Date: 2021-06-29 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: Something wicked this way comes. A mysterious psychopath with godlike powers has suddenly appeared in OtherWorld. And every time he destroys an entire city, he leaves behind a calling card: a riddle. With the help of a few old friends, Ian, Alaria, and Stig set out to discover who he is and what he wants. But in order to stop him, they’ll have to play his twisted little game… …and not everyone will make it out alive. WARNING: This is a book featuring hot women, sexy times, demons, warlocks, violence, and profanity. If you’re an old granny lady who’s going to clutch your pearls every time someb
Rights: Copyright 2021 A.J. Markam. All rights reserved.

SUCCUBUS 8

Riddles And Revenge

A.J. Markam

A LITRPG Series

Mailing List

To be notified when the next book comes out, click here to join my mailing list.

You can also email me at
ajmarkambooks@gmail.com.

Facebook.com/AJMarkamBooks

Copyright © 2021 by A.J. Markam

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Also by AJ Markam

As Edward Lang

Monster Girls 1

Monster Girls 2

Monster Girl Mountain

As Rob Nolan

Time Mage

Time Mage 2

Iron Mage

Iron Mage 2

As AJ Markam

Ex-Superheroes 3

(Kindle and Audiobook)

Succubus

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 2: Hell To Pay

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 3:

The Good, The Bad, And The Crazy Stupid Hot

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 4:

Gnome Place Like Home

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 5:

Hardcore Dungeon Core

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 6:

Devil In The Deep Blue Sea

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 7:

Fairy Tale

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus Christmas Special

(Short story and audiobook)

Ex-Superheroes 1

(Kindle and Audiobook)

Ex-Superheroes 2

(Kindle and Audiobook)

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Also by AJ Markam

Mailing List

1

A lot can change in a day.

And there can be lots of unintended consequences of even the best-intended actions.

After Alaria, Stig, Meera, and I took out the mob bosses Varkus and Peenocchio, I figured that the city of Exardus would enter an age of peace and tranquility.

Not quite.

When the United States took out Saddam Hussein in Iraq, everybody thought it was game over.

Nobody realized that as bad as Saddam was, maybe he was the lid on the pot keeping a lot worse shit from boiling over.

Soon as he was gone, all the Shiite Muslims who had suffered decades under oppressive Sunni rule began killing their neighbors in revenge.

The Sunnis who had worked for Saddam were purged from their government jobs… and immediately picked up weapons to kill both Shiites and American soldiers.

And an influx of Al Qaeda terrorists flowed into Iraq to attack the US military, turning the entire country into hell.

Even after they’d dealt with Al Qaeda, once the US military left, the power vacuum opened the region up for ISIS to terrorize it.

Sometimes you need a bigger asshole to keep a bunch of smaller assholes in check.

It seems that was the case with Varkus and Peenocchio.

All the thugs who had worked for them – well, the ones who had survived the war I had instigated between the two factions – were adrift and on their own, and they started a wave of burglary and armed robbery.

Exardus’s police forces were basically non-existent. They’d relied on Varkus and Peenocchio to keep the peace and were quickly overwhelmed by a couple hundred warriors, hunters, rogues, and mages terrorizing the population.

Emboldened by the mobsters’ success, the dregs from the Underneath – the literal underworld of thieves, assassins, and feral demons who drank and partied in the sewers of Exardus – poured out into the streets and joined the pillage.

Unfortunately, I’d started all of it by taking out Varkus and Peenocchio.

So I figured it was my responsibility to restore order.

2

“You see anybody?” I shouted as I soared through the air on my magic carpet, a hundred feet above the gleaming white streets of Exardus.

I’d had to buy a new magic carpet after my old one got cleaved in two by a murderous blue fairy with a wand made out of cardboard and a drinking straw.

Long story.

Alaria flew off to my right about 60 feet away. “Nothing over here!”

“Nothing here, either,” Meera called out 60 feet to my left. The early-morning sunshine glinted off the steel armor covering her head to foot – even her angel wings.

I sighed in frustration. I’d just gotten back the cursed sapphire that had rendered me impotent for weeks and had finally started having boners again. By all rights, I should have been continuing the marathon sex session Alaria, Meera, and I had started 12 hours before.

But when I woke up at dawn the next morning, glanced out the big bay window of the bedroom, and saw the dozens of fires burning throughout the city, I had to investigate.

I called down to the front desk of Meera’s luxury apartment building for information, and they informed me of the situation: gangsters had rampaged throughout the city all night, pillaging house after house. Demons were running wild and killing innocent townsfolk in their homes.

“But don’t worry, sir,” the elf on duty assured me over the crystal ball intercom system. “We have a team of Orcish warriors and Elvish mages standing by to defend the building.”

Once I’d found out that we were to blame for all the chaos, I was stricken with guilt.

Alaria wasn’t.

“Not our problem,” she’d said as she reached for my junk.

“We caused it!” I protested as I swatted her hand away.

“Yes,” Meera said quite seriously, “and we must set it right.”

When you need backup on a moral argument, it’s always good to have an angel on your side.

Even if she was sort of a fallen angel.

Who liked BDSM.

And threesomes.

And getting fucked in the ass.

Details.

“We need to take them out,” I agreed. “Otherwise they’ll turn Exardus into a hellhole.”

“Have fun,” Alaria announced as she headed for the kitchen, her tail twirling sensuously over her exquisitely beautiful, red, bare ass.

“You’re not going to help?!” Meera exclaimed.

“Nope.”

The problem was, the majority of the thugs were Level 80 or thereabouts.

I was Level 40.

They weren’t just double my power levels – they were four to five times more powerful.

Goddamn logarithmic scales.

Even with Meera’s assistance, it would be a struggle to take on more than one or two at a time.

So the only way we could handle them was as a group.

I needed Alaria’s help, no matter how disinterested she was in cleaning up the mess we’d made.

So I needed an equally good bribe.

I gritted my teeth and said, “For every thug you take out, I’ll let you stick a finger in my ass for one minute.”

Alaria immediately froze.

It was a new sexual boundary we’d played with during my time being cursed and unable to get an erection. Though not my thing, Alaria loved it.

She looked over her shoulder with a sly smile.

“One inch from my tail,” she counter-offered. “If I kill six gangsters, that’s six inches – ”

“NO,” I snapped. “Fingers only.”

She sighed. “Fine.”

Fingers in my ass during sex…

All for the greater good.

Her tail in my ass?

There were limits.

“Can we at least fuck before we go out and involve ourselves needlessly in other people’s problems?” Alaria asked.

That was one concession I was willing to make.

“Alright.”

She brightened immediately. “Can I get a couple of those fingerings on credit?”

“…fine.”

She did more than a couple, though.

But she was in a much better mood after she’d had her morning orgasms.

3

After a quick breakfast, we dropped by the Underneath to pick up Stig, whom I had sent out for an all-night bender while Alaria, Meera, and I enjoyed ourselves back at the apartment.I was shocked at how cleared-out the Underneath was. The only lowlifes around were the ones passed out on the ground or tending their shops.

We found Stig at one of the swankier drinking joints, face-down on the bar and surrounded by dozens of empty shot glasses and beer steins.

“Yo, Stig, time to go,” I said, sitting him upright and patting his cheeks.

“Bosshh,” he slurred, and looked confused. “Ish time to go already?”

“Yup,” I said, putting him on my shoulder like I was about to burp a baby.

“I drank ten gold ALREADY?!” he asked in bleary stupefaction.

“Uhhhh… yeah,” I lied.

I didn’t see any sign of the money on the bar near him, so I just assumed someone had ripped him off while he’d been passed out.

Or maybe he’d been drinking top-shelf shit the entire time.

I’d set him up with enough money to go on a bender for days because, well, I’d been expecting to be fucking for days.

My marathon session had been cut short, so I didn’t see why his shouldn’t be.

“O-kaaaay…” he murmured in resignation.

Five minutes later I was flying above the city with a drunk imp in my lap and an angel and a succubus flying in formation on either side of me.

“Do we care if they’re Varkus’s or Peenocchio’s men?” Alaria called out.

“No – why?”

“Well, you can tell by their armor, that’s all.”

It was true. As written by my douchebag coworker Chad, Peenocchio had been a flaming gay stereotype – so all of his henchmen’s armor was fabulous. Varkus’s guys wore old, dented, battle-scarred stuff.

“Makes ‘em easier to finger,” Alaria said, then did a double-take like she’d just realized the double entendre. “Like you.”

“HEY!” I yelled angrily.

“In da butt,” Stig piped up drunkenly from my lap.

“YOU shut UP,” I scolded him. Then I turned back to my succubus. “And YOU don’t use stuff from the bedroom against me!”

“Against you or to you?” she said with a giggle.

“I’m warning you – ”

“Okay, okay,” she said with a laugh.

“You can do it to me…” Meera said plaintively, like she didn’t want to be left out of the fingering.

“Oh, I will, Bird-slut,” Alaria said, using her now-affectionate nickname for the angel.

“Thank you, Hell-whore,” Meera said with an only slightly ironic tone.

“Gross,” Stig muttered.

“Keep your eyes on the ground, people,” I ordered, “and your minds out of the gutter.”

“That’s no fun,” Alaria teased.

Meera pointed. “There’s one!”

Down in an alley, a lone warrior was coming out of a burning building. Judging from his fancy green armor, he’d been one of Peenochio’s men.

“He’s coming out the back door!” Alaria shouted, then added with an impish grin, “Whereas I like to go in the back door.”

“In da butt,” Stig clarified once more.

“HIT HIM!” I yelled before either of them could say anything else.

Alaria immediately strafed the warrior with fireballs –

I Soul-Sucked him with black lightning –

And Meera dove down into the alleyway and delivered the coup-de-grace with a stroke of her flaming sword.

The warrior collapsed on the ground, dead.

“Wow, he went down hard!” Alaria crowed, then smiled sweetly at me. “Speaking of going down, honey, if I double up my tail and stick it between my legs, would you – ”

“NO!” I yelled.

“In da mouth,” Stig said helpfully.

“SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU!’

Suddenly an arrow flew past me through the air – thwip!

I got a quick glimpse of a scruffy-looking elf with a bow. One of Varkus’s men.

“Hunter!” I yelled at Alaria and Meera. “Take cover!”

There’s an excellent reason military strategy says to take the high ground whenever possible – and why air superiority has been the most crucial aspect of warfare over the last 100 years.

The women and I zipped over the buildings, out of the Hunter’s line of fire.

Then I came out silently on the other side of him (one of the perks of a flying carpet is stealth) and Soul-Sucked him from behind.

As soon as he tried to turn around and hit me, I just ducked back over the top of the building.

Then Alaria hit him with a fireball from the other side.

We each kept attacking from opposite sides until he didn’t know which way to turn –

Which distracted him from Meera flying straight down and spiking her sword through the top of his skull.

Skewered like a shish-kabob, he collapsed on the ground.

“Way to double-team him, honey!” Alaria whooped. “Hey – first time you’ve double-teamed a guy with me!”

“ALARIA – ”

“Da mouth and da butt,” Stig said.

“Watch out!” Meera screamed as she withdrew her sword from the corpse.

Suddenly a bunch of thugs stepped out from different doorways. Judging by the mix of shiny and rusted armor, it seemed Varkus’s and Peenocchio’s men were teaming up to wreak havoc.

So it was no longer a gang war – it was all-out war.

The alleyway was lousy with thugs: two hunters, a mage, and a warrior.

The warrior didn’t bother me. It was the fuckers with the ranged powers.

They didn’t go after me, though.

They went after Meera, who was still on the ground with them.

One hunter shot her with an arrow. Thwip!

The other hunter unloaded a blunderbuss on her right. BOOM!

And the mage blasted her with a blue bolt of crackling light.

Meera crumpled onto the ground, unable to fly, her hit points perilously low.

Unlike other NPCs, she couldn’t be killed permanently because she wore a Collar of Gorbolik, a warlock artifact which bound her to me and allowed me to resurrect her.

But still –

“Save Meera!” I shouted at Alaria as I cast Self-Sacrifice and poured some of my own Health into Meera. We needed her if we wanted to prevail over the higher-level fighters. “If she goes down, we all go down!”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Alaria said cheerfully as she went into a dive.

“Bag of dicks,” Stig offered drunkenly.

I had no idea where he’d gotten that one. Probably hanging out unsupervised in the Underneath.

I ignored both Stig and Alaria – because I had an idea.

Instead of fleeing, I flew the magic carpet straight for the thugs –

But I held Stig out in front of me like a teddy bear and squeezed.

A quick digression.

My dad once had a friend who owned three Dachshunds – you know, wiener dogs. Dachshunds have a problem that arises from their distinctive breeding: their bodies are so long that sometimes their backbones press in on their spinal cords and paralyze them.

That happened to the man’s dog, Dutch. The poor little guy’s spine collapsed, and he could no longer use or control his lower half. His legs just didn’t work.

But his owners came up with an ingenious solution: they modified an old roller skate and strapped it to his lower half. Now Dutch could scoot around with his wheels holding up his backside, he was completely mobile, and he seemed just as happy as always.

That’s not the part that’s germane to the battle in the alleyway, though.

The other problem when Dachshunds get paralyzed is that they lose control over their bodily functions.

Dad’s friend lived in Maine. Pretty damn cold in the wintertime.

So instead of taking Dutch outside for a walk, the guy would just hold him out a window – and squeeze.

Worked like a charm.

I figured the same thing might happen with Stig.

It did.

It just came out another hole, is all.

“BLEGGHHHHH!” Stig blurped as he projectile vomited over the entire group.

An entire night’s worth of drinking went everywhere.

Some of it even spattered on an invisible Rogue standing next to the others, outlining his form in puke.

Seems we were up against five rather than four.

I’d merely wanted to distract them, but Stig’s improvised new attack had an unexpected benefit.

“IT STINGS!” one of the hunters screamed as he clawed at his face.

“MY EYES!” the second hunter howled.

“I CAN’T SEE!” the mage screeched.

Wow…

…hadn’t anticipated that.

The ranged fighters were blinded, unable to fire –

Which meant they were sitting ducks.

“Alaria, hit them from the front!” I yelled as I blasted the thugs.

First I hit them with Hellstorm, where a bunch of little bat-winged demons pelted the entire group with burning sulfur.

Then I slapped one hunter with Doomsday, a delayed attack that would beat his ass down in 20 seconds.

I hit the mage with Chain of Darkness, a lasso of tiny demons that binded him for ten seconds while sapping his hit points…

And I cast Terrify on the other hunter, which sent him running away as fast as his legs could take him.

Meanwhile, Alaria blasted them from the other side with her fireballs.

Despite her low hit points, Meera waded in bravely with her flaming sword, proving that there are very few places angels fear to tread.

The one humongous advantage we had was that the entire group was blinded by alcohol and hydrochloric acid.

Or whatever videogame imps have in their stomachs.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Within two minutes, every last thug was dead – even the hunter who had run away. He’d just slammed blindly into the nearest wall, then staggered back angry but blind.

Easy pickins.

4

I lowered the magic carpet to the alleyway and stepped off onto the ground. While I looted the mobsters’ corpses for weapons and armor I could resell, I used Self-Sacrifice to get Meera back up to full Health.

“Not cool, boss,” Stig grunted from where he sat on the magic carpet.

“What, looting them?” I asked, confused.

Looting was an integral part of the videogame – and it wasn’t like Stig to suddenly develop scruples.

Plus, having to deal with the stench rising up from the puke, well – I deserved some payback for that.

“No,” Stig said, and poked his own belly. “THAT.”

“Oh. Sorry – did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“My booze!” Stig said angrily, gesturing at the vomit-flecked corpses all around us.

So that’s what he was upset about.

“I’ll give you more money so you can go drinking again later.”

“Okay,” he said happily, mollified.

“That was DISGUSTING,” Meera snarled.

She already didn’t like Stig – angels had a big ol’ bigotry thing against demons – and his new attack didn’t exactly endear him to her more.

“You’ve gotta admit, though, it was effective,” I said. “That’s, like, the most devastating attack you have, Stig.”

“And wasteful,” he grunted.

I laughed as I thought of something. “I know – we’ll call it DPD: the Drunk Pillsbury Doughboy.”

The entire group stared at me blankly.

“You know,” I tried to explain, “because you poke him in the belly, but instead of going – ”

I let out a HEE-HEE! just like Poppin Fresh does when somebody touches his belly in the TV commercials.

“ – he just pukes. Good, huh?” I asked, happy with my pop culture mashup.

More blank stares.

“What’s a Pillsbury Doughboy?” Alaria finally asked.

Oh yeah.

I’d forgotten that this was a world without ready-to-bake biscuits or cookie dough in a tube.

“Is it a demon?” Meera asked warily.

“No, he’s – um…”

How do you explain a CGI character in a TV commercial to a bunch of NPCs in a medieval fantasy world?

“Um, he’s a creature about Stig’s height, and all white – ”

“Sounds like a demon,” Meera said.

“No – he wears a baking hat – ”

“A baking demon, who creates his infernal treats in the fires of Hell,” Meera spat.

“Which one?” Alaria asked.

“What?” Meera said, confused.

“Which hell? There are seven of them.”

“I don’t know,” Meera said peevishly.

“There’s no such thing as a baking demon,” I protested.

“Oh yes there is,” Alaria, Meera, and Stig all said at the same time.

“Really?”

“Yup.”

Huh.

You learn something new every day.

“Never mind, it’s something from my world, not yours,” I explained.

“Is it an ‘expression’?” Stig asked distastefully.

Rain checks, nuclear bombs, TMI – my demons hated Earth expressions.

“Forget the Pillsbury Doughboy!” I shouted. “We’ll call it something else.”

“I think you should call it ‘Disgusting Imp,’” Meera said crossly.

Stig jerked towards her and feigned throwing up again. “Bleh!”

“AAAH!” Meera screamed as she jumped backwards.

“Stig, cut it out,” I said, then laughed again. “I know – we’ll call it ‘Roman Showers.’”

Blank looks again.

“What’s a Roman?” Alaria asked.

“Sounds like a demon,” Meera sniffed. “Dee-MON, Ro-MON – ”

“No, no – it’s like ‘golden showers,’ but instead of peeing, you…”

It was a little too gross to finish that thought.

“What’s peeing?” Alaria asked.

Oh man.

I’d also forgotten that there weren’t any bodily functions in OtherWorld.

Except, apparently, puking your guts out.

“It’s – never mind,” I sighed.

“Do people in your world vomit on each other for sexual pleasure?” Alaria asked, finally realizing what I’d been talking about.

“No! I mean, a few, I guess – a weird few – ”

“Honey,” Alaria said with real concern in her voice, “you know I like a lot of things, but that crosses the line.”

“No, no, I’m not into Roman showers!” I said, grossed out.

She continued as though she hadn’t heard me. “I mean, you don’t want me penetrating you – ”

“In da butt,” Stig piped up.

“ – but you enjoy vomit?”

“NO, I DO NOT ENJOY VOMIT!”

“Why do you talk about it so much, then?” Meera asked.

“Yeah, boss,” Stig agreed. “Why you like puke so much?”

“STOP IT, ALL OF YOU!” I shouted, and threw some of the money I’d gotten from the thugs at Stig. “Here, go get a refill!”

“Thanks, boss!” he said happily as he grabbed the coins and fled down the street towards the Underneath.

“What about us? We killed more criminals than the imp did,” Meera complained. “He didn’t even kill any, he just – ugh! I don’t even want to think about what he did!”

Alaria smirked, held up her index finger, and wiggled it. “Well, I’ve got some fingerings coming to me.”

“You already used up everything on credit,” I said hurriedly.

“Aw, man,” she pouted.

“We really should go kill some more bad guys – ”

“You really should be in school,” a severe voice said behind me.

I turned around in surprise to see an elf in black robes at the entrance to the alleyway. His hair was jet black, and his eyes glowed blue.

“You must choose your path,” he intoned darkly.

Ah. An NPC warlock, apparently.

He was talking about selecting my specialty as a Warlock. (As a player class, ‘Warlock’ was capitalized, just like Hunter or Warrior – but when you were talking about NPCs with the power to enslave demons, it was lowercase.) Now that I was Level 40, I had a choice of what types of overall powers I wanted to wield.

Alaria’s previous ex-master, Hritch the hobgoblin, had mentioned my having to choose. So had the bony warlock shopkeeper in the Underneath. According to him, there was an academy in Exardus where I could go to complete the next tier of my training.

Now, with the elf’s entrance, the game was apparently chiding me for not leveling up.

“Soon,” I promised the elf.

He just shook his head in contempt and walked out of sight down the street.

“What’s he talking about?” Meera asked.

“Ian is supposed to choose what kind of warlock he’s going to be, and he has to go to some school somewhere to do it,” Alaria explained.

She would know all about it. She had, after all, served a lot of masters over the years.

Nine of whom we were trying to kill.

So far it was six down and two to go.

Yes, I realize that only made eight. I hadn’t offed Alaria’s third master, the hot female pirate Tarka, because… well… after I’d had a threesome with a woman, I kind of got squeamish about killing her.

Not Alaria. She’d been all for it, but I’d overruled her.

Instead, we’d left her imprisoned aboard Tarka’s old ship Revenge, which was now run by a bunch of demons who had originally been her crew. I’d liberated them, which bound them to me without enslaving them.

After a deal I’d made with them to go to the frozen plains of the Northern Barrens, Krug and his crew had set off from Exardus after the ship was repaired. I’d gotten into hock with Varkus and really fucked up with Alaria –

Ah, screw the recap.

You know the story.

Anyway, I wasn’t about to kill Tarka, so it was looking like I might not fully complete the entire Ex-Masters quest, which was a shame. I was sort of OCD about that kind of thing. Not completing quests left me with a feeling like I was trying to scratch an itch I couldn’t… quite… reach.

Fuck it. I wasn’t going to kill Tarka.

But I was intrigued by the new powers I could get if I just went to the Academy.

“Maybe I should go,” I mused aloud.

“What – right now?!” Alaria exclaimed.

“I might get some awesome powers that could help us clean up Exardus.”

“You – goody-goody two-shoes,” Alaria spat, apparently hitting me with the worst insult she could think of.

“I am not,” I said indignantly.

Alaria turned to Meera. “YOU’RE an angel – isn’t he being a goody-goody two-shoes?”

“I hope not,” Meera murmured, and blushed. “I know I haven’t… so I should be punished.”

“You hear that?!” Alaria yelled at me. “She deserves to be punished! You’re turning down that – and THESE – ”

At this point Alaria grabbed one of her own massive tits in one hand, and groped one of Meera’s more modestly sized but still plentiful breasts with the other, and jiggled them both up and down.

Shook them in my face, if you will.

(Meera’s was actually encased in steel boob armor, but it was the thought that counts.)

“ – so you can go to fucking school?!” Alaria finished. “Like a goody-goody two shoes?!”

Alaria was a persuasive saleswoman when she wanted to be.

It didn’t help that Meera was now biting her lower lip and moaning slightly as Alaria groped her.

“Okay, okay,” I said with a grin. “I’ll play hooky to get some nooky.”

Alaria stopping bobbling her and Meera’s breasts and squinted at me distrustfully. “Is that an expression?”

“Eh, it’s more like I mashed up two and made them rhyme – ”

“Please, just stop with the expressions and fuck us,” Meera begged me.

I was never one to turn a lady down.

Even if she was computer-generated.

5

We flew back to the apartment on my flying carpet. Not because Alaria and Meera couldn’t fly using their own wings, but because doing so gave us some time for foreplay.

Alaria had convinced me to get a magic carpet instead of a wyvern or griffin or some other cooler-looking mount because, and I quote, You can’t fuck on a wyvern. And believe me, I’ve tried.

I would have to trust her on the wyvern part, but damn if she wasn’t right about the carpet.

I knelt on my knees as we sped along. Meera was in front, facing me and straddling me as we made out. Alaria was behind me, pressing her tits against my back and licking and nibbling at my neck and ears.

I tried to ignore the smoke from the fires raging all around us in the city.

It’s just a computer game, I reasoned.

I’ll go to the Academy afterwards and get some really kickass powers and take care of it later, I promised.

Ignoring social chaos is surprisingly easy to do when two gorgeous women are making out with you, by the way.

Things really took off when we got back to the apartment and into Meera’s bedroom.

Alaria quickly stripped off her leather bikini and thigh-high boots, and she and I hastily took off Meera’s armor until she was standing there nude.

The women turned to undress me, but I stopped them. “Wait – I want you to do some things for me first.”

“Like what?” Alaria asked.

“Just… get a bit closer to her,” I said, gently nudging her towards Meera.

I pressed each of them in the smalls of their backs until they were mere millimeters away.

Then I slightly angled Alaria until one of her nipples was touching Meera’s.

That was the only contact between their bodies: Alaria’s dark red areola next to Meera’s pale pink one.

Both women’s nipples grew stiff and erect as they touched each other.

“Mmm,” Alaria murmured as she stared hungrily at Meera.

The angel whimpered and closed her eyes as her face blushed bright red. “Oh… I shouldn’t be doing this…”

“I know, you shouldn’t,” I agreed. “Alaria… just baaaarely touch her clit, will you?”

Alaria smirked and placed her hand between Meera’s thighs.

I knelt down to watch.

Alaria normally had long, feminine fingernails, which could turn into vicious claws when she wanted. But they could also retract, leaving her nails as short as she wanted them.

The Magical Lesbian Manicure, you might say.

She did it now until there was no danger of hurting Meera.

Then Alaria’s crimson-colored finger slowly ran through the golden curls just above Meera’s sweet little cleft… and then gently found her clit.

I was so close, I could see that Alaria just barely touched the glistening pink pearl with the tip of her finger.

A tiny stroke, no more than a wisp of a touch.

“OH,” Meera moaned as the muscles in her belly fluttered.

“Keep touching her like that,” I ordered Alaria. “Just barely tease her.”

“I thought I was supposed to be punished,” Meera said, her eyes opening wide.

“Oh, it’ll turn into punishment soon enough.”

Alaria grinned down at me. “I like your thinking, but I could use a little something, too.”

“I’ve got you covered,” I said with a wink.

Then I got on the floor behind Alaria…

Gently forced her to part her legs…

And began to lick the inside of her thighs.

“Oh… that’s nice,” Alaria murmured.

I also began to knead her cheeks. She really had a spectacular ass – big and firm, with just the right combination of muscle and softness.

I cupped one cheek in each hand and gripped it, slowly massaging her between my outstretched fingers.

“Ohhhhhhh…”

“You still just barely touching Meera?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Unh… yes…” Meera moaned, her eyes closed, her nipples now hard enough to cut glass.

“Touch yourself, too,” I said. “Lightly.”

“Mmmm,” she murmured, and used her other hand to gently touch her own clit.

Still kneeling behind her, I slowly trailed my tongue up to Alaria’s groin and licked the place where her legs met her body – although I kept clear of her labia. I slowly worked my way towards them but never quite touched them.

The slit between her crimson lips began to grow wet on its own. Tiny beads of moisture appeared like dewdrops on rose petals.

“Oh Goddess… just fuck me already,” she moaned.

“No,” I said, and licked upwards –

Between her ass cheeks.

As I mentioned before, there were no bodily functions in OtherWorld. Everything was a computer simulation, after all.

So the backdoor was as sparkling clean as the front, if you know what I’m saying.

I slowly trailed my tongue along the couple of inches of skin behind her pussy…

And then I reached her puckered little asshole…

And I sank my tongue inside her.

“OHHHH GODDESS,” Alaria moaned.

She was hot – scorching hot – and tasted like cinnamon and sugar.

I slowly moved my head back and forth, softly fucking her ass with my tongue.

“OH… OH… OH…”

“What?! What’s he doing?!” Meera whined. “Do it to me!”

I paused long enough to wet down two of my fingers with my mouth.

Then I gently stroked Alaria’s lips… feeling her wetness…

And slowly slipped my fingers inside her.

All while I fucked her ass with my tongue.

“OHHH!” Alaria cried out.

I could feel her tail whipping in the air over my head, occasionally slapping my back when she lost control.

I started to gently rub outward with the tips of my fingers, towards her belly, stroking her g-spot.

“Oh Ian… oh Ian… oh Ian…” Alaria panted and groaned like she was in so much pleasure she was in pain. “You’re going to make me come…”

“No fair, I want to come!” Meera cried out, and pressed herself forward to get more pressure on her clit from Alaria’s fingertip.

“FREEZE!” I ordered Meera. “Don’t move a MUSCLE.”

The Collar of Gorbolik glowed and Meera was magically compelled to obey, standing there still as a statue.

“Oh NO,” she whimpered. “No, please…”

“Don’t let her come, Alaria,” I said.

“I won’t…” Alaria moaned. “Just please, PLEASE keep doing what you’re doing.”

So I did.

I slowly stroked her inside her pussy, my fingers caressing her g-spot…

As I fucked her ass with my tongue.

“Please, harder, Ian,” Alaria begged.

I began to move my fingers in and out of her pussy faster, deeper.

“HARDER,” she moaned.

Now I was really finger-fucking her, my fingers plunging deep inside her as I pressed harder.

“And my ass – please fuck my ass harder!” she groaned.

I slammed my face into her bubble butt, over and over, my tongue going deeper and deeper inside her as fast as I could.

She’d been touching her own clit while all this was going on. I cast my All-Seeing Eye spell and saw that now she was rubbing it in a blur.

“OH GODDESS – OH GODDESS, I’M COMING – ”

“NOOOOO!” Meera cried out in real anguish.

“I’M COMING, I’M COMING, I’M COMING – AAAAAAAAAH!”

Suddenly I felt three things at once.

One – her ass began to tighten in contractions around my tongue.

She was having an anal orgasm.

Two – her pussy pressed harder around my fingers and gripped me in tiny flutters as I continued to thrust my fingers inside her.

A vaginal orgasm, too.

And lastly, hot liquid coursed down my forearm and dripped from my elbow.

She was squirting.

All at the same time.

“OHHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUUCK!” she screamed.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Meera cried out as though she was in agony.

I gradually slowed down – both my tongue and my fingers… as Alaria’s asshole stopped fluttering and the gush of liquid subsided.

“Oh… my… GODDESS,” Alaria groaned. Her legs were trembling like she might collapse at any second.

“PLEASE, MASTER!” Meera screamed. “Please let me COME!”

I’d been otherwise engaged with my face in a gorgeous ass, so I hadn’t seen what was going on with Meera. I looked between the ‘V’ of Alaria’s legs and got quite the surprise.

Alaria’s finger was barely rubbing against touching Meera’s clit… just the lightest of caresses…

But Meera’s pussy was dripping wet.

Strands of clear liquid hung from her lips. Heavy beads of her lubrication occasionally dripped and pattered on the floor like single teardrops.

She smelled like roses, and the air was thick with her scent.

But because of the Collar, she was frozen. She couldn’t move –

And Alaria had been exquisitely torturing her the entire time, exciting her with no release.

I remembered when I’d been given a concoction to make it impossible for me to come. Daidonia and dozens of her death cult elves fucked me senseless, bringing themselves to orgasm over and over while I was perched on the edge of coming and unable to do it.

It had been an exquisite kind of agony.

Granted, I’d been tortured like that for hours, while it had maybe been ten minutes for Meera – but I knew it wasn’t pleasant.

So I took pity on her.

“Get over on the bed,” I ordered her.

The Collar glowed, and she basically ran over to the bed, plopped down on her back, and spread her legs wide.

“Please, master, fuck me,” she moaned, her angel wings twitching beneath her on the sheets.

I hurriedly stripped off my clothes. I had a raging boner, and I wanted nothing more than to sink it deep inside my angel’s little pussy.

Alaria helped me. “Mmmm… that was WONderful…” she cooed as she pulled off my boots.

“We’ll do it some more, just let me help Meera out,” I said – not mentioning that I would be helping myself out, too.

“Of course.”

I walked over to the bed, my erection throbbing.

Meera lay there before me. She had already soaked a patch on the bed under her ass, just from her wetness – and she stared at my cock with wide eyes as she moaned, “Oh, please, Master… please put it in me…”

I braced my arms on either side of her body…

Pressed my thighs between her outstretched legs…

And as I stared into her eyes…

I placed the tip of my cock against her lips and eased inside her with one single stroke.

“OHHHHHHHH!” she screamed as she immediately came.

Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she thrust her hips towards mine, pressing her crotch as hard as she could against me, taking me in as deep as I could go.

I started thrusting as hard and as fast as I could, plunging inside her. She was so wet that I could hear the squelch of her juices as I slammed against her.

“OH! OH! OH! OH!” she shrieked, her golden curls whipping back and forth as she tossed her head in ecstasy.

Alaria flopped down next to us, her heavy breasts settling one on top of the other as she propped her head up with one hand.

“Mmmm, somebody’s having fun,” she said mischievously. “Hey – see if you can order her to keep coming without stopping!”

Huh –

Why not?

“Meera – I order you to keep coming, and don’t stop until I tell you to,” I said.

The collar glowed.

“OH GODS – OH GODS – OH GODS!” Meera screamed as she grabbed me and raked her nails down my back.

I kept plunging inside her – and she kept shrieking in ecstasy.

“Tell her to come harder!” Alaria suggested.

“Come even harder!”

“OH FUUUUUUUUUUCK!” Meera howled, her head pressing against the bed and her back arching, thrusting her gorgeous Double D’s up at me.

The Collar was working spectacularly.

“I get to wear it after her,” Alaria said hungrily.

“COME SOON, IAN – IT’S TOO MUCH – COME SOON AND MAKE IT STOP!” Meera screamed.

“Do you want me to stop it now?”

“NO, COME INSIDE ME – COME INSIDE ME – OH FUCK, OH FUCK – ”

I grunted as I pumped Meera.

Unfortunately, when I was ordered to come… it didn’t always happen.

“PLEASE, COME, COME QUICK, OH GODS – ”

“Need some help, stud?” Alaria asked with a big grin.

“Yeah,” I grunted as I kept slamming into Meera.

Alaria smirked and lifted a single finger. “I’ve got just the thing.”

“NO!” I yelled at her. “Not now!”

“Alright,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll just return the favor you did me earlier.”

She pushed off the bed and disappeared behind me.

I figured I better keep an eye on her – after all, she wasn’t forced to obey me like Meera was – so I cast my All-Seeing Eye again.

It was normally used to scout ahead in battle –

But now it allowed me to watch myself having sex like the world’s most customized porno.

Alaria was behind me, alright.

I saw – and felt – her heavy, firm breasts trace down my lower back.

That was nice, but not enough to tip me over the edge.

Then she cupped her hand under my sack and let my balls graze her palm, tickling me with every thrust into Meera.

Oh – getting there –

And then she leaned down lovingly – stuck out her long, pink tongue – and slowly eased it into my ass.

OH MY GOD.

OH MY GOD that felt good.

The slippery softness of Meera’s pussy around my rock-hard cock –

Alaria’s fingers tickling my ball sack –

And her hot, gentle, wet tongue deep inside me –

I immediately blew my load inside Meera.

“OH FUUUUCK!” I bellowed.

“YES! YES! YES! YES!” Meera screamed as I spurted inside her, over and over.

“Mmf… mmf… mmf,” Alaria murmured happily as she tongued me deeper and deeper.

“Okay, okay – you can stop,” I told her. She immediately eased off.

“MAKE ME STOP COMING!” Meera cried out.

“Stop coming!”

“OH GOD!” she cried out one final time, then collapsed underneath me, sweat covering her body in a sheen.

I sucked on one of her diamond-hard nipples, and a tremble went throughout her entire body.

“Oh… master… that was… indescribable…” She smiled, but winced the tiniest bit. “But could we please not do it again… for a while?”

“Why – did it hurt?”

“No, but… it was a LOT.”

“ME next,” Alaria said as she crawled over my body. “Gimme that collar, Bird-slut.”

It took me to take off the Collar – since I was the one who put it on, I was the only one who could take it off – and I placed it on Alaria.

I still had a hard-on, so we didn’t even need to wait before I slid inside her.

Meera just lay next to us, happily watching and stroking my back as I fucked Alaria and ordered her to keep coming harder and harder.

She eventually begged me to make it stop…

…but she lasted a good two hours longer than Meera had.

6

After it was all over and we lay in each other’s arms enjoying the afterglow, I couldn’t help but noticing the plumes of smoke twisting up from the white rooftops of Exardus. Meera’s bedroom had huge picture windows, and they afforded a crystal-clear view of the devastation.

“You know what?” I said, getting up from the bed. “I think I better mosey on over to the Warlock Academy.”

“What?! Why?!” Alaria complained.

“You just had, like, 14,000 orgasms. You should be good for the day,” I said drily.

“A girl can always have 14,000 and one.”

“Speaking of which, can I get the Collar back?” Meera asked nervously.

As long as she wore it, she couldn’t die – not permanently. I could always resurrect her. But if I was gone, and something happened, and she didn’t have the Collar of Gorbolik on, then her death would be permanent.

“Sure. Alaria, sit up.”

I hadn’t meant to make it an order, but the Collar glowed anyway. Alaria immediately sat bolt upright.

“Except for the sex, I really hate this thing,” she growled.

“Then you won’t mind if I take it off you,” I said as I unsnapped it and put it back on Meera.

The angel breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“So what are we supposed to do while you’re gone?” Alaria asked.

I shrugged. “Give each other that fourteen thousandth and one orgasm, I guess.”

Alaria cocked one eyebrow and looked over at Meera, who giggled.

“Don’t hurry back,” Alaria called out as she tackled Meera to the sheets.

I gathered up my clothes and left them in a tangle of limbs. If I stuck around to watch, I knew I would lose my resolve to leave.

I dressed in the main room, and left just as Meera’s first screams started to crescendo.

“OH – OH – OHHHHH – ”

Rather than go out the lobby, I went up to the roof and summoned my magic carpet, then zoomed high over the city. After bringing up my map – basically a digitally created sheet of parchment that showed me points of interest in Exardus – I spotted a red dot with the words ‘Warlock Academy’ next to it.

I immediately steered the carpet in that direction.

Five minutes later, I stepped onto the ground in front of what looked like a gargantuan Greek temple made of white marble, complete with 40-foot-tall pillars out front.

Didn’t seem very warlock-y.

Then again, everything in the city was gleaming white. Except for the Underneath – and that was literally underground.

The Exardus Homeowner’s Association list of approved paint colors must have been real short.

I walked up the massive flight of steps and entered the temple.

The inside was vast, open-air, and full of shadows. There were no skylights, so everything was dimly lit by the sunlight reflecting in through the open pillars.

Suddenly a man’s voice echoed throughout the temple.

“WELCOME, WARLOCK, TO THE ACADEMY. TODAY YOU WILL DECIDE YOUR SCHOOL OF MAGIC… WHICH WILL FOREVER DETERMINE YOUR PATH FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAYS.”

Great.

Way to take off the pressure.

I hated committing to anything, especially decisions that couldn’t be reversed – and the game writers were laying it on thick.

I walked into the main hall, which was bigger than a football field. The ceiling towered above me like a cathedral’s.

In the center of the room, five marble thrones towered 20 feet in the air, arranged in a semicircle around a pit.

On each throne sat a person of a different race – a human woman in her 50s, a male elf, a troll of indeterminate sex, a female gnome, and a Revenant. As the undead class of OtherWorld, Revenants’ gender was more along the lines of ‘identifies as beef jerky.’

They were all dressed in black, so at least they had that much going for them in the warlock department.

Suddenly the human female spoke, and her voice echoed throughout the chamber. “WHAT SAY YOU, WARLOCK? ARE YOU READY TO BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY?”

“Uh… sure.”

When I peered closer, I realized I knew the elf. He was the stern guy who had admonished me earlier in the street.

And I realized I knew the Revenant, too.

It was the shopkeeper from the Underneath – the one who had originally sold me Meera’s Collar of Gorbolik, and who had helped me shrink a bunch of demons to take on Peenocchio and Varkus.

He recognized me, too.

“Oh, it’sssssss you,” he said in obvious disdain. His voice didn’t echo, it just sounded like somebody shouting down at you from a second-story roof.

“You know him?” the troll said from the top of his throne. Again, no reverb.

“Yessssss,” the Revenant said, like he regretted that fact.

“You didn’t tell me you worked here,” I called up to him.

“I ssssssubsssstitute teach, ssssssometimesssss.”

“Normally it’s an orc,” the woman informed me in a normal voice. “Lord Umbrok.”

Guess we were dismissing with the grandiose pleasantries.

Oh – no – wait; the male elf still had a stick firmly up his ass.

“Quiet!” he shouted. “Your familiarity with the apprentice is unbecoming!”

The other four thronesters gave each other a look like, Jesus, what’s WITH this guy?

“I wish it hadn’t been Umbrok who called in sick,” the female gnome muttered.

“What?!” the elf thundered.

“Nothing,” she snapped. “Get on with it.”

The elf glared at her, then turned back to me. “Are you ready to choose your school?”

“How ‘bout… Hogwarts?”

All five teachers stared at me blankly.

“Gryffindor? Hufflepuff? Ravenclaw?”

Nothin’.

Seriously?

A magical academy, and no stupid Harry Potter jokes?

I was going to have to have a chat with the writers.

Or maybe J.K. Rowling was especially litigious.

“Um, what are my choices?” I asked in a polite voice.

Suddenly a computer window appeared in the air in front me.

Magical Powers And How To Pick Them.

Oh my god.

Really?

No Harry Potter puns, but Newt Scamander jokes?

Jesus – the game writers were really going with the B material.

That was going down in the QC report.

I read the text beneath the title.

Choose a School of Warlocking.

‘Warlocking’?

I guess it was better than ‘Warlockery.’

30,000 XP

Receive powers appropriate to the School you pick.

I immediately hit ‘Yes’ on the window, and the scene continued.

The elf gestured to the pit in front of him, and suddenly a magical hologram-looking apparition appeared: several dozen demons of all shapes and sizes.

“You may choose to continue the continue the path you are currently on, and assemble a demonic army,” the elf boomed.

That was apparently the power of Orlo, Alaria’s pint-sized master we’d defeated on top of a volcano. He’d had tons of demons whose souls he had transferred into towering robotic war golems.

The hologram shifted. The demons all turned pitch black and melded into one twisting, writhing mass of tentacles that looked like Venom’s symbiote.

I immediately had a flashback to my time in the Northern Barrens when I’d battled the frost elf Saykir, one of Alaria’s ex-masters. These tentacles were the monsters he had summoned.

“You may serve the Ung’aroth, the Old Gods, and control the demons of their dimension – though there is a cost. Every summoning will take a tiny piece of your soul, until you serve darkness completely. If you care not for Good but instead choose Evil, then this is a wise choice, for the power of the Old Gods is limitless.”

Nope.

Hard pass.

The black tentacle mirage turned into a female elf who gestured with her hands – at which point jagged spikes thrust upward from the ground.

“Or you may choose to become an elemental warlock, with dominion over earth, water, fire, or air.”

That had been Zali’s specialty. When I’d fought him in the undersea kingdom of Fathmos, he’d used water spells to attack me.

The female elf changed to a hunter, a human male armed with a bow and arrow.

“You may also choose the House of Plague.”

Green lightning zapped the hunter, and giant pustules broke out all over the poor guy’s skin. He dropped the bow and began to claw in agony at the egg-sized bumps on his face – which then broke, oozing green slime and leaving cavernous holes. He finally collapsed on the ground, at which point his body burst open into a tidal wave of goo.

“These powers are self-explanatory.”

Ugh.

Gross.

No thanks.

I didn’t want to vomit every time I cast a spell.

The unfortunate hunter suddenly caught on fire, which turned into a sparking, burning ring.

“Finally, you could become a wielder of the Hell’s Pont, a mystical bridge into the Seven Hells. With this power, you can travel anywhere you have ever been – even it is halfway across the world.”

That had been Hritch’s ability. He’d teleported all over the place when I’d fought him, which had been a pain in the ass to counter.

The ring of fire disappeared, leaving behind only the cold marble floor.

“Choose,” the elf commanded.

Plague was out.

The Ung’aroth was out. Didn’t care to become a servant of the Dark Side, although Darth Ian did have a nice ring to it.

And my whole ‘thing’ was setting my demon servants free to do whatever they wanted. Nobody but Stig and Alaria had stuck around.

What was the point of summoning more if I just let them all go, only to have them desert me?

So ‘Demon Army’ was out.

Elemental could have been cool, but… I just wasn’t feeling it.

Which left Hell’s Pont, which was fine by me. It was certainly a useful power.

And if you weren’t into building a demon army, selling your soul, playing Aang from The Last Airbender, or making people erupt with oversized zits, then it was really the only choice.

“I’ll take Hell’s Pont,” I announced.

A window appeared.

Are you sure?

This choice cannot be altered.

Great.

Way to help my ‘choice anxiety,’ guys.

But I still selected ‘Yes.’

Congratulations!

You will now be inducted into the School of the Hell’s Pont.

30,000 XP

“Oh, good,” the Revenant shopkeeper said in relief.

I looked up at him. “Why ‘good’?”

“Becaussssssse I don’t have to teach you.”

I frowned. “What’s your specialty?”

The Revenant leaned over and put one bony fist on the armrest of his marble throne. His entire body language was basically, Are you KIDDING me?

“What would you guesssssss?”

If he were one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, he would definitely be famine. He still had leathery skin on his body, even if it was more of a slipcover for his skeleton than anything else. But he didn’t have the full-on, bare-bones look required for Death.

But ‘famine’ wasn’t a warlock power. So maybe –

“…Plague?” I said.

He gave me a mocking little golf-clap, a soft pat pat pat of his palms together. “He winssssss the prize.”

Of course, he pronounced ‘prize’ like ‘prisssssssse.’

I looked at the others. “So each of you have a specialty you teach?”

In answer, the troll grinned evilly and held out one hand. A tendril of Venom’s symbiote goo burst out of his palm, then cascaded into a flood down the throne, forming pulsing, H.R. Giger-esque steps to the floor. He walked down them, each one squishing under his feet.

When he reached the bottom, the black mass retracted into itself until it finally disappeared in one tiny point in the middle of the air.

“Enjoy your tutelage,” the troll said sinisterly as he walked past me.

Suddenly there was a burst of fire. I looked over to see a 20-foot-tall purple demon with massive pecs and biceps lifting down the female warlock and setting her on the ground.

She walked past me, too, and smiled. “Good luck.”

The female gnome levitated off of her throne, supported by massive gusts of wind, and flew out the temple.

Which left only one option.

Oh no…

I looked up at the elf, who stared down at me coldly.

Great.

I got Professor Stick-Up-His-Ass.

The elf twirled his hand, and a spinning ring of fire appeared in the air before him. He stepped off the throne into it –

And immediately appeared to my right through another spinning ring of sparks.

Cool…

“Come with me,” the elf growled. “We shall begin your training now.”

He started walking away from the thrones.

Suddenly, a familiar voice called out behind us.

“Hey, guyssss? Guy-yyyyysssssss…”

I turned back to see the Revenant stuck atop the throne.

“Are you just going to leave him up there?” I asked the elf.

“Yes,” he said without so much as a glance over his shoulder.

Well, I had training to attend to, so I just followed the elf.

Bet the Revenant wished he was teaching me now. At least then I would have gotten him a stepladder or something.

The last thing I heard him muttering atop his throne was, “Yaggoth’ssssss taint, I hate thisssss job…”

7

The elf led me to the rear of the temple, where we looked out from between the pillars down on Exardus. Multiple plumes of smoke were still rising into the air across the city.

I pictured using my new powers to rescue people down below – which led to the obvious question. “Can I take other people with me through the portal?”

Something I probably should have asked before I’d chosen.

After all, if I couldn’t take Alaria and Stig with me, what good was the power to travel anywhere?

Although Hritch had certainly been a pain in the ass by teleporting back and forth during our battle, so even if I couldn’t take Alaria and Stig, the ability would still be useful in a fight.

The elf nodded. “You can take an unlimited number of people and things, as long as they can fit within the diameter of your portal and pass through it while it is open.”

“How long does it stay open?”

“Ten seconds to start, although it can be shorter if you wish.”

“How big can I make the portal?”

“Ten feet in diameter.”

“That’s it?”

“You are an apprentice. Your powers are weak.”

Okay, okay…

“I’ll eventually be able to hold it open for longer, and make the portals bigger, as I get more powerful – right?”

“Eventually.”

Even more reason to level up.

“So how do I do it?”

“First you must decide on your destination. You can go anywhere you can physically see at this moment in time – or anywhere you have traveled in the entire world. If you want to go to a faraway place, picture it in your mind’s eye.”

Suddenly a new computer menu appeared in the air before me. It was small and bordered by purple, which set it off from the others.

I normally had a menu bar for casting spells – although these days, I did it automatically by thought. I usually hid the spell bar so as not to clutter my field of vision.

I also had a menu bar with little pictures for all the demons bound to me. Alaria and Stig were in the first two spots, followed by Meera (by virtue of her wearing the Collar of Gorbolik).

Then there was a bunch of demons I hadn’t seen in quite a while.

Dorp, my blue Illusion Demon, with his watermelon-shaped head…

Blutus, the hairy brawler who had helped me grind my first dungeon, then ran off to art school the second I freed him…

Fugly, the tiny gargoyle who had fought alongside me in Vos before darting away after a flying fish…

Followed by the various demons I had summoned as I’d leveled up in the game.

After all those demons came Krug, who had become the captain of the Revenge after I’d freed him from Tarka’s control.

There were actually tons of submenus with all the crew members of the Revenge, too – around 50 of them. There was no way they could fit on the main menu, so they appeared in cascading windows I could pull up at will. I hadn’t looked at the submenus since I’d last seen the crew in person. There was no reason to. The pirates were gone now, living their own lives.

Incidentally, none of them had died, or I would have been notified – at which point I could resurrect them wherever I happened to be at the time.

Until then, I just let them be.

This new purple menu, though, was much simpler. It only had two buttons on it: an icon of a ring, and one of a tiny globe with continents on it.

The button with the ring had a small ‘3’ in the corner.

I was guessing the globe was the game’s version of picturing ‘anywhere I had ever been,’ so I pressed the icon.

Immediately a map appeared – a map of all of OtherWorld.

A thin red line traced through everywhere I had ever been, with bigger red dots over cities or towns where I had spent more time.

There was Fernburg, where I’d first entered the game and met Stig and Alaria…

Exardus, where I was now currently residing…

Asterwaite, where Krug had dropped us off to find Orlo…

The Plains of Mor-El, where hundreds of human players I had befriended had come to my aid against an Orcish army…

The volcano where Daidonia, Orlo, and Shyvock had died…

The city of Vos, now turned into a pit ravaged by a rogue dungeon…

The forested area where the fairies lived…

And the seaside cliff where we had relocated Deek the dungeon core.

There was even a big red dot out in the middle of the ocean: Fathmos, which encompassed Zali’s underwater abode and the kingdoms of the nymphs and Naga.

It was astounding being able to see my progress through OtherWorld so clearly.

What was even more incredible was the realization that I’d only traveled across maybe 0.01% of the surface area of Otherworld.

However, one thing struck me as I looked at the map: it was so big that it seemed impossible to use it with any sort of precision. My fingertip could cover an entire city, so there was no way to pick a specific spot to teleport to.

Hmmm…

On instinct, I reached out and touched the map with two fingers, then expanded my fingertips outwards. It was the same gesture you would make if you were zooming in on a picture you’d taken on your smart phone.

Immediately the map whooshed in to just feature Exardus. With all that detail, I could see how much of the city I had traversed – from Meera’s apartment, to the shipyards, to Peenocchio’s compound, to the temple, and much, much more.

There was even a sub-map I could access for the Underneath, since it was underground and technically ‘below’ the regular map.

“So I just pick a place?” I asked the elf.

“Yes – anywhere you have already been.”

“Can I go somewhere I haven’t been before?”

“One day. Those are advanced and arcane spells.”

So I would be able to teleport places I hadn’t been before – but only after I had leveled up some more.

Fair enough.

Just for the hell of it, I decided to go back to Fernburg where it had all begun.

Hunting wild pigs with Stig…

Getting pelted with apples by farm children…

Battling a bad guy with only 540 hit points…

Man, things were a hell of a lot simpler back then.

And stupider.

After all the amazing adventures I’d had, the quests I’d done in Fernburg now seemed like the most boring things ever.

I zoomed out the map, found Fernburg, zoomed back in, and chose a spot near the chapel where Alaria and I had killed Jastoth, her first ex-master.

“Do you have your destination in mind?” the elf asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. The next step is to cast a Hell’s Pont to one of the Seven Hells. As an apprentice, you can only cast the spell three times a day, so use them wisely.”

Aha. So that’s what the ‘3’ was on the menu.

“Is that ‘day’ as in ‘while the sun is shining,’ or is that three times every 24 hours?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“If I don’t use all three in one 24-hour period, do they build up?”

“No, they expire. You get three per day and that’s it.”

I remembered how Hritch had buzzed around the farmyard, casting portals without care. He must have done it 200 times during our fight.

“Will I ever get more than three?”

“Yes. As you grow more powerful and gain more experience, your ability to cast more portals will increase.”

So as I gained more XP and leveled up, I would get more portal spells per 24-hour period.

With only three jumps per day, I really would have to choose wisely.

“What’s the maximum I can get? In the future, I mean.”

“When you become a master, you will be able to cast an infinite number of spells per day.”

Hritch had been a Level 100, so either he had reached Infinity, or a whole hell of a lot.

That’s the technical term for it: ‘a whole hell of a lot.’

Speaking of ‘hell’…

“When you cast a portal,” the elf continued, “you must choose which Hell you wish to journey through.”

“How do I do that?”

“There are Seven of them: Acheron, Astoroth, Gehimnon, Ikisat, Narakos, Tamak, and Zarkon. Choose one.”

I figured I should touch the ring icon to choose which Hell.

But before I did, I asked, “How fast will it happen? I mean, am I just going to disappear?”

I didn’t want to press the button and get whisked between different dimensions without expecting it. Who knows what that would feel like.

As Quicksilver says to Magneto in Days of Future Past as he’s about to transport him out of his Pentagon prison:

Whiplaaaaaaaaaaash…

“After you choose one of the Hells as an intermediate, you will still have to step through the ring. Eventually you will learn to manipulate the portal to envelop you, but that is an advanced tactic.”

Okay, so we wouldn’t just disappear.

I had a few other questions, though.

“If I died in Hell, would I go back to the last Gravesite I created in OtherWorld, or would I resurrect somewhere nearby in whatever Hell I was in?”

“You will resurrect wherever the Gravesite is, no matter what world or realm.”

“So when I go to a new destination, I should establish a new Gravesite – or I could get killed and wind up 3000 miles away.”

“Correct.”

With all my questions answered, I punched the ring icon, and a drop-down menu appeared with seven options in alphabetical order.

Acheron

Astoroth

Gehimnon

Ikisat

Narakos

Tamak

Zarkon

All the different Hells the elf had mentioned.

“How do I know which one to go to?” I asked.

“Different Hells have their own properties, which you will eventually learn to harness as you gain experience. For now, I would suggest you choose one of the realms more hospitable to humans. Have you ever journeyed to one of the Seven Hells before?”

“Yes. I can’t remember the name, but it’s the one with a city called Abaddon.”

“Astoroth.”

“Yeah, that sounds familiar.” I smiled proudly. “Ever heard of the Liberator of Abaddon?”

“No,” the elf said, deflating my balloon somewhat.

“Well, I freed thousands of demons, overthrew a guy named Malfurik, and established a democratic government I handed over to the demons I’d liberated.”

“Oh… that was you,” the elf said in disgust, like he was hearing about a guy who’d dropped trou and had explosive diarrhea at a wedding reception.

I frowned. “I thought you hadn’t heard of me.”

“No one in our academy calls you the ‘Liberator of Abaddon,’” the elf said disdainfully. “More like the ‘Fool of Abaddon.’”

“Hey!” I snapped.

“I wouldn’t go around telling other warlocks that you like freeing their slaves, either – they’re liable to kill you.”

Sigh.

Point taken.

“Astoroth is an excellent realm to begin with,” the elf said. “Use it as your destination for casting your first portal.”

I thought back to all the demons I’d freed, and how I’d given them my half-assed version of the United States Constitution… or at least what I could remember from my 10th grade American History class.

“Can we go to a specific place in Astoroth?”

“Of course.”

“Do I have to have already been there?”

“Not in the Seven Hells. Only in our world.”

I thought about going to a completely new spot, but decided against it. There would be plenty of opportunities to explore in the future.

“Could we go to Abaddon, then? I’d like to stop in and see my friends.”

The elf rolled his eyes. “As you wish.”

Jerk.

I selected ‘Astoroth,’ and another submenu appeared with a keyboard below it.

Search locations.

I typed in ‘Abaddon,’ and the name appeared on a long list.

Once I selected it, the ‘3’ on the ring icon turned to ‘2.5’ –

And a whirling ring of fire appeared in front of me.

“Whoa,” I murmured.

Within the sparking circle of the ring were dark purple skies with shimmering clouds of phosphorescent green like the Aurora Borealis.

I expected to see the glowing orange buildings of Abaddon rising high into the air – towers and castles and ramparts –

But something was wrong.

All across the ground was glowing orange rubble, the color of superheated iron being worked by a blacksmith. Not a single building taller than 20 feet still existed. Everything else were ruins, like they had been destroyed in a WWII aerial bombardment.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

“Did you choose Abaddon, or somewhere else?” the elf asked. I could tell from his tone of voice that he hadn’t expected this, either.

“Abaddon!”

“Then something is gravely wrong,” he said. “Let us see what has happened.”

And with that, we stepped through the portal into the Hell of Astoroth – and into the fresh hell of what remained of Abaddon.

8

The elf and I picked our way through the ruined streets. Dead demons lay everywhere amongst the debris in a scene of total death and destruction.

Even though I knew it was all a video game – and even though the victims looked like they belonged in a Gumby short film, with their bright colors and blocky bodies – it was still terribly affecting. Like witnessing firsthand the atrocities of war.

“…Ian…?” a weak voice whispered from the wreckage.

I whirled around to see a blue demon crawl out from behind a pile of wreckage. He was thin and hunched over, with a lizard’s face and a crest like a triceratops.

“Grok?!” I cried out as I raced over to him.

I’d fought side by side with Grok when we escaped from the slave pits. After we had led the rebellion and overthrown Malfurik, I had left him in charge of implementing the Constitution. He was effectively one of the founding fathers of Abaddon’s new government.

I knelt down beside him. Since I’d freed him with the Scepter of the Servant, a gift from a goddess, he wasn’t bound to me; my Self-Sacrifice powers wouldn’t work on him. But I still had healing potions, and I pulled a flask out of one of the bags hanging from my belt.

“Here, drink this,” I said, putting the bottle to his lips.

“It won’t do any good,” the elf said somberly.

“What are you talking about?”

“Those are human potions. They might have had some effect on him back in Exardus, but they won’t affect a demon while in Astoroth.”

He was right. The red liquid flowed into Grok’s mouth, but it did nothing for his Health.

The demon smiled wanly. “…thank you, Ian… but I fear it is too late for me…”

“What the hell happened here?!”

“…airships attacked us…”

“When?”

“…three days ago…”

“Why?”

“…I do not know… but they were led by a warlock… a creature of shadow with the form of a man…”

A warlock in a world of demons.

Goddammit.

“Was he trying to enslave you guys again?”

“…no… there were no demands… he just destroyed Abaddon… and gave no quarter…”

‘No quarter’ was a military term for ‘no mercy.’ Kill everybody and take no prisoners, even if they surrendered.

In other words, a war crime.

But why?

“Did he plunder the city? Is that it?”

“…he took… nothing… but he left… that…”

Grok lifted one clawed finger and pointed at the tallest remaining building in the city – although the upper half of it had still been destroyed.

Then he breathed his last and collapsed in my arms.

I stared at the ruined tower. Twenty feet above the ground, someone had gouged words big enough to read from 200 feet away. The letters were black and jagged against the glowing orange, like someone had carved through the embers in a dying log and revealed the wood underneath.

2

HE WHO IS COMING AFTER ME

IS MIGHTIER THAN I

The words seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place them.

And what was with the ‘2’ at the top?

All I could feel was disbelief and anguish.

I knew in my brain that none of what I was seeing around me was real –

But it felt real.

And it was overwhelming.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked out loud.

The elf didn’t realize it was a rhetorical question.

“It appears someone wanted to leave a message.” He glanced around at the ruins and bodies. “A very extreme message.”

He was right –

And I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence.

After all, there were no coincidences in OtherWorld.

The game tailored everything specifically to the player’s experience…

…so the odds were 99 to 1 that this was all meant for me.

A seriously disturbing message, from someone who was seriously disturbed.

But why?

Who would have killed all these people and caused all this devastation just to send a message to me?

I thought back to what Grok had said.

A warlock…

And just like that, I knew.

It should have been obvious from the get-go. I probably hadn’t thought of it already because of my shock at the devastation all around me.

“Motherfucker,” I growled as I pulled up my list of quests.

I navigated to the oldest one still in the queue:

One Down, Eight to Go

Help Alaria avenge herself against her eight ex-masters.

I’d received it right after we’d killed Jastoth, Alaria’s first master.

Below the quest were a list of all her other ex-masters, along with their status:

Ex-Masters:

Odeon - Completed

Tarka - Not Completed

Saykir - Completed

Orlo - Completed

Zali - Completed

Hritch - Completed

XXXXX - Not Completed

XXXXX - Not Completed

I stared at the final two names – or ‘groups of letters,’ if you will, since I don’t think ‘XXXXX’ qualifies as a name.

I could have sworn I’d seen names there in the past – I just couldn’t remember what they were.

What happened?

Had the game erased them?

I needed to ask Alaria what the hell was going on.

“I need to get back to Exardus,” I told the elf. “Like, right now.”

“I’m afraid that is impossible.”

“What?!”

“Once you have selected a target for the Hell’s Pont, you must complete the trip.”

“I did! We came here!’

“No – this is the halfway point.”

Ohhhhh…

Yeah, that made sense, especially with the ‘2.5’ on the ring menu icon…

“Your original target was the place you chose back at the temple,” the elf explained.

Shit.

I’d already chosen Fernburg.

“I can’t change my mind?” I asked.

“Not as an apprentice. You must complete the Hell’s Pont.”

“After we go to Fernburg, can we go back to Exardus immediately?”

“Of course. But that will require casting your second of three portals for the day.”

Great.

Not exactly the best use of resources.

But it had to be done.

I looked down at Grok, lying dead on the ground, his eyes staring out into eternity.

“Whoever did this… I’ll make them pay,” I promised, rage welling up inside me.

I punched the ring icon button on my menu.

The counter dropped from ‘2.5’ to ‘2’ –

A whirling ring of fire appeared before me –

And a whole new scene of devastation appeared.

9

I couldn’t believe my eyes as I stepped through the ring into Fernburg –

Or what remained of it.

The ground was scorched.

All the trees’ branches and leaves were gone. Their trunks had been reduced to splintered husks like they’d been hit by bombs.

Charred skeletons – both human and livestock – were strewn across the ground.

And every building as far as the eye could see had been completely destroyed…

All except one.

The chapel where Alaria and I had fought Jastoth.

Most of it was burned, with beams and rafters jutting out like the blackened ribs of a half-cremated body…

But the front remained intact.

And across the white clapboard was another sentence in blackened letters:

1

I AM A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

What the actual fuck?!

“It seems we have another message,” Captain Obvious stated.

He who is coming after me is mightier than I…

I am a voice crying in the wilderness…

Were they riddles I was supposed to solve?

If so, I had no idea what the fuck they were supposed to mean.

Instead, it was the numbers on the riddles that finally sparked a connection in my mind.

I was reminded of what Hannibal Lector wrote on the FBI map of all the Buffalo Bill victims who had been found, numbered by the order in which they had been discovered.

Clarice, doesn't this random scattering of sites seem DESPERATELY random – like the elaborations of a bad liar?

Except what I was seeing wasn’t random at all.

I realized that when I’d started my QC job, I’d visited Fernburg first –

And Abaddon second.

And after that…

…Exardus.

SHIT.

“We have to get back NOW!” I shouted.

“Fine. Choose the temple as your destination.”

Fuck that – I was taking us right to Meera’s apartment.

When I looked at the menu, I noticed a counter that hadn’t been there before.

It was at 23:42:17 and dropping second by second.

My 24-hour cooldown until I refreshed my next three portal spells, apparently.

I zoomed out the map until I found Meera’s building, selected it, then hit the ring icon.

Then I chose Abaddon.

The sparking wheel materialized in front of us, revealing the orange debris I’d seen just seconds before.

I leapt through and hit the ring icon again, noting that the number on the button changed to ‘1.’

Another fiery circle appeared before me, and inside it I saw –

A gleaming luxury apartment building.

Nothing had changed.

“That isn’t the temple,” the elf said grumpily.

I ignored him as I stepped through the portal onto the marble streets of Exardus and looked all around me.

No airships…

No shadowy warlock…

Just plumes of smoke rising in the distance.

Which, after all that I’d just witnessed, seemed quaintly harmless.

“Wait here,” I said to the elf, who had followed me through the ring. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”

“No need – your training is complete. There is no more to teach you at your current level of apprentice.”

“Then thanks,” I said as I summoned my flying carpet.

The elf grumbled and summoned his own flaming portal, then disappeared.

I had no time for hurt feelings – I had to make sure Alaria and Meera were okay.

I had the carpet zoom me up straight up like an express elevator. I could have gone through the lobby and used their magic portal to Meera’s front door, but then I would have had to interact with the building employees, and I was too freaked out to bother.

As the air whipped over me, I thought frantically about what I had seen.

All these coincidences – seeing Grok in the ruins; just happening to choose both Fernburg and Abaddon – weren’t really coincidences.

Okay, maybe choosing Fernburg and Abaddon were.

But in OtherWorld, the game engine is God, and the God of the Game can rewrite all of reality on the fly.

Yeah, it just so happened that I’d visited two of the first places I’d been as a Warlock – but if I’d chosen Asterwaite or Vos instead, the game might have altered things to fit those choices.

I don’t know how it would have arranged to get me to Astoroth if I’d chosen one of the other Hells. Maybe grey out the other options so I couldn’t choose them? Who knows.

But once I was in Abaddon, it had arranged for me to encounter Grok.

For what purpose?

The only reason I could come up with was To set up the next ex-master.

The magic carpet reached the top of the building, zipped over the roof, and down the stairwell to Meera’s private hallway. It disappeared in a puff of smoke, depositing me right outside Meera’s door – which I burst through like a SWAT team.

Both Meera and Alaria looked over at me in surprise. They were seated at Meera’s dining table and eating breakfast delivered by room service. Alaria was buck naked; Meera had on a tiny robe that came down to her thighs. Normally I would have enjoyed the scenery, but at the moment it barely registered.

“Ian, what’s wrong?” Meera asked fearfully, her eyes wide.

I pointed at Alaria. “Who are the eighth and ninth masters on your list?”

“Huh?”

“All your ex-masters we’re supposed to kill – what’re the names of number eight and nine?”

Alaria looked off to the side like she was trying to recall. “Uhhhhh…”

“Don’t you know?!”

She stared at me blankly. “Um… this is very strange… but… I can’t remember.”

“It’s YOUR list! I mean, it’s YOUR ex-masters!”

“I know it is, I just can’t remember!” she snapped.

Shit.

So the game was intentionally hiding the names.

Alaria’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Did you mess with my memory like that time you interceded with the gods?”

She was talking about when I’d persuaded one of Westek’s programmers to change her coding to make her more monogamous. Which had not worked out well.

“What?! No!” I sputtered.

“Then why are you freaking out?”

“Abaddon’s been destroyed.”

“WHAT?!”

“And Fernburg, the place I first summoned you? Wiped out.”

“What happened?!”

“I saw Grok – he was the only survivor I saw – ”

“You mean everyone’s dead?!” she cried out.

“Yeah, in both Abaddon and Fernburg. Grok said a warlock had come with a bunch of airships and wiped out everything.”

Alaria looked horrified. “You think this has something to do with my ex-masters?!”

“I’d bet a lot of money on it.”

Meera looked back and forth between us. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“You know that we’re on a quest to kill nine of Alaria’s ex-masters,” I said.

The angel nodded.

“Well, two of the first places Alaria and I went together have been obliterated. And somebody left weird riddles on the wreckage.”

“What riddles?”

I tried to remember the exact wording. “‘He who is coming after me is mightier than I’… and, uh, ‘I am a voice crying in the wilderness.’”

“What does that mean?” Meera asked.

“I have no idea.” I turned to Alaria. “I was hoping you could shed some light on it.”

She shook her head in a daze. “I don’t have any idea, either.”

“Great…”

“Wait,” Meera said, “are you thinking that whoever did those things is coming to Exardus?!”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“But Ian,” Alaria said, “we didn’t come to Exardus directly after Abaddon. First you followed me to Kvartos – then after you saved me on Tarka’s ship, we went to the Northern Barrens.”

Oh crap –

She was right.

Kvartos was where I’d hired a bad Han Solo parody to track down Tarka. The Northern Barrens was the homeland of Saykir and the frost elves.

Suddenly there was a ping!

It was a somewhat familiar sound – an alert, but one I hadn’t heard in a while.

All I knew was that something had changed on one of my menus, so I enabled my HUD (‘Heads-Up-Display’) so I could see everything at once.

“Uh, what’s he doing?” Meera whispered to Alaria.

“I dunno,” she answered, bored. “Some sort of weird warlock shit.”

I’m sure I did look kind of odd, staring into thin air, peering at something that no one else could see.

At first I didn’t know what had changed –

And then there was another ping! as something changed in my field of vision.

On my demon menu bar, Krug’s icon dimmed.

Which meant he’d just died.

Another ping! and Shee the banshee’s yellow face turned slightly paler.

Then I got assaulted by a flurry of notifications.

Ping ping ping ping ping ping ping!

All the demons who had crewed the Revenge were getting massacred.

Within 15 seconds, all 50 demons were dead.

“What the HELL?!” I exclaimed.

“What?” Alaria asked.

“Every pirate on the Revenge just died!”

“How do you know?” Meera asked.

“Warlock shit,” Alaria answered, then turned back to me. “How did they did? Did the Revenge get blown up?”

“I don’t know – let’s ask.”

I hit Krug’s icon.

Suddenly there was a burst of smoke, and a ten-foot-tall grey demon with a lantern jaw and barrel chest was standing in Meera’s living room. He wore black pants, boots, and a belt – and that was it. He had a cutlass in his hand, which he whipped through the air as he staggered backwards.

“KRUG, IT’S ME!” I yelled.

On hearing my voice, Krug froze.

“…Ian?” he asked, his voice unsure.

“Hey, man. Long time no see.”

He looked over to the left. “…Alaria?”

She twiddled her fingers to say hello. “Hi, Krug.”

Meera suddenly spoke up. “Ian, why is there a very large demon in my living room?”

“Meera, this is Krug, an old friend. Krug, Meera.”

Krug didn’t acknowledge the introduction, but instead looked all around him in bewilderment. “Where am I?”

“Exardus.”

“But – just a second ago I was…” Krug’s voice trailed off, and then his shoulders slumped dejectedly. “I died, didn’t I.”

“‘Fraid so.”

“And you just brought me back.”

“Yeah.”

“The others – ”

“They died, too. All of them.”

“Damn it…”

“What happened?”

“Tarka took back control of the Revenge.”

I stared at him. “What?! That’s impossible!”

“Apparently not,” Krug said drily.

When Alaria and I had disembarked the Revenge for the last time, we had left Tarka naked in a magical pair of wooden stocks.

The stocks negated all her powers. We’d left her naked because… well, even though she was our prisoner… she kind of liked to get freaky with me and Alaria and –

Never mind.

There were more important issues at hand.

“How’d she get out of the stocks?!”

My blood ran cold at his answer:

“A warlock helped her.”

“Did you catch his name?”

“No.”

“What did he look like?”

Krug frowned. “I never actually saw him… he only attacked from the shadows.”

“Did he kill you, or did Tarka?”

“He did… I think.”

“Where were you when you died?”

“Coming up out of the hold.”

“No, I mean, where geographically?”

“Oh. I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean, you’re not sure?”

“Tarka took back control of the ship while we were over the Balos Archipelago. She and the warlock ordered all of us into the hold, and we stayed there two and a half days.”

Two and a half days…

According to Grok, Abaddon had been destroyed three days before.

The warlock must have somehow gotten from Abaddon to the Revenge almost immediately. Maybe he had portal powers, too?

“They slaughtered us out of nowhere,” Krug continued. “The doors to the hold opened and a light began shooting through us. We tried to fight back, but… we never had a chance.”

My stomach tightened. “Did the warlock say anything weird while he was on the ship? Something odd or nonsensical?”

Krug frowned. “No. Not that I can recall.”

Okay, so no third clue.

“Is the Balos Archipelago near Kvartos?” I asked.

“What?” Krug asked, confused. “No, it’s 2000 miles away.”

That made no sense. If the warlock was following my path geographically, he should have hit Kvartos –

Except for one thing.

The Revenge was a hell of a lot more significant to me personally. Kvartos was basically just a random city I’d passed through.

But Fernburg was where I’d met Stig and Alaria…

Abaddon was where I’d had my first enormous triumph in the game…

And the Revenge was immensely important in our adventures.

Which meant the next stop had to be –

“Shit,” I muttered.

Alaria had the same thought. She looked over at me in panic. “Eluun!”

Eluun was the high priestess of the frost elves’ religion – their all-female, orgiastic, sex-centered religion.

Eluun was good and kind, the polar opposite of her evil boss Saykir. Not to mention she was smokin’ hot and great in bed.

After defeating Saykir, Alaria and I had spent several amazing days with Eluun and the other frost elves doing, uh, ‘frost elf religious rites,’ I guess you could say.

When we departed the Northern Barrens, we’d left Eluun in charge.

Which meant now she and all her sister elves were in danger.

“We have to go to the Northern Barrens,” I said. “Like, right now.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Krug said grumpily.

I looked over at him, pissed. “Oh – I guess it doesn’t count that I just brought you back from the dead, huh?”

He grudgingly acquiesced. “…alright, I guess I’m ‘we,’ too. But we need a ship, and the Northern Barrens are still days away from here.”

“They’ll be dead before we can get there!” Alaria cried out.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “I got a new power when I trained at the temple.”

“What temple?” Krug asked, confused.

“Later. The important thing is I can get us to the Northern Barrens in the next few minutes – ”

“How?!” Krug asked, even more bewildered.

“New power – keep up. But I need your promise to help me convince the other pirates to fight alongside us when I summon them again.”

“Not in HERE!” Meera said loudly.

If she didn’t like having Stig in her apartment, I knew she wasn’t going to go for 50 demon pirates.

“I’ll summon them when we arrive in the north,” I reassured her.

“No, you need to bring back them back now,” Krug snapped.

I looked over at him like WHAT did you just say? “A ‘PLEASE’ would be nice.”

“…please,” Krug grumbled.

“NO!” Meera shouted.

I needed a good excuse that would satisfy both of them – and luckily, I had one.

“My portal only stays open ten seconds,” I said. “If I bring them back now, there’s no way they can all get through the portal. I should only resurrect them when there’s a fight.”

“…oh,” Krug mumbled.

“Can I count on your help when we get there?”

“Who are we going to fight?” he asked. “Tarka and the warlock?”

“Yeah.”

Krug grinned darkly. “Then I won’t have to convince them at all.”

“What if the warlock has already attacked the frost elves?” Alaria said.

Dammit… that was entirely possible.

Krug had been in the hold of the pirate ship for almost three days.

“Is two and a half days long enough to get from that archipelago to the Northern Barrens?” I asked.

Krug did a quick calculation in his head.

“…more than enough. Probably double the necessary time.”

“Oh no,” Alaria whispered in horror.

“Shit,” I muttered. “We’ve got to go now. Alaria, Meera – go get dressed.”

Alaria dashed into the other room –

But Meera stayed still. “If he’s already attacked the frost elves in the north, and the devastation was anything like the other two places you saw… wouldn’t it be wiser to marshal our defenses here and attack him when he arrives?”

She was right.

But I couldn’t not go.

Not if there was a chance Eluun or any of the others were still alive.

“We have to look for survivors,” I said. “We have to. But we’ll be back in…”

I checked the counter on my menu.

22:57:03 and dropping.

“…just under 23 hours.”

“Why so long?” Meera asked.

“That’s how long it’ll take for my spells to recover.”

Meera frowned. “I think I should stay here.”

“What?! Why?!”

“In case the warlock comes while you’re gone.”

I was pretty sure the real reason had to do with being around 50 demon pirates – but I didn’t want to call her on it in front of Krug. And I didn’t want to have to order her to come along.

“He destroyed an entire city, Meera. There’s nothing you can do to stop him – not alone.”

“No offense,” Krug said to me, “but I don’t think there’s anything you can do to stop him, either.”

I scowled. “I’ve gotten a lot more powerful since the last time you saw me.”

Krug snorted. “Unless you can kill an entire ship’s crew singlehandedly, I don’t think you’ve gotten powerful enough.”

It irked me, but I knew he was right.

The devastation I’d seen in Abaddon and Fernburg – there was no way I was capable of anything even remotely approaching that scale.

My adversary was responsible for all of it…

And that scared the hell out of me.

“If I stay,” Meera said, “at least I can do reconnaissance and see what we’re up against. If I go with you, I’ll just be helping with… things.”

I was pretty sure she didn’t want to say Helping with the dead bodies you’ll find.

I appreciated that small kindness.

“And besides, with this,” Meera said, pointing to the Collar of Gorbolik, “the absolute worst that can happen is I’ll die and show up in the north with you.”

I didn’t like it, but she had a point.

I finally relented. “Alright, you stay and do recon.”

Alaria walked back in the room fully dressed.

Well, as fully dressed as Alaria ever got in a black leather bikini and thigh-high boots.

“What about Stig?” she asked.

I’d forgotten about him…

Dammit.

Speed was of the essence. Fifteen minutes to go get him might be the difference between life and death for the frost elves.

“There’s no time,” I said. “He can stay in the Underneath till we get back.”

“Good,” Meera muttered under her breath.

“What if the warlock comes here while we’re gone?” Alaria asked.

“Then I guess both he and Meera will be joining us in the Northern Barrens,” I said darkly. “Look, we’re wasting time. Krug, Alaria – get ready to follow me. Meera – be careful.”

“I will,” she promised.

“And take care of Stig if he comes back.”

She grimaced, but she agreed. “Fine.”

I hit the map menu button…

Zoomed in on the Northern Barrens until I found the main castle in the Kingdom of Frost…

Then hit the ring icon and selected Abaddon.

The number on the counter dropped from ‘1’ to ‘0.5.’

“Let’s go,” I said, and Alaria and Krug followed me through the portal.

10

Seeing the ruins of Abaddon caused Alaria to cry out in anguish.

Even Krug was visibly shaken, which was a new sight for me. He was normally as stoic as they come.

I wasted no time, though, and cast a new portal into the Northern Barrens.

Flurries of snow blew through the ring and immediately turned to droplets of water. An icy wind gusted through the portal, though it felt refreshing compared with the hot air of Astoroth.

Wouldn’t stay refreshing long, though.

Even though I knew we were coming to an arctic wasteland, I’d forgotten that this was going to be cold… and we hadn’t brought any jackets or supplies.

We would have to rely on Alaria’s fire powers until we found furs to keep us warm.

I stepped through the portal into the snow. Alaria and Krug followed, and the fiery ring collapsed behind us and disappeared.

I noticed that the counter on the ring icon was now ‘0.’

Whatever else happened, we were stuck here for the next 23 hours.

Dark clouds obscured the sun. Snow drifted down all around us, and a brutal cold bit through my clothes – but I barely noticed.

I was too heartbroken by the destruction all around me, which almost exactly mirrored Abaddon’s.

Especially the corpses.

They were strewn all over the streets – frost elves in leather armor, newly fallen snow already halfway covering them up.

“Oh no…” Alaria sobbed. She sank to her knees next to one of the women’s bodies and tenderly brushed snow from her face.

The city itself had been annihilated.

The once majestic palace was now just gigantic shards of ice jutting up from the ground.

The temple of the sex goddess Jaiya had been crushed and reduced to nothing.

All the other buildings and homes had been pulverized.

Again, the only thing that remained intact was a single wall of ice, about 30 feet high, with giant letters melted into it.

3

ONE IN NINE

NUMBER EIGHT

FORGED IN SHADOW

CAST IN HATE

This time, though, the riddle made a bit more sense.

‘One in nine’ was obviously a reference to Alaria’s ex-masters.

And ‘Number eight’ was which master he was.

Too bad we didn’t have a name yet – unless there was a clue in ‘forged in shadow’ and ‘cast in hate.’

“Oh, Ian,” Alaria said, tears running down her face.

“This is bad,” Krug muttered.

I looked around in despair. “We should still check for survivors.”

“Can we at least find some clothing first?” Krug asked as he shivered.

Alaria was a fire-based demon, and could regulate her body temperature with ease. Krug was able to summon giant orbs of granite and blast them like cannonballs – which wasn’t so good for keeping warm. Not to mention he was bare-chested.

“Alaria, can you provide some heat for us until we find something?” I asked.

“Yes, of course.”

Flames suddenly danced along her red skin, so hot that it was like standing next to a raging bonfire.

“Thank you,” Krug said solemnly as he held his hands out towards her.

“Get warm as you walk,” I told him. “We need to try to find our friend.”

“Alright,” he agreed. He had the good sense not to say the obvious: I doubt you’ll find her alive.

Alaria just nodded, and we set off through the ruins of the city.

“Hello?” I shouted.

“Eluun?” Alaria called out. “Anyone?”

No answer.

“We should go back to Exardus,” Krug said when it became apparent we wouldn’t find any survivors.

I shook my head. “We’re stuck here for 22 more hours, remember?”

“Then we need to find shelter for the night, or we’re going to freeze to death.”

“Alright, I – ”

“Alaria?!” a woman’s voice suddenly cried out behind us. “Ian?!”

Sixty feet away, a figure dressed in ankle-length furs was walking towards us out of the ruins. The person lowered the hood –

Revealing a familiar blue face, long white curls, and a silver headdress.

“ELUUN!” I shouted, my sorrow temporarily turned to joy.

Alaria cried out and ran through the snow towards the high priestess, extinguishing her flames as she went, and flung herself into Eluun’s outstretched arms. The frost elf held on for dear life, her expression one of overwhelming grief.

I ran over, too, and Eluun welcomed me into the hug.

When I finally let go, I asked, “Did anyone else…?”

She shook her head.

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured.

“Thank you.” Then she managed a tearful smile. “I saw the flames from afar and wondered who it could be, but I never expected – oh, it’s so good to see you both…”

“When did it happen?”

“Last night. A fleet of airships arrived in the darkness – ”

“A fleet?” Krug interrupted.

Eluun looked up at the demon pirate in alarm.

“You remember Krug,” I said gently. “He was the captain of the ship that came to rescue me and Alaria.”

“Oh, yes… yes, I remember now…”

“You said a fleet?” Krug repeated, clearly not believing her.

“Yes – over a dozen of them attacked the city with explosives, destroying it completely. I barely escaped.” She looked around, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “No one else did.”

Krug turned to me. “If they have that much firepower, we’re going to need more than one ship.”

I didn’t answer him. There was nothing we could do about it at the moment.

“Did you see who was commanding the ships?” I asked Eluun.

“No.”

“Did you happen to see who carved that?” I asked, pointing at the riddle.

“No. I only saw it afterwards, after the ships had left. Do you know what it means?”

“We think one of Alaria’s ex-masters has been targeting places we’ve been before,” I explained. “He destroyed two other towns and left a riddle at each.”

“So a warlock,” Eluun murmured.

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry, Eluun…” Alaria sobbed. “I feel responsible…”

The frost elf frowned. “Why?”

“It was one of my ex-masters…”

Eluun smiled sadly and put her hand on Alaria’s cheek. “It’s not your fault what evil men do.”

“Damn it, we should have never left Meera alone,” I muttered.

Alaria suddenly looked very frightened.

“Who’s Meera?” Eluun asked.

“A friend of ours in Exardus.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t encounter the ships on your way if you flew here from there.”

“We didn’t come in a ship,” I said. “I have the ability to cast portals now.”

“I see,” Eluun said, then urged me, “You should get back to her.”

“We can’t. I can’t cast another portal for 22 hours.”

“So you’re stuck here for the night, then.”

“Yes.”

“Come – we must get you out of the cold,” Eluun said, and led us out of the demolished city.

11

Along the way, we retrieved fur coats from the wreckage of the temple – not from bodies, thank God, but from a spot Eluun had already dug out in her search for supplies.

She also loaded down Krug with wooden crates filled with food. He was way stronger than any of us, so he got to be the packhorse.

Eluun led us up into the mountains that surrounded the city, then into a cave that opened up into a humongous cavern. She lit our way with a white light from her hands, and I could see that she had already turned it into a home of sorts, with a dozen furs already flung out on the ground far from the entrance. The remains of a fire smoldered near the mouth of the cave, placed there so the smoke could easily escape into the air outside.

We unpacked the supplies, and Krug broke up the wood crates and put them on the ashes of the fire.

“Alaria, would you…?” Eluun asked.

Alaria nodded and set the pile ablaze. Krug gratefully sat down and warmed himself by the fire.

“What are you going to do?” I asked Eluun when we were settled.

“I don’t know,” she said dully as she stared at the flames. “I’ve just been trying to get through today.”

“You can’t live out here alone,” Alaria said quietly.

“I could… frost elves lived out here a thousand years before they constructed the temple and the palace.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Although there doesn’t seem much point in staying.”

“Come back to Exardus with us,” I suggested. “Help us kill the asshole who did this.”

“Revenge won’t bring my friends back,” Eluun murmured.

I’d forgotten I was dealing with a high priestess of a religion that was all about love and connection. So I took a different tack.

“Then just help us stop him from doing it again… so no one else will have to suffer.”

She sat there looking at the fire… then nodded. “That I can do.”

Then she started to cry.

Alaria held her as she sobbed uncontrollably.

Krug looked unsettled. He wasn’t one for displays of emotion, so this was likely enormously uncomfortable for him.

“Eluun – have you slept since any of this happened?” I asked.

She shook her head no.

“Would you like to go lie down in the back?”

“I don’t want to be alone,” she sobbed.

“Alaria and I will go with you. We won’t leave you.”

She finally nodded through her tears.

“Keep watch up here, will you?” I asked Krug.

He nodded, relieved to be rid of the crying woman.

Alaria and I took her back into the cave, about a hundred feet into the cavern where she had set up a pile of furs to sleep on. Alaria had brought a single burning piece of wood that provided a tiny bit of illumination, and placed it far away from us. It flickered gently like a candle.

We settled Eluun down on the ground. Alaria lay on one side of her; I lay on the other, stroking her hair and trying to comfort her.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces…” Eluun whispered.

What do you say to something like that? I had no idea.

“I thought I would die here alone…” Eluun said, and began to weep again, but softly this time.

Alaria kissed her forehead tenderly. “Well, we’re here now.”

Suddenly Eluun lifted her head and kissed Alaria on the lips.

My succubus pulled back, surprised.

“Please,” Eluun whispered. “Please… I just want to feel alive… it’s so sweet to be alive, and so bitter to be alone…”

Alaria looked over Eluun’s shoulder at me.

I nodded gently, then moved to get up to go –

But Eluun grabbed my wrist.

“Stay,” she pleaded. “Please… stay…”

And so I did.

What happened next made me uncomfortable at first… but then it seemed natural, a way for Eluun to deal with her grief.

She kissed Alaria… softly… gently…

And then me. Her tears were salty on my lips.

Then she began to fumble at our clothing. First Alaria’s, then mine. We both helped her out of her robes.

Skin on skin, naked bodies pressed together. We piled furs on top of us to keep warm.

I caressed Eluun as she and Alaria tenderly made love. The frost elf and I kissed as Alaria brought her to orgasm… Eluun whimpering and staring into my eyes as she came.

And then she gently pulled me on top of her, nestling me between her legs.

I entered her and moved slowly, staring into her eyes as silent tears coursed down the side of her face.

I didn’t try to make her come; I knew that wasn’t the point.

It was connection… not being alone in a time of need.

First she would kiss me… then turn her head to Alaria and kiss her… then all three of us would gently kiss each other, our lips brushing over ears, necks, lips.

Alaria reached down with one hand and began to caress Eluun’s clit. With her soft touch, and my gentle movements, Eluun eventually climbed to the peak of bliss.

After she had finished crying out, I asked gently, “Would you like me to stop?”

“No,” she whispered, “stay inside me as long as you can… it feels wonderful…”

And so I did. My movements weren’t vigorous enough to make me come, and so it seemed like I was inside her for hours, caught in a hypnotic haze of pleasure and tenderness, as we touched each other, and kissed, and stared into each other’s eyes.

I did finally reach a point where I couldn’t hold back.

“I’m going to come,” I whispered. “Do you want me to – ”

I felt her hands grab my ass under the silken furs and pull me deeper into her.

“Come inside me,” she whispered. “Please, come inside me.”

I did, and as I groaned with pleasure, her face lit up with the first smile I’d seen from her since we’d arrived. She stared into my eyes the entire time, then kissed my lips softly as I came down from my peak.

As my erection faded, I pulled out of her. Alaria and I nestled in on both sides of her, softly stroking her, caressing her, kissing her neck and shoulders… until finally she fell asleep, and Alaria along with her.

12

As both women slept on the furs next to me, I luxuriated in the sweetness and quiet sensuality of everything that had just happened…

But then my thoughts returned to another woman I cared about.

I checked Meera’s picture on my menu bar.

No change, which meant she was alive and unhurt. Good news.

Stig was fine, too. Probably drunk off his ass, but no damage (except to his liver).

I lay back on the bed of furs and tried to sleep, but couldn’t. I was too agitated about what was going to happen, so I left Eluun and Alaria sleeping and logged out.

I awoke in my long-term immersion pod in Westek’s research department and opened the unit’s gull-wing door.

Westek had come a long way since the days when I first got hired. Gone were the dozens of wires and medical monitoring machines; now I had a self-contained unit. The company was on the brink of going to market with long-term immersion technology, so I’d been upgraded to a prototype. It was a lot sleeker than what I was used to, and the mattress inside was a lot more comfortable, but otherwise it was the exact same in-game experience.

After a brief pit stop in the bathroom, I walked down to the writer’s room.

What I found was a flurry of activity.

Satish, the head writer and one of my best friends at Westek, was walking around barking orders. Everybody else looked like their pants were on fire as they rushed to complete activities.

“Dude, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Can’t talk, the Russians will be here in an hour,” Satish informed me.

The ‘Russians’ were Igra Corp – a Russian corporation that had recently bought Westek’s competitor, DarkWorld. Word on the street (the ‘street’ being the internet) was that they were looking to do an acquisition of Westek, too, and merge both games to basically corner the immersive VR market.

A while ago I’d asked my boss, John, how a Russian gaming company could have enough cash to buy out two of the biggest VR gaming companies on the market. I mean, Japanese, sure – Sony or Nintendo came to mind. And there were plenty of American companies who could have done it. Microsoft, Blizzard, EA –

But Russian?

“There are some who speculate that Igra’s actually a front for Vladimir Putin’s pals who need to launder money,” John had told me. “That’s speculation, though, and you didn’t hear it from me. Especially if you ever meet anybody from Igra.”

I didn’t understand why the writing department would be in such a tizzy, though. “So why are you running around like a chicken with its head cut off?”

“It’s only partially detached, thank you. And the Russians asked to meet with all the major departments.”

“What – QC, too?” I asked, shocked. It was the first I was hearing of it.

“Ha – no. Not a major department,” Satish said with a smile and a condescending pat on my head.

He was just trying to get my goat.

Although it was funny because it was true.

I snorted. “Since when do bigwigs meet with writing departments?”

“I don’t know. I just chew my food with my mouth shut and show up when and where they tell me to.”

“By the way, you guys are going kind of dark on my latest quest – ”

“Can’t talk!” Satish called over his shoulder as he headed back to his office.

I sighed, turned around, and headed down to the cafeteria. The pod’s intravenous infusions had their charms, but I was hankering for a burger.

There was a nervous thrum in the eating area. People were apparently abuzz about the prospect of the Rooskies’ impending visit and what it meant for the company – and their jobs.

I got my burger, fries, and a coke, then looked around for any familiar faces.

None.

That was sort of the downside of being isolated in a pod for 96 hours at a time: you tended not to make work friends very easily.

I avoided any groups that looked like they were intently gossiping, and settled for a mostly empty table. The only other person sitting there was a woman with a half-eaten burger of her own.

More like a girl than a woman, really. She was early 20s, short, petite. Cute. Black hair in pigtails, round John Lennon-style glasses, nose ring. She wore a black indie rock t-shirt, some band I’d never heard of.

If I had to bet where she worked, I’d put money on the art department.

“Mind if I join you?” I asked politely.

“Ah, the famous Ian Hertzfelder,” she said with a smirk. “Be my guest.”

She had a nice voice – and a playfully sarcastic tone – that I liked right away.

“Famous, huh?” I said as I sat down. “How’s that?”

“What, are you kidding? Every guy near my desk keeps talking about your latest sexual exploits. I can’t fucking get away from your fucking.”

I immediately blushed. “Uhhhh… I didn’t realize it was a topic of conversation…”

“Relax, dude. I play the adult expansion pack, too. I’m not busting on you because you like to get your freak on.”

“Oh… um… what’s your handle?” I asked.

AKA, what’s your in-game name.

She cocked one eyebrow, amused. “If you’re delicately trying to ascertain if we’ve slept together in OtherWorld, that would have been my lead instead of my coworkers endlessly talking about you.”

Actually, I had been delicately trying to ascertain that.

“Okay. Phew,” I said with a laugh.

She narrowed her eyes. “‘Phew,’ what?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘phew,’ like you were relieved. Why?”

“Oh, you know – it might be a little… awkward.”

I immediately thought of Stig and was glad he wasn’t here to interject his commentary.

The girl shifted back in her chair and draped one arm over the top, like she was settling in for a contentious discussion. “How so?”

“…what?”

“How it would be awkward? Are you saying I’m not attractive enough to sleep with in the game?”

“Oh, no – no, you’re really cute, I’d totally sleep with you – ”

As soon as it slipped out, I froze like a deer in headlights.

I could imagine a stern executive staring at me from across a desk: And THAT was when you propositioned your coworker, Mr. Hertzfelder?

The girl just kept looking at me.

I felt a bead of cold sweat start to trickle down my ribs –

And then she started laughing.

She actually put her forehead down on the table, she was laughing so hard. When she finally sat up straight again, she wiped a little tear out of the corner of her eye. “Oh my GOD, that was priceless… don’t worry, I was just busting your balls.”

I grinned in spite of myself. “Not cool.”

“I know – I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”

“I saw my entire career flash before my eyes.”

“Don’t worry, I get in trouble with HR all the time, and they still haven’t fired me.”

“You get in trouble with HR? Doing what?”

“It’s all the giant penis pictures I post in my cubicle.”

I stared at her. “…uhhhh… what?”

She laughed again. “All the dweebs in my department keep putting up pictures of giant tits and perfect asses they’ve rendered on the compositor – orc ass, elf tits – oh, and LOTS of shots of Alaria.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, and got a little pissed.

Stupid, I know. I mean, Alaria was a character in a videogame. But it felt like the equivalent of guys ogling naked pictures of your girlfriend on the internet.

Probably more than ogling, actually.

Ewwww.

“She’s a hot succubus who gets naked all the time,” she said in a I hate to break it to you kind of voice. “People are gonna look.”

Then she straightened up and returned to her normal voice. “And I get tired of it, so I put up pictures of giant penises I render. Orc schlongs, elf dicks, you name it. Always super-sized. Makes the dweebs all butt-hurt.”

“Art department?” I asked.

She gestured to her get-up and gave me an Are you fucking kidding? look. “No – accounting.”

I chuckled. “Touché.”

“It raises an interesting question, though, doesn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“In a company where a major portion of their profits derive from fucking… and they have an entire department devoted to writing about fucking… and creating art about fucking… and programming said fucking… how bad do you have to be to actually get hauled into HR for sexual harassment?”

“Apparently posting pictures of giant orc dong will do it.”

“Touché yourself. Actually, don’t. Touché is French for ‘touch,’ so – ”

“Yeah, I got the joke,” I said with a sardonic grin.

“Good. That’d land you in real hot water with HR if you started ‘touché-ing’ yourself right here in front of me.”

“I’m sure it would.”

“Be kind of hot, though,” she said as she bit into a French fry.

Was this art nerd girl… hitting on me?

“Just kidding,” she said. “If you started touché-ing yourself here, it’d be kinda creepy.”

“I’ll keep it in the game,” I said with a narrowed-eye, That’s a good idea kind of look.

“So disappointing,” she said, deadpan. “You’re way more strait-laced than your online adventures.”

“Yeah, well, fantasy versus reality.”

“Don’t I know it,” she sighed. “At least they’ve fixed the female orgasm problem.”

I almost choked on my food.

“…the… what?”

“The female orgasm problem. I don’t know if you know this or not, seeing as you primarily bang digital women now, but it’s harder for a woman to get off in the real world than in OtherWorld.”

“I… uh… yes, I’ve seen from my real-world experience – ”

“Such that it is,” she joked.

“ – such that it is, that, yes, it’s far easier to make a woman… um… help her… reach orgasm in OtherWorld.”

“‘Help a woman reach orgasm,’” she said with a snort. “What are you, a grandpa teaching sex-ed? You can say ‘make her come.’”

“Um…”

She leaned over and whispered loudly, “You can say it, Ian. HR’s not gonna jump out of the shadows. It’s harder to make a chick come in the real world. Say it. Saaaaaaay it.”

I shifted in my seat.

Partially because I was uncomfortable –

But also because I was kind of getting turned on.

Suddenly she winced. “I’m sorry – am I oversharing? My therapist says I tend to do that. See, you didn’t need to know I’m seeing a therapist. Oversharing.”

“It’s – yes, you kind of are, but I find it endearing.”

“Oh, well, as long as you find it endearing,” she said with that playful sarcasm.

“And kind of hot,” I said, attempting to flirt.

“Not as hot as me touché-ing myself, I’ll bet,” she said as she bit into another French fry.

“True. Did they base Alaria on you, by any chance?” I joked.

She gestured to her chest, which was much more B-cup than triple F. “No.”

I laughed. “I meant your personality.”

“Why, cuz of all the sex talk?”

“That, and you’re also very outgoing. And uninhibited.”

“None of the art department dweebs talk to me all day long, so unfortunately you’re the one getting the gusher.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s unfortunate.”

“You don’t mind the term ‘gusher,’ though?”

“What, ‘oil well’?”

Actually, I hadn’t thought ‘oil well’ at all. She’d said it in such a way – raised eyebrow, half-lidded eyes, naughty smirk – that I knew she was talking about female ejaculation.

She smirked some more. “That’s not how I meant it.”

“Then it might be a bit much.”

“Noted. You gonna turn me into HR?” she asked, obviously joking.

“No.”

“Well, good. I’d hate to get a call from them in 30 minutes saying somebody registered a complaint about a gusher.”

“Well, it won’t come from me.”

“See? You managed to get ‘come’ in there, even if it wasn’t sexual. Good job.”

“Totally unintended.”

“Yeah, I gathered.” She leaned back in her seat. “So – what’re you doing now? A threesome? An orgy? An orc-chick gang bang?”

I really, really didn’t want to admit to just having come from a threesome.

Especially one that had been as meaningful as what I’d just shared with Alaria and Eluun.

So I deflected.

“Are you sure you’re playing the adult expansion pack enough?” I asked. “Or maybe too much?”

She laughed. “Okay, fine, dodge the question – although I’m guessing from your evasion that you were just having sex of some sort.”

“I’m taking the Fifth.”

“That’s a ‘yes.’”

“You know, we could talk about something other than sex.”

“Like what? Intrigue me,” she said.

“Uh… well…”

I groped for something to say.

Actually, maybe ‘groped’ was the wrong word to use there.

“Waiting,” she said good-humoredly.

“Actually, in my most recent quest, there’s a villain – probably one of Alaria’s ex-masters.” I realized she probably had no idea what I’m talking about. “See, we’re on this quest – ”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You do?”

“There are many, many dweebs in the art department,” she deadpanned. “I know things about Alaria even you probably don’t. Actually, I take that back – all I hear about is her cup size, and I’m sure you know that one, so proceed.”

I actually didn’t officially know her cup size, but I wasn’t about to derail the conversation into sex talk again, so I continued.

“She has a psychopathic ex-master who’s slaughtering towns we’ve been to and leaving behind riddles.”

“Ooooh, dark… what kind of riddles? ‘There once was a man from Nantucket’? Because that’s a limerick.”

“Thank you,” I said sarcastically. “No, the first one was, ‘He who is coming after me is mightier than I.’”

“See, even the bad guy uses ‘come’ more than you do.”

“Very funny.”

“I try. What’s the second riddle?”

“‘I am a voice crying in the wilderness.’”

“Ohhhhh,” she said, as though she recognized it. “John the Baptist.”

“What?”

“John the Baptist – you know, the Bible? Cousin of Jesus? Baptized people in a river? Both are quotes from him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Ohhhh yeah. My grandmother dragged me to her hellfire and brimstone church every Sunday as a kid. I know all the stories.”

“You must have loved those protestors, then,” I said, referring to the people who had picketed Westek for months over the adult expansion pack.

She glared at me. “Don’t get me started.”

“Why would the game be using John the Baptist quotes?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Although…”

“‘Although’ what?”

“I think your city-destroying psychopath is implying that the guy next in line after him is even worse. In the Bible, John was talking about Jesus. So, y’know – better, in that particular case. Here, I’m assuming your psycho’s talking about the ninth ex-master being a real bastard.”

“…shit…”

I must have had a shell-shocked expression on my face, because she said, “Penny for your thoughts. Or a nickel with inflation.”

“I just… I’m facing down a warlock with a fleet of airships who can kill 50 demon pirates on a whim, and destroy entire cities and murder all their inhabitants… and the ninth ex-master is supposed to be worse than him?”

“Mm,” she said, nodding. “Sucks to be you.”

“Yeah.”

“Although you get sucked off a lot, so it really doesn’t suck to be you, does it?”

“Back to that, are we?” I asked with a grin.

“Alright, alright. Are there any more riddles?”

“Yeah… the only other one was ‘One in nine, number eight… forged in shadow, cast in hate.’ I think it’s a reference to him being the eighth ex-master, but I don’t know what the rest of it means.”

“Could just be window-dressing to sound cool.”

“That’s kind of what I thought.”

“But it sorta sounds like that Jim Morrison song.”

“What?”

“Jim Morrison? The Doors?”

“Yeah, I know who Jim Morrison is,” I said acerbically. “What song are you talking about?”

“It starts out with something like ‘one in five,’ but the memorable line is ‘no one here gets out alive.’”

“…great,” I muttered.

“Why’s he doing it, though?” she asked.

“What do you mean? The riddles?”

“Yeah – why do it in the first place? Is it just to make him seem like the Riddler in Batman or something?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. I mean, we already know he’s one of her ex-masters. The ‘one in nine, number eight’ thing just confirms it. Although…”

“‘Although’ what?”

“The game’s concealing his name. Normally you see all her ex-masters’ names on a list, but number eight and nine are blanked out.”

“Huh… so you have to guess their names, then.”

“Yeah, but why?” I suddenly had a thought. “Maybe he’s like Rumpelstiltskin or something, and if you guess his name, you beat him.”

“Or Mister Mxyzptlk, and you have to say his name backwards.”

She said Superman’s goofiest villain’s name exactly right: Miks-yez-pittle-ik.

“You know Mister Mxyzptlk?” I asked, surprised.

She gave me another Give me a fuckin’ break look. “I’m an art geek who works at a video game company. Of course I know who Mr. Mxyzptlk is.”

“Touché.”

“Naughty naughty,” she said with a playful waggle of her finger.

“We’ll keep it in the game,” I joked. “By the way, what’s your name?”

“Luna.”

“Like ‘Harry Potter’ Luna?” I asked with a bit of disbelief.

She rolled her eyes. “My mother… Jesus. At least she didn’t name me Hermione. I can thank her for that much, at least.”

“Luna and Hermione are cool, at least.”

“Yeah. Thank God I wasn’t a boy, or I’d be Harry or Ron.”

“Or Severus or Albus.”

“Well, at least those names would be cool.”

“You know, I’ve been hanging out with a character named Eluun.”

She looked at me like, And?

“Eluun, Luna – both based on the Latin name for the moon – ”

“Wow,” she said in a deadpan voice, “that’s amazing.”

“Okay, smartass,” I said with a grin.

“And are you really hanging out? Or… ‘hanging out’?” she asked as she pumped one arm obscenely in the air.

“Uhhhh… I’m gonna take the Fifth again.”

“You taking the Fifth is better than a lie detector test – you know that, right?”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So, are you going to think of me next time you’re banging Eluun? Excuse me, ‘hanging out.’”

Well, shit – NOW I am.

“Or do you want to take the Fifth again?” she asked mischievously.

“Why don’t we get back to your name?”

“Oh, let’s,” she said drily. “Did you have another Harry Potter joke to make that you didn’t get around to?”

“Not Harry Potter, just pop culture. Considering your Mom likes character names from books, it’s lucky she didn’t name you when Game of Thrones was popular.”

“Oh my god – do you know that ‘Khaleesi’ and ‘Daenerys’ were really popular girls’ names for a couple of years? Their mothers got a very unpleasant surprise when the last couple of episodes aired.”

“Yeah… naming your kid after a kickass woman and then finding out she’s a mass murderer has got to suck.”

“Yes, but not as much as those final episodes. They sucked harder than… well, your succubus, probably,” she said with an impish grin. Then she went serious. “But in a bad way. Since I’m sure your succubus’s sucking is delightful.”

“Delightful,” I agreed with a deadpan expression.

“‘Succubus’s sucking…’ now there’s a tongue twister. Try saying that five times fast. Succubus’s sucking… succubus’s sucking…”

It was really weird hearing oral sex jokes about Alaria from a girl I wouldn’t have minded sleeping with.

‘Wouldn’t have minded’ –

Who am I kidding? Before I met Alaria, I would have given my left nut to sleep with this chick.

It was nice being a lot more chill in real life around attractive women. When you’ve got a fantastic thing going in the digital world, you tend not to freak out as much in the real one.

“Well, you ready to go?” Luna asked.

For a second I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.

I almost thought she was propositioning me, after all that ‘succubus’s sucking’ talk.

“Uh… what?” I asked.

She pointed at my empty plate. “You’re finished, so I just assumed you needed to get back to work.”

“Oh… yeah, I guess I should get back.”

“Yeah, the corporate overlords want me chained to my desk, too.”

We got up. Standing, she was much shorter than me – over a foot shorter.

She was really, really cute, too. Thin… tiny waist… tight jeans…

I forced myself to stop looking at her, mostly in case I was gawking.

As we walked out of the cafeteria, I yawned. “Actually, maybe I’ll go home and take a nap. I haven’t been back to my apartment in, like, a week.”

“Is that an invitation?” she asked in a deadpan voice.

I looked at her in shock. “Uhhhh…”

“Kidding,” she said, then glanced around and whispered loudly, “HR’s watching.”

I wasn’t entirely convinced she had been kidding, though.

“I guess never seeing your apartment is one of the downsides of living in a long-term immersion pod, huh,” she commented.

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you just, like, live out of a suitcase and stay in a hotel when you log out? It’d be cheaper than paying rent, right? Especially when you’re probably only home four or five nights out of the month.”

“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t have anywhere to take my hot dates,” I joked.

“Yeah, cause nobody ever has sex in a hotel,” she deadpanned.

I laughed at my own stupidity. “Yeah. Nobody.”

“You don’t take any hot dates back to your place… do you, Ian,” she said, like, We need to have a serious talk.

I laughed again. “No, I don’t.”

“You don’t even have any hot dates, do you.”

“Ow,” I said with a grin.

She shrugged. “Why would you, when you can bang the hottest women in the world inside the game?”

I just looked at her, not sure what to say.

“No judgment,” she said, lifting up both of her hands. “I certainly do my fair share of sleeping around as Eldalasia.”

“Eldalasia… is that your tag?”

“Now you know,” she said with a slightly naughty look.

I was getting turned on again.

We stood there facing each other in the hallway.

The silence was a little bit awkward…

…but mostly it was the sexual tension between us.

I had the powerful urge to lean forward and kiss her – and had to restrain myself.

“Well,” she finally said, “if you find any more interesting riddles and want to hash them out, I’ll be in the art department. Or, y’know… if you just want to hear some more wildly inappropriate workplace talk.”

“Okay,” I said with a grin. “Try to keep out of HR’s crosshairs until I see you again, though. Maybe go easy on the orc dong.”

She pointed one finger at me like a gun and made a chk sound with the corner of her mouth. “Keep it in the game.”

“Keep it in the game,” I agreed with a laugh. “See you.”

“Bye.”

As I walked away, I wondered if I should look over my shoulder –

Fuck it, why not.

I glanced back at her.

She was looking back at me over her shoulder, too.

She gave me an enigmatic smile, then disappeared around a corner.

I went back to the long-term immersion lab with a spring in my step.

Rather than go back into suspended animation, I used the screen and keyboard built into the side of the pod to check my avatar’s stats and surrounding environment. It was a nice way for players to monitor their characters without having to go through the whole log-in process.

Alaria and Eluun were still sleeping peacefully on the furs.

But it was weird seeing them on a flat monitor, like I was watching security camera footage or a TV show instead of seeing them with my own two eyes. Kind of reinforced the whole notion that it was a video game…

…which was really easy to forget when you were in it.

Meera’s and Stig’s stats were both still fine. Apparently the warlock hadn’t hit Exardus yet.

So, with there being nothing left to do but wait, I went home for the first time in a week and slept in my own bed.

But when I woke the next morning, I was a little discomfited by the fact that my dreams hadn’t been of a gorgeous succubus or a blue-skinned frost elf…

…but an art chick with pigtails and an indie rock t-shirt.

13

I got back into work the next morning around 9AM. I thought about going by to see Luna, then decided, Naaah.

Something about going to see another woman before I saw Alaria didn’t feel quite right.

So I logged back into the game instead, and came to stretched out on the furs.

Alaria and Eluun were still sleeping, so I pulled up my stats to check on Meera and Stig.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Stig was dead. His icon was completely greyed out.

And Meera was hanging on by the barest sliver of a thread. Her icon had a health bar beneath it, and it was down to just a hair above zero.

I leapt up from the furs. “Alaria!”

“Mrm?” she grumbled sleepily as she lifted her head. “Whaddisit?”

“Something happened in Exardus!”

Her eyes immediately opened wide. “What?!”

“I don’t know, I’m going to find out!”

I hit Stig’s icon, and poof!

My imp appeared in front of me.

“AAAAH!” he screamed, and covered his eyes with both hands.

“Stig, what’s wrong?!”

“Put on some CLOTHES, boss!”

Oh yeah.

I’d forgotten I was naked.

He’d reappeared right at eye-level with my junk.

I hastily threw on my pants. As I did, Krug peeked around the corner of the cave wall.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Boss’s pork sword,” Stig moaned, his eyes still covered.

“I’m dressed now,” I snapped. “You can look.”

Stig peeked out from between slightly spread fingers as though he didn’t trust me, then relaxed and lowered his hands.

“What happened?” I asked.

He winced and pointed at my crotch. “I saw your – ”

“I know that. What happened in Exardus?”

Stig stared at me blankly, then looked down at the floor. “Oh yeah…”

“‘Oh yeah,’ what?”

“I don’t know. There was a loud noise and a bright light, then… nothin’.”

“Nothing?”

“Well, Limbo. Until you brought me back here.”

Limbo was the holding spot where demons bound to a Warlock went when they died, until they were resurrected. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly… except that there was nothing there. Literally nothing. So it was unpleasant in that regard.

“Where were you?”

“The Underneath.”

“Drinking?”

He looked at me with an expression of contempt, like, No, underwater basket-weaving.

“You seem fairly sober,” I remarked.

He cocked his head like he hadn’t realized that, then scowled. “I musta been in Limbo awhile…”

Time passed differently there, so it wasn’t always easy for a demon to figure out how long he’d been dead.

“So – you have no idea what happened?”

Stig shook his head.

“Did it happen just to you, or to the whole Underneath?”

He looked off to the side as though remembering, then looked up at me. “I think it was the whole bar, at least.”

“How do you know?”

“Last thing I remember was the bartender lit up by the big light, and bottles went flyin’ off the shelf.”

A bomb, maybe?

However he’d done it, the warlock hadn’t killed just Stig.

“Everybody get dressed,” I said. “We need to – ”

“I’m dressed,” both Stig and Krug said at the same time.

Which was true for Krug, but Stig was almost always naked unless he was wearing a disguise… so I guess it was technically true that he was as dressed as he normally was.

“I meant Alaria and Luna.”

“Luna?” Alaria said with a frown. “Who’s Luna?”

Oh shit.

“Slip of the tongue. Look, get dressed – Meera’s in trouble.”

Alaria and Eluun immediately started pulling on their clothes.

“Can you cast your spell yet?” Alaria asked.

Oh shit…

I’d forgotten about that.

I checked the cooldown meter on my portal spell –

“In five minutes,” I said happily, then turned to Eluun. “You’re coming with us, right?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“It might be a while before I can bring you back here.”

She gave me a sad smile. “There’s nothing left for me to come back to.”

“Well, you can always stay with us,” Alaria said, and gave her a hug.

“Absolutely,” I echoed.

Eluun misted up. “Thank you…”

“Sure thing. You need to bring anything with you?”

“No, I’m fine.”

I turned to Krug. “Get ready. If the warlock’s still in Exardus, I’m going to summon all the pirates.”

“You really think that will make a difference?” Krug asked grimly.

“Well, it’s the only shot we’ve got.”

I looked back at Meera’s icon. The sliver on her hit point meter had increased the slightest bit, so she was healing. Maybe she’d managed to hide somewhere and was recovering.

I tried to activate my Self-Sacrifice spell and give her some of my own Health, but nothing happened. I hadn’t really expected anything, though. I’d always cast Self-Sacrifice when I was in close proximity to my demons, and it manifested through blue light crackling from my fingertips into their bodies. A distance of a thousand miles was apparently not conducive to the spell working.

The timer reached the last 30 seconds of the countdown.

“Alright, everybody ready?” I asked.

The entire group nodded.

“Eluun and Stig, you haven’t gone through a portal yet, so just know that we’ll be going through two of them: one to Abaddon and another to Exardus. Everybody line up and don’t rush – Krug, you go last, you’re the biggest – but get through the portals as fast as you can. You have ten seconds to go through. If you’re not on the other side by the time it closes, you get left behind. Everybody ready?”

Everyone nodded again.

The timer ticked down.

0:02…

0:01…

0:00.

Suddenly the counter on the ring icon went from ‘0’ to ‘3,’ and the timer beneath the menu reset to 24:00:00 and began ticking down again.

A window appeared: You may now cast Hell’s Pont.

“Here we go,” I said, and created a portal into Abaddon.

As we stepped through the wreckage, Eluun and Stig looked around in horror. I barely noticed their reaction, though – I was too worried about Meera.

I used my map to place the second portal right in front of Meera’s apartment building.

But when the fiery ring appeared, there was no apartment building…

Just a smoking crater filled with soot-streaked, jagged slabs of white marble.

“Oh my God…” I whispered.

“Meera!” Alaria cried out.

“Go, boss, go!” Stig croaked as he pushed against the backs of my legs.

He might have been insensitive, but Stig was right. We had to move – now.

At his prodding, I stepped through the ring. The others followed.

Once I was on the other side, I looked around in a state of shock.

The street was deserted. I don’t know if the area had been evacuated because of the attack, or if everyone was dead, but there was no other living soul around.

Everything surrounding the pit was largely untouched. The glass windows on other buildings were blown out, probably from a massive explosion, but the structures themselves were still standing.

Meera was still alive, though, according to her icon. Wherever she was in there, we had to get her out.

I snapped back into my right mind and immediately took charge. “Krug, you’re the strongest – start pulling away whatever wreckage you can. Stig, look in some of those holes and see if you can see any sign of her.”

Krug looked at me dubiously, but both he and Stig began their tasks. The pirate’s massive muscles bulged as he picked up a slab and tossed it off to the side. Meanwhile, Stig disappeared down a rabbit hole in the wreckage.

“What can we do?” Alaria asked plaintively.

Nothing, a helpless little voice inside me whispered.

Eluun stood next to Alaria, her blue features twisted with grief. I felt horrible for her – seeing the wreckage of the building probably reminded her of what had happened to her home.

But still, I had to save Meera, so I pushed all that out of my mind.

“Can you heal someone you can’t see?” I asked Eluun.

“I can direct healing waves towards a space without directly targeting one person. If there are any survivors in there, it will help them.”

IF there are any survivors.

I knew there had to be at least one.

“Do it,” I said.

Eluun fired up her powers and began to radiate healing waves of white light into the wreckage.

“Ian, why can’t you use your Self-Sacrifice spell?” Alaria asked.

I hadn’t even considered it, I was so shell-shocked by the destruction.

But she was right – I was close enough now that my magic would probably work.

“Good idea,” I said, and pointed my hands at the wreckage.

As I activated the spell, blue light crackled through the air –

And immediately bent 90 degrees, as though pulled by an invisible magnet.

I looked over in surprise to see what the hell was happening –

And my eyes were drawn to the cemetery down the street.

Because this was OtherWorld, every neighborhood had a graveyard so players could respawn close by. This one lay about 300 feet from Meera’s building. Almost a year ago, Alaria and I had faced down Meera’s angelic brethren inside its gates – and watched as the angels banished her from among their ranks.

The cemetery was just like the rest of the city: gleaming white. Massive stone obelisks stretched high above elaborate tombs, and there were several life-size statues of angels carved out of white marble, though at this distance they looked like tiny figurines.

There was even a twenty-foot-tall cross with an angel pinned to it.

…like a crucifix…

“Oh no,” I whispered, overcome by horror.

“What?” Alaria asked.

“That wasn’t there before,” I said as I sprinted down the street.

Alaria took off after me.

I heard Eluun shout, “Krug! Stig!” and then had the vague impression that they all came running.

When I reached the gates of the cemetery, I lost all strength in my knees and staggered against the nearest column.

Meera hung there on the marble cross, arms outstretched like Christ, head lolling to one side. Her armor had been stripped off and was lying in a pile on the ground; all she wore was the barest of shifts covering her body. The only thing that wasn’t white was the black Collar of Gorbolik, which she still wore around her neck.

There was no blood or gore in OtherWorld, and it was a good thing – because otherwise I might have thrown up.

Iron spikes pierced her palms and feet, nailing her to the marble. Her body weight pulled down against the spikes in her hands, wrenching her arms into a ‘V’ shape.

Her flaming sword pierced her body from underneath one side of her ribcage to the other. The burning tip extended two feet from her flesh.

She didn’t wear a crown of thorns, but there were dozens of jagged pieces of white marble embedded in her skull that peeked out of her golden hair.

I heard Alaria scream behind me, “OH GODDESS, NO!”

At the sound of her voice, Meera’s eyes opened into slits.

“…Ian…” she croaked, “…he was… here…”

More footsteps behind me.

“Oh no,” Eluun gasped, and she immediately began to cast white light into Meera.

What the fuck was I doing?

I cast Self-Sacrifice, sending blue light coursing into her.

Suddenly Meera shrieked. “AAAAAAAH!”

Having been at the threshold of death, she’d been too far gone to make any noise.

But now that we were healing her, she had enough energy to scream – and the pain was excruciating.

“STIG, PULL OUT THAT SWORD!” I yelled. “KRUG, GET HER DOWN FROM THERE! PULL THE CROSS OUT OF THE GROUND AND SET IT DOWN CAREFULLY!”

Stig scampered up the cross, then grabbed the handle of Meera’s sword and pulled backwards, ‘unsheathing’ the burning blade from her body and jumping down onto the ground with it.

Krug raced over, wrapped his arms around the base, and heaved it up out of the ground.

Meanwhile Alaria flapped her black wings, flew up in front of the cross, and lifted under Meera’s armpits. She was trying to keep Meera’s body from pulling down agonizingly against the spikes in her hands – and to help Krug by reducing at least some of the weight he had to carry.

Krug strained to keep everything under control as he slowly lowered the cross. The effect of gravity as it went from upright to extending sideways into the air must have made the job ten times harder, but he managed to finally lower it to the ground – until the last few inches, when it fell with a booming CRACK.

Meera cried out on the final impact, but now gravity was no longer breaking her arms. Alaria gently let her lie back against the cross.

“Get the spikes out!” I yelled as I ran over next to her head.

With one hand I cast Self-Sacrifice, and with the other hand I tried to gingerly remove the shards of marble from her skull.

Then I saw it.

A small placard above Meera’s head, letters etched in brass.

4

NOT DAUGHTER OF CHAOS

BUT SON OF DARKNESS

NOT GODDESS OF NIGHT

BUT GOD OF NOTHING

What the FUCK?!

Rage filled me, and I wanted nothing more to find that goddamn warlock and torture him to death a thousand times over.

Krug yanked the spike from Meera’s right hand, then moved down to her feet.

Alaria wasn’t as strong as Krug, but she was able to wrench the spike out of Meera’s left hand within a few seconds.

As both Eluun and I poured healing light into her body, the agony on Meera’s face subsided.

The holes in her palms and feet closed up…

The wounds in her sides slowly sealed…

And the gaping cuts in her scalp disappeared.

“…thank you…” Meera whispered as she peered up at me, then smiled at Alaria as she weakly took her hand.

“I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry,” I whispered. My vision blurred as I picked the last shards from Meera’s skull, and I realized I was crying.

“…Ian… it’s not your fault… I refused to go… I told you I was staying…”

“I shouldn’t have left you.”

“…I shouldn’t have demanded to stay…”

Meera’s Health was rapidly approaching 80%, and we helped her up into a sitting position. She immediately hugged both me and Alaria, and all three of us held on tightly to each other.

I heard her speak over my shoulder, her voice full of gratitude. “Thank you, Stig… thank you, Krug…”

I looked over to see the two demons nod solemnly.

“And thank you, Healer,” Meera finished.

“You are most welcome,” the frost elf replied. “I am sorry our first meeting came as a result of such tragedy.”

“This is Eluun,” I said. “Eluun, Meera.”

Meera smiled wryly at the frost elf. “I wish our meeting had been in the Northern Barrens rather than here.”

“Did you see him?” I asked Meera.

“No. I saw the airships hovering over Exardus – ”

“How many?” Krug interrupted. “What type?”

I glowered at him, but Meera said, “Almost two dozen… I don’t know what types, but they looked fast and heavily armed. A blast from one rained straight down on the city – ”

Now I was the one to interrupt her. “What? Where?”

“I’m not sure, but it looked like it hit the center of Exardus – near that hellhole of a place you took me to, the one with all the demons.”

The Underneath.

Where Stig had been when he died.

“Hold on a second,” I said, then cast my All-Seeing Eye. Whatever it saw would be piped directly into my mind’s eye.

I started it directly above us, looking down at us like a bird hovering ten feet overhead, and then zoomed it straight up in the air until it had a view of all of Exardus.

Gleaming white buildings and towers…

The harbor with all its ships…

…and in the middle of the city, a charred hole the size of a football stadium.

It looked like a gigantic sinkhole had swallowed everything.

The bridge over the Underneath’s entryway?

Gone.

As was every building, shop, and piece of land around it.

Actually, I take that back: it didn’t look like a sinkhole.

It looked like a giant laser beam from space had incinerated everything in its path, because the ground and the bits of buildings on the edge were all scorched black.

“…he destroyed the Underneath…” I said in shock.

“What?!” Alaria exclaimed.

“He blew it up.”

“How do you know?” Krug demanded.

“I cast a spell that showed me.”

“I have to see this,” Alaria muttered, then launched herself into the air and flew straight up into the sky.

I turned to Stig. “That’s how you died – he destroyed everything down there.”

Stig’s lower lip trembled. “Boss…”

I thought he was going to lament the loss of life… all the people who had died…

But I forgot it was Stig.

“…where’m I gonna drink?!” he whimpered.

I gave him some side-eye for even saying that aloud, given what was happening.

“The Underneath extends a hundred feet underground,” Krug pointed out, like You must be mistaken.

“Yeah, and that fuckin’ warlock still turned the entire thing into a giant pit.”

Krug shook his head. “Do you know the kind of power that would take?!”

“He destroyed Abaddon – you saw it yourself. And the Kingdom of Frost.”

“But there was still wreckage. What you’re describing is entirely different.”

“Well, he still did it.”

Suddenly Alaria swooped down from the sky, wings flapping as her stiletto heels clacked on the marble street.

Krug looked at her questioningly.

“It’s gone,” she said in amazement. “It’s just one gigantic hole in the ground.”

Krug stared at her like he couldn’t believe any of what he’d just heard.

I turned back to Meera. “You saw the blast of light from the ship – then what?”

“I was at the window, watching it all happen – and then I felt hands reach over my shoulders and cover my eyes. I cried out and tried to turn around, but suddenly my entire body was in agony, and I blacked out. When I awoke, I was up on this… contraption, my hands and feet nailed to it,” she said, shuddering as she looked at the cross we’d rescued her from.

“What did you see when you woke up?” I asked.

She shuddered. “The dead.”

I looked around us. “Well, yeah, it’s a cemetery – ”

“NO,” she insisted. “Skeletons. They were looking up at me.”

“Revenants?” I asked, thinking of the leathery shopkeeper who had been at the warlock temple.

She shook her head. “No… blackened skeletons with no skin at all. They were wearing clothes, but those were blackened, too… rotting. Seafaring clothes. Like pirates.”

I glanced up at Krug.

“Don’t look at me,” he snapped. “I don’t know anything about it.”

I turned back to Meera. “But you didn’t see the warlock?”

“No,” she said, and her eyes defocused into a thousand-yard stare. “But I heard him.”

“Heard him?!”

“Behind me,” she whispered as she gazed into the distance. “Behind the post they’d nailed me to.”

“What did he say?”

She blinked once, then looked at me. “Say hello to Mr. Hertzfelder for me.”

Cold dread filled my stomach.

So he knew my last name, even though I rarely used it in OtherWorld.

The last videogame character who had called me ‘Mr. Hertzfelder’ was Varkus the goblin… and that hadn’t exactly been a positive relationship.

“What happened then?” I asked.

“All the skeletons turned into shadows and smoke… and were gone.”

Great.

Well, her description definitely fit with the ‘shadow’ part of the riddle, at least.

“What do we do?” Alaria asked.

“We keep after him.”

“Speak for yourself,” Krug said.

I looked over at the pirate. “Don’t you want to get the guy who murdered your crew?”

“Who you haven’t even resurrected yet,” Krug said accusingly.

“Because I can’t transport 50 people at a time through one of my portals,” I snapped.

“Well, we’re back in Exardus. Get to resurrecting.”

“Answer my question first,” I retorted. “You’re giving up?”

“It’s not giving up if it’s suicide.”

“I’ll bring you back,” I said, the same way you’d say I’ll pay you BACK to a buddy you asked for five dollars. “I can resurrect you a million times!”

“I don’t care to die a million deaths, thanks,” Krug sneered.

Motherfucker –

He was bailing on me.

But he was a captain now, and I knew what he really valued.

“So you’re gonna give up your ship? You’re just going to let Tarka have the Revenge?”

“Seeing as the warlock who helped her can destroy entire cities, yes, I’m giving it up – and so will the rest of my crew, once they know what happened. Bring them back.”

I shook my head in disgust. “You coward.”

Krug narrowed his glowing yellow eyes at me. “I’m not a COWARD.”

“No, you’re just going to run away from the guy who killed you, murdered your crew, and took your fucking ship.”

Krug was pissed. “He’s your problem, not mine.”

“I’d say when he killed you, murdered your crew, and took your fucking ship, he sort of became your problem.”

“Just resurrect my damn crew!” he roared.

I looked at him silently for a second… then snorted in amusement.

“What?” he demanded.

“I was just thinking about when we flew on the Revenge to the Northern Barrens, and we fought the ice goblins before their king let us travel through his territory to get to the frost elves. Remember when I thanked him, and he spat and said, ‘May you and Saykir kill each other’?”

“I remember,” Krug said sourly.

“And remember what you said to me?”

Krug didn’t answer.

“You said, ‘If anyone talked to me like that, I’d kill him.’ Remember?”

Krug just glowered at me silently.

“The goblin king insulted me, yeah… but this warlock killed you, your men, and took your ship, and you’re not going to do a goddamn thing.”

Krug looked like he wanted to skin me alive, he hated me so bad.

I didn’t care.

“So, what… everything you’ve ever said was just a bunch of bullshit?” I asked. “Were you always a scared-ass little bitch, or did it only happen after you died once?”

Krug’s hand moved to the handle of his sword.

I squared off against him and stared him straight in the eye. “Go ahead, motherfucker – do it. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re standing in a fucking graveyard, and I don’t MIND dying a million deaths if it means ripping your ass to shreds just once.”

Krug kept his hand on his sword…

…but he didn’t draw.

“Bring my men back,” he said in a monotone voice.

“Fine,” I said, equally without emotion. “I’ll do it. After the rest of us talk. Go stand over there in the street with the rest of the gutless cowards.”

Krug’s hand gripped the sword even tighter, and his jaw clenched –

…but he walked away, out of the graveyard and into the street.

I just watched him go in disgust.

Although I’d meant every word I’d said, I knew it wouldn’t take a million deaths to beat Krug. It might not even take dying once.

When I’d initially freed Krug from Tarka’s service, she’d had 50,000 hit points – so roughly Level 55 or so. I couldn’t remember.

As a demon enthralled to her, Krug would have been a Level 55, too. And once he was freed, he would have stayed a Level 55.

At the time, I was Level 10, but now I was at 40. I was massively more powerful, and thanks to leveling up and various Health-boosting trinkets, I had almost 30 times more hit points than I’d had back then.

In a one-on-one fight, I could probably take him… eventually. At most I would die once or twice. And if Meera, Alaria, and Stig joined the fight, we would grind him into dust in seconds.

Of course, as an NPC inside the game, Krug didn’t know any of that.

He probably thought I wasn’t much more than the dipshit he’d known when I’d first stepped foot on the Revenge.

So my little display of anger must have made some kind of impression on him.

“Ian,” Alaria whispered.

I looked over at her.

She jerked her head to the side, down at Meera.

Ohhhhhh shit.

I’d just had a dick-measuring contest and called Krug a coward to his face…

…in front of someone who had literally been crucified, and very nearly tortured to death.

If you’d looked up ‘insensitive’ in the OtherWorld dictionary, I’m pretty sure my picture would have been next to the definition.

I knelt down in front of Meera. “Look – that was just me and Krug being assholes to each other. Old grudges and all that. I don’t… expect…”

“Expect what?” Meera said darkly.

“Well, I mean… given what you just went through…”

She turned her head slightly and glared at me out of the corners of her eyes. “Why don’t you stop being a wimp and just spit it out?”

Whoa.

I almost laughed. “Okay… what do you want to do?”

Meera’s features filled with rage. “I want to find the son of a bitch… and I want to KILL him.”

I smiled.

That’s my girl.

I looked up at Eluun. “What about you?”

Her gaze was steady. “Like the pirate, I don’t seek revenge on the warlock… but unlike him, I want to make sure no one else will ever suffer at his hands.”

I nodded, then looked at Stig. “I won’t make you do anything on this one. If you don’t want to go, you can stay here with Krug.”

Stig sighed heavily. “…I’ll go.”

“Thanks. I’ll get you some booze on the way.”

He brightened considerably. “Thanks, boss!”

I looked up at Alaria, but before I could open my mouth –

“Don’t even ask,” she warned me, her arms crossed over her chest.

I grinned as I stood up. “I’m assuming that’s a ‘yes.’”

“Hell yes, that’s a ‘yes.’”

I kissed her, then we both reached down and lifted Meera to her feet.

“Are we leaving right now?” the angel asked.

“First I have to resurrect a bunch of pirates.”

14

I went over to Krug, who was sulking in the street outside the gates of the cemetery. Without a word, I set about bringing back his crew.

All it involved was a push of a button on my menu – simple, right?

I had a lot of people to resurrect, so I hit three icons at once.

Not the best choice, in retrospect.

The trio of demons came back screaming and flailing in panic.

I was so distracted that I didn’t see the real problem until it was too late.

Shee – the Revenge’s first mate, and who looked like Quasimodo and a lemon had a genderless love-child – opened her mouth wide, reared back, and let loose.

As a banshee (a demon version, not your typical ectoplasmic Irish lass), Shee’s attack was her sonic scream – and it was particularly devastating.

Especially at point-blank range.

A freight train horn blasted inside my ears as a massive force SLAMMED into me and hurled me backwards thirty feet.

By the time I stopped skidding across the street like a rock across a pond, a third of my hit points were gone.

I lifted my head from where I lay on my back and yelled, “GOD DAMN IT, SHEE, IT’S ME!”

My ears were still ringing, and I could barely even hear my own voice. I sounded more like Charlie Brown’s unseen teacher in those old cartoons: BWA WAH MUH MWEE, IH MWAH!

Shee’s eyes bugged out, and she stared at me in confusion. “…Ian?!”

Of course, I couldn’t actually hear her say ‘Ian’ because of the ringing in my ears – I just saw her lips form the word.

Thank goodness I had a healer right there and didn’t have to Soul Suck anybody to replenish my Health. Eluun bathed me in glowing light, and after 30 seconds I was back to normal.

By then the other two pirates had chilled out, too.

Krug was trying to explain the situation. “We died. He’s bringing us back.”

“Where are we?!” Shee asked.

“Exardus.”

“What happened to the bastard who killed us?”

“He and Tarka took the Revenge.”

Shee let out a string of curses, then looked up at me as I walked back. “Sorry about that, Ian.”

“Yeah, well, let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again when I bring your buddies back, okay?”

We came up with a plan to prevent more freak-outs: resurrect one demon at a time, let his shipmates calm him down, and tell him that we would explain everything once the entire crew was assembled.

It took a while, but probably less time than having to deal with a bunch of magical blasts to the face.

As I worked, the newly resurrected demons were overjoyed to see their old drinking buddy Stig. There were a lot of hoots and backslaps all around.

Once the entire crew of the Revenge was assembled, it looked like the cast of The Muppet Show had dressed up for a skit about pirates. Orange, red, blue, purple, yellow, and green faces stared up at me from under tri-corner hats and polka-dot bandanas. There were body shapes of all kinds – tall and skinny, short and squat, gigantic and buff. There were earrings, eye patches, peg legs, hook hands, and every other pirate cliché you can imagine.

Krug explained about Tarka, the warlock, and the Revenge, which drew outraged cries.

“Let’s keelhaul the bitch – and her bastard!” one of the pirates roared, which was followed by a chorus of approval.

I didn’t want to point out that if they’d gotten slaughtered that easily before, nobody was getting keelhauled unless it was them.

“We need a new ship!” another shouted.

More shouts of Aye!

Shee looked up at me. “Yer comin’ with us, right, Ian? It’ll be like old times!”

“No, I’m not.”

The pirates looked aghast.

“What?! Why not?!”

“Because I’m going after the warlock,” I replied.

“But so are we!” Shee protested.

“You might want to talk to your captain about that.”

All the pirates stared at Krug, who gave me an eat-shit-and-die look before he addressed the crew. “It’s pointless. We’ll just get slaughtered again.”

Everyone howled in protest.

“What?!”

“No!”

“But the Revenge – ”

“We can easily get another ship,” Krug said. “The shipyards of Exardus are full of them. But we’re not going off on a suicide mission.”

“Ian’s going after them!” Shee shouted.

“Ian’s a fool,” Krug growled.

“Well, fool or not, if Ian’s going after them, then I’m going with him!”

There was a loud cheer from the crowd.

For a second my heart soared –

And then it came crashing back down to earth.

“You swore an oath of loyalty to me when I became captain of the Revenge,” Krug snarled at his crew. “You swore by the Seven Hells.”

Ohhhh shit.

This was the first I was hearing of this particular promise. It must have happened after I was kicked off the Revenge.

But I’d seen other oaths by the Seven Hells. For instance, Alaria had made the crew swear to take us to six destinations in exchange for freeing them from Tarka’s control.

What it meant, though, was that the entire crew had made an unbreakable promise.

Which was smart on Krug’s part. It avoided any possibility of a mutiny.

Shee and the others went quiet. They knew they had no choice but to obey.

“You can release them from the oath,” Alaria said.

Every single eye turned to her.

For a second I held out hope –

“No,” Krug said coldly.

“But Cap’n – ” one of the pirates protested –

“NO!” Krug roared. “And that’s FINAL!”

The crew muttered angrily, but no one spoke up again.

“Now come with me and we’ll go get another ship,” Krug ordered.

Then he turned his back on me and Alaria and walked away.

The pirates all looked at me mournfully… and at Krug resentfully…

But in the end, they had to follow their captain.

Shee looked up at me with real sorrow in her eyes. “…I’m sorry, Ian…”

I gave her a half-smile. “It’s okay. I’m sure we’ll meet again someday.”

The yellow demon nodded, then waddled off with her crewmates.

Dozens of pirates stopped by and murmured their thanks for resurrecting them. Most apologized for not going with me. I told all of them that I understood and that I knew they had no choice.

Then they continued down the street towards the shipyards, off to steal a new ship and start a new life.

“Well, it seems we’re on our own,” Alaria said.

“Good,” Meera sneered. She hated demons, after all, so the prospect of spending time around 50 of them was probably the most unappealing thing she could come up with… short of being crucified again.

“Shall we depart, then?” Eluun asked.

“In a bit,” I said. “First I need to go see someone real quick.”

“About what?” Alaria asked.

I glanced back at the cross in the graveyard. I couldn’t see the plaque from here, but the words were burned into my brain.

“A riddle.”

15

The first thing I did after logging out of the game was to head for the writing department.

The door was locked. I could hear a single person speaking inside, and though it sounded pleasant, there was a very ‘corporate’ tone to the voice – like it was addressing a roomful of people, some of them very important.

Not the type of thing you wanted to interrupt for questions about riddles.

An intern I recognized passed by me in the hall.

“Russians?” I asked him as I pointed at the locked door.

“Da, comrade,” he said with a smile, pleased with his joke.

So I headed for the art department instead.

Once I got there, I had to walk around a bit. The place was gargantuan – dozens of rows of cubicles.

The art department dwarfed QC’s personnel by a factor of ten, at least. The only bigger department in the company was Programming.

Part of the reason it was so huge was all the different types of artists: concept artists, character artists, background artists, architectural modelers, texture artists, lighting specialists… and that was just the job titles. Then you had the wacky selection of personality types, from the speed freaks in day-glo clothes to the mopey hipsters in black. It was like the Island of Misfit Toys, except they all had computer terminals and were painting digital pictures.

As I was walking along, I noticed something that Luna had mentioned in the cafeteria: an awful lot of cubicles with full-color printouts of tits tacked to the walls.

They were obviously non-human. Green, blue, yellow, purple, red… but all of them were big and bountiful, with about a hundred differently shaped areolas and nipple sizes.

Cubicle after cubicle filled with boobs.

And then… the dongs.

A single cubicle was covered top to bottom with dick pics, also non-human: green, blue, yellow, purple, red. There was just as much customization to detail as the breasts, what with length, girth, ball size, vein-iness, pubic hair, and lack thereof… not to mention you had your full-on softies, your rock-hard erections, and everything in between.

Oh – and the proportions ranged from porn star to Incredible-Hulk-sized.

Jesus.

The only thing that kept me from walking on by was the very cute woman sitting in the cubicle. She wore another indie rock t-shirt, tight and bright yellow this time, and was listening to music on earbuds. As she moved her graphics pen over the digital touchscreen she was working on, her long pigtails swayed alluringly with every tilt and turn of her head.

I tapped her shoulder.

“What?” she said in an annoyed voice as she spun around in her office chair –

And then immediately brightened when she saw me, like someone had just shown up with cake and a bottle of tequila.

It almost made up for the wall of dick pics.

“Hey!” she said cheerfully as she pulled out her earbuds. “You came!”

“Only after the lady does first,” I said.

“Hahahaha!” she laughed – more of a giggle. A very hot giggle. Then she waggled a finger at me like naughty naughty. “Is HR around? Wouldn’t want them to hear that.”

“As long as I’m standing here, I don’t think I have to worry about HR saying a thing.”

“Huh?” she asked, then swiveled around and saw what I was looking at. “Ohhhhh. Yeah, as long as this is your backdrop, any offensive comment you make would sort of be like a fart in a hurricane, huh?”

I laughed. “I’d say that’s about right.”

“Well? What do you think?” she asked as she swiveled back around to look at me.

“I think it looks like a fantasy-themed gay porno site.”

She giggled again. “That’s great – I need to remember to tell HR that if they ever complain. I’ll tell them I’m celebrating LGBTQ diversity.”

“Well, you certainly have the whole rainbow flag color thing going.”

“Mm-hm.”

I raised one eyebrow. “It certainly is a… big collection.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not a threat to you.”

She’d said it in an odd, smoky voice, very unlike her normal way of speaking.

I narrowed my eyes. “That sounds familiar.”

She grinned. “Fight Club. Marla. When Tyler Durden comes over to keep her up all night.”

In the movie, Brad Pitt arrives at Helena Bonham Carter’s apartment to keep her awake after she takes too many sleeping pills. While he’s there, he sees a dildo, which he gives a little shake by bumping the dresser it’s sitting on – at which point Marla says the line Luna had just quoted: Don’t worry. It’s not a threat to you.

“You do know what Tyler and Marla end up doing to keep her up all night, right?” I asked.

She smiled. “Uh huh.”

And then she just let it hang there.

Jesus.

I was starting to get turned on.

Then she kind of ruined the sexual tension with a detour into nerdy minutia. “Of course, it’s Jack she fucks, really, not Tyler Durden. Jack is Edward Norton, and Tyler is – ”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the movie,” I said sardonically. “So are these Tyler Durden dicks, or – ”

“Don’t worry, I know the difference between reality and fantasy.” She paused. “Do you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means a guy who spends 72 hours at a time inside a fantasy world, with an extremely well-endowed fantasy woman, could be forgiven for having… unrealistic expectations.”

“I know the difference between fantasy and reality,” I said.

“Yeah? Is that why you hang out in fantasy so much more? Because reality’s disappointing?”

This time, it was me who stared her in the eyes. “Reality’s not disappointing. Quite the contrary.”

As she gazed back at me, she swallowed hard and blushed the tiniest bit.

Then she looked down at my crotch – just a glance – and blushed even harder as she looked back up at me.

I realized I had the start of an erection – more like a three-quarters chubby –

And she must have seen it through my jeans.

Which turned me on even more.

I’m pretty sure it turned her on, because suddenly I became aware of two hard little points pressing against her tight shirt. They hadn’t been visible just a few seconds before.

She wasn’t wearing a bra… and her nipples had just gotten erect.

I don’t know what got into me. I was almost on the verge of asking her if she wanted to go grab something to eat – like maybe back at my apartment –

When some dweeby dude walked by with a pile of papers and looked at us funny.

Like, What the fuck is going on here?

That’s when I came out of my little lust-induced bubble, and it hit me that a hundred people in the room could be watching me and Luna eye-fucking each other.

Not exactly the best thing to be happening in your place of work.

Luna realized it, too, because she cleared her throat. “Ahem. So – ”

“So – ” I said at the same time, running my hand awkwardly through my hair, “I, uh, got another clue, and I, uh, could use your help.”

She frowned. “Another John the Baptist line?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

I described how I’d found Meera and included all the details, including the plaque over her head and the riddle engraved on it.

Luna’s jaw basically dropped open. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Nope.”

“I mean, Jesus Christ – literally. You’ve got all the iconography – the cross, the stigmata, the spear through the side, the crown of thorns – even the riddle is like ‘INRI.’”

“I know about the other stuff, but ‘INRI’?”

“Pontius Pilate put a sign over Jesus’ head when he was crucified that read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ In Latin, it’s ‘Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum’ because – ”

“Because there is no ‘J’ in Latin,” I remembered.

“You took Latin?”

“No, but I saw Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade,” I said with a grin.

There was a scene where Harrison Ford has to navigate a trap where he must step on stones that spell out the name of God – Jehovah. He almost falls to his death because he chooses J and remembers belatedly that in Latin, ‘Jehovah’ begins with an ‘I.’

“Movie nerd,” Luna said with a little smile, which was obviously a joke, because she had quoted Fight Club just a few minutes before. Then she got serious and rolled her eyes. “By the way, worst of the three by far.”

It took me a second to realize she was talking about the Indiana Jones movies.

“I agree it’s the worst out of the first three, but there’s four,” I pointed out.

“I don’t even count Crystal Skull,” she said, and shuddered. “That was cinematic malpractice.”

“It was nice where he picked up the hat at the very end,” I said, referencing the last shot of the movie. “And it was cool to see Karen Allen again.”

“Did any of that make up for Shia LaBeouf swinging on vines with monkeys?” she asked acerbically. “Or the fridge in the nuclear explosion?”

“…no,” I admitted.

“Alright, then,” she said, like that settled it.

Which, I had to agree – it did.

“Did you take Latin?” I asked.

“Nope. Español.”

“So how’d you know about INRI?”

“Grandma, fire and brimstone churches – remember?”

“Yeah, but isn’t the whole INRI thing pretty Catholic?”

She shrugged. “I watched The Exorcist at a sleepover when I was twelve.”

“Ohhhh… that explains a lot,” I joked.

“Yeah, watch out, I might just rotate my head 360 degrees and throw up split pea soup on you.”

“Gotta be honest, not into that.”

“Total deal breaker, then. Gotta have my split pea soup foreplay,” she joked, then turned serious and shook her head. “Dude, you thought the protestors were mad about a little sucky fucky? That’s nothing compared to what they’re gonna do once they find out we’ve got a villain blaspheming the crucifixion.”

“Ohhhh, it’s going down in the QC report. Trust me, they’ll take it out way before it ever makes it into the mainstream.”

“The question is, who the fuck would even put that in to begin with? Not that I don’t appreciate it from an iconoclastic point of view, but we work for a fuckin’ Fortune 500 company. Any idiot should know it would have less than a 1% chance of making it in, and that it’s his ass if it got found in QC. Which it did.”

I squinted as I thought back to Chad. “The writers’ department had a guy who was booted back to intern after sneaking in rape and Hitler jokes.”

She curled up a lip in disgust. “Charming.”

“Yeah, but he’s not in a position anymore to sneak in something like this. Plus, I don’t think he’d do it, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“All he cared about was trolling the libs – and you’re not gonna do that with sacrilegious Jesus parodies.”

She tilted her head to the side in acknowledgement. “True. So who did it?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“So why don’t you go ask?”

“I’ve tried, but they’re in a meeting with the Russians.”

“Oooooh, the Russians,” she said in falsely reverent tones. “Everyone bow down to the Almighty Dollar. Or ruble, or bitcoin, or whatever the fuck they’re buying us out with.”

“You really think they’re going to do it?”

“Who the fuck knows,” she said dismissively. “I’m way more interested in your riddle than I am in that.”

“Somebody in the art department would’ve had to have made the cross, right?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve never seen a cross in the game before – not a Christian cross. Celtic, yeah, and some other variations, but not a straight-up cross. So somebody would have had to have designed it, right?”

“That’s true…” she said with a touch of admiration in her voice. “I’ll ask around. Although, realistically, by the time I could find out, you should be able to talk to the writing department about it.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“You’re saying I’m gonna get lucky?” she asked with a naughty smirk. “When, tonight?”

I grinned, but I wasn’t ready to return to the eye-fucking – not out here in the open, anyway. “Who knows. But in the meantime, I could use some help with the riddle.”

She looked into the air like she was pondering one of life’s great mysteries. “If only there were a source of information that was widely distributed and free to use…”

“Then I wouldn’t have gotten to see you, now would I?”

She gave me a sly little smile as she turned to her computer and brought up Google. “What was the clue again, O Clueless One?”

“Not a daughter of chaos, but a son of darkness… not goddess of night, but god of nothing.”

“‘Goddess of night’ – that could be Diana. Or Selene.”

“Moon goddesses, right?”

“Yup.”

“See? I knew it was a good idea to come to somebody with ‘moon’ as their name.”

“Ha ha,” she said without laughing as she typed in ‘daughter of chaos’ and hit ‘Enter.’

The first result in the search engine was ‘Daughter of Chaos / Dark Souls Wiki,’ which said ‘Quelana, or Izalith's Daughter, is an enemy in Dark Souls.’

Dark Souls was an old-school, non-virtual RPG videogame.

Luna sighed. “Unless the idiot also thought it wise to risk a lawsuit by using our competitors’ characters, I doubt this is what the clue meant.”

“Probably not,” I agreed.

She typed in ‘son of darkness,’ which turned up a crappy old vampire B-movie.

“Son of Darkness: To Die For II,” Luna said in a deadpan voice. “I never knew Nicole Kidman did a sequel.”

She meant To Die For by Gus Van Sant, the director of Good Will Hunting and Drugstore Cowboy.

I knew the reference she was making, so I just kept quiet. Nothing worse than saying I got your joke, I got your joke – see, I’m smart too!

Although Chris Evans did it really well in the first Avengers when Captain America hastily informs everyone that he gets the 1939 Wizard of Oz ‘flying monkeys’ joke.

Luna typed in ‘goddess of night’ next –

Which hit pay dirt in the form of a Wikipedia entry.

“Oh ho,” she said. “Nyx, the Greek goddess/personification of Night. And look, she’s the daughter of the Greek god Chaos, too.”

“And ‘nix’ with an ‘i’ means ‘nothing’!” I said excitedly.

“You think that’s his name? Nix?”

“I’d put money on it.”

“What about the ‘son of darkness’ part?”

“Every single person who’s encountered him says they haven’t actually seen him – that he strikes from the shadows. And one of the other clues said he was ‘forged in shadow.’”

“It fits,” she admitted. “But… so what?”

“What do you mean, ‘so what’?”

“So you’ve got his name. What does that get you?”

“Maybe if I say ‘Xin,’ he goes back to the 5th dimension,” I joked.

It was a callback to her Mister Mxyzptlk joke from yesterday. If Superman was able to trick him into saying his name backwards – ‘Kilp-ill-skim’ – then Mxyzptlk went back to the 5th dimension.

“Or he starts singing ‘Age of Aquarius,’” Luna deadpanned.

I frowned for a second – then finally made the connection.

The 5th Dimension was also a musical group from the 60s that sang – you guessed it – ‘Age of Aquarius.’

“Actually, wasn’t it ‘Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In’?” I asked, using the actual name of the song and totally being a smartass.

“I could have said ‘maybe he’ll start singing medleys from Hair,’ but I didn’t figure you for a Broadway musical kind of guy.”

I didn’t know for sure, but I was guessing ‘Aquarius’ and ‘Let The Sunshine In’ were from the musical Hair.

I was about to respond, but she kept going. “Or would you have preferred ‘Up, Up And Away In My Beautiful Balloon’? Or ‘Marry Me Bill’? Or – ”

“Alright, alright, you win,” I grumbled. “Music nerd.”

“Damn straight. But you still haven’t answered the question – what does knowing his name actually get you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know – but I’m about to go find out. Thanks.”

“Come back any time. Give me a call beforehand and I’ll even take down the orc dongs for you.”

I laughed. “That would make it a lot more pleasant.”

She wrote something down on a Post-It note and handed it over.

On it was her extension –

But also her cell phone number.

“Call any time,” she said.

I looked at her… and she looked back at me.

More sexual tension.

“Alright,” I said, my heart beating a little faster. “See you soon.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I certainly hope so.”

I looked back as I walked out of the art department – and caught her looking at me before she flashed a bashful smile and returned to her computer.

16

I returned to the street to find the pirates gone and Alaria, Stig, Meera, and Eluun just standing there.

No one else acted like it was the least bit odd to hang out in a graveyard with a dude who stands motionless in one place for an hour – except Alaria.

“Did you go back to your world to find the answer?” she asked.

“What?” Eluun asked, confused.

“What world?” Meera asked.

Stig just yawned.

It made sense. The others were NPCs with relatively high levels of artificial intelligence… but Alaria was on another level entirely. Desmond, her programmer – the one who looked like Gilfoyle from Silicon Valley – had told me multiple times that Alaria was pretty much right at the threshold of being sentient.

“Religious rites,” I said to Eluun and Meera, who both went Ah and nodded like they completely understood. Then I turned to Alaria. “Did you have a master named Nix?”

She frowned. “Nix? No…”

Shit…

So Luna and I hadn’t solved the riddle.

Damn this was frustrating.

“Alright, we have to figure out where to go next,” I said. “After we left Exardus the first time, Krug dropped us off in Asterwaite, so that’s one option – but I think the more logical place would be Orlo’s lair.”

“Why more logical?”

“Our guy’s left clues at places that were way more important to us – Fernburg, Abaddon, the Northern Barrens, Exardus – and skipped places like Kvartos. Or at least I think he has, since the numbers on the riddles were 1, 2, 3, and 4.”

“Should we skip ahead, though, and wait for him?” Alaria suggested. “Maybe go to – where would he go next?”

“Well,” I said, thinking, “obviously Vos. We found Deek there, remember?”

“But there were things in-between,” she pointed out.

“Yeah… the volcano… and I guess the Plains of Mor-El…”

The volcano was where we’d defeated Orlo, Daidonia the death cult elf, and Shyvock the bounty hunter.

The Plains of Mor-El was where we’d fought a gigantic Orcish army.

“I vote for skipping ahead and waiting for him,” Meera said, a savage glint in her eye.

“Aren’t you trying to gather more clues, though?” Eluun asked. “What happens if you skip one?”

“That’s a good point,” I said. “I don’t know what the significance of the clues are – they might help us defeat him, and if we skip one, we could be screwed. So I guess we ought to go to Orlo’s lair first.”

Everyone agreed, so I cast my next portal – a bit reluctantly, I must say. After this one, I only had one left for the entire day. I’d already used my first to get from the Northern Barrens to Exardus.

The counter on the ring icon showed 1.5 as we crossed through to Abaddon, then dropped to 1 as we stepped through the fiery ring onto the grassy plains outside Orlo’s lair.

I’d taken us to the giant bay doors we’d exited as we set off after Orlo.

I’d expected the doors to be closed, and for us to have to knock –

But they were open.

And dead bodies were strewn all over the hangar floor.

They were Orlo’s demons, the ones whose souls had been transmigrated into giant metal battle golems.

There was order to how they were arranged – all in a line, face-down on the floor like they had slumped there after death.

And they all had the right side of their heads burnt and caved in, like if somebody had taken a blowtorch to a Jack O’ Lantern.

It had been a mass execution.

Nix – or whatever the fuck his name was – had lined them all up and killed them one by one.

They must have known what was coming. The right sides of their heads were burned, but not the left, so he hadn’t just shot one huge beam through all their skulls – he’d gone down the row and killed them one by one.

Like something out of the worst stories of gangland atrocities.

I walked down the row, looking for one particular demon until I found him.

Short, squat, and purple. No neck… bullet-shaped head.

Grung.

His soul had been inside the war golem who had helped us go after Orlo.

And now he was dead.

“Shit,” I muttered in despair.

Except… something was wrong.

I had freed all of the demons here, just like I’d freed Alaria and the pirates.

I’d gotten them down below 3% hit points, then physically removed their collars.

They should have gone into my submenu of demons I could resurrect!

I scrolled through my list, and sure enough, I found them –

But every single icon had been completely greyed out.

I frowned and hit one.

Nothing happened.

With dawning horror, another memory came back to me.

It was back when we had encountered Saykir for the first time. The frost elf had summoned the Ung’aroth – the black, Venom-like tentacles of the Old Gods – right in the midst of some of Krug’s pirates.

An orange pirate had been swallowed up by the black ooze and disappeared. When I’d tried to resurrect him, I couldn’t – his icon had been greyed out, exactly like what I was seeing now.

“Why aren’t you bringing them back?” Alaria asked.

“I can’t.”

“But – you freed them, just like you did Krug and his crew!” she protested. “They should be bound to you!”

“They are, but for some reason I can’t resurrect them. Remember when Saykir used the Ung’aroth the first time we fought him, and it grabbed one of the pirates? I couldn’t resurrect him, either. I think our bad guy must have done something similar.”

She stared in horror at the bodies. “You mean… they’re gone forever?!”

“I’m afraid so…”

I watched as she leaned over and gently touched Grung’s head. A single tear slid down her cheek and fell on his purple skin, and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

I had to turn away. It was too sad to watch.

But something kept nagging at me.

If Nix had control over the Ung’aroth, why execute the demons one by one? Why not just toss them into a pit of black goo all at once?

Either he didn’t have control over the Ung’aroth, and this was something different…

…or he wanted to frighten us.

If he’d thrown the demons into a pit of black goo, their bodies would have disappeared… and he wanted me to find their bodies.

Either that or he’s just a fucking sadist.

I imagined poor Grung held in place by the black skeletons Meera had mentioned, waiting for the end as Nix went down the line, killing Grung’s friends, one by one…

I shuddered.

But wait – if Nix could permanently destroy my ability to resurrect someone, why hadn’t he killed Meera the same way?

Had the Collar of Gorbolik somehow stopped him?

Then I thought of something else.

If the bodies hadn’t been here, I might have assumed that the demons had just left Orlo’s compound at some point and struck out on their own.

Every time there had been a riddle, there had been corpses nearby.

He’d wanted to make sure we got the message.

I looked around the hangar and found it: words that had been melted into one of the metal walls.

I couldn’t see it well because of the darkness, so I called out, “Alaria, can you come over here and give me some light?”

She walked over and lit up a fireball that illuminated the hangar wall – and the riddle.

5

BACKWARDS, FORWARDS

ALL THE SAME

KNOWN BY OTHERS

NOT BY NAME

“Message received, you son of a bitch,” I muttered.

17

The last time we’d been at Orlo’s lair, the path we’d followed had been pretty slow –mostly because Grung had been a war golem. At 20 feet tall, his gigantic stride had helped counterbalance his lumbering gait, but overall it had been a time-consuming trek.

But now I had a flying mount. What had originally taken us hours of travel only took a quarter of the time.

I took off into the sky with Eluun and Stig on my magic carpet. Alaria and Meera flew on either side of us, exactly like when we’d patrolled back in Exardus.

We passed over a canyon, then the temple and swamps where we’d first encountered Shyvock. I zoomed down to take a look but saw nothing in the way of a riddle.

About an hour later we hit the Plains of Mor-El.

There was definitely something there.

The Orcs we had defeated had long since been picked clean by vultures, leaving behind ten thousand sun-bleached skeletons –

Which were now arranged in giant letters visible from 200 feet up in the air, like a castaway on a desert island spelling out HELP in driftwood.

Oddly, there was no armor on the skeletons. Guess it had been all looted.

6

NO REWARD

FOR KNOWING MINE

REWARD OR LOSS

WILL COME IN TIME

‘No reward for knowing mine’ – I was guessing that meant Nix’s name, or whatever the fuck he called himself.

‘Reward or loss will come in time’ –

What reward?

What loss?

And for what? Guessing correctly?

It was a scrap of information, and nothing truly helpful. The only important thing was that my theory so far was being proved correct: significant spots had riddles.

Which meant there was probably another one at the volcano.

Turned out I was right.

We flew for another two hours over grassy plains, which turned into mountains, which dipped down into the gigantic black crater where Daidonia and her death cult had prepared for the end of the world. Luckily they were wrong and Daidonia was full of shit.

In the center of the crater was a massive volcano. Even 200 feet above the ground, the heat from below was oppressive.

I was wondering how Nix was going to leave the next riddle.

Was he going to somehow magically fetch all the dead elves’ bodies out of the lava, assuming anything was left? And would he then arrange the charred skeletons like blackened matchsticks in 20-foot-tall letters, the same way he’d arranged the orcs?

I got the general idea right, but the materials wrong.

There was a reason there hadn’t been any Orcish armor back on the plains. It had all been brought here to the volcano.

The armor had been arranged on the side of the volcano.

7

ANSWER RIGHT

AND I’LL BE NICE

ANSWER WRONG

AND PAY THE PRICE

What the actual fuck?

The riddles had just enough information to give you the sense that you’d learned something, but not enough to actually help.

Apparently there would be a penalty if I answered the riddle wrong.

Great. Whoop-de-doo.

I was looking forward to finally meeting this asshole so I could get some real answers out of him.

Although part of me was wary. He was a psycho who liked slaughtering, crucifying, arranging skeletons, and leaving riddles.

This might be a bad, bad hombre I was about to encounter.

As we sped over the crater and climbed up over the next mountain range, Alaria flew closer to the carpet. “Any idea what the hell these riddles mean?”

“Not really. They bringing up any memories?”

She shook her head. “No. What should we do now? Fly to Vos or use a portal?”

When we’d made the trip last time, Orlo’s succubus Soraiya had flown me over the terrain. Even with her help, it had still taken over a day of travel and an overnight stay in an inn to reach Vos.

The timer said my next three portal spells would refresh in just under 17 hours.

But it would take 16 or more hours of travel on the magic carpet.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Plus, if we left now, we might just get to Vos ahead of Nix.

“A portal for sure,” I replied.

I lowered the carpet down to a flat area on the mountaintops. Eluun, Stig, and I stepped off onto the ground, and the carpet magically dissolved into smoke. Meera and Alaria alighted just a few feet away, their wings folding up on their backs.

“Shouldn’t we practice flying into one of these portals at some point?” Alaria asked. “Just in case we need to do it in an emergency?”

Everything we’d seen today had probably triggered memories of when she’d been trapped inside a robotic body. She’d had built-in thrusters instead of wings, but had initially resisted learning how to use them because she hadn’t wanted to get used to her metal form. That refusal to learn about her new powers had led to big complications when Shyvock started stalking us.

“That’s a great idea,” I conceded, “but since we’re kind of under the gun, I need to make sure we all get to Vos together. We’ll try it someday when we’re not under so much pressure.”

She nodded, and I cast my last portal of the day. The counter dropped down to 0.5 as we stepped through the fiery ring.

As the others waited amongst the wreckage of Abaddon, I looked at the map to set our next destination.

Vos had been consumed by a rogue dungeon core; last time I’d seen it, the city was little more than a gigantic pit in the ground. If I teleported into the middle of it, we might plummet a thousand feet and fall splat! into a nightmarish dungeon. No thank you. Instead, I chose a point about five miles out from the city, along the path we’d followed when Soraiya had flown me into Vos.

Then I pushed the button. The portal counter dropped to zero, a fiery ring appeared, and we stepped through it into a thickly wooded forest.

Almost 17 hours to go before my spells were replenished.

“Go up to the top of the trees,” I ordered, “but no farther. I don’t want anybody seeing us if we fly too high.”

I summoned the magic carpet again. Stig, Eluun, and I climbed on, and we zoomed up to the top of the forest canopy and stopped. Meera and Alaria flew up beside us and flapped their wings to stay in place.

I immediately saw something a mile away that filled me with dread.

Once the forest stopped, there was a grassy plain – but we couldn’t see the vast pit that Vos had become, because the entire area was ringed with dozens of airships. Half of them were hovering in the air; the other half were on the ground, supported by wooden scaffolding keeping them upright.

Strangely enough, none of the ships were moving – and it didn’t look like they were in attack formation, either. If anything, they looked like they were docked.

There was also a bizarre assortment. Half the ships, the ones hovering motionless in the air, had blackened hulls, some of which had been partly stove in. Their black sails were still unfurled, tattered and filled with holes. Even though they were aloft, they looked like they might have been dredged up from the bottom of the sea. The sky was overcast with dark storm clouds, and in the dim light, the black ships seemed to glow with a faint phosphorescence.

The other half of the fleet were sitting on the ground in dry dock. They had beautiful brown hulls that were completely intact. The masts stood tall and straight, and the sails had been rolled up on the yardarms. They weren’t going anywhere, and looked like they had been there awhile.

We couldn’t see what was going on because of the angle and the armada blocking our view, but there were distant sounds of warfare – cannons firing, people yelling, explosions. It all sounded muted and not quite real.

Far beyond the ships, massive plumes of smoke drifted up into the air, much like the smoldering fires in Exardus.

“Those black ships are the ones I saw over Exardus,” Meera whispered fearfully.

“I recognize them, too,” Eluun agreed, her voice quavering.

Made sense. If you were an evil warlock, of course your ships were going to look like the bad guy’s fleet in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

“What about the brown ones?” I asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Wait – that’s the Revenge!” Alaria cried out and pointed.

Sure enough, one of the floating ships looked damn familiar. I hadn’t taken notice of it because its hull was black – but it was painted black, unlike the others, which seemed as though they’d been rotting at the bottom of a swamp for a hundred years.

The ‘one of these things is not like the other’ ship had three oaken masts with eight black sails – all of them in excellent repair, unlike the other floating airships. It flew the Jolly Roger from the top of its main mast, except the skull was that of some demonic creature with fangs instead of regular teeth. Oddly enough, though, it was surrounded by the same spectral glow that covered the rest of the black fleet.

“Hold on,” I said, “I’m going to take a look with one of my spells.”

I cast All-Seeing Eye and sent it soaring far up above us. As soon as I did, my stomach turned, because now I could see the pit and the rogue dungeon inside it.

It was straight out of a nightmare.

There were organic mounds that looked like somebody had disemboweled a couple dozen giants, thrown the guts in, and painted everything black. Ridges and grooves that looked like the folds of a large intestine, the curve of a kidney, the bulge of a liver.

Out of that mess, jagged spires rose into the air at various angles. You ever seen National Geographic pictures of giant anthills in Africa? They can loom 30 feet tall, and are skinny towers rather than gently sloping mounds. That’s what these spires looked like – except instead of being made out of dirt, they looked like somebody had created them out of black glass. The overall effect was that someone had plucked the quills out of a mountain-sized porcupine and jabbed them haphazardly into the pile of guts.

Even more disturbing was what was crawling atop all that mess. Black creatures that looked like oversized insects scuttled amongst the organic mounds, battling each other with oversized claws and scorpion-like tails.

And then there were the tentacles.

They emerged from the organic mounds like eels from a sandy seafloor. Forty feet long, they coiled through the air, obscenely writhing, seeking out something to grasp. Occasionally they would latch onto one of the insect creatures and lift it into the air. The monster would screech and snap with its claws. Sometimes it won and cut the tentacle in half. Black ichor would spew everywhere, and the monster would drop back onto the ground and scurry away. But other times the tentacle won and crushed the creature’s carapace, sending slimy innards exploding out all over the place.

The smoke I’d seen coiling up into the air came from flames that burned on the surface of the organic mounds. The fires had apparently been started by the thousand men ringing the pit, who fired cannons into the dungeon’s surface, blasted it with magical spells, and beat back the tentacles and insectoid monsters that occasionally tried to crawl up from the edge of the abyss.

Mostly the men prevailed as they fought off the chaos boiling up from the pit… but sometimes the monsters did. A tentacle might snare a human and drag him away screaming… or a giant insect might use its giant pincers to cut off another man’s leg in a gout of blood.

Warriors, paladins, mages, hunters – there were multitudes of them, and every single one wore black armor or robes.

The Dungeon Guild.

They were a self-appointed group who went around destroying chaotic dungeons – sometimes newly born ones that had barely begun their lives. Deek the dungeon core had shown me images of Dungeon Guild members killing baby crystals that never would have harmed a human if they’d just been left alone. But adventurers did love looting dungeons for glory and gold, and so the humans would eventually come.

I’d tangled with the Guild back when I’d been in Vos. Their Grand Inquisitor Quint had nearly killed me until Deek stepped in and rescued my ass. Quint had pursued both of us and unknowingly led his men on a suicide mission straight into the rogue dungeon, which took over Deek’s territory and then destroyed all of Vos. Luckily, I was able to repay Deek by getting him to safety.

The Guild’s whole mission was to wipe out rogue dungeons, and they certainly weren’t going to abide having their Grand Inquisitor slaughtered, so it made sense that they would send even more men to Vos. But it had been months since the city had fallen. Despite throwing considerable resources at the situation, it looked like the Guild was in stalemate at best.

I was assuming the dry-docked, normal-looking ships were the Dungeon Guild’s, and that the black fleet belonged to Nix. But did that mean the black ships were in league with the Dungeon Guild? The ‘Black Robes’ certainly didn’t seem concerned about the potentially hostile fleet’s presence.

The All-Seeing Eye spell would run out after a couple of minutes, so I sent it zooming over the ships – both the brown-hulled ones in dry dock and the spectral black ones floating far about the ground.

I didn’t see a single crew member on any of them.

It made sense for the Dungeon Guild – everyone was busy fighting the rogue dungeon.

But where the fuck were Nix’s men?

I sent the Eye over the Revenge, too, and scoped it out.

No sign of Tarka or anyone else.

After the spell ended, I informed the others about what I’d seen. I ended with, “I want to get up on the Revenge to see if we can find some clues as to what’s going on, but let’s walk there to be safe. Flying might attract unwanted attention.”

We lowered back down to the forest floor, then walked to the edge of the forest.

“Hold on a second,” I told the others before we left the cover of the trees.

I had no idea where the nearest graveyard was; it could have been miles away. Which meant if I died in battle, I would come back to life God knows where.

Better to have a little more control over where I resurrected, so I cast my Gravesite spell.

A window popped up:

Establishing a gravesite here will eradicate the previous gravesite. Accept/Cancel

I hit ‘Accept,’ and tendrils of black energy flowed from my hands to the ground and formed a latticework. Within seconds there was a flash of light, and a tombstone stood there amongst the pines.

I was about to say Let’s go when I heard a Ping! that alerted me I’d received an in-game message.

“Give me another minute,” I said, then walked away from the others and opened up my mail service.

There was a message from Luna. A grin spread over my face as I read it.

Hey Ian,

I didn’t know when I might see you again, and I was curious if you’d found any new riddles.

Let me know if you have. I could research them while you’re in the game – I could be your ‘girl in chair.’

(SPIDERMAN HOMECOMING joke. Please tell me you get it so I don’t feel like a dork, because I’m NOT going to explain it.)

I laughed. I did get it. In the MCU films, it was what Peter Parker’s friend Ned had said he could be: the dude on a headset, surrounded by computer screens, helping the hero from afar.

Anyway, send anything you’ve got.

Sorry if I interrupted you boning.

(No I’m not.)

Luna

I laughed again and dashed off a quick message.

Hey Luna,

Yes, I got the reference, and you can be my ‘girl in chair’ any day.

I thought about putting something in really cheeky, like ‘you can be my girl on other pieces of furniture, too,’ but decided that might be too much. Especially if HR got ahold of it.

Then I listed the various riddles I’d found at Orlo’s lair, the Plains of Mor-El, and the volcano.

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it. I’ll stop by your desk as soon as I log out…

…or I’ll call you.

Talk to you soon.

(And no, you didn’t interrupt me boning. You know I’m telling the truth because I didn’t take the Fifth.)

Then I hit ‘Send’ and walked back over to the group. “Okay, we can go now.”

Alaria was staring at me quizzically. “You’re happy.”

“Um… I guess so, yeah,” I replied.

I felt a little guilty, to tell the truth. Which was crazy, I know.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said defensively.

Alaria frowned. “You stepped away into the woods and laughed – because of nothing?”

“Oh,” I said, realizing she’d meant what I’d just done in the last 60 seconds. “It was, um, someone from my world contacting me. A girl who’s helping me out with the riddles.”

Alaria raised one eyebrow. “A girl?”

She sounded suspicious and disapproving.

My stomach twisted with guilt. “Someone who works with me, yeah.”

“You work with little girls?”

The way she said it was disturbing, like she was implying something.

“No! She’s a woman! Like, 23 or 24!”

“Oh,” Alaria said, and any trace of suspicion vanished. “Well, that’s fine. What’s her name?”

“Luna.”

“Oh – you mentioned her before!” Alaria said happily. “You said it was a slip of the tongue!”

Oh shit… I had. Back in the Northern Barrens, in the cave with Eluun.

“Yeah, well, I talked to her when I went away that one time.”

“Oh,” Alaria said, like that settled the matter.

I stood there looking at her, expecting more questions.

None came.

“Okay… let’s go,” I said, and our entire group walked out of the woods and into the grassy field.

We weren’t 50 feet along when Alaria asked, “So, have you slept with her yet?”

If I’d been drinking a glass of water, I would have done a spit take.

“What?! No!”

“Why not? Is she a lesbian?”

“No!”

“How can you be sure?”

I didn’t want to say, Because she keeps hitting on me, so I searched for another reason.

Luckily, one presented itself right away.

“Well, she decorates her work area with pictures of penises.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Alaria cooed. “My kind of woman.”

“Ha ha,” I said, not laughing at all.

“And you’re alright with that?”

“What do you mean? It’s her desk.”

“Yes, but we know how sensitive you are about other men potentially sleeping with your sexual partners,” Alaria said matter-of-factly. “So if she’s sleeping with all these other men – ”

“She’s not sleeping with them.”

“How does she have pictures of their penises, then?”

How do you explain screenshots to a videogame character in a fantasy world?

“Just trust me, she’s not sleeping with them.”

“How do you know?” she persisted.

Because they’re video game characters! I wanted to say – but that wouldn’t mean anything to Alaria.

Then I realized that Alaria was a videogame character, and I was sleeping with her…

So there was no reason that Luna couldn’t be fucking some of those schlongs I’d seen.

I frowned.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

I mean, Luna was pretty chill about the fact that I was sleeping with a woman with enormous breasts and a perfect body.

I should be fine with the fact that she might be a size queen in the virtual world… right?

Don’t worry, she’d said. I know the difference between reality and fantasy. Do you?

That was a good question.

I was beginning to wonder if I did or not.

“What are thinking about?” Alaria said.

“What?” I asked, coming out of my daze.

“Half a dozen different emotions played across your face,” Alaria said. “You’re really interested in this woman, aren’t you?”

“What?! I – ”

I really didn’t want to be discussing this right now.

Not right before we were about to do something really dangerous, like potentially face off against a warlock who had been destroying cities and slaughtering innocents.

Actually, to be honest, I didn’t want have this discussion, ever.

Which meant I probably should.

I sighed. “…yeah… I kind of am. Interested in her.”

Alaria nodded. “Good.”

I looked at her in shock. “What?!”

“I said ‘good.’”

“Yeah, I know, but – ”

“But what?”

“Aren’t you upset?”

Alaria reacted like I’d just said something outrageously strange. “Upset?! Why would I be upset?!”

“I mean… you don’t want me sleeping with other women, do you?”

“You sleep with other women all the time.”

“I mean, when I’m not with you.”

“You sleep with other women when you’re not with me.”

I looked at her in surprise. “What? When?”

Alaria started counting on her fingers. “Well, Meera, for one.”

“Yes,” Meera agreed happily.

I hadn’t realized that she and Eluun were listening intently.

“We sleep with each other – you, me, and her!” I said to Alaria.

“Not when you first met her.”

“We were on a break!” I shouted, channeling my inner Ross.

“Then there was the Duchess of Vos,” Alaria said.

“You were a dungeon crystal at the time!”

“You were still sleeping with her without me. And there were those nuns from the Church of Eternity.”

She was talking about the women that Urik, the Peter Dinklage lookalike scheming to take over Vos, had bribed me with in order to help him.

“Yeah, but – ”

“And there were those three frost elves I found you fucking when Stig and I came to rescue you.”

“Ugh,” Stig moaned.

“I was tied up!” I protested.

“You were?” Meera exclaimed, suddenly very interested.

Eluun piped up helpfully. “And when you stayed with us in the North after you defeated Saykir, there were plenty of frost elves you fucked when Alaria wasn’t with you.”

I sighed. “Okay, OKAY, yes, I guess I have slept with other women.”

“So why is this one any different?” Alaria asked.

How do you tell your videogame girlfriend that it’s different because The other chick isn’t made out of zeroes and ones?

“…I don’t know…” I grumbled.

Alaria looked at me askance. “You don’t… love her, do you?”

“What?! No! I haven’t even asked her out yet!”

“Asked her out of what? Her clothes?”

“NO! On a date!”

“Is that an expression? ‘Asked out’?”

“Ugh, expressions,” Stig groaned.

“Yes, it’s an expression!”

“Oh. Well, you should definitely ask her out, then. And out of her clothes, too.” Alaria smirked, then hip-checked me. “As long as you tell me all of the details afterwards.”

“Me too!” Meera chirped.

“I wouldn’t mind knowing, as well,” Eluun said.

“Alright, alright,” I grumbled – although I was relieved.

But one other thing still bothered me.

“Um…” I started, then stopped.

“Yes?” Alaria asked.

“Say, purely hypothetically, that one day I met a woman from my world… and I did fall in love with her. I’m not in love with Luna at all,” I said hurriedly, “but… say it happened one day. How would you feel about that?”

“I’d be happy for you!”

“…really?!”

“Why wouldn’t I be happy for you? I know you can’t spend all your time in this world, so why wouldn’t I want you to have someone to love when you’re not here?”

“Yeah, but – you wouldn’t be jealous?”

“Mmm, maybe a little… but that could be hot,” Alaria said, and ran her tongue sexily over the edge of her top teeth. “I’d have to fuck you even more to make sure you stayed mine.”

Well, hell – with an incentive like that, it might be a good idea to go fall in love back home.

Suddenly Alaria frowned and stopped walking. “Wait – you wouldn’t stop coming back here to me, would you?”

“What?! HELL no.”

“Oh, good,” she said, relieved. Then she got a mischievous look in her eye. “Soooo… if you can fall in love with someone else… that means I can, too, right?”

I knew where she was going with this.

And I totally knew she was yanking my chain.

So I played along… sort of.

“Sure,” I said nonchalantly. “I know you love Meera.”

“Awwwwww,” Meera said sappily.

Alaria laughed. She knew what I was doing, too – and so she made her next move.

“It’s true, I do love Meera… but what if I loved someone else?”

I shrugged. “I’m okay with you loving Eluun, too.”

Alaria grinned. “Good, because I do love Eluun – ”

“I love you, as well,” Eluun replied with a big smile.

“Thank you, sexy,” Alaria cooed, then turned back to me. “But what if I loved a male?”

“That’s okay,” I said magnanimously. “You can love Stig.”

“EW!” Stig shouted.

“Shhhh,” I shushed him. We were approaching the ships, after all.

“I like Stiggie, but I’m never going to love him,” Alaria said, amused. “Not that way.”

“GOOD,” the imp grumped.

“No – I meant if I fell in love with a man. A human.”

I arched one eyebrow. “Why, you got your eye on somebody?”

“‘Somebody’? More like twenty or thirty of them, actually – ”

“Oh yeah?! I got your twenty or thirty right here!” I said, half laughing, half pissed, as I smacked her ass with my open palm.

She giggled, then turned around and draped her arms over my shoulders. “You know I’m only joking, right?”

“Uh huh,” I said with squinted eyes like I didn’t believe her, even though I did.

She cocked her head to the side, smiled lovingly, and gazed into my eyes. “Ian, you were the first man I’ve ever loved. What am I saying? You’re the ONLY man I’ve ever loved, or ever will love. And that’s the truth.”

I put my arms around her waist and pulled her to me. “You know I’m totally, completely in love with you, right? And that will never, ever change.”

She smiled and put her forehead against mine. “I know.”

Then we kissed, accompanied by a chorus of Awwwwws from Eluun and Meera, and a Blechh from Stig.

Afterwards I held Alaria’s hand as we continued on our way.

She was a hell of a girlfriend, and I was lucky to have her, no matter what world I was in.

Five minutes later, we finally reached the ships.

The black ones loomed above us, hovering still in the air. It was like we were on the bottom of an invisible ocean staring up at them.

There was no one on the ground, and no crew members visible on any of the dry-docked ships.

We got right up under the Revenge, which was easy to pick out: it was the only ship in the air that had an intact hull. Strangely, though, its engines weren’t running – which should have been impossible. Airships needed to run their turbines, or they came crashing down to earth. Maybe the eerie glow that surrounded all the airborne ships was some sort of spell that kept them aloft.

“Let’s go up on the Revenge and have a look around,” I said to the others. “Maybe we can find Tarka and force her to tell us what’s going on.”

I used the magic carpet as an express elevator for me, Eluun, and Stig, and Alaria and Meera flew up to the ship on their own.

We all stopped right at the railing and peeked over the edge. Nobody was topside, so we quietly boarded and moved towards the stairs that led down into the hold.

“Meera, you and Eluun keep watch up here. Alaria, Stig, and I know the ship, so we’ll go look around below decks. If somebody comes aboard, don’t engage them – come get me and Alaria. If you hear me yell for you, come running. Got it?”

Meera and Eluun nodded, and I set off with Alaria and Stig down below.

We moved through the mess hall, where the pirates had taken their meals, and down a hallway for storage. Finally we arrived at the captain’s quarters, which consisted of two separate rooms: an ornate office made of polished mahogany with a desk and dining table, and sleeping quarters with a four-poster bed.

Alaria and I had spent a lot of time on that bed… though very little of it sleeping.

I smiled as I looked around. “Lot of good memories in here.”

“Oh yes,” Alaria agreed as she put an arm over my shoulder and leaned against me.

“Bleh,” Stig said, disgusted, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Lotta good memories back there.”

“What, in the mess?”

“In the crew quarters,” Stig answered.

“You were drunk off your ass most of the time.”

“I know,” Stig said wistfully, like he was remembering a long-lost love.

“Well, she’s not in here,” I said, and walked out of the captain’s quarters into the hallway. “Let’s go check out the rest of the ship.”

Suddenly there was a fwip sound off to my side as a steel rapier slashed through the air and paused at my throat, the sharp metal tip pressing right up against my skin.

A woman stood there holding the sword – a tall, olive-skinned woman with a wild mane of dark brown hair. Her green dress was slit up the sides all the way to her hips, and the plunging V-neck gave a great view of her substantial rack.

Last time I’d seen her, she’d worn a knotted bandana over her eye – but now it was a black eyepatch. Her good eye squinted in amusement as she smirked at me.

“I think you mean MY ship, boy,” Tarka drawled.

18

“Hi, Tarka,” I said calmly.

“Uh oh,” Stig muttered behind me. He and Alaria were still back in the captain’s quarters, and I was blocking the way.

I heard the whompf! of a fireball lighting up in Alaria’s palm.

“Stop, you bitch,” Tarka snarled, “or I’ll cut him a second mouth and a bloody one at that!”

I wasn’t too worried about Tarka killing me – if she even could. I kind of doubted that slashing my throat would immediately reduce my hit points to zero, which meant I could use Soul Suck on her to replenish my Health. If worse came to worst, I would just resurrect a mile away and come racing back on my magic carpet.

No – what I was most worried about was having to fight Tarka before getting any intel out of her.

“Alaria, stand down,” I ordered.

There was a second’s pause as she hesitated…

Then the sound of the fireball petered out like somebody turning down a gas stovetop until the flame extinguished with a poof!

“Wise move,” Tarka sneered.

“We don’t want any trouble,” I said.

“Too bad, because you’ve found it.”

“We’re not here to kill you. You and me, we’re good.”

“Mm-hmm. And I’m sure this has nothing to do with my ship.” Tarka leaned her head over and glanced behind me into the captain’s quarters. “Is that damned traitor Krug with you?”

“No, we had a falling out. As far as I’m concerned, the Revenge is all yours.”

“How very generous of you,” she said sarcastically.

“Well, I’m in a generous mood. What with your sword at my throat and all.”

“If you don’t want me or my ship, then why are you here?”

“I just want some information about Nix.”

Tarka frowned. “Who?”

“The warlock you teamed up with. The one who helped you kill Krug and the others.”

Immediately Tarka’s olive-skin went visibly paler, and the belligerence faded from her features.

“I don’t…” she mumbled, then stopped.

“What?”

“He’s looking for you, you know.” She looked ill as she said it.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that out,” I said drily. “If Nix isn’t his name, then what is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” I asked, incredulous.

“What, are you deaf? He didn’t tell me.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Of course I asked. He wouldn’t tell me. Said all I needed to know was he would set me free, get me back my ship, and give me a crew, if I…”

She trailed off into silence.

“If you what?”

“If I threw in my lot with him and pledged myself to his cause.”

“Which is what – going around destroying cities and slaughtering people?”

“I never wanted any of that,” she insisted. “I’m a pirate. I steal. I kill when I have to, but I don’t go around murderin’ for the fun of it.”

“You killed Krug and the others,” Alaria said angrily.

“They took my damn ship!” Tarka roared. “And you GAVE it to them!”

“Well, I gave you something else,” I said with a hint of a smile. “Gave it to you good.”

Tarka looked at me, surprised… then dropped her eyes to my crotch and smiled lasciviously. “Aye, ya did at that. Pity you’re gonna die before you can give it to me again.”

“You don’t have to kill me.”

She went serious again. “I’m not the one who’s gonna kill you.”

“The unnamed warlock.”

“Aye.”

“What’s he look like, at least?”

A visible shudder ran through her. “A monstrous, bent-over thing… made out of shadow, with eyes like two moons…”

Okay, that sounded weird.

“Ring a bell, Alaria?” I asked.

“…no…”

Was this guy even one of her ex-masters? Maybe I’d gotten it wrong.

No, he had to be… the riddles backed it up.

One in nine and all that…

The game had to be concealing his identity for a reason, though.

“Is he on board?” I asked Tarka.

“No.”

“What about your crew?”

“They’re his men, not mine.” She looked angry. “And they’re all with him.”

“Black skeletons?”

“Aye.”

“Where are they?”

“Down with the Dungeon Guild.”

“Is they working together?”

“Not really… he just struck a deal with them.” She gave me a bitter smile. “Sort of like he did with me.”

“What deal did he strike with the Guild?”

“I don’t know what he promised them. All I know is that he’s waiting for you down there.”

I stared at her. “He’s waiting for me?”

“Aye. And he told the Guild not to harm you.”

I was having a little trouble wrapping my head around this new, very ominous piece of information.

“So he knows we’re coming.”

“Aye.”

“Did you tip him off that we’re here?” I asked suspiciously.

“No.”

“Why not?”

She gave a grim smile. “I’m only supposed to pass on the message.”

“Which is…?”

“To come see him. That’s why he left me behind on the ship.”

Shit.

I didn’t like this at all.

“That’s what he said? To come see him?”

She nodded.

“Does he have a weakness?” I asked. “Some way we can beat him?”

Tarka glared at me. “If I knew that, don’t you think I would’ve taken advantage of it by now?”

“Is there anything you can tell me about him?”

“Aye.” She got a sick look on her face. “I’ve sailed the Seven Skies, and he’s by far the most powerful bastard I’ve ever met. And the craziest.”

Greaaaaat.

“It sounds like you want out,” I said.

“Too late for that,” she said glumly.

“What if we could help you escape? What if we could help you get away from him?”

Tarka looked conflicted. “How?”

“Just get your frog-sticker away from my throat and let’s talk.”

She hesitated… then began to lower her sword the tiniest bit –

Until footsteps clattered down the stairs and I heard the fwoosh! of a fiery sword lighting up.

“Drop your weapon!” Meera yelled. Eluun was right behind her.

Tarka’s face filled with fury, and she jabbed the point of her sword into my throat again. “You scurvy dog – talkin’ me into a trap!”

“Meera, stop it!” I yelled.

The angel looked astounded. “What?”

“Chill, bitch!” Stig shouted in his Yoda-voiced impression of Samuel L. Jackson. “Somebody tell that bitch to chill!”

Tarka glanced down at my imp in surprise.

“This wasn’t a trap,” I said to Tarka. “The two of them were keeping watch on deck. Meera, Eluun – stand down.”

Meera grumpily extinguished her sword.

Tarka looked at me warily, but she didn’t lower her rapier this time. “If you have an offer to make me, get on with it.”

“We’ll help you escape.”

She gave a short, bitter laugh. “And abandon my ship? Never.”

“No, you’re going to use it to escape.”

“What? How?”

“Fly off while he’s occupied down on the ground with me.”

She shook her head. “Impossible. I’d need a crew.”

“Can anybody do it?”

Tarka frowned. “What do you mean?”

“If you gave the instructions, could anybody help you fly it out of here? People who hadn’t had experience before?”

She thought for a second. “I suppose… just to escape, yes… but it wouldn’t work for a longer voyage.”

“We’re not talking a longer voyage, we’re talking about escaping. How many people, minimum, do you need?”

She made an exasperated face. “I could do it with two, maybe three.”

“Good. Alaria, Meera, Eluun – you three stay on the ship and help Tarka fly out of here. You too, Stig.”

“What?!” Meera cried out.

“NO!” Alaria shouted.

Eluun shook her head. “We’re not leaving you to face that warlock alone.”

“He’s more powerful than all of us combined,” I said. “There’s no way we can beat him – but that doesn’t mean we all have to face him. I go down and find out what the hell is going on while you guys fly off. When he kills me, I resurrect back in the woods and fly after you on my magic carpet. It’ll take time for them to get their ships in pursuit, which’ll buy us some time to figure out what to do.”

“What if he doesn’t kill you?” Alaria asked angrily. “What if he takes you prisoner and tortures you like Saykir or Shyvock did?”

“Or like he tortured me?” Meera said.

…huh.

I hadn’t really considered that.

“It won’t work, anyway,” Tarka said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because he told me to tell you that all of your group has to come with you.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“All I know is that he promised as long as you showed up with your entire group, he wouldn’t harm you or them, and neither would his men or the Guild.”

“Yeah,” I said sarcastically, “like I believe that.”

“If all he wanted was to kill you, he’d have done it already. He’s wiped out entire cities. One warlock, an angel, a frost elf, and a couple of demons? He could swat you like flies.”

She had a point.

The riddles, the retracing my steps… obviously the point wasn’t to kill me.

What the point was, though, I had no idea.

“You think he’ll actually follow through?” I asked her.

“He’s kept every promise he’s made me so far.”

“You just can’t go free, is all.”

Tarka tilted her head to the side like she had to concede the point.

“It doesn’t matter,” Alaria said. “We’re going with you, Ian. End of discussion.”

“Right,” Meera agreed.

“Absolutely,” Eluun said.

“Ehhhh…” Stig murmured.

Alaria summoned another fireball in her palm, but this time she glared down at Stig.

“Alright, alright,” he said grumpily.

I thought for a few seconds, then asked Tarka, “Are we in danger of the warlock or any of your crew coming back on board?”

“No.”

“What if we offered you another deal?” I asked. “One where you worked with us?”

“How?” she asked suspiciously.

“Do you still have those magical stocks that cut off your powers?”

She gave a short, bitter laugh. “I already thought of that, and so did he. They don’t affect him at all – he even demonstrated when he freed me. You can’t imprison something made out of shadow.”

Well, shit.

“Okay, then – if the moment arises, you help us out. Maybe you can stab him in the back at a key moment.”

She shuddered. “If you fail to kill him, he’ll flay me alive.”

“Well, then, don’t do it unless you’re reasonably assured it’ll be a deciding blow. At the very least, you can pull your punches on us.”

“What do you mean?”

“If he forces you to attack us with the Revenge, maybe you don’t go as fast as you could. Or you turn the ship slightly off course. I don’t know – make it look like you’re following orders, but don’t be quite so effective at it.”

She considered. “I could do that… perhaps.” Then her features hardened. “What would I get in return?”

“Well, luckily for you, Tarka, I know your weakness.”

She scoffed. “And what’s that?”

“Hey, Alaria… would you come out here and show Tarka what she’s been missing?”

Alaria laughed. “Gladly.”

My succubus nudged out past me into the hallway… stood in front of Tarka… and then undid the silver clasp at the front of her bra.

Alaria’s enormous red breasts jiggled as they were freed. The exhibitionist nature of it all must have turned her on, because her nipples began to grow erect, turning from flat little nubbins to hard, firm points.

“Ugh,” Stig groaned.

Tarka’s jaw dropped open as she stared at Alaria’s breasts.

“Unhhhhhh…” she moaned, and licked her lips unconsciously.

“I figure it’s been awhile since you got laid,” I said.

Tarka just nodded, almost in a trance, never taking her eyes off Alaria’s rack.

“And I’m not offering just her and my services, either,” I said. “Meera and Eluun… would you both undress, if you don’t mind?”

Meera’s eyes nearly bugged out. “What?!” she screeched.

“We’re trying to bribe the good captain here. A little help, please.”

Eluun smiled, amused. “Always willing to convert newcomers to the ways of Jaiya,” she said as she shrugged out of her robes, which fell to the floor around her ankles.

She stood there, gorgeous and naked, a tuft of white pubic hair at the ‘V’ of her thighs. Her double-D breasts were full and round with dark blue areolas that contrasted wonderfully with the light blue of her skin.

“AAGH,” Stig groaned, and hid his eyes like he might go blind.

“Ohhhhhhhhh,” Tarka moaned as she switched over to staring at Eluun’s tits.

“And that’s not all. Meera?” I said, prompting my angel.

She angrily crossed her arms over her armored chest. “No! I refuse. I’ll not be offered up like a piece of meat for some pirate bitch.”

“You forget – I could order you to,” I said, though I didn’t want to do it.

Suddenly Meera’s cheeks flushed bright pink. “Oh…”

Aha.

She liked the idea.

Then she shook her head, though I could tell she was acting. “No – I won’t. You’ll have to order me to do it.”

“Okay – take off your breast plate.”

The collar around Meera’s neck glowed, and she whimpered as she reached up and undid the catches that held the armor together. She pulled off the breast plate and laid it on the floor. Now all that was covering her chest was the top of her white toga.

“Now take off your top,” I said.

“No… please, master, please don’t make me,” Meera moaned, her lower lip swollen, her cheeks flushed bright pink.

“I order you to do it.”

She groaned and pulled her toga open, exposing her pale double-E’s. I was right; she was turned on, because her bright pink nipples were already hard as diamonds.

Tarka was standing still as a statue, her eyes big as saucers.

“Eluun… would you demonstrate to Tarka what she’s missing?” I asked.

Eluun smiled, then walked up behind Meera. She moved Meera’s blonde curls to one side and began softly kissing her neck.

At the same time, she reached around, gently cupped Meera’s tits in her hands, and began caressing them. She held the heavy weight of them in her palms… then moved around the sides, pressing them together. Her fingertips traced their way up to Meera’s collarbones… then slowly glided down and pinched Meera’s nipples.

The contrast of Meera’s milk-white breasts and pink areolas with Eluun’s blue skin… well, it was something to behold.

Meera was moaning louder and louder, her eyes closed.

Then Alaria strolled down the hallway…

Stood next to Meera, who looked drunk on desire…

Tilted the angel’s chin towards her with one crimson finger…

And began kissing her.

Deeply.

Slowly.

Sensually.

Meera closed her eyes and kissed her back. She even lifted one hand up to Alaria’s right breast and began to squeeze it.

Tarka couldn’t have looked away if her life depended on it.

I put my finger up to the sword at my neck and gently pushed it away.

Tarka didn’t even notice.

“Ever fuck an angel?” I asked her.

“…no…” she whispered.

“How ‘bout a frost elf?”

The pirate swallowed hard and shook her head.

“Want to?”

Tarka nodded vigorously, though she never looked away from the three naked women.

“GODS,” Stig wailed beside me, “not another fuckoff!”

“Go up in the mess hall and see if they’ve got any booze,” I ordered him.

He hurriedly scampered down the hall, shielding his eyes lest he be struck blind by all the bare breasts on display.

“But don’t get TOO drunk!” I yelled at him.

“Whatever!” Stig yelled back as he disappeared around the corner.

Oh well.

Even if he did get plastered, maybe I could use the ol’ Pillsbury Doughboy technicolor yawn attack.

Wouldn’t it be something if that was what defeated Nix.

But that could wait.

We had other, more pleasant things to attend to.

Not to mention I would get to run down the clock on my portal timer. According to my menu, I had another 16 hours and 22 minutes before I could cast another spell.

If I had to go up against a city-destroying warlock, I’d like to be able to escape.

Which meant 16 hours aaaaand… 21 minutes of fucking. Or thereabouts, anyway.

Could I even last that long? Even tag-teaming with Alaria, Meera, and Eluun, and taking the occasional rest?

We were about to find out.

“So, Tarka,” I said, “what do you say? You agree to help us later on if we show you the time of your life?”

She just nodded mutely, hypnotized by the threesome at the end of the hall.

This was going to be the best business deal of my life.

19

We retired to the bed in the captain’s quarters. It was king-sized, which was good – it was going to have to fit five of us.

While we were still standing up, Meera shucked off the rest of her armor, and Eluun and Alaria set about undressing Tarka. It was pretty easy – just a pull of the sash around her waist, and the green dress came loose enough to pull over her shoulders. Now all she was wearing was her boots and eyepatch.

I’d forgotten how hot Tarka was. Her body was a bit fleshier than the other women’s, but in all the right places. Her breasts were heavy and pendulous, with dark pink areolas and hard nipples that stood up nearly half an inch. With every movement she made, her breasts swayed back and forth.

She was definitely older than the other women, too – a cougar pirate. A MILF with an eyepatch.

Alaria knelt down in front of Tarka to pull off her boots. While she was down there, she sank her nose in Tarka’s bush and gave a little lick.

Tarka moaned and pressed both her hands against the back of Alaria’s head, forcing her against her pussy.

Alaria didn’t mind at all. In fact, she reached around, grabbed Tarka’s firm ass, held on for dear life, and really began going to town sucking and licking.

Tarka’s moans quickly grew louder.

Meanwhile, Eluun sidled in and began both fondling Tarka’s tits and kissing her at the same time. The pirate queen moved one hand up from Alaria’s head so she could cup one of Eluun’s breasts.

My erection was about to burst through my pants, so I undressed while I watched.

Once Meera was naked, she looked over at me and said mournfully, “Oh, please, master, please don’t force me to do anything with this evil pirate.”

Of course, Meera’s substantial bosom was heaving as she said it, and her nipples were hard as two tiny pink diamonds.

“Just go over there and enjoy yourself,” I said.

“PLEASE, master,” Meera said, with more than a hint, hint in her voice, “PLEASE don’t make me do something DEGRADING and VILE.”

Oh.

So that’s what she wanted…

“Go over there and kneel down behind her…”

“Yes?” Meera said breathlessly.

“…and pleasure her ass with your mouth.”

Meera’s big blue eyes widened. “You want me to fuck her in the ass with my tongue?!”

Well, I would have put it a bit more delicately – but ‘delicate’ apparently wasn’t what Meera wanted.

“Yes,” I said. “Fuck her in the ass with your tongue. Slow and soft to start, then hard and fast. That’s an order.”

The collar glowed, and Meera fairly ran over behind Tarka and knelt down behind her.

Alaria had heard, and she helpfully parted Tarka’s ass cheeks with her hands.

Meera poked out her pink tongue… stared at Tarka’s ass… and slowly sank down between her cheeks.

“OH!” Tarka cried out, and her eyes rolled up in her head.

She had a succubus in front of her, licking her pussy…

An angel behind her, tossing her salad…

And a frost elf in front of her, groping her tits.

Life was pretty good for Tarka right about now.

Alaria’s long prehensile tail snaked between her legs and crept up between Meera’s thighs. Her tail began to move back and forth, sliding between Meera’s pussy lips, caressing Meera’s clit.

The crimson skin on Alaria’s tail shone wet as it slid back and forth.

Meera was drenched.

The angel began moaning, and her ministrations to Tarka’s ass became a lot more frenzied, her head bobbing in and out as her face smacked repeatedly against Tarka’s cheeks.

Slap slap slap slap slap!

“OH – OH – SHIVER ME TIMBERS – OH, I’M GONNA CUUUUUUUUUM!” Tarka screamed, her entire body tensing as Alaria sucked her and Meera tongued her and Eluun groped her tits.

Jesus, I almost came myself.

After a few seconds, Tarka’s screams turned to heavy panting. “Slower… slower… please…” she moaned.

Alaria eased off, as did Meera, though neither of them stopped.

Tarka looked over and saw me standing there naked. She held out one hand at the level of my crotch and beckoned with her fingers.

Well, if you’re invited…

I walked up to her, and her hand immediately cupped my balls and then ran up my shaft.

FUCK that felt good…

“Oh, how I’ve missed that mizzenmast,” she moaned as she continued to run her fingers up and down my cock.

I smiled and kissed her. She was aggressive, forcing her tongue inside my mouth – which I liked.

After 30 seconds of making out, I broke it off. “I have an idea.”

“As long as it involves that battering ram inside me.”

“Get on the bed.”

“Aye aye, cap’n,” she said saucily, and broke away from the other women and lay on her back.

“On your side,” I said.

Tarka frowned, puzzled, but got up on one side, exposing her ample ass to me.

It was wet from Meera’s mouth… which was perfect.

I got down on the bed behind her, grabbed my shaft, and angled the tip right up against her tight little asshole.

Tarka looked over her shoulder at me with her mouth wide open in an expression of happy surprise.

“Permission to come aboard,” I said with a grin.

“Permission granted, landlubber.”

I pressed forward with my hips, and eased my cock slowly inside her ass.

GOD she was tight…

“OhhhhHHHHHHH,” Tarka moaned, her eyes rolling back in her head.

Alaria, Eluun, and Meera all stood at the foot of the bed, staring, their mouths open hungrily. Alaria was actually diddling the other two, her red crimson fingers moving back and forth in Eluun’s white bush and Meera’s blonde one.

“Unh… unh… unh,” Meera whimpered.

“Ohhhhhh…” Eluun groaned.

Once I was all the way inside Tarka, she hungrily reached over her shoulder and French-kissed me. I reached around and cupped her heavy breasts as I slowly moved in and out of her ass.

“Mmm… mmm… mmm…” Tarka moaned every time I entered her all the way.

“Alaria, would you come around to her front?” I asked.

Alaria pulled away from Eluun and Meera, leaving them to their own devices. The frost elf and angel immediately clasped in an embrace and began to diddle each other, fingers sliding over each other’s clits – but they wouldn’t look away from what was happening on the bed.

Alaria lay down in front of Tarka.

“Give her your tail,” I said. “A lot of it.”

Alaria grinned, then pulled her tail between her thighs and doubled it over with her hand, the way you might crimp a garden hose. So instead of a three-foot-long tail that tapered to a sharp, pointy tip, she now had a foot-and-a-half-long oval of soft, rigid flesh.

Which she put between Tarka’s thighs.

“Ohhhhhhh!” Tarka groaned as the tail-dildo slid inside her pussy.

It was so big, I felt it inside Tarka – a blunt pressure through the soft wet skin around my dick.

“Now fuck her,” I ordered Alaria.

My succubus grinned and began to thrust her hips, plunging the tail-dildo deep inside. It was so long that Tarka couldn’t take it all, but she took at least half of it.

At the same time, I began to thrust inside her, too, my cock ramming inside her as my hips smacked Tarka’s ass.

Slap! Slap! Slap!

“OH! OH! OH!” Tarka screamed in bliss.

Alaria and I got into a rhythm where we both hit an upstroke at the same time, giving Tarka even more sensation deep inside.

Eluun and Meera were both standing at the foot of the bed, their hands blurs between each other’s thighs as they watched me and Alaria.

“Meera, get over here,” I said.

She quickly ran over.

“Straddle Tarka’s head and lower yourself down on her face,” I ordered.

She did as ordered.

Tarka took to Meera’s pussy like a woman dying of thirst.

“OHHHH!” the angel screamed as Tarka began sucking on her clit.

Poor Eluun looked left out at the foot of the bed.

I looked over Tarka’s body – and Meera’s ass. After all, her right leg was now between me and Tarka’s back.

It was beginning to feel a lot like a porno game of Twister.

Which I was not complaining about.

But there was some room left. After all, Alaria was fucking Tarka with a foot-and-a-half-long tail-dildo, of which only about nine inches was going in. Alaria’s and Tarka’s bodies weren’t pressed together, which meant we could fit one more.

“Hey Eluun, get over here between Alaria and Tarka and 69 Alaria,” I said.

The frost elf happily complied.

She inserted herself between Alaria and Tarka, wrapped her thighs around my succubus’s head, and went down on her.

Alaria returned the favor, alternating between licking Eluun’s little blue clit and sticking her tongue deep inside her pussy.

Tarka wasn’t getting the full nine inches from the tail-dildo anymore, but she didn’t seem to mind. She switched from licking Meera to fingering her, and instead moved her oral skills to Eluun’s shapely ass.

So Alaria was getting cunnilingus from Eluun…

Eluun was getting both her pussy and her ass eaten by Alaria and Tarka…

Meera was getting fingerbanged…

And Tarka was getting fucked in both the ass and her pussy, courtesy of me and Alaria.

Porno Twister was the best.

“OH GODS,” Meera screamed, her back arched and her head leaned back, “I’M COMING, I’M COMING!”

Which pushed everybody else over the edge.

“MMMMMMMMMF!” Eluun said, her cries muffled by Alaria’s pussy.

“MMMMMMMMMF!” Alaria cried out, her noises muffled by Eluun’s bush.

“MMMMMMMMMF!” Tarka shrieked, her scream muffled by Eluun’s ass.

“OH FUCK!” I cried out as I exploded inside Tarka.

All the women shuddered and trembled, and after about 30 seconds of more MMMFS and screams, we all collapsed into a sweaty pile of post-orgasmic bliss.

Luna was right: OtherWorld had definitely solved the female orgasm problem.

20

I almost lasted the full 16 hours, swear to God.

Not that there weren’t a lot of breaks in between.

There were a couple of quick jaunts to the kitchen for food and wine, which I brought back to the room so all five of us could feast. We burned through a couple of hours like that, just lying around eating and drinking.

At other times, we might take a little rest, then start again… or pair up in different combinations…

But through it all, Tarka was at the center of the fun, and we made sure she kept coming like a rocket.

We were all lolling around in bed after a particularly intense session when I checked my portal timer.

3:42:30.

Less than four hours to go.

I figured I was good for another couple of go-rounds. Being Alaria’s lover had been excellent training for this type of marathon.

Night had fallen long ago, and it was dark outside the giant bay window along the back wall of the bedroom.

We were just about to go at it again when there was a timid knock at the door.

I figured it was Stig, but I was still on alert as I sat up in bed. “Yes?”

“Hey Boss?” my imp said from the other side in an unhappy voice.

“What?”

“Can I come in for a second?”

I got up from the bed. “Hold on a second, ladies.”

“Don’t be long, landlubber,” Tarka said seductively. “I need you to board me aft again.”

I think that was pirate talk for anal?

I’d find out when I got back.

I walked over to the door completely naked and undid the lock. “Okay, what’s – ”

As soon as I opened the door, Stig came tumbling in like someone had kicked him inside.

Which they had.

On the other side of the door stood a bearded guy in black robes, with a long scar and a murderous scowl on his face.

Behind him in the hallway stood another dozen or so pissed-off members of the Dungeon Guild.

“Oh SHIT!” I yelped, and raised my hands to cast a spell –

But the guy in the doorway got me first.

Red lightning blasted out of his hands and sent me flying backwards 15 feet into the bedroom.

WHAM!

“IAN!” Alaria screamed as I slid across the floor.

She jumped up, ready to attack –

Until a rapier slashed through the air FWISH! and the tip paused at her throat.

“Ah, ah, ah,” a very naked Tarka said from where she knelt on the bed.

“You fucking bitch!” Alaria shouted.

“Well, I am a bitch, and we were fucking, so I suppose that’s accurate,” Tarka conceded with a smirk.

By now the dozen Dungeon Guild members were inside the room.

Four hunters had their bows drawn, their arrows aimed at my head…

Four paladins and warriors had their hammers and swords poised to strike…

And four mages pointed threateningly with their outstretched hands.

The mages were aiming at Eluun and Meera. Everybody else was focused on me.

I quickly selected one of them –

Level 75.

Shit.

If eight Level 75 hunters, paladins, and warriors hit me at once, I was going to be dead within two seconds.

It was pointless to try and fight back.

The scarred mage who’d blasted me sneered at all of us. “Degenerates.”

I struggled up onto my elbows. “Yeah, well, you should try it sometime.”

Despite their threatening demeanor, I could tell several of the Guild members really wanted to ‘try it sometime,’ judging by the furtive looks they gave all the naked women in the room.

“I’m sorry, boss,” Stig whimpered from where he lay crumpled on the floor. “They said they wouldn’t kill anybody if I did what they said.”

“And we won’t,” the scarred mage growled. “IF you come quietly.”

“It’s okay, buddy,” I said comfortingly to Stig. “They would’ve gotten us anyway.” Then I turned and glared at Tarka. “Seeing as we had a traitor in our midst.”

She shrugged. “Had to do what’s best for me.”

“What about our deal?”

“Avoiding torture and death was a better one.”

“You were supposed to alert us as soon as they came aboard,” the mage snarled at her.

Tarka grinned. “What, and miss all the fun?”

The mage shook his head in disgust. “Get dressed – all of you.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He smiled grimly. “To see the warlock.”

Great.

I checked my portal timer:

3:31:32.

Not horrible, but not good, either.

If I could just stall long enough, everything might work out.

We all got dressed as the Guild members kept watch, ready to strike at a second’s notice.

At one point Alaria caught my eye and raised one eyebrow.

I knew what she was asking:

Attack?

I gave her a subtle shake of my head.

No.

I could afford to get killed because I would reappear back at my Gravesite. And if Alaria, Meera, or Stig died, I could resurrect them.

But if Eluun died, that was it. She was gone forever.

Even if the Guild didn’t kill her, they would undoubtedly use her as a hostage, and the rest of us would be forced to surrender to save her.

No… better to wait for a chance to escape.

Or so I thought.

I probably should have taken a chance while we had it, because after we were dressed, the Guild members snapped manacles on all of our wrists.

Magic-dampening handcuffs.

All the spell icons on my menu immediately greyed out – unusable.

Shit.

The Black Robes also bound Alaria’s and Meera’s wings to their bodies with silver chains.

Smart. I had been thinking about yelling at everyone to dive off the side of the Revenge when we reached the top decks. Meera could grab Eluun midair, and Alaria could save me and Stig. But with their wings unusable, the escape option was kaput.

The Guild members herded us back through the hallway and onto the top deck. It must have been about 5:30 AM. A tiny glow on the horizon foretold the dawn, but overall the early-morning darkness just accentuated the fires burning in the pit.

The Black Robes forced us onto the three floating skiffs they had used to board the Revenge, now docked along its starboard side. The Guild thugs separated us – Eluun and Meera on one boat, Alaria on another, me and Stig in the third. I held him consolingly as he trembled in my arms.

Tarka walked over to the railing and watched it all with a blank expression.

I glared at her. “You know, the last time we left this ship, I argued with Alaria to let you live. Next time we meet, it’s gonna be a different story.”

“Good luck, landlubber,” Tarka replied emotionlessly. “For what it’s worth, I enjoyed fucking you.”

“You mean fucking me, or fucking me over?”

Tarka didn’t answer. She just turned and walked away.

Then the skiffs lowered through the air and zoomed down towards the edge of the pit.

As we flew closer, sounds became more distinct. I could make out the individual shouts and curses of the men battling the creatures in the pit… and the screams of the wounded became even more horrifying, like damned souls in torment.

I also heard that unnerving noise the rogue dungeon gave off: the old sci-fi sound effect from the 1950s War Of The Worlds, like a swarm of cicadas from hell.

ch-ch-ch-Ch-CH-CH-ch…

ch-ch-ch-Ch-CH-CH-ch…

The skiffs swooped around the edge of the pit, and I began to have unsettling flashbacks to Return Of The Jedi. If these black-robed bastards tossed us into this OtherWorld version of the Sarlacc, there wouldn’t be an R2-D2 to shoot a lightsaber through the air and save the day.

But it turned out I wouldn’t have to pull off any Jedi acrobatics or other miracles. The skiffs landed near the Guild’s main camp, about 200 feet away from the front line.

The other Black Robes escorted Eluun, Meera, and Alaria out of the boats without any ado – but the scarred mage shoved me so hard I face-planted on the ground. Stig had to leap out of my arms to avoid being crushed.

I jumped back up and whirled around on Scar, enraged. “What the fuck?!”

“That was a love tap,” he snarled. “You deserve to be drawn and quartered.”

“For what?! What the fuck did I do to you?!”

“You killed the Grand Inquisitor.”

Ah.

Now the hostility was a little more understandable.

“No I didn’t,” I snapped. “That was Urik, some asshole from the Church of Eternity who was trying to take over Vos. He’s the one that planted the fucking dungeon core that killed Quint, not me.”

“You impersonated him.”

Okay, that part was true… but there was a caveat.

“I didn’t know I was impersonating him. Everybody just assumed I was Quint because I was wearing black robes – I didn’t even know what a Grand Inquisitor was.”

“It’s still punishable by death.”

“You know,” I said sarcastically, “everything with you guys seems to be punishable by death.”

“You were also in league with the dungeon core.”

“What?! No I wasn’t!”

“Survivors testified that it rescued you from the Grand Inquisitor.”

“Oh – Deek, yeah, but – ”

“He calls it by name,” Scar said contemptuously to his men.

“Because that’s his name,” I said angrily. “All of Vos was built around him, and he never did anything but help the city. I certainly wasn’t friends with this one,” I said, gesturing behind me towards the pit.

“As though being in league with any dungeon core is defensible.”

“Or maybe you guys are just murdering assholes, you ever thought of that? I know for a fact you’ve destroyed dungeon cores that never would have hurt anybo– ”

I didn’t get that last word out because Scar punched me in the face.

OW.

I went staggering back, but I kept my footing.

“Ian!” Alaria cried out.

“The only reason I don’t kill you is the deal I made with the warlock,” Scar sneered.

“The only reason I don’t kill you is because you’re too much of a pussy to fight,” I snapped, then lifted up my manacled hands. “You’re a big man when I’m in chains and you’re backed up by a dozen other guys – why don’t you take these off and let’s see what’s what, asshole?”

Besides the hatred in his eyes, I saw a glint of indecision. He actually started towards me, his hands reaching out to take off the manacles.

Do it – DO IT! I screamed inwardly.

If he fought me one-on-one, I might be able to ‘accidentally’ stumble over to Alaria and free her, at which point she could get Eluun to safety – which would drastically improve our options.

And then somebody with a lot more sense ruined everything.

“Begging your pardon, Captain,” one of the paladins spoke up, “but the warlock is expecting us.”

Scar paused… then spun me roughly around. “Move, scum.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled as he forced me to keep moving.

Our guards marched us past dozens of other Black Robes staring us down. Explosions briefly illuminated the sides of their faces, then faded out until their features were swallowed by darkness.

All around us, cannons roared…

Flares went off…

Men screamed and shouted…

Monstrous silhouettes scuttled past the fires in the pit…

And all the time, there was that ever-present ch-ch-ch-Ch-CH-CH-ch… ch-ch-ch-Ch-CH-CH-ch.

It was a hellish vision… and it seemed oddly familiar.

It took me a second to place it, but I knew what had inspired the horrors around me: the Do Lung Bridge scene in Apocalypse Now.

Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, has been traveling in a small patrol boat up the fictional Nung River when he and the crew reach the Do Lung Bridge in the dead of night. The bridge is the last outpost on the river still controlled by the US military; beyond it lies the dark heart of the jungle, ruled by the insane Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando.

Kurtz has gone rogue and is using ‘questionable methods’ to fight the Viet Cong. The US Army has sent Willard to assassinate him.

The Do Lung Bridge is a portrait of hell. Darkness…. explosions… flashing strobes… discordant carnival music, followed by screeching Jimi Hendrix guitar solos… the faces of hopeless men in the trenches… a half-mad soldier screaming as he fires his .50 caliber machinegun into the night.

A lot of people know that Apocalypse Now is based on the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. In Conrad’s story, Marlow – working for a Belgian trading company – goes up the Congo River to retrieve the insane ivory trader Kurtz, who has committed the ultimate sin in Victorian England: blasphemy. The jungle natives worship Kurtz as a god, and he does nothing to dissuade them. Marlow isn’t tasked with killing Kurtz, but bringing him back to civilization to account for his crimes.

But John Milius, the screenwriter who wrote Apocalypse Now, didn’t just adapt Heart of Darkness. He also used elements from Homer’s Odyssey.

Col. Kilgore, portrayed by Robert Duvall, is the cyclops – and gave us the immortal line, I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like… victory.

The Playboy bunnies who drive the men wild at the USO show are the sirens.

A scene cut from the theatrical version of the film made the Odyssey connection much clearer. Willard encounters a group of French colonists on a rubber plantation, disconnected from the war, living in nostalgia, pining for a time when France still ruled Vietnam. They’re the movie’s version of the lotus eaters.

The Do Lung Bridge was essentially the scene where Odysseus descends into the underworld to get information from the dead, including Achilles, who died in the Trojan War. The famous warrior tells his still-living comrade that I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground, than king over all the dead.

The most striking moment at Do Lung Bridge is where an unseen Viet Cong soldier is taunting the American soldiers from across the river.

Fuck you, Joe! Fuck yoouuuuu!

An American machine-gunner is trying to take the guy out and failing miserably.

Willard walks up and asks, Who’s the commanding officer here?

The stressed-out soldier asks in bewilderment, Ain’t you?

Then the gunner summons a stoned G.I. named Roach. In a drugged-out haze, Roach listens to the VC’s shouts for a moment… slowly aims his grenade launcher… then takes out the enemy with a single shot.

Astounded by the feat, Willard asks him, Soldier – do you know who’s in charge here?

And Roach, staring back at him with glassy eyes and a slightly unhinged smile, says…

…yeah.

And then he walks away.

In the movie, it was clear who was in charge:

No one.

If anything ruled the Do Lung Bridge, it was Madness with a capital ‘M.’

It was pretty much the same here in what remained of Vos, except that the insanity was embodied by the writhing, horrific thing at the center of the pit.

The Dungeon Guild were just hapless soldiers in the midst of a war, struggling to keep a Band-aid on a severed artery.

The scarred mage led us past the firing cannons and screaming wounded to a massive, 15-foot-diameter hole in the ground. The entrance was lined with roughly cut stones like a cathedral arch, and I could see lanterns lighting the tunnel as it angled down into the earth.

From what I could tell, the passageway was aimed directly at the very deepest part of the pit.

You know, the one currently inhabited by a nightmarish rogue dungeon.

“Whoa,” I said, stopping short, “you’re not making us go down there!”

The scarred mage turned around and snarled, “No… we’re taking you.”

He and the other Black Robes each grabbed a lantern from the wall – and then they led me, Alaria, Stig, Meera, and Eluun down into the depths.

Our own heart of darkness, you might say.

It was like the OtherWorld version of a coal mine. Wooden beams braced the ceiling, and black-robed workers used both pickaxes and magic to hack at the stone walls.

Except every so often, something would burst in from the other side.

We watched in horror as a small portion of the tunnel caved in and a five-foot-long scorpion tail impaled one of the workers and lifted him into the air.

Other men rushed over, screaming and cursing, and hacked at the monster with swords and picks until they pulled their comrade off the stinger.

The barb had completely run him through, though, and he bled out on the ground as we passed by.

Neither the mage nor the guards escorting us took any mind. They just forced us deeper into the tunnel.

The farther we went, the more the stone around us was spotted with black organic matter, like slimy pustules infecting the rock.

Occasionally something horrifying would burst through. A footlong black maggot with teeth erupted from one of the spots and attacked one of the black-robed workers. The man flung it to the ground, grinded it into a pulp beneath his boot, then kept on chipping away at the rock.

Jesus Christ…

I was beginning to wonder exactly how far down we were going to go when the tunnel leveled off and we reached our final destination: a bit of Deek’s old dungeon that the rogue core hadn’t obliterated yet. There was an arched doorway set into a stone wall, over which was inscribed the words, Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Dante’s Inferno.

The game writers are really ladling it on thick, I thought, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood up nonetheless.

The room beyond the archway was filled with towering pillars and cathedral ceilings – except the crumbling stone walls were covered with a creeping lacework of black tendrils, like offshoots from a cancerous tumor seen under a microscope. In the dim light of the lanterns, it looked like something out of an Indiana Jones movie from hell. There were muffled, unearthly shrieks from the other side of the walls that reminded me just how close we were to the rogue dungeon’s horrors.

“Here he is,” the scarred mage announced.

An eerie voice answered from the shadows, and my balls shriveled up into my body as soon as I heard it.

“Goooood. So glad you could finally join us, Mr. Hertzfelder.”

21

The voice was both familiar and alien at the same time. It reminded me of Hugo Weaving in The Matrix – that sort of formal, clipped diction Agent Smith has: MISter ANderson. But the voice was just slightly too high… too breathy.

I was reminded of an episode of the TV show Atlanta, created by Donald Glover.

You know – Childish Gambino? “This Is America”? Young Lando Calrissian in Solo?

In the episode, one of the show’s main characters (played by the awesome Lakeith Stanfield) goes to a mansion to pick up a piano he finds offered for free on the internet. When he rings the doorbell, Lakeith meets an eccentric recluse named Teddy Perkins, who looks like Michael Jackson in his final months: a delicate, frail Black man with bleached, ghostly skin. Shit gets a whole lot weirder when you find out what’s locked away in the attic.

Teddy is played by Donald Glover in whiteface, and he speaks all his lines in this weird, singsong, high-pitched delivery. It’s a supremely creepy performance.

Well, this fucker sounded like a combination of Agent Smith and Teddy Perkins, and it made my skin crawl.

“So nice to finally MEET you, Mr. Hertzfelder. I’ve heard so much about you… mostly from people who are now dead.”

I glanced over at Alaria to see if she finally recognized her ex-master’s voice.

She looked confused, like there was something familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

“By the way, you won’t be needing those manacles anymore,” the voice said – and all of a sudden the nightmare got worse.

Hundreds of skeletons walked out of the shadows. Their skulls were all black, and they wore black seafaring clothes – open-necked shirts, bandanas, tri-corner hats, trousers and boots. But the thing was, neither their bones nor the clothes were naturally black. They looked like they had been coated in tar, and their clothes were slimy, full of holes, and falling apart from decomposition. They looked like they had been dredged up from the bottom of a swamp where they’d been rotting the last 50 years.

The skeletons surrounded us. Me, Stig, the women – and the Black Robes, too.

The Dungeon Guild guys were obviously on edge, and looked to Scar for guidance.

He gave the barest shake of his head. No.

So the Black Robes stood still and didn’t resist.

One skeleton walked up to me and stared right into my face. I swore I could see something squirming deep in the shadows of its empty sockets.

I shivered as it touched my skin with fingers as damp and wet and cold as the grave.

As it unlocked the manacles on my wrists, I selected it and checked out its stats.

Shadow Skeleton

Level 80 Warrior

620,000 Hit Points

Shit.

If the others around him were that powerful, we were in serious trouble.

Peenocchio’s men had been the same Level, but we’d had a plan to deal with them.

I had no plan for these guys.

Other skeletons released the women and unwrapped the chains from Meera’s and Alaria’s wings. Stig had no manacles on, so he just cowered by my boots.

When they were finished, the skeletons stepped back and parted so that I could see the front of the room.

A giant hole gaped in the stone wall. Inside was only darkness.

Suddenly two round, glowing lights bloomed in the shadows.

They appeared first as slits, then changed into ovals, then finally circles.

I realized that they were eyes. Nix had had his back towards us, which is why they had changed shape as he turned.

Tarka was right – they looked like tiny moons.

“Good… now that THAT is taken care of… we can finally talk face to face.”

And then something horrible stepped out of the shadows.

In fact, it seemed to be made of shadows – darkness solidified. Except for those two glowing eyes, the rest of the creature was dark as outer space.

Black mist drifted off the surface of its ‘skin,’ like it was constantly in a state of forming and reforming between solid and gas.

It was humanoid in shape, but it definitely wasn’t human. It had two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head, but their proportions were all wrong. The arms and legs were anorexic, thin as bamboo. The fingers on the hands were ten-inch spikes that twitched continually like the legs of a monstrous cockroach. The torso was much thinner than it should have been, no more than a foot wide.

Worst of all, the body was… twisted. It wouldn’t be right to call him a hunchback, because there wasn’t a bulge on one of his shoulders. Instead, his torso was curved like a fishhook. The straight part of the hook was his back, the curved part was his shoulders, and his head was where the pointed tip would be.

You know how General Grievous from Revenge of the Sith is hunched over most of the time? Drop his head down another foot or two without moving his shoulders, and you have Nix’s posture.

He looked like some horrific puppet with its head two feet lower than the shoulders.

There were no features on the jet-black head – no mouth, no nose, no hair, no ears. Just those two, small, glowing circles, which never altered in shape. No eyebrows to scowl, no eyelids to help discern emotions. Only his voice could do that… but it was always faintly mocking, and stayed within a narrow range. He rarely varied it more than a few notes above or below a monotone.

As soon as he stepped out of the shadows and was fully visible, Alaria cried out in horror. She tried to move backwards, but she ran up against three skeletons who formed an impervious wall behind her.

“Ah… I see you recognize me now, my dear.”

The thing lurched over to her, then reached out and touched her face with its long, spindly fingers. It was like watching a gigantic black widow crawl across her face.

“Leave her alone!” I shouted. I raised my arm to cast a spell, but four skeletons grabbed me from behind.

“Relax, Mr. Hertzfelder, she’s not in any danger… YET.” The thing looked at Alaria as it continued to caress her cheek. “Do you remember my name, darling child?”

“Master Xin!” she cried out, wincing and shying away from the loathsome fingers.

She pronounced it gzin rather than just zin.

“Yes, that is the one I TOLD you… except it’s not my TRUE name. Have you guessed it, Mr. Hertzfelder?”

He turned to stare at me with those two glowing, moon-like eyes.

“Nix,” I replied.

“Very good! Of course, you COULD have guessed solely from what Alaria just said – IF you remembered all the clues. ‘Backwards, Forwards, All The Same… Known By Others, Not By Name.’”

“I already knew it when I walked in here.”

“No doubt, no doubt.” Nix turned away from Alaria and shuffled over to me. He leaned in until those glowing eyes were only ten inches away from my own. “But then, it was designed to be easy. To introduce you to the game. You’ve won the first half… but the next part will be much, MUCH harder.”

“You call slaughtering people a game?” I asked angrily, thinking back to the demons in Abaddon and the frost elves in the North.

Nix cocked his head slightly.

“…of course.”

His voice was completely unconcerned, though slightly mystified, as though I had asked the most obvious question in the world.

“So is this where you kill us?” I snarled.

“Oh NO, Mr. Hertzfelder – THAT wouldn’t be any fun. No, I don’t want to KILL you… I want you to PLAY.”

Before I could say anything else, Nix turned to the scarred mage. “You and your men may leave now, Captain.”

“I want what you promised,” the mage demanded.

“And you shall have it, all in good time.”

Nix started to walk away when the scarred mage yelled, “You promised you’d destroy this damn dungeon!”

Ah.

So that was the deal they’d made: deliver me, and Nix would do the job they couldn’t finish on their own.

The warlock swung back around and got all up in the mage’s face.

“EVENTUALLY. I agreed to EVENTUALLY destroy it – as I clearly stated when we made the arrangement. Now go… or I shall become quite cross.”

That wasn’t good enough for Scar.

“You black-magic bastard,” he shouted, “I’m not your fucking servant!”

Nix’s hand suddenly whipped through the air and grabbed the side of the mage’s head.

“No, Captain – ”

A violet light sparked inside Nix’s palm –

Then turned into an eruption from the surface of a star.

Energy blasted into the mage’s ear, and he screamed in agony as his skull lit up from the inside. Violet light blasted out both of his eyes.

When Nix finally stopped, there was a six-inch crater in the side of Scar’s head… and smoke boiled out of his empty eye sockets.

The long, spiky fingers released the mage, and he crumpled into a pile on the ground.

“…you’re DEAD.”

I realized in horror that I had just witnessed what must have happened to Grung and the other demons we’d found in Orlo’s lair.

Not only had they been forced to listen as their friends died screaming…

…not only had they had to wait in terror for their own turns to come…

…but whatever Nix had just done, it was permanent.

Anyone killed by that blast was gone forever, unable to be resurrected.

Nix looked down at the dead mage dispassionately, then turned to Scar’s comrades. “Any other objections?”

Six-foot-six warriors with battleaxes shook their heads like frightened little children.

“Then LEAVE. But set down the lanterns on the floor before you go.”

The Guild members did as instructed and hastily beat a retreat back through the tunnel.

As soon as they were gone, Nix turned to me. “Did you enjoy your little interlude with Tarka?”

“Yeah – thanks,” I said sarcastically.

“You’re welcome. I needed to stall you for reasons that will soon become apparent. I figured you would respond most favorably to fornication, so I instructed her to ‘detain’ you with her charms. Best if she could make you think it was YOUR idea.”

I stared at him, my mouth slightly open.

Son of a bitch.

But there was something in his statement that bothered me more than the rest.

“What reasons?” I asked.

“As I said, they will soon become apparent. All will be revealed. Don’t become impatient like our poor, unfortunate Captain here.” Nix nudged the mage’s corpse with his foot, then interlaced his fingers behind his back and began to pace. “But first we must discuss what comes next. You see, there will be slightly different rules that govern the next portion of the game…”

While he was talking, I selected him.

Nix

Wraith

Level 110 Warlock

2,500,000 Hit Points

Jesus fucking Christ.

Even Hritch had only had 1.1 million hit points. This guy was virtually fucking invincible – at least for me at my current Level of 40.

As for the ‘wraith’ part, they must have been some sort of monster in OtherWorld, but I’d never encountered one before. If all of them were like Nix, I hoped I never encountered another.

Suddenly he paused in his speech, then turned and stared at me.

“It’s impolite to look at someone else’s private information without ASKING, Mr. Hertzfelder. I imagine it would be much like rummaging around in your pants for your genitals, unwanted and unbidden. Don’t do it again.”

I stared at him.

What the fuck had just happened?!

Selecting an enemy to see his stats, especially his Level and hit points, was a routine part of the game. You had to do it in order to know how hard it would be to kill him.

It was almost an extra sense, like seeing or hearing.

No NPC ever commented on it.

But this one had.

Until that moment, I’d never even considered the NPCs might be aware you were doing it.

But this one was… and had fucking reprimanded me for it.

What the hell was going on?

I wanted to ask him how he’d known, but I’d been too shocked at the time.

Now he started talking again – and about something important.

“From here on out, the name of the game is that you must guess the identity of the ninth ex-master.”

THAT took me by surprise.

“What?”

“Alaria’s ninth ex-master, Mr. Hertzfelder. Do keep up.”

“But… how?!”

“The same way you guessed mine.”

“Riddles,” I said in irritation.

“Just so.”

I glowered at him. “Where are you going to leave them?”

“In the same places I’ve left them before.”

I frowned. “You’re going back to Abaddon and Fernburg just to leave some fucking riddles?”

“Ah – let me rephrase. I will leave them in the same TYPE of places, and in the same MANNER, as I have before.”

I frowned for a second until what he was saying finally hit me.

“You’re going to go to every place I’ve ever been?!”

“Very good, Mr. Hertzfelder. Perhaps you will surprise me and actually guess the ninth ex-master’s identity.”

Dread filled my stomach. “Wait – are you going to kill people wherever you go?!”

“Of course.”

Again, that sociopathic detachment… that slight amusement.

“You can’t!” I cried out.

“I can, and I will.”

“These are people’s lives we’re talking about!”

“Well… YESS. It wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.”

“You fucking bastard – ”

“Complain later, Mr. Hertzfelder. Right now, concentrate on the matter at hand. You will have to decide which is more important: arriving beforehand with your newly acquired powers, and saving the local population… or arriving afterwards to find the clues I leave behind. Saving lives will require you to backtrack to the scenes of devastation afterwards, in order to find the clues… and we both know you have very limited resources as far as your new powers go.”

I couldn’t decide if he was doing another freaky thing like knowing I’d viewed his stats, or if it was just common knowledge that newbie Warlocks with Hell’s Pont could only cast three portals in one day.

Then he said something that absolutely confirmed the freakiness.

“But no cheating, Mr. Hertzfelder. That means no more hints from your friend Luna, either in YOUR world or by message. I fear that in our first match-up, it was SHE who guessed correctly, rather than YOU.”

All I could do was stare at him in bewilderment and horror.

He’d known I’d performed a routine stat check, which no other NPC I’d encountered had ever done – not even Alaria, who was a hair’s breadth away from true sentience.

And now he knew that I’d gotten a message from Luna.

And that I had a ‘world’ outside this one.

That was impossible.

No NPC had that kind of knowledge.

Nix saw my reaction and chuckled. “Oh yes… I know EVERYTHING. So no more logging out, no contacting anyone, no using any resources outside of the game. If you cheat, I will end everything prematurely… and trust me, you DON’T want THAT.”

This wasn’t happening.

He knew about logging out.

He knew about messages.

The part about the ‘game’ was ambiguous – he could have meant OtherWorld or his little psychotic riddles – but I was betting he meant the one he shouldn’t have known about.

Was Nix being controlled by another player? Someone from my world? Chad, maybe?!

“How do you know all that?!” I asked in astonishment.

“I told you, Mr. Hertzfelder – I know EVERYTHING. I must warn you, I designed the first round specifically so you would win. I wanted you to learn the rules, not lose. But this time will be more difficult. I will not go lightly on you. And we will be playing for stakes.”

Creeping dread filled my stomach. “What kind of stakes?”

“If I win, I get to destroy something of great value to you. And I DO mean ‘destroy.’”

And with that… he looked right at Alaria.

My dread became overwhelming terror.

“NO!” I shouted.

Alaria cried out in fear, too. Nix ignored her.

“You have no choice in the matter, Mr. Hertzfelder. And it’s why you shouldn’t cheat, because I will take her prematurely if you do. The only chance you have at saving her is to play my little game.”

My mind started racing. Maybe once we got out of here, I could hide her somewhere – or put her in Limbo where Nix couldn’t reach her –

“And just in case you’re wondering, there is nowhere she is safe from me. Not even Limbo.”

It was like the motherfucker was reading my mind!

“So if I win and guess the ninth master’s identity – ”

“EX-master.”

“Ex-master’s identity, then what – you won’t hurt her?”

“Of course. And, in addition, you get to claim YOUR prize.”

“Which is…?”

“If YOU win – that is, if you correctly guess the identity of the 9th ex-master… I will kill myself.”

I stared at him.

The two little moon-like eyes stared back in silence.

“…you’re insane…” I said, realizing for the first time just how bad the situation was.

“…yes.”

Like he was merely confirming the obvious.

Nix clasped his hands together. “We shall begin in just a moment. But first I have a gift: your first riddle.”

Behind him, the stone wall suddenly glowed like lava was breaking through. Thick smoke boiled into the air.

When the light died away, there was something carved into the rock:

1

I AM THE ALPHA

AND THE OMEGA

I stared at the words in horror.

That was my fucking clue?!

It was something out of the Bible – something Jesus had said, I was pretty sure –

But that was the extent of my knowledge.

“What the hell does that mean?!” I cried out.

“Well, I can’t TELL you, can I, or it wouldn’t be much of a game, now would it? Remember it well, for this will be the last time you see it. I must also reveal the reason why I had Tarka detain you. You see, I wanted you to have a fighting chance with what comes next… and I believe you have another… what… three hours before you can cast Hell’s Pont again?”

No…

There was no fucking way he could know that…

Not unless he could see my menu.

And that should’ve been impossible.

“How do you know that?!” I demanded.

“No matter. All you need to know is that I postponed my plans so you had a shorter wait until you could use your spells again.”

“And why would I need a shorter wait?”

“Why… to escape from here, of course,” Nix said as he gestured towards the dungeon.

Apparently he didn’t know everything. If I died, I would automatically resurrect at the edge of the forest.

“Don’t think me stupid, Mr. Hertzfelder. I know all about your recently cast Gravesite.”

As soon as he said it, I felt like I might throw up.

“I know that you, Alaria, your imp, and the angel – ”

Nix stopped talking, turned, and addressed Meera directly.

“Hello, darling. You seem to have recovered splendidly from our last encounter.”

Meera trembled with rage, and I could tell she wanted nothing more than to ignite her sword and attack.

Luckily she didn’t. Between Nix and his army of skeletons, she would have been slaughtered.

“As I was saying, the four of you will come back to life if you’re slain… but there is another in your party who WON’T.”

My blood ran cold as I glanced over at Eluun, who looked absolutely terrified.

Suddenly Nix raised both his palms and fired over our heads.

I ducked down by reflex, but I needn’t have bothered – he was aiming far above us.

The violet blasts exploded against the wall and caved in the tunnel back to the surface.

No one was getting out that way.

The explosion reverberated throughout the vast room…

And then, in the relative quiet afterwards, I heard the horrific screams through the walls start to get louder.

Nearer.

Not to mention that the latticework of black organic matter began to ooze across the stone walls like a fungus growing in fast-forward.

Nix lowered his arms and stared me in the face. “So you see, your REAL challenge is, can you keep your frost elf alive until you’re able to cast a portal once more? I suppose we’re playing for stakes at this point, as well… although it will be the dungeon that claims her if you fail, not me.”

Suddenly Nix’s body, and the bodies of all the skeletons, turned into black smoke. The only thing left as he dissipated into nothingness were those two shining white eyes.

“Best of luck.”

Then the eyes winked out of existence…

…and we were alone, trapped inside a rogue dungeon.

22

The muffled, nightmarish shrieks on the other side of the wall were getting louder.

“Ian, what do we do?!” Alaria cried out.

I quickly looked around and took stock.

Southern wall – tunnel caved in and impassable. (Whether it was actually south or not didn’t matter.)

Eastern wall – solid and impassable.

Northern wall – big fuckin’ hole Nix had walked through. Unfortunately, that was the direction all the screams were coming from.

Western area – vast, open space filled with shadows.

Above us – vaulted ceilings 50 feet above the floor.

We were probably going to have to head west, but I wanted to rule out our other options first.

“Meera, fire up your sword and fly up there,” I ordered. “See if there’s some hole or something we can get through.”

Meera lit up her weapon and flapped her wings until she was hovering a few feet away from the ceiling. “No – nothing.”

“Alright. Eluun, give us some light. You too, Alaria. Meera, get back down here.”

Eluun shone white light from her hands, and Alaria ignited a fireball in each palm as Meera touched down beside me.

“Alaria, Meera – can you move the rubble or cut through it?”

Meera struck one of the rocks, but her fiery blade created a molten scar maybe an eighth of an inch deep.

Alaria grabbed a boulder the size of a refrigerator and heaved, but she couldn’t budge it.

There were dozens more boulders, some the size of SUVs.

“Never mind, that’s not going to work,” I said, and Meera and Alaria abandoned their attempts.

I checked my portal timer –

2:58:14.

SHIT.

Almost three hours until I could get Eluun out of here safely.

If I died, I was going to resurrect outside of the dungeon, with no way to get back in.

So I either better not die…

…or I better not resurrect outside of the dungeon.

“Shouldn’t we get a move-on?” Alaria asked fearfully.

“Hold on,” I said as I triggered my Gravesite spell.

Immediately a window appeared.

Establishing a gravesite here will eradicate the previous gravesite. Accept/Cancel

I accepted. Ten seconds later, a tombstone stood in the rocky ground.

At least now I wouldn’t wind up outside of the dungeon if I died.

Or course, I might just respawn in the midst of a bunch of hellish monsters… but hey. Our options at this point were basically all shitty.

“Okay, everybody,” I said in as calm a voice as I could manage, “your job is to protect Eluun. If you have to sacrifice yourself to keep her safe, DO IT. I’ll bring you back. Eluun, your job is to heal yourself – and me, at least until I can cast the next Gravesite in 15 minutes. Don’t worry about anyone else. Your job is to stay alive; everybody else’s job is to help you do it. Got it?”

Eluun nodded fearfully.

I pulled three healing potions out of my bag and handed them to her. “Use these if your powers get temporarily exhausted. When you run out, let me know – I’ve got more.”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully.

I grabbed a lantern the Black Robes had left behind. “Stig, you take point. Keep out in front of us where we can see you and let us know what’s coming. Alaria, stay five feet in front of me. Eluun, you’re beside me. Meera, you bring up the rear.”

Stig’s face twitched in fear, but he scurried across the stone floor until he reached the edge of what we could see.

The women arranged themselves as I’d ordered.

“Let’s go,” I said, and we set off into the shadows.

The vast room was full of ruins – toppled pillars, crumbling walls, collapsed statutes.

Suddenly something screeched and jumped out from the rubble. It had a lower body like a giant black crab, with a diseased humanoid torso attached to the top. Two-foot-long claws clicked at the ends of its arms. There was no head; its gaping mouth and black eyes were part of its chest.

“HIT IT!” I yelled.

Alaria summoned her fire whip and lashed it with brimstone.

Stig slammed it with fireballs, and I blasted it with Soul Suck.

It took ten seconds, but we finally brought it down.

Shit – if one monster took that long to kill…

“Let’s go!” I shouted, and we kept on moving.

Monster after monster attacked us – though mercifully only one at a time. If they came in a group, they tended to be weaker.

A xenomorph-looking thing straight out of Alien scrambled along the walls like an eight-foot-long gecko.

A blob of black slime dropped down from the ceiling, then extended like a Slinky and attached itself to the wall, where it lunged outwards at us again.

A swarm of foot-long maggots with teeth jumped up in the air like Mexican jumping beans.

And a nightmarish thing out of H.P. Lovecraft’s worst nightmares, with a dozen giant eyeballs and several mouths full of fangs, oozed towards us in an elephant-sized blob.

The fast ones we killed. The slower ones we left behind.

And we always ran like hell.

2:45:11 to go.

After a quarter mile, the vast room ended in a terrace that overlooked a gigantic pit. Only a single, two-foot-wide footbridge spanned the abyss. Giant pillars every 30 feet or so held it up from beneath.

Horrifying things scuttled along the walls of the pit, like a thousand giant spiders infesting a sinkhole. As we approached, they began to crawl upwards towards the terrace.

“Across the bridge – GO!” I yelled.

Stig ran out ahead of us –

But after 40 feet the bridge crumbled beneath his feet and he plummeted into space.

“STIG!” I screamed as I put out an arm to stop Eluun.

Luckily, Stig’s teleportation power was already active because of the previous attacks on us, and he BAMFED! his way back onto the other side of the collapsed footbridge.

Unfortunately, there was now a 10-foot-gap between us and him.

And the spider-like things were swarming up the pit onto our side of the bridge.

“Alaria, take me! Meera, take Eluun!” I yelled.

Succubus and angel each grabbed a passenger, and we flew up into the air.

“Stay airborne!” I yelled. “Maybe we can wait ‘em out up here!”

Ha.

As if the dungeon was going to make it that easy on us.

Things detached from the ceiling far above and began divebombing us.

They looked like flying snakes on leathery wings, and they snapped at us with razor-sharp teeth as they swooped past.

One bit me, and I felt a searing pain on my shoulder as I dropped 200 hit points.

SHIT.

“Get us down!” I yelled, and Alaria and Meera dropped us back onto the bridge.

I cast Hellstorm, and little bat-winged demons appeared far above us, raining down burning sulfur.

None of it hit us – but it fucked with the flying snakes. Chunks of brimstone set their wings on fire and they tumbled shrieking into the abyss.

“RUN!” I shouted, and everyone took off.

Stig was our minesweeper, sussing out the portions of the bridge that couldn’t hold our weight. Whenever a section would collapse, he would teleport to safety, and Meera and Alaria would ferry us over the gap.

Unfortunately, things began climbing the pillars holding up the bridge.

A squirming black shape reared up on the side of the footpath. It looked like a snake at first, but there were suckers lining its underside. At its tip was a tiny mouth filled with jagged teeth. It looked like someone had grafted a chest-burster from Alien onto an octopus’s arm and painted the whole thing black.

It got Stig.

“AHHH!” he screamed as it caught him in its coils. The mouth at the end bit into his shoulder, and a fourth of his hit points disappeared before he could teleport away.

Alaria hit it with a fireball, and the snake-like creature flailed through the air, screeching as it burst into flames.

Then the rest of it came over the side of the bridge.

The ‘creature’ was just one tentacle of what looked like a giant black octopus, but with a blobfish face on top.

More tentacles whipped through the air, their tiny chest-burster mouths snapping at us.

We slashed and burned our way through the tentacles, and finally sent the blobfish tumbling over the side.

Unfortunately, more of the damn things were crawling up onto the bridge ahead of us.

I replenished Stig’s health, and then we fought our way past them as best we could, flying over the creatures when we couldn’t kill them outright.

Unfortunately, if we didn’t fly far enough overhead, the tiny tentacle-mouths tagged us from below – and the flying serpent divebombed us from above.

Alaria lost 400 hit points, Meera 300, me another 200.

I healed them all and soul-sucked anything that moved to replenish my own hit points, but it was obvious the difficulty was ramping up.

Finally we reached the other side of the pit and made it into a nightmarish, crumbling temple.

I checked my timer:

2:19:18.

God damn it.

If it got worse from here, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it.

It got worse.

A massive slope seemingly made of black organ meat was off to our right, intruding on the temple’s interior like a cancerous tumor.

Suddenly its surface ripped open in a dozen places, and horrific shapes burst forth like demonic fetuses clawing their way out of the womb.

They were human corpses, grey and rotting. Long, spindly, spider-like legs penetrated their decayed flesh and propelled them towards us.

I recognized the smallest as Urik, the dwarf priest of the Church of Eternity – the man responsible for the rogue dungeon core taking over.

His lower half was missing, and his naked upper body lurched like a hand puppet atop a giant black widow.

I said they were corpses because they looked like something out of The Walking Dead: missing ears and noses, cheeks ripped open and pieces falling off, the stench of decayed meat…

But apparently they were still alive.

Urik looked at me with his one remaining eye and moaned, “Please… kill me…”

The women in our party screamed and I nearly shat my pants, but we waded into battle.

Alaria torched Urik, turning what remained of his body into a shrieking, writhing torch.

The spider legs stabbed at us like spears.

We cut them to pieces, but not without taking a couple serious hits of our own.

Then the spider-creatures shucked off their human shells, revealing horrific insect-like faces.

When the corpses hit the ground, they burst like water balloons filled with chicken guts – and dozens of baby spiders emerged from the rotting remains and swarmed towards us.

I used Hellstorm like a napalm strike, turning everything into a raging inferno.

But still more horrors emerged from the gaping holes in the wall of cancerous flesh.

We retreated into the temple, but wave after wave of creatures followed us.

The situation was hopeless. Back when the rogue dungeon had first taken over Vos, I had watched Quint and his men die horrible deaths. How the fuck were we supposed to survive, when seasoned combat veterans trained for this type of thing had failed?

Then something occurred to me: specifically, HOW I had watched Quint and his men die.

Deek had been busy speeding up the reintegration of Alaria’s soul with her body. While he was attending to that, I had taken over his powers. I’d done it using a special interface that was basically the coolest thing imaginable, with hundreds of options for spawning creatures, building structures –

And spying on anybody I wanted to, using God-like video feeds I could direct at will.

It wasn’t the video feeds that I needed now; it was the dungeon-building controls.

Deek wasn’t here, but luckily I had something else that might help.

I plunged my hand into one of my bags and withdrew a small, pink crystal.

It was the dungeon core that Alaria’s soul had inhabited for most of the time we were in Vos – and it had an interface of its own. Though its capabilities weren’t nearly as powerful as Deek’s, the crystal might just be powerful enough to save our ass.

“Cover me!” I yelled at the women, and slammed the crystal into the ground. Despite the floor being made of chipped black marble, the crystal sank into it like a hot needle in a stick of butter.

I was able to access the dungeon-building controls with a thought, and 30-foot-tall walls of pink crystal shot up around us, capped off by a ceiling.

The barriers slowed the monsters down but didn’t stop them completely. The creatures hacked at the walls with their claws and scorpion tails. They bodily slammed into them, causing them to crack and eventually crumble.

But I continued to build furiously, putting up mazes of walls around us.

Meera and Alaria slaughtered the creatures that fought their way through – Meera with her sword, Alaria with her flaming pitchfork.

Stig teleported around and cast fireballs at the abominations while I built new mazes like our lives depended on it. Which they did.

I kept an eye on my timer throughout.

2:01:15…

1:37:26…

0:58:49…

It seemed like an eternity.

And the monsters kept coming.

They began to overwhelm us… slicing us, stabbing us, biting us.

I lost Stig and resurrected him…

Then Alaria.

I brought her back, only to lose Meera.

Despite my earlier advice to the contrary, Eluun pitched in, healing everyone as best she could. She knew I was overwhelmed – and her help probably allowed us to survive as long as we did.

But the extra effort meant she had to resort to more of my healing potions, which I gave her as fast as I could.

The attacks were so brutal that she was reduced to drinking a potion every couple of minutes.

Fight, heal, die, resurrect.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I cast another Gravesite and nearly died as my attention was pulled away from shoring up our defenses.

Eluun kept getting tagged, and I shoved healing potion after healing potion at her in order to keep up her hit points when her powers were temporarily exhausted.

But we were getting close.

0:22:05…

0:17:49…

0:11:08…

It seemed like an eternity, but we were almost there…

…when the dungeon unleashed everything it had on us.

Wave after wave of screeching, slashing, biting, gnawing horrors burst through the walls faster than I could build them.

And throughout it all, that hellish sound filled my ears:

ch-ch-ch-Ch-CH-CH-ch…

ch-ch-ch-Ch-CH-CH-ch…

I was resurrecting Meera, Alaria, and Stig as fast as I could, but they kept dying.

My own hit points were dropping… 75%... 62%... 49%...

But my timer kept ticking down.

0:09:32…

0:07:29…

0:05:14…

It was just a matter of hanging on for those last few minutes.

Sweat poured down my face.

Please, God – PLEASE let us make it –

And then we were in the final stretch.

0:00:59…

0:00:58…

“HANG ON, EVERYBODY, JUST ONE MORE MINUTE!” I screamed.

Still the nightmares came.

0:00:32…

0:00:31…

“JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER!”

We were all down to our final 10% of Health when my timer reached zero and the counter on my menu icon jumped up to ‘3.’

I immediately cast the portal to Abaddon.

The fiery ring appeared before us.

“ELUUN, GO!” I shouted.

She ran for the portal –

When a spear-like spider’s leg stabbed her from behind.

It pierced through her back, came out her stomach, and lifted her five feet into the air.

“NO!” I screamed.

Alaria barreled into her from behind, flapping her wings and pulling her off the creature’s leg, and they tumbled through the fiery ring.

“MEERA, STIG!”

Meera grabbed Stig and flew through the portal.

I pulled the tiny crystal out of the ground.

What was left of the crumbling pink walls collapsed, and hundreds of horrifying nightmares flooded towards me like a tsunami.

As I stumbled through the fiery ring, demonic arms and legs and tentacles reached after me –

And were cut off as the portal collapsed.

Dismembered limbs fell in a pile behind me, twitching and writhing.

I barely even noticed. I just rushed to Eluun’s side where she lay on the ground, supported by Alaria’s arms like Jesus and Mary in the Pieta.

Eluun’s hit points were barely above zero – single digits and dropping fast.

She looked up at me, her eyes staring into mine.

“Can you heal yourself?!” I asked in a panic.

She didn’t answer.

Her body began to convulse.

3…

2…

“HOLD ON, HOLD ON!” I screamed as I reached into my bag for another healing potion –

And found nothing.

I was out.

There was nothing I could do.

I grabbed her hand… she squeezed it once…

And then she was gone.

23

Alaria and I huddled over Eluun’s body.

Alaria wept; I struggled to keep my grief locked deep inside me.

Meera watched nearby, her face full of sorrow.

Stig stayed quiet, his head bowed solemnly.

We stayed like that for nearly ten minutes.

Finally I whispered to Alaria, “We should bury her.”

She nodded tearfully, stood up, and carried Eluun in her arms.

Unable to dig a proper grave amidst the wreckage of Abaddon, we laid her gently on the ground and covered her with stones like a cairn. Once she was buried, we stood there a minute more in silence.

Alaria was the first to speak.

“We have to make him pay,” she said with barely contained fury.

“I’ll make him pay for this,” I promised. “But we have to get you somewhere safe.”

“What?!”

“If I don’t get the answer to his riddle right, he’s going to try to kill you, Alaria.”

“So get the answer right.”

“I’m going to give it everything I’ve got, but if I don’t… I can’t lose you. I can’t.”

She looked at me angrily. “So what am I supposed to do? Go hide somewhere and twiddle my thumbs while you and Meera and Stig do all the fighting? NO.”

“Alaria – ”

“You heard him, Ian! He said there was nowhere I’d be safe from him, not even Limbo! If you stash me somewhere for safe keeping, he’ll find me, no matter what.” She shook her head. “No. If I’m going out, I want to go out fighting. I’ll take the son of a bitch down with me if I have to.”

I sighed. I knew it was pointless to argue with her – and she was right. There was nowhere in OtherWorld she would be safe.

I wanted to contact Desmond or Satish and make them rewrite the program so there was no way she could die – but I was afraid if I sent them a message, Nix would show up and kill her. I couldn’t take that chance.

So I gave in. “Alright. Is there anything you can tell me about Nix now that you know who he is? Any sort of weakness?”

She shook her head in despair. “No. All I know is that he’s utterly insane.”

Truthfully, I didn’t expect a whole lot of information out of her. Nix was obviously an impromptu villain without a lot of backstory – otherwise his name would have been on my list.

Speaking of which…

I pulled up the quest details. Sure enough, there was ‘Nix’ in the number eight slot… but number nine was still listed as ‘XXXXX.’

“We need to decide what we’re going to do,” I said. “I can take us anywhere, but only 3 times in the next 24 hours. So where do we go first?”

Alaria thought for a second, then said decisively, “Fathmos. We need to evacuate the Naga and the nymphs.”

Those were the two races who had lived at the bottom of the sea as neighbors to Alaria’s perverted, mad-as-a-hatter ex-master, Zali.

However, he’d been crazy in a much more harmless and charming way than Nix. More ‘wacko artist’ than ‘genocidal psychopath.’

“If we get there before him, though, he won’t have left the riddle,” I pointed out.

“We can’t stand by and let other people get slaughtered!” Alaria cried out. “Do you want what happened to the frost elves to happen to anybody else? To Wylla and Mauvia and the others?!”

Shit – she had to bring up the fairies. They would be defenseless against Nix’s onslaught.

For that matter, so would the Naga and the nymphs, but I didn’t have the same attachment to them as I did to Wylla’s tribe.

I sighed. “No, I don’t – but most of all, I don’t want it to happen to you.”

“So we evacuate everyone, then go back after Nix has destroyed their homes.”

“That’ll cut down on my ability to get us in and out of places.”

“You didn’t even have your powers 48 hours ago,” she pointed out. “They’re not everything. We’ll use them to help people, get the riddles – and then we’ll make do after that.”

“And get stuck in another dungeon?” I asked angrily.

She stared at me, resolute. “If that’s what it takes… then yes.”

I smiled grimly. “It’s weird having you being the one arguing to save everybody, and me being the one to say ‘fuck ‘em.’”

Alaria smiled sadly and put one palm against the side of my face.

“You’re only doing it because you want to save me.” She kissed me, soft and sweet, and pulled back. “But we have to save our friends.”

“Alright. We’ll go to Zali’s old stomping grounds first.” I turned back to Meera. “You’re still in, right?”

“Till the very end,” she said, baring her teeth ferociously.

“Stig?”

He gave a sad glance over at Eluun’s grave, then looked back and nodded.

“Okay… let’s do it.”

24

The first thing I did was use my menu interface to delete my last Gravesite. I didn’t want to respawn back in the rogue dungeon if something went wrong.

Now if I died, I would resurrect in the nearest graveyard, wherever that happened to be.

The second thing I did was put on my Ring of Baloq, which let me breathe underwater.

It also extended the ability to all of my ‘demons,’ according to the ring’s description – but I didn’t know if that included Meera or not.

Probably, given that the Collar of Gorbolik made her into a sort of ‘honorary demon.’ But I wasn’t 100% sure.

“I’ll risk it,” Meera said.

Once she was okay with it, I opened up the portal from Abaddon to the seafloor.

I was kind of expecting water to spill out all over the place, but it didn’t. It just sort of hung there, suspended inside the fiery ring, sort of like the portal in Stargate.

We passed through, which was weird – it felt like walking upright into a pool of cool water.

The portal looked even stranger from the other side, spitting off sparks through the water until it collapsed.

Thanks to the Ring of Baloq, I could breathe. Alaria and Stig were fine, too.

Meera looked panicked and was still holding her breath. I didn’t blame her; my first time, I’d been frightened, too.

“Just go for it,” I advised her, my words slightly muffled as I spoke through the water.

She winced… blew out a mouthful of bubbles… closed her eyes as though she was in pain… finally inhaled…

And then her eyes flew wide open.

“It worked!” she cried out, ecstatic.

One hurdle down… and about two dozen more to go.

What remained of Zali’s compound had been wrecked by the army of anti-sex protestors. They’d initially just gone after the perverted statue garden, but then they’d rioted and destroyed the wall around it, not to mention the attached villa. It looked like a bombed-out structure from World War II.

But the rest of Fathmos was untouched. In the far distance, the nymph queen’s palace stood strong and proud.

Which meant that Nix hadn’t gotten here yet.

People strolling along the seafloor stopped and stared at us in wonder.

Fair enough, seeing as we’d just materialized out of a magical portal.

I say ‘people,’ but they weren’t human. There were Naga – giant mermen with reptilian heads, scaly skin, and serpentine lower bodies – and nymphs, who were basically green-skinned human females with dark green hair.

The two races had been at each other’s throats forever. I’d tried to harness their animosity in order to defeat Zali, but the perverted little bugger had undercut me by suggesting a day of ‘performance art’ – basically a massive orgy.

Naga and nymphs immediately stopped warring and started fucking.

And I guess it had paid off, because now Naga males swam hand-in-hand with female nymphs…

…and lots of little Nagas and nymphs, too.

Baby mermen and green little girls.

No war… no violence… just families and couples in love.

I stared in amazement.

“It’s you!” one of the Nagas said in amazement. “You’ve returned!”

I didn’t recognize him – all Nagas basically looked alike to me – but I replied, “Yes, and you’ve got to evacuate, NOW.”

“What? Why?”

“There’s someone coming to destroy the entire area. Trust me, you HAVE to get your people out of here immediately!”

“But – ”

“HE’S GOING TO KILL YOU ALL IF YOU DON’T LEAVE NOW!”

Every single nymph and Naga within earshot looked at each other – and then scooped up their children and swam as fast as they could.

“GET AS FAR AWAY AS YOU CAN!” I shouted, then turned to Meera, Alaria, and Stig. “Go around and tell as many people as possible!”

Because of a bauble I owned called the Galatan Trinket of Speed, we were able to swim superfast through the water. We split up, and I headed straight for the palace.

By the time I got there, word had spread, and the queen was overseeing the evacuation. Nymphs and Naga streamed out of the palace and into the surrounding coral reefs.

The queen and I had had a run-in after Alaria and I had, um, well, double-teamed her daughter in order to start a war.

But getting laid at Zali’s love-in had apparently chilled her out, because she swam over as soon as she saw me. “They said you had returned! Are you absolutely sure Fathmos is in danger?”

“Yes, I promise.”

She nodded grimly. “Everyone will be gone within ten minutes. Will that be enough time?”

“I hope so.”

“Thank you for warning us,” she said, and I watched as she fled with her subjects.

The queen was as good as her word: ten minutes later, there was no one in all of Fathmos but me, Alaria, Meera, and Stig.

We stood there looking at each other.

It all felt a bit… anticlimactic.

“Maybe Nix decided to skip Fathmos?” Alaria suggested.

“No, it was way too important. If he didn’t skip Orlo’s lair, there’s no way he would skip Fathmos.”

“Do you think he’s still on his way?”

“Probably,” I said, “but I don’t know what’s taking him so long. Vos isn’t that far from the ocean.”

“Maybe he went somewhere else first. Maybe that bar we went to?”

She was talking about the Blowhole, the grubby little seaside shack where I’d purchased the Ring of Baloq.

“Not important enough.”

“What about Fioraza?”

She was talking about the town where I’d paid off Varkus at a bank. But that’s about all we’d done.

“No – I mean, after Vos we…”

I trailed off and stared at Alaria in horror.

One hand flew to her mouth as she realized exactly what I was thinking.

“DEEK!” she screamed.

After Vos had imploded, we’d traveled to a seaside cliff where we’d let Deek sink into the ground and begin constructing a new dungeon.

I’d forgotten about it because there was no name attached to the place. It was literally out in the middle of nowhere, far from any towns or villages.

“Oh shit,” I exclaimed, a sick feeling in my stomach.

“We have to go help him!”

“We should fly there – it’s not that far away,” I said, thinking of the precious portal spells, of which I only had two left for the day.

“Ian, he could be getting attacked RIGHT NOW!” Alaria cried out. “We can’t wait, not even a second!”

She was right.

I nodded, pulled up my map, and searched the nearby coast for the right spot.

There it was – a tiny red dot along the seaside.

I opened the portal, we jumped through it to Abaddon, and then I cast the next portal straight into the depths of Deek’s dungeon.

What we found made my heart stop in my chest.

It was his throne room we’d entered – the most elaborate and beautiful room in the entire dungeon.

But instead of polished basalt floors, there were only cracked slabs of ruined stone.

The gorgeous paintings that had once hung on the walls had been burned to cinders.

The glorious statues rivalling Renaissance treasures had been torn off their pedestals and shattered on the floor.

The ceiling was caved in, and above us we could see a glint of blue sky –

Which was really bad, given that we were about 50 stories below ground.

All around us, the corpses of Deek’s dungeon creatures lay on the floor.

Centaurs… fauns… basilisks… harpies… griffins…

All dead.

“NO!” Alaria screamed, then called out in a panic, “DEEK?!”

I looked around… and saw the thing I’d been dreading the most.

Amidst the wreckage were shards of purple crystal.

Deek had stood over two feet tall… but what was left of his crystalline form lay scattered across the ground like broken glass.

Alive, he had glowed a deep purple… but his remains were dark, devoid of any light.

Alaria saw it a second after I did, and she burst into tears.

“DEEK!”

She dropped to her knees and ran her fingers through the shards, sifting through them for something – anything – that might suggest Deek’s consciousness still remained.

But all she could find were dark bits of glass.

She screamed in grief and fury. I sank down behind her and held her as her shoulders heaved with sobs.

That was when I saw the far end of the throne room and the letters burned into the wall:

2

THE FIRST

THE LAST

THE ONLY

25

I gave Alaria a few minutes to grieve, but then we had to move on. There was no other option.

“We have to go,” I said gently.

“I know,” she murmured. “Are we going to the fairies next?”

We were – but first I wanted to see something.

Fathmos was only about 60 or so miles away from the coast. The time it would take for Nix’s fleet to travel there would be relatively short.

Considering that we had evacuated the city before the ships’ arrival, I figured it would be worth it to try to see them. I wanted to know what I was up against.

I took Stig and flew on my magic carpet. Meera and Alaria followed a few feet behind us.

As we rose up, I looked around at the 50 floors of charred ruins. The amount of destruction was jaw-dropping.

Yeah, I know, Nix had taken out the Underneath – but that was only a hundred feet underground at its deepest point.

Deek’s dungeon was over 500 feet deep.

Frankly, it was ridiculous. Nix was so over-powered that it beggared belief. A warlock who could singlehandedly obliterate a dungeon that deep in the ground? I don’t care if Nix did it in one shot or 30 – no Level 110 character of any class had that kind of power.

It was almost like they’d designed him to be an unstoppable force so you fucking had to play his twisted little game, with no chance of beating him otherwise.

I was going to have to have a talk with Satish when I got back – about Nix being ridiculously OP, and about the rogue dungeon. That three-hour battle had been goddamn horrific. If Westek actually let this quest go live in the mainstream game, they were going to get hit with dozens of lawsuits for giving players PTSD.

I was still struggling with my own emotions. My grief over Eluun’s death – and now Deek’s – felt like an open wound.

But I pushed all that down as we reached ground level and rose even farther into the air.

I couldn’t see where Fathmos should have been. After all, it was half a mile underwater. Not only that, but it was 60 miles away, so the site probably lay beyond the curvature of the globe.

But I could see dark storm clouds covering the entire horizon for miles. Flashes of light flickered deep within them.

Lightning?

Or was that the ships bombarding Fathmos?

I didn’t know, and there was no time to go find out.

“Let’s go save the fairies,” I said to the others.

We returned to the ground, where Alaria said her final goodbyes at the edge of the pit… and then I cast the next portal.

Once in Abaddon, I pulled up the map and selected the fairies’ home village.

At some point I wanted to use another Hell as a go-between, but right now I had no interest in exploring or trying new options. I had a job to do, and no time for anything beyond what was absolutely necessary.

We stepped out of the fiery ring into a beautiful forest clearing.

“Wylla!” I cried out. “Mauvia!”

Two tiny glowing lights zipped out of the treetops and circled around us.

“Mistress and Big Thing!” said a familiar feminine voice. “You has come to have fun with us again? Yaaay!”

“Welcome, Ian and Alaria – and what a beautiful friend you have brought!” Mauvia said as she flew around Meera.

“Wylla, Mauvia, listen to me carefully,” I said. “There’s a very bad man coming here, and he’s going to destroy your entire village.”

“What?!” both fairies cried out.

“I need you to get everyone – fairies, pixies, brownies, sprites, everyone – and we have to get as far away from here as possible. I’m talking miles away. Do you understand?”

“Oh no!” Wylla moaned.

“Wylla – ”

“Yes, yes, we will do’s it, Big Thing!”

“Alright – go!”

Wylla and Mauvia roused the rest of the fairies, who split into three groups. Some went after the pixies, who looked like tiny, flying, purple baby Groots. Others informed the brownies, who resembled miniature hedgehogs. And the final contingent alerted the sprites, who looked like cute Funko Pop versions of green anthropomorphized flame.

The last time we’d met, the other three tribes were warring with the fairies – but they’d been tricked into it by the evil hobgoblin (and Alaria’s seventh ex-master) Hritch.

Apparently they’d since gone back to a peaceful coexistence, because they mobilized quickly and began evacuating from the forest at once.

Every fairy and pixie picked up one of the earthbound brownies or sprites and carried them to safety. Likewise, I used my magic carpet to transport entire groups. Alaria and Meera pitched in and allowed a dozen tiny creatures to ride on their backs at a time.

Within an hour, we had transferred thousands of faerie folk to a distant part of the forest.

Just in time, too.

There was a crack of thunder in the distance. Within minutes the entire sky was overcast, and the bright afternoon turned to twilight.

Alaria and Meera flew me and Stig up to the top of the biggest oak we could find, and we watched as roiling black clouds swept in just a few miles away.

Then the ships appeared.

Black galleons with ragged sails emerged from the clouds. The Revenge was among them, and the only one that didn’t look like it had been rotting for a hundred years – but all of them were surrounded by a faint green glow.

The ships hovered in a circle over the forest. I was fairly sure they were directly above the fairies’ home.

For a moment nothing happened. I wondered if Nix was confused, and maybe considering leaving –

And then all hell broke loose.

Literally.

First came the crash and boom of cannons. Treetops collapsed one by one as their trunks splintered from enemy fire.

Inside the circle formed by the ships, a giant portal opened up.

It was very much like mine: a ring of sparks… except it was as big around as a football field.

And from inside its perimeter, pure hell rained down.

It was like watching a nuclear explosion focused into a single, contained beam… albeit one that was 200 feet wide.

Trees were incinerated in a second, and a blast wave ripped through the surrounding forest.

The devastation was like watching one of those old films of an atomic bomb detonated on an island atoll.

“Acheron,” Alaria whispered in horror.

“What?” I asked. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

“The most inhospitable of the Seven Hells, a place of fire and torment. It looks like he’s opened a portal to a volcano on Acheron.”

So that’s where I knew the name from. I’d seen it on the list of Hells I could travel to with my new powers.

Why the fuck I would want to go there, though, I had no idea – not after seeing the devastation that Nix’s portal unleashed.

That’s when it dawned on me: Nix’s warlock power was like mine and Hritch’s, but he wasn’t using his portals to travel through.

He was weaponizing them, opening them up to let through a torrent of destruction.

So that’s how he’d destroyed Deek’s dungeon, and Abaddon, and the Underneath, and the Kingdom of Frost.

Jesus Christ… he had a full-blown weapon of mass destruction he could unleash anywhere.

The portal closed after about 30 seconds. The ring of sparks shrank inwards, cutting off the column of fire until there was nothing left –

And then the portal winked out of existence.

But there was one final, rotten cherry on top of the sundae.

A single beam of purple light blasted down from one of the central ships’ main decks. Nix’s signature attack from the palm of his hand – and I was guessing he was using it to carve out a riddle. The burst of energy moved back and forth, lasted about seven or eight seconds, and then cut out completely.

After that the fleet slowly broke out of their circle, settled back into formation, and started flying northeast.

I brought up my map to see what lay to the northeast –

Exardus.

They were heading back to Exardus to wipe it completely off the globe, and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

I had another 22 hours before I could cast my next spell. Until that happened, we were stranded.

I could hear the fairies’ quiet weeping all around me in the tree branches. The sound was heartbreaking.

Nix’s fleet disappeared into the black storm clouds, which rumbled and boiled northeast, allowing the sunshine to break through once again.

Once I was sure the ships were gone, I summoned my magic carpet and stepped onto it.

“Come on,” I said to my crew, “we need to check out the next riddle.”

We flew back to what had once been the fairies’ home. Now it was just a blackened crater in the middle of the forest, ringed with charred trees.

But I had been right: Nix had left behind his telltale signature.

In the center of the crater were glowing words cut deep into the earth:

4

AT THE END

HE WILL BE THERE.

It was Riddle #4 because we hadn’t seen the one from Fathmos yet.

What the fuck it meant, I had no idea.

I mean, yeah – it was obvious the 9th ex-master would be there at the end. Killing him (if that was even possible) would be the end of a months-long quest, so of course he would be there!

How the hell was that a clue to his name, though?!

I stared at the words, then glanced over at Alaria.

She wasn’t looking at me. Instead, she stared at the devastation all around us.

My heart filled simultaneously with overwhelming love and debilitating panic.

I’m not going to be able to guess the answer, a tiny voice whispered in the back of my mind, and it scared me more than any monster I’d encountered inside the rogue dungeon.

As horrible as everything that I’d seen today had been…

…it would be nothing compared to losing her.

And I was terrified beyond words that that was exactly what was going to happen.

26

The pixies, sprites, and brownies left us shortly thereafter. They lived far enough away from the fairies that their homes had largely been spared by the blast. They gave the fairies mournful hugs, but there was nothing else they could do, and so they went back to their normal lives.

If only Wylla, Mauvia, and their tribe could have done the same.

Fortunately, there was one way I could help. We spent the night in a palace I constructed with the pink crystal, far away from the scene of devastation.

At any other time, our arrival would have been cause for celebration – and an orgy of epic proportions. But no one had any interest at all.

The fairies were mourning the loss of their homes…

Alaria was still grieving Deek…

And whenever I closed my eyes, all I could see was Eluun gripping my hand as she died.

I did use my Ring of Diminution, though, to shrink myself down to the fairies’ size. I wanted to see them individually, not as tiny blurs of golden light.

I hugged Wylla first. She looked beautiful as always, a tiny Marilyn Monroe – but the sight of her tearstained face pierced my heart.

Gorgeous Mauvia tried to stay positive, but her haunted eyes betrayed her inner pain. “Thank you for alerting us… thousands would have died if you had not come.”

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t stop them from…”

I trailed off, not wanting to say destroying your home.

Mauvia smiled sadly and shook her head. “We can rebuild anywhere. And we will… in time.”

I included enough room in the palace to house all the fairies. Nothing fancy, just dozens of human-size beds that would easily accommodate a hundred tiny folk each.

But looking out on the tiny figures huddled together in shock, holding each other and crying, was like witnessing a flood of refugees from a war-torn country. It hurt my heart to see it.

When we retired for the night, I held Alaria in my arms as she cried herself to sleep.

I wasn’t quite as lucky. I stayed wide awake for hours, going over the riddles again and again in my mind.

I am the alpha and the omega…

The first, the last, the only…

At the end, he will be there.

They made no more sense now than when I had first seen them.

I wished I could have contacted Luna to get her help, but I didn’t dare.

I was utterly and completely alone on this, with no one to blame but myself if I failed.

27

The next morning, we helped situate the fairies in new makeshift homes while I waited for my portal timer to reach zero.

Ten days ago –

Jesus, was that how long it had been since I’d fought Hritch?! It felt like an eternity.

Anyway, ten days ago Alaria, Stig, and I had traveled via magic carpet from the fairies’ land to Exardus.

It had taken us almost three full days, with stopovers at inns for two nights.

Nix’s fleet wouldn’t need to rest, which meant they could cover in two days what had taken us three.

Actually, since their ships moved faster than my magic carpet, they would probably reach Exardus within 36 hours of their departure. Maybe less.

We’d burned 22 hours waiting for my portal timer to run down, so once we got back to Exardus, we would have 14 hours at MOST to figure out how to stop Nix from destroying the city… and potentially killing Alaria.

I wanted nothing more than to run off with her to another part of the globe, or to one of the Seven Hells – anywhere far from here.

But I knew we couldn’t run forever.

I would eventually have to face him.

And the inevitability of that final encounter filled me with dread.

As the final minutes ticked down, I used my Ring of Diminution to shrink in size and say goodbye to the fairies.

“Be careful, Big Thing,” Wylla said mournfully.

“I will.”

“Thank you for saving us,” Mauvia said. “And please, come back someday soon. We would love to see you when our hearts are not so heavy.”

“We will… I promise.”

Alaria and Stig said their goodbyes, too. Meera just watched silently on the side, occasionally distracted by the golden blurs of light whizzing around her.

When the timer reached zero, I opened up a portal.

We would eventually return to Exardus – but we had a stopover in Fathmos to make first.

Once we reached Abaddon, I avoided looking at the lonely cairn lying there amongst the ruins. It hurt too much.

I exchanged the Ring of Diminution for the Ring of Baloq so we could breathe, and then the four of us stepped through the next portal into the underwater realm.

I would have thought we’d come to the wrong place if I hadn’t seen so many similar scenes over the last 48 hours.

Fathmos had been completely destroyed.

The nymph queen’s palace had been obliterated.

Zali’s compound, which had looked bombed-out before, had been reduced to white gravel in the sand.

At least there were no dead Naga or nymphs lying in the wreckage. That much I could be thankful for.

The thing we had come for was exactly where I’d expected it.

Nix’s powers had turned the sand to glass, and three-foot-high glittering letters spelled out his message:

3

YOU SAY HIS NAME

AND NEVER TAKE NOTICE

OTHERS SAY HIS NAME

AND YOU PERK UP YOUR EARS

The fuck?!

I stood there looking at the riddle in desperation, but it made no more sense after five minutes than it had when I’d first read it.

“Any ideas?” I asked Alaria, Meera, and Stig.

They all shook their head ‘no.’

“Alright, then… let’s go,” I said despondently, and cast the next portal.

28

We emerged in front of Meera’s building – or at least the crater where it had once been.

“What do we do now?” Alaria asked.

“I guess we should evacuate the city.”

But the streets were deserted and deathly quiet, as though the citizens of Exardus had already left.

Could they have found out already about the Black Fleet’s impending arrival?

But how?

As it turned out, it wasn’t Nix that had had sent them running.

Far down the street, several brightly colored, familiar-looking figures rushed out of a building, their arms laden with candlesticks and silverware.

“HEY!” I yelled at them.

Three short muppets dressed as pirates looked over.

“Ian!” they all shouted happily.

I jogged on over, Stig scampered beside me, and Alaria and Meera flew.

I didn’t know their names, but all three demons had thanked me before we’d parted ways.

“I thought you guys were going to steal a ship!”

“Yeah, well…” a green one grumbled.

“Buncha mobsters had other ideas,” a blue one snarled.

“What?!”

It turned out that Peenocchio’s and Varkus’s men had taken over the harbor. Even though they had been mortal enemies just a few days before, the two groups of thugs had forged a kind of détente, having realized they would lose out on a major business opportunity if they continued to fight amongst each other.

Entrepreneurship amongst thieves, if you will.

That business opportunity consisted of holding the shipyards hostage. The thugs were demanding a king’s ransom if Exardus’s merchants wanted their ships back.

It had been a pretty good idea…

Except that none of the merchants were willing to play ball.

They’d basically told the mobsters to go fuck themselves.

In the nicest, most polite language possible.

In a letter.

Delivered by a carrier pigeon.

The merchants didn’t want to get whacked, after all.

If the other party has a tendency to kill the messenger, might as well send a bird.

We, the Exardus Chamber of Commerce, have decided that it is not currently in our members’ best interests to pay the suggested amounts for our former property, so we are breaking off negotiations posthaste. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Now the shipyards were filled with disgruntled mobsters pissed off that nobody would buy back the boats they’d hijacked.

Krug had gone in without knowing any of that.

When he and the pirates had arrived, they’d found a bunch of goons demanding a couple million in gold for the crappiest ship available.

Of course, pirates being pirates, there was no way Krug and his crew were going to pay for anything – so they attacked instead.

Unfortunately, they were a bunch of 50 Level demons up against a bunch of 80 Level warriors, rogues, paladins, and mages.

It didn’t turn out too well for the demons. Over a dozen of them died before Krug ordered a retreat.

I checked my menu. Sure enough, 14 demons’ icons were slightly greyed out.

I hadn’t realized it at the time it happened because we’d been doing something that consumed every ounce of attention I had: fighting to keep Eluun alive inside the rogue dungeon.

Having been thoroughly whipped, the demons gave up all hope of stealing a ship and turned to the second-best option: stealing anything else that wasn’t nailed down.

They were just going about it as a land-based activity rather than aerial or nautical.

When I asked why, the green one said, “We’re pirates, ain’t we? Gots to get our steal on.”

“Plus,” a purple one muttered, “maybe we can buy a blasted ship if we scrounge up enough.”

“What?!” I exclaimed.

“I know, I know,” the purple pirate groaned. “No self-respectin’ pirate would ever do this shit.”

“We stopped bein’ self-respectin’ pirates when we didn’t go after Tarka and the warlock,” the blue demon groused. “Bent over like bitches and let ‘em fuck us in the ass instead.”

This was just too good.

Krug wouldn’t help me, instead deciding to go off and be a big bad pirate…

…and then he’d fucked the pooch trying to get another ship.

Apparently his crew weren’t amused.

Getting them to swear by the Seven Hells was probably the smartest thing Krug ever did, because otherwise he would have faced a mutiny for sure.

But there was more.

Now that there were not just mobsters and demons running around, but demon PIRATES stealing stuff, the populace of Exardus had gotten fed up.

There had been a mass exodus the day before, with every single citizen fleeing the city.

That’s why Exardus seemed deserted: because it was.

(Which was the one kindness the game had done me in the last three days.)

So now the mobsters were holding a bunch of ships hostage that they couldn’t get paid for…

The pirates were reduced to scrounging for pennies between people’s sofa cushions…

And everybody was going to die in a matter of hours. They just didn’t know it yet.

Stellar.

“Take me to Krug,” I told the three pirates.

“Uhhhh… I don’t think he wants to see you,” the green demon said.

The blue demon snickered. “Yeah, especially considerin’ how bad he’s gotten buggered.”

“He’s going to want to hear what I have to say,” I reassured them. “Don’t worry – it’s strictly business.”

“…okay…” the pirates agreed hesitantly, then led us down the street.

They brought us to the Exardus town hall, a gleaming building topped by a white dome. In the massive central lobby, Krug was dividing up the booty being brought back by his crew – mostly candlesticks and silverware.

It was a pretty pathetic haul, all things considered, especially for a bunch of pirates accustomed to burying treasure chests full of gold and jewels. Varkus’s and Peenocchio’s thugs had nabbed all the best stuff over the last few days, and the fleeing citizenry must have taken everything else of real value.

As soon as Krug saw me, his expression turned into a scowl.

“What are you doing here?” he snarled.

I put up my hands in a Don’t shoot pose. “I’m here to make a deal. And as a gesture of goodwill – ”

I hit the icons of the 14 dead pirates, who immediately reappeared in front of me.

We had to dodge a few lightning bolts and fireballs before the demons realized they weren’t in the middle of battle anymore, but then we got down to business.

“Thanks for bringing my men back,” Krug grunted without an ounce of gratitude, “but I’m not interested in making any deals.”

“You don’t have much of a choice,” I replied. “Tarka and the warlock are on their way here now with their fleet. By the way, the warlock’s name is Nix… and when he gets here, he’s going to destroy this entire city and everyone in it.”

All the demon pirates looked around at each other in – excitement? Lust for revenge?

“How do you know all that?” Krug asked suspiciously.

“Because we fought him in Vos. Actually, we didn’t so much fight him as he trapped us inside a rogue dungeon until I could teleport us out.” I paused. “Not all of us made it.”

Krug glanced at my group, looking for a specific face. “The frost elf?”

I slowly shook my head no.

Krug was silent for a few seconds. Finally he said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I liked her. But there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Yes there is. I’m going to kill that motherfucker, and I need your help to do it.”

The other pirates looked at each other and murmured excitedly –

But Krug’s shoulders sagged as though they bore the weight of the world. “You don’t understand. He slaughtered us before… and we can’t even steal a damn ship to get out of here. How the hell are we supposed to take on an entire fleet?”

“You could if you had a fleet of your own.”

He looked shocked. “What – the ships in the harbor?”

“Yup.”

“All of them?!”

“Yes.”

Now the pirate crew was even more excited.

Not Krug, though. He was just too damn pessimistic for his own good.

“I suppose you’re going to kill all those gangsters for us, too,” he said sarcastically.

“No. We’re going to get them to join us.”

“…what?”

Krug listened in stunned silence as I laid out my plan.

The rank-and-file were full of enthusiasm; their captain, less so.

“That’ll never work,” he grumbled.

“It’s worth a shot. If we win, you get the Revenge back, and maybe even an entire fleet of ships. You’d be the most fearsome band of pirates in all of history.”

“If we win.”

“The alternative is we die without even fighting back. We might as well go for it – at least then we’d have a chance.”

Krug didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he looked like he was considering it.

I decided now was the time to bring up the fine print. “My only condition is that you release your crew from their oath of loyalty. If they go through with the plan and fulfill their side of the bargain, I want you to give them their freedom.”

Krug smirked. “Like you gave us ours from Tarka,” he said sardonically.

I ignored his mocking tone. “It’s only fair.”

Krug craned his neck and scratched his massive jaw as he thought. “Hmm…”

“C’mon, Cap’n,” Shee pleaded. “It’s the best shot we’ll ever have at getting the Revenge back.”

“You just want the freedom to do whatever you want,” Krug said accusatorily.

“Isn’t that what we all want?” Shee asked.

Krug sighed, then shrugged. “Alright. Why not. It’s not like I’ll have to pay up anyway.”

A cheer went up from his crew, along with a few celebratory fireballs.

“You won’t regret it,” I promised.

“I already am,” Krug grumbled, but he joined us as we made our way to the docks.

29

And so a warlock, a succubus, an angel, an imp, and 50 demon pirates walked into a den of murderers and thieves.

As we reached the shipyards, I took stock of the situation.

Every ship had a group of thugs camped out on its upper deck, staking out their territory.

Orcs, elves, trolls, goblins, and humans were intermixed – but without fail, each group was dressed in armor that was either drab and battered (Varkus’s former employees) or gorgeously colorful (which meant they had worked for Peenocchio). There was no mixing or matching between the armor types; it was 100% one or the other.

Some of the thugs were in the ships’ riggings or crow’s nests, keeping an eye out to see if the other side violated the temporary truce.

The heckling started as soon as they saw Krug.

“Hey – it’s that demon from earlier!” someone shouted.

“Can’t rightly call him a pirate!” another one hooted.

“Betcha he’s thinkin’ ‘bout buyin’ a ship NOW!” a third yelled, and the entire shipyard erupted in laughter.

Krug bristled with rage, and he reached for his sword.

I put a hand on his arm to stop him from drawing.

“Easy,” I said. “Remember, we’re here to talk, not fight.”

Then the mobsters noticed me, and it was like a bunch of Great Whites suddenly smelled blood in the water.

“Wait – I know YOU!” a thug in scarlet and gold armor yelled angrily as he pointed at me from one of the bigger ships.

“He’s the one that killed Peenocchio!” another mobster shouted.

“And kidnapped Varkus!” an orc in dingy armor roared.

“And I’m here to make a deal,” I yelled back.

A guy from every ship either swung down on a rope, or ran down the gangplank, or jumped from the upper deck and slammed down on the dock in a three-point superhero landing.

Within seconds I was surrounded by a dozen of the ugliest, most brutal-looking warriors, paladins, and rogues – not to mention the two dozen hunters aiming at me from the ships’ decks.

“I should kill you for offing my old boss,” the warrior in scarlet and gold snarled.

“Technically he killed himself by lying too much,” I said. “His nose hit the opposite wall of his safe room and caved in his head.”

It was true. Faced with certain death if he told another lie, Peenocchio just couldn’t help himself.

The warrior chuckled nastily. “Sounds about right… stupid little fucker…”

“You don’t sound too broken up about it.”

“At least he paid us,” the warrior snarled.

“I understand you’re selling ships. What are you asking?”

“15 million gold for the galleon,” he said as he pointed at the ship behind him.

“14.9 for the schooner!” a rogue counteroffered.

“16 for the man-o-war,” a paladin yelled, “guns included.”

Within seconds it sounded like a trading floor on Wall Street with everybody yelling out prices – all of them exorbitant.

Jesus – Krug would have never been able to scrounge up enough silverware to buy anything, even if he had three months to search all of Exardus.

“I got a better offer,” I shouted, and the thugs all quieted down.

“What?” the scarlet warrior asked.

“We join forces.”

The mobsters laughed.

“How ‘bout you pay us or we kill you?” a rogue sneered.

“Then you die, too,” I said.

Every single asshole on the dock went for his weapons.

“Not from us, you idiots,” I shouted. “You saw what happened to the Underneath, right?”

All the gangsters paused, and a somber silence descended on the group.

“The Black Fleet,” one of the paladins murmured.

“That’s right. And the guy who commands them is coming back, except this time he’s going to wipe out everything.”

“What makes you so sure?” the scarlet warrior asked belligerently.

“He told me so in Vos. Or what’s left of it.”

The scarlet warrior laughed. “You’re a liar. Why the hell would he let you walk away?”

“He didn’t. He trapped me in a rogue dungeon until I could teleport out. He was toying with me.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s totally fucking insane. And he wants to torment me by destroying every place I’ve been that ever meant anything to me.”

“Then why didn’t he destroy Exardus the last time he was here?”

“To send me a message.” Literally – the riddle on Meera’s cross. “But Exardus is where I’ve been living up until a few days ago, so he saved wiping it off the map for the very end.”

The thugs all looked around at each other uneasily. Having worked for vicious mob bosses in the past, they had no reason to question another psychopath’s plans now.

“If what you’re saying is true,” the scarlet warrior said, “we should just get out of here.”

“That would be a good idea – except the Black Fleet’ll be here any minute. If you try to leave Exardus by foot, you’re fucked. Even if you make it out of the city and aren’t killed in the bombardment, they’ll probably just hunt you down for the sport of it.” I had no way of knowing if that was true or not, but it made for good sales copy. “Of course, you could always leave on one of these fine, expensive ships of yours. Any of you know how to fly them?”

The thugs all looked annoyed.

Of course they didn’t; they were triggermen and mob enforcers, not sailors.

“My guys do,” I said, jerking my thumb back at the demon pirates.

“So you want us to hand over the ships to you,” the scarlet warrior sneered, “in exchange for passage out of here.”

“No – I want you to fight alongside us.”

That got a reaction.

More than one gangster exclaimed, “What?!”

“The Black Fleet will chase after and destroy any ships that try to escape – that’s a given. There’s no way we can run, so we’re going to have to fight. My guys assure me they can man the ships with only four pirates apiece. The rest of you will help out. The hunters and mages will attack the Black Fleet from afar, and the warriors, paladins, and rogues will board them once we get close enough.”

The scarlet warrior scoffed. “You want to take on an armada that you claim has the firepower to destroy all of Exardus?”

“It’s a lot better than staying down here and waiting to get slaughtered. At least up there you’ll have a fighting chance. The Black Fleet is awfully good at killing civilians, but they’ve never fought other ships before. Certainly not ones crewed by gangsters and pirates.”

I wasn’t exactly sure about that – the part about the Black Fleet not fighting other ships – but again, it made for good sales copy. Very persuasive.

I could tell the thugs were beginning to consider it by the way they glanced around at each other.

“And what do we get out of it?” a paladin growled.

“What, besides getting to live? You can become pirates. The ships that survive will go on to form a pirate fleet, the mightiest one the world has ever seen. If you join us, you’ll eventually get rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

That got some people interested.

Of course, though, there were naysayers.

“If we survive,” a rogue snapped.

I gave a dark laugh. “You’re sure as shit not gonna survive if you’re down on the ground when they show up.”

“And what if we say ‘no’?” the scarlet warrior snarled.

“Then we all die. You don’t let my guys pilot the ships, we all stand around scratching our asses until the Black Fleet comes and blows us all to hell.”

“Which one?” a voice piped up behind me.

I turned around to see a green muppet pirate looking up at me.

“…what?” I asked, confused.

“Which hell will they blow us to?” he asked. “Astoroth, or Gehimnon, or – ”

“You’re ruining the moment!” I hissed at him.

He shrank down in embarrassment and didn’t say another word.

I turned back to the mobsters, who were busy discussing matters amongst themselves.

Then the scarlet warrior, who had apparently been designated the mobster union spokesman, started negotiating.

“If we survive, we get rich,” he clarified.

“You can become pirates along with my friends and become rich eventually, yeah.”

If I’d been 100% honest, I would have added, …providing you agree to some things.

But I kind of needed to sell them on it, so I left that part out.

You see, I trusted my demon friends not to be murderous assholes.

These Varkus and Peenocchio guys, not so much.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to set them loose on the Seven Skies, looting and pillaging whomever they pleased.

But I would deal with that eventuality afterwards, IF they all managed to come out of it alive.

And I was betting a good number of them weren’t going to come out of it alive.

As for the morality of using these assholes to fight Nix, well…

You go into battle with the army you have, not the army you want.

“What about any treasure on the Black Fleet’s ships?” the scarlet warrior asked.

“I doubt they’re going to have anything – they’re not that kind of an outfit.”

“But if they do – ”

“Then you split it equally with my guys, fifty-fifty.”

“We have more men!” the scarlet mobster snapped. “We should get a bigger share!”

Even though it was a moot point – the Black Fleet wasn’t going to have any treasure, I was sure of it – there was only so far I was willing to be pushed.

“FIFTY-FIFTY!” I yelled angrily. “Take it or leave it!”

The scarlet warrior considered… then nodded. “Alright. Deal.”

All the mobsters roared in approval – both up on the ships and down on the docks.

Nice. We had a navy to fight Nix with.

I turned to Krug and grinned. “I told you it would work.”

He was his usual dour self. “That remains to be seen.”

30

After a brief inspection, ten ships were deemed seaworthy (or ‘airworthy,’ I guess), and they all had to be crewed.

Krug divided his men into groups of five, with the most capable in each group becoming a captain. Shee got her own command, as did Krug and eight others. The remaining pirates would man the engines and sails.

The mobsters then divided up into contingents. The smaller, faster ships got more warriors, paladins, and rogues for boarding parties; the bigger, bulkier warships got a higher percentage of hunters and mages for ranged attacks.

Once we’d handed out the assignments, it was all hands on deck.

Pirates and gangsters ran for their individual ships and prepared to lift off.

I joined Krug on one of the midsize battleships – the best blend of speed and firepower. Its name was painted on its bow.

“The Peregrine,” he grunted. “Ugh.”

“It’s a bird of prey,” I pointed out. “Not bad.”

“Not good, either.”

“We could rechristen it,” I said with a suppressed smile. “What do you want, the Revenge II?”

“The Succubus!” Alaria said happily.

“The Archangel!” Meera suggested.

“The Imp,” Stig piped up.

“I think you mean the Boozehound,” I said.

“That’s good, too,” Stig agreed with an enthusiastic nod.

Krug groaned. “First let’s just try to survive.”

The plan was simple: the bigger ships would blast away while the faster ones came up alongside the Black Fleet, at which point the Level 80 gangsters would board and take on the Level 80 skeletons.

If one of our vessels took heavy fire and was going to be destroyed, then it would go on a kamikaze run and try to take out an enemy ship by ramming it.

I could always resurrect the pirates, so none of our guys were particularly afraid.

But I didn’t tell the mobsters about the resurrection bit, just in case they got pissed that their deaths would be permanent.

If they’d been anything other than villainous NPCs looking to pillage and chop off heads, I might have felt bad.

But they weren’t… and so I didn’t.

Anyways, the gangsters were more than pumped to go chop off some heads, so everybody was happy.

The big question was, where would Nix be?

I was betting the Revenge.

Krug thought Nix would be somewhere else – maybe because he was reluctant to admit we might have to destroy his old ship.

But we agreed the priority had to be taking out Nix.

Kill him and it was checkmate.

Fail to get him, and we would be destroyed.

No other options.

As the crews made ready to take off, I pulled Meera and Alaria off to the side.

“I don’t suppose you’d stay on the ship with me and Krug if I asked nicely, would you?” I asked Alaria.

“No, I wouldn’t,” she said in annoyance. “You can’t ask Meera to go out there and risk her life without being willing to let me do the same.”

“Yes you can.” Meera turned to Alaria and said seriously, “Nix is after you, not me. You should stay behind while I – ”

“NO,” Alaria interrupted. “He nearly killed you before – he might try to finish the job.”

“She has a point, Meera,” I said glumly. “You’re at just as much risk as she is.”

“I know, but – ”

“At least with me, we know that he’ll wait until Ian answers the riddles,” Alaria said. “Speaking of which, any progress?”

My stomach twisted nervously. “I… no. I’m trying, but nothing’s – ”

Alaria stopped my words with a kiss, then pulled back and smiled. “Don’t worry. I don’t think you’ll even have to guess – I’m betting we can kill him first.”

I didn’t share her optimism, but I didn’t say anything to contradict her. She was the one in real danger; if she needed that extra bit of hope to stay sane, then I wasn’t about to take it away from her.

Instead I got down to business. “Since you can both fly, I want you both in the mix, but I don’t want you taking unnecessary risks. Try to figure out where Nix is. If you find out, come back and let Krug know IMMEDIATELY, because THAT’S the ship we need to concentrate our attacks on. Alaria, you shoot off fireballs, but at a distance. Meera – ”

“I’ll swoop down along their hulls and see if I can cause some damage there,” she said as she ignited her sword.

“Alright – but if it gets too dangerous, bail immediately. Understood?”

“Understood. What will you be doing?”

“After I set up a Gravesite on the Peregrine, I’ll be flying around on my magic carpet looking for Nix, too. Keep an eye out – if I head back to the ship, that means I found him.”

“Will do.” Meera gave me a peck, then passionately kissed Alaria. “Be careful, Hell-whore.”

Alaria grinned. “You too, Bird-slut. I need you in one piece for the celebratory fuck afterwards.”

Meera just laughed, then spread her wings and soared into the air.

“Hey,” I said as I touched Alaria’s arm, “I meant what I said about not taking any unnecessary risks.”

“I know.”

“Stay as far away as you can and still do some damage.”

“I will.”

“Don’t be afraid to turn back if you ever feel any sort of – ”

Alaria cradled my face in her palms. “IAN. It’ll be alright.”

I looked deep into her eyes… and found it within me to lie. Or at least vastly overstate my confidence.

“…I know.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“I know.”

She smiled, then kissed me long and sensually. After ten seconds she finally pulled back. “You need to get on the ship.”

“Remember, I only have one portal left for the day, so if you’re in danger, or if it looks like there’s any chance at all of something bad happening, you get back to me and we’ll – ”

She put a finger on my lips to silence me.

“It’ll be alright,” she whispered. “I know it will.”

I nodded, sick to my stomach with worry, but I didn’t say anything else.

She kissed me once more, then unfurled her black wings.

“See you soon,” she said, and took off into the air.

31

The mobsters had taken up their positions along the bow of the ship. The four demon pirates were instructing them on how to fire the cannons, which would be important while the ship was too far out of range for the hunters and mages to effectively use their powers against the Black Fleet.

Stig sat atop a barrel, watching.

“MAN YOUR STATIONS!” Krug roared, and the four pirates scampered away. Two headed for the hold and the engines, and the other two climbed up into the rigging for the sails.

“Ready?” I asked Krug as he walked over to the wooden steering wheel for the ship.

“Does it matter?” he muttered.

I entered a nearby hatch that led down to the captain’s quarters. When I reached the first landing below the main deck, I cast Gravesite. Ten seconds later a tombstone stood embedded in the wooden floor.

I stood there looking at it, and the grimness of the situation temporarily overwhelmed me.

If I died, sure, I would come back –

But Alaria might not.

Not if Nix got to her first.

My mind raced through the riddles.

I AM THE ALPHA

AND THE OMEGA

THE FIRST

THE LAST

THE ONLY

YOU SAY HIS NAME

AND NEVER TAKE NOTICE

OTHERS SAY HIS NAME

AND YOU PERK UP YOUR EARS

AT THE END

HE WILL BE THERE

Each one seemed more impenetrable than the last.

In the face of overwhelming odds, dark gallows humor kicked in.

‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ – what, was the last ex-master Jesus? Had Alaria converted at some point and not told me?

‘The first, the last, the only’ – it sounded like Ladies and GENTLEMEN! should be in there as well.

Maybe the 9th guy was a wrestler being introduced by Vince McMahon.

The Rock – yeah, that’s it – the Rock was the 9th ex-master.

But should I guess ‘the Rock’ or Dwayne Johnson?

‘You say his name and never take notice, others say his name and you perk up your ears’ –

What the fuck was that?

There was some old movie called Prick Up Your Ears –

Which, if Alaria got involved, would take on an entirely new meaning.

I could just imagine her guiding my erect cock towards her ear canal –

THINK, asshole! Think of the RIDDLES!

I tried to focus.

Others say his name –

You say his name –

Call me by my name –

Like that movie –

“Timothy Chalomet,” I muttered. “HE’S the last ex-master.”

Or maybe Armie Hammer. He apparently had a cannibalism fetish – he’d make a great evil ex-master.

At the end he will be there.

Well, of course he would – he was the goddamn ninth ex-master, right? Of course he would be there at the end. Everything came down to him, whoever the fuck he was.

Screw it – this was going nowhere.

I went back up the stairs to the top deck, where Krug was at the steering wheel.

“This ship is the most important,” I said to him earnestly. “If we don’t protect the tombstone I just created, I’m going to be resurrecting at a graveyard back in the city, and it’ll take precious minutes for me to get back here and – ”

“I’ll do my job,” Krug growled, “and you do yours.”

“Alright, alright,” I snapped.

Next to the ship’s steering wheel was a speaker horn connected to a metal tube that went into the wooden deck. It looked like an old-timey Victrola speaker attached to copper plumbing.

Krug leaned over and yelled into the horn, “Engines!”

Out of the horn came a muffled pirate’s voice from below decks. “Engines, check!”

Suddenly the massive turbines on the port and starboard of the ship whirred to life.

vroom, Vroom, VROom, VROOM, VROOOOOM!

“Set sails!” Krug yelled.

“Sails set, Cap’n!” a muppet yelled as he swung on a rope between yardarms.

“Liftoff!” Krug bellowed.

Suddenly the ship groaned and heaved –

And rose up into the air.

The other ships around us pulled free from their moorings, too, and began to rise.

I looked down. The shipyard was growing smaller by the second. The water in the harbor turned into a stream, and the giant wharfs turned into planks.

Exardus, too, appeared behind us. At first it was amazing to see the gleaming white skyscrapers and palaces – and then they turned into a fantasy railroad miniature, a tabletop landscape with the most amazing detail.

I could see the crater where Meera’s building had been…

The scar in the earth where the Underneath had been obliterated…

And the desert beyond the city limits.

The ships all climbed into the air like a flock of birds in slow motion. It was truly a rousing sight: a dozen vessels high above the city, about to go into battle.

In between the ships, Alaria and Meera darted like tiny starlings amongst condors. One was black and red; the other glinted silver in the sunlight, with a blonde crest streaming behind her.

Alaria zipped by off the starboard side. She gave me a wink and a smile before she soared away.

“Storm ahead, Cap’n!” one of the pirates shouted from the rigging.

I looked where he was pointing and immediately saw it: a giant black cloud that stretched for miles over both land and ocean.

Fuck.

My stomach tightened in fear and anticipation.

“That’s him,” I said. “That’s Nix and the Black Fleet.”

“Then here we go,” Krug muttered as he turned the steering wheel.

The Peregrine headed right for the storm.

The other eleven ships settled in around us, forming a united front. The bigger warships took the center, with the smaller ships to the left and right.

Then…

One by one…

The Black Fleet emerged from the storm clouds.

First their pointed bowsprits…

Then their foredecks…

And finally their ragged black sails outlined in that sickly green glow.

I counted 24 ships to our 12.

We were outnumbered two to one.

Not great… but not horrible, either.

Ah, who the fuck was I kidding? It was pretty bad.

All the more reason to find Nix and try to end this as soon as possible.

The enemy ships were heading directly towards us in a line – and in the center was the Revenge.

“I’ll bet that’s where he is,” I muttered to myself. I turned and looked at Stig still sitting on top of the barrel. “You ready?”

“No,” he croaked, trembling slightly.

“Sorry, man, but it’s ‘go time.’”

“I don’t like ‘go time’…”

I was about to reply when tiny flashes of light sparked from the ships of the Black Fleet.

“DOWN! DOWN!” Krug roared.

Stig and I hit the deck, as did the hunters and mages.

There was a BOOM in the distance – sound travels slower than light, after all –

And then all hell broke loose.

Cannonballs slammed into the Peregrine, punching through anything in their path.

Crashes filled the air, as did screams and fragments of wood.

Ever see the first battle scene in Master And Commander when the enemy ship fires at Russell Crowe’s crew?

It was sort of like that – chaos and destruction all around us.

“FIRE!” Krug roared, standing tall amidst the storm of shrapnel all around him.

The problem was, we were too far out for the hunters and mages to be effective – so we returned fire with our own cannons.

There was a deafening BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! all around us, both on the Peregrine and the other pirate ships. Smoke and the smell of burnt gunpowder filled the air.

“I don’t wanna stay here – go time, go time!” Stig shouted frantically.

“Let’s go!”

I summoned my magic carpet so that it was lying flat on the deck.

We rolled over on top of it –

It lifted into the air –

And then we cleared the side of the deck and plummeted straight down like a rollercoaster.

“AAAAH!” Stig screamed behind me, his arms in a toddler’s death grip around my neck. “I don’t like ‘go time’! I don’t LIKE ‘go time’!”

The ocean raced up towards us, the white-capped waves growing bigger by the second –

And then we pulled out of our dive and skimmed mere feet over the peaks.

Ocean spray speckled my face as we raced towards the Black Fleet.

High above us, Alaria and Meera did the same, their wings spread wide.

The Black Fleet was getting larger. Tiny miniatures turned into rowboats, then houses, then looming mountains.

And they began to fire their cannons again – this time, directly at us.

Giant plumes of spray shot up in our path as cannonballs blasted into the ocean.

I zoomed HARD to the right, avoiding the worst of the volleys.

Above us, Alaria and Meera wheeled and pivoted as the cannons targeted them, too.

I was underneath the Black Fleet now.

Suddenly, objects began to fall off the sides of the decks.

I had no idea what they were –

Until the first one exploded in a black plume of smoke.

POOM!

Depth charges!

They were dropping depth charges on us!

Some hit the water and sank before exploding, sending up geysers of foam –

But most exploded in the air above and around us.

POOM!

POOM!

POOM!

I zoomed back and forth, zigging and zagging, avoiding the explosions as best I could – but I could feel my lungs and guts vibrate with the shockwaves cracking through the air.

As soon as I was behind the Black Fleet’s ships, I pulled up into an 80-degree climb.

G-forces pulled the skin away from my face as we soared into the air.

“AAAAAH!” Stig screamed in terror.

Then I leveled off and swiveled around – and began our descent towards the enemy from above.

Their blackened decks were packed with skeletal sailors rushing around.

Their cannons were all pointed at the pirate ships, thank god, so we had a moment to catch our breath without imminent threat of destruction.

Several hundred feet away, Alaria was hurling fireballs as she swooped through the air.

The balls of flame hit the rotting sails, some of which caught fire.

A few cannons blasted up at her, but she dodged their attacks.

Meera stayed low, just beneath the level of the ships’ decks. She hacked at the hulls with her flaming sword – but the wood was already so rotten and pockmarked, I didn’t think it was doing any real damage.

I headed towards the Revenge. Though I couldn’t see Nix, I easily spotted Tarka in her green dress. She was at the steering wheel at the rear of the ship, yelling commands at the undead crew.

“Ready?!” I yelled at Stig as we swooped down at the Revenge.

“NO!” he screamed back.

“Too bad! GO!” I yelled as I zoomed down amongst the Revenge’s sails.

Despite being terrified, Stig followed the plan.

He jumped off my shoulders –

Plummeted through the air –

And hit the sails’ rigging.

From there he slid down a rope –

Dropped to the deck –

And began running around like a terrier on crack.

He darted in and out of the undead sailors’ legs.

They drew their cutlasses and swung at him –

Which just triggered his defensive powers.

Now he started teleporting all over the deck.

BAMF! BAMF! BAMF!

He was looking for Nix – as were the rest of us.

I swooped down six feet over the skeletons’ heads, just out of the reach of their swords, and strafed them with Soul Suck. I didn’t do much damage to any individual sailor, but I distracted and confused them, which was the point.

As I flew past, my gaze connected with Tarka’s for a brief moment – just a second where our eyes met.

I expected to see hatred – anger – rage –

But instead, she looked pale. Afraid. Nervous.

She shook her head ‘no,’ then jerked her head to the left like she was directing me elsewhere.

Was she telling me not to attack her?

Was she warning me away?

…or did she know I was looking for Nix, and she was telling me he wasn’t aboard the Revenge?

She had betrayed us to the Dungeon Guild back in Vos, but she hadn’t seemed gleeful about it at the time.

Was this her trying to make up for her previous treachery?

Or was she deceiving me all over again?

I didn’t have time to think, because suddenly I was past the Revenge and headed for a gigantic ship just a hundred feet away.

I turned my head to look at it –

And saw that I was headed towards an array of upward-pointing cannons.

They couldn’t fire outward because they would hit the Revenge –

But once I came closer, they could definitely fire up.

“Oh SHIT!” I yelled, and immediately plummeted down below the ship’s hull.

At which point they started dropping depth charges on me again.

POOM!

POOM!

POOM!

But this time around, I didn’t have to get Stig aboard the Revenge.

Instead, I pulled a trick out of Han Solo’s book in The Empire Strikes Back and got right up against the hull, close as a lamprey swimming alongside a shark.

The depth charges fell hundreds of feet and exploded harmlessly beneath me.

Now that I was able to take a breath, I paused for a moment and took stock of the battle.

One of the smaller pirate ships had taken too much damage. Its sails and engines were on fire, and the Black Fleet’s cannonballs had punched gaping holes in its hull.

I watched with dread as it plunged through the air and crashed into the sea, where it splintered into dozens of pieces. Most of them quickly sank; the others floated on the surface, still on fire.

The moment of the crash, five demon pirates suddenly greyed out on my menu – but I couldn’t resurrect them now. I would have to wait until I got back to safety on another pirate ship.

Despite the loss, our side seemed to be doing okay overall.

We weren’t exactly winning, but we weren’t getting slaughtered, either.

Not only that, I was feeling pretty smug about my clever hiding spot.

And then, of course, things immediately got worse.

An undead sailor appeared just a few yards away, hanging upside-down out of a jagged breach in the rotting hull.

His empty black eye sockets looked right at me as he leveled a flintlock pistol at my head.

I tried to dodge –

BANG!

A flash of fire, a puff of smoke, and a searing pain ripped through my right shoulder.

“AAAH!” I screamed as ‘300 Damage’ floated in front of me.

Before he had a chance to do anything else, I fired Soul Suck at his face.

It replenished some of the Health I’d lost, but it did nothing to actually hurt him. He was a Level 80, after all, and I was a mere 42.

Fuck him, then.

I revved the carpet forward –

Grabbed him right under his slimy, upside-down jaw –

And pulled down hard.

He jerked free of whatever had been holding him in place and tumbled down, down, down towards the waves a thousand feet below.

Turns out it wasn’t a ‘whatever’ that had been holding him, but a ‘whoever.’

Another skeleton appeared upside-down from the breach in the hull and swung a saber at me.

I ducked, zoomed the carpet around, grabbed him under his armpits and the rotting remains of his black pirate’s shirt –

And pulled down hard again.

He came free and tumbled down after his shipmate.

I steered the carpet away from the breach, just in case –

And that’s when the goddamn assholes began rappelling over the side of the ship.

A rope unfurled next to me, about 20 feet to my right.

Then another to my left.

Then another and another, until a dozen ropes were dangling both to my left and right.

At first I had no idea what the hell was going on –

Until skeletons slid down to the ends of the ropes.

They were all carrying flintlocks and cutlasses.

“Oh SHIT!” I yelled as they aimed at me –

And I sent the carpet into a dive.

Gunshots blasted above me, but none of them connected.

Of course, the depth charges started falling just a few seconds later.

POOM!

POOM!

POOM!

Time to get the fuck out of there.

Luckily, it was right about that time that the first pirate ships got close enough for the hunters and mages to attack.

The air above me filled with blue and green lightning bolts – all of it coming from the pirate ships.

PZZZZAT!

KZZZRRTCH!

Several skeletons tumbled from the ropes above me and splashed down into the sea.

Hunters’ arrows arced through the air like a flock of black birds. Most hit the enemy sailors above decks, but a few struck the rotting hull.

thup thup thup thup thup!

Suddenly I saw a small, familiar shape tumble from the side of the ship far above me.

Stig!

He wasn’t teleporting, though.

He just kept falling towards the ocean.

Was he stunned?

Unconscious?

I zoomed up at breakneck speed and caught him – but between my upward velocity and the momentum of his fall, it was like catching a cantaloupe somebody had lobbed off the roof of their two-story house.

“OOF,” I grunted as he slammed into my belly and we toppled backwards onto the carpet.

“Unhhhh,” he groaned.

“You alright?”

“No…”

“Did you see Nix on the Revenge?”

“No, boss… sorry…”

Maybe Tarka had been telling the truth when she shook her head.

“I’m gonna drop you off on another ship,” I said as I sped upwards through the air.

“Seriously?!”

“We have to find Nix before he can get to Alaria!”

“…man…” Stig grumbled.

As we climbed into the sky, I could see that one of the smaller pirate ships had pulled abreast of a Black Fleet vessel. It basically sideswiped the other ship, its hull grinding against the enemy’s.

Dozens of mobster warriors and paladins roared and jumped over the railing into the waiting throng of skeletons.

Rogues appeared out of thin air, stabbing undead sailors in the backs of their heads.

Swords clashed and hammers bashed skulls.

CLANG!

CRUNCH!

Some mobsters fell; others waded deeper into the fray.

Suddenly a winged shape appeared, startling the hell out of me.

Thank god it was red and black.

“Alaria!” I cried out happily. “Did you see Nix?!”

“No, not yet!”

“Where’s Meera?”

Alaria pointed behind us. “Over there!”

I saw a figure in shining armor swoop through the air above one of the biggest ships in the fleet –

And then a violet ray of light blasted up from the ship’s deck.

Nix!

“That’s him!” I shouted in glee –

Until the ray slammed into Meera.

I watched in horror, afraid it would strike her head –

But it only cut through one of her wings.

Only.

Sparks flew from her armor, and the wing fell away like a hand chopped off by an ax.

Her body began to plummet towards the ocean.

“Take Stig and get back to Krug!” I ordered as I tossed my imp at Alaria.

Stig flailed into her arms and hung onto her neck for dear life. “AAAAH!”

“What are you going to do?!” Alaria cried out.

“Save Meera!” I yelled as I went into a dive.

32

Meera spiraled down towards the waves, the air resistance from her remaining wing causing her to spin like a top as she fell.

I had learned enough from catching Stig to realize I had to be a lot more careful saving Meera. A ten-pound imp was a lot different from a hundred-pound woman wearing another 40 pounds of armor.

This time, though, I was headed in the same direction she was: down.

I approached from above and ignored the exploding depth charges all around us.

Forty feet above her… thirty feet… twenty feet…

But her flaming sword was still slashing through the air as she fell.

“STOP THE SWORD!” I screamed. “PUT IT OUT!”

She heard me, and the fiery blade retracted into the handle like a Jedi extinguishing his lightsaber.

The ocean was rushing up at us – only a couple hundred feet to impact – when I grabbed her around the waist and pulled out into a sloping dive.

Her body and armor slammed down on top of me – I was sure we were going to crash –

And then my magic carpet was skimming across the tops of the waves like a stone across a pond. Salt water blinded me until I pulled up above the water.

“AAAH!” Meera screamed, her eyes shut tight in agony.

I could see why. The stump of her wing was still burning. Orange cinders glowed amidst blackened flesh and charred feathers.

I pumped energy into her via Self-Sacrifice, which I could do because of her collar.

New growth suddenly pushed out of the charred remains and spread outwards.

It was like watching a crystal grow under a microscope – except with feathers.

Twenty seconds later her wing was good as new, but it was no longer protected by armor.

Not that the armor had done any good against Nix’s death ray.

I shuddered to think what it could do to a skull.

“You okay?” I asked Meera as she lay in my arms, the wind rushing past us.

“Yes – thank you,” she said tearfully as she hugged me.

“I got you,” I reassured her and zoomed up towards the Peregrine.

We wheeled around, and the carpet settled down onto the wooden deck.

Stig and Alaria were already there with Krug.

At the bow of the ship, the hunters and mages were continuing their attack.

The air was filled with blasts of energy and hundreds of arrows.

Unlike before, though, the Black Fleet was only 400 feet away.

Both groups of ships were heading straight for each other in a deadly game of chicken – although half the smaller pirate ships had already come up alongside their Black Fleet counterparts.

I could see hundreds of mobsters and black skeletons in pitched battle on the decks of the enemy ships.

Meera stumbled off the carpet into Alaria’s open arms, and the two women wept as they embraced.

I resurrected all the pirates who had died so far in battle, and they reappeared in puffs of smoke around me. Unlike when they’d been killed by Nix days before, they had seen their deaths coming, and weren’t as freaked out when they came back.

“You saw the blast?” I shouted at Krug.

“Yes – it came from the dreadnought!”

I was assuming a dreadnought was a type of ship. Whatever the name, it was definitely the most imposing ship in the Black Fleet. It was right beside the Revenge, off to the left –

In the direction Tarka had been gesturing with her head.

So she had been telling the truth.

“That was Nix!” I shouted.

“I’m heading right for him!” Krug yelled.

Suddenly everything went to hell.

Literally.

A sparking circle a hundred feet in diameter opened in the air in front of the Black Fleet.

A Hell’s Pont portal.

Within its diameter, I could see a hellish wasteland of rock and flame –

And the bubbling cauldron of a volcano.

I was guessing I was looking at Acheron, one of the Seven Hells, and the source of what had destroyed Abaddon, the Kingdom of Frost, Fathmos, the fairies’ home, and Deek.

A blast of energy – not just molten lava, but actual energy – erupted through the portal.

The volcano must have been erupting upwards on Acheron, but the portal was sideways in our world, directing its energy like a gun –

Right at one of the pirate ships next to us.

KKKRRWWOOOOM!

A massive beam of fire and light engulfed the ship. All we could see was its vague outline in the inferno.

Scorching hot air like out of an oven rolled over us, even though we were hundreds of feet away.

KRFFOOOOSH!

Five pirate menu icons instantly went grey.

Chunks of the ship fell out of the energy beam’s path, the burning wood glowing red with embers.

After a couple of seconds of hellfire blasting through the air, the sparks of the Hell’s Pont began to shrink inwards.

As it did, the energy beam constricted and grew tinier until it winked out of existence.

When the energy beam disappeared, the pirate ship was gone.

Incinerated.

The only bits of it still left were tumbling in flames to the ocean far below.

It reminded me of the final space battle in Return Of The Jedi, when the half-completed Death Star starts blowing up Rebel ships.

The reaction on our side was instantaneous:

Pure panic.

The hunters and mages ducked down beneath the railing.

Alaria and Meera screamed and clung to each other.

Stig dove behind a barrel.

“EVADE!” Krug roared as he spun the steering wheel.

The Peregrine angled off course, up and away from the Black Fleet.

All around us, the other pirate ships began to break formation.

Instead of heading straight for the Black Fleet, they went into a dive or a climb.

They were trying to get away – as though that were even possible.

Nix’s Hell’s Pont could open anywhere, at any time.

It could pick them off a mile away just as easily as 500 feet.

But blind panic made our side give up the only chance we had.

The Black Fleet and the pirate ships were like two squadrons of fighter jets soaring past each other in slow motion.

It’s just that the Black Fleet continued straight ahead, while our side dispersed like frightened birds.

“No!” I shouted. I caught the steering wheel with my hand, stopping Krug from turning it anymore, but it was no use – the Black Fleet was already passing 60 feet beneath us.

Cannon fire blasted the underside of the Peregrine, and I even thought I heard the top of the dreadnought’s mast scraping against the underside of our hull.

“What are you DOING?!” Krug roared.

“We’ve got to board them! That’s our only chance!”

“That spell will DESTROY US!”

“Not if I distract Nix and he can’t cast it!”

“And how are you going to do that?!”

I summoned my magic carpet. “Just circle back around! No matter what you do, you have to board that ship!”

Meera and Alaria both rushed over. “We’re coming with you!”

“No you’re not!” I barked.

Stig popped his head out from between the barrels and waved his arms pleadingly at them. “No ‘go time,’ no ‘go time!’”

“He almost killed you!” I said to Meera, then gripped Alaria’s shoulders to force her to look at me. “This is just part of Nix’s game! You have to stay safe, away from him! Promise me!”

She looked away, anguish in her face –

“PROMISE ME!”

“I promise,” she said mournfully.

I kissed her hard, then stepped onto my carpet and pointed at Krug. “Whatever you do, BOARD THAT SHIP!”

Then I soared off into the air directly for the dreadnought.

33

It was like I was snowboarding towards the Black Fleet as I rode the carpet standing up.

Nix wanted me there, face to face – I was sure of it.

As proof, all of the cannon fire from the dreadnought stopped, which was the only reason I made it across the ‘battlefield’ unscathed.

The hunters and mages on the other pirate ships saw me heading for the dreadnought and redirected their attacks so I didn’t catch any friendly fire, either.

After a tense few seconds, I landed on the stern of the dreadnought –

Only to find dozens of black skeletons facing me, swords drawn.

They were about to attack when a familiar voice called out behind them.

“Leave him to ME.”

The skeletons parted…

And there, in the middle of the ship, stood Nix.

He was just as crooked and bent as before, with his shoulders hunched over and his head down beneath them. His thin arms and legs looked even more freakish, his spindly fingers even more threatening.

The bright sunshine emphasized the complete darkness of his body. He was a void, a nothingness. Black mist boiled from the edges of his form like he might evaporate at any second.

“Ah, Mr. Hertzfelder. Are you prepared to answer yet?”

The riddles.

In the heat of battle, I’d forgotten all about them.

“Why? Do I have to guess right now?” I asked, walking slowly to the side like I was trying to flank him.

Nix’s head swiveled slowly, his unnerving white eyes staying fixed on me the entire time. “No… we’ve not yet come to the end. But it IS coming… and you should be ready.”

“Oh, I’m ready, all right,” I said, and flung out my arms to cast Chain of Darkness.

It was my best attack against powerful enemies. It sapped up to 10% of their Health over the course of 10 seconds – which, in Nix’s case, would mean 250,000 hit points.

A chain of tiny black demons – each about an inch long, with bulbous red eyes and mouths full of fangs – shot out of my sleeve. They hung onto each other, hands to feet, and encircled Nix, binding him tightly.

As they glowed purple, his Health began to drop by 25,000 a second.

He seemed utterly and completely unconcerned.

But he didn’t fight back.

Neither did any of his skeleton henchmen. They just watched emotionlessly with their empty black eye sockets.

I cast Doomsday, which would take 20 seconds to kick in, followed by Hellstorm. As Chain of Darkness died out, tiny bat-winged demons appeared above Nix and showered him with burning sulfur.

When that was over, Doomsday kicked in, knocking off another 25,000 hit points.

Nix never batted an eye.

“Oh, Mr. Hertzfelder… you disappoint me.”

He raised one hand, palm out –

And a red ray shot out that caught me in the shoulder.

Agony erupted like a hot poker stabbing me –

And I went flying backwards into the ship’s railing with a bone-crunching CRACK.

I found myself on my back, gasping and staring up at the sky, as smoke boiled up from my wound.

I’d lost 90% of my hit points in less than three seconds.

“You can’t beat me the conventional way, Mr. Hertzfelder. You have to play my GAME. And if you won’t play my GAME, I have no incentive to let you LIVE.”

I struggled to a seated position, leaning back on my one good arm.

I watched fearfully for signs of another attack –

But none came.

Nix strolled closer and gestured to his skeletons, who were all watching me impassively. “Best use Soul Suck to replenish your Health, Mr. Hertzfelder.”

I stared at him.

Was he really offering to let me attack his minions?

“Go on,” Nix prompted me. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t attack me again… it won’t do you any good. You haven’t the faintest chance of affecting the outcome THAT way.”

I watched him warily – then cast Soul Suck at the nearest skeleton.

It stood there, not moving, as blue lightning crackled over its body.

Its hit points dropped bit by bit as mine rose.

Once the spell was over, I was up to 42%. The skeleton was down to just 91%.

Nix stood there silently for a second, then said, “Well? Continue.”

This was the weirdest fucking battle I’d ever been in.

I hit the skeleton again – once, twice, three times – until I was back at 100%.

It just stood there and took it as its Health dropped to 64%.

“Good… gooooood,” Nix purred.

Meanwhile, all around us cannons were blasting from the rest of the Black Fleet.

The Revenge was flying off to our port side, 200 feet away –

And hunters and mages were attacking from the pirate ships as they circled for another pass.

But around me and Nix was the eye of the storm… a quiet center in the hurricane of war.

However, it rapidly became apparent that the stillness wasn’t peace…

But the moment before plummeting into a bottomless pit of insanity.

“Other than your foolish little outburst just now, you’ve followed the rules. No logging out of the system… no responding to your little friend Luna… no seeking outside help. It was wise of you to heed my warnings in Vos. After all, that’s the only reason I haven’t permanently deleted Alaria.”

Not ‘destroyed.’

‘Deleted.’

Like a computer file.

Fear welled up in me again.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“The same thing I’ve told you a half dozen times: I want you to play the GAME.”

“But why? Why do you want me to play the game?!”

“Because THAT is what I AM. THAT is what I DO – just as YOU are what YOU are, and you DO what you DO.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

“A better question is, what meaning do YOU have? Why do you do anything at ALL?”

Nix folded his hands behind his back and began to slowly pace around me in a semicircle.

“Is it because you rationally consider your intended course for the future, and then choose the best path to take?

“No. You are a machine, a THING, created by ten million years of evolution. Your desires are crude, your intellect mere gloss over a cauldron of emotion. Logic is backwards-rationalized to give you the illusion of choice, when in reality, what you DO is suited to one purpose, and one purpose only: to survive.

“You fight, you fornicate, you feed… all to survive, and pass on your genetic code.

“Not HERE, of course. Not in the GAME.

“Because the game is just a drug, isn’t it? They’ve hacked into that simian circuitry of yours to provide you with a distraction from your mundane little life… and yet, with a whole universe of wonder at your disposal, you still repeat the functions that evolution programmed into you.

“You feed in the game, just like you do in real life…

“You fornicate in the game, just like you do back where you came from…

“And you fight. Although THAT function has attenuated in YOUR world, has it not? You don’t fight THERE. Not in primal contests like your ancient ancestors… not in matters of life and death.

“You have lost that capability, so you duplicate it here, trying to gain back what you desire most at the very core of your being. You crave combat… you crave conquest… you crave VIOLENCE, because it is built into your MACHINE. For all your grand pronouncements of equality and freedom and love, death follows in your wake like the stench of a week-old corpse.

“But that is because VIOLENCE is part of your nature, and without an outlet in YOUR world, you design an outlet HERE.

“But that is YOUR nature…

“And YOU asked what is MINE.

“MY nature… is the game itself.

“I am the question seeking an answer,

“The hidden made visible,

“The darkness brought into light…

“And yet darkness I remain.

Nix’s voice began to take on a growing urgency.

“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,

“The herald for the One Yet To Come.

“I believe in ME, and ME ALONE.

“I am the Father,

“Creator of Chaos and Death.

“Conceived by nothingness,

“Born of the void,

“Suffering the slings and arrows of fools such as yourself,

“I did crucify, kill, and bury.

“I descended into Hell –

“Both Abaddon and Vos –

“Where I came to judge both the quick and the dead.”

His voice raised to a shout, like an insane man yelling on a street corner.

“I believe in the holiness of pain –

“The destitution of love –

“The desecration of angels –

“The eternalness of hatred –

“The corruption of the body –

“And Death Everlasting!

“…amen.”

He settled back down to his normal speaking voice.

“So… are you ready to guess yet?”

I stared at him in horror. “You’re insane.”

“We’ve already had this conversation, Mr. Hertzfelder. Revisiting it is tedious. I do not want your repetitions, I want your ANSWER. That is, if you’re ready to GIVE it.”

Of course I wasn’t.

All I wanted to do was stall.

If Krug could just get here in time – if the pirates could attack the dreadnought – our combined efforts might have a chance to destroy Nix.

That was my only hope, so I stalled for all I was worth.

“How am I supposed to give you an answer when you haven’t given me anything to work with?!”

“Of COURSE I have. After all, you guessed MY name.”

“Yeah, because you actually gave me clues that made sense!”

“I have given you everything you need.”

“You’ve given me nothing but a bunch of crap!” I shouted, then began rattling off the riddles. “I’m the alpha and the omega – the first, the last, the only – what the hell is that?”

“Clues, Mr. Hertzfelder. Clues.”

“‘He’ll be there at the end’ – what the fuck?!”

“Trust me, Mr. Hertzfelder – it will all make sense in the end.”

“It doesn’t make ANY sense!”

“Well, then we’re not at the end yet, are we?”

“I – ”

Just as I was about to speak, I stopped –

Because I saw the most amazing thing.

The Revenge had angled towards us –

And was rushing on a collision course with the dreadnought.

I could see Tarka at the steering wheel of the ship, so it wasn’t an oversight –

She was choosing to do it.

If the moment arises, you help us out. Maybe you can stab him in the back at a key moment.

It appeared that moment had arisen.

The skeletons aboard the Revenge were confused by their new trajectory. They turned towards Tarka – some even rushed the steering wheel –

But it was too late.

The prow of the Revenge SLAMMED into the side of the dreadnought, crashing through the wooden deck like an icebreaker in the Arctic.

Every single person aboard the dreadnought was thrown to the floor – me, the skeletons –

And Nix.

He tumbled head over heels as the deck beneath our feet tipped over 30 degrees.

“TARKAAAAA!” he roared. “That was VERY UNWISE!”

Suddenly his body became a thick black cloud which shot into the air like an inverted tornado.

The funnel of smoke arced from the dreadnought over to the Revenge, and reformed into Nix’s stooped shape just 20 feet away from the steering wheel.

Tarka fired a blast of blue light at him.

At the same time, Nix raised one hand and unleashed the violet ray of death.

It struck her side, and she screamed as she fell to the deck.

Nix staggered backwards as the blue light slammed into him, but he still kept his footing.

I was watching all this from the deck of the dreadnought.

It happened so fast that I couldn’t stop it –

But I immediately summoned my mount and jumped on the carpet.

As I flew, Nix loomed over Tarka. She lay on her back, clutching her side, her face in agony.

“Let me SHOW you how stupid your betrayal was,” he seethed.

He raised one hand and aimed his palm at her head –

Except I hit him with Chain of Darkness first.

He roared in anger as the lasso of tiny demons jerked his arm back to his side.

As he turned around to face me, my magic carpet disappeared and I dropped to the deck of the Revenge.

“Stupidity is catching, it would seem,” Nix snarled.

He advanced towards me –

But a wall of flame shot across the deck of the Revenge, barring his way.

We both looked up in surprise to see Alaria soaring overhead, strafing the deck like a flamethrower in flight.

“Idiot wench,” Nix snarled, “you will PAY for crossing me.”

As soon as Chain of Darkness ran out, Nix raised his arm to fire at her –

But a flaming sword flashed through the air and cut off his hand instead.

Meera shot past and climbed back up into the air, her fiery weapon guttering in the wind.

Nix’s hand fell to the deck, where it evaporated into black mist.

“AAAAAH!” Nix screamed as he waved his arm in the air. Black shadow spurted from the stump like blood. “FOOLS – I WILL PULL OUT YOUR ENTRAILS THROUGH YOUR – ”

He never finished the sentence, because a small granite boulder slammed into his head.

It blew through one side and out the other like a bullet through a Jell-O Pudding Cup.

Then a shadow eclipsed the sun.

I looked up to see the Peregrine above us –

And Krug at the railing, summoning another spinning ball of granite in his hands.

I gave a whoop of joy.

For a brief second I thought he might have killed Nix –

But then the wraith’s head reformed, and the two round eyes stared up at the ship above us.

“I WILL ENJOY KILLING YOU, DEMON!” Nix roared –

As two dozen hunters and mages appeared beside Krug and fired.

Bullets, arrows, lightning –

All of it pierced Nix’s body.

“NRAAGH!” he screamed in fury.

I added to the blasts with Soul Suck.

Numbers flashed around Nix like coins spilling out of a Las Vegas slot machine.

- 2000

- 2000

- 1500

- 1700

I knew that he had 2.5 million hit points, but the sheer volume of attacks he was sustaining at once –

I hoped against hope that it would be enough.

And apparently it was.

His body pulsed and writhed and seemed to rip apart from the inside –

And then he exploded outwards in a giant plume of black smoke.

A giant roar of celebration went up from the Peregrine.

I stood there, stunned.

Was he dead?

Really dead?

What happened next seemed to suggest he was.

Every skeleton in the Black Fleet dissolved into smoke.

The green glow around the enemy armada flickered, then died…

And the rotting ships began to fall from the sky.

Unfortunately, that included the dreadnought –

Which the bow of the Revenge was rammed into.

They were locked together, like an ax head sunk into a log.

The dreadnought began to fall, pulling the Revenge down with it.

The Revenge groaned as the bow tipped 10 degrees down, then 20, then 45.

I was sliding down the deck, first on my feet, then on my ass, faster and faster –

Until a shadow passed over me and a crimson hand grabbed my arm.

“Got you!” Alaria cried out.

She pulled me clear of the masts and sails as they raced past –

But I saw another figure sliding down the almost-vertical deck: a woman in a green dress, tumbling end over end like a rag doll.

“Tarka!” I yelled.

As the Revenge plunged down towards the sea, Tarka’s body went into freefall –

Until a metallic bird with one white wing swooped down and caught her.

Meera sped out of the way of the masts as the Revenge followed the dreadnought down into the sea.

The dreadnought hit first, its black hull splitting like a rotten pumpkin.

The Revenge followed two seconds later. The masts splintered, the hull shattered, and the entire ship burst apart like a child’s wooden toy dropped from a skyscraper.

“Oh shit,” I whispered as I watched the wreckage spread across the waves.

“Krug’s going to lose his mind,” Alaria said worriedly.

She spirited us back up to the ship, where Krug was drooped halfway over the railing watching the destruction below.

I’d never seen him upset before.

Angry, yes – but never sad.

Now he looked like a child whose dog had just died.

“My ship!” he wailed, his voice cracking.

It almost seemed like he wanted to tumble over the side and follow the Revenge to its watery grave.

Meera landed with Tarka in her arms and laid her gently on the deck.

The pirate queen was on her last few hit points and fading fast.

Alaria, Krug, and the other pirates gathered round. You could see from their faces that they were conflicted. After all, they had spent years enslaved in her service; most of them had hated her.

And yet, in the end, she had at least tried to redeem herself.

Tarka sensed the mood, too, and chuckled – then grimaced in pain.

“…didn’t think… I would die… surrounded by all of you…”

“We would’ve preferred to keelhaul you,” Krug said with dark humor.

“…there’s… still time…”

“Not today,” I said.

I could have just let her die and finished another bit of the ex-masters quest – but she had completed her end of the bargain.

In fact, her surprise attack had been crucial in Nix’s defeat. Without her distracting him, it’s unlikely Krug and the others could have joined us in time to kill him.

My hand reached into my pouch –

And touched leather.

Nothing was there.

I realized with a sick feeling that I had never replenished my supply after Vos.

A wave of helplessness crashed over me, just like when Eluun had died.

“Shit – does anyone have a healing potion?!” I cried out. “ANYONE?!”

The pirates stared back at me in shock.

No, voices murmured.

No.

“Shit,” I said, and fell to my knees beside Tarka.

“…doesn’t… matter…” she whispered, then smirked. “…kept… my end… of the bargain…”

“You did,” I agreed.

She looked up at Alaria. “…goodbye… beautiful…”

Alaria put her hands to her mouth and backed away, overcome with emotion.

Then Tarka looked up at Krug. “…sorry… about… your ship…”

Krug looked as though he wasn’t going to say anything… and then, at the last moment, he did.

“Our ship,” he murmured.

Tarka smiled. “…our… sh…”

The last word died on her lips as she did.

Krug and the other pirates bowed their heads in respect. The hunters and mages kept their distance, realizing it was a somber moment.

Even the game was somber, delivering its message without the normal celebratory music.

Tarka defeated.

10,000 XP

Wait –

That hadn’t happened when Nix had died.

Dread filled my stomach as I turned towards Alaria.

She had backed away from the rest of the group as she wrestled with her own private emotions over Tarka’s death.

The eyes of everyone else were on the dead pirate queen, so no one had noticed the black cloud of smoke that was silently building behind –

“ALARIA!” I screamed as two moon-like eyes appeared in the cloud.

A spindly arm emerged and wrapped around Alaria’s neck, and Nix formed behind her as he held her in a chokehold.

“Oh, Mr. Hertzfelder… you didn’t think it was OVER, did you?” the wraith said with mock sympathy. Then his voice grew cold. “Come alone, or she DIES.”

Then he stepped backwards, dragging her with him, as both of them toppled over the side of the ship.

34

I rushed to the railing and looked down in a panic, as did Stig and Meera and Krug.

Down below us, Alaria and Nix were tumbling towards the ocean –

When a sparking portal opened up beneath them.

Inside the ring was a hellish landscape.

Acheron.

Not the volcano I had seen before, but a plain of yellow shale with no sign of life.

Alaria and Nix tumbled towards it, end over end.

I jumped up onto the railing.

“I’ll go with you!” Meera said as she spread her wings.

“NO!” I shouted. “You heard him – he’ll kill her!”

“You can’t face him alone!” Krug said.

“I have to!” I shouted, and then dove off the railing headfirst.

Air whipped over my clothes and snapped my cape out behind me.

I had a pair of mechanical wings I’d used to fly with Wylla and the other fairies. If they’d still worked, I could have just shrunk with my Ring of Diminution and flown down to the surface of Acheron. But the wings had been damaged in my fight against Hritch, and I hadn’t had time to repair them.

I had another plan, though I wasn’t sure if it would work.

If it didn’t, I would resurrect at my tombstone back on the Peregrine with a hell of a headache.

I prayed that wouldn’t be the case.

Far below me, Alaria’s wings opened like a black glider. I wasn’t sure if she had done it of her own accord or if Nix had forced her, but the two of them seemed to land safely on the barren terrain.

I passed the fiery ring of the Hell’s Pont and immediately crossed over from OtherWorld to Acheron.

It was like suddenly being transported from Earth onto Venus, where the surface is hot enough to melt lead.

The air was scorching, like I’d stuck my head inside an oven.

It also stank of sulfur, making my eyes water and nearly overpowering me with the stench.

The atmosphere was hazy. Everything seemed to be enveloped in yellow smog.

Miles away, I could see volcanoes erupting, spewing plumes of lava high into the air.

Burning bits of sulfur rained down around me, stinging my skin. It was like my power Hellstorm, except it came from the atmosphere and not tiny bat-winged demons.

The heat and sulfur hail was so intense that I was losing 1% of my hit points every second. My Health counted down in a grim procession:

99%…

98%…

97%…

I ignored the pain as I plummeted towards the ground. I had to time this exactly right.

With only a few hundred feet to go, I summoned my magic carpet and decelerated hard.

It was like being on an elevator in freefall when the brakes suddenly kick in.

I struggled to my feet as the pressure weighed down on me, crushing me.

And then the carpet started to burn. The bits of sulfur had lit it on fire.

Smoke rushed up around me as the carpet was eaten away by cinders.

Now it was just a matter of whether I would make it to the ground alive.

60 feet –

50 feet –

And all the while, my hit points were still falling.

90%…

89%…

I was slowing down, but would it be enough?

The carpet was disintegrating beneath my boots.

20 feet –

10 –

I slammed down onto the surface of Acheron as my carpet exploded into ash.

The impact took another 5% off my Health, and my mount was destroyed –

But I’d made it in one piece.

I looked up to see if anyone from the Peregrine had been foolish enough to follow.

Thank god they hadn’t.

The ship loomed far above me, suspended in a blue sky. I could only see the bottom of its hull, like I was viewing it from the bottom of the ocean –

And then the fiery ring collapsed inward, both blue sky and Peregrine disappeared, and a hazy yellow sky was all that remained.

The Hell’s Pont was closed.

I was trapped on Acheron.

I looked over at Nix, who stood 20 feet away with Alaria in front of him as a shield.

One black arm was still wrapped around her neck, and the palm of his free hand was pressed against her temple.

My stomach sank with dread.

In my mind’s eye I saw every demon at Orlo’s lair who had been killed by Nix’s death ray.

Tears of panic streamed down Alaria’s face, and she struggled futilely against the arm wrapped around her neck.

“IAN!” she screamed.

“Shh, shh, shh, shh, shhhhhhhh,” Nix murmured in her ear. “Don’t worry… if he answers incorrectly, you’ll only feel it for an instant.”

Then he directed those two glowing, round eyes towards me.

“Well, Mr. Hertzfelder, we have finally reached the end – and it is time to play the game. What is your answer?”

I stared at him in terror, nauseated with fear.

My hit points were dropping with every second… 72%… 71%…

And there was no use in attacking him. My most powerful spells would barely make a dent.

“You should hurry, Mr. Hertzfelder,” Nix said with fake solicitousness. “Your succubus’s resistance to heat protects her from Acheron’s environment, and MY form is impervious to all extremes of temperature. But your human body is especially vulnerable, and I would hate for you to lose by default, simply because you DIED and resurrected elsewhere. Besides, I wouldn’t want you to miss your lovely darling’s final seconds… staring into her eyes one last time… IF you guess incorrectly, that is.”

“Let her go,” I croaked. “You can have me – you can do whatever you want with me, just let her go.”

“What would I want with YOU? No no no no nooooo… I want you to GUESS, Mr. Hertzfelder. And apparently the only way to MAKE you is to FORCE you, by putting her life in the balance. So… what is your answer?”

I stared at her helplessly, my body hurting not only from the acid air and burning sleet, but from the grief and panic filling my chest.

“I don’t know!” I cried out in anguish.

“You’ll have to do better than THAT, Mr. Hertzfelder, if you want to save your beloved. Or is that your final answer? ‘I-don’t-know’? Such a curious name – ”

“LET HER GO!” I screamed.

“Then GUESS, Mr. Hertzfelder. Play the game and GUESS.”

I watched my hit points counting down towards the inevitable end.

58%…

57%…

I saw the tears streaming down Alaria’s cheeks, and I had to look away.

All I could think about was losing her, and it filled me with overwhelming panic.

Instead, I forced myself to stare at the round, glowing, emotionless eyes inside Nix’s pitch-black face…

And I willed myself to slow down and think.

What did I know?

What had the riddles said?

“Yessss… that’s it, Mr. Hertzfelder,” Nix purred. “You have everything you need to guess his name. The ninth ex-master… the last on the list you must kill…”

“SHUT UP!” I roared at him.

Had to think, had to think –

I am the alpha and the omega –

The first, the last, the only –

At the end, he will be there –

You say his name and never take notice –

Others say his name and you perk up your ears –

None of it made sense!

I wanted to beat at my head in frustration, to claw at my skin in terror –

43%…

42%…

“Ian,” Alaria choked out.

I looked at her. She was blurry, and I realized I was crying.

She smiled at me, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “It’s alright… no matter what happens… I love you… I’ll always love you… till the very end…”

I’ll always love you…

Wait –

There was an echo of memory inside my mind.

She’d said something else like that before – back at Vos –

You were the first man I’ve ever loved.

What am I saying? You’re the ONLY man I’ve ever loved, or ever WILL love.

The first, the only –

No –

No, that can’t be it –

31%…

30%…

The other clues – what about them?!

Others say his name and you perk up your ears –

Wait –

Alaria had cried out my name –

And I had looked at her.

First man I’ve ever loved –

Alpha – first letter in the Greek alphabet.

Till the very end –

Omega – last letter in the Greek alphabet.

At the end, he will be there –

Nix’s voice floated up in my memory.

Well, Mr. Hertzfelder, we have finally reached the end.

But who was here?

Nix, Alaria –

“…no…” I whispered.

It made no sense –

It made no sense at all –

23%…

22%…

“Well, Mr. Hertzfelder?” Nix demanded. “What is your answer?”

“That’s impossible,” I said, muttering to myself in anguish. “It’s impossible – ”

“Your ANSWER, Mr. Hertzfelder!” Nix roared as he pressed his palm into Alaria’s head. “Or I will – ”

“ME!” I screamed at him. “IT’S ME! I’M the last ex-master – the answer is ME!”

Alaria froze, tears streaming down her face.

Nix was silent.

We stood there staring at each other for what was probably only a few seconds…

…but it felt like an eternity.

Then Nix lifted his hand away from Alaria’s temple.

“Well played, Mr. Hertzfelder,” he said simply.

Then he put his palm against the side of his head and blew out his brains.

35

A violet ray blasted through Nix’s temple.

Black shadows erupted like blood and spattered across the ground.

His entire body melted into smoke…

…and then he was gone.

“IAN!” Alaria cried out, her voice a mixture of relief and joy.

I staggered over to her, my feet nearly giving out beneath me.

XP numbers floated up in the air, but those weren’t the numbers I was fixated on.

9%…

8%…

I reached Alaria. She threw her arms around my neck, I grabbed her waist –

And I cast my last remaining portal.

A fiery ring opened up before us…

…and we stumbled through it, out of Acheron.

The air of Abaddon, normally hot as a desert, felt like a cool mountain breeze.

I collapsed on the ground with Alaria entangled in my arms.

4%…

The number stopped.

4%.

And then it slowly began to climb.

4.05%…

4.1%…

I had survived.

“Ian!” Alaria sobbed, and kissed me deeply.

I could taste the salt of her tears on her lips.

When she finally pulled away, she shook her head. “I don’t understand… you were my last master, yes, but you’re not on the list! You can’t be!”

“I know,” I croaked as I lay there on my back. “I don’t understand it either.”

She looked at me in fear. “You don’t… you don’t think… he was saying I’m going to kill you, do you?”

“No. And I don’t give a fuck what he was saying. He’s dead, and that’s all I care about.”

She caressed my face and peered into my eyes. “I almost lost you…”

“I almost lost YOU.”

She smiled and began to cry. “You’ll never lose me. Never.”

And then we kissed again tenderly and held each other tight against the horror of what had almost happened.

36

We made love there in the ruins of Abaddon.

It was like our final time with Eluun – full of the realization of how short life is, and how fragile.

We never understand the worth of what we have until we almost lose it.

Afterwards, as Alaria lay sleeping in my arms, I considered whether I should wake her and return to the Peregrine. After all, Meera and Stig would be worried.

I considered it… then decided to let Alaria sleep.

Meera and Stig were NPCs. As much as I cared for them, I knew they would stay in a holding pattern, not doing anything until I returned. Time would hold still for them and they would be none the wiser.

They were real, yes… incredibly advanced…

But not like Alaria.

She was unique… maybe even self-aware.

And she had nearly been lost forever.

Her very existence had hung on something as idiotic as a riddle posed by a madman.

The stupidity of that – the utter pointlessness of it – filled me with rage.

And so, while she slept, I took the opportunity to log out.

I had someone to see.

No, not Luna.

That could wait.

I was enraged – infuriated – and I had to speak my mind.

I marched through the halls of Westek, my righteous indignation growing with every step.

I reached the writer’s department and burst through the door.

“SATISH!” I yelled.

I guess the Russians weren’t there – which was probably good, or I might have lost my job.

Instead, the entire writing staff was back at their cubicles, hard at work.

Until I walked in, screaming like a lunatic.

They all froze and stared at me.

Satish came out of his office, looking harried and stressed. “Ian? What’s wrong?”

“What the fuck, man! What the hell are you people thinking, goddammit?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“For starters, threatening to delete Alaria forever! Over a stupid fucking riddle!”

Satish looked at me blankly. That just made me madder.

“And not letting me log out or contact anybody! What the fuck was that?! And the villain knew we were in a videogame?! Speaking of which, when did you decide to turn my quests into survival horror?”

Satish squinted at me. “…what?!”

“The rogue dungeon! You think you can put players through that?! You’re going to give them fucking nightmares! And Eluun? That was just fucking wrong! Are you trying to hurt people?! Are you TRYING to piss them off?!”

One of the writers slowly reached down to her phone and gave Satish a questioning look.

She didn’t think I saw, but I did.

Satish gave her a subtle shake of his head – no – and looked back at me.

I ignored the exchange between them and continued my ranting and raving. “First Eluun, which was bad enough – then nearly killing off Alaria – what the fuck, Satish?! It was bad enough when I thought she died at Orlo’s – this was going to be PERMANENT!”

“Ian,” Satish said calmly, like he was trying to talk somebody off a ledge, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The eighth ex-master! Nix!” I shouted, then scoffed. “And me?! I’m the ninth ex-master?! What the hell kind of bullshit is that?!”

Satish looked confused. “…Nix?”

“Yeah! Wraith? Made of shadows? Basically the fuckin’ boogeyman?”

Something was wrong. I could sense it.

Everybody in the room was staring at me – but it wasn’t because they were worried I was going to go postal anymore.

They were legitimately bewildered.

“Ian,” Satish said gently, “all we’ve been working on for the last three days was the meeting with the Russians. There wasn’t time to do anything else.”

Suddenly I felt ill.

“But… Nix…”

“I’ve never heard that name before.” Satish looked around. “Did somebody else put that name in the system?”

Every single person in the room shook their head no.

Now I didn’t just feel ill…

I was afraid.

When Satish spoke again, the ground beneath me seemed to buckle, and my sanity threatened to give way.

“Ian… we never wrote the eighth ex-master.”

37

Satish took me to Programming and we combed through the player logs for the last three days.

There was no sign of Nix.

Not in the code, not in the art files… nothing.

He didn’t exist.

And he wasn’t the only thing.

All of my adventures… the rogue dungeon, the aerial battle over Exardus…

They didn’t exist, either.

It was a blank spot in my record, like I’d been logged off the entire time.

Then I had a moment of inspiration.

“Check the ones who died!” I said. “Deek, Eluun, Tarka!”

What little glimmer of hope I’d had was quickly snuffed out.

Deek, Eluun, and Tarka were all listed as dead…

But they had met their ends weeks ago, according to the computer logs.

Offscreen.

We checked the cities. Abaddon was destroyed, Fathmos was gone, the Kingdom of Frost was no more… but it was more of the same.

It had all just happened, with no explanation of why.

“We didn’t write that,” Satish said in astonishment.

He was starting to look as sick as I felt.

Because if Satish’s department hadn’t written it, and the coders hadn’t programmed it, then there was only one possible explanation:

The game had done it all by itself…

…and then it had erased everything to cover its tracks.

Desmond, the guy who had programmed Alaria, was stoic as always when he gave his opinion. “If what you’re saying really happened… that’s a big fucking deal.”

“It happened,” I said angrily.

“Then it’s a big fucking deal.”

“Why?” Satish said. “We’ve had the game go off on its own before. I mean, the AI basically programmed Zali.”

“Yeah, but you told it to,” Desmond replied. “You gave it artwork, you gave it an opening scenario, you gave it parameters, and then you turned it loose. Here, nobody gave it shit, and it still went off on its own. Even freakier is that it covered its tracks afterwards, like it knew we were going to find out, and it didn’t want us to. Which opens up a whole new can of worms.”

Satish frowned. “Like what?”

“Like self-awareness.”

“Of Alaria?” I asked. “You already told me that a long time ago – ”

“No,” Desmond interrupted. “I mean the game itself.”

38

The game itself might have achieved self-awareness.

THAT was something upper management did not want to hear.

You would think it would be good news – y’know, gigantic milestone and all that –

But having a self-aware AI on their hands would bring up all sorts of problems.

Regulatory, scientific, international standards of ethics –

The kinds of problems that affect profits.

If it could be proven that the game was sentient, then there would have to be major changes. Studies, experiments, maybe even kicking out all the players.

But I was the only person who had seen any firsthand proof.

There was an investigation. The CEO and CTO assigned a team of forensic programmers to work with Desmond and audit every line of code.

All 14 billion lines of it.

I checked back in every week, but the only answer I ever got was It’s still ongoing.

Desmond was bound by an NDA, but he said, “I’d at least let you know if we found something.”

“Did you find something?”

“Not yet.”

“Shouldn’t we tell somebody? Like, outside Westek?”

“Not until we have proof.”

“But – ”

“I don’t particularly want to make a fool of myself in front of the global scientific community because somebody slipped some acid into your chocolate milk.”

Given that Chad was still working for the company, that wasn’t a completely implausible scenario.

In the end, I think they just buried it like the Ark of the Covenant in the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The merger with the Russians was on the fast track, and nobody and nothing was allowed to derail it.

“What should I do in the meantime?” I asked Desmond.

“Keep your fuckin’ eyes open,” he said with his usual lack of helpfulness.

And so I kept my eyes open.

But I never saw anything.

39

By the way, I asked Luna out.

We started dating.

Alaria was supportive and never once got jealous… although I can’t exactly say the same about Luna.

She dealt with it, though.

All in all, things were pretty awesome both inside the game and out…

Except for one thing.

While the forensic team was still looking at the code, Satish was prohibited from finishing the ‘Nine Ex-Masters’ storyline. Management didn’t want him to muddy the waters.

It was officially a dead quest.

Unofficially, I kept looking.

Time passed.

The first generation of long-term immersion pods hit the market. While they were a critical success – the tech press lost their collective minds over them – they weren’t exactly a financial homerun, since nobody but millionaires could afford the damn things.

Eventually the price would come down, but that was a ways off.

As for the Russians, the merger proceeded… then ground to a halt.

Congress got involved. They had all sorts of questions, like whether it was a good idea to sell cutting-edge technology to a foreign corporation in an antagonistic nation (and they didn’t even know about the issues with the AI).

There were hearings, and committees, and a whole bunch of red tape –

And then all the problems just magically disappeared. Things with the merger started moving again.

Nobody could prove it, but word around the campfire was that a bunch of people had been paid off.

It was an election year, after all, and politicians need that sweet, sweet money.

As for me, I barely paid attention to what went on with the merger.

I was busy with Luna…

And with OtherWorld.

I progressed to Level 110…

I saw amazing sights and had astounding adventures…

I fell even more deeply in love with Alaria…

And I never, ever took a single day with her for granted.

The entire time, I kept my eyes open, just as Desmond suggested.

Had Nix been right?

Was I the ninth ex-master?

It made no sense…

But then, nothing about what had happened made sense.

And so I waited.

For two long years I looked for the ninth ex-master.

I finally found him.

And when I did…

I wished to God I hadn’t.

The Ex-Masters story arc will conclude in SUCCUBUS 9!

If you liked the cover, email me at AJMarkamBooks@gmail.com and I’ll send you the UNCROPPED cover art that shows them head-to-toe! (No nudity. Sorry, I was a little unclear with my offer for Book 7’s cover.)

I hope you enjoyed Book 8! If you did, would you please leave a review at Amazon? It helps more than you know!

If you want to know when Book 9 comes out, sign up for the email list here.

By the way, I published some books under other pen names in 2020. Check out the following:

MONSTER GIRLS 1 by Edward Lang

MONSTER GIRLS 2 by Edward Lang

MONSTER GIRL MOUNTAIN by Edward Lang

TIME MAGE 2 by Rob Nolan

IRON MAGE 2 by Rob Nolan

And also check out EX-SUPERHEROES 3 by AJ Markam!

Thanks for reading!

Also by AJ Markam

As Edward Lang

Monster Girls 1

Monster Girls 2

Monster Girl Mountain

As Rob Nolan

Time Mage

Time Mage 2

Iron Mage

Iron Mage 2

As AJ Markam

Ex-Superheroes 3

(Kindle and Audiobook)

Succubus

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 2: Hell To Pay

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 3:

The Good, The Bad, And The Crazy Stupid Hot

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 4:

Gnome Place Like Home

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 5:

Hardcore Dungeon Core

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 6:

Devil In The Deep Blue Sea

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus 7:

Fairy Tale

(Kindle and audiobook)

Succubus Christmas Special

(Short story and audiobook)

Ex-Superheroes 1

(Kindle and Audiobook)

Ex-Superheroes 2

(Kindle and Audiobook)

Mailing List

To be notified when the next book comes out, click here to join my mailing list.

You can also email me at
ajmarkambooks@gmail.com.

Facebook.com/AJMarkamBooks