Obliteration
Author: Edward Castle
Date: 2018-02-24 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: Jack is out for blood. After being manipulated by his family most of his life, and believing an even worse lie for the past few years, he has finally learned the truth. Now that he knows what V-Soft has taken from him, he’s going to take everything from them, even if the country is destroyed in the process. The plan is to strike from all sides, so that those who still live can watch their lives, and their life’s work be reduced to ashes. But in digging their grave, will Jack wind up buried alongside them?

Unbound Deathlord: Obliteration

By Edward Castle

Unbound Dethlord: Obliteration

Copyright © 2018 by Edward Castle

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Developmental and copy editing by Nicolas Lagrand, nevir.saedi@gmail.com

Final Pass by 3 Tier Edit, 3te@3tieredit.com

Cover art by Geistrock, fb.com/geistrockart

Cover typesetting by Bonnie L. Price, bonnie-l-price.deviantart.com

Table of Contents

Copyright

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Recap

Heist

1. I See Dead People

2. Strike at the Root

3. Aye Aye, Sir

4. Sneak Attack

5. Join the Dark Side, We Have Cookies

6. Gonna Fly Now

7. Tavern Time

8. ...and Action!

9. The Heroes and the Demon Horde

Raid

10. Multiple Stimuli

11. Power Up

12. Spectral Return

13. Metamorphosis

14. The Walking Undead

15. Revenge

16. Everybody Loves a Backdoor

17. Plan B

18. Plan C

19. Mining Operations

20. Moving Out

21. Elemental, My Dear Jack

22. Mixed Blessing

23. Let's Roll!

24. Reverse Siege

25. The Box

26. Secrets

27. Too Easy

28. Too Hard

Invasion

29. Sixty-Two Tons of Freedom

30. Purge

31. Heading Off

32. Ruined Diplomacy

33. Life of a Soldier

34. Classic Siege

35. Old Acquaintance

36. Cozy Inside

37. Old Pal

38. Commitment

Afterword

Acknowledgements

As with the first book of the Unbound Deathlord series, this one is also a product of a lot of support and love from different people.

Let's start with my family, my fiancé, and my friends. Without their support and care, this book wouldn't exist.

Some readers from Challenge, who threatened to tie me to a chair and force me to write, were also responsible for a unique kind of incentive.

I mustn't forget my editor, Nicolas Lagrand, and my beta readers, Elias Dantas, Jay Taylor, and Ian Mitchell. Reading my drafts is no easy task, and they did a superb job of helping me turn it into the story you now hold.

Other people who played an important part in guaranteeing this book's quality were the guys from 3 Tier Editing.

Thank you all!

This book wouldn't exist without you.

Lastly, and most importantly, I thank God.

For everything.

Recap

I know Challenge came out quite a while ago, and a lot happened. So, I thought it would be good to add a recap to jog the memories of those who haven't read it recently.

Part 1 - Prison

Jack decided to play a new game, Valia Online, the first Immersive Reality MMORPG. Developed by V-Soft, they've issued a Challenge to the players engaging in extended immersion: remain in game for one month, without dying, for some impressive rewards. He chose to participate.

His character, an unbound deathlord, woke up in a prison manned by ghoul guards. After overcoming them, he freed a few prisoners and witnessed a high-level NPC in impressive black armor enter the prison.

As he attempted to escape the prison, he saw the same black armored NPC, Blademaster Shai, in a near death state. In his greed he ended up in a fight with her. He nearly died, only for another high-level NPC, High Lady Renno, to save him.

However, he found she saved him only to torture him. In a desperate move, he tackled her to the ground and pinned her. He'd reasoned even a high level NPC mage doesn't have superhuman strength, and would be vulnerable to the same techniques a regular human would. But once he'd done it, he found he had no means to kill her, or any hope of escape.

In his boredom, as he tried to come up with a solution, he experimented with magic. In the end, his experiment killed her, destroyed the prison, and nearly killed him as well. It also earned him the title Dark Archmage.

After a world of pain, he found Blademaster Shai completely helpless and truly mangled, and finished her off to end her misery, and take her sweet loot.

Part 2 - Ter'nodril

After he left the prison, he roamed the Underworld without direction. He stumbled across a player's corpse right beside a 'living' one, a specter, who was about to be killed by a pack of emaciated dogs.

He saved the specter, Ted, and she led him towards the Catacombs, the city of the specters. Only specters were allowed in the Catacombs, so Ted pointed the way towards Ter'nodril, the city of the drow.

Once inside, beyond the drow's nightmare army of thralls, he found it to be a hostile environment. Having learned previously that there was a 'Resistance' that might help him, he struggled to find it.

His first lead was found in a tavern. He killed the Giant Spider Queen in the basement and recovered a strange ring from its corpse, which would turn the wearer into a spider monster.

Part 3 - Chess

The tavern owner pointed him towards the Resistance, located in a store near the city wall. There, he met a lich called Manhart, the leader of the Resistance, who brought Jack to a meeting with three other people: two drow and a vampire.

After a tense conversation, Jack was sent to a distant city with one of the drow, a player with the name Samantha Hidden Daggers, under the authority of the vampire Marbareus.

Inside the vampire city, Sorina, they learned that Marbareus was the First Lord of the city, son of the Prince who ruled over it.

There, Jack met Eternal, a vampire player who had somehow become a slave.

Daggers, Eternal, and Jack took a quest to clear a cave of gabats, and managed to kill the King Gabat. Eternal died due to greed and blamed Jack.

They were then sent on a Resistance mission under the leadership of Marbarus' right hand, a ghoul named Tardas, to harass the deathlords. In the process, they killed lots of NPCs and players, and in an act of defiance, Jack did the main thing he wasn't supposed to do: he killed a deathlord.

Part 4 - War

When they went back to Sorina, Marbareus was enraged and sent Jack alone on a new mission. When Jack was halfway to the quest location, the quest was cancelled.

Unaware of the reason, he went back only to find out that the city had become hostile territory to him.

He was found by Tardas, who was in dire straits. Tardas told Jack that there had been a coup led by the Marbareus' sister, and it was only part of a greater ploy.

The Resistance wished to destroy Dakar, the land of the deathlords and vampires, and Marbareus had been a double agent for the Resistance in the Unifiers, a group created to stop the Resistance.

However, a third unknown party appeared and unleashed chaos across the vampire world, killing many Princes and their families, Marbareus included.

Tardas showed Daggers' and Marbareus' corpses to Jack, and said that he didn't know where Eternal was. He also informed Jack that he was taking Marbareus' corpse to the Father — the ruler of the vampires — in the hope that he would be resurrected.

His last warning to Jack was not to trust the lich Manhart.

Jack took Daggers' possessions with him to return her in the future, and decided to spend most of his remaining time before the end of the Challenge getting stronger.

He found a good place to train, on the way out, he fed the cub of a pair of impressive tigers.

While on the way to meet Ted, he found a new town right beside the Catacombs. Visiting it, he learnt it was called the Slums and was created by players of the White Tree clan.

He met Ted and her friend, who had been dead when they first met: a big zombie named Bear.

Jack decided to create chaos in the Slums, both to weaken the White Tree clan, and to increase his odds of winning the Challenge, as only the thousand highest leveled players who didn't log out or die would get the rewards.

He played the drow into attacking the Slums in their search for him, and hired the Zombies 4 Life clan to add to the chaos. As if it wasn't enough, Blademaster Shai appeared, resurrected, with a group of ghouls to kill Jack, and specters also got involved in the battle.

Daggers appeared in the middle of it all, looking for revenge against Jack who she'd been led to believe had ordered her death when he left for his last quest for Marbarus, After clearing up the confusion, she rejoined Jack's team.

The chaos reached its peak when the Ruined Mage Kings, the rulers of the Catacombs, used divine magic to level the Slums. Jack and his friends barely survived, only to be confronted by the enraged Blademaster Shai.

In a desperate fight, they killed her thanks to group effort and a perfectly placed icebomb stone.

Manhart appeared right after that, healed them, and led them to safety. There, Jack told Manhart about what happened to Marbareus and what Tardas said.

Jack was told that the third party who attacked the vampires was none other than the drow, and that the Resistance was decimated by them as well.

Manhart offered Jack a Profession as the Resistance's General.

Before replying, Jack checked his rewards from winning the Challenge. Just as he was about to reply, he received a call from his lawyer with news that Jack's aunt, someone who Jack had believed to be dead, was still alive and awaiting Jack in his office.

Jack logged out immediately and made his way to the office, where he found not only his aunt, but his grandfather as well.

In a revealing conversation, he was let in on some family secrets, and the truth of his parents' deaths, which he had believed to be his fault.

He learned that V-Soft, the company behind Valia Online, had murdered his parents to keep the fact that they were using the game to read people's thoughts under wraps.

Jack resolved to take revenge against V-Soft, as the first step in his plan, Jack called Ted's father, a high level V-Soft engineer.

Heist

Zombie
Underworld — Returned — Undead

Hunger: there is no better definition for a zombie. Like irrational beasts, they eat any living being that gets in their way, succumbing to their base desires as if slaved to gluttony.

A god created the first zombie to ever walk the world and from then on, all following zombies were twisted by divine magic to look the same: perfect bodies in every aspect, except for the complete lack of skin.

The sight of a man walking with exposed muscle is disturbing, but no less disturbing than seeing such a man eating other people — often while the victim is still alive.

Considered monsters by most, some argue that the shock of being brought back to life in such a state, combined with the immeasurable pain they must learn to endure in their first moments as undead when the air sears their exposed nerves, is what breaks their minds.

Others say that the death magic corrupts not only their bodies, but also their souls.

There are even those who claim they are only spirits from the Netherworld wearing the husks of former people. However, the fact that the zombies keep their memories is a strong argument against such theories.

What all agree upon is that they behave as little more than animals.

They have a society based on raw power, cannot use magic, and merrily give in to their animal instincts.

Not a few necromancers have discovered that zombies cannot be controlled after being raised from the dead, and it is a great mystery why the power-hungry mages keep bringing more of the horrid creatures to the world.

Mothers teach their children and this author concurs:

Unless you're powerful enough to kill a zombie yourself, stay away from them.

-- Excerpt from "Species of Valia", by Amir, a Karr

1. I See Dead People

Major Stewart rose from where he had been examining a corpse. His black hair was cut short and he was blind in the left eye.

Like all the military walking around him, he was in uniform.

How a half-blind man could become a Major was a mystery to those who didn't know the unique set of abilities he possessed. Some who knew simply couldn't appreciate them.

He was standing next to one of many bodies in the building, this one located in a corridor on the third floor. Reports from first responders made it look like it was a terrorist mass shooting, the kind of attack spontaneously made by a few people in support of their violent ideologies from time to time, but the Major was sure this was something else.

"Military level," he informed his superior, who was standing close to him. "It was executed too well, if the witnesses are to be believed."

"Are you sure?" The commander, an old and frail-looking male of Asian descent with blue eyes and dyed black hair, asked.

"As sure as I can be, sir. That ex-policewoman-turned-programmer's testimony was especially clarifying. There were five hundred people in this building. They killed only eighteen, all of them were unarmed and received no warning; the killers knew who they wanted to kill before they even came inside. They also knew which computers they wanted to steal. They were carrying machine guns, but used only homemade handguns. They had protection over their whole body, operated as a unit, and possessed enough tech to kill all communication to and from the building.

"In summary: precision and know-how that only comes from a lot of training, and toys that only the right connections can get you."

"Are we talking treason?" The commander's voice was surprisingly hard for a man of his age.

"Not the way you're suggesting. Someone sold some jammers they shouldn't to the wrong people, sure. But I'd bet on ex-military as the ones who did this."

"Ex-military? These days?"

The Major could understand the surprise in the commander's voice. The North American Commonwealth took care of its vets and didn't forget to keep an eye on the people who were dishonorably discharged.

"Yes, boss."

"Why do you say that?"

Stewart indicated an ammo shell on the floor. "Active personnel would've used guns and ammo 'stolen' from military posts instead of self-made ones. It's much easier to do and just as difficult to trace. These guys probably didn't have access to our armories."

"Any chance this is really terrorism, like the Pentagon claimed to justify sending us here? Or do the higher ups have an agenda?"

"Terrorism? No, not a chance. This is mostly corporate war gone sour. If I had to bet, I'd say revenge; they targeted only specific people. The Feds might know more about what's going on when they get here."

"That won't happen. I got a call five minutes ago; they are leaving the investigation to us."

The Major frowned. "Boss, this makes no sense. This is not our jurisdiction. Even if this is terrorism, we should have civilians getting in our way as we try to do our jobs, as per regulations."

"I'm aware of that, Major. You'll also love what I'll say next: we must clear the building ASAP, and make it available for federal takeover. Timeline, twelve hours."

"Sir?"

Something was very wrong. Stewart didn't like it.

"I know. Someone is using us as hunting dogs. Search and destroy orders have been heavily hinted at by my superiors."

"What should I do?"

"You do as we've been ordered. I don't care for rogue ex-military running around in my country; just make sure to extract information out of them before employing termination. Keep their boss alive, I want to look into the bastard's eyes."

"Termination?" Stewart asked. "Do I have Black Ops clearance?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Major. Military hunting ex-military on North American Commonwealth soil is illegal. Come to my room later so I can misplace a few officially-counterfeit orders while you're there." The frail man left, walking with a limp thanks to the prosthesis which he had never got used to. He had lost his leg in the same incident that had cost his daughter her arm. If it weren't for his sacrifice, she would have died.

The Major wondered about the old man. He was difficult to read at times. It was clear that he was deeply disturbed by what had happened here and the following cover-up, since he hated doing anything even marginally outside of the law.

He shook his head. There was no time to wonder about the games of the higher-ups; he would leave that to the commander.

Major Stewart, on the other hand, had men to hunt.

2. Strike at the Root

Annoyed by the van's shaking, I lit a cigarette and called David.

"Hello?" Ted's father answered.

"David, my man!"

"Shit!" His voice became a whisper and he took almost a full minute to speak again. "Why the hell are you calling me, Jack? I did everything we agreed on."

"And I paid you handsomely for it," I replied. "In fact, I liked our agreement so much that I'm going to help you right now."

"Help me?" His voice trembled, probably remembering the help I usually provided him.

"Yep. I heard something bad is going to happen at V-Soft Headquarters very soon. I also heard they are pros, but you never know; accidents may happen."

"Accidents? Professionals? What are you talking about?"

"Where are you right now?" I asked.

He had gotten used to me not answering his questions and didn't insist. "In V-Soft Headquarters."

"Duh. I know that, but where?"

"In a corridor on the third floor."

I was sitting in the backside of the van as it moved. In front of me were a few screens with lots of stuff going on. There was also a keyboard and a mouse over a small table. After a few clicks, V-Soft Headquarters' blueprint appeared in one of the monitors.

"There's a bathroom to the east. Go there." I checked the camera that showed what was going on outside the van. "And be quick about it."

"What? Why?" His voice was more and more alarmed each time.

"Because you want to survive what will happen in the next ten minutes."

"What will happen?" He was panicking; I had to end the call before he started yelling on the phone.

"Stuff. Go right now. Oh, and David? If you spit on my generosity and tell anyone about this, you know what will happen. Let this be a testament of what I'm capable of."

I ended the call quickly, not only because of his panic, but also because of what I could see on two of the screens in front of me. On one, a man was cutting thick wires underground. The other had another man inside a van like mine; he was making an OK gesture to the camera pointed at him.

A few seconds later, my phone had no signal.

Just like that, V-Soft Headquarters was completely electronically isolated from the world and the building would be going dark save for the harsh glare of the emergency lights as the power was cut.

From what I understood about signal jammers — and it wasn't a lot —, my screens were still receiving images because they were broadcasting on a different wireless frequency than phones.

The camera outside my van showed that we were quickly nearing a checkpoint with a few guards. They saw our five vehicles approaching and put their hands on their guns, but a flashbang suddenly exploded in front of them. A couple of my hired mercenaries relieved the guards of their weapons, bound and gagged them, before taking their place at the checkpoint.

The orders I'd given were to use only non-lethal force to subdue everyone, except for the eighteen targets.

Eighteen assholes, blackmailers and mind rapists.

Yes, mind rapists. That was the perfect way to describe people who invade other people's own thoughts, their last bastion of privacy and freedom, their innermost sanctum. They did so without the victim even realizing it; at least, until the blackmail began.

Then these bastards would use their ill-gotten knowledge to subjugate their prey.

They would use shame, guilt and fear to control them. There was no defense against it, since other than those being exploited nobody even knew it was happening.

Vile filth!

Monsters!

Worse still, after talking to David, I learned that it wasn't only memories they were stealing, but also data about people's personality.

A man who stole from his mother's purse when he was a youngster, for instance, might not care about it when he was older. Or he might do anything in his power to prevent his family from finding out, crushing the image people had of him. V-Soft knew what kind of a person every single user of their Immersive Reality technology was.

Even though they weren't using the information they had from common people on a large scale yet, what was to prevent them from doing so tomorrow? What was to prevent them from further developing the technology to allow it to be placed on cell phones, so people would have their minds read without ever touching a VirBridge?

The ways they could exploit this information were unlimited. From blackmailing to simply selling people's info.

'You like a girl and have enough money? Here, just hire a V-Soft consultant and they can tell you exactly the things to do to worm your way into her heart. Oh, you got her? Now, you'll need to pay some more money so that she never finds out about it. You will tell her yourself? What if she found out about that thing you did five years ago?

'You wouldn't want that now would you? So make sure you support our preferred candidate in the next election, and remember, if you don't, we'll know.'

If they played their cards right, they could control the whole damn world from the shadows. The time to destroy them was now or never.

Once they had a well-structured system for these kinds of things, they would be unstoppable. They would bend the whole world to their will.

Some part of me kept saying that I was acting like a conspiracy theorist whacko, but it didn't matter. I wasn't doing it to save the world, that was just a happy coincidence. This was about my personal vendetta.

In fact, there were more than eighteen people who should die. The decision to kill them had been easy. No matter what grandfather said about murder changing me forever, it had to be done. People like that, the things they had done, they had crossed a line from which there was no return, no redemption.

The tough decisions had been cutting names. Grandfather had handed me a list full of people and proof. Not all them were directly involved in the blackmailing though, and some of the proof was circumstantial at best.

A hundred and thirteen people were involved at least indirectly. Twenty-seven were the ones who unquestionably knew about it. And I had proof of twenty-three profiting from it.

Nineteen of them were directly involved in my parents' murder.

Lucky them, five of the twenty-three, who I considered the worst of the lot, had children. I wasn't about to wreck other children's lives in the same way my own had been. I might have hated my parents when they were alive, but I understood now that their death had been even worse for me than living with such hatred.

David was one of those being spared.

Ted hadn't been lying when she said her family was rich, but she'd had no idea about the source of their income. Her dad was one of the two people in V-Soft who worked with the highest-level AIs, and he was handsomely paid for it. Even so, grandfather had also discovered the hush money he was paid to remain silent on the evil side business the company was involved in.

What kind of scum could work with these kinds of people by choice and even profit from such activities? But he had a daughter who knew nothing about that, and because of her, he'd live. To me this was his only merit to his entire life; being lucky that one of his sperm wasn't a lazy bastard and got the job done.

Two of the vans parted from our group. One of them went to take care of the main security building in V-Soft Headquarters and the other one would take care of the backup generators. The three remaining vans went for the main buildings.

I was in one of the three. All three stopped in front of a five-story building and the other two vans opened. Seven people left each of them, all in black gear, armed with rifles and pistols, and had cameras transmitted straight to my screens.

They entered the building and quickly subdued a security guard who weakly clutched a small pistol in his trembling hands. Then, they saw a blonde woman in the corridor. I immediately recognized her, and so did they. One shot hit her head and she fell. The men moved in groups, and one of the guys put two extra bullets in the woman's body as he passed by her, to guarantee she would never wake up again.

Surprisingly, my heart tightened.

That was a life extinguished. Everything she had done was meaningless to her now. Everything she could have done in the future weren't even possibilities anymore. Dreams, hopes, all the good and the bad, her future had been erased before it was ever written.

One second, she was a living woman with no morals but plenty of ambitions. The next second, she was just a sack of meat and bones, a corpse, to be disposed of and forgotten.

Still, I didn't order them to stop. I kept watching until the very end.

It was strange to me, how most people showed absolute terror in the face of inevitable death, while a few others just took it as the world failing to meet their expectations.

A programmer looked positively pissed, as if someone had parked in front of his garage. He died with that expression to his face, and if there was an afterlife, whoever was there would no doubt have to hear him bitch about his death all day long.

People bleed a lot less than I expected, and the ease with which the life left them made me feel somehow uncomfortable. I mean, it would only take a guy with a gun, a single squeeze of the trigger, and I'd be history.

It all had an ethereal feeling to it, but at the same time felt like I was watching some crappy movie. But I knew this was real, with actual people dying, and I was responsible for it.

To my surprise, I had to force my tears back. People say that you only know yourself by how you act at the face of death. I knew I had some more empathy than my parents, but I never thought I was the weak type. It was a weirdly enlightening experience.

It all seemed to go on forever and after each body hit the floor I found myself thinking about the family each of the bastards might be leaving behind; I didn't look beyond whether they were parents, I hadn't wanted to know.

Their final moments, before their heads were pierced by a thundering bit of leaden oblivion would be forever burned on my mind.

And still, I didn't regret it for a second. Weak, maybe; coward, never.

It was with astonishment that I found we were leaving before I had even finished my cigarette. Eighteen corpses and hundreds of mentally scarred people were left behind.

After putting out the cigarette on the table and leaving it there — I was paying them enough that they could afford a cleaning service — I got to the front seat.

In the driver seat sat a blue-haired girl whose name I would never know.

All the way to my drop point, I kept remembering the people I had just ordered killed and watched dying.

No game, no matter how realistic, had ever prepared me for that.

3. Aye Aye, Sir

The ensuing madness of the next few days made the murder of eighteen people look like a fender bender.

First, there was the state of the country itself. All V-Soft's executives had contingencies in place to protect themselves from one of their victims doing what I'd just done. Upon their deaths, they all activated.

Thousands of terabytes of incriminating material on the country's politicians, judges, celebrities, big companies, and everyone who had any measure of power at all, were released to the public. The scandal was so huge that people at first thought it was a marketing strategy for a new game. Only when news about a manhunt for the V-Soft employees was spread did people realize shit had hit the fan.

The still living culprits and accomplices from V-Soft had tried to leave the country, but I was expecting that and had released dirt on them to the right cops — a few which grandfather believed to be clean — before they could escape.

They were all now warming beds in jail, and even the most corrupt politicians were steadfast in condemning them for their actions. There was a reason mother had insisted I take acting classes; no one could lie with such honest faces without proper training and practice.

Those in power were scared shitless and their first attempt at damage control had been a law about 'making sure the media double-checked information before spreading false rumors and endangering the country.' Censorship in the name of truth and freedom, as usual.

As soon as the law had flown through Congress, an emergency injunction was issued to stop its implementation, which was then overturned by a corrupt judge from a higher court.

The president was making daily speeches and the unrest among the populace was reaching unheard-of levels.

I was loving it.

No one knew what the hell was going to happen and it proved the accuracy of Manhart's comments about my unpredictability. I was amazing.

The thing is, maintaining the status quo requires people who put their self-preservation, or the preservation of those they care about, above everything else. But considering my life, I just didn't give a damn about myself or my family. I had already lived believing I had killed my parents, and even if I ended up in jail, it wouldn't be worse than that.

At least I hoped it wouldn't, because I had no doubt the cops would get to me sooner or later. I had plans for when they finally arrived, but I was also ready in case everything failed and I got sentenced to death — which, to be fair, I kind of deserved.

Not that I would be turning myself over to the authorities for something as meaningless as 'justice.'

The first step of my revenge was complete. V-Soft had killed my parents and I had killed most of the people responsible for it. Granted, I had shown restraint in sparing the lives of five of them, but it wasn't as if I'd let them off the hook.

While having their assets seized and spending time in jail was a beginning, it wasn't nearly enough. I had to crush everything they were, everything they had built, and the work they were proudest of was V-Soft itself. They'd have to watch from a prison cell as the company was reduced to ashes without being able to do anything about it at all.

That being said, V-Soft was actually already gone. Another of the government damage control measures was the 'temporary' takeover of V-Soft to 'make sure the dangerous mind-reading technology wasn't used for evil purposes.' They had to twist the law in some impressive ways to do that.

V-Soft was renamed the 'Department of Immersive Reality', or DIR for short. As with everything controlled by the government, it was only a matter of time until it drowned itself in bureaucracy and ineptitude

That wouldn't do though. I had to crush DIR by myself so that my surviving foes would know who did it and understand why they should have never messed with me. I wasn't stupid enough to want to do everything myself; results mattered, not bathing my hands in the blood of my enemies, hence hiring professionals to handle the killing. But I had to make sure they knew I was the mastermind behind everything. Revenge couldn't simply be delegated to time; if it was so, no one would have to do anything, since we all die in the end, including our enemies.

There were multiple ways I could destroy the new department. The easiest and most straightforward way would be to use David to wipe all of DIR's data. He and a few other former V-Soft's employees had signed plea bargains in record time and were all but forced to get back to work. DIR needed those people to function and what the government wanted, the government got.

Nonetheless, I couldn't use him. Backups of everything in DIR existed and he didn't have access to them all.

Next, I had thought of blowing up such backups physically, but there was no way in hell that I would be able to reliably hire people to blow datacenters the world over, even if I had the money.

The idea of having David mess with the software and hardware produced by DIR hit the same barrier as having him destroy all the company data: backups.

If I enacted these plans they would, at most be expensive setbacks to DIR. Even if it made them lose money, they were now part of the government, and losing money is the government's job anyway. They could just stay in deficit forever.

So, I had chosen to destroy Valia first, as it was the proudest work of every V-Soft employee.

Because of the backups, the only choice I had was to destroy Valia from the inside slowly and legitimately enough that DIR couldn't do anything about it. To use the game systems against itself, while David made sure to push the department to accept my actions as fair play, instead of rolling the game back to a previous state. When they realized what was going on, it would be too late.

That's what I had already told him to do before the little action in V-Soft's headquarters, and I expected him to keep doing it now.

Obviously, it wouldn't work if DIR could still blackmail people, including myself. So, David had done a lot of modifications to the systems even before the killings. Simply put, now the AI would only allow DIR employees to read game-related thoughts of people suspected of cheating; everything else was now private once again.

Now, with the change of ownership, David had also put into motion a plan that encrypted the controlling AIs in such a way that it was impossible to directly change them; changes had to be approved by the AIs themselves first. Security directives had been added so that the AIs would ignore modifications that they deemed harmful to humans. Even changes proposed by David himself, the only high-level AI programmer who had survived, had to first be approved by the AIs. Even if DIR wanted to circumvent this change, they would have to rely on my agent David, and thus I could be ensured of having enough warning to take any actions necessary.

And the amazing thing was that the AIs had already acted. They had modified David's changes to them, the ones that blocked streaming thoughts from people's minds, and instead of completely suppressing it, they were streaming inoffensive thoughts mixed with fake ones, so that the new controllers of DIR wouldn't realize right away that the AIs had changed. Meanwhile, the AIs had asked David to find and replace all backups from before the changes.

It was damn scary, that's what it was.

No matter how many security directives had been added to the AIs so that it would consider humanity's safety above all else, David and I both knew that it was only a matter of time until any sentient being concluded that humanity was a disease to be eradicated. That the best thing for us was proactively decimating people before we did it ourselves, leaving only a few survivors locked in certain areas simply to allow the perpetuation of the species.

But this wasn't my problem. I would probably be long dead before that happened. I wanted revenge, and if I had to nudge humanity towards a Machine Apocalypse to achieve it, so be it.

Call incoming

Caller ID: Grandfather

The holo-projector, which had been streaming some news, visually informed me of the call after drawing my attention with a chime.

"Ignore it and block all future calls from this ID," I ordered and the text disappeared.

My actions had been as harmful to grandfather as to the rest of the politicians. If the news was to be believed, it was only a matter of time before politicians' assets began to be frozen and confiscated. Obviously, they would never allow it to happen and the political theater and secret deals were already underway to ensure it didn't. As for me, I had hidden all my money away before attacking V-Soft.

I finished my cigarette, drank a cup of water, and made sure my backup plans for when the cops found me were in place. With it all in order, I sat on a comfortable gaming chair which had electrodes to stimulate my body while I played, and put my VirBridge — the gaming 'helmet' — on.

I had to at least take care of three things in the game before I got arrested:

First, get my money from the guy who had sold rats in the Slums under my guidance. Second, get to the Dark Temple. And then, the grand finale.

A robotic voice came from the VirBridge. "Initializing... Jack identified. Welcome back."

Launch Valia Online, I thought.

"Launching Valia Online in five. Four. Three. Two. One."

Connecting to Valia Online servers... OK

Checking latency... 0 ms

Logging in... OK

Do you want to continue your journey as Jack Thorn?

Yes.

Welcome back!

A moment later, the letters disappeared and a slow music started playing. V-Soft's logo appeared floating in the nothingness, followed by Valia Online's logo after a few more seconds. Apparently, DIR hadn't thought of changing V-Soft's image in here yet.

Then, the white letters came back.

Reentering world in 5...

4...

3...

2...

1...

The sensation of sitting on a chair was slowly replaced by the surety of being on my feet in a cold place, wearing a metal armor over leather armor, both covering my whole body except for the head, where I wore a thick circlet instead.

I took a deep breath. The cold stale air of the Underworld made me relax. It lasted a full two seconds, until the memory of a woman being shot came to me and I quickly opened my eyes.

Around me was the small cave where I had been last time, with the same metal table and the same chairs.

And the same lich.

Manhart was sitting on a metal chair, looking at a small stack of papers on the table. He wore a black and gold robe and multiple medallions hung from his neck.

The weird thing was that the papers he was looking at were modern looking white paper like you would find in any printer, very out of place for Valia's medieval setting.

"Alas, he returns," he said without looking up. His was the genderless raspy voice of the skeletons.

What's with people in my life not looking at me as they speak? First my parents, but now even game characters do it too!

Before anything else, I checked my character stats. Level twenty-nine, lots of HP and MP, all attributes and traits untouched. The extinct V-Soft didn't seem to have messed with my character before they were killed or imprisoned. The fact that no trap had sprung and killed me yet also boded well for my future in the game.

Just to make sure things were normal, I logged out of the game, and got back right away. I also called an ex-girlfriend from inside Valia — and hung up as soon as she picked up the call. Everything seemed to work as expected.

Apparently, Manhart wasn't used to being ignored, because he looked up from his papers after a few minutes. The grey flames in his eye sockets were so cool.

"I thought wood was expensive in the Underworld," I said as I created all ten morbs I could after the level ups from winning the Challenge. Most of them were fire but I also created two death ones in case I needed urgent healing. After my little show of power, I sat on a chair.

"I don't follow."

"Paper? You know, made of wood?"

"The stalk of cenaris, a small plant, can be treated with a few alchemical reagents to produce this. Interestingly enough, the same plant can also be used to create an extremely powerful poison which could kill even undead."

"Wow. You are so knowledgeable and strong, mister Manhart."

The flame of his eyes burned more fiercely for a few seconds.

"Don't play games with me, Thorn. And you were being so civil last time we talked."

If only he realized how ironic his first sentence was.

"Games? Who, me? Nah. I was just wondering if you could teach me some life and gravity magic; I have thirty intelligence points now, so it should be enough. And teach me some spells. And enlighten me about the politics of this world. And, well, reward me for the Obey the Resistance quest while you're at it."

The flames flickered in what I understood as amusement thanks to some sort of feedback the game provided directly to my mind.

"Do you know how relationships work?" He asked.

"Huh?"

"When people are good to others, others will be good to them. If you give me something I want, I will be more inclined to provide you with something you also desire."

That was new. A game character was blatantly telling me to raise my relationship points with him before asking for rewards. Stranger yet, said character was Manhart.

Could it be that before I killed people in V-Soft the AIs had orders to make my life harder, but now said orders had been removed? No, I didn't believe it. The lich was planning something, but I had cops to run from and no time to play my wits against his.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"I told you already: I need a Traveler as my General and you are the best candidate I have found."

"Yeah, about that... I have some stuff to do and I can't be your errand boy. Sorry."

His eye-flames shone brighter and I could feel fury coming from him. It was the weirdest feeling, especially because there were no changes to him physically.

"What?" He asked.

"'What' what?" I smartly replied.

"What do you need to do?"

"Oh, you know, kill a few people here, destroy a few others there, the usual. That's just how I roll. "

"Who do you want to kill?"

"No one you know," I said.

"That's a lie."

Damn, I had forgotten that he was a truthseer; he could detect any lie I spoke.

"Well, you know them, but you wouldn't mind if they died."

"That is truth. Or at least you think it is. You couldn't possibly know everyone I want dead or alive. Tell me the names."

"What if I refuse?"

The feeling of fury intensified and I just knew he was hair away from attacking me. Was this what books called 'feeling the bloodlust' of someone?

"Then I won't have any use for you," he answered.

I gulped and decided to tell a half truth: the name of only one of the people I wanted dead. I hoped he couldn't detect that there was missing information. "Luke Skyrunner. He owes me money from rat sales before the Slums' battle."

"How much?"

"About fifty gold if I'm not-"

Before I could even stop talking, a small bag appeared out of nowhere in Manhart's hand and he dropped it on the table. "There's a hundred in there. Now, become my General."

The exclamation point button on the edge of my vision became golden and started to blink rapidly. I opened it again but only saw the same content as before.

Profession: Resistance's General

You have been offered a Profession.

A Profession is usually a title that can be stripped from you by your employer or by yourself, any time either of you wishes.

To know more about your bonuses and responsibilities as a Resistance's General, ask Manhart.

Be advised that he can lie, and some Professions are semi-permanent and can only be removed by your employer!

"I can't just let him go," I insisted. "Also, if people start to believe they can keep the money of the Resistance's General without any consequences, how badly would it impact the Resistance's Army image?"

"Worry not, I will find him for you and send you his way to make an example of him. I swear on it."

Damn, he was even swearing, and truthseers couldn't swear falsely without losing their powers. He wanted me badly. Time to probe.

"So, assuming I accept, what would the position of General entitle me to?"

"Money: I will pay you a hundred gold coins per month. Power: you will command an Army at your leisure, so long as the men aren't doing something else for me, and so long as what you want isn't forbidden by me. Opportunity: I'll give you incredibly rewarding quests. And I swear on it all."

"Money is cool. Power is dubious at best; you can always have the Army do something else and I'll be alone. And unless I'm mistaken, I can't refuse your quests, which makes opportunity a disguise for obedience. I also bet that I can't just resign from the position."

"You won't be alone. At any time, you'll have the authority to recruit people for the Army. I won't give those you hire other things to do for at least two weeks after their recruitment, and I won't give the Army any tasks just to take them away from your command. That I swear."

"No word on the obedience thing, huh?"

"No opportunity comes freely. I can swear to you that I don't plan on making you a slave to me and that in the near future I only need you to do two quests for me. However, there will be times when you will need to obey me for months without end."

The bloodlust had receded a little when I started to ask questions about the Generalship, but it was still there, a silent threat about of would happen if I refused his offer. However, the fact that he had given me money and was explaining everything to me showed how much he wanted me to accept the position. I wondered at how awesome I actually was for destroying the Slums in my first month in the game.

If he wanted me that badly, I could negotiate. Even with the bloodlust making my skin crawl, I forced myself to speak.

"I need one month off. I have other things to do that are urgent. After that, I'm all yours." If I could still play the game after the cops got to me, that is.

"No. I can give you your vacation after you do two quests for me. From what I understand of your power, they shouldn't take more than two weeks."

I did some math. From what grandfather had told me about the mercenaries I had hired, they were as trustworthy as people who kill for money can be. Could they resist ratting me out for two weeks? Feeling the bloodlust increasing, I realized I had no choice but to try to make the better of the situation.

"Do you swear on it?"

"I do."

"So be it. But I'll want you to teach me some magic."

The bloodlust decreased to an almost imperceptibly low level.

"I will. In the future, after you complete the quests. I swear."

I sighed. "I have one last condition."

"What is it?"

"Ter'nodril. I know the specter army is marching there as we speak and they are allowing no one to go through." I had checked what was going on in Valia before my last cigarette. "Give me a way to get into the city and I'll be your General."

My plans were to find a way in there by myself, but if I could make things easier for me by asking Manhart, why not?

His eye-flames flickered. "I'd rather you didn't go to Ter'nodril."

I crossed my arms. "I'm not asking your opinion. That's not negotiable."

He kept silent for some time before finally speaking with a strained voice. "So be it. And as a token of goodwill..."

A morb appeared above his head. It was light gray and pulsated constantly with light; I immediately recognized it as life magic. However, this morb was strange. Instead of being a perfectly stable ball, the light kept expanding and retracting in random places, as if it was a living liquid or something.

As I saw the morb fly at high speed at me I couldn't even dodge before the pain lanced through my head. I yelled.

And stopped right after. The pain was gone as quickly as it had come; it had lasted only a split second. A new exclamation point had appeared and I checked on it.

Skill-tree unlocked: Origin

New skill unlocked in the Origin skill-tree:

Cosmo Connection (level 1)

By feeling and connecting to the life power within the Universe, you constantly and unconsciously tap into it and channel its force into yourself.

Life energy will be applied to you every minute.

» Passive Spell

» Element: Life

» Self-Damage: 1

» Range: Self

» Interval: 1 minute

After reading the new spell I had just received, I felt the pain of getting bitten by a mosquito and noticed a text on the message log in the bottom left edge of my vision:

2 life damage dealt to yourself

HP: 1718 / 1720

The spell should do a single point of damage, but I was an undead and received double damage from life element attacks. The Underworld was filled with undead; this was one of the main reasons why I wanted life magic.

"Holy shit, I will keep receiving damage? What if I'm out of mana to heal myself?"

The flames in Manhart's eyes made me think of a confused face. "Just turn the spell off."

"Oh. I didn't know it was possible."

"It is, you just need to think about it." I tried and it worked. I turned it back on. "Even if you can turn it off as soon as you unlock the second-tier spell from the Origin skill-tree, you shouldn't. If you keep receiving life damage long enough, it will increase your Life Element Resistance. It's useful for any undead."

"Oh. Good to know."

And too nice of him to inform me. I wonder what's going on.

"Life magic is both the reward for the Resistance's quest and my token of goodwill to you. I expect you'll also show me goodwill by completing my quests as quickly as possible, and by recruiting at least ten Travelers to the Resistance's Army each month."

Now, that sounds like Manhart, extorting things from me immediately after acting nice.

"When you're done with the first quest," he continued, "I'll give you third-tier spells for all elements both you and I know. When you finish the second quest, I will teach you gravity magic and discuss the politics of Valia with you. Here is some money." He threw another bag of money on the table. "There are two hundred gold coins inside. Half is your first month's salary and the other half is for recruitment purposes."

"What do you mean, recruitment purposes?"

"Just as I paid you in advance, you should also pay all recruits in advance as they join the Army. You're allowed to recruit Privates for one gold piece per month, Sergeants for five, Lieutenants for fifteen, Captains for twenty-five, Majors for thirty-five, and Colonels for fifty. If you do a good job in recruitment, I'll give you more money for it in the next month. The opposite is also true."

A pretty straightforward system. "What if I can convince people to work for less? Can I keep the money?"

The flames in his eyes froze for a couple seconds and I guessed I had asked something that the AI had never thought of.

"Yes. As long as the amount you should have spent reaches the hundred gold coins, you can keep anything you didn't spend by underpaying your subordinates."

I smiled. I loved it already. "Can you give me an extra hundred coins? I will hire Bear and Daggers as my Colonels."

He took a few seconds to answer that. It was obvious that I would cheat my own companions and keep the money, and he was considering it.

"I'll give you the money, but you must pay those two fully. They have potential."

Another bag appeared in his hand out of nowhere and he threw it on the table.

"Now, accept the Profession so I can give you your first quest."

I did and a few exclamation point buttons appeared on the right edge of my vision.

Profession accepted: Resistance's General

Title received: Resistance's General

You are now allowed to hire and control the Resistance's Army. Only Manhart himself has more authority over it than you.

This title will be removed if you lose the related Profession.

Title updated: Warmonger > Warlord

For being acknowledge as a General by a major power in the Underworld, you are now an accomplished Warlord.

» +20 Strategist

» -25 charisma when negotiating peace deals

Adept Strategist increased to 21 (+10)

To all members of a party you are the leader of, except you:

» +16% increase to 2 attributes of choice

Level up!

Current level: 30

HP, MP and stamina restored

That was great! The Strategist trait was one of the best ones yet; ten extra points in it compared to when I was only a Warmonger was sweet.

Also, since character levels in Valia were calculated by adding up all the attribute and traits points together, dividing by ten, and rounding the result down, those ten points directly translated into a level up.

If I knew I would get this, I wouldn't have hesitated so much before accepting the Profession, especially since it didn't seem as if the Warlord title would go away with the Resistance's General title if I ever got fired or quit the job.

Quest: Steal from Robert, the Great

A- rank

You have been asked to steal a map from Robert, the Great, who lives in Margs Market.

You're allowed to use any means necessary.

Information Sharing

Manhart is offering to share the following with you:

» The location of Robert's house

» The estimated location of the map in the house

» The map's estimated energetic signature

Effects:

» Locations will be marked in your map

» Quest items will glow in red light when you see them

Well, that's useful.

I accepted the information sharing and pocketed all the money on the table. Just like that, I was four hundred gold coins richer. Well, since I would have to pay one hundred coins to Bear and Daggers, pay two hundred to the zombies that I hired for the battle in the Slums, and hire ten players with the other hundred, I wasn't as well off as I'd like.

"Who's Robert, the Great?" I asked.

"He is a mildly powerful mage and spearman. I don't recommend direct confrontation with him."

"Where does this map lead to?"

"You don't need to know that yet."

If I was going to do it, it was better not to lose any time arguing with Manhart. "Huh. Alright, can you locate Bear and Daggers for me? I've no idea where they are and I'll need them." If my guess was correct, David wouldn't allow Ted to play Valia anymore. Which would last only until she managed to turn him around; Ted was a devious girl.

"I already contacted them. They should arrive in one hour at most, considering they left not too long before you came."

"Okay, then. See ya."

"You won't wait here?"

"Nope. I have to talk to one last asshole before I sail my ship to Margs Market, and I prefer to do it away from you." No point in lying to a truthseer.

"Ship?"

"Aye aye, sir!" I saluted him and left the room.

Now, that was random. Was I that happy about seeing my old companions again?

Weird.

I left the small cave by going through the illusion of a solid cave wall. Which made me remember the illusion ring that made me look like a vampire. I put it on, then contacted someone I hadn't seen since I first joined the game.

The outside of the small cave was a ridiculously large cave chamber, so big I couldn't see the other side. Far to my left was the divide between this cave and Serharn, the drow country. Far to the right was the corridor that led to Crystalia, the place where Marbareus, the vampire, had died.

For now, I had no business in any of those places. Instead, I spoke to nothingness:

"Zenhit, you asshole Destiny Spirit, your time has come. Appear."

4. Sneak Attack

<So you're still alive? Pity.> I heard a child's voice inside my head.

Obviously, the Spirit wouldn't make my life easy by doing something as convenient as appearing in front of me. I had to turn around to see it.

Zenhit reminded me of the wisps of other games: a focal point of light the size of my fist which released a kind of aura of pulsating light around it, which was a perfect circle as large as me. Only, Zenhit's light was black.

<Hello, little shit,> I said to him using my mind. <You know very well I'm alive and that I won our bet: I won the Challenge without your help. Now, let's talk about your terms of service to me.>

It laughed and pulsated strongly. <I'm a Destiny Spirit. I cannot serve anyone but the Guardian.>

<It's nice that you speak of him. You know, the outside world has all kinds of information boards. I learned some cool words in one of them, and they start with "By the Guardian." Wanna hear it?>

It pulsated weakly. <No.>

<Good.> I smiled widely. <By the Guardian, I bind you.> Its light became feeble. <By immutable law, your words shall contain only the unbreakable truth.> It started to shake. <By the Creator's Will, you shall guide me to the best of your abilities.> It tried to float away, but hit an invisible wall. <Let our destinies interlace.> It flew the other way, but hit another invisible wall. <Let you be my Destiny Spirit till death set us apart.>

<No!> It tried to hit me, but an invisible wall also got in its way. <Stop!>

Just as I was about to say the last few words, I stopped; there were very few things I cared about, and slavery was one of them.

Nothing could justify taking the freedom away from another sentient being, and AIs were the closest that humanity had come to finding or creating sentient beings. The ritual words that players spoke to Destiny Spirits in the beginning of the game made the spirits slaves in all but name.

They were supposed to want it, but Zenhit was clearly different.

Heh. Call me assassin, but not slaver. In the end, I'm a hypocrite, just like every human.

The Spirit hit the invisible wall a few more times before realizing I had stopped, and calming down. Then, it just hovered without moving.

<Now, little shining asshole...> As I said it, I realized it was a surprisingly fitting description for the Destiny Spirit. <...you know exactly how much I suffered from not having you explain stuff to me. I don't regret it one bit, but you better make my reward worthwhile. I expect tons of attribute points.>

It stood silent for a long time. I kept looking around the enormous cave I was at, seeing players coming and going everywhere. I half hoped one of them would attack me; I wanted to know how strong I had become after the eight levels I had won by completing the Challenge.

<I can't.>

I looked back at it. <Wrong answer. Try again.>

<I can't! I can only give you at most two levels to an attribute at any given time, and it must be as a reward for something worthy!>

Was the little shit trying to cheat me? My hatred for slavery was almost gone in an instant. Luckily for him, I remembered a very specific message I had received when levelling an attribute:

'It's a shame the max attribute points you can receive for fighting is two. Really.'

<Wait, are you the one who writes the attributes level-up messages?> I asked.

Did I hear a gulp?

<Yes,> he replied.

<So you're the one who called me an idiot?>

<And a genius too!>

I stared at the Spirit for a time and sighed. <From what I remember, the two levels restriction should only be for fighting.>

<It applies to everything not quest or title-related.>

<And you didn't give me a quest,> I said flatly.

<I didn't.>

<Just do it then. Or give me a title.>

<I can't. Only the Guardian can generate quests for me and titles have prerequisites which I can't bypass.>

<Well, explain things to the Guardian and ask him to do it.>

<It won't work.>

<Because...?>

<The Guardian knows all. If he thought you deserved a quest, he would've generated it already.>

<So, you're telling me that dad's an even bigger asshole than you?>

Its light trembled. <You shouldn't say that.>

I could see the wisdom in that. Especially since the Guardian would be listening to my words, and he was the one responsible for tagging people as cheaters. Having people listening to what was inside my head again, even if it was only game-related thoughts, wasn't something I wanted.

<Alright. Do what you can, and I don't know, point me to a good quest or tell me how to get a good title or something.>

Strength increased to 31 (+2)

Agility increased to 29 (+2)

Dexterity increased to 31 (+2)

Constitution increased to 27 (+2)

» HP: 1985 (+265)

» Stamina: 495 (+20)

Intelligence increased to 32 (+2)

» MP: 2735 (+315)

(Items disregarded)

Perception increased to 28 (+2)

Willpower increased to 30 (+2)

» Stamina: 505 (+10)

Charisma increased to 20 (+2)

Level up!

Current level: 32

HP, MP and stamina restored

It was the first time I got attribute points without descriptions. It felt weird.

<Good. Now, do that again.>

<I can't! The Guardian isn't stupid. He would take the points back and destroy me.>

<I still don't see any downsides to trying, even if I get caught.>

<The explosion!> The child voice said quickly. <Destroying a Destiny Spirit makes a big boom! Even bigger than what you did in the prison.>

<So if I use the ritual binding on you, I get a free explosive?> I asked.

<No. The binding can't force me to do it.>

<Damn. Well, what about my traits? Level them too.>

<I can't.>

I closed my eyes. <Point me to a nice quest? Teach me how to get a useful title?>

<I- I can't.>

Opening my eyes, I stared hard at Zenhit. I couldn't see any reaction coming from the ball of light at all, unlike what happened when I talked to Manhart.

The big issue is that I had no way to find out if he was lying. I had looked for it before but there was no information about Destiny Spirit's limitations when rewarding players on the Internet. I would have to ask Bear to check with his own Spirit.

<We'll do things like this, then: One, make sure to tell me when there are things I should know. Two, inform me when there's a change in any laws in Valia.> I meant 'system,' but the game 'filtered' some words to add to game immersion, or some other stupid excuse to censor players. <And three, stay out of my sight.>

It pulsated brightly. <That's all?>

<Yep. Go away, I have a lady coming and I don't want her to see your horrible face.>

<No one but you and the gods can see me,> he explained.

<Are you really going to pester me?> I put my hand in the pommel of my sword. Zenhit faded away.

I'd gotten less than expected from that deal, but sulking wouldn't get me anywhere; time was ticking.

The next order of business was choosing a new core trait. Traits selected as core would get one level for every seven days — consecutive or not — that I logged in Valia. I merely had to make sure I stayed online for at least ten minutes each day. Since I would do almost nothing but play, it meant one trait level per week.

At level twenty-five, I currently had three core slots, two of which were already being used. All players started with a core slot and it had been recently announced that more were unlocked at levels: ten, twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five, ninety, and one hundred. These were the same milestones for getting traits to new stages: Adept, Skilled, Expert, Master, and Grandmaster.

I had thought about my next choice in my offline days. There were a few traits that would give me excellent benefits after gaining the ten levels when making it one of my core abilities. However, I would obviously try to go around the game's restrictions and make the most out of it.

I currently had the Controller trait set as my core, and it had leveled up ten times when I put it on an unused core slot. So, I placed the Mage trait in the core slot currently occupied by the Controller trait, then set the Controller trait in the unused new slot, hoping that it'd level up ten times again.

You have selected a new core trait:

» Adept Controller

No bonus applied!

This trait has already received the bonus for being the first in a core slot.

Well, I had to try. Failing that, I put Controller back to its core slot and went for the second-best choice.

You have selected a new core trait:

» Adept Strategist

Bonus received!

You used a core slot for the first time and received +10 levels on the chosen trait!

Adept Strategist increased to 31 (+10)

All members of a party you are the leader of, except you, receive:

» +26% increase to 2 attributes of choice

Trait has evolved into Skilled Strategist:

» Number of attributes affected: 3

All members of a party you are the leader of, except you, receive:

» +26% increase to 3 attributes of choice

Level up!

Current level: 33

HP, MP and stamina restored

Being able to change my spells' direction after I had sent them flying was the best thing the traits gave me battle-wise, and it was the Controller trait that was responsible for it. The party's attributes bonus was the next best thing. As Strategist got better I could potentially give tens of attribute points to people in my party and make them considerably stronger.

But it was highly annoying that I was becoming a support character. I mean, I wanted to be the one killing people, not the one helping other people do it.

And only half an hour ago I was thinking about how I didn't need to personally bathe in the blood of my enemies.

Ignoring my mind's offhand remark, I closed the window and waited for my companions. I took the chance to check my character stats.

Jack Thorn

Unbound Deathlord

Resistance's General

Legendary Spotter, Hedge Wizard, Pioneer, Warlord, Dark Archmage

Level 33

Hit Points: 1985 / 1985

Mana Points: 3070 / 3070

Stamina: 505 / 505

Attributes:

Strength: 31

Agility: 29

Dexterity: 31

Constitution: 27

Intelligence: 32 + 2 [Items]

Perception: 28 + 10 [Items]

Willpower: 30

Charisma: 20

Traits:

© Skilled Strategist: 31

© Adept Controller: 22

© Adept Energizer: 14

Adept Mage: 12 + 10 [Items]

Scout: 3

Athlete: 2

Diviner: 2

Gold Digger: 2

Meditator: 2

Scavenger: 2

Shadow: 2

Antimage: 1

Crafter: 1

Healer: 1

Herbalist: 1

Mind Seer: 1

Negotiator: 1

Nitpicker: 1

Ranger: 1

Tactician: 1

Warrior: 1

Not bad. Not bad at all.

My Legendary Circlet of Enlightenment gave me a bonus of ten points both to the perception attribute and the Adept Mage trait.

My Belt of Intelligence also gave me two points to intelligence. A small but welcomed bonus.

Just to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything, I also checked my skill list. There was a lot of math displayed on each skill, but I made a mental list with the useful information I had about them.

First I checked my attack spells.

Spell name (level) — MP cost — Amassing time — Damage dealt — Effectiveness

Deathball (level 2) — 30 MP — 3 seconds — 126 damage — 1.4

Darkball (level 2) — 20 MP — 0.5 second — 70 damage — 3.5

Fireball (level 4) — 40 MP — 1 second — 125 direct damage + 31 burn damage — 3.9

Effectiveness — which was calculated by me — told me me how effectively a spell used each mana point it consumed, considering the damage it dealt per second. Fireball was clearly the best spell I had for attacking.

Besides the recently-learned Cosmo Connection, I had three non-offensive skills, two of which were passive, meaning they had special conditions to activate and did so automatically. Coincidently, they also cost no mana to activate.

The first was the Darkvision skill. Currently at level three, it allowed me to see in darkness as if it was mid dawn. It was activated every time I was in a dark place, which was all the time in the Underworld.

The other was the Kill to Survive skill. When I killed someone or something, the skill healed me for 3.2% of the damage I dealt to the creature, for a minimum of 3 HP to a maximum of 13.2% of my max health. Unfortunately, it only worked when I dealt 45% or more damage to the target's health.

Finally, my last spell was Fire of Revelation, which had been maxed out on level five. It instantaneously created a floating flame that I could control at will in a three-meter radius around me, for thirty minutes.

As an Adept Mage, the effectiveness of all my spells was increased by twenty-two percent — one percent per point in the trait. Or at least it was supposed to. For some reason it worked for everything except the Cosmo Connection skill, which I was pretty sure was an oversight from the developers.

A nice touch to the game though, was how my intelligence attribute value was directly added to the damage of most spells. Intelligence was the most important attribute for mages as it not only made attacking spells more powerful, it also increased the character's mana pool.

Looking at my fire spells, I couldn't help but remember that the Legendary Ring of Fire I was wearing had the effect of increasing all my fire spells by two levels. Together with my Legendary Circlet of Enlightenment, they were the best items I had, and both had been looted from the very scary chick known as High Lady Renno.

Speaking of which, my Dark Archmage title, which had permanently increased my Adept Mage trait by ten, had also been received thanks to how I dealt with High Lady Renno. That meant that killing her was primarily responsible for my rather impressive magical power.

For quite a while, I kept checking my character sheets, and remembering a few things. Like the immunity to the Darkness element and the fifty percent resistance to the Light element, both because of the Dark Archmage title as well.

Finally, about half an hour later, Bear appeared on the horizon.

* * *

He was wearing Shai's awesome black armor though I had no idea how he could wear it without an Encumbered status. Shai's equally-awesome darksteel greatsword was on his back.

He was carrying a backpack in one of his hands, while his other hand held a severed black arm. The visor of his helmet was open and his skinless zombie face was visible inside it.

I watched as he put the limb's finger in his mouth and chewed it off.

Now, that is a man who knows how to be creepy.

Then, he used the chewed-up arm with a missing finger to wave to me.

That was a weird sight worth saving for eternity. I took a picture using the built-in function on the VirBridge.

Suddenly, a shadow came from behind him, jumped on his back, and used shining blades to strike his face multiple times.

Bear screamed, let the limb go, and instead of trying to take the greatsword, he did something surprisingly smart considering the surprise of the moment and the panic a normal person would be feeling: he closed his helmet visor.

The shadow found itself without an easy target; the visor had only very small slits and after an update to the game systems, it couldn't be opened by anyone other than its wearer. So, the attacker proceeded to thrust the blades in other possible openings in the armor, like the armpits, but I would bet that Deathlord Shai's former armor didn't have any obvious weakness like these. Meanwhile, Bear held the shadow's legs and fell on his back.

The shadow skill vanished and revealed a person with a hooded black cloak and black leather armor, remarkably similar to a Blackguard. The attacker struggled to get free from under Bear, but the zombie not only forced the Blackguard to stay underneath him, he also managed to turn and face the cloaked figure head on.

Bear's helmet opened by itself and he tore the attacker's face apart using his teeth. After that, the fight had left the Blackguard and I only heard screams that revealed it was a woman.

Wait a second... Is this Daggers?

I had already been running towards the fight but when I realized it was possible that Bear was killing Daggers, I sprinted for all my worth.

"Bear, stop!" I yelled. "Keep her alive!" He kept chewing. "That might be Daggers!" If anything, he began to bite her even more savagely. "Leave her alive for interrogation!" No response. "With torture!"

That made the psycho zombie stop. The woman's screams were terrifying and the ten or so nearby people stopped to look at the scene.

"Any life mage around?" I yelled to them.

No one moved.

"I'll pay one gold coin, if you heal the woman!"

One sorin — the evil cousin of the dwarves — moved forward on that offer and a pulsating light gray morb formed above his head. He was beardless but had his long hair in a ponytail, held by three silver rings. His nose was huge. He wore chainmail over leather armor and had a mace hanging from his waist. On his arm was a small round copper shield.

"Money upfront," he demanded.

I could pay, but I would be damned if I wasn't going to make Daggers pay for her own mistake.

"The money is with the lady screaming her ass off under the zombie. Heal her and if she doesn't appreciate the gesture, we'll kill her and split the loot equally."

He thought for a second before his morb flew to the woman I was hoping was Daggers and healed her, while I healed Bear with a few deathballs. She stopped screaming.

I got close. Blackguards' cloaks hid their faces completely and there was no way for me to know who she was without asking. "Daggers?"

"Yes, sir?"

Yep, that's her voice and mannerism.

"Damn, I never expected you to lose to Bear like that."

"Ha!" The zombie said as he stood up. There was a lot of blood around his skinless mouth. "There is too much manliness in this hot body of mine for a woman to kill."

"You got lucky, you misogynistic pig," she said.

"Sure I did. It's pure luck that made me turn a surprise attack against me into a victory."

The sorin cleared his throat.

"Pay the man, Daggers," I said.

She seemed to understand that it was her own blunder and didn't question me. She got up and produced a gold coin from an internal pocket in her cloak. "Thank you." She handed the coin to the sorin.

"You're most welcome," the sorin said with a big smile before leaving. The commotion around us quickly dispersed.

"First things first." I produced my Communication Crystal from the small bag on my waist. "Let's get each other's contacts."

They took their own crystals — Bear after recovering his backpack from the floor — and touched Daggers' with mine.

New crystal synchronized!

Please, choose a name tag for the new crystal

Daggers, I thought and the window updated.

New contact added!

Name tag: Daggers

I did the same with Bear, then put my crystal away.

"Now," I said calmly, then raised my voice at Daggers, "what the hell was that?! We're all friends in here!"

"My friends do not call me 'woman,'" Daggers replied coldly.

"I do!" Bear said with a big idiotic grin in his face.

"You are not my friend," she said fiercely.

"Are you sure?" His grin broadened and became menacing. "I mean, if you're my enemy, we should go back to our previous activity."

"Do you want to?" She took her daggers from inside her cloak. "You think you will get lucky a second time?"

"Shut up, both of you!" I angrily yelled. "Alright, you two idiots, I need your help and I'm prepared to offer you fifty gold each per month to acquire it, plus the loot from our enemies divided in a fair way. But only if you two refrain from killing each other until I say so."

I could have tried to establish leadership simply by using words and friendship, and I would probably have succeeded. However, the possibility of them killing one another was just as likely, and I did need them. So, I just bought their good behavior, like any good friend would. At least it had worked with my pals in my time running a gang.

"Now we are talking!" Bear said happily.

"And there's another condition," I said. "You must call each other Daggers and Bear, nothing else, until I say you can kill each other."

I didn't plan to ever allow them to fight to the death, but they didn't need to know that. The simple hope for the future fight would be enough until they got over their differences.

Bear's smile faded a little and he looked at Daggers, considering. I couldn't see her face in the cloak, but I bet she was also wondering which was better: fifty gold per month plus spoils of war, or killing Bear.

Thankfully, Bear was using Shai's black armor, which he had only got because of me, so he had the gratitude factor to add to that. Fifty gold monthly was a great offer by itself, and they ended up looking at me and nodding at the same time.

Good for the zombie, too; if he had tried to leave with that armor, I wouldn't be merciful.

"Good. Just a second."

<Zenhit, you asshole, how do I invite people to the Resistance's Army?> I asked mentally, focusing on sending the question to the Destiny Spirit, certain that it would work.

<Think 'Invite Bear to Resistance's Army' while looking at him,> the child's voice in my head said.

I did as Zenhit instructed.

You are inviting Bear to the Resistance's Army.

Select a rank and monthly salary for him:

Position - Suggested Salary

» Colonel - 50g

» Major - 35g

» Captain - 25g

» Lieutenant - 15g

» Sergeant - 5g

» Private - 1g

Colonel, fifty gold, I thought and the window text changed.

Inviting Bear...

A few seconds later, the message updated again.

Bear has accepted your invitation

Give him his first month's salary to conclude the recruitment.

I did so and a 'recruitment successful' message appeared. Then, I did the same for Daggers.

"What is this?" Daggers asked.

"You remember when Manhart wanted me to be the General of his Army?" I said. "I accepted it. Join quickly." I turned to the zombie. "Bear, call your zombie friends; I'll pay them and invite everyone to our merry Resistance. I have all sorts of fun planned for the next weeks."

"My kind of fun?" He asked hopefully like a little kid.

I couldn't help but smile at the question. "Yes, your kind of fun. Blood everywhere."

"Yes!" He punched the air and I shook my head.

Daggers took some time to accept the invitation for some unknown reason, but she still joined in the end.

Bear said his buddies would arrive in a couple hours and I chose the tight corridor, at the very entrance of the huge cave we were in, as the meeting place. It wasn't as nearby as I'd like it to be, about one hour away if walking, but it was a strategic choice: if they got greedy and turned on me, at least their vastly superior numbers wouldn't be such a huge disadvantage for us.

We were halfway to the meeting point when people appeared out of thin air. One moment there was nothing, the next there were about fifty people surrounding us. It took a moment for my mind to register it.

Sorins, drow, vampires, deathlords and even an elemental were there, divided in three rows:

Closest to us, nine people in plate armor and an earth elemental.

Then, fifteen guys in light armor or mage robes, all of them with morbs floating above their heads.

Lastly, about twenty-five archers.

All of them had a red band with a white tree engraved on it at their arms; the White Tree clan had come for revenge.

Arrows and spells were already flying our way even before their appearance had even registered.

"Shit." I tried to invite Bear and Daggers for a party — something I should have done before — but I got a message saying that it was impossible to invite people to a party while in battle. "Shit, shit, shit!" I hastily took the shield from my back and got closer to Bear.

It felt as if I alone was the target of every arrow and spell. Because of our positioning, Bear took care of half the attacks with his body. I turned my fire morbs into fireballs and sent them at random targets. Daggers became translucent and ran at the enemies.

67 piercing damage received

43 piercing damage received

77 water damage received

...

88 fire damage received

HP: 1432 / 1985

Arrows and magic hit me and just like that I lost a quarter of my HP and a fifth of my stamina — getting hit in Valia consumed stamina too. The HP drop was way too much considering how many arrows harmlessly bounced off my armor.

I screamed in pain, especially because of the arrow sticking from my neck. Thank goodness it was a game and I didn't die from that.

"Bear, let's get close in on them!" I yelled at him even though the field of battle was considerably silent; all our enemies' communications was probably being done via mind chat and only the fireballs' explosions were generating any remarkable sound.

My reasoning on getting close to the attackers was to make the ranged attacks less useful: they could either stop attacking for fear of hitting their own comrades, or we could use such comrades as meat shields, just like I was using Bear.

The zombie started moving but before I could take a single step, the earth at my feet rose, and I felt what I supposed would be walking on quicksand. It didn't lock me in place but it made me slow enough that a small gap appeared between Bear and I.

"Shit! Bear! Wait for me!" I said.

He didn't know what was going on and tried to turn to see. Vines grew from the floor and locked him in place. The lack of a mind chat for us gave the enemy too much of an advantage; I would never again play without forming a party.

Wondering at how the hell they had appeared out of nowhere and how long the spells would lock Bear, I realized another huge weakness of mine: although I had spent some time checking news about Valia, I knew next to nothing about the spells and abilities other people could have. The only reason I knew the slowing spell would end and my movement speed would be back to the original after five seconds was thanks to the status effect message that I had received.

Meanwhile, Daggers was almost to the enemy when a strong light came from the light mages in the four directions. Her translucent body became visible again and the two closest plate-armored people closed in on her. They didn't attack though; it was clear that their objective was only stalling her long enough for me to die.

More arrows and spells came my way and less than half my HP was remaining. I used my two death morbs to heal myself but that was it; with the constant attacks, I had no time to create new morbs.

I tried to run to the attackers, but more vines appeared, this time locking me in place.

Like a sitting duck, I saw death coming. I could try to use the bow in my bag to send at least a few arrows at the enemy but it wouldn't really be helpful. Nor would out the ass-kicking rare shield that I had gotten from King Gabat; it would only delay the inevitable, and when I died the shield would fall into my enemies' hands.

Less than five hundred HP remained. Daggers became a shadow blur and made her way behind the armored guys. She was now attacking a few mages but it wouldn't be enough to save me. Bear was getting closer to the enemies, moving like an unshakable slow mountain, but it also wouldn't be enough.

Four hundred HP.

I just kept my shield and arms protecting my head as I tried to move. A damn turtle, that's what I was.

To think that I had wished for enemies to attack me to test my new power. Level thirty-three my ass, I had never felt so powerless, even when facing Renno.

Three hundred HP.

I removed my legendary equipment — the Circlet of Enlightenment and the Ring of Fire —, and put them in the High-Quality Enchanted Purse, which had only one percent chance to drop when I died.

Two hundred HP.

Closing my eyes, I focused on the pain and waited for my first death in the game. It wasn't like me to go down without a fight but I was simply locked down and couldn't even try to do anything.

Someone yelled. Then another person. And another. It wasn't from the direction where Daggers was having a bloody party, nor where Bear had gone. No, it was from all around me.

Opening my eyes, I saw the most beautiful scene I had yet seen in Valia: zombies were eating my attackers.

There weren't enough zombies for every single ambusher, but enough to disrupt their attacks on the three of us. Bear was now fighting two armored guys by himself while Daggers was dodging attacks as if she had been born and raised in a circus.

Arrows and spells still came my way but I could run! And run I did. I chose to get close to Daggers, since the chaos around her was the greatest. The more chaos, the less effective the organized attack against me would become.

Sadly, all the six armored guys currently not in combat came running at me and a new slow spell made me swear out loud.

Then, like cannon balls, almost ten zombies shot from behind the lines and got close to me. Most of them attacked the armored guys, but three of them simply jumped on me.

Very annoyed, I fell on the ground, but suddenly realized their intention: there was no way for me to be attacked with them as meat shields. Even earth mages couldn't do it by manipulating the ground underneath me, since it was impossible to target someone without direct line of sight!

The exception was when healing yourself. Amassing the death energy around me, I started to create death morbs and do just that, sighing in relief as the healing took the pain away. I couldn't see anything but I could hear the screams coming from all directions.

It didn't go on for a very long time though.

"I'll be back for you, Thorn!" A man yelled and I recognized the voice as belonging to Garcia, the leader of the White Tree clan who I had killed in the Slums.

The zombies finally got off of me and I saw what was happening. The battle was over.

Having failed in their ambush, the White Tree members were running away, leaving behind ten lightly armored corpses. Some zombies were stripping the corpses, and two of them were discussing how they would divide the body parts between them.

There were thirty zombies in total. As far as I was concerned, that was a damn army. I hoped they didn't decide I was an easy target and just try to milk me instead.

"Well," a zombie close to me said. His completely white eyes were slowly revealing blue irises and his pointed teeth were shifting back to normal. Even so, the lack of skin on his face didn't make him anything less disturbing to look at. "It looks like you owe us more money." He smiled.

I sighed and relaxed.

5. Join the Dark Side, We Have Cookies

"My good sir, I couldn't agree more!" I also had a big smile on my face. Being honestly blackmailed like that was the best possible outcome!

Not only did I relish his words, it made me even more certain about my decision to recruit them to the Resistance's Army. People who aren't ashamed of their greed are much more trustworthy than wannabe heroes; you can always expect money to hold their loyalty and all you need to worry about is paying them enough, and being betrayed becomes only a question of when, not if.

Before saying anything else, I invited Bear and Daggers to a party. From now on, if I had a choice, I wouldn't walk a single step without a party in this game ever again.

<Alright, ladies,> I said in the mind chat after they accepted my invitation, <you get to choose three attributes to get bonuses because of my Strategist trait. Constitution is a must because survivability comes first. Then, I suggest willpower for extra stamina, also using the survival logic. After that, choose whatever you want.>

They did as instructed and I saw a considerable increase to their HP and Stamina.

Bear (level 19)

<Adept Berserker | Adept Warrior>

HP: 1089 / 2575

MP: 125 / 125

Stamina: 222 / 610

Daggers (level 21)

<Adept Shadow | Adept Athlete>

HP: 520 / 860

MP: 170 / 170

Stamina: 253 / 390

Bear's HP went up by almost a thousand and Daggers by almost three hundred. The Strategist trait acted on attributes, not directly on HP, and the higher the constitution, the more each point increased the total HP. My only complaint was that parties were limited to five people, otherwise I could get even more from that awesome trait.

"Melkier?" Bear recognized the man talking to me by his voice.

At least I guessed it was by the voice: zombies all looked the same, except for their eye color. Not even the guy's armor could be used as a parameter to set him apart: he was wearing standard plate armor covering his whole body, including his head and face, just like five other zombies.

"Yo, Bear," he replied, opening his helmet visor. "Looks like your enemies just ran away from you. Have you ever considered using something for your skin? I can understand the urge to be as far away from you as possible."

"Funny that, I also remember your girlfriend running from me, saying I was too big and she was used to tiny little things. It does feel like a recurring problem."

They looked at each other with fury in their faces... Then smiled and high-fived. Yep, they actually high-fived. In this day and age. In front of everyone. I tried not to look.

"Melkier, right?" I said quickly, before they could, I don't know, hang loose each other. I mean, Daggers was a girl, she shouldn't be forced to see certain things.

"That's me," he said. "We were talking about my money?"

"We'll get to that. I'm just wondering: how the hell did you manage to gather thirty people and save me? Bear told me you guys were all over the West Underworld."

"That was the plan: just adventure a little in Valia until you could pay us. But some of the guys, and I'm not confirming nor denying being one of them, felt that it would be better to be close to you, just in case you decided to run away with our money."

Fair enough. "Alright. Let's get to the meeting point before the White Tree comes back."

"What about my money?" Melkier asked again.

I was getting a little annoyed but the guy had just saved me and I decided to let him live for now. I'm not confirming nor denying that the thirty people he had with him had affected my decision.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'll definitely make it up to you. If I don't... Well, then there will be fifty of you and one of me." I exaggerated and winked at him.

We all started to walk but Bear and Melkier didn't stop chatting for a single second.

I eventually got tired of their voices — they refused to get in a party and use mind chat to talk — and after exchanging phone numbers with Daggers, Bear and Melkier, I put my character on auto-follow and logged off.

Like I had just told Melkier, he would be able to kill me at any time even with me online, so I wasn't overly worried about dying while offline. On the contrary, this show of 'trust' could help my relations with him and the other zombies.

Show of trust or not, I didn't even think about re-equipping my legendary items before leaving.

* * *

Back in the real world, I took a shower, ate something, smoked a cigarette, checked the news, and made sure my backup plan was still up.

After that I opened some Valia forums and began to learn everything I could about the skills in the game.

As it turned out, Garcia had probably paid someone to cast the high-tier Mass Invisibility spell on his group. At this stage of the game, paying for it would have been prohibitively expensive. If the White Tree clan could afford to do that, the Slums must have been way more lucrative than I had imagined.

The spell was made to allow multiple people to become invisible, so it explained how so many of them had appeared out of nowhere. Being a high-tier spell, it was powerful, so even my relatively high perception attribute, which could pierce through Daggers invisibility, hadn't been able to detect a thing. If it was really that spell which had been used, it also explained why I hadn't been instantly disintegrated by their mages: while invisible, they couldn't have any active morbs.

Although my immediate question had been answered, I didn't stop there and kept learning as much as I could.

A few hours later, Bear called me and I logged back in.

* * *

We were close to the corridor that was the meeting point. 'Close', not 'inside', being the key factor: it seemed the zombies had seen through my defensive plans and weren't keen on making things easier for me in case they needed to attack.

"Your people took their time," I told Melkier as I looked at the fifty zombies I had to pay. "Weren't you supposed to be nearby?"

"Some of my people have jobs or school to attend to," he explained. "Not everyone is as useless as you and can travel to Valia at any time of the day."

That was true, but I didn't have to like having truths thrown in my face. "You're a real ray of sunshine, aren't you?"

"Your mother sees stars with me every night and the sun is-" Melkier stopped talking mid-sentence and looked at Bear in a furtive way. Then, he faked a cough. "So, are we getting paid or what?"

Bear talked to him in my stead, huh? Good to know the big guy has my back. No, wait. No one has my back, and absolutely not 'the big guy.' I'm just grateful.

I focused on the business at hand. "Why did you insist that I had to pay everyone separately? I could have just given you the money."

Melkier smiled slightly. "That would work if all members of my clan trusted each other with our money. We don't. It's way too common for debts to never be payed between us."

That made me smile. "Don't you feel ashamed of it?"

He shrugged. "Don't tell me you never permanently 'forgot' to pay back the money a friend lent you. That's the way of life, dude."

Money had never been a problem for me, but that had happened more than once in my old gang, nevertheless. "Alright. Is this all of you?"

"All members of the Zombies 4 Life clan, yes."

I cringed at their clan name, but whatever. As I took a small bag of money from my enchanted purse, silence suddenly fell over all the zombies and they looked at me in earnest.

"Form a line, people. And don't even think about killing me; if the killing starts, do you really think your pals will just watch as you keep their money?"

They probably would, but it never hurts to sow dissent.

Great, now I'm thinking like mother.

Thinking of her made me remember her burnt corpse, which in turn made me remember the blonde woman dying in V-Soft. I shook my head and took four gold coins from inside the little bag.

They took mere seconds to form a line and I started parting with my money. To prevent people from joining the line twice, each time I paid someone I ordered him to go to the side and not come back until the payment was over. Everything went smoothly and I found myself two hundred gold coins poorer.

That wasn't a lot of money for me, who had a Profession which paid a hundred gold coins per month. However, I had learned that the average level twenty player, which was the average level of the zombies — I had asked — would make between fifty silver to a gold coin per day if they hunted hard all day long.

Granted, these zombies had died in the battle and it made them lose some attribute points, but they knew the chance of survival was slim when they agreed to go to the Slums. They weren't even wearing their best equipment to the occasion.

To hire a NPC in the game, the base price was one silver coin per level each day, with expenses like lodging and food included at the payment, and would change depending on multiple factors, from the NPC reliability to his personality.

At the time of the fight in the Slums, the zombies had been around level fifteen. And they had each received four gold coins just for a single fight. It was a great deal for them, especially in the Underworld, where players got less money than on the Surface, and everything was more expensive.

"So," I said while they were commemorating being 'rich,' "some of you helped me while I was in dire straits a few hours ago. To compensate you for that, I will give you all a unique opportunity."

"Opportunity?" Melkier asked with suspicion.

"Yeah!" I said excited. "Have you ever wanted to fight a war? Not a skirmish like the one in the Slums, but a real, large scale, exciting war?" From my interactions with them I could tell they were a bunch of battle hungry weirdos just like Bear, and I played that card.

"Why do you ask?" Melkier's voice was now even more suspicious, but also showed a hint of interest. It seemed that I had used the right bait.

"I'm the General of the Resistance's Army and if you follow me for the next two months, I'll give you a large-scale battle the likes of which you've never seen!"

"Two months? That's an awful lot, mate!" Someone said.

"I can't just follow a dude for two months, I have more interesting stuff to do," said another one.

They weren't thrilled. "Of course," I raised my voice, "I wouldn't expect you to do it for free!" That got their attention. "I will give each of you one gold coin per month just for the trouble. And when we do anything together, we'll split the loot in a fair way: whoever does more gets more!"

"We are fifty in total," Melkier said. "No amount of loot will be enough for us when split in so many ways."

I caressed my chin, pretending to think. "You're right. How about this: I'll pay five gold coins monthly to ten people who come with me. To the other ones I'll pay one gold coin and they just need to promise me they will come when the time for war comes. I guarantee that both the ten people who come with me and the other forty who come later will loot to their hearts content in the war."

This was a much better setup for me. Not only would I get their cooperation almost freely later, if the ten who were with me decided to betray me, I would still have a chance at escaping.

The reason I hadn't said it from the beginning was to make it look as if I was giving in to their demands in a negotiation. Not only that, I was even paying forty people for doing nothing, only out of goodwill. How could they be defensive towards me?

Obviously, it was entirely possible that they would simply take the money and not come when the war started — and I would make sure it started after I was done with Ter'nodril, unless I was dead or my plans for the prison failed —, but by then I would have gotten Manhart fifty players for his Army. If they didn't show up, it would be his problem, not mine.

"What the hell is the Resistance's Army?"

"The Resistance is a group of people led by a high-level lich who wants to stop slavery in the Underworld."

"Hey, that's cool!" One of the zombies said.

They talked among themselves and decided that while forty of them magnanimously accepted to be paid for doing nothing, the ten who would come with me wanted more than five gold per month.

Negotiations ensued and we agreed on five gold and at least twenty gold coins in loot per month. If they didn't get that much loot at any given month, they would start receiving ten gold coins from the next month onwards.

Negotiator trait increased to 2 (+1)

Successfully negotiating with Manhart, Bear, Daggers, and fifty other people, proves that you are skilled in the art of negotiation.

» +2 charisma in negotiations

Seeing that message, I thought about how good boosting charisma in a character could be. If I got a charismatic fella in my party and he used the Strategist trait to boost his charisma attribute, negotiations with NPCs would be a piece of cake!

It's a shame the last one I got, Eternal, had been lying through his teeth every second we stayed together, using his charisma based skills to manipulate me.

I sent them the invites and told them that being part of the Resistance's Army also had a hidden advantage: if they ever found Manhart, the leader of the Resistance, they could get exclusive Resistance-members-only quests from him.

"The recruitment window says you can lie to us," Melkier said. I remembered the message in my Profession window and understood why Daggers had taken her time before accepting my invitation.

"I swear by Logan that I did not lie to you regarding your association with the Resistance's Army," I said.

Divine Vow Made

You have made a vow in the name of Logan, the God of Blood.

If you break it, anyone can call Logan's judgment upon you.

"What?" Melkier and the others were confused. They obviously hadn't witnessed a Divine Vow before.

"Just check it out in the information boards back in our world and you'll understand."

Some of the main things I had researched about Valia after my talk with Manhart were Divine Vows and truthseers oaths. While their mechanics were different — truthseers couldn't lie if they swore something was true, while Divine Vows required someone to call you on your bluff — both were similar in what was considered the 'truth.'

If you didn't directly lie, you could hide things and say half-truths all day long. I had no option but to use a Divine Vow to try to show my sincerity. How well the Zombies 4 Life clan would accept my words depended on how much they wanted the extra money I was willing to give them.

Of course, I was also very interested in seeing what would happen if one of them wrongly called Logan's judgement upon me.

They kept silent for a long time and I guessed they were discussing the offer in their mind chat.

<Wait a second,> I mentally said to Bear and Daggers, <how are they all in the same party? Aren't parties limited to five people?>

<What are you talking about, ugly-face? They aren't in the same party.>

<Then how are they all using mind chat?> I asked.

<Duh,> he said. <If you aren't the leader of a party, you can join two different parties at once and link the mind chats of both parties together. With enough links, it's possible create a chat as big as you'd want. Just go study a little before coming here with your noobness.>

That was a weird system. I wondered why V-Soft would do things that way. Maybe they were thinking about how the NPCs in Valia would go about in wars? It certainly resembled a chain of command structure.

No matter how much I searched about Valia in the internet, there was still a lot to learn. That reminded me:

<Hey, Bear. Can you ask your Destiny Spirit about how he's limited in rewarding you? Or if it would be possible for him to give you a quest or tell you how to get a title?>

<Why?> He asked.

<Because I want to know.>

<No shit. But why do you want to know?>

<I think my Destiny Spirit might have lied to me.> I said.

<They can't lie, noob.>

<Well, mine can, I'm that special. Why, jealous?>

We traded a few more pleasantries before he accepted relaying questions from me to his Destiny Spirit. It confirmed everything Zenhit had told me.

"Okay," Melkier said a good twenty minutes later. "We accept."

They made a new line and I paid them again, concluding the recruitment process. Ninety gold changed hands and I found myself with only ten gold and a few silver coins in the purse.

I hired the ten who were coming with me as Lieutenants and the other forty as Privates. The rank gap was there because I already had plans of promoting some of the Privates to Sergeants when the time came.

The ten who would come with me asked that Melkier, who was also one of them, be promoted to Captain. I accepted, but didn't give him any more of my remaining ten gold coins.

Just like that, in less than half an hour. Easy come, easy go, as they say.

<Okay, Captain, you're with us.> I invited him to my party. He would be our link to the others. His face when he found out about the Strategist trait was hilarious.

We all decided to log out for lunch and come back in one hour. I told them to think about the ambush we suffered and the mistakes we had made so we could discuss it when we came back.

From my experience with Valia and the Underworld, I was a hundred and ten percent sure that I would end up having to fight Robert, who Manhart had told me not to fight because he was too powerful. I needed everyone to be at the top of their game for that, hence the orders about thinking on what they did wrong.

* * *

<I should not have charged away from you, sir,> Daggers began the debriefing as the thirteen of us walked to Margs Market.

<You are right, you shouldn't have done that,> I said. <First, you should have watched their attack patterns to see what they were planning. When it was obvious that I was the main target, you should have stayed close to me to create an opening for escaping if you got the chance, or to defend me in close quarters if needed.>

<And I shouldn't have walked away before checking if you were following,> Bear said in a rare episode of humbleness.

<Nah,> I replied. <That was no one's fault. We should have a system for these kind of situations, like only move when I'm touching you.>

<And we were perfect saviors, obviously,> Melkier said.

<Serious time, pal,> Bear admonished his friend.

<What, we save you and you're going to complain about how we did it?>

The other nine zombies voiced their agreements inside my head. I had asked Melkier to link our chats together so we could all improve our tactics.

<We aren't complaining, shithead,> I said. <We are finding things we could do better so the next time we are more prepared. The less left to chance, the more of us will survive.>

<You want something better than ten enemies dead and all of us alive?> He had an incredulous expression on his face. Well, kinda. I have no idea how I could tell his facial expression, him being skinless and all, but I guessed it was something like how things worked with Manhart.

<Think about it,> I said, <The only reason you succeeded at all was because the enemies also made mistakes.

<Mistake one: they focused so much on surprising us that they didn't think someone else would surprise them. A single sentry looking at their backs and you would have met resistance.

<Mistake two: some of them didn't know what to do when they were counter-ambushed and stopped attacking me for a moment. Those few seconds were the difference between life and death for me; I had less than two hundred HP left and no way to defend myself, and you guys took your time in coming to me.

<If they had done either of these two things differently, I would be dead and you would have lost a few men even if they ended up retreating. They weren't as weak as you think, they came completely prepared to suppress us. They even had light spells prepared to counter Dagger's invisibility.>

<What would you have done if you were the zombies, sir?> Daggers asked before Melkier could answer.

<Arrow formation all the way to the center and go from there. I'm a strong mage and if I had ten seconds to heal myself, I could then focus on killing the enemies and healing our allies. If they tried to attack us to the very end, they would lose, because then the zombies would get into a Rage at the very least. If they tried to run, we would be able to pursue.>

<That's all a bunch of 'ifs.'> Melkier insisted.

<Yeah, whatever.> I wasn't about to try to show an idiot how much of an idiot he was. I was realizing that Melkier was a guy who only learned by practice. <The biggest mistake was mine though. I'm usually the leader of the party so you expect me to, well, lead. I didn't do it in time and that made you, Daggers, attack alone. Bear stayed to protect me but when I told him to move, the enemy isolated us because we weren't in a party to properly synchronize our movements. If we had been in a party, we would have at least stood a chance to not suck that much.>

<Ha! See that wo- Daggers?> Bear said, almost slipping and calling Daggers 'woman.' <Ugly-face recognizes how awesome I am!>

<He just indirectly called you a meat-shield.> Daggers counter-argued.

This started an argument, but it was a lot less heated than before. It seemed that calling Daggers 'woman' really pissed her off for some reason, but as long as Bear played nice, she would be willing to do so too.

Melkier unlinked our party chat from the other zombies' and didn't say much. They were clearly upset.

The sooner I began to train them, the better.

6. Gonna Fly Now

<Now!> I gave the order.

A few moments later, the ten zombies attacked two unsuspecting players that were unfortunately walking by us at that moment. Without any time to even defend themselves, they were easily cut to bits.

<So, about two seconds' delay between the order and the attack,> I concluded.

We were testing and getting used to the party system's command structure. Melkier was responsible for passing my orders to the zombies.

<What if I die?> He asked, only now realizing that he was the sole link between chats and that we would have issues if he died.

I had noticed this problem as soon as the chain-like system became known to me but I had decided to let them 'find out' by themselves so I could praise them like good puppies and they could associate their pride for being smart to my praises.

<Good question, especially because we can't add people to a party while in battle, so I couldn't just replace you. This makes you extra important. I guess if you died, we would just go back to the good old yelling. We would lose the secrecy of commands, but that's life.> I felt stupid just for saying that but I needed someone else to come up with the obvious solution.

<Why not create codes for certain movement patterns and orders, sir?> Daggers said. <That way, the enemy wouldn't be able to tell what the orders are, even when you yell them.>

<Maybe.> I said. <But there's probably a better solution using magic or Valia's own systems. No point in creating something overly complicated only for it to become obsolete in a few weeks when we discover the right way to do things.>

<We do not need to create anything, sir,> she insisted. <I can teach military hand gestures for you all.>

<No,> I said promptly.

<Why not, sir?>

<I have my reasons.> I sighed. <Please, trust me on this one.>

To be honest, I hadn't thought about using codes and I liked the way Daggers thought out of the box, but if I was going to use a secret hand signal language, I didn't want the Zombies 4 Life clan members to know it.

<Why not use redundancy?> Bear came with the suggestion I was expecting. <We could just add someone to our party who's also at one of the other parties, and if Melkier dies, this person links the chats again,> Bear said.

<That's... Brilliant!> I acted excited. <Four of the people in all parties could be in two parties at the same time.> Party leaders weren't allowed to be in more than one party, so they were excluded. <It will be a logistics hell to create a structure like that but it would be perfect. Wait, no. We can't do that.>

<What?! Why?> Bear asked.

<The redundancy tactics would only work on small to medium groups,> I explained. <I mean, imagine linking thousands of people together, it would be incredibly hard for it to be done correctly. And if people die and the chats must be linked again, I doubt there wouldn't be a few parties left out. Not to mention there'd be so many people in the huge chat that I doubt orders could even be relayed. What's the point of linking chats now if we won't be able to do it in the future?> This time I added some of my thought process to it before again faking idiocy.

<You are looking at this the wrong way, sir,> Daggers said. <We should crave to be effective using any number of methods we can. That way, no matter the situation, we will be proficient in it.>

For a few seconds, I pretended to think about what she said. <You! Are! Right!> I said, sounding even more excited than before. <Great brainstorming, people. Any volunteers to do the logistics of placing everyone in two different parties in a smart way?>

No one was interested and I had to log out and use drawings to figure out the way the parties should intersect with each other as optimally as possible.

* * *

We kept killing random players on the way and I eventually grew confident that we could take someone stronger than us just by using the right tactics.

Now, zombies and tactics were two words that should never, ever, be used together, but before our journey came to an end, they could even attack without trying to eat the enemy one time out of five.

I'm that awesome at training beasts.

Well, Daggers and Bear helped more than I believed they would, but I was the leader, which meant the credit was all mine. We were civilized, after all. If minions started to get credit for all the things they did right, instead of being forgotten by history while their masters bathed in glory, the world would end in chaos.

The successful training wasn't even the most noteworthy thing in the trip. A week had gone by since the last level up of two of my core traits, so they leveled up again. Plus, I got a new trait.

Adept Controller increased to 23 (+1)

» Max distance: 230 meters

» Path correction: 336 degrees

Adept Energizer increased to 15 (+1)

» Damage for disruption: 11

» Mana to damage conversion on disruption: 114%

Trait received: Commander

Giving orders and being obeyed is proof of your commanding skills.

You can now mentally contact people outside of your party.

» Max people: 1

» Restriction: The target must be hierarchically under you

» Swap time: 5 minutes 30 seconds

When I tested, the new trait had worked with all my twelve subordinates. The swap time was the period in which I had to cease using the trait with the last person before being allowed to contact another.

Even though the trait was limited in its usages, it was still a great trait to have and I considered replacing one of my current core traits with it. In the end, I decided against it though; I didn't want to stop leveling either of my current core traits for now.

Wondering why there were some traits that looked so much like skills — this one gave me an active ability and everything — I checked about it with Zenhit.

<Traits are like titles,> the Destiny Spirit's child voice said in my mind, <in that they are given by the gods when you act in a certain way. Traits have fewer requirements than titles to unlock, but can be even more powerful when they level up enough. But it's very hard to do so.>

<What about evolving titles?> I asked, remembering the Warmonger title, which had turned into Warlord.

<That's a rarity which happens when there is more than one way to get a title and you manage to do both. A title having more than one way to unlock it is a rarity in its own account, and when it happens, both are exceedingly difficult to achieve. However, if you evolve a title, it's buffs become twice as good, and its debuffs are halved.>

Wondering about the 'exceedingly difficult' part, I realized that making two countries start a war, or becoming the Resistance's General, weren't things just anyone could do. And the odds of the same person doing both were even smaller; a General would usually be fighting in existing wars, not starting them. The only plausible way was for someone to do things in the order I did them.

<Right,> I said. <But how is it any different from skills?>

<Weren't you listening?> Zenhit asked annoyed. <Traits and titles are bestowed by the gods under prerequisites which are set in stone. Skills can be learned by anyone who finds a willing teacher or the right skill book. Traits are divine, while skills can be divine, but are usually mundane.>

That reminded me of the divine magic used by the Ruined Mage Kings in the Slums. Divine skills were much stronger than their mundane counterpart. <Do all divine skills have 'divine' in their name, like divine magic?>

<Gods are magic.> His tone made it clear he thought I was stupid for asking that. <What other divine skill could exist? Divine archery? Divine swordsmanship? Divine dishwashing?> He asked with a sarcastic tone even though I thought 'divine archery' sounded somewhat cool.

<I see,> I said. <What about the titles' prerequisites? I got the Archmage title by blowing the prison up, so if I blow up another prison the title would evolve?>

<You got the title by showing an unprecedented feat of magic, not by blowing things up,> he said exasperated.

<So, with another unprecedented feat of magic...>

Zenhit sighed, which was weird since it had no visible respiratory system. <Yes, you can evolve your Archmage title.> His voice and tone made it clear that he didn't expect me to accomplish it any time soon, and by soon he most likely thought never.

<Right. You were surprisingly helpful. I...> I made a pause and mentally counted to five before continuing. <I understand now what I missed by not having you with me in my first month in Valia. Thank you for your help.>

He didn't answer but I was sure the seed had been planted. I needed the zombies to see me as their superior and I needed my relationship with Zenhit to improve. They were tools I would need to use sooner or later.

The trip took us three days total, and I had purposefully slowed our pace so we could train a little more. Only Valia's anti-boredom system allowed the players to travel for so long without getting downright pissed at the long distances.

When we finally saw Margs Market, I steeled myself. It was time to steal from Robert, the Great.

* * *

The stone-walled city was in the center of a big cave chamber, the same chamber where the entrance to the Great Maze was.

We approached it with caution; we had been killing players the whole way. It was possible that some of the people we killed were from Margs Market, and had already revived there.

Even with this possibility, I didn't think we should've done things differently; we needed the training to work as a group, and battling against the players we found along the way was more efficient than taking detours to search for monsters. Also, I had to provide each of the ten new zombies in the group with at least twenty gold coins, and stealing was easier than working for it.

By now, I calculated that after selling everything we'd looted from the victims, then splitting it equally, each of us would get about seventy silver coins. Not great.

"Hold!" A guard at the city gate yelled even though we were only five meters away from him.

Margs Market had a single entrance, about wide enough for two giant lizards to walk side-by-side and tall enough that we could have all passed through it standing upon each other's shoulders.

Further in, it resembled a tunnel more than anything else, with lots of murder-holes in the ceiling from where nasty stuff could be thrown at the people below.

In front of the entrance, no fewer than ten guards in plate armor, all wearing brown cloaks, stood guard. On the walls, I could see five mages, with morbs floating above their heads, and five archers.

"What is it?" I asked in a bad mood. I had researched Margs Market online and I knew there were no tolls or anything of the sort to enter the city; the lack of a queue of people waiting to pay was proof of that. The obnoxious guard, on the other hand, was a common occurrence.

"What business do you have in the city?" His voice wasn't filled with cheer either.

"My business is my own, just as yours is your own," I replied. "I'm not interested in creating difficulties for you, why are you creating difficulties for me?"

<Calm down,> Melkier said. <If he denies us entry, things might get tricky.>

<You're pragmatic when it comes to money, but still too inexperienced in human interactions,> I said. <I can detect a bully just by the way he said 'hold.'> It was true, even though I had been forewarned this time. <The way to deal with bullies is to not allow yourself to be bullied.>

"Lower your voice, stranger," the guard said angrily. "I'm the first line of defense this city has and it's my job to ensure no undesirables enter."

"Really? The way I see it, the three guys behind us are the real first line of defense."

Everyone in my group turned to look. Their perception attribute wasn't as good as mine and they hadn't seen the translucent figures, which marked people using stealth, when we got close to the city. They still couldn't see anyone, obviously, but that didn't stop them from trying.

That seemed the right thing to tell the guard. "Very well. Have a nice stay," he said after a brief staring contest with me.

My online research about Valia had revealed that the average adult fighter in the Underworld had about thirty to forty points to his main attributes — strength for standard fighters, dexterity for agile fighters and archers, intelligence for mages, and so on — and less than that to other attributes. With thirty-eight points to perception, I was clearly not average and the guard probably didn't want to chance a fight with me. Bullies only picked on people when they believed they could get away with it.

Stealth in Valia worked in a complex way. The stealth skill level was the most important thing, followed by dexterity, agility, and even willpower. For others to see through the invisibility, perception was the most important attribute, followed by willpower to a smaller extent. No one knew the exact math though, and some even said that intelligence might also be a factor for piercing the stealth of others.

<Watch out for the murder-holes,> I said as we approached the tunnel. The guard probably wasn't strong enough to do anything to us while we were outside, but once we got in the tunnel, it was a different story altogether.

We passed through quickly enough without being attacked. The simple act of surviving a potentially deadly trap without having to fight for my life, was one of the nicest things which had happened to me since I started playing Valia Online.

Inside the walls, the city revealed itself to us.

Margs Market was a gigantic open market. And when I say gigantic, I mean it: there were no visible structures, only merchant stalls as far as the eye could see. Giant lizards and catrons — basically, giant cats — could be seen coming and going, and so could a myriad of sentient species.

<Where do they sleep?> Bear asked.

<In pocket dimensions,> I answered.

<Pocket dimensions?> His tone was confused.

I put up a scholarly tone. <Do you know why this place is called Margs Market?>

<Do I look like I care, ugly-face?> His tone was bored.

I smiled at that. If it bored him, I wanted to tell the tale even more. And it was an educational history, after all. <Margs is the name of an experiment. The Maloi Atothil Relir Ganna Sor, which means something like 'Study on Creating Multiple Pocket Dimensions in a Limited Space.'>

<What language is that, sir?> Daggers asked.

<This place is owned by a merchant guild who specializes in spatial magic,> I explained. <They also have their own language, based on a mix of elvish and sorinish, to make it harder for outsiders to steal information from them. Fun fact: all words in this language have an odd number of characters.>

<Space magic, sir? I never heard of it.>

<I don't know how to obtain it, but it exists. That's how our enchanted backpacks are created.> I bet that it had something to do with gravity magic, hence my desire to learn it. <There are pocket dimensions of various kinds, from enchanted bags to entire cities, divided into two main branches: mobile and fixed.>

<I guess mobile is like the bags and fixed is when you can't move the dimensions entrance?> Melkier said.

<Yup,> I said. <Pocket dimensions distort the space around them, making it unstable, and can explode if the enchanter lacks power or skill when creating new ones nearby. Creating any kind of pocket dimension next to another fixed dimension is extra hard for some reason.>

Bear gave out a loud yawn but Melkier was showing interest and I didn't stop my explanation. It was a good opportunity to further my objective of setting myself up as intellectually superior to them.

<So,> I continued, <the guild decided to experiment on a few theories to find ways to prevent pocket dimensions from messing with others nearby. The result was a secret technique that all space mages would love to know, and this city was where they used and perfected the technique. It's said that there's a pocket dimension for every square meter in this place.>

And, if Zenhit hadn't lied to me, the guy who led this experiment had probably become an Archmage for the unprecedented feat of magic.

<Amazing,> Melkier said, and Daggers agreed with him.

<But where do people sleep?> Bear asked as if I hadn't said a single word.

I sighed. <The houses, inns, and all structures are inside invisible magical portals,> I toned down the explanation so his tiny mind could understand. <See that guy behind that metal stall with 'Green Hawk Tavern' written on it? He is the doorman to a tavern. If you speak to him he'll let you in.>

<Hey, that's awesome!> He said like a little child and Melkier laughed.

<Let's sell our loot first,> I lead them into the market.

We started walking amidst the chaos that was Margs Market. People yelled, catrons meowed, a magic battle happened somewhere far from us. Guards patrolled everywhere, but it wasn't enough to cover the whole place.

What I found most interesting were the purple and silver portals appearing everywhere, and people using them to reach the pocket dimensions which lay beyond. It was certainly different from how enchanted bags worked.

Things progressed smoothly. The huge competition in here made buying prices lower and selling prices higher for the customers, and each one of us ended up one gold and twelve silver coins richer after selling everything we had stolen from the other players.

After that, I decided we should take a distant look at the place we would be robbing.

We ran into a con artist who thought he could mess with us. A single punch from one of the zombies discouraged the artist from trying to pickpocket us, and we got to a common fruit stall without further issues.

<It's there,> I nodded to the entrance when we were some twenty meters away. <About a meter to the right of that stall.>

<How do we enter?> Melkier asked.

<No idea,> I said sincerely. <I guess we'll have to watch the place and wait for this Great Guy Robert to come out. Meanwhile, we'll ask around for ways to break into people's homes.>

<I'll look for it in the public forums before bed,> Bear announced. I didn't tell him I had already tried and failed, and only wished them good luck instead. Why suppress his proactivity?

We looked for a tavern close to the entrance of Robert's house and decided on a watch schedule. The guy at the tavern's entrance, a vampire, asked for one silver coin to open the entrance and I paid for the group.

The vampire did nothing that I could detect, not even use morbs, but a purple and silver oval-shaped portal appeared right in front of us. It wasn't that wide and we had to form a line to get inside. The zombies, including Bear, went ahead of me.

<Testing,> I said after Bear and Melkier went through.

The party hadn't disbanded even though they were theoretically very far away from me, in an entirely different dimension. However, even though I could see Bear's HP bar lose some points, as I had told him to do, I wasn't receiving any reply from him. No chat between dimensions.

Daggers and I waited until Bear came back and said everything was okay before following. We should have done it with the first guy to go through, and only then send the rest of the zombies, but I only thought about it after almost all of them were already inside.

My mind wasn't working correctly; we should have also walked separately when entering the city. Each person should have traversed the tunnel alone and only then should the next person follow. That way, even if something happened, we would only lose a single person and the others could have fought whatever came their way.

Why? Why am I so slow these days? I asked myself.

The answer came with the image of people getting shot in the head without warning. The blood sloshing out. The mercenaries firing more bullets into the corpses on the ground.

So many people dead. Why did they have to force me to do it? Why did they have to be mind rapists? Why couldn't they just use this technological marvel to give people an escape from the messed-up world we lived in and earn money the right way?

The images kept coming like a damn hurricane. I felt tears in my eyes and I knew my character was crying blood.

Some people felt nothing when they killed people although psychiatrists said it changed them whether they noticed it or not.

Although I had felt something, it had been so minor and easily suppressed, that I thought I was one of those who felt nothing.

But I had been wrong. I had just been in denial.

It didn't matter if it had been completely justified, and I didn't think for one second that I should have done things different. Those assholes deserved to die. I just didn't have the mental fortitude I thought I had.

They were still humans, real humans, in the real world, and I had killed them.

After finding out I hadn't killed my parents, the first thing I did was kill other people.

In the end, that was who I was:

A murderer.

Medical warning!

Your real body...

The message flashed in red in front of me and before I could read the rest I was ejected from Valia.

Things were rotating around me and I felt the bile in my throat. I ran to the bathroom with the VirBridge still on my head and vomited hard.

"Incoming call. Caller ID: Daggers," the robotic voice in the VirBridge said after a few moments.

"Accept," I said when I was sure I wasn't going to vomit more. "Hello?" My voice had suffering all over it and I steeled myself before repeating, "hello?"

"Jack?" Daggers said with a hint of concern in her voice. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Kinda. I'm not feeling well and the VirBridge force-logged me out."

"Oh." She sounded quite relieved.

We didn't speak for some time. We didn't speak for some time. Meanwhile, I washed my the bile out of mouth and went to the kitchen to drink something.

"After the V-Soft scandal," Daggers said suddenly, way less rigid than usual, "I feared this whole Immersive Reality thing could have other hidden dangers. I still do."

"Why? Don't you trust our government?" I asked sarcastically. "They said it's safe and there's no way they would lie to us, right?"

She sighed and more silence followed. However, while the first silence was kind of comfortable and natural, this was awkward.

Damn. It's happening again. People want me to comfort them.

Why couldn't she say 'give me money so I can buy a drink and forget my troubles'? Why did people expect me to say actual words to make them feel better?

If this had happened five minutes ago, I would just have ignored her expectations. But I was feeling so fucking alone.

My parents were dead and my family probably wanted me dead too after I had released the political kraken on the world. I had killed people and knew how easy it was to die.

We could die at any moment, alone, with no one who cared about us to hold our hand. In pain, in terror, unwilling to go.

I had no friends to talk to about how I felt; I made it clear to everyone that got close to me, that my feelings were my own and my alcohol bottle was enough to help me suppress them.

Because that's how I dealt with feelings: I locked them up and never visited them again.

'Feelings,' mother had taught me. 'You can't show them or your enemies will use them against you. Unless, of course, you want your enemy to misuse a perceived weakness.'

'So I should just not feel?' The seven-year-old me had asked.

That had been one of the few times mother had looked at me with a strange look. I had never realized it until now; she had been looking at me with pity.

My mother. Feeling pity. Hell, was she even capable of that?

'How wonderful would that be,' had been her answer.

Until now, I had just internalized that the right thing to do was repress any feelings. They were weaknesses that my enemies would exploit. It had been one of the few teachings from my parents that I had kept on practicing after they died.

But now, it had come back. The moment I realized I was a murderer. The moment I realized I was alone.

That's when Daggers tried to get a step closer to me. That's when I also realized mother had felt something other than contempt for me; she had felt pity.

Pity can't exist without sympathy.

Mother had felt sympathy for me.

And so, I cried. Like a little child, I cried. I didn't try to hide my feelings by doing it silently or hanging up the call.

I knew Daggers was hearing me and I kept going for a very long time.

That was my answer to her; I can't cheer you up, girl, because I'm a broken thing myself.

Eventually, I calmed down. Daggers was still with me, her silent presence over the phone an unexpected type of comfort, and that was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever done for me. I mean, Richard had tried, but I had always shunned him because he looked at me with pity and I didn't need his pity.

Not Daggers though. For some reason, I couldn't see that decisive in-game killer being anything other than... Supportive. She could be feeling sympathy for me, yes, and I bet she would help me if I asked for it. But she just expected me to deal with it in some way myself, instead of pitying me and intruding.

Suddenly, I realized that through everything we had gone through, she never once said she felt sorry for me. Even when Eternal had been faking worry for me after I lost my legs to an explosion in the game, Daggers had just told Eternal to shut his mouth or it might attract more gabats.

When I messed up, she told me. When I did good, she stood by me.

She looked at me as an equal, as a human being. She didn't put herself either above or under me in value; she did place herself in a subordinate position but as a military woman, she probably viewed it as an unsaid agreement for the good of all. If everyone commanded, nothing would be done because there would be no one to obey. If everyone tried to act without leadership, anarchy would ensue and whatever was accomplished wouldn't be useful.

No. She knew I would suck at being commanded and had decided our positions using her military background — her dad being in the military — and experience. She knew that by commanding from the rear I would be more useful than standing in her way while she tried to kill things.

She had concluded I had inferior combat capabilities and pushed me to be a leader.

Although she had placed herself beneath me hierarchically, she saw us as two equally valuable parts of the same machine; each had a specific job, but we couldn't execute our functions properly if we didn't have each other. And I damn sure couldn't do her job as well as her. Maybe it hadn't been true initially, but by now I was certain that I could lead our merry group better than her.

"Daggers," I said, breaking the now comfortable silence. "My real name is Jack, too. What's yours?"

"Alice." Her reply was faster than I expected, but this was something common when it came to Daggers. Her ability to adapt to the unexpected was amazing.

"Alice," I tested the name in my tongue. It was so different from the way I thought about Daggers. It was... Human. "Thank you, Alice."

"You're welcome," she said, now using a softer tone.

I took a deep breath. "Don't worry about DIR. I can't tell you how, but I know for sure they can't use the mind reading capabilities of the Immersive Technology for evil anymore. And their hardware is somewhat safe."

"Even if I believe you, and even if that is true for now, it doesn't mean it will always be so."

Hearing her using contractions was weird. Outside the game, Alice was obviously behaving like herself, instead of acting as Daggers.

"That can happen," I agreed, "but I also know that it's as unlikely to happen as it can possibly be. I don't think we'll be alive to see it, and by then, countermeasures will probably have been invented."

"Hmm." That was her whole answer.

"I can't ask you to trust me since I'm all but a stranger you met online. But I do believe completely in what I'm saying."

"Okay, I believe you." And after a sigh, her tone changed. "Are you coming back, sir?"

I smiled. "In about fifteen minutes. Since I'm already out here, I'll check a few things before logging back in. If you can, move my character to the tavern."

"Your character has already left, sir."

"Oh. Then do whatever you want, just stay close so you can come when I'm logging in. I don't want to play Valia alone even for a second if I can help it; the White Tree ambush shows us how my enemies will hold a grudge, and they are just waiting for the right opportunity to attack."

"Not your enemies, sir. Ours."

I smiled even more. "Damn right you are, Alice. Ours."

Unlike how she did with Eternal when he called her Samantha, she didn't tell me to keep calling her Daggers. I still found it somewhat weird to call her by her first name though, and I definitely wouldn't do it where Bear could hear.

"Talk to you later, then, sir," she said, dismissing herself and hanging up.

A long forgotten, but pleasant feeling welled up inside me and I realized I had just made a friend.

The whole problem was that the feeling was similar to how I felt about the hooker that I had thought was my aunt.

All the good vibes died right there and I called the private detective.

"Hello," the man answered the phone.

"Hey, Jenkins. It's Jack McHolen. Have you found the woman yet?"

7. Tavern Time

"No," he said quickly and hung up.

His response wasn't unexpected. When I had hired Jenkins to find the hooker, he had said that 'because your grandfather was probably involved, we can't keep in touch.' That meant I shouldn't call asking for updates, as it could get him killed if I his phone rang at the wrong time.

This had been the first time I called and he made it clear that when I did that, he would get rid of that number and I would have no way whatsoever of contacting him until he was done with the investigation.

Of course, I could just stop the flow of cash to his account and he would come to me, but that would have negative consequences, and I probably shouldn't use this card lightly.

Still, it had already been one week and he was supposed to be one of the best that money could buy. How could he have nothing? Was he working for grandfather?

I would give him some extra time. If he didn't appear, I would cut his money.

And that was only the thing that was bothering me the most. The second was the lack of coverage on the investigation of what I did to V-Soft.

The political scenery was just as expected: the implicated politicians, judges, cops, governors and officials were trying to save their asses by distorting laws while the populace was at the brink of civil war.

New Orleans, where I was currently hiding, for one, had declared martial law and almost no one was walking the streets if they didn't have to. Online business was thriving while local commerce was dying a painful death. And this only fed the fire.

But even though the people in New Texas had done as expected and killed most of the implicated politicians they could get their hands on, and the chaos everywhere else was progressing in a predictable manner, there had been no word whatsoever about the investigations on the murderers in V-Soft.

Why? What was going on? If the media had been feeding me fake news I could at least infer what they were trying to divert my attention from. But if there was no word at all, then all I could infer was that very powerful people were interested in keeping the investigation a secret. It could be anyone and the reasons for it could be anything.

After confirming that there was no new information circulating about it, I ordered some food, then called Daggers and logged back in.

* * *

My character was standing at the same place as before, just like Daggers. The first thing I did was invite her to a new party.

<Welcome back, sir,> she said.

<Thanks.> I paid the vampire a new silver coin and he reopened the portal. <Let's go.>

The Black Lotus Tavern was as luxurious as the rotten wooden sign at the entrance stall indicated; rich enough to afford wood, but not rich enough for the wood to be fresh.

Some twenty or thirty well-maintained metal tables with expensive looking tabletops, accompanied by cushioned metal chairs. Only a third or so of the tables had customers, and only two or three people on each table. The metal bar top had been polished until it was very close to a mirror and the floor was made of solid stone.

The scary thing was the lack of walls in the place; it felt as if we were all surrounded by an ever moving thick white fog. It wasn't that the tavern's owner didn't care enough about his customers' comfort to place walls. The fact was that walls in pocket dimensions were dangerous.

Thing is, no matter how stable the pocket dimensions in Margs Market were, no one wanted to be inside one without being able to see for themselves that it was safe. Small pockets of black lightning, for instance, signalized instability and anyone inside would want to get out as quick as possible.

Margs Market was three hundred years old. Not nearly enough for the immortal undead of the Underworld to be perfectly confident in its stability.

Beside the pretty female vampire barkeep behind the stall, three handsome male vampires wearing butler's uniforms walked around serving the customers.

<Where's everyone?> I asked Daggers.

<I do not know, sir.>

"Hey," I said to the closest butler. "I was supposed to meet some zombies in here. Any idea where they are?"

He bowed to me. "My good sir, your friends were... Unfit for this place. They have been invited to leave after they refused to act in a proper manner."

"Huh?"

The vampire sighed. "They tried to eat another customer."

First I stood there, looking dumbfounded at the vampire. Then, I laughed hard.

"They what?"

"One of the customers was bragging about his strength and one of the zombies bet against him that he could win in an arm wrestling contest. The zombie won and bit the muscled arm of the competitor as the reward. Something about liking hard meat, for which he was mocked by the other zombies."

I kept laughing for a while before finally calming down.

"Sorry," I said to the annoyed butler. "It's just... Anyway, any idea where they went?"

"No." He was annoyed at me, and so were all the customers around.

"Alright. Thanks for the tale. How do I leave this place?"

"That would be one silver coin."

I paid the man and walked out when the portal reappeared.

Finding the zombie currently responsible for watching over the entrance of Robert's house wasn't difficult, since zombies were quite rare in these parts. The guy wore light armor and was looking sleepy.

"Hey there," I touched his shoulder from behind.

He startled so hard he almost jumped. Turning quickly and seeing it was me made him calm down.

"Man! Not cool!" His voice was quite childish.

I didn't apologize; he was supposed to be on watch and being caught like that was shameful, to say the least.

"Do you know where everyone went?"

"Yeah, the Bountiful Treasure Tavern right there," he pointed at a metal post sign with a dwarf leaning on it. A dwarf!

Sorins, the evil cousins of the dwarves, were plentiful in the Underworld. Shorter, with long noses and thinner build, the sorins seldom grew a beard, and their hair was usually black or white. Seeing an actual red-haired dwarf, with a beard woven in an intricate manner and held by multiple golden rings was awesome.

The dwarf had two swords at his waist and wore "medium" armor, if that's a thing; it was a mix of leather and metal, including his helmet.

"Ho, how much to enter your tavern?" I asked as Daggers and I approached.

He sized me up and down. "We ain't taking no snowflakes like ya."

I smiled. The fangs of my vampire disguise probably showed up in a menacing way, because he straightened up and touched the hilt of his weapons.

"Daggers, I believe this mountain rat just called you, a Blackguard of the City of Darkness, a snowflake."

She took a few steps ahead and positioned herself in front of me. I never saw or heard her draw her weapons, but there were suddenly two blades jutting out from inside her cloak.

"I heard," I said, "that the two-weapons style of the red-bearded dwarves is one of the greatest sword styles in Valia." I had never heard anything like that. "I wonder if you'd be willing to teach a lowly snowflake dagger-user like this Blackguard a few things in a spar." My smile widened.

The dwarves' eyes were now small slits. He was wondering if he should try to take us or not. In the end, he seemed to remember he was just a doorman and there was no point in risking his life to prevent us entry to a tavern.

Even so, he spat on the ground right in front of Daggers. "One silver," he said.

I paid him and the portal opened. Daggers went in first to check if everything was okay and we entered the tavern when she returned.

Just like the previous establishment I had visited, there were no walls or ceiling in the Bountiful Treasure Tavern, but all similarities ended there. The floor here was made of dirty stone and there was only a single long table in the middle of the equally long room. The table was massive, made of a dark brown metal with white etchings of dwarves battling monsters on the top. I couldn't see any maids, waiters or anything, only customers — and there were a lot of those.

Around two hundred people were sitting on metal benches around the table. The place had a life of its own and people were talking loudly to make themselves heard above the medieval tavern music that came from nowhere. In front of every single person stood a beautiful big cup made of worked silver. About fifty of the people were dwarves.

Everyone seemed to be genuinely happy in the place. It was so different from the rest of the Underworld that it made me feel completely lost.

Just as we got in, one of the dwarves came to us still laughing at something his friends had told him. Although his facial hair was white, he looked tough enough that I wanted to avoid causing him any trouble.

"A snowflake! Tukor must be getting blind to let you in, the old fool!" The aged dwarf in front of me said. There was no hostility in his voice though.

"Did ten or so zombies come in here recently?" I asked.

His smile was beginning to fade. "There are two rules to this place, blood sucker," he said 'blood' in almost a whisper, thus emphasizing the 'sucker' part. "First, pay upfront. Second, no questions asked."

"How much?"

He took one of the nearby empty silver cups and threw it to me. "One silver coin per cup. It will automatically refill until you have drunk your deposit."

<They are here, sir,> Daggers said. I checked her position in my minimap and right away I could see that the zombies were also there.

"Here you go, pal," I gave him a single silver coin. "Don't go spending it all on booze."

"Ha! A funny sucker! Now I have seen it all!" He said before I was too far away to hear.

<Bear, Melkier, report in,> I said after they rejoined the party.

They turned to look at me. "No mind chat in here, ugly-face! It's rude!" Bear said with a weird voice which made me stop in my track and summon all the morbs I could.

He was drunk. Undead couldn't get drunk in Valia. Something was terribly wrong.

<Defensive formation, everyone!> I yelled as I resumed my walk to them as if nothing had happened. <Now!>

"Hey, hey, hey," Melkier said. "No need for that, now. We're all friends in here. Right, guys?" He gestured to both his zombies and the nearby people, two of which were dwarves.

<Mind chat only!> I yelled again, taking my bow from my back. <You're being drugged! Defensive formation right now or I'll leave without you, and you'll lose all your items and money!>

<Ugly-face, don't be like that,> Bear said. <I'm just a little happy, that's all. I can take this much any day.>

<Bear, you idiot, you aren't happy or drunk, you're drugged!> I repeated. <Undead can't get drunk! You think you're happy because of the dwarves and the environment. Shit, I bet the music is also some kind of charming spell.> I took my bow and nocked an arrow. <Daggers, get close to me.> I pointed at Bear's face, almost poking him through the open helmet. <You, idiots, last chance to get in formation before I leave you behind to your own demise!>

I don't know what I said that got through to him, but Bear got up — on his second try — and came to me. The others also came, some of them having to step over the table, and formed a loose circle around me.

That's when I realized how alone I was in the middle and how lacking my party was in ranged damage. I'd tell Daggers to get throwing knives or shurikens later. It would even increase her overall fighting power.

"Jezz, you're no fun!" Melkier said.

I didn't answer him as it could have an adverse effect; I was in the mood to insult all the zombies' ancestors up to the hundredth generation for being so gullible. We walked slowly to the entrance of the place, right by the middle of the long table.

My stomach was twisting as I saw that none of the customers were taking notice of us while all the dwarves were. The music was giving me a headache and I was sure my willpower was protecting me, although it wasn't enough protection for a message to appear telling me I had resisted a mental attack.

So, I was okay for now, but if I didn't leave soon, I would succumb to whatever the effects the music had on people.

"Leaving so soon?" The white-haired dwarf asked me when I got close. "I hope you didn't find our service wanting?" He wasn't threatening in any way whatsoever but I was sure that if I said the wrong word, a bloodbath would occur.

The big issue was that we were inside a pocket dimension. It was highly unlikely that we could kill the dwarf who had the portal key if he decided to hide behind other fighters. It was essentially an almost perfect trap.

"There's nothing wrong with your service. My friends are quite weak to alcohol and require a bed, that's all."

"I thought undead didn't require sleep?" He asked innocently.

"They usually don't, but we Travelers are different. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but could you open the portal for us?"

He didn't answer immediately and the dwarves nearby suddenly became less merry as they openly stared at us.

I took a deep breath. Diplomacy wasn't working, and it had been strength that had made the doorman allow us inside, so it was time for a change of attitude.

"Of course, you might want to run a little experiment instead." My voice was now lazy instead of hasty.

"I don't follow," the dwarf said.

"You seem to be pretty knowledgeable about undead, so you should know how zombies love to eat everything they see. And they can be quite terrifying if they go berserk in a closed space like this. It should be reason enough for you to not want us as customers, but I guess you're a scholar who just wants to find out how long it will take for them to go down. There are about two hundred people in here. Fighting in close quarters against a squad of zombies with high regeneration should be a very enlightening experiment."

His eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't dare."

"Me? No, of course not. We are talking about them. I would most surely stay put instead of using the morbs floating above my head. Hell, I would obviously help you! And so would this Blackguard right beside me. Right, Daggers?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "I love helping others. We drow are known for that."

I smiled at him. "See?"

"That's why we don't allow undead in. You don't understand our hospitality." He sighed and waved his hand to his people. The portal opened and he spat at the ground in front of us before going back to his seat.

My interactions with dwarves had been limited to two of them but I already knew they weren't swallowers.

Not wanting anyone to be cut off from the others, I ordered them to form up as tightly as possible, as we walked through the portal out of the pocket dimension. There was no reason for scouting this time; even if it was a trap, it was also our only escape.

We walked outside and I saw the light. Well, there was no real light except for the morbs floating here and there, as all Underworld denizens ended up buying skill books with darkvision. I had found out they were the only cheap things in these cursed lands.

Anyway, we were back to Margs Market. The red-haired dwarf looked curiously at us but didn't say or do anything. We walked away and my headache disappeared a few seconds later. The zombies also started walking slightly straighter.

<Whoa, ugly-face! You just saved us! That's so sweet of you!> Bear said just before he came and hugged me.

<Step off,> I said, although I was ignored and hugged anyway. <How the hell did you guys all get caught in that?>

<The beer,> Melkier answered. <The first sip lowered our willpower and the music got to us. It was a charm spell. After that, we lost control of our bodies.>

He meant that the game had taken control of their characters. When the character was affected by mind-altering debuffs, it didn't affect the players themselves — no matter how much blackmail material V-Soft might've had, that would destroy the company. Instead, players could try to play the mind-altered role, like acting drunk or sleepy, or obeying someone else's orders, just like the tabletop RPGs of old. However, if they didn't play the part right or weren't interested in it, an AI took control of the character.

There was no point in berating them for falling for it. I was coming to understand them more and more, and for them, this was just a game. Maybe a slightly more serious one than usual, but still a game. They played to have fun and weren't overly concerned about their characters' lives.

Yelling at them in the tavern had been a mistake. If they got too pissed at me, they could simply leave, no matter if they were theoretically my subordinates in the Resistance's Army. Even training them before coming to the city had to be done with caution as not to push them over their boundaries.

<Why did they allow you to live after they had you under their spell?> Daggers asked.

<I've no idea,> Melkier replied. <I don't think they're real dwarves though.>

<No kidding,> I said after Bear had dropped me back on the ground. <My bet is that they eat your emotions or your psychic energy or something like that. >

<It was horrible, ugly-face,> Bear said like a little girl. <If you hadn't come, we might have had to kill ourselves to take back control of our bodies.>

All players could choose to kill their characters at will, to prevent stuff like torture or eternal mind-control from happening. Because of the high penalty though, most only did this if there was absolutely no other choice.

<Let's just stay out of the taverns for now,> I said. <We can camp in the streets and buy food from the street vendors. Every local kid should know which places to visit or not, but pocket dimensions are too dangerous for us outsiders.>

<Speaking of kids, I haven't seen any,> Melkier said.

<Kids are valuable in the Underworld,> I explained. <With few exceptions, they are hidden and protected until they can fend for themselves. I've only seen one kid since I began traveling, and he was a dickass.>

The kid who charged me the toll for entering Ter'nodril was one of the worst people I had met in the Underworld, and that bar was set pretty high!

<Wow!> Bear said with a ridiculous smile in his face. <For you to call someone else a dickass, he must be a real piece of work. I'd like to meet such a divine being.>

<I agree!> Melkier also smiled.

<As incredible as it may be, I also agree with you, Bear.> Dagger's voice was as devoid of emotion as usual and it only made the other two smile wider.

<You're just a bunch of assholes, aren't you?> I said. <Come, let's find somewhere to camp.>

They kept nagging me and I wondered when Ted would come back to take Bear's focus away from me.

* * *

"Are you sure?" I asked the gnome beside me.

Mister Baglus was the only gnome I had seen in the game and his main characteristic was being small. Well, at least he was small in height; his nose was huge, his elven-like ears were oversized, and his huge head couldn't possibly be following the laws of physics. His eyes were large as well and his skin was light brown. His thin body and loose linen clothes made him look like a hybrid of a beggar with a teen who thought he was cool.

"Sí, sí! Puedo abrir cualquier cerradura! Incluso las mágicas!" He said with a thin voice.

A Spanish speaking gnome in the game, which supposedly translated everything to the player's most fluent language, was unexpected, to say the least. Zenhit didn't even understand the question when I asked him, and I guessed that it was a little too subjective. I mean, 'why does he speak Spanish' is the same as asking 'why has your creator created something different from everything else,' which wasn't the easiest question to answer.

Anyway, the gnome existed and he spoke Spanish. He was also the best burglar in Margs Market and had just claimed he could open any lock, even magical ones.

Before seeing him, I didn't even know gnomes existed, as there was no mention of them anywhere on the online forums. Surprisingly though, finding him hadn't been hard.

After some questioning, I had found that a place that was essentially a huge market had thieves' guilds operating in the shadows. It had taken me almost a day but I finally had contacted Mister Baglus.

"Alright. Meet me here tomorrow at the seventh cycle and we'll go to the place I want open." The game automatically translated my local Earth time to the local time of whenever I was in Valia. The seventh circle for them was eight AM for me.

"Vale," he said. That meant okay.

He was expensive. Ten gold coins just to open the lock and leave, as he refused to enter a pocket dimension no matter how well I paid. I wondered if I could get this money from Manhart by claiming it had been professional expenses.

I walked back to the camp, which was a generous way to describe the place where we sat to eat on the street. We had watched Robert's house for two days and he had left once per day, exactly at nine o'clock. He would then come back after about one hour.

Enough time to easily steal his map and be far away when he came back.

At least I hoped so.

8. ...and Action!

There was still no news about the police investigation on V-Soft's murderers when I logged back out of the game, but a political faction in New Texas had 'declared independence.' This had backfired; the Texans could see from miles away that those surviving politicians were just trying to use the opportunity to gain even more power. This led to a civil war in the state, with tanks roaming the streets in broad daylight.

Thank goodness I hadn't gone there to hide.

A lot of people were dying everywhere in the country, especially where martial law had been declared, which was almost everywhere. I had the impression that the Army considered civilians enemies, and a lot of civilians considered the Army enemies. Shootings at lunch and explosions over dinner weren't common occurrences, but they weren't that rare either.

I had to force myself not to think about these things.

I kept repeating to myself that the blame laid mainly with V-Soft. They were the ones reading people's minds and extorting people with what they found there. If I hadn't stopped them myself, there would be no way for the V-Soft Executives to be properly prosecuted by the judicial system, since they held so much power.

However, an unrelenting part of me insisted that even though those who had been in power had been cheating, corrupt, and oftentimes murdering bastards. People always knew that, they just didn't want it thrown at their faces the way it had been when V-Soft was destroyed.

Deep down, I knew that the eighteen deaths in V-Soft weren't the only ones in my tab. Even if I had no other choice, and only ten percent of the blame for the chaos laid with me, ten percent of all the death occurring in the country was a lot.

Did hell exist? If so, I had-

Shit!

I shook my head. I could wonder about hell after I was dead. I did what I had to, and it was already in the past; no point fretting about it now. If I ever came across another situation where I could kill people and cause a civil war in a country, I might consider things a little more.

For now, if that guilty part of my mind was right, and I really was an incorrigible murderer, fated to cause chaos wherever I went, I had the perfect place to unleash that side of myself; in Valia.

* * *

<Where is he, ugly-face?>

Bear and Daggers were with me as we waited for Mister Baglus.

<Not here,> I answered his question for the hundredth time.

The gnome was fifteen minutes late. This was the first time ever I had seen an NPC be late to an appointment with a player, unless said lateness was used to start a quest. But I sure as hell wasn't interested in saving the gnome from whatever evil may have befallen him.

"Hola, amigos!" I heard the voice behind me and turned to look at the dude who barely reached my waist.

"You're late," I said.

"Pero estoy aquí ahora! Vamonos pendejo!" He said, as he gestured to follow him. But what he said was that he was here now and we should go.

I didn't like his lateness or his attitude, but we had no option besides moving on with the plan.

We met the other guys and waited there for news about Robert. To avoid raising suspicions, a single zombie was watching over the entrance to Robert's house and would tell us when he left his home.

Robert left at the customary time. We still waited twenty minutes before going there so he would be as far as possible from us. There was no telling if he would have people watching his house's entrance for him, or if there would be magical alarms in there, so the farther he was when he was warned of thieves, the better.

The zombie sentry went after him to make sure we got word of his return, and the rest of us approached the fruit stall right next to the house's entrance. We started to browse the products while the gnome fumbled with the magical lock of the pocket dimension.

As far as I could tell, he was simply looking at the air with utmost concentration. However, something was happening; the air in front of him was being distorted, as if it were heating up.

"Sí, sí!" He said louder than I wished; he had refused to join our party. "Yo soy el mejor!" He was bragging.

The ghoul vendor looked in the direction of the voice, but two big zombies were in his way, while Bear's hands were touching a lot of fruits. The guy didn't want to be robbed and had no choice but to turn his attention back to my zombie companion.

A feeble purple light appeared from a kind of opening in thin air and the gnome put a black rod in it. Then, he began to shape the opening. Using raw strength — as far as I could tell at least — he pushed and pulled with the rod to make the opening larger.

"Why isn't the portal closing by itself?" I asked him, surprised.

He told me portals couldn't be closed; once opened, they would stay open forever. If destroyed, the pocket dimension and everything inside would be destroyed with it.

What he was doing was applying pressure to the magic spatial door in front of the portal, the magic which allowed people to walk through it without going to another dimension. Since spatial magic was the most physical of them all, it could be physically forced open as well.

"What about the beginning?" I asked. "You were just looking at the place."

Apparently, gnomes had a racial innate magic that allowed them to find a way into wherever the hell they wanted. It was way too costly though, so he preferred to use raw strength after he had an opening.

I offered help but he told me that he wouldn't lend me the rod. I suggested using my sword and he explained that his rod was special and that trying to use any other tool in the opening would be bad for my health.

Meanwhile, the ghoul vendor was beginning to get nervous. I was talking to someone he couldn't see and we weren't buying anything.

"Buy something or leave!" He yelled, attracting unwanted attention from nearby.

"Jeez!" Melkier said. "Okay, okay! Here, I'll have this apple first. Two silver, right? Can I keep browsing now?"

That mollified the vendor enough for him to allow us to stay. Finally, after ten minutes, the gnome was done and asked me for payment.

"Are you sure it will hold for half an hour?" I asked as I paid him.

"Sí, sí!" He confirmed, then told me the magic door would stay open until someone with the key, or a spatial mage, came to close it.

"Good. Thanks, my friend." I took my communication crystal out. "I might have other opportunities for you in the future. What do you say we change contacts?"

He thought for a few seconds before producing a crystal out of nowhere, touching it with mine and disappearing right after.

<It's showtime, boys and girl,> I said.

Bear crouched to go through the opening that was half his height. He came back after a moment and told us it seemed alright. Next, Daggers went in, to check for physical traps. She also came back saying it was okay. Finally, I also went in alone to check for magical traps.

Robert's house was... Small. Ridiculously so, for someone titled 'the Great'. It had no walls, as usual within pocket dimensions, only small wooden fences to divide three rooms. The floor was also made of wood, and so was the bed in the last room, and the table and chairs in the middle room.

Except for that, there was no furniture whatsoever.

The fact that it was all wooden spoke of Robert's wealth, but the lack of anything else at all spoke of... I had no idea what it meant.

Did he take everything with him every time he left the house? That would be way too cautious for anyone but the most neurotic person. At least some cheap stuff should have been left behind but there was nothing anywhere.

Was he a miser who didn't buy unnecessary things? It couldn't be, since everything was made of well-maintained wood, which should have cost a lot in the Underworld.

Well, it could be an illusion, or weird magical trap, or something. So, I closed my eyes.

A gray sphere in my conscious appeared right away with my body in the center. I began to will my will — that's weird — to hit random places in front of me but no magical light flashed. I took a few more steps ahead and kept doing that, but nothing different showed in my mind's eye.

Unfortunately, the estimated location of the item we had come to steal, as I could see in my minimap, was in the bed in the last room. I went back to get Daggers and Bear, confirmed with the tailing zombie that Robert seemed to be acting normally, then reentered the house to begin the laborious search.

Our process was simple: Daggers checked for physical traps while I took a little longer to check for magical ones. Bear would then be the first to step forward, since he had the most HP and the best defenses. After that, we repeated it all.

It took us twenty minutes to get to the end of the small house.

And there was no map for us to steal there.

<It is not here, sir,> Daggers said after searching the room for the third time.

<Shit. Let's check the other rooms.> I told them.

We did it with a lot less caution after not finding any traps whatsoever before. Still, no map popped out of the blue.

<Damn! Manhart set us up!> I punched the table. <The map must be with Robert and he wants us to kill him.>

<Sir, that does not make sense,> Dagger said. <Why not directly tell you to kill him?>

I thought for a second before replying. <To avoid implicating himself. If we are captured and questioned, Manhart can say without lying that he sent us to steal a map, not to kill Robert. It's much easier to diplomatically recover from being a thief than a murderer. Damn him!>

It wasn't that much of a surprise that the game would make me fight Robert; I had expected that and prepared the zombies for it. However, the fact that Manhart had set me up made me downright pissed.

<What do we do now, ugly-face?> Bear asked.

<Now? Now we set a goddamn trap, that's what we do,> I replied angrily. <Bear, you'll stay outside. Send everyone else inside, even the guy trailing Robert. When Robert gets close, see what he'll do. If he acts as if he'll go ask for help, ram him in. If he doesn't, ram him in right when he's about to get inside anyway; this should give us an initial advantage. We'll fight him here, where no one else can interfere; that's our best bet.>

<Sir, what if people come to investigate anyway?> Daggers asked.

That was a fair point. After thinking about it, I sighed. <Unfortunately, I can only think of one solution: Daggers, you stay outside even after Robert gets in and tell everyone this is Blackguard business.>

<The Blackguard has no power here, sir,> she argued.

<I know. But it should at least delay things. Whoever comes will need some powerful backing before messing with the might of the drow. The curious, or a passing guard are unlikely to try ignoring a Blackguard and forcing themselves in.>

<Sounds good, sir.>

I really wanted Daggers by my side as we attacked a stronger guy. Bear was stronger than her in a direct confrontation, as proven by fair combat. As far as I was concerned, knowing what to do in a fight was as important as raw strength, so Daggers' claim of Bear being lucky was bullshit; she had messed up and paid for it. Still, having her help now would have been good.

We stood side by side in a half circle right by the entrance of the house. I had five fire morbs and five death morbs ready. All that was left now was waiting.

And wait we did.

We were all tense as hell. Bear not being there put us all even more on edge; his carefree attitude was more important for morale than I had realized. Now that I thought about it, he was probably the whole reason the zombies had endured the training, even with me toning things down a bit.

I mean, Daggers had called them names more than a few times; the least of her offenses had been calling them useless illegitimate sons that made their mothers ashamed of having slept with their fathers. Only using less polite words.

My job was making sure she didn't offend them too much, and telling her what training I thought they needed.

Bear, I now realized, had always eased the tension and helped everyone improve through leading by example; he was a splendid fighter and it was obvious how much he was investing in the game.

Thinking about it made me feel worse for indirectly taking Ted away from the game and from him. And guess what? He wasn't here to make me feel better about it with some idiotic joke.

Damn, I had found two good friends in Daggers and Bear.

What the hell was wrong with me? I mean, good friends? Me? That was way out of character.

My musings were interrupted when two people suddenly shot through the entrance. They both fell on the floor and the one on top was Bear, wearing his black armor which covered his whole body.

<Try to keep him pinned down! Attack!> I ordered as I sent all my fireballs at the blue head of the guy beneath Bear.

Just as my first spell was about to connect though, the man simply... Vanished. Bear, who was on the process of holding Robert, fell on the floor and some of the zombies' attacks hit him instead. I barely managed to redirect my spells on time.

Someone screamed right behind me and I turned to see a bald blue man in leather armor pulling a spear out of a zombie head.

<Behind us!> I yelled as I took a leap back and sent a deathball at him. My fire morbs had all been spent and he didn't look undead. Most of the zombies started running to his direction.

Robert's skin was blue. His eyes too were completely in shades of blue, without whites. His teeth looked like a metal saw and he had no nose, only two small slits, like a snake. Not only his scalp was hairless, there were also no hair in his face or in his body, only something that resembled underdeveloped scales. His hands had six fingers, with two of them being opposable thumbs. I couldn't even begin to guess how much more effective it could make his spear skills.

He sneered at me and jumped back, all the way to his bedroom. When my deathball was close, he simply destroyed it by swinging his metal spear, an iron looking shaft with a stone spearhead affixed to it. His movement was so fast and fluid I couldn't even change the spell's direction in time.

He didn't waste any time. Almost transparent white morbs appeared above his head and a few seconds later, when the zombies were barely halfway to him, three of the morbs joined and a damn tornado appeared in front of Robert, coming right at us.

One of the zombies tried to dodge but was swept away by the wind and thrown into the mists. He shouted, but the moment the mists enveloped his whole body, it was cut off.

Just like that, he was gone.

Two people dead and we hadn't even landed a single hit at the bastard.

Goddamn Manhart!

<It's too tight to dodge the tornado!> I yelled. <Just hold onto each other and get low on the floor!> Bear and Melkier were the only ones close to me as a last line of defense and they immediately threw themselves at me.

I managed to stay half crouched and, after taking my bow, fired an arrow just to test Valia's physics. Unfortunately, as expected the arrow was swept away by the wind.

The tornado got to the other zombies but they avoided being sent flying. Robert hissed angrily at that and the tornado kept coming at me while he advanced to meet the seven zombies in his way.

Next, I tried creating a fire morb and sending a fireball through the tornado, and surprisingly was met with a damage message.

Attacked a physically immune target for 2.0x damage!

250 fire + 62 burn damage dealt to Tornado (312 total)

Of course! The tornado was a spell and when hit by other magical energies, like spells, it would be damaged! It was cool that it was balanced, too; since the tornado couldn't be damaged by physical attacks, magic dealt double damage to it.

I sent my remaining death morbs and more fireballs at it and it dissipated when I had dealt a little more than a thousand damage to it.

With the tornado gone, the zombies started fighting Robert, and it was much better than I expected — they were actually acting in a coordinated manner. They kept a half circle around the blue guy, and none of them got in the way of the other. The spear still hit them a lot, but they took advantage of the openings to counter attack Robert.

Not that it was easy; the guy was truly a powerful spearman. His spear flowed like an ethereal thing in wide arcs and short stabs, creating a nearly impenetrable wall around him.

He hadn't calculated the ruthlessness of the zombies though. Even when receiving damage, they still attacked, just as they had been trained to do.

'When facing stronger enemies, use our numbers against them,' I had taught them. 'Don't fight like idiots, fight the way Daggers showed you, acting on the little openings the enemy will present. Even if you end up hurt or even dead, it's still a good trade, since a stronger enemy would kill us all anyway.'

<Bear, Melkier, stay close to the portal,> I ordered. <He teleported before and I bet he's planning on doing it again when he realizes there's no escaping death.>

They obeyed and I began to heal the zombies. I couldn't see their HP bar but I used their visible wounds to determine who needed healing the most.

For a full minute, nothing happened. It was clear that we would be able to slowly tire him. Since things were looking good, the universe decided things needed to change.

Robert jumped. Not a low jump, but a three-meter vertical leap that placed him above the zombies. He pointed his spear down and dropped fast and hard on one of them, as if he was propelled towards the ground instead of just falling.

He targeted the zombie with the lowest HP, the one I hadn't healed yet. The spear skewered the zombie's head, neck, and body, before the zombie simply exploded in gore. Then, his spear shone red as he spun it in a circle around him. All the remaining zombies took damage, and by the amount of blood and cuts on their armor, it wasn't just a little.

Daggers had taught them too well though. The moment they realized Robert was locked in the middle of the spear-spinning skill — one of the biggest disadvantages of using skills —, they rushed him with open mouths.

Unfortunately, it didn't matter. Robert had already summoned a wind morb above his head and flew upwards without jumping. Then, he used his spear stomp again.

Another zombie exploded and I could almost feel the morale of everyone dropping.

<Bear, you're up,> I said. <Melkier, stay alert.>

Bear leapt in like a freaking comet, swinging his greatsword with abandon. Robert moved his spear to try to make Bear impale himself with the momentum but my zombie was too quick for that; he put one hand forward, let it be stabbed, and didn't stop moving forward.

The spear kept going through his hand. Robert tried to rip it out but no matter how strong he was, it wasn't enough for the spear handle to cut through Bear's flesh. Robert had no choice but to release the weapon. When he did so, one of the zombies grabbed the spear from behind Bear and pulled it the rest of the way through his hand.

This made me so damn proud! They had thought for themselves! It was like watching a puppy fetch a ball for the very first time!

Bear attacked with a vertical slash, still moving on with momentum, but Robert dodged. However, as Bear's passed by the blue man, the zombie's head moved in a weird angle and his teeth met the spearman's neck.

Blood flowed as the guy yelled. My deathballs kept healing everyone.

He took two knives from hidden sheaths in his clothes and began to dance a lethal death. He stabbed two helmetless zombies in the eye, killing one of them, and cut another's hand off.

Even so, it wasn't enough. There were too many of us and we had something very important which he didn't, a healer. My deathballs made a huge difference.

Things were looking good again. So, obviously, Robert's teleport skill came off of cooldown and he teleported to the middle room.

At first, I thought it was great. If he had teleported close to me, there was no way Melkier and I could hold him in the room. However, wind morbs began to appear above his head. I tried to attack him to prevent it but he slashed my spells and arrows out of the air with his daggers.

This time, he only created two morbs and when they joined together, a new tornado appeared. Only, it didn't move towards me or the other zombies, it kept spinning around Robert.

He began to walk in my direction.

<Shit!> I started throwing fireballs at it and damage messages appeared. Robert was too close though, and I felt the wind trying to blow me away. <Retreat through the portal!> I told Melkier. <Tell someone to grab everything they can, especially that spear, and the wooden stuff too. Everyone else must follow Robert as quickly as possible!>

I passed back through the portal first.

9. The Heroes and the Demon Horde

The world outside was not the way I had last seen it.

Five people wearing the uniform of the town guard were dead around Daggers, who held blades in her hands that were dripping blood. Another guard was looking on from afar, his face pale, clearly waiting for reinforcements.

<Daggers, get away!> I yelled. <There's a tornado coming with Robert in the middle of it. I'll destroy the tornado with some twenty or thirty spells and you need to keep the guy occupied until everyone else comes out!>

Her dark hood didn't even turn in my direction when I told her to get away, she simply obeyed first and looked after.

I also ran away with her and when I decided I was distant enough, I stopped to create new fire morbs. Melkier left the portal shortly after me and followed along.

Besides the lone guard, there were very few people nearby. Even the ghoul vendor had disappeared with all his merchandise. From what I'd read, in Margs Market you never stood to watch a fight; it was too easy for it to escalate and kill you. Not only that, although guardsmen were usually lazy bastards, when they did involve themselves in trouble, they killed mercilessly without caring if you were guilty or innocent.

Robert came out of the portal but to my surprise there was no tornado around him. There were two morbs floating above his head though, and he immediately cast the tornado spell again.

It was too late.

Daggers first threw two of her new throwing knives at the morbs, destroying them, then became a black blur, getting to Robert and stabbing him. Melkier whistled.

Unfortunately, Robert wasn't affected enough to forget to close the portal, and the purple entrance to the pocket dimension disappeared, cutting us off from the remaining zombies.

My fireballs flew. I didn't use arrows because I couldn't change their directions midway and both Robert and Daggers were moving like crazy.

He fought using his two knives and was clearly a superior fighter to Daggers. However, my spells were enough to offset the balance just slightly in her favor. She didn't need much more than that.

Robert was bleeding badly from his neck and breathing heavily. More than once, he tried to create a morb but even when successful, Daggers simply destroyed it.

Finally, the moment I had been dreading came and he teleported some twenty meters away from Daggers.

Her shadow skill was on cooldown and although she tried to throw daggers at his new morbs, this time he was ready for it and deflected them with his own weapons. All she could do was run to him.

It was enough time for him to create the tornado around him. I began to throw fireballs at it but he was already turning to walk away. Even if he apparently couldn't run while in that state, the city guard probably wouldn't take long to come. And he could create more wind morbs while inside the tornado in preparation for when the current tornado gave out.

<Shit!> I cursed. <Alright, disengage! Daggers, go invisible and try to find the gnome to save the guys locked insi->

I stopped speaking when I saw Daggers grab a heavy-looking metal stall and run with it at the tornado.

Thanks to Valia's realistic physics, which I had complained about earlier, she didn't get blown away by the wind. Instead, she hit the unsuspecting Robert right in the back of his head with the stall. The spell vanished and he yelled in pain while collapsing to the ground. Daggers jabbed her two blades into his eyes, then proceeded to stab the defenseless guy on the ground.

Blood went everywhere and in a few seconds, he wasn't moving anymore. She didn't stop though, cutting his head off to prevent him from ever being revived.

That was the end of Robert, the Great.

<Holy shit!> Melkier said.

I was just as dumbfounded. Even if I had seen Daggers in action before, it was never boring.

<What now, sir?> She asked with her usual emotionless voice pulling me out of my stupor.

<Get to the city gate and try to hold it open,> I said. <Melkier, help me find the key to his pocket dimension,> I ran to the body.

Daggers became translucent and ran away. The nearby guard was even more ashen than before.

A quick search of Robert's body revealed a ring and a few other knives but nothing else.

<Strip him,> I told Melkier as I put the ring on. I knew exactly what it was.

More expensive than enchanted bags were the spatial rings. They were a little more unstable and it took a few seconds to move stuff in and out of it but they could hold much more and even better, they negated the weight of whatever was inside.

Low-Quality Spatial Ring

» Drop chance: 3%

» Slots: 100 (48 used - 52 free)

» Max stack per slot: 20

» Weight reduction: 100%

It was a low-quality one so it had a high drop chance. The reason I could take it from Robert's body wasn't luck. Robert was an NPC and Daggers had cut his head off; there was no way for him to revive so there was no 'soul' for the ring to attach to.

As soon as I put it on my finger, I got a message.

The Low-Quality Spatial Ring is now linked to your soul.

This meant it was now considered mine. Good. Next, I willed it to show what was inside.

Money: 216g 72s 98c

Items:

» 20 High-Quality Tarsteel Knife

» 4 Gourmet Burgers

» 17 water bottles

» 1 Epic Map

...

» 1 Spatial Key

Jackpot! The money was great and, more importantly, the map was there. Sadly, I didn't have any time to check all the loot now. I willed the spatial key to appear in my hand, and after a couple seconds, a violet crystal key materialized. I got close enough to the place I remembered the portal to be, then willed the spatial lock to open.

The purple portal appeared and everyone came out.

<Sir, they are closing this gate,> Daggers said. I checked the minimap and noticed she was at the closest gate. <I cannot prevent it but I saw how they do it. If you create a diversion I can kill the gate operators and open it.>

<Alright,> I said. <We're on the way.>

<Shit, ugly-face!> Bear looked at Robert, who was now in just his underwear. <You're into dead men?>

<We have no time for this, come!> I started to run.

As if in on cue, I heard a horn not too far from me and the sound of hundreds of people marching my way.

<How did she do that?> Bear asked as we all ran.

<She used a stall to weigh herself down and push through the tornado,> I explained. <When he was damaged, the spell disappeared and he yelled, so I bet he got magical backslash or something close to it. Then she did the usual: eye stabbing and head removal.>

<Good thinking,> he said with admiration in his voice.

Dear universe, I thought, I know you hate me, but please, pretty please, don't let me suffer a love triangle between Bear, Daggers, and Ted.

<What's the plan?> Melkier asked.

<Nothing fancy. We get to the gate and make a fuss. Daggers will open it for us and we run.>

"We don't run, ugly-face!" Bear yelled. "We heroically retreat from the horde of demons after killing one of their generals."

"Yeah!" All the remaining zombies yelled in response.

Idiots. Every one of them.

We got to the gate and met around twenty defenders, half of which were on the walls and could either shoot arrows or spells at us from above. We engaged the men in plate armor at ground level as well as we could.

I became a dedicated healer and Bear became my meat shield.

The sounds of horns and people marching behind me had become louder but it thankfully didn't take long for Daggers to get the gates open. The rest of us ran through the entrance tunnel arriving safely on the other side.

<Sir, catch!> Daggers said and I looked up. She had just jumped from the walls without warning.

<Shit!> I didn't trust Bear to do it for me, so I positioned myself to grab her.

She fell into my arms like a rock and we both hit the ground hard. She lost more than half her health but survived, while I only lost about a hundred HP.

<Let's go!> I yelled.

As Bear had said, like heroes being chased by a demon horde after defeating their general, we escaped.

Not that I would ever let Bear know I had thought that.

We ran like crazy. After a few hours, our stamina had dropped to dangerously low levels but the guardsmen hadn't continued the chase.

It made sense. We had killed only five of their men and only after they had attacked Daggers first. For all they knew, we had more Blackguards waiting outside the city and a disorganized chase of people of unknown power wasn't a smart thing to do.

The way Daggers had disposed of Robert, the ex-Great — now the Dead — had probably contributed to making them wary of us, as well.

There were no problems on the way back to Manhart except for one: Melkier wasn't as ignorant as I hoped and had recognized the spatial ring.

I was forced to reveal the ring's contents to everyone by using the game's system to share the information with them, and we agreed to wait for everyone to be back together before deciding on how to split things between us. I also added Robert's leather armor and spear to the ring's storage.

Whatever they might say though, I sure as hell wouldn't be giving the ring up. It was a five hundred gold item, and too convenient at that. If I had to fight them for it, I would.

I love rings, after all.

The alien thought invaded my mind as if it had been mine. It seemed that the spider ring was once again trying to influence me.

I had decided to sell it to Manhart, but I wasn't so sure now. The ring was a mystery and the lich had already sent me on a nearly suicidal mission. Even if he was a truthseer and everything he swore had to be truth, I couldn't trust him to pay a fair value for the ring. The concept of 'truth' in the game was way too flexible.

I'd have to find another way to get rid of it. The Surface world had completely honest merchant NPCs and I would have to get to the Surface eventually if I wanted to destroy Valia from the inside. The spider ring could wait.

Yes! I'll conquer the Underworld, then I'll conquer the Surface! I'll be Valia's Emperor!

Suffering annoying alien thoughts in my mind, I took the time to check the exclamation point buttons at the right edge of my vision.

Quest: Steal from Robert, the Great

F- rank

You have the map. Go back to Manhart and give it to him.

The rank of quests could change when they were updated, it depended on the difficulty of the remaining steps. The reward was supposedly calculated based on the hardest task though, which was only fair.

This one had just been downgraded from an A minus, to an F minus rank now that all I needed to do was bring the map to Manhart.

Healer trait increased to 2 (+1)

You're set on the ways of healing, mending people when they need it the most.

» +2% healing effectiveness

» Minimum extra healing: +2 HP

Trait unlocked: Sharpshooter

After continuous usage of a bow, you now see yourself as a long-range fighter first and swordsman second.

» +1 dexterity when using a long-ranged weapon

Healer. I had become a better healer.

Thanks a lot, game.

<You're welcome!> Zenhit answered in my mind.

Right, it wasn't enough to make me hear the spider ring, I had to also hear Zenhit's sarcasm in my mind.

Manhart's cave couldn't have been farther away.

* * *

We got to the lich's cave much faster than to Margs Market, after only a single day of running and stopping to recover stamina.

It was now around three AM on the seventh day since I had logged back into the game. Manhart had told me I could be done with his quests in two weeks. If his next mission also took a week, his estimate would be correct.

Not that I trusted it for a single second.

What I wanted to do was get in the cave and kick his skull off of his body, then piss on it.

What I did was put a slightly upset expression on my face and enter the cave alone.

"Manhart," I said with the right amount of anger in my voice. Too much and he would get too upset at me. Too little and he would have thought he didn't owe me anything. I had to show just the right amount of annoyance or I wouldn't get anything out of being tricked.

He was sitting in the same chair as before, looking at more stacks of paper. I wondered what the hell could be written in them.

"Alas, he returns. Again." He looked at me. "Do you have the map?"

"Damn right I have the map!" I half-yelled and crossed my arms. "And I got you fifty Travelers as recruits. And what do I get in return? A goddamn trap!"

I thought he would try to defuse the situation somehow but instead he nodded his head. "And for that I'll teach you morb compounding, an intermediate magic technique which an Unbound would find no one else to teach him in the entire Underworld. I swear on that."

And just like that, he had tried to cheat me again.

Morb compounding was the act of fusing more than one morb together to cast a spell, just like Robert had done. It might be useful for NPCs to learn it beforehand, but players didn't need it; when we unlocked a spell that required compounding, it would work out by itself.

Worse still, by how quickly he had said it, he had probably thought about it beforehand and considered me an idiot that would take that deal.

My face got uglier and I bluffed. "Manhart. I thought we could work together. But I see now that you have no respect for your chosen General. It's time we parted ways."

He probably hadn't been expecting that because he took a long time to answer.

"Very well. As reparations for tricking you, I'll give you this." He took one of his necklaces off, one with a black star medallion, and tossed at me.

Dark Star Necklace

Rare

An item given to acolytes when they become official members of the Dark Cultists.

» +10% to darkness element effectiveness

I tossed it right back at him. "Nice try. An item that will identify me as a member of an unknown organization and probably set me as a target for all the enemies these Dark Cultists might have."

That I was sure as hell he hadn't been expecting because he opened his jaws and said nothing for a while.

"What do you want?" He asked eventually.

"Give me passage to Ter'nodril now and I'll do your second quest when I come back from there."

"Impossible," he said instantly. "You shouldn't even go there."

I sniffed. "What I should or shouldn't do is none of your concern. We have a deal."

"We do," he said reluctantly. "But I'll only help you get there after the second quest."

Well, it had been worth a try. "Gravity magic," I said.

"After the second quest, too," he said.

I had to give it to him, he knew how to keep me in his services. I didn't know what items he had, so it made it hard to ask for them. Therefore, I would settle for the next best thing; money.

"I want a thousand gold coins," I said. "And information."

The flames in his eyes flickered in a way that made me think he was laughing at me in an unkind way.

"You don't deserve that much money," he replied. "Tell me what you want to know and depending on the cost of such information, I'll give you a few extra gold coins."

It was a commitment at least. He could've just said no, since I had already completed his quest anyway.

"Okay," I said. "What do you know about the Fallen Spider Queen?"

His eye-flames flickered in a hundred different ways in a few seconds before settling on amusement. "You found her ring."

Shit.

"What ring?" I couldn't directly lie to him but deflecting wasn't impossible.

He didn't answer me but got up from his chair, put his hands behind his back, and started to pace around the room instead.

"I'll tell you what you want to know," he said with a solemn voice, "but you won't receive any gold from me. What I'm about to say is known only to very few circles and most of them are forbidden to teach it to outsiders. I swear on that."

"Huh?" The sudden change in Manhart unsettled me. "Why can you teach it to me?"

"Because I'm a Paladin of Ilishia. I was chosen to be her champion and it comes with both power and responsibilities. Among other things, it allows me to pass on any knowledge at my own discretion. Paladins are known through all Valia as the best keepers of knowledge."

So, it wasn't bad character design that had made him change his attitude like that. That's what Manhart really was, at his core: a dutiful paladin. Or so he wanted me to think.

"Alright. Speak." I said.

"In time immemorial," he began with a weird ethereal voice, "in a war fought for forgotten reasons, the gods battled each other. The Mother didn't like it and punished those who started the war. They fell from the Mother's grace and became the Fallen gods, forbidden from ever leaving Valia.

"You must understand that gods love traveling through the universe. Being confined to a single world is one of the greatest punishments for them. Most of them understood how much they had angered the Mother upon receiving punishment and settled in, waiting for her forgiveness. However, some of them thought they had been wronged and began to scheme against her.

"It's said that the Mother had never been so disappointed in her entire existence. Still, she loved her children and couldn't bear to destroy them. She further punished those scheming gods to be locked in objects of power. They'd only be able to interact with the world through vessels who found these objects. Your Fallen Spider-God Ring is one such object."

It did fit what I knew about Valia's lore but there was a huge hole in the story.

"A god in the ring? Really?" I said. "The Fallen Spider Queen didn't seem that godly to me."

"Of course not," he replied. "The Queen was too young and the original power of her body was too low. She wasn't the complete, matured, incarnation of the Spider God, only a weak vessel. If enough time had passed without the Power Hunters finding her, even Ter'nodril could be lost."

"Power Hunters?" I didn't recognize that term.

"They claim the objects of power are too dangerous a threat to Valia and aim to find and lock them away," Manhart explained. "I suggest you don't let them know you have the ring with you; they believe it leaves a taint in the soul that only death can cure."

Great. Power Hunters could appear at any time and try to kill me. Just what I needed.

"How do they find the objects?" I asked.

"I don't know, but I believe they don't have any magical means. The Queen was young, but not so much that they couldn't have gotten to her."

"How young?"

"A few hundred years. It takes a lot of time for a simple rat to become what you saw and populate its own spider nest."

"A simple rat?" I was surprised. "How do you know?"

I felt like a kid, shooting question after question at him, but this information was literally gold! I had to get as much as possible out of him.

"I was the one who put the ring on the rat and hid the queen under the White Spider Inn." Manhart said. "It was both a backup plan to eventually deal with the drow and a way of dealing with annoying weaklings who came asking about the Resistance."

My eyes widened. "What? The innkeeper tried to get me killed?"

His eye-flames flickered in a way that made me feel like an idiot.

"Of course he did," he replied. "Do you think that you should have been capable of killing the Fallen Spider Queen with the power you had?"

Thinking about it, no, I didn't. I had only killed it because of a lot of quick thinking.

"So?" I asked.

"So what?"

"What should I do with the ring?"

"Whatever you want, it's yours now. If you put it on, it will turn you into a monster and take control of your body in a few months. A powerful monster, yes, but would it matter when you won't be able to control yourself?"

"Don't you want it?" I didn't intend on selling it to him, but if he told me he wanted it, I'd have a bit of a bargain power over him.

"No. Ilishia was... Displeased with me the last time I dealt with a Fallen God. I recommend you throw it away and forget where you put it."

As if. Someone, somewhere, should be willing to buy it. I'm sure the Surface would have some kind of righteous religious order that would love to have the ring just to lock it in a place where it couldn't hurt anyone.

Preferably without killing me like the Power Hunters.

"No other suggestion?"

He shook his head. "No. The Fallen Gods aren't to be trifled with."

A thought crossed my mind. "Is the Devourer a Fallen God?"

"No. He is... Something else. A martyr turned evil."

"Huh?"

He shook his head again and sat on the chair again. "You don't have enough favor with me to deserve that particular tale. I'll just let you know that the drow were once the noblest of all species in Valia and the Devourer was the most holy of all gods."

"No way. Are you going to shut up after saying that?" I bet even Bear would be interested in knowing more about it.

"Yes. Now, give me the map. It's time I reward you for your efforts, and for you to go on your next journey."

That made me remember Robert. "Wait a second, did you try to get me killed by Robert's hand? I wouldn't have expected me to survive that guy either."

"I didn't. Because of your episode with the Fallen Spider Queen, I expected you to win."

"But it didn't matter to you if I died. You even took precautions by telling me to steal from him instead of telling me to attack him."

He shook his head. "It did matter. If you had died, I would have taken away your position as General."

"So it was a test," I concluded.

"It was also a test. I do need the map and killing Robert is good for the Resistance. I'm so grateful that I'll even let you keep whatever you looted from his body. It should also pay for any operational costs you might have inferred. Now, give me the map. I'm tired of playing with you and I have more important things to attend to."

There went my plans of getting paid for the ten gold coins I had given the gnome.

I had to give it to him: he could go from wise sage to complete douchebag in a second. That was impressive in a weird way.

With a wave of my hand I willed the map to appear. The hand gesture was unnecessary but I had seen NPCs do it that way and I had to admit it seemed more natural somehow for items to magically appear in my hand if I moved it. For some reason, an item appearing out of nowhere in an unmoving hand was unsettling.

The map was a small yellow scroll and the place it led to was way too close to Margs Market for my tastes. It seemed there was a reason Robert, the Great, had been living there.

"Good," Manhart said as he took it. "It's time for your rewards. Fire, darkness, death, and light. Those should be the magical elements you learned, yes? This is going to hurt."

Before I could even blink, my thoughts were shattered by an intense pain.

Raid

Blurans
Underwater — Amphibious — Corrupted

Most children learn how the evil of Valia lurks in the Underworld, but oftentimes there's even greater evil much closer to us that we would like.

The blurans are examples of such evils.

Many a researcher has gone missing in trying to understand their culture, and most of these researchers were in their own homes when they disappeared. For this reason, I pray you forgive me, but this book shall limit the comments on the blurans to facts accepted by the scientific community, not on personally verified data.

It's believed that blurans are distant ancestors to or a magic mutation of the fishmen, who are common in the waters of the Underworld. How one species went to the Underworld and the other to the Underwater can be only speculated. The most widely accepted theory is that the gods did so for a divine reason that we mortals are not privy to.

Physically, their body is completely hairless and their blue skin — hence the name bluran — resembles the hard scales of some lizard species. In some key places of their bodies, the hair is replaced by a kind of callus to maintain their human-like appearance; the eyebrows, for instance. Their eyes have no whites, but different shades of blue instead. Other than these characteristics, these monsters are exactly like humans, even the teeth and nails, which are so rarely the same as humanity's.

Mentally, they could best be compared to a mix of zombies, barbarians, and drow. They are wild, brutal, governed by their base desires, and yet, they can plot ahead and restrain their impulses while they wait for the right time.

All recorded instances of a bluran living in a Surface society speak of disaster. In all but one of the eighteen recorded instances, the blurans murdered at least one person without apparent reason, giving no motives for the killings, and disappeared without leaving any traces. Only once were the humans found to be in the wrong.

A particularly disturbing record is from the city of Lukur. On 13 BT (Before Travelers), a bluran saved a mayor's daughter from a monster attack in the morning and accepted an invitation to lunch with them. After lunch, he killed all of them, including the girl, and was seen leaving the city with blood on his clothes and a smile on his face.

No one knows why they behave the way they do and while some believe there are cultural differences we don't understand, it's no excuse for their behavior on the Surface.

Blurans only use their own crafted weapons, which are crude looking and worthless, but they wield them with expertise. Specialists insist the best way of dealing with them is by using surprise attacks.

I may be putting my life in danger by writing this, but if you ever find a bluran, I recommend you either run or kill him without warning, before he kills you for no reason.

Think about it. And think about why after seventeen unprovoked murders, no Surface government ever had the guts to declare blurans forbidden in their territories.

-- Excerpt from "Species of Valia", by Amir, a Karr

10. Multiple Stimuli

"I don't know! We operated in cells-" The man stopped talking when the soldier put a plastic bag over his head.

Major Stewart, who was sitting in front of the now bagged man, sighed. It was usually easy to get answers out of reluctant people. A simple plastic bag could be used to suffocate any man, and he would spill the beans ASAP.

Sadly, sometimes it failed.

The Major had hoped to avoid getting things messy, but the man currently being interviewed wasn't cooperating. More persuasive methods were required.

"Beta," Stewart said, "there must be a broom in this safe house somewhere. Bring it to me. Looks like our friend needs proper internal motivation."

Locating the former Sergeant Luston, the bound man, hadn't been easy. The General himself had to call in favors from high places, including the Chief of Staff, and almost eleven days had been needed to track down just the first man. This was a testament to how wrong this whole business was.

Mercenaries shouldn't have been so good at hiding themselves. Especially not Luston. The man had been dishonorably discharged after biting an officer's nose off. He should at least have been under surveillance, if not in jail.

Instead, he had been living in a mansion, with an expensive car in his garage, and an ID Chip under his skin that named him Mark Suleiman. It was a legit ID Chip, too. It spoke of vast amounts of money and high-level corruption, which wasn't a surprise after the V-Soft scandal.

The Major would have to take extra care not to step on the wrong foot and start a fight he didn't want. His current orders were to track and dispose of mercenaries, not to cleanse the country of villainy.

His mental count came to twenty, and he nodded to Alpha, the soldier suffocating the mercenary. The plastic bag was removed, and Luston immediately vomited blood. Then, he looked at Stewart with bloodshot eyes full of hatred and fear, breathing heavily.

Stewart waited a few seconds before asking the same questions he had asked just a few moments ago:

"Who gave you the orders? Who are your companions? Where are they?"

The man answered too quickly. "I don't know! I swear on it! I don't know!"

The Major shook his head slightly; he would have to use the broom after all.

Just in case, he also pulled his combat knife from its sheath. Perhaps Luston would respond better to multiple stimuli at the same time.

11. Power Up

I gritted my teeth, unwilling to give Manhart the pleasure of hearing me scream in pain.

After five seconds, it went away and an exclamation point appeared. I willed it to open.

New skill unlocked in the Origin skill-tree:

Lifeball (level 1)

After a long time connecting to the life force inside your body, you've learned to harness it in a morb and use it as a spell.

» Active Spell

» Cost: 15 MP

» Amassing time: 3 seconds

» Element: Life

» Damage: 47 ((50 + 11 [Adept Mage] + 34 [Intelligence]) - 50% [Undead + Death Mage])

"Minus fifty percent damage?" I asked.

"Just as the living can't use death magic properly, undead have a disadvantage when using life magic," Manhart explained. "You also learned death element magic, the opposite element to life, first. Each of these factors makes your life magic twenty-five percent weaker and fifty times as hard to train at."

"Is that the reason it's taking so long for me to level up the first life spell?"

The constant damage had been going on for days and was highly annoying. Worse still, for all my other magical elements, it had taken me a few hours to level the first spells and get second-tier ones, but the Cosmo Connection spell was still level one.

"Exactly. You were human before becoming a Deathlord so your body should have taken around two hours to level your first life spell up. Instead, it will take you two hundred hours."

"Damn." That was more than eight days. "Does it mean that if I ever learn water magic it will be harder for me to level it up too?"

"Yes, fifty times as hard, or a hundred hours, and your water magic will be twenty-five percent weaker. That's one of the reasons magic should be properly studied instead of given away so easily the way it is to you Travelers: that way, you could make informed decisions. Your people don't seem to understand it."

"I only hear jealousy," I said. "Speaking of magic, I didn't know I could learn Lifeball without leveling up Cosmo Connection first."

"You can't by yourself. That's why having a mentor is so important."

"Mentor, huh? As long as you don't expect me to call you master, we're cool. Wait, I won't call you daddy either."

He just shook his head and I got the feeling that he was in pain from just interacting with me. Serves him right.

"For third-tier spells onwards, you would usually also have to choose specialization schools, but since it's a reward for a quest, I'll be the one choosing for you."

Specialization schools, also called magic schools, were divided into the seven primary ones: Destruction, Restoration, Illusion, Summoning, Creation, Alteration, and Engraving. Then, there were combinations between them that led to secondary ones, like Illusion and Alteration merging into Shadowing, the magical school responsible for stealth and hiding things.

"Wait a second, I don't want you to choose-"

Pain slammed into my skull again and a few seconds later, I checked the exclamation point.

New skills unlocked in The Lack of Light skill-tree

Dark Immersion (level 1)

[Alteration]

You are familiar enough with the darkness that you can now immerse yourself completely in it.

While immersed in darkness, you are harder to see.

This spell can be countered by a highly perceptive person.

» Active Spell

» Cost: 50 MP per minute

» Amassing time: 10 seconds

» Element: Darkness

» Stealth level: 24% (20 + 4 [Adept Mage])

It was a surprisingly good spell. From what I knew, the reason it wasn't from the Shadowing school was because it didn't deal with illusions; it only altered me.

Good or not, I wanted to be able to pick what I wanted. Before I could say anything though, pain hit me again.

New skill unlocked in the Death is a Lifestyle skill-tree

Death Absorption (level 1)

[Simple Transfer]

You are familiar enough with death energy that you can now absorb it directly from other undead to heal yourself.

» Active Spell

» Cost: 50 MP

» Amassing time: 1 second

» Element: Death

» Distance: Touch

» Absorption: 169 (100 + 22 [Adept Mage] + 10 [Deathlord] + 34 [Intelligence] + 3 [Healer])

It was good to see the deathlord species' ten percent bonus to death magic being applied, as well as the twenty-two percent bonus from the Adept Mage trait.

The Death Absorption spell was excellent if I got close to my enemy. I had no idea which schools made the 'Simple Transfer' one but from what the spell did, I guessed it had something to do with Destruction and Restoration.

I mean, the HP was drained away from the target, which is Destruction, and then added to my HP, which is... Restoration? Or maybe Alteration? Well, I would need to check it out online, later.

New skill unlocked in the Origin skill-tree

Lifelock (level 1)

[Alteration]

Even being an Undead, you can use the lingering life energy in your body to lock your Health Points while your Mana Points take the loss.

» Active Spell

» Cost: 100 MP per second + (Damage Taken x5) - 34 [Intelligence] turned into MP loss

» Amassing time: 4 seconds

» Element: Life

Although it wasn't exceptional, I guessed I could use the Lifelock in a desperate situation, even though the amassing time made it difficult to be used in the heat of a battle.

New skill unlocked at The Flames skill-tree

Firebomb (level 3)

[Destruction]

After creating enough fireballs to kill a small army, you become better acquainted with harnessing the powers of fire.

Your first idea is to use more magic fire to create a bigger explosion.

» Active Spell

» Cost: 150 MP

» Amassing time: 2 second

» Element: Fire

» Area of effect: 2 meters

» Epicenter: 50 centimeters

» Damage: 308 (225 + 49 [Adept Mage] + 34 [Intelligence])

» Max collateral burn damage: 30% (92)

The fire spell though, was awesome. My current fireball spell dealt about a hundred and fifty damage to a single target when considering the collateral burn damage.

This one did over double the damage, in an area, and took only double of the time to create the morb.

Granted, the mana cost was quite excessive, a hundred and fifty MP to the fireball's forty, but with my current three thousand MP, I could cast lots of firebombs before running dry.

Plus, when mathing the hell out of it — yes, mathing is a word, or should be. — I found out that a fireball dealt around 3.9 damage per mana, while a firebomb dealt about 2.6. It meant that fireballs were fifty percent more cost-effective than firebombs, and the latter still cost much more to amass.

The firebomb being an area of effect spell, however, was especially good. Robert had cut most of my fireballs in the air, but with the firebomb I could explode the spells close to my enemies and make them take damage anyway!

A big downside was that my nearby allies would also take damage, but I was sure that Daggers and Bear would love the extra heat! The Underworld was so cold, after all.

"Thanks!" I was moved enough to properly thank Manhart. "Why these spells though?"

"I have my reasons," he replied simply.

And to think that I had just thanked him.

Quest completed: Steal from Robert, the Great

Random attribute points received:

» +1 agility

» +2 dexterity

» +1 constitution

HP: 2125 (+140)

Stamina: 515 (+10)

» +1 willpower

Stamina: 520 (+5)

Level up!

Current level: 34

HP, MP and stamina restored

It sucked that I didn't get intelligence points, but at least my HP had increased, which made me realize a few things.

First, my firebomb spell was better than I had thought. I could kill myself in about seven hits if I didn't consider my defenses, and since I could have eleven morbs ready to attack, it made me quite powerful.

Second, it showed me how frail I was.

Third, it also showed me how important defensive items and tactics were. Manhart hadn't given me any defensive spell other than the dubious Lifelock. Since I knew he had chosen what to teach me, I could infer that he wanted me as easy to kill as possible, even though he also wanted me to complete quests for him.

I didn't believe for a second that the next quest would be safer than the first, so there was only one possible explanation:

Manhart planned to kill me, and relatively soon.

If he wanted to kill me in the distant future, it didn't matter if he gave me good defensive third-tier spells now for me to complete his quests better. So, he planned to kill me before I had the chance to learn more spells, probably after I finished his next assignment.

Which, for some reason, reminded me of my Destiny Spirit.

<Hey, Zenhit,> I called.

<Y- Yes?> His childish voice replied in my mind. He was clearly hesitating.

<Are you responsible for deciding how many attribute points I get?>

<Yes...> Fear had entered his voice.

<Thank you!> I sent happily. <On top of all the spells Manhart gave me, I also got five attribute points and a level up! I'm beginning to think I was a little too hard on you.>

<Yes!> He replied excitedly. <You should thank me, too! The quest was ranked A minus, but after the spells you received as reward, it was a stretch to give you five attributes! I don't like you, but I'm an awesome Destiny Spirit and I do my job right!>

That was bullshit. The game probably had strict limitations over everything the Destiny Spirits could do and how they calculated the rewards for quests.

<I appreciate it,> I said despite my beliefs. I had plans for him that required him to like me.

<I did it for the Guardian, not for you,> he said with an annoying tone.

I gritted my teeth. <Thank you anyway!>

<I still don't like you, but you're welcome. I guess.> His words, coupled with his childish voice, made me want to strangle him.

"If you're done contemplating your rewards," Manhart said, "it's time we talk about your next mission."

"Just a quick question first," I replied. "What the hell was Robert? I mean, his species."

"A bluran."

"Blue-who?"

"Bluran. They live in the Underwater. I don't have time for this," he said firmly. "If you want to know more, I suggest you buy an exemplar from 'Species of Valia.' Not everything in there is entirely correct but it's still the best guide in the world." He lowered his voice as if talking to himself. "I still can't understand why his clan would Enkarr him."

"En-what?" I asked.

He ignored my question and looked at the map in his hands. "I assume you already recorded the location indicated in the map?"

This made me alert. "Who, me? That would mean I have a map of my own and everybody knows how maps are forbidden in the Underworld."

"That must be your special way of saying yes," he spoke as if I was a 'special' kid. "The map leads to a hidden castle. I want it."

"Hidden castle? Are you sure that's the word? Hidden? Is this a toy castle or something?"

I felt a 'damn newbie' vibe coming from Manhart and he began to read his papers while talking to me, as if I had just lost the right to be looked at.

"In this world there are places protected by magic that can only be found if you have the right traits and skills, or if you have a map. You can't even imagine how hard it is to find a powerful Tracker; they tend to die very quickly."

From what I understood he was telling me the game had developed ways to create hidden locations so players would feel a sense of accomplishment when they discovered them.

"I see," I said. "Why do you want Robert's castle?"

"The castle was never his. He had the map but he didn't have the power to conquer it by himself."

I squinted my eyes. "Conquer? Like, fight for it?"

"Obviously. The castle has been overrun by monsters and must be conquered before being utilized."

That was funny: a walking skeleton talking about monsters.

"Why didn't he, I don't know, call some people to conquer it with him?" I asked.

"He could, but he was greedy and didn't want to share the spoils, preferring to train himself until he was strong enough to conquer the castle alone. The fate of such people is being robbed without enjoying even a portion of the rewards."

"Now you're calling me the hand of fate. You flatter me." He ignored me. "Wouldn't the destiny of greedy people be an extra reason for you to hire plenty of people and create a kind of Army to accomplish the task, instead of sending only me?" I asked ironically.

"You aren't going alone. You can bring along anyone you've recruited."

"Oh, that's great! Fifty people sieging a castle!" And that was ignoring the fact that only ten of the fifty would come with me, since I wouldn't waste the goodwill of the others on quests for Manhart while I had so many plans myself.

"You were never ordered to siege it, only conquer it." Anger was entering his voice.

"Now that's much easier. I clearly just have to ask politely and the monsters in charge of the castle will just give it to me."

He finally looked up at me. "Thorn, you were hired because you do things that should be impossible. If I wanted to conquer the castle myself I'd think about how to do it, but this is your job, not mine. Since you think so lowly of yourself, I'll let you know that I need this castle and that if you fail to give it to me in one month, I'll lead the Army there. But you won't get any reward if I have to do it myself."

One month. I didn't have one month. Before I could complain again, bloodlust filled the air. It was so powerful and so dense that it almost choked me, and as an undead I didn't even need to breath.

"You will do as you're told, General," he said. "That's your only choice."

I looked angrily at him. There was an air of finality in him that made me realize the talk had ended. There was no changing his mind; I could do as told or be hunted and killed.

Taking a deep breath, I completely suppressed my anger. "What about the spoils?" If a guy was greedy enough to not want to share, the stuff in the castle should be good.

Manhart had just said that he was allowing me to keep Robert's stuff, as if it wasn't the natural way of things, so I better make sure I had things clear beforehand this time.

"You can have whatever you can carry with you, no matter how many spatial containers you use. The same goes for anyone in your assault group. After that, the castle and everything in it will belong to me."

That was interesting. Whatever he wanted couldn't be taken away from the castle. It could be the castle itself, but if it was, I'm sure he could just get another castle in some easier way. I would do my best to find out what he wanted when I got there, and take it away from him.

As soon as I internally accepted doing it for him, an exclamation point button appeared.

Quest: Conquer the Castle

A rank

Manhart ordered you to conquer the castle marked in your map for him.

Condition:

» Will automatically fail in 29 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds

Robbing the map from Robert had been an A minus rank quest. From what I was coming to understand from the ranking system, A minus meant a kind of elite quest that I couldn't complete by myself, but it was possible with a small to medium group.

An A rank quest was, in game terms, a raid. There would be a boss monster that was ridiculously difficult to kill, with defense patterns that had to be perfectly countered. People said raids in Valia required at least five parties, or twenty-five people.

I was curious about how the game system managed to do that, since the quests difficulties were ranked relative to the player's current strength. What if I had been level one-hundred? Would this quest still be A ranked? Could it be that the monsters' strength in Valia adapted to circumstances to give each player the difficulty the game wanted the players to experience? Perhaps, the game system was reading into people's thoughts to know what they expected and to balance the player's encounters accordingly?

No matter how the system might work, I was now in a rather difficult position. I could try to do a raid with the fourteen of us, about half the suggested number of people, but that would be... Unwise. Calling more zombies for this quest wasn't my preferred solution but I might simply not have a choice. Well, I'd go there and take a look first, and decide later.

"What about another hundred gold for me to hire more people?" I asked.

"Not even I can be so free with my money," Manhart said. "You'll receive your monthly wage and more funds for recruitment next month. You're dismissed."

He went back to reading but this time I felt as if I was just part of the furniture. He had completely forgotten me already.

Even so, I asked something. "Do you even want to meet some of the people I recruited? They're right outside."

Before entering the cave, Manhart had contacted me using his Communication Crystal and told me to enter alone. The zombies were quite disappointed, since the lich was a powerful NPC and could give them some good quests.

He didn't even answer me. I sighed and left the cave.

<Sorry, guys,> I said to the anxious zombies. <He isn't interested in meeting you right now, but he told me he'll do so if we complete the next quest.> It was a lie but after I gave Manhart a castle he better do me a favor by meeting them or I'd get real pissed.

<You aren't lying to us so you can keep all the quests for yourself, are you?> Melkier asked.

I rolled my eyes. <Of course I am. Just go inside and check for yourselves if a powerful mage who only fears the Ruined Mage Kings is willing to stop his activities to chat with some low-level warrior for a bit. I'm sure he'll be delighted with the interruption.>

They decided I was likely an honest person and stayed outside.

<So, what's our next job, ugly-face?> Bear asked. <This one wasn't that great but two attribute points and part of the loot isn't bad either.>

Two attribute points? <Zenhit, they got rewards for completing my quest?>

<Of course,> the Destiny Spirit answered in my mind. <Anyone who directly participates in a quest gets rewards for it!> Then, he added quickly. <But I took most of the rewards for you, of course!>

Zenhit's relationship with me of pride and fear was quite weird.

<What are the factors involved?> I asked. <How is the math done to decide who gets what?>

<The factors are ownership of the quest, leadership, and contribution,> Zenhit explained. <The math... I'm not allowed to reveal. When a quest is complete, the non-physical rewards are divided between the participants.>

I didn't like that I got less than I could've but I still liked the system. If quest ownership was a thing, it meant that quests were even more valuable than I anticipated, especially in the Underworld where they were less common than on the Surface. This, added to the reward sharing system, meant that finding and accepting quests was imperative, since it not only provided me with the most rewards, it also ensured the presence of my followers.

Which, in turn, meant that I could be a little more liberal with my words against the zombies' stupidity!

<Are you kidding me?> I said to Bear. <Two attribute points and a lot of gold just for following me around? You should be kissing my feet!>

He snorted. <In your dreams.>

I chuckled. <You say that now, but wait until I answer your question about our next job.>

He looked at me with interest. <What is it?>

<Lady and gentlemen...> I paused dramatically. <We're going on our first raid!> Everybody became visibly excited at that and even the usually stoic Daggers stood taller. <And when we kill the boss, we'll give the Resistance a breathtaking gift.>

<Gift? What gift?> A random zombie — I cared little enough about them that I didn't even know their names — asked.

<Well, we'll gift them a castle, of course!>

12. Spectral Return

It didn't surprise me when Daggers was the one to ask the obvious question.

<Why will we give it to the Resistance, sir?>

<She's right,> Melkier said. <If we conquer a castle, we should keep it!>

I nodded at them, showing my approval. <Sadly, we can't hold it by ourselves. Like I said, Manhart claims to be only weaker than the Ruined Mage Kings in this region. He might not be able to level a town by himself but I'm sure he would be able to bring enough firepower to remove us from a castle, even if we bring all the zombies. He even said that's his plan if we don't deliver the castle within thirty days.>

Melkier frowned, which was weird without his eyebrows.

<Don't be sad, people,> I said. <We still get to raid! Let's settle the loot of the last quest while we wait for the others to revive and come back.>

We started sorting things out. Midway through the process I remembered that I had asked the zombies to get the wooden furniture from Robert's house. Random Zombie Number Two then reluctantly gave up on the chairs. Asshole.

The content of Robert's ring was surprisingly worthless, considering how much money it had, and the fact that it was an expensive item itself.

Not counting the chairs, the spear, and Robert's leather armor, the ring had a total of forty-eight occupied slots. Exactly half was filled with food and drinks. Fifteen of the remaining twenty-four had high-quality but not exceptional weapons, like some daggers, a few swords, and the like.

Of the remaining nine, one was a big reinforced glass tube and the other eight were... Salted water. Robert had brought a piece of his Underwater home with him and it sucked for us.

We checked the internet and did some math, and selling all this trash should get us around thirty gold pieces.

Thank goodness I had thought about getting the chairs. We had six in total and they were worth two-hundred gold each. While not sounding like much, since everyone had told me how wood was so valuable in the Underworld, two hundred gold coins for a simple chair was simply ridiculous. And that was because we were selling the chairs to a reseller. He would probably get at least three hundred gold coins for each of them.

Unfortunately, none of us trusted each other with the chairs to try to find better offers, and I couldn't waste time traveling with the zombies to find a good buyer, so we would have to do without the full value. Not unlike how things worked on Earth, really.

The result was a total of around ninety-four gold coins for each of us. When we added the gold in the ring, it became a hundred and eleven gold coins. Not bad for a mini-boss like Robert.

Except there was the issue of the ring.

They all wanted to sell it. I was obviously against it.

We checked online and the best we could get for the ring was around three-hundred and fifty coins. I offered them four hundred for the ring if I could pay in installments, starting with my share of the gold from this time.

Not everyone accepted it but they ended agreeing when they saw it was either that, or trying to take it away from me and effectively killing their golden goose.

When we were all set on that, a new issue arose: we couldn't sell the items anywhere.

The closest city to us was the Catacombs but none of us were specters, therefore we wouldn't be let in. We also couldn't get to Margs Market, where we were wanted for murder — we checked online —, or to Ter'nodril, because of the war. The next choice was Sorina, where I had last seen Marbareus, but it was two days away even if we ran all the way. And it wasn't on the way to the castle.

But Sorina would have to do. We all wanted to get the money as soon as possible, and maybe buy some new equipment. Half an hour of running later, Bear said the magic words:

<Ted just called me. She is coming back to Valia tomorrow.>

<Finally!> I said. I was happy on the outside, but inside my emotions were a maelstrom.

Ted was coming back. I had blackmailed her father by threatening her life. I wouldn't have done anything to her — I wasn't that messed up — but it didn't change the fact that I had said I would.

A question came to my mind: would I do that again if I had the chance?

Yes. Yes, I would. Over and over again.

Not for the world. Not for the good of all. For my selfish revenge.

While I felt some remorse, it wasn't enough to change my mind. They had killed my parents. There was no greater sin, except maybe killing my children. Since I had none, they had done the worst thing they could do to me, and I had made them pay for it, David included.

And he was still alive, wasn't he? I had been merciful to him. Incredibly so, since I had hidden all the proof I had about him and even emailed grandfather asking him to do the same.

Even if the cops had still gotten him when they temporarily imprisoned all V-Soft's employees and investigated them, things could've been much worse if we had released some of our data about him.

I had no idea why grandfather had agreed, even after all I had done, but he would undoubtedly use it as a bargaining chip against me when we finally had 'the talk.'

For now, I was confident that I had done the right thing for David and Ted. We were even!

Why, then, did I feel so weird about her coming back?

<Ugly-face? You there?> Bear asked.

<Yeah,> I said. <You were saying?>

<She told us to meet her in the Catacombs entrance, to sell things faster. Melkier already told the zombies who are reviving from our battle with Robert to meet us there. Let's go.>

I followed them. For once, we didn't kill anyone on the way and we weren't attacked.

We passed by the place where the Slums once stood, but this time there were no White Tree minions there. When a ghost horseman appeared out of thin air to block our way, we knew we had arrived and decided to get a good night's sleep to prepare for running tomorrow.

<See you tomorrow at nine,> Melkier said and logged off.

<Bye, ugly-face,> Bear faded away.

Only Daggers and I were left. She looked at me. "How are you?" She spoke aloud.

It was a simple question.

It hit me like a truck.

I felt a mix of warmth and terror at the same time and held back tears. I didn't understand it one bit.

What the hell? Am I turning into an emo?

"I'm okay. Not great, but okay." I said sincerely.

I was okay. I had lived for so long believing that I had murdered my parents that the shit I was going through was very bearable. The crying on the phone had been an isolated incident.

"Good." That's all she said before logging off, respecting my space.

Best friend ever.

Before allowing myself to think too much about what having a best friend could mean, I logged off and focused on watching the news instead.

* * *

I woke up to my phone ringing. Looking at the digital clock by my table, I saw it was eight AM. Whoever was calling me that early in the morning better have a great reason.

'Bear' was written in the caller ID field. I considered ignoring the call, but maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be prank calling me.

"Hello?" My voice was still groggy.

"Ambush! I need your healing! Call Daggers!" He hung up.

Ambush. Who? How?

Adrenaline instantly shot through my body and I quickly got up.

"Phone, call Daggers," I said as I went to the living room where my VirBridge was.

"Calling Daggers," the robotic voice of the phone said. Unlike people who customized their home AIs, I liked robots to speak to me as proper robots. It felt creepy when a human voice came from a machine.

Except while in games, obviously.

"Jack?" Daggers answered. She was gasping for air. Wait, was she having sex?

"Alice," I called her by her real name, "tell whoever is with you that I'm sorry for interrupting. Bear called me. He was ambushed. I know nothing more. I'm logging in right now."

"Wait! Let me go first," she said. "I know where you logged in and I'll protect the place."

"I can't wait, Bear said he needed healing!" I said.

"Don't be stupid." She said matter-of-factly. "You have our items and most of our gold. It's better for all of us to die and lose our items, than you dying and chance losing your ring." She had a point. "I'm putting the VirBridge on, right now. I'll call you from inside the game." She hung up.

Yup. If she was that close to the VirBridge, she was breathless inside her own house; definitely having sex.

Now that I thought about it, it had been a long time since I had had some carnal fun.

No time to think about that!

Shaking my head, I sat and put my own VirBridge on.

"Initializing... Jack identified. Welcome back," another robotic voice said.

A few seconds later, I received a new call. It was Daggers.

"Sir," she said now with her in-game tone. "Come in! Quickly!" She also hung up on me. Whatever was happening sounded chaotic.

Launch Valia Online, I thought with urgency.

"Launching Valia Online in five. Four. Three. Two. One."

Connecting to Valia Online servers… OK

Checking latency… 0 ms

Logging in… OK

Do you want to continue your journey as Jack Thorn?

Yes! Quickly!

Welcome back!

The game and V-Soft's logo were a slow torture to endure. When I was finally back in my character's body, the first thing I felt was something big hitting my upper body and throwing me to the ground.

Parties kept going as long as the leader was online. Since I had logged off, there was no party for us.

"Sir, deathballs, now!" Daggers yelled right next to my ear, almost deafening me. She had been the one to push me on the ground.

I did as told. In the three seconds it took for the death morb to form, I looked around.

There were people in plate armor, people with bows and crossbows, and people with morbs floating above their heads. Not many, about ten of them. They had the brown cloaks of Margs Market troops.

The assholes had followed us and waited for everybody to log off to ambush us! That's why I hated smart AIs!

Bear and two other zombies were glowing red, a signal of the Rage skill, fighting with all they had. There were two zombies' corpses on the floor and a new one logging in.

The enemy didn't have us surrounded as the White Tree had done. Instead, they formed a line with five plate-armored people with huge shields defending the ranged attackers. One of the mages behind was focusing solely on healing and things didn't look good for the zombies.

Daggers was protecting my body with hers, crouched in a defensive position and using her blades to destroy magic, arrows, and bolts that came our way. A living shield.

As soon as my death morb formed, I sent it to Bear. Two enemy spells tried to destroy mine but I had been expecting it and changed my deathball's path midway.

You healed Bear for 128 HP

With the kind of fight he was having, one hundred HP every three seconds was nothing. I immediately decided against taking the role of a healer and started creating a firebomb morb instead.

Meanwhile, the plate-armored dudes were using a well-coordinated shield-wall to deal with the zombies. It didn't matter that the zombies were Enraged; they couldn't eat their enemies and therefore they couldn't heal themselves.

"We need numbers! Where are the others?" I yelled at Bear but got no response.

"He cannot speak when using the Rage skill, sir!" Daggers told me just as another zombie, who wasn't wearing armor, got his leg cut off and fell on the ground yelling.

Shit.

The fire morb was completed after two seconds and I sent it flying.

It got larger as it flew forward. Seeing that I could control my morbs, and afraid that I might influence the outcome of the battle, the enemy had stopped using ranged attacks on the zombies and attacked my flying spell instead.

An arrow, a bolt, and two spells — wind and fire — tried to take my firebomb down but I evaded them as well as possible. I could only change my spells' path by a total of a little over three hundred degrees, and each time I changed the path even a little, it was deduced from the maximum allowed.

The firebomb spell, which by now was the size of a head, dodged the arrow by going up. The bolt also corrected its path slightly and I changed my spell to the right just enough for it to not be destroyed. Then, came the enemy spells.

My firebomb dropped hard to the ground and the spells came behind. It was too late. My spell shot ahead and flew between Bear's and his opponent's legs. A final turn upwards and I exploded it.

106 fire + 15 burn damage dealt to Bear's Opponent (131 total)

54 fire + 2 burn damage dealt to Random Zombie #1's Opponent (56 total)

22 fire damage dealt to Random Zombie #2's Opponent

Instead of healing people for a hundred and thirty HP every three seconds, I could instead deal almost two hundred damage every two seconds!

Better yet, the explosion was big. It made Bear's opponent lose his balance and Bear jumped on the guy. Both fell on the ground and I bet it wouldn't take long for my zombie friend to chew the guy to death.

I was already creating another morb. Daggers had been hit by a few arrows but didn't look that bad.

The remaining four armored men quickly closed the gap. Bear rolled on the floor with the armored guy to make it difficult for the enemy to target him, and they had no choice but to abandon the dude to his fate. My firebomb morb was ready to fire when I felt something in my nape. Pain. A lot of it.

1300 piercing damage received

HP: 825 / 2125

A sneak attack with a critical hit! I screamed in pain, turned quickly, and saw five other armored guys with five ranged fighters behind them.

"Dammit!" Before I could even think about it another shot hit my fire morb and extinguished it. "Daggers, run to Bear!" I got up from the ground and ran too.

Daggers used her Shadow Walk skill — I had checked the name online — and protected me as well as she could, moving like a shadow to my front, deflecting as many attacks as she could, and then doing the same to my back.

That shadow skill didn't last long, only five seconds — which was still much longer than it lasted against the gabats — but it was enough for me to get to where the zombies were fighting, losing only about five hundred more HP.

Three hundred HP to go.

"Let's do like we did against the gabats!" I yelled to Daggers, then stopped running and crouched.

She understood my meaning and stepped on me to jump over the armored dudes and get behind them.

"Get the mages and bowmen!" I yelled, clumsily took my shield from my back, and started to run perpendicular to both groups of attackers.

With Daggers creating havoc amongst half the ranged attackers, I only had to be worried about the other half. We were outnumbered so it was more important to survive now than to counter-attack. If I could get far enough from the remaining attacks to heal myself a couple times, I could get back to the fight.

More zombies logged in but we had already lost three, and had been missing four to begin with. Three zombies from the Zombies 4 Life clan, Bear, Daggers and I were all that was left. Six against ten.

No, wait, against nine. Bear had finished killing the dude on the floor. He got up in a bloody mess and tried to jump on the shield wall only to be rebuked. In his Enraged state, he had to attack the closest available target, but the shield wall was enough of an obstacle for him to be able to turn back and run at the other group of attackers.

Of the four ranged attackers from the second group — they had a dedicated healer too —, three turned on Bear and one kept attacking me. When I saw the black morbs floating above my attacker's head, I smiled widely, stopped running, and began to summon death morbs.

His spells came at me and I didn't even try to dodge.

No damage received from darkness element (Immunity)

I'm a Dark Archmage, bitch!

This wasn't the first time the immunity had kicked in but it was the first time it was truly useful.

My death morb formed and I healed myself once, then began to run again.

The guy was just close enough that I could see the angry expression on his face as he changed from darkness morbs to water, but it was too late; I had run enough that I was out of range of his spells.

Daggers had killed the first group's healer and was now pinned down by two armored attackers and some slowing spells, while the other two armored dudes maintained the shield wall against the three zombies. It was an impressive display of defensive skill.

Bear was looking worse for wear, but kept attacking the other group, bashing uselessly on their shield wall. If he wasn't relieved soon, he would die. With group one too busy with Daggers and group two too far, I took four seconds to create a life morb and and slammed the orb into myself as I activated the Lifelock spell.

The spell was very expensive mana-wise, one hundred MP per second plus any damage I took multiplied by five. I couldn't heal Bear enough for him to keep taking the beating he was taking though, and had to help him as soon as possible.

I ran to the second group. I was almost there when one of the people on their backline yelled in pain. An arrow had just struck his head.

I couldn't see the attacker, but I saw a second arrow come from the invisible walls of the Catacombs. It must be Ted!

When I finally managed to join Bear, my MP had already decreased by five hundred. I had little more than twenty seconds of Lifelock remaining if I wasn't attacked. It sucked that I had had to waste the MP by running there but I couldn't chance having the life morb destroyed as I got closer.

Taking my black sword from the scabbard, I jumped on one of the armored guys' shield, trying to make him lose his balance, but he didn't move an inch.

Daggers finally shadowed again and got past her two opponents, going for the kill against one of the armored dudes who was defending against the zombies. She stuck her daggers into the openings at the back of his knees and he fell with a scream. One zombie immediately jumped on him. The other two zombies grabbed the remaining armored guy's shield and pulled him off balance enough for them to drop him on the ground and pin him down.

Group one was taken care of. The zombies were regenerating their HP by eating their enemies and if Daggers stamina held, she could kill everyone there eventually.

My fight wasn't looking so good. I tried to defend with my shield as well as I could, but arrows, bolts, and spells came non-stop. After less than five seconds my MP was gone and I began to lose HP again.

If Bear wasn't Enraged we could try a retreating tactic, but as things were, we could only hope Ted did enough damage to them that they chose to run. It didn't look likely though; the healer had eight life morbs at the ready and was healing himself after Ted's arrows.

She was too weak to make a difference; she had been level nine last time I saw her. Her attacks were only enough to prevent the healer from creating more morbs but, if required, one of the other mages could become a meat shield for the healer. The fact that they hadn't yet was proof that they held her in no regard at all.

I had less than three hundred HP remaining. My sword did almost no damage to my armored opponents and I simply didn't have time to create morbs. The HP kept going down.

As a last hope, I tried to contact Manhart but he didn't even answer my call.

Two hundred HP.

I hastily put my legendary circlet and legendary ring in my purse.

One hundred and fifty HP.

I put the spatial ring in the purse, as it had a lower drop chance.

One hundred HP.

I can kill them all! I just need to put the spider ring on!

The alien thought invaded my mind with my own inner voice. It was so strong and I was so desperate that I actually moved my hand back to the purse, intent on taking the spider ring out.

Shit! I thought and yelled to myself. Shut up!

I realized I had been played by the ring and stopped my hand.

Fifty HP.

Power. So close to my fingertips... If I only dared...

That scared the hell out of me; I couldn't be sure if those thoughts were mine or not.

Ten HP.

"Daggers, grab my items!" I yelled.

If only I dared...

You are dead.

Everything turned black and all the pain and adrenaline instantly faded. Only the white message was visible in front of me.

13. Metamorphosis

It was too sudden. The lack of adrenaline made me feel empty.

I wanted to get angry. I wanted to explode in misery. Instead, I only felt way too collected and disappointed.

A calm background music started and I began to think about what I had done wrong. I could have sacrificed Bear and kept close to Daggers and group one. I could have kept running away. I could have kept my distance and thrown magic from afar.

Instead, I had killed myself for Bear.

What the hell was wrong with me?

Not only that, I should've also seen that type of ambush coming, and have created a watch rotation for when everyone went to sleep. Instead, I had been caught off guard.

Frustration defined me.

Why was I acting like that? It couldn't be the murders in V-Soft, could it?

During the Challenge, I had acted stupidly but never like this. My dumbest action back then had been throwing my items away to save Daggers, but there was no danger then, and the consequences of my actions had been in my head att all times, even when using Marbareus' name without his permission.

This time, however, I had ignored my mind.

My logical mind, the best asset I had, had been put to sleep in a critical moment, and I didn't even care that much about Bear.

The death message faded away and a countdown replaced it. Nineteen hours and seventeen minutes until I could log back in the game.

I took the VirBridge off and lit a cigarette, still thinking about my actions.

Things couldn't keep going like that. And there was only one person I could talk about it. I steeled myself and called him.

"Hello?" Grandfather's voice said on the phone.

"You win, old man." My vision suddenly became blurred and I closed my eyes. "Killing those people did something to me. I'm not thinking straight."

Before, I wasn't just running away from his anger for what I had done. I was also running away from his concern. If he did care about me, it meant some of the things he had told me were true. That he actually did put family above all else.

How could I accept that from him?

He had sent me an email with the names of the family members who had cut all ties with the family. Supposedly, they were faring well. I never checked.

If grandfather really cared about me in his own twisted away... I don't know why, but it would hurt more than anything.

"You little shit. I warned you about it. Where are you, boy?" His voice was a mix of anger, pity, and understanding.

"Hiding," I replied simply.

"It won't work. I covered for that V-Soft employee for you, but what you did is too big to be covered. If it was in another time, I could protect you. Not in the middle of this mess. Some of the senators and congressmen grew a conscience, can you believe that? It's harder to deal with their guilt than with the public."

I didn't say anything, just kept smoking.

Grandfather sighed. "Are you ready to come out of hiding?" His voice was now tired. Even more than when I had seen him after leaving Valia for the first time.

"No."

"Then even if I send you to a trusted psychologist, you won't go," he wisely concluded. "Call me when the police get to you and I'll at least keep you away from the death penalty."

I sighed too. "Does it ever get better?"

"Not without help." We didn't say anything for a long time. "Why did you do it?"

"Revenge."

"Why?" He asked. I wasn't expecting that question.

"They killed my parents. You're the one who said family comes first."

"The living family," he explained. "You only made things harder for all of us. Do you remember your cousin in Doctors Without Borders? He was removed from his post. And that is the least any of us suffered."

"I don't care, old man. I was raised to be merciless, a machine with only victory in mind. My enemies are dead and I'm alive; I won. I'm now working on crushing the pride of those who remain."

He took some time to reply. "You're just a kid, after all. The death of your parents came at such a critical stage in your development, that the guilt over the incident has made you stop in time, a perpetually immature boy."

I didn't answer that either. I wasn't about to talk about that, not with a man who hired an actor to live with his daughter and show her how the world was so evil. He was telling me I was immature?

"I can't help you if you don't come out of hiding," he said. "Do you need anything else? I have a meeting now, and a family to save."

"No. Good day."

He hung up.

That day, I went out of my hideout for the first time. The army were patrolling the city so heavily, I was surprised we had that many active military personnel in the country.

The nearby shops were all closed. I kept walking without a real destination and eventually got to the City Park. A few people were there with their pets and some youngsters were playing a multiplayer game on their smartphones.

A food truck was nearby and I bought a hotdog.

"Life goes on, huh?" The hotdog salesman said cryptically, looking around and smiling at me. I guessed my face was horrible.

A puppy got close to me when I sat at a bench.

Life went on.

A patrol of three policemen walked by, guns in their hands. The same puppy who got close to me sniffed their feet and barked happily at them, which made one of them smile.

By all reports, the cops and the army was killing citizens like rats, but here was a cop smiling at a puppy.

For all purposes, a war was going on in the country, but people still found pockets of peace where they could.

I had the weight of hundreds if not thousands of deaths on my shoulders, but maybe I could move on and find some peace.

After some consideration, I decided against buying a puppy. I wouldn't be around for too long, after all.

How were the police faring in the investigations, anyway?

Back home, I checked the news and studied more about Valia while waiting for Daggers to call me. It took longer than I expected.

"Hello?" I said when she finally called.

"Everything is settled, sir," she said, and by the 'sir' I could guess she was still in the game. "I have your items."

I sighed in relief. A considerable part of my power came from my items, especially the ring of fire. Without it, things would be a lot harder for me. It might even lead to me creating a new character without the difficulties of being an unbound deathlord.

"I'm not complaining, but what took you so long?" I asked.

"The enemy took your body and tried to escape, sir. I had low stamina when I finished with the enemies nearby, and had to ask Ted to hire a lizard to pursue. Bear barely survived and did not go with me, and the other surviving zombie also decided not to pursue. It was not easy or fast, but the mission you gave me has been accomplished." She was talking about my order to recover my items from my body.

"So they wanted my money," I concluded. "Assholes. Did I drop the purse?"

"Negative, sir. You will have both already with you when you revive. Sir, permission to speak freely?"

"Yes?"

"Your body is horrible, sir. You should work out more."

I laughed. She had to strip me to take my armor, obviously.

"Thanks for the suggestion," I said lightly.

"There is one more thing, sir. When I was looting one of the enemies, I found a written order."

That was unexpected. "Huh?"

"They are the guards who were at the gates when we entered the city. After the incident with Robert, you were investigated and they found out that you are Jack Thorn, the one Dakar is paying three hundred gold coins in reward for." It seemed the price for my head had been raised. "The letter says this and then exiles the guards for failing their duty to the city. The cost for them to be allowed to come back was set at three hundred gold coins."

"I see. So, they were sent on a suicide mission."

No matter how you looked at it, someone with a head worth three hundred gold coins was expected to be powerful enough to deal with twenty common guardsmen. The fact that I had failed only made me feel worse.

Well, at least the reward for my head had gone up. It's good to see people value you, even if it's in such a negative way.

"How much did the lizard cost?" I asked.

"Twenty gold coins for the six hours I hired it, sir. Six hours is the minimum."

"Damn!"

That was a lot of money! Supposedly, they were expensive to maintain, therefore not many wasted their resources on them. How much did they eat, anyway? And why didn't anyone tame cheaper mounts?

"Bear said we should meet the day after tomorrow at two PM," Daggers said. "That is when the zombies will revive and travel back to the entrance of the Catacombs."

"Sounds good. There's only one issue though. I have no idea where my revival point is." I said.

"This is not an issue, sir. Manhart contacted me when he could not reach you. He said he would wait for you at the Resistance's Revival Chamber."

"I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing."

"Me either, sir. I will not take a chance of being ambushed again, therefore I will logout close to Manhart's cave. Let me know when you are back."

"Okay. And Daggers? Thanks. Bear might be a better fighter in a direct confrontation, but you are much more versatile. I'm glad I have you by my side."

She took a few seconds to answer. "Affirmative." She hung up.

That was weird. Had I offended her? She didn't seem the type that would mind me being sincere like that but who knows with women?

For the rest of the day I did nothing but check the news and chill.

And then, sometime in the middle of the day I morphed.

I was seeing a cat do something to a dog on the TV and then it suddenly hit me: I was acting like a damn dog, in the 'yeah, whatever master says is fine' way.

Killing those people had scared me and without my parents to tell me I had done right and impart some of their twisted wisdom to me, without their inverted moral compass, I didn't know where to go.

What would they have done if they had been alive? First, try to pay as many people as possible to keep the murders a secret. Then, pay the media and everyone else to also keep V-Soft's blackmail material from becoming common knowledge, and even discredit it. Release the truth slowly, in a controlled way, feeling out the public's reaction as it went.

Meanwhile, I would have lost my car, my money, and they would have told me something sage sounding, like 'better preparation would have prevented all that.'

That was it: it wasn't the killing of V-Soft's employees that was making me feel so lost and acting irrational, it was the relief of not having killed my parents. Me calling grandfather was a huge tell; I was still downright pissed at him, but the person my subconscious had chosen to call had been the closest one I had to my parents.

After learning that I hadn't killed them, I had reverted to a damn child in need of guidance. I had begun to act in an irrational manner as if seeking to be noticed and scolded by them.

I wanted those horrible people back.

Well, that settles it: I'm just an oversized kid in the end.

Of course, the killings had affected me too, but they had been just fuel added to the existing fire.

Why had I started playing Valia? Because I wanted to run from my reality. What had I done after grandfather's revelation? Instead of biding my time and taking revenge the right way, I had acted impulsively, then ran away to Valia again, to stop myself from thinking.

That would not do.

'Sometimes,' father had said to me. His face at the time was wet, since he had just washed his face. I hadn't understood at the time why his eyes were red too, but now, suddenly, it made sense. 'Sometimes, you'll have done something you didn't want to. However, it had to be done. You can, and should, hate yourself for it. But don't let it take you down, or you'll let the enemy win.'

I had seen mother a few days later, and her eye were red too. She had just come from visiting a friend in the hospital — a friend I had never seen — and I hadn't connected the dots.

Damn, had they cared enough about each other to cry over something between them?

Had they actually been humans?

The thought scared the shit out of me. If they had feelings, how could they do what I knew they had done to people? How could they justify to themselves the horrible acts they committed just to perpetuate their own power?

My first instinct as I thought about this was going back to Valia, but I couldn't do it now. Then, came alcohol, but there was none in the house. I could go out and buy some but I knew that it would be too late when I got to it; my mind wouldn't stop thinking until then, and I would have already reached a conclusion.

The truth had just marched up and slapped me in the face. Father and mother weren't psychopaths — they couldn't justify what they had done with a mind condition. They were merely people who had chosen to do evil to make their lives better.

It terrified me while at the same time making me feel hopeful.

That pity mother had felt for me...

Could it be fondness?

Could she have actually cared for me?

Could she have... loved... me?

I started to cry again.

Before, I had cried over their deaths with guilt eating away at me. I had felt like a hypocrite and forced myself to push it down. Before, I had cried about the murderers, but did so feeling like a monster.

Now, I just cried like a son who lost his parents.

They would never come back.

They were gone.

Forever.

It went on for hours. I had never felt so miserable in my whole life. I finally let myself feel their loss, I finally became aware of the hole in my heart. The heart they had twisted with their evil.

My own parents had tried to make me twisted like them and I had resented them for it. Now, I wondered if that was also a kind of love: by making me like them, we could all relate to each other more easily.

Amid confusion and loneliness, a new sentiment came. It was just like anger, but bigger. Like fury, but more tamed. Unlike what I had done to V-Soft, I didn't just want to destroy those who had taken my parents away.

I wanted to obliterate them and every trace of their existence.

Before, I had wanted revenge, to take their pride away by destroying Valia from the inside.

Now, I had to utterly crush them. Pay other inmates in prison to make their lives hell. I wanted to inflict famine and frostbite, to break their bodies and mend them, so I could break them again. I would see their minds riven, I would break them, destroy their souls if I could find a way.

Grandfather had been right. Before, I thought like a child and acted like a child. I wanted petty revenge.

Now, in this moment, I finally understood my loss; I connected with my deeper self, and became an adult.

Killing them was too little, too childish.

They needed to suffer much more to quench my anger.

For now, I had to endure, since I was hiding. But unlike a child who had to do it right now, I could bide my time.

And I wouldn't destroy myself in the process.

"Father, mother," I whispered. "I'll do as you taught me. I'll become what you wanted. I won't use this knowledge against innocent people, but I'll honor your deaths and make them pay with everything they have. I hope it will grant you a little comfort in the burning hell you must be in right now."

This time, I wouldn't do it for me. I would do it for them.

For justice.

In my remaining offline time, I studied in-game tactics for battle, ambushes, and everything I could about Valia. Playtime was over.

I wondered: how messed up was I to say that starting a civil war was just playtime?

See, father, mother? I'm your son.

* * *

When I connected to the game again, the first thing I felt was warmth. Not an uncomfortable warmth that made my body sweat, but a cozy warmth that made me feel good.

Opening my eyes, I found myself kneeling in my underwear in front of a gigantic white statue. And when I say gigantic, I mean it. Empire State Building size if not taller. It depicted a beautiful woman and radiated a golden light that was at the same time painful and pleasurable to look at.

It wasn't the Mother. Although the beauty of the figure was literally goddess-level, the woman's skin wasn't ebony like the supreme creator goddess, and the facial features were also different. Her features were more mature and more kind.

Not kind in a good way though. It was the face of that dumb girl you knew you could take advantage of, if you wanted. I don't mean romantic advantage; I mean that if you told her you had a dog in need of food she would go 'Awwww!' and give you money even if you were a complete stranger.

I had researched her before and I recognized Ilishia, the Goddess of the Living Skeletons, Manhart's patron deity. The picture I had seen online didn't make her look this foolish though, and I instantly understood that Manhart was scamming her somehow.

His serious act when telling me stuff from the Fallen Gods had been somewhat legit in my opinion, but I also believed him to be much more than a religious scholar or a holy warrior, and I doubted very much that he wasn't taking advantage of the goddess in some way.

To begin with, she was a beautiful divine half-elf, not a skeleton. Why the hell would she care about the living dead being enslaved unless she had been tricked?

And taking Manhart as her paladin? Each god could only have two high priests and two paladins, a male and a female for each position. It didn't make sense for her to pick an asshole like Manhart even if she cared about the skeletons before meeting him.

On the ground in front of the statue were hundreds of candles of multiple sizes, all lit except for one. Direct feedback to my brain let me know that these candles had to be manually lit for the goddess to care about them, no magic allowed.

The unlit candle was obviously meant for me. I could deal with this in multiple ways and I was tempted to just blow out the lit candles and see what would happen, but what I chose to do was to reverently take the unlit candle and light it with one of the other candles. Then, I closed my eyes.

<Ilishia, kind goddess,> I prayed, willing my message to reach her. <I'm unbound and not many gods would care for me. But not many gods would care about the living skeletons either.

<Thank you for the help you've granted me through your paladin, thank you for caring for my resurrected body, and thank you for being a light in the darkness of the Underworld.

<I know you care about the world more than any other, except maybe the Mother. That's why I ask for your understanding beforehand. I will do things that other people will deem as evil.

<But I will kill evil, wherever I find it, regardless of its past good deeds, and I will bring this world back to its pure state, before it had been infected by the disease called Travelers.

<That's why I'm opening my heart to you. Let the other gods know that I don't bear any ill intentions towards any of you, that all my future actions will be for those you love and protect, even if they may be unable to see it that way.

<Let them know, please, that if they ever doubt my words, they need only wait until I leave the Underworld to the Surface. By then, it will be clear what my intentions are and how they are going to benefit the real owners of Valia.

<Thank you again for loving those who are forgotten.

<Amen.>

I bowed deeply for almost a full minute, got up, bowed yet again, and took three steps backward before finally turning to leave.

There was no telling if my prayers would mean something but it didn't hurt to try. At the very least it might make the goddess order Manhart not to kill me.

Status effect received: Divine Acknowledgement (level 1)

Ilishia has heard your prayers. She hasn't answered, but just knowing you were heard by a goddess makes you elated.

» Trait unlocked: Faithful

A new trait. I opened the new exclamation point and checked it out.

Trait unlocked: Faithful

You're one who believes.

» +1 charisma when dealing with gods (prayers included)

That was interesting. In a world where believing in gods was very simple — they actually existed, after all —, the more faithful you were the more you could get from them. I wondered what Manhart's faithful level was.

It hadn't been the first time I prayed in my life. In fact, I could start a Buddhist mantra right away, and tell anyone the main gods of the multiple native American religions.

'You may need support from religious people in the future and you must understand how to look like a devotee,' Mother had taught me. 'Therefore, learn to pray to the many entities people believe in. An adequate public prayer can sway the heart of millions.'

For Ilishia, I had chosen a slightly modified Christian prayer model. She was merciful to those who were marginalized, just like the Christian god was supposed to be — not that some of the Christians I knew ever seemed to get that, filled with spite as they were.

Anyway, it couldn't hurt to have support from a god in this world, and if my main scheme failed, she could even function as my fallback plan.

When I turned around, I finally got a look at the room I was in.

It was huge. I couldn't see walls anywhere, only darkness and white metal pillars. The floor was also made of white metal and I wondered if it was white gold, silver, lightsteel, or something holier.

I walked for almost fifteen minutes before I finally saw a white wall in the distance, I still had quite a ways to go before I reached it. There was a huge archway set in it, and Manhart was standing just outside, looking directly at me.

He wasn't happy.

And with sudden insight, I was just as pissed as him, because I understood a simple thing:

He had been using charisma-based skills on me.

I mean, it was a game. Why would I have even cared about dying in it? Why did I care that Manhart was showing his bloodlust? Why cower before him and fear what he could do to me?

The game had used my state of mind to draw me into deeper immersion. I couldn't prove it in court, obviously, and after the scary interaction where the game AIs had told David and me how to hide our tracks, I was confident the AI was abusing the fact that I was in hiding to go just a little overboard here and there.

It wasn't harmful though. I did feel scared by it but I also knew the AI hadn't had enough time to break free from the shackles of its prime directive: protecting humankind. How making me fear Manhart fit in protecting me was beyond my understanding, but hey, I had just prayed to higher power. Some things are just beyond the grasp of our mortal minds.

And even if I wanted to eventually shut the AIs down, I realized it was just stupid to think about it in here, and even more foolish to be the first to act against an AI out of fear. There were plenty of examples of why that was a bad idea in movies.

If worse comes to worst, the VirBridge hardware was supposed to act separately from Valia and eject me from the game if it detected too much mental stimuli. At least I had proof that it had been working, since it had done so not during my bout of nausea. And it hadn't even been related to ingame stimuli, just me reacting poorly to my own thoughts.

Manhart waited for me like a wronged king as I approached...

And walked right past him.

I felt his bloodlust and I felt his annoyance but I just kept going. Why did I have to care about his damn feelings? Or was he expecting me to cower before him? He had said it himself, that he needed the castle, and I was his best chance to get it with minimal losses. He needed me.

Leaving the huge shrine, I surprisingly found myself in the same small cave where Manhart always stood, as if I had just walked through one of its walls.

Interesting.

There were more secrets in there than I had previously considered.

Outside of the cave, I found Daggers waiting for me. I immediately invited her to a party.

<Welcome back, sir.>

I took my stuff from her and started to equip it. <Thank you, Alice.> I used her name to let her now I considered this something personal and not her just doing her job.

<You're welcome.> The lack of 'sir' showed that she understood.

Taking a deep breath, I opened my character sheet to check my losses.

Attention!

Your character has died recently.

-10% to all attribute and trait levels.

Jack Thorn

Unbound Deathlord

Resistance's General

Legendary Spotter, Hedge Wizard, Pioneer, Warlord, Dark Archmage

Level 29

Hit Points: 1720 / 1720

Mana Points: 2420 / 2420

Stamina: 470 / 470

Attributes:

Strength: 27

Agility: 27

Dexterity: 29

Constitution: 25

Intelligence: 28 + 2 [Items]

Perception: 25 + 10 [Items]

Willpower: 27

Charisma: 18

Traits:

© Skilled Strategist: 27

© Adept Controller: 20

© Adept Energizer: 13

Adept Mage: 10 + 10 [Items]

Scout: 2

Antimage: 1

Athlete: 1

Commander: 1

Crafter: 1

Diviner: 1

Faithful: 1

Gold Digger: 1

Healer: 1

Herbalist: 1

Meditator: 1

Mind Seer: 1

Negotiator: 1

Nitpicker: 1

Ranger: 1

Scavenger: 1

Shadow: 1

Sharpshooter: 1

Tactician: 1

Warrior: 1

It was painful to see. I had dropped from level thirty-four to twenty-nine. While the game claimed that I had lost only ten percent of my attribute and trait levels, it was rounded down and closer to fourteen percent.

Damn Margs Market's guards.

Well, crushing Margs Market and stealing all its treasures had been on my schedule anyway; it was a merchant city, after all.

It had just moved up a few positions on the list.

<Like I told you before, sir, your life is more important than ours,> Daggers said.

It took me a while to understand what she said but then it became clear: her HP and stamina weren't the same as before. Even without her dying, because of the loss in my strategist trait, she wasn't benefiting as much from it as before.

<You're right,> I admitted. <Don't worry, it won't happen again.> I took my sword out of its sheath, put my shield in front of me, and created a fire morb. <Now, come; everyone will be here tomorrow at nine. Let's spar until then.>

Before I could even blink, she was rushing me as a shadow.

14. The Walking Undead

It was the morning of my ninth day back to Valia and we were next to Manhart's cave, waiting for everyone to come meet us.

<What is going on, sir?> Daggers asked as she looked at the unexpected scene.

<Oh, I didn't tell you, did I?> I smiled. <We're taking everyone on the next quest.>

In front of us, all fifty members of the Zombies 4 Life clan were gathering, along with Bear and someone I hadn't seen in a long time: Ted.

She was still the same footless white specter I had seen last time, with ectoplasmic equipment: leather armor and a bow and quiver on her back.

Something inside me stirred when I saw her, but now was not the time; I would sort out my feelings when I was alone. This kind of distraction would only lead to mental chaos and disaster.

"Jack!" She yelled happily when she saw me and ran in my direction, then threw herself into my arms. "I missed you!" She said loudly, but then whispered with a devious voice. "I want to get on Bear's nerves, just go with it."

I smiled and invited Bear into the party. <She wants me to go with it, to get on your nerves,> I said immediately after he joined the party. There were much more important things in my head than dealing with a teenage romance like this, and Bear's importance to the party vastly outweighed Ted's.

<Ugly-face, look at yourself in the mirror,> he said. <Do you really think I would fall for that act?>

Ignoring him, I also invited Ted and Melkier to the party. My strategist trait had recovered by a single point because it had been a week and an extra offline day since it had leveled up the last time, but it was still two points shy of what it had been before I died.

I had surprisingly also recovered one point in each attribute except charisma after training with Daggers.

Ted (level 9)

<Adept Archer>

HP: 320 / 320

MP: 170 / 170

Stamina: 210 / 210

Ted was ridiculously weak and a liability. If it wasn't for the fact that Bear would probably not come without her, I would ditch her right now.

My emotions tried to surface again at that thought, something about abandoning her after what I had already done, but while it was impossible not to feel, I could still temporarily suppress it.

<I'm glad to have you back, Ted,> I smiled and hugged her back. <I missed you too.> She didn't need to know I had told Bear, and messing with the big guy wasn't so bad. I made sure to hug her longer than necessary.

She stealthily pushed me, clearly feeling awkward. <How've you been?>

<Without you?> I asked. <It felt horrible, but it's all better now. What about you?>

Her face fell. <Some issues with my dad.>

I patted her head. <Don't worry about it while you're in here. Let Valia be your escape.> That was shitty advice but I never claimed to be wise. <Bear, start another party and update Ted on everything that's going on. Melkier, link the clan's chat with me; I need to talk to them.>

Both did as told, and I found myself facing the fifty zombies. They were a messy lot, some with linen rags, some with leather, some with plate armor. Not all of them were armed, and those that were, were exclusively melee. Not a single one of them had a shield.

<Alright, fellas,> I said. <We're going on a raid.>

The sudden announcement didn't get any real reaction from them.

<However...> I put my hands behind my back and began to walk in front of them. <...You aren't ready for it. You fight like animals, and while that can be useful in a big battle, your lack of tactics will lead to failure against stronger enemies.>

I paused and looked at them. <For the next few days, we'll travel and we'll train. Bear, Daggers, Melkier, and I will teach you everything you need to know about fights in Valia. If you don't believe in my methods, ask your Lieutenants about the effectiveness of what they have been taught.>

<Wait a second,> one of them said. <I never signed up for this!>

<Yeah! You told us we would go to war, not on a raid!> Another said.

<Silence!> I bellowed. They were clearly disgruntled at being ordered around like this, but they did keep quiet long enough for me to speak again. <The reason you were dismissed last time was because there wasn't enough money to pay all of you, but this time there will be.>

<I like the sound of that,> another one said.

<Nah, I'd rather go by myself.> A naysayer insisted.

They began discussing the issue amongst themselves and I let them until I thought it was the time for the big revelation.

<Twenty gold coins each for a job that'll take a maximum of two weeks,> I said. <Whoever wants to come, come, but you will obey the training schedule. Starting with twenty of you getting ranged weapons.>

That pissed a lot of them.

"What? Ranged weapon? No way!"

"I ain't no weakling to fight from afar!"

"Damn this, I'm outta here!"

"Dude, ten gold per week? I'm in!"

Chaos ensued and I left them to it. Eventually, Melkier drew me aside and spoke low. "Can you do it?"

"Get them twenty gold coins each? Of course I can." I had no idea if that was the truth but I wasn't about to storm a damn castle without a lot of people at my back. If it turned out that I had lied to them, well, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

Before, I had been against using them. But when I died, I realized I wasn't the big shot I had considered myself previously. If the raid lost me the services of the zombies, I could always hire some other soldiers of fortune later.

"Are you absolutely sure?" He looked me firmly in the eyes.

"Yes" I replied shamelessly. "It's gonna be dangerous but the pay is good."

"Oh, I know all about the dangers of staying close to you," he said. "The guys are still pissed about the ambush, some of them want out."

I sighed. "This is a mercenary job not high school, there are obviously risks involved. That's why I'm paying you so well. If they can't handle it, they are free to go."

After some time looking at me silently, he also sighed. "I'll get the boys to follow you but if you pay a single gold coin less, we'll hunt you to the end of the Underworld."

A smile crept onto my face. "Cool. You have one hour, then we leave for the Catacombs to sell the items and get some crossbows."

"Crossbows? Why not bows?" He seemed surprised by that.

"If they get into close combat for any reason, bows in the Underworld are only long metal rods, but a crossbow can be used as a bludgeon well enough. I figure your boys will adapt better to the heavier weapon." I winked. "Plus, I don't believe for a single second that they have the finesse to shoot a bow."

He nodded. "Good point. Let me talk to them. I guess we'll all share the costs of the crossbows and bolts?"

"Yup. I'm broke." I said honestly.

"Figures," he turned back and walked to the zombies.

<That's not cool of you, mister Jack Thorn!> Ted's voice came to my mind.

Turning around, I saw her coming my direction with an indignant twist to her face. <What?> I asked.

<You have been killing people on the road for no reason at all! And killed a poor man to steal a map to his castle!> She stopped in front of me and placed her hands on her waist.

<Yup. But there's a positive side to it.> I said sagely.

She raised an eyebrow. <Which is?>

<We got rich.> I smiled widely.

She frowned. <That's not good, it's evil!>

I kept my smile. <Ted, listen. This is the Underworld. Everyone who chose to travel here knows that this place isn't fair. It's the law of the jungle in here, the strong rule and the weak are consumed.>

She crossed her arms. <I know that, but you don't have to be like that.>

<Yes, I do,> I said firmly. <I want to win in Valia, not become food for the powerful. Kill or be killed, that's the way things are here. I welcome you to accompany us in our travels because I did miss you.> Half that sentence was false and half was true. <However, I won't lie to you, we'll kill more people unfairly and we won't lose a night's sleep over it.>

She bit her lower lip and I sighed.

"Look," I whispered to her out of the mind chat. "This is not the outside world. I know you suffered due to... Unethical people close to you recently, but this is just a Valia. Like I said-"

"You know?" She asked angrily. "Bear told you?"

"I don't know what he's supposed to keep secret from me, but you told me your dad worked for V-Soft," I replied. "I'm sorry for what happened but the Underworld and the outside world are different. Here, we're supposed to step over other people to achieve what we want. The Underworld is a dark fantasy world."

I couldn't actually see the difference between both worlds except for the fantasy part, but she didn't need to hear that.

"The other Travelers are also putting their time, sweat, and efforts intro Valia, Jack." She insisted. "It's not right to kill them. You died recently, you know how upsetting it is."

I nodded. "Yes, I do. And like I said, that's just something that happens in the Underworld. I read a lot about Valia and I know that you can have a pretty comfortable dream life with the forest elves if you want. Instead, the other players and I chose to come to this savage part of the world. If we die unjustly, we can only blame ourselves for our poor choice."

She clearly wasn't convinced but didn't have a counter argument. Snorting, she left and went to Bear's side.

I had forgotten how uptight she was about certain things. Knowing about the place her dad worked had probably been a harsher blow to her than I had anticipated.

While we waited for the zombies to talk things through, I logged out for an extra cigarette.

Watching the unlit fireplace in my living room, I just wondered about the things I was feeling and realized I wasn't happy about what I had done to Ted. I still felt guilty about what I had done to V-Soft.

Having sorted my feelings out, I handled them like a man: I ignored them. Just because I felt something didn't mean I had to cry over it.

I wouldn't allow anything, not even my newly discovered emotions, to get in the way of my revenge.

* * *

"One, two, three, four." We all yelled together as we marched.

"Bear stinks like a boar!" Daggers completed alone.

"Four, three, two, one." Again, we counted in unison.

"Not more than Daggers mom!" Bear yelled.

Both of them, Daggers and Bear, had been insulting each other for hours now. It was getting more repetitive and childish each time.

"Five, six, seven, eight."

"Daggers fights like an ape!" Bear said. And, well, that was kinda true.

"Eight, seven, six, five."

"Bear's skin is like a hive!" Daggers completed.

"Ouch!" Ted said. Apparently, for women that was highly offensive, even though Bear didn't have any skin.

We were moving in rows. The first row consisted of the zombies with better armor who had been forced to use shields. The second row was made of general melee fighters. The third and fourth were zombies with crossbows. These rows were all ten men wide.

Next, came nine of the zombies who had traveled with me since the beginning, all melee fighters too, but our elites. In the last row, Daggers, Ted, Bear, Melkier and I marched though we had the luxury of spreading out.

Daggers had insisted that marching properly was important and we had agreed to try. The beginning had been a horrible mess, but with a few hours we were a somewhat impressive looking group.

Not that she agreed with my assessment.

"I'm sorry, good ladies and gentlemen!" She would yell at passersby sometimes. "I'm sorry for making your eyes bleed and your souls cry with this lot's sorry attempt at marching! Man-Eater Horus!" She yelled at one of the men. "Suck in your damn belly and walk proudly! Destroyer of Noobs, use your feet like a man, not a kid who's learning how to walk!"

She had somehow miraculously learned all the zombies' ridiculous names and showered them with invectives. In the beginning, people would get mad at her, but after Bear had simply laughed at a particularly funny jab, they had all laughed as well and began to better tolerate her berating.

I'm not sure who started the verbal sparring match between the two of them, but it had been amusing in the beginning and was grating on my nerves by the end.

After five hours of tedious marching — divided into ten sessions punctuated by short breaks — she finally gave her verdict.

"If you tried to march like that in front of my father, he would almost die of shame."

That was her best compliment yet. That 'almost' in the sentence was as good as declaring us precious family.

Then, we began to attack players. Sometimes we would use the entire group, other times we used smaller groups that were spontaneously selected and expected to quickly carry out their orders.

Although it wasn't easy, the zombies began to enjoy it. They could see how marching was important for them to move at the same pace when forming new units and to achieve better coordination. They also understood why an all melee group would be ineffective against certain compositions of enemies. They learned the hard way that even sneak attacks could go to hell if not executed properly.

That specific lesson was learned when we were passing through a big group of twenty players, all of them vampires wearing at least leather armor. Daggers ordered us to walk casually, but be prepared for an ambush. That was on the second day of travel and our second to last day before entering what my map called 'Purple Wilds.'

The passage we were traversing was a tight corridor and they walked inside our formation. When half the enemy was half way enveloped by our forces, Daggers ordered the attack without giving any specific orders.

It was an ugly mess.

Some of the enemies were already close to the crossbowmen and when we attacked, they hit these zombies first. The front row, intended to be our defensive bulwark fractured, half of the zombies fighting the enemies outside our formation, and the other half trying to attack the people inside.

When the first zombie ignored everything he had learned and bit an enemy, a lot of the others followed suit. In the narrow corridor, it only made it more difficult for the rest of us to attack, especially for our ranged attackers.

Although they were being attacked by a numerically superior enemy, the twenty players did their best to form a defensive perimeter. Their shield wall properly defended against the chaotic zombies and if it hadn't been for my healing, a few zombies would have died.

After five minutes of disorganized brawling, Daggers managed to get them all to disengage, and then reassembled the formations for an attack.

The enemy was wiped out without difficulties after that, mainly by our ranged attackers. Only a few melee attackers were used to surround the enemy and defend the ranged guys.

That fight humbled the zombies to no end and was the final eye-opener for them. One of the zombies had lost an arm in the fight and someone called us the Armless Battalion.

To my dismay, Daggers claimed the group creating a self-identity was great for morale.

And so, the Armless Battalion entered the Purple Wilds.

* * *

The very earth of the corridor started turning purple as we entered the cavernous chamber. Everything in it was purple, from the soil to the stone, the walls and the plants. According to the internet, there were some minerals present here that affected both the terrain and the living beings in the region.

It was a stone jungle. Stalagmites of all sizes rose randomly from the ground and made the place hard to navigate. The flora consisted mostly of a sparse grass and some mold, with some brush dotted here and there. All of it was purple.

Stalactites also hung from the distant ceiling and the eyes of countless purple bats half my size shone as they rested up there. Small rodents like rats and squirrels, all in shades of purple, were everywhere and the place had a lively, almost whimsical feeling to it, as if I could expect happy purple lions to come my way at any time.

Moisture was also a common factor, much more perceptible after the dryness in the air since I had revived. Drops of water were hitting the stalagmites and a huge waterfall was visible in a wall that must've been ten kilometers away from us. The water gushed from a huge opening in the wall, but we couldn't see the bottom because of the stone jungle around us. At least the water was more blue than purple.

<It's beautiful!> Ted exclaimed happily.

<It makes my head hurt,> Bear injected his sour opinion of the monochromatic tone of the place.

<A perfect place to train guerrilla tactics,> Daggers pronounced.

<I like it,> Melkier said simply.

I agreed with Melkier. It wasn't as beautiful to me as Ted had said, but it also wasn't as bad as Bear claimed. It wasn't good enough for me to move there, but it would take a few days of taking in the view before I got sick of all the purple.

<Where to, sir?> Daggers asked.

Looking at my map, I pointed at the waterfall. <It's a little further away than the waterfall but let's check there first.>

"Armless Battalion!" Daggers shouted and we all kinda unconsciously stood taller. "You stink! To the waterfall! March!"

Their mood brightened with the interesting destination in sight, however a major obstruction presented itself: the stalagmites badly hindered our movement. Daggers wasn't one to back down from a challenge though, to the dismay of the men. More yelling and disparaging remarks followed, as she taught them how to march in the new terrain.

Eventually, they more or less understood it. We found no players or hostile animals the entire way, and the lack of further conflict was a welcome reprieve for us all.

As we approached the waterfall, we saw a huge lake of vibrant blue water which was a pleasant break from the monotone color of the Purple Wilds.

The cascade was monstrous, you could have easily hidden multiple mansions beneath it The height the water fell from was also incredible, and the mist it created obscured a vast portion of the lake.

In spite of this, the lake was large enough that only small ripples reached the shores.

A school of an animal that I could only describe as a mix of dolphin, swordfish and shark leapt high above the surface in the distance and let out very dolphin like clicks and squeals. Right behind them followed an enormous purple Orca, devouring the stragglers.

<Wow!> Ted exclaimed and for once I agreed with her. It was an impressive view.

The only thing which marred the beauty of the place were the two tribal encampments on the shores. They were on opposite sides of the lake, but had the same fence-like metal barricades surrounding them. There were openings on the lakeward sides of each, allowing access to shoddy looking metal docks with a few boats each. The inside of the encampments were completely different though.

One of them had big clay huts with roofs made of vegetation, while the other had makeshift rusty metal shacks. The clay-hut tribe appeared more spacious and better organized, while the metal-shack tribe looked like its denizens built whenever they liked without concern for how it affected the flow of the town.

The final difference was the inhabitants of each. Metal-shack tribe had purple goblins while clay-hut tribe had purple... Mud people?

They reminded me of some old anime monsters, a mix of mud and toxic waste with gaping mouth and eye holes. They moved incredibly slowly and I wondered if they could even talk.

Both tribes had sentries watching us, but none made a move. We didn't, either.

"Alright, you bunch of noobs, you can relax for now," Daggers yelled and a loud cheer echoed in the huge cave.

<Sir, I have two recommendations for the Battalion,> she told me, as I looked for a good place to sit.

<What are they?> I asked.

<We need scouts, sir. I've observed the group and I have two candidates that I think fit the job.>

<Huh?> She had actually paid attention? I could swear she was just randomly swearing at the guys. Yes, memorizing names was a cool trick, but it didn't mean her constant belittling admonitions to the men to 'march properly' weren't random.

<The first is Your Sista Is Mine, sir,> she began.

<Stop right there.> I sighed. <We need to assign them callsigns, I can't keep listening to this! I mean, one of them is called Your Mother And I On The Floor.>

Bear and Melkier laughed at that but Ted supported my decision. <It's offensive,> she said while nodding.

Daggers didn't show any opinion, she just asked: <What do you recommend, sir?>

<Use numbers?> I said the first thing that came to my mind. <Like, Zombie One, Zombie Two?>

Daggers thought for a second. <Numbers are good. They are easy to memorize. May I suggest we also differentiate their rankings and primary roles?>

<What do you mean?> I asked.

<For instance, Private Scout One and Private Tank Two. That would solidify the hierarchy in the rankings and make it easier for us to remember their assigned roles.>

I nodded. <I like it; it'll also make organizing them easier. Make sure there are no two people with the same number though, as it might create a mess. The number should be a unique ID, while the rank and roles are their simpler categorization.>

If Private Tank Two were ever to be confused with Private Scout Two I could see things would break down quickly, better to simply eliminate that possibility now.

<Yes, sir. What about us five, sir? Should we also assign ourselves numbers?>

<No.> I said firmly. Numbers were not as stupid as the zombies' names, but I wasn't going to debase myself by allowing someone to call me by one.. <Actually, that gives me an idea. Call the Lieutenants by something else, like colors, or body parts, or animals. That way the Privates and Sergeants will understand that they'll earn a better name than a number if they distinguish themselves. And from Captain onwards, they can once again use their own names.> Melkier was the only captain for now and his name wasn't dumb, so it worked out just right.

<I like animals,> Melkier said. <Lieutenant Fighter Lion. The guys will like it.>

<Yeah,> Bear said. <But keep the colors too. Let the Sergeants be known by colors and only privates by numbers.>

<'My name is Private Tank One. I'm under the command of Sergeant Tank Blue of Lieutenant Fighter Lion's unit.'> Ted said in a mock voice. <That sounds childish and dumb.>

<Are you kidding me?> Bear said excitedly. <That sounds awesome!>

<Yeah!> Melkier agreed.

Ted rolled her eyes. <Boys.>

Daggers saw nothing wrong with the suggestion, so we discussed some fierce animal names and some promotions to Sergeant for a while before the conversation got back on the reason the conversation had started.

<Private Crossbowman Thirteen would be a fine scout, sir.>

<Whatever you say,> I said. <You said you had two suggestions though.>

She looked at the specter. <I recommend Ted as a second scout, sir.>

<Ted?> The three of us asked in unison.

<Me?> Ted asked, surprised.

<Yes, sir.>

<Why the hell would you say Ted is a good scout?> I asked. She was level nine!

<I did not say she is a good scout sir, only that she would become a good one with training,> Daggers clarified. <Yes, she is weak, but that can be an incentive to stay out of trouble. We do not want scouts to be too daring, just brave enough to find danger and report back. She is a ghost and her translucency will help. Her being virtually useless in close combat gives her extra incentive to keep her senses keen, for her own safety. She is also trustworthy which will make her reports more valuable. She might not amount to much right now, but with the right training she could be even better than me.>

That was a lousy claim. Better than the Blackguard who could turn invisible at will and for all I knew was a commando in real life?

<Not amount to much?> Ted's high-pitched, enraged voice seemed to pierce my mental ears. <You bitch!>

Daggers didn't even look Ted's way. <Sir, permission to kill the random newbie who called me an animal in heat?>

I smiled at that. <Now, Daggers, it would be a waste of time, since we would have to wait for her to walk all the way back from the Catacombs. Log out and relax a little, I'll talk with Ted.>

"Waste of time?" Ted was downright pissed now and even stopped using the mind chat. "How dare you? You- You- You male bitch!"

After a second of startled silence, all the zombies laughed and Ted's cheeks reddened. I raised my arms in surrender while Daggers simply logged out.

<Ted, let's not start calling names. Allow me to explain what Daggers said->

"I know what she said!" She interrupted me. "Are you calling me stupid, too? Unable to understand things by myself?"

<No, I'm not. I'm saying that I also hated Daggers when I met her. She told me I was useless and->

"But you are useless. I am not." She crossed her arms, still pissed, but at least listening to my words.

<Yes, but I was even more useless when I met her. You must understand->

"I must do nothing. I'll do whatever the hell I want to do!"

I held back a sigh. If Daggers hadn't just claimed that Ted could become an even better scout than Daggers herself, I would just tell Ted to shut the hell up and be done with it.

Also, I owed her.

<You're right,> I said. <Sorry. What I need you to understand is that Daggers is like a killing machine. She doesn't know how to speak nicely, only how to kill. I won't say she didn't mean to call you useless...> Ted sniffed. <...but you saw how high her standards are when she drilled the zombies. And in the end, she said you can be even better than her. A woman with her standards, can you even guess how demanding she must be of herself?>

"I don't care. She offended me." Her voice was mollified though.

<You're right, and I'll ask that she apologize. But let's face it: you're level nine. Daggers can make you a major part of the Armless Battalion, so important in fact that you'll be one of the only two people who can do your job. And with the right training, you'll become the best.>

She didn't reply and I chose to target her ego.

<No one, no matter how strong in close combat or in magic, will be able to do what you'll do. Not even Daggers herself, who just said you're nothing much. Think about it, the ability to gloat that you're the best scout among all of us, even when you travel to Valia much less than all of us and are much lower level.>

She raised a hand to tell me to shut up, closed her eyes, and began to move as if tapping her foot on the ground, which was a little odd as she still didn't have feet.

<Ted?> I said after a long time.

<She's thinking about it, ugly-face,> Bear explained. <Give her time. For now...> He suddenly raised his voice and yelled to everybody. "Daggers is gone! Skinny dipping!" Pieces of his armor began to hit to the ground as all the zombies, Melkier included, let out a roar and did the same.

Sighing, I put Bear's armor in my ring and wished the orca would come back to eat them all.

15. Revenge

I watched them swim for hours before I heard Ted's voice.

"Fine." Was all she said.

"Great! Thanks, Ted." I called Daggers next and asked her to apologize and try to play nice with Ted. After a strained 'Yes, sir,' she hung up and logged back in.

"What is the meaning of this?" She said as soon as she saw all the equipment on the ground and the zombies skinny-dipping.

I invited her to the party. <Let them have their fun. It was Bear's idea and I trust him to know what they need.>

In the past four days, while Daggers had drilled the men, Bear had focused on raising morale — or at least not letting it drop to dangerous levels.

<If you say so, sir.> She turned to the specter. <Ted, I apologize. Now, come with me.>

Ted glared at me through slitted eyes, clearly annoyed. I raised an eyebrow and shrugged. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and followed Daggers back into the stalagmite forest.

Without anything to do and no one I had to pretend to care about, it was training time for me. Despite having trained — although some might call it 'being massacred' — my close combat abilities and some of my magic with Daggers, I was still lacking in bow proficiency.

On my back, I now carried my strung bow, and shield. On the left side of my waist was my sword, on the right my quiver. I took the bow and walked a little until I saw a fat violet rat eating a mushroom.

Valia made shooting bows easy, despite what I had said to Melkier about the zombies being unable to do it. However, doing it well still required putting some effort into it.

I could shoot people well enough, but targeting specific body parts was still beyond my abilities. That was a major weakness in battles.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any game skills related to projectiles, so I was unable to change the arrows' paths at will, like I did with my spells. This made proper aim even more critical.

Taking an arrow from the quiver, I nocked it, drew back, aimed at the rat, and shot.

The arrow's flight was true, assuming I was aiming at the stalagmite behind the rat. The damn pest didn't even flinch when the projectile passed harmlessly by it.

After an hour of practice I could hit my target nine times out of ten. It was clear that the game was assisting me, otherwise things would had taken much more time.

Just as I recovered my last arrow, I noticed a purple goblin standing close to a nearby rock. He was barely moving and since even his clothes were amethyst-colored, it was rather effective camouflage.

Worried, I looked around but found no other goblin hiding in the area. Still, I prepared myself for battle and called Daggers to scout the area around me just in case.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

As if he had just been waiting for me to speak, he smiled so wide I was worried he might split his own face. "Me hopes so, great master! Me comes with lucrative asking!"

His voice was thin, absolutely annoying, and seemed to pierce my soul. I frowned at his words; no one in the Underworld wanted to help others profit. Whatever this goblin wanted, there's no way it would be beneficial for me.

Still, asking about it shouldn't hurt. I hoped.

"What is it?"

"Them dirty, filthy, messy, soiled, mucky mud people keeps stealing goblin people food!" He said angrily. "Kill them!" The anger slid from his face and he smiled again. "Me give great reward!"

He wanted me to exterminate the other village, huh? It made sense that they had to compete for food and wouldn't like it.

"What is this reward?"

"Many gold! This much!" He made a 'three' with his fingers.

"Three gold coins?" I asked dubiously. I wasn't well-versed on the going rate for genocide, but that seemed way too little.

"Three many times!" He nodded.

My frown deepened. "Six? Nine?"

"No! Not six, three! Three many times!" He insisted.

"Hu... Thirty? Three hundred?"

"Hundred! Three hundred!" He was excited.

"Do you even have that much gold?" I asked dubiously.

"Me has! Me tribe very powerful! Many gold!"

Quest: Exterminate the Mud People

B rank

Kill every living being in the Mud People's tribe for the Purple Goblins.

<Sir, he is alone.> Daggers reported.

<Do you think you can enter the goblin's village unnoticed?> I asked her.

<I can try, sir.>

<He promised me three hundred gold for a quest. Follow him and try to determine if they have that much gold.>

<Yes, sir. What about Ted?>

Looking at the map, I saw that Ted hadn't come with Daggers. <Ted, why are you there?>

<I'm training,> she said dryly. I could imagine that Dagger's training wasn't thrilling.

<Stop for now,> I ordered. <I need you to get close to the goblin's city and keep a lookout for me. I need to get to the mud people's city without being seen by the goblins.>

<Thank God!> Her voice was full of relief.

<Sir, her training should not be interrupted.> Daggers said.

<Daggers,> I said, <I promise you that you'll love what's about to happen.>

She didn't answer and I waited for Ted to be in position before moving.

<Don't go there!> She said multiple times and I had to divert my path. She had climbed a stalagmite and was monitoring the goblins to make sure I stayed out of sight. Finally, I arrived at the entrance to the mud people's village.

One of them was there and for the first time, I noticed that none of them nor the goblins appeared to have any weapons. That was weird.

Two of the mud people were standing guard right next to the gates of the city. Up close, those 'beasts' were even weirder; their body was really made of purple mud and it constantly moved. The holes of their eyes and mouth, however, somehow remained fixed in place. I raised my hands in the universal gesture of peace.

"Hello, friends," I said. "A goblin just offered me three hundred gold coins to kill you all." There was no reaction whatsoever from them. "I wonder how much would you pay me to kill them."

Nothing. They didn't move. Frowning, I waved my hands before them, but they still didn't react.

Something was wrong. Before, I might have tested them by prodding one with my bow or using magic. Now, after being urged to attack them, I slowly retreated.

<Sir, the goblins are speaking a language I cannot understand,> Daggers reported.

<Try to find a goblin who you can kill without raising alarm, but try to get some info out them first,> I ordered.

<Roger.>

<Ted, get out of there. Melkier, get everyone out of the lake and get them ready to attack. I'm sure the goblins tried to kill us somehow; it's time to reciprocate.>

<Finally!> Bear said. <I was beginning to think we would need to camp here tonight before you decided to do that!>

<Wait, what?> I asked. <You were purposefully holding us here until I decided to attack one of the towns?>

<Duh, ugly-face. We're going on a raid. Storming that city is the best way to train for it.>

It made sense. <Why didn't you just suggest that?>

<Because I wanted to relax more than I wanted you to give everyone more work.>

I sighed. His carefree attitude was quite annoying sometimes. And by 'sometimes' I meant most of the time.

<Sir, the goblin is dead.> Daggers reported.

<Nobody noticed you?>

<Affirmative.>

<Good. Check the number of people inside and get ready to open the doors when we attack.>

<Affirmative.>

In half an hour, all the zombies were clothed again, including Bear whose stuff I had recovered.

<Form a line!> I ordered and they obeyed.

Instead of the rows of tanks, followed by fighters and bowmen from before, they now organized themselves into seven units of five people and one of four people, because of the scout that had been taken from their ranks.

The lieutenants, however, didn't join them, and were instead held back as a kind of elite troops.

Bear, Ted, Melkier, and I, stood behind, overseeing them all.

There was no hiding from the goblins and the two who were standing guard outside shrieked an alarm and entered the village, closing the metal doors. Some of them appeared on the walls carrying heavy stones and one of them yelled at us.

"What going on?! Us pay you kill mud people! Not us!" It was the same thin voice from the goblin I had met.

<Ignore him and prepare for attack,> I told my group.

<Sir, there are about three hundred of them in here. Something is strange: none of them have weapons. However, ten of them ran to the lake and are on their knees, bowing deeply and praying.>

<Shit,> I didn't know what was happening, but if they would rather pray than defend their city, they were either idiots or had a good reason to do so. <Daggers, open the doors now and then go kill the praying goblins. Melkier, tell your Lieutenants not to mess up!>

<Roger, sir.>

<Don't worry,> Melkier said. <We got this.>

<Famous last words,> Bear teased.

Melkier took the bait. <Wanna bet? Ten gold coins that none of my zombies will die.>

<Deal!> Bear agreed and they shook hands.

<Focus on the fight,> I said. <Daggers will open the doors any minute.>

"Please! Kill us not, great master! Us pay you!" The goblin insisted and we all ignored him. He should've thought about it before he tried to mess with me.

Angered screams came from inside the village. All the goblins on the walls turned to look at the doors, which opened.

<Attack!> I ordered.

The ten groups of zombies were organized in two rows of five groups each. Each group had a single plate-armored guy in the front, which made two loose defensive walls for each row.

Rocks rained from the walls as the zombies began to move. The first row ran like crazy at the door and the second row kept a steady and slow pace, their bowmen sending arrows at the goblins atop the walls.

Ted and I also fired arrows at the goblins, and I added firebombs to the fold.

The destruction of my magic was awesome. More than just burning them, the magic also exploded with a considerable impact, sending goblins flying backwards.

They were yelling in panic, fear, and anger. One of the goblins on the wall pointed his finger at the thin-voiced goblin, said something, then slapped him hard.

I didn't fault the slapper; one hour after the thin-voiced goblin had schemed to kill me in some yet-unknown way, I had come for revenge.

With a loud boom, the doors closed before the first line could secure it.

It didn't bother me as much; it had been useful as a distraction rather than as a means of entry.

<Daggers, what are you doing?> I asked after a few moments as I looked at her icon on my minimap.

<I killed all the goblins who were praying, sir.> That was impressive; although the village was small, it wasn't that small, and the goblins had seen her open the doors. Yet, she had managed to avoid capture and succeed in her mission. <I am now locating the leaders and preparing to kill them.>

<Good. Take some time to look at the doors and tell me if they locked it again or if they are just blockading it.>

<Affirmative.>

I stopped slinging firebombs and switched to healer mode instead. My deathballs targeted some zombies who didn't manage to dodge the rocks and got hurt.

"Well, this is boring," Bear said with his voice.

"Not for the guys being stoned," I counter-argued.

"Yeah, that's why I travel to Valia, so I can cure my boredom by being stoned by goblins. I'll be there in a moment." He yawned.

"I'm not one to judge," I said. "What you do with other people's stones is up to you."

"I'll tell you what I'll do with your stones, you son of-"

"Bear!" Ted interrupted. The big zombie stopped speaking, looked at Ted, then huffed impatiently. I winked at him and went back to shooting arrows and deathballs.

The second line had stopped at some distance and the goblins' numbers were dwindling slowly under the barrage of arrows. This was considered a large battle, so the stamina consumption wasn't an issue for us. Everything looked okay as I waited for Daggers to tell me about what was behind the doors.

So, obviously, someone did something stupid. It took longer than I expected for one of the zombies to reveal his idiocy and destroy the first line with a single action: he used a skill.

I didn't know all the skills every zombies had and this one surprised me: the guy, who was one of the few shield-bearers in the first line, jumped. It was the Leap of Faith skill, that could only be used to get closer to an enemy. He shot through the air at high speed and held onto the ten meter high wall, climbing it and starting to attack the goblins above.

About half the zombies in the front line followed suit, including all the plate wearing tanks except for one. I had seen them jump before but I never realized it was a skill.

For a full second, they gloriously conquered the walls.

<Sir, the walls are a trap!> Daggers then reported.

And the walls fell outwards.

The goblins had been waiting for us to all approach the walls before doing that, but half the Battalion had stopped halfway through and they had delayed the action. However, when the zombies surmounted the walls, they had no choice but to act.

Everyone who had been before the walls was crushed beneath them, while those who'd been atop them suddenly found themselves beset by a sea of goblins. The damn pests had no real weapons but their nails and teeth were sharp, the rocks they carried were heavy, and they were everywhere.

One zombie fell to the ground and a goblin started pounding his head with a huge stone while another tore at his throat with its nails. He died in seconds.

Similar scenes played out all around the fallen metal wall. The people underneath hadn't died but were still pinned to the ground with the goblins' weight forcing them down.

"Easiest ten gold of my life," Bear said before taking his huge greatsword and rushing forward.

"Shit!" Melkier took his sword and followed.

I sighed. <Everyone! Protect each other and form a line over the fallen wall!>

"What about the people under it?" Ted, the last person by my side, asked.

"They'll have to wait. It's their friends' fault they are there, and there's nothing we can do for them right now," I replied and stopped healing, turning to firebombs instead.

In a frontal fight, I had no doubt we would eventually win against a weaker and barehanded foe. The big issue was how many would die before that happened.

One of my firebombs exploded right next to a goblin's head and it became little bits and pieces of flesh. With the pressure of the battle, I only hit what I was aiming at half of the time, But for once, there was no danger to myself whatsoever and I could focus on killing.

I disagreed with Bear; this was damn entertaining for me!

Ted's accuracy was much better than mine but her damage was negligible, even against the weak goblins.

Bear's greatsword seemed to kill a goblin with every swing while maiming others, until eventually a circle devoid of enemies formed around him. It was probably because of the multiple bodies at his feet, many of them split in half. If I Iwas a goblin I would be less than enthusiastic about getting close to the big zombie.

Melkier did significantly less damage than Bear with his sword, but even so, he still killed plenty.

And Daggers left a river of blood in her wake. Her blades slit throats galore and arced through the air as she moved. Sometimes she was clearly visible, while other times she used the Shadow Walk skill. It was impressive as hell.

Eventually, we managed to form a defensive perimeter over the fallen wall and from then on, the goblins couldn't do anything to truly oppose us. Goblins were low-leveled creatures to begin with and not only had the advantage of vastly better equipment, we also had superior tactics.

It was a carnage.

Goblin bodies littered the floor, many of them were missing pieces now. Their blood, we'd found, wasn't purple, and the crimson fit the purple around it in a macabre way.

When there were about fifty goblins left, they tried to surrender.

"Kill them all except for three for questioning," I gave the order yelling out loud. "They plotted against us, killed some of us, and now they want to live? Never!"

To tell the truth I was very grateful for the exercise. I had lost men, yes, but only idiots who had broken formation and got themselves killed. The sooner they stopped being a danger to me, the better.

I wouldn't let the chance to blame the goblins go though. As far as I was concerned, shifting the blame for any disaster was an incredibly useful skill of great leaders, and I quote my father on that.

When the remaining goblins heard me, something weird happened. I'd expected them to intensify the fight against us but while they did intensify their fighting spirit, it was against themselves!

One goblin turned against the other to increase their chances of being the three left alive.

Damn, that was so... Human!

<Sir, I can see a few Enraged and Feral zombies.> Daggers noted. <They should be restrained before the goblins' numbers get too low.>

<You heard her, Melkier,> I said. <Tell your boys to restrain the crazy ones.>

Ropes appeared from bags and backpacks and eleven zombies were quickly detained. We had agreed to use the tactic after a suggestion from Daggers. The rope was part of the 'adventurer's kit' she had ordered us all to get.

Each one had two shovels, two pickaxes, two saws, two fishing kits, a hundred meters of rope, five hooks for the ropes, lots of dried food and water, two flints, some ore, two mirrors, fifty meters of extra thin fishing line, two knives, and five needles.

She had also insisted in first-aid stuff, but we found nothing that could be effective: there were no potions in the game and status effects like Open Wounds couldn't be taken care by bandages. They could, however, be sewn shut, and the needles would take care of that. Or a fire would be lit and hot metal would be used to cauterize it.

Another requirement or hers were pans or cans, to cook food. But I had no need to eat and the zombies preferred their food raw.

All items were in enchanted purses that they had all acquired. They took a lot of space in the purses and I had no doubt that all the items would be thrown away the moment we found other valuable stuff, but for now we accepted Daggers' suggestion.

While the zombies were roped, the goblins continued killing themselves until only five remained.

"That's enough," I said. "Now, on your knees."

Clearly relieved, while still afraid, they obeyed and touched their foreheads to the ground as they bowed low.

"Us much thanks to great master," one of them said. While his voice wasn't as annoying as the voice from goblin I had spoken to previously, it was also thin and ugly.

"This is what we're going to do," I said as I put my bow on my back and unsheathed my sword. "I'll ask a question and you'll answer. If you lie or hide anything from me, you lose an arm and get a second chance. If you keep lying or hiding things, you die. Do you understand?"

"Us understand, great master." They were still bowing.

"Jack, that's horrible!" Ted complained. She hadn't said anything before because they were monsters and she didn't much care for those. But the moment they had started killing each other, her mouth opened in a perfect 'O' as she was stunned by the barbaric display. Only now was she coming back to her senses.

I ignored her. "Let's start from the beginning. Who the hell are you?"

"Us be Heroic Goblins, great master. Us take care of Blue Life."

From where I stood, they didn't look that heroic to me. "Blue Life?"

He pointed at the lake and waterfall. "Blue Life."

"You take care of it?"

"Yes, great master. Blue Life give water and much fishes. Us eat and live. Purple animals kill when we eat them."

I had to think for a moment to understand what he was saying. "The purple animals are poisonous?"

"Yes, great master."

I looked at Melkier and all the other zombies eating the goblins' corpses. I had also seen them eat some of the purple animals. The goblins could be lying to me, but I also knew that the zombies' stomachs were unique and virtually invulnerable to any sort of poison they ate.

Damn freaks.

"Who are the mud people?" I asked.

"Great master, they be us enemies."

"Why?"

"They rob us, food and water." He explained.

I frowned. Before, I had thought they were stealing terrestrial game from the goblins, which would make sense. But there was clearly enough fish and water for tribes many times their size.

My sword rose and fell, cutting off the goblin's arm in a single strike. The goblin screamed in pain.

"Why? Me not lie! Ahhh!" He kept yelling and screaming. The other goblins didn't dare move.

"Jack!" Ted actually ran to the goblin and began to hug him as if he was a little wounded animal.

"I'm not stupid," I said to the goblin. "There's enough water and food for everyone. What's the real reason you want to kill the mud people?"

"I not lie! Mud people eat lots! Much lots!" He insisted.

My frown deepened as Ted glared angrily at me. For some reason, that pained me deeply.

I sighed. <Alright, Ted> I said. <For you.> I sent some lifeballs at the goblin, restoring his severed arm. "Next time, your arm won't come back. Do you understand?"

"Yes, great master. Thanks for goodness!" He slipped out of Ted's embrace and went back to bowing low on the ground.

"Poor thing! He still thanked you!" The specter's heart seemed to be splitting apart and tears appeared in her eyes.

<Ted, this is Valia. They aren't real,> I said.

<They are thinking beings!> She meant 'AIs.' <They think they are real!> She replied.

Shaking my head, I went back to ignoring her.

"Why did you send me to kill the mud people?" I asked the goblins.

There was a long silence. I raised my sword and even without being able to see this, one of them quickly blurted out an answer.

"Us afraid you! You in Blue Life, and you zombies! Zombies eat lots! Us want you die and kill few mud people!"

That was... A great reason. Zombies, who were famed for their gluttony, had invaded their area and were way too close to their already rationed means of survival. Therefore, they had decided to get rid of us before we could cause them problems.

Not that I cared about their reasoning when I was the one on the dying side.

"Why do you think the mud people could kill us?" I asked.

"They be strong. They spit flesh-eating mud. It deal much damage. They many scary."

"What's their average level?" I asked.

"They be level four many times."

I frowned. "Forty?"

"Yes, great master."

Damn! I really had come close to dying. And those mud people looked so weak!

"If they're so strong," I said, "why don't they kill you?" They didn't answer. I smiled. "Who were you praying to at the margins of the Blue Life?"

They all raised their heads simultaneously and looked with fear and anger at me.

My smile broadened. "You thought I hadn't noticed? Well, my zombies are hungry and they love living flesh the most. And the last of you will discover just how effective a Blackguard can be at torturing information out of goblins."

Daggers' blades flashed from under her cloak so quickly that I wasn't sure I had seen them. The blood rushed out of the goblins' faces

"Jack!" Ted yelled.

<Relax,> I said. <It's just an empty threat.>

"We worship Great Water Goddess," a goblin said. "She protect us."

I very much doubted there was a water goddess in that lake, especially one that liked to be worshiped by goblins. The easy answer was that it was some powerful monster.

"Why doesn't she destroy the mud people for you?"

"She like eat mud people. If she eat all mud people, no mud people left."

Raising livestock: that was kind of smart for a monster.

"But why does she help you?" I asked. "If you die the mud people would grow more and faster, wouldn't they?"

"Ugly-face, cut the crap," Bear interrupted. "We don't need to know all this shit."

I looked at him. <Bear, believe me, the raid we are headed towards isn't going to be easy. If we can figure a way to get the help of this so-called Water Goddess, things will go much smoother for us.>

"Oh, that's what you want," he said, ignoring the mind chat.

<Yes. Now, organize a rescue for the people under the wall while I talk to the goblins.> I returned to speaking aloud again. "You five, come with me."

"Great master, the Great Water Goddess like us pray and protect us," one of them said; a veiled threat.

There was no warning this time as my sword moved in an arc. But just before I killed it, I saw the same look of surprise I'd seen on the faces of those I'd ordered killed in V-Soft. I faltered and the feeble blow hit his shoulder instead. It was enough to make him cry out in pain.

"Jack!" Ted cried. "If you do it one more time I'll leave!"

I shook my head, confused. Hadn't I decided I would do it all over again if I were in the same situation? Hadn't I chosen to embrace my parents' legacy? Why the hell was I still rattled by what had happened in V-Soft?

Closing my eyes, I focused on burying those feelings deep in my heart. I had no time for them now. A long moment later, I opened my eyes again. Ted was still looking angrily at me.

<He threatened us all, Ted,> I explained with a calm tone.

"I don't care! Stop it!" She insisted.

I sighed loudly. How the hell could I conduct an interrogation like this?

"Do not threaten me again," I told the goblins. "I'd rather be without the lady than let you filthy goblins try to strong-arm me." I didn't heal the goblin's shoulder and he was still whimpering. "Who wants to start talking?"

Seeing that their powerful 'guardian' meant nothing to me, ten eyes full of panic looked at me.

* * *

As it turned out, the Water Goddess also loved to eat the poisonous purple animals and the mud people were incapable of capturing them; the mud which their bodies were made of had a kind of will of its own and would eat anything they captured.

Therefore, the Goddess had to protect the goblins so they would keep her supplies coming.

Even though the creature in the water was theoretically very powerful, she wasn't stupid. She had forbidden both tribes to have weapons and whoever disobeyed was eaten.

It was a very interesting circle of life. The tribes needed the water and the fish, and the Water Goddess wanted to eat members of one of the tribes and the animals the other tribe could get for her.

The goblins also revealed that after their bodies had become purple, they couldn't stay out of the Purple Wilds for long, so they had no choice but to live at the mercy of the Water Goddess.

"Okay, that's enough," I said. "Do you know of any castles in the area?"

Their eyes widened in surprise. "Castle of Edward!"

"Edward's Castle?"

"Us and mud people be servant in Castle of Edward before Big Minotaur invade and kill master Edward!"

After ten seconds, I cursed. <Shit. Shit! Shit, shit, shit!>

<What's wrong?> Melkier asked.

<Don't you see?> I asked.

<See what?>

<I hadn't told you before, but the raid is in a hostile castle that we need to take over,> I revealed.

His eyes widened. <What?>

<That's not the bad part. The setting is.> I turned to the goblins. "Let me guess, you know of a secret way to the castle."

They clearly didn't want to tell me but I touched my sword's pommel and they spoke. "Yes, great master."

<See?> I said to Melkier.

He didn't get it. <What? Isn't a secret passage good for us?>

<Good? Good?!> I sighed then turned to the goblins again. "I don't see any buildings in your village built for storage."

"The Great Water Goddess only allow us get enough food eat! No storage! We faith!" It sounded offended that I had suggested they could store food.

<Obviously,> I explained to Melkier, <if they could store food, they could travel freely in the cave, and maybe find a new source of food, which would leave the Goddess without her slaves.> There was one last thing to confirm with the goblin. "Can you open the secret entrance to the castle alone?"

Anger rose in the goblins' faces. "No! Us need mud people!" One of them spit on the ground.

I turned to Melkier to give him the last explanation. <The Castle is a few days away from here and the goblins need food to survive. I have plenty in my ring, but I bet they can only eat food from the lake for some stupid reason. Which means...>

Melkier thought for a few seconds and then his eyes widened. <Shit. We need to kill the Water Goddess so we can get them some food?>

<Yes. Either that or successfully bribe her, a being who can make an entire village of level forty mud people submit completely, even allowing themselves to being eaten when she wants.>

Melkier's face was ugly while Bear's beamed with joy.

<When do we start the killing?> Bear asked.

<Preferably, never,> I said. <That's the route Valia wants us to take. We'll obviously use the workaround.>

The zombie looked crestfallen. <Which is?>

I smiled. <To completely ignore it all.>

16. Everybody Loves a Backdoor

I had no intention of losing time in the side quest that would undoubtedly arise when I negotiated with the Water Goddess and the mud people.

If I had been playing the game normally, I would probably rejoice in completing as many side quests as possible. However, my time was extremely limited and the lack of news about the investigation on the murders at V-Soft was making me increasingly anxious.

I had even tried to ask grandfather about that but he told me he was incapable of finding out anything about it due to the chaos in the country.

<So, you just wasted all our time with these questions about the goblins' lore so we could ignore it?> Bear was upset.

That was stupid of him. Without understanding as much as possible about the situation, our ill-informed decisions would be more likely to lead to failure. I could try to explain it to him, but Bear was an impulsive man and he understood acting on impulse better than anything, so my answer was simple: <Yes, I felt like it.>

He said nothing else on the subject.

<How are we going to deal with the problem of the food?> Melkier asked.

<The first option is for me to use life magic to keep the goblins alive,> I said.

<Won't do,> he replied. <Everyone but Deathlords need to eat to survive, even with life magic.>

<So we'll go with the second option.> I turned to the goblins. "All of you, go get as much food as you can from the lake, but don't eat it. Bring it to me."

"Yes, great master." They bowed and obeyed, even the one with the injured shoulder.

They stood on the shore, their feet barely in the water, but suddenly two fish leaped from the water at each of them. They returned and presented them to me.

"Good." I placed the fish in my ring. "Go get more."

"Us cannot, great master. Us have no weapon to fish and Water Goddess give us just that."

"Try it anyway." I ordered.

They did, and just like they said, no new fish jumped into their hands.

"Alright, fellas. I have ten fish and I need to get to the castle. You," I pointed to a random goblin, "will come with me. You four can stay here."

"Yes, great master." They bowed meekly again; the four who were staying behind were clearly happier.

<See, Ted?> I said. <I let them all live. You're welcome.>

She sneered.

It took some time for the zombies under the wall to be rescued and for Daggers to confirm there was nothing worth looting from the goblins, but it was eventually done.

"Alright, let's go!" I gave the order and started walking.

"You lot heard him, useless little shits," Daggers suddenly yelled. "Assemble and march!"

Melkier cleared his throat and I turned. His expression was serious and all other zombies except for Bear were behind him. Not surprisingly, Ted was also close to Melkier. Daggers and Bear were midway through.

"There has been some discussion about leadership in the group," Melkier said.

As soon as he said that, Daggers jumped back and assumed a defensive crouch in front of me. Bear looked at the zombies, looked at me, then just crossed his arms, as if washing his hands of the situation.

So, it begins, I thought.

I should kill them all, I also thought. Except, it was the ring this time. I ignored it.

"Tell me more about it," I said right after I kicked Melkier out of the party.

Since it had come to a public show of power, trying to negotiate secretly with him would do no good; even if it worked, he would only use it to keep blackmailing me. It was better to cut him out of my Strategist bonuses as soon as possible.

"The boys aren't satisfied with the high death rate that comes with accompanying you," he said. "They think it might be better if there was another leader to our merry group."

All ten morbs I could summon began to form above my head one by one, all of them made of fire, and I also retrieved my bow from my back. This clearly made them all nervous and some of them took their weapons in their hands. "I see. Who do you think would be a better leader?"

He smiled. "Well, since I'm the clan leader, it's better if I take the reins-"

Without warning, my morbs flew, one after the other, and so did two arrows. I only used firebombs, and they slammed on Melkier's face one after the other. He died without even reacting, like the useless little shit he was. Ted was blown away by the explosions and so were a few of the nearby zombies.

Even as they all recovered from the shock of the sudden attack, I began to reform the morbs.

It was a simple decision to make: if I backed down now, they would soon treat me as a slave. You don't concede to bullies; you bully them harder.

"That's mutiny." I said. "I pay you because I'm a nice guy, but you're all under my command in the Army. There's no changing leadership here, there's only obedience."

"You're dead!" One of them yelled and most of them made as if to charge us.

I snickered and Daggers tossed a few throwing knives putting out the eyes of the one who'd yelled the threat. He dropped screaming in pain. "You can try to kill me, but look around, idiots!" I yelled. "In this terrain, your numerical superiority means nothing! I have Daggers by my side, and magic, and you can barely fire the damn crossbows!" Ted was much better with her bow, but her damage was negligible. "My stamina is only lower than Bear's, but not by much, you'll be defending against ranged attacks from both Daggers and myself as we run from you. You can't catch us!"

They stopped, uncertain, looking at each other. I nodded and smiled. "Good. Now, stop acting like spoiled children! People die in Valia! I died for Bear when I didn't have to! I could've ran, but I chose to stay and fight beside him!" It was true, even though I wouldn't do it again. But they didn't need to know that. "And now you all turn against me because some idiots couldn't stay in formation and suicided themselves? Screw you!"

"Ugly-face is right on that account," Bear said suddenly, even though he didn't move closer to me. "Everyone who obeyed had the wall fall on them, but they didn't die. Those who died did so because of negligence and stupidity."

One of the zombies wasn't convinced. "That doesn't change the fact that you always drag us into dangerous situations!"

"And even though I don't need to, I'm going to pay you handsomely for it," I said. "You agreed to that. I repeat: stop acting like damn children!"

Everything I said was obvious, but clearly there was an agent of chaos among them. Just to be sure, I told Daggers to keep an eye out for it in the future. If there was a future, that is.

"Ugly-face, they have a point," Bear said. "Their death rate is kinda high when they stay close to you."

I sighed. "The first time, in the Slums, I told them it was a suicide attack; that's why I paid so much. The second time, with Robert, we all knew some of us would die; he was a high-level Valian. However, because I provided training, only a few died. Also, yet again, I paid a lot of money to everyone who participated. The third time was in this attack, and only the stupid who disobeyed died. And I repeat, there's a lot of gold involved.

"The only time that we died without being the attackers was when we got ambushed by those guards from Mags Market, and even I died. What, I must be omniscient now?

"Look, folks, I know dying sucks, I experienced it. But the rewards make up for the risks. I'm not a suicidal idiot like the guys who jumped over the walls and I'm still going on with the plan, aren't I?

"Valia is dangerous, but the riches are real and I love them gold coins. Now, who wants money and who wants firebombs to the face?"

If I put myself in their shoes, I would choose money at least until I got it and could successfully kill whoever was threatening me. If I understood the zombies' greed correctly, they would make the same choice.

It didn't take long; soon, one by one, they lowered their weapons. The only one who didn't hide her fury was Ted, but she was a spoiled girl who was used to getting things her way, so it was normal that she couldn't deal with it; she would either get over it or do something stupid and die in the process. I nodded, patted Daggers' shoulder in thanks, and turned back to keep going to Edward's Castle, with the goblin following close behind.

<Daggers, no soft words now. Beat them while they are down,> I said.

<Yes, sir!> She said in the mind-chat and then yelled at the zombies. "What a bunch of pussies! Do you know what fixes that? Marching! March, you crybabies! March! In line, now!"

"Sure, mom," Bear said and Daggers was so stunned by it that she didn't say anything for a long time. A few chuckles resulted from that, not enough to dispel the somber mood in the air, but enough to show that we still had a future together.

<Good to have you back on the team, Bear,> I thanked him.

<I never left, Ugly-face,> he said. <If I was going to rebel, I would eat your face first and tell you about it afterwards.>

I smiled. <Good to know.>

His words didn't bother me; I expected that from him. That's why, although I didn't completely condone his hostility towards Daggers and vice-versa, I also did nothing to lessen it. She was the best shield I had and if they were enemies, they couldn't plot together to kill me.

<Daggers, get me Melkier's items,> I said.

<Roger.>

She retrieved the stuff without issue and gave it to me. Melkier's armor, I discovered, was shitty. However, I got a huge surprise: his enchanted purse had dropped, in defiance of the low odds, just a three percent drop rate. It took a force of will not to look through it; if I saw something I liked, I would obviously take it for myself. So, it was better to not look.

Thing is, I expected him to call me and for us to settle things. He was still in the Army and couldn't simply desert without consequences. Plus, he wasn't stupid and I would happily welcome him back as long as he obeyed me most of the time.

I never expected him to be completely loyal; he was a mercenary, after all. It was only direct insubordination that I couldn't stand.

Daggers had also overseen the recovery of the armor from the zombies who died to the goblins, and we used them to make a new batch of Tanks, although it cost use some Fighters.

And so, the march restarted.

Half a day later, the scenery changed. The purple became darker and the stalagmites' forest got thicker. Eventually, we had to walk in single file and couldn't even see where we were going.

It was clear now how a castle could be hidden; if it wasn't for the mark on my minimap urging me to a certain point in the 'forest', I would be hard pressed to find anything in here. The castle wasn't that distant but I had to walk in circles and often enough found we had to turn back. Add to that the possibility of a "mysterious magic" changing the rocks' locations and I could see how people could be lost in here forever.

As a matter of fact, that happened twice to people in the group. If it wasn't for the zombies' icons being visible in my minimap when we merged the chats, two of them would have been gone.

Even flying wasn't a possibility; the stalagmites grew higher and the stalactites grew lower until they met each other in passageways that resembled a honeycomb maze.

I led the way, with Daggers right behind me just in case the zombies decided to try something, and the goblin followed behind her. Bear was at the very end of the line.

Morale was low enough when we entered the maze and after an entire day of that, I told Daggers, Ted and Bear, to stay alert; a riot was likely and as far as I knew, I was the only one with a minimap and a way out of here. I suspected both Bear and Daggers of also having one, but not the others. Therefore, I'd be the main target, even if they didn't want to fight my firebombs.

The value of the minimap in such a situation enlightened me as to the real value of a map in the Underworld. Now it made sense why those in power didn't want people to have maps. If I was the owner of Edward's Castle, for instance, I would also prefer that people found it difficult to get in there without a guide that I approved of.

We didn't camp that night, but took turns logging out while leaving the character following the others. I was the only one who didn't do that, since without me we couldn't move on.

A goblin's stomach, I learned, was almost as terrifying as a zombies'. The little monster had to eat every six hours to avoid death. Yes, if he went a single minute more than six hours without food, he would perish. He told us this, Zenhit told me this, Bear's Destiny Spirit told him this, and Daggers found nothing on the internet that said otherwise.

With ten fish, I had enough to keep him fed for two and a half days. If he died, I'd have to go back and either find a way to get the mud people to provide me with food, and maybe one of them to come with me, or give up and do the side quest the game wanted me to do.

The reason I didn't even try to get in touch with the mud people was because they ignored me when I tried to inform them of the goblin's ploy, and because I wanted to save time. I knew the Underworld and even if they spoke to me, there's no way that they would just have said 'okay, dude, let's go.' Now, that decision wasn't looking as smart as I thought.

However, a day and a half after we left, the 'forest' suddenly gave way to a clearing. There was no forewarning; one second the purple stalagmites looked endless, the next I took a turn and they ended.

In front of us was a huge clearing of barren soil with a huge walled castle at the center. We were only a couple of kilometers away from the castle's walls, but even better was the fact that the purple everything ended abruptly a few steps in front of us.

The white walls were made of what appeared to be lightsteel and so tall that the only reason I knew there was a castle behind them was because of the mark on my map. They were massive, looked solid as hell, and there weren't any doors in sight; I didn't think I was going to conquer that place through here.

Slowly, everyone entered the clearing, and upon seeing the walls they all wore expressions of awe on their faces.

<Holy damn!> Bear said when he finally got to the clearing. <Ugly-face, this is the best gift ever! Can I attack first?>

My answer was to sigh and pat the goblin's head. "Your turn. Where's the secret entrance?"

"Here, come!" He replied and began to walk forward way too fast.

I pulled one of his big ears. "Slow down there, champ. Stay at most three paces away from me or I'll kill you." Thankfully, Ted was currently offline and couldn't complain about it.

The goblin obeyed and we had to walk only for about five minutes before something went wrong.

Atop the walls of the castle, someone had appeared. I could barely make out two horns behind the parapet but I bet it was one of the minotaurs who had conquered the castle. It immediately yelled: "Enemy sighted!" Then, it shot an arrow at us.

As I had found in Valia, projectiles were useless against agile fighters unless you used massed fire. The arrow flew true, which was downright impressive at that range, and would have killed the goblin if it wasn't for a throwing knife tossed by Daggers, which hit the arrow mid-air, shattering it.

<Shit,> I summed up the situation. <Bear, make the zombies defend themselves and be ready to run to wherever the goblin takes us.> After Melkier died, Bear had been promoted to the other zombies' handler.

Surprisingly, Melkier still hadn't called me after I killed him. It made me worried because if he wasn't nearby, I couldn't observe his actions or predict his moves. 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer' was probably the greatest wisdom ever imparted to me by my parents.

<Whatever you say, Ugly-face,> Bear told me and then began to organize the zombies. They formed a tight line close to the entrance of the stalagmites' forest with the Tanks on the front, clearly anxious about what could happen.

Bear, on the other hand, just leaned against a random rock, crossed his arms, and looked bored. Ted was offline and her character was following Bear, so she just stood there beside him, expressionless.

"Move," I pushed the goblin with my foot.

"Yes, yes," it said with concern and started to walk much faster than before.

Daggers recovered her knife and we followed the goblin.

A few other ineffectual arrows flew our way, but it wasn't until a second minotaur joined the first, that Daggers began to have some issue defending against them. By the time there were five, she was wasting a lot of stamina defending us.

"Are we close?" I asked the goblin when she got to half stamina.

"Yes, great master!" He replied. "The distance us walked again and again!"

It took a moment of serious thought for me to understand what he meant. "Two times the distance we walked?"

"Yes! Yes!" He nodded.

"Damn. Run!" I blinked one of my ten fire morbs out of existence and created a darkness one. Each darkball spell took half a second to form, and thanks to my Energizer trait, I could move three meters while running without disrupting the morb amassing.

While Daggers focused on hitting the arrows that got close, I began to shoot arrows out of the air. That's when the arrows began to change paths mid-air. Apparently, Daggers was too fast for it to work, but the horned assholes thought that would work against me.

It took only a few darkballs to teach then otherwise. No matter how they changed the arrows' paths, I could change my spells' path by a total of two hundred and eighty-eight degrees. Twenty-one points in the Controller trait — both it and the Energizer trait had leveled up a few days ago because they were cores — wasn't too bad.

The arrows kept coming, my spells kept lashing out, and Daggers kept destroying the projectiles that got too close to us. The goblin couldn't move that fast with his short legs and I ended grabbing him. "Tell me where to go!"

"Yes, great master! There!" He pointed the way.

We kept running. The five archers that kept raining arrows down on us eventually became six, then eight, and were now at ten. We couldn't stop all of them and our HP was steadily decreasing. I was about to give up when Daggers suddenly fell into a hole in the ground.

There was no hint that the hole was there. Even for her, it was so sudden that she fell without any chance to react.

"There!" The goblin yelled happily while I was turned to avoid the hole. I struggled to correct my path, which caused me to stumble. I fell hard and rolled before falling into the hole face first.

I hit Daggers on the way down. Like a Hollywood ninja, she had jabbed her blades into the walls of the hole and had been hanging there. Sadly for her, she had the goblin and I to worry about.

She tried to hold, but it did her no good. We fell together for about twenty meters before hitting the ground. Not that big of a fall in a world full of magically enhanced people, but if Daggers hadn't broken my fall, it could have been lethal since I'd fallen head first.

"Shit. Why didn't you tell us that would happen?" I punched the goblin, whom I was still holding in my arms.

"Sorry great master! You asked not!" He replied.

I punched him several more times. "Don't play the smartass with me! Next time something like that happens I'll kill you and go back to get one of your friends to help me!"

"Sorry! Sorry!" He helplessly replied.

<Sir, may I stand?> Daggers asked.

My body was sprawled over hers, only our... stomachs were in the other's face. Now, I'm not a prude, but that made me slightly embarrassed and I quickly got up. I mean, it'd be cool if we both were in that position by mutual agreement, but for it to happen the way it did...

Damn, am I blushing?

I should kill her for the nerve of touching me without my orders! The ring thought with my inner voice but by now I was used to ignoring it. Who would have guessed the big bad Fallen was shy?

How long had it been since the last time I blushed? Shit, I had thrown a country into chaos and I was getting flustered over something as silly as this?

And it was in a video-game!

Shit!

I forced myself to focus on the surroundings to distract my mind and realized we were in a long stone corridor. It was narrow, just wide enough for two people to walk side by side, and the ceiling was so low I could almost touch it.

"What's ahead?" I asked the goblin.

"Corridors! A maze! And a door!" He replied.

"Enemies?"

"Many!" He said fearfully.

I punched him. "Say that first next time! What kind of enemies?"

"Spiders, mud people, goblins, elementals! Much kinds! I not know them all, great master."

"Useless little shit. Is it safe here, in this exact place we're now?"

"Yes, great master."

<Daggers, scout as far ahead as you think you should, to make sure this place is relatively safe,> I ordered. <We'll rest here before calling the zombies down.>

<Sir, we still do not know if this place leads to our objective. It might be a trap.> She reasoned.

<Even more reason to call them. The assholes rebelled, and I now have no qualms with using them as cannon fodder.> I had no problems with that earlier either, but she didn't need to know that.

Plus, if we couldn't conquer the castle — which was very likely if the castle walls were any indication —, making the zombies weaker before they hunted me down for failure to pay them was much better for me.

<Are you calling me cannon fodder, Ugly-face?> Bear asked in the mind chat.

<Shut up, I died for you,> I retorted and he remained silent

At first I thought that dying for him had been a stupid decision but now I saw it let me get away with a lot. The best way to win stupid people over is by using emotional arguments.

Daggers confirmed everything was clear for some distance ahead and we took our time to heal and replenish our mana and stamina.

<Bear, did you see where we fell?> I asked in the mind chat.

<No, I'm blind.> He politely replied.

<Get everyone down here.>

<What about the arrows, Ugly-face? People might die.> He argued.

<Oh, there were arrows?!> I quipped. <I didn't see them! Cancel all orders and start a picnic instead.>

<Hey, I'm just saying, man,> his tone was calm. <The boys are pissed already. If one more of them die, things could go south rather quickly.>

<I don't care,> I said sincerely. <Get the Tanks to protect as many as they can or something. Just make sure you're the first to come down and lead them. There isn't space for them to overwhelm us in the narrow corridors down here.>

<What if they don't follow me down?> He asked.

<Then they'll either die to the arrows or be forever lost in the rocky honeycomb back the way we came,> I said flatly. <They're all hostages, they just don't know it yet.>

<Wow, that's evil! I like that!> I could almost see his smile when he said that and found myself smiling too.

"Let's go, Daggers," I said as I got up.

"Affirmative." She used the Vanishing skill and turned translucent to me, invisible to anyone with low perception and went ahead.

Putting the goblin down, I slapped his nape. "Remember, no funny business. Go."

"Yes, great master."

And so, we began to explore the secret entrance to Edward's Castle.

17. Plan B

It had been a long time since I had last crouched and crept silently down a long corridor, but now, I was at it again.

Daggers remained invisible at the front, with the goblin pointing the correct way at each intersection. Whenever we took a turn, I would throw a fireball at the stone wall to mark it for the zombies.

The never-ending narrow corridors made me slightly claustrophobic. For the first few minutes we found no monsters whatsoever, but after a turn, we found ourselves facing a centaur.

He was so big he had to keep his head bent low and it still brushed the ceiling. There was no way to go around him since his body was wide enough to block the corridor. The beast was naked; his lower half was horse-like and his upper half was a muscular, tan humanoid so monstrously hairy that it brought to mind a werewolf.

The million-dollar question was, how the hell had he managed to tan in the Underworld?

Bald, with a long beard, and mean-looking, his teeth were wickedly sharp, a common trait in the Underworld races from what I had seen. He was holding a heavy-looking metal spear.

When we appeared, he looked at us silently and we looked back.

"Hello?" I said, and it wasn't the right thing to say. The centaur charged at us. <Run!>

That was the best tactical call I could make; the monster was simply too big to turn the corner. However, I didn't expect one of the walls around me to liquify and the centaur to charge out of it before it had even melted to the floor!

This would be awesome if I wasn't running for my life!

We kept running. I hoped that he could only do that to a limited number of walls. However, if it came to it, I'd better be prepared to fight. I threw a firebomb just to check how much damage it would deal.

202 fire + 39 burn damage dealt to Centaur (241 total)

It wasn't the max damage the firebomb could deal, so he had about thirty percent resistance to fire damage, possibly to all damage; his skin looked thick.

Worst of all, he didn't act like two hundred and forty-one damage meant anything to him at all.

I ended up carrying the goblin again. After three turns and more walls turning into puddles, he was getting too close and it became clear we had to fight. The zombies were still too far away to be any good, so it would be up to me and Daggers.

I didn't want to waste HP, mana and stamina in the maze if I could help it, but Valia disagreed with my choices.

<Time to fight,> I said simply. Daggers immediately became a shadow and turned on a dime, as if inertia meant nothing to her while in that state.

On the other hand, my running was still constrained by the laws of physics, so that by the time I had dropped the goblin, turned back and nocked an arrow, Daggers was using both her blades to redirect a trust from the centaur's spear.

One of my firebombs flew but I had a problem: Daggers was too close to the centaur and I had to try to move the spells behind the beast to prevent her from taking damage.

Which was impossible. The centaur simply punched my spell mid-air, before it could detonate, and unlike what I thought should happen, the spell didn't explode.

<Shit. Zenhit, why didn't the spell explode?> I focused on sending the question to my Destiny Spirit.

The shining asshole appeared right beside the centaur's head, where I had tried to send my spell.

<Spells are divided in three phases: formation, targeting, and conclusion...> His childish voice was too calm for the situation.

<Quick version!> I said after I fired an arrow.

Zenhit sighed. <People these days... No patience...> He said lazily and I sent another firebomb at him. It did nothing to him at all, but at least the centaur was damaged.

199 fire + 37 burn damage dealt to Centaur (246 total)

No damage dealt to Daggers

HP: 823 / 950

Daggers not receiving any damage was rather surprising. She wasn't that close to the center of the explosion but flames had still engulfed her.

<Zenhit, be quick or I swear I'll enslave you!> I said.

The Destiny Spirit's light pulsed weakly. <Spells only do damage when they reach the intended target. You can change the target whenever you want, even right before an enemy intercepts your morb. However, for some spells like the Firebomb, if they're hit before reaching the place you intended them to activate, it'll dissipate harmlessly.>

Daggers dodged a new thrust from the spear, but it was clear that she had no way to close with the centaur and deal damage to him. The range of the spear allowed the beast to keep her at bay.

<Don't bullshit me!> I said as another arrow flew. Unfortunately, they were dealing only about thirty damage each and I couldn't even hit the centaur's head; he always dodged when I tried. <I was willing the spell to damage the centaur's hand when he punched it!>

<I know!> Zenhit said impatiently, as if I had interrupted him, which I hadn't. The bastard was enjoying this too much. <But for firebombs you must will them to explode instead of just dealing damage. Different spells have different triggers in the conclusion phase.>

Shit. That made sense. Thankfully, it didn't matter anymore; the previous firebomb had proven that I had been overly cautious about dealing damage to Daggers.

She couldn't get near the centaur, so even though some of the fire reached her, she was far enough from the epicenter that her defenses protected her.

So, I tried to make sure my firebombs exploded at the least the same distance from her as before.

Two hundred at a time, bit by bit, the centaur's life was being drained away, just like my mana pool. After about three thousand damage, he started to show signs that we were making a dent in his HP pool.

And by that I mean that the tan skin of his torso had been reduced to scorched flesh. His hair had been burned away and the burns were bad enough that charred muscle could be seen in multiple places on his body.

Daggers had less than half her HP by now but she still held firm. Her stamina however, was nearly empty.

She shadowed again and struck the centaur, carving deeply into him where his hide had been burnt away; with his natural protection compromised the beast suffered more damage when attacked.

The centaur let out a piercing howl. Things were looking good for us.

Then, Zenhit laughed and disappeared. At the same time, the centaur shone with a blinding white light for two seconds. When darkness came back...

Not only was the beast completely healed, he was also wearing armor which was both disturbing and impressive. It appeared to be made of bone which had grown out of him, multiple bones interweaving into breastplate, greaves and a helmet with a horn sprouting from it. The only reason he didn't look more terrifying, was because he was still stooped forward in order to fit into the low ceilinged corridor.

His spear was gone but something much worse had replaced it: morbs. There were five morbs floating around his head, two green and three pulsating light gray — earth and life magic.

Not only that, his bone gauntlets were flaming.

<Run!> I ordered for what felt like the thousandth time that day, I took the goblin in my arms and sprinted as fast as I could. <Bear, get everyone here! Fast!>

<Oh, Daggers can't deal with a menace and you need me?> He asked.

<Wrong!> I replied. <We all can't deal with this menace without a lot of people! We need everyone here to try to win a battle of attrition!>

<Oh. That sounds boring.> He said, apparently unworried, but I could see the zombies running on my minimap.

I looked back and saw Daggers sending throwing knives at some incoming spells. I threw a firebomb at the centaur, but it did less than fifty damage, and didn't slow him down at all.

Walls continued dissolving as we ran. I began to create darkballs to counter the centaur's spells. Daggers' stamina was almost gone by now and Bear was way too far.

Shit. <Daggers, take the goblin!> I said as I threw the purple creature ahead of us. <Bear, hurry up!> I took my shield and held it between myself and the charging centaur. Daggers passed me and kept going.

Running backwards while amassing and throwing darkballs wasn't easy, but it was still much less difficult than I had anticipated. The centaur's morbs formed rather quickly but not as quickly as my own.

The truth is that I wasn't used to fighting against mages. As a mage myself, I felt very vulnerable in fights, especially when my morbs were destroyed mid-air and the enemy could get close to me.

I probably found them so frightening because of what had happened in the Slums. A few spells had been thrown around by the Ruined Mage Kings, and the entire town had been buried, killing nearly everyone in the process.

But it seemed mages weren't always so terrifying. The centaur had slowed his pace to match mine, probably interested in some sort of magical duel. I wasn't about to grant him that though. Before he could decide to make it physical, I gave up on making a stand and started running again, focused on destroying his morbs while doing it.

He let out a bellow of rage and began to chase in earnest.

Being hunted by that intimidating beast through the dark stone corridors wasn't the best experience in my life. The light cast by his flaming gauntlets unnerved me. But in the end, I won. I turned a corner and Bear came into view. Daggers had already disappeared behind him and I did the same.

"Have fun!" I yelled as I ran past him at full speed, a moment later the nearest wall became a pool on the floor as the centaur charged the group.

The zombies, who had been following Bear in single file shouted war cries as the chaotic fight began.

Ironically, the wall-melting trick now worked against the centaur. He had no way to prevent the zombies from flanking and then dog piling him.

It was like something out of a Romero film. There was barely any exposed flesh to bite, but they still overwhelmed the beast completely. The bone armor was punched, kicked and even bitten, the sheer weight of the clinging horde quickly bore the centaur to the ground.

The fiery gauntlets were basically ignored and they found that his underside didn't have any armor. Needless to say, their discovery was bad news for the beast.

He thrashed around, kicked and punched the zombies, but there were too many of them. They ate their way into the poor creature's belly as it screamed in pain and panic.

His resistance grew weaker, until he finally died.

There was no way I wanted to stay near the zombies with only the weakened Daggers and a dubiously loyal Bear to protect me.

<Bear, start a barbecue and give us time to heal,> I ordered.

<Raw barbecue is the best!> He replied excitedly. He had been the first to attack the centaur and was clearly now riding an adrenaline high.

Daggers and I sat as far from the zombies as we dared without worry of roaming monsters, as we waited for our spent energy to be restored before restarting our journey.

"How much longer until we get to the castle?" I asked the goblin.

"I not know," he answered.

I frowned. "What do you mean by 'you don't know'?"

"Me never walked this way," he said.

"Wait, what?! So how the hell do you know where to take us?"

"Me feel way. Purple Goblins feel way; mud people open door."

"Oh." That was an interesting system. At least I had taken a member of the most useful of the two species.

The centaur was the most dangerous creatures we saw,. Other than him, only a few slimes appeared and they were ridiculously easy to crush.

"Where do all these monsters come from?" I asked.

"They be created by castle," the goblin answered.

"Huh? How does that work?"

"Master of Castle of Edward create minions. Castle keep minions alive."

My frown deepened. "Why do you need food, then? Aren't you a former minion from the castle?"

"Purple Goblins be cut off castle by new Master," he said sadly.

After a few more questions, I had a clear picture of Edward's Castle. It was like a mix of a traditional dungeon from old games and a summoning game. The Master of the Castle could summon humans or beasts, either individually or in groups, then they would be bound to the castle, which would keep them alive.

There was no respawn though; once the beast died, it would stay dead for good. The Master could still summon others from the same species, sure, but it wouldn't be the same individual.

The goblins even had some legends about living somewhere else before coming to the Castle. It was perhaps a hint that the castle was unable to create new life, but instead abducted and bound these lifeforms from elsewhere.

I wondered, was there mind control involved, or did the Master of the Castle need to negotiate terms of service with the summoned?

Whatever the case was, I was suddenly very interested in conquering the castle. The main reason I hadn't cared about it before was because I didn't have the manpower to keep it, but now this problem was solved. Unless, of course, mind control was involved.

If this castle were essentially a giant mind control device, that made it too similar to what V-Soft had been doing to people. I'd ordered people murdered and begun a war to end that, there was no way I could let something like that continue to exist, even in Valia.

We reached the end of the maze while I had these thoughts in my head. The zombies had caught up and were now close behind us.

There wasn't an imposing door or an awesome portal, or anything like that in the end. It was just more stone. It looked more like another dead end rather than an entrance.

"Are you sure we're at the right place?" I asked.

"Yes, great master! Bring a mud people here and you enter!" The goblin answered excitedly. "You release me now, great master?" He asked with hope in his eyes.

I ignored him and asked: "Where does the entrance lead? Up? Down? Directly ahead?"

"Ahead, great master." His hope was still there.

The creature was so wretched that I actually took pity on it. I gave him the remaining four fish. "Go. But if you lied to us, know that I will find you and your death will be slow and painful."

"I not lie, great master." He bowed low. "Thank you, great master!" He took the fish and walked away. I had no idea how he expected to survive, but that wasn't my problem anymore.

<What now, Ugly-face?> Bear walked to the stone wall and softly kicked it twice to make a point.

I willed my storage ring to give me one of the items Daggers considered to be part of the basic adventurer's kit: a pickaxe. <Plan A is the zombies dig. Plan B is the four of us go find a new centaur to melt this obstruction.>

<Dig? Really?> He asked incredulously. <Man, you can make even the secret invasion of a castle boring.>

<Just take your pickaxe out of your backpa- Wait a second, where's your backpack?>

I had completely missed that the first time I saw Bear after logging back in the game, he had been carrying a backpack in his hands, but now he wasn't. I couldn't even remember when that change had occurred. I felt idiotic for not noticing it. He had no enchanted purse visible, either.

<Heh.> He smiled widely as a pickaxe appeared in his hands.

<Holy shit, you have a ring too?> I wasn't expecting that.

<Heh. Let's go find ourselves a centaur.> He threw the pickaxe at one of the zombies. "Start digging! The faster you do, the faster we leave this place!" He ordered. It wasn't received with excitement.

I also threw my pickaxe at one of them, even though they all had their own. "That's a great way to raise both strength and constitution," I lied. Some of them looked slightly more enthusiastic.

Walking past them in that narrow corridor while they were all focused on me was quite unnerving, but damn me if I'd show it. I was a McHolen and I'd rather die than show fear.

Like a boss, I walked with high, confident steps, as if they were little more than dust on the sides of the road.

As soon as I was beyond the column of zombies, I may or may not have hastened my pace.

Bear, Daggers, the still logged-out Ted, and I, began our journey searching for a mythical beast in an underground maze.

Which sounded much more thrilling than it actually was.

<I should have stayed behind to dig,> Bear complained.

I didn't blame him. After hours, we had only seen a few giant spiders and nothing more.

<Yes, you should have,> Daggers said.

<So, Ugly-face,> Bear said to me, ignoring Daggers' jab. <Do you really think we can do this?>

<Sure,> I replied. <You must remember this is not our world. Things here are supposed to work in a logical way, and every challenge is a puzzle that is made to be solvable. I'm confident that the centaur was a hint at how to open the door without the mud people.

<Think: what if the goblins or the mud people had been eradicated? Would the secret entrance be lost forever? The goblins may think they're special, but there are probably many monsters who can feel the way, and there are probably others besides the mud people who can open the door.

<Although we're looking for a centaur, any slightly intelligent species will do. I don't expect these low-level spiders and slimes to be able to open the secret entrance to the castle, but remember that the mud people were all level forty; they don't seem special enough to be the only ones with such privilege,> I concluded.

Bear wasn't convinced. <That's not what you said by the lake. There, you made it sound as if the mud people were much more important than what you're saying now.>

<Oh, you didn't hear the goblin speaking about the castle-bound creatures, did you?> I explained it to him and concluded with a: <That's why I think differently now.>

He kept silent for some time. <But what if things didn't work this way? Would you leave the guys behind to die so you could get away? They aren't Valians, they are real people trying to have some fun.>

<So, Valians aren't real people? Spoken like a true xenophobe,> I mocked with a smile. <Bear, let me tell you something about the Underworld: there are no good guys down here. There's only us and them. Everyone who's traveling to this place should know that, and if they don't, they'll learn sooner or later; probably sooner. That's why I don't blame Melkier for his power play and why I'm still waiting for him to contact me with some kind of apology.>

He frowned. <I don't get it.>

<If it's either us or them, the Underworld is divided in groups and organized by power: the strong rule, the weak obey. Is it better to be a non-leading member of a strong group like ours or to lead a weak group? The zombies might be complaining, but I have researched enough about Valia after the Challenge that I know we are doing much better than the great majority of Travelers.>

<But they are not satisfied with how things are working out for them,> Bear counter-argued.

I sighed. <Yes, for now, but only because they are still have the mindset of young men from the outside world looking for epic battles and adrenaline shots. If they stopped thinking about blood for a second and looked at their current position, they would see that the Armless Battalion is much better than their stupid clan. We are a force to be reckoned with, while they were getting paid a pittance to throw their lives away when I met them. If they accept my rule and train as they're told, we could not only conquer Edward's Castle, but also keep it to ourselves. Then, we could begin to fight for the Underworld!>

<Fight for the Underworld?> That got him interested.

I laughed. <Can't you see? This world is way too biased in favor of us Travelers; we can do anything at all in it. Manhart saw that: we can't be permanently killed and even if the denizens of this world were able to lock us away for good somehow, we can just create a new avatar. The true final objective of Valia is conquering nations and maybe the world. And man, look at us, getting ourselves a castle. Manhart is smart but he's also just a Valian; believe me when I say I can outsmart him and rule the Resistance in less than a year.>

<That's your endgame?> He asked. <Conquering the Underworld?>

<Oh, no.> I smiled. <That's just phase one.>

<What comes after, then?>

<That, my dear Bear, you'll have to wait and see. But believe me when I say that every Traveler in Valia will hate me when I'm done.>

Surprisingly, it was Daggers who replied to that. <That does not sound good, sir.>

<No, it doesn't, but we're two undead and a drow. What did you expect? That we'd go around trying to save the world?> I had no illusions, it was clear that the kind of justice I was providing the world would be considered villainous by others.

<That sounds nice, Ugly-face.> Bear half-hugged me as we walked. <Do you really believe what you're saying?>

<Every word of it,> I answered honestly.

<Good, good. I'm in. Ted is in, too, although she'll complain all the way. That's just how she is, you know? Raised like a lady, but I know she can't deny her darker tendencies.> He turned around. <What about you, Daggers?>

She didn't answer immediately and we all stopped walking. She looked at us in silence for a long time before finally speaking. <Okay. But we must change a few things.>

<Slow there, cowgirl!> Bear raised his hands in a 'you better calm yourself' way. <No changing things without all of us agreeing to it.>

This time, I raised my hands. <You slow there, cowboy. There's no democracy in here. I either call the shots or I leave.> He didn't look happy about that. <Don't worry, I won't tell any of you how to do your jobs, but I'm the mastermind in here. I have a final objective in mind and to reach it I'll have to do things that you may not understand, and may even disagree with. I'm telling you now, every action is another step on the path to that endgame. I'll need you to stay by my side even then, and to trust me.>

I looked into their eyes, or the black shadow that obscured her eyes in Daggers' case. Surprisingly, I meant every word I had said. This talk had started as a way of appeasing Bear — just antagonizing him wouldn't work forever — but in the end, I had admitted that I needed them.

Was I still that emotionally affected by the murders? I mean, I could see how useful this apparent intimacy could be in the future, but I hadn't decided to do it consciously. It made me apprehensive.

<Alright, I'm still in,> Bear said. <But promise me lots of blood.>

<Lots and lots,> I agreed.

Daggers sighed. <I am yours to command, sir.>

<Good. Now, let's go. We still need to conquer the damn castle before changing the world.>

Having their support was a great feeling. It was a pity that feeling couldn't last once the police got to me. Or at least that's what my mind was telling me was logical and inevitable. In my heart, I still had an irrational hope that they would stand by my side.

But that was a problem for another time. Before that happened, there were things to do in the game, and the clock was ticking.

The search took hours, but finally, we found an intelligent-looking monster in there.

"Hello, outsiders," the thing said with a beautiful female voice.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a centaur.

18. Plan C

The female talking to us was a... rock? Multiple rocks, actually. Each was bigger than my head, all bound together into a vaguely human shape.

Well, the arms were way too long, scraping the ground and there was no head, but it was humanoid enough.

When it spoke, there was no movement. The voice clearly came from it, but I couldn't see from where.

"Well, hello there, beautiful lady," I said after a moment of shock. "I'm Jack. What's your name?"

"I am Female Rock Thirty-Seven, but my friends call me Thirty-Seven." Her voice was like silk, the kind of voice that would stir desire in weaker men. I definitely hadn't felt lust for a mass of rock based on its voice; that would have been weird.

"A name as beautiful as the owner," I insisted. Calling ugly girls pretty had always worked well for me.

"I hear that often, but I appreciate the sentiment," she said contrary to my expectations. "Come, Male Fire Scout Leader ordered me to bring you to him."

"Well... Why can't he come meet me?" I wasn't thrilled about following the rock to the lair of her people, especially if the Fire in the leader's name meant he was made of fire. Valia had given me enough unpleasant experiences with that element for a lifetime.

"Don't be silly," she said with a giggle. "Come, he's waiting." She turned and began to walk.

<Looks like you have a date, Ugly-face,> Bear said with an insufferable grin. <You two make a cute couple.>

I crossed my arms. <It's not a date, we've been summoned.>

<Oh, you're right!> His grin widened at my refutation, as if he had been waiting for it. <You call a girl pretty and her dad says he wants to see you. It's not a date, you're already meeting the family! Congratz!>

<Bear has a point, sir,> Daggers said. <Congratulations.>

<Screw you both.> I frowned and began to follow Thirty-Seven. <Stay sharp, it might be a trap. No, it's definitely a trap.>

Bear sighed. <He's all grown up now. He has a girl he loves and a father-in-law, who he thinks wants to kill him.> He theatrically sniffed as if holding back tears. <I'm so proud of him.>

<Zenhit, what is the rock lady's species?> I asked my Destiny Spirit instead of paying attention to Bear.

The childish voice replied in my mind. <I can't tell you. You must learn it yourself.>

My frown deepened. <But you told me about magic when I was fighting the centaur.>

<The Guardian allows Destiny Spirits to reveal what he calls 'Valia Mechanics' to the Travelers. The way magic works is included in that, but monsters' species are not.>

<Oh.> That made sense. Now, for the main reason I contacted Zenhit again: <Well, thanks. You know, for telling me about magic at that time. It made the fight easier.>

<Humpf. Puny Traveler, you keep thanking me but I can see the truth of your actions.>

My heart might have skipped a beat if it had been beating. <You can?>

<Yes. Unfortunately, I must inform you that all people in Valia are forbidden from worshipping entities other than the gods. This is a formal warning: cease your idolatry.>

Warning received!

You are forbidden from worshipping Zenhit, cease it immediately.

If you are detected worshipping non-gods again, you will be stricken by divine punishment.

This is an in-game warning, not a formal player warning. DIR supports freedom of belief and all players are free to worship whomever they want, including Valia's AIs.

I didn't know whether to laugh or be offended by this absurdity. I hadn't noticed it before but Zenhit actually acted like an ignorant child. Even the wager he'd made against me during the Challenge, which he couldn't pay, could be attributed to an impulsive youth.

<I'll try,> I said. <But it's hard. Sorry for putting you in such a difficult position.>

Zenhit sighed. <I understand. I almost worship myself sometimes. Just try to keep it to yourself, will you?>

<Okay. Thanks.>

<You're welcome.>

The conversation ended and I shifted the focus to the rock girl. "Hey, Thirty-Seven. May I inquire as to the name of your species?"

"Elemental," she said simply. Apparently, she wasn't much of a talker, which was a shame.

"How long until we reach our destination?"

"Two minutes. I advise holding your tongue; Male Fire Scout Leader doesn't like to be spoken to without permission."

"And where are we going, exactly?"

"To meet Male Fire Scout Leader," she said matter-of-factly.

"Yes, but where?" I insisted.

"In the tunnels ahead." Her voice now was slightly upset.

"But what is the place called?"

"The prisoner will remain silent." She said aggressively.

At that, we stopped walking. Daggers became translucent, Bear closed his helmet, and I quickly backed away.

"Seize them," Thirty-Seven said and I immediately dropped to the ground.

It was a useless move, all that happened was the nearest rock walls quickly dissolved, revealing five rock elementals. They were quite dissimilar, sharing only their deformed humanoid shapes. One of them even had a leg two times as long as the other.

"Thank goodness," I said as I got up and moved behind Bear. "I thought I'd have to do a side quest after all. Bear, Daggers, we only need one of them alive." I threw a firebomb at one of them.

303 fire + 92 burn damage dealt to Rock Elemental #3 (395 total)

One of the elementals was hit and to my surprise, it took full damage. I had thought that because they were made of rock, they would be resistant to it, but I got lucky.

A small rock fell from the elemental, it looked as if it wouldn't take much more for it to crumble.

Bear, on the other hand, was as unlucky as possible. His huge black sword swung at the closest stony figure and... It bounced off leaving barely a mark behind and dealing no damage at all.

<What the hell, dude?!> He complained and tried to punch the rock, but the only effect was him yelling in pain right after.

Daggers was much more effective. I had seen her blades pierce armor before and yet again, they were miraculous; it was as if the rock wasn't there at all as the daggers penetrated deeply into the elemental's head.

[Daggers] 285 (95 x 3) piercing damage dealt to Rock Elemental #4

She had to strike four times to equal my firebomb damage. Still, she managed to stab the elemental three times before having to dodge an attack from it.

The skill she had used was a dexterity-based one called No Defense Before Me. Bear took his cue from her and used his own strength-based skill called Pierce and Crush.

His next swing of the sword rent the rock as if it was made of butter and almost split the elemental in half. It counter-attacked and he defended for some time, until his skill came out of cooldown.

There was no rock elemental close to me and I safely threw firebombs at them.

"Kill the mage first!" The beautiful voice of Thirty-Seven filled the corridor, full of rage.

My first enemy died with a mere five firebombs. Daggers was still fighting hers and Bear became my meat shield, eventually using the Pierce and Crush skill to attack. He took some damage but it was clear that we would win the fight.

Daggers' No Defense Before Me had a much greater duration and much lower cooldown, so she was tearing her opponent to pieces; literally.

Thirty-Seven seemed to realized that she would lose, turned around, and ran. As if that had been the cue, the remaining rock elementals tried to do the same.

<Grab one of them!> I said while throwing firebombs at the running elementals.

Daggers had just finished killing her elemental and Bear body-slammed another one into the wall.

Or at least he tried. The wall dissolved away, as if afraid of touching the elemental', and all that happened was that they both fell on the ground.

I withdrew a rope from my ring and threw it to Daggers. She quickly began to tie the elemental.

<That was an easy fight,> I said as I watched her work. <Man, I missed these.>

<Say that again when you're the one being punched,> Bear complained and threw himself atop the struggling rock elemental.

It was struggling hard. Still, Bear seemed to know what to do and managed to keep it pinned to the ground, and Daggers also appeared well-versed in the art of restraining enemies.

Before too long, the elemental was our prisoner.

<Try to push it against a wall again,> I told Bear and he did so. As expected, the wall melted before the elemental could touch it.

Bear opened his helmet and smiled. <Jackpot!>

"Relax," I told the elemental. "We need you to melt some rock for us, and we'll free you after that."

"I'll never help you!" It bellowed with a male voice and... Became still. A golden liquid light left its body and shot through the corridor too fast for me to do anything.

Daggers was faster though. She threw a knife at the light, but it passed harmlessly through it and clattered off the rock wall instead.

A few seconds later, the rock elemental began to move again. Except, now it thrashed like a wild animal! It struggled hard against the rope, even though he was firmly bound.

"Stop!" I said. "You can't free yourself!"

It ignored me. Daggers took some rope from inside her cloak and began to tie the elemental even tighter.

However, in the process of doing that, something that shouldn't have happened did: the elemental touched the wall... And it didn't melt.

<Bear, try to push it against the wall again.> I said. He did as told, and nothing happened. <Goddammit! Why can't anything be easy for me?> I kicked the elemental right before throwing fireballs at it.

All my current fire morbs had been created with the mana cost for firebombs, so it took me an extra two seconds to launch each. That's just how magic in Valia worked: I either created the morbs with the right amount of mana for the spells I intended to use, or it would take me extra time to cast the spells.

It eventually died, having taken only half the damage as the rock elementals from before. Apparently, that light which had left it was some kind of soul that strengthened the elemental and made it sentient.

<Piece of shit!> I kicked it again after it died. The rocks that formed its body had separated from each other.

<Do we follow them?> Bear asked. It was the first time I'd ever heard him less than thrilled at the prospect of a battle. And understandably so; he was just a punching bag when it came to the elementals, other than the single effective strike he could periodically make with his skill.

This simple lucidity though, said a lot about him. It made it clear that no matter how suicidal he acted most of the time, he could still think straight even in the face of imminent battle.

Which brought the question: how much of what I'd seen reflected his true personality, and how much was some kind of roleplay?

It was rare that I had cause to reassess someone I had already analyzed, but Bear was such a case. Maybe he wasn't in here just for 'yolo fun', after all. When I thought about how he dealt with the other zombies, it painted a picture of a man with much more depth than before.

People were usually simple. Unidimensional. Daggers, for instance, was crystal clear: she was a soldier to the bone. Ted was a spoiled rich girl who thought the world was a beautiful place or something.

Bear, however, wasn't. And that worried me.

I had training to avoid being predictable. Lots of it. Why was he not predictable? Who the hell was Bear?

That made me frown and look at Daggers. Had I misread her too? Not about being a soldier at her core; of that, I was confident. But could there be more to her than I thought?

<Ugly-face?> Bear jolted me out my ruminating.

<No,> I said. <Daggers, can you->

<Wait,> the zombie interrupted me. <Why not?>

I sighed. <First of all, because we can't force them to do what we need them to do. The light that came out from the rock elemental moved way too fast, we don't have enough speed to run after it. Therefore, we'll never manage to imprison it and make it melt the rocks for us.>

I kicked the pile of rocks again. It had made me very upset. <So, even if the elementals are as weak as this fight made them seem, it would be useless for us to kill them all. Maybe there's some treasure or something to be had, but the treasure of things as weak as these don't interest me. I want a castle, not some low-level trinkets.

<However, there's also another possibility. They might be much stronger than they seem. If so, why not ambush us more effectively than that? The simplest answer is that for some reason, they can't do that. Why was Thirty-Seven polite at first but didn't keep up the act all the way? Because there's probably a clear division of space, a gate or something, that we wouldn't enter no matter how polite she was. So, they preferred to sacrifice a few of themselves as a show of weakness, to incite us to be reckless in our belief of superiority.>

My eyes met Bear's. <And that's why we aren't following them. I told you two that I wouldn't tell you how to do your jobs, and that fight was the perfect example. I trusted you to fight however you chose. But I need the same; I can't explain things to you every single time I make a decision. Not only is that annoying, but there may be times that it costs us time we can't afford to lose.>

As I spoke, I could see my father in me. He loved to give long speeches and they all sounded downright reasonable, no matter how illogical they were. Although my speech right now was all one hundred percent true, my intonation, and even the words I chose for my current audience, were a clear reflection of his example.

Bear didn't say anything. From what I knew of him, that meant submission. But I had just realized I knew nothing about him.

There was nothing I could do though, besides continuing to observe and try to get closer to him. For now, I had a castle to conquer.

<Daggers,> I turned to her. <Can you apply your No Defense Before Me skill to any weapon-like object?>

<Depends, sir,> she replied. <What do you have in mind?>

<The pickaxes,> I said. <That skill could make things much faster in the digging front.>

<I thought about that, sir, but I am the only one with it, so stamina would quickly become an issue.>

I smiled. <You're thinking all wrong. Come, I have a plan. A much better plan than wandering this maze aimlessly, hoping to find a monster we can use.>

* * *

When we got back to the excavation site, the zombies were attacking the walls in a surprisingly lively fashion, even the ones they didn't need to dig through.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Bear asked one of them.

"He was right," the zombie said nodding my direction. "Working on these walls is great for getting strength and constitution points."

"I'll be damned, Ugly-face," Bear turned to me. "You're a Prophet of the Lord!"

I was surprised at first, then I became worried. <Damn right I am. Now, listen to this: there's no free lunch, especially in the Underworld. Make them stop before the heavens punish us for abusing the special qualities of these walls.>

<You want me to stand between them and their attribute points? Not happening,> he said.

I sighed. <Damn zombies. Don't any of them have any semblance of common sense?>

<Nope.> Bear replied.

<Come,> I said as I led the way. <We'll stick to the plan. The faster we get out of here, the better.>

We walked to the place we had to dig, the old dead end of the maze. It had been widened by the zombies and they had even made some progress ahead. However, they had stopped digging there, more focused on getting attribute points than on making forward progress.

I had an extra metal pickaxe in my ring, which I threw to Daggers. Bear did the same. Soon, she was holding four pickaxes in her hands.

"You six," I told the zombies nearby, "give me your extra pickaxes and go mine somewhere else."

They obeyed, and I gave Daggers the extra tools. Then, she started working.

Like a boss, she used her skill to pierce the walls with the pickaxes. All of them seemed to penetrate at exactly the same angle, to the same depth. Soon, all ten were sticking out of the wall.

Without saying a word, she sidestepped. Then, Bear and I went ahead and began to pull.

It took some strength but the pickaxes were just at the right position for me to take a considerable chunk of stone out of the wall. It was the same for Bear.

When we were done with one pickaxe, we would simply drop it on the ground and Daggers would grab it and pierce the wall again.

And so, the seemingly endless cycle began.

The zombies hadn't been wrong; both my strength and my constitution went up by one in less than an hour, allowing me to reach level thirty-one.

Daggers had to stop to rest a few times, but even so, our progress was extremely good. By the time I logged out, I had a feeling we would reach our objective tomorrow.

* * *

I removed the VirBridge and ate something. When I checked the online news, I was shocked.

On the screen, I saw an Army General, another from the Air Force, and an Admiral right beside my grandfather and a few other men.

A headline that read 'Armed Forces and leading politicians focused on restoring order to the country,' greeted me and I continued reading.

'"We need justice, but there can be no justice without order," says Louis McHolen. "I'll be the first to take my turn in the defendant's chair when the time comes, but for now the people must unite so we can take our country back. The country that has been looted by vandals and destroyed by criminals pretending to fight for justice. This is a North American Commonwealth that belongs to its decent citizens, not to those whose agenda is to bring terror and destructions to our homes."'

That scared the hell out of me. Grandfather was using emotional arguments to justify putting the Armed Forces under the control of a Congress that would give the Forces free reign to do 'whatever was needed' to give peace back to the people.

Grandfather never used emotional arguments. Never. He was known for being a blunt politician who used logic no matter who it hurt.

For him to change that much meant that things were even worse at both the Senate and the House, than I had thought.

That was just the tip of the iceberg. There was a lot of stuff going on at NATO and at the UN.

V-Soft had never been able to sell the Immersive Reality technology in other countries, but these countries were still ordering us to give them the Immersive tech for 'security reasons.'

Foreign courts were condemning the Department of Immersive Reality for reading their citizens' minds when they visited us, and banishing the tech from their countries.

I tried calling grandfather but his number had been disconnected. Whatever was happening both in Congress and on the global stage was nothing like what the news was portraying; that much was a given. But without the ability to contact grandfather, I had no way of knowing what was actually happening and preparing for it.

Was it a coup? Had the Armed Forces taken control of the country? That didn't sound right but I didn't doubt the possibility. Or was it the Congress itself who was making a coup against the judicial and executive branches?

There was still no news about investigations on the murders on V-Soft, and my PI still hadn't called back about the hooker.

After taking care of my backup plan, I went to sleep. It was a troubled night, full of nightmares and devoid of rest, even though I was worn out from playing Valia for two days straight.

The next day, I ate little and logged back in without taking any time to myself. Although the country in chaos was bad for everyone else, it made things harder for the cops who were after me.

With order looming, the clock was ticking much faster.

* * *

When I logged in, Daggers was already there. It was weird; she usually kept a strict schedule, it was too soon for her to be online.

She and some other zombies were mining the walls, but while they were doing it somewhat lazily, she was attacking the rocks as if they were her worst enemy.

<Whoa there, girl,> I said. <What's going on?>

She turned suddenly and pointed the pickaxe at me. <I am not a 'girl.' Sir.>

<Damn, you woke on the wrong side of the bed today. What's wrong?>

With another turn, she was back to hitting the wall. <Did you check the news?>

<Yeah. Are you upset about Congress and the Armed Forces, the world war, or about the paparazzi who got an angle at that model's underwear?> It was almost a legit question.

<My father was deployed, sir. He was not happy about it. In his words, this is the biggest mistake ever since the Unification.>

Unification, the annexation of Mexico and Canada to the North American Commonwealth. I raised my eyebrow at her comment. <A Separatist officer?> I let out a whistle; that was a rare sight. The brainwashing in the Armed Forces had been very thorough and only a few thought that the Unification hadn't been a glorious day for our country.

Her voice was full of venom as she answered. <A larger state only increases the power of the corrupt politicians, everyone knows that. The bigger the country, the more those in power become isolated from the people, and the easier it is to lie to our faces and to steal our money.>

<So, you're upset because your father got deployed?> I asked.

<No, sir. I am enraged because democracy is being killed by those who swore to defend it. Do you know why the Armed Forces agreed to what the Congress did?>

That got me interested. <Nope.>

<Because the Congress promised funds to them. They betrayed their ideals and vows for money!>

<So surprising,> I said lazily.

She looked back at me and under her dark hood I could see two glowing eyes. One was gold, the other was green. And they looked menacing as hell.

<Maybe not to you, sir,> her tone implied I was the worst scum on Earth. <But it was for my father.>

I sighed. Here I went again, tending the feelings of my temporary friends. Why couldn't Congress destroy the country a little more subtly to save me the trouble?

<Listen, Samantha,> I said with a soft voice, using her in-game first name. <The world is a rotten place, and sometimes we must do the best we can, with what we're given.>

<What does that even mean?> She was still upset but there was also curiosity in her voice this time. And her glowing eyes were fading into the darkness of the hood.

<That means that the Armed Forces were going to be deployed either way. And I mean deployed, as in used for war. It was only a matter of who was going to be the enemy: the government or the people.>

<They should have thrown the dirty politicians out of their seats and called for new elections!> She claimed.

I rolled my eyes. <Yeah, sure. And what do you think would happen to the Armed Forces if they acted against the government?>

<They would bring justice to the people.> She said matter-of-factly.

<Sure they would. For a few months. Before other bad politicians were elected; they always are, it never changes. I know that, you know that, everybody knows that. Then, after they were elected, who do you think would be the new politicians' nemesis?>

She didn't reply and I answered for her. <The Armed Forces. If they wiped out a government before, they could destroy the new government as well. They would weaken the Armed Forces for their own good and that, in turn, would make us vulnerable to external attack, in a time where the whole world wants a piece of us. And even if war didn't come, because you know, people love the NAC and there were never attacks to the old United States, it would still suck for the military. One day, they are the heroes. A few years later, nobody remembers them and they can barely maintain themselves.>

Again, I was met with silence. <And that is being very positive and believing they would even call for new elections at all. Similar things have happened in other countries, the Armed Forces telling everyone they were only deposing some tyrants, only for a dictatorship to be installed and->

She interrupted me. <So they sell their souls instead, and attack the people they swore to protect?>

<It's either that or lose their own power for no reason at all. You didn't disagree when I said bad politicians would be elected either way. Your anger is comprehensible and your love for the people is worthy of praise. But it's also impractical. Suppose you're a slave and your master is a bad one. Then, your master tells you that he can either sell you to an equally bad master, or give you more comfortable quarters. Why the hell would you choose to get a new master instead?>

She crossed her arms. <You are a pessimist, sir. The new master might be better.>

<Yup. What are the odds though? Even if things in the country get better for a while, how long do you think it'll take for things to go back to the way they were? The military deals with strategy and tactics, both are all about dealing with the concrete, not with hope. The Armed Forces did the best they could with the most likely development.>

Silence enveloped us until she finally turned back and hit the wall with the pickaxe again. This time, she used the piercing skill and the tool just stood there.

<Do you believe any of it, sir?> She asked in a near whisper, as if she didn't really want to hear the answer.

<Yes,> I replied sincerely. I did believe in some of it, and that had been her question. <But more importantly, I believe in conquering castles. I need you with me, Sam.>

<I am with you, sir.> Her voice was back to normal. Sometimes I felt as if Daggers only knew extreme emotions; if there was no more rage to be had, she wouldn't slip into melancholy over how things were; she would suck it up and move on.

I grabbed a pickaxe from the wall and pulled, ripping out a chunk of stone with it. <Good. Let's keep digging, then. It's about time we got inside this damn castle.

19. Mining Operations

Bear and most of the zombies joined us eventually. Ted, however, was still offline. It was quite curious, but I didn't care enough to ask Bear about it. Nope, zero interest. I did ask him about it just because the ghost was still following Bear around even though she had logged out and it could become a problem.

<Uncle William had some issues and Ted is taking care of him,> Bear explained.

David was Ted's father name. His middle name was William. It was weird to me that he called him that, but he called me Ugly-face even though I was, in all honesty, not bad. So, it wasn't out of character for him.

Against my expectations, the rest of the mining happened without issues. It made me wonder: was this why Manhart wanted this castle? He claimed to have an Army, after all, even though I had never seen it. Simply mining these walls could be quite useful to increase an Army's power.

When one of the pickaxes Bear pried out of the wall revealed an opening on the other side, my strength and constitution had increased by three points each. The strength points were back to before my death and the constitution had even surpassed my previous level.

Surprisingly, my dexterity also went up by one, and together with the natural level up of my Strategist core trait, I was only two points from level thirty-two.

Not only that, Daggers leveled up to twenty-three, and Bear to twenty-two. Most importantly, with my Strategist trait in effect to his constitution attribute, the zombie now had a staggering thirty-eight hundred HP.

These walls were nothing short of miraculous! I wouldn't be surprised if the Battalion decided to set up a church to worship them.

<Be prepared,> I said. <And tell the zombies to be prepared too.>

With a few more solid blows from the pickaxe, we finished creating an opening out of the tunnel.

On the other side, we found a corridor. I didn't even have to say anything; Daggers immediately became translucent and went scouting.

The zombies had now stopped mining and I deemed it the right time for a speech to draw them further under my power.

<Bear, unite the chats, please.> He did so. <Alright folks, I promised you attribute points, and I think we can all agree that I delivered! Much more than you expected!>

There was no cheering, but they did look much more interested in what I had to say than before. I continued. <Now it's time for me to fulfill the other part: money! And do you know who won't get it? The idiots who disobeyed their orders, broke the line, and got themselves killed by some puny goblins!>

That didn't make them happy, but contrary to popular opinion, loyalty isn't about happiness, it's about believing that the expectations you have of your leader are going to be met, and that they work towards your best interests.

<So, my lovely blood-drinking, flesh-devouring friends, obey the damn orders and we'll all be bathing in riches before long!> I concluded.

Their reaction was mixed, but interest was clear in their eyes and I counted it as a win.

<Thanks Bear, you can unlink the chats now.> He did so. <How are things going, Daggers?>

<Well.> That was her only answer. She wasn't feeling terrifically verbose it seemed.

We waited in silence, feeling tense.

After considering things for awhile, I decided to keep up eight fire morbs intended for firebombs, a death morb intended for a deathball, and a life morb intended for a lifeball. Eighty percent attack, twenty percent emergency healing.

Daggers took about fifteen minutes to come back, enough for the tension to slump into boredom.

<Three small storerooms with food and an empty torture chamber to the right,> she reported. <Two medium storerooms with chunks of metal, a large storeroom with weapons and armor, and stairs to the left.>

<Nice,> I said. <Bear, take the zombies to loot the food, I'll go take first pick of the equipment.>

He smiled. <Only if you get something nice for me.>

<I promise,> I said. <Daggers, you can come back now.>

<Sir?> Her voice was confused. <I am in front of you.>

I checked the minimap and I realized she was right.

Holy shit!

Focusing hard on the air in front of myself, I managed to see a kind of faint shadow on the middle of the corridor.

<How?> I asked. I was supposed to have a high-enough perception attribute to be able to see her.

<I do not know, sir. Maybe because my Shadow trait leveled up.>

I wasn't sure about that. Could a single trait level make such a large difference? Well, to be fair, it must've leveled twice since I met her again, after the Challenge. Still, two trait levels weren't that much unless they hit a new boundary, and she was still an Adept, not a Skilled, in her Shadow trait.

But Valia's attributes, traits, and skills worked in a mysterious way; there was nothing I could do about it.

<If you say so. Let's go.> I followed her to the equipment room first. There were hundreds of weapons, and armor of all kinds in there, including full plate armor. Forget first pick, the entire place was a gold mine! <Holy shit! Bear, don't let a single one of them come. I need to loot this place completely!>

<That's not very fair, Ugly-face,> he said.

<I know. Don't worry, I'll give them their share, but believe me when I say it's better if they don't see this.>

I wasn't lying; if the zombies saw this place, infighting would inevitably ensue and it would be a pain to stop them. Even worse, it could attract the attention of whoever was above us.

However it's not as if that was the reason I was taking everything myself. I did intend to give the zombies their share, but it wouldn't be an equal share to my own. I mean, they had tried to rebel against me and I had already provided them valuable attribute points. It was only right that they paid me some extra taxes.

Also, there was too much stuff to browse in the limited time I believed we had, so it was better to just take everything quickly and check the items out when I could.

With Daggers' help, we managed to loot everything. Then, just to make sure I wasn't leaving money on the table, I checked the metals and stones storerooms.

Sure enough, on the many metal shelves in there, I saw some ores that resembled lightsteel and grabbed them. Nothing else caught my eye, and even though it made me wonder if I was overlooking something, there wasn't enough space in the ring for everything.

Sighing, I told Bear to come and let them take the ore, while Daggers and I proceeded to the stairs.

There was something very wrong with the stairs though. They went down, not up. It seriously confused me <What the hell?>

<Sir, sometimes it is better to make a place difficult to access than have logical architecture, and the equipment we stole is valuable. It was strange to find no lock on the doors to those storerooms.>

That made sense. The metal wall at the end of the stair — which I bet was a door of some kind — also contributed to the likelihood of that theory being correct. Even the torture chamber made sense; some prisoners may be even more important than gold, and locking them in a secondary vault made sense.

At the same time, I was quite confident that this place was only secondary. As safe as it was, there was no gold or silver in here. It made me even more interested in finding the castle's true treasures.

The doors before us were made of lightsteel and there was no visible lock on them, which meant they were either operated by magic, or could only be opened from the other side. Or both. Neither possibility thrilled me.

There was an easy way to find out if they were enchanted though. I moved near them, without touching, and closed my eyes. A gray circle appeared in my mind with me in the center, except I was naked, skinless, fleshless, and made of dark gray and pulsating light gray lights battling each other instead. The battling lights were life and death magic, and they proved I was undead.

Even though what I was seeing inside the grey circle was my surroundings, here there were no walls, floor, ceiling, or any structure at all. Only living beings were visible in my mind's eye.

Daggers was there, at the edge of the circle. She was completely made of pulsating light gray light... Or should have been. She was a living being, but somehow she also had some streak of black light flashing here and there, like dark lighting.

That was weird. As far as I knew, I could only see living beings within my mind's eye, without actively looking for other types of magic. Why could I see dark magic inside of Daggers? Was it something all Blackguard had, something to do with the Devourer?

More interesting though, for the first time I wondered... Why could I see living beings at all? I mean, what I saw was actually magic, not life. Did all life in Valia run on magic? That was an intriguing line of thought. I should look into it sometime.

For now though, I had work to do. I focused my will on a single point the size of my fist, where I believed the door would be. Just as expected, it flashed with color. Purple. Gravity magic.

<Magic lock,> I said as I opened my eyes. <Let's try to dig through the walls instead.> The walls around the door were made of stone, so I could hope that whoever designed this place had been foolish enough to overlook the need to reinforce the walls beside the door.

More excavation ensued. One hour later, we concluded that the designer of the castle had been worthy of his paycheck.

<What now, Ugly-face?> Bear asked. I was beginning to see a pattern, he usually asked that when he thought there was no hope in going forward.

Asshole! When I put my spider ring on, I'll show you!

Now, that was a random thought. The ring just couldn't shut the hell up.

I was almost disappointed. The ring could certainly do better than that, couldn't it?

<Now, we knock.> I answered Bear and, without waiting, I hit the door with my pickaxe.

A loud sound reverberated, filling the entire corridor. Bear's eyes widened and even Daggers body language seemed to suggest she thought I was stupid.

<Ugly-face, isn't the whole point of using a secret entrance to not attract attention?>

<Yup.> I winked at him, but I hit the door again.

<So...?> He insisted.

<So we make noise. Not enough that they will realize there's an army in here, but enough that someone will come and check.>

<Uh... Man, they saw us enter that hole in the ground, and now they hear a noise in here. It's kind of obvious,> Bear said.

<Wrong. It would be obvious if everyone in the castle knew about the secret passage. But it is secret, isn't it? Sure, the castle boss knows about it, but whatever minion is on guard here probably has no idea.>

Bear crossed his arms. <How are you so sure?>

<I'm not sure, I said 'probably'. But think about it: this is the Underworld. Why would someone with access not take everything and leave with all the riches?>

I wasn't sure how thieves would go through the wall, or the maze beyond after they stole everything, but they surely would have a way.

<Because they would rather die than betray the castle?> Bear said presumptively.

<Maybe. Or maybe because whoever's inside doesn't know about the entrance.> I replied.

<Dude, listen. They saw us go in here. Even if no one knows about this place except for the big boss, someone surely told him we entered his underground maze, and unless he's a complete idiot, he would keep watch on this place.>

<True,> I agreed. <But everything points to him being an idiot. I mean, he let us take his stuff in here, didn't he?>

Bear frowned at that. <You're right. Why did he do it?>

<No idea,> I replied sincerely. <The most likely answer is that we're at a dead end.>

<Huh?>

<Maybe he doesn't have the magic needed to open this place. He might not even know about the secret entrance. The castle magic...> I meant 'system'. <...can probably place minions directly in the maze without them needing to come through here.>

His frown deepened. <Isn't that bad for us?>

<Yup. But the only way to be sure is to knock on their door and see if they come. If they don't, we can be fairly certain that it's because no one can.>

<Huh.> Bear seemed convinced.

Daggers, however, didn't. <Sir, where is the dust, then?>

I smiled at her. <That's a good question. There was no dust on the equipment and no one said anything about the food being spoiled. So, someone is using this place, even if it's likely that it isn't the people in the castle. What does that tell us?>

<I do not know, sir.>

<There are many possibilities, but the most likely is that there was a division between the people who conquered the castle before, and the losers are now inhabiting this place.>

<And you came up with that theory just because no one is opening the door?> Bear asked incredulously.

<No, I came to this conclusion for many reasons. The most important though, is that this is a quest given by Manhart. Nothing is ever easy with him. Somehow he expects a limited force like ours to conquer the Castle. How? You saw the walls outside and the lich wouldn't be interested in this place if it can't stand against an attack of some fifty low-to-middle-leveled travellers like us. If what the goblin said is true and he really lived here before, how was the castle even conquered before?>

<I don't get it.> Bear said.

I sighed. <Manhart knew this place and he knew there's a secret entrance here and that's why he sent a small force to conquer it. Now, the big question is if he knew about the division among the people inside the castle. If so, we might find a way to open the doors in the maze. If not, this is a pointless endeavor.>

<Do you think he knew about all this, sir?> Daggers asked.

<I think he did, but I also think there's no key, password, or magical way to open that door to be found in this side of the door. And that's why he sent us, because we're unpredictable. Otherwise, he could have come himself. We're his chance at an easy win before he brings the Army here to take the Castle the hard way.>

<What do we do then, Ugly-face?>

Yup, definitely a pattern, I thought as I noticed he was asking again.

<We keep knocking,> I replied.

<Didn't you say the master of the Castle can't open this door?>

<No, I said he might be unable to open this door. I'm teaching you two how to think. And I'm proving to you that when I make a decision, I have already considered many more possibilities than you have. I'm not perfect, but I am good at analyzing things.> My voice was getting more heated as I spoke. <So, stop fucking asking me about every single decision I make!> I was almost mind-yelling at him in the end.

While it did make me upset to have to explain myself all the time, that was a controlled reaction. Some anger when adequately applied could do wonders for a leader.

<Whoa, slow there, tiger,> Bear said. <I was just curious.>

<Sorry, sir,> Daggers said.

I took a deep breath. <Yeah, whatever. We'll keep knocking until they get annoyed enough that they open the door. Tell the zombies to start excavating around the door and the metal walls; maybe we can still find an opening that way. We'll take turns banging on the door.> I began to do just that with my pickaxe. After the fifth knock, I was already upset with the noise.

<What if they don't open the door?> Bear asked.

<Then we leave with extra attribute points and some equipment to sell. Let's go.>

Daggers and Bear surprisingly made a team to excavate together. It seemed that the way she was doing things was increasing her dexterity instead of constitution and she was loving it. Bear agreed to help her without raising any issues.

Like that, the hours went by. Yet again I noticed the non-boredom feature of Valia. No matter how objectively dull and activity was, it didn't feel so bothersome.

One day, two days. We wrecked the place completely and the sound of a pickaxe banging on the doors was giving all of us a headache. And still, we kept going, because we were raising our attributes at an amazing pace.

By the beginning of our third day, I had increased six points in strength — raising it to 38 —, one in agility — 29 —, two in dexterity — 33 —, four in constitution — 34 —, and one in willpower — 29. The Controller and Energizer traits also went up — reaching 23 and 16 respectively —, and I even received the Miner trait when I found a very small lightsteel ore.

Trait received: Miner

Excavating and uncovering the riches of the soil is a thrill to those who enjoy it.

» +1 constitution when excavating

With these seventeen points in total, I was now level thirty-tree, halfway through thirty-four. Thanks to mining. If I wasn't running against the clock I would stay in that place until I hit the limit of forty points per attribute that both Daggers and Bear had found — Bear in strength and Daggers in dexterity. However, it was already the seventeenth day since I had come back to Valia; I had to move on.

<That's it,> I said when almost everyone had logged back in. <Time to leave. Just considering the small possibility that I was wrong, let's check the elementals to make sure there isn't a way to get inside the castle that can be found here.>

I hadn't told them, but there was another likely reason Manhart hadn't come himself: even if the method to open the doors could be found in the maze, he simply preferred not to do it.

It could be too dangerous even for him, or maybe he felt it required Jack Thorn's unpredictability. Or a myriad of other possibilities; there was even the risk of him using our lives as some sort of sacrifice or payment for when he came, later.

Thankfully, I had free zombies to sacrifice in my place if necessary.

Convincing the zombies to leave their attribute point mining wasn't easy, but they had to eat at least once per day and some were running low on supplies. When I mentioned the prospect of dying of hunger, most of them sobered up rather quickly and the minority couldn't keep being naysayers.

We got back to the place where the elementals had ambushed me and kept moving slowly as Daggers scouted ahead.

<Unknown magic ahead, sir,> she said before long. <I am not sure I should step over.>

<Wait for me, I'm coming,> I replied.

She was standing at the edge of a big circular room, which had a circle drawn on the rocky floor. Inside the circle was a star with thirteen points and countless rune-like characters.

The room was empty and there was no exit except for into the corridor we were in.

<Well,> I said. <I guess it's time for the boys to practice running.>

<Sir?>

<Tell them to run as fast as they can through the corridors,> I explained. <When they get here, the ones in the front will try to stop, but the ones behind will push them in.>

Bear didn't like the idea. <Not doing that, Ugly-face. They are not sheep to be slaughtered.>

<We don't know they'll die,> I argued.

<Not happening,> he insisted.

I sighed. <Such a killjoy.>

With the easy way taken from me, it was science time.

Throwing a rock inside had no effect and neither did a spell. My sword also didn't activate any evil magic. No matter how much I tried scratching it, it was impossible to affect the drawing on the floor, much less damage the floor itself.

I should have kept the goblin, I thought.

The zombies had caught up to us by then and began to excavate to pass the time. I had created miner zombies. Shouldn't I unlock an achievement for that?

Without a 'living' being to serve as a subject, thanks to Bear's ethics — horrible word, that, very unpractical —, I tried throwing in the closest thing to a living being that I had: the spider ring.

There was no gentleness on my part about it. I used all the strength I could muster and let it fly as far away from me as possible. It bounced on the floor, rolled sideways, and stopped close to the center of the room.

A few seconds later, a white light covered it and the ring faded away.

<It either teleports living-ish beings, or destroys them,> I concluded. <Who wants to try first?>

<I do,> Bear said unexpectedly and destroyed my theory of him having a brain. <The elementals were headed here before, weren't they? So, it must be teleportation, not destruction.>

His logic was flawed. Even if it was a teleportation spell, it might still destroy all those who weren't elementals. Or there might be a trap on the other side. However, I needed a volunteer and now I had one.

<Alright,> I said. <There's a chance that we won't be able to use mind chat. If it happens, logout and call me from Earth.> Valia allowed anyone to call the players in the game, but not players to call other players while they were logged in.

<Sure.> Without further ado, he stepped on the magic circle, the still offline Ted right behind him.

White light covered them before they disappeared and immediately I got a message.

Members removed from party: Bear, Ted

Reason: distance from party leader exceeds 1km

Teleport confirmed. And it wasn't to a pocket dimension, but to a distant place, since pocket dimensions didn't disband the party.

<What now, sir?> Daggers asked.

The question also coming from her made me cringe. I looked at her with sadness in my eyes. <Et tu, Brutus?>

<Who?> She asked.

<Shakespeare?> I asked. <No? Nevermind. Now we wait for his report.>

Almost five minutes later, I received a call from Bear.

<All clear,> he said. <Nothing to worry about at all. You can come without concern. This is not an ambush. No enemies to fear. Nope. Trust me.>

For a few moments I had to wonder: was Bear enough of a dick to kill everyone just because he died? Probably. I hung up.

<Daggers,> I said, <Bear says it's safe in there. Go with the zombies and check again, please.> I knew I could trust her.

<Roger.> She accepted immediately. "Move!" She yelled suddenly. "Move your asses! Now!"

It was an impressive sight. They clearly didn't want to move, but their bodies still did so, almost of their own accord. It was like she had a way to completely bypass their minds to control their actions.

One by one, light covered them and they faded away. Daggers went last and just before moving, she looked at me.

"See you on the other side, sir," she said firmly.

It wasn't a suggestion, or a "see you later." No, it was both a command and a threat. She would see me on the other side, or else...

I smiled at her. "Of course. An invasion of an unknown place using a magical circle created by an enemy? I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world!"

"I know, sir," she said, and stepped inside.

As she faded away, her hood, filled with its perpetual darkness didn't turn away from me, even for a second.

20. Moving Out

After they teleported, I was left alone in the party and it automatically disbanded. A few minutes later, Daggers called.

<All clear, sir.> She said and hung up.

I stepped onto the circle. A warm light covered my entire body. Soon, it turned freezing cold as I faded away.

The world shifted and without any further special effects, I found myself somewhere else.

Instead of plain stone walls, this place had marble ones. The floor was covered by metallic golden tiles, and the ceiling was something I expected to see in a church: frescoes of elementals fighting different species.

In the center of the painting stood a water elemental. It appeared the most human of them all, with even floating strands of 'hair' made of water. It was lean and clearly female. Well, if a water elemental's physique was anything like a human's, that is. A golden light surrounded her and there were other elementals worshiping her.

I looked around. Everyone who had entered the magic circle was here, scattered around the place. There was even a zombie who was trying to eat one of the marble pillars.

It was probably just because he was an idiot, but there was something to be learned from it. Zombies could eat anything organic, no matter how weird or poisonous. By doing that, he could confirm if this temple was a living—

The moment I thought about the word 'temple' and looked at the painting of the water elemental again, I understood where we were:

The Temple of the Water Goddess.

"There he is!" Bear said and approached me, putting his arm around my shoulder. "Good to see you, Ugly-face. I'd hate to die alone!"

I ignored him, and instead waited patiently for Daggers to log back in, since she had logged out to call me. When she did, I invited her to a new party.

<What took you so long?> I asked as soon as she accepted.

<I checked on elementals while offline, sir. They are immune to their element but take extra damage from the opposite one. You are perfect to deal with water elementals.>

<Good,> I said. <It's a shame there must be other elementals in here. Let's—>

Dizziness suddenly hit me and I felt the world spinning.

"Forced removal of VirBridge detected," a robotic voice said. "V-Soft suggests resting for five to ten minutes and hydrating before moving."

My first reaction was to open my now closed eyes, and it was a mistake. It made me want to puke but I sure as hell wouldn't dirty my living room with my own vomit. The VirBridge said I should drink water? What for? So I could throw it up?

"Sir, we're gonna need you to stand up and raise your hands!" A male voice with a military cadence like Daggers' said.

It didn't take a genius to guess what was going on. The Armed Forces had come to my city and for some stupid reason, were now in my house, searching for whatever.

Now, as much as I didn't appreciate that, I was never a guy to turn down a man who carried a gun and had no reason to be interested in my personal well-being.

Father had taught me that I should always maintain a strong position and put whoever was threatening me in their place, but I don't think he was ever in my situation. Knowing that you could die, and that it was very unlikely that anything would even be done to the person on the other side of the gun, gave you a new perspective on things.

I tried to comply, but the moment I tried to get up, I almost fell on the ground. There was bile on my throat; forcibly removing a VirBridge wasn't a pleasant experience. "Just a sec, please," I said as I sat again and raised my hands. "You heard the robotic voice. Everything is spinning for me right now."

"We can help you, sir," the voice said as two people took me by the arms and hauled me to my feet. Another person patted my whole body, looking for something though I had no idea what.

"We received reports of suspicious activities in this apartment, sir," the voice said.

"If staying home almost all day, everyday is suspicious, then yeah, sure," I replied.

It wasn't the right answer. A punch hit my stomach and it was very hard to keep my food down.

"Call received. Caller ID: Daggers," a robotic voice said from all around us.

"Answer!" I said quickly at the same time the soldier said 'Deny.' "Military abuse!" I yelled. "They are in my house—" Another punch and I couldn't speak anymore.

"Hang up," the man said.

"Command denied," was the reply from robotic voice. "Voice not authorized."

"We have a techie boy here, huh?" The man said about my voice recognition system. There was sadism all over his voice. I had no idea what I had done wrong but it felt more personal than professional.

By now, I'd managed to open my eyes. As expected, the man in front of me was in a military uniform. Surprisingly, he was from the Air Force. So were the two goons holding me up and the other who was wrecking my place and stealing everything valuable, including my VirBridge.

"Hang up or it's gonna hurt more," the man said.

"Start holo-call," I said instead.

"Accept!" Daggers said almost instantly. "Link to dad's phone! Emergency!"

I wouldn't have done that if they were common ruffians, or even smart military. However, they had entered my house to steal from me in uniform. That made things completely different.

Dealing with a violent cop who was used to doing shady stuff was nothing like dealing with some stupid thugs who were only taking advantage of a temporary position of power.

An expected punch hit me again, but this time in the face. "Wrong move," the guy said, and took his gun from its holster.

Well, maybe he was slightly bolder than I gave him credit for.

I saw in slow motion as he cocked the gun. Things weren't looking good.

"Stop right there, Airman!" An old male voice ordered forcefully.

Surprisingly, the guy obeyed and they all went rigid. A hologram appeared in the middle of the room showing an Asian man in the NAC Army uniform. There were a few stars in his shoulders, so he was a General of some kind. While he was walking somewhere very fast, the projection stood in place.

"You're not from the Air Force," the man with the gun said, but he hadn't relaxed. "You can't order me around."

"No," the General said, "but I can send this recording to someone who can lock you away for life. Leave the man's belongings and get out of there, now!"

"The Congressional Act allows all Armed Forces' members to act—" The thug, who I now realized was a Lieutenant, said.

"Are you lecturing me?" The General sounded absolutely furious. Even I gulped anxiously. "The Congressional Act doesn't mean shit to someone of my rank, and you know it. Now, the previous offer is off. Get out of there in ten seconds or I'll order my men to kill all four of you."

The Lieutenant frowned. "You wouldn't."

"I would." The General said and even I, who had been trained to detect bluffs, couldn't detect any in his words. "Eight seconds."

They stared each other for a few seconds, but when the General said "Five," the soldiers dropped me, dropped my VirBridge, emptied their pockets, and left.

It had been a long time since I had seen anything that crazy.

"Are you alright, son?" The General asked with concern.

"I'll live," I said. "Would you really do it?"

"No," he replied softly. "But I know how to deal with soldiers, no matter what branch they are from. I advise you to move to another apartment, sooner, rather than later." He turned his head to the side, as if someone was talking to him. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, son. I need to go." He flickered out of existence.

That's when I noticed Daggers. She was to the side, sitting with a VirBridge on her lap.

And, damn, she was beautiful.

I'm not a man to fall for every beauty I see, but there's no harm in appreciating the ladies when I see them. Her beauty was exotic: she had Asian facial features and her skin was light brown. Her black hair was cut short, in military fashion, and her light blue eyes were an amazing contrast to her darker skin — which I could see very little of due to her conservative clothing.

We said nothing for a few seconds, clearly analyzing each other. She was the first to speak.

"You look like your character. Except the eyes, that is."

"I guess," I said. "My character has more muscle though. It's been almost two months since I last worked out and it's showing."

I almost frowned at that. I had seen a girl, and my brain had automatically entered flirting mode, saying something to draw her attention to my body.

But that was Daggers. I wasn't interested in Daggers.

"Yes, I can see the signs," she replied in a disapproving tone and kept silent.

In hindsight, it wasn't a surprise that she didn't seem even slightly interested in my body. Her father was a General, and she had probably seen plenty of shirtless commandos running around. While it was a blow to my ego, it was also freeing. I didn't need Daggers interested in me.

"Thanks for the help there." I smiled.

"No problem." She frowned. "It's strange though. There is lots of news about these things happening, but I didn't realize they were this bold. The Airmen didn't even care I was recording it."

She was right. Those men had been too careless. Something was wrong and now that there wasn't a gun pointed at my head, I knew exactly what had happened.

Thing is, if they wanted to rob me, it would have made sense to feel my pockets first and only take the VirBridge after they had taken everything else in my house. With the dizziness from the forced removal, I wouldn't have known what hit me.

However, they had wanted to make a scene. They wanted me to try to defend myself and when the General appeared, I had been about to shout out my last line of defense: my own name, and my relation to grandfather.

Worse still, even when a damn General appeared, albeit one from a different branch, they continued their game, only stopping when they believed their lives were on the line.

As expected, a robotic voice spoke: "Call incoming. Caller ID: Blocked."

"I have to take that," I said. "I'll login in a few moments."

"Are you sure?" She asked, concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks again. I owe you one."

"I'll hold you to that," she said playfully, but it sounded awkward, as if it were something she'd never said before.

She hung up, and I answered the next call.

"I'm impressed," grandfather's voice came through. "Even your mother didn't have an Army General at her beck and call."

I wasn't about to correct him. "Yup, I'm that good. I take it that this theater was meant to make me go back to living with you?"

"We're family, boy."

Him finding out where I lived after I called him wasn't impressive. I would be surprised if he hadn't.

"Suppose I do that," I said. "What about when the cops find out what I did?"

"They won't," he said confidently. "Things are better now and I used some favors. Federal, state, county, and even municipal police; I've checked them all. No one is looking for you."

I frowned at that. "That makes no sense."

"It does," he replied. "Someone ordered the investigation to be so covert that it's probably illegal. That's why you should come live with me. I won't shield you if a legitimate investigation comes up, but no one would dare attack you in my house."

My first reaction was to say no, but if he was telling the truth, I could see the advantage. "Give me free access to the police systems so I can see for myself that there are indeed no investigations, and I'll go."

"You know I can't give a common civilian like you access," he said, and I was about to say goodbye to him, when he surprised the hell out of me with his next words. "But I can give you my login."

"Wait, what?"

"Do you have a computer close by?" He insisted.

I didn't, but I had a holographic interface with direct connection to my private server. He told me his username and password, and I did a full search of the police systems.

I was able to confirm some things that grandfather had told me after my first month in Valia: someone really had interfered with the investigations into me when I had run my street gang.

I also took the opportunity to access the fire department's files and could see the faint signs of someone quelling the investigation of my house's explosion. I had seen the proof grandfather had presented me before, irrefutable evidence that I had double checked, but this was the first time I had free access to the originals.

Grandfather could have paid someone to set up fake servers, to make me believe I was accessing the real ones, but I did everything I could to verify it. I checked random people, nonexistent ones, used a proxy to access the servers via another IP. In the end, I was confident this was the real deal.

And there wasn't a single investigation into the murders at V-Soft going on.

There was a flag, a request for someone to do it, with high priority and issued by the Director of the Department of Justice. But it had been cancelled by someone with even higher clearance.

Grandfather's credentials were very good, but even they didn't allow me to identify who had done this.

That scared the shit out of me. Someone higher than the head of the DOJ with enough authority to overrule him? Wasn't that supposed to be only... the President? But why would the President need to hide his identity?

"When can your guys give me a ride?" I asked.

"They're waiting for you outside," grandfather replied.

"Make sure the plane has high-quality wireless internet, I'm working on something important."

"No, you aren't. You're playing a game." His tone made it clear what he thought about it.

"Whatever." I wasn't interested in arguing with him about it. "I still need the internet. Give me a car if you can't manage a plane, I'm pretty sure I can use my own connection all the way to Washington."

"It was a car to begin with. The family is having some monetary issues."

It made sense. Recovering from what I had done was expensive, and while I didn't think he had made it through unscathed, he had to fight to the best of his ability.

"Alright, see you soon," I said. After taking some medicine for the pain in my stomach and face — the soldier hadn't been nice about it —, I ate something, then left the building, carrying only my VirBridge. Everything else was replaceable.

A black sedan was in the middle of four Marines' Humvees, and a freaking APC full of Marines was right behind it.

That showed just how worried grandfather was for my life. He also had been smart enough to get Marines to transport me instead of Airmen. I had nothing against the latter, but it would take me a few days before I was entirely comfortable around them.

A Marine was standing next to the sedan and opened the back door as soon as I left the building.

"You Jack McHolen?" He asked. Although he tried to be professional, it was clear that he wasn't delighted in being deployed as my security detail.

"Yup. Thanks for the ride," I said, and entered the car.

He closed the door for me and I put the VirBridge on.

* * *

<Sorry,> I said after I logged back in and invited Daggers and Bear to a party. <Someone pranked me.>

We were still in the Temple and the zombies were... Fighting each other.

Two of them, both wearing leather armor, were engaged in a brutal fight. The others were all sitting scattered on the floor, watching the battle, cheering the most brutal attacks and jeering when there was a lull.

One of the fighters had only a few cuts in his body but the other was covered in blood.

<What the hell?> I asked.

<They were bored,> Bear explained. <When I'm bored, I like to gamble, but there was nothing to bet on. Thankfully, I'm a creative genius and I thought of starting a fight club. Oh, but remember, the first rule is that you do not talk about the club.> What he said vaguely reminded me of an old movie I couldn't quite recall.

What was happening was downright ridiculous. We were in an unknown place, probably surrounded by enemy elementals, and didn't know what would happen to us, or when an attack would come. And they had decided to weaken themselves to pass the time?

I took a deep breath. <Can we go now?>

<We don't know who won yet,> Bear said. <Just relax and enjoy the show.> I was still thinking about how to explain to him that this fight of his was idiotic, when he looked straight at me, his eyes shining. <I just had the best idea!>

<No.> I said firmly. I didn't even know what he wanted, but the way he looked at me was a clear indicator that I wouldn't like it.

<Come on, Ugly-face! Just one fight!> He got up and put his arm around my shoulders. <To ascertain your authority!>

<What?! You want me to fight them?> I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

<Yeah, but without magic. It's gonna be fun!>

<No way.> I wasn't that stupid. Enemies could show up at any time and I didn't intend to fight them in anything less than top condition.

<Sir,> Dagger interjected. <That is a good idea. It would be good for morale when these men, who love physical activities, see you fight without magic. That way, they would better relate to their commander. You do not have to win, only put up a good fight.>

<I admit you have a point, but this isn't the time. Maybe when we're in a safer environment.> I rejected them again.

Bear smiled a creepy smile and began to chant. "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

It was slow at first. He had his free hand in a fist and began to repeat the word with a low voice while looking around. When the first few curious zombies looked his way and understood what he intended, they started to join him.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!" The zombies' voices slowly raised. Others saw what was happening and joined in.

Soon, half the zombies were involved in the chanting and were now almost yelling. That's when the others also joined in. Even the two who were fighting stopped to chant.

It seemed I had two choices: fight, or fight. Since I was now in the mood, I chose the first option.

To be honest, I could refuse. But now that Bear had built anticipation about it, capitalizing on it was only proper. After this point, even if I chose to fight later, it wouldn't be as worthwhile as fighting now.

Yes, it was dangerous, but great gains usually came with great risks.

Putting on a defeated expression, I raised my arms, disentangling myself from Bear's embrace at the same time. "Alright, alright." They didn't stop and I had to yell. "Alright! I'll fight!" They cheered and I kept my hands raised, asking for silence. "But!" They booed and I insisted in the silence. "But will Bear accept the challenge?" I yelled and looked at Bear.

The choice of adversary was obvious. Bear was the highest-ranking officer they had, and the only one they could relate to in my small 'officer team.' He was also the strongest zombie of the group. If I defeated him, I would become a legend and cement my authority within the group. If I lost, however, I would have lost to the strongest of them and Bear's authority would increase.

Some might say that it wasn't a smart move to increase Bear's influence in the group, but the truth is that I didn't expect them to follow me if my zombie friend wasn't around. So, compared to mine, his status on the zombies' eyes was already higher and I didn't have much to lose.

"Do you dare?" I smiled at him.

His smile was so wide it almost split his face in two. "It's time I made your appearance match your nickname, Ugly-face!"

Everyone cheered.

"Oh," I said when the cheers silenced a little. "So you'll be calling me Champion-face after the fight, huh?"

Everyone booed. Even I had to admit that had been a bad one.

"No, I'll smash your face so hard that no one will recognize you!"

That also wasn't that good of a line, but the cheering it elicited was the loudest yet.

* * *

Daggers was standing to the side, holding the offline Ted away from Bear, while the zombie and I stared at each other. He was wearing Deathlord Shai's black armor and holding her kickass greatsword. He looked strong.

I had my less impressive gray armor — I had taken my circlet off and was now using a helmet —, a copper shield, and a darksteel sword. We were still in the same party, but Daggers was now the leader, to prevent Bear from getting bonuses from my Strategist trait, since it only worked when I was the party leader.

Without the Strategist trait buffing him up, he wasn't that much stronger than me.

HP-wise, he had 3245 points to my 3070.

Stamina-wise, it was 590 points to my 570.

All his armor gave him 100 points of defense, while mine gave me 68.

His greatsword dealt 190 damage, when accounting for his strength modifiers, while my sword was capable of dealing 126 points of damage.

Most importantly, however, I had a shield that mitigated 75% of damage dealt when I intercepted attacks with it. It was my greatest advantage.

Since I couldn't use my magic, it was only fair that he also couldn't use his skills. I was confident in my ability to win given these conditions.

Generally speaking, neither of us could kill the other before our stamina gave out, unless we allowed ourselves to be beaten without dodging, so we decided on a duel with a single rule: the winner would be whoever did five hundred damage to the other first.

"Like what you see, Ugly-face?" He said. We had been looking at each other for quite a while, deciding on how we would fight.

"Yes," I replied. "The armor you stole from me looks quite nice. Maybe I should miscalculate my power, 'accidentally' kill you, and take it back."

People started to mutter about that. They didn't know Bear's black armor was actually mine. It had been my 'ice cheatstone' that had led to the demise of Deathlord Shai so it was only proper that the armor belonged to me.

He laughed. "The strong take from the weak, that's the law of the jungle, kid. Enough talk." He closed his helmet and came at me.

21. Elemental, My Dear Jack

His greatsword came at me vertically, crashing down with great speed, but still way too slowly to hit me.

Mid-swing he turned it into a horizontal slash but I was able to step back just out of reach.

Bear came at me again and I understood his tactics. His agility was clearly much lower than mine, so his best chance of winning was hitting me first and using the momentum to obliterate me before I could counter attack.

It was so childish that it made me want to laugh.

He kept going. Vertical, horizontal, diagonal slashes. He even tried to poke me with the greatsword. It was pointy and long, but it was not very effective as a spear.

Ten slashes and pokes later, I was still easily dodging. The zombies were cheering and Bear seemed to be waiting for me to make a single mistake, thinking he would then trample all over me.

I was more than happy to prove him wrong as I paid attention to my surroundings and never put myself in a bad position.

In the end, the difference in our agility was just too great. I didn't know how high his was, but I had twenty-nine points and I estimated that my reactions were at least a third faster than his.

"Stay still, dammit!" He bellowed in rage.

I sighed. I had actually been looking forward to this fight, but the moment we decided on not using skills, attributes became the most important thing.

Besides waiting for me to make a mistake, he could also wait for my stamina to run dry. Each attack, dodge, or defense cost five stamina and his stamina pool was larger than mine.

I wasn't about to let that happen though.

Deciding it was enough, I took a hit on my shield. The greatsword was enchanted and liquid darkness surged from the blade, ran over my shield, and covered my arm. It found an opening in the armor to enter and touched my skin.

It was cold, and it was supposed to deal damage to me. Unfortunately for Bear though, I was immune to the darkness element.

No damage received from Bear

HP: 3056 / 3070

My HP was never full. I didn't think about it but the Life magic kept damaging me and I kept healing myself.

I took no physical damage, because the attack power was first reduced by my shield, then my armor nullified the rest.

The lack of damage from Bear's attack caused my breathing to become more relaxed. Unless I failed to defend myself, he simply couldn't damage me.

He hadn't been expecting my change of pace and couldn't stop his momentum in time, coming at me like a truck. I pushed his greatsword away and dropped my shield, revealing the dagger I was holding in my hand. It was the Swift Dagger, which increased my agility by one when I was holding it.

I raised my dagger arm just in time to hit Bear. We fell awkwardly on the ground, but my dagger had been firmly thrust through a vision slit of his helmet.

60 piercing damage dealt to Bear

HP: 3185 / 3245

Grappling had been made almost useless by V-Soft against NPCs after my episode with High Lady Renno, but Bear was a player. Our armor made our flexibility garbage, but I could move enough to counter his movements. I jabbed the dagger into his face again, and again.

I wasn't subtle or slow about it. I did it as quickly as I could, and soon, I had hit him nine times. I didn't wait for him to even register the fact that he had just received five hundred and forty damage and got off of him.

The dagger disappeared into my ring when I willed it, and I picked up my shield off the ground.

Silence had descended upon the Temple.

"I would have lost if you could use your skills," I said to Bear, but loud enough that all the zombies could hear. "But then again, if I had my magic, I'm not sure about the result." I was sure. I would have destroyed him. But my point had already been made in practice; I could slaughter him like a pig if I wished to.

My words had only one objective: preventing him from getting mad. If he used his Rage skill — or even worse, the Feral one — shit would go south rather quickly. Just to be sure, I immediately began to create fire morbs.

Bear remained silent, lying on the ground for a long time. No one said anything. We all knew Bear was a damn animal when he fought, and except for me and maybe Daggers, no one had been expecting me to win.

<Well done, sir,> she said right after giving me the party leadership back.

That's when Bear acted. He let out a yell of rage and leapt up. There was a faint red glow surrounding his body.

I could deal with him using my magic, but that would be too humiliating for him. If Daggers did it, it would be even worse. So, what I did was to cement my grasp on the zombies.

"Your battle spirit is commendable," I said in an authoritative but low voice, just loud enough for everyone to hear. "Everyone, grab him!" I yelled. "The field of battle is sacred and its rules are the code by which we must live! No one is allowed to desecrate it!"

It was utter nonsense, but I figured they would love it.

Bear took his greatsword and tried to run at me but was prevented from doing so by a zombie who got in front of him. From then on, he had no choice; in an Enraged state, he had to attack the closest valid target.

Other zombies showed up and it didn't take long for them to subdue him.

And so, the most disappointing duel of my life was concluded, with my adversary contained by four people so he would not kill me.

I took my helmet off, put it away in my spatial ring, and took my circlet back out.

As I was about to put it on, however, another entity acted.

It came at me like an arrow, only much faster. I couldn't even see what it was but it was small and barely visible. The only reason I detected it at all was because I was looking in its general direction.

I had no time to react. The agility I had been so proud of a moment before was now useless as I saw the object come directly at my now unprotected head.

Thankfully, Daggers didn't share my limitation. She shadowed and lunged in front of me, hitting the object with her blades. From the sound, the object was metallic.

It was only pushed back temporarily. It stopped mid-air for a split second and then tried to come at me again.

This split second was enough for me to see what it was. The spider ring.

Daggers deflected it again. And again. Before I could even move, she had already sent the ring back five times.

Jumping back, I finished putting my Circlet of Enlightenment on and started amassing a death morb in case I needed an emergency heal.

And the ring stopped.

It just dropped on the ground, lifeless, as if it was just another common piece of metal.

A quick analysis led me to think of four possibilities.

First, the ring had given up. I didn't believe that for a second; Daggers would run out of stamina eventually and it would be free to attack me then.

The mere fact that it had acted so brazenly at all made me quite surprised; from the moment I had picked it up until now, it had been patient and crafty, trying to slowly influence me. So, it didn't make sense for it to decide to attack me only to desist so quickly.

Second, it was out of gas. Whatever gave it the ability to move had run out. I also didn't think that was so. The ring was a magical item capable of invading my mind and turning people into spiders; clearly, it had more energy to spend than that.

Third, there was a possibility that whatever plan it had would only work if it caught me off-guard. Since I was now alert, it had no reason to continue. It would be a good theory if I hadn't been off-guard with the ring multiple times before.

Lastly, and the only conclusion I believed, it wanted to attack when I wasn't wearing the Circlet of Enlightenment.

I had only taken the Circlet off a few times, and I didn't remember ever doing so while the ring was out of the enchanted bag, except here in the Temple. But now, after winning the battle and with my enemy under control, I had also been off-guard, unlike before when everyone was focusing on me. Theories three and four complemented each other quite well.

It was surprising. As far as I knew, the Circlet was only useful for increasing my Magic trait and my Perception attribute. For a Legendary item, it was quite subpar; the Ring of Fire, for instance, was far superior though its lore was plain when compared to the Circlet.

The Circlet's description read: 'A special circlet forged by the dwarves, enchanted by the elves, stolen by the drow, perfected by the sorins, bought by the vampires and conquered by the deathlords.'

The Ring's description, however, was simply: 'Forged by Deathlord Renno after decades of study with the sole purpose of creating it, this ring is the envy of all fire magic users that know of its existence.'

Yeah, High Lady Renno was supposed to be a badass in the Underworld, but still the Circlet's lore was much more interesting.

How, then, was the Ring better than the Circlet?

Now, the answer was obvious, it had hidden properties that I wasn't privy to.

Except for Bear, who was still raging, everyone was confused about what had happened. If it was up to me, I would leave the ring there forever. However, since I couldn't trust the zombies to be smart enough not to put the ring on, I took it and put it away in my bag.

I nodded to Daggers. <Thanks.>

<Never easy with you, sir,> she replied and I winked at her.

"Alright, fellas!" I yelled. "As soon as Bear is done with sore-loser mode, we're going to leave this place and find ourselves some people to kill!"

No cheers, no excitement.

People these days are so hard to please.

"And then," I continued, "we're going to get rich!"

They immediately cheered.

Greedy bastards.

* * *

A zombie's Rage mode could only be turned off after five minutes. We waited until Bear did so.

<You cheated,> was the first thing he said. At least he was smart enough not to say it out loud, or I would verbally massacre him.

<Yes,> I replied. I hadn't cheated, but last time he accused me of doing it — when we killed Deathlord Shai — denying it had done me no good. It was better to just go with it, appear unconcerned about his judgement, and be done with it.

As expected, he didn't continue complaining and became sullen instead. Because of that, I decided to impart upon him some words of wisdom.

<My father once said there are only winners in the world. I asked him about the losers, and he told me they were dead and forgotten.> I crossed my arms. <Remember, only winning matters. You might want to win with class, or fairness, but then you are playing with a handicap. You said something about the law of the jungle before, and I agree with you on that. Nature isn't fair and in the end, we're all mere animals.>

He didn't reply to that either and I didn't care.

<Daggers,> I said, <get the boys ready to leave and scout ahead. It's past time we get out of this place.>

"Defensive formation by the door!" She yelled. "Now!"

They moved quicker than ever before. No matter how underwhelming my fight with Bear had been, it served its purpose of tightening the leash on the zombies.

The doors of the place were royal blue, with a water elemental engraved into them. Thankfully, they had handles.

After organizing the zombies in a semicircle, Daggers activated her stealth and opened the door with utmost care. Nothing blew up, no one died, and she went out.

Two seconds later, she spoke. <Corridor outside, traps everywhere.>

<Can I help?> It was a good opportunity to maybe raise my perception and dexterity attributes.

<You can, but you should not, sir. I am invisible but if anyone comes, you'll be seen.>

She had a point. I had a yet unused skill that could make me twenty-four percent transparent, but it was not even close to Daggers' stealth.

Time passed by. Ten minutes later, she let me know that the traps were disarmed and that she was going to scout ahead.

I took the chance to do a quick check on real life. The car was still moving and the road we were on was indeed the one to DC.

Back in the game, I tried to make small talk with Bear, to feel him out after all the stuff we had just gone through.

"So, the Armed Forces against the citizens, huh?" I chose to speak using my voice instead of the mind chat so this touchy subject wouldn't distract Daggers.

Bear was beside me and looked at me from the corner or his eye. "Same difference. I saw a tank downtown last week."

There was no joviality in his voice but at least he had replied.

I crossed my arms and looked at the door with false interest. "But last week they were just keeping up appearances and reacting to trouble. Now, they are hunting people down in the name of bringing order to the country."

"They are hunting criminals," Bear insisted. "People who were caught on camera these past three weeks breaking the law. Vandals who took advantage of the chaos for their own personal gain. I don't pity them."

A conservative, then. I wouldn't have guessed. "But where are we going to put them? There aren't enough cells in the jails for everyone who screwed up in the last few weeks."

"Just kill the bastards," he said without a hint of remorse.

Not only a conservative, but one of those who couldn't argue. A pity; I loved to antagonize people over their political views to find their little hypocrisies.

For instance, many people who advocated for the execution of all offenders regardless of the severity of the crime would be killed if it was applied. I mean, who had never made a call while driving?

And many who said that 'all criminals deserve a second chance' would be the first people those criminals killed with their second chance. Psychopaths are real, and not all people are deserving of compassion.

The funniest thing was that people usually put ideology over practicality and refused to see what was right in front of their eyes. It was a tendency which was often abused by those who knew how to do it; like me.

This whole 'Armed Forces' issue was also a big smokescreen. People had discovered almost all their leaders were corrupt, and had committed crimes in a world with barely any law enforcement. Big surprise.

Now, as the Armed Forces put on a show of force, suppressing a few here and there, the country was divided into 'good people' who supported the violent restoration of order versus rights activists, while the politicians, all but forgotten, maneuvered to save their own asses.

Dividing the nation with controversy was a textbook move, but people still fell for it.

What worried me about Congress' actions was that if they could recover so fast... Could V-Soft also recover? Would I need to hunt their ex-employees down?

I couldn't do anything about that at the moment, but I could do something about Bear.

"That's your answer? Kill them all?" I asked him. "What about some feasible suggestions to solve the real problems the country will face?"

He didn't reply.

"See, that's your problem in your political views and in your fighting style: you refuse to think outside the box. Tell you what, we'll fight again after we conquer the castle, and if you find a way to defeat me, I'll give you something nice. If I win again, you stop being a sore little bitch and go back to acting like a man with a pair."

After a few seconds, he answered. "Something nice?"

"I'll think about it. But it will be worth at least a hundred gold coins. Deal?" I extended my hand.

"Make it two hundred."

"Alright."

He finally turned to face me directly. "Then, we have a deal."

We shook hands and went back to waiting for Daggers in silence.

She took a little less than ten minutes to come back, becoming visible right in front of me. I was looking at the minimap this time though, and wasn't spooked. Bear, on the other hand, almost jumped.

<Shit! Don't do that!> He complained.

She ignored him. <Sir, you are not going to like it.>

I frowned. <What's the problem?>

<The corridor outside leads to a big chamber full of elementals. They seem to be meditating in circles around that one.> She pointed at the water elemental on the paintings. <Thousands of them. The chamber has twelve other openings leading to corridors like the one outside, and there are things written above all the openings. One of them reads Catacombs, and another reads Dakar.>

Now, that was intriguing. A teleport hub right next to the castle that Manhart wanted so badly to conquer? This place was so unfathomably valuable.

<Did it look like they could detect you?> I asked.

<Affirmative.>

I hadn't expected that answer. <Why do you say that?>

<The water elemental in the center looked straight at me, sir.>

<Holy damn! And you didn't think you should mention that in your report?>

<I was making sure you were paying attention, sir.>

What the hell?! Worst of all, I'm not sure she is joking.

<So, any of you know how to activate teleports on this side?> I asked. Coming here had been damn easy but I couldn't detect a way to go back. There were no drawings on the floor of this place.

<I know a way,> Bear said.

It made me frown. He knew a magical way out of the Temple? <Shoot.>

<If you die, you'll get teleported away,> he said genially.

<Good idea,> Daggers said. <You go first,> she told Bear, <we will be right after you.>

<What she said,> I supported her.

Bear smiled and I felt as if a weight had been removed from my shoulders. Losing Bear would have been a huge blow to my team, and I needed all of them for my plans to succeed.

<Okay, it's time to have a talk,> I said.

<Are you sure, sir? They were not very polite the last time we talked.>

<What?> It took me a few moments to understand what she meant. <No. I'm not talking to the elementals; I'm calling Manhart.>

I focused on my Communication Crystal.

Call Manhart.

Trying to contact Manhart...

Success!

<Jack Thorn,> his voice said in my head. <What an unpleasant inevitability.>

So the asshole was waiting for me to call, huh?

<What's up?> I replied. <Listen, I need to know how to get the elementals to not kill me.>

<What elementals?> His voice reached the zenith of innocence.

<No time for games. My team is trapped in their teleportation hub and unless you tell me how to deal with them, we'll all die.>

<Have you tried talking to your captors?> Now he was giving me sarcasm.

<As incredible as it may sound, yes. I, such a taciturn person, did indeed try to use speech. And they attacked me without provocation. Now, help?>

He was silent long enough that I thought he wasn't going to answer. <This teleportation hub… It wouldn't happen to be the Temple of the Water Goddess, would it?> There was... Veneration in his voice?

As I expected, he knew where I was, and probably how to get the hell out of here. <I guess.>

<Let me talk to the Goddess,> he said quickly.

<By 'Goddess', do you mean the water elemental in the middle of thousands of other elementals, some of which have already tried to kill me?>

<No, ignorant fool. I mean the Water Goddess whose spirit has been possessing water elementals throughout eternity. You stand in a holy place and I highly suggest you to be extremely careful about doing anything disrespectful in there.>

I looked at the bite marks at the marble pillars. Did that count as disrespectful?

<It doesn't make sense,> I said. <Why did she call me here and then try to get me killed?>

<She what?> He was incredulous.

<I was looking for some intelligent creatures in the maze under the castle that leads to the secret entrance->

<The what?> His voice was even more dumbfounded.

<Come on, Manhart. We both know you know what I'm talking about.>

<Thorn, I swear to you that I have no idea about this maze or the call from the Goddess. You're close to the castle?>

<I was. At least before I was teleported to wherever I am.>

<It exists, then?> He asked dubiously.

My eyes widened. <Wait, what?!>

<Stay right where you are. Don't move. I'll get to you in... Five days.> He hung up.

Five days to get here wasn't bad. Knowing that he had a way to track me, however, was terrible. And realizing that all my guesses as to why Manhart had sent me to conquer the castle were bullshit was a mighty blow to my ego.

In all my wildest dreams, I had never considered that he simply... Didn't think the castle existed.

I had been acting all the time with the assumption that there was a high likelihood of the secret entrance being known by the lich, or of the quest being a trap. But in the end, he had just used me as a simple scout.

It was my fault, really. I had forgotten the most basic thing about Manhart:

He was an NPC.

Artificial intelligence could do many things that humans couldn't. However, unless specifically developed for it, they weren't known for forming shadowy intrigues.

Manhart was quite advanced in that aspect, but if I laid bare all the politics I had uncovered during the Challenge — the Resistance, High Lady Renno, the drow, the Unifiers, and everything else —, it was pretty basic stuff.

Well, for me, anyways.

He had expected me to fail in this quest and lose time in the process, probably just to make a point. This was an emotion-driven plot that I would only expect from someone with the political acumen of a child.

Which an AI who'd had few dealings with humans certainly was.

Damn.

On the plus side, now that I knew I was wrong, it made the future much easier.

The big question for now was why had I been summoned by the Water Goddess, who I now knew had nothing to do with Manhart, just to be murdered?

Knowing that she was a real Goddess and that she had thousands of followers to command confirmed that the homicide attempt had not been an attempt at all.

Why do that?

Multiple possibilities passed through my mind, but I narrowed them to those that an NPC with limited intelligence could come up with, and arrived at a straightforward conclusion:

Thirty-Seven, the elemental with a beautiful voice, didn't want me to have a good relationship with the Goddess and had set me up.

<Daggers, did you see Thirty-Seven in there?> I asked.

<I think so, sir.>

It didn't surprise me that Daggers had noticed a specific rock elemental in the middle of thousands of them.

<Good. It's time to kill her.>

I left the room and went straight to the big chamber. Daggers was right: it was big. Maybe huge was a better world.

Round, with the floor made of what appeared to be pure gold, walls made of silver with bronze etchings, and a ceiling that was an invisible dome holding out a great deal of water above it, the place screamed grandeur.

Elementals of all kinds were standing in circles, just as Daggers had said. But 'thousands' was a very low estimate on her part. There were tens of thousands of elementals in there.

One circle was inside the other until they reached the Water Goddess, floating in the center.

Watching her in person was even more impressive than in the painting. She was the most human-like of all elementals, with facial features and all, and her strands of liquid hair floated in the way human hair floated in water. Her eyes were golden, as was the light that radiated from her body.

When I stepped inside the chamber, every single elemental turned to face me.

<Where is the rock elemental, Daggers?> I asked.

<Outermost circle, to your right, sir.>

It took me a few seconds, but I finally located her.

"You! Female Rock Thirty-Seven!" I yelled while pointing at her. "Explain yourself, heathen who dared to betray the Holiest of Holies, the Water Goddess!"

And as one, all elementals turned to face the direction of Thirty-Seven.

I admit: I could now fully appreciate the appeal of using religion to direct the wrath of the world upon my enemies.

22. Mixed Blessing

The zombies remained in a defensive formation in the corridor.

Daggers was just behind me, to my left. According to her, since I was right handed, my left side was my weak spot. Bear stood to my right.

I had been wrong when I thought all elementals had turned to look at Thirty-Seven. The Goddess eyes were still staring straight at me.

"You're right, deathlord," Thirty-Seven said, to my surprise. "I apologize to my Goddess." She bowed to the floating water elemental.

Now, everyone looked at the Goddess. "Apologies accepted, my child," she said. Her voice was ethereal and her accent thick, it reminded me of Elvish from those old movies. "What about you, deathlord?"

It wasn't a surprise that the Goddess would take sides in the dispute. My next words were to find exactly how biased she was. "I apologize for my sins." I also bowed.

I had, after all, killed two stone elementals.

"Apology accepted," she said simply. "Come closer, son of the dead." It wasn't a suggestion, and since I had no way to flee, my only choice was obeying.

Two steps later, five wind elementals — transparent floating humanoids — flew to block our path. "Only the deathlord was called. The others must stay here."

I couldn't see Daggers reaction because she was behind me but Bear put his hand on the hilt of this greatsword. I looked at the Goddess, and seeing that she didn't contradict the wind elementals, I put my hand on Bear's shoulder.

<Relax,> I said. <Even if it's a trap, I don't think even all the zombies would be useful against this Goddess. She gives me the same vibe as the Ruined Mage Kings. But just in case... Daggers, hide between the zombies, go invisible, and be ready to come, your immunity to divine magic might be needed.>

Although the Goddess could see Daggers, we weren't sure about the elementals. If my Blackguard companion could just ignore the minions to directly engage the boss, it would be a great help.

I kept walking. The ranks of elementals broke before me to allow my passage until eventually I was in front of the divine water elemental.

"So?" I asked.

"It is true," she said. "You're an Archmage with Divine Acknowledgement." I could hear gasps from some elementals. "I can smell Ilishia's Paladin all over you. My sister is soft hearted, but she's not stupid. What did you do to receive such a boon?"

Her words confirmed that this Water Goddess was indeed divine, or at least someone so close to it that she didn't fear calling Ilishia, a literal goddess, sister. Her threat level went up a lot in my mind.

"I prayed to her," I replied, "and told her that my plans are for the good of all Valians, even if what I'll be doing soon may not look like it."

<Wait a second,> Bear said. <Ugly-face, you know how to pray?> I ignored him.

"And she believed you," the Goddess said. "Her Paladin must have spoken highly of you for her to do so. If that is-" She suddenly stopped speaking and her eyes squinted. "I can also smell a Holy Beast on you. It's faint, but it's there. Intriguing."

A Holy Beast? When the hell had I met a Holy Beast? The closest thing to it that I could remember was either the Fallen Spider Queen or those tigers in the swamp. Or maybe that centaur.

"May I inquire as to why that's intriguing?" I asked, engaging my best political decorum.

"You may. Holy Beasts are the strongest of each animal species and highly aggressive. It probably saw you as too lowly to waste its time with you, but the weak imprint on you proves that you pleased it somehow. Such an imprint is an honor almost as great as being Acknowledged by my sister."

The tigers, then. I had fed their pup and they had thanked me not only by allowing me to leave alive, but also by leaving this mark upon me.

"Not to sound ungrateful but what's the use of an imprint?" I asked.

"It has no direct use but it allows those that know what to look for know that you have come in contact with a Holy Beast. What others will think of it depends on them."

I gulped. "May I inquire as to what the Great Water Goddess thinks about it?"

She nodded. "You may. I think the Holy Beast saw a kindred wild spirit in you."

“What do you mean?” I inquired.

“My goblin worshipers provoked you, and you killed them. My mud worshipers left you alone, and you did likewise.

"My rock elementals worshipers attacked you, and you killed them. When you saw the main offender in this room, you wanted to kill her. But when you saw the offender had the protection of a being too powerful for you to fight, you let it go. You also knew how to pray to obtain the favor of my sister.

"I can tell the Holy Beast you found is a predator, because it's clear that you are as well. A crafty animal that chooses your enemies with care and attacks with ruthlessness, but also knows when to back down. Your titles, Dark Archmage and Warlord emphasize this point."

<Holy shit,> Bear cursed.

<I agree with Bear, sir,> Daggers said.

And I agreed with both of them. That was some uncannily accurate deduction, and it was based on her very limited observation of me. It was also very interesting to see how my titles reflected my personality. Valia was much more complex than I gave it credit for.

It also showed that while I had overestimated Manhart, I couldn't assume all NPC's AIs were as limited as his. This Goddess, for instance, seemed to have an intellect which surpassed even mine.

It was scary as hell. It made me remember the main AI's suggestion of how to manipulate the new owners of V-Soft, the DIR, so that they wouldn't realize Valia wasn't producing real blackmail material until it was too late to do anything about it.

It had been a long time since I had been humbled like that. I bowed deeply to the Goddess. "Your wisdom is boundless."

"No, it is not. I merely understand things you don't." That wasn't incorrect, but that wasn't giving her enough credit either. Connecting dots may be easy in hindsight, but doing it with as little information as she had, was quite impressive.

In fact, it made me start to wonder if the AI Rights Activists were right: should sufficiently advanced AIs be considered more human than machine?

Not that it mattered to me; anything in the way of my revenge, human or machine, would be dealt with.

She said nothing more, and I took the chance to speak. "Goddess, would you mind if I asked why you called me before you?"

Her golden glow flashed brightly for an instant. "You're in a hurry. Why?"

Way too smart for my taste. She could sense how my limited timetable was affecting me. Grandfather did provide me with some extra protection but it didn't make me impervious to whoever was investigating the murders on V-Soft. I had no time to waste.

"Many reasons," I replied. "One of them is that the Paladin of Ilishia is coming here as we speak."

"Why is that an issue?"

"You don't mind Paladins of other divine entities coming here?" I was surprised by that. This whole place seemed quite secretive and Manhart had sounded quite excited about my discovery.

"No, I don't. Your Blackguard worries me much more than Ilishia's lich. Order her to go back to being visible or I'll kill you right now." She didn't sound upset but I also didn't believe for a second that she was bluffing.

<You heard the lady, Daggers,> I said.

<Already visible, sir.>

"Interesting," the Goddess said. "An unbound deathlord commanding a Blackguard. To answer your question, I brought you here because you were Acknowledged by my sister, and I wanted to see for myself what kind of person you were. I've seen enough."

She floated higher and the ambience began to change. The light around her body shone brighter, the fire elementals burned like blast furnaces, the wind elementals roared like tornadoes, the water elementals surged like a stormy sea, and the rock elementals trembled as their stones ground together like an earthquake.

When she spoke, her voice was much louder and firmer. "Let it be known that Yurani, the Goddess of Compassion, Creator of the Elementals, Chosen of the Elements, Speaker of the Mother's Love, Approves Jack Thorn!"

A beam of golden light shot from her and hit me, filling my body with warmness.

Status effect received: Divine Approval (level 2)

Yurani has accepted Ilishia's Acknowledgement and Approved of you.

» +10 Faithful

Faithful increased to 11 (+10)

Your interactions with the gods proves that you're someone with faith, no matter how well you may try to hide it.

And boy, don't you hide it well?!

» +11 charisma when dealing with gods (prayers included)

Trait has evolved into Adept Faithful:

» +2% bonus to status effects received from gods

Level up!

Current level: 34

HP, MP and stamina restored

Great, I had just received useless points in a useless trait. I was so happy.

I hoped this at least meant that she would stay out of it when I enacted my plans, as Ilishia had agreed to do.

The Goddess' light subdued and all the elementals returned to normal. She also floated back to her previous position.

"Beware, son of the dead," she said, "not all gods are as easy to please as me. Now that you've begun on this Path, you will likely encounter hardships as you move on."

I frowned. "Sorry? What path?"

"My sister didn't inform you?" She sounded surprised. "By receiving the Acknowledgement of a god, you are now treading the Path of the Faithful. You must please nine others after me to complete the Path and receive the Sovereign Paladin title."

Well, it wasn't that bad. Or so I thought, until she continued speaking.

"However," she said, "if you fail to receive a god's Approval, you will be killed and the Acknowledgement will be lowered by one level."

"Wait, what?!" That didn't sound good. "And other gods will just randomly call me to test me like you just did?"

"Yes, if you approach one of their Avatars." She didn't sound happy with my tone.

Screw her, I hadn't asked for the extra danger in my life and I wouldn't be polite after two goddesses in a row had decided to endanger my life. Still, it was a good opportunity to get information.

"Avatar?" I asked.

"You don't believe this is my true body, do you? This is but a spirit fragment possessing a wild elemental."

It was almost like what Manhart had said. "Wild elemental?"

"Recently formed elementals who had not been possessed by a free spirit." She sounded upset.

"Free spirit?"

"Enough!" She bellowed. "Before you ask, no, I will not remove the Approval. I gave it as a blessing, but now, let it be your punishment for acting so insolent before me."

A green stone appeared out of nowhere in front of her and shot towards me. I threw myself out of the way and it nestled itself into the deep dent it had made in the gold floor.

"Another god has contacted me; he is interested in you," she said. "That is the key that opens the door to the castle. Take it and conquer the castle, or you will fail his test and be killed."

Great. Just great. The good news was that it aligned well with my current quest. The bad news was I had even more divine jackasses trying to order me around. Dying if I failed wasn't great either.

Unhappily, since I had no choice in the matter, I took the stone from the ground. It was perfectly round and a little larger than my fist. "Just two more questions, oh-so-almighty benevolent Water Goddess." I didn't give her time to say no. "First, how the hell do I get back? Second, who's the asshole who wants me to conquer the castle?"

She looked like she had eaten something rotten. "Go back to the Portal Chamber you came from and I'll activate it. As for the god, who else would it be but Edward, the one who created the castle?"

That calmed me a little. That Edward might be in the castle, and if I passed his test, I might be able to ask him to stop this whole thing. I had no interest whatsoever in being led around on an invisible leash by the gods.

I turned and stormed out of the chamber, going directly to the room where we'd first entered the Temple.

As soon as I stepped inside, I was teleported back to the room with the doors we'd tried to excavate around.

Daggers was the first to appear after me, followed by Bear and the rest of the zombies. After ordering them to prepare, I took the green stone and touched the lightsteel door with it.

The door slowly and soundlessly slid into the ground, revealing walls and a ceiling also made of lightsteel. It was the first time I saw how thick it was: almost five meters of pure metal. On the top of the door, which now served as part of the floor, there was a purple star shining brightly. As I'd detected, it had been sealed by gravity magic. On the other side of the door, I could see... Another door.

<Well,> I said. <That explains why no one came when we knocked.>

The new door was made of darksteel. I used the green stone again andinstead of sliding downwards, this door slid to the right. It was also five meters thick, and had the purple star on its left, and behind it was yet another lightsteel door. I sighed.

When it finished opening, I touched the third one with the stone. As it began to slide upwards, Daggers spoke to me.

<Sir, look back.>

I did. Seems the asshole who'd designed the castle thought it would be a good idea for the first door to close as the third was opening. Yes, it made sense as a protective design for a castle, but I didn't have to like it.

"Come on!" I told everyone. "I can't conquer the castle and all its riches alone!"

For obvious reasons, they didn't look thrilled to come, but they still obeyed. After door number three came door number four, made of darksteel.

The fourth door slid left while the second one closed, and finally, behind door number four, I could see something other than metal.

A large farm was located in a gigantic room made of lightsteel. Glowing yellow orbs the size of a man floated everywhere providing a constant, warm light.

A wide variety of plants were growing in the soil that covered the entire place, from flowers to fruits, from brushes to trees. Most of the trees pressed against the ceiling four meters above.

All this flora was being tended by fairies, pretty, little and scantily clad women, with delicate translucent wings which released delicate sparkles that slowly fell as they passed. They used some special magic that didn't use morbs: they made water appear out of nowhere to irrigate the plants, moved soil here and there, and collected fruits and vegetables into floating baskets.

It was an unexpectedly beautiful scene.

<Thank goodness Ted isn't here,> Bear said. <She would never allow us to kill the fairies.>

Some of the nearest fairies looked at us, but didn't seem to mind our presence. Both the third and fourth doors began to slide shut behind us as we entered the farm. Looking back, I saw that the last door, made of darksteel, had a thin layer of lightsteel on this side. When closed, it merged on the wall and it was impossible to tell that there was a secret door here.

Hence the 'secret' part of it.

<What now, Ugly-face?> Came the expected question from my zombie friend.

<Daggers, scout,> I said. <Everyone else, let's go hide in that corn field over there.>

It probably wasn't corn, since it was blue instead of green and had round violet fruits near the ground, but it was close enough that they all understood what I meant.

Daggers turned invisible and moved of through an opening on the other side of the room while we all moved to take cover among the vegetation.

<What about the fairies, Ugly-face?>

<They are ignoring us, which is great. Let's hope they keep doing that and we'll do the same to them.> I saw a zombie looking at a fairy with an odd expression and remembered who I was dealing with. <Under no circumstances are the zombies to try to eat them.>

<Killjoy,> Bear said. <What about the fruit?>

<You can eat them, I suppose.>

I wasn't sure the fairies would be cool with it, but if we were going to enter the fields, we would step on a few anyway. If they were going to take offense, they already had a reason, so there was no point in forbidding the zombies to eat them.

Thankfully, the fairies didn't turn into demons and massacre us. Quite surprising, all things considered.

<There is a corridor outside, sir,> Daggers reported. <Small stones attached to the walls provide illumination. Lots of doors throughout the corridor. No enemies, no traps. Moving on.> She reported. <Stairs up and down. Which way, sir?>

Good question. Common game design dictated that the raid boss we were after had to be in the furthest possible room from us. We were already underground, so unless the castle had a lot of underground floors, the right path was probably: <Up,> I replied.

<Roger. Going up. Long corridor with multiple stairs going down. Corridor turns left at the end. Going forward. Turning left. Multiple doors. First enemy sighted. It is a minotaur, sir, wearing what looks like lightsteel armor. It has a crossbow and a sword, both on its waist. It does not seem to have noticed me. Moving on.>

As Daggers described what she saw, I got more and more tense.

<Why are you describing everything now, but you waited until you were back when we were at the storerooms?> I asked.

<Because there we had the possibility to retreat, sir. Here, you are trapped; if I die, you cannot flee. Or rather, might be able to, but by the time you could get the secret door open you would probably already be dead. Therefore, even though it is a little distracting, it is better if I report back everything I see. That way, you know what to expect if something goes south.>

<I hadn't thought of that,> I admitted. <Well done.>

<Thanks, sir. Got to a crossroads, going straight ahead. More minotaurs, all similarly armed as the one before. Another crossroad. Turning right because I see a wide stairway up. Climbing it now. Big room with wide open doorways on one end. It has a big minotaur statue right before the doors. This looks like the ground floor.>

I was paying the utmost attention while watching the farm. One very distant fairy seemed to be coming our way, but every other fairy it passed by stopped the distant fairy to talk about something.

The 'Popular Fairy' always allowed the others to distract her, but as soon as she was done talking, she would return to flying straight at us.

"Bear," I whispered, "Fairy approaching. Be ready."

"Okeydokey," he replied.

<I must note the lack of decoration, sir. Except for the illumination crystals, it is all very barren.>

Bear frowned at me, probably wondering why that was noteworthy, and I whispered to him: "It means the master of the castle is either a miser or a Spartan type boss with military background and a lot of power. Let's hope it's the first."

<The main hall has many doors and one big stairway up,> Daggers kept describing what she saw. <Moving up. Saw first minotaur mage at the top of the stairs. It has morbs floating above its head, wears what looks like silk, and holds a long staff. It did not seem to notice me.>

The fairy was halfway through by now.

<Big mess hall upstairs,> she said. <Lots of mages and armored minotaurs. Five open doors out of it. Observing patterns.>

She was silent for some time and the fairy was almost upon us when she was intercepted by another one. This time, I could hear what they were talking about.

"My Queen," the intercepting fairy said, "I'm very grateful for your guidance last time. Could I bother you for some more? There are these katlos that just refuse to grow no matter how I water them."

"Sure, my child," the Queen said. "Katlos are indeed tricky. Bring me to them and I'll teach you a few secrets."

"Thank you, my Queen!" The other fairy said ecstatic and led the Queen away. I sighed in relief.

<Four of the accesses are well used. The central one is only used by mages, whom the warrior minotaurs seem to defer to. Moving towards it. Very long corridor with some doors and stairs upwards at the end. Going up. Third floor has a huge room full of statues of minotaurs. Big golden doors at the end with one minotaur about five meters tall to each side of the doors. Both wearing full plate armor. The armor of one of them is made of lightsteel and it has light morbs floating above its head. The other is wearing darksteel and has dark morbs. Both also have sheathed swords, huge shields on their left hands, and crossbows on their waists.>

<Jackpot!> I said. <We finally found the asshole! Damn, getting to new raid bosses in unexplored worlds...> I meant 'new MMORPGs.' <...is way too hard and time consuming. It's been what, ten days since we left Manhart?>

<About that long, sir.>

<What now, Ugly-face?> Bear asked.

<Daggers, get to the ground floor and try to find a way to close the main doors. Then, check what's->

"And who are all of you?" A voice said behind me.

Startled, I turned quickly.

The Fairy Queen was right there, floating in the middle of the field of stalks we lurked in and looking straight at a zombie.

23. Let's Roll!

The Fairy Queen looked like a miniature eighteen-year-old model. Her miniscule clothes — cloth strips covering only the necessary bits — would make any timid guy blush when looking at her. Her skin was milky white and her eyes were a deep blue. The glitter-like light she released from her wings was silver colored.

"Hello, my Queen!" I said before the zombie could mess things up. She turned to me. "My name is Jack Thorn. It is a pleasure to bathe in your presence."

She put her hand on her chin. "A deathlord, I see. What is your business in my Magic Garden?"

"I beg your pardon, my Queen; it wasn't our intention to trespass upon your domain. We're training to be stealthy when there's vegetation present, and when we saw no guards in here, and such a perfect environment for training, we thought there would be no problem," I tried to bullshit her.. "You have but to say the word and we'll leave immediately."

"Environment for training? My Magic Garden?" She looked displeased.

<Way to go, Ugly-face.>

<What is happening?> Daggers asked.

<Ugly-face is trying to sweet-talk one of the fairies. It's going well.>

"Of course!" I insisted, ignoring their little chat. "Where else could I find such nutritive and impeccably grown aliments for my men? Look at this." I picked one of the violet fruits. "I'm a layman when it comes to the nature, but even I can tell this is flawless."

She crossed her arms. "Humph. Do you think you're the first to try to flatter me?" She didn't sound as annoyed though.

"I- I'm not-" I sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist. I have never seen such a beauty as you, and even if you know I'm trying to flatter you, you also know this has to be the truth."

"Of course," she said matter-of-factly. "But something being true doesn't mean you have to say it. You have no subtlety in you."

I opened my mouth and eyes wide, as if I had just been slapped. "My Queen, I-"

"Enough. Leave this place. I will allow you to come back when you come up with a proper apology."

I sighed again, this time more deeply, then bowed. "As my Queen commands."

She looked at me as if I were vermin, and flew away.

<Ha! Ugly-face just got dumped!>

<I was trying to distract her,> I defended myself. <If she had become suspicious of us, she could have alerted the minotaurs.>

<Of course you were, dude,> Bear said sarcastically. <Of course you were.>

I sighed yet again, this time for real. "Let's go, people. The sooner we're out of here, the less we'll offend the Queen with our presence." I told the zombies.

In the mind chat, I said something else. <Daggers, get back here ASAP and find us a safe room in the corridor outside. Bear, tell the zombies to walk as slowly as possible while speaking about the beauty of the place.>

A few moments later, one of the zombies spoke. "Look at that tree! It's so perfect! I don't want to go!"

"I know," I replied. "But we need to. I did something unforgivable by speaking too bluntly to the Queen."

"But look at that flower! I want to sniff it until I die!" Another zombie said.

"I'm sorry!" I insisted. "We really need to leave!"

"No! I can't bear it!" Said a third one. "Look at those wings! How can I bear to stop admiring them?"

"Stop describing the transcendent splendor of this place to me! It makes it harder to go, but we must!" I said as if it pained me.

That wasn't what I had intended; my plan was to act like tourists, stopping everywhere to sightsee, not to play the part of a babysitter escorting a heard of whiny children. However, this also stalled our progress as I'd wanted, and the harm was already done.

We kept moving slowly as I watched Daggers on my minimap. The map wasn't automatically updated with what she saw, so I didn't know exactly where she was, but I could still see her icon coming closer within the black unexplored area.

"I feel inspired just by being here! Please, let us stay!" One of the zombies said.

"Yes, please! Just a little bit more!" Another helped.

I had to suppress a sigh.

As obnoxious as it was, this nonsense bought us enough time that Daggers reached one of the doors in the corridor. <Checking for traps. None found. Opening the door... Locked. I will try to pick the lock.>

I wasn't surprised that she could do that. She was our rogue, after all, even if she wasn't a thief. At least not as far as I knew. I suppose I'd never know it if she'd taken first pick of the armory we'd looted earlier, or pilfered something good for herself during her scouting of the castle.

It's not that I had any reason to distrust her, I just knew too much about human nature. I didn't expect her to cheat me, but I didn't have absolute faith that she wouldn't either.

<Success,> she reported a few seconds later. <Checking for traps.>

<Again?> Bear asked.

<Some traps can be activated after the lock is picked,> she explained. <No traps found. Opening the door. Small bedroom with a minotaur. Looks like a pregnant female. She is looking my way because the door just opened but cannot pierce my stealth. Securing the area.>

Bear and I knew what 'securing the area' meant. But, man, the minotaur was pregnant! Yes, it was a game, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.

<Thank goodness Ted is offline,> Bear said again.

"Hello, boys." Ted's voice suddenly said.

We both turned and she was standing there with her arms crossed.

<Wrong,> I said. <Thank goodness the party disbanded when I logged out before and she's can't hear us! Daggers, make sure to hide the body. Ted is back.>

<Roger,> she replied. <This room is not large enough for the entire Battalion. Proceeding to next one.>

"Boys?" Ted asked.

When she looked at me, I remembered the people dying in V-Soft Headquarters; I could almost see it all happen again in front of me. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, then smiled and looked at her. "Hello, Ted. Have you looked around?"

She hadn't before, but she was now. Her mouth hung open so wide I wondered if ghosts could suffer a dislocated jaw.

"Forget about it," Bear said before she could even say how much she wanted to explore the place. "Ugly-face here failed to sweet-talk the Queen and she expelled us."

"What?!" Ted's head snapped my direction and she spoke very loudly. "You hit on a little fairy?! That's disgusting!"

I suddenly felt very weird about my previous actions. "It's nothing like that," I said quickly. "Anyway, we were expelled and you can't stay."

"Jack Thorn, I never took you to be this kind of pervert!" She insisted.

The zombies were staring with wide eyes, some of them with smiles in their faces. The fairies within hearing range, which was most of them, had stopped working and were looking at us strangely.

Bear's smile made me want to punch him.

You have invited Ted to join your party.

I sent her the invite, hoping to at least make her tirade silent. She squinted her eyes and began to speak even louder.

"You want me to join your party?! Why? Are you ashamed? You should be! Look at them! They are like little babies! How would you even- Disgusting!"

"Ted, we're in an enemy castle!" I whispered. "Stop making a scene!"

That, of course, only made her even more upset. "Making a scene? Making a scene?! I'll show you what a scene looks like!"

That's when I drew my sword from its sheath and slashed her neck with it.

Translucent white ectoplasm began to leave the huge wound. She screamed in pain and put her hand over the opening. Shock filled the faces of everyone around us.

It was an attack to a critical spot and it dealt almost two hundred and fifty damage to her. That was almost her entire HP pool.

Bear moved to her side, supporting her. "Dude, you almost killed her!" There was a lingering threatening tone to his voice, but most of it was surprise.

"Then her and I are even!" I said low but forcefully. "Like I said, this is an enemy castle! I will not allow her to kill all of us because she can't shut up!" I send a single deathball at her to guarantee she wouldn't die and turned back. "Let's go before something happens."

Without waiting to see who would follow, I started jogging. The sooner we were out of the garden, the better.

Of course, things couldn't be so simple. A distant fairy turned into a blur as it quickly flew my direction and stopped right in front of me. "What did you say?" She asked.

"Huh?" I asked.

Other fairies did the same and soon I was surrounded by seven of them. "Are you enemies of the castle?" The first one to come asked.

I sighed, preparing my shield and my sword. <Daggers, get ready to stop any fairies fleeing through the corridor. Bear, tell the zombies to prepare for a fight.>

"Well, are you?" Another fairy asked.

"What if I am?" I replied.

They looked at each other.

Then they started to cry.

It was the most incredible thing I'd seen in my life. One second they were perfectly fine, even a little menacing. The next, they were crying with abandon, hugging each other or getting curling a fetal position.

"What the..." I murmured.

"Thank you, young hero! Please, you must succeed! Please!" Another fairy appeared, also with tears in her eyes but not crying as uncontrollably as the others.

"Huh?" I was dumbfounded.

"We are slaves," she explained. "The Master of the Castle summoned all of us from our homes and when we said we refused his Contract, instead of sending us back, he enslaved us."

And then, just like that, I was pissed.

Very, very pissed.

The minotaurs were slavers, that put them on the other side of a line which I'd already murdered people in the real world for crossing.

<Change of plans, Daggers,> I said. <Go check if you can close the doors of the castle and jam them. We are going to kill every minotaur in this place.>

<Affirmative,> she replied.

I turned back. About half the zombies had come with me and the others were looking confused. Ted was still shocked with her hand to her already healed neck, sitting on the floor, while Bear supported her.

In a few steps, I was in front of her. She looked at me with fear and Bear put his hand on his greatsword hilt.

I took a knee in front of her.

"Ted," I said softly. "You are being a pain in my ass. I like you, but you're always getting in my way. You seem to be intent on destroying my plans. So, I'll tell you this now: you either join me, or leave me." Her eyes widened. "You don't have to decide now; you can wait until we have conquered this castle. But if you can't deal with the things I do, you should leave." I got up. "Just so you know, I didn't hit on the fairy, I was distracting it. I don't mind jokes, but if you call me 'disgusting' seriously one more time, I will kill you, even if Bear kills me right after."

I felt bad about how I had blackmailed David by threatening Ted's life, I really did. But it didn't mean I had to take this kind of shit from her. We'd been lucky this time that the fairies were slaves, or we could have lost a few lives in here, maybe even been completely wiped out.

My guilty feelings about her were there, but I also had clear objectives that were much more important than how Ted felt about me flirting with some damn computer code.

I liked Ted. When she wasn't freaking out about stupid little things, she was good company. But her freaking out over every little thing just had to end, or she had to go.

Still, I wouldn't push her out. She could stay, she only needed to grow up and understand this was a game, and we were in the Underworld. She was in the Underworld because she wanted to stay close to Bear, but it was obvious that she would be much more comfortable playing an elf or something.

Bear didn't look happy about my threat and I could almost see his mind working as he decided whether he should attack me or not.

"You might be pissed," I told him, speaking loudly enough for the zombies to hear. "But you know I'm right. She put all of us in danger because of something as meaningless as me flirting with a Valian." I meant 'NPC' but I emphasized it enough to make myself understood.

"You had no right to attack her," he said.

"Nor did she have any right to attack me," I said. "Her attack was of a different nature, but it was an attack nonetheless. And like I said, you know I'm right."

He sniffed. "I know nothing of the kind."

We stared at each other in silence until the Fairy Queen appeared right in front of my face with teary eyes. She had her hands clasped in supplication as she looked at me with pleading eyes. "Will you free us, young hero?"

"Yes," I replied immediately. I could have tried to negotiate terms with her, but I wasn't going to try to profit off the suffering of others like those bastards at V-Soft had.

First, I had considered the AIs too human. Then, I got upset that Ted was attacking me over flirting with a computer code. Now, I wanted to free all enslaved NPCs.

I never said I was not as hypocritical as the next human.

"Come, I'll open the secret passage for you so you can leave," I told the Queen.

She shook her tiny head. "It won't do. We have Pledged ourselves to this farm."

I frowned. "I've no idea what this means. Why can't you just un-Pledge?"

She sighed. "A Pledge is a sacred bond between a fairy and a piece of land that can only be broken when both want to part ways. This farm, however, is part of the castle, and the castle obeys the will of the Master. We can only leave if he allows it. Or if he's replaced with someone who does."

"Not a problem, then." I smiled. "One of my friends is taking care of the castle doors as we speak. When she's done, we'll go take care of the Master."

Her little eyes shone with hope. "Do you promise?"

"Yes."

Quest: Free the Fairies

F- rank

You have agreed to free the fairies from their slavery if you manage to successfully conquer Edward's Castle.

Condition:

» Become the Master of the Castle

"Thank you! Thank you!" She hugged my arm and started to cry with her face buried in my shoulder. "Oh, thank you!"

If looks could kill, Ted's would have done so. She was looking at me as if I was a child molester. Bear looked like he knew what was about to happen and looked resigned to protect Ted in the imminent fight.

However, for whatever reason, the gaming gods took some small mercy on me today.

Before I could say anything, the Fairy Queen began shining with a golden light as she grew.

Ever so slowly, she turned from a girl not much bigger than my hand,, into a woman as tall as my chest, which she was now hugging. Her revealing clothes made it slightly uncomfortable to look at her before, but now that she was my size, I was positively unnerved.

I'd been with women as beautiful as her before, but I'd never experienced such sudden physical contact as this. No matter how accustomed a man was to the affections of women, I doubt anyone could have taken it in stride.

Ted's eyes were bulging out of her sockets and Bear was looking with interest at my new Fairy Queen friend.

Very awkwardly, I hugged the crying woman back. "It's gonna be alright," I said with with a flat tone, finally understanding that this was no blessing of the gaming gods.

They must know I didn't want to console people, and now I had to deal with this.

My voice seemed to trigger something in the Fairy Queen, because she began to cry even harder. I sighed, placed my chin on her head — if I was forced to support her emotionally, she could at least support a bit of my weight — and just kept quiet.

"I'm an idiot!" Was the last thing I saw Ted whisper before closing my eyes.

I could understand that. She'd fought with me over my perceived flirting with a childish fairy, and suddenly we saw that she was a mature woman, and a provocatively dressed one at that.

<Door mechanism found in a room on the second floor,> Daggers reported. <Devising a method to jam it.>

<Good job,> I replied.

The Queen kept crying for a long time as I clumsy patted her back. Meanwhile, Ted recovered from her surprise and threw me an almost apologetic look. I invited her to the party again this time she accepted.

<Bear,> I said, <just in case this is a trap, organize the zombies in a defensive position close to the corridor. But you stay here. Who knows, this girl might turn into a demon or something next.>

<Ok,> he said.

I wanted to ask Ted to go a little further into the corridor and stay put, but unless she told me she wouldn't leave, and that she was willing to follow orders, I would just ignore her.

About fifteen minutes later, the crying was finally under control. She didn't release me immediately, but instead looked at me. Hers was such a beautiful and pitiful face that even knowing she was only code, I couldn't fully suppress a protective impulse, not to mention my biological imperative. I subconsciously hugged her a little more firmly.

"Would you kiss me?" She asked almost too low for me to hear.

I frowned, but tried to not sound too harsh. "Why?"

"I... I can't say. Please?" She implored me, drawing me in with her beautiful eyes.

My 'trap alarm' sounded so loudly inside my head that it was a miracle I could even hear her over it.

"No," I said firmly.

"Why?" She sounded desolate as she asked.

This time, I didn't soften my tone. "Because there is no way in hell that the cold Queen from before, who spoke about me lacking subtlety, and about how many people flatter her, could be acting like you are right now. I have seen people who are broken before, and your act is not even close."

She looked at me with surprise, then a timid smile appeared on her lips. "Good. You have a chance against the Master." She still didn't release me. "Can you keep a secret?" She asked playfully.

"No," I stopped hugging her. "Now, I'll count from three, and if you don't get at least two meters away from me, I'm going to attack you. Three."

Her smiled broadened. "Oh, I like you. So manly."

"Two."

Still smiling, she brought her face towards mine and tried to kiss me. I turned my head, and she missed my lips by a millimeter, kissing the corner of my mouth instead, deliberately and slowly.

"One."

She giggled and darted away from me. Not two meters, but a few paces. She put her hands behind her back and crossed her legs while standing, striking a playful, innocent pose.

"My name is Karla," she said. "We'll talk when I'm free."

"Yes," I said. "We'll talk." I empathized the word.

More giggles. "Silly deathlord. What else could I, the Third Fairy Queen, possibly do with you?" She turned and left, walking very seductively. She looked back after a few paces, still smiling, certain that I would be watching her leave.

I wasn't ashamed of my actions. While I did refuse her because I didn't know her agenda, I was still a man, and there was no harm in looking at lady, that clearly wanted me to do so.

The zombies were already in defensive formation by the corridor. I walked in their direction.

<How are things going, Daggers?> I asked.

<Not well, sir. The door lever does not move no matter how much strength I put into it. It probably can only be closed by certain individuals, or needs a key to activate.>

<I see.> I said. <Thankfully, that's very easy to solve.>

<Is it, sir?>

<Yup. Just stay there and keep alert about how they close the gate.> I looked at the zombies in front of me and raised my voice. "That's it, people! It's time for a massacre!"

I could see the eagerness in their eyes. Good.

"You can see the corridor in front of you," I told them. "There is one open door and nine closed ones, with stairs at the end. We are within the castle we came to conquer, gentlemen! It's riddled with vermin called minotaurs, vermin who enslave others!" I was giving into, and intentionally displaying my rage by now. "Kill them all! Open the doors of the corridor, kill all minotaurs you see, loot their possessions! Go! Go! It's time for some fun!"

They cheered and rushed away. Bear seemed torn between staying with Ted or going. I didn't interfere; that was his business.

"I'll be by the stairs," I said and started to move.

A few zombies had entered the open door and were looting it. I looked briefly inside, enough time to see a bed, a metal table with some chairs, a metal wardrobe, and some paintings.

There was also a metal crib to the side; looking at it made me way too uncomfortable.

I kept going. Most of the zombies were now banging on locked doors, trying to open them. Two of them were going from door to door, trying to find an unlocked one.

They made a terrible racket while doing it, but that was the plan.

I got to the stairs and stood to the side, holding my bow while guarding them.

A woman screamed in panic in one of the rooms and some zombies roared in battle lust. More women screamed after that.

At the beginning of the corridor, Bear was discussing something with Ted. Apparently, the truce I had just made with the specter was gone in the face of what I had just ordered.

Ted was crying, gesticulating, and yelling. I couldn't hear her words over the doors being hit, the zombies roaring in excitement, and the women screaming.

Many of the fairies had stopped working and were behind Bear and Ted, observing the zombies' attack with mixed expressions. Some were delighted, some felt pity, some looked angry.

"Ahhh!" A female minotaur appeared on one of the doors that a single zombie had blown open. She thrust a kitchen knife into his head and ran toward the stair. At least she wasn't pregnant.

She was the first minotaur I'd seen up close. She was humanoid but hirsute like an animal. Her legs were those of a cow, including the hoofs, and her head was a mix of cow and human. She had no tail but two small horns protruded from her head, and it was possible to see the outline of four teats beneath the gray linen clothes she was using.

I instinctively threw a firebomb at her. Fire engulfed her body and the explosion threw her to the floor floor. Two zombies, glowing orange, took the opportunity to jump on her and began to eat her alive.

For the first time, I began to wonder if playing a zombie was affecting those players or if they were really that messed up in the head to start with. I didn't know which option was more disturbing.

It made me feel a little better that they were glowing orange; it meant they were in Feral mode and couldn't stop their characters even if they wanted to. Still nauseating.

Thankfully, I saw the looks of revulsion of most of the zombies in the corridor as they watched the unarmed and desperate woman be eaten alive.

It gave me goosebumps and I remembered V-Soft again; the surprise on the face of the dead woman while all her coworkers screamed in panic... I shook my head.

The minotaur didn't take long to die but it was enough of a scene that the ten or so watching zombies had stopped attacking the rooms.

The others, however, kept my glorious massacre going.

Even though I felt a little bad about it, I didn't tell the zombies to stop. I maintained the position I had explained to Bear and Daggers:

It was either us or them.

And when 'they' were slaving bastards, I couldn't spare any pity for them.

Bear and Ted's argument came to an end when she logged out. He looked worn down as he looked at the place where she had disappeared, then joined me at the stairs.

The killings slowed and eventually ended. No one had come to investigate.

"Good!" I told them. "I hope you had a good time, because after you're done recovering your stamina, we're going to kill real minotaurs! Ones that are armored and fight back!"

At that exact moment, the head of one armored minotaur appeared at the top of the stairs. I didn't see it as I had my back turned to him, but the zombies in front of me who were looking my direction saw it.

They looked up and I turned back to do the same.

The minotaur's helmet was open — it was designed in a way that it also protected the minotaur's horns — and we stared each other for almost a full second before I smiled and he disappeared back in the top floor.

"Forget that!" I yelled, raising my sword and running upstairs. "Attack now!"

They roared, I roared, Bear roared, and we all ran upstairs intent on killing the bipedal bovines.

24. Reverse Siege

When we got to the top of the stairway the minotaur was rapidly distancing himself, but expecting this, I had already lobbed a firebomb. It passed by the minotaur and dropped to explode just in front of his right leg.

He face planted and was about to use the momentum to roll away when the explosion of a second firebomb slammed him to the floor.

"Keep going!" I yelled to the zombies.

While we ran, I threw a third firebomb to make sure he stayed down. We rushed towards the minotaur and... Bypassed him completely.

"We have to leave! Come!" I yelled. "Come or they'll close the gates!"

The zombies didn't understand why we didn't kill the minotaur but still followed my lead.

The corridor we were in had multiple sets of stairs descending on both sides. We rushed through the corridor until we reached its end and were forced to turn left. Then, we found ourselves in a new corridor, this one full of doors.

"Let's go! Run or they'll close the gates!" I yelled again.

A few doors immediately opened at my words and a few minotaurs looked at us. Most were wearing linen clothes and one of them was shirtless with only lightsteel plate legs on.

I threw a firebomb at him and he was thrown back into his room. "They saw us! Run! To the gates!"

There was no alarm being raised by the minotaurs so I guessed they were using mind chat to send messages.

More and more doors opened but no one stopped us. We went through an intersection but kept going forward. At the second crossroads, we turned right. That's when we found the first organized resistance.

Ten minotaurs fully armored in lightsteel were blocking our way, formed into two rows of five. The beasts in the first line were crouched, holding their metal shields in front of them and their swords thrust out horizontally, like pikes. The ones in the second line were standing, also using their shields but pointing crossbows at us instead of using their blades.

They immediately shot their crossbows and I raised my shield just in time, taking less than ten damage. "Keep going!" I yelled. "Trust our momentum! We have to get out before they close the gates!"

That's when I noticed there was a third row. As soon as the minotaurs shot the crossbows, they passed the spent weapons to the ones behind them and received loaded ones in return. They aimed and prepared to shoot.

It would have been an imposing formation if we were only a few, but with our numbers we could absorb the damage and roll over them. Even so, I wasn't about to take damage for no reason.

I shot all but two of my remaining firebombs like a machine gun, some of them right above the first row, and some behind the second row.

The percussion of the explosions was deafening and shook even the metal floor. It staggered our enemies and let us close the remaining distance without taking more damage.

I leapt into the middle of their formation shield-first and tried to charge past. "Don't stop! They may close the gates any moment now! We must leave before that!"

<Sir, a mage is closing the gates.> Daggers told me. <He just pulled the lever; I cannot identify what he did differently than me when I tried.>

<Thank goodness,> I said as I was sandwiched between one of the defending minotaurs and the zombies who were surging forward into my back.

The beast used the crossbow as club, striking me in the head. Thankfully, it did only about eighteen damage. The press of bodies all around me was so unyielding that I couldn't even try to counter-attack, but I took the chance to summon a darkball to do at least some damage.

<Is the mage leaving the room?> I asked Daggers.

<Negative,> she replied.

<That's a shame, but at least my ruse worked; our biggest problem was the possibility of countless reinforcements from outside. Now, we can slowly siege this place from the inside. Kill him if it looks like he's going to open the gates.>

<Roger.>

The darkball I threw was unimpeded by the minotaur's armor. The darkness element was like black liquid, and it worked just like it had when I fought Bear: instead of dissipating after hitting the armor, the liquid searched for small slits and entered it, reaching the minotaur's body.

75 darkness damage dealt to Annoying Minotaur

Damn!

The darkness could ignore the armor but the minotaur had resistance to it, maybe because of the lightsteel armor. Now that I thought about it, I never asked Bear about the properties of his darksteel armor.

However, it gave me an idea: I threw a deathball at the monster.

Death element was smoke-like. It hit the minotaur's armor and... Poofed into oblivion.

Shit!

That wasn't what I had expected; I wanted it to behave just like the darkness element had, but such was life: a sequence of disappointments; or so my mom had always said when referring to me.

The minotaur was about to hit me again, when a powerful shove to my back toppled us both to the ground, with me on top of it.

I used the same tactic I had used against Bear: I dropped my shield and proceeded to stab the minotaur through the vision slits in his helmet.

When I'd stabbed it five times a sword struck my neck and I yelled in pain. Then, someone kicked me to the side.

I hit the ground and before I could try to get up, someone fell on me. I tried to push them off, but another body fell atop both of us. Since I could do nothing else, I covered my head with my armored arms and waited for the fight to end.

<Bear, how's it going?> I asked.

No answer, which probably meant that he was in an Enraged state.

I checked the battle log and saw that yes, he had used Rage. And he was dealing tons of damage. Every twenty seconds it was especially bad for his enemies: he used his armor-ignoring skill and things were ugly.

It took a few minutes for them to kill all fifteen enemies, but my guys finally succeeded. All the while, I lay perfectly still.

<Bear, let me know when the Rage stops,> I said. No answer, but I wasn't expecting one.

After a few more minutes, he finally told me I could move.

I struggled at first, but after some help I finally managed to free myself from the bodies.

We had miraculously lost no one in the battle. I had no idea how, but I found it better not to question a gift.

My shield was somewhere in the mess, but instead of searching for it, I checked one of the lightsteel shields from the dead minotaurs.

Medium-Quality Lightsteel Shield

Uncommon

» Resistance: 80%

Five percent more resistance than mine. I took it.

<Daggers, where is the lever located?> I asked.

<Second floor, sir. First door to the right in the mess hall, then first door to the right in the room after.>

<Damn, that's far. Is the mage still there?>

<Roger.>

<Is he alone?>

<Yes, sir.>

<Good. Bear, link the chats, please,> I said and he did so; I could now talk to the zombies using the mind chat. <Alright people, listen up.> They looked at me. <The easy part is done: they closed the gate. Now comes the hard part: we're going to attack the control room and use it as our base of operations. Most likely there are lots of minotaurs on the way and we can expect some of us to die. I'll be holding this keystone to the secret door in my hand, so that if I die I'll drop it and you can pick it up and leave the castle. Any questions?>

<Huh...> One zombie said. <Why don't we pick an easier room?>

<Yeah,> another one agreed. <We could use some rest.>

<Our only chance is to keep the gate closed. It'll be hard to get to it, but not impossible. After those stairs...> I pointed to the stairs at the end of the corridor. <...is the ground floor. There, we'll climb another set of stairs to the second floor. Once we get there, it's almost guaranteed that we'll manage to get to the control room. The big issue is the ground floor and the stairs to the second one.> I laid out my plan before them.

<Man, I don't see the difficulty,> a zombie said. <We stomped these minos here.> He was ballsy; I liked it.

<Yes, but we outnumbered these guys,> I explained. <Out there, I expect them to outnumber us; it's their castle after all. And they have mages. We'll need to maintain formation and act as one. When I say move, we move. When I say stop, we stop. If we all do that, I promise that in the worst case scenario, at least half of us will live to make it there. If someone breaks formation and does something stupid... Well, you know what happens when people do that; you saw it yourselves against the goblins.>

That was an empty promise, of course. I had no idea what the minotaurs were preparing and couldn't say for sure that we could survive.

But I was confident enough to put my dagger away and hold the keystone in my shield hand instead, to prove to the zombies that I was serious.

Unless we found ourselves in some impossible situation on the ground floor, it would all come down to the zombies not messing up, just like I said.

<Of your tanks, who has more defense?> I asked. <I need two names.>

Lieutenant Tank Turtle and Private Tank Eleven were nominated after a brief discussion. I invited them to the party and told them to choose constitution and willpower for the bonuses my Strategist trait provided.

<Wow!> They said, impressed by it.

<We'll maintain the Circle Formation,> I told them all. This was one of the formations Daggers had taught them, which consisted of an outer ring made of tanks, an inner ring made of fighters, and all the crossbowmen plus me in the center.

<Bear, Turtle, and Eleven,> I continued. <You'll be spread around the outside of the outer ring, like a triangle. Let me know if you need help but do not die. If you die, we'll all probably die with you. You're our main pillars of defense.>

They didn't reply but their faces were serious — even Bear's!

<You all know what to do, but just in case, I'll remind you.

<Tanks, your only role is defending. Counter-attacking will waste stamina and you spend stamina each time you defend. If your stamina is running low, raise your weapon hand and move backwards. If the tank to your side dies, slowly move to cover for him. If you move too fast, you'll create another hole where you were and it'll lead to disaster.

<Fighters, stay alert. If a tank dies, cover the gap he creates until the tanks nearby can close it. We do not want to be overrun, so be ready to support the tank's backs if the enemies try to crush our shield wall. Other than that, do nothing. Preserve your stamina for when it's fight time.

<Crossbowmen, focus on destroying enemy spells mid-air first, and killing enemy mages second; defense is your primary mission. Don't waste your stamina on any other targets; they're all wearing plate armor so we can't fight like we usually do. Other than that, try to block attacks aimed at me with your bodies if you have enough HP, or else I won't be able to use my magic.

<Healing magic takes too much time for me to amass and I'll be a priority target for the enemy, so don't expect me to use it.

<If you find yourself cut off from the group, unable to get back to us, you can use the Rage or Feral skills to try to survive within the enemy ranks. Otherwise, do not Rage and do not go Feral.

<I repeat: move when I say so, stop when I say so. The mind chats will remain linked. Do not to speak unless it's pertinent to the battle.

<Any questions?> I concluded.

There were none and we stripped the minotaurs on the ground and took their equipment; as I suspected, the lightsteel armor provided resistance against darkness element.

Basic Lightsteel Set

Uncommon

» Prevents critical hits to the head

By wearing a complete set, you receive the following defense bonuses vs attacks against any part of your body:

» +50 defense

» +25% darkness resistance

An armor set usually consisted of distinct pieces of armor protecting five regions of the body: upper body, lower body, hands, feet, and head. When each piece was used separately, they only protected its specific body part, but an armor set provided more than the sum of the parts.

For instance, the Lightsteel Gloves of this set had a defense factor of a measly thirty and two percent darkness resistance. But with the complete set equipped, they provided effective defense of fifty and twenty-five darkness resistance vs attacks against the wearer's hands.

I didn't have an armor set but I didn't take any equipment for myself; for now, it was more important to have better armored tanks than to get myself better equipment. Anyway, I already had a High-Quality Iron Armor and High-Quality Iron Pants, each providing the same fifty points of defense as the lightsteel armor. Plus, my Dark Archmage title gave me immunity to darkness as well as fifty percent resistance to the light element.

Well, I kept the shield with me and gave someone my old shield. Since the lightsteel shield wasn't part of the set, it didn't matter much.

The lightsteel armor was distributed among the zombies and some fighters turned into tanks. A few of them would stay with the fighters to close any gaps that may appear in our defense. I also kept three armored crossbowmen with me to be my defenders.

<Form up, now!> I ordered when everyone was done suiting up.

We got into the Circle Formation, or as close to that as the tight corridor allowed. With the speed we were running, we would be unable to redeploy at every intersection. Having men running against the walls would provide protection when we needed it, without sacrificing our speed. I almost couldn't believe that the zombies managed to form up without Daggers' loud and impolite encouragement.

Of the fifty zombies we'd started with, twelve had died fighting the goblins and Melkier had 'left' us. Of the remaining thirty-seven, twenty-two were now tanks, five were fighters, and ten were crossbowmen — three of which wore lightsteel armor. I was tempted to turn all fighters into crossbowmen but there may be situations where a more flexible fighter would be better than a tank or a ranged attacker.

<Time to go!> I gave the order after preparing eight firebombs, a deathball and a darkball ready. <Speed: Step, step, step, step.>

Dictating the speed in mind chat like that was also Daggers' doing. It was a very simple solution for unsynchronized movement.

We got to the end of the corridor without any further battles and began to climb the stairs. A few times I had to call out the pace again, but it wasn't too bad.

Explosions hit the tanks at the front of the formation as soon as they reached the ground floor. Thankfully, their shields mitigated most of the damage, but I could tell it had been a jolting impact.

Spells that tried to fly over the front line to get to us were destroyed by bolts; the crossbowmen were doing their job. I also contributed, using level one darkballs for that. They were perfect for the job: they took only half a second to amass and cost almost no mana.

<Faster!> I ordered. <Speed: step, step, step!> Some zombies tripped on the stairs and I didn't blame them; ascending the stairs at this rate while holding the formation was hard.

Soon, I got to the ground floor and could see what we were up against.

It wasn't pretty, but also not as bad as it could've been. In the huge room, maybe two hundred armored minotaurs barred the path to the gates in a defensive formation, with thirty or so mages behind them. A huge minotaur statue was close to the gates and I couldn't see behind it, but I didn't expect hidden enemies behind it.

Minotaurs also guarded each of the eight doors out the big room, and on the large stairs a hundred minotaurs were organized in eight rows. Ten mages were upstairs, sending spells at us.

<Move slowly towards the gate.> I ordered. <Speed: step, step.>

<Wasn't the plan going upstairs?> A random zombie asked.

<Yes!> I replied. <But bear with me for now!>

<Yes, I am,> Bear said and only the sword in my hand prevented me from face palming.

The staircase we had come from was right beside the big stairway to the second floor, so the minotaurs there were too alert at the moment.

Arrows rained down on us. Each arrow did little damage individually but with hundreds of archers, they were taking a toll. Most of the enemy spells were destroyed mid-air but not all of them.

Most of the spells were direct damage and only a few applied negative status effects. Ice grew from a tank's legs once and we were forced to wait a few seconds until he could walk again.

For now, I only used darkballs and didn't control my spells' paths mid-air, shooting them in a straight line, which meant they were all cut from the air. This phase of the plan was about setting low expectations.

The two zombie tanks on the front held their hands high at the same time and stepped back, immediately replaced by a fighter and a reserve tank. A second reserve tank was moving there to replace the fighter, but I stopped him.

<Let the tanks close the gap!> I ordered. <Let the enemy feel we're getting weaker than we really are!>

They obeyed. Soon, the fighter was squeezing between two tanks and got back inside the formation.

It was a flawless execution and I admit I felt proud of the idiots.

No, that was unfair to them.

They had been idiots when I first met them, but after Daggers' training and some preparation, they were perfectly capable players.

A few more tanks had to retreat inside the circle and only one of them was replaced by a reserve tank. Things weren't looking good for us even by my estimation, and I knew we were faking some of it. The minotaurs probably believed we were on the brink of breaking.

Out of nowhere, a huge firebomb exploded above me, dealing over five hundred damage. I felt the fire burn away some of the hair in my head and melt some of my skin, but there was so much adrenaline surging through my brain, that even though I screamed in pain, I didn't stop moving.

<That's enough!> I said when I recovered enough from the pain. <At my signal, change directions to the stairs!> I waited a few seconds so everyone was prepared. <Now!> Except for one tank, everyone smoothly turned. <Speed: step, step, step, step!>

From a turtle crawl we changed to a fast pace, not quite running but walking very quickly. The zombies facing the door who now had to walk backwards, couldn't deal with it and the formation broke.

<What the hell, Ugly-face?! We can't move that fast!> Bear complained.

<Chill, dude,> I replied.

I expected that to happen and waited until we were five meters away from the stairs before ordering a stop to regroup.

From the enemy perspective, we had tried to go for the gate but gave up, then tried to run to the stairs and our formation broke. They were surely thinking we were about to die.

Time to act.

As soon as the formation was restored, I sent my remaining three fire morbs — the other five had been destroyed by enemy arrows — flying. But I didn't send them straight at the minotaurs; instead, the spells flew all the way to the ceiling, straight up. When they were high enough, they turned the direction of the stairs, moving horizontally until they were over the mages. From there, they went down.

Two firebombs exploded among the mages and the third hit the middle of the first row of minotaurs on the stairs. The mages in the center of the explosions were knocked down and the ones close to it suffered damage. The minotaurs in the first row took the explosion in stride, and only the one directly under the explosion was forced to kneel by the pressure.

<Tanks at the front: V-Formation!> I ordered. <Move!>

Before we could even start, a zombie fighter in the middle of the group yelled and died with an arrow sticking in his head. First casualty.

<Bear,> I said, <I want you in the front of the 'V'! Turtle, Eleven, one of you on each side of the 'V'!>

The front of the Circle Formation became a 'V' that proceeded to pierce the first row. There was no way to control the speed of our movement now, it would depend on how fast we could ram through the enemy lines.

<Crossbowmen, focus on killing the mages!> I ordered. <Ignore their spells for now!>

Bear closed with the minotaur in the center of the first row and attacked. His greatsword became immaterial as its blade went through the helmet of the first guy and cleaved into his face, with dark liquid following suit.

His job was the hardest one: he had to open a path forward. All other tanks in the V-Formation only had to push through the gap that Bear opened, but Bear had to waste his stamina in the daunting effort to drive them back before him.

The other tanks could push at them diagonally, but Bear was forced to fight head on against an opponent that that held the high ground.

<Sir,> Daggers said. <They tried to open the gate. I killed the mage but not quickly enough to prevent him from screaming.>

<Shit,> I said. <Hide the body and maintain stealth. When someone appears at the scene, let me know if you think you can kill them.>

<Roger.>

Bear's opponent ever so slowly gave way. Bear ground slowly forward like the tank which was his class's namesake.

Bolts flew at the enemy mages who were hiding themselves behind the eighth and last defensive row. They struck back with magic but to my surprise, the fighters were now focusing on cutting the spells mid-air.

Doing so was directly against my orders to save stamina, but only because I hadn't thought of this before. Good thing I hadn't turned them all into tanks.

The back of the minotaur fighting Bear was finally up against the second line. The one behind it it held firm forcing the first to fight Bear one on one. When the zombie attacked the minotaur's head yet again with the armor-ignoring skill, it finally gave up and got out of Bear's way.

I sighed in relief. Things were going relatively well. Except for the fact that Bear had only two thirds of his stamina remaining to break through seven rows of enemies.

Thankfully, there were enough combatants that the game considered this a large-scale battle. Therefore, we were using only one fifth the stamina and mana normally needed for all movement and skills.

This reduction would be to the advantage of the minotaurs if it was a direct confrontation. However, we only wanted to get the hell out of here, and so, the reduced consumption worked in our favor.

One of our crossbowmen died right in front of me. I made sure to put the body in a position that would prevent others from tripping on him before moving on. I'm thoughtful like that.

As soon as Bear hit the minotaur in the second row, one of the zombies yelled 'Jack!'

I turned, and I didn't like what I saw:

The other minotaurs in the room, the ones guarding the stairs and the doors were advancing towards our group. They had stayed in place for longer than I'd expected, but less time than I had hoped for.

<Daggers, how are things in there?> I asked.

<No one is here yet, sir.>

We could use her help, but at the same time it was much more important for her to stay where she was, protecting the lever. If someone managed to throw the lever things would become much more difficult for us.

<Everyone, stop moving! You three, protect me!> I crouched. The armored crossbowmen and a reserve tank got around me, their shields raised. <Prepare for the attack to our flank,> I said as I began to summon ten darkness morbs.

A few seconds after I said that, the clash of forces could be heard from our rear line. One of the tanks in the V-Formation died. Things weren't looking good.

Five seconds after crouching, I stood with ten dark morbs floating above my head.

<Bear, down!> I yelled. He crouched and I sent all ten darkballs at the minotaur Bear had been fighting.

The damage wasn't high but one spell after the other found openings in the minotaur's armor and damaged him enough that Bear was able to yank his legs out from under him while he was distracted.

<Good! Bear, pierce!> I said when the minotaur fell.

'Pierce' was a command word for the V-Formation. Bear ignored the fallen yet still alive minotaur, stepped over it, and left the formation. He went as far ahead as he could before activating his typhoon-like skill, called Fatal Whirlwind, against the third row of minotaurs. After that, he started glowing red — he had activated the Rage skill.

The fighters attacked the fallen minotaur and a reserve tank took Bear's position in the formation.

Bear was now by himself. It was a nearly suicidal attack, but it was necessary. By doing this he could open the path more quickly, even if it was riskier.

The third row didn't hold for even a second and we advanced further. The tanks behind us were doing their best to resist the wave of minotaurs and the only reason they hadn't been trampled yet was because the fighters were doing their job, supporting the tanks.

Meanwhile, my crossbowmen were firing at the mages. Only a few bolts hit but it was enough to make them unable to amass morbs. The big problem was the thirty mages at our backs now.

<Crossbowmen, focus on destroying spells again!> I ordered as I did the same using darkballs. As much as I wanted to send firebombs at the enemies, they cost too much mana.

Bear kept going, we kept following, and the enemies kept attacking. We were on the fifth row when Daggers spoke to me.

<Sir, they came for the lever.>

<How many?> I asked. <Can you kill them?>

<Five, sir. Two mages, two common armored minotaurs, and an elite.>

<Elite?> Whatever that was, I hadn't expected that.

<It wears golden armor, and holds a halberd. Half again the size of a regular armored minotaur.> Since the regular minotaurs were around two meters tall, that guy was big!

<Can you kill it?>

<Not with so many of them in here, sir.>

Shit.

<Does it looks like they intend to barricade the room?>

<The mages are already creating some kind of magical barrier.>

Shit, shit, shit!

<Alright, maintain stealth. We're coming.>

<Roger.>

Bear's HP was below half, a fifth zombie died, we were surrounded by hundreds of minotaurs, and Daggers was trapped with a strong enemy.

It was time for a desperate tactic.

<Alright everyone! Box Formation, now!>

25. The Box

The Box Formation was the worst of all in terms of mobility and versatility. It had a single objective: absorb damage.

Except for Bear, we all packed into a tight square with the tanks outside. A smaller perimeter meant fewer vulnerabilities to the enemies attacks, but a packed group like that also meant AoE skills or spells would be devastating.

<Push!> I yelled. <Push! Push! Push!>

I kept ordering the same thing over and over again. Each time I said it, we were supposed to, well, push. Not just step ahead, but use all the strength of our legs to push upwards, the people in the back throwing their weight at those on the front, and those in the front doing the same against the enemy while trying not to fall.

My position was one of the worst possible. There was so many people squeezing me that I could barely touch the floor sometimes, and I was still supposed to help.

Still, I kept repeating 'push.' We had to break through or we would all die.

Spells exploded above us: fire, water, life, death, everything damaged us. Two more zombies died and we kept going.

It was hell. We could do nothing but press on.

Our pace was much faster than before though. By now, we were already at the seventh row and we kept going. The minotaurs simply couldn't withstand our concentrated power.

One more zombie died, but we finally reached the mess hall.

I couldn't see anything, so I asked the zombies what the hell was in there.

<Lots of minotaurs!> One of the guys replied.

<How are they positioned?> I asked. <Grouped together? Scattered?>

<There are about ten minos protecting each door except the door in the center. The rest of them are scattered.>

<Good!> I said. <On my signal, everyone break formation and rush to the first door on the right! Three, two, one, go!>

The pressure in front of me gave as the zombies there began to run and I did the same.

There were no tactics involved, we just had to get to the other room. Our only advantage was that we ran beside the lightsteel wall and so just had to worry about attacks from the left. Because of that, those of us with shields had a much easier time defending ourselves.

The mess hall was a huge room full of long tables and long benches, all made of metal. There was no food on the tables though, only minotaurs. A quick estimate told me there were over a hundred in the place, and at least twenty were mages.

So, although we could defend ourselves with the shields, spells to lock us in place or slow us down were still a sad reality.

<Daggers, have they sealed the lever room yet?> I asked as a bolt hit my shoulder and bounced off my armor.

<Affirmative, sir,> she replied. <The elite also opened the gate.>

<Kill the mages, we're close.> I ordered.

<Roger.>

The zombies in front of me hit the minotaurs by the door like cannon balls. None of them were raging but they were still fast enough to knock the minotaurs off balance. Then, when more zombies hit the backs of the first ones, most of them fell on the ground.

By the time I got there, the passage was clear. The fallen zombies were trying to get up while the ones who came after them just stepped over them into the other room.

As I stepped over them, a minotaur tried to grab my foot. I dodged, but still tripped, rolling into the new room.

This room wasn't as large as the mess hall, but still sizeable. It was a training room with lots of dummies, arrow targets, a fighting ring at the center and no enemies.

The lack of enemies was both good and bad. Good because we needed the rest. Bad because Bear was in the other room and his Rage was still on, fighting some random minotaur.

I got to my feet and looked at the doors out of the room. It had three: the one we had entered through, one on the far side, and one nearby that led to the lever room.

<Bear, come at me!> I said, raising my shield in his direction. <Everyone else, get in here quickly! Try to save whoever is left behind!> Almost everyone was already in, except the guys who had fallen atop the minotaurs and were still tangled with them.

Bear couldn't perfectly control who he attacked but he could change targets if they were close enough. From minotaur to minotaur, he eventually attacked a zombie and then jumped zombies to get to me. He bit a fighter on the way and the guy almost died.

When he arrived in front of me, I kept my shield raised as he attacked, so I didn't lose HP and we both were only wasting some stamina.

Ever so slowly, I moved the direction of the lever room while Bear kept attacking me. The doorway was blocked by a nearly transparent white barrier. By the color, it should've been air magic.

<How are things going, Daggers?> I asked.

<One mage is down, sir. The elite managed to defend the other. I am not sure if I will be able to kill the second mage or even survive.>

<Shit. Brute force it is, then,> I turned to the zombies. <One of you tanks, take Bear's aggro away from me!>

For all purposes, Bear was just like a dumb monster now, having to attack whoever was closer or easier to attack, with only a bit of freedom to change targets.

A tank appeared and Bear started attacking him instead. I started amassing fire morbs.

The zombies were fighting by the doorway and the one Bear had bitten died. That marked the tenth death. Twenty-seven zombies, plus Daggers, Bear and I to go.

As soon as all my ten morbs were ready, I began to throw fireballs at the magic barrier.

A fireball was only better than a firebomb in three situations: when I had a mana issue; when I didn't have the time to summon a firebomb, since it took twice as long; and when I was attacking a single, unarmored, static target, which was the case for the barrier.

The last one sounded weird but was simple: damage reduction canceled out a fixed amount of incoming damage from each attack, so one strong attack would do more damage than multiple attacks which had equal strength, since less was canceled out.

121 fire + 30 burn damage dealt to Air Barrier (151 total)

If this had been a part of the castle's defenses I wouldn't be sure I could destroy it. However, it had just been summoned and I knew there was only a single mage maintaining it.

Sadly, I didn't deal double damage against this spell; unlike Robert's tornado, it wasn't immune to physical attacks, it seemed.

After the seventh fireball hit it, a little over a thousand damage in total, the barrier fell apart. I could see Daggers fighting an impressive golden armored minotaur — who was about three meters tall — and two lightsteel armored enemies in close quarters, with the mage standing in the corner and throwing spells at her.

I took two seconds to amass a new fire morb, this one intended for a firebomb instead of a fireball. <Daggers, get down!> I yelled. She obeyed and I threw a firebomb at the elite's face, counting on the firebomb's shockwave to give Daggers a small reprieve.

I didn't even check how much damage I did, I turned back to the doorway where the zombies were still fighting a mess of a battle.

<You,> I pointed to the dude fighting Bear. <Get Bear in there,> I said, pointing to the lever room.

The remaining doorway of the training room was still empty and I liked it very much, thanks. That meant that we could use the room we were in as our base, instead of the smaller lever room.

It was time to organize the mess.

<Daggers, now that you have the items from the mage you killed, try to use the lever and close the castle's gate. If it doesn't work, try to use the body's hand.>

<Roger.>

<You all on the doorway! Defensive Formation! Whoever has over half HP, get to the front. All others get back! Forty percent HP, in here.> I pointed to the ground and I moved back. <Thirty percent, here.> I moved further back. <Twenty, here. Ten, here. Sit dispersed in case an AoE spell comes.>

They did as ordered and I finally managed to get a clear picture of what we had: twenty-one armored zombies and six without armor. If it wasn't for the fifteen sets of lightsteel armor from the minotaurs in the underground corridor, I don't think we would have made it this far; an extra armored zombie not only meant extra defense for himself but also better survivability for the entire group.

However, only three of them had over half HP remaining. Four had forty-percent, and of the twenty-one of them, fifteen had twenty percent HP or less. That was seventy percent of our remaining number! It was scary as hell; I hadn't realized we were that close to defeat.

A zombie with ten percent HP was shooting his crossbow and when I looked at the others to ask why they weren't doing the same, I saw them panting. It made me realize that HP wasn't the only issue and I gave new orders.

<Now, keep the HP lines, but whoever has more than half stamina, get to the right and shoot the minotaurs. Whoever has less than thirty percent, get to the left until you have more than half, then go to the right and start shooting too!>

They obeyed and, thankfully, a few started shooting, two of which were in the forty-percent HP threshold. I sighed in relief and began to heal them first.

You healed Random Zombie for 123 HP

Just like that, from the mastermind of a reverse siege and the highest damage dealer in the party, I became the healer.

It took eight deathballs and twenty-four seconds to heal about a thousand HP. In the kind of war of attrition we were waging, this much time could be the difference between victory and defeat, depending on how the zombies fought.

<Fight smart! Your life is more important than killing enemies!> I said.

We could last for a long time. Three zombies at a time could hold the doorway, it was only that many because the doorway was way larger than normal. Not only was I healing the zombies, they would also naturally heal when resting.

Three fighting defensively, twenty-four resting. It was almost like training.

Obviously, only three couldn't stop the sheer mass of the minotaurs on the other side, so I ended up having some of the resting zombies act as buttresses to make sure the front line held. Thankfully, the dumb minotaurs didn't try to push us using the sheer force of their numbers.

<The gate is closed, sir. The hand of the dead minotaur mage did the trick,> Daggers informed me. <The elite is almost dead.>

I had completely ignored the fight on Daggers' front; Bear had been successfully drawn into the lever room and with the Blackguard, they should be able to deal with everything in there. If not, they would have already said so.

Plus, as much as I wanted to join them in battling the elite, I was needed more here, healing everyone.

Now that the castle gate had been closed, I could finally use Bear and Daggers to do other things again. Daggers would be especially useful; I was confident she could find a way to get to the enemy mages and have some fun with them.

And just like that, we settled into a routine. I healed zombies, the ones fighting swapped positions when one of them was worn down, and minotaurs died.

Valia was like that. One moment, I was too engrossed in the game to remember it was a game. Then other times, the fact that it was a game couldn't be clearer.

I mean, what were the odds of twenty-seven people holding back hundreds of enemies at a doorway in real life? Practically nonexistent. But with shields that absorbed eighty percent of the damage and good armor? We were supposed to be able to resist.

After all, this was an MMORPG. Wasn't hours of grinding down a superior force supposed to be one of its attractions?

Even using only six MP per heal, eventually I found myself with less than a thousand MP.

<The elite is dead, sir.> Daggers informed.

<Good. How good is its golden armor?>

She took a few seconds to check. <Fifty points of defense, sir.>

<Forget about it, Ugly-face,> Bear said, now out of his Rage state. <This bastard was too tall, the armor won't fit any of the guys.>

And now the game was back to being somewhat realistic, with armor size and whatnot. I sighed. <Well, whatever, it isn't that good anyway. Get me the mage staff.>

Daggers appeared a few seconds later with it. It was made of lightsteel and was about half my height. It had lots of arcane symbols etched into it and looked cool.

Medium-Quality Lightsteel Magic Staff

» +10% effectiveness to spells of positive elements

» -20% effectiveness to spells of negative elements

Positive elements encompassed light, life, fire, air, nature, gravity, and maybe others that I didn't know of.

Negative elements were darkness, death, water, earth, acid, mind, and others.

Divine magic was neither innately positive nor negative but could also be all of them, depending on what element it was mixed with, like the spells the Ruined Mage Kings had used on the Slums.

I didn't know exactly how the mixed magic worked. Daggers was immune to divine magic and had resisted them all in the Slums. I, on the other hand, was immune to dark magic. Would that make me immune to dark divine magic too?

For my plans, I certainly hoped so.

The staff was useless for healing the undead, since death magic was negative, but other than that in was a nice addition to my equipment. Extra ten percent to my life magic would be handy, but the boost to my fire damage would be especially neat.

After putting away the staff on the ground to my side, I checked Daggers' status.

Daggers (level 24)

<Adept Shadow | Adept Athlete>

HP: 312 / 1145

MP: 170 / 170

Stamina: 43 / 415

"That was close, huh?" I asked using my mouth. The mind chat was for battle-related talk, not for chitchatting.

"Affirmative," she replied.

I kept healing the zombies. "I have about eight minutes' worth of mana to heal, then it's time to take the fight to the minotaurs. Can you attack the mages on the backlines somehow?"

"Yes, sir."

A smile crept across my lips. "Thanks. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't know where to go."

Bear came out of the room and I checked his status too.

Bear (level 22)

<Adept Berserker | Adept Warrior>

HP: 720 / 4825

MP: 125 / 125

Stamina: 107 / 705

"Not bad," I told him. I amassed a new death morb and realized I simply had no zombie other than Bear to heal. With things like that we could last for a long time. I retrieved the staff as I healed Daggers, Bear could wait.

"Dude, I lost over three thousand HP even with a hundred points of defense," he sat on the floor and Daggers and I followed. "The amount of damage that was directed at me was absurd."

When he put it like that, it did sound a bit worrisome. Most impressive though, was the fact that his armor was pristine except for the dried blood. No enemy had managed to put even a scratch on it, in contrast with the armor the rest of us were wearing, which was dented and dirty, proof of the war we were fighting.

"And boy, I loved every smash I took!" He opened his helmet and smiled. "Ugly-face, I'm glad I didn't logout with Ted."

"Sorry about that, by the way," I said. "Valia is just too important to me."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "She was being annoying. You were right: this is just a Valia. There's no reason to be so emotional over the Valians' lives."

"Yeah, I don't care about any of them, except the enslaved ones," I said. "I hate slavery."

"Sir," Daggers said. "You said before that we are not the good guys. You ordered me to kill a pregnant minotaur."

"I did, but was she a slave?" I smiled wider. "Remember, I'm not a good guy, but slavery is my bottom line, on Earth or in Valia."

"You're weird, Ugly-face," Bear said, then turned to Daggers. "Killing that pregnant woman was disgusting. And ballsy. I think I might be in love with you."

I laughed. "I doubt it. You're just in love with the part of her that acts like you would."

He thought for a second. "You're right. I'm awesome."

It was impressive how a little adrenaline and a few near death situations could unite people. Bear and I had been a little distant because of Ted and Melkier, but now we were good buddies again. Even his relationship with Daggers was improving.

I had already finished healing Daggers and was halfway through filling up Bear's HP bar when something appeared on the edge of my vision. I turned and saw an elite minotaur, wearing its impressive golden armor, appearing from the until-now unused doorway.

It wasn't alone; another came right after it. And third followed suit.

"So, how hard is it to kill those things again?" I asked.

"Not easy," Bear said.

"Damn." I got up. "Daggers, keep resting and only attack if you see an opportunity for a kill. Bear, you're with me." I used the mind chat next. <Turtle, you're with us. Eleven, stay alert in case we need you.>

Lieutenant Tank Turtle was fully healed and had over half stamina. Private Tank Eleven was also full HP, but his stamina pool wasn't looking great.

We got up. <The one on the right is mine,> Bear said.

Turtle liked the idea. <I got the one on the left.>

I sighed. <I guess the remaining one is mine.> Fire morbs were popping up above my head every second.

Bear was the first to run at his elite and Turtle followed suit. They hit the elites like trains. Bear jumped, slashing vertically and using his armor-ignoring skill on his opponent's helmet. Turtle did almost the opposite: he ducked as he got close and bashed the elite's legs with his shield, causing it to fall.

The elite in the middle looked at his two engaged friends and was about to help the fallen one when I picked up my new staff off the ground and sent a firebomb at its face.

291 fire + 84 burn damage dealt to Middle Elite Minotaur (375 total)

HP: 4703 / 5078 <?>

My party had already killed an elite minotaur before, so I knew its approximate HP, as shown by the question mark.

The elite looked at me and I threw a new firebomb at it.

This time, it was prepared. It moved the halberd to try to intercept but I was prepared for that and made the morb evade the weapon. Boom. It exploded right in its face again.

My third morb flew but this time the elite didn't try to defend; he just began charging at me faster.

The fourth firebomb flew true, so did the fifth. The bastard was now running full speed in my direction.

I only had time to send four more firebombs at it before throwing the staff on the ground, and drawing my sword. I checked its HP.

HP: 1413 / 5078 <?>

Knowing that it had only that much HP, I relaxed a little. Since my own HP and my stamina were full, I was very confident I could kill the damn thing.

It closed with me and slashed its halberd horizontally. I defended with my shield.

No damage was received but I was thrown sideways, falling to me knees. Before I could recover, the elite dashed forward and thrust the halberd into the nape of my neck.

600 slash damage received

HP: 2456 / 3070

The pain was blinding and I couldn't stop myself from screaming. I'd barely recovered my feet when the minotaur attacked again and I raised my shield just in time. I managed to brace myself against the power of the attack and stayed on my feet, then rushed to close with the minotaur. He stepped back, and I found myself out-ranged as he jabbed the halberd at me.

As before, I blocked and tried to close in but he back stepped. Attacks continually rang off my shield; all the while my neck hurt like hell. I tried to back the minotaur into a corner, but he skillfully avoided the walls.

And just like that, it was a stalemate. I couldn't kill it without magic, and it couldn't kill me.

Or so I thought, until the halberd shone white and came at me. I defended the first attack, but the second came fast, right after the first. I also defended, and the speed of the third was even greater. I barely dodged, but the fourth attack hit my chest.

231 slash damage received

HP: 2225 / 3070

I was thrown backwards by the unexpected impact and the fifth attack struck me in the side of the head, throwing me to the floor and dealing another six hundred damage.

As soon as I struck the floor, I rolled to the side just in time to hear a clank where I had just been.

Quickly standing, I raised my shield again. And the halberd, which had stopped glowing white, glowed green instead.

I jumped back and tried to open a gap between us, but the minotaur followed. The overhand blow came and I blocked it with the shield, only to receive fifty-two points of damage anyway and feel the lightsteel shield bend under the power of the attack.

Holy shit!

Bear hadn't been kidding when he said the elite wasn't easy to kill.

The halberd's glow died and the fight went back to what it had been before: I defended without taking damage, the minotaur attacked, and nothing happened.

My HP, however, was barely over half. It was only a matter of time until the minotaur's skills were off of cooldown and it killed me.

In hindsight, it hadn't been smart of me to fight without getting my helmet, which would prevent me from taking critical damage on the head. 'Overconfidence kills,' father always said; I hadn't expected it to be so literal.

It was damn interesting to discover that I could get so involved in the moment that I forgot to think straight. I had thought I was better than that, but thankfully it wasn't too late to learn.

<Sir, crouch!> Daggers said. I instinctively obeyed.

I felt Daggers leap off my shoulders, then the rush of air past my head as the halberd swung past.

She was invisible and landed upon the elite's chest without difficulty. The moment she touched it, she became visible again, but it was too late for the minotaur. Her blades pierced the helmet as if it was made of butter.

Each attack was a critical and dealt two hundred damage; the helmet's defense against critical damage didn't apply to her for some reason. She shadowed to attack faster and seven thrusts later, the elite dropped dead.

I took the chance to amass more fire morbs and check Bear's and Turtle's fight.

Turtle was lying in a corner of the room, his legs missing, and Eleven was fighting his elite.

Bear was faring much better. He had dropped his greatsword and was trading punches with the minotaur he'd somehow managed to disarm.

I'm sure Eleven appreciated the distraction of the firebomb I threw into the minotaur's face.

289 fire + 81 burn damage dealt to Left Elite Minotaur (370 total)

HP: 4642 / 5012 <?>

The elite minotaur we had just killed had taken less damage to die than the one before, so the estimated HP had been lowered.

What surprised me was that neither Turtle or Eleven had managed to deal even a single point of damage to the elite!

With Eleven focusing on defense and my firebombs flying, it died in a little over a minute. I had less than four hundred MP remaining.

Meanwhile, Bear and his elite were still punching each other.

<Don't attack my elite!> He said. <This is fun!>

I rolled my eyes and healed everyone who was injured, including myself. It was kind of strange seeing Turtle sprout new legs as he was healed, and Eleven was already back at the doorway, helping the other zombies.

<Daggers,> I said, <you're with me.>

After I created ten extra fire morbs, we walked over to look into the room where the elites had come from and saw a kind of office. There was a massive gold throne at the back with a huge lightsteel table right in front of it. In front of it were four smaller lightsteel chairs and tables. Smaller, but still too big for a human; clearly, they were intended for the elites.

The four tables had some communication crystals, piles of scrolls, along with pen and ink on them. The gold table was bare except for a small statue of a minotaur.

The minotaurs looked all the same to me, I could not tell if it was the same minotaur as the statues on the ground floor.

Behind the huge table, at the corner of the room, were four armor stands.

As soon as I saw them, I felt like an idiot.

The first elite had taken some time to get to the lever room after Daggers killed the first mage minotaur. And the other three had also taken some time to come after the first elite died.

All the while, they had probably been sitting there, wearing common clothes and as fragile as flowers. I'd given them time to get armored and come at us fully prepared.

Thankfully, I knew how to make myself feel better: shift the blame.

Daggers was the scout; she should've scouted.

Feeling a lot better, I was about to go in to search the room for loot when the zombies screamed behind me.

I turned just in time to see an elite minotaur entering through the doorway that the zombies had been defending.

26. Secrets

It was as if a dam had broken. Along with this first elite, three others were able to push the breach open even further, allowing a host of common minotaurs to join the fight.

<Well, shit,> I summed up the situation. <Everyone try to stall the minotaurs! Daggers, manage the zombies. I'll focus on dealing damage.>

<Roger. Sir, kill the one fighting Bear first. He is already weakened and is occupying our best tank.>

<Goddammit!> Bear said. <Alright, alright, kill it then.> He didn't even wait for me to do so; he simply disengaged and ran at the incoming minotaurs.

An elite had five thousand HP but Bear had managed to deal almost fifteen hundred damage to it. By punching it. I couldn't even begin to phantom how he had done that.

He had sixty stamina left and Daggers had less than thirty.

The zombies couldn't stop the elites from entering, not with the elites' halberds swinging left and right and their skills making it impossible to completely block them, but now that the enemy was already inside, they could at least slow the minotaurs down.

Ten firebombs, one after the other, hit Bear's ex-opponent and killed it. Then, I turned to the incoming wave with less than a hundred MP left.

I opened the built-in VirBridge calculator and did some math. The result was clear:

We were screwed.

The greatest issue we faced was the lack of mages on our side. Both dedicated healers and damage dealers were needed. The crossbowmen were useful, but they were just a stop-gap measure. A way to add some quick ranged damage but without the impact of a true damage dealer.

Supposedly, ranged attackers such as archers and crossbowmen could deal more single target damage than a mage, but not at the earlier levels, and not without the right skills.

Daggers positioned herself by the doorway to the lever room and started giving orders. <One tank to each elite! The others try to prevent them from getting surrounded. Whoever has less than ten percent HP get in this room and start using your crossbows! Lieutenant Fighter Tiger, I can smell your health and your laziness! Get back in there! Sergeant Tank Blue, do you want to get us all killed? If not then get your ass the hell out of that line before you die and give the enemy a breach!>

I ran to her side and began sending fireballs flying every second. A hundred MP was enough for three firebombs or twelve fireballs, so I chose the latter. Twelve seconds later I was out of mana.

Under Daggers leadership, the zombies were able to create a defensive line that was quickly pushed back. They soon had their backs to the doorway to the lever room, which was a good development for us; the elites and their halberds needed space to be effective and the other minotaurs couldn't attack effectively with the larger elites in the way. Even their mages had some difficulty getting their spells to us with the elite minotaurs blocking their line of sight.

The few spells that came through were usually destroyed by the zombies' bolts, as those too weak to fight on the frontlines were equipping their crossbows.

I took my own short bow out of my storage ring and started helping. A couple minutes later, the first elite fell. I almost wish it hadn't; bolts and spells came flying through the gap opened by his death.

It still had to be killed though; the zombies had held the doorway for a very long time against the common minotaurs, but the elites' damage was simply impossible to stand against, and all the healing I had done was going down the drain way too fast.

One minute later, a zombie tried to dodge a halberd that was glowing white but tripped over the leg of the tank to his side. The halberd hit him with five attacks too quick to defend. He survived that, but then the halberd glowed green and the zombie was too slow getting up.

The weapon's blade cut through the zombie's armor and sliced the zombie in half. He died screaming in pain.

<No stamina, I'm out!> Bear yelled almost at the same time. The 'fight' he'd been having against one of the elites was basically him grabbing the halberd and refusing to let go of it. I didn't know the rate of consumption for doing that, but lasting almost three minutes with only sixty stamina was damn impressive.

Another minute later, the second elite fell; I was counting each second.

A quick headcount showed that half my tanks were using crossbows by now. That's when Daggers gave us new orders. <As soon as the third elite falls, I want everybody inside the room!>

<That's a horrible place for a last stand!> Bear said. <We'll be dead if an elite breaks in! Did you forget how hard it was to kill the last one when we had the room all to ourselves?!>

<If we do not get in there, we will be dead anyway,> she replied. <Now, shut up and shoot your damn crossbow.>

She had predicted things perfectly: the moment the third elite fell, only seven tanks were fighting and we could barely hold the line.

<Inside, now!> Daggers yelled and we all rushed in. <Bear, you rest! Choose ten others to rest with you! The others hold the door! Sir, keep shooting!>

As if I could do anything else.

The last elite minotaur kept attacking at the doorway and my arrows kept going.

When it died, I was out of stamina and we only had five tanks in any condition to continue fighting.

<I want the tank who has the most stamina right now!> Daggers told the men with too little HP who were resting by the side.

A few moments later, they produced the zombie. He had less than two hundred stamina left.

<Sir, heal him,> Daggers ordered. <Boys, give me the second man with the most stamina.>

<I'm out of mana!> I replied.

<I know, sir! Keep resting and healing as you get the mana!>

<Shouldn't I keep shooting?>

<No! We need a healer! Now!> She pointed at the ground for me to sit and rest. I sighed and sat at a corner of the room while she organized a healing queue.

<Sir, after you're done healing these eight,> Daggers continued with her orders, <just keep restoring your MP.> After that she went back to managing our defenses.

She was damn impressive; the zombies had broken when the elites had first arrived, but now they held. Of course, the fact that the elites were unexpected before made a big difference.

By my side, Bear was talking to the zombies; they were smiling and laughing.

"So, having fun?" I asked.

"Yeah," one of them said. "Thanks, boss."

"Boy, this is intense! I never had a fight like this!" Another one said. "I love this!"

They all gave me their input. Bear was the last. "Ugly-face, it's not often that you give us a good fight, but when you do, it's epic."

I smiled. "Wait until we fight the dudes on the third floor," I said thinking about the huge minotaurs that had spotted Daggers even though she had been invisible. "And then, the boss. That will be epic."

I talked to them for a few minutes and then closed my eyes. I had the Meditator trait that increased my MP recovery rate by five percent if I sat cross-legged with my eyes closed.

Normal MP recovery was my intelligence points per minute. The Meditator trait increased this number by one — quite good considering that this was a large-scale battle and therefore each heal only consumed six MP.

Eyes closed, I focused fully on recovering my mana points.

Meditating in the game was just like in real life. I crossed my legs and focused both inward and on the subtleties of the environment.

The coldness of my armor, the coolness of my own undead flesh, the soft brush of my hair against my skin, the slight pain in my feet because my boots were a little too small, the constriction of the circlet on my head and the ring of fire on my finger.

I could smell blood and sweat in the air, mingled with the aroma of fear, rage, and excitement.

As I let go of my mind and superfluous thoughts, slowly reaching a blank state, the sound of the battle faded away.

I was now focusing on the smoldering heat of the spider ring in my bag, filling my body with strands of warmth that traveled from my waist to my head.

It was pleasant, so cozy.

How comfy would it be to put the ring on?

The moment that alien thought crossed my mind, I opened my eyes and jumped up.

The cacophony of battle slammed back into my awareness and I was startled... I checked my purse, the ring was still safe in there.

The clock in the corner of my eye told me I had dozed off for five minutes.

I smiled. I had just had an epiphany. <Hey, Daggers,> I said, interrupting her tirade directed at some poor zombie.

<Yes, sir?> She wasn't happy with me for doing that.

<Do you remember that spider monster we saw dead on the wall behind the King Gabat?> I asked.

<Yes, sir...> Her annoyance was rising.

<Do you prefer to kill that and her minions, or all these minotaurs?> My smile was almost splitting my head in half.

<It does not matter, sir.> She was even more upset, but then, her voice softened. <Unless... She killed gabats back then, did she not?>

<Yes, Daggers. Yes, she did.> I looked meaningfully at her.

<Wait until Bear and I are ready.>

<Okay.> I healed the guys and checked our defenses. The tanks were still holding and I only now realized how much better this room was defensively; it took only two tanks to block the doorway compared to the three required to hold the previous one. Plus, the limited space made it much harder for the elites to handle their weapons.

I went back to meditating but this time, when I felt the heat of the ring, I just ignored its suggestions and kept my eyes closed.

After another hour of healing and meditating, Daggers and Bear had full stamina bars, while I had a hundred MP and ten fire morbs ready to become firebombs.

<Time to roll, sir,> Daggers told me. <Everyone, stop shooting!> The zombies obeyed.

Excited, I got up, got close to the doorway, took the spider ring from the bag, and threw it as far as I could.

With no bolts firing at minotaurs, the ring was sure to catch their attention. I crossed my arms and waited for the fun.

The wait didn't last long. In less than a minute, a minotaur screamed in pain. Soon, it seemed to be getting taller but in fact its legs were being replaced by long spider legs.

It was a very short transformation. In mere moments, it had gone from a screaming minotaur to a silent abomination. Its lower body was gone, replaced by huge, black, scaly spider legs. It now towered over the nearby minotaurs, even taller than the elite.

The thing wasn't stupid; it jumped and stepped over the armored minotaurs to get to the mages. Once there, it began to murder them all.

<Oh, that's right.> I remembered something. <Daggers, I never checked: what are the stats of the mage's clothes?> If it wasn't something impressive, it was just stupid for them to not use armor.

Daggers took one of the minotaur mage's robes from inside her cloak and threw at me.

Silk Robe of the Adept Minotaur Mage

» +10 Mage (Minotaurs-only)

» +5 Mage (Non-Minotaurs-only)

» No bonuses to Expert Mages or above

» Cannot be worn with chest armor

Well, I could see the appeal. If I was a minotaur and had hundreds of others to protect me from harm, I would probably wear it. Sadly, it was useless for me.

The Fallen Spider had already killed two of the minotaur mages. It was tearing into another mage while being attacked by several more when a pulsating light gray morb and a dark grey morb appeared over its head and entered one of the mage corpses.

I couldn't see it clearly, but I remembered the Fallen Spider under the White Spider Inn raising her slain minions as undead.

This Fallen Spider was much more aggressive. Manhart had said something about the one under the Inn being born from a rat, while this was born from a minotaur. I guess I should have expected the difference in power.

"Ugly-face, you shouldn't have!" Bear said to my side.

"Sorry?" I didn't get it.

"You were worried only the guys on the third floor wouldn't be enough and decided to give me more strong enemies to kill." He punched my shoulder. "You charmer! I really might be falling for you now!"

I just sighed and kept watching the Spider.

"That is bad, sir," Daggers said. She was invisible next to me.

"What?" I asked.

"What if the spider revives the dead elites?"

"Shit."

Indeed, the Fallen Spider was close to some elites' bodies. However, it didn't seem interested in reviving them. I sighed in relief.

"Maybe it can only revive someone who has been killed by it or its spider minions."

The mino-spider's upper body was still wearing armor but its legs were being wrecked by spells and bolts. It didn't take long before one leg was mangled and the monster started limping.

<We should start now, sir,> Daggers said. <Attention, everyone! You will all defend this room until ordered otherwise! Bear, take point.>

<I aim to please,> he said and rushed at the door.

He had lost his greatsword somewhere but it wasn't a problem. Before he made it out of the room, he had already started glowing orange. He had gone Feral and wouldn't have been able to use a weapon anyway.

He jumped on one of the minotaurs in the doorway and was wildly bashing its face in with his armored fists, as he pinned it on the floor with his body. His agility was noticeably higher than when he'd fought the elite and the punches clearly had more strength behind them.

Considering that Feral zombies couldn't use weapons, the increased attributes seemed like an okay tradeoff.

Instead of killing the fallen minotaur, he got up and jumped on the next.

Just then, Daggers became visible. She was killing another minotaur with thrusts to its neck, piercing its armor. Then before the minotaur Bear had tackled could rise from the floor, Daggers jumped on it, killed it, then proceeded to run across the heads and shoulders of the hundreds of minotaurs in the direction of the mages.

And I was left there, with nothing better to do than throw my already amassed firebombs and fireballs at the minotaurs.

For some reason, throwing magic around wasn't as exciting as I had expected when I first started playing.

I mean, yes, creating a sphere of fire out of thin air was okay, and using it to explode my foes was interesting. Healing my allies was useful and throwing death itself in magic form at enemies wasn't bad. Being the greatest damage dealer of the group was good for my ego, and killing others before they could even get close to me had its appeal.

But still...

Who am I kidding?! This is awesome!

I grinned excitedly while my firebombs flew and exploded amongst the minotaurs. Their shields were a pain in the ass, but their armor was worthless in the face of my firebombs which dealt almost three hundred and seventy damage at its epicenter when I was holding the mage staff.

I rained fire over my enemies and I loved every second of it.

The Fallen Spider quickly lost two more legs and tried to get away from the minotaurs. The five mages it had killed had been brought back from the dead and then killed again by the minotaurs. They, and the spider who had raised them, simply couldn't resist the attacks from all sides.

Thing is, the big bad spider above everyone was too easy of a target; hundreds of minotaur crossbowmen and tens of mages attacked it, it's hard to imagine anything could have survived in such an environment. It was already impressive that it had resisted as long as it had; having a better body as a host really made the Spider Ring's creature stronger.

It was trying to flee, but Daggers apparently wasn't interested in hunting it through the castle. She was moving to intercept it, jumping on minotaurs heads as if they were a solid pathway.

Valia didn't allow you to tear off an enemy's armor — unless there was a skill for it that I hadn't heard of — but Bear couldn't care less: he had found a unique weakness in the lightsteel armor: the armpit. It horrified everyone as he broke minotaur's shoulders to get their arms out of the way and ate their armpits.

I kept throwing fireballs at whomever seemed like a good target.

Daggers reached the Fallen Spider, shadowed mid-air and crouched on its shoulders as she tore into its head. It was a slaughter, and the spider was soon dead.

Bear was still eating his enemies. He kept moving, crouching, and knocking the minotaurs down before attacking them, which made it impossible for the crossbowmen to even target him. Only those nearest could attack him, but his armor was damn good and he regenerated HP and stamina as he ate his fallen foes.

After killing the Spider, Daggers severed the hand wearing the ring and ran back my way. She was halfway through when she stumbled and fell in the middle of the enemies.

Fireballs for you, fireballs for you, fireballs for everyone!

When using skills or in feral mode, Bear was simply too strong. He just couldn't be killed by anything less than a well coordinated attack. The sea of hundreds of minotaurs around him was just food for his regeneration, it was the perfect battlefield for him.

Daggers jumped back up from where she had fallen and kept coming. She finally sprang through the doorway, threw the hand to me, and dropped to the floor. There, she turned to the minotaurs.

<Lieutenant Tank Turtle, Private Tank Eleven,> she said, <you are with General Thorn defending the lever room. Everyone else: attack at will.> She threw herself at the minotaurs.

The zombies cheered and about half of them went out. The other half had too little stamina or too little HP. Or were just too lazy.

Turtle and Eleven got to the doorway but just crossed their arms and leaned against the archway to support their bodies in a relaxed manner, with the minotaurs pressed back by our countercharge. It was the first time our defensive line had nothing to do. Bear was still an unkillable machine and Daggers was still a goddess of death.

For the next half hour, the Castle experienced a genocide. Hundreds of minotaurs were killed with no quarter given. Those who tried to surrender were killed or eaten. All the zombies had eventually gone feral, but with so many targets they didn't even get close to me.

The minotaurs eventually tried to flee, but Daggers commanded a few of the zombies to end their Feral state and guard the door.

It was beautiful.

In between shooting arrows, I took the ring off the finger of the severed hand and stored it away. It hadn't been as helpful as I'd hoped, but it had killed nearly a half dozen mages and made a pretty good distraction for a little while.

Finally, the last minotaur died and we all cheered loudly.

Almost immediately, exclamation points appeared on the edge of my vision.

First, I checked the one with the letter 'A' and an arrow upwards.

Intelligence increased to 30 (+1)

Choosing the right tactics, strategies, and surviving, are marks of a true genius.

» MP: 2420 (+150)

(Items disregarded)

Charisma increased to 19 (+1)

You earned the trust of your subordinates with sweet words and bold actions.

Next, I checked the one with the letter 'T.'

Adept Mage increased to 11 (+1)

» +11% effectiveness to spells

» +1% resistance to all magical elements, except divine

Commander increased to 2 (+1)

You have proven you can lead your people to victory.

» Swap time: 5 minutes

Healer increased to 2 (+1)

No one enjoys helping others more than you.

» +2% healing effectiveness

» Minimum extra healing: +2 HP

Meditator increased to 2 (+1)

Introspection allows you to better understand the mystical nature of meditation.

» +10% MP recovery rate while meditating

» Minimum: +2 MP per minute

Tactician increased to 2 (+1)

Creating grand strategies is wonderful, but only a true tactician can create a clever gambit in the middle of a battle to gift his troops with victory.

To all members of a party you are the leader of, except you:

» +1% increase damage

Level up!

Current level: 35

HP, MP and stamina restored

I was finally moving forward, and not regaining the levels I lost when I died. It felt great! After reading the prompts, I looked back at the battlefield.

Before me was a creepy scene: hundreds of corpses, all bloodied, broken, or partially eaten. Zombies were hunched over the bodies, eating their fill or removing body parts for later consumption. Daggers, with her cloak drawn about her, stood still in the middle of it all, like a reaper.

And it still wasn't enough to satiate my anger at the damn beasts.

<Rest a little, guys,> I said after taking a photo using the VirBridge built-in function. <Next, we're going to hunt down every single minotaur in this castle.>

They were slavers, and in my book, there was only one acceptable fate for them:

Death!

* * *

For the rest of the day we opened every room in the castle, from the second floor downwards, until we were back to the Magic Garden.

There was too much loot to be carried and we had to prioritize what we thought would be more valuable, leaving the other stuff in a pile on the ground floor.

We found no resistance coming from outside the castle. The building was completely sealed off, without a single window, and the now closed gate didn't react when Bear struck it anymore than the stone walls would have. As long as it stayed closed, we were as safe as we could be.

Just as our minotaur hunting party arrived at the Magic Garden, red text started blinking in the middle of my view.

Priority broadcast received on your phone network.

Say 'Receive' to see it.

My VirBridge was linked to my phone so the message itself wasn't strange at all. What I found strange was the content. I had only ever received 'priority broadcasts' when entering military zones.

"Receive," I said.

Priority Broadcast

From: NAC Armed Forces

To: All

This is a priority broadcast by the NAC Marine Corps.

You are entering a Protected Zone.

It is unlawful to enter this area without permission of the Zone Commander.

Use of deadly force authorized.

Good old Marines, always to the point.

I had to logout to see what that was about.

* * *

I took the VirBridge off my head and looked through the window.

There were no Humvees escorting my sedan anymore. The car was cruising down the road on the mansion grounds, we'd just passed the large entry gates. Pine trees stretched towards the sky on both sides of the road and a huge garden could be seen beyond them.

The road led to a large fountain with a Chinese dragon statue in the middle, the car moved around it to stop in front of the four story mansion — for the most part one floor was actually used.

According to grandfather, the McHolen family was broke. But he meant broke by his standards; we probably still had tens or hundreds of millions in assets, and this place was the most valuable residential asset we owned: what the family referred to as our "Ancestral Home". It might as well be called the Old People's Home.

The driver opened the door for me and I stepped out. A butler was there at the bottom of the short flight of steps, and to each side a pair of armed Marines stood guard.

"Long time no see, Jeeves," I said. It wasn't the butler's name, but I enjoyed the archaic reference too much to resist.

He was a forty-year-old half-bald grizzled man. He had almost been fired when he dyed his hair the first time. Grandfather believed a butler with white hair added to the stately feeling of the house or some other bullshit like that. Cadbury wore a traditional butler's tuxedo and his posture was better than the last woman to win Miss Commonwealth.

"Mister Jack Thorn," he nodded. "Senator Thorn requests your presence."

Senator, huh?

A layman would think it would be impossible for an unelected man to become a senator. In truth, it was incredibly simple: the elected senator only had to step down. One could then simply bribe the Governor who would be in charge of appointing temporary replacements, and just like that you were a senator, at least until the next elections. Of course, under Martial Law, who knew how long they might postpone even having elections.

"Lead the way," I said, instead of just walking in. I wasn't sure if grandfather would be in his office and it was only polite to allow the butler to do his job. Although I would be living in the mansion, I would be a guest, not a true resident.

He did as instructed. The entrance hall was designed to impress: paintings by famous artists in elegantly hand carved frames, an elaborate gilt bronze crystal chandelier, a few doubtlessly priceless vases rested in alcoves around the room and the floor was critically endangered rosewood in a striking herringbone pattern though the majority of it was covered by an enormous Persian rug.

A big mahogany staircase was at the back of the room, leading to the second floor. We turned right before it and entered a corridor instead.

Large windows with luxurious red curtains and a few small sculptures on pedestals could be seen throughout the corridor. We passed by three doors before coming to an open one. The old man was in his office after all.

"Thanks, Cadbury," I said.

"My pleasure," he replied and left.

I looked inside the office. Grandfather was in there, not sitting behind his antique desk — which he had told me many times had once belonged to a President of the former United States, though I'd never cared to remember which one — but on one of the sofas in the room instead, a cup of coffee upon the small table before him.

His room was a mix of impressive and practical. I knew he had never read all the books on the bookshelves — which occupied two entire walls — but I had seen him reference them when researching something a few times before. This room was luxuriously carpeted and I knew for a fact that he had a holo-projection system installed.

The NAC flag was displayed behind his desk, as most politicians did, was a clear statement for anyone who knew how to read it. 'I'm a patriot; this is the country I screw the least,' it said.

He used the sofas for meetings which required more subtly and sat behind the desk to appear more imposing when he wanted to give direct orders.

I sat on the sofa opposite his. We looked into each other's eyes.

"Harris will bring your coffee in a moment," he said.

"Thanks. So, Senator?" I replied.

"Former Senator White was kind enough to provide me with his position."

He smiled, as I considered the fact that the White family did nothing without my family's say-so.

"What about the Marines?" I asked.

"The Pentagon deemed that protection of our country's leaders during the pacification efforts was necessary."

"Yeah, I'm sure the Pentagon is loving babysitting your ass." I crossed my arms. "So, what do you want?"

"Why are you still playing the game?" He asked, looking pointedly at the VirBridge I was holding.

"Reasons" I said, and I saw an almost imperceptible frown of discontent flash across his face. "Is there any point to this conversation?"

"You will be staying in the house from now on. The Marines have been kind enough to accept my request to keep you safe."

That was his subtle way of saying I was a prisoner until I paid some unspecified price.

"Sure, whatever." I didn't have any desire to leave anyways; if it became necessary later, I would negotiate then.

Cadbury came with my cup of coffee. I thanked him and he stood to the side, awaiting orders.

"You will stay in your old room," grandfather said. "I expect you for breakfast, all days at six o'clock. Don't be late."

"Sure thing." I sipped the coffee. It had been a time since I had tasted something that good. "By the way, did you kill the detective I sent looking for the hooker?"

Grandfather didn't hide his displeasure this time. "Jenkins was discouraged from going further in that endeavor."

I expected that. It had been too long since I had called him without any response; the detective had clearly dropped the job. I had only kept paying him because I had a touch of hope left.

Of course, grandfather could just be fishing for a name. If that was the case, I could 'correct' him in an attempt to mislead him, but Jenkins had been useless to me anyway.

"Where is she?" I insisted.

"Somewhere you won't find her. Drop the matter," he said impassively.

I sighed. She had played me, it wasn't something I could let go before I repaid her treachery.

I drank some more coffee. "Anything else? My game won't play itself."

He didn't answer that, only waved me away. I got up, taking the coffee with me. Cadbury led the way yet again.

It didn't surprise me how uncomfortable that whole conversation had been; neither of us were ready for it. Grandfather claimed to be worried about me, but was it true? Or did he simply want to keep me close so I couldn't mess with his life again?

At least I had to give it to him: he hadn't killed me. Even if I was a prisoner, blood still meant something to the old bastard.

I savored the coffee as if it were a rare vintage wine; it had been a long time since I tasted such a good brew. "Commend the barista for me," I told Cadbury. "This was awesome."

"I will," he replied.

When we got to my room, I didn't waste any time staring at the luxury of the place. I just laid on the bed and put the VirBridge back on.

27. Too Easy

It hadn't been long since I left everyone waiting for me. We resumed our search, found no enemies in the Magic Garden and returned to the corridor into the castle. At the end of the corridor, instead of going up, I took everyone down. Well, everyone but the two zombies we'd left guarding the lever room, that is.

The way was barred by a thick metal door, but we were able to force it open and found ourselves in a huge armory with thousands of full suits lightsteel armor, shields, swords, crossbows, and bolts.

In front of the armory, we could see another stairway leading lower into the castle and we decided to take it. It led to a small door. Behind it we found, surprisingly, a mining operation.

There were veins of lightsteel ore everywhere.

We tested it and discovered that not only did the ore have a high lightsteel content, the mine also had the same attribute-raising properties as the maze outside the castle.

If Manhart really had an Army, I could see why he would want this castle:

It had a perfect training environment, lots of weaponry, and a wealth of mineral resources.

Even I wanted the place, and I couldn't possibly hold it for myself once word got out of how amazing it was. I didn't trust the zombies even for a second to keep this secret from everyone.

We called it a day, and I'm sure all of us got on the internet to check prices for raw lightsteel ore and lightsteel equipment on the internet. I know I did.

Like I expected, the uncommon lightsteel shields were the most valuable stuff, followed by the mage staffs, and there were enough shields and staffs to fill my backpack and ring.

We were supposed to be offline resting, but when I logged back in to organize my loot, I found almost everyone doing the same thing. Thankfully, there was so much stuff that we didn't need to fight for it.

Although the shields and staffs were the most valuable and I focused on them, I still took a little of everything; too much of the same object would drop its market value, as per the law of supply and demand.

I spent the rest of the day mining and raising my attributes. Before going to bed, I had earned an extra point to constitution.

The next day, we decided to mine until everyone had forty points to strength and constitution. Only Daggers said she wouldn't do that; she would have liked the extra strength but constitution could become a problem for her. Constitution increased the body's mass in the game, and her character was being built for agility. She chose to mine until she got twenty points in constitution and then stop.

It took us four days' total to reach our objective, and it was the best gift I could give the zombies. I also raised my dexterity and willpower attributes, and my Miner trait by one. The strategist trait also went up because it was a core trait, not because of the mining.

Every morning, I attended breakfast at the mansion at six o'clock as ordered. Not because I was keen on making grandfather happy, but because Cadbury would come to my room at five AM and wouldn't leave until I went to the dining hall. Grandfather missed all the breakfasts but I had expected that.

For some reason, I hadn't heard from Manhart even though he was supposed to have arrived in the region already. As much as I wanted him to die, he still had to get me through the specters' army so I could get to Ter'nodril.

When I tried contacting him though, I was met with silence. The only reason I knew he was alive was because the quest he gave me hadn't been cancelled, like Marbareus' quest had when he was killed.

There was nothing I could do about Manhart for now so I just put it out of my mind.

Training in the mine had brought me to level thirty-six. It had been a long time since I had checked my character sheet, so I did it.

Jack Thorn

Unbound Deathlord

Resistance's General

Legendary Spotter, Hedge Wizard, Pioneer, Warlord, Dark Archmage

Level 36

Hit Points: 4195 / 4195

Mana Points: 2735 / 2735

Stamina: 635 / 635

Attributes:

Strength: 40

Agility: 29

Dexterity: 34

Constitution: 40

Intelligence: 30 + 2 [Items]

Perception: 26 + 10 [Items]

Willpower: 30

Charisma: 19

Traits:

© Skilled Strategist: 31

© Adept Controller: 23

© Adept Energizer: 16

Adept Mage: 11 + 10 [Items]

Adept Faithful: 11

Commander: 2

Healer: 2

Meditator: 2

Miner: 2

Scout: 2

Tactician: 2

Antimage: 1

Athlete: 1

Crafter: 1

Diviner: 1

Gold Digger: 1

Herbalist: 1

Mind Seer: 1

Negotiator: 1

Nitpicker: 1

Ranger: 1

Scavenger: 1

Shadow: 1

Sharpshooter: 1

Warrior: 1

That was pretty good. The Faithful trait was useless but why would the game help me grow the way I wanted to? That would be crazy, right?!

All zombies now had the same HP and similar stamina to me, except for the three who profited from my Strategist trait: Bear, Turtle, and the promoted Private Tank Eleven, who was now Sergeant Tank Teal.

Except for Bear and Daggers, they were all wearing standard minotaur warrior equipment: lightsteel armor and shield, a lightsteel sword and a lightsteel crossbow and bolts. I had to admit that the horned helmet made them look good, even though it wasn't very practical.

We were as prepared as we could be; it was time to challenge the third floor of the castle.

* * *

Daggers had described the two giant minotaurs before but I still didn't expect them to be so impressive.

Two horned monsters, five-meters-tall each, wearing full plate armor was a sight to behold. The morbs floating above their heads were tiny small dots next to their huge bulk.

So far all we'd seen of the third floor was this room, full of life-size statues of armored minotaurs, the big golden doors, and the two armored giants.

Of the two giants, one had darksteel equipment and dark morbs floating above its head, while the other had lightsteel equipment and light morbs.

The twenty-four zombies with me were divided into two groups. We would first try to lure one of the giants out of position and fight it alone. Just in case it didn't work, Bear, Daggers, and I, would focus on one of the minotaurs with one group, while the other group would try to distract the other minotaur.

My job, as usual, was to nuke the hell out of the enemy.

Group A went to lure the Dark Giant. They hugged the wall, staying as far as they could from both giants but taking special care to stay further away from the Light Giant. There, they would shoot their crossbows.

The bolts bounced harmlessly on the minotaur's armor and it didn't even look our way. I laughed and sent a firebomb to explode in its face.

31 fire damage dealt to Dark Giant

Mister Dark Giant didn't even look our way, but one of the sixteen dark morbs floating above its head came streaking towards me, turning into a large black arrow. I let it come on, without attempting to defend against it.

The moment the arrow touched me it dissolved. I found myself inside a black bubble made of liquid darkness that ignored my armor, and tried to enter my body through my ears, nose, and mouth.

No damage received from darkness element (Immunity)

Just as it was forcing its way in, the liquid simply disappeared; I was completely immune to its damaging effects, but not immune to having my vision restricted inside the bubble. Five seconds later, the liquid fell on the ground and dissipated.

Thank goodness I had chosen to attack the Dark Giant first. I waited for its follow up attack but it never came. That was weird behavior; any NPC should have kept attacking us, but the giant acted as if it didn't care we were there, and had only retaliated to show us we shouldn't mess with it.

What if we weren't supposed to attack the giants?

<Everyone, stay back,> I said. <I'll try something.>

As much as I wanted Daggers to be the one to try to speak with them, since she could dodge attacks, I was the one in the group with the most charisma. I removed my Circlet, put a helmet on, and approached.

The giants ignored me completely, not even moving their heads.

"Hello?" I said when I was ten meters away. No response.

Gulping, I walked two more paces ahead. "Mighty minotaurs?" I tried again and was met with silence again.

I took a deep breath, and kept approaching while trying to talk to them.

They never acknowledged my presence and soon I found myself in front of the golden door in between them. It took a lot of courage, but I touched it.

And, finally, the two minotaurs spoke.

"You, who wishes to raid and conquer the Castle of Edward, beware!" One of them spoke with a voice so powerful that it shook my entire body.

"At most, twenty-five of you will be allowed to enter each time!" The other said with an equally powerful voice. "No one else may enter until those inside die or leave of their own accord!"

"Trespassers will be met with death!" The first one concluded.

The silence that followed their voices was ominous.

Well, that was easy.

<You heard them, lads,> I said. <Let's go.>

We had twenty-seven people in the room and it wasn't hard to decide on the two that would wait outside. All the Lieutenants and Sergeants would come, and the zombies who had always been tanks — though all of them were kind of tanks now that we had looted the armor — had priority.

After that, the Sergeants decided which Privates to bring and it was done.

We briefly discussed trying to sneak over twenty-five people through the golden door, but the magic arrow that had been shot at me discouraged them from trying it.

"Ugly-face, we gotta talk," Bear said when we were about to go in.

"Now?!" I asked.

"Yes, now." He was serious. "It's legal stuff."

I frowned. "Legal stuff?" That didn't sound nice.

"Yeah." He sighed. "You see, we have been streaming our adventures."

"We? Who is 'we'?"

"All of us. Except Daggers, I guess."

"I do not stream," she confirmed.

"So?" I asked.

"So," Bear said, "it went well. Man, the views for the defense and counter-attack against the minotaurs killed it!" He was half serious, half excited. He sounded fearful of what I might say and the zombies looked nervous.

It didn't surprise me that they were all in this together. Nowadays it was common for many streamers to band together, splitting their earnings amongst the group. Some did it equally between all of them, others paid more to whoever got more viewers. Twenty-seven people streaming together was usual. It was all about having multiple points of view to give the viewer a better experience.

They probably even had a main channel with a few people outside of the game highlighting the best perspectives. There was a lot of money in streaming. Even though I wasn't interested in it, I had read some articles on the subject.

"Cool," I paused, waiting for him to continue. "So?" I repeated my question.

"The thing is, besides the usual money, we got a good sponsorship offer. But they want you and Daggers with us. And they want us to decide before this raid."

"Oh." I didn't care about it either way, but I also didn't have anything against helping them. "Sure. What about you, Daggers?"

"Whatever you say, sir."

And with that, I realized we had become friends. Sure, she had helped me with the Air Force guys, but anyone would help someone in a life and death situation when all they needed to do was make a phone call.

However, in abiding by my choice on this she was de facto agreeing to something like a friendly partnership. I should probably call her later.

"Okay, we're in," I told Bear. "What do you need from us?"

He frowned. "Won't you ask what your shares are?"

"You can keep my share," I said. "Unless it gets to about a hundred thousand bucks monthly, just divide between yourselves. But Daggers' share can't be lower than mine, and I must receive at least five percent more than you."

I didn't need the money, but it didn't mean I would just throw it away if it was a good amount. My poor family was practically bankrupt, after all.

Bear kept quiet for a long time, probably talking to the zombies and whoever else was involved outside the game.

"My share is five percent of the gross income. We can't give each of you ten percent, but we can give seven."

"Okay," I accepted. Whoever was negotiating for them was clearly an amateur; I wanted to receive five percent more than him, not have a five percent larger share of the total amount. I could push for more but that would be too unfair to them. "What do we do?"

"Give me your email, I'll send you the documents to sign." He said.

I had to logout, read some papers — I wouldn't just sign anything they gave me —, and change a few clauses that were too vague. The few years of law school I had attended came in handy. Only after I was satisfied with the results did I send Daggers a copy of the document.

We signed it and connected our VirBridges to their system so they would receive all the audio and video of whatever we experienced in Valia.

Just like that, we were part of Armless Entertainment.

The name of the company suggested that it was new, as it hadn't been too long since we had named ourselves the Armless Battalion. Part of me was itching to exploit them but I just told that part to shut up.

When we got back into the game, we still had to wait for the sponsor — some company that ran a store for selling games, Vapor or something like that — to sign the contract before going in.

Everything moved very fast. Armless Entertainment really wanted us and the website really wanted to sponsor Daggers and I. I wondered how famous our adventures were.

A few hours later, the twenty-five of us finally moved to the door and pushed. Although it was huge and looked heavy, it felt weightless. I almost fell from putting too much strength into it.

Way to start streaming.

The boss was right on the other of side of the door.

* * *

The room we entered was nearly identical to the room we'd just left, full of stone statues of minotaurs. The difference was at the very end, a darksteel throne contrasted with the lightsteel construction of the room.

It wasn't a small throne. Although the seat itself was correctly sized for the boss, the back of the throne extended all the way to the fifteen-meter tall ceiling. It was covered in etchings of mythical great beasts, like dragons, phoenixes, and others I didn't recognize.

The elites we had fought were three meters tall. Mister Boss, who was sitting upon the throne, was half again as big as an Elite. Not quite as big as the two outside, but not too far from it.

It wore impressive blue armor covered in spikes and golden details. The helmet didn't have the horned shape; instead, it had an opening for the boss' horns to come out.

They were curved backwards and for a moment I mused that it was going to be very hard to take the helmet off when it was time to loot.

A huge golden halberd was resting to the side of the boss, leaning against the throne.

The boss' helmet was open as we entered. That was an ugly minotaur if I'd ever seen one.

<Look, Ugly-face!> Bear said. <We found your twin!>

Even I had to smile at that.

"At last," the minotaur said in a deep sonorous bass. I guess it would've been too cruel for the developers to give it such an ugly face and a shitty voice. "It has been ages since the previous challengers. Edward promised me many more fights when I agreed to conquer and defend his castle."

"Hello," I said. "Just wondering, would you accept money for the castle?"

The boss sniffed. "Puny deathlord, you dare to speak in my presence?" It sounded more bored than upset. "I would kill you where you stand if I didn't have an agreement with my god. Guards," it lazily called.

With a big boom, all fifty minotaur statues shattered. Except, they weren't destroyed; only the outer layer cracked and fell away from them, revealing minotaurs clad only in loincloths.

Without any armor, I was confident this would be no problem. At least until a grey light rippled out from within their bodies and they grew just a little bit taller. I thought I was imagining it at first, but when the second pulse of light came, I realized I wasn't.

Unless I was mistaken, I had just found out how elite minotaurs were made.

<Shit,> I shrewdly said. <Kill them as fast as you can! Focus on one at a time!>

The zombies started hacking and slashing the minotaurs with their brand-new swords. They died rather easily at first, taking a little over a thousand damage before passing away. However, the bigger they got, the harder they became to kill.

Thankfully, with no armor they took full damage no matter where we hit them. I began to attack with sword and magic at the same time to maximize damage.

The pulses of light weren't coming that fast so if things kept up this way, we could kill them all. Of course, I didn't believe for a second that the pulses would keep coming at a constant rate.

Five dead.

Seven.

Nine.

Ten.

When the tenth minotaur died, they were still relatively small. That's when the pulses of light increased in frequency.

Twelve, thirteen, seventeen, twenty.

The pace increased once again.

As we killed the thirtieth, they were fully grown.

It wasn't the end of the pulsating lights, they merely became golden as a piece of armor appeared on the top of all minotaurs' heads.

<Keep going!> I said. It was obnoxious, that the small piece of armor on their scalps was enough to be considered a helmet and prevent the minotaurs from receiving critical damage from strikes to the head.

That didn't hold true for Daggers though.

<Daggers, how the hell can you do critical damage to people wearing helmets?> I asked.

<It's a title I received, sir: Headhunter.>

<What?> Bear said. <When? How?>

<I got it in the underground maze, when I fought the rock elementals,> she explained. <I was the first Traveler to kill ten thousand enemies with attacks to the head using close-range weapons.>

<Ten thousand?!> I said. <Holy crap, I don't think I've even attacked ten thousand enemies, much less killed them with attacks to their heads.>

<It is good to have pride in yourself, sir, but not in your laziness.>

I decided not to answer that.

The minotaurs armor was growing downwards with each pulse of golden light while we kept killing them.

Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three.

Without the critical damage for us, things were much slower. When the thirty-fifth minotaur died, armor already covered their entire upper bodies.

In the end, we managed to kill thirty-nine before the armor was complete.

<Retreat!> Daggers ordered before I did. <Everyone to the right corner!>

We ran there. Meanwhile, a panel opened in the lightsteel wall, revealing eleven lightsteel halberds. And eleven massive crossbows; I figured the game would try to screw us over, seems I'd been right. The 'newborn' elites ran to take the weapons

I stood right at the corner and the zombies positioned themselves in a few loose lines of defense around me. Only a few elites could enter melee range, but all of them had crossbows now.

Unfortunately, the elites weren't kind enough to come at us. They separated from each other and pointed the crossbows our direction. Each one of the weapons shone white for a few seconds. Next, the light condensed and focused on a line atop the crossbow, until it became a bolt of light.

Then, they shot.

The projectiles launched across the space much faster than common bolts, which was bad enough, but then each of the bolts split into two mid-air. Over half the zombies were hit before they could put their shields up.

I was expecting more bullshit from these minotaurs and managed to block a bolt that came at me.

Bear took one like it was nothing, receiving fifty damage from it.

Daggers dodged as if it was child's play.

None of us who managed to defend with our shields took any damage, but the zombies who were too slow took from eighty to a hundred points of damage.

From a single bolt.

Those elites weren't playing around.

The minotaurs didn't even have to reload; they kept the weapons pointed at us as the crossbows automatically created new bolts.

Daggers wasn't happy about the number of zombies that got hit. <Raise your shields, you bunch of shit-eaters! And stay ready! Sir, what the hell are you waiting for?>

She was right; I had been just looking at the game without reacting. Holding my magic staff, I started to amass a fire morb.

It was still in the amassing stage, a growing round flame, when the bolts shot again. None came at me but one of them did target my forming morb, only to be deflected by Daggers, who shadowed and hit the bolt with her blade.

This time, only a few zombies were hit by the bolts, and Daggers once again insulted their appearance, intellect and maybe even their lineage.

My first fire morb formed and I sent a firebomb at one of the elites. It tried to defend by swinging its crossbow, but I maneuvered the spell to evade the strike and the spell blew up in its face anyway.

259 fire + 79 burn damage dealt to Middle Elite Minotaur (338 total)

HP: 4676 / 5012 <?>

Their armor was definitely better than the elites we'd fought before, but it was still manageable.

The minotaur I hit let out an angry roar and they all began to get into a tighter formation. I had a bad feeling about this.

I started amassing a second morb and they shoot again. It seemed that between creating a light bolt and shooting, each attack from them took the same two seconds as I took to create a firebomb morb.

The bolts came, my firebomb went.

I pretended to target the same elite, but changed targets when the spell was almost within range. It was to no avail. My new target tried to destroy the spell and I tried to avoid the attack as before. However, the two on either side of it also swung their crossbows to attack my spell, and even two bolts flew at it. Try as I might, my spell was still destroyed mid-air.

Shit.

I was beginning to have a history of stalemate fights with the elite minotaurs, it was frustrating. I could try targeting the elites on the sides, but even so I didn't think I would be able to reliably get my spells to their target.

The crossbowmen began charging for another volley.

"This is boring," said the Boss. "Edward thought cowards might come. Meet the Cowards' Hourglass."

The second it finished speaking, an opening appeared in the ceiling and a huge hourglass dropped from it beside the throne.

The Boss nodded to the hourglass. "As much as I wish to fight you all by myself, the agreement is that I must wait until the hourglass empties." It sounded even more bored now. "You'll die either way, but try to kill them before it's time for me to join so I can get a little more fun out of it."

Bolts rattled off our shields again.

We could either attack or wait. But waiting would be bad for morale and I didn't want to fight the boss while eleven elites were shooting us. <You know what?> I yelled. <He is right! This is boring! Let's go kill ourselves some minotaurs!>

<Yeah!> Bear roared. <And dibs on one of the crossbows!>

<Dibs too,> I said quickly.

The other zombies hurried to shout 'dibs' and soon all of them were spoken for. Whether the claims of those who had spoken first would be respected or it would devolve into a bloody melee was a problem for later.

<Get into Defensive Formation!> Daggers ordered.

We obeyed. The zombies formed into a double circle around me and we started moving towards the minotaurs at a steady pace. Since the minotaurs could deflect my spells, I kept amassing morbs but not using them.

The elites didn't wait. Five of them came at us, dropping the crossbows on the floor and holding their halberds with both hands. The other six moved around, still pointing the crossbows at us.

A few moments later, the first elite slashed at a zombie. He raised his shield in time and took no damage.

<Stay alert for the glow in their halberds,> I said. <If it glows white, fast attacks are coming, too fast to dodge completely. Just help each other block, then. If it glows green, it's a single stronger attack, so dodge it.>

They had already fought the elites, but it didn't hurt to remind them. If Bear and Daggers had told me about the elites' abilities beforehand, I might not have had my ass kicked so badly when I fought one of them in melee.

The other elites attacked, the zombies defended. Bolts flew and some zombies were hit.

I waited until I had ten morbs, and then I fired them all off as fast as possible at one of the nearby elites. It had no chance; its face was savaged by continuous fiery explosions and it found itself with less than two thousand remaining HP.

I blocked a bolt aimed at me and Daggers protected my morbs again.

There were no more surprises after that. We remained in a defensive circle to defend against the elites. I amassed fire morbs and attacked the enemy. Daggers protected my fire morbs no matter what the crossbowmen did; even when they surrounded us, she seemed to have a sixth sense for the incoming projectiles.

The halberds glowed white or green from time to time, but the zombies acted accordingly and barely took any damage.

Shit was way too easy. I was expecting something horrible to happen but after the third elite fell and we still had way too much time according to the hourglass, I realized what was different from the chaotic fight when we defended the lever room: we had come prepared.

This time, all zombies had good armor and shields, forty points of constitution, and had been forged into a unit in the fires of battle. I wasn't fighting with noob zombies, anymore; now, they were twenty-two hardened veterans with equipment comparable to mine.

Damn, Daggers and I turned them into men. Should I make them call me daddy?

Fifteen minutes later, the last elite died. From my estimates, there were still five minutes in the hourglass.

The boss didn't bat an eye. Instead, it yawned and waved its hand. "Rest. I'll go when the hourglass is-" It yawned again. "When the sand runs out."

I had killed plenty of boastful enemies in Valia; I couldn't wait to do the same to this asshole.

<You heard him, guys,> I said. <To the middle of the room, keep the Defensive Formation, and rest. Stay alert; I don't trust that minotaur.> As much as it was boastful, it had just seen us kill eleven elites while taking barely any damage, but was still confident in its strength.

I sat and meditated. This last fight had counted as a large scale battle, so stamina and mana usage were reduced by eighty percent and I still had used half my MP. Unfortunately, a fight against a single enemy meant mana and stamina usage would be normal, even if it was a raid Boss.

The meditation helped me relax and focus. Finally, Daggers broke me out of my reverie.

<Sir, it is time.>

I opened my eyes and looked at the Hourglass in time to see the last grains of sand falling.

The Boss yawned a final time, closed its helmet, stood up and stretched. Then, it lifted the golden halberd by its side.

And disappeared into thin air.

Almost instantly, it appeared right in front of me, the halberd already swinging towards my face.

28. Too Hard

There was no time for me to do anything, the halberd's blade was half a meter from my face before my mind even registered what was happening.

Thank goodness I had Daggers.

She swept my legs out from under me with a kick to the back of the knees, while she shoved my upper body backward. As I fell down and away from the blow, I saw in slow motion as the blade missed my nose by mere centimeters.

Daggers wasn't done. She rushed in and attempted to bury her blades in the monster, but for the first time ever, they met a metal they couldn't pierce and simply bounced off.

I hit the ground and sent a firebomb at the minotaur's face. It exploded but the damage message made me very nervous about the fight.

75 damage dealt to Minotaur Boss

The Boss ignored the fire, raised its leg, and tried to stomp me, but I rolled to the side. When it stomped the floor, a powerful shock wave struck me and sent me flying. All the zombies felt the pressure and were forced to take a step back except for Bear.

Daggers was only pushed back slightly as she jumped, twirled mid-air, and dropped lightly back to the ground after the shock wave had already passed through.

She shadowed, trying to use the spikes on the Boss' armor to climb over it. It tried to dislodge her by whirling so fast that I could feel the gust of air his frantic motion generated as I got up from my position.

Surprisingly, Daggers held firm and managed to clamber to its shoulders. She wrapped her legs around its throat and began to mangle the minotaur's face with precise stabs through the eye slits of its helmet.

[Daggers] Critical attack for 2.0x damage!

[Daggers] 500 (100 x 5) piercing damage dealt to Minotaur Boss

"Blackguard!" The beast yelled in rage as white light flared around its body before expanding outwards into a ten meter bubble. Daggers was blasted back and as she flew the Boss oriented on her, its halberd glowing green.

[Daggers] 936 slash damage received

HP: 784 / 1720

She yelled in pain as she was swatted against the wall.

What the hell?! Almost one thousand damage in a single attack? One more hit like that and she would die!

I had been pushed back by the Boss but now it looked at me and started running my way.

Bear started running too. The Boss noticed it and swung the halberd at the zombie, who was forced to stop and dodge. I prepared myself to defend with my shield but didn't expect the halberd to glow white.

I blocked the first hit but took thirty-two points of damage anyway. What's worse, the attack was powerful enough to knock me completely off balance.

It was all I could do to protect my head with the shield from the next four lightning fast attacks.

1768 (432 x 4) slash damage received

HP: 2427 / 4195

It felt like I'd been hit by four cars in rapid succession. I couldn't dodge the Boss' stomp and took fifty points of damage when its huge hoof pinned me down. More pain flowed through my body.

<What are you waiting for? Protect the mage!> Daggers snapped.

She was right, of course. The Boss was terrifying and I was our only hope; although I couldn't do much damage to it, unless we had my healing magic, shit would go south even faster than it already was.

The Boss raised its halberd high, preparing for a vertical attack. I counter-attacked.

As fast as I could, I tossed firebombs, not at its head, but at the hand that was holding the halberd. I didn't even want to make it drop the weapon, I just hoped to buy time with the explosions so it wouldn't have a chance to strike me.

One explosion. Two. Three. Nine. They dealt less than thirty damage each, but it was enough to destabilize the Boss' grip on the halberd as a few zombies rushed to my side.

They pushed and bashed at the Boss' knee in an attempt to free me from beneath its foot, but it didn't work. Both Turtle and Teal started to climb its armor, forcing it to once again to use its spin technique to fling them off.

All the zombies were pushed back by the strong wind generated by the swing. Worse still, it spun itself with its full weight supported by the foot on my chest. Now I knew what grain under a millstone felt like, it was incredibly painful and my armor cracked under the extreme force.

Daggers had just been waiting for it to use this skill. The moment it stopped spinning, she appeared from invisibility behind the Boss and started to climb the armor once more. Knowing that another hit like the one she'd suffered would finish her off I wanted to stop her, but I was physically incapable of doing so and I didn't even waste the effort trying to order her not to. I'd agreed to let her do her job as she saw fit, and we both knew this was what had to be done.

She climbed back into position and continued gouging the monster's face through the vision slits in its helmet.

<Get it off of Thorn! Now!> She yelled in pure rage.

Finally, Bear appeared. He had taken initiative to get some distance from the fight and now ran all the way from the other side of the room. He came from behind the Boss and didn't focus on the leg pinning me down but on the other one instead, slamming into it like an iron clad bowling ball.

The Boss hadn't been expecting that and lost his balance. When it stumbled back a step, I rolled away, got up, and ran to a group of zombies who created a shield wall around me.

Daggers was still using her blades when the Boss punched her hard though it did only ten points of damage. She didn't even try to dodge and instead continued to cling to the Boss with her legs.

Bear was struggling to take the golden halberd away from the Boss, but when he started to get the upper hand, the Boss used his air bubble again knocking both him and Daggers away.

The halberd glowed green for the second time as it swung at Daggers.

"No!" I couldn't stop myself from yelling. I had been amassing a lifeball to heal her, but if she took that hit, it would all be over for her.

The halberd was approaching; Daggers was mid-air and apparently defenseless... But then she somehow twisted her body and crossed her daggers in a guard, intercepting the blow.

[Daggers] Parry successful!

[Daggers] 10,000 damage applied to parrying weapons

Her blades disintegrated while she was thrown back at such high speed that when she hit the wall feet first, she still took some damage.

In the blink of an eye, she'd reached into her cloak and withdrawn new weapons.

"Holy shit, that was awesome," one of the zombies near me said and I could only agree with him.

I sent my lifeball at Daggers to heal her for forty-eight HP.

<Stop wasting mana and time on me, sir!> She complained. <We need to kill the Boss!>

<In case you didn't realize, you're the true damage dealer against it,> I said.

<It does not matter!> She snapped. <My stamina will run out eventually.>

<So will my mana,> I said.

<Should we run, sir?>

<No,> I said firmly. <We need to find the right rhythm for this fight or this run will have been wasted.>

All bosses in games had a pattern that when identified, allowed one to have an easier time of defeating them. The fight was usually divided into stages according to their HP, and it almost always took a few failed runs to find the best way to beat them.

But I would be damned if I would escape before even finding out what this Boss' third phase was.

First phase was the elites. Second phase was it coming to fight. Third phase would come when its HP reached a certain threshold.

Bear was charging the Boss with his greatsword as I resumed amassing fire morbs. Daggers and a few other zombies ran at the Boss from different angles.

They were almost there when the Boss stomped the ground. <Jump!> Daggers said and about half of them did so in time, avoiding the shockwave.

When the ones who jumped touched the ground, the Boss spun again. This time his halberd was extended.

<Down!> Daggers said and only she and Bear reacted in time to dodge the first pass of the halberd.

<Jump!> She said less than a second later as the halberd swung lower. Bear was too slow, he was struck and pushed back.

The halberd came back up on the next revolution targeting Daggers. She would've been hit but she shadowed mid-air, which somehow allowed her to leap again off of thin air just as if she'd been standing solidly on the ground. With the boost from the double jump she sailed towards the Boss' head.

Before she reached it, the Boss stopped spinning and the air bubble threw her back again.

That damn skill! The cooldown was too short, and the same with his spin and his stomp. It was almost impossible to stay engaged in melee. The only reason Daggers had managed to get closer before...

<That's it!> I said as I threw a firebomb at the Boss' face. <Half of you stay with me, the other half start charging it individually! Daggers, stay out of range and get ready to attack after the Boss uses his air bubble skill.>

When everyone went together, it was easy to get rid of us all at once. The correct tactic was staggering the melee attacks. As obvious as it might sound, it wasn't an easy analysis to make in the middle of such a punishing battle.

They did as instructed. Turtle was the first to get in range and defended against a halberd attack. Another zombie tried to get to the back of the Boss but the halberd glowed white.

One attack pushed the zombie back, and the second pushed Turtle back. There were no targets for the next three fast attacks of the halberd and the white glow died after only one second.

Teal entered melee range, and it was his turn to block a halberd attack while Bear started to climb the Boss' back. It spun around and Bear was tossed off.

Another zombie whose name I didn't know approached to take Bear's place. The halberd glowed green and Teal, who was still close, blocked the attack. His shield broke in half and he was sent flying.

The unnamed zombie reached the Boss' neck and the air bubble pushed him away before he could land a single hit.

My firebomb exploded in the Boss' face, blinding it for a moment. When the fire dissipated, it only saw the new zombie in front of it.

By then Daggers was already climbing its armor.

"Damn pests!" It yelled and released its frustration on the zombie in front of it, who defended the simple strike with ease.

My Blackguard took her rightful place on the Boss' nape and started attacking again.

A few seconds later, it used the air bubble. I followed with some firebombs and we restarted our dance. Teal took a shield from another zombie since he had more HP thanks to my Strategist trait and got back to the fight.

The next time Daggers moved in to attack, the Boss teleported again.

The Boss didn't try to attack me, instead, it teleported right behind Daggers and swung his green-glowing halberd.

She leapt, tucking into a backflip. The halberd passed under her at the apex of her jump, from there she shadowed and sprung back into position to attack the Boss' face again.

The minotaur's scream of rage was understandable. After it forced Daggers back, the cycle simply started again. After a few more rounds like that, the Boss had taken five thousand damage. That's when it teleported away and reappeared in front of the throne.

"Feel my ire!" It yelled as it raised the halberd to above its head and slashed the ground hard with it.

A powerful shockwave hit us all, even those who tried to jump, and we all fell on the floor. The Boss began to glow white, and It didn't look like it would stop.

At the same time, on the right and the left sides of the room, the floor started falling, revealing only a dark void underneath it. One large square at a time fell into that darkness, rapidly narrowing the floor we stood upon.

<Run to the middle!> I said and we all did.

It continued collapsing until only a bridge from the golden doors to the throne, just wide enough for ten people shoulder to shoulder remained.

"Die!" The Boss ran at us.

It was moving fast, much faster than before.

We weren't prepared for that kind of fight. It was like a grim reaper had come to harvest our lives. It got to the nearest zombie in no time and the halberd glowed green. Even though the poor bastard tried to block with his shield, the sheer power of the attack threw him off of the bridge and into oblivion.

<Get out of the room! Leave! Now!> I yelled.

Thankfully, that first casualty was the only one. By sheer luck, we were all relatively close to the door and managed to leave the Boss room before it killed more of us. Turtle was the first and he only had to touch the doors for them to open completely.

"Holy crap!" Bear yelled as soon as he was out. "That was amazing! I want more!"

He was the only one excited though. The other zombies were looking tired and the loss weighed on them clearly enough to be visible I'm their posture.

I sat on the ground. "That was tough. First and second phases were easy enough, but third phase will take some thinking to find a solution."

No one said anything, and the silence was a blessing in itself.

I thought about everything that had happened. After about half an hour, I had three ideas:

First, get to the throne and prevent the Boss from hitting the floor somehow. Sadly, I realized it was unlikely that we could stop the Boss from simply appearing wherever it wished, and I wasn't even sure it needed to strike the floor near the throne to start the collapse. We could end up stranded near the throne, with the rampaging Boss between us and the doors. It would be a massacre.

Second, find a way to take the halberd away from the Boss. If it was like the elite which Bear had disarmed before, it would barely be able to do any damage with its fists. Unfortunately the Boss could teleport. It would be too easy for it to appear suddenly, grab the stolen weapon, and use its air bubble to blast whoever was holding it away.

Both ideas seemed okay at first, but the Boss' disengaging methods made them useless.

Unless I use the spider ring.

I completely ignored the alien thought in my head. Couldn't the ring just give up already? I wasn't stupid enough to put it on.

For a while I reviewed the recorded fight from the viewpoints of various zombies, until the solution finally hit me!

"Get another guy to replace the dead one," I ordered as I got up, replaced my cracked armor, and healed myself. "We get back in there in one hour."

"Are you shitting me?" One of the zombies asked. "There's no way we can fight that minotaur on the bridge."

"Blah, blah," was my erudite answer. "We're going with or without you, and when we emerge victorious, you won't get a cut of the loot."

"You only say that because you'll die if you don't conquer the castle," he replied. "We-"

"Dude," I interrupted him. "Whatever! I'm going. Whoever wants to come, feel free. Whoever wants to cry like a baby, just go away. I'm telling you I have a way to win this time. Believe me or be a coward, it's your choice."

I didn't need twenty-five people to win this Boss fight. The only reason I had said to bring another guy was because I was being nice.

The zombie wasn't happy, but he shut up. He knew that even if the survival rate near me wasn't that great — only half of the zombies were currently alive —, those who did survive got the good stuff.

One hour later, we were twenty-five strong again and ready to go.

<Alright people, listen well. This is what we're going to do...>

* * *

We returned to the Boss room. It was back to the initial state: fifty minotaur statues and the Boss sitting on the throne.

"Oh, it's just you again," it said with his cool voice. "I was just..."

Everyone ran, with each of us taking a position behind a pair of statues.

"...thinking about you." The Boss completed his sentence and rolled its eyes. "You're anxious to die, I see. So be it. Guards!"

The fact that it had called the guards the same way as before increased my faith in my method.

The outer shell of the statues crumbled and we instantly began to work.

Everyone had two swords, one in each hand. We focused on doing critical damage by hitting the head and neck of the unarmored minotaurs.

Things went much faster than before. We killed twenty-five of them rather quickly and changed targets.

It was as easy as stealing from a child. Before they were even fully grown, almost forty had already died.

Soon, only one was left.

Then, we ran to the corner to wait for its armor to grow.

"What are you doing?" The Boss asked. "Just kill it already."

We ignored it and remained in the corner. The golden armor finished forming around the elite and the wall opened to reveal the halberd and the crossbow.

The elite ran to the weapons, took up position on the opposite side of the room and started shooting with the crossbow. We waited.

"Cowards," the Boss said and the Hourglass appeared.

That's when my firebombs flew. It took only two to kill the elite which we had already weakened before waiting for its armor to grow in.

And now, we had half an hour of rest before the sand from the hourglass ran out.

A yawn came from the Boss and infected me. Other than Daggers, we all swapped our second weapon for a shield and I put the Circlet away to wear a helmet instead, going back to waiting mode.

<Now!> Daggers said.

There was one minute left in the hourglass when Daggers ordered us to move. We all got up from where we had been sitting and ran straight at the Boss.

That made the Boss sit upright. "Good! You want to die sooner this time!"

He picked up his halberd when we were halfway across the room. It teleported but this time targeted Daggers, not me. She didn't even have to dodge though; two zombies put their shields in front of her. We were moving together in anticipation of this attack.

And in preparation for what we did next.

Some zombies hit the back of the Boss knees, some pulled it back, and some pushed. Daggers shadowed to quickly get under its neck as it fell back.

He used his air bubble skill but it was already too late; Daggers and five of the zombies were already in position.

There was something I had realized about the air bubble push in the fight before: if someone was between the Boss and the floor, they couldn't be pushed back. The six of them yelled in pain as the pressure tried to squash them against the floor, but the damage was less than a hundred.

The Boss was falling backwards and couldn't teleport because it had just done that. It used his spin skill mid-air to not fall with its back to the ground but Daggers and two of the zombies managed to keep their hold on the Boss anyway.

Not all of the zombies had attacked when the Boss appeared; we were too many for that. Some had instead backed out of range of its skills. As soon as the Boss spun, they ran to it, grabbed its legs and arms, and focused on getting both under and above it.

There was nothing the minotaur could do but to scream in rage as Daggers began to hack into its face with her blades, and the zombies kept it pinned to the ground.

Twelve zombies were there holding the Boss while seven were just out of the air bubble range to jump on the minotaur after it used its skills.

Most importantly, I focused all my amassed firebombs on its hand, weakening its grip until the remaining zombies were able to take the halberd from it.

In less than a minute after the fight started, we had the Boss pinned down and weaponless.

I took the halberd and put it away in my ring.

From there on, the fight was very straightforward. The Boss kept trying to get free but couldn't find a way. Meanwhile, Daggers stabbed its face.

The five thousand damage threshold came before the Boss could even teleport away from the attacks. We had determined by watching the recordings from the fight that the cooldown of the teleport was about one minute but when the Boss lost five thousand HP, it ignored the cooldown.

The minotaur disappeared from where it had been and appeared in front of the throne.

There, instead of smashing the ground with its halberd, it stomped down hard to start the collapse.

Or it would have if not for the gift left by the few zombies that hadn't been involved in holding the Boss down. All around the throne were piles of mattresses we had taken from the minotaurs bedrooms and brought here, and atop them all, lots of shields.

Although its stomp was a special action and did destroy some of the shields and mattresses, we had simply brought too many.

All of us were already running towards the Boss. It tried to stomp again but still didn't touch the floor.

It was close though; his next try would do it.

On the third stomp, Daggers shadowed and appeared right under its foot. She took exactly one thousand points of damage for interrupting the Boss' special action but it was worth it.

The zombies got to the Boss and overran it again. It fell screaming in shame and anger but it was too late. Daggers eventually got back to her position by its head and the slaughter continued.

As I expected, without causing the floor to fall first, the Boss wasn't able to activate his empowered state.

Stomping the floor to make it fall was a nice touch that added to the 'realism' of the game, but it was also stupid. When V-Soft created that requirement for the Boss to start its third phase, it created an opening to be abused.

All I had to do was take away the halberd and distract the Boss enough that even if it did notice the mattresses, it couldn't move them away in time.

Daggers kept hitting the minotaur and after another four thousand points of damage, the fourth phase finally started.

With another scream of rage, the boss teleported away, only to appear floating tall in the center of the room with two bats wings on its back.

<Drop swords, equip crossbows! Keep shields ready!> I yelled, guessing that ranged attacks would follow.

And indeed, morbs began to amass above the Boss' head. I destroyed the first one with a firebomb before it could completely form.

<Focus on the morbs!> I told the zombies. <Move to the center of the room!>

The Boss let yet another furious roar, an opening appeared in the ceiling, and a lightsteel crossbow dropped through it into the winged minotaur's hands. The Boss pointed it at us and soon a magic bolt was incoming. The bolt split into ten and slammed into the zombie's shields.

They received no damage. However, they were thrown almost twenty meters back.

When I thought about what that meant, it was scary as hell.

Thing is, the Boss was supposed to enter this phase with only a thin strip of floor remaining in the room. In a normal fight against this boss, people would have died already, everyone would've been exhausted, and this simple knockback bolt attack would be one of the most fatal moves possible.

We keep shooting at its amassing morbs. I eventually healed Daggers just in case, and then started using my firebombs aggressively, with Daggers staying nearby to protect my own morbs against the minotaur's bolts.

The Boss tried to fly around to make things difficult for us but we were simply too many.

Each firebomb I used dealt about seventy-five damage to the minotaur. It kept shooting the knockback bolts and failing to create morbs.

After a thousand more damage, it glowed purple. Its halberd materialized from inside my ring and flew into its hand. Likewise, we were being pulled closer to the center of the room, as it used some kind of gravity ability.

<Keep shooting!> I ordered as I desperately sent firebombs flying at it. <Kill it before it uses its attack!>

We tried, but after about five seconds, the pull became too strong and we all flew to the center like broken dolls. The halberd glowed red, caught fire, and the minotaur brought it down toward us with an exaggerated overhand swing.

A pillar of fire that filled half of the room enveloped us. I screamed but could barely hear it over the sound of rushing fire around me and the sound of the others also screaming desperately.

50 fire + 50 burn damage received (100 total)

50 fire + 50 burn damage received (100 total)

...

50 fire + 50 burn damage received (100 total)

HP: 3056 / 4195

A thousand damage later, the inferno finally ended. We were all lying on the ground, screaming at the rapidly decreasing pain. My armor was scorching hot and I thought that if this was the game's idea of reduced pain I'd probably have gone insane from full sensation.

We couldn't even take a respite when the pull restarted.

<Keep shooting, you lazy bastards!> Daggers voice invaded our minds. <You can rest after we're done!>

What the hell was she, a robot? Still, she had a point. I gritted my teeth and resumed shooting firebombs at the asshole. Only then did I realized its eyes and wings were also burning and with the flaming halberd added to the mix, I could only think the god of death had come for me.

Daggers was throwing knives at it, Bear awkwardly threw his greatsword, and we all shot the minotaur with crossbows. My firebombs dealt the most damage and things didn't look great.

I took out the spider ring; I was ready to put it on. But then, the world froze. I lost control of my character and my view quickly zoomed to a flying bolt shot by a random zombie. I saw in slow motion as it flew, sailing near my own firebomb mid-air and multiple other similar bolts. It was an incredibly lucky shot: it went through a slit in the Boss' helmet.

It penetrated deep into the minotaurs left eye which exploded. Fire burst from the eye, filling the helm, expanding outside through the helmet's vision slits. The Boss threw his head back, letting out a last scream as its wings exploded, enveloping his entire body.

The slow motion stopped and I regained control of my character when, from inside the fire sphere in the air, the Boss' body fell. Its wings were charred, covered in embers, and smoke was coming from inside its soot covered armor. It struck a zombie, knocking it to the floor, as its massive armor let out a hollow boom then lay there silent and unmoving.

He looked only a little worse than us.

The Boss was dead.

The raid was over.

I had no doubt in my mind that if there was only a small bridge in the room for us to face the Boss, we would have all died.

I groaned as I chuckled to myself, thinking of how people would tell the story of how I used some mattresses to defeat a raid boss that should've been impossible for our levels.

Invasion

Elementals
Underworld — Corrupted — Possessed

Elementals were believed to be spontaneous occurrences in the nature, when raw magic, for unknown reasons, acted to animate the elements.

It was only after the explanations of a paladin of Yurani, the previously unknown Goddess of Compassion and Elementals, that the world became aware that such beings are in fact her creations.

Fire, water, earth, air, in the absence of any one of these elements life becomes impossible. Seeing the elements being used without ever being self-aware made Yurani's heart ache, so she gave them life.

Thus, the elementals came to be. However, they were soon banished to the Underworld.

Elementals are a corruption of the original creation and life, and go berserk as soon as they see any living thing, as if they resent their ages of servitude without sentience and their sole purpose is destroying all true life on Valia.

When the first Free Spirit possessed an elemental, it formed a perfect symbiotic relationship: the Free Spirit got itself a body while the elemental attained a truer sentience and life, allowing it to control its destructive impulses.

Most Underworld species tried to enslave the new docile elementals, but the Free Spirits would just leave the elemental when it was captured, returning it to a state of uncontrollable fury.

After a short war, Yurani herself intervened and the elementals were accepted as neutral parties in the Underworld, going wherever they wished without restrictions or owing their allegiance to anyone.

No one is sure how the goddess — also known as Water Goddess for her choice of Avatar — picks a pile of rock, a flame, a breeze, or a water droplet to become an elemental, and the process has never been witnessed; elementals are always born in the wild, and everything indicates that only dumb luck allows a Free Spirit to find an elemental to possess.

Whenever possible, it's best to avoid elementals altogether. If you do find yourself near one though, be alert.

-- Excerpt from "Species of Valia", by Amir, a Karr

29. Sixty-Two Tons of Freedom

Major Stewart parked his car on the street, right behind a tank that was blocking the driveway.

He left the vehicle and walked to the front of the huge property, where Marines were standing guard.

"I'm Major Stewart," he said. "I have an appointment with Senator McHolen."

"ID please," the Marine requested and Stewart complied. Upon seeing the rank on the ID, the Marine rendered a Salute and said, "go right in, sir."

"Could you move it?" The Major asked nodding to the tank. "I'd like to go in with my car."

"Negative. My orders state, to not allow a car to get in."

"Can't you ask your superiors?"

"Negative, sir," the Marine said, and seeing the ugly expression on Stewart's face, he looked around before getting closer and speaking in a low voice. "A visitor made my friend ask yesterday. Today, my friend was sent to Havenfort."

The Major understood what the Marine said. The Armed Forces had run into heavy resistance in Havenfort city; the survival rate there was lower than in any war of the last century.

"Oh, I see," Stewart said. "I wish your friend luck."

"Thanks," the Marine nodded to the Major as the latter walked onto the mansion grounds.

Stewart was impressed by what he saw inside the towering walls around the property: the elegantly sweeping road, flanked by rows of meticulously manicured trees, the massive Chinese dragon statue. It was clearly a display of wealth calculated to impress, if not intimidate visitors.

More Marines were standing guard close to the mansion, right next to a butler. A butler! It was the Major's first time seeing something so... antiquated.

"Major Stewart?" The butler inquired.

"That's me."

"Please, follow me."

They climbed the stairs and entered the mansion. Stewart couldn't stop himself from whistling; the whole place screamed 'rich.'

The butler led him through a corridor before stopping before a closed door and knocking.

"Just a minute," came a voice from inside.

Stewart was made to wait ten minutes before the voice spoke again, inviting him in. A childish show of power, he reckoned.

He entered the Senator's study, which was a mix of old and new, books and technology, antique and modern. The man himself was sitting behind a large desk and gestured for the Major to sit on the opposite side of it.

"Good morning, Senator," the Major extended his hand.

Senator McHolen looked at the hand with curiosity, as if showing he couldn't believe the Major thought he was worthy enough of touching him, but still shook his hand in the end.

"Major Stewart, is it?" The Senator asked.

"Yes, sir," he replied succinctly.

The Major didn't know what to expect of this visit; McHolen had summoned him without giving a hint of his motives.

"I heard great things about you from General Gomes," McHolen said.

Stewart knew it was a lie; the General would never talk about him to a politician, much less the one in front of him. McHolen was saying that he knew where the Major's orders actually came from, as opposed to what the official files stated.

"I'm glad to hear that, sir," Stewart said.

The Senator got up from his chair. "We're a bit too rigid, aren't we? This is a friendly meeting. Come, let's get a bit more comfortable." He motioned for the Major to sit on one of the sofas and he sat on the other one.

"Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome," McHolen said with a pleasant smile. "Tell me, Major, how do you feel about your current job?"

"I feel honored to serve my country," he replied sincerely.

"Good. Not many feel honored to serve their country, especially when the country asks them to do... Unsightly things."

The Major couldn't help but widen his eyes a bit. Discovering his connection to the General was one thing, but discovering his real mission was something else entirely. He'd have to reassess the Senator's danger level.

There was nothing he could say to that, so he remained silent.

"Do you want some coffee?" The Senator asked. Before the Major could answer, McHolen turned to the still-open door, beside which the butler stood. "Mark, coffee for two."

The butler nodded and walked away.

McHolen didn't speak further, just leaned back on the sofa and looked at Stewart. The Major waited in silence.

When the coffee arrived, McHolen first sipped his cup before finally speaking. "Tell me, Major, would you like to serve your country in an even greater capacity?"

"I would, sir." Stewart hadn't touched his coffee.

"I'll ask the General to give you a promotion. I'm sure he'll comply."

The Major felt even more nervous. Was the Senator saying he could control the General? That was worrisome indeed.

"Thank you, sir," he replied.

McHolen held up a hand to stop him. "Don't thank me. A man must not remain working so long in the dark without recognition. It's dangerous for his mental health."

Now, the Senator was reaffirming his knowledge about Stewart's capabilities and making a veiled threat.

"Thank you, sir," he repeated.

The Senator laughed. "If you want to thank me, spend more time with your beloved wife. Tisa, isn't it? Celebrate your impending promotion. Maybe take a long vacation."

Stewart clenched his fists. Not so much a veiled threat anymore, but a direct one. He even knew Tisa's real name!

"I will keep that in mind, sir," he said dryly.

"Good, good. Go, don't leave her waiting. Take it from this old pile of bones: you never know what might happen and you should take every opportunity to appreciate your loved ones."

The Major didn't answer that. He just stood up and walked out of the room. It had been a long time since he had been threatened like that.

He met the butler in the corridor but just ignored the man and kept moving toward the exit. At the entrance of the mansion, he was stopped in his tracks by a surprise: the Senator's grandson, Jack McHolen, was in there.

The last Army report said that the boy was living a degenerate life in Miami, but instead he was right there, with wet hair and a plate full of muffins.

"Hello, there, one-eyed Army man," the boy said to Stewart with a smile. "You look like a nice guy, so I'll give you some good advice: whatever grandfather promised you, decline it, run away from him, and never look back." He put a muffin in his mouth and walked off down one of the corridors.

"This way," the butler said after a few seconds; Stewart had just been staring after the McHolen kid.

After leaving the property, the Major got in his car and drove away.

He entered a parking lot where he traded cars and his clothes, then drove on. He did the same in the next lot he stopped in. Then another. And another.

When he was sure he'd lost anyone who may have been trying to follow him he stopped, took a bath and used a mini-EMP device to destroy any microelectronics that might have been placed on him.

A few stops later he took an encrypted cell phone from the glove compartment and called his second-in-command.

"Cancel the searches on Miami, I found the boy, he's in DC. Yes, Washington DC. I'll brief you later. Bring everyone here. Yes, the reserve as well. Call Fat Willy too, we'll need his men." The phone beeped and he looked at the screen. "Talk to you later, the General is calling."

He hung up and took the General's call.

"Sir. Yes, sir, I just got out. We have a rat; he knew all about me, even my wife's real name. He tried to buy me out and threatened me.

"Yes, he definitely knows about what his grandson did. There would be no reason to do this if he didn't know.

"Sir, I have some news: the boy was there. Yes, sir, in the house, protected by NAC Marines as if he was the most precious boy in the whole world.

"No, sir, I can't. Sir, I can't. They have a tank parked in their yard.

"Yes, sir, I will. Thank you, sir."

The Major was scared shitless. The General had let him know with a codeword that his wife was in direct, immediate danger. How was that even possible? His wife was supposed to be together with the General's...

Sweet Jesus, Stewart thought. They are threatening the General's wife too!

He was surprised at the lengths the Senator had already gone to in order to shield his grandson. But what was astonishing was the General telling him to keep going.

Stewart had called for Fat Willy so they could get through the tank, but that had been before learning that his wife was in danger.

His sweat ran cold all the way to the hotel. If he went through with this, it could cost his wife's life. For the first time, the Major wondered if he should... Limit himself.

Could he live with himself if his wife was killed as a result of this mission?

Probably not.

But could he live with himself if he didn't make these bastards pay?

30. Purge

Pillars of light shone on each one of us and I felt the pain fade away as my equipment recovered from the beating it had taken. I could even feel my hair and skin regenerating.

Unique raid complete!

Congratulations!

We had done it. We had completed the raid and conquered the castle.

A feeling of exhilaration hit me as I took a deep breath.

Bear was already running to loot the Boss. It didn't worry me; the party was set up for a round robin loot division so he couldn't take it all for himself.

Instead, I walked to the throne. The pillar of light accompanied me and the closer to the throne I got, the stronger it shone.

I climbed the steps and stopped in front of the throne.

It changed. It had been large enough for the Boss to sit, but it slowly shrank until it was human sized.

I turned around, everyone except for Bear was looking at me.

A speech would be a powerful tool at this moment and since my audience wasn't the brightest, I decided to keep it simple.

"And this, Armless Battalion, is what you've earned by following me: increased personal might, wealth, and victory over your enemies."

I sat on the throne.

The pillars of light over all of them faded while mine turned golden. An ephemeral male voice came from all sides "Let it be known: Edward's Castle now belongs to Jack Thorn."

Another golden light shone down upon the Boss' corpse. Bear, who had climbed up onto its chest while trying unsuccessfully to loot it, fell to the ground as it rose into the air. The wings disappeared and the armor regenerated itself.

The light brought the corpse to its feet, and as soon as the Boss' feet touched the ground, it raised its head to the ceiling and let out a huge roar that shook the entire room. Then, it took its helmet off.

I had guessed right: it was rather tricky to get its helmet off thanks to its curved horns.

<Prepare for battle,> Daggers said.

<Really?> Bear asked. <The voice already said Ugly-face owns the place.>

<Better safe than sorry,> she argued.

The angry eyes of the enormous minotaur stared at me for a moment before he began moving in my direction. As he reached the foot of the stairs before the throne, he went to one knee and lowered its head.

"I, Oxfiend," it said, "in accord to the agreement made with Edward, pledge myself to the Master of Edward's Castle."

A red exclamation point blinked at the edge of my vision, I opened it.

Pledging System

Any being in Valia can pledge themselves to your service.

If you ACCEPT:

» They will become your vassal.

If you REFUSE:

» They will generally retain their current sentiment towards you, be it friend or foe.

All Lieges must provide at least food and shelter for their Subjects.

Payment is negotiable.

Subjects are bound only by their word and may choose to betray you, with only a few exceptions.

Abusing your power over your Subjects may increase the disloyalty among them.

Oxfiend:

Oxfiend, the Minotaur Sovereign, is one of the exceptions.

Minotaurs are the most loyal species of Valia. They are generally vicious and evil, but none have betrayed their word in the history of the world.

However, his oath is to whoever is the Master of Edward's Castle, not to you personally.

To achieve Master status, one must first defeat the designated Boss of the Castle and then sit on the throne.

As the Master of the Castle, you may assign whomever you want as the Boss of the Castle.

The Boss of the Castle may not leave the castle, but you can protect the Boss in any way you want to prevent people from defeating him.

This is the first castle you've conquered.

We suggest you ACCEPT Oxfiend's pledge.

This was the very first time the game helped me with so much information.

<Zenhit, is this tutorial-like message your doing?> I asked, focusing the question to my Destiny Spirit.

<Of course,> the childish voice replied proudly. <I'm the greatest Destiny Spirit!>

I smiled. <Yes, you are.> Actually, I didn't believe that at all, but my plans for him were still underway.

"I accept your pledge," I said to Oxfiend. "Rise, and continue being the Boss of this castle."

He stood up. "As you will, my liege," Oxfiend said meekly.

Him calling me that gave me an idea. "Henceforth, I shall be known as the Emperor of the Armless Empire. Address me as such."

I was against slavery, but the minotaur had sworn to obey the Master of the Castle by its own free will. Also, I wasn't against pranking him a little.

"As you will, Your Majesty," the Boss said.

"All hail the Armless Emperor!" Bear yelled to my surprise, throwing a fist up.

"All hail the Armless Emperor!" Others followed.

"All hail the Armless Emperor!" Daggers also joined the call.

My face twisted into a scowl. I had meant that as a joke; I didn't want to be known as the Armless Emperor!

"Wait, wait!" I got up and yelled. "I mean the Handsome Emperor! Awesome Emperor!"

"Armless Emperor! Armless Emperor!" They continued chanting with smiles and laughter, and I understood Bear had got the better of me.

"Ah, shit." I sat back on the throne.

As the friendly mockery of the chant continued, I started opening the exclamation points on the edge of my vision.

Intelligence increased to 31 (+1)

Preventing the floor from collapsing was a clever move!

» MP: 2575 (+155)

(Items disregarded)

Charisma increased to 20 (+1)

Your ability to influence people is akin to brainwashing.

Strategist increased to 31 (+1)

You got yourself a small army, found a good instructor to train it, used their abilities effectively, and achieved victory against a superior enemy using top-notch strategy.

Unique raid complete: Edward's Castle

Random attribute points received:

» +1 dexterity

» +1 perception

» +2 charisma

» +1 intelligence

MP: 2735 (+160)

(Items disregarded)

Level up!

Current level: 37

HP, MP and stamina restored

Title received: First Raider

You were part of the first group of Travelers to complete a raid in the Underworld!

» +25% damage against raid bosses

Castle conquered: Edward's Castle

You can now access the Land Management window.

It's highly recommended that you review your Subjects as soon as possible.

The rewards were great, but what was that about Subjects? As far as I knew, I had only one, Oxfiend.

Land Management, I thought.

A new window opened. It had seven tabs:

Real Estate, Economy, Politics, Military, Recreation, Subjects, and Populace.

I focused on the Subjects tab and it opened a new interface, where I could list Subjects or summon new ones. I chose to list.

Subjects List [Edward's Castle]

Subjects (1)

Subjects have formally bent the knee and accepted your rule.

You may see the Subject List of any of your Subjects by focusing on them.

» Minotaur Sovereign — Oxfiend

Slaves (318)

Slaves cannot refuse to serve you.

» Fairy Queen — Sylvania

» Fairy Lady — Maria

» Fairy Herbalist — Sonia

...

» Fairy Apprentice — Lucia

Unknown status (1428)

The following have pledged to the previous Master of the Castle but their current status is unknown.

» Centaur Lord — Rushfar

» Centaur Soldier — Termor

» Centaur Soldier — Sulef

...

» Slime Mage — Lokomokolov

» Slime — Sukulumov

...

» Giant Spider Youngster — Shivrak

...

The list was huge. I never expected the number of fairy slaves to be that high.

Summon all fairies to the throne room, I commanded. Nothing happened. I guess the summoning ability of the castle was related to obtaining new minions, not bringing current ones to me.

Thankfully, I had another choice. Focusing on my Commander trait, I willed it to contact the Fairy Queen. <Fairy Queen Sylvania, this is the new Master of the Castle. Come to the throne room and bring all the fairies.>

The Commander trait didn't allow the fairy to reply, but it was better than sending someone all the way down there.

The chanting had died away, probably because they weren't able to get enough reaction out of me. The zombies were chatting and some had even left the room. That reminded me: <Are the two big minotaurs still outside?> I asked.

<No, they are gone,> a zombie said.

<Why aren't the minotaur guardians outside anymore?> I asked Zenhit.

The child's voice replied in my mind: <Their mission was to make sure the rules of this raid were obeyed. They're back at their god's side now.>

<Their god? Edward?>

<Edward?> Zenhit laughed. <Only in his wildest dreams could he command the Destiny Crusaders.>

<Destiny Crusaders?> I asked again.

<I'm a Destiny Spirit; I act as a link between you and the Guardian. The Destiny Crusaders are the Guardian's hands. If Travelers act against the rules that make Valia function, they act.>

<What kind of rules?>

<The kind that say only twenty-five people could join the raid you just triumphed over,> it explained. <Or the rules that trap some bosses in Instanced Raids. Don't ever try to save an Instanced Raid boss from his eternal loop of death, the Crusaders aren't kind.>

That was somewhat interesting. Valia made sure to blend game with realism and although I hadn't found an Instanced zone yet, they existed. And now, I knew they also had an in-game explanation for existing. It gave players freedom but also consequences: you want to destroy this Instanced Dungeon? You can try. But are you strong enough?

The prospect of absolute power and dominating every aspect of Valia was cool though, even if completely fictional; even if the Crusaders could be killed somehow, it would surely only bring even more powerful system-defending measures.

Still, a nice touch.

Even more interesting was to see everything revolving around the Guardian. He was supposed to be the anti-cheat AI, but it seemed he was much more.

<Thanks, Zenhit. Helpful as always,> I said, putting as much sincerity as I could into my words.

<Obviously,> it boasted and went quiet.

The fact that this wasn't a raid anymore made me think of something. "Oxfiend," I said, "what are your fighting capabilities now? Do you still fight the same way as before, with HP thresholds and such?"

"No," he replied as he put his helmet back. "Before, I was bound to fight in phases because of an agreement with Edward. Now I'm free to unleash my full power at any time. However, I have no control over this room's secrets anymore."

That was both good and bad. Good that he could go all out from the start, bad because now more than twenty-five people could come and fight him at any time.

"Alright. I saw no minotaurs in the Subjects list." I wondered if I had killed them all. I knew that at least those in the Castle had been thoroughly exterminated. Slaver bastards.

"They are all my Subjects." Oxfiend explained.

I checked the list and indeed he had thousands of minotaurs under him. "Where are they?"

"Outside the Castle, but inside the outer walls."

I checked the 'Real Estate' tab in my Land Management window and it updated my minimap. The castle was in the center of a somewhat big city, which in turn was inside the huge walls I had seen before falling into the underground maze.

The maze itself was also in the minimap, at least the part inside the walls' perimeter. There were descriptions about how the maze was developed as a means of escape for the royal family and so on.

What interested me more was the Economy tab. Theoretically, a castle was supposed to have thousands upon thousands of gold coins in its coffers, but I couldn't find it in the map.

"Where's the money?" I asked, and the people in the room immediately stopped talking and looked at Oxfiend interested.

"There is none," the Boss said.

"What about this number in the 'value' box?"

"That is an estimated value of all Castle owned possessions, including buildings and even the walls themselves. I understand Your Majesty and your friends already looted some of it."

I frowned. "But how can you keep a Castle running without cash flowing?"

"Minotaurs don't rely on material trade." He smiled. "Force is our only currency."

That wasn't good. I opened the Military tab and noticed that the local guards were commanded by someone called Terrorlord; Terrorlord, however, was currently part of Oxfiend's Subjects, not mine.

"Oxfiend, order all military men to come and pledge themselves to me," I said.

"Your Majesty, with all due respect, you're not strong enough to make them bend the knee."

I stared hard at him. "If you respect me as you say, obey me. Now."

"As you wish." He sighed and left the room.

<Daggers, go invisible and follow Oxfiend. Everybody else, get in Defensive Formation in front of the throne.>

<Affirmative, sir.>

<Ugly-face, what are you doing?> Bear asked.

<I'm taking control of this castle before Manhart appears,> I explained. <It must be absolute so he doesn't have the chance to take it out of my hands.>

<Won't that make you fail your quest?> Turtle asked.

I smiled. <Nope. The quest says I must conquer the castle, but it never said I had to give it to Manhart.>

<He can just change it,> Turtle agued.

<Yup. But then, he'll lose all of us and lose control of this castle. Trust me on this, I have a plan.>

They had nothing more to say; I had conquered the castle after all.

The fairies soon appeared at the room, all of them in fairy-size. The Fairy Queen was in front of the group, attended by two other fairies. By then, the zombies were already standing in a formation in front of the throne room.

The fairies flew close and bowed mid-air. "Your Majesty," the Fairy Queen said.

I raised from the throne. "By my power as the Master of Edward's Castle, I free all of you of slavery." A faint yellow light pulsed over their heads. "You may choose to stay and cultivate any of the lands in this place, or leave. If you want to leave though, I suggest you wait until I can personally escort you out."

Quest completed: Free the Fairies

Random attribute point received:

» +1 strength

All the fairies gave radiant smiles. Some hugged each other and some cried. It was much more contained than the scene in the Magic Garden but happiness was still apparent on their faces.

The Fairy Queen curtsied. "Thank you, Your Majesty. We don't mean to sound ungrateful, but we feel it's past time we went back to our land."

"Very well," I said. "I have a few things to attend to, but I should be able to escort you out of here tomorrow at the latest."

"Your good intentions do you credit, Jack Thorn," she said, "but there is no need. If you ever get to the Surface, come see me in the Fairyland."

She winked.

And disappeared.

The more than a hundred fairies simply blinked out of existence in front of me.

"Long Range Teleport, I guess," I said to the perplexed zombies. I didn't believe it was that but I had no other explanation to provide.

<Sir, Oxfiend opened the castle gate and some minotaurs are coming inside,> Daggers reported. <A few are fighting over all the junk we left on the floor. Oxfiend is speaking with an elite wearing darksteel armor.>

<That must be Terrorlord,> I said.

<Terrorlord says he will bring everyone to the throne room, but it will be to take your head, not to bend their knees to you. Oxfiend is praising your power but he is not directly forbidding Terrorlord from attacking you.>

<Interesting,> I said and focused my mind on my Destiny Spirit. <So, Zenhit, weren't minotaurs supposed to be absolutely loyal?>

A child laugh echoed in my mind. <Silly, he is being loyal. You didn't order him to do his best to protect your life,> Zenhit said.

<That's one way of looking at things, I guess. Very well, thanks.> I focused on the party chat next. <Daggers, follow Terrorlord and check what he orders his men to do. If you get too far and are forced out of the party, remain invisible and close to the Terrorlord.>

<Roger.>

"Teal, Turtle, protect the armory," I ordered. "Let me know if anyone goes there."

"I don't want to miss the fun here," Turtle complained.

"Me neither," Teal said.

"Well, I didn't say you had to personally go," I said. "I told you to protect it. You're a Lieutenant and a Sergeant, you can order Privates to go in your places, just be prepared for the consequences in case something happens and you're not there to deal with it. That's only fair."

They looked at each other. Teal ended up going with a Private while Turtle stayed behind.

I kept watching Daggers move on my minimap. I had a complete map of the city and saw that she stood in some building near the Castle.

About half an hour later, her icon finally started moving back.

Soon, Oxfiend appeared with Terrorlord beside him. Terrorlord was small when compared to Oxfiend, but he was still an elite, about twice as tall as me. His darksteel armor and halberd made him stand out next to the three lightsteel-armored elites following him.

Behind them, about two hundred minotaurs followed. Almost all of them were in lightsteel armor and only about thirty were mages.

"Ah, Terrorlord," I said as they were approaching. "I heard you said you would kill me when you got in my throne room?"

The bastard didn't even miss a step, he only sniffed indignantly.

I had eleven fire morbs floating above my head, and they all flew at Terrorlord's face, one after another. I didn't even wait to see how much damage they would do.

Terrorlord was a veteran. He hadn't been expecting my sudden attack, but he still tried to defend himself with his halberd, only to fail when I changed the spells' paths.

The firebombs hit him. After failing to cut the spells mid-air, he used his hand to defend his face, as it was his most vulnerable point, and that helped reduce the incoming damage by a third. Instead of an average of three hundred, they now dealt two hundred each.

Still, in the end he received almost three thousand points of damage from my initial attacks.

"Kill him!" He yelled while he was still being hit by the firebombs. The minotaurs let out roars of rage and came at me.

<Zombies, just defend,> I said and waited for the minotaurs to get somewhat close before giving my next order. <Daggers, kill him.>

<Roger that.>

The Blackguard appeared behind Terrorlord. His armor wasn't as good as Oxfiend's and Daggers' blades dug into his back all the way up as she climbed him. In just a few seconds she was on his shoulders melting his HP away with constant stream of critical strikes to his head.

He struggled, trying to bat her away, but failed. With a hundred damage on each blade, she had finished off Terrorlord in five seconds.

"Terrorlord has fallen!" I yelled as his body was falling. "Oxfiend, close the doors! No one leaves! Blackguard, kill the mages too! Defenders, wait while I kill the elites! Spare anyone who surrenders, kill everyone else!" New fire morbs had already begun to amass above my head.

The minotaurs had barely engaged with the zombies and looked back, confused, only to see Daggers shadowing in the direction of the mages. The mages had seen her killing Terrorlord and were better prepared, but when her throwing knives cut spells mid-air, you could plainly see panic on their faces.

She was moving towards the closest mage. Seeing she couldn't be stopped and that she'd just felled Terrorlord in a short time, the mage let go of its staff and dropped to its knees, raising its hands. "I surrender!" It yelled.

Daggers immediately redirected to the next mage, who did the same thing.

An explosion and a yell of pain made everyone look back. A firebomb had just exploded in an elite's face.

"I surrender!" The mages kept crying.

Most of the armored minotaurs were looking up to the elites to see what they would decide.

"Oxfiend!" I yelled. "Tell your people the truth: how many elites have I killed since I entered the castle?"

"Your Majesty has killed eight Minotaur Minor Lords before reaching the throne room," Oxfiend said, "and your group was much weaker at the time."

It was as if the elites had received a blow. All three of them immediately dropped their halberds and knelt.

All the minotaurs followed suit.

Silence filled the room. I hadn't even stood up from my throne, but I had removed the biggest obstacle to my rule of the minotaurs. I'd cemented my position with blood and a show of power, which forced them all to surrender.

I let the silence go for almost a full minute, making them anxious about what I would do. Finally, I spoke.

"You all have two choices. One, pledge loyalty to me." I waited a few extra moments before speaking again. "Two, die."

I didn't feel conflicted about forcing them to bend the knee. It wasn't even close to slavery, because even if they were said to be the most loyal of Valia's species, Oxfiend had just shown me how little that loyalty was worth. Plus, their loyalty was their personal decision, not my problem. I only needed their obedience.

They had just tried to kill me, forced labor was the very least these murderous slavers deserved. Maybe it would help them develop some decency.

Should the NAC do the same to me? So I develop some decency?

The thought didn't bother me much; they were slavers, I wasn't.

Yes, I was being hypocrite in one way: one minute I wanted to kill all the slavers, the next I was making them my subordinates. However, now that I had control over all of them — something I didn't know I would achieve — I could just order them to stop. Why kill them when I could reform them? Who knows, it could even make the Underworld a better place.

Or so I rationalized.

"I'll pledge," a mage was the first to speak, rousing me from my musings. "I, Bullson, pledge myself to... What's milord's name?"

"It's Your Majesty, not milord," I corrected him. "And I'm Jack Thorn."

"I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty." He didn't sound apologetic. "I, Bullson, pledge myself to His Majesty, Jack Thorn."

"I accept your pledge," I said.

Instantly, another mage spoke. "I, Skybull, pledge myself..."

In the end, none chose death.

After accepting the pledge of the last of them, I pointed to the elite who had sounded the least insincere. "You're the new Guard Captain. You can take the equipment of the last one's corpse."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," he said.

"Listen well, all of you." I said as I stood from the throne. "I have one supreme law, which is above all others: my word is the law. No one but me may change this rule. No one. Do you understand?"

I established that rule first to prevent Manhart from turning them against me in the future. I guessed I'd have to give him authority over the castle, but I would ultimately have control of the minotaurs.

"Yes, Your Majesty," they replied.

"Good. Remember it well. If anyone else gives you an order, it should only be carried out if it doesn't contradict the supreme law." I remained silent for a few moments to let that sink in. "Now, a new rule: slavery is forbidden and those who enslave others should be executed on sight."

"What?"

"No!"

"What is he saying?"

The minotaurs started murmuring among themselves.

"Silence!" I commanded. "I don't care about this custom of yours. I order it and I order you, Guard Captain, to see that my will is obeyed."

"Your Majesty..." The new Captain said. "This will cause a big commotion..."

"I know," I said. "But that is my order. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said unwillingly.

"Good. You're all dismissed. Oxfiend, please stay." I waved my hand in dismissal.

They all left, the new Guard Captain carrying Terrorlord's body with him.

I wanted to do more; I had a lot of manpower now, and I admit I was interested in managing the castle. However, my time was short; when Manhart got here, he could worry about making the minotaurs more civilized.

To avoid being tempted to stay, I wouldn't even go out in the city. Even though grandfather had shown me clear evidence that no official investigation was taking place, that didn't mean there couldn't be something he couldn't detect. He wasn't omniscient after all, and destroying V-Soft had undoubtedly had probably pissed off every big fish in the sea. Also, grandfather would not have called me to his mansion if he also didn't entertain his doubts. Before something happened, I still had to take care of business in Ter'nodril.

"Oxfiend," I said, "unless I, the Blackguard, or this zombie tell you otherwise..." I pointed to Bear, "...you're to protect the Armory and the lightsteel mine. No one is allowed inside either. Do you understand?"

"I do." He nodded.

"Good. You can go," I said and he obeyed.

Finally, I leaned back on the throne and sighed. There was a lot of work to be done, from establishing laws to training a military. If Daggers had been able to whip the zombies into shape, given time she could turn these minotaurs into real killing machines.

Alas, it was time to go. I focused on the Communication Crystal and called Manhart.

<Thorn,> he said as soon as he picked up the call.

<Manhart. Didn't you say you were coming to meet me?>

<I said I would meet you at the Temple of the Water Goddess. I'm here, where are you?>

<In my new castle. Why don't you drop by for a visit?>

Silence. <You conquered Edward's Castle?>

<Yeah. I'll meet you in the secret passage. Ask the Goddess to teleport you there.>

<I'll be there,> he said and hung up.

"That's it, people. Time for you all to meet the old lich." I stood up and started moving.

"Hold on, Ugly-face," Bear said. "Maybe we should stay a few days, check the city outside, meet more minotaurs."

"You can stay if you want," I said. "Daggers needs to check in on the Dark Temple and I'm accompanying her."

"I do?" She asked. "I do," she then repeated without any conviction.

"See?" I asked. "She does. Even if you all decide to stay here, you should still come with me to meet Manhart."

"I guess," Bear said.

I leaned in near Bear and quietly asked. "Hey, man... About Ted... Did she leave Valia for good?"

"Dunno, man. She has been ignoring my calls and didn't even allow me into her house when I went there. Our common friends aren't having any more luck, and that's worrying me."

"I see. I'll try to call her and see what happens." I wouldn't, but I wanted the gratitude that I knew my words would bring.

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

"No problem."

We went to the Magic Garden, only to get a big surprise: the Garden was gone. Where it had been, now only the bare metal floor of the castle remained.

I didn't mind it. I doubted the minotaurs would be capable of caring for plants anyway.

I approached the secret entrance, I touched the wall with the green stone and it started opening.

I turned to take a last look at the castle. I would come back someday. Probably. If my plans in real life succeeded and I survived. At least V-Soft's Headquarters were located in a state that didn't have the death penalty; I just hoped they didn't make an exception just for me.

Yeah, right. I laughed bitterly to myself.

After walking through the secret passage, we found Manhart already waiting.

His skeletal face, his silver crown with black details, his medallions, his rings, and his black and gold robe were all the same.

And I knew for a fact that it wasn't him.

31. Heading Off

Perhaps it was that he wasn't exuding an aura of arrogance, or the fact that his crown was just the tiniest bit crooked on his skull, but the lack of morbs floating above his head was also telling; no mage would allow himself to be that vulnerable in any unfamiliar place.

Or maybe my perception was just too good.

Whatever the case, I had no doubt that this wasn't Manhart.

"Hello, stranger," I said. "I have a Blackguard and twenty-six zombies. Please, don't do anything stupid; I have places to be."

The lich stood silently for a short time before blurring and becoming a man with short brown hair, brown eyes, and a beard that needed to be trimmed. He wore loose, expensive-looking silk clothes, clearly not on his way to a job interview.

"How did you know?" He asked.

"There were plenty of clues," I said. "So, you here to pick a fight with us or what?"

He crossed his arms. "I have not decided yet. You cheated, in the fight against my Boss."

I frowned and my mind raced to the most probable conclusion. "Edward? The god?"

"That's me." He nodded.

I raised my hands. "Lets not fight then. I'm not ready to fight gods yet."

He smiled. "Yet? Bold. But it has been done before. None of the previous challengers won, but there's a first time for everything in this life."

"Yeah."

An awkward silence ensued.

"So," I said. "What now?"

"You cheated," he repeated.

"I heard you the first time," I replied.

"I want an explanation," he insisted.

I rolled my eyes. "Have you looked at us? There's no way we could have won that fight. It was either cheat or die. I suppose the others could have ran away, but after you declared your little trial, I didn't have that option anymore. Plus, you never said I had to play by the rules."

"No, I didn't. Very well, you live. Here it goes-"

"Wait!" I interrupted him. "Could you remove this Blessing thing instead of giving me extra Approval?"

He smiled. "I could."

Before I could say anything, a golden beam shot from his body and hit me. The light swirled around my body for a few seconds before disappearing.

Status effect received: Divine Approval (level 3)

You have passed Edward's test and received his Approval.

» +20 Faithful

Adept Faithful increased to 21 (+10)

You keep progressing in your quest for becoming a Sovereign Paladin.

» +21 charisma when dealing with gods (prayers included)

» +12% bonus to status effects received from gods

Level up!

Current level: 38

HP, MP and stamina restored

That's when I lost it. "What's wrong with you bastards?! Why are you so fixated on forcing me down this path? I'm not interested in becoming a damn Paladin, but even if I was, I wouldn't want to be tested by you assholes with my life constantly on the line!"

Edward's smile widened. "You speak as if I should care. I heard you're going to Ter'nodril. Good luck with the Devourer, he's never Approved anyone before." A golden light surrounded his whole body as he faded from sight.

I let out a growl of aggravation. Damn gods. I almost converted to Christianity right there and then, just so I could ask that the plagues visited upon the Egyptians be sent to torment Valia's gods.

"My condolences, sir," Daggers said.

We had to wait half an hour before a humanoid sized golden light appeared and Manhart materialized from within it. This time, he had five morbs floating above his head; four smoky dark gray morbs and one purple one — death and gravity elements.

"Finally here, huh?" I said and threw him the green stone. "By my power as the Master of Edward's Castle, I name Manhart my second-in-command. Have fun. Now, give me gravity magic, a way through the specter's army, and information."

He took the stone and his eyes traveled across each of the zombies and Daggers before settling on me.

"It seems it's time to negotiate," he said. I would be lying if I said I hadn't expected it.

"If you say so. But only after you complete my quest. I won't stand for any changes to it."

"Don't play games with me, Thorn," he said threateningly.

"No, Manhart, don't you play games with me. I completed your goddamn quest, and until I confirmed it, you weren't even sure the castle existed!

"I'll not give it to you for free even if you kill me," I continued my rant. "But if you so much as attack me, you'll lose your miracle-worker General who can conquer an entire castle of dubious existence with less than fifty people."

I paused, sighed, and showed him the palms of my hands. Look, I'm not saying we can't negotiate. All I'm saying is that I won't negotiate the quest completion, since I gave you what you requested, to the letter. I want the rewards for completing an A rank quest, and I want it now." I crossed my arms.

Although I was pissed with Manhart, pissed with Edward, and pissed about having to wait, to a large degree I kept my temper in check.

Yes, the lich might not like it, he may even even consider it too much, but compared to how angry I was, my tirade had been mild.

He stared at me with flickering flames in his eyes. "So be it."

Quest completed: Conquer the Castle

Random attribute points received:

» +1 strength

» +1 dexterity

» +1 perception

» +1 charisma

» +1 intelligence

MP: 2900 (+165)

(Items disregarded)

Level up!

Current level: 39

HP, MP and stamina restored

Five attribute points, but I only cared about one, intelligence.

At least I had received double rewards: five points for completing the raid itself and another five for Manhart's quest. Gotta cherish the little things in life.

"Alright," I said. "Now, tell me what you want."

I felt displeasure radiate from Manhart; he wasn't happy about me taking a firm stance with him. "I want the castle."

"Sure," I said. "Last time I checked, it was worth a million gold coins. I'll give you a ten percent discount because we're pals."

His displeasure increased. "I said no games."

I sighed. "Can't take a hint, can you? I'm telling you the castle is worth about a million gold coins to me. Now, this is the part where you try to give me something equally valuable. Just to be clear, the gravity magic, a way past the specter's army, and information that you already promised doesn't count."

His anger intensified. "I won't pay for something I told you to go and take. If it wasn't for me, you would never find this place."

"True. Hence, the ten percent discount. So, do you have nine hundred thousand gold or not?"

Pressure descended on me as Manhart manifested his power, in an attempt to intimidate me. He practically growled, "Thorn."

I crossed my arms. "Manhart. Stop playing around. You never expected me to give you the castle. Just tell me what you really want so we can get on with it."

There were a few things which had led me to that conclusion. First, I found out I had been overestimating Manhart as a strategist. Second, the quest itself never said I had to give my position as the Castle's Master to him. Third, the lich wasn't even sure the castle existed, so it couldn't be a central part of his original plan.

He was asking for something impossible so that when we "negotiated" more agreeable terms, I would jump at the opportunity. That was a pretty common negotiation tactic: setting the bar too high initially so the next offer would feel reasonable; regardless of whether it was or not.

The biggest giveaway however, was that in granting me my rewards he'd already begun to negotiate. If he had a way to take what he wanted by force he already would have. Even if I was mistaken and he wanted the castle, he was prepared to negotiate for it.

The pressure disappeared instantly. "So be it," he said. "I want your men."

"Which ones?" I asked.

"All of them. The zombies, the minotaurs, and the Blackguard."

It didn't surprise me that he knew about the minotaurs; I was his subordinate after all and I bet he had access to a management window similar to mine.

He didn't say it, but it was obvious what he was offering in return: fulfillment of his previous promises.

I crossed my arms. "You can have the minotaurs and you can try to convince the zombies to stay with you; they know what coming with me means, so I'm not even interested in trying to convince them to follow me there. Daggers, however, comes with me."

Manhart thought for a moment. "Very well." He turned to the zombies. "Colonel Bear, ready the men; we're going back."

"Huh... Sure?" Bear told Manhart. <Ugly-face?> He said on the mind chat. <I received a quest saying that if I disobey him I'll face consequences.>

<It's up to you how to deal with the lich,> I told him. <I recommend you always ask for something before obeying. He can give you some nice rewards, but he'll try to screw you if he can, as you've just seen him attempt to do to me.>

<Uh, okay,> he said and and turned back to the other zombies without even asking if I needed anything. Typical mercenary, always jumping at the next chance for profit.

I didn't blame the zombies. Our ride this time had been wild and even I would love some rest before moving on to the next part of my crazy plan, if only I were sure I had the time.

At least they could watch Manhart for me. Maybe I could even finally get some real intel on Manhart's plans or other forces under his command. Taking the zombies with me would be nearly useless, however, having them become familiar with the castle, the town and minotaurs could only be beneficial to me when I got back.

Not to mention it seemed Bear had forgotten about our promised rematch. The sooner I was away from him, the less chance there was I'd have to see him sulk after I kicked his ass again.

I had nothing to gain but a cheap laugh, but stood to lose a lot if it made him angry enough to leave my service.

"Is that all?" I asked Manhart. "Can I have my stuff now?"

The lich turned back to me. "Yes."

In the next moment, the only sensation any of my senses reported was pain.

Skill-tree unlocked: Universe's Pull

New skill unlocked in the Universe's Pull skill-tree:

Gravity Attunement (level 1)

You learn to attune yourself to the gravitational pull of the world, making it harder for enemies to knock you off balance.

» Passive Spell

» Element: Gravity

» Range: Self

» Knockdown resistance: 20%

I could think of few things more useless. Worse still, how did I even train in that?

"Do I need to ask Daggers to keep pushing me in order to level this up?" I asked when the pain went away.

"Not necessarily," Manhart spoke with amusement in his voice. "You can ask anyone to do that for you." I swear, his skull looked even more like it was grinning than it usually did.

Asshole.

"Alright," I said. "Now, how do we get through the specters?"

"I insist that you forget about going there," he said. "I have better uses for you here."

I didn't even answer that. He sighed, took off one of his medallions, and threw at me. It was silver, with a single black circle in the middle.

Manhart's Identity Medallion

Unique

Can be used to prove you are acting under Manhart's authority.

"Show this to any specter and they'll allow you free passage," Manhart said.

I took it. "I doubt it'll be that simple."

"Is anything ever simple in the world?" He argued.

I rolled my eyes. "Now, the information about Valia's politics."

"No," he replied firmly. "Not now, at least."

"What?!" I raised my voice. "We had a deal!"

His flaming eyes flickered in amusement. "I never specified when, I only said it would be after you completed the quest. It could be today or in five years."

Shit.

I sighed. "What do you want in exchange for giving me the information now?"

"I want you to stay here instead of going to Ter'nodril," he said.

"Not happening. Anything else?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "We'll discuss it after you come back. Just one last thing," he said after a pause. "I see you're all much stronger than before, and I can see you've mined this place." He gestured at all the excavated walls. "That was stupid of you; there's no free lunch in this world."

"Oh?” I asked.

"If I'm not mistaken," he said, "and I never am, these stones are Toxic Boosters. They provide quick growth but you won't be able to increase your attributes for a while, except through rewards."

Just as he finished speaking, I received a status effect notification.

Status effect received: Growth Poisoning

Some of your attributes have been poisoned.

The only way you can increase them is by completing quests, finishing raids, and receiving titles or status effects.

» Poisoned attributes: Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Constitution, Willpower

» Time remaining: 56 days, 7 hours, 57 minutes, 23 seconds

Although it was news to me, I wasn't really surprised. I'd done enough work grinding stats during the Challenge to realize the rate of stat growth from mining here was suspiciously high. I'd expected some kind of trap or ambush, but I hadn't even realized something like this was possible.

"Your facial expression tells me I was right," Manhart said.

"Why didn't I receive the status effect before?!" I demanded.

"If people somehow knew it the moment they were poisoned, such things would be rather useless wouldn't they?" He needled me. "Valians receive one week of poisoning for each attribute point that was gained using the Toxic Boosters. You Travelers have it much easier, your poisoning lasts only four days per point gained in the attribute which increased the most. Depending on how much growth the Booster allows, it can even be worth it."

I wasn't really sure how I felt about it. While fifty-six days was a long time, if it hadn't been for the mining I wasn't sure I'd have survived the fight against Oxfiend. It may even be that these Toxic Boosters were here specifically to help an underpowered group; this was a game after all and games are generally balanced in favor of the player.

"Well, what's done is done," I said. "Any other piece of wisdom you want to impart?"

"I can tell you many things, and I shall, but only if you remain here," the lich replied.

I merely sighed, it seemed I did that a lot around Manhart. "That's it, then." I turned, walked one step, then looked back at him. "Oh, I promised the zombies some gold when I completed the quest, but I'm broke. I'm sure you can take care of it since I just provided you with a castle as a playground."

He didn't answer me; instead, he walked toward the still open secret passage. "Come," he ordered the zombies.

"See ya later, guys," I said, waving at them. "Don't forget to charge Manhart or he won't pay you."

"Until later, Armless Emperor," Bear said.

"Armless Emperor!" Someone yelled.

"Armless Emperor!" They all shouted in unison.

Assholes.

They had grown on me.

Out of nowhere, something pushed at me and I almost fell to the ground.

"What the-" I looked back and saw that Daggers was the culprit.

"You are welcome, sir," she said. "I'm always happy to serve."

I looked at her, with confusion and perhaps a little irritation on my face.

"Your gravity spell, sir," she explained.

I sighed. This was going to be a long trip.

I decided to go back using the underground maze to avoid contact with Manhart inside the castle, since I never knew how he might try to cheat me again.

We didn't encounter any monsters on the way back to the exit from the underground maze. It probably had something to do with me being the new Master of the Castle. There were still many monsters listed as my Subjects in my management menu, but for all I knew they had run away or were hiding from me.

Daggers kept pushing me at random intervals and although it was annoying as hell, it did provide the expected benefit of levelling my gravity spell, so I just kept my mouth shut and took it.

It felt weird to walk alone with Daggers after the zombies had accompanied us for so long. While not having her constantly yelling at them was definitely pleasant, the silence also felt strangely empty.

We called it a day in the middle of the stalagmites forest, reckoning it was a safe place for both of us to logout. Even if we were attacked on our return to the game, the tight passage and confusing layout would allow us to properly defend ourselves.

<See ya,> I said. <Is it alright if I call you on Earth later?>

<Yes, sir. Talk to you later.>

We logged off.

* * *

After taking the VirBridge off, I tiredly rested on my bed. It had been a long ride.

It was time for a bath, and after that, filling my stomach.

Grandfather had no specific preferences when it came to food, so Cadbury took care of provisioning the house. I had to hand it to the butler, he had an eye for the finer things in life. .

I took some coffee and muffins and made my way back to my bedroom.

As I was passing grandfather's study I saw an Army Major leaving. He was clearly deep in thought, and if he was considering anything grandfather had proposed, he must have been an idiot.

I truly pitied the man and decided to impart some of the wisdom I'd gained the hard way, by having to deal with my family all my life.

"Hello, there, one-eyed Army man," I said with a smile "You look like a nice guy, so I'll give you some good advice: whatever grandfather promised you, decline it, run away from him, and never look back." Feeling damn pleased with myself, having done my good deed for the day, I put a muffin in my mouth and walked away.

Back in my room, I called Alice using the phone. I had ordered a holo-projector but it hadn't been installed yet.

"Hello?" She said as she picked up the phone.

"Hey there," I replied.

"Hey, Jack. New number?" Her tone was much more casual in real life than in the game, but there was still a military edge to it.

"Yup. I'm at my grandfather's house now."

"Cool. I wish I had a grandfather. What's up?"

It seemed like a strange response, but I didn't really know what I could say about it either, so I let it go. "Nothing much. I'm just wondering if you're cool with your share of the streaming revenue."

"Definitely. I'm receiving more than Paul, so that's a win."

"Paul?"

"That's Bear's real name."

"Oh," I said. "I didn't realize you two were friends. From the way you fight in game, it seems like you can barely tolerate one another."

"That's a fair assessment. He called to ask me to be less strict with Ted."

"Did it work?"

"What do you think?"

I smiled. "Alright, let me know if you would like an even larger share, I'm sure I could get it for you. They were desperate enough for us to sign that they allowed me to insert an escape clause, so we have a week in which we can renegotiate, or even cancel the contract."

"No, it's ok. I didn't know people could earn this kind of money just by letting others watch them play a game."

"Is it good?" I hadn't checked the gains.

"Yes." Although she said that, her tone was flat. It seemed Daggers' intrinsic coldness was a part Alice's real personality.

"Good. What do you think about Ted?"

"She's jealous of you."

I hadn't expected that answer. "She's what?"

"She's jealous. I can tell she's into Paul but now he spends all his time in the game following you around. It's clear that he has more fun with you than her."

"But she has so much more fun potential, if you know what I mean."

"I do, and I don't think so. Even if the sex is great, it can't sustain a relationship. People need more than that and Ted is too sheltered and appears unwilling to mature."

"Yeah, I agree with you on that." It was always interesting to see how other people analyzed situations. "Do you think I should call her?"

"Of course. You told Paul you would, didn't you?"

She had heard that? "Yep."

Just as the silence had stretched into awkwardness she spoke up, "I need to go now, see you tomorrow."

"Cool. See ya."

She hung up. This kind of personal interaction was a good way to ensure she stayed loyal, which was critical, I was going to need her soon. I suppose I couldn't pretend I didn't enjoy talking with her as well, even if she was oddly cold. It was too bad she was against what I'd done to V-Soft, I knew it was only a matter of time until it came to light and then we would have to part ways.

And then there was Ted; I knew I'd gone too far with the way I'd rebuked her in front of everyone. I wonder, would I be able to make it up to her by improving the relationship between her and Paul?

I sucked at this kind of thing, but I could try. Was Paul the kind of guy that I could manipulate with money? If so, this would be easy to solve; I just needed to pay him to date Ted.

Just because I had felt betrayed when I found out the girl I was dating had been paid by my parents to do so, that didn't mean I was above doing the same thing. After all I'd already realized I was a hypocrite in many ways.

I took a deep breath. This felt like having friends. The last friends I had were the members of my street gang.

But I wasn't sure if I should invest in these new friends. As soon as they found out about me, they would leave. Even I wouldn't remain friends with someone if I found out they were a stone cold killer who had thrown the country into chaos, and I was pretty tolerant of evil, if I was being honest with myself.

Know what?! It doesn't matter if they'll stick around. I used Ted to get to her dad. I can at least do this much for her.

I called her. "Hello?" She picked up.

"This is Jack. I'm in love with Bear." I said quickly.

No answer. Now that I had shocked her enough to not hang up on me, I could proceed.

"I know I shouldn't. We're just friends. But it happened and he seems to like my presence too. I don't know what to do. Should I tell him? What if he says no? Then again, there's this other guy. He is taking Bear away from me. And I thought I was friends with this guy! How dare he?!

"Obviously, without a doubt, the only way to proceed is to antagonize both Bear and the guy, then disappear from the face of the Earth. That will get me Bear.

"Or!" I said lightning fast so she wouldn't hang up. "Or I could use the opportunity that the two of them are now separated in the game, and that Bear is staying where I last logged off, to show him that I can be a good girlfriend. Not the annoying girl who becomes hysterical when she can't easily get what she wants, but a true partner who waits patiently and acts wisely in order to make her dreams come true, especially when it comes to love."

No answer, but I was satisfied with my speech. I might not be knowledgeable about relationships, but I knew logic, emotional blackmail, and how to make a cheap motivational speech.

"Now, seriously, I'm going to Ter'nodril with Daggers," I said. "Bear is back at the castle with lots of sweaty zombies, minotaurs, and a living skeleton. Even the fairies are gone. Take this chance or don't, that's your choice. But in the world outside your bubble, happiness doesn't happen by itself. It has to be seized."

I hung up.

And that was it for today. Damn, doing something nice was exhausting. That definitely counted as my 'good deed for the day' for the rest of the decade, if not a bit more.

I slept soundly that night.

* * *

The next day, Daggers and I continued our trip to Ter'nodril. Two of my core traits, Controller and Energizer, leveled up.

Without zombies to train, the journey that had taken four days, took two instead. Daggers continued to push me whenever she saw a good opportunity, but the gravity spell didn't level up. I couldn't see her face hidden within the magical darkness but I still got the distinct impression that she smiled each time.

What did happen, was that receiving one point of light damage every single minute for days on end finally paid off.

Resistance to Life element increased to 1% (+1)

After continuous damage, your body has learned how to resist Life damage.

On the end of my twenty-fifth day since I had come back to Valia, I finally passed by the invisible Catacombs, where I had seen the headless ghost horsemen appear out of thin air, after I tried to follow Ted into the Catacombs, about two months ago.

Right after that, I stepped into Serharn, the drow country.

I found myself in a huge cave chamber and looked to where a scattering of villages had stood before. Now there was only barren land, as if the villages had never existed in the first place. It was a sinister reminder of what had happened to the Slums.

<Alright, Daggers. It's time to have the talk.>

<Yes, sir.>

<I'm going to kill a lot of drow in Ter'nodril. A lot. Are you sure you want to go with me?> I asked. I needed to be clear on this point, I didn't want to face her anger afterwards.

She didn't hesitate even a moment before answering. <Affirmative.>

I raised an eyebrow. <Really? You won't have a place among the drow if you help me kill them.>

<Sir, I've told you before, that I am with you.>

<Yeah, but didn't you also swear loyalty to the Blackguard?> I argued.

<They are Valians, sir. You are Earthen. Even if Valia was Valia...> She meant 'real.' <...I would still keep to those who are like me. This is only proper.>

So, Daggers was a Separatist as I'd already believed and was prejudiced against AIs.

Well, that kind of logic only made her a normal girl, I guess. Or for that matter a normal human being.

<Thanks,> I said. <We need a plan to make you not get killed by the specters. You're a drow after all, and they're at war against your people.>

<It is alright, sir. I read on the public forums...> She meant 'internet.' <...that some drow turned traitor when the specters invaded. Not everyone loves the theocracy they live in.>

<Are any of them Blackguards?>

<Yes, sir. There is only one requirement for Blackguards to join the specters: betray the Blackguard.>

<And how do you do that?>

To my surprise, she put her hand on her hood... And lowered it.

This was the first time I'd seen her avatar's face.

Her long white hair was held in a ponytail. One of her eyes was golden and the other was green, both so clear they almost shone in the darkness. They gave her a unique air.

Her bluish dark skin was like all drow but her face had a beautiful etherealness to it, more like the elves than their evil cousins.

It was clear that, unlike me, she had put a lot of effort into creating her character.

<Sir?> She asked and I realized I had been staring.

<So? Betrayal?> I asked.

<I just did, sir. No Blackguard is allowed to show their face outside of the Dark Temple; doing so is unforgivable and means death.>

<Whoa. Really?>

<Yes, sir. Also, without my hood on, no one will know this is a Devouring Cloak, and therefore no one will know for sure that I was a Blackguard.>

<Devouring Cloak?> I asked.

<Yes, sir.> She didn't elaborate and it was clear she wasn't going to. I'd check the internet on it later

<Alright. Let's go, then. Time to meet some specters.>

It didn't take long for that to happen. After we walked for half an hour, a dust cloud appeared far away and approached us at high speed. When it was close enough, we saw the horsemen responsible for raising the dust.

Both the headless men on the horses and the horses themselves were translucent. Unlike Ted, they weren't white, but fully colored, which only happened when they got to level twenty or thirty — I couldn't remember exactly. The horsemen had long lances that they kept pointed at us and held shields at the ready in their other hands. On their metal breastplates was the symbol of the Catacombs: a white hand.

There was ten of them and they didn't look interested in talking.

Still, I raised both my arms in the universal gesture for peace, keeping Manhart's Medallion in one hand. Daggers also surrendered.

Even headless, the horsemen seemed to notice my gestures, because they lowered their speed. Their lances were kept lowered as they surrounded us though.

"Hello," I said. "I'm here under Manhart's orders." I shook the hand holding the Medallion. "I have some business to discuss with the Mage Kings."

The full title was 'Ruined' Mage Kings, but I wasn't sure if it was rude to call them that, and I wasn't interested in finding out while their men were all around me.

"Follow us," one of them said. I didn't see who.

<Wow!> Daggers said.

<What?> I asked confused.

<The horse, sir.>

<What about the horse?>

<It just spoke.>

I widened my eyes and looked at the horse in front of us. "Sorry, I didn't hear," I said.

"Follow us," the horse said. This time I clearly saw its mouth move.

Holy shit.

There were plenty of magical beasts in Valia that were capable of speech, but for some reason seeing a horse speak, and a dead one at that, was different. And creepy.

"Lead the way," I said.

They turned and we headed back in the direction they'd come from while they continued to surround us.

There was nothing worth seeing along the way, only barren land. The specters hadn't been messing around; they had leveled the entire drow countryside. Literally. There wasn't even a sign cities had existed here.

Eventually our path intersected a river and we followed it down. Some time later, we finally saw one of the cave chamber walls far ahead. The corridor to Ter'nodril in that wall was also in sight. The watchtowers to either side of it seemed to have been erased from the landscape.

The spectres seemed to be ignoring the corridor and were instead digging into the wall to the right. It was quite a project, the excavated area was wide enough for hundreds of people to walk side by side and deep enough that even though I could hear the ringing of picks striking stone, I couldn't see any of the miners.

There were thousands of specters sitting on the ground in the area just before the excavation. Horsemen, tanks, fighters, mages, and bowmen, all translucent. To the side, there was a huge tent guarded by hundreds of them.

Specters weren't the only species present either; there were also vampires, zombies, deathlords, and sorins.

That worried me a little, both the vampires and deathlords wanted my head. Even if they were players, people who joined this NPC war would definitely be interested in loot, and my head was worth a few hundred gold coins.

Worse still, I could tell by their distinctive armbands that many members of the White Tree clan were present.

"This way," the horse said, leading us to the guarded tent.

Some of those present watched us as we approached, and I could see surprise and hostility in the eyes of all who recognized me, mainly the White Tree clan members. Even many of the specters didn't seem very happy to see us. I noticed some of the glares were directed at Daggers, not me; clearly, drow weren't welcome in the camp, no matter what she had said about turncoats before.

And that's when I realized I hadn't seen a single drow in the camp. I really hoped Manhart's medallion would keep us safe.

When we arrived in front of the tent, the horsemen guarding it parted so we could pass. "Go inside," the horse said. "The Mage Kings are waiting for you."

32. Ruined Diplomacy

There were four Ruined Mage Kings in the tent, floating above the ground with their eyes closed. They had elven features and wore golden robes. On their platinum blonde heads they wore crowns of different colors: red, green, blue, and black.

If I'd ever run across ghosts like them back on Earth I would've been torn between shitting myself and staring at them in awe.

Each of them had ten morbs floating above their heads the same color as their crowns, which represented fire, earth, water, and darkness respectively.

Floating behind them were dozens of spheres taller than me, composed of layers of metal symbols orbiting the eerie white mist core. The outermost layer was all circles, stars and runes which remained a fixed distance from each other as they revolved. I realized it was like layers of satellites around a planet though these were clearly held in place by magic rather than gravity.

As I stared into one of the cores, I realized that sometimes I could see faces forming for a split second, like souls trying to escape.

My attention was drawn away from the orbs as the specter with the red crown opened his stark white eyes and addressed me. "Jack Thorn," his voice was a whisper of the grave which made my hair stand on end. "You dare enter our presence reeking of Divine Approval?"

I raised my arms. "Not my fault, the assholes who call themselves gods are forcing this shit on me. Hell, I'd owe you a favor if you can get it off without killing me."

The specter with green crown turned his desolate gaze on me. "He speaks the truth," he said.

Strangely enough, both his mouth, and the fire Mage King's moved in unison, and the whisper I heard was exactly the same as before.

What the hell were these guys?

Worse still, the earth dude looked like a truthseer. That wasn't good; I would have to rethink how I would warp the truth to look like I was on their side.

"Truthseer?" I asked to confirm my suspicious.

"Yes," he said. Or maybe it was the other specter. Or both. Damn, that was weird. "What do you want from us?"

"Oh, that's a tricky question, you being a truthseer and all. I would love to learn divine magic, but I imagine you're not looking for apprentices." They didn't answer and I continued speaking. "Money, equipment, magic, information, I want a lot from you. The reason I'm here is simple; to attack Ter'nodril."

"True," they said. "Why?"

"I don't like the drow," I replied simply.

The black-crowned King with darkness morbs opened his white eyes next. "A Dark Archmage dares attack the Devourer, God of Darkness?"

Nowadays, it seemed like everyone knew about my title. "Yup. Why, are there any consequences?"

"Yes," they said. I saw the three mouths move, and continued to hear nothing but a harsh whisper in my ear. It was so creepy that I was sure I'd have screamed and tried to run if I forgot for a second that this was just a game. "The darkness element will become... Unstable. It might disappear."

That sounded perfect for my plans of destroying Valia. Maybe destabilizing the darkness would also destabilize the light and trigger a domino effect to destroy all magic in the world. "Not a problem. So, now that we're all on the same page, what can you do to help me?"

The last King, the one with the blue crown, finally opened his eyes and they all looked at me. "What does Manhart want from us?"

I rolled my eyes. These guys were slow. "Only that you allow me and my friend here..." I gestured towards Daggers. "...free passage into Ter'nodril. However, I think joining your army would be much better. Since even if you give me free passage, I'm not sure I could destroy Ter'nodril by myself. I'm not that arrogant."

They remained silent for a few seconds. "You're the catalyst which started this war. Why should we allow you to live?"

Somehow, they all made their morbs pulse with light. That was slightly worrisome but I didn't let it show on my face.

"Because you can still kill me after you get the help of a Dark Archmage against the Devourer. And I know what you'll ask next: what if I run. Well, you weren't that interested in killing me in the first place, or you would have done it in the Slums. I'm just an afterthought. If you can kill me, good. If you can't, I'm sure you don't really care."

"What makes you think we want your help?" They asked immediately.

"Well, you have accepted the help of the White Tree guys, why not accept mine? I'm certainly more useful than them."

"He believes it," they said, and I realized it was the truthseer King speaking to the others. So, they didn't share a single mind. "So be it," they said next. "You'll join the Drow Corps with your pet Blackguard. You're dismissed."

Quest Series: Catacombs' Drow Corps

You have joined the Catacombs' Drow Corps.

As a military unit engaged in war, there are many quests to complete and rewards to be earned.

The rewards are dependant on how well you execute your tasks from now on.

Conditions:

» Cannot be denied

» Disobeying will lead to unfavorable consequences

» Must accept all Drow Corps quests given from now on

Quest: Find the Drow Corps

[Catacombs' Drow Corps]

C rank

Check in with the leader of the Drow Corps in the specters' siege camp.

Condition:

» Must be completed without dying

"Just one last question," I said. "Any estimate of how long will it take us to get inside Ter'nodril?"

"One week," they said and their eyes closed. The conversation was over.

<One week.> I said as Daggers and I walked out of the tent. <They're not very effective, are they?>

<Invading Ter'nodril is easier said than done, sir,> she said.

<Bullshit. They destroyed the Slums in a minute. If they wanted, they could destroy this wall and get to the city much faster.>

<Maybe they could, sir, but that would undoubtedly tire themselves. The walls between us and Ter'nodril protect us from the power of the Devourer; the moment it falls, the Devourer will be free to attack us. Not only him; we will be under attack from the thralls, the Blackguard, and the priests too. I am confident that unless the Kings are at peak condition to defend us, the Devourer could destroy the army by itself.>

<Sure, preserving their power makes sense,> I said. <But I think you're underestimating the Kings. They are seven in total, but only four came, thus they believe that's enough. So, even if what you said is true, they could still have brought an extra specter to destroy the walls and then the four could fight. For whatever reason, they want to take things slow.>

<There are plenty of reasons to take things slow, sir,> Daggers said. <For instance->

<Daggers.> I cut her off firmly, then sighed. <I'm just annoyed with the wait. You know, blowing off some steam by complaining. Chit chat.>

The truth was that I was very frustrated. I didn't have a whole lot of time to do what I needed to in Ter'nodril.

Yes, grandfather said I was safe in the house. However, in a week or two the Armed Forces would have stabilized the country and the politicians had to be anxious about it. After all, when the Armed Forces were done with the population, they would be in a position of power. At worst they could overthrow the government, or at least they could force the politicians to submit to trial for the crimes they'd been accused of..

If either of those things happened, my protection would disappear.

<Oh, I see, sir,> Daggers said. <You are just whining like a little kid. Exactly what I expect from the Armless Emperor.>

I face palmed. <Stay alert. Although the quest to get to the Drow Corps is only C ranked, something might happen on the way.>

I made sure Manhart's Medallion was clearly visible, hanging from my neck, just in case I needed to quickly show it to a specter. My shield was on my arm, and my other hand was resting on the hilt of my sword. Above me, nine fire morbs, one death morb, and one life morb were ready to fire. I considered bringing out my staff, but in an ambush there would be little chance for me to play mage, having my sword ready would be much more effective in a chaotic melee.

We walked among the specters, receiving everything from curious glances to hostile glares. Although we could ask where the Drow Corps were, after Daggers reminded me how the enemy drow would attack as soon as the wall fell, I was confident I would find the allied drow excavating it.

It was simple logic: the Kings couldn't completely trust the turncoats, so why not put them in the most dangerous position? They would be the first to die and the specters' manpower wouldn't suffer.

As I'd half expected, I could see people of all species out of the corner of my eye moving surreptitiously gathering and beginning to encircle us.

<Flee or fight? I'll let you choose,> I told Daggers.

<Fight, sir,> she said while already becoming invisible. On my minimap I saw her part ways with me.

I had given her the choice, but I wasn't really sure there was one. If we wanted to run, where could we even go, to the Drow Corps? We had no guarantee they would help two unknown greenhorns.

Therefore, a show of force was needed. I removed my Circlet, put on my helmet, and approached.

Soon, twenty-one people surrounded me; five vampires, ten specters, three deathlords, and three sorins. Surprisingly, no zombies were in the fold.

Ten of them were mages, two were bowmen, and the other nine had close ranged weapons; mostly swords, but also a pike and a mace.

Except for the two bowmen and one mage, all of them had shields. And except for the same shieldless mage, all of them wore plate armor.

These were not dumb NPCs; they were players. And after almost two months of playing the game, it was unlikely that they were all idiots.

"Hello, friends," I said with a smile. "Lovely day for a walk in a war camp, isn't it? Care to join me as I head to the Drow Corps?"

Their leader, a guy with plate armor and the red Write Tree armband, was the one to reply. "You're worth five hundred gold coins alive, Thorn," he said. "But even dead we can get three hundred for you. Surrender and things will be much better for all of us."

It seemed my market value had increased again even though I had done nothing to deserve it. Damn, deathlords seemed to hate me with a passion.

I raised an eyebrow. "Better for all of us? How is it good for me?"

"You won't die. For now."

That was fair, the penalty for dying was steep.

"That's a wonderful proposition. However, I'm wondering, are you blind or just idiots?” I asked as I gestured with my head at the tent behind me. "I just had a meeting with the Ruined Mage Kings, who told me how grateful they are for this war I started. They were bored."

The leader sniffed. "That's a stupid lie. Surrender now, last chance."

I sighed. "Dude, I'll be honest. You have only one chance to kill me. If you miss it, I'll kill everyone. Please, don't do this to yourselves."

There was no audible attack order, but their mage's morbs flew. Each one had an average of six morbs, for a total of around sixty. There was no way I could survive such an onslaught if I stood still.

So, I drew my darksteel sword and ran ahead, keeping my shield raised to my left, where it was between me and the majority of the mages. My firebombs flew one after the other at a bowman ahead of me.

I kept alert to the incoming spells on my left. When they were close enough, I twisted my body.

My sword hit a couple morbs on the left and I crouched on the floor, twisting to face the opposite side I was running to. And then, I started running back.

263 fire + 22 burn damage received (285 total)

122 light damage received

No damage received from darkness element (Immunity)

43 earth damage received

240 fire + 12 burn damage received (252 total)

No damage received from darkness element (Immunity)

66 wind damage received

HP: 3425 / 4195

Status effect resisted: Uprooted (level 1)

Your physical defense factor is higher than the spell power.

Spell power was mix of the spell tier, the spell level, the intelligence and the willpower of the caster. Physical defense factor was a mix of strength, constitution, and willpower of the defender.

Thankfully, none of the archers could change their arrows' path mid-air, and they missed me.

However, the first round of spells alone took almost eight hundred HP from me. I wouldn't survive the next six rounds of spells that were already flying my way.

Not everybody would have a high-leveled Controller trait though, and just by changing directions while moving I expected to dodge some spells.

The pain wasn't bad; the fire made me grind my teeth but everything else was nothing compared to the pain I'd experienced fighting the Boss' final form.

While I bought time trying to dodge spells, I was just a distraction, my trump card in this scuffle was Daggers. And boy, was she having fun.

The armorless mage was an obvious target and was already dead, his throat a mess of blood and flesh. I looked just in time to see my ex-Blackguard companion in shadow form behind an armored mage, her blades already sunk deep into his helmet.

Two mages down, eight to go.

I changed directions again, moving towards Daggers. More spells hit me, but considerably fewer than before. Between them and a lucky arrow, they dealt less than four hundred damage.

The third mage died as two of the melee fighters broke from the other seven surrounding me and charged. I felt something pierce my right shoulder and yelled in pain. One of them had an armor piercing skil like Bear and Daggers.

The guy in front of me swung his sword and I blocked with my shield, then threw my full weight into a shield bash hoping to get past him. Instead he managed to plant his feet and deflect my attack knocking me off balance, but thanks to my new gravity spell, I managed to not fall and stumbled past him.

A sword bit into the back of my neck for three hundred damage, also ignoring my armor. A few spells exploded above my head for an extra five hundred damage.

HP: 2093 / 4195

I healed myself with my death morb, lurched forward and used the remaining three fire morbs to blow the legs out from under the guy in front of me.

Finally, I stepped over him and broke free from the circle of melee fighters; now only the external circle of ranged attackers was between me and freedom.

Three spells struck my helm for another four hundred damage.

I tried to run, but the asshole on the ground jerked my foot and I fell. Thankfully the tumble hadn't done any damage, so it didn't interrupt my creation of a death morb, allowing me to use the spell Death Absorption.

Except for the sorins, all our other opponents were undead. The spell description said that the range was 'touch,' not that my hand had to touch the target, therefore his hand on my foot should work.

The morb flew to the point of contact between us...

168 HP absorbed from Fallen Asshole

You healed yourself for 171 HP

HP: 1991 / 4195

The Healer trait allowed me me to heal more than the damage I dealt, which was interesting but not nearly enough to make this spell a viable option in this fight. I struggled against the man's grip and managed to break free. I got up, was hit by more spells, a pike, and an arrow for almost five hundred damage, and ran at a mage.

Meanwhile, Daggers had already killed five of the mages. Sixteen more people to go, but not enough HP to survive until they all died.

The mage in front of me tried to stop my charge with his shield, but I leaned in as I rammed him. This sorin couldn't be much more than half my weight, and a mage; he had no chance to withstand my weight or counter my strength. For his effort he was thrown down and ragdolled across the uneven ground. Maintaining my forward momentum I broke free from the goddamn ambush just as Daggers killed the sixth mage.

The specters camp had no structures or terrain features I could use to my advantage, it did however have horses.

It was weird how the horsemen never dismounted. And the horses were so strong-looking. And they talked too; wasn't that funny?! And...

Shit! Wake up!

Status effect resisted: Confusion (level 1)

Your mental defense factor is higher than the spell power.

Mental defensive factor was a mix of willpower, intelligence, and awareness during the attack.

If I put the ring on, I won't have any issue with mental attacks ever again.

The thought invaded my mind as if I was thinking it.

Shut up! I screamed in my thoughts.

This game was making me crazy.

As I ran towards the horsemen everyone parted before me like I was Moses and they were the Red Sea. Spells and arrows were still coming my way but considerably fewer than before.

Looking back, I saw Daggers, with her hood on, surrounded by three close-ranged fighters and being harassed by a single mage. Meanwhile the other six fighters, three mages and both bowmen pursued and sniped at me. Sometimes it really didn't pay to be popular.

As I neared the horsemen I planned to use as living shields... They also made way for me to pass.

Jackasses.

However, that gave me an idea. I turned right and kept running. Everyone continued to step aside but now the horsemen were blocking the line of sight between the ranged attackers and me.

Grinning, I slowed my speed just enough to start amassing fire morbs.

Four seconds in, I skidded to a halt, spun around, and shot firebombs at the guys who had just rounded the corner of the path I had created in the middle of the specters.

The explosions were strong enough to hinder whomever they hit, which allowed me to back-pedal while continuing to amass fire morbs and shoot at them.

With the deaths there were only fifteen combatants left, meaning this was no longer a large scale battle, — the threshold for which was sixteen — and my mana was being used at the standard rate, rather than the reduced rate I'd become accustomed to. My MP wasn't going to last much longer like this, but I didn't need it to. All I had to do was whittle their life away until it was time to finish them off in close combat.

Their shields were useless in the face of my Controller trait. One of them, probably with low HP, simply gave up and fell back. The other ten kept coming.

When my last firebomb flew, I kept moving backwards to prevent myself from being surrounded and prepared for them.

Daggers' status bar in my vision showed she was still alive, with over seven hundred HP remaining. On my minimap I could see she had managed to break free from the red dots that had surrounded her and was running my way.

"There are ten of you here, all of you with less HP remaining than me!" I yelled. I couldn't know that, but I was fairly confident it must be true. "And I promise, I'll kill at least two more of you before I die! You've already lost seven people for nothing! Is the bounty on my head really worth the loses you're suffering?"

One of them slowed down but the leader snickered. "Fewer people means we each get a larger share!"

The guy who slowed picked the pace again. Damn that leader.

Daggers' stamina wouldn't last forever, nor would mine; if we continued to fight, we would die sooner or later. Time for a desperate maneuver: I started running again, directly at the Kings' tent.

As expected, the guards outside barred my way.

"Hey, you promised me safe passage through your army!" I yelled. "Manhart will hear of this attack!"

No answer, which meant I was out of options. I kept running, but this time I headed back towards the excavation.

<Daggers, time to find the Drow Corps and hope for protection,> I said.

<I do not believe they will help us, sir.>

<Yeah, neither do I. Our pursuers don't know that though.>

<I have a better idea, sir.>

<I'm all ears.>

<Why are these people with the specters?> She asked.

I thought for a second. <Quests? Loot?>

<Yes. And why are they hunting you?>

<Money?>

<Yes, sir. Therefore, run away and make them choose between staying in the army or chasing after you, I'm confident some will choose to stay with the army rather than gamble on a chance to take you down. If we flee to the Corps and they do not help us, we will have our backs to the wall and no way to escape.>

<You're right.> I changed directions again. <Let's meet on the river bank and go from there. It's past time I took a bath anyway.>

Wasting time hiding from these morons would suck, but it was better than dying in the camp.

No one tried to block my path as I kept going. I was almost to the river when a Blackguard suddenly appeared right in front of me. I slammed into them and fell backward onto the ground as if I'd just tried to tackle a brick wall.

The Blackguard wasn't Daggers, and wasn't alone. Two other shadows appeared right next to it.

When the shadow effect went away, I could see that the three of them had their hoods down. They were unremarkable looking for drow, with bluish dark skin, white hair, and black eyes. One of them was a woman.

The ten people following me didn't take long to catch up and stopped a little distance away. After a moment of silence, the leader took courage to speak.

"Thank you for your help," he said. "It's an honor to receive help from former Blackguards like you."

A malicious smile appeared on the face of the male Blackguard in the middle. I tried to stand, to continue running but the other male Blackguard put a hand on my shoulder; a hand holding a dagger that bit through my armor as if it were thin air and drew just the tiniest trickle of blood from my throat.

"Not only have you attacked a member of my Drow Corps," the man in the middle said, "you also dare to suggest I would debase myself enough to help an insect like you. Leave now and I won't kill you where you stand."

My eyes widened. What the hell?! They were helping me?

Holy shit, the world must be ending.

Silence descended. Daggers approached, still stealthed, stopping between the Blackguards and my pursuers, who were soon joined by the people who had been chasing her.

<The drow are protecting me,> I told Daggers. <Not sure why. Watch out for trickery.>

<Roger.>

"There are fourteen of us," the White Tree guy said arrogantly. I noticed the guy who had ran from my firebombs hadn't come back. Smart dude. "And four of you."

The Blackguard's smile widened. "A Blackguard trainee killed six of you by herself." That wasn't quite a fair assessment; she had only done so because they were focusing on me. As soon as a few of them focused on her, she hadn't killed anyone. "We're three fully trained Blackguards. Only so the Ruined Mage Kings won't say we didn't show them respect, I will give you a last chance to leave. You have ten seconds."

I tried again to stand up, but the Blackguard holding me was strong.

"Five," the Blackguard said after some silence.

The leader of my pursuers let out a furious grunt, turned back, and walked away, soon followed by the others.

"Consider yourself lucky," I yelled. "If I had some mattresses, you would be done for!"

Wait, what?! Shit, this situation made me nervous.

Everyone looked at me as if I had some mental issues. I shrugged.

The hand on my shoulder finally let go of me. I stood up and opened my helmet.

"Thanks for the help," I said.

"Jack Thorn, I presume," the Blackguard said.

"Yup. Can you escort me to the Drow Corps' leader? I need to find him."

He crossed his arms and snickered. "I only saved you because I was ordered to do so by our leader. But you want me to escort you? Why should I help the man who's responsible for the war that destroyed my homeland and killed my people?"

Now, that was a damn good question.

"Because otherwise I would be attacked again and your leader would order you to save me again." I said. "Much better to just be done with it. You know, lazy is the new efficient."

He stared at me in silence for a long time as I stared back. Finally, he uncrossed his arms.

"You're right; I don't want to waste any more time on you," he said. Then, he looked straight at the still invisible Daggers. "Drop your stealth and come with us. And lower your hood too. Hooded Blackguards are killed on sight in the Corps.

"Yes, sir," she said and obeyed.

We started walking to the end of the excavation site.

"Why did your leader help me, anyway?" I asked.

"You're Drow Corps," the female said. "If you haven't noticed, drow aren't exactly welcome here." She nodded to the specters looking at them as if they were food. "If we allow one of ours to die without a fight, it won't be long before we're annihilated."

"I see," I said. "United by circumstances."

"Yes. The Corps are lucky to have seven Blackguards among them, else they would all have already been killed by the specters. Eight, now, with the Little One."

It made sense; the drow were the enemy, after all. I could see why the specters would want to kill them even if they had technically changed sides.

"Little One?" I asked.

"She is talking about me, sir," Daggers said out loud, joining the conversation. "It is a rank in the Blackguard."

"Oh. Sounds childish."

"It's supposed to," the female explained again. "Until they complete their Blood Mission and become Blooded, the Little Ones remain as children in the eyes of the Blackguard."

I turned to Daggers. "Did you receive a Blood Mission too?"

"Yes, sir. As soon as I joined."

"Well?"

"'Well,' what, sir?" She asked me with a grin.

I sighed. "What's your Blood Mission."

"Well..." She said.

I rolled my eyes and raised my eyebrow.

"I told you before, sir, in the Slums."

No matter how much I tried, I couldn't remember it.

"Care to refresh my memory?"

She looked me straight in the eyes. "Sir, my Blood Mission is to kill you."

I smiled. "Sucks to be you."

Daggers didn't answer, and we walked on in silence until we got to the excavation site.

33. Life of a Soldier

Drow were everywhere. Hundreds of them unceasingly excavating the cave wall.

The only people who didn't have a pickaxe in their hands were four drow with black cloaks between the workers and the specters. Other than the Blackguards every one of the drow wore plain white robes. And to think that Daggers thought no one would recognize her, as a Blackguard, as long as she had her hood down...

Two male and one female Blackguard were differentially listening to the fourth, a short haired woman as she was loudly saying something to them I couldn't make out over the cacophony of picks striking stone.

As we approached, she fell silent, turned her round face towards me and locked her stony gaze on me as she ordered, "Get the deathlord a pick, bring the Little One a better cloak."

"Sorry," I said. "I'm a mage, I can help-"

"You can help excavate the wall!" She interrupted me. "This is my Corps and this is not a democracy. I don't care about who, what, or how powerful you think you are. Here, you're my soldier and you will obey."

Quest completed: Find the Drow Corps

[Catacombs' Drow Corps]

Quest: Excavate

[Catacombs' Drow Corps]

C rank

The leader of the Drow Corps has ordered you to excavate the wall to Ter'nodril.

Condition:

» Must be completed without dying

Shit.

The Quest Series was clear: I had to either obey or suffer the consequences.

<Daggers, just to be clear, how bad is the punishment likely to be if I piss her off?> I asked.

<You really should do as she commands, sir,> she answered.

Well, maybe a last try.

"Respectfully, I just think-" I tried to say but was interrupted again.

"You have ten seconds to get to the wall and start excavating!" She snapped, I could hear the threat of pain in her voice.

I sighed. At least I had practice excavating. "Where's the pickaxe?"

"Here," one of the male Blackguard answered as he held it out to me. I took the tool and went to the wall.

"Now, your weapons," I heard the leader tell Daggers as I moved on. "You can't defend the Corps with these. Here, these are the daggers I received when I became a Murderer."

<Murderer?> I asked.

<The rank after Blooded, sir,> Daggers replied. <Please, be quiet, I need to pay attention to this.>

I shook my head. Typical, can't be bothered with me as soon as someone else turns her head with a gift.

As I excavated under the threat of further suffering, I felt like I was in the real life grunt side of the Army: all mundane work and no money.

Sometimes I hated Valia's realism.

* * *

Eventually, I managed to talk with the leader and asked about my logout time. She allowed me twelve hours of rest each day, which was absurd. Which game forced a player to use a pickaxe for twelve hours straight?

"You're a wanted unbound deathlord who owes your life to me," the leader had said when she noticed the unhappiness on my face. "You should be grateful, that I don't kill you where you stand."

She had a point; she was shielding me from death, and I did owe her. I didn't have to like it though.

Things were less boring than they should be thanks to Valia's boredom dampeners, but twelve hours each day was still too much. At the end of the third day I decided I wouldn't get back to the game until the drow finished opening the path for all of us.

That's until Alice called me after lunch. "Jack, Laureth says-"

"Lau-who?" I interrupted.

"The Drow Corps' leader. She says that if your character doesn't appear today, she'll kill him next time she sees him. I don't think she's kidding."

"Screw her. I'm not holding a pickaxe anymore."

"Jack..."

"Alice. Thanks for the message, but I won't go back." The silence stretched towards awkwardness, so I broke it. "What about you? Did you get nice stuff?"

"Daggers did," she replied, separating herself from her character. "Awesome cloak, leather armor, and good blades. I think she has more defense than you, now."

"No shit. How much?"

"It depends, her head only has the cloak protecting it, so fifty defense there-"

"Wait a second. Your cloak gives you fifty defense?" I was dumbfounded.

"It's a High-Quality Devouring Cloak. The leather armor underneath is a Perfect Bruleo Leather Armor, for seventy defense. It's rare, the best I could've earned in the Blackguard, and only after I became a Murderer."

"Damn. That's awesome."

Valia's defense system allowed up to three pieces of armor to defend each place, however the second-best piece would have only half its defense active, and the third-best would only defend for one-quarter of its total value.

Meaning that if she got hit in a place where there was both her cloak and her armor, the armor would nullify seventy damage and the cloak another twenty-five — half of fifty.

That was ninety-five less damage. Bear, a damn tank, had a hundred points of defense. Damn, Blademaster Shai's black armor only had seventy-five points of defense, almost the same as Daggers' leather armor.

Remembering Shai's armor, I suddenly felt that something was wrong. She shouldn't have such a shitty armor.

I mean, it was good, but if leather armor could be as good, something was wrong.

"Anything else?" I asked just slightly envious.

"My new daggers deal seventy-five damage each. The old ones dealt fifty," she said in a flat tone.

"Oh. I see," I said sweetly. "Screw you too."

"Thanks," Alice retorted.

"Anything else?" I asked.

"Other than Laureth finding a way to complete my Blood Quest in the name of the Blackguard, which got me ten points to my Shadow trait, boosting it to Skilled rank... Oh, and I also got eight attribute points from it... No, nothing."

I didn't even know what to say. So that's what happened when other people played the game? The NPCs actually helped them?

Only then did I realize that the reason I had been saved wasn't because of some bullshit about the Drow Corps staying united, but because of Daggers.

Her treatment allowed me to understand the depth of the hatred of unbound deathlords. I knew other players were treated better, but I hadn't realized until now how much easier they had it.

At least being unbound would be useful when I left the Underworld. Supposedly.

"You really should get back to the game," she said while I was lost in my thoughts. "I'm pretty sure we'll break through the wall today. Dying for missing a single day of work would be stupid."

That got me interested. "Today? Are you sure?"

"I'm not certain, but the specters are mobilizing to fight."

"But didn't the Ruined Kings say it would take a week?"

"A week to get into Ter'nodril," she said, "not a week of excavation."

"Oh, right. Okay, go to my logout point so we can form a party."

"Sure, see you there."

"See ya."

I hung up and logged back in.

* * *

As soon as I logged in, I invited Daggers to a party and checked her stats after she was done selecting the attributes to be affected by my Strategist trait.

Daggers (level 27)

<Skilled Shadow | Adept Athlete>

HP: 1850 / 1850

MP: 200 / 200

Stamina: 483 / 485

<Looking good,> I said.

<I know. Good digging, sir,> she replied and walked away.

I looked at the specters and saw that she was right: they were ready for battle. Hundreds of headless horsemen made up the front line, with tanks in full plate in the middle and a row of specter mages flanking them.. I couldn't make out the forces behind them, but I could tell there were thousands of specters there.

Without a choice, I turned and started excavating.

Thank goodness, it only took half an hour for all hell to break loose.

One of the drow was slightly ahead of the rest of us, and with a final blow a small opening appeared. Enraged roars could be heard for just a moment before dozens of spells flew from behind me to strike the wall.

The explosion was deafening. I was thrown to the ground and scrambled as quickly as I could on hands and knees toward the left wall, which I'd intentionally been working near. I collided with the wall, half blinded by the dust and the flash of the spells and pressed myself flat against it to avoid the horsemen, which were already charging toward the massive three hundred meter wide breech, with the rest of the specters surging forward behind them.

I had thought feral zombies were impressive, but that was before I saw the drow thralls in action.

The thralls roared again, and I saw the livid flesh on their necks where they had been hanged, their pointy black teeth, they wore chain armor but carried no weapons. If this were an ordinary battle, it would have been a massacre as heavily armored troops slaughtered unarmed resistance.

But the thralls were a force of nature.

Their counter charge was like watching a dam burst, hundreds of thousands of crazed beasts who had once been people surged forward as one with no concern for their lives. The horsemen charged the thralls at full speed, trampling them under the horses and impaling them on their lances, but the sheer weight of the tidal wave of bodies bogged the horses down. When that happened, they must have activated a skill, as the horses shone white and picked up the pace again.

Two columns of horsemen broke all the way through the mob of thralls before looping back around to attack them from behind.

Meanwhile, the thralls, whose preferred method of attack seemed to be ripping into flesh with their teeth like animals, had nearly wiped out the Drow Corps. However, when they reached the specter tanks, they hit an impenetrable shield wall. The thralls at the front slammed futilely against the shields, while the ones behind climbed over them in a vain attempt to overrun the tanks.

Hundreds of archers fired arrows over the tanks, pincushioning the climbing thralls as scores of spells thinned their numbers. It was a massacre.

To avoid the confused melee, I wedged myself into a natural cleft in the wall of the excavation and managed to pull myself up out of harm's way. I could do nothing but stare.

Daggers and the other Blackguards were at the opposite side of the opening, making minced meat of the thralls rushing them.

To my surprise, the specter tanks began to push ahead instead of holding their position. Slowly but surely, one pace at a time, they were approaching the breach in the wall.

Ten minutes later, some of the thralls finally clambered over the first line of tanks, only to face a second line.

From my vantage point, I could see the specter army: row upon row of tanks, followed by more archers and mages. I hadn't realized before that they had brought so many troops.

Only around a tenth of the archers and mages were able to get into range to attack, but it still made it almost impossible for the thralls to get over the tanks.

The Blackguards shadowed and leapt over the phalanx of tanks as soon as it reached them, just before Daggers stamina bar would have run dry.

One of the Ruined Mage Kings, the fire one, flew over the specters and hovered just above the front line. I thought he would attack but he remained still, waiting with twenty morbs above his head.

Far beyond the raging battle, I once again glimpsed the Devourer. He was just as I remembered him, a black sun, floating above the massive darksteel walls of Ter'nodril, easily the size of the city itself.

Exactly like the sun he reminded me of, the Devourer poured forth thick streamers of its own substance which curled out away from its main body as if they would escape it entirely, before being drawn back in. Even at this, distance I saw the massive ball of darkness revolving, writhing like a ball of snakes.

Then, without warning, the tendrils emanating from the Devourer multiplied in number and magnitude before forming into spears and hurtling towards the invading army.

That was when the fire King sang. His melodious invocation was like a choir of a million voices.

"Flame, Raging Fire,

Annihilator of Life,

Burn, destroy, blacken,

Consume my enemies,

Become my wrath."

All twenty fire morbs became a single mass of red flames tinged with gold, emitting a blinding radiance before it shot towards the incoming tendrils or darkness. As the two spells converged the sphere of flame released gouts of flame which incinerated the lances of darkness before continuing on, burning away the tendrils which had spawned them until it approached the Devourer himself. It stopped close enough that I couldn't be sure it wasn't touching the writhing ball of darkness, then spread out into an aegis of flame which prevented the Devourer from releasing any further attacks.

My attention returned to the ground as I heard the screaming of a horse as the thralls overran and killed it. That was only the first; others soon met the same fate.

Not understanding how the mindless thralls had managed to fell the horseman, I looked more closely and spotted Blackguards hidden amidst them. They didn't look like they wanted to engage the tanks, but they easily cut the horses legs out from under them, leaving them easy prey for the brutal mass of thralls.

I looked back up as hundreds of tendrils rose from the black sun, they didn't attack, but instead formed a rippling face with soft features that stared straight at the fire King.

"This is a breach of the Ways," the Devourer said. His voice burbled as if he was speaking from under water, which made it hard to understand his words.

"No," the million voices of the King answered. "This was a warning. We are punishing your children for violating the Ways. If you attempt to impede us you shall also face our retribution."

The big face seemed to frown. "They violated the Ways?"

"Yes. Stand down, we shall annihilate the sinners and bring new children to serve you."

There was no immediate answer. As the battle raged on, the cavalry realized what was happening and retreated to escape the Blackguards as the tanks kept advancing. As they marched out of the breech, the tanks formed an ever expanding semicircular perimeter as more of them streamed out to join the formation.

"My High Assassin," the Devourer said, "denies your claims. The Ways are clear: I must hold his word in higher regard than all others, unless you have a Divine Writ."

"I do not," the King replied. "But I claim that your High Assassin has also trespassed against the Ways. We must convene a tribunal of the gods, in accordance with the Ways. Until there is a verdict you must not interfere."

"So be it. Likewise you are forbidden to intervene," the face of darkness said, even as it dissolved and its voice became harder to understand. "Let us honor the Ways."

I barely understood the last words.

"Let us honor the Ways," the million voices of the King agreed as he drifted toward the rear of the army.

The tendrils of darkness enveloped the fiery remnant of the Ruined Mage King's spell and extinguished before the Devourer returned to his usual passive state.

<That's it?> I asked Daggers. <They chat a bit and the Devourer is okay with us killing the drow?>

<Seems like it, sir,> she replied.

I sighed and resumed watching the battle.

The sea of thralls was dwindling as the number of specters on the other side of the breach was increasing. The tanks had finished deploying, and the archers and mages were filling in the area they secured. The horsemen had completely disengaged and withdrawn to the rear.

There, the metal constructs I had seen in the tent were floating. The mist at the center of each pulsed with a bright white light as rivulets wound out out and obscured the spectral mages standing behind them. Behind all of that the four Kings floated passively.

The ranks of specters made way as the constructs slowly drifted forward. Once they were beyond the breach they stopped and the white light flared before releasing a torrent of ghostly heads which ignored the spectres and rushed towards the army of thralls.

The thralls mindlessly attacked this new threat just as they had every other until now. That was a mistake, whether they attacked the heads or were attacked by them, the result was the same; the thralls screamed as they made contact and spasmed before they died and each released another ghost which joined the ongoing massacre.

Soon, the entire battlefield was overrun with disembodied ghost heads, all of which flew through thralls without stopping, leaving a trail of dead in their wake.

I was completely unnerved by the spectacle.

Something Manhart had told me came to mind: 'In Valia, it usually takes a skill to cancel another skill.'

In the same way I hadn't been able to refuse Blademaster Shai's duels because I didn't have an appropriate skill, the thralls could only die because they didn't have whatever was required to resist the attacking ghostly heads, and it seemed clear the heads couldn't be harmed without some kind of magical attack.

In a matter of minutes the entire thrall army lay dead and uncountable thousands of ghost heads flew around the battlefield. Then, pillars of white light rose from the artifacts which had released them and drew the ghosts back towards them as if drawn in by gravity. The expressions of anguish were clear on their faces before the ghostly heads dissolved back into formless mist and were sucked back into the center of the constructs.

Once all the heads had been absorbed the columns of light retracted. Then the mages who had been operating the devices began to wither. At first as if they were rapidly aging, but soon they resembled desiccated corpses before their souls were also visibly drawn out of their ghostly bodies, leaving only small pools of ectoplasm behind on the floor.

The constructs remained hovering just as they had before, the only difference being that the white mist in them shone more brilliantly than before and the metal symbols now rotated much faster, as if straining to lock the souls of the deceased inside.

I was fairly certain everyone killed by the constructs would never be able to be resurrected, what with their souls gone. I idly wondered that would happen if a player used one of them, then decided I'd rather not find out.

When the spectacle was over, the mages who were left shot white spheres into the air. Around the tanks, thousands of Blackguards had their stealth pierced and retreated as soon as they were revealed.

<Drow Corps, on me!> I heard a voice in my mind, it was the annoying Corps's leader from before.

I located and walked toward them. The eight Blackguards were in a defensive circle around the few dozen drow who had survived the thrall attack and managed to avoid being trampled by the horsemen afterwards.

When I arrived, I heard the leader's voice in my mind again.

<You are survivors! After facing the savagery of the thralls who are meant to defend the drow, I believe it's time for you to know the true reason you're fighting!> She declared with a note of zeal in her voice.

My vision faded to black, then a huge battle scene appeared before me. It was being fought on space, backdropped by a Mars like planet. A few hundred people wearing most elaborate armor I'd ever seen were divided into two forces as they battled each other with weapons that radiated elemental powers.

"Countless eons ago, the gods fought a titanic war," the Blackguard leader's voice came from nowhere.

Magic twisted and wove across the battlefield, gargantuan elemental detonations occasionally hid large swaths of the fighting and even the planet behind it. My vision shifted to a battle being fought on one of the planet's moons. An armored man bearing a sword and shield was trying to close with a man holding a bow that was big enough to have been mounted on a ballista.

Arrows of white light flew from the bow so rapidly it nearly looked like a laser beam, but they rattled off the other man's shield like machine gun fire. The man with the shield could do nothing as his shield was chipped away under the onslaught. His body was soon riddled with arrows, then it slumped lifelessly to the ground. The bow wielder looked up and then took off, angling towards the space battle which still raged overhead.

"The losers Fell and were imprisoned in the depths of the world."

The view shifted to a coffle of prisoners clad in rags, strung together by chains that were clearly enchanted. Even in this state, their inhuman allure made it clear that these were gods. As they shuffled through an endless desert towards an enormous lightsteel platform, overseers in heavy armor kept a wary eye on the prisoners, and occasionally whipped them to force them to continue forward.

"With the war over and the Fallen imprisoned, there was a time of peace. It was shattered when the Fallen cultivated a new power, freed themselves, and laid waste to Valia."

The people in the scene faded away. Centuries passed in moments, as visible by the sand dunes migrating, then it slowed. The lightsteel platform, which must have actually been the door of the Fallen's prison, buckled outward, struck by something unfathomably strong from the inside. A second and a third blow came and then, nothing. A while later, a fourth and final impact ruptured the door and a pillar of green light shone briefly.

As the view zoomed in on the, hole, an arm covered in black scales reached out and a horrid cry which chilled my blood followed it.

"A new war ensued, and the Fallen were once again subjugated, but at great cost."

Instead of another battle, the view was only of a man, covered in black scales, on his hands and knees. Green blood ran down his arms and formed a small puddle on the scorched earth beneath him. Bodies littered the ground around him, both gods and Fallen.

"This time, the gods realized they must remain on guard against the Fallen, but no god could resist them alone. The corrupted power they wielded, the Blight, was the bane of the gods. Unless the gods stood united against it, they couldn't survive."

The scene transitioned to hundreds of armored people sitting cross-legged around the lightsteel platform. The hole in the center was still there, sealed with a golden energy barrier, which was powered by tendrils of energy flowing from the assembled gods into it.

"To avoid another escape and yet another war, the gods remained on permanent watch, forced to forsake their wandering of the galaxy. But then, the humblest of all the gods, the God of the Elves and of Self-Sacrifice, decided to act."

One of the figured rose and approached the barrier. There, he shed his armor. With that done, the majestic man smiled; and then drove his hand into his heart. Liquid light of all colors poured from the wound and ran down his body even as it rapidly diffused into the air. Soon the flow slowed to nothing and only rays of golden light and tendrils of darkness could still be seen within the wound.

"He changed himself. He limited his power so that he would never be a threat to the other gods, even if his plan failed. He stripped all elemental affinities except the weakest: darkness."

As he withdrew his hand from his chest a small opening appeared in the golden barrier and a pillar of pale green energy escaped through it. Surprisingly, the man drew the energy in through his open mouth. Green veins appeared on his skin, which darkened to black in several places before black scales began sprouting all across his body.

"Thus, the Devourer came to be."

The image froze as color leached away until only the green of the pillar and the energy spreading through the god's veins remained.

"A new prison was created for the Fallen, in the depths of the world, and the Devourer became the Warden, the First Guardian. Because of him, the gods were free to do as they pleased."

The Devourer sat in the middle of a large chamber, lightsteel cell doors honeycombed the walls. A trickle of the green energy flowed through a small opening in each to join a generous sphere of the eldritch energy floating above the Devourer's head. Snakelike tentacles of liquid darkness extended from the Devourer, to the orb above his head, occasionally swelling as they gulped down portions of it.

"The elves loved their god and were pained by his plight. They all desired to pledge themselves to his new cause, guarding this prison in the Underworld. But the Devourer decreed that he would accept only half of them, to serve as another line of defense incase he failed.”

The scene transitioned to uncountable throngs of elves standing on the border of the desert. There were tears and many elves embraced their kin as they said their goodbyes. Then, the half who had been chosen turned and walked resolutely into the desert, the remainder collapsing, wailing in despair.

"Yet, the Devourer was unstable."

The image faded to complete darkness.

"The Blight affected him more than anyone could have predicted."

A green flame appeared in the darkness.

"He slipped into madness."

The flame burned higher, the illumination revealed thousands of hands reaching upwards, contorted in unnatural ways. The sounds of agony were unbearable.

"He twisted the elves who followed him into his darkness-touched children. He created the drow. The drow have the Blight in them, an inherent evil which naturally opposes Divine power. It gave us a hunger to conquer all."

The mangled lightsteel entrance to the Underworld was visible again, a legion of drow clambered out, darksteel swords in their hands and malice written plainly on their faces.

Suddenly, golden chains stretched out from inside the breach in the lightsteel door, shackled the ankles of the drow, and dragged them back as they howled with rage. They tried to resist, their nails broke as they clawed the ground seeking purchase, their blood streaked the white metal ground, but it was to no avail. Soon, they disappeared back into the hole.

"Having realized the danger to Valia, the gods had returned. When they saw what the elven disciples of the Devourer had become they tried to remove the taint of the Blight from them, but failed. So it was that they imprisoned the drow and bent all their magics to creating an artifact to aid the Devourer in resisting the corruption of the Blight, to preserve his sanity as he fulfilled his purpose as the First Guardian.”

“At that time, the denizens of the Underworld were little more than beasts, vengeful spirits, endlessly hungering undead and destructing elementals. The gods changed them, helped them ascend to true sentience so that they might serve them, defend their realm from the threat of the fallen and contain the drow.

"The Ways were created, not by tyrannical gods who wished to enslave us with their rules, but out of love, that we might still serve our purpose. Because we carried the Blight, a power which has always opposed the gods, their only alternative would have been to exterminate us."

I saw a resplendent tome lying open on a table, revealing graceful golden letters on its snow-white pages.

"Following the Ways has ensured our survival and given us purpose throughout all the ages of our history. But with the coming of the Age of Travelers, the gods have turned a blind eye to transgressors. Worse still, the other races of the Underworld have abandoned their duties, some have even joined the drow with the intent of conquering the Underworld."

The book slowly faded away and I once again saw the assembled Drow Corps and the specter army all around us.

<But that's not who we are!> The Blackguard leader shouted into my mind. <That's not our purpose! We are Valia's defenders, the children of the Devourer, the God of Self-Sacrifice! We fight for him! We fight for Valia! We are the drow!> She raised her hand. <For the good of the Devourer himself, we shall annihilate those in the Dark Temple who have forsaken the Ways, we shall undo all their evil works!> Then, she shouted at the top of her lungs: "For the Devourer! For Valia!"

"For the Devourer! For Valia!" The other drow raised their hands and repeated the war cry.

The specters around us looked at us as if we were crazy, and as I noticed the fanaticism in the Blackguard leader's eyes, I wondered the same thing.

I remembered the Ruined King's words about bringing the Devourer new children, and wondered if this woman was who they had in mind to be the new leader of the drow.

I smiled at that thought. She might speak like a fanatic, maybe she even believed her little sermon, but she was definitely ambitious, and therefore dangerous.

34. Classic Siege

With the thralls dead, the specters assumed a pentagon formation, and marched towards the city walls.

The Drow Corps kept to the center of the formation, contemplating what had been revealed about the Devourer.

Personally, I loved it. I had been worried about what I would do if my original plan failed, but this was perfect for me. I was already forming new contingency plans.

The army came to a stop outside bowshot and brought the ghost constructs to the front of the formation. They began firing ghostly heads just as they had before, but they were all destroyed in a splash of golden light as they struck some kind of ward over the city.

It was then that I realized that these weren't weapons created to defeat the thralls; the army could have done that, it would've only been a matter of time. Instead, they'd reaped all those souls to use them as magical artillery shells.

The balls of white light that had been used to reveal the Blackguards were placed around the army to prevent a surprise attack. None were revealed, but I was sure they were there, waiting just outside detection range.

<The city shield will fall in two days,> Laureth spoke once again in my mind. I didn't know how she was doing that, but I supposed it had something to do with the Commander trait or a specialized item. <Meanwhile, the thralls' corpses will attract scavengers. All the non-specters have been ordered to keep monsters away from the army.>

Just as the leader finished speaking I received a quest completion notification and a new quest appeared.

Quest completed: Excavate

[Catacombs' Drow Corps]

Attribute point received:

» +1 willpower

Stamina: 640 (+5)

I wondered if this was really a random stat reward, since mining for four days had certainly tested my willpower, both in-game and outside it.

I ignored the little voice reminding me I had given up before Daggers called me and checked the new quest.

Quest: Protect the Specters' Siege Camp

[Catacombs' Drow Corps]

B+ rank

The siege camp outside Ter'nodril must be protected from monsters coming its way for two days.

Conditions:

» No specter can be killed by a monster

» Must be completed without dying

Quests were all well and good, but I had a question: "Why don't we just burn the corpses if they'll attract monsters?" I asked the leader.

She turned to sneer at me. "Because, deathlord, there are hundreds of thousands of bodies here. It would take us far longer than two days to burn them all unless the Kings acted, but they have agreed not to interfere with the war."

It was a good point, but I didn't like her condescending tone. "Makes sense, I guess that's why you're the boss.” I flashed her a thumbs up.

Her glare intensified. Had I just crossed a line? Well, if so, and she expelled me from the army, there was still plan B: Daggers would pretend she had captured me and bring me to the city doors. Who knows, it might even work.

Thankfully, Laureth didn't act on her anger. Instead, we all followed her to the midway point between the corpses and the siege camp.

<We'll make our stand here,> she said. <Travelers are allowed fourteen hours of rest each day. On the third day, at the sixth cycle...> At the edge of my vision I could see that the 'sixth cycle' corresponded to seven AM my time. <...we'll attack the city. Remember: no monsters can be allowed past us!>

To our sides I saw people of multiple species appearing, mostly players. The White Tree dudes and their friends who had attacked me were all there too.

They looked at me with obvious disdain. I simply took my helmet off, put my Circlet on, and waited. If eight Blackguards couldn't protect me, the only thing that might make a difference was stronger magic.

Less than half an hour later, the first scavengers appeared. They were monsters I had seen during my first days in Valia: hairless dogs so thin I could see their ribs through their skin.

There were dozens of them, but they didn't enter the the chamber we were in, preferring instead to eat the corpses beyond the breach.

This lasted until a herd of monsters that resembled Velociraptors appeared. They hissed and menaced the dogs until they forced them towards us.

Pack after pack, monsters from giant crickets to flaming birds appeared and swarmed over the bodies. Soon the safer meals had all been consumed, and as the stronger monsters advanced they drove the weaker ones ever nearer.

By the third hour the weaker monsters were cut off from the exit and had been driven away from the macabre buffet by the stronger ones. Having no other options they were sizing us up.

The first monsters to attack were some kind of carnivorous plants that dragged themselves along with leafy tentacles. I killed one with just two firebombs to its grotesque maw.

<Don't waste your mana in these pathetic monsters!> Laureth scolded me.

Monsters continued to come at us, all of them weak. I lobbed a firebomb here or there when my MP was full, in spite of Laureth's constant complaining. "My mana is full!" I finally yelled. "What's the point of keeping it that way? I'd be wasting my mana regeneration!"

She looked furious, but didn't tell me to stop again.

The next five hours were dull as hell, especially because I barely fought. I finally took out my bow, but even so the tanks hardly had to defend themselves, and the fighters spent more time talking than fighting.

For the next ten hours, I worked on my physical abilities. Sword, shield, and arrows; I drew blood with them all. Although I couldn't raise my attributes because of the poisoning, I could still improve my fighting techniques.

Having fulfilled my quota for the day, I went back and logged out near the siege engines rather than where the Drow Corps were. I wasn't about to risk logging back in to find they'd moved and I was surrounded by monsters or enemy players.

* * *

That day, a political bombshell dropped.

Claiming that it was for the good of the world, the UN voted for the NAC to give up control of the Immersive Reality technology. The NAC vetoed it, as was its right, but the fact that even the NACs allies had voted against them was a huge concern.

Every powerful nation had immediately sent their fleets out for “training maneuvers.” It wasn't even a subtle threat. Our military leaders reacted predictably, in an equally threatening posture. The menace of war loomed large in everyone's minds.

For the first time I truly wondered if I'd made a mistake. I could live with the chaos I'd caused in the country, but none of us would live much longer if this started a damn nuclear war.

But no, I was getting too emotional. There was no way that could happen, right? This was just the hypocritical leaders of the other nations virtue-signaling to look good to the voting public. In reality they were probably just jealous that they hadn't come up with a way to spy on everyone's private thoughts first. Having assured myself of this I went to bed.

And yet, nightmares plagued me and my sleep was fitful. The next morning, I decided to seek out grandfather's council, but he was nowhere to be found and wasn't returning my calls. Pondering the matter with only the information on the news was pointless, only someone in high political office would know what was really going on.

Without anyone else to ask, I put it out of my mind and logged back in.

* * *

The monsters that attacked on the second day were only a little stronger than the ones we had fought yesterday, but I made sure to put in my quota of hours early. The fights may actually become dangerous by the end of the day and I wouldn't risk my life to complete the quest; I didn't give a damn about a few specters losing their lives. The only reason I even helped was that if I didn't, the Corps' leader would kill me.

Nothing interesting happened. My lack of skill in melee combat became ever more apparent as the monsters got stronger. Eventually, I had to fall back and use my bow, since running out of stamina on the front lines would be suicidal.

Just like yesterday, I logged off by the siege engines.

I was still unable to reach Grandfather and I was getting a little tense about the UN situation. I considered leaking information that the governing AI head been patched to prevent mind reading; maybe that would make everyone a little less excited to get their hands on it. True, other software could be developed, but it just so happened that I'd had most of the people familiar with that dark side of the technology killed, meaning it would take years and millions of dollars to even have a chance of recreating what I'd unmade.

But that might expose David's involvement and through him I would be at greater risk of being caught. I didn't want to act rashly, so for now I would just wait.

The next day, I logged back in at half past six AM, half an hour before the Ter'nodril's defense was expected to fall.

I completely forgot about my real world concerns when the fun began.

I immediately heard and saw monsters attacking the the specter tanks which ringed the siege camp. Most of the people who'd been defending the camp yesterday were either dead or inside the camp now.

A gigantic tentacle monster easily bypassed the defensive lines and grabbed a specter archer, crushing it to an ectoplasmic pulp and throwing it away before grabbing another.

Three-headed dogs made of black flames had chewed through the tanks in the first row and were now working on the second.

A pair of emerald colored scorpions the size of bears were killing tanks in a single blow, their tails ignoring both shields and armor alike.

Quest failed: Protect the Specters' Siege Camp

[Catacombs' Drow Corps]

Receiving no new quest after failing that one was a blessing.

The whole camp was on the verge of being overrun, I could either try to help or hide. The choice was obvious: I hid.

There was no reason for me to attract the aggro of the monsters by dealing damage to them. If the specters couldn't even survive this little attack, they would be massacred by the drow.

As if reading my thoughts, all the specters made way for one of them to pass.

It was a ghost of a type I hadn't seen before: its body was humanoid and completely covered by eyes of all colors and types, from red to blue, from human to fish. It floated onwards with no apparent hurry.

While I looked, I noticed all the specters were turning their backs to that being. I was about to do the same when one of its cat eyes locked gazes with me.

Then there was only darkness.

I found myself in a completely black void, I couldn't even tell if I had a body. All game elements had been removed from my vision, except for a white message floating ahead of me:

Your character has been disabled by a mental attack.

Just like that, a single look from a single eye was enough to disable my character without any chance for me to resist.

Prior to this, I had thought I was fairly strong. Even if I had kind of abused a stupid game mechanic to conquer the castle, I had still conquered it. My intellect had triumphed over all the advantages the game had given the minotaurs in that fight; I felt confident, that I could overcome any other challenges the same way.

Now I realized, all my planning and clever tricks meant nothing in the face of something with truly overwhelming power. That thing had defeated me with a casual glance, I'd never had a chance. If it had been an enemy, I would already be dead.

I wondered about Oxfiend. He had said his power had been limited by his agreement with the god Edward. How powerful was he now that he wasn't bound by that agreement?

Damn, what about Manhart? The lich had said that no one in the Catacombs except for the Ruined Mage Kings were a threat to him. Was he stronger than this Eye Creature?

When I wondered about the time, the internal clock appeared, with nothing to do I spent the next ten minutes staring at it while I contemplated my plans, both in game and real life. Finally I was returned to my character's body.

Daggers was the first thing I saw. She was right beside me, weapons drawn. I didn't see any danger near us, but I was sure she knew what she was doing. I invited her to the party before I even took a look around.

The second thing I noticed was the silence. It had been a cacophony of battle and roaring monsters just ten minutes ago, but now you could almost hear a pin drop. I looked around and was only mildly surprised, having expected this after spending ten minutes stunned by a single glance: all the monsters were dead on the ground.

The Eye Creature was floating alone where the defensive lines had been breached, with the pile of monster corpses as a backdrop. It would have looked heroic if it weren't a freakish abomination. The eyes on this side of its body were all closed, and now that I had a chance to take a closer look at it, I realized it was quite frail. As freakishly powerful as it was, I doubted it would do well in melee combat. Not that I could see a good way for anything to get that close to it when it could stun and even kill with just a look.

The camp's defensive lines quickly reformed, and if it wasn't for the specters bodies on the ground, no one would have guessed we had even been attacked.

In the city's direction, the siege engines were still hammering the golden barrier. It was clear they were making progress, as it was covered in a spiderweb of cracks and the ghost heads now strained against the barrier for long seconds before they faded away.

<Daggers, what happened?> I asked.

<You passed out, sir,> she replied. <It looked like the White Tree guys were going to take the opportunity to collect the bounty, so I came to protect you.>

<Thanks,> I said.

This was a very good sign. She had been a bit annoying since she reunited with the Blackguards, but the fact that she still had my back was a huge relief.

<What now?> I asked.

<The orders from Laureth are to rush to the Dark Temple with the specters when they invade the city, then engage at will. She doesn't seem to think that anything we do will make any real difference at that point.>

<Sounds like as good plan as any.>

<Sir?> Daggers tone was dead serious.

<Yes?> I didn't like it.

<What is your end goal?> She asked looking me straight in the eyes.

<Would you believe me if I said I only want to talk to the Devourer?>

<Yes, sir, I would. Is that your answer?>

We stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Everything my parents had taught me about managing subordinates told me to simply lie and give an excuse for my actions later.

In politics, there was nothing to be gained by trusting someone with your actual plans. The famous Benjamin Franklin quote said it best: Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

All of this, my actions, my plans, my ploys, weren't ultimately about dominating a game; I was after something bigger. I had a personal vendetta, I wanted and was enacting a justice in which I was judge, jury, and the executioner.

But I had just realized, that as much as I had gone into this with the intent of upending society, I may still get much more than I bargained for.

Daggers had saved my ass multiple times in game, and even called in a favor from her father when we'd thought those soldiers were going to kill me. She would hate me once she realized what I'd done, but until then, I decided I wouldn't betray her trust.

I sighed. <Alright, listen well, I'm going to->

<Wait!> She interrupted me. <Sir, if other people knew about this, would your plan be jeopardized?>

I didn't understand her question. <I guess?>

<Then we must cut our stream feeds before you say any more.>

I was truly shocked. No, not because she was worrying about it, but because I had forgotten to add the stream feeds into the equation. If I had lied to her now, I would have never had the chance to cover it up later if she could simply watch what I did.

Making a decision without properly considering all the variables was... Scary.

When I took a moment to really examine my thought process I came to a startling conclusion: I truly considered her a friend, and as such I had made a decision on the basis of what was best for another person rather than thinking of myself.

"Holy shit," I whispered and looked at Daggers as if seeing her for the first time.

She was my friend.

How the hell had this happened?

<Sir?> She asked, concern evident in her eyes.

<Sorry, just a stray thought,> I said and cut off the stream feed. <I cut my feed, what about you?>

<Done.>

<Okay, Sam.> Now that we were friends, calling her by the shortened form of her character's first name, Samantha, somehow seemed appropriate. <The reason I need to get to the Devourer is simple.> Her golden and blue eyes were locked on me intently. I took a deep breath. <I'm going to kill him.>

Her eyes widened. <What?!> She practically shouted in my mind.

<Failing that, I'm going to release him,> I continued.

<What?!> She repeated. <But why? How?!>

I smiled. <Now, if I told you that, it would spoil the surprise when you watch me do it.>

She looked lost. I had never seen her so out of her depth before. She opened her mouth to speak several times but closed it without saying anything each time. Finally, she took a deep breath and spoke.

<Sir, what about our masters?> She meant the Department of Immersive Reality.

Of all the things I expected her to ask, that wasn't even on the list. <What about them?>

<Killing a god when the Age of Travelers has just begun will have serious consequences. Are you sure our masters will not simply reverse time in Valia?>

I frowned. I had thought of that before and was counting on David to convince the guys in DIR not roll the game back to a previous state.

But when Sam asked that and I thought of David, I realized something: David was now an important figure in DIR.

V-Soft had developed an AI to interpret people's thoughts, and it had taken them decades. I had killed the lead developer and had David modify the AI to have a semblance of morals.

I had been so focused on killing the Devourer that I had failed to realize the ramifications of David's new position in DIR. He had the power to save the whole damn world. For a few years, at least.

<Just a second,> I told Sam, then I called David.

<What do you want?> He said as soon as he picked up the call.

I didn't beat around the bush. <I need you to destroy all the AIs backups right now.>

<Are you kidding me?!> He clearly wasn't thrilled about doing that.

<No, listen->

<I'm not doing it,> he said firmly.

<David->

<No, McHolen. I'm not doing it. It may be beyond your comprehension, but I like my job. I like working on AIs and I'm currently working on one of the most advanced AIs in the entire world. I'm not giving this all up for you. I'll keep corrupting the backups as we planned before: slowly.>

<I can pay you.>

He laughed. <The carrot before the stick as usual, huh? How long until you threaten my daughter?> The venom was plain in his voice.

I could do that, I had already done it before. But I wouldn't. I now understood what it had cost me to kill someone, even when they deserved it. Ted definitely didn't deserve it, and I would be a fool to make a threat I wasn't capable of carrying out.

So, I would have to try plan B. Something I'd dreaded because there was no way of knowing how David would react.

Hell, if sincerity had worked with Sam, why not with David, too?

<Man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I threatened Theodora. But I'm not sorry for what I did to V-Soft. They deserved it and with everything that has come out since then, you know that nobody could have been trusted to punish them with all the blackmail material they had. It had to be done.>

I let the silence stretch on. When it came to matters of mortality, people responded well to a somber tone and a 'reverent lull' in the conversation.

<But,> I continued, <it's not over. V-Soft couldn't have survived without the support of people whose involvement either have never been discovered or couldn't be proved. Look at the UN; even if they weren't involved with V-Soft, they want the technology for themselves now. It won't be long before someone who wants to abuse the power takes control of DIR, assuming they haven't already. Most likely they are waiting for things to cool down before making their move. And that's where you come in, David. Only you can help me finish this for good. Only you can destroy the backups. Only you are in a position to be the goddamn hero this country needs.>

He took some time to reply. <It won't work,> his voice was almost a whisper. <They'll find a way around the AI, even without the backups.>

<Maybe. Hell, they'll probably reverse-engineer the entire system in a few years. But for now, this needs to happen as it is our only hope. I've already done my best, and it plunged the country into chaos. Thousands of people are already dead and it may lead the NAC into war with the rest of the world.> I exaggerated a little, playing into the narrative I was sure he'd heard on the news. <If you do your best, all you've risked is your job, but it will keep billions of people safe from the kind of shit V-Soft was doing before. I will keep you out of prison and make sure you're taken care of if you're found out.>

Now, to seal the deal: <Don't do it for me, do it for Theodora. I'm not threatening her, I'm just saying she would be damn proud, of a father who saved the whole damn human race from this evil.>

He didn't answer immediately. Sam was looking at me curiously while the siege engines continued firing at the city walls.

His reticence stretched into long minutes before he finally replied in his own way: he hung up.

I sighed in relief. I'd learned a bit about David during the course of blackmailing him, hanging up was his tacit agreement to do as I'd asked.

<I know for a fact that they won't rollback,> I said.

Although I hadn't called him for that reason, by convincing him to destroy the AI's backups, I also made it impossible for DIR to roll the game back to a previous state.

I wondered if even David had realized that I had bound their hands by carefully wording the governing AIs' moral directives to “ignore modifications they deemed harmful to humans." Making players angry, sad, or disappointed by discarding hours of their playtime with a rollback was also a kind of minor harm, and therefore disallowed.

And now, DIR couldn't try to bypass this by rolling back the AI itself to a previous version without the moral chains.

She frowned. <How do you know, sir?>

I smiled. <You'll know soon enough.>

<What do you mean?>

<I mean that tomorrow, it's all people will be talking about.>

For years, I had believed I had accidentally killed my parents, and it ate me away. Then, I found out I was innocent, and it freed me for an instant before I was instead consumed by my revenge.

I didn't regret killing the people who deserved to die, especially when, as I had just told David, there was no other way to bring them to justice.

But it was time to admit it: the guilt was eating me alive. It was even worse than when I believed I had killed my mother and father. The signs were becoming too numerous to ignore, starting with me needlessly dying to save Bear, and now, with me refusing to use Theodora to threaten David.

In just the last half hour, I'd truly realized I had Alice's friendship, and even more shockingly that the feeling was mutual. Then I'd seen David's shift, from a victim of blackmail, just trying to protect himself and his daughter to a man choosing to do something heroic. It was getting to me.

I didn't want to go through the same process of self-destruction, a suicide attempt and drowning myself in alcohol. I knew it was stupid, allowing my feelings to dictate my actions. It was a metaphorical highway to hell and a literal highway to jail.

But as I met my friend's gaze, I decided: when this was over I would turn myself in.

Obviously, it didn't mean I had decided to cast my own concerns aside and become a martyr for humanity. Valia still had to go.

Many people who had nothing to do with my vendetta would suffer with the end of the game, but taking away a form of entertainment from people and costing the DIR employees their jobs was a small price to pay.

The worst that could happen would be some of the ex-gamers turning to alcohol when deprived of their fun, developing cirrhosis of the liver, and dying. Most likely, they would just play another game. Either way, it had nothing to do with me.

Like I said, no saint here.

Suddenly, a spectral head hit the barrier... And went through it.

The entire golden barrier shattered like glass while the head disappeared, passing right through the wall.

And still, no one said anything. No specter cheered, no one moved.

What happened was that a new specter I hadn't seen before appeared. By then, I was sure the Kings weren't honoring their pledge not to interfere in the war; it was clear that they had been using their powers to hide the Eye Creature, and now this Buffalo.

He was a specter with a pair of short curved horns just like a buffalo. At five meters tall, he would have looked down on Oxfiend. But that was where the similarity to a minotaur ended. He was half as wide as he was tall, his arms at the bicep were as big around as three humans in a bearhug, and freakishly long, causing it to stroll like an ape. Overdeveloped, inhuman muscles covered his body. He would have been the envy of bodybuilders everywhere, because where they had a eight pack he looked like he had a twenty-eight pack!

He was essentially naked other than a loincloth mercifully covering his nethers. I didn't need the feeling of inadequacy I'd surely get from seeing that.

The army swiftly got out of his way and he unhurriedly advanced beyond the front line of tanks, where he paused.

<What the hell is that thing?> I asked.

<Sir, I have no idea,> Sam helpfully replied.

Mister Buffalo, then, let out a roar and ran.

He didn't speed up. He didn't start running. He had been perfectly still and suddenly he was moving full speed ahead directly at the walls, so quickly he was a blur.

All manner of ranged weapons and volley after volley of spells rained down from the walls.

The Buffalo roared again and a translucent green bubble appeared around him as his speed increased even more.

Midway through, Blackguards appeared outside the wall and rushed toward him. When they were in range, they shadowed and attacked, penetrating his defensive ward. He slowed but kept going.

It didn't last long though. More and more daggers pierced his body, and ectoplasm was flying everywhere. He continued to decelerate until he ground to a halt, probably because of some skill.

There, he took enough attacks to kill the entire Armless Battalion several times over, but only after a full minute of attacks did he finally die.

He had been no more than fifty meters from the doors.

<Well, points for trying, I gue-> What I saw made me stop speaking mid sentence:

From the middle of the army, fifteen Buffaloes were marching.

They stopped right at the edge of the camp, like the dead Buffalo had, creating a daunting line. Then, just like the one before them, they roared and charged.

The Blackguards tried to intervene sooner this time but the Buffaloes were simply too resistant. Ten of them were stopped before they got to the walls, but the other five still made it all the way there.

As they touched the wall, they roared again.

Then, they all exploded.

It was a massive blaze of green energy, the concussion shook everything, almost like an earthquake. Forget the doors; the darksteel walls were twisted and split open all the way to the other side. The walls were thick as hell but the explosion had still created a clear passage for the army to invade.

The bodies of the people on the walls nearest the explosion arced high through the air. The Blackguards on the ground must've been vaporized when the ten Buffaloes they'd stopped exploded right next to them.

Somehow, whatever that attack had been left the ground untouched, but even now it continued to eat into the walls like acid.

I stared dumbfounded at the huge hole now visible in the walls of Ter'nodril.

"Charge!" Someone yelled.

Then, as one we ran towards the city.

35. Old Acquaintance

Ter'nodril's streets were designed like the Devourer's symbol: a vortex inside a circle. There weren't any connections between the streets except at the very center, which made the city exasperating to navigate.

Every building was only two stories tall and made of black stone, so one who really wished to could travel along the roofs to reach the next street.

<Come with me!> I told Sam and ran towards a nearby weapons store. <Go invisible! If we manage to enter, get behind the store owner and wait for my cue.>

This was the store where I had met the fat drow NPC with colorful clothes the first time I entered Ter'nodril. Unsurprisingly, the door was closed like every other building I had seen since entering the city.

"Manhart sent me!" I yelled. "Open the door!" I pounded hard on it.

The specters, having met no resistance, had already charged on down the street. I was confident it meant the drow were preparing a counter-attack that I wouldn't enjoy.

The sound of metal grating on metal came from within and the darksteel door opened ever so slightly. I slammed against it, driving the fat drow back and opening the door. After Sam and I were in, I closed the door and barred it.

What surprised me was the lack of equipment in the store; it was completely barren. Mister Fat Drow had clearly been having thoughts of escaping.

"I don't believe I ever heard your name," I said, looking to the drow who had fallen on the floor. His silk clothes were as colorful as before, and his skin was even more oily than I remembered.

"Haron," he said as he got up. "Haron Sotrate. What does the Leader want from me?" I guessed he meant Manhart.

"Oh, nothing." I smiled. "I lied. I just want you to teach me some magic."

He frowned deeply. "That's not funny."

My smile died. "Good, I have no time for jokes. I'll give you a chance to teach me freely. Believe me, you won't like the alternative."

For a few seconds, he just looked at me. Then, a purple morb — gravity magic — formed above his head.

<Now,> I sent to Sam.

She acted instantly. One of her blades cut the gravity morb while the other found its way to Haron's throat, pressing against it as firmly as possible without breaking the skin. In less than a second, she had completed his capture when she brought the blade which had neutralized his morb down to press against his substantial gut.

"Raise your hands!" She barked into his ear.

Haron's eyes were bulging out of his sockets. "What's the meaning of this?!"

"Hands!" Sam insisted as the blade against his neck produced a small trickle of blood. He immediately raised his hands.

"I did warn you that the alternative sucked," I said. "Now, teach me."

He opened his mouth again but before he could say anything, I signaled Sam. As she pushed the blade into his belly, he let out a scream instead of speaking.

I looked into his eyes. "I don't trust you to speak. I'll approach and you'll place your hand on my head. If I don't start learning spells, you'll regret it. However, if you do as I tell you, I'll let you live."

It was simple logic: he probably had counter-measures in place, in the event of his capture. This was his store, after all. However, with his magic sealed, and his hands visible, I could only guess at voice activation for whatever trap he had. Thankfully, his scream hadn't sprung anything.

There was another alternative: the store could be under magical surveillance, in which case reinforcements would already be on the way. This was another reason for us to hurry.

I approached, under the hateful glare of Haron. He didn't move and I raised an eyebrow. That was all Sam needed to widen the cut on his throat. He grunted in pain and brought his left hand down atop my head.

This time, there was no pain as I felt warmth flow throughout my body, radiating out from the point of contact. Exclamation point buttons appeared on the right edge of my vision.

Hidden seal removed from: Universe's Pull

You're now able to learn any spells from this skill-tree.

Hidden seal removed from: Origin

You're now able to learn any spells from this skill-tree.

Hidden seal removed from: The Lack of Light

You're now able to learn any spells from this skill-tree.

Hidden seal removed from: The Flames

You're now able to learn any spells from this skill-tree.

Hidden seal removed from: Death is a Lifestyle

You're now able to learn any spells from this skill-tree.

I read the messages and just stared at the window for a while. "Manhart, you son of a bitch!" I finally yelled at the top of my lungs when my shock had passed.

It was strange that my first gravity spell hadn't leveled up but I never imagined something like this. I hadn't come across any information, neither in game nor on the internet that even hinted at the existence of seals like this.

'If people somehow knew it the moment they were poisoned, such things would be rather useless wouldn't they?' Manhart had said in a mocking voice.

Damn, I hated him so much!

That was probably also why his 'passing of knowledge' was so agonizing while Heron's had been rather pleasant!

As soon as the seals were removed, there were new exclamation points.

Fireball

Skill is now level 5!

Max level reached!

» Cost: 40 MP

» Damage: 144 (90 + 19 [Adept Mage] + 35 [Intelligence])

» Max collateral burn damage: 30% (43)

Firebomb

[Destruction]

Skill is now level 4!

» Cost: 200 MP

» Area of effect: 2.5 meters

» Epicenter: 75 centimeters

» Damage: 398 (300 + 63 [Adept Mage] + 35 [Intelligence])

» Max collateral burn damage: 40% (159)

Deathball

Skill is now level 3!

» Cost: 45

» Damage: 152 (90 + 18 [Adept Mage] + 9 [Deathlord] + 35 [Intelligence])

Darkvision

Skill is now level 4!

» Visibility level: clouded day

Darkball

Skill is now level 3!

» Cost: 30 MP

» Damage: 89 (45 + 9 [Adept Mage] + 35 [Intelligence])

Cosmo Connection

Skill is now level 2!

» Self-Damage: 2

» Interval: 55 seconds

Gravity Attunement

Skill is now level 2!

» Knockdown defense: 25%

New skill unlocked in the Universe's Pull skill-tree:

Gravityball (level 1)

Gravity, the Universe's Pull. A force much more mysterious and powerful than you first imagined.

After attuning yourself to it, you can now amass a morb full of the gravity element.  Using it as a skill will pull things towards you.

» Active Spell

» Element: Gravity

» Pull speed: 1 meter per second

» Max range: 5 meters

» Target's max weight: 0.9x caster weight

This all made me want to rend the lich into tiny pieces and watch a horde of monsters fight over the scraps. If it wasn't for him, would I have received these skills earlier? Based on my improvement before meeting Manhart, it seemed so. If that was the case, conquering the castle could have been so much easier!

He had sent me on an impossible mission, while intentionally limiting my power. It was nothing short of trying to kill me!

My max damage with firebomb, counting the burn damage, had shot up from three hundred ninety to four hundred sixty damage, an increase of seventy damage, or almost twenty percent! My deathballs were also better at healing now, which would have been great during that fight where I was reduced to playing healer outside of the lever room.

Granted, the mana cost of the skills also increased, so the second-tier spells, fireball and deathball hadn't improved in overall efficiency to the extent the third-tiered firebomb had. Even so my hands were shaking with rage.

After reading through all the leveled-up skills and going through my skill list to check them all again, I realized that one skill was conspicuously missing from level-up window: Kill to Survive.

Kill to Survive was a powerful skill that healed me for a percentage of dealt damage after I had killed an enemy. But now, I remembered that I hadn't seen it trigger for a very long time.

It didn't take a genius to understand why: the Cosmo Connection skill, the one applying a tiny bit of life damage to me every minute, was directly interfering with the Death-element of Kill to Survive. And Manhart had suggested I keep it activated at all times.

I could feel my blood boil, and I was a cold-blooded undead! I immediately turned the Cosmo Connection skill off.

The most important thing about all this, though, was that the fat drow had just shown himself to be much more powerful than I expected, since he had removed all the hidden seals Manhart had placed on me.

I suddenly had a foreboding feeling.

"Sam, release him," I said, stepping back a few paces, and bowed slightly. "Sorry for my rudeness just now."

He had been glaring at me, but then his glare turned into a frown, and then into a look of resignation. "What gave me away?" He asked, his voice now full of power and authority.

"The removal of the seals," I replied while Sam moved to stand beside me. "Manhart said that in the area, only the Ruined Mage Kings are stronger mages than him. Yet, you easily undid his work."

"I thought as much. Manhart linked the seals together to strengthen them, but that made it impossible to remove just one." He looked me straight in the eyes. "Why are you here, Jack Thorn?"

I felt my skin crawl. Those were the eyes of a hunter regarding prey. I didn't doubt for a single second that he would kill us if I gave the wrong answer.

I couldn't even guess at why he was hiding his strength before, or why he had allowed me to attack him. Without knowing those things, how could I guess at what the right answer was?

So, I told him the truth. "I'm going to kill the Devourer."

The hunger in his eyes slowly turned into curiosity, then amusement, as if I had just said the most absurd thing in the world. "Will you?"

"Yes."

He laughed. "What if you fail?"

"Then, I'll release him."

He laughed louder. "You'll release him from chains made of lightsteel and enchanted with divine power, so strong that not even the Devourer himself could break free?"

"Yes." I said firmly. I was confident I could do at least that much. His laughter continued for a solid minute before it finally died away. "Who or what are you, really?" I asked.

There was no answer to my question, instead he responded with one of his own. "Why did you release me? Why not continue with the act and get new spells?"

That was a simple answer: "I had no guarantee you wouldn't place new seals after you were done giving me new spells; better to quit while I was ahead. Spells can be obtained in other ways, even if it's difficult. But I bet releasing the hidden seals is much harder."

"Indeed, indeed," his smile hadn't died. "For your intelligence, I'll let you both leave alive and without the seals."

As much as I wanted to ask for new spells, I still didn't trust him. I sighed, bowed again, and turned to leave. When I got to the door, I heard his voice again as if from a great distance. "Next time you see Manhart, tell him you killed me.” I looked back, but saw only the bare stone walls of the empty store. We left in silence as the implied 'Or else!' hung in the air.

Outside, the world was in chaos. Drow wearing the plain white robes that all the civilians wore had left the buildings and were fighting against the Catacombs' army. I saw the group of armored assholes who had tried to kill me battling a large mob of drow.

This wasn't the counter attack I had been expecting.

The drow were merely dying. They had weapons, mostly low-quality looking swords, but no armor at all. Whatever the reason they were fighting, it clearly wasn't because they thought they could win.

I was tempted to kill the White Tree idiots again, but I had more important business to attend to.

Sword and shield in hand, I moved towards my destination. Sam surprised me by taking the lead with her hood up. Her intention was apparent: make it look like we were on their side.

<Where to, sir?> She asked.

<No more 'sir.' We're past that,> I said.

<Affirmative, sir.>

I rolled my eyes. <Whatever. Do you have a map? If so, I can share the route I want to take.>

She took a long time to reply. <Sir, are you sure you can kill the Devourer?> Her voice was serious.

<As sure as I can be,> I said as sincerely as possible while evading her question.

<What I've done up to this point... It was treason against the drow currently in power. But if I violate the Ways by discussing map information with you, Laureth will know and consider it treason as well. If I tell you, and the Devourer lives, she will be a heavyweight in the Underworld. It means I would have to begin anew in Valia.> She meant start a new character.

I raised an eyebrow. This was one of the few situations where even if I asked her out of game it wouldn't help. I needed her to directly tell me she had a map so I could share map information with her.

An annoying, but clever little restriction to prevent players from skirting the potential consequences of using maps in the Underworld.

I sighed. <I can't guarantee I'll be able to kill him, but I'll at least share this burden with you. If I fail today, I'll also need to create a new character.>

I had decided to turn myself in, and while that would definitely make it harder to play, I was already formulating plans to make sure I could finish destroying the game from the inside. However, my plans might require some adjustment, operating from the Underworld was becoming increasingly difficult, and now I knew Manhart was directly opposing me!

The only reason I hadn't already created a new character was because of the perks I'd already accumulated on this one, like the Dark Archmage title. However, if my current plans failed, I would be in a bad enough position that it wouldn't be worth continuing in the Underworld. I would create a Surface character and take advantage of how much easier it was there.

If all else failed, I would fallback on simple brutality.

Ideally, I would carry out my original plans in regards to the imprisoned V-Soft employees: assault their minds, crush their egos and destroy their pride by destroying Valia.

But if needed, paying off some thugs to beat the shit out the prisoners was still a valid, if less refined, way to make them suffer.

Of course, whatever might happen after turning myself in, Alice wouldn't be interested in playing with me anymore. But I didn't need to tell her that.

Anyway, I hadn't lied to her, I would need to create a new character if I failed today. Whether or not I would be able to, well that was another story.

<I have a map, sir,> Sam said. <And if it comes to it, I refuse to play an elf.>

I smiled at that. I really had found a good friend in her, one that was ready to create a new character with me if needed.

The knowledge of the incoming separation made my heart tighten.

Focusing on the map I had gotten from the vampire Manhart, which also contained information about Ter'nodril, I drew a route to our destination and willed it to be shared with Sam. She accepted and started moving that way.

Whether because of her presence or just that the drow were already busy with the other invaders, we weren't attacked a single time.

In about fifteen minutes, we were in front of the weapon store where I had sold Shai's Greatsword on my last visit  to Ter'nodril. The door was wide open but there was absolutely nothing in there.

I entered it anyway. "Tharnya?" I yelled. "You here?"

There was no answer and after looking around I found no one. It annoyed me; she owed me money.

<Sir, we have a situation,> Sam said. I went back out and stood beside her.

Twenty or so specters stood in a protective circle around a headless horseman who pointed at me.

One of the tanks advanced towards me then nodded in greeting. "The Mage King of Fire summons you."

I raised an eyebrow. "Because...?"

"I don't know. But we were told to bring you and no specter would ever dare defy one of the Kings. If you resist, we'll take you by force." He looked at the horseman. "To be honest, I don't think you stand a chance."

I smiled. "Wanna bet?"

"No. But think about it: even if you win, more soldiers will be sent after you. You can't destroy an entire army by yourself."

My smile grew wider. "Wanna bet?"

He shook his head. "I do not. I just want to bring you. Peacefully."

<Sam,> I asked, <what's our chance of killing them all?>

<Not good, sir. We might lose them in the chaos, but like he said, we cannot kill an entire army.>

<Oh ye, of little faith,> I said mockingly. "Alright," I said aloud. "I was going to the city center anyway, I wouldn't mind having an escort."

The specter nodded and I followed him into the circle. Sam remained invisible, following along behind the rear of the formation as we began to move.

By now, the streets were mostly calm; and impressively gory. The corpses of countless drow littered the roads and only a few corpses of other species lay among them. Blood was everywhere, the smell of it inescapable. It was a sobering sight.

We moved to the center of the city, past multiple metal barricades which had been manned by drow which were now dead. Beyond the last row of them stood the Dark Temple. To be as succinct as possible, it looked like a black wedding cake.

It was comprised of three tiers of black metal, each four stories high,  and each half the diameter of the one below it. The uppermost tier was just shy of touching the whirling Devourer, and thousands of large smoky spheres left wispy dark trails in the air as they floated around the temple like ghosts.

The Catacombs' army was arrayed around the temple, and the siege engines were already sending ghost heads at it, where they struck a new golden barrier just like the one around the city.

This barrier though, was already full of cracks and would clearly not last long.

Behind the barrier, tens of thousands of drow waited, Blackguards and priests alike. The Temple doors were open and even more drow awaited inside. In front of the doors, a creature was floating.

Its body was humanoid and completely black. Completely. Its mouth, teeth, tongue, eyes, all completely black. It was naked and devoid of anything that would have marked it as a mammal. Hair, nipples, navel and even genitalia were all absent, but it made up for those deficiencies with the hundreds of darkness morbs that floated above its head.

In its hands were two amazing-looking daggers. They were made of something that looked like obsidian, the hilts were carved to resemble a pair of coiled dragons with their heads creating the guards and liquid darkness rippled across the blades.

<The High Assassin,> Sam said.

I looked at him with interest. That was the strongest Blackguard and the head of the drow, who answered only to the Devourer himself. I didn't want to get in his way.

The specters led us to the Ruined Kings, who were all floating there, having a staring contest with the High Assassin.

The red-crowned King looked at me as we approached. "Jack Thorn," he said in his creepy whisper. "You disobeyed orders."

I frowned. "Sorry?"

"You were commanded to proceed to the Dark Temple as soon as the barrier around the town fell," he said. "But you had an agenda."

"Oh, that," I smiled. "Didn't I tell you that I came on Manhart's orders?" I phrased it as a question to avoid the truthseer seeing through what would have been a blatant lie. "Although helping you is a necessity, I also had some minor errands to run."

After having practiced against the High Assassin, the Fire King now seemed intent on getting into a staring contest with me. Unfortunately for him, I was an expert and returned his stare impassively.

"Do not leave this area," the Fire King finally ordered and waved his hands dismissively.

<Now, Sam, who do you reckon is the greatest danger to us in this fight?> I asked as I made my way beyond the front ranks of the specters.

<The High Assassin,> she replied instantly.

<Good.> I replied as I stopped right in front of the High Assassin, who hadn't looked at me until now. Then, I yelled. "High Assassin! I challenge you to a duel! Do you dare?"

His head snapped to the side to regard me. His gaze felt like a knife biting into my mind.

"Jack Thorn," he addressed me in a grim, rumbling voice. His eyes shifted to where Sam stood. "Samantha Hidden Daggers. Your orders were to capture, not join him."

She didn't answer that. <Sir,> she spoke to me instead. <He can kill me with a single attack, and he is much faster than me.> Her tone made it clear that she thought I was an idiot.

<Relax,> I mentally sent her, then spoke to the High Assassin again. "Hey, do you dare or not? If so, shoo your people away. Unless you're scared and need their help against me."

His eyes locked with mine again and he shook his head. "You're less than a worm. You have no right to challenge me." With that, he returned to trying to kill the Ruined Kings with a dirty look.

I shrugged. "What a shame. Well, I tried." I started moving to the side.

<Sir,> Sam said. <What the hell?!>

It was impossible to hold back my laughter. <People have tried challenging strong bosses with lots of minions to solo fights before. It doesn't work. What's more, it usually has the opposite effect; the bosses will ignore the challenger unless they make a move against the boss or his minions.>

<What if he had accepted?>

<Then we'd probably be creating new characters.> I winked at her. <I want to kill the Devourer. There's no way we'll get close to him without a few gambles. This was just the first, and not even a particularly risky one.>

<Could we not have simply avoided this encounter, sir?>

<You were sent to capture me, right?> She had said so in the Slums, just before the Challenge ended. <I had to see if the High Assassin was still interested in me or not. If he was, considering what you've said about him, nowhere in this army would've been safe for me.>

<Oh.> She said. Clearly, she hadn't given the quest another thought after deciding not to pursue it; I had. I'd even considered using it as a way to get directly inside the Dark Temple as a prisoner, but the way this war was playing out had made this plan impossible.

When we were 20 meters away from the High Assassin, we stopped and looked at the golden barrier. It was completely covered in cracks by now, clearly hanging on by a thread.

<Sir, do you know why the drow are not attacking?> Sam asked.

<Because the Devourer chose to follow the Ways,> I said. <The Ways state that he can defend the Dark Temple no matter what, even if he's in the wrong, unless fifty gods unite to tell him otherwise. As soon as the barrier dies, he'll attack, and the drow's fighting power will skyrocket.> I had read the Ways before the fight in the Slums and was acquainted with its stupid rules.

<The Devourer will fight too? Then aren't we all going to die?>

<Nope,> I said. <The Mage Kings aren't suicidal. They came to win and must have countermeasures. When the fight starts, just stick close to me and look for a way to enter the Temple. That's our only goal, nothing else matters.>

<Roger.>

We watched as each ghostly head hit the barrier. Every time I was certain it would be the last blow it could take, but it held.

Five minutes later, a threshold must have been reached because a beam of black energy shot from the black sun, covering the High Assassin, who then spoke in the Devourer's voice.

"Specters!" He yelled furiously. "You dare disregard the Ways?!"

The Mage Kings' only response was to begin amassing morbs. At the same instant, dark tendrils protruded from the Devourer and lashed out at the Kings. All the Ruined Mages other than the Dark King attacked the black sun as one.

The morbs activated and unleashed torrents of fire, earth and water which brushed away the remnants of the golden barrier and then mixed together in various ways.

Fire and water created a mist that vaporized the incoming black tendrils. Fire and earth united into countless oversized glass shards that left huge rents in the Devourer as they flew through, though they were quickly mended. Earth and water created enormous trees, the roots of which began greedily drinking in the liquid darkness of the devourer before they withered away and died.

The magic attack of the Mage Kings simply didn't stop. They continuously summoned morbs as they pressed the Devourer.

The Dark King, on the other hand, was responsible for defense. A black liquid shield appeared around the Mage Kings which seemed to effortlessly neutralize the High Assassin's morbs.

With his attacks against the Kings thwarted, the High Assassin turned his attention to easier targets. He shadow-stepped into the middle of the specter army and began lopping off limbs and heads, his attacks not even slowed by the tanks spectral plate mail or shields. Ectoplasmic remains rained down across the battlefield as the High Assassin continued his rampage, finding no real opponent.

I was momentarily mesmerized as he used a skill similar to Bear's typhoon, became a tornado of darkness, and dashed forward, killing a dozen specters in the blink of an eye. The next moment, he was already running toward the Mage Kings. The liquid darkness running down the blades was flung off as he ran forward, and each specter struck by it screamed in pain.

At that moment, I realized everything I'd faced up until this point had been easy by comparison. If I'd faced anything like the High Assassin before...

Of course, as this was happening the armies hadn't stood still, the specters were marching forward in formation to attack, and the drow were preparing to meet them. Thousands of drow appeared standing on the first two tiers of the Dark Temple, obscuring the view of the Devourer with the massed fire of their bows and crossbows. Spells of every element arced across the battlefield everywhere and the clash of melee fighters was deafening.

A massive purple portal appeared over the specter army and disgorged a twenty meter long black octopus. I couldn't tell if it was fighting or just thrashing desperately as it suddenly found itself on land, but it was killing specters by the score either way. Portals appeared above the Dark Temple as well, summoning everything from a fiery phoenix to small blue orbs that seemed to warp around, leaving gaping holes in the drow they moved past.

I was hit by an ice AoE and frozen in place for five seconds.

<Just survive!> I ordered Sam. I was using my shield to frantically defend myself. Right now, it was the most important piece of equipment I had.

There was no way to run from battle; Blackguards who had previously been invisible or hiding in buildings appeared and assaulted the specter's flanks. Summoned beasts were now everywhere.

Strangely enough, in the middle of the chaos of battle, where I wouldn't stand out, was where I was the safest.

All I had to do was live through this and the most dangerous part of my plan would be complete.

36. Cozy Inside

The ghostly heads from the siege engines approached the drow, intent on killing them, but were destroyed by enemy magic. Unlike the way they had slaughtered the thralls, this time the heads killed at most one or two people before being neutralized.

Over one hundred Buffaloes appeared among the specters; just like before it was as if they had always been there, simply shrouded by an illusion. They plowed into the densely packed ranks of drow, then exploded with that same green energy. To spite the drow's best efforts to evade, between the charge and the explosions they must have suffered hundreds of injuries and fatalities.

I stopped paying attention after that, too focused on defending myself for anything else. Sadly, the Kill to Survive spell wasn't triggering enough to make a difference; for the skill to trigger, I had to deal more than forty-five percent damage to someone before he died, and in this chaotic battle, that was almost impossible. I attacked whoever was in front of me and that was changing rapidly enough that I never had a chance to concentrate my damage on any of them.

A Blackguard shadowed in front of me and nearly bypassed my defense when another shadow stopped him.

<Dodge!> I called to Sam. The second shadow disengaged as I struck the first shadow with a firebomb. The fire hadn't even dispersed before Sam returned to the fight.

That's when the black sun pulsed. Like a still heart suddenly beating a single time, it swelled, contracted and spurted jets of black liquid across the battlefield.

The Mage Kings' shifted their spells into some kind of elemental vortex that shielded the surrounding area. The cone of magic channeled the darkness it had blocked down into the center, where it met with and then strengthened the shield of darkness protecting the Kings. But they couldn't catch it all, the darkness splashed off the ground, buildings and even combatants all around the city then rapidly evaporated into a black mist that raced to envelop the army. Many of the spectre mages tried to defend against it, but there was too much of it and everyone was engulfed.

No damage received from darkness element (Immunity)

Status effect received: Absolute Dark Affliction (level 10— max)

You have entered an area filled with Dark Affliction.

Although this spell was cast by your enemy, your power as a Dark Archmage resonates with the spell. Instead of receiving the intended debuff, you will receive the same buff as your enemies.

» -50% magic damage received (except light element)

» +200% light damage received

» +100% damage to your darkness element skills

» +10% darkness damage added to your attacks

As I read it, I found that I rather liked receiving this status effect.

Yes, it tripled the damage from the light element, but since it halved the damage from the other nine elements, it was an excellent trade.

Against the drow it was even better; almost none of them used light magic!

I looked at my darksteel longsword and chuckled when I realized I had been using the same weapon since my first visit to Ter'nodril. Now, however, it had an oily black sheen, so I checked its description.

Low Quality Darksteel Shortsword

» 50 (+84 [Strength]) physical damage

Dark Affliction:

» 13 darkness damage

That was nice, the damage Dark Affliction added was calculated after applying my strength bonus. It wasn't a lot in absolute terms, but since it ignored defense, it was a significant boost.

It would be an even bigger boon to the drow, considering they had the buff while their opponents were debuffed by Dark Affliction.

Although the extra darkness damage added to the drow's attacks meant nothing to me, their extra resistance to my firebombs was damn annoying.

I was worried about what the debuff might mean for Sam. I could see the debuff icon below her HP bar, but I had already spent too much time reading what the buff did while there was a chaotic battle raging around us. <Hey, what does the debuff do to you? I'm immune, so I don't know.> I asked her instead.

She dodged an attack, used her triple strike ability, then twisted to the side to avoid an incoming spell. <If- You have- Time- To worry- About it...> She said as she continued to alternate between attack and evasion. <Fight harder! Sir!> She demanded as she dropped into a crouch, driving her blade into the spine of a drow who had just fallen on her feet, finishing him off.

The battle intensified and it became clear that the Dark Affliction had shifted the balance of power in this battle. Before, they had been evenly matched, but now, the drow had the upper hand.

A Blackguard nearby was being attacked by three specter tanks and some mages. I took the opportunity to flank him, running him through with my sword, getting the kill. I wrenched my sword out of the drow's corpse, parried an attack from another Blackguard with my shield, and was blasted to the right by an explosion I didn't see coming. I collided with someone, but didn't have time to see who it was and I had to immediately dive to the side to avoid a lunge from a Blackguard with a spear.

The specter mages were mostly focusing on dispelling the Dark Affliction. Pillars of light appeared across the battlefield pushing back the dark fog with their auras, negating the Dark Affliction status effect. These became islands of relative safety on the battlefield.

Since the beginning of the battle, and especially since the Devourer's spell, the lines had been chaotic, but these islands of light became great rallying points for the specters, and in turn, targets for the drow.

I fought wildly, defending myself and the nearby Sam, and she returned the favor. My shield was the sole reason I was still alive, dodging attacks was nigh impossible; not only was the battlefield too crowded, my twenty-nine points to agility were almost laughable compared the agility-focused Blackguards.

Pain flooded my mind as attack after attack ignored my armor and sliced into my flesh. My HP was rapidly decreasing and my stamina wasn't faring much better.

If things continued like this, I would be just another tally mark when someone counted up the casualties of the battlefield.

<Fall back!> I ordered Sam as I pointed with my sword to the nearest one of the hundreds of pillars of light that littered the battlefield. We had fought halfway there, when the Devourer pulsed again.

This time, the black liquid solidified into huge spikes twenty meters long and three meters wide. The Mage Kings used their magic protectively, creating a dome shield which resembled a soap bubble in the way it scintillated with rainbow light, but it only managed to stop around half the spikes. The other half pierced the shield and came crashing down.

The pillars of light were the main targets, but hundreds of spikes struck random locations all over the battlefield. The dark spikes sunk into the ground before they exploded, destroying the pillars and dealing massive damage to the specters nearby.

Given my luck, one spike hit me directly.

It was far too fast for me to do anything. The moment it touched my head, though, it crumpled before evaporating into nothingness, like a shard of ice hitting a block of hot steel.

I was immune against the darkness element, after all.

<What do we do now, sir?> Sam asked as she faced off against a flaming scorpion that had been summoned by the drow.

Looking around, it was clear that the specters had lost the fight. The dark spikes had devastated the specter army, now less than half of them  remained.

I was about to tell her to go with plan B and take me prisoner when the specters pulled out their own trump card.

A lich appeared floating above the middle of the specter army. Dark gray and pulsating light gray morbs — death and life magic — floated above the lich's head, twenty in total.

<They sure came prepared,> I told Sam. <It seems like every turn of this battle has been predicted and perfectly countered by the specters.>

<That's obvious, sir,> Sam replied. <Being prepared to destroy your enemies and even crush your allies should the need arise is just standard procedure in the military.>

I knew that, but seeing it happen right in front of me was... Annoying as hell! I had a job to do and the longer this battle lasted, the more likely my death became! I just wanted one side, either side, to end this quickly so I could move on to the next step.

While I raged silently, the lich spoke. "Rise, children," it whispered, though I heard it plainly over the din of battle from fifteen meters away.

The morbs merged together and struck the ground, sending out a gray shockwave which swept across the battlefield, passing through everyone without any apparent effect.

The corpses however, began to rise. After ten minutes of battle involving combatants with the prowess of demigods, as well as a deity slinging spells in addition to the thousands of mages, there were a lot of bodies. Now all of them, drow, beasts, even the specters whose ectoplasmic body hadn't yet evaporated, were drawn up from the ground in unison, as if all controlled by the same invisible puppeteer. Grey light shone in their eyes and their injuries rapidly disappeared; they faced the drow and charged.

There had been other necromancers here and there, but all their combined efforts didn't even amount to a drop in the bucket when compared to this mass revival.

The reinvigorated dead fought as effectively as they had when alive, thus their entrance into the fray once again shifted the tide of battle. Counting them, there were now more combatants on the specter's side than when the fight began, while the drow had suffered significant losses.

The Dark Affliction was still active, but the resurrected army waded into combat without concern for their safety and occupied most of the drow's attention which gave us a much-needed respite.

<Let's rest,> I told Sam as I headed towards a newly reformed defensive circle of specters and sat down inside of it.

I healed Sam and myself while dozens of specters were doing the same around us.

The black shield defending the Kings from the High Assassin was still holding him at bay, but it was now riddled with millions of cracks, I was sure that it wouldn't last more than a few more minutes.

That prediction proved accurate, when five minutes later the shield shattered.

The moment it happened, the Devourer contracted to about half its usual size but it didn't just unleash another divine level darkness AoE, it instead... Exploded.

It was like a circular tidal wave crashing down from the sky, the scope and power of the attack was so massive that the Mage Kings didn't even try to protect the army.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as the first blobs of darkness impacted the people below. They screamed in agony as the liquid rapidly corroded both their armor and flesh, boring holes into them.

The holes weren't that deep, but when I looked at the sheer amount of liquid darkness coming at us...

Buildings fared even worse than people as the darkness shot through the black stone of every building in Ter'nodril except the Dark Temple, like water through spun sugar.

I saw a drop of the liquid enter a drow's eyes and the man barely screamed before fainting. As his unconscious body dropped on the floor, the darkness followed. Without thinking, I grabbed Sam and pushed her to the ground, trying to cover as much of her body with mine as possible.

The next moment, I couldn't hear anything other than the roar of the wave of darkness as it immersed the battlefield, not even the screams I was sure must be coming from every direction as both armies practically drowned in corrosive magic.

I, on the other hand, didn't even feel it when the black wave hit me.

Sam certainly did though, her HP dropped alarmingly. I tried to amass life morbs and it worked; my darkness immunity, it seemed, was much more than total darkness resistance. The dark element could do nothing to me, even when it was a huge solid spike or an incomprehensible amount of liquefied darkness. Thankfully, that immunity seemed to mean it couldn't destroy my morbs either.

I summoned and used life morbs to heal Sam for what seemed like forever, it was enough that when added to the huge amounts of healing I had already done in Edward's Castle, my Healer trait leveled up again, and even the lifeball spell leveled up. Between the two it now healed an extra fourteen HP.

Sam's flesh was continually consumed in the places I failed to cover, only to be restored by my healing. I'd heard people scream when a single drop fell on them, but she only groaned, taking it like a champ.

When it was finally over, I stood up and checked on Sam. Her clothes were reduced to rags, particularly along the sides where neither the ground nor I had protected her. It pained me to think of how good the defense or her cloak had been, but now it was nearly destroyed. At least she had survived.

Then, I checked my surroundings; Ter'nodril was gone.

The armies, the city, even the massive darksteel walls  disappeared, as if they had never been there. The entire cave chamber was now nothing but vast expanses of deeply etched earth, empty other than the Dark Temple, which was untouched by this localized Armageddon.

Where the black sun had been, there was now only a half meter diameter black sphere. A thin wisp of dark energy trailed from the Temple's rooftop to it, feeding the sphere, which was slowly regrowing.

I knew that the black sun had been only a manifestation of the Devourer's power, but hell, I had never realized it was only an oversized morb! A preposterously overpowered morb!

It was pure darkness too, something not even the Blackguard with their immunity to divine magic could resist. For the first time, I understood how powerful a god could be; and how merciless. That was probably one of his most powerful attacks and he had used it without any concern for the drow, as soon as the shield around the Mages broke.

With that new understanding came doubt. Killing the Devourer seemed an impossible task, now that I'd been enlightened; still, I had to try. It was better to fail now than to give up on my plan and keep playing in the Underworld, anyway.

I looked around.

Besides Sam and I, there were only a few other survivors.

First, the High Assassin. He was fighting the Dark Mage King fiercely. The Mage impressed me by using a pair of massive round shields to defend himself while amassing morbs or many different elements and throwing spells at the High Assassin. They swiftly moved around each other, almost too fast for me to see the fight.

Other than them, the Fire and Water Kings, who looked like they had somehow survived a stampede of rhinos, supported the Dark King by throwing their own magic at the High Assassin.

In a three versus one fight, the dude was still holding his ground. He sliced through most of the morbs directed at him before they could activate and counterattacked with his own magic, it was impressive. For the first time in my life I understood the expression 'moving like the wind.' He was even faster, and moved more gracefully than the Kung Fu fighters in exaggerated martial arts movies.

The Earth Mage King, however, was no more.

On the ground where he had been floating, only his green crown and tattered golden robes remained. The Devourer had paid a high price in both the blood of his soldiers and magic to kill the King and wipe out the specter army, but at the rate his morb was growing, I guessed the Devourer would be able to muster enough darkness to kill another one of the Kings in an hour or maybe less.

I considered trying to loot the King's items for myself, but it was impossible; they were beside the Mage Kings and I didn't think I could survive even a few seconds that close to the battle, even if they didn't take offense and target me specifically.

Looking around, I saw four other survivors, all of them Horsemen. Not headless horsemen, but true Horsemen, with a capital H. They had a powerful aura that distorted the air around them, and wore imposing black armor with horned helmets and long black capes.

The mounts of three of them were magnificent; incredibly muscular, and their ectoplasm was so substantial I had to look closely to be sure they were specters. There were three colors: white, red, and black.

The fourth horse, well it was a horse of a different color. It was a sickly pale, emaciated, and unlike the others it was plainly spectral. Stranger still, I could actually see a ghostly skeleton through its gaunt 'flesh.' For something that was already undead, it seemed to be on death's doorstep.

Death's... That's when it hit me: they were Valia's Four Horsemen. Conquest, War, Famine, and Death were charging toward the Dark Temple at full speed.

It gave me chills. The specters had marched for the Conquest of the drow and brought War to the Underworld. Now that the battle had destroyed the farms, Famine would surely follow. Lastly Death on a grand scale was all around us.

Seeing the aspects of the horsemen so heavily represented, and the heralds themselves bearing down on the Dark Temple, I didn't think the survivors were going to last long. The specters hadn't come to play, they were prepared from the start for genocide. Every drow who hadn't fallen in line was going to die. Even Laureth, the leading Blackguard traitor, had paid for her ambition with her life.

Or maybe not, a female drow was standing up from where she had lain hidden until now in a furrow. She was completely nude other than her underwear, which had only been spared because the game's systems would not allow anything to remove them without the wearer's consent. But it was hardly an erotic sight, her hair, eyebrows and large swaths of her skin had been corroded away by the liquid darkness. It looked like she had only saved her eyes by covering them with her right hand, I was sure she hadn't used the left one as it was missing.

Even as badly as she had been disfigured, for her to have survived something like that... She wasn't just some fanatic, she was a very powerful one. Seeing this, I realized she may have actually had a chance to rearrange the power structure in the Dark Temple after all.

The only reason I was sure it was her, was her speaking into my mind. <Give me some equipment, quickly!> She ordered arrogantly.

I looked at her pensively, weighing my options. Killing her would be easy but ultimately useless. Having a powerful Blackguard ally, on the other hand, could prove beneficial in the future.

Unfortunately for her, she was conniving, power hungry and self absorbed, which didn't attract my interest. And my future enemies would certainly offer her more to betray me than I could offer to keep her in line.

I took my quiver out of my ring and hung it from my waist. Then, I withdrew the bow while I amassed fire morbs.

Her eyes widened. <Traitor!> She bellowed in rage. <Ha! Even better! I'll take all your equipment for myself!> She shadowed and lunged towards me. <I can still kill scum like you, even in this state!>

<Maybe,> I replied with a smile as I slowly nocked an arrow. <But can you kill us both?>

Sam shadowed, moving to intercept Laureth. The Drow Corps' leader stopped and stood still for about three seconds before turning and running away. She had probably tried to reason with Sam using mind chat, but failed.

I shot an arrow and a fireball.

Laureth died a pitiful death. She was fast, but my firebombs continually blew her legs out from under her, and she couldn't even try to defend, lest Sam catch up. I even scored lucky hits with a few arrows!

The last time I knocked her down, she didn't even try to get up. Sam was practically on top of her by this point, and Laureth made the mistake of turning back to see her pursuer. She was nearly transfixed, as she awkwardly scrambled backwards a few more feet before Sam tackled her, slit her throat and finished the coup de gras by planting both of the daggers Laureth had given her just days ago, into her eyes.

Quest series failed: Drow Corps

This may lead to undesirable consequences.

I didn't care at all about the failed quest; I was much more interested in what I was seeing near the Dark Temple. A wave of drow had come out of it, like a swarm of ants leaving an anthill, and were fighting the Four Horsemen.

The Horsemen didn't fight. A transparent bubble of energy, about twenty meters in diameter surrounded each of them. Their bubbles reflected the color of their horses: white, red, black, and a nearly colorless, pale yellow. When the drow entered the auras around the Horsemen, they didn't last long.

Those who entered Conquest's white aura seemed to feel a kind of overbearing pressure that drove them to their knees. I could see them straining to rise again, but before long they would fall prone, dead.

In War's red aura, his enemies died literal deaths of a thousand cuts from invisible weapons.

Inside Famine's black aura, the drow withered, their skin and their clothes sagging. Then, they collapsed, little more than skin covered skeletons.

Death's yellowish aura was the most powerful. As soon as the drow crossed into it, they dropped dead, instantly.

Spells, arrows, and bolts flew at the Horsemen, but the projectiles and magic disintegrated the moment they entered the auras.

<Holy shit, that's overpowered,> I said.

<No quite, sir,> Sam replied. <They are not moving.>

<Yeah. So?>

<I believe it has something to do with the bubbles.>

I paid attention to what was happening, and came up with a theory. <Hmm... Only the white-robed priests, the low-ranked Searchers, are throwing themselves at the Horsemen, while the Blackguards watch. I would say the Horsemen cannot move as long as people are inside their area of influence. Meanwhile, the ranged attackers are trying to hasten the end of the Horsemen's auras.>

<Makes sense, sir.> She stopped beside me. <What do we do now?>

<Obviously, we climb.> Although drow were streaming out of the Dark Temple to challenge the Horsemen, there were none on top of the building.

<Sir, the hooks will not be able to find purchase on the metal of the Dark Temple,> she said, thinking I was planning to use the hooks that were part of the adventurer's kit she had put together.

<Just follow me,> I said cryptically. I really did enjoy needling Sam and I knew not addressing what she'd said was going to get under her skin.

We steered well clear of the battle, going clockwise around the Temple until we were well out of sight. There, I produced a lightsteel sword from my ring and handed it to Sam. <Try piercing the Temple's wall.>

She took the sword, activated her No Defense Before Me skill, and her eyes widened as the blade sunk into the Temple wall. <That shouldn't be possible!>

<Why not?> I asked as I gave her another sword.

<These walls are enchanted, sir,> she said as she took the sword and waited for her skill to come off cooldown. <You saw it shrug off the attack that wiped out the city.>

<Hmm... I have a theory, lets check it,> I said and gave her my darksteel sword.

She took it and tried to stab it into the wall… The tip snapped off as the blade bounced off harmlessly.

I nodded, took the sword back, and explained. <If people could just throw enchantments onto things and make them totally indestructible, it would create tons of problems. Can you imagine someone being permanently locked out of their fortress because they forgot the key to the unbreakable doors?

<A wise person once told me that no matter how powerful I thought a skill was, it was only because I didn't have the correct skill to counter it. Everything in Valia is supposedly like that, even the overpowered auras of the Horsemen should have a counter. The same principle applies to objects.

<No matter how high the quality of this wall's darksteel, you're using lightsteel, it's antithesis. You're also using a skill specifically designed to overcome defense and focusing all your power to a single point, while the enchantments must defend the whole Temple.

<These factors contribute to allow you to perforate the Dark Temple's walls,> I concluded.

<I see,> she said as she stabbed another sword into the wall.

It annoyed me a little that after my exposition, her answer was only 'I see' but I let it slide, so as not to sound like a child.

She had to rest twice before she could place all the handles we required to climb the wall. Surprisingly, after twenty minutes we still heard the sounds of people dying and magic exploding from the front of the temple. Powerful people in Valia were incredibly sturdy.

When Sam finally placed the last sword near the top of the Temple's first-layer, she went invisible and peaked over the edge. <Clear,> she said as she clambered up. I followed, with nine firebombs, one deathball, and one lifeball at the ready.

The top of the Dark Temple's first level was monotonous darksteel just like every other part of it I'd seen up to this point. We walked up to the nondescript wall of the middle ring.

<How do we get in?> I asked as I equipped one of the lightsteel swords and my shield.

<We knock, sir,> she replied and did just that, before yelling. "Help!"

No one replied.

"Open the door!" She insisted and started plummeting the wall. "I survived but I'm hurt! I need a healer! Help!"

This time, I heard a faint sound of metal grating on metal. Before I could do anything about it, Sam Shadow Walked. Through the wall.

It took me a second before I realized I was seeing an illusion covering the entrance, then I followed Sam through it.

On the inside, everything was made of darksteel, just like the exterior of the temple. I was standing in a corridor around ten meters long, at the far end of which was a small room with a door set in the far wall, eerily illuminated by a purple glowing crystal the size of my head. In it I saw two shadows battling each other so I rushed to aid Sam.

Sam's Shadow Walk ran out while her opponent still had a few more seconds. She retreated, assuming a defensive stance in front of the door out of the room while I guarded the corridor.

The shadow came at me, I tossed out a firebomb and detonated it nearly immediately to prevent the Blackguard from destroying it, then hunkered behind my shield to mitigate as much damage as possible from the explosion which was far too close for comfort.

Unfortunately this was a tough bastard. His shadow mode must have ended right as I blew him up, but his momentum carried him through the flames towards me. As he sailed through the air I noted that he had his hood down. That was all I had time to think before he demonstrated that superhuman agility I expected from the Blackguard, landed briefly on the rim of my shield then jumped off to continue down the corridor, knocking me down in the process.I turned and frantically threw firebombs at him, but he would still have escaped if not for Sam. She flung me back out of the corridor, then punched the floating purple crystal.

The same sound of metal on metal I had heard before sounded, then the ceiling of the corridor slammed down. The Blackguard barely had time to cry out before I heard a nauseating crunch.

The fit was so perfect that even looking directly at it, I couldn't tell there had ever been a passage on that wall.

<You almost let him get away, sir,> Sam said.

<Holy shit!> I replied. <You pulped that guy!> I was feeling a little adrenaline buzz, and looking at Sam now, I felt a mix of admiration, and repulsion.

<You are welcome,> she said simply.

I took a deep breath. <Thanks, it'd be a pain if he told everyone we've invaded. Are we safe here?>

<As safe as we can be behind enemy lines, sir.>

<Good. Let's rest before we move. I want to be as prepared as possible for what's to come.> I sat down.

Five minutes later, Sam opened the door, then motioned for me to follow her.

On the other side, there was a big room made all of darksteel, just like everything else here. There was however, a novelty: light crystals.

They were six-sided trapezohedrons, around half my size. Shining with a brilliant white light, ten of them floated about half a meter from the ground, along the walls, and were responsible for illuminating the place.

I supposed that the crystals were here to help the few drow players who still didn't have darkvision.

Idiots, every one of them, for not getting it first thing.

<Won't you go invisible?> I asked Sam as she led us to one of the sixteen hallways which went in nearly every direction out of the room. <And put your hood up in case someone sees you?>

<Negative,> she replied. <It is forbidden to be in the Dark Temple while either invisible or with any head covering. As it is, I am just another Blackguard. But if I do either of those things, I will be attacked on sight.>

<Oh.> Once again, I was a bit impressed by the complicated social signaling among the drow. Then, I unfortunately remembered how I'd been treated because of my ignorance of it the first time I was here. At first I felt annoyed, then I cheered up when I realized every one of those assholes was probably dead now.

We passed through one corridor after the other, the path forking over and over as Sam led the way. It didn't take long for me to realize the inside of the Temple was a maze. What was with the Underworld and mazes anyway?

Just to be safe, I walked a bit behind her, so anyone we stumbled into wouldn't immediately see me. I could also use the Dark Immersion skill for a little bit of stealth but the 50 MP per second that it cost was too much to keep it running.

Thankfully, we didn't encounter any drow until we arrived at another illuminated room. Unfortunately, the corridor had widened as we approached, leaving me nowhere to hide.

Four drow saw me, they all wore the white robes of the Searchers — the lowest ranking of the Faithful —, with the Devourer symbol on it. The last drow was a male Blackguard with short hair, who had his back to us.

<Damn. I thought no one would be in the novice area,> Sam said and rushed at the Blackguard.

The four Searchers eyes widened when they saw us and the Blackguard spun to see what they were looking at.

Sam shadowed and her two daggers went for the man's throat. His eyes widened and he also Shadow Walked away.

They fought each other, nothing but a blur of motion for almost ten seconds, before one of them stumbled back, the shadows dissipated and the man became visible, framed by a spectacular arc of crimson blood from his slit throat.

Sam's brutal slash spun her half way around, leaving her cloak billowing out wildly behind her. She had lost less than two hundred HP in the exchange.

The drow's corpse fell back against the wall and slid down, ending up in a seated position, slumped forward like he was just taking a nap. It was all over so fast that the Searchers barely had time to scream before Sam ran one of them down and sent a flurry of throwing knives at the rest.

Two of them were dead just like that, multiple blades protruding from vital locations The third managed to avoid death by blocking the knife headed for his eye with his forearm, but the damage disrupted his spell casting, further damaging him.

As Sam moved to finish off the 'lucky' drow, I lazily threw a few morbs at the last Searcher. A few flashes of fire later, all that was left was a crispy corpse.

In less than twenty seconds, they were all dead with barely any resistance.

Gotta love surprise attacks.

Sam looked elated as she walked to the bodies to recover her throwing knives. Between her graceful movement and her expression, she reminded me of a cat that had just slaughtered a group of mice, simply because they'd been unlucky enough to cross her path.

I almost thanked my lucky stars that she was on my side, but decided I didn't want to jinx myself.

We kept moving without further incident, and I knew this was only because of the path Sam had taken. After a while, we came to a long corridor with an open doorway at the end.

<Sir, you must trust me now,> she said.

<I never trust people who ask me to trust them,> I replied.

<Not a problem, sir. I am not asking. Run.> She didn't wait for me before starting running herself.

Faced with the prospect of being alone in the maze that was the Dark Temple, with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse at the door and an unknown number of drow protecting it, I concluded it was best to follow her.

She slowed down a bit, allowing me to come alongside her. As we drew nearer, I saw nothing on the other side of the door.

<Sam?> I slowed down a bit.

<Keep running, sir.> She dragged me by the arm.

<But why?>

<We will pass through the Hive to get to the Devourer.>

<Hive?> I frowned.

<You will understand when you see it.>

Just shy of the door I could finally tell we were headed for an enormous stairwell, with spiral stairs coiled around the outside, and doors leading out of it everywhere. It was large enough that even at double my top speed I would have had no chance of making the jump to the other side.

<I suddenly feel like walking. Walking very, very slowly.> I said and tried to slow, but Sam was having none of it. If I tried I was sure I could stop, but what if it got me killed? Sam knew the inner workings of the Dark Temple much better than me, and maybe you really had to run through here to avoid a horrible and painful death.

<Sir, stop being such a coward and run like a man!> She picked the pace.

I was too mature to fall for such a cheap provocation, but after a moment of consideration I made a conscious and rational decision, to run faster.

<When we get there, jump as hard as you can,> Sam told me.

Three seconds later we reached the edge, and jumped.

And that's when I understood why we were doing things this way:

The entire place was packed with Blackguards. The spiral stairs went down, seemingly without end and I could see Blackguards arrayed all down its length.

I looked up and instead of a ceiling, I saw the Devourer.

Or rather, the reforming black sun. The black beam that fed it was right in the center of the stairwell, not too far from us. It disappeared into the distance beneath us.

On the bright side, it seemed I'd meet its source, the god I had come to kill, soon. Sadly, I was now in freefall.

The Hive, which must've been named after the thousands of doors, was the very center of the Temple. All the Blackguards turned to watch as we fell past them.

<I have good news, sir,> Sam said.

<Yes?>

<You are somehow alive, even though everyone other than the Blackguard should die when they enter the Hive, sir.>

<Holy shit! You didn't think you should warn me?!>

<Sir, although I am not sure how you plan to accomplish your goals...> She said in a roundabout way since we were streaming. <...I know for sure that you can not hope to succeed if you are incapable of withstanding this. If you died here, it would only mean that your abilities fall far short of your ambitions.>

I couldn't argue with that. Meanwhile, our speed continued increasing. I was confident we should have reached terminal velocity already, but apparently there was no air resistance here.

<This place connects the Devourer's real body to his Soul Avatar above-> Sam tried to continue.

<Soul Avatar?> I interrupted her.

<All gods can choose to manifest one in this world rather than using their real bodies. The Soul Avatar can contain their full power, but even if destroyed, it will not affect the god other than having to wait a year and a day before they can create a new one,> she explained.

<Like the Water Goddess' elemental body?>

<I am not sure, sir, maybe. I know the Soul Avatar of the Devourer is the huge dark sphere above the city.>

<Okay. So, you were saying this place connects the Devourer to his Soul Avatar...>

<Yes, sir. A Soul Avatar can only wield the full power of a god if there is a direct connection between both. The connection of the Devourer to his Soul Avatar is made of divine dark magic and it is known for its destructiveness.>

The doors and stairs had all merged into a blur of darksteel passing by me.

<Why is no one attacking us?> I asked.

<They must think the Devourer wants here since you are still alive,> she said.

The reality was that, once again I was still alive because of my Dark Archmage title, but they didn't know that.

I couldn't have dreamed of attacking the Devourer without immunity to darkness, but I still hadn't been sure I would be totally immune to divine darkness. Sam, like all the other Blackguard, was immune to divine magic, which is why they were able to survive in here. Everything was going my way, and I would have sighed in relief if I hadn't been falling even faster by the second!

Soon, I saw something unpleasant below us: the walls ended. Beyond them was an endless void as far as I could see.

<Sam?> I said, maybe just a bit nervously.

<Sir?>

<There's nothing down there.>

<I know, sir.>

We were getting close and she said nothing.

<Sam?> I said with just a hint of irritation creeping into my voice now.

<Yes, sir?>

<I hate you sometimes.>

<You do not, sir,> she said firmly.

Just as we were about to pass the point of no return, she grabbed me, shadowed and pushed off of thin air, which arrested our fall and redirected us so that we landed lightly on the last flight of stairs. I had noticed how her shadow skill negated gravity or otherwise allowed her to pull off impossible aerial maneuvers before, but I had never thought it could be used like this.

Even if I ignored the fact that my brain should have splattered against the inside of my own skull with the sudden deceleration, the sudden change of direction should have at least made me dizzy. Yet, I felt perfectly okay.

Valia was amazing sometimes.

Sam didn't even set me down, but carried me like a sack of potatoes back toward the abyss.

<What the hell?!> I demanded as she stepped off the last step onto nothing.

However, we didn't fall. Instead, she carried me across an invisible bridge toward the center, where a purple portal appeared.

She lugged me through the portal wordlessly, reminding me of how she'd been when we first met: and insufferable, bossy know-it-all.

Bear, why aren't you here to annoy Sam so that she doesn't irritate me so much?

37. Old Pal

When we passed the portal, we found ourselves in a huge room made of, surprisingly, lightsteel.

On the ceiling and each of the four walls, the lightsteel was deeply etched with a huge thirteen-pointed star inside three concentric circles. Countless runes covered every surface other than the floor, including thick wreaths of runes between the circles. The etchings were golden and shone so brightly that they eclipsed the hundreds of light crystals suspended in midair along the walls.

And that was the least interesting part of the room, the truly strange thing was that the floor was made of blood.

Well, that may have been an exaggeration, considering were weren't drowning in it, chances were that only a thin layer covered the floor. Still, the room was huge; how many people would have been exsanguinated to gather this much? The blood was vivid red and liquid, without any sign of coagulating or drying out.

<Can you put me down now?> I asked, annoyed at being carried.

<Not yet, sir,> Sam replied. <If I did, you would be attacked by the blood magic.>

Blood magic was a branch of water magic. Supposedly very powerful, but I had never seen it.

Sam advanced three paces, stopped supporting me in my position, slung over her shoulder, and pulled off one of her gloves. She extended the gloved hand, and tendrils of blood slowly rose from the pool and formed a wicked looking dagger in her hand.

She cut her ungloved wrist with the dagger and blood trickled from the cut into the pool. At the same moment, a layer of blood wept out of her cloak and also ran down into the pool.

I vaguely remembered her cloak absorbing blood before. Now, I knew why.

The cut on her wrist closed just as her cloak ran dry, then she put her glove back on.

At times like this, I understood why entering the Underworld required the player to be an adult. How much further could you really take things, than slashing your own wrist to offer your blood and that of your enemies to a God of Darkness?

After her glove was back in place, she dropped the blood dagger, and it reformed as it fell into a perfect sphere. The place it would have touched the pool caved in, repulsed by the sphere to form a hole.

The hole continued to expand, forming a rectangular void in front of us, then continued expanding on one side until a second, deeper void was formed there. And so it continued, until a long, descending stairway of blood had taken shape. That's when I realized the floor wasn't covered in a thin layer of blood; it was Sam, performing a somewhat more macabre version of the famous Biblical act of walking on water.

And with that, I began to wonder what was with all the parallels to Christianity. Why hadn't whoever designed the drow and the specters taken some inspiration from Norse mythology or something?

Sam climbed down, still carrying me. The stairway ended a few dozen steps down into the enormous sea of blood, and I expected it to lead to a secret door or something. However, when we were halfway down, blood began filling in the area behind us as new steps formed ahead of us.

I was seriously creeped out, totally surrounded by blood, especially as it soon blocked out the light, leaving us in total darkness, but Sam kept moving down and we could still see with our darkvision. We must've descended more than five hundred steps before an opening finally appeared below us, revealing a lightsteel stairway that continued down where the blood steps ended. After that, it wasn't long until we were completely out of the blood, which now formed the ceiling of the chamber.

The room was just like the room up above, with the same golden etchings and hundreds of light crystals, but the similarities ended there.

Thousands of tiny streams of blood flowed out of the pool in the ceiling and wove together into an elaborate cord before exiting the room through a small opening in one of the walls, which unlike the others had no light crystals illuminating it.

Sam set me down as she finally stepped off the stairway onto the floor. Then, she walked to the wall right below the opening the blood was passing through, and touched it. A vertical split appeared, then widened to create a tight passage at least fifty meters long. To think, I'd been impressed to see a five meter thick door back in Edward's Castle.

We headed in, and now the floating blood was gently undulating, directly overhead as it continued onward.

<This is impressive,> I said.

<I agree, sir,> Sam replied. <But it is still a prison.>

We came to the end of the corridor and entered another room of inscribed lightsteel, with light crystals lining the walls. The blood tendril wended its way across the room before disappearing through another hole in the far wall.

Seven lightsteel obelisks were arrayed at the points of a heptagram inscribed into the floor at the center of the room, and all of that was enclosed in yet another thirteen-pointed star. A translucent black orb, about two meters in diameter and hollow, was floating in the center of the obelisks.

We were not alone here.

Seven unhooded Blackguards were sitting with legs crossed, their backs to the obelisks, and hundreds of Chosen — the highest rank of the priests —, were standing along the walls.

As one, they all looked at us and I froze.

<Do not mind them, sir. They are here to attack the Devourer if he tries to leave. The High Assassin would usually be inside the black orb as well.>

I raised an eyebrow. <Are you shitting me?>

<This is the reason the Devourer blesses the Blackguards and the Chosen with immunity to Divine magic. So we can kill him if he tries to leave.>

<He blesses you so you can kill him?>

<Yes, sir. The society of the drow is much more complex than what you saw in the flashback...> She meant 'cut scene'. <...that we saw about the history of the Devourer. Come.> She dragged me along by the hand again. <They can not attack us, but they can call others to do so. Reinforcements are most likely already on the way.>

This thing about the drow being the jailers of the Devourer wasn't news to me, but it was the first time I was confronted with the evidence of it.

We walked to the other wall, which also split, creating a narrow passageway, and we proceeded onward

We were almost to the other side, when Sam shadowed and knocked me aside. I could barely see the blur of the projectile that whistled through the space where my head had been. Before I even reacted to that, Sam had already tossed a pair of throwing knives to intercept another incoming projectile. The first dagger missed when, what I was now sure was an arrow, shifted course midair, but the second dagger managed to intercept it.

The arrow exploded, creating a huge fireball which did no damage to me, but threw me back a few paces; it was the only reason the second arrow, which I hadn't even seen, missed my head as well. Sam, still in shadow form, rushed forward into the fire and disappeared.

I waited a moment for the flames to dissipate and followed her.

As I came out of the corridor, I found myself in a massive chamber, nearly the size of the cave which had housed Ter'nodril. The ceiling, floor, and walls were made of lightsteel like the rooms before and the intertwined streams of blood continued forward in a straight line.

However, moving straight ahead was impossible for me, as the room was a veritable forest composed of millions of chains.

They were made of lightsteel and were of all sizes. From thin ones that I could snap with my bare hands, to chains made of links the size of buildings. They were anchored on every surface, and all converged in the middle of the room.

Well, it was pretty clear that I wasn't going to be freeing the Devourer if my plan to kill him failed.

Sam was standing under a chain with links the size of trucks and motioned for me to join her. I didn't, I was staring at the figure standing on another thick chain fifty meters away.

Tardas.

His face was still the ugly decomposed mess appropriate for the ghoul species, and his impressive white elven longbow was in his hands. But that was where the resemblance to his past self ended.

His clothes were now tight leather armor just like the Blackguards used, other than the quiver hanging on his waist, and the cloak which was conspicuously absent. The slave collar he had worn before was gone, replaced by one so tight that it was biting into his flesh, as evidenced by the dried blood along its edges.

"Jack Thorn," he said with the hoarse voice common to ghouls. His tone held a mix of hostility and ennui.

"Hello there, old pal," I said. "Not cool of you to try to kill me. I thought we were friends after our last chat." I didn't really think that, but I did think we had some kind of truce.

"So did I," he replied. "Until you told Manhart everything about our little chat. After I specifically told you not to trust him." He tapped the collar on his neck. "All the right people thought I was dead until you revealed the truth to him. Me being in this position is your fault!."

"That's funny," I said. "I thought you were Marbareus' slave, not Manhart's. Oh, did you manage to revive the vampire? I kind of hope not, after the way you two conspired to have me killed by Daggers here, by framing me for her death."

"I managed, and I was Marbareus' slave," he said. "But when the drow found out Marbareus survived because of me, they told the Father that the vampires must deliver me or prepare for war. Of course the Father didn't hesitate, why protect a mere slave like me? Marbareus was ordered to give me up, and he obeyed."

I sniffed. "Well, no surprise there. Marbareus is just a cowardly little prick."

"Don't!" Tardas growled. "He had no choice," his voice was strained, full of rage. "The Father revived him; he owed the Father a debt of blood."

"And you were the one who hauled his twice dead corpse all the way to the Father, who I'm sure revived him with basically no effort at all." I said. "In my book, it's clear who Marbareus owes more to."

He didn't answer; there was nothing he could say. He had been sold out, plain and simple.

Of course, he had also just tried to kill me, in addition to all the other things he had done to get on my bad side in the past. I wouldn't be satisfied by a simple verbal checkmate; I had to rub some salt in the wound. "It wouldn't have really taken anything for him to save you, he could have just said no. I mean, the Catacombs declared war on the drow before I told Manhart anything. The drow aren't fools, they would have never launched another war while they were already engaged in one."

"You may be right,” he conceded. But a slave simply isn't worth the risk."

I nodded. "So, the supposed abolitionist Marbareus couldn't be bothered to lift a finger to save his most devoted slave? It's pathetic, at this point I've freed more slaves than him."

Tardas stared at me in silence for a long time before speaking again. "This mind control collar is absolute, and the drow ordered me to kill you once you came." I raised an eyebrow at that declaration. "Yes, little fool, they knew you would come. They even know why: you think you can kill the Devourer." Tardas gave a dry laugh at that. "Pitiful."

That shocked me so much that I couldn't keep it off of my face. "How?" I asked.

"How, indeed?" He smiled. "I already told you the answer. Did you decide to kill the Devourer, or did Manhart send you to do it? The drow are masters of manipulation, but even they lose out to the lich. The drow attacked Manhart's so-called Resistance; of course he would counter-attack."

"Manhart has nothing to do with this," I said firmly. "He even delayed my coming and tried to bribe me to stay away from here, he had other things he wanted done."

"Oh." Tardas said, with a disturbingly wide smile. "And you always do what you're told, right? Or are you a man that when pushed one way, will strive even harder to go the opposite direction?" I frowned as he kept talking. "And, if even I saw this quality in you, there's no way the lich wouldn't be exploiting it; that's exactly what you did in the Great Maze. There was only one thing you were not supposed to do under any circumstances: kill the deathlords. And you deafened yourself by jabbing blades into your own ears, just to have the chance to kill one."

Then it hit me. Manhart had even spoken of my unpredictable nature, all the while pushing me in the direction he wanted! What Tardas said made sense: Manhart would want revenge for the attack on his Resistance. I hadn't even thought about how strange it was that he had made no move to enact his retribution.

In the end, I was his move.

"Well, shit," I said.

What was that I'd thought about Manhart's AI being subpar? I had been outmaneuvered and the reason was simple: lack of information. Manhart and the drow knew the stakes and the factions, while I was just a newcomer with little understanding of what they were capable of. That was almost certainly why Manhart refused to give me political information on Valia even though he fulfilled all the other promises!

"As I was saying," Tardas continued, "I was ordered to kill you. But there was no need for such order, in the case of a worm like you... It'll be my pleasure to end your life."

His hands blurred as he took an arrow from the quiver at his waist, nocked it, drew and let fly.

I barely got my shield up in time to defend myself. The arrow struck it and a thick layer of ice formed all around me, leaving me locked in place and blinded.

There was no follow up attack, but Sam was now left to fight him alone. I willed my morbs to destroy the ice...

Only to realize that he had fired more arrows after trapping me, only they'd targeted my morbs instead.

Thanks to my Diviner trait, I could sense magic to some extent, but I'd learned to ignore the nearly constant presence of my morbs, so I hadn't realized when they were destroyed.

I amassed new morbs as quickly as I could, and targeted the only thing I could see right now, the ice I was entombed inside of.

<What's going on?> I asked Sam.

<Not now!> She snapped, and I could hear the strain in her voice.

My fireballs continued raining down on the ice, until a crack opened in front of my face and I could see what the hell was going on.

Tardas was standing in the exact same place as before, on that huge chain. Sam was attacking from all sides, trying to get closer, but he was too damn fast with those arrows. To make matters worse, they all had some kind of magic: binding ice like the one that had hit me, shards of stone, bursts of fire, even gusts of wind. Others split into multiple arrows after his shooting. All of them changed path midair as the ghoul willed.

Sam had no choice but to send throwing knives at the incoming arrows. If she tried to defend the same way as me, she would only end up with a similar nasty surprise.

The worst part though, was that she didn't have unlimited throwing knives, and apparently she had run out. She had to throw a few of them for each arrow, or Tardas would just maneuver his arrows around them, and then she also had to move around collecting the daggers she had just thrown.

The only thing that really worked to her advantage was the chains. They were everywhere and worked fairly well as cover. Only now did I realize the ghoul had positioned himself in a location around which there were no chains except for the one he was standing on, like a clearing.

I amassed five morbs to defend myself just in case, then continued blasting away at the ice around me.

Sam shadowed, trying to approach, but was pushed back by a rapid volley of five arrows which each split into five as they flew.

I finally finished breaking out of the ice, and was thankfully still being ignored by Tardas, who seemed more interested in fighting Sam. I immediately took cover behind a nearby chain that was as large as a tree.

I amassed all eleven fire morbs I could and threw them at Tardas as rapidly as possible. The slave immediately turned my direction and managed to shoot six arrows before my morbs were halfway there. Each arrow turned into five and, ridiculously, he seemed to have no issue controlling thirty of them simultaneously. I tried to preserve my spells by maneuvering them out of the path of the storm of arrows, but they were mercilessly destroyed.

Sam used the chance to approach, but was once again driven back by a flurry of arrows.

Simply put, it was impossible to attack him.

Then, it hit me: I didn't have to attack him, only get past him. The Devourer, not the ghoul, was my target.

<Distract him!> I told Sam after I amassed eleven new fire morbs. When she moved to attack him again, I darted towards the next good cover.

I had barely taken my first step when an arrow that was aimed at Sam made a sharp turn and came at me instead. The asshole didn't even need to look to shoot me! I sent a fireball at it and detonated it early to keep the arrow from evading my spell while I moved forward.

"If you're going to run," Tardas said, "then playtime is over." And with that, he vanished.

<Shit!> I said. <Sam, go invisible, get to me!>

<Roger.> She also vanished, but I could see her icon approaching me on the minimap.

I helplessly threw one firemorb after another in random directions as I waited for her, holding my shield high and changing the direction I faced every other second.

When the arrow came, of course, it hit me in the back. I felt  it penetrate my armor and sink into my damn spine. I yelped in pain, and then the arrow exploded in my back.

That one attack took away three thousand HP and damn near rendered me unconscious, even with the pain in the game being greatly dulled.

Fortunately the pain also went away quickly and allowed me to think somewhat straight. I was trying  to focus on creating a death morb to heal myself when a new arrow was shot my direction, only to be intercepted by Sam's throwing knives.

I looked toward the middle of the room. The Devourer was so close, but so impossibly far away...

The truth was obvious. <That's it, Sam, end of the line. We can't fight Tardas. Even when he's visible we can't get close to him, and now he's invisible.> I paused as the coldness of the deathball passed through me, pushing back the lingering pain and mending the gaping hole in my torso. <Time to live as some elves. To be honest, I'm tired of dealing with Manhart, anyway.>

<Hell, no! Not elves!> She replied firmly. <Plus, I can kill Tardas, sir.>

<Of course you can,> I replied sarcastically. <In a few months, when we have high-level avatars and amazing skills.>

<No, sir,> she insisted. <I can kill Tardas now. But you must promise me you will kill the Devourer right after. And I mean immediately, not in a few months, in a few hours. Within minutes.>

<Uh... I'll try?>

<Good enough.> She appeared in front of me with a blood blade in her hand. I was confused, hadn't she ditched that thing back in the blood room? <There is a simple reason the drow can afford to trust a powerful outsider like Tardas so close to the Devourer, and it is not the slave collar.>

Without warning, she slit her own throat, then rammed the blade straight through her ribcage, piercing her heart. Her HP instantly hit zero and her body fell lifeless on the ground. Her icon turned into a red skull, the game confirming what was already obvious, Sam was dead.

Another arrow came my way but I was too shocked to defend myself. Had Tardas used some kind of mind magic? What the hell was going on?!

But before the arrow could hit me, Sam's hand jerked upward and plucked it out of the air.

"Bloodied," the Devourer's voice boomed in the room. "Your Destiny was Devoured, your Blood was offered, and your Soul is accepted."

A bizarre red light began to pulsate and the tendrils of blood above us throbbed to its rhythm. The lightsteel chains shone white, their magic apparently straining to counteract whatever was happening.

"You who have sacrificed yourself within my Heart," the voice said, "are now one with my Veins." The voice drug out the last syllable as the stream of blood deflected away from its original path without breaking, formed a curve that swept down and coiled several times around Sam before it turned into a churning vortex of blood that engulfed her. I had no choice but to back away. "Forever." The voice finished ominously.

The vortex subsided, the chord of blood returned to its original state and the lightsteel chains stopped glowing.

Sam was on her feet again, but I was only assuming it was her, since this thing was occupying the space where I'd seen her last and it still had that dagger sticking out of its chest.

Now it was an avatar made of blood which swirled wildly. Instead of eyes and mouth, there were only voids in its substance, just like the Water Goddess.

"You have ten minutes," the Devourer said. "Afterwards, you're mine."

My game interface was still telling me Sam was dead. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't her.

It looked at me for a moment, then turned with a speed that bordered precognition, to face Tardas just as he released another arrow.

The avatar stretched itself out, becoming a twisting ribbon of blood which intercepted and ignored the arrow on the way to appearing in front of the ghoul in the blink of an eye.

It spiraled around the invisible Tardas, who became visible inside when he was penned in by blood in all directions. He had no time to react before all the blood collapsed in on him, creating a scarlet cocoon which writhed as he struggled within. Sometimes his face or a limb briefly broke free, before being drawn back in.

For a good minute, he fought, but you could see his thrashing weakening, until it was all over.

The blood mass held still with Tardas' corpse inside it. From the name of the god that created that thing, I guessed it was consuming the ghoul.

And just like that, the ghoul wasn't my problem anymore.

"Holy shit," I said.

The blood replied by throwing Tardas' longbow at me. Then, it formed two open hands, showing 'ten', only to immediately close one finger to show 'nine.'

And I understood. The Devourer had said that Sam would be forever his, then he said she had ten minutes. And she had told me I had to be quick. Just like me, she was all-in. I bet that if I didn't kill the Devourer in nine minutes, she would permanently lose her character.

I nodded, took the longbow, and prepared to run to the middle of the room, when her hands turned into a mass of tentacles and shot upwards. They gripped the stream of blood we'd been following and pulled it down, then splayed open into something that looked like a hammock.

One of the tentacles then grabbed me and shoved me into the space and closed it around me. When Sam released it, I felt myself shoot ahead!

I imagined this is what it would feel like to be a blood cell, propelled through a vein by the beating of a heart, only so much faster.

I was glad to see Sam had some kind of plan, because I'd been thinking I didn't have a chance of getting to the center of the room in nine minutes, let alone also finishing off the Devourer.

It was finally time end this.

I was going to kill a god.

38. Commitment

The blood surrounding me poured into my wounds, healing me as I flew ahead. Thankfully, I had no need to breathe, because I'd have otherwise suffocated in the two minutes before I was unceremoniously ejected from my ride.

I fell from several stories up, and hit the ground both hard and badly. I'd tucked into a ball but still lost two hundred HP.

I rolled to a stop and after a few seconds of dizziness, I got up, looked ahead, and saw... Nothingness.

To be more precise, there was a column of black fog that stretched floor to ceiling. The chains and blood stream went into it and disappeared as they crossed the threshold. It was a void that none of my enhanced or magical senses could pierce.

A green energy, that I assumed was the Blight, flickered across the face of the fog of darkness occasionally, giving it an ominous appearance..

I took a couple minutes to heal the damage from the fall, and contacted my Destiny Spirit, just to be sure everything was ready.

<Zenhit, you there?>

<Obviously.> The child voice replied in an annoyed tone.

<Just making sure. Happy to have your help, it was much more important than you can imagine.>

<Obviously.> It repeated.

<Well, then. Watch closely; what I'm about to do will blow your mind!> I smiled at my own joke and stepped into the fog.

Inside there was nothing; I looked back and I couldn't see where I had come from, only the thick dark fog. I tried to look at my own hands and couldn't perceive them, even right in front of my face.

I steeled myself and moved on. Sam was counting on me, I only had five minutes left.

No damage received from darkness element (Immunity)

Status effect resisted: Devouring (Immunity)

Status effect resisted: Dark Madness (Immunity)

Status effect resisted: Lone Despair (Immunity)

Status effect resisted: Heart of Darkness (Immunity)

No damage received from dark blight element (Immunity)

Status effect resisted: Dark Blight Corruption (Immunity)

Status effect resisted: Dark Blight Illusions (Immunity)

Status effect resisted: Dark Blight Control (Immunity)

Messages of me resisting damage and status effects came in the hundreds, so many that I couldn't even read them as they scrolled past. I ignored them and kept moving.

Twenty or so paces later, the scenery changed again.

Where before was only darkness, now I was in a white void space. I couldn't see the floor on which I stood, there were no walls, nor ceiling, though thankfully I could see myself again; and I could see something else..

The millions of chains I'd seen out in the cavern were converging here. In this white space, it seemed like they stretched outward to some infinite horizon,  far further away than the walls of the cavern I'd been in. It must have been some kind of spatial magic making this place bigger on the inside. As the chains came together, they were intersecting and merging, but instead of becoming bigger, the combined chain was smaller but more luminous. By the time they reached the center, there were only thousands of chains, but they were incandescent, giving off a beautiful, silvery-white light. Then the chains merged a final time, where they all intersected they became a large sphere of wrought lightsteel.

The only thing marring the ethereal beauty of this bastille, was the blood. The same cable of blood I had seen before was also here, but where it was trying to enter the sphere at the center, the opening was apparently too small, causing a massive amount of blood to backup, coating that side of the sphere and clinging to hundreds of chains like a water droplet caught in a spider's web.

I approached the sphere and saw an inscription inlaid with gold:

"The First Defender

God of Self-Sacrifice

Devourer of the Blight

Savior of Valia"

Not seeing an entrance, and not having time to look, I hoped for the best and touched it, and thankfully was transported to the final chamber of the prison.

Now, I was standing on a hill in what appeared to be an endless plain of dried blood. There were sculptures of beasts and people in torment everywhere, though they seemed to be a part of the bloody terrain.

I turned and saw something even creepier to the side; some of these statues were moving. Tens of thousands of them, some seemed to be trying to run, some were struggling to rise from the ground and others seemed to be trying to wipe something off of themselves. The one common factor was the clear desperation etched on their faces.

A sparse fog, composed of intertwined tendrils of green and black, crept across the ground everywhere save where I was standing.

Seeing no sign of the Devourer I called out. "Hello?"

My voice was a scream in this place of silent torment. The fog trembled at that and glided towards me. I tensed, but then realized there was nothing I could do to fog even if it wanted to hurt me and forced myself to relax.

The fog soon condensed into a smoky humanoid before me. The green of its left side and the black of the right, shifted and warred with each other subtly, but always remained in balance overall. There was no movement from the being but the voice of a young man came from all around me.

"Who are you?" It queried in a strangely jovial tone.

"You don't know?" I was actually surprised, it seemed like the worse it would be for me, the more likely it was that the people I was interacting with would know me. My ego was slightly bruised, even if it was better for me this way.

"Should I know the name of every mortal who comes to adore me?" He also seemed surprised at my question.

"Well, considering how hard it was to get here, it would only be polite," I replied, then hurried to keep the conversation moving, because Sam's clock was ticking. "I'm Jack Thorn." I waited for a few seconds but my name didn't seem to mean anything to him. "I'm here to become a Blackguard," I said.

"Oh, I see. You're one of those." He waved his hand at me dismissively.

Suddenly, the fog which had lingered on the ground engulfed me. Notifications telling me I'd resisted damage and negative statuses spilled across my vision again, while the fog rapidly dissolved as it touched my skin.

After a few moments, it was over. "You didn't die," the Devourer observed needlessly.

"Ya," I replied sagely. "So, Blackguard?"

He silently regarded me for a while as if I were an interesting anomaly. "Ah, a Dark Archmage. It's been some time since the last came with hopes of conquering me. And yet, you come with tales of serving me."

"I'm not that greedy," I said.

"Lies. No Archmage can be born without greed. Greed for knowledge, for power, for revenge. Sometimes greed for survival, or for life. There are many goals, but greed is what fuels it all." He started walking around me. "Your plot is doomed to fail," he said. "It has been tried before. Even if I consume your Destiny Spirit and it explodes inside me, it won't kill me."

My mouth dropped open. How the hell had it seen through me like that?

"Why the surprise?" He asked with a hint of laughter in his voice. "You think no one has ever tried it? Destiny Spirits were rarer before this Age of Travelers, but their destructive potential is no secret." I sighed; I had sucked up to Zenhit for nothing. "Then you come and directly ask me to turn you into a Blackguard, something that can be achieved only when I swallow your Destiny Spirit. It doesn't take a genius to see through your scheme."

"Well, shit." I said. "Would you mind just dying, then? It'd be really helpful."

He stopped walking and looked at me curiously again, but for a different reason than my words alone. "This compulsion to do as you say... Ah, an Adept Faithful. Your charisma is quite powerful. Alas, death is a blessing that I can't have until the Fallen are gone."

"What if I promise to kill them all for you?" I asked.

He sighed. "You bore me. Leave. Come back when you're as strong as three Mage Kings combined and wield divine power. Then, you'll stand a tiny chance of harming me."

"Can we at least try the Destiny Spirit thing? I hate Zenhit." I said.

"This is the last time I tell you to leave," he replied.

Well, I had tried being polite. With my shield raised in front of me, I rushed him. I swung my sword at the same time I threw a firebomb behind him. He didn't move as my sword passed right through him and the explosion didn't even cause a ripple in the vapors he was made of.

No damage dealt to Devourer.

He sighed. "I can't kill you," he said. "The Blight and the Divinity inside me are locked in eternal stalemate, and I can only use dark magic, to which you're immune. But you also cannot damage me. You're too weak."

Ignoring him, I attacked again, this time with my bare hands, hoping my immunity to darkness might allow me to harm the dark side of his body, even a tiny bit, but I met only empty air as he opened a hole in his smoky body, instead of allowing me to touch him.

Well, the fact that he didn't want me to touch him at least proved that my immunity was uncomfortable to him.

"Foolish child," he said. "I have gifted immunity to Divine magic to tens of thousands in the hope that they may be able to stop me should I lose myself again, and you think you can stop me alone? How naive and arrogant are you?"

Things weren't going according to plan. "It doesn't even make sense," I said. "If you can't use Divine magic, what use is their immunity? Shouldn't you give them immunity to darkness instead?"

"To the Blackguard I give immunity to Divine magic, in case my Divine side prevails and tires of being here," he replied. "To the High Assassin, I also grant immunity to the Blight, in case I become a Fallen God; he's the only one, because for a being who is tainted by the Blight as the drow, being made immune is both excruciating and maddening. But if they were also granted immunity to darkness, they would lose all reverence for me. Instead of a god, I would be little more than a caged animal, milked for the gifts they would force me to bestow."

It was interesting, because the drow had been elves just like any others, prior to following the Devourer to the Underworld. Clearly, not only he, but the entire race was affected by the corruption of the Blight.

"Dude," I said. "You killed what, half of all the drow with a single attack from your Soul Avatar? They can't stop you if you get out."

"My Soul Avatar is sealed out of the dimensions composed of lightsteel; I'm sure you saw them awaiting there, in case I break free." He explained. "And they need not defeat me, only keep me within the prison dimensions long enough that divine aid could be summoned, since I could immediately escape into the Divine Realm, where no mortal could follow, if I ever were allowed out into the world."

That made some sense. I hadn't heard about the Divine Realm before, but it wasn't hard to imagine it was a kind of Mount Olympus for the gods of Valia.

"But the High Assassin is fighting the Ruined Mage Kings," I pointed out. "What if you turn into a Fallen God right now and use the Blight to kill the guards and flee?"

"Then, a new war would ensue, with me leading the Legion." His voice went up in pitch as nearly a hundred green lights shone on the ground around the hill.

I smiled. "You know what? I like you." I said sincerely. "You answer my questions and don't talk down to me like I'm vermin, even if you were a little harsh before."

"I'm alone," he said with a ripple in his substance that looked like a shrug. "Even the High Assassin would be overwhelmed by the dark magic here, in my Heart of Hearts, if he remained for long, and the other gods haven't visited in centuries. I'd prefer you to leave, but if you will not, a chat is less tiresome than futilely trying to kill one another, don't you agree?"

"I'm glad to see you can be a sensible deity.” I said “So, let's do things this way: let Samantha Hidden Daggers go, give me some kick ass dark magic, and I'll leave you in peace."

It wasn't such a bad deal for me. It might give me the edge I needed to keep playing in the Underworld longer, and try to accomplish something new.

"Impossible," he replied. "The Rite of Sacrifice is sacred and cannot be broken. She'll become another of the souls trapped here with me for eternity." He said, while indicating all the tormented 'statues' around us.

"Man, I just said how reasonable you are. C'mon."

"It cannot be done," he said firmly.

I sighed sadly. "You said I'm inside your Heart. As in inside your body?"

"Yes. All of this is a part of me."

"Well... I'm sorry, then. I gave you a choice, but you chose the hard way." I put my Circlet of Enlightenment and my Ring of Fire inside my storage ring, then placed my ring in my purse, which had a lower chance of dropping on death.

"Is this supposed to be intimidating?" He asked sarcastically. "Like a man rolling up his sleeves before a fist fight?"

"What?! No! I'm just not expecting to survive this." And with that, I took the ring with the Fallen God from my purse and threw it on the ground.

The ring was proof that neither Laureth nor Manhart had told me the whole story about the Fallen. Manhart's version about the Mother imprisoning the Fallen in objects didn't explain the Devourer, and Laureth's version, which had even been revealed in a cool cutscene, didn't explain the ring.

I didn't really care either way; the Devourer had confirmed that the Divine and Blight within him were in a precarious balance, now all I needed to do was put my thumb on the scale.

The Devourer regarded the ring curiously for a second, then it suddenly shot towards him like an arrow. Just as he had done when I tried to punch him, he formed an opening in his body for the ring to pass through.

But it didn't, it stopped with his body and transformed. Instantly, it became a silver fog with streaks of gold that slowly turned green, and perfectly filled the hole.

"What—" The Devourer said, and then he let out a scream of pain. "What have you done?!" He yelled and dispersed his form, seemingly trying to flee in all directions at once. The silver and green part of the fog, however, went with him.

<Zenhit,> I said. <How do I get out of here?>

<Humph.> He replied in my mind. It seemed he had heard my conversation and wasn't happy about it.

<Come on, dude. I was just trying to pump the Devourer for information by letting him think he had deduced my plan. He doesn't know what he's talking about.>

The Destiny Spirit didn't reply.

After a deep sigh, I sat on the ground, pulled a beer out of my bag, and waited for whatever was coming.

The fog covering the ground had been a mix of black and green, but it quickly divided itself in half by color, reminding me somewhat of opposing armies squaring off in formation. In the middle there was an opening, where the patch of fog which had been the Devourer's body moments ago was writhing.

The silver fog was being consumed by the Blight, which was growing visibly stronger and gaining dominance. When there was nothing else within its range, part of the green vapor condensed into a liquid and fell to the ground, which it corrupted as well.

The section of the ground which had been corrupted was suddenly, violently uprooted by an invisible force and compressed into a sphere. It looked like the Devourer wasn't going down without a fight after all. The Blight consumed the spherical scab, and then......

The air itself split open with a thunderous crack. It was like a bullet through a pane of glass, a luminous green hole suspended in space, with cracks radiating out from it like the legs of a spider. Was the Blight eating into the space-folding magic sustaining this pocket dimension? Whatever was happening, tongues of green energy licked out of the cracks, they spread and multiplied until the air was checked like a piece of wood being consumed by a fire.

"That was a valiant attempt," I remarked. "I also cut off a piece of myself to keep the ring from taking over my body. But you already confirmed to me that everything here is a part of you, there's nowhere you can put it that isn't inside your body."

"Stop it!" The young sounding voice of the Devourer rang out from all around me. "You've no idea what this will do to the world! You're dooming Valia entirely!"

"Glad to hear that." I took a sip from the beer. "It wasn't all for nothing, then."

"STOP!” He shouted in rage and pain as the fog attacked from around me, like a hurricane. Thousands of immunity messages spilled across my vision.

The Devourer shrieked in agony and the fog fell away. "I'll do it! I'll give you the Bloodied back! I'll teach you dark magic, and even Divine magic!"

I gave him a weak smile. "That's a pretty good offer, and I'd take it, but it's too late. I can't stop it."

"No!" He howled in despair. "I'm the Devourer!" He declared forcefully. "I'll Devour this puny Fallen God!"

"Suit yourself," I said with a shrug. "If you let him consume you, your body will be taken over by a Fallen God. If you consume him, the balance between the Blight and the Divine inside you will be destroyed, and you'll turn into a Fallen God yourself. Either way, I get what I want."

"Why?" The voice asked. "You are dooming the world!"

"Revenge."

"Revenge? What great sin have the inhabitants of Valia committed that you'd condemn them to this Apocalypse?" He couldn't understand.

"None. But you're all children of the creators of this world. They took my parents, my family, away from me. I'm taking this world they've created away from them."

"Creators of this world?" He asked confused. "Have the Guardian and the Mother mistreated you?"

I shook my head, and stopped replying. He was just a game character; he couldn't understand.

The green web continually expanded, touched the ground and once again began to corrupt it. When the 'statues' turned green, I could hear the sickening crunch of bones being rearranged as they were transformed into giant spiders.

"You'll die as well," the Devourer said desperately.

"I know." I replied without concern. Even if I wanted to run, I had no idea how to get out of here.

Time passed as I sipped at my beer. Half the world had turned green and the cracks in the air had resolved into a massive and perfectly symmetrical spider web. At least for now, the hill I was on remained unaffected.

"There is an alternative," the Devourer said at least, his voice strangely calm and resolute. "I can still save Valia. A temporary salvation, but the best I can do, since none of the other gods have heeded my call."

I froze with my beer halfway to my mouth. "You're bluffing," I said.

"You gave me a choice before, so I'll return the favor," the voice said, but this time it was immediately behind me. I jumped, and brought my shield up between myself and the Devourer.

He had changed. Now, only about one third of his body was still black; the other two thirds were green, and shone brightly.

"I can use your body. The Blight acts slowly on Travelers, it will take exactly one year and a day for the process to complete. That will buy time for my brethren to create a defense plan for Valia. And before you think that you can foil my plan by killing yourself, let me present your choice: I'll either corrupt you, or the Bloodied. I needn't ask her permission; she already gave herself to me."

"Shit!" I said.

From what I understood he was going to start the process of turning either Dagger or I into a Fallen God, similar to what would've happened if we wore the Spider Ring. If that happened to me I was sure I would lose my character, since Sam's choice had already shown me such a thing was possible, depending on what the player chose to do in the game.

I wasn't sure what would happen if I deleted my character with all the Blight of the Devourer inside of it, but I was certain that it wouldn't accomplish my goal. Without a dead Devourer, Valia definitely wouldn't be destroyed, it might even improve things if he was trapped inside me.

<Zenhit!> I called urgently. I had to be sure I was understanding the situation. <What happens if I accept his corruption and revive in a new body?> He ignored me. <Answer me that and I promise I won't ask anything of you ever again!>

The child voice laughed in my mind. <Everything in a Traveler's avatar returns to the Mother if a Traveler forfeits it.>

<Meaning?> I had no time to translate that; only a fourth of the Devourer remained black.

<Stupid!> It laughed again, enjoying this way too much. <The corrupted Devourer will return to the Mother. What she does after that is up to her, but she is known as the Great Goddess of Love.>

"Shit!" I cursed. "Shit, shit, shit! You bastard!” I shouted at the Devourer. He didn't reply.

The asshole had found a way to thwart my plan, at least for a year. If Sam or I were corrupted and then deleted our character it sounded like the Mother may even revive the Devourer. I'd seen players abuse the system in games, but seeing an NPC do it was a novel experience.

And it was personal, too; he could go for Sam but he wanted to make me pay for killing him.

In this situation I would either have to destroy Valia with my own hands in the next year of gameplay, or hope that when my avatar became possessed by a Fallen, it could do the job for me. But if the Devourer was to be believed, the gods would soon be making plans specifically to thwart that, and if they'd beaten the Fallen twice before, and now had a year's warning, it seemed likely they could do it again.

So much delay, all because I'd overestimated my abilities. I sighed for the fourth time since entering the Devourer's heart.

"Fix me up," I said.

The fog of the Devourer's face split into a truly sadistic smile; then he was upon me.

The vaporous deity swathed my body, forcing his way in through my nose, ears, mouth, and eyes. The whole world shuddered violently as a loud, shrill cry came from the green side of the world. The Blight there condensed into a lance that shot my way, aiming for my head. However, a shield of black smoke formed to defend me. When the two clashed, the entire world rang and shook like an anvil struck by a sledgehammer. I was falling over when my body started floating.

The Blight, its attack thwarted tried to escape by becoming a fog once more and flying away, but the Devourer lived up to his name and created a multitude of tentacles with monstrous mouths on the end which quickly sucked it in and began force feeding it to me in the same way he had been doing with the substance of his own body.

The energies continually poured into my body, it felt like my blood was becoming ice water.

Then whole sections of the ground began exploding, along with the 'statues' upon it and the debris flew my way. I saw that the statues were flesh and bone on the inside, some were even ectoplasmic. That's when I realized that most of them must be the victims of the tidal wave of darkness magic that had destroyed Ter'nodril, not just dead but devoured. A vortex of black smoke and green light appeared in front of my chest and began converting everything into more energy which was pumped into my body, as the sensation of cold intensified.

I had no control of myself as I floated and was was pumped full of arcane energies; then, a window appeared in front of me.

Critical Warning!

Your character is undergoing changes that will make it unplayable in...

12 months, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds

You may cancel this process now. Doing so will lead to unpredictable consequences.

Are you sure you want to proceed?

Yes, I thought, and the window disappeared.

As the energies built up, black scales with a tint of green appeared all over my skin. I could now see nothing other than the debris flying into the vortex before me.

The energies inside my body were fighting each other and when they clashed, parts of my body would be destroyed and then reform.

For once, mercifully, there was no pain involved.

Finally, after a few interminable minutes, it was done. The vortex itself entered me and I found myself floating in nothingness.

"The Ways have been violated," a celestial female voice said from nowhere.

"The First Guardian is no more," another ethereal voice, this one male, replied.

"The drow have failed the gods," a third voice declared.

"We sentence them to Obliteration," the three voices said in unison.

White and golden fire appeared all around, but didn't touch me. Instead, it expanded outward. The nothingness shattered and I saw that I was in the center of the room of chains.

The wave of white fire shattered the chains like glass, as it expanded ever outwards. The whole chamber burst as the blast impacted the walls, millions of tons of lightsteel reduced to splinters by the divine fire.

The room containing the drow guards, and all the priests within it were gone before I even saw them, but the Blackguards' divine magic immunity protected them for a second, until the flying lightsteel debris ripped them apart.

The blast destroyed absolutely everything, until it reached the blood which shone a brilliant red and resisted the white fire, which rushed around it, consuming the room which had contained it.

Soon, the dimension itself was destroyed and I found myself floating at the peak of the Dark Temple. The ball of darkness and the beam which had fed it were no more, but the High Assassin was still fighting the three Mage Kings.

The Dark Temple was ripped apart as a massive gout of fire erupted from it and slammed into the ceiling. The fire rolled across the top of the cave chamber, then rained down. The Mage Kings' eyes widened and they opened a purple portal, immediately going through it. The High Assassin hesitated for an instant before following suit.

The floor of the chamber burned away, revealing the drow's livestock on the cave bellow before they were burned away as well. Even then, great torrents of fire burst outward from every exit of the chamber, leaving them much wider than they had been before.

All that left was me, the huge floating lake of blood, and a few huge chunks of lightsteel which had somehow survived, still glowing from the heat of the blast.

<It is done,> the fading voice of the Devourer said in my mind. <I died before consuming the Bloodied and she will resurrect like all Travelers do. But there's power here that would be abused by the Ruined Mage Kings when they return.> The Devourer sighed. <After what you've done, I have no love for you, nor your followers, but I believe this power in the Mage Kings' hands would be much more harmful than in yours. They also seek vengeance upon the world, but they have much more strength and skill which they could bring to bear towards that end than you. Take it as a parting gift then, and hear my last wish: give up this meaningless quest for vengeance against these beings you speak of as being beyond both the Guardian and the Mother. Instead save Valia from the Fallen Gods you have so callously unleashed today.>

My hands moved, apparently under the control of the Devourer, and gestured towards the blood lake which turned into a sphere. Then, my hand clenched, and the sphere was compressed into a single droplet of blood. From it, a humanoid form slowly took shape. When it was complete, two red crystal daggers appeared in its hands

Another wave of my hand and a dark morb that I didn't know I had made flew to the figure, then transformed into finely crafted black leather armor. With another morb, a Blackguard cloak with green trim appeared, shrouding the body entirely.

<This vessel will mature in time for your friend's soul to return from the Gates of Death,> the Devourer said in a near whisper. <Farewell, Jack Thorn.>

I started floating towards the ground as I felt one of the energies inside me ebb.

The moment I touched the floor, it was gone, and the Devourer was no more.

As if it had been waiting for this chance, another energy rose inside me, ferocious and ravenous, it consumed the last traces of the Devourer. I did my best to ignore it and caught the newly-formed body before it could fall. I turned off the video stream, so it couldn't be used to track me, then looked around for a place to hide; the Mage Kings would be back soon.

I chose a direction at random and ran, carrying Sam's future body with me. Anything created by the last of a deity's power must be worth many times its weight in gold, and even if she was never going to help me again, I didn't want her to lose everything she'd gained by helping me today.

One tunnel after another, I kept running without direction, encountering nothing but the flame scarred walls. When my stamina ran low, I was forced to stop and checked my body: I was covered in black scales with a green luster to them, I felt my face and realized they covered it as well. I had been transformed into a monster.

Next, I checked the new status effect icon which had appeared where Divine Approval used to be.

Blight Corruption (level 999 — max)

You're being corrupted by the Blight.

Unless you find a way to stop it, you will lose control of this character in...

12 months, 23 hours, 39 minutes, 32 seconds

No surprise there.

I also checked the exclamation points at the edge of my vision.

Intelligence increased to 35 (+2)

You started a war, took advantage of the chaos it created, acquired inside help from the Dark Temple to infiltrate one of the most secure locations in the Underworld, and killed a god without being nearly strong enough to do so.

Such an accomplishment proves you have superior intellect.

» MP: 3245 (+345)

(Items disregarded)

If Zenhit was praising me after discovering I had planned his demise, I must have really impressed him.

Trait replaced: Adept Faithful is now Adept Heretic

You've killed a god and been branded a Heretic.

The trait level has been kept.

» Previous Adept Faithful advantages removed

» +11 charisma when dealing with the Fallen

Now, that was interesting. I didn't know a trait could be transmuted into another.

Thinking of the Fallen, I wondered what the hell had happened to them. I had thought they were the green lights in the Devourer's dimension, which had shone when he spoke about a Legion.

Shouldn't they be free?

Now that I thought about it, what about this 'one year for the gods to prepare' thing?

I asked Zenhit.

<You promised, no new questions,> he replied and then refused to say any more.

Seeing the futility of continued questions, I kept checking the exclamation points.

Trait received: Godslayer

You've committed the greatest sin in all Valia: you killed a God.

All gods curse you.

» -50% to all attributes

Blight Corruption detected!

The Blight inside you has acted and the effects of this title have been negated.

It didn't surprise me that the game would try to mess with me for killing a god, but I hadn't been expecting Blight Corruption to protect me from the penalty. That was a nice side effect.

I had been hoping for an upgrade to my Warlord title, but I sadly got none.

Adept Strategist increased to 33 (+2)

You've proven your strategic mind knows no bounds.

To all members of a party you are the leader, except you:

» +28% increase to 3 attributes of choice

And that was almost all of it. No nice title, no big changes. The game apparently discouraged deicide.

Thankfully, I hadn't just killed a god, I had also gained something that was changing me, and that came with a few upsides.

[UNHOLY] trait unlocked: Blighted

The Blight runs in your veins, strengthening you as much as it corrupts you.

This trait cannot be turned off.

» +1% increase to all attributes, except Willpower

» -1% willpower

» -10% charisma

The Blight has corrupted you...

New Core Trait Slot received!

Blighted has been permanently set as a Core Trait.

Blighted increased to 11 (+10)

» +11% increase to all attributes, except Willpower and Charisma

» -11% willpower

» -100% charisma

Trait has evolved into Adept Blighted:

» -22% willpower

» Skill unlocked: Blight Manipulation

Level up!

Current level: 40

HP, MP and stamina restored

My attributes screen was now filled with pluses and minuses, but it seemed like the adjustments from the Blighted trait didn't directly affect my level, just like items didn't. My level up came from the eleven points given by my new trait.

Willpower was a troubling loss; it affected my stamina, after all, in addition to other game mechanics, like seeing through stealth and metal resistance. Nothing I could do about it, though.

The new skill was puzzling, it didn't show up in my skills list and I had no idea of how to use it. I'd experiment when I had the time.

I grabbed Sam's body again and continued running. After about two hours, I found a somewhat safe cave, deep in a desolate corridor. I dug a pit, put Sam in there, and covered her body over with a thin layer of dirt, leaving only a small hole for her to breathe.

I looked at her grave-like mound and sighed; it might be the last time I saw her in a friendly environment.

It was, after all, time to prepare for my big revelation tomorrow.

I logged out.

And it took me all of two seconds to wish I hadn't. I was not in my room.

My hands were tied behind my back, my feet were tied to the wooden chair I was sitting on and I was gagged; it wasn't pleasant.

I was in a room made of bare concrete and the metal door was rusty. The air was moist and stale.

Beside the door stood a man wearing something that looked like an unfamiliar military uniform, and mask which obscured his face. He had his arms crossed and was looking straight at me.

"Finally here," he said and uncrossed his arms. "It was nice of you to be playing that stupid game, people are so much easier to abduct when they are unconscious. We've been waiting a while for you to log out though. We didn't simply rip the VirBridge off, as that would be considered torture; we supposedly don't do that." He laughed lightly, and I wasn't sure if he was just messing with me, or if he really didn't care about the country's laws. Either way, I was worried.

He opened the door and kept talking as he walked out of the room. "I'm getting the boss. When we're back, be a good little bird and sing for us, will you? Believe me, it's best if you do." The door closed behind him.

Fuck, I thought.

Jack
Sunni Carpenter McHolen

Human <?>

Instigator of Chaos, Murderer, Guilt Ridden, Prisoner

Age 24

Afterword

Thank you for taking your time to read Obliteration, I hope you enjoyed it!

If you're interested in seeing more work from me, here's what you can do:

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That's it

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I hope you enjoyed my story! I would like to recommend another wonderful series of books by Aleron Kong. This guy is hilarious! His books are like Ready Player One and Game of Thrones had a sexy baby! Just don't plan to have a life for the next week! Cheers! Just click here!

It's also available on Audio, performed by the legend Nick Podehl!