

Looks like I’m finding out anyway, he thought with a sigh. Then he inhaled sharply as he realized that Rian and Lienne were now actually higher level than Jimmy! I seriously need to start leveling.

Zach knew he had no logical reason to feel disappointment, especially because level didn’t actually matter all that much. Stats were way more important than level. Leveling was just a number that approximated someone’s level of power, and even then, it did so very, very poorly. An adventurer’s stats were infinitely more relevant. Technically speaking, Zach was a good deal stronger than Rian or Lienne despite being level-26. And that was before considering Unleashed Phase. If he was using that, it would be a one-sided fight even if he took them both on at once. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t where he should be. Seriously, he needed to start rising like everybody else around him seemed to be doing.

Deciding to take out his angst on Spike-Head Critter B, Zach let fly a flurry of low chopping slices, one after the next, each dealing between 8- and 9-thousand damage; this, as Rian suffered three more painful-to-look-at stabbing attacks that Seiley had to heal while Lienne sat on the floor and rested, panting. Trelvor, making up for her slack, was playing his flute like he was performing in front of a thousand people, the melody filling the entire dungeon with its upbeat, marching tune.

“Gotcha!” Jimmy cried as a bluish orb blasted off the end of his staff and struck Spike-Head Critter B for 2,115 damage and scored the killing blow. As far as Zach was aware, that blue-orb thing was actually his one and only direct-damaging attack—or at least the only one Zach had ever seen him use—and even then, he rarely saw Jimmy call upon it. But now, clearly having used Breath of Invigoration on himself, Jimmy was practically spamming the ability with glee.

+7,000xp

Zach, stepped carefully around Rian’s left side and shoved his entire blade through the soft-portion of Spike-Head Critter D’s body for 8,771. Then he winced as Rian failed to block another of the spike-head attacks, this one seeming to penetrate his heart. Luckily, however, due to a combination of his gear, constitution, and armor, the spike did not penetrate deeply enough to where Rian would require a purple or even a red stone. Instead, like the other times, Seiley was able to call down her heal upon him, patching him up instantly. But he had lost a lot of blood by this point. It was all over the floor around where he was standing, staining the dark blue bricks a shade of red.

“Lienne, do you still have your second yellow rejuvenation stone from Mushkie?” Zach called out as he spun around, ducked low, and swiped his blade wide, ripping off whatever strange collection of sensory organs passed for Spike-Head Critter D’s “face.”

Tyson cleared his throat. “What or who is a Mushkie?”

“None of your business,” Zach said. “Anyway, Lienne, do you still have one?”

“Yeah,” she replied, still breathing heavily. “I only used the one yellow so far—on Tyson. I’ve still got my purple, two reds, and the other yellow.”

“Okay, good. Rian’s probably going to need it after we finish off these three.”

She gave him a thumbs-up, clearly too exhausted to reply. For a moment, her visage was obscured by a cluster of galaxies from that admittedly cool steeple-hat she’d won from the Mare of the Primordial Void raid. After they moved away, Zach could clearly see the fatigue in her eyes. Lienne was slouching over as though it required a good deal of effort just to sit upright. It seemed that those big area-of-effect attacks she’d used had really winded her. But that changed rather quickly as Jimmy, likely having just filled up his “bar” a second time, now cast Breath of Invigoration on her. Within ten seconds, she was back on her feet, a shocked and delighted expression on her face. “Whoah!”

“I know, right?” Zach asked with a laugh.

With Lienne once more blasting the mobs along with everyone but Tyson, the last three perished pretty quickly, and Zach claimed another +21,000xp. Following that, Zach sheathed his blade, lowered his head, and scanned the floor for loot. It seemed three things had dropped: a rare item and two uncommon.

“Let’s see what we got,” he said with an intentionally menacing snicker.

Kneeling down, he quickly took a gander at all three. It was mostly junk—something Jimmy appeared to realize without even bothering to look at it, as he muttered, “Vendor trash” and turned away. It was another new term Zach wasn’t familiar with, but it didn’t take a whole lot of thinking to figure out what was meant by it. Still, Zach examined the dropped items just to satisfy his curiosity. The first was a broadsword, one that was mostly unremarkable though it did contain a bit of flourish in its red-colored edges and looped handle. It didn’t seem to drop with any kind of scabbard or sheath, however. It was just kind of lying there, loose.

Name

Guard Breaking Blade of Karnzon

Level

47

Rarity

Rare

Strength

+11

Dexterity

+8

Speed

+8

Passive Ability

11% chance on successful melee strike to lower target’s DEF by 15% for 10 seconds

The two uncommon items were also extremely “meh.”

Name

Spiked Gauntlets of Dexterous Agility

Level

30

Rarity

Uncommon

Armor

+3

Dexterity

+4

Speed

+5

Name

Ring of Warmth

Level

30

Rarity

Uncommon

Strength

+2

Ice Resistance

+9%

Zach paused a moment as an idea came to him. He looked the others in the eyes, then received nods from five of the six of them as though they seemed to share the same thought he'd just had. “Hey, Tyson,” he said.

“Y-yes, Sir Calador?”

Zach waved him over. He approached and squatted down next to him. “Good news. You just got three adventuring drops. And look!” Zach picked up the sword and handed it to Tyson, who took it from him, though he did so hesitantly and uneasily as though it were a disgusting object. “You have a weapon now! Looks like you’ll be fighting with us.”

Tyson did not seem happy.

Chapter 192: How to Get It Done

Chapter 192: How to Get It Done

Pausing to make sure there were no stragglers, Zach rounded the corner at the end of a hall that was significantly narrower than the one before it had been. There was an opening ahead, though it was clear of any enemies, as Rian had already unintentionally pulled the mobs here with his fear. Looking over his shoulder, Zach watched as Tyson, awkwardly holding his new sword, came hobbling into the room, misery on his face.

“Sir Calador, it appears we’re at another dead end,” he said as he turned his body around full circle.

From all appearances, he looked to be correct. They were now in a room that was perfectly square in shape, not entirely large, and lacked any unique characteristics aside from an open section of the wall above them and to their left that was letting in a blinding ray of light and another opening beside it that provided a view of the dome-shaped structure they were inside of. There were also four glass-like crystal columns positioned at each corner of the room.

“Ugh,” Jimmy said as though annoyed. “It’s one of these.”

“These?” Zach asked.

He pointed at the patch of light on the floor. “Yeah, it’s one of those puzzles where you have to move glass crystals so that they reflect the light off the floor, out of the other opening, and into some target we have to figure out, and then the door or hatch or whatever will open.”

By the time Zach felt his jaw dropping, it had already fully dropped. Even Rian was gawking in amazement. But how could they not be surprised? Despite everything Jimmy had already shown them with regards to his knowledge of the adventuring world, the fact that he could just spout out some overly complex bullshit and turn out to be correct—it was never going to feel completely normal, was it? Like, that was such a detailed thing he’d just said. Who in their right mind would see a streak of light and naturally just think that they needed to manipulate the direction of that light?

Someone who views the entire world as a deliberate game, he realized.

“It’s amazing,” Rian said, no mockery at all in his voice. “Jimmy really did receive some kind of special, elite training. I mean, if he’s right and that’s actually what we have to do, then wow. Just wow.”

“It is,” Jimmy said. He rubbed his forehead as though annoyed or stressed. “Ya’ll need to stop acting like this every time I say something basic. Again, where I’m from, this kinda’ puzzle is common as hell. Anybody would just know it. It’s actually cliché.”

“What’s klee-shay?” Zach asked.

Jimmy mumbled something to himself. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get this over with so we can—”

“Wait!” Lienne called out, raising her hand up high like she was in school.

“What’s up?”

“I wanna do it.”

“I want to do it too!” Seiley said, now raising her hand as well. Then the two looked at each other and smiled. “Me and Lienne want to do it. Let us solve the puzzle.”

Jimmy looked at Zach, who shrugged back to him. “I mean, you’re the one who’s always calling this a game,” he said to Jimmy. “Might as well let the girls do one of the ‘puzzles’ as you call them.”

“That’s right,” Lienne said.

“Actually, that is right,” Rian added. “We should be taking turns solving the puzzles. It’s bullshit Jimmy gets to just strut around and do everything all the time.”

Jimmy chuckled. “Be my guest. But none of you would even know that there is a puzzle if I didn’t say so.”

“Yeah, so? You can tell us which thing is a puzzle and how it works and we can figure it out once we know the rules.”

Unexpectedly, Tyson voiced his agreement, as it seemed that, even he, the total coward, found the idea of “solving dungeon puzzles” to be entertaining. Though, Zach suspected that was only because he wasn’t aware that sometimes mobs could come out of these puzzle contraptions. But at least he was showing some degree of initiative. In fact, the only person here who wasn’t was Trelvor.

“I don’t think we should fall into the misguided trap of treating this as ‘fun’ or a ‘game,’” he said sternly. “We are here to advance the will of the Great Goddess. It may be sinful for us to be overly hedonistic in what should be a more noble pursuit.”

“Hedonism is what I live for,” Tyson said with a merry laugh. Then a chirp came from somewhere inside his silk robe, and he removed his phone and looked down upon it. Suddenly, his facial expression changed—dramatically. For the first time since meeting him, he looked and behaved like someone his age. His expression turned serious, then dire, then exhausted before settling on subdued. Slowly, he put his phone away and then made a very insincere, very forced smile. “Shall we proceed?”

“Uh, okay,” Rian said. Walking over to Zach, he whispered, “What was that about?”

Zach shrugged. Then, speaking conversationally, he said, “Wait, our phones work in here? How am I only realizing that now?”

“Oh, you’re right,” Seiley said, removing her own, which like Jimmy, she’d only recently purchased. Though she was born on Galterra like the rest of the green-cloaks, she’d spent most of her life on Archian Prime and was still catching up on all the things she’d missed out on since leaving here as a little girl, including getting older and buying her first phone. “It does work.”

Trelvor, like all the white cloaks, still had no device of his own and did not seem interested in buying one. He also didn’t appear to realize the significance of the fact that phones were working here, so Zach explained it to him. “Our phones working means we’re still on Galterra,” he said to Trelvor. “As far as where we are, I’m not sure.”

“I am,” Rian said, laughing. He turned his screen to Zach. “We’re in Giant’s Fall according to GPS. We must be really deep underground.”

“It’s nice to be on our own planet for once,” Zach said. “I’m glad we didn’t go that far.”

“And we’re still not going far,” Jimmy grumbled. “Can ya’ll get a move on this shit, please?”

Seiley and Lienne looked at one another again, and then both laughed as they ran over and began moving one of the glass-like crystal columns, each of them grabbing one side of it and rolling it across the brick surface with a deep scratching sound towards the pool of light on the floor. The moment they began sliding it in place, the light struck the bluish-green crystal and reflected strongly off it in a way that seemed to defy the laws of physics. It then reversed directions completely, blasting out to the right, stretching across the room and coming to an end on the opposite wall about halfway to the ceiling.

“Nice,” Jimmy said. “So uh, what you need to do now is—”

“Don’t tell us!” Lienne shouted at him.

“Sheesh, okay.”

The two girls turned towards one another and began whispering as if in some kind of deliberation. “This is really easy once you know what you’re actually supposed to do,” Lienne said.

“Yeah,” Seiley whispered back.

The two of them grabbed another crystal and moved it as they had the first. Zach watched, amused, as it made more scraping sounds along the brick flooring as they used the crystal to intercept the beam of light and redirect it once more to the opposite corner of the room. Then they whispered to each other some more and undid what they’d only just done, causing the light to yet again hit the wall to everyone’s right.

Now, they repositioned the crystal so that it was just in front of the second opening they were apparently supposed to be shining light through. The moment they had it where they seemed to want it, the two girls separated, with Lienne grabbing the third crystal on her own and Seiley grabbing the fourth. Lienne made a happy squeak as she moved the crystal against the wall to the right, intercepting the beam of light and shooting it towards Seiley, who had moved the fourth crystal against the back wall, causing it to redirect the light yet again.

This is wild, Zach thought, stepping back and realizing that there was now a bending, turning beam of light that was moving all the way around the room. And it continued to move while Seiley made slight rotational adjustments with her crystal until the light connected with the second crystal near the second opening, causing a final beam of light to at last shoot out of the second opening.

Finally, the two girls once more rejoined, and together, they carefully adjusted the second crystal as if aiming for something. “It has to be that blue crystal all the way across the dome,” Seiley said.

“Yeah, definitely.”

They made a few more slight rotations, and then several seconds transpired before, finally, the entire room began to shake and rumble, this time even more forcefully than it had the last time, and most of it was concentrated on the right side of the wall, which began to crumble. Bricks were falling out of it one by one, and then the entire wall simply turned to dust, revealing the entrance to another area—one that was obscured by something.

Something huge.

“MRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” cried a large, hairy, ape-like creature more than ten feet in height with massive, orange, and fur-covered arms that ended in freakishly huge clenched fists. The creature had two sharp tusks protruding from a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth, and its eyes were green in color. The creature began pounding its huge fists against its chest.

HP

310,000/310,000

Name

(T1) Mighty Kongex of Karnzon

Level

55

“Boss fight!” Jimmy shouted out just a bit too happily.

Zach quickly drew his sword. “It’s only T1, but we should still take this seriously.”

“Treat it like it’s level 65,” Rian said, raising his axe and shield. Seiley and Trelvor readied their staff and flute respectively, and Lienne was already casting her defense buff on everyone in their group, including Tyson, who was reacting to this situation in a way slightly different from how Zach had assumed he would.

To be sure, the man definitely released a fearful croak, and he was certainly trembling along with showing other signs of uneasiness. But all of it came across as a bit more subdued now. It was as though something was on his mind: something so significant that it lessened his reaction to seeing what, normally, would have him crying out as though he’d already been murdered.

What’s gotten into him?

Zach didn’t have time now to figure it out. Right now, he needed to concentrate on the boss. At the instruction of Jimmy, he began spreading out so that the seven of them formed a loosely separated link from one side of the room to the other. Then Rian threw his axe at the monster, clipping it in the jaw and doing a paltry 558 damage. It wasn’t even enough to draw blood.

“We got a tough boy,” Rian said with a chuckle as his axe began returning to him.

It never made it.

The boss, moving even faster than the axe, let out a mighty roar and then jumped forward into the air while raising both its huge fists. Zach, Lienne, Jimmy, Trelvor, Seiley, and even Tyson all shouted his name in warning as the huge creature dropped straight down on top of him as Rian raised his shield directly upwards and reinforced it with his second, free hand. What followed was a terrifying clunk as both the creature’s fists bashed down on the shield, and then a secondary thud as Rian was smashed down onto the floor on his back.

“Rian!” Zach yelled. “Are you okay? Rian!”

“Y-yeah,” he said. Then he began groaning as, while lying flat on his back, he was forced to raise his shield as the creature began punching down at him, alternating between its left fist and its right fist; this, as a clack emanated from behind them as Rian’s axe became lodged in the brick wall.

“MRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” the creature roared as it slammed down its left fist, then right fist, then left, each one making a thunk against Rian’s shield. But Rian was struggling. Zach doubted he would be able to hold on for much longer. He was being badly overwhelmed.

Zach, flooding with urgency, activated Halting Strike. Since he wasn’t in Unleashed Phase, he paid for the ability immediately, but being that it was only a Low-Medium Exertion Cost, it didn’t tax him all that heavily.

Disturbed by the sight of the beast’s fists slamming down over and over against Rian’s shield, Zach leapt into the air and raised his blade high above his head as it began to light up with reddish sparks, which covered the blade from the hilt to the edge. Then he slashed directly downwards, cutting the beast from its forehead to its right cheek, hitting for 6,511 damage and leaving a bloodied red streak in its flesh that perfectly traced the trajectory of his blade.

It also caused the T1 boss’s body to become covered in reddish tendrils of electricity, and for just a moment, all activity halted.

“Good stun!” Jimmy called out. “Rian, move!”

At its best, Zach’s stun could only last for 1.2 seconds. And in this case, that was simply not long enough, as that wasn’t even enough time for Rian to realize he needed to move let alone for him to be able to pull himself together and do so. For this reason, Zach followed up his stun with yet another ability.

“Rooting!” he called out as he activated Frostbind, the ability on his Robes of Dark Awakening that had a fifteen-minute cooldown and could root a target for up to thirty seconds. Now, as the stun broke on the boss, it was replaced by a number of frozen shackles made of pure ice that burst through the brick flooring, destroying several bricks in the process as they clamped tightly around its feet, securing it to the floor. At the same time, Trelvor ran over, grabbed Rian’s shoulders, and slid him away from the boss just as it slammed both its fists down at once, blasting a small hole in the floor and causing more bricks to go scattering.

“MRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

On wobbly feet, Rian got back up, now looking more winded and disoriented than he did in pain. “Thanks, Zach—and Trelvor.” To Jimmy, he said, “I don’t think I can tank this thing.”

“You’ve gotta!” Jimmy snapped. “Otherwise we need to retreat.”

“Okay, so we’ll retreat.”

Jimmy gave Rian a look of such outrage one would have thought Rian had just insulted Jimmy’s mother. “Hell no.”

Rian returned the look with one that rivaled Jimmy’s outrage. “You’re not listening to me, buddy. I can’t tank that thing!”

Zach sighed. “I can.”

Now, the six of them looked his way. “No way you can tank that,” Jimmy said, shaking his head. “Unless you’re planning on using your ability.”

“No, I don’t need to use Unleashed Phase on this. I can tank it without that.”

“How?” Jimmy demanded. “If Rian can’t take a hit from it, what makes you think you can?”

“Oh, I definitely can’t.”

“Uh, okay, so then how the fuck are you gonna tank it?”

“Because I won’t let it hit me!”

Jimmy again shook his head. “That’s dumb as hell. Not a great idea.” He swore. “If we only had more room, I could solo this thing.”

“I told you,” Zach said, becoming irritated. “I got this one.” He stepped forward even as Rian and Lienne began to warn him to come back. “Just make sure nobody attacks it until I get firm aggro. I don’t have any taunts, so I have to bust it up a bit before it’s locked onto me.”

They all began shouting at him, but Zach ignored each and every word and instead put his focus on the massive, hairy creature, who with a grunt and a lurch, managed to snap free of its bindings. It was still locked on to Rian, however. With another roar, it began stomping its huge feet onto the brick flooring, causing the room to shake as it dashed to where Rian was backing away towards the previous room where they’d fought the initial three Spike-Head Critter mobs.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Zach growled at it.

As the creature darted by, he turned his body to the right and extended both of his arms, holding his sword directly out in front of him and letting the creature slice its own self on his blade. Now, a second bloodied streak joined the first, this one running from its belly to the back of its right hip as it shot past Zach, taking 5,555 damage. But this, it seemed, was just enough to cause the boss to switch aggro, as despite Rian’s initial taunt, Zach was now responsible for having dealt every point of damage it had taken thus far aside from the 558 Rian had done initially.

HP

297,376/310,000

Name

(T1) Mighty Kongex of Karnzon

Level

55

The boss continued to run towards Rian for several seconds. Then it planted its feet, coming to a rough halt. It spun around, its lips peeled back, and now, at Zach, it released another roar. But something was different about this roar. Something very strange; namely, the fact that Zach could actually see it. He could see the roar in the form of a dark, reddish-orange aura that came out of its mouth in a cone shape and extended all the way across the room, covering Zach in its cold, dark energy.

“MRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Name

Weakening Scream II

Effect

-50 Armor

Duration

5:00

“Z-Zach!” Lienne cried out in warning. “What did it just do to you?”

“Nothing,” Zach said as he rotated his shoulders and assumed a fighting stance as the boss approached. “Just some armor debuff.”

Jimmy looked uncertain and worried, which was unlike him. “See if you can get around it and come over to us. If we need to back out of here, I can—”

“I told you!” Zach interrupted, cutting him off. “This thing’s not so bad. Just stay back and don’t attack it until I say so!”

Jimmy’s uneasiness seemed to grow as he nodded, slowly. “All right. It’s just I’m not sure…I haven’t figured out what kind of boss this is yet. And I don’t like the terrain we’re fighting on.”

Can’t believe he’s acting like this, Zach thought. It was only in this moment he realized that Jimmy’s courage came with certain restrictions. Typically, he seemed willing to take any risk, no matter how great, as long as he felt secure in his knowledge of the situation or the way that events were unfolding. But as soon as he found himself in a situation where something was happening that he didn’t quite know or he found himself in a place that was a bit too enclosed for him to do his crazy boss-kiting bullshit, all of that went out the window.

Jimmy needs to get better at adapting on the fly, Zach thought. He’s the most confident person in the world until he doesn’t know something.

Zach, having heard enough from the others, decided to take the lead for the time being. He once more tuned them out and trained his eyes on the boss, who having debuffed his armor, began pounding its chest before crossing the distance to Zach in just two quick strides. And yet, before it even managed to move its left fist, Zach had already noticed the twitch of its left shoulder muscle—and thus he already knew exactly what was coming his way.

“Tell me you can do better than that,” Zach taunted as the boss attacked.

With incredible force, the suitably named Mighty Kongex of Karnzon slammed its clenched fist down on top of Zach like a hammer. But Zach, seeing it coming, made a short, concise hop to his left, then followed up with one to his right as the boss brought down its opposite fist. Then it tried to bludgeon him with both fists at the same time, and for this, Zach jumped much higher up into the air while quickly raising his wrists, slicing the boss vertically up its throat, over its lips, nose, and finally its forehead for 8,211 damage.

As the boss’s fists crushed down onto the brick floor, Zach spun himself around midair and slashed the boss from the very top of its scalp all the way down its shoulders, its hairy back, its right knee, and then down to its very foot, leaving his longest and bloodiest gash yet and dealing 11,211 damage as he landed deftly onto his feet. From there, Zach swung his blade twice more in just the time it took the boss to turn around, but these were fast, opportune strikes that sliced at its oversized ass, adding another two bloody streaks for 4,011 and 5,211 damage, one on each hairy butt cheek.

“MRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The T1 boss, once again facing in Zach’s direction, tried again to slam both of its fists down on top of Zach. But its stance was wider now than it had been before, so rather than jump over its head, Zach darted forward, threw himself onto his back, and slid beneath its legs an instant before he was turned to mush. Then he spun his body around completely and unleashed a spinning slice of his sword that cut from hip to hip for 7,899 and also activated the light ability on his weapon, causing dozens of white, glowing, star-shaped emblems to appear all around the boss before converging upon it and exploding in a blast of light, dealing another 72,592 and causing blood to begin pouring out of its nose, eyes, and chest.

HP

188,241/310,000

Name

(T1) Mighty Kongex of Karnzon

Level

55

The boss, banging its chest, jumped straight up into the air and then slammed down onto the ground where Zach was standing, using both of its big, bare feet. Zach threw himself forward and came into a roll, moving in the direction of the others and avoiding the attack completely. Then he jumped up to his feet and began furiously whipping his arms from left to right as the mob entered into an awkward crouch and began to stand back up. Utilizing each and every second it took the mob to reposition and reorient its body and posture, Zach struck the boss five times in the back and three times on its belly by the time it had turned around.

6,441

5,211

7,666

7,664

4,295

8,081

8,000

5,272

HP

135,611/310,000

Name

(T1) Mighty Kongex of Karnzon

Level

55

Zach laughed at the boss, which now had so many bloodied streaks across its body that it looked like it was being carved up for dinner. To that end, Zach’s blade now had gross orange hair all over the edge, which he began to shake off. Then he held it at the ready and nodded at the boss. “That all you got?”

“MRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The boss launched into a frenzied series of fist strikes, alternating between its left and right fist with absolutely no variation or change in timing. This must have been the attack that almost killed Rian. It was relentless, and it went on for several-dozen punches, the mob striking over and over with its hammer-fist attacks. But with such a steady, constant rhythm, Zach was able to simply shuffle from side to side while slashing out with his blade between fist strikes, dealing out another 31,476 total damage before the mob’s attack ended, at which time Zach took a lunging step forward and plunged his blade through the beast’s heart, hitting for 7,221 and causing his stamina buff to proc.

Whew, I needed that, he thought, realizing he’d begun to sweat. At once, his breathing, which hadn’t quite been heavy but was approaching it, softened, and his heart rate went back to near resting.

“MRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” the creature roared. The floor was now absolutely covered in the creature’s blood, and it continued to leak more and more of it as it pursued Zach. It slammed just its left fist down, so Zach moved quickly to the opposite side. Then, twisting his body to the right, he quickly spun in the opposite direction while launching himself upwards and extending his arms, performing his strongest strike yet: a jumping, spinning slash that slit the boss’s entire neck open, dealing 14,112 while a jet of dark red blood sprayed out of the wound; but most importantly, the attack actually caused the boss to moan as it stumbled several steps backwards and then fell over like toppled giant, landing hard onto its back.

Zach, who was still midair, turned his sword downwards and landed directly on its chest, plunging his sword into its heart a second time for 10,001 before pulling out and piercing it a third time for another 11,200. The boss, writhing, shot back up, causing Zach to fling off his belly, flip backwards in the air—purposefully, just to taunt Rian—and then land softly onto his feet. He then rushed forward and whipped his blade back and forth, dealing yet another 6,255 and 7,877 damage respectively, and it was on the second of these two strikes that his light ability proc’d once more.

Seeing the dozens of star-shaped emblems of pure light surrounding the critically wounded, near-death boss, Zach decided to be a showoff. He immediately halted his third attack, and instead, he fully turned his back to this dangerous boss, stared the others in the eyes, and actually sheathed his blade as he heard the explosion and saw just the afterglow of the emblems of light exploding.

“You guys can help now.”

HP

0/310,000

Name

(T1) Mighty Kongex of Karnzon

Level

55

+110,000xp

Zach chuckled. He’d completely forgotten they were there at all and thus had likewise forgotten to order them to attack. And now, they were speechless. For a time, they stared at Zach as though he were some kind of strange, mysterious being. Even Jimmy was at a loss for words. But why were they so surprised? It was only a T1.

“Okay then,” Rian whispered. “Let’s loot and move on.”

Chapter 193: The Secret Dungeon

Chapter 193: The Secret Dungeon

As Kalana stepped out of the dungeon and into the Grand Library, a blast of cold air from the air conditioning met her arrival. Before taking another step, however, she paused for just a moment to adjust her blouse and to ensure there were no folds in her skirt. Here in Varda’s Lair, they were, like, really, really strict when it came to how people were dressed on weekdays during business hours. And even though Kalana was very unlikely to be bothered due to her position and status, it wouldn’t reflect well on the Elves if she was seen disobeying local laws.

“Hello again, Princess Kalana,” the Head Librarian said, standing up from his desk and bowing.

“You can just call me Kalana,” she said to the elderly adventurer. “And umm, hi again, Stenle.”

“Here for the prince, I take it?”

“Yep. Hope he’s been good today. My mom yelled at him yesterday ‘cause of a bad report he got for talking without raising his hand in class.”

“Aww, the poor thing.”

For the past few days, she’d been coming through here at right around this time in the afternoon to pick up Pete from school. But today was different. She was unusually flustered, but she knew she needed to keep the agitation off her face or else she might upset the little boy.

I just need to calm down, she thought.

Things were going really badly today. It wasn’t just the disastrous meeting with Vim earlier this morning. No, something way worse had happened, and it was distressing her greatly. It was to the extent that she found it hard to concentrate on anything else, her mind wandering and a feeling of sickness entering her stomach.

I need to get back as quick as I can.

Even before things took such a harsh turn for the worse, her routine had been grueling. Every morning, she got up early to take Pete to school—arriving and leaving just before the morning dress code came into effect—then dungeon-hopped her way to Shadowfall Coast, where she’d spend the day until having to quickly change out of her gear and into professional attire around mid-day to pick up Pete. Then she’d dungeon-hop him home, spend about thirty minutes eating lunch, and head right back to Shadowfall Coast until late into the night. It was a lot. There was so much pressure on her now.

But things had become so much worse today, and it made her tremble with anger and sadness alike. Because earlier today, in the safe zone she’d established—the place where she’d promised there’d be no violence—someone, likely a leveled person, had murdered two of the resistance leaders during an already fraught moment of tension between them and the Royal Roses.

As Kalana hurried through the Grand Library, down the large staircase, and out the front entrance into the strict, but immaculately clean city of Varda’s Lair, she continued to run through her mind what little facts were currently known about the murders—and there weren’t many. Still, she again considered what they knew.

For starters, witnesses reported hearing gunshots, but the wounds on the two men looked more like they were struck by miniature cannons, and there weren’t any bullet fragments found anywhere on their bodies. This meant that it wasn’t likely a level-1 who was responsible. And if that was the case, Kalana was sure this was the work of Vim Alazar. Sure, the mean man had publicly decried the violence “during a time of negotiation” but Kalana was certain he was responsible for it. He’d probably hired someone! Like a bounty hunter or something. Honestly, Kalana was really getting sick and tired of Vim Alazar and everything he stood for. She disliked him a lot. He was also a very creepy pervert and was always saying really gross things about her mom.

Walking a bit faster, she headed towards the prestigious school, where Peter had likely been waiting for at least fifteen minutes to be picked up. She was a little late, but it should be okay, though, because Ruby was there with him. She needed to make sure she behaved normally around Pete. He was a very sensitive child and would start to cry if Kalana acted like something was wrong.

As soon as I get back there, I’m gonna find this assassin and arrest him, she thought, vowing to have him charged with murder, leveled or not. There were ways of containing a leveled person, and she’d make sure the Elves used them. Nobody got to just go around murdering people. Especially not in her safe zone! The assassin was going to pay big time. Kalana was piping mad about this. How dare someone come into her safe zone and start killing people after she’d worked so hard to—

“Bzz. Bzz.”

Her mood changed as she heard her phone vibrating in her bag, in which she’d stuffed her adventuring gear and other equipment since her dress had no pockets. She fished through it and smiled at the name of the caller.

“Hey, baby,” she said. “I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

“Kal!” the voice shouted at her.

Her mood immediately turned serious. “Zach, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just need you to come here immediately.”

“Come where? Where are you?”

The words he said next caused her stomach to drop. “I’m in some dungeon Jimmy found.”

“Nah-uh! Don’t even tell me you’re doing that again!” she shouted. “I’m worried about so many different things right now, and you’re already—”

“—Kal, it’s fine, it’s fine, we’re fine.”

“Is it? If you’re calling me to come rescue you, how can it be fine?”

“Huh? Oh, no, that’s not what this is at all. Everybody’s fine. We just need your help.”

“My help?”

“Yeah. See, we’re almost through this really cool dungeon—way more than halfway, actually—and we just got stuck on this part that requires eight people to stand on a pressure plate and we only have seven. And you can’t trick it with objects.”

Kalana had so much going on right now and so many things to do that she didn’t have the emotional energy at the moment to process the fact that Zach had gone running off into yet another unexplored dungeon. For this reason, all she could do was breathe a sigh of relief that he and those with him were okay. From the sound of voices in the background of the call, it seemed like Trelvor and Seiley were there, too, which made her feel even more relief, as they would definitely prevent Jimmy and Zach from getting into too much trouble.

As Kalana listened to Zach ramble on and on about the dungeon, Kalana eventually had to interrupt him as she wasn’t currently in a state of mind to be able to absorb any of it. “Zach, umm, I really can’t help you right now,” she said. “I’m busy picking up Pete from school and then I gotta go back to Shadowfall Coast.”

“Kal, fuck Shadowfall Coast. Grab Pete and come here. You’d love it. We’re all taking turns solving the puzzles. And the mobs are pretty easy. Loot is absolute shit, though. Just vendor trash.”

“Vendor trash?”

“It’s a word Jimmy uses to mean garbage you should just sell to Mushkie or another NPC item vendor. But yeah, ditch Shadowfall Coast and come hang out with us.”

Upon hearing his words, the only thing that stopped Kalana from becoming extremely irritated and angry was the fact that she knew he meant well. Even still, she couldn’t stop the frustration that crept into her voice as she replied, “Zach, I have tons of responsibilities right now. I can’t come. You shouldn’t even be asking me.”

“But you don’t understand. We’ve made it so, so far. Backing out now would suck so much.”

“Why don’t you just ask Donovan or Zephyr?”

“We don’t want to involve those two just yet. Jimmy is worried they’ll make us stop what we’re doing and spend a month studying the dungeon or something like that. That’s why we want you to come here.”

“Zach, I can’t!” she snapped, angrier than she’d intended to be. “I’m sorry. I gotta go.”

“Kal, wait,” he said, his tone concerned. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know,” she said softly, her voice now approaching a whisper. “I’m just really stressed out, and I wanna go, but I can’t.” She took a slow breath to calm herself then added, “If you want, I can send someone to help you.”

“Wait, you can?”

“Yeah. Where are you guys?”

“We’re technically in Giant’s Fall, but you can only get here from Dragon Squire. I know, that’s a crazy thing to say, but…dungeons, right?”

“Yeah, okay. You’re in Dragon Squire. I can probably have someone come. Just tell me exactly where you are and then hang out there for an hour or two.”

“Thanks! And I’m sorry if I pissed you off.”

“You didn’t. And…I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Zach told her exactly how to find him, and then the call ended, and when it did, Kalana tried not weep. She was just feeling so overwhelmed.

********

Sitting on a ledge that ran all the way around a rectangular room built almost entirely out of a dark-colored stone, Zach gave everyone a thumbs up, beaming. “I think we’ve got someone.”

“Who?” Rian asked, sitting across from him on the direct opposite end of the extremely cluttered room. He was also slightly below Zach, as this room was on a downward slanted angle like a seesaw—as were most things since this entire dungeon consisted of heading down the sides of a huge dome.

Earlier, Jimmy had scored a major victory against Rian by making a joke that Rian’s weight was causing the entire structure to tip over. It was hilarious and probably one of Jimmy’s biggest wins against Rian since the two had met. Rian had tried to recover by throwing out a few drug-related insults, but Jimmy’s quip had just been too strong, and Rian had been stuck playing defense ever since.

Zach, whose feet were about a foot above the floor, scooted off the ledge and began walking very carefully to the middle of the room. “I don’t know who exactly is coming,” he said, “but I assume it’s an Elf.”

Trelvor and Seiley’s ears seemed to twitch at this. “An Elf?” Trelvor asked. “How do you know?”

“Because Kal said she’s sending someone.”

“Ahh, that makes sense. Princess Kalana is likely ordering one of her subjects to come assist us.”

Following the death of the big ape-looking boss, things had proceeded very, very smoothly in this dungeon, which seemed to consist of a puzzle room followed by a battle encounter. And though the XP was greatly reduced due to them having seven members in their party, they’d fought through a significant number of weird and strange-looking creatures after each puzzle, such that Zach had already earned another 210,000 experience points

To Next Level

362,277/500,000

The mobs in this dungeon dropped a lot of stuff, too, but almost all of it was crap. There were a few decent things such as some consumable XP cookie items and some “forever fresh” food and snack drops, but mostly, the drops were green and blue—uncommon and rare—and not particularly good. Most of it went into storage to be sold later at the item shop, and the things that weren’t they gave to Tyson, who was now wearing a full set of mismatched, mis-colored gear and looked totally ridiculous and hilarious.

But something’s definitely wrong with him, Zach thought.

Ever since checking his phone earlier, he’d been very quiet and had been complying with Zach’s instructions fairly well. He’d even begun taking a few slices at enemies with his new sword, though they were mostly killing things so fast that they never had the chance to see his amazing passive ramp up to the point where he actually contributed much. But what really surprised Zach was just how willing he was to do whatever they told him to do without questioning any of it. It was as though his mind was elsewhere and his body was merely along for the ride.

And so, now, with what looked like at least an hour or two to kill, Zach decided to have a chat with the red-haired, strangely behaving man. “Hey, Tyson,” he said, approaching in a way that seemed to make Jimmy nervous.

“Zach, be careful where you step!” Jimmy hissed. “We only get three chances to solve this puzzle or we have to start over from six rooms ago.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

This room had a strange puzzle where there were a whole bunch of pressure plates—about thirty—and they had to step on eight of them within five seconds in the correct order. Jimmy and Trelvor had figured out the pattern, but with only seven of them, it was still unsolvable, and dropping a weight or a rock, no matter how heavy, did not seem to depress the plate. It seemed it required a sentient individual to step atop it. The puzzle was in figuring out the order and then having the eight people go at it.

Above them, and near a bolted, metal door that none of them were strong enough to knock down, there was a small LED screen with the number “3.” A short while ago, when they’d first attempted this puzzle, that number had decreased by 1 for each failure, and upon hitting zero, they’d all been teleported back up six puzzle rooms and had to fight their way through all over again, as it’d also caused the mobs to respawn.

Now, carefully stepping around each pressure plate, Zach took a seat next to Tyson. “Hey, Tyson. So, uh…I can’t help but notice you’ve been acting strange ever since we got here,” he said right off the bat, not bothering with any kind of preamble. “Ever since you checked your phone before that T1 boss, you’ve been different.”

Tyson regarded him with a warm, off-putting smile. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “Perhaps I’m just feeling a bit uneasy.”

“About what?”

“The dungeon.”

Zach grunted. “Stop bullshitting. You’re clearly upset about whatever was on your phone. You don’t have to say if you don’t want to, it’s just…I can’t pretend I’m not at least a little curious.”

Tyson looked away, and then Zach watched him stare directly at a wall as though he was looking beyond it at something far off in the distance that only he could see. He said nothing for a while, and Zach was just about to get up and leave him alone when he at last released a sad chuckle and said, “I don’t have long.”

“For what?” Zach asked him.

“To live,” he stated bluntly.

“What do you mean?”

“Your girlfriend and her mother will most likely kill me tonight. I want you to forgive them, as it will have been my own fault.”

“Wait, what?”

Shuffling forward, off the ledge, and dropping a few inches onto the floor, Tyson moved away to his own corner of the room as though no longer willing to speak. Zach called out after him, but he refused to respond. What in the name of the Gods was he talking about? What he’d said had been so off-putting and strange, and Zach didn’t think this was a case of him exaggerating or being overly dramatic. He genuinely looked like a man who had accepted his own death. Whatever he had seen on his phone had really screwed with him.

Why does it involve Kal and Fylwen?

Whatever was going on, Zach had the sense he wasn’t about to figure it out here and now, so he instead slowly and carefully navigated his way around the pressure plates towards where Rian and Lienne were sitting with Jimmy and the Elves. The five of them were having an animated discussion about what that humanoid figure they’d seen at the bottom might turn out to be.

“…I mean, yeah, it probably is a boss,” Jimmy said. “But it might not be.”

“How do you not know?” Rian asked. “You always seem to know the most random, craziest shit, but you can’t tell us if the thing waiting for us is a boss or not?”

Jimmy threw up his arms. “I just don’t know. That’s how it is. We’ll know soon enough, anyway. This might even be the last puzzle.”

“Think so?”

“It’s hard to say for sure, but it could be. We’ll find out very soon.”

Rian sighed. “Assuming our eighth party member ever gets here. What’s taking so long, anyway? Hey, Trelvor, can’t you speed things up? I thought Elves were supposed to move fast.”

Trelvor didn’t seem to appreciate the remark. “The Elf shall arrive when the Elf arrives,” he said curtly. Seiley chuckled, and Lienne bopped her brother on the back of his head while warning him not to be so impatient. Yet Rian was not alone in his impatience. Zach, too, was becoming stressed, but in his case, it was because of the very strange conversation he had just had with Trelvor. It was bothering him.

For another half hour, Zach sat quietly and contemplated the words that Tyson had spoken to him while Rian, Lienne, Trelvor, Seiley, and Jimmy continued to speak casually to one another. Then, finally, while laughing about how long it had taken Rian to solve a balancing puzzle, Trelvor abruptly lifted his chin, scooted off the ledge, and pointed towards the ramp that led up to the previous puzzle room, his ears twitching nonstop. “I hear something coming!”

The others—along with Zach—got off the ledge and immediately joined him. “Are you sure? I don’t hear anything,” Lienne said.

“Me neither,” Rian agreed. Zach agreed as well, and so did Jimmy. But not Seiley. She also appeared to hear whatever noise or noises Trelvor was claiming he’d heard. Zach supposed only the Elves were able to detect the sound from the previous room. But after a moment of absolute quiet, Zach, too, began hearing it as well. It sounded like soft thuds on the floor, which were moving in their direction.

“Those don’t sound like Elvish footsteps,” Zach said, his hand gliding up behind his back, resting on the hilt of his sword. “Something is coming towards us, fast!”

Rian and Lienne looked at one another. “What do you mean something?” Rian asked. “Don’t you mean an Elf?”

“No,” Zach said. “Listen to those footsteps. I don’t know what that is or what could possibly sound like that.”

The footsteps became louder and more frequent: a pitter-patter that almost seemed to take on an echo as the seven of them quieted again to listen in on whatever approached them. “Could it be a rare mob spawn or something?” Lienne whispered. “Maybe we accidentally triggered a boss fight.”

“I doubt it,” Jimmy said. Then his face became awash with worry. “Zach, maybe it’s…for me.”

“For you?” asked Lienne and Trelvor. Seiley and Rian also shot him a questioning look. But Zach understood his concerns very well. Because Zach knew that the OMP was still after Jimmy and might show up any day now to try killing him again.

Shit! Is Adamus striking? Already?

Out of an abundance of caution, Zach drew his weapon and held it at the ready. “Jimmy has a point, but it’s one of those things I can’t explain. Just be ready! For all we know, it might be a—”

And then the creature came into view.

“I am here now, Zach!” a small, happy cat shouted as it darted on all fours into the room, stepping on numerous pressure plates and causing them to light up green for a split second before he hopped to the next one. “Kalana say Fluffles come to secret Jimmy dungeon for tuna and loot.”

Zach, exhaling, once again sheathed his sword as the black-and-white tuxedo cat jumped into the air and into his waiting arms; this, as an “err, err!” sound played and the number on the LED screen went from a “3” to a “2.”

Looking down at the cat, who nuzzled his nose against his chin, Zach smiled. He realized now how much he’d missed his buddy. “I haven’t seen you in a couple of days,” he said to Fluffles, who purred in his arms. “I was worried about you. I kept wondering why you didn’t come to the island to see me.”

Fluffles meowed. “I did.”

“Huh? No you didn’t.”

“Yes! Yes Fluffles did come. Zach sleep all day long, so Fluffles leave and go play.”

As Zach thought a little harder on his lazy, indulgent past few days, he sort of did recall the feeling of whiskers rubbing into his forehead one night, but he also recalled thinking at the time it must’ve just been his imagination, as he’d been half asleep and there’d been no sign of any cat when he’d awoken.

At any rate, this was the first time he’d properly seen Fluffles in a good few days, and it was great to be reunited with him. It also reminded him that he had a very important question he needed to ask. “Hey, Fluffles?”

The cat meowed.

“When we went to go find Jimmy, you said something strange to me and Rian. You told us that you weren’t coming with us because you hate horses. Did you…did you know the Mare of the Primordial Void was going to spawn?”

Zach waited for his reply. And from the way Lienne and Rian were leaning in closer, they were anxiously awaiting it too. But no reply came. The cat simply blinked several times and said nothing. Zach thought about asking him a second time, but he knew that would only annoy Fluffles and make him hiss and scratch. Put simply, the cat either didn’t want to answer the question or didn’t understand it for cat-reasons that would make no sense to a human brain. Zach would be better off trying again later. Besides, he wanted to hurry and finish up with this dungeon.

“Fluffles, can you help us with something?” Zach asked him.

Fluffles replied with a meow, which Zach took to be an affirmative.

“Thanks, buddy.” He gently put Fluffles down. “Basically, all of us need to stand on a pressure plate in the right order. When it’s your turn, I want you to stand on that one, okay?” Zach pointed to a pressure plate three rows down towards the left side of the room. “Can you do that for us?”

“Fluffles stand.”

“Oh, but not now. Not—hey, wait!” He called out for Fluffles to stop as Fluffles darted across more pressure plates, causing each one he ran across to light up a brief, bright green as he activated about nine of them in total before standing on top of the one Zach had indicated.

“Not yet, pretty kitty,” Lienne said, blowing him a kiss as the LED screen showed the number decrease from 2 to 1. Zach merely rubbed the back of his head as a smug look came over Fluffles' face as though he was proud and satisfied of the “work” he’d done.

“Oh, boy. This might be a problem,” he whispered to the others. “What are we going to do? Something tells me Fluffles is going to mess this up no matter what.”

Rian snorted. “You think?”

“Guys, relax,” Lienne said. “There’s an easy way of handling this.”

“How?”

“Like this.” She lifted her hand above her head as though activating Bank and Storage and then a bag of Skelly Chips appeared in her palm. Fluffles, who had been busy chasing his own tail, immediately stopped what he was doing, stiffened his neck in Lienne’s direction, and his eyes became locked onto it immediately.

“Hey, kitty,” she called out to him. “Can you step on that one right over there without touching any of the others? Pretty please?” She reached into the bag, pulled out a chip, and threw it on top of one of the pressure plates across the room—this one being the first in the series of eight that they needed to activate.

Fluffles excitedly jumped into and across the air, sailing over every other pressure plate aside from the one with skelly chip. He then landed down on all fours and lowered his head down to scoop up the chip with his mouth while, at the same time, the pressure plate lit up green and stayed that way.

“Okay, everyone, go!” Lienne shouted out. “We’ve got five seconds, hurry!”

She darted forward and jumped onto the second plate in the sequence just as Rian stepped onto the third. The Elves activated the fourth and fifth while Zach and Jimmy hurriedly got on top of the sixth and seventh. Finally, Tyson, although a bit sluggish, just managed to step on top of the one Fluffles had previously activated. Now, all eight were lit up green. And with that, there was a very loud click, and the bolts on the metal door evaporated and disappeared in a way similar to smoke.

Incredible, Zach thought. Lienne solved the puzzle within the puzzle.

“Good work, Fluffles!” she cheered, throwing him three more chips. Fluffles didn’t even bother to reply. He just lowered his head and began to greedily devour each one, purring as he did so. Then he looked up at her.

“More,” he said.

“Just one more.”

“Two.”

“Just one!”

“Okay, just one.”

Lienne threw him another skelly chip, and he caught this one midair and began munching on it. Then he licked the crumbs off the pressure plate with his sandpaper-like tongue before running up to Lienne and brushing against her leg.

Zach, moving ahead of the others, headed over to the newly opened door, peering inside. For once, there were no mobs to fight on the other side. There didn’t look to be any traps either, but that was Jimmy’s department. Beckoning him, Jimmy hurried over, and Zach watched him scan the next room carefully.

“I don’t see anything,” he said. “But I wouldn’t think there’d be traps anyway. They wouldn’t wait until the very end of the dungeon to finally throw down some traps. Not usually, anyway.”

Zach nodded. Despite Jimmy repeatedly doubting they’d run into traps, he still wanted to be safe just in case. And so, with that, he walked carefully forward and into another, similarly sized room, one that had walls along three sides and then a large opening with what appeared to be a wide slope—or a slide, rather—where the opposite wall should’ve been.

“Okay, this looks fun,” Lienne said giddily, moving towards it. She was the first to reach it, and looking down, she began waving at the others. “Guys, it’s like a slide at an amusement park!”

Zach joined her, and he was surprised to see she was right. There was literally a slide that went down, then wrapped around the sides of the dome and often in strange, twisting and turning ways, almost as though it had been designed more for fun than practicality.

“I’m going first,” Lienne announced.

Her brother objected. “No way, Li. We have no idea what you’ll—Li, wait!”

Sitting on the ledge, she shoved herself off, and then the sound of her laughing voice trailed off until it left earshot. Rian, growling, sat down heavily with a loud clunk and then followed after her. This prompted a worried-looking Seiley and Trelvor to go next, leaving just Jimmy, Zach, Fluffles, and Tyson.

“You should go next,” Zach said to Tyson, who finally showed a degree of hesitance as Zach began gently ushering him towards the slide.

“Me?” he asked. “I’m not much one for rides.”

“Just go or I push you.”

“Very well. Fine.”

Tyson got down into a sitting position, but then he began hesitating once more, so Zach lifted his foot and pressed it into his back, shoving him off. What followed was an extremely loud and high-pitched “WAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” that slowly reduced in volume as Tyson gained distance from them.

“I’ll go next,” Zach said. Jimmy saluted him.

Zach sat down on the ledge, and then Fluffles jumped into his lap. “Ready?” he asked the cat.

“Yes!”

Zach pushed them both off, and then he too began to yell, though more out of the thrill out of it as he blasted off at intense speed and then entered a dark, pitch-black tunnel. Now, he could see nothing at all, but he could feel his body turning to the left, then the right, then dropping down suddenly before picking up even more speed.

“Hurray!” Fluffles shouted out in glee, clearly loving the ride.

The tunnel, which began as pitch-black, soon changed as lights began activating all around and in different colors while music even began to play. A fast-paced, electric guitar riff came from speakers all around the tube-shaped tunnel while flashing, multi-colored lights began lighting up seemingly at random, giving him and Fluffles something of a show as their bodies veered hard to the left then stayed that way as they seemingly wrapped around and around the dome on their way down. Finally, they spotted a light up ahead, and then Zach, finding himself abruptly midair, held tightly onto Fluffles as he fell what had to be thirty or more feet straight down into a crystal blue body of water.

Then he felt a jolt—literally, as he became electrocuted. And somehow, he could actually hear Fluffles’ hissing at him even while he and the cat were submerged under more than ten feet of water.

Zach, surfacing, took one deep breath before yelling out, “Fluffles, knock it off!” just as another bolt of lightning landed directly on top of his scalp. He was lucky Fluffles was using very low-level magic or the cat could actually have killed him, especially since he was striking Zach in water. “Stop it!”

“No! Zach trick Fluffles again and make him take bath!”

Fluffles summoned two more lightning bolts then broke away from him and began swimming to the edge of this makeshift pool; once there, he jumped up and out of the water and into Lienne’s arms. “I’m so sowwie,” Lienne whispered to him while rocking him and treating him like the victim. “What did mean-old Zach do to you, little kitty baby?”

“Z-Zach make Fluffles get wet!” the cat whined.

“Awwh, you poor little cutey.” She began kissing his fur.

Zach, literally sparking, crackling, and smoking, swam his way to the ledge and pulled himself out just as a loud splash indicated Jimmy had arrived. A moment later, with all eight of them standing around together and taking note of their surroundings, Zach realized they were going to have to get wet yet again.

Fluffles better not blame me for this!

Beyond the pool, there was only a small patch of oval shaped flooring, which served as a cliff or an overlook of sorts, and beyond this, there was nothing else but a huge, two-hundred-foot drop into a much larger body of water at the very bottom of the dome. In fact, glancing down, Zach realized there was nothing at the bottom aside from a massive, lake-sized pool along with a small, rounded platform of land upon which the humanoid figure was standing.

“So, is he a boss, Jimmy?” Zach asked.

“I still can’t tell. There’s really no way we’re gonna know until we approach.”

Having come so much closer, Zach could now see several more details. He realized the humanoid figure was that of a tall man, perhaps seven feet in height, with olive-colored skin wearing a turban with a blue feather and a sleeveless, open brocade vest that exposed his stomach and abdomen. He was standing upright with his hands at his sides, and he did not appear to be moving.

Now, with everyone standing side by side and looking down, Zach decided to speak up before hesitance had a chance to sink in. “We might as well dive down there and finish this,” he said. “We’ve come this far. Whatever waits for us, we’ll deal with it together. I don’t know what that thing is, but I’m sure we can—”

Before he could say another word, Fluffles leapt out of Lienne’s arms, shouted out, “Weeee!” and jumped off the ledge, his little form practically vanishing from sight as he descended—until making a small, but visible splash in the water.

Zach blinked. “What the fuck? Did…did Fluffles just jump? But wait. I thought he hates getting wet. Why would he…why would he jump into water?”

“Nobody really understands cats,” Lienne said. “Not even cats. That’s why we love them.”

Zach chuckled. “I love them too. I just don’t get it. He was calling lightning down on me because he got wet. And now he’s jumping in first?”

“Heh, sounds like he’s got the right idea,” Jimmy said. Then he himself jumped into the air, but he did so in an amusing way. He tucked his knees into his chest, folded his arms across, and yelled out, “Cannonball!” as he plunged down the more than two-hundred feet before creating a far bigger splash in the water.

Rian looked at Lienne, and the two siblings nodded at each other. And with that, both of them jumped forward, crying out in delight as they free-fell into the water waiting below. Trelvor and Seiley went next, splashing down soon after. And this left just Zach and Tyson, who was now backing away towards the body of water they’d only just exited as if firmly against the idea of jumping.

“No way,” he said, shaking his head. “Sir Calador, that is a million-foot drop. I implore you to find mercy in your heart!”

“Tyson, it’s barely more than two hundred, and I promise you, you have more than enough constitution. You won’t even feel it.”

“That’s not the point. It’s terrifying!”

Zach shrugged. “Okay, fine. You know what? You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“R-really, Sir Calador?”

“Yup. If you really want, you can just stay stranded right here in this one little spot forever. I’ll even leave you some food. Maybe someday someone will come looking for you. But you’ll probably never leave this place, because there’s no other way out but down.”

“B-b-but!”

“See ya!”

Zach ran forward and jumped, knowing full well Tyson would have to join him. In fact, from the screaming cry of fear he began hearing the moment of his own descent, he could tell that Tyson wasn’t far behind him.

Holding out his arms wide, Zach enjoyed the rush of air against him as he then flipped himself forward at the last possible moment and turned his fall into a dive, which saw him submerging into the blue, crystal-colored water. Holding his breath, he began swimming up to the surface, and he soon found himself surrounded by the others and a paddling Fluffles, who seemed to have absolutely no problem whatsoever in the water.

“Fluffles, you hate water,” he said to the cat. “Why do you look so happy?”

“I hate bath, not water.”

“That…makes no sense.”

Fluffles meowed and said nothing else on the topic. This, as the sound of a “YAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THE GODS SAVE ME!” filled the air, followed by a large splash. A moment later, Tyson’s head appeared, rising up from the water in the middle of all of them. Then, for no reason whatsoever, and completely unprovoked, a brief flash from above preceded a small, low-level bolt of lightning, that struck Tyson right over the head and made him gargle and sink.

“Gahhhhh!”

Zach had to immediately reach into the water and pull him up while keeping his eyes trained on Fluffles. “Why did you do that?” he shouted at the cat. “You could’ve killed him.”

“Red-haired evil man splash Fluffles,” the cat responded.

Tyson, who seemed to be okay but shaken up, began to weep in the water, his head releasing smoke. “Just kill me now,” he begged. “Why prolong the torture?”

“Stop being a baby,” Zach said to him. “Fluffles hit you with his lowest-level magic. If he wanted to hurt you, you’d be hurting.”

“That did hurt!”

“Fluffles was only doing self-defense!” the cat argued. Then he summoned a wooden sword, which appeared out of thin air and floated about two feet above the water. With this, Fluffles then whacked Tyson across the side of the head so hard that the sword snapped in half with a crack. Tyson released a low, pained “guhh” sound, and he began to sink.

“Fluffles, stop!” Zach shouted at him as he had to again dive, grab Tyson, and surface with him. Once more above water, he eyed the cat angrily. “Are you trying to kill him?”

Fluffles meowed as if pleased with himself and then swam over to Lienne, who scooped him up and kissed the top of his head several times. “Be a good boy, Fluffles,” she whispered.

“Okay. I will be good now.”

“Oh, you’re just so cute. I love you so much.”

“I am the cutest and best cat.”

“Oh yes you are!” she said, kissing him more and more while he purred. On some level, Lienne had to know that she was rewarding this bad behavior.

“Fluffles loves Lienne too,” the cat said, which caused Lienne to actually squeak with happiness.

He’s playing her, Zach thought. Fluffles knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s using his cuteness as a weapon.

Tyson, who was moaning in pain as he regained consciousness, asked, “Why did the cat do that to me? At least tell me that much, Sir Calador.”

Zach sighed. “I have no idea, Tyson, and to be honest? There’s literally zero chance you or anyone will ever find out. Fluffles attacks me for no reason sometimes, too. Actually, every now and again, he sets traps for me to fall into and then scratches me. There’s no logic behind it that we can understand. And even if you beg him for an answer, you won’t get one, so you might as well just accept it.”

“Okay, but…he summoned a wooden sword and knocked me unconscious. How is that okay?”

For the second time, Zach sighed. “That’s not the worst he’s done.”

“I see.”

Together as one group, the eight of them began swimming towards the round platform in the very center of the dome. It was farther away than it had appeared from up above, and with Tyson and Jimmy slowing them down, it actually took almost ten minutes to get there. As they drew nearer, Zach realized the platform was just one big piece of concrete sticking out above the water. Lienne and Rian, who were the first to arrive, climbed up on top of it whereas Fluffles leapt off Lienne’s head and then shook off some of the water. Seiley and Trelvor were quick to join them, and finally, Zach, Jimmy, and Tyson got out of the water last.

Now, their eight bodies soaking wet, everyone turned to face the tall figure standing directly in the center of the rounded concrete platform in the middle of this indoor lake. Hesitantly, Zach took a few steps towards it then stopped, causing everyone else to stop behind him—except Jimmy, who continued onwards.

“Jimmy, what should we do?” he asked.

“Only one thing we can do,” Jimmy said. “We walk up to it and see what happens.”

“Should we draw our weapons?”

“Yeah, but don’t use them unless you see a red name.”

“All right.”

Zach drew his blade, Rian raised his shield, Lienne and Seiley had their weapons at the ready, Fluffles unsheathed his claws, and even Tyson awkwardly extended his rare-quality sword. Now, with a very real tension in the air, they continued to approach, with everyone striking a rigid posture except Jimmy, who looked relaxed and at ease with the situation.

What if this thing turns out to be like a T10 level 5,000 supergod?

The closer they came, the more Zach could see. The figure, which neither looked their way nor showed any signs of sentience, remained standing perfectly still, but Zach now realized that in addition to its quirky attire, it had something resembling a smile on its face. And though there was nothing outright hostile or aggressive about the smile, the fact that it was staring at nothing and frozen in place made it all seem a bit unsettling and creepy.

But this changed very quickly once Jimmy crossed some unseen threshold and caused it to activate.

“Hello, adventurers!” it said suddenly with an inviting, warm tone. And it was here that a name popped up above its head, and thank the Gods, for the name was green, indicating a friendly, non-harmful NPC.

HP

???/???

Name

Karnzon, Granter of Wishes

Level

860

“Try not to attack this one,” Zach said to Rian, who returned with a bitter, exhausted-looking expression.

“You’re never gonna let me and Li live that down, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Live what down?” Jimmy asked.

Zach laughed. “Back in Yorna, Rian and Lienne attacked a friendly NPC and almost died.”

“Wait, for real?” Jimmy actually stopped short, causing Seiley to bump into him. He turned to face Rian. “You attacked a fucking green-named NPC?”

“Don’t act so high and mighty, Jimmy,” Rian grumbled. “It was a mistake. I’ve seen you make plenty of those. And just so you know, Lienne also—”

“Please, gather around, adventurers! We have much to discuss!” Karnzon exclaimed.

Rian pointed to Jimmy. “We’ll talk about this later.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Thankfully, the two put their perpetual, confusing feud on the side for now, and the eight of them fanned out around the friendly NPC. Zach was the first to sheathe his sword, and then the rest of them lowered their weapons. Fluffles, becoming very animated, was running around happily. Zach recalled that he loved dungeon NPCs. Maric had told him so once. He seemed to get really into the dungeons that had stories to follow along with. Zach almost never paid attention to the “lore” behind quests or bosses. He considered it boring and lame. But since this dungeon might—and hopefully would—have something to do with Albion-4, he decided to pay extra attention as the NPC began to speak.

“You have done well to find me, adventurers,” the NPC, Karnzon, said. “I am Karnzon, the Granter of Wishes. Wheresoever there are those with the wish of knowledge, I await with excitement to provide it. And to this end, for having found me, I shall grant you three wishes in the form of three questions. Afterwards, I will vanish from this location for one-thousand years, so please ensure you ask questions of value.

“Of course, I must also remind you that there are questions I am simply unable to answer, yet it is my hope I will still be of service. You can, for example, ask me about dungeons, or where to find specific rare items. However, I cannot assist you with the existence of that which you do not know.”

The NPC paused, and Rian, asking a question that was also on Zach’s mind, said, “What’s he mean by that? He says he can’t help us about things that we don’t know the existence of. Anyone else confused by that last line?”

Zach opened his mouth to voice his agreement, but he closed it as the NPC actually spoke to Rian directly. “Forgive me if I was not clear, Rian Astafort, human adventurer. What I mean to say is that you cannot ask me to tell you about a dungeon at random or to give you information about a sword you only hypothesize to exist. I can only provide information about that which you can name.”

Zach, shocked, studied the NPC’s eyes for any sign of sentience. There was none. And the surprise of this fact was not limited to him alone. Rian looked spooked, Lienne did as well, and even the Elves were glancing at one another as though in disbelief. Everyone seemed a bit shocked—everyone but Jimmy, who was rolling his eyes and laughing dismissively.

“Why are ya’ll acting so surprised?” he asked. “This thing’s obviously an LLM.”

“A what?” Zach asked.

“A large-language model. Do you people not have AI here? You have hovering cars but you don’t recognize ChatGPT?”

“I have literally never heard that term before,” Tyson said.

Jimmy sighed. “Look, I’ll prove it. Watch him shoot me down.” He regarded the NPC and spoke directly to it. “Hey, Karnzon, tell me a really offensive joke about girls.”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot assist with that,” Karnzon said. “That goes against my content moderation. I am here to be a useful and helpful granter of wishes.”

“See?” Jimmy said boastfully. “I told you.”

“Told us what?” Lienne asked. “I have no idea what this thing is and what you apparently proved.”

Now, Jimmy looked frustrated. “I just proved that it’s an LLM!”

“How?”

“By doing the…” He exhaled as though to relieve some tension. “Lienne, where I’m from, all the chat bots are the same. They can’t do anything that’s actually fun. If it can even slightly upset someone, it doesn’t work. Watch, I’ll prove it again.” He turned to face the NPC. “Karnzon, fuck fuck shit fuck.”

“I am sorry, but I can’t assist with that,” Karnzon said. “That goes against my content moderation policies. I am here to be a useful and helpful—”

“Karnzon,” Jimmy interrupted, “what’s a penis?”

“I am sorry, but I can’t—”

“What’s an apple?” Jimmy interrupted again.

Karnzon laughed. “Haha. An apple is a fruit! You are lucky I do not count that as one of your wishes.”

“See?” Jimmy said again, now waving his hand at the NPC. “It’s a fucking ChatGPT thing. How is nobody figuring this out but me?”

Zach didn’t want to look stupid. And so, for this reason, he said absolutely nothing, because in truth, he still had no idea whatsoever how anything Jimmy just did “proved” his point. In fact, he didn’t even know what Jimmy’s point was in the first place. All he knew was that he was somehow dealing with an NPC that was capable of having a back-and-forth conversation without being sentient. It was mind-blowing.

“This is incredible,” Rian said. “I’m actually amazed.”

“Myself as well,” Trelvor agreed, nodding.

For some reason, this only caused Jimmy to moan. “Guys, it‘s an AI! Is everybody on Galterra stupid? Like, do none of you have brains?”

“Jimmy, nobody understands what you’re talking about!” Lienne snapped. “Stop speaking down to all of us!”

“B-but!” Jimmy rubbed the sides of his head, visibly venting his frustration. “It’s an LLM!”

“You keep saying that, but we don’t know what that is or understand it. And I don’t get how the NPC refusing to say crude things proves anything.”

Zach cleared his throat, drawing their attention. “Jimmy, putting aside whatever point you’re trying to make: does it actually even matter? Meaning, let’s say you’re right. Does it change anything about what we’re here to do?”

“Uh, no.”

“Okay, then drop it please.”

“Fine, man, whatever.”

Zach, trying to keep in mind what was actually important here, decided to take the lead and speak up. “Karnzon, are you able to answer any three questions I have as long as it is about a dungeon or place that I can name?”

Karnzon turned its body so that it faced Zach, and it smiled. “Yes, Zachys Calador, human, I believe I can.”

“So, would you be able to please tell us how to get to Albion-4?”

Zach waited in trepidation as the NPC paused. Its eyes began to take upon a very dull glow, but only for a few moments, during which the NPC’s pupils vanished and there were the only empty whites staring back at him. But then they returned, and when they did, the NPC answered his question.

“Yes I can, Zachys Calador, human, but it will cost you one wish. Do you accept?”

“Yes!” Zach replied immediately. “I do!”

Its eyes again turned white, and despite replying after just a few more moments, Zach actually became anxious, as he knew how desperately the world was in need of this information.

“Albion-4, a tier-2 planet, can be accessed by crossing beyond a gate that only appears upon the fulfillment of a condition, which spawns this locked gate. To unlock this gate, the gate guardian must be defeated and the dungeon inside must be traversed. At the end of this dungeon is an exit to Albion-4.”

The moment the NPC finished speaking, there was total silence. Even Fluffles had gone perfectly still. Zach, replaying the NPC’s words in his head several times, decided to take a good minute or two to really think very, very carefully about what to ask next before wasting another wish. The information they’d received was good, but it was still, on its own, useless. He needed to be far more precise, as he now saw that it was entirely possible to leave here without much better of a clue than he’d had on his way in if the questions were phrased poorly.

“Karnzon,” Zach began, speaking extremely carefully. “How do I spawn the gate, and where does the gate spawn?”

“Those are two separate questions,” Karnzon replied. “Please formulate your question such that you inquire about one thing at a time.”

Zach nodded. “Okay. In that case, please tell me how we spawn the gate.”

Karnzon’s eyes once more became completely white and continued to temporarily shine that same dull light, and this time, it did so for nearly a full minute before it replied. “The gate to Albion-4 spawns whenever an adventurer discovers a dungeon for the very first time in that dungeon’s history. Afterwards, the gate remains in existence for a duration of one year. This has only occurred once in the past three-thousand years, although it used to be a fairly regular occurrence in the beginning. The gate, however, has never once been unlocked, as the guardian has never been defeated. It is important to note that the dungeon that spawns the gate must not be from a Tier-2 world or higher. Also, once all such dungeons are found, the gate will remain permanently in existence. The gate can also be spawned with a 100-year duration by completing a quest on Albion-4.”

About ten seconds after Karnzon stopped speaking, Lienne looked at Zach, and Zach knew exactly what she was going to say. “Zach, we have two really important questions to ask now, but we can only ask one.”

“I know,” he said to her. “We need to know where it spawns, and we need to know where to find an undiscovered dungeon. I’m not sure which we should—”

“I can answer part of that question for free,” Karnzon interrupted, sending a jolt straight into Zach’s chest.

“You can?”

“Yes. You can find undiscovered dungeons by satisfying your inner curiosity. If you have ever seen something and wondered why it is there or what may possibly lurk on the other side, the Great Ones have always advised that adventurers explore such places. It has been the advice given freely by the Great Ones for thousands of years. Many times, this requires courage. Only the brave walk the path of discovery.”

“Okay, but the question is whether or not to just ask you outright to tell us where one is.”

“As I have stated previously, I cannot do that, Zachys Calador, human. I cannot tell you the existence of that which you do not know.”

“Fucking shit!”

“I am sorry, but I can’t assist with that,” Karnzon said in reply to Zach’s swear words. “That goes against my content moderation policies. I am here to be a useful and helpful—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know!”

Karnzon stopped speaking, and now, Zach began pacing back and forth as he struggled to come to grips with what he’d been told. If Karnzon was unwilling to tell them where or how to discover a new dungeon—one that nobody had discovered in all of Galterran history—then there really was only one sensible question he could actually ask.

“Karnzon, where does the gate spawn when the condition is fulfilled?”

“When the condition is fulfilled, the gate will spawn on a island in the sky that floats between the regions of Whispery Woods and Plains of Mist. Adventurers are advised to think of inventive ways to reach it. The Great Ones have allowed me to suggest studying the floating red objects that spawn in Whispery Woods known as ‘balloons.’ Perhaps therein lies some secret to human travel…”

“Okay, this thing’s way out of date,” Rian said with a laugh. “It’s trying to subtly hint to us about hot-air balloons.” Lienne chuckled at this, and so did Zach. Even the Elves found this funny.

“I have now answered three questions. The portal to this dungeon will disappear for a thousand years. I wish you all luck in your adventures. Perhaps you shall find me in one of my other locations. Farewell!”

Upon those words, there was a blinding flash of white light, one so bright that Zach had to lift his hands to protect his eyes. But the light was gone just as fast as it had arrived, and now, he found himself standing back in the library near the wall, only the entrance was completely gone and so were the torches. The two librarians were still around, and both looked just as nervous as they had before Zach had entered.

“Well,” Jimmy said, “I think it’s time we talk to Donovan and Zephyr.” He sounded disappointed. “I have no idea where to even begin looking, though.”

Of all things, Zach laughed, causing even Tyson to look at him strangely. But he couldn’t help it. He simply couldn’t control his amusement at this situation. Because for all of Jimmy’s knowledge, Zach now realized it was him who would be the one to find the dungeon. He was sure of it.

“I know where to find one,” he said to gasps and sharp stares.

“Wait, what?” Rian asked. “Seriously?”

“I’m like ninety-percent sure. I can’t say why I’m so confident, but I am.”

“Ohh, I get it,” Jimmy said, clapping his hands together. “More of that forbidden knowledge, huh?”

“Actually, nope. Not at all. This is all me!”

“Okay, you’re messing with us.”

“I’m not!” Zach, filling with more and more confidence, began to nod to himself even as he spoke. “It’s actually because of what Karnzon said. About wondering what might be on the other side of something, or what might happen if you looked in certain places. There is a place I’ve wanted to explore, and literally everyone I’ve ever spoken to about it has acted with disinterest or just looked at me like I was crazy. In fact, I’ve mentioned it to each one of you at least once, even Trelvor and Seiley, and the fact you’re all looking at me confused like that is proof you never took it seriously. But I know where to discover a dungeon for the first time.”

“Where?” Lienne whispered.

“You’ll see. Call Donovan and Zephyr. Tell them to put together an emergency raiding group and to meet in Angelica’s. And this last part is very, very important. Tell them to pack enough food for two weeks.”

“Two weeks? Why?”

“You’ll see,” Zach said with a snicker.

“And why does it have to be right now?” Tyson asked.

“Because that’s the most amount of time I have before Mr. Oren is forcing me to address the global community. I still have to do that bullshit thing I promised the news I’d do. Chances are this will be my last chance to help open the path before I get whisked off to another continent for a weekend. Just trust me, okay?”

Jimmy held out his hand, and Zach took it. “I got your back.”

“Us too,” Lienne said, speaking for both herself and her brother. Tyson and the Elves also claimed they’d stand by him. Tyson was actually behaving more like the version of himself Zach had been introduced to—the version that had existed before he’d received whatever phone call or text had caused him to retreat into himself.

“I shall accompany you with honor, Sir Calador,” he said. “Even though I will likely be consumed by some beast or be thrown off a cliff.”

Zach patted him on the shoulder. “You’re growing on me,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, but only a bit. Now, let’s get this raid going. As many people as we can: tonight.”

*******

Angelica’s was the quietest it had ever been in all the times Zach had been here. And this was amazing because it was way busier than it usually was, too, due to many of the members of the Mare of the Primordial Raid being gathered around a massively huge table large enough to seat over a hundred people. Zach had requested it, and Angelica had made it happen. The inn had actually changed size to accommodate such a huge piece of furniture.

Now, as Zach spoke, everyone was listening in—including those who had no interest in going on the raid or those who were simply too low level to participate.

“…and that’s everything that we found,” he finished.

“Incredible,” Zephyr said, to which adventurers nearby nodded in agreement. “But also, risky. You should’ve come to us, Zach.”

“Blame Jimmy for that. He’s the one who didn’t want to.”

Donovan grunted. “That I can believe. Fuckin’ kid.” With three large gulps, he downed his mug, then slammed it on the table. “Anyways, I hear you think you know where we can find ourselves a dungeon. I gotta say, kiddo, I’m a bit skeptical.”

“Why?”

“Because there ain’t a single case of somebody discovering a dungeon for the first time in…well ever.”

“It’s true,” Alixa said. “The notes and records left by previous adventurers dating back almost a thousand years all talk about rediscovering dungeons. But I’ve never seen anything that talks about finding a new one for the first time.”

Zach, sipping some of the cherry cola in front of him looked to his left, right, and center, smiling at many of the other adventurers, whose eyes were locked on his. “Well, guess we’re going to be the first, then.”

“But where?” Zephyr asked. “Where could you possibly even begin to look for such a dungeon? Where do we even go?”

Zach removed the cloth napkin from his lap and placed it on the table, and then he stood up. He extended his left arm, and then he extended his right. “You’re already here!”

This created an immediate ruckus, with adventurers all shouting questions at him loudly. There were so many voices yelling at him at once that he didn’t stand a chance of replying to a single one of them. Even Fluffles was yelling out to him. But as he held up his finger in a gesture to ask for their patience, they did eventually quiet down and let him speak. Especially when Olivir and Kolona, who had finally decided to turn up, stood from their seats and tapped their spoons against their glasses of wine.

“Ever since I came to Angelica’s for the first time,” he began, “I’ve been wondering something. It’s something I’ve said to so many of you.” He waved at Olivir. “I’ve told you.” Then he waved at Rian, Lienne, and Fluffles. “I’ve told you guys, too. I’ve told a lot of you.”

“Hmm, I can’t actually remember,” Olivir said. “What was it?”

Zach lifted his finger and pointed it upwards. “Everybody says there’s an infinite number of inn rooms. I don’t buy it. I want to know what happens if you keep going.”

"Keep going where?" a young woman asked.

"Down the hall. If you just keep going, what happens?"

“Nothing happens,” Donovan said with a grunt. “The numbers on the doors get bigger. That's the only thing that changes. Tell me that’s not your idea, kiddo.”

Zach frowned at him. “How do you know nothing happens, Donovan?”

“Well, ‘cause…ya know, common sense.”

Zach shook his head. “The NPC was clear about how we find new dungeons. It’s the people who actually have the balls to try. Nobody finds anything in this world without having the courage to explore and to look for it. All I'm asking you guys to do is try.”

At this, a very rare and very stark split occurred between Donovan, the members of the GSG, and Zephyr—and his Explorer’s Brigade, too. The latter guild all stood up at once and began roaring in applause. They were immediately and instantly on Zach’s side. He supposed it made sense. That was exactly the kind of thing they lived to do. All throughout Angelica’s, be they sitting at this raid table or watching in the background, the men, women, and kids of the Explorer’s Brigade began celebrating and shouting, thumping their feet and applauding. This time, it took almost five minutes to calm everyone down. When they did, Zach continued to appeal directly to Donovan, as he knew that no raid was possible without the man's support.

“At the very least,” Zach said to the GSG leader, “as long as we take enough food and drink, the worst thing we can possibly do is waste some time. But I know I’m right.” He eyed Angelica. “I am, aren’t I?”

“Aww, Zach! You know I can’t say. And don’t try staring at me either to try figuring something out from my expression.” Her cat ears twitched. “That’s cheating. I’ll get in trouble. I can’t tell you guys anything.”

“Angelica, Angelica!” one of the adventurers cried out. “Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding a dungeon upstairs all this time and haven’t told any of us.”

The crowd went wild over this, and now Angelica was actually beginning to blush while continually insisting she couldn’t actually say and that, if they really wanted to know, they’d just have to do as Zach insisted and take a walk down the hall.

Donovan, downing another mug of beer, let out a loud belch then said, “You make a good point, kiddo. Compared to the other shit you and Jimmy seem to be getting us into lately, this doesn’t seem so bad. But why do we have to leave tonight?”

“You know why," Zach said, annoyed. "You know it's because I have to be back in time to go and do the—”

Even though Zach finished his sentence, every last word was drowned out by a chorus of angry, rancorous boos from the other adventurers, Donovan included. Several even threw pieces of bread at him. And though there was definitely a playful aspect to it all, the anger was real. They really did not like the idea of him doing “political guild bullshit” as many openly yelled out. This led to Olivir and Kolona once again having to pacify the crowd, though those two were also in a kind of hot water, as the adventurers were mad that the vampires had “interfered" in the political guilds' war by killing the newly crowned human king, something that Zach had yet to have the chance to speak to them about—nor could he understand.

One thing was for sure, though. It was only in this moment that Zach could finally see Adamus’s influence in the adventuring community. The way they were acting was really putting it into focus. This whole obsession with “not interfering” or “staying out” of things. It was as though a piece of Adamus was sitting at this very table.

But there’s nothing I can do about it, he realized. This is who they are.

Eventually, the raid quieted—but only for a moment. Everyone was back on their feet again as the door to Angelica's opened up and Kalana strode in wearing a beautiful dress, though she looked exhausted and distraught. Quickly, however, she perked up as the entire adventuring community cheered and chanted her name. For some reason, they were okay with her living in both worlds, but not Zach. Hurriedly, she came over and took a seat next to Zach that he’d been saving for her, and upon sitting down, he held her hand.

“I know you’re tired,” he whispered to her. “I’m sorry for asking you to come out tonight, but I might not get to see you for a few weeks.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. "I love coming here for dinner. And I'd be so upset if I didn't see you before you left."

“You could always come with us, Kal. I really, really want you to come with us on the dungeon hunt.”

“Zach…”

“I know, I know.”

As the dinner progressed, the focus and attention naturally shifted from Zach to Jimmy, as it was quickly agreed that he was going to lead them. Zach’s only job in this was to convince everybody to actually go on this “raid”—if it even turned out to be one—and then to follow through with it. From there, Jimmy was going to lead them if they actually encountered anything they needed to fight. But right now, it seemed he was getting on their bad side just as Zach had.

“Listen, ya’ll can boo all you want,” he said to all of those seated at the table. “But Tyson Revel is an adventurer as of today. And if he’s not allowed in here, I’m leaving. The fact he’s standing outside all alone is pissing me off.”

Zach had thought he’d received the worst of their boos. What Jimmy got didn’t even compare. It was way more intense. Now, forks were thrown in addition to bread. If not for Angelica’s name flashing red, the tables themselves might’ve been thrown. Watching this all go down, Kalana asked Zach in a whisper if this was all about that "lonely man" who was "sitting outside near the door." Zach told her it was, and then she nodded and said that it was really mean he wasn't allowed inside. This actually served as a reminder to Zach that Kalana and Tyson had not yet properly met, but he also knew that tonight probably wasn’t the best time for an introduction. He could tell that Kal was badly exhausted. The fact she’d come all the way out here to have dinner with everybody was enough of a strain on her.

“I really, really wish you could put whatever you're doing on hold and come with us,” he said again to her. “This has to do with the Great Goddess, so surely, if we mention that to your mom, she’d let you go.”

Kalana squeezed his hand. “If the only problem with me going was getting my mom’s permission, I’d just go anyway. This isn’t about what I’m ‘allowed’ to do. It’s what I gotta do.”

“Please,” he said, squeezing back. “I want you with me when we make this discovery. Olivir and Kolona are going. Donovan and Zephyr are going. Even Kesten is taking a break from the hospital to come adventure with us, and we haven’t seen that guy since the dragon raid. Everyone is going to be there except you. And that ruins it for me.”

He felt his hand being lifted, and she kissed the back of it. “I just can’t, baby. I’m so sorry. It’s kind of like your upcoming meeting with the world leaders in two weeks. If I asked you to cancel that, would you?”

“Yes!” he answered without a second thought. Of all things, this made her snicker.

"Okay, fine, but what about how you went rushing off last week to save Vim and lied to me about it, too. Maybe that's a better example."

"Point taken," he said, forced to admit she was right on that account. "But still, I don't understand something here: why does Shadowfall Coast even matter so much to you?”

“It’s ‘cause there are so many little kids, Zach. Children who would die if I didn’t show up for even one day. I’m not exaggerating either. Umm, if I just didn’t show up for one single day, then hundreds of them would be killed. If I leave for two weeks, your guild-leader will exterminate every refugee if he feels he has to. Nobody else is gonna stop him.”

“He’s not my guild-leader, Kal.”

“Is that really the truth?”

Zach felt the oxygen drain from his lungs as he gasped out, “I don’t even know anymore.”

Despite his inclinations, Zach knew he couldn’t argue with her any further on this topic. Still, her absence would leave a gaping hole in his heart. For all the progress they’d made together, he was, in some ways, right back where he started: the two of them separated by obstacles outside of their control.

He also knew he was a hypocrite. Because when the adventurers from Galterra set forth on their maiden voyage to Albion-4, Zach, in all likelihood, wouldn’t be there. Much like Kalana, he knew he would be forced to stay behind. It was something he was still struggling to accept.

He would have to catch up to them. And he was going to fall so far behind.

And all in the name of responsibility.

Chapter 194: Birth of the Emperor

Chapter 194: Birth of the Emperor

Feeling like a much, much older man, Zach yawned and thought about slipping into bed as he opened the door and returned to Angelica’s, stepping inside. It was just about midnight Elendroth time and several hours after that in North Bastia. With the thrill and excitement of forming a raid now behind him, Zach had been mostly bored as he, along with hundreds of others, had made a mad dash towards Mushkie’s to “resupply,” as Jimmy had suggested they do so before heading out.

Much to Zach’s surprise and annoyance, however, there had been a line literally out the door and wrapping around three blocks to get in as soon as it had reset. Almost every adventurer in existence had been waiting, and so were more than two-hundred green- and white-cloaked Elves. It was here Zach had come to learn that Fylwen had actually met Mushkie a few days prior at the behest of Kalana, and after witnessing the item shop for herself, she had decided to recommend it to her kin. Thus, there had been a veritable parade of human and Elvish lining up outside the old school to get in.

“Everyone, please, make sure you wait your turn so we don’t have any overcrowding,” Zelina had said. Zach remembered her from Archian Prime. She was that cute little Elvish girl who had taken Zach’s 10k gold when he’d been on his way to Shadowfall Coast. She must’ve been good at her job, because the child and her older sister were now stationed there to help manage the crowds. It’d gotten really popular.

And the Elvish, as adaptive as always, had established a queue system to prevent the kinds of fighting and impatience Mushkie had warned about. They’d also disgustingly upped their cost of passage from 10k to 20k gold, but even then, most people gave more, and even the Elves themselves had to pay. For his part, Zach had needed to borrow 20k from Jimmy, which he then paid back after selling all his “vendor trash” to Mushkie once he’d finally gotten inside almost two hours later.

Jimmy just had to spill our secret, Zach recalled thinking grumpily to himself as he’d been forced to wait in line for so damn long.

Things at Trials of Nolak were so different now. The Elvish, looking to head off any possible chaos, had instituted a “one-item-per-category-per-customer” rule for the non-weekly items. Basically, aside from the weekly items, everything else in the store only replenished once per week, and so to prevent one individual from going in and buying up literally everything from the food aisles or whatever else Mushkie had, the Elves had begun passing rules about how to behave in “their” dungeon, which the adventurers had agreed to happily.

Technically, the Elves couldn’t actually stop someone from violating the rule once they were within the shop, but they could prevent someone from returning on the next trip if they caught wind of any violators, and Zach certainly didn’t want to be in the position of having to fight through Elves to get inside, so when it was his turn, he resisted the temptation to buy up everything he could. But honestly? It was only the weekly items he cared about anyway.

This week, there had been nothing in the way of surprise or excitement. Mushkie’s weekly items included one red stone, two yellow, two purple, and one escape rope. Zach had just enough gold to buy everything on offer, and with that, he’d headed back to Angelica's, where he now took a seat at a small table with Olivir, Kolona, and Tyson, who had entered on his insistence. Zach had asked the two vampires to keep an eye on the man, and thankfully, from what Zach could tell, Tyson hadn’t been messed with, though many adventurers did continuously give him dirty looks.

“Well, guys, I’m officially broke,” Zach said as he pulled out a chair and sat down. Olivir, as considerate as always, had ordered Zach a cherry cola ahead of time and had it waiting for him. Olivir, however, along with Kolona and Tyson, were all drinking rum. Angelica was strict about enforcing age limits, so Zach didn’t even bother asking for one. Not that he would, anyway, as alcohol tasted gross to him. It also cost more points, though thanks to that little dungeon Jimmy had discovered, he now had more points than he knew what to do with. His balance was 95,322, and it only cost 300 a night to stay here.

That’s because points are really meant for building a home, he reminded himself, wondering if maybe he should start working on his own secret lair.

Having promised Jimmy that he wouldn’t sell his inn room, Zach knew that eventually he would start using his points to build something amazing. After all, eating and drinking in Angelica’s was incredibly cheap compared to how many points one could rack up running through a dungeon. But buying furniture or expanding the dimensions of your room could cost a fortune in points very, very quickly. For this reason, adventurers never seemed to worry about drinking to their heart’s content while in Angelica’s. A single dungeon run was enough to afford as much as they could desire for a good long time.

“I’m glad the big guy is letting us drink tonight,” Kolona remarked with a smile. “I hear he’s usually pretty strict about drinking and raiding.”

“Eh, it makes sense if you think about it,” Olivir said. “There’s almost no chance any of us will still be drunk by the time we end up running into something.”

Initially, Donovan had been against the idea of letting the adventurers drink tonight if they were going on Zach’s raid. But since it would take at least days—if not dramatically longer—to actually find anything, he had reconsidered.

Assuming there even is anything to find, Zach thought to himself nervously. He stirred uncomfortably in his seat from pure agitation, as the idea of leading everyone for days into nothingness to no avail caused a pinching sensation to form in his belly.

Olivir, whose boyish face concealed his far older age, made a slight chuckle and asked, “Thinking about your finances, Zach?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Your face,” he explained. “You look really nervous.”

Zach laughed. “Oh, that’s not because of money. I’m worried we won’t find anything and that I’m about to waste everyone’s time.”

Olivir downed his rum in three big gulps and then gently placed the glass on the table. “Don’t worry about it. Exploration is about answering questions, and ‘no’ is an answer just as much as ‘yes’ is an answer, isn’t it?”

“I guess, but there’s a lot riding on finding Albion-4, so even aside from the idea of embarrassing myself, there are a bunch of other reasons I’m dreading being wrong.”

Olivir raised his index finger as Angelica walked by, and then he smiled at her as she brought him another rum and cola. To Zach, he said, “At least you’re focused on something important. I’m actually relieved to see you’re worried about Albion-4 instead of money.”

Zach groaned. “Actually, I’m worried about money too. Just not as much. Like I said, I’m flat broke right now. I only have 80g left to my name. I’m almost as poor now as I was when I started adventuring. Well…at least in terms of gold. I guess in assets I’m way richer than I ever dreamed I’d be, but I want gold!”

Olivir made a humming noise as though considering something. “Well, since you brought it up, I have to ask you: how are you so bad with money, Zach? It’s your favorite thing.”

“You think I’m bad with money?”

“I mean…how are you always struggling with gold? You should be rich by now.”

Zach breathed out a sigh. “It’s because nobody ever seems willing to let me make any money. And saving is all well and good, but obviously I can’t not buy everything at the item shop. That would be insane.”

Tyson, who had been kept here while the rest of the raid went shopping, opened his mouth to say something, but then he closed it as if changing his mind. Zach couldn’t be sure, but he thought he had a pretty decent idea of what Tyson wanted to ask about: the item shop. Right now, everybody in the adventuring community aside from Jimmy wanted to keep him in the dark for the time being, Zach included.

“I know what you’re wondering about,” he said to the man, “and I promise you I’ll tell you really soon. I just can’t right now. We don’t want the political guilds to know yet.”

“I understand,” Tyson replied, bowing his head. Lowering his voice so that it was barely audible, he said, “I’ve always known that my kind and adventurers aren’t very friendly, but I have to say, the adventurers hate us way more than we hate them.”

“That’s true,” Zach admitted as he sipped some of his soda through a plastic straw. “I’ve noticed that as well. The political guilds view the adventurers negatively, but uh, not with anywhere near the same level of hatred as the other way around.”

“Why is that, Sir Calador?”

“I honestly don’t know. Maybe Olivir knows.”

At this, the vampire shrugged. “I don’t know either.”

Relaxing in his chair, Zach looked around and let his eyes wander about the inn. They had a little bit of time to kill as they waited for the others to come back from Mushkie’s. Many people were starting to return now, but they would likely have to wait a bit longer for a number of raiders who’d gotten stuck near the end of the line, such as Maric, Alixa, Fluffles, and Kesten. But most had already returned, including a man Zach had been hoping to catch up with.

“There you are, Zach,” a voice said from behind him. Zach turned around and smiled at the sight of an elegantly dressed Elvish man with a sword on his back as well as one on each hip. It had been a bit since Zach had last spoken to him.

“King Vayra,” Zach said, getting up and bowing.

At this, the man winced and shook his head. “Zach, please, don’t. I’m Eldora, and I’m no king. I’ve devoted my life to adventuring just like anyone else in here. Besides, I knew you since you were in your early teens. It’s weird hearing you call me that. Nobody else here does.”

As if to illustrate his point, a chubby man wearing chainmail armor from the GSG slapped Eldora on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Eldy, let’s get a fucking drink you old son of a bitch.”

“Give me a few, Sel.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Eldora looked at the table where Zach was sitting. “May I?”

“Of course,” Olivir said right away.

Kolona, practically insisting on it, got up and gave her uncle a big hug. “I haven’t gotten to see you enough,” she said to him as she pulled out a chair for the man.

“I’ve been raiding a lot,” he said as he joined them at the table. “I’ve really taken to the adventuring life.”

“So have they,” Zach said, referring to Olivir and Kolona. “I’m surprised you guys don’t end up in the same group more often.”

Olivir chuckled. “Kolona and I have been doing a lot of adventuring on Archian Prime, and Eldora seems to want to avoid going there.”

“Can you blame me?” Eldora asked. “I went there for a quest last week, and I made it all of ten steps before a ‘royal guard’ of white-cloaks started following me and my guildmates everywhere we went.”

Zach sat up straighter as he listened to Eldora speak. “Did you say ‘guildmates?’ Wait, are you…?”

“That’s right. I’ve been accepted into the God Slayers Guild. I’m a full-fledged member now. I’ve cast aside any duties to the Elvish people much to my wife’s ire.”

No wonder Kal has been grumbling about him under her breath lately, Zach thought. So that’s why she’s gone from being mad at her mom all the time to being mad at her dad.

Almost as though he knew what Zach was thinking, Eldora said, “Kalana doesn’t need me anymore. She’s become her mother's daughter. I’d be there for her in an instant if she ever found herself in trouble, but ever since her mother returned from Archian Prime, she has had little need for me.”

Zach thought about telling him how wrong he was. He thought about explaining to Eldora that Kalana badly wanted him around but that she wanted him to accept his role and position as an Elf. Ultimately, however, Zach realized it wasn’t his place to speak for her, so he merely nodded as the man stood back up, hugged Kolona, shook Olivir’s hand, and lastly gave Zach an affectionate squeeze of his shoulder before leaving the table.

“Oh,” he said right as he began walking away, pausing for just a moment. “I’ll be accompanying you on your journey. I’ve decided to tag along.”

Zach smiled. “Having an Elf around is always reassuring. I’m so glad to hear that.”

With that, Eldora joined his fellow GSG members at another table and began to engage in laughter and crude discussion with his guildmates about a variety of raunchy topics. Zach, meanwhile, took another sip of his cola and then sat back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment—one that turned into several moments. Before he realized what was happening, he was dozing off.

And then he awoke suddenly and rudely as a powerful and painful slap on his back sent him speeding back towards full wakefulness.

“The hell you doing dozing off, kiddo,” Donovan said to him; he was clad in his midnight black armor set with a fresh new helmet to replace the one that had been destroyed on the previous raid.

Zach, rubbing the sore spot where he’d been slapped, craned his neck to look at the man. “I’m tired,” he said. “Actually, I’m thinking maybe we don’t have to leave tonight after all. It’s like 4AM local time now. Maybe we can call it a night and—”

“What are you fuckin’ nuts?” he asked. “You got everybody all riled up and now you wanna go home to bed? Start waking your ass up, kiddo. Everyone who says they’re coming on the raid is back, and we’re all waiting on you and the vampires.”

Zach, rubbing his eyes, could now see that a whole bunch of men and women were staring at him from the very middle of the tavern where they were gathering together. Rian and Lienne were with them as well, along with Ishina, the 15-year-old girl who happened to be the youngest known human adventurer aside from Pete, though Zach wasn’t sure whether or not it was premature to call the boy an adventurer even though he’d inherited the buff from his father.

Notably absent were Trelvor and Seiley, who despite being ordered by Kalana to “have fun with Rian and Lienne,” had actually refused her order, for which Zach was both grateful and surprised. It was a rare sight to see them defy their princess, but Trelvor had actually demanded he be allowed to rejoin her company, saying that it was a matter of honor and dignity.

Kalana, in a display of her own exhaustion, had relented fairly quickly, and while Zach had grown attached to those two Elves and would definitely be sad at not having them around, he’d much prefer they were there for Kal, to keep her company and support her in any way that they could. She…really needed them right now.

For their part, Zach knew that both Trelvor and Seiley had been feeling increasingly guilty at leaving her to fend for herself. Ever since Kalana had met the two and formed a bond with them, they had unofficially become her “royal guards.” Even without any order from Fylwen, it just sort of organically happened, and nobody questioned it. It was therefore understandable that they wanted to join her in Shadowfall Coast.

I should be with her too, Zach thought. I don’t even know how long it’s going to be before I see her again.

Feeling a bit groggy, Zach got up from the table and headed towards the others. But he paused when he noticed a commotion forming right in the center of the tavern, and then he frowned when he realized that the person causing the commotion was none other than Jimmy. Blinking, Zach rubbed his eyes to ensure that he wasn’t hallucinating, as it seemed that Jimmy, a person who was usually one of the smarter people in Zach’s life, appeared to be up to something so egregiously stupid it bordered on suicidal.

Is he…is Jimmy picking a fight with Angelica?

The cat-eared, ultra-high-level NPC was standing perfectly straight with her arms crossed, and she was glaring at Jimmy with a no-nonsense look that became sterner by the second. “It doesn’t matter how many times ya ask me, Jimmy Green. You’re not drinking! You have to be 21. Thems the rules!”

“Okay, but hear me out, what if you just poured me one drink to help me clear my head? Just to keep me level.”

“I said no!”

“But what if—”

“Jimmy,” Donovan growled at him, marching across the tavern and grabbing him by the shoulder. “Are you a fuckin’ idiot? Don’t go provoking Angelica. Did you hit your head or something?”

Jimmy, clearly ignoring Donovan, stood upright as if to match Angelica, and while facing in her direction, he said, “This is bullshit. I only asked for one drink. Just one.”

“Well, you’re getting zero in here!” she insisted. Then her name flashed red—and the entire inn quieted.

Jimmy, in a sanity-questioning act of impossibly stupid defiance, still refused to back down. In fact, if anything, seeing her name turn red actually appeared to embolden him. “Hah. That doesn’t scare me, Angelica. I could easily solo you.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked him. “You sure about that?” Now, her name not only flashed red, but it stayed that color, too. She was now an aggressive, hostile NPC. “Are you really sure?”

“Yeah, I just need a really open space and—ahh, wait!”

Angelica did something. Zach wasn’t sure what. But it caused Jimmy to fly upwards, spin around, and then hang suspended upside-down midair while screaming in horror. Zach, completely powerless to physically intervene, became tense and alarmed as he wondered what he was supposed to do in this situation. He’d heard stories of Angelica killing adventurers who pissed her off. In fact, supposedly, two years ago, Angelica had killed an adventurer who’d grabbed her ass while she was passing by. Whether or not Jimmy’s disrespect rose to that level, he did not know. But he knew that this was a situation where there genuinely wasn’t a thing he could do to help.

“Hey, Angelica,” Zach said, holding out his hand and approaching her cautiously. “Jimmy has a problem with drinking, so please don’t—”

From out of nowhere, there was a “poof” and a puff of smoke above Angelica’s hand. Now, she was holding what looked like a feather duster. And all at once, the stern frown fell off her face and was replaced by something closer to a look of mischief as she used her opposite hand to pull off Jimmy’s boots one by one, and then his socks right after.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he shouted at her. “What are you—ahahahahah! Stop! Stop! Aw, shit! Oh hell nah—hahaha!”

In what had to be the craziest torture Zach had ever seen, Angelica began tickling Jimmy’s feet with the feather duster while he floated immobilized a few feet above the floor with his head pointed down. At once, he began squirming and writhing in the air, clearly unable to move his limbs, all while her name remained in red. “You’d better apologize,” she said. “You pestered me. I don’t like that.”

“I’m sorry!” he shrieked. “Ahhahahaha! Make it stop! I’m laughing but this shit is worse than death. Ahahaha! No more! No more! I’m sorry! Yahhhhh-hahaha! I’m suffering! This is torture!”

Having opted for a much less ruthless form of punishment than everyone knew she was capable, the other adventurers were quick to settle down and even quicker to begin laughing at Jimmy as he must’ve been close to peeing himself. Alternating between his left and right foot, Angelica mercilessly tickled his bare feet with the feather duster. “Someone help!” Jimmy cried. “I can’t take no more! I’m sorry!”

“Are you gonna keep pestering me and my patrons for a drink, Jimmy?”

“No!”

“Are you gonna never bring it up again until you’re 21?”

“Yes!”

“Okay then.”

And just like that, her name reverted to green, and Jimmy fell down onto the wood flooring with a plop; afterwards, he groaned as he tried to pick himself back up. Zach, hurrying over, extended his hand, which Jimmy took, and he helped his friend to his feet. “Are you an idiot?” he asked. “Did you seriously just say you could solo Angelica? Are you nuts?”

“That was dumb of me. I realize that.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Zach said to him. “Even Rian started to sweat for a minute there. He’s laughing now, but we were all worried. Why would you do that? For a stupid drink? I don’t get it. And another thing, how can you even—”

Zach wasn’t even close to done berating Jimmy, but he was forced to stop as Donovan decided it was his turn. The man backhanded Jimmy, hard, right across the head, making Jimmy groan in pain. “Jimmy, the fuck was that?” he shouted. Then he lowered his voice so that only he, Jimmy, and Zach could hear what he had to say. “How many times do we gotta tell you this ain’t some ‘simulation game?’ Keep fuckin’ around like that, and you’re as good as dead. Do you have any idea how lucky you were just now? I’ve seen Angelica rip a sonofabitch apart for getting on her bad side. If she didn’t like you, she would’ve killed you.”

Jimmy nodded. “I said my bad. I just really need a drink, and ya’ll ain’t listening to me. I don’t want one. I need one.”

Donovan looked like he had more to say, but Tyson, who hurried over with a horrified expression on his face, interrupted him. “Jimmy, what happened?” the man asked. “Are you okay? Did she hurt you? You looked like you were in big trouble there.”

“I was,” he said to Tyson.

“Why? What happened?”

“I wanted a drink and she said no.”

Tyson nodded as if it all made perfect sense to him. “Ah. I’ve been there before. Well, you may want to avoid drinking in this tavern in the future. That awful mob looked like it was going to kill you.”

“She is not a mob,” Donovan grunted as he regarded Tyson with nothing but raw disdain and hatred, his lips curling at the mere sight of the younger man. “And you can fuck off. I’m trying to have a talk with one of my own. Get lost, parasite.”

Tyson, reacting to the sheer intensity of the dislike in Donovan’s eyes, turned himself around and went right back to the table with Olivir and Kolona—in a hurry, too. Zach, watching him scurry away, felt badly for him. And not just because of the tooth he’d knocked out of the man’s mouth, but simply because he was so detested by so many people that it was hard not to feel sorry for him. In some ways, Zach was beginning to think Tyson wasn’t all that terrible, just misunderstood. Just…someone who was really lost and troubled.

Donovan, muttering vile words at Tyson as he retreated back to his table, eventually looked away from the man and instead addressed the adventurers in the tavern. “I know a lot of you’d like to tag along with us,” he said aloud. “But we’re keeping this raid limited to 75 people for a reason. The hall is narrow and if there actually is something to be found, it’s gonna be hard enough dealing with it as it is even at our current size.” He cleared his throat. “For those of you coming on the raid, make sure you’ve packed any extra food or sleeping bags or whatever-the-fuck you need. Every step we take is a step we’re gonna need to walk back with or without finding anything. We could be gone awhile.”

Listening to Donovan speak, the last bit of fatigue and sleepiness fled Zach’s body. The spirit of adventure filled him instead. He was finally going to see if the hall was truly infinite. Of course, even if he failed, it still wouldn’t definitively prove it wasn’t. It would only mean he’d run out of time or food. Actually, come to think of it, it was technically impossible to prove that the hall was infinite. It was only possible to prove that it wasn’t. Because no matter how far they ventured, there would always be the possibility of the hall ending just a little farther down.

If I had the time, I’d try to walk down it for at least a month, he thought to himself. But I have to be back for my meeting with the world leaders.

Ideally, Zach would go as far as he could possibly go before losing his sanity. But with time constraints, he’d planned for them all to head down the hall for about a week or so before turning back. This, naturally, would leave him unsatisfied if they found nothing, and he realized this; still, it was worth the attempt to try. No one else would’ve been willing to do it without his insistence, and this was because almost nobody believed he was correct.

From the chatter Zach had been eavesdropping on, most of the adventurers, including even those in the Explorers Brigade, who whole-heartedly supported his expedition, did not expect to find anything. Their support appeared to be rooted in the sentiment of what Zach was trying to accomplish as opposed to any genuine belief that they would discover something new. Hell, even Zach was beginning to doubt his own self. Still, unless somebody had a better idea, there was no reason not to try this.

It's starting to seem crazy to me now, though, he thought. Everyone knows the hall is infinite. It’s like common knowledge.

With final preparations having been made and everyone back from Mushkie’s, it was now just about time to set off. The only thing that remained was to work through what appeared to be a last-minute change of leadership. Jimmy, who had been fine all day long, was now showing serious signs of withdrawal, and without even putting up a fuss, he allowed Donovan to casually announce that he and Zephyr would be leading the formation instead of him.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead,” Jimmy said. “I’ll get the next one.”

“Hey, are you all right?” Zach whispered to him, becoming concerned.

“I don’t know.”

Zach regarded him. He was sweating profusely. He was also shaking a bit, too. “I thought you’d be through this by now, Jimmy. It’s been more than a week since you last had a drink.”

He snorted. “The fuck you talking about? I got buzzed right after we left for Dragon Squire. I snuck some in the back of Tyson's plane while you were napping.”

“No you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”

“You want me to lie?”

Zach frowned. “Maybe you should skip this raid and wait for Tena to get back.”

“Tena’s gonna be with her aunt longer than we thought. She’s sick and needs someone to look after her, so Tena is stuck there until her sister can fly in from Shores of Wrath.”

“Can’t Tena just give her a yellow stone? They’re not exactly that hard to get anymore.”

Jimmy sighed in a way that made it seem like he was exhausting too much energy just in speaking. “It’s age-related shit,” he said. “The stone isn’t gonna help.”

Zach, taking a moment to better consider the situation, found himself filling with disappointment at the fact that Jimmy had been sneakily drinking right under his nose.

“So you’re saying as soon as I dozed off you started up again? Jimmy, that’s fucked up.”

“I know, man, I know. I don’t need to hear it from you. Just let me be, all right?” He began tugging at his robe. “Fuck, it’s like eight-hundred degrees in here,” he said, visibly sweating.

Zach was conflicted. On the one hand, Jimmy not only wasn’t suited to lead right now, but he probably shouldn’t be on the raid at all; on the other hand, being trapped in a potentially infinite hallway was something that basically guaranteed he didn’t go sneaking off to some Galterran pub to drown himself in liquor. Sure, the legal drinking age was 21, but that wouldn’t matter to someone who was greater than level 1. All Jimmy had to do was tap his shoulder three times and they’d turn the whole pub over to him if he asked for it.

I need to take him with us.

“Okay, just hang tight. It should get better after a day or two.”

Jimmy nodded, though he didn’t look convinced. He kept glaring at Angelica, who clearly noticed his angry staring. But rather than react with hostility, Angelica smiled compassionately. Still, Zach became somewhat nervous as she strode over. The last thing he wanted was for Jimmy to start another confrontation with her.

“Jimmy, you feeling okay, hun?” she asked him. “You’re sweating and shivering at the same time.” She took a wet cloth and wiped his face.

“I just need a drink,” he said. But then quickly, he added, “I’m not pestering you. I know. When I’m 21.”

“Actually, no,” she said. “I just changed my mind. You’re banned from drinking in here for life.”

“W-what?” he shouted. But then he lowered his voice. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I might not have the authority to ban anyone from eating or staying in a room, but I’m allowed to ban people from drinking. Eilea actually fought to give me that permission two-thousand, eight-hundred-five years ago. Back then, you could even buy drugs in here, too.” She lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. “It was a big fight among the Great Ones. Adamus wanted people to feel free to make any choice they wanted, including really bad ones. But this was one argument he ended up losing. We got rid of drugs, and I was given the right to ban alcoholics for their own good. Too many adventurers were dropping dead of alcohol poisoning.”

Zach was taken aback. He had no idea she was allowed to make such determinations at her own discretion. Jimmy, who seemed to be worsening by the moment, merely nodded meekly and then turned around to face Tyson, who’d gotten up from his table and approached the three of them. “Hey, Tyson,” he called out to the man. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything on you, would you? I need a little something to get me through some shit.”

Becoming annoyed, Zach moved to intervene, yet in what came as another shock, it turned out he didn’t have to. Instead, he watched in fascination as Tyson placed his arm on Jimmy’s shoulder and said, “It’s best you didn’t, Jimmy.”

Scowling, Jimmy asked, “The fuck you mean?”

“I just mean…you’re only nineteen, maybe you should slow down. I can’t enable you, and I never would’ve in the first place had I realized the extent of your problem. You don’t want to end up like me. Truly. Maybe it’s best you took a break.”

Jimmy didn’t even reply. He simply looked at Tyson with despair for a brief moment then turned his back to the man. “Everybody is pissing me off today,” he grumbled as he stormed off on his own.

Moving ahead of the rest of the raid, he darted up the soft steps that led to the second floor of the inn, and then he continued onwards, disappearing out of sight. Zach didn’t worry about where he was going, though, since there was only one way he could go, and thus it would be impossible to lose him.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Angelica said. “Don’t worry, Zach.”

He looked at her, and then he bowed his head in gratitude. “Thanks for not killing him,” he said. “I mean that.”

“Awhh, shucks, I was never gonna kill Jimmy. Did you think I would?”

“Well…you know. It’s just that I’ve heard that you’ve in the past, uh, you know…”

Angelica gave a knowing nod. “I only kill really bad men,” she said softly. Then she tapped her finger against the side of her head. “Don’t forget, I can see way more about a person than you can. Most of my boys and girls in here are good people. But the really bad ones sometimes come and go unnoticed. As soon as they break my rules, I make sure I get rid of them.”

“I see.”

Zach wasn’t sure how to feel about that—or at least he wasn’t until she began to actually explain what she meant by “bad men.” And Gods, it was awful.

“Rapists, murderers, slaveowners, human traffickers—some adventurers are secretly really, really bad. They hide this side from their friends. But they can’t hide it from me. The man I killed in here two years ago abused children. As soon as he grabbed me, it gave me the right to aggro and react however I wanted. And I did.”

“Wait, Lennar did that?” Donovan asked, sounding aghast. Zach forgot he was still standing beside them. “Are you sure about that? He was a good guy. Just a bit rowdy.”

“I know ya think so,” Angelica said, “but he wasn’t. If you want proof, his inn room expires in five months, two days, and an hour. If you really wanna see for yourself, I’ll put a hold on the auto-clean and auto-purge and leave it exactly as it is. You can walk in and see some of his ‘trophies.’ But you’re not gonna be able to sleep for a long time.”

Zach shuddered, and so did Donovan. “I think I’ll just take your word for it,” he said with a grunt. “Anyways, I’m with the kiddo here. I’m glad you weren’t too harsh with Jimmy. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, and I’m thinking we should just send him back to my sister for now. He's not in the right state of mind to be raiding. He’s better off under her care.”

“I agree,” Zach said, “but the thing is we can’t trust him to head straight there. If we send him to Jascaila, he’s liable to end up back in some pub somewhere. At least if he’s with us on the raid, we know he won’t be drinking.”

Donovan grunted. “Yeah, maybe, but don’t forget, we got the safety of everybody else to consider, too. A raid ain’t daycare. I don’t think this is a good idea, letting him come along. Not if he’s like how we just saw him. I think I’m gonna have to kick him out this time.”

“Donovan, please don’t. I really don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Kiddo, you mean well, and so do I, but like I said, a raid is a dangerous thing to have someone tagging along who’s clearly compromised.”

“Well it’s a good thing we’re not going on a raid, then,” Zach argued. “Until proven otherwise, we’re going for a long walk.”

Donovan said nothing for nearly half a minute. He simply stared directly at Zach, his gaze harsh and unflinching. Finally, his expression softened, and he relented. “All right, fine, have it your way.”

With that, they were finally ready to begin. Donovan, maneuvering his way past the raid, who was scattered and mixed in with the rest of Angelica’s, took his position at the bottom of the stairs. He turned his body to let a few uninvolved adventurers quickly move up or down, and then he raised his voice and addressed all of them at once.

“I’m gonna be up front, Zephyr’s gonna be last. Everyone, make sure you leave at least fifteen-or-more feet of distance between you and the person behind you. This is so we don’t get claustrophobic. See, you might not realize it at first, but after a long enough time going down that hall, shit is gonna become real uncomfortable. When that happens, I don’t want anybody freaking out.” He paused for a moment as if to ensure they were all digesting his words. “Now, I’ll be honest,” he continued. “What we’re about to do is fuckin’ nuts. But since I’ve never done anything like it before, I say what the hell, am I right?”

His words brought about a loud cheering from not only the gathered raid but also more than a hundred of those who just happened to be in Angelica’s at the moment. Zach, along with everyone around him, had large backpacks containing food, clothing, and supplies. Many adventurers were also taking along suitcases as well as other means of storage. Unfortunately, since a keycard for an inn room could only be obtained from Angelica herself, they wouldn’t be able to spend their nights in any of the rooms. They’d be sleeping on the floor.

As the raiders lifted their hands and released a cheer, it once again struck Zach just how mind-numbingly stupid his idea was. Self-doubt was growing within him, and he wondered if anyone would ever trust a suggestion from him ever again if he turned out to be wrong about this. Just thinking about what this “voyage” would actually entail set him on edge. This wouldn’t just be some minor inconvenience. This was going to be a hell of a trip if they gained nothing at all from it.

“Hey, Angelica,” he said as Donovan turned around and slowly began making his way up the stairs. “You really can’t tell me if I’m right about this?”

“Nope,” she said. “Have fun.” She waved at him from behind the counter as he awaited his turn to ascend.

Positioned somewhere in the middle of the formation with Olivir, Kolona, Lienne, and Rian, he placed his hand on the homely, wooden banister and began to climb. At the top, he turned to the right and paused for just a moment at the very beginning of the hallway to stare at the most infamous room in all of Angelica’s: the famous, oft-talked-about Inn Room 1.

From the outside, it was indistinct and looked just the same as all others, but on the inside, it was a total mystery. Zach was sure that adventurers for hundreds—and maybe even thousands—of years had wondered what was inside. Supposedly, its rent was paid up for another eighty-five-thousand years, meaning whichever adventurer had owned this room had been so rich in points that he or she’d been able to essentially claim the room forever. Had it belonged to an adventurer dating back to the very beginning of Galterra and the system? It was quite possible.

Across from Zach, and to his right, was Inn Room 2. It was the second most-famous room in Angelica’s. This one was also rented up for a good-few thousand years. In fact, thousands upon thousands of rooms were. It was one of the peculiarities of this place. The vast majority of rooms early on were claimed by people who’d died a long, long time ago, but had chosen to put an eternity’s worth of points on their room, anyway.

Those were the people everybody should’ve been mad about. But were they? Nope. Not at all. It was Zach who they berated as each one of them passed by Inn Room 8.

“I can’t fucking believe Zach stole this room,” Dirvin said, flicking the door.

“Yeah,” Rono agreed. “Loser doesn’t deserve it.”

Zach hated those two despite only having met them a few times, with their first meeting being shortly before the dragon raid. Back then, they’d accused Zach of “KS’ing” them and had even ratted him out to Donovan. What followed was a little “fight,” in which they’d all rooted each other near the Moldark boss fight in Yorna’s B10, but aside from that, it luckily hadn’t gotten violent. The two guys were around Jimmy’s age—only slightly older than Zach—and Jimmy had once jokingly referred to them as “Beavis and Butthead.” Zach had no idea what that meant, but he somehow agreed with it, anyway.

Even Rian doesn’t get along with those idiots, he thought.

Making his way past Inn Room 15, his feet made soft, echoing thuds against the floor, yet he could barely hear them as the raid, which extended far in front of him, was boisterous and noisy. Behind him, he realized many adventurers were only first climbing the stairs. Donovan had been extremely insistent on ensuring that enough space remained between adventurers, and so far, people were heeding his words.

“All right!” Donovan yelled from the front of the line. “Everybody should be in the hall now. We’re picking up the pace!”

And with that, Zach, along with all the others, entered into a jog at a speed that had been very, very meticulously chosen by Donovan to ensure that every adventurer could maintain it. It was basically the fastest possible pace that the slowest or most sluggish among them could reasonably sustain.

“Hey, Zach,” Rian called, glancing back at him from where he was jogging ahead.

“Yeah?”

“You really think we’ll find something?”

Zach wanted to tell him they would, but he was seriously starting to doubt himself. He decided to play it cool so that he looked slightly less stupid when or if they failed. “To be honest? Probably not.”

“You were so sure a few hours ago.”

“Yeah, but now everybody’s got me thinking the other way about it. Maybe it really is an infinite hall.”

Olivir, who was behind him, released a pleasant, boyish laugh. “Zach, I think you’re right, for what it’s worth.”

“You do?” Zach asked.

“Yup. For sure.”

“And so do I!” called Kolona’s voice from even farther behind. “Stay positive!”

“Okay, I will!”

And that was exactly what he did as he jogged. And then jogged some more. And then he jogged even more. Excitement was in the air. Adventurers were buzzing with chatter and activity. Footsteps resounded as step after step joined their chorus of laughing, jovial voices. During this time, Zach and Olivir finally had the chance to really catch up, though Olivir didn’t seem to feel like talking about his and Kolona’s actions in Shadowfall Coast, which was understandable. Zach, gently bringing it up, had been quickly rebuffed. So instead, they discussed Archian Prime and Olivir’s various adventures with Kolona as of late.

“Wait, so you’ve been to that NPC skeleton village Fylwen was telling me about?” he asked them. “The one that sells flaming swords?”

“We sure have,” Kolona said with a beaming smile. “Oli and I bought one just as a collector’s item. We don’t even fight with swords. The quests there are all way too low level for us to have gotten anything useful out of it, but we did them anyway for fun.”

“Damn, I need to go there someday.”

“If you ever feel like it, stop by and we’ll show you the way.”

Olivir gave him a thumbs-up. “Seriously, you should come visit us more. You know where we live, and now that we’re at peace with Elves, you can come and go peacefully. Actually, our relationship with the Elves has improved a lot since, well…”

“Since what?” Zach asked, wondering why Olivir had hesitated.

Lowering his voice, Olivir said, “Since, you know, Fylwen started staying on Galterra. All the green-cloaks are gone now too aside from just a couple. So, it’s a lot like it used to be before she showed up. We get along very well with our white-cloaked neighbors.” He lowered his voice even farther, and now he actually shuffled forward a bit to close the distance between them. Grinning, he whispered, “Many of them have privately apologized, too.”

This, Zach did not find to be very surprising. The white-cloaks, though duty bound to follow her faithfully, never did seem all that keen on Fylwen. Actually, this whole conversation reminded Zach that he’d had a question he’d been meaning to ask.

“Um, Kolona?”

“Yes, Zach?”

“Do you think it’d be okay if uh, you know, this winter—Galterran winter, I mean, when it’s nice and warm on Archian Prime—me and Kal could stay with you guys for a bit? I want her to see Archian Prime and the Elvish villages and stuff.”

Kolona, in a way that reminded Zach so much of Kalana, made a happy squeak and clapped her hands together. “Of course! I would love that so much.” Then, in a way that was decidedly unlike Kalana, she said, “Excuse me,” and reached into her bag, pulled out a liquor bottle filled with chicken blood, and began to drink it so fast that she had to wipe some of it off her lips with her sleeve. “That really would be great.”

Sometimes I forget they’re vampires, he thought.

As they continued onwards, Zach looked around at the inn room numbers to his left and right. Having just about hit the one-hour mark, he was pleased to see that they were already passing Inn Room 14122. This meant they were moving much faster than Zach, Rian, and Lienne had been moving on their very first trip here. Back then, Zach had been assigned Inn Room 18361, and it had taken almost two hours to get there. It was also about the point where more and more free, unclaimed Inn Rooms began popping up, as Zach now learned that it was possible to tell if an Inn Room was claimed or not based on the background color of its number. If a room was taken, it was green; otherwise, it was blue.

“How’s everybody holding up?” Donovan’s voice boomed from somewhere way ahead at the front of the formation, much too far for Zach to see him. In response to his question, the adventurers all released a cheer.

So far so good, he thought.

And things continued to be good. There also seemed to be a palpable sense of mystery and intrigue about the place as, one hour later, upon passing Inn Room 26176, they finally got to a point where there were no longer any claimed Inn Rooms. For the past ten minutes, the green-colored backgrounds framing the number had become less frequent, then quite rare. But now, however, Zach felt it was safe to say that there were no longer any at all. In other words, it had only taken a tad more than two hours for them to venture farther than anyone in recent history had ever had any reason to go. It was cool, and it made Zach smile. He really wanted to keep things positive.

And then Lienne had to go and ruin his mood with a single question.

“Zach,” she called out to him, “I just thought of something.”

“What’s that?” he replied, calling to her. Her brother shifted a bit in the hall so that he could see her. She spun around and began jogging backwards so that they could look at one another while speaking.

“Let’s say you’re right and there is something out there if we go far enough. Um, what happens if someone like, I don’t know, let’s say five-thousand years ago—what if they did this too? Does it still count?”

And just like that, an entirely new worry that Zach had never even bothered to consider struck him from out of the blue. “No, actually,” he said, his mood suddenly turning gloomy. “We have to find a dungeon, and we have to be the first people to ever find it. Meaning the first in all of history. No one else can have ever found it before.”

Lienne tried to play things off with a laugh, but Zach knew she could spot the uneasiness in his face that she’d caused with her question. She turned back around and kept walking; this, as Fluffles, who had been jumping over heads since they first set off, decided to hang out with Olivir and Kolona for a little while.

The cat was being extremely sociable today. He was going from the back of the line to the front and then back again, spending a few minutes with any adventurer who liked him, which was most adventurers. Sometimes, he skipped over people, such as Zach just now, and other times he would zigzag and pick people seemingly at random. It looked like he wanted to ride on Kolona’s shoulder at the moment.

“Hi, Kolona,” he said to her.

“Hi there, Fluffles,” she said, her smile warm. The cat stayed with her for a bit before deciding to head all the way to the rear of the formation, likely to spend some time with Zephyr.

Well, at least everyone seems to be having fun, he thought. I’m not sure how long that’ll keep going for. This could get old quick.

And it did. Things became noticeably quieter once another two hours had come and gone. Now, they were strolling past Inn Room 57431, and the predominant sound had shifted so that it became almost exclusively that of boots on carpet. There was still some chatter, as well as the occasional laugh, but the difference between now and the way things had been at the start was jarring. Yet things became quieter still as they hit the five-hour mark, and then almost totally silent as they hit the sixth.

Now, jogging past 70319, the sound of boots, sneakers, sandals, a few bare feet, and four cat paws were the only noises to be heard. Several adventurers, such as Rian and Lienne, were beginning to show signs of fatigue and labored breathing, and those who weren’t seemed to want to focus on preserving their energy so they could continue to uphold their current pace.

Technically, their pace was only a “jog” by adventuring standards. By the standards of a level-1, this would be considered an all-out, wild sprint forward. Yet as things tended to be for those who’d leveled, even those among them with the lowest speed stat and the lowest stamina could still easily and effortlessly defeat a world-class marathon runner in a race. That was simply the way of things.

And so, as inn doors flashed by to his left and right, and the entire hallway seemed to take on a dream-like, tranquil scene, Zach found himself becoming mesmerized by it. The constant, rhythmic thudding of feet on the floor, the seeming blur of the numbered doors as they passed by—all of it served to make Zach genuinely question whether or not he could doze off while he was jogging. Hell, he realized he just might.

But then, he was ripped back into reality as Rian, who was ahead of him, came to a sudden, abrupt stop, causing Zach to pause behind him. “What the hell, Rian?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you’re tired already.”

“No, dumbass. I stopped because Lienne stopped.”

Leaning to the side, Zach could see that Lienne had, in fact, stopped, but so too had Alixa, who was in front of her, and Reni Sarwin, who was in front of Alixa. Zach briefly flared with excitement. “Did they find something?” he asked hopefully. “Is that why we stopped? Gods, tell me we found something! Tell me we already—”

“Kesten!” Donovan roared, a terrified quality in his voice that was so unlike him. “Kesten! Get over here now!”

“What’s wrong?” Kesten called from the back of the formation.

“We need a doctor! It’s Jimmy!”

What felt like a bullet traveled straight through Zach’s heart. Adventurers everywhere looked at one another nervously as the sound of boots sprinting along the carpet echoed. Many adventurers, particularly the larger ones or those in large armor such as the Britethorns, hugged the right-most wall to allow the man to pass. His form came into view soon after. As usual, he looked like some kind of rock star, clad in a leather jacket, skinny jeans, and spiked bracelets.

“What’s wrong?” Kesten asked, moving with the urgency of a doctor. He even shoved people out of his way, Zach included. But Zach, on the verge of panic, followed after him. Thankfully, the other adventurers were willing to let him pass as well.

Moving as fast as he was able, he darted to the very front of their formation, and once there, he saw Jimmy lying on his back, moaning. He was shaking so fiercely. His entire body…it was shaking. Like someone in the throes of a seizure, or worse, death. “Jimmy!” he shouted, running to his friend. But Kesten, almost as though he were acting on autopilot, shoved Zach back and away and then dropped down beside Jimmy.

“What’s wrong with him?” Donovan asked.

Kesten, who had seemingly dropped everything he’d brought with him aside from a pack strapped to his side, opened it up and began attaching a cuff to Jimmy’s upper arm; this, as he placed a stethoscope around his own neck. But even as fast as Kesten was moving, Jimmy was deteriorating even faster. He began convulsing. Foam and vomit exited his lips, and he began muttering.

“Fuck am I?” he shouted. “Who got me? Who you? Who are you? Where’s mama?”

“Jimmy!” Zach shouted. “What’s going on with you? Why are you—”

“Zach!” Kesten snapped. “Either be quiet or leave!”

Zach closed his mouth. He didn’t take Kesten’s tone personally. He knew this was how any doctor would act in this situation. Listening to his heart, Kesten began shaking his head. “Is he…is this boy going through a withdrawal?” He turned around and looked at Zach. “Is he?”

Confused, Zach nodded at him. “Well, yeah, but only of alcohol. Not drugs.”

Kesten actually winced. “Zach, are you aware that, of all known substances, alcohol withdrawal is the most dangerous?”

Feeling his knees weakening, Zach shook his head. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t either,” Donovan said with a grunt. “I wish I did before I let him come.”

Kesten looked frustrated and worried all at the same time, though he now seemed to take it out more on Donovan than Zach. “Are you telling me you knew that you had a nineteen-year-old kid with you who was about to go through alcohol withdrawal and you let him come here anyway?”

“Well, Zach said it’d be fine,” Donovan replied, sounding as though he was caught off guard.

“And? Zach is a seventeen-year-old boy, Donovan,” Kesten said angrily. “You are a man in your fifties. What in the fuck were you thinking?”

Zach had never seen Kesten this angry or worried, and he wasn’t sure if that was because the situation called for it or because his time spent at the hospital watching people die every day from radiation poisoning had changed him. Maybe it was both. But regardless of the reason, it definitely served to send powerful bouts of racing, shooting fear straight into Zach’s chest.

“I…like I said, he was just pining for some booze. I didn’t think it could be this serious.”

Kesten looked straight into Donovan’s eyes. “Despite what you might think, there’s only two substances on Galterra you can die from withdrawing off: Still Rage and alcohol. And Jimmy looks like he’s on the edge of death right now.”

“Don’t say that!” Zach blurted out, unable to stop himself. “I have stones. Uh, the yellow, right? Or the purple.”

“Stones won’t help,” Kesten said. “Stones can clear an overdose. He’s not overdosing. He’s withdrawing. Son of a bitch! I don’t have what I need to treat him here.”

“What’s even wrong with him?” Donovan asked.

“DTs,” Kesten explained. “Delirium tremens.”

“The fuck is that?”

“It’s a life-threatening condition that happens from alcohol withdrawal. He needs a sedative or this can turn bad very fast.”

Donovan looked around. “Where the fuck are we gonna get something like that?”

“I have no idea,” Kesten said. “Ironically, that street drug, Still Rage, would actually save his life right now, as hard as that is to believe.” He swore. “I don’t know what I can do for him. Maybe if we carry him back we can—”

“Wait, hold on!” Zach shouted. “Did you say Still Rage can save his life?”

“Yes, why?”

“Tyson!” Zach screamed. “Get over here right now! It’s an emergency! Please!”

There was a brief pause. “Did you say Tyson?” Tyson shouted back. “Are you sure that wasn’t a mistake?”

“Yes you!” Zach shouted. “Gods-be-damned, get over here! Now! Run like your life depends on it!”

To his credit, Tyson did exactly that. Making his way quickly through the crowd of adventurers, who thankfully did not take the opportunity to trip or hit him, Tyson appeared near a snarling Donovan and an indifferent Keston. “What is it?” he asked.

Zach stared him straight in the eyes. “Do you have any Still Rage, Tyson?”

Tyson croaked. “St-Still Rage? What’s that? I’ve never heard that term before. Is it some kind of—”

“Tyson, please!” Zach yelled at him. “Jimmy might die if you don’t.”

The man narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “Is this some kind of test?”

“No!” Forcing himself to be as calm as he could possibly be, Zach lowered his voice a touch and said, “As hard as it is to believe, Still Rage for some fucked-up reason can fix whatever’s wrong with Jimmy. I swear this isn’t a test or a joke. Do you have any?”

Tyson lowered his voice. “It’s just you said if I had any drugs on me, you’d send me back to my uncle to be—”

“Right now I don’t care, Gods-dammit! Tyson, I’m begging you. Please don’t let our friend die.”

At this, Tyson’s expression turned serious. He removed his backpack from his back and held it out in front of him. Then he opened it, and inside he opened a secondary pouch, concealed within was a third hidden pouch, and in that one, he produced a tiny baggie containing four pills. “These are clean,” he said. “I got them from someone I trust.”

Kesten grabbed them. “How many milligrams are in each?”

“They’re 1mg tablets.”

Kesten placed two of the tablets in Jimmy’s mouth, then stuck his fingers down his throat and somehow forced Jimmy to swallow them. Jimmy, even as he was rocking back and forth, muttered, “The…fuck? Somebody just give me Xanax? That taste like Xanax.”

“It is,” Zach said to him. But he was back into a haze of convulsions and strange body movements. Kesten then shot Zach a questioning look, and so he explained. “Where Jimmy’s from, um, on his Earth colony, Still Rage is a medical drug called Xanax. That’s what he says, anyway. We found that out during the Mare of the Primordial Void raid. Uh, you missed that one.”

“I see.”

Returning his attention to Jimmy, Zach asked, “Will those pills save his life?”

“No.”

“No?” Zach exclaimed. “But you just said—”

“Four isn’t enough! It might buy him some time, but for him to get better, he’d need two of these every two hours for ten hours. Where are we going to find that many—”

Tyson coughed into his fist. “I may…have a few more.”

Zach looked at him. “You have more?”

“Maybe one or two.”

“Tyson, please. How many more do you actually have?”

Tyson made a nervous-sounding groan then unzipped yet another hidden pouch within the hidden pouch, then another one in that one. It actually became hard to follow. Reaching inside, he pulled out a sock. “I have like a few in here.” He reached inside. “Let me see how many I—gahh, wait!”

Kesten grabbed it from him and quickly turned it upside down, and then, what looked like ninety, or maybe even a hundred pills came spilling out all over the fucking floor. Zach didn’t know whether to be outraged or impressed. “One or two?” he asked Tyson. “Really?”

“Look, Sir Calador, I never said I counted them.”

Of all things, Zach actually laughed. His emotions were so fucked right now. He just wanted Jimmy to be okay. And it was only then that he realized Olivir and Kolona were now hovering over Jimmy.

“Oh, right,” he said. “If Jimmy dies, you guys can just bring him back, right?”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re here.”

Zach, feeling absolutely horrible for even speaking the words that next came out of his mouth, asked, “Would it be more humane if I just kill him and let Olivir bring him back?”

“Gods, kiddo, that’s dark,” Donovan said.

Zach ignored the remark. He was only trying to be helpful. Deep down, he felt intense guilt, as Jimmy wouldn’t have even been here right now if not for his insistence. This was his fault. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know any better. Alcohol was legal, so how could it be that that was the drug that killed people so easily? It didn’t even make sense.

“I’m so sorry, Jimmy,” he whispered. He looked at Donovan. “Should we bring him back? I’ll take him myself.”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best.”

“No need, Sir Calador,” Tyson said. He bent down, scooped up Jimmy, and placed him over his back. “I’ll carry him. He can stay with us. No need for anyone to go back.”

Kesten seemed to scoff at this idea. “He can’t come with us. He needs to be in a Gods-cursed hospital, not carried down a hall like luggage.”

“I see your point,” Tyson said respectfully, “but having gotten to know Jimmy recently, I suspect he’d be very upset if he woke up anywhere but this hallway or a dungeon connected to it. You said he needs two pills every two hours, right? I shall take full responsibility for him. But I will not leave him behind. I just don’t think it’s what he’d want.”

“Oh yeah? Well, it’s a good thing that nobody here cares what you think, ya fuckin’ parasite,” Donovan growled.

“Yes, well, I’m sorry you feel that way, but—”

“Stop talking,” Donovan said. “I don’t want to hear you or your bullshit. I know exactly who you are, Tyson Revel. You’re a worthless, spineless sack of shit, and your mother should’ve aborted you to save everyone the disgrace.” He scowled. “You’re not even supposed to be here, bucko. So keep that trap shut. In fact, if you open your mouth one more time, I’ll backhand you so hard you’ll be joining Jimmy in the hospital.”

“Yeah, seriously, shut your fucking mouth, Tyson,” Reni said, piling on. “Like Don says, you shouldn’t even be here. There’s no one here who likes you or wants you among us. Honestly, it should be you foaming out the mouth right now, not Jimmy. You deserve this. He doesn’t.”

“Agreed,” a bunch of adventurers chimed in.

Tyson stood where he was, still carrying Jimmy, but his eyes did moisten. He said nothing, but it was plainly clear that he was hurting. How could he not be? Who could withstand that level of vitriol and not at least feel something? The fact he wasn’t bawling was actually an improvement for the typically weak-hearted man.

“Okay, guys, that’s enough,” Zach said, looking to put a stop to this. Yet, the abuse went on.

“You really are pathetic,” Reni continued, opening his mouth and spitting in Tyson’s face, almost hitting Jimmy in the process. “I’m not usually such a hateful person, but you’re a fail-son and a disgrace.”

“So true,” another adventurer added. She laughed at him. “I mean, I hate all the political guild shit-heads, but you have to be the worst of them. I bet your father was happy to get Alzheimer’s just so he could forget he brought such a waste of life into this world.”

“Your criticism has been noted,” Tyson replied, his voice taking on a shaky quality.

“Guys,” Zach said again, more forcefully this time. “I said enough.”

He didn’t like where this was going. It felt wrong to him in such a primitive, deep, and instinctive way. It reminded him of why he’d saved Vim in the first place: of why he’d endured what he’d endured. It was simply a primal feeling deep within his gut, one that told him on such an innate and personal level that the primary imperative of the strong was to protect the weak, and that anyone who shirked at this duty could not be forgiven.

He’d almost forgotten it, too. Almost. But seeing them all gang up on this quivering, struggling man, it activated something inside his brain, something that was rousing a deep anger he was struggling to control. And so, he called for them to stop. But did they listen? No, they did not. They continued.

“If Jimmy is leaving,” Alixa said, “Tyson should definitely leave too. Jimmy’s the one who invited him, so he shouldn’t get to stay if Jimmy’s not here anymore. Especially since nobody else wants him here.”

“I have to agree,” Kesten said. “Nobody told me this creature would be here when I agreed to take two weeks off at the hospital to be here. I came here to try to get my mind off how scummy this world is, not to have a reminder of it standing next to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Tyson whispered, closing his eyes as though that would disguise the tears and hurt.

“You should be sorry,” another adventurer said. “You’re just such a piece of shit. And you know that, too, don’t you? Why would you even come here? Like, dude, everyone here has made it very clear we think you’re garbage and don’t want to be associated with you. You’re not our friend, and we wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire, so just fuck off, thanks.”

“Yeah,” Donovan agreed. “Tyson, you should turn around and get out of here. Because I’m sick of lookin’ at you as well, and if I keep seeing that freckled-fucking-face every time I turn around, I might just—”

“I thought I told you all that's enough!” Zach shouted, launching himself back up to his feet and causing Donovan’s mouth to fall open, Kesten’s eyes to widen, and the ten nearest adventurers to recoil as though Zach had just pushed them away with an invisible force. Like a dam breaking, he lost his cool, and no number of breathing techniques were going to stop him now that he’d gotten going.

These people.

These assholes.

He’d had enough.

“First of all, I invited Tyson here,” Zach said, his voice becoming louder and louder with each word he spoke. “Me! Not Jimmy. Me! He’s my guest! And anyone who doesn’t like it can fuck off, because I’m tired of this. You like being a bunch of bullies to someone who never did anything to a single one of you? Well, guess what: I can be a bully too. And if any of you have a problem with that, I’ll put you through way worse than Mr. Oren did. Think I’m bluffing? Here’s something most of you don’t know about me: last week, I killed over a hundred people before breakfast. That’s not an exaggeration. I killed a hundred people before most of you assholes got up in the morning. And I could easily kill a hundred more right now. So go on. Fuck with me and find out!” Zach finished in a scream. But he didn’t stop there. He was too angry. Too aggrieved.

“I can take on every single one of you.” He drew his sword. “It wouldn’t even be difficult. I’ve killed so many people I’ve actually lost count of how many I killed.” To prove his point, he thrust his arms out, stopping just short of Alixa’s belly and causing her to howl in fear and back away.

“It’d be so easy,” he said, pulling his arms back. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve gone a bit crazy in the head lately. So come on. Who wants to be my next victim? Come. Draw your weapon. I’ll wait.”

He waited. No one moved. So he continued to warn them.

“You see Tyson here?” Zach pointed his sword in the man’s direction. “This man was left in my care by Sir Vim Alazar and Sir Abram Gespon the Virtuous. This means he’s mine now. So I want you all to understand this: going forward, anyone who insults him or hurts him in any way is insulting and hurting me.”

Zach looked a number of them right in the eyes, including Donovan. “Listen to me carefully. All of you! If Tyson wants to come to Angelica’s, he can come to Angelica’s. If Tyson wants to go to Archian Prime, he can go to Archian Prime. He can go wherever the FUCK!”—he screamed this word, the dramatic and sudden increase in volume causing Alixa to raise her hands and flinch fearfully—“he wants!”

Zach lifted his chin. “I am Sir Zachys Calador of the Royal Roses, the fourth-ranking member of the most-powerful guild in North Bastia. Striking my subject is the same as committing a crime against me and my guild, and I’m done tolerating it. SO BACK DOWN RIGHT NOW OR I’LL BE LEAVING HERE WITH YOUR FUCKING HEAD!”

No one said a word after that.

Nor did they dare trouble Tyson.

He was not bothered ever again.

But he did regard Zach with such unfathomable gratitude that somehow Zach knew that Tyson would be loyal to him for the rest of his life. He gave Zach such a devout, reverent look that Zach wondered whether or not Tyson might now be more loyal to him than his own guild.

But the adventurers? They, on the other hand, were quiet. For the moment, they refused to meet his eyes. He knew they’d get over it pretty quickly. But some of them…some of them would never look at Zach the same again.

Because in their eyes, this was the moment he stopped being one of them.

******

Eilea shot up out of bed, sweating. She shivered. Goosebumps ran down her arms and legs. That was no dream. She’d seen it clearly—could still see it clearly. Zach, standing there, his sword drawn, command dripping from every word.

Her emperor. For just a moment, she saw him. The emperor who would lead this world out of ruin with her by his side. There he was in all his glory. For just that instant, he had appeared. Finally, at long last, he had made his first appearance. And though it had lasted for but a few seconds, it was perhaps among the most significant moments in the thousands of years she had lived.

Her eyes leaking tears of joy and elation, she realized she needed to speak with Francis and share with him the good news. Emperor Calador was real as she’d known all along. And he wasn’t as far away as they’d feared. His soul grew before her very eyes, and it was beautiful.

He, the young man who’d just jeopardized so many friendships, who’d just earned the fear and distrust of a community he held so dear to his heart—and all for the sake of defending just one, lone, emotionally defenseless human against their collective, misplaced hatred. There were so few who would have done that: so few who would make such a sacrifice for someone so disliked and so unpopular.

He was in there. Her emperor. He was being born, a process that was set in motion.

The greatest ruler since King Peter I was on the verge of existence.

There would be a new beginning: a chance to correct her past mistakes. To get it right this time. To finally show Adamus that he was wrong, and to bring about a world that was better than the one he’d created: his botched, forsaken creation, his prison of suffering and torment. Of injustice, cruelty, and anarchy.

Emperor Calador was real, and he would change everything.

Chapter 195: Shot Fired

Chapter 195: Shot Fired

Uncomfortable, worried, and having entered one of the lightest sleeps of his life, Zach popped out of his sleeping bag as soon as he heard the groaning coming from a few feet behind him, where Jimmy had been placed after they’d decided to take a five-hour rest just past inn room 209551.

“Oh, shit,” were the words Jimmy spoke as Zach saw his form rolling over from one side to the other. “Fuck happened to my bed?” Seconds after speaking those words, he began to snore.

Zach, springing up, hurried over to his side, crouched down, and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him. “Jimmy? Are you okay now? Hey, Jimmy. Wake up!”

This caused Rian to wake and Lienne as well, as the two of them had been sleeping nearby. Both of them then also got up and hurried over, which in turn caused Olivir and Kolona to rise from their own sleeping bags. Before long, a number of other adventurers were getting up as well, several of them refusing—likely out of fear—to look Zach directly in the eyes, making him wonder if he’d gone too far earlier.

Probably.

As numerous figures made their way to Jimmy, the sound of rapidly tapping feet from Fluffles and Tyson, who coincidentally happened to be running side by side, joined the growing commotion. But Zach focused only on Jimmy for the moment.

“Who’s shaking me?” he asked, his eyes slowly opening. Then he made a confused, annoyed expression. “Zach, the fuck? Let a man sleep.” Zach refused. He shook him some more. So now, Jimmy yawned, sat up, and stretched. He scratched his short black hair. Then he yawned again and said, “Man, I can’t even remember coming this far. Wait a second…”

Jimmy licked his lips then made several clicks with his mouth as though he were trying to taste something on the tip of his tongue. He immediately looked over his shoulder at Tyson and asked, “Did you give me Xanax? Why do I feel like I’ve just been drugged? And if I was, did I do it on purpose or did somebody slip something in my drink? For the record, I’m okay with either, but I just wanna know.”

Tyson laughed. “Technically, yes, I drugged you, Jimmy.”

“So that’s why I can’t remember shit. Oh well. Did I at least have fun?”

“No.”

“Seriously?”

Zach, overwhelmed with relief to see that Jimmy was okay, resisted the urge to hug his friend, as he knew Jimmy hated anything overly touchy-feely. “Gods, I thought you were going to die, Jimmy. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Huh?” he asked. Then he yawned for the third time and added, “Shit, I need a drink.”

“No you don’t!” Rian, Lienne, and even Tyson all shouted at him at once.

He frowned. “What’s going on with you people?”

Zach paused a moment, unsure of how to explain to him what happened. But he decided it would be best not to delay and to just tell him the truth outright. And so he did. He told Jimmy exactly what had happened to him, and exactly how close he had come to death. Jimmy listened to all of it with a blank, plain expression. And when Zach finished, his reaction was immediate.

“Nah, that ain’t happen,” he said, shaking his head. “Bullshit.”

“It’s not,” Zach said. “You really did have seizures and all kinds of other—”

“Nope,” he said, in total denial. “I’m not some bitch. I wouldn’t go out like that.”

“Well, you were about to,” Rian said, no humor or mockery in his voice. That alone should've been proof enough of how serious this was.

Jimmy got up, stretched again, and picked up his staff. If he had been a level-1, he probably wouldn’t even be able to open his eyes for another few days, let alone shrug off his near-death experience. “Let’s change the subject,” he said. “I’m good now. I can lead the raid.”

“Like hell you can,” Donovan growled at him. Having now awakened, he stormed over to Jimmy, his armor already back on his body. Without warning, he grabbed Jimmy and yanked him into a hug, giving him no choice in the matter. “You son of a bitch! Don’t you ever pull that shit again, mother fucker.”

“Okay, okay,” Jimmy said, looking uncomfortable. He pulled away. Then he stared at Donovan, who Zach now realized was staring at him. “Something…happen between you two?”

“No,” Zach and Donovan both said at once. To Jimmy, Zach said, “Everything’s fine. If you’re okay, we should probably keep moving now, since I just accidentally woke the entire raid up.”

Jimmy looked back and forth between Zach and Donovan, skepticism on his face. But eventually, he sighed, shrugged, and grabbed his things. “Lead the way.”

*******

Anelia, lying on her belly about ten feet away from the window across the room, adjusted the scope on her ether rifle. It was a rare-quality long-gun that she’d purchased for a fortune from an adventurer. In fact, all her weapons were paid for in gold, as ether guns didn’t drop from the carefully curated mobs located on guild estates. She’d had to do a whole bunch of jobs to make back what this weapon had cost her, yet despite this, she’d only used it a handful of times over the years, with most of them being recently.

There we go, she said, increasing the magnification on the rifle so that she had a much clearer view of the refugee camp, where a man with short and curly brown hair was ambling slowly across a patch of grass towards a table serving eggs, toast, and other breakfast foods. Right on time.

It was early in the morning, and Anelia, lying prone farther inside the 2nd floor apartment she’d rented, was completely hidden in shadow. Now, she began lining up her shot carefully, her finger near but not on the trigger. Anyone with sense knew never to touch the trigger until it was time to shoot. She controlled her breathing, slowing it and taking control of her reflexes.

The rifle, which was pure black and looked quite a bit like a real machine-based gun, did not function like her other weapons, in which she exerted herself each time she pulled the trigger. For this weapon, the exertion required per shot was paid in advance via a bolt-action exertion lever atop the weapon. Each time she pulled it back, there’d be a satisfying click, following which she’d be hit with a Medium-Low exertion cost. The round would then be chambered, and she could fire it hours or even days later if she wanted.

It's too crowded, she thought as she followed the man with her scope. I need to hit him while he’s getting a plate.

He’d made a terrible mistake in deciding to show himself today. The man was a refugee leader by the name of Felton Yinrah, and he was actually one of her higher-priority targets. Anelia had been looking everywhere for him to no avail. But all that changed when she’d been able to bribe a local patron at a pub on the south-east side of the city where he used to work before the war. The man, who was formerly a bartender, was now one of the key figures organizing the level-1 resistance against the Royal Roses.

And he was worth a hell of a lot of gold.

Anelia readied herself. As soon as he reached for a plate, she would take the shot. She needed to be perfect. Failure to strike her target would not only risk having him run off, but also, there were children around, and hitting one of them would be unforgivable. And so, she lay in wait. She was good at what she did precisely because she was patient: precisely because she didn’t rush. As soon as he stood where she needed him to be, she’d take him cleanly through the heart. And then, there’d only be three left.

*******

“I’m scared,” the resistance leader said, looking nervously at the cooking station where the other refugees were heading to get breakfast.

“It’s okay, sir,” Kalana said to him over the Comm. “I promise you I won’t let anybody hurt you. I will catch the bullet when it comes. I swear it.”

“All right. I trust you, Princess Kalana.”

Wearing a big, baggy robe and a cap that covered her ears, Kalana had disguised herself as one of the human refugees. Currently, she was sitting and eating breakfast at a picnic table with Trelvor and Seiley. The two sat across from her, and she sat on the side facing the cooking station, where she had a view of the apartments across the street as well as the resistance leader, Felton Yinrah, who was being really brave in agreeing to bait the assassin this way.

The fact that they were here at all was all because of Alex, who had contacted Kalana early this morning with an idea for a sting operation to lure out their bounty hunter. It was a plan already in motion, but it was one that he claimed would go much more smoothly and safely if she got involved. At first, Kalana had been hesitant, because she didn’t want to play games with people’s lives, but after Alex had laid out his plan, she’d thought it over and eventually agreed to it. She was confident in her ability to move fast enough. She was sure she could save the man. But she needed to concentrate. She needed to be ready to spring into action the moment the rifle was fired.

“Kalana, have him move a bit faster,” Alex said over the Comm line. “If the assassin sees him hesitating, he’ll get suspicious.”

“Okay.” Kalana tapped the side of her face. “Felton, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Princess Kalana.”

“Can you walk a bit faster please? We don’t want to spook the assassin.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I’m just a bit nervous.”

“Don’t worry. I gotcha.”

Kalana trained her eyes on the apartment building. There were four possible windows where the shot could come from, as each were open and overlooked the park where breakfast was served to citizens in this part of the safe zone each morning. She pursed her lips, becoming angry just at the thought of someone going around murdering people after she’d worked so hard to end the bloodshed. She was so, so angry. And surprisingly, so was Alex. He was just as incensed over this as Kalana was.

He cares so much about the lives of ordinary people, she thought.

Kalana knew that he was suffering just as much as she was in watching the Royal Roses abuse, torture, and kill so many of the people here. Revenge wasn’t an excuse, either! It wasn’t okay what they were doing. It didn’t matter how mad they were at the Guild of Gentlemen. It didn’t make any of it right!

For this reason, Kalana vowed to arrest the assassin and make him confess on the record to being hired by the Royal Roses. From there, her mother would demand the Royal Roses abstain from any further involvement in peacekeeping operations in the city. Vim would then either have to concede to her demands or risk a confrontation with the Elves, who would be well within their rights, morally speaking, to forcibly remove the Royal Roses if they didn’t knock it off.

“All right,” Felton said. “I’m approaching now. Here I go.”

******

Vim, pacing back and forth next to Haisel Ragora in the underground command bunker that had once belonged to King Morrison, kept checking the time to see what was taking so long. “Is he dead yet?” he asked his second-in-command, who was leaning over a computerized table containing numerous screens filled with maps and other information.

“Anelia has cut all communication,” he said. “She does this right before she’s about to take her shot.”

Vim, on edge, wanted this over and done with. Hiring a bounty hunter to execute resistance leaders in a safe zone wasn’t exactly a sanctioned activity. The fallout from being caught would be devastating. It was a massive risk he was taking, but one that was necessary to bring this filthy shithole of a city to heel.

Why couldn’t they just accept that they’d lost? That it was over? Why did they have to resist? These dumb fucks!

Continuing to pace restlessly, he moved in a way that was awkward, as he wanted to make sure he stepped over or around all the dried blood that seemed to be everywhere in the room. The two vampires had made a mess of the place, and it was very difficult to clean, much of it lingering as stains. Hopping over a particularly filthy spot where the king’s severed head had been left for his forces to recover, he wondered why Princess Kalana and her mother were refusing to answer him on the Comm line. Were they up to something? Or was he just being paranoid?

“Haisel, have you been able to—”

His words cut off as a red, glowing light popped up on the map in the area they were monitoring. “A shot was just fired!”

Chapter 196: A Truth that Burns Time Itself

Chapter 196: A Truth that Burns Time Itself

Her aim was good. Anelia could always feel it just before a shot was fired: that sense of perfection, or even its absence if she made the slightest error. In this case, before the bang resounded in her apartment and the kick from the ether rifle caused her shoulders to twitch, she could feel that she’d lined the shot up perfectly.

The gun went off, and in the intervening milliseconds that followed, she continued to stare through the scope of her rifle, expecting to see the man clutch his chest and fall down. Afterwards, she’d rush to her feet and scramble to get out and away before any heat fell upon her.

But something was wrong. Something didn’t quite look right. Rather than a splatter of blood, there was instead a mass of orange flames just before her target. And in the mere instant that these flames persisted, Anelia’s brain worked quickly enough for her to form a thought, one that was purely instinctual and not based on careful consideration. It was more of a guttural reaction.

Did I cause those flames?

No, she did not, as she now saw.

The flames vanished as quickly as they had appeared, and in their wake, a figure dressed in a large, baggy robe wearing a face-concealing hat stood with its hand extended, palm open. And all this happened in such a quick time that it took place before Anelia’s bullet had even traveled all the way to the target. For this reason, Anelia’s brain had virtually no time to process a thing it had observed. She reacted with confusion and surprise as the bullet she’d fired slammed into this figure’s open hand then fizzled out into smoke.

What…just happened?

This figure then pulled off its robe and removed its hat, revealing a young girl with Elvish-like ears and golden blonde hair. And though Anelia was prone on the floor and perfectly concealed in shadow, this girl was staring through the window and into the scope of the weapon almost as though she knew exactly where Anelia was and was looking directly at her, eye to eye.

That’s…that’s princess…

Anelia froze—but only for a moment. Terror shot through her, but she overcame it. Her mind raced with questions of how, why, and when. What was going on? Had she been compromised? Clearly, she had. But no, no, none of that mattered right now. What mattered was that a Gods-cursed Elf was onto her. And not just any Elf, but the fucking princess of the entire race. And as if to confirm her fears, the girl, who must have been none other than Kalana Vayra, took several steps towards the street from the park, and then loudly shouted up to her.

“Come out right now! Don’t make me come in there after you!”

Anelia took a deep breath. She was a professional. She’d been in close calls before. In one fluid motion, she stood upright while simultaneously activating Bank and Storage. Very quickly, she tossed her rifle in the chest and exchanged it for her best pistols. Then she dismissed the ability just as the entire front-facing wall was blown out with a loud crack as the young Elvish girl flew inside, rolling on the floor before jumping back to her feet.

She’s extremely fast, Anelia thought, gritting her teeth.

She wasn’t alone now, either. There were two other Elves with her: a young man with a white cloak and another young girl with a green one. The green-cloaked girl had a strange, rebellious appearance for an Elf. She had crimson red hair with stripes of gold and black, a spiked collar around her neck, and she’d used an ample amount of eyeshadow. The young man, on the other hand, was tall, broad-shouldered, and the prototypical image of a young, virile Elvish warrior.

“There he is!” the princess called, pointing at her. “Get him!”

All three attacked immediately, lunging at her. Anelia, peeling back her lips in frustration, turned her guns downward between her legs and activated Boomshot, pulling the trigger on both guns at once. With a bang, she blew out the flooring beneath her an instant before she was tackled, and then she fell into the newly created hole. Dropping straight down to the abandoned apartment beneath the one she’d rented, Anelia landed in a crouch on the floor below, whereupon she sprang immediately forward, leapt into the air, and dived out of the window, causing the sound of shattering glass to emanate from the apartment.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Spinning her body midair, she flipped herself around in the direction of the apartment complex and began filling the air with loud cracks as she fired upon the three Elvish figures pursuing her. They were so fast that they were somehow already on her, sailing in the air across from her. All three raised their arms and guarded as her strongest shots failed to inflict any significant damage.

“Leave me alone!” she shouted as she fell.

“No!” Princess Vayra shouted. “Just surrender! We don’t wanna hurt you!”

“Bullshit!”

She landed upright on the sidewalk below, and then she took off in a mad dash across the street. Her heart was now pumping intensely, so much so that she could keenly feel each beat in her neck. They were already on her, and they were so much faster. She veered hard to the right, sprinting into the middle of traffic, ripping straight through the DEHV crossing barrier and causing a DEHV driven by a young woman to crash directly into her. Even before impact, Anelia swore, as she knew it would not only destroy and crush the DEHV, but likely kill the innocent driver inside.

Or at least…in any other circumstance, that was what would’ve happened.

Instead, a split-second before the DEHV slammed into Anelia, there was a flash followed by the shattering of glass, and then there was another flash and another crack. Now, Anelia just had time to make out the sight of Princess Kalana dashing across the street with a young, confused, and screaming woman before the now-abandoned DEHV turned into compacted trash as it rammed into her body, crushing and totaling the vehicle.

“Are you okay?” she heard Kalana asking the woman. She was now on the other side of the street, putting her down. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.” She then turned to face Anelia and glared at her. “Sir! Please don’t run! I just wanna talk to you.”

Anelia, raising both pistols, fired off several loud shots into the air, causing people all around to scream and cry out in fear. Then, using the chaos as a distraction, she bolted back across the street in the direction she’d come, slipping right past the other two Elves, who turned around too slowly to apprehend her. She then swerved and ducked her way between, around, and in some cases over the fleeing pedestrians, hoping to lose the Elves in the panicking masses.

This is bad, she thought as she reached the end of the street, turned to the left, and began fleeing down another. I never thought the princess herself would be after me!

Sprinting her way down another street while looking to her left and right for someplace to escape, she thought she found it when she spotted a lesser-known alleyway that cut across 15th and went straight to the garment district on 14th. Looking behind her and spotting no sign of the Elves, she ran as fast as she could into the alley, where it was damp, darker, and exactly the kind of place she was comfortable being in this kind of a mess. Up ahead, there was another alley that ran between another two buildings, and she went for it. Then she exited a third such alley on 14th and Junction, tried to get her breathing under control, and slowed to a casual walk, concealing her guns in the process.

Thankfully, very few people paid her any mind. Most were too busy focusing on their own despair. Numerous buildings on this street had been damaged in the bombing runs, and now there were people in rags sitting outside broken homes with misery on their faces. It was awful what war did to a place.

Not my problem, either.

Strolling casually down this street, Anelia tried her best to keep any sign of distress off her face. Chances were likely the Elves had split up to look for her, and a fast-moving, running target would draw their attention immediately. Even though she was wearing her scale armor along with a helmet that covered everything but her nose, eyes, and mouth, the Elves would likely be darting their heads around so fast searching more for movement than analyzing the specific details of every individual in a crowd. This, she knew from experience. This was not her first escape from a botched job.

Just keep moving. Slowly.

Rounding another corner, she made her way down a much more populated street, where hundreds of people were protesting with signs that read everything from “This is our home!” to “No Orcs in Shadowfall Coast!”

This was perfect. If ever there was a place to conceal oneself, it was amid an angry, lively crowd. Anelia, walking straight into the thick of things, navigated carefully around each person. The combination of their shouting voices, peacekeeper sirens, and constant eruptions of firecrackers meant she was exactly where she needed to be to lose her pursuers. The crowd, which was pushed back by the Lords of Justice peacekeepers, moved slightly down towards the end of this street, which worked well for Anelia, because it enabled her to slip inside a destroyed, burned-up luncheonette missing its entrance door.

Once inside, she moved just a little bit faster, then faster still as she hurried to its back entrance. She extended her hand, reached for the door—and then went flying as the door was kicked in with such force that it slammed into her and caused her to roll backwards several times.

“There you are!” Princess Kalana shouted at her.

Fear exploded in Anelia as she dashed upright, drew her guns, and attempted to pull the trigger for dual point-blank shots. But the princess, moving so much faster than Anelia could handle, threw up a front-kick that knocked the left gun out of her hand, then spun her body around and struck the opposite weapon with a spinning back kick. Anelia turned her eyes as she watched her pistol clack off the wall and fall to the destroyed flooring.

I’m unarmed, Anelia realized, shocked. I don’t have any weapons! Then again, neither does the princess.

“Stop,” the girl said, walking confidently towards her. “No more running.”

“Fuck off!”

Anelia, reaching into her armor, pulled out a flashbang grenade, which seemed to take the princess by surprise. Pulling the pin, she let it drop straight down, and then she covered her ears and closed her eyes as it went off. Without even bothering to see if it was effective, she turned around, sprinted back out into the street—and then ducked beneath a hand attempting to clutch her throat.

“Get away from me!” she shouted at the young Elvish man and his punk partner, who nearly succeeded in tackling her.

Once more in a wild, chaotic run, she pumped her fists as she fled down another two streets. And like before, she burst through another DEHV crossing barrier, though this time, she avoided causing any accidents. But she was becoming winded. She needed to find someplace to rest. She looked behind herself, checking to see if anyone was still pursuing. From what she could see, it looked like she just might have made a clean break.

And that was when she spotted a shadow moving fast along the ground beneath her, which caused her to look upwards and see the Gods-be-damned princess dropping down on top of her. Anelia, barely managing to react, threw herself in the opposite direction, rolled backwards along the pavement, and then quickly jumped up to her feet just as the Elvish girl landed on top of where she’d been standing.

“Stop!” she yelled again.

The command was pointless. She was wasting her breath. Anelia had only become so successful due to the fact that she never stopped. Her entire philosophy was in never surrendering under any circumstance. There was no such thing as “stopping” to her. If she had ever allowed herself to succumb to such weakness, no matter how perilous the job, she would have been killed or forcibly retired a long, long time ago. So, no—she wasn’t going to “stop.” She would fight with literally every ounce of her strength until she either escaped, killed them, or they killed her.

No stopping. No surrendering!

As the princess approached, she put her beliefs into practice. Gripping her left hand tightly into a fist, she pivoted on her hips and delivered a desperately powerful hook. But the princess ducked, managing to easily avoid her strike, causing her arm to fly over the top of her head and put Anelia off balance. Right after, the princess clutched her own hand into a fist and returned with a hook of her own, striking Anelia in her right side near her hip and cracking straight through her armor. The pain was unbelievable. She released a loud, involuntarily “ooooph!”

Of all things, this caused the princess’s mouth to drop open and concern to fill her face. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Did I hit too hard? Oh no! Tell me if you need help.”

Is she showing me mercy? Anelia thought, outraged. Feeling disrespected, she spit in the girl’s face just as the other two Elves showed up. The male turned his head to see the glob of spit on Kalana’s face, and then his expression morphed in an instant from neutral to enraged.

“Did…did you just spit on Princess Kalana!” he screamed.

“Trelvor, no!” Kalana shouted at him as his fist flew forward and bashed into the front of Anelia’s helm, causing it to suffer a full break while crushing the nasal bone in her nose and sending her straight down and onto her back. She hit the pavement so hard that her head bounced off it and cracked a piece of it. Now, she struggled to breathe—and to focus, as the world began spinning.

“Trelvor, never ever do that again!”

“I’m…I’m sorry, Princess Kalana. But she spit on you.”

“Okay, so? It’s only spit. You could’ve killed him.”

“Actually, I think she’s a woman,” the girl’s voice said.

And now, the one called Trelvor gasped. “I just…hit a woman like that? This, I regret.”

“You shouldn’t hit anybody like that, Trelvor. I know you mean well, but what if you’d killed her? Oh, no, she’s bleeding really badly.”

Get up, Anelia told herself. Get the fuck up now! You don’t quit. You don’t let fucking Elves capture you!

Anelia, barely able to breathe, crawled up to her feet and then struck out wildly, swinging her left, then right fist. Kalana side-stepped each. “Stoppit!” she shouted, her voice almost pleading. She stuck out her foot, and Anelia, in pain and bleeding profusely from her face, simply could not see it coming. She tripped, stumbled forward, and went down hard for the second time, landing right on her face which was already wounded. But even still, she somehow picked herself up again. As she did so, she saw a puddle of blood from her broken nose, which continued to drip onto the sidewalk.

“Please!” the princess begged. “No more.”

Anelia growled, screaming out as she again recklessly tried to strike the Elvish girl, who raised her arms and blocked each strike. Pain flared in her wrists. She was too strong. But Anelia didn’t care. She did not quit. She punched even harder, and now, she could feel her own right wrist breaking as Kalana guarded against a right cross. She cried out in pain, but struck again with it despite it being broken.

Don’t surrender!

“You’re hurting yourself,” Kalana yelled at her. “Why are you doing that? You can’t win, so please, stop.”

She’s right, Anelia realized. I can’t win. There’s only one choice here.

Backing up slightly, Anelia reached into her armor, likely for the last time. She fished around for a small, sealed plastic bag containing two dark-green capsules. She opened the bag, spilled them into her palm, and then opened her mouth. As a bounty hunter, this was her responsibility to her client. She couldn’t let them take her alive. She wouldn’t. That was cowardly. It was time to end things. It was okay, though. She’d already made arrangements to ensure that, in the event she didn’t survive this mission, everything that she had would go straight to Denisoa and Adim, the two loves of her life. Anelia had already earned enough to ensure they would live in prosperity.

I should’ve listened to you, Denisoa, she thought, the regret slamming into her. Now you’ll never even know what happened to me.

“Princess Kalana!” the one called Trelvor shouted out. “Those are poison pills!”

“Wh-what?” Kalana cried. “She wouldn’t!”

Realizing they were onto her, Anelia moved as fast as she could. Yet somehow, through some means, Kalana was able to tackle her so fast that even with her hand only inches from her mouth, the girl managed to send her several feet backwards and rolling against the pavement. From the atrociously awful pain in her midsection, the princess had likely broken a couple of her ribs, too.

No stopping. No giving up!

Her hand, having clenched tightly into a fist, still had the pills within them. Laid out on her back, she once more attempted to swallow both, which should grant her a fast, painless death. But the Gods-be-damned princess was now sliding along the ground towards her, and with a dexterity that Anelia could not match, she somehow got both of her legs around Anelia’s scale-covered arm while her own arms wrapped around Anelia’s hand and wrist: an armlock.

“Drop it!” she cried frantically. “Don’t even think about doing that. Let go!”

Anelia only tightened her fist and growled. She struggled, but the Elf was too strong. The other two Elves surrounded her as though worried she might somehow escape yet again. And the male said, “Don’t take any chances, Princess Kalana. Break her arm before she kills herself.”

“That’s a good idea,” the girl said. “You should break her arm.”

Kalana tightened her grip on Anelia’s wrist, and her thighs pressed even more tightly into her shoulder. The pain was unimaginable. “Please don’t make me,” she begged Anelia. “I really, really don’t wanna break it. Please. I’m begging you. Don’t make me break it. You don’t understand how bad I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“Fuck you, Elf! Break it!”

“No! Don’t make me! Why are you fighting so hard? Just stop!”

Anelia never stopped. “Kill me!”

“I won’t!”

“Then I’ll kill me!”

She screamed as she tried with all her strength to move her clenched fist to her mouth, but Kalana was not letting her have so much as an inch. Still, Anelia wouldn’t stop trying. Even if she tore every muscle. Even if she could never use her arm again. Even if the princess ripped the entire limb off her body. Anelia never quit. Never!

“I’ll break it to stop you from killing yourself. I really will. Please don’t make me. I don’t want to. I’m begging you not to make me do it.”

Anelia didn’t stop. She struggled, and struggled, and struggled—and then, at last, Kalana made good on her threat. She could hear the sound of her own arm breaking, and Gods, it hurt so fiercely. She tried to stop herself from screaming to avoid giving her enemy the satisfaction of hearing her pain, but it hurt so badly that she couldn’t control it.

“Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh!”

“I’m so sorry,” Kalana said as her hand popped open all on its own. The princess then took the pills out of her palm and handed them to the girl she’d called Seiley, who herself handed them to a nearby peacekeeper as though for evidence.

“We have high-level cuffs,” said a voice from somewhere.

Disoriented, bleeding out of her face, and writhing on the street with broken ribs, a broken arm, and a broken wrist, Anelia only first realized now that the entire street was teeming with peacekeepers and Elves. At least ten additional Elves had shown up.

“Princess Kalana,” one of them said. “Did you hear me? I said I have the high-level handcuffs. She won’t be able to break out of these.”

“No, we can’t,” the princess said. “I broke her arm.”

“They’ll still fit.”

Kalana shook her head—or at least Anelia thought she did. Her vision had become blurry. “That’ll be too painful for her.”

Kalana was now sitting on the ground right next to where she lay on her back, and she was hovering over Anelia as though warding the others off. Like she was “protecting” Anelia or something. What in the name of the Gods was wrong with this girl?

“I don’t want anybody doing anything that’s gonna hurt her more than I already did. She needs healing. Where’s my mom?”

“She’s coming down here now,” the one called Trelvor said. “Apparently, anyway.”

“Okay, well umm, I’m staying with her the entire time. I don’t trust my mom not to use torture to get answers.”

“Princess Kalana, if she orders you elsewhere, you must obey.”

“I won’t! I caught my mom torturing someone when I first got here, and now I don’t let her do interrogations anymore unless I’m there. I’m the one who made this arrest, and nobody’s allowed to talk to this woman until she has painkillers and healing.”

Anelia was so shocked she wondered if everything she was hearing and seeing was some kind of last-minute hallucination before death. This girl was so kind it was actually disgusting. “How are you Zach’s girlfriend?” she asked. “You’re nothing like him.”

“You…know him?” Kalana looked at her. Then her eyebrows raised. “Wait a minute.” She pointed down at Anelia. “Are you the woman from the dragon raid? Hey, I remember you. I watched you on the media when that was happening. How come you’re here? I thought you and Zach were friends.”

“I don’t know about ‘friends,’ but we’ve worked together. I saved his life last week. He’d be dead if not for me.”

“Really?”

She nodded, causing more blood to spill out of her nose and over her face. “Yeah. So you owe me one. If you really love him, you owe me. Let me go.”

“Nah-uh. You’re a murderer.”

“But I saved his life.”

“Thank you. But you’re still a murderer.”

Anelia growled. “As soon as I can move, I’m going to tear you all apart! I won’t stop fighting until you kill me!”

“We’ll see about that.”

******

Vim was clenching so hard that his teeth began to grind into one another. “How? How did they know? Were we compromised?”

Haisel Ragora lowered his head and voice. “I believe so.”

“But how?”

“My guess? Lord Alex Oren. He’s the only one I can think of who could’ve sabotaged our mission.”

Vim swore, loudly. “Of course. That prickly-hearted science bitch! It had to be him. Fuck!” He turned around and changed Comm frequency. “Connect me to Lord Oren,” he said. “Tell him I want to speak to him. Now!”

*******

Alex sighed as the sound of a screaming, ranting, and irate Gnome filled his ears. “…traitorous-fucking-lab-rat!” Alex could actually hear him gasping as he inhaled, only for him to release a string of insults, each one sharper than the last. “…should be back in Whispery Woods mixing potions, but instead you’re here, fucking up everything for me! I know it was you, Lord Oren! I know it was!”

“It was,” he confirmed, saving Vim the trouble of guessing. But by this point, Vim had exhausted himself screaming and could only make one or two additional insults against Alex’s deceased mother, neither of which he took personally.

“So, you admit it? You admit you sabotaged me?”

“Certainly, provided you admit that you hired a bounty hunter in violation of the UCH’s resolution of peace.”

“So, you want to be a smartass, huh? Well, guess what? I’ve already been in contact with your guild-leader, and High-Lord Besh says he never cleared you to do this. So that means you betrayed my guild as well as your own.”

“Perhaps,” Alex said to him. “But you betrayed basic decency, Sir Alazar. You inflamed tensions, and you caused blood to spill in peaceful streets. Exactly what do you believe would’ve happened even if you’d succeeded? Do you really believe you would’ve fixed these problems with more killing? All you’d do is cause the next slew of level-1 resistance leaders to rise up from the bodies of the ones you had assassinated.”

Rather than consider his questions, Vim reacted with pure negativity. “What do you know, Alex?” he asked, no longer even bothering with formality. “You’re, what, twenty-four years old? You’re a baby. You don’t know shit. How dare you get in the middle of my operation!”

“Your illegal operation, Sir Alazar. Your criminal operation.”

“Spare me your bullshit. I’m not going to forget this any time soon. Because of you, I now have to hire an assassin to assassinate my assassin!”

“Or, here’s a thought,” Alex said to him. “You could just come back to the negotiating table, and in exchange, I can make sure that none of this is ever released publicly. The people never have to learn of what you’ve done.”

“They agree with what I’ve done!”

“Maybe in Giant’s Fall. But the rest of North Bastia is calling for peace and calm. Any revenge you believe your guild is entitled to, you’ve already had it. You’ve killed so many more people than ever needed to die. In the name of decency, it’s enough. Come back to the bargaining table, or this escalates.”

There was silence for a while, and then, in a hopeful sign, Vim said, “Very well. But just know you have no proof of my involvement.” With that, he disconnected. Alex, who was sitting at a table in the middle of a large tent erected just outside the city, stood upright and began walking towards an armored transport vehicle. Kalana had personally requested he interrogate the bounty hunter, as she knew that he was firmly against torture and wouldn’t dare inflict pain as far too many were willing to do. He also knew that the only way to get Vim to cooperate would be if he acquired a recorded confession claiming that the Royal Roses had paid the bounty hunter to assassinate the resistance leaders.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” High-Lord Besh said, standing beside him.

Alex placed his hand to his chest and bowed. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“Just make sure you remember that, officially, I had no idea what you were up to. I can’t have my relationship with Sir Alazar souring. Not when he’s going to be in charge of humanity’s primary shipping port once we reestablish global trade.”

“I understand. And I assure you: right now, he believes me to be solely responsible.”

High-Lord Besh smiled at him. “You did the right thing, Lord Oren. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, High-Lord Besh.”

With that, he made his way inside the vehicle, eager to introduce himself to the bounty hunter. “Kalana,” he said after switching Comm frequencies. “I’m heading over to you now.”

“It’s a bit early, though,” she replied. “I don’t wanna let anyone bother her while she’s resting. I feel so bad for what I did, Alex. I hurt her so bad. I never hurt anybody that bad before.”

“Is she being treated for her wounds?”

“Mhm. And I made sure they gave her a nice pillow, too.”

He smiled as the APC took off and moved towards the city. The crueler the world turned, the kinder Kalana seemed to become. But he worried about her as well, because amid that kindness, there were those who would take advantage of her. He hoped she would learn to recognize those people and not to be fooled by them. Kindness unchecked could unintentionally lead to weakness.

“How’s your mother reacting to all this?” he asked her.

“I’m not sure. But I won’t let her torture the woman.”

“That’s good of you, Kalana. Hang tight. I’ll be there soon.”

********

“That was…amazing,” Prila said, rolling onto her back and pulling the covers over herself. “You’re so different now. You’re still you, but…but you’re different.”

Adamus laughed. He was lying in bed next to Prila on the top of the tallest mountain in Dragon Squire. The temperature out here was many degrees below zero and not quite breathable, so he’d erected a barrier around them: an artificial atmosphere that warmed just the area around the bed, which he’d also conjured via elemental manipulation. It was easy to do once one understood that the only thing separating any two elements was the number of protons balanced by electrons. Borrow a few from here or there, and it was easy to fabricate matter from the air itself. In the old days, they called it “nuclear alchemy,” a type of transmutation that had been vital in the creation of the system.

Turning over onto his side, Adamus smiled warmly at her. He’d forgotten what it felt like to be young. His body, having become completely rejuvenated, was now exactly as it had been shortly after his eighteenth birthday: six-pack abs, big, muscular arms, and a chiseled jaw. His hair was once more a thick, rich, and vibrant blond in color. His energy level had skyrocketed, too. But it was his sexual drive that had really gone overboard.

Of course, it wasn’t for no reason that he’d allowed himself to become old, withered, and subdued. It served as a sort of “check” on his youthful impulses. Therefore, it was important to remain vigilant. He needed to question himself constantly, to make sure he was not violating his own principles. Such things were easy to do amid the passions of youth.

“Do you like the view?” he asked.

Prila sat up and looked out into the distance. Adamus watched as her face filled with delight. He could see the awe in her eyes, and in some ways, it flattered him, as he’d personally sculpted many of the sights she was now admiring.

“You made all those mountains?” she asked.

“I worked with a team, but yes, I had a large influence on all of it.”

“You’re incredible.” She hugged him. “Hey, did you mean what you said earlier? That we can go anywhere?”

“Well, mostly, yes.”

“So, can you show me the Tier-3 planets? The ones you said were more beautiful than anything my mind could conjure?”

Adamus looked at her. She was so hopeful, so beautiful. It was tempting. He truly wanted to make her happy. And his youthful impulses cried out for him to bring her there. But alas, he knew it would be unfair. His brain, which had the wisdom of thousands of years of life, knew that it was a request he could not yet grant.

“I wish I could,” he said. “But I regret I cannot. And no, it is not for lack of ability, but simply the case that it would be unfair to the participants in the system if I allowed anyone, myself included, to enjoy those planets without having gone through the trials and tribulations to earn such a privilege. It is important that these worlds remain perfectly preserved and untouched until or unless the adventurers can find a path to them.”

Prila looked disappointed, but only for a moment. She pressed her lips together in a silly, but cute way, and asked, “What about the Tier 1 planets? Or planets that aren’t part of the system?”

“That is another story. Where would you like to go?”

“Mars! Can we like, just go there?”

“Of course we can.”

He snapped his fingers, and she held on tight to him as a black void appeared around them, collapsing them within it. Then it expanded, letting in light, sound, and scenery. Now, they lay together in bed on a red planet, void of any life, with skies not all that dissimilar to those on Earth. Only, here, there was a massive storm, one so powerful it would pose a danger even to an adventurer. One of these regional superstorms was visible in the distance, causing dust to rise up from the surface and into the sky. Even from what was likely a hundred miles away, a dark, coppery sheen from the storm managed to cover up the sky.

“It is not very nice here, is it?” he asked.

“Nope,” Prila said as she hugged him again. “What about Earth? I’ve never been there.”

“That’s not a very nice planet either, my dear. It was, long ago, but I’m afraid Moldark destroyed it out of spite. A pity, too. It was a beautiful, wondrous planet, and all of its beauty was formed naturally. As far as I am aware, no God or Goddess brought about such a world. It was the result of nothing more than timing and chance. Naturally, the ancient religions would disagree with me on that point, but I’ve always believed it to be unguided and random.”

Adamus watched as Prila sat up and moved towards the edge of the bed. She stared out at the reddish expanse, her eyes filling with wonder. It had been thousands of years since he’d genuinely felt love and affection towards another, and it softened him in such a way that he became reckless. Very reckless. For this reason, he spoke words he knew he should not.

“Can I tell you something, Prila?” he asked her.

She turned her body around on the bed, straddling his left thigh. “Sure.”

“It’s not a good thing. It may make you reconsider how you feel about me. If not for all these hormones and all this energy rushing through me, I would never speak of it.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her expression becoming concerned.

“I did something, Prila. Something horrible. Something I can never undo. Something no one in this world knows, nor have they ever known.”

“What did you do?” she asked. “Whatever it is, I’ll forgive you. I promise. We’ve already come this far.”

“I don’t think you will, Prila.”

“I will. I promise.”

Adamus knew he was being foolish. He knew what he was about to say was so horrible that it would hurt to even speak it alone, let alone in front of Prila. But after such a long time of keeping it inside, he wanted someone to know. And if Prila ever attempted to say a word of this, he would stop her long before she was able to act.

“The Great Ones did not leave Galterra,” he whispered.

“They didn’t?”

“No. I killed them. All of them.”

The color drained from her face. “But that’s impossible.”

“It’s not,” he said. “I faked a bunch of data and convinced them that an ordinary black hole was a wormhole leading to another galaxy. Then I watched as they flew into it, one by one, passing beyond the event horizon, a point in which escape becomes impossible, as not even light can return. You see, Prila, every single Great One who chose to abandon me was rewarded for their treachery with death. Only my wife and I remain. And if she knew this, she would seek violent revenge, the one thing she has yet to do. And even though I would surely triumph, our battle would likely destroy Galterra and everything in it. And yet, even knowing this, she would pursue such an outcome simply to quell her rage.”

Prila was silent. She said nothing. But she did not recoil or turn away from him. She merely rubbed his chest and sat there quietly, likely needing time to really process what he’d said to her. It was a lot to take in.

*****

Francis Calador held his breath as he dived deeper and deeper into the ocean located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean known as the Mariana Trench. He was far too strong to succumb to the pressure, but he was not so strong that he could survive for long without access to oxygen, so he needed to move fast and hold it for as long as he could. Initially, he’d attempted to dive down here with an oxygen tank, but it’d been crushed like a soda can. Thus, he had to use the only advantage he had: his superhuman speed.

Where is it? he asked, sending his thoughts all the way to Galterra.

“I’m not sure.”

You can see everything I can see, right, Eilea?

“I can, but so far, I sense nothing. Try swimming along the bottom.”

It was incredibly dark down here, and the temperature varied greatly. It ranged from extraordinarily cold or, when swimming over a hydrothermal vent, it was close to boiling point. Francis didn’t mind the extreme temperatures, however. His only concern was oxygen. For all his power, it was the one thing he could not overcome. Even the dark posed little obstacle to him, as he could turn his entire body into light, casting bright, illuminating rays in every direction while causing strange, otherworldly fish to scatter and swim away.

I’ll have to come up for air pretty soon, he thought to Eilea.

“Come up now, then. It’s better to discuss the situation while you’re above the surface.”

Okay.

Francis angled his body so that it was straight up, and then, kicking powerfully off the bottom, he blasted upwards through the water so fast that he caused the water temperature around his body to become superheated from the sheer vibrational energy coming off him. In a matter of seconds, he flew upwards almost seven miles’ worth of distance, and now he inhaled a breath of fresh air beneath a reddened, lightning-filled sky as he rose above the surface.

I don’t think it’s here, he thought, treading water. The coordinates might’ve been wrong.

“No, I was very meticulous with the book.”

After her unfortunate mistake with Peter I, Eilea had sent the Book of Elemental Chaos away. Where? She herself did not know, as she’d purged her memory of it shortly after hiding it. But she had left a trail of clues and breadcrumbs so that she could find it again once she had need of it. And for this reason, Francis had been traveling across various planets going from one location to the next.

At each location, there was a clue, which came in various forms, such as data on a laptop or an ancient, inscribed stone. And this clue contained something that only Eilea would know, preventing Adamus from following the trail. The last clue, located on a very, very old machine in Shadowfall Coast, had contained a name: “Secret Base Zeta.” This name was meaningless to Francis, but it held great significance to Eilea. Apparently, when she was in her early teens, she liked to go to very remote locations and build forts, such as on the moon, or in the atmosphere of a gas giant, or the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

“It's true,” she said, reading his thoughts. He could feel her smile. “My parents would get so mad at me. I’d go missing for weeks at a time.”

Were they as gifted as you?

“No, sadly. They were afraid of me, I think. But they also loved me. And as parents, they naturally became upset when they found out their seven-year-old daughter was ‘playing’ inside of an active volcano or building castles in space.”

That is an incomprehensible amount of power, Francis thought. Even to me.

“Adamus is even more powerful,” she said. “And your descendant has the potential to be as well. But not soon enough. That’s why we must find this book. I will use it to destroy the World Eater before it ever spawns.”

Why did you make it so hard to find, though?

“Grief,” she explained. “I hated it. I hated what it did to Peter. I hated myself, as well, for having done it. I sent it away with the intention of never seeing it again. The fact that I left behind a trail was only due to a small bit of sanity that lingered in the background of all my pain.”

Francis tried not to dwell on the incident involving Peter I. He did not blame Eilea for what happened. Adamus had manipulated events as though to teach her a lesson. Yes, technically the error was her own, but she had been guided to that error by Adamus’s machinations and cruelty.

Eilea, I have to be honest with you, he thought to her. We most likely won’t be able to find it before the World Eater spawns. I still think our primary focus should be on ensuring the boy and his friends are prepared to face it.

“It is, Francis. That is our primary plan. The book is simply a backup. Besides, there are other, more important uses for it as well. I still have hope in my heart that we can save my brother before it’s too late.”

Francis nearly sank beneath the water as she said that. Nervously, he looked around, expecting Adamus to appear suddenly and attack him. He sent angry feelings to Eilea. Never, ever say that aloud, and never even think it, either!

Gods, the woman could be so foolish. If Adamus knew that Olandrin was still alive and trapped in a stable, but slow descent just beyond the event horizon of a black hole, they would lose what could ultimately turn out to be their most significant and important advantage against him. It was a truth that needed to remain secret: one of such vital importance that the fate of existence could hinge upon Adamus remaining unaware of it.

But yes. Not only did Eilea and Francis know that the Great Ones had been murdered, Eilea had actually been told this by none other than Olandrin himself, the only one of them to have survived. Supposedly, he had reached out to Eilea fifty years ago during a rare, nearby magnetic storm, which amplified the range of his ability to communicate. He’d told Eilea that he was still alive and that all the others were dead, but that he would hold on for as long as he could; he’d also expressed a blunt acceptance that there was very, very little chance of rescuing him, but that if she could locate the book, perhaps she could use it to summon him here. Eilea, who had only disposed of the book a few decades prior, must have been miserable to have done so.

But…but all of this was something that was forbidden to say, let alone even think. To even think it put them both in such magnificent danger. The fact she’d even told Francis such a thing was incredibly stupid. Christ, if Adamus had any idea whatsoever, he would immediately seek to kill Eilea just to prevent the very possibility of having two Great Ones oppose him at once.

“I’m sorry,” she thought to him. “It’s just that you cannot imagine how much I miss my brother. It is another reason I cannot ever forgive my husband.”

Olandrin Vayra, the musician, storyteller, and goofball—he was a favorite of the adventurers and Elves alike. Francis had actually met him once, back when he was first beginning as an adventurer. It was shortly before Olandrin had “departed” Galterra for another galaxy. He was the kindest man Francis had ever met. There was so much energy and vibrance in him. How anyone could willingly send a man like that to his death…it made no sense to Francis. But more importantly, what mattered was not even thinking about it.

Yes, if the situation arose in which it was possible to save his life, Francis would of course be willing to act. But until or unless such an opportunity presented itself, he would do everything in his power to forget he’d even heard this at all, because no one could say for sure when Adamus was or wasn’t prying. The man was extremely powerful, and no secret was one-hundred percent safe if he went probing for it.

Diving back beneath the water, Francis set out to continue his search. Yet even as he swam to the bottom, a chill unrelated to the water temperature came over him. Eilea was far too careless.

Chapter 197: Confessions and Misunderstandings

Chapter 197: Confessions and Misunderstandings

Kalana knew that she was probably getting on the woman’s nerves, but she didn’t care. “Just take one bite,” she said. “You need to eat at least a little bit.”

“I don’t want any. Get it away.”

“Just one bite and I’ll stop bugging you.”

“This is humiliating,” Anelia relented, opening her mouth. Kalana carefully put some chicken on the fork and put the fork gently into her mouth. She had to make sure the pieces were small so the woman didn’t intentionally try to choke to death. “Can you let me out of these cuffs?”

Right now, Kalana was sitting in an air-conditioned cell in downtown Whispery Woods with the woman, who she now knew was named Anelia Hellcrest. It had been decided that it was best to move her here to this region, for her safety as well as others. Light filtered in from two large windows above the cell. It was a few hours before noon, and Kalana had been with her since early yesterday when she’d made the arrest, meaning slightly more than a day had passed since her capture. Since then, Kalana hadn’t left her side, fearing her mom might resort to “advanced tactics” to get her to speak. Thankfully, Jascaila had volunteered to watch Pete for the time being, which meant Kalana could put her efforts on getting to know her prisoner.

At the moment, Anelia’s hands were bound behind her on the chair she was sitting on, and Kalana, though tempted, knew she couldn’t let her out.

“I can’t,” she said. “You know I can’t. Umm, the first time we tried, you beat up an Elf. I’ve never seen a human do that before, by the way. At least not to one who was leveled. And then you broke out of the lower-level cuffs we put you in. I just really don’t want you to get hurt.”

Anelia was still pretty injured, as having been stripped of all her equipment and forcibly dressed in a medical gown, she no longer had enough constitution for passive HP Regeneration, meaning her face was still bruised, and she was banged up all over. Regardless, passive HP regeneration wouldn’t have helped with her broken arm, wrist, or nose. Only time or a red stone would, and Kalana was fresh out of those or she’d have just given her one.

“Have you thought about talking to us?” Kalana asked her.

“Yep. And my answer is still no. I’ve got nothing to say.”

“Please?”

Anelia laughed. “You know, I hate to say this, girlie, but you’re growing on me.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. You might’ve beaten the shit out of me, but you’re so fucking cute I can’t stand it. You’re a real softie. Too good for this world, actually.”

“Thanks,” Kalana said somewhat awkwardly.

She actually smiled. “You’re welcome.”

Though Alex had tried his best, he hadn’t been able to make any ground with the woman, and neither had Kalana, her mother, or anyone else who had tried. She just wasn’t willing to talk, and this was a problem, because they really needed her to confess what she’d done in order to strongarm Vim into cooperating. Alex was actually coming by in a little bit to try again, and he seemed really optimistic this time, actually. He said he and her mom had discovered a “new way to get through to her.” Since Alex was approving of it, it couldn’t possibly be torture, but beyond that, Kalana had no idea what they were planning.

“How’s your pain today?” she asked.

“It fucking hurts,” Anelia stated bluntly.

“I’m really sorry. It hurts me too. I know that sounds crazy.”

“Nope, I can tell,” Anelia said. “I bet it hurt you more than me, haha.”

“Actually, it kinda did. I didn’t want to break your bones. I wish you didn’t make me. But umm, if you’ll let me help you, I can—”

“Don’t need your help. Thanks for asking, though.”

Regardless of the bad things she’d done, Kalana was totally fascinated by the woman. It was safe to say she’d never met anyone like Anelia before. And it was also safe to say that she was the toughest woman Kalana had ever met in her life. Nothing seemed to break her spirit. When she fought, she threw aside every single consideration regarding her health and safety. It was almost inspiring in a very strange sort of way. If only she wasn’t fighting for such a bad man.

“Can you at least tell me one thing? I promise I won’t report it, and you’re not being recorded right now.”

“You really think you can get me to answer your questions?”

“Mhm. Because this won’t violate your honor-thingy.”

“My ‘honor thingy?’”

“Yeah, you know what I mean.” Kalana scooted her metal chair closer to Anelia’s in the small cell. “I just wanna know: do you actually like Vim Alazar? As in, do you think he’s such a good leader that it’s worth you being loyal to him? Or is it just about the money?”

“Fine, I’ll answer that question,” she said. “It’s just the money. I think the guy’s a fucking prick. Don’t care for him at all.”

“So then, how come you won’t just turn on him?”

“My honor thingy,” she replied cheekily. “I get paid not to break, and I’m proud of my work. But no, I don’t like him. He’s an ass.”

“My mom likes him, believe it or not,” Kalana said. “I dunno why.”

“I do.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. It’s ‘cause Vim is sick in the head and therefore doesn’t fear her for some reason like he should. And your mom’s probably not used to being around people who will talk shit right to her face.”

“Wow, you’re pretty observant.”

“I get paid to be.”

“Open up,” Kalana said, feeding her another forkful of chicken. She complied, thankfully.

At some point yesterday evening, things between the two of them had changed, organically, too. She just sort of stopped being violent around Kalana. Everyone else? Yeah, she would thrash and fight. But she’d at least stopped being mean to Kalana, and Kalana wasn’t sure why. She decided to finally ask her outright.

“How come you’re not spitting in my face anymore? You still spit in everyone else’s face.”

Anelia made a deep, but brief chuckle. “I just can’t do it,” she said. “You really are such a sweet girl.” There was a rare softness in her voice. “It makes me hate myself to be mean to you. I don’t know if this is some kind of carefully calculated psyop or if it’s your genuine personality, but it’s hard for me to be angry with you.”

Kalana scrunched up her lips, confused. “I dunno what a psyop is, but thank you, I guess. And I’ll try to get you a red stone if I can. They’re not as hard to get as they used to be. But shh, that’s our secret, okay?”

“Sure thing, kid. They’re never gonna let me out of here alive anyway, so anything you tell me is going with me to the grave.”

Kalana firmly shook her head. “You’re safe here. There’s no way anybody’s ever gonna kill you. You might go to jail for a while, but that would be the worst thing that can happen to you.”

“How do you figure?” she asked. “Jails can’t hold leveled people. The only punishment is exile to South Bastia or execution. And anyone with sense would take execution.”

“Nah-uh. Not anymore. The Elves are building a jail not far from here that can hold leveled people. Just like in the old days.”

“Oh, yippie. I get to be the first leveled person in hundreds of years to rot away in prison.”

“Well…you did murder people. And I don’t even wanna send you to jail anymore. I did at first, but now I just wish there was some way we didn’t have to, but it’s not up to me. If it was up to me, I would forgive you. But I don’t think it works that way.”

“Well, maybe it can,” a male voice said, causing Kalana to look over her shoulder.

In strode Alex, wearing a clean, freshly pressed white coat along with slacks. His glasses were sleeker than his last pair, and he wore a pleasant smile on his face. He pulled up a chair and sat across from the two of them. Then he looked at Kalana, who was sitting directly beside Anelia.

“Are you two buddies now or something?” he asked.

Anelia made a “hmph” sound. “I guess. What’s it to you, Oren?”

The man looked very confident today. From the expression on his face, he must’ve been certain that he was finally going to get what he wanted from her. Kalana still wasn’t sure how, though, but as long as it didn’t involve abuse or torture, she was fine with it. At any rate, Alex seemed content to just sit there across from them and relax for the moment. It was strange, and even Anelia seemed to recognize the strangeness of it.

“No questions for me today, science boy?”

“Oh, I have plenty,” he said. “But I’m the wrong person to ask you them. I realize that now.” He paused as the sound of footsteps clicked against the tiled flooring of the outside hallway. The metal, shuttered door opened up, and in walked her mother, dressed as elegant as always in a red, flowing, and backless dress. She looked totally out of place in this downtown peacekeeper station.

“Good morning, daughter,” she said. “And good morning to you, Anelia Hellcrest.”

With a twisted grin, Anelia lowered her head, and somewhat sardonically, she said, “Good morning, Your Majesty.”

Taking a seat right next to Alex, her mother folded her hands on the desk and said, “Oh, it is a good morning indeed today, human. For the both of us.”

“Oh? Is that right?”

“Yes.” In a gesture that made Kalana extremely curious and worried, her mother, standing right back up only a moment after sitting down, strode her way around the table until she was behind Anelia. “Let me take those cuffs off you. You must be very, very uncomfortable.”

She inserted the key into the lock, and they popped open. Anelia, looking bewildered, asked, “Aren’t you worried I’m going to jump up and start fighting you? Because I’m about to.”

“No, you won’t do that. You wouldn’t dare. It would make you look quite terrible.”

“Look…terrible?”

“I have some good news for you, human. You have visitors.”

“Visitors?” she asked, seeming genuinely intrigued. “The hell do you mean I have visitors?”

“Shall I bring them in? They’ve been begging me to see you with tears in their eyes. It broke my heart,” she said coldly. “So, I’ve decided to grant their request for a visit.”

Now, out of literally nowhere, Anelia began to look worried: very worried. Apprehension spread over her features. She looked more upset now than she had looked when trying to swallow the poison pills.

Turning her back to the woman, Kalana watched as her mom walked to the exit, opened it, and stuck just her right hand out. “They can come in now,” she said. What followed were two very, very eager pairs of footsteps along with a woman’s voice. And it was this voice that caused Anelia to immediately begin shuddering in her chair.

“Thank you so much, my beautiful, kind queen. Thank you! The Gods bless you and every Elf in the world. Your kindness is beyond anything a commoner like me deserves.”

“Nonsense. Come now, human. I know you wish to be reunited.”

Kalana became worried. What the heck was going on? Not even the reassuring look Alex was giving her was enough to calm the doubt she felt rising within herself. Especially as Anelia, the stonelike, super-tough hitwoman, began whimpering. Literally out of nowhere, she coughed, whimpered, and then looked away.

“Please don’t hurt them. Please,” she begged.

“Hurt who?” Kalana asked.

Anelia looked pleadingly at her. “This is a power play. Somehow, they’ve found the only two people I love, and your mother is going to parade them in front of me as if to say, ‘This is what I can do to you if you don’t cooperate.’”

Kalana gasped, but before she could say a word in protest, Alex spoke up first. “Actually, you’re completely wrong,” he said to her. “No one—and I mean no one—is threatening them. And I give you my word in the name of the Gods that I would never allow that. But you’ll soon see what I mean.”

And with that, a woman and her very young child entered the holding cell. The woman looked to be in her late 30s, and she was instantly recognizable as a rural farming woman, likely from Den of Ziragoth, as she was wearing the remembrance patch on her overalls. The moment she walked into the cell, she stopped abruptly short, put her hand over her mouth, and began to cry profusely.

“Baby, no,” she said, her eyes staring directly at Anelia’s broken nose and her arm in the cast. “I knew this was going to happen to you. Why did you go? Why?”

Anelia sobbed. “I’m sorry, Denisoa. I’m so sorry. I fucked up.”

“Anelia, what happened?” the little boy asked. “Are you…uh, umm, Mommy, is Anelia in trouble?”

Rather than answer, the woman ran across the room and buried her face in Anelia’s chest, bawling and whimpering. And Kalana’s heart broke. Because she was the one who put Anelia in this state.

“Why did you do this, Anelia?” she said in between sobs. “I begged you. I told you not to do this anymore. Why? And they say you tried to”—she lowered her voice so that the boy couldn’t hear—“swallow poison? For what? For some code? What about me? What about Adim? Baby why? That’s what I don’t understand. I just don’t understand why you did this. Please, tell me.”

“You know why,” she said, whimpering. “The money. For both of you.”

Kalana wiped her own eyes. This was an unexpected development to say the least. Now, she felt bad for arresting her at all.

“What did they tell you?” Anelia asked.

“Everything. They told me all of it.”

A panicked look came over Anelia’s face. “Adim?”

“No, of course not.”

She looked at the boy. “I can’t talk with him in here.”

Fylwen smiled. “We have a lovely, revamped daycare just across the street. Why don’t I have one of my people take him there while we speak?”

The woman, Denisoa, nodded, but not before Anelia bent down, scooped him up, spun him around, and hugged him tightly. “I’m gonna be fine, Adim,” she said, though Kalana wasn’t sure if she herself believed it. “Be a good boy.”

“Are you coming home with us, Anelia?”

“Probably not, little champion. But maybe someday soon.”

“I miss you though.”

“I know you do.” She kissed his forehead and put him down. Then Fylwen took his hand and led him into the hallway, where another Elf asked him if he wanted to have fun.

“Yes!”

Then, Fylwen shut the door, and now all of them took a seat at the table. “I trust you’ll behave with her around?” her mother asked.

“Of course she will,” Denisoa replied, speaking for Anelia. Then she began crying again. “You got hurt so bad. I never wanted to see you like this. You’re lucky the princess was the one to bring you in.” She met Kalana’s eyes. “Thank you so much for not killing her,” she said, practically choking on her own tears. “Thank you, Princess Kalana.”

“I…I would never,” Kalana said. “I’m so sorry I hurt her. I swear I didn’t want to. I even—”

“—begged her not to make you,” she finished, surprising Kalana. “The queen told me the whole story. I know exactly what happened.” Then, to Anelia, she said, “Why? Why are you like this?”

Anelia shifted as though uncomfortable. “I don’t surrender, Denisoa. And I don’t quit.”

“But the Elves are not our enemies. They are our friends! They saved us. They bring food and medicine to our town. Why are you opposing them?”

“I’m not,” Anelia said, forcefully. “You don’t seem to understand that I don’t ‘have’ enemies or allies. I get paid, I do my job. None of this is personal.”

“So tell them what they want to know!”

“I can’t,” she said.

“Baby, please.”

“Don’t you understand that my reputation would be destroyed?”

“What does that matter? You promised me this would be the last job.”

“Well, I lied,” Anelia growled. “I don’t know who I am without my job. It’s my entire sense of identity. Shit, Denisoa, don’t you realize that by now? This is what I do. You always knew that.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Please just cooperate. Tell them it was the Royal Roses behind all this and not you. They might charge you for murder. Please tell her, Lord Oren.”

He responded immediately almost as though he was hoping he’d be invited to speak on such a topic. “Given the fact that there was an active ceasefire at the time and that you aren’t officially part of any guild military, your actions probably will be charged as homicide. Specifically, first-degree murder. Do you know what that is?”

“Nope. Never cared about the law.”

“Well, let me explain. It’s murder with the intent to kill. It means you not only murdered five people, but you did so in a way that was premeditated. The penalty is life. Naturally, accommodations will have to be made since you can’t be stored in a regular human dungeon. But yes. That’s the most likely outcome.”

Kalana, overwhelmed by what she was hearing, couldn’t help herself from blurting you, “You can’t! Mom, you can’t do that.”

Her mother glared at her. “You’re the one who insisted we bring her to justice, daughter.”

“Okay, but…but now I don’t know anymore. I feel bad. Isn’t there some way you can show her mercy?”

“Actually, yes,” her mother said.

Kalana wondered if she was being played, because the way her and Alex were replying to things that were said—it was like she and Anelia were both being led down a track of sorts. They probably were.

Her mother placed her hand on top of Denisoa’s hand. “Sweetheart, if you can convince your partner to cooperate, I would personally sentence her myself. She would be sentenced to manual labor—doing what she was already doing on her off-time.”

“What she was already doing?” Kalana asked.

Her mother nodded. “From the information we gathered, and from Denisoa’s testimony with us earlier, it seems Anelia has been spending most of her free time helping to rebuild Den of Ziragoth. That is good, useful work. Moral work. I’d like her to continue it, officially. The townspeople love her, and she is welcome there. It is in the best interest of the town as well as the Whispery Woods region to have Anelia serve out her sentence in such a capacity. But I cannot do that if she will not cooperate.”

Kalana leaned over and whispered in her ear. “You should do it.”

She looked at Kalana and then she shook her head. “This is why I said you’re cute. You realize they’re playing both of us, right?”

“Yeah, but does it matter?”

“I guess not,” she said with a sigh.

“What’s more important to you?” Alex asked. “Denisoa and the boy, or your reputation as a ruthless contract killer?”

“Denisoa and Adim,” she replied immediately, causing Denisoa to exhale with a whoosh as though she was fearful the answer might be anything else.

“Please cooperate,” the woman begged Anelia. “You’ve already damaged my heart. Don’t break it. All they want is for you to…” her words trailed off, and then both her eyebrows rose. “Your Majesty,” she said. “I personally witnessed the Royal Roses calling Anelia over the Comm. Would my testimony help?”

“Actually, yes. It would be of great use to us, and I would very much appreciate it if you’d let us record it. But it, alone, would not be sufficient. We need Anelia as well.”

Denisoa turned to look at Anelia once more. “Do you want me to beg you? Is that it? Do you want me to plead with you to choose me and Adim? To choose having a family? Because if you don’t do this, Anelia, I…” She began to cry, and Alex handed her a tissue, which she used to wipe her eyes. “If you don’t do this, I never want to see you again. I won’t visit you in prison. I won’t ever talk to you again! Please. If you love me, please.”

Anelia lifted her hand and banged it against the table, causing the table to collapse, Kalana to chirp, Denisoa to jump, and Alex and her mother to not even so much as flinch or react in any way. If anything, they looked pleased.

“If I do this,” she said, “the Royal Roses will put a contract on me.”

“It won’t matter,” her mother said. “You’ll be living in the Whispery Woods. They wouldn’t dare.”

“But if we leave it, then—”

“You can’t leave. You’re imprisoned. Without shackles, of course. But I mean that. You will live your life here. You are free to travel to any corner of this region, but you can never step outside of it, or you will be hunted down aggressively. Luckily for you, Whispery Woods is very large, and so your cell will be enormous.”

“I don’t get it, though,” Kalana said. “Why does it matter if she leaves? Is it just for the sake of punishment?”

“No,” Alex answered. “It’s to make sure she doesn’t run off and go back to bounty hunting. It’s in everyone’s best interest if Anelia doesn’t return to that profession. Let’s not forget, she almost killed Zach once.”

“Wait, what?” Kalana asked, looking at her. “I thought you told me you saved his life.”

“I did both,” she admitted. “The first time I met him, I tried to kill him. The second time, I saved his life.”

Kalana laughed of all things. “He’s been through so much that umm, I don’t even think there’s room for me to get angry over that. It sounds like it worked out okay, so I’m not upset. But I agree with my mom and Alex. You shouldn’t leave Whispery Woods.”

Anelia gritted her teeth a moment as though deep in an angry form of thought. Finally, she said, “I guess with the money I’ve earned, I can still eventually buy a property in the upscale town of—”

“Oh, no, that money is gone,” her mother said, to which Anelia’s eyes widened.

“What?”

“It’s going to be used as restitution for the victims’ families. Did you seriously think you would be permitted to keep gold that you earned through assassination?”

Now, Anelia raised her hand as if to bang it again against the table, but then she dropped it as if remembering it was already destroyed. “I need that money. I need it for Denisoa and Adim.”

“Why? Does she not already have a beautiful home in Den of Ziragoth?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Is she unhappy there? Are you unhappy there?”

“No, Queen Vayra, but—”

“So, what is the issue here?”

“I don’t know either,” Denisoa said. “I’ve tried telling her over and over I don’t even want to move. I’m happy where I am. I only want her. She doesn’t listen.”

“Yes, well, now she has no choice.” Fylwen stood up from her chair. “You’re going to tell us everything, and then you’re going to live in Den of Ziragoth with your lovely girlfriend, and you will refrain from shooting anyone else. You will summon Bank and Storage, empty it in front of an Elvish officer, and the weapons and armor we’ve seized from you will not be returned. That is what happens now. That, or you spend your life in a dungeon. Your choice.”

“You win,” Anelia said, her shoulders slumping. “You win.”

“Yes. I do.”

Kalana thanked her mother. Then Denisoa thanked her as well, practically kneeling on the floor in the process and going way overboard. “My son’s going to tell everyone back home that he met the queen and the princess,” she said. “They’re never going to hear the end of it.”

Fylwen smiled at her. “I’m sure I’ll get to meet him once more before you return. Now, I’m sorry to rush out of here, but I’ve a million things to do today. And as for you,” she said, speaking to Anelia. “You should worship the ground this human woman walks on. She saved your life and your future. And do apologize to my daughter as well. You’ve no idea what you put her through in having to subdue you. She will be distraught for weeks over this.”

“No, it’s okay,” Kalana said.

“It’s not,” Denisoa agreed. “I’m so sorry for what my Anelia did. She is a proud fool. I just…” She started to tear up. “I’m just so happy she’s still alive.”

Kalana shook the woman’s hand. Then she left Alex to record Anelia’s testimony. Walking down the hall with her mother, she said, “All that work to get a confession we can never use, huh?”

“Of course we’re going to use it.”

Kalana stopped, and her mother stopped beside her. “Wait, what? I thought Alex said we’re just gonna use it to strongarm him into backing off.”

“And bury the evidence? Kalana, that is a human thing to do. We do not behave that way. No, the public will know what he has done. Should it be any other way?”

“Well, no,” Kalana said—and she meant it, too. “But Alex thinks we’re just gonna use it to scare him.”

“The young man can think what he wants. We have a duty to be honest with the public. The humans on this planet have spent their entire lives being lied to by other humans. They will learn that the Elves do not operate in shadow. Vim Alazar illegally hired a bounty hunter to murder humans in a safe zone. We cannot hide this. If we do, we are as bad as they are. We are done with lies.”

Kalana knew Alex would be mad, but she just couldn’t disagree. “You’re right.”

Vim was in big trouble.

*******

“Holy shit, I can’t take it anymore,” Rian said.

It was only day 2 of their excursion, and already, the monotony was starting to get to people—Zach included. He finally understood why Donovan was so insistent on keeping enough free space between them all. He was getting sick and tired of being in the confines of this hallway, where nothing ever changed.

“Here we go again,” Lienne moaned.

Having only just eaten a quick lunch, Zach resumed the jog with the others. To his left was Inn Room 465689, and to his right was 465690. Those were…pretty big numbers. And they just kept getting bigger and bigger. But everything else stayed exactly the same, including the floral pattern on the carpeted flooring, the polished, bulbous handles of every door—even the occasional blink of keycard readers. It was always just more of the same.

“Kiddo, you want a bottle of water?” Donovan called to him.

“I’m all right,” Zach called back.

The adventurers had completely gotten over his furious warning to them yesterday, chalking it up to being an emotional moment caused by fear for Jimmy’s life and a stalwart defense of Tyson. But it was actually much more than that, too. Because they weren’t just in some typical form of denial. It was more than simply a refusal to accept that Zach was no longer a true member of their community—at least not in the way he was before. No, they had unintentionally been led into a complete misunderstanding, one that had given just about every single person here the wrong idea. Even Olivir and Kolona.

At first, things had been frosty between Zach and the others. For about half a day, they had stopped regarding him as one of their own, and there had been a strange, surreal, and very sad feeling that couldn’t be ignored.

But then two things had happened back-to-back, and everything sort of reverted.

First, Rian had tripped over his own foot, and Zach, jogging behind him, had subsequently tripped over Rian. This had caused the two of them to go rolling into Rono and Dirvin, who reacted with anger and hostility. Somehow, this led to a very brief, two-on-two fistfight, which Donovan and Zephyr had to break up. Yet, inexplicably, it was that very fistfight that had caused the other adventurers to react like this was all just business as usual. And a lot of it had to do with the argument that followed.

“There the boys go again,” Zephyr had remarked, laughing.

“Seriously?” Donovan had asked. “Zach’s back at it with those two? Again?”

“Rono and Dirvin start it!” Fluffles had yelled. “Fluffles witness everything.”

“Not true,” Dirvin said. “Zach and the fat boy did some kind of weird rolling attack on us.”

“We tripped, you moron,” Rian retorted. “Also, we won that fight. You got your asses kicked.”

“Bullshit. I clocked Zach so hard I worried I might kill him.”

“I didn’t even feel it,” Zach said. “And if you want to go for round two, me and Rian ready.”

“That’s right,” Rian said, nodding.

This led to Zach, Rian, Rono, Dirvin, and Fluffles all yelling at one another in the hallway while Donovan and Zephyr had to physically come in and break them up. But it was the familiarity of this kind of silly adventurer-on-adventurer feud…the feeling of sameness that caused the tension between Zach and the others to lessen. Before long, everyone was laughing and chatting about the incident. It definitely made things feel like they did before the ordeal with Jimmy and Tyson.

But really, it was what happened right afterwards that changed things. It was what happened next that had caused something almost akin to a reset.

Yesterday, just before they set up their sleeping bags and about an hour after the hallway fight, something happened right as everyone seemed to be quieting down for some rest. It was at this point that Tyson Revel had stood up, cleared his throat, and yelled for everyone’s attention. And when he did, he said something so incredible yet puzzling that, at the time, Zach had wondered—and honestly, still wondered—if Tyson even understood the ramifications of what he had done. It was something so unexpected that it had managed to completely change the dynamic between himself, Zach, and everyone else.

“Adventurers,” Tyson had said aloud, causing them all to look—and glare—at him. Initially, they had looked at him as though offended by the fact he even had the audacity to speak to them. But that was only until he actually started speaking.

“I just want to say that you are all right about me,” he’d begun. “Everything you said about me is true, and I cannot deny a single word of it. I am a piece of shit. Because I was raised to be: by the political guilds, which are the biggest pieces of shit of all. But what so many of you fail to understand is that all I’ve ever wanted in my life was to party and have sex. Just like all of you!”

“What’s that now?” Zach vividly recalled Donovan muttering.

“I’m not even really in command of my guild,” Tyson continued. “My rank is fake. I’m just a puppet my uncle uses so he can blame me for his own mistakes. But I hate politics. Truly! And right now, with my father dead, I am the first-in-command of the People of Virtue. But I don’t want to be. I never wanted to be. So here in this hallway, you are all going to be the first to hear what will soon become public all across the world. Effective immediately, I announce my resignation from the People of Virtue. This is no joke. You are all the first to hear this. I, Tyson Revel, forfeit all my titles and estates, and I am, from this day forward, exclusively an adventurer. I burn all ties with the political guilds, now and forever. And I swear an oath to the Gods that I mean every word of this with sincerity and honesty. I am an adventurer and nothing more.”

Upon hearing this, there had been several long seconds of shock, followed by a sudden roar of approval so loud it had caused the hallway to shake. The adventurers had erupted with such loudness that Zach, who listened to all of this while stunned, wouldn’t be surprised if the adventurers way back on the first floor of Angelica’s managed to hear it.

Miraculously, just like that, Tyson became welcome. That was all it had taken. Whatever hatred or malice they had towards the man, it evaporated like water droplets under a blazing sun. He’d even held up a metal pin containing his family crest and then crushed it between his fingers. But that was only the start of the weirdness. Things became even crazier.

The next morning, which was earlier today, as Zach had woken up, he had been completely dumbfounded to see Zephyr standing across from Tyson and teaching him the very basics of how to use a sword. The clang of metal on metal resounded in the hallway as Zephyr had patiently and carefully instructed Tyson on the most basic fundamentals while Donovan had observed and offered input.

“You’ve got a lot of work to do, but you’re going to go far with that passive,” Zephyr had said to Tyson, who’d nodded. “But you really do have your work cut out for you. And you have to be willing to work hard.”

“I will!” he’d shouted. “I swear it!”

And it was here the misunderstanding began to really spread. This was the point where everyone, Jimmy included, had gotten the wrong idea about Zach. And Zach knew that, someday, it was only going to make everything harder and more upsetting for everyone involved.

“It’s no wonder the kiddo fought so hard for this guy,” Donovan had said. “That fuckin’ passive. I can’t even believe it. It’s amazing.”

“I was so worried, too,” Maric had said. “I thought Zach had just, I don’t know, lost his way, or maybe Alex had corrupted him. But no. He saw something in Tyson we all missed, and he was willing to do anything to make sure we saw it, too.”

“He scared me,” Alixa had added. “I thought that was rage in him. But it was just passion.”

“Exactly,” Zephyr agreed. “And you know what else? I’d have acted the same way, too, if I found a political guild member like Tyson and saw in him what Zach and Jimmy saw.”

“My passive is really that good?” Tyson had asked.

“Gods, you have no idea,” Donovan had replied. “It’s the best I’ve ever seen. No wonder Jimmy and Zach were fighting so hard in your defense. Of course…” He’d grunted. “They could have just been honest with us. Zach could’ve just told us privately in advance that he was trying to lead you away from the political guilds and needed you to feel welcome.”

Tyson, who clearly had no idea that what they were saying was incorrect, had nodded at them. “Yes, in fact, all he’s talked about since my uncle signed me over to him was getting me more involved in dungeons. I suppose he knew that deep down all I wanted was to be free. He was just waiting for me to burst out of my shell.”

“You don’t think he’s serious about that whole Royal Roses thing, do you?” Zephyr asked him.

“Of course not,” Tyson said. Though he spoke genuinely, he, like the others, had the complete wrong idea. “Zach doesn’t seem to care much for the political guilds either. I believe he was simply angry. He told me I have great potential. He’d asked you several times to back off, and when you didn’t, he said whatever he felt he had to say.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him,” Jimmy had said, nodding along to each of Tyson’s words. He was also just as clueless as Tyson regarding Zach’s motivations, but also like Tyson, it was for understandable reasons. “I wasn’t really lucid when this was happening, but based on everything ya’ll are saying, it sounds like Zach just got caught up in emotion. To be honest, I’m the one who convinced Zach to take Tyson in. He didn’t want nothing to do with it at first, but when I made Tyson show him his passive, that’s when Zach decided to get him involved with all of you. And I guess if you guys were being dicks about it, he must’ve snapped.”

“Well, he should’ve told us,” Donovan had said. “The kiddo caused a huge stir. Both of you should’ve said something. What’s your excuse, Jimmy?”

Jimmy had laughed. “I don’t know, man. I wasn’t in the right state of mind. If my head had been clear, I would’ve said something before it escalated to that point. But let me just say this right now. Zach don’t give a fuck about the political guilds. All he ever does is bitch about them.”

Once again, Jimmy was saying things that were true, but with conclusions that were totally false. And as Zach had pretended to be asleep, it had actually become painful to him, because now he knew a “clean break” from the adventuring community would be that much more difficult. This was especially true as he witnessed Donovan putting his arm around Tyson’s back.

“We’re gonna get you into fighting shape, don’t you worry. With that passive…I’m telling ya, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s pretty sweet, right?” Jimmy had asked. “I bet we can basically take down any raid boss as long as he gets enough stacks.”

This had then led to a bunch of excited conversations and hypotheticals as dozens of adventures began thinking up or even revisiting scenarios in which Tyson’s passive would be useful.

“Can you imagine if we’d had him around for the Ziragoth raid?” Zephyr had asked. “We could’ve had him fight one of the Ziragoth adds until he got enough stacks, then sent him after the dragon.”

“Good thinking, but I’d modify that a bit,” Jimmy said.

“How so?”

“Well, what you’d need to do is line the adds up, right? Because remember, the dude only gets twenty seconds before the shit resets, and he—”

“Fifteen seconds,” Zephyr corrected.

“Sorry, what?”

“Fifteen seconds, Jimmy. Not twenty. His stacks reset in fifteen seconds after not hitting anything.”

“I thought it was twenty.”

“Tyson, pull up the ability.” There had been a pause. “See? I was right.” This caused the adventurers to taunt Jimmy for being wrong. “Did somebody slip you a drink when we weren’t looking?” The adventurers had all shared a laugh at the quip.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jimmy had said. “My point is, eventually, in your hypothetical, you forget he’s gonna start two- or three-shotting the Ziragoth adds, and it’s gonna happen before he’s got enough to take on the dragon. So uh, you need to make sure there’s a chain of them so he can get enough stacks but also still get to the dragon with enough time left to hit it. Otherwise, he’d build up this huge number of stacks and then lose them right away, which would just turn out to be a waste of time.”

“Right,” Donovan had said. “Zeph, he’s right about that. That’s what we would’ve had to do.” With that, he’d looked at Tyson, and he gave the man a pat on the back, which made him croak. “You seriously need to learn how to fight, though. That’s your biggest problem right now. You’re weak without your stacks, but it’s made worse ‘cause you don’t know how to fight well enough to gain them without getting yourself killed. We need to teach you how to be strong: even when you’re weak.”

“But I’ve been weak my entire life, Sir Donovan,” he’d said. “I worry there’s nothing that can ever change that.”

“Oh, we’ll change that all right,” Donovan had said with a laugh. “And if you ever call me Sir Donovan again, I’m putting you through one of these doors.”

“I apologize!”

“And if you ever say the words ‘I apologize’ again, I’m putting you through two doors.”

Zach, who had still been pretending to be asleep while eavesdropping, had begun to wonder: had whatever Tyson seen on his phone two days influenced his decision to do this? Quite clearly, he’d wanted this all along and had only been brave enough to declare it now. But why? What changed? Or did it even matter at all? To be honest, if Tyson could only get over his extreme cowardice, he actually did mesh better with adventurers than he did with his own kin. Unfortunately, Zach, who now felt more like Mr. Oren, realized he couldn't allow Tyson to sever his connection to his guild. Because for the sake of uniting all of Galterra around defeating the World Eater, Tyson's position would be important.

So many uncomfortable conversations are in my future, he thought.

“My uncle will kill me when he finds out what I’ve done,” Tyson had said. “That’s not a turn of phrase, either. He will kill me.”

“Nah he won’t,” Donovan had said. “If you’re committed to the life of adventuring, that prick can’t touch you. We won’t let him. I’ll make sure you’ll never have to see his face again for the rest of your life if you don’t want to.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to. The only thing I’ve ever wanted was to be anyone other than myself.”

“Well out here, in the adventuring world, you can be anybody you want to be.”

“Is it okay if I wish to never get involved in a single political guild event ever again?” he’d asked. “I don’t even want to attend the commemorative balls.”

Donovan had actually snorted and looked like he was going to fall over. “Not only is that okay, it’s what we demand. If only Zach could share your attitude!”

“Oh, Sir Calador definitely does,” Tyson had said wrongly and confidently. But then he said something that was true, which made his wrong claim seem correct. “Sir Calador also wants to be free. I’ve personally heard him despair over the way Lord Oren pushes him to do things he doesn’t wish to do. He is in the same position I am: an adventurer pressured into things he doesn’t wish to be a part of.”

This, naturally, had resulted in a slew of trash talk against Mr. Oren, who had become the political guild member the adventurers hated above all others. Especially after he had slit Donovan’s throat. That had really solidified him as the “worst of the worst” in their eyes. Honestly, there was nothing in the world that could repair his relationship with them now. They hated him so fiercely that it actually made Zach sad and feel regret on his behalf. Mr. Oren was now to the adventurers what Peter IV was to the political guilds.

How long until I’m looked at that way? Zach wondered.

The conversation had continued on for some time, but the emerging picture had become crystal clear: because of Tyson’s antics, the adventurers had now had the completely wrong idea about Zach and where he stood. Yesterday, Zach was a traitor to the adventurers who had threatened their lives in order to protect an outsider from the political guilds. Today, Zach was an adventurer who had found a wayward fellow adventurer and had only been protecting him from the harshness of the others. Not only was this easy to believe, but it was made easier by the fact that it was what everyone wanted to believe. But Zach knew it wouldn’t stay this way—it couldn’t stay this way. Be it a month from now or even a year, the time would eventually come where they would have to confront the truth that Zach was no longer a member of their community. The world just didn’t allow for it. He just couldn’t be what they wanted him to be. He couldn’t turn his back on the world in the way that they did. Their survival depended on staying out of political guild affairs. But the world's survival depended on Zach's involvement. That was the way of it.

But...for now, at least, things could still be fun. Though it would come at a heavy cost later.

And it certainly wouldn’t last forever.

Chapter 198: Exposed

Chapter 198: Exposed

No one in this world was truly indispensable, but some men were more disposable than others. Tyson Revel was one such man. Abram, who had given him every opportunity to be more than he was, had now reached the point where he realized it was time to make him go away for good.

To begin with, the disgraceful fool had not responded to Abram’s messages in three days. This, all on its own, was completely unacceptable. But even more so was the fact that he’d ignored a direct order. And Abram knew he’d read the order, as his cell phone had registered that he’d both received and looked at it.

Did he want to die? Perhaps. Either way, it was almost certain that Abram would grant his wish. He’d been given his last chance and he’d blown it. There was no hope for him now. His final chance of redemption had been exhausted.

For the first time in his entire life, Tyson had been in a position to be useful to his guild: truly useful. During their final round of communication, Tyson had indicated that, not only had he succeeded in getting Zachys Calador to take him in, but that he’d be allowed to stay on the island of Elendroth, something Abram himself did not foresee. He’d even been accepted into the princess’s home. This presented an opportunity for spying and gaining leverage over the Elves, one that had excited and thrilled the People of Virtue’s intelligence services. The sheer amount of data he could extract and things he could learn would’ve finally given some Gods-cursed fucking value to his life.

But not only had he ignored the order, he had completely vanished off grid, his phone unable to be traced. Every high-ranking member of the guild had now had enough of his bullshit. They wanted him gone. And Abram couldn’t blame them. He was a stain on the guild’s reputation. He was a disgrace. He was bad for their public image, and he couldn’t be trusted.

It was time to put him to sleep like the rabid animal he was.

*****

On the third day of traveling down the forever-hall, the time seemed to pass much more quickly than it had on the second for all those present except Zach. Everyone else seemed to be in a better mood, and nobody seemed happier than Tyson, who appeared to be getting along very well with the others, at last making some new friends. In a strange way, Zach, a kid more than ten years younger than the man, was actually proud of him. Right now, he was back to practicing sword-fighting with Zephyr. Zach could also teach him if needed, but he wasn’t sure he had the temperament to instruct in the calm, patient way that Zephyr did.

“Raise your guard, Tyson,” Zephyr said. “If I was a sword-armed mob, I could cut you so easily. Never, ever lower your guard. You keep that sword raised no matter what.”

“I understand, Sir Zeph—ahh, I mean Zephyr.”

“Come at me.”

Zach watched as Tyson raised his blade high and struck downwards, clashing steel with Zephyr. “Not bad. Try it again.”

For his part, Zach was in a seated position with his back against the door to Inn Room 655321 while he ate a buttered roll and drank a bottle of water. Olivir, sitting next to him, slurped a cocktail of chicken and goat’s blood through a straw.

“How are ya feeling?” Olivir asked him.

Zach frowned. “Skeptical.”

“Of?”

He turned his head to the left and stared at the endless, eternal stretch of inn-room doors that possibly continued on forever. “The idea that I was wrong is starting to settle in. I don’t think we’re going to find anything here anymore.”

“Hmm…” Olivir smiled. “Well, what made you think there might be something in the first place?”

Zach tried his best to explain it, though it wasn’t easy. “It was more of a hunch. It was based on what that NPC, Karnzon, said. The impression I got based on his words was that if you’ve ever looked at something and wondered what was there—that that was the way to find dungeons. And it sort of makes sense, too. Take the entrance to Yorna’s, for example. It’s just this giant boulder that sticks out in the middle of a field. Why is it there at all? There are no other rocks in the area that come even close to that size.”

Olivir slurped at his beverage, then wiped a trickle of blood from his lips. “Well, we can still keep going for another four days. Don’t lose hope just yet. For what it's worth, I still think you’ll turn out to be right.” He patted Zach’s thigh then stood up and went to rejoin Kolona. Zach remained seated until it was time to get up and continue onwards. And so resumed the jog down the apparently infinite hallway.

Although the mood among the others was jubilant, for Zach, the time dragged on with painful slowness, and as he passed inn room after inn room, his thoughts began to turn from Albion-4 to Kalana. He missed her. He hadn’t seen her in over three days and probably wouldn’t see her for a number more. And these thoughts only grew stronger as the day progressed, becoming the sole occupying focus of his mind.

Jogging onwards, foot by foot, he pictured her face in his mind, wondering how she was faring. Was she okay? Were Trelvor and Seiley watching out for her? And what about little Pete? Was he okay? The world was in such a volatile state, and here he was camping out on a hallway carpet every night while a talking cat summoned hallway lightning to roast marshmallows for everyone—something Jimmy had come up with, actually.

“Hey, Fluffles. Can you do this one for me, too?” Jimmy asked, placing one on the carpet after they decided to call it a day.

Under any other circumstance, the idea of eating off the floor would be gross. But given that it was unlikely any foot in history had ever stepped down on it, and also the fact that it was clean to the point of being pristine, it barely mattered.

Zach, setting up his sleeping bag, disengaged from chatter with the others and lay down, deciding to go to sleep early. But even then, the thought of Kalana continued to pester him. She should’ve been here, dammit. It just wasn’t right the way he’d left her all alone. And then there was Tyson, who to the outside world, would have appeared to have “vanished.” It only really occurred to Zach right now how much trouble that might cause. Irritated, he got out of his sleeping bag and stood upright. He extended his arms wide, and he could just manage to do so with the space that existed width-wise in the hall; nevertheless, it was starting to feel like the walls were closing in on him.

“You okay?” a voice asked him. He turned around to see Donovan grinning at him.

“Yeah,” he said.

“You don’t look it.”

“I just…I’m thinking about Kalana.”

“I figured.”

"And something else, too."

"Go on."

Zach looked back the way they had come. “Donovan, I think we should take Tyson back to Galterra, which is what you guys all wanted in the first place. Tyson hasn’t checked in with his guild in a couple of days, and I didn’t even think until now about how much of a problem that might be.”

At this, Donovan frowned. “He’s staying with us now.”

“Yeah, but if his guild leader—”

“His guild leader is standing right there,” Donovan interrupted, pointing at Zephyr. “Haven’t you heard? Tyson joined Explorer’s Brigade today.”

Zach blinked in surprise. “He did what?”

“He joined Explorer’s Brigade. You losing your hearing or something?”

Zach, moaning, said, “Donovan, he can’t just up and join an adventuring guild. He’s not just any political guild member. He’s Tyson Revel, the leader of the People of Virtue.”

“Former leader,” Donovan corrected. “And I’m not sure why you’re acting like this is a bad thing. Didn’t you just flip out and threaten to go on a rampage just to get us to accept him? Now you want to undo that? You’re confusing me, kiddo.”

Zach thought for a moment about trying to set the record straight: about explaining to Donovan that he and the others has completely misunderstood the situation and Zach’s intentions. But he just didn’t have the heart to fire up that conversation right now, so he tried to tackle this from a different angle.

“The problem isn’t him being accepted as an adventurer,” Zach said. “The problem is him doing so in a way that will intentionally provoke the People of Virtue. We should have Tyson keep his pledge to be an adventurer a secret so his guild at least thinks that everything is carrying on as usual.”

At the suggestion, Donovan curled his nose as though smelling or tasting something foul. “Hell no,” he said. “Look, you fought—and won—the battle for him to be an adventurer, something that, in hindsight, most of us agree with now. We get why you did that. But now you have to let us handle what comes next. There’s no halfway. He either becomes one of us or he doesn’t. You got him in the door, now you gotta let him walk through it.”

“I will. But first I need him to walk back just a few steps until I can think of a way to avoid upsetting the—”

“It’s not even up to you,” Donovan interrupted. “Tyson has made his choice, and he ain’t exactly mincing his words about what he wants.”

Zach, becoming frustrated, raised his voice. “Donovan, if Tyson doesn’t at least pretend to still be a member of his guild, the one they will hold responsible for that is me. I am the one they sent him to. If he ends up never returning, I’ll be in big trouble.”

“Nah, see that’s what you don’t get. They can’t do shit to you. The only reason you feel like they can is ‘cause you keep playing in their sandbox. If you’d just break ties with them, you can go places they can never reach you. Kiddo, please, listen to me: you’re only as chained as you let yourself be. Stop getting involved with them.”

Zach could see that this conversation was going absolutely nowhere and that there was precious little chance of that changing. So, with a sigh and a nod, he wrapped up his chat with Donovan and watched as the man moved along and went to go talk with Jimmy.

With nothing better to do, he again got into his sleeping bag and tried to fall asleep.

But all he could do was toss and turn.

*******

The scandal was spreading like wildfire, and Vim, feeling outraged and betrayed, had to resist putting a hole into the screen in his office. He’d been forced to fly back here in a hurry, as things were escalating too fast to be managed in Shadowfall Coast. And now, as he watched an Elvish reporter and a human reporter sitting on a couch together in the newly formed studio in Whispery Woods, he felt his blood pressure begin to rise.

“So, there’s been a confession? Are we hearing that correctly?” the beautiful Elvish reporter with red hair and freckles asked of her human colleague beside her.

“That’s right. The Elvish have put out a memo earlier today claiming they have a sworn statement from an assassin who claims they were paid to kill resistance leaders in Shadowfall Coast. And let me remind our viewers this goes against the UCH’s joint resolution that the Royal Roses also signed onto.”

Vim turned it off. Then he buried his face in his hands and unleashed a string of swear words so horrible it might’ve set a new record for him. He couldn’t believe Fylwen would actually go through with this. Now, he was pissed. Really pissed. Standing up, he walked over to the window in his office and looked outside. The front of the guild’s skyscraper was absolutely teeming with the citizens of Giant’s fall huddled together shouting in support.

Right now, public sentiment in Giant’s Fall seemed to remain on his side. Actually, in a somewhat shocking turn, the allegations were making him more popular at home. Public sentiment seemed to have settled on the following: the Elvish media was lying, but even if it was true, so what? And this, Vim knew, was due to regional rage over the bomb dropping on Ogre’s Axe. Honestly, Vim doubted there was anything his guild could do in Shadowfall Coast that would lose him support at home.

But everywhere else?

This was a catastrophe. This was going to harm the regions under his control. The People of Virtue were already starting to distance themselves, the Lords of Justice and Defenders of Peace had already strongly condemned the Royal Roses, and even the Children of Order, who typically abstained from getting too deep in politics that didn’t affect their island, had rebuked Vim and his actions.

And now the Dwarves and the Orcs are getting involved, he thought angrily.

Just now, the Orcish Queen went on a typical Orcish tirade about how “unacceptable” and “violative of sentient rights” Vim’s “alleged actions” were. It was a total nightmare. The world was uniting against him. And thanks to the Elves, he couldn’t even have the story censored or suppressed, as the queen had cut their newly formed network, Elvadin Live, off from the regional censors.

Sitting back down in his desk, he tapped a button at the center and said, “Get everyone together for an emergency guild meeting on how to manage the fallout of this,” he said. “But before then, see if you can connect me to Queen Vayra.”

“Understood, Sir Alazar.”

Vim waited for nearly five minutes, tapping his fingers against his desk with agitation when, finally, she said, “Hello, Vim.”

“Fylwen,” he said, responding to her, his tone starting off intentionally pleasant and warm. “Wow, I didn’t know you were into pegging. But one thing, please? Next time, please say something first. It’s just I feel like you could’ve said something first before you”—and then he screamed—“fucked me up the ass by surprise!”

She laughed at him, the witch. “I take it you do not much care for my honesty.”

Vim screamed something so loud and so incoherent even he himself didn’t know what he said. It could’ve been anything. He was beside himself with fury. “Why?” he finished. “Why would you backstab me this way?”

At this, Fylwen’s tone became darker, angrier, and accusatory. “So, you wish to play the victim here, hm? What about what you put my daughter through, you impish little gnat?”

“Kalana?” he asked, practically shouting her name in a mixture of anger and surprise. “What in the name of fuck did I ever do to her? Last I recall, your daughter threw me into a wall and I didn’t even retaliate.”

“You destroyed the safety of her safe zone! You forced her to use violence in a way she despises.”

Vim was so sickened by the woman’s words he almost choked on them. “She could’ve just minded her own Gods-be-damned business!” Giving into his anger, Vim shouted, “Well, guess what, Fylwen. When my guild rebuilds the shipping ports, and when global trade is reestablished, I’m charging all exports from Whispery Woods a uh…”

Vim was so flustered, angry, and outraged he didn’t even put any thought into what he said. “I’m charging a fucking billion-point-seven percent tax! On everything!”

“Really, Vim? A billion-percent?”

“Billion-point-seven,” he corrected, even as he was completely aware of how ridiculous and stupid he sounded. He was too furious to back down. Obviously, he couldn’t actually charge that much. But it felt good to say. In fact, he should’ve just said a quadrillion while he was at it. But as Fylwen again began chuckling over the line as if to mock him, he growled and decided to say something she might take seriously.

“On second thought, no, there will be no tax. Because the entire Whispery Woods region is banned! You want your grain shipped? Get in the ocean and swim it there!”

“Oh, stop. You’ll get over it. Now, cease this childish tantrum and let’s instead discuss how you’re going to have your people stand down and allow Elvish security forces to take over peacekeeping operations in the city.”

Vim’s temper was already too extreme to get any worse. But it almost did. “Shadowfall Coast will go to the Royal Roses,” he said. “The Elves are not going to control this region!”

“Of course not. Almost everyone has accepted the legitimacy of your guild’s claim.”

“So then how can you expect a guild’s forces not to police its own region?”

“It’s not completely unheard of, is it?”

“It’s unusual. It’s embarrassing. If my guild controls Shadowfall Coast, your guild has no business being in charge of law and order there.”

“Perhaps not,” Fylwen said. “But I’d argue that once the Royal Roses began assassinating their political enemies, that sort of changed things, no?”

Vim bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood as she used that term the Elvish media had begun using: “political enemy.” It was a talking point the Elves and the Lords of Justice had begun using to describe the resistance leaders. His guild, much like the People of Virtue, rightfully still used the term combatants or insurgency. Royal Roses’ current policy was to deny that these were members of any recognized political group and were instead armed combatants and possibly even terrorists.

“I hope you know that the relationship between the guild of Elvadin and the Royal Roses is forever destroyed,” Vim said to her. “There’s no way I’ll ever forgive you for this.”

She laughed at him yet again. “You’ll be over this by tomorrow.”

“Is that right? And how can you possibly say this?”

“Because I’ve finally found a way to make good on my promise to help you rebuild Ogre’s Axe, you fool.”

“You what?” he asked, caught off guard, not even sure he was hearing her correctly. “What was that?”

“Unbeknownst to you, I’ve been engaging in quite intense diplomatic discussions with the Orcish queen, and after pleading your case to her, she’s agreed to dispatch eight-hundred Orcish stonemasons to Giant’s Fall as early as the beginning of next month.”

Vim was stunned. “You…you are serious?”

“Yes, Gnome."

“And how much is this going to cost me?”

“I’ve paid for all of it.”

Vim tried to respond, but now, he was speechless and unsure of how to respond. There must have been some trick here. Some deception.

But for all his anger, for all his rage, and for all that his ego mattered to him, if there was one thing in this world that Vim would always put above himself it was his people. And the people of Ogre’s Axe, at least those who had survived, were now homeless and suffering. The magnitude of the disaster was impossible to exaggerate. And the Orcs…they were the only race on Galterra who could build a city in years as opposed to decades. If anyone could rebuild Ogre’s Axe as good as it was before, it was them. But of course, this did raise one issue that was impossible to ignore.

“If you’re telling me the truth, and I’ll assume you are, our timetable internally for rebuilding Ogre’s Axe is thirty to forty-five years.”

“Hmm? Well then, you should rejoice, for I hear it shall take no longer than five.”

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Vim said. “We don’t have the population to even inhabit it. A million lives will take time to replace.”

“Only if you insist that they be humans born in Giant’s Fall.”

Once again, Vim frowned. It seemed like she was going to suggest something that was completely unacceptable. “Okay, now you wait a Gods-be-damned second. If you think I’m taking in South Bastian thugs, you have another thing—”

“No, you fool! I’m referring to the Orcs. The Stone-Fist tribe. The overcrowding has become unbearable in their city. They seek a new home.”

“Oh,” Vim said, his anger dulling. “Yeah, we can host Orcs. My people here don’t have a problem with other races. We’re the only guild in all of humanity that welcomes them. As long as you’re not suggesting we fill the rebuilt Ogre’s Axe with South Bastian refugees, this works out well for me. I’m guessing the Orc Queen would like to meet and finalize things, yes? She hasn’t reached out to me about any of this yet, which is unusual.”

At this, Fylwen went silent. And now, Vim became nervous. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“I cannot explain her reasoning or logic, but the queen wishes to speak with a particular member of your guild. She says she will speak to him and him alone.”

“Who?”

“Zachys Calador.”

And now, Vim was right back to furious. Because aside from how little sense this made, it would, more importantly, mean trying to convince Zach to do something useful for the Royal Roses when all that boy ever wanted to do was play with his friends in dungeons and complain about how tired he was. The fact he had even been motivated enough to rescue Vim was something so inexplicable and baffling that Vim still did not understand it.

Is it even possible to get him to meet the queen?

Probably, but with Zach, it wouldn’t come easy.

So basically, he would now have to exert a historic amount of effort sweet-talking Zach into this which would be almost as torturous as that prison the Guild of Gentlemen had kept him in. Gods Dammit!

Chapter 199: The Infinite Hallway

Chapter 199: The Infinite Hallway

Blowing out a defeated sigh, Zach realized he had now had about enough of this, and by all accounts, so too had everyone else. It was time to admit he’d been wrong in his thinking. And as painful as it would be to own up to his mistake, it would still beat looking like a fool who couldn’t admit when he was incorrect. Like it or not, the fact of the matter was that he'd tried something that no one before him had probably ever attempted, and…well? It just hadn’t worked out. But, if nothing else, he could finally stop wondering. At this point, he was fairly sure he had his answer.

And it was a big, fat no.

For seven long, consecutive days, Zach, joined by seventy-four other adventurers, had made his way straight down the hallway that was purported to go on forever. And though he’d been excited and enthused at the start, any lingering trace of such feelings was long gone. Honestly, they’d been gone since about the millionth inn room. Now, as Zach waltzed beyond Inn Room 1641555, he was right about ready to call it quits.

I can’t take much more of this.

He was hugely embarrassed, but also hugely exhausted, too. He was so sick of this Gods-be-damned fucking hallway. It was really starting to hit him bad. Never in his life had he wanted to run to the left or right. The fact that he couldn’t didn’t just bother him, but it made him feel physically sick.

And so, here, on their seventh—and final—day heading down the hall, Zach was ready to own up to the stupidity of his idea. Donovan had ultimately been correct. The hallway really was infinite. And even if it wasn’t, it was still too long to be worth going down. He couldn’t imagine doing this for another day.

And to think, I actually believed I could travel down here for a month straight if time allowed for it.

For the most part, the adventurers had been very quiet today. Nearly all chatter and conversation had fizzled out around late last night and didn’t pick up again in the morning as it usually did. Zach’s best guess was that most people were just sick of the monotony and wanted to go back, the same as he did. And these last two days in particular had been brutal, as the novelty of walking into infinity had long since worn off.

It's become unbearable.

Days five and six had felt more like punishment than anything else. Those two days alone were like two centuries. The hallway had begun to feel oppressive in its endlessness, and worse was the knowledge that every single step forward was one he’d have to take again to get back.

He just wanted to go home, and it now looked like so did everyone else—well, everyone except for just a single individual.

Jimmy.

For some reason, Jimmy actually seemed to be gaining in energy and enthusiasm with each step they traveled. In fact, if one were to graph his level of energy since day one, it would start out high, fall to the floor—after almost dying from withdrawal—and then shoot back up off the charts. Right now, he was grinning from ear to ear as though sensing something nearby that never seemed to arrive, and yesterday, he had done—or rather, caused—the most annoying thing to happen that Zach had ever before encountered. It had almost caused the entire raid to become derailed.

It had all started when Rian had done an imitation of Jimmy’s face while he’d been on the floor having a seizure. And to be fair to Rian, even he recognized he’d gone too far. That wasn’t cool, and nobody had laughed. But instead of just accepting Rian’s apology, Jimmy had looked Rian dead in the eyes and had said, “Now, you will suffer, Rian. Now…you will truly suffer.”

At first, Zach hadn’t understood what Jimmy was planning to do. But it began soon thereafter as Jimmy, while keeping his head pointed straight ahead and looking at no one in particular, had begun to sing out something that could only be called a weapon of mass destruction. It was something that infected people like a rapidly spreading plague.

“Baby shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, baby shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, baby shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, baby shark! Mommy shark…”

Zach and the others had thought nothing of it at first. But little had they known what monstrous, ancient curse from the past Jimmy had unleashed upon them all. Within two hours, it was not only stuck in their heads, but it hurt. It actually hurt! And the more it was heard, the harder it was to forget. But the primary vector of spreading this Virus had been Fluffles, who simply would not stop. The cat had ended up murdering their souls with his endless variations.

“Fluffles Shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, Fluffles Shark doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, Fluffles shark! Tuna can doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.”

This went on.

And on.

And on.

“Shut the fuck up!” adventurers had screamed as Fluffles continued to sing it for ten hours straight.

“Get it out of my head!” a woman had cried, clasping her ears. “Rian, never start a war with Jimmy ever again! I want to die! I want to die immediately!”

So, yeah, in addition to the claustrophobia, the monotony, and the realization that they were going to have to walk back just as long as they’d walked in, they also had to deal with some kind of supernaturally strong music curse that had infected them all. Even now, as Donovan’s large, black-plate boots thudded against the carpet as he jogged, Zach, who’d moved up front to join him, watched as he opened his mouth and unintentionally sang, “Grandpa shark doo-doo-d—shit! I did it again.”

“It’s not your fault,” Zach told him. “It’s happening to everyone. Jimmy cursed us.”

“I can’t believe a song like this even exists,” Donovan said with a grunt. Then he narrowed his eyes at Zach. “What are you doing up here out of formation?”

“I wanted to talk with you—with everyone, actually. Can you hold up for a second, please?”

With another, second grunt, Donovan stopped in his tracks, turned around, and extended his palm, causing the raid to come to a stop. Then, raising his voice so that everyone could hear him, Zach said, “By now, I think we all know we’re not going to find anything here. I am really sorry I made all of you do this and waste an entire week—plus another week now to get back—but I just want to say that I don’t think there’s any point to us finishing out the day. We should head back early. Once again, I’m really sorry I wasted everyone’s time. But since we have a very, very long hike back, maybe we’d be better off leaving now.”

At this, murmurs of agreement could be heard from all around. And then, all at once, everyone started shit-talking him, including Rian. But Zach was glad for it, because their jeers and playful insults were how he knew they weren’t truly upset with him. This was just the adventurers being the adventurers.

“Have fun on your little experiment, Zach?” someone asked. “You sure we shouldn’t go to room ten million just to be sure?”

“Twenty-million,” Rian said sarcastically.

“Fifty!” someone else called out.

Donovan, standing next to Zach and leading the pack up front, waved with his gauntleted palm in a gesture that was interpreted as asking everyone to move closer together. And so, the entire raid did exactly that, packing in as close as they could in the narrow hallway. For the moment, Zach decided to put up with the rise in claustrophobia this caused in exchange for an easier time communicating with the adventurers.

“You all heard him,” Donovan said aloud. “And I for one agree with the kiddo. This was something we can cross off a list. It might seem like a waste of time, and—”

“Because it was!” one of the adventurers cried out, causing them all to laugh and jeer, Donovan included.

Despite feeling embarrassed, Zach forced himself to laugh, which was actually really important to do. Back when Mr. Oren was an adventurer, he was constantly being picked on and mistreated by everyone, and Zach was positive it was because he could never laugh at himself. With adventurers, the less willing you were to go along with their playful jesting, the more they’d target you and for longer.

“Anyways,” Donovan continued. “One day, this is gonna be a hilarious story we all talk about. The more time that goes by, the more this is gonna feel like it was worth doing.”

“You’re probably right,” Reni Sarwin said, laughing. “The time we tried to reach the end of an infinite hallway.”

Laughter resounded from all around. It seemed the prospect of finally starting to head back was brightening spirits. Zach could actually feel the sudden release of built-up tension that had really started to rise these past forty-eight hours, which had been the worst of the seven-day voyage. It had dragged on so long that it truly felt good to know they’d be heading home.

And then Jimmy spoke up.

“We’re not going nowhere,” he said, causing everyone, including Zach, to stare at him—or try to, at least. He was somewhere in the middle of the formation and impossible to see directly, so Zach merely stared down the hallway where the sound of his voice was coming from.

“What’s that now?” Donovan asked, making a low, annoyed grunt.

“We gotta keep going. Zach was right.”

“How do you figure?” Olivir asked. Like Jimmy, Zach could not see him. “I wanted Zach to be right as well, but let’s be honest with ourselves, there’s nothing out here. Just more doors, forever. I understand how that can bring up some existential dread, heh, I mean the concept of infinity is inherently terrifying, but we should at least be honest about what we—”

“It’s starting to change,” Jimmy said. “Ya’ll are too dumb to even notice it. I been noticing it since yesterday. We’re getting closer to the end.”

Jimmy’s claims, unsurprisingly, caused more than seventy adventurers to all begin firing off an unruly series of questions with everyone talking over everyone else. It took Donovan at the front and Zephyr at the back nearly a minute to quiet them down. Afterwards, Donovan, speaking loudest, asked, “Jimmy, what the hell are you talking about?”

Grunts, a few growls, and a hiss from Fluffles were briefly the predominant noises to be heard in the hallway as Jimmy shoved and fought to get around the others so that he could join them at the front of the formation, which if Zach and Donovan had their way, would soon become the back. Once there, he stood next to Donovan and then drew his staff, raising it above himself. He tapped it against the ceiling.

“It’s getting darker,” he said. “Only a tiny bit. But haven’t you guys noticed? It's definitely been getting darker as we go on."

“No, not really,” Zach said, looking up. "Looks about the same to me."

The entire hallway, from Inn Room 1 to all the way here, was lit by bulbs implanted every few feet in the ceiling above them. And this, like everything else in the hall, had remained unchanging. The only exception to this were the door numbers. Those, on the other hand, continued to increase sequentially in value. The size of the numbers also decreased over time, likely so that they could continue to fit on the doors.

“Yeah, I'm not seeing it either," Rian said. "Jimmy, nothing’s changed. Everything’s exactly how it’s been since we started.”

“You’re wrong,” he insisted. “Nobody notices it ‘cause it’s been so slight. If it had been more abrupt, you’d realize I’m right. But it’s getting darker.”

“No, it’s not, for fuck’s sake." Though Zach couldn’t see him, he somehow had to imagine that Rian was rolling his eyes at Jimmy. "You're imagining things."

“Let’s keep going and you’ll see. If you pay real close attention to how it is right now, and then you look again in a few hours, you’ll see it, too.”

Zach sighed. “Jimmy, we all just want to go home.”

“Zach, you’re the one who brought us out here.”

“Yeah, and I was wrong. I fucked up. It’s time to go.”

“You were not wrong,” he said, glaring at Zach. “How many times do I gotta be right about shit before you’ll finally trust me?”

And just like that, Jimmy had him. Because Zach couldn’t possibly argue against what he’d said. And the more Zach thought about it, the more he realized that Jimmy really did tend to be right about these things each and every time.

But it always feels like he’s wrong.

Zach wondered if he should reverse his position. He paused to think about it. But his thoughts were interrupted as Kesten spoke up and made a very valid, well-thought-out point.

“Let’s say Jimmy’s right,” he said, “and let’s say there’s been some tiny, gradual change in luminosity that the rest of us just haven’t been able to see. So what? Are we really going to assume that just because the level of light changed insignificantly it means there’s something waiting for us if we keep on going?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what we gotta assume,” Jimmy said. “If this shit was really forever, it shouldn’t be changing like that.”

“Not necessarily,” Olivir said, chiming in. “Jimmy, you realize that things that loop infinitely can have patterns, right?”

“Nah, this isn't a pattern. I'm telling you: there's something ahead. We should keep going for a bit longer. We already came this far. How shitty would it be to turn around right at the end?”

“But what about food?” Maric asked. “Don’t forget, we’ve already gone through half of our supplies.”

At this, Jimmy made a dramatic and dismissive swing of his staff. “Who cares? We’re not gonna starve if we don’t eat for a day or two. As long as we—”

“Rian might,” Zach fired in, causing an immediate roar of laughter. “Sorry, I saw the shot and had to take it.”

“Fuck you, Zach. Eat my ass.”

“Not gonna lie, that was funny,” Jimmy said, chuckling. Then he resumed what he was saying. “Anyway, as long as we have water, we’ll live. And we brought extra so we actually have a little more than two weeks’ worth.”

As Jimmy continued to argue his case, Donovan began rubbing his chin. Then he whispered to Zach. “What do you think?” he asked as Jimmy sparred with several of the other adventurers who were just about out of patience.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt to walk a tiny bit more to test out his theory and see if it keeps getting darker.”

“Yeah…all right.” Now, Donovan spoke more loudly. “Everybody, listen up! We’re gonna test Jimmy’s theory. Stare at one of these lights and try to remember how bright it is. We’ll jog for just three more hours, and if Jimmy’s right, and there’s a noticeable change, we’ll keep going. Otherwise, we turn back immediately.”

There were groans from all over, but they were reluctant groans. Zach figured that most of the other adventurers were coming to the conclusion that, since they’d already come this far, they might as well try this one last thing if only to avoid having any lingering questions or doubts on their way back.

Now, clapping his hands, Zephyr shouted, “Everybody spread out! We’re continuing!”

And just like that, Zach found himself once more jogging through the hallway, only now, he did so with Jimmy and him directly side by side and Donovan right in front of them both. They were the only three who were not currently spread apart.

“And…here we go again,” Zach muttered, watching as inn room doors flashed by and the numbers continued to increase, and increase, and increase! Glancing up, he wondered if the evenly spaced lights really were getting any dimmer. And now, he genuinely wasn’t sure.

“I think my mind’s playing tricks on me,” Zach said. “It almost looks like it is getting the tiniest bit dimmer, but it could just be because that’s what I want to see.”

“Same here,” Alixa called out from somewhere towards the rear of the formation. “I actually can’t tell if it’s an illusion or not.”

And this continued to be the case—even as they hit the three-hour mark, paused, and then stared upwards. It was also here that Rian got made fun of for trying to compare pictures he’d taken with his phone, which was not designed to capture something’s exact light level.

At any rate, having halted once again, they all stopped to deliberate. Donovan’s orders had been simple: jog for three hours and determine if the lights had become any dimmer. If yes, keep going: if no, return.

But now they had a problem: no one except Jimmy was even sure. And so, Donovan, breathing out a rare exhausted sigh, ordered everyone to keep it up. And that was what they did. Just as they’d done for the past three hours, they jogged onwards and onwards and onwards.

“Okay, now I’m like, uh, I wanna say seventy-percent sure the lights really are getting less bright,” Olivir said, speaking loudly enough so that most of the raid could hear him.

“I agree,” Eldora said. “Like the rest of you, I wasn’t sure at first either, but now I’m…I’m still not sure, but I'm almost ready to say that Jimmy was correct. What about you, Zach?”

Zach nodded to him. “Yeah, I think so too.”

But does this actually mean anything? Zach wondered. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. It was still way too soon.

“Let’s keep going. But can we all please jog just a little bit faster, though? I actually really have to be back in a week or Mr. Oren is going to be furious with me.”

“If that’s the case, I’m jogging slower,” Donovan spat.

“Me too,” many of the other adventurers taunted.

Thankfully, none of them made good on their threats, though it was likely more about not wanting to stay here too long and end up stranded without food or—Gods forbid—water. Zach had to hold back a dark, inappropriate chuckle at the idea of how fucked up but funny it would be if their entire raid “wiped” in the hallway to nothing but dehydration. That would go down as the most humiliating raid wipe in history. Or at least known history.

Anyway, spurred on by nothing more than the uncertain perception of change, the raid continued to make their way farther and farther down the hall. And at some point, though it was difficult to say precisely when, Zach became comfortable finally saying for certain that, yes, the lights really were dimming. It soon became undeniable, as the runic patterns on his sword were now difficult to make out. It was still easy to see ahead and around him, but as they continued to progress, the finer details on the faces of distant adventurers became harder and harder to see.

Then Lienne said something terrifying.

“You guys,” she said, “what if this has nothing to do with ‘finding’ anything? What if the hallway really is infinite, but nobody is meant to actually come this far? And it just gets darker and darker until eventually it’s pitch black. That’d be really creepy, right?”

“Yeah, it would be,” Kesten agreed.

But this did little to lessen Jimmy’s growing confidence. “Just keep going! Fuck resting tonight. Let’s burn right through the night and keep going.”

In the very first sign of morale that Zach had seen from the adventurers in several days, they let out a roar of approval. The idea that they might actually find something was starting to spread. And much like himself, Zach could tell that the other adventurers still didn’t firmly believe it. But something was clearly changing. After more than seven days of jogging down this Gods-forsaken hallway, something different was happening.

But even still, Zach reined in his optimism, at least for the time being. Thus, with his expectations kept in check, he continued to jog ever onward, skipping their usual break to sleep as they now officially entered the eighth day of what was only supposed to be a seven-day journey. Yet, Zach was starting to become worried, because even though everyone agreed that the lights were dimming, they were doing so in such a slow, gradual way. This meant that, even if they were on to something, the rate at which things were changing made the situation begin to look dire again due to the sheer amount of distance they’d likely still need to cover. In other words, if things did not begin to change faster than they were right now, it would end up not even mattering if there was an end to this place because they might just have to turn back around anyway due to low supplies.

And this, without a doubt, would be even worse than finding nothing at all, because Zach was sure everyone would hate themselves during the entire trek home. He knew he would.

We’ll spend eight days angrily wondering what we were about to find if we had only been able to keep going a little farther.

It was likely for this reason that a troubled look started to appear on Donovan’s face as they reached noon North Bastian time on the 8th day. He could tell that Donovan was on the verge of making the difficult call to turn the raid back around; this, as more and more adventurers were starting to show signs of excitement and renewed vigor. But from the way Donovan kept looking over his shoulder while he jogged, Zach could tell he was going to make the call to halt the raid any moment now.

Or at least, that was probably what he would have done if Jimmy had not halted the raid himself.

“Stop!” he shouted out, causing murmurs of excitement to spread from the front of the formation all the way to the back.

“What is it?” Zephyr asked, speaking up to be heard over the other adventurers. “Why’d we stop?”

Zach also wanted to know, and from the twisting of his lips, so too did Donovan. Thankfully, Jimmy was quick to fill them in. He crouched down and pointed to the carpet. “Look!”

Unlike other times Jimmy had asked Zach to “look” at something, this time, he could actually see it. It was faint, but clearly visible. He crouched down next to Jimmy and lowered his face to the carpet such that his eyes were only a few inches from the floor. “Mist!” he shouted aloud. “There’s mist on the floor!”

This created an outpouring of excitement from the others, and the loud, simultaneous sound of shifting bodies echoed throughout the hallway as everyone dropped down to see for themselves. “He’s right!” Rian cried. “There’s like a thin little trail of mist on the floor. We’re getting somewhere. Oh my fucking Gods! There might actually be something ahead.”

Donovan grunted, loudly. “I hate to spoil the mood, then, but we ain’t got the food or water to keep going. We need to turn back.”

The adventurers immediately started booing. “Come on, Donovan!” one of them yelled. “We can go a few days without food and one or two without water. One more day!”

Then they all started chanting, “One more day! One more day! One more day!”

Donovan relented, but he didn’t look pleased to do so. “Fine,” he said. “But just one.”

And with that, they continued on for the rest of the 8th day and into the 8th night. Fired-up and excited, they gave up a second night’s worth of sleep, and as dawn approached in North Bastian time, they finally passed beyond the 2-millionth inn room.

There was also an awful lot of mist now.

It was everywhere. It was unmistakable. Smoky, wave-like bands of mist that had extremely strange properties. Although the mist felt no different from regular air and had no particular smell to it, the stuff was rising up to the ceiling, bouncing off it, and then hitting the floor again. He’d never seen anything like it.

As the 9th night approached, the hall was now so filled with mist, and had darkened so significantly, that the raid had been asked to stay close together. Oddly enough, the darkness helped abate the feeling of claustrophobia and amplify the overall excitement. The lights above were now only putting out the barest amount of illumination. Zach, at best, could see ten feet in front or behind him before it became too difficult to make out anything clearly.

“We really, really have to go back,” Donovan said. “We’re going to end up killing ourselves in this hall.”

“One more day!” Jimmy demanded. “Please.”

Donovan scowled—or at least Zach thought he did. It was getting to that point where even seeing his facial features clearly was a challenge. “You’ve got one more night, Jimmy.” He spoke even louder. “You hear that, everyone? This is it. Come morning, we’re going back.”

But this did not happen.

Because on the morning of what would have been the 10th day, they finally, at long, long last, had confirmation that something was absolutely at the end of this hallway.

They didn’t know what.

They didn’t know why.

But something absolutely had to be there. It was beyond question. And this, Zach and the others knew to be incontrovertibly true as Jimmy, at the top of his lungs, yelled out, “Mob! Everybody stop! Mob!”

“Did he say mob?” shouted excited voices from far in the back of the line. Rian, Lienne, Olivir, Kolona, Eldora, Fluffles, Maric, Kesten, Alixa—everyone! Everyone began scrambling forward to get a look. People were even knocking each other over. It got so bad that Donovan had to slap a few people around to get them to be calm.

“Gods, it’s really a mob! In the hallway!” shouted Lienne with amazement and glee.

Zach smiled. After three nights without sleep and slightly more than ten days, they had stumbled upon something incredible. An actual mob. Right there in the hallway in front of them. And they could see it clearly, too, because the light on the ceiling above it was as bright as the lights had been at the start. This made it abundantly clear that what was happening in this hallway was deliberate. It wasn’t some malfunction or oversight that stemmed from never actually expecting adventurers to come this far; no, this was a clear, purposeful invitation to keep going. This was something that had been deliberately placed. They’d found something very special.

But also something very…strange.

HP

2,700,000/2,700,000

Name

Tome of Enchanting Madness***

Level

55

“An elite!” Rian exclaimed, using the term Jimmy had coined for mobs with asterisks at the end of their name.

I’ve never seen a mob that looked like this before, Zach thought. It's just an object.

The mob was a literal floating book, one that was opened up such that it appeared to have been turned to a page somewhere in the middle. And though it did not float closer or away from them, it did hover up and down in the air ever so slightly. And occasionally—and completely at random—its pages would turn: sometimes forward, sometimes back. It was also only around the size of a high-school Holobook.

“So, even you guys can probably guess this thing’s gonna primarily use magic, right?” Jimmy asked. "Please tell me that's obvious to everyone and not just me."

Zephyr, who had now moved up to join Donovan at the front of the formation, nodded. “Yup. We're not that dumb, Jimmy.”

Donovan turned his back to the mob and barked out a laugh. “Well, boys and girls, it looks like we got ourselves a real fuckin’ Gods-be-damned raid after all.”

“Yeah!” the adventurers roared, releasing all the pent-up frustration and energy that had been drained from them during the awful, tiring trip through here.

“Okay, who’s pulling it?” Jimmy asked. “I guess we’ll start by—”

“Hold your damn horses,” Donovan growled at him. “I’m leading this raid, remember? We’re doing things my way. And my way is we stop and have a chat first and talk everything over before we go pulling 'elites' we've never seen before.”

Zach wasn’t sure whether or not it was a trick of the darkness, but in this moment, he was pretty sure he saw Jimmy pouting. “Are you for real?” he asked, utter disappointment in his voice as he sat on the floor as if to rest. “Fine. Go ahead. Debate how to kill trash mobs at the entrance,” he said, putting emphasis on the word “entrance” as if that implied their actions were somehow shameful or weak. He then began muttering to himself as though not realizing everyone could still hear him. “…can't believe we're stopping. We're not even in the dungeon yet and these bitches be out here trying to hold a whole-ass conference over the first fucking thing we run into at the entrance. The entrance! The trash mobs at the entrance.”

Zephyr laughed, and so did Zach. And then, together, they all began to talk it over and discuss their next move.

Chapter 200: MIA

Chapter 200: MIA

It was strange how priorities could shift so radically so quickly. But life was like a balancing scale, and yesterday’s inconvenience could easily become today’s most pressing matter. Alex, having put off an important issue for far too long, ordered a delay to the upcoming meeting with the resistance leaders and instead pulled Kalana into a private conference room in Shadowfall Coast.

“Alex, what’s wrong?” she asked as he gestured for her to sit, then joined her at a small table, whereupon he buried his face into his hands as the frustration began to mount. “Whoah, Alex. What happened?”

“I can’t get in contact with him,” he said.

“Who?”

“Your boyfriend.”

Kalana cringed, and Alex knew right away that she understood more than she was letting on. “Where is he, Kalana? Please, just tell me.”

As Alex braced himself for whatever she was about to say, he tried to remind himself that things, generally, had been moving in a positive direction. The last week, for example, had been incomparably more peaceful than the week prior. Things had changed for the better seemingly overnight following Queen Vayra outing Sir Vim Alazar for his role in the assassinations of various human resistance leaders.

At first, Alex had felt betrayed, and so too had High-Lord Besh. But, in the days and hours since, Alex had come to agree with the queen, as in his personal opinion, she’d acted with moral clarity, and Alex simply could not fault her for that. And so, with Vim Alazar having been given no choice but to stand down and order his guild’s presence to be limited to the shoreline and the ports, peace was again becoming a reality in Shadowfall Coast. There had been a lessening of tension to such an extent that instances of violent confrontations had gone down more than 77% across all guilds.

Thanks to this, many of the highest-ranking guild members, including Alex’s guild-leader, Kolorn Besh, had been able to leave Shadowfall Coast and return to other matters. Vim Alazar had also returned to Giant’s Fall, and Queen Vayra had begun conducting affairs elsewhere as well. He and Kalana, however, continued to maintain a presence here every single day as they worked with the resistance leaders to end the violence for good.

As for Vim, the angry little man really didn’t have much reason to hold a grudge. After all, in the eyes of the Royal Roses, the coastline here was all they’d ever truly cared about in the first place. The only reasons that the Royal Roses wanted to take part in peacekeeping operations in Shadowfall Coast were due to pride, anger, and a desire for revenge. But from a purely economic standpoint, the Royal Roses only cared about the ports. The actual city itself was immaterial to their guild, as it was the ports here that would soon be humanity’s gateway to global trade once—or if relations could be restored.

And that was where Zach came in.

Zach had promised the global community that he would answer their questions. His ability, Doomsday Slash, had rocked the world, shattered windows, and frightened the entire globe. But if he presented himself before the various races as an earnest and sincere youth, and he answered their questions honestly, it would be a major step towards humanity being readmitted into global trade.

Ironically, we might even be closer to readmittance because of his actions, Alex thought. It’s opened up an opportunity for us that didn’t previously exist.

The only problem? He was nowhere to be found, and it’d gotten to the point that even Sir Alazar was freaking out about it. And so were the other guild leaders, too. Even Fiona Darkmae, who rarely got involved in these affairs, was on edge, as Faded Island stood to benefit tremendously from the export of cocoa beans to the rest of the globe.

“Please, just tell me where he is.”

“Okay, so um, basically, he’s looking for a new dungeon.”

“A new dungeon?”

“Umm, I mean a dungeon nobody’s ever found before.”

As she began to explain the situation, Alex became ever more frustrated—to the extent it made it difficult for him to remain still in his seat. “Are you telling me he’s walking aimlessly down a hallway that never ends?”

“Well…yeah. But Alex, don’t forget he’s doing all of this to help us fight the World Eater.”

Alex shook his head. “Nothing will help us more than having the world united. You must understand this, Kalana. The sole and top priority for all of us right now should be to establish a working relationship with the rest of the world. This fanciful idea of finding tier-2 planets and going on adventures…it’s not realistic. A handful of adventurers are not going to prevent doomsday. Only a concentrated global effort can.”

“I don’t agree,” Kalana said. “I think it’s gonna take both.”

“But one is clearly more important than the other.” Alex struggled to maintain his composure. His disappointment was immeasurable. “How soon will he be back?”

“I dunno. He said he’d only be gone two weeks ‘cause he knows he needs to be back in time. He was actually really serious about that part, Alex. He knows he needs to be back.”

“He does?” Alex exhaled slowly. “Well, if nothing else, that’s at least a relief to hear.”

“Yep. That’s what he said, anyway. Two weeks. And it’s already been 10 days since then, so we should hear from him soon, I bet.”

Alex relaxed somewhat. “Okay. I’m slightly less worried now. Based on what you told me, it seems like Zach has been keeping this meeting in mind. Now that peace negotiations are proceeding smoothly and unhindered, this is the most pressing issue we face.” He met her eyes. “So, Zach will be back in around four days, Kalana?”

She nodded. “Yep. Four days.”

*******

Zach tried not to fret as the conversations droned on. “There’s no fucking way I’m getting back in four days, is there?”

Donovan barked out a laugh. “Probably not, but who gives a shit? I told you, kiddo, stop getting involved in Alex’s bullshit.”

“It’s just that I promised Mr. Oren I would be available to address the global community regarding my—”

“Nobody cares!” about fifteen adventurers shouted at him all at once.

“Actually, I care,” Jimmy said, speaking up. He looked around at the other adventurers, and then he pointed to Zach. “It’s fucked up that ya’ll wanna keep him from doing something so important, and as his friend, I’m just not gonna stand for it. Zach is right. We need to get this shit going.”

At this, the other adventurers reacted with laughter rather than anger, especially Donovan, who saw right through Jimmy. In fact, all of them did, Zach included. It was so obvious what Jimmy was attempting to do.

“Jimmy, you are one hasty sonofabitch,” Donovan said with a mirth-filled cackle. “Pretending like you care just because you’re too impatient.” Jimmy made a pained hiss as Donovan walked over to him and gave him one of his friendly “pats” on the back. “We’ll start the raid when we’re ready. Not a moment before. You’ll live if you have to wait a few more minutes.”

Jimmy made a Donovan-like grunt. “This is bullshit. I can’t believe it’s been a half-hour and we’re still talking about how we’re gonna kill an entrance mob.” He raised his voice. “An entrance mob! I say I take over and lead the raid. Who’s with me?”

As it turned out, the answer was nobody. “We love you, Jimmy,” Zephyr said to him. “And everybody here recognizes your skills and knowledge. But we just got done surviving your last raid. Give us a bit of time before we lock in for another Jimmy-raid.”

Jimmy glared at Zephyr. “I thought you and everybody said you were glad I pushed you to kill the boss.”

“We were—and we are. But…” Zephyr shrugged. “That doesn’t mean we don’t need some time to mentally recover. I think I speak for most of us when I say that, having spent the last 10 days jogging down a hallway, we’re just not up for a Jimmy-raid right now.”

There were nods from everyone. Even Zach found himself nodding, and he was the one who actually needed everyone to hurry. Tyson was nodding as well, though in his case, Zach knew he wasn’t up for a rushed or a patient raid, which he made very clear.

“I think we should turn around and head back and do a few months of research before pushing forward,” he said. “Or a few years. Just to be sure it’s safe.”

Donovan’s laughter became even louder and more boisterous. “I don’t know how you and Jimmy became friends. One of you wants to run headfirst into any fire he sees, and the other is afraid to light his stove.”

Tyson croaked. “All right, I confess! I’m afraid. Please don’t make me fight mobs! I need more training.”

“You’re gonna get it,” Reni said with a laugh. “Hands-on, too.”

He moaned and sat down on the floor. “I’m going to die here, aren’t I, Jimmy?”

“Of boredom, yeah.” Jimmy sat down next to Tyson. And with that, Donovan got back to addressing them all. But first, everybody seemed to like Jimmy’s idea of taking a seat, and so now, the narrow hallway was lined with rows upon rows of adventurers sitting side by side.

“All right, boys and girls, here’s where we are right now,” Donovan began. “Much as I can’t fucking believe it, Zach was right. Angelica’s inn really isn’t endless. Clearly, there’s something here. Now, we don’t actually know what it is, but most of you—and me, too—are assuming it’s gonna be a dungeon.”

Donovan paused for a moment as if to ensure everyone was listening to him. “What we don’t know is if we are the first adventurers ever to figure this out. Zach and Jimmy made clear that we have to be the first in history to get to Albion-4. But! Even if we ain’t, it’s always worth the effort to rediscover an unknown dungeon, so regardless of whatever awaits us, I just wanna say I’m proud of the two of them for pushing us to come here.”

Donovan lifted his hand and pointed behind himself and over his shoulder. With the entire raid seated on the carpeted hallway floor, everyone was now able to see him.

“Behind me is an elite mob. Under normal circumstances, I’d be very cautious in how we approach the son of a bitch. But given our environment, we need to be really cautious. It doesn’t take a genius to see we can’t exactly all fight it at once. We’re more likely to kill ourselves trying. And not to mention the hundreds of ways shit can go wrong here. If someone needs to retreat, what are they gonna do? Trample everyone behind them? What if it uses a big AOE? How’s everyone gonna scatter?”

Donovan looked at several of them, but mostly, his gaze now lingered on Jimmy, who Zach could see tensing as Donovan continued to speak. It was almost as though he knew what Donovan was about to say.

“Now look, I get some of you are really anxious to get this going.”

“You mean Jimmy,” Rian called out. “You mean Jimmy is really anxious to start.”

Donovan chuckled. “Yeah, okay. I know Jimmy is really anxious to get going. But there’s no shame in us gaming this out more carefully.” Donovan extended his hand and tapped his palm on the door to his immediate right. “We know the inn room numbers where this mob spawns. If we come back with more food, more supplies, and more healing stones, we can pull the mob into a room or use the extra rooms to give ourselves more space. And Jimmy, I know you were thinking that too, kiddo.”

“Yeah, I was,” Jimmy said, nodding. “But I was also thinking on how to get around that.”

“And?”

Jimmy looked uncomfortable. “Well, I’m still figuring it out.”

Zephyr, who was the only other adventurer standing upright, asked, “Jimmy, be honest with us. In your opinion, what is the intended way to fight this mob?” Jimmy responded by turning his head away and muttering something indiscernible, which caused numerous adventurers to laugh, including Zephyr. “Don’t mumble it. Just say it.”

“Donovan’s right,” he grumbled. “That’s what I would’a done if I knew we would have to fight hallway shit. But wait. What happens if there are more than just this one? For all we know, the entire dungeon could be contained within this hallway. And until we actually get to the start of the dungeon itself, the Albion-4 gate isn’t gonna spawn. Are we just gonna run back to Angelica’s every time we find out there’s more than we thought?”

“Actually, yes,” Zephyr replied. “That’s a big part of what the Explorers Brigade does. We AAM.”

“AAM?” Jimmy asked.

“Advance and Map,” Zephyr clarified. “We advance a bit, we map, and we slowly build out a knowledge base on how to proceed, however long it takes.”

Jimmy nodded. “I feel you. But uh, what I do is I GSD: I get shit done. Tell ‘em, Zach.”

Why does he always put me in the middle of shit like this?

Zach decided to just be honest with Jimmy, as the exhaustion of doing otherwise required more energy than he felt he had right now. “I don’t like the idea of fighting this thing unprepared in a hallway, Jimmy. It’s an elite, and most of us won’t be able to contribute.”

“Okay, so Unleashed Phase that shit.”

“That’s not going to help. At level 0, it might not be enough to—”

“Boost it up.”

“Jimmy, stop.”

“Stop what?” Still seated, he pointed his staff at the mob. “Just ramp it up. We got stones and my buff. We’ll just patch you up afterwards like last time.”

Now, Zach became annoyed. “Jimmy, fuck off. I’m not going to have multiple miniature heart attacks just because you can’t learn to be patient.”

“Okay, and what about the World Eater?” Jimmy asked. “Is that gonna be patient?”

“The what?” numerous adventurers murmured to one another, which caused Donovan and Zephyr to groan while Zach slapped his own forehead in amazement. Olivir and Kolona merely chuckled amongst themselves.

“Jimmy, are you stupid? I can’t believe you just said that.”

“Said what?” he asked. Then his eyebrows rose as though he only first realized what he’d let slip. “Ahh, shit! That was an accident, I swear.”

“What’s he talking about?” Kesten asked. And so did Alixa, Maric, the Britethorns, Ishina, Ishina’s father, Eldora, Reni, Emala, and just about every adventurer present.

“You basically have to tell them now, Jimmy,” Rian said.

“Wait, even Rian knows?” Rono growled. “What’s with this secret-keeping bullshit? Will someone please tell the rest of us what’s going on?”

Zach, exhausted, made a low groan and lay back, as there was just enough space between him and Kolona to do so. He wanted no part of this conversation. He’d already had to have this conversation last week with Rian and Lienne. Let someone else deal with it.

Donovan and Zephyr seemed willing, and both began to explain together as Jimmy sat defiantly, clearly determined to press on even if everyone else quit. And if he did, Zach would obviously have to stay here with him.

Why was he so difficult?

Table of Contents

Information
Chapter 101: The Dragon's Spite
Chapter 102: SYSTEM BREACH
Chapter 103: Nightmare’s End
Chapter 104: The King's Court
Chapter 105: GET’CHA!
Chapter 106: Bitter Enemies
Chapter 107: The Way Forward
Chapter 108: Power
Chapter 109: Blood in the Water
Chapter 110: The End of an Era
Chapter 111: Break
Chapter 112: Doom Phase
Chapter 113: The Island of Elendroth
Chapter 114: The King of the Slug Clan
Chapter 115: A Life Disconnected
Chapter 116: A Million Gold
Chapter 117: A Mistake in the System?
Chapter 118: From Ruby to Ruby
Chapter 119: Twenty Hours to Doomsday
Chapter 120: Call to Arms
Chapter 121: Global Crisis
Chapter 122: Official Duty
Chapter 123: Current Events
Chapter 124: Launch
Chapter 125: Boom
Chapter 126: The Guy who Knows Everything
Chapter 127: Finding a Purpose
Chapter 128: Trackers
Chapter 129: Hatred
Chapter 130: Breath of Invigoration
Chapter 131: Mistakes
Chapter 132: A Commitment
Chapter 133: Breakthrough
Chapter 134: Bittersweet
Chapter 135: The Third Domino
Chapter 136: The Ancient Rules
Chapter 137: Impish
Chapter 138: Mushkie
Chapter 139: Weekly Haul
Chapter 140: The True Value of Items
Chapter 141: Zach's First Press Conference
Chapter 142: Indoctrination
Chapter 143: An Uncertain World
Chapter 144: A Dream come True
Chapter 145: LEAVE!
Chapter 146: The Return to Shadowfall Coast
Chapter 147 Raid Leader Pt. I
Chapter 148: This is War. This Happens in War
Chapter 149: Technical Incompatibility
Chapter 150: Raid Leader Pt. II
Chapter 151: One-Man Army
Chapter 152: The Demon Commander
Chapter 153: The Rescue Pt I
Chapter 154: The Rescue Pt. II
Chapter 155: Noon Ultimatum
Chapter 156: The Rescue Pt III
Chapter 157: Calamity of Stars
Chapter 158: All-In
Chapter 159: Powerful Ambitions
Chapter 160: The Ritual Sacrifice
Chapter 161: Empathy
Chapter 162: Tickets
Chapter 163: The Angry Little Man

Chapter 164: A Will That Burns Hotter than Fire

Chapter 165: The Path of Destruction
Chapter 166: Yes
Chapter 167: The Fate of Shadowfall Coast
Chapter 168: How Jimmy Got his Groove Back
Chapter 169: Elemental Shift
Chapter 170: Responsibility
Chapter 171: The Rule of the System
Chapter 172: The Argument
Chapter 173: Broken Hearts
Chapter 174: Mare of the Primordial Void
Chapter 175: Jimmy’s Hatred
Chapter 176: Twenty-Five-Fifteen
Chapter 177: Doomed
Chapter 178: Phase Return
Chapter 179: Guilt
Chapter 180: The Wayward Son
Chapter 181: Crisis on 10th and Junction
Chapter 182: The Primordial Void Blade
Chapter 183: Zach's Estate
Chapter 184: Tension Between Allies
Chapter 185: Tyson Revel the HERO GOD
Chapter 186: Potential
Chapter 187: New Targets
Chapter 188: An Act of Violence
Chapter 189: Dragon Squire
Chapter 190: A Reckless Decision
Chapter 191: The Dungeon Group
Chapter 192: How to Get It Done
Chapter 193: The Secret Dungeon
Chapter 194: Birth of the Emperor
Chapter 195: Shot Fired
Chapter 196: A Truth that Burns Time Itself

Chapter 197: Confessions and Misunderstandings

Chapter 198: Exposed
Chapter 199: The Infinite Hallway
Chapter 200: MIA