Expansion Pack: A litRPG Anthology (The Rogue Dungeon)
Author: James Hunter; Eden Hudson; J.D. Astra; D.J. Bodden; Scott Cofield; Joseph B. Ottinger; Justin Herzog; Toria Bodden; Allen Dante
Date: 2021-08-02 22:00:00+00:00
Keywords: science fiction thriller sword sorcery superhero; action gamelit dark gritty epic metaphysical wuxia; virtual reality litRPG role playing dungeon core; men’s adventure video game adaptations young a
Description: Monsters rise. Heroes fall. Worlds Collide. Welcome to the Dungeon… Hearthworld Online is a futuristic fantasy RPG brimming with monsters and magic and valiant heroes, but now it has become so much more than just a game. When Roark von Graf—a magical freedom fighter from another world—suddenly finds himself in the body of a lowly Dungeon Troll, Hearthworld becomes the last bastion against an arcane tyrant from beyond the stars. The fates of three worlds hang in the balance as countless lives are caught up in the interdimensional war Roark has inadvertently sparked. Who knew one little online t
Publisher: Shadow Alley Press

Table of Contents

Summary

Shadow Alley Press Mailing List

Bloody Knuckles

Treatos and Snoozers

The Vial

Candyland

A Taste for Violence

The Stranger

Profit Motive

Jan Wick Saves the Cat

Books, Mailing List, and Reviews

Viridian Gate Online: Expanded Universe

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

Monsters rise. Heroes fall. Worlds Collide. Welcome to the Dungeon...

Hearthworld Online is a futuristic fantasy RPG brimming with monsters and magic and valiant heroes, but now it has become so much more than just a game. When Roark von Graf—a magical freedom fighter from another world—suddenly finds himself in the body of a lowly Dungeon Troll, Hearthworld becomes the last bastion against an arcane tyrant from beyond the stars. The fates of three worlds hang in the balance as countless lives are caught up in the interdimensional war Roark has inadvertently sparked. Who knew one little online troll could cause so much trouble?

Eight amazing authors. Eight incredible new tales. All set in the best-selling Rogue Dungeon Universe. Rogue Dungeon: Expansion Pack is an anthology for fans, by the fans!

Included in Expansion Pack:

“Bloody Knuckles” by eden Hudson

Roark was only going to rig one bareknuckle boxing match, then he and Danella would live like kings on the take, but the more you win, the more you want...

“Treatos and Snoozers” by J.D. Astra

The lowly stone salamander of the Cruel Citadel only wanted to eat treats and take naps, but fate had a different plan.

“The Vial” by Scott Cofield

When her ingredient-gathering time is violently interrupted, a normally peaceful alchemist gives a PKer more than they can handle.

“Candyland” by D.J. Bodden

Sometimes, a small talking pig needs to crush evil with a candy mace. This is that story.

“A Taste for Violence” by Justin Herzog

An old Ustari soldier who wants nothing more than a quiet patrol far from the action gets caught between a rebel and a tyrant king on a fateful night at the Von Graf Manor.

“The Stranger” by Toria Bodden

Mysteriously transported to Traisbin from a world beyond the stars, an injured stranger with an arcane pendant fights to survive and shape this strange land of paper magicks to his will.

“Profit Motive” by Joseph Ottinger

The party of heroes Virgil is conning presents him with a problem he’s never faced before—his conscience.

“Jan Wick Saves the Cat” by Allen Dante

When deadly MMO monsters flood the West Coast, a retired assassin is forced to fight magic with every tool in her IRL arsenal.

Shadow Alley Press Mailing List

Want to keep up with all of our great books? Then visit Shadow Alley Press and subscribe to our mailing list!

Bloody Knuckles

By eden Hudson

Icy wind cut through the village like a knife, turning the snow that had fallen that morning into a frozen crust. A hard-eyed youth hunkered down in an alleyway between a brightly lit tavern and a dark smithy. Threadbare scarves were pulled up over his shaggy black hair and around his face, while dirty rags and some straw from the stable nearby stuffed his ragged clothes for insulation against the cold. He pressed his back against the stone wall of the smithy in an attempt to soak up residual warmth. The smith had banked the coals over an hour ago and retreated to his home, but a low heat still bled through from the forge.

Roark—just Roark, he would growl defensively when asked for a family name—cursed and folded his arms behind him, flattening his bone-cold fingers against the stone. If he, a boy born and raised in the snowy Karasu Mountains, was freezing, then Danella wouldn’t stand a chance against the cold. Neither of them had the proper clothing to survive a winter this far north. The change in seasons had caught them off guard. They’d been having too much fun enjoying the simple life in this little village of farmers and hunters, playing at domestic bliss. A cheap room paid for by Roark’s honest work with the smith and all the hearty farm food they could eat off the coin from Danella’s less-than-honest cards in the tavern. The locals didn’t even have the black hearts and suspicious minds to accuse such a lovely young face of cheating.

But the smith had made it clear today he couldn’t afford to hire out any more piecework again until spring, and Danella knew as well as Roark did that kind hearts would turn black with suspicion if she started winning enough to cover both their room and board. The idle time of childish-make believe was coming to an end.

A nearby slamming door and running footsteps made Roark’s ears prick up.

“Get back here, ya thieving wench!”

Danella’s lithe form dashed around the corner of the tavern, long golden hair whipping along behind her. When she saw Roark waiting, she grinned.

“Time to run, love!” she said, her words coming in puffs of white. She grabbed his arm and jerked him into a sprint alongside her. “Our welcome here is quite worn out. How do you feel about traveling to warmer climes—say, south?”

Roark stumbled a step, but recovered his balance quickly, then pulled his arm free so they wouldn’t both go down if one of them tripped. He threw a glance over his shoulder.

At the mouth of the alley, a lean form stood pointing after them and rubbing his face—no doubt suffering the effects of Danella’s hallmark pocket full of pepper flakes and sand.

“Get her!” the man thundered. Armored bodies darted around him, heavy cloaks fluttering like dark wraiths.

“I thought we weren’t stealing from the locals,” Roark accused hotly. “It was your bloody idea!” The plan had been to keep their standing good in Tanner’s Respite so they could come back and lay low when they needed to escape the bigger cities until the heat died down. In a place this small, their faces and crimes would be remembered.

“Have you ever seen a farmer wearing plate and accompanied by soldiers?” Danella snapped. “They’re not bloody locals!”

They hung a sharp right, Roark grabbing onto the corner post of the stable to make the turn without barreling into Danella. A brilliant fireball shot out of the alleyway, illuminating the wintry darkness, then crashed into the side of the granary.

Roark’s blood ran cold. Magick.

“You stole from a mage?” he cried.

“If I’d known the ruddy bastard had magick, I wouldn’t have tried to take his purse, would I?”

Roark shot a glare at her.

“Oh, stuff it!” she snapped. “Can’t you just throw a spell at them?”

“Magick isn’t some jester’s trick!” he growled. Writing spells was deadly when mishandled; every letter and bit of punctuation had to be perfectly precise to avoid dire consequences. Noble children were sent to the Academy to study for years before they could safely use it. “If it’s not perfect, I could do their job for them and kill us both.”

With a grunt of frustration, Danella shoved him into the curing shed behind the butcher’s shop. In the small space, their harsh breathing seemed incredibly loud. Roark swallowed hard, wondering whether they would be heard through the chinks in the shed’s timbers.

Another fireball soared past, but the mage seemed to be using the blasts to light up the early darkness of the winter night rather than aiming specifically at them. Or perhaps to burn them out. Wood splintered, and the blaze crackled as it spread from building to building. Soon the whole town would go up.

“Is it truly the danger of magick you fear or is it something else?” Danella whispered fiercely. “Afraid your spells won’t hold up in the face of theirs? That I’ll find out they’re real nobles and you’re only a pretender who taught himself how to scribble?”

Roark scowled through the darkness of the shed at her. Danella was beautiful and sleek as a golden mountain cougar, but she had teeth and claws just as sharp, and if he let her, they could rake him open just as easily. Over the few years they’d been drifting together, he’d grown used to her biting tongue and learned to give back as good as he got, but every now and again, she still scored a deep wound.

He wove his way around the hanging hams and sides of beef to peer out between the shed timbers. The small band of armored soldiers stormed down the street, ripping open doors and searching beneath porches and in outhouses. Snake-fanged helms covered their faces, and the Tyrant King’s crest stood out on their tabards. Coming up behind them, the puffy-eyed mage scribbled spells on bits of parchment.

The sound of men and women calling frantically for water to quench the fires twisted in Roark’s ears, becoming a battle between his father, uncles, and cousins and the Ustars who’d attacked on Bloederige Noct.

He swallowed hard and fought back the urge to panic. He had to think, had to get himself and Danella out before the mage thought to write a step-tracing spell.

As the Ustars drew closer and closer to the curing shed, Roark slipped a penknife from his inside pocket. His heart thundered in his chest while his mind raced for a spell that would adequately protect him and Danella. Unlike the Tyrant King’s mage, Roark had no parchment or ink to hand—a lack that brought many a powerful mage to their knees. Roark, however, had learned long ago that a spell didn’t have to be written on parchment. Carving it in human skin worked just as well. The trade-off, however, was that this type of writing was far more dangerous. Rather than consuming the scrap of paper like most spells did, carving the spell into skin consumed the blood directly from the veins. Write something too powerful, and it would empty him out.

One of the snake-fanged helms turned toward the curing shed.

Invisibility would never work on both of them. Biological magick was by far the most expensive, whether on paper or flesh, and he knew his body couldn’t survive the price to cast it on himself and Danella. The early winter darkness and the strange light cast by the flickering flames, however, might be used to their advantage. The eyes were much easier to manipulate than entire bodies.

The Ustar was only yards from the shed.

“Hide!” Roark hissed at Danella. Silently, the golden-haired thief melted into the shadows.

With quick, precise strokes born of careful study, Roark sliced the words Illusions of a boy with black hair and a girl with blonde hair run out of the curing shed and into the stable. into his arm.

Immediately, the spell took, magick searing through his blood. The pain bit deep enough that Roark had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out. He had just enough presence of mind to kick the door open and curl to the side before the crude illusions burst out, sprinting at the startled Ustar.

“Over here!” the man cried.

He swung a heavy battle-axe through the middle of the boy. It sliced through empty air, and the illusions kept running.

Confusion darkened the Ustar’s features as he tried to decide whether he’d missed or he’d actually seen the blade go through the body. Already his fellow soldiers were racing after the youths as they disappeared into the stable, however. His mates shouted for him to come on. That decided it. Throwing a final glance back at the shed, the Ustar turned and gave chase.

Roark slumped against the shed wall with relief. Danella crept up beside him and peered out through the timbers.

“Now that,” she said, “was fair genius.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and Roark’s heart sped up again, this time with a feeling of fearless invincibility. “Well done, love.”

“Easy as sweetcakes,” Roark lied. He pushed away from the wall. “Where should we travel next?”

***

Located on the crossroads of heavily traveled trade routes and the wide Hebi River, the city of Frahoi did a bustling trade in both the aboveboard and illegal goods that passed through Traisbin. Their streets were wide and well cared for, and they boasted a central green large enough to host dozens of merchants during more hospitable weather, as well as a thriving black market. It was large enough to disappear into, with a steady turnover of faces that kept new ones from being remarked upon.

By the time Roark and Danella arrived, the night and day had passed and a new evening was falling. Their elation at escaping the Ustars in the rural Tanner’s Respite had long since been stamped out by the stark combination of hunger and endless icy rain. Roark glanced around at the wood-and-plaster houses, trying not to remember the few times he’d seen Frahoi as a child. Always in much happier circumstances, either riding through to the Academy or attending balls and feasts with his family.

A manor house used to sit on the river’s eastern bank, but like the von Grafs, its nobles had refused to bend to the Tyrant King and had been stomped out under the despot’s bloodied bootheel. Now only muddy snowbanks lay where the house had been. Roark turned his face away, glad the damnable ice-rain hadn’t uncovered the ruins.

He pulled his straw- and rag-stuffed coat closer around him, though it was soaked through. His stomach gnawed at his spine like a stray with a bone. It was hard to believe he’d last eaten only a morning ago, the morning of their run from Tanner’s Respite. How quickly he’d grown used to regular meals. But he’d learned long ago that complaining would only make him a target for Danella’s mocking, so he approached the subject from a sidelong angle.

“How much did you get from that noble, anyway?”

With a flourish Danella produced the man’s purse, bouncing it in her hand as she weighed its contents. It was smaller than Roark would’ve liked, but the expensive cut and embroidery gave him hope for a decent payday.

“Only a handful of coins, though I thought I saw silver in there when he paid the tavernkeep.” The golden-haired thief tossed the purse to him, and he caught it deftly.

Roark dumped four coppers into his palm. No silver. They had lost their rural hideaway and almost died for barely more coin than they could get for the purse itself.

Danella grimaced down at their meagre earnings. “Which do you fancy most, love, a meal or a roof?”

Trying not to let his disappointment and frustration show, Roark glanced up and down the ice-slick street for marks to fatten the nobleman’s purse, but it was deserted in every direction. They were stuck with what they had.

“Let’s get out of this bloody rain,” he muttered. They could steal or work for a meal in the morning so long as they didn’t freeze to death overnight.

Danella gave him a sly grin that twisted the scar across her lips.

“My thoughts as well,” she said, nestling against him.

That warmed a good bit of the cold from his blood.

They turned down the next wide avenue and were surprised to see a trio of bundled shapes trundling through the rain. Halfway down the street, the folks ducked into the mouth of an alleyway. Before long, another pair came along and followed on the heels of the first three. And yet more appeared behind them.

Roark cast a querying glance Danella’s way, but she stared down the closest mark as he hustled toward the shadowy alley.

“Give it a moment,” she said, pulling Roark past the opening. “Let’s have a better look before we dip into any pockets.”

They hooked back around the block. When they were behind the little backstreet, Danella grabbed the guttering of a wood-and-plaster house and clambered easily up onto the roof.

Roark followed with less ease. His dexterity had been improving through necessity since joining up with Danella, but his latest growth spurt had made him clumsier, his hands and feet seemingly working in opposition to his purposes as often as not. Add to that the ice growing on every surface, and he wouldn’t be winning any house-scaling races.

Eventually, he made it up onto the tarred roof beside the golden-haired thief, and they huddled together against the warmth of a chimney to watch the alley below. People of all shapes and sizes hurried through, alone or in small groups, cursing the clumps of wet slush that smacked down from the sky like sodden fists.

Without fail, each group of evening wanderers stepped down a short stair to a basement door and knocked. Moments later, they would be admitted by a hulking man with a bald head and face covered in more scars than Danella’s entire body.

“Not likely a town meeting, is it?” she murmured.

“Not tucked away like this.” Roark shook his head, wet ice dripping from the ends of his hair. “Maybe it’s a resistance hideout?”

Danella frowned down at the basement stair. She didn’t trust the resistance any more than she did the Ustars. They could both go hang as far as she was concerned, but she knew Roark had more right to be interested in the rebel’s guerilla organization than most. Thankfully, he played that hand close to his vest, never letting on what he’d once been to anyone but her.

The basement door burst open below, emitting what sounded like raucous cheering. The hulking doorkeeper and another big man dragged a shirtless, half-conscious man out into the rain. The man started and let out a yelp when the sleet showered his bloody face and bruised back. He came awake long enough to take a few stumbling steps, then slumped into the nearest wall and slid down to the dirt, letting out a long groan.

The other men chuckled at his short journey, then the doorkeeper tossed a shirt and cloak onto his lap. Without a backward glance, the men returned to the cheerful din in the basement.

Danella’s eyes lit up. “We’re safe to go in.”

“What is it?” Roark asked, frowning down at the man they’d left in the alley. The poor sod looked as if he’d been beaten half to death.

“A fight,” she said. “Where there’s a fight, there’s gambling, and where there’s gambling, there’s coin.”

Roark flashed her a wry grin. “I could stand to eat a meal and sleep in a warm room tonight.”

Danella laughed and pecked him on his bluing lips. “Let’s go to work, then.”

***

The hulking doorkeeper looked the pair of street youths over skeptically. Skinny, shaking with the cold, wet as drowned sewer rats. It was hard to gauge their ages; life on the streets lent a hard edge that made a youth seem both older and younger at once, but he doubted there was more than thirty years between them.

He hadn’t seen their faces around Frahoi before, and he would’ve remembered the boy. Unless he missed his guess, the youth’s complexion and the slight hook in his nose meant Lyuko blood. Didn’t get many of the Travelers hanging around the city in winter. But Pauli didn’t pay him to turn away folks with spending money, no matter what their parentage.

In truth it was the girl who put the doorkeeper most on edge. Even in the half-light of the little entryway, her eyes were a bit too bright, eager and hungry, like a starving alley cat watching a cook’s apprentice carry out the day’s scraps, trying to decide whether to wait for the apprentice to throw them down or to climb right up his side and start biting.

“Cause any trouble in there and you answer to me,” he growled, flexing the huge arms crossed over his barrel gut.

The girl gave him a sparkling smile that did little to ease his concerns. “Hand to the Creator, we’ll do nothing of the sort.”

***

Roark withheld his smirk and tried to appear innocent. Danella meant they wouldn’t answer to this musclebound man or any others. Had she been born to a noble family with the funds to send her to the Academy, Danella would’ve made an excellent mage. Half the training was centered around protecting your writs and spells from that kind of ambiguity of language.

The doorkeeper pocketed their coins with a grunt and jerked the door open for them, the heavy, reinforced iron creaking on its hinges. The smith’s apprentice in Roark got the better of him for a moment, wondering why they didn’t simply apply some lard or pressed oil to quiet the hinges. They obviously wanted to keep the fights a secret—since coming to power, the Tyrant King had outlawed all forms of martial sport—and that bloody creak was loud enough to wake the dead. Perhaps the creaking worked in their favor to warn them of unwanted intruders?

Those thoughts were driven from his head as the uproar inside washed over them.

Shouting and jeering and the meaty thud and smack of fists on flesh. The smell of sweat, tobacco, ale, and the oily smoke from the lamps hanging from every rafter and beam.

Admission had cost them the nobleman’s purse and half of what they’d taken off the unconscious bloke in the alley, but it looked as if that had been a wise investment indeed. Not two paces from the door, they were surrounded by a crush of bodies drinking and bumping into one another and elbowing each other out of the way. Every eye was on the combatants in the roped-off ring at the center; no one had a glance to spare for those treading on their feet or leaning over them to see better. It was a pickpocket’s dream.

With a quick squeeze of the hand, Roark and Danella split up, slipping through the crowd to search out the easiest marks.

People shoved and pushed one another to get closer to the ring. Some called encouragement to the fighter they’d just put their money on; others booed and hissed at the opposition. Roark squeezed through the human swarm, slipping the occasional coin from a pocket or loose-stringed purse, never stopping near his targets.

The chill he’d been suffering since hunkering down outside the blacksmith’s shop the night before quickly fled, and his face flushed with the heat. Though large enough to host the fight ring with room leftover for spectators, the basement space was never intended for nigh on a hundred rowdy occupants. He shed his stuffed coat and tucked his hand wrappings into his holey boots, hoping the warmth there would dry them faster.

As Roark got closer to the ropes, he slowed, the brutal art of the bareknuckle fight within drawing his attention.

He had snuck out of the manor once with his elder cousin Dirk to watch a gauntlet of boxing matches featuring a fellow by the name of Ironsides who’d been dominating the bareknuckle circuit at the time. The nine-year-old Roark had never heard of him—news like that rarely trickled down to his level—but Dirk had talked about the man as if he were the king of the ropes, ruling the ring with swift, powerful, yet calculated punches.

Looking back, Dirk had probably been no older than Roark was now, barely fifteen years under his belt, and had only been regurgitating what he’d heard from men in Korvo, but to the younger Roark, his cousin had seemed like an expert. He had hung on Dirk’s every word, listening to how Ironsides had trained his body to take the most powerful blows and give back worse. The fight didn’t disappoint, either. Boxing wasn’t like the fencing Roark and the other von Graf children had been taught; there were no polite acknowledgements and salutes when you scored. You only won in a bareknuckle boxing match when your opponent was unable to stand, and not a single one of old Ironsides’s opponents had been left standing that night. It had been beautiful and brutal, and it held the younger Roark’s imagination enraptured for weeks afterward.

In the basement, the older Roark was soon engrossed once more in the carnage before him, too intent on the fights to remember that he and Danella were there with an ulterior motive. Some matches were fast and graceful, over in an instant, others drawn out and ugly. The crowd roared with approval when two brawny heavyweights slugged it out with earth-shaking widowmaker punches, and howled with delight when a pair of wiry whiplashes of men flashed around the ring, trading shots at top speed. They seemed keenest, however, for the mishmash of the two, power versus swiftness. Roark, too, was fascinated watching the opposing styles try to outmaneuver each other.

Four fights had passed and the fifth was starting when Danella worked her way around to Roark. She flashed him a grin, cheeks flush with success. He did his best to return it, though if he were being honest, he’d forgotten that lightening pockets was supposed to be his objective. Whether or not they ate tonight depended on it.

“Any luck?” she asked.

“Some,” Roark hedged guiltily, fingering the few coppers in his pocket. “You?”

“Haven’t picked a loser yet.” Danella grinned and jingled the nobleman’s refilled and now much heavier purse. “Shall we find somewhere warm to celebrate before anyone notices their funds have gone amiss?”

Roark cast one more glance back at the men in the ring charging toward one another like battling mountain rams, then followed Danella through the crowd, past the hulking doorman—who scowled at her cheery wave—and into the frozen night.

***

Roark was already awake when Danella whispered his name. He’d been staring into the darkness for at least an hour while the moon came up out the tiny attic window of their rented room, remembering the Ironside matches, the taste of the ale his older cousin had passed him, and the scolding they’d gotten when they returned home to find half the family waiting up for them. His mother had railed into him, her Lyuko temper in high form, calling Roark down for everything from leaving the family without a hint at where he’d gone while all of Traisbin sat on the doorstep of civil unrest to letting his cousin talk him into such an unwise decision when one day Roark would be head of this family.

More than anything, though, Roark thought of the rare smile his normally stoic father had given him upon leaving his room that night. Erich von Graf had stopped at the door after Roark’s mother, still fuming, stalked out. It’d been nothing more than a twitch of the lips and a twinkle of pride in his gray eyes, just enough to let Roark know he wasn’t angry, but it had changed Roark’s view of the entire night.

Back then Roark had thought of von Graf Manor as unassailable, his father unkillable. He’d been so stupid and childish to take it all for granted. Worse, he was that much more of a fool to be pining after that lost life all these years later. That safe, comfortable world was gone. The Tyrant King had cut it down in a single bloody night. There was nothing now but survival, he and Danella against the world.

When Roark felt the golden-haired girl stir beside him, he didn’t move or speak right away. His throat was locked shut with a painful lump.

“Roark,” Danella murmured, twisting around to lay half on him, half against his side. She shook him gently. “Are you awake?”

He took his time yawning and stretching, until he was certain he could speak normally.

“I am now,” he said.

She rested her chin on his chest, the sharp point stabbing into his breastbone. “Did I tell you my idea or did I just imagine we spoke about it?”

He slipped a hand under her chin to protect himself.

“You must’ve imagined it,” he said. She did that from time to time, had entire conversations with him in her head, then forgot it hadn’t happened in reality. It was a harmless quirk until she did something they hadn’t talked about and got the local guards on their trails. Or worse, when it finally came out and she had the discussion, but the resulting conversation went differently than the one she’d imagined—usually with the real Roark disagreeing with something her mental version of him had agreed to.

Bracing himself, Roark asked, “What was this ingenious idea?”

Danella propped herself up on her elbows. He shoved those off his stomach and onto the straw tick. She looked soft, but she was bony as the third hell.

When they had settled into a more comfortable position for both of them, she went on.

“Boxing,” she said.

Roark snorted. “They’ve invented it already, love. A sort of combat sport. I hear it’s popular in Frahoi.”

“The only thing your wit is lacking is wit,” she sneered, pinching him. Roark laughed, and she dug her nails in, but that only made him laugh harder.

“Did you see the winnings they gave out to the fighters?” she asked, serious again. “We had a good haul tonight, but that fat bloke who knocked that other man’s head in, he practically had to carry it home in a potato sack, didn’t he? Money like that would set us up with a room and meals for a fortnight.”

Roark’s brows shot up under his shaggy fringe of black hair.

“You want to steal the prize money?” he asked.

“I want to win the prize money.” Her eyes glittered in the half-light from the window. “You write a spell that makes you a hundred times stronger and join the fights. Meanwhile, I’ll take bets against you. You’re bound to look like the underdog no matter who they pair you off with, so I can drive the wagers up a bit and”—she snapped her fingers—“we walk away flush as royalty.”

“I suppose you want us murdered by angry Frahoi citizens?” He sat up against the wall, shivering as the cold plaster pressed against his back. “They’ll smell a foul turn, Danella.”

“No they won’t!” she said, sitting up, too, and taking most of the blanket with her. “You’ve said yourself, there isn’t a mage or burung wizard who hasn’t turned to the Tyrant King or been executed. No one would ever expect real and true magick in some muddy back alley, and certainly not for something as petty as a few coins.”

“A minute ago it was a potato sack full,” he muttered. Details had a way of changing around Danella based on what made the best argument in her favor. “Anyway, you can’t just write a spell to multiply your strength by a hundred. You could end up snapping all your bones or ripping your skin. It’s the same principle as why I couldn’t just write a spell to warm us up. I might’ve boiled us from the inside out.”

She threw up her hands. “Then some other spell to help you win! You’re the Academy educated one here, think of something.”

He shook his head.

“Come on, Roark,” Danella said, pouting. “This is brilliant, and you know it.”

“It’s not what magick is for,” he insisted, trying to order his thoughts so he could explain himself.

She scowled. “Damnation! Is it for anything? I’ve known you for years now and all I ever hear is what magick bloody can’t do.”

It seemed as if Roark could never recall his father’s voice when he was actually trying to, but in moments like these, moments when he was considering crossing a line he’d been raised to toe, Erich von Graf’s voice was as clear as if he were standing in the same room.

“Magick isn’t a toy, it’s a responsibility entrusted to the von Grafs to protect the people and lands in our care.”

“It’s for protecting people,” Roark said, then shrank back a bit and glared at the wall, embarrassed at the intensity of his reply.

Rather than sneer at his earnestness, however, Danella leaned into his side.

“That’s what you’d be doing,” she said. “Protecting the both of us from freezing or catching our death. You remember how hard it was last winter, don’t you?”

Roark scowled down at the stitches in the blanket, remembering how sick she had taken, the sound of her coughing like she was ripping her lungs and throat apart, the blood trickling from the corner of her lips. He’d had to drag her to three different holy men and beg them for something, anything to bring her fever down. If not for the charity of the last one, Roark knew Danella wouldn’t be sitting next to him now. The monk had warned Roark that the sickness was the sort that weakened a body’s health for good; if Danella caught ill again, he might not have the chance to drag her anywhere but the graveyard.

The thought of writing his golden-haired love a seal to make certain she went on to the next life soured Roark’s mood even further. Surely his father would understand why he needed to use magick for this, just this once.

“I could speed my reactions a bit,” he muttered, picking at a loose thread on the blanket.

“Yes!” Ecstatic, Danella climbed into his lap to kiss him, and all thoughts of plans and magick and death fled.

***

The doubts returned the next evening on the roof that overlooked the boxing alley. Roark and Danella had climbed back to their perch, early this time, to watch the spectators flow in, and while she kept an eye out, he crafted a pair of spells on scraps of stolen parchment.

The first one seemed safe enough: For one minute, I am twenty percent faster at perceiving and reacting to aggressive movements within a five-foot radius of me. It wasn’t so fast that he’d run himself into inanimate objects, and it would wear off quickly if he got into any trouble.

The second one... For one minute, the muscles in my right arm are fifty percent stronger. He didn’t think it would snap the bones in his arm. The Academy had been taken over by the Tyrant King before Roark had made it to his final year, when they would’ve learned the biological calculations necessary for bodily spells, so he couldn’t be certain, but half again as strong seemed a safe gamble.

Anyway, if it failed, it would wear off in one minute as well, and the damage should be confined to just the one arm. He could survive one-armed for the months it took the broken one to heal, surely?

“Ready, love?” Danella asked.

Roark gave her what he hoped was a confident smile. “Of course.”

***

The doorkeeper crossed his arms and harrumphed when he saw the street rats from the night before sauntering up.

“You brats’re looking dryer and warmer,” he said. “How many of our clientele left lighter last night?”

“Not yourself, that’s for sure,” the blonde girl said, eyeing his barrel gut. Then her eyes traveled to his thinning pate. “Unless it was hair gone missing. But I swear I didn’t touch it.”

“Oi, mate.” The boy stepped in, no doubt hoping to keep his girl’s sharp tongue from getting them barred from the establishment outright. “What do I have to do to get a fight?”

The doorkeeper sized the boy’s skinny frame up. “Age a good ten years.”

“We were only here last night scouting the competition,” the boy said. “I could’ve thrashed any one of those blokes. Let me in one bout, and you’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

The doorkeeper rolled his eyes. The street rats were getting cockier every year. In his day, arrogance like that got you a beating you were lucky to wake up from.

“Fine, I’ll give the boss your name,” he said. If nothing else, he’d enjoy watching the lad get his arse kicked. “What’s the name?”

“Roark.”

The doorkeep nodded. “One young lord’s special for Roark.”

***

Roark’s heart stuttered. Had his luck finally run out and something he’d said or done hinted at his lost family and title? Would the doorkeeper call the Ustars? Send straight for the Tyrant King?

Rather than sounding an alarm, however, the doorkeeper only jerked the heavy portal open with a metallic screech.

Danella hooked her arm through Roark’s and pulled him inside. Once they were well away from the doorkeeper, she laughed.

“That was bloody perfect!” she said. “He’ll tell his boss to put you up against the biggest bastard they’ve got. The wagers against you are going to be sky-high.”

“What was perfect?” Roark stared at her, trying to catch up. “Shouldn’t we make a run for it?”

“From the young lord’s special?” she said, mouth still quirked in a crooked grin. “Of course not. This is coming out better than we could’ve hoped for!” She rubbed her hands together as if the coins were already burning her palms.

“What are you on about?” Roark craned his neck toward the door, searching for signs of incoming Ustars. “What young lord’s special?”

“Every rough part of town’s got one. It’s a special thrashing they hand out to the wealthy lads who come around slumming thinking they’re tough.” Her eyes sparkled. “Never fails to send ’em running back to their mums crying.”

Roark swallowed as he realized the full import of her words. “You realize I’m the young lord in this scenario, don’t you?”

“Don’t fret, love.” Danella stretched up on her toes and cupped her hand around his ear as if she were imparting some huge secret. “Word has it we’re going to cheat.”

He elbowed her off. Facetiousness wasn’t as funny when it was directed at him.

While she slipped through the crowd replacing what they’d spent on admission, Roark shoved himself to a spot up against the ropes, where he had a good view of the fists, blood, and teeth flying. His own hands balled, and he flinched whenever someone threw a punch, unconsciously dodging. He tried to tell himself he would be fine. He’d trained in the rapier since he was old enough to hold one, and Danella had taught him everything she knew of street brawling, trying to toughen him up. But he doubted pocket sand, biting, eye gouging, or blades would be allowed in the ring.

The scraps of parchment seemed to writhe like worms in his pocket. He slipped a hand in to palm them, hoping they would be enough.

It felt like only a moment had passed when the caller shouted, “Roark and Talliard!”

A mountain of a man ducked into the ring and doffed his dingy homespun shirt to show a torso as furry as a Bleak Forest bear and as wide as three of Roark.

Heart leaping like a pronghorn, Roark shrank back a few steps, letting the crowd swallow him. He pressed the first spell to his chest inside his shirt and the second to his arm. The magick went into effect the moment they touched, strength and power coiling in his muscles and a sudden lightness filling him. His vision distorted like a water droplet, everything within five feet brilliantly clear and everything beyond blurred and uninteresting. Mentally, he began counting down the seconds until his spells wore off.

“I say, where’s this Roark?” the caller demanded, searching the faces. “Our young lord begged for a chance to prove hisself, now he’s run off? Did he get a look at the size of Talliard and piss hisself from fear?”

“Here,” Roark answered, his voice betraying him with a cracked edge. He cleared his throat and stepped under the rope. “Here.”

When the caller saw the “young lord” the doorkeeper had told him about, he let out a gut-shaking laugh. Talliard was one of their best heavyweights, nearly unbeaten in the half-year he’d been fighting, and the man trained with Pauli himself. He would snap this twig of a boy before the spectators could place their bets.

Roark straightened up, raising his fists and staring down the enormous bear of a man he’d been pitted against.

Talliard began a slow circle, meaty fists held high, knuckles out.

Roark stumbled a bit. He wasn’t used to this circuitous type of footwork. Fencing was a game of angles and lines, and the few street scraps he and Danella had found themselves in had been utter chaos of bodies and weapons, no time to judge steps.

Talliard lumbered across the ring toward him, throwing a slow jab. Roark dodged easily, bringing a gap-toothed smile to the big man’s face. The first move had been nothing more than a test of his speed.

Roark scowled. He could feel the seconds ticking by until his spells wore off and this giant killed him. He didn’t have the time to waste on being toyed with. He had to get inside Talliard’s measure and end this quickly.

Bracing himself, he lunged, distesso, and threw a straight, hard right at Talliard’s gut. Power corkscrewed in the muscles of his arm, twisting the fibers tight, then stretching them out in an instant. His fist slammed into the monster’s gut like a crossbow bolt, followed quickly by a second less-primed strike to the ribs. Both killing blows in fencing, though neither seemed to have much effect here. Before the big man could retaliate, Roark stepped out of measure, shaking the shock out of his arm.

Talliard blinked, surprised at the force of the punch this scrawny lad was packing, then let out a booming laugh at the boy’s look of alarm. Poor fool must’ve expected him to immediately double over in pain. Wild grin lighting his features, Talliard closed the distance and swung a widowmaker that would lay a larger man in his grave.

The curving blow seemed to slow before Roark’s eyes. He ducked under the giant’s arm, stepping to the outside, and slammed the knuckles of another hard right into Talliard’s temple as if it were the basket guard on his rapier.

The big man shook his head to dispel the black edging into the corners of his vision. That had been a mite harder than the first two blows Roark had dealt him. He was still recovering his bearings when the lad came back. Roark threw a left, hardly more than a feint, then stepped in, dealing out another of those big rights toward Talliard’s chin.

Talliard slammed his huge left arm into the boy’s slashing uppercut, drawing a pained grunt of surprise from Roark, though the clash rang up into the big man’s shoulder as well. Damnation, that brat could throw a punch! Talliard lashed out with a crushing blow of his own. The lad slipped it by a hair, moving so fast the big man’s eyes could hardly keep up. The best he could do was to keep swinging and hope one eventually connected. The giant knew all he needed was one solid hit to win this.

Roark knew it as well and did his best to remain ahead of the bigger man’s blows. He lunged in with a deep step, passo straordinario, and threw another right at Talliard’s temple, exploiting the one blow that had worked so far.

The punch landed, but at the same moment, the giant’s fist swung backward from his shoulder, coming down like an axe. Without the spell, Roark never would’ve seen it coming. He lunged backward, but the man’s knuckles caught him in a glancing blow that loosened his teeth and split his bottom lip. His head snapped down, chin bouncing off his chest as his knees went weak, but he managed to stumble out of line before the giant could land another blow.

Talliard followed him across the ring, swinging punch after punch. Roark backstepped and lunged, backstepped and lunged, throwing dalla spalla jabs and punches from his shoulder at the end of each lunge.

Finally, one of Roark’s punches connected with the big man’s chin, rocking his head back like a cracked whip.

Talliard’s teeth clashed together as his head bounced off his back. His skull felt suddenly light. He threw out a final looping widowmaker, aware as he did it that he was falling. Faces flashed past him, then ropes, then boots. Then he was staring up at the beams of the basement ceiling, listening to howls of disbelief and delight through what sounded like earfuls of water.

Roark stumbled back to the ropes, chest heaving. He’d won, and barely a moment before the spells wore off. Movement in the tiny radius of his perception sent his body into motion again, right fist cocking back.

The fight caller stopped suddenly, holding up his hands. One of them held a heavy-looking purse.

“Easy now, lad! Easy!”

“Sorry, mate,” Roark breathed, letting his shaking fists drop. That had been a bit too close to disaster for comfort.

“Here’s your winner, folks,” the caller said, tossing him the bag of coins. “The young street lord Roark trounces the heavyweight! Talliard’s fat arse goes down in shame!”

Boos mingled with the cheers, and as the last of the perception spell wore off, Roark saw money changing hands in the audience. Danella’s golden hair shined like honey under the greasy lamplight as she collected her considerable dues.

As the caller jeered at Talliard to get up so they could get on with the next fight, Roark ducked under the rope and disappeared into the crowd. He had won, but he felt no sense of satisfaction. He hadn’t earned any of it. It was a cheat. The victory tasted like ashes in his mouth.

As a few strong men dragged Talliard out of the ring and the next fight started, Roark squeezed through the crowd to Danella, spectators slapping him heartily on the back the whole way.

“That was bloody brilliant!” the golden-haired thief said, throwing her arms around Roark’s neck and kissing him.

When he pulled back, a bit of his blood shined on her bottom lip.

“Bloody cheating was what it was,” he growled under his breath.

Danella’s eyes narrowed and she pulled him in closer, lowering her voice.

“If you think any one of these sods would’ve done us differently for the same amount coin, you’re sore mistaken, milord,” she sneered. “Take your honor to the market and see how much you can get for it.” She jingled her winnings in her hand. “I’m going to enjoy the fruits of our labor.”

Roark licked the split in his lip and turned toward the door. He didn’t feel like arguing with her bloody street wisdom at the moment.

“Let’s just get out of here,” he said.

***

They had barely gone a block before Danella noticed they were being tailed.

“Turn left up here,” she said in a low voice. It was in the opposite direction to where they were staying, but she didn’t want to lead their follower back there. “We’re being followed.”

“Who is it?” Roark asked, but thankfully he knew to follow her direction without looking back.

“Gent built like a horseshoe nail,” she said. “Maybe a tough from one of the local gangs. Like as not he wants to roll us for that purse you just won. Or maybe the house is mad their young lord’s special didn’t go to plan and they sent him to make sure you get your comeuppance. This way.”

Seeing they’d momentarily lost the wiry man, she broke into a sprint, clambering up window bars and brickwork and guttering onto the roof before he caught up with them again. Roark followed Danella up a few steps behind and a good deal more clumsily, but finally made it into the shadow of a gable beside her.

Down below, a tall, gaunt man with graying sideburns strode along the street as if he owned it, dark eyes sweeping for his quarry. Realizing they had outpaced him, the man stopped in his tracks.

Then suddenly, he looked up.

Danella’s heart stopped. No one ever looked up. It was the reason rooftops were such valuable property in the thieving game. Only another thief or an assassin would think to search the heavens for his prey. Seeing it made her skin crawl.

She and Roark huddled instinctively deeper into the gloom, holding their breath.

Time passed, and finally the man grunted and turned around, heading back the way he’d come.

Roark started to stand up, but Danella grabbed his arm.

“Don’t move,” she whispered. “It’s a ploy.”

Sure enough, a few moments later, the man doubled back. He watched the street from a block farther east, still casting his eyes up, down, and all around.

“Seven hells,” Roark breathed. “Think he knows we cheated?”

Danella shook her head. “I didn’t see him in the basement. Probably hangs around waiting for fighters to leave with their purses and jumps ’em.”

“There were a lot of people. You might’ve missed him.”

“Miss that wolf?” she hissed. “Do you think I’m as bloody dozy as you? I’d spot that killer a mile away through driving snow.”

Roark scowled, but didn’t contradict her. Even a nobleman’s son raised in the lap of luxury could see that the man had a certain striking air about him, a look of deadly competence that couldn’t be dismissed with a passing glance. He drew the eye like a maka-ronin or the Akerian tigers she used to hear stories about in the orphanage.

It took several long minutes of shivering in the cold, but the man finally gave up and left. Danella had them wait several long minutes afterward to be certain, but he didn’t reappear from any other angle and didn’t follow the circuitous route she had them take through the city to make sure they’d truly shaken him.

Still, she couldn’t relax until the door was locked tight and she had shoved a chair under the handle. After all, in the stories, it was always when you least expected it that the tigers pounced.

***

The young couple lived like kings for a few days, drinking wine like water and eating enough roasted meat and sugary desserts to make themselves sick. Danella kissed Roark’s split lip and bruises frequently and talked up his fight until it sounded as if maybe he’d won it himself rather than letting magick take the prize for him.

With a little care, the money from the purse and the wagers would have been enough to last them a month or more, but like candy around an unattended child, it soon disappeared. When it was gone, Danella suggested they hustle another fight.

Roark’s conscience bit at him with much less ferocity this time. The first bout had been harder than expected, even with his magickal aides, and to hear Danella talk, he’d earned the victory. The intensity of the street tough who’d tracked them across the city had faded from his memory as well, the wine and endless celebration dulling it down into nothing more than a silly night fear only children and fools would shrink from. Having gotten away with their first con in Frahoi entirely unscathed, both youths felt a pervasive certainty that they were invincible.

So it was that they returned to the basement little more than a week later.

***

The doorman only nodded to them this time, a touch of grudging respect in his squinted gaze as he took their admission. As they made their way through the basement, several of the regular patrons called out greetings to Roark.

“Oi, the young lord’s hungry for more blood!”

“Come to swat down another biggun, lordling?”

“They’re not going to wager as heavily against you this time,” Danella grumbled under her breath as they wove through the crowd.

“There’s still the winnings purse,” Roark said.

She grunted an unenthusiastic agreement, icy blue eyes roving to the pockets and money belts closest to them. Roark caught her hand as it slipped toward an inattentive spectator.

“Don’t chance it,” he entreated. “Not ’til we’re on the way out. Then you can take anything you like.”

She scowled. “Fine, as you like it.”

Roark became less and less certain Danella would hold to her promise as the night stretched on. Fights came and went, and still his name wasn’t called. Her hands fidgeted constantly, and her eyes were never far from the closest pocket. If something didn’t happen soon, he feared she would do something to get them chased out of the place.

Just when Roark had made up his mind to go ask the doorman if he’d forgotten to put his name in, the caller shouted:

“Our young street lord and surprise scrapper, Roark!”

Hurriedly Roark activated the spells—he’d grown more confident since the success of his last enchantments and increased his reaction speed to a solid thirty-five percent—then ducked into the ring.

“And!” The caller swung around, encompassing the whole of the crowd in a maniacal grin and sweep of his arm. “A return you’ve all been waiting for! The one, the only, Pauli Ironsides!”

The house went mad. Roark’s eyes darted around, searching for his opponent. It couldn’t be the same man. There was no way the same Ironsides from six years ago was still fighting.

Icy slush ran through his veins as a gaunt man with graying sideburns and a body like a horseshoe nail ducked into the ring, slipping a thin gold chain from around his neck and handing it to the caller for safekeeping.

It was the tough who’d stalked them after their first fight.

“Back for a one-night only engagement,” the caller shouted with delight. “Bareknuckle boxing champ of Traisbin, and owner of this fine establishment, Pauli’s going to show our young scrapper a move or two!”

“Thrash him, Pauli!” bloodthirsty voices screamed from the sidelines. “Knock him clean off Terho!”

Roark caught Danella’s eye in the crowd. Her scarred mouth hung open in a panicked O. They should cut and run immediately. Get out of Frahoi and hide out somewhere this canny devil could never find them.

Before Roark could take a step, however, Pauli Ironsides advanced, and the reaction spell sent Roark backpedaling out of the way. The older man’s eyes glinted.

“You’re a fencer, aren’t you?” Pauli asked, an unsettling joviality in his voice.

Roark frowned, unable to understand why the man was talking to him. He lunged, a short passa piccolo step, and shot out a quick right, hoping to back him up, but Pauli bobbed his head aside easily and threw a jab that snapped Roark’s nose.

Roark stumbled back, nose and eyes screaming with pain, blood gushing over his top lip. Red flecks showered out in front of him as his harsh exhales caught it.

A few drops landed on Pauli’s fists, but he paid the blood no mind.

“I wager you’re death with a rapier,” he said, cutting off Roark’s next lunge mid-step and rocking him back with a pair of measured punches to his ribs. “That’s a nobleman’s weapon, isn’t it?”

Roark staggered, folding over the pain in his side, and tried to take a deep breath. Those shots had clearly been at half power, but it felt as if they’d bruised his innards. He threw an off-balance fist at Pauli, and the older man sidestepped it, letting him trip over his own momentum.

“That’s a bit more the level of speed and grace I’d expect from a boy your age,” Pauli said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a scrap o’ parchment on you, then?”

Roark bit off a curse, barely dodging a fist like a flatter hammer. Instead of knocking him out cold, the punch grazed his eye and glanced off. Water poured from the affected socket, obscuring his vision. He blinked frantically, trying to clear it.

Pain exploded through his jaw, fairly turning his head around, and he found himself lying flat on the packed dirt, staring at a pair of worn boots.

A hand appeared in his vision. Roark rolled away quickly, lurching unsteadily to his feet. His head spun, and he had to grab the rope to keep from falling again.

Pauli smiled and winked at him, but Roark was too suspicious to see the affability through the haze of accusations—correct accusations—the man had just leveled at him.

“No surprise there,” the caller shouted, coming between them and raising Pauli’s fist, still wet with Roark’s blood, high for the howling crowd. “Your winner, beloved proprietor of this fine establishment, and still undefeated bareknuckle boxing champion of Traisbin, Pauli Ironsides!”

***

Roark and Danella made it to the door before Pauli extricated himself from the multitude of slaps on the back and congratulations.

The doorkeeper set himself between the pair of youths and the exit, silently crossing his enormous arms over his barrel gut.

Roark snarled, blood in his teeth as he reached for his penknife. At his side, Danella grabbed for her pocketful of peppered sand. They might well be outnumbered, but they wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Before the situation could dissolve into a skirmish, however, Pauli caught up to them.

“Easy now. We only want a word.”

“Sod off,” Roark snapped, wielding the penknife like a dagger. He’d never fought with a short blade, but he knew if you stuck a man, he wasn’t likely to get close again. As long as he had a little distance to work with, Roark could carve some sort of spell for escape into his arm. Casting something for both himself and Danella was a deadly risk, but if he had to, he’d chance it to protect her.

Pauli stopped a pace away, palms out to show he meant no harm.

“You’re welcome to try more violence if you like,” Pauli said. “But it didn’t serve you well the first round, did it?”

“We’re not going to stand around here while you call down the Ustars on us,” Roark growled.

Pauli chuckled. “And have myself arrested while I’m at it? The Frahoi city guard turns a blind eye to my establishment, but if the Tyrant King’s men got in on the raid, they’d be forced to do something about me.” He shook his graying head. “I don’t know you, lad, but I’m not prepared to hand anybody over and take myself down with them—no matter how high the price on their head.”

Danella went still at Roark’s side. She’d been cornered before, and the results were never pretty. She knew she could go quietly until she had a chance to break and run, but she doubted Roark could. Nearly the entire time he’d been on the streets, she had been watching his back; he’d never been alone and hopelessly outnumbered, and so he hadn’t been forced to learn that there were times you had to take your medicine and hope you lived to come out wiser on the other side.

“What do you want?” she growled.

“Like I said, no more than a word,” Pauli promised.

Behind him, the crowd had realized no blood was likely to be spilled at the door and turned back to the ring to watch the next fight.

“That was magick you were using,” Pauli said, leveling his piercing gaze on Roark. “The rest of these folks might be too blind to see it, but I’ve trained a fair number of boxers from the ground up. I know the way a fighter’s body moves, and at your age, it doesn’t move like that. I won’t ask you where you came from or how you got here, but judging by what you left behind, I doubt the road endeared you to His Excellency, the Tyrant King.”

Roark’s feral sneer answered that question well enough.

Pauli went on, encouraged. “You’re wasting your life grifting, the both of you. A young man skilled with magick and a blade, a sticky-fingered young escape artist with a sweet face no one would suspect—the resistance needs people like you.”

“The seven hells can take your resistance,” Danella snapped. “We won’t be press-ganged into this war by you or anyone else.”

“No coercion,” Pauli said. “I’m not the Tyrant King. If you don’t want to join, you’re free to go. What I’m offering you is an opportunity to make something more of yourselves. I can give you the keys to take down the Ustars and the whole damned empire Marek’s built on the blood of Traisbin. You don’t have to live the rest of your life drifting with no future and no purpose. You can use your skills to save people, to free them.”

The arm holding Roark’s penknife dipped steadily as the older man spoke until the blade hung by his side. He could hear his father’s words ringing in his head—“Magick isn’t a toy, it’s a responsibility entrusted to the von Grafs to protect the people and lands in our care.”

Cool fingers slipped into his free hand. Danella.

“Keep making speeches about futures and purpose,” she said in a dark voice. “I know your resistance. You press yourself on good people, then run away as soon as it suits you, letting them mop up the blood and guts you leave behind in your wake. I’ve seen it, and I’ve paid back in full the men who did it.”

A little corn husk doll appeared in Roark’s mind along with the garrison of soldiers Danella had told him about. She had left the lot of them in their beds with gaping wounds across their throats. The resistance’s guerilla fighter had suffered a similar fate when she found him—his neck had been opened to the world in an inn not a day’s ride from the slaughtered garrison.

“There was no purpose to any of it but to feed the worms.” Danella’s voice remained steady, but her hand shook in Roark’s. He squeezed it gently. He’d been there for her nightmares and drunken tirades just as she had for his, and he knew the full strength of the fury and fear possessing her now, a pain and anger someone like this Pauli Ironsides could never understand.

Roark lifted his chin and stared defiantly into the man’s dark eyes, his decision made. He hadn’t had anything of value since Bloedrige Noct when everything was taken away from him, but he had his loyalty.

“What will you do, then?” Pauli asked, a note of quiet compassion in his question. “Keep drifting from town to town, hustling fights and cutting purses, always running to stay one step ahead of the Ustars? Slip by with just enough to keep your bellies full and a roof over your heads? That’s no life.”

“If you’re fast enough it bloody well is,” Roark said, bringing the crooked smile back to Danella’s face.

“You can’t outrun this war,” Pauli said. “It catches up to everyone eventually.”

“Nothing can catch us,” Danella said, holding up the gold chain he’d taken off before the fight. She tossed it to him.

Pauli caught it out of the air and sighed. He jerked his head at the doorman. The reinforced oak screeched open behind them.

“When it comes for you, you’re always welcome here,” he promised them. “Remember that.”

The youths turned and fled up the basement stairs and into the snow and ice of another bitter winter night.

Pauli cursed under his breath, clutching the gold chain in his fist, then said a prayer of protection for them. It was the best he could do for those who didn’t want his help.

***

Neither Roark or Danella breathed easily or slowed their pace until they’d put several streets between them and the boxing den. Neither suggested returning to their little attic room in the inn.

“There has to be somewhere it’s warm this time of year,” Danella insisted, pulling her cloak tight around her. “Should we make for the southern coast?”

Roark glanced over his shoulder toward the mouth of the alley. A tall, lean form stood just inside the shadows, its noble carriage too familiar for comfort.

Roark nearly tripped over his own feet. When he looked back, his father was gone.

“Aye, love,” he told Danella through a suddenly dry throat. “This town palls all of a sudden.”

***

“Get some distance and keep your guard up!” Pauli shouted at the fighters in the ring, though he was mainly talking to Talliard. The big man had a bad habit of exposing his middle to his opponent. He had bulk enough to take punches from even the really big savages like himself, but if Talliard were in a fight for his life, he’d be slaughtered, even by much a smaller opponent...as Crane’s chalked training knife was busy showing the big man in white slashes and stabs across his belly.

Crane danced in again, and Talliard swung a widowmaker at the smaller man, but it was too late. Another pair of chalk wounds marked the giant’s vitals.

Pauli shook his head. “Taking his head off won’t do you any good if he’s already opened your guts!”

Across the room, the big iron door swung open on its hinges, shrieking, and a stripe of bright sunlight fell inward.

At the sound, Crane’s knife disappeared up his sleeve and he raised his fists like he and Talliard had been slugging it out all along.

Pauli stayed leaning on the rope, but craned his neck to see who had come in. It wasn’t common for the doorkeep to let anyone in during the day without loudly announcing them; luckily training guerilla fighters for the resistance didn’t look much different from teaching men to box, especially when you had rusty hinges to warn you of unwanted intrusions.

Rather than a city guardsman looking to shake Pauli’s establishment down for a little extra coin or a nosy Ustar they might have to make disappear, a shaggy-haired whip-thin youth stopped halfway to the ring.

Pauli knew the boy instantly, though the year and a half since he’d last seen the young street lord looked to have run him through the ringer. His jaw and cheekbones were sharp as razors. Shadows pooled under his feverish eyes, and a deadly glint on the verge of madness danced in their gray depths. There was a slight tremble to the boy’s fists and shoulders, and in this sweltering summer heat it wasn’t likely to be from the chill air. It was rage, pure and simple, boiling up from the depths of the boy’s soul.

And he was alone.

With a harsh curse, Pauli crossed the packed dirt floor to meet him, stopping just outside the reach of a fencer’s lunge. Caution was, after all, the better part of survival.

“The war came and got you, didn’t it?” Pauli said, already knowing the answer.

“I don’t care what it takes.” Roark’s words were hoarse with pain and fury. “Show me how to kill every one of these Ustar bastards and raze that bloody tyrant’s empire to the ground.”

Treatos and Snoozers

By J.D. Astra

Clashes of steel on steel rang out in the halls of the Cruel Citadel. The level 1 [Stone Salamander] dashed across the ceiling, perfectly camouflaged. Three enemies hacked and slashed at the little blue Changelings who threw themselves carelessly into battle. The Stone Salamander—Mander—knew better. He would wait.

The slender elf turned away from the hulking rog and stout human, scouting ahead with her bow. This was Mander’s moment. The elf turned the corner down the long hall, and Mander prowled above her, his sharp, stabby teeth ready.

She paused, her eyes losing focus.

Now.

Mander deactivated Sticky Toes and twisted in midair. He sailed toward his target, salivating at the thought of her yummy meat. His jaw opened wide and he landed on the elf with a thunk. She collapsed to the ground in a blood-garbled scream as he sank his needle-like teeth deep into her throat. The elf struggled to free herself from his weight, and Mander twisted, ripping into her tender nummies.

Oh, so good!

One of the heroes moved toward the hall. “K-dawg, you okay?” the nasally boy asked.

The elf bucked under Mander, gurgling for help as the Health bar over her head plummeted by the second.

“Get off her, ugly lizard!” the boy screamed.

Mander heard the rog’s heavy footfalls behind him and snapped out of the delicious trance. He activated Vicious Bite, tearing through the elf’s neck and leaving a bloody chunk in his mouth. The tall, slender woman’s Health bar drained down to critical, and finally emptied. When the elf sighed her last purling breath, Mander took off at a wiggling run. His fat, paddle-like tail whipped from side to side as he scampered down the hall toward the feast chamber.

“Oh no you don’t!” the rog said with arRogance, his boot-falls louder than before.

Mander heard the swipe of a blade through the air and leapt onto the wall, activating Sticky Toes once more. The metal scraped against the stone floor and the rog growled. Mander scampered up the stones as he rounded the corner into the feast chamber. It was tall enough that no melee opponent could reach him on the ceiling. With their archer dead, Mander knew he was relatively safe.

When he was well out of the rog’s reach, he turned back to look at the angry hero.

The rog snarled and declared, “You’ll pay for that, you little twerp,” as he swung his axe wildly up the wall.

Mander slurped up the bit of chewy throat meat in his teeth with a satisfied chirp, then licked bloody goop from his eyeball. This infuriated the rog. His desperate attempts to reach Mander would not succeed, but it would be best for the Stone Salamander to run and hide. Mander had gotten what he’d fought for: a tasty treato.

[Reaver Bats] swooped down at the rog, screeching their high-pitched calls. Mander knew the bats wanted treatos, just the same as he did. Perhaps he’d let them pick the elf clean when he was done with it. Mander activated Mirror Camouflage and disappeared into his surroundings.

“Get back here, coward!” the rog shouted, throwing his axe haphazardly up the wall as he swung his off-hand at the dive-bombing bats.

Mander dodged, then climbed his way onto the ceiling and scampered into a warm spot in the next hall over. He would wait out the heroes there in comfort, then return to the downed elf for a few more nibbles, and some to share with the helpful bats.

The warm spot glowed from red-hot embers in a short stony basin. There were strange tables, hanging spikes, and weapons Mander would not want used against him lying about. It was safe enough when the room was unmanned, so the salamander crawled down to the floor and curled up next to the pit of coals.

Executing the elf had given Mander just enough experience to level up. Without a thought, Mander allocated the stat points into Strength and Dexterity. Strike hard, strike fast; that’s how he knew to win. It had served him well so far, and that was good enough for him.

Mander heard the rog and the human blunder through the halls for another few minutes before leaving the dungeon. They wouldn’t move on without their third party member. The floor overseer, Ugoraz the Vile, would leave none alive, and the small, two-man party didn’t stand a chance against him and his horrible whip.

Mander’s back itched with a pain from long ago. He had been on the other end of that whip once. He’d abandoned his post for a bit of warm stone to lay against, and a big party of heroes came blundering through, wiping out the entire level. Every creature that had not performed their duties to the best of their abilities had been punished, and Mander’s negligence had earned him five painful lashings.

When the halls were quiet—all the fallen creatures waiting for respawn—Mander made his way back to the downed elf. He rounded the final corner, and he saw someone had already come to claim his kill!

A bigger, level 3 Stone Salamander stood over the elf like a proud hunter, as if she’d done anything at all. Mander waddled within a few feet of the other salamander, then lifted his front legs in a show of strength. He hissed from the back of his throat and bared his pointy teeth.

The thieving salamander—Sal—reared up in the same way. Mander advanced on his back feet, arching his back in a painful display of dominance. He hissed again, louder. Mander had earned his treat, and Sal didn’t deserve a bite for doing nothing.

After a tense moment, Sal dropped down in defeat and Mander darted in, snapping and hissing. Sal turned sideways as she pulled away from the body. Mander continued to hiss and bite at the air as he inched closer to his prize.

He snapped precariously close to Sal, and she took the advantage. She twisted her back and lifted her tail, then clubbed Mander’s head. His skull bounced against the ground and he growled in pain. A red, filigreed Health bar appeared in the corner of his vision and promptly dropped by a sixth as bright starbursts raced across his bulbous eyes.

Pain radiated from his fat head-shoulder joint as dagger-like teeth clamped down on him. The vial in the corner of his vision dropped another sixth, flashing a deep red. Mander growled and pulled away. Sal advanced, flashing bloodied teeth and hissing as she moved. But he wasn’t giving up that easily. Not when there were treatos on the line.

Mander backed up the wall, turning his toes to suction cups as he moved. There was a torch above him, and with a little flick of his tail, he knocked it loose. The fiery stick dropped down on Sal, eliciting a wild yipe of surprise and confusion.

With her distracted, Mander leapt down. He slapped his tail against her head and activated the same ability she had used, Tail Flail.

[Batter your target with your fat tail, dealing 2x damage with a +50% chance to critical strike.]

Sal’s head smacked against the wall and Mander landed on her wide back. The air whoofed from Sal’s hissing mouth as she flattened against the ground. The red bar over her head dropped by a good chunk, but Mander wasn’t done yet.

Mander turned, wrapping his suckered fingers around Sal’s shoulders to hold her still. He bit down on her eye, and Sal shrieked. She bucked free from his hold and scampered off, leaving a trail of blood in her wake. Mander let her go. He didn’t want Sal to die—he didn’t want any Stone Salamander to have to die—but the elf was his, and he’d defended the kill righteously.

He looked left, right, then up, and when he felt there were no other possible intruders on his meal, he set to ripping chunks from the elf’s backside. The fattier the meat, the better. Elf meat was rarely fatty, but elves didn’t often wear thick armor on the neck or head. Prime victims for overhead assassination.

When Mander’s Health vial was refilled and he’d taken the best bits off his kill, he dragged the body out to the bats. They began their swooping feast, and Mander retreated to his warm spot in the room with scary weapons. There were a few toasty places around the Cruel Citadel—Mander’s forever home—but none as secluded and nice as the torture chamber. The chamber often went unmanned, and so few heroes ventured in.

When his skin was thoroughly heated, Mander got up to go on patrol. He didn’t want to get whipped again, so he spent limited time basking in warm places or slacking off. He stretched, his muscles feeling relaxed and ready for action.

Another Stone Salamander—Tonee—weaved his way into the torture chamber to take Mander’s spot next to the coals. The level 1 creature gave a warning hiss, but Mander ignored him. Tonee wasn’t a threat, and recognizing his defensive gesture would only provoke him. Better to keep waddling.

The entrance hall of the first level was still empty from the last raiding party, which meant Mander would have to be extra careful. Enemies wouldn’t have distractions to pull their attention, and if they were at a high enough level, they could spot Mander even through his Mirror Camouflage.

“Looks like someone wiped it out,” a female said from the rocky opening to the graveyard.

Mander cocked his head to the side and his bulbous eyes focused on the intruder, a human in shining armor. No, she would not do. Her defenses were too strong. She took a few tentative steps down into the entrance hall, her shield upheld and ready to deflect projectiles. It was too bad Mander didn’t have any projectiles or magick.

Next, a robed human appeared in the opening. Perfect target. Cloth gave no resistance to Mander’s sharp teeth, and robe wearers often had little Health. Two more party members emerged: an elf in leather—a more difficult but still feasible target—and an Olm in chainmail. This wouldn’t be easy, but if Mander could separate them, he could have a chance with the leathery one, or the robed one. The robed one would have the tastier meats...

“I’ll check it out,” the leather-clad elf said, then disappeared as he reached the bottom step. Mander knew he was up against a sneaky snake. The cloaked elf would scout ahead, thinking he was safe shrouded in the darkness he adopted. But Mander was born in the darkness.

He blinked his big eyes and focused on the shadows until he saw the shape of the elf prowling his way. The other three heroes took it slow, clustered together in a group that made them feel secure.

The elf walked under Mander and into the next hallway. Mander skittered around the corner, his sticky toes silent on the cold stone. He salivated as the elf wandered farther and farther from the group. Elf twice in one day, what a treat.

“Anything?” the woman in the armor called in a hushed voice.

“Not a single mob,” the elf replied. Or so he thought.

Mander jumped from the ceiling, performing his aerial acrobatic twist as he did. He sailed right onto his target and triggered Tail Flail. The elf pitched forward from the force of Mander’s weight and collapsed to the ground.

“Help—

The elf got out a single cry before Mander’s jaw snapped around his face.

[Critical Hit!]

The notification appeared in Mander’s vision as the elf’s skull gave a satisfying crunch. The red bar over the elf’s head flashed madly. Mander wanted to give a chirp of victory, but knew to stay quiet. The battle wasn’t over yet. He bit down again, triggering Vicious Bite as he did, and that was enough to put an end to the elf.

Mander dragged his quarry down the hall and into a side room. He heard the hurried footsteps of the rest of the raiding party as they rushed to their fallen comrade. Mander tugged and pulled, his little stone heart slamming in his chest as he tried to hide his deadly work from the group.

“What was that?” one of the intruders asked from the long hall.

Mander tugged the elf into the corner of the room, then jumped onto the wall, ready to perform the same trick again on the unsuspecting robed enemy. And that was Mander’s strategy. He couldn’t take out big parties on his own, but he could catch the squishiest players off guard. The squishy ones usually had the vital role of supporting the group. Without them, the party wouldn’t go on, and Mander wouldn’t get any lashes.

The tank of the group charged into the room, which was littered with books and an overturned table. Mander slowly crept up the wall, away from the body. The woman in shiny plate armor looked to her comrade in a bloody heap, then to the wall where Mander hid. She drew her sword slowly, her eyes locked on Mander’s tail.

Mander looked back to see bloody footprints on the wall near his rear. He hadn’t been careful enough. With caution a foregone thought, Mander scrambled away from the advancing tank. She swung her heavy sword at the wall, missing Mander by mere inches.

Sparks flew as the steel scraped against the stone behind Mander again. He wiggled out of reach, escaped the room, and headed down the hall to the warm spot.

“Get that farkin’ thing!” the tank yelled.

Fire sailed past Mander and blasted the ceiling ahead. He veered left, avoiding the much-too-hot stones. He put on a burst of speed as another explosion erupted in a shower of fire on the ceiling next to him. Mander liked the warmth, but this heat would surely cook his toes.

“Don’t let it get away! It killed Diego!” Mander heard the tank woman scream in a fury as clomping feet followed him down the hall.

He rounded the corner to the warm torture room only to see Tonee still curled up next to the coals. Mander hid himself away in the dark corner farthest from the opening. The team of angry heroes rushed in, fire spitting in the robed one’s hand. The other two brandished sharp weapons and sharper leers.

Mander tracked them with his bulbous eyes as the fiery one held his hand up to all the dark places. They were getting closer and closer to the still sleeping Tonee. If Mander stayed quiet, they would kill Tonee instead, leaving Mander safe to prowl after them and get his revenge.

But Tonee had never done anything wrong to Mander... Tonee just wanted to sit in the warm places and enjoy treatos.

The chainmail-wearing olm kicked a blood-filled bucket, spilling the gore across the stones to the drain below the table. Tonee’s eyes blinked open at this, and he activated his camouflage, then curled in on himself to become smaller.

The tank wheeled on the olm with an angry snarl curling her lip. “Quiet,” she hissed.

The fire wielder peered around the basin of coals, holding the flame up high to reveal the outline of the little level one. “There you are, you little devil,” the mage said with a grin.

Tonee trembled, pushing himself into the corner as if he could become more invisible. The tank moved around the caster, who stepped back a few paces, close enough for Mander to strike. The tank raised her one-handed sword, and it glimmered with golden light when she spoke mystical words.

Tonee would respawn in two hours, but Mander felt a strange tenseness behind his eyes. The sensation didn’t feel good, and Mander knew if he let the tank slice Tonee through, the tightness would only get worse.

Mander jumped from his hiding place onto the mage’s back. They fell forward, slamming the upheld fireball into the tank’s head with a sizzling crack. The tank shrieked in pain, her hand reflexively coming up to bat away the flames.

Mander chomped down on the mage’s neck—his signature move—and activated Vicious Bite. Tonee was fast into the fray, not wasting the opportunity to pounce on the burning tank. Mander used Tail Flail while still latched onto the caster’s neck. His paddle-like tail smashed into the robed man’s back with a snap. The caster went down hard, and the red bar above his head emptied.

The Olm in the chainmail swung a heavy axe at Mander’s head. He juked left, but the axe caught Mander’s arm with a painful chunk. Mander screeched as the enemy pulled the axe loose. The Olm wound up for another strike with a grin. Mander pulled away into the corner, trying to activate Sticky Toes, but something was wrong with his front leg.

“I’ve got you now,” the heavy fighter said in a gruff, malicious voice.

Mander couldn’t run, as his leg hurt too much, so he reared up and hissed. He could still make this intruder pay dearly. The chain-wearer swung his axe, and Mander reared back, barely avoiding the strike.

Mander’s paddle tail smacked against the back wall. There was nowhere else for him to retreat to. There was a sound like metal through meat, and Tonee growled in pain. Mander didn’t take his eyes of the axe wielder as he turned to look. The tank gurgled a scream and Mander heard Tonee’s teeth sinking into flesh.

Power surged through Mander’s limbs and healed the debilitating wound. He had leveled up! With renewed strength, Mander snapped at the air like an angry viper. The axe-wielding hero slashed at him, but too slow. Tonee slid off the end of the tank’s sword and collapsed on the ground in a heap. He wouldn’t be of any help, though he’d already done more than enough. Mander could finish this himself.

“Come on, you little dill-hole,” the axe wielder said as he slashed the air again.

Mander lunged as the man’s guard opened. He sunk his teeth down on the hero’s leather-clad bracers, not trying to pierce, but to push. The hero had overcommitted to the swing and now his axe arm was pinned across his body. Mander pushed against the ground with his fat tail, throwing the man off-balance.

They tumbled to the floor and the axe clattered with a sharp sound. Mander crawled up the hero as he screamed, then battered his legs with a Tail Flail. The satisfying crunch of a broken kneecap echoed in the torture chamber, and the hero squealed like an angry Reaver Bat. Saliva slathered from Mander’s long, sticky tongue.

“Stupid lizard!” the man shrieked, and his free arm groped at his belt.

Mander pressed his full weight down on the invader’s chest, snapping at his face. The man raised a small dagger and aimed for Mander’s head. The move didn’t escape Mander’s huge bulbous eyes. He slapped the dagger away with a quick flick of his tongue, then spit the weapon across the room.

“Gross!” the hero cried, his hand coated in Mander’s hunger juices.

It was time to stop playing. Mander bore down on the hero and, within two chomps, managed to grab his head. The muffled cries reverberated in Mander’s mouth for a few moments, and then the hero went still.

Mander crawled off the man and looked to Tonee. His eyes were closed, but he whimpered softly. The Health bar that hung over his head blinked. It was nearly empty, and losing more every few seconds. Red leaked out of Tonee’s gut and pooled on the floor near the downed tank.

Mander knew Tonee would be back. He’d seen enough Stone Salamanders die and return to know he wasn’t the only one who was eternal. Another tight sensation pulled at him to do something. But what?

Eating. Mander knew that eating would make the red fill up. He padded over to the tank and pushed aside her armor, then ripped a chunk of flesh free. Mander grabbed Tonee’s whimpering face and held open his jaws with sticky toes, then dropped the meat into his mouth.

Tonee didn’t move, and the meat just sat there. Mander chirped loudly, then grabbed Tonee’s cheeks, moving them on his own. He mooshed the meat around in Tonee’s mouth by hand, then shook his head and neck until the chewed chunk slid down his throat.

Tonee’s blood vial stopped its descent, and Mander knew he was doing it right. He repeated the feeding process three times more before Tonee weakly opened his eyes. He tried to pull away, but when Mander brought him another chunk of meat, Tonee’s whimpering stopped. When he was well enough to eat on his own, Mander went to work, pulling enough of the axe wielder’s armor aside to get at something delicious.

They finished their meal, and it was time for Mander to return to his patrol. This time, Tonee followed him out to the hall, then up onto the wall and out to the feast room. Mander turned frequently to watch him, and every time he did, Tonee stopped and lowered his head. The young salamander wasn’t scared of Mander, but he wouldn’t challenge him.

The hall was filling with the little blue Changelings once more. Everything was as it should’ve been, until Mander smelled something wrong. What was that smell? It was hot, like the coals in the scary room, burning his slender nostrils. It was sour, like old meat but not as foul. It was unlike anything he’d ever smelled before, except on some heroes.

Mander activated his camouflage, and Tonee did the same not far behind him. They prowled the hall until a strange Changeling with a big amber necklace raced through the hall. He was holding hands with another Changeling, who seemed confused.

“Invaders are coming! Prepare yourselves!” the strange smelling Changeling croaked like a hero. There were letters over his head that weren’t the same as the others’. Mander blinked at them, trying to understand this strange creature who appeared to be of the citadel, but most certainly was not.

The Changeling rambled on, talking to the one next to it. Mander heard the footsteps of heroes, and Tonee nudged his tail. It was time to retreat to narrower passageways if they were going to be of any use.

Mander and Tonee moved back toward the warm spot, but the heroes never came. They waited so long, their camouflage failed. After many long minutes, Mander saw the strange Changeling emerge from a dead-end hall.

Mander skittered over the wall, blinking his bulbous eyes as the strange one came close. He reached out for Mander, who triggered his camouflage immediately. The Changeling touched his tail, sending electric jolts down his spine. Mander had never felt anything like that before... It hadn’t hurt, and it wasn’t a spell, but it was something.

Mander scurried away and rounded the corner toward the floor overseer. Was the Changeling going that way? Surely the Big Boss would smell the difference in this strange Changeling, and that would be the end of him.

They moved into the Boss’s chamber and Mander retreated to the warm room. Bodies littered the floor. There was nowhere nice to lay, so he and Tonee moved to the room adjacent to the warm spot. Tonee showed him the wall where the hot coals shared their warmth with this room, then curled up in its glow. Mander looked about the cluttered chamber, an idea sparking.

Some of the clutter was soft and could be molded. Things like old fluff from rejected armor and bits of straw. Mander pulled the soft things closer to the warm wall, making a pile on which to lay. Yes, this was much nicer than sleeping on the cold, hard floor.

Mander dozed for a handful of minutes until he was jerked awake by the sound of screaming. Panic set in. Had he neglected his duties once more? He camouflaged and rounded onto the ceiling, then charged down the hall. A whip cracked against skin, and Mander winced. It was the strange Changeling getting his lashings. Mander remembered this pain and cowered from it. Perhaps the Strangeling would be as strong as Mander had been.

A sharp yip from Tonee snapped Mander from a painful trance. Tonee was in trouble! Mander turned his back on the scene playing out below and waddled down the hall on the ceiling with abandon, not worrying about camouflage. He rounded the corner back to their nest to see another Stone Salamander in the doorway.

Sal.

She was rearing up on her back legs, hissing and snapping sharp teeth into the room. Mander leapt from the ceiling, landing with a loud, menacing bark. Sal angled toward Mander, keeping one eye on each of her opponents as she backed away from the door. Mander wasn’t going to let her take their new, clean warm spot, and he most definitely wouldn’t be intimidated by her.

Tonee snapped and hissed as he advanced, and Sal jumped, then turned tail and scurried off into the dark corridor. Mander snorted in her general direction—good riddance—then padded past Tonee into the room. It was cozy in their little spot, and Mander let himself drift into sleep once more.

Mander had never considered working with another Stone Salamander to get more of what he wanted, but now that Tonee was here, he knew they could accomplish great things. It hadn’t come to chompers with Sal, and that was a first.

He’d only just drifted into sleep when a loud clamor roused him once more. Mander was not enjoying all these interruptions, but knew it would be his backside if he didn’t investigate. At least a little. Tonee was up just as fast. They followed the sounds to the scary room, where they found the two little Strangelings fiddling with an odd assortment of equipment.

The one with strange letters over his head and the amber necklace wore the garb of the heroes and wielded weapons like them too. What was this weird outsider doing? Well, being more successful than his predecessors, that was certain. He was with the other, who didn’t smell foreign but looked and sounded just as strange. The words over both their heads were not right.

They were dismantling the scary weapons and chatting about traps. It was interesting at first, but then Mander grew weary of watching them work. He decided he wasn’t going to get any rest while they were banging about, so he went on patrol.

Bats swooped at Mander and Tonee as they padded through the great room. Their divebombs were in vain; Mander had no treatos to give them this time. The creatures in the great hall were sparse, and spread out from the last incursion. Mander knew the feast hall was a vulnerable place to be. They’d have to remain vigilant.

When the Strangelings’ scraping, banging, and grunting was complete, Mander and Tonee returned to the safety of their hideaway. All was quiet, and Mander sighed as he curled in on himself. Finally, it was time to get a little snoozer in.

Bang!

Or it wasn’t.

He didn’t want to earn any lashings, and so every sound needed to be investigated whether he wanted to or not. Mander grumbled as he crawled up onto the wall, perfectly camouflaged.

Thunk... bang!

What was the horrible racket? Mander sped toward the sound with Tonee at his tail.

“And boom goes the dynamite!” The voice of a man grated against Mander’s little ear slits. He rounded the corner of the great hall to see a short hero in bronzed gear lighting the end of a wick on a metallic ball. He lobbed the ball into a corner of the room with another wall-trembling bang!

The hero cackled madly, and the arrogance in the laugh sent a furious heat through Mander’s core. These heroes thought they could come in and start blowing up his citadel?

Movement in the corner caught his eye, and Mander noticed Sal—that snack-stealing jerk. She was pinned under an overturned table that had been blasted half to bits. The man in jingling bronze armor advanced on her, pulling another explosion ball from the leather satchel at his side.

“You’re all out of places to hide,” the hero sneered as he struck the flint on a firebox. The wick of the explody-ball sparked, and the man lined up his shot. He was going to blast Sal to smithereens. Mander didn’t like Sal, but her impending death didn’t sit right in his burning tummy. Plus, he wanted another snack.

Mander waddled across the ceiling and launched himself toward Sal with a hiss. The hero pitched his bomb with a wild grin. Mander twisted in midair, dropping his camouflage and activating Tail Flail as he soared into range.

The metal ball smacked against Mander’s fat tail and was promptly returned to sender. Mander skidded to a stop in front of Sal just in time to see the hero’s expression of shock before the boom of fire and shrapnel ate it off his face.

The little man dropped to his knees with a high-pitched scream of agony, covering his once wide-open eyes. Blood seeped from between his fingers and the red bar above his head emptied by half.

Tonee plunged from the ceiling like a chunky asteroid, slamming the little man to the ground. He smacked the man’s stubby legs with his tail—one of Mander’s signature moves—and got that satisfying snap. Mander lunged forward and used his vicious bite on the bronzed man’s head. In a matter of seconds, the hero’s health bar emptied all the way, and he went still.

There wasn’t much of a meal here, but Mander was satisfied to see that the little one’s death had made him even stronger. Mander was level 3 now, and he distributed his newly acquired points just as quickly as the previous.

He gave Tonee a gratified chirp, letting him know it was okay to dig into the snack, then turned back and saw Sal still struggling under the weight of the table. Her Health bar was low, and when Mander approached, he saw why. Her tail had been blown off and sat several feet away, wiggling of its own accord.

Sal hissed weakly as Mander approached, but he ignored her. He launched his tongue and wrapped it around the leg of the table, then pulled. Sal pushed with her front legs and they heaved the thing off together.

When Sal was free of her entrapment, she limped away to the corner to lick her wounds with another warning hiss. Mander left her to it. He knew by the red leaking from her mangled tail stub that she didn’t have much longer to bother him.

Tonee had the little man’s armor peeled back, but he waited for Mander to take the first bite. The back meat wasn’t nearly fatty enough, so Mander rolled the hero over and took a nice chunk out of the man’s potbelly.

Mmm, tender.

Sal stumbled woozily as she tried to climb the stone walls. Her Health bar was nearly empty. Mander knew she would be back, but he still didn’t like the feeling he got as he watched her die. It was that same tightness around his head and between his eyes, but this time it came with a clenched gut. He knew he couldn’t fit one more tasty bite in if he didn’t do something.

Mander ripped another chunk of meat free and tossed it toward Sal with a shake of his head. The bit of lung slid to a stop next to the wary salamander. Even on the brink of death, Sal glared daggers at Mander before she tore into the offering.

She devoured the bit and Mander tossed her another. Slowly, her tail stub mended, and the bleeding stopped. When she’d regained half the missing Health, she boldly stepped up to the mostly eaten meal. Mander reared back, his lips curled, ready to snarl. What was she thinking, moving so fast like that? Mander hoped his offerings had made Sal friendly, but those quick movements were a challenge in Mander’s eyes.

Sal stopped a few feet short, groaned from the depths of her stomach, then rolled onto her back. Mander returned to all fours, his huge eyes squinted in disbelief. Was Sal submitting? Mander walked closer to her and she tensed up but didn’t move from her exposed position.

Mander sniff-snorfed around her, trying to detect trickery in her scent. There was none. He opened his mouth and slapped his sticky tongue against the side of her face, releasing her from the prostrate position.

Sal rolled back to her feet in an instant, then waddled closer to the kill. The three Stone Salamanders ripped at the little body until it was bones, then left. Mander led the way, camouflaged on the ceiling, until they reached their nest.

Mander curled up first in the best spot, then Tonee at his left, and Sal at his right. They snuggled together comfortably. The shared body heat warmed Mander into a comfortable snoozer. It was nice having friends, he decided. It was even better that he wouldn’t have to fight with Sal. She could be deadly when she wanted, and he’d prefer never to be on the receiving end of her Vicious Bite ever again.

Mander startled awake at a loud, horrible sound. Tonee convulsed at his side, screaming in agony.

“Yeah, get some!” a nasty hero said as she raised her thin sword to strike again.

Mander leapt from his quiet slumber and lunged at the elf’s leg. He bit down with a jaw-splitting crunch. Her armor resisted his bite completely, and pain lanced through Mander’s back as the sword dragged across his flesh. He fell back, a tenth of his own life vial emptied from the hit, but his daring advance had given the desired effect. Tonee—though critical—was still alive.

A thick Olm in similarly strong armor rounded the corner wielding a bloodied axe in each hand. His eyes were wild with murderous intent.

“Nice work, Brit, but let me handle that one,” he said, looking at Mander.

Sal scrambled up the wall as she activated her camouflage. So, she would run and leave Mander to defend the helpless Tonee alone. See if she got any more treatos when next he saw her...

The elf hacked her sword down toward Tonee. Mander lunged for her arm with calculated intent. He bit down again, this time getting his teeth between the creases of her metal plates. The leather provided resistance, but Mander used Vicious Bite, amplifying his strength and punching through.

The elf yelped and tried to pull away. Mander held tight, dragging his sticky toes across the ground as she tried to free herself from his grasp. She couldn’t get her sword in the right position to attack, but Mander felt the agonizing thunk of a weapon against his side. He released the elf’s arm and fell back. The Olm laughed as he ripped the axe from between Mander’s ribs. But as the hero raised his weapons again, Mander spotted something slithering on the ceiling.

Sal!

She leapt, twisting in midair as Mander had learned to, and landed with a heavy thud on the axe wielder. The elf’s sword flashed a cool blue, and she swiped through the air with deadly precision.

The attack cut straight through Sal’s front leg, and a second swipe severed her back leg. Sal flopped to the ground with a wail but wasn’t giving up yet. She gnawed at the Olm’s legs, trying to find an opening in his armor.

The elf advanced on Mander. His guts hurt, but he wouldn’t let that stop him from ending this ghastly invader. A nearly dead Tonee sailed over Mander’s head and slammed into the elf’s legs. He used Tail Flail but the elf dodged straight up. She landed on Tonee’s back, spearing him through before dismembering him like she had Sal.

The elf’s head dipped closer to the ground and Mander lunged. She dodged again, dragging her blade across Mander’s face. She danced out of range, and Mander spared a glance for Sal. The axe-wielding Olm chopped down into her without mercy until her Health bar was empty. Sal was in horrid, gut-wrenching pieces. Her bloody stumps still flailed in death, and Mander whimpered at the sight of her.

This was what Mander got for having happiness. No happiness in the Cruel Citadel! It’ll all be hacked apart. How could he have been so stupid? The lashings from Big Boss weren’t to be mean... they were a reminder. Don’t sleep on the job. Now, Mander learned the true consequences of his negligent attitude.

The elf and Olm circled Mander, pushing him deeper into the corner. His Health was low, and he’d used too many abilities already. He couldn’t escape.

He didn’t want to escape. He wanted to make them pay.

Mander snapped left, then right, keeping the two invaders on their guard. He snarled and hissed, making himself as mean as he could. Mander was a strong level 3 Stone Salamander, and he wasn’t to be trifled with!

Fire, as brilliant as the dawn, lit up the small room in a flash. Mander squinted in pain, shaking his head from side to side.

“Now!” the Strangeling yelled.

A Thursr’s war cry shook the room. Mander opened his eyes to see the two heroes held to the ground by spectral blue hands. The Strangeling and his friend—now a Thursr—slashed and stabbed the heroes in the back as they screamed.

Mander jumped into the fray, latching his teeth onto the elf’s neck. She struggled under his weight, then collapsed to the ground. It was all silent in a matter of seconds. The glowing hands retracted, and Mander jumped back to his corner.

The Strangeling could just as easily take advantage and steal his warm spot, or get him in trouble with the Big Boss. Mander prowled from side to side, keeping his eyes on the strange one. Then, the Strangeling did something unexpected.

He knelt, holding his hand out to Mander. Mander sniff-snorfed at the strange one’s hand, smelling not only the weird otherworldliness, but something delicious of this realm. What was that smell?

Mander couldn’t resist, his feet carrying him close to the Strangeling. Oh, yes, it was definitely treatos on his fingers. Mander’s tongue slapped out automatically and hit the Strangeling’s yum-covered fingers.

It was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

Meat grease, the best kind of grease ever. Mander loved the fatty chunks, and this was just the fat, plus some tasty treato flavor that made his tongue tingle with joy. It was the best, and he needed more!

The Strangeling smiled as he touched Mander’s neck. That wasn’t so bad. The strange one scratched in big circles the spot that Mander could never reach. Oh, what a wonderful scratch.

“What do you think, you bloodthirsty little macaroni?” the strange one asked.

Macaroni? Was that the delicious taste on his fingers? Mander loved macaroni.

“Want to come with me? I promise I’ll bring you significantly more battles than you’ll find hiding in here.”

Battles meant treatos! Mander chirped, leaning hard into the wonderful scratching on his chin.

“It’s settled then,” the Strangeling said.

A glow emanated from the pendant hanging around the Strangeling’s neck, and a golden handprint appeared along Mander’s hide. He felt a flutter of power fill his tummy, energy sprinting along his limbs and filling his mind. Roark. That was the Strangeling’s name, he suddenly knew. That’s what the words over his head meant. And Kaz was the big one. The Thursr. How did Mander know this? Suddenly, Mander knew a lot of things he’d never known before.

“Easy,” Roark said. “Macaroni, king of the wolves, ruler of the mountains.”

A floating bit of text appeared before Mander’s eyes, and he knew only he could see the words.

[Roark has made you his lesser vassal! He would like to name you Macaroni. Is this acceptable?]

Macaroni? The delicious treato? Yes. Mander definitely wanted to be Macaroni.

“What?” Roark asked. “No! Maka-Ronin. Mak. A. Ro. Nin. The two don’t even sound similar!” Roark was angry, but Macaroni didn’t know why.

“Roark cannot change a name once it has been accepted by the creature,” the tall Thursr, Kaz, said.

Macaroni chirped happily and licked Roark’s delicious greasy armor. Delicious.

“Macaroni,” Roark said with a grim flatness as he scratched Mac’s shoulders. “I had better level up from this.”

Mac’s new master turned away from the nest. Macaroni looked back on his friends. They would come back soon, and he would check on them. For now, Roark needed Macaroni to stay out of trouble with the Big Boss, and Mac needed more of Roark’s treatos. Bring on the next battle.

The Vial

By Scott Cofield

A mossy path through the vine trellis betrayed a not-so-hidden passage to the Saltmint Garden. The trail of vibrant green did not end over the sheer cliff where it led, but curled down the cliff face, making wisps of a long beard. With the cone-shaped trees on top, and at a distance, the looming rock face looked like a wizard.

On either side of the path, flora bloomed in deep reds and golden starbursts. Exotic trees were speckled with clusters of Caprisun Fruit, rare ingredients with a boost to learning ingredient-based skills for heroes looking to level their Cooking, Brewing, or Herbalism skills quickly.

DrNurse was an Alchemeister, and though her character’s build could benefit from the Caprisun Fruits’ boost, she was logged in this evening to harvest Inkblots. She could also harvest Inkblots between 4 and 7 AM, but that wasn’t happening.

The brown-and black-mushrooms would spawn in the shadows of other plants, making them particularly difficult to spot in the half light of the rising or setting sun—which was unfortunately also the only time they could be spotted. According to Hearthworld’s Wikilore, the refraction of the sunlight during daytime hours made the Inkblots invisible. In reality, DrNurse had no idea why the game’s creators had bothered to make Inkblot gathering so complicated.

DrNurse clapped her hands together when she found another of the brown-and-black mushrooms under a stand of lilies-with-too-many-petals, then plucked the Inkblot into her inventory. She stood and gazed out at the landscape and waning sunlight beyond the cliff.

“Where are ya going to find something like this IRL? Perfect vacation after a long shift at the lab,” she said. DrNurse smoothed her apron and checked the Inkblot count in her inventory. Five more and she would be able to level her Brewing to Skill Level 6. Then, invisibility potions! Soon she'd be skipping past mobs, sneaking through entire dungeon floors, and rifling through the pockets of enemy poisoners, replacing their deadly concoctions with antidotes and laughing powder.

A few yards away, Rhinocelot swung his claymore idly. Under the full plate armor and centurion helm, the only thing that distinguished him as a rog was the teal skin of the exaggerated box jaw sticking out from the bottom of the helm. He sliced the huge blade one-handed though a defenseless shrub, scattering leaves and twigs.

Immediately he looked to DrNurse, realizing what he’d done.

She scowled at him, then turned back to her Inkblot search.

“Where is everyone?” Rhinocelot groaned. “It’s not like this place is still secret. It was original content. There should be tons of people harvesting.” When DrNurse didn’t answer, he sighed. “We made it through the mobs at least. What am I supposed to be protecting you from now? Did you want me to remove thorns for you?”

DrNurse shrugged. “I read there aren’t as many cooks and alchemists in the game as there used to be. Takes time for the skills to become worthwhile. Support is a dying art.”

“Maybe,” Rhinocelot said. “Less would make sense. It’s weird that there are zero.”

He chucked his sword into the ground, burying half the blade, then folded his hands over the pommel. He rested his chin on top of the spiked metal knuckles of his gauntlet. The spike pricked deeper into his square jaw. The twinge of pain helped him focus on watching DrNurse as she painstakingly peeled away one plant after another, searching for the shadows of inkblots.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you fight,” he said to her back. “Why get your hands dirty when others will do your evil bidding. Is that it?”

DrNurse replied without standing, her body curled around the gnarled root ball of an uprooted tree that hung out over the edge of the cliff face, head and shoulders deep in the shadowy hollow beneath. “Fighting mobs is no fun for me. I’m just rubbish at it. I don’t like getting hit with their rusty swords or seeing them set on fire or hearing their little screams. That one time I hit a goblin with an acid vial, I felt so bad I healed all his HP and came back later after you logged out to give him a sweet. Random monsters just don’t deserve that kind of treatment for no reason.”

“See, there”—Rhinocelot planted his feet wide and pulled the claymore from the ground in one smooth motion, like King Arthur retrieving Excalibur from the stone—“that’s how I know you are truly evil. You take the monsters’ side.”

DrNurse was too excited about the Inkblot she had just spotted to contest this. She grinned to herself and added the mushroom cap to her inventory. That had done it, she’d gathered all she needed.

She sat in the center of the clearing and opened her inventory. Her stomach fluttered as it always did when she saw the stacks of flowers, herbs, and fungi in her crafting window. Non-Alchemeisters would have had to find an Alchemy laboratory or Brewing station to combine ingredients, but with her specialized class, DrNurse could craft new potions anywhere. It was almost as handy as the fact that none of the vials and flasks the potions appeared in ever broke, even if she dropped them. Which she did. Often. IRL and here, but the ones she dropped in IRL always left such a mess.

She focused on the items she wanted to combine. With a bubbling sound like a water bath boiling over a Bunsen burner, the bottled potion appeared in her hand.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Antidote

Uses: 1

Counteracts poisons and harmful effects

╠═╦╬╧╪

[Congratulations! Your Brewing has increased to Skill Level 6! You can now craft Rare potions and learn Complicated recipes.]

The notification flashed in golden-white letters. Inspiration flooded her mind as DrNurse dreamed up new combinations, extraction experiments, distillation procedures, and interesting applications for acids and alkalis. She wondered whether the game developers had consulted with IRL scientists and what sort of results she would get mirroring her real-life experiments here in Hearthworld.

Setting the musings aside for now, DrNurse opened her grimoire. Ten new Rare potions had been added to the list of potentials she could create. None were greyed out due to a lack of ingredients. A few of the more powerful ones caught her eye.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Draught of the Phoenix (Rare):

A character who drops to 0 HP will be revived to 10% total HP. Effective for 30 seconds after ingesting.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Vial of Vitality (Rare):

Boost all stats by +20 for 20 seconds.]

╠═╦╬╧╪

Invisibility:

Become undetectable by enemies for 30 seconds.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Invisibility!

DrNurse began pulling potions out of thin air in response. A grey one. Then a green one. And a pink one. Another pink. Another green.

“You’re going to do that now?” Rhinocelot wheezed with disappointment.

Instead of answering, she pulled out another grey potion.

“If you’re going to be a while, let me transfer a few things to my mule,” Rhinocelot said. He opened his inventory and began dropping weapons and armor onto the ground at his feet. The haphazard pile glistened with enchantments. “Keep an eye open for my party request. It’ll be from Mulelephant.”

DrNurse nodded vaguely, more focused on the crawling progress of her Brewing experience bar than the rog. She hardly noticed that Rhinocelot had already disappeared from her party list and the garden.

She could now produce potions at such speed that she was cleaning out her inventory. Vials, flasks, and bottles amassed on the ground around her. Even though her stock of reagents dwindled, that added to the anticipation that she would get to spend another afternoon with Rhinocelot, picking flowers and mushrooms and digging up rare roots while he made impatient noises.

He had introduced her to Hearthworld in the first place, after many awkward conversations about what he liked to do outside of work, and so maybe felt a bit of responsibility for guiding her. However, after so many adventures that peaked at DrNurse finding a rare flower instead of defeating a vengeful floor boss, she was starting to suspect that he enjoyed their time together as well. Why else would a build that, according to the Wikilore, excelled at crawling deadly high-level dungeons spend so much time accompanying her on low-danger, stress-relieving searches?

At 99% full on Brewing XP, she ran out of several key ingredients.

DrNurse rolled her eyes. The sun was just about to set, and Inkblot caps would soon be impossible to find in the dark. She crawled over to a patch of briars she had neglected to search before because maybe she had wanted a little protection from the thorns after all.

There was a dark amorphous shape near the roots of the spiny vines. If she tried to reach it barehanded, she’d have scratches all up her arm, and while the pain in Hearthworld was not nearly as bad as IRL, she liked to avoid it whenever possible. She needed to add a few inches to her reach.

A black metal stiletto Rhino had dropped among the other equipment caught her eye. It was just right for sliding between the brambles and plucking up the Inkblot. She stretched across the moss to grab its ornamented handle.

[Cannot equip Viper’s Fang. You do not meet the minimum requirement of 29 Dexterity.]

“We’ll see about that,” DrNurse said and swept the notification away. She quaffed one of her newly brewed Vials of Vitality.

The rush of power, brilliance, and alacrity from the increased stats made her hop to her feet. With the toe of her Sandal of the Wandering Acetic, she kicked the Viper’s Fang stiletto into the air, snatched it, then stabbed it down into the briar patch, skewering what she thought was the last Inkblot she needed for level 7.

It wasn’t an Inkblot.

The blade came away bloody from the mush it had met with under the vines.

DrNurse nudged the thorny cords away with the edge, revealing a lifeless hand. The corpse had been stripped of equipment and stashed intentionally. It was a PK. DrNurse knew as soon as she saw the telltale signs, but gasped anyway. Looking closer, she saw another stripped corpse in there as well.

So that was where all the players who should’ve been harvesting from Saltmint had gone.

DrNurse’s potion-heightened Perception caught motion a few feet away. She quickly broke a flask of Bottled Smoke against a nearby rock. The gray haze outlined a figure sneaking towards Rhinocelot’s pile of equipment. The assassin coughed a few times, which disrupted her stealth ability. As she became visible, DrNurse read her nameplate.

[CookieDeath]

Rhinocelot had warned DrNurse about PvP players, using CookieDeath as a prime example. The notorious PKer stood, and the smoke fell away from her dark leathers. Her Unique armor was made of giant bat wings overlapping around her torso. Two throwing daggers were clenched between the fingers of one hand, and a loaded crossbow was cradled in the other.

DrNurse moved between CookieDeath and the pile of enchanted gear. She noted the time remaining on the Vitality potion. 9 seconds... 8... 7... 6...

“Should’ve waited till dark for the sneak bonus.” CookieDeath dropped her hood around straight, black Morticia Adams hair. “It’s going to take some time to hack away at you now while you refill on healing potions, right? What a waste of time.”

“Then leave.”

“Can’t do that either. Your friend dropped two of the set pieces I’m missing. So if you want to keep your precious potions, back away. I won’t have room in my inventory for them all anyway...”

CookieDeath aimed the crossbow with one hand.

Just then the Viper’s Fang popped out of DrNurse’s hand like the flasks she fumbled so often in the lab.

0 seconds. The timer flashed, and the Vitality potion buff faded away.

“That’s a start,” CookieDeath said, stowing her knives so she could crank the crossbow bolt into place.

When she turned back to level the cocked crossbow at DrNurse, the Alchemeister was gone.

CookieDeath turned to the pile of weapons and armor the rog had dropped. Pieces were disappearing from the heap in quick blinks.

Hurrying, CookieDeath reached for the closest piece of loot that hadn’t been snatched into an inventory yet: a valuable-looking bit of jewelry, sparkling with enchantment.

“Hands off!” DrNurse growled.

Pain lanced through CookieDeath’s side. Her filigreed Health vial flashed pale green and dropped ten percent.

DrNurse had broken invisibility with the attack. The Alchemeister was already leaving CookieDeath’s side, the Viper’s Fang gleaming in her hand.

CookieDeath spun away, but her usual speed was hobbled by the dagger’s enchantment.

[You have been poisoned. -2 HP per second for 50 seconds or until Antidote is consumed. Movement Speed reduced by 50% for 50 seconds.] the notification warned.

CookieDeath ignored the warning, dropped to a knee, and fired the crossbow.

Tink.

DrNurse was now clad in Rhino’s Jester’s Mail: 75% resistance against piercing weapons, +15% to movement speed, +10 Dexterity bonus for thrown weapons.

The crossbow bolt found home in her shoulder. Unfortunately, seventy-five percent was not one hundred percent. Luckily, she had something for this. The slow trickle of blood stopped and her Health vial refilled as DrNurse drained an Ample Healing potion. When she finished off the vial, the crossbow bolt popped out onto the mossy ground.

CookieDeath lunged with her daggers, stabbing down with one and swinging the other in a crossing arc. DrNurse took the downward cut across her chest, the serrated blade raking her skin even through the chainmail, but caught CookieDeath’s elbow in the middle of her second swing.

“Alchemeisters gain a speed and strength bonus after drinking potions,” DrNurse said with objective precision, then broke the assassin’s arm at the elbow. “Haven’t you even read the Wikilore?”

CookieDeath screamed and tried to tear free.

Plucking the Rose, DrNurse thought, stepping gracefully around to CookieDeath’s back and hyperextending the broken arm. It was one of the many moves she had learned from Kata of the Wandering Martial Hero skill book. She didn’t like to fight, but she had taken Rhinocelot’s warnings about bloodthirsty PvP players to heart.

Cutting the weeds, she recited mentally as the Viper’s Fang sliced hard towards the sky.

The assassin’s arm came away from her body like a troublesome vine hacked away before it could destroy a beautiful garden.

CookieDeath’s HP was down to half. With a pained roar, she threw her head back, bashing DrNurse’s nose.

The Alchemeister’s vision flashed red with the pain, and her Health vial dropped a few percent.

CookieDeath peeled away from DrNurse and took several halting steps back.

“Duh! And Arcane Assassins can use spells,” she sputtered, ripping a scroll out from under her armor one-handed.

Ice shuriken pelted DrNurse from all directions like a swarm of frozen wasps. DrNurse fell to her knees, cradling her head and stomach.

[You have been Chilled! Movement Speed reduced by 15% for 30 seconds or until Warmfire Potion or Swiftfoot Potion is consumed.]

DrNurse had both versions of counteractant in her inventory—it was just a matter of selecting one before CookieDeath managed to PK her.

But CookieDeath was focused on drinking her own potion, a large glowing red flask of Ample Healing. The assassin held her severed arm to the stump, and the sinew slowly stitched back together. Her Health vial refilled, but it was still green from the Fang’s slow debuff.

With shaking hands, DrNurse selected the Warmfire Potion from her Inventory and chugged it down. Lucky that she had acquired that Drain a Draught perk at Level 2 Brewing.

When the buffeting ice spell ended, DrNurse had less than half her Health remaining. The Alchemeister stood, determined to finish this.

Nearby, CookieDeath tested her reattached arm’s motor function by flipping a dagger in its hand.

“Ready to die?” CookieDeath sneered, breaking into a sprint. The assassin’s speed was still hobbled, but she was back on the offensive.

DrNurse downed two more potions as she ran. As the second bottle drained, DrNurse vanished again.

CookieDeath whipped her daggers through the air where the Alchemeister had been in wide sweeps. “Where are you!? That’s right, run away!”

DrNurse ducked behind a tree out of the range of the assassin’s wild swings. She couldn’t run away. Rhinocelot’s backup character, Mulelephant, would be arriving at the Saltmint Garden soon. At level 2, the alt wouldn’t stand a chance against CookieDeath.

Hurriedly, DrNurse scrolled through the other goodies she’d been able to snatch off the pile Rhinocelot had left for himself. One of the items was the ring she had managed to grab before CookieDeath could steal it. She read only the words “Unique, Legendary” before she equipped it.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Unique Ring of the Archwizard’s Eye

+16 to Intelligence

+10% Fire resistance

+10% Ice resistance

+20% to all potion effects

Wearer may cast Larrington’s Entropic Nightmare once per day.

Restricted to Alchemeister Only.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Rhinocelot’s backup character, Mulelephant, wasn’t an Alchemeister. Why would he have been carrying this ring around? Unless...

Is it for me? DrNurse flushed.

“Come out, loser, I have other people to kill today.” CookieDeath stalked methodically through the Saltmint Garden, slicing her blades through the bushes, brambles, and flowers, getting closer and closer to the tree DrNurse was hiding behind.

The Entropic Nightmare spell in the ring cost twice the Magicka points DrNurse had, but she was an Alchemeister. That meant if there wasn’t a solution to a problem readily available, she could always make one herself. A solution solution.

She plucked a Skittleblossom from the ground, its flower loosened by CookieDeath’s furious slashing, then Transmuted it and several ingredients from her inventory into a compound. Into this concoction went another Vial of Vitality. With a hiss and the sound of boiling, the potion was finished.

DrNurse hefted what was easily a liter of faint blue, phosphorescent liquid.

This potion is so broken that crafting doesn’t break invisibility, she mused as she began to drink. When she finished the flask, the invisibility potion timer dwindled its last few ticks: 3 seconds remaining... 2... 1...

By then, most of the low-lying shrubbery of the Saltmint Garden had been turned to mulch by CookieDeath’s relentless hacking.

“What’s going on?” Rhinocelot’s voice chirped from the Level 2 rog fighter who’d entered the garden. The nameplate [Mulelephant] floated over his alt’s head, and an impossibly narrow chin stuck out of his low-level Leather Helm.

CookieDeath spun to glare at him. The Movement Speed reduction had worn off, and it was with exasperated fury that she reloaded her crossbow and fired wildly at the newcomer.

Mulelephant lifted his arm reflexively to block with a shield his side character did not have. To an onlooker it would have looked as if he were scared, covering his eyes, but that was certainly not the case.

Seeing no other option, DrNurse threw herself in front of the bolt.

Tink. It sank deep into the skin below DrNurse’s collarbone. Her Health vial flashed the critical. In her rush to outsmart the assassin and the Archwizard’s ring, she had forgotten to drink a simple healing potion!

“Lightning Spellshot!” CookieDeath said, activating her skill.

DrNurse’s hair began to rise strand by strand. Bright lines of static crackled between their lengths. Her eyes widened as she grabbed frantically at the bolt, trying to remove it, but her fingers slipped in the gouts of blood covering its shaft.

A thunderous bolt of white-hot lightning arced down from the cloudless sky, knocking Mulelephant back ten feet to Saltmint’s entrance and sending the Hearthworld equivalent of 1.21 gigawatts dancing through DrNurse’s avatar.

The Alchemeister collapsed in a heap of smoke and cinders.

Mulelephant was at her side in a second. From behind him came the sound of CookieDeath cranking back the string on her crossbow for another shot. She was back to full speed, but the weapon still took more than two seconds to reload.

Mulelephant noticed the ring on DrNurse’s finger. He cupped her hand.

“Thought maybe I could bring you lunch sometime. Or we could get coffee?” He hesitated, then gathered his courage and whispered, “I know we work together, but being with you is my IRL place like this.” He nodded to indicate the garden.

“Cute,” CookieDeath said. “But you’re going to have to IM each other your plans, because you’re not going to be here much longer.”

As quickly as he could, Mulelephant ripped DrNurse’s equipment to his own slots. Even with the Jester’s Mail providing 75% resistance to piercing weapons, the bolt CookieDeath fired still burrowed deep in the center of his chest, dropping his Level-2 mule’s terrible HP instantly to critical. It certainly looked like he was about to be PKed by the assassin. The Endurance skill that let him hold onto a single hit point after taking lethal damage had a long cooldown, and CookieDeath had a short walk to finish him with her daggers.

Mulelephant grabbed the first weapon he could lay his hands on—the Viper’s Fang— and brandished it at the assassin as he scooted away on his butt and heels. Potion bottles clinked as he skirted past the pile where DrNurse had been quick-crafting to level her Brewing. He came to a sudden stop, his back against the root ball of the tree that hung out over the edge of the cliff.

CookieDeath didn’t slow down, even when one of his swipes tore into her hide armor skirt, drawing a bead of blood and restarting the poison counter.

“Cute and annoying,” CookieDeath said. She snatched an antidote from the pile of vials and flasks and swilled it, watching him spitefully as she did. She wanted him to know she had all the time in Hearthworld to finish him.

That wasn’t true though.

DrNurse rose like Dracula, directly to her feet, lifted by the beating wings of a bird wreathed in fire. The flaming pheasant swirled in the air above her head before bursting into flaming sparkles.

Brimming with the power from the fortifying magic potion, DrNurse raised her Archwizard-ringed middle finger at CookieDeath.

Swirls of darkness gathered from the shadows projected by the setting sun and collected around the Alchemeister’s body. The air shook with a low bass hum as the shadows coalesced into thick beams of darkness that crawled down DrNurse’s arm and formed a glowing orb of infernal void at the tip of the offending finger.

“When you respawn, your stuff will be down there,” DrNurse told the assassin as she tilted her head towards the cliff’s edge. “Never PK in our garden again.”

Then she released Larrington’s Entropic Nightmare and smiled.

CookieDeath tried to dodge the orb, but it followed her as if it were tied to her avatar’s soul.

With a subwoofer thump, the orb struck CookieDeath. Instantly, the assassin plunged into a void of darkness. No low-level rog clinging to his last bit of life. No annoying Alchemeister. No ruined Saltmint Garden. The sky and sunset had both turned to starless night.

“Hello?”

CookieDeath was unarmed and naked, and fear made her struggle to catch a breath.

[You have been Terrified. Intelligence, Charisma, and Constitution are reduced by 75% for 75 seconds.]

Laughter echoed in the darkness before cat-like creatures with long floppy ears and distended legs began to form into syrupy masses from the shadows around her. They stalked closer. Hundreds of them. Their slit eyes were blinking gashes of light in the void.

[Dreadsnare Mongrel]

CookieDeath tried to scream at them to stay back, but her voice stuck in her throat. Fear made her pulse thunder in her ears. This wasn’t right. This was just a game.

Wasn’t it?

Checking her crimson Health vial, she saw it was dropping slowly. And not only that. A quick check also revealed that the rest of her stats were draining away as well. Her roguish Dexterity score of 52 was now sliding down past 13. Strength sliding to 8. Constitution was a mere 4 now. The HP drain left her at a scant 2%, and then each of her stats dwindled down to 3.

Proof this was just a game. Nothing bad should be able to happen to her here.

But as the creatures edged closer, panic filled every inch of CookieDeath, driving out rational thought.

They were seemingly curious, patient even, and didn’t pounce till the instant she ran screaming into the abyss.

CookieDeath tripped and fell down for what felt like a hundred years, then was back in the garden. She was shriveled and shaking. Her eyes darted around as if she were seeing everything for the first time. Saltmint Garden, multicolored flowers, raw potion ingredients, brambles, bushes, cedar trees...

Just as CookieDeath was sure she was back in Hearthworld, a voice got her attention.

“She had more HP than I thought,” a woman’s voice said. Glass clinked. “Catch!”

CookieDeath turned her withered head to see a vial of acid arcing toward her. The bottle shattered across her desiccated arms before she could reach for it.

The acid ate down into her skin, and her already flashing Health vial emptied out.

DrNurse sank to the ground in exhaustion. Her Magicka vial was at zero, and she had barely the energy to go through the rows of potions in her inventory for something to restore it.

Mulelephant dragged CookieDeath’s corpse to the edge of the cliff before returning to help DrNurse to her feet. The Alchemeister slung an arm around him, and they approached the edge.

Moonrise in Hearthworld was something to see as well. Stars rendered in soft burning colors against a deep celestial purple backdrop while the moon’s silver glow illuminated the rolling hills of the map below. Behind the pair of players, the bushes and trees of the garden grew back to their full lush and bloom. Around the edges of Saltmint, [Guardenians] respawned and began their familiar paths, waiting for players to fight.

Mulelephant and DrNurse both put a heel on CookieDeath’s corpse and gave the assassin a simultaneous, unceremonious shove off the cliff.

A golden glow surrounded Mulelephant, and the ascending level tone rang through the night.

[LEVEL UP!]

“I don’t think she’ll be back,” he said.

“No,” DrNurse agreed, “but others will come. And there are the mobs to think of. Will you protect me from them while I harvest? I don’t like fighting monsters.”

Candyland

By D.J. Bodden

Nibblet was breathing hard by the time he reached the lowest level of Candyland. The dungeon wasn’t very deep—only eight levels—and Nibblet had jumped into the secret well that went straight from level three to level five and landed in a pit of blue and white sprinkles, but even so, it was a long run from the entrance when one was only two feet tall.

Still, he ran. His trotters scraped and bounced on gumdrop pavers. He barreled past pools of lime, raspberry, and cherry soda, wove through the candy cane forest, and huffed and puffed his way past the fierce gummy bear guards who protected the sanctity of his lord and master’s chamber. His trotters sank into the jet-puffed marshmallow spread that covered the room like snow.

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!” Nibblet squealed.

There, on a magnificent throne made of shards of red, green, blue, and yellow sugar glass, sat Candyland’s dungeon keeper, the Frosted King.

“Nibblet?” he said, raising his venerable head. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Your Majesty! Please forgive my intrusion!”

The Frosted King waved an oven-mitted hand. “Don’t be silly, dear friend. We are glad to see you, and there is so little to do in Candyland these days, we do not fault you for coming down here for a gab.”

“A gab, Your Majesty?”

“A palaver. A yak. A tête-à-tête. You know, a chat?”

Nibblet felt so agitated he might snort. “I’m not here for a ‘chat,’ Your Majesty! It’s terrible! Candyland is under attack!”

The Frosted King’s crumbly waist crunched as he bent forward to take a closer look at Nibblet. “There are no more children in Hearthworld, Nibblet.”

“I know that, Your Majesty.”

“Not since the cataclysm.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Nibblet said, at the edge of his patience.

“What was it called?”

“The peegee-thirteen, Your Majesty. It made all the children go away, but it doubled the number of adventurers.”

“We remember it well, dear Nibblet. When we forget, the frost maidens remind us because of their back problems.”

There was a roar outside the chamber as the gummy bear guards engaged the encroaching humans.

“What is that noise?” the Frosted King asked.

“Please, Your Majesty!” Nibblet said, on the verge of tears. “Adventurers are here. Teenage adventurers. They haven’t come to have fun, or to enjoy the candy. They’re farming us.”

“That’s nonsense, Nibblet,” the Frosted King assured him. “Now, stand behind the throne, and watch me handle these ‘adventurers’ the Candyland way.”

Nibblet scurried behind the sugar glass throne just in time to watch the party of adventurers enter the room. [CokeAndBragger], a young human woman with two daggers and her face hidden in shadow by the hood of her cloak, swept the room with her eyes, her footsteps light. Behind her came a massive rog, [MeatMasheen]. Clad in black iron armor, his red eyes gleaming behind the visor of his helmet, he carried a short sword and a tower shield. [MaGiCshz], an elven wizard, was not far behind, with fair hair and clad in lavender robes with a high purple collar. She looked as if she found the whole dungeon to be amusing. [EMSdude], a dwarven healer, came in last, surly and leaning heavily on his crooked staff.

“Welcome, Adventurers!” the Frosted King boomed, standing up from his sugar glass throne. “You have braved the eight levels of Candyland. Now come closer, and let me share with you—”

The elven mage raised her palm, and lightning arced across the room, blasting the Frosted King’s head from his shoulders. It landed in the frosting by Nibblet, the frosted eyes and mouth so wide they were perfect Os, the king’s gingerbread flesh already a pale tan from the loss of his gooey center.

The little Piglet bit down on his lower lip to stop from screaming.

“What the fleap, Jeanice?” the rogue said.

The elf wizard giggled. “You said ‘fleap.’”

“It’s a no-swearing zone, you glitch.”

The rog warrior put his weapons back into his inventory. “We were supposed to fight him together.”

“He was gonna talk forever. I just wanted to skip the cutscene,” the elf said. “Besides, I didn’t get any loot or XP for it.”

“Really?” the dwarf said. “That’s lame.”

“No,” the rogue said. “What’s lame is I don’t even like candy. Let’s go back up to the surface, start a campfire so I can cook, and wait for the dungeon to respawn.”

“Again?” the elf said. “I just one-shotted the dungeon boss. Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Like where?” the rogue said. “The Cruel Citadel? Getting griefed and having to start a new character is the reason we had to come to this Roald Dahl rip-off of an amusement park. The XP is good, even if the loot sucks,” she said, raising her fist with three lollipops wedged between her fingers. “Get it? The loot sucks?”

“Whatever,” the dwarf said. “If you guys don’t take damage, I can’t heal you, and I don’t get XP.”

“Don’t say ‘guys,’” the wizard said. “This party’s half girls.”

“Young women,” the rogue corrected.

“Yeah, well, you’re the majority now, ’cause I’m out like a trout.” The cleric unfurled a scroll, which disappeared in a puff of smoke, and he stepped through a purple rift in the air.

He was gone.

“Come on, ladies,” the black-armored rog said. “Let’s go back to the entrance. I need to go AFK and take a fish.”

The elf girl snorted. “You mean, go potty?”

“Ugh!” the rog said, stomping out of the room.

The others followed him.

They left Nibblet all alone with the Frosted King’s body.

Before the peegee-thirteen swept across the lands of Hearthworld, Candyland was a happy place. Children under the age of ten, sometimes accompanied by their parents, could come to the candy dungeon and have a real adventure. Nibblet the talking Piglet had been there to guide them. They’d solve candy puzzles, eat candy that would never make them fat, and find clues about Candyland’s history on the inside of the wrappers. The more adventurous kids could throw gumdrops at marshmallow men, climb licorice ropes, fence the frost maidens with candy cane swords, and try to talk the gummy bear guards into giving them laughter-filled rides. The adventure always culminated in story time with the Frosted King, where they’d sit around the throne and be told stories that were filled with compassion, friendship, and the satisfaction of a job well done.

But that was in the past.

Peegee-thirteen had taken that all away.

But while the children were gone, the lights of the puff-lilies were dimmer, and the frost maidens’ clothing had shrunk overnight, some things had stayed the same.

The Frosted King would not respawn. In the event someone damaged or killed him, Nibblet was supposed to give the children a quest to gather the ingredients and bake the Frosted King anew as a lesson in empathy and the consequences of violent actions.

But there were no children, and the adventurers heading to the entrance seemed uninterested in compassion or stories. They just wanted to pick up XP and loot from Nibblet’s dead friends.

“My liege? Are you—” The frost maiden’s words were cut off by a gasp. Chocolotta, the youngest frost maiden, stepped into the room, covering her mouth with her chocolate brown hand. She had cacao nib freckles and black licorice hair. Vanilla extract tears traced down her cheeks and spattered on her ample bosom.

Nibblet stepped out from behind the throne.

“Nibblet! You’re alive!”

“I couldn’t stop them,” he said, feeling completely worthless. He held his front trotters behind his back.

Chocolotta wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her chest. “I’m so glad! I thought I was the only one left!”

“But... the king...”

The youngest frost maiden sniffed and shook her head, setting him down. “That’s not important, now. I’m sure you did your best.”

Nibblet hung his head. His best wasn’t much; he was only a little talking Piglet.

“What do we do?” she said.

Nibblet looked up. “You’re asking me?” he said in surprise.

“Well, of course!” she said, as if he’d asked a silly question. “Frostie always said you were the most important person in Candyland.”

Nibblet couldn’t believe it. “But, I’m just a little talking Piglet.”

Chocolotta crossed her arms. “That’s not true. You know all of Frostie’s stories. You guided the children through the dungeon. You made sure they had fun and that they didn’t get hurt or scared. I even remember you scolding an adult once.”

“He called his daughter stupid. It was wrong.”

“Yes, it was,” Chocolotta said. “And you weren’t afraid to say so. Frostie used to say you were Candyland’s voice, and its heart, too. He relied on you, and I do as well.”

Nibblet took that in. It was true that the Frosted King had always taken the time to listen to him, even to the point of changing Candyland’s layout when Nibblet suggested it. He’d allowed Nibblet to move the dungeon’s residents around if a child was afraid of the butterscotties or the red vine rattlers. Nibblet hadn’t thought much of it, because he was just following the king’s order to keep the children happy and safe.

“So what do we do?” Chocolotta asked.

Nibblet tapped his trotters together. “The adventurers are going to come back in less than two hours, when everybody respawns. We won’t have time to warn the others. They’ll get killed before they can defend themselves.”

“We could hide,” Chocolotta said. “That’s how I survived the attack. They’ll get tired eventually.”

“That might be true,” Nibblet agreed. “But maybe more adventurers will come. This wasn’t just about us. I heard them talking about problems with another dungeon, and something about getting ‘griefed,’ whatever that means.” He looked up into Chocolotta’s 100% cacao eyes and said, “We’re going to have to defeat them ourselves.”

“But they have weapons, and spells!” Chocolotta exclaimed.

“We’ll make our own,” Nibblet said, feeling increasingly sure this was the right choice.

“You don’t even have opposable thumbs!”

“That’s true,” Nibblet said in a small voice. “I am, after all, only a little talking Piglet. But with you helping me, we’ll find a way.”

A grimoire appeared before Nibblet’s eyes and opened to a page near the end.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Everybody Needs a Hand to Hold

Let’s face it, dolphins are probably the smartest creatures on the planet. Why aren’t they ruling the world? Because they’re busy fleaping, eating fish, and living their best lives! Oh, and opposable thumbs.

Objective: Find a way to grab hold of your destiny. Literally grab hold.

Reward: Become the new Dungeon Lord of Candyland, command and deploy Keep mobs, create and alter the layout of the Keep, gain access to the Dungeon Lord’s Blessings, and 50,000 Experience.

Failure: Leave the throne room and allow this opportunity to slip through your trotters.

Penalty: No respawn.

Restrictions: None.

Accept quest? Yes/No

╠═╦╬╧╪

He accepted the quest and placed a trotter on Chocolotta’s arm and gave her an encouraging smile.

She smiled back.

“Now, help me get the oven mitts off the king,” he said, waving his other trotter at the body.

Chocolotta frowned. “Isn’t that kinda gross?”

Nibblet shook his head. “The Frosted King is more than gingerbread, icing, and gumdrops, Chocolotta. He’s the spirit of goodness in each one of us, and I don’t think he’d mind if we borrowed them.”

“If you say so,” she said, and she knelt by the body, careful not to touch the pool of raspberry filling. “It’s hard to get off,” she said, tugging at a mitt.

“Try with both hands,” Nibblet said.

She leaned forward and tried pulling from a couple different positions, and suddenly, it popped off. Chocolotta handed it to him. “Here. I’ll get the other one.”

“Thanks,” Nibblet said, brushing a little stray frosting from the mitt’s red exterior before shoving his right foreleg into it.

He looked up in time to see Chocolotta fall back into the marshmallow spread. A little gob of the stuff had somehow landed on her nose, but she had the second mitt in her hands. “Are you okay?”

“It’s fine,” she said, sounding annoyed. “It’s been this way since the peegee-thirteen. I have a permanent debuff that makes me clumsy when performing routine tasks.”

“What’s it called?” Nibblet asked.

“Fan service.”

“Huh,” Nibblet said. “Are you going to be able to fight?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, smiling and wiping herself off. “It actually gives me a bonus to Strength and Dexterity when enemies are around, although it reduces the durability of clothing and armor. Go figure.”

She tossed him the second oven mitt.

Nibblet caught it in his arms and shoved his left foreleg into it. As soon as he did, the oven mitts magically resized to fit him, and he opened and closed his hands—including opposable thumbs!

“How does that work?” Chocolotta asked.

“Fireproof Gloves of Grasping,” he said, feeling a bit better already. “Allows anyone who wears them to hold hot objects, even me!”

“I guess you don’t need thumbs to rule a dungeon,” she said, looking down at the Frosted King’s body.

“What do you mean?” Nibblet asked. He looked down at his headless ruler, the body lying in a mound of marshmallow spread, and saw that the king hadn’t had thumbs, either. In fact, without his oven mitts or his throne, he looked a lot like a giant gingerbread man. Nibblet shook his head. Some things were just too mysterious for a little talking piglet to fathom.

“Can you help me up into the throne?” he asked. “I’m too short to make it by myself.”

“Sure,” Chocolotta said.

They walked over to the sugar glass throne together, and she put her soft, warm hands under his armpits to lift him into the seat.

[Congratulations! You have ascended to Dungeon Lord of Candyland!

All hail the new Dungeon Lord!

From the Dungeon Lord’s Throne, you may command and deploy Keep mobs, create and alter the Keep’s layout, purchase resources or upgrades for the Keep, and access the Dungeon Lord’s Blessings.]

At the same time as the Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire appeared before him, with ribbons marking the sections for Floor Design, Troop Management, Blessings, and Boons, Nibblet received the 50,000 Experience for completing the Everybody Needs a Hand to Hold quest, and the most beautiful, tingliest, awesome golden light filled him from curly tail to moist snout.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

[You have reached Level 8! You may now choose to Evolve into a Pig, Porc, or Swine!

Warning: Piglet Evolution is irrevocable. Once a Primary Evolutionary Path has been selected, a Piglet cannot change to another Path.

Select Level 8 Pig, Level 8 Porc, or Level 8 Swine.]

Nibblet looked at the Evolution tree, his little eyes filled with wonder. He’d never leveled up before, let alone gained eight levels all at once, so he’d never put thought into who he would be when he grew up.

Chocolotta looked at him with concern. “Is something wrong?”

“I just gained eight levels. I can Evolve, now.”

“Really?” she said, surprised. “That’s a lot of growth all at once. Are you sure you don’t want to take this more slowly?”

Nibblet chewed his lower lip. It’s true he would have liked more time, but with the adventurers waiting outside to raid them in less than two hours, it felt right to skip over some of the more time-consuming steps of his growth. “I wish we had time for that, Chocolotta, but our minions and the Frosted King are counting on us to protect them. We might still die, but if I Evolve now, at least I’ll stay at level eight until they get tired of fighting or we chase them off.”

“Our minions?” Chocolotta asked, cocking her head.

Nibblet blushed. “Just for a little bit, until the Frosted King is baked together again.”

Chocolotta nodded slowly, but it seemed like there was something she wasn’t saying.

Nibblet focused on what he needed to accomplish. There were three Evolutionary Paths available to him, and he was immediately drawn to become a Pig. After all, turning into Pigs was what Piglets were supposed to do. Constitution was the primary attribute recommended, and as a level 8 Dungeon Lord, he could already jump to becoming Some Pig, charming his enemies and inspiring his friends. At level 12, he would learn the secret languages of beasts, able to speak to and direct the actions of groups of barnyard animals. At level 16, he would become a Prize Pig, and his size and charisma would boost the reputation of the entire dungeon as well as make him immune to normal weapons. Finally, as a Sheep Dipper or a Spider King, he would be able to summon Celestial Rams or Barn Spiders to defend Candyland, and even send them out to visit nearby towns during special events called “herding competitions” and “county fairs.”

Before the peegee-thirteen, it would have been an obvious choice, and he imagined happy children coming to visit a dungeon full of fantastic beasts, once they knew where to find them.

But those days were past. He looked at the Porc Evolutionary Path, but the names confused him. They seemed to be an elemental specialization, and relied heavily on Intelligence.

Carolina was focused on fire and acid magic, while Kansas City seemed to be more about crowd control, with molasses-based spells to slow adventurers, and pain spells that used peppers as reagents. It also came with a variety of side spells to augment and customize the main effects. Memphis dealt with dehydration spells and buffs that could be applied to large numbers of minions, while Texas would soften up tough opponents while swarms of minions ripped their flesh right off the bone.

The Porc Path made him a little uncomfortable, and yet hungry at the same time.

Finally, there was the Swine path, and Nibblet knew it was the antithesis of everything he and the Frosted King had wanted Candyland to be.

A Swine’s main attribute was Strength, and he used debilitating curses and taunts to drive enemies into ambushes and traps. At level 12, he would become a Wallower, able to roll himself in various disgusting substances to create an armored shell. At level 18, he could summon several rabid pigs, and he’d have the ability to paralyze enemies, then consume them and draw power from their screams. At level 26, his group of pigs would grow to become thirty to fifty Feral Hogs, and he would be able to attack other dungeons and towns as long as he led them. Finally, at level 36, he had the choice between militarizing his porcine force as a Major Boar—using advanced tactics and siege powers to destroy the enemy—and driving the brothers of the Pi Iota Gamma fraternity into a wild frenzy and sending them tearing into enemy lines.

“It’s okay, Nibblet,” Chocolotta said. “Whatever you choose, I’ll be here by your side. I know you’ll do your best.”

Nibblet nodded. He felt thankful to have such a loyal friend with him in such a crucial moment of his life.

The time for laughter and fun was over. He would have liked to have reached this level with the Frosted King on the throne, and with Candyland safe from adventurers, but that wasn’t how things had turned out. Because of that, he was forced to make a different choice.

He split eight levels of attribute points between Strength and Constitution and then, with a heavy heart, chose to become a Swine.

Magical currents lifted him into the air, and at first Nibblet was enraptured by the swirl of colorful lights.

Then he squealed in pain as his lower vertebrae cracked, rotating to bring his hips into alignment. His chest swelled, and his fuzzy pink tummy hardened into a tight six-pack. His forelegs lengthened like a primate’s, shoulders sliding back to align with his collarbone, and his trotters split and split again inside the gloves, giving him two long fingers and two opposable thumbs on each hand. His calves, thighs, biceps, triceps, and neck all doubled in size. A pair of board shorts materialized low on his hips, and a pair of designer sunglasses coalesced out of the coolness of the air and came to rest on his snout.

“Hey, babe,” Nibblet said, dropping back into the throne.

Chocolotta swallowed and fanned her face. “Did it just get hot in here?”

“It’s cool,” Nibblet said with a wink. All of Candyland’s mobs were in cooldown after the adventurers’ attack, so he brought up the Floor Design section of the grimoire and got to work.

He’d seen the Frosted King alter the dungeon’s floorplan before. His ruler had even allowed the small talking Piglet to sit in his lap while he did it, making recommendations to improve the safety and enjoyability of Candyland. All in all, the first floor allowed for 100 design points worth of rooms, furnishings, and ornamentations, and the Frosted King had used all of them.

Nibblet had felt, at the time, like making the changes himself would forever be beyond him, but he wasn’t a small talking Piglet anymore. He was a Swine, and he felt stronger and more confident than he ever had in his life.

The first thing he did was clear out all the junk. All the whipped cream, marzipan, chocolate sprinkles, and chopped nuts got tossed out. Same for the candy cane wind chimes, the spinning spiral lollipops, and the white chocolate garden gnomes. He stripped the dungeon down to bare floors. That gave him back 60 design points.

“What are you doing?” Chocolotta asked, her hands clasped behind her.

The Frosted King’s throne was more than big enough for both of them. He scooted over and patted the seat next to him, and she hopped up beside him.

“Our first problem is their numbers. We need to find a way to separate the adventurers.”

“How do we do that?” she asked, her shoulder pressed against his.

“We have a couple things working for us. For one, they’re teenagers, so they’re inherently selfish,” he said with a wave of sudden insight. Perhaps his evolution had changed him in ways more than just physical. But there wasn’t time to dwell on that—not with deadly raiders poised to strike in just a matter of hours. “We could probably just nail a clock to a wall and they’d stare at it for hours until they got hungry.”

“A clock?”

“They love the tick tock,” Nibblet said. “For two, they’re each a different kind of adventurer. The rog is strong, the human is nimble, and the elf is smart. That also means the rog is clumsy, the human is weak, and the elf is a bit of both.”

“So if we set up obstacles on multiple paths that play to their individual strengths, and dangle the appropriate bait at the end of it, they’ll choose to split up.”

Nibblet flashed her a grin. “I knew you weren’t just a pretty face.”

Chocolotta’s cheeks flushed.

With a thought and a few flicks of his wrist, Nibblet made the required modifications. He left the first and second rooms alone, but he placed a small side room midway between them, branching off from the connecting hallway. It was only two feet wide and four feet deep, but that was more than enough for what he intended. He sealed the room with the most complicated magic puzzle door he had access to. It cost him a full 10 design points.

The third room contained the stairway to the second level, as well as the floor overseer’s throne. Nibblet couldn’t afford to trap it well enough to interest a rogue, but levers, trip wires, and trap plates were cheap. He shoved the throne into a corner, and he placed a lever by the stairs in plain view of the doorway across the room. Then, he placed two dozen trap plates around the room, then linked them together at random, tying trip wires to the trigger rings. He scattered a few magical runes across the room for good measure, to discourage the thief from attempting to disarm them. Finally, just in case the thief didn’t take the hint, he painted the lever with glowing orange “tutorial” paint—whatever that meant.

Another twelve points gone.

“I see what you did there,” Chocolotta said.

“Oh?” Nibblet asked.

“It’s not going to work if the tank just charges through.”

“We’d better give him a better option, then,” Nibblet said.

He used most of his remaining points to create a fourth room catty-corner to the third, and moved all the floor’s soda pools to the back half of it, making sure they were at least six feet deep. He built a small island at the back of the room, then chose the cheapest shrine on the list and placed it near the back wall. Nibblet scrolled to the decorative armaments section and selected the flimsiest, flashiest, gold-painted tinfoil sword, adding it to the shrine as if it were a piece of legendary loot. Finally, he laid down a flimsy wooden plank between the island and the shore.

“Fancy,” Chocolotta said. “What’s stopping the rogue from just jumping over the moat and snatching the sword?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Nibblet said. He tabbed over to the greenery section and filled the empty half of the room with holly bushes with razor-sharp leaves.

“Ouch,” she said, and Nibblet grinned.

He used the last of the design points to coat the rooms with a thin layer of whipped cream. The coverage wasn’t as good or layered as the Frosted King’s original layout, but Nibblet hoped it would be effective.

He closed the grimoire, and it disappeared.

“All done?” Chocolotta asked.

“As ‘done’ as it’s going to be, at least with the Floor Design,” Nibblet answered. “We’re heading to the armory, next.”

“Candyland doesn’t have an armory, Nibblet.”

“It’s not called an armory,” Nibblet said, “but we should be able to find some weapons there all the same.”

He slid out of the throne. Since his Evolution put his snout at the level of Chocolotta’s navel instead of just above her knee, he offered her his hand, and she took it.

***

Nibblet approached the great bronze doors and pressed his right oven mitt against the seal. Recognizing their Dungeon Lord, the doors swung open.

“I’ve never been in here,” Chocolotta said, looking around the workshop.

It had taken them ten minutes to make their way up to the fifth floor, where the candy workshop was, which left them just over an hour and a half to prepare for the next raid.

The workshop had always been one of Nibblet’s favorite rooms, but whereas before he saw it with a sort of love-filled awe in the presence of the Frosted King, now he saw the tools to enforce his will on the adventurers. Cauldrons of molten chocolate stood ready to be poured; a candy cane production line waited to be activated. There were amphoras filled with different candy layers for making jawbreakers, molds for shaping and cooling sugar glass, and a variety of burners, steamers, blast chillers, sanders, power hammers, rotary saws, and drills—powered by steam from deep below the dungeon, of course—to shape the most marvelous confections for happy children from all over Hearthworld.

“You’re a fencer, right?” Nibblet asked.

“Just with candy canes,” Chocolotta said with a half grin. “I don’t think those would do us much good against an armored adventurer.”

“Only one of them was wearing armor, and I have a plan for him, too,” Nibblet said, patting her hip. “What’s your favorite kind of candy cane?”

“You want me to fight magic and steel with sugar?”

“Trust me,” Nibblet said.

Chocolotta looked him in the eyes and considered it, which Nibblet thought was fair. He was, after all, asking her to risk her skin and any levels she’d gained on his say-so. She pursed her lips and said, “Cinnamon, with black stripes.”

“Clockwise or counterclockwise?” Nibblet asked with a grin.

“Counter!” she said with a giggle. “A fencer isn’t a fencer without a good riposte.”

Nibblet nodded and walked over to the candy cane control panel. He selected the extra-fiery cinnamon, added the black stripes to it, and rotated a dial to set them to counterclockwise. He punched up three canes in the queue, then hit the “start” button.

Gears clanked into motion, steam hissed, and pipes popped. Chocolotta’s mouth dropped open in wonder as various lights and pistons lit up or started moving, and it plucked a chord in Nibblet’s broad chest.

But he had work to do. While the candy cane assembly line warmed up, he grabbed a sugar glass mold, the kind he’d used in the past to make replacement crystals for the Frosted King’s throne, and he set it under one of the smelting cauldrons. “Can you help me with this?”

“Of course,” Chocolotta said, dragging her eyes away from the assembly line.

Nibblet grabbed a sixty-pound bag from a pallet and tossed it onto his shoulder as if it were a beach towel. It was good to be a Swine. “Can you get the smelting furnace going? It’s that lever over there.”

“Okay!” she said, smiling brightly.

Nibblet chuckled and climbed the ladder to the smelting cauldron. He ripped the top off the bag and poured it into the cauldron.

“What is that?” Chocolotta asked.

“Sugar sand.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope,” Nibblet said. “We used to make sugar glass with regular sugar, but it didn’t last very long. This is more durable, though it’s still too brittle to fight with.”

“What are you going to use it for, then?” she asked.

“You’ll see,” Nibblet answered, lowering his snout to look at her over his designer sunglasses.

Chocolotta blushed again, and Nibblet found he liked that a lot. Leveling up, being a Swine, and even being his own Dungeon Lord was growing on him.

Heat was already starting to build up under the cauldrons. Nibblet climbed down and made sure the mold was centered on the pour zone.

“Am I doing the pouring?”

“If you feel comfortable with that.”

“Are you kidding? I love fire. I’d fight you for it if you said no,” she said, giving him a wink.

Nibblet watched her walk over to the cord suspended from the smelting cauldron. He waited until he could see the glow of molten sugar sand on the ceiling vents, then he said, “Go ahead.”

Bright white molten sand splashed down into the mold from the crescent of the crucible above. It was like the frost maiden was pouring starlight from the moon. As it approached the fill line, Nibblet lifted his hand to get Chocolotta’s attention, then said, “Stop!” and she release the pour without spilling a drop. Without waiting for anything to cool, Nibblet grabbed the mold’s clay top and pressed it down on the liquid sugar sand, squeezing the excess out through the runnels.

“Isn’t that hot?” Chocolotta asked.

“Magic gloves,” Nibblet said, although they didn’t protect his body. He felt overheated, and thought about how nice a good wallow would feel. Nibblet paused and frowned. He’d never wallowed in his life. Was this part of his Evolution from being a Piglet to being a Swine?

“Are you okay, Nibblet?”

He grunted. “I’m fine. My body’s just going through some changes.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Chocolotta said, looking him over, and Nibblet laughed.

The conveyor on the candy cane factory started up, and Nibblet heard and felt three loud stamps. Three perfectly formed red-and-black candy canes with three-foot-long poles slid out of the machine and came to a stop near the end of the line.

“Those are perfect!” Chocolotta said.

“For candy canes,” Nibblet said. “Let’s see if we can improve on the design.”

Chocolotta tilted her head, but he resisted the urge to ruin the surprise.

Aside from being the dungeon greeter and the Frosted King’s pet Piglet, Nibblet had won Candyland’s candy carving contest three years in a row. He just needed to wait for the sugar glass to cool past the strain point.

Fortunately, the strain point for sugar glass was much higher than regular glass, or he might still have been waiting when the adventurers stormed the dungeon. As it was, he picked the hot mold up with his gloved hands, walked it over to a quenching barrel, and plunged it into the water. Steam flashed up from the room temperature water. He withdrew the mold and brought it over to the table. He removed the top, and used a soft tap with a mallet to pop the two pieces of the mold apart.

“Those are beautiful,” Chocolotta said, leaning over his shoulder and rubbing the back of his neck. It made his tail twist into a tighter spiral.

Nibblet cleared his throat. “Sugar glass knives have always been my favorite, but they chip easily, so they’re not ideal as weapons.” He lifted the two blades from the mold.

“The suspense is killing me,” she said. “What does this have to do with the candy canes, or killing adventurers? Because after all this work, I’m in the mood for a proper bloodbath.”

“Anticipation’s half the fun,” he told her with a confident smile, and she smiled back.

“I’ve heard that, too.”

He brought the twin blades over to the steam powered tools and used a drill to put two holes into each tang. He grabbed a dowel, cut a three-inch piece off it, and used the rotating saw to cut it in half. Then, he used a pencil to mark where the holes in the tang were on the dowel halves, drilled the holes, and fastened the handles to the tangs using a pair of barrel nuts for each knife. Finally, he sanded the handles into a proper grip and scored them.

“Where’d you learn to do all this?” Chocolotta asked.

“I had a lot of time on my trotters since the peegee-thirteen. I used to sit on that stool and watch the Frosted King work,” he said, waving the right knife at a little red stool.

Chocolotta looked at the child-sized stool, and her face looked a bit sad. Come to think of it, it probably had been sad, Nibblet thought. But he’d been happy watching, even if he didn’t think he could say the same after evolving.

He tucked the sugar glass knives into his belt.

“My turn?” Chocolotta asked.

“Your turn,” Nibblet said with a nod.

He walked over to the candy canes and picked the first one up before bringing it back to the tools. He used the saw to chop off most of the crook, leaving only a slight curve at the end for the handle. Then he mounted the shortened cane on a rotating lathe and used a chisel to thin the front thirty-two inches of the cane into a slightly less than one-inch-wide rod. He unscrewed it, broke off the cap, and used one of the glass knives to whittle a flat, pointed blade.

Chocolotta looked like she was going to ask something, but she didn’t.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said with a frown.

“The blade’s too fragile to stab someone with. It would never get through leather armor, and it would only be good for one or two stabs into bare skin.”

“I know that. But it’s like the sugar sand. If you just wanted candy canes, you would just generate them from the throne room instead of taking all this time to craft them.”

Nibblet nodded. “Even steel will shatter if it’s just cast into shape. It’s the layering that makes it strong.”

“The jawbreaker jars.”

Nibblet looked at her in surprise. Chocolotta was bubbly, and pretty, but she was also observant and clever. “I didn’t spend much time with them before I... changed. Are your sisters as smart as you are?”

Chocolotta blushed. “Mary has a terrible temper, and Sue... I wouldn’t call her lazy, but she’s a bit of a slob.”

“So, you’re perfect?”

“I’m told I snore,” she said apologetically.

Nibblet oinked. “I hope to hear that someday.”

Chocolotta gave him a sharp look. It wasn’t hostile, just appraising.

He turned his attention back to the candy cane, whittling away a pistol grip with fast, smooth strokes. He flipped the candy rapier over, pinching it near the base of the blade, and said, “See how the grip feels.”

Chocolotta slid forward, her motion far more fluid than it had been before, and for a split second Nibblet wondered if he hadn’t poked a tigress, thinking she was a cat.

“Gently,” he said as she closed her hand on the grip.

“It’s perfect,” she said softly.

“I’m glad,” Nibblet said, deciding the best thing to do when you had a tigress by the tail was hang on.

He took the candy rapier over to the jawbreaker amphoras and started with the most flexible of the coatings. A springy interior would make it less likely the blade would break. The material quick dried in a layer so fine it was barely noticeable, and he plunged it into the amphora again. “Can you take over?” he asked.

“Sure. What am I doing?”

“Six plunges per amphora, including the guard,” Nibblet said. “Make sure it dries first before putting it back in.”

“I can do that.”

Nibblet handed her the candy blade. With two layers of the flexible material, it was already far less likely to break. Besides, they’d already established Chocolotta was competent, and probably more dexterous than he was since she favored light blades.

With Chocolotta continuing the process of laminating her blade, Nibblet retrieved the second candy cane and sawed off the hook entirely. He placed the pole on the lathe and thinned it into something he was comfortable gripping. He took the shaft over to the amphoras and started dipping it the same way Chocolotta was doing with the rapier. “How are we doing on time?” he asked.

“We have twenty minutes,” she answered, dipping the rapier in the second to last mixture.

It was barely enough time. Nibblet would only be able to do half the number of plunges she had.

As he worked, Nibblet thought of his past life, of learning at the side of the Frosted King, and of their shared dream of what Candyland could be. He was nervous he’d somehow lost that, but it was those doubts, and the outrage he felt at the adventurers’ pillaging, that made him hopeful that although he was a Swine, there was still just a little talking Piglet inside.

He was on his twenty-fifth layer when Chocolotta pulled the rapier from the last amphora. “Done!”

“Great. Switch with me.”

“Same number of layers?” she asked.

“Make it three each. We’re running out of time.”

They traded weapons, and Nibblet opened a hatch in the blast forge as he passed. He shoved one of the iron pokers in, then moved over to the sanders. He used the high-grit belt to set the bevel of the blade, then finer and finer belts to sharpen the hardest, outer layer to a razor-sharp edge.

“Done again!” Chocolotta said cheerfully. She seemed to enjoy the work. He made a note to give her free access once the adventurers were disposed of.

“Come on over,” he said, pulling a drawer open and retrieving some steel wire.

“Is that for a better grip?”

“No, it’s for balance.” While the rapier was well made and sharpened, the balance was still about an inch in front of the guard, making it hard to maneuver the tip. Nibblet wrapped several loops of steel wire around the handle, tight enough to bite into the candy. It made the blade heavier overall, but as he overshot and then trimmed the cable back to the perfect counterweight, the blade went from a pretty, sharp stick to an extension of his arm. He handed it to Chocolotta.

Her eyes widened. “Nibblet...”

“You like it?”

“It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever given to me.” She bent over and kissed him on the snout.

Nibblet grinned.

“Are you fighting with a quarterstaff?”

“I was thinking of using a maul, or a really big scepter. I’ve got a lot more muscle since I leveled up, and I want to put that to use. Can you hold the shaft?”

Chocolotta raised a perfectly groomed dark chocolate eyebrow.

“Wow,” Nibblet said.

“Yeah,” she said, smirking. “But I’d be glad to.”

Nibblet blinked, and Chocolotta stared back, giving him nothing. “Right. Well, as you can see from the amphoras, jawbreakers were something of a hobby for his former majesty.” He walked over to a cabinet that sat closer to the door and opened it. “He was always trying to see if he could make the perfect one.”

Reaching up to the third shelf, Nibblet pulled out a jawbreaker the size and weight of a bowling ball. He walked back over to Chocolotta and clamped it in a vice.

“We’re only going to get one shot at this,” he said. “I’m going to melt a hole into the jawbreaker, and then we need to stick the shaft in.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that much responsibility,” Chocolotta said. “How about I hold it, and you put it in.”

“Okay, that’s probably smarter,” Nibblet admitted. “Ready?”

“If you don’t hurry up, I’m going to take care of it myself.”

There was enough tension in the air you could cut it with a sugar glass knife.

Nibblet pulled the poker from the blast furnace and used the red-hot tip to melt a hole to the center of the jawbreaker. He pulled it out and tossed it into a quenching barrel, then he and Chocolotta slid the handle into just the right place without taking it too far.

“Thank you for your help,” he told Chocolotta. “I never could have done all this without you. I’m lucky you were here.”

“You’re very welcome, Nibblet,” she answered. “I’m glad I could help. You’re the nicest Swine I know.”

***

MaGiCshz wasn’t actually a teenage girl. He was a forty-year-old male accountant in the real world. He was a team player, diligent to a fault, and sometimes missed gaming sessions because he was working weekends. He also limited his play to spend more time with his wife and daughter. In Hearthworld, though, like in most of the VRMMORPGs he’d tried, he role-played a magic-using, young, lackadaisical elf girl who never crunched the numbers, and that was what allowed him to be the man he needed to be every other minute of the week.

“I’m bored already,” she said as the team approached the candy-themed dungeon.

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” MeatMasheen said, his black iron helmet grinding against his breastplate as he turned his head.

MaGiCshz stuck her tongue out at him.

“I’ve got to go work on my homework after this run,” CokeAndBragger said, drawing her daggers. “Can we just speed through this?”

“Whatever,” the elf girl said, touching the shaved side of her pixie cut. “I could probably clear it on my own.”

“But you’re not going to, because we’re a team, right?” the rog warrior said.

MaGiCshz batted her eyes at him but didn’t answer.

The tank made a show of sighing and equipped his short sword and tower shield. The elf girl wasn’t fooled, though. MeatMasheen liked playing hero for the ditzy girl, especially if she got herself into trouble.

They walked through the rainbow-colored archway that led into Candyland.

“Anybody see that pig that was here the first time?” CokeAndBragger asked. “The one that ran off.”

“Nope,” the rog said. “Don’t remember killing it either, unless Shizz turned it into bacon with one of her spells.”

“I don’t remember a pig,” MaGiCshz lied. She was very detail oriented, and some things you couldn’t just turn off. “You think it’s some kind of Easter egg or something? Catch the pig, get the secret loot?”

“That’d be cool,” the rogue said. “The loot kinda sucked on the first run.”

MeatMasheen had stopped up ahead.

“What’s wrong?” the elf girl said, walking up to wrap an arm around his bicep. CokeAndBragger made a rude motion with her mouth and the pommel of her right dagger, but MaGiCshz just smirked back.

“The dungeon’s changed. It’s the same layout, but the scenery’s... crappier.”

“You think it’s something like what happened at the Cruel Citadel?” the rogue asked.

“I doubt it,” MeatMasheen said. “Frontflip put out a bug notice about the CC and the Vault of the Radiant Shield. If there was something wrong with Candyland, they’d have said.”

“Maybe we’re the first to find out,” the rogue said. CokeAndBragger was often suspicious of small details. She reminded the elf girl of an auditor, but MaGiCshz didn’t want to think about that. This was her time to play.

“Stay behind me,” MeatMasheen said, his voice so deep it vibrated through his armor.

MaGiCshz looked at CokeAndBragger and pretended to swoon.

They moved through the first room carefully, but there was nothing amiss. The decorations were crappier, like someone had downgraded the number of rendered objects to keep their frame rate up, but the same fluffy marshmallow creatures as the first run spawned and tried to hug them. MaGiCshz tried a couple different spells, just to keep things interesting. She burned one with a fan of flames, then crushed another by folding the floor shut under it, like a book. She used a combination of fire and water magic on the third, melting it into whipped topping in a blast of steam, but it just stood there smiling at her while she slagged it.

The XP was good, though, and soon they’d be able to go to a proper dungeon with a little more flair.

“Let’s go to the next room,” MeatMasheen said.

“Sure,” the elf girl answered, keeping her eyes open for anything fun, even if it was CokeAndBragger’s mystery pig.

About halfway down the hallway leading to the second room, they ran across a door.

“What is it?” the rog warrior asked.

“Treasure vault,” the human rogue said authoritatively.

“Magical treasure vault,” the elf wizard said. “Look at the runes around the door frame!”

“Can you get it open?” the warrior asked the rogue.

MaGiCshz cleared her throat and wiggled her fingers in front of her face. “It’s magic. I call dibs.”

The rogue looked at the warrior and shrugged. “Yeah, I can’t do anything with this. There are no hinges on this side, and there’s no keyhole. Can you break it down?”

“I can try,” the warrior said, to MaGiCshz’s annoyance.

“Fleap you guys,” she said, and both the rog and human grinned at her. “Oh, I get it. Let’s troll the wizard. Why don’t you two get out of here while I get this open?”

“You sure you don’t want us to stay with you?” MeatMasheen asked.

The elf girl waved him off. “It’s a puzzle door. It’s going to take me a little time.”

“Okay,” the rog said.

He and CokeAndBragger took off, leaving MaGiCshz alone with the door.

It didn’t seem overly complicated. There was a ball of orichalcum sitting in a track, as well as a few gates and sliding sections she’d have to manipulate using telekinesis to get the ball through. Once the ball reached the end of the maze, the door should open.

MaGiCshz got to work.

***

MeatMasheen wasn’t a teenager either. He was a twelve-year-old boy. When he was ten, his father started spending more time at home and his family had to move to a different neighborhood. His mom got a job, which she said was a great thing, even though she would have liked to spend more time with “her little man,” and MeatMasheen switched to a public school because his mom didn’t want him riding a school bus all the way across town.

He was teased mercilessly for the first few weeks, but he’d always been an optimist, so he smiled, and he ignored what he could. The other kids started to come around.

But one kid, a fifth grader who was eleven because he’d had to repeat third grade, decided to escalate the teasing to violence.

“Here we go,” he said, stepping into the second room.

“I’ve got your back,” CokeAndBragger said.

MeatMasheen liked Hearthworld. He couldn’t afford a paid membership, but he was glad to put in the work to level up and find gear on his own. In Hearthworld, he could be big, and while the snow hares in the second room tried to bite and kick him, they couldn’t do any damage through his shield and heavy armor. Here, he had friends, like CokeAndBragger, MaGiCshz, and EMSdude, even though the elf girl was a little weird, sometimes, and the dwarven healer didn’t join them half the time.

Clank! He blocked the last snow hare’s kicks while the rogue hit it from the side with a combo of dagger strikes. “Nice one, Coke!” MeatMasheen said.

She gave him a thumbs-up, and the simple exchange was everything he appreciated about the virtual world.

With the snow hares taken care of, the rog warrior led the way toward the last room—except it wasn’t the last. “There’s a new room,” he said.

“The way to the second level is this way,” CokeAndBragger said.

“What if there’s loot in the new room?”

The human rogue took a look inside the new room and shook her head. “I can’t make it through those holly bushes. You’d be fine, but I’d get all scratched up.”

MeatMasheen’s shoulders slumped.

“I’m sorry, Meat. I really need to do my homework, and the stuff on this level is probably junk.”

“You’re right. I just think I see a shrine back there, but I can come back afterward.”

“Thanks,” CokeAndBragger said, punching him in the pauldron.

The rog warrior followed her into the room the first boss would spawn in, and almost ran into her when she stopped after taking two steps into the room.

“Fleaping bell,” CokeAndBragger swore.

“What is it?” the rog warrior asked.

“There are more traps in this room than I’ve ever seen. There are runes on them and everything. I don’t even think I can disarm them.”

“There’s a lever near the stairs,” MeatMasheen said, although he couldn’t see any traps. “Maybe that turns them off?”

“I bet you’re right,” CokeAndBragger said with a big smile. “It’s going to take me a minute to get there. You want to go back and check out that shrine?”

“Yes! You’ll be okay?” the warrior asked.

The female thief shooed him away. “I need to focus, and you wouldn’t be able to help me until I turn off the traps, anyway.”

“I’ll be back soon!” MeatMasheen said enthusiastically.

“Sure, sure,” the rogue said, sheathing her daggers.

He was glad she was having fun.

MeatMasheen turned back and went into the mysterious new room. The front half of it was full of holly bushes, but that didn’t bother him much, and he could see a golden glow on the far wall. He put his short sword and shield away so they wouldn’t snag, then pushed his way into the prickly bushes, his armor and heavy weight allowing him to push through like they were made of felt. It was a little claustrophobic, and the scratch of leaves on metal a little loud, but he soon made it to the other side and stood on the edge of the soda moat.

The shrine wasn’t much to look at—mostly twigs and bird feathers rather than a proper reliquary—but the sword resting on it looked awesome. It didn’t look that sharp, but it was covered in gold, and if MeatMasheen knew anything about games, it was that gold items were always super-elite loot. Coke and MaGiC are going to kick themselves for not coming with me, he thought. There was the slight problem of the moat—with all his armor, MeatMasheen would sink like an iron ingot. He put one foot on the flimsy plank bridging the gap.

It seemed solid.

Holding his arms out, he slowly stepped across, almost falling in a couple times, and he thought he heard rustling from the holly bushes. But after a minute of careful balancing, he reached the other side.

The shrine was just as crappy as he’d imagined. He took hold of the sword, but it was disappointingly light, like it was made of plastic, and bits of the gold paint had chipped off. CokeAndBragger had been right. Level-one stuff was always junk.

He turned around and saw a pig in sunglasses and board shorts withdrawing the plank bridge from the other side.

“Hey!” he yelled.

The pig set the plank against the wall. “What?”

“What are you doing? I need that to get across!”

“That’s the idea, nimrod,” the pig said. He picked up a massive mace with a round candied head and a red-and-black shaft. “You stay here while I go take care of your friends.”

“No!” MeatMasheen shouted, but it was too late. He’d let his friends down. The pig pushed his way back into the holly bushes.

***

MaGiCshz was almost done with the magical lock. She’d had to restart twice, because if the orichalcum ball touched the bumpers, it teleported back to the start of the maze. But now, with a quick twist of her left wrist and a swipe with her left hand, the little blue ball clicked into place.

The door slid to the side.

A gorgeous woman with an ample chest took a quick step toward her with her arm raised.

MaGiCshz blinked her right eye. Her left eye wouldn’t close. It took her a few more seconds to realize she’d been impaled through the eye with a long, thin blade and the pain inhibitors had kicked in.

Her Health bar reached zero, and her body collapsed, sliding off Chocolotta’s rapier.

***

CokeAndBragger was halfway through the interlacing wires when she got a notification that MaGiCshz was impaled on the end of a candy rapier. “Huh,” she said to no one in particular.

Then a message came in from MeatMasheen: Look out! He’s coming for you!

CokeAndBragger immediately dropped into stealth, vanishing from plain view, and just in time. A four-foot-tall pig wearing board shorts and sunglasses, with what looked like a giant lollipop slung over his shoulders, walked into the room like he owned the place. He was kinda buff, maybe even hot if not for the pig’s face.

He was followed by a tall, slender [Frost Maiden] who carried a rapier with a red guard and white blade. Her skin was perfectly smooth and the color of caramel, and her shoulder-length hair appeared to stir in an unseen breeze. CokeAndBragger hated her, because life was unfair, and doubly so when men designed female bodies in video games.

“We know you’re here,” the pig said. The tag [Nibblet] floated above his head—a named monster on the first level, no less.

The human rogue didn’t move a muscle. Just because they knew she was there didn’t mean they could find her. Her body was contorted, her muscles would eventually cramp, but every minute she delayed was a minute MeatMasheen had to get to her, and they could face this Nibblet thing together.

The pig looked at his companion and nodded.

The Frost Maiden tucked her rapier in her belt and went over to one of the trap plates. To CokeAndBragger’s surprise she lifted the trip wire from the trigger hook easily, then moved to the next. Was her trap disarm skill that high? And what use did a monster have for disarming traps in her own dungeon?

The Frost Maiden did it three more times before it dawned on the human rogue that she’d been fooled. That they weren’t traps at all. She was upset about that, but by the time she realized what the real danger was, the Frost Maiden had over ten trip wire ends wrapped around her fist.

CokeAndBragger’s eyes widened, but it was too late.

The Frost Maiden sprinted for the back of the room, and CokeAndBragger was pulled off balance as ten trip wires pulled her into still-attached trip wires, and she got tangled. The monster continued to curve around, coming up into a three-step wall-run on the back wall, then sliding under the attached wires on the right-hand side. The voluptuous monster stood up, smiling triumphantly, and yanked on her fistful of trip wires, pulling CokeAndBragger off her feet like she’d been cocooned by a spider.

CokeAndBragger was actually the only teenager of the group. She was sixteen, but she’d skipped two whole grades, so she was in her first semester of college. She wanted to join the FBI when she graduated and hunt serial killers, not because a family member had been murdered or because she’d lived on a farm with her uncle—she’d led a remarkably sheltered suburban life. CokeAndBragger thought serial killers were cool, and while she didn’t want to kill anyone—except if a suspect came at her—she thought that hunting them down would make her cool, too.

Now that she was wrapped in a trap these two monsters had apparently concocted, she thought that maybe hunting predators wasn’t such a good idea. I mean, sure, most of them are traumatized and maladjusted, so pathological in their desire for attention they always get caught. But—

The pig smashed her head to pulp with his candy maul.

“Noooooooooooooooooooooo!” MeatMasheen yelled from the door.

The pig turned to face his new opponent.

***

Nibblet’s plan had gone as well as he’d had a right to hope. The only way it could have gone better would have been if the big armored warrior had tripped into the soda pool and drowned, but a Swine couldn’t expect things to just fall into place for him.

The rog warrior stepped into the room, shield and short sword ready, eyes blazing. “You killed my friends,” he said.

“You killed mine. I guess that makes us even,” Nibblet snapped back. He glanced at Chocolotta, and she drew her rapier. Nibblet raised his blood-covered mace and circled to the left, mindful of the trip wires that were still attached.

The rog warrior set his shield in front of him and charged.

Nibblet dodged to the side, but the warrior caught him with a backswing of his shield, knocking Nibblet into the wall and snapping several of the trip wires. Chocolotta aimed a series of thrusts at the juggernaut’s back, but the thin blade skittered off his armor in a shower of sparks.

The warrior slammed his shield on the ground, knocking Chocolotta back.

“If you’d been so fierce defending your friends, maybe you could have saved them!” Nibblet shouted, using his Swine class power to Taunt.

“What?”

“They must hate you. You just wanted something shiny, and you left them to suffer on their own.”

Nibblet hefted his maul, ready for the inevitable charge.

And yet it never came.

The rog warrior dropped his shield and short sword, and he sat down with his back to the wall, hugging his knees to his chest.

The Swine in him made Nibblet want to Taunt him again, but Nibblet kept himself in check. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Leave me alone. I don’t wanna play anymore,” the rog warrior sniffed.

“He’s just a sore loser because we beat him and his friends,” Chocolotta said.

“You didn’t beat us!” the rog said. “You cheated!”

Nibblet put his hand on Chocolotta’s forearm. “He’s just a kid.”

“What?” she said, surprised.

“I am not!” the rog warrior said, on the verge of tears.

“He is,” Nibblet said. “I know we thought there were no more children since the peegee-thirteen, but maybe we just didn’t see them.”

Chocolotta’s face softened. “I’m so sorry. What’s your name?”

“MeatMasheen,” the kid sniffed. “My friends just call me Meat.”

“It’s nice to make your acquaintance, Meat. I’m Chocolotta, and this is Nibblet.”

The rog looked up. “But you’re monsters. You don’t have names.”

Nibblet smiled. “Maybe we always did, and you just didn’t notice.”

The rog took his helmet off and looked them over carefully. He had a kind and open face, for a rog. “So, what now?” he asked.

Chocolotta looked at Nibblet.

“Believe it or not, Candyland was made for people like you,” Nibblet said. “We used to make things for our little adventurers. You enjoyed finding that shrine, right?”

“Yeah,” Meat said. “But it was fake.”

“We can make better ones,” Nibblet said. “We were just worried you were going to hurt our people and destroy our home.”

“We didn’t want to break it. We were just trying to grind some levels.”

Nibblet nodded. Individual gains versus the needs of the many. He was sure that conflict played out in many universes. “What if I gave you a quest that didn’t involve fighting my people, but rebuilding my king, instead?”

“It’d be okay, I guess,” the kid said. “My friends will want to fight stuff, though. It’s kinda what we do.”

“You could fight in other dungeons, and protect the monsters here. That way you’d always have somewhere you would be welcome and safe. You’d always have a home.”

The rog warrior nodded. “Okay.”

Nibblet saw the kid’s eyes go distant as he received the quest, and he accepted it.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Meat,” Nibblet said. “I’m just going to tell the other people here not to attack you, and we’ll work on baking the Frosted King together. You just wait here, okay?”

“Okay!” the kid said, cheerful once more.

That was one thing Nibblet always liked about children. They were forgiving and resilient at the same time.

“Are you okay?” Chocolotta asked as they walked down the stairs to the second level. “This place was basically yours, and now you’re going to have to give it back and do things to make adventurers happy.”

“Yeah, but that’s okay,” Nibblet said, reaching up to take her hand. “I’d rather be a little talking Piglet who makes things better than an awful Swine any day.”

A Taste for Violence

By Justin Herzog

Halberds were fairly unwieldy things when you got right down to it. Useful, certainly. Good for taking men off horseback, or against lightly armored infantry, provided you had a few dozen like-armed men to stand beside you, and maybe a line of shield bearers in front. But on its own?

Eli wasn’t convinced of its merits, and the more time he spent marching through the village—patrolling, his captain called it, though it amounted to much the same thing—the more he began to suspect the weapon was more for show than any practical use.

After all, the cobblestone streets were far too narrow to form a proper brace, and anyone who was out and about with mischief on their mind wasn’t likely to come charging at him from atop a horse or straight down the main roadway. They were more likely to be skulking in the shadows, or traveling back alleys too narrow to bring the halberd to bear properly. Or, Ustar forbid, running along the rooftops.

Keep a sharp eye, Captain Bedrich had told him, but what for? Suppose he was to spot someone? Was he supposed to chase them across rooftops while holding a halberd? It couldn’t be done. Not that Eli had any pressing desire to chase them through the streets either. If he did, he might accidentally catch them, and then what?

Violence, most likely, and Eli had had his fill of that.

Horrible thing, violence.

Likely to get a man killed.

Marching, though. There was an activity a soldier could be proud of. He’d always been good at marching. Fortunate, since he’d just about marched the entire length of Traisbin by now, carried along on one campaign or another, his boyhood shifting to that of a man and now...well, no one stayed young forever. Eli could feel age creeping up on him, worse so when it was cold. He was still fit—the serpent visage armor that adorned his shoulders saw to that—but he was slowing down, his reactions no longer as quick as they had been, his grip not so steady. And every week saw new recruits come to join the Ustari army, young boys, not yet men, but who could swing a sword or wield a halberd in short order.

They couldn’t all march though. Not the long hauls, when night turned to day and back to night, without pause. He’d seen almost as many young men drop from fatigue as he had from battle, though if given the choice between the two, he knew which one he’d choose.

It wasn’t that Eli was uniquely suited to marching. His feet hurt just as much as the next man’s, and his ankles and knees swelled all the same, but it was the mental aspect, the fact that he didn’t resent it nearly so much as some of the younger soldiers. Way he saw it, marching was a fine day’s work, provided they didn’t go so fast that they actually reached their destination in time to confront the T’verzet. Rebels they were, and it was true, they’d become disorganized in recent months, but they were dangerous all the same. A sword doesn’t know the difference between a military man and a rebel. It only knows how to cut and pierce flesh, without a care for who wields it.

No, the arriving was much less fine than the marching, because much like the chasing of men across rooftops, there was a chance for violence, and violence, Eli had come to learn, was something to be avoided at all costs.

“Soldier,” a familiar voice rang out, speaking through the window of the building to his left. “Are you keeping close watch?”

“Aye, Captain,” Eli responded, instinctively saluting and then tapping the serpentine symbol decorating his armor.

There was a shuffling of footsteps before the building’s door opened, revealing a spacious interior. Tables were splayed around the room, formed in a half circle around the fireplace, from which a heavy pot hung, cooked oats simmering. Likely the building had belonged to some shopkeeper or other, before the Ustari guard confiscated it and turned it into their temporary headquarters.

The man who emerged from the building was tall, fit, two decades younger than Eli, and a nobleman’s son by his face, gifted the position for swearing his family’s allegiance to the Ustar. Not that Eli begrudged him. No shame in swearing fealty to forces greater than yourself. Better to pledge allegiance and serve as best you could, especially when the alternative was death and an unmarked grave.

The light sprinkling of snow adorning the cobblestone streets crunched beneath Captain Bedrich’s feet as he approached.

“That you, Eli?” he asked, squinting to see the grizzled face behind the helmet.

“Aye, Captain,” Eli said.

“How goes the watch?”

“Uneventful,” Eli said.

The answer seemed to displease Bedrich, but Eli couldn’t understand why. Uneventful was what every good soldier should strive for. Uneventful meant still alive.

Bedrich drew in a breath and held it, fog rising from his nostrils on the exhale. “What do you make of this place?”

“It’s a village. No different from a hundred others we’ve seen. A touch cleaner perhaps, but otherwise not much to set it apart.”

Bedrich grunted. “And the people?”

Eli considered it for a moment before answering. “More or less the same. They’re a colorful folk, to be sure.”

From what Eli’d seen, the women here preferred dresses of red, blue, and yellow as dazzling as any field of wildflowers, although he’d not seen such a thing in months. The men weren’t quite as overt, although there were plenty of splashes of color to be seen beneath their dark jerkins.

Bedrich made an acknowledging noise, and Eli felt the hairs along the back of his neck rise. He could feel something building in the conversation. Something that didn’t involve the village or the people’s choice of clothing.

“Something on your mind, Captain?”

A flash of guilt crossed Bedrich’s face, and for a brief moment, Eli could see the young boy he’d been not too many years before. It was gone in an instant, replaced by the face of the soldier Bedrich thought he should be.

“I’ve just received word, the Ustar has arrived in Korvo.”

Eli froze just for an instant, and the moisture disappeared from his mouth, vanishing out into the frigid night. “Here, Captain?”

Marek Konig Ustar was, well, he was a man better not thought about, at least as far as Eli was concerned, save to remind oneself that the Ustar ruled the entirety of the continent. If one wished to keep living, his word was law.

Bedrich nodded. “He arrived just after sunrise.”

“To Korvo?” Eli asked. “What could he want in a place like this?”

Bedrich straightened, and his gaze turned serious. “It is not our place to question the Ustar.”

“Course not, Captain,” Eli said. “Merely pondering out loud, sir.”

Bedrich stared for another moment, then nodded, and his features relaxed.

Mentally, Eli cursed himself. Evidently, his reflexes weren’t the only thing fading. His wits were starting to go as well. In his youth, he would have known better than to make a slip like that. Questioning the Ustar was a good way to find oneself residing in a cage alongside the road, assuming they didn’t just burn you alive for sedition.

He’d seen a captain suffer such a fate. A ruddy, sour man, with a misshapen head and a body like a sack of potatoes. He’d gone too far into his cups one night, made some jests regarding the Ustar’s lineage, and his own men had strung him up, cooked him over a roaring fire before word of it could travel any further than their group. Cooked him, just like a potato.

Eli had no desire to end his career that way.

He didn’t think Bedrich would report him, though. Eli had been in the Ustari army long enough to have become acquainted with quite a few noble sons, each and every one gifted their rank by their father’s willingness to bend their knee. Most were cantankerous little runts, in truth, but Bedrich seemed okay for the most part. He didn’t try to hide his insecurity or bolster his own image by making the men around him seem less than they were. As far as Eli could tell, he was steadfast and fair, taking the role of caring for his men seriously. Had they met in another time, Eli likely would have enjoyed serving under him, but war had changed Eli, and from where he stood now, Bedrich had a flaw that prevented him from truly taking to the man.

He wasn’t vindictive, or spiteful, or insecure. No, he was far worse. He was enthusiastic. Visions of wartime deeds still danced behind his eyes, battles hard fought and won, men slain and order brought to the masses, regardless of whether they wished to be orderly or not.

In short, Bedrich was dangerous, both to the enemy and, more importantly, to his own men.

“Whatever the Ustar’s reasons, any rebels who learn of this will be sure to strike,” Bedrich said, and slammed his fist into his palm. “T’verzet bastards. It will fall to us to see that they are not successful.”

“Of course, Captain,” he said. “You can count on me.”

Bedrich nodded and cast a sideways glance. “You’ve been in the army a long time, haven’t you?”

“Aye,” Eli said. “Since I was a boy.”

“You’re a good man,” Bedrich said. “Everyone says so. Solid. Stamina for days. The younger soldiers look up to you. They trust you to lead them into battle.”

“My honor to serve, Captain,” Eli said, while privately acknowledging that if the other soldiers were trusting him to take them into combat, they were all in great trouble indeed.

“When this is over, you and I should have a talk,” Bedrich said. “A man such as you should be doing more than patrolling the wall. You’ve been there, seen battle firsthand and come through none the worse for wear. I could use a man such as you.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Eli said, grateful in that moment that the helmet hid his face. He’d been there, it was true, seen and smelled it all, and none of it had been pleasant.

Rank was a fine thing for other men, but not him. A soldier getting lost on the battlefield, ending up in the trenches, far from where the fighting was thickest, was one thing, but an officer doing so? Well, suffice to say, people would notice. Might be time he requested a transfer to a different company, if Bedrich seemed insistent on the idea.

Bedrich shivered, and he glanced back toward the temporary headquarters. Likely, he’d had his fill of the cold. “If you’ll excuse me, I have matters to attend to,” Bedrich said. “Stay alert.”

“Sir,” Eli said and delivered yet another salute, followed by another gentle touch to the serpentine visage adorning his armor.

If the halberd was unwieldy, then the Ustari armor was downright stifling. Although, to be honest, Eli didn’t mind it nearly as much. A fine thing, armor, provided it was well maintained. A man in battle is like to develop tunnel vision, deer-dog vision, his father would have called it, though it amounted to much the same. A stray strike or a missed arrow could end a life all too easily, when armor was left to disrepair. Eli was grateful to have it.

Although...if he was being honest, it was possible the armor was sending mixed messages. The serpentine visage of his helmet, for example, was a fine thing, provided it was pointing towards the rebel T’verzet. Intimidation was important. It sapped men’s strength, made their hearts beat fast, and stole the air from their lungs long before they’d even entered battle.

But here, in the village? Eli wasn’t so sure. It was one thing to intimidate the enemy, but village folk were different. They couldn’t all be rebels, after all. Most just wanted to live simple lives, surrounded by their children and plying their respective trades. They wanted a warm fire and a full belly, and had no care for who ruled over them, provided that ruler didn’t bleed them for what meager money and belongings they had.

And, of course, provided they maintained some semblance of an army intent on protecting its citizens from violence.

It always came back to violence.

Eli couldn’t really pinpoint exactly when his attitude toward violence had changed. Might have been when he’d seen Pawel plummet from that ladder. He’d screamed the whole way down, then kept screaming when he hit bottom. Screamed right up until the moment one of their own soldiers had put a blade in him. It was a mercy. No one could call it anything else, but still, the sound had stayed with Eli.

Course, it also could’ve been when Hainrich had gotten his head shattered by that big brute wielding a hammer. Ustar, what a warrior that one had been. One look was all it had taken Eli to know to stay clear of him, though not far enough to avoid little bits of brain and bone splattering over his armor. Yes, that was most likely the moment.

He started to turn, to share this revelation with Oliwier, but stopped when he realized that Oliwier wasn’t beside him, hadn’t been for some time. Surprising how much Eli still missed him, even after all this time.

He’d been the best of the ones from Eli’s village, Oliwier had, tall and sharp-eyed and true, a good soldier, the kind of man to lead others and inspire confidence—or at least better at inspiring confidence than Eli ever would be. Course, none of that had helped when that arrow pierced Oliwier’s guts. Bad luck was all, though Eli and the others had made sure he’d been laid to rest properly, the words said and the prayers murmured. Only the sealing writ had been missing, but in truth, they’d thought it a fitting end to a fine man.

Shame that he’d had to come back and ruin it all.

Oh, Eli knew it wasn’t really Oliwier. Knew it was in fact the power of the Ustar, reanimating the flesh of his friend, but it was darn unsettling all the same. He wished someone would have told the Ustar that. Not himself, certainly. Not his place to go telling a man like the Ustar anything, but still, it was unsettling.

Oliwier had reappeared and stood beside Eli just like old times, but there was something different about him, something not right. There was no easy laughter in his eyes, no anticipation in his movements. He was just there, an unsettling reminder that at the end of every march lay the possibility of violence, and the fate that could befall them all.

It had been a relief when Oliwier had finally fallen for a second time, and this time his flesh had burned to some manner of magic or other, ensuring there would be no third resurrection.

Eli adjusted his grip on the halberd, shrugged his shoulders against the Ustari cloak, which failed to keep out the cold, and narrowed his eyes as the evening wind swept through the streets.

All things considered, it was enough to leave a man feeling downright depressed when viewed in its entirety. Joining the army had been the right choice, Eli knew that, down in his bones, but maybe he could have taken a different path. One that would have allowed him all the marching while keeping him as far removed from combat as possible. One that would have left him with fewer missing friends, and maybe a spare coin or two in his pocket.

Shame life didn’t work that way.

A younger man might have been able to change his fate, but at Eli’s age, it was better to stick to the path he’d started rather than try to carve out a new one. Better to grit his teeth, keep marching, and focus on not dropping the unwieldy length of wood and iron the Ustar had entrusted him with.

“You there. Guard!”

Eli turned to see a man dressed in a crimson robe with the hood partially drawn stalking toward him. He motioned impatiently. “You will accompany me to a manor house on the north side of the city. See to it that I come to no harm.”

Eli hesitated. “Would that I could, sir, but Captain Bedrich has me on patrol, and—”

“Captain Bedrich,” the hooded man sneered, “would open his wrist without complaint and hold his arm steady while I used his blood in place of ink if I so desired. What do you think he will do to you when he learns you have refused my order?”

Eli opened his mouth, then swallowed his first reply. A soft voice whispered in his ear that his fate might hang on the next words to come out of his mouth, and he’d best choose them carefully.

The man was a mage, unless Eli missed his guess. A high-ranking one, too. Mage types liked their hoods, and the mention of ink only strengthened his suspicions. That and the man’s appearance. Soft hands and weak legs, the kind that wouldn’t last a day on the march. Not that he’d need to. Likely he owned a horse, or maybe even a carriage. The latter, if Eli had to guess. All that would have been enough to convince him, but it was the man’s sneer that made him certain. He had a good sneer, the kind that seemed more or less permanent, as if the entire world lay beneath him. Such an expression should have been beaten out of him years before. The fact that it hadn’t bespoke of family, money, power, and influence.

“Well?” the mage asked.

Eli swallowed. “Right you are, sir. To the manor house we go, and you’ve my word no harm will befall you.”

“Excellent,” the mage said. “I have an old score to settle, and it would be most unfortunate were I waylaid en route.”

Eli fell into step behind him, matching the mage’s pace with his own, all while keeping close watch on the streets and the alleys they passed. If the mage were so concerned about being waylaid, it seemed to Eli that he might have chosen a different color for his garment, although he kept the opinion to himself.

The sun still hung low in the sky when they finally reached the manor house. It was a dark, depressing structure. Maybe it had been grand once, but the outside reeked of disrepair now, the outer stone beaten and weathered by the elements.

They passed through the carriage gate, and Eli recognized a handful of familiar faces in the men huddled together near the entrance. Eli would have given much to have been able to slip in among them, even with the threat of snow looming near, but the mage had not yet released him from his task, and Eli felt certain that were he to simply step away, the mage would look on it unfavorably.

They marched across a courtyard that likely was beautiful in the spring, with plenty of room for soft grass and wildflowers. For now, however, it was little more than empty space, brown, lifeless, and depressing.

From there, they made their way out through the opposite side and down a long hallway still bearing the final stains of those who’d once called it home. Why the Ustar, or anyone for that matter, would wish to be here was beyond him. Perhaps it had been beautiful once, but that was long ago, and there was a heaviness in the air, soaked into the walls, the kind that couldn’t be scrubbed out. Better to tear it down and build new than to try to salvage this mess.

The mage turned abruptly and led him up a flight of stone stairs and through a sitting room littered with upturned furniture, their edges coated with dust and connected by stray cobweb strands, as if even the spiders had found the area too depressing to remain.

The door at the opposite end led into the house’s main chambers, and Eli followed the mage into the anteroom, where a dozen men already sat.

“Remain here,” the mage said, and moved to speak with one of the men, a great brute of a bastard wielding a heavy battle-axe that was likely even more unwieldy in these tight quarters than Eli’s own halberd would be.

Given no option to leave, Eli let out a slow breath and took a look around at the men inside. A quick glance showed him all he needed to know. They were hard men, bloodthirsty and battle-scarred. Men of violence. Men of war. Men with whom Eli had very little in common. Conversation was minimal among them, and Eli saw no reason to change that. Instead, he found himself a spot against the window and remained, watching as night fell outside, the sun’s final exhale carrying wind and snow thick enough to hide the trees and rooftops of the village.

“It’s time,” the mage announced suddenly, and the men stirred, fussing with their halberds and crossbows and one monster of an axe.

Time for what? Eli wondered, but the door leading into the sleeping chamber opened, and the man who stepped through drove all other questions from his mind.

The Ustar’s presence filled the room far beyond the edge of his fur-lined robes and graying black hair. Eli felt himself suddenly wishing he was smaller. Small enough to avoid the man’s notice, although he was certain he felt the man’s gaze pass over him. How Eli had come to be here, what actions he had taken that had resulted in him being within ten feet of the most powerful man in the world, Eli couldn’t say, but he desperately wished he knew so as not to repeat them.

“What are we doing?” Eli whispered to the man nearest to him as the soldiers arranged themselves.

The man glanced back, and Eli thought he saw a flash of pity in his expression before he whispered, “Murder.”

“Oh,” Eli breathed. “Who?”

The man gave a barely perceptible shrug. “Got me. Some rebel or another. Guess he used to live here.”

“I see,” Eli said.

“Just stay out of the way,” the man said. “Keep the crossbowmen protected. We’ll handle the troublemaker.”

The Ustar flung open the doors leading into the sleeping chamber, revealing the so named “troublemaker” standing over the bed, dagger in his hand. A young man of Lyuko complexion, but with the lean, healthy height of a nobleman’s son.

A low rumble went up from the surrounding guards, and weapons were drawn, the sounds of metal slipping free drowning out the conversation. Near as Eli could tell, the rebel had recovered quickly, and was mouthing off to the Ustar, never a wise move, with the occasional barb thrown toward the red-hooded mage.

Eli couldn’t be sure what was said, but the order was clear when the Ustar pointed his hand toward the rebel. The warriors surrounding him surged forward, all but Eli, who, although he found it strange that one man would require so many others to subdue him, saw little point in joining the array. Keep the crossbowmen protected, he’d been told, and it occurred to him in that moment that they’d left their entire rear flank exposed. A quick step carried him behind the nearest crossbowmen, and he shifted his body to the side, gripping the halberd and watching the events unfold.

As the guards surged forward, the young man flicked a scrap of paper down. Paper and ink were never a good sign on the battlefield. The moment the scrap touched down, it erupted, casting a large explosion that swept through the room and flung the Ustari guard back, the force no doubt adding more scars to their already impressive collection. Crouched beside the crossbowmen, Eli had just enough time to see the first guards fall before he too dropped onto the floor. The action didn’t much help with the noise, which left his head ringing, but the kinetic force of the blast was muffled by the bodies in front of him, the worst of it already dissipated by the time it reached him.

The room became a flurry of motion as the men struggled to rise. Eli could have been among the first to stand, but he held back, allowing those closer to the Ustar to find their footing. They rushed forward, shouts and cries escaping their throats, pushing to be the first through the secret passage that had opened up in the wall. A handful of crossbowmen followed, along with the mage and that big, axe-wielding bastard. Eli had long since learned that, when it came to battle, it was those who hung back that survived the longest, and he waited as long as he dared before falling in behind them, his halberd clutched under one arm, where it would be of virtually no use, save that it wouldn’t trip him or anyone else.

As it turned out, his decision to remain near the rear of the party had been a wise one. No sooner had he turned the first corner than the rebel cast again, and this time, it was no mere explosion. Instead, large brambles rose up from the floor, encircling the first three guardsmen and slicing into their exposed flesh. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the men began to vomit uncontrollably, spewing liquids across the thorny brambles and one another.

Eli slowed and pressed his body against the wall, keenly aware that he was taking part in a battle for which he was ill-prepared. Battle was one thing. A man’s strength and speed could be measured and accounted for, but when bushes rose from the solid stone floor and a man’s guts turned against him, well, that was the sort of thing Eli would happily leave to better men to sort out.

The red-hooded mage dispelled the brambles, and those guardsmen not afflicted raced past, charging down the long passage. Eli followed behind, moving at a cautious pace, only to turn the corner and watch as their feet went out beneath them. The floor was proving to be more treacherous than an entire company of enemy bowmen, as it had transformed into slick ice, causing the guardsmen to stumble and fall.

Eli was far enough back that he should have been able to halt in time, but he’d miscalculated, and failed to avoid the hand of the red-hooded mage as his feet went out from beneath him. The mage seized Eli’s woolen cloak and pulled him down after him. Eli managed to turn his body at the last moment and avoid crashing directly down on top of the man, but he couldn’t avoid him entirely, and he winced as his pauldron struck the mage along the side of the face. The mage’s head snapped back, and a trickle of blood appeared, leaking from the corner of his lip. The blood dripped, spattering on the ice floor even as the man cursed and screamed.

Eli started to apologize, then thought better of it, the fleeting hope that the mage might not realize who had struck him causing him to shrink back, willing his face to remain hidden behind his serpent-visage helm.

Whatever hope he had was short-lived, as the mage grasped hold of his armor, spitting blood when he spoke. “Idiot! Bring me the head of Roark von Graf, or forfeit your own!”

Well, there wasn’t much Eli could say to that. He’d never considered himself fond of ultimatums, but there was precious little middle ground in that statement, and this mage didn’t seem like the type of man to forget.

“Aye, sir,” Eli said, silently bidding his military career farewell. “You can count on me.”

The mage spit and gave Eli a shove. Eli recovered quickly, and used his halberd to rise to his feet, bracing the fang-tip to keep himself afoot as he shuffled free of the ice patch. He wasn’t the first to start off down the passage, but he was no longer among the middle either. He made a show of racing, but hesitated with each step, ensuring he never caught up to the guardsmen in front of him.

Had the situation been different, Eli might have done as the mage asked. Gods know, he’d killed men in the name of the Ustar before, but not like this one. Whatever this rebel was about, he was more than welcome to it, so far as Eli was concerned. He wasn’t about to pit his steel against the power of whatever magicks this one commanded. He might end up far worse than being labelled a deserter.

Perhaps because he was taking his time, or perhaps because his mind had grown used to finding quick exits when violence swirled around him, Eli was the only one to spot the tiny side passage, mostly hidden in the shadow. It was narrow enough that he had to turn sideways to fit, but he managed, barely, the stone edges scraping against his armor. He squeezed through until the tunnel opened, then set off at a quick trot.

In other circumstances, the side passage would have proved ideal. After all, one could hardly blame a man for becoming lost down here. Eli could have passed a few quiet hours before reemerging, claiming he’d become separated and gotten lost, or even better, that he’d been struck unconscious by one form of magick or another. Oh, some of the soldiers might have given him the side-eye, it was true, those still blessed with youth, naïve to the realities of war and the toll it can take, but that was a small price to pay. Most of the older, more experienced soldiers would have understood, if not entirely approved. Might be he would have found himself pulling double shifts for a time, but again, a small price to pay.

The words of the mage had changed everything, however. There was no going back, not now. His only option was to slip away, quiet as a mouse. With luck, they would count him among the dead in the passage, but if not, the mage didn’t know his name, and it would take time to learn what unit he had come from. He’d be declared a deserter eventually, but that was unavoidable now. Besides, he’d known enough men in the service, good men who’d never returned home, that he could blend in for some time under a false name, maybe find work on an outlying farm or even a fishing boat. He would keep moving, never stay in one place too long, and not draw attention to himself.

Eli found himself warming to the idea as he turned a corner and increased his pace. He would miss the marching, it was true, but it would be something not to have to carry this confounded halberd around everywhere, and no children would cry out in fear at the sight of his serpent-visage helm again. He briefly considered discarding his armor there and then, but it was a bad idea. The armor would serve to conceal his identity and allow him to escape the village without question. Better to keep it on, then bury it once he was free, somewhere deep in the woods, where no one would find it. He might be able to sell it, provided he found a merchant willing to risk his own life in the name of a profit, but that would be dangerous and could leave a trail. Better to cast it into the earth and be born anew, a simple man with no military experience.

He turned the corner again, and this time, a pair of voices reached his ears. The first still bore the traces of youth, but the second caused Eli’s blood to run cold. It belonged to the Ustar himself. The men were arguing, struggling, and in the sounds of their scrap, Eli sensed his dreams of a new life drifting away.

To be declared a deserter was one thing. But to be accused of fleeing while Marek Konig Ustar himself was under attack, well, suffice to say there was nowhere in Terho Eli could hide. He could run, it was true, but the Ustari guard would hunt him, seizing any who offered him aid or even shared a simple word and stringing them up as a warning to others. Eli would become a plague-carrier of a type, leaving only death and pain in his wake. That was no type of life for a man. Not one with any sense of decency.

Almost before he’d made up his mind he’d started moving, dropping his halberd down into a fighting stance and pushing down the hall toward the sounds of the struggle. Eli had only found himself backed into a corner a handful of times in his long life, but each time it had happened, he’d made the uncomfortable choice to fight his way out. This was no different. He had nothing against the rebel youth, but if his death was necessary to prevent more loss of life, including Eli’s own, then what had to be done would be.

Eli gritted his teeth and pushed around the last corner, increasing his gait and growling low in his chest as his grip on the halberd tightened. No sooner had he turned, however, than he found something unexpected in his path—a large violet portal, reaching practically from floor to ceiling, casting its light out among the stones. Eli jerked back instinctively, twisting his body to the side as the sudden light burned his eyes. He tried to stop, and would have succeeded, but the tip of the halberd, that darn unwieldy halberd, caught a corner of uneven stone. The wooden shaft jerked sideways, catching him near the shins and sending him pitching forward through the violet portal.

What followed next was painful, and more disconcerting than he would have liked. There was a sensation of falling, followed by the feeling of being taken apart and put back together as something else. Someone else, although it made little sense to Eli. You couldn’t just become someone else, after all, but that was how it felt.

He opened his eyes, or would have, had he been able to control them. It was alarming to realize that he could not blink, nor could he close his eyes, as images flowed past. Magnificent castles and stretches of open earth beset by war. War on a scale he’d never seen before. Creatures filled the air, battling alongside things he’d never laid eyes on, things he never would have believed existed. It was too much for him, the sheer scale of the violence. He tried desperately to close his eyes, and although he was unsuccessful, he felt something, something inside, deep within his mind. He pushed against it, and words appeared, flashing before his eyes.

Like all good commonfolk in Traisbin, Eli had never learned to read. He could recognize the symbols—the better for reporting them to his superiors—but only mages learned how to discern them. Just this once, however, luck was with him.

A voice boomed, “Do you wish to skip the introduction?”

“Yes!” Eli shouted. “Yes, please. Make it stop.”

Darkness enfolded him, and when it receded, he stood atop a circular stone platform, the surrounding grounds hidden by fog through which strange shadows danced.

“Choose your race,” a voice commanded.

“My what?” Eli asked. “What’s happening?”

Long seconds passed, the answering silence driving tiny wedges of fear down into his heart before the same voice repeated itself, commanding him to choose his race.

“I’m a man,” he said, his voice trembling.

Was it possible that he was dead? If this was the afterlife, then it was not what he’d been expecting, though, in fairness, he had to admit it could have been worse. He didn’t feel uncomfortable, nor hungry, and all the aches and pains he’d accumulated over the years, tiny twinges here and there from the endless marches and combat, had disappeared, leaving him feeling good, better than he had in years, matter of fact. For a brief moment, he came to believe he was dead, but then he realized he could feel the heart beating in his chest, and it occurred to him that were he truly dead, he would have none of that.

But where then? he wondered.

He’d tumbled through the portal trying to apprehend that von Graf boy, he remembered that much. To where, Eli didn’t know. He was no scholar, but if he ever wanted to get off the circular platform, might be he should indulge the voice a bit.

“I’m a man!” he said again, more forcefully this time.

“Will you customize your appearance?”

“My appearance?” Eli asked.

He’d never really given much thought to his appearance before. Spending your days draped in armor with a helmet hiding your features robs one of what little vanity they might have started with. That said, no one had ever commented much on it before, though Halinka had told him he was a handsome man shortly before he and the other boys from the village went to enlist with the Ustari army.

“Seems I like my appearance just fine,” Eli said. “Although, perhaps I could shave a few years off, were that possible?”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a bar appeared in the mist, a red line with a golden button, pointed just to the right of the center line. He stared at it for a moment, then hesitantly reached out and drew the line back to the left. It clicked over one pace, and his arm changed before his eyes. It wasn’t a drastic change. It was still his arm, after all, the same shape and muscles, but the skin seemed to tighten, the hairs along his skin darkened, and the flesh became just a touch smoother. This was something not often seen, and Eli couldn’t help but to spend the next few minutes swinging the button back and forth, watching as his body aged and reverted back to youth. He didn’t feel any different, young or old seemed not to matter in this place. In the end, he decided on a spot just below the midline, not so young that others would still consider him a boy, but not so old as he was, either. A nice in-between, if such a thing was truly possible.

“Okay, I reckon that will do just fine,” he said.

The mist shivered, and the bar disappeared.

“Choose your class,” the voice commanded.

Eli frowned. “Class? What is that? Something like a job?”

“Correct,” the voice said.

“Huh,” Eli said. “Well, in that case, let me think. Truth be told, I can’t say I was enjoying my old job much as I would like. What are my options?”

The fog shifted, the shadows forming together to create a large square in which a man stood. Not just any man, in fact, but Eli himself. He wore a suit of armor, no serpent visage, thank the Gods, and wielded a two-handed sword. He looked good, whirling the blade with ease, moving seamlessly through the motions of strike and parry. Eli was no stranger to the sword, but he’d never moved like that in his life. Never believed he could move like that.

“What in the Ustar’s name is that?” he asked.

“The warrior,” the voice said. “Relies on strength of arms. Battle is their siren, the sounds of combat their call. Peerless fighters dedicated to the blade. Will you take up the sword and defend the lands of man?”

“I most certainly will not,” Eli said.

He’d had enough of that sort of thing under the Ustari banner. Regardless of how pretty one might make it, poking at other men with blades was much the same.

The fog shifted again, and Eli’s form changed, reappearing wearing a suit of heavy armor so thick that he shouldn’t have been able to move. This time, instead of a sword, he bore a hammer easily twice the thickness of his torso.

“The Defender class,” the voice said. “The champions of truth, justice, and the light. Sworn to seek out evil wherever it may lie and banish it back into the realms of darkness.”

“Pass,” Eli said.

The armor was impressive, no doubt, but he’d been in the military long enough to recognize that soldiers often get what they need and not a bit more. More than likely, if he walked up in all that armor, someone would be expecting him to make the most of it.

The fog shifted, and the armor disappeared. This time when he reappeared, he was dressed only in a black leather jerkin, with a glowing dagger in each hand.

“Master of traps and poison—” the voice began.

“Pass,” Eli said.

It was a strange thing to pick one’s own job, but he found that he was quite enjoying it. The poisoner might have appealed to some, but Eli had known too many men who’d dabbled in such things to truly embrace it. It seemed to involve a lot of digging through excrement in search of mushrooms, and those that didn’t accidentally poison themselves often spent half their nights in the latrine. They called it building up immunity, although Eli was never clear exactly what that meant.

On like that it went, his fog double shifting from form to form. The Dragon-avowed seemed interesting at first. Lightly armored, he had a sword in one hand and a fireball in the other, but it seemed as if he would have to swear his allegiance to some dragon cult, and if there was one thing he knew about the Ustar, it was that the man wouldn’t appreciate sharing his loyalty. Likely this dragon was cut from the same cloth.

The necromancer was definitely out of the question. He’d had quite enough of corpses during his time with Oliwier. Better to go back to the halberd than to deal with that again. He hesitated for a long time over the mage. The masters of magick, the summoners of earth, ice, and storm. It would be a fine thing to go about wielding all that power, but at some point, much like the defender’s armor, someone would probably expect him to use it, and suppose he was successful? Then what? Eli still remembered what had happened to those mages who had stood against the Ustar. For and against, come to think of it, didn’t seem to matter much. They all met the same end. The life of a mage seemed a tentative thing at best, and he had no desire to ever see that red-hooded bastard again. Eli shook his head.

“The archer,” the voice said. “Fletching and bow, masters of ranged combat who deal damage from a distance while avoiding close combat.”

Eli straightened. Now that was interesting. Lightly armored, able to beat a hasty retreat if things went bad, which they tended to do. No expectation of melee combat. A man might survive as an archer, provided he was careful and didn’t get any fool notions of charging forth into the fray when better equipped warriors had already fallen.

Besides, the fog-version of him looked good, quick, not like the Ustari crossbowmen, who gambled their lives on being able to set and loose before the oncoming enemy reached them. This version of him wielded a proper bow, capable of firing across two fields. Eli watched as he drew an arrow from the quiver on his hip and fired, his actions smooth and precise, sending arrows off into the fog at such a speed he wouldn’t have believed unless he saw it for himself.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll reckon I’ll take one of those, please and thank you.”

“Confirm,” the voice said. “You will be unable to change your class once selected.”

“I confirm,” Eli said.

“Initializing Hearthworld. Prepare to begin in five...four...three...two...one.”

Eli’s vision turned white, and a sudden weightlessness came over him, leaving him disorientated. It was over in a flash, and he found himself leaning against a cold stone wall. For a beat, he thought he was back in the passage, the entire thing being some sort of illusion or hallucination cast by the young rebel. He straightened and moved to lift his halberd, but the unwieldy weapon was gone, replaced by a wooden longbow. It wasn’t as fancy as the version his fog-self had wielded, but it was sturdy and well crafted. Eli took a moment to savor the feel, enjoying the way the light from torches mounted atop the wall reflected off the smoothed wood. Like the halberd, his armor was gone, and he was wearing a tight-fitting leather jerkin and soft boots.

“Watch out!” a voice screamed.

Eli glanced toward the voice, but a flash of movement caught his eye, and he turned just in time to see a walking horror come stumbling toward him—a skeleton holding a heavy club. Its bleached bones were stripped bare of flesh and skin, their smooth edges catching the torchlight as it sprang toward him.

A lifetime of soldier’s training fled in that instant, and Eli could only scream as the skeleton drew back its arm and brought its club around. The club struck him high on the shoulder, and red flashed across his eyes, a draining vial flashing in the corner of his vision for an instant before he crashed to the ground.

Might be that falling through that portal had been a worse turn than he thought. Eli twisted onto his stomach and struggled to get his feet beneath him. He’d lost his bow and lacked even so much as a dagger for defense. Footsteps sounded behind him, and he turned to see the skeleton draw back its arms, preparing to bring the club down and flatten him. Eli cringed and braced himself for the impact, but a ball of fire flashed overhead, striking the skeleton and knocking the creature backward half a step.

“Get up!” ordered the same voice that had called a warning.

Eli didn’t hesitate to comply, scrambling to his feet and retreating even as another figure stepped forward. This one was a warrior. Dressed in rusted mail and wielding a nicked long sword, he brought the heavy blade around and struck the skeleton’s torso, shattering half the ribs. A second strike followed, and another fireball shot overhead, striking the creature and sending its bones crashing to the floor in a heap.

“He’s down,” the warrior said.

“Ought to be, after two fireballs,” a second voice said.

Eli turned to see a young woman with corn-colored hair step into the room. She wore robes, similar to the red-hooded mage he’d left back in Korvo, though not so fine. Unlike the red-hooded mage, this young woman wielded a slender piece of wood with a crystalline tip from which a steady trickle of sparks fell.

“What’s wrong with you?” the mage asked. “Letting a skeleton get that close. What are you, some sort of newbie?”

“Aye,” Eli said as he bent to retrieve his bow. “Reckon I am at that. First day on the job.”

“Jesus,” the mage said and rolled her eyes.

“Hey, take it easy, we were all there once,” the warrior said and turned to Eli. “I’m Hardware. That’s Pewpewgrrl. We’re part of the Warcross Guild Chapter.”

“Eli.”

“You want to team up, least until we get out of here?”

Eli considered, then nodded. “Reckon that makes sense. Where are we exactly?”

“Wow, you’re not kidding about being new,” Hardware said. “You’re in the Caverns of Corpheus Time. You actually shouldn’t be here yet. It’s a level-five dungeon, but don’t worry, we can walk you through it.”

“Are you serious?” Pewpewgrrl demanded.

“Hey, the guild master said we were supposed to recruit new members,” Hardware said. “And besides, Eli seems okay. It doesn’t cost us anything to bring him along, so what’s the harm?”

“Fine,” Pewpewgrrl said. “Just stay clear of my arc of fire.”

“He’ll be okay,” Hardware said, then turned his attention back to Eli. “Listen, let me give you a tip. You’re an archer, which means you stay behind warriors like me. If you’re getting hit, something’s gone wrong. Think you can get onboard with that?”

Eli’s mouth split apart into a wide grin. Been a while since he’d had a reason to smile. A long while, now that he thought about it. Might just be that he would like this new world and his new class. Might be that things were going to work out just fine after all.

“Aye,” he said. “I reckon I can do that better than most.”

The Stranger

By Toria Bodden

The stranger appeared out of thin air and dropped to his knees in the snow, bracing himself on one sinewy arm. His right hand clutched at his shirt, bunching the thin, dirty fabric around a fist-sized object. A full-body shiver ran through him as he blinked against the snow-glare, and the first thought he had on this new world was, I am alive.

His breath fogged before him, and he remained there for a few moments, stunned, with the din of battle and fallen companions slipping from his memory. Snowmelt soaked his wrappings, and the tattered lash of his will made him release his grip on the amulet and stagger to his feet. A strong gust blew snow crystals into his eyes, and his fingers and feet started to ache from the cold.

Get moving, he ordered his new and unfamiliar body, and like a draft horse unused to the harness, it took one step forward and halted. Again, he said, ignoring the burning pain in his limbs and the throbbing headache from being ripped apart and put back together. Ten paces brought him to a muddy track cut through the snow by carts and feet. Finally, something useful. After all, roads were expensive; they always led somewhere.

The path to the right led up, into the mountains that framed the setting of the sun. Did that mean that was west? It didn’t always. He took nothing for granted, not after the myriad of worlds he’d visited. To the left, past some small hills and a stopped windmill with frost-laden arms, he saw the haze of smoke. Fire meant civilization, or whatever passed for it on this world, along with warmth, food, and people to render him aid. He flexed his legs and set out at a slow pace, the steps coming easier even as the killing chill crept closer to his heart.

Pieces of his old self were still stitching themselves back together, his mind a jumbled mess. A patchwork flag fluttering in the cold breeze.

He knew that he was a refugee from somewhere else, and he had stolen something or perhaps seized what was his by right. Light leaked in from places beyond the stars, and fire flowed like water, washing across his companions as they guarded his flank. Behind him, still holding their swords, they died for him with nary a scream, as was expected. Before him, he saw a shape, a blue blur that resolved into the figure of a man on the road; he wheeled around, but there was no starlight, no fire. Confused, he reached for the approaching traveler.

“Help,” the stranger said, his fingertips brushing the soft azure fabric of the traveler.

His answer was pain.

The blue-cloaked man punched him in the face with a gloved hand, and his feet slipped out from under him on the icy road.

“Get away from me, thief!” the man growled, a snarl contorting his mouth. More blows followed, vicious kicks to his stomach and ribs.

“Stop! Please!” The words slipped past his teeth against his will. The fact that he’d debased himself, begged for violence to stop after just a few blows, was more painful to his pride than the injuries.

The kicking finally faltered. “Keep your hands to yourself next time, you filthy beggar.” The traveler spat into the slush and stepped past him.

Tears froze in the stranger’s eyes as he watched the blue-robed man continue on his way, not bothering to even spare a backward glance.

This was not right.

He should have fought back.

A hundred lance-bearers should have risen to his aid. The torch-ships should have burned his assailant and all his kin to ash for the effrontery! Where were his legions? A name stood poised on the tip of his tongue, but it was snatched away by the cold. He shuddered violently. Get up! Walk! he commanded, and his body reluctantly obeyed.

He couldn’t die, not after all he’d been through.

Not after all he’d lost.

And certainly not after finally securing his prize. He absently squeezed the amulet slung around his throat.

He forced himself into a lurching trot. Each breath came with pain. His ribs were bruised, and pain radiated out in a dull thump-thump-thump like the beating of a war drum. The stranger tried to fix the hateful cowled face in his mind: a well-oiled and groomed mustache over thin, haughty lips. I will remember your kindness, traveler, he thought. I will remember, and I will repay!

He reached the hills and slowed to a walk again. The gentle slope may as well have been a cliff face from the way his thighs trembled and burned, but his anger kept him going where sheer will and flesh would have failed. Twice he lost consciousness, only to pick himself back up out of the snow. His life was bound to his flesh by the thinnest of threads. But he didn’t quit. Refused to stop. The laughter of long-dead enemies drove his feet until he crested the hill and saw the town.

The settlement was built of stone and wood in a saddle between two mountains. A road followed the mountains from where he’d come to where he was facing, and another crossed through the pass then through the town on the right and the lowlands on the left.

A crossroads. A place of power and wealth.

In another life, the stranger would have crested the hill with an army at his back. Now, he did his best to stagger down the hill alone.

A bitter wind whipped through the pass, stealing the last of his anger and his strength. In the shadow of the ramshackle wooden huts at the edge of the town, in the muddy slurry and cast-off garbage, the stranger sat down with his shoulder leaning against a rain barrel and closed his eyes.

“Hey!” someone hissed at him.

Expecting to be beaten again, the stranger raised his arms in front of his face. Was there no end to his suffering on this wretched world?

“What are you... I’m not going to hurt you, but you can’t be here! Come on!” a woman said. Calloused hands grabbed his forearms, pulling him to his feet, and the woman slipped under his arm. “Come on, stay awake! I can’t have you dying outside my door, now can I?”

Before he knew it, he was inside the hovel he’d rested against and the woman shut the door against the cold. He collapsed on the floor.

“Bloody shite!” the woman said, sounding both fearful and annoyed. As the stranger shivered, staring blankly at the dirt floor, she grabbed a thin blanket from a straw pallet. “Get your clothes off already!”

If he’d hurt less, he might have thought more, but instead, he simply followed her instructions mechanically. He shrugged out of his patched and worn vest, then tried to work the laces on his breeches with numb fingers. The woman helped, then lay down behind him and wrapped them both in the threadbare material of the blanket.

For the first time on this world, and perhaps on several before this one, the stranger received the kindness of another when he was defenseless. When he had nothing to give in return. He felt it as discomfort, like an itch that could not be scratched. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

The woman breathed on the back of his neck. “Don’t mention it, and don’t get any ideas. I don’t owe you nothing, and I ain’t got nothing to give. But I won’t let a man die on my doorstep, even if others might.” The stranger nodded, then it seemed as if a warm haze descended, and for a while, he remembered no more.

He awakened in less than an hour, and she was still giving him shelter and warmth from her body. He needed those more than gold or legions right now. Well, that, and information. “Where am I?” he said.

“Ah, he wakes!” she exclaimed. “You’re in my home, obviously.”

“I mean the town. What is this place?”

“This is Korvo. How can you have come here but not know where you?” she asked.

“I was attacked and ran away,” he murmured. “Hit my head and things are a little fuzzy.”

“Seen a man got kicked by a mule, once. Couldn’t remember his name. Sad state of affairs, that.”

The stranger stiffened. He had seen garden worlds with a dozen moons, and hellish planets at the edge of the universe. He had wielded the power of creation and unleashed the primal fire of stars. For some reason, his friend Noros’ laughter bubbled into his mind, harsh and high-pitched, from a time when he’d been a simple man with the luxury of friends. But he couldn’t remember his own name.

“Now don’t you fret too much. The healer said it would have come back,” she said encouragingly. “His memory, that is.” She faltered. “Only he died from the swelling.”

Her generosity was welcome, but her bedside manner left something to be desired.

“What’s your name?” he asked, to get her off the subject of him dying an addled idiot.

“Llewelyn.”

“What is your full name, Llewelyn? I will remember it. I always repay my debts, and I owe you a rather large one, I think.”

She laughed at him. “Well, don’t you just sound like a lord? S’just Llewelyn, stranger. I’m a servant. Ain’t got no family. If you’re needin’ ta find me, I’m Llewelyn, and I belong to house von Graf.”

The stranger twisted under the blanket to look his rescuer in the face. They were almost nose to nose, and he was stripped down to his underclothes. She blushed. “If you don’t have a name of your own, you may have mine. You are Llewelyn Ustar,” he said, and it felt right, like something he’d said before in a different place under a different sky.

She frowned. “I ain’t marrying you, stranger.”

This time, he grinned. “No, but there is power in a name, Llewelyn Ustar. People with the same name help each other. You have helped me, and one day, I will help you.”

The woman snorted. “Well, if you remember your name now, then you can remember your way out my door. Come on,” she said, slipping out from under the blanket and wrapping herself in a shawl. “If you don’t git, the neighbors will talk.”

“You’re afraid of gossip?” he asked.

She crossed her arms. “Not for me I’m afraid for. Y’ain’t got no brand, but that doesn’t mean the house watch won’t mark you for a runaway if you can’t pay their toll.” As she spoke, she leaned her head to the side and pulled her hair back, showing some sort of glyph burned into the side of her neck. It seemed the woman was the von Graf’s property—whether slave or serf or another form of chattel.

The stranger kept his face impassive, but inside, he laughed. He’d built empires on women like her, and he would again. Any system where people were treated like property was ripe for revolution. “From this day, you are Llewelyn Ustar, and one day, I will help you,” he said again, and this time she didn’t laugh. Something passed between them, an unwritten contract created from hope and more binding than blood.

“I am Llewelyn Ustar,” she said, as if trying it on like a garment, and the stranger felt a shiver run up his spine. She shook her head. “Now git or you won’t be able to make good on your promise.”

“Is there somewhere I could go in this town? A place to get help or find work?”

She scratched her cheek. “Go to the inn, past the fabric shop in the center of town. It has a sign that’s a big black horse, you can’t miss it. Tell the serving boy, Bogdan, that I sent you. We servants help each other out when we can—he’s not branded or nuthin’, but he’s sweet to people.”

The stranger nodded. He finished tying his breeches, now barely damp after an hour in front of the fire, instead of wet and freezing, and walked back outside.

With his mind clearing and a new connection formed with this world and the town of Korvo, the stranger felt more of his memories coming back. He was a conqueror and a magician, and he had lived a long, long time. How he had come to be on this world, destitute and powerless, was not important. It had happened before, and it would happen again, but each time he became more than he was. Especially with his prize finally in hand. He felt the pendant throb in an echo of his thoughts as it pressed against the bare skin of his chest, under his shirt. Yes, he thought. He needed to understand this world, and he needed associates. Then, he would show the people of Korvo what real power was.

Pulled back from the brink of death and with some of his confidence restored, he walked with his shoulders thrown back and his head lifted. All the memories would return in time. That was the way of things. The cringing cur who’d pleaded for mercy while he was being kicked must have been an aberration, a moment of weakness after coming to this world under such traumatic conditions. It may even have been the dying spark of the soul of whoever’s body he’d inhabited on arrival, unless the flesh formed out of nothing—he’d never been able to find out how that worked, and in the end he didn’t care.

Some of the more well-off citizens looked on him with scorn as he made his way to the inn, but he ignored them. He was in slightly damp, smelly rags, yes, and his footwraps did little to protect his feet from the cold cobbles, but he was a king among them—or so he thought. The details were fuzzy, but he’d worn and discarded garments worth more than this village, that much he was certain of.

The inn was where Llewelyn had said, just past the fabric shop on the far side of the town square. A rearing cast-iron horse hung from a post next to the door, and someone had shoveled away the snow from the path to the door.

The stranger stepped inside and found a mixed crowd, from the well-to-do to the obviously wealthy. There was no one in as poor a state as he was.

“Can I help you, friend?” the serving boy said, walking up to him with genuine friendliness in his eyes. He was tall and solidly built, with messy chestnut hair and a scattering of freckles on his young face.

“Llewelyn sent me.”

“Ah. Well, come over here and let’s get you taken care of, then,” he said, and led the stranger to a small table set in a corner. “I’ll bring you some soup and bread.”

“Thank you kindly,” the stranger said, looking the boy over. He couldn’t spot a brand on his neck, but just because Llewelyn had hers there didn’t mean that was common practice. On the dozen worlds he had visited before, it had usually been the inner arm for servants, the face for criminals.

“Your boy brought in another stray, Uller,” a patron barked from a nearby table.

“That he did,” the innkeeper answered.

“Want me to get rid of him?”

“No, thank you, Tor. It keeps the boy happy, and he brews the beer that keeps you happy. Let it be.”

The stranger turned to look and saw the innkeeper and the patron looking his way. The patron was wearing a blue cloak embroidered with the same glyph Llewelyn wore on her neck, and he sneered.

“Here you go!” the boy said cheerily, setting the broth and a hunk of bread in front of the stranger, along with a small mug of beer.

The stranger’s stomach growled at the rich smell of the soup—some kind of onion or leek with bits of potato in a creamy broth, shot through with spices. “Greatly appreciated.”

“No problem,” the boy said, leaving him to eat.

The stranger grabbed the wooden spoon and tucked in, wolfing down mouthfuls of potato-leek soup and bread. He almost choked from eating too fast and took a sip of the beer to wash it down. The drink was surprisingly serviceable for so small a hamlet, with a nutty flavor that tied the meal together. The stranger took another sip, pausing to enjoy it.

“Do you like it?” the boy asked, sitting down across from him.

The stranger nodded, taking another spoonful of the soup. “You make surprisingly good beer.”

The boy blushed. “It’s just patience. Most people only let the beer ferment for a week, but I do twice that, and I leave it in the barrel longer. It takes up more space, but I think it’s worth it.”

“What else?” the stranger asked, eyes focused intently on the boy as he ate.

Surprised that someone was interested for once, the boy continued. “Well, I talk to people, mostly travelers, and that helps. I know people look down on them, but the Lyuko caravans go everywhere, and they bring me new kinds of yeast to try from strange places because we’re friends. I spoke to a physician who taught me how to get everything really clean—for some reason that makes it less likely to have a bad batch. And...” He stopped abruptly and paused.

“What is it?”

The boy blushed again. “You’ll think I’m silly.”

“Not at all. I think you’re ahead of your time. Go on,” the stranger said, sopping up the last of the soup with a piece of bread.

“Well, when I’m topping off the wort, I boil the water, let it cool, and then I shake it. And”—he lowered his voice before looking around furtively—“I sing a little song.” The boy stared at the stranger and bit his lower lip.

“That’s smart. You’re getting more oxygen in the water.”

“What’s oxygen?”

“Air. It helps the yeast turn the sugar into alcohol,” the stranger said, reaching for the beer mug.

“What’s—” the boy started to ask, but he was interrupted.

Tor, the man in the blue cloak, had sauntered over, leaned on the table, and pushed the mug out of the stranger’s reach. He smelled like someone had doused him in rosewater. “You’re not welcome here. You’re dirty, and you smell, and I don’t know you.”

“Ustar,” the stranger said, offering Tor his hand. “My name is Ustar.”

Tor looked down at his hand like he’d shat in it. “Get that away from me before I break it.”

The stranger shrugged and leaned forward, reaching for the mug.

Tor drove a dagger into the tabletop. “Perhaps you’re hard of hearing, Ustar. I told you to leave.”

“You said you didn’t know me, so I introduced myself. You said I was dirty and I smelled; I doubt you’ve bathed in a season, by the amount of perfume you’ve used to cover your scent up.”

Tor grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him to his feet.

“Come on, Tor! Let me get you another beer, on the house!” the innkeeper said, walking over, concern etched into the lines of his face.

“You stay out of this, Uller! This vagrant insulted me, and that means he’s insulted the von Grafs!”

“He’s not branded, Tor! You know the magistrate won’t like it if you go around beating travelers.”

“Let me get you that beer, sir,” the boy said, touching Tor’s elbow.

Tor backhanded him for his troubles. The boy stumbled back, clutching his face, and memories flooded back into the stranger’s mind. Memories of steel and violent men and women, of sweat and salt, and of blood.

Almost without thinking, the stranger wrapped his arm around Tor’s and drove the knuckles of his right hand into the man’s throat. Tor choked, bending forward as if he and the stranger were embracing, and the stranger kneed him in the balls before shoving him away.

Tor tripped and fell, curling in on himself.

“Oh my gods, no! Not here!” Uller the innkeeper groaned.

“It’s fine,” the stranger said, his voice somehow deeper and more commanding. “I know the type. Big man in a little village, isn’t that right, Tor?” Tor looked up at him with hate-filled eyes, reaching under his cloak. The stranger wondered what he was looking for. “Stay down, dog. Learn from your mistake. The next time you lay a hand on me will be—”

Tor drew a thin piece of paper from his cloak and threw it at the stranger. It flew like a thrown pebble and hit like a battering ram. There was a crackle of light, and the stranger hit the far wall. Then there was nothing.

***

“He’s awake,” an older woman said.

The stranger opened his eyes to see a canopy of leaves. No, he realized. He was warm and indoors. The air smelled of incense. Someone had hung bundles of herbs on the wall next to him, but he was in a house with wood plank walls and a sloped roof.

He tried to sit up and gasped as pain radiated across his abdomen all the way to his jaw.

“Settle down,” the old woman said, pushing him back against the straw bed with a firm, callused hand. “The herbs will help with the swelling, but you still need time to heal. Should be dead. That’s strange and powerful magic you have.”

Magic? the stranger thought, and his right hand reached for the pendant under his shirt.

“It’s still there, stranger,” the old woman said. “Don’t know what it is, and don’t think I want to. The casting Torald threw at you should have broken half the bones in your body.”

“Doesn’t protect ya from the cold, though, does it?” Llewelyn asked cheerfully.

The stranger sat up, wincing as more things cracked and slid across his abdomen. Llewelyn the servant and Bogdan the serving boy were past the foot of the bed, sitting on a wide windowsill. He noticed a pack by the boy’s feet. Outside, the city was dark and quiet. The boy saw him staring at the pack. “Uller didn’t take kindly to me leaving to get you to a healer. I can’t go back now. We may be stuck together for a bit.” The healer? Closer to him, to his right, was the old woman. Her hair was white and as fine as feathers and her back was bent with age.

Someone had gouged out her eyes, and she turned her face toward him with empty orbits. “It’s not polite to stare, stranger.”

“My name is Ustar,” the stranger said.

“Is that a name or a title?”

“It’s both,” he said. “You’re perceptive for one of the unsighted.”

“One of the...” The old woman laughed and covered her mouth with her hand. “I like that. Unsighted. Most people just call me blind.”

That’s because this world is barely an enlightened speck of dirt, the stranger thought. Though I will change that yet.

“I’m Llewelyn Ustar, now, Magda. He said so. Guess I’ve got a name and a title, too,” the servant girl said proudly, puffing out her chest a hair.

“What’s it a title for?” the old woman asked.

The stranger smiled. “People who’ve helped me, and that I need to reward. A sign of loyalty to me, but also of my loyalty to them.”

The old woman snorted. “You’ll forgive my skepticism, your lordship. Your clothing feels a bit thin to be rewarding anyone.”

“Then why did you help me?”

“Does a healer need a reason to help someone?”

“Everyone needs a reason, Magda Ustar,” the stranger said.

The old woman turned her head toward him sharply. “You can keep that name to yourself. As for a reason, Tor threw a spell at you and you ain’t dead. Got him and Uller scared half to death that you’re some foreign prince in disguise, and that they’re going to have to explain what happened to Lord von Graf.”

The stranger snarled at the von Graf name.

Magda frowned. “Best let that anger go, Ustar. The von Grafs have entire libraries of books, more words than you or I could ever speak. It’s a fool who counts them as an enemy.”

“What do libraries have to do with it?” the stranger asked. “Do they use them to learn their magics?”

“Do they use them to learn magic?” Magda repeated, as if he’d asked something anyone should know. “Written words are magic, Ustar. How else should it work?”

More memories flooded into the stranger’s head. “By incantations, by shouts, by words of power, by memorized patterns of aether, by calling on the strength of one’s blood. I have seen magic powered by trapped starlight and machines driven by demons, healer, but I have never heard of written words calling forth power that was not first harnessed by the caster.”

There was a pregnant pause. “You must be from very far away,” Magda said.

“You are not wrong there.” He paused for a beat, frowning. “And you’re certain about the written words?” he asked.

Llewelyn and Bogdan listened to the exchange with wide eyes and half-open mouths.

“I’m certain, Ustar. They took my eyes for learning just one of them without permission.”

“The von Grafs did?”

“No,” she said sadly. “I wish you wouldn’t hate them, lad. They took me in and let a humble woman earn her keep after what the von Reichs did to me.”

The stranger ignored her protest. Twice the von Grafs or their servants had raised a hand against him, and once was enough for a death sentence. “What was the word?”

“It was grow,” she said softly. “I wanted to grow fresh herbs in the winter.”

“Show me.”

Magda’s face twisted with fear. “Are you mad, boy? I just told you they put out my eyes for it!”

“I’m older than I sound, young woman. Will you let them rob you of your knowledge the way they robbed you of your eyes?”

Something changed in the set of her brow, but she shook her head. “I have no paper, no quill, and no ink. And I’m certainly not going to carve it into something for the house guard to find. I’m comfortable, here, Ustar. You’re well enough to not die on me... I think you should leave.”

“I have seen the fires of creation, Magda,” the stranger said softly. “I have brushed my fingers against the vault of the stars and climbed the pillars of the earth. Let me tell you a secret about yourself, and you can determine if I am worthy of the trust you are about to place in me. Then you can trace the word on the palm of my hand with your finger.”

Magda hesitated for a moment longer, then she nodded. She held his palm, cradling it with both her hands as he leaned forward and whispered in her ear. He told her of the terrible and glorious nature of the universe she could not see, but most importantly, he told her of a small peaceful village on a planet so inconsequential it was designated only by number.

She smiled and wept quietly as she traced the word “grow” onto his hand. He made her repeat the tracing twice.

After a while, Magda put her arms around him and wept more openly, until she was spent. Her years had been long and full of sorrow, but she now knew the universe was a bigger, more forgiving place than she’d ever imagined.

“What did you tell her?” Bogdan asked, shrugging his shoulders to settle his pack.

“It wouldn’t mean anything to you, Bogdan Ustar,” the stranger said as they walked away from Korvo, their footsteps crunching through the past night’s snow. The sun was just rising over the mountaintops to the east.

“I’m going with you. I took your name,” the boy said. “I’d like to know.”

The stranger smiled at him. “Why?”

The young man paused and thought. “Magda’s a good woman. She does a lot for the village, and the others do the best they can—bring her food and gifts when they are able. But I never saw her cry before, I guess. Sometimes, I thought maybe she couldn’t because of what was done to her, or that her heart had dried up from grief.”

The stranger nodded. “Why did you think that? She has a home, warmth, clothing, and food.”

Bogdan laughed. “That’s not enough, mister. Half the taverns would have to close their doors if it was.”

“Feeling limited and powerless is a powerful thing, Bogdan Ustar,” the stranger said. “It can shrink you down, make you lie still even after the chains are gone and the beatings stop. But people aren’t like stones, they’re like embers waiting for air to come back to life. I told her about a monastery world covered in fields of blooming flowers. The unsighted live their lives there by touch and scent. It is impossible to lie to them, and emperors would seek them out because it was rumored they could hear the approach of death and feel the passage of an era. I also told her that when I return to this town, she will be able to grow herbs in winter.”

Bogdan listened and frowned, as the stranger had known he would.

“But that is not for you, my boy. To you, I will speak of chemistry, of heat, enzymes, starch, sugar, and protein chains, of peptides and amino acids.”

“What’s all of that good for?” Bogdan asked.

“It’s going to make you the best brewer of beer on the planet,” the stranger answered with a smile. And that beer would form the foundation of a revolution: earn them capital to start a business, hire caravan guards, travel from town to town liberating the downtrodden, and arm loyal followers with steel and sorcery. Eventually, that revolution—built on a glimmer of hope and forged with the best of intentions—would earn him an empire, just as it always had.

As they walked past the frost-covered windmill the stranger had seen the day before, he whistled, and Llewelyn poked her head out from behind a shed. “Are we really going?”

“We are,” the stranger said.

She ran over to them, eyes sparkling, her few belongings carried in a sack over her shoulder. “Where are we going?”

“North,” the stranger answered. “Bogdan Ustar says there’s a bigger city several days from here. We should be able to join a caravan of the Lyuko from there, and they can take us to warmer, richer lands.”

Llewelyn frowned. “Not sure I like the idea of traveling with tinkers. They’re all thieves, you know?”

Bogdan frowned, but the stranger laughed. “I didn’t know that, Llewelyn Ustar. Let’s just hope they don’t feel the same way about traveling with a runaway servant.” Llewelyn blushed and her hand went to the side of her neck. “Don’t take it harshly, girl. You have courage and a good heart. I’ll teach you to hold a sword, and no one will ever treat you like a servant again.”

“I like the sound of that,” she said.

The stranger nodded. The amulet under his shirt tingled as the bond between him and his vassals settled into place. It was a shame the old woman had refused to take his name, but there would be more opportunities where they were headed, and she’d given him a far greater gift, one he would return. With interest.

He plucked a branch from a leafless bush and focused on the word she’d drawn into his palm. The magic of this world was crude and contractual compared to what he was used to, and aside from cultivating his own cadre of sorcerers, he didn’t want to use it. But there were gateways and resonances that existed between worlds and universes and realities. Scattered across many of them were artifacts he’d wielded, pools of magic he’d taken hold of, ancient machines he’d set in motion, and godlings of the void that he’d tamed. The loops, lines, dots, hashes, and marks of this world were just another such tool, a key to unlocking the irrepressible forces bound to his will.

He looked at the dead twig and said, “Grow.”

The twig stirred and twisted, buds forming on knobs and bursting into leaves. Bogdan ogled and Llewelyn covered her mouth with her hand.

He dropped the branch in the snow and walked away from Korvo without looking back. The last of his memories fell into place, and a calm settled over his mind. It would take years, maybe decades, but the cycle was beginning anew. He would gather an army, find this world’s sources of power, and make them his own. Then, triumphant, he would move to the next, and the next after that, because there were always more.

But before he left, he would return to this pathetic village and crush every von Graf alive, because he was Marek Konig Ustar, and he always repaid his debts.

Profit Motive

By Joseph Ottinger

[Virgil the Intentional] watched as the Thursr advanced on the Chevalier Gallant, [BarryGibs]. Things were getting dicey, very dicey—the party’d already lost both the other mage and the other tank, and they were running out of Health. They’d managed to cut down four of the five Thursrs with a lot of effort, but this last one seemed to be tougher than the others.

The tank readied his axe nervously. “Get ready,” the poor fool shouted. “I’m about to go Leeroy Jenkins on this ’tard!”

Virgil was ready. He’d already prepped the spell and had a scroll in hand too. He was just waiting for the right moment—timing was everything.

The Thursr stopped pacing and roared at the Chevalier. It raised its club—festooned with a single spike—over its head and prepared to jump.

It was time. Virgil cast Shield of Northern Light and watched a bright blue-and-red shell materialize in front of the knight, who brought his axe back for a swing of his own.

Then the Thursr leaped, bringing its club up and over...

And through the shield, like it wasn’t even there.

The Chevalier yelped in surprise—Virgil had never heard an actual person say “Yipe!” before; there went another item on his bucket list—and then fell as the club landed on his head with a meaty thud. That spike was... rough. Gore went everywhere. Scratch another Chevalier Gallant.

The Thursr looked at Virgil, the last surviving party member.

“Uh-oh,” Virgil said theatrically, thinking of BarryGibs watching the scene through his death animation screen. He widened his eyes in fear and popped open the scroll as the Thursr tried to pry its club from BarryGibs’s skull.

Virgil counted the seconds for the death animation in his head, then cast the scroll. Immediately four knights appeared in the doorway. “There he is,” the lead knight shouted. He raised his cruel-looking sword and saluted the Thursr. “Attack,” he shouted, and raced toward the Thursr. The Troll abandoned his spiked club and ran out of the room.

Virgil grinned. “Off with you,” he said, dismissing the illusory knights in mid-stride and then casually walking to the three corpses of his latest party members. He removed everything he could, then placed the party’s one unique item—BarryGib’s [Radiant Scale Armor of the Heron], which was a brilliant blue except where Gibs’ blood stained it—in the corner for the modder who ran the Cruel Citadel these days to recover. Everything else he stored in his inventory.

That club... the details were amusing. Whoever designed that club was a cruel bastard.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Rusty Spiked Club

Damage: 8-16

Durability: 18 of 20

Level Requirement: 2, Blunt Weapons

Mace - Medium

Blunt enough to make a point, the rusty spike has a 5% chance to cause Jaw Lock, a disease that suppresses health-regen by 90% until a potion of Cure Disease is ingested. And it hurrrrrrrrts.

Secondary use: can also prop doors open really well, like a typical Robert Jordan book.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Virgil wasn’t sure if he’d seen one of those on the market before, so he put it alongside the armor for the Citadel to recover. He didn’t need [BarryGibs], [TheFleshDowel], or [RicTheEnforcer] to wonder how a weapon that’d taken them out had been recovered for the market despite their party’s tragic loss. They were already likely to be royally pissed when they did their corpse runs—their second time dying in the Cruel Citadel—and they would be even more pissed when they found that the Citadel had looted all their stuff.

***

Jason popped the hood on his VR pod and stretched. He didn’t want those tossers to be able to easily find him, now that he’d effectively robbed them of everything they had.

It’d been a good run. That [Flaking Falchion of the Falcon] (18 HP base damage, causes fear with a falcon’s cry, residual damage 12 HP/s for 12 seconds) wasn’t worth a ton, but it was good enough that William—his co-conspirator—would be able to sell it in one of the cities on the other side of the Hearthworld map. Swords and shields like that weren’t worth a lot on their own, but if you went through enough of them you started to see real money... and William and Jason had gone through enough to break the in-game economy. Of course, the creators of Hearthworld had set up ways to stop players from becoming financially OP—including a FrontFlip store where IRL gaming gear could be purchased for ludicrous amounts of in-game gold. Thanks to that, William and Jason had some of the best VR pods on the market and a thriving resale hustle that kept the electricity on and the fridge stocked.

All it took was a simple confidence game.

They would spot a guild party on the move, and then William would pretend to try to grief Jason, who would use his magic spells to defend himself; he’d cast illusions that looked like fireballs, lightning strikes, and whatnot. William would yelp appropriately and run away, and the party would invite what was clearly a high-level mage on board. It wasn’t usually that difficult a confidence game, because Jason’s main, Virgil, was a fairly high-level mage.

Then he and his new party would go campaigning, and Jason would discover what items they had, maybe help them pick up a few extras. He’d fight, but he’d mostly “preserve his spells for the boss fight,” casting some of his actual low-level spells to help keep the ruse working. He’d even chip in with combat to keep things going if necessary. Then, when he knew what he was working with, they would go after the Cruel Citadel itself, and when the going got tough, well, he’d “do his best” to keep the party alive, but fail. Once they were dead, he would fend off whatever monsters had defeated them and rob the corpses blind.

It was a good gig. If they had items that were rare enough to be valuable, but not so rare that nobody else would have them, well... after a little creative maneuvering of the IRL and Hearthworld chains of supply and demand, that was money in the bank. The only danger was in finding truly unique items; they couldn’t sell those without being caught out. Their owners would claw their way back through the dungeon trying to retrieve them, and Jason’s avatar’s corpse wouldn’t be around.

When that happened, he had to change his contact details. It was a pain, but hey, a job was a job, right? He would finish his pizza and some chablis—a terrible combination, really, but it was what he usually had on hand—then tweak his avatar, and nobody would never know the difference. Maybe they’d buy their own crap back from the market and have not a single clue.

***

Jason spent the next two days outside of the pod. It was always wise to avoid the hornets’ nest after you kicked it. He caught some rays, moved some product on GameBay, watched a movie or three. William said he’d made the month’s rent just from the raid the day prior, so they would stay ahead as long as that FrontFlip store shipment of CandorSight headsets came in on time... but William had his eye on a new ’cycle, a Mangshan 75kWh beast that would set him back quite a bit.

Jason didn’t mind. They split everything, so every time William was motivated to get some new gear, Jason scored.

Then the two of them logged back in and set off for the Cruel Citadel. It was awesome hunting grounds; in most of the dungeons on Hearthworld, corpse runs were the norm, but the Citadel was... different. Originally a newbie proving ground and an easy way to grind for experience, the Citadel had changed; now it was super-hard, and successful corpse runs simply didn’t happen anymore.

The Griefer took everything.

That made it awesome for William—playing as [Whack_A_Molar]—and Virgil because they didn’t have to find a way to explain why the parties they ran with kept coming up with empty corpses.

Virgil cast a spell to become harder to see and hear, and they set up not too far from the Citadel, where they’d be able to watch parties take on the dungeon. The rep of the place was awesome, because players took it as a personal challenge to defeat it, and they’d load themselves up with their best gear in the process, only to lose it when the Citadel wrecked ’em in the rectum. All Virgil had to do was find a set of marks that looked good.

They watched a few lower-level parties glomp their way in through the gloom. They were carrying pretty decent gear, but not great; it was the sort of crap that would net you twenty or thirty gold in total, not worth their time, plus they weren’t acting as if they’d been in the Citadel before—they didn’t have the revenge faces Virgil was used to watching for—which meant when these noobs died they would only drop one item and a little gold. It was the second death that opened up whole inventories. Those guys were dead, dead, dead, and just apparently didn’t know it.

A high-level party went in, six very serious players who didn’t yap among themselves. They had a plan, and more importantly, they had the resting bitch faces that came with swearing revenge on the Griefer. They also had high-quality gear: the mage had a staff that Virgil had never seen before, one of the tanks had a really nice hammer, and there was a kite shield that nearly made Whack_A_Molar salivate... but they were all unique items. It wasn’t stuff Virgil or Whack_A_Molar could leverage; if they were caught with the items, they’d be marked as griefers or—worse—corpse robbers, and the river of gold they were sitting on would dry up. No, thanks. They would leave that crap for others.

Then they saw a party of three: a cleric, an archer, and a fighter. The cleric and the fighter looked like they knew what they were doing; they looked in the right places for an ambush, once even looking directly where Virgil and Whack_A_Molar were. The archer seemed a little clumsy, a little like a noob, someone who wasn’t really comfortable navigating the VR gear in Hearthworld, but the kit the archer had seemed pretty nice. From what Virgil could see, it seemed perfect: not too rich, not too shabby.

It made him feel a little bit stabby. “That’s part of your Mangshan,” he told Whack_A_Molar. “Time to set up.”

He cast a better invisibility spell on Whack_A_Molar so his friend could get in position to “ambush” him. Then he waited a few minutes while the party of three got a little closer—but not too close—and then strolled out, spinning an eye-catching amulet in his hands, whistling.

When they finally looked at him, he gave a particular trill in his song, and then Whack_A_Molar shouted at him from behind a tree. “I’ve got you now,” Whack_A_Molar yelled, rushing out with a Superior Flamberge, his Chrome Plate Armor shedding sparks as pieces ground together. It wasn’t great armor, but damn was it fun to watch. Whack_A_Molar only wore it when they were hunting marks; for a real fight the armor rating was so low the set was pretty much useless.

“Oh, no,” Virgil shrieked in mock fear. “An ambush! A griefer! Why me!” He watched the party of three with interest. The other players were too far away to help, but they could see and hear what was going on. Virgil’s greatest concern was the chick with the bow—she might have the range to get involved, and it was too early for that.

“I’ll take your stuff,” Whack_A_Molar shouted as loudly as he could. “You’re all alone, mage!”

“Neverrrr!” Virgil said back loudly, and let fly a shower of sparks in Whack_A_Molar’s direction.

Whack_A_Molar swatted at the sparks like they were angry mosquitoes on an otherwise perfect day. They weren’t real, of course—they were illusion-class spells—but it sure looked good if you weren’t close enough to notice that nothing was singed or smoking. Virgil took the opportunity to jog away from Whack_A_Molar toward the party.

Whack_A_Molar coughed theatrically and raised his buckler in front of his face, holding his sword like a flag. “I’ve got you now, mage,” he said. “My shield will protect me!”

Virgil raised himself to his full height and shouted part of a recipe for caramel-gingerbread cookies... but in German. “Oh, no! A shield! In einer anderen Schussel Mehl! Ingwer! Zimt! Nelken!” Taking a deep breath, he shouted, “Backpulver!” as loudly and fiercely as he could, and a rather impressive illusion of a lightning bolt—complete with a thunderclap that left Jason’s ears ringing in the VR pod—crashed around Whack_A_Molar.

Whack_A_Molar screamed at the top of his voice and danced from side to side like a drunkard.

Virgil tried not to grin. This whole charade had played out probably a hundred times. It was over-the-top, and rather absurd, really, but when they’d tried to make it more realistic, they found that other parties tended to stay out of it. When it was too absurd, it was too easily seen through, but this was usually just the right level of silliness and threat to be convincing for most Hearthworld players. It reminded him of a documentary he’d watched about the first computer animated shorts, and how the animators had had to come up with a blurring algorithm because the human eye refused to process the level of movement and definition a computer program could produce. A little extra unreality made the lie easier to accept.

“Und Salz verquirlen,” Virgil said, trying to round out this step of the recipe. He’d actually tried to make those cookies a few times, but they always had the consistency of wet cardboard and tasted terrible—even for wet cardboard. Maybe it was as good as sweaty insoles would taste—he wasn’t sure. Either way, his cooking was bad enough that he was satisfied with ordering in.

Virgil cast the spell to create the beginnings of another thunderclap, and Whack_A_Molar jumped—literally jumped—and ran away. This was always the hardest part of the fight, because it seemed so stupid. You’d think the battle would have to be drawn out a little, but there was a lot of balance involved; too short a battle, and there was no threat portrayed to Virgil, but too long a fight encouraged the marks to actually get involved. The way it was planned now worked more often than not, and as soon as Whack_A_Molar got out of view, William would log out and start looking at the ’cycle magazines while Jason stayed on and tried to integrate himself into the marks’ confidence.

Now all Virgil had to do was accept help.

***

[I_See_You] was watching the scene with interest, her Long Bow resting on the ground while she leaned her chin on the top. She asked [Ghosthand], “Do you think that’s him?”

The cleric smiled gently. “I don’t think so. The Griefer is supposed to look like a Jotnar and stay in the Citadel.”

[Palaxer] grinned. “The Griefer’s also supposed to win. That clown looks like he’s getting his a—”  He halted as Ghosthand glared at him. “Um, butt handed to him.”

“Should we help?” I_See_You said as she readied her bow.

Ghosthand reached out her hand. “We’re a little far away. Why don’t we just get a little closer for now. If the mage needs help, we can maybe step in, but let’s see what’s involved first, okay?”

I_See_You nodded. Ghosthand was the best. She was the one who’d arranged all this, and it was great. In the game, I_See_You was tough, I_See_You was tall, I_See_You had hair. I_See_You wasn’t just having fun—she was having all the fun.

***

The fight between the mage and his assailant didn’t last long. It had an almost comic quality that made Palaxer smirk. The fighter seemed to know how to handle his vicious-looking two-handed sword well; a lot of players held it like a club and just swiped it here and there and let the game correct their motions into effective attacks. But this guy knew how to balance it, and he swung it with his wrists... Apparently, he was just a terrible tactician. The mage fended him off with an impressive array of attack spells as they watched.

First it was a shower of sparks, then it was a massive lightning strike that left trails of light in their eyes. Palaxer was surprised that the griefer wasn’t a smoking corpse after that lightning strike - maybe the guy was tougher than he looked. When the mage started casting another spell, the griefer jumped and ran. The mage had won.

I_See_You looked from Ghosthand to Palaxer and said what he’d been thinking. “You know,” she said, “we don’t have a mage.”

Ghosthand raised an eyebrow, making the fringe on her Headdress of Far-Reaching Goodwill shift a little. “Think he might be interested in helping a good cause?”

I_See_You bounced on her toes in anticipation. “We can check!”

“Ho, the mage,” Palaxer called out when they were a little closer. He held his hands out, away from his sword. He didn’t want to take any chances on a player who’d just survived a PK ambush going skittish and wiping them out while I_See_You was there.

“Uh, ho there,” the mage said, kindly enough. The guy looked like he was moderately well equipped, with a short staff and blue robes that had a bunch of chemical and geometric symbols all over them. It all had the look of something that emphasized form over function—the kind of crap you’d get in the early mid-game levels, where players thought that how cool you looked mattered.

“Yo, I’m Palaxer, that’s I_See_You, and that’s Ghosthand.” He pointed from himself to each of the girls in turn. By now, the mage should be able to see the tags floating over their heads, but it wouldn’t kill anybody to be polite. “Spearpoint Rager, Recurve Sniper, Warding Cleric. What happened over there?”

The mage grinned. “I’m Virgil the Intentional, AtoMage,” he said and gave a dramatic bow. “That was just another PKer, I guess. You see my massive party.” He gestured to the empty space around him. “I guess it’s like raw meat to a tiger, where jackasses want to take your stuff.” He shrugged. “Shit happens.”

Ghosthand twitched. “Hey, ixnay on the ussing-cay, all right? I_See_You’s a little young.”

“Ix-nay on the wha—oh,” Virgil replied. “Shit, okay, sorry—wait, sorry, fu—umm, I’ll watch what I say.”

Palaxer rolled his eyes. About what he’d expect from another gamer. He’d told Ghosthand she wasn’t going to be able to protect I_See_You from all of it.

“I watch TV, you dorks.” I_See_You turned to the mage. “Hey Virgil, we’re leveling up so we can go after the Griefer. You wanna help?”

Virgil laughed. “Straight to the point, huh? I like it. Um... give me a minute.”

***

Virgil had to turn away from the trio, just in case his glee was too obvious. This was perfect. They weren’t noobs, exactly—going into the Citadel wasn’t a first-level thing anymore—but they were basically walking straight into the con, eyes wide open and focused elsewhere. They wanted to level up, meaning that they would eventually find items worth selling. And then? They wanted to go after the Griefer, which was basically a fun way to suicide your character. That dungeon was a freaking meat grinder, and Roark himself was OP as hell. He’d have to stick around long enough for them to get killed twice, but that Rager looked like the type who would want to tear the Citadel a new one once the Griefer murdered him and his party. These guys would be well worth the investment.

It was time to go for the soft sell, the technique that got the marks to try to convince him to buy in. “So, um... I was actually thinking about hanging out in one of the guilds. You sure you guys aren’t up for that instead?”

I_See_You grimaced. “A guild? Those guys are boring. Always competing for the top spot, they aren’t focused on the game. I want to play.” The archer’s emphasis was kinda cute. Man, what a naive kid.

“Well,” Virgil said slowly, “I was thinking the guild would give us a chance to organize bigger parties, but... I dunno, here we have the four-man band, I guess.”

“Two men, two women,” I_See_You corrected him. Then she grinned and rubbed her hands together. “This is going to be great!”

Ghosthand, their Warding Cleric, put a hand on I_See_You’s shoulder. “Hold your horses, we’re not ready to go after the Griefer yet.”

The Recurve Sniper looked from Virgil to Palaxer. “He’s pretty high level, right?”

Virgil nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard he’s wasted some of the best players out there.”

“Have you ever seen him?” I_See_You asked, looking intently at him.

“Um... no,” Virgil said. He actually had seen Roark, but it’d been a while—the dude was a magnet for trouble, and was well worth avoiding. He’d killed Virgil and the party he’d been with at the time like they were a minor inconvenience, but he couldn’t just say yes, he’d run into Roark the Griefer. That opened the door to questions like “when?” and “what happened?”

“He casts some serious magic,” Ghosthand said. “And the Citadel is supposed to change constantly. I don’t know if anyone’s beaten it yet.”

“Nobody beats him,” I_See_You said, casting a glance at Palaxer like she was regurgitating something she’d heard from him.

“Right,” Virgil said idly.

“Anyway,” Ghosthand continued, “Palaxer and I are pretty high level—I’m level 10, he’s at 12—but I_See_You is only on 5. We’re only here now so we can show her what we’re trying to do before we help her grind out a few more levels.”

Virgil didn’t say that the Griefer ate players under level 20 for breakfast. If they had their delusions of grandeur, so much the better for the con.

“Good thing you guys showed up, too,” Virgil said. “Otherwise that griefer... you know, the other one with the squiggly sword... might have gotten me. But what’s the plan?”

Ghosthand pointed to a mountain off in the distance. “See that? There’s a rock up there. We’re going to go after it. It’s worth gobs of experience.”

Virgil wasn’t sure how a rock was going to give any experience, but as long as he got his, he was okay.

***

It turned out it was a [Roc] with no k. Not a rock after all. It was some kind of giant bird monster that had a nest up there.

They didn’t see the Roc at first—only a shadow, followed by a distant cry, followed by an actual rock the size of Virgil’s head narrowly missing them. It was terrifying, if only because they’d not expected it, but once they saw it, it somehow got worse and better.

The Roc looked like an eagle, if an eagle had a wingspan of twenty-five feet. It would scream at them, fly off for a bit, return with another rock—ha ha, Virgil thought, wishing whichever developer had come up with that would get domed with a rock the next time he stepped outside—and try to drop it on them. Palaxer played defense, mostly trying to use his shield to reflect the sun at the Roc to draw its attention, then dodging from the boulders it was trying to drop on them.

Virgil shot Atomic Lances up at it, basically morphing energy into bolts, but the lances were too slow to hit. He tried to anticipate where the bird would go next, but every time he did, the Roc would wheel and he’d have wasted his Magicka. Virgil’s main strength in the battle was to make it harder for the Roc to drop stones on the four party members by forcing it to dodge his ranged attacks.

I_See_You turned out to be the most effective, which wasn’t saying much, as the low-level archer could only hit the creature once in a while, knocking a bit off of its Health at a time. This is going to take forever, Virgil thought.

He was wrong.

After the monster had dropped what felt like dozens of stones, it shifted gears and started trying to attack with its claws, swooping low, talons extended. On its third pass, the Roc finally grabbed Palaxer, who grunted in pain, his Health dropping nearly a third as soon as the talons hit him.

That was their chance! Virgil insta-cast Not Exactly Quick Sand, which would slow anything in contact with the ground. Palaxer’s movements slowed to a crawl, seemingly glued to the mountainside. The Roc screeched and beat its wings, trying to lift off but refusing to let its victim go.

I_See_You yowled in triumph and fired an arrow, letting loose and striking the Roc straight in an eye.

The bird twisted and crashed to the ground, screaming in pain, and immediately got caught in Not Exactly Quick Sand’s area of effect. Virgil pumped his fists and fired more Atomic Lances at it before it could regain its feet.

Palaxer waded through the not-quick-sand to the Roc and started hacking away with his sword. The Roc twisted, its Health bar flashing red with the last 10% warning, and Ghosthand cast a red aura toward the creature. I_See_You launched arrows as fast as she could, and the Roc whistled piteously and then died.

“Woohoo,” I_See_You shouted. “We did it! We did it, Emily! Greg, we did it!”

Palaxer grinned, despite being bloody and battered from the Roc’s claws. “Good job, kiddo... You too, Virgil.”

Virgil chuckled. “It surprised me, too.” He was even more inclined to smile when the experience from the Roc showed up in his notifications. It wasn’t quite enough to level him up, but he was getting close.

Apparently that kill shot had helped I_See_You dramatically. She gained two levels and immediately consulted with Ghosthand on how to allocate points and skills.

While Ghosthand and Palaxer explained min-maxing to the archer, their four-man party climbed up to the Roc’s nest, some quarter mile up the mountain, and collected the treasure from the desiccated and torn bodies spawned in as atmospheric decorations for the wooden structure. It was pretty good stuff: there was a Mitre of Efficacy for Ghosthand (a 12% boost to every ward she cast, which blew her Headdress’s stats out of the water), a Sword of Dusk for Palaxer (slowed down enemies with less than two-thirds his Strength), and a Spelltome for Virgil himself. He couldn’t have been more pleased—it was a fairly high-level Illusion spell, but he already had a copy. This one would be going to market.

In the arms of a skeleton draped in rags, Virgil found a unique bow that he theatrically handed to I_See_You.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Unique Recurve of the Cougar

Damage: 25 base damage + arrow modifiers

Durability: 32 of 32

Level Requirement: 8 + Archery Skill

Bow - Fast Attack Speed

Property: Wielder attacks silently

Property: +15 Damage to opponents with greater Constitution than wielder

This weapon of the plains is deadly against large beasts and, well, younger men.

... I still love you, Irenea!

╠═╦╬╧╪

I_See_You’s eyes lit up when she read what the bow could do... and then she looked at Ghosthand. “What does this thing about younger men mean?” she asked, showing the bow to her friend.

Ghosthand coughed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s an excellent bow, and it was nice of Virgil to let you have it.”

“It’s not a big deal.” Virgil shrugged. Honestly, he didn’t care that much about the bow. It was a unique weapon, and therefore he couldn’t sell it without drawing suspicions later. But it made I_See_You happy, and that was kinda nice for now.

When the newbie archer had finished leveling up—shaking her hands like she was trying to find a way to get rid of extra energy, even in the game—she closed all her notifications and looked expectantly at her three companions.

“Now is it time to go after the Griefer?”

“Hmm, maybe tomorrow,” Ghosthand said, eyes vacant as she checked something in her interface. “It’s getting late. We’ll need to see if Virgil’s going to be around, too.”

Virgil blinked and then faked a yawn. “Um, yeah. What time tomorrow are you thinking of?”

Ghosthand stopped reading whatever it was she was looking at. “How about six thirty, Pacific? That gives us time to eat dinner.”

Virgil quirked his mouth and considered. “Let me check my calendar,” he said, and looked. Sure enough, there was nothing on it but con these suckers out of everything they have. “Six thirty, Pacific. I think can do that. This will be great. Taking on the Griefer at last, right? See you then.”

Ghosthand smiled sadly. “See you then, Virgil.”

“After a while, crocodile!” I_See_You chirped, and logged out, followed by Ghosthand and Palaxer.

“Later, ’gator,” Virgil said with a smirk, and logged out himself.

***

Jason opened up his VR pod, stretched, and stood up. He yawned and decided to take a shower. When he was done, he put on some shorts and a vintage Lakers shirt and headed out to the main room. William was watching some Geo show talking about centuries-gone philosophers and psychology.

William was into all that crap—said it gave him insights on how idiots thought, gave him better ways to manipulate them. Jason thought that was funny, usually, but sometimes it made him think William was not that cool of a dude.

He grabbed a beer from the dispenser.

William muted the screen. “Yo. You hook ’em?”

Jason twisted the cap off the beer and shrugged. “Yeah. They actually told me they wanted to go after the Griefer himself, some kind of do-gooder thing, ‘We’ll show him who’s boss,’ and all that.”

“Oh, that will work well for ’em, like it does everyone else. Think there’s gonna be any problems?”

Jason drank, and considered. “Nah, they’re not that high level. They’ve got some decent items, even a unique or two now, but not high enough to know what’s what. They’re meat. How’s it going here?”

At that, William laughed. “Oh, man. Hearthworld nerds are the best! They’ll buy anything with the logo on it. That game of the year commemorative crap we scored last Tuesday? Total bidding war, down to the last second. The goblets went for three hundred apiece. And the weapons and armor sellers in Averi City love me right now. Some kind of guild war going on, so everything’s in demand, more’n usual. What’s this new party got? Anything we can use?”

Jason took another pull. “Yeah, they have some decent armor, some pretty good weapons. I even got an extra Spelltome we can sell now.”

“Perf,” William said, grinning. “When you nuking them?”

“They want to hit the Citadel tomorrow... so probably tomorrow night.”

***

Jason tossed the towel he’d used on his VR pod into the hamper. He’d just finished spraying the interior down and cleaning it to prep for the Citadel raid tonight. When you spent hours in the pod, it tended to get sweaty and rather dirty, even if you were a clean person, and there was really no point to putting up with being gross, right?

He ordered delivery from the Chinese place down the block, then sat on his couch to check the local news while he waited. They were talking about something to do with Hearthworld. That caught his attention, so he rewound the broadcast some.

It turned out that there was this local terminal kid, Breanna Spinoza, who was part of a Fantasy Fulfillment program, and she’d chosen to play Hearthworld as her fantasy. She had two escorts, a geeky-looking orderly and a heavyset nurse, who kept patting the kid’s arm like she needed reassurance. Apparently, they went through the game with her to make sure she understood how to play and could get along.

Breanna beamed straight into the camera from her wheelchair, her bedazzled toque glinting. It was a good smile, even through the ravages of whatever disease she had. Jason could almost see the beautiful woman the girl might have become.

“I’m going to go after the Griefer,” she said, eyes shining and serious. “He’s a modder who cheats and gets everybody, but he won’t get me! We actually found another player who’s going to help! You better watch out, Griefer! We see you, and we’re gonna beat you!”

The reporter grinned at that. “Yes, Mr. Griefer, you’d better watch out. Ms. Abramson?”

The nurse sitting beside Breanna smiled and patted the girl’s arm again. Maybe she was the one who really needed the reassurance. “Breanna’s a trooper. FrontFlip donated a top-of-the-line VR pod for her to use, and she’s leading the party, doing what she can to make the world a better place, while she can, one player at a—”

Jason snapped off the screen, suddenly uncomfortable.

A knock came at the door. His takeout was here, but he wasn’t feeling very hungry.

It was about time for him to log in and prep for the big evening anyway, right?

***

After the immersion animation ended, he saw he had sixteen messages, most of them standard “Hey bro u wanna score” crap and other stupid ads. He dismissed all of them without bothering to read them, then settled in and browsed the Wikis to gauge how much Ghosthand’s Mitre was worth. He hadn’t had a chance to check out its rarity rating the day before.

Then his incoming message alert dinged. It was I_See_You, saying, “Hey u here? We’re ready!”—and as soon as he’d had a chance to respond to that, a message from Ghosthand came in, saying that the three of them were on their way to the agreed upon meeting point. He closed the notifications and checked his scores and stats.

He heard I_See_You chirping to her companions before he saw her. That little kid’s voice sure could carry. When they finally came into view, I_See_You waved enthusiastically at him, her long dark hair bouncing.

Virgil decided he didn’t see a resemblance after all. That girl on TV had been pale and thin, dark-eyed and pretty, but with teeth ruined from being sick. In the game, I_See_You was a standard five foot eight, probably, with healthy bones, tanned skin, and straight teeth. The eyes looked the same. That had to be it, right?

“Hey, Virgil! You ready?” she said happily, dancing to a rhythm only she could detect.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “How about you?”

“Always!” And so the four of them set off for the gloomy and dank entrance to what was becoming one of the most notorious and out-of-character dungeons Hearthworld had.

***

Their first encounter came within seconds of entering the doorway. Changelings leapt out at them, wielding black hooks and howling wordlessly. Palaxer raised his shield and drew aggro; the Changelings’ weapons made a lot of noise but caused no appreciable damage. Palaxer swiped at one with his new sword, and it faded back into the darkness, Health bar flashing as it died.

“They’re low level, just nuke them,” the Rager cried.

I_See_You drew her new bow and let fly, skewering a Changeling of her own. Ghosthand pulled out her holy mace and brained one of the creatures; Virgil clasped his staff defensively, but otherwise watched. Changelings were fodder for noobs, and using his spells on them would be a waste of Magicka....

Moments later, the fight had ended—the Changelings were badly overmatched and wouldn’t have endangered anybody but the weakest players. The low-level creatures had treasure to match, although those hooks they’d used were higher tier than Virgil usually saw in the hands of such entry-level beasts.

The party entered a rough-hewn corridor, water leaking from the ceiling. Virgil looked up and thought he might see bats—hopefully what was falling on them was water—but he wasn’t sure. It was too dark, but adding more light would make them easier to target.

Palaxer, in the lead, tripped.

I_See_You gasped in surprise, swinging her loaded bow in that direction.

“Rock!” the Rager said. “It was only a rock, it’s fine,” he explained as the rock grew two rows of massive teeth and jumped at his back.

It was madness in moments. The rock salamander immediately sliced a decent portion of Palaxer’s Health away. Now was the time for illumination—they had to see what they were up against and quickly—so Virgil cast Chemiluminescence, a spell that harmlessly caused a brilliant light to shine from reactive gases in the air. One salamander wouldn’t pose much of a threat, but...

They were up against five salamanders. Worse, they were up against Reaver Bats as well, a cloud of them eyeing them from the ceiling.

Virgil fired off Ignition. The bats recoiled, then dropped into flight.

I_See_You nocked an arrow and shouted, “There’s so many of them! What do I shoot?”

Virgil, backing up to the wall of the corridor, pointed at the salamanders. “Get the lizards! The bats are going to be too fast.”

The archer aimed and let fly.

From the back of the party, Ghosthand cast Defensive Ward for I_See_You and Palaxer. Virgil wasn’t really close enough to be included in the AoE, but he didn’t mind. Palaxer was being confronted by three of the salamanders, with the other little monsters jockeying their way into position to attack, so the tank needed protection more than anyone else did, as long as the bats didn’t get involved.

The bats wouldn’t get the chance. Virgil went on the offensive and cast a Mild Exothermia toward the center of their shadowy colony. The explosion rippled outward, killing every one of them except the straggler farthest away from the center of the explosion. The disoriented bat flew straight into the wall, knocking down even more of its Health.

Meanwhile, Palaxer managed to take out one of the salamanders attacking him. He was holding his own, slowing the speedy reptiles down with his Sword of Dusk, but the element of surprise had given the salamanders an early advantage.

I_See_You nocked another arrow and caught a salamander in the back of the neck. The salamanders just barely had high enough Cons to trigger her bow’s bonus Damage. With a wheeze, the mob fell over, dead, but another salamander took its place.

Virgil sighed. He hated these kinds of battles. They weren’t difficult, they were tedious. He cast an Atomic Lance at the wounded bat, killing it, and then cast Gravity ytivarG at the ’manders, sending them bouncing into the air and then back down, not only wounding each one seriously but also Stunning them for 30 seconds.

Palaxer immediately delivered a coup de grace on the closest, and I_See_You sniped another. That left two of the lizards, both confused and ineffective. Palaxer quickly killed them, before they could recover.

I_See_You looked at Virgil, eyes shining. “That was amazing!” she said. “How’d you do that?”

Virgil caught Ghosthand looking at him out of the corner of her eye. He shrugged. “AtoMage, I guess. Give me a minute,” he said. “I need to recover some Magick before we go on.”

***

The next big room they ran into contained a Thursr, with a small army of Changelings in attendance. It managed to hammer Palaxer, reducing his Health to a mere 25%, before Virgil electrified the floor, which had the effect of not only clearing out most of the Changelings immediately, but also immobilizing the Thursr. I_See_You then skewered its skull with an arrow and it fell to the ground, dead.

They thought they’d found the exit to that level, only to run into a series of Thursr Brutes in a narrow hallway. The choke point looked as if it had been designed to put almost all of the pressure on Palaxer, because there wasn’t any room to maneuver. Virgil and I_See_You had to watch helplessly as Palaxer ground his way through the Brutes, one by one, with Ghosthand supporting with spells that helped keep his Health vial full.

Then they ran into a weird room where physical attacks didn’t work for the players—the Brutes were able to attack, and Palaxer could defend, but his sword did nothing at all. Neither did I_See_You’s attacks, when she could actually figure out an angle to use her bow.

“They’ve got an enchantment that nullifies non-magick damage,” Virgil yelled when it finally dawned on him.

That left it up to him and Ghosthand to carry the load. The cleric used her Draw Health spell and Virgil used some of his better attack spells—but not his best ones. He had to be careful because the rest of his party didn’t know his real level and he didn’t want them to.

The boss room had an overpowered Thursr Brute that needed to be held out of contact with the ground to be defeated—contact with the floor meant her healing was boosted nearly three hundred percent—but once they figured out that the floor was the key to her rapid healing, Virgil caught the Brute with Not Exactly Quick Sand. Palaxer took advantage of the slowed movement, grappled the Brute, and held it off of the ground like a trophy while the rest of the party peppered it until it died.

***

They carefully entered the stairwell to descend to the second level. The stairwell was usually empty, but every so often the Citadel would helpfully trap it. Part of what made the Citadel so dangerous was that it tended to ignore what players expected it to be. Most dungeons were places where you went in, slaughtered whatever spawned there, and did a puzzle or two just to make completing a quest seem harder. Ever since the Griefer had shown up, however, the Citadel actually set out to kill you and take your stuff.

It paid to be careful here.

This time they made it through the stairs without incident, but the second floor was laced with acid traps. It was a grind because they had to constantly stop and scan for safe routes, and that was usually through discovery of unsafe paths where floor tiles dropped away the second you put your weight on them and dunked your leg to the knee in acid. There was a lot of healing and waiting. At one point they found a giant Hellbender’s lair, where Virgil had to cast Endothermic Reaction, to freeze it and slow it down, after which Palaxer and I_See_You wore the monster down and killed it.

It was an exhausting slog. They’d been in the game nearly three hours already, and had farther to go, but they needed to rest and recover.

I_See_You looked over at Ghosthand with a giant smile on her face.

“This is the best,” she said.

Virgil had to look away—that smile reminded him of the girl in the wheelchair.

“Hey, Virgil,” I_See_You went on, suddenly getting serious.

“Yeah?”

“So, IRL I’m, like, not old enough to play Hearthworld,” she said.

“I’d never have guessed. I thought you were eighteen or so.” He grinned, having actually thought she was closer to ten.

“No, I’m seven, silly!”

Chuckling to himself, Virgil said, “Okay, but... why tell me?”

“And I’m really sick,” she said.

“You are?”

“Yeah, I have some kind of bone cancer. I don’t think they have a cure, but it’s okay. They have stuff to make me feel better.”

Virgil frowned. This was not a fun conversation, no matter how perky I_See_You kept being. This sounded... really bad. They were already two floors into one of the most notorious dungeons Hearthworld had. It was a roach motel for players: they went in, and they didn’t come out unless they were really lucky. All of a sudden Virgil didn’t feel very lucky.

“So,” I_See_You said, “I wanted to say thank you for helping us get the Griefer. It’s my Fantasy Fulfilment wish, to get him. He’s making this a way harder place for people who just want to play and have fun, so, if I take him out, maybe he’ll see he can’t just be a jerk to everybody.”

Virgil cleared his throat, all humor about the situation burned away. “Yeah, so, uh, that’s kinda cool.”

Palaxer leaned his head to the side and looked at Virgil. “Basically all that really matters is that I_See_You gets the Griefer, okay? Ghosthand and I have no problem at all letting our characters die to make that happen. We’ll try to keep you around if we can, but she is the point, got it?”

“Yeah, I get it,” Virgil said. “You’re her escorts.”

Ghosthand nodded. “At this point, you might as well consider yourself one, too.” She stared off into the distance, maybe checking her grimoire.

Virgil stared at his feet, feeling like maybe he belonged somewhere on the bottom of his own shoes.

***

The rest of the floor got dramatically tougher as they went on. They started seeing low-level Reavers, who were considerably harder to fight than the Thursrs. Unlike the straightforward attacks from the bigger Trolls, the stealthy Reavers seemed to be able to strike without being seen. Virgil had to keep up Revelation, a spell to show the outlines of their shadowy opponents, which was annoying because it required constant maintenance and only worked for line of sight.

The final room had a Behemoth Thursr—rather a welcome reprieve after all of the Reavers. Immediately, Palaxer and I_See_You started hammering away at it.

I_See_You stayed out of the Behemoth’s range, firing arrows, and Ghosthand kept the Rager’s Health up as he drew the boss’s aggro. The Behemoth hit incredibly hard, but not so hard that it exceeded Ghosthand’s capabilities, although she was probably having to keep track of how much Magick she had.

Virgil cast a few spells at the boss here and there, but he was mostly watching for Reavers popping out of the shadows, so he kept up Revelation, watching I_See_You’s back while she sent arrow after arrow at the Behemoth.

When the boss reached 50% Health, it shouted, “Executioners!”

Revelation highlighted three Elite Reavers as they popped up from behind the room’s throne. Two held curved swords, green and hissing with poison, and the third held up a tube, nearly three feet long, to its mouth, inhaled, and then blew a dart directly at Virgil as I_See_You looked on in horror.

Virgil wasn’t worried when he saw the Reaver. He knew they preferred poison, but honestly? Unless the Reavers were Dread or better, he would be fine; even if he didn’t have the antidote for their typical poison on him, they would only knock down his Health a good bit. Even Dread Reavers would have had a hard time killing him before his Health-regen kicked in; it could happen, but it wasn’t that common.

But I_See_You apparently didn’t know that.

As the poisoned dart shot toward him, she howled, “Noooooo!”

Then the little idiot jumped in front of him and took the dart meant for him. She fell to the floor, her Health bar rapidly flashing a sickly green.

Ghosthand ran to her charge and cast what healing spells she could. That slowed the immediate drain of Health but didn’t stop it like an Antidote would have.

I_See_You looked up at her nurse and gave a sad little smile. “Uh-oh,” she said.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Ghosthand said, panicked. “She can’t die down here. It’s too late, it’ll be impossible for us to pick everything back up, there’s no time!” She hugged I_See_You in her arms.

“They were gonna kill Virgil,” the kid said weakly. “I had to save him.”

Virgil was watching, his mouth open.

“What?” he muttered.

Across the boss room, Palaxer took a massive blow from the Behemoth, and the Elite Reavers started to move in on the tank to wear him down.

Virgil closed his mouth and eyes and clasped his fists. Screw this, he thought. Screw all of this. It’s one thing to be a bad guy, but I’m sick of being the worst. He opened his eyes and hands and roared in fury and pain and anger.

His first action was to cast Dissolution with his right hand at every one of the Reavers. The Behemoth Thursr was at half strength, but the Reavers fought with poison; they were the greater threat here. The first two didn’t even know what hit them; they turned into puddles of meat as soon as the bolts of magic hit them.

The third Elite Reaver—the one with the blowgun—had just enough time to see the magic weapons launch. Its mouth opened in an O of surprise, just before its head was separated rather forcefully from its neck.

The Behemoth growled at Virgil, but Virgil twisted his left hand and pushed a Lightning Rod at the menacing Troll. Real lightning this time ran the Behemoth through, leaving not just a hole, but a gaping tunnel. Its Health vial emptied immediately. It collapsed to the floor, body smoking.

Virgil ran to the closest Reaver’s body and started rifling through its inventory, fuming.

Not finding one on the Reaver, he pulled out the Antidote from his own inventory and shouted at Ghosthand, “Here, give it to her.” He ran to the cleric and shoved the vial into her hands.

Hands shaking, Ghosthand poured the Antidote into I_See_You’s mouth. The girl coughed, but her Health bar turned red again—the poison was gone—and started recovering, slowly, slowly, so slowly.

Virgil scowled. “She needs to heal,” he said, and sat down facing the level exit. “We’ll have to wait here.”

Ghosthand was still cradling I_See_You. “Virgil,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he said, angry and disappointed and busy. Furiously, he scanned the Hearthworld wikiLore, searching for anything that would help him out.

Finally, he found something perfect. And he knew exactly who would have one, too.

All he had to do was convince someone who owed him nothing to give him one of the most valuable items in the game. Easy, right?

Trying to mask his desperation, Virgil opened up the messaging interface...

***

A few minutes later, I_See_You’s Health had climbed back over the halfway mark. Virgil closed out his status screen and stood up. “It’s time to go,” he said brusquely.

Ghosthand stared at him. “Is something wrong?”

“Look,” he snapped, staring at I_See_You. “We have to start being really careful down here. That last battle nearly killed Bre—I mean, nearly killed I_See_You, and they’re not going to get any easier. We have to go slow, we have to move smart, we have to watch out. No more messing around.”

Palaxer stepped up. “Let me go in front. I’ll draw aggro.”

Virgil nodded. “Good. We’ll keep the same formation we’ve been using: Palaxer, then I_See_You running ranged interference for you. Ghosthand, you protect the two of them. I’ll watch everything. We’re through playing games. It’s time to finish this.”

And so it was that they descended to the third floor of the Cruel Citadel.

***

The third level was... strange. They came out in yet another corridor—apparently the Citadel liked long mazes these days—and they kept hearing whispers without being able to detect anything, despite Virgil’s Revelation spell. Hardly anything showed up in their lines of sight.

As they reached the halfway point of yet another corridor, they heard a guttural voice to their right, murmuring, “Für Salz.”

Virgil stopped, surprised even though he’d been expecting this—or something like it. “For salt?” he said out loud, which caused Ghosthand and the others to stop.

Palaxer turned to face him. “What the—”

A section of the wall rotated open, and a giant Knight Thursr burst from the hidden passage. Virgil raised his hands to cast a spell, but the beast closed one of its massive hands around Virgil’s head and dragged him back through the secret door.

Virgil let out a muffled cry of surprise and pain, his Health bar dropping. The door slammed shut behind him before Ghosthand or Palaxer could react, and I_See_You screamed in horror.

The Knight Thursr put a massive index finger up to its lips and whispered, “Virgil the Intentional should shush.”

Virgil glared at it and tried to nod, but the Thursr was still holding his head. He was having a hard time breathing but he was pretty sure he detected the smell of beef stew coming off this Troll.

Behind the wall, he could hear I_See_You wailing, “Where’d he go? That thing took him! Is he still alive? Where is he? Emilyyyyy...”

Virgil’s message notifications went crazy. He dismissed them without reading them. They needed to think he’d been sent for respawn.

The Knight Thursr finally took his hand from Virgil’s head. “Follow Kaz,” it whispered loudly.

Virgil followed Kaz, rolling his neck. Being dragged like that had hurt.

Kaz led him down the twisting passageway to a smaller room, lit by torches. It looked like some kind of medieval study. There was a heavy oak desk with some books, a few big leather chairs.

A single Jotnar stood by the roaring fireplace, arms crossed, wings folded behind him, menace rolling off of him like a cloud. The Jotnar looked Virgil over as he entered, obviously sizing him up.

Roark.

The man who’d killed more players than Virgil could keep track of.

The man who had earned the title of Griefer and wore it like a badge of honor.

Virgil was so screwed. He shouldn’t be here. This had been an idiotic idea. But what could he do? Roark had something Virgil needed.

Kaz turned big black eyes on the Jotnar, asking a question. Roark gave a minute shake of his head. With a nod, Kaz left the room.

Trying not to think about how utterly alone he was with the modder who had essentially broken Hearthworld, Virgil walked to the table and unloaded his entire inventory: all of his armor, all of his potions, all of his collected treasure, all of his weapons, everything.

“Here,” he said. “It’s all yours. Take it. If you want more, when I respawn, it’s yours, I swear. Just give me the scroll.”

Roark looked at the heap of items, considering. Virgil knew most of his collection was pretty good, but he didn’t travel with items of great quality—they’d be too easy to identify, and people would get suspicious. This was all he had right then; he could get better stuff, but it would take time to get that he just didn’t have.

“No, mate,” the Griefer growled.

“But—”

“I said, no.”

“Roark...” Virgil swallowed. “I need this. I told you, I have more, there’s this girl, I... she... I...”

“I don’t want it.”

Virgil hammered his fist on the table. “Dude, you don’t understand! Whack_A_Molar and me, we’ve been feeding you other players, but you can’t have this one—she’s really sick, she’s gonna die IRL, she’s just a kid, I... I can’t get her back out, the one thing she has left is to kill you and, damn it, I know she can’t do it!”

Virgil could feel Roark’s eyes boring into his face, but couldn’t quite meet his stare.

“But she can kill me,” Virgil said quietly.

For a minute, Roark was silent, thinking.

Then the Jotnar said, “Take the scroll. Consider it a gift. Call it payment for services rendered.” He waved his hand at the pile of weapons and armor. “Keep this lot.”

Virgil shrugged. “I... I can’t. What would I do with it? It’d get left down here anyway, and they might see a piece I was wearing and figure out what happened. I can’t risk that.”

Roark nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll take it. I tell you what, though... I’ll replace every last bit of it. Maybe even with something better than you already have.”

Virgil shrugged again. “If we ever meet again, I guess. And I appreciate it, but why? You don’t owe me anything.”

The Jotnar smiled, sharp teeth glinting in the torchlight. “It’s not for you, mate,” he said. “I ... had a sister.”

***

There was nothing to do but wait. Virgil kept hearing noises from other rooms: I_See_You, Palaxer, and Ghosthand were fighting their way through the dungeon. It hurt him that he wasn’t there.

Finally, he heard them fighting outside the door to this room. He could identify I_See_You’s high-pitched chirp; when he heard it, his heart broke. She was angry and upset. He could hear her fury and her despair.

Whatever they were fighting out there finally collapsed to the floor with a thump.

It was time.

Virgil read Sonzi’s Scroll of Knowing Thine Enemy, then had to restrain himself from screaming in pain as his form changed. His bones lengthened, thick ram’s horns grew from his head, and leathery wings sprouted from his shoulders, glowing with tattoos of power. He had become Roark—not an illusion of Roark, but an entirely reasonable facsimile, weapons and all. He could see in the dark, the torchlight now far too bright for his needs... he could even hear the party’s footfalls in the next room.

From having talked to hundreds of players who’d faced Roark and facing the Griefer himself that once, Virgil knew that the Jotnar mostly relied on situational combat, trapping everything. Fighting the Griefer was usually an exercise in becoming the pinball, bouncing from bad to worse to tragic to dead. That was all well and good, but this spell only gave him access to Roark’s physical attributes, not Roark’s spells or strategy.

Virgil thought he’d be all right, though. The weapon alone? Brutal. He’d never seen it before—Roark seemed to prefer light blades to this thing. It was a cat-o’-nine-tails, a club with chains at the end, with crescent-moon-shaped blades as weights at the end of the chains.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Unique Flail of the Half Moon

Duplicated

Damage: 128 + Special Damage

Durability: 80 of 80

Level Requirement: 16 + Blunt Weapon Skill

Blunt Weapon, with an Edge - Not Really Fair Speed

Property 1: Bleeding Damage (12/s for 6 sec)

Property 2: Entrap (chains reduce movement by 75% on successful strike)

This weapon is what other weapons tend to be afraid of.

It’s also not your weapon, impostor... but you can use it for now.

It will go away when you do.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Before he could really make a plan, the door opened and Palaxer burst through, looking around like he thought he’d surprised someone. Virgil’s borrowed reaction speed made it feel like Palaxer was crawling through sand; Virgil even had time to think that he might have been able to gank the Rager with one shot. How in the world had Ghosthand ever thought they’d be able to take on the Griefer in his own dungeon?

Instead of immediately smacking the tank down, Virgil looked intently at one of the tapestries lining the wall like he’d not noticed the door opening at all.

I_See_You burst in behind Palaxer, and his heart melted. “You killed my friend, you... you... meanie!” she shouted as she fired an arrow at him.

It was a good shot, but not a great one. Virgil could have dodged it, but instead willed himself to stand still as the arrow plunged into the meat of his right shoulder.

“Argh,” he said, eyeing his Health vial. At the new level 31, his Strength was way out of I_See_You’s league, which marked him for her bow’s extra damage. He took it gladly.

Then he brought up Roark’s flail and saluted I_See_You. Palaxer banged his sword on his shield in challenge. A yellow light flared around them—Ghosthand at work. It was time for the battle to start in earnest.

***

It was not a close battle. Palaxer wasn’t a noob, neither was Ghosthand, and I_See_You was a pretty good player for her level, but Virgil was far more experienced at Hearthworld, and after using the transmutation scroll to become Roark, he had to be extremely careful. He landed only glancing blows with Roark’s flail, and even those carved deep gouges in Palaxer’s shield. Virgil relied on illusions and his low-level Exothermia spells, because he needed to cause damage, but not too much. He even used a Great Ball of Fire spell that somehow barely missed I_See_You and exploded behind her instead of killing her.

All the while, Palaxer managed to land blow after blow, gently eroding Virgil’s Health, not quite realizing that Virgil was swinging the flail a little too slowly, leaving himself wide open in a way that the rumors about the Griefer would never have allowed. I_See_You covered him with arrows, and Ghosthand even got into the combat a little with her Give Me Your Blood spell when Palaxer and I_See_You carried enough Health.

At last, Virgil was down to 3% Health, the red in his vial flashing like a strobe. He stopped and roared in fury, the sound reverberating off the walls and giving the boss fight an extra air of authenticity.

Palaxer raised his shield as Virgil cracked the flail like a whip, leaving deep ruts in the stone floor that welled with blood, as part of the Intimidation effect. It was bothersome even to Virgil, and he wondered what it meant to his opponents.

A notification popped up.

[Congratulations, you have successfully Intimidated [Palaxer], [I_See_You], and [Ghosthand]. 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...]

***

Death had come for the heroes. Ghosthand’s heart sank. They’d been so close, so lucky, and now this damnable modder was going to destroy I_See_You’s only request.

Next to the cleric, I_See_You drew her last arrow and let it fly.

***

Virgil saw the arrow coming. I_See_You had loosed it too quickly—it was going to miss his head on the left by perhaps six inches.

A smile flitted across his lips, and he quickly lurched to the side, raising his flail to an attack position, an attack that, if it were to land, would wreck Palaxer’s world...

But the arrow sank into his eye, making grunting with pain all too easy. With the Recurve of the Cougar’s damage bonus, his Health vial dropped to 0%.

The last thing he could hear through the death animation was I_See_You, her shocked high-pitched voice chirping, “... we got him? We got him! WE GOT HIM! WE GOT HIM! WE...”

***

Soaked in sweat, Jason pushed the VR pod open and looked at the ceiling.

William leaned in the door from the main room. “Hey, man! How’d it go? Did it work?”

Jason sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “I think it worked.”

Jan Wick Saves the Cat

By Allen Dante

I never liked cats. They’re too quiet, too crafty. You can sense them plotting nefarious schemes as they lick their paws like they’re sharpening a knife. So when a scrawny orange tabby took to lounging in the wooden rocker on the stoop of my cabin, I ignored him. He slept there in the afternoons, and I drank my whiskey there at sunset. Except for the stray cat hairs collecting on my jeans, I didn’t complain about our timeshare of the chair.

But as summer turned to fall, his keen eyes followed me everywhere. When I walked by with an armload of wood or swept the leaves off the walk, he gave me that judging cat look that said, “I know who you are, Jan. I know what you’ve done.”

He couldn’t actually know. Those deeds were far from these hills. A long day’s drive away in LA. Too far for a cat to have traveled.

And he’s a cat, for God’s sake, I reminded myself.

But that’s the kind of paranoid thinking you get living in seclusion for too long. No one to talk to but the posers logged in to play heroes on Hearthworld, and I’d started wondering if a cat had come to claim the bounty on my head. When they sent someone for me, it wouldn’t be a lazy little tomcat.

“Get in line, little snitch,” I told him.

He flicked his tail once and laid his head on his paws. Apparently, he had no objections to biding his time.

I called him Little Snitch often enough that it sort of became his name, and I guess he sort of became my cat. I gave him some food scraps and some milk every now and then, and he filled out into a burly little thing that kept the mice away. He’d strut proudly up to my rocking chair with one of their heads dangling from his mouth, and I’d thank him with a scratch behind the ear. Saved me the trouble of scattering arsenic around the bushes. After a while, I started talking to him out loud, more often than I’d like to admit.

From assassin to crazy cat lady is a shorter trip than you might imagine. It only took me a couple years in a cabin in the woods.

Tonight, Little Snitch was nowhere to be seen when I came out to drink my whiskey and watch the orange light fade over the trees beyond the pond. I set his saucer of milk at the edge of the porch and dropped in a nip of whiskey for him. I didn’t mind sharing when he came around for chin scritches.

I had plenty to drink anyway. I was planning a marathon Hearthworld session, so I’d treated myself to a trip into town for a Mountain Dew suicide. A healthy pour of the neighbor’s moonshine in that extra-large sugar soup would power me till the sun came back up. I’d left it on the kitchen counter to let the ice melt in. Unlike whiskey, I liked those sixteen flavors of Dew watered down.

As I rocked in my chair, the wind picked up and rippled the dark surface of the water. That usually meant a storm was brewing, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I tugged the sleeves of my sweatshirt down over my wrists and took another sip to warm myself from the inside out.

Most nights I welcomed the silence out here. It was one of the reasons I’d picked the place. In the quiet, I could hear things coming a mile away. That’s comfort—knowing you have time to react. If someone turned off the blacktop, I’d hear their tires crunch the gravel long before I’d see their truck come up the drive. And by that time, I’d be ready. I knew exactly how long it took to reach my stash of weapons in the shed and under the bed and in the cabinet below the microwave. A girl can never be too careful.

Something about the wind tonight sent all my contingency plans spinning through my head. Maybe it was the absence of Little Snitch. Maybe it was the way the ripples on the pond weren’t hitting the shore quite right. Something was there that shouldn’t be.

I steadied the rocker and set my half-glass of whiskey on the concrete at my feet without taking my eyes off the edge of the water. I caught a flicker of movement in the muck. It didn’t slither and it didn’t croak, so it didn’t belong there.

I stood up slowly and scanned the shore. I wanted to tell myself that thinking something might be coming out of the pond for me was as crazy as thinking Little Snitch had been sent to spy on me, but this was different. This had my hackles raised, and I’d learned the hard way not to ignore those instincts when they screamed danger.

Leaves rustled on the ground, a few feet over from the muck at the shore. I couldn’t make out what was moving through them, but I wasn’t going to wait for it to come to me. I stepped out into the yard. The front security light flickered on as I did, and I got a glimpse of the thing.

The biggest salamander I’d ever seen IRL skittered toward me, but as the light caught it, it stopped in its tracks and faded into the leaves, its slick brown skin changing into some kind of damn detritus camo right before my eyes.

“What the...” I breathed out.

I’d lived here long enough to know all about invasive species. My moonshine-providing neighbor had kindly told me to watch out for water snakes, though California didn’t yet have the venomous kind he was used to “back home.” But nobody had ever said a thing about salamanders of unusual size.

As I walked farther into the yard, I plucked my axe from where I’d left it in the tree stump out front. Maybe the creature was just passing through, but I wasn’t about to take my chances barehanded with a mutant salamander if it had come with wicked intentions.

I stopped a few feet from where I’d last seen it and waited for more movement. I didn’t have to wait long. The thing charged straight at me. I caught the glint of its slick skin just in time to sidestep its maw of shark-like teeth aiming to take a chunk out of my calf. I brought the axe down on its neck with my full body weight like I was splitting a thick log, and the force of the swing easily severed its head. Slicing clean through the flesh, the axe thunked into the ground and splashed my favorite sweatshirt with mud and salamander guts.

Before I could think too long on whether that would wash out or where the Rottweiler-sized amphibian had come from in the first place, another one came out of nowhere and latched onto my ankle.

I yelped as its ludicrously sharp teeth sliced through my jeans and sank into my skin, but I wasted no time bringing my axe down on its back. The satisfying crunch of its spine rewarded my efforts, but a broken back wasn’t enough to dissuade its chomping on my ankle like a dog with a new toy. I brought the axe back for another swing and kept swinging till the damn thing stopped wriggling. Only then could I pry its jaws off my ankle and assess the damage. It’d torn deep enough I’d need to stitch it, and it stung like hell, but I could still put weight on it. I cut the rest of the way through the dangling cuff of my jeans with the salamander’s teeth and tied the cloth around the wound to slow the bleeding until I got inside to properly patch it up. I just had to hope it hadn’t infected me with some weird kind of salamander rabies.

I stepped back from the hacked remains and gripped my axe in both hands as I listened carefully for more movement. I didn’t trust my eyes in the glare of the security light. I could swear as that last one bit into my leg, I saw a [Leaf Salamander] tag hover over it for a second. Maybe I’d been playing Hearthworld too much lately. I’d like to blame it on the drinking, but I’d only had a few sips of whiskey. It took far more than that for hallucinations to set it. I knew that from experience.

Not hearing anything else emerging from the pond, I turned back for the house. I needed to tend to my ankle and maybe call up my neighbor and nonchalantly ask whether he’d gotten any giant salamanders trespassing on his property. Or was I the only lucky one around here.

Little Snitch’s untouched saucer of milk still sat on the edge of the porch, and I worried that those damn salamanders might have gotten to him, but he was too wily for that. It’d take more than a couple of slimy pond mutants to take him down. Still, I hoped he was somewhere safe and out of the way if more wandered into the yard. I’d need to rig some traps to keep them away. My planned Hearthworld session could wait till I’d taken care of the property. The last thing I wanted was to game all night and then come out to a vermin infestation in the morning.

I leaned the bloody axe against the porch railing and started to mentally inventory the bits and pieces of scrap I had lying around the shed that I could cobble together into an extra-large salamander trap. I took one step onto the porch and stopped mid-stride.

There was an inhuman chitter on the wind. I’d gotten used to the bray of the neighbor’s donkey and the occasional yip of a coyote, but the sound I’d just heard didn’t belong out here any more than those salamanders did.

It sounded almost like something out of a horror movie. I’d served a tour in Africa once upon a time, and I’d heard a pack of hyenas that made a sound close to that. Hearing it here was completely unnatural.

There it was again.

But it couldn’t be...

While I stood there stupidly arguing with myself about what could and couldn’t be real, a blue-skinned humanoid in a dirty loincloth chittered and growled as it shuffled past the corner of the cabin with seemingly no particular destination in mind.

I would’ve slapped myself in the forehead if I hadn’t been so flabbergasted that I froze in place, staring openmouthed at the creature. All the pieces clicked into place—the Mutant Murders crime scene I’d seen on the news, the hover tag I’d thought I’d seen over the Leaf Salamander, and now a fucking Changeling shambling through my side yard!

Somehow, someway, Hearthworld was bleeding over to Earth. That was some capital L Lunatic conspiracy shit, but I was not going to doubt my own eyes. And I’d be damned if I was going to let some computer-generated monsters overrun my hideout.

I stepped off the porch and picked the axe back up as I headed straight for the Changeling. I took a running swing and buried the axe deep in its chest, spraying a mass of blood and bone splinters over both of us. So much for my favorite sweatshirt.

The creature screeched and swiped at me with both its black-clawed hands. I managed to duck out of the way of one, but the other caught me on the shoulder as I tried to wrest my axe free. Its razor-sharp claws shredded my shirt and my shoulder, and I started to worry less about saving my comfy clothes and more about saving my own ass. My ankle was already throbbing from the salamander bite, and now my shoulder was ripped and bleeding.

It occurred to me, a little belatedly, that I’d brashly rushed into melee combat IRL! These might be Hearthworld monsters, but this wasn’t Hearthworld. I didn’t have any healing potions in my inventory to gulp down when my Health bar leaked too much red. I had a first aid kit under the bathroom sink and a small-town doc a few miles away who was either heading to bed about now or getting trampled by Changelings himself.

I nearly took a claw to the face as I strained unsuccessfully, trying to free the axe. It must’ve been lodged behind a rib or something.

I had to slow my roll and think like Jan Wick, real-world ex-assassin, not like Killer_Gurl, Hearthworld high-level Rogue-Assassin. There was a big difference. I didn’t have any special magical powers or enchanted armor. I only had the skills I’d honed over a decade of infiltrating the lives of the elite and quietly taking them out. I had to do what I did best. I had to keep these creatures at arm’s length and dispose of them without making myself an easy target.

And that started with letting this one walk away with my axe in its chest. I didn’t want to do it. I liked that axe, but I could buy another axe. I released my grip on the handle and dodged out of the way as the Changeling swiped wildly where my head had just been. It stumbled forward, shrieking, and with the unbalanced weight of the axe protruding from its torso, the Changeling toppled face-first into the muck at the shoreline. The force of its fall drove the head of the axe completely through the back of its body, resulting in a pop of vertebrae and a short-lived organ volcano.

That was the easiest kill I’d had in a while, real-world or in-game. As I headed for my stash of weapons in the shed out back, I wondered idly if I could convince more of these guys to impale themselves with my tools and save me the trouble of mowing them down with my favorite HK. Although after not having seen any real-world action in the last couple of years, I wouldn’t mind the living target practice.

Grand plans, of course, never go as planned. I didn’t make it to the arsenal in the shed. When I rounded the back corner of the cabin, the motion-sensor security light illuminated the unwelcome serrated-tooth smiles of two more Changelings. They were still the scrawny low-level variety of Troll, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. My shoulder still hurt from being clawed by the last one, and these two stood between me and the shed.

I instinctively jumped back out of their reach and glanced around quickly for anything I could use to defend myself. Sticking out of the hay bale I’d gotten to spread over the garden tomorrow was my trusty pitchfork.

That’ll do.

I ran for it, and like coyotes after a skittish rabbit, they gave chase. Luckily for me, their off-kilter gait didn’t allow them to run very fast. I wasn’t in top form with my injured ankle, but I made it to the hay bale and grabbed the pitchfork before they were on me.

I spun and thrust the rusty tines into the neck of the closest one. The blue-skinned creature sputtered blood as it reached for the shaft, but I couldn’t let it lock me in a tug-of-war for my weapon. I yanked back hard and pivoted to swing at the second Changeling.

I misjudged its speed and whiffed over its head as it tackled me and flipped us ass over teakettle into the freshly tilled garden patch. I heard a loud crack, but I couldn’t tell if it was me or him. I’d find out soon enough. I used our momentum to kick my legs out as we landed and shoved its gangly body off mine so I didn’t get trapped under it. Then I grabbed two fistfuls of soil and aimed at its eyes.

Momentarily blinded, the Changeling thrashed around on the ground, unable to locate me as I righted myself and found the pitchfork beside us—in two pieces. The shaft had cracked in half. At least it wasn’t me, and now I had two weapons. I hefted the fork end in one hand and the splintered shaft in the other.

The other Changeling, with blood dripping from its punctured neck, had mounted the hay bale for higher ground. He jumped at me as soon as I stood but before he realized what a monumentally bad idea it was to dive toward a woman wielding a sharp object. I aimed the tines of the fork at his head and hit my mark. One eyeball popped like a perfectly cooked pea as the pitchfork slid into his skull.

His body went limp before it even hit the ground, so I let go of the pitchfork and grasped the broken shaft in both hands as I turned for the Changeling that had tackled me. He’d made it up to his knees but was still unsuccessfully trying to wipe the dirt out of his eyes and lash out at me.

I wasn’t about to give him the chance. With a swift roundhouse kick to the head, I knocked him prone again. Then I drove the broken half shaft through his heart and pinned him to the ground. Even that wasn’t enough to stop his body from squirming.

A firm believer that trouble can’t follow you if you always make sure to double-tap, I picked up one of the landscaping stones I’d intended to border the garden with and brought it crashing down on the Changeling’s skull. The creature stopped moving then, and I hoped Changeling brain made good vegetable fertilizer. Maybe I’d plant flowers in this section, just in case.

I stood up and dusted off my hands while I looked around for any more invaders. I didn’t have to look far. Stepping from the trees into the light at the edge of the yard was a hulking creature with thick blue muscles and a strong, square jaw. A blood-encrusted flail hung from one of his four-fingered hands. His onyx eyes locked on mine, and my heart skipped a beat.

I might have been able to hold my own going hand-to-hand with the low-level Changelings, but a Thursr? I didn’t stand a chance. I knew it and he knew it.

His angular face broke into a wide sharp-toothed grin.

I booked it for the house. My best chance was to make it inside the cabin. The shed was too far away, too close to the Thursr on the other side of the yard. I had to get to some real weapons, or I’d go down hard and fast unarmed in my garden. I wasn’t going out like that.

I kept my eyes trained on the screen door. I’d left the back sliding door slightly ajar to let in some cool air for the night. There was just enough room for me to pass through it, but the Thursr would have to open the door or come through the glass. Either way would slow him down. I hoped.

I didn’t spare him a glance as I ran. I knew he was headed for me, and I would either make it or I wouldn’t. Second-guessing my mad dash or the speed at which he was barreling toward me wasn’t going to get me there any faster. I pumped my arms and ignored the pain in my ankle as I willed my legs to move quicker.

I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to when I reached the screen door. And I didn’t want to. The Thursr’s claws grazed my sweatshirt as I crashed through the mesh. The whole screen door popped off its track, and I managed not to topple myself as I trampled over it into the kitchen.

Behind me, the unmistakable shatter of glass told me the Thursr had wasted no time following me inside. But breaking through the sliding door did slow him enough to give me a half-second head start on reaching the cabinet below the microwave.

I flung the door open and grabbed the Heckler & Koch P30L I kept loaded and ready. I always thought it would be an associate coming for me, not a Thursr, but I turned to unleash hell on him all the same.

My shot went wild as his flail sank into my forearm and knocked me off balance. I didn’t go down, but I screamed when he whipped the flail back and ripped strips of my flesh off as easily as if he were tearing open a cardboard package. I’d never look at my Amazon deliveries the same again. If I made it through this.

I couldn’t think about that now. I couldn’t think about the pain searing my skin. If I lost concentration, that would be the end of me. I steadied the gun with my other hand and squeezed the trigger.

At point-blank range, one bullet square in his chest opened a sizeable hole that poured blood in a steady stream, but that wasn’t nearly enough to take him down. It really only seemed to irritate him.

I backed down the short hall to my bedroom and shot again. I had to get out of reach of his flail and keep on shooting if I was going to have any chance. My mind raced through the options of getting to the shotgun under my bed once I’d emptied this magazine into his chest and/or leaping out the bedroom window to escape the enclosed space I’d trapped myself in. Neither seemed like particularly realistic options as he loomed over me.

The next bullet hit his shoulder as he countered my retreat with a roaring lunge. I shot again as I tried to dive to the side and out of harm’s way, but the hallway wasn’t wide enough for that. His massive form reached wall to wall as he bowled me over and knocked the gun from my hands.

It clattered to a stop on the floor planks just inside my bedroom, a foot too far for me to reach. And with the beast on top of me, I couldn’t crawl an inch for it anyway.

The Thursr drooled like a hungry dog as he grinned down at me. Of all the ways I thought I might go out in this world; I’d never imagined it’d be as a Troll’s dinner.

“Master be pleased,” he said. “I bring him trophy.”

He kept one meaty hand pinning my neck to the floor while he reached back with the other and slid a Michael Myer’s looking knife from a sheath on his belt.

I gulped at the thought of what kind of souvenir he wanted to take out of me while I lay there still alive and damn helpless.

I started calculating whether I could reach under that sloped forehead and poke out one of his beady eyes. Maybe if I got a good twist up on one shoulder, I could hook a finger in his eye socket. I was damn well gonna try. I took as deep a breath as I could under his weight and steeled myself to go out fighting.

The Thursr swung the knife down at my face, making a mess of my plans to gouge his eyes out. I shoved both fists out in an X and caught the meaty forearm in the crook of my arms. The knife point stopped an inch from my nose.

That was too close for comfort. I cast around for anything to break the Thursr’s focus for a second and give me a chance.  As if wishing for it had willed it to be so, I heard the distinct patter of chunky little paws on the kitchen linoleum.

Little Snitch gave a yowling battle cry as he launched himself onto the Thursr’s back and dug in with his front claws. Then he mercilessly kicked his hind legs down the monster’s skin. I’d been on the wrong side of those claws a couple times when Little Snitch hadn’t approved of the way I’d rubbed his belly. He’d raked his paw down my forearm and slit five gashes like he was wielding five tiny knives. I just hoped he kept them sharp enough to pierce Thursr hide.

At the very least, Little Snitch had given me the distraction I so desperately needed. The Thursr released my neck and swiped the knife at his own back to defend himself from the new attacker. I took the moment to scrabble for the P30.

As soon as my hand landed on the grip, I aimed at the Thursr’s head and unloaded the rest of the magazine. Most of the shots hit in a perfect grouping on his long forehead. There wasn’t much of his face left when his mouth went slack and his thick body thudded to the floor.

Little Snitch, who’d been along for the ride, hopped off the creature’s back and padded over to where I’d collapsed against the doorframe.

I reached out to stroke his back as he arched and purred. “Thanks for the assist,” I told him. “That was a close one.”

He sat down beside me and licked at the Thursr blood on his paw as if to say, “No biggie. All in a day’s work.”

I didn’t let myself sit there too long. The Thursr had a master, and I didn’t know if or when he’d be knocking on my door. I stood myself up and went to check the body. I kicked it for good measure, but judging by the blood splatter paint job his exploding head had done on the wall, there was no need to double-tap this one.

I picked up the knife he’d dropped.

It was coming with me. I wasn’t about to leave a monster of a pig-sticker like that lying around while there were creatures that could use melee weapons invading. I checked the flail too, but it was just a common flail with no magical properties, so I dragged it into the bedroom and stuffed it under the bed. I didn’t want to make it easy for anything that wanted to kill me by leaving a weapon upgrade on the Thursr’s corpse.

Then I grabbed my second-favorite handgun, a Glock 26, out of the nightstand. Little Snitch and I headed back to the living room to get eyes on the situation outside. My ears were ringing so loud from the gunfire that I probably couldn’t have heard a propane truck roaring up the drive.

Out the side window, the back-security light threw the shadows of the Changeling corpses in the garden into sharp relief now that it was full dark. But what caught my eye more than my newly acquired garden decorations was the medieval vendor’s cart parked at the edge of the woods. Piled high with a random assortment of weapons and caged animals and potion bottles, it obviously belonged to someone other than my friendly neighbor. The question was, who?

Little Snitch hopped up on the back of the couch to see what I was looking at. Then he turned his head toward the front door and twitched his ear.

Before I could ask what, he’d heard, I heard it too. Over the incessant ringing in my ears came the faint creak of the rocking chair on the porch. I stepped quietly toward the door till I could see out through the screen. A fat, bearded humanoid sat under the porch light, rocking in my chair, sipping my whiskey. His bulging form, covered in expensive-looking silks, spilled out the sides and back of the wooden rocker, and I wondered that it hadn’t busted under the weight of him.

“You might as well come out,” he said with a gravelly chuckle. He didn’t look my way. He kept his gaze out toward the pond like he was watching something there.

Hopefully it wasn’t a horde of salamanders.

I aimed the Glock at his head. I had no doubt at this range I could hit that melon-sized target. He didn’t look like a fast mover. “What do you want?”

“To see the residents of my domain,” he said. “Come here so I can have a look at you.”

“I don’t take orders from trespassers. Get off my property or I will shoot you.”

He flicked his hand into the air, then thrust it quickly forward.

The Glock flew out of my grip and through the front screen door, tearing a hole as it went. It landed with a splash in the dark waters of the pond and was gone.

Shit. He was some kind of magic user, and apparently that had come with him when he crossed over to Earth. The hover tag that flickered briefly into view over his head said [Collyer the Collector]. That was a new one to me. As many hours as I’d spent in Hearthworld, I’d barely scratched the surface of all that its dungeons had to offer. I didn’t know what to expect from a Collector, and I didn’t want to find out the hard way. Respawns weren’t a thing here in the real world.

I gripped the Thursr’s knife tighter and pushed open the screen door.

Little Snitch ran out between my legs before I could stop him. He leapt for the intruder’s leg with claws extended, but he didn’t make it. The Collector waved his hand again, and Little Snitch froze, mid-flight, legs outstretched. Then gravity took over, and the cat’s frozen-in-time body thumped back-first onto the concrete. If it hurt him, he couldn’t even meow about it.

I wasn’t going to stand for that. It pissed me off enough that this guy had strolled up to my porch, taken my chair, and started sipping my whiskey, but hurting my cat—that invoked pure rage. I leapt for the Collector, bringing the knife down with the full force of my body.

Instead of jabbing the blade into his gullet though, I bounced off a blue shield of light so hard that I was thrown back into the side railing, cracking one of the spindles with my back. The knife flew out of my hand and embedded itself in one of the cabin logs.

“Tsk tsk.” The Collector waggled a disapproving finger in my direction. “I’ll never reward mutinous intentions with vassalhood.”

I groaned as I pushed myself back to standing. My ankle still smarted from the salamander bite, and my torn shoulder should’ve been in a sling, not firing guns and fighting with knives. But I would not be pushed around in my own home. I would defend myself and my cat. I would defeat this guy if it took the last breath from my body.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath for my subservience. It’s not my style,” I said, curling my hands to fists, readying myself to attack again when I saw the right opening.

He took a long draw to finish off my whiskey. Then he responded, “In time, you’ll understand your place in my collection.”

“That’s your cart.” I nodded toward the side yard, where the front of his cart was just visible.

“A small taste of my wares. Only what I had with me when I came through, but I can see there are opportunities for so much more here.” He nodded toward the neighbor’s lights in the distance, then looked me up and down like I was yesterday’s trash. “And so little to stand in the way of acquiring it. This dungeon will make an excellent base.”

I didn’t trust him enough to take my eyes off him, but I wanted to look around for the dungeon. Was there an entrance to one somewhere on my property? Was that where all the creatures were coming from?

“Dungeon?” I asked.

He gestured generally at the world around us. “This Cabin in the Woods Dungeon. I have laid claim to it, and I will start my collection from here in this realm.”

He said it so matter-of-factly. Like sitting in my chair had granted him the deed to my home. How dare the bastard? I seethed on the inside and fought the urge to lunge for him right then. If I could bust through his shield, I’d rip his jiggling throat out with my bare hands.

But I knew that wasn’t the way. Acting in anger—passionate retribution—that put you in danger. That could get you killed. And I was too good an assassin to get myself killed on my own front porch.

I relaxed my fists and straightened to my full height. I willed the emotion out of my face and replaced it with an impassive mask. He was the objective now, and you never let the objective see any glimpse of the truth.

He took my newfound silence as an invitation to ramble on about what he planned to do as he “collected” his way through this new world.

His words were full of boasts about his past conquests and his favorite items in his vast collection. He got excited when he talked about adding Little Snitch to his pets and subjecting the cat to obedience training. He probably thought that would get a rise out of me, the way he said it with a devious gleam in his eye, but I kept my emotions in check and remained unmoved.

I used his long oration to take his measure. I noticed the way his chin trembled slightly when he lied. He only rocked with his left foot, as though his right had been injured, and whether fully healed or not, he’d come to favor it. He kept his right hand busy fidgeting with the empty tumbler while he kept his left free for any magic that might need doing. He was overly confident, but with a healthy hint of mistrust, judging by the way he kept tabs on my place on the porch out of the corner of his eye. He was practiced and subtle about it, but I caught the flicker of concern now and then. My quiet presence unnerved him.

I liked that. The vengeful side of me wanted to keep him on edge, but I needed to lull him into complacency. That would give me the opportunity I could take advantage of.

So instead of plotting how I might blow him up, and my poor cabin in the process, I prodded him with a few questions about his plans for the dungeon and what other vassals he already had.

Thinking he’d piqued my curiosity, he happily rambled on for a while until his throat ran dry, and he realized he’d been out of whiskey for some time.

“My drink has run out.” He swirled the empty tumbler in his hand.

“Refill?” I offered, even though I hated the idea of wasting my good whiskey on this guy.

His thick beard split, revealing a smile as he held out the glass.

I wondered for a split second if this was my moment, if his shield would lower to pass me the glass. I imagined grabbing the knife from the cabin’s log siding and thrusting it into his brain or at least chopping off his hand. But he would see that coming. I was quick, but I wasn’t superhuman.

Instead of attacking him, I reached for the glass and opened the screen door, managing not to look sadly down at poor Little Snitch, still lying on the concrete frozen in that mid-pounce pose.

“Good girl,” the Collector said.

I grimaced as the screen door slammed shut behind me. The last man who’d addressed me so condescendingly had ended up tethered to a block of cement on the ocean floor and torn apart in a shark buffet. This Collector would get his too. I would see to that.

I headed straight for the whiskey I kept by the coffee maker, but I spotted the extra-large Mountain Dew suicide that had been sweating on the counter for a couple hours. Making my moonshine-Dew cocktail to power up my gaming session seemed like such a quaint idea from a past where Hearthworld monsters didn’t exist in real life. But that wistful thought was quickly replaced by inspiration.

I kept the neighbor’s moonshine under the kitchen sink, right next to the rat poison because I joked that either could kill you if taken straight up.

Suddenly, I had the urge to make a cocktail.

I brought two mason jars out with me to the front porch. Both swirled with the dark brown color of sixteen mixed flavors of Mountain Dew.

I offered one to the Collector.

He eyed me skeptically. Everyone knows that only a great fool would reach for the drink he was given. He shook his head and motioned for the drink in my other hand. “I’ll take yours,” he said.

I shrugged. Made no difference to me. I handed him the drink he asked for and backed away again with the other jar. I didn’t like being close to him, but more importantly, I wanted to place myself strategically next to the knife embedded in the cabin.

“Serve me well, and you will be rewarded. I see that my well-behaved subjects are taken care of.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I said, doing my best to keep the sarcasm from dripping into my voice.

He didn’t drink right away. He rocked back and looked out over the pond again like he was surveying his domain.

I wished I could manifest my powers from Hearthworld like the Collector could. I could use a good boost from [Assassin Persuasion] right about now. A touch of [Rogue’s Illusion] to mask the flavor of the poison would go a long way, but the best I could hope for was that the in-your-face soup of Mountain Dews would do that job for me. Without tasting it myself and making it a literal suicide, I couldn’t tell if I’d been successful. If I’d had pure arsenic, it wouldn’t have a flavor, and I wouldn’t have worried about it, but manufacturers added something bitter to rat poison to keep little kids from adding it as a sweetener to their cereal. I didn’t want that bad flavor to deter the Collector from drinking it.

He looked down at his jar and then over to me. “Aren’t you thirsty?”

“I wouldn’t presume to drink before you,” I said coolly.

He raised his glass. “I insist. To your future with me.”

I smiled a genuine smile then and raised my own jar. “I’ll drink to that.”

Then I tipped the jar back and let the liquid hit my lips, but I kept them sealed. I swallowed the spit in the back of my throat instead to finish the illusion that I had taken a drink. I’d perfected the art of pretending to drink early in my career when I’d spent many an hour roaming the parties of the Hollywood elite, earning the trust of the most powerful in their ranks. She who is sober has the best eye for blackmailable offenses and discreet opportunities for disappearances.

I lowered the jar and let out a satisfied sigh as I wiped my sleeve across my lips.

Content that I had enjoyed my drink, the Collector said, “Now I’ll take that one.”

I screwed up my face in confusion and disappointment as though I were terribly distraught that he would want my drink over his. “You want mine?”

He nodded. “Indeed I do. First rule of leadership. Never trust the conquered.” He tossed his mason jar into the yard. He had a good arm. It flew quite a few feet, spilling its liquid in a trailing arc until it thudded to a stop on the grass, where the remainder of its contents puddled into the soil.

I sighed sadly. I’d have a hell of a time getting grass to grow there now.

The Collector took my sigh for confirmation of his suspicions and waved me over to give him my mason jar.

He gave himself a congratulatory toast and took a large gulp. He drained half the jar before he took a breath and drained the rest. The sugary concoction must have worked to mask the flavor, or he actually enjoyed the flavor of rat poison stirred into a Mountain Dew suicide.

Either way, I watched him with bated breath as he burped long and loud and then licked up the soda left on the whiskers around his lips. I didn’t know at all if a being from Hearthworld would find the same substances toxic that humans did. But I had to try.

I usually preferred more direct methods, like a knife to the throat, but I wasn’t against going traditional. Arsenic had been a girl’s best friend almost since its discovery.

“Do you have more?” he asked.

I almost let the disappointment slip into my face, but I managed to keep my expression clear as my mind began to spin again. I’d find another way, make another plan.

He held out the empty jar, and I took a step toward him, but then his eye twitched involuntarily. I stepped back toward the knife in the wall.

The Collector looked up in surprise and grabbed his portly belly as his stomach roiled with angry digestive noises. “What did you—” he tried to accuse, but a coughing fit overtook him. He scratched at his own throat with his manicured nails as though he could claw his blood-clogged airway open.

I plucked the massive Thursr’s knife from the log and sliced across his throat with one quick, fluid motion as a cough rocked him forward in the chair. He wasn’t fast enough to brace his fall with his hands, so he face-planted onto the concrete stoop, bringing the rocking chair over with him. He rasped one last breath as his lifeblood poured onto my porch, and I saw a Health bar flash empty above his head, then disappear.

The benefit of notifications. You know when it’s unnecessary to double-tap.

My battered body protested as I tugged the chair off the Collector’s bulbous frame and sat it back upright, but I wasn’t letting a dead man keep the best seat at my cabin. By then Little Snitch had reanimated and decided to relieve himself on the dead man’s silks. I couldn’t blame him, and I was glad to see he didn’t seem any worse for the wear.

I rolled the Collector’s body off the porch so he’d stop bleeding all over the concrete. That was going to leave the kind of stain that only a strategically placed potted plant could cover up. In the city, I would have called Chester for a clean. That man could wash blood out of white satin, and you’d never know it had been there at all. But I wasn’t ready to give my location to anyone. Especially after tonight. I’d have to do my best on cleanup myself.

“Helluva night, huh, Little Snitch?”

He rubbed his head against my legs as I collapsed into my rocking chair.

[Congratulations! You have defeated Collyer the Collector, Dungeon Lord of the Cabin in the Woods.

Would you like to claim the Cabin in the Woods Dungeon? Yes/No]

Well, I’ll be damned. The Collector wasn’t kidding about that. He’d spewed so much bullshit at me earlier, I hadn’t really believed him that he’d claimed my property as a dungeon location while he sat in my chair. I quickly accepted and was immediately rewarded with a dungeon map and the ability to alter the layout and redistribute forces.

“Looks like we’re in a new line of business,” I told Little Snitch. “From assassin to crazy cat lady to dungeon lord. Now we’re really prepared if they ever come for us.”

He twitched his tail and lapped some milk from his saucer, which was amazingly still sitting untouched on the edge of the porch where I’d set it earlier.

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***

Build. Evolve. Conquer. Welcome to the Dungeon...

Roark von Graf—hedge mage and lesser noble of Traisbin—is one of only a handful of Freedom fighters left, and he knows the Resistance’s days are numbered. Unless they do something drastic...

But when a daring plan to unseat the Tyrant King goes awry, Roark finds himself on the run through an interdimensional portal, which strands him in a very unexpected location: an ultra-immersive fantasy video game called Hearthworld. He can’t log out, his magic is on the fritz, and worst of all, he’s not even human. He’s a low-class, run-of-the-mill Dungeon monster. Some disgusting, blue-skinned creature called a Troll. At least there’s one small silver lining—Roark managed to grab a powerful magic artifact on his way through the portal, and with it he might just be able to save his world after all.

Unless, of course, the Tyrant King gets to him first ...

“An excellent start to a series, this book has everything I look for in a fantasy novel: action, intrigue, and evolution!” — Dakota Krout, author of the Divine Dungeon and the Completionist Chronicles

From James A. Hunter, author of the litRPG epic Viridian Gate Online, and eden Hudson, author of Path of the Thunderbird and the Jubal Van Zandt Series, comes an exciting new litRPG, dungeon-core adventure you won’t want to put down!

***

Heroes and Cowards

The last fiery red light of sunset glared over the peaked rooves of the village of Korvo, just violent and desperate enough to tear through the dark storm clouds that had been looming all day. In the snow-blown streets, women in brightly colored dresses decorated with shiny tin coins and men in dark jerkins over vibrant shirts rushed home from the afternoon’s errands, heads down, eyes on the cobblestones. The beggars and street urchins common to every settlement since the Tyrant King came into power had quietly disappeared into the dark, dank hideaways where they took shelter in times of inclement weather.

If not for the furtive glances at the heavily armed Ustars patrolling the village, the citizens could almost have been hurrying to beat the coming snowfall. But Roark von Graf knew better. The shoulders hunched as if awaiting the fall of an Ustari ax. The skirts clutched just so to muffle the jingling of the coins and avoid drawing the patrols’ attention. The silence, that cursed silence, which filled the streets. All were dead giveaways to Roark’s sharp eyes. These cheerful, friendly mountain folk didn’t fear snow—they were bred for cold nights and snow-filled days—they feared the fist of a merciless tyrant.

Roark sunk back into the shadows of the narrow alleyway as a pack of Ustars tromped past, fanged halberds in hand, snake-jawed helms all facing forward. Thick woolen cloaks emblazoned with the Tyrant King’s winged serpent whipped along behind them, protection from the cold, and one more testament to the fact that they did not belong among Korvo’s hardy people.

With all the noise they were making, passing undetected was almost too easy. Roark listened to the clank of the patrol’s heavy armor get farther away, then slipped across the street into the alley behind the butcher’s. The cold mitigated the stench of the day’s refuse, but not by much. Feral cats and a mangy stray dog looked up from the entrails, regarding him warily as he passed. A battle-scarred tomcat laid back what was left of its ears and yowled a warning to stay away from the food.

A bad omen if the Lyuko travelers who came through every year could be believed.

“This was my city before it was yours, Tom,” Roark murmured to the territorial old grouch as he passed. “And it’ll be mine again after tonight. All of bloody Traisbin will be free, and you won’t even have to thank me.”

The stench of rotting meat faded behind him as he followed the alley to its end. From there, a sharp left took him behind the motley collection of businesses that lined the street. No glow lit the windows of the dwellings over the businesses. No laughter, no children playing, no idle music or clinking of pots as food was prepared. Tonight was a night of silence, of fear, of anxious listening at the door for the sound of heavy Ustari boots thundering up the stairs.

Roark stopped in the shadows along the rear of a fabric store, searching the alleyway and darkened windows for spying eyes. No witnesses who could later relay his whereabouts to the Ustars.

As he ducked inside, a minor writ scrawled hastily at the bottom of the door caught his attention:

Shoulde any baring the wingd serpente of the Tyrante King cross this thresholde the shelfs of fabrik along the walls of this store shall colapse with a great combustione.

It was meant to sound the alarm if Ustars crossed the threshold, but it was done so badly that only someone displaying the winged serpent prominently would set it off, and then, the shelves which were supposed to collapse noisily—causing what the half-literate idiot who’d written it had probably meant to be a great commotion—would instead catch on fire, taking everyone inside the fabric store and half of the town with it.

Probably more of Albrecht’s work, that careless buffoon.

Shaking his head, Roark knelt inside and quickly rubbed the mess away with the palm of his hand. With his penknife, he carved a corrected writ into the wooden planks, adding a clause to make the carvings appear as nothing more than the scratches of a family pet begging to come inside. The moment he sealed it with the punctuation, the magick went into effect, the letters becoming incomprehensible canine scratches in the wood.

Before the Tyrant King came to power, only the nobles and wealthy in Traisbin could afford to send their children off to learn the magick of letters. Since then, only those children the tyrant handpicked to be groomed as mages for his armies were taught to read and write. The odds that a literate Ustar would happen upon the writ were nearly zero, but if one of the Tyrant King’s guards recognized it as writing, his forces would converge on the fabric shop and execute everyone inside, literate or not. Mages who didn’t bow to the Tyrant King often found themselves without a head to bow.

Potential village-destroying fire and bloody executions averted, Roark slid the penknife back into the hidden pocket inside his jerkin and eased the door closed.

As he walked through the empty store, Roark ran his fingers over the many textures of fabric. It was an old habit from childhood, back when he couldn’t believe so many different tactile sensations could exist in one place: smooth, coarse, knobbly, velvety, gauzy, woolen, ribbed, woven, embroidered, satiny. Korvo, being on one of the few roads that led through the mountains, was uniquely suited to sell goods from both sides of the continental divide—a fact his merchant-minded mother had once been quite proud of.

Behind the seller’s bench, Roark found a thick carpet pulled aside and a trapdoor leading down into the cellar. With a shake of his head, he banished the bittersweet memories and returned his mind to the matter at hand.

The stone stairs had worn uneven over the centuries, but he took them two and three at a time with the easy grace of a child of the mountains. The murmuring of voices carried into the dark corridor, ghostly whispers compared to the solid clunk of his boots on the stone. A line of jade light leaked from beneath a door up ahead.

Roark threw open the door, revealing the green-lit war room. Frightened gasps went up, hands grabbed frantically for maps, and chairs scraped away from the huge central table. Ancient tapestries flapped against the old stone walls, and the emerald burung fire burning in the sconces flickered before returning to full strength once more.

A dozen pairs of wide eyes settled on Roark’s lean form. Only a dozen. This was the T’verzet, the Rebel Council. The last unified resistance against the Tyrant King, Marek Konig Ustar. And they were cowering in a basement like kicked dogs.

“Graf, you nearly gave us a heart attack!” snapped Cambry, the elderly owner of the fabric store. The old man slammed the maps clutched in his hands back onto the table. “Shut that damn door!”

“Is it true?” Roark kicked the door closed behind him with a heel and strode farther into the room. “That he’s in Korvo? That he’s staying at the Graf Manor House—” He slammed his fist on the table, rattling the cloudy glass panes in the burung lamp at the center. “My manor house?”

Across the table, the scar-faced Albrecht snorted imperiously. “That house is as much yours as the Seat of Power is the Council of Ancients’.”

Roark raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to point out Albrecht’s similar position in the von Herzog family’s former coastal holdings, but was cut off by an aged voice from his right.

“You walked the same streets as we did, Roark, you saw the patrols,” Morgana said, folding her gnarled, arthritic hands on the table before her. She twisted the opal ring on her thumb absently as she spoke; the fat gemstone was proof that she’d once sat on the true council, handing down decrees for the entirety of the country. “The caravan was supposed to travel on to Moseley, but they can’t get through the mountains with the blizzard coming in. They’re waiting here for the pass to clear.”

“This is it, then,” Roark said, excitement fluttering in his chest. “We couldn’t ask for a better chance. I know that manor better than anyone. All the back ways, all the ins and outs. I can get to him, kill him now before the weather clears and they move on—”

“Absolutely not.” Morgana sat back in her seat, pursing her wrinkled lips. “We’ve no plan in place for this. It’s too much of a risk. If you fail—”

“I won’t,” Roark said, brow furrowed.

Albrecht threw up his hands. “Here we go! The lost noble of Korvo knows better than the combined experience of the entire T’verzet now.”

“I know better than that gibberish you scrawled on the door up there,” Roark said, infusing his voice with a lightness he didn’t feel. “It’s a wonder you’ve only burnt off half of your face so far.”

“Know-everything poseur,” Albrecht snapped, kicking up from his seat. “Acting like you’re not as self-taught as the rest of us—”

Roark snorted. “Can you even say your letters, mate?”

“You’ll want to watch that big head, Graf, before somebody kicks it in.”

“Both of you bullheaded pups shut your yaps!” Cambry boomed with a strength that belied his aging body. He gestured to Morgana. “What the councilwoman was trying to say is, so far, we’ve been blessed lucky in hiding the seat of the resistance. One slipup—one hint that we’re here—and every Ustar in Traisbin’ll descend on this city like flies on a rotting corpse.”

“I won’t slip up,” Roark said with every ounce of the confidence he felt. “I know that manor like the back of my hand—I could walk its passages in my sleep.” In fact, he often did when he slept long enough to dream. “I can get in and back out again before Marek himself knows he’s dead.”

“The risk is too great,” Morgana said, shaking her head.

“But the payoff is everything we’ve been fighting for!” Roark tried but was unable to keep the desperation from his voice. “Twenty years of the Tyrant King’s oppression, and we could end it tonight!”

“Would you see Korvo burned to the ground?” Bran, the barrel-gutted innkeeper, asked, speaking up for the first time since Roark’s arrival. He leaned forward in his seat, bracing his meaty arms on the table, and continued in his quiet, measured voice. “Her people turned against one another as informants and snitches, turning their friends and neighbors over to the Tyrant King to save themselves and their children? Because that’s the price of failure, Graf. That’s what you’re gambling with here.”

“Laying aside the fact that this is hardly a gamble considering my familiarity with the manor house,” Roark said, “isn’t it worth at least that much? Did any of you join the resistance without realizing you were risking your life and the lives of everyone connected to you? Because you’re in the wrong line of work if you did.”

“Dammit, man, I’ve got a family!” the usually soft-spoken innkeeper thundered. Bran looked as taken aback at his outburst as anybody else. He lowered his head, collected himself, then went on in a voice once again calm. “I’ve five children and a wife to look out for, haven’t I? You may have nothing left to lose, Graf, but we do. You wouldn’t be so quick to throw it all away if you did.”

Roark felt his lips pulling up in a contemptuous snarl. He pushed down the sudden urge to leap across the table and punch Bran’s teeth into the back of his skull.

“You all feel this way?” His dark eyes slid from face to face in the green-lit war room, seeing nothing but fear and weakness reflected back at him.

One by one, the so-called rebels lowered their eyes or glared back at him as if he were the one who couldn’t understand.

“Cowards,” he spat. “If you aren’t ready to risk everything to free your people, then you don’t deserve to call yourselves T’verzet. When the right opportunity presents itself, you can’t hold anything back.”

Unable to look at them for a second longer, Roark turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Click here to keep reading!

Viridian Gate Online: Expanded Universe

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)

***

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: Resurrection (The Heartfire Healer Book 1)

***

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)

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

Dungeon Duel: The Rogue Dungeon Series Book 5

***

Zero.Hero 1

Zero.Hero 2

***

Inheritance: The Last Enclave Book 1

Redemption: The Last Enclave Book 2

***

A Snake’s Life: A Snake’s Life Book 1

A Snake’s Path: A Snake’s Life Book 2

A Snake’s Rise: A Snake’s Life Book 3

***

Dungeon Heart: The Singing Mountain

***

Black Dawn: Fae Nexus Book 1

***

Shadowcroft Academy for Dungeons: Year One

***

Cultivation

Darkening Skies (Path of the Thunderbird Book 1)

Stone Soul (Path of the Thunderbird Book 2)

Demon Beast (Path of the Thunderbird Book 3)

***

Hollow Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 1)

Eclipse Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 2)

Chaos Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 3)

Burning Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 4)

Infinite Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 5)

Eternal Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 6)

***

Scaled Soul (Dragon Academy Book 1)

***

The Elements: Silver Coin Saga Book 1

***

Death Cultivator Book 1

Death Cultivator Book 2

Death Cultivator Book 3

***

Tokyo Blood Magic: Shinjuku Shadows Book 1

Tokyo Monster Mash: Shinjuku Shadows Book 2

***

Foundations: Bastion Academy Book 1

Malware: Bastion Academy Book 2

Subterfuge: Bastion Academy Book 3

***

Sages of the Underpass (Battle Artists Book 1)

***

Shadowbound: Ghostlight Academy Book 1

***

Science Fiction

The Starborn Heir (Zack Lancestrom Series Book 1)

The Voidburned Queen (Zack Lancestrom Series Book 2)

Pacifica (Alden Northcliff Series Book 1)

***

Urban Fantasy

Strange Magic (Yancy Lazarus Episode One)

Cold Hearted (Yancy Lazarus Episode Two)

Flashback: Siren Song (Yancy Lazarus Episode 2.5)

Wendigo Rising (Yancy Lazarus Episode Three)

Flashback: The Morrigan (Yancy Lazarus Episode 3.5)

Savage Prophet (Yancy Lazarus Episode Four)

Brimstone Blues (Yancy Lazarus Episode Five)

Red Reckoning (Yancy Lazarus Episode Six)

***

MudMan (A Lazarus World Novel)

***

Two-Faced: Legend of the Treesinger (Book 1)

Soul Game: Legend of the Treesinger (Book 2)

***

Revenge of the Bloodslinger (Jubal van Zandt Book 1)

Beautiful Corpse (Jubal van Zandt Book 2)

Soul Jar (Jubal van Zandt Book 3)

Garden of Time (Jubal van Zandt Book 4)

Wasteside (Jubal van Zandt Book 5)

***

Post-apocalyptic

Armageddon Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 1)

Machine-Gun Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 2)

Inferno Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 3)

Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4)

War Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 5)

Books by Black Forge

Harem

War God’s Mantle: Ascension (Book 1)

War God’s Mantle: Descent (Book 2)

War God’s Mantle: Underworld (Book 3)

***

Denver Fury: American Dragons (Book 1)

Cheyenne Magic: American Dragons (Book 2)

Montana Firestorm: American Dragons (Book 3)

Texas Showdown: American Dragons (Book 4)

California Imperium: American Dragons (Book 5)

Dodge City Knights (American Dragons Book 6)

Leadville Crucible (American Dragons Book 7)

Alaska Kingdom (American Dragons Book 8)

Alamosa Arena (American Dragons Book 9)

Wyoming Dynasty (American Dragons Book 10)

***

Raider Annihilation: Son of Fire Book 1

Kraken Killjoy: Son of Fire Book 2

***

Dungeon Bringer 1

Dungeon Bringer 2

Dungeon Bringer 3

***

Witch King 1

Witch King 2

Witch King 3

***

Valhalla Virus: Ragnarok Rebels Book 1

***

Barbarian Outcast (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 1)

Barbarian Assassin (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 2)

Barbarian Alchemist (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 3)

Barbarian Gladiator (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 4)

Barbarian Dragonslayer (Princesses of the Ironbound Book 5)

***

Boss Build: Creature Girl Creations Book 1

Master Build: Creature Girl Creations Book 2

God Build: Creature Girl Creations Book 3

***

Time Jacker

***

Robot Bangarang: Full Frontal Galaxy (Book 1)

Space Dragon Boogaloo: Full Frontal Galaxy (Book 2)

LitRPG on Facebook

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Copyright

Rogue Dungeon: Expansion Pack is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 by James 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

James A. Hunter is a man of many talents. He’s a former Marine Corps Sergeant, combat veteran, and pirate hunter (seriously). He's also a member of The Royal Order of the Shellback—because that is totally a real thing. In addition to all of that, James has also been a missionary and international aid worker in Bangkok, Thailand. His latest mission? Taking care of his two kids and writing full time. He is the author of the Yancy Lazarus Urban Fantasy series, Legend of the Treesinger, Rogue Dungeon, and the bestselling LitRPG Epic Viridian Gate Online!

Read more at James Hunter’s site.

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