Dungeon Duel
Author: James A. Hunter
Date: 2021-02-16 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Science Fiction
Description: Build. Evolve. Conquer. Welcome to a whole new kind of Boss Battle… Roark von Graf fought his way up from the bottom to become not only the Dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel, but the leader of the Troll Nation, making underhanded alliances with other dungeons and players along the way. Until now, he’s only had to worry about his enemies attacking from inside the game. But Lowen, the Tyrant King’s right-hand man, has found a way to attack the players in league with Roark IRL, laying siege to the company that keeps Hearthworld’s servers running and capturing the very Devs who can take Roark apar
Publisher: Shadow Alley Press

Table of Contents

Summary

Shadow Alley Press Mailing List

On Bended Knee

The Poser Owners

Shifting Sands

Skirmish

Cursed Priest

Draconian Changes

Spies

Shifting Tides

Meetup

Hard Choices

Moral Dilemma

First Engagement

Makeshift Resistance

Lessons in Leadership

Web Walking

Constabulary

Creature Chaos

The Zen of Steel

Secrets in Shadow

Bed, Bath, and Way Beyond

Other World

Shieldwall

Draconic Form

Gods of Hearthworld

Steel Leviathan

Flash Art Gunsmith

Firepower

Countdown Complications

Embers of Hope

Of Nerds and Heroes

God-Pharaoh

The Challenge

Opening Gambit

Dungeon Duel

Let Chaos Reign

Mountain Air

When Worlds Collide

Books, Mailing List, and Reviews

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Copyright

About the Author

About the Publisher

Summary

BUILD. EVOLVE. CONQUER. Welcome to a whole new kind of Boss Battle...

Roark von Graf fought his way up from the bottom to become not only the Dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel, but the leader of the Troll Nation, making underhanded alliances with other dungeons and players along the way.

Until now, he’s only had to worry about his enemies attacking from inside the game. But Lowen, the Tyrant King’s right-hand man, has found a way to attack the players in league with Roark IRL, laying siege to the company that keeps Hearthworld’s servers running and capturing the very Devs who can take Roark apart byte by byte.

To stop Lowen and his Divine armies once and for all, Roark will have to drag the magics of the game into the real world, harness deadly new technologies, and build dungeons in places no Dungeon Lord has ever gone before.

The fate of Earth hangs in the balance. The duel between Dungeon Lords has begun. And one of them isn’t leaving Hearthworld alive...

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On Bended Knee

LOWEN VON REICH KNELT at the throne of Marek Konig Uster, head lowered like a whipped dog as the Tyrant King berated him.

“You had von Graf at your mercy,” Marek growled, beringed fingers picking at the throne’s ornately carved armrests. Unlike most people Lowen had known, the Tyrant King rarely lost control in his anger. When he was truly furious, Marek’s voice turned icy and his eyes flattened to something coldblooded and reptilian, like the striking snakes on his royal standard. “Tell me, Lowen, what did you say when I gave you charge of destroying that whelp and returning the World Stone to me?”

Lowen grimaced down at the thin green-and-gold runner beneath his knee.

“Your Eminence, the pendant is bound to—”

“You said, ‘It will be done. I will return the World Stone to you within the fortnight.’ Your words, not mine.” Marek’s cold voice cut through the throne room like a winter wind. “How many fortnights has it been, Lowen?”

It was a question Lowen knew better than to answer, though in truth, he had no idea how much time had passed in Traisbin while he’d been in Hearthworld warring against that blasted half-breed anyway. The time conversion between the two worlds was complicated and hard to keep track of, and he’d had more pressing matters to attend—keeping his life in the face of Marek’s wrath not the least among them.

“The head of that von Graf cur should be the centerpiece of my throne room, but time and again you’ve failed to produce it.” Marek gripped the armrest of his formidable throne until wood groaned under the weight of his grip. “I’ve given you charge of my armies, my weapons, a measure of my power, and yet still you have not managed to produce a single result. Your most recent attack should have brought the rebellious dog to his knees. Instead you return with empty hands and more excuses.”

Of course, and now he would take the blame for that brat Talise’s failure as well. Von Grafs plagued him at every turn. Lowen gritted his teeth, biting back the snarling accusation that she had failed intentionally, letting her brother go free, and was even now working for that upstart. He’d known when he became the head of Marek’s forces that he would be held accountable for their failures.

“Your Highness, I take full responsibility,” Lowen said, speaking quickly before the Tyrant King could cut him off again. “However, in our latest attack, we gained intelligence that we did not have before. We now know that the World Stone is bound to von Graf’s soul and cannot be stolen or looted from his corpse after death. Without such a measure, I would have long since returned the pendant to you.”

“A pittance,” Marek hissed.

Soft footsteps scuffed the floor, raising the hair along the back of Lowen’s neck. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the new arrival.

Since first traversing the portal to Hearthworld, Talise had been transformed into the Malaika Herald form all in Lowen’s dungeon took on, but even with the shining golden skin and sleek raven’s wings tucked behind her back, her family line was obvious at a glance. Tall and slender like her tiresome brother, Talise had waves of dark hair and a slightly hooked nose that outed her dirty Lyuko blood. The von Graf arrogance radiated from her every move.

She carried a silver tray set with the Tyrant King’s evening tea, a nightly custom, Lowen was given to understand. The wench glanced his way as she passed, looking down her crooked nose at him—him, a pureblooded noble of high birth!

“And you!” Marek snapped, his ever-calm voice taking on a note of anger Lowen had never heard before.

Talise stopped in her tracks, causing the silver service to rattle on its tray.

A grin tugged at Lowen’s mouth, but he held it at bay. At least the uppity girl would bear a portion of the blame for this latest tactical disaster. She was supposed to be Marek’s secret weapon, yet she had fizzled even worse than Lowen. He hoped the Tyrant King burned her to ashes, sating the sting of his fury on the girl rather than Lowen himself.

“Von Graf’s throat was in your hands!” Marek rebuked her like a wayward child. “The brother who sold your family and left you to die. I gave you everything—the finest clothes, luxurious accommodations, the most skilled tutors in fencing and magicks—and this is how you repay my generosity? By letting that rebel coward go free?”

Lowen followed the line of Marek’s glare to Talise, hoping to see fear and pleading etched into her face.

Instead he saw a cold fury to match the Tyrant King’s.

“My lord Grandfather, you’re right to unleash your rage upon me,” she said, delicate knuckles white as she clutched the silver tray. Anger marred her smooth brow. “I failed to kill that greedy, underhanded bastard. Even with all the luxuries of training and power you afforded me, still I wasn’t skilled enough to take my vengeance on him. If I’d been faster, seen the strike coming that knocked me unconscious, I could have followed him. Could have found the rat’s nest and razed it to the ground...” She shook her head. “No matter excuses. My shortcomings are unpardonable. Failing my good and generous grandfather is a disgrace I’ll take to my grave.”

Infuriatingly, at her admission, Marek’s face softened the slightest degree. Lowen swallowed the bitter taste of anger as he realized Talise had just talked herself out of a death sentence, and all because of the tyrant’s soft spot for the girl. Marek had never had heirs to speak of—not that he needed one since he was the next best thing to immortal—but he often doted on the dirty half-breed as though she were genuinely a child of his blood. If Lowen had come to Marek with that same excuse, he knew, Marek would have flayed his skin from his body and raised it over the ramparts as a warning to anyone else who would dare to fail him.

Talise wasn’t finished, however.

“Please, my lord,” she continued, head lowered slightly, “before you enact justice upon me, you must know what I learned of the coward’s forces. Not only is the World Stone bound to him, but he has used its power to create vassals within Hearthworld to do his bidding, building armies, both from his stolen dungeon and by making alliances with the dungeons around him. And worse yet, he has been transforming his allies, crossing them with formidable creatures and changing them into powerful and unnatural monsters.” She glanced sidelong at Lowen, and he caught the flash of distaste in her gray eyes as she said, “The leader of your forces within Hearthworld should prepare himself for a deadly onslaught as soon as possible. Von Graf will not wait long to attack.”

Marek stroked his chin, rings glinting in the light from the torches.

“Binding vassals and combining monsters to create unnatural armies?” he said in a low, musing tone. After a moment, the tyrant waved a hand at Talise, beckoning her forward with the tea. She went to his side and presented him with the tray. “Your failure was not in vain, Granddaughter. You’ve brought me intelligence that could have destroyed me unchecked... though by itself this information is greatly troubling. It seems von Graf has begun to uncover the secrets of my World Stone.” Marek’s hand curled into a fist that he thumped down on the arm of his throne. “It must be taken from him before he discovers its most powerful ability. The question is how it can be done. When you learned of the pendant’s soulbinding, Talise, was there any loophole you saw that could be exploited?”

Lowen couldn’t contain the scowl of disgust any longer. He got the reprimand and the half-breed brat got forgiveness? It was disgustingly unfair.

“Your Eminence,” he said, “I too have gained a piece of valuable information in that regard. It may just be the knowledge we need to retrieve the World Stone.”

Marek scrutinized Lowen for the space of several heartbeats, those cold eyes slitted like a snake’s.

Lowen’s brown-and-white-flecked falcon’s wings rustled behind his back, but he forced himself not to squirm under the tyrant’s intense scrutiny. He was the man’s right hand, for Traisbin’s sake, not some half-breed trash obviously maneuvering to get into Marek’s good graces.

Finally, Marek nodded. “Go on.”

“The heroes of Hearthworld speak of Devs,” Lowen said, “avatars of their gods, who can override any natural law of that world. If I find them, I could launch an attack and force them to unbind the World Stone from von Graf’s soul. Then I could kill him and return the pendant to you.”

It was a risk, promising once again that he could regain the World Stone for the Tyrant King, but more of a risk would be to say nothing and allow von Graf to go on gaining ground and strength—which he certainly would. Recently, the upstart had learned about the existence of Lowen’s permanent portal from Hearthworld to Traisbin. Even with the World Stone Pendant in Roark’s grasp, getting back from Hearthworld would be next to impossible for the underhanded cur without seizing the Vault of the Radiant Shield. As much as Lowen was loath to admit it, Talise was right about that—it would only be a matter of time before Roark came in force.

Another long silence passed as Marek considered his words. Would the tyrant kill him where he stood? Lowen thought not. He straightened his Hearthworld armor and returned the man’s silent stare.

“Well, then, fool, what are you waiting for?” Marek said. “Finish this.”

“It will be done.” Lowen rose to his feet, then bowed to the Tyrant King. He turned toward the antechamber where the portal to the Vault of the Radiant Shield stood.

“This is your last chance, von Reich,” Marek’s cold voice intoned. “Fail me again, and you will pay for your failure for the rest of your wretched life—which you know very well I can now stretch out to eons of suffering with these healing potions you have brought back from Hearthworld.”

Lowen swallowed hard, his wings giving a small shudder as he ducked through the door and into the portal.

The Poser Owners

SCOTT BAYANI, AS HIS quickly leveling PwnrBwner_007 Ranger-Cleric, rocked up to the Troll Nation with eight tanks, casters, and fighters from his brand spanking new guild, the PwnrBwner’s Poser Owners.

Roark the Griefer, Dungeon Lord and leader of the Troll Nation, had messaged Scott to bring the best raiders he could muster on short notice, so he had cherrypicked these guys from the ONLINE section of his Guildmaster Grimoire, going mainly by their level and how well they’d round out a raid party. He wasn’t super familiar with all their names and shit yet; the guild was gaining new members by the buttload and he didn’t have time to memorize every single one. He knew GothicTerror, the smoking-hot Screamo dark elf covered in Death’s Heads and black lace, and the rog who always hung out with her, Ya_Boi_Flappie_Sak, but the rest were all new members.

As they strolled through the bustling marketplace, his group of POSes—which Scott had just decided he was totally going to call them—eyed the Harpies, Djinn, Imps, and Rock People wandering up and down the busy streets of the Troll Nation like they’d never seen a mob before.

Okay, so admittedly, there was a time when Scott would’ve crapped his armor and gone on an all-caps rant chewing somebody out if they’d told him mobs could run their daily errands like IRL people, too, but he’d seen a lot of insane shit since joining up with the Griefer. The Troll Nation was basically his Ranger-Cleric’s home away from home now, and he was a VIP persona extra-grata around town.

The POSes caught on to how comfortable Scott was acting among the monsters that were usually ripping them apart and eyed him with a new and more appropriate level of admiration. Even the goth thot was trying to pretend like she didn’t notice Scott was a big fucking deal around here.

So he laid it on a little thicker, nodding at one of the Griefer’s upstairs floor bosses he recognized.

“’Sup, Wurgfozz?” Scott jerked his chin at the enormous Thursr Behemoth.

Wurgfozz stopped to stare at him in confusion. The rusty chains and spikes and rings pincushioning the huge meaty mob jangled at the change in momentum.

Scott breezed past the dude without slowing down. “Can’t chat today, bro. Special emergency meeting with the Griefer. You know how it is being part of the brain trust. Second Floor’s looking good, though. Real tortury. Keep up the good work.”

Scott heard the jingling of chains as Wurgfozz turned to watch him go. He also heard one of his POSes whisper, “Whoa. Did you see that?”

“I told you this guild would make us cool,” another one whispered back.

“Damn right it will”—Scott checked the speakers’ stats real quick to make it look like he knew their names already—“Jack_Out and Ronin2029. Stick with me, and I’ll make you rich as fuck, too.” He turned back to watch where he was going and added under his breath, “In Hearthworld, anyway.”

Scott took a left onto a wider avenue and nearly ran into the back of a line winding down the road from the Flavortown Inn. Scott’s eyes almost popped out of his head.

Kaz’s tavern had been the most popular spot in the Troll Nation since it opened, due mainly to the incredible diversity and quality of foods and meads offered by the Troll Gourmet. This, though, was taking that popularity to a whole roided-out new level. Velvet ropes directed customers around squiggly endless mazes like the lines for the best coaster at an amusement park on the Fourth of July, and hulking Thursrs and skulking Reavers posted up at regular intervals, watching for cuts and butts.

Word must’ve gotten around about Kaz’s new garlic smoked bacon.

GothicTerror eyed the living traffic jam. “Just FYI, I charge overtime loot for standing in line.”

“Don’t blow your stacks yet, we’re not standing in a line like some loser tourists,” Scott said, waving a hand for the thot and the rest of the POSes to follow him. “Come on.”

As he edged around the line, a Dread Reaver he didn’t recognize stepped out of a swirl of inky shadow, Peerless Fulgurite Daggers gleaming with poison and glowing orange with some high-level enchantment.

“Right this way, PwnrBwner_007,” the cloaked Reaver hissed, gesturing toward the back of the inn. “The great Troll Gourmet has reserved your party’s table... in spite of the fact that you are well over ten minutes late—our usual time to turn over a reservation.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Scott said. His leather armor creaked as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t realize Kaz hired somebody to be a pass-ag asshole to his customers.”

The Reaver eyed his poisoned blade, then sheathed it.

“Very good, sir.”

The Reaver dick led them between the huge casks of Kaz’s honey mead and the meat smoker and through the back door. Apprentice chefs and staff of all mob varieties hustled around the kitchen, preparing and plating food or washing dishes. The big blonde chick dating Kaz called out orders from the window, then snatched up a tray of flagons and disappeared into the dining room.

Scott’s mouth watered at the smell and sizzle of frying garlic and spicy meat. He knew the scents, sounds, and sights in taverns around Hearthworld had been specially designed to entice players into dropping coin at in-game restaurants, but that didn’t make Kaz’s creations any less amazing. Hopefully there would be a little something-something at the meeting. There usually was when the Troll Gourmet was in attendance.

The dining room was even louder than the kitchen. Over in the corner, some bard played one of those crank-organ things while female mobs danced and clapped along. Every table except one was crammed full of patrons eating, laughing, and yelling loud enough to hear each other over the music and everybody else’s yelling. Most were mobs—creatures of every type and form—but there were a handful of human NPCs as well, mostly skill trainers and tradesmen who had taken up permanent residence in the Cruel Citadel. Scott spied Variok, the elf merchant and former resident of Averi City, haggling with a blue-skinned Arctic Grendel at a corner table. Dude was always wheeling and dealing. Scott respected the hustle.

Once the Poser Owners were settled in at their reserved table and ready to party, Scott nodded at GothicTerror.

“Let’s go, Screamo-thot.”

“Whatever, dickbreath.” She hooked her Unique Wraithpiercer Arbalest over her shoulder and followed him upstairs.

The smell coming from the room at the top of the stairs was a combination of everything good in the world—bacon, wings, pizza, booze.

Scott didn’t bother knocking, just strolled on in like he owned the room, the tavern—hell, even the dungeon.

Almost everybody from the Griefer’s inner circle jerk was already there—Kaz, being awesome and showing that spidery Nocturnus and a rog in Paragon robes the variety of dipping sauces for the wings. The grizzled trainer, Griff, kicking back with a tumbler of some kind of amber liquor. Mac, the spikey, scaly Adolescent Turtle Dragon, trying to burrow into the back of Roark’s overstuffed easy chair even though the seat wasn’t nearly big enough for the both of them.

The only one missing was Zyra, which was just fine with Scott. Her last Evolution had given her an extra set of arms and added four spidery legs to her back, making her officially creepy AF. He shuddered just thinking about it. Anyway, it was crowded enough in the room with all the high-level mobs crammed in there.

“What’s up, losers?” he said.

“Good, you’re here.” The Griefer scooted to the edge of his chair, and Mac squeezed in behind him, scales rustling against Roark’s leathery Infernali wings. “We can get started.”

“Boo,” a dusky voice said from behind him.

Scott spun around and flinched. “Gah! What the fuck, Zyra?”

The Orbweaver Ravager was crouched in a shadowy upper corner of the room, creepy-ass spider legs holding onto the walls and ceiling while her mostly human body hung suspended in midair.

Zyra laughed and spider-climbed down. “Who’s your friend, egg-sac hatchery?”

“Cut that shit out,” Scott snapped. “It wasn’t funny in the Underworld Cairns, and it’s not funny now.” He glanced over at GothicTerror to make sure he wasn’t the only one grossed out, but she looked pretty into the spider aesthetic. He rolled his eyes. Of course the Undead scream queen was into the nastiest crap. “This is my lieutenant, Morticia Addams. She’s a total bitch, which is why I hired her to help me keep the Poser Owners in line. Morticia, this is everybody.”

The thot jerked her chin at the room. “Hey.”

She was definitely trying to play it cool, but she had her Arbalest in hand, glowing green wraithbolt in the chamber, like she was waiting for one of these things to go aggro.

The Troll Gourmet leapt to his feet, making the floor shake. “Welcome, Morticia! Would the heroes like some refreshments? Kaz’s new Dark Citrus Brew pairs excellently with Gry Feliri’s Lost Recipe Dumptruck Pizza.”

“Obviously yes, Kaz. You’re a saint.” As far as Scott was concerned, the Griefer was a turd and Zyra was a freak, but Kaz was one of the boys. Scott grabbed a flagon and a slice, then flopped down in the last empty chair. Goth-thot could stand. Chairs were for guildmasters. He sank his teeth into a topping-overloaded bite of pizza. “So, Griefer, what’d you need me and the POS ballers for?”

“A raid.” Roark gave up trying to stay in the chair with Mac behind him and stood up, his curved black ram’s horns almost brushing the exposed beams of the ceiling.

Out of the corner of his eye, Scott saw GothicTerror shrink back a step from the Jotnar Infernali.

“Yeah, no duh a raid,” Scott said with his mouth full. He swallowed. “Why’s it such a rush now?”

“I need to grind out enough levels to use this.” The Griefer produced a rough-cut black gemstone big enough to choke a gorilla. Blue and orange lights twined around inside the rock.

It was the NecroDragon core stone, courtesy of Aczol the Eternal, a piece of treasure Scott wasn’t going to forget anytime soon. He and most of the people in this room had died to help Roark get his greedy Jotnar mitts on it. The fancy rock wouldn’t do anything for Scott, but in Roark’s magical hands it was a game changer. He could unlock some kind of Mega-Evolution, just as he’d done for both Kaz and the spidery Zyra.

“I can’t wait any longer to launch my attack on the Vault of the Radiant Shield,” the Griefer said. “Certain new information has come to light. There’s a working portal back to my home world in the Vault, and my...” He faltered, choosing his words carefully. The douche was keeping something close to his chest. Scott decided to file that away for later. It wouldn’t be a huge deal unless it got them in trouble down the road. No need to demand the deets on boring shit in the meantime.

“We have an agent inside I want out of danger as quickly as possible,” he finished after a moment. “The only way to do that is by getting Lowen out of the way once and for all, then finishing the job I started with the Tyrant King. My plan was to integrate the NecroDragon’s core and unlock my MegaEvolution, but currently, the level disparity between Aczol and me is too high. He died at level 99, and I need to be at least level 70 to use the core.”

Scott took a sip of Dark Citrus Brew and wiped the foam off his upper lip onto his Ranger-Cleric’s leather bracer.

“Right. What level are you at now?”

“Sixty-nine.”

Behind Scott, the whore-thot snorted.

“Noice,” Scott said, grinning. “My favorite level.”

“What?” The Griefer frowned like he didn’t get the joke.

“Wine ’em, dine ’em, level 69 ’em?” Scott said. “You guys don’t have that on whatever weird-ass alien planet you’re from?” He waved his hand at the confused Jotnar. “Whatever, forget it. So, what crazy impossible place are you looking at raiding today? We already took out the End Dragon of the whole fucking game, so I assume you had to look pretty hard to find something more suicidal.”

Roark slipped the core stone back into the pocket of his oiled black leathers.

“Have you heard of the Onyx Sands?”

“Well, the offer for the expansion pack has only popped up every fucking time I logged in this week, so yeah, I’ve heard of it,” Scott said. He shrugged. “I haven’t bought it yet. Still on the fence. If the reviews are good, maybe I’ll think about it.”

Also, he was low on funds until next Thursday when the Bell paid him.

“Heroes can buy land in this dimension?” Roark asked. The dude looked legit shocked. “Don’t you have to be a member of the gentry?”

“What? No, buying the expansion isn’t buying land, it’s like paying extra to play a new part of the game you already subscribe to. It’s like the DLCs from the old-timey console games.” He slashed a hand through the air. “Look, it’s obviously bullshit, but it’s how they make their money and keep people playing. We’re getting off track. The point is I’ve heard all about the Onyx Sands. It’s supposed to be mondo-high level everything, with all new loot and themes and junk. There’s even a rumor they’re going to patch in a new god-tier boss one of these days. That’s what I’ve actually been waiting for.”

That and cash flow.

“Well, mate, we can’t wait any longer,” Roark said. “I want to take a portal scroll to the edge of the Onyx Sands within the hour. You mentioned once that Hearthworld gold can be bought with your dimension’s currency; is the opposite true? Are you able to purchase this expansion pack with Hearthworld money?”

“Yeah, but that would take an assload of coin.” Scott pulled up his character sheet and toggled over to the Purchases & Special Offers tab. “Seven point nine million gold?” He let out a low whistle. These guys didn’t fuck around with their in-game economy.

The Griefer didn’t even blink. “I assume your guild members will need theirs unlocked as well?”

Shifting Sands

ROARK VON GRAF CRESTED a black dune. As he watched, a crackling green vortex swirled in the distance, throwing emerald lightning in sporadic fits and starts. Though the air was dry, the sky above roiled with bruised jade thunderheads, and the land below was a sea of dark waves in every direction. The jet-black sands whispered beneath his feet, the wind whisking them away, constantly shifting the landscape one grain at a time into something new. There was a sterile, harsh sort of beauty to the area, which Roark could appreciate. He didn’t much appreciate the infernal gritty dust clogging his boots, however.

Mac bounded ahead of him, frolicking in the seemingly endless sands like a hound in the snow. Roark smiled at the enthusiasm of the Adolescent Turtle Dragon. Then one wrong gallop sent the heavily armored and awkward beast sprawling, bearded snout plowing into the sand. With a bit of struggling, Mac righted himself and immediately went into a sneezing fit.

Roark chuckled. The silly beast might have evolved into an imposing and bloodthirsty force to be reckoned with, but graceful Mac was not. Nor did it seem he would ever be.

Ick caught up to Roark, coming to a stop beside him and gazing out over the formidable dunes. A pair of his many spiderlike arms smoothed the long rubbery tentacles growing from his head like hair.

“Quite unlike the fixed dunes of the Underworld Bloodsands in Aczol’s lair.” Ick’s low rasp was like the sound of insect legs rubbing together. His mandibles clicked thoughtfully. “Here, it seems, the sands shift as the wind and storms will, as wild and feral as a roaming mob.”

Roark nodded, unable to pull his eyes from the expanse for more than a cursory glance at the Nocturnus.

The Onyx Sands were a marvel he could barely wrap his head around—and not only because of the desolate majesty Ick had noted. Directly north of where they stood lay the red rock canyons surrounding the Vault of the Radiant Shield, Lowen’s stronghold. A week ago, there had been nothing on the map south of the Vault’s sun-blasted red hellscape; now there was a vast expanse of black desert.

When Roark asked about the phenomenon, Randy had told him that the other Devs—those servants of Hearthworld’s gods who hadn’t fallen from grace—had been ordered by the “higher-ups”—what Randy always called his gods—to create the Onyx Sands as a way to draw heroes away from the Cruel Citadel and Vault of the Radiant Shield. They believed the less contact the heroes had with Roark and Lowen, the more likely they could stop the spread of the plague the Traisbin natives had brought to Hearthworld.

There had also been quite a bit of rambling about corrupted codes and shutdowns and incriminating emails that made no sense whatsoever to Roark. As with written messages from PwnrBwner, Roark had found that the trick was to extract the meaning where he could from Randy’s digressions and ignore the rest.

Still, to think that so short a time ago there had been nothing here and the Devs of Hearthworld had brought into being an entirely new land... It beggared the imagination. What magic. More incredible still, Randy had given up such world-altering power to help Roark. Surely no one could make a greater sacrifice than that.

“Would that perhaps be our destination?” Ick asked, gesturing with a pair of the spidery legs protruding from his back.

Roark followed the Nocturnus’s signal to the crackling storm.

“If not, it’s damned close,” Roark said, checking the map in his grimoire. “The Tomb of Takumen-Ra.”

He hadn’t been able to get any sensible information on the tomb or Takumen-Ra from the Hearthworld H-boards or the WikiLore. So few heroes had delved into the new land that the majority of it was completely unknown.

One key piece of information that Roark had been able to glean, however, was the fact that this new land contained dungeons of far higher level than those scattered around the rest of Hearthworld. Whereas the older sections of the map featured mobs whose levels capped at 99, the mobs in the Onyx Sands were rumored to spawn at level 99. While Roark couldn’t gain Experience from killing his fellow mobs, the enticing new treasures and challenges would mean a slew of much higher-level heroes. The Tomb of Takumen-Ra was the first dungeon across the border. Heroes would be drawn to this place like flies to honey.

And those Roark did gain Experience from killing.

Absently, he slipped his hand into his pocket, curling it around Aczol the Eternal’s core stone. The new loot and untold Transmutation Cores waiting here to be harvested would be worth a little something as well, he was sure.

“Let’s get moving,” he said to Ick, starting the trek down the dune. “PwnrBwner and his party should already be there.”

As soon as he had funded their unlocking of the Onyx Sands, the Poser Owners had exited Hearthworld—logging off, as they called it—so they could return and travel to the new area. Apparently, for heroes, this exit and reentry was necessary before they could access “expansion packs.”

Another stretch of hiking brought them over a towering rise, at the foot of which lay an immense black pyramid. Labyrinthine geometric patterns had been carved into the onyx stone of the tomb, lending further shadow to the dark structure. Glowing yellow-green gems as big as Kaz had been set into the rock near the apex on each side. From the stones swirled the crackling green energy storm Roark had seen from afar.

Below, in the looming shadow of the great pyramid, a small party of heroes had gathered. Roark immediately recognized the animated Ranger-Cleric at their center addressing them. Mac took off in an excited gallop, taking a tumble down the dune, but righting himself and galloping the rest of the distance to PwnrBwner’s side. Many of the heroes around the Ranger-Cleric skittered back, afraid of the silly beast, but to his credit, Pwnr didn’t even pause in his speech while he gave the Adolescent Turtle Dragon several hearty pats on his thick shell.

Roark and Ick followed Mac’s quickly disappearing footsteps down to join the group.

“All right, dipweeds,” PwnrBwner said to his marshaled troops. “Here’s the guy who’s gonna lead our raid today. You all remember the Griefer.”

A murmur ran through the gathered heroes, and many exchanged suspicious glances.

A level 31 Ronin stepped forward, hand raised. “I think I speak for everybody when I say, what the hell, man?”

“Yeah,” a Blackguard Knave said. “I thought the Griefer was just bankrolling this expedition. You didn’t say anything about him going on the raid with us.”

“Well, he is, so shut your stupid faces,” PwnrBwner snapped.

“But he’s just a dumb NPC,” a Blood Witch with fiery red hair said, crossing her slender arms beneath her breasts.

Roark could have stepped in and argued his own case, but he was curious how the Ranger-Cleric would handle the dissent. In spite of their relatively high individual levels, they were obviously an undisciplined bunch, and it would take a steady hand to curb their dissention and lead them to victory. Roark couldn’t help but wonder whether PwnrBwner was up to the task.

“Uh, yeah no,” PwnrBwner said, eyeing the Blood Witch. “Totally wrong.” He pointed at Roark. “That is not just some dumb NPC. That’s the Dungeon Lord who pwned every ass in this raid party at least once, murdered Bad_Karma to death, and basically made Hearthworld his bitch.”

“Yeah, because he’s a dirty fucking modder,” GothicTerror said, her eyes narrowing as they assessed Roark. That one had an indomitable will, and the others instinctively looked to her because of it. She was a natural born leader, and her disdain and willingness to speak her mind drew others to her like flies to rancid meat.

PwnrBwner craned his neck to glance sidelong at his new lieutenant. “First off, we’re all getting tired of your negativity and shitty language, Gothy McShitmouth.” He jerked a thumb at the pyramid. “Secondly, we just watched raid parties from the Karmic Cycle of Whoop-Ass, SmarmyFaceInc, and the Ganksters head inside—and you know there are more coming. Do any of you losers think you can TPK those motherfuckers and live to tell about how you stole all the cool shit they looted from inside? ’Cause I don’t think you can. Not without this douchebag’s help.”

A begrudging silence fell over the heroes as they cast their eyes down. They couldn’t rightly argue with that.

“So, the Griefer takes the lead on this,” PwnrBwner said with authority. “Anybody who’s got a problem with that can take a hike, but you’d better know that the gravy train is over if you leave. You don’t always have to agree with me, but this is my fucking guild, losers, so you’ll follow my lead or go eat a bag of dicks. Understand?”

After a moment, the heroes began to nod. Even GothicTerror shrugged and muttered an affectless agreement.

Roark was mystified, though he hid his bemusement behind a frown. He’d always known something about PwnrBwner made heroes follow him by the score, but having just seen the Ranger-Cleric in action, Roark couldn’t say what it was that made them respect the man. But then, heroes were an unfathomable lot at the best of times.

Roark stepped forward and stretched his leathery wings to their full span.

A few of the heroes instinctively edged backward, and a scrap of paper appeared in his vision.

[Congratulations, you have unlocked Intimidation Level 3. With Intimidation, beings with an Intelligence of less than .25 x your Intelligence suffer Fright for 60 seconds. Sometimes a big enough bark is all you need...]

Roark dismissed the scrawling writing quickly and returned to his original intent, addressing the heroes’ doubts. PwnrBwner had done his part and quelled their doubts, but Roark couldn’t risk one of these heroes planting a knife in his back when he wasn’t looking. He was too close to hitting level 70, and a single death would send him back to level 36, undoing countless weeks of work. That was time he simply didn’t have to spare. He had to have them, heart and soul, on his side for this mission.

He eyed each of the Poser Owners in turn. “Whatever you think I am, you should know this: if you follow me and do as I say today, you will leave this place rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

Their skeptical expressions shifted, quickly transforming to intrigued.

“That will, however, require you to trust me,” Roark continued, folding his wings back like a cloak. “You have enemies just as I do—Bad_Karma’s guild not the least of them—and if you would see yourselves victorious over them, we must all work together. No one’s ever won a war alone.” His failed attempt to assassinate Marek that night in the von Graf manor house came readily to mind. “I know this from experience, and so I’m uniquely suited to help you avoid that same pitfall.”

GothicTerror shrugged.

“I don’t need rah-rah motivational speeches, bro. Make it rain gold and loot, and I’m in,” she said. “So, what’s your plan? If you’re all gung-ho about teamwork, then you’ve already got something in the chamber, right?”

Roark frowned, confused. “As much as I’d like to have traps already in place, I’ve never been in any of these chambers. This is my first excursion to the Onyx Sands.”

PwnrBwner sighed. “Obviously she’s not talking about those chambers, dude. She means you’ve probably already got a plan in mind and she wants to know what it is.”

Roark nodded. He should have known the rest of the heroes would be as unintelligible as the Ranger-Cleric.

“Given your levels and classes, the best course of action is a rotating front and back line,” he explained. “That should give us continuous, overlapping fields of fire and protection. At all times, a rear sentry will stay on guard, watching for any mobs or rival guild’s raiders who might attempt to flank us.” Roark spared a look at the crackling vortex of green energies. “Ick, do you know what type of magick this is?”

The spidery Nocturnus considered the violent green storm. “Apologies. It appears to be some form of Undead Magick, but one I have never laid eyes on before.” He stroked the recessed chin hidden beneath his mandibles.

“Mummies,” PwnrBwner said. “Bet you a million bucks it’s mummies and ancient Egyptian shit.”

“What gave it away, galaxybrain?” GothicTerror drawled, gesturing at the pyramid.

“They might’ve gotten creative with it and mixed in some Mayan lore,” the Blackguard Knave piped up. “You never know.”

While the heroes argued over whatever all of that nonsense meant, Roark called up the Primal Creation Wheel, and it promptly appeared in his field of vision.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

MEANT TO BE READ LIKE a clockface, the Wheel showed the strands of what Ick referred to as the Grand Web. Every magick in Hearthworld was woven into it like a complex tapestry, with the magick it was weakest against on its left and the magick it was strongest against on its right. The twining serpents of Infernal Magicks sat at the right hand of the Divine Magicks, which it was entirely helpless against—the key reason he couldn’t defeat Lowen as he was.

That would all change, however, when he was finally high enough level to use the Transmutation Core on himself. Then, in addition to Infernal Magick, he would be able to control Undead Magicks, which were the greatest weakness of Divine Creatures.

A quick check revealed that Undead Creatures were weakest against Light Magick. Luckily, he still had the Slender Rapier and dozens of other weapons he’d enchanted for use against the undead NecroDragon, Aczol the Eternal.

Roark dismissed the Wheel and raised his voice to be heard over the bickering.

“Who here doesn’t already have Peerless Light-Enchanted weapons?”

Skirmish

AFTER A BLANKET FORTIFICATION spell from Ick, Roark led the party of heroes up a set of crumbling onyx steps and into the yawning black maw of the pyramid. Huge statues of jackal-headed men flanked either side of the entryway, a shepherd crook in one hand, a wicked hooked blade in the other. Eerie green torches had been placed at intervals down the entryway corridor. Their flickering jade flames reminded Roark of the burung lamps that had been common in Traisbin before Marek conscripted or killed all the wizards who made them.

The sound of skittering legs echoed off the stone as they crept down the hallway. Mac growled low in his throat, then turned invisible, the enormous visual distortion waddling up the wall and hurrying ahead to investigate.

They didn’t have long to wait. As they passed between a pair of doors leading to smaller chambers, Roark caught sight of Mac’s shimmering form dropping from the ceiling to land with a crunch on a scorpion the size of a Changeling. Its shiny brown exoskeleton shattered under the weight of the Adolescent Turtle Dragon, and yellowish goo shot everywhere.

“Oh, shit!” PwnrBwner yelled. “Look out!”

A rasping hiss and the rustle of chitinous legs filled the air with hair-raising noise as wave after wave of smaller scorpions—none larger than a dagger—scurried out of the crushed exoskeleton and swarmed the walls and ceiling, leaping onto the invaders. The heroes shrieked and began attacking with blunt weapons and spells with a wide area of attack.

Several of the stinging creatures fell on Roark’s head and shoulders. Their spiny little feet ran across his skin as they lashed out with their venom-dripping stingers. He flinched away from the needlelike stabs. His filigreed Health vial appeared, but remained full.

[Infernal chimeras are invulnerable to Fire Spells and Poisons! You have resisted Potent Black Fire Venom from level 16 Black Fire Scorpling!]

The text repeated itself over and over with every attack by the little sods. His armor wasn’t gifted with the same invulnerability, however. Wherever the venom dripped, it ate holes in the leather. He glanced around, finding the same happening to solid plate on several of the heroes.

Roark shook out his wings, sending dozens of the creatures flying, then turned a clawed hand on the writhing swarm clicking across the closest wall and unleashed a roaring blaze of Infernal Torment.

Immediately, violet flames filled the corridor, roasting the Black Fire Scorplings in their own shells. They screamed and popped in small showers of viscous gore. As expected, the Fire-aligned Scorplings were extremely vulnerable to his Infernal Magick.

“Sick!” PwnrBwner blasted the Scorplings with a purifying fire Roark assumed came from his main Cleric spells. “Die, you desert spider-shrimps with tails!”

All around, heroes stomped on the Scorplings, crushed them with the blunt faces of warhammers, or blasted them with potent attack spells. Mac lumbered through the creatures, alternately trampling them and snapping them up in his wickedly long fangs, swallowing them down in hungry gulps.

Insectile throat singing rose above the din as Ick directed a brilliant silvery blast of moonlight at a fresh wave of the Scorplings. The cold, resonating light shook the air, and when it disappeared, all that was left of the clawed swarm were dusty ash piles.

Roark kept up a steady stream of Infernal Torment, roasting them by the bushel. Clearly, these Fire-aligned creatures were like the low-level Stone Salamanders and Reaver Bats scattered throughout the upper levels of the Cruel Citadel—affiliated with the dungeon, but of a different Primal magick track than its Dungeon Lord.

Between his own potent magic and the Poser Owners’, the corridor was soon clear of everything but mangled Scorpling corpses. Everyone except for Roark and the Blood Sorceress had been envenomated, and the Ronin and NecroKnight both had blunt force trauma from friendly fire. Small spaces and heroes swinging weapons without looking weren’t a good combination.

Roark let out a pent-up breath. That had been a proper bit of chaos. It was going to take more than just a decent attack strategy to get these heroes to work together effectively. He made a mental note to direct them more closely in their next skirmish.

Aloud, he said, “Heal up now. Those Scorplings were just the first line of defense.” Thinking through it as a Dungeon Lord instead of a raider, he reckoned the attack had been meant to force invaders to reveal what sort of weapons and spells they had access to. That would allow the master of this place to scramble his troops more efficiently and tailor traps to better wound stragglers.

While Antidotes and Ultimate Healing Potions from Zyra’s alchemy shop were being passed around, Roark scooped up a few of the less damaged Scorplings. The armor-melting ability of their venom was highly intriguing, but even without that, Zyra would love them.

Once everyone had returned to full Health, they searched the chambers to either side of the hall. The sarcophagi and urns were all emptied.

“One of the other guilds got here first,” the NecroKnight whined. “There’s no loot here at all. You said this place was the jackpot.”

Roark opened his mouth to answer, but PwnrBwner spoke up first.

“Why don’t you cry about it some more?” PwnrBwner said. “It’s down here. If we can’t take it out of the chests before they do, we’ll take it off their corpses once we slap ’em down.”

The twang of a crossbow by the doorway cut through the argument.

“Incoming players,” GothicTerror hollered from her lookout post. She cranked another glowing bone bolt into her Wraithpiercer and fired it down the corridor. “Looks like Karma’s jerkwads.”

“Form back up,” Roark ordered. “You three come with me,” he said, pointing at the Blackguard Knave, a shifty-looking rogue with a smoky gray cloak, and the Blood Witch.

He stepped out into the hall, stretching his wings until they spanned the space between the walls.

Down at the end of the corridor, a party of heroes was just coming out of a junction.

“Is that a Troll?” one of them asked. “There aren’t supposed to be any Trolls in the Onyx Sands.”

“IDFC what it is,” another answered, raising a jewel-studded staff. “Kill it, and let’s get back to clearing this stupid maze.”

A blast of chain lightning hurtled toward Roark from the staff. He threw up a shimmering Infernal Shield, deflecting the spell.

“You three,” he hissed to the heroes he’d brought with him, “get to the far room. When they follow me, you’ll be able to catch them in the crossfire.”

The Blood Witch sprinted across the hall, hidden behind his wings, and the Blackguard and cloaked rogue stealthed to the opposite side, close on her heels.

“It’s not working,” snapped the lightning-thrower.

“No duh. Don’t send a glass cannon to do a tank’s job,” muttered a rog in heavy obsidian plate mail. He hefted a huge crescent axe with glowing fire runes spiraling down the haft and broke into a lumbering run after Roark. “Let’s go, heavy hitters!”

A Blessed Sentinel and Feral Druid charged in behind the rog, flanking him. As she ran, the Druid let out a roar, her skin ripping from her body as she transformed into an enormous slavering bear with blazing red eyes and wicked glowing blue claws.

Roark held his ground for a moment, then let out a shout of Infernal Thunder. The entire pyramid shook, black sand filtering down from cracks in the ceiling. The rog and Sentinel stumbled, but the bear stampeded right over them. All three took hits to the red bar over their heads—unfortunately in the case of the rog and bear, those hits were little more than a sliver of their overall health. These were high-level bruisers all right, and Roark didn’t have the many advantages of his dungeon to fall back on. But he was a force to be reckoned with even without his traps and minions to call on.

Pulling his Slender Rapier and a Kaiken Dagger—fighting Spada e Pugnale—Roark backpedaled until he was just past the doorways. He cast Infernal Torment on the bear, wreathing her in a violet halo of pain, making sure to maintain concentration.

Infernal flames crawled along the creature’s furry hide, tongues of magick clawing at her eyes and boring into her open mouth. The bear shifter roared in agony, but didn’t slow even for a moment.

Roark triggered Hex-Aura and dropped into a defensive stance. This would be no small impact. But at least Hex-Aura would affect the closest heroes.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Hex-Aura

Those who would dare lash out at the Hexorcist best be ready to taste the sting of Cursed! retribution. The caster emits a 30-foot-radius aura, which moves with them for the duration of the spell and affects all allies in the area. Enemies take .5n Damage (where n equals character level of the Attacker) when they deal physical melee damage to those protected by Hex-Aura. Hex-Aura is a Level 6 spell and can only be inscribed in Level 6 Spell Slots; Duration, 6 minutes.

╠═╦╬╧╪

The huge dread bear crashed into Roark like a battering ram, biting and snarling and generally acting as if it couldn’t care less about the damage it was taking. They tumbled backward in a heap, Roark skidding on the stone. He stabbed and slashed at the beast, but even with the Hex-Aura, its Health was draining at a frustratingly slow pace.

Somewhere on the other side of the two-ton mass of fur and fangs, Roark could hear the clash and shouting of a well-timed ambush. Excellent. Spells lit up the corridor in a variety of colorful explosions. He hoped the rest of these rival guild members died faster than this bloody bear.

The slavering creature sank its enormous fangs into Roark’s shoulder and shook its head like a dog with a bone.

[You have contracted Joint Rot! You will take 5 disease damage per second for 30 seconds. All Lockpicking, Stealth, and Backstab Skills reduced by 12.5%. Consume a Panacea Potion to reverse Joint Rot and its effects.]

Roark blinked away the text, gritting his teeth against the sudden spike of pain, and drove his dagger to the hilt in the bear’s left eye. The beast bellowed, rearing back and slashing at him with razor-sharp claws.

Out of nowhere a wavering, high-pitched yowl reverberated through the pyramid.

“Crap, it’s back!” someone screamed.

The rattle of dry bones joined the din.

The bear glanced over its shoulder with its one good eye, Roark’s dagger still protruding from the other like a cancerous growth. Roark took the opportunity to slash the creature’s throat. Hot blood showered him. In seconds, its Health bar had dropped below half.

Down the corridor, heroes shrieked, and something let out a howling screech like a cornered maka-ronin—the king of the wolves.

The muffled sound of flesh ripping seemed to rise above the racket.

Blue-white lightning crackled, making the dim hallway strobe with light, tattooing distorted shadows against the walls of the crypt. The bear roared and whipped away from Roark, going after the Adolescent Turtle Dragon that had attacked it. Roark didn’t waste the opportunity.

As the bear and Mac battled, he stowed his rapier and pulled out his Initiate’s Spell Book. The tome floated over his left hand, sending the familiar numb tingling down that arm. Without a moment’s hesitation, Roark found and cast a Level 5 Stone Lance.

The massive projectile ripped from the palm of his free hand and impaled the bear, pinning it to the wall. The last of the bear’s Health drained away, and it shrank back to the guise of a petite, and very dead, Feral Druid.

Roark cast Infernal Invigoration on the hallway. He and Mac were the only Infernal creatures in the vicinity, but they both needed the boost. Mac was covered in lacerations and deep puncture wounds. Obviously the Adolescent Turtle Dragon had been tangling with something nasty even before he attacked the bear.

“Little help, Griefer?” PwnrBwner yelled.

Roark squeezed past Mac toward the pitched battle just down the hall. For the moment, both guilds of heroes had stopped fighting one another and turned their weapons against a colossal skeletal cat swathed in decaying linen wrappings.

The [Sacred Bastet] ripped into every hero it could reach, barbed claws shredding armor and flesh and bone alike.

Finding an empty Level 8 Spell Slot, Roark hurriedly inscribed a spell. With a flash, it took.

[Congratulations, you have inscribed Grasping Vines in the Initiate’s Spell Book!

Grasping Vines can be cast (1) time per inscription!

Base Damage: N/A

Grasping Vines burst from the ground, ensnaring enemies up to 2x caster’s Strength.

Cooldown period between casting Grasping Vines and re-inscription: (2) hours!]

He bolted down the corridor and cast his newly inscribed spell at the Sacred Bastet. With a bright flash of green light, snaking ropes of dark vine erupted from the floor, tangling in the creature’s boney remains.

“Hit it with Light!” Roark barked, voice booming even over the din of battle. “It’s Undead!”

PwnrBwner was the first among them to understand, switching to the Light-Enchanted exploding arrows Roark had smithed in preparation for his last bout with Aczol the Eternal. The explosions rocked the corridor, taking enormous chunks off the Sacred Bastet’s Health.

The Poser Owners quickly caught on and joined the fray with the Light-Enchanted weapons Roark had lent them.

While they battled the huge Undead cat, Roark pulled his Bow of the Fleet-Fingered Hunter and began picking off the heroes of Bad_Karma’s guild. He dropped three before the rest even realized they were being set upon from all sides. The heroes desperately tried to retreat, but the Blood Witch froze the blood in their veins, locking them in place while the Blackguard Knave and the smoke-encircled rogue finished them off with brutal, merciless efficiency.

Finally, the last hero from the Karmic Cycle of Whoop-Ass was sent for respawn, their bodies decorating the floor in bloody heaps.

A moment later, the Sacred Bastet exploded in a tsunami of cancerous green light and a shower of bone shards. PwnrBwner and several of the Poser Owners took shrapnel damage for the trouble, but all survived the blast.

“Balls!” PwnrBwner muttered, picking fragments of bone out of his face. “I contracted Bone Fever. Anybody got an extra Panacea?”

GothicTerror smirked and handed over a flask filled with something burbling and blue.

“If all this shit’s Undead, I’m not going to need it,” she said. “I’m immune to Diseases of the Grave.”

“Hooray for you,” Pwnr said before swigging the draught. “Nice move on the vines, Griefer.”

Roark nodded. “Glad to see you’ve got a few Ray of Sunlight arrows left.”

“Hell yeah, these things are legit.” The Ranger-Cleric threw the emptied potion flask over his shoulder and it shattered among the bones. “Okay, dillweeds, Uncle Pwnr promised you loot, you got loot. Let’s get these corpses emptied so we can see what else they’ve got up in this bitch.”

Cursed Priest

IT WAS AN ODD SENSATION looting heroes’ corpses in someone else’s dungeon—by rights, the spoils should’ve gone to the Dungeon Lord of this place—but Roark pitched in and helped the Poser Owners. It was quick work; on the first death within a dungeon, heroes only dropped one item and a percentage of their overall gold. The second death was the profitable one—at least from a Dungeon Lord’s standpoint—but Roark helped them finish the job anyway, if only to speed things along. He wasn’t truly after loot, after all, he was here for experience and levels. Perhaps a new Transmutation Core or two as an added bonus.

With that task completed, the team pushed farther into the sprawling tomb. The heroes from Bad_Karma’s guild had referred to the rest of the pyramid as a maze, and it certainly was at that. The corridors sheared off at sharp angles, spit them back out at the beginning, and stopped dead without warning.

Roark recognized several traps he’d used in the Cruel Citadel to slowly wear down heroes and steered the Poser Owners away from them, but there were also several strange new things he hadn’t had access to in his Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire.

Puzzle doors requiring stylized pictograms to be ordered correctly, talking statues that asked riddles in exchange for showering the answerer with treasure or deadly clouds of poison. Hatches that sprung open from overhead, dumping scores of the Black Fire Scorplings or highly venomous Spitting Onyx Cobras down on them. He had to admire the construction, even as he instructed their shadow-cloaked rogue and Blackguard Knave in finding and disabling these new types of deceptions.

True to the promises he’d found on the WikiLore, the mobs in the starting floors of the Tomb of Takumen-Ra spawned at a much higher level than those in the Cruel Citadel. Hordes of Flesh-Eating Scarabs swarmed them when sarcophagi were opened, and none of the bloody bugs were below level 15. Mac delighted in crunching them up like snacks, but they wreaked havoc on the Poser Owners, causing as much damage to the heroes by the responsive friendly fire they triggered as they did from their Rot-poisoned bites.

“Area spells that won’t harm your allies only!” Roark barked as he unleashed Infernal Torment on the creatures. “And bloody hells, stop swinging that axe in such small spaces!”

A few more of the Poser Owners caught on every time. They weren’t a well-disciplined force, but once they saw that Roark’s advice was sound, they began to listen and follow his lead. And it helped that PwnrBwner, a hero they trusted, was on his side.

“Do what he says, dickbrain!” the Ranger-Cleric yelled at the rog who’d nearly decapitated two other heroes with his cumbersome battle-axe. “You’re legit killing us with that Devastating Sweep!”

“Sorry!” the rog croaked, the chastised voice at odds with his huge frame.

As they worked their way deeper into the winding, sand-strewn halls of the Tomb of Takumen-Ra, the dungeon continued to throw stronger and stronger foes at them. Solitary feline Sacred Bastets the size of horses, packs of snapping [Soul Devourers] that looked like a cross between a crocodile and a muscular dog, and increasingly higher Evolutions of [Plague Mummy] in linen wrappings. As they fought their way on, Roark collected the Transmutation Cores and the occasional new poison or weapon with a new Enchantment on it from the creatures he had killed, but left the remainder of the loot and gold to PwnrBwner’s guild, as promised.

Under Roark’s direction, the thirteen members of their party began to coalesce into a fighting force to be reckoned with. The tanks rushed forward at the first sign of aggression, drawing in damage, while the casters threw spells and the ranged attackers loosed volleys of arrows. Ick’s Rejuvenating Moonbeams kept them fortified, and the Blood Witch’s Blood Cleanse washed away the Tomb Rot and other diseases the mobs of the Onyx Sands were so keen on infecting them with.

A second party of heroes—the SmarmyFaces, according to GothicTerror—ambushed Roark and the Poser Owners just outside the final puzzle door to the Dungeon Lord’s throne room. By then, however, they were working like a well-oiled machine.

With his high Health and Magicka regeneration and his Dungeon Lord abilities, Roark was uniquely suited to lead from the front lines or to stay back, throwing spells with the casters. Now, however, as they faced off with another of the rival heroes’ guilds, he waded into the thick of the fray with the first wave of tanks. He didn’t have to check his Experience to know he was just under eight thousand points from reaching level 70. Practically within spitting distance. With each new hero he struck down, Roark adjusted the running total in his head.

Out of nowhere a sizzling white cloud of fire and sparks engulfed Roark, sending agony roaring along his nerve endings. Divine energy burned through his exposed skin and sank into his armor. Every breath scorched his lungs and made it impossible to think.

[Nimbus of Holy Radiance has been affixed to you! Suffer 12 points Divine damage/sec for 2n seconds, where n is the level of the caster. 30% chance to trigger Divine Judgment every time you kill an ally of the caster while affixed with Nimbus of Holy Radiance.]

The red in his filigreed Health vial took a dip, the greatest blow it had suffered since entering the tomb. This was precisely why it was so crucial he find a way to merge with Aczol’s core—true, he would always have an inherent weakness to the Divine, but not nearly so crippling as it was now. Roark growled through gritted teeth, casting Infernal Invigoration, and searched the chaos for the SmarmyFaces’ hidden Cleric.

Multicolored bursts of light filled the air as the magick users battled it out from a distance, though Roark could hardly see them through the sparking haze of Holy Radiance. Suddenly, twin pains lanced through his back.

[x2 Stealth Multiplier]

A hooded Executioner Rogue ripped his daggers out of Roark’s kidneys and tried to slip away unnoticed. Roark spun and slashed the backstabbing Rogue open from shoulder to hip with his rapier—a perfectly executed squalembrato—following with the Kaiken Dagger in his off hand. It was a deadly combo he’d learned from Griff, and it worked with lethal efficiency. The Rogue dropped, dead before he hit the ground.

But the Rogue wasn’t the only one who’d taken damage.

[You have been struck by Divine Judgment! Divine Judgment is a Retribution Spell and only triggers when you kill an ally of the caster while under Nimbus of Holy Radiance.]

He had to find that damned Cleric and kill it before it killed him. He was too close to die now and be sent back to level 36.

A Sun-Blasted Templar in lustrous bronze plate mail rushed Roark, swinging a Spiked Maul massive enough to rival Kaz’s Legendary Meat Tenderizer.

“Thug life!” she bellowed.

Roark sidestepped the Templar’s lumbering charge and planted his Kaiken Dagger in the chink between the bottom of her helmet and the top of her backplate, driving the weapon home to the hilt. Luckily for Roark’s Health vial, the shot didn’t kill the Templar outright. It did, however, send her tumbling to the floor, where a stampede of the Blood Witch’s [Summoned Lesser Blood Shrikes] trampled her as they passed.

Finally, the cloud of Holy Radiance dissipated. Roark blinked, trying to adjust to the dimmer lighting, and ran the Templar through with his rapier, stoccata di quarta. The last of her red bar flashed out its critical warning, then emptied.

Roark spun around, searching for that bloody Cleric before they could hit him with another Divine spell or renew the blasted Holy Radiance aura.

There. As the Summon Shrikes bowled through the SmarmyFaces’ quickly flagging front line, they revealed a lanky Arcane Cleric in shimmering white robes. As Roark watched, the Cleric summoned a shining white Spell Book.

Before the Cleric could aim another spell at him, Roark pulled a Cursed Head from his Inventory, tore out the nose ring, and lobbed it at the menace. The Cursed Head slammed into the Cleric’s left side and detonated in a flash of Necrotic Rot.

The Undead spell very nearly did the trick. The Cleric’s Health vial dropped to critical, flashing an angry red warning. The lanky man opened his mouth and began a healing prayer.

But he never got past the first word. A shimmering distortion dropped off the ceiling, crushing the Cleric under nearly a ton of Adolescent Turtle Dragon. Mac trundled to his feet and began attacking the SmarmyFaces from inside their own lines with bursts of wild Elemental Fury.

Within minutes, the last of the rival guild was dead, and the Poser Owners were looting their bodies. More Ultimate Healing and Magicka Potions were consumed, and finally, they turned to unlock the puzzle door.

“Cover us,” PwnrBwner ordered as he stepped up beside Roark.

While he read the hieroglyphics from the ceiling, Roark turned the corresponding tumblers on the door. Ick’s throat-singing filled the corridor as he fortified their party once more, and the Blood Witch cast her most powerful ability, Mass Blood Ward, to protect them from whatever diseases the throne room might hold.

The last tumbler snapped into place beneath Roark’s fingers, then they all spun to display a series of shepherd’s crooks. With a grating, rocky scrape, the stone door sank into the floor of the tomb.

The throne room opened to them, revealing a pitched battle already well underway inside a massive and ornate burial chamber.

“That’ll be the Ganksters,” GothicTerror said, reloading her Wraithpiercer with a ratcheting series of clicks.

A band of heroes fought a throng of [Infectious Plague Mummies] and [Rabid Jackals] marshaled by the desiccated remains of a creature easily of a size with Roark, a rotting jackal’s head perched on his wide shoulders.

[Takumen-Ra, Cursed Priest of Anukten]

The level 63 Cursed Priest wore the fluttering remains of robes eaten away by ages in the tomb and brandished an enormous gold crook and staff, both radiating noxious green Undead energy. A strange stylized eye and brow glowed with brilliant emerald light in the center of the Dungeon Lord’s chest.

As the Ganksters killed off Mummies and Jackals, the Cursed Priest waved his crook and staff, conjuring more ranks of the Undead creatures, raising them from the very sands of the chamber.

“Looks like they started the boss fight without us,” the Blackguard Knave said, peering around Roark’s leathery wing.

“Good.” PwrnBwner pulled out a Light-Enchanted Peerless Mace and hefted it onto his shoulder. “Let’s go fuck their shit up.”

“Not just yet.” Roark pulled out his Initiate’s Spell Book. In quick, precise script he inscribed Quagmire of Sucking Mud in a Level 8 Spell Slot and a Group Sucking Mud Immunity in a Level 9. “Have you used your Ranger special ability yet today?” he asked PwnrBwner.

The Ranger-Cleric eyed him. “Nope. Why?”

“Cover the ground beneath their feet with as much pitch as you can, but try to keep it in an isolated area.” With a flash, the spell inscriptions took. Quickly, Roark cast Immunity on the Poser Owners. “I’ll set up a series of mud traps throughout the room to mire the ones who make it out of your pitch.” He glanced at the Poser Owners. “Wait to attack until the mud traps are set, then encircle both groups and herd them to the center. Focus your attacks mainly on the Cursed Priest. Without him, the Jackals and Mummies will stop spawning. We’ll crush the lot of them like a gnat in a fist.”

Roark led the way into the chamber, the Blood Witch’s garnet Ward deflecting a Plague Spray spat by a stray Mummy, then broke right and cast the Sucking Mud spell. PwnrBwner shot to the opposite side of the room, spraying the floor beneath the skirmish with sticky black pitch.

Confused and infuriated shouts went up among the Ganksters, and the Mummies and Jackals roared in angry defiance. Here and there, desiccated feet and paws snapped off as the Undead creatures attempted to rip themselves free of the pitch and Sucking Mud.

“Now!” GothicTerror shouted.

The Poser Owners flooded into the burial chamber, fanning out and avoiding PwnrBwner’s circle of pitch. Those with bows shot exploding Rays of Sun into the Undead mobs. Roark would’ve liked to go after the rival heroes for the extra Experience, but instead he switched over to his Bow of the Fleet-Fingered Hunter and began firing trios of Rays at the Cursed Priest.

Takumen-Ra roared in fury, unleashing a clicking cloud of [Pestilent Locusts].

Thinking quickly, Roark countered the disease-spreading vermin by launching into the cast for Discordant Inversion and Deflection. He hadn’t had any of the Webs pre-inscribed when he came into the Onyx Sands—the spell required him to specify the targeted Magick during the cast—but the locusts were moving slowly enough as a group that he could afford the small delay. Roark threw himself through the martial stances, weaving the Discordant Inversion web, then flung the completed spell at the locusts.

In a flash of light, the sickly insects turned to brilliantly white Lantern Bugs. They banked in the air and flew back at Takumen-Ra. The Cursed Priest was entirely unprepared for his spell to be turned to Light Magick and used against him, and could only bat uselessly as they shot at him. Everywhere the Lantern Bugs hit, holes bored into the Cursed Priest’s rotting flesh, surrounded by tiny tongues of white fire.

While Takumen-Ra summoned another herd of Rabid Jackals to retaliate, Roark darted in and attacked, slicing into the Cursed Priest with his Light-Enchanted Slender Rapier. The Poser Owners’ shadow-cloaked rogue appeared for a moment behind Takumen-Ra, hamstringing the enormous priest, then disappeared again.

Roark pressed his advantage, carving away at the priest’s dwindling red bar. A series of Light Bolts streaked across the room, taking Takumen-Ra in the face and chest. When Roark glanced up to see where they’d come from, GothicTerror was reloading her Wraithpiercer and swinging it toward a rampaging Jackal. Nearby, PwnrBwner was directing his Poser Owners to use their strongest Light spells on the Undead. Thankfully, he wasn’t allowing them to attack the rival guild yet. So far, none of the Ganksters seemed to have realized the Poser Owners were there to take the dungeon raid they had worked so hard for, and Roark wanted to keep it that way until the opportune moment.

Takumen-Ra tried to hook Roark’s rapier, using his crook and rod. Roark allowed the Cursed Priest to trap his rapier, then threw his weight into a lunge. It was a contratempo he’d been considering ever since Griff admonished him to add the dagger to his off hand during battles, but this was his first attempt at using the counterattack on the fly. As Takumen-Ra twisted the crook and snatched Roark’s rapier away, Roark planted his Kaiken Dagger in the strange eye symbol at the center of the Cursed Priest’s chest.

Takumen-Ra howled in pain, and sickly emerald light shot from the empty eye holes in his rotting jackal’s skull. With a twist, Roark jerked the dagger free and sprung out of the way. The Cursed Priest exploded in a shower of bone shards.

There was probably a healthy Transmutation Core somewhere in those remains, but Roark forced himself to remain on task. He would loot the priest later. For now, he had heroes to kill and Experience to siphon. Heroes whose Health bars had been severely depleted by a protracted fight with the Dungeon Lord’s minions.

With a nod to PwnrBwner, Roark turned on the circle of Ganksters finishing off the Undead creatures Takumen-Ra had summoned.

“All right, Ganksters!” PwnrBwner shouted. “It’s pwnin’ time!”

As the Poser Owners began attacking the rival guild, one of the Ganksters screamed, “These dicks are kill-stealing the whole fucking dungeon!”

“Damn right we are, tell your friends!” PwnrBwner crowed, nearly taking the Gankster’s head off with a blow from his crystal mace. “Step right up and git got, bitches!”

Roark ignored the Ranger-Cleric’s pathological need to be a bastard and cut his way through the Ganksters’ closest heroes, a pair of identical NecroKnights and a Lava Mage. He dodged the Lava Mage’s blasts of Brimstone, destroying the last of her failing red Health bar with a rapid series of squalembrotto cuts.

The NecroKnights tried to attack from either side as the mage fell, but Roark knocked aside the faster hero’s broadsword and plunged his rapier into the man’s eye. His Health bar flashed the critical warning, then emptied, and he dropped dead on the spot.

The second NecroKnight bellowed as he swung a heavy overhand arc with his broadsword. Roark easily sidestepped the unstoppable blow, then sliced the knight to ribbons with a spinning off-hand combo before the man could recover. The NecroKnight was dead before he knew it.

Golden light flared from Roark’s skin, and an ascending chime rang through the burial chamber. His filigreed Health and Magicka vials refilled themselves, and a rush of warmth and energy flowed into his limbs, washing away the fatigue and wounds from the battle.

[LEVEL UP!]

Roark grinned as he dismissed the glowing golden text.

He had reached level 70.

Draconian Changes

ROARK AND THE POSER Owners finished off the last remaining dregs of Ganksters and Undead creatures summoned by Takumen-Ra, then began to loot the burial chamber. While Mac trundled around the corpses, trying to get the heroes to feed him the hearts of creatures they’d killed, Roark searched the Dungeon Lord’s corpse. The Transmutation Core was moderately high level, though he had no plans to use it for himself.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Superior Cynic Transmutation Core

Rarity: Tier 8, Peerless

Creature Core Level: 63

Durability: Stable State

Half-life: N/A

Notice: Because the Superior Cynic Transmutation Core is Peerless level, it has a Stable durability and will not deteriorate over time.

Notice: Once implanted in a compatible host, the Superior Cynic Transmutation Core cannot be removed without destroying the Transmutation Core.

It’s what’s on the inside that counts... but sometimes what’s on the inside can significantly alter the outside...

╠═╦╬╧╪

Perhaps he could find a Dungeon Lord who would benefit from the Cursed Priest’s core. Several of them were waiting for their chance at Mega-Evolutions. He stowed the stone, then took a moment to examine Takumen-Ra’s crook and rod more closely.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Unique Cursed Crook and Rod of Cynical Evocation

One-handed Damage: 78 - 91

Defense: 87

Durability: 199 of 199

Level Requirement: 52

Intelligence Requirement: 243

Equipping this Unique Dual Item grants the user the ability to summon Rabid Undead Jackals (Crook) and Infectious Plague Mummies (Rod).

Dual-class Weapon – Attack and Defense

+20 Necrotic Damage (Crook)

-20% Stamina Required for Dual Power Attacks (Rod)

If my afterlife be cursed eternity, then let me bring my curses down upon the entire world...

╠═╦╬╧╪

It was tempting to take the weapons back to his smithy and destroy them to learn their enchantments, but Roark had come on this raid with one goal in mind: reaching level 70. The rest he’d promised to the Poser Owners. It was time to make good on that promise.

Suppressing a sigh, Roark handed off the weapons to PwnrBwner as a show of good faith.

“Spoils of war,” he said.

“Balls yeah.” The Ranger-Cleric assessed the weapon. “Wrong alignment for my build, but...” He jerked his chin at GothicTerror. “Yo, Screamo-tots, you can use Cursed items, can’t you?”

“Yeah.” The dark elf looked up from the Rabid Jackal she was looting.

“Congrats.” PwnrBwner tossed her the crook and rod. “You can summon your very own Undead dogs and mummies now.”

“Sick,” she said, eyes gleaming with admiration. “I’ll have to grind out a couple of levels, but totally worth it.”

“Told you, I keep my boyz stocked,” PwnrBwner said, shrugging.

Roark tried to keep his shock from his expression. The oddly generous side of the Ranger-Cleric was not one he’d often seen. It did, however, make him feel better about making such a power-hungry hero into essentially a small dictator.

While the Poser Owners finished looting the gold, jewels, and other items, Roark filled his Inventory with several new types of poison sacs and the Transmutation Cores from the varied mobs roaming the tomb. Then he waited, impatiently, for the heroes. He wanted to get back to the Cruel Citadel and utilize the core he’d taken from the NecroDragon.

Finally, PwnrBwner announced that they were done.

“Mission complete, POSes,” the Ranger-Cleric announced, puffed up like a prideful peacock. “Time to party. Get us out of this dump, Griefer.”

“Gladly.” Roark cast a Level 9 Mass Portal spell, and a shimmering violet gateway appeared as he tore the temporal fabric wide.

The lot of them climbed through, stepping into the chiming grass at the edge of the Troll Nation Marketplace.

“Let’s get drunk!” the Blackguard Knave yelled, pumping his fists in the air. Several of the heroes agreed heartily, and they headed off for Flavortown.

“Good raid,” PwnrBwner said. He held a fist out and waited.

Roark stared at it, not certain how he was supposed to grip forearms with a fist in the way.

“Don’t be a weirdo for ten seconds,” PwnrBwner said. “It’s a fist bump. Boom.” He demonstrated with his opposite fist, hitting the knuckles together, then held it back out.

“Ah, I see.” Roark bumped the Ranger-Cleric’s gauntleted fist with his own. “Good raid.”

“Close enough.” PwnrBwner scrubbed Mac’s scaly head, then started backing toward the market. “Gonna come party with us, Griefer?”

“Not today,” Roark said. “I have a date with a Transmutation Core.”

PwnrBwner smirked. “Git them levels, boy.”

They parted ways, PwnrBwner following the route his Poser Owners had taken, while Roark took the portal plate to the Keep with Mac waddling along at his side. Excitement and anxiety coursed through him in equal measure as he imagined the possibilities of the NecroDragon core.

A recently Mega-Evolved Bonesnap Behemoth was posted outside the door to his study, courtesy of Zyra. Not to protect the room from looting by high-level heroes who made it this far, but to stop every mob in the Troll Nation from bursting in at all hours demanding Roark’s time and attention for small matters that could be handled elsewhere.

“Dungeon Lord,” the Behemoth rumbled, dipping his head.

Roark nodded in return. “Crusher, I need total solitude for at least the next hour. No matter who they are, no matter what’s coming down on our heads, no one is allowed through that door.”

The Bonesnap Behemoth saluted sharply. “Understood, Dungeon Lord!”

Roark opened the study door, and Mac trundled past him, beelining for Roark’s accustomed seat.

“Er, Dungeon Lord?” Crusher said, a hint of squeamishness twisting his features. “Will there be much... screaming?”

Roark laughed. Occasionally, his experiments with new magicks failed horribly and killed him in shocking and gory ways. Another reason Zyra had posted the guard—to prevent lower-level Trolls from finding shreds of their fearless leader scattered across his own study from spells gone wrong.

“Let’s hope not,” he told the Behemoth, clapping him on the shoulder.

That didn’t appear to assuage Crusher’s qualms. The Behemoth gulped and nodded resolutely.

Roark ducked into the study and closed the door behind him. Mac chirped from the seat behind Roark’s enormous black walnut desk.

“In a moment,” Roark said in a low tone. He was too excited to sit down yet.

Quickly, he opened his grimoire to the Character page. He was giddy with the possibilities of the NecroDragon core, but that didn’t mean he could neglect the basics of the new level. In a few moments, he’d distributed his new allotment of points, investing six points into Intelligence—his prime attribute as a spellcaster—then adding two points apiece into Strength and Dexterity, so as not to allow them to become too imbalanced. Strangely, the number of Vassals, both Greater and Lesser, he could make had multiplied significantly. He couldn’t imagine needing so many, but perhaps those would become useful in the future.

As level 70 was high above any Evolution a Jotnar should have reached, Roark had gained no new Infernali Spells. He had, however, unlocked another ability of the World Stone Pendant.

╠═╦╬╧╪

World Stone Pendant

Durability: Indestructible

Level Restriction: 1

Property: Soul-Forge – Imbue the undead with life and will.

Current World Stone Authority: Greater Vassal 11/52; Lesser Vassal 68/630

Property: Glamour Cloak – Use arcane power to disguise your appearance even to the keenest of eyes. Cast 1 per day; duration, 3 hours.

Property: Transmute Energy – Meld and merge the primal energies and magicks in the world around you to your will.

Property: Transmute Flesh – Twist and shape the very fabric of living flesh, crafting unspeakable creations fit to serve your bidding and will.

Property: Temporal Binding – Form, shape, and stitch together the fabric of reality itself, bending time and space as you wish.

Property: ???

The World Stone can bend, shape, and distort reality, allowing the bearer the power of Creation and Life itself ...

╠═╦╬╧╪

Bending the temporal fabric that held worlds together was such an insanely powerful ability that Roark could hardly wrap his head around the implications. The first and most obvious was that he should be able to use Temporal Binding to create a connecting point between Hearthworld and Traisbin, one that he controlled rather than one that he had to take from Lowen.

Roark twisted the pendant in his hands while he considered that course of action: create a portal directly to Marek’s bedchamber, step in, and cut the despot down while he slept.

It sounded convenient and simple, but that was exactly the plan that had landed him in Hearthworld in the first place. It had failed horribly because of Lowen. If that overwriting horse’s ass hadn’t been the one to set the trap in von Graf Manor for Roark in the first place, then Roark would eat his Initiate’s Spell Book.

No, if he were to have any chance at killing Marek and ridding Traisbin of the Tyrant King’s influence, he would have to take out the despot’s right-hand mage first. Then Roark could finish the job with Marek knowing he wouldn’t get an Angelic Lance in the back before the tyrant was dead.

To deal with Lowen, however...

Roark turned to the page in his grimoire displaying his slowly spinning avatar. Lean and ghostly pale, it was covered in swirling purple tattoos of power. Thick ram’s horns curled back around his skull and spiked leathery wings were folded behind his back, but there was still a hint of the man he’d been before coming to Hearthworld. The shaggy black hair, the slightly hooked Lyuko traveler’s nose, the hell-for-blood determined scowl hardening his sinewy jaw.

In the lower right corner of the page, a bit of text blinked.

[Preview Transmutation Core?]

As soon as he selected it, a list of the cores he’d collected in the Tomb of Takumen-Ra appeared. They were impressive, from a host of high-level mobs, but none were as powerful as the Arch-NecroDragon’s Artifact-level core. Roark selected the deadly looking black stone. Twin blue and orange lights pulsed from its center, reminiscent of the NecroDragon’s Ghostly Fire and Nuclear Winter Ice breath attack.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Arch-NecroDragon Transmutation Core

Rarity: Tier 9, Artifact

Creature Core Level: 99

Durability: Stable State

Half-life: N/A

Notice: Because the Arch-NecroDragon Transmutation Core is Artifact level, it has a Stable durability and will not deteriorate over time.

Notice: Once implanted in a compatible host, the Arch-NecroDragon Transmutation Core cannot be removed without destroying the Transmutation Core.

It’s what’s on the inside that counts... but sometimes what’s on the inside can significantly alter the outside...

╠═╦╬╧╪

The fist-sized core stone floated over the head of his avatar, lines of spidery text appearing in response to his selection.

[Compatibility: 99%

New Evolutionary Path for Roark the Griefer, Draconic Chaos Harbinger, detected! Archdaemon Tyrannous (available at level 89) or Undying Dragonblood Seraph (available at level 99).]

Roark read over the changes that would take place when he merged with this core. Not only would the transmutation raise his current level from 70 to 84—locking in his new respawn cap at 84—but his Primal energy type would change from Infernal to Undead Infernal. That would give each of his spells a new dose of Necrotic Damage in addition to their base Infernal Damage—exactly the shift he’d been hoping for. As Infernal was the Subservient Dyad to the Divine, Roark’s pure Infernal magicks had been worthless against Lowen and his Herald ilk. Divine energies, however, were Subservient to the Undead on the Primal Creation Wheel, which meant Lowen would be at the mercy of Roark’s Infernal Undead spells once the transmutation was complete. That, combined with his grasp of Discordant Inversion, should give him a leg up over the overwriting mage, even with the gap in their levels.

There was also a host of new abilities awaiting Roark. He grinned as he looked them over.

Dragon’s Flight: Take wing from any location without draining your Stamina. Red Updraft and blue Downdraft arrows no longer have any effect on you.

Infernal Necrotic Breath: Breathe a 15-foot gout of gangrenous Necrotic flame upon any hero or chimera. Opponents struck by Infernal Necrotic Breath take 9n damage, where n is the caster’s character level, and 9n Necrosis damage + 9n Infernal damage per second for 30 seconds. Necrotic flame cannot be extinguished. 15% chance opponents with a Constitution less than caster’s Constitution will suffer immobilization by Rigor Mortis for 15 seconds.

Raise Thralls: Raise the bodies of the slain as Infernal Undead servants with n/3HP, where n is the caster’s Health. Caster may raise 1 Thrall per every 3 character levels.

Draconia Form: The soul of the Eternal Dragon lives on in you. Once per 24-hour period, leave behind your lowly lesser form and reign supreme over land and sky as the Undead Serpent.

Each of the abilities was beyond what Roark had hoped for, but that last was the most intriguing. His grin stretched even wider as he considered testing Draconia Form. There would be time for that later, though. With a twenty-four-hour cooldown, he would have to choose his testing ground wisely. First, he needed to finalize his lesser form.

He returned to his avatar and quickly went through the host of alterations available for his transmuted appearance. His ram’s horns he altered until they curved up and away from his head like those the NecroDragon had sported. The alteration turned his hair from shaggy and in need of a crop to long and flowing. In place of the Hardened Leathers he’d been wearing for armor, his body was covered in thick onyx scales trimmed with a deep glowing purple. Sharp pauldron-like overlapping plates grew out of his shoulders and covered his upper arms, and a bevor of solid onyx curled up from his throat to surround his ghostly pale jaw. With a quick adjustment, he extended the bevor upward until it came to dragon-fanged peaks at his temples.

Bloody damnation if he didn’t look rather fearsome. Not to mention powerful. He could almost pass for the Sky Devourer from Traisbin’s ancient Day of Reckoning legends. Hopefully instead of trapping Traisbin in eternal night, however, he would free the land from her bloody despot.

Roark checked over his stats and abilities one more time to make certain he hadn’t missed anything.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

Satisfied, he turned to the question that now waited in the corner of the page.

[Would you like to transmute Jotnar Infernali and Arch-NecroDragon to form mega evolution: level 84 Draconic Chaos Harbinger? Yes/No]

Taking a deep breath and steeling his resolve, he selected Yes.

Brilliant amber light flashed from the World Stone on his chest, filling the room and temporarily blinding him. Scales and armor erupted from his flesh and tore a scream from his throat. He dropped to one knee. His heart charged like a rampaging rotbeast, and he had a moment’s clarity to hope his shout wouldn’t draw Crusher from his post outside.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, the transmutation was over.

The World Stone Pendant went dark and lifeless once again, and for a moment, the only sound in the study was Roark’s harsh breathing. The stone clinked slightly against Roark’s chest scales as he stood.

Delicate claws ran through Roark’s long hair, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Impressive,” a dusky feminine voice purred. “Cold-blooded reptilian monster becomes you, Dungeon Lord.”

Roark spun around to find Zyra hanging from the ceiling. A dark veil obscured her face—hanging upward from her recurved onyx horns as if gravity worked differently for the Orbweaver Ravager—but Roark could see the glint of her mismatched purple and green eyes appraising him from behind the sheer black lace.

Roark raised an eyebrow. “I thought I told Crusher to keep everyone out.”

Zyra laughed and used her long spidery limbs to climb down and face him.

“Crusher may be loyal to you, Griefer, but he’s terrified of me.” She hooked a strand of web around his shoulders and pulled him closer, whispering, “I think it’s the fangs.”

Roark lifted the veil aside and spent a few moments testing her fangs himself.

“I don’t know,” he said when he pulled away, a trickle of blood coming from his lips. “I rather like them.”

Zyra’s smile disappeared behind the veil once more, and she wandered around him, inspecting the changes made by the transmutation.

“Level 84?” She hummed approvingly. “If you hadn’t already killed him, Azibek would die of jealousy when he saw how far his arrogant little Changeling rival has come.”

“I’m hoping at least one Dungeon Lord will lose his head over it,” Roark said, smirking. “Then I can plant it on a stake.”

Zyra stopped in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest. “While it warms my heart to hear you’re finally coming around to decorating your throne room with your enemies’ heads, Griff isn’t so convinced your plan to storm the Vault of the Radiant Shield will work, new levels or no.”

Roark frowned.

Griff had been growing more and more concerned ever since Lowen tried that assassination attempt with Talise. The grizzled weapons trainer thought Roark was rushing into this attack now that he knew his sister was in the hands of the enemy. Roark disagreed. While the thought of Talise in Marek’s clutches did serve to keep him pushing constantly toward the goal of taking Lowen out and getting back to Traisbin, the truth was if he wasn’t prepared now, with everything he’d gained, then he never would be. It was time. Waiting longer would only give Lowen time to prepare a stronger defense or learn about Roark’s new Draconian abilities.

“The new levels and the Undead spells will go a long way toward taking the Vault,” Roark said, making a mental note to speak with Griff as soon as possible. “Whatever ground is left to cover after that, I’ll find a way. In that vein, I found something that might help.” He dug into his Inventory, searching for the shiny Black Fire Scorpling corpse. “Fresh from the newest dungeon in Hearthworld.”

She inspected it, one set of hands holding the Scorpling out while the other cupped her chin.

“Its venom is corrosive to metals,” she said, excitement creeping into her voice.

“Highly,” Roark said. “I watched a few drops eat through solid steel plate today. I brought back as many as I could carry.”

He transferred the lot of them to her.

“For me?” Zyra chuckled darkly. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”

He gave her a wry smile. “It comes with an ulterior motive. I’d hoped a certain veiled Septic Brewmaster could find a way to eat through the Heralds’ gold skin with it.”

“It’ll require some modifications,” she said, cocking her head thoughtfully and rubbing her chin beneath her veil. “Gold is a sun metal, and steel is a moon alloy.” Suddenly, her body language shifted, her spider-limbs shivering with excitement. She clapped her extra hands together. “I may have just the trick. I’ll come find you when I know for sure.”

She turned sharply on a heel and headed for the door, then stopped suddenly. “Oh, and Griefer, a group of representatives from the allied Dungeon Lords is waiting for you in the Grand Hall. They showed up about five minutes after you left for the Onyx Sands and refused to leave without speaking to you. I think their masters are getting as anxious about your plan to attack the Vault as Griff is.”

Roark frowned more deeply this time. “And you didn’t think that was important enough to tell me straight away?”

“I don’t ferry messages for Dungeon Lords anymore,” she said, shrugging one midnight shoulder. “I was Azibek’s messenger, and look where that got him.”

With that, she slipped out the study door.

Cursing under his breath, Roark headed for the Grand Hall. He had allies to reassure.

Spies

LOWEN VON REICH SAT on his throne, perched on the hanging dais in the throne room in the Vault of the Radiant Shield, staring down his nose at his most trusted spies. One was a tall, heavyset man with a thick beard who looked as if he should be toiling in a mine with a pickaxe in each fist, and the other was a slip of a woman with flowing red hair and restless, constantly shifting green eyes. Both were wingless at the moment, a necessity to walk among the heroes of Hearthworld unnoticed, though another hour would see the sawn-off appendages regenerated.

“Unlike mobs, the Devs who shape this world do not live here,” the fiery-haired woman said, green eyes searching one corner of the room and then the next. Though she spoke in a low voice, it rang off the cavernous golden ceiling and walls. “The heroes claim these Devs travel back and forth just as they do, from Hearthworld to the Other World.”

“We’ve been unable to find the portal the Devs use,” the heavyset man said. He folded calloused hands over his barrel gut. “But we have learned that they make their home in a stronghold known as Frontflip Studios.”

“Stronghold?” the woman scoffed. “One of the heroes I spoke with showed me a painting of this Frontflip Studios on the WikiLore page of their grimoire. It is a palace of leaded glass and stone. Sprawling and vast, but vulnerable. There are no walls, no moat. Not a murder hole in sight. In my estimation, a small force could raze it within a matter of hours.”

Lowen smirked. He would never understand these fools who plotted attacks with the fewest troops necessary in mind. If a small force would do, then it only stood to reason that an overwhelming force would do better by that same order of magnitude. That was his secret to all things in life—and part of the reason he was so well known for overwriting his spells. Why use a light touch when a heavy one would do just as well?

He lurched to his feet. “You two, get an Ultimate Healing Potion and restore yourselves. We move as soon as I return.” As the spies bowed out, he turned to Darith, his second-in-command. “Watch the throne room.”

“Will do, sir,” Darith said, returning to tormenting the latest Gargoyle he’d captured. Lowen had no idea where the psycho kept finding these creatures, but as long as it kept him from turning on his fellow Heralds—without Lowen’s permission first, of course—Lowen was willing to let it continue.

In a flash of tawny wings, Lowen glided across the room to the foot of the arch containing the Traisbin portal. He hesitated a moment to smooth out his brow and affect an air of confidence. It was a risk barging in a second time and asking for more resources, but it would pay off. He imagined hacking von Graf’s infuriating head off his shoulders and returning the World Stone Pendant to Marek still dripping with gore. It was a fantasy that never failed to put a spring in his step.

He braced himself for the disorientation that came with portal travel and ducked through the shimmering archway. An icy breeze raked through his hair and feathers, but otherwise there were no ill effects. Having grown up taught the dangers of portal travel like everyone else in Traisbin, Marek’s stable portal was a marvel that never ceased to amaze him.

After a moment, stone floors coalesced beneath his boots and heat poured over his body. He blinked to adjust to the dim lighting. The Vault of the Radiant Shield shone with brilliant white-gold light at all hours, but at the moment, the imperial war room was empty, the banked fire in the hearth the only source of illumination. Obviously it was later than he’d guessed.

Lowen strode through the castle, boots clicking on stone, wings rustling softly behind him, until he came to the Tyrant King’s private chambers. The door to the sitting room was already ajar, and through the crack, he could see Marek at a game table, playing Rivals with his “granddaughter” over a cup of tea.

As he watched, Marek took his turn, cutting off the girl’s carefully laid traps and destroying her potentate’s defenses with a single decisive move.

“Damn you straight to the seventh hell,” she cursed, scowling down at the board.

Marek chuckled. “Your grave is entirely of your own making. You never know when to leave the maneuvering behind and go for the throat. You could have ended this five turns ago, but you were too busy scheming.”

“I can still win,” she muttered, folding her hands beneath her chin as she studied the board intently.

“That’s doubtful, my child. We have a spectator, and you’ve proven to fare even worse when under scrutiny.” Marek gestured to the door, making Lowen flinch. “Stop skulking about, von Reich. If you’ve excuses to make, get in here and make them. I only have so long before I sleep, and I want your unending torture begun before I retire for the night.”

With the toe of his boot, Lowen nudged the door open and entered the sitting room.

“No excuses, my lord,” he said, bowing. “On the contrary, I’ve made considerable progress. My spies have found the location of the Devs’ stronghold in the Other World. I need only a mass portal stone to transport my armies and take the bastion they call Frontflip Studios. I’ll have Roark von Graf’s head and the World Stone Pendant for you within a fortnight.”

As he spoke, Lowen watched Talise for any telltale reaction to the mention of her brother’s name, but the girl was so focused on salvaging her stupid game that she hardly seemed to hear him.

“Very well,” Marek said, groaning as he pushed himself out of his overstuffed wingback chair.

The aging tyrant went to a trunk in the far corner of the room and waved a hand over its locks. With a series of clinks and clacks, heavy gears whirled to life and the catches popped open. Marek flipped up the lid and selected a pair of stones engraved with a glowing blue rune.

He held out the stones, but when Lowen moved to take them, Marek withdrew his hand.

“Do not fail me,” the Tyrant King said. His voice was as flat and bored as if he were discussing the weather at a ball, but Lowen could hear the death sentence in every word.

Lowen forced himself not to recoil as he took the stones. “I won’t, my lord.”

Shifting Tides

FROM THE HEAD OF THE Great Hall’s largest rough-hewn table, Roark stared down the gathered representatives from the dungeons across Hearthworld allied with the Troll Nation. A few shifted nervously in their seats, eyeing his new evolution, while the rest assessed the plans he’d just laid out for them or messaged their Dungeon Lords with what he’d said.

“You ssspeak of moving to attack them in their nessst,” the Naga representative hissed. “Yet every day, our dungeonsss are already under attack by thessse Malaika Heralds.”

“Same for us,” a wolf-bear-man hybrid growled. “Gevaudan the Terrible says if you don’t do something to stop this soon, we’ll withdraw from our alliance with the Troll Nation. The Marketplace and Skill Training is useful, but not useful enough to waste our levels on constant respawn.”

“But you must understand, this maneuver will draw their roving bands of hornets back to the hive, where we can swat them all at once.” Roark leaned over the table and tapped the array of maps and schematics for siege engines he’d spread across its uneven surface. “When we attack, they’ll rally at the Vault, and we’ll cut their entry and exit off until we break through. It’s a numbers game—a mathematics equation if you will—and although they have higher levels, we have a far greater force and magicks that cannot be rivaled.”

“You’re talking about a siege,” the smokey representative from the Djinn said in a voice like a cold breeze through dead leaves. “Do you truly believe it will come to that?”

Roark gritted his teeth to keep from snapping at the Djinn. After a deep breath, he was able to speak with some measure of civility.

“Did your Dungeon Lord think we would take the Vault of the Radiant Shield in a single frontal assault?” he asked. “One of the strongest—if not the strongest dungeon in Hearthworld?”

“Except for the new ones in the Onyx Sands,” PwnrBwner chimed in unhelpfully, his boots kicked up on the table while he drank from a sizeable flagon of mead.

The Beryl King’s representative shifted in his seat with a sound like a knife on whetstone.

“The Crystal Caverns are uncertain whether we wish to commit to such an assault. The potential for disaster is high, and the longer our best troops are away from the Caverns, the farther heroes will progress through our dungeons, killing our Pebblekin and Rocklings. We give up opportunities to level ourselves and evolve for what? To help a Troll kill a Herald?”

“To stop them from attacking your Crystal Caverns,” Roark said sharply.

“They will do the same if we withdraw from the alliance,” the rock person said. “We have been told as much by the Heralds every day. Withdraw or continue to be ground down to dust.”

“Sssame,” hissed the Naga.

“Us, too,” growled the wolf-bear-man.

Roark straightened, staring each one of them down in turn, careful not to betray any hint of weakness. How could they not see? This was always the way of tyrants. Weaker foes only had strength in numbers, and if alliances could be so easily split, then there was no hope of victory. Once the opposition was thoroughly quelled and divided, the tyrants would drop the pretense and return to violence. Roark had seen Marek do as much through the years; the Heralds could’ve been reading from a stratagem guide by the man.

Before Roark could respond, however, a commotion arose in the antechamber.

“Let me through, I have to talk to the Dungeon Lord! It’s a matter of life and death!”

A moment later, the heavy doors closing off the Great Hall swung open and Randy Shoemaker, a silver-skinned and winged Arboreal Herald, strode in, panic etched in the lines of his face.

“Roark, we’ve got a major problem,” Randy said, heedless of the varied mobs from the allied dungeons spread around the table. “Frontflip is shutting down Hearthworld. We’ve got two weeks tops before the whole game is out of commission.”

Roark frowned, trying to grasp some meaning from what Randy was saying. As the former Dev often spoke in the esoteric language of the creators, meaning could be hard to discern by taking his words at face value.

“Slow down, Randy,” Roark said, raising a hand. “What is this Frontflip? And could you elaborate on what shutting down means?”

“He means like temporarily, for maintenance,” PwnrBwner offered, sitting his flagon down with a thud. “The Devs have to do that with games sometimes so they can fix something.”

“No, it’s not like that at all!” Randy threw up his hands, clearly exasperated. “They’re done. They thought adding the Onyx Sands expansion would help buy them a little time, but apparently you raided it as soon as it opened. Already there are online reports of the Griefer killing Heroes in the new expansion. I looked into it—your code is spreading there now, too. The top brass don’t know how to fix it, so they’re going to scrub the whole thing instead. Just destroy the servers for good and pin it on me.

“I read their incriminating emails—they’ve already fabricated the evidence and found people who will testify that I did it out of revenge for being fired. I’ll go to jail and they’ll make off like bandits with the insurance money.” He shook his head. “But that’s not the important part. They’re going to dump Hearthworld. They think it’s the only way to deal with your corrupted code, wipe everything and start over with something new.” He locked eyes with Roark. “This entire dimension will cease to exist in two weeks, along with everyone who’s still in it.”

A silence settled over the dungeon like a terrible weight as the enormity of what Randy was saying washed through the room. So, just as the Devs had created an entire land of black sand deserts and tombs from nothingness, they were planning to erase the whole of Hearthworld from existence. Because of him and Lowen.

“What do we do?” he asked Randy, mind racing. “How can we stop them?”

The Arboreal Herald shifted his feet uncertainly.

“I... I’m working on that.” Randy touched the bridge of his nose as if he expected to find a pair of spectacles there. “I have a friend who I think could help me from the inside. Well, she’s more like an acquaintance... And she might like me?” He slashed a hand through the air. “Look, it’s complicated and I’m not great at interpreting nonverbal cues. If she does like me, it would be sleazy of me to take advantage of that and drag her into this against her will... but... this is a matter of life and death. I’ll explain it to her and see if she’s on board with helping us.” The Arboreal Herald glanced at Roark. “In the meantime, I don’t know what you guys can do. Wait?”

“Like bloody hell,” Roark growled. He turned back to the table surrounded by mobs. “They’re planning to destroy Hearthworld just to get rid of that ass Lowen and me. But if we’re gone before they erase this entire dimension, there would be no need to destroy it, correct?”

Randy blinked. “I—maybe not?” He shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t know.”

“You said yourself they want to stop the spread of our corruption. They see that as the root of their problem. It stands to reason then that by removing the corruption, we remove their reason for wiping out this dimension.”

“Maybe,” Randy said. “Things may not be as cut and dry as that. At least some of this is personal.”

Roark crossed his arms, new scales clinking against one another.

“But until we have more information, it’s the only course of action we can take,” he said. He turned back to the dungeon representatives. “You all heard the Dev. Hearthworld will be destroyed within two weeks if myself and Lowen are still here. Your only hope to get rid of us is helping me take him out.”

The Naga’s forked tongue flicked. “Thisss doesss change thingsss...”

“I will relay this new information to the Beryl King,” the rock person said with a grinding nod of his head. “When should we expect to begin this siege of yours?”

Roark cast his eyes back down to the plans he’d so meticulously laid out.

“No, none of this will work. This model could take months,” he said quietly. He grabbed the siege plans and crumpled them in his fist. He glanced at the roaring fireplace on the wall, but couldn’t bring himself to cast the parchment into it, not when he’d viewed it as such a precious and rare resource for the majority of his life. Hastily, he stored it in his Inventory and returned his gaze to the representatives around the table. “We don’t have time for a traditional siege. If we’re going to save Hearthworld, Lowen has to be wiped out entirely and I need to be gone well ahead of the two-week mark to prove that it’s no longer necessary to destroy this dimension.”

“And how exactly do you propose to accomplish that?” the wolf-bear-man growled.

Roark glared down at the maps. “The only way for me to leave is the portal inside the Vault of the Radiant Shield’s throne room. We can’t wait any longer to attack. We’ll have to take the Vault immediately.”

Not surprisingly, that caused an uproar among the representatives.

Roark turned back to Randy and PwnrBwner, but before he could begin to discuss timelines, a scrap of paper denoting a message appeared in the corner of his vision. It was from Talise.

Lowen just left to launch an assault on the Devs in their home, a palace called Frontflip Studios. He’s going to force them into unbinding the World Stone from your soul so he can take it.

Roark cursed under his breath and sent a hurried response.

Sending messages that prove you’re working against Marek is the opposite of keeping your head down and protecting yourself, Talise. You’ve put yourself in the direct path of danger. Erase every trace of this conversation and do not attempt to contact me again.

A heartbeat later her reply appeared. You are in no position to give me orders, Roark Erickson von Graf. This is information your forces can’t do without. Lowen and his strongest warriors and mages will be away in the Other World until they’ve taken Frontflip Studios, and the Vault will be vulnerable.

“Damnation,” Roark muttered. Just because she was right about the importance of the information didn’t make him any happier that she was putting her life on the line to get it to him.

That doesn’t change the fact that you’re putting yourself in danger, he sent. I can’t give this war my full concentration if I’m worried about you getting yourself killed.

Of course she had an answer to that, as well. She always did, even as a child.

Marek can’t access my messages. He’s never come through the portal to Hearthworld, so he was never issued a grimoire like we were.

Arguing with his sister was wasted effort and only served to create more opportunities for Marek to discover what she was doing. Roark ended the conversation and turned to PwnrBwner and Randy.

“We have new intelligence regarding Lowen’s movements,” Roark said. He locked eyes with Randy, knowing this blow would affect the Arboreal Herald most. “He’s mobilizing his armies and planning to launch a siege of his own—against Frontflip Studios. The home of your fellow Devs.”

Randy’s mouth dropped open, a combination of shock and fear glimmering in his eyes. “But... but I’ve got coworkers there!” Then he raised a hand to his mouth as if something else had just occurred to him. “They won’t have any idea what’s happening. He’ll use magick and Hearthworld mechanics—they’ll be caught completely unaware if an army of mobs attacks. People will die.”

“The magic,” PwnrBwner said suddenly. “You’re getting magic IRL, right, Randy?”

“We already talked about this,” Randy said in an exasperated voice. “The magic transposing into the real world is most likely because Roark made us his Vassals.”

PwnrBwner pointed at Roark. “And your Hearthworld magic worked when you went to Earth, too, right?”

“The Other World?” Roark nodded. “I was able to use my spells and abilities there, yes.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Randy snapped, spinning on his heel and heading for the door. “I’ve got to get back to Frontflip and warn them!”

PwnrBwner grabbed Randy’s arm. “Hold your horses, nerd. I’m about to get your nuts out of the fire here, if you’ll shut up and listen for half a second. What if we put together an elite squad of Poser Owners? The best of the best.” He looked at Roark. “You could zap them with your Vassal binding and then they could use magic IRL, too. Boom, we swoop in and stomp this loser Lowen before he can storm Frontflip.”

Roark frowned, shaking his head. “I won’t drag anyone into this fight against their will. I’m not here to forcibly conscript people into service like a bloody tyrant.”

“Against their will?” PwnrBwner raised a brow. “Are you kidding me? It’s fucking magic, bro. Name somebody who doesn’t want to do magic.”

“Regular people,” Randy said. “Anybody who just wants to live their lives without the threat of supernatural annihilation hanging over their heads.”

PwnrBwner scoffed and crossed his arms. “Name ten people.”

But Roark glanced at the Arboreal Herald, surprised that the Dev could see things so clearly in spite of his involvement. Randy’s impassioned words reminded Roark of something his father had told him when he was a child—Magick isn’t your plaything, Roark. It’s your birthright and burden. The von Grafs learn magick so the people of Korvo can sleep peacefully at night. They rely on us and our spells to stand between them and the darkness.

He set his jaw and turned to PwnrBwner. “If you can find heroes within your guild who will agree to become my Vassal knowing they’ll be expected to protect the Devs’ home in the Other World, I’ll do it. But only if they know ahead of time the potential consequences of their decision. There is no respawn in the Other World, and even having magick is no guarantee of their safety. Lowen is ruthless, and he won’t concede just because he meets resistance.”

“Obviously,” PwrnBwner said, rolling his eyes. “It’s dangerous and we could die. But we could also live and kick ass. Let’s do this already.”

Meetup

AFTER ABOUT AN HOUR’S worth of messaging and digging through his guild’s profiles, Scott Bayani had figured out how many POSes were within driving distance of LA, then mass-sent them a message telling them to meet him IRL.

It wasn’t until he was sitting in a corner of the Starbucks by his apartment with a venti caramel Frappuccino in his hand that he realized nobody might show up. There wasn’t any way to prove he was legit and not just a serial killer trying to lure them out where he could murder them or some shit. Probably the only thing going for his message was that it was a mass-send, so everybody could see they’d outnumber him.

If they showed up.

The man-bunned barista was already eyeing Scott like he was getting ready to bounce him so this big table would be free when business started to pick up.

“Balls,” Scott muttered and sucked some more icy caramel-y goodness out of the cup.

He adjusted the folded piece of paper he’d written Poser Owners on so that it faced the door better. Or maybe he should point the front toward the room. Shit. He should’ve brought the sharpie with him, then he could’ve put the Guild name on the back, too, cover both directions.

He glanced up at the counter again, wondering if Man Bun would let him borrow a pen.

“Um, excuse me.”

Scott turned back to find a short, thick girl with nerd glasses blinking down at him. A couple blemishes were spread across her dark brown cheeks, visible even though she’d obviously tried to cover them up with makeup.

“Look, sis, I’ve got a big party coming in,” Scott said. “They’ll be here in a minute. Go stick a couple tables together if you need more room.”

But the chick didn’t back off. She twisted her purse string around her fingers. The bag was printed with those little skull moths from Silence of the Lambs.

“This is where the Poser Owners are meeting, right?” She pointed a black-nailed finger at the sign he’d made.

“Oh, shit, yeah.” Scott straightened up in his seat. “Grab a seat. Everybody else should be here soon.”

She pulled out the farthest chair from him and sat down, shifting awkwardly and putting her bag on the table between them like a shield or something. Chick was obviously way shy.

Scott kept running through the list of people he’d invited, but he couldn’t guess which one she was. He thought he’d only invited one chick. The Poser Owners weren’t exactly rolling in high-level female players. But guys had been known to impersonate ladies online sometimes, so maybe this girl was from the flip side, impersonating a guy.

“So, I guess we can go ahead and get the introductions out of the way while we’re waiting. I’m PwnrBwner, guildmaster and all-around baller, and you are?”

“Oh, hey, Pwnr,” she said, smoothing a strand of hair out of the way of her glasses. “Nice to meet you.” She gave a girly shrug. “I mean, you know, in person. I’m GothicTerror.”

“Yeah, right.” Scott leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “Prove it. Say ‘dickbreath.’”

“What? No!”

“Dickbreath or it didn’t happen.”

She shifted uncomfortably, then mumbled, “Dickbreath.”

“Yo, Justin, they’re over here!” A scrawny guy with thinning hair pulled up a seat. “What’s up, Nessa.” He nodded at her, then jerked his chin at Scott. “Hey, it’s Ya_Boy_Flappie_Sak reporting for duty.”

A fat Native American dude wearing a vintage Fate shirt came over and sat down, giving the girl claiming to be GothicTerror a wave.

“Hey, Justin.” She turned to Scott. “PwnrBwner, this is Flappie_Sak and Ninjastein. They’re in my DnD group.”

“Okay, wow.” Scott flopped back in his seat, shaking his head. “I guess I should’ve expected everybody to be the complete opposite of their avatars.”

Flappie_Sak sneered. “Sure, because you’re a totally ripped Ranger-Cleric. Do some Aragorn shit, man, I’ll wait.”

“First of all, screw you and the fat guy you rode in on. Second of all, I’m about to show you something that makes Aragorn and his crew look like a bunch of pansies—”

“Wait, why are we ragging on Tolkien?” a guy sporting a high-top fade and a button down with the tight tuck pulled up a chair. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic sucked.”

“Let me guess,” Scott said, “you’re 3Trenchcoat_Hobbitses?”

“Nah, BusterMove99. But you can’t hate on the Tolkien. How familiar are you with his appendices?”

“The appendices?” GothicTerror let out a laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a louder cry for help than that.”

Scott snorted. So she wasn’t a total wimp IRL, just one of those people it took a minute to get going in a crowd. That was good, because if these were the losers he had to fight a bunch of IRL Malaika Heralds with, he was going to need his Lieutenant Uber-Bitch set to hard mode.

In less than ten minutes, the last of the Poser Owners had shown up. Nobody looked anything like their avatars, and unfortunately a few smelled worse than an adventurer who’d never taken a shower before. Scott wrinkled his nose. He’d at least taken the time to spray a bunch of Axe on his pits before he came to this meeting. You’d think they could’ve done the same.

“All right, listen up, Poser Owners,” Scott said when they’d gotten all the introductions out of the way. “I called you here today because some serious shit’s about to go down, in Hearthworld and IRL.”

A couple hands went up, but he shook his head.

“I’m not answering questions ’til the end. You’re not gonna believe half the crap I have to tell you, anyway, so we’re gonna do this like show-and-tell, and if you’re good I’ll explain everything. Exhibit A.” He stuck out his hand and conjured his Shield Ward. Blue light flashed and a translucent tower shield flared to life. “I can do Hearthworld magic outside the game.”

“Whatever,” the real 3Trenchcoat_Hobbitses sneered. “You’ve got a projector on your hand or something.”

“No, I don’t, numbnuts.” With his free hand, Scott pulled his sleeve back to show his empty forearm. “I legit used this thing to deflect a whole sixty-four-ounce cup of Dew at work the other day. Didn’t get a drop on me. Throw something at it. Go ahead.” Nobody moved. “Screamotots, do it.”

GothicTerror frowned, then reached toward the blue tower shield. Her fingertips bumped against it, and Scott felt the bump resonate through his arm.

“It’s real,” she breathed. “How are you doing that?”

“It’s not real,” Hobbitses said. “This is just CGI.”

“In a Starbucks?” GothicTerror said, fixing him with a deadpan stare.

“Fine, you don’t believe that,” Scott said, letting the shield drop. “Exhibit B.”

He cast another of his Cleric’s spells, and blue arcs of electricity crackled between his fingertips.

“Holy crap,” muttered Ninjastein. “That’s Elemental Fury.”

“Bingo.” Scott tossed a little of the lightning at Hobbitses.

“Ouch!” The dude’s chair scraped as he jumped to his feet. “What the hell, man?”

“That’s what you get for doubting me.” Scott looked around the table. “Who still doesn’t believe I can do magic outside Hearthworld?”

“Fine, I’ll buy it,” GothicTerror said. “How’s it happening?”

Scott dropped his concentration, letting the spell gutter out.

“Roark the Griefer,” he said. “Settle in, kiddies, because now it’s time for the tell portion of show-and-tell.”

Over the next few minutes, Scott explained how the Griefer had come from an alien planet in another universe where crap was a lot worse than it was on Earth—Tyrant King using magic to take over the world and massacre people who stood up to him, legit dictator stuff. The Griefer tried to stop him, but ended up getting himself beamed to Hearthworld instead. Surprise, a douchey henchman followed him and was actively trying to take him out for this Tyrant King guy.

“You guys’ve probably all heard of him by now,” Scott said. “Lowen, the dude running the Vault of the Radiant Shield.”

“The other modder,” Ninjastein said.

Scott threw up his hands. “You people have got to drop this modder crap. Frontflip’s just feeding you that bullshit because they think we’re too stupid to see what’s really going on here.”

“I knew it!” BusterMove said, snapping his fingers like a total dork. “The angels killing people and the government trying to cover it up. I knew it wasn’t just some dumb conspiracy theory!”

“Exactly.” Scott pointed at him. “But Frontflip’s about to choke on the bag of dicks they made for themselves, because Lowen and his crew are on their way right now to attack their studio.”

“Why?” GothicTerror asked.

“Basically, they want the Devs who work on Hearthworld to alter the code so they can kill the Griefer and take back this Legendary-tier necklace he stole from the Tyrant King. Who cares, right? It’s not our world, it’s just a bunch of aliens. But here’s the thing: if this Douche King gets the World Stone necklace back, he won’t just stop at taking over his world, he’ll come for ours, too. So unless you guys don’t want to live through Independence Day: Re-Resurgence III: This Time it’s Earth, we’ve got to stop this shit now.”

Hobbitses scoffed. “If this is such a big deal, why don’t you just call the cops and tell them a terrorist is going to attack Frontflip? They’d deal with it.”

“With what?” Scott said. “Their Glocks and nightsticks? Do you think their bulletproof vests are gonna stop an Angelic Lance or Holy Wrath? The Heralds will smoke them in about ten seconds. Cops don’t know how to deal with these mobs, but we do.”

“Yeah, in-game,” GothicTerror said, frowning. “We’re just as helpless out here as the cops would be.”

“You losers might be, but I’m not.” Scott let Elemental Fury crackle down his arm again. “And I can make it so you’re not, either. My boy the Griefer can make you his Vassal, and then you’ll be able to use your character’s magic in the real world, too.”

“Wait,” said Flappie_Sak. “If these spells are real, then the Heralds are going to be real, too. We could take real-life damage. We could die.”

“Yeah, you could,” Scott said, “or you could stop being a pussy and kick some real ass for once in your life. Stop living the daily grind waiting for your chance to clock out and log in to Hearthworld. You could be doing hero shit IRL instead of working your balls off every day to pretend to be a hero online. Plus, who knows what kind of sweet-ass loot mobs will drop on Earth? How much gold does a maxed-out Herald usually drop in-game? You can bet your tits it’s more than I made this year.”

Slowly, heads around the table started to nod.

But Hobbitses still wasn’t convinced. “You want us to swear some kind of fealty to this modder in exchange for supposed powers to fight overpowered mobs that are allegedly sneaking into our world from a fucking video game.” He snorted. “I can’t believe I got up early for this.”

“Nobody’s forcing you, dickbrain,” GothicTerror said in a harsh voice. “And frankly, nobody’s going to cry if you don’t show up. If this is for real, then we need people who are going to get the job done, not whine and naysay like little bitches.”

Her voice kind of tapered off to a mumble when she said “bitches,” but otherwise, Scott thought it was a pretty good effort. And now a bunch more of the Poser Owners were coming around.

“How cool would it be to be a legit hero?”

“Yeah, and if I could use my character’s Transmute Metal spell IRL, I’d never have to work again.”

“What if we can level up here, too? You could ’roid out without ever lifting a weight.”

“And max your combat skills to, like, Bruce Lee levels.”

Scott grinned. “Hell yeah you can! Now, anybody who’s done being a lame pussy and is ready to step up to the plate, go home and log back in. Head straight over to the Troll Nation Marketplace—the Griefer knows we’re coming, so he’ll be waiting for us.”

GothicTerror nodded and stood up. “Let’s go kick some Earth-invading Herald butt.”

“That... didn’t sound as cool as it would have if you’d said ‘ass,’ but I like the enthusiasm,” Scott said, sticking his hand in the middle of the table. “Bring it in. Poser Owners on three.”

To Scott’s surprise, everybody brought it in, even the doubting 3Trenchcoat_Hobbitses.

Hard Choices

WHEN ROARK HAD FINISHED imbuing the last of the Poser Owners who’d volunteered with Vassalhood, he stepped back and appraised them with a critical eye. He had grown used to dealing with fearsome Dungeon Lords of a hundred varieties; heroes hardly seemed impressive to him anymore. Small, puny even. Even so, he had to admit that PwnrBwner had rounded up a decent force. Unfortunately, from what PwnrBwner had told him, this lot wouldn’t look the same in the Other World of the Devs—even if they did have their same abilities.

It would have to be enough, though.

“Thank you all for your bravery,” he said to them. “Far too few would answer such a call when the threat didn’t directly affect them. Where I come from, those few who stand between the forces of darkness and the weak were once rewarded with titles and land.” He frowned thoughtfully. “If it were within my power, I would do the same for you.”

“A nice consolation prize might be gold and loot,” said a rog in plate mail. “Just sayin’.”

A lean, muscular Ronin named Ninjastein shrugged. “This beats spending the weekend doing the accounting for my parents’ shop.”

“I’m technically on call, so if there’s an IT emergency, I’ll have to bow out for a while.”

Roark revised his impression of them; they would be a decent force if PwnrBwner could find a way to keep them in line. In a world with no respawns, discipline could mean the difference between life and forever-death.

“Shut it, cockmouths,” GothicTerror snapped, as if she’d heard Roark’s concern. “It’s rousing speech time. Get roused, losers.”

“Screw the rousing speeches,” PwnrBwner said. “It’s Let’s Do This time. Soon as you log out, head for Frontflip. Meet in the Visitor Parking Lot on the south side. If anybody says anything to you, tell them it’s a flash mob thing. If you get there first, couldn’t hurt to practice your shit a little and get used to using it IRL.”

The heroes began to filter out of the Cruel Citadel.

PwnrBwner turned to Roark.

“Make this shit count,” he said, sticking out his fist. “Rip the Vault a new one.”

“Good hunting.” Roark thumped his knuckles against PwnrBwner’s.

When the Ranger-Cleric strode away to join his guild, Roark returned to the series of portal plates he’d set up near the smithy. The plates had been hard at work all day, transporting supplies and troops to the staging point in the red rock canyons near the Vault of the Radiant Shield. Even now, mid-level Thursrs and Reavers waited in line with Inventories full of equipment, potions, and spell scrolls.

Ick and Yevin—the Witchdoctor and Arcane Paragon who’d become such unlikely friends—presided over the whole affair, keeping the lines moving in neat order. Students from their respective schools of Night and Light magic ran errands and checked supplies off lists as the carriers stepped through in flashes of blue light.

When Yevin saw him, the Arcane Paragon waved a hand at Roark, beckoning him forward.

“Dungeon Lord coming through,” a student in Paragon robes shrilled. “Let him pass! Make a hole!”

That was a tad unnecessary, Roark thought as he joined Yevin and Ick. No one was blocking his path. Where the mobs of the Troll Nation had been intimidated by Roark’s Jotnar Infernali form, this new Draconic Chaos Harbinger form practically sent them running at a glance.

“Dungeon Lord.” Ick gave a shallow bow, clasping his hands and the multitude of spidery limbs protruding from his back.

Roark returned the bow. “You two appear to have things well in hand.”

“Things are proceeding on schedule here”—Yevin shot a glare at the yelling student—“in spite of the heads swelling with the first bit of power they’ve ever known.”

“Any word from the staging point?” Roark asked.

“Noble Griff sent word that the spot is secured, Dungeon Lord,” Ick said. “His Rumble Squad, along with the esteemed Troll Gourmet and Our Lady of Night, cleared the chosen ravine and established lookouts.”

“How are the plates holding up?” he asked. Like all smithed items, the portal plates degraded with extended use. He’d created and hexed several dozen for the task, but if they were running low, he would stay and smith a few dozen more just to be certain.

“We’ve only gone through half a dozen.” Yevin gestured to the replacements stacked against the wall of the smithy. “I don’t see us running out before the supply chain does.” His yellow rog eyes roved over the shifting lines. “What you see here are the last of our transporters. On your way in?”

Roark nodded. “The Poser Owners just left for the Devs’ home world. As soon as we have confirmation of Lowen’s attack, we’ll launch our strike against the Vault.”

“We shall join you the moment the final transporters have passed through the portal plates,” Ick said, smoothing back his rubbery tentacles with one of the spidery limbs.

Roark thanked the men, then stepped onto the closest portal plate. Blue light flashed, and a harsh, dry wind blew through his hair.

When his eyes adjusted, he found himself standing in the narrow red ravine they had chosen as the meeting point for the allied dungeons. Nearby, transporters from the Troll Nation as well as Djinn, Imps, Rock People, Bloodleeches, and Mind Mantids stepped off the arrival plates and headed to dump off their supplies or join their fellow mobs.

“The littlest Dungeon Lord has gained another Evolution, I see,” squawked Drokara the Gullet. The Harpy Queen perched on a boulder, overseeing the arrival of her troops.

Nearby, Ko the Faceless rotated her head toward Roark, though she had no eyes to take in the sight. We thought you were at your fullest potential, Griefer, the Mind Mantid sent to Roark’s brain.

“Transmute Flesh,” Roark said, drawing himself up to his new full height. “By combining a core stone from a stronger dungeon with a lesser mob’s, they can unlock a Mega-Evolution. If any of your troops wish to gain an Evolution above their level cap, send them to me. Yet another of the many perks of an alliance with the Troll Nation; I’ve got core stones for as many as want them.” He glanced from the Mantid to the Harpy. “Including Dungeon Lords. Though I warn you, it cannot be undone once it’s done—not without destroying the core stone and possibly the host as well.”

Let us see this in action, Ko said. Transmute me.

“Of course.” Roark pulled out the core stone from Takumen-Ra. Something about the Mind Mantid told him it would be a good fit. “What’s your level?”

Just reached 41 yesterday, Ko sent, along with the image of flaying a hero’s mind until his skull exploded. The Mind Mantids were a truly terrifying group of creatures. Roark was glad they were on his side.

“Perfect,” Roark said, doing the math. Transmute flesh wouldn’t work if the host was lower than half the level of the core stone—another of Hearthworld’s many arbitrary rules, though Roark guessed this one was most likely in place to keep power in check. With a thought, he brought up Ko’s character sheet and selected Preview.

[Compatibility: 91%

New Evolutionary Path for Ko the Faceless, Pestilent Mind Scythe, detected! Cleaving Plaguemantid (available at level 55) or Virulent Psyonic Blightmage (available at level 61).]

The transmutation would bring Ko up to level 52 and give her Poisoned Strike, Dark Walker—a shadow-traveling ability—and Command Betrayal to turn an enemy’s summons against their summoner.

We must do something about the face, Ko’s voice echoed in his mind. It is displeasing to have such a mundane thing in the middle of my head for all who look upon it to relate to. Take it away.

“You can adjust your appearance, but it will alter your stats,” Roark explained. “Give it a try.”

Ko fiddled with the sliders until the face disappeared, leaving behind a smooth and eerie nothingness.

With the Mantid satisfied, Roark accepted the transmutation. Amber light flashed, and Ko the Faceless stood before them in her new Pestilent Mind Scythe form.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

THIS I LIKE, the newly evolved Dungeon Lord purred in Roark’s brain.

“It is an improvement,” agreed the Harpy Queen, ruffling her feathers. “Do me next...”

Soon, word had spread throughout the encampment, and Roark was completing transmutations on Dungeon Lords and mobs alike. A Harpy Queen, combined with a deadly Razorwing Mistraven, became a Vengeful Metalwraith. An ethereal Djinn, combined with a Jade Maw Phoenix, fused to become a Stormbreaker Specter. A quartz-covered person walked away as a lumbering Tomb Troglodyte, and a pale Bloodleech morphed into a red Grim Corpse Defiler. Each evolution more spectacular, deadly, and ghastly than the last. By the time Roark had depleted his supply of cores, more than half of the troops gathered had been given new Mega-Evolutions.

“If our attack goes well, I should have more core stones for the rest of you,” he said. “See me afterward.”

With disappointed groans, the remaining mobs turned back to their fires or went back to admiring their newly evolved associates.

Roark slipped through the crowd and soon found his own friends around a glowing fire. Zyra was mixing poisons in a portable alchemy set while Kaz stirred a huge pot and Griff stared into the flames with his one good eye.

“About time you showed up, Griefer,” the grizzled weapons trainer said, catching sight of Roark’s new Draconic form. “I suppose that’s the NecroDragon’s effect?”

“Roark is just in time!” Kaz took a deep whiff of the steam curling off the pot. “Kaz’s Strengthening Stew is ready!”

Before Roark could even take a seat on one of the boulders, the Gourmet had shoved a steaming bowl into his hands.

“Thanks, Kaz.” Roark tried a bite, then when he saw Kaz was waiting eagerly for some sort of response, he added, “It’s great.”

Kaz beamed. “It is a humble dish, made with few ingredients, yet combined in ways that create a bold and satisfying flavor. As Jordan Bamsey would say, amateurs often believe that complex dishes are the height of kitchen knowledge, but knowing how to craft a simple classic in a way that pleases the palate is the essence of Gourmet cooking.”

“Right.” Roark was never quite sure how to react to the teachings of Kaz’s culinary idols. Good or bad, food had never been much more than fuel to him. He took another bite, which seemed to be what Kaz was looking for.

Once Kaz had ladled out bowls for Griff and Zyra, the three of them ate in silence while the Gourmet hustled off to check on his apprentices working to feed the troops at the other cookfires.

Roark shifted his leathery wings awkwardly. He’d hoped for something a little more cheerful when he joined his friends, but without Kaz there, the mood was strangely sullen. Griff chewed thoughtfully while Zyra ignored her bowl in favor of mixing her poisons.

“Think this is gonna work, Griefer?” Griff finally asked. “What if that fly Lowen doesn’t buzz back to the Vault when you attack?”

“He will,” Roark said. “And if he’s too late to stop us from taking the throne room, so much the better. We’ll have the high ground.”

“You’ll still be fighting him on his home turf,” Griff pointed out, gesturing with a spoon. “Taking down a Dungeon Lord in his own throne room is no walk through the flowers”—Roark opened his mouth, but Griff cut him off—“no matter how many times you’ve done it before.”

“If I have to, I’ll drag him through to the Hearthworld side,” Roark said. “No matter what I have to do, I’m going to end this. Just make sure you’re through before Marek catches wind of what’s happening and closes the portal. If you’re still planning on going, that is.”

“Haven’t changed my mind yet,” Griff said.

Abruptly, Zyra stowed her alchemy kit and stood, making to walk away.

“No.” Kaz caught one of the Orbweaver Ravager’s right arms as he returned to their fire from his rounds. “Zyra must not Shadow Stride away from this. As Jordan Bamsey says, ‘Clear communication is key to a well-regulated kitchen.’ This is no different, Kaz thinks.”

In a flash, her Cursed Longknives were in her hands, dripping with poison.

Roark jumped to his feet, as bewildered as he was certain he would have to stop Zyra from sending Kaz for respawn.

But Zyra only shook the Mighty Gourmet’s huge paw off and growled, “He’s made up his mind, Kaz.”

“Perhaps a kind word and reasonable discussion can change Roark’s mind, like the addition of sugar changes the roux from a gravy to a dessert sauce,” Kaz said. “We cannot know unless we try.”

“Changing a Dungeon Lord’s mind?” Zyra scoffed, but sheathed her Longknives. “That’ll be the day.”

“What’s all this about?” Roark asked.

“Arrogant, foolhardy, suicidal Dungeon Lords,” Zyra snapped. “The same thing it’s always been about.”

Kaz gave Zyra an imploring stare, then turned to Roark.

“Kaz and Zyra do not want Roark to fight the Tyrant King alone,” the hulking Gourmet said. “Griff is going; Kaz and Zyra wish to go, too. Perhaps a team could succeed where Roark believes he will fail?” He spread his massive hands as though pleading for Roark to see the sense in his words.

“I don’t intend to fail,” Roark shot back. “Whatever it takes, I will kill Marek and end this.”

“You’ve said yourself you doubt you’ll make it out alive.” Zyra crossed both pairs of arms over her chest and stomach. “Not much of a success if you’re dead, is it?”

“If it spares all of Traisbin another year under that tyrant’s bloody boot and gets my sister out of his hands, then that’s all that matters,” Roark said. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me, the millions of lives it will save are more important.”

“You see, Kaz,” Zyra said, voice dripping with false cheer, “he’s bent on self-destruction, and there’s no amount of reason that can convince him otherwise.”

“But Kaz and Zyra cannot allow Roark to face this alone!” The hulking Troll Gourmet’s face twisted with righteous anger. “It is an outrage against loyalty and friendship!”

Roark scowled. It seemed to take a monumental effort to pry the words up from his guts. “I’ve lost more than enough people I cared about in this fight, Kaz. I won’t let you or anyone else die. Not when I can prevent it.”

“You know, Griefer, I could dose you with Virulent Contact Poison every time you tried to leave, and you would have no idea what hit you until you respawned.” Something silvery glinted in Zyra’s hands, and Roark instinctively cast an Infernal Shield between them. She chuckled and held up a length of silvery spider silk, part of her Arachne’s Pride spinning ability. The strand caught the moonlight and glowed as if it were enchanted. “Or I could catch you in a web and never let you free... keep you trapped like an insect forever.”

The lacy black veil obscured her face, but from her tone, Roark felt certain Zyra was enjoying these pictures of his death and entrapment she was painting. She wrapped the spider silk around her fists and pulled it tight as a garrote.

“I could do all that and more,” she said, “but I don’t. I let you make your own terrible decisions, whether I agree with them or not. That is called freedom of choice.”

Roark gritted his teeth, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

“You don’t understand,” he said softly.

Zyra laughed, a forced sound, then turned to Kaz. “See, Big Guy? It was all just a waste of breath. The Great Dungeon Lord’s word is final over his subjects.”

Kaz’s huge eyes watered. “Roark will not reconsider?”

“This is for your own good, Kaz,” Roark growled.

“Your Eminence,” Zyra jeered, bending into a low, mocking bow.

“I’m not a bloody tyrant! Can’t you see—”

But before he could finish, the Orbweaver Ravager turned and disappeared in a wisp of inky black smoke.

Roark cursed under his breath and turned to the hulking Gourmet.

“Kaz...”

With a great sniff, Kaz shook his huge head. “Kaz must check on his apprentices. If the stew is burned, the Troll Nation forces will have to eat plain, unfortified food. The second greatest sadness of the night.” He spun on a wide heel and strode off, enormous fists clenched at his sides.

“Damn it all.” Roark dragged his claws through his hair, watching the Feral Hellstrike Knight trudge past the closest cookfire and keep going.

Griff, who’d been silent throughout the argument, finally spoke up. “You’re just driving them away the more you try to control them, Griefer.”

A curl of inky smoke caught Roark’s eye at the far edge of camp. A moment later, Zyra had taken out her alchemy kit and begun mixing poisons again, her motions jerky and severe.

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Roark said. “I’d rather they live to hate me than die because of me.”

“And what if you do make it out alive?” Griff asked, piercing Roark with his sharp one-eyed gaze. “Have you ever considered that?”

Roark didn’t answer. The truth was he hadn’t considered it. No sense in planning for the unlikeliest of futures.

“What are you gonna do if everything goes off without a hitch and you’re left standing alone in victory, Griefer? You get the outcome you always hoped for, but haven’t got anybody to celebrate with.”

Roark swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat, set his shoulders, and reminded himself that he’d been alone for almost twenty years. Solitude and loneliness he could survive. The death of more friends he could’ve saved, however... that might be the thing that finally broke him.

“It doesn’t matter what happens to me,” he told Griff, locking eyes with the grizzled weapons trainer. “Not as long as Marek is dead and my friends are safe.”

Moral Dilemma

RANDY SHOEMAKER STOOD in front of TeaCaravan, watching the passing cars and foot traffic for signs of Helen Rose. The Frontflip campus was only two blocks away. What was taking her so long? He should’ve mentioned it was a matter of life and death when he’d called her, but he’d been so thrown off by talking to the Helen Rose Douglas on the phone that he’d gotten tongue-tied and barely managed to stutter out an invitation to the tea shop. Not how a hero would’ve handled the situation. How much time had they already lost because he’d been too nervous to make this sound urgent?

Finally, he caught sight of long blonde hair with a magenta under-dye fluttering in the bike path.

Helen Rose pulled her bike up to the rack outside the shop, grinning when she saw him waiting there. Randy’s heart sped up a couple beats, and this time it didn’t have anything to do with the fate of several dimensions riding on his shoulders. He wiped his suddenly sweaty hands on his khakis in case she wanted to shake. Did people shake hands when they met up outside work? That was a thing, right?

“Sorry I’m late.” She wound a thick chain around the bike’s crossbars and locked it to the rack. “Tara caught me on the way out to talk about fall projections, and that took forever...”

“It’s fine,” Randy said. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

She unsnapped her helmet and took it off. “I was so happy you called. Nobody knew what happened after Friday, all they said was that you’d been fired. How are you doing? Are you okay?”

It took him a second to realize she was looking at the cuts and bruises on his face.

“Oh, right, uh, yeah.” Randy absently touched the swelling over his eye. Tender, but at least it wasn’t in a position to interfere with his glasses. “Honestly, I sort of forgot about the fight with Danny. A lot’s been going on that I need to talk to you about. Do you want to sit inside or should we get our drinks and come back out?” he asked, nodding at the metal bistro tables scattered around the front.

“Let’s get out of the smog,” she said, wrinkling her nose playfully.

Randy held the door for her, then followed her into the eclectic little shop. Inside, customers tapped away at laptops and sipped chai or smoked hookahs while stringy World Music filtered from the speakers.

Helen Rose glanced at him over her shoulder. “Maybe I should’ve checked to see how much smog there was inside before I spoke. It’s like the burning season up in here.”

“Let’s take our teas outside,” Randy suggested. Unlike Helen Rose, however, he was thinking about how quiet it was in there. Even with the music, everything they said seemed to carry. A girl at a table in the back corner answered her phone, and the whole room could hear that she had a pitch meeting with somebody from a major studio next week and also that she just needed a little more money to get by until then, Dad.

They ordered—a matcha for Helen Rose and a Turkish coffee for Randy—then headed back outside and sat at the table farthest from the door.

“That really sucks that they fired you,” she said, sweeping some salt off the table before setting her cup down. “And that Danny didn’t face any repercussions. Everybody who saw the fight knows he swung first. It’s all over the security cameras.”

Randy shook his head, disgusted with himself. “It’s my fault. I knew they were looking for a reason to fire me—” Then he realized what she’d said. “Wait a second. Did you say you watched the security feed?”

“Oh yeah.” She sat forward. “It’s been leaked on, like, ten different platforms already. How did you do that Forest Fire Vine Fist? That was amazing. Was it fire gel?”

“No... That’s actually part of what I wanted to talk to you about.” He twisted his cup on the table, trying to think of a way to say it that didn’t sound crazy. “So, you know the Griefer from the Cruel Citadel?”

She smirked. “Everybody knows about the modders and their flag war. I did a couple livestreams to the Citadel and the Vault for my seedFeed. Super popular. I was going to do some more, but the higher-ups in marketing said it was time to focus on the Onyx Sands.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Randy said. “They want you to shift focus for a reason. I was the dev assigned to investigate the modders and find a way to stop their anomalous code before it crashed Hearthworld. Except what I found wasn’t modders. Roark and Lowen are in a real, honest-to-God battle to the death.”

Her smile faltered. “What, is this like a Dark Web challenge or something? Does one of them have to kill themselves or go on a murder rampage if they lose?”

“No, but lots of people are going to suffer and possibly die if we don’t do something. See, Roark’s a freedom fighter from another dimension. He was trying to stage a coup on the dictator there, but when that failed, he came through a wormhole of sorts that spit him out in Hearthworld. I think that part was an accident. He was trying to go somewhere else. But anyway, Lowen is part of the dictatorial regime, sort of like the ruler’s attack dog, and he was sent after Roark. Their arrival has set off this virus-style wave that’s taking former NPCs and turning them into sentient, self-aware beings.”

Randy sighed and twisted his cup some more. “I tried to explain some of this to the board, but, as you can probably imagine, they didn’t believe me—even now that they still can’t find a way to stop the spread of the anomalous code. The only thing they can come up with is a full shutdown; dump every server and wipe Hearthworld completely. They were already planning to let me go and pin it on me as disgruntled employee sabotage, but I guess I set myself up as even more of a perfect fall guy by picking a fight with Danny. That gave them a logical reason to fire me.”

After a couple seconds, Randy realized Helen Rose hadn’t said anything. He glanced up to find her staring at him with an expression halfway between disbelief and concern.

When he caught her eyes, she looked down at her matcha.

“Okay, wow,” she said. “This isn’t what I expected we’d be discussing when you asked if I wanted to go get coffee. Maybe the latest photos from Pluto, or how crazy all these conspiracy theories are about aliens killing people in LA... Not craziness about alternate dimensions...”

“But it’s not craziness,” Randy said, scooting to the edge of his seat. “Those conspiracy theories...” He pulled out his phone and searched for the latest video. “Just look at this.” He turned the screen toward her.

With her hand, Helen Rose shielded the screen from the sun and squinted at the video. The ring of steel on steel and the grunt of fighting came from his phone’s speaker.

Randy had already seen the footage from several different angles. Lots of people had been on hand to witness and record Roark’s pitched battle with the beautiful raven-winged Herald, right in the middle of a dirty alleyway somewhere in Alameda.

He tapped Pause. “Tell me what those creatures remind you of.”

Helen Rose leaned back. “They could be Hearthworld cosplayers LARPing. This whole thing was probably staged.”

Instead of arguing, Randy skipped the video ahead to the moment both the Jotnar and the Herald launched themselves into the sky.

“Jetpacks,” Helen Rose said.

Randy waited. Whoever had recorded it turned to watch the winged creatures soar across the sky.

Helen Rose frowned, snatching the phone out of his hand. “Lateral flight?”

Randy nodded. “It’s possible that someone came up with the technology for horizontal propulsion and is just testing it...”

“But not probable,” she said. “Not when there’s nothing to exert pressure against. The physics don’t support it.”

Randy chuckled weakly. “Literally.”

Slowly, she handed the phone back to him.

“Think about what you’re saying, Randy. If this is true, then we have to accept that at least one of the multiverse theories is accurate. Multiple dimensions? Wormhole crossovers?”

“The math is there.”

“The theory is there. The math is shaky at best and rests on the presupposition of parallel dimensions.”

“But Roark’s travel to this dimension proves it. Until he set foot in our world, he could’ve just been some ultra-advanced bit of coding that I hadn’t seen yet.” He adjusted his glasses. “There were a lot of points where I questioned my sanity, right up until they crossed over to Earth.”

“Okay, say this is all true.” Helen Rose wrapped her hands around her matcha cup like she suddenly needed the warmth—while sitting in the sunshine in the middle of summer in Southern California. “Why come here? It’s like the theory of intelligent extraterrestrials contacting Earth. Why bother? What’s the motivation?”

“In Roark’s case, it’s obvious—escaping execution.”

“So, political asylum?”

“Well, not really, because he’s pretty gung-ho about getting back to his home world and finally taking out the dictator. The problem is Lowen, the Herald who runs the Vault of the Radiant Shield. He was sent after Roark to get back a pendant he stole from the Tyrant King. It’s either a magical artifact or a piece of technology we don’t understand yet, and it somehow became soulbound when Roark crossed into Hearthworld.”

Randy took a big swig of his now lukewarm coffee. “That’s part of why I needed to talk to you in such a hurry. He—Lowen, that is—is on his way to Frontflip. He’s planning to launch an attack on it and get one of the devs to take the soulbind tag off the pendant. If he does, if he can kill Roark and take the pendant, then our whole world might just be one more check box on the Tyrant King’s To-Conquer list.” He frowned out at the traffic. “Roark showed me the aftermath of what happened in his world. It’s terrible. We can’t let the same thing happen here on Earth.”

For several long seconds, the only sound was the tire roar and honking of passing cars. Helen Rose stared down into her matcha cup, processing the information. Randy waited. This was a lot to catch up on. He’d basically just briefed her on an entire project with an any-second launch window.

“I can’t see a way around it.” She blew a long strand of hair out of her eyes. “The most logical move is what Frontflip’s planning. If our goal is to protect Earth from an invading force, the fastest way to stop them is to cut off their entry point, then kill the ones that have already come through. It would take too long to explain to the public at large, and they wouldn’t believe anyway if the shutdown was successful, so framing you even has its place.”

“But this isn’t just Earth on the line anymore,” he insisted. “It doesn’t even matter if I take the fall or not. We’re talking two whole dimensions. Hundreds of lives in Hearthworld and potentially millions on Roark’s home world.”

“If we’ve got to decide between supposedly self-aware code and living, breathing human beings...”

“That’s a false dichotomy,” Randy said. “What we’ve got to do is whatever will save the most lives possible—digital included. I’ve talked to these mobs and NPCs. They have emotions and are self-aware and engage in peer review and make faulty decisions that aren’t hardwired into their code. They’re not artificial life anymore. They’re as real as you or me.”

“But what if the course of action that saves the most lives possible is to sacrifice the digital lives? If what you’re saying is true, and you want to weight each life as equally important regardless of whether it’s organic or digital, then we have to look at nothing but numbers. Altogether, the NPCs and mobs in Hearthworld barely add up to a fraction of a percent of the humans on Earth.”

Randy did the math and felt the air go out of him. He slumped in his seat. A soft hand squeezed his. When he looked up, she was regarding him with concern.

He shook his head, determination sweeping through him.

“There’s got to be a way to save everybody,” he said. “I know it’s not a logical assumption, but a hero would find a way—”

His phone started vibrating, shaking the whole table. PwnrBwner’s name flashed across the screen. Randy grabbed it up and answered.

“It’s on, nerd,” PwnrBwner said without wasting time on the social niceties. “They’re here.”

Randy locked eyes with Helen Rose.

“We’re out of time,” he told her. “We’ve got to get to Frontflip, then you’ll see the indisputable proof for yourself...”

First Engagement

THE VAULT OF THE RADIANT Shield had gotten its name, Roark assumed, because no matter the time of day, it gleamed like a lit golden lantern. Even now, in the dark of the night, the hivelike structure shone atop its rock chimney as if it were a golden sun stuck there to light the way through the red canyons.

The Vault was easily one of the worst dungeons in Hearthworld to assail. Never in the dark, high off the ground, filled with flying creatures... The only viable approaches were through the holes cut into the side of the hive or up the thin spiraling path around the rock chimney the structure was perched upon. Without a powerful Shroud or a potent distraction, the approach up the narrow path was suicide, and if you made it into the Vault alive, the danger had only begun.

“Thisss isss taking forever,” hissed Shess, the former Naga Queen turned Soaring Serpent Monarch. She stretched her transmuted wings impatiently, slitted eyes locked on the glowing Vault.

“Truth,” Rohibim the Deceiver, Dungeon Lord of the Djinn muttered, his smoky body levitating above the red dirt. “How much longer until we attack?”

“Any moment now,” Roark said, trying not to betray his own impatience.

That is an estimation, Ko the Faceless said in Roark’s head. From the reactions of the other winged troops, it had been sent to all of them. It could be hours from now. The Griefer is waiting for a signal. When the signal comes, we shall attack.

Roark couldn’t tell from the Pestilent Mind Scythe’s toneless communication whether she was as annoyed with the waiting as the other winged Dungeon Lords or defending his refusal to launch an attack without confirmation from PwnrBwner that Lowen and his troops had arrived in the Other World.

Roark stared out over the darkened landscape surrounding the Vault. This interminable wait would’ve been much less tedious if he were with Zyra, Kaz, and Griff, but his friends were scattered throughout the land around the Vault, marshaling the allied forces hidden in the surrounding canyons and draws, all awaiting his sign to attack.

Even Mac had somehow become the leader of a small group of Dungeon creatures and had disappeared with an authoritative chirp at his new troops when the allied forces began mobilizing.

Roark searched the darkened sky for signs of Heralds flying overhead. In the night, the golden-skinned chimeras left behind sparkling streaks that gave away their position. This night, however, none were coming or going from the Vault.

A sudden blinking light in the lower corner of Roark’s vision caught his attention. He flipped open his grimoire to PwnrBwner’s message.

We got incoming Heralds. Buttloads. It’s on like Donkey Kong.

Roark snapped off an affirmative reply, then closed out of his grimoire, palming a Cursed Head in one hand and readying a newly evolved version of Necrotizing Infernal Torment with the other. Purple and green flames danced in his palm.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Necrotizing Infernal Torment

Ranged Attack Spell

Range: 120 feet

Casting Time: Instant

Casting Cost: 6% Base Magicka

Necrotizing Infernal Torment burns the target from the inside out with Infernal flame, inflicting 12 Infernal Damage x character level per second and 12 Necrotic Damage x character level per second for 60 seconds or as long as caster maintains eye contact.

Note: Infernal Torment disrupts concentration-based spells.

Note: Divine creatures are invulnerable to Infernal spells.

╠═╦╬╧╪

He turned back to the flying Dungeon Lords.

“It’s time,” he said.

Each of them readied their own magickal and ranged attacks. When they were ready to go, Roark broke into a jog, leathery wings outstretched. A powerful updraft hit him as he leapt off the cliff face, lifting him high into the night. Within moments, the sky around him was filled with Dungeon Lords, their armor creaking and clinking, wings beating at the air—all accompanied by the occasional bad-tempered snarl at one another. Used to being the strongest mobs in their respective homes, the Dungeon Lords’ noise discipline was almost nonexistent, but at least they didn’t glow like the Heralds in low light. It wasn’t much, but Roark was thankful for that small measure of stealth.

Tilting his wings a touch, Roark banked toward the brilliant walls of the Vault. On one of the landing portholes, he caught sight of a sentry. His heart stopped for a moment, then he realized the sentry was scanning the ground, not the sky, watching the most likely avenue of approach.

Time to distract him from carrying out his job.

Roark folded his wings, diving like a canahiri falcon, and launched the first of his Cursed Heads. The sentry never saw him or the makeshift bomb arcing toward him through the air. The head exploded with a flash of sickly green Corpse Mold.

Though the Divine Heralds were weakest to Undead Magick, the blast shaved off only a tiny fraction of the sentry’s red Health bar. All around, the other Dungeon Lords were attacking with similar results. The Heralds’ levels were so high that to kill one would take forever.

The sentry leapt into the air, soaring toward Roark, his massive cutlass glinting with what was no doubt a Divine Enchantment.

Concentrating on maintaining eye contact, Roark cast Necrotic Infernal Torment on the sentry. Green and purple flames erupted from the man’s flesh and crawled out of his armor. The red in his Health bar crept down another degree.

Rather than slow or turn back, however, the Herald raised his free hand and fired an Angelic Lance at Roark’s heart.

Maintaining eye contact to keep up Torment, Roark pulled free his newly forged rapier.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Peerless Cold-Forged Rapier of Dancing Death

One-handed Damage: 51 - 59

Durability: 89 of 89

Level Requirement: 37

Dexterity Requirement: 60

Blade Class Weapon – Fast Attack Speed

Equipping this item casts Discordant Inversion and Deflection; Spell Definition: Divine; Cooldown: 1 hour

+ 9 Necrotic Damage (Enchanted)

+ 25% Movement Speed (Enchanted)

╠═╦╬╧╪

Rather than impaling Roark, the Angelic Lance was consumed by a glowing web of Discordant Inversion. Immediately, the brilliant white bolt turned a bloody crimson and reversed course, firing back toward the Herald. The crimson lance shot through his chest, tearing a ragged hole in his armor and knocking him backward.

That took a much more respectable chunk out of his Health—though the attack failed to end the Herald. The sentry flailed his wings wildly, catching himself before he fell. He raised a hand to cast another Divine spell, but Roark saw his face change as he thought better of it. The Discordant Inversion spell couldn’t be recast from the rapier for nearly another hour—a tiny set of filigreed numbers sat counting down in the corner of Roark’s vision—but the sentry didn’t know that. Sometimes a good bluff worked as well as a powerful weapon.

With an angry shout, the Herald cocked back his cutlass and shot toward Roark, leaving a shimmering streak in his wake.

Roark grinned at the gesture. He’d forged enough of the heavy-bladed cutlasses while leveling up his smithing to know that their attack speed was far too slow to compete with any rapier, let alone one enchanted with Movement bonuses.

Roark slammed into the sentry in midair, unfortunately dropping Necrotizing Infernal Torment. His rapier sparked as he deflected the cutlass’s heavy blow with ease. Before the man could recover, Roark twisted his wrist dal poso, slicing a thin line in the Herald’s inner forearm where his bracer didn’t cover. Another sliver of Health drained away with the Necrotic damage.

Roark pressed his advantage, climbing a few feet higher, then plunging as he pulled his body out of line, his blade scoring a direct hit in the sentry’s vitals.

The air around the Vault rang with the clash of weapons and flashed with colorful spells as more of the glowing Heralds streaked out to defend their lair. Roark couldn’t spare a glance for the ground—both because it might give away their true intent and because the sentry he was fighting had just traded his cutlass for a slightly faster falarica with a burning tip—but the second wave of troops should be nearly in position.

The sentry charged him with reckless abandon—an untrained fool, even if a powerful one—thrusting the flaming tip of the falarica at Roark’s chest. Roark waited until the last moment, then batted the spear aside with his scale-plated forearm. With the added reach of the long weapon, the Herald was just beyond Roark’s measure. The sentry was, however, suddenly wide open for an attack Roark hadn’t had a chance to test yet.

Filling his lungs, Roark triggered Infernal Necrotic Breath. A blazing furnace raged in his chest, waves of heat distortion radiating in the air around him. Opening his mouth, he unleashed a gout of emerald and amethyst flame on the Herald.

The sentry threw up a Divine Shield, but the Undead half of the attack sheared through it as if it weren’t even there. Emerald flames raced across his body, corroding the metallic golden flesh, chewing away at his Health like a hungry crag badger. His feathers melted and stuck together. The sentry screamed as he wheeled through the air, trying to land in one of the holes pockmarking the stone ovoid’s face.

Just before the Herald landed, Roark pulled another Cursed Head and launched it after the man. The head detonated against the sentry’s back with a blast of green light, peppering him with Cursed Bone Shards. His Health bar flashed out a critical warning as the last of the red drained away. He slammed into the side of the hive and tumbled through the air, dead.

Unfortunately, Roark realized as he looked around, his fellow Dungeon Lords were having far less luck with their Herald opponents. Ishri in his newly evolved Bloodswarm Leech form and the Soaring Serpent Queen Shess had already been sent for respawn, and the horde of golden-skinned Heralds were close to taking out Rohibim and Ko. Damn it all to the seven hells.

Roark banked sharply, swooping toward the smoky Djinn. With a thrust, he plunged his rapier through the back of the closest Herald. The other he assaulted with a burst of Infernal Necrotic Flame. Neither died outright. The burning one turned on Roark, throwing a fistful of Heavenly Wrath.

The white light streaked toward Roark, Discordant Inversion cooldown still ticking away in the corner of his vision. Roark pulled his body out of line to avoid the spell, but it glanced off his scale-plated stomach.

Searing pain burned through the black scales and down to the bone—but the red in Roark’s filigreed Health vial only dipped a fraction of what it would have before his Transmutation.

With renewed resolution, he lunged at the flaming Herald. They battled back and forth through the air. Roark hated to admit it, but even with his new levels, he was only fast enough to keep up with this Herald because of the Movement Bonus on his rapier. A slowing spell might give him the advantage, but he’d have to trade his rapier for the Initiate’s Spell Book to inscribe it, and that would make him vulnerable in the meantime.

Worse, from below, he heard the clash and shout of an army being routed. A glance down revealed Heralds swooping across the narrow path up the rock spire, bowling over large groups of allied forces, the attacks knocking several over the edge to their death.

This wasn’t going to work. Even with the distraction, this bloody offensive was proving as suicidal as waltzing up to a murder hole and asking for a cup of brandy. He might be able to take out a single Herald or two at a time—a marked improvement to be sure—but he couldn’t take the entire Vault down on his own, even with most of their forces away.

“Bloody hells,” he growled. There was nothing for it but to lay siege to the Vault until they came up with a more effective attack. Roark searched the sky for the remaining Dungeon Lords. “Call a retreat! Rally your troops and form a cordon around the Vault!”

Affirmative shouts answered him, and Dungeon Lords streaked off to sound the retreat.

As Roark turned to go, agony shot through his shoulder, dragging his attention back to the fight at hand. An Angelic Lance. With another gout of Necrotic Breath, he sent the Herald reeling, then followed, delivering precise and brutal mandritto and riverso tondos. Quickly, the Herald’s flailing became useless and he dropped from the sky, the last of his Health bar draining away. But already another was darting at him. Roark triggered Hex Aura with a thought, then launched a Cursed Head at the Herald. It detonated, sending the incoming threat cartwheeling through the air.

Roark took advantage of the momentary reprieve. He folded his wings and plunged toward the Heralds attacking the allied troops below to buy his side time to retreat.

Makeshift Resistance

THE SHIMMERING PURPLE of the mass portal receded as Lowen stepped through onto healthy green grass. All around him, armor clanked and creaked and wings rustled as his forces followed him out into the strangely restrained sunshine of the Other World. It was as if a smoky film hung in the sky, and the air stank of salts and chemicals Lowen wasn’t familiar with. Stone buildings lined paved roads that stretched away in all directions, and monstrous horseless carriages roared past, just as he’d been warned by his spies.

This was Lowen’s first trip to the Other World. It was a tad disorienting. However, there lay in front of him a village green with the Devs’ Frontflip Studios palace at the far edge, with paved walking paths and decorative ponds between, just as shown in the WikiLore painting. This was the right place.

Just as his spies had reported, there wasn’t a gate, archer hole, or castle guard to be seen. Massive windows made of huge plates of glass unbroken by reinforcement, and multiple entrances wide enough to bring a cavalry charge through lined each wall. Even the stairs leading up to the doors were low and smooth enough to accommodate enemy entry. It was almost as if the builders had designed the place to crumble at the first sign of attack. Madness. Was this world at such peace that its builders gave not even a single thought to defense? If that was so, it would make a valuable addition to Marek’s collection. If it could be taken so easily, then even if it was entirely devoid of magicks, Marek would be a fool to leave it untouched.

“That’s the last of ’em, sir,” Darith said, clanking up to him in shining silver-and-gold plate mail. “Everybody’s through.”

Lowen dropped the pieces of the mass portal stone, releasing the spell. The violet tear between dimensions disappeared with an audible snap. He turned to his small army, thirty deep.

“Take up your castle-storming positions,” he ordered, raising his voice so those at the edges could hear. “Crash in with as much noise and intimidation as you can muster, destroy what you want, but leave a few of the Devs alive. We need them to reverse the soulbinding ritual.”

Lowen turned back to the Devs’ palace, drawing his Legendary Bastard Sword of the Morning Star. It radiated Divine Magick, and the shining blade rang with a thin, resonating note. In his free hand, he prepared the cast for a devastating blast of Divine Missiles.

Behind him, dozens of Malaika Heralds readied spells and drew swords, bows, axes, and shields. It was an impressive sight to be sure. When Lowen eventually crushed Roark and returned to Traisbin in this form, his fellow countrymen would stand in awe of him. A creature elevated above mere mortals, with no more need for the distinctions of “common” or “noble.” He would be as a god.

Stretching out his speckled brown-and-white wings, Lowen gave a shout and launched himself into the filmy sky. Other shouts joined his, along with thunderous wingbeats.

With a flick of his wrist, Lowen unleashed Divine Missiles on the closest wall of the palace. Brilliant golden lights streaked from his fist. A dozen similarly destructive spells joined his, screaming toward the flimsy stone and glass.

But in the moment before impact, the doors of the palace were flung wide. Men and women wielding glinting blades, painted war clubs, and short bows of unusual shape and build charged out into the oily sunlight.

“Blanketing Counterblast!” a man in bizarre padded armor and a caged faceplate shouted, raising a flat, bent wooden staff with Mighty Ducks emblazoned across its black wrappings—surely some sort of spell form, though one Lowen was unfamiliar with.

A pale orange dome flashed over the small group, blocking much of the front wall of the palace. Nearly all of Lowen’s Divine Missiles and the myriad other Malaika spells that had just been cast slammed into the ward, detonating harmlessly on impact.

A few, however, skirted past the edges of the pale orange barrier and exploded in a shower of brick and glass. The small defending force flinched, and a few shrieked in fear.

“Hold the line, POSes!” roared a man in front of the defending force. He wore barely any armor, and he carried a smooth club with the words Louisville Slugger painted down the side. “These little bitches got nothing on us!”

As if to prove his point, he stepped outside the protective dome and leveled a gloved hand at Lowen. With a shout, lightning crackled from the man’s upraised palm in a brilliant blue-white arc. The Elemental Fury utilized by Rangers and Clerics alike.

Lowen barrel-rolled, narrowly avoiding the shot, and triggered Retribution Blast.

The Cleric tried to dodge, but he was too slow. The searing white flash landed square on his chest. His shoes gritted against the paving as the impact shoved him backward.

But the blast didn’t burn him to ashes. In fact, the Cleric didn’t even lose his footing.

Spidery white text flashed across Lowen’s vision.

[PwnrBwner_007 has resisted Retribution Blast!]

The Cleric looked down at his chest, as surprised as Lowen.

“Balls yeah!” He held up the middle finger on his spellcasting hand and turned it toward Lowen. “Blessed Protection of the Light, dickbird! Divine spells can’t touch me!” He glanced over his shoulder at his fellow defenders. “I told you losers, even the passives work here!”

“Let’s do this!” A woman wielding a strange black bow stepped forward and loosed a broadhead with brightly colored fletching.

The arrow sliced through one of Darith’s wings, tearing out a puff of feathers in passing, sending him wheeling through the air as he tried to catch himself.

As one, the defending force roared furious war cries and sent gales of spells rocketing at Lowen’s Heralds. The Heralds returned fire while trying to evade the shots. Arrows, spears, lances, and flashes of light ripped out in retaliation.

Scowling, Lowen beat at the air with his wings, gaining height and a better view of the battlefield. His fellow Heralds rolled through the sky, throwing ranged spells and darting in whenever they saw an opening. Some few like Darith, who’d taken damage to the wings, had even landed in the upstarts’ midst and were now embroiled in close-quarter combat with swords and clubs.

Lowen cursed.

He would have expected some idiotic surprise like this from a stronghold held by that von Graf trash, but this... This was all wrong. Von Graf held no sway over this Other World, and there should have been no magick at all except what the Heralds had brought with them. On that the scouts had been very clear. This world had its own peculiar brand of power, but not magicks as Lowen knew them. There should have been nothing standing between Lowen and the Frontflip Studios palace. They should simply have burst through the doors and taken the Devs’ home in their fist, yet here they stood, entangled with a surprisingly effective resistance force.

If the spies who’d reported on this place weren’t currently trying for all they were worth to break through this opposition, Lowen would have burnt them alive for failing to note these motley upstarts.

“Aw yeah!” the man with the bent wooden staff yelled as golden light surrounded him in a nimbus. “Level up! Eat Double Shield Wall, douchebags!”

Orange light flashed again, and thunder rolled like war drums. The closest Heralds in the air were slammed backward, a few of them knocked to the ground by the concussive force of the blast.

“Grave Grasp!” The woman with the bow stopped shooting arrows long enough to cast a flash of green light from her fist.

The grassy earth erupted with glowing rotting hands, their grasping fingers clutching the boots and armor of the downed Heralds, forcing the winged combatants to hack the hands off before they could retake their flight advantage. Even as they struggled, she conjured a glowing cloud of malignant green energy that settled over the grounded forces. Lowen heard screams of anguish as his men clawed at their faces and fruitlessly tried to clear the green fog with their beating wings. Clearly some sort of Necrotic Undead attack.

Lowen glowered. That power was disgustingly effective against the Heralds. She should be dealt with immediately. Unfortunately, her Undead alignment would render any Divine spell he threw at her ineffective. He would have to fall back on less powerful, but more likely to succeed, spells.

Lowen carved through the air toward the palace steps, pulling his Divine Spell Book. In a heartbeat, the archer nocked another arrow and tapped the shaft with a finger. Its black length burst into roiling green flame.

She trained the deadly steel broadhead on him.

Lowen threw out his wings, pulling up from the dive, and fired off a Level 9 Fireball at her. At the same moment, she loosed the Undead-laced arrow. He dodged the shaft, but it was a near thing.

His Fireball should have slammed into her face and burnt her alive the next moment. It was a base offensive spell, not aligned with any particular magick. But a grinning Death’s Head Shield materialized out of nowhere in front of her, taking the fiery impact.

“That’s cute,” the archer mocked, training another arrow on him. “I remember when I thought beginner spells were cool.”

“Cut the cutesy banter and get your ass closer to the door, tots!” The Cleric paused his attacks long enough to snap at her. “Ranged means you don’t have to be right in the middle of shit where we’ve got to worry about you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” the archer answered, backing up and kicking open a door with her boot.

“What are we waiting for, tanks?” the Cleric yelled, throwing a double-fisted cast of Elemental Fury at the grounded Heralds. “Screamo pulled their wings off for you, go do tank shit already! Hulk-smash these fuckers!”

Over the last several weeks, Lowen had grown used to the strange words the heroes in Hearthworld called themselves. He knew the word “tanks” referred to powerful fighters who could take immeasurable physical damage. Often they were enormous, overly muscular, and decked out in heavy armor.

The men who answered the Cleric’s call resembled nothing of the sort. One was hugely overweight, another thin enough to verge on skeletal, and a third in strange if pristine clothing. Rather than the usual slow two-handed weapons, these men wielded sticks, clubs, and a dull-looking sword. Hardly the powerful weapons of the most formidable heroes Hearthworld had to offer. The green necrotic fog faded and dispersed, and the grounded Heralds—wounded and bleeding—braced themselves and raised their own weapons the best they could. Although injured, they should be able to tear these supposed tanks apart without even trying.

The pristine man gave a booming shout, the sound rippling out in a visible ring. Suddenly the three of them were surrounded by a pulsing bloody aura. They crashed into the grounded Heralds, swinging wildly with their odd assortment of weapons. Right and left, red Health bars flashed, the tanks carving off huge slices of vital life while they took only minimal return damage. Even the dull blade wielded by the fat man snatched away life, dealing blunt force trauma because it wasn’t sharp enough to cut.

As the tanks attacked the grounded Heralds, the woman with the strange black bow began picking them off from the palace stairs. Her fellow defenders focused on repelling and attacking the Heralds still in the air.

A spell lanced past Lowen’s wing, ruffling the feathers.

“Hells,” he muttered.

This was going awry fast. Somehow, even with his overestimation, he had come with too few attackers. He couldn’t afford another failure. Marek had made that abundantly clear. And this was certainly a failure. They were heavenly creatures with magicks unseen in all of Traisbin, and they were being turned away by slovenly men and women who couldn’t even bother to wear proper armor. Not a single word of this could get back to Marek or Lowen knew he would be undone.

As much as he hated to admit it, Lowen needed reinforcements. Hundreds of them—thousands if he could lay hands on that many. But to do so, he would need to hold this place.

“Surround the palace,” he roared to his troops, darting down through the chaos.

Until he could bring down the wrath of a host of Heralds on these bloody upstarts’ heads, he would have to lay siege to Frontflip Studios. What a bloody mess. He couldn’t quite set hands on how, but this stank of that cur von Graf’s scheming.

“Cut off every avenue of escape!” Lowen bellowed, anger surging through him in waves. “No one leaves! Not a soul!”

Lessons in Leadership

ROARK STRODE THROUGH the troops besieging the Vault. Metalwraiths, Stormbreakers, Corpse Defilers, Bonesnap Behemoths, and Fearstrike Reavers fought alongside untransmuted Harpies, Bloodleeches, Bêtes Ours-Loup, and Rock People. The ones who hadn’t been sent for respawn in that first assault, in any case. Unfortunately, too many had been sent for respawn. Lowen and his forces were stronger, better trained, and held the most defensible high ground in all of Hearthworld. Even now, Heralds rained down magickal attacks alongside javelins, and swooped in like death on silent wings.

Thankfully, the special armor Roark had crafted what seemed like an age ago helped anchor the allied combatants in place on the ground.

All well and good if their goal was to hold here forever. Roark ground his teeth and balled his hands into tight fists. Holding simply wasn’t an option. They wouldn’t starve the Heralds out, according to Kaz, because food and drink respawned in dungeons every four to six hours, and even if it hadn’t, they certainly weren’t keeping the Heralds penned up inside the Vault. Whenever the winged menace wanted to leave, all they had to do was fly over the heads of the allied forces arrayed below.

This was, perhaps, the single worst siege in the history of sieges.

At first, Roark had sent contingents of flying mobs to chase down the Heralds who tried to flee, but it quickly became apparent that the level disparity between them and the Heralds was too great, even with the Mega-Evolutions. Roark had called that off before too many of their winged troops met grisly fates in the air and on the rocks below the Vault.

It was a bloody conundrum, but one Roark was developing an answer to. If he could just find Griff.

He worked his way through the crowds of assembled mobs, many clustered around cookfires tended by a legion of Kaz’s faithful apprentices, who had taken to calling themselves the Acolytes of SALT. Because of Kaz’s diligent recruits, the allied mobs surely ate better than any army Roark had ever seen or heard tales of—spiced stew, fortified meat skewers, and flagons upon flagons of Kaz’s newly invented Silver-Mist Mead.

Those not eating milled about, talking in hushed tones and casting dubious glances at the hive, or tending to the wounded. Sight of Roark quickly cut their mutterings short. Though he felt more than his fair share of doubt, he made sure to exude confidence as though it were a spell aura. These creatures needed to know with absolute certainty that Roark wasn’t afraid. It was one of the unspoken duties of a Dungeon Lord to look at all times as if he had the situation well in hand, regardless of what the truth might be.

Although he had served most of his adult life in the resistance, his father had trained him to lead men in battle—one of the many responsibilities of the nobility. The true strength of an army lay not in the sharpness of its blade, but in the resiliency of its morale. And that, Roark knew, was where a leader was most important. A leader could inspire confidence even in the most broken of men and monsters.

To this end, he cast his new Necrotic Invigoration spell as he passed through the masses in his search of the skill trainer. Much like his Infernal Invigoration, it returned Health and banished lesser debuffs in an instant.

The mutters resumed, Roark knew, as he left behind one clump of grumblers for another, but they were always a touch more hopeful in the wake of his passing. A victory in and of itself.

After nearly half an hour of searching, Roark finally caught sight of the grizzled trainer at the back side of the Vault, teaching a small group of low-level mobs while they prepared for the next attack. Griff caught Roark’s eye and read the inquiry immediately. He slid home his notched short sword in the scabbard at his hip and hung his buckler over his shoulder.

“Practice amongst yourselves a bit,” the scar-crossed old man told his rapt students. “See if you can’t get those skills up to their next level, then we’ll work on introducing two-hand combos.”

While they paired off and began to drill, Griff headed over to join Roark.

“What’s on your mind, Griefer?” he asked in his gravelly drawl.

Roark offered him a flat stare. “Surely you’ve already pieced together that we’ll get nowhere like this,” he said, waving a hand toward the hive.

Griff turned his lone eye on the glowing dungeon above. “Aye, just between the two of us, I might’ve reckoned something of the sort. We’re not looking at an ideal situation for a traditional siege here.”

“No need to spare my feelings,” Roark said softly. “A bloody cesspool fire is what it is.”

Griff grinned and nodded in acknowledgement.

“What we need is an edge,” Roark said. “I’ve some ideas for siege engines—ballistae, catapults, towers—but I need time to build them. While I work on that, however, someone’s got to marshal the troops... and I wouldn’t trust any of these Dungeon Lords as far as I can throw them. They’ve supported me so far, but this initial assault is liable to leave a sour taste in their mouths. It won’t surprise me in the least if half of them are gone come first light. Unless, of course, we can right the ship before then.”

Griff’s bushy brows rose a touch. “That may be true, but a few of them will stay. Ko seems resolute enough for the task. May be a mite hard to give up control of such a large army to someone nearing the same level of power, Griefer, but it’d certainly solidify your alliances and make them stronger. Perhaps a little trust will help rally them to the cause.”

“Unless they lay claim to the army for good,” Roark said, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice. He slashed a hand through the air. “Whether the Dungeon Lords can be trusted or not, they haven’t got any experience leading such a varied group of mobs. You’ve done it before in the fighting pits, and just recently in the Troll Nation training the Rumble Crew.”

“Griefer, I appreciate your confidence in me, but I’m a fighter, not a general. I can show a man how to gut another or tell him which end of the sword to hold, but I’ve not got a taste for logistics and war councils. If men follow me, it’d only be because you tell them to.”

That was a bloody crock, and Roark knew it just as well as Griff. Another thing Sir Erick von Graff had taught his son was that those who wanted power least would be most likely to wield it well and justly. Griff was a good man—one of the few whose opinion Roark respected—one who cared for the well-being of those in his charge, and whom others rallied to instinctively.

“There’s no question you’re the man for the job,” Roark said evenly, pinning the man in place with a harsh glare. “The real question is will you do it?”

Griff tipped his head back to look down his scarred nose. “Are you asking or telling?”

“Asking. As a favor from a friend.”

Griff grunted. “Aye, then, as a favor to a friend I can see my way clear to do it. And it’s only temporary, of course.” He scratched his whiskery jaw. “I suppose, if your Dungeon Lords can accept the leadership of a weak old man, I’ll do what I can.”

“I’ll make certain they do,” Roark promised, clasping Griff’s scar-crossed forearm in thanks.

A scrap of parchment suddenly filled his vision.

[You have Delegated vital tasks to one of your Greater Vassals! Congratulations! You have leveled up your Troll Leadership Skill to level 8! Chimera from dungeons across Hearthworld recognize your authority even secondhand and will take reasonable orders from your Vassals!]

“But I suspect it’s not going to be a problem,” he finished, blinking the message away.

“We’ll see,” Griff hedged. “Speaking of friends and favors, don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to talk to Kaz and Zyra yet?”

Roark hesitated. “I asked Kaz about respawning food in the Hearthworld Dungeons, but I haven’t seen Zyra since...” He faltered. “Earlier.”

Griff nodded over Roark’s shoulder. “Well, you’re about to.”

Heart speeding up, Roark turned to find the lower-level mobs scuttling out of the way of the Orbweaver Ravager. Because of the veil obscuring her face, he couldn’t read Zyra’s expression, but she strode forward on her new spider limbs in sharp, angry motions while her legs glided over the trampled grass without touching.

“Apologies go a long way,” Griff hinted in a low voice.

“I’m not sorry,” Roark insisted. “There’s no other way.”

“I don’t think I’d start the conversation with that.” Griff patted him good-naturedly on the arm. “But it’s your respawn.”

Zyra came to a stop before him, but before Roark could say a word, she cut him off.

“We’re not here to exchange pleasantries,” she said in an icy voice. “We’ve got a plan for dealing with”—she gestured a sparkling midnight hand at a flash of gold streaking away from the Vault high above—“that.”

“We?” Roark asked.

“Indeed, Dungeon Lord.” Ick stepped out from behind Zyra, mandibles clicking with barely contained excitement. “We have been searching for you.”

“What’s this about a plan?”

“We’ve come up with an answer to dealing with troublesome flies,” Zyra said, pulling out a net of spider silk.

“Or rather,” Ick said, taking an end of the net and helping Zyra stretch it wide, “Nature herself came up with it. The web.”

“Nature may have invented it, but we poisoned it,” Zyra said, using her free set of arms to produce a vial of swirling obsidian-and-gold toxin. “Distilled from the venom of the Black Fire Scorplings. It won’t eat through glass or organic material.”

She grabbed Roark’s hand and poured a drop in his bare palm.

Nothing happened. It didn’t even tingle.

“So, what does it do?” he asked.

Zyra produced an ingot of gold that looked as if it had come straight from the smithy, then smeared Roark’s palm across it. Immediately, the gold in contact with the toxin began to bubble, a black rot boring into it and spreading spidery tendrils across the slick surface. With a crackling sound, the layers of metal began to bubble up and flake away.

“Devastating to sun metals,” she said, recorking the vial. “We spread it on our webs, then cover the Vault with them. It will catch the Heralds the moment they try to take to the sky.”

“They’ll just cut their way free,” he said. He knew from experience that Zyra’s spider silk was strong—they’d tested it more than once when they were getting along—but it was as weak to a blade as any rope.

Ick raised one serene hand. “Apologies, Dungeon Lord, but the web is not constructed to hold an enemy forever. It serves simply to entangle and delay them long enough for the spider to come along.”

“We’ll post webcrawlers,” Zyra said. “There are no exits or entrances at the very top of the Vault, so they’ll be hidden from view from the Heralds inside until they’ve tangled themselves up. The Poison of the Rotting Sun will start the process of softening them up, then the crawlers will drop down and finish them off.”

“There’s one last piece of the puzzle missing,” Roark said, mind racing. “A final dagger in the kidneys of the Heralds’ Divine Magicks—Discordant Inversion and Deflection. If they can’t use their spells without inflicting damage upon themselves, they’ll be at the mercy of the webcrawlers.”

Zyra tilted her head thoughtfully, white ringlets hanging in her veil-obscured face.

“I can cast the Night Magick spell on them as they’re entangled,” she said, “but I doubt I’ll be fast enough to get all of them. We could ask more of Ick’s students from the school to join us.” She looked questioningly at the Nocturnus.

Before they could go too far afield, Roark stopped them.

“Not multiple casts,” he said. “I can Hex the webbing with the cast. It’ll have to be recast every twenty feet, but that should be more than enough to give the Heralds pause about using their Divine spells while they’re trapped.”

Ick’s mandibles clicked. “It is a clever idea.”

Zyra crossed her lower set of arms and cupped her chin with one of her upper hands as if she were appraising Roark.

“Clever scheming always does become a Dungeon Lord,” she said. “Personally, I’m just happy to know you have room under those horns for something besides recklessness and impulsivity. I’ll get spinning immediately.”

Roark grinned, unable to suppress the rush of warmth in his chest at her sudden softening.

“As soon as it’s ready, I’ll begin hexing,” he said. Then he turned to Ick. “In the meantime, I’m glad you found me, Ick. I needed to talk to you about reopening the supply lines with the Troll Nation as fast as possible. I need every smith and apprentice from the allied Dungeons here, along with as much iron, wood, rope, and stone as they can muster, loot, or buy. We’ve got a siege train to construct.”

Web Walking

ZYRA, KNOWN COLLOQUIALLY and not a little fearfully around the Troll Nation as “Our Lady of Darkness,” held up the final stretch of webbing she and Ick had woven. She smiled behind her lacy veil as she watched Roark go through the quick and powerful gestures to cast the Discordant Inversion hex.

Truth be told, she was admiring the Dungeon Lord. His new Draconic Chaos Harbinger Evolution perfectly accented his lean, muscular frame, and with his thick armored scales and deadly looking horns, he cut quite an intimidating figure, even amongst the other Dungeon Lords.

If looks and position were all Roark could lay claim to, she might have been easily able to cast him aside, but the Lord of the Troll Nation also had more than his fair measure of ambition, a deep and underhanded cunning, and a streak of wildness she rather liked. He was a fool for not realizing that he needed her when he returned to his homeland—if for no other reason than to make certain he survived—but that, too, spoke to something that set him apart from the other Dungeon Lords she’d known. Azibek wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing anyone and everyone who served his purposes into the mouth of danger—would, in fact, have sent them in alone rather than go himself.

Roark... Roark felt concern for people who were not himself. Wanted to protect them. She glanced at the low-level Changelings, Pebblekin, and Bêtes running around nearby, constructing smithies and carrying scrap. He wanted to protect even those far below his level. Creatures any other Dungeon Lord or hero wouldn’t give a second thought to.

With a final forward thrust of Roark’s fists, the glowing web of Discordant Inversion flashed in the air, then transposed itself into his Initiate’s Spell Book. Not wasting any time, he knelt and inscribed the rune for Discordant Inversion at the center of the final unHexed section of webbing.

“That should do it,” he said once the inscription had taken. He stood and looked from Zyra to Ick. “Take care not to cast any spells while you’re in contact with the web. Hexes don’t differentiate between friend and enemy.”

Zyra stored the final web in her Inventory. “Unlike Infernali turned Chaos Harbingers, I don’t rely on magick. A sharp blade and a virulent poison are more to my taste.”

“I’m well aware.” He held up his Clearblood Ring and smirked at her, making her black heart stutter in her chest. Bloody damned fool. Herself as much as Roark.

“Let’s go, Ick,” she snapped, turning on her long arachnid limbs and drifting closer to the base of the Vault.

The Nocturnus made his polite goodbyes to Roark. A moment later, he fell in beside her.

They came to the edge of the siege line and searched the sky for Heralds. With the golden walls of the hive shining like noonday throughout the night, not a shadow could be found so close to the Vault. Instead of sneaking up under the cover of darkness, they would have to watch for a period of inactivity from the Heralds, then Wall Walk for all they were worth.

“Apologies, Lady of Darkness,” Ick said in his rasping insectile voice, “but you seem more cross than usual. At times, it is wise to bring something out into the sunlight, such as it is”—he gestured with half of his many arms toward the brilliant Vault—“to avoid spoiling.”

“I’ve brought it out more than enough for one lifetime,” Zyra said, scowling up at the sky, searching for the telltale sparkling streaks that followed Heralds in the night. “I’m ready to let it spoil for a while. You can’t change a Jotnar’s mind.”

Ick’s mandibles clicked as he chuckled. “Does Our Lady not mean Draconic Chaos Harbinger?”

“Whatever he is on the outside, he’s a Jotnar at heart.” She nodded up at the blackness beyond the glow of the Vault. “Sky’s still. Shall we?”

“With one final adjustment,” Ick said. He lifted his humanoid arms to the night and began to sing a low, buzzing tune accompanied by a series of flowing postures.

Silvery moonlight flared all around them, and Zyra fought the urge to flinch. She’d seen the devastation Ick’s Moonlight Sonata could bring to bear on even high-level heroes.

[You and other allied chimeras of the School of Night Magick within a 15-ft radius have been Strengthened by 11% with Halo Around the Moon; duration: 1 minute.]

Zyra relaxed and lifted one of her right arms to inspect her hand. Her skin usually glittered with darkness like a crushed sapphire in the night. Now, however, she shined with vivid silver light so intense it was almost hard to look at.

“It is not an exact match for the Vault’s golden glow,” Ick said, his dark rubbery tentacle hair and limbs shining as brightly as she was, “but it will keep us from casting dark spots on the surface for any Heralds overhead to see.”

“Stealth in brilliant light,” Zyra said, unable to keep the awe from her voice. “I may have been a bit too dismissive of magick before. I need to learn this spell, Ick.”

“Continue your studies in the School of Night,” he said, brushing tentaclelike hair from his face. “With Isara’s core fueling your progress, nothing of our practices is beyond your reach.”

Making one final check of the sky overhead, Zyra and Ick darted across the dusty red dirt between the allied forces and the base of the rock chimney the Vault perched upon. Zyra had done a bit of rock climbing to get the Ingredients for her Septic Brewmaster quest, and though Roark spoke of the activity as a staple of entertainment from his childhood, the task hadn’t impressed her as particularly fun. With her Orbweaver Wall Walking ability, however, scaling the treacherous cliff was as simple as walking across a floor. She stepped onto the sheer wall, and gravity adjusted to pull her to the rock.

Nearby, Ick gave her a nod, barely visible through the Halo, then began paying out the ladder he’d woven for the allied forces. With deft motions, he anchored the sturdy creation in cracks and crannies with powerful webbing. He would meet her at the top when he was finished with the crucial task.

Zyra continued upward, wondering idly whether she could find a way to cross her Reaver Shadow Stalking ability with this moonlight-stealth of Ick’s. Crouching, she closed her eyes and imagined disappearing into a pool of light rather than the usual dark.

When she opened her eyes a moment later, she had progressed fifteen feet in a single step.

[You have unlocked Diurnal Prowl, Level 1! Step into the light and travel to any other well-lit area within a 15-ft radius.]

Grinning with satisfaction, Zyra Prowled up the side of the Vault, reaching the space above one of the landing ports in mere moments. She took out the first stretch of Hexed webbing and got to work. Like Ick, she anchored the spider silk in natural faults around the wide opening.

This was the part of their plan that required speed as much as precision. If a Herald tried to fly through one of these openings before they were all covered, he would raise the alarm, and then not only would their element of surprise disappear, but doubtless the rest of the swarm would spill out and attack like Slaughterwasps in a kicked nest.

A bright form flickered across the surface of the Vault, stopping her heart. She had Cursed Longknives in hand before she realized it was only Ick, already done with his ladder. The Nocturnus was an unassuming creature, but powerfully competent. She resheathed her weapons.

With a silent dip of his head, the Nocturnus acknowledged her graciousness for not sending him to respawn, then quickly joined her in stretching webbing over landing ports. Whenever Halo Around the Moon expired, they both carefully emptied their hands and stepped away from the applied webbing so Ick could recast the brilliant stealth buff without fear of the spell being inverted by Roark’s inscribed Hexes.

They were making good time. Soon nearly every port on the Vault was secured, and Ick had retreated down the ladder to signal the first shift of webcrawlers to venture up. Zyra turned to one of the final ports and began searching for natural places to affix the webbing.

The silky strands were almost invisible against the light, unless you turned to exactly the right angle. Even then they looked impossibly delicate, as if a touch would tear the entire web away. That was not the way of Arachne’s Pride, however. Each strand came with a Strength of six times her Dexterity—which, even before her evolution to Orbweaver Ravager, had been one of her greatest stats. There was a tiny loss of .01 breaking strain per foot of length, but weaving the strands into a reinforcing web negated that cost.

Movement out of the corner of her eye snapped her out of her musings.

A trio of Heralds in shining plate were approaching the opening she was busy working on. The closest stretched out white-flecked wings and pulled a massive sword, preparing to launch himself into another attack on the troops below.

“Let’s show these Infernal fools that we’re nothing to be trifled with, even without our beloved commander in residence,” the Herald said, an arrogant smile gracing his lips.

The others chuckled and drew their weapons as well.

Quickly, Zyra Prowled to the top of the opening and tore away the anchor points, but didn’t drop the web. Instead, with her second pair of hands, she dug three vials of Screaming Silence from her Inventory.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Screaming Silence

Item Type: Ultra-Rare Agonizing Poison

Effect 1: -8 HP per second for 60 seconds or until the corresponding antidote is consumed.

Effect 2: Target is Silenced for 60 seconds or until corresponding antidote is consumed.

Effect 3: Target experiences Hellish Agony for 60 seconds or until the corresponding antidote is consumed, resulting in a temporary 20% decrease in Intelligence and Dexterity.

╠═╦╬╧╪

The Heralds ran a few steps and leapt, wings pumping.

For a few beats, anyway.

Then they were tangled in Zyra’s web. Shocked cursing ensued.

Zyra dropped down behind them, looping the sticky, silken trap around the confused Heralds. At the same time, she smashed the vials against each one of them with lightning precision. Having multiple sets of arms was so terribly useful.

Immediately, their shouts died, as though cut off by a knife’s edge. They continued to flounder and shout, but no sound issued from their throats. Their Health bars flashed green as the Poison of the Rotting Sun drenching the web and the poison from Screaming Silence ate through their skin.

Without waiting for them to recover, Zyra planted her booted humanoid foot on the side of the thrashing, tangled pile and shoved them over the edge.

The powerful webbing held, dangling a makeshift bag of struggling Heralds over the precipitous drop to the red dirt below. Zyra Wall Walked out to join them, filling all four of her hands with Longknives dripping with the sunmetal-corroding poison and Cursed to deal Necrotic Damage.

The Herald with white-flecked wings regained his senses first. His huge sword was pinned uselessly between him and a roan-winged female Herald. Twisting in the webbing, the white-flecked Herald squinted, and his eyes locked on Zyra. Prying his hands from beneath himself, he cast a brilliant flare of Solar Glory at her.

Zyra moved into the light and triggered her Prowl ability, vanishing in an eyeblink only to reappear a moment later on the opposite side of the dangling web. She was just in time to see Solar Glory backfire in a spectacular flash of crimson as Roark’s Discordant Inversion hex activated. That inverted spell alone carved away more than a quarter of the Herald’s Health.

The Herald tried to shout something, perhaps a warning to his fellow entangled Heralds, but the Screaming Silence held his tongue fast.

While he struggled to speak, the roan-winged Herald caught sight of Zyra and tried her hand at magick. She must have had far more powerful spells, because the backlash from her attempt to kill Zyra with a Divine Missile ate through more than half of her own Health.

The third and final Herald, trapped at the bottom of the writhing bag of winged trash, had either caught wind of his comrades’ folly or wasn’t much of a magick user to begin with. Rather than even looking for his assailant, he was trying to saw through the spider silk with a gleaming silver dagger. Clearly the smartest of the lot.

“I knew I couldn’t count on you fools to finish yourselves off.” Zyra sighed and spun her Cursed Longknives.

Prowling into the light, she reappeared inches from the web-cutting Herald’s face.

“Surprise.” She planted two of her Cursed Longknives hilt-deep in his throat. The blades were wide enough that, side by side, the pair nearly beheaded the Herald.

He spluttered out metallic golden blood while she pinned his dagger hand to his chest with another Longknife. His Health bar flashed green once again as more poison coursed through his golden veins. But it refused to drop below fifty percent.

Zyra bared her teeth in a frustrated snarl. Damned high-level mobs. Luckily, she knew the solution to failure: keep stabbing.

With a flurry of precision strikes, she put her four arms to good use tearing away at the helpless little birdy’s Health bar, until finally, the last blinking green sliver drained away. The Herald’s corpse went limp in the bottom of the bag.

Zyra equipped her Longknives with another dose of Virulent poison each and turned on the female Herald. The spell slinger tried to take Zyra out with an Angelic Lance, but Zyra crouched and effortlessly Prowled away, then spun and swung her Longknives as she stepped out of the void.

[x2 Stealth Multiplier] flashed across her vision before the female Herald realized she was being attacked.

Zyra didn’t let up. Thanks to her Mega-Evolution, she had Stamina to burn.

Time after time, the Tornado of Death power combo proved itself worth the gold she’d spent on Griff’s training. She would have to remember to thank the weapons trainer again for helping her level it.

Sending the female Herald for respawn took far less time than her web-cutting comrade—a true spellcaster, then, instead of a tank or hybrid Herald. Not to mention, she’d already done in more than half of her own Health with Discordant Inversion before Zyra stepped in.

Flush with the pair of victories, Zyra re-poisoned her blades and turned to face the last Herald.

There was fear in his eyes, but with a twang, the Herald’s massive sword sliced through his side of the web sack. He tumbled out into the night, throwing his wings wide to catch the updraft.

Cursing under her breath, Zyra hurriedly attached a rope of spider silk to the Vault’s wall and tied it off around her waist.

The Herald’s wings beat at the air and he banked toward one of the last two unsecured ports.

Zyra aimed just ahead of him and leapt, wind whipping at the veil across her face as she plummeted. She slammed into his head and shoulders, plate armor crashing and something in one of his wings snapping like a dry twig. His mouth twisted in a silent roar of pain and anger, and he shoved his massive sword upward, trying to run her through. Zyra dodged, but it scored her ribs, opening up a hole in her side.

Hissing, Zyra triggered Arachne’s Pride, spinning web faster than she ever had before. The Herald pulled back his sword for another strike. He sliced through one of her many legs, but that was the last hit he managed to land. Zyra’s undamaged arachnoid legs turned and twisted him as she fed out sticky silk, winding the Herald up in a bundle of wings and armor and limbs.

When he was well and truly immobilized, she sank her fangs into his throat. A twinge of guilt twisted in her chest. It felt a tad... unfaithful, perhaps... to envenomate someone besides Roark, but her brief concern disappeared when she was rewarded with a notification.

[Ravaging Cytolytic Venom injected. Prey takes 8n Cytolytic Damage per second for 30 seconds, where n is the Orbweaver Ravager’s Alchemy Skill level. Additional 8% chance to Paralyze.]

She blinked the notification away with a thought, then dropped him like so much dead weight.

All that metal skin must’ve been incredibly heavy, because he plunged like a stone. Red dust puffed out in a cloud when he crashed into the dirt, and even from her height, Zyra could see the shallow crater around his immobilized body. She laughed gleefully as a squad of allied troops swarmed over the powerless Herald, falling on him with stabbing swords and slashing knives.

With the threat taken care of, Zyra climbed back up the anchoring strand of spider silk and finished stretching Hexed webbing over the final three landing ports, still chuckling to herself.

Constabulary

THOUGH HIS TROOPS HAD been forced back into a siege surrounding the Devs’ palace, Lowen had hopes of breaking them quickly. After all, their defending force was incredibly small for such a large edifice; they’d be spread too thin attempting to defend the entirety of Frontflip Studios at once. Accurate numbers were hard to come by—especially with such unreliable spies and informants—but even a rough estimate suggested that there were no more than forty or fifty of these magickally deft miscreants. Half a company at most, and obviously untrained. No way to secure such a fortress against siege.

Despite that, his hopes were dashed when his scouts returned minutes later to report—“They have a spring inside the walls, sir, harnessed and controlled. It flows right out of the walls and into basins.”

“Find the source,” Lowen snapped. “We’ll poison it.”

The scout shook his head. “I searched, sir. Only water I could find out here were those shallow watering pools,” he said, gesturing at the decorative ponds dotting the palace green, “and they already stink like death. The spring inside’s as clear as the sky over Traisbin after a snowfall. It isn’t coming from these.”

Lowen scowled. “What of their food stores?”

The scout shifted feet nervously. “There’s a strange sort of horseless wagon round the north side, long as a trader caravan all on its own and enchanted to stay cold as the second hell, with boxes of food stacked in it. Looks as if there was quite a bit more, but they must’ve got most of it inside before we attacked.”

Lowen cursed and clutched the hilt of his sheathed sword until the leather creaked. It would have taken longer to starve these people out than to bend them to his will through thirst, but knowing they’d just taken on new supplies meant that even that was beyond his reach. He’d promised Marek another fortnight was all he needed. He couldn’t go back with nothing to offer but more excuses.

The scout cleared his throat, obviously not done.

“What, damn it, what?” Lowen snapped. “Out with it!”

“Only, sir, that a few of my men watching through the palace’s windows reported seeing folks inside using magickal glass-front cabinets. From what they say, it looks as if the cabinets drop parcels of food in exchange for coins and bits of paper, which each of the insiders seems to have in abundance.”

A frustrated growl ripping from his throat, Lowen spun on one booted heel and strode through his lines. This redheaded bastard son of an Other World seemed determined to thwart him at every turn with its unknown magicks and enchantments. Well, two could play that game. He would show this bastard world superior intellect and power in action.

He found his spies—the burly man and slight woman—talking with Darith. Perfectly convenient, as he needed to speak to all three of them.

“No magicks in this world, eh?” Lowen said, face twisting in a hateful snarl. Before they could respond, he raised his hands and fired double doses of Heavenly Wrath, one at each of the spies.

[x2 Dual Casting Modifier]

The spies writhed in agony and tried to defend themselves by placing Holy Shield between them and Lowen, but Lowen kept up the attack, nodding at Darith behind them.

Cackling, his bloodthirsty second-in-command pulled his Broadsword of Agonizing Light, which flared with brilliance even in the noonday sun. With a mighty swing, Darith lopped the burly man’s head from his shoulders. Darith spun with the blow, coming to a stop just behind the woman and propelling the blade through her back and out her chest with a wet crunch—bones snapping and meat parting. Her lips, already melted into near unrecognizable ash, popped open in a surprised shout as she crumbled to the grass. Darith stepped on her side and wrenched his sword free, then hacked her head off as well.

Troops in the immediate area of the execution had taken a step back, either repulsed by the grisly punishment or frightened that they might be next.

“Be warned,” Lowen said, raising his voice for their benefit. “This world suffers no respawns, and the Tyrant King is not the only one who rewards failure with death. Just because you currently serve under me two worlds away from him is no excuse to be lax in your duties.”

He turned back to Darith and found the man toying with the heads, his sword stuck up through the gaping neck of one like it was a gruesome puppet.

“Can you still hear me, Claron? Nod if this hurts.” Darith guffawed, wiggling the sword so the head bobbed.

“Get ahold of yourself, fool,” Lowen barked. “I must return to Hearthworld for reinforcements. Clearly, a traditional siege won’t work here with the provisions they’ve got laid up inside. We need additional troops to storm the palace. Take command in my absence.”

Darith smirked. “Aye, you got it, sir.”

Lowen reached into his breastplate for the portal stone. Before he could break it and activate the rune, however, an eerie howling echoed through the city, bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings and filling Frontflip’s green with noise.

Lowen scowled. With his luck, this would be a pack of huge predatory beasts his newly deceased spies claimed not to have found trace of in this Other World.

Rather than a gang of ravenous maka-ronin or rabid brindle panthers loping onto the green ready to attack, flashing black-and-white carriages tore across the grass, leaving deep ruts in their wake. Lowen identified them immediately—they were painted with symbols and badges much like the ones the city constabulary in Traisbin put on their Inquisitor Wagons.

Men in black armor, carrying strange clear tower shields marked with the letters S W A T, debarked, quickly and efficiently surrounding the Heralds’ line. Unlike the makeshift resistance inside the Devs’ palace, it was clear these men had come prepared for war—even if their armor and armaments were unconventional. Still, Lowen had no time to waste on town guards. He had a war to wage and a traitor to kill.

“Attack!” Lowen shouted, idly firing Angelic Lances into their ranks.

A hail of Divine spells followed at his command. A few SWAT constables were blasted from their feet. Others had their thighs or shins pierced with shining lances. But these injured men were dragged to the back of their line, and more swarmed in to take their place, lobbing metal vessels over their shields and into Lowen’s troops.

Lowen cast Shield of Faith for himself. The cannister tumbling through the air at him ricocheted, trailing choking smoke, but immediately his eyes burned and his sinuses ran like a flooded river.

Gagging, he leapt into the air and beat his wings. In moments, he’d risen above the deadly fumes.

“Get above the smoke!” he shouted at his troops, though many of the Heralds were quickly figuring this out for themselves. “Take them from the air!”

Heralds spun and wheeled high above, spitting and clearing their streaming sinuses. Once they were able to see again, they fired upon the constabulary in earnest. Their taking flight seemed to shock and perplex the black-armored men for a moment. Mouths dropped open and eyes stared up from beneath black helmets as the men craned their necks to better see their enemies wheel through the sky like birds of prey.

With his preternatural hearing, Lowen caught more than a few reverential mutters of the word “angel.”

A chestnut-winged Herald Lowen knew as Willa saw her opportunity to have some fun and darted low, scooping up a SWAT constable by the handle on the back of his armored vest. The man shouted, dropping his shield, and clawed at her golden arms. Willa laughed, and for a moment, Lowen thought his troops would defeat this Other World constabulary much the same way they’d defeated Roark’s mobs in the beginning—by simply picking them up and dropping them to their deaths.

Then the man reached to his side and drew a strange black shape that he pointed over his head at Willa’s chest. A series of sharp pops rang out, and golden Herald’s blood splattered across the man’s black helmet and shoulders. Willa’s face twisted in shock, and she let the man drop—though it was only a matter of feet. Rather than circling around, however, she clutched her chest and soared directly into the wall of Frontflip Studios. By the time she tumbled to the grass, she was dead, golden blood frothing from her mouth.

“What in the bleeding hells?” Lowen whispered.

Below, Darith finished off the dropped man, heedless of the noxious smoke, took his strange black weapon, then leapt back into the air, eyes and nose streaming. More of those black weapons, however, were appearing in the hands of the constabulary. Some were the same size and shape as the one that had killed Willa, but others were long and slung around these SWAT constables’ shoulders with black straps. Every man carried one. Some even carried multiple versions of them—smaller, backup weapons strapped about their legs or waist.

“Shield yourselves!” Lowen bellowed, casting his own as he soared over to meet Darith. “Hold them off!” he bellowed at his second-in-command. “I’ll return directly with reinforcements!”

“Will do, sir!” Darith cackled and held up that strange black shape he’d taken from the constable’s corpse.

With a squeeze of his hand, Lowen snapped the stone in his fist, activating the rune. A violet portal ripped into existence in midair. He shot through it, flapping wildly into the Vault’s throne room.

“... don’t care what it takes. We can’t just let them march up the spire and in the front entrance!” a man’s voice echoed off the high ceilings.

“And I suppose you’ve got an idea what to do if we can’t fly out,” a woman’s voice returned. Then she gasped, “Oh!”

Lowen threw his wings wide to slow his momentum, then landed, jogging a few steps before coming to a stop. Viago and Nitola, the two he’d left in command, had obviously been in the middle of a heated argument.

“Close your traps, fools,” Lowen growled. “Gather as many troops as can be spared. Leave only a skeleton crew to watch over the Vault. We’re under attack from the Other World’s town guards, and we can’t take the Devs’ palace until they’re dealt with.”

“Ah, sir,” Nitola said, stepping forward hesitantly. “About that. We can’t spare that many.”

Lowen readied a cast of Divine Missiles, but on remembering the constabulary and their powerful weaponry, he held it up as a threat only. He couldn’t waste a limited supply of warm bodies when he needed to overwhelm an enemy with superior numbers.

“Why, pray tell, can’t we?” he gritted out through a clenched jaw.

Nitola glanced maddeningly at Viago.

“We’re under attack, sir,” Viago said, his wings rustling nervously behind him. “They appeared shortly after you left—that von Graf trash and his allied dungeons.”

Nitola nodded. “They failed to take the Vault with an outright attack, and now they’ve set up a siege around us. We’re trapped in here.”

It took all of his restraint not to immediately blast both idiots from their feet. How could he be surrounded by such a host of incompetent fools?

“And I suppose your wings stopped working?” Lowen balled his hands into fists so he wouldn’t be tempted to take their heads off anyway. “Bloody fly over them, damn you! You’ve got wings, haven’t you!”

“Von Graf found a way around that, sir.” Viago strode to the doorway that led to the antechamber and gestured at the wide opening looking out onto the night. “It looks open, but they’ve trapped every flight entrance with something akin to spiderweb. It’s poisoned with a corrosive toxin, and the second we’re tangled in it, their guerilla fighters drop down from the top of the Vault and tear us apart. Already we’ve had nearly a dozen sent for respawn.”

Lowen felt as if his teeth would break from grinding against one another, but after a moment, an icy calm came over him.

“I suppose you’ve never seen servants clean a formerly closed-off wing of your manor,” he said, stalking to the weapon rack in the antechamber. “Even those mindless peasants know there’s a simple way to deal with spiderwebs.”

He grabbed a long golden lance from the rack and thrust it out through the seemingly innocuous opening. Then he swished it around vigorously, winding the lance up with a tangle of webbing. Right away, the poison began to eat away at the lance, spidery black veins racing across its surface. But the way was cleared for flight.

A shadowy face appeared for a moment as if to attack, but Lowen speared it with an Angelic Lance. The creature tumbled off the Vault, screaming as it flailed all the way to the canyon floor below.

That relieved a measure of the tension that had settled into Lowen’s neck and shoulders. He let out a breath, steadying his nerves, then stepped to the edge of the port and looked down.

They were surrounded by mobs of every dungeon type imaginable, swarming the ground like a hill of warrior ants. Fires sparked and glinted at the edges, where enormous siege towers were under construction.

“That uppity half-breed whelp,” Lowen muttered under his breath.

Had von Graf known he would be gone and chosen his absence to launch his attack? Was there a traitor in Lowen’s midst? Or did the cur simply have the outright gall to think he could attack Lowen in his own dungeon and emerge victorious? That von Graf trash was so arrogant that Lowen could believe the latter. And yet there was Talise to think of. She played the Tyrant King’s pet so easily, but tainted Lyuko blood always ran together eventually, didn’t it?

With a frustrated growl, Lowen spun away from the sight of the besieging armies. He would deal with von Graf. The cur wouldn’t be so arrogant when his bloody World Stone was no longer bound to him.

To do that, however, he would have to play a trick straight from Roark’s hand.

Lowen tossed a pair of portal stones to Viago. “Take two-thirds of the Heralds still out of respawn and join Darith at Frontflip Studios in the Other World. You, Nitola, get the rest to tear down these bloody webs.”

“Of course, sir. But what will you—”

“I’m going out.” He returned to the newly cleared opening. “There are hundreds of Infernal mobs out there as wild as a bloody wolf pack. They might not ally themselves willingly with me, but I doubt they’ll welcome a gang of humans in armor firing some sort of strange magickal weapon at them, either.” Lowen smiled. “The enemy of my enemy sows bloody chaos on the battlefield.”

With that, he launched himself into the night, readying another portal stone in his fist. Shouts rang out and spells and projectiles streaked toward him. He swooped and dodged the shots effortlessly, searching the ranks below for his first candidate.

His eyes locked on an enormous Grim Corpse Defiler.

Perfect.

Angling his wings, Lowen swooped down, grabbed the Defiler by the throat, and crushed the portal stone. A breath later, they flew through the sky over Frontflip. The startled Defiler shrieked and tried to rip through Lowen’s armor with its savage telescoping maw, but Lowen dropped it.

Right into the ranks of the constabulary.

“He’s opening the gates of Hell!” someone called out from below.

Screams and more pops rang out below, but Lowen didn’t wait around to see the results of his new attack. He cracked another portal stone and darted back to Hearthworld, scooping up more of von Graf’s precious allies and ferrying them away to wreak havoc on the Other World.

Creature Chaos

RANDY SHOEMAKER STARED in disbelief at the halo of chaos surrounding Frontflip. Someone must have called in the SWAT teams, because their trucks were arrayed across the grass and parking lots, their shield wall pushing in toward the ring of Malaika Heralds. Above, more angelic creatures swooped through a violet Hearthworld-esque portal and joined the battle.

“I can’t believe this,” Helen Rose whispered. “They’re real. I thought you’d lost it, but...”

Gunshots popped off, and a Herald lurched mid-flight, golden blood spraying from her side. Snarling, the winged woman raised her hand and fired what looked like an Angelic Lance at the shooter. His shield buddy didn’t get the shield up in time. The Lance went straight through the man’s heart and stuck a foot out his back.

Helen Rose screamed, then slapped her hands over her mouth.

Randy flinched. He wanted to shut his eyes or look away from the dead man as his SWAT team members dragged the body back, but he couldn’t.

“This isn’t a game,” he said, not just to Helen Rose, but himself. “They’re not here to play. This is war.”

“What do they want?” she asked in a choked voice.

Randy swallowed the sick lump in his throat. “They want to force the Hearthworld Devs to unsoulbind an item that came from Roark the Griefer’s home world. We’ve got to stop them, or this”—he gestured at the fight—“is going to be the norm, not the exception. And not just in here in LA. This could be everywhere.”

He looked across the parking lot to Frontflip, letting the battle at the midpoint go out of focus and hazy as he zeroed in on the east entrance. PwnrBwner had said to come through this way, that his people would cover him. Was he there yet? Should he call Pwnr to make sure?

After a second, his vision sharpened to an ultra-high-def clarity he recognized from Hearthworld—Far Sight. The doors were over five hundred yards away, but he could see inside as if he were standing on the steps about to walk in. There was a man in hockey pads wielding a taped-up hockey stick, a woman with a compound bow—she had to be from PwnrBwner’s guild; weapons weren’t allowed on the Frontflip campus—and a man with a bat on his shoulder arguing with someone.

That had to be him. Randy had never seen PwnrBwner outside the game, but something about the man with the bat’s mannerisms and posture gave off the same cocky, derisive vibes as Pwnr did in the game.

“I’ve got to get inside,” Randy said, turning to Helen Rose. “They’re going to need all the help they can get.”

Taking a shaking breath, Helen Rose wiped the shocked tears from her cheeks.

“Randy, you’re not exactly...” She stopped herself and tucked a strand of long hair behind her ear. “I mean, it was really cool when you kicked Danny’s ass, and I don’t want to imply that it was a fluke, but this is real war. Just look at those things.” She gestured to the Heralds soaring high overhead. “What can you do that the cops aren’t already doing?”

“The cops are fighting magical gameworld creatures with mundane weapons.” He nodded at the wounded Herald who’d impaled that SWAT guy. She was gulping down a healing potion. Across the green space turned battlefield, more of the golden-skinned chimeras were doing the same or casting Divine Invigoration on themselves and their fellow Heralds. “It’s not enough. But I’m a Vassal of the Griefer, so I can use my Hearthworld character’s magic here, in real life. That’s why my friends are inside. I’ve got to get in there and help them. You get somewhere safe—maybe out of the city—”

“I’m not going to leave my friends trapped in there alone.” She squared her shoulders toward the building. “Twenty minutes ago, I would’ve called you crazy if you’d told me you can do magic. Now...” She locked eyes with him. “How did you get it? What was that about being a Vassal?”

“Look, this is dangerous,” Randy started.

She cut him off with a raised hand and a steady look. “Your in-game character’s important, right, because its abilities transfer over. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? Have you ever watched my seedFeed, Randy? I’ve got six builds to pick from, all min-maxed for their classes, and my lowest is a level 45. Whatever kind of party you and your friends have, you need one of me. Let’s not waste time arguing. Saving the world is more important. Isn’t that what you were trying to tell me before?”

He took a breath to argue, then let it out.

“Well, yeah. I guess... Yeah.” He nodded. “Okay, if you’re sure about this, then we need to get inside and log in to Hearthworld. The Griefer’s the only one who can make you a Vassal.”

Helen Rose nodded. “So how do we get through that?”

Randy followed her line of sight to the carnage and chaos. Even though he’d been expecting something like this, it was still hard to believe that he was actually seeing it.

“I think I know a way,” he said. “But I’ll have to be touching you.” His face burned, and he hurried to explain. “Not in a creepy way! My Arboreal Herald has Invisibility, and one of the once-per-twenty-four-hour perks is making one other player, creature, or item invisible but not incorporeal for forty-five seconds. I just have to be touching it.” He shoved his glasses up his nose. “That’s why. Not because I want to, uh... Just if we want to get through this without being seen... It could be holding hands, is what I’m saying.”

Helen Rose looked tentatively at the battle, fear darkening her features.

“It’ll be okay,” Randy said, holding out one hand. To his surprise, he actually felt like he was telling the truth, not just murmuring platitudes. “I’ll make sure we’re safe,” he promised.

With a determined nod, she took his hand.

Maybe it was all the practice he’d gotten the previous week trying to spy on Danny. Or maybe it was the extra confidence Helen Rose’s trust gave him. It could even have been the fact that hundreds, if not millions, of lives were riding on him, but when Randy closed his eyes and willed himself to go invisible, it worked on his first try.

He knew because Helen Rose gasped.

“Oh my gosh,” she breathed. “We’re...”

“Yeah,” Randy said, feeling his mouth stretch into a grin despite the gravity of the situation. “It’s pretty great. Imagine if Socrates had had access to this spell.”

She giggle-snorted. “That would’ve shut Glaucon up.”

They took off across the parking lot, Randy leading the way and counting down the seconds until the Contact Invisibility ran out. He gave himself plenty of cushion on either side, starting at thirty just in case.

Thirty... twenty-nine... twenty-eight...

Helen Rose’s hand tightened on his as they slipped between the SWAT team members and crouched to avoid thrown spells. Randy could feel her shaking. He was scared to death himself, but he hoped she couldn’t tell.

The truly frightening part came as they left behind the ranks of SWAT and came to the front line of Heralds. Good Lord, they were so much more terrifying in person, larger than life with their impossible wingspans and gleaming inhuman skin. Deadly swords, spears, and axes glinted under the smoggy afternoon sun, and lethal spells glowed in their fists. He was especially careful to give the terrifying angelic creatures as much space as he could, putting his Arboreal agility to good use whenever one of them threw out their wings or landed almost on top of them without warning.

The hair on the back of Randy’s neck tingled. Animal Precognition had sensed something.

Helen Rose gasped and stopped suddenly. Randy couldn’t see where she was looking, but he heard the heart-stopping roar. It was coming from directly over their heads.

A wriggling, bright red thing that looked like a cross between Jabba the Hutt and a woodchipper dropped out of the sky toward them.

Clever Dodge triggered, jerking Randy out of the way as the bear-sized Grim Corpse Defiler slammed onto the asphalt beside them. Animal Precognition flared again, sending Randy into a roll, and he pulled Helen Rose along with him.

Lucky he did. The SWAT team strafed the Corpse Defiler with bullets, sending the thing into a fury. It slithered with terrifying speed into the line of armored men.

Strangely, Randy felt like he recognized that Corpse Defiler. Something about it reminded him of the Bloodleeches from Hearthworld. Was it possible the Vault of the Radiant Shield had gotten their hands on the Transmute Flesh ability somehow and were creating hybrids like Roark?

A flash of violet in the sky caught Randy’s gaze. A Herald darted in through the portal and returned a moment later, dragging a mob Randy knew instantly—a Bonesnap Behemoth. The former Troll was straight out of Roark’s dungeon. The Heralds weren’t transmuting their own hybrids, they were stealing Roark’s.

“Come on,” Randy said, helping Helen Rose to her feet. “We’ve got to hurry.”

He’d no sooner said it than the Invisibility wore off. She reappeared next to him.

“Oh no.” Randy pushed up his glasses, then broke into a sprint.

They Clever Dodged across the battlefield, Randy invisible and leading Helen Rose. Infernal creatures stolen from somewhere in Hearthworld rained down from overhead. Some attacked the Heralds, and others rampaged into the SWAT team, but some broke through both lines and disappeared into the city, leaving behind carnage in their wake. Smashed windows, cars overturned with inhuman strength. Randy grimaced. Their escape into the city at large was a worst-case scenario come to life. Even if these things were Roark’s allied troops, they were still monsters. They wouldn’t know that this world was real or that the people they killed here wouldn’t respawn. They would be scared, and scared monsters were deadly.

They had almost made it to the east steps of the Frontflip building when a Herald landed in their path. Randy Clever Dodged, but Helen Rose’s hand slipped out of his. She screeched to a halt as if petrified by the angelic creature’s twisted grin.

“Where are you going, missy?” The Herald chuckled, advancing on her, his wings stretching out wide, blocking out the sun. “Nobody goes in or out. Lowen’s orders.”

“Hey, you big bully!” Randy dropped his Invisibility. He didn’t have his Urumi here, but he had a low-level Vine Whip spell. Triggering it, he snapped the lashes across the Herald’s wings and shoulder. “Pick on somebody your own size!”

The Herald spun, hissing at Randy like a cobra about to strike, but Randy held his ground.

“Run!” he yelled at Helen Rose, certain he was about to die. If his death saved her, though, it wouldn’t have been in vain. Dying for even just one person was better than dying for nothing. He had lived his life in the shadow of fear, but no more. He was a hero now, no matter what else happened.

He planted his feet and cocked back his Vine Whip.

Then, out of nowhere, a carbon fiber arrow sprouted with a half-metallic clunk from the Herald’s throat.

“This way, geniuses! Get inside!” yelled a familiar voice. The guy with the baseball bat and several likewise eclectically armed people spilled out of the east doors, attacking the Herald with spells and improvised weapons. “Randy, is that you? Move your ass or lose it, nerd!”

Yep, that was PwnrBwner all right.

The girl with the bow fired off another arrow at the Herald while a heavyset man with what looked like a mall-bought katana helped Helen Rose inside. Randy sprinted up the steps after her, dodging wild friendly fire as much as the Heralds’ attacks, and stumbled into the foyer of Frontflip.

“That’s it, guys, they’re in!” PwnrBwner yelled, cracking a Herald in the head with a ringing home run swing from his Louisville Slugger. “Pack it in!”

The Poser Owners broke off and retreated into the foyer, panting with exhaustion and adrenaline. A few slid down the walls and dropped their weapons, and several more leaned over with their hands on their knees.

“Miss Douglas?” an annoyed, authoritative voice snapped. Randy spun around to find Mike Silva, Frontflip’s CEO, glaring from Helen Rose to him. “And what was your name? Shoemaker, right? Are you behind this attack? You punk, I’ll have the law all over you—”

“Listen, dickface,” PwnrBwner said, shoving his way through the crowd to Silva, “Randy’s here to protect your sorry ass, just like us, so maybe you should be kissing up to him instead of making bullshit threats.”

“And you!” Silva’s face turned red. “You’re nothing short of a cosplayer turned terrorist leader, barging in here like this, bringing down your—what? LARP war?—on Frontflip!”

PwnrBwner let out a sharp laugh. “Okay, fuckwad, if that’s the way you want it—”

Sensing the imminent downward spiral, Randy shoved himself between them. He could let Pwnr duke it out with the CEO—it would probably even feel good to see Silva get his butt kicked after all the man had plotted to do to destroy his career, but he had to be the bigger man here. There was more at stake than just his career.

“Sorry, Mr. Silva,” he said, “but you have to listen for just a minute. You’ve probably already noticed that these creatures are the Malaika Heralds from Hearthworld...” Speaking as quickly as he could without being unclear, Randy updated Silva on the situation between Roark and Lowen and the multiple dimensions hanging in the balance. “They’re attacking Frontflip with the goal of getting the Devs to remove the soulbound tag from an item in the game. I believe it’s part of what gave Roark the Griefer the abilities we were investigating.”

He fully expected Silva to call him a lunatic and worse. But Silva’s narrowed eyes cut to the scene unfolding outside his company’s glass doors, then back inside to Randy. The evidence was right there on his doorstep. He couldn’t refute it, and so he put what all the news blogs and feeds called his “+10 Forward-Thinking” to the task.

“That’s all this is over?” Silva crossed his arms. “A soulbind tag? Tell them we’ll do it.”

“Sir, you can’t!” Randy put out his hands in an entreaty. “The lives you’ll be destroying are uncountable, both in Hearthworld and in this other dimension I mentioned—”

“Can it, Shoemaker,” Silva snapped. “I’m not talking about aiding and abetting genocide. We’ll agree to their demands, give them whatever they want, and while one of our people is working on shutting off the soulbind on that pendant, we’ll have someone else force-shutdown Hearthworld.”

“That was my first thought, too, sir,” Helen Rose said, stepping forward, “but it’s not a good plan this time. There are life-forms within Hearthworld who have gained sentience, and you’ll be killing all of them.”

Silva waved a hand at the carnage outside. “They’re unleashing monsters on American streets, Douglas! Not only will this ruin our company, but people are going to die. Who knows how many already have in this firefight? Suppose the ones they bring through aren’t the end? Suppose they start spawning here in LA? I don’t want to wipe out intelligent life-forms needlessly, but if it’s us or them, I pick us.”

The CEO pulled out his phone and spoke into the mic. “Call Frontflip Dev and Programming.”

A solid crack sounded through the foyer. Silva’s eyes rolled up and he dropped the phone. A second later, he collapsed.

PwnrBwner shouldered his bat.

“What are you doing?” Randy yelled, voice breaking in shock.

“Your egghead diplomacy failed,” Pwnr said. “It was time for the cool guy to get shit done.”

Randy gestured helplessly at Silva’s groaning form. “But you could’ve killed him!”

“No, I couldn’t have.” PwnrBwner rolled his eyes. “I got nailed in the back of the head like that when I was in Little League, and all it did was give me a concussion.”

“But... this is the real world,” Randy argued. “Violence isn’t the way to solve... I mean, we have dialogues and meaningful discussion...”

“Your meaningful discussion wasn’t going anywhere, Randy, so I fixed it. You can thank me later.” Pwnr turned to his Poser Owners. “Let’s get this guy locked up. Randy can probably show you where to stash him.” When Randy didn’t immediately move, Pwnr raised a brow at him. “Dude, it’s for the good of, like, three worlds.”

Randy sighed. “Okay. Helen Rose and I have to get to the deep dive consoles. I think there’s a janitorial closet that locks from the outside next to the VIP lounge.”

The Zen of Steel

ROARK BARELY MADE IT through smithing a pair of iron counterweights for the first trebuchet before he decided the long train of black hair that had come from his Mega-Evolution had to go. It kept blowing into his face and sticking to the sweat. He could pull it back into a queue, but with the horns, he would just look a bloody fool, so he got out his Kaiken Dagger and started sawing away at it.

There had been a time when he’d thought long hair made him look roguish and sophisticated, but Danella—the golden-haired thief who’d taught him about life on the streets—had destroyed that notion in short order with a harsh dose of reality.

“What in the bloody hells have you done with your hair?”

“It was getting long.”

“So cut it off.”

“Noblemen wear queues all the time.”

“Do they look like right bellends, too?”

“Get stuffed.”

“Think it’ll catch more lice or rats? I hope it’s rats. I’m starving.”

“Bloody hells, fine, I’m cutting it!”

As her ghostly laughter rang in his head, Roark chuckled to himself and finished hacking off the fistful of hair. Strange how not so long ago even the memories of the best times with Danella would cut him to the soul because of their bleak ending, but now he could look back on at least some of them with a measure of fondness.

“What are you doing?” Zyra’s dusky voice surprised him from his musings. He found her perched on the closest workbench, human legs crossed.

“Some much-needed grooming.” He held up the hank of hair as proof, then tossed it into the nearest forge fire, letting it burn in a plume of oily smoke.

The Orbweaver made a pouting sound low in her throat. “I liked it. You looked so much easier to catch hold of with long hair.” She curled her slender fingers into a fist as if to demonstrate.

Roark snorted. “Add that to the reasons to cut it off, then. It got in the way while I was working.”

Zyra shrugged, one pair of arms braced behind her on the bench, the other set toying idly with the gathered tools. She selected a driver and pointed it at him. “Either way, what I meant was, why are you cutting your hair with a dagger when you can just go into the grimoire and change its length?”

“Honestly, I didn’t think of it,” he admitted, scratching his onyx-plated jaw sheepishly. “Old habits, I suppose.”

With a thought, he opened his grimoire and flipped to his spinning avatar. After a moment’s trial and error, he figured out how to alter the hairstyle back to the shaggy mane he was more accustomed to. He closed out of the tome and offered Zyra a smile.

“Much better,” he said. “A tad more even this way. Thanks for the tip.”

“You’d never survive without me,” she teased. But as soon as the taunt was spoken, the playful air they’d been enjoying a moment before dissipated, and a heavy shroud settled in its place like the deadly fumes from a poorly vented forge. Silence reigned. Zyra had always been the straightforward sort, preferring to solve things with a shout or at the tip of a blade, but she seemed to have reached the end of her interest in this argument. For whatever reason, Zyra was keeping her own counsel now, and the words she left unspoken seemed to yell the loudest and most fervently.

Roark had no idea how to approach her in this silent state and felt certain he would only make things worse if he tried. Instead, he busied himself tying on a leather smithing apron.

Zyra hopped off the bench. “Well, I didn’t just come to set your hair to rights, Dungeon Lord. I’ve got more replacement webs for you to Hex.”

“Of course.” He’d precast several more Discordant Inversion spells in his Initiate’s Spell Book in preparation for this. He took the first from her and selected the surface to Hex.

[Would you like to Hex this surface? Yes/No?

Note: For every Hex you inscribe, Cursed! will extract a share of your Health equal to your Enchanting level x your character level.]

A hefty price to pay now that his levels in both were so high, but his Health-regen could more than keep up with it, and the results were well worth the cost. As he worked, he caught sight of movement high above on the glowing surface of the Vault—a Herald tangled in another web. The squad of webcrawlers assigned to the western side dropped down from their perches and attacked. Lowen’s soldiers were taking their chances on flying out less and less as more of their fellow Heralds were sent for respawn.

Grim satisfaction beat in Roark’s chest as the webcrawlers dispatched the Herald. No more rushed out into the night. It’d had a rocky start, but they were turning this into a proper siege.

One by one, Roark Hexed the replacement webs, pausing now and then to go through the motion-intensive cast for Discordant Inflection and replace the inscriptions he’d used from his spell book. It took time and stamina, but it gave his Health a chance to recover when it dipped too low. By the time he’d finished the last web, the heat from the nearby forge had him dripping in sweat and his muscles trembling from the strain.

“That’s the last of them,” he said, handing it to Zyra.

She nodded and stored it in her Inventory. For a moment, she looked as if she’d leave without another word, as she’d done so many times over the past few days.

Then she turned back and used her long spider’s legs to stretch up to his height. He felt her lacy veil brush against his cheek, then her lips and fangs.

“Jotnar,” she muttered jokingly as she pulled away. She cut through the throng toward the Vault. “If they weren’t so filthy useful...”

Roark grinned and turned back to his battlefield smithy. Time to put that usefulness back to work.

He stoked up the fire once more, then called for an apprentice to work the bellows while he melted down the gathered scrap in a massive crucible. When the last chunk of metal was glowing and liquid, Roark pulled the crucible out and poured it hissing into the counterweight mold. While that cooled, he returned to the fire and started on the next. In Hearthworld there was very little waiting in the molding process—what would have needed to sit overnight cooling in Traisbin took only minutes here—but Roark was reluctant to waste even a single second when already the horizon was tinged with dawn. Who knew how much time had passed in the Devs’ home world, but one thing was certain, every second brought them closer to the day Hearthworld’s gods planned to wipe this world from existence.

All around his station, accomplished smiths from the allied dungeons worked tirelessly, crafting individual parts of siege engines. Roark’s initial thought had been to have each smith build a trebuchet, battering ram, or siege tower from scratch themselves, but he’d quickly dismissed that notion. With each station focusing on crafting one or two specific pieces, they turned out parts much faster. Then the Construction specialists ferried the parts away and began to assemble them.

Already, Roark could see the early stages of three massive siege towers beginning to climb high above the allied troops, a battering ram’s chains being riveted in place while a group of Thursrs and Rock people dragged its ram over, and beyond that a trebuchet’s uprights being fastened to the wheeled base. Each engine had been specially chosen for the allied mobs whose particular skills would work best with it. Trebuchets for the Rock people of the Crystal Caverns, many of whom now had the Meteoric Flare ability to catch on fire with no harm to themselves thanks to Transmute Flesh. The battering rams for powerhouses like the Trolls and their hybrids, and siege towers with ballistae on top to deliver the troops to the Vault’s numerous entrances and exits while archer types rained enormous Undead Chaos Bolts on the Heralds’ hive.

Roark crafted half a dozen more counterweights, then went back through, cracking open the molds and retrieving the immense spheres of iron. With more time, he would’ve done what he could to smooth out their rough edges a bit. It irked his pride a little not to, and he couldn’t avoid hearing the brawny old mage-smith he’d been apprenticed to at the academy clucking disappointedly at the ugly creations. This, however, was a war, he reminded himself, and not just against Lowen, but against the ticking clock. A rough edge here and there wouldn’t affect the efficiency of the trebuchet, so he was forced to call it good enough.

That put paid to his quota for the trebuchets.

He turned to his next project with no small amount of glee. The mechanism for a ballista that would sit atop one of the siege towers. Other than their nails, hangers, and wheels, the tower would be mainly wood, but the ballista was a complicated bit of machinery with metal winches, cranks, gears, shafts, and springs, every one of which was vital to its operation. If one piece failed, the ballista was so much worthless scrap.

Because of this, only Roark and the two most highly skilled smiths in the allied dungeons were entrusted with crafting the ballista pieces, and rather than smithing them from scrap, each piece would be made from top-quality Steel Ingots Roark had smelted himself.

Roark spent more time finessing the ballista parts than the counterweights. He labored over them with a critical eye. Turning the arms on the metal lathe he’d brought straight from the Troll Nation smithy. Carefully measuring out every tooth in the gear mold, then rasping each surface clean when it came out of the mold. He heated the lengths of thin rod to steel’s perfect yellow glow before threading the end through the head of a spring shaping rod, then coiling it around. A time-intensive process, but one that he reveled in. There was a simplicity to it, yet one that required single-minded focus.

Ick often spoke of meditative practices, and though Roark had never fully mastered the ability to turn off his mind, when engaged in work like this, he came close.

Once the myriad pieces of his ballista were finished, Roark called over one of the master craftsmen from the Construction specialists. The Bloodleech set to work quickly and efficiently assembling the creation, putting each piece in its place with a deftness belied by its handless meaty arms.

Unfortunately, Roark didn’t have the time to admire the engine as it came together. He turned back to the forge and began to heat the thick metal rods and enormous flanged heads for the ballista’s bolts. When they were hot enough, he made certain the ends were spotless, then applied the flux and stuck them back in the fire, taking care not to let even a breath of air blow across their glowing yellow surfaces when he pulled them back out. These he wired together securely.

Then it was time for patience. Hammer too soon, and he’d destroy the joint. He counted out the seconds in his head as the metal cooled and joined with the wire. Finally, it was time. He applied the trip hammer to the welds, a lesser smith helping him manipulate the enormous and unwieldy bolts. The process would have been far harder had his helper not been a creature of rock and fire, a mid-level Magma Selkie, himself immune from the scorching heat of molten metal. What Roark wouldn’t have given for such an assistant back in his home world.

By the time the sun had risen over the horizon, he had created a stack of the bolts. All that was left to do was to Curse them with Undead Chaos.

Roark was just hefting the first bolt to begin when a message appeared in the corner of his vision. It was from Randy.

We need help. The cops distracted Lowen’s side for a while, but he just started dropping mobs in the middle of LA, and the cops are having to deal with that. We’re not doing well here. Pwnr’s guild and I aren’t enough. We can’t hold Frontflip indefinitely.

Roark scowled, glancing around at the siege engines under construction, then up to the webcrawlers. All this preparation would be for naught if Lowen captured the Devs’ home and managed to steal back the World Stone.

He had to get there, but he couldn’t just step through the dimensions to Randy’s aid—in that, Lowen had the upper hand. True, the heroes might be able to pass easily between the worlds, but Roark had to travel by portal.

Unfortunately, he only knew of one person who had access to reliable portals.

“Damn it all.” He tossed the ballista bolt to the trampled, muddy grass and sent a reply to Randy: Hold as long as you can. I’m on my way.

Still cursing himself, Roark opened his messages with Talise. Time to take another deadly gamble, and this time not only with his own life.

Secrets in Shadow

MIST SWIRLED AND EDDIED around Roark’s ankles as he stepped out of the shadowed stairwell that led down into the Cruel Citadel’s first room. The inner bailey was silent, the vitrified surfaces of the battle-scorched and crumbling walls glistening under moonlight, though it was nearly midday at the Vault. Day and night seemed to work differently in different areas of Hearthworld. Here, gloom and mist were the rule, and the lightest it ever got was a sort of purple twilight, while in a place like Averi City there was only bright daylight. The Vault, meanwhile, seemed to alternate between the two for reasons Roark couldn’t fathom.

It was almost as if the Devs had designed each land to suit the mood of the local dungeons.

Feathers rustled by the pitted portcullis. Roark drew his rapier and readied a spell, just in case it wasn’t her. He needn’t have worried. A moment later, Talise stepped out of the dark niche meant for the portcullis’s operator, raven’s wings folded and at rest behind her back. Silhouetted by the moonlight coming through the rusty grate, she was a dead ringer for their mother—tall and slender, with thick, wavy hair much like what Roark had just divested himself of, and the slight Lyuko curve to her nose. He knew, however, that if the light caught her face, he’d see more of their father hidden beneath the Heraldic features. Talise had always taken after Sir Erich in looks and temperament, whereas Roark seemed to have inherited his changeable temper and hotheadedness from their mother.

“It’s a lovely kingdom you’ve built for yourself, brother.” Talise trailed her fingers along the closed portcullis, then grimaced down at what Roark guessed to be rust, dried blood, or dust the contact with the grating had left on her fingertips. “Though the upkeep leaves something to be desired,” she said, brushing the offending substance onto the skirt of her gown. “Can’t find good servants here?”

Roark crossed the misty bailey in a flash, in no mood for jokes.

“Did anyone see you leave?” he asked, eyeing the skies and shadows for any sign of a follower. He’d been worried sick since she’d agreed to meet him. “Does Marek suspect anything?”

“Of course not,” she said. “I’m far better at this traitor work than you give me credit for.” She smirked and nodded to his arm, covered now with purple-tipped scales rather than the scars from old spells. “I am invisible, remember? It runs in the family.”

Roark clenched his fist. “This isn’t a game, Talise.”

“That’s lucky for you and Marek,” she said, holding up a handful of portal stones. “Because if it was, I’d be winning.”

He snatched the stones out of her hand and quickly stowed them in a spelled leather pouch. He shouldn’t have asked her to get them. Wouldn’t have if there’d been any other option. It was a terrible risk, one that could easily expose her true loyalties to Marek. Despite her confidence and seemingly carefree attitude, Roark knew exactly how cunning the Tyrant King could be. Underestimating the man was precisely how Roark had ended up with horns and wings in the first place.

“This was a one-off,” he said. “You’re not our spy, and you’re not working for us from the inside. Inside men and women die, and not nice, clean deaths. I’ve seen it time and again in the resistance—”

“I know,” she said, lifting her chin to meet his gaze with her cold gray eyes. “Marek had me torture and kill several of them to hone the lawless magicks I was born with. Demand has gone up since you stole the World Stone, by the way.”

“And you’ll keep doing it,” he snapped, pointing a black-clawed finger at her. “You’ll do anything Marek asks you to, keep him happy and your head down, whatever it takes to protect yourself. You’re to make no moves against him, and you won’t contact me again, do you understand? It’s too much of a risk.”

Talise scowled, and for the first time since they were children, Roark saw a hint of the Lyuko temper clouding her face. In a heartbeat, however, the dark thunderheads were gone, smoothed away as if they had never been there at all. She laughed like some noble fop had just told an amusing anecdote at a card party.

“You may be the eldest, Roark,” she said in a bored aristocratic drawl, “but you are not the boss of me. I’ve been making my own decisions for twenty years without your help, all from within the enemy’s lair, and I’ve managed to survive this long.”

Roark tried not to wince at the sudden stab of guilt in his vitals, but he wasn’t as adept at hiding behind a wall of aristocratic pretense as his younger sister. Obviously she’d had more practice, growing up within Marek’s grasp. She would’ve attended his parties and mixed with his bloodthirsty guests. One would certainly need to be the master of their emotions in such circumstances. The only reason Roark had needed to conceal his emotions on the streets was to get close enough to one of the Tyrant King’s cronies to slit their throat or plant a knife in their liver.

“If I’d known...” Roark wanted to say he would never have left Talise for dead, but he’d turned tail and run while the Ustar’s axe was still falling, while his mother was still throwing herself between the blade and Talise’s tiny body. He’d been too scared and young to think of anything but getting out before the Tyrant King’s men caught and executed him, too. The truth was, he doubted that his eleven-year-old self would have made the right decision even if he’d known at the time.

“No, I’m sorry,” Talise said, dropping the condescending drawl. “That was vile of me.”

He shook his head. “You have nothing to apologize for. Every word was true.”

“It’s only...” She smoothed a bit of ruffled black feather on her wings, then refolded them behind her. “I live with a tyrant, Roark. I’ve had just about my fill of taking orders.”

He scratched a hand through his hair.

“Please, Talise, just hold your position for a little longer. It won’t be long now, I swear to it. I just need to know that you’re safe. Once I make it back to Traisbin, I’ll set things to rights.” His voice hardened. “That is a promise I can make.”

“By yourself, of course,” she said.

A scrim of clouds veiled the moon for a moment. Roark watched it drift by in silence, unwilling to respond. When it had passed, he turned back to Talise. Roark didn’t like the sudden eagerness he saw in her eyes.

“Those portal stones will take you anywhere in the Other World or Traisbin,” she said. “What if you used one right now to travel from here to Marek’s bedroom? He retired hours ago, you know. I sat at his bedside and read him pages from the Wikilore of Hearthworld’s new land, the Onyx Sands, right up until he drifted off to sleep. He’s an old man, and he grows older every day without his World Stone. You could kill him and use another stone to get away before anyone was the wiser.”

The temptation was certainly there, but Roark shook his head.

“I can’t deny that it crossed my mind,” he admitted, “but I’ve tried that same ploy before—or near enough. It’s how I ended up here in the first place, remember?” He waved his hands to indicate the whole of Hearthworld. “Even as I am now, there’s no telling what Marek has hidden up his sleeve. If I’ve learned anything about the power of the World Stone, it’s that I still know next to nothing about what it can truly do. He’s had a lifetime, perhaps several, to study its magics. Attacking him in his own lair would be more foolhardy than my first attempt to kill him.”

Reluctantly, Talise conceded the point.

“Besides,” Roark said, thinking of Randy’s panicked messages and PwnrBwner and his guild’s willingness to risk their lives to protect their world, “I have other considerations than my own goals to take into account at the moment.”

Even saying that out loud was a wonder. There was a time when he’d been utterly alone in the world, without a care or a friend. Since Danella’s death, he had cared only for vengeance, with no consideration for the living. His mind turned to Kaz and Ick and Griff. To lovely, deadly Zyra. Maybe more had changed within him than even he had realized.

“I can’t go after Marek yet,” he continued after a beat. “The outcome’s too uncertain, and I have friends in the Other World who need my help first. Our favorite overwriting noble horse’s ass is laying waste to their city and trying to break their stronghold.”

“Lowen?” Talise’s nose wrinkled. “I hope you kill him.”

“The first chance I get, I intend to,” Roark promised.

Bed, Bath, and Way Beyond

SCOTT BAYANI FINISHED up in the first-floor men’s room, then headed for the cafeteria, taking a couple practice swings with the bat as he went. The halls were plenty wide. He got the full follow-through without having to pull his arms in even a little.

Frontflip had some majorly nice facilities. Marble in the johns and heated toilet seats. Fully stocked employee lounges, plus coffee and vending machines in basically every hall. They even had designated Segway and hoverboard paths indoors and check-out charging stations that looked like all you had to do was scan your ID or something. Not to mention the gym, the Olympic-sized pool, and the basketball and tennis courts he’d seen on the campus maps in the elevator lobbies. Not that they could get past the Heralds to check those out right then, but still. Frontflip beat the fuck out of Taco Bell for fringe benefits. Scott was actually a little jealous of Randy for getting to work there.

Speaking of Randy, Scott needed to get his squad of POSes and get back to the east entrance. Not long after Randy showed up, they had divided the Poser Owners into two rotating shifts. That way, one group could eat and rest while the other was keeping a lookout and fighting off any new attacks by that dickweed Lowen’s crew. One of the POSes was an Army National Guard dude, Couch_Warrior3000, and he’d helped with the watch roster. Guy was crazy out of shape for being in the guard, but he seemed sharper than most of the other gamers in the crew.

Scott’s squad’s break was almost up, though. Time to get back at it.

He sauntered into the cafeteria, swinging the bat up onto his shoulder. Since the caf was at the center of the building, most of the staff had holed up in there. That famous gamer chick, Helen Rose Douglas, was surrounded by scared Frontflip employees, trying to reassure everyone. She’d managed to talk some of them into joining the fight with their Hearthworld characters and helping defend Frontflip—Scott had made them honorary members of the POSes, which was basically worthless since they couldn’t do any magic, but whatever, it was the thought that counted. The non-fighters, on the other hand, were busy bombarding her with questions. The ones who weren’t demanding answers were staring at the projection screen, where footage showed fires burning across the city, storefronts smashed, cars overturned, monsters going nuts on cops or anybody who tried to get close, and of course the inevitable douchebags taking advantage of the chaos to loot shit.

Everybody who wasn’t watching that was obsessively checking their phones.

Scott didn’t know what they expected to change in the next two seconds. Some huge announcement that everything was fine now and the cops suddenly had all the big bad monsters under control? Scott snorted under his breath. Yeah right. He’d binged all the SWAT shows when he was a kid; he knew those dudes were nails-tough AF, but from what he’d seen so far, not a single one of them knew the trick to any of these mobs. Like, the Heralds were no walk in the park, obviously, but they hadn’t even known to shoot at the jewel in the Rampaging Greater Stonewarg’s forehead when one of Lowen’s dudes dropped the thing in the middle of their formation. Rookie mistake.

“Yo, Pwnr!” Ninjastein waved him over to a table in the corner. Basically everybody from his POS squad was there, crowded around Flappie_Sak’s phone. “You need to see this, dude.”

“What’s going on?” Scott leaned over the skinny guy’s shoulder so he could see the screen better.

“War,” Flappie_Sak said in a low voice. “They called out the National Guard.” He hooked a thumb toward Couch_Warrior3000, who was sitting a little apart from the rest. “Mark just got orders to mobilize. He’s trying to decide if he can do more here or with his unit...”

Sure enough, whatever news blog Flappie was subscribed to showed live shots of tanks rolling down the 5.

“Shit,” Hobbitses said, settling in with a bowl of noodles. “My brother’s in the guard.”

Abruptly, the feed switched to carnage in a mall food court. Bodies and furniture thrown around like dirty clothes. A sour taste pushed up the back of Scott’s throat when he realized all that red was legit blood and guts, not shiny VR gore. That wasn’t the worst part, though. The worst part was whatever had done it had dragged some of the bodies away from the scene of the crime.

He swallowed and watched as whoever was recording followed the blood trails to a Bed Bath & Beyond.

“Ghouls,” GothicTerror muttered.

She was right. Through the front windows, Scott could see the low-level slimy snotrags floating around displays of pillows, hand towels, and French presses, getting nasty green ectoplasm all over the place.

“I hate those things,” Ninjastein said grimly.

“Same,” Flappie_Sak replied.

“You know who hates ’em more?” Scott said. “The losers they helter-skeltered all over that food court.”

“Not really the time for your patented shitty sense of humor,” GothicTerror snapped, glaring at him over Flappie_Sak’s head. “People are dead.”

“Yeah, and more are gonna die,” Scott said, pointing at the screen. “Ghouls take prisoners to eat later, right? That’s what those blood streaks were—they’ve got people in there stored up for when they get the munchies. And those trash-tier Ghouls are only there because there’s a Reaper Queen inside somewhere. That’s what fucked up the food court, and whoever tried to stop it had no idea that nonmagical weapons don’t do jack shit against Reapers. Either the cops or the National Guard’s gonna get called in to deal with these things, and they’re gonna get chewed up and spit out the minute they rock up because they don’t know what they’re up against. We’re the only experts in this field.”

She frowned at him. “What’re you saying? We’re the cavalry?”

“Obviously that’s what I’m saying, Skullcandy. Nobody knows better than us how to take Ghouls and Reapers out. Besides, if using our spells IRL helps us level them up, then killing mobs has to work the same way. I’m not wasting a shot at grinding out some IRL levels. These snotrags might even drop loot. All I know is some enchanted weapons and armor would go a long fucking way against these Heralds.”

Ninjastein nodded. “You’re right. They need us out there. If the rest of the guild can hold this place, I’m in.”

Hobbitses slurped up a noodle, unconvinced, and Flappie_Sak was looking at Goth-tots. Neither one of those douches was going to agree unless the rest of the group did it first.

“What do you say, Elvira?” Scott prompted her. “You in?”

GothicTerror took another long look at the Ghouls floating across the screen, then blew out her breath.

“The mall’s got an Archery Pro, and I’m almost out of arrows.” She nodded. “Fine, whatever. Let’s raid these a-holes.”

***

AFTER THEY CHECKED in with Randy to make sure his squad could hold out until they got back, Scott, GothicTerror, Ninjastein, Flappie_Sak, and 3Trenchcoat_Hobbitses made a run for it out the back where the Herald coverage and subsequently the SWAT response team was thinnest. The cops tried to stop them, but their escape had Heralds attacking, and pretty soon the SWAT team was too focused on the dickbirds to worry about a bunch of gamers in hockey pads sprinting toward Ninjastein’s beat-up van. They piled in the back and Ninjastein fired it up.

“Nice van,” Scott said, eyeing the lack of windows in the back. “Abduct anybody cool lately?”

“It’s for deliveries,” Ninajstein snapped as he squealed brakes out of the parking lot. “My parents own a furniture shop.”

It also happened to be pretty good at getting through apocalyptic downtown traffic. It didn’t matter if a driver had abandoned their truck in the middle of the road or a car was overturned in front of them, Ninjastein’s van sat high enough to ride up on the sidewalks when the deadlock was impassable, and it was heavy enough to slowly shove vehicles out of the way so it could get through. As a result, the trip was faster than anything Scott had ever experienced driving through LA.

By the time they got to the Palms Mall, the usually bustling shopping center had been cleared out. Flappie_Sak had Ninjastein make a complete circle of the place before they parked, “for reconnaissance.” A pileup of cars burned in front of Entrance 3 like a lone bonfire, but other than a broken-down camper in the West Lot and a few scattered abandoned vehicles, the place was a ghost town.

Scott didn’t know whether he should be happy or scared that no cops had shown up here yet. That meant none of the good guys were being pointlessly slaughtered already, so yay, but also that he and the POSes were about to waltz into a huge building full of hiding spaces where the only non-monsters were people the Ghouls had kept to chow down on later, so yikes.

Little of both, he decided.

“The Archery Pro’s by Entrance 1,” GothicTerror said, leaning up front to point it out. “The Bed Bath & Beyond is kind of halfway down that wing, on the second floor.”

They parked and hopped out, checking hockey pads, katanas, and bows. Scott pulled on his batting gloves and cocked the Slugger back, ready to rock some noggins. Hobbitses cast a protective orange dome over their party.

“Lead the way, Tots,” Scott said. “You’re the one looking for arrows.”

He was expecting it to be dead silent inside, but everybody had run off so fast that no one had thought to shut off the endless soundtrack of mall pop. With no other sound to compete with, the eerily upbeat music echoed through the empty hallways.

Spreading out into raid formation, they followed GothicTerror to one of those outdoorsy stores full of extra-expensive brand-name fishing, hunting, and hiking crap. Not the way Scott liked to spend his extra cash—why spend time getting dirty and sweaty outdoors when gaming was a thing? He was a little surprised that Tots was into that scene, but the whole bow-and-arrow thing had worked out in their favor so far, so whatever floated her kayak.

Nothing jumped out and attacked them in Archery Pro, and there turned out to be some good shit in there in terms of weaponry. While GothicTerror picked out all the arrows and tips she could stuff into her quiver, Hobbitses decided it was time to dual-wield, his hockey stick in one hand and an off-the-shelf machete in the other. Flappie_Sak followed his example and picked out a pair of hatchets. Scott found some wicked-looking metal spiked thingies called crampons and fastened them to the top of his bat, leveling it up from a club to a full-on mace.

“Hell yeah,” Scott whispered, giving it a couple test swings. He jerked his chin at Ninjastein when the fat guy didn’t move to pick anything out. “You gonna upgrade or not?”

“Nah, Reiko’s seen me through a lot of Bleach, Deathnote, and every episode of Hunter x Hunter,” the big dude said, patting his crappy mall katana. “We go too far back. I can’t abandon her now.”

“Suit yourself.”

Newly geared up, they headed out into the main corridor and followed the blue path to the escalators. Still no sign of deadly Hearthworld mobs, and the aggressively optimistic bullshit music kept pumping out of the speakers. Scott led the way onto the moving stairs.

“So far, so good,” Flappie_Sak said.

“Don’t get complacent,” Scott snapped, already locked into full raid mode. “Keep your head on a swivel. Hobbitses, hit us with another blanket ward.”

Hobbitses complied, casting pale orange light around them with a wave of his hockey stick turned wizard’s staff. While he did that, Scott raised his fist and cast Powerful Inspiration, one of the party buffs from the Cleric half of his Ranger-Cleric.

[Powerful Inspiration has granted each member of your party +1 to all Skilled Attacks and a character stat of their choice.]

The text floated in front of his face for a moment before dissipating. Now that was weird, getting a pop-up in the middle of the real world. He hurried up and dropped the extra point into Intelligence. Ghouls might be annoying, but they died easily enough when you finally hit them. Reapers, on the other hand, were nothing to dick around with; they weren’t susceptible to regular weapons, so his spells were going to have to do the heavy lifting when they finally ran the Reaper down.

Scott spotted Bed Bath & Beyond as the escalator dumped them out on the second floor.

Apparently the Ghouls had taken the time between that blogcast and the POSes’ arrival to set up shop and redecorate. Eerie green light spilled out into the hall through the glass front of the store, and bloody drag marks took a sharp turn into the open doorway. Ectoplasm and flimsy wisps of something halfway between a mushroom and a fog clung to every corner, wafting gently in a breeze.

Even the air coming out of the place was musty and dank. Scott grimaced at the dampness it left on his skin. That was gross as balls.

“How are they doing this?” GothicTerror whispered as they crept closer. “Making it wet like that? And growing that fungus? That’s Corpse Hair.” She jerked her bow at a cloud of the wispy stuff. “It only grows in Undead dungeons near Averi City. It’s like they’re making this place into a legit dungeon.”

“Magic,” Scott answered sharply. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s kill them first, then ask questions never.”

A gauzy translucent form floated past the doorway, then stopped suddenly. The bobbing sentry turned, looked right at Scott, then screamed, the sound piercing the air like a foghorn.

All of a sudden, they were staring down the rotting, haggard faces of a pack of Ghouls. Disgusting strings of green saliva hung from their ghostly teeth, and their disintegrating cheeks flapped in time with their wails.

Scott cocked back his mace-bat. “Weapons only on the lowbies! Save your magic for the big show! She’s in there somewhere.”

All at once, the pack charged, coming at them in a swirling tornado of goo and gauze and nastiness.

“Calm Undead!” GothicTerror yelled.

A pale greenish halo blasted off her, washing over the swarming Ghouls. Just like that, they stopped attacking and calmly turned to go back inside their creepy-ass Bed Bath & Beyond. Either her Intelligence was really high, or these were some dumbshit mobs.

Scott nodded at GothicTerror. “Decent.”

She pointed at the things’ backs. “Attack.”

“Duh,” he said. “Game on, bitches.”

They ran up on the Calmed Ghouls and launched a merciless assault. The second they hit one, the Calming wore off, but really all it took to kill a Ghoul was one or two hits. They were made for new players to learn the ropes and level up their characters, which was why Ghoul dungeons were so close to Averi City.

“Huh.” Scott grand-slammed a Ghoul across the store. It took out a display of crystal wineglasses with a satisfying crash just before its Health bar emptied. Not only was he seeing prompts, he was seeing Health bars now. “Wonder if any of these douches know the Griefer,” he mused, stepping over a downed corpse, scanning the entryway for more threats.

The rest of the POSes were too busy hacking and slashing and shooting arrows at the slime bags to hear him. Blanket sets, copper pans, and whisks went flying in every direction. Scott waded in alongside them, smashing heads and calling out orders whenever somebody missed something obvious, but for the most part, he’d picked the right people for the job. They knew what they were doing; he barely had to micromanage at all.

The Employees Only door exploded open, and a shriek cut through the store. Any glass they hadn’t already broken immediately shattered. Scott dropped his bat and slapped his hands over his ears. Felt like someone had hammered freshly sharpened pencils into his ear canals.

The Reaper Queen swooped out of the back room, hauling ass right toward them.

“Magic only!” Scott yelled, but even he couldn’t hear himself over her screaming.

Ninjastein ran to intercept her with his stupid fake katana. The Reaper didn’t even slow down. She slashed her long nasty fingernails across his gut, shredding the fat guy’s shirt and tearing open his stomach as she passed.

“Shit!” Scott looked at GothicTerror. “Get her while I heal Ninjastein!” he yelled, gesturing wildly.

When the thot didn’t move, he aimed a Fast-Healing Blast at the downed tank.

She nodded, nocked an arrow, and took aim at the Reaper.

“Dammit!” What about no regular weapons didn’t these doofuses understand?

But GothicTerror tapped the shaft with one finger, and the arrow lit up with Undead Chaos. She let it rip, and the broadhead slammed into the Reaper, tearing away a chunk of the Bed Bath & Beyond Dungeon boss’s Health.

Fine. So maybe Goth-Tots wasn’t a doofus after all. Hobbitses joined in with some orange exploding spell, and Flappie_Sak threw a couple random offensive casts from the very bottom tier of magic spells, like Fire and Ice Javelin. Dude was no spell-slinger, but it was better than nothing.

Scott finished Fast-Healing Ninjastein, then sent a double fistful of Elemental Fury to fry some revenge into the Reaper scream queen. Between that, GothicTerror’s Undead Chaos damage, and Hobbitses’ explosions, they had her on the ropes in no time. And Scott reluctantly admitted that maybe some of the rando crap Flappie was throwing in helped a little, too.

With a final shout, Scott called down Lightning Spear on the Reaper. Impossibly, thunder rolled inside the store, and a blue-white bolt ripped through her chest from out of nowhere. Her Health bar flashed out its critical warning, then emptied. The Reaper Queen was dead.

An ascending chime played through the Bed Bath & Beyond speaker system.

[LEVEL UP!]

Bright golden light shined from Scott’s skin, and he rose up into the air, defying all the known laws of physics. Magic was a helluva thing. Power rushed into him, filling him with a euphoria unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He’d gotten the smallest shot ever of that feeling when he leveled up in Hearthworld, but this was like that on steroids times a thousand with a dose of You’re the Greatest Hero the World’s Ever Known! thrown in for good measure.

He could get used to that.

When the real-life cutscene ended and he dropped back to the tiled floor of the Bed Bath & Beyond, he went straight for the Reaper Queen’s corpse and started digging through her ragged clothes looking for pockets.

An Inventory popped open.

“Oh hell yeah,” he said, dumping everything onto the floor in front of himself. It wasn’t much, but it was more than he’d had a minute ago. “Great news, POSes—these assbags drop loot.”

Other World

AFTER LOADING HIS INVENTORY with as many Peerless weapons and as much armor as he could carry, Roark took the portal plate from the Troll Nation Marketplace back to the encampment around the Vault of the Radiant Shield. Noonday sunlight hit him like a gauntlet in the face after the gloom of the Cruel Citadel.

The Heralds’ golden hive was still for the moment, though tension hung in the air, as if any second they might all come swarming out like soldier wasps. The webcrawlers on top were clearly visible, Zyra and Ick among them, working quickly to affix new webbing. At points around the Vault, the trio of siege towers loomed, the mounted ballistae gleaming in the sun. The enormous bolts were racked high on the tower, surfaces shining with an oily green sheen of Undead Damage Enchantments.

Obviously, one of the other high-level craftsmen had picked up where Roark left off. The turtle-like roofs over the battering rams had been finished and reinforced, and Rock people and Lava Kelpies clustered around the trebuchets while the Beryl King briefed them on how to land to cause maximum damage to the walls. Mobs of every level and type scrambled through the camp, making last second preparations or searching out better Healing potions or weapons.

Everyone was readying themselves for the push.

Bright daylight wasn’t the most auspicious time to press this attack, but they couldn’t waste a moment waiting for dark. In any case, whatever they lost in surprise and confusion, the siege train would more than make up for. Lowen’s fortification would never withstand the weapons they had crafted, Roark was certain of it.

The Dungeon Lord strode through the encampment to the tent where Griff had set up his makeshift headquarters. Through the mud-stained walls, Roark could already hear raised voices discussing the best way to maintain order in constabulary ranks. The shouting didn’t necessarily mean argument—Grozka the Zealot didn’t have a lower vocal range, even indoors. It was one of the things that made her an effective Rumble Squad leader and fifth-floor overseer.

Without preamble, Roark pulled aside the door flap and ducked into the tent.

Griff and Grozka the Zealot broke off their half-shouted conversation. Pang the Silent Blade and Wurgfozz the Terrible, overseers for the second and fourth floors of the Cruel Citadel, respectively, were seated at a low table, while Kaz poured a steaming aromatic concoction into enough dainty cups for everyone in the tent. Mac was curled up in an oversized chair made to seat a Jotnar—he batted one eye at Roark before chirping and resuming his nap.

Roark blinked, suddenly feeling as if he’d stepped into some bizarre version of a little girl’s teatime game.

“Griefer,” the grizzled weapons trainer said, welcoming him with a raised cup. “We’re all here. What’s the fuss?”

Before he could answer, Kaz bounded to his feet, shaking the ground beneath the tent.

“Roark is just in time!” the Mighty Gourmet said, scooping a cup off the table and thrusting it into Roark’s hands. “It is a drink called Cocoa. Hot and creamy and so wonderfully sweet!”

“Uh, thanks.” A sweet drink didn’t sound appealing to Roark, but by now he was well aware that he couldn’t escape trying one of Kaz’s new creations without hurting the hulking Bonesnap Behemoth’s feelings. Already Kaz was staring at him with gleaming eyes as wide as saucers, waiting for his reaction.

Tentatively, Roark took a sip. It was as cloyingly sweet as Hearthworld’s Health potions and as thick as clotted cream, with a hint of something familiar. One spring when he was a child, his mother had purchased a drink called chocolate from a party of merchants passing through Korvo. That had been bitter and watery, but with the same aroma and aftertaste as this Cocoa of Kaz’s.

“It’s sweet,” Roark said, hoping the Mighty Gourmet would take that as a compliment.

Kaz bounced on his toes, elated. “So sweet! And it gives one’s Stamina such a grand boost!” The huge Bonesnap Behemoth turned serious and tapped his chin. “For a time. After that, the Cocoa causes what’s referred to as a Sugar Crash. But Kaz believes the delicious flavor is well worth the aftereffects.”

“Enough fancy drinks!” Grozka thumped a fist on the table. “What did you call us here for, Dungeon Lord?” She eyed the occupants of the tent, lingering on the enormous Wurgfozz and the silent Reaver Pang, who seemed to be exuding his own shadow in the sunny tent. “We’re short a few for a proper Floor Overseers’ meeting, aren’t we?”

Roark nodded, setting his cup aside. “The new first-floor overseer is too low-level to be suited to the task, and I left Druz in charge of the Citadel’s hero-killing for the time being. The three of you are some of my strongest and most trusted overseers. I need your assistance in defending a Dev stronghold in the world the heroes come from. You’ve probably already heard Lowen’s been stealing our allies and dropping them in the other dimension to sow chaos and confusion.”

“I saw him grab a Bête before my very eyes just last night,” Wurgfozz agreed in his high-pitched voice. He tugged at a rusty spike stuck through the flabby skin of his arm. “Coward fluttered away before I could run him through.”

“Similar reports came in from across the encampment,” Griff added. “He’s picking and choosing as many Infernal creatures as he can. The more powerful the better, since it removes them from our battle rosters.”

“Exactly,” Roark said. “PwnrBwner’s guild and Randy Shoemaker are there, but they don’t number high enough to defend the stronghold and fight the released mobs at the same time. That’s why we’ll be joining them—at least a few of us. I chose each of you for your strengths and ability to lead, as evidenced by your climb to floor overseer. We’ll be working with heroes and Devs in the Other World, and I doubt we’ll see much in the way of discipline.” Perhaps none at all, if the Poser Owners were any indication. “You’re also free to refuse. I won’t order you to accompany me to the heroes’ world. It is a highly dangerous dimension, one where there are no respawns. It’s possible that you could die forever-death.”

“For a floor overseer, forever-death is always just a Challenge away,” Grozka said, waving a gauntleted hand dismissively. “The weak die, the strong live. That is the way of the world.” She hunched forward. “But here’s a bit of unfortunate truth to consider, Dungeon Lord—if the mobs Lowen’s transported are from our own armies, how do you propose we kill them without breaking the alliance with the other dungeons?”

Inwardly, Roark flinched at the volume of her voice. Hopefully no one inclined to run to their Dungeon Lord had been walking past the tent just long enough to hear only that.

“I don’t plan to kill any of them,” Roark said firmly. “Randy tells me PwnrBwner has taken a band of heroes to deal with the rogue mobs. Our task will be to back the forces holding Frontflip.” He cut his eyes to Griff. “Until the assault on the Vault has eroded enough of their defenses to either take the throne room or to force Lowen to pull back into Hearthworld and defend the Vault.”

“We’ll get it done, Griefer,” Griff said, raising his dainty cup in salute. “Count on it.”

Roark nodded. The Troll Nation would be well and truly in Griff’s hands while Roark was in the heroes’ dimension, and though he wasn’t comfortable giving the reins over completely to anyone, Roark knew the scar-crossed weapons trainer was without a doubt the best man for the job.

“What do the three of you say?” Roark asked, eyeing each overseer in turn. “I need to know as soon as possible.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll accompany you—but hold no illusions that I am worried about these heroes’ safety,” Wurgfozz said. “If it’s true pain and forever-death waiting for any Herald I kill, I most certainly will accompany you.”

Wreathed in his shadows, Pang nodded approvingly.

“I do hate to miss a fight,” Grozka agreed.

“Kaz will go as well,” the Mighty Gourmet declared, smashing one huge fist into his palm.

Mac sat up at the sound, chirping in what seemed to be agreement.

A worm of uneasiness squirmed in Roark’s gut. What he’d told the floor overseers about the lack of respawn was true, but what he hadn’t mentioned was that they were sacrifices he was willing to make if he absolutely had to. Acceptable losses. Kaz and Mac, however, were not.

“Neither of you are coming,” Roark said, looking sternly from the Adolescent Turtle Dragon to the Bonesnap Behemoth. “Your cooking apprentices need you here, Kaz. Our army needs you here. Your food is what’s going to give them the strength to take the Vault.”

“Zyra said Roark would drag food into this!” The Mighty Gourmet raised his head until his nose was pointed at the sky. “Kaz won’t hear arguments designed to tear at his feelings! If his friends are in trouble, Kaz must protect them!” It was a noble pose, but he ruined the effect some when he glanced sidelong at Roark and added, “Even if those friends try to refuse Kaz’s help.”

Griff chuckled. Roark glared at the trainer.

“Fine,” Roark said, vowing silently to keep Kaz as far from the fighting as possible. Perhaps tending to the inevitable wounded. “I’ll need you to pick up as many Ultimate Healing Elixirs as you can carry from Zyra, since the two of you are so fond of scheming behind my back these days.”

Kaz gave him a sharp nod and ducked out of the tent.

“And you,” Roark said, glaring at Mac. “Stay.”

Mac chirped a protest, but Roark held the monster’s defiant gaze. After a moment, the beast let out a grumbling growl and curled up on the seat with a final huffy snort to resume his nap.

Satisfied that at least Mac would stay behind, Roark turned back to his floor overseers. “The rest of you gather any weapons or armor you want for fighting Heralds—along with a handful of your most diligent followers—then get back here to fill your Inventories. I’ve been working on a new type of weapon that just might give us an edge.”

***

IN LESS THAN AN HOUR, Roark stepped through the shimmering portal and into the other dimension with a small platoon of high-level mobs. The overseers had each opted to bring three soldiers apiece from their honor guards, while Kaz had selected a single apprentice chef to help with his tasks—making their number fifteen, counting Roark.

The familiar gentle breeze of Hearthworld portal travel buffeted Roark, ruffling his hair, before the violet light receded and his boots came down on hard tile. He was in some sort of palatial glass-walled grand entryway.

Though his first sights of this world were entirely alien to Roark, he recognized the smell permeating the room—sweat, exhaustion, blood, smoke, desperation. The scent of too few people trying to hold on to something too large by nothing but their fingernails.

Armor and weapons clanked as the rest of his retinue stepped out of the portal behind him.

“Oh, fuck, they made it inside!” someone screamed.

“Everyone attack!”

Roark’s eyes just barely adjusted in time to see the screaming jumble of men and women in odd dress turning their makeshift weapons on him. Someone even shot an Ice Javelin spell, but Roark deflected it easily with a purple-and-green Infernal Undead Shield.

“Wait!” a familiar voice cried. A thin man in thick-framed spectacles pushed his way between Roark and the panicked group. His strange clothing was rumpled, sweaty, and stained with grass and blood. “It’s okay, everybody! It’s the Griefer! Put your weapons down, guys, he’s here to help!”

“Randy Shoemaker?” Roark guessed.

“Yes.” Randy offered him a tired smile, exhaustion etched into the lines of his narrow face. The former Dev looked quite different in this world. Smaller. Perhaps it was the lack of wings, but if Roark were being entirely honest, Randy looked very little like the heroic Dev of Hearthworld. But then, who was Roark to judge? As a Dungeon Lord, he only vaguely resembled the man he’d once been.

“Holy crap,” muttered a dusky-skinned man with a pair of smooth wooden sticks in hand. He shook his head and walked around Roark, eyes wide and mouth open. “I can’t believe this. Randy said you... But even with the Heralds, I never thought we’d get to meet Roark the Griefer in person.”

He transferred both sticks to his left hand and stuck out his right to Roark. Tentatively, Roark gripped him by the forearm.

“Arjun Bhardwaj,” the man said. “I designed the character model for the Jotnar Infernali.” He looked Roark up and down. “Obviously you didn’t stop there. If I could talk to you at some point about your current character design, I think we could come up with a really amazing game based on—”

“Arjun,” a woman with long blonde hair said. “Read the room. Not really the time, you know?”

A familiar chirping sound came from the air over Roark’s head. When he looked up, a shimmering visual distortion fell away to reveal Mac hanging from some sort of huge glowing sconce.

Arjun shrieked and stumbled back, and most of Randy’s cohorts fell into defensive stances, but Roark waved them off.

“Stand down. He’s with me.” Roark glowered at the Adolescent Turtle Dragon. “You devious scaly bastard. I suppose that nap was just a bloody ruse? If it wouldn’t waste a portal stone, I’d send you straight back to Hearthworld right now.”

In answer, Mac licked one bulbous eye and let his tongue hang out the side of his mouth. The canny beast certainly looked pleased with himself.

Scowling, Roark pointed at the beast. “Fine, but you’ll damn well stay next to me at all times, understood?”

With a triumphant chirp, Mac disappeared again.

Streaks of brilliant light caught Roark’s eye, shooting toward the wall of glass. A barrage of Divine Missiles.

“Shields!” Randy bellowed, thrusting both fists at the doors.

Outside, walls of vines burst from the pavement. More casters followed Randy’s lead, Roark among them, sending up flaring wards of every color. The missiles crashed against the varied barriers, detonating in radiant flashes of Divine Magick.

The floor beneath their feet rumbled for seconds after the Divine Missiles were spent.

“It was just a distraction,” Randy said, swiping sweat from his temple. “They’re attacking the other sides again.” He jerked a black box with a pinkie-sized stick poking up from the top and depressed a button on the side. “Come in North, West, and South. Do you need backup?”

Roark flinched as the box gave a screech, followed by, “North side loading bay clear.”

“Roger,” Randy said.

“We’re good on the south side,” the box continued in a different voice.

“Roger that.” Randy licked his lips. “Come in west side. Are you guys okay?”

After a moment, the rumbling stopped.

The box screeched. “This is BusterMove on the west side. They tried us, but we ran ’em off. Could use some more casters over here, though. They’re staying out of range of our weapons and throwing spells.”

“Roger that, BusterMove.” Randy glanced at Roark and his small band of dungeon mobs. “Give me just a second if you can.”

But Roark gathered the implications before Randy had time to explain.

“You’re using PwnrBwner’s guild to guard each wall, with non-magick users to back them. The problem being that I only made a handful of PwnrBwner’s guild Vassals, and they’re the only ones who can use magick in your world.”

Randy nodded. “We tried logging in so more people could become your Vassals, but there’s something blocking us from connecting with the Hearthworld servers. I had to use the messaging app to send that SOS to you. We’ve got people working on it right now, but I don’t know how long it will be down.”

“What if you tried it here?” the blonde woman asked, looking from Randy to Roark. “Would it work?”

“If my other magicks work in this world, I can’t see why the World Stone’s magicks wouldn’t,” Roark said. “But first”—he turned to his overseers—“split up, one to each wall. Take your troops and supply the defenders with the extra Enchanted weapons and armor you brought. If you run out, send a runner to get more from me.”

“Kaz will go, too,” said the Mighty Gourmet.

Roark shook his head. “I need you to help the wounded, Kaz. You’re the one with all the Health potions.”

“That would be greatly appreciated,” Randy said. “Some of these attacks are almost as bad as 4-pointer earthquakes. We’ve been taking the wounded and any staff who don’t want to fight to the cafeteria.”

“Come on, I’ll show you guys the way,” Arjun said, leading the enormous array of much larger Infernal mobs down a brightly lit hall. “You know, I gave notes on your jaw shape to the Dev who designed Thursr Knights...”

They’d hardly left when the rumble of another attack started up. It ended as quickly as the last.

“I’m so glad you guys are here,” Randy said, slumping against a wall. “It’s gotten worse since Lowen dropped the mobs. Most of the cops and the National Guard have been called away from Frontflip to deal with them. There’s just so many—Lowen must’ve dropped a hundred or more. I tried to get through to someone to explain that Lowen’s the real threat, but he’s been playing it smart, letting the Infernal mobs rampage and wreak havoc while he and the Heralds calmly wait for the most opportune moments. They keep attacking and retreating, attacking and retreating. We can’t keep up like this. He’s wearing us down a little bit at a time.”

There was an edge of hysteria in the former Dev’s voice, but Randy stopped himself short of outright panic with a long breath.

“I don’t intend to allow this to go on much longer,” Roark said, beginning to unload the weapons and armor he’d brought. “Griff and the allied dungeons will be mounting the first major push into the Vault as we speak. Lowen will be forced to return to Hearthworld or give up the Vault. In the meantime, however, I have weapons that may give our side a boost.”

The defenders crowded closer, looking down at the myriad swords, axes, arrows, and maces Roark was unloading.

“What is this?” the blonde woman asked, hefting a battle-axe that looked far too large in her hands.

“Obsidian Glass,” Roark said. “A sort of hybridized material I got from combining Lava Forged Steel and Onyx Sand Powder. Uncannily durable, in spite of its components. Holds a naturally sharp edge without grinding or whetting. Every weapon is hexed with Undead Magicks and coated with Poison of the Rotting Sun—a poison corrosive to the Malaika Heralds’ golden skin.” He grimaced at Randy. “Possibly to Arboreal Herald skin, too, so beware of it when you return to Hearthworld.”

Randy nodded. “Sure thing.”

Roark turned back to the blonde woman with the battle-axe. “As to Vassals, I’m willing to try, but I can’t promise anything. I only know so much about how the World Stone works. It’s a powerful magic, but the longer I hold it, the less I seem to understand it.”

“Let’s give it a shot,” she said, leaning the battle-axe against her hip. “The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work.”

“That’s not...” Randy pushed up his glasses. “I mean, the worst that could actually happen is you die horribly.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, mate,” Roark told him.

She smiled and patted the spectacled man’s arm. “I was being optimistic. Besides, it would be worse to live and have to sit back and watch helplessly while these jerks take over Earth.” She turned to Roark. “Ready when you are.”

Roark place a clawed hand on her slender shoulder and focused his intention. The World Stone responded instantly, burning with icy energies against the draconic scales covering his chest. Tawny amber light flared from the stone and the palm of his hand. When the light dimmed and disappeared, he let go.

Excited murmurs ran through the small group.

Eyes shining with awe, the blonde woman tugged aside her shirt’s collar, showing the glowing amber handprint on her shoulder. Slowly, it faded away.

[Helen Rose Douglas has become your Greater Vassal!]

Roark blinked away her information.

“Guys.” Helen Rose’s eyes lost focus as the heroes of Hearthworld often did when they looked through their grimoires. “Oh my God, it works.”

Her eyes refocused and she thrust a hand up into the air, curling it into a fist and summoning a nimbus of azure light around herself. Whirlwind Barrier, Roark knew from experience.

“It opened up some kind of interspatial menu and let me pick a character avatar to bond with,” she said. “I’m my Druidic Skyguard.” Her voice was thick with awe.

“Me next!” a heavyset man said, stepping forward.

“No, do me!” said a dark-eyed woman.

A door shattered, an Angelic Lance crashing through its pane of glass.

“Defensive maneuvers!” Randy bellowed, sending out his wall of vines again.

“No!” Helen Rose yelled. She leaned out the shattered door and conjured a tornado of the shattered glass, dirt, clumps of grass, and rocks. It ripped through the air and quickly overtook the incoming Heralds. They wove and batted at their eyes as the debris blinded them and scoured their flesh.

It wasn’t enough to break through their metallic skin or armor, but Roark quickly remedied that. Pulling his Bow of the Fleet-fingered Hunter, he fired off a volley of poisoned Obsidian Glass arrows. The offending Heralds’ Health bars flashed green, and they retreated to the safety of their ranks.

Reinvigorated by the minor victory, the rest of the defenders lined up to become Roark’s Vassals. Realizing he would quickly run out of Greater Vassal slots if he recruited them all, he switched to the Lesser Vassals. The results were very nearly the same as Helen Rose’s. Roark was sure there had to be some difference, but he was still only starting to unravel the mysteries behind the Vassalhood process. None of that mattered just then, however, not so long as they had an abundance of magick users at their disposal.

The World Stone flashed over and over again as it granted magick in a world largely devoid of such power. When the last defender of the east wall was happily flashing through their characters, Roark turned to Randy.

“I need to do the same for the rest of Frontflip’s forces,” he said. “How can I find them?”

Randy glanced from the Herald army beyond the shattered glass door to the hallway the others had disappeared down.

“It’s okay, I’ll hold the fort here,” Helen Rose said, hefting the Obsidian Glass Battle-axe with unnatural ease. From what Roark had read in his grimoire’s WikiLore, Druidic Skyguards’ powerful magicks included the ability to tap into a bestial form, which granted them preternatural levels of Strength. “I’d love the chance to see the damage on these things in action.”

“Okay, it’s a plan,” Randy said. “Call me if you need anything.”

Roark followed the former Dev down the hall, Mac’s shimmering distortion trailing silently overhead. The Dungeon Lord eyed the strange construction as he went. It was as if whoever had designed Frontflip Studios had been more interested in aesthetic beauty than resilience.

“This isn’t much of a castle, mate,” he said. “A wall or some type of outer defense would’ve been better, and angles—star shapes work well to repel sieges like this.”

Randy lifted his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.

“Trust me, I know. Frontflip wasn’t built to withstand an attack.” He shoved the frames back on. “It was built mostly to show what a fun company this is. It’s work-tainment,” he finished wearily.

Roark frowned. “Work-tainment?”

“That’s what I say,” Randy said. “Why can’t we just work? Since when is the satisfaction of a job well done not entertainment enough? If I’d designed this place, I think I would’ve put less emphasis on the party atmosphere and more on... well, anything else.”

Before Roark could respond, parchment obscured his vision.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Compatible unclaimed dungeon location Frontflip Studios found!

Dungeon Lord, would you like to expand your territory to include Frontflip Studios?

To claim this dungeon location, take a seat on the CEO’s throne.

To reject this dungeon location, leave Frontflip Studios without taking a seat on the throne.

Warning: If you leave Frontflip Studios without accepting the expanded territory, another Dungeon Lord may claim Frontflip Studios before you return!

╠═╦╬╧╪

Roark stopped in his tracks.

“What is it?” Randy asked.

Roark frowned and read through the notification again. At the bottom was a helpful map marking the CEO’s throne.

“Possibly a solution to our design problems,” he said. “Where is this Boardroom?”

Shieldwall

THE CEO’S THRONE TURNED out to be a bit of a letdown after the various thrones Roark had claimed in the Cruel Citadel. It was little more than a stark if comfortable chair with sleek black upholstery, though it did preside over the head of an ostentatiously long, smooth table. It rolled on a set of silent casters, but then so did every other chair in the room.

It hardly seemed fit for a king, much less for the god of Hearthworld.

Here, too, in what should have been the most fortified room of Frontflip Studios, where the seat of power resided, an entire wall had been constructed from glass. Roark couldn’t decide whether it had been hubris or idiocy that had persuaded the former ruler of Frontflip to have his stronghold built from such destructible materials.

Down on the quickly darkening green below, he could see Lowen’s army building fires and settling in for the night, and beyond that the sprawling city. Though the light was quickly fading, Roark could see the jagged teeth of mountains silhouetted far in the distance—the San Gabriel Mountains, according to Randy. The sight gave his mood an unexpected boost, while making him long for the sheer peaks backing von Graf Manor. He’d scaled their heights often as a child, running in the grassy meadows during the summer and braving the biting winds in the mild autumns.

He, Talise, and their cousins had often played there unattended, pretending to be knights or powerful mages, all the while waving around sticks and building fortresses amongst the trees. Just the games of youth. Though, glancing around, Roark had to admit that most of the forts he’d built as a seven-year-old were more secure than Frontflip Studios. He missed those days badly. A carefree time before he had to worry about where he would sleep or where his next meal would come from. Before the fight against Marek’s evil had taken over every part of his life. Before it had become his life.

“All the more reason to finish this,” he muttered. “For better or worse.” Either he would return to the mountains around Korvo victorious, or he would die in another failed attempt to kill Marek, and his lost soul would wander for eternity.

Roark turned back to the CEO’s throne, casting a final suspicious glance about the room. Could there truly be no trap or contact poison or defense of any kind? He found none. Bracing himself, he pulled the glorified chair away from the table and took a seat. Unfortunately, the “throne” was so small in comparison to Roark’s bulky frame that it felt like trying to wedge himself onto a child’s seat. It let out an audible groan as it accepted his weight.

A moment later, however, the groans gave way to a series of triumphant notes, which rang out from the air itself. Power washed out from Roark in a ring, suffusing the walls, ceiling, and floors. A Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire appeared, complete with maps of every level of Frontflip Studios.

[Congratulations! Unclaimed dungeon location Frontflip Studios successfully added. Would you like to name your expanded territory? Yes/No]

Roark thought for only a second.

“Shieldwall.” Once, long ago, just such a fortress had existed back in Traisbin—a domineering mountain fortress that had stood valiantly between Marek’s forces and Korvo. The Tyrant King had thrown away more lives than could be counted taking the stronghold. Likewise, this place would stand as the barrier between Marek’s forces and yet another world.

As soon as the word left his mouth, the World Stone Pendant burned against his chest. Not the icy fire of the Vassal-creating process, but a blistering heat as hot as a forge’s coals. Roark was certain if he hadn’t been covered in scales, the pendant would have burnt through his flesh and into his bone. He palmed the stone, but that offered no relief from its terrible heat.

A separate piece of parchment filled his vision, obscuring the Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire.

[Temporal Resonance detected! Compatibility: 32%. Would you like to attempt to bind Temporal Location Shieldwall with Prime Temporal Location, Cruel Citadel? Yes/No?

Warning: The higher the compatibility, the greater the stability of the final location. The lower the compatibility, the lower the stability of the final binding. Attempting to bind incompatible locations could destroy both locations.

Warning: Binding Temporal Locations is irreversible.]

Roark read through the text several times, then selected No. He couldn’t take the chance on destabilizing Shieldwall with Lowen at its door. Now was the time to fortify and strengthen its defensive capabilities.

Mac trundled up to him and nudged Roark’s hand with his oversized head, glancing reproachfully at the throne. There was no room for the Adolescent Turtle Dragon.

“Sorry, boy,” Roark said, patting his snout. “This place isn’t much like home, but perhaps I can rectify that.”

Mac snorted, then plopped onto the ground on top of Roark’s feet.

Roark turned to the Dungeon Design page in the Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire and set to work.

His fingers flew over the grimoire with practiced ease; he’d constructed a hundred dungeons. He’d designed and redesigned rooms and floors and doors a thousand times for the Cruel Citadel. By now, it had become second nature. First to go were the pointless glass walls—of which he learned there were many throughout the building. Nearly every façade had at least one. Madness, he thought, shaking his head. In their place, he reinforced each wall to double its thickness and changed the building material to Quarried Stone.

While Roark made his modifications, Randy brought up magickless fighters from each of the bands defending Shieldwall. Roark was loath to pause his work, but he couldn’t see a more efficient way to complete both tasks with the necessary haste.

From the little conversation Roark paid attention to during these interruptions, it seemed his Cursed Obsidian Glass weapons were proving quite effective, and the sudden addition of powerful magick users to the defense had Lowen’s troops perplexed as to how best to proceed.

That would be a mere drop in the bucket compared to the alterations Roark was making to Shieldwall.

He tried to add a battlement, but the Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire refused to allow it.

[Your enemy is encamped inside area required for battlement. You must repel your enemy before adding battlement.]

With that option unavailable, Roark turned his attention to altering the overall shape of the stronghold, bringing the walls in at sharp angles until the top-down view resembled a stylized sun with rays radiating from the center. He lined the top of the walls with hoardings held up by stone corbels and fitted each corbel with a machicolation in the floor that dropped open to allow a defender to fire arrows or spells or drop any number of dangerous or lethal substances from.

“There you are, you bloody tosser,” he dared Lowen under his breath, “fly into that.”

With the exterior of the building largely redesigned, he turned his attention to the interior of the complex. It was crucial to keep Lowen and his flunkies out, but the overwriting bastard was tricky in his own way. Roark had to assume his outer fortifications may well be breached. Glancing over the interior, he decided to leave the cafeteria alone, along with the break rooms and the “team workspaces,” of which there were many. Those would help confuse and slow any Heralds who managed to make it inside and provide the defenders with places to fall back to and attack from. Chances were, too, that Randy would need the strange machines for his work. But that still left numerous possibilities.

Roark added a bevy of interior traps to the hallways: false floors, filled with spikes and acid pits. Dangling chandeliers on hair triggers that would crush an opponent passing underneath. Cursed floor plates that would explode in the presence of Divine forces. He had the option to create new customized rooms, such as an armory, a smithy, and an alchemist and enchanter’s laboratory. He cannibalized any unnecessary space, gutting a variety of storerooms and offices that served little purpose. There was a corner suite marked Danny Lopez, Vice President of Marketing. According to his grimoire, the space had no practical purpose whatsoever, so Roark turned it into his own private quarters.

The most interesting feature, however, was not the changes he was able to make, but rather a new tab in the grimoire that strobed with angry violet lettering, Seed Dungeon.

When he selected it, a new page unfurled before him.

[Shieldwall Dungeon, creature status: uninhabited! This dungeon has not been assigned a type or seeded for life. To continue, you must first select a primary race to inhabit it! In your current form, you may choose from the following race types: Troll, Necrotic Revenants, Draconic. Select a type to continue.]

Roark though about it only for a moment before choosing Draconic. Although he was fond of his Troll brethren, they were among the weakest creatures in Hearthworld, and Necrotic Revenants were only one step above that—as was evidenced from the undead shamblers that inhabited the bailey above the Cruel Citadel. But dragons were creatures of myth and legend that were universally revered. In Hearthworld alone, the most powerful mob of all had been Aczol the Eternal, often referred to by the heroes as the Endgame Dragon.

[Congratulations! You have selected Draconic Dungeon. Would you like to seed Shieldwall with Dragonoid Hatchlings at this time? Yes/No]

He selected Yes but received a flashing failure prompt for his trouble.

[Error! Unable to complete action. Since Shieldwall is a secondary dungeon location you must appoint an Arch-Overseer to rule on your behalf before seeding the dungeon with life. Arch-Overseers will be able to modify the dungeon and give orders on your behalf while you are absent from the dungeon. Please select an appropriate Arch-Overseer to proceed.]

Roark read and reread the requirement, mulling it over in his mind as he looked through a list of potential candidates. All were either his Vassals or his current floor overseers. That made a certain sense. Marek was Tyrant King over all of Traisbin, but he couldn’t be everyplace at every time. He had a series of magistrates and governors that executed his will while he was away. This was no different. The question was, who should he appoint to the position? True, he’d brought along many capable floor overseers, but they were monstrous creatures of Hearthworld. Leaving them behind to rule this world, when they understood so little about it, was a recipe for disaster.

The best option—the only option, in truth—was to appoint one of his human Vassals. Of the two, Randy was far more reliable, yet PwnrBwner had proven himself to be a capable warrior and a surprisingly thoughtful and inspiring leader. He’d convinced heroes to risk their lives and follow him into battle, which was no small feat. It was a gamble, but the longest odds were the wagers that earned the largest returns. Before Roark could second-guess himself, he chose the rash Ranger-Cleric from the list of candidates.

[PwnrBwner_OG has been appointed Arch-Overseer of Shieldwall. In your absence, he will be able to alter the dungeon configuration and command the forces of Shieldwall. Would you like to seed the dungeon at this time? Yes/No]

Roark held his breath, feeling a thrill of excitement. Yes.

The floor rumbled beneath him, and shimmering black eggs, each the size of a human skull, appeared throughout the room in clusters of three and four. A quick count revealed there were thirty eggs in all. Hanging above each was a countdown timer. Three hours—though seconds were already whirling away. Hells, but the magick of the World Stone Pendant was powerful. It was creation itself.

Roark had no idea how much time had passed, but it was full dark outside by the time he finished his work. He checked over the improvements once more and nodded.

[Accept changes to Shieldwall? Yes/No

Warning: Once accepted, Shieldwall cannot be altered again for 24 hours!]

“We’ve got a problem!” Randy said, bursting into the boardroom. “PwnrBwner just called. Lowen’s troops have closed ranks, and the cops are down to a skeleton crew. He and his guild can’t get back through the line. We’ve got to do something.”

Roark grunted, turning back to Shieldwall’s design, poring over every option.

There! Dirtworks.

“Tell him to hold where he is,” Roark said, getting rid of a few machicolations on each wall to free up additional resources.

When he had reclaimed enough points, he selected the Dirtworks option and dragged a model of a tunnel from the basement of Shieldwall, under the image of Lowen’s troops, out past the green and into the street. An emergency exit, not so different than the secret tunnel that ran from the throne room in the Cruel Citadel. Most dungeons in Hearthworld had such an exit, though it was meant primarily as a quick departure for heroes who had defeated the Dungeon Lord and didn’t wish to wend their way back out through the whole dungeon.

Roark nodded to himself, then accepted the changes. Twenty-four hours would be plenty of time to repel his enemy. Then he could add that battlement. Or, perhaps, have Pwnr add it.

The stronghold rumbled once again, but this time it was because the entire structure was shifting around them. When it finished, the motion stopped. The wood floors, long table, and comfortable rolling chairs of the boardroom remained the same, but the tall, thin windows Roark had added had been filled in with stained glass rather than clear, and the ceilings were vaulted—though still low enough that an infiltrating Herald couldn’t take flight.

Satisfied, Roark turned to the former Dev, who stood, mouth agape, looking at the changes.

“How...” Randy muttered softly.

“Magick, of course. Now, tell PwnrBwner we’re on our way.”

Randy fumbled a thin box from his pocket—a device he called a phone.

“Where should I tell him to meet us?” he asked, still sounding rather breathless.

“He’ll see us,” Roark said. “Just have him keep an eye on the sky.”

Draconic Form

LEAVING BEHIND HALF the defenders under the leadership of Grozka and Pang, Roark took Kaz, Randy, and the rest of the troops from the newly christened Shieldwall and crept through the tunnel under the green. PwnrBwner had been indignant at the message to watch the sky, but he’d finally agreed to stay hunkered where he was and wait.

Roark hoped the impulsive Ranger-Cleric could hold out. If they drew the Heralds’ attention away from Shieldwall too early, this plan wouldn’t go off like the exploding forge he hoped it would be.

They made it to the end of the tunnel without issue, then climbed up onto the street under the silence of Arjun’s Level 9 Umbrella Stealth spell. Barely a hundred yards away, Roark could see the back line encircling the now star-shaped walls. A handful of those horseless carriages he’d observed on his first visit to this world had been placed at intervals, along with a strange boxy metal shed on treaded gears that had a long barrel jutting from its face. Roark couldn’t discern a use for the shed, unless it was some sort of mobile blockhouse. Humans manned each of the carriages, and so Roark assumed there were more inside the metal blockhouse as well. With their small numbers, however, they were more gap than blockade.

Just beyond the human line, Lowen’s troops were entrenched. Dozens more than there were humans, and at least three times as many Heralds as Roark had fighters. But if all went to plan, that wouldn’t matter.

A roar went up at the stronghold.

“Onward to glorious battle!” Grozka’s raucous shout cut through the night.

The huge Thursr Knight and the troops Roark had left with her—hero and monster alike—flooded out of Shieldwall’s entryway, fortified with buffing spells and Enchanted armor, screaming battle cries and wielding Obsidian Glass weapons.

The Heralds shot into the sky, sparkling comet tails trailing behind them, then darted down to counter the Zealot’s mad charge. Chaos erupted across the green, screams and curses punctuated by the clang of weapons slamming against shields. Dazzling lights erupted, magick burning brightly in the night.

“Now!” Roark called to his troops.

Archers began firing off Cursed arrows and casters hurled powerful spells while tanks clad in the Peerless armor he’d brought raced between the horseless carriages and pushed toward the center of the fray.

Now it was time for him to do his part.

Roark took a running leap into the air and spread his wings, strong currents of air lifting him up, up, up. Arrows whizzed by him and streaks of golden lights exploded around him—Heralds desperate to knock him from the sky. Good, let them come.

He pumped his wings as fast as he could, wind whipping against his shaggy hair and caressing his cheeks as he rose. He raised a hand and triggered Necrotic Invigoration. He had no target in mind for the spell, but the nimbus of violet light around him made him stand out in stark contrast against the bruised black heavens.

He was simply impossible to miss, which was the true point of the cast.

Cries rang out from below. Every eye turned toward him, fingers pointing, weapons turning.

Alone and apparently vulnerable, he drew Heralds like moths to a candle’s flame.

They came in droves, weapons raised, magick at the ready, all hoping to land the killing blow and curry the Tyrant King’s favor. Taking Roark out would be a sure way to earn lands, riches, titles—anything their wicked hearts could desire.

Roark bided his time, letting their greed draw them in while Necrotic Invigoration burned like a green-and-purple beacon all around him.

Closer they came.

Thirty feet...

Twenty...

Ten...

Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Roark triggered Draconic Form for the first time, not knowing precisely what to expect. Pain roared through him like a tornado. His flesh and scaled plates tore away, and his bones stretched and distorted, reshaping themselves into a great skeletal dragon. His strong jaw elongated, wicked fangs bursting from his gumline, while his wings seemed to stretch forever outward. Fingers and toes elongated; ebony claws the size of short swords jutted from their ends. Bony spikes erupted from his spine, connecting to a lashing lizard’s tail as long as the mighty redwoods of Dambol.

His wings were big enough to block out the silvery light of the crescent moon overhead, each of his scales as large as a kite shield. He was a leviathan nearly as large as Frontflip Studios, sprawled out below, the living embodiment of Aczol the Eternal. Though this form wouldn’t last long, it thrummed with the power of the ancient Undead serpent. Roark opened his jaws and roared, releasing a gout of Necrotic Infernal Breath. A maelstrom of green and purple flame—equal parts ice and death—seared through a Herald’s Health bar, killing him on the spot.

Despite his impossibly large size, he wheeled easily through the sky, searching for more prey.

The Heralds were in full retreat, frantically trying to get away from this fresh terror, but they’d come too close. Their greed and lust for bloodshed had gotten the better of them, and now they would pay the price. Roark lashed out with razor-sharp claws, shearing through wings and armored limbs as though they were made of wispy silk. Heralds toppled, splatters of golden blood raining down onto the streets below. With a flick of his massive tail, Roark sideswiped a female spellcaster, the impact snapping her spine. She slammed into the side of a nearby brick building and hit the pavement with a wet thud.

She was alive, though barely. A wave of armored heroes on the ground fixed that, descending on her with gleaming Obsidian Glass weapons.

A trio of Heralds flew a ways off, chanting in unison, hands flying through a series of complex motions as they completed some sort of ritual summoning. With a crack, a shining golden portal appeared and a dozen lion-headed creatures with enormous scorpion tails tore into the world. They carved through the air like birds of prey on tawny oversized wings, heading straight for Roark. Divine Manticores, he recalled. Formidable creatures and deadly against Infernally aligned mobs.

With a bone-shaking roar, Roark unleashed another wave of scorching flame, burning two of the Manticores to ash and bone. More of the beasts dove and rolled away—surprisingly nimble—narrowly avoiding the deadly blaze.

He caught another in his snapping jaws, cutting the beast nearly in two, but the others came at his flanks, launching balls of acid from their swaying scorpion tails. Green slime slapped against his scales, sizzling on contact, but Roark’s filigreed Health bar didn’t budge an inch. Divine attacks were as useless against his newly Undead nature as Infernal attacks were against the Heralds.

Roark threw back his head and crowed in laughter, the sound booming in the air. He reared back and slammed his scaled hands together, sending out a rippling ring of raw force that blasted the Manticores. While the creatures struggled to regain their altitude, Roark turned his head on the summoners. Wings still beating furiously, he thrust one hand forward and called forth Necrotizing Infernal Torment, engulfing the trio of casters in agonizing death.

The Heralds howled, emerald fires consuming them. The remaining Manticores dissolved as the summoners died, no longer able to remain in this realm without their masters.

In short order, the Heralds realized the air wasn’t the safe place they had thought it to be only moments before. Retreating to the ground, however, saw them hacked apart and poisoned with the Obsidian Glass weapons.

Terrified shouts went up from the Heralds, begging Lowen to sound the retreat, but no portal opened to ferry them back to Hearthworld and safety. Roark squinted, searching for the bloody bastard, but there was no sign of the man. Say what you would of Lowen, but he’d always had more sense than courage. Unfortunate, since Roark would have loved a chance to end things here and now, but there was no point stewing on what wouldn’t be. He was running out of time in his Draconic Form, and there were still Heralds to kill. The more he killed in this world devoid of respawns, the more would stay dead.

He wheeled left, pulled his wings in close, and dove toward the fleeing Heralds on the ground.

“Troll Nation, stand clear!” he bellowed, the sound of his voice carrying like a thundercrack.

PwnrBwner’s heroes scattered, leaving a group of grounded Heralds ten deep completely exposed.

A golden-winged Herald cast a dome of protective light around the group, but Roark knew it would be nowhere near enough. He sucked in a huge gulp of air, then triggered Necrotic Infernal Breath, strafing the ground with green-purple flame. The blazing shield cracked like an egg under the pressure of the spell and the Heralds within screamed as Undead fires cooked them alive. It was a sickening sight.

Bodies blackened, twisted, smoking.

With no other options, Lowen’s remaining forces broke, streaking into the night and away from Shieldwall. The battle was a rout. The one exception was Darith, Lowen’s Hearthworld second-in-command, with a reputation back in Traisbin as a bloodthirsty lunatic. More than one innocent village had been slaughtered by the madman for nothing more than his amusement.

Laughing with delight, Darith swooped over the battlefield with a weapon Roark had never seen before. He pointed it at combatants, and a report echoed out. Below, heroes fell, blood gushing onto the trampled dusty grass.

Roaring, Roark flapped his skeletal wings and tore through the night toward the mad Herald. Darith cackled when he saw Roark careening at him. Hate burned in the man’s eyes, but there wasn’t a lick of fear. Mad indeed. Darith rolled in the air and aimed the odd weapon at Roark. There was a crack. A bit of bone chipped off one of Roark’s enormous draconic ribs, but other than a trickle of red stolen from his filigreed vial, he was no worse for the wear.

Roark blasted Darith with another bout of Necrotic Infernal Flame, and the potent magicks quickly burned through the madman’s Health bar.

Then a series of cracks like the breaking up of a mountainside in an avalanche boomed through the city, shaking Roark’s exposed bones with their volume. Something slammed into his chest, swatting his huge body from the air.

The timer on his Draconic Form ticked down to zero just before he landed, and he collided with the earth like a meteor, crushing an overturned steel carriage on impact. Nearly two-thirds of his Health was gone, and whatever had hit him had punched a hole in his scales. Blood bubbled from the wound as he struggled to breathe. On the edge of panic, Roark cast Infernal Undead Invigoration.

The red in his vial crept up, but it wasn’t enough. He still couldn’t get any air, and his throat was filling with frothy blood.

“Don’t worry, Roark! Kaz will save you!” The Mighty Gourmet raced across the battlefield, huge legs pumping, trading his Legendary Meat Tenderizer for an Ultimate Healing Potion. Mac raced beside him.

The cracking sound echoed off the walls again, and chunks of stone exploded under the impact of unknown projectiles.

“Kaz, get down,” Roark wheezed. It was nearly impossible to talk; his lung had most certainly been punctured.

The Mighty Gourmet couldn’t hear him over the chaos. Suddenly, Kaz stumbled, blood flying from his side, and tumbled to the ground. Mac was there in an instant, using his spiked shell as a protective shield to cover both Kaz and Roark. More of the projectiles whizzed toward them, but they ricocheted away, failing to penetrate the Adolescent Turtle Dragon’s hardened plates.

Roark cursed up a storm and crawled to meet his friend.

“Kaz is fine,” the Mighty Gourmet swore. He thrust the Ultimate Healing Potion at Roark. “Roark must drink this.”

“Get one for yourself, too, or I’ll shove this one down your throat,” Roark rasped.

Kaz pulled another potion and downed it. Roark followed his example, his lungs and chest knitting themselves back together as the cloying brew did its miraculous work.

“We’ve got to retreat, Kaz,” Roark said, clambering to his feet. He stayed in a crouch, hiding behind Mac’s bulky form. “Head for the Shieldwall and call it as you go.”

The Bonesnap Behemoth’s eyes doubled in size. “Roark isn’t coming?”

Roark glanced at the metal blockhouse rolling their way with its odd barrel protruding from the front. When the cracking started again, flashes burst from the metal tube. Overhead, screaming metal birds with whirling wings hung suspended over the green while men dropped small objects that exploded upon landing. It was bloody damned impressive, and terrifying.

“Their weapons are too powerful,” he called to Kaz over the noise from the birds. “We can’t survive this, let alone defeat it. Mac, go with Kaz, keep him safe.” He patted the Turtle Dragon on the shell. “And good boy. Now, go! Go!” He slapped Mac once more.

The Turtle Dragon chirped and broke into a lumbering run, shielding the Gourmet with his body.

Filling his lungs, Roark bellowed, “Retreat!” at his troops. “Grab the wounded and retreat!”

Gods of Hearthworld

LOWEN WAS IN NO MOOD for bad news when he returned to the Vault of the Radiant Shield. That von Graf bastard had found some new way to cheat—altering the entire structure of Frontflip Studios and then somehow turning into a twice-damned dragon. So, it was with terrible grace that he discovered his Hearthworld sanctuary in as much chaos as he’d left behind in the Other World. The throne room shuddered beneath his feet, and dust rained from thin cracks beginning to branch across the ceiling and walls.

“What in all the hells is going on here?” he demanded, straining his lungs to be heard over the clamor.

Neither Viago nor Nitola answered. The throne room was empty, and he quickly learned the antechamber and hall were as well. The farther from the center of the Vault he went, the more rubble and scorch marks he found, along with the bloody corpses of mobs who did not belong in his dungeon—Rock people, Lava Kelpies, Harpies—and even a few Malaika Heralds. It was impossible to imagine such a thing. The Harpies had wings, true enough, but none of the other mobs did. How had the bloody creatures even managed to make it up the narrow switchbacks that led to the dungeon entrance? This fortress was virtually unassailable by traditional means. Such was the reason they’d chosen it for his outpost out of all the dungeons in Hearthworld.

Lowen strode to a web-crossed flight porch and looked out into the rapidly approaching sunset of Hearthworld.

Ballistae mounted on looming towers fired bolts the size of yearling trees at the Vault, each one piercing the brilliant golden walls with a crack like thunder. In lower sections of the towers, archers of various dungeons assaulted the defending Heralds and the mindless Gargoyles that haunted the dungeon, filling the air with torrents of arrows that at times even momentarily blotted out the sun.

Down on the path that wound around the Vault’s rock spire, a furious battle raged between Heralds and hulking mobs who looked as if they’d been chosen specifically for their brawn. Battering rams on wheeled frames, housed under reinforced roofs, sat stalled in the fray, the Heralds holding them back with vicious aerial attacks.

From the canyon floor, a trebuchet launched a flaming payload at the Vault. As Lowen watched, what he’d thought was a simple boulder unfurled itself into something roughly man shaped, stretching its arms and legs wide before crashing into the Vault with the force of a natural disaster. The edifice shuddered and groaned, the precious metals and gemstones that made up the stronghold protesting such abuse.

Scowling, Lowen spun on his heel, stalking back to the throne room.

“Is anyone in this light-be-damned bird’s nest?” he snapped, already certain of the answer. “Nitola! Viago! Hells take you both, somebody bloody report!”

His only answer was another thunderous impact. He ran a hand through frazzled hair. How was this happening? How could he possibly be losing a siege on two different fronts, at the same time, to creatures far inferior in magic and skill? The utter incompetence of his own lieutenants couldn’t be enough to account for this. It had to be treachery. Roark’s appearance in the Other World smacked of Talise’s interference. That Lyuko wench would be dealt with in time, but first he needed to crush this heavens-forsaken invasion before Marek got wind of it.

He would not be afforded another chance, he knew.

With a flap of his speckled wings, Lowen propelled himself to the hanging dais and took the seat of power. The Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire confirmed it—both fools he’d left in charge had been sent for respawn, along with an unprecedented number of their fellow Heralds. Timers spiraled downward beside their names—more than he’d ever seen at one time since coming to Hearthworld. It had been a bloody massacre.

More troubling still, a handful were marked [Deceased]. No countdown timer. Those would be the ones killed in the siege on Frontflip Studios. Lucky then that Marek wouldn’t care how many borrowed troops he’d lost, not as long as Lowen returned with the World Stone.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Lowen slammed his Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire shut to find a human standing on the dais beside him. Though how the man had managed that was a mystery, as he had no wings. He was dressed in the strange clothing of the Other World, but seemed entirely unimpressed with the surroundings he found himself in.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” Lowen snapped, drawing himself up to his full height and stretching his impressive wings wide. In his right hand, he readied a blast of Divine Missiles.

“Let’s dispense with the intimidation tactics.” The man gave him a cold smile. “Mike Silva, founder and CEO of Frontflip, the company you and your Griefer friend seem intent on destroying.”

Lowen recognized the glint of dismissal in the man’s stare. He’d seen it often from more affluent nobles over the years. Silva was looking at him as if certain that he ranked well above Lowen in the pecking order—that he was nothing more than a second-rate noble with more title remaining than land or wealth.

Lowen’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing in my Vault?”

“This is my Vault,” Silva said. “Just as the Griefer’s Citadel is my Citadel. Everything in this game belongs to me. I can do what I want with it, travel where I please in it. Your friend’s allies assumed they could keep me locked up, and yet here I am.”

“While you’re in my dungeon, you’re subject to my whims,” Lowen growled, holding up his fistful of Divine Missiles. “I could send you for respawn in a heartbeat.”

“No, you couldn’t,” Silva said, unperturbed. “And you can’t hurt me. Not a hair. My body is in a deep dive pod back at Frontflip studios, and I have all pain sensors turned off. And, to be perfectly clear, I have supreme administrative powers here, so I could certainly send you for respawn. Observe. Now, Aaron.”

This last was spoken with the air of an order being given. A heartbeat passed, then a scrap of parchment appeared before Lowen’s eyes.

[You have been Marked for Death by Mike_Silva_1. Any attempt to attack the caster will be disallowed and you will be hit with immediate Respawn.]

“I’ll assume that stricken look on your face means you just received confirmation that I’m not bluffing. It’s a new mechanic I had patched in. Required some destruction of other essential code, but we’re past the point of salvaging this sinking ship, aren’t we?”

A panicked [Greater Vigilant Gargoyle] flew into the room squealing like a burning hog. Lowen threw the fistful of Divine Missiles at it. The Gargoyle shattered into a thousand tiny shards of marble, peppering the throne room.

Silva smirked like he knew the show of violence for what it was—a tantrum thrown by a child in an impotent rage. Lowen gritted his teeth. This was nothing but a mere human, and yet he’d never felt so utterly beneath someone, not even in the Tyrant King’s presence.

Lowen folded his wings and crossed his arms. “One assumes you came looking for me for a reason?”

“I was told this whole war—the attack on Frontflip, even the anomalous code you and your Griefer friend have been spreading throughout my game—has been about a single item. Something called the World Stone. You want it unsoulbound from his account, correct?”

A sudden burst of something like hope flared in Lowen’s mind. Perhaps this could be salvaged yet, if only he could return to Marek with the pendant in his hand.

With a rustle of his wings, Lowen attempted to smooth the eagerness from his features.

“What I truly want is to kill that half-breed von Graf—forever-dead—and spit on his cooling corpse,” Lowen said, “but yes, taking the World Stone is a necessary step to obtain total victory over the bloody cur.”

“Let me ask you this,” Silva said, sticking his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “If I could give you both—this Griefer’s death and unbinding this World Stone—would you pull your troops out of my world and stay out for good?”

Lowen scoffed at that. “Why would I need your chicanery when I can capture a Dev and force them to do the same thing without the negotiating?”

Silva chuckled.

“You think the Devs are powerful?” He shook his head. “I can not only take away a soulbinding, Lowen, I can shut down Hearthworld and kill everything inside. The Devs you’re trying to capture? They work for me. They’re my Vassals. Everything in Hearthworld goes through me. In Hearthworld, I am god.” Silva raised a brow. “So, do you want to keep up this vain posturing or do you want the one true god of Hearthworld on your side?”

Lowen studied Silva’s face, searching for any sign that this was simple bluster, any weakness that could be exploited. He found none. This man was a tyrant in his own right, as surely as Marek was. Lowen didn’t respect much, but he knew power, and this man had it.

“Very well,” he said. “Let us talk.”

Steel Leviathan

THE GROANS OF THE INJURED filled the makeshift infirmary as Roark, Kaz, and a few humans from this dimension passed up and down the rows, handing out—and in some particularly severe cases administering—Ultimate Healing Potions. The chamber, which Randy and PwrnBwner referred to as a “cafeteria,” was every bit as large as the throne room in the Citadel’s Keep and had been stocked with smooth, hard tables and brightly colored but uncomfortable chairs. Now the chairs had been shoved under the tables or cleared aside to better assist the injured who’d been laid out on the tabletops.

A window spanned the length of the far wall, opening onto a kitchen filled with half-cooked foods, racks of long flat pans, and flameless ovens. Kaz lingered among the injured closest to that window, never quite taking his eye off it.

Not even when he spilled Ultimate Healing Potion down the face and throat of the exceedingly thin man from PwnrBwner’s guild Roark recalled was named Flappie_Sak.

“Hey, watch it!” Flappie_Sak spluttered, reaching up to scrub a broken arm over the spill, then thinking better of it.

“Oh, Kaz apologizes!” The Mighty Gourmet leapt up, the motion shaking the closest tables and chairs. “Such a mess! But there are cloths for cleaning in the kitchen, Kaz spied them through this helpful window. Perhaps he should go get them. Yes, that’s it, Kaz will be right back to clean this terrible mess...”

Roark chuckled as Flappie_Sak called after the rapidly retreating form of the Bonesnap Behemoth. He wouldn’t lay money on Kaz returning anytime soon. Or with a cleaning rag in hand. The Gourmet had other things on his mind—such as a pantry chock-full of never before heard of herbs, spices, and seasonings. Things with exotic sounding names like paprika and turmeric. Kaz was enamored with all of them.

In any case, they were getting along well enough, even without the Mighty Gourmet’s help. The most gravely injured had already been seen to, and now Roark and the humans assisting with the Healing Potions—Helen Rose, Ninjastein, and some sort of local infantryman called Couch_Warrior3000—were working quickly and efficiently across the remainder of the room.

So many of their combatants had been injured. Luckily, far fewer had been killed. After a final count, the death toll came to a scant two. Pang the Silent and a Dev Randy and Helen Rose worked with, both of whom currently lay under tablecloths in the far corner.

Roark had been surprised to learn that Devs, too, could die, but upon reflection he supposed that, outside of their creation Hearthworld, the gods and their messengers were far frailer than they were inside it.

Of course, the Dev had been snuffed out by the same rapidly repeating crossbow that had dealt Roark himself such a grievous blow. He rubbed his chest unconsciously. The tissue and scales had grown back, but the pain from the strike had been such a shock that he could remember the moment of impact with perfect clarity. In fact, the first few times the memory had flashed through his mind since, he’d actually flinched and felt the pain as if it were happening all over again. Strange, that.

To have a weapon that could cause that kind of damage—not just one time or one cast and then a cooldown, but to shower the landscape with a ceaseless rain of those hellish projectiles—now, that was true power. Surely nothing Marek had could stand against such a weapon.

The moment the final patient was seen to, Roark stood up and strode to the kitchen window. On the other side, Kaz had arranged a myriad of jars and vials on the counter and was busy opening each one and sniffing it.

“Roark must smell this!” the Mighty Gourmet said when he noticed Roark watching him. Immediately, he bounded over, shaking pots and pans as he went, and thrust a dark container under Roark’s nose.

Roark inhaled. The substance smelled tantalizingly spicy, with a hint of warmth.

“It is called curry,” Kaz said, pointing to lettering on a paper label. “At first sniff, Kaz thought this spice would perfectly complete a great number of complex dishes, but the more he smells it, the more he is convinced that simplicity is key. Gry Feliri says when one has discovered a kickin’ flavor, one must allow one’s diner to experience it fully, without distraction.” He closed his eyes as though listening to a piece of particularly affecting music. “And so a vegetable dish, perhaps. Or eggs. A simple noodle.”

“I hate to ask you to put the creation of your newest dish on hold, Kaz,” Roark said, “but I need your help. Probably Wurgfozz’s, too. We have to go back outside.”

Kaz’s brows leapt up his wide forehead. “But Roark nearly died the first time. The Heralds broke and ran. What does Roark need so desperately outside the safety of Frontflip?”

“Yo.” PwnrBwner came up beside Roark and leaned his elbows on the window.

The man no longer wore the strange, padded armor he’d been sporting earlier. Now he was decked out in plate that would not have gone amiss even in the Averi City marketplace. Polished silver, gilt with gold, and thrumming with potent arcane power. Instead of his crude wooden club, he wielded an artful mace of obsidian and spikes.

“’Sup, Kaz? You getting ready to fry up something delicious?” he asked. “Because I’m starving and so are my boyz. We’ve been gone all flippin’ day, fighting mobs that shitbird Lowen dropped.” He jerked his chin at Roark. “Thanks for the assist in getting back inside, b-t-dubs. That was looking hairy as balls out there.”

Roark frowned at the Ranger-Cleric. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching the northern corbels, mate?”

“Save the passive-aggressive bullshit for jolly ol’ England, mate. This is the US of A. Make your insults count or go eat a dick.”

Roark had no idea what lands PwnrBwner was referring to, and he didn’t bother asking for an explanation. The hero would only respond with a tautology or something that muddied the waters more than clarified them. Besides, there were far more important matters at hand.

“I’m preparing to depart back to Hearthworld,” he said, “but I have a small quest before I go—it will require a handful of willing volunteers.”

“Yeah, let me just pump the brakes,” PwnrBwner said, raising a hand. “Before we talk about you cutting and running, we have something else to chat about. While I was out there, kicking more ass and taking more names than Rambo, I got some weird prompt. It said I’d been appointed the Arch-Overseer of Shieldwall. So my question is, what kind of bullshit did you volunteer me for now?”

“That has to do with my departure.” Roark swept a hand around the cafeteria. “As you can see, I’ve made a few adjustments since you were last here.”

PwnrBwner snorted and rolled his eyes. “Gee, you don’t say.”

Roark ignored his sarcasm and forged on. “I’m not sure if it’s the power of the World Stone or whether it is a thing any Dungeon Lord could do in your world, but I have turned this location into a secondary dungeon. But doing so required me to appoint someone to run it in my absence.” He paused, eyeing the Ranger-Cleric. “Against my better judgement, I chose you. You will have charge of this facility and its defense in my absence. You will be able to sit on the Dungeon Lord’s throne, alter and fortify the dungeon layout, and spawn and command its creatures.”

“GTFO,” PwnrBwner said. “You made me a fucking Dungeon Lord?”

“Yes,” Roark said slowly. “If you would rather not have the responsibility, I can select a new Arch-Overseer.”

“Are you kidding me? This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. That dick Bad_Karama can suck my balls—not only can I do magic in real life, I’m a motherfucking Dungeon Lord. I’m done at the Bell forever!” He sounded elated. “But you need to be gone, so how soon can we make that happen? You mentioned some mission? Volunteers?”

“I need assistance for a limited attack outside, on the surrounding forces from this world,” Roark said. “You know of the repeating crossbows they have? The ones mounted in their mobile blockhouses?”

PwnrBwner gave him a blank stare. “Yeah, no. A hundred percent no.”

Frustrated, Roark nodded to the doors out of the cafeteria.

“Follow me,” he said.

He led PwnrBwner to the closest archer slits, then pointed out into the night. Light from the few Herald fires still burning and the row of strangely steady lamps lining the street cast one of the powerful vehicles in shadowy relief.

“That,” Roark said. “I need to take one back to Hearthworld and learn how it works.”

When PwnrBwner saw what Roark was pointing at, his eyes doubled in size.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The hero slapped his hands on either side of the archer slit and pressed his face to it. “A tank? You want a fucking tank?”

Roark frowned. “You’ve misunderstood. I don’t want to abduct anyone. I’ve got plenty of tanks—Kaz, Grozka, Wurgfozz, several of your guild and the Devs here qualify as well...”

PwnrBwner stepped back and pulled his hand down his face.

“Okay, language barrier,” he said in a low voice as if speaking to himself. The Ranger-Cleric looked at Roark. “So Kaz is a tank in Hearthworld, right?” He nodded in answer to his own question. “Well, we named tanks ‘tanks’ because of that monster out there. That is an actual, literal tank. It can take all the damage ever, then blow your head off and roll back home like nothing ever happened. It’s big, it’s bad, and it’s crewed by something even badder.”

“What’s that?”

“The US military.” PwnrBwner shook his head. “I’ll watch your backs for Heralds, but I ain’t going up against a bunch of dudes who kick other countries’ asses for a living. One, I’m not into killing humans IRL, and two, death by taking a .50 cal up the anus isn’t on my bucket list. Plus, fucking treason. I’m not down with getting put on a fed watch list.”

“You’re probably already on like ten fed watch lists by now,” Flappie_Sak said, stealing up beside them. “Everyone in this place is gonna be. They have us on video doing magic, dude.”

“Still,” Pwnr said, “I’m not killing the good guys.”

“I don’t intend to kill them,” Roark said. “They’re ostensibly here to safeguard you and the Devs, yes? I want no part in ending the lives of men who are only fighting to protect their own. I just need them out of this... tank, as you called it.”

“Not just any tank. An M1A1 Abrams.” PwnrBwner glanced out the archer slit again. “I’ve played enough Guns of Modern Warfare to know it has a .50 cal machine gun in the front, an M240 in the back, and a goddamned 105mm cannon.”

“So, will you help me?” Roark asked.

“You legit have no idea what realistic goals are, and this is a terrible idea.” PwnrBwner sighed and drummed his fingers restlessly against the stonework. “But damn... Dungeon Lord Scott...” He straightened up suddenly, heading for the exit. “Fine, whatever, let’s go steal a tank. Why the hell not?”

***

WITHIN MINUTES, ROARK had rounded up as many powerful tanks of the Hearthworld variety as he dared borrow from the Shieldwall’s defending force, along with a few fighters he knew he could count on. Randy had the same reservations about fighting his own people, but agreed to the mission once he learned that the goal wasn’t to kill any of the vehicle’s occupants. The Dev, PwnrBwner, Wurgfozz, Kaz, Mac, and BusterMove99 followed Roark back through the dirtworks tunnel to the rear of the encircling army.

None of the vehicles had been repositioned to face outward as Roark had feared. The closest one showed no signs of life, but as PwnrBwner had explained, the operators would be holed up inside the metal beast, ready to counter any attack.

Roark grimaced at the sheer volume of light in the city. Even in the middle of the night, the orange glow illuminated everything in a sort of bizarre twilight. He wished Zyra were there; her and a cadre of Reavers. Surprise would decide this battle, stealth would protect both them and the lives of the men they were about to attack, and yet he had along all the least likely candidates for such a mission.

The only one among them with any stealth ability was Randy. As agreed upon, the Dev was already invisible, having disappeared the moment they climbed out of the tunnel.

Roark waved his party forward, then took off at a jog, ducking low and moving as silently as he could manage. He certainly wasn’t the loudest among them. That honor was split between Wurgfozz, with his clinking piercings, Couch_Warrior3000, who acted as if he’d never worn plate mail before—despite the fact that he was level 44 in Hearthworld—and Kaz, who seemed to think that frequent diving rolls were the key to sneaking, oblivious to the clanking commotion his Obsidian Glass armor made.

As they reached the tank, the Trolls and heroes split up, spreading out to intercept any attempt at intervention by the other two powerful armored blockhouses. Roark leapt into the air and stretched his wings, sailing easily to the top of the vehicle, and landed in a crouch. He wasn’t heavy enough to rock the tank, but his landing must’ve been noticeable inside the steel vehicle, because the weapon PwnrBwner had referred to as a .50 cal came to life, waking up its brethren on the other vehicles. Barrels swerved toward him and belched a cacophony of thunder and fire.

Roark heard the skirling whine of several passing near him.

Metal screamed and crumpled as Kaz brought down his Legendary Meat Tenderizer on one of the barrels, crushing it. Wurgfozz grabbed the barrel of the other, his fat hands sizzling. He dug his armored boots into the ground and flexed legs the size of Roark’s waist as he shoved, finally budging the barrel away from Roark.

Not squandering a moment, Roark found the hatch on the top of his current perch, and with a mighty tear, ripped it from the tank.

He immediately found himself staring down the barrel of a weapon much like the one Darith had used on him. He recoiled, but too slowly. With a series of pops and blindingly bright flashes, pain lanced through his chest and stomach.

Hells, these “guns,” as the heroes called them, were bloody fast. And deadly powerful. The perfect projectile delivery device. Possibly even a match for all the magic in Traisbin. Perhaps this world could afford elegant glass structures because its peacekeepers had such weapons. Who would dare to start a war in a land like this? He had to admire them even as he dropped out of sight of the hatch.

“Come at me again, Satan!” a man shouted from inside the tank. “We’ll blow your ass straight back to hell! We’ll never stop fighting! This is our world, fuckface, and we’re going to defend it!”

“Bloody eloquent as PwnrBwner,” Roark muttered through pain-gritted teeth. He wasn’t certain he could move well enough to create another distraction, and he didn’t hear Randy yet.

But he couldn’t afford to let them dig in farther and call for more assistance from around the siege. With a quick check of his regenerating Health vial, Roark pulled his Initiate’s Spell Book and inscribed an empty Level 2 Spell Slot with a Stun Spell. He had plenty of higher-level slots to choose from, but without knowing the level of the men in the tank, he couldn’t be certain the Level 9 version wouldn’t kill them outright.

[Congratulations, you have inscribed Stun Spell in the Initiate’s Spell Book!

Stun Spell can be cast (1) time per inscription!

Base Damage: 6 HP to target, +75% chance of Stunning.

Stunned Targets have reduced Vision, Hearing, and Balance for 4n seconds (where n is caster’s character level).

Cooldown period between casting Stun Spell and re-inscription: (2) hours!]

Rolling to his knees, Roark leaned into full view of the hole.

“I’m trying to save your world, you bloody moron!” he snapped, casting the Stun Spell.

It went off with the customary boom, shaking the tank beneath Roark’s feet and blasting the man backward. His head slammed into a bank of switches and glass, and his eyes rolled up in his head. Unconscious, but luckily still alive, likely due to the thick helmet buffering his skull from the impact.

Already his fellow soldiers had come to his aid, firing similar weapons at Roark, but he’d already ducked out of their line of sight again.

In the tank, there was a thunk and someone let out a whoof of air.

“What the hell?” another voice shouted.

“Over here,” Randy said.

On the heels of which followed another meaty thud.

“Okay, we’re clear!” Randy called.

Roark folded his leathery wings as tightly as he could and leaned down into the hatch. Randy had reappeared over the bodies of the men he’d knocked out, powerfully reinforced Vine Fists blazing.

“Good work,” Roark said.

“Uh, thanks,” Randy said, shifting his feet and staring down at the men. “Though I still have reservations about attacking US military personnel.”

Roark understood the Dev’s discomfort, but he had no reassuring platitudes to offer Randy. Often the dirtiest jobs were the most necessary in times like these. He had come to terms with that long ago.

Working quickly, they hefted the unconscious soldiers out through the hole and carried them a safe distance from the other vehicles, propping them against one of the horseless carriages that had been overturned. He took another few seconds to remove their assorted weaponry and the “magazines” that Randy said powered them, piling them all into the tank. Ducking behind the steel leviathan, Roark cracked a portal stone. A shimmering violet tear opened in the air.

“It’s time!” he shouted.

Kaz, Wurgfozz, and Couch_Warrior3000 raced to join Roark, while PwnrBwner put himself between them and the now-free barrel of the tank to their north. Thrusting out both hands, the Ranger-Cleric threw up a massive translucent blue shield to protect them in this last leg of the mission. Projectiles flew, ricocheting off the shield and whizzing into the night.

“Heave!” Roark called, throwing his weight into the side of the tank.

As one, the enormously strong Trolls and hero dug in and pushed with him, throwing their formidable body weight against the contraption. Even Randy helped, arms outstretched and feet slipping in the grass. The tank groaned, but refused to budge—at least until Mac joined in. The Adolescent Turtle Dragon dropped his head and hooked the lip of his shell under the front edge of the contraption. Then, with squat legs, he thrust. The tank began to roll toward the portal.

“Heave!” Roark called again.

The lineup of powerhouses backed up a step and slammed into the tank again with a massive clanging of bodies and armor on metal.

The gap between the tank and the portal closed to less than a foot, but it was bloody brutal work. The thing had to weigh at least twenty tons.

“Heave!”

“Running out of mana, guys!” PwnrBwner yelled in a strained voice. “Maybe step it up, huh?”

“Mana?” Kaz wondered aloud as he pushed. “What is it?”

“Magicka,” PwnrBwner snapped. “Whatever the crap it is in Hearthworld! The stuff that makes spells work. ’Bout to run out—that’s the takeaway here!”

They were so close. The tank was inches from the portal’s edge.

“One more, lads!” Roark yelled. “Heave!”

The front armor plate barely made contact with the shimmering violet light, but that was enough. In a flash, the entire tank dropped through on its own.

“Let’s go, Kaz,” Roark said. “Everyone else get back inside.”

Randy nodded, disappearing again, and the others took off for the tunnel into Frontflip.

“Nice smash and grab, you friggin’ psycho,” PwnrBwner called. His smile faded and he was suddenly serious. “For what it’s worth, I’ll take care of this place. Lowen and the rest of those assholes can eat a big bag of shit. This is my world, and they ain’t taking it.”

Roark smirked. “I knew you were the man for the job.”

“Hells yeah.” PwnrBwner stuck out his fist, and Roark bumped it.

With that, the Ranger-Cleric turned on a heel and jogged after the others.

“Roark?” Kaz said, twisting his fingers without looking up. “Kaz... does not want to go yet. He must stay here and protect Randy and PwnrBwner. Besides this, they have so many spices and foods Kaz has never seen before...”

“Now who’s dragging food into it?” Roark asked jokingly.

“They do need Kaz here, though, Roark,” the Mighty Gourmet said. “Roark must have seen how lifeless their kitchen was. No one was cooking at all. Armies fight on their stomachs, this is well known!”

Roark laughed. “Go, Kaz. Take care of them. Just be careful getting back.”

“Kaz will stealth the whole way!” the Bonesnap Behemoth promised eagerly, then dove into a roll toward the tunnel.

The barrel of the final tank swung toward Kaz.

Roark filled his lungs and took a half-step forward, letting loose with a thunderous shout.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Infernal Thunder

Attack Spell

Range: 40 feet

Casting Time: Instant

Casting Cost: 11% Base Magicka

With a shout of your booming voice, Infernal Thunder shakes the earth, inflicting 2 Damage x character level and tripping opponents with less than .5n where n is caster’s Dexterity.

Note: Infernal Thunder disrupts concentration-based spells when it causes opponent to trip or lose eye contact.

Note: Divine creatures are invulnerable to Infernal spells.

╠═╦╬╧╪

The noise ripped up from the bottom of his stomach, making the air crackle with Infernal energy. Brilliant amethyst undulations burst from his heel in concentric rings. The trampled dusty earth and paved path lurched like a carpet someone had shaken the end of, and the tank flipped onto its side, barrel firing into the sky.

Kaz disappeared into the night, safe.

With his friend’s escape secured, Roark turned to Mac and patted the Turtle Dragon on the shell.

“At least I still have you with me, mate.” He leapt into the portal to Hearthworld with Mac following close behind.

Flash Art Gunsmith

RATHER THAN RETURN to the encampment outside the Vault of the Radiant Shield, Roark had used the portal stone to transport himself, Mac, and the tank to the open grassland he’d crossed with Zyra what seemed like ages ago tracking down an ingredient for Kaz’s Gourmet quest. Roark was eager to get back to a smithy, but the tank was an enormous piece of equipment—fully as long as the trebuchets from back end to the tip of the barrel—and he needed the space to get acquainted with it.

While Roark worked, Mac took to flushing Lesser Venomous Skyrats out of the flowers and tall grasses, chirping wildly at each new pheasant-like beast he stirred up.

“Sorry, mate, I can’t hunt with you right now,” Roark said, giving the Adolescent Turtle Dragon an apologetic scrub around the head.

Mac nipped at his arm grumpily, then lumbered off to make his own fun.

Roark turned back to the tank. A thorough study of its outside revealed that he’d stolen a highly advanced bit of machinery. The many angled facets would do wonders at deflecting projectiles, and bolted to the sides were thick armored plates that had been forged and welded using a smithing technique Roark had never seen before. Unlike a carriage or the horseless vehicles he’d seen in the Other World, the tank had several wheels propelling wide bands of cleated track that would offer immense stability and prevent overturning or becoming mired in anything but a vast bog. It was a bloody beautiful piece of warcraft.

He’d seen the top bit rotate a full revolution back at Frontflip, but he couldn’t find exterior access to the mechanism that allowed it to spin.

“Into the belly of the beast,” he muttered, hopping onto the roof of the tank with a powerful thrust from his wings.

Shimmying through the hatch, he dropped inside. Not made for a crowd, the tank—especially not a crowd made up of creatures his size. He kept his wings folded tightly to his back as he painstakingly went over the interior. Two seats were stacked nearly on top of one another, one surrounded by a series of viewing ports and spyglasses, the other offering easy access to dozens of controls.

A small panel hung open near his feet, and when he crouched to look inside, Roark found a third reclined seat. He could see levers and controls through the panel, though try as he might, he was far too large to squeeze in there himself. A Changeling or a Reaver might stand a chance at it, but certainly nothing larger.

“Seven hells,” he cursed. He backed out into the main section and pulled up his messages, dashing off a request to the overseer he’d left in charge at the Citadel.

Druz, send three lower-level Trolls to Skybowl Meadow, preferably fairly intelligent sorts. Changeling or Reaver, nothing larger than six feet tall.

The overseer’s response came within the minute, and Roark went back to cataloguing the guts of the tank. The most heartening moment was when he found an access door to a cabinet filled with large projectiles for the long barrel protruding from the front of the swiveling part of the tank. A feral grin spread across his face as he counted twenty-nine remaining.

For the repeating crossbow on the top of the tank, he found belts of metal projectiles the size of his hand.

“Brilliant.” Those were the shots that had knocked him out of the sky and stolen two-thirds of his Health while he was in his Draconic Form. Now he had a good ten yards of the bastards to turn against Lowen and his troops.

Roark was studying how to load the top-mounted crossbow when a pair of level 6 Reaver twins and a Changeling he recognized from the smithy crossed the meadow.

Roark hopped down from the metal vehicle.

“Vang,” he said, nodding to the level 9 Changeling. The misshapen creature was one of the best smiths at the Troll Nation smithy and was slowly but surely working his way up to the Jotnar Evolutionary Path. Because of his choice of paths, he was smaller than the Reavers despite being ahead on levels, barely three feet tall altogether.

“Don’t look like much of a smithin’ project, does she, Dungeon Lord?” the Changeling asked, eyeing the tank warily. “What’s it you need a smith for?”

The Reavers might have been equally as confused, but their faces were hidden in the shadows of identical hoods.

“For your keen intellect,” Roark said. He slapped an angled panel of the tank. “This is called a tank.” He held up a hand to stop their protests before they started. “I know. Apparently, this is what our tanks are named after. The important bit is I stole this tank from the Devs’ and heroes’ homeworld, and I need a team who can operate it—the sooner the better.”

“You can’t do it yerself?” Vang asked, making the Reavers cringe at his disrespect.

Roark glanced at what must look like a monster of a vehicle to the tiny Changeling.

“It’s deceptively tight quarters inside,” he explained. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

After a short introduction to the little Roark knew, one of the twin Reavers took the reclining seat in the front of the tank and began working the levers.

The tank lurched into forward motion, then stopped.

“There’s something called a tutorial for it, says it’s like Skill Training,” he called back to them. “Brace yourselves, I’m going to start!”

The tank started and stopped, turning and backing up, while in the cramped main section, the other twin tried to take the top seat surrounded by viewing ports.

“Ah-ah-ah!” snapped Vang, elbowing her aside. “That’s my seat, girlie!”

“You’re not even tall enough to get into it.”

“Don’t matter.” Vang dug his claws into the seat and scrabbled his feet against the metal panels behind it, leaving black scratches. Finally, he heaved his Changeling body up onto the chair. “Made for a Jotnar, this seat was, so’s he could call his demands. That’n down there’s made for an assassin.”

With a grunt, the remaining twin took the lower seat and started checking the spyglasses.

“It’s some type of crossbow with sights,” she said, excitement creeping into her tone. “There’s a tutorial available for it as well.”

“There’s a second crossbow on top,” Roark said. “Madly effective against flying mobs.”

“.50 caliber rifle,” she said absently. “That’s what the tutorial called it. And this is a turret gun.”

Roark nodded and turned to Vang.

“Think you can get them working together by tonight?”

Standing on the seat so he could see out the view ports, Vang stroked his chin, a calculating gleam in his eye Roark only ever saw in other Jotnars.

“Mayhap with a quest, I could,” he hedged.

If that was all the payment required, it would be easy enough to grant. Using his Dungeon Lord’s ability to make quests, Roark fashioned one and offered it to Vang.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Tank Commander

Roark the Griefer, Dungeon Lord and Leader of the Troll Nation, has issued a Training Quest for the leader of the Troll Nation’s first Self-Propelled Combat Vehicle.

Objective: Train your underlings to drive over a series of obstacles and fire the Tank at a series of targets within the specified time limit.

Obstacles remaining: 6

Targets remaining: 6

Time remaining: 8 hours

Reward: 1,000 Experience, 1,000 gold, and official title of Tank Commander

Accept? Yes/No

“You want to sit in the boss seat and wear the boss pants, then become the boss.”

╠═╦╬╧╪

“How’s that?” Roark asked.

Vang hmmed as he read it. “It’ll do, I suppose.”

Insufferable little creature. Though Roark had to admit, he found Vang’s spitfire ambition amusing. It was no wonder the Changeling had angled for Jotnar over the other Troll Evolutionary Paths. Roark opened the access panel to the stored projectiles.

“I’ll leave you with twelve of these,” he said, moving the rest to his Inventory.

“105 Shells,” the Reaver in the lower seat correctly absently.

“And three of the belts for the repeating crossbow—” Roark continued.

“.50 cal,” the Reaver corrected again, slipping past him and grabbing a string of the projectiles. She flipped open a metal plate at the top of the crossbow, carefully placed the first projectile in, then slammed the plate back down and racked an odd handle backward.

“Yes, right. .50 cal,” Roark said. “Everything else I’ll take with me to Curse.”

“Firing,” the Reaver said, attention focused on the spyglass. “Hang onto something down there, brother.”

“Hanging on,” her twin called back.

Suddenly, the barrel jerked, rat-tat-tat-tat, shaking the tank with a thunderous cacophony.

Roark grimaced, certain he’d been deafened permanently. When he looked up, Vang was shaking his fists and shouting what looked like a colorful string of remonstrations at the Reaver, who acted as if she couldn’t hear, either.

Messaging Vang that he would return when the time limit on the quest was up to collect them, Roark slipped out of the tank and hopped down to the quickly passing grass. He followed the torn-up grass back to the clearing, used his bow to shoot down one of the Skyrats Mac was chasing in circles—much to the silly beast’s delight—then ripped open a portal scroll and stepped into his private smithy in the Cruel Citadel’s Keep. Mac, thrilled at the prospect of being home again and with a belly full of Skyrat, immediately curled up against the hot stones of the forge, where he could absorb the most heat.

Though Roark had promised he was going to Curse the ammunition for the tank’s guns, he was far more excited to inspect the weapons he’d taken from the soldiers in the tank’s interior—semiautomatic pistols, according to Randy.

Setting the tank’s projectiles aside for later, Roark took out a pistol and turned it over. Weightier than he’d expected. A bit of tinkering revealed the slide mechanism Randy had shown him to eject the magazine as well as a feeding mechanism for the barrel. Like the tank’s ammunition, the projectiles in the gun—bullets—had an exploding cap attached for propulsion.

Pure genius.

He’d seen black powder’s deadly power in bombs, but this construction would prevent the usual issues that made it so unreliable and generally annoying to work with. Humidity and rain wouldn’t affect these bullets, and they were far easier to maneuver than the same amount of loose powder. Presumably, they had also been measured beforehand so each bullet would deliver a similar burst rather than chancing too little or too much in the heat of a battle.

He took apart the rest of the pistol, carefully laying out its mechanisms and various components on the workbench. That he would leave for reference until he’d finished with the others. He fished the rest of them out of his Inventory. In all, he’d recovered four pistols from the soldiers in the tank—two more exactly like the first and another smaller version with only slight differences in build.

The smallest he took to the Enchanting table along with an engraver’s awl to begin the painstaking process of carving runes and affixing precious stones. The moment Roark began inscribing it with the containment circle and rune Yasuc to alchemically bind a Flawless Lapis Lazuli into its barrel, however, a line of spidery white text appeared to stop him.

[Error! You cannot add Hearthworld runework to Old World Glock 26! To Enchant Old World weapons, you must Tattoo the surfaces with Old World Flash Art. Explore Flash Art options in your grimoire.]

Intrigued, Roark opened the tome and found a newly added page covered in simplistic images much like the glimpses of tattoos he’d seen in taverns popular with sailors along Traisbin’s coasts. Swallows, ships at full sail, peacocks, springing panthers, astrolabes, roosters, pigs, skulls, snakes, daggers dripping with blood, hearts, and beautiful nude finfolk women.

One by one, he moved over the colorful images.

The smiling finfolk granted a hefty bonus to the wielder’s magick and spells. Snakes added a Counterstrike Speed Bonus, while the panthers increased Strength, and the roosters and pigs affected Constitution and Health-Regen, respectively. Moreover, it appeared one could combine Flash Art pieces to create more complex Enchantments. By itself, a dagger added Bleeding Damage to the weapon’s base damage, but when combined with a heart, it also doubled Backstab Damage.

[You have unlocked hybrid Smithing-Enchanting specialty: Flash Art Gunsmith! You are now capable of Tattooing Old World weapons and armor with 1 piece of Flash Art!]

Blinking the text away, Roark selected a skull with a dagger stabbed through its cap and a snake coiling through its empty eye socket, but when he attempted to carve it into the ridged handle of the Glock 26 with the razor-tipped awl, another line of text appeared to stop him.

[You cannot Tattoo Glock 26 with Death’s Head Revenge at this time! To combine 3 pieces of Flash Art, your Tattooing must be at least Level 3.]

Roark grunted. He’d forgotten how frustrating it was to be at the lowest levels of a new skill. Fine, one image at a time.

He selected instead a simple grinning skull and carved it line for line into the pistol. When he’d closed the last contour, the piece of Flash Art glowed brilliant red like a living coal and settled into the handle. Immediately, the weapon’s information changed.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Glock 26

Old World Weapon

One-handed Damage: 99 - 108

Durability: 171/175

Level Requirement: 16

Magazine Capacity: 10 Rounds

Semiautomatic Class Weapon: Fast Attack Speed

Enchantments: Death Comes for Us All

Effect: +10% Necrotic Damage

╠═╦╬╧╪

That was admittedly a significant improvement on its own, but once he could combine that with other bits of Flash, he could imbue these already powerful weapons with some truly savage boosts.

A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth as he glanced from the tank projectiles and belts of bullets to the pistols.

Time to see how many skill levels Tattooing that stack of Old World weapons and ammunition would get him.

Firepower

ROARK TOOK A STEP BACK from the massive piece of Flash he had just Tattooed onto the front armor plate of the tank—a skeleton finfolk woman with sparrow’s wings jutting up from her back, long hair flowing around her exposed skull, a snake slithering out of her grinning jaws in place of a tongue, and a dagger-pierced heart glowing inside her rib cage. It was quite impressive, he had to admit. Perhaps not the type of fine art that would be appreciated by the nobility of Traisbin, but beautiful in its own way.

He had spent the night imbuing the weapons and armor from the Other World and leveling up his Flash Art Gunsmith Skill until he’d reached Level 5. The intricate image, known as The Goddess of Revenge, reflected the sum of his current expertise. The M1A1 Abrams, a formidable power in its own right, now had Enchantments for Attack Speed, Counterstrike, Multiplied Bleeding Damage, Necrotic Damage, and Multiplied Magickal Bonuses added to its already Enchanted projectiles.

“Eh,” Vang said, crossing his lumpy Changeling arms. His quest had given him the promised title of Tank Commander and raised him to level 10, but it hadn’t done anything for his height. “Can’t say she’s my type, but she does add a certain something, don’t she?”

“Wait until you see her in action,” Roark said, beaming with barely concealed pride. “You’ll think she’s bloody gorgeous, I can promise you that.”

“Well, I like her,” said one of the Reavers, poking his head out of the hatch in the front of the tank. Looking down from on top, his twin nodded in agreement.

Surprisingly, like Vang, they had both acquired titles from their training—the male twin was now a Driver and the female a Gunner.

“Get back in the tank!” snapped Vang, flapping his hands at them. “Both of you! Didn’t you hear the Dungeon Lord? It’s time to pick up and get to the fight.”

As the Reavers followed their Tank Commander’s orders, Roark climbed onto the top of the tank where the Gunner twin had been, since he couldn’t very well fit inside with the others. The steel behemoth lurched into motion, a great roar filling the air as the metal treads tore across dirt and grass, leaving snaking paths of destruction in their wake. Roark couldn’t contain a vicious smile as he opened another portal scroll.

From below, the Driver twin expertly maneuvered the tank into the shimmering violet light.

A moment later, they rolled out into the daylit chaos surrounding the Vault of the Radiant Shield. One of the siege towers had been destroyed and its fiery ruins were burning brightly, but the other ballistae and the trebuchets remained intact, still giving the hive seven hells. Zyra had managed to maintain the spiderwebbing, forcing the Heralds to fight on foot as often as naught, which put the winged bastards at a decided disadvantage. Especially since Roark had distributed his new Obsidian Glass weapons far and wide. Unfortunately, as a result, the path to the Vault was blocked in a bedlam of allied mobs, Heralds, Gargoyles, and destroyed battering rams.

“I’ll clear the way!” Roark yelled to Vang over the clash of the battle. “Head straight to the top!”

The Tank Commander gave him a sharp nod, then pulled a strange piece of headwear down over his mismatched ears and spoke into a stick positioned in front of his mouth. According to Vang, the tutorial had called this a “radio,” and it allowed the members of the crew to communicate without mishearing orders thanks to the thunderous clamor of the tank itself.

Roark leapt off the back of the machine, taking wing.

Lowen was nowhere to be seen. Was he holed up inside or had he traveled back to Frontflip to attempt another push while Roark was gone?

As he soared over the chaos, his eyes locked on Zyra and the rest of the webcrawlers. They dangled from the bottom of the Vault from spider-silk lines, attacking or dropping entangling webs and dancing away before the Heralds could respond, like deadly acrobats. He angled his wings and banked over to the Orbweaver Ravager.

“Have you spotted Lowen?” he called to her.

“No!” Zyra laughed with delight. “But you’re missing out on all the fun! These dimwitted Heralds don’t know whether to come after us or hold off the fighters on foot!”

In spite of his urgency to find the Tyrant King’s right-hand mage, Roark couldn’t help but smile. Zyra wasn’t the lighthearted sort as a rule, but when she found something she did enjoy, her glee was contagious.

“Care for an upgrade to your weaponry?” he called, producing a pair of Obsidian-Hardened Steel pistols he had Smithed the night before especially for her. Monstrous and beautiful things called Colt 1911s. They were Tattooed with a dagger through the heart of a peacock, which would give her bonuses for Backstabbing Attacks and did additional damage to winged chimeras. “Every round is coated in your Rotting Sun poison.”

She took the proffered pistols and studied them, checking their specifications.

While she was reading, a Herald darted toward her, frantically throwing off a tangle of webbing before drawing a Blessed Falchion from the scabbard at his side. Roark pulled his own new weapon. Before he could fire, however, Zyra pointed her twin pistols at the Herald and pulled the triggers.

One shot went wide, careening into the stone face of the hive, but the other punched through the brown-winged creature’s breastplate. The metal was nothing compared to the hellish force of the bullets. Not only that, but after a few experiments the night before, Roark learned that steel armor was actually detrimental to its wearer. The projectile punched a hole through the metal plating, but didn’t have enough force to exit through the backside. As a result, it would bounce around inside the victim, causing massive internal damage. Savage, but uniquely suited to their task at the Vault, as the majority of the Heralds wore plate.

The unsuspecting Herald’s Health bar flashed green as he cried out in shock. In panicked retribution, he raised his free hand and fired an Angelic Lance at Zyra.

She sidestepped the clumsy attack, disappearing into the daylight and appearing a stride away, pistols once more leveled at the Herald. She and Roark fired at the same time. Both bullets hit their mark, conjuring a gout of golden blood. The Herald’s Health bar flashed a critical warning, then emptied, and he fell from the sky.

Zyra lifted her veiled face to his. “Not bad for a ranged weapon.”

“They’re even more effective if you shoot someone in the back,” he said.

She leveled one at a Herald swooping low over the battle, aiming intuitively over the metal sights, and squeezed the trigger. The impact sheared through a wing joint, poisoning the man in the process. His Health bar took a sharp hit, and the furious air currents surrounding the Vault drove him unceremoniously into the rocky wall. Down he went in a hail of rubble and stony debris.

Zyra cackled joyfully. “They’re brilliant!”

“I thought you’d appreciate that. And I brought more,” he said, passing her several of the Enchanted Other World weapons along with replacement magazines. “Will you pass them out to your webcrawlers?”

“Of course, Dungeon Lord.”

“Much thanks. Have them draw the Heralds away from the path if you can.”

She gave him an affirmative wave and did another of those strange Shadow Stalks into the light—instantaneously reappearing beside one of the other dangling webcrawlers.

Far below, Roark spotted Griff leading the frenzied push up the steep switchback.

He folded his wings and dove down to alight next to the scar-crossed weapons trainer.

“Making a habit out of this fashionably late act, Griefer,” the old man called as he deflected a Herald’s attack with his buckler.

Roark fired two shots in quick succession, taking the Herald in the shoulder and golden cheekbone. The man veered sharply off course, and Griff finished him with a series of combos that belied his aged appearance. Another Herald tried to take his fallen comrade’s place, but Roark shot him down as well, using a trio of bullets, then exchanging magazines with quick, sure hands. He’d practiced the maneuver a hundred times the night before, taking quick breaks between his Enchanting.

Seeing which way the tide was turning, the golden-skinned creatures gave him and Griff plenty of space.

“I’ve some new weapons for your fighters.” Roark handed off another series of pistols to the bewildered trainer. Several Glocks and a few more Colt 1911s. “Use them with caution, though. Make sure the men know not to miss a Herald and hit an ally. These things don’t discriminate between friend and foe.” Then he pulled out a machine gun, a smaller version of the .50-caliber monstrosity the tank utilized. It was called an M240G. Not quite so powerful as the .50 cal, but much more manageable and less cumbersome. It could even be fired utilizing a sturdy shoulder mount. “I have fewer of these, but they should help with our larger associates.”

Shots rang out from above, and several of the Heralds tore themselves away from the battle for the steep terrain, flying at the webcrawlers as if getting closer would negate their strange new projectiles. In the momentary lull, Griff and Roark quickly passed out the Other World weapons and gave the fighters a brief explanation on how to use them.

Movement behind the allied forces caught his eye, and Roark launched himself into the air to address them all at once.

“Let the tank past!” he shouted. “Climb over or get around it if you can, but let it into the lead, then follow it to the top!”

Like rolling ocean waves, the throng of Trolls and allied mobs scurried to obey, the smallest creatures edging along the rock wall and the larger climbing overtop the advancing tank. A few stopped on top of the armored vehicle to hitch a ride. Despite their massive size, the tank bore their weight with ease. Roark couldn’t help but marvel at its prowess. These Other World weapons of war were far more devastating even than the magick of his home world. After all, spells were potent, but they took years of training and meticulous practice to master. These creations, however, could be devastating even in the hands of a trained primate.

Though they would give him a decided edge against Marek, Roark also felt some small reservation about bringing the weapons back to Traisbin. They would help to overthrow the Tyrant King, but once these tanks and guns were introduced, Roark’s world would never be the same. Warfare would change forever—and most likely for the bloodier, not the better. There was nothing to be done about that, though. He would do what needed doing and pay the price for his actions later.

As soon as the way was clear, the first of the tank’s enormous shells boomed from its barrel. A charging Herald was reduced to a gory golden mist as the 105 round slammed it into the side of the Vault and detonated in an explosive wave of fire and searing heat. The gold lining the walls twisted and melted, and opal and marble crumbled as a gaping hole appeared in the outer wall.

Heralds darted around like panicked wasps—terror etched into the lines of their faces— unsure whether to attack or break and flee.

One took the lead, shouting orders and pointing at the advancing army. A small line of the flying mobs followed her into a suicide charge.

Roark was about to intervene, but the largest allied mobs attacked. Equipped with their new machine guns, they strafed the Heralds with suppressive fire. The Heralds, failing to understand just what they were up against, flew straight into the barrage of bullets. It was a bloodbath. In moments, the allied forces had cleared the air around the Vault’s entry, though bodies littered the ground.

Seeing there would be no stopping them while they wielded these strange new Other World weapons, the remaining Heralds pulled back, retreating into the interior of the Vault—likely hoping the size of the tank would eliminate its effectiveness once inside.

And in truth the tank shouldn’t have been able to fit through the front entry.

But Roark was learning that with enough firepower, all things were possible. It raised its long gun and blasted a hole triple the size of the first, then rolled inside.

As Roark flew to the head of his army, he took out mindless Gargoyles and deflected a haphazard attack from a murder hole above, sending the perpetrator for respawn. Inside, the tank continued blazing the trail, blasting passageways through to accommodate its bulk, and letting in hundreds of well-armed troops, who were bolstered by their sudden progress.

And just like that, they had broken the unbreakable stronghold. They were inside. All that was left to do was push for the throne room.

A feral grin clawed at Roark’s face as he recalled his promise to Talise. Hopefully, he would find that ass Lowen cowering inside.

Countdown Complications

SCOTT BAYANI LEANED against the wall, tucked away in one of the murder corbels the Griefer had added to the tops of the walls when he battle-modded out Frontflip. All in all, the changes were pretty awesome. He had to admit the dude knew his siege defense. Made sense. Based on that slaughter Roark had shown him and Randy, they probably didn’t have any drone technology on the alien planet Roark was from, so if they wanted to fight, they had to get medieval with it. The fact that the Griefer had entrusted all this to him was still a little bit of a mind fuck.

But only a little. Scott was awesome as hell, after all. Randy was the only other real option, and that wasn’t even a fair contest. Randy was wicked smart, but a total pocket-protector wearing nerd. Scott tapped the stone wall affectionately. This place needed a serious baller at the helm, and he could do the job. Idly, he glanced out over the lawn turned battlefield.

Most of the Heralds who had run like bitches during that first surprise dragon attack were back now, and the siege had mostly reset itself. There weren’t as many of the shitbirds—Roark had kicked their teeth in with that NecroDragon transformation—but they’d managed to reorganize themselves and were trying to take Frontflip again, attacking every now and then. Scott hadn’t noticed a pattern to the attacks, but he figured they were trying to keep them irregular so the POSes and the rest of the people defending the building would have to stay constantly on alert. Wear them down that way.

Some of the weak-ass losers in his Guild had started complaining about the constant fighting, but Scott liked it. Kick ass, level up and loot, quick rest, kick some more ass. He could get used to living like this. It was exhausting, but it beat the ever-loving crap out of burning quesadillas at the Bell, and it was a helluva lot more rewarding. And not just monetarily. For the first time in forever, Scott could see some progress in his IRL life, not just in Hearthworld. Shit was happening, and it was making him hella stronger and awesomer. Who wouldn’t want that? Plus, he was a legit Dungeon Lord now. He wasn’t sure what that would mean long term—especially if Roark managed to split back to his home world—but he was living for it right now.

“Um, PwnrBwner?” One of the eggheads that used to work with Randy leaned through the open doorway into the corbel. “Randy just got a call wanting to talk to the leader of the forces inside. He’s looking for you.”

Scott straightened up. “Hell yeah he’s looking for me. Where’s Rando at?”

“Down in the eastern lobby.”

“Still? I thought this was his off shift.”

The egghead shrugged. “I guess he wanted to stay.”

“Congratulations, pal, this murder corbel is yours until the shift change.” Scott took one last look out for attacks, then eyed the egghead. “You’re a caster type, right?”

“Yeah. Incendiary War Priest, level 19.”

“Perfect.” Scott pointed to a lever on the floor. “If they’re flying too low to nail through the window, hit that lever to drop open the floor and rain down arson all over these douchebirds. Pull it back the other direction to close it again—oh yeah, and don’t fall out. It’s a long way down.”

With that, he strode into the building, heading toward the hub at the new center of Frontflip. The layout had changed massively since the Griefer switched everything up, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out where you were going. If you were out on one of the spokes, walk until you hit the middle. If you were in the middle, walk until you came to the end of the spoke. If you didn’t know which spoke you needed, check the little wall maps next to the elevators in the middle. Those things had updated along with the building.

Scott passed by another new addition to the premises, a no shit dragon. It was a little one, and it looked more like a scalded Kobold than it did Aczol the Eternal, but a dragon was a dragon. The little guy stood about four feet tall. It had gleaming bronze scales and wore a white toga, tied at the shoulder with a golden clasp. There were about thirty of the little squibs running around the place, all low-level new spawns. Apparently, the Griefer had turned this place into a Draconic Nest.

This one blinked oddly intelligent eyes at Scott and dropped its head in a deep bow, hissing out a greeting, “Arch-Overseer.”

“Sup,” Scott said, giving him a nod. He’d had a while to think on what kind of boss he wanted to be while he was up in the murder corbel and had eventually decided on cool as fuck. If his minions gave him respect, he’d give it right back.

The little dude seemed pretty excited about getting a shout-out from the guy at the top of the food chain. A wide grin broke across its face, showing a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. Scott gave himself a mental pat on the back. Already he was a better boss than half of the douches he’d worked for.

“Is there any way I can be of service, Arch-Overseer?” the little dragon dude rasped hopefully.

“Yeah, there’s a spellcaster up in one of the north murder corbels.” Scott hooked a thumb back the way he’d come. “Go give him a hand and make sure he doesn’t kill himself.”

“Of course, Arch-Overseer,” the dragon thing rasped, bobbing its head in acknowledgement. It broke into an odd loping run, eager to obey.

Man, being a Dungeon Lord was lit AF.

Grinning ear to ear, Scott continued toward the hub. It took him another five minutes to get to the former eastern entrance to Frontflip. The huge bank of glass doors there had been transformed into a sally port where you had to go around one wall outside, then come down a stone hall to get to the single door. Pretty Castle Builders II: Age of Historical Warfare, but it kept all the Heralds from crashing through the front at once. He might add some external battlements and maybe a steel portcullis when he had a little time to screw around with the Dungeon Grimoire, but they weren’t top priority, especially not since they were fighting jerkwads who could just fly over.

He found Randy pacing the lobby, arguing with someone on the phone. When Randy saw Scott, the nerd threw up his hands.

“They won’t listen to me,” Randy said, taking the phone away from his ear and covering the mouthpiece. “I tried to tell them that we have multiple leaders here, and I’m technically one of them.”

Scott snatched the phone out of Randy’s hand.

“Yeah, if you said it like that, it’s no wonder they won’t listen to you. Watch and learn, Randy.” He put the phone to his ear. “Anybody still on the line?”

“Who is this?” a gravelly voice snapped. “I want to speak to the leader of the forces inside Frontflip Studios, dammit.”

“You got him. Scott Bayani, aka PwnrBwner, Arch-Overseer and leader of the guys saving everybody on Earth’s butts. I heard about you being a total dickhole to my second-in-command, Randy, and frankly, I’m not sure I want to waste my time talking to you.”

The dude on the other end hesitated.

Scott smirked. Boom. Leadership like a boss.

“That’s right,” Scott said. “Lucky for you, I’m feeling nice today, but don’t forget that I’m doing you a favor hearing you out in spite of your shitty attitude. Now, let’s get this over with. What the hell is the problem, and what do you expect me to do about it? In case you didn’t notice, I’m kind of busy fighting a war here.”

“You say you’re leading the forces inside?” the man asked.

“Pretty sure you heard me the first time,” Scott said. “What, do I need to get it printed on a business card?”

“I was under the impression demons had taken over Frontflip.”

Scott snorted in disbelief. “Demons? Okay.”

“Those big motherfuckers with the horns and bat wings.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I talked to one of them. It said... it said it was trying to help us save Earth.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Scott said, rolling his eyes. “That’s what my boy Randy’s been trying to tell you geniuses all day, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“Demons lie!” the man snapped. “How the hell was I supposed to know we could trust anybody in league with that thing?”

“Dial back the aggression, cowboy.” Scott glanced sidelong at Randy. “One, Rando might be an awkward computer nerd, but he’s a one hundred percent trustworthy nerd. You can take anything he says as gold. Two, none of those things are demons. They’re mobs from the game Hearthworld. Just go look it up online. Search for Roark the Griefer and you’ll find all the pics you need—there must be like a thousand screenshots of him on Google. He’s on our side, and so are the monsters. Well, some of them.” Scott sliced a hand through the air. “It’s complicated. But the angel types are bad. That’s the important takeaway. If you really want to help us out, shoot down the shiny golden angels, okay?”

Another long pause.

“I’ll pass that along,” the guy said. “I’ve heard there’s a guardsman who’s been saying something similar in his unit, so maybe we can get someone to listen to us.”

“No rush or anything,” Scott said, heavy on the sarcasm and with a side order of scathing.

The man cleared his throat.

“Is there anything else we can do in the meantime?” He sounded like he was fighting to be civil. “Food? Medical supplies? We can get a chopper to drop something, but with the new configuration of the building, hitting the roof might be a long shot. There’s not a lot of surface area to work with anymore.”

“Nah, we’re stocked on Healing potions, and we’ve got the best Gourmet in the history of MMORPGs, so we’re good on food. You just focus on passing along the news that the angels are bad.”

There was a long taut pause on the other end and Scott knew this guy was holding something back.

“Just spit it out already,” he said into the phone. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, the thing is,” the guy said, “we need some help. Someone caught video of a few of your boys taking down some monster in a Bed, Bath, and Beyond.”

“Yeah, that was me,” Scott said. “What’s it to you?”

“We have a bit of a situation. A band of faceless bug creatures have taken over the bottom level of an office building. There are people trapped on the higher levels and the National Guard and fire department aren’t able to clear the creatures out.” He paused again. “These things... They get into your mind somehow. Make you see things and hear things.” Scott could hear the shudder in his voice.

“Yeah, sounds like you got a bunch of Mind Mantids. They’re probably nesting up in that bitch. They’ll tear your whole party apart if you don’t have somebody with psychic defenses.”

The man on the other end cleared his throat. “Would it be possible for you to dispatch a... uh... unit of your men to assist us?”

“What’s to stop you from arresting my guys the second they step outside, huh?”

“Nothing,” the man admitted. “But it would go a long way to proving you’re the good guys.”

“Fine,” Scott said. “I’ll see if I can get a group of volunteers together. You just make sure you pass along how helpful we are to your higher-ups. I don’t want a tactical nuke dropped on our asses. We’re shorthanded enough as it is.”

“I’ll see to it,” the guy replied.

“Great. And, bro? Next time, don’t be a dick to Randy. In this interdimensional magic war, he outranks you. By a metric ass ton.”

Before the dude could say anything else, Scott hit the hang-up icon.

“That’s how you do that,” he said, tossing the phone to Randy.

Randy pushed his glasses up on his face. “Admittedly, your approach did yield faster results.”

“Damn straight it did.” Scott pointed at him. “So what’s the deal with you being down here right now? You were on command down here last shift.”

Randy looked toward the sally port. “I’m not tired, and I just wanted to make sure everything was going smoothly. There are always hiccups when you have a new group working on a new project...” He trailed off and shrugged.

“Dude, there’s gonna be hiccups whether you’re here or not. This is how you end up staying awake for three days staring at your RTS troops when you could’ve just set them to auto-manage.”

Randy frowned. “Haven’t you been on nonstop since you got back from dealing with the mobs at that mall?”

“Yeah, but I’m basically superhuman,” Scott said. He jerked his head toward the center of the building. “Come on. We’re getting some food, then you’re going to chill with me in the Dungeon Lord’s throne room until the next shift change. If you eat fast, you can probably score a nap, too.”

Randy looked over his shoulder at the sally port, then let out a long breath.

“Okay.”

They smelled the caf a long time before they got to it. Scott’s mouth watered at the warm, spicy blend of scents. It was like an Indian restaurant was having a threesome with a pizzeria and a Thai place. Whatever Kaz was cooking, it made Scott pick up the pace.

When they finally did make it to the cafeteria, the mood had done a one-eighty from the way Scott had found it before. Instead of bummed-out faces silently staring at screens like they were watching the end of the world, groups of people were sitting at the tables, eating and talking. Some of them were even laughing.

“This is amazing,” Randy said, noticing the same change Scott had. “The morale has completely shifted since the attack on the Heralds.”

“It wasn’t just winning one battle.” Scott stopped at the kitchen window and grabbed a tray and some silverware. “It’s that.”

He pointed his fork and knife at the huge freaking Bonesnap Behemoth busily stirring a pot of curry while humming one of the generic ambience tunes from Hearthworld’s Infernal dungeons. Kaz’s good mood had infected the place. The Mighty Gourmet’s Imp apprentice was running around, flipping pans full of naan like they were pancakes, and a man and woman in corporate casual had joined the party, putting about a million kinds of toppings on an enormous pan of deep-dish pizza, all of them with a smile on their face. Everybody working back there was having as much fun as Kaz, like this was one big company sleepover instead of a siege.

A handful of the newly hatched Dragonoids were scuttling around, carrying out trays of food to sitting guests and bussing platters full of dirty dishes. They were smart little shits.

“What’s good, Kaz?”

The Mighty Gourmet broke off mid-note and clapped with excitement.

“PwnrBwner and Randy Shoemaker must try this new dish Lakshya has shown Kaz how to make!” Kaz ladled a massive portion of yellow curry out of the pot and over a bowl of rice. “It combines the exquisite complexity of curry with the simplicity of cruciferous vegetables. Has PwnrBwner heard of this vegetable? Caul-ee-flower? So versatile! It is the Stone Salamander of foods, taking on the flavor and coloring of whatever it is cooked with, camouflaging itself while adding a lovely heartiness.” He handed the bowl to Scott, then snatched a piece of the flatbread out of the air as his apprentice was flipping it. “Try it with this lovely Health-Regen Speeding Naan!”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Scott said, taking the piping hot piece of bread. He ripped off a bit of naan with his teeth, the outside crunching and the inside fluffy. “Damn, dude. You’re killing it back there.”

Kaz grinned as he passed a second helping of the same proportions to Randy.

“There are so many new spice and ingredient combinations possible in this world,” the Mighty Gourmet said, his voice all dreamy and faraway. “Curry, Pad Thai, chicken fried chicken—or chicken fried steak! How PwnrBwner and Randy ever choose what they will eat for a single meal, Kaz cannot conceive of!”

“I usually just scarf down some tacos or whatever’s left over from the night shift on the way home from the Bell.”

“Yeah,” Randy said. “Most of the time I grab a pop-tart.”

Kaz cocked his wide head. “Pop... tart? Taco? What are these foods?”

Randy grimaced sheepishly. “Tacos aren’t very healthy for you. At least not the fast-food version. Not that Pop-Tarts are any better for you.”

“Who gives a crap? They taste good and they’re there.” Scott dug into his curry. They were probably trapped at the window until the conversation ended anyway, so he might as well eat. “I’m not trying to live to be a hundred.”

Randy said something back to that, but Scott stopped paying attention. That douchebag boss of Randy’s was strolling through the caf like he owned the place—which, okay, maybe he literally did own the place, but Silva wasn’t supposed to be out of that office they’d locked him in without a guard to watch his every move.

Acting suspiciously un-suspicious, Silva joined a small group of nerds clustered around a table, making small talk with them. After a couple minutes, he must’ve gotten serious and asked them something, because they shook their heads, and he moved on to another group. Still totally cool. Not a suspicious move. The dude was practically whistling to show how nonchalant he was.

“Shut up for a second,” Scott said in a low voice.

Randy broke off, looking around. “What is it?”

“Your boss.” Scott jerked his chin at Silva. “Did you give the order to let him wander around free?”

Randy shook his head. “Molly and Creighton were watching him.”

“Looks like he gave them the slip.”

“Should we take him back?” Randy asked, taking a step toward Silva.

Scott stopped him. “No, keep it low-key, dude. If you go after him now, he’ll just say he wasn’t doing anything. Dickhole is up to something, though. We’ll follow him, do some recon before we pounce.”

It didn’t take long before Silva found somebody who could do whatever he wanted. A guy with a bowl cut gave him a thumbs-up, then emptied his tray and headed out of the caf.

“That’s Frontflip’s player notifications manager,” Randy said.

“What would Silva want with him?” Scott asked.

“No one can log in right now unless they’re infected with the anomalous code,” Randy replied, sounding genuinely puzzled. “Maybe he’s having a mass explanation sent out to keep the lines from getting clogged with customer service requests and complaints.”

That made sense, but Scott wasn’t sure he bought it. Dubious shenanigans were afoot here.

Cool as James Bond, Silva rocked up to the espresso machine, made himself a cup, then strolled out five minutes later.

“Hit me with that Invisibility, Randy,” Scott said.

Grabbing his arm, Randy used his Arboreal Herald ability to make them both disappear, then they snuck out of the caf after Silva.

Frontflip’s CEO wandered nonchalantly through the halls until he came to a dark office. The only light Scott could see through the hazy glass walls came from the workstation’s glowing screen. Roark had been careful to leave the workstations and computer terminals alone during his overhaul of the building. Silva glanced around for tails, then slipped inside and shut the door behind him. Scott watched his shadow take a seat at the desk.

“He’s not supposed to have contact with anyone,” Randy whispered. “What do you think he’s doing?”

Scott didn’t have a clue, but for some reason the hair on the back of his neck was prickling uneasily. Whatever this jerkwad was up to, it wasn’t good.

“We’re gonna fucking find out.” He shook Randy’s hand off his arm, suddenly visible again, and jerked the door open. “Yo, douchebag, what the hell are you doing?”

Silva jumped, then swiveled his chair around to face them.

“Nothing. Checking my email,” he said, obviously struggling to sound like this was all no big deal and he wasn’t surprised to see them. His eyes narrowed when they landed on Scott. “You’re that prick who punched me.” He sat forward in his chair, stabbing a finger at them. “Listen up, shithead, this isn’t some rinky-dink operation like whatever supermarket or McDonald’s you crawled out of. I run a goddamn Fortune-500 company here. I can’t afford to be cut off from the outside world for hours at a time.”

Scott crossed his arms. “Oh yeah, so what did you ask that dude in the cafeteria to do? The player-communications guy with the doofus hair?”

Randy reappeared, leaning over the screen. “Pwnr, this is bad.”

“Get away from that!” Silva snapped, trying to stand up and shove Randy.

Scott grabbed the douche by the shoulder and pushed him back into the chair.

“You’re not in charge here, nutsack,” he said. “What is it, Randy?”

“None of your goddamn business,” Silva growled.

“Dude, you’re about ten seconds away from getting another fist in the face,” Scott said.

Randy squinted at the screen. “There’s a message here from an outside source. I think it’s one of the hackers Frontflip hired to shut down Hearthworld and frame me.” His eyes flew open wide. “Oh my gosh. They moved up the shutdown timeframe to six hours from now. It’s already in progress. That’s why no one who wasn’t logged in before the shutdown started can log in now without the anomalous code.

“It’s a safety protocol to avoid brain damaging players when the server dumps. But the problem is, not everybody’s going to log off. Marathon players will still be in there when the shutdown occurs.” He looked at Silva. “That’s why you needed the player notifications manager. You’re sending out a warning to log out so the company can’t be held legally responsible for damages—that also explains the countdown. It’s not Frontflip’s fault if they don’t check their messages in time.”

Silva scowled at Randy, but didn’t say anything.

“So stop them from shutting it down,” Scott said. “Isn’t this computer shit your job?”

“The problem is, it’s not just a routine shutdown,” Randy replied, frantic. “It looks like this hacker was just there to get the process in motion. The other hacker’s job was to put stopgaps in place to keep anyone who might find out about it from reversing the process.”

“Yeah, but you can fix that, right?”

“No, he can’t,” Silva said. “These are two of the best programmers in the world. Shoemaker’s not even the best in this company.”

Randy’s face clouded, red creeping into his cheeks. “First of all, Mr. Silva, I am the best in this company. Not that I was ever rewarded or recognized for it, even when I discovered before anyone else that an interdimensional being had taken up residence in Hearthworld and that was the source of our problematic code.” He turned to Scott. “The shutdown is a major problem, but we’ve got an even bigger one right now.” He swiveled the screen so Scott could see it and pointed at a line in the email. “They removed the soulbinding on the World Stone. If Roark dies in-game, Lowen will be able to take the pendant from his corpse.”

Scott grabbed Silva by the collar and shoved him and his damn wheely chair back against the glass of the office wall.

“What the hell is this?” he snapped. “You’re working with that dick, Lowen?”

“I’m working for Earth!” Silva bellowed. “Protecting this goddamn planet and the company I built from the ground up! That idiot Lowen ran back to Hearthworld to kill the Griefer. He thinks he’s got twelve hours to finish this, but he’s actually got less than six. With my shutdown in place, they’ll finish each other off and be deleted before they even have a chance to respawn. Whatever forces are left here, the military will take care of, and this problem will be solved for good.”

Scott took a long breath and blew it back out, staring at the ticking clock on the screen.

05:42:02 ... 01 ... 00 ...

“Well, shit.”

Without warning, he spun around and slammed a fist into Silva’s nose, snapping the dude’s head back on his shoulders and knocking him out again.

“That was on general principle,” Scott said, shaking out his stinging fist. “Okay. Randy. Hero time. What do we do?”

Embers of Hope

THE ALLIED DUNGEON mobs weren’t the only ones feeling the rush of optimism as Roark and his troops blasted their way through the golden corridors of the Heralds’ lair. All this time, Roark hadn’t allowed himself to think there was any chance he would kill the Tyrant King and escape with his life. Hadn’t dared to hold even the smoldering ember of possibility, but now... Now, that ember had grown into a raging blaze, its heat capable of forging a weapon even greater than the tank they’d pilfered from that Other World. Hope.

He took in the chaos surrounding him. Heralds many levels above most of the allied troops were being sent for respawn by a hail of bullets. The range of the guns neutralized their flight advantage, even in these vaulted halls. By leaps and bounds, the allied dungeons were gaining ground. They were only minutes away from the throne room, just yards from the portal back to Traisbin, to the Tyrant King.

As if the World Stone could feel how close it was to its former master, the pendant twitched around Roark’s neck. He palmed the stone, but found nothing amiss. The movement must’ve been nothing but his imagination. He dismissed the thought, returning to the shifting tide of the battle.

Perhaps they really could accomplish this. Perhaps with this Other World weaponry, he might not only have leveled the field between himself and Lowen, but maybe... just maybe... these weapons could give him the chance to kill the Tyrant King and get away. To live. What a bloody mad thought that was.

Danella would have offered a cold laugh at the wild notion. She’d always expected death around every corner—a noose around the neck, a knife in the dark, an ambush in a lonely alley. Those were the only potential futures she’d ever spoken of, and Roark had to admit, of all the lessons she’d taught him, those had had the greatest impact.

Though perhaps not for the better.

That dark outlook had kept him alive, but he’d driven off everyone close to him as a result. His inevitable death couldn’t hurt anyone if he was an island unto himself, he reasoned—and their inevitable deaths couldn’t hurt him. But perhaps the dice needn’t fall that way. If he could just find the way to leverage these guns correctly, he might not have to say goodbye to all the people he’d begrudgingly grown close to after all.

He glanced up at the vaulted ceiling. Zyra was Wall Walking and Light Prowling about, always staying just behind the defending Heralds, where her Backstab Multiplier would do the most damage. Griff was at the head of the ground melee, calling out orders and encouragement to the lower-level mobs as they fought Heralds whose wings had been injured beyond the point of flying. Kaz was still back at Frontflip, but Roark was certain the Bonesnap Behemoth was even now delighting in all the new spices and foods the Devs kept on hand.

The bump of a scaly shell against Roark’s side drew his attention back to the Vault. Mac chirped at him fondly, a dismembered golden arm dropping out of the Adolescent Turtle Dragon’s mouth.

With a grin, Roark scrubbed the canny beast’s scaly head and slapped his shell affectionately.

“You’re right, mate,” he said. “Best not get ahead of ourselves yet. We still have a battle to win here.”

Mac blinked his bulging eyes out of time with one another, then stooped to slurp up the dropped arm.

Leaving the bloodthirsty beast to his gory meal, Roark searched the room for a target. Parallel with Vang’s Tattooed tank, a Herald with dove gray wings was harrying a frantic Mistraven. From the looks of things, it seemed the Mistraven had run out of bullets and couldn’t figure out how to exchange magazines in the panic.

Roark took careful aim and blasted the Herald in the side. With an angry screech, the golden-skinned fighter flew at him. Roark fired another shot at the oncoming Herald, then focused all of his attention on the Herald corpses closest to hand and triggered his new Raise Thralls ability.

Four of the winged corpses rose shakily from the floor, groaning and moaning; they flew in lopsided lines at the Herald barreling toward Roark. The Undead creatures fell on their former ally and tore into his remaining Health with their hands and teeth, now all reinforced with some form of Undead magick. The Herald tried to fight them off, lashing about with a curved saber of gold and silver, but there were too many of them. Within moments, his Health bar was flashing out its critical warning.

When the Herald dropped to the floor dead, Roark released the Thralls. They let out a series of pained groans and burst into piles of sickly green ash.

Roark darted across the room to the frazzled Mistraven and took the pistol from her shaking blue-green paws.

“Like this,” he said, ejecting the empty magazine and replacing it with a full one from his own Inventory. “See?”

“Yes, Dungeon Lord,” the Mistraven croaked, beaming. Grateful tears leaked from the corners of her slitted eyes. “Oh, thank you, Dungeon Lord, thank you! I thought I was on the way to respawn for sure, I did!”

Roark gave her a sharp nod and returned to the fight, alternating between the Other World weaponry and magickal abilities. He lobbed Cursed heads that exploded with bursts of sickly Undead energy, used his Necrotic Infernal Breath to char to ashes Heralds that drew too close, or sent enemies into fits of crippling agony with Necrotizing Infernal Torment. He also leaned heavily into his Raise Thralls abilities. He had an abundance of corpses to choose from, after all. The Heralds’ dead were piling up on the floor. Many of their wings were bent at odd angles from the trampling feet of allied dungeon mobs, but they were still useful in attacking the injured and grounded Heralds.

Little by little, the number of Vault residents sent for respawn was beginning to draw even with the number still living.

And the Heralds seemed to realize it.

They fought as creatures possessed, desperate and terrified, making terrible blunders. They wanted to run as those at Frontflip had done, Roark could read it in their faces, but they battled on, likely more frightened of what Lowen or Marek would do to them than death or respawn. Dying wasn’t an end in Hearthworld, even if it was unpleasant.

Roark took full advantage of their growing number of dead. Soon, the floor that had been littered with bodies was littered with piles of glowing green ash from his fallen Thralls.

The whine of a bullet passed by Roark’s head.

“Seven hells.” That had been too close. He searched the melee below for the allied mob not watching their aim.

A cackling laugh caught his ear, followed by another shot.

“Over here, Lyuko scum!” Darith, Lowen’s second-in-command, howled with laughter, beating his wings to hang in the air. He leveled the pistol he’d taken from Frontflip at Roark. “Leave these other kiddies behind and come play with me!”

Roark was sure he’d killed the man back in the Other World, but Darith was worse than a cockroach. It wasn’t surprising that he’d somehow managed to survive the draconic assault. Roark snarled, turned his pistol on the madman, and fired, but Darith was already swooping aside. Roark followed him, aiming just ahead, where he was going to be. As the laughing Herald passed into his sights, Roark squeezed the trigger.

Click.

[Your Glock 26 has jammed and is currently inoperable! Glock 26 will remain inoperable until you have cleared the chamber!]

Agony exploded through Roark’s left elbow, the joint shattering in a spray of blood and bone; the jammed pistol dropped into the chaos below.

Darith cackled. “I’ve got three shots left, traveler trash! Think I can take out your knees and other arm, too?”

“I doubt it,” Griff’s rough voice called from just below the madman. “Not if you can’t stay in the air.”

The grizzled weapons trainer took aim and fired five shots in quick succession, blowing chunks of feathers and flesh out of Darith’s right wing, disabling the appendage.

Undaunted, the Herald tucked his wings behind his back and rocketed downward at Griff, a crazed rictus twisting his golden features.

“Good play, grandpa!” Darith raised his pistol and leveled it with Griff’s scar-crossed face. “Now it’s my turn!”

Griff fired another shot, this one missing the Herald by the narrowest of margins. The slide on his weapon locked back. Griff was out of bullets.

Roark cursed and hit Darith with a blast of Necrotizing Infernal Torment, but the green and purple dancing flames didn’t distract the Herald from his new target, and they weren’t eating away at the madman’s Health fast enough.

Still cackling, Darith emptied his pistol into Griff.

Blood flew, and the weapon trainer’s Health bar flashed a critical warning, then ran dry. Griff crumpled to the floor, dead, a moment before Darith slammed into his corpse.

“Looks like the old coot was right!” Darith shouted gleefully to Roark as he staggered back to his feet. “I couldn’t destroy your knees and elbows with those bullets—not with them lodged in his head like that!”

Cold fury filled Roark’s chest at the madman’s taunting. With a powerful flap of his wings, he chased down Darith. The Herald tried to escape by shoving his way through the melee toward the next corridor, but Roark was much faster. He caught up to Darith and launched a gout of Necrotic Breath at him. The icy anger in Roark’s chest burnt away in a rush of fire and hell as the emerald and amethyst flame burst forth from his mouth.

Darith shrieked, still giggling like a lunatic as the twin Undead and Infernal flames seared his skin. The Infernal portion of the magick rolled off uselessly, but the brilliant green of the Undead melted his golden flesh and feathers. Red evaporated from his Health bar like a snowflake tossed into the depths of a roaring bonfire.

Almost as an afterthought, the burning Herald slung an Angelic Lance from the sloughing skin of his palm. It was off-balance and shoddy, but Roark was in no mood to dodge the cast.

With quick but precise motions, Roark flung up one of his precast Discordant Inversion and Deflection webs—prepared beforehand for just such a moment. The brilliant white Divine lance hit the web, shifted in a flash to glow a bloody crimson color, and rebounded violently toward the burning Herald.

Darith never saw the corrupted spell coming. The emerald flames had taken over the entirety of his face and seared his eyelids shut in a dripping, molten mess. A gurgling cackle burbled from his throat as the crimson lance speared him through the chest.

Yet still he refused to die. Growling with frustration, Roark pulled a fresh pistol from his Inventory and blasted the Herald with precise shots, each one slamming into Darith’s chest and stomach, punching neat holes in his melting breastplate.

Three shots were required before the madman’s Health bar finally flashed out its warning. Apparently, Darith had been at the highest level possible for Heralds. But the fourth round finished him off, and his deformed corpse tumbled to the floor as gracelessly as a dropped marionette. Dead. At least until his wait to respawn ended.

Cursing himself, Roark raised his eyes to the next corridor. The fighting hadn’t waited for the drama with Darith to play out. The allied troops were already pushing forward, ever closer to the heart of the Vault of the Radiant Shield. The remaining Heralds were pulling back, likely regrouping to mount a final defense in the throne room itself.

Silently, he vowed to finish this before the twice-damned lunatic came back. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to be distracted by dreams of imminent victory. No matter how likely the triumph looked, he reminded himself, they hadn’t won anything yet. There was still one overwriting mage to kill and a dungeon to pry from the bastard’s cold, dead hands before he could move on to the Tyrant King.

Roark downed an Ultimate Health Potion, wincing at the oversweet taste, and let the empty bottle drop as his ruined elbow knit itself back together. Without wasting a second, he replaced his lost pistol with a spare from his Inventory, then darted through the tank-widened doorway to the final corridor before the throne room. No more distractions, no more speculation. Not until the Vault of the Radiant Shield was his.

Of Nerds and Heroes

THE BOMBING STARTED while Randy was typing furiously at his workstation. His books slumped on the shelf, everything from Rational Database Theory and Applications to Refactoring slipping sideways, the perfect model of the way this defense of three dimensions was suddenly going. He gritted his teeth and fought the urge to straighten them, forcing himself to stay focused on getting through the hackers’ security protocols. Right until Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software tumbled off the shelf.

He couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed the abused book from the floor, straightened its pages, and set it carefully on the desk.

He knew most of those manuals by heart and couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually reached for one of the thick tomes. But there was a comfort in having them near at hand—a reminder of all he knew and what he’d accomplished. Code, as confusing and complex as it could be, was also fundamentally rooted in a logical string of operations. At least, that was the way code was supposed to work. Randy loved clean code—straddling the line between simplicity and elegance, avoiding needless complexity so that any developer could read and decipher its meaning.

Those books, so neatly arrayed, were built upon the bedrock of those fundamental principles. They were Randy’s touchstone.

But the jumble staring him in the face was the opposite of clean code. Not necessarily bad code, but intentionally convoluted and distorted. It was more than merely messy, it was the equivalent of a hoarder’s nest. Upon first glance Randy would’ve called it spaghetti code—but he would’ve been wrong. It was a purposeful labyrinth of seemingly illogical bits and pieces, all hiding and obscuring artful ciphertext that Randy couldn’t even begin to sift through. It would take weeks or months to untangle—if he could do it at all.

“Right, thanks.” PwnrBwner stalked back into Randy’s office and tossed his phone on top of Design Patterns. “That was our buddy with the guard. It’s like you thought, they’re bombing the Heralds.”

“Good,” Randy muttered, zeroing back in on his task. There was just so much information to sort through. And now, in addition to the shutdown protocols, contingencies had been added so that once a creature or player affected with the anomalous code returned to Hearthworld, its logout button locked, forcing them to remain inside. Silva had been serious about trapping them in the game and deleting the interdimensional anomalies from Earth.

PwnrBwner leaned over his shoulder. “You getting anywhere?”

“No.” Randy pushed up his glasses, trying to stay polite. At the moment that felt like a Herculean task. “And the fact that you keep asking isn’t helping. I already have a literal ticking clock in the corner of my screen, letting me know I’m going too slow. Did you talk to Arjun or Katia? Are they making any progress?”

“Nothing.” PwnrBwner leaned against the doorway. “What the hell do we do here, man? What if you can’t fix this?”

Another run of bombing shook the building. The books on the shelf slid farther.

“Okay,” Randy said, standing up. One at a time, he took the rest of the books off the shelf and stacked them neatly on his desk. A row of perfectly straight spines, now horizontal rather than vertical. That was still order, even if it was amidst chaos. “What if we assume the shutdown is impossible to stop in this timeframe? If there was a bomb about to explode in Frontflip and no one could find it, we would stop looking and start evacuating.” He lifted his glasses and massaged his dry eyes. “Prevention to mitigation. Think. There’s basically a firewall between Roark’s people and Earth, and anyone affected by the anomalous code will get caught up in it. But there isn’t a firewall between Hearthworld and the third dimension, Traisbin.”

He grabbed a tablet off the desk and started scribbling notes onto its whiteboard app.

“Step one, we don’t let anybody who became his Vassal in the game go back into Hearthworld—if they do, they’ll be stranded. Brain death is almost certain when the servers implode. Step two, we get word to Roark that he needs to get his people to Traisbin by any means necessary. Step three, he can’t lose the World Stone. It’s not soulbound anymore, so it can be taken off his corpse. Step four...” He hesitated. “Someone’s got to alert the players who didn’t get the maintenance message that they need to log off immediately.”

“How do we do that?” a feminine voice asked.

Randy’s head snapped up. “Helen Rose. When did you get here?”

“Just as you were getting to step two,” she said, frowning. “I’ve got the largest seedFeed of any gamer on Hearthworld, and almost ninety-five percent of my subscribers have my notifications set to ping them while they’re playing.”

“Damn, dude,” PwnrBwner said, with an impressed whistle. “That’s even better than Bad_Karma’s numbers.”

She tucked a blonde-and-magenta strand of hair back. “It’s better than the company’s player notification system by almost double.”

“Duh.” PwnrBwner rolled his eyes. “Who’re you more likely to mark as SPAM? A hot gamer chick or the fifteenth notification from Frontflip about the new expansion pack this week? I didn’t even finish junior college and I can tell you that.”

“The problem is you can’t get in,” Randy said, frustrated. “You were Vassalized outside the game, so you don’t have the anomalous code.”

“Even if I can’t log in to the actual game, I can start a live feed at the Hearthworld log-in screen. I could send out the notification that I’m streaming, then tell everybody who joins what’s going on and that they need to log out asap.”

“But what about the players who did become vassals in-game?” PwnrBwner asked. “I think my local crew is all here, but what if there are more?”

Randy nodded, coming to a decision.

“Send them to the Vault of the Radiant Shield.” He flipped up the tablet’s stand and set it on top of the stack of perfectly straight books. “Anyone inside who’s infected with the anomalous code will have to go through to Traisbin if they want to live.”

There was a long, silent pause, tension hanging in the air like morning fog.

“That’s insane,” Pwnr finally said, missing some of his usual gusto and bluster. “One, we don’t even know if that will work, and two, even if it does, it’s as good as a death sentence. Maybe your brain survives, but your body here will be a vegetable. We can’t ask people to do that.”

“What other choice do we have?” Randy asked, feeling the walls press in around him. Roark may have left Pwnr in charge as the Arch-Overseer, but this was a problem the gamer couldn’t fix. Randy was the only one with a prayer of stopping the shutdown, and even he couldn’t pull it off in the timeframe he had. “This is the best possible option.”

Another long pause.

“Fuck,” Pwnr said solemnly. “I don’t like this, nerd.”

“Me either, but he’s right,” Helen Rose said. “It is the only way. Should I send a message to the Griefer letting him know about the broken soulbinding before I start my feed?”

“Yeah,” Randy said. “Definitely. As soon as you can.”

“I’m on it.” She squeezed his hand, then turned and jogged off toward the VIP lounge.

PwnrBwner squinted at him. “What’s the deal, nerd? You’re not saying something important.”

Randy took a deep breath and let it out.

“The Griefer is fighting a war right now,” he said. “He might be locked in a battle with Lowen as we speak. He’s not going to be checking his messages for word from us. If all we do is message him, he could die without finding out that the World Stone’s not bound to him anymore. And if he dies, there’s no guarantee he’ll respawn before the countdown timer runs out.”

“You’re saying somebody’s got to warn him not to die in person.”

Randy nodded. “Or take the World Stone before Lowen does if Roark’s already dead.”

PwnrBwner shook his head. “Yeah, but nobody except players with the bad code can get in, and if they go in they can never get back out. You just said whoever’s in there when Hearthworld shuts down gets turned into a vegetable for the rest of their life.”

“In this dimension,” Randy said, cupping his chin. “But think about this—the Griefer went from Traisbin to Hearthworld and came out on Earth with a body. Same for all of the mobs like Kaz who’ve come through to Earth. They started out as nothing but lines of code and were given physical form when they stepped into our world. If that’s true, it’s possible the inverse is true, too, that someone from Earth could upload their mind to the game and come out in Traisbin with a new physical body. Then when the shutdown happens, their Earthly body goes into a vegetative state, effectively killing them. But it doesn’t matter because they’ve already left that body for a new one.”

PwnrBwner scrubbed his hands down his face.

“Oh my God, this is some galaxybrain shit. So you’re saying somebody’s got to die?”

“Here. But they’ll live on in Traisbin.”

“But you don’t know that for sure.”

Another bombing run rattled Frontflip on its foundations, knocking a few of the books slightly askew. Randy straightened them with careful, precise movements.

“Not with one hundred percent certainty, obviously. But it’s possible.” He took one last look at the perfectly straight spines. “It’s going to be me. I’m going in.”

“You don’t even know if this’ll work! Say you’re wrong, and you fucking die. Then what, Randy?”

“This is bigger than just one person,” Randy replied, staring PwnrBwner down. “Worlds bigger. It’s the classic trolley car thought experiment. Sometimes you have to sacrifice one person to save a whole lot more.”

For a few long beats, PwnrBwner just stared at him, a mixture of anger and disbelief painted across his face.

“You freaking hero,” he said, shaking his head. “If they don’t build some kind of monument to you for this, it’ll be total bullshit.”

That surprised a chuckle out of Randy. “I don’t think they build monuments to awkward computer nerds.”

“They should.” PwnrBwner eyed the countdown clock, ticking away. They were rapidly approaching three hours. “Okay, you go help Roark and save the Hearthworld mobs who can’t get out. Me and the Poser Owners’ll sweep up the rest of this shit on Earth. Your boss might be a dickface, but he’s not wrong. There’s a bunch of people out there who have no idea how to handle themselves against video game monsters.”

“Speaking of heroes...” Randy stuck out his hand to shake. “It’s been an honor being a hero with you... uh, I don’t think you ever told me your real name.”

PwnrBwner smirked and shook his hand. “It’s Scott.”

“It’s been an honor, Scott. Go save Earth. And don’t die.”

PwnrBwner—Scott—snorted.

“Dude, I kick ass at this. Gaming is my number one skill, and that’s really saying something, considering I basically piss excellence at everything I try. But yeah, it’s been an honor and all that crap.”

Randy laughed.

“Seriously,” PwnrBwner insisted. “Stay alive in there. You won’t have time to ride out the player respawn window.”

“Don’t worry,” Randy said, a smile creeping onto his face. “I’m something of a gamer myself.”

God-Pharaoh

MAREK KONIG USTAR, better known to all of Traisbin as the Tyrant King, felt the snap of unbinding the moment the World Stone came free of that cur von Graf’s soul. Though the sensation filled him with no small amount of joy, Marek kept his expression impassive. With bored annoyance, he gazed at the captured family of a suspected resistance fighter—a battered and bleeding man, his sow of a wife clutching a screaming baby to her chest, and two more dirty little brats shivering in the snow. The remains of their village—one more little mudhole he couldn’t be bothered to learn the local name for—blazed merrily behind them, the bodies of their friends and neighbors quickly cooling in the wintry air.

“Kill them,” he said. “Start with the youngest and work your way up until he breaks and gives you the Rebel Council.”

“Yes, my lord,” Talise said, not the slightest suggestion of misgiving in her cold gray eyes. Von Graf eyes, equal in color and quality to her blasted brother’s, and yet so very different. Where the boy’s gray orbs blazed with a thirst for revenge that bordered on mania, hers acted like mirrored glass, feigning access while keeping onlookers at bay.

Marek favored the girl with a doting smile. “And don’t take too long. I’ll expect you for tea.”

“Of course, my lord.” She nodded, allowing a calculated hint of granddaughterly affection to touch her expression. But not so much as to be improper.

With a twitch of his hand, Marek called his Ustars to his side and left the would-be scene of magickal slaughter behind. In months, perhaps a year, this boor and his family would crop up in some other little hamlet with new names. Talise couldn’t save every family with rebel ties that they captured, Marek made certain of that, but the little boy and girl hugging one another in the snow had decided the fate of this one.

Ah, Talise... She thought she was so far ahead of him in pieces and moves, but her treachery was as childish as her Rivals strategies and just as painfully predictable. Marek was a creature from another world—a being of space and stardust, of magick so old and potent no one remembered its name. He had seen the birth of galaxies and the death of suns, yet this girl thought she could fool him. It was one of her most endearing traits—the sheer vanity and hubris of it all. Marek could appreciate such grandiose views of self, even if hers were unwarranted.

Better by far to think yourself the rival of gods than to bow and scrape like a dog. Such pride, twined with appropriate talent, could eventually become a truly useful weapon.

Her brother had proven the truth of that sentiment, though in his own way, vainglorious and zealous in his defiance, and as immovable as their father had been. Marek would crush the impetuous fool, of course—an effective ruler could not abide open defiance—but it was a shame. Roark was far more capable than that insipid Lowen, who was little more than a trained dog.

When the Ustars reached their horses and mounted up, Marek cast an illusion of himself to ride to the palace with them. Off the mirror image went at the head of his snake-helmed soldiers. Supposedly, the Tyrant King no longer had the strength to stay out all day quashing rebellions, and that was a ruse he was intent on keeping up for the time being.

Marek had lost a portion of his world-ending power—and no small measure of his peace of mind—when Roark had stolen the World Stone, but even so he wasn’t the feeble old man he pretended to become without its constant proximity. That façade was nothing but smoke and mirrors for his scheming “granddaughter.” The greater the deception, the sweeter the surprise would be when he revealed the truth.

Once the illusion and Ustars had disappeared over the snowy ridge, Marek pulled a rune-etched portal stone from his robes and cracked it. The familiar shimmering tear opened in temporal reality. Without hesitation, he stepped through.

This wasn’t his first travel between the many dimensions that made up reality, and it wouldn’t be his last, though today he didn’t take the time to gaze upon their innumerable facets fanned out like cards in a deck. They inarguably made up a beautiful array, their various magicks and technologies spiraling like distant galaxies, but he had business to be about. Instead, he selected his destination without delay and journeyed into it.

A violent wind tore at his clothes and hair, whipping past as if he were falling from a great height. Colors streaked across his vision, stretching and splitting into their full spectrum, as agony ripped through every fiber of his body. The pain was an inconvenience, but not an unexpected one. No one could be taken apart and entirely reformed into something different and more powerful without some measure of discomfort.

Finally, the alterations were finished.

The pain diminished, the light faded, and the roaring wind became nothing more than a gentle breeze. Marek stepped out the other side of the portal anew.

Black sands whispered around his suddenly sandaled feet. The sky boiled with a low ceiling of ominous green thunderheads, and off in every direction, the pyramidal seats of power of this region swirled with strange phenomena, a combination of weather disturbances and arcane energies.

The Onyx Sands.

According to the Hearthworld accounts he had coaxed Talise into reading to him, this barren landscape was a mere infant, born full of untapped magicks and baleful gods far stronger than the dimension’s previously most robust creatures. Had this Onyx Sands existed just months ago, he would have sent Lowen and his armies to one of these pyramids rather than to the Vault of the Radiant Shield. Now, however, it was time to take matters into his own hands.

Or claws, as the case may be, he thought with mild amusement, glancing down at his new rotting appendages tipped in wicked talons. Powerful sinews flexed beneath flaps of desiccated skin, and shiny scarabs swarmed. Marek had to begrudgingly admit that the power of this land genuinely intrigued him. He had traveled far and seen much, but this world, with its transformative powers and endless lives, held true promise. And, if Lowen could be believed, the world that had spawned this one was a treasure trove of unguarded riches, ripe for the plunder.

A gold-and-lapis staff capped in a falcate moon materialized in his clawed hands, the shaft thrumming with potent dark magicks. Jade bolts of lightning cracked from a brilliant gem the size of his fist floating between a pair of massive crescent horns stretching upward from his skull.

Spidery white lines of text appeared before his eyes, momentarily obscuring his view of his towering new body.

[Welcome, Undead God-Pharaoh Marek Konig Ustar, the World Ender!]

A deep, resonating chuckle rolled from his throat like thunder. The Onyx Sands shook beneath his feet as he turned northward. In the distance lay the Vault of the Radiant Shield and his stolen World Stone. Marek could feel it calling to him, its song a siren beckoning him to come. To burn and ravage and create. The World Stone was his, captured in the bloodiest of conquests. A fragment of the Cosmic Tower that bound all of existence together and shaped the foundations of reality. It yearned to be used. To mold flesh and birth worlds.

With a thought, he summoned the stone’s location to mind. The wind around him picked up, ripping the dunes from their unstable moorings to whirl in a scouring tornado of jet-black sand as it carried him to retrieve what was his by right.

The Challenge

THE TANK RAN OUT OF shells in the corridor just outside the Vault of the Radiant Shield’s throne room. It could blast its way no farther. Likely for the best, Roark thought. Between the tank’s devastating shells and the relentless bombardment from the siege engines, many of the load-bearing walls within the Vault had destabilized to dangerous levels. Even now, after the blasting had ceased, the structure creaked and groaned uncertainly, as if it could come down at any moment.

Roark put the thought from his head.

The Vault only had to hold a bit longer now. The end of this battle was within his grasp—the return to Traisbin, the death of Marek Konig Ustar, freeing his sister and the land from the Tyrant King’s grasp. All that remained was one final obstacle between him and the completion of everything he’d sought to do these last twenty years. One infuriating, arrogant horse’s ass of a mage.

Roark folded his leathery wings and alit on the battle-scarred and scorch-marked golden floor. With deft motions, he exchanged magazines in both his pistols—best to be fully loaded before he confronted Lowen.

Twelve hundred pounds of Adolescent Turtle Dragon slammed gracelessly to the floor beside Roark, the shock nearly stopping his heart. The air shimmered with visual distortions, and Mac appeared.

“Silly beast,” Roark muttered, slamming home one of the new magazines. He thumped the fool creature’s shell affectionately while his thundering heart calmed. “I nearly shot you.”

Mac licked one bulbous eyeball, apparently unconcerned at the narrowly avoided fate.

A moment later, the scent of deadly coquelicot blossoms tickled his nose. A flare of burning golden smoke puffed just to his right, and Zyra Prowled out of it. Her lacy black veil rippled gently in an unfelt breeze, her cloak fluttering dramatically behind. Her newly smithed Tattooed Colt 1911s rested on each hip in the sheaths that used to hold her Cursed Longknives. Miraculously, it seemed that the original scabbards had shifted size and shape to perfectly fit the guns.

“You’ll want this,” Zyra said, handing Roark an Ultimate Healing Potion.

“Much appreciated.” Roark gulped the syrupy concoction down, dismissing its accompanying message as it refilled his filigreed Health vial. Minor injuries from the battle thus far repaired themselves under its influence.

“Don’t die, Dungeon Lord,” the veiled Orbweaver Ravager said. She crossed her arms. “I have a lot of coin riding on this fight, and I’d hate to lose it to that insufferable Rohabim. He’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

“You bet on me to win for once?” Roark quirked his brow. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

Zyra sighed in disgust and turned her veiled face away from him. “Love can trick even the best of us into making a fool’s wager now and again.”

Warmth seeped through his veins like a fast-acting poison, and he grinned at her begrudging admission.

“I’ll make certain you win your money back,” he promised, returning the empty potion bottle to her. His scaled fingers lingered on hers for a moment before he turned to face the door. Steeling himself for the confrontation ahead, he assured her, “I don’t intend to lose.”

“Losers never do,” she offered coolly before vanishing in a halo of light.

Roark ground his teeth.

He would never ever understand women—that one most of all. Love one moment and cool indifference the next. The worst part was, he knew he was to blame. He had driven her away and now he was reaping the results. Once he ended Lowen he would fix things with her—assuming she would still have him. Yet another reason to wipe Lowen’s miserable presence from existence. Filled with renewed determination to set things right—both for grievances past and the hope of things to come—Roark strode into the Vault’s throne room as if it already belonged to him.

The dozen Heralds who had escaped respawn were posted around the room, muscles tensed for the attack. Many held Divine spells and golden weapons at the ready. Strangely, the same smell of desperation Roark had sensed upon his arrival at Frontflip hung in the air here—blood and sweat and fear. The last of Lowen’s troops watched Roark’s approach nervously, their feathered wings twitching, feet shifting with uncertainty. The fall of boots and Mac’s low warning growl were the only sounds as allied Dungeon Lords and Griff’s small, now leaderless crew of low-level mobs fanned out behind Roark, training their guns on the Heralds.

In the far corner sat the portal—shimmering violet light edged by an ornate archway of heavy white stone. A stable portal to Traisbin. His gateway home.

High overhead, a throne sat perched on a hanging dais that had been knocked askew during the firefight. Seated on its golden bench was just the Divine Dungeon Lord Roark was looking for.

Since they’d last met, Lowen had upgraded his oiled leather armor as well, though rather than purple-tinged black dragon scales, the Herald had chosen shining silver and gold plate, etched with Divine sigils that glowed with power. Roark recognized the runes that increased Strength and Intelligence—Aryu and Eild—and saw, too, that the armor was set with the highest quality Pearls in Hearthworld to amplify the fool’s already overpowered spells.

A smirk tugged at the edges of Roark’s lips. He hoped to all the heavens that Lowen would try one of his overwritten attacks. Let the tosser taste firsthand the devastating toll that Discordant Inversion and Deflection could extract.

From his perch, Lowen looked down his nose at Roark.

“I would welcome you to my throne room, but your barbaric entrance hardly invites sophisticated hospitality,” he said in the wearied tones of a much put-upon noble. He shook his head and walked to the edge of the skewed dais. “Just like a piece of common Lyuko trash, barging your way onto territory where you’re not wanted and staying well past your welcome. One assumes your father had to agree to wed your mother just to rid his land of her damnable caravan of relatives.”

“Family history has it that she was the end result of a curse on the von Grafs,” Roark returned easily. “A bit like your father’s loose purse strings at the gaming tables or your mother’s loose chemise strings everywhere else. Although the von Graf curse never emptied our coffers or saddled my parents with unwanted bastards they were forced to pretend were legitimate heirs.”

Rather than immediately breaking into a frothing rage, Lowen favored him with a tight-lipped smile.

“Hand over the World Stone now, you sodding cur,” the mage said with unnerving calm, “and I’ll make your death a quick one. Far better than what Marek will afford you, I can promise that.”

A sudden worm of anxiety gnawed at the back of Roark’s mind. Something wasn’t right. From their first day at the Academy, Lowen had always been easy to rile. This cool composure wasn’t his way. The mage was holding something close to the vest, some unknown trump card, waiting to play it the moment Roark’s guard was down.

“You’re bloody smug for someone so outstripped, mate,” Roark said, glancing around with feigned nonchalance. “In case you can’t calculate the odds, you’re well outnumbered. Nearly five to one.”

“Call it deific favor, or perhaps borrowed confidence,” Lowen said with a bored shrug. “Either way, I don’t see myself losing to a half-breed today, even with your stolen weaponry. However, if it makes you feel better, I’ll grant you a free shot.”

With a measured step, the mage opened his brown-speckled wings and glided down from his throne, landing gracefully before Roark.

Warily, Roark held his ground. The Herald stood well within a lunge’s measure, arms thrown wide to invite the attack.

“What’s the matter, trash?” Lowen smirked at his hesitation, eyes narrowing hatefully. “Frightened?”

The symbol for a new message blinked in the lower right corner of his vision. It was from a member of Randy’s Frontflip troops, Helen Rose. Roark was reluctant to take his attention off Lowen for even a moment while the prat was within striking distance, but the timing paired with Lowen’s sudden overconfidence was too suspicious to be ignored.

Griefer – BLUF: Your World Stone amulet is NOT SOULBOUND anymore! Whatever you do, DON’T DIE and DON’T TAKE THE PENDANT OFF! It’s just like any other object now. If you drop it, someone else can pick it up, and it will be lootable if you die. Silva removed the tag so Lowen would think they were working together, but he really just moved up the shutdown time! You have less than two hours left before Hearthworld goes offline for good!

Roark’s adrenaline had been pumping near constantly all day long, but this news sent a renewed spike through his gut. Not even the news that Lowen didn’t realize he’d been double-crossed was enough to alleviate the black hole of rising panic. Not only was the World Stone no longer bound to him, but the destruction of Hearthworld was imminent. If Lowen got his hands on the pendant, everything Roark had worked for, everything he’d sacrificed would have been in vain. Lowen would take it back to the Tyrant King, and Marek’s bloodstained rule would extend unchecked to every dimension he could reach.

Well, the only way to be certain Lowen would never lay a finger on the World Stone was to blunder ahead with this deadly gamble. If Roark died now, he couldn’t respawn in time to try for the portal again anyway. He didn’t have any other choice.

Roark forced an icy smile.

“Call me what you like, but I would make a better ruler than you any bloody day of the year. The army of allied dungeons that just destroyed your defenses can stand as evidence of that.” With practiced motions, Roark drew his Cursed rapier and the newly reloaded Tattooed pistol. Then he let his glare travel over Lowen’s troops, taking in Herald after Herald desperate to turn tail and run, but too scared to do it. “You wouldn’t even have these wretches backing you if they weren’t more afraid of your boss than they are of me.”

A few of the Heralds flinched at the accusation, but none could deny it.

“And yet they stand behind me nonetheless,” Lowen said, apparently unperturbed by the truth of their allegiances.

“For now,” Roark said. He addressed the winged enemy combatants. “Defectors are welcome to join us now or to do so after I’ve killed your pompous ass of a leader. You’ll receive a full pardon for your surrender. On the other hand, those who keep fighting after his death will be summarily executed.”

None of them dared to move.

Lowen chuckled. “They know you don’t stand a chance against me. You’re nothing more than outclassed scum without the good sense to surrender to your betters.”

Roark’s mind leapt back to the frantic warning message and the countdown to destruction hanging over all of Hearthworld—Lowen unwittingly included.

“Good sense is a luxury none of us can afford right now, mate,” Roark said. Time to stake everything he had on this final gamble. Someone called out his name from the sidelines, but Roark was too focused on the battle at hand to care. This was it and he had no room for distractions. He saluted the mage with his rapier. “Since we’re in your throne room, let’s make this official. Lowen von Reich, I challenge you for Dungeon Lord of the Vault of the Radiant Shield.”

A scrap of parchment covered in text appeared before Roark’s eyes, fixing the parameters of the duel.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Stealing Heaven’s Golden Throne

You have challenged Lowen von Reich for the right to rule over the Vault of the Radiant Shield as Dungeon Lord!

Objective: Kill Lowen von Reich in single combat.

Reward: Become the new Dungeon Lord of the Vault of the Radiant Shield, command and deploy Vault mobs, create and alter the layout of the Vault, gain access to the Dungeon Lord’s Divine Blessings, 90,000 Experience

Failure: Die at the hand of Lowen von Reich in single combat.

Penalty: No respawn.

Restrictions: No outside assistance, no Health potions may be used.

Accept quest? Yes/No

╠═╦╬╧╪

Roark accepted in a heartbeat, and it seemed Lowen had done the same, because the moment he dismissed the page, the Tyrant King’s right-hand mage streaked toward him in a blaze of savage light.

Baring his teeth in a snarl, Roark raised the Tattooed pistol and fired a pair of shots Cursed with Undead Chaos at Lowen’s heart.

The bullets dented the plate but refused to penetrate. Flattened hunks of metal toppled harmlessly to the floor with a ping that rang out in the shocked silence.

Opening Gambit

RANDY MEANT TO JUST jump right into a Deep Dive POD as soon as he made it to the VIP lounge and changed into the sensory suit. The Griefer needed him, the fate of several worlds hung in the balance, and yet...

And yet this was his probable death he was staring down. He was old enough to remember when Green Gate Online had crashed back in the early days of ultra-immersive VRMMOs, killing hundreds of players who’d been online at the time and leaving a thousand more brain damaged for life.

Randy didn’t have a family or friends to miss, no job or great purpose in life that only he could fulfill. In all likelihood, he would be forgotten not long after he was gone. Just another name in the endgame credits that nobody ever read. Especially not with Hearthworld on the chopping block, just waiting for the axe. How was it that he could still be so attached to Earth?

Simple. It was his home world. Roark must feel the same about Traisbin, even though it sounded like an absolutely horrific place overall.

That hardened Randy’s resolve. It wasn’t just Roark’s home world at stake if they lost, it was Earth, Randy’s home. Already he was seeing the real-world consequences of the Tyrant King’s magic. His troops laying siege to buildings. Otherworldly creatures mercilessly unleashed against unsuspecting humans. Powerful magics that his world simply wasn’t equipped to handle. Randy couldn’t allow someone even worse than Lowen to get a foothold in this world. He loved Earth in spite of the fact that he had nothing tying him to it, and by gosh, he was going to save it from the crushing fist of a tyrant. Even if doing so meant he had to die.

He might not be the hero the world wanted, but he was the one it was going to get.

With a final determined breath, Randy climbed into the POD, letting his body float in the bed of semisolid blue goop. The capsule’s lid came down automatically with a soft hiss, closing over him like a coffin. Swallowing hard, he logged into Hearthworld for what could very well be his final time.

“Welcome, Randy Shoemaker!” the familiar voiceover boomed. “The battle awaits! Which character would you like to select?”

The choice was obvious. He had begun this endeavor tracking anomalous code as an Arboreal Herald, and he would finish it as one.

Within minutes, he was soaring through the red rock canyons around the Vault of the Radiant Shield on silver-gray wings. An eerie stillness blanketed the battle-scarred canyon. Randy hadn’t seen the encampment when it was teeming with besieging armies or during the skirmish, but the smoldering wreckage of enormous towers and trebuchets and so many bodies made it seem as if the clash of war should still hang in the air.

Instead, there was only smoke and quiet.

The corpses of mobs both Infernal and Divine littered the narrow path that wound toward the golden Vault perched high atop the rocky pillar. He banked sharply—letting a red updraft arrow carry him higher—and passed over the destroyed ruins of the Vault’s main heroes’ entrance, landing instead on one of the many flight porches dotting the side of the structure. Here, too, the wounds from multiple attacks showed in the crumbling threshold, but so far, it hadn’t caved in. On the plus side, Randy knew from seeing late-development maps of the Vault that this particular access point was only a few rooms from the throne room, which he felt certain was where Roark and his army must be.

He cast a cloak of invisibility and carefully padded through the hallways, stepping over smoldering corpses riddled with what could only be gunshot wounds. He even found signs of tread tracks, smeared across the floor. Just what in the heck had Roark managed to cook up this time? The Dungeon Lord’s sheer ingenuity never ceased to amaze or inspire. He was a leader, and not like PwnrBwner, or rather Scott—Randy supposed saving the world together put them on a first-name basis—who was all bravado and overconfident swagger. Roark had self-assurance in spades, but he didn’t flaunt it.

His action and resolve spoke for itself.

Roark was the kind of man Randy had always wished he could be—daring, bold, fearless. Principled and not afraid to back down from a fight. As he crept through halls, Randy realized for the first time that this must’ve been what Roark had felt like the night he’d tried to assassinate the Tyrant King. A tight-bellied fear mixed with white-knuckled anticipation and heady adrenaline. A willingness to lay it all down for a shot to do the right thing, even knowing the odds were against him.

Randy smiled to himself. Maybe they weren’t so different in the end.

After passing through another few rooms, similarly splattered with carnage, Randy found the warring Dungeon Lords. Dead ahead, a throng of mobs from the allied dungeons were crammed into the corridor and antechamber outside the throne room, jockeying for position, all trying to catch a glimpse inside. Some of the smaller mobs were going so far as to climb on top of larger mobs’ heads.

Praying he wasn’t too late, Randy took to the air and glided over their heads on silent wings, thankful for the Vault’s high ceilings. He landed just inside the throne room’s doorway. The tension in the air was thick enough to choke on. Randy felt like he had to push his way into it. Heralds lined the walls, spells and weapons in hand, jaw muscles tense, wings twitching. The place was a powder keg waiting for a spark.

And at the center were a pair of kids playing with matches—Roark, the Level 70 Draconic Chaos Harbinger, facing down Lowen, the Level 99 Malaika Herald.

Relief washed over Randy. They were just talking. The World Stone Pendant still hung safely around the Griefer’s darkly scaled neck. There was still time. Roark obviously had no idea that his pendant had lost its soulbinding—nobody could face down a mortal enemy that many levels above them with that kind of cool equanimity if they knew they could lose the one thing that gave them an edge—but he was still alive, and that meant Randy could stop him before he did something rash.

“Roark!” Randy dismissed his Invisibility and stepped forward, waving a hand to get the Infernal Dungeon Lord’s attention. “We have to talk!”

Ignoring him, the Griefer pulled a rapier glowing green with Undead Enchantments and—in defiance of all the coded laws of Hearthworld—a handgun straight from Earth etched with what looked like an old-school sailor tattoo.

“Let’s make this official,” Roark said, bringing the rapier up in a gentlemanly salute. “Lowen von Reich, I challenge you for Dungeon Lord of the Vault of the Radiant Shield.”

Randy’s stomach sank.

The two Dungeon Lords streaked toward one another, light versus dark. Randy couldn’t interfere now, or Roark would lose. And this time there would be no respawning.

A soft, feminine chuckle sounded at his side.

“Did you honestly think that was going to work?” Zyra asked, human arms crossed and human legs floating inches above the floor, suspended by the arachnoid limbs jutting from her back. “When that fool Jotnar gets an idea in his head, he only sees and hears the way forward. Nothing else.”

“He’s working on incomplete information,” Randy said, pushing at the bridge of his nose before remembering that he’d left his glasses behind with his Earthly vision problems.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “It wouldn’t change anything.”

“It might make him more cautious,” Randy insisted.

Zyra shook her head, white ringlets whispering over her midnight blue shoulders.

“You don’t know him like... like some of us,” she said without turning her veiled face away from the battle. “Where paranoia and caution would be the wisest course of action, he charges in like he can never die, and damn the odds stacked against him.”

At the center of the room, Lowen attacked. Roark shot the Herald twice in the chest. Except instead of tearing twin holes through Lowen’s shining breastplate—much like Randy had read about in early historical accounts of crossbow and gunpowder projectiles versus plate armor—the bullets slammed into it and flattened, then fell to the floor. The only damage left behind was a pair of slight dents in the metal.

“They call this a bulletproof vest—or at least a modified version of it,” Lowen sneered, rapping gauntleted knuckles on the breastplate. Rather than a hollow ring, it gave a series of dull thuds. He raised his hands. “Lined with some sort of mesh fabric called Kevlar. You bring Other World weapons to the table, and I counter it with Other World armor straight from the god of Hearthworld himself. As you can see, half-breed, you’re not the only one who can cheat.”

Roark’s face twisted in cold fury. “You haven’t begun to see cheating, you overwriting coward.”

With that, the Griefer launched himself into the air and turned into a huge skeletal dragon. The throne room, a sweeping room of domed ceilings and hulking columns that would put any cathedral in Europe to shame, was able to accommodate his new form.

Lowen took wing, too, darting ahead of the less maneuverable Undead beast and throwing Divine Missile after Angelic Lance at Roark’s draconic form. The spells landed with devastating blasts that rocked the Vault on its already destabilized foundation, but they didn’t deter Roark. With a rumbling roar, the skeletal dragon breathed a gout of green-and-purple fire through the air toward the Herald, making Randy and many of the other onlookers flinch away from its deadly flames.

“If he dies, he’ll lose the World Stone,” Randy said, desperate for Zyra to understand the stakes. “It’s not bound to him anymore. It can be stolen.”

To his frustration, she only replied, “Then he’d best not die, hadn’t he?”

Randy curled his hands into fists at his side. It was fine for her to talk like that, but he needed contingencies, backup plans. His mind raced, searching out other avenues to save the various dimensions. True, he couldn’t interfere now, but if the worst did happen, if Roark died in this duel, he would have to intervene. Take the World Stone before Lowen did. Finish the coup over the Tyrant King that Roark had begun.

Silently, Randy vowed he could do it. If Roark failed, he would rise to the challenge and be the hero.

In the air, Divine spells flew, chewing away Roark’s Health in fits and starts. Roark’s Infernal nature was vulnerable to Lowen’s potent magics, but his Undead nature was entirely immune. Green fire melted through Lowen’s flesh, though the purple flames rolled off harmlessly. Roark attacked, but Lowen dodged, and the draconic fangs scraped off the Herald’s shining plate with a sound like a fender bender. Lowen threw an explosion of Solar Glory in return.

For a moment, Randy was caught up in the awe of the spectacle. This was what a battle between warlocks looked like. Hexes and magical deflections flared with brilliant multicolored lights. Swords, talons, and fangs sliced. As he watched, Randy wondered what it would be like to live in a world where this was the normal way to settle disputes between warring factions. A world where anyone with enough determination could work their way up to becoming that awesome. Would he even have what it took to survive in a world like that?

Roark countered an attack from Lowen with a whip of the razor-sharp bones in his tail, spinning around and touching one clawed skeletal paw on the wall as he did. The angular, deep purple rune of a hex sank into the golden metal. A few moments later, Lowen unknowingly brushed the rune and it exploded, slamming him with a blast of Undead Chaos energy.

Surprisingly, Randy noted, not all of the Malaika Heralds around the throne room looked upset at that. Several of them were actually excited to see Roark strike such a powerful blow against Lowen—a strange hope lit up their golden-skinned faces.

Was it possible that they were ready for a change in leadership? Maybe they were suffering under the Tyrant King’s rule, too. There was precedent for it in Earth’s history—dictatorships where even the most trusted members of the despot’s court were as desperate for freedom as the common people.

The battle raged on. The Dungeon Lords seemed to be pretty evenly matched. Randy didn’t want to jinx anything by getting his hopes up, but there was even the possibility that Roark might be able to win this. His Mega-Evolution looked like it was making up for the ridiculous level gap, and then some. Though Roark’s own Health was sitting at fifty percent, the Griefer had managed to drag his opponent’s down to three-quarters.

And it dropped a little with every new attack Roark launched at the Divine Dungeon Lord.

Randy was just starting to think that this might end in a victory for their side when Roark’s skeleton dragon form ran out, and the Dungeon Lord shifted back from the powerful Undead beast into a massively out-leveled Draconic Chaos Harbinger.

Dungeon Duel

THE TIMER ON ROARK’S Draconic Form spiraled down to zero, and he dropped to the floor, stumbling a few steps before catching himself.

“What’s the matter, trash?” Lowen taunted, beating his wings and rising higher toward the vaulted ceiling. In his right hand, he drew a shining Bastard Sword that rang with a thin, resonating tone, and in his left he prepared a fistful of Heavenly Wrath. “Did you use up all your best weapons already?”

“Hardly,” Roark snapped, equipping each hand with a Tattooed pistol and aiming. Perhaps he couldn’t shoot through Lowen’s bulletproof platemail, but that just meant he’d have to shoot the prat in his thick skull.

That was easier said than done, however.

Though Roark had spent the battle before this Dungeon Lord duel familiarizing himself with the guns from the heroes’ home world—and he’d leveled up the targeting skill for the pistols once already—he was no master with them. Shooting them was nothing like firing a bow, and he had hours’ worth of practice instead of years. Moreover, taking aim at such a small target as it swooped through the throne room, while simultaneously dodging a Bastard Sword, was no easy feat. Roark’s closest shot grazed Lowen’s jaw. The mere flesh wound hardly extracted a sliver of red from the Herald’s Health bar.

In retribution, Lowen loosed the colossal dose of Heavenly Wrath, golden light erupting outward in a wall of engulfing power.

Moving quickly, Roark cast the pre-inscribed web of Discordant Inversion and Deflection. The spell form flashed into existence a breath before the brilliant glare of the Divine spell would have slammed into Roark, batting him from the air.

Immediately the blast of blinding white flashed crimson and rebounded at Lowen, taking the smug bastard full in the chest like a battering ram. The Herald tumbled backward, stunned and wide-eyed as nearly a quarter of his remaining Health drained away. Besides his attempt to plant Talise close enough to assassinate Roark, Lowen had never bothered to wage a personal assault on the Cruel Citadel—Roark was sure the mage considered such a menial task beneath him—and as a result, he’d never tasted Ick’s potent form of spellcraft.

Not wasting the split second of distraction, Roark leapt, using Dragon’s Flight to race through the air like a comet streaking through the night sky. He’d missed from a distance, but perhaps he could make up for that by shooting from close range. Even a bumbling farmhand could hit the side of a barn if he was close enough.

Lowen regained his senses and met him in the air, grabbing one of Roark’s wrists and shoving the pistol away with incredible strength while swinging the Bastard Sword in an overhand arc at Roark’s head. Though Roark was larger in size than the Herald, the contest was a firm reminder of the level gap between them.

With a grunt and a heave, Roark threw up his free arm, catching the sword blade on his scaled forearm with a scraping clang. Orange sparks flew from the point of impact. Amazingly, he hardly felt the sting of the cutting edge.

[Your natural Draconic Chaos Harbinger armor has resisted 90% of the Slashing Damage from Legendary Bastard Sword of the Morning Star.]

Lowen jerked his arm back, this time winding up for a thrust at Roark’s gut.

Thinking quickly, Roark triggered Hex-Aura.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Hex-Aura

Those who would dare lash out at the Hexorcist best be ready to taste the sting of Cursed! retribution. The caster emits a 30-foot-radius aura, which moves with them for the duration of the spell and affects all allies in the area. Enemies take .5n Damage (where n equals character level of the Attacker) when they deal physical melee damage to those protected by Hex-Aura. Hex-Aura is a Level 6 spell and can only be inscribed in Level 6 Spell Slots; Duration, 6 minutes.

╠═╦╬╧╪

He slammed a blocking arm into the blade again, the Bastard Sword doing a minimal amount of harm to Roark’s filigreed Health vial, while Lowen took half his own level in damage. Forty-nine points of Health wasn’t much given Lowen’s level, but if the fool kept attacking, every shot would drain him a bit further.

Unfortunately, Lowen twigged to this rather quickly. He planted a boot in Roark’s gut and kicked him away, putting distance between the pair.

That suited Roark just fine, since it effectively freed up both of his pistols. He leveled the weapons and fired another pair of shots at the Herald’s head, the guns kicking in his grip. One shot glanced off a gilt-edged pauldron but the other caught Lowen in the ear. A sliver ran out of the mage’s Health bar, and this time, it flashed green as Zyra’s Poison of the Rotting Sun took hold.

Shock and fury warred across Lowen’s face in equal measure as black cracks spiderwebbed across his golden skin.

Roark didn’t wait for him to recover but pressed his slim advantage. He fired again, rounds slamming harmlessly into plate armor, then promptly switched the emptied pistol for a Cursed Head. The pistols were a precision weapon—not so the heads. Ripping the ring out of its ear, he lobbed it at Lowen.

The mage dodged with contemptuous ease, but the Head slammed into the wall just behind him, detonating. Tongues of green flame and a shower of Bone Shards peppered the Herald’s now-vulnerable golden flesh. Lowen’s augmented armor protected the majority of his body from the brunt of the shrapnel damage, but the Necrotic fires singed his hair, and more than a few chunks of yellowed bone lodged themselves in his cheeks and hands.

Incensed, Lowen darted in with a sloppy lunge, stabbing the Bastard Sword at Roark’s throat. Roark batted it aside again with a swing of his scaled forearm. A tiny amount of damage bit at him, while a larger portion was ripped from Lowen’s Health bar.

“Two can play at that game,” the mage snapped, a wild spark in his eyes.

He flapped his wings, opening space, and cast Retribution Blast at Roark.

With a roar, Roark cast his final Discordant Inversion web; the spell of woven shadow bloomed around him. The Retribution Blast rebounded and transformed, engulfing Lowen in a nimbus of black sparks. Driven by rage, Lowen charged through the cloud of Undead power, lashing out with his Bastard Sword. When Lowen struck again, both the Hex-Aura and Retribution Blast backfired, stealing away Health.

“You bleeding street-whelped cur!” Lowen bellowed.

He folded his falcon-like wings and dove. Roark soared to meet him.

When they slammed into one another, Roark suddenly felt cold metal pressed to his stomach—but not the edge of a sword blade. No, something flat and smooth. A thunderous boom rocked the Vault of the Radiant Shield. Agony tore dozens of fiery holes through his guts, and his filigreed Health vial drained as if it had been punctured as well.

[You have suffered Massive Internal Damage! Continue to take -11HP Bleeding Damage per second for 2 minutes or until you remove the source of the Damage.]

[You are taking Divine Damage! Continue to take -11HP Divine Damage per second for 2 minutes or until you remove the source of the Damage.]

Stars exploded across Roark’s field of vision, black closing in on the edges, and his ears rang with an endless muffled whine. He dropped to the closest surface—the hanging dais that held the Vault’s Golden Throne. He landed gracelessly on his stomach and dug in his toes to keep himself from sliding off its polished and slanted surface. With one hand, he clutched at his torn midsection, blood pouring through his fingers. Sweat soaked his face, and his body trembled from the pain.

That had been no spell. Roark knew every ability at the Heralds’ disposal. That wasn’t one of them.

Lowen landed in front of him, laughing. He had his sword leaning casually against one silver pauldron.

“Say what you will about overpowering everything I touch,” he sneered, “but if I’m going to take damage every time I attack you, then I’m damned sure going to make that damage count.”

With weak thrashing motions, Roark flipped onto his back and fought to pull himself up. He slipped in the blood, a new wave of torment washing through his body.

Lowen held up a twisted hunk of olive-green metal with his free hand. The thing’s remains were still smoking.

“You didn’t think the armor was the only thing I asked for from the Hearthworld god, did you? What kind of fool do you take me for, von Graf?” With a shake of his head, Lowen tossed the destroyed bit of explosive at Roark. “A Claymore mine is what they call it, if you’re interested in telling anybody in the next life how you died.”

“I’ll tell your mother when I get to the seventh hell,” Roark spluttered between gritted teeth, a coppery salty tang filling his mouth.

Lowen smirked. “Your kind are fond of cheating, so you’ll appreciate this. Though I don’t have your commoner’s love for crafting, I did manage to align the Claymore with the Vault, so every little metal ball inside is considered a Divine weapon, which we all know you Infernal creatures have a weakness to. Even in your new half-Undead form, it seems you’re still suffering a spot of difficulty from it.”

Roark’s shoulder bumped a sharp corner. The Dungeon Lord’s throne.

Immediately, his vision filled with a bit of paper covered in text.

[World Stone Pendant has detected Temporal Resonance! Compatibility: 51%. Would you like to attempt to bind Temporal Location Vault of the Radiant Shield with Prime Temporal Location, Cruel Citadel? Yes/No?

Warning: Temporal Location, Vault of the Radiant Shield, is in a state of flux. This dramatically increases the likelihood of failure to bind locations.

Warning: The higher the compatibility, the greater the stability of the final location. The lower the compatibility, the lower the stability of the final binding. Attempting to bind incompatible locations could destroy both locations.

Warning: Binding Temporal Locations is irreversible.]

It was the very same message he’d seen back in the Other World, after sitting upon the throne of the CEO of Frontflip Studios. He had dismissed the notice then because the compatibility rating had been so low—an appalling 32%. In truth, 51% wasn’t confidence inspiring, but now he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. There was a glimmer of hope. Lowen hadn’t cursed or inscribed the Claymore mine—he’d aligned it with the Vault. But what if the Vault suddenly merged with the Cruel Citadel? Much like using a Transmutation Core to alter the evolutionary path of a monster, who could say what type of dungeon would be formed?

Unable to contain himself, Roark laughed. Pain flared through his torn stomach muscles and more blood pushed up the back of his throat with every chuckle.

A shining gold-and-silver armored boot slammed down on his shredded midsection. Roark doubled over with a strangled scream, his mind blanking with the pain as Lowen ground his heel into the wound.

“What’s so funny, half-breed?” the mage demanded. An edge of insane desperation tinged his words. “Shut up and die like the worthless dog you are. You’ve lost.”

Roark forced out another chuckle. “Not bloody yet, I haven’t.”

With one hand, he clutched the World Stone and recalled the Temporal Binding text. He selected Yes.

Lowen frowned. “What are you—”

The World Stone burned with icy energy in Roark’s fist, and the pendant flared with a brilliant amber light so powerful that it flung the Herald backward. It didn’t stop there, however. The power grew and grew, the stone transforming into a golden sun in Roark’s hand. The raw force of it was too much, overwhelming in its terrible heat. Roark gritted his teeth, attempting to hold tighter, but the aroma of burning flesh wafted to his nostrils, and his already diminished Health bar plummeted toward empty. With a strangled shout, he tried to rip his hand free. A significant patch of flesh remained stuck to the stone as it tore loose. The stone slipped between his fingers.

It didn’t clatter to his chest, however, but soared into the air, snapping the silver chain around his neck and rising high above the dais. The World Stone hovered, pulsing with cosmic power on a scale Roark couldn’t begin to comprehend.

The Vault of the Radiant Shield began to shake and rumble, the force of the sudden quake making the dais come unhinged from a second point and pitch farther askew. Roark slid to the edge and just barely managed to grab a corner before he tumbled off the side, likely to his forever-death. As he hung there, clinging to life with weakening fingers, another message flashed.

[Warning, proximity of unknown distortion rift {Designation: Traisbin} detected! Warning, proximity of unknown dimensional anomalies detected. Temporal transcription location error imminent! World Stone Pendant, now seeking to bind Temporal Location Vault of the Radiant Shield with Prime Temporal Location, Cruel Citadel... World Stone Pendant, now seeking to stabilize dimensional space-time coordinates... Hidden ability, World Forge activated...]

Suddenly, darkness flashed through the Vault. Its golden walls and marble floors turned to dingy gray flagstone lit with sconces giving off oily smoke.

Reaver Bats hung from the shadowed ceiling, and Stone Salamanders prowled the walls, winking out of the visible spectrum when they saw their new and strange location. From down below, Roark heard Mac chirp an astonished greeting to his former fellow Stone Salamanders. In that brief, blessed moment of darkness, the fiery agony in Roark’s midsection disappeared. He was able to take a shaking breath.

Then the bright golden light of the Vault came screaming back, bringing with it the Divine damage Lowen’s Claymore mine had inflicted. Roark lost his grip on the dais and tumbled over the edge. The floor rushed up to meet Roark, but then the world pivoted once more, the Vault giving way to the Cruel Citadel. He landed with a heavy thump on the stone, in terrible pain but still alive.

Arched windows appeared and through them Roark watched in astonishment as the familiar jagged peaks of Korvo tore across the skyline—only to be replaced a moment later by the wind-battered black dunes of the Onyx Sands. Another flash and he was staring at a different mountain range: the San Gabriel Mountains, outside of Frontflip.

The World Stone hung overhead, pulsing with light like the beating of some great galactic heart. With every strobe, the dungeon transformed anew as the Temporal Binding fought to stabilize the location, straining to meld the two locations into one. But not just the two dungeons, it seemed. If the glimpses through those arched windows could be believed, the World Stone was seeking to merge realms—or at least parts of them.

Red canyons, littered with the corpses of mobs...

Vast pine forests, dusted with snow...

Looming pyramids buried in sweeping dunes of black...

Cityscapes clogged with horseless steel carriages...

Standing around the throne room, Heralds and allied mobs alike stared in horrified disbelief at what they were witnessing. Roark wondered idly if the binding would fail and kill them all. He’d taken a terrible gamble with the World Stone’s Temporal Binding property, but it seemed that terrible was the only type of gamble left open to him lately. In truth, whenever the dungeon flashed back to the Vault and the metal in his gut regained its Divine alignment, he was ready for the whole thing to end as soon as possible. Anything to stop that pain.

Finally, with a rolling boom of thunder, the location solidified into a twisted yet beautiful new version of its component dungeons. Vaulted ceilings of dark stone gilded with ornate golden patterns, floors alternating between marble and flagstone. The arched windows became vividly colorful stained glass, illuminating scenes of gorgeous winged women and powerful horned men. Unfortunately, nothing he saw gave him any clue as to which realm the dungeon had ended up in.

[Newly Bound Location, the Radiant Citadel, established!]

[Warning: Radiant Citadel is currently Unclaimed Territory! To claim this Dungeon as yours, take a seat on the Dungeon Lord’s Throne.]

Roark dismissed both messages. There would be time to worry about where they were later.

Of foremost importance to Roark was the fact that the neutral alignment of the new Temporal Location nullified the Divine damage emanating from the metal embedded in his shredded organs. Right away, Roark’s Health-regen began to work at repairing the internal destruction. He raised a hand and cast Necrotic Infernal Invigoration, feeling more soothing relief whisk away his wounds.

When the last of the bits of metal had dropped out of his stomach and the flat planes of muscle there were once again closed over his organs, Roark pushed himself to his feet.

He found Lowen staring dumbfoundedly at the modified version of what used to be his throne room.

Roark spit a wad of blood onto the floor. “Let’s finish this.”

Let Chaos Reign

THE SUDDEN SHIFT IN the Vault seemed to have jarred Lowen’s troops into action, quickly transforming the tense duel into a chaotic free-for-all. The remaining Heralds went on the attack, assailing the surrounding Troll Nation mobs with renewed vigor. Shots popped off at every corner of the throne room, Dungeon Lords gunning down the frantically fighting Heralds. One of the Divine casters summoned an enormous Golden Ichor Guardian—fifteen feet tall, half as wide, its body crafted from molten gold. Mac, flanked by a pack of mid-level Stone Salamanders, dropped off the ceiling and viciously tore into the lumbering creature.

They gave the dueling Dungeon Lords a wide berth, however. Even now, no one dared to interfere.

While Lowen was still distracted by the sudden unexpected changes to his throne room, Roark leveled his Tattooed pistol and put a poisoned, Enchanted bullet right in the tosser’s head. Lowen stumbled back a step, eye socket gushing golden Herald blood—badly wounded, yet somehow still alive.

“Bloody shame you didn’t get the helmet, too, mate,” Roark growled, adding his Cursed Slender Rapier to his off hand.

Roaring through gritted teeth, Lowen cocked back a fist, swirling Divine magicks coalescing around his hand.

“No mouthy half-breed is going to beat me!” the pain-maddened Herald bellowed. “The moment I return to Marek with your head, your traitorous bitch of a sister will be next.”

Lowen launched a barrage of Angelic Lances, but his aim was fouled by the destroyed eye. Roark dodged them easily, cold fury coiling in his gut. There was only one way to make sure the bloody bastard couldn’t lay a finger on Talise.

With a burst from his powerful wings, Roark cut the angle, driving inside Lowen’s guard with a distessa lunge. Lowen swung his Legendary Bastard Sword in a powerful but slow overhand arc. As a Herald, Lowen was higher level and had access to more powerful magicks, but Roark had always been the better swordsman. In a need to prove his nobility, Lowen had always leaned too heavily on spellcasting, not focusing enough time on the martial arts. Roark thrust, stocatta di seconda, planting the rapier to the hilt in the armorless space beneath Lowen’s raised arm.

The Herald spluttered, arm going limp and Bastard Sword clattering to the ground as his Health bar fell to its final ten percent, strobing madly.

Roark grabbed him by the gorget and jerked him close, shoving his Tattooed pistol up under Lowen’s chin.

“Enjoy the seventh hell, you despicable, overwriting ass.” He pulled the trigger, and the muzzle belched fire.

As the shot slammed home, Lowen’s Health bar flashed out its final critical warning, then emptied. He slumped, and Roark dropped him, stepping free of the man’s corpse.

Immediately, Roark’s mystic grimoire appeared before him, opened to the Quests page.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Congratulations! You have completed the quest Stealing Heaven’s Golden Throne!

You may ascend to the throne as Feudal Lord of the Radiant Citadel and claim it as your territory!

To accept the position and claim this Dungeon and its surrounding loyal territory, take a seat on the throne.

To reject position as Feudal Lord, leave the Radiant Citadel without taking a seat on the throne.

Warning: If you leave the Vault without accepting the position as Feudal Lord, you will not be able to return and accept later.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Roark let out a long pent-up breath, wondering in which world exactly his new throne was located.

Before he could venture any guesses, a cheerful ascending chime rang through the throne room, declaring that the Experience from the quest had pushed him over the edge to level 71.

[LEVEL UP!]

[You have 10 undistributed Stat Points!]

The clash around the throne room fell silent as Roark took wing and flew to the damaged hanging dais. He alit carefully just in front of the angled Golden Throne and took a seat, gripping the arms tightly so he wouldn’t fall over the side.

[Congratulations! You have ascended to Feudal Lord of the Radiant Citadel!

From the Feudal Lord’s Throne, you may command and deploy Citadel mobs, Vassals, and serfs, alter the layout of the Citadel and the loyal territory surrounding it, purchase resources or upgrades, and access Feudal Lord’s Whims to grant Divine, Infernal, or Undead Blessings.]

Twelve hundred pounds of reptile thumped onto his lap, clawed legs scrabbling for purchase. The dais groaned frightfully under the added weight.

“Hells, Mac!” Roark hurried to flip to the Floor Design page and repaired the throne room. Quickly, he accepted the changes, and the crumbling dais righted itself, along with all the damage the allied forces had done to the dungeon during the course of their assault.

Roark relaxed. A warning that he could only change the dungeon’s layout once per twenty-four hours appeared, but he dismissed it. If the message from Helen Rose was correct, it was distinctly possible they didn’t have twenty-four hours left.

“Shall we sweep up the rest of the debris, Dungeon Lord?” Zyra asked, arms outstretched, Tattooed pistols pressed against the temples of a pair of Lowen’s lackies.

Roark searched the remaining golden-fleshed faces around the throne room.

“I promised that defectors would be accepted without retribution, and I meant it,” he said. “If you’re done serving the Tyrant King, you’re welcome to join the resistance. But I warn you, at the first hint of treachery, you will be executed.”

As if any doubt remained that Roark could do so, several sets of eyes traveled to the cooling corpse of Marek’s former right hand. One by one, the Heralds threw down their weapons and extinguished their spells, then knelt in surrender. Reluctantly, Zyra sheathed her pistols.

“That was always your problem,” a voice echoed through the throne room. “Too much mercy.”

Roark’s heart stopped. His throat went dry. He knew that bored, aristocratic voice. He’d heard it often enough in his nightmares over the last twenty years to recognize it anywhere.

“Marek,” he breathed.

A burning wind laced with black sands tore through the air, howling eerily. As more and more sand filled the space, the howling morphed into icy laughter. Coalescing at the center was a nightmare of a creature nearly tall enough to reach up and rip the hanging dais from the vaulted ceiling. Its head was elongated and bent like a jackal whose snout had begun to melt, and its flesh hung in tattered flaps from bones as black as jet. A pair of massive crescent horns stretched upward from its head, and between them floated a gemstone the size of an ostrich egg. In its right hand, the horror held a massive gold-and-lapis staff topped with a falcate moon.

The nameplate [Undead God-Pharaoh] hung in spidery white text over the creature’s head.

“These defectors you welcome so readily betrayed their countrymen once and fought against their own liberation at every turn,” Marek said, eyeing the panicked surviving Heralds. “It takes a tyrant to know the only way to deal with them is the same way you dealt with him.” He gestured with a clawed hand at Lowen’s bloody corpse. “I always knew that worthless idiot would fail, but I had to be certain I would make the transition to the highest level in this world before I came after you myself, von Graf. Thankfully, he served one purpose, at least. Unbinding this...”

A crooked grin stretched the Tyrant King’s monstrous elongated head as he plucked the cooling World Stone from the air where it hung, as if it had been waiting patiently there for its master. Roark’s stomach knotted into a fist. Without the soulbinding in place, there was nothing whatsoever preventing Marek from claiming the item for himself.

“Once I finish eviscerating you, I intend to learn the Soulbinding Magicks of Hearthworld—quite a vexing problem that proved to be. But once I master it, I will never need to worry about losing my World Stone again.”

“Over my corpse,” Roark growled, springing to his feet and leveling his Tattooed pistols at the towering jackal.

A bolt of black lightning exploded from a claw-tipped hand, slamming into Roark’s chest and swatting him through the air like a gnat. He careened into a stone column, a searing flash of pain radiating along his spine, and crumpled into a pile of limbs. His heart battered the wall of his chest as he realized he couldn’t move; a disturbing numbness had swept over his body.

[You have broken your spine and suffered a Crippling Injury! Experience a 95% movement penalty for 5 minutes, or until you drink an Ultimate Health Potion.]

“You say that as though it’s a threat, but I mean to take it as a promise,” Marek said, insectile shapes skittering about beneath the surface of his skin.

“No.” The word rang out like a clarion bell, and in a flash of light, Randy Shoemaker appeared in front of Roark. A green aura surrounded him, vines crawling along one arm, green fire engulfing the other. “You’re a tyrant. A monster. A bully. And I’m done letting bullies do whatever they want and leave the wreckage behind. If you want at Roark, you’ll have to go through me.”

Marek hissed, the sound cool and amused. “I am the eater of worlds. I have seen civilizations fall to feed the terrible appetite of the World Stone. But you will stop me?”

“I can try,” Randy said, throwing both hands forward, unleashing a gout of green flame while vines exploded from the throne room floor, twining around Marek’s legs, bloody thorns scrabbling for purchase.

“Brave,” Marek replied, apparently unconcerned. “But an ultimately useless act. Just like so many acts of rebellion. You are outmatched.”

“He’s not alone,” Zyra said, stepping out of a pool of shadow, sheltering Roark with her body. “Roark may be a pigheaded fool of a Dungeon Lord at times, but he is our pigheaded fool of a Dungeon Lord and I’ll gladly die for him. Though”—she pulled free a curved dagger and twirled it with a flourish—“I’d much prefer to see you die instead. You might be able to stop one of us, but you can’t stop all of us.”

Mac growled and trundled over, a snarl on his face. A pair of Stone Salamanders clung to his shell, licking their bulbous eyes as they regarded the Tyrant King with unimpressed gazes. Mac glanced at Roark, resolution and love burning in his eyes, and then a cloud of purple smoke, sizzling with arcs of cobalt electricity, enshrouded him. War drums pounded at the air with a pulsing, driving song of might.

Evolution...

But how? Why now? There had been no golden light, no ascending chime of advancement. The Adolescent Turtle Dragon hadn’t gained any new levels...

The only plausible explanation was that Mac had been withholding his Evolution for a more powerful path but had now chosen a different evolutionary pathway in order to protect Roark.

When the smoke dissipated, a creature twice Mac’s size emerged. A behemoth shell—equal parts snapping turtle and armadillo—covered in golden plates and inscribed with glimmering runes covered his back. Powerful limbs, as thick as trees, covered in brilliant cobalt scales ended in talons that glowed like hot forge coals. The Manticore-like scorpion stinger was gone, replaced by a spike-riddled tail capped with a spiked-studded ball that buzzed with arcs of blue lightning. And, instead of one bearded dragon head, there were three—each one affixed to a long swaying neck. The scales of one head were fiery orange, another electric blue, the third an eye-searing yellow.

A tag briefly floated above Mac’s head: [Elemental Turtle Dragon]

The newly evolved creature hunkered down, its three heads turning in unison toward Marek. With a roar, Mac belched out gouts of potent orange flame, a gale-force blast of frigid blue ice, and arcs of crackling white-hot electricity. The triple strands of deadly magick wove together in a column of elemental fury that slammed into Marek, the tyrant’s Health bar momentarily diminishing. With a flick of his wrist, Marek conjured a seething black barrier that absorbed the elemental attacks. But the real damage was already done.

Every other creature in the room had seen the truth. No matter how powerful Marek seemed, he could be hurt, and anything that could be hurt, could be killed.

Randy threw more Arcane power against the Tyrant King, hurling green fire with one hands and spears of twisting green foliage with the other. Zyra joined the effort, slinging a barrage of smoky daggers through the air and lobbing orbs of green acid.

Roark gritted his teeth, desperate to join the assault on the Tyrant King, but unable to move. The paralyzation timer seemed to tick down years instead of seconds.

Slowly at first, but then in a rush, more mobs joined in. Rock Lords and Mantids, Bloodleeches and Reavers. And it wasn’t just Roark’s forces, either. The Heralds they’d been fighting moments before joined the ranks, staring down their former liege with spells at the ready and weapons drawn. Suddenly Zyra appeared at Roark’s side, helping him drink an Ultimate Health Potion. The countdown disappeared, though his Health vial had only regained a third of its contents.

Roark leaned against the veiled Orbweaver Ravager as he stood.

“You’re done here, Marek,” Roark said through the pain. “Give me the World Stone Pendant and I’ll make your death quick—though the heavens above certainly know that is a mercy you don’t deserve.”

The Tyrant King smirked, glancing around the room. For the first time, there was something lurking in those cold eyes of his. Not fear. Perhaps never that. But uncertainty. Mac had wounded him. Surely Marek had seen his filigreed Health vial flicker just as everyone else had. And if one Turtle Dragon could hurt him, even a little, then what could a hundred of the deadliest mobs in Hearthworld do to him if they weren’t frozen by fear?

“Such reckless ambition,” Marek whispered under his breath, “such wasted potential.” Then, louder, “This isn’t over, von Graf. I have what I came for”—he hefted the World Stone Pendant in one hand—“and it’s only a matter of time before I return with an army capable of crushing you and your pathetic resistance under heel. Celebrate your utterly hollow victory. It won’t last long, and once I’m finished with you, I’ll turn on this Other World.” He grinned, his muzzle filled with sharp obsidian teeth. “Yet another notch to add to my belt.”

He paused, crooking a clawed finger and tapping at his chin.

“Lowen did manage to do one thing right, though. Sow chaos. Yours is not the first world I’ve conquered. If you can sow enough chaos and introduce an enemy that no one else understands, then people are as likely to call you savior as tyrant when you rid them of their problem. So let chaos reign.”

The gem glowed in his hand, burning with amber light, so bright it hurt to look at it. It only lasted a moment, though, and when the light finally dwindled, all that remained of the Tyrant King was a purple afterimage momentarily seared into Roark’s vision.

Marek had fled.

The allied mobs cheered with joy at their perceived triumph. Even Zyra and Randy were giddy at having survived. The Heralds, however, didn’t celebrate. They had spent as much time living under the Tyrant King’s boot as Roark. Their eyes roved around the throne room as they hunched their shoulders in suspicion, likely wondering the exact same thing Roark was:

Where had the bastard gone, and just what had he done?

Mountain Air

A THOUSAND THOUGHTS raced through Roark’s head as he stared at the place the Tyrant King had been moments before. So tantalizingly close. The bastard had been here, right in his grasp, and he’d let it all slip away like black sand through his fingers. They’d captured the Vault and Lowen was dead—both significant victories—but all of that paled in comparison to the fact that Marek was gone and the World Stone with him.

Bloody damnation. How had it all gotten so twisted? They’d done the seemingly impossible, yet somehow things had still fallen apart. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

“It’s gone,” Randy said, echoing Roark’s own thoughts. Wide-eyed, the Herald ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I failed. I was supposed to warn you about the World Stone Pendant—that it wasn’t soulbound anymore. One job. I had one job, and I messed it up.”

“You didn’t fail,” Roark said, though he felt similar frustration rampaging through his thoughts and emotions. “It’s not your fault. I received a message about the soulbinding long before I ever went into battle with Lowen. I knew.”

Mac trundled up beside him, jostling Roark’s leg with his shell while his three heads all fought for pats. Grateful for the momentary distraction, Roark scratched the cobalt head, earning a happy chirp in response.

“There was nothing that could be done,” Roark said in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “When I opted to bind the temporal locations together, the power of the stone overwhelmed me—I couldn’t hang onto it despite my best efforts. None of this is down to you, Randy Shoemaker. Just the opposite. I wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for you.

“Marek...” Roark struggled to find the words. “He has a force about him. He’s a monster in the truest sense of the word—I’ve seen battle-hardened generals cave just by being in his presence. The rest of those Dungeon Lords”—he waved a hand back toward the throne room—“they followed me because they believed in my strength. And those Heralds are just as fickle. If you and Zyra and Mac”—he gave the canny beast’s orange head an especially energetic rub—“hadn’t stood up for me, every last one of them would’ve hedged their bets and waited for the winner to emerge. And that winner would’ve been Marek. Just as it’s always been Marek.”

Randy didn’t look convinced.

Roark paused, his lips pursed into a thin line.

“You changed that, Randy,” he continued, certain every word was true. “You stood up to a tyrant when no one else would, and I’m alive because of it. Everyone here is. And it’s not just here you showed that kind of courage, mate. You gave your all defending the Shieldwall, even though you were vastly outnumbered. Your fellow Devs sensed this, and they followed you. They believed in you. There’s not thanks enough in the world that I can give for the kind of courage you displayed, but I will gladly call you my friend and brother-in-arms.”

Roark extended a hand.

The Arboreal Herald beamed at him, some measure of confidence straightening his posture. He accepted Roark’s hand and pumped it vigorously—a curious response, Roark thought. It was typical to grasp forearms, not to shake by the palms, but Roark accepted the oddity as he accepted all the strange things he’d learned about the Other Worlders. They were a different breed, backwards and unpredictable in many ways, but they were also surprising in their generosity and fierce loyalty.

“You were brave even by Troll standards,” Zyra said, Prowling out of a halo of light beside them.

Roark couldn’t help but smile. “He’s not the only one I have to thank.” He turned toward her, fixing her in place with a stare. “I’ve been an arse lately.”

“Lately,” the veiled Orbweaver replied, folding both pairs of arms. “It’s an ongoing malady as far as I’m concerned, Dungeon Lord.” The words were dry and sharp enough to sting. A poisoned barb, though the ghost of a smile in her voice provided the antidote.

“You’re not wrong,” he said with a wry grin. “But the point remains. I told you of my... friend... the thief who was hung. Since her death, I’ve spent most of my life driving people away. Fear can make a man in love do idiotic things. I’m glad you were wise enough to ignore me.”

Roark stopped scratching Mac’s heads and took Zyra’s hands in his. The Yellow head took it poorly and nipped at his wrist, but the Cobalt head crooned, and the beast lumbered off toward a pod of Stone Salamanders.

“Listen, Zyra, the truth is I couldn’t have done this without you. You can’t win a war by yourself, I see that now. But you and I? What we have is bigger than Marek. Bigger than this war. I’ve never needed a reason to fight, but you’ve given me a reason to live after the fighting is done.”

“That’s so sappy I might just vomit,” she said. But she also gave his hands a small squeeze.

“Pardon me, Dungeon Lord,” Ick said, dry washing his hands. “I didn’t want to intrude on your moment, but there is a pressing matter I think you need to see.” He gestured toward an arched doorway on the far side of the throne room with his spidery arms. “Just this way.”

Roark smirked. “Of course. We’ve gone almost a full minute without a disaster; we were overdue.” He nodded to Zyra. “Shall we?”

Together, they cut through the press of bodies and crossed the room in a handful of long strides, Randy and Ick following in their wake.

Already preparing for the worst, Roark strode out onto a stone portico, inhaling a wash of brisk mountain air, heavy with the aroma of a fresh snowfall and pine trees.

The breath in Roark’s chest caught at the sight. The Radiant Citadel no longer sat high atop a column of rock, overlooking the red valley canyons, but rather was nestled in the snowcapped peaks of the Karasu Mountains. Below, just beyond a swath of white-kissed evergreens, lay Korvo.

Night was falling quickly, but he could see the high stone walls encircling Korvo and plumes of gray smoke drifting up from stone chimney tops. With its winding cobblestone streets and its brightly colored, thatch-roofed homes, the city looked so peaceful. It was early winter, and the shutters were battened tight against the chill. Roark couldn’t see the streets, but he knew those residents not busy with work would be clustered around kitchen tables, telling stories, and warming themselves at the hearth. That or letting a stiff mead warm them as they sang and gambled at the tavern. So different from the soaring buildings of glass he’d seen in the Other World.

It all looked smaller than he remembered.

From this vantage, Roark could also see the old von Graf manor house. Or what remained of it. Marek must have put it to the torch after Roark’s assassination attempt, what felt like ages ago.

“It almost looks like Star Iron Hills,” Zyra said, slipping up against him. “Where the Rock Wyverns make their nests. But the air.” She paused, leaning up against the stone railing and drumming her fingers. “It feels different. Cooler. Cleaner. And I don’t remember a village like that one down there.”

“That’s because it’s not,” Roark said. “Not Hearthworld, I mean. That’s Korvo down there. And that”—he gestured toward the ruins of his old house, marring the landscape like an old wound—“is where I grew up. These are the very mountains I learned to climb in as a boy.”

“So we did it, then?” Randy asked, his silver wings giving an excited shiver as he took in the snowy landscape. “It’s all true. I mean I knew it was, in theory, but being here... We’re actually in another world. I wasn’t sure my mind could even make the transition. I honestly can’t believe I survived. When I logged in, I just assumed my mind would be trapped, unable to log out before the shutdown, but to think that I’m actually here. That this is the real me.” He held up a hand and wiggled his fingers, wonder etched into the lines of his face. He touched the bridge of his nose. “Twenty-twenty vision without glasses. This is me now.”

“I believe this is good news, yes?” Ick asked, legs twitching as he surveyed the land. “It appears whatever you did, the World Stone has returned us to your land.”

“It’s brilliant bloody news,” Roark said, clapping the Nocturnus on the shoulder, feeling a sudden surge of optimism.

“As lovely as all this is, Dungeon Lord,” Zyra said, “I feel obligated to remind you that the World Stone is still gone. We might have won the battle, but this Tyrant King of yours won the war. He got what he wanted all along.”

Randy seemed to deflate, shoulders bowing, wings drooping.

With a frown, Roark turned and glanced back through the archway. More than a few of his followers shared Randy’s posture. A handful of Dungeon Lords and their followers seemed to be celebrating, but most were somber. Concern burned in their eyes. The Heralds, one and all, were the most grim-faced of the lot, sharing hushed words and furtive glances with one another as they stood in little clumps well apart from the other mobs. There would be work to do in the days and weeks ahead if he hoped to bring the two groups together, but like so many things, that would be a concern for later.

So long as they didn’t try to plant a dagger in his back, they would keep for the moment.

They’d taken the Vault, killed that bastard Lowen, and even driven Marek back, but Zyra was right. Their most potent weapon, the World Stone, was gone. It had given them an edge at every turn, and now Marek held it once more.

Roark needed to find a way to repair the defeated mood permeating his troops. Wars were won and lost on morale. Honestly, he wished more than anything that Kaz were here—the Bonesnap Behemoth always knew the right thing to say when things seemed darkest—but the Gourmet was off on another world, hopefully safe with PwnrBwner at Shieldwall. That meant the necessary task fell to Roark.

Resolved, he squared his shoulders, headed back into the throne room, and took to the air, landing gently on the hanging dais high above the crowd.

“A moment,” he barked, loud enough to draw every eye in the room. Monsters and Heralds all looked up at him with expectant eyes. “I know everyone is shaken,” he said plainly, not bothering to mince words, “but I want you all to know that this is a setback and not a deathblow. Together, we did the impossible. We took an impenetrable dungeon and robbed Marek of his right-hand lieutenant. No one can steal that victory from us. We also put Marek on his heels—we may not have defeated him, but he turned tail and ran.”

A murmur rippled through the ranks of mobs, a subtle shift in their faces and stances as he reminded them of their accomplishments.

“The Tyrant King is a shrewd sort, not willing to fight unless he is certain of his victory,” Roark continued. “But remember this. He had the pendant in his hand and the power of a Hearthworld god backing him, yet here I stand. Alive. Alive because we all banded together as one. Marek may be more powerful than me, more powerful than any one of you, but he is not more powerful than us. Let it never be forgotten that he ran. He is afraid. Together, we will find a way to destroy the bastard, and we’ll do it the same way we’ve beaten every other impossible threat we’ve faced. We will cheat.”

A cheer went up, mobs slapping each other on the backs, weapons clanging against shields in furious approval. Even the Heralds looked momentarily mollified.

“Dungeon Lords, prepare your troops to march,” Roark called down to them. “We have only just begun to fight—the fate of two worlds hang in the balance...”

When Worlds Collide

GRIFF FLOATED IN THE blackness, a flute’s single eerie note slowly evolving into the familiar haunting tune he’d grown used to over his years of arena fighting. The respawning period. He’d been through this tired song and dance plenty of times before, but not since joining up with the Griefer.

He was tempted to say he’d gone soft working with Roark, gotten used to living and leveling instead of dying and respawning, but it seemed nearly every day had been a battle to build the Troll Nation, save the Troll Nation, or keep the Troll Nation. Couldn’t complain, though. The work suited him, gave him a way to stay useful in his old age—one that didn’t involve being dinner for feral mobs at the arena. Besides, he liked training up the young pups, watching them cut their teeth on the low-level weapons, then go off to fight. Nothing was more rewarding than seeing a little mob Evolve and knowing he’d played a direct role in teaching them how to get that experience for themselves.

That wasn’t the only reason he’d been willing to take the bullets for the Griefer, but it was a large part of it. Now he just had to hope Roark was back there whipping those birds’ tailfeathers. The allied forces had the numbers and the determination, Roark had given them the weapons, and Griff himself had made sure they had the training. They could do it.

Though he didn’t have a voice just then to grumble out loud, Griff complained mentally at how long the respawn was taking. Maybe he’d just forgotten what a stretch two hours felt like. Either way, he was impatient to get back. Wanted to see how things had shaken out at the Vault.

Finally, that bubbly, dissolving feeling came over him, and the bloodred text he’d been waiting for appeared: Respawning...

About time.

ERROR

If Griff had had a body right then, his blood would’ve run cold. Error warnings were never good. Griff braced himself for the worst.

Set respawn location, “Cruel Citadel,” not found

Searching for default location, “Averi City”

“Averi City” found

Respawning...

The darkness receded, and with a series of blinks to adjust his eyes, Griff found himself standing in the middle of the dozens of wooden stalls and brightly colored canopies of the Averi City Marketplace. Vendors hawked their weapons, armor, food, potions, scrolls, and jewelry to a strangely small crowd. Griff recognized a few of the local NPC trainers who wandered the town looking for work, but he didn’t see a single hero.

Still, it was a damn sight better than no respawn location being found. He had his body back, had his trusty battle-notched short sword on his hip and his old buckler over his shoulder, all three of them showing the wear and tear of countless battles but still ready for action. Time to get back to it.

With a thought, Griff opened his grimoire to the Maps page.

He froze.

The Cruel Citadel wasn’t there anymore. It should’ve been located just a jaunt from Averi City, but where the Citadel had once stood was empty map space. Not even a symbol for the crumbling ruins of the graveyard that used to stand outside its walls.

Maybe that damn error had Undiscovered a couple of his Discovered Locations. Not something to worry about offhand. He panned down to the Vault of the Radiant Shield. He’d just head back there and catch a portal scroll back to the Citadel with somebody once he knew everything was sorted out with the Heralds.

Except the Vault wasn’t there anymore, either.

He panned over the rest of Hearthworld’s map, found all the places he’d visited over his long life Discovered and waiting for him. All except for two.

Fear started to gnaw at his innards. Griff closed out of his grimoire and strode to the edge of the Marketplace where the Notice Board hung. Next to the fluttering parchments offering gold for pests killed in breweries and rewards for missing swords was posted a massive map of Hearthworld for heroes and NPCs to check how much traveling quests would require before accepting them. Griff’s one remaining eye scanned the empty spaces where the Citadel and the Vault should have been.

No heroes in Averi City, which was usually chock-full of those pains in the backside. No Citadel. No Vault. Not on his personal map or on the Hearthworld map in the center of town. This was starting to smack suspiciously of Roark.

Griff scratched at his jaw, whiskers rasping under his calloused hand. “What did you get into this time, Griefer?”

Not one to sit around and cool his heels, Griff headed out of the Marketplace toward the fountain court. He would take a portal down to the next closest dungeon—looked like the Crystal Caverns—and then trek over to the canyon where the Vault should be, see if Roark and the rest of the allies had survived the assault. Might even find out that this was all some sort of mistake twisted up in that respawning error.

Griff had no sooner stepped out of the Marketplace than a deep bass rumble rolled through the air, more felt than heard. Blinding amber light flared across the city. In a heartbeat, he’d equipped his Notched Short Sword and Buckler.

But the attack never came.

Instead, the light receded to reveal shimmering portals scattered throughout the Marketplace and streets. Griff stared, unable to comprehend what might be happening. Portals couldn’t be opened outside of a city’s designated fountain court—wouldn’t open even if you wanted to. Wind whipped past him, ruffling his white hair.

Then the first screams went up. Armor and goods crashed. Griff spun around to find the pickpocket trainer from the One-Eyed Unicorn tumbling toward a portal at the center of the Marketplace like he was pitching down a mountainside. That bookseller beauty and an elderly matron went next, followed by the heavyset rog baker. An elven spice merchant sprinted toward Griff as his colorful stall was ripped off its meager foundation and dragged into the portal, but couldn’t escape the pull.

Griff set his feet and hooked an arm around the railing of a nearby stair, but the force of the portal ripped him into the air. He scrabbled for a hand or foothold, but found no purchase. The best he could do was protect his head and neck and hope he didn’t get run through by a stray lance caught up in this hell storm.

The last thing Griff saw as he tumbled toward the portal was the entirety of the Sulky Selkie Tavern blinking out of existence, leaving behind a gap of cloudless blue in the city’s skyline.

When everything stopped moving, and the wind died down, Griff found himself lying on his side, surrounded by NPCs who looked just as bewildered as he felt. And not just NPCs. Mobs of all sorts and varieties. Lava Kelpies, Nocturnuses, Trolls, Blackwyrms, Wyverns, and Terrorsquids blinked up a strange sky of orange-black. The low buildings of Averi City had been replaced by towering monoliths with glowing windows, and beneath their feet was dingy black paving. A street?

Wherever they were, it wasn’t Hearthworld.

Something wailed, and metal crashed. Griff gave his head a shake to clear it, then staggered to his feet and drew his sword and buckler again, certain this time they were under attack.

A contraption of metal, glass, and rubber had slammed into the side of a Terrorsquid. More of them crammed the street in either direction. Ink sloshed under Griff’s feet as he ran to help the creature fight off this strange new threat.

***

SCOTT STARED OUT ACROSS the city from Shieldwall’s new battlements. With the one-two punch of the bombing and their defenses, the last of the Heralds had been killed or surrendered and he’d finally been able slap up some walls—really get this bitch in shape. Right in the nick of time, too, because that military guy had called less than an hour after Scott put the finishing touches on the place to let him know he was gonna have to surrender Frontflip to its rightful owner. Apparently Silva had snuck out after his fuckery, and was now demanding his building back.

Well, as Scott had told that army dude, Silva could suck a dick. Scott wasn’t giving Shieldwall back ever. This was his dungeon now, and he was lord over it—at least as long as Roark was MIA. If Silva wanted it, he was gonna have to come and take it. That was how being a Dungeon Lord worked.

The tanks were still out there, but they weren’t attacking right then. Maybe waiting for the order to come down from on high that they were supposed to pry Shieldwall out of Scott’s cold dead hands and give it back to that douchewad. Either that or seize it for the CIA. There was probably a load of scientists and military types that would cut off an arm to get a look around this place.

Scott checked the time on his phone. The shutdown was coming any minute, so at least he didn’t have to worry that they’d attack before Randy made it to the other side. He shoved his phone back in his armor, snorted up a loogie, and spat it over the wall, ignoring GothicTerror’s disgusted grimace.

Her and Kaz had come up to keep him company like an hour ago. Not that Scott needed it. He wasn’t going to break down and bawl like some little bitch over Randy. Dude had made his own decision and was going out like an OG. Besides, he figured it was all part of being a Dungeon Lord. This was a real war, so you lost real good guys. You just had to keep kicking ass and taking names so their sacrifices would count and shit.

“But both Jordan Bamsey and Gry Feliri only have recipes for baked cheesecake,” Kaz said, getting GothTots back into their top ten best foods discussion. “They stand by it!”

“You can’t believe everything you hear from a celebrity chef, Kaz,” GothicTerror said, shaking her head. “Cooked cheesecake is gross, I don’t care who says it’s not. The pudding no-bake stuff with the graham cracker crust is where it’s at. Put some blueberries on that, and you’ve got the ultimate culinary creation known to man.”

The Mighty Gourmet grunted doubtfully. “Kaz will have to compare the two.”

“Soon as we get a chance, I’ll grab the stuff from a supermarket and show you,” she promised. “It takes like ten seconds to make.”

“Has PwnrBwner tried this no-bake cheesecake?” Kaz squinted at Scott doubtfully. “Is it truly better than baked?”

“I don’t know, Kaz,” Scott said absently, checking his phone again. Any minute now. “Just assume that whatever Screamo said, I disagree with. Across the board.”

“So what you’re saying is you were born an irredeemable dick,” GothicTerror said.

A rumble like thunder rolled through the city, and the night sky lit up, brighter than all the light pollution across LA combined. Scott had to throw an arm over his face it was so intense.

“Is this normal in PwnrBwner and GothicTerror’s world?” Kaz asked, fear in his voice.

“No,” Scott answered. “I don’t know what the fuck this is, but it’s not normal.”

The light died out a second later. As Scott blinked away the afterimages, the sounds of honking and screeching tires tore through the night.

GothicTerror gasped. “Is that a... portal?”

Scott followed her line of sight to a swirling portal right inside the fucking battlements he’d just put up. Immediately, mobs started pouring out of it.

“Dammit!” he growled. “What the hell is the point of walls if you can just portal inside them?”

“There’s one by the tanks, too,” GothicTerror muttered. “Holy crap, you guys, they’re everywhere.”

Scott spun around to find the shimmering lights scattered across the city, spewing mobs and NPCs like a brohole who couldn’t hold his liquor. As he watched, a skyscraper across the street disappeared, replaced by some wooden old-world-looking building with a thatched roof and a couple of chickens. A cemetery full of crumbling mausoleums popped up in a vacant lot.

Off in the distance, there was a sound like a bomb going off, and suddenly there was one too many peaks in the San Gabriels. Fiery orange lava boomed out of one of them in chunks of pyroclastic surprise.

“Kaz recognizes that volcano,” the Mighty Gourmet said in a quiet voice. “That is the Hearth. Kaz went there once to gather Saffron Crocuses.”

Car alarms started beeping and sirens wailed around LA as more and more mobs and buildings appeared on the scene. Gunshots went off in the distance, but for once in the last couple days they weren’t coming from around Frontflip.

On a hunch, Scott checked his phone. The timer ran out as he watched.

“What would the Hearth be doing here on PwnrBwner and GothicTerror’s home world?” Kaz asked, tapping thoughtfully at his chin.

Scott frowned out at the chaos. “Your buddy Roark just screwed something up, Kaz. Majorly. And I bet I can tell you who’s gonna have to clean it up.”

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Looking for more awesome adventures, and need them right this minute? Check out: Death Cultivator 1. Or keep reading to take a sneak peek.

***

FIGHT FOR YOUR DEATH.

When regular high schooler Grady Hake is mistakenly taken by the Angel of Death, he thinks his life is over. Then he wakes up on a prison shuttle bound for Van Diemann’s Planet, a penal colony run by brutal gangs of criminal cultivators. This is his life now, and if he wants to survive it, he’ll have to learn to harness his unique Death Spirit, make friends with alien outcasts, appease a band of hungry ghosts, and fight his way into one of the strongest gangs on the planet.

Death Cultivator is a sci-fi wuxia for fans of shonen manga and anime such as Hunter x Hunter, One Piece, and Deadman Wonderland.

***

Chapter One: Fight in the Parking Lot

THERE’S AN ART TO GETTING your butt kicked. You can see it in any kung fu movie. It’s the first big fight that shows you how outclassed the hero is, where a dozen goons beat him up, and he barely escapes with his life and has to recover while learning the skills to come back and kick butt later. Ideally, if you’re following the kung fu formula, you stay stoic throughout the fight, bleed dramatically from somewhere on your face, and above all, never stay down when they knock you down.

That’s not as easy to follow in real life. Especially when one of the goons punches you in the back of the head as you’re walking to your car after school.

I hit the asphalt hard, skinning my palms and chin and dumping pens and junk out of the pocket on my backpack that never stays shut. That didn’t bother me as much as almost biting my tongue in half, though. Blood flooded into my mouth.

“Get him, Blaise!”

“Show that loser what’s up!”

Blaise kicked my backpack, and the momentum turned me over to face him and the crowd of kids from our high school who’re always following him around.

“What happened to kicking my ass, Grody?” Blaise sneered. “When does the beatdown begin? I’m ready when you are. Or was that all just talk?”

Actually, it had been about ninety percent talk.

Earlier that day, during third block Anatomy-Physiology, we’d been dissecting frogs. By some unlucky trick of the draw, I got paired up with Blaise. Cool rich guy, good at all the important sports, liked by all the girls and friends with all the other jerks in our class.

Except today Blaise hadn’t looked very cool after Mr. Meighan plopped our frog down in the dissection tray. Blaise had looked like he was about to barf up his lunch. His face didn’t get better when Mr. Meighan told us to use pins to stick our frogs to the trays as shown on the smartboard. So, I opened my big fat mouth.

“I’ll do all the hands-on stuff if it makes you sick,” I said.

For the record, I wasn’t trying to be a jerk, I was just offering. It didn’t occur to me that what I’d said could be misconstrued as making fun of Blaise until I heard Hannah giggle in the seat behind us.

“Are you seriously going to puke, Blaise?” She and her partner, Isobel, did that girl-laugh thing together, and Blaise’s face went from green to red faster than a string of color-changing Christmas LEDs. Hannah held her frog up by a back leg. “It’s just a little dead amphibian.”

“I don’t give a crap if it’s dead or alive,” Blaise said. “I’d chop this thing up into little pieces, no sweat, if I hadn’t been partnered up with the trailer trash pit stain over here. His stench is making me sick. Do they not put showers in single wides, Grody Flake?”

One, my grandpa’s trailer is a double wide. Two, I didn’t stink, Blaise was just being a douche to take the attention off looking like a wuss. And three, I should’ve punched him right there in class.

But when I get mad, my mouth starts running.

“It’s Grady Hake.” I started pinning down our frog’s limbs like I didn’t even care enough to look Blaise’s way. “If you can’t remember my name, it’s probably because you’ve got brain damage from all the drugs your mom did while she was pregnant with you. Drugs my dad sold her. Not for money, though. Probably why you suck so hard. It runs in the family.”

His right fist twitched back like he wanted to knock my teeth out right there in front of Mr. Meighan and the school’s security cameras. But guys like Blaise don’t stay at the top of the food chain by being stupid.

“You better get a police escort back to the trailer park tonight, pitstain,” he growled.

I shrugged. “I can kick your butt without their help.”

That turned out to be a lie. By the time I climbed back to my feet and picked the biggest pieces of parking lot gravel out of my palms, I’d already figured out I was going down. Blaise had been taking tae kwon do at the Y since middle school, and he wouldn’t shut up about all the tournaments he’d won. I’d never been to a martial arts class in my life, just tried to pick up what I could from movies and YouTube.

Besides, nobody brings an audience if they think it’s going to be a close fight.

I let my backpack drop and put my hands up. It hurt the road rash on my palms to make a fist, but it’d be better than breaking my fingers.

His buddies went crazy. They really wanted to see me get stomped. Which made sense, considering I’d insulted every one of them at one point or another. You get pretty good at verbal defense when you’re the only kid in the school whose dad’s in prison.

Blaise grinned and bounced around with his hands down, coming at me with little jabs, then bouncing away. I took most of them on my forearms, keeping my fists in a high guard. The blows weren’t heavy. I would’ve thought he’d hit harder than that, but they barely stung.

Then suddenly, I saw my shot. Blaise threw a body shot combo. I ate both punches, and while I was in close, swung my elbow like an axe. His nose crunched, and blood shot out everywhere. He stumbled back, holding his face.

Somebody watching yelled, “Holy crap!” in one of those ecstatic voices.

I should’ve gone in for a kick to the shin—go ahead and chop the tree down, like the muay thai guys would say—but I was as surprised as Blaise that I’d hit him. This was my first fight with another person, and it wasn’t going like the movies at all.

Blaise let out a yell like some kind of berserker and tackled me. All the air shot out of my lungs, and I slammed into the side of my junky Oldsmobile. The metal dented, and the horn started honking. Not the car alarm sound that came from the cars of kids whose parents had bought their vehicles for them. Just one long, endless blare that meant the wadded-up piece of cardboard I’d stuck in the crack of the steering wheel to keep the horn from going off continuously had fallen out again.

I tried slamming elbows down on Blaise’s back and throwing knees into his chest, but it wasn’t doing any good. He kept me pinned to the car, pummeling my ribs with his fists. No more controlled shots that barely stung; these were serious I’m-gonna-kill-you punches that felt like shotgun blasts to the side. The only time he backed off was to smash his shoulder into me again. I doubled over, the strength going out of my arms and legs at the same time.

Blaise let me drop.

“Yeah!” he screamed, throwing his hands up like the crowd was going wild. “Mess with the best, die like the rest!”

I swallowed and tried to get up. My ribs didn’t like the idea. Felt like something was broken in there.

“Want some more, pitstain? Huh? You want some more?” Blaise kicked me in the ear.

I folded over, grabbing my head. The ear was still connected, but it’d felt like his kick had ripped it off.

“Eat it, loser!” Blaise crowed.

Now that he was back on top, his dumb friends were all yelling and shoving each other around like he’d just KOed Connor McGreggor. Isobel was there, too. She looked a little freaked out by all the blood, but her and Hannah were cheering Blaise on anyway.

“That’s right!” Blaise yelled. “Don’t come at me unless you want all your teeth knocked out!”

This was the part where I was supposed to get back up no matter how many times he knocked me down. Except when I started to get up, he planted his foot on my collarbone and pinned me to my car. I tried squirming out from under his shoe, but I couldn’t get loose.

“What’s that, Grody Flake?” Blaise leaned down with his hand cupping his ear like he was some kind of pro wrestler selling his crap to the cheap seats. “You want your mommy?”

That set his buddies off again.

“No.” I swallowed some bloody spit. “I want yours.”

If you’ve never been punched in the head while it’s pressed up against a metal car door, I don’t recommend it. The next thing I saw was black.

Click here to continue reading Death Cultivator 1.

Books by Shadow Alley Press

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Rogue Dungeon: The Rogue Dungeon Series (Book 1)

Civil War: The Rogue Dungeon Series (Book 2)

Troll Nation: The Rogue Dungeon Series (Book 3)

Rogue Evolution: The Rogue Dungeon Series (Book 4)

Dungeon Duel: The Rogue Dungeon Series (Book 5)

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Zero.Hero 1

Zero.Hero 2

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Inheritance: The Last Enclave Book 1

Redemption: The Last Enclave Book 2

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A Snake’s Life: A Snake’s Life Book 1

A Snake’s Path: A Snake’s Life Book 2

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Dungeon Heart: The Singing Mountain

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Black Dawn: Fae Nexus Book 1

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Shadowcroft Academy for Dungeons: Year One

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Viridian Gate Online (LitRPG)

Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm (Book 1)

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Viridian Gate Online: The Jade Lord (Book 3)

Viridian Gate Online: Imperial Legion (Book 4)

Viridian Gate Online: The Lich Priest (Book 5)

Viridian Gate Online: Doom Forge (Book 6)

Viridian Gate Online: Darkling Siege (Book 7)

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Viridian Gate Online: Side Quests (Anthology)

Viridian Gate Online: The Artificer (Imperial Initiative 1)

Viridian Gate Online: Nomad Soul (The Illusionist Book 1)

Viridian Gate Online: Dead Man’s Tide (The Illusionist Book 2)

Viridian Gate Online: Inquisitor’s Foil (The Illusionist Book 3)

Viridian Gate Online: Firebrand (The Firebrand Book 1)

Viridian Gate Online: Embers of Rebellion (The Firebrand Book 2)

Viridian Gate Online: Path of the Blood Phoenix (The Firebrand Book 3)

Viridian Gate Online: Vindication (The Alchemic Weaponeer Book 1)

Viridian Gate Online: Absolution (The Alchemic Weaponeer Book 2)

Viridian Gate Online: Insurrection (The Alchemic Weaponeer Book 3)

***

Cultivation

Darkening Skies (Path of the Thunderbird Book 1)

Stone Soul (Path of the Thunderbird Book 2)

Demon Beast (Path of the Thunderbird Book 3)

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Hollow Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 1)

Eclipse Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 2)

Chaos Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 3)

Burning Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 4)

Infinite Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 5)

Eternal Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 6)

***

The Elements: Silver Coin Saga Book 1

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Death Cultivator Book 1

Death Cultivator Book 2

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Tokyo Blood Magic (Shinjuku Shadows Book 1)

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Foundations (Bastion Academy Book 1)

Malware: Bastion Academy Book 2

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Sages of the Underpass (Battle Artists Book 1)

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Shadowbound: Ghostlight Academy Book 1

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Urban Fantasy

Strange Magic (Yancy Lazarus Episode One)

Cold Hearted (Yancy Lazarus Episode Two)

Flashback: Siren Song (Yancy Lazarus Episode 2.5)

Wendigo Rising (Yancy Lazarus Episode Three)

Flashback: The Morrigan (Yancy Lazarus Episode 3.5)

Savage Prophet (Yancy Lazarus Episode Four)

Brimstone Blues (Yancy Lazarus Episode Five)

Red Reckoning (Yancy Lazarus Episode Six)

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MudMan (A Lazarus World Novel)

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Two-Faced: Legend of the Treesinger (Book 1)

Soul Game: Legend of the Treesinger (Book 2)

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Revenge of the Bloodslinger (Jubal van Zandt Book 1)

Beautiful Corpse (Jubal van Zandt Book 2)

Soul Jar (Jubal van Zandt Book 3)

Garden of Time (Jubal van Zandt Book 4)

Wasteside (Jubal van Zandt Book 5)

***

Post-apocalyptic

Armageddon Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 1)

Machine-Gun Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 2)

Inferno Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 3)

Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4)

War Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 5)

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War God’s Mantle: Ascension (Book 1)

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War God’s Mantle: Underworld (Book 3)

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Denver Fury: American Dragons (Book 1)

Cheyenne Magic: American Dragons (Book 2)

Montana Firestorm: American Dragons (Book 3)

Texas Showdown: American Dragons (Book 4)

California Imperium: American Dragons (Book 5)

Dodge City Knights: American Dragons (Book 6)

Leadville Crucible: American Dragons (Book 7)

Alaska Kingdom: American Dragons (Book 8)

Alamosa Arena: American Dragons (Book 9)

Wyoming Dynasty: American Dragons (Book 10)

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Raider Annihilation: Son of Fire Book 1

Kraken Killjoy: Son of Fire Book 2

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Dungeon Bringer 1

Dungeon Bringer 2

Dungeon Bringer 3

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Witch King 1

Witch King 2

Witch King 3

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Barbarian Assassin (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 2)

Barbarian Alchemist (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 3)

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Valhalla Virus (Ragnarok Rebels Book 1)

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Master Build (Creature Girl Creations Book 2)

God Build (Creature Girl Creations Book 3)

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Robot Bangarang: Full Frontal Galaxy (Book 1)

Space Dragon Boogaloo: Full Frontal Galaxy (Book 2)

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Copyright

Dungeon Duel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 by James A. Hunter, eden Hudson, and Shadow Alley Press, Inc.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher, subject line “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

JStrode@ShadowAlleyPress.com

About the Author

I am invincible. I am a mutant. I have 3 hearts and was born with no eyes. I had eyes implanted later. I didn't have hands, either, just stumps. When my eyes were implanted they asked if I would like hands as well and I said, "Yes, I'll take those," and pointed with my stump. But sometimes I'm a hellbender peeking out from under a rock. When it rains, I live in a music box.

But I'm also a tattoo addict, coffee junkie, drummer, and aspiring skateboarder. Jesus actually is my homeboy.

About the Publisher

We love books and we are crazy-passionate about publishing the best adult Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Action-Adventure around.

Though our stories can be thought provoking at times, our primary goal is to entertain readers with wild stories and interesting characters you can’t walk away from. We want to whisk readers into a different world where the impossible is possible, where monsters lurk around every corner, but so do heroes, always ready to swoop in and fight back the dark.

We are also deeply dedicated to the authors we work with. For us, publishing is less about individual titles and more about supporting the authors we love. We want our writers to succeed, to thrive, to sell books, and to pursue their fiction passionately. We also want ALL writers to succeed and achieve their dreams of crafting excellent books and connecting with an audience who will love what they do. We firmly believe there has never been a better time to be an author. We also believe publishing is not a zero-sum game and that a rising tide lifts all boats. For that reason, we offer a variety of writing resources for folks looking to grow as wordsmiths or publish their books independently.

Find out about all our great books at www.ShadowAlleyPress.com