All American Adventure
Author: James Patterson; Chris Grabenstein
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: cyberpunk apocalyptic dystopian quest gamelit; action horror dark epic metaphysical dungeon core; wizard mage shapeshifter warrior thief assassin; men's adventure video game adaptations wizard
Description: The U.S.A. is in danger... Only the Kidds can find the treasure that will save it! Bick, Beck, Storm and Tommy are stuck in Washington, D.C. without any priceless antiques to huntBORING! But everything changes when the Kidds uncover a dastardly conspiracy: a fake Bill of Rights! Now they're crisscrossing the country in a race to prove the document is a forgery. But the key to exposing the conspiracy may have been under their noses the whole time. And if they don't find it soon, the U.S.A. as we know it could be gone forever...
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Table of Contents

Summary

Shadow Alley Press Mailing List

The Upstart

Late-shift Shenanigans

Endless Distractions

Order from Chaos

Disappearing Act

Apprentice Aggravation

School of Night

Opening Salvo

Hasty Retreat

Trial and Error

Aftermath

Experiments in Inversion

Well-laid Trap

Retribution

Transmuting Troubles

Constabulary

Control Freak

Lunch Rush

Home at Last

Five-Alarm Loot

Hellstrike

Elemental Adolescence

A Ration of Grief

Subtleties of Transmutation

Rogue Evolutions

Musical Solutions

Alliances

Changing Faces

Spy Games

Jungles of Eternal Night

Isara the Spinner

Royal Failure

Orbweaver Evolution

Corporate Conspiracy

Into the Cairns

The Dragon’s Maw

The Ultimate Loot

The Final Straw

Bargaining Chip

The Twist

The Poser Owners

Books, Mailing List, and Reviews

Books by Shadow Alley Press

Books by Black Forge

LitRPG on Facebook

Even More LitRPG on Facebook

GameLit and Cultivation on Facebook

Copyright

About the Author

About the Publisher

Summary

BUILD. EVOLVE. CONQUER. Welcome to the dawn of a whole new kind of monster...

Roark von Graf built a nation on the bodies of griefed players and disgruntled mobs who wanted him dead. He grinded his way up to the level cap of the Troll Evolutionary Path and made powerful underhanded alliances along the way, but even all of that isn’t enough to defeat the Tyrant King’s right-hand mage, Lowen, and the Divine armies of the most powerful dungeon in the game.

When Lowen and the Vault of the Radiant Shield go on the attack, Roark’s only hope of survival lies in the stolen World Stone Pendant and its mysterious transmutation magic. To stand a chance against the overpowered mage, he’ll have to unlock the game-changing cheat that is Mega-Evolutions.

But while Roark and his Troll Nation are entrenched in an all-out battle for survival, the Tyrant King is preparing to unleash his hidden weapon—one that will hit Roark where he’s most vulnerable...

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The Upstart

LOWEN VON REICH SAT on the throne of the Vault of the Radiant Shield, perched on the hanging dais high above the throne room floor, and watched as a battle unfolded on the illuminated page of his gilt-edged Dungeon Lord’s grimoire. Absently, he tossed and worried a smooth stone in his hand, the glowing rune on its surface cold against his golden flesh.

On the page, his least favorite hedge mage and biggest thorn in his side, Roark von Graf, faced off against the strongest hero in Hearthworld, a man named Bad_Karma. The pair desperately tried to kill one another in a room rapidly filling with seawater. A few spells and hexes caught Lowen’s attention, but the combatants relied a tedious amount on physical weapons, like peasants brawling in the street.

“I always said you had commoner’s blood,” Lowen sneered at his former rival. During their days at the Academy together, a snide remark alluding to von Graf’s mixed heritage had always been more than enough to rile him into a fight.

When the hero Bad_Karma ran von Graf through with his billhook and tore out a goodly chunk of the man’s entrails, Lowen chuckled. It was the fulfillment of a fantasy for anyone who had ever met von Graf, and true to form, the hero looked especially pleased with himself. Lowen had missed the beginning of the fight, but knowing that mouthy cur, it had likely been filled with I’m-too-clever insults and a predictable amount of trickery. Two decades of cheating death had turned Roark into a pest of plaguelike proportions. The whole von Graf family had always been snakes, lying in wait to strike at the foot of their betters. And worse, they’d constantly taken pride in their sly cheats and schemes as though they somehow elevated them to greatness.

Lowen ran his thumb over the face of the stone, tracing the icy groove of the rune. He knew the truth—it wasn’t cleverness that made one great, but power.

Good riddance to that entire fool bloodline.

The von Grafs had dug their graves with their own arrogance, refusing to bow to the Tyrant King’s rule out of some outmoded sense of justice. More like naiveté. Lowen’s family, the von Reichs, had sensed which direction the wind was blowing. As a result of pledging their allegiance to Marek Konig Ustar, they had been granted not only more land and power, but Lowen had been afforded every advantage of education and luxury a mage could hope for.

Lowen smirked. Before he killed von Graf, he should ask him whether holding to his parents’ foolish ideals had been worth shivering alone in filthy back alleys and fighting strays for the scraps the peasants had thrown out.

The battle in the grimoire continued to play out, Roark and the hero treading icy water in the cursed room. Predictably, this Bad_Karma, who should have outmatched von Graf and had even struck numerous deadly blows, died with a whimper. Drowned in seawater while Roark transformed into some mer-type creature that looked as if it had come from Traisbin’s old fisherman tales about finfolk.

“You underestimated him,” Lowen tsked, shaking his head at the hero’s idiocy.

While a single moderate spell would work on a normal opponent, one should always use two or three vastly overwritten spells against a von Graf.

If there was one thing Lowen had learned from his very first duels with Roark, it was not to underestimate him. The von Grafs were worse than cockroaches—Roark in particular—and what didn’t kill them outright only made them craftier. He’d heard similar stories about Roark’s father, who’d made a nuisance of himself time and again. At least that one had had the good graces to die right and proper on Bloederige Noct, the Night of Blood. Not Roark, though. Nothing seemed to properly stomp that one out.

If the battle Lowen had just witnessed was any indication, the mutt was growing too clever for the difference in their levels to subdue him for much longer. Roark was a lowly level 36 Troll, while Lowen and every Ustar in the Vault of the Radiant Shield were at level 99—the maximum available to Malaika Heralds—but Lowen knew he couldn’t rely solely on that to crush Roark. When dealing with a cheat who wasn’t afraid to stoop to commoners’ tactics and beyond, something far more underhanded was required.

Pocketing the rune stone, Lowen stood.

“Darith, mind the throne room,” he snapped at his second-in-command. His voice echoed through the cavernous chamber and bounced off the shining golden walls and ceiling. “I will return shortly.”

Darith stopped plucking the wings off the Greater Vigilant Gargoyle he’d captured.

“Aye, sir,” he agreed, dropping the porcine creature with a rocky clatter, then taking up a position at the throne room door and pulling out a shining glaive. “Will do.”

Cruel, useful man, Darith. Strictly muscle, of course, but excellent at slaughtering heroes before they made it into the throne room. Essential for any Dungeon Lord who occasionally had to pop out of the dimension for a bit, and with the added benefit that Darith was too stupid to consider a power grab while said Dungeon Lord was gone.

Lowen sprung from the edge of the hanging dais and launched himself into the air. His wings responded as if he’d been born with them, carrying him in a graceful glide across the throne room. When he’d first followed Roark to this world, he’d been shocked to find he had transformed into some sort of angelic being with gold skin and wings growing from his shoulder blades. He’d been disoriented and more than a little incensed at the change. After having seen the twisted, demonic creature von Graf had become, however, Lowen had to admit he’d gotten the better shake.

He touched down lightly at the opposite end of the throne room next to a freestanding stone archway shimmering with violet light.

A fixed portal to Traisbin.

Lowen hesitated before it.

Most of his life, he had been taught that portal magick was the most unstable of any magicks. That even with perfect spelling and grammar and the most clear and accurate wording in the world, mages who attempted to pass through portals were frequently killed in all manner of gruesome and horrific ways. Even the oldest masters at the Academy had admitted that in the two hundred years since its founding, no one had yet been able to decipher the trick to safe portal travel. And a fixed, stable portal? Such a thing was less than legend. A myth too wild for any to believe.

Except it was no myth at all.

Marek had learned the secret. Or, perhaps, had known it all along.

That, more than anything, led Lowen to believe that the Tyrant King—an epithet he was smart enough never to call Marek to his face—was a far more powerful mage than any who had come before. Others had been surprised that the man had crushed the entire continent of Terho under his bootheel in five short years, but not Lowen. When one controlled that much power, how could conquest end in any other way?

Though portal travel seemed prevalent and even commonplace here in Hearthworld, it remained a closely guarded secret in Traisbin. If the Rebel Council realized they could transport themselves anywhere at will with hardly any consequences, they could mount an offensive against the Ustari Empire. Marek hadn’t even wanted to send many of his own troops through the portal, concerned some of the brighter ones might work out the mechanics for themselves, but Lowen had convinced the Tyrant King that overkill was the only response for a nuisance like Roark von Graf. Desperate for the return of his World Stone Pendant, Marek had finally relented and sent waves of his mages and soldiers to Hearthworld under Lowen’s command.

Reminding himself that all would be well, but unable to completely avoid bracing for the worst, Lowen stepped into the portal.

An icy breeze ruffled his hair and feathers. His flesh prickled with goosebumps and he shivered involuntarily, but he was otherwise unaffected. There wasn’t even a sudden stabbing headache or twinge of nausea, as was common in even Marek’s perfectly crafted portals in Traisbin. That was Hearthworld’s stabilizing magick at work.

A moment later, Lowen felt solid stone beneath his boots. The breeze dissipated, and heat suffused his body. He had stepped out of the portal beside the great hearth in the imperial stronghold’s war room. The emerald light from several lamps competed with the orange flames in the fireplace, giving the chamber a warm, inviting cast at odds with its brutal function.

“Lowen,” drawled the bored voice of the Tyrant King. “Unless you’ve come to put my World Stone Pendant back in my hand, I very much doubt I’ll be interested in what you have to report.”

Slowly, Lowen’s eyes—dazzled by the violet light of the portal—adjusted to the dimness of the war room.

Before him, Marek stood over an elaborately carved table covered in maps and lit by a trio of green-flamed lamps. A pair of tired looking burung wizards flanked him, and the war chiefs he commanded leaned over the table with him. A strategy meeting, then.

Salt-and-pepper hair fell back from the Tyrant King’s face as he lifted his chin a touch, piercing Lowen with his pale green gaze.

“Well?” The Tyrant King raised an eyebrow and held out his hand sardonically.

Though most people shrank with fear when faced with that cold, aristocratic glare, Lowen stood calm. He hadn’t fought his way up through the ranks to become Marek’s right-hand mage by cowering. In truth, it was because he was willing to stand tall that he had earned the position. Marek had an overabundance of sycophantic yes-men more than happy to fill his ears with pleasant, lying whispers. Lowen could count on one hand those willing to risk Marek’s wrath with the hard truth.

“I will have the World Stone for you soon, Your Eminence,” Lowen said, careful not to hem himself in with deadlines. Truth was valuable, but where Marek was concerned, it also needed to be tempered with prudence. A truly fine line to tread. “If that von Graf nuisance isn’t launching an attack on our Hearthworld stronghold as we speak, then he’ll be preparing to do so in short order.”

Marek didn’t bat an eye. “Don’t you think you would better serve me there, retrieving my pendant and crushing his attack, than standing here making promises you have yet to fulfill?”

“I came to ask for your leave to use the”—Lowen glanced at the war chiefs and wizards, making it abundantly clear that he thought them beneath this conversation—“secret weapon,” he finished.

This time, Marek did blink. He smoothed over his surprise quickly, but Lowen had been around the man long enough to catch the heartbeat of uncertainty. Having just lost his precious World Stone—the secret to his universal-law-defying magick—the Tyrant King was afraid to lose another of his most powerful weapons. Lowen didn’t allow his disgust to show on his face, but it was appalling how attached to that trash the man had become in his old age.

“Did you come here to admit that with dozens of my best troops at your disposal you are still too incompetent to accomplish what I sent you to do?” Marek asked.

Without missing a step, Lowen mentally backtracked and took another path.

“No, Your Eminence, I came to ask for a tool to prepare a secondary plan in case my first should fail.” Lowen reached into his pocket and ran his thumb over the surface of the rune stone. “I doubt it will, but only fools and zealots leave outcomes to chance.”

Marek gave the smallest of facial shrugs, a sign he approved. He was a pragmatic man above all else.

“Fine, you have my leave to use the weapon if your plan fails,” he agreed, turning back to his maps. “Whatever it takes to return the World Stone and kill that rebel upstart. Painfully.”

Lowen grinned and nodded. “It will be my pleasure.”

Late-shift Shenanigans

“WELCOME TO TACO BELL. Would you like to try our new Baja Blast Twists?” Scott Bayani asked the latest car of stoners to pull up to the Bell’s drive-thru menu.

“Yeah, um... Like, let me get a large number eight with three chicken quesadillas and a party pack of tacos.”

Scott tapped the order into the ancient touchscreen.

“You want those tacos hard or soft?” He wasn’t going out of his way to get it right when he made the order, but he was required to ask.

Snickering came through the headset. “I like all my tacos soft. Real soft.”

Ha ha, great innuendo, dickbrain. “What do you want to drink with that? Bong water?”

Of course Chaz, the overnight manager, immediately appeared, glaring at him in a mixture of disapproval and judgement. Scott rolled his eyes.

“What?” the customer asked, leaning closer to the speaker.

“I said, what do you want to drink with that? We have sixteen different flavors of Mountain Dew, and our monthly special is a suicide of all of them.”

“Ah, sweet! Gimme the suicide.”

Scott jabbed the touchscreen way harder than he had to. “Please pull forward.”

As soon as he’d taken the stoners’ payment, he did an about-face and got to work on their order. It was just him and Chaz tonight because Raeanna had called in “sick,” so he had to work both the drive-thru and the kitchen. Scott probably should’ve been docked for showing up an hour late for his shift, but since they were so short-staffed, all Chaz had been able to do was get all sanctimonious and shit. Luckily, the douche couldn’t fire him without permission from the day manager, and Allie had a major lady-boner for Scott.

Probably why Chaz hated him so much.

While he served the munchies crowd and the occasional out of state plate, Scott’s mind kept wandering back to the party he’d left behind in Hearthworld. The Griefer was still an asswad, but he sure as hell knew how to throw a rager. The mob party had been as sick as any of the post-raid guild celebrations Scott had ever been to. That big Troll, Kaz, could cook like a mofo, and he kept the booze flowing. Scott snorted at the memory of Randy falling backward over a bench and getting all tangled up in his own wings. Not that he liked the nerd, but it had been funny watching an admin get all sloppy over a couple glasses of virtual wine.

You’d think a level 40 would have better Constitution.

Thinking back, Scott could say without a doubt that going back to Hearthworld was the single best decision he’d ever made. Not only had it been stupidly gratifying to lead Bro_Fo and his train of ass-kissers into the trap that ultimately got all of them killed and hopefully camped by sentient mobs forever, but watching Karma get dead had made Scott’s day. BK should never have crossed him way back when he first wanted to raid the Griefer.

Scott guessed he had helped Roark a little out of compassion or whatever, too. So he was bighearted and magnanimous and shit. Fucking sue him. The Griefer couldn’t have pulled it all off without him, and unlike Karma, Roark knew how to reward his MVP. Scott hadn’t had time to check the wikis yet, but he figured Greater Vassalhood probably came with all kinds of unique perks and enough Experience to drown a Selkie.

“Bayani,” Chaz droned, snapping his chode fingers in Scott’s face. “Are you with us?”

Scott jerked back to IRL. The quesadilla press was beeping frantically and emitting a stream of smoke as it burned the cheese-filled tortilla inside black.

“Oh. Shit.” He trashed that one and started putting together another to replace it.

“No big deal, it’s fine,” Chaz said in a smarmy voice. “I’m sure the hungry customer doesn’t mind waiting while you remake something that should’ve been done five minutes ago.”

“Be more passive-aggressive about it, Chaz,” Scott said, cranking the press back down again. “That makes it cook faster.”

“All I’m saying is, this is a simple job. If you pay even the smallest amount of attention in the first place, you only have to make something once.”

“Until the next car orders the exact same thing.”

“That’s not the point—”

“Look, Chaz, I’m feeling really attacked right now.” Scott pressed a hand to his chest like one of those touchy-feely wusses. “I’m thinking I might have to file a complaint of bullying in the workplace. So unless you want a permanent mark in your HR file, maybe don’t be a dick.”

A shadow crossed Chaz’s face. Scott smirked. He’d known the threat would hit hard. Chaz was a Taco Bell lifer. Thirty-four, with no other prospects and on the fast track for day-shift manager. Headed for the Big Show, the douche liked to say. The tediousness of it made Scott want to barf. It was so plain and boring compared to Hearthworld. That was the worst part about VR, Scott supposed. The sheer badassery of grinding mobs, leveling up, and spamming spells against buttmunches like Bro-Fro put into perspective exactly how shitty the real world was. In Hearthworld Scott was everything. Right now, his avatar PwnrBwner_OG, was trending third on seedFeed because people couldn’t stop talking about Bad_Karma and how epically he’d been played.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, he was grilling quesadillas for a carful of stoners with less remaining brain cells than Scott had in his pinky. Bullshit was what it was.

“No one would believe you if you filed a hostile work environment complaint,” Chaz said, though he sounded less sure than he had a moment before. “You’re a total shit and everyone knows it.”

Scott shrugged and bagged up the quesadilla. “Yeah, but I have nothing to lose and you do. Is that really a risk you’re willing to take, Chaz?”

He watched as the wheels cranked to life in Chaz’s head—just how bad would a mark in his file affect his chances at promotion? After a beat, the dumpy supervisor deflated, folding in on himself as he scowled down at the tacos in his plastic-gloved hands. Without a word, Chaz retreated deeper into the kitchen, capitulating like a little bitch.

Score one for Scott.

Around two-thirty the late movie over at the Cineplex let out and the stoner rush hit. Eight cars piled up at the drive-thru, wanting their buck burritos with extra nacho cheese and cinnamon twists, and instead of doing something useful like dropping chalupas in the fryer, Chaz just stood around breathing down Scott’s neck making sure he wasn’t mouthing off to the customers. Wasn’t it just a wonderful life when he could spend eight hours slinging taco meat for minimum wage instead of farming a metric shit ton of gold and leveling his new Rajthorne the Mighty Warding Prayer?

“Earth to Bayani.” Chaz was snapping his fingers again, back with a vengeance. “Extra-large rainbow suicide. The customer’s waiting.”

Scott grabbed one bucket-sized cup and shoved it under each of the Mountain Dew fountains, letting all sixteen flavors mix and mingle into a single brownish-colored slush. He slapped a lid on it and took the abomination to the window.

Outside, a carful of dudes his age were squirming around in their seats and trying not to giggle like little girls.

“One extra-large suicide,” Scott said, leaning out to hand them the drink. “Wish it was mine.”

A long-haired kid in the back snorted like he’d just heard somebody rip one in an elevator. His driver buddy reached out and took the cup, face contorted as he tried to hold back a laugh.

“You want it,” the driver said, taking the lid off and looking down at the brown liquid, then up at Scott, “you got it, dude. Bombshell!” The dipshit howled, the other passengers squealing with giddy laughter as he pitched the cup back at Scott as hard as he could.

Scott threw up his hands and cussed at the top of his lungs, instinctively squeezing his eyes shut as he braced for impact.

He heard the cup smash and the Mountain Dew splash and ice cubes clatter while the assholes in the car burnt rubber out of there. Beside him, Chaz gasped.

Scott heard it all play out like a track on half speed, but he didn’t feel it. Not a drop.

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. For a split second, he saw a translucent blue tower shield as tall as he was floating in front of him, attached to his outstretched palms with two thin strands of light. Then it was gone.

Slack jawed, Scott turned his hands over, staring at his palms in confusion.

Ice skittered across the floor, and Chaz made a sound halfway between a gasp and a shout.

“Those... those punks!” He was drenched in soda from the top of his standard-issue Taco Bell visor to the nonslip soles of his sneakers.

Chaz shook his hands and arms, flicking droplets of sixteen-flavor blend everywhere. Scott backed up, but a drop got on the Bell monogram of his uniform shirt. He grimaced down at it.

“You!” Chaz’s face twisted with hatred. “This is your fault! I told you to be nicer to the customers, but did you listen? No, you always have to be an asshole! Do you think you’re cool? Do you think you’re funny? Well, news flash, Bayani, you’re not. You’re the worst employee we have—”

“Even worse than Raeanna?” Scott asked, his sarcasm kicking in on autopilot. “Miss Cough Cough, I’m Conveniently Sick on My Birthday?”

Chaz’s wet face turned red. “At least when she shows up to work, she’s friendly! You’re a dick from the time you clock in until the time you clock out! The customers complain about you, the rest of us have to suffer through you—”

The overnight manager went on reading the riot act at the top of his lungs. If he’d seen that blue light, he sure as hell didn’t act like it. Scott was almost willing to dismiss the whole thing as a trick of the light or an overactive imagination after spending so much time in Hearthworld... but there was his uniform to consider. Scott had been directly in the line of fire, taking up most of the window when the dickbrain threw the drink, but his uniform was still clean and dry, while Chaz was just fucking drenched in every flavor of Mountain Dew known to man—including several flavors that should’ve been outlawed as war crimes against humanity like Mango Rager and Screamin’ Acacia Fury.

Yeah, there was no getting around the dry uniform. That shield or light or whatever it was had really been there.

Scott tuned out Chaz’s rant and frowned down at his empty palms, trying to figure out what the balls it meant.

Endless Distractions

ROARK VON GRAF, BETTER known in Hearthworld as Roark the Griefer, Dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel and founder of the Troll Nation, leaned over his anvil, etching runes into a Peerless Wakizashi with precise strokes. The sweltering air was filled with the ring of hammers, the grating of rasps, the hiss of quenching troughs, and the rumble of customers and Smithing apprentices in the front half of the blacksmith’s shop. Trolls from every evolutionary path—all covered in heavy leather aprons and wielding tongs or hammers—animated the smithy with life and purpose.

There were over fifteen apprentices now, and their work was the lifeblood of Troll Nation; the specialty items forged in the Cruel Citadel drew legions of mobs from all across Hearthworld.

It was good and necessary work.

Work Roark was trying fervently to ignore.

The space between his private smithy and the front of the blacksmith’s shop was open by necessity—without proper ventilation, the heavy gasses released by the molten metals would kill them all in short order—but today, like many days, he wished it wasn’t. The racket. The cacophony of voices. All clamoring for attention inside his head. Roark steeled his resolve, pushed the tsunami of distractions to the back of his mind, and focused completely on the task at hand. Sweat dripped off the tip of his nose and onto the face of the weapon, marring the glimmering blade. He wiped it away with a quick swipe of a handy polishing rag and returned to etching.

Though he had defeated Bad_Karma and gained the allegiance of several powerful Dungeon Lords in doing so, Roark didn’t have the time to rest. The victory, though sweet, had come at the cost of revealing many of the tactics he relied upon. In the short time since the hero had died, the details of Roark’s cursed heads had spread from the myriad of Bad_Karma acolytes to every hero and mob in Hearthworld. Worse, it wasn’t only the heads that had lost their effectiveness—his transportation plates were common knowledge now as well. When Roark had wondered aloud how in the seven hells full parties of heroes were being transported to the same floor, Griff had taken him to a page in his grimoire marked with a ribbon labeled WikiLore. This, apparently, was a repository for all the discovered knowledge in Hearthworld, a library anyone could access, and it had pages dedicated to the Cruel Citadel.

Which, of course, meant that Lowen had access to pages of information on the Cruel Citadel as well.

The heroes had become quite smitten with Roark and his modest dungeon over the past few weeks. Even more so since the unlikely demise of Bad_Karma. They had mapped out nearly every inch of every floor—barring the Troll Nation Marketplace—recorded spells that muffled or even counteracted the effects of Roark’s cursed heads, and detailed the assortment of Cursed weapons the Trolls now carried and how to avoid being killed when looting them. The portal plates had their own subsection dedicated to their layout, level restrictions, and the best team builds so that all members of your party would be transported to the same end location.

Even varying the plates and their locations was no use. As soon as Roark made a change, the new information was added to the WikiLore pages. If Roark hadn’t recognized the names of the heroes his Trolls had just killed on the misspelled and grammatically ludicrous updates, he would have thought the pages updated themselves by some sort of sophisticated divination sorcery.

With all of his secrets on display for the whole of Hearthworld to see, Roark knew he had to come up with something completely new. Something Lowen would never see coming.

The problem was, he felt like he’d fallen into a creative rut. Even the bloody Curse Chain he was working on felt like a variation on the dozens he’d created since gaining the ability.

For a moment, Mac’s throaty snoring grew loud enough to break Roark’s concentration. The Young Turtle Dragon lay with his armored belly flat against the glowing bricks of Roark’s forge, soaking up the heat. The scaly monster scratched at his beard with one claw-tipped forepaw, then rolled over and scooted himself backward to press his spiked shell against the bricks.

Keeping his back and front evenly warmed was the extent of the silly beast’s concerns. Roark couldn’t decide whether this meant that Mac was too dim to understand the depth of trouble the Citadel faced if Lowen attacked now or that Mac was so brilliant that he had figured out the secret to existence.

It was a question for wiser philosophers than him. Roark returned to his work on the Wakizashi.

Trying to keep his maneuvering a step ahead of the heroes was exhausting and wildly ineffective. It certainly wouldn’t hold water against that overwriting ass, Lowen. No, what Roark needed was a breakthrough. A paradigm shift. The only problem was, as soon as he began to cover new ground and make any real progress—

“Dungeon Lord!” A level 2 Changeling loped into the forge, pitching and rolling with its clumsy, uneven gait, scraggy arms flailing. “Dungeon Lord, help!”

With a sigh of frustration, Roark set the Peerless Wakizashi on his workbench with a bang.

“What is it now?” he asked a little more harshly than he’d intended to. He would never succeed in outsmarting Lowen with so many cursed interruptions, and there were always interruptions. Some urgent piece of business that only he could solve—or so everyone would have him believe.

The Changeling scampered back a step, tucking its bald blue head back against its shoulders like a turtle.

Roark gritted his serrated teeth. At times he forgot that his Jotnar Infernali form cut an intimidating figure to the low-level Trolls. Though he’d started out in Hearthworld as scrawny and awkward as they were, he was now nearly twelve feet tall with razor-sharp obsidian talons, spiked demonic wings, and thick obsidian horns curling around each side of his head. When he’d leveled up, Roark had done what he could to return his appearance to normal, but he was still a towering, rangy Dungeon Lord covered in glowing violet tattoos of power. The Changeling might as well have been an ant under the heel of a rhinoceros.

He tried to soften his expression. “What’s the matter, Buke?”

The Changeling scurried forward again, bobbing his head in deference.

“Fighting in the marketplace, Dungeon Lord! The Witchdoctors and the Paragons are trying to curse one another to pieces again!”

“Where the bloody hells are Ick and Yevin?” The Witchdoctors and Paragons were their students—they should have been the ones to deal with this.

“Can’t find either one, Dungeon Lord,” Buke said, cringing back a step as he shook his head.

Roark scowled.

“Come on, Mac,” he called as he grabbed the upper half of his Peerless Leathers.

The Young Turtle Dragon chirped grumpily at the interruption to his basking, but rolled to his feet and followed Roark out of the blacksmith’s shop.

Roark shivered as he strode through the streets of the marketplace. He’d removed his stifling leathers while he worked to counter the baking heat of the forge, but out in the open air, his sweat had already turned icy. He shrugged into the light armor, and residual heat soaked into his ghostly pale skin.

“Hullo, Dungeon Lord!”

“Greetingsssss, Dungeon Lord!”

“Everything all right, Dungeon Lord?”

Throughout the marketplace, sociable mobs and NPCs of all stripes called out to him, while many of the more withdrawn creatures and races pointed and whispered to their shopping companions. Dybuks, Blood Leeches, Naga, sentient rocks and crystals from the Gardens of the Deep. NPCs of all four humanoid races. Enormous faceless Mind Mantids, smoky Void Djinns, and wolf-bear-man hybrids that walked on two legs with their long, muscular arms trailing on the floor like enormous apes. Beings from all of the allied dungeons and NPCs who had relocated to the Troll Nation, all out doing their daily shopping. In the shops and stalls lining the streets, Trolls and trainers hawked their wares, haggled with customers, or plied their trades.

The scene changed drastically, however, as Roark came around the corner to the street where both the Arcane Paragon and the Witchdoctor of Night Magick’s schools were housed.

Both schools and the surrounding shops were burning, colorful flames dancing, plumes of smoke rising up toward the ruffled undersides of the enormous bioluminescent fungus that towered over the marketplace. Magick users of both Night and Light Magicks screamed curses and hurled spells at one another, casting with little regard for the bystanders who might be injured. Severed limbs leaked blood into the dust. Off to the right, a half-elf, half-parsnip creature pulled himself across the ground with one arm and one leg. A carpet of enormous bloated toads hopped around underfoot, vomiting up pools of rainbow-colored slime.

As Roark watched, arms folded, a scowl etched on his face, a Witchdoctor student mid-cast stepped into one of the pools. Her leg immediately dissolved to the knee. That should have been the end of it for her, but no. Rather than drop her spell, she ratcheted up her insectile throat-singing, calling down a brilliant beam of moonlight on a nearby Paragon student, whose flesh promptly began to melt away under invisible flames.

Roark scowled. The chaos and destruction were bad enough, but the fact that this was the third time in under a week that fighting had broken out between the two factions made his blood boil.

“Enough!” snapped Roark. His shout echoed through the street, stopping the toads and a few of the combatants in their tracks.

[Congratulations, you have unlocked Intimidation Level 2. With Intimidation, beings with an Intelligence of less than .25 x your Intelligence suffer Fright for 45 seconds. Sometimes a big enough bark is all you need...]

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all Roark needed this time. Being magick users, many of the participants of this battle had leveled their Intelligence too high for him to stop them with simple Intimidation.

Striding into the center of the fray, he cast Infernal Healing on the area, giving back the Infernally aligned creatures ten times his own character level in Health, then tore open a Mass Heal scroll he’d looted from a hero’s corpse and restored those creatures with other alignments. A low-level fireball clipped him in the back of the right wing, nipping at his filigreed Health vial, but he ignored it.

Grabbing his Initiate’s Spell book, he scribbled out a Level 4 Sound of Silence spell, then cast it on the area. Light flared, and shouted curses and undulating throat-singing within a thirty-foot radius immediately died—cut off as though by a razor’s edge. Silvery beams of deadly moonlight and lethal blasts of multicolored light winked out.

On top of this, he fired off one of his pre-inscribed spells: a Level 6 Major Paralyzing spell.

[All opponents in a fifteen-foot radius with less than .25 x caster’s Dexterity become instantly paralyzed for 30 seconds.]

Luckily for Roark, no one else in this magical battle had invested as heavily as he had in Dexterity. The remaining combatants froze in place.

All except for a pair of Yevin’s Arcane Paragon students who happened to be just outside the boundaries of the spell when Roark cast it—a sentient rock person and a human NPC. Neither seemed to have noticed that the Dungeon Lord had stepped in to quash the fighting, and both had expressions of rage twisting their faces. The human stabbed a Maple Wand into the ribs of a Paralyzed Witchdoctor, while the chunk of rock raised one enormous granite arm and swung it like a club at the Paralyzed Witchdoctor’s head.

Before the blow landed, Roark leapt into the air, his huge leathery wings fighting to rip him from the ground, and dove at the still-fighting Paragons. His Peerless Rapier and Peerless Kaiken Dagger appeared in his fists. He crashed into the sentient rock, exploiting its weakness to Blunt Trauma. The hulking stone behemoth—though a physical powerhouse by nature—was no match for Roark’s strength, size, and speed. Stone crunched as Roark’s shoulder connected and the creature tumbled away from the helpless Witchdoctor.

The human NPC’s eyes landed on Roark’s snarling face and flew open as wide as flagons. Before he even had time to scream, Roark lashed out with the rapier, beheading the brainless fool.

By then a sizeable crowd had gathered to watch the Dungeon Lord quell the chaos. Roark rounded on them, anger burning in his eyes, blood coating the length of his weapon.

“Let this be a lesson to any who would disturb the peace of this marketplace,” he growled. “All are welcome here, but fighting and wanton destruction will not be tolerated.”

Nearby, the sentient rock person had regained its feet. Roark glared at it. It put both hands into the air and fell back to its knees, bowing its granite head. Behind Roark, the spell wore off the students who had been paralyzed, and they dropped to the ground and bowed to him as well, all mumbling fearful apologies.

The crowd of mobs and NPCs cheered.

A victory, though a sudden uncertainty niggled in the back of Roark’s mind.

“Get these fires put out and repair the buildings on this street,” he barked, infusing his voice with a harsh authority very close to Intimidation.

All around him, contrite, terrified students leapt into action, avoiding his gaze as they began to douse the fires and repair the burnt buildings. The problem was solved—at least until the next time the two rival schools got into a row—but he couldn’t shake the feeling of doubt. The bloodshed had been stopped for today, but him stepping in and scorching the earth every time fighting broke out wasn’t a permanent solution. It wasn’t even a good short-term solution, really. Having a single person be judge, jury, and executioner was exactly how tyrants were born, and he’d already had his fill of tyrants.

Roark turned away from the frenzied patch-up activity. If this little experiment of his was going to thrive, the Troll Nation needed a system of laws that everyone adhered to—Dungeon Lords included—and someone to enforce them. Someone who wasn’t him. Someone who could temper power with authority, and if need be, keep Roark in check as well as the rest of the citizenry. But who could live up to such a task?

The crowd parted as Roark strode through, a few brave souls shouting praise and reaching up to pat him on the back. He didn’t stop. He needed to find Griff.

Order from Chaos

AS HE HEADED FOR THE training grounds on the opposite side of the marketplace, Roark realized just how far out of his depth he was. He had spent so long opposing Marek with the resistance that he’d never stopped to ask himself what would happen if they actually managed to overthrow the despot. Who would rule Traisbin? Would the Rebel Council take power? What laws could be set in place to stop them from abusing power in the same way Marek had?

Roark’s formative years had been spent learning Traisbin’s laws and various forms of governance from his father with the understanding that one day Roark would be head of the von Graf family and need the knowledge. Except the Tyrant King had ensured that such a day would never come by slaughtering every von Graf but one.

Or perhaps two?

Memories of the carnage of Bloederige Noct intruded upon the bright, cheerful marketplace atmosphere filling the streets. In particular, the troubling things he’d witnessed while performing the Ennus-Merkki ritual for PwnrBwner and Randy, giving them indisputable proof that he was from another dimension. During the ritual, he’d unwittingly caught a glimpse of his little sister, Talise, deflecting the axe with some unknown magick and being carried away by Marek.

Roark was so consumed with the memory that he almost tripped over Mac. The Young Turtle Dragon let out a disgruntled grumble while Roark threw out his wings instinctively to recover his balance. The motion scared a pair of Shaman Reavers and a Dybuk doing their shopping nearby. They skittered back from the Dungeon Lord in alarm.

“My apologies,” Roark said, nodding at them and slapping Mac on the shell.

The Young Turtle Dragon chirped his forgiveness, then trotted off toward the training grounds again.

The mobs looked even more dumbfounded that a mighty Dungeon Lord had apologized to them, but before they could respond, Roark hurried after Mac, shaking his head at himself.

To believe what he’d seen in that apparition would be idiocy. Talise had died by the wellhouse with their mother. That vision was more than likely a scheme concocted by the Tyrant King to push Roark into reacting without thinking. Roark may have been a naïve fool about ruling, but he wasn’t going to run into one of Marek’s traps like a chicken with its head torn off.

The familiar clang of metal on metal and the thud of wooden shields rang out as Roark turned the corner.

In many ways, blundering his escape portal and ending up in Hearthworld was a blessing in disguise. He’d been too young before the old world fell to apply much of what his father had taught him, and he had always been an outsider in the resistance. With the Cruel Citadel, he had a chance to learn how to rule on a small scale, while it was just one dungeon—hardly larger than a small town—instead of learning through trial and error when he had the welfare of an entire nation to consider. If he played things smart, he could work out the best strategies for governing a free country now, then take them back to Traisbin when he returned.

The odds that he would survive another attempt on Marek’s life were almost zero, but perhaps if he passed his findings on to the T’verzet before he went after the Tyrant King...

Well, that was a thought for later. For now, the one thing Roark was certain of was that he couldn’t rule a city alone. Not even a small one. He hadn’t any idea where to start, though. What he needed was advice, and the person who always seemed to provide the best guidance in these matters, in spite of his repeated insistence that he was just a simple weapons trainer, was Griff.

Ahead, a dense crowd had gathered around the training ground. The place had become one of the most popular areas in the Troll Nation, though not necessarily for the reasons Roark would have thought when he’d created it.

Over the heads of the crowd, Roark could see the grizzled old arena fighter down in the pit, working with a varied group of Trolls, Nagas, Werebeasts, and other allied mobs.

Surrounding the pit on every side was a host of female mobs and NPCs of every race, class, and level. Lately, Griff had become somewhat famous around the Troll Nation. Not only was he the first NPC to toss his lot in with them, but he was also the right hand of the mysterious Dungeon Lord, a battle-tested warrior, and an imposing general of the Cruel Citadel’s troops. He had all the makings of a proper celebrity.

Ahead, Griff raised his short sword and barked an order for a serpent-tailed Naga to slither forward and attack him. The Naga moved with grace and speed, but the grizzled trainer dodged under the snake’s swing like a man half his age, perfectly demonstrating the spinning off-hand combo he’d taught Roark when Roark first began training with him. The mobs in the pit all leaned in closer, intent on the lesson.

And the women and woman-ish creatures surrounding the pit all sighed.

Griff obviously heard them, because he cringed at the sound, but continued training as if he hadn’t noticed.

It seemed that rather than becoming famous for his training and abilities, the old man had become something of a heartthrob.

Roark tried not to laugh, but couldn’t contain a smirk.

The old one-eyed trainer glanced over his shoulder. Several of his admirers perked up visibly, leaning forward to draw attention to what Roark assumed was their race’s most attractive feminine assets. Bloodleechs’ puckered circular mouths ringed with needlelike teeth. Swirling tattoos shimmered across pale Djinn flesh while they fluttered long black eyelashes. One of the harpies preened golden feathers like an overgrown peacock.

Griff scowled when he caught sight of Roark’s telling smirk.

“Break back into your pairs and practice the combo until your Off-hand Combo climbs a level,” he ordered his trainees. “Once it levels for both you and your partner, you’re dismissed for the day.”

Without waiting to see if they would follow the directions, Griff strode across the pit, his admirers swooning from a distance. Roark pushed through the crowd and hopped the half dozen feet down to the churned, soft dirt of the pit.

Griff sized Roark up with his one piercing blue eye. “What can I do for you, Griefer?”

With a graceless thud that made them both look to make sure they weren’t being attacked, Mac landed in the dirt beside Roark.

“Have you got a minute to get a drink, Griff?” Roark asked—the pass phrase for I need your advice on dungeon business.

“We love you, Griff!” a craggy, gray-haired NPC screamed down.

A mob hidden in a full set of Shining Steel Armor shouted, “You can train me anytime!”

“Have my eggssss, Griff!” a curvy Naga hissed.

Griff didn’t look up at them, but he blanched visibly, his mood instantly souring.

“I could use a good scotch,” the old trainer grunted. “Just so long as it gets me out of here.” He turned away from the pit, shoulders stooped in resignation.

As they headed for the exit on the opposite end of the pit, a very large, very lacy corset sailed over Roark’s head and landed in the dust in front of Griff. The grizzled arena hand humphed grumpily and stepped over it as if he hadn’t seen it.

“You’re becoming quite popular with the ladies and... whatever else they are,” Roark observed, trying to hide his amusement. It wasn’t funny. At least, it shouldn’t have been.

Griff sighed. “I’m a simple man, Griefer. A roof over my head, food in my belly, a good stiff drink to set me straight, and a chance to pass on my skills. That’s all I wanted. This nonsense, though...” He shook his head. “Can’t get a damn thing done. Think there’s any way you can ban spectators from coming around the training grounds?”

Roark seriously considered it. “That would only be a temporary solution,” he finally said.

“If it saves my sanity here in the short term, I’ll stand for temporary.”

“Honestly I’m not even certain I can stop allied creatures from visiting certain parts of the marketplace,” Roark said, scratching at his chin. “Doing so might violate the compact. I’ll see what I can do, but you may have to suffer through it for now until I can come up with something more permanent.”

Ducking out through the pit tunnels, they headed toward the Troll Nation Inn—recently rebranded by Kaz as Portal to Flavortown in honor of his most beloved idol, Gry Feliri. Roark and Griff moved at a brisk pace to avoid the trainer’s many adoring fans, while Mac trundled along slowly behind them. More than a few mobs tracked Griff with inhuman eyes, but Roark’s domineering presence helped to keep them at a respectful distance. Roark was an enigma, and many of the visiting mobs and NPCs were intrigued by him, but not smitten in the way they were with Griff. Roark was mysterious and powerful, but he was also dangerous.

In addition to that, rumors of his involvement with Zyra had begun to spread like wildfire, and no one dared cross her for fear of dying suddenly and painfully.

When they arrived at Flavortown, the crowd waiting for a table was queued up around the square. Roark, Griff, and Mac slipped around the side, past the trio of meat smokers, the distillery, and the series of enormous aging barrels, then headed in through the staff entrance. The clamor of pots and pans filled the air, accompanied by the sizzle of frying food and the squawk of apprentice cooks as they scuttled about their work.

“Roark is here!” Kaz crowed, dropping a meat cleaver and what appeared to be half of a Saber Boar onto the roughhewn kitchen table.

The enormous Knight Thursr strode around the sunken fire pit crackling with meats and vegetables and stews and wrapped Roark in a bloody-handed hug. With Kaz being nearly fifteen feet tall, with blue-black skin, curling horns, and fists bigger than dinner plates, a hug from him was a trial to be endured even without Roark’s natural aversion to displays of affection. Roark winced, his wing bones creaking under the strain. He glanced around for a hand from Griff, but the trainer had busied himself pouring a heavy dose of Kaz’s latest batch of magically aged High Charisma Scotch.

“All right, mate,” Roark said, shoving the Mighty Gourmet off. “Remember how we talked about hugging?”

Kaz started, then looked down at his gore-covered hands.

“Of course!” He grabbed a Fine Linen Cloth and scrubbed them clean, then pounded Roark on the back. “Kaz is so glad to see Roark! And Mac too!” He tore a chunk of raw meat from the Saber Boar and flicked it to the Young Turtle Dragon. Mac snagged it from the air with an overly long tongue and slurped it down in a gulp, chirping appreciatively. “Roark will never believe the herb Kaz has learned of today,” the Knight said, wiping huge mitts on his apron. “Garlic. Salt is a wonder, yes, but garlic is surely a secondary wonder. Almost as magnificent as beautiful, flavorful salt. The boldness. The versatility!”

“It sounds wonderful, Kaz, but Griff and I—”

Kaz forged on, undeterred by Roark’s interruption. “Guaranteed to add complexity to any dish. Any food dish,” he corrected himself. “Garlic is a wonder, but even it has limitations. Kaz tried briefly to craft a garlic mead, a savory, unique Flavortown experience—against Mai’s advice, but Kaz was too enchanted by the beauty of garlic to listen.” He hung his head. “What hubris has a Troll Gourmet. Garlic mead is not a drink one takes without deep regret and considerations of the choices which brought one to the moment of drinking.”

The Mighty Gourmet shuddered at the memory, his enormous frame shaking like a leaf.

“Kaz would not wish it on his worst enemy,” he said solemnly. “Not even that chef from Chillend prison.”

“Glad you saw the way the strike was falling on that one,” Griff said, stepping in to keep the Knight from going off on another tangent. He shoved a cup of scotch into Roark’s hand, then gestured with his own. “The Griefer and I are starving. Could you send up one of your apprentices with a bit of stomach-stuffing?”

“Kaz will bring it up himself,” the Mighty Gourmet insisted. “Go up to the Dungeon Lord’s private room. Roark and Griff must prepare themselves for the Flavortown experience of a lifetime!”

Roark nodded. “Thanks, Kaz. I know the inn is busy, but can you have someone take over down here while you stay upstairs with us for a while? I could use some insight into the Troll Nation from her Master Chef.”

“Kaz would do anything for the Troll Nation!” Kaz replied, slamming a huge fist to his chest and staring through the smoke of the crackling fire pit heroically. “It is Kaz’s patriotic duty!”

“Right.” Roark slammed back his drink, then glanced around for the bottle.

Griff held it up and gave it a little shake.

“We’ll be upstairs,” Roark said.

They left the kitchen and squeezed through the throng in the inn’s packed common room. Over the dull roar of conversation, the scraping of utensils on plates, and the clunk of cups on tables, a sound Roark had never heard in the Cruel Citadel caught his ear.

Music.

A lilting, laughing tune drifted through the common room, making feet tap and heads bob. At Roark and Griff’s side, a pair of Changelings were so affected by the sound that they leapt up onto a long table and clapped and stomped around in a mad dance.

Roark craned his neck to see around the wide-open hood of a Naga nodding along in time. Since he’d last visited the inn only a day or two ago, the tables and chairs had been shuffled around to leave a small open space near the hearth. A square-jawed young man in tanned leathers cranked the tune out of a beaten and well-used hurdy gurdy.

“Who is that?” Roark asked. “I didn’t hear Flavortown had hired a bard.”

“Name’s Soileau. Mai hired him on the other day,” Griff said. “Way I heard it, he was quite the draw over in Lucite’s inns and taverns.”

Roark frowned. According to the maps he’d seen, Lucite was halfway across Hearthworld from the Cruel Citadel.

“I didn’t think Mai was comfortable traveling that far from Averi City.”

“She ain’t. The kid came here, if you can believe it,” he replied. “Asking for work. Way I heard tell, he had a spot of trouble in Lucite. He’s on sort of a provisional trial here. Long as he don’t strike up an epidemic of Saint Vitus’s or incite a riot, he’ll get hired on full time.”

As Roark watched, Soileau took a few dancing steps toward the crowd and winked at the closest ring of diners, all female. An Imp Enchantress, girded in a glamour that made her look like a gorgeous dark elf, swooned in her seat; a wiry Reaver clutched her heart; and a fur-covered she-wolf grabbed for him. The bard laughed and danced out of their way just in time. They didn’t follow, but they certainly looked as if they wanted to.

Roark smirked. “He might be on the wrong track if he’s trying to avoid riots.”

“Eh, he’s young yet,” Griff said, shrugging.

Just then, the familiar sound of brawling caught their attention—though it was coming from outside rather than in. Someone cutting the line, it sounded like from the disgruntled shouts. Roark caught a flash of armor through the door as the Behemoth and Knight who watched over the queue ran to break up the tussle.

Roark felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease. At least he wouldn’t be expected to put out literal and figurative fires here, too. He and Griff left the common room behind and slipped up the stairs to the private room Kaz always kept empty for them.

They settled in and refreshed their drinks while Mac shoved his way into the seat behind Roark, grunting contently as he tucked his head beneath a scale-covered limb. They didn’t have to wait long before a warm, sharp scent drifted into the room, making Roark’s mouth water. A moment later, Kaz appeared with a platter of food big enough to feed a family of Changelings for a month.

“Roast garlic stew,” Kaz said, pointing out the dish. “Garlic, pepper, and Ice Bear skewers. Saber Boar Bacon sautéed with garlic. Wild Fowl wings with a spicy, garlicy sauce. Lemon and garlic buzzfish with a dash of tarragon. Garlic bread spread with garlic butter.” There was a quick pause while Kaz swiped away a bit of drool with the back of one huge hand. “Blackened garlic chips with a garlic and chili dipping sauce. And last but not least, a wild fowl potpie with mixed vegetables and garlic.”

Roark smiled. Kaz’s enthusiasm for every new ingredient he came across was a good reminder that there was a life outside of running the Cruel Citadel and the Troll Nation.

“There’s too much here for Griff and me to finish by ourselves, Kaz,” he said. “Why don’t you help us eat some of it?”

Kaz looked longingly at the food, then shook his head. “It’s not right for the chef to steal food from the mouths of his customers.”

“But what if your Dungeon Lord ordered you to eat with him?” Roark asked, quirking an eyebrow. “It would be an awful shame if some of this went to waste.”

“Yes, such a terrible shame,” the Mighty Gourmet agreed, still staring at the garlic-laden food. “Kaz supposes the apprentices will be all right for a little while. Mai will be back in the kitchen soon to keep them in line. And Kaz would never refuse an order from the Dungeon Lord.”

With eyes the size of tea saucers, Kaz reached for a wild fowl wing.

“So, what sorta business are we on, Griefer?” Griff asked, fixing Roark with his one-eyed stare. “Should we send for Zyra?”

Roark shook his head. “I don’t want to disturb her while she’s dealing with a new round of apprentices.”

“You mean murdering a new round.” The grizzled trainer chuckled under his breath.

Roark rolled his eyes. The man wasn’t wrong.

“I’ll bring her in on it later,” Roark said. “The basics of it is that we’re lacking in almost every form of governance. True, we’ve got a charter that says no allies can kill one another on Troll Nation soil, but they seem to be doing everything short of killing one another.”

“And setting things on fire,” Kaz added around a mouthful of potpie. “Kaz saw them setting fire to several buildings in the magick quarter.”

“Exactly,” Roark said. “We’ve got no true laws and no constabulary to enforce laws even if we had them.” He gestured with his newly refilled cup. “We also lack magistrates to try the lawbreakers. The only thing we do seem to have in abundance is chaos.”

“And fire,” Kaz repeated helpfully.

“Everyone’s trying to do their part to keep the Troll Nation running, but things are falling through the cracks that we can’t afford to fail at.” Not to mention, the cleanup always seemed to land squarely on Roark’s shoulders. “I need to be focused on finding a way to defeat Lowen and kill Marek, not running off every five minutes to stop street fights.”

“And put out fires,” Kaz said, licking some garlic sauce from his fingers.

“We need a better system,” Roark concluded.

Griff chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of skewer meat.

“That’s a tall order,” he said finally, scratching his stubbly chin. “A right bucket of fish you got there. Making up laws and finding effective ways to enforce ’em will take time. And to be frank, building legal systems isn’t something I know too terribly much about.”

At this, Roark felt his wings sink a bit, coming to rest against the back of his chair.

“I was hoping you would have an idea.”

“Now, don’t go getting disheartened on me, Griefer.” The old arena hand polished off the last of his skewer. “We’ll think of something.”

Kaz slurped some of the garlicy potpie. “Mai set guards over Flavortown to keep the customers from rioting. She found some Trolls who were hopeless at cooking and serving but wanted to be part of the inn, and she ordered them to escort any troublemakers out of the tavern.” Kaz’s eyebrows climbed toward his bright white Mighty Gourmet’s Toque. “With extreme force, if necessary.”

Griff pointed his skewer at Kaz. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Getting together a group of guards to keep the peace until we set down some rules’ll go a long way. Like you said to me earlier, it ain’t nothing more than a short-term fix, but if it keeps you sane in the here and now, Griefer—”

“Then I’ll gladly stand for temporary,” Roark finished for him. “Would you be willing to lead them?”

Griff screwed up his face in disgust. “No, lad, I’m already swamped with the training yard. Could do some recruiting for you, though. You might ask Druz, the first-floor overseer. She might turn out to be a good fit. Good head on her shoulders, that one.”

Roark shook his head. “She’s too low level. This would need to be someone strong enough to neutralize our highest-level visitors. Druz just made level 16 the other day.”

“Grozka the Zealot?” Kaz offered. “Grozka is very scary and strong, and she likes order and hurting people.”

Roark sipped his scotch and considered it. Grozka wasn’t a bad choice.

“I’ll talk to her about it,” he conceded.

“No, boy, I’ll talk to her about it,” Griff said. “Weren’t you just saying how you need to be concentrating on bigger pictures and preparing for that Lowen fella? You can’t do that if you’re running petty errands all the time.”

“Fine,” Roark conceded. Then, realizing he should be glad to have that small measure of extra weight off his shoulders, he added, “Thank you. But we need to make certain we recruit patrol guards as well. And they can’t just be Trolls, or the other dungeons will claim we’re trying to monopolize the ruling of the nation and push them out of power. Best to recruit widely.”

Griff nodded. “I’ll get Grozka on track tonight and start scanning the trainees that come through the pits. Try to recruit anybody with decent potential.”

“Excellent,” Roark said, already feeling a little bit better. There was still a lot to do, but at least they were making progress.

Disappearing Act

RANDY SHOEMAKER KEPT his head down and beelined for his office, praying that no one would try to talk to him. Worst possible time to have the office directly across from the employee lounge.

Would this be the day he lost his job? No one from Frontflip had contacted him all weekend, and no one had come to see him even though he could always be found at his desk, working the hours away. Not so much as a company message.

They had kicked him off the Hearthworld Modder project and taken away his clearance before end of day Friday. Wouldn’t they have fired him then if they were going to? They must realize that he was still around. Right?

Then again, for all the corporate hype about Frontflip Studios being one big family and a place to be creative and chill, it was still a pretty big company. Maybe he was slipping through the cracks?

Randy swallowed, anxious sweat wetting the pits and back of his button-down shirt. Was a weekend without contact the sort of radio silence that was “too quiet”? Should he expect someone to spring the trap when he stepped into his office and sat down?

Ahead, he heard a Ping-Pong ball tocking and pocking back and forth in what sounded like a raging match. And since this was Monday morning, it was probably Danny, the marketing director. He loved to give someone a Ping-Pong beatdown Monday mornings. Part of his “ritual.” He said it helped him start the week right. Randy flinched. Every hollow clack of the ball felt like it pinged off the back of his neck. His stomach rolled. He shouldn’t have had that second strawberry Pop-Tart, but he’d wanted to be prepared for whatever came today, and they said breakfast was the most important meal of the day.

Just a few more feet to his office door. He could see it up there, waiting for him, like a portal to safety. He was so close. Five feet. His heart slammed against his pocket protector. Three feet away. Seconds from his desk. One foot.

As his left loafer crossed the threshold, Randy’s shoulders slumped with relief.

“Hey, Rando.” Danny’s smug voice grated against his eardrums like microprocessors across concrete.

Randy flinched and sloshed hot coffee across his hand and wrist. He gave an undignified yelp of pain, switching his coffee to his dry hand and trying to shake the burn and wetness off. Already little Wet/Dry Vac bots were scurrying to suck up the mess from the industrial carpet.

Danny chuckled. “Mondays, am I right?”

The VP of marketing leaned against the doorjamb of the employee lounge, Ping-Pong paddle resting on his shoulder like a tennis racket. He looked way too content for something as trivial as winning a Ping-Pong game.

Randy stiffened, forgetting about saving his hand. Surely they wouldn’t send Danny to fire him? True, they had kept the smug jerk on the project even after kicking Randy off, but that didn’t mean they would hand over the HR reins to him of all people, would they?

“Man, Randalicious, it sucks out loud that they kicked you off the modder sitch.” Danny clucked his tongue a few times as if he sympathized. “But you know what it’s like for guys like you, way down the totem pole. They can always find a new... what are you, like a programmer or something?”

The smallest flame of anger kindled to life in Randy’s belly. Danny knew very well that Randy was a senior software engineer, he was just trying to get a rise out of Randy. Still, it stung Randy’s pride because he knew he was replaceable. Well, at least that’s what the higher-ups thought. The truth was no one in Frontflip could do what Randy could. He was the best they had. The fact remained, though, that guys like Danny made friends with the CEO and cultivated their popularity with everybody at the studio, while guys like Randy kept their head down and did their work. And even if that work was essential, you simply didn’t feel bad about firing somebody whose face you hardly remembered.

“Should’ve worked a little harder on making yourself irreplaceable,” Danny said, spinning the Ping-Pong paddle between his hands. “Mike and I—well, Mr. Silva to you. I call him Mike—we were just talking the other day at the range about how half this biz is networking, and you nerd types always overlook that. It’s vital, Randmeister. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll work your way back up in time. If you can learn to play the game, that is. Toodle-loo!”

Danny spun on his heel and disappeared back into the employee lounge.

“Who wants to take on the champ?” the VP of marketing yelled. “You want a piece of this, Tomihiro? Well, bring it on!”

Out in the hall, Randy dripped coffee from the wrist of his now wet sleeve. A Wet/Dry Vac bot slammed into his loafer, trying to get at the liquid soaked into the carpet beneath.

Randy shook himself out of the haze of anger and frustration and went into his office, shutting the door softly behind him. What was left of his coffee went on the coaster, then he opened the top center drawer of his desk and found the stash of neatly stacked napkins he kept in the back corner, just in case. He dried his skin and dabbed at the wrist of his shirt. What removed coffee stains? He would have to look that up before he left work today.

The upside was they hadn’t sent Danny—or anyone else—to fire him. Yet.

Randy threw away the used napkins and ran his fingertips lovingly across the perfectly straight spines of the books on the shelf above his desk. Rational Database Theory and Applications. Advanced Digital and Systems Analysis. Fundamentals of Radiant AIs. Refactoring. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Though he knew each one practically by heart, he kept them close at hand, like a safety blanket. Seeing them lined up in perfect order gave him a sense of peace. Everything in the world could go wrong, but those manuals would still be there, holding true. Anchors of reality.

With his anxiety calmed slightly, Randy sat at his desk and logged in to his station. Even though he’d been kicked off the project, he couldn’t help but poke around just to see if they had made any progress over the weekend.

Turned out, there had been plenty.

Something big was definitely going on. There were dozens of new folders and pathways, but he couldn’t open them, not now that he was back to regular clearance. It was all locked away from him.

He could crack it, though. He hadn’t been made senior software engineer just for his networking skills—unlike some VPs of marketing he could name. But the second he got into the files, the security crawlers would alert like crazy. Everybody would know, and he would get fired for sure. Maybe even arrested.

Was it prosecutable as corporate espionage if he was spying for an anomaly from another world?

Randy shook his head. He was thinking like a coward again. Hadn’t he just the other day given PwnrBwner a rousing speech about how they could be the heroes for once? Real, honest-to-gosh heroes who saved whole worlds and really helped people. Heroes couldn’t run away just because they were scared that they might lose their jobs. They stood up for what was right, no matter what that might cost them.

Untold lives, Roark the Griefer’s entire world, depended on Randy being brave. Being a true hero.

“Woo, yeah!” Danny bellowed in the employee lounge. “Suck it, Tomihiro! Who’s next?”

Sudden inspiration struck.

Randy blinked. No, that would never work.

Except... Except it might.

Danny still had clearance. If Randy logged in from Danny’s workstation, he could access all the locked files, and no one would bat an eye because Danny was still in Mike’s inner circle.

Getting into Danny’s station would be no problem at all. Company policy prohibited him from locking his door, and Randy had been in the marketing VP’s fancy corner office before, so he knew he kept his password on a sticky note stuck to the top of his desk. Logging in wouldn’t be Mission Impossible 49.

The real test would be getting into Danny’s office without him finding out. Randy was no cool, collected super-spy. Just the thought of trying to sneak in had his stomach roiling again.

He leaned back in his ergonomic desk chair and stared at the manuals on his shelf, forcing himself to breathe through the anxiety. Their spines were still perfectly straight. There was still order in the world.

Randy’s spine straightened, too. He nodded at them. Millions, if not billions, of people from Roark’s world depended on him. He would find a way.

With renewed purpose, Randy grabbed his coffee cup, but the dark roast inside had gone lukewarm while he was clicking around the Hearthworld modder project folders, trying to figure out what to do.

Randy sighed and got up. There was an expensive espresso machine in the employee lounge across the hall, but he never got coffee from there. Too much chance of running into someone who wanted to talk to him.

Instead, he speed-walked down the hall to the elevator lobby the tours passed through. Glass walls showed the visitors a glimpse into the “funventive” world of Frontflip, complete with brightly colored carpeting and walls and devs at treadmill desks, jamming to music, and tossing squishy little stress balls back and forth across the room while they worked.

Whenever Randy saw the place, he was glad he didn’t have to work in the desk pool anymore. All that pressure to have fun while he worked was too much. It had stressed him out bad enough to give him hives.

The one good thing about it, though, was that there was a coffee dispenser in the elevator lobby, always stocked with the finest organic roasts for the tour-takers. Randy set his mug under the spout and selected a dark roast. The machine gurgled and chattered with itself as it percolated.

The elevator dinged, setting his heart thumping against his pocket protector again. It wasn’t time for the morning tour to come through. He glanced over his shoulder to find that the situation was even worse.

Out of the elevator car stepped Helen Rose, one of the most gorgeous and recognizable employees at Frontflip. A willowy blonde with a magenta underdye, perfect skin, brilliantly white teeth, and vintage square-framed glasses perched on an upturned nose, she was a game critic and social influencer. She’d been offered a job with Frontflip two years ago because of the literal millions of seed followers who hung on her every word about ultra-immersive RPGs like Hearthworld. He’d had a crush on her since he found out she had graduated with degrees in both astrophysics and astronomical geology.

Unfortunately, Randy could never talk to her. Never again, anyway. Not after last year’s Christmas party. Randy had tried to strike up a conversation with Helen Rose about the recent discovery of geological striations below the cloud layer on Saturn, but Tenya had blundered in drunk and vastly misrepresented that time that Randy had accidentally forwarded the confirmation for a prostate exam from his doctor to everyone in Dev. At the time, Randy would’ve given anything to disappear, but since he wasn’t an Arboreal Herald IRL, the best he could do was slink away, face burning and tail between his legs.

In the elevator lobby, Randy wished again that he had his Hearthworld main’s vanishing abilities. Or even just his confidence. It seemed so unfair that he could play a tough, cool hero in a video game, but be so awkward and uncomfortable in his own skin. If he were in Hearthworld, he would probably make a glib joke that would make Helen Rose laugh, but Randy Shoemaker’s larynx was frozen, his mouth half-open like a total schmuck.

He ducked his head and stared at the jazzy patterns on the carpet. When you couldn’t be cool or disappear, the next best thing was to try not to draw attention. Hopefully, she wouldn’t even notice him.

She hadn’t said anything yet. Maybe it was working. Or maybe she’d forgotten about him. That would be ideal.

With a final gurgle, the last of the coffee Randy ordered drained into his cup.

Grab it and go, he thought, forcing himself into action.

But as he reached for the cup, Helen Rose bumped right into him. Coffee sloshed all over his hand again, and worse, soaked the front of her vintage Flamingoes Never Say Die T-shirt. She gasped and threw up her hands a second too late. Randy’s eyes widened as his mug dropped onto the carpet with a thud, spewing more of the hot brew all over her trendy sneakers.

“Oh my gosh,” Randy said, panicked, “I’m so sorry! I have napkins in my desk, I’ll—”

“What the balls?” Helen Rose spun around, searching the elevator lobby. “Is this some kind of prank?”

“No, I-I’m sorry, so sorry. It’s my fault. Clumsy, uh—”

To his surprise, she laughed, showing perfect made-for-livestreaming teeth.

“Orly?” Her eyes locked on the PA system. “Drea? You goobers, are you guys punking me right now?”

Randy stood by, confused as she shook her head, still smiling, and swiped at her soaked clothes.

“You dorks owe me a dry shirt,” she said.

With that, she turned around and headed back toward the elevator. She was gone before Randy could explain.

Dumbfounded, he looked down at what was definitely going to be a coffee stain on his sleeve.

Except there was no sleeve. No sleeve and no arm. No body at all.

Randy was invisible. He touched his chest, then picked up his coffee cup. Invisible but not incorporeal.

Just like a level 40 Arboreal Herald.

Apprentice Aggravation

WHEN ROARK LEFT FLAVORTOWN Tavern, he was exhausted. Although Trolls never needed to sleep, he felt wrung out to his core. No rest was forthcoming, however. The day was nearly done, as he’d learned to judge by the subtle shifting of colors in the enormous forest of bioluminescent mushrooms that towered over the marketplace, and it was approaching the time he and Zyra had agreed to meet with Ick for training. Appropriately, training in the School of Night Magick required it to be actual night all over Hearthworld.

Mac followed along as usual, climbing nearby walls as if he were still the somewhat smaller fat-padded Stone Salamander he’d been when they first met rather than the seven hundred plus pounds of shell, scales, and talons that he was now.

Much like the mobs of Hearthworld, the Troll Nation Marketplace never slept. Creatures were traveling in from the portal plates in allied dungeons all the time—so many that Roark wondered whether there was a line backed up in their home dungeon. They were easy to spot, loaded down with armor and weapons to sell. The outbound were no harder to find. They walked along as if they’d just rid themselves of a disagreeable load and replaced that with the far more agreeable weight of gold.

Mac studied them curiously, sometimes stopping to watch and scratch his beard as they ambled by.

The silly beast had eaten greedily while at Flavortown, but the extra weight in his belly hadn’t slowed him down. In fact, it seemed to have made him even more frisky than usual. He yipped at a few of the shoppers, then ran ahead, hopping from building to building before coming back to scale a wall at Roark’s side and demanding to be petted.

But even this the Young Turtle Dragon quickly grew tired of. With a low trilling sound that Roark took as a dismissal, Mac camouflaged himself, vanishing from view. At least to the stream of casual passersby. And truthfully, only knowing what to look for helped Roark find the telltale visual distortion scampering up toward the cupola of the Scroll Store. That and a roof tile cracking off and smashing on the packed dirt of the street. It narrowly missed a passing Imp, who recoiled and cast an instinctive Slow spell at the broken shards.

Her eyes locked on Roark a moment later and tripled in size.

“Sorry, Dungeon Lord, sorry!” The Imp dropped to her knees and wrung her hands. “I didn’t mean to throw around no magick in the Marketplace! I wasn’t trying to disturb the peace! The blasted slate only surprised me is all!”

“It’s all right,” he insisted, raising a hand and dismissing her apology with a wave. “Get up. I saw what happened, and I’m not here to condemn you for it. Get up, please.”

She wasn’t listening, however. She kept going on about the tile and pleading for mercy, face pressed into the ground, arms raised in supplication.

It made Roark sick to watch. This was precisely the trouble with being a one-man judge, jury, and executioner.

With a disgruntled sigh, Roark finally gave up on trying to convince her she wouldn’t be punished and turned the corner toward Zyra’s shop. The cries for mercy chased him down the alley, sending shivers of unease racing along his spine. He tried to put her from mind, focusing instead on all the work he had yet to do.

Zyra’s alchemy shop was perfectly placed, positioned right next to the herbalist, whose chicken-legged hut and garden were located on the very edge of the marketplace. And by design—his, of course—it was also located next door to his smithy.

A great squawking went up at the end of the street. Roark squinted, turning his gaze on the chicken-legged hut just in time to see it buck off a distortion in the shape of a Young Turtle Dragon. Mac hit the dirt with a thud, sending up a cloud of dust, then regained his feet and cut off through the glowing musical grass, apparently no worse for the fall.

Roark chuckled to himself and headed toward the alchemy shop. No oily black smoke was billowing up from the chimney in the back. A good sign. The last time the chimney had been smoking like that, one of Zyra’s failed apprentices had met his fate in the oven, ostensibly because she’d sensed him lunging to plant a poisoned dagger in her back.

When he stepped inside, there were no low-level mob corpses strewn about the shop floor, waiting for their owners to respawn, either. Another good sign. The shop itself was a dark and rather gloomy place, radiating the toxic energy of a Champion Reaver turned Master Alchemist.

A black wrought iron chandelier dangled from the ceiling, spewing green light over the shop’s interior. Bleached white bones and a motley assortment of skeletons adorned the right wall, along with a collection of shrunken heads and twisted antlers. Along the left wall were shelves piled high with potions and poisons in a variety of odd-shaped glassware; beneath were rows of wooden drawers, which held a wide range of alchemic ingredients and potion reagents.

Everything from the commonplace Devil’s Tongue, which grew in the shade of the Elderpine trees, to the rare Bunyip Bindweed that could cause death in a matter of moments. Each drawer was carefully labeled in Zyra’s flowing script. At the rear of the shop was a glass-fronted case, stocked with various alchemist equipment: mortars and pestles, flasks and vials, burners and brass retorts.

Roark rounded the shop counter, heading for the door that led into the laboratory, where Zyra kept her real treasures and did her most delicate work. His ears perked up as glass clinked beyond the door, and something boiled and hissed.

“Damn it all,” Zyra’s muffled voice muttered.

Grimacing, he rapped on the door to the laboratory.

“Zyra, it’s me.” He didn’t plan to wait around for her to let him in, but he’d learned it was best with the paranoid Reaver to announce himself before he strutted in unannounced. She was lightning quick with her blades and prone to stab first and ask questions later.

Inside, he found Zyra rushing from a mortar to a set of bubbling titration pipes, one arm cradling rare and potent ingredients to her flat stomach while the opposite hand clutched a powder-covered pestle. The rest of the lab was in a similar state, full of in-progress potions, poisons, and brews. He counted four half-ground powders in as many shades and consistencies. A trio of candle flames flickered under round-bottom flasks; the contents of one had already boiled away, leaving behind a salty black residue. There were two cutting boards on a worktable, one covered in thinly sliced magenta flower petals, the other covered with pulsing green things that looked like spiral slugs. All of which were slowly crawling away in different directions.

So far as Roark could tell, she was doing every menial task an apprentice could have done instead.

Definitely a bad sign.

“Put out the candle under that Metamorphic Salt Filtrate, will you?” Zyra asked without preamble. She tossed down her pestle and snatched a bubbling pot off the hearth. Some of its contents splattered and hissed in the fire as she did. Glancing up just long enough to see Roark’s confusion, she added, “It’s the one finished degrading,” before hustling back to her mortar.

Roark snuffed out the indicated candle beneath the flask of black residue.

“Where are your apprentices?” he asked.

“Had to fire Og,” Zyra said, furiously grinding away at the yellow powder in her mortar. “Too shifty. He kept watching what I ate and drank, asking me which poisons Septic Brewmasters are immune to.”

“But you had two others,” Roark said. “Did you cook them before I got here?”

“I wouldn’t waste the wood on those fools. I sent them on a fetch quest after the Cordial Cherries of the High Plains or some such nonsense.”

“For a poison?”

The hooded Reaver snorted. “Not unless it’s an imaginary one. There’s no such thing as Cordial Cherries or whatever it was I told them to go find.”

“You gave them a fake quest?” Roark dragged his claws through his shaggy black hair. He floundered for words, but could come up with nothing better than an outraged, “Why?”

Zyra sighed, and Roark thought he could feel her rolling her eyes somewhere in that hood. “If they don’t even realize these ingredients are made up, then they don’t have what it takes to work with poisons of this caliber.”

“But they’re here to learn,” Roark replied, exasperated. “Apprentices aren’t masters, Zyra. You teach them, then they learn to work with the poisons correctly. They get better over time. That is the process.”

Zyra shouldered past him and grabbed the flask of Metamorphic Salt Filtrate. “Not before they poison me by accident—which would be even worse than Og doing it intentionally.”

Roark shook his head. “You’re being impossible.”

“This class is impossible,” she answered easily, returning to the secondary cutting board. “If an apprentice wants to survive as an Alchemist, then they have to be up to the impossible.”

She sprinkled the Metamorphic Salt Filtrate on the fleeing slug-like things. Immediately, they sublimated into five puffs of emerald smoke. Zyra threw down her pestle and used a nearby bellows to suck up the smoke and deposit it into a small glass jar.

“I thought we agreed that you need apprentices,” Roark said, idly drumming his claws on a nearby workstation. “With them to do the simple tasks, you’ll be free to work on the more advanced projects you want to. Perfecting that undetectable contact poison. Breeding Frostrime vipers for their venom. Seeing whether your Septic Brewmaster abilities can be combined with Ick’s Night Magick.”

Zyra scraped the magenta petals off the primary cutting board and headed for the bubbling pot on the hearth.

“Right, that. You’ll have to go to training without me tonight, Griefer. I don’t have the—”

“Time,” Roark finished, slipping between her and her target. “Because you fired or sent away all your apprentices.”

Her hood fell back a fraction as she looked up at him, revealing a midnight blue nose and chin and full lips that were just a shade darker.

“If I don’t put these Pickled Haint Orchid Petals in that pot, the antidote won’t turn out,” she said, holding up her fistful of cuttings.

Roark grabbed her hand and held her in place. “Does that really matter?”

She ran her free hand over his jaw in a tender caress, drawing him in closer to her lips.

“That depends,” she purred. “Would you like an antidote for the Flesh-Eating Contact Poison I just applied to your face?”

In the corner of Roark’s eye, his filigreed Health vial flashed green. He threw up his hands in frustration as a scrap of parchment belatedly filled his vision.

[Potent Flesh-Eating Contact Poison (Ultra-Rare) absorbed!

Effect: Loss of 4 HP per second for 60 seconds or until the corresponding antidote is consumed.

Effect: Disfigurement of affected area and subsequent loss of 13% Charisma until the corresponding antidote is consumed.]

The skin and muscle over his cheek and jaw sizzled, and melted bits began to drip onto the chest of his leathers. He dismissed the parchment with a thought and turned to find Zyra at the hearth, stirring in the petals into the orange-pink sludge in the pot.

“I honestly don’t even know if it will turn out at all,” she said, “but this is the closest I’ve been to an antidote for this particular blend.”

Roark gritted his serrated teeth. There had to be a solution to this, but he was damned to seven hells if he could figure it out just then. Perhaps if he asked Wurgfozz whether any of the second floor’s new arrivals showed promise for Alchemy, he might find an apprentice or two that Zyra couldn’t fool with silly quests or murder for asking the wrong questions.

In truth, the matter of fulfilling her impossible apprentice demands was starting to seem like a tougher puzzle than getting back to Traisbin.

That stray thought brought with it the usual brooding frustration surrounding Roark’s experimentation with interdimensional portals. Even though he’d finally unlocked a level 9 magick spell slot in his Initiate’s Spell Book—the prerequisite for writing an interdimensional portal spell in Hearthworld—all his attempts to open a portal to Traisbin had killed him in spectacular and horrific style. Since his last attempt, he’d managed to creep back up to level 39—his third time at this level. Roark had yet to crack level 40 without being blown to bits with invisible shrapnel or shredded by unseen blades and respawning at level 36.

It was infuriating to no end. When heroes died, they lost experience and had to return to their corpse to gather up their gear or lose it as well, but somehow they were able to hang onto their hard-earned levels. No so for Trolls.

Many Hearthworld mobs also had evolution caps well past a Troll’s, meaning that if they did perish, they wouldn’t have to drop back nearly so far. Lowen’s Malaika Herald, for example, could never respawn any lower than level 72. The same for every other Tyrant King lackey in the Vault of the Radiant Shield.

In contrast, Roark’s Jotnar Infernali, the highest Evolutionary Path of all breeds of Troll, reached its level cap at 36.

Roark clenched his jaw. Based on his calculations, he would have been nearly level 50 himself if not for the constant respawns.

A pair of delicate, midnight-blue hands covered in glowing blue tattoos of power waved before Roark’s eyes.

“Are you still with me, Griefer?” Zyra said. Her hood cocked slightly, and she brought her hand inside to cup her chin. “Interesting. I didn’t think the Flesh-Eating Poison had an effect on awareness.”

“It doesn’t.” Roark shook his head and took out the Clearblood Ring he’d looted from the former Dungeon Lord’s corpse what felt like years ago.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Clearblood Ring

Durability: 89/96

Level Requirement: 16

Resists 100% of poison, disease, and blood-based magical attacks.

╠═╦╬╧╪

It would cleanse his flesh of the poison and protect him against further poison, disease, and blood-based magical attacks.

“Come on,” he said insistently. “We’re going to be late for our training session with Ick.”

“What will he do? Click his mandibles at us?” Zyra plucked the ring out of his fingers.

“I need that in case your antidote fails,” Roark said, holding his hand out expectantly. “I don’t have time to respawn today.”

“You wouldn’t die even if it did fail,” she said. “Now hold still.”

Instead of giving his Clearblood Ring back, she caked some of the orange-pink sludge onto his cheek.

[Flesh-Repairing Contact Antidote (Ultra-Rare) absorbed!

Effect: Counteracts Flesh-Eating Contact Poison (Ultra-Rare).]

The filigreed Health vial in the corner of Roark’s vision stopped flashing green and returned to its usual bloodred color, and he could feel the muscles and skin of his melted face repairing itself. Not a pleasant sensation, but certainly impressive.

“You perfected a Contact Antidote?”

Zyra dropped the ring into his hand. “Feel free to shower me with praise.”

“Fine.” Roark smirked. “You’re brilliant. Now can we please go?”

School of Night

THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT Magick didn’t look as if it belonged in the Troll Nation at all. Its architecture, requested by Ick when Roark added it to the marketplace, was completely different. Rather than the blunt stone construction used in the Cruel Citadel, Ick’s school was built entirely of wood, with peaked roofs that turned up at the eaves and hanging wooden chimes at every corner. The glowing, musical grass surrounding it had been left to grow as it pleased, with only a small path cutting to the wide front porch, and a small stream had been diverted to pass by. Smooth rocks that Ick had made new disciples carry up from the farthest reaches of the Citadel’s wild fifth floor had been placed in the stream to elicit all the gurgling and babbling of a forest brook.

Without the battle taking place in the street, it looked like the most idyllic place in the Cruel Citadel. Of course, from the outside, one couldn’t see the violent training taking place inside, either. From their few lessons with Ick, Roark could attest that Night Magick was no quiet teatime in the park.

Roark and Zyra followed the short path to the porch, where they were met by one of Ick’s disciples, a level 5 Changeling.

“Salutations,” the Changeling croaked, bending his mismatched little body into a clumsy bow.

From the corner came the soft clearing of a throat and clicking mandibles. The Changeling glanced over and up. Ick was sitting on the ceiling half-hidden in the shadows. Only the hem of his flowing blue-black robe was visible from Roark’s angle, and it hung upward instead of down, seemingly without regard for gravity.

The Changeling hastily ducked his head again. “That is, uh, salutations, mighty Dungeon Lord and, er, scary Reaver Champion.” Zyra chuckled softly, obviously pleased with her appellation. “The School of Night Magick is pleased to receive your visit.”

“Much better, Little Seven,” Ick said, his mandibles clicking with approval.

The Nocturnus clambered down from his perch using the arachnoid legs sprouting from his back. Just as when Roark had first met Ick, he was struck by how frail the Nocturnus appeared in spite of being covered in shiny black chitin. Ick’s eight sapphire eyes sparkled with an unnerving intelligence, and masses of segmented tentacles hung around his face like hair. Even after he had reached the floor and unfolded his humanoid legs, taking the weight from the arachnoid ones, Ick’s chitin-covered appendages continued moving independently of one another.

“Sensei on the floor!” the little Changeling shrieked at the top of his lungs, then dropped to his knees and bowed his bald blue head to the wooden boards.

Because Roark and Zyra were students, they bowed to Ick as well, though the Nocturnus had never required them to kowtow as he required from the full disciples. Still, a master was a master. Before the Tyrant King had come to bloody power, Roark had trained at the Academy—laboring under the watchful eyes of his instructors, including the revered Arch-Acolyte Sarvlax. If there was one lesson that had been beaten into his head, it was this: an apprentice respects his master.

Admittedly, however, observing the slow and seemingly endless formalities of the school every time they trained chafed at Roark. It felt as if they were simply throwing time into a fire and watching it burn. Ick claimed that the procedures were a vital part of the training. And, Roark begrudgingly admitted, after a lifetime of dashing off to take care of whatever he felt most needed to be done for the resistance without regard for the rest of the Rebel Council, it wasn’t hurting him to learn patience.

Ick folded his arms in his wide sleeves and returned their greeting bows with far more grace than the Changeling had displayed.

“You may return to your station, Little Seven,” Ick said, dismissing the Changeling.

The little creature bowed again before scampering back outside onto the porch to await further visitors.

Zyra gave a shudder as she watched him go. “Gives me the heebie-jeebies to see a Troll acting so... civil.”

Ick laughed his clicking laugh as he led them to the training room.

“Ick understands this well,” the Nocturnus replied, bobbing his head sagely. “But for those who dedicate their lives to the study of Night Magick, nothing is more important than respect and humility. From this foundation, we may begin to build our place in the universe.”

Zyra extended her black claws as if for a Death Scratch. “And here I’ve been building mine on the bodies of my enemies.”

“More like on the bodies of your apprentices,” Roark muttered under his breath.

She Scratched him. He chuckled and waved the Clearblood Ring at her. He’d put it on after the incident at the alchemy shop, knowing the hooded Reaver was in a poison-happy mood.

The school’s training room was entirely unlike the pit Griff used to teach his students. Rather than being out in the open where spectators could gather around on all sides—a vital part of learning to fight under pressure and ignore distractions, according to the grizzled old arena hand—the Night Magick training room was at the center of the school, entirely enclosed, and open only to active participants. It was possible to steal inside, but with the number of students constantly roaming the school, one would have to be capable of Shadow Stalk or Invisibility to get in without being caught.

The vaulted dome ceiling stretched high overhead like an overturned bowl. Octagonal, interlocking plates of crafted steel covered every inch of the room, each one etched with a myriad of runes. The room had taken Roark nearly a week to construct. He’d had to forge and etch all of the steel plates by hand, and he was proud of his work. It was specially designed as a buffer that kept magicks from spreading or seeping through to the outside, while also nullifying the long-term effects of the casts. A tricky bit of work, that. But it was the perfect place to practice wildly unsafe magick like Ick’s, because, in theory, it prevented one from killing themselves or their opponents.

“Tonight, Ick will show you both a very special variety of Night Magick, yes?” Ick’s voice echoed in the enormous training room. “Discordant Inversion and Deflection.”

“What does it do?” Roark asked. One of the first spells he’d taught himself after his family’s death was a simple deflection spell, vital for survival in any magnitude of magical combat, but Discordant Inversion was new to him. Already his mind was racing with the possibilities. “Transpose offensive attacks?”

“Sensei’s pet,” Zyra coughed into her hand wrappings.

“In time, Dungeon Lord,” the Nocturnus promised. He sank into a sitting position, his extra legs folding neatly behind him. “Let us prepare our minds and bodies for the tasks ahead.”

With that, Ick closed his multitude of sapphire eyes and began a low, thrumming, buzzing song from deep in his throat. Roark and Zyra knelt in front of him and pressed their fists to their thighs.

Each lesson began the same way: They breathed in time with Ick’s throat-singing, inhaling alertness and attention to the training and exhaling their cares and distractions from the rest of their lives. Breathe in the Magicka Ick claimed surrounded them at all times, breathe out the thoughts and concerns that were impediments to that Magicka’s natural flow. The Nocturnus called this emptying their cups.

For all her teasing, Zyra had taken to the Empty Cup breathing within moments of their first lesson. For Roark, it had taken much longer. He had not only the Cruel Citadel and the whole of the Troll Nation constantly demanding his attention, but an entire world back home depending on him to find a way back and kill the Tyrant King. He couldn’t just stop thinking about everything that needed to be done and everyone who depended on him. Lives were at stake.

It was getting easier, however, a little at a time.

The throat-singing tapered off.

“Now that our cups are ready to receive, let us fill them,” Ick intoned.

From there, the Nocturnus guided them through a series of stances that reminded Roark of the limbering exercises he’d learned as a child while practicing the rapier—though these postures were obviously intended for creatures with far more appendages than a Troll. Still, despite his limitations and lack of extra limbs, they were much easier for him to grasp than quieting his mind.

“The Stance of the Patient Hunter,” Ick said. As they moved into the stance, he explained, “Spiders are nature’s most fearsome killers, the original dungeon lords, spinning their webs and lying in wait for a creature foolish or careless enough to step into their trap. Far different from other predators, they are patient, passive... until the time is right.

“Sensing Vibrations in the Many-stringed Web,” he directed.

Roark shifted into the defensive posture. From the corner of his eye, he saw Zyra do the same.

“Night Magick takes its philosophy from the spider, yes?” Ick circled them as he spoke. “Its strength is not in offense, but in turning the strength of a foolish opponent against itself. When a creature stumbles into a web, its mighty struggling only ensnares the beast more deeply. Rather than wearing an opponent down itself, all while risking injury and death, the spider lets its carefully prepared trap do the work. So, too, is the path of the Witchdoctor.

“Numerous Limbs Bring Stability to Many,” Ick bade them.

This was a more complicated stance, one that seemed to be neither offensive or defensive, though it was solid and heavily rooted to the ground. Whenever Ick demonstrated it for them, Roark doubted that even a raging Thursr Behemoth could move the frail-looking Nocturnus.

“Witchdoctors, such as Ick, are support casters by trade. One of the craftier techniques my ilk employ is a discipline called Discordant Magicks. You see, there are a myriad of different magick types in Hearthworld—a great wheel with many spokes that drives the unseen world with primal power. As you have already discerned, some magicks are more potent against one type of player or class, while others are weak. Even void. But why is this so, hmmm? At first it may seem random, but there is a harmonious order to it all, if you have the eyes to see.

“Reflection from the Hidden Eyes.”

They stepped into the stance. They had learned this one during their previous lesson, and Roark was quite taken with it. The strange position felt as if it could actually reflect magical damage onto his opponent.

“Take yourself, Dungeon Lord.” Ick gestured toward Roark. “Infernal Magick cannot stand against the radiance of the Divine, yet it dominates the power of Fire. And, in the same vein, the power of the Witchdoctor, of Night Magick, rules supreme over the power of Water and Tides, but stands naked before the ferocious gales of Air. Every form of magick has three connecting dyads, yes?” He stuck three chitinous digits into the air in illustration. “Together, these dyads compose the great and ever-turning wheel.” One of his spidery limbs twitched, tracing a burning, circular shadow in the air.

[The Primal Creation Wheel has been added to your Initiate’s Spell Book!]

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

ROARK STARED AT THE strange image, both mystified and captivated by what he was seeing.

“The Primal Creation Wheel—a secret passed down among my people—traces the truth and order of all power in Hearthworld,” Ick said, his tone reverent. “It shows us the strands of the grand web and reveals the weakness of even the deadliest foes. Starting with the symbol of the Divine at the top, the wheel is read like that of a clockface.

“Cast your eyes at the symbol of the Infernal, the Twined Serpents. To the left is the Oppositional Dyad. The Magick against which your power is weakest, the Divine. To the right is the Subservient Dyad, Fire—as helpless before your Infernal power as your Infernal power is before the Divine. And, directly opposite, sits the Dyad of Balance: Earth. A double-edged sword that can cut effectively in either direction.

“Because we Nocturnuses are physically weaker than many of the other chimeras of Hearthworld, we found a way to tip the scales in our favor through the art of Discordant Magicks. Witchdoctors use their intimate knowledge of these oppositional dyads to redirect spells back onto their caster. Noble Yevin, Paragon of Light, has politely offered to help with this demonstration,” Ick said, gesturing toward the training room door with several arachnoid limbs. “Since Light and Night are Balanced Dyads, it should make for an excellent demonstration.”

Yevin, a burly rog in the flowing white robes of a Paragon, stepped into the room, a grin on his face. The rog sorcerer was a fitting foil for the Nocturnus in many ways—heavy and solid where Ick was thin and fragile-looking, bright where Ick was dark, and quick-tempered where Ick was serene.

“Heard you had to settle another scrap between our students today, Dungeon Lord,” Yevin said, padding across the floor. “Thanks for stepping in. You can rest easy knowing they’re all being punished.”

“I’ll rest easier knowing it’s not going to happen again,” Roark replied, his mind momentarily slipping away from the wonders of the Primal Creation Wheel back to all the problems waiting for him once he stepped out of the training room.

“Oh, I imagine it will,” Yevin said, rocking on his heels. “But the knuckleheads know now that if they’re involved in the next one, they’ll be expelled before they can say ‘permanent frog curse.’ Without a refund, of course.”

The clicking of Ick’s mandibles interceded. “Let us not refill our cups with distractions. For while friction may occasionally erupt between our most misguided disciples, noble Yevin and I have actually become fast friends. Now, let us proceed with today’s lesson.”

Yevin stepped forward with a little flourish.

“As with the spider laying its web, preparation is key to the Witchdoctor’s combat magicks,” Ick said.

Roark watched with fascination as the Nocturnus began the cast for an elaborate spell he’d never seen before. Ick’s humanoid hands moved with quick, precise motions, his arachnoid legs reaching over his shoulder occasionally to help. It almost looked like Ick was building a web in midair, weaving it from dark strands of shadow. As he laid the final string, the whole web disappeared with a little pop.

“Witchdoctors’ fighting spells, much like your own, Roark, are cast before the battle,” Ick explained. “We pay the price now and store the spell form in our grimoire. Later, when it becomes necessary, we are able to cast it in a blink at no cost whatsoever. The spell Ick just wove is particularly potent, but there is a catch, hmmm? A Discordant Inversion and Deflection spell can be cast for any sign contained within the Primal Creation Wheel, but you must specify which sign during the casting phase. If you spin a web meant to hold Light, say, but use it against any other power, the conjuration will simply shatter like glass lace. Now, please observe.”

He stepped back a few paces from Yevin, then nodded. The Paragon dropped into a low stance, brow furrowed, a snarl forming on his lips as he fired off a devastating Spear of Light. A shaft of pure white magick, blindingly bright, tore across the training room, aimed at Ick’s fragile body. At a glance, such an attack seemed like a death sentence for the Nocturnus.

A low growl erupted from Ick’s throat, filling the air with that buzzing song.

The web he’d cast before flashed to life again, not merely absorbing the Spear of Light or deflecting it as Roark’s deflection spells would have, but changing the spear entirely. Transforming it into a bolt of bloody crimson light that ricocheted back toward Yevin. The Paragon dove to the side, curling into a tight roll, narrowly avoiding the blast, which careened harmlessly into the metal walls. Ick’s throat-singing cut off abruptly, and he turned to face Roark and Zyra once more.

“Discordant Inversion and Deflection,” Ick croaked, tucking his dark humanoid hands back into his wide sleeves. His arachnoid arms straightened his tentacled hair, though the attack had hardly disordered it. “My spell transformed Yevin’s attack into a bolt of Blood energy capable of cutting through even the most formidable defenses a Paragon of Light can conjure. For an opponent who is unprepared, it can be quite the nasty surprise.”

Yevin straightened his robes as he walked back to them, breathing hard, sweat trickling down his face. “These spells hit hard, let me tell you. Just ask my fool disciples who were in that rumble earlier. At least half of them wound up eating their own corrupted spells.”

“More would have if my own fools were disciplined enough to practice the technique regularly,” Ick said. His multitude of sapphire eyes sparkled. “Though perhaps we should all feel gratitude that they do not.”

Yevin and Zyra both chuckled at that, but Roark’s mind was racing too fast to follow their banter.

Perhaps this was the edge he’d been searching for. With a spell like this, he could take Lowen by surprise. Or, at least, give himself a fighting chance if they ever faced off toe-to-toe. As much as the arrogant ass overwrote every spell he ever cast, the inversion would be so powerful he would never be able to shield himself properly—especially if the fool didn’t know what was coming. It was perfect. Even though Roark was just a level 39, with this Discordant Inversion and Deflection, he would be able to use Lowen’s level 99 strength against him.

“Would I be able to use this spell to deflect Divine Magick even though it’s Oppositional rather than Balanced with my own?” Roark asked.

“Yes, if such a thing is written into the spell when it is woven,” Ick said. Then he blinked a few of his eyes. “But let us not get ahead of ourselves. If noble Yevin agrees, we will first practice the technique.”

Yevin nodded. “Of course, friend.”

“Our lady of darkness.” Ick gestured for Zyra to step forward. “Take the Stance of the Patient Hunter, then Sensing Vibrations in the Many-stringed Web.”

“Should I be casting something?” Zyra asked. “You said it had to be done before the battle.”

Ick shook his head, tentacled hair sliding over his shoulders. “This is a very dangerous spell, one which can go horribly wrong if done incorrectly, so we will learn the motions before we will apply the magick.”

While the hooded Reaver did as the Nocturnus bade, Roark imagined moving through the same stances. His muscles twitched in response, ready for his turn.

Yevin’s posture changed slightly, not dropping into the full stance he had taken earlier, but certainly expressing a shift in his intent. Roark’s muscles twitched in response to the imminent attack.

Ick’s extra arms gestured, pointing out the change in Yevin’s stony face and the mounting tension in his shoulders.

“He has walked unknowingly into your web and now prepares to strike,” the Nocturnus said. “Reflection of Hidden Eyes, please.”

Zyra moved into the stance, Roark mimicking her on a much smaller scale off to the side.

“Heralds!” a breathless shout echoed throughout the training room. “We’re under attack!”

A pair of Changelings burst through the door, flailing their mismatched arms and crowing at the top of their lungs.

“Dungeon Lord, help! Heralds attacking the Cruel Citadel! Help!”

Opening Salvo

ROARK JOGGED TOWARD the portal plate leaving the marketplace with Zyra, Ick, and Yevin hard on his heels. As they ran, he cast the level 8 Alarm Spell he’d put in place for just such an attack. Warhorns blared throughout the Cruel Citadel, shaking the place to its foundations. Though he’d felt in a bit of a rut since his battle with Bad_Karma, he hadn’t been idle. In a war for survival, idle hands soon became corpse-cold hands. No, he’d been preparing mercilessly for the day Lowen finally came after him. Hopefully all his hard work would be enough.

“Heralds?” Griff asked, falling in with them, his trusty short sword and scarred buckler at the ready.

“Lowen’s striking the first blow,” Roark replied with a scowl.

Kaz rounded a corner and almost slammed headlong into him.

“Kaz will crush their delicate bird bones!” He gave a mighty swing of his enormous Legendary Meat Tenderizer, ruffling Roark’s hair around his horns. “We must defend the Citadel from the evil Heralds at all costs!”

Guilt twitched in Roark’s mind for a heartbeat, and he touched the World Stone Pendant hidden beneath his leathers. They weren’t coming for the Cruel Citadel; they were coming for the pendant. Whatever happened today, it would be because he was using his friends like pawns to fight his battles for him.

“They’ll bleed like anyone else,” Zyra said, interrupting his momentary brooding. She produced a series of sickly green vials and handed them around. “More, if each of you equip this to your weapons.”

Roark shook off the guilt and took his poison, glancing for a moment at its specifications.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Gushing Death

Item Type: Ultra-Rare Anticoagulation Poison

Level Requirement: 17

Effect 1: 8 HP per second Bleeding Damage for 30 seconds or until the corresponding antidote is consumed.

Effect 2: Target is 2x more susceptible to poisons, diseases, and blood-based magical attacks for 30 seconds or until the corresponding antidote is consumed.

Effect 3: 5% chance of blood spewing from target’s eyes, nose, and mouth when killed within 30 seconds of contact.

╠═╦╬╧╪

He grinned over at Zyra. “You’re terrifying.”

The hooded Reaver took a pleased bow without breaking stride.

Mac met them just outside the marketplace. In spite of the phosphorescent spores covering the Young Turtle Dragon’s shell and stuck in his beard, he cut an intimidating figure galloping up to them. His charge lit up the glowing green grass around him and elicited a frantic melody like shattering glass. A bloodthirsty growl swelled from his scaly throat and he loosed a gout of black flame toward the ceiling. It was as if the canny beast could sense that Roark’s mortal enemy had arrived.

Roark slapped him heartily on the shell, infusing his voice with confidence he didn’t feel.

“Let’s kill some Heralds, boy.”

They took a portal plate up to the Citadel’s first floor and rushed into the entry hall, poisoned weapons at the ready.

“FOR THE CITADEL AND THE SALT!” Kaz bellowed, raising his weapon high as he searched for targets to unleash his wrath upon.

But the entry hall was empty.

Yevin looked around hopefully. “False alarm?”

“No.” Roark shook his head. “Druz and her patrol should be—”

The clash of battle drifted down the entryway stairs. It was coming from outside.

“The bailey,” Griff said at once.

Kaz made a lunge for the stairs, most of the others following the Mighty Gourmet’s lead, but Griff darted in front of them. At the same moment, Zyra stepped out of a puff of inky shadow beside the grizzled trainer, Cursed Longknives dripping poison as she helped block their path.

“Use your brains,” she said sharply. “It’s a trap.”

“They want to draw us outside where flight has the advantage,” Griff said matter-of-factly.

Based on the maneuvering Roark had seen in their brief foray into the Vault of the Radiant Shield, Griff was likely right. The Heralds’ attack style relied entirely on their flying, and the Vault had been built to reflect that—high ceilings and open spaces with ample room for aerial maneuvering. After seeing the Vault’s layout, Roark had redesigned the Cruel Citadel to have almost claustrophobically low ceilings. Save for in the Dungeon Lord’s Throne Room and the wide-open spaces of the fifth floor, Kaz couldn’t even stand up straight in the Citadel without knocking his head against the rough stone overhead.

Roark cursed under his breath. All of that redesigning and planning, worthless. Lowen was a step ahead of him, ordering his attackers to stay outside and draw the Trolls out. And obviously, it had worked.

“But Druz and the first-floor patrol...” Kaz looked desperately up at the door to the bailey. “They’re defending the Citadel! And the Shambling Revenants from the graveyard—”

“Don’t be stupid,” Zyra said. “They’ll respawn.”

Kaz advanced a step toward the hooded Reaver, gigantic fists tightening around the grip of his hammer. “So will we.”

“Not with our above-cap levels,” she retorted.

“Kaz doesn’t care about levels!” He stomped a huge foot, cracking a paving stone in half. “Kaz’s friends and allies are dying!”

Roark shoved between the two of them.

“The specialty forces will arrive soon,” he promised, voice calm and confident—woefully at odds with how he actually felt. “There’s no possible way they could miss the alarms. And, if they don’t, their treaties with the Troll Nation will be broken, and they’ll be Cursed.”

Kaz stared down at Roark, mouth agape. “But...” His eyes bounced from Roark to the sound of the battle. “But...”

“Just another few moments, Kaz.” Roark swallowed hard, the sharp pang of betrayal twisting his guts. There was nothing he wanted more than to race up the stairs and rip the wings from the Heralds’ backs, but he couldn’t waste the precious resources he’d so carefully cultivated for the fight with Lowen. “Please. Just give the other dungeons a few more moments.”

Kaz’s ears drooped. “Okay. For Roark, Kaz will wait. But only for a moment.”

Luckily, the specialty forces from their allied dungeons began arriving soon after.

The unit was about twenty-five strong, all at or near their various Evolutionary level caps, and all with unique specializations. Werebeasts—hulking, humanoid creatures of fur and fang—appeared, all armed with heavy-duty crossbows as large as ballistae. Those crossbows were of Roark’s design, and fired custom bolts fitted with a long, thick cable. Thursr Knights and Reaver Champions rushed in, bearing hooked halberds and scythe-bladed short swords on their hips. Like the crossbows and bolts, the halberds were Roark’s handiwork, sporting a loop of razor wire instead of a spike at the top, and a trigger that would cause the wire to suddenly snap taut, catching a limb inside.

All designed to pull Heralds to the ground, should they somehow gain the air. As for the scythe-bladed swords, they were built with the hacking power of a falcata and the sharpness of a razor, calculated to shear off wings with a single stroke, grounding their enemies indefinitely.

A regiment of Smoky Djinn, wiry Reaver Shamans, and bulky Thursr Elementals was equipped with special illusion-strengthening circlets Roark had Enchanted himself, and a squad of enormous Greater Bloodleeches bore huge, heavy shields, which snapped into place to create barriers over and around the vulnerable spellcasters. The last to arrive were the pair of Mind Mantids, on loan from Ko the Faceless. Their special variety of magick dealt Psionic damage, something Divine mobs were especially vulnerable to.

A rumbling, buzzing song started up as Ick raised all of his arms and opened his mandibles, casting a buff over the entire roomful of combatants. A scrap of parchment appeared in Roark’s vision detailing the effects of the spell.

[You have been temporarily Fortified! Dexterity and Strength increased by 50% for 32 seconds.]

On the opposite side of the entry hall, Yevin threw out his arms, adding his Paragon magicks to the din.

[Your skin has been converted to Ironwood! You take 50% less Piercing and Slashing Damage for 45 seconds.]

Finished, the Paragon and Nocturnus gave Roark a nod.

“Squad one of shield bearers and crossbows, up the stairs,” Roark ordered.

“With Kaz!” the Mighty Gourmet shouted, barreling up the stairs before Roark could stop him.

“Fine.” Roark turned back to the rest of the forces. “Everyone else take your positions at the portal plates! Casters, get to a shield bearer as soon as you’re transported.”

While the first squad crashed up the stairs and spilled into the bailey—drawing attention to itself—Roark and the rest stepped onto their designated portal plates. The distraction was in full swing when they ported into their prearranged spots around the decrepit remains of an ancient cathedral that stood watch over the entrance to the Citadel.

The clash was in full swing, and it was chaos.

Though there were only ten Heralds, each one was a level 99, just as Randy had reported, and their monstrous levels showed in the sheer carnage they caused. The bailey ground was littered with pieces of Shambling Revenants, gore smeared the walls, and several of Druz’s patrol were already down for respawn. One was hewed cleaned down the middle from head to groin like a piece of cordwood. The first-floor overseer herself was in the center of the battle with Kaz, swiping and slashing at the winged menace as they darted in from above. Huge Bloodleech shield bearers did their best to block the advances of the Heralds while the werecreatures’ oversized crossbows fired all around, the twang of strings filling the air.

But something was wrong.

The bolts weren’t penetrating deeply enough into the Heralds’ golden skin. As soon as one was pinned, the crossbowman would give a pull on the cable, only for the bolt to jerk out of its target, setting the Herald free once more. A design fail that fell squarely on Roark’s shoulders.

Roark had built redundancies into his system, though.

All around the inner bailey, the Troll Nation’s forces appeared in flashes of light. Spellcasters raised their hands to the dark, foggy sky, hiding as many of the troops as they could behind careful illusions. Others cast sophisticated glamours, summoning ghoulish apparitions that appeared solid but were as ephemeral as the misty clouds above. Distraction and misdirection were the greatest tools of the underdog, and Roark was nothing if not a well-seasoned underdog.

With a thought, Roark pulled his Initiate’s Spell Book from his Inventory. Numbness and tingling washed down his left hand as the book hovered open over his palm. Although he’d died many, many times since his battle with Bad_Karma—repeatedly dropping him back down to his level cap—he’d made some impressive gains in his Spellcrafting, pushing the skill up to level 13. As a result, he had ten level 1 spell slots—the maximum number—seven level 2s, six level 3s, five level 4s, four level 5 slots, three level 6 slots, two level 7 slots, and a slot at both level 8 and 9.

Although his Infernal Dungeon Lord spells were worthless against the Heralds, who had Divine Immunity to Infernal Magicks, Roark still had a great many options as a Hexorcist.

With a flick of his hand, he cast a level 2 Hazy Smoke spell, further obscuring the inner bailey from prying eyes above. It was always possible the Heralds would be able to see through the other casters’ illusions and glamours if they had a high enough Intelligence, but the smoke was no illusion. Roark’s team was equipped with enchanted pendants that allowed them to peer through the haze without issue.

That done, he crouched and broke right, heading for a partially collapsed column nearby, taking cover behind the stony debris while he prepared his next spell. A level 8 Storm of Fire and Ice.

[An Icy Torrential Downpour falls, depleting Magick of all enemy targets within a thirty-foot radius of the caster by (5 x Cursed! level of caster) points/second for 30 seconds; enemies suffer the effects of an Incendiary Burst, causing 15 points of fire damage (+2 burn damage/sec for 30 seconds) on contact.]

Overhead, the roiling clouds began to unleash fat droplets of frozen rain, which exploded on impact—cracks and booms filled the night sky like peals of thunder, accompanied by flashes of brilliant white light, illuminating the Heralds above. It worked exactly as Roark expected, driving the angelic-winged villains toward the ground, where the specialty halberds could be employed by his forces.

But the Heralds hit back just as hard. Lances of golden light fell like blazing meteors, slamming into the ground and kicking up swirls of dust and debris. The golden lances cut through the illusionary ghouls, banishing them in an instant.

A Reaver Shaman, not quite quick enough to find cover, was burned to a cinder, the golden light eating through flesh and scorching bone as she screamed.

A split second later, the Heralds appeared in all their glory, descending toward the ground, flaming scimitars clutched in one hand, spells burning brightly in the other. Bowstrings twanged all around the bailey and spells flew from the Psionic Mantids and Reaver Shamans, but the Heralds avoided each with ease—as lithe and agile as sparrows picking off moths in the late summer.

A woman with raven-black hair and ochre wings seemed to pick Roark out of the haze and chaos without the slightest bit of trouble. At once, she swooped in low, launching a javelin of golden light straight at his head.

Hasty Retreat

FROM PAST EXPERIENCE, Roark knew his Infernal shield wouldn’t be up to the task of stopping a Divine spell, so he sidestepped right, letting the javelin whoosh by him, scorching his face in the passing. He responded with a simple fireball spell, launched directly into the Herald’s face.

The orange ball of flame landed with a sizzle, but she shrugged the blow off as though he’d hit her with a snowball. It did, however, buy Roark enough time to ready his Peerless Rapier and assume the terza guardie—a perfect position for a robust counterattack.

Now at close range, the Herald lashed out with her flaming scimitar, a snarl of contempt distorting her otherwise angelic features. His rapier wasn’t strong enough to hold up under a direct blow from the heavy curved blade, but Roark pulled his body out of line, girata, deflected the scimitar with a flick of his wrist, and then executed a flawless lightning-fast dal polso, dal nodo della mano. The tip of his blade opened a gash across her vulnerable belly.

Her filigreed Health vial dropped by a fraction as molten gold rained down on him in place of blood. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. She may have had the advantage in level, but it was clear that Roark was by far the superior swordsman.

She seemed to realize it too, since she beat her wings frantically, trying to open distance between them so she could go back to lobbing deadly Divine spells from afar.

She didn’t act quickly enough, though.

Roark pressed the attack, lunging forward, blade flashing. In the corner of his eye, he saw Zyra and a cadre of razor-wire-halberd bearers puff in and out of the shadows. One lanky-limbed Reaver Champion shot in at Roark’s side, hooking the fleeing Herald around the ankle with his razor wire. The line snapped tight just as planned. The metal wire, supernaturally enchanted and fortified, bit into her golden flesh with ease, drawing a bright line of molten gold blood.

Rather than pulling the winged creature to the ground, however, the Reaver Champion could only hold on as the Herald finally disengaged and darted into the black sky, lifted by her enormous ochre wings. Up, up, up the Herald rose. Moments later, the Reaver let out a bloody wail as he plunged to his death, crushing a Bloodleech beneath him in a wet, red explosion.

“Seven hells,” Roark cursed, mind whirling as he surveyed the battlefield.

Even with their fortified Strength and Dexterity, the same thing was happening across the bailey. Knights, Champions, and Werebeasts were abruptly torn from the ground the moment they managed to snare a Herald. The swirling fog covering the ground was soon interrupted all over with piles of bloody meat and shattered bones, and more would follow if he didn’t do something quickly.

Inspiration flitted through his thoughts, though it was a gamble that would be as likely to damn them as save them. But if he stood around and did nothing, they would all die, and that was a certainty. Better to take the risk.

Stowing his sword, Roark drew a quill from his inventory and quickly jotted down a spell in an empty level 1 slot. Spectral Hands, though slightly altered.

[A field of spectral hands erupts from the ground, grabbing and holding any ally under level 36 for 90 secs – in exchange for 1 HP x caster’s character level.]

Roark activated the spell the moment he placed the last period on the page; the dusty parchment ignited in a flash of pale blue light, and his Health dipped a few points in response.

Ghostly hands ending in long, spindly fingers erupted from the floor, grabbing at the feet and ankles of the Troll Nation’s troops, anchoring them in place—though also crippling their ability to dodge or maneuver. The Heralds, no longer able to effortlessly pull the halberd bearers from the ground, instead turned to using their deadly spells at range, hurling bolts of brilliant gold and summoning burning white rain that scorched flesh like acid. “Cowards!” Kaz bellowed, shaking his Legendary Meat Tenderizer at the sky. “Flutter down here and face Kaz like a mob!”

A trio of Heralds darted in from behind him, one knocking Druz aside and the other two grabbing Kaz. Though the Knight Thursr should have been mired in place by the ghostly hands, the sheer brute force of two high-level Heralds effortlessly ripped him from the hands’ grasp, pulling Kaz up into the sky, huge feet dangling and kicking.

“No!” Roark grabbed his Bow of the Fleet-Fingered Hunter and fired off exploding arrows after the Heralds, but they shrugged off the blasts as though they were no more than the pesky buzzing of summer flies.

Running, Roark opened his leathery wings and launched himself at a glowing red updraft arrow, swapping out his Initiate’s Spell Book for his Peerless Rapier and Enchanted Kaiken Dagger. The battle grew smaller and smaller below as he beat against the thin air of the bailey to follow the Heralds who had whisked Kaz away in their iron grips. Fury burned in Roark’s chest as he followed their trail—he’d lost too many friends to the Ustari thugs, and he wouldn’t lose another. Certainly not Kaz.

Thin, spidery white lettering appeared over their heads as he approached. Nameplates declaring one Herald [Viago] and the other [Oasin].

Roark didn’t recognize the second man, but Viago was a name familiar to all of Traisbin. The man was one of Marek’s fiercest berserkers.

“On loan from the Tyrant King, mate?” Roark shouted up at the russet-winged Viago. “Where’s your infamous howling axe?”

The taunts drew the berserker’s attention, just as Roark had hoped. Viago spun around to face him, jerking the other Herald and Kaz to a halt, their forms silhouetted against the silvery moon.

“Hand over the World Stone, rebel trash, and you can have your... whatever this thing is back,” Viago shouted.

“Come and take it,” Roark snarled, brandishing his dual weapons in invitation.

The russet-winged berserker grinned. “My pleasure.”

Viago dove at Roark like a falcon, leaving Kaz in the hands of the other Herald. Unable to support the weight of the enormous Knight Thursr by himself, the man dropped the flailing Troll immediately. Kaz plummeted like a stone, great arms pinwheeling, Legendary Meat Tenderizer lashing out ineffectively.

“Roark, help Kaz!” he screamed, eyes wide in terror.

Viago was coming for Roark with hate burning in his face like a torch, but Roark didn’t hesitate—if he had to choose between saving himself and his friend, it would be his friend. In a heartbeat, Roark traded his weapons for his Initiate’s Spell Book and scribbled out a level 7 spell he’d never tried before. A levitation spell of sorts.

The target is weightless for 1 minute.

With a flash, the spell took, slightly altered by the arbitrary rules that governed Hearthworld.

[Congratulations! You have inscribed a level 7 Featherweight Spell. Target’s weight is reduced by 75% for 45 seconds.]

Roark fired the spell at Kaz, grinding his teeth at the restrictions. All he could do was hope that hitting the ground at a quarter of his weight would be enough to save his friend from turning into a red smear on the bailey floor below. If not, he could apologize when Kaz respawned in two hours.

The spell had cost Roark precious seconds, though.

Viago slammed into him with a force like a rampaging Rotbeest. They tumbled through the sky, feathery and leathery wings catching the air at odd angles. The berserker’s fists pummeled Roark’s head and neck. They should have been too close for the blows to have any strength behind them, but the berserker was glowing with the same red aura that surrounded Grozka when she flew into a Bloodrage. Each blow landed with a flash of bloody light, cutting red from Roark’s filigreed Health vial left and right. Not only a Bloodrage, then—there was some sort of pugilistic enhancement on the Herald’s gauntlets.

The world spun and lights danced before Roark’s eyes from the force of the punches. He managed to dig his Kaiken Dagger out and jab it in between Viago’s ribs, but the blade hardly touched the Herald’s health. Zyra’s poison made the red bar over Viago’s head flash briefly green, but the weakness hardly lasted more than a moment before the bar was red once more. Roark jammed the Kaiken Dagger in again and again, but the berserker only chuckled, still thrashing away at him.

Roark’s mind churned as he fought to stay conscious. His Infernal spells would be useless against a Divine creature, so no help from that quarter. In theory Hex-Touch could work—but since Viago was a level 99, his Intelligence would easily be higher than Roark’s, even if the berserker had hardly invested in it. There was also Hex-Armor, but Roark couldn’t afford the loss of the 5 Constitution that spell required to cast. But he could use Hex-Aura. Maybe they had even fallen far enough by now for the spell to aid some of his allies on the ground.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Hex-Aura

Those who would dare lash out at the Hexorcist best be ready to taste the sting of Cursed! retribution. The caster emits a thirty-foot-radius aura, which moves with them for the duration of the spell and affects all allies in the area. Enemies take 2n Damage (where n equals character level of the Attacker) when they deal physical melee damage to those protected by Hex-Aura. Hex-Aura is a level 4 spell and can only be inscribed in level 4 spell slots; Duration, 4 minutes.

╠═╦╬╧╪

With a thought, Roark cast the Curse! on himself, along with a pre-inscribed level 4 Rebound spell, which reflected not only magical but physical damage.

[55% of all damage done to target rebounds to the opponent for the next 30 seconds.]

Immediately, the red bar over the Herald’s head dropped by an eighth. Not as much as Roark had hoped, but far more than he’d managed to inflict with his dagger.

“What?” Viago sputtered as his next punch extracted life from his own vial.

“I’ve learned a few new tricks,” Roark rasped through the pain. “Observe.”

Roark nullified his Rebound spell—this close, it would only backfire on him—then triggered the Curse Chain on his leathers. Storm of Fire and Ice exploded outward from his chest, blasting Viago with a gout of flame and sudden torrent of icy water at once. The force blew the Herald away from Roark and singed his feathers.

Pulling free his Peerless Slender Rapier once more, Roark opened his wings and angled himself onto a nearby updraft to stop his fall.

Viago’s face twisted into a grin. He’d found a red updraft as well and was currently drawing even with Roark once again.

“Lowen said you were an arrogant one, but I didn’t think it’d be this easy to get you to give up your secret abilities,” he said, pulling a golden horn from one of his pouches.

“Come closer, and I’ll give you another look at them,” Roark snarled, lunging forward, rapier carving right to left in a classic mandritto.

Viago easily slipped out of blade range, a smug grin on his face. “I don’t think so, trash.” The berserker brought the horn to his lips and blew a two-note blast.

Confused shouting sounded below, then the night was lit with sparkling trails of golden light. The trails shot off toward the horizon.

“I’ll tell Lowen you send your regards,” Viago taunted, poised to beat a hasty retreat.

He should’ve just run instead of taking the time to gloat.

“They might,” Roark growled, “but you won’t.”

With hardly a twitch, he fired off a level 9 Paralyzation spell and a pair of level 6 Fireballs, one right after the other, then darted into Viago’s guard behind them. The spells hit the berserker square in the face, barely scratching the surface of his red Health bar, but stopping the motion of his russet wings mid-flap.

Roark slammed into him a moment behind the spells, skewering the berserker on his rapier, then slamming his dagger home and bearing them both at top speed toward the ground.

They hit like a lightning bolt, throwing up rocks and dust and blowing the ground fog away. Roark slashed and hacked and stabbed without a care for proper form or protecting himself, trying to deal damage before the paralyzation spell wore off. He’d trained all his life in the art of the blade, practicing until the proper footwork forms were ingrained into muscle memory, slaving until his hands bled from thrusts and slashes and parries. But all that was forgotten in the face of his rage and his driving need to finish this quickly, and to hells with finesse. His blades rose and fell, outpacing the thumping of his racing heart, while bright splashes of gold sprayed his chest and face.

Soon, familiarly smithed blades joined Roark’s own, hacking the Herald nearly to pieces before the last sliver drained out of his Health bar.

With a heave, Roark struck the final blow, pinning Viago’s corpse to the ground with his rapier. He stumbled off the Herald’s disfigured corpse and stood, searching the sky for the rest of Lowen’s winged force while he fought for breath.

“They’re gone,” a dusky voice said at his side. Zyra. “They retreated when they heard that trumpet call.”

“They saw Roark’s might and flew away like the scared birds they are,” Kaz sneered. The Mighty Gourmet looked worse for the wear—limping, covered in blood and bruises, and with one of his antlers broken off completely—but he had blessedly survived the fall.

Roark shook his head. “No. They were never meant to stay for a real fight, Kaz.”

“An expeditionary force.” Griff was cleaning gore from his short sword, his single eye constantly searching the darkness for another attack. “Sent to scout out what sort of defenses we’ve got in place, how many troops we’ve got, any information that could help them in a full-scale battle. Now that they’ve got a look, they’ll be running back to tell their master.”

Roark dragged his forearm across his face, wiping away Viago’s blood. He searched the bailey for any other Heralds taken down during the battle and found only Trolls and mobs from allied dungeons. Even with all their preparations and allies, they hadn’t killed a single other Herald.

If this fight had taught him anything, it was that the Cruel Citadel wasn’t strong enough to withstand a real fight against level 99 enemies. Not by a long shot.

He watched the golden spark trails disappear across the black sky.

But, Roark thought, there might be a way to get around fighting them. At least for a little while.

Trial and Error

EYES CLOSED, RANDY shook out his hands to relax them and exhaled. Become invisible, but not incorporeal. Do it. Just do it.

He looked down at himself and saw a pocket protector tucked into a button-down shirt with a coffee stain on the sleeve and a pair of khakis with identical splatters on the ankles.

Another failure.

That didn’t mean he was crazy, though. No, it just meant that he was doing something wrong this time around. Randy was positive that he hadn’t imagined the incident—he’d gone invisible, just like his Hearthworld main, and the fact that Helen Rose had been there only cemented that fact in his head. It had occurred to him that, perhaps, Helen Rose was somehow playing a prank on him—maybe in cahoots with Danny?—but to what end? And how would she even have known Randy was going to get a coffee in the elevator lobby? Even Randy hadn’t known he was going to be there, and that didn’t account for what he’d witnessed with his own eyes.

A prank didn’t fit the data set. There were too many variables and the equations just didn’t square.

Besides, Helen Rose wouldn’t do that. She was better than that.

Randy considered the possibility that he was dreaming, facedown on his desk with drool soaking his workstation, but quickly dismissed the notion. For one, he could remember his morning with perfect clarity, and it had followed the mundane laws of logic for IRL. For another, when he cracked the pages of the various books lining his desk, he had no problem reading them—a known impossibility when in a dream state. Still, just to make sure, Randy pinched himself, flinching from the pain.

Definitely awake.

Which all added up to one undeniable truth: He hadn’t imagined the incident. He had turned invisible. And if it had happened, then there had to be a way to reproduce the effect. He’d been trying for the last three hours and, so far, been wildly unsuccessful. But that just meant there was a variable he was missing.

His gaze landed on his shelf of beloved manuals. Razor straight. Steadfast. He straightened his spine and squared his shoulders.

I’m a scientist, he reminded himself. A programmer.

Everything had rules and laws—even magic, if what Roark said was true.

So far as Randy understood, Roark’s magic functioned much like a string of code did: write out the correct inputs and sequences in the proper order and achieve a given result. Simple. Straightforward. Reasonably rational. The only new input his life had received recently was throwing in his lot with Roark, and so Randy had to assume this new ability was in some way linked to Hearthworld. Therefore, it would make sense for a game-related power to require specific inputs to function properly.

He cast his mind back to the incident in the elevator lobby, searching for anything he may have overlooked. He tried to remember what he’d said. The way he’d felt. What exactly he’d been thinking during the bewildering encounter.

A single word floated to the top of his mind: fear.

He’d been petrified in the lobby. Or, at the very least, wildly uncomfortable. Here in his office, shut away from the world, he felt safe and secure. A newb wading through a beginner zone, cutting down Brewery Rats or Changelings with ease. Perhaps IRL survival instinct was somehow an essential component to the ability.

Unfortunately, there was only one way to test his hypothesis.

Licking dry lips and swiping his suddenly sweaty palms along his pants, Randy stood, his chair squeaking. He slipped out of his office, stilling the tremble in his hands, and padded down the hall toward the break room. Toward people and awkward small talk. Arranging to run into Helen Rose again was impractical—maybe even impossible considering she worked on the third floor with the filming and entertainment crew—but casually mingling with his second-floor coworkers was nearly as bad.

The sound of talking and laughing drifted along the corridors, sending goosebumps sprinting along his arms. There was a small nook in the left wall, occupied by a leafy fern nearly as tall as he was. Working quickly, he slipped into the nook, grunting as he shoved his way behind the bulky ceramic pot, batting leafy fronds from his face. The pot rocked out of the groove it had pressed into the carpet, but that would hardly be noticeable from the hallway.

He could do this. He needed to do this. If he could actually use Arboreal Herald abilities like Invisibility here in the real world, that would change everything. With powers like those, he could help Roark save his world—not to mention all the real-world applications. Like avoiding inconvenient human contact and dodging Danny in the hallways.

Licking his lips again, Randy pressed his eyes shut, blocking out the world. Disappear, he told himself as he slowed his breathing, concentrating on the steady rise and fall of his chest. Like in the elevator lobby. Just disappear.

Then he felt it. A weightlessness in his limbs, almost like he was levitating.

He heard voices coming down the hall.

“I can’t believe you didn’t see it,” Arjun said. “It was on all the news blogs this morning.”

Katia snorted. “I never read those things. They’re so full of crap.”

“Not this.”

“Aliens, dude?” she sneered. “For real?”

Randy balled his fists up, sweat streaming down his face and coating his shirt.

“Or mutants,” Arjun insisted, the sound of their voices drawing progressively nearer. “The cops weren’t even going to investigate it because the body was found downtown.”

“Then it was probably just another crackhead.”

“No way, it wasn’t even human,” Arjun said. “And get this—there were multiple reports of angels being sighted nearby the same night. Can you believe that? Angels.”

“I can’t believe it, actually,” Katia replied. “Because it’s total bullshit. Angels aren’t real. Neither are aliens or mutants or alternate dimensions. I think reading all that online tabloid garbage has finally rotted your brain. Next you’re going to be saying the whole thing has been covered up by the government or something.”

Shaking with anxiety, Randy pressed his eyes shut tighter and wrestled the panic welling up inside him. Invisible. Stay invisible. He chanted the words silently like a mantra, too scared to open his eyes or change anything that might break the tenuous spell. Katia and Arjun were less than a few feet away now, their talking the sound of thunder in his ears.

“Name one other major organization that has the manpower and resources to cover up something like that,” Arjun challenged.

Katia’s answer dripped with exasperation: “Literally every major tech company within ten square miles of us, including FrontFlip.”

“Holy cylons, you’re right! It was the tech companies. We’ve finally gone too...” Arjun trailed off, and Randy had a sneaking suspicion why. “Far,” he finished weakly.

Reluctantly, Randy pried his eyes opened and risked a look down. A grimace flashed across his face when he saw his body in full and vivid color. Even worse, Arjun and Katia were standing directly in front of him, staring at him.

Arjun let out a low whistle.

“Wow,” Katia said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t even with this.” Without asking for any sort of explanation, she threw her hands into the air and headed down the hallway. “Why the fuck are the techs here all so weird!” she shouted to no one in particular.

Arjun shot Randy a tight-lipped smile and an awkward half wave, then turned and hustled to catch up.

“Give the guy a break,” Arjun whispered, though the sound carried easily to Randy’s ears. “Word on the street is he’s about to get shit-canned any day.”

Randy stood there, mortified, wanting to physically sink through the floor and disappear into nothingness. A cold wave of nausea rolled through him like a storm cloud, embarrassment braying in the back of his head. This felt like another nail in the coffin lid. Maybe he had imagined going invisible. Maybe the strain of the last few days had pushed him over the edge and firmly into the territory of a psychotic break.

With a defeated sigh, he pushed past the leafy stalks of the fern, then paused when he realized the fronds of swaying green seemed to be moving all on their own. Pushed by a hand that wasn’t there.

His breath caught in his throat as he looked down and found his body gone.

Flabbergasted, he lifted his hand and waved it in front of his face, searching for a blur—for some sign of his digits. Nothing. Gone. But when he reached up to adjust his glasses, he had no problem feeling the slick sweat dotting his fingertips. Just like the elevator lobby. Invisible but not incorporeal. He’d done it. He’d replicated the process...

Admittedly, it would’ve been nice had the effects kicked in about thirty seconds ago before he irrevocably humiliated himself in front of his coworkers, but progress was progress. The fact that he wasn’t going completely insane was also nice. He’d never been good at sports or the life of the party, but his mind had always been a reliable constant in his life. It was a relief to know that hadn’t abandoned him.

Despite his victory, however, Arjun’s words bounced around inside his skull: word on the street is he’s about to get shit-canned any day.

If that kind of rumor was already circulating among the artists and interns, then there was no doubt his days at Frontflip were numbered. He’d be lucky to make it through the week. If he had any hope of figuring out what the studio had planned for Roark and the Cruel Citadel, he needed to act fast.

Well, there was no better time than right now, while he was invisible.

Not wanting to waste any of the precious time he might have left, Randy edged out past the fern and beelined for Danny’s office. It was at the end of the hall, a corner VP suite with a view—a terrible view full of more buildings and concrete, but still. It was the best office on the floor.

Looking sidelong through the open door, Randy could see Danny moving around at his station. And, unbelievable as it seemed, his cloak of invisibility seemed to be holding, since there was no reflection of him shining in the polished glass surrounding Danny’s office. Randy still had no idea how the ability worked or what its limitations were, so he just hoped the spell would last long enough for him to do what needed doing.

Silently, Randy posted up outside and waited for the VP of marketing to leave.

Except Danny seemed to be in no hurry.

The man watched what sounded like a fail video while whirling around one of those weighted wrist exercise balls, then made a few calls that required him to say “bruh” a lot. The rest of those conversations seemed about as deep as an inflatable kiddie pool. The whole situation served as a blatant reminder that the guy in the office talking about “tits the size of speedbags” and calling his upcoming PTO a “cray-cray vacay” was a VP while Randy—highly educated, overqualified, and hardworking—was fortunate to still have a job. Sometimes there was no justice in the world.

Finally, Danny got off the phone, slapped his desk a few times in a syncopated rhythm, then kicked up out of his chair. He strode out into the hall, snapping his fingers and clapping his hands.

Randy glanced down at his imperceptible limbs, then held his breath and pushed himself back against the wall. Stay invisible. Stay invisible. Stay invisible. He let the mantra flow through him like an unobstructed river.

“Oh, there better be sashimi for sash-me-me in the caf today,” Danny said as he waltzed right past, never bothering to give Randy a second look.

As soon as the marketing VP rounded the corner and disappeared out of sight, Randy exhaled a lungful of air. This was terrible. Clearly, he was not cut out for this sort of corporate espionage, magical powers or no. In Hearthworld, playing the part of the hero came naturally because there were so few actual consequences. Get dead, respawn. Get caught breaking the law, break out of jail or pay off the guards. But this was real life. He could get fired. Or go to jail. Or be apprehended by the government and experimented on for the rest of his life.

Doubt gnawed at him, and as it did, his body flickered back into view. The blood drained from Randy’s face as he glanced down at his hands, then back up to see if anyone was around to notice the transformation. The coast was clear, but there was no telling how long it would stay that way. Without his shield of complete anonymity, the chances of getting caught were a thousand times higher. The smart thing to do would be to backpedal to his office, regroup, and try again once he figured out how to get the invisibility to trigger reliably.

Except, who knew how long that might take?

Word on the street is he’s about to get shit-canned any day.

No. He couldn’t turn tail and run. Roark and millions of other people were depending on him. The mage would never make it back to his home world if Frontflip quarantined him or managed to find a way to wipe his code from the servers.

Pushing away his doubts and fears, Randy grabbed the doorjamb and swung himself into Danny’s office. The place had that feel of recent occupation, like it was just waiting for Danny to return. Or maybe it only seemed like that because the desk was a pigsty. Notepads and sticky notes and chewed-on styluses littered the desktop. The wrist exercise ball’s LEDs were still flashing on the desk, and another fail video was paused on the display. A portly middle-aged man was doubled over, a soccer ball hitting him squarely in the groin, a pained expression plastered across his face.

Randy shook his head in disbelief. Danny hadn’t even bothered to lock his station before leaving.

Well, one man’s unprofessionalism was another man’s passport to locked-down information.

Randy slipped into Danny’s rolling chair, then jumped as it automatically adjusted to his posture, height, and weight. Randy frowned down at the buttery leather cushion. His chair couldn’t do any of that. Honestly, he hadn’t even realized they made chairs that could do that.

“Not the time to get off track,” he whispered to himself. “Focus.”

Scooting up to the station, Randy found the password sticky note. Danny’s was Dan=aBaller100%THUGLYFE, there in clear black pen for any passersby to see. Of course, with the station unlocked and unattended, he didn’t even need it.

“Thank you, Danny,” he muttered under his breath, reaching for the display.

“Dude, what the hell are you doing?” Danny barked.

Randy’s head snapped up, eyes wide, his heart trying to punch a hole in his pocket protector. He grabbed his chest.

Danny loomed over him like a final boss, jaw clenched, thunder in his eyes.

“I... um...” Randy swallowed hard. He desperately scanned the desk for anything he could pretend to have been reaching for. Anything but the touch display.

“Why are you in my office?” Danny demanded, folding his arms across his broad chest.

Randy grabbed the While You Were Away message pad and held it up. “Katia told me, uh, that there was going to be cake in the lounge tomorrow for Ada Lovelace Day, so I just wanted to let you know... so you, uh, didn’t eat too much at lunch tomorrow. Heh, yeah, got to save room for that cake.”

“What are you trying to say, Rando?” Danny let his arms drop and looked down at his flat stomach. “Ya boy’s in great shape. I hit the gym every day.” He leaned across the desk. “Unlike some scrawny little losers I could name.”

Randy blinked. “I wouldn’t say I’m—”

“I could eat ten pieces of cake and not gain an ounce. I got metabo like a mofo.” The VP of marketing came around the desk and hooked a thumb at Randy. “You better save me a piece, Rando, or I’m gonna be pissed.”

With stiff, jerky movements, Randy lurched to his feet. He felt clumsier than the early prototypes of robotic dogs.

“Save you a piece?” he asked, baffled.

“Of cake.” Danny blew past him and dropped into the chair, restarting the video. “It’s your neck on the line if I don’t get one.”

“Oh, right!” Randy backed toward the door. “The cake. For ALD. Yeah, I’ll—”

He bumped into something solid. The door. He corrected course and kept going.

“I’ll save you one,” he finished weakly. He forced a laugh and tried pointing finger guns at the marketing VP. “I’ll save you two!”

Danny ignored him.

Randy escaped into the hall, letting the dual guns drop. They were stupid anyway. His legs and arms shook as he beelined for his office.

That was close. Too close. His shirt was soaked with anxious sweat. How in the world did secret agents do stuff like this every day? Their lives must be a constant battle against dehydration.

“I’ll save you two?” Randy muttered under his breath, disgusted. Now he had to buy a cake to keep Danny from figuring out he had lied. “Moron.”

He headed back to his office, making a mental note to find a bakery that sold premade cakes.

His first mission was a bust, but that didn’t mean every single one would be. He had become invisible not once but twice. Not a fluke.

Now he just needed to figure out how to control this new power. And, in science, the only way forward was more trial and error.

Aftermath

“LOOT THE BODY, BUT don’t mark it for griefing,” Roark ordered. Because mobs couldn’t gain Experience from killing other mobs, the little bit of loot Viago had dropped in death would be the only small return on this otherwise disheartening battle. Roark ripped his slender rapier free of the Herald’s still form and wiped it clean on his russet feathers. “I don’t want anyone setting foot aboveground until I’ve had time to fortify the bailey. If Heralds engage you again, do not allow yourselves to be drawn outside. Not under any circumstances. If they want a battle, they’ll fight it on our terms next time.”

“I’ll see to it, Dungeon Lord.” Druz, the first-floor overseer, scraped one huge booted foot in the gritty dirt. “It’s only... Well, when the Trolls respawn, some of ’em might want their gear back.”

Roark glanced at the dead spread around the decrepit courtyard. He could set boundaries and try to protect his underlings, but he couldn’t force them to stay in the Citadel. And he certainly wasn’t going to hold them hostage in their own home. His mind drifted back to his Slender Rapier of the Diving Falcon, lost in his first fight against Bad_Karma, and the frustration and anger at having lost a weapon he’d grown so attached to. If Azibek had still been around then to order him to abandon his things, Roark knew he would have disobeyed in a heartbeat. Worse, if he set the rule firmly in place and then found out his underlings were disobeying, he would have to mete out a severe punishment or risk having his authority undercut.

All bad options.

“If they want to take their lives in their own hands, it’s theirs to risk. But remind them that they’re welcome to replace anything they’ve lost from the armory.” Roark glimpsed Ick’s many-legged back over Druz’s shoulder and a new thought occurred to him. Surely there was a way he could use the Discordant Inversion and Deflection together with his Hexorcist abilities to strengthen the Troll Nation’s specialty force. “And tell them I’m working on new armor and weapons that will be even more effective than the ones they’ve lost.”

Druz gave a sharp nod and jogged off to spread the message among the pitiful spattering of remaining troops. Roark blew out a long breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Seven hells, but it really was a bloodbath.

That group had been a scouting force at most, looking to dredge up details about the Citadel, but they’d tipped their hand in the process, giving away far more than they could’ve possibly gained. While a defeat like this would have destroyed rebel forces back in Traisbin and set the resistance back years of work, here in Hearthworld, where forever death was rare and respawn was only a pair of hours away for mobs, the bloodshed would awaken Roark’s troops to the true danger the Heralds represented and the need for discipline in the ranks. For another, now that Roark knew exactly how outmatched his force was, he could adjust his strategies accordingly. Hopefully, the new weapons and armor would go a long way toward that end.

He was eager to begin experimenting, but there were obligations yet to attend to. Sheathing his rapier, he sought out the various mobs from each of the allied dungeons, thanking them for answering the call to arms. The job was tedious but necessary to maintain goodwill. When he’d finished the rounds—which were short, due to the carnage the small group of Heralds had inflicted in the minutes they’d been there—a piece of parchment appeared before Roark’s eyes.

[Congratulations! You have leveled up your Troll Leadership Skill to level 6! Infernal chimera from aligned dungeons across Hearthworld recognize your authority as well deserved and will take reasonable orders from you!]

Roark blinked the scrap away, then scanned the bailey.

Zyra and Kaz were moving through the survivors, handing out Ample Health potions. Griff and a Werebeast lingered near the rusty portcullis—it looked as if the trainer were giving the creature pointers on the use of the razor-wire-equipped halberd.

Feathers rustled and leather armor creaked behind Roark. His rapier and dagger were out in a heartbeat as he spun around. Viago—bloody, unrecognizable corpse that he was—was moving.

Rather than coming back to life and attacking, however, the Herald only rolled onto his mangled right side. Mac became visible, nudging the body over with his scaly head. The Young Turtle Dragon blinked slightly out of sync up at Roark, then nudged the dead Viago’s blood-soaked leather cuirass.

Roark relaxed, stowing his weapons as a smile tugged at his mouth. He’d seen Mac do this before to the corpse of an enemy Hellbender.

“You want his heart, boy?”

Mac chirped.

“If I can find one, it’s yours,” Roark said. “Though I don’t know how you’ll stomach it.”

Kneeling beside the Herald, Roark spent a few seconds inspecting the armor. Divine, peerless, but no better than what he could smith. He set it aside and carved into the Herald’s chest. By the time he’d found and removed the fist-sized lump of gold-streaked muscle, Roark had doubled the amount of sparkling golden Herald blood on his hands and arms.

He tossed the heart to Mac. The canny beast caught it out of the air, then tipped his head back to shake the meat down his scaly throat.

Roark had heard stories of ancient tribes in Traisbin who believed that consuming the heart of an enemy would transfer their strength to you, but if anything changed for Mac when the heart hit his stomach, it wasn’t visible to Roark. He scrubbed the silly beast’s beard and head, then stood.

All around the bailey, the cleanup effort continued. He spotted Ick over near one of the portal plates, sitting suspended by his arachnoid legs, humanoid legs folded beneath him, all but two of his eyes closed.

Roark strode across the courtyard to Ick’s side. As he approached, the Nocturnus opened his remaining eyes and stood to his humanoid feet.

“All right, Ick?” Roark asked, quirking an eyebrow.

The Nocturnus nodded, his tentacled hair slithering over his shoulders. “Only replenishing the wells of magick within. This fight required nearly all of mine. Of course, I have no room to complain. I fared better than many. Noble Yevin was not so lucky as I.”

Ick turned and bowed to a bloody mess in Paragon’s robes.

Roark let out a harsh puff of breath, feeling a little like he’d been punched in the gut.

He hadn’t even recognized the rog’s mangled corpse. True, the Paragon would respawn in a pair of hours, but how many levels would the mage have lost? Roark needed to find a way to keep the Heralds out certainly, but the greater issue in facing them was the damned level caps. How could the Troll Nation’s forces ever compete against Lowen and the Vault of the Radiant Shield when they were so badly crippled by their low level restrictions?

It was a question Roark had no answer for. Not yet. For now, he had to deal with the problems he could solve. Focusing on tangible solutions was always preferable to dwelling on seeming impossibilities.

With a grimace, he turned back to Ick.

“Just before the attack,” Roark started, “I asked if it would be possible to utilize Discordant Inversion to deflect Divine Magick even though it’s Oppositional rather than Balanced with my own.”

“Yes, I remember,” the Nocturnus replied. One of Ick’s arachnoid arms reached over his shoulder and scratched his chin with a dry chafing sound. “I have never done so myself,” Ick said thoughtfully, mandibles click-clacking, “but in theory it should be possible to turn the Heralds’ Divine Energy against them. All magicks in Hearthworld obey the Primal Creation Wheel, and so far as I know, Discordant Inversion can be used as a counter against any spell type—though such a thing must be written into the spell when it’s woven. Though I fear it will not be of much use to the specialty force,” Ick said, waving an arm toward the ragtag group of survivors.

“Why is that?” Roark asked, crossing one arm over his chest and cupping his chin with the opposite hand. Already his mind was charging head, prepared to find a way around whatever new obstacle Ick foresaw.

“Well, Dungeon Lord...” Ick dry washed his hands, mandibles scissoring as he considered how to phrase his reply. “Only a limited number of mobs have the disposition to learn the ways of the Night. Even among those who can learn, most are not powerful enough to employ it regularly. The single greatest drawback to Discordant Inversion is that it can only be placed in a level 6 spell slot or higher, so the number of uses is quite restricted for even a caster of your strength.”

The tension growing in Roark’s shoulders released at that.

“I don’t intend to teach the response force the intricacies of your art,” he said, waving away Ick’s worries. “I have another deployment method in mind that ought to do the trick nicely—assuming I can learn the proper spell form myself.”

A spark of mischief glimmered in Ick’s many eyes.

“Hex chains?” Ick chortled, tentacled hair rustling in a dry rasp. “That could work. Though finding the right balance will be tricky.”

Roark nodded his agreement. “We don’t want to drive away the Divine-oriented heroes, since they make up at least forty percent of the heroes who try their hand at the dungeon.” He paused, grin widening into a malicious smile. “But I think I have a way around that as well.”

“Forgive me for complimenting myself, Dungeon Lord, but I was right about you,” the Nocturnus said, his sapphire eyes glittering. “Back in the arena’s mob cages, when you were disguised as a lowly kobold and I was destined to die at the hands of Bad_Karma, I said perhaps if we work together, we can accomplish the impossible. I think we will do so yet and win your war.”

“I certainly hope so.” Roark clapped the slim Witchdoctor on the shoulder. “One thing I know for sure, the odds get better the more we stack the deck in our favor.”

“In the Jungles of Night, we call this tailoring the web to best advantage,” Ick said.

Roark smiled. Nocturnuses were creatures after his own heart.

He found Griff and Zyra working nearby.

“I’m going to be out of commission for the next few hours,” Roark told them. “I don’t want to be disturbed for any reason. This place will just have to survive without me.”

“It’ll manage,” Griff assured him. “Do what you need to do, Griefer.”

Roark thanked them, then turned back to Ick, sweeping a deep bow.

“Sensei, if you have the time, may we head back down to the School of Night Magick? I would very much like to finish today’s lesson.”

***

ICK HADN’T BEEN WRONG: the Discordant Inversion and Deflection spell was difficult to master, even for someone of Roark’s formidable level and skill set.

The problem was not the magick itself but rather that the Witchdoctor’s spells were intimately tied to the strange postures and motions they practiced, all of which were truly only compatible to those with more than two measly arms and legs. Weaving the Discordant Inversion web was a grinding, grueling trial of error and failure.

“I have seen it performed by Witchdoctors who lost limbs in battle,” Ick replied when Roark asked, “but, now that I recall, never by any with fewer than six legs. Perhaps if you moved the few limbs you have faster.”

Swiping sweat from his already dripping face with a forearm, Roark returned to the proper stance and threw himself into the motions once again. He’d already been moving at close to top speed, only holding back just enough to make sure he executed the postures properly. How fast would he have to move to make it seem as if he had double the limbs?

“Better,” Ick commented, inclining his head slightly, “but still a touch slow.”

Too winded to respond, Roark could only nod and try again.

They practiced for what felt like hours, Ick providing instructive critiques and the barest praise to direct Roark. Though Roark quickly exhausted the little energy that remained after his battle with the Heralds, he downed Stamina potions and pushed on. Come paradise or bloody damnation, he would learn this spell.

As they worked, it quickly became clear to Roark that although many of Ick’s martial techniques had practical battlefield applications, the motions for Discordant Inversion would not be among them. He would never be able to perform the delicate gestures and rigid postures in the heat of a real fight. But that didn’t mean the spell was useless. Far from it. Like the swordplay forms he’d learned as a child, each individual move and combination could be adapted to suit whatever the fight required. It would take a weathered, selective eye to spot the openings for deploying the spell effectively in battle.

After nearly two hours of tedious kata forms, Roark finally managed to cast the spell for the first time, making a new notice appear in his Initiate’s Spell Book:

[Congratulations, you have learned Discordant Inversion and Deflection from the School of Night Magick!

Discordant Inversion and Deflection can be cast (1) time per inscription!

Effect: Any incoming offensive spell of the previously defined magical alignment is converted to a magical alignment of the Subservient Dyad and redirected at the original caster.

Damage: Variable. Spell damage is equal to the damage of the original Inverted Spell.

Cooldown period between casting Discordant Inversion and Deflection and re-inscription: (2) hours!

Restriction: Discordant Inversion and Deflection must be assigned to a sixth-level spell slot or higher.

Restriction: Offensive school of magick to be inverted and deflected must be defined during inscription.

Restriction: Spell has a mandatory physical ritual component required to inscribe and cast.]

“Ah,” Ick said, his mandibles clicking with approval, “very good, Dungeon Lord.”

“Thanks,” Roark panted. Although he knew that getting it right once out of hundreds of tries was nothing to brag about, the success did bolster his flagging spirit no small amount. Still, he’d be happier when he could perform Discordant Inversion reliably. “Again?”

Ick nodded, and they returned to training.

When Roark had finally run out of the time he’d asked Griff and Zyra to give him, he had managed to inscribe the spell in three spell slots. It wasn’t much, but he couldn’t take up any more of Ick’s valuable time. He would have to continue to practice and perfect Discordant Inversion in his spare moments.

The thought made Roark chuckle to himself. His copious amount of spare time.

Dripping with sweat and muscles trembling with exhaustion, Roark bowed to Ick, thanking the Witchdoctor both for the instruction and for his patience in dealing with Roark’s significant physical limitations.

From there, it was straight to his private forge and workshop to begin the work he’d promised Druz and the specialty forces, who would have respawned by now. The trip over was far more eventful than it should have been. Visiting mobs and Trolls from all classes and specialties were whispering quietly about the Divine attack and just how poorly it had gone.

“There wasn’t a mob left standing from the Troll Nation.”

“Nearly wiped us clean off the map.”

“All with no more than three of them.”

“Way I heard it, it was one Herald, single-handed.”

Fear and uncertainty hung in the air like the stench of a rotting corpse. Many of the whispering mobs fell silent when Roark passed by, but some didn’t. Mostly those from stronger dungeons than the Cruel Citadel. The air of the marketplace crackled with fomenting insurrection.

Troubling, that. Another defeat would likely see the first wave of defection.

Roark blocked out the murmurs and whispered rumors, keeping his eyes fixed to the task ahead.

He could have stopped and tried to explain the situation to every mob who had their stories wrong, but that would do nothing to ease the growing sense of dread. Words were cheap, especially when they fell from the mouth of a leader who wanted to keep his authority. Roark knew that well from experience. How often had the T’verzet discussed ad nauseam what they intended to do about the Tyrant King, only to sit on their thumbs, doing all of nothing? It was that same impotence that had driven Roark to carry out his reckless assassination attempt on Marek in the first place. The attempt that had netted him the World Stone Pendant, though it had also nearly gotten him killed and resulted in the loss of his humanity.

What his followers needed was to see the strength of his leadership in action. They needed results. Those Roark intended to deliver.

When he arrived at his private forge, Roark found a Behemoth Thursr standing guard over the entryway.

“Dungeon Lord.” The hulking Troll sprang to rigid attention, his halberd quivering as he snapped a sharp salute. “Mistress Zyra sent me to make sure no one disturbs you.”

“Did she now?” Roark murmured softly. Then, louder to the Behemoth, “Excellent. I’m cooking up something especially nasty for those miserable Heralds, and I need complete solitude if I’m to finish it. Keep everybody clear for me, would you?”

“Of course!” The Behemoth’s ears quivered as though the very thought of someone disturbing Roark on his watch was deeply offensive. Perfect.

Roark slipped around the mountain of muscle and pebbly blue skin and into his workshop. With quick motions, he stripped off his upper armor and pulled on the enchanted custom leather apron he wore while working the forge. The apron, though plain looking, was far less cumbersome and boasted some powerful runes that fought against the oppressive heat of the shop—though nothing could completely dampen the waves of warmth that poured constantly from the flames.

Roark took a deep breath, steeling his nerves with the familiar and comforting scents of soot and white-hot slag, then went to work.

Experiments in Inversion

ROARK HAD SOME BRILLIANT ideas about how to protect the Cruel Citadel as a whole, but that would require reworking his portal plates. The portal plates were both expensive and extraordinarily time-consuming to build, and altering the preexistent Curse Chains inscribed on them was a nightmare that could easily result in death or dismemberment—unfortunately, almost never in that order. Roark’s plan required introducing new clauses to the existing Curse Chain, a delicate, thorny undertaking. It would be best to have the spell down to a science before he made the attempt.

Sadly, his slow progress on the casting meant it would take him untold hours or even days to perfect the spell itself, let alone build the new Curse Chain. After their defeat, the Troll Nation needed to see results fast, so he set aside his plans for the Cruel Citadel and focused instead on something far simpler: adding a variety of wicked upgrades to the specialty response force’s gear.

Opening his personal grimoire, Roark consulted the Primal Creation Wheel Ick had revealed to him.

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ROARK WAS MORE THAN a little surprised to find that the Oppositional power to the Divine was actually Necrotic energy. Odd, that. Back in Traisbin one of the primary purposes of spellcraft was to keep the bodies of the dead firmly where they belonged. Writs sealed the dead in their crypts and tombs, ushering their souls to the afterlife while preventing their decaying corpses from blundering around the countryside. If Ick’s chart was to be believed, however, the Undead chimeras scattered across Hearthworld were the most dangerous foes for the Divine.

He would have to look into enhancing the Shambling Corpses that wandered the cemetery outside the bailey with something that would put them on even footing with the Heralds and give them a fighting chance. With the proper preparation, they could act as an excellent barrier for Lowen’s Divine forces.

That was a thought for another time, Roark reminded himself. Zyra may have provided him with a guard to ward off external intrusions, but Roark needed to guard his own mind against getting off track as well. Reluctantly, he decided to empty his cup before he began in earnest, taking a few minutes to work through the various stances Ick had taught him—inhaling alertness and attention to the present and exhaling all of his cares and distractions. Banishing them to make room for the natural flow of Hearthworld’s potent magicks.

Once he was centered—body at ease, mind focused—Roark retrieved one of the many Peerless Tower Shields residing in his vault. The shield was of the same variety used by the specialty forces, handcrafted from a mixture of silver, copper, and powdered diamond dust, which made them exceptionally hard. The fact that they were mostly silver also made them ideal protection against creatures of the Divine. From the WikiLore page in his grimoire, Roark had learned that Heralds and other high-level Divine chimeras were partial to gold, but weak against moon metals such as mercury, silver, and pearlescent plate. Still, despite the basic enchantments bolstering Strength and Holy resistance, the shields had performed far less than ideal in their first skirmish.

Time to rectify that.

Roark spent a few minutes reviewing the Undead WikiLore entry, then laid out one of the bulky shields upon his Enchanter’s table and pulled a jeweler’s loupe over one eye to help him better discern the runes. Carefully, he set to work with his bone-handled awl. He canted his head and hunched over the shield, sweat rolling down his face as he etched precise lines of magical script into the reverse side, binding them to the shining metal with an effort of will.

After ten minutes, he straightened and reviewed his handiwork, marveling—not for the first time—at how easy it was to create magical items here in Hearthworld.

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Peerless Cold-Forged Shield of the Damned

Defense: 73

Durability: 65 of 65

Level Requirement: 27

Strength Requirement: 33

Equipping this item casts Spectral Hands on the wielder, anchoring the shield bearer in place for 30 sec – (1 sec x opponent’s character level), in exchange for 1 HP x wielder’s character level; Cooldown: 10 minutes.

Equipping this item casts Discordant Inversion and Deflection; Spell Definition: Divine; Cooldown: 2 hours.

On contact: +45% chance of triggering Fortifying Strength for 10 seconds.

On contact: +30% chance to trigger Bone-Aura, conjuring a ten-foot-radius aura that moves with the caster. Enemies take .25n Undead Damage (where n equals character level of the shield bearer) for 15 seconds.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Roark swiped the trails of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand as he read over the item’s impressive stats. With the addition of Spectral Hands and the possibility of spawning Bone-Aura, the shields would be far more effective against the Heralds. Plus, adding Discordant Inversion had the potential to radically alter the outcome of any future engagement, even if the spell could only be triggered once per engagement. Satisfied with the item, he set to work etching and imbuing the new runic marks onto the other shields in his vault.

When he finished with those, Roark moved on to a new batch of the specialty hooked halberds with their signature loop of razor wire.

Unfortunately, the weapons refused to support the inscription for Discordant Inversion or Bone-Aura, but Roark was able to augment them with the Spectral Hands feature. To make up for the loss of Bone-Aura, he added a Touch of Undeath spell, which had an 11% chance to inflict an additional 50 points of Undead damage on contact. It wouldn’t be enough to turn a battle on its own, but enough small changes could make a major difference over time.

It took him several hours to work through the spare gear, but once he had the process down, it was a simple matter of repeating it over and over again, though it still required extraordinary attention to detail. Even a single misstep when it came to runic etching could mean death and the loss of time and levels he couldn’t afford.

Once the last one was complete, he stood and stretched his stiff back and neck before returning the newly enhanced weapons and shields to their place. Only another battle would tell how effective the improvements would be against the Heralds.

With the—relatively—easy work done, he turned his attention to the touchier chore.

After successfully practicing the proper form for Discordant Inversion more than a dozen times, Roark was ready to try the spell on the portal plates scattered throughout the dungeon. He’d nowhere near perfected it, but the postures and speed were as good as he would get them in a single day.

The real question was, how exactly would he utilize his newfound knowledge to protect the Citadel? Enchanted shields and enchanted weapons were excellent for an individual combatant, but they would never be enough to turn away a full-scale Divine invasion. And simply inscribing the same basic Discordant Inversion spell he’d used for the shields onto the portal plates wouldn’t be sufficient, either. The Heralds were too numerous and too powerful for such a small-scale setback to turn them all away. What he needed was a way to keep the winged menace out of the Cruel Citadel entirely.

Unfortunately, because of Hearthworld’s arbitrary and ridiculous rules, that was impossible. Any adventurer or mob had to have a viable pathway to reach the Dungeon Lord’s throne room. Roark could make it exceedingly difficult—lining the way with monsters, traps, curses, illusions, and false doors—but he couldn’t make it impossible.

But, Roark wondered, what if there were a way to trap the invading Heralds in a sort of temporal loop, transporting them to a distant location whenever they entered the Cruel Citadel proper? He used a variation of the portal plates to connect with other dungeons, so surely he could do something similar in this instance.

He pushed away from his worktable and broke into a restless round of pacing, his boots clacking on the floor, his leathery wings rustling behind his back as he moved.

The idea of a temporal loop was certainly an intriguing prospect. He hadn’t had much time at the Academy to study the toric geometry behind such magicks, but he didn’t need to know the theory to execute the spell. In truth, the biggest question was how he would get around Hearthworld’s bloody rules.

With a thought, Roark pulled his Initiate’s Spell Book from his Inventory. Instead of turning to a particular spell slot, Roark flipped to the binding pages at the back of the tome.

Once upon a time, those pages had been blank and devoid of script. No longer. Now they were filled with his tight, precise script, annotating the various Hexes and Curse Chains he’d invented over the past several weeks. The conditions for each spell were laid out and marked with a stylized rune, which acted as a form of shorthand and could be inscribed on any flat surface.

Roark turned to the page on which he’d painstakingly described the requirements for a Curse Chain called The Hero Sieve, the real magick behind the various portal plates scattered throughout the Citadel.

[Any hero who meets the conditional requirements set on {Destination Plate 1, 2, 3, 4, 5} is instantly transported from the Prime Transportation Plate (designation = Nirn!) to the corresponding: {Destination Plate 1, 2, 3, 4, 5};

{Destination Plate 1: If any hero of level 7 to 12 steps on or over the Prime Transportation Plate, then they are instantly transported to the corresponding plate, equaling the value of Rihuk, and are Stunned! for 20 seconds.};

{Destination Plate 2: If any hero of level 13 to 18 steps on or over the Prime Transportation Plate, then they are instantly transported to the corresponding plate, equaling the value of Figrua, and suffer 20 points of Fire damage!};

{Destination Plate 3: If any hero of level 19 to 24 steps on or over the Prime Transportation Plate, then they are instantly transported to the corresponding plate, equaling the value of Letho, and slowed by 10% for 20 seconds!};

{Destination Plate 4: If any hero of level 25 to 29 steps on or over the Prime Transportation Plate, then they are instantly transported to the corresponding plate, equaling the value of Wuurk, and suffer 20 points of Frost damage!};

{Destination Plate 5: If any hero of level 30 or above steps on or over the Prime Transportation Plate, then they are instantly transported to the corresponding plate, equaling the value of STORM OF ICE AND FIRE, and suffer the effects of: (Existent Curse Chain) Storm of Fire and Ice!};

If any person, mob, or hero, other than a Troll native to the Cruel Citadel, tampers with this plate, it triggers an explosion causing 150 points fire damage (+10 burn damage/sec for 25 seconds) to any targets within a twenty-foot radius.]

The spell was a masterpiece, allowing Roark to break apart parties and whisk players into deathtraps perfectly suited for any given character. His Cursed! Enchantment Specialty had swelled to level 13, so he felt confident that he could add a new designation plate into the mix without destabilizing the Hero Sieve spell, but what exactly would he etch onto such a plate?

Perhaps a new runic requirement that would automatically transport any player or creature above level 70 back to the bailey? He mulled it over for a moment before dismissing the idea. No, a rune that powerful would likely blow up in his face if he tried to inscribe it even at his level, and Hearthworld would never allow it to take anyway because it violated the basic tenant all Dungeons had to abide by: a viable path must exist to reach the Dungeon Lord. There was no way around that rule. It was as immutable as a period at the end of a spell script in Traisbin.

Roark’s mind turned the problem over and over as he paced, soaking up the heat from the forge’s flames.

A snatch of ancient wisdom, often bandied around the village of Korvo where he’d grown up, drifted to the surface of Roark’s thoughts. If you know the moonviper as the moonviper knows itself, you need not fear the result of its bite. Basically that the more knowledge you had of your enemy, the better off you were. That had to be the key to this endeavor. Lowen and his lick-spittle lackeys were cruel, arrogant, and predictable.

Roark cast his mind back to his days at the Academy. As a boy, Lowen had been obsessed with station. The von Reichs were old nobility, their lineage extending back over five hundred years, but according to the gossips in Roark’s year, most of the von Reichs’ family holdings had been sold off piece by piece over the generations to pay debtors, until only the sliver of land beneath their country manor remained. By the time Lowen was sent to the Academy, his family had been just a step removed from the poorhouse. No wonder then that he and Roark had never gotten on. It had irked Lowen to no end that Roark with his dirty, mixed heritage held a higher station and lived on plenty while his own pure-blooded family had been reduced to scraping by on name alone.

And no wonder the von Reichs had been so quick to pledge their allegiance to the Tyrant King.

Magick and arrogance were all that remained of Lowen’s inheritance, and that was what made him an excellent mage. From the day they were allowed to write their first spells, Lowen did everything with magick. It was the privilege of the nobility, strictly off-limits to commoners, and therefore it set him apart from the rabble. He hated doing anything that a commoner might do. Even using a sword unsettled the vainglorious mage.

Therein lay the key. Roark couldn’t outright bar Lowen and his ilk from the Cruel Citadel, but with a few tweaks to Discordant Inversion and Deflection, he could turn their magick against them and keep them out of his hair, at least for a time.

But Roark couldn’t just target all Divine Magic, since that would likewise expel nearly half of the heroes who tried their hand at the Citadel. It was possible there was a way around that too, however.

Roark swapped out his spell book for his grimoire and quickly flipped to the ribbon labeled WikiLore, the great repository for all the discovered knowledge of Hearthworld. If there were elaborate pages detailing the Cruel Citadel, then it stood to reason that there would be at least a few such pages dedicated to Lowen and the Vault of the Radiant Shield. It took him only a handful of seconds to find a list of the spells Heralds used, marked down in elaborate detail courtesy of a hero named [John_Curley_Rulz].

Heavenly Wrath, Angelic Lance, Divine Missiles, Summon Celestial Might, Spear of Mercy, Consecrate, Serenity of Sound, Shield of Faith, Divinity of Blessings, Retribution Blast, Solar Glory.

When he hovered above each spell, a brief description appeared, letting him know exactly what each spell did. Invaluable information to be sure. A quick cross-reference with the WikiLore page for Divine Player Classes revealed that those spells were specific to the Heralds’ evolutionary pathway, in the same way that Roark’s Jotnar powers were specific to his. Heroes had no access to those magicks.

That made his job almost too easy, really. Committing the spell names to memory, he closed his grimoire and returned once more to the spell book.

Before he could create the spell properly, he needed to write out a simple sigil that would act as the runic shorthand for the list of spells he’d so easily dug up on the WikiLore. Roark flipped to a binding page with a blank section of parchment and set to work, quill scritch-scratching along the surface of the fine paper as he wrote.

[Herald Spell Subset: Heavenly Wrath, Angelic Lance, Divine Missiles, Summon Celestial Might, Spear of Mercy, Consecrate, Serenity of Sound, Shield of Faith, Divinity of Blessings, Retribution Blast, Solar Glory, designation = Zlato!]

The designation took without issue, just as Roark expected. The next part would be the real challenge. Moving farther down the page, he added a new line of text, this time incorporating the Discordant Inversion and Deflection spell form he’d used on the shields—though with a few slight modifications:

If a player or creature activates one of the spells in Herald Spell Subset (designation = Zlato!), then trigger Discordant Inversion and Deflection (Spell Type: Divine), and teleport caster from the Prime Transportation Plate (designation = Nirn!) to the corresponding: {Destination Plate 6}

With the main spell done, Roark drew a containment circle around the curses and various runes, working even more carefully than he would on a Peerless weapon with a Flawless gem. A failed attempt to inset a Peerless weapon wouldn’t backfire and kill him, but this most certainly would. The containment circle was a complicated piece of magecraft meant to restrict the effects of a particular spell set to a given area or amplify and bind various textual proofs into a single coherent form. Such a containment circle wasn’t typically used for simple cantrips in Traisbin, but was reserved instead for the most complex forms of contract magick or sprawling, multi-mage rituals.

Roark’s hand moved with meticulous care as he defined the various boundaries and wrote out the binding formula.

Finally, he lifted the nib from the page, blowing softly on the ink out of habit.

A notice materialized before his eyes, wiping out his handiwork, leaving the parchment in his spell book completely blank.

[Would you like to transmute Inscription to invent Curse Chain: Heavenly Ward? Yes/No?

Note: There is no cost to attempt to invent Curse Chains, however not all combinations of runes and curses play nicely together. Success depends upon compatibility of runes and curses used and will not be revealed before the attempt to invent a Curse Chain is accepted. Failure comes with steep consequences.

Please inscribe responsibly.]

Roark swallowed hard, rubbing his palms together in a combination of excitement and apprehension. He’d blown himself sky-high more than a few times while tinkering with new curse chains, but the opportunity here was too good to pass up. The potential gain far outweighed any risk.

Still, he flinched a little as he hit Yes, expecting the worst.

[Your invention of Curse Chain: Heavenly Ward was successful! Accepted definition for Heavenly Ward has been logged in your Initiate’s Spell Book under rune HEAVENLY WARD.]

Roark turned immediately back to his spell book. A new rune—a grimacing skull with wings protruding from the sides—had appeared on the page with the particulars of the effects neatly written beside it.

Absolutely brilliant.

Now all he needed to do was add the Heavenly Ward rune to the Citadel’s Portal Plates, plant the new designation plate somewhere far away and vastly unpleasant, then bide his time until more Heralds came poking around to see how well this new defense worked.

Well-laid Trap

A BATTLE RAGED THROUGH the Citadel’s first-floor entry hall.

No Heralds yet, though hopefully they wouldn’t be too long in coming. This was simply another party of heroes to be griefed. Technically, Roark should have been below, waiting for their highest levels in the Throne Room, but after all the time spent bent over portal plates and spell books, he’d been craving some exercise. Griefing always helped alleviate his stress, and there was something freeing in the forms of the blade and the struggle for survival against the greedy, loot-hungry heroes of Hearthworld.

This was a mixed party of high-level heroes, the team perfectly balanced in accordance with the WikiLore to make a run at the Cruel Citadel’s Dungeon Lord. Roark had decided to save them the trouble of grinding their way all the way down to the Keep, especially since he needed them for research.

He lunged at an impetuous level 27 rog, slated as a Holy Cavalier. The tip of Roark’s rapier slipped between the overlapping plates of the rog’s wooden O-Rogiri armor, sinking deep into vulnerable flesh and eating through a fifth of the red in the rog’s Health bar in an instant.

Roark could’ve killed the hero on the spot, but he pulled his blade free—an arc of blood spraying from the wound—and retreated a handful of paces. He raised the slender blade into prima guardie, a clear invitation, and cocked an eyebrow at the rog, who radiated a subtle golden aura of Divine power.

“What’s the matter, mate, scared to have at me? Did I cut out your backbone with that slice?” Roark positioned himself directly over the portal plate that guarded the way into the connecting hall. “I suppose it’s lucky then that you’re just another moron in heavy armor, not some sort of Blessed Paladin or Holy Cavalier, since Infernal chimeras like me are so bloody vulnerable to Divine magick.”

Roark was well aware that the rog was not only a Holy Cavalier of Tadhiel but wielding a Sanctified Zweihander no less. Anyone who could read the rog’s stats could see that. He felt a bit stupid overstating his taunts so bluntly, but thus far in Hearthworld, he hadn’t come across many heroes versed in the art of subtlety.

When the rog didn’t press the attack immediately, Roark had a brief second of uncertainty, wondering whether this hero had caught onto his act, but the Holy Cavalier answered that question by reacting exactly as Roark had planned.

Eyes glimmering with satisfaction at how clever he was, the rog dropped back, lowering the enormous blade, and raised his free hand. A bolt of Divine white light streaked through the air at Roark’s head.

Roark stepped back and let the bolt pass over the portal plate, casting a level 2 Absorption spell a hair before the white light hit him. The simple protection magick drank up the holy damage like dusty hardpan soaking up a spattering of rain.

The rog glanced down at his gauntleted hand in puzzlement. Everything he knew about Infernal mobs’ vulnerability to Divine magick in Hearthworld said his first effort should have scored a hit—and would have if Roark had left his Infernali Shield to protect him. Receiving no answers from his wooden gauntlet, the rog launched a second and third holy spell. Roark easily countered each using pre-inscribed casts from his Initiate’s Spell Book.

Most importantly, the portal plate beneath their feet remained inactive, refusing to discharge the potent new Heavenly Ward rune Roark had worked into the metal alongside the Hero Sieve glyph.

This rog was the ninth Divine warrior Roark had encountered, and so far, not one of them had set off the ward, which was a good sign. He wanted the plates to be effective against Lowen and his forces, but only against them. Thus far, even the most stalwart Divine Heroes were untouched by the new curse.

Unfortunately, the Heralds hadn’t returned yet, so Roark hadn’t been able to verify whether his handiwork would function properly in that regard, but it was only a matter of time.

It had been nearly a full nine hours since the initial Herald skirmish, and Viago’s mangled corpse still adorned the bailey. Even if Viago’s gear was worthless trash—highly doubtful for a level 99—Lowen could never stand to let the body remain indefinitely. Viago’s corpse would act as a tangible symbol of Roark’s strength. A rallying point, reminding everyone of Lowen’s failure. The self-important mage couldn’t abide a blow like that to his fragile porcelain ego.

The rog hurled another bolt of Divine power as if certain that where the first three hadn’t succeeded, the fourth one would. But Roark had learned everything he needed to know from the thickheaded hero.

Sidestepping the blast with ease, he shot across the floor, propelled by a push from his leathery wings. The tip of his rapier effortlessly carved a line of crimson across the Holy Cavalier’s throat, neatly slicing through another half of the hero’s Health vial.

The rog clamped a hand around his neck, eyes wide as he retreated toward what remained of his party.

He didn’t make it far.

His booted heel caught on the arm of a dead Sneakthief in darkened leathers, and the Cavalier stumbled, leaving himself open for a killing blow. Roark moved in a flash, but before his blade touched flesh, a colossal blue-black mace with wicked flanges shaped like sapphire flames carved through the air ahead of it. The weapon connected with a meaty thump, and the rog dropped where he stood, his legs refusing to hold up his bulky frame a moment longer. The red in his filigreed Health bar vanished, the spark of life fading from his beady eyes as the hero was sent for respawn like so many of his fellow party members now dotting the Citadel foyer.

“My kill!” PwnrBwner crowed in triumph, leaning the massive mace against his silvered pauldron. “Basically saved your ass there, dickweed, so I get dibs on the loot.”

“Yes, he really had me back on my heels.” Roark rolled his eyes. “Help yourself, I already have what I needed from him. Besides”—he offered the Combat Cleric a wicked grin—“I’ll mark his body for griefing and collect the real prize later.”

“As long as I get mine first,” PwnrBwner said, dropping into a squat and rifling through the dead rog’s items, dropping each one into his Inventory with the occasional satisfied comment of, “decent,” and “sweet-ass.”

When he was finished looting the Cavalier, PwnrBwner straightened.

“I knew coming here today would pay off,” he said.

“Well, if you’re determined not to leave, why don’t you help me clear up the rest of this riffraff?” Roark waved toward the remainder of the party, clustered together in a tight pocket near the stairs, desperately fighting back-to-back as Trolls, Stone Salamanders, and Reaver Bats bled them dry a slash or arrow at a time. “I’m expecting guests soon, and I would rather like to have this hall cleared and waiting.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever. But then you and I need to have words,” Pwnr replied, suddenly grim. “I think your magic fucked me up.”

Roark was about to ask what he meant when a level 29 Wild Huntress got brave and lunged out of the pack, her pair of summoned Black Jaguars charging at Roark and PwnrBwner.

Roark dodged the initial attack and opened the closest Jaguar’s guts with a skillful dalla spalla slash. Nearby, the High Combat Cleric let out a blunt curse and crunched his flanged elemental mace through the other Jaguar’s skull.

“The faster we dispatch this lot, the sooner we can speak,” Roark called to him, advancing on the now unprotected Huntress.

Taking out the remaining heroes was the work of a few minutes, whittling their resistances down, then burying them beneath a wave of Troll flesh and malicious spells.

PwnrBwner tried to claim the majority of the kills and an accompanying portion of the loot, but Roark stomped that down immediately, seeing it for the challenge it was. The High Combat Cleric was a natural boundary-pusher and would walk all over Roark if given half a chance. First Roark made certain the Citadel’s hardworking troops got their portion, then he willingly gave up his portion of the items and gold to PwnrBwner. Roark already had more items than he could handle, and in truth his Smithing and Enchanting were high enough that he could easily craft better, but the gesture seemed to pacify the brash hero.

Once they finished clearing the bodies, the cartographer marking them on the map along with their respawn time, Roark and Pwner found their way to the back of the foyer where they could watch the stairs leading down from the bailey.

“So, who are you waiting for, anyway?” the High Combat Cleric asked, leaning against the wall. “Bad_Karma’s not gonna be ready to face off against you anytime soon, if that’s what you’re worried about. Dude had a hard-core character. No respawn. It’ll be a hot minute before he grinds out something tough enough to make another run at you.”

“It’s not Bad_Karma I’m worried about,” Roark said, folding his arms. “We had a skirmish with a contingent of Malaika Heralds earlier.” He paused as Mac waddled over and settled down beside him, his muzzle and beard covered in wet, red gore. “If you saw the Troll and allied corpses stacked in the bailey on the way in, then you know it went less than ideal.”

PwnrBwner nodded. “You can say that again. It looked like a blender full of fish blew up out there. So, was it that brohole, Lowen?”

“Not him personally,” Roark replied with a shake of his head, “but his thugs, yes. I’ve been preparing for ages, and ten of his Heralds ran roughshod over triple that number of my best defenders without even trying. We managed to bring one of the bloody bastards down, though. I’m thinking he’ll be back soon enough.”

“And then what?” PwnrBwner asked, digging an apple out of his Inventory and taking a bite.

“And then we find out whether my new defenses are effective.”

“What if they’re not?”

“Then I respawn two hours later, fine-tune the Curse Chain, and try again.” Roark leaned over and slapped the Young Turtle Dragon on the shell a few times affectionately, hoping to stave off the dark thoughts of how many times he would have to go through that painful whirlwind of trial and error before he found something effective against Lowen’s forces. “Weren’t there words you wanted to have with me?”

“Yeah, that hoodoo you used on me.” PwnrBwner tossed his apple core away, and it skittered across the stone floor. Roark scowled at it, but waited for the Cleric to go on. “You know, that Greater Vassal shit?”

“I’m aware of it.”

Pwner ran a hand through his hair, uncharacteristically grim. “So, I was working my shift at the Bell—”

“The Bell?” Roark asked, frowning in disbelief. “You work at a monastery? In my experience, monks don’t usually take in the...” He searched for a word that would encompass what exactly PwnrBwner was, but descriptors fell short. He settled for “...impious.”

The Cleric stared at him for several long seconds, then snorted.

“God, you’re a dork. Not like a church bell, dipshit. Taco Bell. It’s a restaurant.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t even matter. Point is, some carload of jackasses bombshelled me, and this happened.”

PwnrBwner raised his gauntleted right hand, and a mystic blue tower shield burst into existence, blazing with holy light.

“And?” Roark said, eyeing the shield.

“And?” Pwner snapped, dismissing the magical projection. “The fuck you mean, and? It was magic. Real magic.”

Roark shrugged. “Obviously.”

“Well, guess what, you pirate-wad smartass? We don’t have magic back in the real world! It’s not like whatever shitty fantasy Mordor place you’re from. We’ve got science and shit, not magic shields.”

“Wait.” Roark straightened, holding up one hand to stop the Cleric’s ranting. A thrill of excitement ran through his gut as he processed what PwnrBwner was saying. “You’re telling me that you manifested Hearthworld magick in your dimension, completely outside the boundaries of Hearthworld, and that this is not typical?”

“Finally, you’re starting to catch up. That’s exactly what I’m saying. And this all started right after you turned me into a Greater Vassal or whatever. So, what the shit?”

Roark cupped his chin and thought back over PwnrBwner’s claims.

“Truthfully, I have no idea what’s happening to you or why,” he admitted. “The World Stone Pendant is what allows me to make Vassals, and it’s an enigma even to me. I stole it from the Tyrant King, and I believe it’s at least partly responsible for bringing me here to Hearthworld. But I’ve only been able to unlock a fraction of its abilities—and even those I hardly understand. Still, if this is true...”

“What, you don’t believe me?” PwnrBwner sneered. “You think I’m lying? Or, what, that I’m crazy and I just imagined it? Because I shoulda had sticky, sixteen-flavor Mountain Dew all over me, but—”

“No, I believe you,” Roark hurried to interrupt. “But this could change everything. If becoming a Greater Vassal allowed you to use your Cleric abilities in your realm, then perhaps it will allow me to carry my powers back into Traisbin. With the magick of Hearthworld at my disposal, I might have a genuine chance to unseat Marek.” Roark reached up and caressed the World Stone Pendant through his shirt. “No wonder he wants it back so badly.”

“Hey, that’s great for you,” PwnrBwner said with aggressively false cheer, “but what the hell does this mean for me?”

“I don’t know,” Roark admitted. “It’s possible you could gain all of your abilities in your home dimension.”

The Cleric went still. Then, slowly, his jaw dropped.

“I... am gonna be... so fucking rich!” He aimed two middle fingers at the Citadel’s ceiling. “Kiss my hairy gamer ass, Chaz! And you can eat a dick, everybody else! A ten-pound bag of them! Who’s the bitch now, huh?”

The clatter of armor sounded at the top of the stairs, and Druz appeared, interrupting the Cleric’s sudden strange apoplectics.

“We’ve got incoming, Dungeon Lord!” the first-floor overseer called. “Big party—all level 30 or above.”

“Care to help?” Roark asked, shooting Pwner a sidelong glance.

“Hell yeah,” he said, pulling his flanged mace free. “Long as I get my cut of the loot.”

The next wave of heroes came down in a rush of plate armor and steel shields—a uniform wall of tanks, formed in a horseshoe around a core of casters and archers. Briefly, Roark considered simply heading deeper into the Citadel and letting the Hero Sieve do its job, grinding this party down by inches, but he was damned closed to level 40. Closer than he’d ever been, and he couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. Besides, other than waiting for Viago and Lowen’s other lackeys to show up, he had nothing else to do.

“What the hell is the Dungeon Lord doing on one?” a Warlock with the nameplate [Lulz_Lock] shouted, sounding panicked. “This wasn’t part of the plan! I don’t have spells prepped for this.”

“Don’t you dare break ranks, Jared,” one of the enormous NecroKnights called over one steel-plated shoulder. “I swear to God, I’ll boot your ass from this party if you bail!”

The first-floor’s patrol smashed into the semicircle of heroes, huge hammers denting shields, the clang of steel reverberating in the air.

PwnrBwner leapt into the fray, calling down bolts of angry blue lightning on the spellcasters while simultaneously trading blows with a halberd-wielding Olm in a long shirt of scale mail. Surprisingly, the invading heroes held against the brutal onslaught of Trolls long enough for the casters to unleash a bevy of deadly spells. Spears of sharpened ice erupted from the floor, impaling Thursr Behemoths and Reaver Champions, while a slow-brewing green cloud churned above them, suddenly belching out a torrent of deadly acid. Fat droplets sizzled where they ate through flesh and pitted metal.

These heroes had come with an arsenal of serious magical muscle. For once, Roark could help his troops most by casting magic, as opposed to closing ranks and trying to cut down the invaders with his raw strength.

Mac appeared at Roark’s side, awaiting a command.

“Wall climb!” Roark barked to the Young Turtle Dragon.

Mac chirped and disappeared, his distorted form scampering toward the far wall.

With a thought, Roark brought forth his Initiate’s Spell Book and flipped to the second page. He jotted down a lightning-fast level 1 Dispel Magick and cast it, banishing the frosty spears.

However, the low-level spell did nothing to eliminate the deadly green rain pelting his troops. These mages were top-tier, then. Time to change approaches.

Roark switched to a level 4 spell slot.

[All Infernal creatures within a fifteen-foot radius are impervious to rain.]

The spell took with a flash, and Roark wasted no time in triggering it.

Though the rain continued to fall in a deadly sheet, the Trolls no longer suffered its debilitating effects. Newly protected, Roark’s forces pressed forward with fresh vigor, lips pulled back in snarls, fangs flashing, cursed swords, axes, and warhammers falling to some unheard drumbeat. To further strengthen them, Roark triggered a round of Infernal Invigoration, his Infernali Magick taking a dip as he unleashed an umbrella of claret-colored light over his forces. The Jotnar spell brought most of the Trolls’ Health bars back to nearly full health.

Next, Roark turned his focus to the heroes’ weakest link: Lulz_Lock, the whiny, complaining human Warlock, nestled back in the folds of the human shield wall.

As a support caster, the whiny hero was integral to the fight. Roark knew that if he could get Lulz_Lock to break, the whole formation would shatter like glass lace.

He activated another Jotnar spell, Infernal Torment, which inflicted 1 point of damage per caster character level, per second, for a grand total of 30 seconds. At Roark’s current level 39, that was a vicious 1170 points of damage. Even better, Infernal Torment disrupted any spell that required concentration, which stopped a goodly number of the hero mages’ casts.

Plum-colored flames burst from Lulz_Lock’s flesh, igniting his robes as the spell seared him from the inside out. The Warlock shrieked, hands batting against his body as he tried desperately to squelch the flames. The human torch’s flailing distracted his fellow casters and fighters, opening a thin line in the shield wall.

An opening PwnrBwner boldly shoved himself into, widening the gap with shield, mace, and brilliant blue lightning strikes.

A shimmering distortion dropped from the ceiling, landing amongst the mages and support casters in a crush of invisible scales and spiked shell.

“Holy shit! They’re raining down from the fucking ceiling!” an Arcanist in crudely stitched leathers cried. “We need to retreat. This wasn’t part of the plan!”

“Hold the line, you shit weasel!” the burly NecroKnight hollered. Obviously, he was the leader of this party.

But it was too late.

Mac savaged the casters from the inside, and the formation came apart at the seams, each plate- and mail-clad fighter turning into an island unto themselves. Islands quickly surrounded by a sea of Troll flesh.

A few tried to break for the stairs, but Roark was prepared for retreats. He conjured a wall of deadly red-orange flame, five feet tall, a foot thick, and burning with all the fury of a smelting forge. Pinned between the flames and the relentless press of well-trained Trolls, the heroes never stood a chance. The last of the powerful heroes fell in under a minute.

An ascending chime rang through the room, declaring that Roark had finally hit level 40.

[LEVEL UP!]

[You have 10 undistributed Stat Points!]

But before Roark could pull up his stat screen and look over his newest level, a furious roar tore through the air, accompanied by a whoosh of air from the staircase.

Wheeling around, Roark stared in shock as an angelic figure with russet feathers and an enormous flaming battle-axe appeared in the stairwell.

Viago. And the winged bastard wasn’t alone. Druz—caught flat-footed in the middle of looting a corpse—tried to cry out a warning, but Viago’s axe chopped the first-floor overseer’s head off with a single swing. She dropped where she stood.

The winged berserker shifted left, agile as a hunting falcon, and shoulder-checked PwnrBwner out of the way with careless ease, hurling the Cleric back against the wall.

Behind the bulky Viago came a trio of Heralds, all bearing magick weapons, haughty satisfaction etched into their features.

Even in his surprise, Roark had to admit that the ploy was rather clever. They’d used the Hero raid as a smoke screen, waiting until the Trolls had conquered and let their guards down before launching their own assault.

Viago didn’t have the mental capacity to come up with such a plan on his own, however. The whole gambit smacked of Lowen.

“Everyone back!” Roark shouted at his troops. He flexed his wings and charged forward, conjuring his Initiate’s Spell Book. He hurled a skull-sized ball of fire at the incoming Heralds.

The Heralds moved in practiced coordination, fanning out, golden hands raised, all pointed squarely at Roark.

“Do your worst!” Roark taunted, raising his hand for another attack.

“Not getting out of this one, trash,” Viago hissed, golden energy building in his palms.

Roark conjured another simple Absorption Spell, knowing it would do little good against the sheer power a level 99 could unleash. He gritted his teeth and braced himself. This was going to hurt. At least he would have his chance to see whether the new Curse Chain worked.

All four Heralds unleashed a wall of blinding power, more brilliant than the sun at noonday. The room disappeared in eye-searing light, unbearable to look at.

Roark pressed his eyes shut tight, body tensing as he waited to be enveloped in pain and burning agony. But after a few seconds, he cracked his lids and let out a slow exhale. The light was gone and so, too, were the Heralds.

Most of them, anyway. One—a tawny female—lay dead, her golden skin boiled clean off the muscle beneath, trails of smoke drifting up from her ruined remains. Golden bones glimmered through the ash. Of the other three, however, there was no sign at all.

“What. The fuck. Just happened?” Pwner asked, climbing to his feet with a cough. “Where’d those chode muncher Heralds go?”

“The Star Iron Hills,” Roark replied. He’d dispatched Kaz with the newest destination plate as soon as he’d finished perfecting the inscription. “I don’t think they’ll be bothering us again for a while yet.”

He grinned, recalling the craggy, sheer cliff faces nearly five hours away from the Citadel by foot. Those hills, really more mountains than their name suggested, were home to the vicious Rock Wyverns, venomous creatures that would pose a threat to anything foolish enough to stumble into their nests. Roark and Kaz had traveled there once to help Zyra acquire a rare quest ingredient, and every time he thought about the trip, he shuddered.

Even with portal magick and wings, it would take Viago and his allies a few hours to get back to the Citadel, and that was assuming they survived once the Elder Rock Wyverns began attacking.

It wouldn’t keep Lowen and his Heralds out forever, but it would buy Roark a little more time to shore up his defenses and level his own abilities, or “git gud” as PwnrBwner often said.

“Whatever,” the High Combat Cleric said, heading for the dead Herald’s golden bones. “Since none of you Trolls can use Divine weapons and armor, I’ll just take that aligned loot off your hands, then.” He picked through her gear, mumbling, “Aw, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. Come to papa.”

Roark rolled his eyes, then opened his grimoire to his character page. Amazingly, it appeared that he hadn’t just leveled up, he’d unlocked a new World Stone Pendant ability.

Somewhere beyond the pages of the book, Roark heard PwnrBwner’s armor clank.

“All right, dickbreath, I’m gonna hit up Avery City and sell off some of this shit. Maybe check in with that dweeb Randy and see if any weird shit has happened to him since you hoodooed us. Smell ya later, loser.”

As the rip of a portal scroll sounded, Roark gave an absent wave, unable to take his eyes from the words emblazoned on the page. They burned like a torch in his mind: Transmute Flesh.

Just what in the seven hells did that mean?

Retribution

SCOTT BAYANI STEPPED out of the portal onto the colorful mosaic tiles of the Avery City fountain court. Brilliant sunlight and the sound of splashing water and people laughing and talking washed over him all at once. He smiled and breathed in the sweet aboveground air, glad to be firmly back in his element. Dungeons were great, sure, but this was where he belonged, surrounded by gamers who could appreciate a decent player when they saw him. All around him, losers were running out of portals with a sliver of HP left, while ballers swaggered out over-encumbered with all the badass loot they’d taken. Some dude was dragging what looked like a mutated narwhal through one portal.

SSDD—same shit different day. Every city’s portal center was the same, all day long.

Scott pointed himself toward the marketplace and got a move on. He wanted to get through the bottleneck at the edge of the fountain court before the dillweed with the narwhal blocked traffic. Only a stupid newb would haul around a mob like that instead of just harvesting it. Scott had shit to do, and he didn’t have time to stand around waiting for a porpoise to squeeze through a crowd.

Basically, all he needed to do was sell the awesome extra gear that had started rolling in since he’d teamed up with the Griefer, but that was going to take some time. He had six game-breakers in his Inventory, another twenty Unique weapons and armor, and a bunch of rando one-off spell scrolls and shit he would never use. The NPC merchant gold limits in Hearthworld were better than in a lot of games, but he was still going to have to spread his sales out across most of Avery City to offload it all. Shit, he might even need to port over to the Darkhaven Marketplace.

He could’ve sold it all in the Troll Marketplace. Probably all in one spot. Either mobs didn’t fall under the NPC’s economy-stabilizing rules or Roark had come up with some magic cheat to let his merchants hoard as much gold as they wanted, because even lame-o places like the herbalist shop and the street food vendors were rolling in dough.

Thing was, Scott didn’t trust the Troll Marketplace.

The thought of making friends with mobs, then hunting them down in quests and shit was... Well, it made him feel weird. Almost queasy or something.

Then again, it could’ve just been that Nachos Bell Grande he’d grabbed on his way out of work. He wouldn’t put it past Chaz to Ex-Lax him after that shift.

Fucking Chaz.

Scott shook his head. Screw Chaz and screw the Bell.

That IRL shit couldn’t touch him in Hearthworld.

Here he was PwnrBwner—a fact displayed for all the world to see, thanks to the tag floating over his head in thin white letters. Here he was an OG, a shot-caller, and such a badass that he wasn’t just killing game monsters, he was helping save a whole other alien world. One he hadn’t even seen. And since the Griefer was ass-ugly, chances were high that the alien chicks from his world were going to be way too geek-faced for Scott. Which meant he was doing all this out of pure charity. They should build him a monument. Or at least pay him in IRL gold. He’d have to talk to the Griefer about that. A shit ton of gold pirate doubloons would help him leave the Bell in the rearview mirror.

The smell of hops and roasting meat intensified, making his mouth water as he shouldered his way into the bustling marketplace. Classic devs, cranking up the smells to make sure the players would shell out their hard-earned cash in the local pubs and taverns. It was a secondary source of revenue for Hearthworld, since players who sucked could just buy gold for their characters, and let’s face it, you weren’t going to not get in-game hammered after a hard day of grinding.

Scott was going to partake himself, once he dumped this extra gear on somebody. Of course, he wasn’t going to have to buy himself gold like a loser, he was going to have plenty of free-range yellow stuff in his account after he got done in the marketplace. He stretched up onto his toes, looking down the row of janky booths. Usually he traded with that elf with the big teeth who never shut up, but the elf merchant had gone over to the Troll side and set up permanent shop in the Cruel Citadel. It was a pain in the ass for Scott, but he couldn’t blame elf dude for following that sweet, sweet money.

With a shrug, Scott headed for the closest armor vendor. Might as well just sell down the line until he was empty.

“Hey.” Scott shoved his way up to the armorer’s table and tossed down a Peerless Helm of the Cursed Rampaging Behemoth. Its Two-handed bonus was stupid good, and Roark had thrown a Strength multiplier on it along with a post-mortem curse that would blow up anybody who tried to loot it from your corpse. Hilarious. But Scott’s cleric main was all about One-handed weapons, so the helmet had to go. “What’ll you give me for this?”

The armorer’s eyes just about popped out of her head when she saw the maxed-out double enchantments and curse. She floundered for a second, which was way too long if she wanted to have any haggling power with him. The effect was pretty great, considering this chick was usually an annoying loudmouth.

“Is that...” She reached out to touch it, but pulled her hand back at the last second like she couldn’t stand the thought of getting fingerprints on the shiny metal. “Who smithed this?”

Other players were stopping to stare now.

“Look, lady, I don’t have all day to stand around and talk shop,” Scott said, leaning forward against the counter. “Twenty-five hundred gold, take it or leave it.”

Obviously, she jumped on it. She didn’t think she was going to see something this amazing ever again, because Scott wasn’t dumb enough to tell her the guy who made it was just an hour and a half away by slow-travel.

The rest of his stops followed the same pattern. He threw down some incredible shit, the merchant and passing players crapped their pants at its stats, and he left with fat stacks of gold.

Except... something was wonky. Scott wasn’t having as much fun as he should’ve been.

Maybe it was having to deal with all the merchants he usually ignored, or maybe it was more proof that Chaz had Ex-Laxed him, but Scott kept getting creeped out. Usually he liked being the center of attention—he got a sense of satisfaction from losers salivating over his awesome loot—but this was different. Almost like somebody was spying on him. The hair along the back of his neck stood up and goosebumps broke out along his arms. Way more intense than what he could usually feel while logged in to the Hearthworld servers.

He shook it off—probably just the long night at work—and moved on.

When the last merchant had dropped a big, bloated coin sack into Scott’s hand in exchange for a ton of scrolls he was never going to use, he checked over his pauldron for the hundredth time.

“The fuck?” Scott muttered under his breath. He could swear that rog and that dark elf chick had been watching him since all the way back with the first armorer. He remembered thinking the elf was hot enough even though she’d gone with a gothed-out vibe for her character.

“I’m sorry, sir, I couldn’t hear you.” The magic crap seller leaned toward him.

Scott ignored the merchant and shoved his way against the flow of traffic. If those two really were following him, then they were going to have to swim upstream.

A little off the main streets, safe from the newbs and part-timers, Scott ducked into the One-Eyed Unicorn.

The wonder twins, Kellie and Kevin, were at Scott’s usual table in the corner with Mike_T_Boarkiller. Even though Mike and Kellie were in their mains, it looked like Kevin still hadn’t given up on beefing up his lame Dude_Farkowitz alt.

“What’s up, losers?” Scott grabbed a chair and dropped into it. Then, on second thought, he turned around and snapped his fingers at the bartender. “Yo, garcon! Beer for the table, on me.”

“On the way, great hero,” the bartender said, dipping his head in respect.

For once, Mike didn’t let out one of those redneck doofus whoops and slap Scott on the back. Kellie rolled her eyes at the mention of beer, but she always did that, acting like she was too good for a beer, even if somebody else was buying—and guess what, she always drank the beer anyway.

Scott would’ve just let it go, chalked it up to Kellie being difficult and Mike being away from his mic or something. He totally would have. Except Kevin wouldn’t look him in the eyes. Instead, the dork kind of hunched down into his armor, folding in on himself like some dweeby turtle.

“The hell’s up with you guys?” Scott said. “I got a mad hookup and the drinks are on me tonight. What, did you all go off the sauce for Lent or something? Mike, I know you’re not saying no to a beer.”

But the asshole shoved out of his chair and headed for the door, mumbling, “Just remembered I gotta go buy some... sword... potions.”

“Sword potions?” Scott turned to the scrunching Dude_Farkowitz. “Kev?”

Kevin stared at him, eyes wide, like a deer in the headlights.

“My goldfish are—”

“You haven’t had any fish since second grade,” Scott sneered.

“—waiting at the pet store for me to pick them up,” Kevin finished in a rush, then his character winked out of existence, leaving behind an empty chair.

Scott crossed his arms and cocked his head at Kellie.

“Well?” he said. “What’s your bullshit excuse for running away?”

Kellie let out a sigh of frustration. “It’s you, ass. You’re, like, persona non grata around the guild. Karma’s pissed with a capital P. We’re not even supposed to be talking to you or we can get ganked, too.”

Scott snorted. “What, is the crybaby mad I helped kill him?”

“Obviously,” Kellie said, rolling her eyes. “He’s got a totally new build, grinding like crazy.” She paused and stole a sidelong glance at him. “He put out a hit on you.”

“Whoop-ti-shit.”

“Members of the guild and anybody who wants in are supposed to kill you on sight,” Kellie said. “Even in non-PvP zones.”

Hearing that, Scott had to work to keep a sneer on his face. You could kill other players in town, but you got red flagged and hit with ginormous debuffs and penalties, not to mention stupid-high bounties for other players to kill you back.

“Whatever. Nobody’s going to go for that.”

“Yeah-huh.” Kellie nodded. “Karma said he would make it worth it. Majorly. The guild vault is wide open to anybody who racks up a PK from you.”

“So, what, then?” Scott asked. “You gonna gank me, Kel? After everything we’ve been through together, after all I’ve done for our party?”

“After that time you spilled spiked punch on me at prom and told Coach C I was the one who’d been drinking?” she drawled, brow raised.

“Fucking do it, then.” Scott threw his arms open wide. “If you’re such a hotshot, Kellie, do it. I’ll give you a freebie. Take me out. Then you can go running back to BK and blow him like everybody else around here.”

“You’re such a dick.” She drained the last of her wine and stood up.

Scott turned in his chair, arms still open, mirroring her exit, daring her to one-shot him even though she wasn’t looking his way anymore.

“Whoa.” Kellie almost ran into somebody in the doorway. “Look out.”

The hot goth chick and the rog who’d been following Scott earlier came into the Unicorn, Kellie shoving past them. This time he was sure it was them because he’d made sure to check their tags earlier: GothicTerror and Ya_Boy_Flappie_Sak.

“Watch where you’re going,” the goth snapped.

The last Scott saw of Kellie, she was giving them the finger. The goth chick pointed a wicked-looking black crossbow at Kel’s back, but didn’t pull the trigger.

“Oh no, pardon us,” Flappie_Sak called after her. “No way, it was our fault. Do allow us to get out of your way.”

Scott sat back in his chair, crossing his arms again while he checked Flappie_Sak’s and GothicTerror’s stats. Yep. Wannabe guild members, just starting the Pledge stage.

Well, shit. And just when he was starting to think that goth chick might be all right.

He grabbed his Unique Mace of Elemental Culmination, blue lightning popping and sparking between its razor-sharp flanges, and knocked over his chair standing up.

GothicTerror snorted. “Cute stick. Did your boyfriend win it for you?”

“Nah, I stole it out of your mom’s top drawer.” Scott raised a fist to call down Doomsweep, his new most powerful elemental spell.

But the goth chick split into three identical dark elves, which his Doomsweep wouldn’t cover until at least level 3, when he unlocked the Chain Cast version. GothicTerror’s triplets spread out around the room and pointed their crossbows at Scott.

“Whatever, hoochie.” Scott rolled his eyes. “I one-shotted a mermaid mob at Tidal Cliffs who could do the same fancy-shmancy trick, so don’t act like you’re hot shit.”

The middle one of her smirked. “My doppelgangers all get full Health.”

“For a level 11, that’s what, like, 36 HP? Big fucking deal.”

“Bad_Karma says hi,” the one of her farthest to Scott’s right said.

“Fuck Bad_Kar—”

All three bolts hit him at the same time, frying his bones with some kind of Undead Chaos Combo. Basically a nightmare for any cleric. But that wasn’t what killed Scott.

Nope, what killed him was the rog he’d forgotten about. The shitstick had snuck around behind Scott while GothicTerror kept him talking, and when her asshole triplets shot him, her buddy Flappie_Sak chopped off his head.

[2x Stealth Modifier]

Scott watched his headless corpse tumble across the floor in that exaggerated rag-doll effect he found hilarious when it happened to someone else. As the One-Eyed Unicorn faded to black, he caught sight of the goth chick—just one of her now—picking up his head and dropping it into her Inventory.

Those dickfaces were going to get murdered to death when he respawned. Them and anybody else who wanted a piece.

Transmuting Troubles

ROARK WATCHED FROM the carved onyx throne nestled deep in the heart of the Citadel as the latest company of Heralds swooped into the entry hall six floors overhead. This time, Lowen had sent sixteen of the winged nuisances, as if greater numbers would guarantee strength enough to bash their way through Roark’s newest addition to the Citadel’s portal plates.

It wouldn’t.

He began the countdown in his head. Four... three... two...

The last gold-skinned Herald flew over the threshold, glittering in the oily torchlight of the crumbling Citadel.

“Now!” Druz barked.

A dozen Thursrs, Reavers, and even a lowly Changeling popped out of their hiding places and sent a volley of spears and arrows screaming toward the Heralds. Simple weapons that could hardly harm even the lowliest heroes in Hearthworld, never mind the top-level Heralds. But, as always, the winged menace answered back with magical wards and dazzling bursts of Divine attack spells.

With a flash of blue, the Heavenly Ward runes activated, and the Heralds were immediately transported, whisked away to the treacherous cliffs adorning the Star Iron Hills. If they were truly motivated and utilized portal magick, they could be back to the bailey within the hour. If not, it would be much longer. Assuming they returned at all. There were always a few who didn’t survive the damage they suffered from the Discordant Inversion and Deflection spell. Viago in particular had stopped returning with the raids, probably trying to regain the levels he’d lost every time he’d been sent for respawn.

Roark grinned.

“Like clockwork,” he muttered to himself.

For the past few days, Lowen’s toadies had been attacking in turns, trying to suss out the weaknesses in the new defenses Roark had installed. Thus far, none of them had made it past the first floor. The moment they saw Druz’s patrol, they began firing off spells, triggering Heavenly Ward and transporting themselves far, far away. One squadron had tried as many as eight times in as many hours before growing frustrated and flying off in a huff.

Most gave up long before that.

Roark closed the Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire and stood, heading for his study. This newest batch didn’t have the look of commitment that the record-holding squadron had. He gave them one more time, two at the most, before they fluttered away in defeat.

So far, not a single one of Lowen’s glorified moths had realized the secret—if they just walked through the Citadel using their swords and axes, they would be unstoppable. But Lowen and his ilk would never think of that. They’d been trained in magick from the day their families had knelt to lick Marek’s boots. Some of them even before. They’d never been forced to solve a problem without it, and so they had come to rely on it far too heavily. Roark would be willing to lay money down that half of them couldn’t use the privy without magick.

Not a habit Roark had had the luxury of falling into.

Danella, the golden-haired thief who’d first shown him how to cheat and steal his way to food in his belly and a roof over his head, had found the spells he could do interesting, but ultimately impractical. Her mind had run more toward the pocketful of blinding peppered sand and the hidden dagger in the kidney. After her, there had been Pauli Ironsides, the leader of the resistance in Frahoi and the first of the T’verzet to take Roark seriously as a man who wanted revenge rather than just another angry boy. Pauli had taken his surname from his days as the undefeated bare-knuckle fighting champion across all of Traisbin, and he’d taken the time to pass on quite a bit of his brawling knowledge to Roark. While Pauli trained him, Roark hadn’t been allowed to use the same attack twice.

Our opponents aren’t what kill us, boy, our habits are. Pauli had explained as he picked a much younger Roark up off the dirt floor of a safe house after nearly taking his head off. A man with a sharp eye and a keen memory will see you feint the first time and do just enough to save himself. Then he’ll see you feint the second time and open your guts.

Unfortunately, Roark knew all too well that Lowen had a sharp eye and a keen memory. At no older than Roark was, the insufferable, overwriting ass had been the one to hang Pauli’s hole-riddled corpse from a pole in the Frahoi square, making jokes about blackthorn beds all the while.

Roark shouldered his way through the heavy oak door into his study. He didn’t intend to give Lowen the satisfaction of opening his guts. His magick and weapon-play had fallen into a rut of late, but he wasn’t going to stay there any longer. Especially not now that he’d unlocked a new World Stone ability. With a thought, Roark’s grimoire appeared before his eyes, automatically opening to his character page. Roark hadn’t distributed the ten stat points he’d earned from leveling to 40—he’d wanted to discover what exactly Transmute Flesh did before divvying up the points. As a Jotnar Infernali, his strengths leaned toward Intelligence and, to a lesser extent, Dexterity, but perhaps having a few added points in Strength or Constitution would be a boon when altering his physical form.

Unfortunately, after days of trial and error, he was still no closer to cracking the strange enigma that was Transmute Flesh.

Roark would figure out the secret eventually, but hanging onto those precious points until he did was too risky to keep up. Any edge could be the difference between life and death.

Given what little he did know, Roark decided to drop five points into Intelligence—which governed his Infernali Magick—two points into Strength, another two into Dexterity, and a single point into Constitution.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

IT SEEMED HE HAD ALSO earned a new Jotnar Spell, Infernal Thunder. He glanced over the specifications.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Infernal Thunder

Attack Spell

Range: 40 feet

Casting Time: Instant

Casting Cost: 11% Base Magicka

With a shout of your booming voice, Infernal Thunder shakes the earth, inflicting (2 Damage x character level) and tripping opponents with less than .5n where n is caster’s Dexterity.

Note: Infernal Thunder disrupts concentration-based spells when it causes opponent to trip or lose eye contact.

Note: Divine creatures are invulnerable to Infernal spells.

╠═╦╬╧╪

A useful spell, to be sure, but it wasn’t what Roark was most interested in of his new acquisitions. Eagerly, Roark turned to the page marked with a ribbon that said World Stone.

╠═╦╬╧╪

World Stone Pendant

Durability: Indestructible

Level Restriction: 1

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

Current World Stone Authority: Greater Vassal 11/18; Lesser Vassal 65/125

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

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

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

Property: ???

Property: ???

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

╠═╦╬╧╪

Roark read and reread the description as he ran his thumb absently over the face of the pendant, trying to discern its true purpose. Its origins. His conversation with PwnrBwner earlier made him more aware than ever just how valuable and powerful this stone really was. Marek had magickal powers beyond what was considered possible by the standards of Traisbin. If this stone allowed powers to pass from one realm to another, as PwnrBwner had described, that would explain so very much. The possibility kindled an ember of hope inside Roark.

The World Stone, however, was in no rush to reveal its abilities in full.

Even the description of his new ability, Transmute Flesh, was as vague as every other ability he’d gained from the stolen pendant.

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

So far, every World Stone ability he’d unlocked had been earth-shaking—granting life to the mindless creatures of Hearthworld, forging elaborate glamours, even allowing him to fundamentally alter magick itself. Likewise, this new skill sounded powerful, but so far, his attempts to use it had been experiments in futility. In theory, he should have been able to alter and edit creatures the same way he could alter, edit, and even merge spells. Perhaps even find a way to change his nature from that of a Jotnar to something else entirely, something more powerful and, hopefully, with a higher Evolutionary level cap.

Except he couldn’t get the twice-damned ability to do anything.

He turned to the page containing the slowly rotating doppelganger of his Jotnar form, the mirror image of himself in Hearthworld, along with any armor, jewelry, or weapons he was currently wearing. PwnrBwner and Randy both referred to this doppelganger as his avatar. Roark could access his own avatar from his personal grimoire, and—he’d recently learned—he could access the avatars of any of his vassals or Trolls from the Citadel through the grimoire tied to the Dungeon Lord’s Throne.

Once Roark had been given the option to adjust his looks, he’d added a tinge of his natural olive complexion, enough that though he was still ghostly pale, he could almost pass for human in this world. He’d left his hair shaggy and black, but played with his facial features until they were more or less in the right proportions—deep-set, brooding eyes, the slightly hooked nose that gave away his mother’s Lyuko traveler blood, his father’s sharp jawline—though he hadn’t been able to get rid of the serrated onyx teeth in his mouth. The wings behind his back no longer looked like the crippled, shriveled things he’d had since choosing the Jotnar Evolutionary Path. They were now fully functioning appendages, complete with glowing runic tattoos and barbed spikes, which had already proven deadly more than once.

Not for the first time since adding them, Roark glanced over the curling horns on either side of his head. He left them as they were. They severely limited the types of helmet he could wear, but they came with a respectable armor rating of their own, and Zyra seemed especially fond of them.

His greatest weakness in the fight against Lowen was his respawn level cap—any time he died, he respawned as a level 36. Lowen, on the other hand, would respawn at level 72, just like Viago and every other one of the winged flunkies taken out by the Heavenly Ward’s spate of Undead damage. No matter how high Roark climbed, a single death would cost him endless grinding and leave him vulnerable for Lowen to grief him as badly as Roark had PwnrBwner before their truce.

Letting his breath out slowly, Roark took out a quill and concentrated on his avatar. He’d tried half a dozen ways to Transmute Flesh on himself, but all had fizzled and ultimately failed. Perhaps if he treated it like Transmute Magick, where all that was required was to inscribe the Curse Chain in his Initiate’s Spell Book, then the rune could be used unlimited numbers of times.

He wrote, My respawn level changes permanently to level 99.

There was a flash, then a flat-sounding tone. A scrap of parchment covered his field of vision.

[Error! Requirement Restriction: You lack a Compatible Transmutation Core.]

It was the same response he’d received every time he tried Transmute Flesh. Roark scowled and slammed his grimoire shut with a thought.

The doppelganger wasn’t his actual flesh. Maybe that was the issue. Leaving the grimoire closed, he pulled the leather vambrace from his left arm and wrote My respawn level changes permanently to level 99. on his forearm.

[Error! Requirement Restriction: You lack a Compatible Transmutation Core.]

Roark hurled his quill down on his desk and dragged a clawed hand through his black hair.

“What the seven hells is a Compatible Transmutation Core?” he growled to the empty study.

Not surprisingly, no one answered.

He opened his grimoire once more and turned to the ribbon marked WikiLore, which had become an invaluable tool over the past few days. The WikiLore, and its ridiculous banks of knowledge, was a true godsend—without it, he never would’ve managed to create the Heavenly Ward Curse Chain. Roark searched for Compatible Transmutation Core first, then when that yielded nothing, tried Transmute Flesh. Once more, he came up empty-handed. He tried a number of spelling variations, since those who contributed to the Wiki often seemed to be near illiterate, but that too proved fruitless.

Begrudgingly, Roark had to admit that the lack of information on the ability made a certain kind of sense. Even if it was supremely inconvenient. The WikiLore held the combined knowledge of Hearthworld, and the World Stone Pendant, as far as Roark knew, had come from Traisbin. Or at the very least somewhere in his home dimension.

Somehow, somehow, that was the key—the fact that the World Stone was unique to another world. He felt certain of it. He just couldn’t puzzle out what door that key unlocked.

As he scowled down at the pendant, a shred of long-forgotten advice from his father, Sir Erich von Graf, flitted through Roark’s mind.

Frustration, anger, fear—each one leads to mistakes, and more often than not, magick won’t leave you alive to make a mistake twice. When you find yourself growing angry or frustrated, the smartest step to take is out the door. Find something else to occupy your mind until the hot blood cools and you can think clearly once more.

Strangely, the words from the ghost of a memory made Roark feel somewhat better. He had thought he’d forgotten the sound of his father’s voice.

Feeling slightly lighter, Roark took the memory’s advice to heart and left the dark confines of his study behind to check on the workings throughout the Troll Nation. He could make the rounds, then come back to wrestle with Transmute Flesh later with a fresh mind. Among the myriad things he needed to do, following up with Griff about creating a constabulary and infrastructure for the young nation was high on the list of priorities, especially if the Troll Nation was to continue growing and thriving.

Roark headed for the marketplace. That was as good a place as any to start.

Constabulary

IT WASN’T HARD TO FIND Griff. His hangers-on were more numerous and louder than ever, surrounding the training grounds so thoroughly that Roark had to shove his way through them to get to the tunnels that led below.

A gasp went up behind him, but when Roark turned back, he didn’t see anyone looking his way. He continued down to doors etched with Curse Chains that would only allow them to open at the touch of Griff or one of the other charter members of the Troll Nation.

As he let himself inside, however, Roark felt something brush against his back. He spun, flicking out his wings defensively and throwing out a Dispel Magick. An Imp Enchantress tumbled back up the tunnel, her invisibility dispelled in a golden flash. She’d been trying to slip into the pit behind Roark.

“Fun-stealer!” she yelled at him, shaking a tiny pink fist. “I only wanted to touch his hair!”

Roark shook his head. “Trainees only in the pit.”

She started the cast for something nasty, but Roark opened his wings as wide as they would go in the enclosed space and bared his serrated black teeth.

“Whatever you’re preparing to throw at me is nothing like the wrath I can visit upon you, little Imp,” he growled. “Ask yourself truly whether your infatuation with Griff is worth dying for... or worse.”

The little pink creature scuttled backward like a crab until she was well out of reach, then hissed at him, eyes narrowing in hateful defiance. In a way, it was refreshing to come across a creature in the Troll Nation who wasn’t cowed by his status as Dungeon Lord. All the same, Roark didn’t want to have to destroy the Imp over something so trivial. Luckily, she let the spell she’d been preparing to hurl dissipate. Mobs could be bloodthirsty at times, but despite what the heroes of Hearthworld thought, those at higher levels were not mere dumb beasts.

[Congratulations, you have successfully Intimidated a level 9 Imp Enchantress. All victims of Intimidation with less than .25 x your Intelligence suffer from Fright for 45 seconds. Sometimes a big enough bark is all you need...]

Huffing a laugh, Roark headed down into the pit and made certain to shut the door securely behind himself. He knew he shouldn’t find Griff’s fans so amusing, as they were obviously annoying the grizzled old trainer, but Roark had to admit that they were far more entertaining and harmless than the rest of the problems he had to tackle as Dungeon Lord and leader of the Troll Nation.

In the churned dirt of the pit, Griff was busy running a group of varied mobs through drills Roark hadn’t seen him use before.

“Phalanx,” Griff barked.

The trainees all produced identical shields and darted into a defensive formation, locking their shields together to form a line.

“On the attack,” Griff ordered.

Crossbows leveled in the small notch between each shield.

“Press!”

As one, the trainees began to inch their line forward toward an invisible enemy.

“Surround!”

Without missing a step, the formation broke up, and the trainees spun outward, spreading themselves in twos around a central imaginary threat, one protecting the other with their shields. It was quite the display. Their perfect coordination reminded Roark of the elaborate ballets he’d attended as a child, back in those golden days when Marek was nothing more than a dark whisper on the wind, and Roark’s family was still alive and happy. He and his sister, Talise—only five at the time—had often giggled and whispered during the performances, earning sharp glares from their Lyuko nursemaid, Florina. “Neutralize magick user,” Griff shouted.

The non-shield bearer of the pairs all mimed casting spells at the central threat, then ducked back behind their partner’s shield.

“Now, a weapons user!”

The spellcasters produced their own shields, and as one, the group pressed in, until their shields were locked together in an impenetrable circle of implacable steel. Then a dense-looking crystalline mob with [Mose Hardscale] in spidery white text over his head gave a shout and leapt into the center, tackling the unseen enemy while his fellow trainees closed ranks.

When they had finished the subduing drill, they returned to their lines and stood at attention.

“Well, what do you think of the Rumble Crew?” Griff asked, turning sharply on a heel and fixing Roark with his piercing blue gaze.

Roark glanced over the line. There were twenty of them all told, and over half were mobs from outside the Cruel Citadel. He recognized several who had emigrated to the dungeon permanently, either coming in from the wilds or leaving lesser dungeons across Hearthworld that had refused Roark’s offers of allegiance.

“Impressive,” he said, and meant it sincerely. It was amazing what the grizzled old arena hand had done with a such a disparate group in the span of only a few days. “They’re already acting as a cohesive unit.”

“They were a bit slow on that final takedown,” Griff said, looking pointedly at the crystalline Mose Hardscale. The one-eyed weapons trainer turned back to Roark, a bit of a grin slipping out when the trainees couldn’t see it. “But I’m thinking with enough work, they might shape up all right. I imagine Grozka the Zealot will make sure they get plenty of that.”

“May I address them?” Roark asked, not wanting to undermine Griff’s authority in front of his troops—and they did seem to be his troops, even if Grozka would eventually be running the show.

“Naturally, Dungeon Lord,” Griff said with a dip of his head. “Attention!”

The troops fixed their eyes firmly ahead, backs going ramrod straight at Griff’s barked order. Roark positioned himself in front of the platoon, folding his hands behind his back as he regarded each of them.

“I recognize several of you, but others are new to me. Faces I have never seen before, from dungeons I’ve never heard of.” That caused a fluttering stir of murmurs from the onlookers, but Roark pressed on. “Despite the fact that this isn’t your home, you have come ready to fight for it. To uphold its rules and laws. And that, my fellows, is what Troll Nation is all about. It’s a dream of a better place for all of us, where we can make more of our lives than simple cannon fodder for the tyrannical heroes of this land.”

The assembled force seemed to swell at his words, chests inflating with pride.

“Being a member of the Troll Nation guard won’t be a glamorous job. It’s long hours. Work that’s often tedious and painful. You’ll be equipped appropriately and rewarded as we’re able, but the greatest reward I can extend to you is the chance to become one of my Lesser Vassals, regardless of your breeding or dungeon lineage. Accepting will indebt me to you as well as allow you to strengthen and level your abilities, potentially even open new classes to you. But this is not mandatory—I’m no tyrant and you’re not tools shaped for my hand. This is simply a small way to honor your sacrifice and commitment to the Troll Nation. Who would like me to bestow this upon them?”

Every hand in the group shot up into the air, including the glittering mitt of the oversized crystalline Mose Hardscale.

Roark smiled and quietly made his way through the ranks, offering each a few words of encouragement as he used the World Stone Pendant to make them a Lesser Vassal. When he was finally done, he slipped from the formation and retreated a few paces, nodding for Griff to resume.

The grizzled arena warrior offered Roark a small, somber nod, then took his place at the head of the platoon.

“Squad Leader Hardscale,” Griff barked, “today you have been become more than what you were spawned. Not above the law, but its caretaker. Take your crew to report to Grozka for assignments.”

The crystalline humanoid gave Griff a sharp nod, then stepped out of the line and called his squad to action. The Rumble Crew leapt to obey, following their squad leader from the arena in neat formation.

“Grozka accepted the position as constable, then?” Roark asked, stepping closer to Griff and lowering his voice.

Griff nodded. “She’s taking over with this lot, and I’ll start training up the next squad, and so on until we have plenty of shifts to patrol around the clock.”

Roark raised one brow. “You sound concerned. That seems like a wise plan. Is there something I’m missing?”

“No, you’re right,” Griff said, pawing at his gray-stubbled jaw. He turned his eye up toward his crowd of fans. “It’s just these damned sycophants. I thought once responsibility passed on to somebody else, they’d realize I’m nothing to bother over and move on, but hack me open if they don’t seem to be multiplying.”

Roark nodded. “I thought much the same as I was coming in.”

“Haven’t come up with any quick solutions yet?” Griff asked, hopefully.

If he were honest, Roark had forgotten his promise to find a deterrent for Griff’s fans in the rush to fortify the Citadel against Lowen’s attacks and uncover the secrets of the World Stone’s newest ability. He scrubbed a hand down his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, truly meaning it. “I’ll put everything I have into it. Maybe Zyra can mix up some sort of potion that will make you less attractive to them.”

“Couldn’t hurt to ask,” Griff agreed. Then he snapped his fingers. “Speaking of, Griefer, the Zealot and I came up with a few requests for our new law enforcers. They’ll need proper billeting, if you’ve got the resources to spare, and we could use guard stations around the marketplace.”

He dug into his leather jerkin with one scar-crossed hand and pulled out a few scraps of parchment. The top one he handed to Roark first.

“I had Kaz draw it up with his Cartography skill,” Griff said. “It’s a map with the proposed stations marked in red.”

Roark looked over it, nodding. “These should be simple enough to construct from the Troll Nation throne, and I can add more barracks on Grozka’s floor if she agrees to house the squads.”

“I imagine she’ll be amenable to it,” Griff said with a curt nod.

The trainer held out the other bit of parchment. The drawings on it were cruder than the map, but far more intriguing to Roark’s Smithing and Enchanting eye.

“Blueprints?” he asked. “And these look like teleportation schemata.”

“Ayuh,” Griff said. “Something to allow the crews to get around at high speed. Rally to their fellows as soon as they need to muster.”

Roark nodded, excitement prickling along his skin.

“I could smith badges keyed to runes set at certain points throughout the marketplace and Citadel,” he said, his mind already working through the parameters a group as varied as the Rumble Crew would require. “Maybe add a mass alarm spell that notifies them all at once when there’s a threat.”

Griff grinned triumphantly. “There you go. I knew you were the right man for this job.”

“I’ll get to work on them tonight,” Roark said, tucking the blueprints into his leathers. “Though it may take some experimentation to get them right.”

Right meaning a badge that not only transported them to the corresponding runic key, but one that did so without killing the wearer. Though Roark chose not to mention that particular detail while he was within earshot of the badges’ future owners.

“Good deal,” Griff said. “I’ll seek you out once I’ve got a spare moment between squads to talk about possible”—is eye rolled up again to glare at the attentive crowd overhead— “solutions to that mess.”

With a quick farewell, Roark headed back out into the Troll Nation Marketplace and made for the smithy. He was excited for the challenge of making up the badges. And, having something to focus on besides Transmute Flesh and Lowen’s imminent war had invigorated him more than a fresh Stamina potion. He would need a light but sturdy metal, one that wasn’t valuable enough to entice the greedy into stealing it. Or perhaps he could add an exclusionary Curse to the badges, requiring that only a member of the Troll Nation constabulary could possess them.

Yes, that was an idea.

His mind was so busy cranking through possible runes, gemstones, and metals that he hardly noticed he’d made it to the smithy. The apprentices there shouted greetings over the ringing of hammers and roar of the fire, but Roark only spared them an absent acknowledgment before heading back to his private smithy.

Steel, he had decided, would provide the best durability for the badges without adding an irresistible value. For gemstones, he would inlay the back of each badge with a hidden diamond for added Strength and Constitution, a pearl to amplify the caster’s spells, and a lapis for augmented Speed. All of the Flawless quality, of course. The Troll Nation’s treasury could easily afford the expense, and it would be well worth giving the constabulary all the help he could to keep the peace.

Roark grabbed bars of Pig Iron and Carbon from his private metals collection. He had just begun stoking up the forge when an explosion rocked the ground beneath his feet.

He dropped the metals and he drew his Slender Rapier, racing back out into the street.

Was this some new attack by Lowen?

No cry of Heralds went up in the marketplace, however. All over, mobs and NPCs had stopped in their tracks, some flinging spells out of instinct, others frozen and clutching their hearts in terror. Roark followed their shocked stares to the alchemy shop next door.

Smoke billowed from the shattered windows, amidst frantic hacking and coughing. One voice rang out over the rest: Zyra, cursing floridly and shouting death threats.

With a sigh, Roark sheathed his rapier.

Her latest batch of apprentices must have arrived.

Control Freak

[YOU HAVE BEEN POISONED! Suffer 2HP boiling blood damage/sec for 30 seconds or until antidote has been consumed.]

[Roark the Griefer has resisted poison damage and boiling blood damage!]

Roark blinked away the notice, thankful he was still wearing the Clearblood Ring, and pawed at the noxious smoke filling the alchemy lab. It was a losing battle. The smoke was too thick to wave away, and he could hardly see his clawed hand in front of his face.

“Worthless!” Zyra’s voice shouted somewhere in the lab. “Each and every one of you ham-fisted imbeciles had better be dead when this smoke clears! Where is that bloody Bird of Hurricanes Wing?”

That touched off a spark of inspiration in Roark’s mind. He opened his wings, beating at the smoke with them until the air was clear enough to see.

Visibility returned slowly, showing him a lab strewn with lower-level mobs—two Trolls and one shiny-scaled Naga. Each one had smoking, bloody holes where their eyes had been, and foamy blood puddled around their mouths, wisps of steam still curling from the surface.

Zyra stood by a shelf to Roark’s right, digging through ingredients and alchemy tools.

“There you are.” She turned around and swiped a huge fan of blue-gray feathers as long as her arm through the air. Immediately, a screaming gale filled the room, powerful winds blowing the last of the deadly smoke away.

With another flourish of the fan, the squall died out, and the room stilled once more. Zyra’s hood turned to Roark.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said. She nodded down at the corpses. “You made it just in time to see my latest group of apprentices get their walking notices.”

Roark frowned. “What happened this time?”

“Hissst just blew up a cloud-based blood poison and killed everyone but me,” she said, tossing the fan on the shelf and striding to one of the many racks of glass tubes. She tapped the side, then nodded. “I told her not to add the Powdered Draconic Root until the solution had absorbed the last of the Charcoal.”

“It didn’t affect you because of your immunities?” Roark asked.

Zyra shrugged one midnight shoulder and plucked the steaming tube out of its wooden rack.

“I would’ve survived because of my level, anyway. It just would have been a couple of very uncomfortable seconds until I cooked up the correct antidote.” She dumped the contents of the tube out the shattered window. Something outside crackled, then hissed, and a curl of blue smoke trailed upward and dissolved in the breeze. “These fools should be grateful to Hissst they’re dead. She did all of us a favor there.”

“But...” Roark scrubbed his hand down his face in frustration. “Zyra, the others didn’t even make a mistake.”

“They would have eventually.”

“You can’t know that!”

The hood swiveled back to him, and Roark could feel her mismatched purple and green eyes lock onto his. “I’ve spent the last two days with these morons underfoot, Griefer. They’re all just as careless as when they started, and not a single one of them has completed the Immunity Protocol Quest I gave them. If they had, we wouldn’t be arguing over their corpses right now. The first useful thing they’ve done since apprenticing to me is poison themselves.”

“We’ve talked about this. They can’t learn from their mistakes if you never give them a second chance.”

“Compromising my standards won’t do my apprentices any favors.” She crossed her arms and leaned her hip against the windowsill. “Septic Brewing isn’t a field of second chances. There’s success, and there’s death. Horrible, excruciating, bloody death. And the more I relax my requirements, the more apprentices suffer and die.”

“You’re working yourself ten times as hard as you should have to,” he said, trying to change tack and approach the subject from another angle. “Aren’t there simple jobs around the lab an apprentice could do while you focus on the dangerous tasks? Crushing ingredients? Washing titration pipes? Hells, sweeping the bloody floor until they’ve got enough experience to take on some of the more complex chores?”

She laughed bitterly. “I suppose I’m the only one working myself to death on chores someone else could take care of? Tell me, Dungeon Lord, what’s that in your hand? A project too advanced for any of your Smithing and Enchanting apprentices to complete?”

Roark glanced down at the scrap of parchment clutched in his fist. He’d forgotten about the blueprint for the badges in all the chaos.

“This is different,” he insisted. “If I don’t key these perfectly—”

“Someone might die?” Zyra challenged him, raising her head until her midnight chin stuck out of her hood. “We might supply creatures from another dungeon with a shoddy product that fails them at the moment it’s needed most, costing us valuable allies? Resources wasted by inefficient, low-level crafting might lead to a shortage of vital materials just when the Troll Nation is most vulnerable?”

“Which do you think is more costly?” he asked her. “Not having enough potions and poisons to meet the Troll Nation’s demand, or not having the full concentration of the Citadel’s most important assassin during a major battle because she’s worried about grinding up two thousand of some root?”

“I see. And just how have you spent your last few days, Dungeon Lord?” Zyra sneered. “I noticed you’ve been rather scarce since the Heralds started their incursions. You haven’t taken any Hexorcist apprentices, either. Could that be because your class is highly dangerous for anyone who isn’t as skilled and dedicated as yourself?”

Roark scowled. She wasn’t wrong, and that only frustrated him more.

“That’s what this is about, then?” He flung a hand out, gesturing at the hooded Reaver. “No one could possibly be as clever and deadly as the great Zyra.”

She chuckled. “No one can be as clever or deadly as me.”

Roark gritted his teeth.

“Not if you refuse to teach them how,” he insisted. He regretted what he was about to say before he even opened his mouth, but that didn’t stop him from hurling the accusation at her anyway. “I’ve seen this before. A street urchin who finally gets something of her own, then can’t bear the thought of sharing it with anyone else.”

Zyra pushed lightly away from the windowsill and prowled across the floor toward him, fingers flexing, revealing sharp, deadly claws coated in virulent poison, making Roark doubly grateful that he’d worn the Clearblood Ring today.

“What does that say about you, O Great and Powerful Dungeon Lord?” she murmured. She stopped a hairsbreadth from pressing full-bodied against him and leaned in until he could feel the warm puff of air from each word on his cheek. The sweet, lethal scent of coquelicot petals filled his lungs. “You’re so addicted to control that you can’t give up a single job you might be able to do. You can’t resist a single burden you might be able to shoulder alone, even if there are more than enough of us around to do it for you.”

Roark opened his mouth to contradict her, not because she was wrong but because he didn’t want to admit that she wasn’t. Before he could say anything, she reached up and traced an onyx claw across his bottom lip in a burning line. Without thinking about it, his hands reached for her, trying to draw her closer.

“We may drink it from different bottles, Griefer, but we’re both drinking the same poison,” Zyra purred, “and neither of us is willing to give it up. Anything else and you never would’ve won my respect in the first place.”

Without warning, the hooded Reaver stepped back abruptly, breaking his dreamlike trance as effectively as a bucket of icy water.

“I’m a splintercat, Griefer, and I can’t change my stripes any more than you can,” she said in a cheerful voice that grated across Roark’s overly stimulated senses. “We’re the same, and until you can admit that, I doubt you’ll be able to convince anyone in this lab of anything.”

Roark balled his fists at his sides. He could feel a muscle in his jaw twitching and blood thundering through his veins.

“I’ll find you a bloody apprentice,” he snapped. “One even you can’t fault.”

She laughed and turned back to her work. “Good luck.”

Still gritting his teeth, he spun on his heel and stormed out of the alchemy shop. She was so damned pigheaded, even when he was only trying to help her, and she knew how to crawl under his skin like no one else. The fact that she had been right only made him angrier. Where in Hearthworld was he going to find an apprentice half as pigheaded as Zyra was?

Trolls, allied mobs, and NPCs scrambled out of his way as if the black mood he was in hung over him like a storm cloud.

Parchment crinkled in his fist. Griff’s blueprints.

Roark didn’t want to prove Zyra right by going directly back to the forge to work on something he could easily have his apprentices smithing. In fact—

He took a sharp turn into the smithy.

“Good ter see ya, Dungeon Lord!” one of the Thursrs called as he passed by, carrying a red-hot melting pot in a set of tongs.

Roark gave the Thursr a nod and headed straight for the head of the smithy, a level 9 Changeling angling for a Jotnar Evolution.

“Dungeon Lord,” the Changeling croaked, his bulging eyes shining with the combination of assessment and begrudging respect Roark only ever saw in other Jotnars and potential Jotnars.

“Vang, I have a top-priority smithing project I need completed as soon as possible,” he said, producing the blueprints. “Steel, and nothing below Peerless quality on the gems.”

“I’ll craft every piece myself.” The Changeling evaluated the plans for a moment, then looked up at Roark. “How many in the order?”

“Start with forty,” Roark said. That would give him plenty to experiment with. “If those hold up, we’ll need at least two more batches.”

“Consider it done,” Vang said, then hustled off to the apprentices’ forge.

Oddly, Roark felt a small measure of weight slide from his shoulders. Damn Zyra for being right.

“If anyone comes looking for me,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the bellows Vang was busy pumping, “tell her I went to see Kaz because I have apprentices I can trust, and their competence gives me so much extra time to relax and accomplish other Dungeon Lord tasks.”

Vang nodded without looking up from his work.

Roark grimaced and shook his head at his own ridiculous need to prove something to a Reaver who wasn’t even there, then made his way out of the smithy. Blast her to the very bottom of the seventh circle of Hell. She was so bloody impossible. Worse, that only made him desire her even more.

Bludgeoning his thoughts of Zyra into submission, Roark tore away from the forge, long strides carrying him through the marketplace and toward Portal to Flavortown. If anyone could lighten his mood, it would be Kaz.

Besides, he realized, it had been far too long since he’d had a proper meal and he was starving. A meal with both salt and copious amounts of garlic sounded excellent.

Lunch Rush

ROARK HAD SEEN PORTAL to Flavortown doing bustling trade before, but he’d never seen it quite so full as it was today. The queue for a table stretched around the corner, and hulking Thursrs patrolled at intervals to keep minor disagreements from turning into full-scale riots. Here and there, a few waiting customers watched Roark pass and nudged their companions to point out the Dungeon Lord, but for the most part, the most popular topics of conversation in the line seemed evenly spread between Kaz’s newest dishes and the talented young bard who entertained the common room.

“I heard he killed a rog in a knife fight over a woman, and that’s why he had to leave Lucite.”

“You can taste the smoky, buttery flavor of roasted garlic in every bite!”

“Word is he seduced the mayor’s wife and had to make a run for it.”

“The crunch is heavenly. Lighter than bone, but still satisfying.”

“He weren’t singin’ to you, fool, he were singin’ to me! He looked right at me.”

“I’m telling you, one bite of the Mighty Gourmet’s skewers and you’ll never go back to raw hero liver.”

Finally, Roark found his way past the noisy crowd, squeezed between the enormous meat smokers set up around the back of the inn like a line of sentinels, and ducked into the kitchen entrance.

The combination of the constant movement, noise, and rich savory smells was a shock to Roark’s senses. The stormy mood he’d brought with him was forgotten in an instant.

Mai’s voice hit him like a stiff slap. “A round of brews to table four!” she barked like a master-at-arms. “Slower with that crank, Crut, it’s caramelization of the skin we’re looking for, and yeh can be sure you won’t get it like that. Glory! Who’s on dishwashing duty?”

Throughout the kitchen, apprentice chefs sautéed, roasted, stewed, chopped, sauced, and plated. Servers—easily spotted by the Clean Linen Cloth draped over their left arms—darted in and out, grabbing platters of food, bowls of stew, and flagons of ale, while Mai played go-between for the servers and the kitchen, calling out orders and tables.

Nearby, Kaz bounded up and down the line of apprentices, eyeing their preparations, adjusting grips on knives, and demonstrating better stirring techniques. Now and again, he tasted sauces, smacked his lips, and cocked his head slightly to the side, declaring, “It is good, but could use a hint more salt.” Seeing the kindhearted Knight work the line was gratifying, but it also pulled his mind back to Zyra and to his own inefficiencies as a Smithing trainer. The differences between him and Kaz were as stark a contrast as day was to night. The Mighty Gourmet encouraged, never scowled, taught without lording his knowledge over others, and led by skillful example and raw enthusiasm.

Truly, it was a sight to behold, and the result of Kaz’s natural leadership was a bustling business that was the literal talk of the town. Seeing this steeled Roark’s resolve to stamp out the need for control that had dominated his own forge.

Mai’s pale blue eyes lit on Roark.

“We’re in the thick of the lunch rush, Dungeon Lord.” She grabbed an apron and bustled over to him, shoving it into his hands. “If you’ve a mind to stay, then you’ve a hand or two to put to work. Those leeks need chopped, and I can’t for love nor glory find my dishwasher. You’re welcome to exercise the Dungeon Lord’s privilege of choosing which you want to do first.”

Roark opened his mouth to say he’d be happy to help, but the buxom widow spun on her heel and called out, “That table of Harpy Ravagers is still waiting on their Fried Liver and Onions, Smoik!”

“Sorry, Ladychef Mai!” a mid-level Thursr mumbled, pulling at a forelock of greasy blue-black hair.

“Harpies can’t eat apologies.” Mai returned to her spot at the front of the kitchen and snatched a ticket from a little server. “Two more orders of skewers and a bowl of stew, extra garlic!”

A besotted sigh tickled Roark’s ear. Kaz had somehow snuck up beside him and was staring after the bellowing young widow like a lovesick puppy.

“Isn’t Mai so lovely when she’s working?” the Mighty Gourmet cooed. “Kaz could watch her all day. If there were no sauces to salt or garlic to roast.”

With some effort, Roark managed not to roll his eyes.

“That’s great, Kaz.” He moved to the pile of leeks and the chopping board Mai had indicated. “I’ll just start chopping these, shall I?”

Once begun, the work in the kitchen was wonderfully relaxing. Not having a skill slot open for Cooking, the only tasks Roark was qualified to do were simple, repetitive ones. He chopped hundreds of leeks, which an apprentice then impaled on wooden skewers along with meat and colorful peppers. When the leeks ran out, Roark moved on to the mountain of pots, dishes, plates, and utensils piling up beside a cauldron of hot, soapy water and started scrubbing.

He didn’t gain a single Experience point. He didn’t level up any of his abilities. Nothing and no one died—though Mai did make several open-ended threats throughout the service toward apprentices who weren’t working to her exact specifications. Roark’s station fell behind demand more often than it pulled even, but he worked hard and did his part, quietly enjoying the simple, honest work.

When the rush eventually tapered off to the usual endless stream, Kaz scooted his workstation across the kitchen to Roark’s washstand, the table’s clawed feet scraping across the floor, giving off a hair-raising banshee-like shriek the whole way.

Satisfied with his new position, Kaz went back to work on an experimental dish, half-facing Roark as he worked. According to the scribbles on a nearby piece of parchment, he was either going to name it Chili of Shakejoint Resistance or Ground Meat Stew with Red Sauce and Garlic That Prevents Quite a Lot of Sickness. Roark hoped for the Flavortown diners’ sake that Kaz chose the former.

“Kaz is so happy to work with Roark in the kitchen, just like the old days, slaying heroes and learning tradecraft skills together,” the Mighty Gourmet said. “But seeing Roark here is very curious. Working in the culinary arts is a high calling, but Roark has never shown any interest in learning it before.” He glanced sidelong at Roark, trying to hide burgeoning excitement behind a thoughtful expression. “Could it be that Roark has reconsidered Kaz’s offer to teach him the finer points of Cooking?”

Roark set a dripping bowl on the stack of clean dishware.

“Thanks again for the offer, mate, but I’ll have to pass. I think I just...” He dug another dirty dish out of the cauldron and began scrubbing, taking a second to search for the right words. “In the mountains where I was born, every year, there’s a season of heavy, unpredictable snows. You might be trapped inside your house for days or weeks waiting for them to pass. At first it’s pleasant, being unable to get out, having an excuse to avoid the next strategic assassination or working to collapse the Ustars’ hold on another city. A complete hold on all responsibility. After a while, however, even the small things in your home begin to feel enormous, crushing. Like the very walls are closing in on you.”

Kaz nodded sympathetically. “Dungeon fever.”

“Dungeon fever?”

“Oh yes.” Kaz crushed a handful of fresh herbs, then carefully stirred them into the simmering pot. Their aroma quickly suffused the kitchen, mixing with the mouthwatering tang of the garlic. “Some mobs catch it fearfully bad, when they grow tired of their home dungeon and feel as if they cannot live without feasting their eyes on something new. Those who come down with the worst cases often leave to roam the Wilds forever.” Then the Mighty Thursr’s eyes bulged out, and he dropped the ladle with a clatter. He rounded on Roark with panic etched into the lines of his face, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Roark is not thinking of leaving to roam the Wilds forever, is he?”

“Of course not.” Roark pried the Mighty Gourmet’s enormous paws from the meat of his shoulders. “I just need to get out for a bit, clear my thoughts. A day trip. A quest. Anything, as long as it’s outside the Cruel Citadel.”

Kaz’s stricken expression transformed into a wide, excited grin. “Kaz has just the thing! Deep in the pages of A Life Remembered and Re-Tasted: A Gry Feliri Memoire Vol. IV, Kaz read of a secret recipe page stolen from a lost cookbook of the greatest man in flavor. It took Kaz many minor step-quests and leveling up of his Cartography Trade Skill, but Kaz finally traced the location of the lost recipe to the cave of a Greater Hellstrike Jackal. They are vicious, unreasoning creatures that live only to kill. Kaz hasn’t gone because the creature is a level 62. Kaz cannot kill it on his own, but if Roark wants to go on an adventure outside the dungeon...”

As Kaz’s thought tapered off, parchment filled Roark’s vision.

╠═╦╬╧╪

The Lost Recipe of Gry Feliri

You have deciphered the code left in the A Life Remembered and Re-Tasted: A Gry Feliri Memoire Vol. IV, learned of the once-fabled tome and its stolen secret recipe page, tracked hearsay and whispers of the stolen page through the ages, and learned the final resting place of the page’s ill-fated last owner, but you’re not through yet! All that remains is to venture deep into Five-Alarm Cave, residence of the fiery and furious Greater Hellstrike Jackal, and recover the secret recipe from the body of the adventurous—and quite dead—chef.

Objective: Retrieve the secret recipe page from Five-Alarm Cave without dying

Reward: Gry Feliri’s Lost Recipe, 15,000 Experience, 1 Unknown Gourmet Specific Item

Failure: Fail to find Gry Feliri’s Lost Recipe or die before retrieving the Lost Recipe from Five-Alarm Cave.

Penalty: Locked forever from Gry Feliri’s Lost Recipe

Restrictions: None

Accept quest? Yes/No

╠═╦╬╧╪

For Roark, whether to accept was hardly even a question. Should he stay trapped in this dungeon for another moment or pit his fighting skills against a mob almost twice his level? He accepted enthusiastically. This quest was exactly what he needed. A little time away, a few good, clean kills with no ulterior motives or strategic significance. Even if it meant he wouldn’t level at all, he could use the challenge.

“That sounds perfect,” Roark said, turning back to Kaz. As he and Kaz had never faced something that powerful alone in its home territory, a couple of heroes who likely had experience with Hellstrike Jackals might come in handy. “Perhaps we should see whether PwnrBwner and Randy wish to come along, as well.”

Kaz clapped his hands and bounced on the balls of his huge feet. “Kaz will make a mountain of Saber Boar Bacon to take along as a healthy snack! Heroes adore bacon!”

While Kaz bustled off to inform Mai, Roark opened his personal grimoire and sent off a message to the Arboreal Herald and High Combat Cleric, detailing the quest.

Randy’s reply appeared within seconds.

Sure, I could use a win today. I’ll log in and be right over.

-Randy Shoemaker

It took a few minutes longer before PwnrBwner responded. As usual, it was filled with his low-class, overly dramatic language and hardly made any sense.

This is all your fault you son of a bitch! These dickweeds keep mercing me the second I step in. FUUUUUCK!!!

Roark rolled his eyes. Whatever new blame PwnrBwner was assigning to him, the Cleric could do with a primer in punctuation and spelling, not to mention a healthy dose of stoicism.

I take it you’re not coming, then? Roark sent back, hoping the sarcasm wasn’t too subtle for the hero’s underdeveloped language sensibilities to pick up on.

In place of a reply, a notification popped up:

PwnrBwner_OG’s status is currently set to Inactive. He will receive your message when he logs in again or respawns. Thank you!

With a shrug, Roark set off to gather up the things they would need for Kaz’s quest.

Home at Last

AS SOON AS RANDY GOT back to his apartment for the night, he went straight for his Voyage haptic feedback suit and Unity Framework Omnidirectional Treadmill—with the Miles and Miles upgrade for twice the stimulation of IRL with a fraction of the wear on the joints—and logged in to Hearthworld.

As soon as he heard the fanfare of the trumpets, it was like a weight rolled off his shoulders. The whole day had been one panic attack after another, but he could relax now. He was back in a world where everything made sense. Every action had an appropriately scaled consequence. Input equaled output, work equaled reward, and the harder the task, the greater the payout. In Hearthworld, when someone saw him, they didn’t sneer at him for being a scrawny nerd. They respected his power and skills. They saw his level and stats and could appreciate how much work he’d put in to get there.

A stiff breeze riffled through Randy’s hair, bringing with it the scent of charred meats and fresh spring grass. Nowhere near as powerful as the sensations in the POD Deep Dive capsules back in FrontFlip’s VIP lounge, but nothing to sneeze at, either. The Voyage wasn’t the best possible haptic feedback suit on the market, but it was darn close.

“Welcome, Randy Shoemaker!” the familiar voiceover boomed. “The battle awaits! Which character would you like to select?”

Randy selected his level 40 Arboreal Herald. It was one of his favorite builds, sort of a flying Druid class, but with stealth and DPS for days, along with a bevy of cool spells that he actually knew how to work in-game. Just to prove it to himself, he skipped the cutscene and turned invisible the second he spawned at his private Hearthworld estate.

“Glad to see it works somewhere,” he muttered under his breath.

He pulled up his interface and flipped to his Quests page, quickly checking and rechecking the details of the one Roark had sent him.

Five-Alarm Cave—that was on the southwestern side of the Hearth. The volcano was like a breeding sanctuary for Fire-type mobs, so their party would need plenty of fire resistance.

The cave system was bossed by a Greater Hellstrike Jackal. Yikes.

Randy’s Arboreal Herald didn’t have any OP character specific spells Fire types were vulnerable to, but on the plus side, the Jackal and other Fire-type creatures wouldn’t be able to defend against Roark and the other Trolls’ Infernal magic. Newbs who hadn’t done much reading of the WikiLores and FAQs surrounding Hearthworld’s magic system usually got tripped up on that point. They waltzed in, spells blazing, blasting Fire types with Ice Javelins and Frostbite spells, wondering why it was hardly touching the burning mobs. With a little time and research, though, it was really pretty simple to figure out what everything’s weakness was—all you had to do was memorize the Primal Creation Wheel.

The more information you had the better, that was Randy’s motto. It was part of what gave him such a leg up on most competition in the game.

He searched his weapons and armor displays until he found a Legendary Urumi of Bitter Darkness, an Infernal artifact he’d recovered during a solo raid last year, and traded out his customary Twin Whipping Leaf Swords. He wasn’t huge on physical combat, not when he could use his pseudo-druidic Earth magic instead, but plant-based attacks weren’t going to be wise against a flaming Greater Hellstrike Jackal.

With that in his Inventory, Randy found a few shields and gauntlets with Fire Resistance for Roark and the others and packed those as well, just in case nobody else had gear equipped with that enchantment. Last of all, he stocked up on Health potions and AoE mass-heal scrolls, then opened a portal scroll.

Shimmering violet light surrounded him as he stepped through, and a cool breeze skittered across his face. He grinned at the simple elegance of the portal’s craftsmanship. He hadn’t been part of the fast-travel design team, but they’d managed to create an experience that was both relaxing and fun. It was quality coding.

With hardly any lag at all, he stepped out into the eternal darkness and swirling ground fog that surrounded the Cruel Citadel.

As always, seeing the crumbled ruins of the walls brought him a brief rush of warm nostalgia. This whole section of the map was a lowbie area—or it had been when he first started playing years ago—and the Citadel had been one of the very first places he’d gone to farm gold and grind out levels. Even back then he had almost always soloed, both because it was faster to level up if you didn’t have to share the XP and because he didn’t have any friends to ask him to join their raids. Still, though, seeing the Cruel Citadel always made him feel like he was returning to visit some happy childhood home.

The rusty iron portcullis at the far end of the wall screeched to life, cranking up and out of the way to allow Roark and Kaz through. Mac, an enormous, spike-shelled Young Turtle Dragon, waddled along beside the Dungeon Lord like a loyal hound.

Randy chuckled softly to himself. If he’d caught sight of the demonic-looking, ghostly pale Jotnar Infernali and hulking blue-black Thursr Knight striding out of the mists toward him back when he first started playing Hearthworld, he would’ve soiled his Light Armor from sheer terror.

He probably still would’ve, if the approaching monsters hadn’t been his only friends.

That made Randy’s smile slip a little. What did it say about him that his only friends were ones and zeroes?

Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. Kaz had definitely started life as code, but something about Roark’s arrival—maybe an interdimensional virus, Randy thought, not for the first time—had brought the Mighty Gourmet and every other mob that came into contact with Roark to sentience.

“Randy.” Roark grabbed Randy’s forearm in one of those manly hero-clasps he used to see on old reruns of Hercules. A gesture that showed Roark considered him an equal, even respected him.

Sure, that was because Randy hadn’t bothered to correct the Griefer’s assumption that an Admin was some sort of servant to the gods of Hearthworld, but still. It meant a lot considering the closest Randy usually got to a handshake was the last-second hair swipe and a gleeful “too slow!” Usually courtesy of Danny, who was closer to an outright foe than a friend.

“Glad you were able to join us for this,” Roark said, nodding to him.

“No problem,” Randy replied. He pulled out a few of the shields and pieces of armor. “I brought some Fire-Resistant gear in case you guys need any.”

“Thank you.” Roark took a pair of Dragonskin Gauntlets, then tossed a Tail of the Lava Kelpie Cloak to Kaz.

For the first time since Randy had met him, the Mighty Gourmet appeared distracted and pensive. He pulled on the cloak absently, fastening it in place with enormous, blunt fingers, clearly lost in his own thoughts.

Randy glanced around. “Is PwnrBwner meeting us there?”

“I don’t think so,” Roark said. “He’s been messaging me erratically since we last spoke, but not much of it makes sense.”

“What about?”

“I don’t know,” the Dungeon Lord admitted, shrugging. “He’s furious, and he blames me. That’s about as much as I’ve been able to establish.” Then Roark’s gaze sharpened, and he looked at Randy. “Whatever’s happening, it began right after he told me that strange things had happened to him while outside Hearthworld. You haven’t begun experiencing any side effects since becoming my Greater Vassal, have you?”

Randy’s ears pricked up. He recognized a carefully vague question when he heard one. Roark was trying to gather anecdotal data without influencing Randy’s answer.

Then he realized just what Roark’s question implied.

“Okay, wow.” Randy reached up to adjust his glasses out of habit before remembering that his Arboreal Herald didn’t wear any. “Did PwnrBwner turn invisible, too? Does becoming a Greater Vassal bestow us with real-world magical abilities?”

Roark paused, a curious look flashing across his face. “Invisibility,” he muttered softly under his breath. “Fascinating.” He fell quiet for a moment. “It seems PwnrBwner was able to conjure a Clerical shield in your dimension,” he finally said. “You became invisible?”

“Oh, right, I probably should’ve led with that,” Randy said. “During work today, my body disappeared. I and at least two of my coworkers were unable to see my body or observe my movements for a short period of time. Sorry, I didn’t keep track of how long. Less than a minute, I’d estimate. I was able to reproduce the results once, but I didn’t have time to try for a third time.”

“Kaz doesn’t wish to be rude,” the Mighty Gourmet said, stepping between them, a worried frown creasing his enormous face. “Normally, he would love to hear Randy and Roark talk about”—Kaz waved one huge clawed hand and spent a second grasping for words, as if he hadn’t been paying attention to their conversation, but didn’t want to hurt their feelings by saying so—“things. But there is a lost page of Gry Feliri’s cookbook in a cave far away, just waiting for any Gourmet who might happen by to pick it up, and it is such a very long trek from the Cruel Citadel to Five-Alarm Cave.”

Roark cracked a smile and nodded. “Point taken. We can talk on the way.”

After a quick check of the Maps page, they struck out toward the far distant column of volcanic smoke in the southern sky. Kaz’s eagerness was immediately apparent, as even the Griefer’s long strides hardly kept up with the enormous Knight once they were moving. Every few steps, Randy used his wings for a quick boost so he could remain at their side.

“Your hypothesis is that these sudden manifestations of magical abilities are the direct result of becoming a Greater Vassal?” Randy asked Roark.

“It was PwnrBwner’s theory,” the Jotnar said, “but I think he could be correct. As the second case, you seem to confirm it.”

“I don’t know.” Randy took another wing-propelled hop as he started to fall behind. “Two people is such a small sample size. Not enough to prove anything. You don’t have any sort of instructions or guidelines about what to expect when you make someone a Greater Vassal?”

“Nothing,” Roark said, swiping a clawed hand through his shaggy hair. “I have an inkling of how it affects the creatures of this world. Kaz was my first Greater Vassal, and he’s one of the more intelligent and loyal followers I have. I’ve also used it on Mac, Zyra, Griff, and Ick—to name a few. Each and every one has far outpaced the rest of the creatures in Hearthworld. You and PwnrBwner are the first heroes I’ve used the Stone on, though, so I have no idea what the bloody effects might be.” His lips pulled into a tight line as he glanced down.

“The more I use the World Stone Pendant,” the Dungeon Lord muttered, “the more I realize how little I know about it. The good news is that if the World Stone is allowing you and PwnrBwner to use your Hearthworld magick in your dimension, then I should be able to take the same magical powers I possess here back with me when I eventually return to Traisbin. I’ll be able to use them against the Tyrant King.”

Randy sighed. “I hate to keep raining on your parade like this, but you don’t have any way to prove that until you’ve actually returned to your dimension and tested it. It’s possible that your pendant only allows our abilities to manifest on Earth.” Remembering that Roark’s people called their planet Earth, too, Randy shrugged. “I mean, our Earth—that is to say, in our dimension. It could do something completely different in your dimension.”

For several paces, Roark was silent. Randy stared down at the boggy ground. He felt bad for smashing the Griefer’s hopes for a new weapon.

“Sorry,” he offered in a small voice.

“No,” Roark said. “I appreciate your pragmatism. Listen to this and tell me what you make of it: Traisbin is governed by a set of unbreakable rules or laws that make up the fabric of the universe. Similar to Hearthworld’s rules, but nearly all of these rules are well known to us. Spells must be written to be cast. That’s absolute. At least, it was until twenty-odd years ago, when Marek began his rise to supremacy.”

Roark lifted the World Stone Pendant out of his leather armor and stared down at the glittering topaz gem set into its face.

“Using this, the Tyrant King cast spells without a drop of ink. It should have been impossible. It violates the very laws of our universe. Just as I understand using magick violates the laws of your universe.” He looked askance at Randy, eyes burning with barely contained exhilaration. “Suppose Marek was the first to test the interdimensional capabilities of the World Stone. Suppose he carried magick from another unknown dimension to Traisbin, and that was what gave him such impossible powers.”

Randy stopped in his tracks, dumbstruck.

“Multiverse?” he whispered. “There could be an infinite number, governed by infinitely variable sets of physics. Every permutation of magic from zero to endless... It would have to be possible, considering that there are at least two dimensions that we know of for sure.”

“Three,” Roark corrected, watching Kaz’s hulking form grow smaller in the distance. “Your realm, mine, and Hearthworld.”

Well, the Griefer wasn’t wrong. Hearthworld might just be a random game to the players, but in truth it was a perfectly contained pocket universe, whether humans manufactured and controlled it or not.

There was a concept that boggled the mind—they were basically the gods of that tiny compartment of reality. The devs at FrontFlip were creators and destroyers, able to change Hearthworld at the slightest shift in gaming trends.

Or if a modder had taken control away from them.

Randy’s blood ran cold. The locked files.

“Um, I have some potentially bad news related to that,” he said. “Or, well, it could be good, too, I don’t really know yet. Not for sure.”

“Let’s hear it,” Roark said. With a jerk of his head, the Dungeon Lord indicated that they should catch up to Kaz while they spoke.

“I’m not on the project monitoring you anymore,” Randy said, hurrying to keep up with the Jotnar. “I lost my clearance and everything. Really, it’s kind of a miracle I haven’t been fired yet and blackballed across the tech community.”

At Roark’s slightly puzzled frown, Randy realized that he must sound like he was speaking gibberish. How to explain something like this to someone from another world, one without the same level of technological advancement.

“The... devs of Hearthworld... cut me off?” he tried. “They aren’t talking to me anymore. I’ve been shunned by the Ancient Council and I’ve lost most of my Admin powers. I might not be... serving them for much longer.”

Roark’s bemusement turned into a dark scowl. “This is because you helped us.”

Not wanting to lay blame, Randy shrugged.

“It is what it is. And, honestly, I could’ve chosen not to,” he said. “That’s not the important part. I think FrontFlip’s higher-ups—I mean, the devs—have something really big planned. They could be up to anything, but since I’m locked out, I have no idea whether it’s good, bad, or chaotic neutral. I’m trying to find out, but it’s... Well... There are complications.”

“Seven bloody hells,” Roark cursed under his breath and ran his onyx claws through his shaggy hair. A brief look of disgust passed over his ghostly pale face. After a moment’s hesitation, he seemed to come to a decision.

Randy braced himself, ready for the chewing-out. Or the kicking-out. Something that ended with him friendless again.

“I know you’ve already sacrificed so much to help us, Randy,” the Griefer said solemnly. “You’ve been cast out because of me, and I don’t have any right to ask you for more—”

“Oh, I’m going to find out what’s going on,” Randy said, stopping him with a raised hand. Relief washed through him as he realized Roark wasn’t mad at him for this whole debacle. “We have to know what FrontFlip is planning. I mean, real lives might depend on it, right? Besides, these Arboreal Herald powers must be bleeding over into the real world, my real world, for a reason. I can actually save the day this time. Have a real impact for good. I’m not going to waste that.”

A ghost of a smile turned up the corner of Roark’s mouth.

“You’re a better man than most I’ve worked with,” the Dungeon Lord said, slapping Randy on the back. “Now, let’s find Kaz’s bloody cave, shall we?”

Five-Alarm Loot

EARTHEN WALLS, ROUGH, jagged, and covered in a fine layer of ashy soot, surrounded them on all sides, while spikes of cooled obsidian hung from the ceiling high overhead like the teeth of some monstrous slumbering dragon. The Five-Alarm Cave had been easy enough to find, thanks to Hearthworld’s uncanny quest tracking system and the almost preternaturally accurate maps of the land. The inhabitants, on the other hand, were proving to be a mite more challenging, despite the fact that they were Fire-based creatures, weak against Infernal magicks.

“We’ve got another batch of incoming!” Randy yelled, his reedy voice bouncing off the walls.

Roark turned on his heel and thrust his left hand forward, unleashing a fresh gout of Infernal Torment upon a leaping Lesser Hellstrike Jackal. They were nasty, dangerous things, larger even than Macaroni, and completely unthinking, spurred on by the primal urges to kill and maim. And the fact that each of these beasts was at least level 32 meant they were quite proficient in the art of bloodshed.

Plum-colored flames licked through the brilliant red-orange fissures in the creature’s pitted lava rock flesh, and it yipped and snarled like a street cur caught in the jaws of a deadly maka-ronin. Roark pulled the rotten head of a NecroKnight from a leather satchel at his side, pulled out a cursed earring, and lobbed the head at the staggering Jackal. True, his cursed heads had lost some of their effectiveness against the heroes of Hearthworld, but these Jackals had certainly never seen their like. The head exploded with a burst of Infernal power, badly wounding the beast, though not killing it completely.

With his Infernal Torment still working, it would only be a matter of time.

Meanwhile, the rest of this pack tore down the wide tunnel, kicking up plumes of dust as they raced at Roark, perhaps instinctively realizing that his Infernal spells were the greatest threat and therefore should be eliminated first.

So much the better. While they were focused on Roark, the Arboreal Herald Randy appeared from nowhere, lashing out with his many-bladed Urumi, an ancient artifact glowing purple with formidable Infernal power. Where its whipping, ribbonlike blades struck the Jackals’ tough basalt hides, the weapon extracted a heavy toll from the creatures’ Health bars.

“FOR SALT!” Kaz batted one of the Lesser Hellstrike Jackals across the small room with a devastating blow from his Legendary Meat Tenderizer.

The creature crunched loudly when it hit the rock wall, dying in an explosion of hot lava and shards of pumice. Kaz was by its side in an instant, bringing his enormous hammer down and flattening the Lesser Hellstrike Jackal’s skull. Its Health bar flashed out a warning as the last sliver of red drained away.

“Get away from it, Kaz!” Randy called without looking away from the snarling, slavering beasts he was thrashing. With a flick of his wings, he dodged a snapping Jackal’s deadly jaws, then changed direction and darted back into the fray. “When Hellstrike mobs die, they blow u—”

A blast exploded off the Lesser Hellstrike Jackal’s broken corpse, turning it into a pile of cinders and lava and rocking Kaz back on his heels. Thanks to Randy’s warning, however, the discharge hardly touched the Mighty Gourmet’s Health; Kaz had backpedaled rapidly and equipped the borrowed Tower Shield of No Sweat just in time. Seeing Kaz’s lack of weapon, a pair of Jackals rounded on him, but the Thursr bashed them back with his Tower Shield, the force of the blow sending up clouds of dust from the pulverized lava rock. His blows threw the creatures back far enough to allow Kaz to re-equip his Meat Tenderizer.

In the chaos, Roark had broken eye contact with his Lesser Hellstrike Jackal, stopping the Infernal Torment spell just short of killing the creature. He drew his Peerless Slender Rapier to finish his grisly handiwork, but a shimmering distortion slammed into the wounded Jackal’s side, pinning it and a fellow to the wall with a pair of startled canine yelps and a solid crunch. These were followed by a nasty chewing sound. The outer Hellstrike Jackal howled and struggled but couldn’t escape as Mac ate through its Health with nothing but his chomping jaws. The second Jackal, pinned to the wall behind the dying one, finally broke free and charged Roark.

The Dungeon Lord was more than ready. He waited for the creature to scamper across a small, portable curse plate—about the size of a small saucer—he’d brought along for the trip. As the creature’s claw-tipped paws passed over the engraved steel, there was a flash of azure light and Roark’s Lesser Paralysis hex took hold. While the Jackal was frozen, he finished it off with a quick series of Off-hand Combos from his rapier and dagger.

The Young Turtle Dragon chirped triumphantly, climbing on top of the fallen corpses.

“Get back, Mac!” Roark shouted frantically, remembering the ferocious explosion from earlier.

The bloodthirsty shelled beast broke into a waddling run, hurrying to get away, but Roark triggered Infernal Invigoration just in case he wasn’t fast enough. A bloodwine-colored umbrella of light dropped over the room, healing the Young Turtle Dragon and Kaz for ten times Roark’s character level and bringing both back to nearly full Health. Since Randy wasn’t Infernally aligned, the spell did nothing to boost his Health, but the Arboreal Herald hardly needed the help. At level 40, his Health Regen was nearly as fast as Roark’s, and his Speed and Dexterity kept him well ahead of most of these low-level Jackals’ attacks.

The secondary blast from the Lesser Hellstrike Jackals’ corpses startled Mac, eliciting a surprised bark from him. He rounded on the body of the Jackal he’d killed and growled. When it offered no further aggression, however, Mac chuffed with satisfaction and trotted off to find something else to fight.

Soon the dust had settled from the final death-explosion, and the room was clear. The four of them sifted through the piles of cooling lava and ashes that had been Lesser Hellstrike Jackals. As a hero, Randy received a fair amount of Experience from each of the creatures he’d killed or even assisted in killing. But as mobs themselves, Roark, Kaz, and Mac were barred from gaining Experience from killing other mobs. A shame, that, and something that galled him to no end. Looting the fallen Jackals was the only way they could gain anything from this endeavor before reaching the end of the quest.

Each of the creatures carried a gold coin or two and a mid- to high-quality gemstone. A few also contained potions of Fire Resistance, which they distributed evenly between the four of them. Roark tried to hold the bottle so Mac could gulp his down, but the Young Turtle Dragon snatched the potion out of his hand and crunched into the glass delightedly before tipping his scaly head back and shaking it down his throat.

When it was gone, he blinked big happy eyes slightly out of sync at Roark and chirped expectantly for another.

“Silly beast,” Roark muttered, shaking his head and slapping Mac on the shell affectionately. “Let that potion do its work for now, and I’ll toss you another when its effects wear off.”

Understanding that he wasn’t going to get another crunchy snack immediately, the Young Turtle Dragon waddled off.

Roark moved on to one of the Hellstrike Jackals he’d killed and knelt beside it, rummaging through its Inventory. One gold, a Flawed Sapphire, and... What was this now?

His breath caught in his throat and his heart pounded like a forge hammer as he read the spidery text on the item’s nameplate.

A Lesser Hellstrike Transmutation Core?

Impossible. Surely, this couldn’t be.

The core was a about the size of a child’s fist, made of what looked like dark glass, each facet covered with hair-thin furrows like the lines and whorls of a fingerprint. From deep inside came a faint red glow that pulsed gently, as if the Transmutation Core contained a tiny molten heart of magma.

A scrap of parchment appeared before Roark’s eyes.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Chipped Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core

Strength: Tier 3

Durability: Degrading

Half-life: 11:59:59 hours remaining

Notice: Chipped (Tier 3) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core will degrade to Scuffed (Tier 2) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core if not implanted in a compatible host within its half-life. Once implanted in a compatible host, Durability status will be converted from Degrading to Stable.

Notice: Once implanted in a compatible host, the Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core cannot be removed without destroying the Transmutation Core.

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

╠═╦╬╧╪

Excitement surged through Roark and his mind raced as he pored over the parchment again and again. A Transmutation Core! This was exactly the component the Transmutation Magick required. But how? Why? He’d killed countless mobs before now and he’d never seen such an item before, and as far as he knew, no other hero had ever turned up a similar ingredient. What could that mean?

As he watched, the seconds within the half-life ticked away. 58... 57... 56...

He wanted to stop right there in the Five-Alarm Cave’s entryway and begin experimenting, wanted to so badly that it made his fists clench and his stomach ache, but to leap into using the core—implanting it—wouldn’t be wise. If he allowed the time limit to push him into proceeding with the spell, then whatever actions he took were bound to be impulsive and ill considered. He could end up killing himself and everyone with him. His mind skipped along all of the disastrous mistakes he’d made while tinkering with his Curse Chains and the Transmute Magick ability. He couldn’t afford a mistake like that, not here and now.

Even worse, if he made a mistake, he might not kill himself, but rather do something irreversible and detrimental to his Jotnar form.

Besides, he thought as he blinked away the scrap of parchment and saw Kaz standing down the winding passage that led deeper into Five-Alarm Cave, he’d promised his friend he would help recover the lost page of some cookbook or memoir or some such thing. What sort of book it was didn’t matter. What mattered was that this quest was important to Kaz. Roark had given the enthusiastic Thursr Knight his word.

Still, as Roark stored the Transmutation Core in his Inventory, he couldn’t help thinking that life had been much simpler when all he’d had to think about was himself. Lonelier, even a bit depressing, but simpler. He hated to think of the day he would return to Traisbin, leaving Kaz, Mac, and Zyra behind, but at least he wouldn’t have long to wallow in self-pity when it happened. He would take the fight straight to Marek, kill the bloody despot, and most likely be dead himself before the sun rose again.

Roark hid a grimace and moved on to the next pile of steaming lava and ashes.

As if Mac could sense the dark turn of Roark’s thoughts, the Young Turtle Dragon waddled up beside him and tugged at Roark’s sleeve.

“All right,” Roark muttered, smiling in spite of himself. He scratched Mac’s scaly head and beard, getting a liberal amount of Jackal blood on his hands in the process.

“Silly beast.” Roark scrubbed his gory hands on the thighs of his Dark Leathers.

Mac nipped Roark on the arm, then began nosing at the ashes in front of them.

Roark’s eyes narrowed, understanding dawning on him.

“This is the one you killed, isn’t it?” he said.

Mac chirped. Roark dug into the burnt remains, finding a Heart of the Lesser Hellstrike Jackal, and tossed the smoldering lump of meat to his Young Turtle Dragon. The canny beast gurgled appreciatively as he gulped down the offering, tail slapping against his shell in a series of ecstatic thumps.

“You earned it, mate,” Roark said, looting the remains of the Jackal’s Inventory. No Transmutation Core, just a few gold and a Flawed Ruby.

The thought of the seconds ticking away on the Transmutation Core’s half-life came back to him, making his jaw tighten and impatience twist in his mind like hookburrs trying to dig their way deeper into muscle.

Roark closed out of the emptied Inventory and stood. The sooner they completed this quest, the sooner they could return to the Cruel Citadel and learn the secrets of Transmute Flesh.

“Let’s keep moving,” he said, turning to Kaz and Randy.

“Yes!” Kaz raised his Legendary Meat Tenderizer overhead, then bolted down the dark passage ahead like a general leading his troops into battle, bellowing, “On to the lost recipe of Gry Feliri and to glory!”

And to the Greater Hellstrike Jackal, Roark thought as he and Randy followed the charging Gourmet, which hopefully has a Transmutation Core of its own.

Hellstrike

THE FOUR OF THEM WOUND their way through the dimly lit and snaking tunnels of Five-Alarm Cave, fighting through pockets of Lesser Hellstrike Jackals at every turn. Being inside of the Hearth, the volcano for which Hearthworld was named, the tunnels started out as stifling as Roark’s personal forge and only grew hotter as they pushed deeper in, growing ever closer to the core.

“How’s everybody doing on Health?” Randy asked when they paused to loot the latest group of ashy remnants. “I’ve got more potions if anyone needs them.”

“We’re stocked for now, mate, but thanks.” Roark bent to loot the heart from the Jackal Mac was snuffling at.

The bloodthirsty little beast gobbled it down gleefully, with no sign of growing full or tired of the smoldering lumps of meat, although he’d eaten eleven of them so far—one for each Jackal he’d killed in combat. A curious thing, that. The hearts only seemed to spawn when he killed one of the creatures, not when any other team member scored the death blow.

“Well, let me know if you run low.” The Arboreal Herald dug a waterskin out of his Inventory, took a hearty drink, then swiped the back of his bracer across his forehead. “I’d hate for anybody to get caught flat-footed when I could’ve just handed them a couple of my potions. We’ve got to be getting close to the boss room by now.”

Kaz squinted into the darkness ahead, nostrils flaring. “We are. Kaz can feel the lost recipe in his soul food.”

Roark glanced up at the Mighty Gourmet.

“In your soul, Kaz.” He wiped the Jackal blood onto the thighs of his Leathers and stood. “You mean that you feel it in your soul.”

“No, Roark,” Kaz said, shaking his huge head and making the Peerless Obsidian Plate Armor he’d traded for his chef’s garb clank. “Gry Feliri said when ultimate flavor is close, a true Gourmet will sense its splendor in the depths of his soul food. And look!”

The Thursr Knight reached into his Inventory and pulled out two enormous handfuls of Fried Wild Fowl, Saber Boar Fat Biscuits, Sautéed Greens of the Collard Plant, and Mashed Tubers smothered with Wild Style Gravy. Amazingly, the food items were glowing with bright white light and vibrating at a high frequency. Kaz took a few steps farther down the passage, and the light and shaking intensified. The Sautéed Greens of the Collard Plant nearly rattled out of Kaz’s wide palms with the force of their apparent enthusiasm.

“It is just as the great Gry Feliri said,” Kaz whispered reverently, his onyx eyes as wide as serving platters. “The lost page is ever so close.”

Seeing the vibrating food, Randy let out a laugh that was more than half snort.

When Roark and Kaz both turned to look at him, the Arboreal Herald shook his head, still grinning, and waved a hand at them. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just admiring the work of the devs who created Gry Feliri.” Then his face turned pensive, and he continued under his breath, “If there even were devs who created him...”

“What do you mean?” Roark asked. “Didn’t you say that your devs created everything within Hearthworld?”

“Well, I mean, that’s sort of the idea of a... dimension like Hearthworld. Devs don’t create everything, but they create most of it, then set in motion the code that generates the rest. Sort of like preprogramming the universe to do A if B happens. But since you showed up in Hearthworld, a lot of Cs and Ds have been happening instead.” Randy tugged at his chin. “I just wonder whether Gry Feliri was an A/B or a C/D.”

Roark nodded and moved on to the next pile of ashes, this one from a Hellstrike Jackal he had killed himself. Ignoring the foreign words Randy always seemed to assume he would understand, he thought he understood the point the Herald was getting at. The devs had set up Hearthworld much like a Curse Chain—albeit a very complicated one—where defined actions led to predetermined outcomes. Introducing an unknown into the Chain could cause new, unexpected, and even disastrous results tailored to that unknown.

He pulled a Standard Hellstrike Transmutation Core from the ashes. The cores were a prime example of Randy’s suspicions. The World Stone’s latest ability required a Transmutation Core, and suddenly the cores began appearing in Hearthworld, but only in the remains of the Hellstrike Jackals Roark killed. He’d checked the others’ kills to make sure their Jackals weren’t dropping Cores and only confirmed it.

Roark touched the leather armor over the World Stone Pendant absently, frowning. If the stone could alter any dimension it was in, who knew what sort of power it contained? Marek had used the World Stone for the better part of two decades, but could an artifact as powerful as it was be nothing more than an object or must it have some sort of hidden intelligence? A sentience that could adapt and change itself according to its surroundings and its user’s need? Could the stone be working toward its own ends or the ends of some unknown master from its home dimension?

Not a terribly comfortable line of inquiry, that.

As they continued grinding through the tunnels of Five-Alarm Cave toward the lost recipe, Roark pushed his new unease to the back of his mind. For now, he had no alternative but to use the stone. He couldn’t allow it to fall back into Marek’s hands. Too many lives depended on it.

Finally, they came to a towering set of carved stone doors at the end of the tunnel. Chef’s knives, vegetables, and steaming cauldrons had been hammered in gilt around the edges, and at the center, a strange impression had been set into a golden seal glinting with a white magical energy Roark hadn’t encountered yet in Hearthworld.

Kaz stepped forward eagerly, bouncing zealously on oversized toes.

“Wait,” Roark said, grabbing his friend’s meaty shoulder. “It may be some sort of Divine trap. Look at the color of the magick.”

The Mighty Gourmet shook his head. “There is no Divine or Infernal in the world of flavor, Roark. No mob or hero. All who value deliciousness are welcome to sample its wonders.”

Before Roark could stop him, Kaz pulled a handful of salt from his inventory and pressed it into the oddly shaped imprint in the seal.

The grinding scrape of stone on stone filled the air, and the tunnel began to shake. Dust rose from the floor as the enormous doors pulled back into the stone walls. A blast of boiling air blew out toward them, immediately drying the sweat from Roark’s face and making his skin feel tight and sunburnt.

On the other side of the doors lay a sprawling cavern lit by bubbling lava streams, which crisscrossed the room in a haphazard fashion. Stunted, rocky projections grew from beside the flows, belching fire at regular intervals and trailing curling wisps of smoke. The air was suffocating, hotter than the inside of a glowing coal, and thick with the stink of volcanic gasses. There was another scent, too, something earthy and musky like the scent of some great wolf mixed with the aroma of rotten meat.

A deep, bass growl rumbled through the cavern, the heavy note reverberating in Roark’s chest, as a small mountain of lava rock began to shift on the far side of a bubbling molten stream.

A [Greater Hellstrike Jackal] rose to standing on paws the size of Kaz’s head and let out a rib-shaking warning bark. The creature’s size beggared the imagination. It was at least as big as the wooly mammoths that used to roam Terho’s cold southern reaches, with smoking, jagged obsidian tusks protruding from either side of a slavering canine mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. Where its eyes should have been were clusters of uncut rubies like the many-sectioned eye of a dragonfly, each precious stone dancing with brilliant red fire.

Roark opened his mouth to give an order, but Kaz bolted across the cavern toward the mammoth-sized beast before Roark could utter a word, Legendary Meat Tenderizer raised high.

“For the flavor pilgrim. For the lost recipe of Gry Feliri. FOR SALT!” the Thursr Knight bellowed, spittle flying from his mouth.

Quickly, Roark shot a pre-inscribed Physical Damage Rebound spell on Kaz, then glanced at Randy. “Whatever we do, we have to keep Kaz alive. If he dies, this quest is locked to him forever.”

The Arboreal Herald gave a sharp nod, then shot into the air with a powerful flap of his feathered wings. He pulled his glowing purple Urumi just before he and it disappeared from sight.

Now that they were finally in a space large enough to make use of their flight, Roark followed suit, taking a running leap at a red updraft arrow rising from a lava stream. His leathery wings caught the heat like sails and launched him upward. Considering the Jackal’s size, every little advantage would help, and Roark knew from experience that greater maneuverability when your opponent was much larger than you was no small advantage.

Across the cavern, Kaz roared and slammed his Meat Tenderizer down on one enormous canid paw. Furious, the Jackal swept its head at Kaz, lashing out with those jagged tusks. Kaz tried to dodge, but wasn’t fast enough. The Thursr Knight was enormous and built to take a hit and dish out damage—he wasn’t agile like Zyra or even fast like Roark, for that matter. The blow glanced off the Knight’s armored back with an unholy screaming of rock on plate and sent Kaz tumbling across the uneven black floor of the cavern before landing in an unconscious heap.

As it stomped after the downed Knight, Roark cast Infernal Torment on the Greater Hellstrike Jackal. He kept his eyes firmly locked on the creature, waiting for some sign that his Jotnar spell was working. Finally, a few tongues of violet flame appeared around the creature’s face and throat, but they were so bloody tiny. A sliver of the Jackal’s red Health bar disappeared, but the enormous canine just kept raging toward Kaz, who made no move to get up.

With a curse, Roark broke off Infernal Torment, fishing a trio of cursed heads from his satchel. He pulled earrings and nose rings with a sharp jerk of his claw, then rained the exploding body parts down on the creature below. They exploded on contact, sending up great billowing clouds of smoke and light. The cursed explosives barely scratched the Greater Hellstrike Jackal’s outer armor, but they did momentarily distract the beast.

Exploiting the small open window, Roark triggered Infernal Invigoration, healing the Mighty Gourmet in a fall of bloodwine-colored light, and angled his flight downward. He landed just in front of Kaz’s motionless form.

The view of the rampaging Greater Hellstrike Jackal was positively terrifying from that perspective. Roark could feel the rocky black dirt trembling beneath his boots as the creature shook off his previous attack and resumed its ominous march forward.

“Get up, Kaz!” Roark shouted, casting a level 4 Slow spell at the Jackal, then following that with a level 5 Sucking Mud. A pit of mud forty-five feet across opened in the Jackal’s path, the brown goo splashing wildly as the creature stormed through it, hardly slowing.

“Kaz, I can see Gry Feliri’s lost recipe,” Roark urged. “It’s right there, you just need to get up and take it.”

Still he got no response from the Thursr Knight. Roark’s mind whirred through possible solutions.

His new Jotnar spell! He’d forgotten about it in the excitement of discovering Transmute Flesh, but if there was ever a time to disrupt a creature’s charge, that time was now.

Roark pulled his rapier and dagger, then took a half-step forward and let out a booming shout. The sound felt as if it were torn from the depths of his stomach, and the air around him crackled with icy Infernal energy. Glowing amethyst ripples exploded from his heel in rings, skimming over the floor of the cavern in all directions.

The first ripple slid under the raised front paw of the Jackal, but the second made impact as the creature lowered its foot. With a dismayed cry, the Jackal stumbled to the earth, the force of its weight shaking the entire cave. Unlike Infernal Torment’s slow burn, the effect on the enormous canine’s Health was immediate and obvious as a slice of its red bar drained away.

Not wasting a moment of the advantage, Roark darted in toward the Greater Hellstrike Jackal’s exposed side, his Speed enhanced by the enchantments on the rapier and dagger. With a flurry of Off-hand Combos, horizontal tondos, and diagonal squalembratos from the shoulder, he carved away at the creature’s hardened lava rock hide.

His advantage quickly ran out as the Jackal regained its wits, however. As Roark lunged for a stab, the Jackal swung its huge head toward him, snapping with its massive jaws. He dove out of the way, going into a roll and coming up near its flank.

With a gurgling growl, the Jackal opened its jaws. A fountain of molten lava spewed from its mouth, spattering Roark’s wings and the cavern wall behind him. Burning agony tore through the appendages as the fire melted through their leathery membrane. Even after more deaths than he could count, the pain was excruciating. Like a legion of red-hot pokers being driven into his back. The molten rock cooled quickly, solidifying. Instinctively, Roark shook his wings out. The solid rock shattered, but his wings remained melted and useless.

Before the Greater Hellstrike Jackal could let loose with another lava attack, however, purple light flashed behind its neck. The creature reared, letting out a howl of fury that felt like a knife in Roark’s eardrums, then spun to attack the invisible being harrying it. As the beast whirled, it spewed more lava in a wide arc, but Randy must have darted out of the way, as the molten rock splattered uselessly to the cavern floor some thirty feet away.

More purple flashes lit up the gloom of the cave, the invisible Arboreal Herald relentlessly pressing his attack against the Jackal with his many-bladed Urumi. The Infernal damage the sword whips were inflicting cut bits and pieces from the creature’s red bar and elicited new howls of pain and rage with every strike.

Roark added his Infernal Torment to the flurry, keeping eye contact with the Jackal for the full thirty seconds of the spell while simultaneously weaving and dodging, desperately avoiding its crushing hind paws.

A new roar cut through the chaos of the battle.

“FOR ROARK’S WINGS!” Kaz, enveloped in the brilliant red aura of his Infernal Knight’s Rage ability, charged toward the howling Jackal.

“Kaz, look out!” Roark shouted, finally pulling his gaze away from the creature, letting his spell falter and fail.

The Jackal belched out another gout of lava at the attacking Thursr. Kaz slammed into the wall of molten rock without stopping, his Rage cutting the damage in half. An unstoppable juggernaut. The lava cooled immediately upon contact with the Mighty Gourmet’s skin and burst into shards of rock as he continued storming forward, arms and legs furiously pumping. With a war cry on his lips, Kaz slammed his Legendary Meat Tenderizer into the Jackal’s closest tusk with an incredible crack. The jagged protrusion shattered, shearing off at the base.

Enraged, the Greater Hellstrike Jackal thrashed its head at Kaz, trying to slam into him once more with the remaining tusk, but the Mighty Gourmet leapt over the tusk like it was nothing more than a child’s skipping rope.

Seeing the weakness in the Jackal’s stance, Roark hurled a bevy of new cursed heads—finally exhausting his supply—then lashed out again with Infernal Thunder. The beast took the infernal damage with a screech, fumbling its step once more and going down. Kaz landed on its head, bringing his Meat Tenderizer down with a resounding smash. Chunks of lava rock and dust flew through the air.

From the corner of his eye, Roark saw Randy become visible and dart in from his side, flailing the ribbon-bladed Urumi at the creature’s exposed back. With a thought, Roark triggered Hex-Aura, which would attach itself to him and his allies for the next two minutes—hopefully enough time to finish this. For every strike the Jackal managed to land, the aura would deal .5n Damage, with n being the beast’s own level, back upon itself.

That done, Roark cast Infernal Torment once more, then raced in and began hacking at the Jackal’s flank with his rapier. The fiery creature was down to half its original Health. They were wicking it away in scraps and slivers, but they were doing it.

The thought of the Transmutation Core this leviathan might have sent a wave of renewed energy flowing through Roark’s limbs. It would be bloody brilliant. He had to have it—

A pained cry tore through Roark’s fantasies, bringing him back to the brutal reality in front of him.

Randy’s winged form shot across the cavern and slammed into the wall of the cave with a splintering sound. The Arboreal Herald tumbled to the floor, one wing and one leg bent at sickening angles, and his cursed Urumi dropped from his grasp, skittering away. Randy was a powerful fighter and sorcerer, but the Greater Hellstrike Jackal was a level 62—a full twenty-two levels higher than the Herald.

The Greater Hellstrike Jackal let out a victorious bellow, rearing and throwing Kaz from his back.

The Mighty Thursr rolled to his feet, snarling in return, and ran at the Jackal, colossal hammer poised to deliver another crushing blow. The hammer bounced off the creature’s stony shoulder, creating new fissures, but not stopping it.

The Jackal broke into a lumbering run, this time heading straight for Randy.

The Arboreal Herald’s eyes doubled in size, and he struggled to his single good foot, trying to fly away. His broken wing flapped uselessly like an injured bird. Randy’s Health was down to just a quarter, and he couldn’t get out of the giant beast’s way.

Roark let loose another gut-wrenching shout of Infernal Thunder. It tripped the beast, but the Jackal had built up too much momentum. It slid across the floor with the sound of a boulder crashing down a mountainside, poised to crush Randy against the wall.

Kaz let out a cry of dismay, and Roark flinched with sympathy for the split second of pain Randy would experience before he was sent to respawn.

A heartbeat before impact, a burst of green light exploded from Randy, and a sphere of thick, tangled branches sprang up around the Arboreal Herald like a spiny barricade. The Greater Hellstrike Jackal slammed into the thorns with a mighty crunch, bouncing back a little.

“Randy?” Kaz called, his steps faltering.

Seconds passed without answer, and Roark was certain that the Arboreal Herald had been crushed inside his thorn sphere.

“I’m okay!” Randy’s reply was muffled by the thicket, but otherwise strong, and Roark let out a sigh of relief. “As long as nothing happens to my Haven of Thorns, I’m good for at least—”

The Greater Hellstrike Jackal spewed lava at Randy’s thorny protection. The branches immediately burst into flames, crackling like a roaring hearth fire on a snowy night. A terrified yelp came from inside the fiery ball.

Encouraged by the scream, the Jackal reared back and pounced, determined to crush the broken-winged Arboreal Herald inside his burning refuge.

Elemental Adolescence

THE THORNY SPHERE WAS quickly blackening, the wood growing ever more brittle. Each time the gargantuan Jackal pounced, its branches groaned and bent a little more. From inside came the horrible pained shrieks of a man on fire.

Roark wasn’t sure whether to hope Randy burned first or was crushed. Neither would be a pleasant way to die.

“Randy!” Kaz cried, running toward the blaze, eyes wide with panic. “Do not be afraid, Kaz will save you!”

“Bloody hell.” Roark shoved his pity to the back of his mind and broke into a run, casting a speed-enhancing spell on himself. He would feel bad for Randy when the quest was completed. For now, he had to stop Kaz from killing himself.

He slammed into the Mighty Gourmet while they were still fifty yards from the burning thicket. Even at that distance, the heat from the flames felt like a forge stoked to the verge of blowing up.

“Be sensible, Kaz,” Roark yelled, shaking Kaz to get his attention. “We’ve got to attack while the Jackal’s distracted. Stealth attacks are worth twice as much damage.”

“But that is our friend in there.” Kaz waved a thick hand toward the burning briar, which offered scant protection to the hero within. “Randy will die if we don’t help him!”

“We’ll all die unless we act now,” Roark snapped back. “We have a bloody job to do, Kaz. Casualties happen—you know that. It comes with the territory.”

The hulking Knight’s bottom lip trembled. “Kaz does not like this side of Roark.”

The words hit Roark like a punch to the gut. Without thinking, he’d echoed Danella. Casualties happen. It comes with the territory. Let’s not stick around and become the next ones. How often had she said as much to him when friends and contacts died, murdered at Marek’s behest? And how often had he bristled at her pragmatism in the face of such cruel, casual injustice? The advice wasn’t wrong, but it felt dirty somehow. Ignoble. There is nothing dishonorable in survival, Danella’s voice whispered in the back of his mind.

He swallowed the guilt and pushed ahead. “That’s an argument for another time, Kaz. If we fail, your quest is locked forever, and Randy will have been sent for respawn for no reason.”

The Greater Hellstrike Jackal reared back for what would certainly be its last strike. Already the thorny sphere was crumbling to ash.

Kaz wouldn’t look Roark in the eye, but he gave a scowling nod and hefted his Legendary Meat Tenderizer.

The angry Knight turned to go on the attack, but stopped suddenly. He squinted his huge eyes at the fire.

“What—”

Before the Jackal could pounce again, the fiery ball of thorns exploded, and the spiked shell of a Young Turtle Dragon backed out of the inferno, dragging Randy by the feathered wing.

Kaz’s eyes lit up, and Roark felt the weight of a thousand worlds drop away from his shoulders.

The Greater Hellstrike Jackal bellowed. Mac dropped the Arboreal Herald and squared off with the titan canine, roaring in defiance.

“Kaz, now,” Roark hissed.

With a sharp nod, the Mighty Gourmet shot toward the Jackal’s unprotected flank. Roark pulled free his spell sook and cast a pre-inscribed level 4 Ball Lightning spell. A sparking ball of green-white energy and plasma slammed into the creature’s vulnerable side where Roark had so painstakingly chipped away the hard exterior shell of cooled volcanic rock. Then, moving like a grasslands puma, he shot right and darted around to the opposite side of the Jackal.

As he ran, Roark pulled his Bow of the Fleet-Fingered Hunter and fired off a volley of explosive arrows. The tips had the same effect on the Jackal that they’d had on the stone Gargoyles of the Vault of the Radiant Shield. Each impact shattered chunks of lava rock and sent shards flying from the site. The first shot received a [x2 Stealth modifier] notice, but the rest counted for regular damage.

The Greater Hellstrike Jackal swiped its remaining tusk at Mac, but the Young Turtle Dragon disappeared. Roark caught the faintest shimmer of visual distortion as Mac returned to Randy and began pulling him away again.

Mystified, the Jackal drew back a paw to stomp on the inexplicably escaping Arboreal Herald. Before it could, a boom erupted from the creature’s flank—Kaz’s Running Power Attack eating through a significant portion of the Jackal’s Health.

The Jackal spun, clusters of eyes wild with desperation and fury. Kaz gave a wordless cry of rage and slammed his Legendary Meat Tenderizer into one of the sparkling ruby clusters. Red shards splintered and scattered across the floor. Blinded on one side, it stumbled and raged, listing madly from side to side. Kaz ducked under a frenzied swipe of its tusk and hit it in the jaw with a stone-crushing blow. Its Health bar flashed out a critical warning.

With a guttural shout, Roark let loose another wave of Infernal Thunder, knocking the creature to its knees. It lifted its head weakly and sent up an eerie keening howl.

Roark drew back another trio of exploding arrows and fired them at the beast with practiced ease. The subsequent blasts ripped enormous chunks from the back of the Jackal’s skull and stole away the last of its Health. The Greater Hellstrike Jackal slumped to the cavern floor, dead.

[Congratulations! You and your party have completed the quest The Lost Recipe of Gry Feliri with no casualties! You have earned 15,000 Experience as well as the rights to Gry Feliri’s Lost Recipe and 1 Unknown Gourmet Specific Item!

To claim the Recipe and Item: recover the lost page from the body of the dead chef before another member of your party.]

An ascending chime rang through the cavernous space.

Roark hadn’t earned a new level, but it wasn’t hard to figure out who had. Mac lifted into the air, golden light enveloping him in a brilliant halo. The bloodthirsty reptile hung there, legs dangling limply. He looked unsure about what was happening, but at the same time completely unconcerned. His long sticky tongue flashed out, licking a round eyeball. The golden light grew more brilliant by the second, morphing into a cloud of indigo power, which crackled with arcs of blue-white lightning.

After months and constant leveling, Mac was finally evolving into his next form.

Deep thrumming war drums filled the air as Roark, Kaz, and Randy all watched with bated breath, wondering what new form would emerge from the cocoon of light.

Finally, the light faded, and Mac dropped to the ground with a meaty thud, the next stage in his evolutionary transformation complete now that he’d reached level 38. A spidery line of text briefly flared over Mac’s head: [Adolescent Elemental Turtle Dragon]. The changes weren’t nearly as drastic as when Mac had undergone his transformation from a lowly Stone Salamander to a Young Turtle Dragon, but they were impressive all the same. His body looked longer, sleeker, than the plodding boxy form he’d been before, though an enormous shell still covered his back.

The spikes peppering his shell had changed, however. Now, they pulsed with a subtle blue-white light, little graceful arcs of lightning leaping from spike to spike in a dazzling display of energy. His serpentine dragon’s face remained much the same, though his beard had turned a shocking shade of blue and now hung nearly to his stubby knees. Curling horns had also erupted from his head, spiraling straight back toward his formidable shell. His long tail—oddly scorpion-like before—was gone, giving way to a graceful electric blue ribbon of scales that fluttered behind him, without ever touching the ground.

That tail reminded Roark of the colossal river tadpoles he used to catch as a boy. Silky as slime and as brilliant as the sun glinting off still water.

Without a word, Mac trundled over to Roark, impossibly silent as he moved, batted Roark’s leg with his blocky head, nearly knocking him off his feet, and nuzzled him as he chirped and crooned. A firm reminder that Macaroni remained Macaroni, no matter how large and deadly he grew. Roark reached out a tentative hand and ran his clawed fingers along one of the spikes, feeling the heady buzz of pent-up power resonating within. Mac had become an Adolescent Elemental, and even without seeing the silly beast in action, it wasn’t hard to guess what his new Elemental affinity was.

“I’ve never seen a mob evolve, real time,” Randy whispered, his voice the hoarse rasp of a man who had been dragged out of a burning home. “And the fact that we survived and that I reached level 41 isn’t half bad either!”

Mac turned from Roark’s side, waddled over to the singed Arboreal Herald, and nipped his arm affectionately.

Randy scratched the newly evolved Turtle Dragon’s scaly head. “Thanks for the assist, Mac. You saved my life. That’s maybe the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

Roark glanced around the room until he found Kaz kneeling by a skeleton that wore a crumbling chef’s hat, yellowed with age.

“Did you find the recipe, Kaz?” he asked, joining his friend.

Kaz nodded and reverently removed the page from the remains, along with a small stone jar. Something inside the jar jingled softly.

“The last of Gry Feliri’s specially cultivated Five-Alarm Chili Pepper Seeds,” Kaz whispered. His eyes shone. “What a great responsibility!” He hugged the jar to his broad chest. “Kaz will grow them as if they were his own Changelings.”

[A member of your party has claimed the Lost Recipe of Gry Feliri and the Seeds of Gry Feliri’s Five-Alarm Chili Peppers. To claim the items for yourself, challenge your party member to single combat.

Challenge party member for Lost Recipe of Gry Feliri and Seeds of Gry Feliri’s Five-Alarm Chili Peppers? Yes/No]

Disgusted, Roark selected No. He doubted Randy would be underhanded or greedy enough to challenge Kaz for the quest reward, but he kept an eye on the Arboreal Herald until he was certain the hero had dismissed the suggestion as well. He’d been double- and triple-crossed often enough to never let his guard down completely.

“Definitely going to invest some of these in Con,” Randy said, clearly looking over his character page. “Heralds’ bird bones break way too easily.”

Satisfied Kaz would keep the items uncontested, Roark turned to the body of the fallen beast. Unlike its smaller brethren, the Greater Hellstrike Jackal contained a mound of loot. Several smithing components, dozens of Iron and Obsidian Ingots, three Flawless Rubies, three Cracked Rubies, and a few handfuls each of Ruby Dust and Diamond Dust.

Kaz screamed.

Roark closed out of the Jackal’s Inventory, heart hammering, and he drew his rapier and dagger.

“What’s wrong?” He searched the room for the threat.

“Gry Feliri’s Dump Truck Pizza!” Kaz swooned. “It is even better than Kaz could have dreamed! A circle of dough, red sauce that contains both garlic and salt, copious amounts of cheese, and something called toppings!”

“Toppings?” Roark asked, stowing his weapons.

“Yes.” Kaz nodded enthusiastically. “So, so many toppings.”

Seeing that Kaz had completely misunderstood Roark’s confusion, Randy chuckled. “It’s basically what it sounds like. Foods you cut up into little pieces and top other foods with. For pizza, that’s usually meats and vegetables.”

Roark grunted. To him food was food, whether you cut it up and put it on other kinds of fare or just ate it like it was. But if the recipe made Kaz happy, then he was glad the Mighty Gourmet had found it.

He went back to the Greater Hellstrike Jackal and finished looting its corpse. There was the piece he had been so excited about—a Flawless Greater Hellstrike Transmutation Core.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Flawless Greater Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core

Rarity: Tier 6, Flawless

Creature Core Level: 62

Durability: Degrading

Half-life: 71:59:59 hours remaining

Notice: Flawless (Tier 6) Greater Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core will degrade to Standard (Tier 5) Greater Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core if not implanted in a compatible host within its half-life. Once implanted in a compatible host, Durability status will be converted from Degrading to Stable.

Notice: Once implanted in a compatible host, the Greater Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core cannot be removed without destroying the Transmutation Core.

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

╠═╦╬╧╪

He wanted desperately to rush back to the Cruel Citadel and begin experimenting with it, but he closed out of his inventory and helped Kaz and Randy sort through the rest of the cavern. The Greater Hellstrike Jackal had killed scores of heroes in its day. Weapons and armor were scattered around the cavern like litter, everything from low-level unenchanted wooden bucklers to a Legendary item glowing with brilliant green magick called the Bow of Whispers.

“Could you use this?” Roark asked, offering the weapon to Randy.

The Arboreal Herald’s eyes went wide. “Oh, wow, this thing is beautiful.” He reached up to touch the bridge of his nose, then pulled his hand back down. “I mean, are you sure? I didn’t do much except almost die.”

“You helped us every step of the way from the mouth of the cave until now,” Roark said. “And you’ve hardly taken any of the loot along the way. It’s the very least you should have.”

Randy’s face broke into a grin. “Well, I could use it.”

In a cracked urn, they found a pair of Peerless Gauntlets of Ultimate Swing, with an enchantment that doubled skill with Two-handed Weapons. Those went to Kaz, who was still in ecstasy over his new recipe.

Out of a pile of bones that had once been a warrior, Roark pulled a Rusty Gladius. He was about to add it to the weapons for low-level Changelings when he noticed the enchantment: +2 Undead Damage.

It was a pitifully weak weapon by itself, but if Roark took it back to his workshop and learned the enchantment, he could imbue it in everything he crafted from now on to fight Lowen and his Divine forces. Roark put it in his own Inventory for later use.

“Well, guys, this was really fun,” Randy said. He yawned and scrubbed at his eyes. “But it’s about three in the morning back in my world, and I have to work tomorrow. I think I’m going to head out.”

“We appreciate the help,” Roark said, grasping Randy’s forearm and giving him a hearty slap on the back. “I doubt we could’ve done it without you along.”

Never one to be stoic, Kaz picked up the Arboreal Herald in a wing-crushing hug.

“Thanks to Randy for helping Kaz and Roark recover the greatest recipe ever lost,” the Mighty Gourmet said. “Hearthworld’s taste buds will thank you.”

With a bewildered grin and slightly rumpled feathers, Randy patted Kaz on the shoulder.

“No problem. Let me know any time you need an extra man on a quest.” He shrugged. “Uh, well, see you guys.”

Without another word, the Arboreal Herald disappeared.

“We’d better get back to the Citadel, too, Kaz,” Roark said. “We’ve been gone for hours.”

The Mighty Gourmet raised the lost recipe in his fist. “Yes, Kaz and Roark must return home with the knowledge of glorious Dump Truck Pizza. There is much kickin’ joy and gangsta tastiness to be baked tonight for the enjoyment of the great Troll Nation.”

Roark shook his head as he popped open a portal scroll. “I don’t know what any of that means. Are you making up those words?”

“They are immortal words invented by the great Gry Feliri for when mere mortal mumblings are not enough,” Kaz said, his onyx eyes sparkling, “and they mean delicious.”

A Ration of Grief

SCOTT BAYANI SPAWNED in an upstairs suite at the One-Eyed Unicorn. Not long after he had joined up with the Griefer and his Troll crew, Scott had reset his OG’s respawn point there. The weekly rent on a room was outrageous, but he was rolling in the dough now, and it was a hell of a lot nicer than his crappy IRL apartment. The Unicorn wasn’t Frosty Ocarina fancy, but it had always been his favorite drinking spot in Hearthworld, so he might as well indulge while he had the gold.

The smell of hoppy beer and roasted meat drifted up through the creaky floorboards of the Unicorn, making his mouth water. He’d snarfed a couple greaseball Nachos Bell Taco Chalupacabras with extra Diablo Loco sauce on the way home from work, so he shouldn’t have been hungry, but the smells in Hearthworld marketplaces and taverns were specially formulated to get players to spend their gold.

Not like he had any of his gold on him, Scott realized, looking down at the Threadbare Loincloth on his High Combat Cleric’s ridiculously ripped bod. At least he wouldn’t have far to go to make his corpse run. For the third fucking time. That stupid goth ho and her ugly rog buddy were probably waiting downstairs—probably right underneath this very room—to gank him again.

Well, bitches, Scottie was back now, and he didn’t come to play. It was time to revenge kill some losers to death.

Crouching to activate Stealth, he crept across the hall to another room and opened the wooden Chest of Drawers there. Everything inside was marked as Stealing even though no one was currently renting the room. His main’s good/evil rating was going to take a hit, but he didn’t have a choice. He equipped the basic Dented Plate Mail and a doofy-looking Initiate’s Cap. There weren’t any boots or gloves, so he was going to have to go without for now. He wasn’t going far anyway. Once he had all his gear back, he’d dump this mismatched trash on some fence in the marketplace. Or just dump it, period. It’d probably be smarter to get the hell out of Avery City before any other losers trying to get into Bad_Karma’s guild got a murder-boner for him.

There were exactly zero weapons in the rooms, and stuff like books and chests weren’t playable as blunt force objects in Hearthworld, so he would just have to keep his head on a swivel. He could cast most of his Clerical spells without his Magicka-amplifying rings and torques, so it wasn’t like he was defenseless.

Staying in Stealth, Scott inched down the stairs.

The Unicorn was running at about half its usual crowd, a dozen heroes scattered around drinking and talking, with the usual NPCs like the bartender hunkered down behind the counter and the pickpocket trainer leaning back at the shadowy table in the corner pretending to be asleep.

Scott didn’t see GothicTerror or Ya_Boy_Flappie_Sak anywhere. His headless corpse was over by his table, sprawled out on the floor next to an overturned chair. Some asshole funny guy had put his dismembered head facedown on his crotch like he was blowing himself. Fucking comedians. When he wasn’t getting got all the time anymore and had a second to breathe, he was gonna ask the bartender who did it. Then they would see real quick who the funny guy was.

Assured that nobody in the Unicorn was actively hunting him, Scott beelined for his body. The smartest thing to do would be to grab his shit and get the hell out of Avery City. Away from anywhere Karma’s guild had even the slightest foothold. At this point, that pretty much just left the Cruel Citadel. The shithead was basically everywhere else.

Scott was about to open his corpse’s Inventory when movement caught his eye. Half of the buttmunch heroes lounging around the common room were converging on him.

“Welcome back, dickbreath,” GothicTerror sneered, popping up from behind the counter like a stupid hot jack-in-the-box. She leveled her crossbow at him. “How was respawn?”

Scott threw Purifying Lightning at her and lunged for his corpse, but being an Undead-aligned bitch, the Divine spell didn’t touch her. It did fry a couple of her buddies, though, so that was something.

He tried for another one, but the BK ass-kissers who managed to avoid the lightning nailed him with swords and crossbows and shurikens. Without decent armor, their combined shots took him out in no time.

***

WHEN SCOTT RESPAWNED three hours later, he made sure to check the stats of everybody in the common room before he got all the way on the stairs. Every one of the dirty fuckers was Pledging for Karma’s guild. No gothic whoretot, though. Maybe she’d racked up enough PKs on him to get membership.

The way he figured it, it’d be smarter to just jump out the window and go grind out a new set of armor and weapons bare-assed than go for his corpse again. He was getting sick and tired of this colossal pile of horseshit.

He turned back to run up the stairs.

“Boo.” GothicTerror shot him through the eye with her crossbow. Undead Chaos damage ate away at his unprotected Health, and he stumbled back a step, cussing up a storm.

His generic attack spells were critically lowbie, but he threw as many Fireballs as he could conjure at her. She activated something on her lacy black corset, and a Death’s Head Shield popped up to deflect them. Then she raised her hand and started leeching away his Health like a vampire.

“Bitch,” he snarled, instinctively throwing up his own Tower Shield of Holy Light. Naturally, it did fuck-all against the Undead drain spell.

And surprise, surprise, it didn’t protect him from behind, either. Her crew of dicktards attacked from the stairs, pinning him in between them, then killing him in like a second.

He gritted his teeth in a snarl. That ragdoll death flop was getting less and less funny every time he saw his main do it.

***

THE NEXT TIME HE RESPAWNED, GothicTerror and her crew of body-camping assholes were waiting right outside his door.

“Morning, shitshine,” she said, grinning with a set of perfect pearly whites.

Scott shot her in the face with a low-level Water Ball. “Drink it up, you cum-guzzling—”

That was all he got out before they killed him. Again. Time number six. Or was it seven? He’d been PK camped so many times he was losing count.

***

HE WAS STILL FUMING when he respawned from that one. He hadn’t felt this kind of rage since Roark was griefing him. In fact, this was way worse than that. Roark at least had been creative about it. These fuckers were just sitting on his respawn point and gangbanging him.

Fuck going out the door, this time he really was taking the window. He would pickpocket some armor on his way through the marketplace—he just needed to get the hell outta the Unicorn in one piece. Shit, what he really needed was an away-portal spell, but the only one he had would take him back to his fucking respawn point.

Scott jerked the window open and climbed out, hanging over the alleyway. It was a long way down, and there weren’t any drainpipes or handholds to help him. He let go and landed with a thud. His filigreed Health vial dropped a little, but he didn’t have any broken bone debuffs, so all in all, a win.

Now to screw off out of this city. Forever, maybe. Forget all his high-level shit. It sucked to lose yet another top-tier mace, but he could farm some more if he could just live long enough. The Griefer would probably even spot him something with decent stats if he made it to the Cruel Citadel. Then he could set his respawn there and start working on getting some grindhouse-style revenge on these dickweeds.

Especially GothicTerror. She was at the top of his To Be PKed list. Oh buddy were some bad times coming her way. It didn’t even matter that she was hot in-game. She was probably a freaking troglodyte IRL. At least, if her personality was any indication.

He crept to the mouth of the alley, checking for anybody allied with Bad_Karma’s guild, then slipped out into the flow of traffic.

“Nice undies,” some chick snarked.

For a second, Scott’s blood turned to ice. But it wasn’t GothicTerror, just some other chump who thought she was funny.

“Ha fucking ha,” Scott grumbled, shooting her the bird.

“Kill yourself, loser.” She veered off into the crowd.

“Not today, sis,” he muttered.

Really, he was feeling pretty good. He’d managed to get away from the One-Eyed Unicorn. The Avery City gates were only like four blocks away. If he just kept his head down and kept moving, he might actually—

“Where’d you see him?” a sickeningly familiar voice asked.

Scott glanced over his shoulder.

The chick he’d flipped off was pointing at him across the street. And standing next to her was GothicWhoretot herself. Those perfect blow-me lips stretched into a grin when she caught his eye.

She pointed a finger gun at him and mouthed one word: Bang.

“Having fun, wad-catcher?” he yelled at the top of his lungs, the rage of all his consecutive respawns finally boiling over. “You won’t be for long. I’m gonna murder you to death, then I’m gonna murder your corpse and sit on your respawn point, one-shotting you until you wipe your account. And when you try logging in under a new tag, I’ll find that, too. I’ll chew you up and shit you out. If you think I’ll ever fucking get tired of camping you, you’ve got another—”

A greataxe chopped into his spine, followed by about a thousand swords and daggers and shit. The last thing he saw as he died was GothicTerror laughing at the way his corpse flipped into the air.

***

“THAT BITCH!” SCOTT ripped off his CandorSight UIVR headset and launched it across his living room. It slammed into the wall, but fell on some discarded dirty clothes, so it didn’t break.

At the moment, he didn’t care whether the headset survived or not—he couldn’t even play again for three hours—but he knew he’d want it later. And the bullshit would continue when he logged back on.

He grabbed his Infinitab and ran through his seedFeed messages in about ten seconds—most of them were death threats from assholes who were trying to get in with Karma. Scott thought about sending them the Endless Glitterbomb force console command Kevin had showed him how to embed, but that would just get him banned from Hearthworld forever, so he settled for copy-pasting the same generic reply telling them all to suck his dick if their mouths were big enough to get around it.

That took all of five minutes.

“I’m bored,” he complained to the beautiful naked redhead projected in front of him. “Infinitab, find me something interesting. Like now.”

“You got it, sexy.” She disappeared, and a fail video started playing in her place.

“Seen it.”

The fail video flipped to a porno of two girls with one of those old-fashioned handheld game controllers.

“Seen it.”

The porno changed to a low-budget live feed from some dumb wannabe guerilla journalist.

“As you can see,” the douchebag running the camera said, “the authorities are trying desperately to cover up the latest in the string of grisly homicides that some people, this reporter included, are calling the Mutant Murders.”

The pretentious dumbass panned across a shot of crime scene tape and cops keeping the news bloggers away from the shadowy alley.

“Eyewitness reports are claiming to have seen everything from aliens, mutants, and college students in Halloween costumes to angels—yes, faithful followers, angels—fleeing the scene before the cops ran in and locked everything down. This reporter, for one, hopes those brave witnesses who spoke out are still free, but fears that they’ve been transported to a black site never to be heard from again.”

“Oh my God, I hate you.” Scott dragged his hands down his face. “It’s just some dumb prank, cockbrain. I mean, obviously!” He slammed back on the couch. “This sucks! There’s nothing on!”

The redhead reappeared. “Do you want me to keep searching, handsome? There are over ten billion sites and feeds left to check.”

“No. Just shut down.”

“Okay, sexy. I’ll miss you.”

“Whatever.”

She winked out of existence.

For a while, Scott just glared at the blank wall. Everything outside of Hearthworld sucked. And right that second, everything inside Hearthworld sucked too. It was like when the Griefer was ruining his life, but even worse because he couldn’t freaking defend himself.

He blew out a long breath, then held up his hands as if he were blocking himself from a sixteen-flavor Mountain Dew suicide. Nothing happened.

GothicTerror appeared in his mind, laughing at him. He stuck out his hand and imagined wiping that smile off her hot undead face with a little Culmination of Elemental Fury.

Blue lightning crackled and arced across his fingertips.

The volume of the sound surprised him, and he dropped the spell immediately.

“Oh shit, right, it’s concentration-based,” he muttered. He stuck his hand out again and concentrated.

Tiny arcs of lightning sizzled. He widened his fingertips, then brought them together, watching the arcs grow and shrink.

A filigreed Magicka gauge appeared in the right corner of his vision, just like in Hearthworld. Except this one was draining way faster than his had since he was a newb.

“So, either I’m crazy, or the whole world’s a game now.” He fidgeted his fingers, making the lightning dance and spark. It petered out as his Magicka hit Empty. “Lowbie. Need to figure out how to level up whatever cool shit I can do.”

Subtleties of Transmutation

AFTER DUMPING OFF MOST of the items looted from the Greater Hellstrike Jackal at the Cruel Citadel’s vault, Roark made for his study with a purpose, waving away all attempts to get his attention.

“But Dungeon Lord—”

“No.” Roark shook his head. “I have business paramount to the Troll Nation to attend to. Take up whatever issues you have with your floor overseer.”

The Thursr Behemoth Zyra had sent to watch his study door while he was experimenting was still at his post. As Roark strode down the passage toward him, the Behemoth straightened his colossal shoulders and stared directly ahead, as if at attention.

“Dungeon Lord,” he said.

Quickly, Roark glanced over the creature’s information for a name.

“Crusher, I’m getting to work on something incredibly important and potentially volatile, and I don’t want to be disturbed by anyone unless all of Hearthworld is coming down on our heads or Lowen himself shows up in the second-floor entry hall, leading an army of Heralds.”

“Understood!” The Behemoth slammed a fist to his chest with a heavy thump.

Roark started to go in, then paused, considering that he didn’t know exactly how the Transmute Flesh ability would operate or what the process would entail.

“It’s possible you’ll hear screaming or perhaps an explosion,” he told the guard. He’d had more than a few setbacks when working with his Transmute Magick and Curse Chain ability for the first time. “Just ignore it.”

Without hesitation, the Behemoth gave a sharp nod of assent.

“Good man.” Roark slapped him on the bicep—all he could reach of the towering Thursr—then headed into his study and let the heavy oak door fall shut behind him.

Finally alone, Roark rubbed his hands together and grinned, almost giddy at the prospect of experimenting with the Transmutation Cores. He opened his Inventory and studied them, feeling like a child staring down at a pile of brightly wrapped Candelmas presents.

Because only the Jackals on which he’d struck the killing blow had dropped a Transmutation Core, he had only eight in total—the seven Lesser Cores and the single melon-sized Greater Core. Much like gemstones, they ranged in quality from Chipped to Flawless, and each had been assigned a tier for its condition. He pulled up his Inventory and glanced through each in turn, trying to suss out any information he could before diving headlong into his experimentation.

According to both Roark’s own experience and Hearthworld WikiLore, there were nine tiers of stones—Blemished (Tier 1), Scuffed (Tier 2), Chipped (Tier 3), Flawed (Tier 4), Standard (Tier 5), Flawless (Tier 6), Epic (Tier 7), Peerless (Tier 8), and Artifact (Tier 9). Selecting the lowest tier core available to him—a Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Chipped Core—Roark turned the odd, glassy stone over in his hands as he studied its stats. A far more leisurely endeavor now that he was away from the heat of battle.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Chipped Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core

Strength: Tier 3, Chipped

Creature Core Level: 32

Durability: Degrading

Half-life: 11:32:27 hours remaining

Notice: Chipped (Tier 3) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core will degrade to Scuffed (Tier 2) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core if not implanted in a compatible host within its half-life. Once implanted in a compatible host, Durability status will be converted from Degrading to Stable.

Notice: Once implanted in a compatible host, the Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core cannot be removed without destroying the Transmutation Core.

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

╠═╦╬╧╪

He read and reread the description, and once he was satisfied, he returned the stone to his inventory and pulled out the Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Tier 5 core.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Standard Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core

Strength: Tier 5, Standard

Creature Core Level: 41

Durability: Degrading

Half-life: 20:13:23 hours remaining

Notice: Standard (Tier 5) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core will degrade to Flawed (Tier 4) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core if not implanted in a compatible host within its half-life. Once implanted in a compatible host, Durability status will be converted from Degrading to Stable.

Notice: Once implanted in a compatible host, the Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Transmutation Core cannot be removed without destroying the Transmutation Core.

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

╠═╦╬╧╪

The greatest difference—so far as he could tell from the item description alone—corresponded to an increased half-life time, meaning the core stayed stable for significantly longer without degrading. Which, in practice, meant Roark had more time to find a compatible host to fit the stone with. But surely that couldn’t be the only difference between the stones. True, the handful of extra hours was an added bonus, but not nearly enough of a bonus. Which meant there was some other feature that lay in the actual application of the stone. And such an application would likely only be discovered through direct experimentation.

Stone in hand, he quickly flipped pages in his grimoire until he came to his slowly spinning avatar. It was only fair that he begin the experimentation with himself; he couldn’t convince himself that it would be all right to test the cores’ effects on one of the lower-level Trolls, even if he had their consent. There was no telling what would happen, and he loathed the thought of damaging one of them permanently.

Better that he be the test subject.

His avatar looked the same as always—his leathery wings and various minor injuries from the fight had long since healed—but in the lower corner of the page, there was a flashing bit of text he’d never seen before.

[Preview Transmutation Core?]

Excitement thrummed through his veins as he selected it. A scrap of paper with a list of the available Cores overlaid his avatar.

(3) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Chipped Core (Tier 3)

(2) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Flawed Core (Tier 4)

(1) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Standard Core (Tier 5)

(1) Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Flawless Core (Tier 6)

(1) Greater Hellstrike Jackal Flawless Core (Tier 6)

Very interesting. Whatever power the World Stone Pendant used to create Transmute Flesh apparently didn’t rely on the cores being in his Inventory as long as he had them in his possession.

Roark selected a Tier 3 Lesser Hellstrike Jackal Core and watched, transfixed, as the scrap of paper disappeared.

A lump of apple-sized black lava glass floated on the page over the head of his slowly spinning avatar, next to a line of text proclaiming User-Core Compatibility: 52%. Whatever that meant, it was clear that the Transmutation Core would change his appearance drastically.

His avatar’s lean frame erupted with swollen muscle, and his arms elongated to comical proportions, fingertips nearly brushing his ankles from standing. His wings shortened and widened, rising higher on his shoulders. His joints inverted, bending his legs backward until they resembled the hind legs of a wolf, with thick claws growing from his hands and feet. His face stretched until his mouth and nose became something of a short muzzle, while a coat of scruffy black fur grew from his skin. Likewise, his ears lengthened and sharpened until they had taken on the batlike proportions of the jackals.

On the page opposite his avatar were his base level and stats. Below that, a variety of sliders had appeared, just as they had when he evolved to his final Troll form, the Jotnar Infernali.

Apparently, he could tweak the physical appearance of this Troll-Jackal hybrid. He began to slide the options this way and that, changing the length of arms, the shape of his muzzle, the color of his fur. Unlike when he’d altered his Infernali appearance to suit him, however, changing the shape and color of this hybrid also changed his stats. Strength reduced as he shortened the arms. Speed dropped as he altered the angle of his legs. Intelligence increased or decreased as he sharpened or flattened his muzzle.

In its natural state, the Hellstrike Jackal was far stronger than a Troll, favoring hard-hitting power over intelligence or speed. The more of the Hellstrike features Roark kept, the stronger but slower the Troll-Jackal hybrid became. When he tweaked the sliders in favor of his Troll-ish features, his Strength decreased, but his Intelligence and Speed shot back up. Unfortunately, even when he adjusted the sliders so that the Hellstrike features were almost imperceptible, his overall Intelligence still took a sharp hit, and no amount of tweaking seemed to fix that.

Interestingly, a set of Hellstrike abilities had also been added to his character page. These didn’t change as he altered the hybrid’s appearance.

Anti-Tank Airstrike: Knock any hero or chimera with .5 x your Strength or greater into the air and they will be knocked Unconscious for 15 seconds.

Thrower of Flame and Slag: Fire a blast of molten magma 15 feet from mouth. Opponents struck by Thrower of Flame and Slag will take 5n Damage, where n is the caster’s character level, and 5 Burning damage per second for 30 seconds or until flames are extinguished. 15% chance of opponents with less than 35 Constitution being Immobilized in solid stone for 15 seconds.

Most intriguing of all to Roark was the change in level that came with the addition of the Transmutation Core. He was currently at level 42, whereas the Lesser Hellstrike Core had come from a level 32 Beast. His new level displayed at 37. That was a drop to be sure, but his level cap had increased to 40—a net gain of four levels over his current cap. When he focused on the number, a message flickered into existence. Lesser Hellstrike Jotnar Level is determined by averaging the Base User’s and the Core Chimera’s Levels.

He exited out of the Preview Transmutation Core Menu then attempted the experiment once more, this time using his real prize, the Greater Hellstrike Core. The apple-sized core was replaced with a larger melon-sized chunk of stone that burned with shimmering crimson light. Floating beside his avatar was the User-Core Compatibility Score. He’d been only 52% compatible with the first core, but the Greater Hellstrike Core was 67% compatible. A note appeared as he focused on the percentage: To implement a Transmutation Core, User must have at least 50% Compatibility.

He frowned and dismissed the prompt, focusing instead on the physical changes to his avatar. The transformation was similar to before, though far more pronounced. His arms and legs were bigger and more muscular, his claws and fangs longer, while spits of blackened bone littered his shoulders and ran down the outsides of his arms. His stats were significantly more impressive, though, and so was his level. The Greater Hellstrike Jackal was a level 62, so when combined, the hybrid’s new level was a staggering 52.

Even better, the respawn level cap had jumped drastically to level 65!

The jump in both level and level cap made Roark seriously consider making the change then and there, but the low Compatibility still nagged at the back of his mind.

He wondered what sorts of formulas and considerations determined Compatibility, but unfortunately no further explanation was forthcoming. At 67%, his own Compatibility with the Greater Hellstrike Jackal was above the required level, but nowhere near as high as he would have liked. This made sense when he stopped to consider it. The Jackal’s attacks all seemed based on Strength and Constitution, whereas Roark’s Infernali form favored Intelligence, Speed, and Dexterity. There had to be a creature somewhere in Hearthworld that would be more compatible with a Jotnar Infernali.

He had a feeling, however, that the Greater Hellstrike Jackal’s Core would be an excellent pairing for a Knight or Elemental—the highest Evolutions in the physical Path taken by the most powerful of Thursrs.

Roark glanced down at the bottom of the page where the option to Preview this Troll-Jackal hybrid had been. In its place was a new line of text.

[Would you like to transmute Jotnar Infernali and Greater Hellstrike Jackal to form mega evolution: level 52 Hellstrike Jotnar Infernali? Yes/No]

With a thought, he selected No. His avatar reverted to its former lean, ghostly pale, lithe-winged state. The fur disappeared and the pulsing purple tattoos of power that covered his skin returned.

Roark strode out of his study, nodding to the Behemoth as he passed. It was time to assemble the inner circle, discuss this new development with them, and perhaps see how Transmute Flesh actually worked...

Rogue Evolutions

“NEW EVOLUTIONARY PATHS?” Zyra folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “So, we won’t be Trolls anymore?”

A frisson of uncertainty ran through the group gathered in Portal to Flavortown’s upper room. Kaz, Mai, and Yevin squirmed uncomfortably in their seats, while Griff narrowed his eye as if he were trying to stare through Roark’s skull and into his brain. Ick rubbed at his chin with one chitinous back leg, producing a sound like a rasp on metal. Even the few low- to mid-level Trolls who had volunteered to be test subjects shifted from foot to foot anxiously.

“You’ll be more than Trolls,” Roark said, voice confident and rock steady. This new ability could change everything. Could level the playing field with Lowen and give them all a decided edge over even the most stalwart heroes in Hearthworld. “You’ll be hybrids, with all the most powerful abilities and strengths of your current Evolutions combined with something equally deadly to form something much more potent.”

That seemed to intrigue Zyra. At least, she didn’t immediately object to it, which usually meant she like the idea.

“And yeh’re wanting to change us all up?” Mai asked, tucking a strand of yellow hair behind her ear.

Kaz shook his head, a frown pulling down on his huge features. “Kaz loves Mai exactly the way she is, Roark. She needs no hybriding to make her perfect.”

“I’m not going to force the Transmutation on anyone,” Roark promised. This meeting was getting out of hand quickly. Unable to stand still any longer, he started to pace the little space left in the packed room. “Only those who want to become more powerful and rise above their current level cap will be eligible for a core. In truth, I think finding the right Evolutionary combinations is going to be the key to leveraging this as a weapon. I didn’t use the Greater Hellstrike Jackal core on myself for a reason. It wasn’t a decent match. None of the Jackal’s strengths or abilities played to the Jotnar Infernali strengths, you see? But if I searched the WikiLores and Hearthworld’s Wilds, I could find a compatible creature for every one of us.” He stopped and met Kaz’s concerned gaze. “Every one of us who wants a core, that is.”

“How exactly does it work?” Yevin asked as he restlessly drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Transmute Flesh isn’t a spell I’m familiar with.”

“Yes.” Ick’s mandibles clicked. “What magick does the transformation utilize? They do not seem to correspond to any of the Primal Creation Magicks.”

“Unless they’re illusory,” Yevin suggested, causing the arachnoid Nocturnus to nod in agreement. “Or perhaps some augmented form of Polymorph Self.”

“No illusion,” Roark said. “It’s closer to Polymorph, but of a more permanent sort. The very nature of the base materials is altered when the two Evolutionary Paths are combined. From what I can tell, you won’t shift back after a certain time limit as in Polymorph. The hybridization would be final. That’s why I’m warning everyone up front not to walk into this decision lightly. Whatever happens, I won’t be able to undo it unless I remove the Transmutation Core. Doing that will destroy the core, but I don’t have any information on what will happen to the host. They could revert to their original form, or they could be destroyed as well.”

Silence settled over the room at the gravity of the possible outcomes.

Roark stole a glance into the depths of Zyra’s shadowy hood, wondering what her expression held. How was she weighing the possibility of becoming something even deadlier than she was against an irreversible and potentially unsatisfactory alteration? He started to open his mouth to say that it wasn’t that different from choosing which Troll Evolutionary Path one would take when they reached the correct level, but something stopped him. It didn’t feel like an honest comparison. Not when forever-destruction was a possibility.

A gnarled blue hand shot up from behind Yevin’s shoulder.

“I-I’d still like to try it, Dungeon Lord,” the little Changeling Snaf croaked. She squeezed between the Arcane Paragon and the Nocturnus and stepped forward, her Peerless Chainmail shirt dragging along the ground. “If you’ll have me, that is.”

Roark pursed his lips, then nodded. The moral ambiguity of experimenting on living beings, even if they had volunteered, warred with his desire to see how and even if Transmute Flesh would work in real time. There was simply no other way forward but to try it out on someone.

With a thought, he brought up Snaf’s stats page.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

WITH IT CAME A SLOWLY spinning avatar of the misshapen little creature. At the bottom of the page was the option Preview Transmutation Core. He selected it and one of the Chipped Hellstrike Cores.

[Error! Incompatible Core: Discrepancy is too large between Host’s current level (4) and Core Creature’s level at time of death (18). The discrepancy between the levels of the Host and Core Creature must not be more than 2n, where n is the Host’s current level.]

Roark scowled and closed out of the grimoire.

“It says it’s incompatible,” he told Snaf. He could attempt to find a lower-level creature for compatibility’s sake, but he didn’t like the idea of stooping down for something that would permanently alter her. “You’ll have to level up a few times before I can implant you with one of the Transmutation Cores. But assuming you want to make the leap, I’ll hang onto this core just for you.”

“I’ll get it done, Dungeon Lord.” Snaf gave a sharp nod of her bald little head, determination etched into her features.

Crusher, the Behemoth who had been guarding Roark’s study, stepped forward, ducking to avoid the hanging light fixture at the center of the room.

“I’m a level 16, Dungeon Lord,” he rumbled. “Would it work on me?”

Roark let out a rush of breath. “Let’s find out.”

He pulled up Crush’s stats and selected the Preview option again, choosing the same Transmutation Core as before.

[Compatibility: 84%]

Excitement flashed through Roark’s limbs as he looked over the new stats of the Behemoth-Jackal hybrid. Most of the abilities of the Lesser Hellstrike Jackal would transfer, but the average of the levels would only bring Crusher up to a level 17, one higher than his current level, and his respawn cap wouldn’t change at all. After a bit of quick math, Roark backed up a step and tried a slightly higher-level core, this one from a Hellstrike Jackal that had died at level 32.

[Compatibility: 96%

Would you like to transmute Thursr Behemoth and Lesser Hellstrike Jackal to form Mega Evolution: Level 24 Bonesnap Behemoth? Yes/No]

Roark scanned the new stats for the Behemoth. It seemed that using a core with a slightly higher tier had transferred even more of the Hellstrike abilities to the hybrid.

“This one’s going to work,” Roark said, turning to Crusher. “You can change your appearance before you accept the core to your liking, but altering it does affect the stats you’ll gain or lose.”

A deep furrow appeared between the Behemoth’s brows. “Could you make it so that I have extra Strength, Dungeon Lord? I want all the Strength so’s I can live up to my name and crush stuff.”

Roark gave a quick nod and tweaked the arms and chest of the hybrid, lengthening, shortening, and widening until he’d found the perfect combination to bring Crusher up to maximum Strength and Constitution. Surprisingly, the Compatibility score went up as the hybrid’s total Strength rose.

“Have a look at it,” Roark said. “See what you think.”

Crusher’s eyes glazed over as he inspected the new form. Slowly, a grin stretched across his enormous face.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

“IT IS MIGHTY,” HE RUMBLED. “Crusher will strike fear into the hearts of any who dare to cross his path!”

“Then you’re ready to accept it?” Roark asked, forcing his voice to hold steady in spite of the nerves dancing in his gut. “Permanently?”

“Yes,” Crusher insisted, bobbing his great head in enthusiastic agreement.

Swallowing hard, Roark selected the option to Transmute the Behemoth.

Brilliant amber light flashed through the upper room, and everyone flinched, the hulking Behemoth included. A series of parchments appeared before Roark’s eyes one by one.

[Congratulations, you have created Bonesnap Behemoth level 24! Note: New Respawn level Threshold is level 20.]

[New Evolutionary Path for Crusher, Bonesnap Behemoth, detected! Feral Thursr Knight (available at level 25) or Hellstrike Elemental (available at level 30).]

Roark blinked away the notices, his head swimming and heart thundering. Not only would Transmute Flesh bring them more powerful Evolutions, but it also opened up opportunities for more Evolutionary forms. He couldn’t keep the grin from his face. This was fascinating.

A bone-shaking roar split the air, then rapidly morphed into a hearty chuckle.

“Bonesnap Behemoth!” Crusher clapped his new paws gleefully. “Look upon me and weep, you Herald scum!”

Nearby, Snaf was hopping from foot to foot and cheering.

“I’m going straight to Druz to see if she’ll put me on a griefing patrol,” the little Changeling crowed.

“Indeed it is very impressive,” Ick said, slowly circling the newly transformed Troll-Jackal hybrid. “And unless I am very much mistaken, Yevin, that was a form of magick altogether unknown to Hearthworld?”

The Arcane Paragon had risen and was studying Crusher as well.

“I haven’t seen or heard about it before, no,” Yevin agreed. “Fascinating stuff, Dungeon Lord. Truly fascinating.”

“Me next! Me next!” the last of their volunteers said, pushing past the two magick scholars. He was a bulky level 28 Elemental, one who had chosen the magic-using Evolution of the Thursr path. “Please say I can be next, Dungeon Lord.”

“Surely.” Roark pulled up the Elemental’s stats, flowing through the process with a little more confidence this time.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

ROARK SELECTED A STANDARD Hellstrike Core from a Jackal with a level of 49, which would bring the Elemental up to level 38. Roark had to clench his fists to contain his excitement. Transmuting this Troll would do the work of leveling ten times. It was brilliant!

[Would you like to transmute Thursr Elemental and Hellstrike Jackal to form Mega Evolution: Level 38 Earthshaker Hellemental? Yes/No]

Roark turned to the Elemental. “Any changes to the appearance you’d like to make before I accept it?”

“Just a moment.” The Elemental lengthened his claws, perked up the pointed batlike ears, and widened the deadly grin of the canid mouth. There were other differences to this version—earthen cracks littered the Elemental’s arms and chest, glowing with veins of pulsing magma. Spikes of hardened obsidian riddled massive forearms, which would make them excellent blocking tools. When the Elemental finished, the changes had raised his Intelligence by four points, but a bit of Constitution had been sacrificed. “That’ll do for me, Dungeon Lord.”

Roark accepted the Transmutation.

[Congratulations, you have created Earthshaker Hellemental level 38! Note: New Respawn level Threshold is level 30.]

[New Evolutionary Path for Smorg, Earthshaker Hellemental, detected! Volcanic Fury (available at level 45) or Molten Magus (available at level 50).]

Breathless with success, Roark grinned and looked around the room.

“I’d say this is an excellent start.” And he hadn’t even used the Greater Hellstrike Core yet! “The benefits to this will be unfathomable.”

A chair scraped the floor, cutting through the newly hybridized Trolls’ celebration.

Kaz stepped forward, and Roark’s stomach bottomed out.

“Kaz will be the next Evolution,” the Mighty Gourmet said, a strange determination to his words.

Roark shook his head. “Once I’ve had time to refine the process, maybe, but—”

“No,” Kaz said, raising a huge hand to silence his protests. “Kaz must lead by example. If the Troll Nation is to defeat the Vault of the Radiant Shield, then Kaz must be stronger. He must raise his Respawn cap before the evil Lowen attacks. If this process is safe for all Trolls, then it must be safe for Kaz, too.”

“Well, isn’t that just sweet as meringue?” Mai jumped to her feet, one hand on her hip, the other leveled accusingly at Kaz. “Always putting your life on the line for this place, for your mob brethren. The Griefer says jump, and you say, ‘Stand back!’ What happens if this change makes you”—the young widow faltered, color burning high in her pink cheeks—“someone else? Something else. I, for one, don’t think you need changing anymore’n I do, Kazko. I think you’re sure perfect as you are, and it’d be a crying shame to lose any little bit of you.”

A wide, lovesick grin broke out on Kaz’s face, and he picked up Mai’s tiny pink hands in his enormous mitts.

“Mai shouldn’t be afraid,” he said tenderly. When she hmphed and looked away, he leaned over into her face until she had to look him in the eye again. “Kaz will not change. Crusher is still himself, isn’t he?”

The towering Bonesnap Behemoth nodded emphatically. “Of course, Miss Mai, I swear to it I am.”

“And Smorg has always smelled like that,” Kaz offered.

“What?” The newly transmuted Hellemental looked from Griff on his right to Zyra on his left. “Smelled like what?”

“Burning hair and used ale,” the hooded Reaver drawled.

Kaz hooked a stray lock of hair behind Mai’s ear. “Mai will never lose Kaz. Not even a little bit of him. No matter what happens, Kaz will always be here for her.”

Mai sniffed softly. “But you won’t look like you anymore.”

“Does Mai only love Kaz for his beautiful face?” the Mighty Gourmet teased her. “If the Transmutation works, there will just be more of him to love.”

Mai let out a reluctant chuckle and hurried to wipe away a tear from her eye.

“Fine,” she whispered. “Do what you will, you silly fool.”

Kaz swept her into a huge hug and kissed her noisily on the forehead, then set her down and turned to Roark.

“Kaz is ready.”

Roark swallowed his own protests and put on a brave face to avoid frightening Mai any further. He would use the Greater Hellstrike Jackal’s Core, and if it was any less than 95% Compatibility and a ten-level increase, he would back out immediately and tell Kaz they needed to find a better hybrid for him.

With a thought, he opened his grimoire to Kaz’s page. The Mighty Gourmet hadn’t died in ages, and he’d made it to just over level 33 with the Lost Recipe quest. The Greater Hellstrike Jackal had been level 62 when they killed it. Kaz’s new level should have been close to 48, according to the notices Roark had received so far. But when he selected Preview and the Flawless Greater Hellstrike Transmutation Core, something strange happened.

[Compatibility: EXTREME HARMONY DETECTED!

You have found a pair of chimera who transmute exceedingly well with one another.

+2 Bonus to all Harmonic Statistics (Strength, Constitution, Two-handed Attacks, and Magical Resistance)

+2 to Hybrid character level and Respawn Threshold]

Kaz’s new level would come to 50, and his new respawn cap would be 52. All of the Strength-based stats that Kaz and the Greater Hellstrike Jackal both favored would shoot up as well, and he had three new abilities in the slots beneath his Thursr Knight abilities. One was the Anti-Tank Airstrike Roark had seen while doing his own Preview, but the others were completely new.

Boneshaking Rage: When Health drops below 50%, Feral Hellstrike Knight can let loose a boneshaking roar to light a fire in the bellies of his allies and turn the bowels of his enemies to water for 45 seconds. Beings with a relationship of Friendly or better gain +.25n to Constitution, where n is the Constitution of the Feral Hellstrike Knight, and beings with a relationship of Neutral and worse suffer -.25n to Constitution, where n is Constitution of the Feral Hellstrike Knight.

Hardening Lava: Once per day, Feral Hellstrike Knight can multiply the density of his form like cooling lava. When hardened, Natural Armor Rating increases by 50%, Weight is multiplied by 2, and all unarmed attacks deal 50% more damage.

Vastly impressive. Roark felt the fear that he would fail his best friend slide away, replaced once more by the giddy feeling of success. Keeping Mai’s fears in mind, he quickly made some tweaks to the appearance to keep the Knight-Jackal hybrid as Kaz-like as possible. Horns, tusks, and all. No matter what of the avatar Roark changed, however, the stats never decreased. It seemed that the Extreme Harmony kept Kaz from suffering any negative effects at all from the transmutation.

“What do you think, Kaz?” Roark asked, showing the Troll his advanced character sheet.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

THE MIGHTY GOURMET glanced over his new avatar, eyes alight with equal parts wonder and curiosity.

“One change, if Kaz may,” he said, adding a tall white Gourmet’s hat to the top of his head. He nodded in satisfaction. “Perfect.”

Roark glanced down at the creation option.

[Compatibility: 100%+, Extreme Harmony

Would you like to transmute Thursr Knight and Greater Hellstrike Jackal to form Mega Evolution: Level 50 Feral Hellstrike Knight? Yes/No]

Before he could get cold feet, Roark selected Yes.

Amber light flashed through the room.

When the smoke had cleared, the new Kaz stood before them. Though he was still the same height, Kaz was easily twice as wide as he had been, with boulders of muscle like millstones grinding together beneath short, coarse blue-black fur. His horns poked through the white Gourmet’s toque he’d added, while a ruff of slightly longer bristling black fur stuck up and ran down Kaz’s tree-trunk thick neck like the scruff on a hyena. His legs had become backward-angled canine legs, and his feet claw-tipped paws. His hands hung close to his knees, wicked black talons glinting at the ends of fingers the size of falcatas.

When no one spoke immediately, Kaz turned to Mai, brows raised and canine ears perked up.

“Does Mai still approve of Kaz?” he asked in a small, fearful voice that belied his brutal new appearance.

Mai let out a rush of breath. “How can I not? I’ve even more of him to love now than I did before.”

Kaz threw his head back and let out a joyful howl that rattled Flavortown to its foundations, then swept the blushing widow up and swung her around the room in an impromptu jig.

As the rest of them tried not to get crushed by the enormous couple, Roark glanced over at Zyra. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew he’d caught her eye when she grabbed her stomach and pretended to double over vomiting at Kaz and Mai’s display.

Roark laughed. He was feeling high enough from these successes to grab Zyra and swing her around himself, though he’d rather they be alone when he did.

Later definitely. For now, his mind was racing too fast to think of anything but finding more cores to transmute the members of the Troll Nation. The Jackals were excellent complements to the Trolls who’d chosen the Thursr Evolutionary Path, but for Reavers and Jotnars, they were hardly compatible. And the more powerful he could find, the better, especially for his floor overseers and Greater Vassals. Kaz was the perfect testament to that.

He would have to spend some time searching the WikiLore for the most powerful monsters in Hearthworld, and perhaps he could ask Randy and PwnrBwner as well. They were bound to have seen and killed a good deal of desirable chimeras in their time as heroes. He decided he should message them both, asking them to meet at the Citadel as soon as they could.

On top of that, watching the raucous celebration had started a thought niggling in the back of Roark’s mind. A possible elegant solution to at least one of the problems that kept coming back to cause trouble around the Troll Nation. He would have to talk to Kaz and Mai, however, and they seemed far too busy at the moment.

A puff of inky black smoke curled up over his shoulder, and the scent of deadly coquelicot blossoms filled his nose.

“What do you say we get out of here?” Zyra’s dusky voice whispered in his ear, her warmth pressing against his back. “Find somewhere private to”—she traced a poisoned claw along his right wing, making a shiver run down Roark’s back—“celebrate lethal new possibilities?”

“It’s as if you read my mind.” Roark hooked an arm around the hooded Reaver’s waist and led her toward the door.

Solving Dungeon Lord problems could wait until later just this once.

Musical Solutions

A GOOD DEAL LATER, Roark finally sent off the messages to Randy and PwnrBwner, asking that they meet at the Citadel at their earliest convenience.

Randy’s reply appeared promptly a few minutes after the message was sent: I’ve got to work today from 8 to 5, which is about two days in Hearthworld. Sorry. But I’ll come as soon as I get home. Is it another quest?

No, Roark sent back. I have some questions about Infernal Hearthworld creatures; which are the most powerful, intelligent, deadly, high-level, and where do they spawn?

Happily, the Arboreal Herald’s next reply contained quite a bit of useful information, along with maps, directions, and cross-references to the WikiLore page. Roark spent several minutes poring over it. As he’d suspected, being right hand to the devs of Hearthworld, Randy had loads of valuable insight into the Infernal mobs that populated this dimension.

PwnrBwner’s response was typically contrary: Oh sure I’ll just run right over there IF I EVER MAKE IT TWO FUCKING STEPS FROM MY FUCKING SPAWN POINT!!!

Then before Roark could respond, the High Combat Cleric sent a second message: Get me some epic gear ready, and I’ll be there.

And a third: If you see a hot dark elf chick all gothed out in black and skulls and Undead shit, tag GothicTerror, shoot her in the fucking face from me.

Roark shook his head. He shouldn’t have expected anything more than incomprehensible gibberish from the Cleric. Although PwnrBwner’s mention of a hero who used Undead energies was intriguing. Roark had tried a few Undead spells himself after he’d learned about the Primal Creation dyads, but couldn’t seem to get the hang of the casts no matter how he inscribed them. In the end, he’d had to settle for adding the Undead spells to Curse Chains on the weapons and armor. But if the Troll Nation could make allies who utilized Undead energies, perhaps that would give them another leg up over Lowen’s Divine troops.

It was certainly something to look into. He would have to discuss it further with PwnrBwner when he made it to the Citadel. Roark didn’t want to attempt a long-form conversation with the incoherent Cleric through messages. Instead, he dashed off a reply letting PwnrBwner know that the Troll Nation armor and weapons vault was open to him whenever he did manage to arrive.

With that sorted, Roark closed his grimoire. Zyra was already up and moving around the Keep’s alchemy lab. The equipment there was far less advanced than what could be found in Zyra’s alchemy shop in the marketplace, and there were fewer shelves of rare ingredients, but because the Reaver hardly used this lab anymore, no one ever thought to look for them there. That made it the perfect hideaway.

Roark watched her work for a few minutes, white ringlets spilling down her back, brilliant against her recurved onyx horns and sparkling midnight blue skin. Being somewhere she knew no one would accidentally see her without her hood and lose all fear of her had the added benefit of letting him stare at the face she kept hidden from the rest of Hearthworld. Zyra wasn’t just beautiful, she was cute, and that infuriated her to no end. With her heart-shaped face, pixie-like chin and nose, and those full lips and mismatched green and purple eyes, she could have ruled a softer world with nothing but dark glances and sultry smiles. But Hearthworld, like Roark’s home dimension, was a place of war and brutality. Fear and intimidation were the only weapons Zyra thought she had.

She turned to grab a calcinator from the table behind her, then stopped suddenly when she realized he was staring at her.

“What is it?” she growled.

Dense as he might be with her at times, Roark was smart enough not to answer that question honestly. He nodded at the mixing flask in her hand.

“Brewing something nasty?”

“Maybe,” she said, flipping open the calcinator and scraping a bit of rust-colored powder into her flask. “That Flesh-Eating Poison I tested on you gave me the idea. The Heralds’ flesh is hard, some type of gold alloy, yes? That’s why the arrows wouldn’t hold in our first battle in the bailey?”

Roark frowned, considering this. He hadn’t taken much time to study Viago’s remains, but the winged creatures’ blood was molten gold, that much he’d seen. It made sense, then, that their flesh was at least partially gold. And to achieve the hardness required to stop cabled arrows from penetrating deeply enough for the barbs to anchor them in place, the gold would have to have been alloyed with something much stronger.

“It must be,” he said, having reasoned through the process himself.

“Well, if I can create some sort of poison that specifically degrades the alloy, then perhaps the archers’ first volley could be used to envenomate them and soften their flesh. Then secondary volleys could anchor the grounding cables more solidly, and we could pull them down without the arrows popping free.” She held the flask up to the light and swirled the concoction. “And I’m sure the Health damage will be worth a little something, too.”

Roark crossed the room and kissed her on one bare shoulder.

“You’re brilliant.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Griefer,” she said. “Getting the poison right will take time and require a certain amount of trial and error with the troops upstairs. Unless you can net me enough Herald flesh to analyze what their skin is made of.”

“I’ll see what I can do about it. In the meantime, did you check the WikiLore page?”

She snorted. “Heroes don’t care what Herald flesh is made of. They just want to know what sort of loot the nasty little moths drop.”

“Is that a yes, I checked or an I didn’t bother?” Roark asked.

“Yes, I checked,” she said, rolling her purple and green eyes.

He grinned at her tone and kissed her again. “Then I’ll see what I can do about getting you part of one to experiment on.”

“Unless you think our friend Randy might be made of the same basic components...” she suggested, glancing over her shoulder at Roark.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed that you actually referred to someone as your friend or horrified that you want to experiment on him.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “Or jealous that you want to test your poisons on someone else.”

“Be jealous,” she said, smirking. “I have a feeling that green is a lovely color on you.”

Roark bumped his horns jokingly against hers, then grabbed his Leathers and equipped them.

“I’ll ask Randy what he’s made of, but I doubt it’s the same as Lowen’s ilk. Arboreal Heralds seem to run more toward the woodsy side of nature, whereas the Malaika Heralds—and their Vault—have so far been metallic.”

Zyra nodded. “Then I’ll expect you to deliver a decent chunk of one to the alchemy shop.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he promised. “First, I have a separate bit of Dungeon Lord business to take care of. I think I may have solved Griff’s admirer problem.”

“I told him I could fix that,” Zyra said, shaking her head. “Regular applications of Potent Contact Poison to the rails around the pit and, poof, problem solved. He didn’t think the situation had come to that yet.”

Roark chuckled. “If it does, you’ll be the first to know.”

He left the laboratory and turned down the winding halls of the Keep, coming out into the ever-present glow of the towering bioluminescent mushrooms that lit the fifth floor. Having a plan for at least one of the smaller problems plaguing the Troll Nation made everything look a touch brighter, made the soft chiming of the grass as he disturbed it less irritating and more pleasant.

Of course, parting on good terms with Zyra always helped that, too.

Though it was technically the wee hours of the morning in Hearthworld, Roark found Kaz in the kitchen of Portal to Flavortown. Mobs never slept, so Kaz often used the slow overnight shifts to train new cooks and servers. Being an NPC, Mai had slipped off to catch a bit of sleep, but when Roark outlined his plan for the Mighty Gourmet, Kaz was certain that the young widow would approve.

“Mai will do anything if it helps Griff,” Kaz insisted. “She worries over him so. He is no spring Selkie, she says. Kaz isn’t sure what a Selkie matters in the grand scheme of things, but he is very happy indeed that Roark’s plan will make her feel better.”

“If it works, Kaz,” Roark said. “I haven’t even talked to everyone involved yet.”

Solieau, like every musician worth their salt Roark had ever known in Traisbin, was at the Flavortown bar in spite of the late hour, entertaining a trio of beautiful creatures.

“May I have a private word with you, Solieau?” Roark asked the young man.

The ladies turned on him with vicious scowls, and Roark had time to reflect that Sirens, Enchantresses, and Banshees were terrifying creatures when caught in the wrong light before they realized they were hissing at the Dungeon Lord of the Troll Nation.

“It’s all right, ladies,” the musician said, shooting them each a winning smile. “I’ll catch up to you later on.”

When the three of them had reluctantly torn themselves away from his side, Solieau turned to Roark.

“What’s the problem, Dungeon Lord? Am I in trouble?” He raised his hands in defense. “I swear I would never go near that hooded lady of Shadows you’re courting.”

“I doubt you have the healing potions to survive it if you did,” Roark replied with a grin. “As to whether you’re in trouble, that depends.” Roark took the seat the Siren had vacated and folded his leathery wings behind his back. “Have you done anything that would cause trouble since arriving in the Troll Nation?”

“Fair question,” Solieau admitted with a shrug. “No, I haven’t stirred up anything lately. I suppose I’m just used to being hassled from time to time by the local authorities.”

“And the local cuckolds?”

The young musician chuckled. “They’re a sight harder to avoid than city guards.”

Roark caught the sleepy eye of the little Changeling tending the bar, indicating a mead for himself and a refill for Solieau. She scampered off and returned with two heady flagons.

“Bit of a criminal past, then?” he asked the bard.

“I’ve fallen in and out of a few bad crowds.” Solieau took a sip of his mead and wiped the foam from his upper lip with the back of one hand. “Be assured it won’t happen while I’m here, though, Dungeon Lord. Kaz and Mai gave me a second chance and a safe place to stay, and I intend to live up to their trust.”

Roark felt a corner of his mouth turn up.

“They’re a good sort,” he agreed, twisting his flagon a little on the bar top. What felt like ages ago, Griff had said something to the effect that no matter how hard you tried to keep people at arm’s length, sooner or later someone like Kaz or Mai would come along and nettle their way into your heart. No one stood a chance against the two of them combined. “And that’s good to hear, because I wouldn’t want to have to put an Eternal Curse on you, mate. It takes time I don’t really have to spare, and it’s bloody messy. For you especially.”

Solieau choked on his mead.

“In an unrelated matter,” Roark continued cheerfully over the sound of the musician’s spluttering, “I’ve a bit of work I need done, and your expertise in particular might come in handy.”

He laid out the details, making certain that Solieau knew he could refuse without fear of being on the sharp end of a Dungeon Lord’s curse. Within the hour, they had polished the plan to a quality shine and agreed to meet at first light.

Roark was standing by the tunnels to the training arena when Griff showed up in the morning.

The grizzled trainer stopped in his tracks and squinted at Roark.

“Don’t suppose this is a social visit?” he asked.

“Business,” Roark said. “But I think you’ll appreciate it.”

“It’s him!” an admirer cried, leaning around the edge of the tunnel. “Griff’s finally here!”

Griff cringed, folding in on himself like a beaten hound. An ecstatic shriek went up in the already swollen crowd gathered around the arena, followed by a chorus of excited shouts directed at the old trainer.

“Hi, Griff!”

“Griff, I love you!”

“Griff, you ssstill haven’t accepted my offer to fertilize my eggsss! Yesss or no?”

“I said no, Resss!” Griff snapped. He turned back to Roark. “Let’s get in the pit before they get it into their heads to mob me again.”

The feminine shouts carried on as they crossed into the churned earth of the pit, but Griff seemed determined to ignore them. The recruits for his first training session of the day were already there stretching, sparring, and working on combos he had shown them the day before.

As Griff turned to call them to order, Roark laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Hold off a moment,” he said, indicating the new arrival coming from the tunnels.

Griff scowled. “I thought you warded it so that nobody without permission from me could get down here?”

“Permission from you or from me,” Roark said. “And I invited him.”

“You invited a musician who can barely grow enough wool to shave into a fighting pit?” Griff asked skeptically, eyeing the bard askew. “I’ve trained a few soft ones in my time, Griefer, but never a child.”

“He may look young, Griff, but I get the feeling he’s hiding a core of solid steel. And believe it or not, he’s the answer to your admirer problem.”

The trainer grunted in disbelief, but Roark gave Solieau a nod to begin. They could stand around arguing all day, but results were all that mattered.

The musician walked out into the middle of the pit and turned to face the audience, a grin as bright as a Ball Lightning spell lighting his face despite how much he and Roark had drank the night before.

“Ladies and ... ladylike mobs, Griff’s been kind enough to give me a spot playing before each of his training sessions today in order to promote my new house gig at the Portal to Flavortown. I hope you all don’t mind.”

They didn’t. Though for a moment it looked as if they might riot at the delay between them and Griff, Solieau quickly turned the crowd in his favor, cranking his worn hurdy-gurdy and singing out a jaunty tune about the only girl he’d ever loved. Soon they were clapping and dancing along and swooning over the charming young musician. From there, Solieau changed the tempo with a sad and haunting air about a lost soul who only wished he’d lived long enough to see his love once more, bringing tears to several eyes, and when that was over, he cheered the lovestruck audience back up once more with a merry drinking song.

The music must have had some sort of charm woven into it to manipulate the emotions so effectively, Roark decided. Even a few of the recruits in the pit waiting for Griff to start their training session broke out in happy jigs listening to Solieau play. Or, he amended, perhaps it was just the nature of music.

The surprise concert lasted only six songs in all, but by the time it was finished, nearly all of the women and female creatures who’d been clamoring for Griff’s attention had become enamored with the talented young musician.

Solieau took several deep bows.

“Thank you all, each and every one. You especially,” he said, nodding to no one in particular, but making half a dozen onlookers squeal giddily. “If you ever feel like hearing more, and perhaps with a little less distance separating us, I’d love to have you join me at the Portal to Flavortown any time. I’ll be heading over there to play another round shortly.”

Wild cheering answered him. Solieau sent Roark an appreciative wave, then headed off for the inn. Nearly all of the onlookers disappeared from around the pit. Only a few of the most determined and infatuated fans of Griff’s remained.

“Not a bad solution, lad,” Griff admitted begrudgingly.

“Honestly, it went off better than I expected,” Roark said. “Solieau’ll play before each of your training sessions today. That should steal away a good number of your admirers. In a week, you won’t have a fan left.”

“Doubt I’ll shed too many tears over them.” A grin tugged at the old trainer’s scar-crossed face, relief shining through like the sun. He shook his head, looking off in the direction Solieau had exited. “I just hope the kid knows what he’s getting himself into. That crowd can exhaust a man right fast.”

“What was it you said the other day?” Roark asked. “He’s young yet?”

Griff laughed. “He is that. Maybe he can handle it.” He pounded Roark on the back. “Now, I’ve got a new Rumble Crew to train.”

Alliances

“I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’RE in such a great mood, you pirate douchebag,” Scott grumbled, scowling at Roark as he paced the Cruel Citadel’s boss room. “You think it’s funny that I had to walk all the way here from way out by Skozhelm? I had to fucking switch zones and spawn in as this alt PwnrBwner_69 piece of crap. Try running across the map on a level 7’s Stamina, buddy boy, tell me if you’re laughing, then.”

That had been a tsunami of bullshit in itself. Yeah, he’d leveled his dinky little Ranger-Cleric to 9 by killing like a million wild roaming mobs on the way, but the trip had taken him almost four hours in total. Four hours of gameplay that he could never get back.

Scott stopped pacing and faced Roark. “I’ve got freaking superpowers IRL now. Like for sure. People should be building statues of me and shit, but instead I’m getting my ass handed to me by some dumb hoochie who didn’t get the memo that screamo’s dead and a bunch of twelve-year-olds and neckbeards who probably live in their mom’s basements.”

Roark cocked his eyebrow. “And you say these... uh... that is, they work for Bad_Karma?”

“Duh, yeah, obviously.” Scott rolled his eyes. “Have you been listening to anything I’m saying? Karma put a hit out on me because I helped you stomp his ass to the tune of one point five million viewers and kill his stupid Hardcore build. Now his whole guild and every loser who wants in has major murder boners for me. Surprise, dude’s petty AF. Are you caught up yet? Can we move on with the lesson and get to the part where you help me figure out what the fuck to do? Don’t forget, you got me into this bullshit in the first place.”

Roark leaned forward on the badass Dungeon Lord throne and rested his elbows on his knees. Altogether, the scene looked pretty baller, especially with the Infernal wings and shit. Scott from a year ago would’ve screenshotted it for his seedFeed, but since it was the Griefer doing it, right-now Scott just crossed his arms and pasted an unimpressed expression on his face.

“Bad_Karma hasn’t come against you personally,” Roark said.

“No. He’s too scared because he’s a pwnable little bitch right now. Will be for a while, too.”

“So, he sends his followers, who are presumably higher level than his new form.”

Scott nodded. “And there’s a shit ton of them, and they’re basically everywhere.”

“His strength lies in the size of his army,” Roark said. “What did you call it? His guild.”

“Oh my God, dude, are you like away from keyboard and just letting AI repeat everything I say so it sounds like you’re listening? Yes, his guild is fucking strafing me.”

“What about your core party?” Roark asked. “RogStarKel and Dude_Farkowitz?”

“Fuckers abandoned me like we hadn’t been best friends since Xbox19.” Scott shook his head. “Screw those losers, anyway.”

“And none of your followers will lift a finger to fight back?”

Scott opened his mouth, then stopped. He actually hadn’t thought of sending out a message to his seedFeed asking for help. Most of them were Karma-lickers who unsubscribed when BK disavowed him, anyway.

“I’ve only got a couple hundred left,” he said. “Nobody with any serious skills.”

Roark’s eyes narrowed. “How loyal are they?”

“I don’t know.” Scott shrugged. “I mean, I guess some of them have been followers since I started my OG build, but most of them are probably bots, and the rest just forgot to hit unsubscribe. Or they’re following me, waiting for me to pop up somewhere nearby so they can rack up a kill to impress Karma. Are you gonna help me or just sit around asking stupid questions all day?”

The Griefer got up and started pacing the throne room, too, hands clasped behind his back below his wings.

“You’re right, that was a stupid question,” he said. “The question I should’ve been asking was how loyal are Bad_Karma’s followers?”

“Pretty fucking loyal,” Scott said. “They’re camping out in a no-PvP zone losing XP, getting flagged, and taking penalties so they can serial kill me. BK made it worth all the red tape by busting open the guild vault and making it rain rare shit and memberships. And once they’re in, they get access to more gear, more money, and elite raids and shit.”

Roark stopped suddenly and pointed a claw-tipped finger at him. “That’s what I mean. That isn’t loyalty, that’s mercenary. He bought them. What’s to stop you from doing the same? Starting your own guild?”

Scott laughed. “It’s not like I can just be like, ‘Oh, I think I’ll start a guild today.’ It takes a metric assload of start-up coin. You gotta have officers, a location—all kinds of crap I don’t.”

“Follow me.” Roark jerked his head at the throne room’s side door.

Rolling his eyes at the douchey dramatic pause, Scott let out a loud sigh, then begrudgingly followed him. They stepped out into the narrow alley behind the Keep and came to a spot Scott recognized as the door Roark had led him and his party through back when they were trying to kill the last Dungeon Lord. The tunnel on the other side led up to a crypt in the cemetery outside the Cruel Citadel, an alternate route so players didn’t have to walk back through the dungeon.

“What’s in the crypt upstairs that you need to show me?” Scott asked, pulling back suspiciously. He’d had a shitty enough day already. He wasn’t about to get one-shotted by the Griefer for old time’s sake.

“I’ve made some adjustments to the Citadel’s layout since you came through here,” Roark said. “Moved the escape tunnel behind the marketplace and changed this to an enclosed room.” He threw open the door. “It’s the Troll Nation vault now.”

Scott let out a low whistle as he followed the Griefer into the room, trying to play it off like his jaw wasn’t hitting the floor. Dude had Unique weapons and armor out the ass, and stacks on stacks on stacks of top-tier scrolls. Piles of Flawless and above-average gems sparkled at him from every direction. And the gold. There was an economy-breaking amount of coin in that vault.

“How have the devs not nerfed this yet?” he asked, trying not to sound impressed. Some of it got through anyway. “They have to be able to see how much cash you’ve got hoarded here, and it’s not like they’d just be cool with letting you fuck up their game economy.”

Roark shrugged, his wings moving with his shoulders. “From what Randy says, I don’t think they can interfere. Something about my presence in Hearthworld is stopping them. For now, at least.” He turned to face Scott. “But until they do find a way to stop me, maybe you and I could help each other.”

Scott frowned. “Like how?”

“You need money to start a guild and rare items to attract new members. I need heroes who can gain Experience from killing mobs and who don’t lose levels when they’re sent for respawn.”

“You’re wanting to make some kind of alliance deal?” Scott asked.

“Not so different from what I’ve already done with many of the other dungeons. And I can obviously deliver my end of the bargain. You already know I can make unique weapons and armor unmatched by anything else out there, and we’ve got a fair bit of gold at our disposal. If it’s elite raids your people want access to, I happen to know quite a few powerful Dungeon Lords who might enjoy testing their new layouts and troop distributions against parties of well-equipped heroes.”

Slowly, Scott started nodding.

“All right, I’m listening,” he said. “How would this alliance work exactly? What’s the legalese?”

“I don’t know what legalese is,” Roark said.

“The fine print,” Scott said. “The catch. The details I should know about before I sign my life away. You want to bankroll my guild, right? So, what are you wanting from me in return?”

The lightbulb went on when Roark finally got it.

“Ah, yes. I see,” he said. “In return for funding your guild and helping you with everything you need, I expect help with anything I need.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got an ‘anything’ in mind already, right? So what is it?”

“I’ve found a way to create hybrids between Trolls and other creatures,” Roark said like he wasn’t dropping an atomic-level bombshell. “I’ve spent the last twelve hours poring over the WikiLore, research suggestions from Randy, and generally searching for the perfect creature to hybridize myself with, and I think I’ve finally found the answer.”

“Wow, shit.” Scott squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Okay, I’m ready. Lay it on me. What kind of mob are we talking?”

“Aczol the Eternal, NecroDragon of Daemonhold Deep,” Roark said matter-of-factly. “His lair is in the Jungles of Eternal Night. I want you to help me find and kill him. The catch or fine print, as you called it, is that I have to be the one to strike the killing blow.”

“Necrodragon?” Scott shook his head at this new shitstorm of crazy. “The fuck you want to fight a NecroDragon for?”

Roark opened his mouth, but Scott cut him off.

“And not just any ol’ NecroDragon —the NecroDragon! You want Aczol right out of the gate.” He threw his hands up. “Balls, man! There’s a reason everybody calls Aczol the Endgame Dragon. You kill him, you basically beat Hearthworld. There’s no mob to work up to after Aczol. Everybody who’s ever killed him is on the Immortals board in the WikiLore, and there are like five total.”

“Then I’ll be the sixth.”

“It’s like you don’t have any concept of what’s within your level! There are rules to this shit, dude.”

The Griefer crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not as if I’ll be fighting him alone.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot your new level 9 Ranger-Cleric buddy who can’t get access to his fucking main. I’m sure you’ll get real far with the help of a dual-class lowbie.”

“You still gain levels fairly quickly, don’t you?” Roark said. “By the time we’ve ground our way to the Jungles of Eternal Night, you should be at least level 10.”

Scott groaned. “And let’s not forget that little nugget while we’re mining shit here—the Jungles of Eternal Night. They. Are. The. Worst! They’re Nocturnus territory, and even if your whole party’s OP, those spiders still suck. The chick in charge is Isara the Spinner, and if you think you’re a dirty fucking cheater, just wait ’til you meet her.”

The Griefer smirked. “I like her already.”

“You won’t when she’s slurping out your liquified guts. She’s a Roark the Griefer level douchebag, and she gets to eat you while you’re still alive. Sound fun?” Creepy fucking spiders. It was bullshit how they moved in fewer frames per second than everybody else did. Here, then suddenly there. Scott shuddered involuntarily. “We’ll have to grind through all that Nocturnus spider crap just to get to the entrance to the Underworld Cairns, and if we make it through that, we’ll still have to crawl through Daemonhold, the worst dungeon ever. Total labyrinth with zero loot or low-level mobs to warm up on before you come face-to-face with fucking Aczol Holyfield Gracie Lee.”

“I don’t intend to fight my way through the Jungles of Eternal Night,” Roark said. He glanced to the side. “I may have an inside man—or Nocturnus—who can get us to the entrance to Daemonhold Deep without a battle. In addition to the three of us, a select few others will be joining this raid. Enough to dispatch Aczol, but not enough that you won’t get a very large share of whatever loot we find. Additionally, as Dungeon Lord, I can offer you this.”

A quest alert popped up.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Loyalty Mission

Roark the Griefer, Dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel and Leader of the Troll Nation, has requested that you help him kill Aczol the NecroDragon in exchange for full backing to create your own hero guild.

Objective: Accompany Roark the Griefer to the Underworld Cairns and aid him in defeating Aczol the NecroDragon of Daemonhold Deep.

Reward: 2,000 Experience, 2,000 gold, Backing to Create Hero Guild, Future Guild Alliance with the Troll Nation, and Access to any Unique Item from the Troll Nation Treasury

Restrictions: Only Roark the Griefer may strike the killing blow on Aczol the NecroDragon of Daemonhold Deep.

You can’t earn loyalty in a day. Unless you complete this quest in a day. Then you can.

Accept quest? Yes/No?

╠═╦╬╧╪

Scott licked his lips and tried to keep an indifferent sneer on his face. The Experience wasn’t a gamer changer, but everything else was—with access to the gold and loot Roark had, maybe he really could form his own guild and get even with both BK and that goth thot.

He jerked his chin at Roark. “What, are you trying to buy me now?”

“If that’s what it takes,” the Griefer said without even blinking an eye. That fake-pirate bastard could be cold as hell when he wanted to.

Scott sliced a hand through the air to slow Roark’s roll a little. “First off, I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna do it. I mean, yeah, it’s basically impossible, but if it helps me get to a point where I can spam these murder hobos and fuck up Bad_Karma, I’ll do it. Besides, I’m your vassal now, which means you depend on me to get the impossible shit done. Right?”

“Greater Vassal,” Roark corrected.

“Some might say the greatest,” Scott said, accepting the quest. “Let’s go slay a fucking dragon.”

Changing Faces

“A DRAGON?” GRIFF SAID. He blew out a long breath and nodded. “Well, Griefer, you’ve lost your mind.”

“That’s what I said,” PwnrBwner said from his spot against the wall.

“Yes, and then you accepted,” Zyra sneered at the hero.

He shrugged. “Dude’s convincing.”

Roark waited for the protests to die down, then forged ahead.

“I’m convincing because I’m right,” Roark said. “We can beat this NecroDragon Aczol. It won’t be easy, but it can be done. And I can give each of you quests along the way to circumvent the Hearthworld law against mobs gaining Experience from killing other mobs.”

“Mayhap it can be done,” Griff said, his one eye skewering Roark. “But after how many respawns? There’s a whole jungle of Nocturnuses between us and the Underworld Cairns, lad, and they ain’t exactly a friendly sort. Anyone you take with you is like as not to be killed half a dozen times before they even get to the dragon.”

“No, they’re not,” Roark said, “because we have Ick. He can guide us through Nocturnus territory and show us the best way to sneak into the Underworld Cairns without being detected.”

Everyone in Flavortown’s upper room turned to the Witchdoctor. Ick blinked several of his sapphire eyes in surprise.

“Ah, apologies for my impertinence, Dungeon Lord, but I have reservations about what you’re suggesting.” His arachnoid legs rubbed together, then quickly smoothed out his tentacled hair. “I am no longer allowed in the Jungles of Eternal Night, on pain of death. If we are found out, I will be executed, and you, as outsiders, will be fed to the children in the creche.”

Oddly enough, that seemed to brighten Zyra’s mood. She let out a musical laugh.

“Septic Brewmasters are poisonous,” she explained when she realized they were staring. “My Tainted Blood attribute currently does 6 points of gastric damage per second for 30 seconds to anyone who consumes my flesh. If those little wall-crawlers bite me, they’ll regret it.”

“They will still kill and eat you,” Ick said. “Those with the strongest Health regeneration rates will overcome the effects of your poison and absorb it into their own venom sacks.”

“At least it won’t be a pleasant experience for either of us,” she said. Her hood swiveled to face Roark. “All right, Griefer, I’ll go. I fully expect to be dead before we make it to the Underworld Cairns, but I’d like to see the effects of Tainted Blood firsthand.”

“Kaz?” Roark asked, turning to the newly minted Feral Hellstrike Knight. The Mighty Gourmet had been disturbingly quiet all throughout the discussion. Usually, he was the first to speak up in favor of Roark’s plans, almost always giving his enthusiastic support.

A memory from Five-Alarm Cave flashed through Roark’s mind. Kaz does not like this side of Roark. Guilt squirmed in Roark’s gut. Maybe Kaz wouldn’t back him this time. Maybe Kaz had lost faith in him. Or worse, seen through him to the ruthless blackhearted thing that he truly was when it came to the fight against Lowen and Marek, willing to do anything to defeat the Tyrant King, even if it meant using his friends as pawns. Roark couldn’t—wouldn’t—force his friend to join them on this quest, but he desperately wanted Kaz to be there.

Slowly, Kaz stood up.

“Kaz fears this is needlessly dangerous,” the Mighty Gourmet said. “Roark and any of Kaz’s friends who go could die horribly. Is Roark sure this is a good idea?”

Roark nodded. “It’s the only way. Aczol is the most powerful creature in Hearthworld. And more than that, he’s got an Undead Alignment, which means he is the natural enemy against the Heralds with their Divine magick. Having his Transmutation Core would give me the greatest advantage. Killing him will be hard, but according to the few heroes who’ve been in his lair, Daemonhold Deep is completely devoid of life. Nothing else is brave enough to live in Aczol’s dungeon. Once we make it past the Nocturnuses’ territory, we’ll be safe until we reach the NecroDragon.”

“There’s just the little matter of getting past Isara the Spinner,” Griff said. “She’s a right cunning one, and she’ll have protected that entire jungle against incursions by outsiders. If you walk into one of her traps, you won’t know it until you’re tangled too well to escape.”

“That’s why I’ve asked Ick to guide us,” Roark said. “He knows the territory better than anyone. He’ll be able to lead us away from Isara’s traps.”

“Apologies, Dungeon Lord,” Ick interjected, his tone growing more formal the more problems he pointed out with Roark’s plan, “but even if I am able to help you avoid every trap in my people’s home, you will be seen. There are always eyes watching in the Jungles of Eternal Night. Once outsiders have been spotted, the Overweaver will call out her greatest Conquistadors and Witchdoctors to hunt them down.”

“Actually, I’ve been working on that,” Roark said with a slick grin. He pulled a featureless mask from his inventory and held it up so they could inspect the item. It glinted silver in the light, the metal shifting ever so slightly in his hand.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Cursed Quicksilver Polymorph Mask

Durability: 106/108

Requirement:

Armor Rating: 9

Properties: Grants wearer the visage of the being who last wore Cursed Quicksilver Polymorph Mask; visage duration: 8 hours.

Properties: Because Cursed Quicksilver Polymorph Mask is smithed from Quicksilver, each instance of skin contact causes 2 points of Impulse Control Damage. Impulse Control Damage raises the risk of reckless behavior.

Note: Cursed Quicksilver Polymorph mask does not transfer Trade skills or Levels from one wearer to the next.

Note: Visages are not transferred in an infinite chain. One wearer’s visage is transferred to the next, then a new visage must be designated.

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, and now you can pick whichever friend’s nose you like best!

╠═╦╬╧╪

“Where on Hearthworld did you find that?” Griff asked, a touch of suspicion warring with the amazement in his voice.

“I built it using Transmute Power and the Grapple Polymorph ability from the Transmutation Tricks Grimoire.” When Roark had finally made it to level 36 and Evolved into a Jotnar Infernali, he’d been given the option of adding two new grimoires to his repertoire. He’d chosen Skin Deep: The Art of Glamorous Makeovers to enhance his Glamour Cloak ability and Change Yourself, Change Your Friends, Change the World: Transmutation Tricks. In the short time he’d had it, Transmutation Tricks had already more than paid for itself.

“Guess you’ve been handling it a lot, then,” Griff said, eliciting a snicker from both Zyra and PwnrBwner. For his part, however, the old arena hand looked deadly serious.

“Not enough to cause the kind of damage you’re suggesting,” Roark replied. He’d done a great deal of research into the Impulse Control Reserve while he was smithing the Polymorph Mask. Two points hardly scratched the surface of what most of them in the room had at any given moment. It would take a significant amount of handling before the mask made a dent in that pool. “Check your Impulse Control stat if you don’t believe me. Mine’s well over a thousand, and Ick’s natural Nocturnus bonuses dwarf that.”

Zyra let out a sharp laugh. “Is your Impulse Control really only a thousand?”

“Only?” Roark frowned. “It’s seventeen hundred fifty-three.”

“That explains so much,” the Reaver said, voice purring with amusement.

“What are you talking about?” Roark searched the shadowy depths of her hood. “What’s yours?”

Zyra reached up and patted his arm condescendingly. “If I wasn’t already planning to go with you, that would decide it for me. You’re going to need someone with some common sense now more than ever.”

Frustrated, Roark flipped open his grimoire to his Greater Vassal pages and found Zyra’s entry.

“Nine thousand two hundred?” Roark flinched when he realized he’d almost shouted that. He lowered his voice and looked over his other friends’ stats. Griff’s well of Impulse Control was nearly as deep as Ick’s at just over fifteen thousand, and even Kaz had more than three times Roark’s score. The real low blow came when Roark compared his stat to that of his newest Greater Vassal, PwnrBwner. “Bloody damnation.” He slammed his grimoire shut. “I barely have more Impulse Control than you?”

“Only because Hearthworld’s personality algorithms are bullshit,” PwnrBwner said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I got Impulse Control for days. The devs just weighted in-game actions wrong, so it looks like I don’t.”

“Are either of you actually surprised?” Zyra asked, gesturing from Roark to the Cleric. “You’re both hotheaded, reckless, and impossible to talk down once you’ve made up your mind. It just comes out in very different ways.”

“Hang on there, sis,” PwnrBwner said. “Me and this guy are nothing alike.”

His denial only served to make Zyra laugh harder.

Realizing how quickly this meeting was going afield, Roark sliced a hand through the air.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, falling back on his research. “At all of your ... advanced levels, you won’t notice a difference, and the effects of the mask will still be negligible compared to my total. Quicksilver’s effects are an issue mainly for mobs of the lowest levels, like newly spawned Changelings. Ick is the one I was most concerned about because he’ll have to handle it more times than any of us, but his kind are naturally resistant to Impulse Control damage.”

“Roark is right,” Kaz said, nodding his huge head. “Already he’s done so much with so very little that it makes no sense to lose faith in him now. Kaz thinks the mask is a great plan.”

“Thanks, Kaz,” Roark muttered, wishing he couldn’t hear the patronizing kindness in his friend’s voice.

Griff still didn’t look convinced. If the numbers didn’t convince the weapons trainer, action would. Roark turned to Ick.

“Would you mind helping me demonstrate?” he asked the Nocturnus.

Ick took the mask hesitantly, a shudder of disgust creeping through his chitinous back legs when he touched the slowly shifting surface. With a deep breath, the Nocturnus slipped the mask onto his face.

The quicksilver flowed and fitted itself to the contours of Ick’s mandibles, opening new holes for his many sapphire eyes and growing tentacles of silvery hair to match the Nocturnus’. It was clear that Ick was trying not to fidget, but his mandibles opened and closed anxiously, and his back legs rasped together in clear agitation.

Slowly, the silvery sheen of the mask disappeared, replaced by the color and texture of Ick’s face until the two were indistinguishable.

“All right,” Roark said. “That should be enough.”

Gratefully, Ick removed the mask and handed it back to Roark. When the quicksilver had left his humanoid hands, the Nocturnus scrubbed his palms on his robes as if to remove some invisible residue.

Roark slipped the Polymorph Mask on. Immediately, his face began to shift, cheeks and jawbones widening and splitting away from his face to create mandibles. His horns contracted, growing back into his skull, and his eyes multiplied until he could see nearly three hundred and sixty degrees. His hair thickened into rubbery tentacles that lay across his shoulders. His wings shrank and disappeared while four of his ribs pushed their way out of his back, elongating and articulating into arachnoid legs.

When everything in his body finally stopped moving and changing, Roark raised his hands, which were now the same dark chitin as Ick’s. He felt the legs sprouting from his back mimic the motion.

“I made one for each of us,” he said, voice coming out with an odd buzz. “With them, we can walk into the Jungles of Eternal Night undetected. Even if we’re seen, we won’t be marked as outsiders.”

Kaz was staring openmouthed. “It is amazing. If Kaz had not seen it happen, he would not believe this was Roark.”

“I’ll give you this, Griefer,” Griff said, “you don’t do anything by half measures. Seems fairly solid, if you can keep up with the transformations and don’t get caught in your own skin.” He angled his shoulders so he could look at Ick, one eye meeting eight. “If Ick’s on board with this excursion, I suppose I am, too.”

The Nocturnus’s back legs rasped over one another again, like a human dry washing their hands. His mandibles clicked.

“I would be remiss if I did not emphasize that I feel great misgivings about this, Dungeon Lord,” Ick said. “Though you seem to have come up with solutions to each possible catastrophe, I cannot dismiss the feeling that this will end in certain disaster. But perhaps that is only the venom of fear taking control of my heart.” With a reluctant nod, he said, “I will lead you through the Jungles of Eternal Night.”

“Excellent.” Roark returned the Polymorph Mask to his Inventory, shifting back into his winged Jotnar form. “We’ll gather whatever equipment we need, then meet behind the marketplace at the door to the mausoleum.”

As everyone dispersed, Roark stopped Zyra and pulled her aside.

“Do you think you could create some sort of resistance potion that might help us when we face Aczol? The WikiLore pages all agree that his main attack is to breathe a mixture of Magick similar to Storm of Fire and Ice.”

“I may have just the thing.” She reached into her hood and cupped her chin as she considered the request. “We’ll want the effects to stack rather than provide a timed protection.” Her hood tilted back as she looked up at him. “It may take an hour or two to brew. Don’t get reckless and leave without me.”

He scowled down at her.

“Oh, cheer up,” she said, slapping his cheek lightly. “Just because you’ve finally realized you’re bad at something is no excuse to pout. Jotnars all have low Impulse Control stats. It’s why they spend so much time scheming to control everything around them.” She spun on her heel and headed for the door. “Besides, I don’t mind spending so much time keeping you alive. It gives me something tangible to be paranoid about.”

Spy Games

RANDY SHOEMAKER STOOD on the steps of Frontflip Studios with a birthday cake in hand. Chocolate sponge with thick buttercream frosting.

“Time to be a hero,” he said, squaring his shoulders and steeling his resolve.

Boldly, he headed for the automatic doors. They whooshed aside, releasing a cool poof of artificial air, and allowed him entry into the belly of the beast.

As he took the elevator up, Randy reflected on his next steps. His original plan had been a good one—simple was good—he just needed to commit and not chicken out. The cake had run him $27.99 at the bakeshop downtown, but that would be a small price to pay for corporate espionage.

Upstairs, he dropped off the cake in the employee lounge along with a note that read in bold letters ADA LOVELACE DAY CAKE—HELP YOURSELF!

“Weird,” Tomahiro said. “I thought ALD was in October.”

“I just do what HR tells me,” Randy said, hoping the guy couldn’t hear his heart pounding at the lie. ALD was most certainly in October.

Tomahiro laughed. “Word. Gonna have a slice?”

“Later,” Randy said a little too quickly. “I, uh, just ate a Pop-Tart. So, I’m full. But I’ll have some soon. Later. Sooner or later.”

“All right, but I wouldn’t count on there being any left once word gets around.”

Randy started edging toward the door. “That’s fine. I don’t need the extra sugar anyway. Uh, enjoy. Happy ALD.”

“Sure. You, too.”

From there, he crept across the hall to his office and pretended to work, doing halfhearted bits and pieces of minor projects while keeping tabs on the voices in the lounge. The whole time sweat beaded on his forehead and his stomach clenched into a tight knot as he envisioned all of the terrible things that could go wrong. Danny confronting him. Security hauling him out, hands zip-tied behind him. Helen Rose—blonde, funny, gorgeous, and laughing at him as they dragged him away. Frankly, the possibilities were legion. Randy didn’t want to envision all those grim prospects, of course, but his mind rebelled, refusing to focus and stay on task.

It wasn’t until after ten that he heard the grating tones he’d been so patiently listening for.

“Aw, hells yeah, gluten free chocolate! Throw me that spatula, Lakshya. I’mma get my cake on.”

Randy’s fingers froze on the touchpad, his shoulders going rigid. Should he do it? Was now the time? How exactly did international spies pick their moments? Maybe he should just call it all off, crack into the files from his own workstation, and accept the consequences. What was the worst they could do? Send him to jail?

Actually, that would be pretty bad. He couldn’t help anyone from jail.

The spines on his bookshelf caught his eye. Perfectly straight in a world filled with chaos and uncertainty.

Heroic, even.

He swallowed hard and nodded to himself. The cake, the planning, it had all led him to this. He pushed his chair back and stood up. No more time to waste. Every second counted.

“I need to know about the volleyball team asap, Laks-Socks,” Danny blustered on in the lounge, presumably stuffing his face with pseudo-ALD cake. “You in or out? Because I gotta get that T-shirt order in by noon.”

“Noon today?” Lakshya’s voice was much quieter than the marketing VP’s. Then again, most were. “I thought the cutoff was five p.m. tomorrow.”

“For the shirt place, yeah,” Danny said. “But I got lunch with the playas on the board today, then I’m headed straight into PTO with my bros at the lake. Brews, brats, bros—know what I’m sayin’?”

“You’re going to be too drunk to send a simple T-shirt order?”

“Laksie, I don’t plan to see straight again until it’s time to drive home Sunday morning.”

All the air whooshed out of Randy’s lungs and he dropped into his ergonomic rolling chair, weak with relief. He didn’t have to go invisible and zip down the hall at top speed to get this done before Danny finished his cake. All he had to do was wait until Danny left for that lunch, and he would have the whole rest of the day to scour the marketing VP’s workstation.

Randy glanced at the clock.

One hour and twenty-one minutes until time to be a hero.

Jungles of Eternal Night

THE TREK FROM THE CRUEL Citadel to the edge of the Jungles of Eternal Night took Roark, Kaz, Zyra, Mac, PwnrBwner, and Ick most of a day without the convenience of portal magic. If their party hadn’t been so large and they’d had more human-esque faces to copy than just PwnrBwner’s, they could have used their Polymorph masks to take a portal through the closest town to Nocturnus territory, but Randy hadn’t been able to join them for the journey, and Mai flat-out refused to touch the quicksilver masks.

The silver lining was that PwnrBwner leveled his Ranger-Cleric to 14 solely on free-roaming mobs. As the rest of them couldn’t gain any Experience from killing other Hearthworld chimera, they gladly let the Cleric handle the majority of that task, only stepping in when it seemed as if he would be killed by something much more powerful.

The last leg of their journey took them through the Sea of Flowing Grass, the coarse brown stalks of the flora waving around their waists. From time to time, off in the distance, flocks of Prairie Doves burst from their hiding places, followed by a massive shimmer in the shape of an Adolescent Turtle Dragon. Mac would croak and waddle after them, cutting through the tall sun-bleached grass, but the birds always quickly outdistanced him. When Mac grew truly frustrated, a bolt of lightning sizzled through the air from one of the spikes on his shell and burnt escaping Doves to ashes midflap.

When the maps Kaz had drawn up for them showed that they were less than an hour from the Jungles of Eternal Night, Ick called for a stop.

“Now would be the prudent time to don your disguises, while we are still well out of range,” the Nocturnus said, picking grass seed from his dark blue Witchdoctor robes. “Sentries watch over the borders of the Jungles at all times, vigilant for any who would approach from the lighted world.”

“Sounds good to me, bro,” PwnrBwner said, taking a long drink from his blued steel flask. “I need to check the Wikis on a couple of these abilities before I pick one anyway. Do mine last. I’ll be ready by then.”

Roark glanced over at him. “Did you invest in—”

“You freaking kidding me, dude? If you ask again, I’m going to remove it from my abilities.” PwnrBwner shook his head and muttered a word Roark wasn’t familiar with, though it sounded like a curse—“Micromanager.”

Roark rolled his eyes and turned back to his Inventory, pulling out Quicksilver Polymorph masks to begin the transformation process.

Zyra nudged him and held up a flask matching PwnrBwner’s.

“Drink up, Griefer. Everybody.”

“And Mrs. Micromanager,” PwnrBwner muttered, tipping back another swallow.

Ignoring the Cleric, Roark and the others took deep drinks from the blued steel flasks the Septic Brewmaster had provided them with before leaving the Troll Nation. The liquid inside was one of the stranger ones Roark had tasted since arriving in Hearthworld, sweet and spicy at the same time, and it left a cold burning sensation trailing down the back of his throat.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Icy Hot Draught of Fire and Ice Resistance

Item Type: Rare Brew

Effect 1: Grants drinker resistance to 15 pts Fire Damage, stackable.

Effect 2: Grants drinker resistance to 15 pts Ice Damage, stackable.

╠═╦╬╧╪

True to her word, Zyra had equipped each of them with as many of the Icy Hot Draughts as they could carry. Unlike most potions, which worked for a defined length of time after being consumed, the strength of these draughts stacked infinitely, building up layer after layer of resistance that remained in effect until enough total Fire or Ice damage was done to the drinker to negate the accumulated protection of the draught.

Finishing off the flask, Roark turned back to the Polymorph Masks.

“Ick, if you’re ready.”

The Nocturnus nodded.

Kaz, Zyra, and PwnrBwner took their masks in hand without hesitation, but when he held out his mask to Ick to begin the Polymorph process, the Nocturnus faltered.

“Does Ick fear the quicksilver?” Kaz asked. “Kaz thought Nocturnuses were immune to Impulse Control damage.”

“Resistant, not immune, Mighty Gourmet,” Ick corrected politely, the legs on his back curling and uncurling in apparent agitation.

Roark had never feared spiders the way some people did—in truth, he found them fascinating in the right light—but even he had to admit Ick’s nervous motion made him shudder a little inside. It was like the moment one crushed an eight-legged intruder in your bed and it curled up, only repeated over and over again.

Seemingly unaware of the unsettling effect of his fidgeting, Ick turned his many eyes toward the southern horizon, where the Jungles of Eternal Night lay. “Above all else, Nocturnuses value restraint, careful consideration, and stoicism. In a society of conquest, these principles are key to survival, both for the individual and as a people, and so we abhor that which takes even the smallest amount of self-control from our grasp.”

“Don’t worry, Ick,” Zyra said. “You’ll see the effects in the Griefer and the loudmouth long before anyone else. Though I don’t know how we’ll tell the difference between it and their everyday recklessness.”

Roark scowled at her, and PwnrBwner held up one finger in what Roark suspected was supposed to be an offensive gesture.

Chuckling his insectile laugh, the Witchdoctor took the first mask from Roark and began the Polymorph process. All four were finished in short order. One by one, they put on their disguises and became a party of Icks.

“Gross.” PwnrBwner’s arachnoid arms squirmed with revulsion, his multitude of sapphire eyes squinting as he surveyed his new form. His voice was his own, though carried the slight droning buzz of the Nocturnus.

“I rather like it,” Zyra said, moving the limbs independently of one another. “With this many arms, I could brew a dozen more poisons at once. Can you build webs, Ick?”

The true Nocturnus shook his head, tentacled hair sliding over his shoulders.

“Spinning is an honor for the Conquistador class,” he said. “Support casters like myself may create spell webs, but we cannot spin physical ones.”

“Pity,” she said.

Nearby, Kaz clapped his tiny insectile hands and twitched his extra legs.

“Look at how small Kaz has become!” He grabbed his middle body section with two pairs of arms and laughed heartily. “So tiny!”

“And fragile,” Roark warned him. “Let’s get going. If we hurry, we can be well into Nocturnus territory before this first Polymorph wears off. The fewer times we have to re-morph, the less chance we’ll be discovered.”

Disguises settled, they forged ahead. The closer they drew to the Jungles, the darker the sky became, first darkening to a gloomy gray as if to threaten rain, then fading to a deep midnight blue as dark as Zyra’s natural skin. In the distance, a vast tree line stretched for as far as the eye could see in either direction.

Ick’s mood changed as they approached the Jungles as well, becoming darker and more withdrawn. When the trees became visible, the Witchdoctor quit speaking to the rest of them altogether. His expression had shifted, and Roark couldn’t tell whether Ick’s mandibles and multiple eyes were showing a deep-seated fear or a resolute determination.

“All right, Ick?” he asked in a low tone so the others wouldn’t hear.

The Witchdoctor didn’t respond immediately.

“In truth, Dungeon Lord, I don’t know,” he said after several moments, staring at the looming shadowy forest. “It has been so long since I was banished. In these jungles, my honor was stolen, and my name destroyed among my people. Yet it is my home, and I can’t suppress the warmth that the sight of it stirs in my thorax.”

Roark felt a wry smile twist his lips. He knew that feeling all too well. He wanted to tell Ick that maybe one day he would be free to roam the Jungles of Eternal Night again, but they would both see that for the pretty lie it was. Ick couldn’t return home any more than Roark could move back into von Graf Manor. That was the way time and history worked. The past was forever fixed in a cocoon of rose-colored glass—visible, but ultimately untouchable.

“This way,” Ick said, heading for a towering camphor tree near the edge of the woods.

As they approached, a silken bridge became visible leading from the knotted roots up into the lowest branches.

“The few Nocturnuses who venture into the lighted world use this route. Perhaps if we do as well, the sentries overhead will believe we are simply a party of merchants returning laden with spices and delicacies.”

Keeping his head level as if he walked this path every day, Roark used the topmost eyes of his arachnoid Polymorph to search the treetops. He didn’t see any spidery legs or glittering eyes in the branches, but for just a moment, a barely there strand of shining thread caught the light near the highest level of the canopy.

“Is that...”

Ick followed his gaze. “A line of communication,” he explained quietly. “There will be several thousand, stretching between sentry posts and back through the Jungles to my lady—apologies—to Isara’s Overweb. If we are discovered, word of our intrusion will be carried to her in moments.”

“So head down, mouths shut,” PwnrBwner said. “Got it.”

The silken bridge dipped and swayed beneath their boots, but Ick showed them how to steady their steps with their back limbs as they walked, gripping onto the intricately woven rails on either side. With one set of eyes, Roark caught Zyra studying the glossy spiderline with fascination, while the other set showed him PwnrBwner trying to touch it as little as possible, revulsion etched into his borrowed face. Kaz, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of his life with the bouncy properties of the bridge. Roark found it exceedingly difficult to smile with the Nocturnus mandibles, but Kaz was somehow managing the feat with ease.

Soon, other bridges joined theirs, crisscrossing beneath or overhead, connecting trees and branches, until Roark could hardly see the ground below. Thick, tunneled webs had been spun inside holes in trees and in the crooks of branches.

Roark’s heart nearly stopped when he saw a deep brown spider trundling along the silky bridge beneath them. He swallowed hard and turned to Ick, not surprised to see his friends doing the same.

Ick shook his head.

“We have nothing to fear,” he said reassuringly. “That Recluse is on the Builder’s Route.”

“But what if he switches to our route?” Zyra growled, reaching for her weapons.

Ick stopped her extra limbs before she could pull out her Cursed Longknives.

“That is not done,” he said. “Builders take only the Builder’s Route. It is the way. They would never cross to the Merchant’s Route any more than merchants would cross to the Creche-Nurse’s Route and Creche-nurses would never cross to the Conquistador’s and Conquistadors would never cross to the Builder’s. Why even have routes at all if one can just walk wherever one pleases?” His tone was a bit more heated with every passing second. “Why not just leave society to dissolve into chaos?”

“Your people must get on really well with the Olm’s Legion of Order,” Zyra said, releasing her weapons.

Roark agreed. The Nocturnuses’ system was a good deal more organized than anything Roark had seen from the Trolls of the Cruel Citadel. In fact, now that he was looking, he could easily make out patterns in the placement of the holes and webs lying at the edges of the silken bridges Ick called routes. Every inch of the Jungles settlement was meticulously planned and neat.

“At one time,” Ick said, inclining his head a fraction. “But no more. My Lady Isara does not share power nor does she compromise. She rules all, or she destroys. This is the Way of Conquest, the highest ideal of our society, and she embodies it.”

“Is that why she kicked you to the curb?” PwnrBwner asked. “Because you got tired of her shit and wanted a piece of the action, too?”

“Power was never something I craved,” Ick said. “My longing was always for a greater treasure. You see, when I was young, my lady chose me out of millions of creche-mates to become her personal Witchdoctor. She claimed it was for my skill as a caster, and I was bound to her in the way of all Conquistador-Witchdoctor pairs, though I must be forgiven if I thought our bond was stronger than any that had come before. Bit by bit, however, she used me to take apart the old regime. I realized the depths of my lady’s manipulations too late, and by the time I came to my senses and stepped in to stop her, she had seduced our former Overweaver, the powerful but fair Imihn the Lacemaker, and torn his head from his corpse, taking the Overweb from him.”

“Man.” PwnrBwner shook his head. “What a bitch.”

“Your bond,” Zyra said in a gentle tone Roark had never heard her use before. “When Isara seduced the previous Overweaver, she broke it, didn’t she?”

For a moment, a pained grimace warped the Witchdoctor’s features, but he smoothed it away quickly and looked to the bridge ahead.

“The entrance to the Underworld Cairns is not far,” he said. “Let us not fill our cups with distractions when we are so close.”

They carried on in silence, following Ick along the Merchant’s Route through a labyrinth of silken stairs and sharp turns.

As they came around the bole of a colossal oak, however, Ick stopped suddenly, his multitude of sapphire eyes going wide.

Roark fell in alongside him. “What is it?”

“That is the entrance,” Ick said, jutting his mandibles toward a towering chimney of spiderweb that stretched up into the shadows of the dark canopy, seemingly disappearing into infinity. “Below the funnel lies the entrance to the Underworld Cairns.”

“We’ve made it?” Zyra asked.

“Ick has brought us safely through the Jungles of Eternal Night,” Kaz said happily.

But Ick shook his head. “No, honored Gourmet. I have brought you to the greatest danger yet. For that,” he said, indicating the towering web, “is the Overweb, the throne of power belonging to My Lady Isara the Spinner, the mightiest and most cunning in all of Nocturnus Territory, and as you can see, she has rebuilt it so that there is no way down to the Underworld Cairns but through her.”

“But Kaz does not see Isara,” the Feral Hellstrike Knight said, craning his neck to search the elaborate network of spider silk. “Perhaps she is somewhere else. Roark is rarely in his throne room, either. He is always somewhere else taking care of Dungeon Lord business.”

Ick shook his head. “That is not the way of the Overweaver. Do not be fooled by her seeming absence, friends, for she is here, and she is watching. The moment we touch her web, she will know not only that we are here, but she will sense through your vibrations that you are not Nocturnuses but something else. Something far larger.”

Roark’s mind raced through possible solutions, but kept coming back to the same conclusion.

“Trying to blunder through will only get us killed,” he said, “and if Isara’s worth her salt as Dungeon Lord, then she’ll have contingencies set up for attacks not only from heroes, but from other dungeons as well. Our best bet is to use her preparations against her.” He locked eyes with PwnrBwner. “We’re going to need bait.”

“Don’t even play like that, dickbrain,” the Ranger-Cleric growled. “It’s not funny.”

“You’re the only hero here,” Roark said.

PwnrBwner threw up his hands. “So I’m the expendable one?!”

“No, you’re the misdirection.” Roark pulled out a blued steel flask of Icy Hot Draught and shot the contents in a few long gulps. “This is where you finally get to use that new Ranger ability.”

Isara the Spinner

“JUST WANNA MAKE SURE for the last time that everybody in the party knows I think this is bullshit,” PwnrBwner muttered.

“It’s been noted, mate.” Roark shoved a blazing torch into the hero’s gauntleted fist. “Now get out there.”

In the safety of a spot far below the silken bridges of spiderweb, hidden in the shadow of the funnel covering the Underworld Cairns, the Ranger Cleric’s Quicksilver Polymorph Mask had been removed, and he had returned to his regular human form. He looked no different from any other hero who would invade the Jungles of Eternal Night, save for a few levels.

PwnrBwner equipped his Shelob’s Bane Shortsword in his free hand, took a deep breath, then strutted out onto the merchant’s bridge, waving the torch around wildly.

“Who wants barbeque?” the Ranger-Cleric called at the top of his lungs. “I’m getting hangry out here! Fried spider leg, extra crispy, sounds pretty damn good right now!”

Across the intricate network of bridges, Nocturnuses of every classification and Evolution froze, multitudes of eyes locked on the flickering torch. According to the WikiLore and Ick, there was nothing Nocturnuses feared so much as fire. Their delicate bodies were critically weak to Burning damage.

“Come on, you stupid bugs,” Pwnr yelled, swirling in a tight circle, torch and shortsword held wide. “I’m about to light this motherfucker up. What’re you gonna do about it?”

Roark cringed as PwnrBwner’s carelessly swung torch nearly touched the gossamer supports of the bridge and started the fire early. Their plan would be useless if he burned the Jungles down with all of them inside before they even drew Isara’s attention.

“Well, what do we have here?” PwnrBwner asked theatrically. He stepped out onto the funneled web. “This looks flammable AF.”

A roar like the sudden approach of a tornado swelled to fill the jungle, and as one, the horde of Nocturnuses flooded toward their Overweaver’s web, desperate to stop the threat. Weapons appeared in numerous hands, beautiful silvery arrows flew, resonant throat-singing filled the air, and spells shot toward PwnrBwner. Every eye in Nocturnus territory was focused on him.

“Now,” Roark said.

Under the cover of the attack, he, Kaz, Zyra, and Ick grabbed the emptied blued steel flasks PwnrBwner had refilled with his new Ranger Wilderness Survival skill. The Icy Hot Draught had been replaced with a tarry black liquid, which they liberally splashed across the jungle floor, the bases of the trees, and the anchor points for the bridges. The sharp scent of the liquid filled the air and made Roark’s sinuses prickle and burn. Breathing through his mouth didn’t help much. It felt like his tongue was coated with pine tar.

As they worked, they drew closer and closer to the base of the enormous funneled web separating them from the Underworld Cairns. Roark made it to the Overweb first, a step ahead of Ick. Roark drew back his flask to drench the flammable webbing, but a shadow passed overhead, and the din of battle stopped without warning.

“Welcome home, Ichabod,” a musical feminine voice crooned.

Beside Roark, the Witchdoctor dropped his flask, mandibles hanging open in shock. Roark craned his neck to follow Ick’s gaze upward.

In the funnel overhead perched a massive half-woman, half-spider. Her chitinous humanoid body glinted in the dim light, a massive red hourglass painting her from chest to hips. Eight long, graceful arachnoid legs gripped the web as she climbed silently closer.

[Isara the Spinner]

“My Lady.” Ick fell to one knee and bowed his head, acting on some deep-seated instinct.

Isara’s mandibles clicked, and her emerald eyes sparkled with malicious glee.

“Honorable and courteous to the end,” she purred fondly, before turning to Roark. “Ick’s is a scent I will never forget. You, on the other strand... I can smell that your scent does not match your face. But neither do you reek of humanity.” She shook her head and tsked. “The weight is all wrong, as well—you must weigh sixty stone. And that one there”—she gestured toward Kaz—“is nearly double that. You are mobs, even as I am. Remove your disguises or I will have my Conquistadors kill your hero friend where he stands.”

As she spoke, one of her long, thin legs gestured toward a group of Nocturnuses marching down the web, PwnrBwner stretched between them like a hog, trussed and ready for slaughter.

“Get your sticky fucking spider-hands off me,” the Ranger-Cleric snapped, struggling fruitlessly against his many captors.

“Griefer,” Zyra muttered from behind.

Roark glanced over his shoulder to find that a swarm of Nocturnuses had surrounded them. Kaz and Zyra were backed up against him, their weapons drawn, in spite of being massively outnumbered. If it came to a fight, it would only be a matter of time before they were all sent for respawn.

“Take them off,” Roark commanded his friends, removing his own quicksilver mask as he spoke. The four spidery limbs shrank and retreated into his back, replaced by leathery wings. The mandibles closed and melted into his cheeks and jawbones once more, and his horns pushed through his skull. He turned his glare back to Isara. “I am Roark the Griefer, Dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel and leader of the Troll Nation.”

“Ah.” Her mandibles clicked with approval, and she ghosted closer on silent razor-tipped legs. “So this is the great Roark the Griefer the heroes and Dungeon Lords cannot stop talking about. You and your Troll Marketplace have made quite the vibration in the web of natural order.”

“You’re welcome to join us,” Roark said promptly, clasping his hands calmly behind his back. A ruler with the situation well in hand. “All you have to do is sign the compact agreeing to follow our laws, and the benefits of the Troll Nation are yours.”

“No, Dungeon Lord,” Isara said, crossing human arms over her chest. “I do not bow my head to any creature. I am supreme and sovereign here, and when I want more, I will take it. Such is the Way of the Conquest.”

A grating, scratching sound flowed through the gathered Nocturnuses. It took Roark a moment to realize that they were applauding their Overweaver’s words.

Isara spun out a line of barely there thread, letting herself down from the web until she hung face-to-face with Roark. She canted her head slightly, studying him with her many eyes.

“The offer remains, Overweaver,” Roark said, nodding. “But I warn you now, if you stand against us, we won’t hesitate to attack as if you were no more than a hero who blundered into our territory.”

“Perhaps I should extend the same warning to you, Dungeon Lord,” she purred. Isara caressed Roark’s cheek with a chitinous hand. The cold, prickling sensation of her flesh against his sent goosebumps tingling down the back of Roark’s neck, but he stifled the shudder and stood as if he hadn’t even noticed her touch. “After all, you are the ones found in my territory, sneaking through my kingdom like rogues into a treasury. Quite a risk. So my question becomes, what reward could be so great to face my wrath? Just what is it you seek?”

A curl of inky smoke rose to Isara’s right, and Zyra appeared with her Cursed Longknives at the Nocturnus’s throat.

“Your head, if you touch him again,” the Reaver growled.

“Zyra,” Roark warned.

“Listen to your Dungeon Lord, little insect,” Isara said. “A discussion between your betters is no place for you.”

Deep in the shadows of her hood, Roark caught a glint of tooth bared in a snarl, but Zyra removed the knives and backed down. She crouched and disappeared in a curl of smoke. A moment later, Roark felt her behind his back. Hopefully she wouldn’t plant one of those longknives in his kidney.

Isara chuckled, dark and insectile. “A loyal defender, that one. Does she remind you of a certain Witchdoctor, Ichabod?”

“Only one blinded by his youth and infatuation, my lady,” Ick said, head still bowed. “Though I believe she sees clearer with her two eyes than he did with eight.”

A scowl passed over Isara’s features at Ick’s words, before quickly being smoothed back into a serene expression of control.

“Enough of the games, Isara,” Roark said, infusing his voice with all the authority he could muster. “We’re only interested in passing through your kingdom because it lies between us and the Underworld Cairns. Our business is with Aczol the Eternal.”

“Aczol?” She set a chitinous hand on the curve of her hip. “What do you want with that dried-up old lizard?”

Roark stretched a cool smile across his face, hoping it was convincing.

“I’m afraid that’s between him and myself,” he said, drawing his Slender Rapier. “Just know that we mean no trouble for you or yours, Overweaver Isara. If you will forgive our intrusion and return our hero, we’ll be on our way.”

She considered this for a moment, one thin, segmented leg reaching out to tap her chin.

“Very well,” she conceded finally. “I’ll allow you safe passage, Dungeon Lord. But I must have tribute for the intrusion. If you leave the hero and the traitor Ichabod behind as a payment, then the rest of your party may pass unmolested by my kin.”

“You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that this is a negotiation,” Roark said. “It isn’t. I’m telling you that we will pass through here, each of my friends with me. The only choice you have in the matter is whether to let us go in peace or perish in agony.”

“Bold words from a Troll both outnumbered and surrounded.” Her emerald eyes glittered with amusement. “Not to mention the significant level gap between us. I think you are all talk, Dungeon Lord.”

“I imagine that is what both Azibek the Cruel and Bad_Karma thought before I killed them. Thing is, I didn’t get this far by bluffing,” Roark said, pulling out another torch. Thanks to the unfathomable magick of Hearthworld, it had remained lit even while confined to his Inventory. “If you can smell that we’re not Nocturnuses, then you can surely smell the pitch we’ve drenched your jungle with.”

Fangs bared, the Overweaver moved back up her strand and perched on the funnel of the web once more.

“You would not dare!” she hissed. “Trolls are as flammable as we are!”

“You’re badly mistaken there, I’m afraid. We are not immune to flame, but we’re certainly not affected by it to the degree you and your kin are. What little trouble fire gives us, a little insect has solved,” Roark said, glancing over his shoulder at Zyra. Her hood cocked a fraction of an inch, questioning. The draught had been for the Dragon, but a desperate situation like this called for desperate measures. He turned to the web. “PwnrBwner, Pitch!”

Reacting as beautifully as if they’d planned the attack, PwnrBwner threw out one hand and triggered his new Wilderness Survival skill, spraying Isara down with black pitch. She screeched in fury. Before she could give the order to kill, Roark chucked the torch at her.

Flames exploded in a whumph, setting the Overweaver and her seat of power alight. The Nocturnuses restraining PwnrBwner shrieked, running to her aid, but the fire was spreading too quickly. The conflagration took to the web as if stoked by an enormous invisible bellows, and soon the pitch-soaked trees and earth were burning as well.

“Move your asses!” PwnrBwner yelled, dropping to the dirt beside Roark. He grabbed one of Ick’s arms and dragged him to his feet. “Let’s go, losers!”

Zyra and Kaz ran after the Ranger-Cleric and Witchdoctor, heading for the entrance to the Underworld Cairn.

Roark, however, stopped midstride.

Burning like tinder, the Overweaver roared toward his party. Each arachnoid limb wielded a Nine-Ringed Broadsword—all raised and ready to strike down Roark’s teammates, even as they broke for the escape route. He knew immediately what she was thinking. It would have been the same thought on his mind, even through the pain. Isara wouldn’t die without taking as many of them with her as possible.

“What is Roark doing?” Kaz asked, bewildered. He’d stopped just yards from the safety of the entrance to the Underworld Cairns.

“Keep going, Kaz, I’ll catch up!” Roark shouted.

His feet moved before he made up his mind, abruptly changing course as he sprinted toward Isara, arms and legs pumping like mad. In moments, he was inside her guard, Kaiken Dagger and Slender Rapier in hand, meeting her multitude of swords strike for strike. The few that got through cut slices from his filigreed Health vial, but the roaring furnace of her skin hardly touched him. Beside it, a thin bar of icy blue-green was steadily falling. The representation of the Icy Hot Draught protection. Thanks to it, instead of burning alive, he felt the heat like the kiss of a distant sun. Warm, almost pleasant.

“Dungeon Lord,” Ick cried, “we are through! Break free and join us!”

PwnrBwner’s voice joined his, “Come on, jerkwad, don’t forget why we’re here. Forget that bitch and let’s go!”

But their shouts barely registered in Roark’s mind. His focus had zeroed in on Isara’s dropping Health. Less than a quarter remained—mercilessly ravaged by the licking tongues of flame—and sudden clarity bloomed in his mind. She was a mighty foe, perhaps not as mighty as Aczol, but the core he could harvest from her would be priceless. It was foolish to act when escape was possible. But then, he hadn’t made it this far by playing it safe. Sometimes a little gamble was a necessary endeavor.

Acting on gut instinct, he threw himself into a series of Off-hand Combos and powerful dalla spalla attacks, forcing the burning Overweaver steadily back and away from his friends. She shrieked and tried to chop him down like a tree, but he weathered the blows, eyes locked unwaveringly on her Health.

She was far more powerful than him, true, but the fire had already done the bulk of the heavy lifting.

Gritting his teeth, he angled right, into more licking flames, firmly placing himself between her and his fleeing teammates. Her legion of spidery eyes flared wide as she realized just what he was doing.

“No!” she shrieked, throwing her weight against him. “Ichabod belongs to me! I will not be denied.” Moving with preternatural grace, she feinted right. Roark took the bait, trying to match her speed, but fell directly into her ploy. He caught a ringed broadsword to the right shoulder for his trouble. The razor-sharp blade sliced through armor and flesh with pitiful ease, lodging in the bone and sapping away a sizeable chunk of his Health while simultaneously sending a wave of pain through his body and robbing him of the ability to properly hold his sword.

With a roar he danced away, stowing his rapier and swapping his offhand dagger for his Initiate’s Spell Book. And not a moment too soon—

Isara opened her mandibles and spewed a hail of acid-green webbing toward his face. With a thought he cast a simple level 2 deflection spell, conjuring a barrier of flickering mystic light that rebuffed the incoming attack.

She used the momentary lull in battle to press her assault, fighting to get to Ick and the others before they could make it into the relative safety of the Cairn—the end of her realm and the beginning of another. Roark quick cast a level 3 Sucking Mud spell, desperately trying to slow her skittering charge, but she glided across the yawning mud pit as though it didn’t exist. In hindsight, trying to restrict a Nocturnus with a movement-restricting cantrip probably wasn’t the wisest ploy. But he had other, more physical means at his disposal.

He narrowly dodged a pair of arcing broadsword slashes, staying just out of reach of the gleaming blades, and cast a level 6 Wall of Earthen Spears spell. It was a newer invention, one built around a prior spell he’d used to great effect during his first run-in with Lowen while in Hearthworld.

[Conjured (6) earthen spears to form a sharpened palisade wall, eight feet high. Spears last for 45 seconds!]

The ground rumbled and shook as wrist-thick shafts of stone erupted upward, their sharpened points glinting in the wash of firelight. Although the spell was primarily a defensive one, meant to stop enemies cold for a time or isolate a single player from the rest of their group for easier griefing, here it played an offensive roll. Isara—perched on her spindly legs—was monstrously tall and she was moving at Roark like an enraged bull desperate to gore an offending toreador. She screeched, desperately trying to stop her momentum, but the moment was gone, and she was far too late for that.

She careened into the stakes with a sickening crunch, ropy yellow gore drooping down as the flames continued to chew their way through her chitinous exterior. Unfortunately, Roark’s Fire and Ice Resistance was nearly gone, with only seconds left before he would be vulnerable to the cursed heat and fire. He needed to finish this fast.

Thankfully his wounds had recovered, so he stowed the book, withdrew his rapier once more, and set upon her, hacking and slashing with no skill or grace. He didn’t need it anyway, not with her pinned in place by the earthen spears. Within a matter of moments, he had cut her down to the barest sliver of red. It flashed out a critical warning, then disappeared. With an ear-piercing scream, she spasmed, legs curling inward as she transformed into a smoldering corpse.

At the same time, the last of Roark’s Fire and Ice Resistance bar disappeared. Every nerve in his body screeched with agony at once as flames crawled across his flesh. His hair melted to his scalp and his skin sizzled and cracked, but he pushed forward, digging into the gory heap of Isara’s charred body, spitted upon his spikes. In the corner of his eye, the Health in his filigreed vial plummeted.

He ignored it and the fiery agony to continue desperately sifting through Isara’s remains. The bit he was looking for had to be there somewhere. It had to be.

There!

A glistening, venomous green stone. With a grin, he grabbed it and turned toward the entrance to the Underworld Cairn.

Roark’s Health vial flashed, and he stumbled to his knees. He tried crawling, but his arms wouldn’t support him. He couldn’t even breathe deeply enough to curse. It felt as if his lungs had been melted together. Bloody hells. After all that effort, he was still going to die. Black started to invade at the corners of his vision, his lungs laboring for any scrap of air they could get. He reached out a shaky hand, sinking his black talons into the ground, fighting to pull himself forward even an inch.

It was no good.

He blinked and took another hitching breath, sure it would be his last before respawn. But then something sharp and cruel chomped down into his shoulder—not hard enough to do any damage, but sharply enough to rouse him.

A pair of scaly lips were wrapped around his shoulder.

Mac!

Bloody, glorious, faithful Mac!

The Adolescent Elemental Turtle Dragon waddled through the flames with ease, protected by his thick scales, elemental resistances, and, of course, his nearly impenetrable shell. Roark couldn’t tell whether it was the lack of oxygen finally getting to him or some sort of visual magick, but Mac’s tail seemed to flicker through the flames like a castle standard in a stiff wind, the electric blue scales glinting with brilliant red and orange light. Carefully, the canny beast dragged him through the flames and into a rocky tunnel that deposited them both into the Underworld Cairns.

Royal Failure

“WHEN I PUT YOU IN CHARGE of the offensive against the Cruel Citadel, I expected results,” Lowen said, his voice cold in spite of the firestorm raging in his mind. He turned the rune stone over and over in his hand, worrying it furiously. “You’ve had days to bring me von Graf’s bloody corpse and the World Stone, and yet...” He spread his arms wide to indicate everything Viago had accomplished. “Nothing.”

“The troops hardly get down the Citadel stairs before they’re transported to that cliffside location,” Viago growled, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides as if he wanted to strangle something. “There’s nothing we can do about it. The rebel’s using some kind of invisible portal magic.”

With a snap of his fingers, Lowen cast Consuming Flame. The berserker’s body combusted in a holocaust of brilliant golden fire.

On the stairs nearby, Darith, Lowen’s second-in-command, looked up from the Canyon Strider he was skinning and chuckled at the sight of Viago burning like an oil-soaked rag.

“I’m not here to listen to your excuses,” Lowen said over the sound of Viago’s hoarse screaming. “And I can tell you now, this is nothing compared to what Marek will do to you if you don’t start making progress.” Lowen found it was always best to reinforce failure with both tangible consequences and a healthy dose of fear. The fire was for the former, and Marek, the böggel-mann of Traisbin, was for the latter.

The berserker’s Health emptied pathetically fast, and he crumpled to the floor. Lowen rolled his eyes. Since Viago’s death and respawn at level 70, the man had been terribly easy to kill.

Lowen ran his thumb over the icy grooves of the rune. Unfortunately, the truth was, it would be Lowen’s head on the chopping block where Marek was concerned—though there was no need for Viago to know that. Responsibility for failure was the risk one took as a leader. The leader got the glory for victory, but also the terrible and oh-so-tangible consequences of failure. And so far, Lowen had failed spectacularly. The Tyrant King had entrusted the mage with a landslide of vital resources, and Lowen was still no closer to apprehending Roark or retrieving the World Stone.

The brunt of Marek Konig Ustar’s wrath was not something Lowen wanted to bear.

Yet even his best efforts to penetrate that puny little Citadel or coax the mouthy half-breed out had been unsuccessful. Von Graf had remained content to hole up and bide his time, playing politics and building alliances as if he were a noble angling for the throne in bloody Traisbin.

So be it. If von Graf wanted to play strategy games, he was about to find out that his opponent had been one step ahead all along. Lowen had been hoping to keep this trump card in reserve, but no, the time had come to play it.

He couldn’t get to Roark in the Citadel, so he would force Roark to come out to him.

True, this was a terrible gamble. If this failed, it could well be the end for him. But no risk, no reward. And at this point, unless he clinched absolute victory, he was damned anyway. He really had nothing left to lose.

“Darith,” Lowen snapped, tossing the rune stone in his hand. “It’s time to utilize the reserve weapon. Bring me Talise.”

Orbweaver Evolution

ROARK HIT THE COLD stone floor of an underground cavern a split second before twelve hundred pounds of Adolescent Turtle Dragon slammed down beside him. The impact bounced him a good half inch, though based on the meager amount of Health left in his vial, Roark thought wryly that he should just be thankful the jolt hadn’t killed him.

“Well done, honored Turtle Dragon,” Ick’s voice filtered through the faint crackling in Roark’s ears.

“Mac saved Roark!” Kaz cheered, the thunderous shout reverberating off the cavern ceiling.

“Yeah, with help from the Ranger,” PwnrBwner said. “Without my new Pitch spell, you’d all be dead.”

Roark thought the words Get stuffed, mate, but nothing came out. His throat was burned closed, his lungs seared nearly to the point of death. He’d died more times than he could count in the halls of the Cruel Citadel—beheaded, run through, blown up, drowned, even melted in acid—but burning alive was by far the most disagreeable way to go. His Health was regenerating, but it felt like the healing was taking forever. Everything hurt, and his skin sizzled, still cooking in places. When he tried to open his eyes, the charred skin ripped, showing him a blurry image of Kaz scratching Mac’s beard fondly.

With a groan, Roark rolled onto his side, pulling his knees in toward his chest, trying to force his diaphragm to work. To draw in even a little more air.

The soft grit of boots on stone heralded someone’s approach. Warily Roark turned his head just enough to find the pointed toe of a dark feminine leather boot swinging toward his face.

“Zyra, wait!”

Her boot froze mid-kick.

With a trembling, nerve-numb hand, he grabbed an Absolute Health potion and shot the sickly sweet contents in one long draught. Red liquid poured into his filigreed vial, refilling what he’d lost to Isara and the fire. His charred and melted body began repairing itself at once, hair regrowing, new skin replacing old, lungs drinking in sweet, cool life.

“All right,” he croaked, letting the empty bottle shatter on the stone floor. “Go ahead.”

Instead of a boot to the face, however, Zyra grabbed him by the collar of his leather armor and dragged him to his feet.

“I ought to beat you senseless for that foolishness,” she snarled. “What in the name of Azibek were you doing? We didn’t need to kill her, we just needed to live long enough to get past. You don’t even get Experience for killing other mobs, you bloody imbecile! It’s no wonder you’ve got less Impulse Control than that moronic loudmouth! The quicksilver must’ve eaten away the little sense you had!”

She sounded angry. No, more than angry—infuriated. But Roark had caught the singular glint in her eyes, even through the shadows, and realized the truth: she was worried. Worried about him.

Roark tried to smile smugly. Since his face hadn’t yet healed completely, it felt more like an unholy grimace of pain. He reached into his Inventory and pulled out the treasure he’d risked respawn for.

The stone pulsed with toxic yellow-green light as if it contained a tiny venomous star on the verge of exploding.

“Strictly speaking, we didn’t need to kill her,” he wheezed, “but I suspect you’ll be glad we did.”

Zyra’s breath caught at the sight of the stone. One hand disappeared into her hood as if she had covered her mouth in shock.

“Is that...?”

“A Peerless Orbweaver Matriarch Transmutation Core,” Roark said, letting her examine the pulsing green stone more closely.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Peerless Orbweaver Matriarch Transmutation Core

Rarity: Tier 8, Peerless

Creature Core Level: 69

Durability: Semi-Stable

Half-life: 1 month, 3 days, 13:59:59 remaining

Notice: Peerless (Tier 8) Orbweaver Matriarch Transmutation Core will degrade to Epic (Tier 7) Orbweaver Matriarch Transmutation Core if not implanted in a compatible host within its half-life. Once implanted in a compatible host, Durability status will be converted from Degrading to Stable.

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

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

╠═╦╬╧╪

“Isara was a calculating, vindictive slag who would’ve killed us as soon as look at us,” Roark said, words coming far more easily now. “Which naturally makes her the perfect match for a paranoid Reaver Champion. Ready for that new lethal Evolution?”

With a laugh of pure delight, Zyra threw herself into his arms. Roark winced and staggered backward, thankfully bumping into the helpful bulwark of Mac’s shell before they went down in a heap of limbs.

“I want a thousand arms,” she said. “And a spinneret! And venomous fangs as long as my hand!”

Roark chuckled and couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He opened his grimoire and turned to his Greater Vassals, scanning the page until he found Zyra’s stats. Her hooded doppelganger appeared, rotating slowly on the opposite page, eagerly awaiting the Transmutation Core. He selected the Preview and the newest addition to his Inventory.

[Compatibility: 97%

New Evolutionary Path for Zyra, Orbweaver Ravager, detected! Trapdoor Tempest (available at level 61) or Silkdeath Devastator (available at level 71).]

Zyra was at level 35, and Isara had died at level 69—even one additional level and the Transmutation wouldn’t have worked—making her new level 52. Even better, her new respawn cap would be 50, miles above her respawn as a Reaver Champion.

As Roark turned to her avatar, he felt a twinge of Mai’s concerns over the potential loss of the face he was used to Zyra having. Though in truth, he thought wryly, he saw it so rarely that he shouldn’t be all that used to it.

Just as her original had been hidden in the shadows of her ever-present hood, Zyra’s new visage was draped in a veil of black lace hanging neatly around her recurved onyx horns. Roark adjusted the color of the ringlets spilling from beneath the lace to her customary snowy white, then began trying to tweak the new avatar to fulfill each of Zyra’s requests.

Though there was no option for a thousand arms, there were several choices that featured different numbers and arrangements of limbs. After some experimenting, he settled on four slender humanoid arms and four segmented arachnoid legs that stretched up over her shoulders before folding neatly behind her back, almost like Roark’s wings did. To these, he added her preferred silvery tattoos and a ridge of scythelike spikes to protect the fragile joints of her new arachnoid legs.

In addition to holding a certain terrifying beauty, that arrangement of limbs came with the surprising transfer of two new abilities the other arm-leg combinations didn’t offer.

Wall Walk—Orbweaver Ravager can climb any surface as long as her arachnoid legs remain intact. While Wall Walking, Orbweaver Ravager can carry up to three times her weight.

Arachne’s Pride—Orbweaver Ravagers are capable of spinning an incredibly strong, incredibly thin thread drenched in hemotoxic poison. Thread strength is equal to 6n (where n is the spinner’s Dexterity) - breaking strain of .01 per foot in length. Hemotoxin does 1n Necrotic damage to flesh, muscle, and organs of any non-Infernal beings per second until contact with thread is broken (where n is spinner’s Alchemy Trade skill Level).

“Bloody brilliant,” Roark breathed.

When Zyra saw her new abilities, she echoed the sentiment.

“This hemotoxin’s exactly what I needed,” she said, for once failing to hide her genuine excitement behind its usual veil of sarcasm. “With a little experimentation, I’ll be able to find a recipe that degrades Herald flesh. Maybe we won’t even need the arrows. Maybe I can fine-tune the thread so that it eats through the flesh and anchors itself in the bone.”

“Any adjustments you’d like made?” Roark asked.

Zyra hmmed and inspected the avatar. A few minor stats changed, but Roark couldn’t see what exactly she was altering.

“There,” she said, satisfied. “That’s perfect.”

“What did you do?”

“Added fangs,” she said, tapping the veil over the place where her mouth would be.

Of course. Smirking to himself, Roark accepted the Transmutation.

The grimoire closed, and light flashed through the cavern, exploding off of Zyra in waves of gold. When it finally cleared, her spidery limbs unfolded, lifting her feet from the stone. Her practical black leathers had disappeared, replaced by a lacy black dress with slits up either side showing more of her long midnight legs than it concealed.

“Should’ve seen that coming,” Roark muttered. All of Zyra’s Evolutions so far had left her barely clothed. The attire was hugely impractical and there seemed to be no way to avoid it. It was almost as though the devs of this place had designed her to show as much flesh as humanly possible. Or monstrously possible in this instance. And even with the extra arms, Roark had to begrudgingly admit that she was more beautiful than ever. He turned to her and hastily cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I didn’t bring an extra set of Oiled Leathers. Do you have anything with a better armor rating?”

Zyra wasn’t paying attention. She was too busy enjoying PwnrBwner’s disgusted reaction to her transmutation. She spidered closer to him.

“Gross!” The hero leapt away from her, shuddering. “Walk like a person! And don’t fucking touch me!”

Grinning, Zyra set her bare humanoid feet on the stone and reached one spidery limb over her shoulder as if she were going to caress his face.

“You don’t like my new evolution?” she purred.

PwnrBwner drew his shortsword. “I’m fucking serious, psycho spidergirl. Any part of you that touches me gets chopped off.”

When Roark laughed, the hero glared at him.

“You think this is funny, you fake-pirate asshole?” PwnrBwner snapped. He pointed at Zyra. “That spider shit is creepy as hell, and if you think it’s hot, then you’re bad and you should feel bad.”

“I meant to tell you something earlier, mate,” Roark said, cupping his chin and pretending to think back. “What was it? Oh, right—toss off.”

“Well, Kaz thinks Zyra is terrifying!” the Mighty Gourmet chimed in happily. “Much scarier than she was before, and her new legs make her look much bigger. That is good for intimidation.”

“Thank you, Kaz.” Zyra dipped her veiled head in a gracious bow. “You’re right, as usual.”

Ick chuckled, mandibles rasping. “You will certainly have an easier time with the School of Night’s postures. They were made with at least four arms in mind.”

“I knew it.” Roark shook his head, a smile working its way onto his face.

“A celebration is in order,” Kaz insisted, dumping firewood on the stone floor. “Roark survived the fire, Mac acted with great valor, and Zyra has evolved into her new Mega-Evolution! Kaz will prepare a feast!”

“Down here?” Roark glanced around the decrepit cavern, finding little more than ruined stone walls and a dusty stone floor. No sign of habitation, food, or supplies.

“A Gourmet is prepared for a feast no matter where he might find himself,” Kaz said with the air of quotation. Most likely Jordan Bamsey—one of his other culinary idols. As if to prove it true, he was already pulling Saber Boar Bacon, Large Cauldrons, various vegetables, skewers, and salt from his Inventory. “If Ick will kindly set the fire, Kaz will begin cooking.”

“Of course, Mighty Gourmet,” Ick said, dipping his head, mandibles clicking in anticipation.

“Bacon on a dungeon crawl? You’re the fucking man, Kaz.” PwnrBwner produced a bedroll and laid it close by. “Wake me up when it’s chow time. I need to sleep to regenerate my Wilderness Survival Skills and junk.”

Mac saw the opportunity and curled up beside the bewildered Ranger, turning a few times before finally settling in.

“We good?” PwnrBwner asked, clearly annoyed by the jarring.

Mac chirped, the sound comically high-pitched for such a large creature, then nestled his blocky head into PwnrBwner’s side. To Roark, he looked for all the world like an overgrown house cat.

“Good,” the Ranger-Cleric snapped. “No more moving. If you’re sleeping here, go the fuck to sleep.”

After a few moments of silence from the Ranger, Zyra climbed up the wall on soundless arachnoid legs and crossed the ceiling with effortless strides. Snowy ringlets hung down from her head, showing their respect for gravity, but her scrap of dress and lacy black veil defied the natural pull of physics, hanging up to cover her face and body. She crept across the ceiling, stopping directly over PwnrBwner’s head.

“Sleep tight, loudmouth,” she whispered from above. “I’ll be sure to wake you once the eggs start hatching.”

“Fuck!” PwnrBwner bolted upright in his bedroll, scratching obsessively at his face and hair. “Don’t fucking do that!”

She snorted. “Calm down. I can’t actually implant eggs—this evolution didn’t come with that particular ability. Besides, I wouldn’t implant eggs in you if you were the last warm-blooded food source in Hearthworld. Feeding from you would probably give a young spiderling brain damage.”

PwnrBwner held up both of his middle fingers in response.

Zyra ignored him and turned to Roark.

“I have an extra set of leather armor in my Inventory,” she said. “Help me get them on, Griefer?”

With a quick check to make sure his Clearblood Ring was equipped, Roark grinned and followed her around the corner into the shadowy depths of one of the branching tunnels.

Swapping out the armor took only a few minutes, but it did give Roark an opportunity to lift the lacy veil covering her face. He let out a pent-up sigh of relief he hadn’t even been aware he was holding when he saw her familiar heart-shaped face and mismatched purple and green eyes.

“Despite how much I hate it,” she muttered into his chest, “I know you have a certain fondness for my appearance, so I decided to keep my looks intact.” She shrugged. “Mandibles aren’t to my taste anyway. Although I did make one minor alteration.”

Her lips pulled back in a smile to reveal a pair of wicked fangs that would’ve looked more at home on an overgrown viper. Deadly white needles that gleamed even in the low light.

“Care to test them out?” she purred, nipping at his neck...

A while later, after a very thorough introduction to Zyra’s new fangs, they rejoined the others.

PwnrBwner had finally fallen asleep alongside the enormous Turtle Dragon, and both were snoring lightly. Roark and Zyra joined Ick at the fire—though Roark kept a comfortable distance; he still felt a phantom sizzling every now and then looking at the flames—and helped Kaz prepare the food. The Mighty Gourmet had even brought a small keg of his honey mead, and soon they were all enjoying a cup.

Little by little, everyone’s Health, spells, and abilities recovered. They woke PwnrBwner and Mac when the food was ready, then feasted as if they were in the Portal to Flavortown in the middle of the Troll Marketplace. The atmosphere was warm and pleasant in spite of the dust and dank of the shadowy cairn.

But as seemed to be customary for Roark during these celebrations, his mind refused to focus on the festivities. Time and again he found his gaze wandering to the tunnel leading away from their camp, deeper into the shadowy Underworld Cairns.

Somewhere down that way lay Daemonhold Deep and its mighty keeper, Aczol the Eternal. The ultimate prize.

Corporate Conspiracy

AS IT TURNED OUT, RANDY didn’t have to wait until noon for Danny to leave. The VP of Marketing cut out fifteen minutes early, striding down the hall while talking on his phone, telling someone named Sully that “It’s gonna be hella epic.”

Randy leaned out his doorway and watched Danny’s retreating back until he disappeared around the corner into the elevator lobby.

He stepped back into his office and checked the time. Watched the seconds tick away into minutes. Every now and then he had to remind himself to breathe. He had to wait the full fifteen minutes—had to be sure Danny was gone and not coming back unexpectedly. Maybe he really could’ve done it with his Invisibility, but this was better. Safer. This way he didn’t have to rely on results he hadn’t been able to faithfully reproduce. Admittedly, it wasn’t nearly as cool as espionage via invisibility, but results were all that really mattered in the end.

Finally, the minutes rolled over to zero. High noon.

“Now or never,” Randy whispered.

Already breaking out in a cold sweat, Randy pasted what he hoped was a nonchalant smile on his face and stepped out into the hallway, heading for Danny’s plush corner office. Just regular old Randy taking a quick bathroom break after a morning hard at work. Not doing anything suspicious. Why, Randy was so plain vanilla he would never even dream of doing something risky or suspicious. People like him simply didn’t do things like this, which worked heavily to his advantage.

The microwave in the employee lounge beeped, and Randy jumped, terror zinging along his limbs like lightning. He clutched his chest and almost beelined back for his desk. But whoever was in the lounge just added more time to the microwave and started it again.

Randy let out a long breath. This was so much worse than facing down even the most heinously difficult creatures of Hearthworld. Another scare like that would probably stop his heart. He patted his chest, glancing down absently.

His hand, his chest, and every other part of his body were gone. He was invisible.

Relief swept through him. This was even better than he’d imagined. Not only was Danny gone until Monday, but no one would see Randy go into his office at all. He wished he could control the strange ability at will, but for now he didn’t plan to look this gift horse in the mouth. No siree, Bob!

With renewed confidence, Randy marched down the hall, checked both directions for anyone who might spot Danny’s door opening and closing by itself, then let himself into the darkened room and locked the door behind him with an audible click.

As soon as he sat down, the extra expensive leather chair conformed to his body. He had to get one of these. Arjun’s voice rang in his head, Word on the street is he’s about to get shit-canned any day. If he could afford it at his next job. Assuming anyone wanted to hire him—his resume and credentials were excellent, but he seriously doubted he’d get a glowing recommendation from anyone at Frontflip.

Shoving those problems aside for a different day, Randy woke up Danny’s workstation and entered the password from the sticky note, still pasted to the side of his monitor. He was looking around the desk for a coffee cup or something he could use to lift a latent print and fool the fingerprint scanner like they did on spy films, but the screen flashed once and brought up the home display.

Danny must’ve shut off print recognition for an easier login. Moron.

Working quickly, Randy pulled up the marketing VP’s email and began searching for anything from the higher-ups or HR.

There was a disgusting number of butt-kissing emails to Silva and the other members of the board, mostly about golf. So that was the real way to climb the social ladder. Wretched. Randy scowled and filtered out the Sent messages.

The first one caught his eye because it contained his name. It was from Susan in HR, in response to an email from Danny asking why Randy hadn’t been fired yet.

If someone else on the Dev team could do any better, Randy would be gone by now, but nobody’s even been able to get close to these modders. If we fire him and end up needing him to go back in, we’re screwed.

A combination of vindication and humiliation stirred in Randy’s insides. The fact that Danny was actively advocating for his termination wasn’t exactly surprising, but he was surprised how much the betrayal hurt. He didn’t like Danny, and Danny didn’t really like him—they were far from friends—but they’d been coworkers for years. They’d even been adjacent office mates at one point, back in the old days. Still not a total shock. But seeing that everyone wanted to fire him felt like a punch to the gut. If there was a silver lining to the whole painful debacle, it was the fact that nobody else had been able to top what he’d found out for them.

“Looks like the loser dev is way more valuable that you jerks realized,” he muttered under his breath, scrolling to the next message.

Whatever, at least we’ll have a fall guy, Danny had sent back.

The hair on the back of Randy’s neck stood up as he kept reading. Danny and Susan weren’t the only ones in on this thread. Farther down, higher-ups like Paula and Asif were talking about “getting this done quickly” and “making sure we get ahead of the press.”

No problem, Danny’s reply assured them. I’ve got the release ready to feed to the news blogs. “Disgruntled employee releases rogue malware targeting massively popular VRMMO Hearthworld!”

Michael Silva himself had responded with, I want it criminally actionable. If we do a total shutdown, we’ll lose millions in revenue. I want to see some goddamn jailtime for that kind of money.

“No, no, no,” Randy breathed.

This was bad. So bad. They weren’t just planning on firing him. No, the heads who ran Frontflip were literally conspiring against him. Who knew how many of his coworkers would be in on it by the end? In a company this size, there had to be a few good people who wouldn’t stand for framing somebody for a crime they didn’t commit, but if Danny and the others made it look like he was the bad guy, like he’d really done it...

The words “total shutdown” filtered through his panic.

The locked files.

Randy dropped out of the email and pulled up the modder project space. Danny’s clearance gave him access to everything. All of it.

Randy’s heart thumped maniacally, and he felt faint as he read. They were going to shut down Hearthworld for good. From what Randy could find, they had two anonymous coders from outside the company working on the protocols, making sure that when the time came to press the metaphorical red button, they wiped everything. Game over. Forever.

Randy realized he was holding one hand over his mouth like he was trying not to vomit. His throat ached. The bad code they kept referring to, the modders and infected creatures they couldn’t delete or sequester, were Trolls like Kaz and Zyra. No matter how they had started out, those two were living, sentient, self-aware beings.

And Frontflip was just going to delete them.

Randy read on, numbness settling into his limbs.

Strangely, it seemed that PwnrBwner had become a carrier for the code and was spreading it throughout the game almost faster than reporting could keep up with through sold items, player interactions, and mob killing. He was the Typhoid Mary of Hearthworld. This was a pandemic, and it had reached critical mass. They were losing control of everything, and more and more mobs—most creatures that Roark had never interacted with in even a passing fashion—were somehow catching the virus. The Jungles of Eternal Night. The Arena. Averi City. Skozhelm. The Star Iron Hills. The Vault of the Radiant Shield, of course.

It was absolutely everywhere.

Apparently, Frontflip had already tried deleting both PwnrBwner’s and Randy’s accounts, but the anomalous code wouldn’t allow it. Both players were locked in no matter what the devs tried to do.

Could that have been another side effect of the Griefer making them Greater Vassals?

Laughter in the hall made his heart skip a beat. He froze, waiting for someone to barge in and ask him what he was doing in Danny’s office, but no one did.

How long had he been in here already? The longer he waited, the better the odds someone would discover him.

He checked the time. Thirty minutes had already passed. He had to get out of there.

But he would likely never get another chance like this. He had to make it count.

Pulling up a prompt, Randy started writing lines of code at full speed, letting his anxiety carry him along, his fingers flitting over the keyboard with expert precision. Most of the time his anxiety was debilitating, but every now and then he could use it to his advantage.

In under five minutes, he’d created a backdoor in Danny’s workstation. It took him another ten to hide it from the security sweepers and make it accessible to his home computer. Silva would never fire Danny, not with all the incriminating emails the moron—or maybe he was secretly a genius—was saving from everybody on the board. And as long as Danny was still at Frontflip, Randy would have access to the locked files and be able to keep himself and the Griefer abreast of the developments. He’d also be able to access Danny’s incriminating emails if it came to a legal battle.

Maybe working together, Randy and Roark could figure out some kind of workaround. Or something. That was a problem for when he had a second to think. Now wasn’t about thinking, it was about action.

He entered the last line, then put it into action.

“Yes!” he whispered as the prompt disappeared and the home screen went back to normal.

He’d done it. Now, it was time to—

The door handle rattled.

“Gotta be kidding me,” Danny’s frustrated voice muttered.

Randy lurched across the desk, jabbing the Power Down option.

Installing update 1 of 167. Please do not disconnect from power supply.

Of course! Danny’s station hadn’t been shut down, it’d been left to hibernate. Was Danny dumb enough to assume it was shutting down on its own?

Keys jingled and the lock turned.

Randy stumbled out of the chair and glanced down at himself—panic setting in as he realized his invisibility had waned at some point since entering the room. He frantically tried to remember how he’d gone invisible before. Fear, right? Well, he was just about scared enough to wet himself, so if it didn’t work then, it never world. He held his breath, begging his limbs to go weightless and disappear.

Slowly, his shoes started to dissolve. Then his ankles.

The door swung open, and the lights flickered on.

“What the fuck!” Danny jumped back against the jamb, arm cocked to throw a punch. After a second, it lowered. “Jeez, Rando, you scared the shit out of me.”

Randy opened his mouth and shut it again, gasping like a fish out of water. Say something, say anything. Make it a joke.

But he was too slow. Danny’s expression morphed from shock to anger.

“What the hell are you doing in my office?” His eyes landed on the screen. The updates were at 2 of 167. “Were you fucking with my workstation?”

“I—uh—no—I—”

“Oh, bro.” Danny shook his head. “That’s it. You are so done.” He strode across the room and grabbed the phone off the desk. “Security’s going to throw you out on your ass so hard, you’ll be in a body cast. You’ll never work in this industry again, jackoff.”

Randy looked from Danny, punching in security’s number, to the unattended door. All that fight or flight building up in his muscles kicked in at once, and he shot across the room.

Danny slugged him in the stomach. The punch drove the air out of Randy’s lungs and sent what was left of his breakfast Pop-Tart spewing out onto the carpet in a chunky strawberry spray. Pain radiated out from the point of impact, dropping Randy to his knees in the puke.

“You’re not going anywhere until security gets here, loser,” Danny sneered, lifting the phone back to his ear. “Yeah, this is Danny with Marketing. I’ve got an immediate trespass of a terminated employee. Second floor, corner office.”

Randy swallowed a second wave of nausea and wiped a string of pinkish saliva from his bottom lip, blinking with disbelief.

Danny had hit him. Like actually punched him. In the stomach! He hadn’t been beaten up since tenth grade, and this jerk, this meatheaded moron, had punched him so hard he’d thrown up.

Randy staggered to his feet, the office disappearing from his vision, replaced by a curtain of bloody red.

Into the Cairns

HEALED, RESTED, AND full of excellent food, Roark and the others began the push deeper into the Underworld Cairns while Mac disappeared into the darkness, returning occasionally to check on Roark.

So close to the entrance and the Jungles of Eternal Night, the dank tunnels felt spookily deserted. Almost cemeterial. Clusters of webs, no doubt courtesy of Isara’s troops, filled niches and corners, and the odd Desiccated Corpse hung from the ceiling wrapped in the silken thread. It seemed as if they were alone in this underground world.

“Before her rise to power, my lady and the other Conquistadors conquered much of this territory in the name of the Night,” Ick explained when Zyra commented on the lack of local mobs. “This area is technically considered a wild zone and not a part of any dungeon proper. It is free range, but few mobs from below venture here anymore, knowing what grisly fate awaits them.” He gestured toward the corpse sacks dangling from high above.

In time, however, the webbing tapered off, and the tunnels began to open up and branch off in wild directions. The first creature they saw in the Underworld Cairns was a tiny, bloody, screaming blob that reminded Roark of the entrails of a butchered hare, which had, inexplicably, gained some rudimentary form of sentience. The spidery white text floating over its head proclaimed it a [Later Blightscreamer].

After crawling along warily so long without anything to fight, everyone was eager to attack. PwnrBwner, however, moved first.

The Ranger-Cleric pointed a finger at the screaming ball of rabbit guts and shouted a commanding prayer in a language Roark had never heard. For a heartbeat, the Blightscreamer glowed with Divine light.

The Blightscreamer exploded.

“Suck it,” PwnrBwner said.

Instinctively, Roark threw up an Infernal Shield. Blood and offal splashed against its purple light. Zyra simply Shadow Stalked to avoid the mess, bits of Blightscreamer whiffing through the inky black smoke. Kaz and Ick had neither immediate defense available to them, and a shower of gore that seemed wildly out of proportion with the size of the tiny creature rained down on them.

“Was that Solar Glory?” Roark asked the Ranger-Cleric while the Mighty Gourmet and the Witchdoctor cleaned their faces.

PwnrBwner nodded. “Pretty cool, right?”

Roark wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t had the opportunity to see that particular Divine spell in action before. Now that he had, he had to suppress a shudder of revulsion and mute horror. The thought of a spell like that being used to make similar crimson showers of his Trolls was unnerving. And PwnrBwner had only leveled his Ranger-Cleric to 15 so far. What could a level 99 Malaika Herald do with a spell that powerful if one ever made it past the Curse Chains on the Citadel’s first level?

Best to avoid that line of query for the moment.

As they delved deeper into the cairns and farther from the Nocturnuses’ influence, the mobs came thicker and faster. Grieveflayers, Rotpaws, and infuriating ghostly creatures called Ashwraiths, which were only susceptible to damage when their edges began to glow with dark orange light but could deal out damage even while ethereal.

The mobs in the cairns were fairly high level, all well over 30, but they came in ones and twos—never more than a trickle. And with Kaz and Zyra’s new levels and abilities, Ick’s support casting, and PwnrBwner’s Divine powers, the creatures of the Underworld hardly posed a true threat. By prior agreement, whenever possible, Roark stepped in to land the killing blow, either with magick, blade, or Cursed head. This gained them even more Transmutation Cores that could be used on the Troll Nation troops. An excellent consolation since only PwnrBwner could earn Experience by killing the creatures.

After a couple hours of grinding through the thick of the cairns, the mobs became scarce once more, tapering off to the merest trickle before disappearing completely. The air felt thick with heat and death. This was surely a cursed place not fit for life of any sort to dwell. Finally, the tunnel dumped them into a spacious cavern like a lost underground desert. Red sand dunes filled the cave, their surfaces rippling like water under a stiff breeze, and heat waves rose toward the arching ceiling. On a hunch, Roark checked the landscape for flying conditions. As he suspected, red updraft arrows filled the cavern. It would be excellent for an aerial battle, should it come to that.

“The Underworld Bloodsands,” Ick said, voice more than a little awed. “Few creatures dare to venture here for fear of incurring the wrath of Aczol the Eternal.”

“I take it we’ll find him there?” Zyra asked, gesturing with one of her four human arms at a giant keep near the center of the cavern.

Ick nodded. “That is Daemonhold Deep, the seat of Aczol’s power.”

They made their way down to the red dunes, Zyra Wall Walking straight down the canyon wall while PwnrBwner, Ick, and Kaz took a crude stair carved into the rockface. Roark glided down on leathery wings, which gave him a few moments alone to study the dragon’s lair.

The keep itself was enormous. Side by side with the entirety of the Cruel Citadel, it would’ve dwarfed the Trolls’ home many times over—and that was if what could be seen above the sand was all there was. Its craggy walls sloped upward in strange embankments, the highest point growing into the ceiling of the cavern like a stalactite that had finally reached the upper limit of its cave. The more Roark looked at Daemonhold Deep, the more it reminded him of a gargantuan termite mound.

The others joined him, and together they set off across the shifting red sand. They met no living creatures on the way, but discovered more than a few sets of sand-scoured bones—hero and mob alike.

Roark had never spent much time in sand; there was precious little of it in Traisbin, though he’d read of vast deserts in the northernmost parts of Terho. The Lyuko travelers often made their way out to the edges of the Twisting Dunes—Kronkelen Duinen in the Lyuko tongue—where they traded with hard-eyed Nabataeans who called the whipping, merciless sands home. Some of the finest silks and spices came by way of Lyuko merchants, but what the Dunes were most well-known for were gold. But not even the Tyrant King was fool enough to try to rob the Nabataeans of their resources. No one, not even Marek Konig Ustar, could survive long in the Dunes.

By the time they made it to the outer embankment of Daemonhold, Roark’s legs were burning with exertion and his Stamina was spent. Stepping out of the unstable mess and onto solid flagstone was a great relief.

There was no doorway proper into Daemonhold Deep, just a yawning black hole that bored into the mound.

“It is rather small for a dragon,” Kaz remarked as he ducked through the opening, the uneven doorway skimming the top of his white Gourmet’s toque.

Roark nodded. “I was thinking the same thing, mate. Most likely it’s just for heroes. Unless Aczol’s a lot smaller than his WikiLore entries let on.”

“I wouldn’t bet a hero’s copper on it, Griefer,” Zyra said, eyeing the tunnel from the depths of her hood. “And I certainly wouldn’t wager our lives against it. Aczol is powerful and crafty—every mob in Hearthworld knows as much.”

“Duly noted,” Roark said dryly.

As they progressed down the hallway into the belly of Daemonhold, it became more and more clear that this was no common dungeon. No mobs rushed out to attack. No traps sprang on them. A carpet of bones snapped and crunched beneath their feet with every step. Zyra was quickly fed up with the noise and Wall Walked up to the ceiling so she could move more stealthily, though the rest of them had no way to avoid raising a clatter. Luckily, they only had about thirty yards or so of wading through the bones before they came to the end of the corridor, which, in turn, opened up into an enormous cavern.

Now, this... This was the home of a dragon.

More impressive even than the sheer scope of the room, however, was the loot piled within. Roark found himself staring out into an ocean of gold. Coins, bars, jewels, armor, and weapons lay in dunes as numerous and large as the shifting red sand outside. Seeing all that glinting yellow once more brought to mind the Nabataeans. Only a fool would try to raid their nomadic encampments, and seeing the vastness of this hoard made Roark wonder if perhaps he weren’t a fool himself. Although his time in Hearthworld had somewhat mellowed his disposition, he still was one to take bold—some might even say reckless—action.

Sometimes, however, the only way to win was to wager.

At the peak of the mound, high above, Roark could see the open sky for the first time in what felt like ages. The sight gave him a strange feeling of relief, as if the weight of the earth surrounding them throughout the rest of the Underworld had been lifted from his shoulders. It even felt as if he were breathing easier.

Forcing himself to focus, Roark searched the great open cavern for any sign of Aczol. There was nothing. Nothing but that vast treasure hoard below and the blue sky above.

“I don’t see him,” Roark said, waving the others forward.

“Ho. Ly. Crap.” PwnrBwner’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Unguarded loot equals every man for himself.”

With an excited whoop, the Ranger-Cleric darted off into the piles of gold and began shoveling it into his Inventory.

“Apologies, Dungeon Lord,” Ick said with a polite cough, “but I do not believe the hero’s actions are entirely wise. Just because we cannot see Aczol does not mean he has left this place. In fact, it is highly unlikely that he would leave his hoard entirely unattended.”

“Agreed.” Roark glanced over at Kaz and Zyra. “Let’s fan out across the cavern. Be on the lookout and protect PwnrBwner if it comes to it. He’s cultivated a number of Divine and Luminous spells, which we’ll need if we’re to take Aczol down.”

“Stay paranoid and watch over the jackass,” Zyra said, Cursed Longknives in each of her four humanoid hands. “Got it.”

The four of them stalked out into the hoard and spread out into a thin line, Ick and Zyra taking the right side, while Kaz and Roark followed the curving wall to the left. Coins and gems clinked and shifted beneath their boots much like the bones in the hallway, making it impossible to move silently. Even Zyra with her feathery steps couldn’t completely avoid making noise. Roark cringed at the sound, though he tried to tell himself that if Aczol were there somewhere, then PwnrBwner’s inane laughter and excited cursing had long since alerted the NecroDragon to their presence.

Out in the center of the piles of treasure, the Ranger-Cleric stopped suddenly, his attention focusing on a towering pile of gold not far off.

“Hells yeah!” PwnrBwner’s shout echoed across the cavern. “Solid gold kite shield!”

He practically pranced across the sea of loot and dropped to his knees beside the item in question. He curled his fingers around the edge of the shield and jerked upward with every ounce of might he could muster, cords standing out in his neck. But the shield didn’t give. Not an inch.

“Balls.” He stood up to increase his leverage and jerked on the edges of the shield. “What the hell?” The hero grunted with effort, sweat beginning to bead on his brow from the strain. “Is this crap welded down or something? Fork it over, you greedy dev bastards.”

A gurgling growl bounced off the walls of the cavern and drew Roark’s attention to the far wall. Mac had reappeared, temporarily shedding his invisibility. The Adolescent Turtle Dragon leapt off the wall and began bounding across the ocean of gold. It reminded Roark of the manor hounds the von Graf master-of-arms had kept on the grounds. Great big brown-furred beasts that would leap and frolic through heaps of white when winter’s snow rolled in for the first time. But Mac’s expression quickly changed from that of an overjoyed pup to one of a ferocious guard dog running down an intruder.

Mac was headed straight for PwnrBwner, teeth bared in a vicious snarl. Heedless of the Adolescent Turtle Dragon bolting his way, PwnrBwner gave a merciless tug on the kite shield, finally wrenching it free. Beneath it, a dull red began to glow like banked coals catching a breath of air.

“Something’s wrong,” Roark said to Kaz, feeling the certainty of the remark in his bones.

As the words left his mouth, the cavern began vibrating.

Kaz’s eyes widened. “An earthquake?”

Roark didn’t get a chance to answer.

The gold beneath their feet slipped away in an avalanche of coin, dragging them down the slope to a basin beside PwnrBwner’s mountain. Cursing at the top of his lungs, the Ranger-Cleric slammed into Roark, dealing a healthy dose of Blunt Force Trauma with his new kite shield. Nearby, Ick skidded to a stop. Mac had gone invisible again, and while searching for his telltale shimmering distortion, Roark found Zyra Wall Walking free of the chaos and the toppling piles of gold.

Unfortunately, Roark and the others were far from safe. Dead ahead, a wave of loot came crashing down the mountain toward them like a flash flood.

“Run!” Roark shouted, stumbling back to his feet.

Sprinting on the river of coins was even harder than running in sand, however, and after a few dozen ineffective strides, he stretched out his leathery wings and beat them with all his might.

Finally, he managed to lift himself out of the tumble, catch an updraft arrow, and rise a few scant meters into the air. He pumped his wings mercilessly to gain altitude. At the same time, a quick search of his Inventory revealed a Sturdy Rope. He was about to drop it down to Kaz and the others to help them climb free of the flood of coins when he caught sight of what was causing the disturbance.

A massive head rose from the mountain where PwnrBwner had pulled up his kite shield. A forest of horns—some broken and jagged, others curling and whole—poked out of its snout and protruded from the crown of its massive head. The creature’s neck kept coming, like a sea serpent breaching the surface, until immense shoulders topped with massive wings worn ragged with age and use emerged from the mountain of treasure.

In his shock, Roark nearly forgot to keep himself aloft.

The WikiLore had said that Aczol was huge—like stupid big AF, according to a random hero named Scott_Ried who’d seen him—but the sight of the NecroDragon in person stretched the bounds of believability. Every one of the leviathan’s scales was as large as the kite shield PwnrBwner now held. The same size ... and shape ... and color.

“Damn it all,” Roark growled. The bloody moron had pulled out one of the NecroDragon’s scales. Roark could see the fresh opening where it belonged on Aczol’s serpentine neck, the skin there a bright red like glowing embers and growing brighter with every second.

Well, he had wanted the NecroDragon, and here it was. Now he just had to live long enough to kill it.

Below, Ick skittered along the surface of the coins, dragging himself up an invisible line toward Zyra. Her Arachne’s Pride ability at work. As Roark watched, she pulled the spider thread from the base of her wrists, feeding it out to the Nocturnus in loops.

On the slope nearby, Kaz and PwnrBwner weren’t faring as well. Kaz had pulled the Ranger-Cleric up onto his wide back, carrying him like a toddler, and the two were struggling to keep from being buried beneath the crushing weight of gold.

Roark angled his flight down and dropped the end of his rope. PwnrBwner grabbed it and looped it around Kaz’s shoulders, his dexterous fingers tying off the rope in an elaborate knot that must’ve been common to Ranger knowledge. With a grunt and a heave, wings straining under the added weight, Roark rose, dragging them away from the fall of gold and to an empty expanse of cavern floor. He could only hold all three of them up for a matter of seconds, but it was just enough to escape the loot-based avalanche.

Exhausted, Stamina nearly spent, Roark dropped onto the dirt beside the hero and the Feral Hellstrike Knight.

An ear-splitting roar shook the cavern as Aczol finally broke free and lunged at them, maw wide.

The Dragon’s Maw

WITH A GURGLING GROWL, Mac dropped from the ceiling onto the NecroDragon’s snout. Aczol whipped his huge head around, flinging the Adolescent Turtle Dragon away, but the split-second distraction was long enough for Roark, Kaz, and PwnrBwner to sprint out of Aczol’s path.

“Hit him with every Light attack you’ve got!” Roark shouted at PwnrBwner over his shoulder.

“Obviously!” The Ranger-Cleric backpedaled, aiming his dark Ranger’s bow and sending a series of glowing arrows at the NecroDragon. The arrows were called Rays of Sunlight. Roark had crafted a multitude of them and enchanted them with Light magick. “Eat LED spam, lizard breath!”

White light flashed behind Roark as PwnrBwner began chanting in that otherworldly, unknown language, adding holy strength and accuracy to his shots.

Roark downed an Absolute Stamina potion, then took wing once more. He found an updraft and rose on it, digging his newest batch of severed heads from his satchel. He’d had Yevin, Paragon of Light, help bless this batch with some of the most potent and deadly light-based spells the sorcerer could command. Since Aczol was powered by potent Undead energy, Roark’s Infernal Magick would be lackluster against the creature at best—but magick based in the radiant power of Light would be devastatingly effective.

At least according to the Primal Creation Wheel.

Roark banked around just in time to see Kaz charging at Aczol, Meat Tenderizer swinging. The NecroDragon snaked its head toward the Mighty Gourmet. The flesh under Aczol’s torn-away scale burned white-hot, and he opened his mouth to breathe a brutal combination of Fire and Ice at Kaz.

Not today, Roark thought with a grim smile.

Roark lobbed the first head into Aczol’s wide mouth, straight into the burning white hole of his throat. Startled, the huge lizard shook its head, gulping the Light Enchanted head down like a particularly large pill from Zyra’s alchemy shop. Immediately, a Health bar appeared above the massive creature, headed by a single word: Legendary.

The red bar was truly massive, easily triple or even quadruple Roark’s own. He watched it as he glided away, but the red barely moved. The Light-blessed head was doing some damage, but not enough. Perhaps if they were all in contact with the dragon at once?

Across the room, Zyra was lowering herself toward the enormous NecroDragon on a thin line of spider silk.

“Zyra!” Roark soared to her, handing off the satchel of heads. “Stick these to Aczol with your webbing. They should activate with skin contact!”

The Orbweaver Ravager gave him a sharp nod, then dropped onto Aczol’s tail and skittered up the spines lining his back, weaving heads to the NecroDragon’s spiny projections. The heads activated as they made contact with scaly flesh, bleeding brilliant electric blue light the same color as Mac’s new lightning attacks, which seeped downward and bit through more of the creature’s legendary filigreed Health bar.

Aczol swung around, enraged by the audacity of the attack, and vomited out orange and blue flames at Zyra. She ducked and weaved, as graceful and nimble as a ballerina in the Traisbin Opera House. She wasn’t quick enough to dodge the full onslaught of the attack, but her skin sparkled with Icy Hot Draught protection. The potion’s stacked effects ate up the residual damage as she swooped low on a line of spider silk and attached the last head.

Aczol roared in fury and craned his neck, snapping madly at her, but she disappeared, and all he got for his trouble was a mouthful of inky black smoke.

Just then, Daemonhold Deep erupted with the insectile buzz of throat-singing. Roark caught sight of Ick going through the motions of a complex stance a moment before silvery light shined from nowhere, landing along the NecroDragon’s back like a rain of silvery spears. Although Ick’s magick was derived from the School of the Night, his Moon-light attacks did one and a half times their normal damage because of Aczol’s Undead weakness to all things Light.

Either Aczol’s Health crept down a hair or it was Roark’s wishful thinking that made it look so. With a roar, Roark cast Infernal Torment on the unwieldly leviathan, but the spell hardly touched the NecroDragon. The flames licked and flickered, purple light radiating up from beneath Aczol’s golden scales, but Roark’s Infernal magick was only slightly better than neutral against the great beast. He would need something more immediately destructive if he wanted to walk away from this battle alive.

Triggering Hex Aura in case he was hit, Roark retracted his wings and shot down toward Aczol’s back feet. From the Quick-Access satchel at his side he pulled free a series of Cursed metal plates, carefully dropping each one where they were sure to be stepped on by the lumbering NecroDragon. Then, before the same could happen to him, Roark took to the air again.

Below, Kaz slammed his Meat Tenderizer into one of Aczol’s enormous legs. The creature snorted and contemptuously batted at Kaz. Roark cursed and was about to cast Infernal Invigoration to keep his friend from being sent for respawn, but Kaz’s skin flashed orange, and his muscular bulk nearly doubled in size.

His new Hardening Lava ability at work.

Aczol’s blow should’ve killed the Gourmet, or at the very least sent him flipping arse over tea service through the air, but it barely nudged him more than a few feet. With a war cry, the Feral Hellstrike Knight charged back in and hit the NecroDragon with a crushing blow to the ankle. This time, Aczol’s Health bar moved. Not much, but enough to notice.

Roark cursed in awe, realizing just how much stronger Kaz had become when he’d Transmuted to level 50. The Mighty Gourmet was indomitable. Not nearly so strong as the NecroDragon, to be sure, but far more powerful than most other mobs Roark had seen. The extreme harmony between the Greater Hellstrike Jackal and the Thursr Knight was at least partly responsible for that, but that wasn’t the whole story. These hybridized Evolutions were far more powerful than their current levels could account for, and that must be the magick of the World Stone Pendant.

Aczol tried to turn to unleash a hail of Fire and Ice damage at what must seem to him like a miniscule creature attacking his side.

When the hail of burning frost breath hit Kaz, his skin sparkled and his Icy Hot protection started to fade under the raw flame and ice pounding on him like a waterfall. Apparently, he’d already taken several of these magical breath attacks, and he was about to run out of protection.

With a thunderous shout, Roark landed in front of Aczol, stomping his foot as hard as he could. The violet ripples of Infernal Thunder shot away from him, disrupting the breath spell. Aczol must have had better than half of Roark’s Dexterity, however, as he neatly avoided the ripples and kept his feet firmly beneath him. Not that Roark had really expected the attack to topple the behemoth.

On the upside, however, Aczol’s quick footwork landed at least one of his enormous paws on the Cursed metal plates, setting off a series of explosions, noxious fogs, and torrential downpours. Light, noise, and silvery lunar rain—another spell picked up from Ick—filled the cavern, pummeling the NecroDragon with their ferocity.

Roark used the distraction to take to the air once more and begin slashing and hacking at Aczol with a Light-Kissed Slender Rapier and Illuminated Kaiken Dagger. It was odd fighting without his customary weapons. These were similar, but there were subtle distinctions Roark could just barely sense when he held them. The faintest shift in balance and texture. They would be more effective against Aczol than anything else at his disposal, however, and he was skilled enough to make the fine adjustments to his own fighting to accommodate them.

A flash of green light from across the room let him know that PwnrBwner was now firing Ranger-based spells at Aczol. It seemed that he’d just made a forest of hardened spikes jut from the floor, piercing the NecroDragon’s feet and dragging belly. This managed to shave a small fraction from the beast’s Health bar and pin him more or less in place.

Unfortunately, it also reminded Aczol that the Ranger-Cleric was there.

With a roar, Aczol wheeled right, the motion snapping off the imbedded spikes, and dove in PwnrBwner’s direction, a fountain of Fire and Ice Breath streaming from his jaws.

Roark banked hard, darting toward the hero on outstretched wings, intending to drag PwnrBwner to safety, but Aczol’s dive was suddenly pulled up short. He snarled as his head jerked back on his neck.

A shining silvery thread had been looped around Aczol’s throat and connected at several points high above like rope and tackle. Zyra appeared briefly along the wall, anchoring the spider line, then disappeared again in a puff of inky smoke.

Furious, Aczol began thrashing his enormous body like a whip, serpentine tail flailing back and forth, huge claws leaving deep furrows in the soft earth below. Kaz was knocked across the cavern into the side of a mountain of gold. Before the Mighty Gourmet could roll to his feet, Aczol closed the gap, stomping and clawing at him with brutal hatred.

“Aczol!” Roark bellowed, hitting the ground and casting Infernal Thunder once more.

The NecroDragon avoided the ripples easily, still attacking Kaz. Now that Aczol had one of his tiny assailants at his mercy, it was clear he had no intention of being distracted.

“Back here!” PwnrBwner sprinted around the leviathan’s flank, ducking under his huge tail. The Ranger-Cleric shot off more of the Light-Enchanted arrows Roark had smithed for him. “Come on, you velociraptor chode! Grow some stones and come get me!”

But Aczol ignored PwnrBwner, too. Attacks from the ground wouldn’t be enough to pull him away from Kaz.

Roark beat his wings furiously, darting toward the creature’s face. Aczol unleashed a torrent of Fire and Ice damage, but only managed to clip Roark’s right wing. Folding both, Roark dove toward Aczol’s eyes and hacked at them with a series of aerial combos similar to the ones he’d learned from Griff. He sliced and swiped until his shoulders burned from the effort it took to hold himself aloft with his leathery wings, and his rapier arm ached with a dull fire from the constant swing of his blade, but still he pressed on, slashing bloody streaks across Aczol’s muzzle and golden eyes. The Light-enhanced blades left electric blue wounds in their wake, which curled up at the edges and seemed to seep slowly outward.

Realizing he would be blinded if he continued to face off with Roark, Aczol ducked back down. The spider line holding him snapped. Before Roark could do anything, the NecroDragon swooped down, gargantuan razor-sharp teeth snapping shut like a bear trap as he bit Kaz clean in half.

“Dick!” PwnrBwner screamed. “You done messed up now, fuckface! Eat Retribution Blast!”

With a furious otherworldly shout, the hero shot a Divine spell at Aczol’s back side.

The beast turned to face PwnrBwner.

“Shit,” the hero cursed. “That was supposed to hurt you worse. For Kaz.” PwnrBwner nocked an arrow again. “I guess just suck on Light.”

With that, he started firing off Rays of Sunlight once more, sprinting backward to avoid Aczol’s next strike.

Across the cavern, Ick’s throat-singing intensified. A scrap of parchment flashed in front of Roark’s face before disappearing.

[You have been temporarily Fortified by Rejuvenating Moonbeam! Dexterity and Strength increased by 50% for 32 seconds.]

Invigoration flowed through Roark’s muscles as he darted in, Light-Kissed Rapier and Illuminated Dagger in hand. His strikes carved red from Aczol’s bar, but not fast enough. A moment later, Mac appeared nearby, shooting spikes of Elemental Lightning at the NecroDragon. The lightning was pure, unadulterated Light damage. The strikes hit like a series of battering rams, carving through Aczol’s scaled exterior like a hot knife through a pat of butter.

From the corner of his eye, Roark caught sight of Zyra. She’d reappeared on Aczol’s shoulder and was using a pair of Poisoned Longknives to carve away at the exposed skin left behind by the scale PwnrBwner had pried up. With her other two hands, she pulled vials and bottles of toxic sludge from her Inventory, popping off the tops, then upending each noxious brew into the festering wound.

Aczol’s Health began to drop steadily and his red bar flashed green. She’d found the weak point and she was exploiting it for all she was worth.

With a cry of rage, Aczol beat at her with his ragged wings. The leathery old things looked like massive ship sails, tattered on the edges, holed in places, and long past their prime. But they were fast and heavy, and the barbed spikes studding the wing bones were deadly. Zyra moved in an eyeblink, desperately trying to maneuver away from the wings, but she was half a step too slow. Smoke enveloped her in a cloud as she disappeared, but when she flickered back into sight, one of her long spidery legs was crushed. She folded it behind her back and darted in at Aczol once more, snarling and chopping with her longknives.

Still in the air, Roark cast Infernal Invigoration on her, restoring her to full Health, then traded his Light-blessed weapons for his Bow of the Fleet-Fingered Hunter and began firing off a bevy of Rays of Sunlight like the ones he’d supplied PwnrBwner with.

As if the NecroDragon knew Roark couldn’t do enough damage to him in time, Aczol flatly ignored him, focusing instead on the poison-slinging alchemist who’d dealt him the most serious damage so far. His serpentine neck swung around and snapped Zyra up in his jaws before she could dodge or Shadow Stalked away. She yowled like a stepped-on cat and hacked at the NecroDragon’s mouth, but a concentrated blast of Fire and Ice breath ate through the last of her Icy Hot protection and all of the restored Health in a flash.

Before Roark could do so much as cast an Infernal Invigoration, Aczol threw his head back and shook her down his gullet like Mac gulping down an enemy’s heart.

“Seven hells!” Roark fired off a three-arrow blast, then nocked a trio of Rays of Sunlight Arrows. They’d hardly brought the bloody Dragon down to half Health, and already the great beast had picked off their party’s two highest-level members. “Ick, support PwnrBwner! Mac, with me!”

The Nocturnus’s throat-singing changed in pitch. The next spell PwnrBwner cast lit up Daemonhold Deep with blinding golden light. The hero glowed with both Divine and Night buffs as he slammed his Unique Elemental Mace into the NecroDragon’s vulnerable wound. Brilliant blue light crackled and arced deep in the wound.

Finally—finally!—Aczol’s Health dropped below half. If they didn’t keep up a constant stream of attacks, however, it would start to creep back up. The NecroDragon went after the mace-wielding Ranger-Cleric next, but Roark and Mac attacked from the air, the Adolescent Turtle Dragon clinging to the walls, and bombarded Aczol’s scaleless weak spot with Rays of Sunlight, Elemental Lightning attacks, and intermittent bouts of Infernal Torment. Slowly but surely, they stole away more of the beast’s red Health bar.

With a start, Roark realized that the battle with the deadly NecroDragon had taken a toll on him as well—his Health vial was below half, and though it was holding steady, that was no good. Any errant blow from Aczol could kill him where he stood. Kaz and Zyra had both been higher level than he was now and hadn’t fared any better. Quickly, he gulped down a sickeningly sweet Absolute Health potion, then resumed firing.

But Aczol had other plans.

Snorting, the NecroDragon swiped a massive paw at Ick.

The Nocturnus leapt back with the agility of a jumping spider and took to the walls, trying to scramble to safety on the arachnoid legs sprouting from his back. The first paw-swipe narrowly missed, the ground reverberating from the crushing force of the strike, but Aczol was already attacking again—and there was a cunning gleam in his golden, lizard eyes.

As Aczol swiped again, Ick feinted left, then bolted right. But the NecroDragon had anticipated the move, adjusting his strike mid-swing. He crushed the fragile-boned Witchdoctor in a single blow, grinding him into the stony cavern walls like a common house spider under a raised shoe.

Ick’s Health bar flashed out a critical warning, then emptied as he died, little more than a smear of gore on the wall.

The Nocturnus’s fortification on both Roark and PwnrBwner winked out immediately, and Aczol seemed to know it. The NecroDragon wasn’t one for the typical Dungeon Lord monologuing, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a clever old monster. Aczol spun, tail whipping through the air, trying absently to bat Mac from the wall. He failed in that—Mac scampering away—but then the creature homed in on his real target.

PwnrBwner.

The Ultimate Loot

“SHIT!” PWNRBWNER BACKPEDALED, firing off another round of less-brilliant Heavenly Wrath—a Divine spell that would hardly touch the creature at all. And if he was falling back onto his purely Cleric abilities and his Mace, it could only mean that he had run out of Rays of Sunlight.

Attacking from close quarters was certainly not good news for such a low-level hero.

“Aczol! Here!” Roark darted in front of the NecroDragon’s face and shot his last trio of Luminescent Arrows into its left eye. “Come after me!”

The NecroDragon ignored the full-Health Jotnar obviously trying to distract it and lunged at the Divine threat. PwnrBwner was far less agile and nimble than either Ick or Zyra. He never stood a chance. The Ranger-Cleric frantically shuffled back, but with one mighty chomp, Aczol tore off PwnrBwner’s leg at the hip. The limb vanished in a spray of crimson, and PwnrBwner’s face went sheet white as his Health plummeted like a dropped stone.

The hero slammed backward onto a pile of gold, his enchanted shortsword falling just out of reach with a clatter of metal on metal.

“Son of a—” Livid, PwnrBwner roared something in that unknown language, and bright white light engulfed his entire body in Shield of Faith—another Cleric-based spell that would likely do little to stop the rampaging NecroDragon. Divine heroes were, after all, vulnerable to Undead creatures.

Still, Aczol keened and spat out the glowing leg as though the limb were now distasteful.

“Yeah! How’s it taste, bitch?” PwnrBwner crowed. He pulled free his Unique Mace of Hallowed Lore from his Inventory and began swinging it wildly. “Come on, I got your dinner right here!”

While the Undead Dungeon Lord was engrossed with the antics of PwnrBwner, Roark landed on Aczol’s head, stabbing and slashing and trying to turn the NecroDragon aside, but Aczol blasted Fire and Ice at the downed Ranger-Cleric.

A roiling mixture of blue and orange flames enveloped PwnrBwner at once, fire superheating his armor while tongues of bitter frostbite nipped at exposed skin. The low-level hero’s Icy Hot protection ran out in seconds, and his Health followed in short order. Cold fury settled into Roark’s chest as he realized that only he and Mac were left.

“The hole!” Roark shouted at the Adolescent Turtle Dragon, pointing up to the cavernous ceiling high overhead. “Aczol can fly! Get him to follow you through the hole!”

Leaping off Aczol’s head, Roark beat at the air, climbing toward the glimpse of sky visible through the ceiling of Daemonhold Deep. Rather than follow, however, Aczol let loose a gout of Fire and Ice breath.

Roark let out a strangled cry as burning cold tore across his back, searing him nearly to the bone. His left wing froze and faltered, unable to recover from the brutal damage. He dropped like a stone, Aczol’s Fire and Ice following him down. A full third of his Health vial vanished as he slammed into a mountain of gold, the air rushing out of his lungs.

A burbling shriek pierced the air, and Mac slammed into Aczol’s jaw. The NecroDragon’s head careened into the wall, breaking off a series of boulders. Mac avoided most of the rockfall, but took a titanic boulder to the back. Roark cringed when he heard the Adolescent Turtle Dragon’s shell crack from the impact.

Aczol unleashed another blast of Fire and Ice breath as Mac shot a lance of Elemental Lightning at the NecroDragon’s wide maw. Mac was wearing the NecroDragon down, but not fast enough to survive the fight. The behemoth was just so damned powerful.

With a groan, Roark downed his last Absolute Health potion. His broken wings stitched themselves back together with a flash of agony, and he stumbled drunkenly to his feet. He leapt into the air again, flying as fast as he could toward the open sky.

Odds were this was a terrible idea, but he was completely out of good ones. But then, he was also out of ranged weapons. And friends who could distract Aczol while he attacked from close quarters with melee weapons. This was all he had left. He had to make their sacrifices count.

Doubt niggled at his brain. The closer he got to the opening, the bigger it looked. Surely Aczol couldn’t fit through. The NecroDragon was enormous.

Stupid big AF, he reminded himself.

Below, he heard Mac give a final cry before an explosion of Elemental Lightning burst from his corpse in a mighty roar accompanied by a blinding flash of blue-white light.

Then the leathery rustle of vast, ragged wings.

Roark risked a downward glance.

Sure enough, Aczol was heaving himself up into the air. The NecroDragon looked ponderously slow. Like one of the great humpbacks that swam in the bottomless depths of the Templemar. If he could just keep ahead of it, he might have a chance yet...

Fire and Ice breath shot up from below, scorching Roark’s legs with freezing damage. A fresh wave of pain crawled across his skin and sprinted through his nerve endings. But that pain only galvanized him. His friends had died horribly to buy him this opportunity, and he wouldn’t waste it—especially not since a victory here could give him his first true edge over Lowen and his forces.

With renewed fervor, Roark shot toward the blue sky above. Aczol let out a roar and picked up speed, golden stacks of coins once more cascading downward under the gusts of his mighty wings.

Impossibly, within seconds Aczol had closed the distance and was snapping at Roark’s heels. It was going to bite him in half before he could make it through the opening. He was so close now, the finish line seemingly within arm’s reach.

With a grunt, Roark poured on the speed, glaring at his dropping Stamina and praying it would hold out for just a few more moments.

He felt Aczol’s hot, fetid breath on his heels...

Felt his presence like a looming shadow...

Felt the chomp of razor-sharp teeth reverberate in the air with a clack...

Finally, Roark soared up through the hole in Daemonhold Deep and into the open air. Immense, empty grassland stretched off in every direction. Wind hit his face like a damp soothing rag against fevered skin, and the hearty gusts sweeping across the plain immediately caught his wings, pulling him up and out of line of another gout of Fire and Ice.

Roark turned back to watch Aczol’s ascent.

The NecroDragon slammed into the opening, getting his neck and upper legs out of the hole, but was unable to drag his wings and body through. The NecroDragon was stuck.

How long Aczol would stay that way, Roark couldn’t begin to guess, but he had an opportunity he wasn’t likely to get again.

Not losing a moment, Roark darted back down, avoiding the snap of Aczol’s massive jaws, and hacked and slashed at the scaleless weak spot, ripping away Health by the handful. The wound opened wide, revealing vulnerable white-hot muscle.

Aczol snaked around, shooting Fire and Ice, but Roark dodged and whirled, undeterred. This beast would die. He shot back in and went to work furiously burrowing into the creature’s scaly hide, slashing through the burning necrotic muscle with his Light-Enchanted blades until he struck glowing bone. Aczol let out a screech of pain, but there was nothing the mighty creature could do. Yes, it was a leviathan, but now that very size was working against it. Roark stowed his weapons and pulled free his Initiate’s Spell Book.

With a thought he flipped to his fifth-level spells and conjured a nasty bit of work he’d picked up from the WikiLore on Druidic Terramancers: Earthly Tremor.

[Create a deadly shock wave of earthen power that radiates outward from the caster, dealing 12n seismic damage (where n is equal to the caster’s level) in a forty-foot radius. Earthly Tremor also has a 5% chance to collapse nearby structures, a 10% chance to knock down nearby creatures, and a 15% chance to create a fissure on the contact surface!]

Muddy brown light exploded out from Roark’s palm and smashed against the creature’s exposed rib, sending a tremor radiating through the NecroDragon, biting off a sizeable chunk of his remaining life. More importantly, the bone itself cracked, a narrow fissure opening wide to reveal the most vulnerable target of all—a steaming, fleshy gray lump of meat that could only be Aczol’s heart.

The NecroDragon, seeming to sense his own peril, thrashed about, clawing wildly, neck swinging, fire and ice exploding from its maw in a furious geyser.

Donning a vicious grin, Roark unleashed every Light-based spell he’d inscribed in his tome. Level 4 Sunburst Light, level 3 Nocturnal Moonfire, level 2 Spectral Orb, level 5 Noonday Aura, level 7 Daybreak Bolt. He emptied his tome of spells, working through the pages as he cast relentlessly at the exposed organ. The lump of meat, easily as large as Mac, burned and withered under the onslaught of raw Light energy. Aczol’s red Health bar faltered, flagged, and guttered, the creature roaring and spasming as he died from the inside out.

Finally, the NecroDragon’s Health bar flashed out a critical warning. With a last blast of Infernal Torment, Roark ended the leviathan’s breakneck struggles.

Aczol crumpled to the ground, the impact of his huge head and neck sending out a shock wave across the prairie.

Roark toppled beside the enormous corpse, exhausted, and gulped down huge breaths while his Health-regen began to heal his numerous wounds.

When his head finally stopped spinning, he sat up and surveyed the magnificent beast now dead before him. Everyone had said he was mad, and maybe for a moment there, they had all been right. But it was only madness if you lost—and this time, at least, he had won.

Feeling a flicker of smug satisfaction, he stood and limped over to the beast, opening Aczol’s Inventory.

It was filled with Unique and Legendary Items, Rare and Singular scrolls and potions, and just under 400,000 gold, but Roark transferred all of it with hardly a glance. There would be time to survey the extent of this windfall once he was tucked safely back inside the walls of the Cruel Citadel. Besides, the true prize sat waiting for him at the bottom. A deadly looking black stone that pulsed twining blue and orange light from its center like a dying heartbeat.

[Artifact Arch-NecroDragon Transmutation Core]

Roark scooped it up, a victorious smile tugging at his lips.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Arch-NecroDragon Transmutation Core

Rarity: Tier 9, Artifact

Creature Core Level: 99

Durability: Stable State

Half-life: N/A

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

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

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

╠═╦╬╧╪

Without warning, Aczol’s corpse shifted. Roark closed out of the item description and leapt back just as the NecroDragon’s body turned to ash and collapsed back into Daemonhold Deep, vanishing into the lair far below.

“You were a tough one,” Roark said, begrudging admiration in his voice. If the creature could speak, it hadn’t. Hadn’t bargained. Hadn’t pleaded for mercy. Hadn’t even uttered a threat. A formidable foe to be sure. “And you deserved every bit of that hoard.” He gave the beast a final salute. “I hope we never meet again.”

Feeling the weight of a thousand worlds slough from his shoulders, Roark opened his grimoire and selected the Transmutation Preview.

[Error! Incompatible Core: Discrepancy is too large between Host’s current level (40) and Core Creature’s level at time of death (99). The discrepancy between the levels of the Host and Core Creature must not be more than 2n, where n is the Host’s current level.]

“Damnation!” Roark scowled as he read over the message. “Damn it all to the pit of the Seventh Hell!” Why hadn’t he thought about the level discrepancy? He’d known about it after his experimentation with the Hellstrike Jackal Cores, yet it had never crossed his mind that he would be incompatible. A fool’s mistake, one that could cost him dearly. He would have to be level 50 before he could hope to use the NecroDragon’s Core. He dragged a hand through his shaggy hair, then cursed again.

Zyra’s dusky chuckle sounded in his head, and he knew immediately that she would say that this was what he got for being so bloody impulsive.

Unfortunately, there was simply nothing for it but to get back to the Citadel and begin the grind to level 50.

Roark was about to trade his grimoire for a portal scroll when a message appeared. It was from Griff and marked URGENT in thick black letters.

There’s a Herald army outside the Citadel, and I’m pretty damn sure it’s that Lowen fella leading the pack. The specialty forces ain’t answering me or Grozka. Get back here as fast as you can.

“Seven bloody damnations!” It was too soon. All too soon. He was still just a bloody level 40, and to top it all off, every one of his friends was dead.

He couldn’t fight Lowen in this condition.

But he couldn’t leave Griff and the rest of the Citadel to be killed or taken alive, either.

With a snarl, Roark slammed the grimoire closed and tore open a portal scroll. If he survived this, he would make bloody damned sure that the allied Dungeon Lords knew their troops answered to whoever the hells he put in charge.

Bleeding, out of Health potions, and alone, he stepped into the shimmering violet light of the portal.

The Final Straw

“GET OUT OF MY WAY,” Randy said, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I’m leaving, Danny. If you touch me again, there are going to be some very real repercussions.”

“Oh, I’m so scared,” the douchebag sneered. “I do Krav three times a week, bud.” He slapped his flat stomach. “Abs of steel. Body fat of less than three percent. I go to the gym every. Fucking. Day while you’re sitting around tap-tap-tapping on your keyboard.” He threw his hands open wide, a big ugly grin on his face. “Take a swing, Rando. I dare you. Try it. I’ll knock your teeth into your brain stem.”

Rage like Randy had never felt before flared to life inside his chest. Righteous indignation. Because this wasn’t just about him getting fired. It wasn’t even about jerks dumping on him behind his back or plotting to frame him for breaking Hearthworld.

There were lives on the line. Real people depending on Randy to save them. Two whole dimensions’ worth of sentient beings. And guys like Danny and Silva probably wouldn’t care even if they knew.

“Come on,” Danny said, beckoning to him with both hands, pro-wrestler style. “Come at me if you think you’re man enough.”

Even knowing that there was almost no chance he could hurt Danny, it was tempting to take the marketing VP up on his offer. But Randy couldn’t save anyone if he was behind bars. Sure, Danny had socked him in the stomach first, but then they’d broken contact, taken a step back, and, arguably, stopped the initial confrontation. If he hit Danny now, any lawyer with half a brain could make the case that Randy had initiated a secondary confrontation—and with what Silva and the others had planned for him, they would leap at the opportunity to prosecute. His best option now was to get out of there and get to work on a solution to their Hearthworld shutdown protocols.

Gritting his teeth, Randy turned toward the door and started walking, giving Danny plenty of space on his way past.

His foot had just crossed the threshold into the hall when he felt a buzzing inside his head, just behind his left ear. Warnings fired through his synapses. He knew that buzzing, but he’d never felt it outside of Hearthworld before. Animal Precognition—what everybody on H-boards called “the spidey-sense.” It was one of his Arboreal passives, a spell that let him know when a mob or player of less than half his Intelligence was about to attack him.

Randy spun around just in time to see Danny’s fist crashing toward his face like a wrecking ball.

Suddenly, everything became startlingly clear. Without even thinking about it, he activated Clever Dodge. Danny’s fist swished through the air where his face had been, dragging the marketing douchebag off balance, and Randy countered with a shove that sent Danny sprawling into the hallway. No thought, just actions.

The words “mind of no mind” from some old kung fu movie flashed through Randy’s head, followed by “six-time winner of Most Intuitive Combat Mechanics in a VRMMO.” He was doing it. Fighting IRL. And it was all coming to him just as easily as it did in Hearthworld.

In the hallway, Danny shoved himself to his feet, popping his thick neck. His face was as red as a blood texture pack.

“Okay. All right.” The douchebag bounced around on his toes, shaking out his fists like a combatant from an old Street Fighter game. His eyes were wide and crazy and locked on Randy. “You want to play, Rando? You want to mess with the best? Okay, then, let’s do this. Let’s go.” They were starting to draw a crowd, and that only seemed to further embolden the marketing VP.

Danny lunged toward him and threw his weight behind a huge haymaker.

Still unable to get over how calm he felt, Randy let Clever Dodge take over again. This time for his counterattack, he triggered Arboreal Vine Fist. Thorny vines shot down his arms, covering his closed fists in gauntlets of tangled brambles. His punch landed smack in Danny’s gut.

Unlike Randy, however, Danny didn’t immediately drop to his knees and puke up ALD cake.

The marketing VP pulled his arms in and his head down as if he were actually taking this fight seriously now. Before Randy could get past him, Danny lunged in and started throwing tight, controlled punches to his head and body. They weren’t as powerful as the wrecking balls Danny had thrown earlier, but Randy couldn’t Clever Dodge all of them, and the ones that landed still hurt like heck.

“Holy crap!” somebody shouted. “Guys, Danny’s killing Randy!”

“Oh my gosh.”

“Someone call security!”

The voices were all blending together into a dull roar.

“Are those Vine Fist 3D models? How’d Randy get them?”

“Hell yeah, work the body, Danny boy! Get in there!”

People were pouring out of the employee lounge to watch the fight. Including, Randy realized just before his glasses went flying, Helen Rose. He’d already been humiliated in front of the gorgeous social influencer; he didn’t want to get his butt handed to him by this moron with her watching.

As if things hadn’t gone quite insane enough, Hearthworld’s filigreed Health vial appeared in the corner of his vision. This was unreal. Impossible. Yet he saw the filigreed Health vial as surely as he saw the clock hanging on the nearby wall. Danny landed a serious punch to the ribs that slammed Randy backward into the wall. It hurt for sure, but it hardly touched his overall Health.

Lightbulbs went off in Randy’s head. Danny couldn’t kill him. The worst Danny could do was beat the crap out of him.

And maybe, Randy realized, if he got his head back in the game, Danny might not even be able to do that.

Since he’d leveled his Arboreal Herald past 20, Randy had hardly used any of his lowbie Feral spells, but with his back to the wall and a stronger, faster opponent trying to tear him apart, he knew exactly which one would be perfect.

Intuitively, he triggered Cornered.

Everything he could see became tinged with green, and he knew his eyes were glowing with raw Feral Arboreal energy. Someone down the hall gasped. Renewed vitality flowed through Randy’s muscles as the spell doubled his speed and dampened the pain from Danny’s blows. Time seemed to come to a creeping halt, and he watched Danny launch a jab at his face in slow motion. Randy knocked the punch away easily—effortlessly, even—then countered with a Vine Fist to Danny’s jaw.

The marketing VP’s teeth snapped together, and he stumbled back a step, eyes wide with shock.

Before Danny could recover, Randy pressed the attack, throwing a flurry of punches and elbows. Arboreal Heralds weren’t known for their Con or Strength, but they could kick all the ass with their Dex, especially when they poured on the Feral sauce. Pretty soon, he’d backed Danny up against the other wall. The marketing VP was trying to duck and cover and throw out sloppy punches all at the same time, but he was badly winded, and the Cornered enhancements were too much for him.

“Dang, dawg! Get it, Randall!”

“Seriously, did anyone call security yet?”

“Who knew Randy was such a badass?”

The thin silver countdown bar for Cornered flashed once, then ran out, and time seemed to even out again. Danny’s foot shot out, but Randy Clever Dodged, kicking the douchebag’s leg out from under him in a decisive counterattack.

Danny hit the floor flat on his back, the air woofing out of his lungs. Randy pulled back a Vine Fist, layering on Forest Fire with a flash of power. The words Finish him! rang through his head.

“What the hell! Did he just cast Forest Fire?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Then how the hell did he just do that?”

“He must’ve added fire gel to the models to give them verisimilitude.”

“Then what did he light it with, genius? I know a cast when I see it, and that was a fucking cast. It looks just like the fucking game. Exactly like it—I should know; I helped design that mechanic.”

“Everyone get back!” an authoritative voice shouted. “You! Put your hands on the back of your head!”

Randy glanced down the hall to find uniformed security officers pushing through the awestruck crowd.

“I mean now!” the lead guard yelled.

Chest and shoulders heaving and sweat pouring down his face, Randy let the Vine Fist and Forest Fire spells dissipate, then put his empty hands in the air.

“What the actual fuck? Did you see that?”

“Can’t do that with fire gel,” someone muttered.

“Then it was some kind of lighting trick.”

“The hell it was.”

Animal Precognition went off. Randy dropped to one knee and slammed Danny’s fist against the floor, stopping the VP from punching him in the balls when he wasn’t looking.

Without his glasses, the faces of his coworkers were nothing more than a blur, but Randy heard their impressed murmuring. A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. That last move had probably looked pretty badass. Like he’d pulled it straight out of Enter the Dragon.

“I said stop, shithead!” the security guard bellowed, dragging his Taser out of its holster. “Next one who moves gets Tased!”

Randy raised his hands over his head and took a deep breath to compose himself.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he panted. “I was just trying to leave and Danny attacked me. The security footage will show that I was defending myself.”

“We’ll get that sorted out.” The guard stalked down the hall with the Taser trained on him. “For now, no one moves. I’m not warning you again.”

“Understood,” Randy said.

“You are so fucking dead,” Danny growled up at him. Little flecks of bloody saliva flew when he pronounced the Ss and Fs. One of those elbows must’ve cut up the inside of his mouth. “So fucking dead.”

“I knew that a long time ago, Danny,” Randy said just loud enough for the two of them to hear.

His job had been toast when he first agreed to help the Griefer. What was insane was how little he cared now. At this moment he finally had a little perspective. This job was not him, it was just a stupid job. He was so much more than a programmer, and now—thanks to the Griefer’s magic—he was maybe even more than simply human. Randy had to stop himself from letting out an excited giggle. Euphoria was rushing in to fill the empty space all the adrenaline had left behind.

Also, he had kicked Danny’s ass!

No matter what Frontflip tried to throw at him now, he could deal with it.

As the security guards led him and Danny to the elevator lobby, Randy mentally prepared his defense. Once security saw the CC footage, they would have to let him go. He would explain away being in Danny’s office in the first place with some mumbo jumbo about necessary updates and IT issues. Stuff it would take time to confirm. Maybe HR would still use today as an excuse to fire him—then he could drop a bomb about suing for wrongful termination. Get out ahead of Frontflip’s attempts to frame him by discrediting them first. For now, though, he just needed to get home and get back in Danny’s station, save those incriminating messages, and figure out how to stop the shutdown.

“Wait!” Helen Rose’s blurry form jogged into the elevator lobby. Randy recognized her by the square-framed glasses and magenta underdye in her blonde hair. “He needs these.”

She handed Randy his glasses.

“Oh, uh, wow, thank you.” He slipped the lenses on, and her face came into focus.

She was smiling at him. Not the mean-girl, scornful type smile meant to remind Randy just how out of his league she was. Helen Rose, the Helen Rose, was smiling at him like she was impressed.

“No big deal,” she said, twisting a strand of blonde and magenta hair around her finger. “Your lenses are almost as thick as mine, so I figured you’re blind without them.”

“I am.” He nodded. “Thank you so much.”

She grinned. “You said that. Randy, right?”

“Yeah.” His heart was pounding so hard that he couldn’t believe he didn’t pass out. “Randy Shoemaker.”

“Helen Rose Douglas. I work upstairs in Social Influencing—”

The elevator announced its arrival with a loud ding.

“All right, let’s go.” The security guards herded Randy and Danny onto the lift.

Randy craned his neck to look back into the lobby.

Just before the doors closed, Helen Rose tucked her hair behind her ear and gave him a little wave. Him, no one else. Then she mouthed the words he’d dreamed of hearing for ages, Call me.

As the car started to move, Randy grinned and leaned back against the wall. This was the single greatest day of his life. Nothing would ever be the same, and that was okay. He was tired of the same. This was so much better.

He smiled. Time to go save the world. More than one.

Bargaining Chip

A MOMENT LATER, ROARK stepped into the gloom of the Cruel Citadel’s keep. Wearily, he dropped into the seat of the obsidian throne, wincing at the pain in his wings, then turned to the remote viewing page of his Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire.

The crumbling walls of the inner bailey were surrounded on all sides by an army of golden-skinned, winged Malaika Heralds, two hundred deep. A quick scan of their levels showed none below the level 70 respawn cap, and precious few that low. Most were at the full 99.

At their head stood Lowen, a smug smirk plastered across his face.

Since Roark had just finished tangling with a level 99 Dungeon Lord—albeit one much larger than the Heralds arrayed before him—he knew exactly how outclassed and outmanned he was. At his current level and in his current state he would never be able to kill even a single one of the level 99 Divine creatures, much less all of them. This was a losing battle. It was possible he could weather the invasion or that his portal plates would turn away most of these invaders, but chances were high that at least a handful would slip through the cracks. And if they managed to capture him—the way Randy and PwnrBwner had done not so long before—Roark would be doomed and damned in equal measure.

But there was nothing for it. He couldn’t sit here and wait for his destruction nor the death of his friends.

Roark stalked out of the Throne Room and through the Citadel, death looming in his mind. Either his or Lowen’s—at the moment, he was too tired to care which of them death’s summit went to.

“You look like hell, Griefer,” Griff said when Roark stormed onto the first floor.

“Better than Kaz, Zyra, or Mac,” he muttered.

“Here.” The grizzled trainer shoved a Sufficient Health potion into his hand, one of the bottom-tier potions Griff kept in his Inventory for the low-level trainees. “Drink this ’fore you fall over.”

“Why hasn’t he attacked yet?” Roark demanded. “What’s he waiting for?”

Griff frowned. “Puffed-up owl’s been yelling about talking to you. For heaven’s sake, lad, drink that already. It’s not much, but it’ll fix...” He faltered, eyeing Roark over. “Somma this, anyway,” he finished.

Roark grimaced and gulped down the meager contents—the sickly sweet taste of the draughts never sat well in his belly—then tossed the bottle aside as a quarter of the red liquid poured back into his filigreed Health vial. He should have stopped in Zyra’s lab on the way up and filled his Inventory with Absolute potions, but there was no way he was turning around now.

He mounted the stairs to the bailey.

“Where in blazes are you going?” Griff caught up to him. “You can’t give that Lowen character what he wants, Griefer. Talking to you, it’s a trap. I’ve only got one eye, and even I can see that.”

“I know!” Roark snapped. Realizing he was yelling at the only friend he had who hadn’t been sent to respawn, he shook himself. “Sorry, Griff. But we can’t fight that army out there, even with our specialty forces, and unless he challenges me for the Cruel Citadel, he can’t kill me forever-dead. It’s possible he’ll try to capture me, but Zyra gave me something for that. Just in case.” He offered a morbid grin as he pulled out a vial filled with burbling black sludge. “Specially designed contact poison that will drop me in a second. This probably is a trap of some sort, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Thinking of Zyra and poison reminded him to take off his Clearblood Ring. Wouldn’t do to get captured thinking he could escape only to be thwarted by his own protections.

“What about that stone thing?” Griff nodded at Roark’s chest. “You said that’s what he wants. If he kills you, he can just take it, and not a one among us can stop him.”

Roark shook his head. “The World Stone Pendant is soul-bound. He can’t remove it from my corpse.” He considered its properties for a moment. “I’m not even bloody sure I can remove it,” he said. “The point is the stone’s not going anywhere. At the very least, we need to know what he wants. The Citadel can’t hold out forever in a siege, especially not if one of the Heralds figures out how to get past the Curse Chain—and in an army that size, there’s bound to be at least one who does, even by accident. I can’t fight him off yet, so I need to know what he wants, try to stall for time.”

“Some kinda protection, lad,” Griff insisted. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Roark stopped long enough to scribble a pair of rebound spells, one for magick and one for physical damage, then cast them on himself.

“There.” He turned to Griff, casting a second pair of spells on the trainer. “Now if they’re hoping to pick me off as soon as we step outside, we’ll be protected. For the next sixty seconds, anyway.”

“And we’ll come straight back in,” Griff said, his raised brow belying the tone of command in his voice. “No fooling around or engaging ’em if they attack.”

Roark didn’t make any promises, just resumed the climb toward the surface. With a disgruntled sigh, the one-eyed old man followed him out into the bailey.

The wind howled across the gloomy midnight landscape and whistled through the ranks outside the crumbling walls, but Roark could hear the creak of leather and faint jingle of mail over it. He strode through the eddying ground fog to the rusty iron portcullis, bracing himself for a hail of arrows and spells.

None came.

He locked eyes with Lowen, the Herald’s brown-speckled wings silhouetted by the moonlight. As usual, the arrogant mage carried no physical weapon, content to rely entirely on his magick. The thought gave Roark a split second’s satisfaction knowing that Lowen would be one of the first transported to the Star Iron Hills if his army attacked.

“All right, you insufferable chav, I’m here.” Roark’s head spun, and he grabbed the rusty grating, hoping it looked more like he was trying to contain his rage than stalling long enough for his Health to fully regenerate. “What do you want?”

“The World Stone, of course,” Lowen said. “You have a pendant I want, so I came to trade it for something you want.”

“That’s well, then,” Roark said. “I accept your unconditional surrender and honorable suicide. That’s the only thing of value you have to offer me.”

“You uppity half-breed bastard.” Lowen shook his head condescendingly. “Always out-clevering yourself.”

“Uppity I’ll grant you, mate, and half-breed too, but if I remember the Academy gossip right, you were the bastard. What was it your mum sold it for? A new court dress so she wouldn’t look like poor country nobility? Or was that time to pay off one of your father’s gambling debts?”

The Herald’s face twisted with rage before quickly smoothing over again. He let out a condescending laugh.

“Very funny. Would you like to meet someone who isn’t laughing while you waste time stroking your own ego with juvenile insults?” Lowen nodded over his shoulder at a scar-faced lieutenant. “Her.”

The lieutenant sneered and dragged another Herald out of the crowd. She whimpered and fought against him, her black raven’s wings flapping pitifully. They looked broken and torn in what must have been brutal, deliberate beatings and perhaps even torture.

Spidery white text appeared in the air over her head, the nameplate just visible at Roark’s distance.

[Talise]

Roark had to stop himself from taking a step back. It was just an illusion. Had to be. Some sort of Glamour Cloak ability like his, with a name substituted for who or whatever that poor creature really was. His sister was dead. Had been dead for twenty years, just like everyone else in his family, save him. The sole survivor of the von Graf bloodline.

But the memory of that vision of Bloederige Nocht flickered through his mind, showing him once more the Tyrant King settling a shaking six-year-old Talise on his hip like a kindly old grandfather and carrying her away from their slaughtered family.

In the silvery moonlight, it was hard to discern detail, but she looked the right age. And was that a slight Lyuko curve to her nose? True, her Hearthworld form was different, but under the golden sheen of her Herald skin, she looked pale, a white gold rather than the true gold of the rest. Where Roark had always taken after their mother in complexion and temperament, Talise’s skin had been like their father’s, as light as porcelain.

“It’s a trick of the light,” he muttered. But try as he might, he couldn’t silence his doubts. What if it was her?

“Don’t matter what it is,” Griff said, snapping Roark out of his trance. “You tell that overblown bee to buzz back to his hive. We ain’t buying what he’s selling.”

“Roark?” the raven-winged girl cried. “Is that really you?”

Lowen backhanded her, and she dropped to the ground, clutching her mouth.

Red filled Roark’s vision. He’d used every spell in his tome, but he still had all of his Jotnar abilities at his disposal. He was halfway to casting Infernal Thunder before he caught himself. It wouldn’t affect a Herald anyway. They were immune to Infernal spells. This time he was bloody going to have some Impulse Control. More than PwnrBwner would have, at least.

“Prove it’s you,” he called back to the girl.

“What are you doin’, boy?” Griff snapped, grabbing him by the arm.

Roark shook his hand off and yelled, “Prove you’re Talise and I’ll get you away from that tosser.”

She faltered, looking up at Lowen as if afraid she’d be hit again. The mage nodded, a sneer curling up one corner of his lips.

“When I was little, you led me down into the passages beneath the manor and lost me on purpose,” she answered in a halting voice. “Cousin Dirk had to come save me.”

When Roark didn’t immediately reply to that, she kept speaking, perhaps assuming he wasn’t convinced. “Father let me sleep in his and Mother’s bed that night, and I... I think you lost your hunting privileges for a month, but I don’t remember.”

Seven hells. It felt like someone had laid his head on an anvil and tried to beat it out with a flatter hammer. It’d been a fortnight—he’d been forbidden to go out with the men for fourteen days as punishment for leaving his sister scared and alone in the secret tunnels below the manor house—but no one but a von Graf could know that, could they?

Griff stepped up beside him. “Whatever you’re thinking, give it up now.”

“Only the real Talise could know that,” Roark growled.

“There’s ways of findin’ things out, lad. Making a replacement sound convincing by feeding her a handful of facts you thought nobody else could know. It’s the oldest trick in the book.”

“But if it is her—” His throat closed, and he had to swallow hard before he could speak again. “Even if it isn’t, we can’t leave her in Lowen’s hands.” He glanced at her battered wings. “There’s no telling what she’s had to go through already.”

“Lad, they’re preyin’ on your sympathies—”

“Send her closer!” Roark shouted at Lowen. “Let me get a better look at her. If she’s truly my sister, then I’ll fight you one-on-one, a mage’s duel. Winner takes her and the World Stone.”

Lowen’s brows rose.

“I expected to haggle with you a little longer,” he said, smirking. “Isn’t that what you and your dirty Lyuko brethren like to do? Drive the price of valuable items into the dirt and steal hard-earned wealth from those in dire straits?”

“We also like to curse nobles to horrible fates,” Roark said coolly. “Take my offer now while it’s on the table or I’ll fall back on my people’s nature.”

“Fine.” Lowen waved a hand at the girl. “Go, if it’ll shut him up.”

She turned wide eyes from her captor to Roark. After a moment, she stumbled to her feet and started limping uncertainly toward the portcullis that let into the inner bailey.

Griff shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

“He knows I’m lying,” Roark murmured, squinting at the Tyrant King’s right-hand mage in bemusement. “Why is he going along with my demands?”

“’Cause he’s got something else up his sleeve, lad.”

“That’s not like him. Lowen’s all force, no finesse.” Roark looked past the girl to the army, rows upon rows of Heralds, hands on swords and ready to cast a barrage of Divine spells. “Get inside, Griff. As soon as she steps into the bailey, we need to get out of range. They’re leading up to an attack.”

As the girl claiming to be his sister drew closer, Roark cranked open the rusty iron grating. Damnation if she wasn’t the image of their mother, all except for that porcelain undertone. Up close the similarities were uncanny. Long raven hair with the same weight and wave as his got when it was getting long. The hook in the bridge of her nose, far less pronounced than his own. She even had a tiny scar across her right brow, just like Talise had gotten from falling down the entry stairs as a toddler.

The scar was what did it. Lowen couldn’t have known about that. As far as Roark knew, the mage had never laid eyes on his sister and couldn’t possibly have the knowledge to magick up a doppelganger with that degree of accuracy. It had to be her.

“Talise?”

Lips quivering, eyes wild, she nodded, curled in on herself, then darted toward him, arms wide, tears streaking down her cheeks. She ran right into his waiting embrace, burrowing into his chest like a frightened child.

He pulled her toward the crumbling stair into the Citadel. “Come on, we’ve got to get you out of range.”

“Is it really you?” she asked. “My brother? After all these years?”

“In the flesh. Sort of.” He tried to smile reassuringly down at her, knowing his sharpened black teeth and curling horns would offer little comfort.

His stomach sank when he caught her eye and realized he’d been tricked.

The girl’s eyes were the same cool gray as their father’s, the same as Roark’s, but the scared, broken prisoner clinging to him should’ve had wide, frightened eyes, perhaps gaining some measure of hope now that she was being saved. Instead, the gray depths of her gaze glinted with a cold, calculating frost.

Her hand darted into her bodice. Roark grabbed for it.

Too slowly.

With a snapping sound, she cracked a smooth river rock in half, activating the glowing blue rune carved into its surface. A violet portal tore open around them, and the bailey disappeared in a whirl of light and sound.

The Twist

THE SMELLS HIT ROARK first as he stumbled to his feet, trying to regain his bearings. Rotting food, refuse, and something chemical and flat that felt as if it coated the inside of his mouth and sinuses. Early evening light filtered down from above, illuminating shiny black bags overflowing squared waste-flecked barrels, and walls of too-uniform brick rose on either side.

An alleyway?

Something roared at the alley’s mouth, a huge contraption of metal whooshing past, the tone of its cry shifting as it drew farther away.

“What in all the hells is this place?” Roark muttered, glancing around wildly, unsteady on his feet. He shot a look down at his hands, fingers still tipped with the familiar claws of his Jotnar form. He flexed his wings, feeling the strain of the muscles in his shoulders, and reached out for his potent Infernali magick—still flickering in the back of his skull like a candle. He was himself, or at least himself in his Troll form, but this landscape was new and strange.

Glass crashed behind him.

He spun around to find Talise, still in Herald form, though her broken raven-black wings were healed. On the ground at her side was the shattered remnants of a potion bottle.

“A world like Traisbin, where death is real,” she said darkly. “There are no respawns here, not even for a conniving coward like you.”

With a flick of her hand, a ball of crackling amber lightning shot toward Roark. Instinctively, he threw up an Infernal shield. The lightning slammed into the violet light and dissipated in a crack of thunder. A fiery meteor, twisting bone lance, and blast of icy air followed in quick succession, each one shoving him backward across the strange stonelike ground, but thankfully unable to penetrate the shield.

Then Talise stepped forward, aiming her open palm at him. Roark knew what was coming before the javelin of pure golden light burst free. Angelic Lance.

He dove away, tucking into a tight roll, then coming up to her right. His Infernal shield wouldn’t protect him against Divine spells. About as effective as spinner’s thread against a set of sharpened steel shears.

But that was why he’d been studying with Ick.

As Talise stepped forward again, Roark dropped into the low posture the Nocturnus had taught them, whipped his arms as quickly as he could through the techniques, then thrust them out, the motion tearing a low growl from his throat.

It was a far cry from Ick’s accomplished casting, but the Discordant Inversion web he’d defined so long ago for Divine spells flared to life in front of him. The Angelic Lance struck it, immediately transforming into a bolt of Undead Chaos and rebounding back at Talise.

She turned, trying to dodge, and took the sickly green lance in the upper shoulder rather than full in the face. The impact drove her to the ground, but she hardly paused. From her knees, she flung a counterattack of Heavenly Wrath at him.

Snarling a curse, Roark whipped through the postures again, casting his second web. The deadly golden light flashed to Undead green and ricocheted.

Ready for it this time, Talise dove away, quickly regaining her feet.

Sweat poured down Roark’s face as he cast the final web. He’d better bloody well hope she gave up on the Divine spells soon. This was his last Discordant Inversion inscription, and the cast for each had taken nearly every last bit of his flagging energy.

When Talise turned to face him again, she had a golden rapier in hand. Instinctively, Roark pulled his Slender Rapier and Kaiken Dagger, both enchanted with Light magick for the fight against Aczol and unlikely to do much damage in this fight.

The thought struck him as immaterial. He didn’t want to kill her, especially not in a world where there were no respawns. What he wanted was some bloody answers.

“I should have known you’d have a magical riposte to anything I cast,” she said, each word frozen with icy hatred. “You were always so proud of your spell writing.”

She lunged pie’ fermo and whipped the rapier in a tight sottomano at his ribs. Not a full-strength attack, but a test. Roark batted it aside with a flick of his shoulder.

“Why are you doing this?” Roark demanded, pressing in, cutting the distance between them and trying to force her onto her rear foot, where she’d always been weakest.

Instead of falling back, she skipped forward a step, forcing him on the defensive. Their blades rang and sparked, the sound bouncing from the alley walls as she executed precise diagonal slices dal poso, from the wrist. Another calculating assessment. She was trying him, searching for weaknesses without overcommitting her blade.

He stepped back, refusing to go on the attack. Exhausted as he was, and as economical as she was keeping her combat, taking the offensive would only give her the advantage in the long run.

“Don’t try to play the innocent with me, snake.” Despite the venom in her words, Talise’s countenance remained cold and blank as she flicked a riverso tondo at his throat. He batted it aside in with a sloppy parry, his attention locked on her expressionless face. The slightest curl of her lip was the only hint that she felt anything at all. “Marek told me your blood price.”

“Blood price?” Roark’s mind reeled, trying to unravel what she was saying.

Using his moment’s hesitation, she pulled her body out of line and swept inside his measure. Roark stumbled backward, blocking a series of sharp dal polso cuts aimed at his face and shoulders, just managing to keep them on the thick forte of his blade, near the hilt. His arm was wearing down, muscles exhausted by the taxing Discordant Inversion techniques after a day of fighting for his life against enemies far above his level. Talise had read that in his movements, and now she was exploiting it. She fought like their father, emotionless and shrewd, but unlike Sir Erick, there was no mercy in her watchful gray eyes.

“How far did you get before your gold ran out, brother?” Their blades clashed, and she bore down. Just for a second. Just long enough to sap a bit more of his flagging strength. Roark saw his filigreed Stamina bar appear, trickling away as she slowly but steadily wore down his resistance. She attacked again, pressing him. Costing him more precious Stamina. “Was it enough to buy you peace from our parents’ restless souls?”

“What in the seven bloody hells are you on about?” he demanded, narrowly turning aside a deadly thrust. But that left him open on the left.

With a whip of her wrist, she sliced a tondo across his chest. He backed up into the brick of the wall, the tip of her blade scoring a deep scratch in his leather armor.

“Selling our family out like the self-serving deserter you are.” She attacked dalla spalla for the first time, throwing her weight into a heavy overhand blow. When Roark attached swords with her, she bore down again. He was larger than her, but with her superior level she was far stronger despite the size differences. “Leading the Ustars in through the secret tunnels you loved so much.”

Understanding finally dawned in his fatigued mind, and with it came a burst of fury.

“Marek told you I betrayed our family?” He feinted left and lashed out with a front kick. His foot landed hard in her sternum, forcing her back, but she recovered her footwork easily. “Bloody hells, Talise, it’s a lie! Do you honestly believe I would do that? That anyone would?”

“To save their own skin, a coward would,” she said, “and here you stand, very much alive.”

She attacked again with cold precision in spite of the hatred dripping from her voice. Feeling a surge of his own anger, Roark slammed her blade aside with more force than necessary, leaving his guard open wide. It was a chiamato he’d perfected with Griff—giving his opponent an intentional opening—a deadly gamble if he wasn’t fast enough to turn their next attack against them. He knew he was a bloody fool for trying it when his Stamina was running so low, but the longer this drew out, the more the odds favored her. He had to end it now.

Talise pulled her body out of line to present him with the smallest possible target and lunged to exploit the opening. The golden tip of her rapier flew straight for his throat. A killing blow if ever there was one.

Pouring on a final burst of speed, Roark locked blades with her, trapping her wrist against his chest and pressing the Kaiken Dagger to her throat.

Rather than fall immediately still, however, she raked the nails of her free hand down his face. Roark cursed, gritting his teeth against the pain, and clamped down tighter on her arm. As if she couldn’t care less that a wrong move now would open her throat, she twisted and fought like a trapped bearcat. He pulled the dagger back a fraction, but didn’t release his grip on her blade arm.

“I ran, damn it!” He forced the words out past the decades-old disgust. “I was a coward. Am one. That much, at least, is true. I carved a blood cantrip in my forearm so I could disappear, and then I ran. While they all died, I ran. But before the Creator, Talise, I never, ever betrayed them.”

Her clawing stopped. Something flickered in the cold gray depths of her eyes.

“Hells, I wasn’t much older than you,” he said, his voice softening. “I barely knew there was an uprising going on.” He let out a bitter laugh. “Everything was happy and bloody dandy in my little world until Marek and his Ustars stormed into it.”

Carefully, he released the pressure on her arm. When she didn’t immediately run him through, Roark let go and stepped away. She fell back into a wary terza guardie, watching him with those unflinching gray eyes for treachery.

Very slowly, Roark turned his dagger and rapier around and held the hilts out to her.

“Take them,” he said.

After a brief hesitation, Talise snatched the rapier from his grasp. Roark smiled wryly. The longer blade would give her the greatest advantage and leave him without the reach to use the dagger. Given only one free hand and two deadly blades to confiscate, it was the one he would’ve taken as well.

Roark dropped the dagger for good measure.

“I deserve most of the scorn you assign to me, Talise; I’ve done a lot of bad over the years. Things that haunt my dreams and linger always on the edges of my thoughts.” He couldn’t help but recall Danella’s sidelong smile and blonde hair. “But selling our family to Marek? That I would never have done, no matter what the cost. If you think I did it, then kill me.” He raised his chin, baring his throat. “I won’t stop you. I deserve it for running, if nothing else.”

Long seconds passed while she studied him. Metal monsters screamed by outside the alleyway, but he hardly heard them over the harsh thudding of his heart. Over the top of Talise’s head he could see the mouth of the alley and noted that they had started to draw a crowd. Human onlookers, pitifully small compared to his Jotnar form. They wore strange outfits—no armor or leathers as the heroes of Hearthworld did—and instead of swords, axes, or bows, each carried a small rectangular black box.

Most of the onlookers were holding those boxes up, pointing them toward Roark and his sister, though the boxes didn’t seem to be doing anything. He pushed thoughts of the crowd away and focused entirely on Talise. Perhaps she would choose to kill him, but if she did, at least he would die looking at her one last time, knowing that she was alive even when all else was gone.

“Show me your arm,” she said, the ice still prevalent in her tone. “Show me the scars.”

It took a moment for Roark to understand which scars she meant. He’d collected more than a few on either arm. When he caught on, however, he untied the rawhide cords connecting the left leather vambrace to the rest of his armor and pulled it off. He turned his wrist so she could see the crude letters carved into his forearm.

I AM INVISIBLE.

An audible puff of air left her lungs.

“It’s true, then.”

Roark couldn’t tell from her tone whether it was a question, but he nodded all the same.

Her jaw twitched, then her white-gold features smoothed out once again. She tossed his rapier down at his feet with a clang.

Tension raced out of his shoulders and legs, far more than he’d realized he felt, and he slumped back against the brick of the building, planting his hands on his knees.

“Bloody hells, girl,” he panted, unable to withhold the chuckle. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

Talise didn’t laugh. “Marek afforded me every luxury of education and combat training since the day he began to trust me. I should have been able to without breaking a sweat.”

Roark grinned at the accusation in her tone.

“Life afforded me a different set of luxuries,” he said. “Street fighting, backstabbing, and highwayman ambush.”

“So we both live.” She looked toward the mouth of the alley, turning her icy glare on their spectators. “What now?”

He took a long breath and blew it back out. He knew what Kaz would do, and not for the first time, Roark wished he had his friend’s enormous heart and simple warmth.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said. “What were you supposed to do once you’d killed me?”

“This place is different than the last. According to Lowen, this is the realm the heroes of Hearthworld reside in. Death here is like death in Traisbin, so he assumed I would be able to take the World Stone from your corpse after finishing you. Naturally, I was supposed to bring it back to Lowen so that sniveling lickspittle could take the credit.” A faint sneer tugged at the corner of her lips. “Had I killed you, though, I would’ve gone directly to Marek and handed the pendant over. He only lent me out to Lowen because the fool couldn’t take the stone himself.”

Roark frowned. “Talise, about Marek...”

A raucous noise, the shrill sound of some alert siren, filled the air as one of the metal beasts pulled up at the mouth of the alleyway, flashing blue and red lights against the brick walls and the stunned faces of the onlookers. A man and a woman climbed from the creature—some sort of horseless conveyance it seemed—both wearing crisp blue uniforms, heavy belts studded with items, and shining metal badges affixed to their chests. Not so different from the badges Griff had commissioned for his Rumble Crew.

This pair had the look of the constabulary about them.

“Hold that thought,” Roark said, motioning Talise toward the brick wall. “Perhaps it would be best if we finished this somewhere a little more private. From what I’ve gathered from my associates about this place, monsters and magick are not common occurrences.”

He eyed the wall, then jabbed his clawed fingers forward, almost effortlessly sinking them into stone. In seconds, he scrambled up the side of the building, clawing through the mortar and brick, until he crested the lip of the three-story building and pushed off, unfurling his wings as he caught a gust of air. There were no red flight arrows here, but that hardly stopped him from quickly gaining elevation. When he glanced down, he saw that Talise was following, her black raven’s wings beating at the air.

A good sign, that. If she’d been unwilling to speak with him, she would’ve stayed behind.

In seconds she was beside him, carving through the air as gracefully as any trained hunting falcon. They swooped and soared, silently eyeing the city before touching down on the roof of a miraculously tall building half a mile or so from where they’d originally spawned. Well away from the onlookers and the potentially dangerous constables.

For a while, the pair of them just stood there on the top of the building, gazing out at the awe-inspiring view. The magick of Hearthworld had been both mystifying and tantalizing when Roark had first stumbled into this realm from Traisbin. But this...

Unfathomably high structures of glass and metal, of stone and brick, towered higher than the largest cathedrals and castles he’d ever seen. There were buildings so immense they seemed to reach up and touch the sky, as though challenging the sun and moon for dominion. Streets, all paved with a flawless black stone, were covered by an endless assortment of the colorful metal carriages. Impossible bridges of stone and cable arched gracefully over immense riverways. And the people... Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. More humanity, more life, than in every city in Traisbin combined.

And if PwnrBwner and Randy were to be believed, this had all been built without the use of magick. Simply incredible.

“It takes the breath away.” Talise said this in a flat, emotionless voice, but Roark caught her wiping a tear from her cheek. “The vastness of it all.”

“That it does,” he replied, watching a huge barge of some sort skitter down the riverway. They stood in silence for a few moments longer, letting the awe settle before the posturing and verbal sparring needed to commence again.

Talise was the one to break the temporary truce.

“You want to know if I’m loyal to Marek,” she said, resting one hand on the pommel of her golden rapier, now sheathed at her hip. “He’s treated me well. Protected me from scum like Lowen, trained me to use the lawless magick I was born with. He’s even spoiled me with anything I ask for, so long as I behave.” She locked eyes with Roark. “And I do. I’ve been the picture of devotion since Bloederige Noct. I kill when he asks me to, torture whoever he wants answers from, and provide diverting conversation while we take our evening meal. He calls me his granddaughter.”

Roark’s stomach turned.

“I don’t think he knows what love is,” Talise finished. “But I think he believes he loves me and that I love him.”

“Do you?” Roark asked, afraid to hear the answer.

She gestured to the letters scarring his still exposed forearm.

“I am invisible, just like you,” she said. “Just another weapon in his armory. Even that sod Lowen is blind to me now. I’m hiding in plain sight.” She waved a hand at Roark, a bored aristocratic motion that reminded him distastefully of the tyrant. “Go ahead and ask.”

Roark blinked. “Ask what?”

“Ask me to kill him. I’m sure you want him dead as badly as I do. I kiss his cheek every night and bid him sweet dreams, no one can get closer than I can. Go ahead.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Roark scowled. “If you tried anything, he’d have you cut apart. Even if you did somehow manage to kill him, his lackeys would destroy you before you could make it five steps.”

She frowned. “You... don’t want me to kill Marek?”

“I want the monster to die screaming, but I don’t want you to die for it. And if anybody else asks you to assassinate him, I bloody well hope you turn them over to Marek the second they look away.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. She stiffened under his grasp. “Listen to me, Talise. You don’t owe me or anyone else anything. Protect yourself. Don’t give him a single opportunity to turn against you. Do whatever you have to do to survive.”

For the first time since they’d come through the portal, the ice in her expression entirely melted away. She squinted into his eyes as if she were only now truly seeing him.

“You really are good, aren’t you?” she said in a low voice.

That startled a sharp laugh from Roark.

“Hardly.” He stepped back and crossed his arms. “I just found out my sister was still alive. It’s not beyond imagination that I wouldn’t want her to run off and get herself killed straight away.”

Talise worried her lower lip. “I have to go back.”

“No, you don’t. You can stay with us at the Citadel. Or here.” He gestured toward the sprawling expanse of city. True, this place was like none he’d ever seen, and if what Talise said was true, this was the realm PwnrBwner and Randy hailed from. Perhaps he could find them if push came to shove. He was sure they would help him protect her.

Talise shook her head. “If I stay, Marek will come through the portal himself and raze Hearthworld and this one, too. The lawless magick I can do, I think it comes from the World Stone. He’s been using my abilities in its place since you stole it, but if I disappear after I was sent to kill you, he’ll destroy anything and everything between you and him.”

“Wait.” Roark held up a hand to stop her. His mind felt like a spinning top. The flash of amber light he’d seen Talise use in the vision floated to the surface of his memories, followed by the questions he’d been asking himself about the World Stone altering the world around it to best suit its needs. It was conceivable that it had given Talise magick from another dimension, the same way it had given Kaz sentience when Roark made him a Greater Vassal. To what end, though, Roark couldn’t even begin to guess. He turned instead to the mention of the Tyrant King. “Come through the portal? Marek has a way to get to Hearthworld?”

“A stable portal,” she said. “In the Vault of the Radiant Shield’s throne room. It was how I came through. Same for Lowen and all of Marek’s troops. I assumed that was how you’d gotten to Hearthworld.”

With a smirk, Roark turned his arm over and showed her the faulty portal spell that had brought him to Cruel Citadel.

She raised one dark brow. “Bleeding hells, Roark, you’re not a roll of parchment.”

“Don’t tell my skin that,” he joked. He slipped his vambraces back on and tied them in place. “It didn’t work right anyway. Neither have any of the portals I’ve tried inscribing in my spell slots since coming to Hearthworld. I can’t create a usable portal, let alone one stable enough to put me back in Traisbin.”

“You’re trying to get back to Traisbin? But why? You got away.”

He locked eyes with his sister. “I’m going to kill him, Talise. I couldn’t do anything when we were kids, but I can now. I’m done running. If it’s the last bloody thing I do, I’m going to kill the Tyrant King.”

“Then you’ll need me to go back.”

“Like seven hells I do. You’re going to hide here in this realm. I just have to get in contact with one of my Greater Vassals—”

Talise raised her chin and cut him off. “You’ll never get past Lowen without my help, let alone get close enough to kill Marek. I’m your only hope.”

“I’ll find another way,” Roark insisted.

“No, you won’t. Not without me.”

Roark balled his fists at his sides. The worst of it was, she might be right. And even if she wasn’t, the safest place for her truly was back at Marek’s side, playing the dutiful granddaughter-cum-weapon. Nothing could hurt her there but the Tyrant King himself, and she’d already more than proven that she could remain in his good graces without revealing her true hatred.

“How did you get us here?” he asked.

“Port stone.” She produced another of the smooth river rocks, turning it over to show him the glowing icy rune carved into the surface.

“Can it take you directly back to Marek?”

She shook her head. “It only works between Hearthworld and this place. Lowen has been experimenting with them. He’s sent a number of scouts through already. He’s quite awed with this world you know. I suspect Marek may well try to take it once he has his pendant back.” She shrugged. “But as for the port stones, from here I can take us anywhere in Hearthworld, and from Hearthworld anywhere here.”

“Good. We need to go to the throne room of the Cruel Citadel.” Roark dragged his claws through his hair, remembering the way he’d left Griff and his troops. Hopefully they had all retreated to the second floor. Lowen probably hadn’t attacked, assuming Talise would stay true to their plan, but if the Herald had, Roark wanted his troops safely holed up on the opposite side of the first floor Curse Chains. “From there, we’ll figure out the safest way to get you back to Traisbin.”

“And how to help you kill Marek.”

He gritted his teeth. “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“It will be,” she said, as if there could be no doubts on the matter. She stepped closer to him and raised the rune stone, but didn’t break it.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Before we go...” She looked down at the ground far below, an errant gust of wind lapping at her hair, hiding her face. “I’m sorry I called you a coward for running. You were just a little boy. Part of me knew that all along, but... When we were children, you always seemed so much older. So clever and fearless.” Her hand darted under the curtain of her hair, and though Roark couldn’t see it, he realized she might be wiping away another wayward tear. “But you were just a child. There was nothing you could’ve done.”

It felt as if a fist in his chest suddenly unclenched. The spot had been clenched tight for so long that he’d stopped noticing it. Until she said that.

Roark put an arm around Talise’s shoulders and squeezed. It was awkward, but he did the best he could. Maybe if he kept trying, he would eventually be able to hug people as naturally as Kaz did.

“Come on,” he said, pulling away after a long beat. “Best we get moving. Sadly, Lowen isn’t going to kill himself, which means we have work to do. First and foremost, getting you back, where you’ll pretend you killed me but couldn’t take the World Stone off my corpse. Then you’ll go back to Marek, keep your head down, and stay safe.”

Talise faced him, opening her mouth to protest, but Roark cut her off.

“Please,” he said.

After a moment, she frowned and nodded. “Fine. For now.”

That seemed to be the best he was going to get.

“Thank you.”

As she took his hand and prepared to break the stone, Roark cast a final glance out over the vast city. His friends, his dungeon allies, the NecroDragon Core stowed away in his inventory, and now his sister. Finally, after grinding his way up from the very bottom, he had everything he needed to get revenge on that pompous ass Lowen. And from there, Marek. It was time at last to invade the Vault of the Radiant Shield.

Blood-soaked retribution was coming, and Roark intended to lead from the vanguard.

The Poser Owners

AS SOON AS SCOTT’S respawn time ended, he logged back in to Hearthworld and checked his messages, a giddy sense of excitement washing over him. The Griefer had sent him one about an hour after he died, letting him know that Aczol the NecroDickface was dead, and Roark had the Transmutation Core in hand. Quest finished, stupid amount of Experience collected, his Ranger-Cleric was now a bitchin’ level 19. But the end of the message was the best part.

As agreed, the Troll Nation vaults are open. Take what you need to start your guild and recruit.

Roark could be a total jerkwad, but at least the guy was a jerkwad of his word.

“Fuckin’ A,” Scott said. Finally, he was going to get some sweet revenge on all the dickweeds that’d been camping him—and Bad_Karma was firmly at the top of that fucking list.

Not wanting to wait around, Scott spawned in as his Ranger-Cleric, shuttled over to the Troll Nation, filled his Inventory to the brim—including a metric shit-ton of gold coin—and hopped a portal scroll to Avery City.

He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he sauntered through the streets toward the One-Eyed Unicorn. Already he’d picked up a couple low-level tails, probably dweebs too scared to face him like they had a pair until their buddies were there to back them up. Along the way they picked up a couple more, then a couple more. They looked like they were just getting ready to attack as he came around the corner toward the Unicorn.

Too bad for them. They were about to miss their shot.

Through the tavern’s front window, Scott spotted GothicTerror, sitting on the bar, drinking with ol’ Flappie_Sak. The ratio of Karma worshippers to Other in the Unicorn had definitely shifted while Scott was gone. The only unaligned folks still hanging out were the bartender and the pickpocket trainer.

Scott kicked open the door. “Daddy’s home, losers.”

He grabbed a chair, jammed it under the door handle, and planted his ass in it. The bartender got real smart real fast and disappeared into the back room.

Scott looked from one player to another, making sure he had their undivided attention.

“Today’s about to be your lucky day, because I’ve got a limited time offer for everybody in here”—he pointed at the gothed-out whoretot—“but her.”

She made a pouty face and tsked at him.

“Oh no, excluded by Cocky McCockmouth? That hurts my feels. You know what makes them better, though?” She flicked something on her wrist guard, and a shiny black bone crossbow popped out, the bolt aimed over the back of her hand. Green Undead Chaos energy burned dully along the weapon. “Every time Karma makes it rain fat stacks of gold for a dead Cockmouth.”

Scott smirked. “First person to one-shot Razor Blades ’n’ Roses here gets two Gs gold, right now.”

That wiped the smile off her pretty face awful damn fast. And the looks passing back and forth around the room said hers wasn’t the only attention he had.

A chair scraped over by the stairs—

GothicTerror fired off a bone bolt and nailed the rising tank in the face before he could equip his war axe. He clanked back a couple steps, HP dropping down below the halfway mark.

“Come at me again, Juan.” With a crank of her crossbow, a new bolt slammed into place. “Any other dickbrain in here want a faceful of BoneRot?”

“Three large,” Scott said, a nasty grin stretching across his face. Throwing money at problems was the best.

GothicTerror scowled and activated her Death’s Head Shield, putting the bar between herself and the rest of the room. Even looked like she was starting to sweat her buddy Flappie_Sak’s loyalty. Three thousand gold was an assload of coin in Hearthworld. Enough to fully deck out a new alt or pick up a complete set of Peerless armor. These lowbie jerkwads could grind for a month without earning that kind of payday. He knew, because he used to be the loser doing the grinding.

Not anymore. Not now that he had the Griefer bankrolling him.

“Think you can kill all these dillweeds before they take you out?” Scott asked her, waving a hand at the room. “Ya_Boy and everybody else in this bitch?”

“Please, these ladies can’t touch me.” She pointed her crossbow at Scott’s head. “Of course, that becomes a nonissue if I kill the dick who put out the hit on me.”

Scott grinned and sat forward in his seat. “Now you’re speaking my language. See, players’ll do all sorts of crazy shit for money and loot. Karma paid you losers to grief me, now I’m ready to double whatever that dick shells out to pay you not to grief me. Plus, I’ll let you in on the ground floor of my baller new guild, PwnrBwner’s Poser Owners. The Pwnrs for short. I’m talking full membership, no exceptions, no lame-ass errand running to get in—something I notice those jank pledge badges say BK hasn’t got off his ass and done for you yet.”

Ya_Boy_Flappie_Sak shifted in his seat, which Scott was happy to see made GothicTerror turn her crossbow on him. But instead of attacking, the rog jerked his chin at Scott.

“How’d your pockets get so deep? Tossing out three Gs to kill someone is a Karma move, not a Pwnr move.”

“Well, dickhole, for one, I’m a badass.” He stuck a finger into the air. “And for two, I know people.”

“Like that modder.”

“Like Aczol the Eternal,” Scott countered.

“Yeah right,” GothicTerror sneered. “Everybody knows the Endgame Dragon’s god-tier. Whatever this crap build is you’re wearing now is barely even junk-tier.”

Scott shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “Check the Immortals board if you don’t believe me.”

All around the room, eyes glossed over as they pulled up their interfaces and checked the boards. When the mouths started dropping open with the appropriate amount of awe, Scott couldn’t suppress the proud smile.

“Pretty fucking impressive, right?” he said. “And that’s just my opener. Check this shit out.” He stood up and started dropping ridiculous, game-breaking Unique items on the closest table. “All the loot you can eat. I keep my boyz stocked. Only the best. What’d Karma ever give you? Some crappy Peerless Bone Crossbow outta some generic barrow?” Scott snorted and rolled his eyes. “I used to think those were tough, too—then I got gud and started being a real gamer.”

Last but not least, he pulled out a gleaming black-and-red Unique Wraithpiercer Arbalest and held it up for GothicTerror to lose her fucking mind over. Which she totally was, even if she was trying to hide it.

“Basically, Screamo-tots, you’ve been an uberbitch to me,” he said, “but I just so happen to need somebody like that on my side to help me run this show. So, here’s your shot. I’ll give you one chance: ditch that loser Bad_Karma and join the Pwnrs or get ready to respawn. A lot. Like I’ll pay to have you camped until you fucking rage quit. Understand?”

GothicTerror didn’t say anything for a minute, her brow scrunched as she considered the options. She was trying to play it cool, but Scott could see her lowkey drooling over that crossbow. Who wouldn’t be? The thing was epic as balls.

“Whatever,” she finally said, shrugging one shoulder. “I’m just in it for the payday. Keep the loot flowing, and you bought yourself an uberbitch.”

He threw her the Wraithpiercer. “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant.”

She turned it over, checking out the stats.

“Wicked.” Then she saw her new guild badge. “Hell yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!”

After that, the rest of them couldn’t join up fast enough. Scott finished equipping his new crew with Unique weapons and armor, then got their attention again.

“All right, everybody, follow me. We got one last order of business to take care of.”

Scott led the way out into the street, wishing they were moving in slow-mo with some kind of headbanging soundtrack to complement how badass they looked. A couple of BK’s ass-kissers took a run at them, but his crew slapped them down like they weren’t shit. Unique weapons would do that for you.

Two minutes later, they rocked up to the Avery City Market like gangstas. Scott climbed onto the stage at the far end where everybody would see him, while GothicTerror directed the rest of the Pwnrs to spread out in a protective ring.

“Listen up,” Scott shouted at the top of his lungs.

Activity in the aisles slowed to a crawl as all eyes turned his way. The chatter died down.

“PwnrBwner’s Poser Owners here. Remember the name, ’cause from now on, we run this game. Bad_Karma’s done, and it’s open season on any asshole in the Karmic Cycle of Whoopass guild. If you’re in with that dick, you’ve got two minutes to GTFO of Avery City or come over to the dark side with the rest of us bad motherfuckers.” Scott paused long enough to smirk out at his stunned audience. “Starting now, Hearthworld’s under new management. PwnrBwner’s Poser Owners and the Troll Nation run this show, and shit is about to get real...”

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***

An extinction-level asteroid is blazing toward Earth. Collision, imminent. The world is doomed, and only a select few lottery winners will be saved.

UNFORTUNATELY, JACK Mitchel—a down on his luck EMT from San Diego—isn’t one of those winners.

Still, there might be a way for him to survive the impending cataclysm: a slim chance, requiring a radical leap of faith. Through a connection at Osmark Technologies, Jack’s acquired a NexGenVR capsule and with it, a one-way ticket to the brand-new, ultra-immersive, fantasy-based VRMMORPG, Viridian Gate Online. Taking that leap of faith, though, means permanently trapping his mind in the game, killing his body in the process.

Worse, one in six die during the transition, and even if Jack beats the odds, he’ll have to navigate a fantastical world filled with vicious monsters, domineering AIs, and cutthroat players. And when Jack stumbles upon a secret conspiracy to sell off virtual real estate to the ultrawealthy—transforming V.G.O. into a new feudal dark age—the deadly creatures inhabiting Viridian Gate’s expansive dungeons will be the least of his concerns.

If Jack can’t game the system, he’s going to be trading in a quick death for a long, brutal one ...

***

Chapter One: Beginning of the End

I TOOK ONE LAST GLANCE around my apartment. A tiny studio flat, just under five hundred square feet, which still cost me a sizeable chunk of change every month. It didn’t help that the cost of living had skyrocketed over the past few years while my meager paycheck had remained rock steady. Which is to say, low. Being an EMT doesn’t pay what it used to, not that it’s ever really been a lucrative career field—kids flipping burgers at most fast-food joints made what I did, despite the demands of the job. Working grueling shifts. Saving lives. Watching people die.

Still, even in spite of the pay, it was good work. Fulfilling.

My little slice of paradise had a small kitchen, a nearly microscopic bathroom, and a living room that doubled as my bedroom, office, dining room, and pretty much everything else. I’m something of a minimalist, I suppose. Someone less generous might say I was poor. Everything I owned was old, worn, and just this side of broken: a dented stove, a bulky white fridge that’d certainly seen better days, a used brown sofa I’d picked up from Goodwill a couple of years ago. The couch was heavily stained, the cushions deeply creased and sagging. A full mattress in the same condition bordered the far wall, near the door to the bathroom.

The TV was nice at least—a hulking seventy-five-inch Shintaro with a nano-crystal screen and multi-zone backlighting. My VR headset, a matte black helmet with a sleek viewing screen, sat on the floor next to the massive television. I smiled looking at it. Lots of good memories.

For a moment, I stood there staring, swaying slightly on my feet. I frowned, trying to decide what to do next. As an EMT I know what shock looks like, and I had it bad, but there wasn’t anything I could do. I briefly considered going around my apartment and unplugging the appliances, just to make sure the place didn’t catch fire and burn to the ground. No point in that, though. A house fire was the least of my concerns at this point.

So instead, I shrugged numbly, readjusted my bathrobe, shuffled over to the cramped kitchen, and poured myself a cup of day-old joe, strong enough to knock teeth out.

The coffee was tepid at best, so I stuck the mug in the barely serviceable microwave, hit the auto start, and headed over to the front door. The only door. The only way in or out, save the windows, but I was four stories up, so that wasn’t a huge concern. I checked the lock for what was probably the hundredth time. Still shut nice and tight. The deadbolt was engaged, the hanging chain in place. Then, I rechecked the shoddy wooden chair I’d jammed up under the knob—in case someone decided the lock wasn’t enough of a deterrent.

That was fine, too.

The microwave sounded, beep-beep-beep, letting me know my formerly lukewarm coffee was ready to go.

I retrieved my cup, now steaming, took a few tentative sips, and headed over to the far window overlooking the street below. I didn’t open the blinds—didn’t want anyone to see my apartment was occupied, since that might mark me as a target—but instead peeked through one of the plastic slats. A quick gander. It was getting dark, and the streetlights were starting to kick on; not that the streetlights needed to be on, what with the fires raging all over the city. Sooty orange-and-yellow light littered the skyline, plumes of smoke drifting, rising, visible even against the darkening sky.

A man in a hockey mask strode by on the street below, a pump-action shotgun clutched in his hands, a bag of looted toilet paper slung across his back in a duffel bag. The strobing lights of an empty police cruiser washed over him in splashes of red and blue. Toilet paper. His prize loot is toilet paper. Maybe the world deserves to die. I shook my head, then took another sip of coffee, letting the bitter liquid wash down my throat and hit my belly with a surge of delicious warmth and caffeine.

I turned away from the window and fixed my gaze on the brand-new, state-of-the-art NexGenVR capsule—a coffin of glossy black plastic and sleek chrome. Really, it looked more like a high-tech suntanning bed, but, all things considered, it sure felt like a coffin. A host of tubes snaked away from the capsule to a hefty generator powered by a renewable hydro-cell. The capsules drew far too much power to operate on the city grid, so they needed their own private source, and that generator could keep my VR capsule up and running for a solid month. Not that I needed a month.

Seventy-two hours would do it.

I paused and ran a hand over the surface of the capsule, feeling the smooth plastic. Honestly, I was lucky to have the thing—a good friend of mine from college was a program developer at Osmark Tech, and she’d hooked me up big time. Of course, that’d been before the news about Astraea. I tapped the surface, fingers drumming out a staccato rhythm as I took another sip of coffee. Almost time. I brought the cup away and realized my hand was trembling. Yep, almost time. But not yet. I still had a little longer. Long enough to finish my joe—it’d be the last cup of coffee I’d ever have, so I figured I should really enjoy it.

I turned, refusing to look at the capsule, feeling a wave of guilt rise from my gut and claw its way upwards. I shoved the feeling away and ambled over to the couch, plopping down on the well-worn cushions just like I had a million times before. Just survivor’s guilt, I reminded myself; there was no reason to feel that way. I hadn’t done anything wrong. This was the end, and I needed to do what I could for me. I didn’t have a girlfriend. My parents were across the country, and with air services shut down they’d never make it out here. Not in time for it to matter. We’d already Interfaced and said our goodbyes.

I took another swig and glanced down, realizing my cup was already half empty. I swirled the mug, watching the black liquid dance. Better make it last.

“Sophia,” I said.

“Yes, Jack, how can I help you?” The voice, polite, vaguely British, and female, resounded from a small black speaker shaped like a hockey puck attached to the side of the television. Sophia was a limited AI controller—an automation system that ran my home.

“Turn up the thermostat to seventy-two and please put on Cartoon Network.”

“Of course, Jack, my pleasure.” The heat kicked on a second later, a rush of warm air flooding in through the vents while the TV blinked to brilliant life. They had classic reruns on: Courage the Cowardly Dog shrieked, his eyes bulging out as a talking tree spouted sage advice. I wasn’t in the mood for Courage, but neither did I feel motivated to look for something else, something better. Most of the stations would be covering the flaming death-ball anyway, and I sure as heck didn’t feel like watching any more of that circus.

So, I sat and watched Courage’s shenanigans, chuckling tiredly as I slowly polished off my drink. Enjoyed every sip. After half an hour, though, my cup was empty and the anxiety was coming back with a vengeance. “Sophia, find me news coverage,” I said reluctantly. The channel switched in a blink. Courage was replaced by a pair of news anchors, one a forty-something guy with too-white teeth and well-coiffed hair, the other a cute black woman with a short bob cut and a pink blazer.

“We here at Channel 9 will continue to monitor the news right up until the very end, folks,” said the woman in the blazer. A countdown timer in the corner of the screen spun merrily away: nine days, four hours, and thirty-two minutes left until impact. “Scientists from NASA,” she continued professionally, “along with astronauts and researchers from the US-European think tank AIDA—Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment—are working around the clock on a viable solution to either destroy or divert asteroid 213 Astraea, the nine-mile-wide chunk of rock and ice currently predicted to land in the North Atlantic near the coast of Greenland.

“Although few specific details have been released about AIDA’s plans, our sources say the best hope we have is to nudge Astraea into the stable orbit of the Moon. With that said, we are told scientists and government officials overseeing the project do not seem optimistic at the prospect. Local A.R.C. lottery winners are being directed to rally at the Osmark Football stadium as quickly as possible. But any travelers, be warned, looters are out in force and you will need credentials, two forms of identification, and Lottery vouchers to get past the Guardsmen holding the stadium. All vouchers are nontransferable and are invalid without proper identification.”

“In other news,” said the man with the well-coiffed hair, “Osmark Technologies is still accepting people at their secure facility in the Silicon Valley. Those slots are limited, however, and are filling up quickly, so if you’re prepared to make the leap into Viridian Gate Online, you shouldn’t delay any longer. The company is urging private citizens with access to NexGenVR capsules to stream live as soon as possible. According to our sources inside Osmark Technologies, complete interface integration usually takes seventy-two hours, but apparently it can take longer, so they are advising people not to wait.

“For those without A.R.C. vouchers and no plans to upload into Viridian Gate Online, the National Guard is recommending you get to a secure basement and store at least one gallon of water per person per day for a minimum of five days. Also ensure you have any necessary life-saving medications on hand since emergency services will likely be off-line for quite some time after—”

“Turn it off, Sophia,” I said, with a wave of my hand. The TV died with a single final flash of light. Then darkness. A preview of the world to come: one big bang, then black.

I set my mug down on a stained and scratched coffee table and rubbed slick palms along the legs of my sweatpants. My hands trembled noticeably. No point putting it off any longer—there was nothing left for me to do now, and if I had any chance of surviving Astraea, it was going to be inside that capsule.

I stood with a groan, went over to the NexGenVR, and reverently touched the machine, keying the manual power button on the control console. Immediately, it hummed to life, accompanied by a strobe of neon-blue light the color of a bug zapper. I swallowed hard, my hands now shaking so badly I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to operate the controls. Thankfully, Sophia would help with the rest. I flipped open the lid and placed a modified version of the familiar VR helmet on my head, before carefully lowering myself onto the stiff memory-foam mattress lining the capsule’s interior.

The lid automatically closed, leaving me in a cramped space filled with a pulsing light. My heart labored in my chest, thumping against my ribs, beating a million miles a minute. At this rate, I’d have a coronary, which would put me down long before that stupid meteor ever got here. No, I’ll be fine. All I needed to do now was give Sophia the command, tell her to initiate Viridian Gate Online, and that would be that.

Except, I couldn’t make my lips form the words.

Once I did, I’d be committed. And I might die. That was one thing they weren’t telling people on the news: one in six who attempted full integration died during the process. And those that did “survive” would live on as virtual avatars in a virtual world. Was that really even living? I didn’t know. I also didn’t know if I had the guts to pull the trigger—this was like playing Russian roulette.

I shuddered. Shivered. My brow broke out in claustrophobic sweat.

Yeah, this process might kill me. Might, I reminded myself. When Astraea hit, though, I’d be one hundred percent dead. No question in my mind about that. “Sophia,” I said, voice quivering, “please run Viridian Gate Online.”

“Of course, Jack,” she replied calmly. “Please lie as still as possible.”

The machine let out a click-buzz—the lid locking mechanism—followed by the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of a whirling MRI. Abruptly, everything went black as the VR headset engaged, but the black was soon replaced by a white loading screen. A video popped up in front of me, filling my vision, featuring a man with shaggy hair and wire-rim glasses, wearing black slacks and a dark navy turtleneck.

“Hello, I’m the CEO of Osmark Technologies, Robert Osmark, and I’d like to personally welcome you to Viridian Gate Online,” he said, “the most advanced full-immersion video game in the world. Viridian Gate Online is truly the first of its kind. And that’s not the typical hyperbolic language so cavalierly tossed around in tech circles. No, I can assure you, I truly mean this is the first of its kind.

“Our revolutionary work with massive memristive neuromorphic computing systems has created a paradigm shift in AI technologies, and the result is an experience second to none. Moreover, through Osmark’s patented NexGenVR capsule you will experience a whole new world as though you were there in the flesh. Even the pain is real.”

There was a pause—Robert froze with a stupid grin on his face. “Patch 1.3 update announcement,” Sophia intoned.

The screen blinked and Robert resumed speaking. “If you are watching this,” he said gravely, “it means you have a very real, very hard choice to make ahead of you. The imminent arrival of asteroid 213 Astraea has changed everything. Though it’s possible, likely even, that human life will continue in some form or capacity after the asteroid’s impact, many, if not all of you watching this, will die. That’s a somber, hard truth, and at this stage it’s a truth which shouldn’t be sugarcoated. But there is another way. A way that you might live—and I’m extending that invitation to everyone watching this.

“Our NexGenVR capsules work by injecting microscopic nanobots into your bloodstream. The nanobots migrate north and map out your mind in precise detail. These extraordinary mechanical marvels survey each of the major portions of your brain—the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the brainstem—and chart each of your neural pathways, which is no small feat. They’re the secret behind our system’s full integration: they actually stimulate the nerves in your brain, allowing you to experience the game with lifelike sensation. The information gleaned by the nanobots is then uploaded to one of several deep-earth servers, located in secure bunkers all across the globe.

“Truthfully, that’s far more candid than I ever expected to be about how the process works, but this is the end of the world.” He offered a tired, lopsided smile. “The system is perfectly safe—under the right conditions. During our clinical trials, we discovered that if this uploading process continues for longer than seventy-two consecutive hours, the body shuts down and the physical brain goes into a state of catatonia. After that, without proper life-support measures, the body simply dies.”

He folded his hands, lips pressed into a tight line. “But that map the nanobots uploaded,” he continued after a beat, “will continue to exist indefinitely within the game server. And that map is, for all intents and purposes, you. It’s your thoughts, emotions, experiences, personality. A digital copy of you within the game world of Viridian Gate Online. Originally, we installed neural inhibitors into all the capsules, which automatically logged players out after six hours of game play, but Patch 1.3 has changed all that. The neural inhibitors have all been disabled and, after twenty-four hours of in-game time, the logout button will permanently disappear, leaving you stranded in the game.

“If you choose to upload yourself to Viridian Gate Online, you have a chance at surviving Astraea, at least in a digital form. Now, let me take a moment to address some of the concerns circulating around the internet rumor mill. First, I can personally assure everyone listening to this message that Patch 1.3 is our last major update—the game is locked and all essential functions are now being administered by the AI controllers.

“Second, contrary to what some fearmongers have reported online, once you are uploaded, no hacker or Osmark Tech employee will be able to delete your profile. All permanent user profiles are immediately encrypted using asymmetric key cryptography and then circulated continuously and randomly through all of our linked databases, ensuring no person will ever be able to access your digital identity. Not even I could manage to do it. And really, this is as much for our protection as yours—we don’t want a way to delete players because that’s a two-edged sword, which could easily be wielded against us.

“No, I can assure you, once you’ve successfully transitioned to a digitized form, you’ll be safe and secure for as long as V.G.O. exists. With that said, I won’t lie to you, this process isn’t without risks. Not everyone successfully transitions. There is a one in six chance you will die during the process. One in six. But for the vast majority of you, there is a one hundred percent chance you will die if you fail to take the risk. By watching this warning, you hereby remove all liability of damages from Osmark Technologies, its corporate owners, and its subsidiary entities. Would you still like to proceed?”

His terrible question hung in the air, heavy like a storm cloud. Did I want to proceed? Would existing in a video game really be better than dying? Than seeing what came next?

“Yes,” I said. “Proceed.” The machine kicked into overdrive, the whirling picking up in intensity. WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH.

“Traveler,” boomed a hard-edged male voice, “prepare to enter Viridian Gate Online!”

Click here to continue reading Cataclysm.

Books by Shadow Alley Press

LitRPG

Rogue Dungeon: The Rogue Dungeon Series (Book 1)

Civil War: The Rogue Dungeon Series (Book 2)

Troll Nation: The Rogue Dungeon Series (Book 3)

Rogue Evolution: The Rogue Dungeon Series (Book 4)

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Neon Dark: Zero.Hero Book 1

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Inheritance: The Last Enclave Book 1

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A Snake’s Life Book 1

Viridian Gate Online (LitRPG)

Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm (Book 1)

Viridian Gate Online: Crimson Alliance (Book 2)

Viridian Gate Online: The Jade Lord (Book 3)

Viridian Gate Online: Imperial Legion (Book 4)

Viridian Gate Online: The Lich Priest (Book 5)

Viridian Gate Online: Doom Forge (Book 6)

Viridian Gate Online: Darkling Siege (Book 7)

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Viridian Gate Online: Side Quests (Anthology)

Viridian Gate Online: The Artificer (Imperial Initiative 1)

Viridian Gate Online: Nomad Soul (The Illusionist Book 1)

Viridian Gate Online: Dead Man’s Tide (The Illusionist Book 2)

Viridian Gate Online: Inquisitor’s Foil (The Illusionist Book 3)

Viridian Gate Online: Firebrand (The Firebrand Book 1)

Viridian Gate Online: Embers of Rebellion (The Firebrand Book 2)

Viridian Gate Online: Path of the Blood Phoenix (The Firebrand Book 3)

Viridian Gate Online: Vindication (The Alchemic Weaponeer Book 1)

Viridian Gate Online: Absolution (The Alchemic Weaponeer Book 2)

Viridian Gate Online: Insurrection (The Alchemic Weaponeer Book 3)

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Stone Soul (Path of the Thunderbird Book 2)

Demon Beast (Path of the Thunderbird Book 3)

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Hollow Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 1)

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Chaos Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 3)

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Savage Prophet (Yancy Lazarus Episode Four)

Brimstone Blues: A Yancy Lazarus Novel

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MudMan (A Lazarus World Novel)

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Soul Game: Legend of the Treesinger (Book 2)

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Cheyenne Magic: American Dragons (Book 2)

Montana Firestorm: American Dragons (Book 3)

Texas Showdown: American Dragons (Book 4)

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Leadville Crucible: American Dragons (Book 7)

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Wyoming Dynasty: American Dragons (Book 10)

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Dungeon Bringer 2

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Witch King 1

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Copyright

Rogue Evolution is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 by James A. Hunter and Shadow Alley Press, Inc.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher, subject line “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

JStrode@ShadowAlleyPress.com

About the Author

I am invincible. I am a mutant. I have 3 hearts and was born with no eyes. I had eyes implanted later. I didn't have hands, either, just stumps. When my eyes were implanted they asked if I would like hands as well and I said, "Yes, I'll take those," and pointed with my stump. But sometimes I'm a hellbender peeking out from under a rock. When it rains, I live in a music box.

But I'm also a tattoo addict, coffee junkie, drummer, and aspiring skateboarder. Jesus actually is my homeboy.

About the Publisher

We love books and we are crazy-passionate about publishing the best adult Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Action-Adventure around.

Though our stories can be thought provoking at times, our primary goal is to entertain readers with wild stories and interesting characters you can’t walk away from. We want to whisk readers into a different world where the impossible is possible, where monsters lurk around every corner, but so do heroes, always ready to swoop in and fight back the dark.

We are also deeply dedicated to the authors we work with. For us, publishing is less about individual titles and more about supporting the authors we love. We want our writers to succeed, to thrive, to sell books, and to pursue their fiction passionately. We also want ALL writers to succeed and achieve their dreams of crafting excellent books and connecting with an audience who will love what they do. We firmly believe there has never been a better time to be an author. We also believe publishing is not a zero-sum game and that a rising tide lifts all boats. For that reason, we offer a variety of writing resources for folks looking to grow as wordsmiths or publish their books independently.

Find out about all our great books at www.ShadowAlleyPress.com