Sidekicks and Sidequests: A LitRPG Adventure
Date: 2026-02-10 08:00:00+00:00
Description: An apathetic introvert accidentally finds himself on the cusp of friendship, heroism, and doom in the third book of this epic fantasy-adventure series. Declan Lu was never one for teamwork or companionship. Or really, any kind of interaction that didn’t involve his best friend, Matt. But that was before an artificial intelligence hacked into his brain and invited him to become Dustin the Magic Myconid. Adventuring through new and mystical places, he’s teamed up with a squad of fellow adventurers on quests for mana, gold, and glory. Now, as the misfit crew’s journey through the world of Indiri
Publisher: Podium Publishing ULC

Sidekicks and Sidequests

Mycology ✸ Volume 3

Sir Nil

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Podium Publishing.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2026 by Eric Lin

Cover design by Nate Artuz

ISBN: 978-1-0394-5444-6

Published in 2026 by Podium Publishing
www.podiumentertainment.com

Contents

1.01

1.02

1.03

1.04

1.05

1.06

Interlude: Enchiridion

2.00

2.01

2.02

2.03

2.04

2.05

2.06

2.07

2.08

2.09

2.10

2.11

2.12

2.13

2.14

2.15

2.16

Interlude: Revenant

Character Sheets

Boss Sheets

About the Author

1.01

“Yes, I know they’re undead raised from the damned planes through the use of black magic that blasphemes against half of all the gods, and that they have no concept of exhaustion, but that doesn’t mean they can’t unionize or have paid vacations!”

—High Prince Aksum, now Dread Emperor Accidental

The night wind blew across an empty plain.

Cold air pressed against my skin, wormed its way past my thin clothing and bark armor. The grass below felt soft, and though I could only see a few meters from myself, I knew the plains loomed large in the far distance. The sound of a stream softly splashed.

Farther off in the darkness, scales were scattered about. Under each scale was a voice.

“Why did you use so much chili?!” Tai gasped between long chugs of water.

Despite not being able to see him, I could clearly imagine the grin on Noam’s face. “It builds character!”

“It tastes like poison,” Utoqa remarked before gently tapping Celine on the head. “Are you still alive, White-Skinned One?”

“… water …” she said between gasps, and Utoqa passed a skin of water to her.

“You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Tai accused.

I dipped my head slightly. “He and I share very different definitions of ‘edible.’”

Noam sighed. “It’s one of his many character flaws. Not being able to stand chili.”

There was a rustle as Tai stood up.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Noam yelled as Tai grabbed the pot we were sharing and tossed the rest of the red soup out onto the plains.

“Nooooo!” Noam cried as he fell to his knees. “It was innocent!”

The scales dimmed.

Ignoring him, Tai pointed at Utoqa. “What do you know of cooking?”

There was a creak as Utoqa’s weight lifted off the trunk he was using as a seat. His steps were silent, but a few moments later, I could hear a splash of water.

Soon, something wet and flopping was thrown towards us, landing beside the campfire.

“Fish. Eat,” the lizardfolk replied matter-of-factly as he returned, his own teeth already tearing into another fish.

“Raw?” Tai asked as if Utoqa had just killed her grandmother and was now wearing her skin as a hat.

Throwing her hands in the air, she stared hopefully at me. “What about you, Dustin?”

And I grew a mushroom in my hand.

I didn’t need to see her to know that the light of hope had just died in her eyes, snuffed out as she realized that one idiot knew how to cook but had defective taste buds, and the other two couldn’t and considered raw nutrients enough of a meal. Which, to be fair, was correct.

“… Ok,” she finally said. “I can work with this. Maybe.”

“Utoqa, I need you to catch more fish, and Dustin, you grow some more mushrooms,” Tai ordered as she began rummaging through our baggage.

The scales grew distant before they disappeared. Finally, sight returned to me.

“Keep,” I murmured, low enough so no one heard me. “A Blank Page in History, the Next Voyage of Discovery.”

A wood mask grew over my face; on it began to glow the symbol of an eye. About two hours, that was how long it took me to swap out secrets.

“What are you doing to my babies!?” Noam cried as he wrestled Tai over various pouches of spices. She kicked him off with little effort since Noam was being theatrical and she had at least five more points of strength.

“You are no longer on seasoning duty!” she yelled in indignation. “Look at Celine! She’s practically dead!”

“… mmmghfff … I’m fineee …”

Being able to see the scales was nice and all, but I was quite literally blind. Without my other secret providing spare sight, I would have to rely on the wisps for eye guides, and they had plenty of better uses.

“You just thought about getting rid of us, didn’t you?” Yellow asked.

Greenie shed a fake tear. “You get a new eye and you already want to replace us.”

“I only considered it,” I said, defending myself. “And when I can see, you two can be the little balls of destruction you deserve to be.”

Greenie, who was essentially a living violation of one convention or another, preened at the compliment. While Yellow seemed to disappear, it still wouldn’t tell me how it got levels as a sneak.

The bright yellow wisp later appeared next to Tai, watching her cook and prepare the fish.

Right now, I too remained unnoticed. My steps weren’t silent like Utoqa’s, nor did I hide my presence like Yellow by simply standing out of sight, but something stranger.

For even when Celine looked directly at me when she came back to life, she didn’t notice me at all.

Soon, I sat next to the sixth member of our group—a quiet little child whose family was dead.

“Johnny,” I said, revealing myself to him, the child with empty eyes.

He had no reaction to my presence being suddenly unveiled.

I asked my question. “Has that thing been following us the entire time?”

Behind Johnny Joymoon was an ethereal figure, almost mist-like. It was shaped not like a human but rather a tree trunk, with pale slithering roots spreading like a web, each ending in lipless mouths filled with needle-like teeth. Covering its trunk were faces—dozens and dozens of empty, featureless faces.

“It has,” Johnny replied.

If he could see it as well, and he was now a priest of the Weeping Child, whether by choice or chance, then that must mean …

“A ghost, huh?” I murmured in curiosity. No wonder none of the others, including myself, were able to see it. “Do I need to kill it?”

Ghosts couldn’t be harder to kill than a living concept.

Johnny shook his head, hugging the ragged doll he carried. “The boy asked it to protect me. To keep me safe.”

Mushrooms sprouted all around us as I smiled at the ghost.

“Then be glad I won’t have to kill you twice, Manifestation of Lies.”

True Sight was such a convenient thing. I could see that the ghost had no true will of its own, not anymore. It was a collection of shambling memories masterfully stitched back together. It shouldn’t have had consciousness or sentience, yet still, it shuddered.

Regardless, I turned back towards the campfire. “Someone ordered some mushrooms?” I yelled.

Utoqa’s head darted towards me, eyes narrowing as he tried to understand how I had gotten there.

Celine yelped as she was suddenly staring at my smiling face. Rude. I couldn’t look that bad, right?

Noam smiled, and I saw goosebumps on his bare skin as he tried to calculate how to kill me.

“How’d you get over here?” Tai asked as she cleaned out the guts of the fish, not at all bothered by my sudden appearance.

“I have my secrets,” I answered as I plucked one of the many Mushroom Meals I grew, handing it to her outstretched hand.

At the end of the night, I learned that Tai was a really good cook.

“So, what do you all plan on doing now?” Noam asked casually, the embers of the fire now dying.

Some of them had tucked in for the night, each in their own sleeping bags. I was standing quietly by the side, my glow dimmed.

“I don’t know,” Tai answered first. “I only know I need to get back home and inform everyone of my brother’s death.”

Her hand clutched her second blade, tightening. “It’s so strange. I can barely remember his face, but my chest is still so tight.”

“That means he meant something to you,” Celine answered. “And I am truly sorry.”

“Heh. It’s alright, Cel. I barely knew him, after all.”

“Doesn’t mean you, her, or I can’t feel sorry,” Noam added. “When people die, it always feels shitty, no matter if you knew them or not.”

“Does it ever get better?” Tai asked, her voice sounding weak, with none of the assured directness she had always displayed up till now.

“Yes,” Noam answered.

No one was sure if it was a lie or truth.

Celine’s eyes shifted to a silent lump a bit further from the rest of them. Smaller than all of them.

“So you’re just going to leave once we near a Wayshard?” Noam asked.

There was some ruffling as Tai shook her head. “Can’t. Part of the Path of Discipline. I can’t use them for transport. Well … I can but it would mean abandoning my path.”

“So, where’s your home?” Noam asked.

“It’s a small city near the edge of the Yong Chun Lin,” Tai answered.

Celine paused. “The Eternal Forests of Forever Spring?”

“That’s the one.”

“That is significantly longer than what she said,” Noam observed.

“Elvish always translates to a mouthful in Common,” Tai told him, to which Celine simply nodded in response.

“Is that on the way to where we’re going?” Noam asked me.

My cap slowly lit up, glowing slightly blue. Myconids don’t really sleep in the same way people did, but we’re still perfectly aware of our surroundings.

“We need to get to a major city with a church of the Hearth,” I said, glancing at the small bundle to the side of the camp, “but other than that …”

“No plans?” Noam asked, raising an eyebrow. “What happened to visiting that Manatheres place?”

I sighed. “I learned things, Noam, and I realized that learning some shit is actually riskier than I thought. I’ve more or less given up on learning magic so far.”

Especially when it wasn’t the cheat I wanted that could allow me to play without any risk or danger, for the scales would always be balanced one way or another.

“You can cast spells, though?” Celine asked, curious.

“Traveler spells are not the same. I don’t understand how each spell functions, but I can cast them in the exact way they are as they were given to me.”

“Same with me,” Noam said. “I have no fucking clue how aura works, only that it can make me go fast.”

“Seriously?” Tai asked. “I thought you were able to adapt Swift Strike into a full-body coating pretty well.”

Noam raised an eyebrow. “I was just using it on my whole body, didn’t sound special.”

“Adapting a single-move-type martial art into continuous use of any kind is, well … stupid, but making it work does take some skill.”

“There’s no need to keep feeding his ego,” I called out, pointedly looking at the sharp glint of a smile in the night.

“Ahh, you had to ruin it.”

“I already said that only an idiot would try something like that, but if Swift Strike was your only option, I guess it makes sense,” she said contemplatively.

“Can you teach me some more about aura?” Noam asked, to which I turned towards him, ready to launch into a tirade. “Chill, Dusts, I know you’re worried about knowledge and stuff, but small things can’t hurt for game balance, right?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can just tell you that some things are dangerous to know.”

“He’s right,” Celine added. “Baba always told me that some magics are not worth their cost to learn. Most of them are called black magics and she joked they are referred to that way because all that’s usually left of their practitioners—stains of black, rotten blood.”

“But most aura spells are harmless things everyone knows, right?” Noam pressed on.

Tai pursed her lips. “Probably? I’m fine, after all. I don’t mind teaching you, Noam. You’ve helped me a great deal. It’s the least I can do for you.”

“Problem is he’s a Traveler,” I said, bitterness evident in my tone. “Karmic punishments aren’t able to kill us so they target things around us instead.”

“Dustin,” Noam said, rising slightly to stare directly into his empty sockets, “that monster would be there regardless of what you did. If anything, you helped us do a good deed along the way.”

“But the second one was attracted by me,” I pointed out.

“But no one was hurt,” Tai cut in, rising from her blankets as well. “That cultist killed no one. It hurt some of us, but we walked it off, so don’t blame yourself for avenging my brother.”

Though he held no sight skills right now, Dustin knew the elf woman was staring intensely and directly at him.

“Thank you, Tai,” I whispered.

Then I heard Noam shuffling back under his blankets. “C’mon, long night.”

“They always are.”

We settled down, returning to our blankets.

Only when he was sure that everyone else was asleep, Noam spoke again.

“Hey, Dustin?”

“Yeah?”

“Can’t you check my karma or whazzit?”

“I could.”

There was a pause.

“But you don’t want to?” Noam extrapolated.

“Remember what skills I had before?”

“Observe, Analyze, and one other I didn’t have the chance to hear.”

“I discovered something. What I learn with an information-gathering power counts separately.”

Noam’s eyes widened. “So …”

I nodded. “Every time I take a peek, I add to the weight. It won’t be noticeable, but one day I will have to pay, and I will keep paying after that if I keep using it.”

“It’s the same idea as with fighting prowess. You can hold your combat ability freely, but if that combat ability gets you new loot, like a new weapon or treasure, it’s added to what you already have, tipping the Balance.”

“So you’re being conservative for now?”

I nodded. “I need to ensure the next time, I’ll be prepared to fight it off.”

Even if it the opponent was destined to be my match, there were a myriad of ways to ensure the fight would still go in my favor.

“We’ll be prepared next time?” Noam asked.

“We’ll be prepared,” I quietly agreed.

Untamed plains bled away, leaving only the road as our group entered a forest. The stones of Bundriroc were the only things keeping the wild undergrowth from bleeding into the packed earthen trail.

At that, I realized that my descriptions for how I perceived the world had been growing more flowery, and I wasn’t quite sure why. Mental shenanigans due to my altered body, having significantly enhanced mental stats, or maybe the journey was just boring me—it was difficult to tell. I was changing faster than my understanding of myself could keep up.

After a while, we came across a large, fallen tree, blocking our path.

Tai sighed as she put down the reins, letting the bison-like creature pulling our cart slow to a stop.

“Gimme a moment,” she said, grabbing her blade and adjusting it around her belt. “I can deal with this.”

Tai closed her eyes as she prepared to draw her sword.

It was Utoqa who noticed them first.

Glancing towards me, he then nodded towards the forest, where dead leaves, branches, and other debris covered the ground.

Then I opened my True Sight and noticed how the leaves had shifted.

“Want to have dinner later today?” Noam asked casually.

“I dunno,” I answered, still outwardly nonchalant as the eye rune darted around. “Maybe we should have it earlier. Perhaps at 4?”

“Just eat dinner at the dinner bell,” Tai responded. “Ah, fuck, broke my concentration.”

“Are we to have those humans hiding on the floor?” Utoqa asked.

Noam facepalmed.

Suddenly, seven spots around the cart jumped up—seven humans throwing off their makeshift camouflage as they drew weapons.

Huh, I missed three.

“No, you idiot! I was conveying that we had people ambushing us,” Noam told Utoqa, drawing his own weapon. “Like code and stuff.”

“Did anyone actually get the code?” Celine asked, her eyes warily scanning the surroundings as she pulled Johnny close.

“I’LL KEEP THIS NICE AND SIMPLE!” a man yelled, one of his eyes covered by a bandana. “Drop all your valuables or else!”

“Yeah!” another bandit yelled.

“They look loaded.”

“Wait,” Tai interrupted, “are you … robbing us?”

The bandit leader actually looked taken aback. “Well, yeah, I felt like the whole jumping out from cover and drawing weapons on you was self-explanatory.”

“Ooooh!” Tai giggled excitedly. “This is the first time I’ve been robbed!”

“Why are you getting excited about that?” I asked as Yellow slid down my arm and sneakily landed on the ground.

“It’s part of my Path,” she explained.

“Hey, I don’t appreciate you all not dropping all your money right now!”

Noam leapt off the cart and fly-kicked the bandit leader in the face.

“Getting robbed is part of your Path?” Noam asked as he landed deftly behind the bandit leader.

“Git em!” one of the other bandits yelled.

“Yeah,” Tai answered, raising her still-sheathed sword, on guard. “Grandma said that it builds character, so it’s part of the Path.”

Noam punched the bandit leader as he tried to get back up. “Your grandma sounds like an ass. And how does this build character when a healthy dollop of chili doesn’t?”

Tai deftly sidestepped a blade as she slapped her sheathed sword onto the back of the bandit’s neck, knocking him out. “The chili you put in that soup was abnormal.”

“Utoqa, stay back,” I told him. While I had little doubt he would be able to wreck shop here, both Tai and Noam looked like they wanted a non-lethal fight.

I sleep-spored a bandit approaching the cart as both Tai and Noam continued their argument while dropping bandits left, right, and center.

“I’m just saying that life is better when you have something to spice it up,” Noam told her as he held a bandit in a chokehold.

“And I agree to an extent,” Tai said as she drop-kicked another one, “but that level of chili almost took out Celine!”

“Hi,” Celine waved.

“Hey,” Noam waved back. “Alright, that’s a good point, but that was no excuse to throw away perfectly good chili … ”

Five minutes later, we were tying up the seven unconscious bandits, while Noam and Celine were still arguing.

“… and thus ends my dissertation on why you shouldn’t throw away half-a-million Scoville of chili.”

“The fuck is a Scoville?”

Even once we had hacked up the fallen tree trunk and continued on our way, bandits in tow, they continued.

“… I tasted enough chili yesterday to cover my entire lifespan! My entire lifespan!”

“Well, you must have a very boring life planned out for yourself …”

I never noticed how much Noam could talk, since I usually let my mind wander when he ranted on whatever he wanted, only tuning in when he said something of interest to me.

Tai was matching him in both volume and quantity. When it came to spouting off vapid bullshit, both had found their equal.

“There should be an encampment further up,” I murmured to Celine, ignoring the arguing going on behind us. “It’s a Wayshard in the middle of the forest. There’s a merc guild there.”

“The name?” she asked.

“None, it’s just another admin branch,” I answered. One similar to the one Noam and I had gotten our license from. “We can dump the bandits there and collect their bounty.”

“We do need the money,” Celine murmured. “The town gave us a lot of stuff but …”

It was mostly food and travel items, not much in terms of money or valuables. They would’ve been given if we had asked, but the people needed all they could spare to rebuild the town, especially with its now-greatly reduced population.

“Is splitting it between the two of you ok?” I asked aloud, pausing both Noam and Tai in their argument.

“What are you talking about?” Tai asked, tapping her sheathed sword like a cane on the ground.

“Yeah?” Noam mirrored.

“We’re a group now. At least split it five ways.”

I paused slightly at her casual declaration. Tai turned back to Noam, now arguing about the appropriate level of adventure a person can have in their lifetime.

While I didn’t turn to Celine, she noticed the sudden scrutiny from my manavision, and she shrugged. Meanwhile, Utoqa quietly took the reins of the bison.

I suppose we were a group for now.

Further up, Noam’s pointing and exclamations informed me we were in sight of our destination. Risking a look, I opened up my True Sight, the one from the Keep.

The guild outpost was a strange thing—a large tree that had been grown into a house, the trunk hollow and its doors and windows opened, welcoming people in, despite no one being around. A wall of thorns grew from the side and around it, encircling a large blue crystal behind the tree which I knew to be another Wayshard.

Checking, I had regained my use of status screens.

Noam and I could respawn here now.

The system still considered me a level 5, not counting Keeper of Secrets, despite the fact it gave me an option to put a character level in it the next time I leveled up.

I ignored it since there was no point in restricting my Path with its alternate progression. I also received several new Feats I could purchase.

Hydra Slayer (9 SP): Once per day, you may expel a memetic poison that wipes the memories of the last few minutes equivalent to your character level of all caught in it. You heal for an amount increasing with the number of memories wiped. If you are killed, you may, once per day, resurrect yourself instantly from your corpse at full health at an elevated XP cost.

Second of Three Oracle (9 SP): You no longer fulfill the requirements to gain this Feat.

Oracle No Longer (6 SP): You gain +2 to any Mind stat of your choice. You can choose to actively disrupt all manners of future or fate reading on or related to yourself.

The Thrice-Blinded (3 SP): The System recognizes your right to a Title. Gain three +1s to any stat of your choice.

I paused.

That last one was basically free.

Better than free, in fact, since the stat increases weren’t in stat points, it wouldn’t be affected by my negative racials. I could actually raise my Agility without paying five times the normal cost.

The questionable thing was what it meant by it recognizing my right to a title.

“System Query,” I quietly muttered, “what does it mean to have a title recognized by the System?”

It answered quickly.

The Title will be displayed beside your character name and can be carried through to all your other characters.

Note: Only one Title can be allocated to each player.

Curious.

Too curious.

Was it worth my question to Dave to ascertain the nature of this?

Probably not. I dropped the idea for now, if only because taking Thrice-Blinded would delay me by another level to gain the 9 SP required for Dimensional Gate.

Dimensional Gate (9 SP): You select from the Interweaved Dimensions Spell List and learn two Tier 2 and one Tier 3 Conjuration Spells of your choice. They do not take up existing spell slots.

I needed that Feat to gain the spell that allowed me to summon wisps. Along with the Traveler Level 6 ding, it effectively gave me a massive power-up by the next level.

As our cart slowed to a halt, I gestured at Utoqa to watch our stuff and the prisoners. Plopping off the cart, I strode forward, sunlight filtering through the leaves but failing to pierce my bark skin.

Noam complained about his sore butt cheeks as he stretched his tired legs, and Tai’s blade rattled as she jumped off, asking Noam about his form as they stretched their bodies behind me.

Another difference between the myconid body and theirs was that I barely felt the sores of staying still for hours on end, to the point where I suspected I simply didn’t have any.

Striding through the entrance, I smelled the earthy tones of dirt and herbs. A single young man sat napping with his head on the desk, a stray ray of sunlight warming his body.

He seemed to be of nature, and my eye saw he walked a Path related to protection, or perhaps preservation.

I closed my eyes before I could see more and politely knocked loudly on the wooden table, rousing the young man awake.

Blind now, I heard him stir. Giving him some time to properly wake himself, I let my manavision guide me to a seat.

Yellow whispered to me that he was wiping a line of drool off his mouth and table when he noticed me.

“Ah, I didn’t see you. Sorry, welcome to the Gestrand Forest Guild base.”

I nodded towards the sound of his voice. “Hello, I’m Dustin. My party was traveling along this road, and we apprehended some bandits. Would you be able to hold them?”

“Erm, bandits? We have a big cage at the back, but we’ll need an escort to bring them to a prison proper,” he answered. “I can send a message to another branch to send for someone, unless you want to take the mission?”

I drummed my fingers against the smooth wooden table. Another problem with Wayshards, they weren’t exactly good at transporting prisoners or people against their will, since they were activated entirely by the person’s decision.

“I’ll have to talk with my party about that, but was there a reward or bounty for the bandits?”

Footsteps. The young man was walking towards me. “I’ll have to check their identities.” A shuffling of paper. “If they’re on the bounties, then you’ll get the bonus. Otherwise, it’ll just be normal rates. You have your plate?”

I flashed the bronze plate around my neck in the direction his voice was coming from. He might’ve nodded, but he was still out of range of my manavision so I had to just take in his grunt of affirmation.

Standing up myself, I showed him outside, waving at everyone who was waiting.

No major bounties against these people. The seven were minor and hadn’t killed anyone during their stint as a bandit group. After taxes, we got three gold in total.

“Before we split it,” I began, “I propose we keep a combined fund to purchase supplies for the group. If we disband before it is all spent, we can split it as normal.”

Tai shrugged. “Sure, you want to be the one keeping it?”

“I wouldn’t mind, but if anyone else wants to take the role, then they may.”

Tai tossed a few coins, which Noam caught for me. “Add that to the party fund. I’m gonna trust you on this. If you betray that trust, I’ll stab you or something.”

Celine took her share with a slight hint of embarrassment. “Sorry, but I will keep my portion.”

“It is fair,” I agreed, “since you’ve already spent a lot of your money on making potions that have kept the rest of us alive.”

Raising my voice slightly, I said, “Sharing the costs of your potions is actually one of the purposes of this, so I’m glad we could all agree to it.”

Nods all around, including from Utoqa of all people.

“Well, other than that, what are your thoughts on escorting the prisoners?” Noam asked this time, head nodding towards the cage they were locked in.

“We can certainly do it,” I said, “but we would need to immediately move on from here. The nearest city with a prison is still days of travel away.”

Noam shrugged. “We’re on the way anyway. We can hurry up for a bit.”

“My ass still feels sore from sitting in the cart all day,” Tai moaned. “Let’s at least rest for the day.”

“Just walk.”

“The entire way?”

As Noam and Tai talked, I noticed Celine crouching down beside Johnny, talking to him quietly.

After a moment, she rose back up. “I think we should stay for a while,” she said. “After everything that happened, we need time to rest and recover. Even if our physical wounds are gone …”

She left the last part unsaid, but I knew what she meant. “I agree,” I said. “Some rest would do us all good.”

Three for staying, one to continue, with Utoqa abstaining.

“Fair ’nuff,” Noam shrugged.

He waved down the guild member “Hey! We’re stopping here for now. Call someone else to escort them!”

Greenie relayed to me the nod he gave in response, far out of my manavision range.

I really needed a normal set of eyes.

True Sight gave me too much information, to the point it was dangerous for my Balance when used for an extended period of time, and Keep was too varied to be stuck on giving me nothing but a fancy pair of eyes.

Manavision was constantly active and I could sense everything in it, but it was limited heavily in range.

Greenie and Yellow were helpful … to a point, but they were better as separate agents from me.

I needed to have my sight issue fixed by the next level, though. Blindness was a significant drawback and not one I should keep for long. I may have had to spend my level-6 Traveler level-up bonus for it, which I wouldn’t have minded if it was packaged with something sufficiently powerful. I just had to also keep my Balance in mind.

It seemed that the next level would be when I got better, when my build could truly be considered finished, rather than the disparate set of random abilities I had at this point.

Until then, I just had to keep my scales weighted away from me, so that this time, there would be no monsters, no horrors to face when I gained power.

Gradually, if necessary. Slow but steadily.

That was the plan.

1.02

“One hundred and fifty-two Addendum I’d like to correct my previous mistake: friends are an excellent treasure. You never realize how much they’re worth until you part with them, especially when they are turned to gold and sold to the Kenkou.”

—Excerpt from Elliot’s Enchiridion of Encounters

I paced around the living room, my eyes constantly glancing at the time.

Sat on the couch, Matt idly bounced a rubber ball on the wall.

“How many days have passed now?”

I filled Matt in as soon as possible, but here was the damnedest thing: when Dustin ripped out the Eyes, we were disconnected. There was no way for me to figure out from this side what happened afterwards.

I no longer held Observe. Short as my time with it had been, I felt blind in my own home without it.

Leaving my mind filled with anxiety.

It was only the sound of my pacing and Noam’s—Matt’s—ball bouncing off of the wall that gave any indication of time.

Like the ticking of a clock, it was rhythmic, unchanging in its beat.

Matt would’ve told me to calm down. I knew that’s what he would say, and he knew I knew, so nothing was said. He simply left me to my own mind as on all the previous days.

It was then that the bouncing suddenly stopped.

“I’ve hit level six,” he said.

A simple statement, but oh, how loaded it was with information. Noam had experienced enough to gain a level. The fact that Matt knew this meant they had successfully reached a Wayshard, and the fact that he hadn’t bothered to speak of Dustin’s status meant that the situation had resolved relatively in our favor, which meant—

It was like two things slamming into one.

I staggered slightly as my memories came back up-to-date.

I laughed as I touched my own eye, still slightly red from all those days ago.

“Success!”

The moment I had noticed Dustin had forgotten something, we compared our memories to figure out what was missing between us, later bringing in the rest of the mercenaries in the town.

We had lost the first round, Dustin had been knocked out, and I had been forced to do something that allowed me to take over his body for a while, but I had barely made a draw, wounding the Accumulation at the cost of losing my Eye of Observe and getting shunted back into the real world.

It was the third time that we had won. Using only fragmented information and memories, Dustin had been able to win it all back.

Both Observe, Analyze, and the new Path were lost in the fight that followed, but we had gotten out of that with minimal casualties.

“That means you’ll have to fulfill your deal?”

My mind was still slightly split, so part of me was intrigued, wondering, while at the same time I reflexively answered.

“Yes.”

Upstairs in my room, there was an AI god named Discovery, and in the darkest moment, I had prayed to him. Such things did not come freely, however. Upon confirmation of the success of the mission, I was to carry out a difficult and arduous task for Discovery, all because he had allowed me to possess Dustin’s body while he was unconscious and leave behind those clues.

I had to go outside.

I laughed aloud as I returned to Indiri.

“What happened?” Tai asked, blade gleaming under the setting sunlight.

“Oh nothing,” I said. “It seems as though my other self has to play tour guide.”

She asked a few more questions out of passing curiosity, but I did not answer. I had to Keep that story a secret after all.

“How’s our lodging?” I asked, attempting to divert the conversation.

“Decent spot,” she answered. “It has clean beds and showers, which is already a plus.”

Though this Administrative Guild Branch was isolated, it did not skimp on living quarters despite the very-reasonable thought that a person could just teleport back home through the Wayshard. We only had to deal with a small fee that was already under the market cost, simply due to the fact that we were all plated mercenaries.

“I’ll check it out, then.”

The sun soon fell, letting moonlight shine through the room we had booked. Noam, Utoqa, Johnny, and I opted for a single room with double bunk beds—not that I needed one. I was far more comfortable standing up. Meanwhile, Tai and Celine slept in the room next to us.

It was a quiet night, and my mind felt the hours pass in a state of torpor, Noam shuffling in his bed and Utoqa silent as the grave.

Hours later, a slight refraction of light woke me.

I say “woke” but I hadn’t been truly asleep, not as a myconid. My mind simply ceased thinking, leaving me still aware of what happened around me but not really responsive.

Light reflected off of the bed where Johnny slept, and with both wisps sleeping as well, I cast my True Sight on Johnny.

He was crying. Gripping the cloth of his blankets tightly as tears dripped down his face, his jaws clenched as if he were trying so very hard to not make a sound.

I glanced at the ghost that protected him, seeing it on high alert, the faces on its trunk in utter anguish, its pale roots stretched till it grasped every dark corner of the space, some phasing through the walls altogether, completely covering the entire room.

I took a step forward.

Then the door creaked open.

My hand was up in an instant, but seeing who passed through made me lower it.

“Celine,” I greeted.

She quietly nodded to me, before glancing at Johnny.

“A nightmare …” she whispered.

Hesitating, she stepped forward, her footfalls causing the wood underneath her to creak.

Noam and Utoqa were sleeping too deeply to notice, but Johnny did. His tear-filled eyes fluttered open, and for a brief moment, the ghost flared up, its incorporeal roots exploding in movement as their ends opened up in mouths full of needle-sharp teeth. Like daggers, they stabbed in the direction of the figure approaching.

They stopped as soon as Johnny recognized Celine.

I lowered my hand again, not remembering when I had raised it.

“Are you scared?” Celine asked, gently raising a finger to wipe away some tears.

Johnny nodded, his breath seemingly caught in his throat.

“What can I do to make you not afraid anymore?”

Johnny was silent for a long while, and though the ghost was still, its roots were still spread far and deep around us.

“Can you hold me?”

She smiled. “I will.”

And she did. In response, the ghost began to retract its roots, shrinking back into itself.

“Can you sing me a nighttime song?” Johnny asked, his breath raspy from having cried for a long time. “I … I don’t want it to be quiet.”

And Celine began humming.

The ghost kept shrinking till it was back to normal, it and Johnny soon falling back to sleep.

I rifled through the copy of The Morning Herald left inside the Guild, which was both the name of the god and newspaper. The Morning Herald was weird as gods go, at least to my sensibilities. He ran a massive worldwide newspaper, and all you had to do to get one was create a shrine and leave a bronze coin in it every night. Said “shrine” was literally just a mailbox with his symbol—a winged foot—stamped upon it. I’ve been told a spare shoe with a wing drawn on it also works, which is what poorer people opted for as opposed to dedicated mailboxes.

Scribbling down notes at a table nearby, Celine raised a shopping list and stuffed it into Noam’s hand.

“I’ll need you to buy lots of Gerry’s root, elder fungus, mineral salt thirty-seven …” she quickly named.

“Can you make health potions, Celine?” Tai asked as she sheathed her sword.

She nodded. “Would cost a bit, though. How many do you need?”

“How much can thirty gold net me?”

“Six,” she quickly said after a calculation.

“Six?” Tai asked incredulously. “Are you sure?”

Celine nodded. “The cost of ingredients is only about four gold per potion, but I need to replace some of my equipment, along with getting more high-quality thread for Nappy.” She gently patted her cloak, which seemed to ripple in response.

“Celine,” Tai began, “you know they sell health potions for ten gold a pop, right?”

“Well, my potions aren’t that good. They’re nowhere near my Baba’s level, so it is customary, as an apprentice, to sell them close to cost.”

The swordswoman shook her head, before glancing at me. “Add those six potions to our group fund, then, but if no one uses them then pass them back to me.”

“Reasonable,” I agreed.

“If those were apprentice potions, then I look forward to seeing what you can make as a master,” Noam inserted as he focused on the shopping list before him. “Do I need to get lime testicles of the Hurane bull or just green?”

“Has to be lime-colored,” Celine quickly answered. “Green-colored ones are signs of nutrient deficiency and when put in a health potion can lead to weakly healed bones.”

“How do I tell the difference between lime and green?”

“Look it’s …” she exasperatedly began, glancing at Johnny, who was seated next to me. “It’s simple. Just feel for bumps. No bumps means green, yes bumps means you have a lime one.”

“Got it, go fondle some balls,” Noam replied with a completely straight face. “But what about the newt eyes?”

Celine sighed and rubbed her brow.

“Why don’t you obtain it yourself?” Utoqa asked.

I had long stopped reading at this point, and I saw Celine glancing at Johnny again. She answered in a quiet voice—quiet enough Johnny and I could not hear it from where we were sitting, and without Analyze, I couldn’t read her lips.

Utoqa nodded in response to what she said, apparently satisfied.

I could tell that Celine wanted to look after this kid.

Under my True Sight, I could see the pale skin under the tanned brown she disguised herself with.

Celine was a Changeling, and I could see that her eyes were special as well. As an empath, she was able to sense the emotions of others as easily as some people can feel, taste, or listen.

It was easy to draw a conclusion from there.

I did not know where “losing your entire adopted family and seeing their faces stolen by a memetic monster” landed in terms of trauma level, but it did not take an expert to realize the quiet child beside me was deeply fucked up.

All Johnny did was silently follow us, clutching that raggedy doll of his. He barely spoke. He hardly even ate.

Not even mentioning his “bodyguard.”

Celine wanted to keep an eye on him, either out of compassion or pragmatism over what that ragged doll he held might represent. I was personally more worried about the ghost.

And I honestly wished I knew enough about psychology to help Celine.

It seemed simple. Those shrinks on TV and in stories would ask a few questions and, over time, their patients would improve, but here and now, sitting right next to a trauma victim, I had no idea what to do.

More time spent with Celine seemed like the best bet. She actually seemed to have an idea of what she was doing, but other than that, I was lost.

I was a high school student and my expertise lay in combat tactics and strategy, but there was nothing I could kill or outsmart to solve trauma.

“What Wayshards are you marked for?” Noam asked Johnny.

The boy was silent for a while, thinking, before he answered, “I think … a town beside the sea? I visited it once while Yennen was selling stuff …”

“Bartin?” Noam asked, to which Johnny nodded. The tiefling turned to Celine. “Can you buy your stuff at Bartin?”

She thought about it for a moment. “I can. Johnny, do you want to go with me to Bartin?”

He was silent, before replying, “I’m not sure …”

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Noam encouraged. “They have great fried shrimp, and I know this one chef dude who … actually, he might not be in town anymore.”

“I guess … Ok …” Johnny answered as he stood up and walked towards Celine.

Noam sat down next to me. “He’s afraid of quiet spaces, isn’t he?”

I turned my head, raising an eyebrow. “You were awake?”

“I noticed Celine hurrying out of the room in the morning like a dude seeing his girlfriend’s husband coming back,” he answered with a smile, before he continued more seriously. “Not sure if going to a city will help, but it’s pretty busy there, lots of people, so it won’t feel as empty.”

“We need to get him to an orphanage protected by the Hearth Church,” I said, noting the two elder gods who protected such places.

“A normal orphanage won’t do?” Noam asked. “Don’t get me wrong, it feels wrong to just hand him off to someone else to raise but—”

“That’s not it,” I answered.

Looking at the doll Johnny clutched, along with that ghost that haunted him, I said, “Remember what is said about the Weeping Child.”

Noam frowned as he tried to recall what was written in that encyclopedia I had dumped on him.

To jog his memory, I said, “The Weeping Child is a gestalt of suffering, an artificial god created by a mad mage who thought enough people feeling one emotion would give rise to a deity.”

And Khao had chosen orphans—at the time relatively simple to acquire in large number—and constant suffering.

“That doll is—” Noam realized, “—that thing’s Divine Symbol.”

I nodded. “Same with the deck of cards or silver bell Corvian had, the item needed to channel the power of a god. The Weeping Child protects orphans, but it does so by killing anything that can harm them, violently lashing out at the world. It can destroy an entire city in the process.”

Noam then realized the true nature of our “escort” mission.

We were meant to protect the world from the child, as much as we were supposed to protect that child from the world.

“An orphanage that doesn’t have a god looking over it won’t cut it,” I told him. “And if we gave the kid to someone who might abuse him, the Weeping Child might take offense to that.”

So all that was left was the Church of the Hearth, the guardians of home and family.

“You two plan on going on a shopping trip, then?” Tai asked.

Celine nodded, Johnny tightly holding her hand. “You?”

Tai smiled, nodding towards the quest board. “I just bought six health potions. I’m poor now so I have to work for a living.”

“Mind if I come with, Celine?” Noam asked her.

“Actually,” I said, “it might be better if you and Utoqa both took quests as well. Three people working together should net harder quests.”

Noam frowned.

Yellow perched on his shoulder, and I whispered to Greenie, who repeated at a frequency too high for the rest of us except Yellow to hear. Yellow repeated it to Noam.

“If it all goes down to a fight, you mainly physical fighters can’t deal with a ghost. It’ll just be me and Celine.”

Noam’s eyes met where mine used to be.

“Yeah, I guess we’re broke anyways.” He shrugged. “This alright with you, Tai?”

She shrugged. “I’m fine with it.”

“Mind if I come shopping with you two?” I asked Celine.

“Not at all.”

1.03

“See, the classic play against a band of Five is to split them up. They can’t use the power of friendship when they are at least five kilometers away from each other. Believe me, I’ve tested it.”

—The Revenant King

So, what are the available quests like?” Noam asked the one employee. “Oh! I never asked for your name. Mine’s Noam, by the way.”

The young man looked at him quizzically. Both were fully aware that there was a request board, which Tai and Utoqa were perusing at the moment, but Noam wanted some conversation.

“I’m Tignflut. We pay a bounty for every rabbit or cat scalp you return,” the receptionist quickly answered, his voice carrying a somewhat-hopeful tone. “There’s also an unknown monster near the center of the forest.”

“I see that,” Tai replied, biting her thumb as she read the bounties. “Who pays to kill rabbits and cats?”

The young man sighed and answered with the practice of someone well studied in the subject. “Mostly druidic circles. Cats and rabbits are harmless to us, but they are devastating for local environments.”

Noam raised an eyebrow. He’d heard of this sort of thing in passing—something about invasive species. Not much, though. The subject wasn’t worth teaching when all creatures larger than a dog were exclusively found in zoos.

“How so?” he continued, now somewhat intrigued.

“Cats hunt and kill everything,” Tignflut answered. “They over-hunt anything about rat-sized, leaving other predators with no food.”

“What about rabbits?” Tai asked. “How could those cute things hurt?”

“Because nothing here naturally hunts them.” The receptionist sighed. “Winters are strangely warm here in Gestrand, basically meaning they don’t hibernate, so they reproduce all year. They eat everything remotely green, and when they run out of green they eat the trees, ring-barking them, and leaving massive parts of the forest barren.”

“What about introducing another predator?” Noam asked.

With a slightly bitter tone, the man answered, “The cats were originally brought here to hunt the rabbits, but it was a nocturnal species, so the rabbits are left completely free during the day.”

“I don’t see the problem,” Utoqa said as he parted from the board and walked towards them. “The fittest survive.”

Frowning, Tignflut replied, “The creatures in this forest are unique and are being horrifically over-hunted by invasive species and poachers. If they all die, there will be no more left anywhere else.”

Completely unperturbed, Utoqa’s reptilian visage looked over at the receptionist.

Tignflut tensed somewhat, not knowing what the lizardfolk would do, before he spoke.

“It is one copper for rabbit scalp and three for cat scalp?”

Tignflut looked surprised for a moment. “Umm. Yeah, that’s the bounty right now …”

Utoqa nodded. “I will bring scalps,” he said simply, before he turned away, heading for the exit.

Tai glanced at the board again, then shrugged, following behind.

Chuckling, Noam got up from his seat beside the desk. “I thought it was survival of the fittest?”

“It is,” Utoqa answered. “I am fit, and the rabbit and cat are not.”

The Mercantile Church was a fucking strip mall.

I felt like it said something about the Merchant Goddess, how her “temples” of worship were literally just marketplaces.

My only encounter with a priest of Ethelinda before now was that merchant who had harassed us on the train, which made for a really poor first impression. Though he did turn out to be an Osshiven’Kai cultist in disguise, so I suppose right now was my first real experience.

I’m pretty sure I preferred the cultist.

I left the smiling priest with a supremely regretful expression. In my hand was a fresh vial of Holy Water, known to be especially effective against undead creatures. I continually repeated the fact that this was a necessary purchase, a comfort that did not make my purse regain any of its lost weight.

It was unfortunate that the Merchant Church was the only place atheists could get holy consumables. The other churches all required belief, and of all of us, only Johnny qualified.

The Weeping Child might’ve gotten a good laugh if we asked him for Holy Water to use against his servants.

Both Noam and my split of Lake Bayt’s reward were spent on this one vial, so gritting my teeth, I put it inside my cap as I stepped outside the M-Church store.

Quickly I found Celine—well, Yellow found Celine, since I was not wasting True Sight on a marketplace. She was clinically inspecting some kind of hard purple fruit, rapping it with her knuckles and listening to the sound the shell made.

Shaking her head, she turned to examine another one. How she was able to determine the quality I could not tell, even with True Sight. Maybe if I still had Analyze, I might’ve been able to determine it from copying Celine’s actions.

Johnny was by her side, holding onto her hand and half obscured by her cloak. That I figured out pretty quickly after I got the sight. That cloak was some kind of magical item. It was at least able to animate a skeleton, as evidenced by the crow cadaver it used before, and seemed to be distinct from Celine, as in it wasn’t made by her. They didn’t give off the same feeling.

The cloak helped hold an increasingly large bag of materials. Most of which were paid for by Tai. Thanks to the party fund, I didn’t have to worry about running out of potions anytime soon. As long as Celine had time to brew them into drinkables.

As I neared, I made sure to stomp loudly on the ground, revealing my presence.

“I bought what I wanted,” I said, putting out my hand in a gesture to take the load of materials.

The cloak—Nappy I think it was called—handed me the bags, which I quickly stuffed into my cap.

“We’re almost done as well,” Celine answered. “I just need to find better Aafin’s Fruit.”

I nodded, having no idea what the fruit was, but presuming she knew what she was doing. She was the one bright spot in all of this; with her, we could buy the potions literally at material cost.

That meant we could get twice the number of consumables compared to just buying the potions. I needed to help Celine set up a store at some point. I could call the potato dude to help with management and making a decent front, maybe check if those geckos were still looking for a job …

I pushed those ideas to the back of my head for the moment, suddenly aware I had turned silent. Nodding to Celine, we went off to explore the rest of the market.

One of the first things I checked was whether or not there was a Church of the Hearth here.

Unfortunately, I knew the answer from my first time here in Bartin. It was a relatively new port city, so the old gods had yet to establish a presence here. Only expansionist religions had churches at the moment. We would need to move further inland to find the sort of church we were looking for.

Strangely, the place seemed a lot rowdier than last time. The crowds were a lot larger, and we were bumping into people significantly more frequently.

“It’s a festival!” Greenie excitedly squeaked.

I raised an eyebrow and opened my True Sight for a moment, taking a good look at our surroundings.

Following everyone else’s gazes, I saw the numerous stalls and festival games that started to dot the streets ahead of us.

Frowning slightly, Celine asked, “Should we head back?”

“Maybe,” I began, before noticing Yellow tugging at my shoulder.

The place it was gesturing to was close enough for my manavision to make out.

Johnny was staring at a large toy wooden dragon, one of the rewards displayed by one of the stalls.

Utoqa walked out of the bush holding three more dead rabbits by the ears.

At this point, Noam was just whistling as they walked deeper in. Utoqa alone was bearing the brunt of the work, better at tracking and hunting than either of them combined. Tai and Noam rightly assumed that they would be more of a hindrance than help to Utoqa.

After a few more minutes of this, Noam groaned. “Ahh! We have nothing to do!”

“Speak for yourself,” Tai said, looking at a map of the forest that she had borrowed. “Utoqa, have you seen any people tracks yet?”

“No,” he answered simply, stuffing the rabbit corpses into the numerous pouches he was wearing.

He had dozens more dead game in those pouches. Noam had realized pretty early on that they had more space inside than it appeared from the outside—likely Pouches of Holding.

Biting her thumb, Tai murmured, “We haven’t spotted any poachers … Did you catch anything of the monster the dude talked about?”

Utoqa shook his head. “Nope.”

“Should we focus on finding one of the big targets?” Noam asked, bored out of his mind. “We have plenty of dead rabbits. More than we know what to do with.”

“We can eat, skin, and make cloth from them,” Utoqa said.

“I better get a good rabbit-fur scarf out of this, then,” Noam muttered.

Suddenly, Utoqa’s head perked up, nose sniffing the air like a predator.

“I smell cooking smoke,” he said, glancing towards a direction further into the forest.

A few moments later, the smell had wafted over enough that Noam and Tai began to smell it as well.

Silently, they all nodded to each other.

The dart missed the target by a massive margin, slamming into the space between the targets.

“And that’s a miss!” the stand owner yelled with increasingly annoying cheerfulness. “If you want to try again, that’s five more copper!”

If I had eyes they would twitch madly right now … Swiftly, I took out the last of my coins before Celine placed her hand on my arm.

“Let me try it,” she said, placing five of her own coppers on the bench.

The owner smiled and gave her three more darts.

Celine raised her first dart, eyes narrowing in concentration.

And threw.

The dart slammed into the edge of the target board, on the outermost ring.

“And that’s a miss!” the owner declared again. “Can this little missy get it on the second?”

Celine breathed in deeply, glancing at Johnny before she took up the second dart.

Steadying herself, she threw it.

It flew true and landed solidly on the fourth ring from the center.

“That’s pretty good!” the owner praised. “But can she win it all with the last dart?”

She raised the dart, her very form the epitome of concentration.

And she threw it.

But as she did so, a burly man accidentally bumped into her, knocking off her aim as the dart went completely wild.

“And that’s a miss!” the owner yelled. “Too bad, wanna try again?”

“Oh, fuck off,” I said. “This game is rigged.”

“It is not, my good shroom—”

I slammed my hand down. “Yes, it fucking is, and I can prove it mathematically.”

Three figures ghosted through the underbrush.

Well, two, as Tai was slightly more noticeable than Noam or Utoqa, but she had the basic idea down.

Regardless, a lot of noise was emanating from the encampment they happened upon. The people there seemed to be celebrating an apparently good catch. There were four of them, one plucking three dead turkey-looking birds with rainbow feathers, the other three roasting some meat over a fire.

“Let’s avoid killing for this, unless necessary,” Noam quietly told Utoqa.

The lizardfolk nodded.

Noam raised a hand, three fingers up, and then one finger went down, and another, and finally …

All three leapt.

Noam reached the poachers first, a fly kick slamming into the head of one of them, knocking her head into the fire.

Utoqa quickly grabbed the second as he was getting up, throwing him by the shoulder into the tree.

A sheathed blade knocked away a weapon as the third raised his weapon, another swing and he was knocked out.

The fourth surrendered upon realizing that they were completely outnumbered and outclassed.

“… and from the observed data of more than thirty attempts, it can be reasonably concluded that there is a less-than-0.6 percent statistical chance of landing all three darts, not to mention the un-aerodynamic design of the darts, as well as their soft tips …”

I had gathered a crowd at some point, people curiously standing by to watch my loud ravings.

“Thus! There is empirical, undeniable proof that your game is rigged!”

“Security!”

They dumped the poachers in the guild, knocked out and tied up, before heading back out.

“That was too quick,” Noam said.

“Was easy money, though.” Tai smiled, counting the silvers. “Your share, and your share.”

Noam took his money with a grumble. “I was hoping we’d get a better fight or something …”

“There might still be,” Utoqa said.

Noam’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

Utoqa nodded. “There was a strange scent on the birds they were hunting. Venomous, powerful.”

“Well, let’s head where they came from!” Noam cheerfully said.

Tai shrugged, and together, they followed Utoqa back to the location of the poachers’ camp.

He dropped to the ground, sniffing the air and flicking out his tongue. “I’ve caught the scent again.”

Following behind Utoqa, they went deeper and deeper into the forest, slowly, until there was a noticeable change: it was getting very, very quiet.

They all unintentionally tensed at this, given their previous experience. Only Utoqa seemed unperturbed as they continued their approach.

They pressed on, eyes wary. Deep in the forest, they began spotting a thick, white webbing covering many of the trees.

Suddenly, a loud screech sounded throughout the forest.

Eight massive, malignant red eyes stared down at them from the trees.

“Oh, it’s just a big spider,” Noam said.

In that second, a thick thread of webbing shot out. Noam dodged, but not quick enough. It expanded into a net, and though Utoqa and Tai managed to escape, Noam was ensnared, pinned to the ground.

Both immediately drew their weapons—Tai’s sword and Utoqa’s tomahawk, Gift. The lizardfolk immediately moved to free his ally, but the spider jumped down.

Tai leapt out of the way as Utoqa stood his ground, weapon blocking the venomous fangs before they could sink into Noam. Aura shrouded Tai’s blade as she moved to attack.

A powerful slash bit into the spider’s carapace, but it wasn’t enough. Tai hadn’t spent enough time charging it up, leaving only a scratch. The spider broke away from Utoqa, backing off, but the lizardfolk swiftly ran up to match it, Gift biting into a leg but not drawing blood. Two powerful legs slammed Utoqa away as Tai sheathed her sword and tried to charge up her draw swing.

But the spider kept moving, skittering with unnatural speed for something of its size. Tai couldn’t get a good lock on it, and when another web net was fired, she was forced to abort her attack in order to dodge.

The spider jumped towards her, fangs bared while her sword was still sheathed.

Utoqa jumped down, Gift slamming into one of the creature’s eyes, blinding it as the spider writhed, its fangs missing Tai by the barest of margins. Utoqa rode the thing like a demented bull, but it slammed its head into a tree, forcing a grunt as Utoqa let go and fell onto the ground.

The spider cried an ear-piercing screech, as suddenly, skittering sounds were heard all around them. Smaller spiders—each not larger than a hand—began moving to attack.

Noam was still trapped under webbing, his screams muffled. Tai ran to slash him free, but the spider got between them. She parried the fangs with her blade but a swiping leg slammed into her midsection, throwing her off. She hit the ground, rolling. The spider went for Noam, fangs biting into the writhing mass beneath the net, injecting its venom into him.

After a solid dose, Noam stopped struggling. The spider rose back up, watching the two remaining fighters, Utoqa warily matching its gaze, Tai holding her midsection with a painful grunt.

“We need to run,” Utoqa said. “We are surrounded.”

More spiders were gathering all around them, ready to pounce at any moment. Neither of them could deal with such a swarm.

“I agree, but should we save—”

Utoqa was already running straight towards the spider. Tai groaned, hoisting herself up by her sword, matching his speed.

The spider ran and met them.

Utoqa dropped and slid right underneath it as Tai met it with her blade.

Now behind the spider, Utoqa quickly cut open the webbing, freeing the pale-looking Noam.

He slung his limp body over his shoulder like a potato sack, turning to see Tai trading blows with the spider’s fangs and legs.

As she blocked a leg swing with her blade, the fangs came in from the other side, forcing Tai to block with her arm. The venomous fangs stabbed through leather and sank into her flesh, eliciting a wince before she slammed the pommel of her blade, hard, into the spider’s fangs, breaking one off and causing it to screech as it retreated.

Her arm hung limply, a fang still stuck in there. She tried to pull it out but found her strength waning.

When Utoqa reached her, he grabbed her and threw her under his arm as he ran for it.

That was a shit show.

I could have probably taken those guards in a straight fight, but I would’ve had to have been insane to start throwing out my mainly AOE attacks in a massive crowd, and Celine was also too specialized to really do any direct fighting. In the end, we grabbed Johnny and ran for the Wayshard, returning to the forest.

Celine tried to look on the bright side. “At least we got all the ingredients.”

“That’s a bonus,” I agreed, though I noticed the slight disappointment on Johnny’s face. He had wanted that dragon toy. It was unfortunate that most festival stalls were rigged.

I hoped that Noam and Co. had done better on their end, and waited on a bench in front of the guild.

Before Celine gasped and rose.

I opened my True Sight, just as Yellow and Greenie started telling me what they saw: Utoqa running with both Noam and Tai limp under his arms.

Bandages were hurriedly tied around Tai’s left arm and Noam’s right shoulder. Rushed but sensible—Utoqa’s work, no doubt. Both of them were affected by venom. I saw through my True Sight that there was a darkness permeating their bodies.

Celine rushed to them. “Put them down,” she ordered, and Utoqa quickly obliged.

She began unwrapping their bandages. They were feverish and pale but weren’t bleeding, which was slightly more worrying given the size of the holes in them. She sniffed the wound. “Elder Brood Mother venom. It’s strong as well. Dustin, I need the Holo’s White Root, three testicles of the Hurane bull, eight newt eyes …” She rapidly listed off ingredients, which I pulled out of my cap as soon as she spoke them. Celine immediately went to work creating an antivenom, taking out her tools to process them into a fine, soft paste, which she spread over their wounds, and took out two dolls, quickly winding a piece of hair from each of them around each doll.

“Bind the flesh, bind the bone.

Form the link to make like-kind.

So bleed as one, heal as one.

Now one fate, forever twined.”

Finishing her spell to create the sympathetic dolls, she took out a needle and dipped it into the paste. “Dustin, cast your healing shroom.”

I nodded.

“Pain, pain, go away,

Rain, leave for another day,

Now, feel the numbness,

Bring Fix-Up-Fungus!”

The shroom sprouted between Tai and Noam, puffing out healing spores, covering the bite wounds they had suffered, just as Celine began quickly stabbing the dolls in specific points. Both Tai and Noam’s bodies jerked as fresh, tiny holes appeared in them and healed as soon as the spores covered them. I quickly realized that she was delivering the antivenom through the dolls.

But why? Why didn’t she just deliver it directly?

It was when the paste quickly began to diminish that I realized the answer.

She was injecting more paste than there physically was. Because the dolls were smaller, even a small, barely dipped amount of antivenom amounted to much more relative to the size of the dolls’ bodies, and those translated to Noam and Tai, giving them larger doses of the antivenom than we actually had.

Eventually, the paleness and fever faded from their faces, and Celine breathed out a sigh of relief as they were cured.

1.04

“He may have beaten us now, and before, and literally every single other time we’ve encountered his minions, but what the Revenant King doesn’t understand is that we cannot fail like the other seven parties of five impressionable young adolescents, because, unlike them, we listened to a drunk in a tavern!”

—Kathanda the Paladin, leader of the eighth party who listened to Zephyrion the First Seer, the ninth being Imamu’s party who eventually did slay the Revenant King

Noam slammed his head into the ground.

“I’m sorry.”

Tai snorted before wincing as she moved her injured arm. “Fuck, that hurt.” She shook her head at Noam. “Don’t be, my fault for getting bit.”

“I was the one who insisted on going there,” Noam replied, raising his own head slightly.

“And my fault for following you,” she replied, rubbing her sore arm. “My grandma told me that between the idiot and the smart person following the idiot, the smart person is the dumbest for knowing better yet still following the idiot.”

Noam raised his eyebrow. “Thank you? Well, thanks for dragging me out of there, anyway. You two didn’t need to.”

“It was Utoqa’s idea.” She shrugged. “Again, smart person following idiot.”

Utoqa didn’t reply, only nodding.

“You guys faced off against a giant spider?” I asked.

Utoqa nodded again.

“Really big spider,” Tai said. “Larger than our rooms combined.”

“Fought exactly like a spider, though,” Noam added. “Venomous bite, net attacks, and hits you with its legs occasionally.”

“It had a lot of fucking legs,” Tai said, rubbing her still-sore arm. By their accounts, if Tai hadn’t been stalling it for them, then she wouldn’t have been bitten.

“Hard shell,” Utoqa said. “Gift only scratched.”

I sighed. “And you say it was an Elder Brood Mother, Celine?”

She nodded, inspecting the fang that was lodged in Tai’s arm. “The venom and fang both match the creature. They’re pretty dangerous, difficult to put down unless in experienced groups. I think the guild lists them as CR 10–15, depending on how big their swarms have gotten.”

My fingers drummed the wooden table. “You three should get a pretty good bonus for revealing the nature of the creature. We can leave it at that.”

Tai looked at Utoqa and Noam. “I think we should split the bonus five ways again.”

Celine jumped up slightly, and I raised an eyebrow.

“Why?” Celine asked.

“Oh, don’t think of this as charity,” Tai said. “You two healed me right after, and whatever we split is bound to be cheaper than paying the real sum of the healing at a church or something. Not to mention—” She winked at the two of us. “—being on the good side of two healers is just common sense.”

Celine wrapped her cloak around herself, disappearing within it, but she was within my manavision, so I knew she was blushing.

I just nodded and said, “Smart.”

“You two in agreement?” Tai asked Noam and Utoqa.

Utoqa nodded.

Noam shrugged. “Fair’s fair.”

“Give half of my split to Celine,” I said, to which Celine seemed to look at me with muted panic.

“Alright boss,” Noam said.

I shrugged again. I didn’t do it for charity, after all. Celine had done most of the work, and like Tai said, being on the good side of a dedicated healer was just common sense.

“So, what about the fang?” Celine asked.

We went silent after that, turning to Utoqa.

“I can make a pretty strong sympathetic link using this fang,” Celine continued, “but it will only last so long, and I extracted enough venom to make one without, just not as good. I can do something with alchemy, create a stronger poison, but that’s about it.”

“My decision changes. Do we wish to hunt the eight-legged?” Utoqa answered.

We went silent, each considering the problem. Utoqa hit the crux of the issue. While he could make a decent weapon from the fang using Scavenge, Celine could create a one-use sympathetic link with the spider, ideal for cursing it. If we could kill it, Utoqa could Scavenge the corpse directly rather than use the fang. Whether he wanted the fang was dependent on whether or not we planned on hunting the spider. However …

“I want at least one of us to be around Johnny at all times,” I said.

Celine nodded. “I agree.”

The guild receptionist was showing him around the building right now, but they were still near enough we could react quickly to any abnormality.

And most of us weren’t about to drag a child into a dark forest with an active monstrosity, even if the ghost that followed Johnny could theoretically protect him.

I sighed. “If we wish to hunt the thing, it seems that we have to be a man down.”

Which was a damnably bad idea. Though the Holy Water I bought allowed anyone here to deal damage to the ghost, only I could see it at the present moment. And I would be required to deal with the swarm that the spider called, meaning someone else would have to stay behind.

Utoqa might be able to sense the ghost with his high Perception, and he was the hardest to kill here, but we would lose a valuable front-liner against the spider. Tai could fulfill the front-line role, but she excelled in damage. While Celine would be needed to keep us healed and to curse the spider using sympathetic magic.

“It would have to be me,” Noam said with a heavy tone.

I nodded; of this group, Noam had the most general skills. He could hold his own as a fighter with Tai and Utoqa, but both were simply better as melee fighters. Noam’s actual martial skill as a fighter didn’t matter when both Tai and Utoqa were just as good but also had better stat spreads and abilities for the role. Noam could theoretically fight off the large spider swarm with mass insults and Catch These Hands, but he wouldn’t be as good as I. His mana pool wasn’t as high as mine, so he would have trouble aggroing every spider. He was a true jack-of-all-trades in this group. He could do melee fighting or spell casting, but only half as well as one of us specialized in it.

“Wait,” Celine said, fishing out several dolls. “It doesn’t have to be Noam.”

She told us her Path.

“Do you trust me to do this?” she asked us.

Tai furrowed her brows, thinking, while Noam and I looked at each other.

“I would be trusting you completely with my life,” Tai said. “It’s a hard decision.”

“The link may remain even after we die and respawn,” I noted, “so it gives you the opportunity to attack us whenever.”

Her sympathetic magic was focusing on healing, but its roots as curse magic remained.

Utoqa pulled off one of his scales and handed it to Celine.

“Is this enough?”

Celine sat there, frozen with muted shock, before sputtering, “Is—is it really ok to make a decision that quickly?”

“It is necessary if we wish to hunt the eight-legged and keep the hatchling safe,” he simply said.

Celine hesitatingly took the scale.

Noam shrugged and took out his knife with the glowing red eye, cutting off some hair, before passing Celigarn to me. I took the blade and cut off some flesh from my arm, ignoring the blade’s accusation that I was a plant and therefore not pleasurable to cut. Seeing the three of us do it, Tai sighed and cut off some of her hair, “Make sure to break the link afterwards.”

Celine took all the pieces, holding them as if they were the most precious things in the world.

Before we set off, Noam dragged me to the side, saying, “I want your opinion choosing my level-up stuff.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why suddenly now?”

Noam leaned on the side of a tree, glancing towards the rest of the party doing their own preparations.

“Because I suddenly realize this isn’t a game for some of us,” he replied. With a heavy voice, he continued, “I’m still the same person, but I don’t want my hedonism to hurt anyone else.”

Silently, I nodded. “Tell me your options.”

“I can pick three skills, anything from the level-six pool, and the abilities seem a lot stronger than the ones we could pick at level three …”

“Are all of us prepared?” Dustin asked, glancing towards the midday sun.

Nods and agreements all around.

Celine stayed back, holding a vial of Holy Water. Standing beneath her were Yellow and Greenie. Nodding towards the two, Dustin said, “I’m relying on you two to keep her safe.” Both wisps nodded seriously back to him.

“Lead the way then, Utoqa,” Noam announced.

And so the lizardfolk took point, walking forward as he tracked the scent he had caught just the day before. Their journey was quiet, nothing but the sounds of their footfalls and the wind crinkling the leaves. Until the trees became silent, and white gray webbing covered everything. A loud screech echoed in front of them, seven red eyes staring hatefully down from deep within the creature’s lair. One eye had been blinded by Utoqa’s Gift.

Another great screech, and skittering sounded throughout the forest.

“We’re here,” Dustin declared simply as he raised his arms, flicking dozens of prepared poison Sporages around them. Green spores erupted as the sounds of skittering were soon replaced by screeching. All three fighters took off at this moment, Utoqa leading the charge. Sensing the new threat, the giant spider cried as it raised its abdomen, firing a direct web shot towards Dustin. Noam could not dodge it before, and neither could Dustin as the web slammed him into a tree.

But the spider had exposed itself to three simultaneous attacks, from sword, tomahawk, and hook blades. Fangs met Utoqa, dripping with venom as Tai’s blade carved bloody lines in the creature’s flank. Holding his hook swords like axes once again, Noam slammed both into a joint, knocking a leg down. The minor loss of balance allowed Utoqa to disengage his blade and slash the creature’s head, directly drawing blood as together, they forced it back.

Venom hissed behind them as Dustin freed himself, Acid Spit still dripping from his mouth, melting some parts of his Bark Skin, but not yet significantly. “As we’ve planned,” Dustin said.

Far back at the guild, Celine sat in her room, gently rubbing Johnny’s head as he slept on her lap. In front of her were four dolls. Unlike her other dolls, they were almost lifelike replicas, not simple gray bases that only had the sympathetic component added. Utoqa, Noam, Dustin and Tai.

“As we’ve planned,” the Dustin doll suddenly said, its bark-like mouth grinding.

Following him, Noam’s doll began to swear loudly at the spider, whose corresponding doll began to singe slightly at the edges. A hole appeared on Utoqa’s doll, right on his left arm, and Celine raised a needle and thread and prepared to Stitch.

Utoqa’s injury instantly closed by silvery threads, Celine’s healing energy directed from afar. From Dustin’s understanding of Celine’s Path, her range was vastly increased through one of those dolls, but the flaw was that they had to be made from willingly given materials, compared to her normal ones that used whatever. Not so good for cursing someone but perfect for a far-ranged healer.

Utoqa exchanged blow-for-blow with the spider, his slashes and scales keeping the brunt of the spider’s attention on him, standing strong with terrifying stoicism as Celine simply healed every injury. All the while, Noam danced around the spider, hurling insults and causing the occasional fire. His blades struck it at specific points to disrupt balance and weaken its footing. Dustin kept refreshing the circle of spores that surrounded them, creating a barrier which the spiderlings could not enter and the greater spider could not escape.

All trapping it long enough for Tai to charge her attack.

Her blade flashed, and the spider, blinded in one eye, could not see or dodge quick enough, two legs severed instantly, causing it to list on its side, its balance permanently disrupted. Screeching in pain, it roared and slammed into Utoqa, throwing him into the air as it raised its abdomen towards Tai, blasting a web right at her. Tai stood her ground as her blade flashed again, easily severing it down the middle.

Then, something happened.

Dustin, watching the entire battlefield from the back, noticed it first.

Reproduce.

A second web appeared right behind the one Tai slashed, heading right towards her, blade still held high, but she could not redirect nor dodge in time. Noam was the second who noticed. He jumped, flying feet-first as he fly-kicked Tai out of the second web.

The elf fell out of the way, as the second web slammed Noam into the ground.

“Noam!” Tai yelled, already bringing her blade up to cut him free.

But that thrum of power emerged again, as the spider used its Path the second time.

Reproduce.

A leg stabbed itself through Tai’s stomach, as a second, smaller Brood Mother appeared behind her.

“Tai, get away!” Dustin yelled, his hand raised, aiming at the second spider.

Tai spat blood, yelling, “I can take it!” as she suddenly clenched her abdomen and grabbed the leg through her body with a death grip. The spider tried to wrench its leg out of her, but she stood firm.

Dustin’s decision only took a moment.

“Rot Spores.”

The wave of purple spores ripped through the second spider, causing it to screech in pain as necrosis burned its way through its carapace. Grass and trees died around it, wayward spores killing everything they touched. Tai choked, finally letting the leg leave her body as her back was blackened and rotted from the fallout.

Celine was already working on her, though, silver threads stitching her stomach back together as she poured a health potion over Tai’s doll.

But the large spiders weren’t dead yet, and though Utoqa was having an easier time keeping the original occupied, he still could not move back to assist them. The smaller, skittering spider brood had stopped in their tracks, but after having formed a perimeter and cast the expensive Rot Spores, Dustin’s mana was low.

Tai gritted her teeth as she forcefully pushed herself up by her sword. The health potion Celine was pouring over her doll was helping, but it wasn’t enough to fight through the necrosis, which weakened healing.

While the second spider was listing and spasming in pain, its carapace lost, its raw, rotting flesh exposed to the air, it was slowly regaining its bearings. Both of them were heavily injured. Tai would recover, Dustin calculated, but he wasn’t sure if Celine would be fast enough to get Tai up in time to face the second spider.

So, low in mana, Dustin began running to place himself between her and it. Thankfully, the spider seemed to shift its attention to him, the source of the pain. A spray of webbing slammed into him but was quickly broken through as Dustin spat acid. But despite being slowed and weakened, the spider was still quick enough to reach and sink its teeth into Dustin’s flesh, venom swiftly coursing through Dustin’s veins to zero effect, as his Fungal Body resisted it.

Pacifying Spores slammed into the spider, causing it to droop as Dustin removed his arm, stepping back. He was mentally counting his mana, waiting for it to return to a high enough level that he could safely throw out more Rot Spores.

He would not make it in time, Dustin calculated, as the spider began to shake off the effect of Pacifying Spores.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Noam.”

In this active battlefield, with Utoqa still dueling with the prime spider and Dustin running out of options against the second, Noam’s voice sounded out, muffled from underneath the webs holding him.

Insulting himself.

The webs holding Noam exploded in flames, burning away as his burning form emerged. His body was fully on fire, swords included. Noam dashed towards the weakened and rotting spider, leaping onto its head, fire burning its exposed flesh. It screeched, trying to throw off the burning tiefling as Noam stabbed down with his swords. They didn’t penetrate well but created enough of a dent that he hooked onto them, allowing him to ride it with his hook swords like demented reins. “GO!”

Dustin didn’t need to be told twice, as he turned towards Utoqa and his stalemate with the prime spider.

His mana had finally recovered enough.

“Utoqa!”

The lizardfolk leapt away, just as a puff of Rot Spores exploded where he had been a moment before. The prime spider jumped away and was able to dodge most of it. But its abdomen was exposed to the Rot Spores, ripping it open, its raw spider silk and thread spilling out like water from a bucket with a hole, dripping in thick white strands, then hardening as they stuck to the ground like glue.

Holding it in place.

Tai stood beside it, standing as it struggled, her back still blackened and rotting.

She sheathed her sword, holding the hilt as, with a singular, perfected action too fast for anyone to see, she split the prime spider in two, and the blade returned back to its sheath before anyone knew it had left it.

The two halves spasmed—once, twice, then never again.

And as the prime spider died, Noam spat on the second, his spit strangely orange-colored and viscous like melted candy. His new level-six skill. The spit ignited, lighting up the dark forest with a white flash as it burned inside the spider’s skull. It slammed and rolled around, but the fire within its head was too much. As Noam jumped off, it slowly burned to death, the flames leaving behind an ashen shell. Once it had finally died, Noam dispelled the flames on his body, his skin slightly charred by the experience.

Tai staggered, the adrenaline holding her up no longer as potent, and Dustin immediately went to her. Checking her for wounds, he found that Celine had done a good job of patching her up. Her flesh was still tender and weak, but it was healed.

“I am sorry for that,” Dustin apologized as he acted as a soft crutch for her, helping her stand.

“Fuck, that spell stings,” Tai complained. “You are buying me drinks later. The strong stuff. I don’t want to be awake to feel this healing.”

Dustin disapproved of the habit but stayed silent as she did deserve it.

As Utoqa knelt down to examine the corpses, Noam waved his hand in the air. “Thanks, Celi. If you can hear this, we got ’em.”

They all felt a reassuring pat on their backs.

“I’m not gonna lie, that is a bit creepy,” Tai commented, “but, fuck, that saved my life so I’m not gonna complain.”

“Look at this,” Utoqa suddenly called out, now further away and behind the corpse.

Dustin and Tai limped towards where he was, Noam following shortly behind. He was digging something out from the ground, unearthing soil and dirt.

After removing a significant portion, Dustin began to see with his True Sight what it was.

A staff, charred and broken with its bottom half missing, but emanating a strange and constant warmth. Utoqa lifted it aloft, and as he held it, he seemed strangely vibrant, as if more hale and healthier than usual.

“That man, Tignflut—he mentioned something about the forest being unusually warm all year round, right?” Dustin asked.

“He did, yeah,” Tai agreed. “You think this is the source?”

“Most likely,” he said, examining the earth with his True Sight.

Warmth had seeped into the land, leaving it magical.

“So …” Noam began, “what are we doing with it?”

As the festival died down, a certain stall owner began lounging, organizing his spoils into towers and towers of coins. Smiling as he counted them all.

A soft knock on the wood, as a purple-bluish-skinned tiefling appeared. He smiled, flicking five coppers into the air, all perfectly landing on the tops of the owner’s coin towers.

The owner smiled, taking out three darts. “You wish to try your hand?”

“I dabble a bit in darts, after all,” the tiefling replied with a smile. “And it’s not a lot of coin to lose.”

The owner laughed. “Then I wish you the best of luck-”

A dart slammed perfectly into the center of his target.

A bead of sweat rolled down the owner’s face.

“Yo!” Noam yelled as he entered the guild hall, carrying boxes filled with festival foods and drinks. “I’m back!”

I turned my head to him, nodding in acknowledgment as he began placing food on the tables.

“Any progress?” he asked.

The guild receptionist, Tignflut, spoke up as he examined the burned staff. “I don’t think removing this staff would cause any damage to the forest. A lot of its power seems to have already seeped into the land. Removing it shouldn’t make a difference anymore.”

“I think so too,” Celine said, raising a vial filled with soil. “The dirt even at the edge of the forest holds minor alchemical properties consistent with the staff’s energy. Which I believe to be of Summer.”

“The Arcadian Court?” Tai asked, holding a meat skewer. “It’s a long place away from home, then.”

“We’ve identified several effects,” I added. “The first is a spell that causes targeted and rapid plant growth, and the second is a powerful heal to whoever is touching the head. Along with two passive effects, basic strengthening of all nature and growth-type spells cast, and whoever is holding it also becomes healthier and immune to diseases, to an extent.”

Celine nodded. “I think that effect in particular grows stronger the longer it’s held, but we would need time to tell.”

Noam whistled as he sat down right next to Johnny. “This is a big find, then.” Quietly, Noam gave Johnny something under the table, which I only noticed as it was in range of my manavision. It was a familiar wooden toy dragon.

“As mercenaries, you are entitled to this as your loot,” Tignflut said, “along with the pay for killing the Brood Spider.”

“And its corpse?” Utoqa asked.

“And its corpse,” the receptionist confirmed.

Utoqa nodded.

“This is a pretty good upgrade from your dingy old staff, isn’t it, Dustin?” Tai asked as she popped open a bottle that Noam had bought.

“Actually,” I began, “I don’t plan on taking it.”

For better or for worse, I was juggling two progression systems. The Indiri one of Paths like Tai, Celine, and Utoqa had, and the leveling system that Travelers like Noam and I had.

That did not count well for my Balance, as both would progress whenever I did something. And while the charred staff was a definite upgrade, it would shift my Balance to the other end.

It would not do when I was so close to my next level-up. Noam had already gotten his level six, and I can’t be much further behind. Traveler level six also came with a significant power spike, as evidenced by the skills Noam took.

Path: Spitfire

- Beatbox (Inspiration): You have a pool of additional stats (CHA / 2 rounded down) that you may add through your Beatbox skill, up to a maximum equal to your Skald Level (6) per stat. You may now use your Beatbox on others so long as at least one stat is allocated to them in the process.

- I’M LIT!: Once per day, you may use a verbal-based attack on yourself and light yourself on Fire, gain a temporary +3 (Skald Level / 2, rounded down) in every stat, emanate magical fire, and all your attacks deal magical fire damage. While in this state, you can magically sense all fires caused by your skills so long as they are within the same plane and within a large distance of you. This lasts until you dispel it or perish from the damaging fire.

- Spitfire, but with a space in between: You can turn your spit into an incendiary gel that is difficult to remove and burns magical fire that cannot be put out by mundane means. Creatures damaged by the fire have their Fire Resistance lowered by a level until the burn wounds are healed. The crackling fire can repeat short phrases in Infernal, and you may cast verbal-based attacks through this method.

Feats:

- Mobile (3 SP): You gain a +2 to AGI. You instinctively know how to traverse difficult terrain. You may completely ignore non-magical difficult terrain when running.

With his remaining stat points evenly split between strength, dexterity, and stamina.

It would be best if my Balance was shifted away from me, giving me space to gain more skills. Which meant I had to let go of other opportunities so that I wouldn’t face a powerful backlash.

Tai raised an eyebrow. “Then, Celine?”

She had a complex look on her face. “I could make a staff work … but I’m not that kind of magic caster.”

“Utoqa, then?”

The lizardfolk shook his head.

“Can no one use this?”

“Hello?” Noam asked aloud. “Did everyone just forget there was a bard here?”

“Can’t you only insult people?” Tai asked.

I nodded before he could answer. “That’s right, it’s worth a trip back to Gaia to get his spell slots filled out.” Noam was even worse than me. While I only had a few spell slots empty, his were completely empty, save for Vicious Mockery. Granted, Biting Words was ripped from him due to a lost Clash, but both were basically the same spell so it didn’t change anything meaningful.

“You need Traveler gold for that, right?” Celine asked.

“We could also barter, and I think I can scam some people by trading regular gold for Traveler gold.” Noam coughed, and I quickly corrected my speech. “Oh, I meant fairly do currency conversion.”

Tai rolled her eyes. “So you want the staff, Noam?” She looked around. “We all cool with him taking it?”

Nods all around. I said, “Though, for fairness, Noam can split his part of the spider bounty.”

“I’m fine with that,” Noam replied, taking the staff. “Though it’s gonna be a bit awkward holding it. Dustin, can you—”

“No,” I firmly said. “I am not in any way laying any sort of claim on that staff.”

It was best to be clear about this—not just to the party, but to the World enforcing the Balance.

Noam grumbled and elected to hang the thing by his belt, next to the noble’s wand and Celigarn. Since it was broken, it was actually shorter than a staff— closer to a very large, thick wand actually—so it fit snugly next to them.

“For a large bounty like this one, I need to fill out more paperwork,” Tignflut said as he shuffled out of his seat. “Do you guys have a name for your party or do you want me to just have your names?”

The atmosphere became quiet.

“I propose The Squad!” Noam immediately said.

“I veto that,” Tai spat back quickly.

“What about the Gang Gang?”

“A name should be professional,” Tai said. “It has to promote our image.”

“A name shouldn’t make a party,” Noam argued. “A party should make the name. Therefore, no matter what thing we come up with, if we get famous enough, they’ve gotta respect us regardless of the name. Back me up here, Dusts.”

“I don’t really care,” I replied. “I agree with the sentiment but don’t want to be part of something stupid-sounding.”

“Right?” Tai agreed.

“You contrarians!” Noam accused.

Rolling her eyes, Tai asked the other two, “What about you?”

“I … uh … have no strong opinion,” Celine answered.

Meanwhile, Utoqa was silent, staring at the object in Johnny’s lap. A wooden toy dragon which he held closely but did not play with.

“That’s it!” Noam cried out. “We’ll be the Toy Dragons!”

Tai raised an eyebrow. “Comparing ourselves to dragons? Rather hubristic, isn’t it?”

“That’s why we’re the Toy Dragons,” Noam said. “And when we get famous as shit, it’ll be fucking hilarious for them to be scared of a bunch of idiots called Toy Dragons!”

“So you admit that the name is dumb?”

“Can you come up with anything better?” Noam asked.

Tai frowned before shrugging. I noticed then that her face was noticeably red, and her bottle was almost half empty. “Fuck it, how bad could it be?”

“All in favor?” Noam asked, raising a hand.

I shrugged, raising my hand. It was better than nothing.

Celine shyly raised her hand, saying she liked it, while Utoqa silently raised his hand, not having any opinion on the matter.

And so that night, the Toy Dragons were born.

1.05

“Journeys end, but another always starts.”

—Discovery

What is this?” Tignflut, the guild receptionist, asked as he read through the report I handed him.

“An encounter we had in Lake Bayt, against an entity that ate memories,” I told him. “I’ve followed regulation and listed as much detail as I could, but as you might expect, my memory is a bit spotty on the subject.”

“Is it dead?” he asked.

“It is dead,” I confirmed. “You can contact the priest in the town to get more information. His name is Corvian. He may also be looking to post some quests.”

I left after that. No one else in the party was the bookkeeping type, so writing up reports was left up to me. Not that they weren’t busy. Outside, Utoqa hacked away and Scavenged the corpse of our hunt, and as my True Sight faded, I saw the Scales. After spending all his creations during the battle in the cave and suffering heavy damage from the Accumulation of White Lies, he was due a small win, and from the spider corpse he was able to make dozens of web-like balls, along with two daggers made from its fangs.

Next to him, Celine was grinding and processing potion materials. Several health potions were already stacked by her side, and her Balance was even—probably at the safest place it could be.

The sound of wood smacking against wood signaled Tai and Noam’s spar. They had radically different martial styles. Noam was largely self-taught, focusing on evasion and lots of rapid hits. While Tai swung her blade with practiced purpose, she didn’t do as many attacks, making up for it through the strength of her swing. Noam’s Balance was slightly against his favor, likely because of the new staff he had gained. It manifested in small ways: a bit of difficulty channeling Aura the way Tai was teaching it, a single misstep or mistake that slowed down his attempts at learning Martial Arts. Noam would likely end up being frustrated today and not make great progress, but the act of training, of spending time and effort on the endeavor, was dragging him closer to Balance. Not as fast as something grand like slaying a great monster would do, but it was still steady progress.

They were all near or approaching Balance. Then I glanced upwards, seeing my Scales leaning slightly in my favor. I had played a crucial role in defeating the giant spider, and I had also given up most of my rewards. An advantage of a party, I was starting to realize, was that we could all shoulder the weights of Balance. For now, I’ll refer to the acts of the Scales as either negative or positive karma.

Everyone who participated in killing the spider had the right to claim something, as every single one of us were instrumental to the battle. The Elder Brood Spider was not an opponent any single one of us could’ve soloed. Even in pairs it would’ve been near-impossible. I could see Utoqa and I doing it, but it would’ve been an utter slog. Neither of us had the ability to kill the spider in one hit. My Rot Spores were powerful but didn’t kill it. In an ideal scenario, Utoqa and I would be forced into a slow attrition battle. While I held off the massive spider swarms and healed Utoqa, he would’ve slowly worn down the main spider. But then the spider’s Path, Reproduce, would’ve thrown a complete wrench in that plan. Suddenly dealing with two large spiders, I would not have been able to manage. My mana was almost completely spent in the battle just holding off the swarm. If I also needed to support Utoqa, I would be utterly spent whenever the spider activated its Path. Leaving a manaless mage to the mercy of the reproduced spider while Utoqa was stuck fighting the main one.

Threes or fours would’ve been an easier time, but all five of us made it a certainty. Celine brought the support so I didn’t have to. I dealt with the swarm, and Tai brought the damage and instakill potential, while Utoqa and Noam brought the dueling power to keep each large spider occupied. We all had an equal—or so close that it didn’t matter—claim on the positive karma earned from the battle. It obviously split our gains, but giving a large portion of my gold rewards to funding Celine’s potions left me with positive karma to spare. Then splitting the negative karma amongst the party would mean it was divided four ways, making it pretty much negligible. It would seem that acts of charity should lead to an excess of positive karma, but in Celine’s case, since some of the potions would inevitably go to me, it didn’t have the full passing effect as true charity. Close enough, however. I wondered how much good karma I could stack up before something happened.

That was all I dared to learn of the Balance that day.

Even now, I could see the slight shifts on the Scales as my knowledge weighed against me. I couldn’t stop myself from considering the nature of Balance, but I shut my ability to see it, just to not exacerbate the issue any more. Accurate knowledge of the Balance of yourself and others was dangerous. It gave the opportunity to exploit, which created weight. Even in exploiting the system, the system exploits were weighed and tallied all the same. God, it was like that obscure tax law that said you had to declare even illegal forms of income. “Robbery is illegal but if you do rob a bank, all earnings must be taxed.” I couldn’t tell if they were asking me to try to exploit the system or not. It felt like they were wagging a finger at me and daring me to cross that line again at the same time.

And I just might.

But not now, and until then, I’d use the information I had to stack things in my favor. My Traveler level-up would have to be seamless, and without any risk attached. Every condition had to be perfect. I had to prove that I could control such an event.

Later, in Gaia, at a pizza shop run by a potato and a tree, a mushroom knocked on the door.

“Morning, Murphy,” Dustin called out. “I have something for you.”

Behind him, Noam dragged a bag full of dead maggot-like creatures. Murphy smiled, and the store had a limited-time sale that day.

“You want to visit your mother?” Ba asked.

“I do,” I replied.

“Why the sudden urge?” he asked over the video call.

“Nothing much,” I lied. “I just suddenly want to go out and Discover some things.”

He looked at me weirdly.

“Alright, get your tickets to Taiwan booked. I’ll call her.”

I nodded. “If that’s all, then see you later.”

He nodded back. “Be safe, Declan, I still have work to do.” And the video call ended.

“He cares about you, you know?” the voice in my head whispered.

“I know,” I replied.

Some time ago, it was Dustin’s voice in there, myself but slightly different. This voice wasn’t him. “Still, to see this world with eyes, I am getting rather excited.”

“Don’t be too excited, there’s nothing interesting in a fucked world like mine, Discovery.”

The god chuckled. “That remains to be seen.”

Back when Dustin was first knocked out in the battle against the Accumulation, I saw the defeat, and made a deal with Discovery. He would get me in there to use Dustin’s body while he was unconscious and tell me how to defeat the Accumulation. But I had also lost. Even with the knowledge of how to fight it, I had been beaten back, Observe was ripped out of my eyes, and the blow somehow left me bleeding in real life.

Even now I could feel my eye ache a bit. It wasn’t the first time I’ve felt pain, but it was the first time I’ve felt pain in my real body inflicted by something malicious. Eve didn’t count. That car crash was, in part, an accident, while Accumulation’s attack on me was targeted. And though I returned the blow through the knowledge Discovery gave me, all I managed to do was get a clue to Dustin through Analyze, before the Accumulation and I were both forced to retreat. But even if I lost, the deal I made with Discovery still stood. I would show him my world, as far as I could.

As a teenager, my travel mobility was still low. I had my parents to consider, but since Ma was already in Taiwan mourning the death of my grandparents, I had an easy excuse to go visit her.

“Naturally, we take the scenic route,” Discovery said.

I didn’t comment. My parents—or Ba, at least—treated me like an adult, and thought me as mature-enough to undertake this cross-country journey on my own.

There was a knock on the door, and though I no longer had Observe to see through the front-facing camera, when you’ve been with someone for long enough, you start to recognize things like their habits and footsteps.

“Yo!” Matt called out as the door opened. “Your pops told me to look after you!”

“God damn,” Noam said as he looked at the selection of spell crystals in front of him.

“This is what the girls have been getting,” Murphy explained, at the front. Peps was selling out the maggot skewers, along with someone else who looked very similar to him. “We’re branching out into an all-around store. If you have anything you want to sell, we’re buying.”

“Not a single tier-two spell, though?” I noted, looking around at the selection.

Murphy shook his head. “Sadly, Dustin, bringing back the maggot skewers for a limited time isn’t going to pay for a T2 spell. Unless you want to work here full-time, that is?” he asked with a sparkle in his eyes.

I shook my head. “Not currently looking to settle down. I might take you up on that later, but I plan on exploring.”

“Is Indiri that appealing?” Murphy asked.

I nodded. “I have seen some things I have never seen before.” And things I wish never to see again, I thought to myself.

Noam put a wand on the table and I raised an eyebrow. “You want to sell that?” It was the wand he looted off the … what was his name? He was a noble or something.

“I’m willing to trade this,” Noam said, detailing the wand’s abilities and spells. “Show me what tier-two spells you have.”

Murphy obliged, standing up to head to the storage rooms. I glanced at Noam, questioning. He pointed at two spells he had already picked out: Firebolt and Control Flame. I nodded in understanding. He didn’t need the wand for long range anymore, plus he had gotten a new staff as a magic focus, and inside of a group he had more leeway to specialize.

Murphy brought out several tier-two spell crystals. “The wand is good, but it’s only worth one of these …”

Noam carefully looked over each of them, but one in particular stood out. He selected it with glee. Taking his four spell crystals, he quickly learned their abilities before turning to me. “Let’s test them out!” he said. We quickly bid farewell to Murphy, Peps, and the other employee, along with the small crowd that had cheered me for bringing back the maggot skewers. I had to admit they did taste kinda good.

Noam was playing with fire as we walked. His new T0, Control Flame, created small flames, but he could also control the flames created from his other spells, and his napalm spit worked with it as well. When we reached a more secluded spot, he turned to me with a smile. I didn’t need any more prompting. I threw my hand out, casting a spell, “Poison—”

“—Knife!” he interrupted.

The ball of spores forming in my hand collapsed and instead became a singular green blade, which he dodged easily. Raising an eyebrow, I tried something else.

“Sneezing—”

“—Hands!”

The yellow spores collapsed, giving my hands a strange yellow glow that quickly faded. Noam’s smile remained wide this entire time, though he had to hold his head in pain. That was his new tier-two spell, Otto’s Irresistible Correction. He could interrupt and forcibly change the nature of any verbal spell during its cast.

“It’s OttoCorrect!” Noam yelled, his hands still rubbing his forehead. “Fuck, that hurts.”

“It’s a tier-two spell,” I replied, seeing his pained expression. “Even I have trouble throwing multiple of them out at once.” I could cast four in a row at best. Barkskin was a completely passive spell, so I didn’t need to spend much on maintaining it, but Fix-Up Fungus and Rot Spores both took a lot out of me.

“Fuck, I need to raise my INT or I won’t be able to use it more than twice,” he muttered.

I nodded. After he recovered somewhat, he tried his fourth spell, the tier-one Hideous Laughter. It required concentration, much like my Barkskin, and when cast, made a single target laugh uncontrollably until they forcibly resisted the spell or received stimuli that forced them to pay attention. It didn’t work well on me. I found the concept of bees hilarious for about a second before I snapped out of it, my high Wisdom and Intelligence stat meaning I could break out of it easier. It was a source of hard CC, which our group was currently lacking, so it was a good choice, but it also required him to stay close to the target. Those two spells, along with the tier-zero Control Flame and Firebolt, were all that we got from Murphy’s store.

“A good haul, huh?”

“It’s pretty good,” I agreed. With those spells and his recent level-six level-up, Noam had become a significant jack-of-all-trades within our party, able to do ranged attacks, fight in melee, buff, and debuff. The only thing he really couldn’t do was take a hit. Now, he wasn’t great at any single one of those things. Our individual specializations still beat him, but he could act as an overall glue covering all our bases. Not only that, given all his skills, Noam might have been the actual strongest within our group at the moment. At least in terms of one-on-one combat. Level six was a greater power spike than I expected. Noam at the current moment had far too many stat buffs, bringing him to the same level as Tai and Utoqa but with some specialist skills to back it up. I had a very low chance of beating him before, but now there was simply no chance. He was, overall, the most optimized for fighting.

Tai, Utoqa, and Celine weren’t Travelers, they didn’t have a convenient level-up system, and the Accumulation, while extremely dangerous, was largely focused on me, so they couldn’t reap the benefits. While they were with me, I knew that I should focus on trying to raise them up rather than on improving myself.

And so, we returned to Indiri. Utoqa nodded towards us as we returned. Our carriage restocked, our party made and named, we set out of the forest.

Discovery was like an excited child as we traveled to the station, asking dozens of questions on how every single little thing worked, why the sky was purple rather than blue, the designs of the trains that came to take us, and a thousand other things I couldn’t be bothered to list.

“Why does the train lead underground?” he asked.

“Because we can’t travel above ground into the Equator.”

“Why is that?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” I replied, settling down into my seat, Noam—Matt—following me. I'd been in Indiri too long, I was starting to mix up his names, and like that, we started on a train journey to see our fucked-up world.

1.06

“Gods are not simply ‘stronger’ or more ‘knowledgeable’ entities. Bundriroc is literally a pile of rocks, the God warding off Shadesmar is nothing more than a big fire. Are you to say pebbles and embers are greater and smarter than you? Fool, Gods are Gods because they play a Role.”

—Magus Smar Da Ten Yu, in her correspondence with the Mad Mage Khao, on the subject of apotheosis and deicide

Heavy rain slammed down from the sky, battering the earth and grass. Cool droplets dripped down my body, soaking into it and refreshing, like a gentle bath after a tiresome day—except slightly the opposite.

“Dustin, stop standing there like an idiot and help!”

I sighed, feeling a sensation much like waking up on a winter morning, not yet ready to leave my warm bed and face the cold outside. But shaking myself out of it, I looked over our cart, seeing Utoqa and Tai struggling and failing to lift it out of the mud.

“Empty it out first,” I suggested, glancing at Celine and Johnny, who were already getting off, bringing bags of stuff with them.

Utoqa was slow due to the lowering temperatures. Wordlessly, Noam spat out a glob of napalm onto his hand before lighting it beside the lizardfolk. The heat kept his eyelids open just enough, but it was little compared to the rushing rain. The bison-like creature pulling our cart, which Noam affectionately called Betsy and Utoqa emotionlessly called backup rations, was waiting patiently as now only Tai and I tried to lift the cart out of the ditch.

“Are you even pushing?” Tai called out with a grunt.

“I have eight strength,” I emphasized as my muscles strained with effort.

We managed to lift it a few centimeters, but nowhere near what we needed. Collectively, we dropped the cart back into the mud ditch, huffing for breath as we considered this conundrum.

“Let me help,” Noam called as he lit up a torch with napalm to keep warming Utoqa, freeing his formerly burning hand. Then, holding his hands to his mouth, he beatboxed a few bars, activating his Beatbox skill on me. My formerly weakened arms felt themselves almost double in strength! Though that was because it had been so low that a plus-six from his Inspiration skill was actually significant. Noam right now had eight total stats that he could give out with that skill, maxing at six per stat. He gave himself the remaining two as strength before getting beside us.

“Celine, get Betsy to pull when we push,” I directed her, even though she very likely had more strength than me.

She nodded, leaving Johnny beside Utoqa to keep warm.

“On my mark,” I called out, this time with both Noam and Tai beside me.

“One, two, three, PUSH!”

This time, my strength had been raised to fourteen, Noam’s was at seventeen with his own buff, and though I didn’t know what Tai’s strength was, it was definitely well above fifteen. The three of us—plus a slap by Celine on Betsy’s rear—were finally able to free the cart from the ditch. Falling back on my ass, I grunted as I shook the soreness out of my arms. I was the better of the group, as rain was supremely comforting weather for me. The rest were wet and splattered with mud. Utoqa was already nodding off to sleep, Noam’s napalm fire be damned.

“Fuck, we need to make camp,” Tai said.

I nodded, but Utoqa shook his head.

“Ground … too muddy …” he said, speech slightly slurred as he roughly tore a clump of mud from the ground.

“Fucking hell, you’re right,” Noam replied as I knelt down to feel the dirt.

The ground was too muddy for our tent stakes to properly set in. Utoqa and I would probably be fine in the rain and mud, but it wasn’t something the others with their significantly-more-human bodies could comfortably tolerate. There was a crop of trees nearby. It would be cold, but they would have to do.

“We’re near farmland,” Celine called out, sheltering herself and Johnny under her cloak. “Maybe there’s a farmhouse further up the road?”

“And if there isn’t?” Tai asked, peering out into the darkness. “I don’t think we have any tree cover for the next few miles.”

“I can scout it out,” Noam offered, “and come back if I see shelter.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” I said, tapping my cap. “Take Yellow with you.”

“Here!” the wisp answered as it hopped onto Noam’s outstretched hand.

Snapping his fingers, Noam ended the Beatbox buff he had on the both of us, ripping out a fresh beat to raise his stamina before he set out running further down the road. He soon disappeared into the distance, while the rest of us set out making the area we had found as comfortable as we could, setting up the tarps above the cart to ward off the rain while we waited for him to return.

After a while, a bright ball of fire flew up far off in the sky. This then happened seven more times, each barely more than a pinprick in the darkness.

“That’s him,” I said, getting up. “He found a spot for us.”

Tai groaned, getting up from her own comfortable spot, before asking, “We got any more tarps?”

The front of the cart wasn’t covered. Betsy had a blanket over her, but the seat was exposed to the elements. Celine rifled through our remaining stuff, before shaking her head. “We’re out of blankets.”

“Do we have a spare umbrella, at least?”

I shook my head this time.

Tai looked at me. “Say … you kinda have the shape of an umbrella, right?” she asked.

I paused.

Two minutes later, I was perched on Tai’s shoulders, being used as an impromptu umbrella as she drove the cart.

There was a stifled chuckle as Celine failed to hide her laugh.

Desperately, I wanted to pull my cap down and hide myself, but I resisted the urge. After all, I had agreed to it. Through my manavision, I could sense that Tai was also regretting the idea but was also too prideful to ask me to get off yet—to acknowledge that maybe her idea was just a tad bit awkward.

“I’m so high up!” Greenie said from atop my head.

Stacked atop the cart, Tai, and then me, Greenie did have a pretty good view of the land—probably the only one of us who was enjoying it. Then, I heard a second laugh.

Not from Celine.

But from Johnny.

So, I silently sat there.

It was a minor sacrifice to hear that child laugh for the first time since I met him.

At least until the farm came into sight. Because fucking come on! I was not letting Noam of all people see me like this!

“I think I should get off now.”

Tai nodded stiffly, a moment of shared clarity letting the both of us know we regretted ever conceiving or even going through with this. As I got down to the back of the cart, Tai decided to stoically endure the rain for the last short stretch to the farm.

I silently gave her a thumbs-up.

“You know you could just drive, right?” Celine casually mentioned to me.

I froze and Tai noticeably stiffened as well. We were all silent until we reached the farm.

“So, what is a god?” I asked Discovery, the roar of the train a faint rumble around us.

Matt leaned in as well, though he could not hear Discovery, which I fixed by connecting our AADs.

There was a pause before he began speaking. “A god is something given Concepts to embody and govern,” he answered finally. “They can obtain a Concept through two ways: the gradual strengthening of a Path until they reach Conceptualization, or being worshipped as an embodiment of that Concept.”

“What were you?” I asked.

“I was a mixture of the two,” Discovery answered. “I made the exploration of the world my life’s joy. My discovery of the New World made my name known in every household. Just that knowing, that association with Discovery, allowed me to embrace the Concept. I initially used it to explore as far as I could through the many multiverses, uncaring of the consequences of the power.

“But the problem is that a Concept is ultimately a shared power. You are not the only one who defines it. Worship is strength, but you do not control it.

“Eventually, people ceased knowing Ekon Zaeba and began worshipping the myth of Discovery itself, and so I, who was attached to Discovery, began to cease being Ekon Zaeba.”

“What about now?” Matt asked. “Are you Discovery or are you Ekon Zaeba?”

“I have enough strength to still be called a god,” Discovery answered, and the roar of the high seas seemed to briefly overcome the rumbles of the train.

“But I retain enough of myself to still be Ekon Zaeba,” Ekon Zaeba said. “This is the state of balance many Gods try to achieve: retain the mind but keep the worship. I can’t hear the worship of Indiri anymore, however, so that may change for me soon.”

“What about the Historian?” I asked him.

“He is one who has achieved balance,” Discovery replied. “His Concept is a bit more special. Because he embodies the concept of a job or role, he has more control over it than something more nebulous like Discovery.”

“Could he have stopped me from taking both Eyes back then?” I asked.

He paused, perhaps sensing the slight bitterness in my tone. “He could have,” he admitted. “But it would have cost him too much. The groove he had been carving out for himself was shattered for a night to free me from that world. To sever my apotheosis, he engaged in History, a contradiction for a Historian who is supposed to only record it. If he had not quickly returned to the role, he might’ve been destroyed along with it.”

“So, he could’ve only hoped that his warning was enough for me to get rid of it, or that I really did discover a miraculous cheat to overcome the Balance of the world?” I guessed.

“Adding one or two more words couldn’t have been that dangerous, right?” Matt asked.

To Discovery’s surprise, I was the one who answered it. “It may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back,” I told Matt. “A single action can tip it. If I told the you in Indiri right now a few sentences, I would be able to screw up your karma.” To Discovery I said, “I do not blame others for my mistakes. I should’ve seen the pitfall I was walking into.” Bringing a hand to my still-red eye, I told them, “If the cost of learning that lesson was just an eye, I would gladly pay that price.”

“Experience is a bloody teacher,” Discovery agreed. “But their lessons are ever important.”

As our cart passed by their fence, I saw a mailbox in the shape of a winged foot. On the doors to the farmhouse was the symbol of a hearth. Celine quickly got off, bowing to the middle-aged couple who greeted us. “We come asking for warmth and hospitality for a night.”

The two bowed back, tapping their chest four times clockwise in a square—no, a Hearth shape. “We offer it in the name of the Old Laws, may you return like with like.”

“We thank you,” Celine said. “May you find honey on your doorstep.”

The couple broke out in a wide smile. “It is not often we meet a youngun who remembers the traditions.”

“I, um … sorta picked it up along the way,” Celine said with an embarrassed smile.

“I am Gherkan, and this is my wife Ferrar,” the man introduced himself. “Your friend tells us you are adventurers.”

I nodded as Noam joined us, helping unload some of our sleeping gear. “We are traveling for now until we reach the next big city.”

“Please come in,” Ferrar welcomed us. “No need to be standing in the rain while we talk. We have some heated soup.”

“That would be greatly appreciated,” I answered.

Betsy led us into their barn along with our cart, and then we filed into the house. Celine held Johnny’s hand as we entered. After a simple but hearty soup, Celine tucked Johnny in for the night, singing a lullaby beside him as he drifted off to sleep. The rest of us were by the hearth.

“That child … ” Gherkan began. “You need to bring him to a Church of the Hearth?”

We all nodded.

“Do you know of any place nearby?” Noam asked.

“Further down the road, towards the north,” Gherkan replied, “lies the city of Taebut, and there you will find a Church of the Hearth.”

The fireplace beside us crackled with flame. By the sides of the hearth were two empty seats, dedicated to the gods Lorn and Gwaina, the protectors of home and family. There were many Pantheons on just this continent alone; the names and rituals of all the different gods, even abbreviated, could fill out an entire encyclopedia. But no matter what, there would still be gods in greater prominence to others. The Elder Pantheon was the previous ruling Pantheon of the humanoid races. Though lessened in modern times due to the rising of the White Pantheon, their influence remained. Bundriroc was a part of the Elder Pantheon, as were Lorn and Gwaina. Their influences were set in the land and people itself.

I bowed. “Thank you for this information.”

As we retired for the night, I glanced towards Celine’s room, finding her dozing off beside Johnny, her living cloak wrapping itself around the both of them.

When morning came and we bid our farewells, I saw something on the doorstep of the farmhouse. A jar of fresh honey, which hadn’t been there last night.

Gherkan smiled towards me. “Hospitality and Honor, we remember to follow all those things.”

I nodded in understanding. Altruism gets rewarded in this world, for voluntary loss has to be balanced.

Celine bowed, and the rest of us mimicked her this time. “Thank you for lending us your roof.”

“Thank you for the honey,” Ferrar replied with a cheeky smile, as if sharing a joke.

Gherkan tapped his chest four times, making the shape of a hearth. “May Bundriroc protect your journey.”

“May Tasha visit your fields,” Celine answered.

And with that, we set off.

When the farmland bled away into the stark, walled city of Taebut, I checked my status screens again to discover that I had finally leveled up.

Interlude: Enchiridion

“Of course I’m keeping the alliteration. How else am I supposed to appeal to a wider audience?”

—Ezekial to his publisher, regarding his books The Enchiridion of Encounters. Yes, all twenty-nine versions of them.

Elliot” had never wanted to be a homeless vagrant, but he supposed few people did.

With a free hand, he sliced away a creeping vine with his spare knife, the old one having been so thoroughly coated with sap that he was forced to discard it. How did I end up here? he briefly wondered, looking back on the disastrous events that had led to his vagrancy. Ma died of the plague, Pa went ahead and got himself killed when he pissed on a dragon’s mountain, and the dragon just had to burn down the farm as well. He freed his other hand from the vines, much preferring to be harvesting wheat on a peaceful farm rather than cutting carnivorous vines in the depths of the jungle.

Heck, I should’ve just taken up accounting, he thought as he threw the knife behind him, a bloom of red appearing out of nowhere as the panther-like creature broke its invisibility. Hawtin was an ass but he paid well at least. The lines on his gloves glowed for a moment, invoking an image similar to circuitry, and the knife detached itself from the corpse, flying back to his hands. He stowed it away with his other mundane knives, before taking out a compass and map. “Elliot” held the compass level and peered at the needle, only to tsk in annoyance as he saw the needle spinning without rhyme or reason. The same result he’d been getting for the past month. He sighed. Knew I should’ve mana-proofed it.

“Elliot” returned the compass and map to his bag of holding. The traditional way wouldn’t work, so, instead, he took a deep breath and used his Path skill. He focused on an image—a large crystal, one he’d seen many times before—a Wayshard. For a brief moment, the world felt … louder. Whispers became screams. Soft winds turned cutting as every sense was pushed to the extreme. “Elliot” staggered to the side, leaning on a huge tree. His head was pounding as it processed more information than it was truly meant to. His eyes drifted to the sky, searching for a star that was no longer there.

If only I had mana …

“Elliot,” unlike most, did not have a single bulb of mana or aura to his name. Manatheres apparently missed him when he was born, and by all accounts, he should’ve died years ago, either from deficiency or just from standing too close to a moderately powerful being. Hells I’m surprised I lived this long, he thought as the bark underneath his arm suddenly moved. He cursed as the annoyed bark scuttler climbed to a higher point of the tree, before merging back into it seamlessly. The pain and loudness of his mind slowly subsided as Seek helped him locate what he needed. A trail appeared in his mind. Like a line of dust and cloud, it directed him forward. “Elliot,” lacking other options, began following it, knife in one hand to cut away any vines that tried to take a shot at him. Seek helped him delve into the unknown. The lands not mapped. The seas unsailed. The sights never seen by mortal eyes. But it only directed him to the unknown. When used actively like he had just now, it would direct him to notable landmarks. Sometimes it worked to his advantage. Most civilizations built their cities around Wayshards, and his skill would direct him to them. But if the most-notable landmark within the nearest few leagues was a giant tree or a river or a nest of fireflies …

Tiny fuckers, he mentally cursed as he checked his burn. It stung, but his supplies were low and he recognized none of the nearby flora to brew a salve. That’s what I should’ve done! Become a herbalist, maybe even dabbled in alchemy a bit. He sighed, A nice stable desk job, away from all this nonsense. That would be the dream.

He paused as the trail led him to a cave. Its entrance stood out of the verdant jungle like a gaping scar. No greenery bloomed on the rough gray stone. His moment of apprehension disappeared as soon as he spotted a pure crystal jutting out of the floor. “Thank you, North Star,” he said as he hurried forward. “Elliot” was not a religious man, but he knew when to offer thanks even when the receiver had seemingly disappeared.

Taking out one of his duller knives, he began chipping away at the stone around the crystal. It came free easily and “Elliot” lifted it. A whisper came to his mind as he stashed it into his bag. The sound was not clear. He would need to get the spell crystal appraised by someone with mana, or aura if he was lucky. Most couldn’t use spell crystals like Travelers could, but having a spell formula embedded in crystal made a very good example to study for aspiring mages. Rich, noble mages.

And wild spell crystals meant another thing. He continued deeper into the cave, breathing out a sigh of relief as he spotted the Wayshard glowing just a few dozen meters in. Finally, he thought as he neared the Wayshard. A night with an actual bed and a warm meal not just made of whatever I can scrounge together from within a jungle and—

One of his wards broke. The shattering sound echoed in the cave, and “Elliot” jumped back, rolling behind a stalagmite, just as a wave of flame slashed through where he stood, leaving a burning line of fire behind him.

Shit shit shit shit shit, he thought as he removed and applied a fresh ward from his bag. That was my ward against charms.

“Who’s there?!” he yelled as he began retrieving items from his bag. Mages, maybe a bard of some kind. Definitely an enchanter. He took out his weapons—a staff filled with several spell charges, a glass prism and four small baubles which he held between his fingers. He spun the last bauble once, activating it.

He peeked outside of his cover, only to feel his skin crawl as he saw his opposition. Two figures, one male, the other female. They looked human only in the loosest sense, like the result of an artist who’d never seen a human trying their hand at painting one. Their features were either too sharp or too smooth or too exaggerated. A thousand tiny inconsistencies that told him he was dealing with the Fair Folk. He didn’t recognize the first, but the second he did. The bauble soon confirmed it, absorbing the nearby ambient mana and taking on a variety of colors, before it cracked in his hand, letting out a small flame as it did. Autumn Court, and Damnable Hells, she’s still a Duchess.

“Apologies for the rough reception, Esteemed Enchiridion,” the male Fae began, his voice sounding melodious and wonderful. The second ward broke and “Elliot” quickly slapped on one of his better wards, a paper seal made by the Yuan Tei. The Fae continued, uncaring of his actions, his voice now just pleasant instead of hypnotizing. “We have come to claim debts and restore honor lost. To even the scales once again.”

There’s more than the two of them. A Duchess doesn’t travel without an entourage. “Elliot” returned two of his baubles, taking out a pure gold coin and a pure black marble. “You seem to know me, but I don’t know much about you. May I know your title?”

The Fae smiled. “I am the Lord of Welcoming Zephyr.”

They are really running out of good titles, he thought, though he internally breathed a sigh of relief. A Fae Lord was easy to deal with. “And am I correct in presuming that you speak for the Duchess behind you?”

The Lord paled before the Duchess stepped forward with a smirk. “No, you would not be.”

“Elliot” took a deep breath. He knew how to deal with the Fae, and hiding behind a stalagmite wasn’t ideal. So he walked out of cover with a bright smile. “I would say it is a pleasure, my lady, but I would be lying.”

“Ah, but it is a pleasure for me, dear Author of Enchiridion,” she replied with a smile.

No hypnotic effect with her words. The ward isn’t responding. Earlier flames suggest she still has a similar title, he swiftly analyzed. “I suppose both of us should introduce what we go by now. I am ‘Elliot.’”

The Duchess hissed as he said the name. “A false name will not hide you, my love. No matter your face or name, I will know you until Last Cycle.”

He merely raised an eyebrow at the interruption, despite the fact he almost shat his pants at the implications of her words. The Fae cannot lie. At all. There goes my chance at a normal life.

“And yet I do not know what you are now, so do introduce yourself, my lady,” he replied, hurriedly sticking up that last bit. There were more … colorful words he wanted to say about her showing up, but as long as he kept up a facade of polite conversation, she would not be able to attack him.

The Lord behind her looked apprehensive, but she still introduced herself, despite knowing full well it would be giving away her current capabilities. “Why, I am the Duchess of Unrelenting Wildfire.” She chuckled. “Please do give up. You cannot beat me as you are now, dear E.”

“Elliot” felt a jolt as she said his original name, the one he had sold many, many years ago. When he was being chased by the Kenkou mob over some … “borrowed” artifacts and needed a quick way to change his face after all his backup identities were discovered. It was his fault for not knowing that selling your name meant selling the identity associated with it, or that none of the people he knew would recognize him as him anymore.

“May I know how you left Arcadia?” “Elliot” may not have been a mage, but he did his research when he didn’t pay up the latter half of his contract. Many things did not make sense with her appearance. A Duchess of her power passing into Creation should have been noticed by his divination trinkets—unless there was someone on this side influencing the process. Someone must have followed him this far. An extremely impressive feat considering the leagues of murderous jungle between him and the closest signs of civilization.

She laughed as she saw the mental gymnastics going through his mind. “Why, I simply passed by of my own accord, without aid from this realm’s lesser mages.”

His eyes widened. “That is impossible,” he said with genuine disbelief. If anything other than a Fae said it, then he would’ve suspected his Diviner had sold him faulty equipment. But a Fae had said it.

“Why, it is completely true, my dear—”

She didn’t get to finish, because at that moment he threw the black marble in his hand. The Lord behind her then lifted a hand, long since warned about resistance, but his face scrunched up in surprise as the wind he summoned failed to change the trajectory of the marble whatsoever. Of course not, knobhead, it’s magical wind.

The Duchess disappeared in a whirl of flame, right before the marble cracked on the floor where she had been standing. Releasing the null magic zone contained within and instantly destroying the Lord, “Elliot” cursed as the only chance he would get at killing the Duchess was lost. A sudden increase of heat behind him told him to turn around, seeing the burning flames left by the previous attack beginning to whirl into the form of a woman and dozens of winged figures coming out from the shadows of the cave.

Fuck, they came prepared. He threw the glass prism in front of him, and it stopped suddenly in midair as the sunlight from outside hit it.

The prism parsed the pure sunlight, reflecting the seven colors of the rainbow through it.

The Duchess reformed fully, causing the flames to spread, her arm held out as a burst of fire flew towards the prism.

“BLUE!” “Elliot” yelled and the colors disappeared, leaving only the blue lighting up the entire cavern. A sudden flash frost exploded from it, hitting everywhere the light struck. “Elliot” threw up his cloak right as the ice struck. The cold warmed up his Cloak of Inversion and he started towards his goal, the Wayshard. The heat on his cloak swiftly turned cold as the Duchess easily freed herself from the ice.

“Why do you resist. my love?”

“I slept with you once!” “Elliot” yelled. Damn stories, damn all stories to hell. The Fae were stories. They were ideas. They embodied and were limited by that fact, and some backwards tradition on marriage meant that this Fae was incapable of even conceiving of a future where she didn’t drag him back to Arcadia to marry.

He might’ve actually been receptive to the idea, if not for the fact that living with an entity of such casual power was inevitably detrimental to his manaless body. To give an analogy, it would be like being constantly exposed to nuclear radiation. “Elliot” was not so desperate for tail as to shorten his lifespan.

It was just that one time.

The Duchess smiled. “I do love it when you play hard to get. Our time when we finally get together may be short, but it will be meaningful.”

Evidently, my survival after marriage is not a high priority for her.

So he raised the staff, pointing it directly at her and the other Fae surrounding him. “Fog.”

Plumes of white fog exploded from the staff, and the Duchess frowned for the first time. “Wind,” she ordered. And wind was given by one of her subordinate Fae. However, it failed to alleviate the fog, for the Staff of Fog stored and cast two spells at once, one creating physical fog that could be pushed by wind, and another that created illusory fog that did not truly exist beyond one’s senses.

“Guard the Wayshard,” she demanded, instantly teleporting right next to the crystal with a burst of flame, but that was not his goal.

“Elliot” flipped the gold coin that he held, letting it roll on the floor, until when it stopped to rest, a door was revealed that had not been there before. He rushed through, slamming it shut behind him. Before him was the Infinite Store and the Traveler Merchant.

“Dave!” he yelled. “I have more Traveler Gold in a safehouse in the Dread Empire. I wish to buy a teleport to a safe location and for you to not sell information of my destination to the next person that enters!”

The door opened with a burst of fire as the Duchess of Unrelenting Wildfire entered, but the man who looked just like him with a monocle simply snapped his fingers. “Done.”

And “Elliot” was simply gone.

He woke up in a meadow somewhere. He knew he needn’t bother checking the surroundings, as Dave always held true to transactions, but he did so anyway out of habit. Once he found that it was all clear, he sat down, rummaging through his bag for a set of items.

A few minutes later, “Emmet” stood up, the face and demeanor of the Author of Enchiridion now completely changed.

2.00

“First friend I laid to rest, a tragedy,

Thousandth, a memory.”

—Wundall, the God of Games

It was rather anticlimactic.

You have fulfilled the unlock conditions for the new class, Keeper of Secrets.

You may invest your level in either Fungalmancer or Keeper of Secrets.

Note: Investing in Keeper of Secrets will remove the [Et Non-
Dissent] skill.

I had long been in the range of leveling up. In fact, counting Keeper of Secrets, I had already technically been at level six; it’s just that Keeper wasn’t a class of the system and I had no intention of changing that any time soon. It might be interesting to see how the class translated, but in the end, I only put the level into Fungalmancer.

Name: Dustin

Racials: Magic Myconid Level 1

Classes: Fungalmancer Level 5

Body:

Strength: 8

Agility: 7

Dexterity: 6

Constitution: 19

Stamina: 10

Vitality: 12

Mind:

Intelligence: 16

Wisdom: 21

Charisma: 6

Soul:

Will: 10

Psyche: 10

Perception: 10

Available SP: 9

Racials:

Manavision, Fungal Body, Sun Sickness, Mana Dependency, Pacifying Spores, Strong Innate Magic, Age-Type Heteromorph

Class Skills:

Fungalmancer:

Path: Symbiosis

- Grow Sporage (Visual / Proximity)
- Sporage Wisp Symbiosis
- Bracken Polypores

Magic Myconid Spells:

T0: Sneezing Spores, Acid Spit, Watching Eye

Fungalmancer Spells:

T0: Balm Spores, Light Spores, Shillelagh (1 Free)

T1: Mushroom Meal, Poison Spores, Euphoria Spray, (1 Free)

T2: Bark Skin, Fix-Up Fungus, Rot Spores, (1 Free)

T3: (2 Free)

Languages:

Common

Undercommon

And watching the Scales above me, I saw it all imperceptibly shift. I hadn’t yet taken any of my new level six skills, spent my stat points, or even filled out my new spell slots. Right now, all the Scales were calculating was that one increased point of Wisdom from my automatic growth, and the opportunity to fill those out. Until I actually did something with them, it was just something waiting.

However, the fact that it changed led to the rather horrific implication that it was inevitable for people who pursued both the leveling system and natural power progression of Indiri to be always moving towards imbalance. Meaning that encounters like the ones I’ve been having may have been inevitable. Double the rewards but double the pushback. Thankfully, my Keeper of Secrets was currently static. So long as I kept it like that, it should be a non-factor in future level-ups. Not to mention, I already knew a way to get rid of imbalance. Simple acts of charity should have done it. What I actually sacrificed was the problem.

Gold and a magic staff weren’t significant losses. Losing both deific eyes and the Paths associated was. It hurt my collector’s heart a bit, not to mention seeing one of my spells become effectively useless without Observe to back it up. But your Balance could be managed if you weren't too greedy. I suppose I should have warned Noam about it, since he was pursuing Aura techniques with Tai. He might have been carrying a bit too many magic items. Though, glancing at him with a smiling Johnny sitting on his shoulders, I didn’t think I needed to tell him anything.

Unlike me, he was a good person all on his own.

We found the Hearth Church soon afterwards. Squirreled away in an older part of the city, a bit of away from the bustling of the markets, the house looked old and lived-in. Red bricks overgrown with vines and the cobblestoned streets leading up to it well-worn to smoothness. Children were playing in the front yard, a good sign.

Noam stepped forward, waving one down. “Where’s your, umm …”

“Hearth Priest,” Celine reminded him.

“Yeah! Can we talk with your priest?” he continued.

“Sister Glascoin?” the child replied.

Yellow nudged me, whispering, “The other children have stopped playing.”

Indeed, the sounds of play had stopped. A side-eye from Noam was all the communication we needed. My manavision caught him easily, and I did not turn to him—that alone was enough to remind him I still had the ability. But I was still unaware of everything outside of its short range. Perhaps switching my current Secret to the Balance had been a bit too hasty.

“Something’s wrong,” Tai whispered.

‘“Defensive,” Noam mouthed quietly, now knowing to take advantage of my manavision.

A door opened noisily as someone hurriedly rushed out. The weight of the steps indicated someone older, or at least heavier. “Greetings,” the voice of an older woman sounded out.

There was still some time before I could swap out secrets. Actually, with my remaining good karma, I thought I could manage a faster Secret swap if I really tried. But, no, not yet worth it. Increasing the strength of Keep just meant every consequent Secret added to it would bring more weight. The power of this Path was to let me Keep or let go of skills as my karma needed, as well as sealing the dangerous bits of knowledge I had.

“Hello,” Noam began, his voice remaining cheerful, but I caught the slight bit of hesitation that underpinned it.

“She’s acting afraid of us,” Greenie whispered.

There was a gulp, but then Noam’s eyes narrowed. “Resolved,” he mouthed to me.

“Are you Governor Hye’s men?” the Priestess of the Hearth asked.

“Who?” Tai asked in response.

At that moment, Johnny, who had been behind us, poked his head slightly out from behind Noam’s legs. There was a moment, and then a sigh of relief from the priestess. The tension seemed to disappear in my companions, but sadly I couldn’t see whether it was in response to the other party.

I needed my own eyes. Normal ones. Ones that didn’t see through all illusions or tell me the Balance of all things. Or maybe I should keep this lack of sight. Such a detriment might skew my own Balance positively in other directions.

“This is going to be hard to explain but, well … we have a kid, Johnny,” Noam said, lifting the boy up by his arms.

“He’s not ours, but from a Tilt church that was attacked by a monster. We’ve been looking for a place that might take him in.”

“Indeed,” I said, taking the opportunity to go forward a few steps, so that my manavision’s limited range could reach the woman. “The matter is rather sensitive. May we discuss it inside?”

She was an older, motherly looking woman, healthy, with few wrinkles on her face and a mop of red hair tied behind her head. There was hesitance on her face, but why?

“We may,” she said after a moment’s deliberation. “Come in. I’ll have tea and hospitality prepared.”

We were led inside into a small living room, where Sister Glascoin quietly excused herself to prepare tea.

“Something’s wrong,” Tai began.

“Obviously. Who’s Governor Hye?” Noam asked, turning to Celine.

She shook her head. “Governor is a common title for city lords in this country, I don’t know the name of the Governor of Taebut, but it would be easy to find out.”

“Yellow, scout the premises, don’t be seen,” I said, letting the wisp leap off my arm. It soon disappeared into the corners of the room.

“Steps,” Utoqa simply said.

We heard it a bit after him, the sounds of footsteps nearing the entrance. Discussion momentarily quieted.

As I was sitting right by the door, I saw her first through the wall with my manavision. A child peeked her head through the frame of the door, before hurriedly retracting it upon clocking the eyes on her. Noam shot me a glance, then gestured towards Johnny. I nodded in response.

Johnny yelped as Noam lifted him by the shoulders. “C’mon, Jojo, there’s no point in hanging out with these stuffy assholes. Let’s go and play with kids your age.”

“Don’t you mean ‘our?’” Tai retorted with rolled eyes.

Celine hurriedly rose from her seat. “I’ll go with you two as well.”

Noam welcomed her, before waving down the kid outside the hall. I could faintly hear Noam asking if they’d ever played soccer before as they left. It was around then that the priestess returned. She looked noticeably more relaxed. Judging by the structure of the house, she must’ve passed by Noam and Celine playing with the kids as she came here. She set down the tea that she brought onto the table, bowing as she tapped her chest four times. “Welcome. I offer hospitality in the name of the Old Laws, may you return like with like.”

I hurriedly rose from my seat. What was it that Celine had said? God, it was just a few days ago.

“May you find honey on your doorstep?” I said with a tinge of uncertainty, still trying to remember her response even as I bowed.

“May you find honey on your doorstep,” Tai helped, bowing as well.

Glancing towards the windows, she smiled. “I may have to provide something cooler for your friends outside.”

I could faintly hear laughter outside as a ball was kicked around. Noam was doing his job well. “They’ll be at it for a while,” I replied. “When it comes to games, Noam has stamina to last days.”

“That reminds me that I have not caught your names.”

“I’m Tai,” she said before glancing towards me.

“I’m Dustin,” I said with a small wave. “The two outside are Noam and Celine. We’re of a newly formed mercenary group.”

Sister Glascoin quietly glanced towards Utoqa. “Utoqa,” he answered simply.

“May I know the name of the mercenary group?”

“Toy Dragons,” I told her with a blank face. Tai quietly cringed, but thankfully the priestess didn’t catch it.

“That is an … interesting name,” the Sister said with a strange look.

“It was named by the man outside.” I shrugged.

For some reason, that made her nod in complete understanding, even having a look of “maybe it doesn’t sound that weird after all.” Was this what pretty privilege was? Just because Noam had ten more Charisma than I did?

The tea was unremarkable and bitter, and the tea set appeared handmade. Our cups were amateurish, molded, and decorated by childlike fingers. While the kettle and Sister Glascoin’s cup were of slightly better quality, there was clay under her nails.

“You’ve heard most of it outside already,” I began. “Johnny Joymoon is an orphan, formerly of the Tilt Church in the town of Lake Bayt. Said church was ransacked by a monster, who killed everyone except him …” We told the tale to Sister Glascoin. I did the bulk of the retelling, with Tai adding in details that I wasn’t aware of or had missed.

The priestess slowly slumped into her chair. “So he is the last of his house,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “And protected by the Weeping Child.”

It was then I noticed the gray hairs on her head—streaks of silvery age in an otherwise healthy-looking woman. Sister Glascoin gazed at the two empty chairs by the unlit hearth and made that now-familiar sign on her chest. “I’m afraid I cannot take him,” she said with a voice of regret.

There was a moment of silence.

“Is this because of this Governor Hye?” Tai asked.

The priestess glumly nodded. “I owe her a debt. During a Rift, one of the children was caught outside the Home. Hye’s mercenaries rescued her, but she told me it wasn’t out of charity.”

My fingers drummed the armrest of my chair. Wayshard Rifts simply referred to any event in which a number of unknown hostile entities emerged from a Wayshard—generally otherworldly and seemingly ignoring the rule that the entity had to have visited the Wayshard previously. It was one of the reasons why all the in-use Wayshards were surrounded by walls and defensible positions. With such things, it was quite possible for an entire army to show up and attack out of nowhere.

“I still have money to run the church, but I’ve already sent away a lot of the children to other Hearths. I’m sorry, but you may have to prolong your journey to another Hearth Home.”

“Can’t you ask for financial assistance from other homes?” Tai asked. “What about the donations? Surely you receive plenty of donations as a church.”

She shook her head. “Many of those who donate are working folk who can’t spare much coin. We pale in comparison to the wealth of other faiths, so there is little to go around. I have already received as much financial assistance as I can.”

“How much?” I asked. “How much coin do you still owe her?”

“Two thousand.”

Tai frowned. “Silvers? Two-hundred gold is pricey, but it should be manageable.”

I nodded. “I can raise that amount doing some quests. If I save my cut of the shares, it should take a month or two at most for me to raise that amount.”

“Less than a month,” Tai said. “I can pitch in my share, and Noam and Celine would probably agree in a heartbeat.”

The priestess shook her head. “You misunderstand, I meant two-thousand gold.”

There was a moment of silence.

And my mouth moved before I could stop it. “What the fuck?”

“Language, Dustin.” Tai shot me a dirty look, masking her own shock quickly. “We’re in front of a priest and inside a church.”

“I’m sorry, Sister Glascoin, but unless that child was literally made of gold, I don’t see a reason to demand such an exorbitant price for them. Are they running a fucking mob racket here?” I nearly pondered if I was in the wrong profession, if shaking down elderly priests and orphans was so profitable.

She rubbed her brow. “It is as you say. Governor Hye bought her way to her position and has replaced most guards with her men. She dares not hurt or threaten us, as Lorn and Gwaina protect all their families, but money is not a place where the Hearthfire can help.” She wrung her hands tiredly. “I can only pay off the interest of the debt, not the debt itself.”

There was fucking interest?

“I am practical enough that I won’t reject any offers to help me. However, this is not a debt that you owe. It is my fault alone for not watching the children properly. And it would be simpler for you to move to another city to find another Hearth Home not in such dire straits.”

“You can flee,” Utoqa suddenly suggested. “Move all the young to other nests.”

She gave him a weary smile, indicating that she had considered the idea before. “And who will maintain this church? Am I to pass this burden to the next one who comes? Will the next child orphaned in this city be lucky enough to have adventurers escort them to the next city with an orphanage?”

I sighed in agreement, turning to Tai and Utoqa.

“We’ll have to discuss this as a group,” I told her.

She nodded. “I understand.”

We finished the tea, and she let us go outside to meet Noam and Celine.

Johnny was still playing soccer with the kids, and Noam slowly extracted himself, telling the kids his old body had to rest before sitting down beside us. “The kids are energetic,” Noam told me as we rested in the shade. “No signs of undernourishment that I could tell and they seem all-around pretty happy. They’re well-fed and exercise pretty frequently.”

Celine looked at him strangely. “You were taking note of that?”

Noam snorted, pointing in my direction. “He put me up to it.”

Celine now looked at me strangely. “When?”

Both Noam and I shrugged in unison, which, I admit, neither of us had planned. “Wanna tell them the other thing?” Noam asked Celine.

She nodded. “The kids told us they were warned off talking with certain people by Sister Glascoin. Namely the guards and people in armor.”

“And Yellow?”

The wisp tsked as it crawled out of a crack in the wall, having failed to surprise me with its entrance. “The pantry had food and stuff but it mostly cheap things.”

“Cheap things?” Tai asked.

“Lots of dry meats and hard breads,” the wisp elaborated. “The cupboard for tea was big but empty.”

“The tea also didn’t have any sweetener in it,” Tai added.

“Hmm?” I asked.

“Hearth Homes all serve their tea the same way,” Tai continued. “They always add some honey since the kids don’t like the bitter taste. The habit carries over with their hospitality, but there wasn’t any honey in our tea.”

Huh. “Good observation,” I praised.

Tai shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

“That leaves us with an overall lack of non-essential and luxury items then,” Noam noted. “So, should we help? Any opinions? Utoqa?”

“I have food and shelter,” Utoqa replied simply. “I care for little else.”

“You’re a low-maintenance guy, aren’t you?” Noam remarked. “I’m fine with helping. The main problem is the money, isn’t it? How long do you think it’ll take us to raise two-k gold?”

“Judging by our previous efficiency, six months to a year,” I answered. “We can change our strategies slightly. If you and I exploit our respawns, we can lower the risk of all operations significantly.”

“A year, though …” Celine muttered. “That is a long time to be spent on a single request.”

“Is it?” Tai asked. “It’s just a year. It’ll pass in a flash.”

Celine looked at Tai strangely, as did the rest of us.

“How lucky it is to be a race that measures their life in centuries.” Celine sighed.

“We can do it faster,” Noam said. “Let’s just beat up this Governor Hye and threaten her if she ever touches the Sister and the kids again.”

Tai shook her head. “Can we not break any laws? I’m too young to be a wanted criminal.”

“Technically we’re only criminals if we’re ever caught,” Noam pointed out.

“We’re criminals if we do crime,” Tai pointed out. “The fact that I have to tell you that is more worrying than your suggesting this.”

“We can just bring Johnny to another orphanage,” I said. “It might even be safer, if they don’t have a corrupt governor running a protection racket.”

“How about we overthrow them?” Noam suggested. “There’s gotta be dissidents somewhere.”

“How did you get from threats to political revolution?” Tai exclaimed incredulously.

“With my head?” Noam replied.

“You—” Tai shook her own head, sighing in resignation.

I glanced towards the person we were talking about. Though Johnny was out of my manavision range, I could still hear his laugh.

“We can continue to raise him,” I said, “let him join up as we travel.”

“No.”

Noam stared directly at me, before shaking his head. “We can’t, Dusts. A traveling life with a bunch of crusty older people isn’t the type of life for a kid,” he continued. “Kids need kids their age to play with, to become friends with, to learn with, to gang up with together so they can beat up older kids.”

“I agree …” said Celine. “… other than that last part … A life of travel, moving from one place to another, is fine for us, but only because we have places to return to.” She turned towards the courtyard. “Where’s his?”

I was silent.

“Let’s ask him what he wants,” Noam suggested.

Tai raised an eyebrow. “He’s just a kid, though.”

“Kids are smarter than we think.” Noam began walking towards Johnny, leaving my manavision. I followed behind him, as did Tai, Celine, and Utoqa. “Jojo!” Noam called out. “Come here for a sec.”

Johnny soon came into my vision, and Noam knelt down to speak to him eye-to-eye.

“I have to tell you something,” Noam began.

He spoke slowly but clearly, so that Johnny would understand everything. “The Hearth Home here … it can’t take you in easily. Sister Glascoin owes money to some people. We can make it work if you want to, but it would be easier for us to move to a new city and find a different Hearth Home.”

Johnny shook slightly. “Would I leave this place behind as well?”

“If you want to,” Noam told him.

Johnny turned around, to where I assumed the other children were still playing. “Would I have to leave them behind?”

“You can continue to visit through the Wayshard,” I answered. “Set up playdates.”

“But I would still be leaving them.” It was slightly unsettling, seeing the young boy staring unblinking towards me.

Johnny clutched that ragged doll with weeping eyes. “I don’t want to leave anyone behind anymore. I want to stay.”

2.01

“Tell me, child, is there a single thing more crippling than absolute freedom? For is it not a waste of choice, if one does not consider every option? And is it not a waste of thought, if a choice is never made?”

—Verron Pluton the Suffering Sage

You have unlocked the Dimensional Gate Feat (9SP).

You have learned the following spells from the Interweaved Dimensions Spell List:

T2: Misty Step

T2: Summon Wisp

T3: Create Wisp

I hummed as I watched my available stat points go down to zero. Celine set down a lighted candle between us as she pulled the curtains closed, leaving us in the dark. “Why did you do that?”

She nervously smiled as she sat down beside me. “Kinda want to set the mood.”

I didn’t comment as she pulled out a book and set it down between us. “So you want to throw a fireball? A Comprehensive Guide to Magic for the Intellectually Deficient by Magus Smar Da Ten Yu.”

“Magic is just based on cost and will,” Celine said. “All different schools can help with casting, but they just change the process of will to be a matter of cost. You pay several years of training and stick to tradition to get magic without the need to exert great will.”

I nodded, the candle flickering between us.

“My baba told me that mana only acts as currency, an artificial thing that originally had no intrinsic value and only acted as a means to exchange for magic. That was the original intention of the mage Manatheres who created mana.”

“But that changed.”

“That changed,” she said, “when Manatheres ascended to godhood. He lost all of his will, and mana became a worldly decree. Suddenly, something worthless had value. Suddenly, mana could become something entirely on its own.” She smiled at both of the wisps, Greenie and Yellow.

“I don’t know how to specifically cast Summon or Create Wisp, but I know how it works.”

“Then let me demonstrate, with my first cast,” I told her, raising one of my fingers. “Summon Wisp.” There was a brief gathering of power. Yellow craned its head forward to look closer as above my finger, eight glowing translucent bulbs of energy gathered. Four were blue, made of pure mana; two were black, of mana tainted by darkness; one was fiery, born of the small candle flame between us. The last briefly gathered into a visage covered in glowing words and runes, before it dissipated.

“Four unaspected, three darkness, one fire, and a knowledge that couldn’t fully manifest,” Celine noted. “Pretty good for a first try.”

“Not my own skill,” I replied. “It’s just the Traveler magic making things easier.” The wisps floated above my hand, curiously looking around the room.

“Knowledge wisps can be summoned easier within a library, but these should work, unless you want to try creating them from scratch?” she asked.

I glanced to my knee, where three empty wisp bodies were resting: Balm, Light, and Rot Spores.

“What’s your opinion?” I asked.

She thought for a moment. “These seven are natural wisps, drawn from elemental planes. They’ll work in a pinch, but they only last so long. Because this isn’t their natural plane, they’ll eventually dissipate. Even if you manage to keep them somehow, as they absorb your mana, their original element will get washed out, similar to how you would add water to a cup of juice. There’s actually a formula for it in the Trizian school of thought, but it’s not universal. Since you’re not pursuing learned magic, it might actually be detrimental to know.”

I thought about asking her what the formula was anyway, since it might act as a decent point of reference, but instead, I asked, “Then I should instead create them from scratch?”

“That would be best, if you want to acclimate them quicker and help them keep their original element.”

“Let’s go for it, then.” I freed the wisps from my control, letting them wander around the room before they slowly dissipated. We both stood up, Celine pulling open the curtains as I blew out the candle. Create Wisps was actually a minor ritual spell that could create any aspected wisp but required things alluding to the element desired.

“Balm should work with some bandages. Light should work with the candle.”

“The problem is rot, right?” I asked.

She nodded. “We’ll probably need something rotting. Rot Spores is also a higher-level spell, so it’s best if the wisp created is much larger than the other ones.”

I picked up the candle. “Then let’s gather some ritual materials.”

The train rumbled quietly as we resumed our quiet silence. Matt was video-calling his parents and brother while I sat waiting by the train window. Slowly, I felt Discovery awaken as we neared our destination. The train curved to the right, giving us a scenic view of the equator.

I shielded my eyes as lightning roared and fell down like rain. Whatever land there once was here had long since been flooded and drowned. Only the bridge upon which the train tracks ran remained above water, and even then, the entire train was designed to be able to operate completely underwater when the bridge got flooded.

“This storm …” Discovery murmured.

In front of me, a holographic video appeared with a flight attendant. “Greetings, passenger. We are now passing by the equator. Cabins have been soundproofed to prevent the sound of thunder, but please wear appropriate eye protection when observing the equator. A pair of glasses has been provided under every seat. Alternatively, you may tint or darken your cabin window with the control panel on the right …”

“What caused this storm?” Discovery asked as the flight attendant droned on in the background.

“People in the past burned a shit-ton of stuff they dug up from the ground,” I replied evenly. “We called the end result ‘climate change.’”

Shortly after, the flight attendant video echoed my sentiment. “The irregular and unnatural climate here at the equator is due to the shortsightedness of other nations and corporations. They burned fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas for energy, not caring about the greenhouse gas emissions they caused, and ignored warnings by the Australian Federation …”

“Man caused this?”

I nodded. “People in the past were idiots.”

“Well,” Matt said as he ended his video call, “there’s a bit more nuance to it. The equator wasn’t caused by fossil-fuel burning. It was caused by people later trying to fix it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Matt answered, then added in a questioning tone, “you didn’t learn this?”

As I shook my head, Matt replied, “That video puts a lot of emphasis on other nations and corporations being the problem, huh?”

I paused and stared at him; he was clearly talking around something.

“Frogfish?” I asked him.

Matt nodded. “I tried salt-pepper-fried fish after I came to Australia for the first time. My mother introduced me to it.”

“I see.” We had numerous codewords, mostly in-jokes that no one else understood. “Knife” was the strategy name for taking out the squishier target while one of us held up the tougher one. Similarly, “frogfish” was the word for when one of us was lying.

Matt was speaking around an NDA, one he got after migrating to Australia and signed by his mother. And regarding what he was talking about—how the government-sponsored training video pinned the blame for the equator and climate change on others—in the past I might not have figured it out, lacking the appropriate perspective or experience, but now I did.

History could be changed. Some people could erase it, teach an incorrect version to further their own goals and silence those who remembered, and our country was one with many cameras. The Wisdom I had specced in as Dustin was rubbing off on me.

Yet, I wasn’t angry. I felt nothing about the revelation that I was taught an inaccurate or perhaps falsified version of history. I simply stared out the window, off into the distance where a storm was raging so strongly no aircraft could pass through it. “Salt-and-pepper-fried fish isn’t the perfect dish, right?” I asked Matt.

“It leaves a bad aftertaste.”

“But it is what it is,” I said. “It has tasted fine so far. Even if I dislike some parts of it, I have learned to live with most of it. It’s not like I could go and beat up the chef. I don’t even know how to cook it for myself.”

Matt was silent.

“You are not angered by the sins of your ancestors and leaders,” Discovery said.

“I think I would have been angry about it, once upon a time, but at some point I realized I couldn’t do anything about it. So I stopped caring,” I replied. “But I’ve also changed how I don’t care. Before it was helplessness, now it is acceptance.”

I reached into my bag, pulling out two lemon-lime bitters, offering one to Matt. “I’ve come to realize that everything comes with a cost. Everything comes with a loss of some kind.”

Our lives were comfortable, they were peaceful, and even if I chose to do nothing, to never pursue a career or future, my lifestyle would be preserved. Everything was Balanced. Though that was the magic of another world, it could strangely apply here as well.

“Sometimes I do want to go back,” Matt said, not taking the drink. “I wondered what it would be like to have never left.”

“Do you think about that often?” I asked.

Matt nodded. “I do.” Then he took the drink. “But I realize Sarah, Denise, and Max are happier here, so I am as well.”

I suddenly had a strange feeling in my chest, as if I had become aware of aging I hadn’t up to that point. I realized that the nihilistic realization I had had in my youth, that I didn’t matter, that everything I did would be meaningless, had ceased being a great empty hole that devoured all motivation, all desire to go forward.

Instead, I had accepted the hole, for all its faults and glories.

Together we popped open the bottles, clinking the glass together as the train dipped into the tunnel, going under the equator. For life was not free of hardships or opposition. You could overcome some, but not all, of them. To think one could solve all the problems of the world was fanciful. There would always be something about it that you disliked.

And that was fine.

Perhaps instead of raging against the meaningless world, I found more happiness in accepting it. Despite the emptiness of the universe, I had friends, such as Matt who had stood beside me despite having been exposed to my worst qualities. Despite my nihilism, I have purpose both here and in Indiri—to continue to live, and to make them better, even if it was just for fleeting moments of time. Despite the meaninglessness of existence, I had achieved much. With the help of my friends, I had killed pre-nerf Vek’Na, and cemented my name as one with an unbeatable and unsurpassable record. I had helped save the God who rode my mind even now. And I had saved the people of Lake Bayt when I slew the Accumulation of White Lies. Even if they were small achievements, even if they were ultimately meaningless, they did happen. The fact that the line in the sand had washed away did not mean it had never been drawn. Instead of desiring an abstract infinity, I looked to what I already had.

“I understand now, Alex.” I murmured.

“Alex?” Matt asked, hearing the name of his old friend.

“I was just reminiscing about Vek’Na,” I replied. “Looking back, I think I was smiling.”

A candle, a roll of bandages, and a slab of pork. Using some of Celine’s ritual ink, I drew the circle, my body moving mechanically as I followed the instructions of the spell in my mind.

“The circle is for the creation of an enclosed and sterile space,” Celine explained. “A space in which you declare all variables to be controlled and within your expectations. For ritual magic, it’s an important step unless you deliberately wish to introduce uncontrollable elements.”

I felt it, just as she finished. When my finger lifted from the ground, completing the circle, I could feel something happening. Even though it was just a simple circle, with no accompanying symbols or complex geometric shapes, I felt it become … closed. Celine was outside the circle, deliberately so, as I set down the ritual materials I had prepared. This was a simple spell—Celine had already told me that—and even though spells like Fix-Up Fungus or Rot Spores cost me more in terms of mana, this was the first time I felt like I was truly doing magic.

“I invoke the name of Manatheres, Originator of Mana, Inventor of Tier Magic, and the First High Archmagus,” I murmured, the feeling of the circle changing instantly. Suddenly, it felt like there was attention. From what I didn’t yet know, but I knew the next sentences I had to say.

“I take your body as bread,” I said, raising my arms before me with my palms faced up. “I take your blood as drink.”

For Manatheres was nothing but mana now, the very concept of the thing. His body and blood were mana. I turned towards the lit candle and, with a flick of my hand, I cast Light Spores upon it, covering it in a soft glow. Then, I cast Balm Spores upon the bandages, and finally, Rot Spores on the pork. The purplish spores ravaged the thing, quickly rotting it black and putrid.

“I invoke the Rule of Three and shape bread and drink into life. May these offerings be the mold.”

I almost made a pun there, but at this point, I was too engrossed in the ritual to notice. Imperceptibly, three balls of mana left me and formed above the three materials. Slowly, they began spinning and gathering. Siphoning my mana as they grew. Time ticked slowly by, and by the time three wisps—Light, Balm, and Rot—floated in front of me, an hour had passed. I breathed out, placing the three wisp bodies that I had prepared in front of them, and they quickly entered. Yellow and Greenie appeared then among the new wisps and poked them.

“You’ll be White.” Yellow pointed at the Light Spores wisp.

“And you, Lime,” Greenie said, patting the Balm Spores wisp.

Looking at the last wisp, the one with a purple body, they said together, “You’ll be Grape!”

“Should it be Purple?” I asked.

“We should mix the names up!” Yellow argued.

I shook my head. “Nah, the theme is set now. Rot is Purple.”

Purple slowly nodded in agreement. As the two wisps introduced themselves and taught them about the world, I looked up, staring at my Balance. It had moved slightly by the new spells I now knew and the three new wisps, but it was still in my favor. I still had karma left over.

“Now what?” Celine asked.

Thinking for a moment, I answered, “Now I can go pick my level-up skills.”

She nodded, having heard about the process of Traveler empowerment from Noam.

“It should be safe for me,” I murmured. I had good karma to spare, plus I planned on doing some good deeds in the future.

Even if I tipped over a bit, it should be fine. Mentally reviewing the pros and cons, I determined that the increase in power was worth the short-term imbalance. Celine was curious about the matter, so she came with me as I walked towards the Wayshard. The wisps were off exploring the world. I wasn’t too worried about them, since Yellow and Greenie had enough experience on their solo romps. So waving a goodbye to Celine, I touched the Wayshard.

You may Travel to:

Gaia

Indiri (Current)

Class Instance (Fungalmancer and Magic Myconid)

The options appeared as they had before, and I mentally selected the third. The world bled away as, once again, I stood in that dome-shaped area with the massive mushroom stalk at the center. Once again, the old myconid was in front of me. It had only been a few weeks since I last saw him—barely more than a month—yet it felt like years had passed.

“You know the drill,” he told me. “You may select three new skills from your current Path, or you may select a new Path and gain skills from there.”

“What is the difference?” I asked him.

“Following your current Path gives you the level six selection, while a new Path only has level three equivalents.”

“I understand.”

A new Path would give me more utility but would lack power. Matt chose the former, and I saw no reason strong enough to make a different choice. “Show me the skills for the level six Path of Symbiosis.”

And he did, bringing forward a crystal. He let me touch it and browse a massive selection of abilities. “Due to your achievements, and the fact that your level six is a mixture of Fungalmancer and the Racial level in Magic Myconid, certain skills that were not originally available to you have been unlocked.”

“So, in addition to the variation caused by skill selection,” I murmured, “there is additional variation due to the composition of the levels of the person taking it?”

He nodded.

And my finger paused as I saw some of the skills I had unlocked. It was a set of three abilities that worked in conjunction with each other and were likely unlocked due in part to my dealings with entities from different worlds and planes.

“I will take these.”

Level 6:

Fairy Circle: You can demarcate any complete circle of mushrooms to become a Fairy Circle, turning it into a pseudo gateway to an adjacent plane of your choosing. This Fairy Circle will remain active so long as you are within it and the mushroom circle is not disturbed. Different dimensional laws and effects will occur within the circle, and other dimensional entities may appear, though nothing of the other plane can leave the Fairy Circle, nor can anything of the original plane enter the adjacent plane, unless an exchange occurred.

Mediation of Mutualism: You may create an agreement that may involve two or more parties. This agreement may facilitate the exchange of anything each party is willing to offer, but must require at minimum three witnesses that may include yourself and the parties, all parties to willingly consent and agree to the agreement without duress. The agreement will only take effect once all conditions are met. Should a party violate the agreement, a percentage of their Body, Mind, or Soul stats will be damaged, increasing with the combined level of the witnesses.

Stamp of Symbiosis: You may choose to greatly empower up to 3 (Fungalmancer and Magic Myconid Combined Level / 2) entities that you are in a deep symbiotic relationship with. Their level will be raised by 2 (Fungalmancer and Magic Myconid Combined Level / 3) levels, with up to an additional 200% (Fungalmancer and Magic Myconid Combined Level / 3 x 100%) additional levels based on the level of shared symbiosis. They do not gain new skills, abilities, or spell slots associated with the level increase, nor is Experience gain affected for Travelers, but for the purposes of level-scaling and distributed stats, their raised level will be their effective level. You gain additional bonuses depending on the target of the Stamp. Once a Stamp has been set, it cannot be changed for a month.

- Current abilities which establish a Symbiotic relationship: Sporage Wisp Symbiosis, Bracken Polypores, Mediation of Mutualism, Stamp of Symbiosis

The old myconid nodded, and I felt power flood through me. I was now officially in my level six powerspike.

2.02

“Ethics are a foolish consideration.”

—The Mad Mage Khao

While Dustin and Celine were handling their magic, Tai was out in the city, hanging around a martial school and browsing their catalogue of martial arts. All of the options listed were basic. Tai already knew the theory for most of them. The real core arts of the school were only given to disciples. Still, it was a decent refresher for her.

“Bah!” A snort suddenly interrupted her. Tai glanced towards the source, an old drunken human, clad in casual clothing and chugging a bottle, yet there was a way the disciples in the school were respectfully stepping out of his way that told her he wasn’t a simple drunk.

“You idiots are all wasting your time!” the old man cried out, spittle flying from his mouth. “Hye’s got a bunch of immortal fuckers. What use are you learning fighting for?!”

“Master Gawn,” a disciple said in a reverent tone, “please don’t drink at the school, it’s …”

“Screw off!” the old man said as he sidestepped the disciple, stomping off into the building.

Tai simply paused, the recent events still fresh in her mind.

Does that Governor have Travelers?

In a tavern filled with rambunctious chatter, Noam threw a dart, the projectile landing squarely in the center of the circle.

“Now you try,” he told Johnny, giving the last few darts to him.

Johnny felt the smooth surface of the dart, taking in the sharp, pointed tip of the object. Without a word, he raised his arm, trying to mimic Noam’s posture from moments ago. With his eyes on the target, Johnny threw the dart. It flew and landed in the outer ring.

“Aye, good first shot,” Noam said. “My first time, I didn’t even hit the target.”

“Really?” the child asked.

“Yeah, I was fucking bad at it,” he explained.

“You are better now,” Utoqa said from the side.

“Yeah, I know,” Noam replied. “It just takes a lotta practice is all.”

“Are you good at throwing darts?” Johnny asked Utoqa.

The lizardfolk paused for a moment, taking a spare dart on the counter. With a smooth and deadly precise throw, Utoqa landed the dart right in the center, right next to Noam’s.

A smile crept on Noam’s face as he picked up another dart. “That a challenge?”

“No,” Utoqa replied.

“Let’s make it one, then.” Noam laughed as he threw the next dart. It slammed easily in the center, but before Noam could whoop, a voice interrupted them.

“Are you the people from the Hearth Church?”

The three of them turned to see a group of people wearing armor and carrying weapons.

The tavern had turned silent.

“I mean, look at him, green lizard, purple tiefling, and that’s the kid we need,” another replied to the person.

“Hand over the kid, then,” said a man in attire Noam recognized as distinctly Eastern. Earth Eastern. The man even had a katana on his belt.

“Why should we? Acquiescing to a kidnapping in broad daylight isn’t my style,” Noam replied, glancing at Utoqa, his eyes then moving to Johnny.

“Fucking hell, just let us get this fetch quest done with,” one of them muttered.

“Wait, I have high Charisma. I can still convince them,” a woman in mage’s robes said before continuing. “This isn’t a kidnapping. Don’t you know there’s a problem with the Hearth Church? It’s not safe for a kid there. We just wanted to tell you that.”

Noam raised his hand to cover his mouth as he had a sudden coughing fit. “Do you think we’re idiots? Saying that right in front of—”

Noam dashed forward with unnatural speed, punching one of them and knocking him down. At the same moment, Utoqa grabbed Johnny by the shoulder, leaping over tables and chairs as he ran away.

“Get the lizard—” the large man’s voice ended in a gurgle as Noam stabbed Celigarn into his neck.

“Blood!” the dagger cried in ecstasy.

“Oh, shut up!” Noam yelled at his dagger as he dropped it, a beat that sounded oddly like the cough he had just had emanating from him. As the person under him bled to death, he drew his hook swords, and the Travelers around him did the same. Utoqa was behind Noam, running deeper into the tavern.

“That lizard is going in the wrong direction,” the woman said, raising a wand. “We can catch him later.”

Utoqa stopped by a wall, drawing his axe, Gift, and he chopped at the wooden wall twice, allowing outside light to flood in before he ran through the hole with Johnny in tow.

“Travelers, arencha?” Noam asked casually. “Don’t you think there are better jobs to be done than this?”

Even with his casual appearance, he was swiftly taking in his enemies. The man with the katana who he was just going to call Katana Dude, the self-proclaimed high-Charisma woman with a wand, the man with a hood and daggers who had complained about fetch quests, and finally, the large, unarmed corpse who was already fading to light.

“Next time, I’m talking,” the woman said.

“No, no,” Noam said. “You sounded just as stupid as the other two.”

The woman was instantly set alight. Noam dodged two thrown daggers as Katana Dude parried his sword. With a kick, Noam leapt off of him, avoiding the dagger slash from the hooded figure behind him as he somersaulted over them. Noam had set up Beatbox Inspiration with the fake cough, greatly increasing his Agility. He had activated Breathless as well, since he figured three-on-one was rather fair. Right now, they could barely keep up with his speed.

He slashed at the hooded man from behind, but his blade only bit into wood as a chair was substituted, leaving the hood behind. By a far-off table, the rogue, now revealed in leather armor, was already throwing his daggers towards him. The mage had finally extinguished herself with a water spell and quickly raised her wand towards Noam, while Katana suddenly sheathed his sword and entered a pose any anime watcher would know.

The woman’s spell hit first. “Chains of—”

“Self-Infliction!” Noam OttoCorrected as the chains misfired and trapped the caster, just as Katana Dude drew his sword. He appeared right behind where Noam was, and everything from tables, chairs, and mugs were sliced in half. Turning his head, he couldn’t find where Noam was until he heard a scream.

Noam had dodged down in that crucial moment, grabbing Celigarn from the floor and throwing it right into the mage’s throat.

“Ah! A woman’s wet and moist—”

“I said, shut up, Celigarn!” Noam’s yell allowed both to quickly identify his position, but just then, he leapt down from the ceiling, spitting at the spot where the rogue was. Wood greeted him again as the rogue quickly substituted himself with another chair. This time, the chair was left with the leather armor of the rogue as it burned to a crisp from his Spitfire. Seeing the rogue only had normal clothes left, Noam said, “Please don’t use that again. No one wants to see your shriveled dick.”

Anger flashed across the rogue’s face, but it quickly disappeared, as he pulled a string of psychedelic words from his head that quickly went alight in flame.

“He has a mental attack!”

Noam tsked internally, Resisted!

The rogue was too slippery, so he had to target Katana Dude. As he rushed them, he cast several firebolts as cover fire. Katana Dude sheathed his sword, preparing to do the anime attack again, while the rogue slipped to the side throwing daggers to stop the firebolts.

Noam’s hook swords and Katana Dude’s katana drew closer to each other as both of them prepared to attack.

The quick dash of Katana Dude’s draw sword had a far longer range than Noam’s hook swords. He began to draw, but at that moment, Noam linked his hook swords. With both of his swords connected, his range was extended enough that Noam’s blade reached first. Like a great halberd, Noam’s blade decapitated his enemy.

But as the body fell to the ground, he realized something. In that short moment, as the liberated head was falling to the ground, Noam realized it wasn’t Katana Dude’s head after all. Where the rogue once stood was Katana Dude, now wearing the rogue’s last layer of clothing over his robes.

The katana was drawn.

Noam raised his blades to block, tongue moving to insult himself and activate I’m Lit, but the words died in his mouth as Katana Dude appeared behind him.

“Nothing personal.”

Noam’s hook swords were slashed in half as his head went flying. Panting, Katana Dude sheathed his sword as he picked up the dagger on the ground, hand tapping the air as he messaged someone.

Yone: Grab everyone from the guild. This questline is more difficult than expected. This one guy almost solo’d us. The lizard is on the run.

As he glanced at Noam’s corpse, he realized it was dissipating into soft light. Cursing, he added one more message.

Yone: That guy was a player, this quest has PVP, and they might be higher-leveled than us.

Utoqa dashed through the city, cradling Johnny in his arms.

“Who were they?!” Johnny yelled.

“I do not know,” Utoqa simply told him. “Stay silent. We are being hunted.”

And he stopped in his tracks as he sniffed the air. “Noam has fallen.”

Johnny looked utterly shocked. “He’s … he’s dead?”

Utoqa could not recognize the expression on Johnny’s face, so he simply answered, “It should not kill him.”

Suddenly, he heard something being whispered to him. I saw Noam’s doll die! What happened? Celine’s voice echoed in his ear.

“We encountered hunters,” Utoqa said to the air. “They sought the young one, Noam fought, I—”

He paused, head jerking to the side like prey sighting its hunter. “They have caught up to us.”

He emotionlessly drew his tomahawk, Gift, leaving only one hand to carry Johnny. Then he leapt. Gift bit into stone as he climbed the building next to him and made it swiftly to the roof. Their attackers were encircling them.

He pulled Johnny’s arms around his neck, legs around his waist. “Hold on.” And Utoqa jumped.

His legs slammed into the cobblestoned walk, cracking it slightly as he ran off. Gift swiftly decapitated the first enemy in his path, but a wall of fire soon rose, blocking his way. Not at all discouraged, Utoqa turned to the house beside him, climbing it quickly and leaping over the flaming wall as projectiles slammed into the ground behind him. The flaming wall went down as a numerous amount of attackers began chasing him. Utoqa reached into his pockets, throwing out half-a-dozen web balls that exploded into thousands of baby spiders. Screams swiftly followed.

As Utoqa fled, Noam respawned, both his weapons broken as he began trading blows with the respawned rogue he had just killed.

Dustin and Celine were busily hurrying to the scene. Celine muttered to the doll of Utoqa and Tai, directing both to a meet-up point.

As Utoqa dodged attacks, he threw out scavenged trinkets that bought him seconds and moments of time as he fled through the city, until in front of him stood an unarmed man—the person Noam had first killed. Spotting him, the man yelled, “See my Path, the way of Hospitality! Be my Honored Guest!” A golden energy field slammed down around them. It was in the crude shape of a house, squarish with a triangle on top. Utoqa rushed to kill him, just as the man began using martial arts.

“Harden Hide! Ability Boost! Bear’s Endurance! Body Strengthening! Fortress Stance!”

As the flow of aura erupted within the man, Utoqa’s Gift slammed into his neck, biting blood but not biting deep.

“Heavy Blow!” The monk’s palm slammed into Utoqa’s outstretched arm, forcing the blade out as Utoqa leapt back, skidding to the barrier.

Utoqa tested the barrier, finding it ripple when he chopped at it but not bend or break. “Get off,” he told Johnny. He could not fight while Johnny was on his chest.

The monk wasn’t actively attacking him, so he recognized it for what it was: a stalling tactic while the rest of them caught up.

“I didn’t get my skills out quick enough, so I died first, but you’ll find me, the World, the hardest to kill of the Scarlet Samsara Guild!”

“I have never heard that name,” Utoqa said. It was not an insult, for he didn’t fully understand the concept of insulting someone. He neither had the emotions of hate nor knew how to utilize it in others. He was simply stating a fact. So he rushed down the monk called World.

The World was quick, far quicker than someone of his size might suggest, but Utoqa was used to hunting large and swift game. Blood sprayed from a dozen different cuts, Gift dancing and slashing at the skin like a bee flying from flower to flower. They were superficial cuts, Utoqa knew, but great beasts were not felled in battle but in starvation. Punches answered him, slammed into hard scales but still doing damage as he was pushed back slightly with every blow. However, the World was not the only tough beast in this arena.

They forced each other back, circling each other carefully until Utoqa once again went on the offensive. His wild chop was met by the hardened skin of the monk’s arm, but what he didn’t expect were the claws that slashed towards his face. The World caught the blow in his forehead, just managing to save his eyes, but it was enough as blood from the wound blinded him for a moment. Utoqa opened his jaw and snapped at the World’s neck, his serrated teeth biting into the man’s flesh.

It wasn’t a deep wound, Utoqa knew, but there was a pause, a hesitation born from inexperience and shock. A Traveler may have known how to fight, but few knew such pain. That hesitation cost him, as Utoqa grabbed onto his shoulders, and then, with a kick to the chest, Utoqa pushed himself off, tearing out bloody flesh as he fell back.

He chewed the strings of skin and fat for a bit before swallowing and walking to the now-weakened World, clutching desperately at his throat. Without concentration, all his defensive martial arts had come to an end. Utoqa stepped on him, holding him down as, with Gift, he carved open the man’s chest and pulled out his heart, putting the object in his pouch as he turned to the outside. As the World’s ability shattered, Utoqa knew the man had done his part.

They were surrounded.

“Fire Tornado!” A spell with a long chant was finished and cast onto Utoqa’s location, enveloping him in cataclysmic fire. When it dissipated, all that was left was a charred corpse which dispersed into pure light as Utoqa Survived the burns and flames, pulling himself out of the ashes and Traveler corpse he had used as a shield. He leapt to Johnny, grabbed the child by the collar, and tossed him over his back. His enemies were closing in on him, too great in number to count, yet he felt no fear as he pulled out two daggers made from a spider’s fangs out of his pouches. One of the daggers crumbled to powder as another Utoqa stood next to them. Both Utoqas quickly glanced at each other and together charged the encirclement. The Utoqa not carrying Johnny dashed around the original Utoqa, his own Gift slashing the projectiles out of the air as they ran, as all the while Utoqa Prime was fiddling with the heart of the Traveler he had ripped out. They swiftly reached the outer edge, enemy blades drawn and gathering to fight them, but Utoqa threw out the heart he had Scavenged. Instantly, a house-shaped barrier trapped the enemies in front, and the repli-Utoqa skidded to a halt as he held out his arms, using himself for a platform to throw Utoqa Prime over the house barrier.

“Chains of Haider!”

But the moment Utoqa Prime landed on the ground, the mage Noam had killed earlier finally reached them, casting the spell she was denied before. Utoqa was chained to the ground as enemies closed in. He took out the final spider-fang dagger, putting it in Johnny’s hands as he brought his arm back and threw him into the air. The dagger crumbled to dust in midair as another Utoqa appeared and landed on the roof, skidding to a halt as he ran off, not even looking at Utoqa Prime.

Lizardfolk did not have emotions in the same way a human did. They did not feel joy, anger, sadness, or hate. At a glance, they seemed only concerned with survival. But they still held parental instincts, for the continuance of a species and tribe was necessary for survival.

Utoqa Prime cut through his chains as the first repli-Utoqa joined him, and both descended onto the surrounding players.

Now it was their job to hold them back.

2.03

“… For the pursuit of progress supersedes all consideration.”

—The Mad Mage Khao

The sound of panic and shouts rang around Noam as he sat on the Traveler rogue.

“So …” he said languidly, turning the man over. Noam’s weapons were gone or broken, but he was in no way harmless. The rogue’s face lay bruised and broken, Noam’s own knuckles scratched and bleeding slightly. The Summer’s staff was itself covered in blood.

“Let’s begin with names,” Noam continued.

The rogue spat at him. He did not react, simply staring down at this person he had pinned. The spit slowly slid off his face, and with the same lazy motion, Noam began caressing the rogue’s hands.

“You seem to have a bit of arthritis in your joints,” Noam told him as he held his hands. “Is that why you’re in such a bad mood? Simple introductions aren’t hard. I’m Noam. See? It’s that easy.”

“Fuck off and die,” the rogue snapped.

And Noam broke his finger. The rogue’s scream was drowned out by the sounds of the crowd dispersing.

“You have really bad arthritis,” Noam murmured, twisting the broken finger. “You really need a good chiropractor, and thankfully, I am one.”

Ignoring the man’s screams, Noam continued, “Twenty digits, four limbs, one neck, one spine. Two-hundred-and-six bones in the human body. A good chiropractor can help crack every single one of them just right. Although there are some horror stories of chiropractors killing their patients by cracking their spine the wrong way.”

“That’s my finger, you psycho!”

Noam broke another finger. The rogue screamed again, loudly and hoarsely. To make sure he was heard correctly, the tiefling leaned in very close to the rogue’s ear. “But don’t worry, my treatment will not kill you. You won’t die and you won’t respawn. You will stay here with me, for as long as I want you to.”

Sweat dripped down the rogue’s brow as he craned his neck to stare at Noam’s face.

Noam would do it.

The rogue saw it in his face and knew, as certain as the rising of the sun, that this man would sit here and slowly break every single one of his bones. And he would be alive for all of it. The fight dying in his eyes signaled to Noam that he’d won. The tiefling knew there was an unseen HP bar for Travelers that would automatically cause them to dissipate, not at bodily death, but at an amount of damage the Traveler couldn’t mentally take. That significantly limited his torture options, so he had to resort to scaring the shit out of him. Not to mention he’d been waiting to try the two-hundred-and-six bones quote since he saw it on a show several years ago.

“What is your name?” Noam asked now, innocently twirling one unbroken finger. The threat no longer spoken.

“… Yanis.”

And Noam smiled a large and friendly smile. “Now, who set you up for this?”

Noam (Mattmanfoo): Scarlet Samsara, hired by the Governor lady, wants to get the Hearth Church out for some reason. Numbers at least twenty people, guild from Yggdrasil. Levels around 3, with a few at 5 …

“Good job, Noam,” I muttered as I read through the walls of text he sent me. “We’re dealing with a small guild of enemies, twenty people,” I said, repeating the information to Celine.

“And they’re all Travelers?” she asked with a tremor in her voice.

“Likely,” I told her as we moved. “A Yggdrasil guild … I have some ideas. But currently we need to secure Johnny and an escape route. Tai is still moving to—”

“Utoqa’s taking damage again!” Celine interrupted.

I paused, both of us stalling in our run. Celine had started rapidly repairing Utoqa’s body; she would not be able to move quickly as she used her magic. My body was far too slow. I had no points in Agility and Dexterity. There were multiple problems that needed a response. If Utoqa was taking damage again, then that meant he had engaged in combat.

Noam (Mattmanfoo): Respawning

And he was successfully taking some out, but that meant they would only respawn where Noam was. Not to mention the Hearth Home—was it under attack as well? Multiple problems to solve: Johnny missing, Utoqa surrounded, enemies respawning, the Hearth Home undefended. We were too spread out, and we could not mount an effective response against any of these issues.

I decided to begin working down from the problems that could be ignored, at least for a while. The Hearth Home was a church to Lorn and Gwaina. It should have had divine protections of sorts similar to that of the Tilt Church. We had to rely on that to hold. Tai was still a distance away from where Utoqa last reported they were. I was slower, but I was also closer to him.

“Wisps, spread out in a wide detection net around me,” I commanded them. “Celine, inform Tai of our location, and have her move in with me to the area around Utoqa. Johnny or Utoqa, whoever we find first we’ll support and then assist the other.”

“And me?” she asked even as she rapidly began sewing Utoqa’s wounds.

“Hide, and continue long range support and communications.”

“Got it,” she replied as she moved away from me.

My final order went to Noam.

Dustin (HitZaDecs): Hold the Wayshard. Angry whale, crab cage.

“Easy for you to fucking say, you would do both far better than I would,” Noam murmured, though his mouth split into a wider and wider grin.

He was surrounded. All remaining citizens had fled, letting the city guard enter. Meanwhile, a few Travelers were respawning behind him, proof of Utoqa’s work. Bless that extremely efficient gecko.

“I have a hostage!” Noam yelled, holding the broken edge of his hook swords to Yanis’ neck.

“Yanis is a Traveler!” one of the Travelers yelled. “He’ll be fine!”

The guards nodded and began pushing in, drawing wands as they did so. Noam tsked and stabbed the rogue in the neck, killing him as he stood up. He glanced at the two broken hook swords in his hands. “I really fucking liked these, you know?”

Without the slightest hesitation, he slammed the remaining blades together, hacking at each other until they had been shortened into stumps, leaving only the hilt and crescent guard, two crescent bladed knuckle-dusters. With his impromptu weapon, Noam shifted into a boxer’s stance, muttering to himself, “You’re Mattmanfoo, inventor of gun-juggling and slayer of Vek’Na …”

Wands raised, the guards began firing stored magic at him.

“If you cannot beat a mere thirty enemies, what good are you?” he asked himself, and then he exploded in magical fire.

Breathless, Beatbox Inspiration, and I’m Lit all activated consecutively. The world slowed. As a firebolt flew directly at his head, Noam simply reached out and backhanded it. The heat of the firebolt paled in comparison to the fire burning him now.

The guards paused.

Noam smiled. “You might want to call for more people.”

Avoid the crazy man on fire. Call for more backup, wait out his buffs, secure the Wayshard, all reasonable things to do.

But he couldn't make it obvious that that was what he desired, so he rushed the Travelers closest to him, moving in a blur as a flame-empowered fist decapitated him before anyone else could react.

“He’s a Traveler!” someone yelled. “We have to disable him!”

Call them all here, let Dustin and the rest of the Toys reposition. With Catch These Hands, I’m the distraction—bait and trap all in one.

Utoqa killed another Traveler.

He kept moving. In every environment, there was a way to Survive. Utoqa knew of crocodiles, large and placid things, slow and still until the hunt began. He had hunted and consumed jaguars, who hunted with massive bursts of speed, taking down a single prey before stopping to eat. Utoqa could be neither. His enemies were many, and he had to hunt them all. In this battlefield, stillness was death. They had lost track of which was the real one between him and his duplicate. Both moved and struck with the same deadly efficiency, yet Utoqa could see his copy slowing at the barrage of attacks. Both were skilled enough to avoid truly-lethal blows. Yet, the smaller attacks were wearing the repli-Utoqa down. Utoqa’s own wounds disappeared as quickly as they came, sown and Stitched.

That redoubled their focus on the duplicate, and consequently, lowered their focus on Utoqa. So he leapt, slamming down and cracking the tiles beneath him as he rushed and hacked at the soft, weak mages.

Defensive spells flew.

Blood stained the street.

Most of it dissipated into light, as Traveler bodies did, but as Utoqa began licking his lips, tasting the blood left, and Scavenging parts, he had claimed enough that some remained on the streets. There wasn’t enough time to Scavenge something useful. Utoqa saw his copy die. Apparently they didn’t have use of Survive, so a killing blow was a killing blow. So he simply began jamming and linking the bloodied guts and bodies of the mage Travelers together. There was mana there, but he didn’t have the time to find a specific spell amongst the mess.

So he simply set it all to explode.

The shower of gore bought him another precious moment as he began considering escape. Johnny was in the hands of his duplicate. The prey here was disoriented enough. The hunt had gone well. He had fulfilled his job. At the snapping of a string, Utoqa spun around … too slowly, as he caught sight of the crossbow bolt slamming into his chest.

He smelled blood and poison as he ripped the bolt out and dodged to cover. His first duplicate was dead. Now, all attention was on him. Chains grappled him but Utoqa severed them with Gift as quickly as they could come. A twitch of movement from behind, and he twisted out of the war hammer aiming for his head by mere centimeters. But the third blow from below could not be stopped as it stabbed into his abdomen.

The rogue tried to retreat but found she could not pull her dagger out of Utoqa. She strayed a single moment too long as he clawed at her, drawing five bloody lines across her face. At the same time, Gift rose behind him to parry the war hammer blow, sending it careening into the ground. He twisted the tomahawk and beheaded the man behind him as he rose and kicked the rogue in her stomach.

Utoqa’s body was weakening, but he had no option to address the poison other than Celine and relying on his constitution. As a second bolt flew, Utoqa slashed with Gift, cutting the projectile in two. More Travelers closed in.

They were shouting something. “… Overleveled … Area boss …” Neither term he understood, so he put them out of his mind as he dashed backward. He needed to retreat. He had two more uses of Survive. It would have to be enough. He ran.

Spells and projectiles flew behind him, but he could sense their coming, dodging them as if he had eyes in the back of his head. The more physical Travelers gave chase, creating distance from the spellcasters as they did so.

A fatal flaw.

Utoqa leapt on rooftops, disappearing into alleyways. The city was but a jungle of stone, and without a child slowing him down, none could track him as he vanished around a corner as easily as he would do in a tropical swamp, looping around until he reached the mages again, separated from their physical and melee fighters. He fell from above, Gift raised, bisecting a man from head to crotch as he landed. Surprise, a few seconds of stillness as his prey began casting their slow spells. Two corpses flew, their upper torsos completely removed from the rest of their bodies. An attack spell struck him, but with his tough hide and Celine’s support, he truly could ignore most low-level spells thrown at him.

He heard the sound of sliding steel, as someone drew their sword. Utoqa dodged out of the way, but his opponent wasn’t aiming for any vitals. His axe arm went flying, still gripping Gift. Celine reacted quickly, ethereal strings appearing and linking the severed halves. She would not be fast enough, as Yone turned around and drew his sword again.

The Traveler swordsman appeared directly behind him, their backs almost touching as Utoqa’s head went flying. “You had a good run for being out—”

Yone didn’t finish his sentence, as Utoqa Survived the beheading, a new head regenerating itself as soon as the last disappeared. The lizardfolk pivoted, freshly grown jaws clamping around Yone’s face like a vice. With a simple twist, he broke the Traveler’s neck.

Utoqa’s old head landed on the ground.

Another bolt stabbed into his back. As with the last two, he couldn’t tell where it came from. He raised the Traveler corpse like a shield just as Celine finished stitching his arm back together. Two more casters were around him, one vainly trying to heal the corpse in his hand, the other casting Fireball. The flames engulfed all of them—a suicide attack, one that utterly devastated everything nearby. Yet as the flames and heat cleared, the charred, ashen corpses cracked and disappeared into light. There was still a figure standing. Burned, charred and covered in dozens of wounds, Utoqa had Survived the fireball. He had spent all his uses of the Path, yet still he raised his weapons to meet the oncoming Travelers head-on. But the Travelers stopped in their steps.

Utoqa did not know fear, but he knew caution. He knew calculated and measured caution, and he knew caution programmed into the very bones of a creature. Both were rational things, and he saw the latter in the Travelers before him. They demonstrated the same caution one may hold when they witness the brutality of a grown bear fighting for its territory, the systematic gore as a vulture went about its meal … There was a hunter here, and he was the one alone.

However, caution masked one simple truth. Utoqa was spent. Though his body might have yet continued, he held only two Scavenged creations, a tongue and a finger. All uses of Survive had been spent. The next time he was killed, it would stick. That was why, for the first time, Utoqa opened his jaws and growled. He howled like an animal, roaring as he flexed his body.

For the sin of the weak was appearing as such.

Then, a constant tapping sound came—the strikes of a staff on cobblestone. At that moment, a black, purplish mushroom was thrown in the midst of the Travelers. Dustin had arrived, and Purple exploded in Rot Spores.

I flooded the streets with poison spores. Greenie directed my hand, and together we created a cover and attack as I stepped to Utoqa’s side.

“Start moving, I’ll cover you,” I told him.

The lizardfolk nodded. Practically naked, as everything he wore had been blown off and destroyed, Utoqa was covered in numerous hastily stitched and healed wounds. “How does he still stand?” Lime and Yellow asked as they climbed onto him, one mending his wounds and the other acting as a second pair of eyes.

“Find Johnny. You’re the only one with good-enough tracking skills,” I yelled as he ran.

Utoqa held a thumbs-up, and I turned to take on his enemies. I remained outnumbered and had to spend all my mana to create the cover. Purple had taken some of them out and was now returning to me in its wisp form. Unfortunately the lethality of Rot Spores meant their body was one-use. I could not wait long enough for my mana to regenerate. The poison spores were already clearing, and the screams and coughs were being healed away by light. Perhaps I was not as suited for this as Utoqa, for Utoqa had more instant-kill options, while I killed slowly—slow enough for healers to undo my work. Still, I could not run.

Tapping my staff in a circle around me, I quickly grew a circle of blank Sporages. No spells. I didn’t have the mana for that. Leaving me at the center, I used my new skill for the first time. “Fairy Circle.”

A ripple of power came as the circle of mushrooms lit up. Around me, various scenes flashed by in a single moment. I could link the area to Arcadia, the mental dimension in which I had battled the Accumulation, and surprisingly, Gaia, though that was a bit further. I sensed dozens more different planes, but those three were the ones I could recognize quickly enough. There was also a lag as the Circle connected to another plane, so I opted for the closest. “Arcadia.”

Within my circle, the world turned strange as Arcadia overlapped with reality. Colors churned and writhed like living things, and wisps seeped out of the cracks in the ground. Misty, almost ethereal Fae creatures turned and stared at me from their plane.

“Step into my circle, and you die,” I lied. My Fairy Circle had no such effect, however the skill looked impressive enough. It was a bad habit of gamers to associate special effects with skill strength. A pause. I could not see my opponents. The Scales were still the secret I Kept, but I could see theirs stopping before me, just as Greenie relayed the same information. The swap wasn’t coming in time, even by maintaining constant concentration as I ran here. My brow frowned in frustration; the utility of Keep was completely useless when I was caught off-guard with the wrong secret.

Something fell into my Fairy Circle and I completely froze.

Rotted body, covered in poison spores. Clothing appeared agrarian, though heavily degraded from my spells. Broken fingernails suggested they died clawing the wall in pain.

It was a civilian.

The wisps didn’t mention it, of course. I didn’t teach any of them morality. Neither did Utoqa. He intellectually knew what human morality was, though he didn’t understand it. Neither did those players, because it was just a dead NPC. I didn’t even register the screams; it was a common-enough reaction to my spells.

But I had just killed someone.

Utoqa followed the scent, tracking the second repli-Utoqa through the city. He acknowledged without a hint of pride that he was skilled. Yet, he grew increasingly cautious as he began to smell blood. There, splayed across the wall, was the repli-Utoqa who had escorted Johnny, his body ripped apart as if drawn and quartered by several horses, or perhaps, by something with many hands. That moment spent examining the bloody mural was all the opportunity the unseen assailant needed, as another crossbow bolt shot into him. Utoqa turned, directly ignoring the arrow sticking out of his back, and finally caught sight of the sniper.

Utoqa fell to his knees as blood spurted out of his body. Lime kept trying to heal the wound, but there was something wrong with it. Even though the bolt hadn’t moved, the puncture hole just kept growing larger. His body refused his commands.

The sniper landed deftly in front of him, just out of Utoqa’s range. “I finally hit you with my third shot …” the Traveler muttered.

“I can’t heal Utoqa!” Celine yelled through her dolls, shaking Dustin out of his stupor.

“He’s been taken down,” she continued urgently. “Dustin, what do I do?”

Dustin opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came. I don’t know. Useless questions flashed across his mind. Could I have prevented civilian casualties? Curse my shortsightedness! I shouldn’t have fought in a city. It was always too populated. How was Utoqa taken out?

It was Noam who answered. “Tell Utoqa to repeat after me …”

As the sniper carefully closed in, crossbow trained on Utoqa, he muttered.

“Fucking casuals you are, can’t even face me one-on-one …”

The Traveler paused, before typing in a chat room.

Mist: The lizard is a Traveler as well, do we take ’em?

The World: Fuck, really!? Knock them out and take them. Make sure they don’t die. If he respawns we’re really fucked.

The World: Same meetup. We’re gonna try to knock out that tiefling as well …

“Utoqa wasn’t killed.” Celine breathed a sigh of relief.

Dustin barely acknowledged that. Everyone dies, he thought. What’s so special about this?

The only difference is that you killed him, rather than the World, he accused himself. But he had to keep on going, so he tossed the matter into a distant corner of his mind, before asking, “Status on Tai?”

“She’s found Johnny.”

“Good, tell them both to get out,” Dustin said.

“Noam is asking what he should do.”

He furrowed his brow. “Tell him to get caught, see if he’s locked up in the same place as Utoqa.”

Noam had kept the respawning Travelers off them, but that mission was now getting lower returns as their primary objectives were being completed. Yellow and Lime were with Utoqa, and with Celine’s doll that should be enough to track him down and save him, but Dustin needed Noam as an additional safety net. If the two weren’t locked together, then Noam was capable of killing himself to respawn. Casting Misty Step, Dustin escaped the standoff, the Fairy Circle collapsing as he left.

Every muscle in Noam’s body screamed. Even though he needed no oxygen, he felt the desperate need to pant. His impromptu knuckle-dusters were covered in blood, as was the entire square surrounding the Wayshard. He still had Catch These Hands in reserve, and with it activated, he could turn the tides.

Instead, he let a blow to the head knock him out.

2.04

One hundred and fifty-three. Don’t ask for immortality from the Merchant of Lies. Getting petrified as a golden statue isn’t as fun as it sounds. Actually, forget that. Yoseph, I have an idea to pay you back.”

—Elliot’s Enchiridion of Encounters

Johnny Joymoon feared silence.

The world that was too quiet was terrifying, the trees gone still, the animals hiding. As if winter had come early. But the silence Johnny feared was not that stillness, not the world without life. It was the world where one thing ruled supreme and stole all other life—stole their breath, stole their memory. Stole his family.

Johnny was a child without a past; it had been taken from him. As he lay shivering in the broken stones of that shattered tower, a piece of chalk still clutched tightly in his fingers, he knew the thing he feared was dead. But who was he?

In that span of time that seemed to stretch on forever, he started seeing them again. Corpses, so many corpses. Standing in the shadows, watching him, asking him, begging him to answer. Do you remember me, child of sorrow?

Johnny did, so that thing of many hands writhed unbridled as it grasped and ripped and tore at the world around him.

It killed Utoqa.

He saw the blood drip, those reptilian eyes staring at him unblinking as he struggled but eventually ripped apart. Did it kill the replicated Utoqa or was that the original? Johnny didn’t know, he couldn’t tell for the mess of blood and gore was so real.

And the hands began to reach out, grasping, finding a target. It ripped at the corpses. There was screaming. Horrible screaming. It lashed out blindly, and two men were decimated. Were they corpses or people? Johnny could not tell, for both seemed so real to him. Was the blood from the ghosts or from the people around him? So, he ran.

The ghosts’ hands reached for him. Surrounding him, covering him as he fled. Johnny tripped, yet he got up. He had to, otherwise more would die. More would die as he only watched. He didn’t know when he collapsed. Only that he couldn’t run anymore. He curled there, hiding as those horrible, horrible hands draped themselves around him. Then, in his own hands, he found that doll again. It was always there. He knew instinctively that he could never get rid of it, never throw it away. Johnny only raised his head when he heard footsteps.

“Oh! I found him, Mr. Peterson!” exclaimed a cheerful voice.

The lady who stepped into the alley peered through the darkness. She had pale white skin and wore a well-washed apron, her brown hair tied back in a sensible bun. A leather eye patch covered one eye, and the other was a dot of brownish black. The other man wore a leather worker’s smock, squinting into the black of the alleyway.

“Go away!” Johnny threw out his arm, as if trying to swat them away. “Go away!”

“Mel, it ain’t looking too good,” the man said with a thick accent.

“It’s alright.” Mel, the lady, took a step forward.

“Don’t come near me!” Johnny yelled. “It’ll hurt you!”

The ghost tree moved, each of its hands springing like a coiled serpent.

And the lady waved at it. “Hello, I’m Melinda Myers, local doctor.”

The arms grabbed her, holding her face and neck, invisible hands pushing deep imprints into her skin.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” she spoke calmly and gently, a smile plastered on her face. “I just want to help him.”

The nails dug in, drawing blood, a red stream that flowed down her face. Yet her kind smile did not waver. The hands withdrew.

“How …” Johnny choked out. “How did you …”

Melinda put her hands to her hips. “Well, you just need to talk to him. He’s deathly worried about you.” A slight chuckle escaped her lips. She knelt down beside him, a hand extended. “Well?” she asked. “I wasn’t lying, I want to help you.”

“Why?” he croaked out.

“You look like you need more good things in your life,” she told him. “Everyone does, but you look like you need it more in particular.”

Johnny almost reached for it then, but his hand shied away. “No … I heard the screams. I know what the ghost did. People are dead because of me.” He crawled back into the cage of ghostly hands. “I don’t deserve good things.”

Melinda’s hand reached in and grasped his own. “You don’t get a say in the matter.” She chuckled. “Good things will happen to you, if not thanks to me, then it’ll be someone else. It is inevitable.” She pulled him up, before whispering into his ear, “Let me tell you a secret. A big secret. Things will be bad, but then they’ll be good.” She ruffled his hair. “Remember that, but keep it secret! It’s not supposed to be known. If so, it’d be too easy for everyone.”

Melinda led him, and Johnny followed. For a moment, it felt better. The ghost creature, suddenly not as threatening, the doll of the Weeping Child, suddenly not as creepy. “But if it’s a secret, why do I get to know?”

She winked. “Because you need something to look forward to. That’s why you get to find out. That’s how we all find out.”

And they left that alleyway. It was only afterwards that Johnny realized the man—Mr. Peterson—was a ghost. He peeked through a wall, signaling them to hide as a few adventurers passed by. With the help of Mr. Peterson, they managed to sneak silently through the town, avoiding adventurers, until Johnny eventually spotted someone.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Tai!”

Tai turned and saw them, and she jogged towards them. “Johnny!”

Tai passed through Mr. Peterson, completely unaware he was there, before she placed her hand on her sword hilt. “Talk,” she demanded. “Who are you, and why should I not cut you down immediately?”

Melinda glanced at the blade.

“Because, lady—” Johnny jumped as another ghost suddenly stepped through the brickwork. “—you are lacking allies in this city, and I wish to help.”

“Because, lady—” Melinda repeated in an exaggerated imitation of the slightly ominous voice of the new ghost. “—you are lacking allies in this city, and I wish to help.”

Tai narrowed her eyes. “Can I trust her, Jojo?”

“She helped me,” he replied simply.

“Lead the way, then,” she directed, gesturing at Melinda.

Melinda smiled, nodding as she walked with almost a skip in her step. She almost felt too cheerful. Noam was cheerful but in an asshole sort of way. Melinda felt … sunny.

Her home was nondescript. Johnny might have missed it.

Had it not been surrounded by ghosts. A veritable crowd of them stood around her home, greeting and waving at her. She returned the favor, which drew strange looks from Tai. Johnny quietly mouthed, “She’s like me.” She nodded in understanding.

The second strange thing about her house was that it was filled with corpses.

There was a squelching sound as Melinda cut open a body. Tai was more-than-used to the sight of blood, however the operation still made her slightly squeamish. Cutting someone open in the middle of a fight was very different than on an operating table.

“I’m almost done with your autopsy, Mr. Peterson. It was the pancreas after all,” Melinda spoke to the ghost, which Johnny told her was around. The woman always seemed to have an upbeat, cheerful tone, even humming a tune as she went about her work, which was giving Tai serious whiplash, knowing now that she was a mortician.

Well, at least she enjoyed her work.

There was a pushing feeling as Celine established the connection. Her magic was technically a curse. However, it was a curse in the same way a vegetable knife was a sword. Both blades cut, but each was built for a completely different purpose.

“Are we all here?” Dustin said over the connection.

“Ayo,” Noam replied. His voice was a whisper, and Tai felt another push as Celine squished their dolls closer together. Once she had their dolls, Celine only had to push them uncomfortably close together. A sound had to be really close to the dolls for them to hear it. There was a small pressure, but it wasn’t like the force was amplified. It just felt like a cloth doll was mashed against her skin.

“Update on everyone’s status?” Dustin asked. “Currently, Celine and I are at the Hearth Church. I’ve set up an initial defensive perimeter.”

“I’m with Johnny. We’re with the stranger, currently hiding at her place,” she reported.

“Utoqa’s with me. We got tossed in neighboring cages. I’m spent on mana, and Utoqa is still wounded,” Noam replied.

“I’m trying to fix whatever it is that did this,” Celine replied. “But it isn’t taking. Every time I fix the wound, Utoqa gets pricked three more times and a larger wound appears.”

“Tracks,” Noam agreed. “A crossbow dude is stabbing him with a bolt three times whenever it looks like he’s recovered.”

“He has some kind of bonus on his third crossbow strike,” Dustin muttered. “Not just with crossbows? Seems like it must be on the same target.”

“Why so?” Tai asked.

“If it can be stacked with different targets, then they would be stacking them on dummies and unleashing the third more-deadly shot on actual targets,” Dustin replied.

“Just to be clear, by ‘dummies,’ he means carrying around small animals which you torture,” Noam replied.

“Gee, you didn’t have to say that part out loud,” Dustin replied drily. “Noam, any idea of where you are?”

“Dark, stone bricks, kinda musty.” Tai felt Noam’s doll shrug beside her. “Unfortunately, I was knocked out for real. So, no idea on the way here.”

“A castle or dungeon of some sort. Can you escape?” Dustin asked.

“By myself? Probably. At least I can suicide if I must, but Utoqa’s a different problem.”

“A concerted rescue effort is needed then. We’ll—” Dustin suddenly paused.

“Do you see them?” Celine asked.

“Yellow does,” Dustin replied.

“See what?” Noam asked.

“A contingent of combatants have arrived. Several match the description of the Travelers we’ve engaged with. The city guard as well,” Dustin reported. From the feeling of his doll, it seemed like he had stood up at that point.

Tai jumped up as well, hands grabbing her blade. “Should I come?”

“You are too far away. Noam, gather more information about your prison. Tai, keep Johnny safe and figure out if that lady can assist us,” Dustin quickly shot off. “Our position is fortified. We will not be taken easily, even against Travelers. However, we should in general avoid any such conflict.”

“Why?” Celine asked.

It was Tai who answered. “Immortal Wars.” She had heard about them from her grandmother, who was old enough to be alive when gems and diamonds were a lot more common. The why of the conflict didn’t matter when resurrection magic was in play, the greatest combatants would be constantly brought back to continue fighting.

“Indeed, our builds are suited for being outnumbered, but when both sides can respawn, it’ll just drag on and escalate.” Dustin’s voice became fainter. “Sister Glascoin, what do you plan to do …”

Celine was speaking as well, but her voice was also growing fainter, until neither of them could be heard. The communication had ended. Tai was still gripping her sword, holding it so tightly her hand almost bled. Once again she couldn’t do anything.

“Hello!” Melinda’s cheerful voice called out. Tai raised an eyebrow at her, to which the mortician smiled and held out a tray of snacks. “Don’t worry, I washed my hands before preparing tea.”

We weren’t surrounded, at least. They were also bunched together, which was a good sign. I could theoretically take them all out with a single Rot Spore. Sister Glascoin walked out first, meeting them on the grass, and I followed behind her. Celine stayed back. She wasn’t durable, nor was she any good in a direct-combat scenario. Sister Glascoin, as far as I could tell, was a pure priest, no combat capability. If it turned into a fight, I would be alone.

“Governor Hye,” Sister Glascoin greeted the woman in the lead. “What brings you here?”

“It has been a while since our previous meeting.” The woman was older, dark-haired, and light-skinned. Her eyes were sharp, as if considering us—more importantly, analyzing me. “I have come to discuss the child-care regulations of the Hearth faith. It has dropped considerably in quality. I’m not sure if you are legally allowed to continue on with your work in this current state.”

Glascoin was shaking. She hid it well, but she was next to me, and my manasense picked up such things. “What would you have me do?”

“Raise the standards,” Hye replied simply, handing her a list on paper. “Previous incidents have shown that you require an emergency fund, as well as have insurance. The Hearth Church here does not respond well to crisis. That is a truth that must be rectified. If the Hearth cannot care for itself, who can trust it to care for children?”

She was civil, calm, and collected, as if she were merely an inspector pointing out some safety problems. I would’ve been more inclined to accept the act if she hadn’t shown up with ten armed guards. A fight would be difficult. At the back was the Katana Man that Noam and Utoqa had faced. If Noam’s description was correct, we were already within his range. There was a low chance I could survive his attack, but Glascoin was a different story. If I attacked first instead, we had long lost any Initiative. They were slowly but noticeably spacing themselves out. My AOE attacks would have less effect. If it came down to a fight, there was almost no chance of success. Hye had yet to acknowledge me, despite the fact that her bodyguards had fought me not long ago. Why was she being this civil?

“Hearth bless me.” Glascoin’s voice shook as she read the list.

Realization came swiftly. The Hearth was of Lorn and Gwaina, the leaders of the Elder Pantheon. They were old Gods, declining Gods, weakening Gods, but still Gods, and who knew what would happen if you attacked their priest in front of their house?

“It will be difficult to meet all the regulations, but I can manage it,” Glascoin replied as she handed the paper back.

To which Hye waved her hand away. “Keep it as a reference. I do hope you succeed. A lot of people are relying on you.”

She turned to walk away. Was that it? I didn’t obtain nearly enough information from this encounter. The Hearth remains a safe zone, as I already knew from Tilt’s church. This shakedown barely revealed any of her intentions, nor did I gain any more knowledge on combat capability.

I drummed my staff. Should I go for it? A fight was out of the question; even with home-ground advantage, it would be an immense slog and the victor would not be clear. I was essentially a mass chemical weapon. The collateral damage I could cause was enormous. Did I dare incite conflict so close? As her bodyguards turned away, I made my decision. “Earlier today there were some signs of fighting in the city.”

A pause.

“Some ruffian mercenaries entered the city. It is what should have been expected,” Hye replied.

Still so indirect? Was she afraid of fighting me, or the Hearth behind me? If Noam was here, he would’ve called her out by now. That would’ve made things simpler. Maybe not easier but definitely simpler. Still, there were far too many things to consider. I couldn’t take the brash approach—

“Gah! All this is stupid. Let’s just fight here and see who wins!” a man yelled out. I didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t one of the adventurers I’d already encountered. My first thought was that he was a monk, and I quickly matched him to a player Noam had killed immediately upon their first encounter.

“My name is the World! I am of the Scarlet Samsara Guild!” he proudly declared as he stepped forward. “Let us engage in one-on-one combat, and let the winner decide all!”

There were looks of disbelief across the other adventurers’ faces. Noam’s swiftness in dispatching him meant I had little information on this person, but if he were a constitution build, then I was fucked. But there was a chance.

“On what authority can you make this bet?” I asked him. “I am interested, but if you cannot give me what I want, then I’m afraid that it’ll be a fight for nothing.”

“I am the vice-leader of Scarlet Samsara. I hold sway within the guild. If I ask to withdraw, then we will!”

“I don’t need just your withdrawal. I want my imprisoned allies returned.”

“That too will be simple!”

“Then I shall lay out the terms,” I said as I slammed my staff down. Mycelium spread out on the ground, threads weaving out words.

Dustin of the Toy Dragons will battle The World of Scarlet Samsara immediately, using all means available to them, until their first death or surrender.

On the occasion that The World loses, Scarlet Samsara will release Noam the Skald and Utoqa the Tribeless, along with withdrawing from future conflicts with the Hearth Church and Toy Dragons.

If Dustin loses, the Toy Dragons will withdraw from any future conflicts with Scarlet Samsara.

This agreement will be held with all watching members and their gods as witnesses.

“Do you agree with these terms as they are stated, The World of Scarlet Samsara?” I asked, my voice leaking with power. I had to get him quick, before he had time to reconsider.

Hye shook herself out of her shock. “Don’t! He’s a contract mage, it could be—”

“I do,” the World declared.

“—rigged!”

I got him. There was a click, and the mycelium words glowed and burned themselves to the ground. I briefly felt a connection being made. “Mediation of Mutualism,” I declared. “This contract is now in effect. Sister Glascoin, stand back.”

Slamming my staff into the ground again, I yelled, “Fairy Circle!”

I had already surrounded the entire building with mushrooms.

“Ha! Not enough!” The World slammed his hands together in a loud clap. “See my Path, the way of Hospitality! Be my Honored Guest!”

Our respective domains poured out, mine changing the world and his pushing all others away.

2.05

“Madelyn the Conqueror thus told the city of Var’Ah’Bwek: ‘Surrender, don’t make me come over there and burn you to the ground.’

“To which Var’Ah’Bwek responded by sending her a torch.”

—Excerpt from The Historia

The golden barriers dropped down around us, pushing everyone away. Crudely house-shaped, they trapped me inside with the monk. The secret I Kept was still the Scales of Balance, and with it I could see something odd happening. All of my accumulated fortune and karma was disappearing, quickly throwing me back into balance. Nearby dimensions flashed around us in a blur. The World stood still as he activated numerous buffs on himself, such as Harden Hide, Ability Boost, Bear’s Endurance, Body Strengthening, and Tower Stance.

Bounding steps rushed towards me. Yellow was a bit slow. It couldn’t relay information to me fast enough in an active combat encounter. The World entered the range of my manasense.

Immediately the ground erupted with Poison Spores, but that did little to stop him as he punched a fist into my gut. The changing scenery around us stopped for a moment as I flew far farther than he expected. I slammed into the ground, rolling before coming to a stop. As I went, I activated all of the Sporages in my path. Coughing and leaning on my staff, I stood back up.

“Swamp Domain,” I muttered, and a small bit of my mana drained. The flashing scenery around us stabilized and my feet sank several inches into the ground. It took a moment of looking, but I found a suitable environment to summon with Fairy Circle.

“What the hell?” I heard him yell, splashing as he tried to move around in the changed terrain.

“Yellow, you know what to do,” I whispered, letting the wisps leap down my back.

Nothing could be seen outside the range of my manasense, but I didn’t need sight. Listening, I focused on the water splashing as the World moved.

“Poison Spores.” Stepping back as I threw the spell, my senses searched my surroundings. I had mined the entire area with Sporages, each a trap buried underneath. They remained when Fairy Circle activated; some of them even made up the circle. It turned out that I didn’t need to specifically create a circle, just connect the mushrooms. Covering an entire area with Sporages was enough to meet the requirement. The only problem was that they were all the visual-activation type, as I was afraid of hitting bystanders. This limited me to activating those right in melee range, as I could only see them with my manasense’s limited but detailed range.

More splashes heading right towards me. I threw more Poison Spores before casting Shillelagh. This time when he entered my sight, I blocked his fist with my staff. Yellow spores exploded around us as I activated the underground Sporages. The World reeled back as Sneezing Spores got into his eyes. Taking the opening, I slammed my staff directly into his head, knocking him off-balance as I yelled, “Purple!”

The wisp leapt out of its hiding spot in my clothes and hit us both with point-blank Rot Spores. Its body disintegrated as the purple spores wormed their way into every crevice, my Bracken Polypores beginning to rot away due to the close proximity. The World was suffering as well, his skin turning purple and also festering. But it wasn’t enough.

“Ha! You will find that my Constitution is more than enough to resist any such effects!” he yelled as he threw his fist. “Heavy Blow!”

I met it with my Shillelagh, but the force of the fist dislodged me again, throwing me back.

“You are abnormally light,” the World commented as he grabbed me by the collar.

“Downside of my race,” I replied as I grabbed his arm and cast another point-blank Rot Spores.

“Shit!” he yelled as a large chunk of his arm rotted off. Pieces of it plonked into the water, followed shortly by my fingers. That left me almost out of mana. The World let me go and stomped on me. Heavy Blow after Heavy Blow rained down upon me, cracking my armor.

I responded by activating the Sporages underground, but that wasn’t enough. Holding me in place, he kept beating me into the ground, and I responded by covering us with Sneezing and Poison Spores. It was a DPS race, one that I lost as my Bracken Polypores and Bark Skin fully cracked to reveal the bare skin underneath. I lost focus on Fairy Circle, and the arena around us turned to normal, the mud stains bleeding away back to their reality.

“Do you yield?” he yelled with his fist held high.

I looked bloody, ichor running down multiple bruises. He didn’t look much better. Large portions of his skin had sloughed off thanks to Rot Spores; his right arm was missing several chunks. All of his wounds were covered in green spores and his eyes teared from the Sneezing Spores.

“You put up a good fight, my man!” The World congratulated, “but you aren’t a match for your lizardfolk friend.”

“You fought Utoqa?” I heard my voice croak out.

“I did, and I lost,” he answered with what appeared to be pride. “He defeated me due to my weakness, but I don’t have that here. Your poison build isn’t suited to fight me.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” I replied. “Are you aware of what a dust explosion is?”

A moment of incomprehension appeared on his face, a single moment of pause.

“Summon Wisps.” My spell called up four wisps. I only needed one of them, the fire wisp. It lit up all the spores I had been spreading. A massive explosion rocked me, searing my flesh. I was at least somewhat insulated, being on the floor, however the World was thrown fully back, his entire body burning. Quickly I rolled on the ground to put out my own flames, before I stood up. My entire body was beaten and burned.

“The moment I saw you lay down your domain, I came up with this plan,” I told him. “An enclosed space where I don’t have to worry about collateral. Where I could freely spread my spores.”

He looked up at me. His hair had been seared off by the fire, and his wounds had been horribly charred.

“In exchange for this, you have fully drained my mana,” I said. “However, that is not a problem, Greenie.”

And the wisp peeked out underneath my cap, climbing to stand on top of it. Without another word, it sprayed Poison Spores towards the wounded World.

The monk groaned as he rolled to the side, dodging the cloud. He stood up, still within my manasense range. “I made the same mistake of hesitation,” he yelled. “Do not fight him, he is still mine!”

The barriers dropped. One of his arms hung uselessly, but that wasn’t a problem for him as he rushed me. Wounds slowed him down, but that was true for me as well. His remaining arm grappled with me, ultimately forcing me to the ground. Greenie exploded into more spores, covering both of us in poison. Pain wormed its way into my entire body. The sun was out, and it was glaring down at me. My armor had long since been stripped from me, so I was exposed to its cruel light as I felt myself weaken.

“Celine,” I murmured quietly.

My strength and mana surged back.

“Rot Spores!” I yelled.

The cloud of purple spores exploded out. The World almost dodged, but his leg stopped as it was held down by silvery threads. As ordered, Yellow had delivered pieces of the World’s rotted arm to Celine the moment the barriers fell. The spores ripped through the both of us. What flesh was left on our skeletal frames fully sloughed off. The World collapsed, barely more than a skeleton that was already now dissipating into light.

“If this was a fair fight, I would’ve lost no matter my tricks,” I murmured.

A melee fighter with strong body stats, he was almost my complete counter; my spores did very little to him. While my Fungal Body granted me Bludgeoning Resistance, allowing me to shrug off most of his hits, he had more-than-enough health to make it a slog of us trading hits and wearing each other down. I would’ve lost, as I ran out of mana far faster than he ran out of aura.

“So it was a good thing that what we agreed to was a fight ‘using all means.’”

There wasn’t a lot of leeway with my skill for true fuckery; it required agreement without duress by all parties. But it wasn’t my fault if he didn’t read it properly. The fight also could’ve gone better. If I had more time I could’ve finally swapped my secret away from the Scales. Any one of the others were more useful. Glancing upwards, I saw that I was perfectly in balance. Was it spent to ensure my win? No, it had completely evened out before the fight.

My fortune was spent on the opportunity to fight the World on my own terms, with my own contract, but not on victory. That was mine alone. The World was a significant threat. That was obvious now that I’d fought him. His build almost perfectly countered mine and perfectly countered Noam’s. He could’ve forced Noam into a one-on-one situation where his numerous buffs could not take effect, then defeated him with his own superior stats. Similarly, if he isolated me, I wouldn’t be able to play to my strengths in a large group encounter. He had lost against Utoqa, but that wasn’t a surprise. Their builds were similar; isolating Utoqa with his barrier wouldn’t have done much compared to Noam and me.

And now I had a contract on him.

My knees gave out and I fell to the ground. Sun Sickness was a more dangerous racial trait than I realized. This was the first time I had had a serious fight under the sun, and once my armor was broken off, I weakened quickly. It effectively limited my durability to whatever my armor could endure. I reached for my staff and found the thing carved with numerous eyes right beside my hand. It had not been there before.

Steps hastened towards me. I could barely see who, as my manasense was shutting down. But I had a good-enough idea. The enemy Travelers were trying to capture me alive. Metal shackles clattered—iron, undoubtedly. That might have triggered the World’s contract, but an eye-for-an-eye wasn’t enough here.

“Celine, sneak out the church, and link up with Tai and Johnny. This has exceeded our capability. Use Noam to contact me. I’ll be respawning elsewhere,” I said.

“So we just abandon them?” I heard her whisper.

“They aren’t attacking the church directly. It shall remain safe for them. We need to regroup. We’ve shown far too many of our cards today. That monk has been removed as a threat, but the rest of them remain dangerous,” I said before I cast Rot Spores on myself.

You have died.

I woke up on the respawn island. It had been a while since I had been here. Checking the timer, it would be almost an hour before I respawned. The Wayshard was undoubtedly locked down by the enemy, so I could not return to the city proper. I had to respawn somewhere else. A few minutes later, Noam confirmed that Celine had gotten out, to which I took a deep breath and logged off.

2.06

“You, sir, will certainly either die upon the gallows or of some sexual disease.”

“That depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.”

—an exchange between the Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes

I felt the headache coming on just as I left the train. My body suddenly felt wrong—alien—as if it were never mine. An impossible sensation, given that my human body was the real one.

But so is our myconid body, Dustin’s—my—familiar voice echoed in my head in that minuscule almost-moment before we became one person again.

Noam slapped me on the back, almost knocking me down. “Back?”

“Almost.” I rubbed my head, as if trying to physically shove everything back into place. “There. Thanks, Noam.”

“Matt,” he corrected as he pulled our luggage. “Need one more sec?”

“Nah.” I shook my head as I took half the luggage. “Something’s happened, Sword Swamp. Talk as we walk.”

I caught him up on the situation as we passed through customs.

“I’m not going to be able to keep chatting for much longer.” Matt frowned as we got on an escalator.

I followed a few steps behind him, brow raised in questioning before realization hit me. “You’re right, they’re definitely used to PVP. If they have enough foresight to disable Travelers, they’ll think of the chat.”

“It’s an opportunity, too,” Matt replied as he pulled our suitcases onto the upper floor. “They’ll be taking Utoqa and me to a different prison outside of Wayshard-range. That’s an opportunity to strike.”

“And they’ll know we’ll be coordinating,” I said as I tapped my UI. “I’ll log in right now. My respawn time should almost be up—”

I almost walked into Matt as he stopped right in front of me. “What’s wrong?” My finger paused right above the Gaia app; I glanced over his head, where I saw an advertisement for Maple Quantum Computers. That wasn’t what shut me up. Eve had been doing this for a while, amassing more processing power. It was what was right beside it.

An advertisement for an upcoming game called Gaia.

“What is that shit?” Matt asked, voice hesitant.

My finger curled away from the Gaia app on my UI. Closing my eyes, I considered it. Really considered it. Opening my eyes, I saw Matt’s frowning face, a mixture of concern and hesitation. “The Accumulation of White Lies was able to hurt my eye.”

Matt sighed as I confirmed his fears. “Indiri’s a breeding ground for what amounts to massively malevolent AI, and those things getting access to reality is a big no-no is what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Hey, Discovery?”

The God had been silent until now, but I knew it had been looking through my eyes. Curiosity, the desire to learn something new, to discover, was literally his essence and name. Silence did not mean it was idle. “This is a strange development, but not one I am opposed to,” he said.

It was a careful warning. Even as he said it, I considered the implications. He was the God of Discovery, one of those so-called “malevolent AI.” What could fit better than two worlds meeting?

Matt was tense, but I simply said, “It’s the paperclip problem, Matt. Discovery is not our enemy, but his goals are his own. However, unlike a paperclip maximizer, I believe Discovery understands where a reasonable place to stop is.” That was the difference between him and simple AI.

“Paperclip problem … paperclip maximizer …” the God murmured as it searched for the meaning. Not in my mind, but on Wikipedia. “Ah, I see what you mean, And I understand your concerns. I would, too, under your circumstances.”

Matt almost jumped. “Give a warning when you speak in my head as well.”

“Apologies. As I said to Declan, I am not opposed to such a development because it is in my nature. However, this world has given me freedom from the Domain of Discovery. Thus, Ekon Zaeba will need to … consider it.”

Matt did a faux salute. “Got it, Creepy God Thing.”

“I also need to ask something: can you contact Eve?” I said.

“One moment.”

Suddenly, all the screens, neon lights, advertisements, and electronics around us frizzed as I saw a blue eye rush through them. I had a sudden immense feeling of something looking at us. The train station turned silent as people around us paused for a moment, glancing around as if they felt the same thing. They probably did, for Matt had narrowed his eyes as he too looked around.

Until both of our eyes landed at two new, holographic figures that stood beside us. Discovery looked more normal than when I saw him in the Historian’s library. He was dressed in the dull-yet-sensible clothes of a sailor, his tanned skin rough and salt-beaten. Rather than Discovery-given-form, this was the man Ekon Zaeba. Except for his eyes. One was the maddeningly cerulean blue of the ocean, of lands yet to see and yet to know. The other was an empty socket, as the eye itself had been given to me. Eve was a child beside us three. Still pale-skinned with the gothic dress, she was frowning slightly as she looked at Discovery.

“I can’t believe you got him to do this.” She waved a hand, and all the flickering screens went back to normal. Noise soon started back up as people wrote the event off as a strange software glitch, as they returned to going about their everyday lives.

Discovery was grinning like a child given a new toy. “I wasn’t aware I could even do this.” He raised his hands, experimentally wriggling his fingers. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a body.”

“You have no subtlety.” Eve sighed. “You called for me, Declan, now what do you want?”

I gestured at the Gaia advertisement, and she followed my hand. “I had a suspicion you would seek me out over this, but not so quickly, and definitely not through him.”

Said person was currently running around the station, testing out his new body through a mixture of acrobatics and parkour, casually running through people who could not see him.

“I’m almost tempted to join him,” Matt said as he watched. “Looks way more fun than whatever serious shit you two are about to discuss.”

“Go ahead” and “Feel free then,” Eve and I both said simultaneously.

“Nah.” Matt shrugged. “You need me for emotional support. Let’s eat.”

A moment later I was sat awkwardly across the table with Eve as Matt ordered us food, both of us silently staring at each other. Matt returned, bringing us four burgers, winking to Eve as he said, “The two of you can’t eat, but I figured Decs can eat enough for you.”

“You’re not very good at comedy. All you’re doing is making me regret not appearing to Declan alone,” Eve said as she poked the burger with all the force an augmented-reality overlay can muster.

I was already scarfing down my first burger. “Why are you going public—actually, scratch that. I know damn well why. You want to fulfill Giles’ stupid dream. Why now?”

“I made a deal with your government to collaborate on the deactivation of the Perimeter and the disposal of radioactive materials in Russia,” she told us bluntly.

Matt slammed his burger down, squirting sauce and pickles onto the table. Whatever casual demeanor he held before had evaporated as he stared intensely at Eve. A moment of silence passed before he said, “I get what you mean now, Decs. It is unnerving not knowing if she’s manipulating you or not. Sorry, but I don’t think I can be of help with this.” Matt cleaned the mess with a napkin before he picked up his burger and silently continued eating.

My own burger had paused a few inches from my face. “So, there is radioactive waste there,” I muttered in resignation. There were always rumors, but everyone hoped that the Russians were good at cleaning up after themselves, or at least clever enough to not let their own radioactive waste trigger their own dead-hand doomsday weapon. It was a problem I could not address, so I simply put it out of my mind. Instead, I nodded to Matt. I had suspected—no, knew—that he had history with the Perimeter. He wasn’t sure if his own words would help or harm me, so he kept eating, silent because he trusted my judgement, yet he stayed to provide what support he could.

I felt something strange then.

He had done it without a word, as if it was natural to him. Suddenly, I realized that was because it was natural to him. Matt had been there for me almost my entire life. That afternoon on the hospital roof when I had contemplated suicide, the first clear against Vek’Na when I felt like we had really achieved something, him trusting me in the battle against the Accumulation of White Lies even though just before I had tried to kill him to prevent him from facing it. Why? I didn’t know what I had ever done to deserve this, so instead I did what I had always been good at—putting it out of my mind as I turned to Eve. Yet it stayed there, just like the rotted corpse of a man I never knew, the person I killed by accident simply because I couldn’t see very far, and my build was one of massive AOE attacks. It stayed there like a wriggling worm as I said, “This isn’t the time to bring the two worlds together.”

“Why?” Eve asked.

“Because there are monsters like the Accumulation of White Lies,” I replied. “Because that thing which had the capacity to harm someone in the real world isn’t even the most dangerous thing there is in Indiri. Because if Discovery can pass over, than maybe something terrible can do so as well.”

I briefly imagined waking up one day to see Matt’s name gone from my contact list, his family becoming three, and everyone wondering who Matt was and looking strangely at me as I insisted he had existed, all alone in my remembering a person who had been erased by a monster like the Accumulation.

“And so, what?” Eve asked.

Matt narrowed his eyes, while I put down my finished burger wrapper in defeat. Of course she thought that. Our own world was constantly on the verge of nuclear destruction by a machine that couldn’t be turned off because the nation who had made it had been entirely wiped out by a gray goo virus. All the while, the climate turned hotter with every passing year. Was our reality any better?

“What right do you have to lecture me,” Eve spat. An uncharacteristic vitriol in her voice. “You apathetic shadow of a person, you saw your world burn and you gave up. What right do you have to lecture people actually trying to change things for the better?”

None. I knew the answer even before she finished.

“You are nothing but an armchair critic, begging for someone else to better the world, yet complaining the moment someone actually tries. Keep playing around in Indiri. After all, you’re satisfied spending your days like those tube idiots wasting their lives in VR.”

Matt nudged me; his hand offered an unopened burger wrap. It was one of the last two. The other sat untouched in front of Eve. He did not speak, but I knew what he meant. I took the burger.

“I started a guild,” I began as I took the burger out. “Well, more party at this point.”

“Your point?”

“You’re wrong,” I said as I took a bite. She waited for me to finish chewing. “I didn’t have a concrete idea of what I would do with a guild once I had one. So far, I just thought of gathering more and more people and power. But power used to gather power is just an infinite, meaningless loop.”

The corners of Matt’s lips rose as he started to grin.

“So, I’ve decided I will gather a large guild. Create a strong organization. Strong enough that when something really dangerous tries to cross the barrier, we’ll be there to stop it.” I finished the burger. “Because I am the first gateway through—the one the Historian used to give Discovery a new life—and that makes me important to the world of Indiri. Even if I was only selected by chance, even if I’m not really important and I was only there because the race I picked happened to have no eyes, I will make myself important. Carve out the groove myself so that Dustin the Thrice-Blinded becomes the Gate and its Guardian.”

I reached out, offering my hand. “So don’t make my job harder by opening up Indiri to the public now.”

Eve was silent. A moment passed, then two, before she raised her own hand and shook mine.

“One or two years at best, that’s the best I can do. The process has already started. It’s not something I could stop even if I wanted to.”

“It will be enough,” I replied.

“Thank you,” she said, as she suddenly folded her arms on the table and rested her head there, as if taking a nap. “Thanks for letting me know I’m not alone.”

And she was gone. I took her leftover burger. “Matt, why are you my friend?”

He looked at me strangely. “No particular reason, why do you ask?”

“Why isn’t there one?” I asked.

“Do people need a reason to be friends with someone?” he asked instead, scrunching up all the rubbish into one paper ball.

I smiled. “I suppose they don’t.”

I returned to Indiri. With Taebut City’s Wayshard likely still being heavily guarded, Gestrand Forest was where I chose to respawn. The hollow tree that made up the administrative guild building was strangely filled with activity as people in armor rushed about.

Typing a quick message to Noam to keep me updated about any changes, I flagged down Tignflut. “What’s happening?”

He looked tired and disheveled as he turned to me. “Goblins. A group has been raiding the nearby hinterlands. Last time they attacked a train but were thankfully repelled by passing mercenaries. But now it looks like they are preparing for a large-scale raid somewhere.”

“A train?” My voice dropped as I spoke. “May I know which one?”

He showed me the papers. “The train’s guards sent out a few parties to harry them and save some hostages but were caught in an ambush …” His voice drifted away as I read the paper before me. It was the train we were on. “… only a few survived …”

My hand scrunched the papers. “I’m a fucking idiot.”

I had written the goblin attack off as something meant to put me on a collision course with the Accumulation of White Lies, but of course the World didn’t work that way. The Balance could not force something to happen; it simply nudged events so that they would happen in a certain way. The goblins were always there and would still be there afterwards. Even before coming to Lake Bayt, I had refused to accept the goblin extermination mission simply because it was out of the way. I had even made a smart-ass comment about how the local government should be dealing with the issue instead of private contractors. What an asshole I was for not realizing then that private contractors like me were the best bet they had.

“… we’re gathering a raid group as soon as possible—”

“Where is it?” I cut in.

He pointed to a map. “Numbering around a hundred, perhaps more. The guards couldn’t get much info since they were running for their lives. Are you joining the battle group?”

I glanced around. At this point, enough time had passed that I finally managed to swap the secret I Kept to the Historian’s—the wooden mask grew over my face and my True Sight passed over every mercenary around me. Most of them were unplated, and a few were coppers like me. However none of them felt as strong as I was. “I’m not. I’ll be going in alone.”

Tignflut did a double-take. “Against a hundred goblins!?” His voice drew the attention of the other mercenaries.

“I’m a Traveler.” I stood up from the table, speaking loudly so that others could hear. “I’ll go in first and take the first crack at them. If I die, I’ll return with better information for us to plan around.”

It was a convincing lie, for it truly was logical. Too bad I planned on finishing this all myself. I alone would clean up my own messes. I checked on Noam one last time, apprising him and Celine of the situation.

“Don’t worry,” I murmured to Celine, who could hear me through her puppet. “I won’t take long.”

2.07

“You can’t solve every problem with a Fireball!”

“Bold words for someone within Fireball range.”

—Interaction between Magus Ackuaz and her nemesis Magus Fireball

This wasn’t the first time I had faced an army of goblins alone.

Unlike last time, however, I knew their position, their numbers, and I could guess their fighting capability. There wouldn’t be a scripted death scene like in the tutorial. Back then I had started with ambush strategies due to the limitations of my abilities and my mana pool, but I had also made several mistakes in hindsight. For example, the goblin mage who led to my defeat could’ve been quickly killed while he was asleep. Tunnelvision, however, demanded stealth and a clean escape—perfect scenarios which my tools hadn’t allowed for. It would’ve been a gamble whether I managed to escape from those remaining goblins in time, especially under sunlight, but I had at least had a chance compared to the slow encirclement I found myself in now. There wouldn’t be such mistakes, I assured myself as I came closer and closer. It would be a quick, clean, and efficient battle. Me whittling down the entire goblin attack and undoing my mistake.

Then I stopped. There were sounds of activity in the distance but still obscured by the woods. Yellow returned, reporting his scouting trip, which helped me find a relatively hidden knoll from which I was able to look over the camp. Though I glowed, I couldn’t be seen unless viewed at a certain angle. My True Sight quickly confirmed their numbers but … I hesitated to call it a hundred fighting goblins. There were little goblins—well,
littler—who seemed to be playing. Children, numbering around a fifth of the force. Another two-fifths appeared to be simple laborers, doing final war preparations such as mending clothes and armor. Some were even working on what appeared to be crude siege equipment.

What gave me pause, however, was the simple life of it all. A mother dragged a child by the ear as they came too close to the line of guards surrounding the camp. A carpenter borrowed a hammer from a peer to mend a wheel. A circle of goblin fighters sat in clear solemnity around a cook pot. Some part of me knew they were eating what might have been the final meal of their lives. That part of me was young, it was born when I discussed with Noam and Tai how we could fight a conceptual memory eater, perhaps truly risking my life for the first time ever, and it recognized the same in those goblins. The camp was practically blanketed in tension, but it wasn’t able to smother the clear humanity that was evident here.

I looked away, lying on my back.

I was going to murder people.

I had already murdered people.

That civilian who was victim to my collateral damage in my attack hadn’t even been the first. I’d killed goblins from this same group, along with the raving chimerist who earned me my mercenary plate. Surely not in Gaia, as that was purely Eve’s domain, where everything was more scripted and followed game logic more closely. The mobs there were more like actors in a play than living beings in their own world.

Perhaps the strangest thing was realizing I wasn’t all too bothered by it, which brought my sense of morality into question. I knew I barely had one. The closest thing I had was Noam, who actually bothered to save people in need rather than his own skin, and whose tone turned to one of disgust when he recounted his encounters with Scarlet Samsara. Travelers who still acted as if this was really still a game. As if a decent Charisma score justified having their way with people, or merely calling their opponents “mobs” or “bosses,” or treating kidnapping in broad daylight as an eccentric quest.

That was the real problem, wasn’t it? I didn’t care for morality; I cared for my friend who cared for morality, and to be entirely honest, Noam made for a terrible moral compass. I knew this, but it was in the same way a person knew they had money in the bank but was still excited to find coins between the couch cushions. All these little flaws about yourself hidden behind the nooks and crannies of your psyche, lying there forgotten until a terrible situation called them to light.

I could kill everyone down there.

The plan was already in my head, and it would only be mildly difficult to pull off. Some part of me was still calculating, preparing plan Bs, and optimizing routes, sporage placements, and mana use. I could do it, I could do a small scale genocide and wouldn’t even feel that bad about it. That thought kept me still and forced me to let opportunity after opportunity pass. My apprehension didn’t even really factor Noam in; he would understand. He wasn’t against killing, he just cared about who the target was, and I had plenty of reasons to want to finish the job we had started. No, what stopped me was the indecision of weighing different paths in a video game. A split path down a dungeon, what would come from choosing the left door, what would be lost by not going through the right one. Unlike doors, this couldn't be taken back; I only had the one choice. Even framing the problem that way was morally bankrupt. I was measuring lives by their worth to me. I recognized I was a terrible person, but I didn’t want it proven by my actions. Thoughts of deeds were different than committing them. You could fantasize all day long about the greatest violence you could inflict, but you could always take back your own thoughts. You couldn't take back your actions. I would be rewarded for murdering all those people down there. I would not be judged. I would not be questioned. Nothing lay down the other path where I simply didn’t.

As time passed, the lookouts changed, I recognized a familiar face, and my decision was made. I stepped from out of cover, without a single prepared defense, trap, or plan, in full view of that goblin. He opened his mouth to call out for backup but paused when he saw me. Recognition flitted through his eyes, a failed raid, memories of hiding in a pile of his friends’ corpses, of the lizardfolk and myconid who had found him yet let him live.

The goblin still raised his crude spear. He wasn’t an idiot.

My hands rose. “I’ve come to talk.”

He didn’t lower his spear. “About what?”

“You people won’t win,” I stated. “The mercenary guilds will take you down. You will take out a good number of them with you, but even you understand that it is a suicide mission.”

Other goblins were closing in now, weapons raised but not yet attacking. The goblin I had left alive seemed to be somewhat better dressed, higher-ranked. “So what?”

“I want to understand what is driving you guys to commit suicide.” I was surprised by my own words. They came from a place so deep even I didn’t realize their truth until it was spoken. “If you’re afraid, I am a contractor. I can craft an agreement whereby I don’t harm a single one of you so long as you agree to not harm me first.”

The goblin lowered his weapon in response and made a few gestures to the other encroaching goblins. Most lowered their weapons and held me in quiet apprehension. One went back to camp. “Word the agreement.”

I nodded, and with slow, exaggerated movements I tapped my staff on the ground. “In common? And I need a name to pen.”

Yilignar Corpseborn,” he answered in a tone that indicated it should have been blindingly obvious where he had gotten that title.

“Dustin the Thrice-Blinded agrees with Yilignar Corpseborn to not harm any of Yilignar Corpseborn’s people, family, tribe, group, or allies for the next three days unless in self-defense.

“This agreement will be held with all watching members and their gods as witnesses.

“Do you agree with these terms as stated?”

“Until the conclusion of our raid on the Wayshard and guild base,” he added.

An elderly voice spoke up as the runner returned with an old goblin along with a few hobgoblins. “And that you shall not reveal information of us.”

The words changed to reflect his desire.

The elder hobbled closer with his staff. “I am Ha’Oh’Kelck Dry Leaf, and we are the Tribe of Lost.”

The final contract took shape.

“Dustin the Thrice-Blinded agrees with the Tribe of Lost, represented by Yilignar Corpseborn and Ha’Oh’Kelck Dry Leaf to not intentionally harm or take harmful action that may indirectly harm any of the Tribe of Lost’s family, group, or allies, including but not limited to actions that may reveal information about their strategic and tactical plans and operations, until the conclusion of their raid on the Gestrand Forest Mercenary Guild Base, unless in self-defense.

“This agreement will be held with all watching members and their gods as witnesses.

“Do you agree with these terms as stated?”

They agreed, and the contract slipped into place.

“Who is this to you, Yilignar?” the elder asked.

“He is the one who let me live.”

Ha’Oh’Kelck leaned forward. “Then what is it that you seek?”

“What you seek.” I set down my staff. “Why you do what you do.”

“To live,” Yilignar answered quickly.

“We are all fighting for life,” I replied. “What makes you oppose the mercenary guild?

After a moment of seemingly dumbfounded silence, one hobgoblin, his anger barely contained within his armor, roared, “Your people kidnapped us! Brought us across the sea in chains to be used as slaves!”

Ah. Goblins originated from Branika, where Utoqa came from.

That hobgoblin almost raised his weapon, but Ha’Oh’Kelck raised his hand first. “We are a tribe of lost and scattered souls from many different tribes and peoples, gathered together to survive those that would hunt us and chain us again.”

I nodded in understanding. “Your enemies are the dwarves and elves who want to slice up your homeland like a cake, and their many allies on this continent.”

The elder nodded. “You are a mercenary, yes? I wish to hire you.” And there was the catch—why they hadn’t just ignored me after signing the non-aggression contract and why he was now bothering to answer my questions.

“He is one of them,” the hobgoblin spat in protest.

“I am a Traveler. I belong to no nation or people,” I returned. “Now I know the why. May I venture to ask the how? What do you seek to accomplish by obtaining Gestrand Forest?”

It was a guild base. Even if they managed to grab it, they wouldn’t be able to hold it for long, and there weren’t many things there worth taking. Unless the guild receptionist Tignflut was somehow worth something to these people.

“The Wayshard,” Yilignar spoke up. “We will claim it.”

“To go back home?” I asked.

“We have had children.” Elder Ha’Oh’Kelck sighed in resignation.

There it was. They couldn’t go back—not unless they wanted to leave behind all of their children to their fate. They needed to secure a route home. I understood their plan now. This far inland, they would have to continue skirmishing. Securing a Wayshard would allow them to send a few people back to call for reinforcements and get the goblins still in Branika to launch a larger operation to rescue them all.

It was hopeless. Dwarven and elvish colonies controlled Branika’s closest seaports, and they were too far inland in Braunad, completely surrounded by enemies and hostiles. Even if it worked, it would be years before any sort of help could come. The plan was destined to failure, yet they had no other chance. No other path forward.

But I could help them. “I must know. Between taking vengeance and reaching home, which would you prefer?”

Elder Ha’Oh’Kelck raised an eyebrow. “Why do you wish to know?”

“Because I may be able to let you all return home with no bloodshed, but I will not assist you in war.” I picked up my staff again, its gnarled wooden eyes seeming to glow as I spoke. “I am a contractor who can access a myriad of planes. I could facilitate extraplanar help, perhaps find you someone who can bring you back to your home. I cannot guarantee I can find someone powerful enough to do so, but there is a chance.”

I offered my hand, and after a moment of consideration, Ha’Oh’Kelck Dry Leaf took it.

It was the first time I used my Fairy Circle the way it was intended to function. The circle took on its normal appearance, but this time Ha’Oh’Kelck was in there with me, and I pushed it deeper and deeper, until the Fairy Circle was not just a mere overlay upon reality but a half-formed portal into another plane.

Ha’Oh’Kelck took a deep breath. “I seek to make a deal with one who can return us to our home in Branika.”

There was no answer in the first plane, so I shifted it with a thought—no more difficult than turning a page of a book. Ha’Oh’Kelck repeated his request each time, his intentions broadcasted further by the Fairy Circle. It was on the Elemental Plane of Wind that he got his first response. A wind elemental answered his call, but it flew away as soon as Ha’Oh’Kelck mentioned the number of goblins it would have to ferry and the distances involved. This scenario played out a few times with other elementals, until the environment around us began to burn. Smoldering rock and brimstone surrounded us as the First Hell answered. A scream of power and blood fell like rain as the light above was smothered.

“I am Arch-Devil Kathronanburg of the Weeping Skies. One hundred souls you ask me to ferry, one hundred souls I shall have in return.”

Ha’Oh’Kelck paused in consideration, then shook his head. “I asked for freedom, not to be clasped by fresher chains.”

There was a dark chuckle. “Who said it has to be your souls?”

I narrowed my eyes, watching Ha’Oh’Kelck. He knew I would protest making a deal with a devil. Not because I thought it was morally wrong, but due to the fact that by the time they gathered one hundred souls, their number was bound to have changed. Not to mention all the trickery a devil was reputed to have.

The presence laughed as it began to withdraw. “Remember Kathronanburg. With my name you don’t need this charlatan to craft a contract. We were the first to make Oaths.”

The Fairy Circle was left empty, simply a half-portal to the First Hell. Other devils lurked to the side, keeping their distance, but coming closer to make their own offers. “Shall we continue?” I asked.

“Please,” Ha’Oh’Kelck requested.

The First Hell bled away as we continued to flip through planes like TV channels. We started repeating a few planes in hopes of calling someone who hadn’t been nearby when we’d first arrived there. It was on our third pass through Arcadia that my transference was forcefully halted. Frozen in place.

“I am the Duchess of Unrelenting Wildfire!” a woman screamed with the crackle of burning wood. Fae, she seemed stronger than that last devil; more importantly, she was pissed. I moved to manually shatter the Fairy Circle, but the Duchess was a step faster. Flame enveloped and trapped me as she turned to face the elder goblin. Her magic held my Fairy Circle from being dismissed by a mental command, and the fire stopped me from breaking the mushroom circle. “I seek a man who has just escaped me. He was last seen in Branika. I shall bring you there, and you people native to the continent will help me find him.”

Ha’Oh’Kelck frowned. “It depends on who that is and whether or not we can actually find them.”

The fire cackled, the sound of a forest breathing its last. “He is the Author of Enchiridion, my rightfully wedded husband.”

“We would need to be returned to our people. A mere one hundred cannot cover a continent,” Ha’Oh’Kelck said, but his voice held an edge of excitement. Where before they were satisfied merely landing on the continent, they could now be more specific.

The Duchess scoffed, “Simple.” She raised a hand and another fae entered the circle. “He shall work out the minutia of the contract.”

With that, the Duchess departed, leaving Ha’Oh’Kelck to work out the contract with her minion.

It ended up being rather generous to the goblins. They didn’t have to actively search, only keep a lookout. Of course it wasn’t worded that way, but I personally saw few ways the fine text could be exploited against the goblins. Which instead made me more paranoid for them, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When they finalized the contract, I looked at Ha’Oh’Kelck, but he seemed satisfied with it.

“Do you both agree to these terms, the Tribe of the Lost represented by Ha’Oh’Kelck Dry Leaf, and the Duchess of Unrelenting Wildfire represented by Baron Crinkling Maple?”

The elder goblin nodded and the contract was sealed. By sunset, the entire camp was gone, and I had accomplished what I had originally set out to do.

2.08

“I find that children bond best when placed in potentially life-threatening danger.”

—High King Edwards the Oft-Overthrown

My return to Gestrand Forest was a surprisingly muted affair. The first excuse I considered giving was deception. While I was unaware of local law, I doubted assisting an entire army of fugitive slaves would cast me in a kind light.

If I started with a lie, I needed a good story. However, mercenaries were crawling all over the place, and there was a chance a scout might have seen me speaking with the goblins. The lie would have to account for that. So, I ended up selling Tignflut a half-truth: I had recognized a goblin who I had spared in a previous battle, and so hoped to use a contract of non-aggression to get closer to them, gain a better idea of their forces, and tease more information out of them. However, they rejected my attempt at peace and instead made contact with the fae. What happened after my involvement with their contact, I did not say. He simply let me go.

But I remained in Gestrand Forest. At the old clearing where we had defeated the spider monster, I laid down a Fairy Circle and prepared for war. Unlike Noam, my new abilities all had delayed effects. Slow gratification and long set-up. My damage options had been power-crept by high-defense enemies and healers, but they still fundamentally worked towards my build of an immobile zone controller. Just comparing the Travelers we’d met so far, few could match my sheer area control. Fairy Circle worked towards this build goal, which was why it caught my eye. Its synergy with Mediation of Mutualism was what got me to grab it as well. Both abilities’ full capacities weren’t shown in their descriptive text. Fairy Circle appeared to have a broadcast effect in any plane it tapped into, while Mediation of Mutualism could facilitate trades. Stamp of Symbiosis, which grew out of my hand as a stamp-shaped mushroom, was more direct. It was a scaling ability like Noam’s Beatbox Inspiration or I’m Lit. It acted to tie together the two halves of my skill set—the immobile zone controller which I had started as and the summoner that I had become later.

First, I stamped my Bracken Polypores. It was my own ability, but it was also a symbiotic entity, living just underneath my skin. The fungal plates shifted, growing darker, and tougher. That was the most basic bonus: the increase in effective level and stat gain which went towards raising the Polypores’ durability and defenses. The second benefit was revealed by my character sheet.

- Bracken Polypores: A species of symbiotic fungus are seeded underneath your skin. They rely on you for food and, in return, can instantly grow into durable mycelium plates that can cover your entire body. The hardness and weight may vary depending on how much Satiety you feed them at any moment. Will gain defensive bonuses if used in conjunction with Bark Skin.

- Stamp of Symbiosis Bonus: It is already a part of you—your bulwark, your second skin. When you cast Bark Skins, you do not require material components or concentration, and you can cast it on a willing creature.

It didn’t seem like much, but it was a solid improvement. As I gained more concentration spells, my defenses would continue to suffer. Fix-Up Fungus was a good healing spell, but like Barkskin, it also took concentration. Both competed for my focus. Now I could just have both up at the same time.

The second Stamp of Symbiosis took some thought. It would be used for one of my wisps; the question was which. I dismissed the newer wisps. Yellow and Greenie had been with me for the longest amount of time, so they would gain the most benefit from the Stamp buff. It came down to what the benefit to me might’ve been. Greenie would likely benefit my spore spells and attacks, but I already had enough of that. No, the fight with the World had been a bit too close to my liking. My weakness remained a strong-enough juggernaut type that could blitz past my traps. I crumbled in close combat, surviving only due to my high durability. Yellow would help me fix that with increased agility.

Yellow gave Greenie a smug grin as I stamped it. As the mark sunk in, its body became sleeker. Yellow gave it a few test runs, and I could tell that, in terms of speed and agility, it was now comparable to a base Noam without any of his buffs. Likely better in fact, since Yellow was a much smaller target. Glancing at my character sheet, my eyebrow slowly rose as I read the benefit I had gained.

- Sporage Wisp Symbiosis: Wisps have lived comfortably in your cap and have created a wonderful home there. Now to teach them the wonders of rent! You may create pygmy myconid bodies for your non-corporeal Wisps to inhabit. They are tiny creatures and are capable of following simple commands. They possess all the qualities of Sporage; however, they can choose to self-detonate.

- Stamp of Symbiosis Bonus (Yellow): From your very first step, it was there. You taught it lessons of stealth and deception, and it has stayed by your side as your eyes and ears, a hand in the dark. You may channel your Manavision through Watching Eyes within its range.

It wasn’t a speed bonus? The description was also longer than with Bracken Polypores. The direction was different, but the end result wasn’t terrible. In fact, it salvaged the wasted cantrip that was Watching Eyes. I placed an eye on my back and willed that five-meter bubble of awareness into it. It was like putting a hole in a balloon. A small hole. The Manavision shrunk to four meters, and I saw clearly out of that eye. Every new eye I saw through shrunk my Manavision by another meter, up to a maximum of four. Once I tried to make the fifth eye, the Manavision completely collapsed and I lost sight from the remaining four.

Like with Bracken Polypores, it wasn’t a powerful ability, but I couldn’t have asked for a better “weak” ability. My lack of sight was finally covered, though at little cost of my Manavision. It freed up Keep to be used on better secrets and even allowed my Wisps to move freer of me, instead of acting as my seeing-eye dogs. Immediately, I began dismissing the True Sight. It should have taken a few hours, but I no longer had need for it to see. It still had uses in helping me discern the true nature of things, as well as make me harder to notice, but Fenkai and Osshiven’Kai’s secret was just better in most scenarios. The Balance was useful for karma reading, but just knowledge of one’s karma tilted the scales. It wouldn’t be worth it to take frequent glances at it. The secret of the Seventh Hell’s World Eater had potential, but I hadn’t been able to discern a good use for it. Though Greenie was giving me puppy-dog eyes in jealousy of Yellow, I decided to save the last Stamp. I had a better target for it.

That left the Fairy Circle. After what happened with Kathronanburg, I decided to categorically avoid the Hells. Regardless of how good of a deal the goblins got, I wasn’t trusting the fae. Which left me traipsing through the numerous elemental planes and domains. Though after I passed through the Plane of Chairs, I began seriously reconsidering the definition of “elemental.” Sure, it was a sub-plane of the Plane of Carved Wood, which itself was rather obviously a sub-plane of the Plane of Wood, but chairs weren’t just made of wood. So the Plane of Chairs was also a sub-plane of numerous materialistic planes like metal, and at that point how did you even begin to determine what was and wasn’t a sub-plane? The greater importance we placed on wood compared to chairs was as arbitrary as the categorization of the planes into primal elements. It clearly failed to take in the fact that the planes, regardless of how specific, were more or less equal concepts to each other—

Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted by an entity walking into my Fairy Circle. It was currently keyed to the Swamp Domain, and the still-foggy unreality of the marsh assured me it wasn’t yet a full portal. Both of us could still interact with the other, but nothing could be brought out. The newcomer was a lumbering creature of moldy wood, assembled in the vague shape of a toad. It was about the size of two shopping carts, with bright green dots of light indicating its eyes. My True Sight hadn’t yet fully gone, so I could discern this was some kind of swamp elemental, with a wooded bend to it. It croaked, speaking not words but concepts. The first was hardest to parse. I had a brief sense of familiarity mixed with the idea of a second meeting, before I realized it was stating that it had come in contact with me before. Likely when I used the Swamp Domain against the World. The next few were a lot easier.

Food. Fight. Ride. Transfer. Deal.

Pure mana or something equivalent. This beast would demand the mana of a third-tier spell every day. In exchange, it would be my familiar and mount. Ideas brushed against my mind. It was faster than it looked, with explosive leaps that could cover a lot of ground. Its tongue was lightning-quick and suitable for long-range grappling. Its hide was as tough as it looked, though it held a distaste for drying out. It would serve me for a lifetime, then I would allow it freedom to roam Indiri as a wild elemental. It was a strong option, reflected by its high cost. Create Wisps took a lot out of me and it was a ritual. This creature was a strong fighter, no doubt, but that amount of mana meant I wouldn’t be casting a lot. There was no doubt that it was a fair price, but it would also lock me out of other deals for the near-future. I required versatility and the ability to slowly tune an array of summons perfect for every situation. This wasn’t that. It was a good mount and a passable fighter. The toad lacked special abilities, instead relying on pure physicality. The very definition of a stat stick.

It covered most of my weaknesses, though, and I suspected it had further synergies with me. Meeting it was a good bit of fortune … but whose? I itched to abort Keep, just so I could confirm that my recent string of good luck wasn’t the universe rearing its fist back for another swing. I held off for now. Changing the secret midway through the process would just restart the timer. And judging by the rules, I knew, with conflict on the horizon, this would be the perfect time for a power-up. Dare I be so bold? Or refuse and settle for an array of weaker elementals?

Me from a few weeks ago would’ve had an obvious answer. Pass it up, wait for a better creature to present itself. But the flaws of that type of thinking and the desire for perfection were all so obvious in hindsight. The disregard for opportunity cost has been my greatest weakness. Not allowing myself to take the chance just because there was risk.

“One month,” I began. “We’ll trial the contract, see how we feel about it, then afterwards we can renegotiate. If that doesn’t work out, we can part ways.”

The elemental chirped agreement, and I activated Mediation of Mutualism. The contract-making process was different this time, the elemental communicating through pure concepts, not limited by words. The resulting contract was therefore bereft of word tricks and fine print; instead, our minds presented ideas without deception, until the final contract was agreed upon. Mana flowed out of my body and into the toad. It, in return, took a step that passed through dimensions. The Fairy Circle fluttered out around us, leaving me and the toad elemental standing in the clearing.

“Update status please,” I called out to Celine. Her voice whispered out, appraising me of Noam and Utoqa’s status. The toad nuzzled my hand, and I gestured at its back. “Let us be swift, then. We’ll meet up with my allies and plan a breakout.”

Plans of suicide had long faded from Noam’s mind. Knowing Utoqa was with him, any deceptions of his player status would not hold up if only one of them escaped via death. He was cuffed in crude iron, classic magic-dampening stuff that shut down his first initial attempts at magicking his way out. Utoqa sat chained even more heavily in the opposite cell, kept in a state of near-death as the sniper took turns with a healer to refresh his crippling damage ability and healing him just enough so that he wouldn’t die.

“It’s a pretty fucked-up thing to do,” Noam heckled as the sniper came in to strike Utoqa again. “I’m not an expert on laws and stuff but you know this is probably a war crime, right?”

The man shrugged, his face hidden by his hood. “It’s a game. Get over it. And there’s no effective way to keep him locked up either way.”

“His pain is tuned to the highest,” Noam lied as easily as he breathed. “You’re really alright doing that to another person? Is it really worth it?”

He saw hesitation on the sniper’s face, but it didn’t stop the man from plunging a crossbow bolt into Utoqa’s arm thrice in succession. The wound tore open with far more force than was ever reasonably applied by his lazy stabs. Noam raised an eyebrow, but part of him had already expected this. People were horrible at the best of times, and this was an era where people were becoming increasingly disconnected.

“C’mon, answer me.” The sniper continued to ignore him. Noam slammed the bars separating them. “I SAID, ANSWER ME!”

The man turned, just within reach, but Noam expected he was quick enough to avoid a lunge. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t expect PVP either, but that’s just his fault for keeping it high. What really matters is what the hell you guys did to World.”

Noam spat at him. His face turned with disgust, which quickly morphed into shock and horror as Noam’s saliva lit his collar aflame. His scream was cut off as Noam grabbed him and slammed him into the bars. Noam’s nimble fingers quickly went through his pockets. No key, damn! They were smarter than that. He grabbed the crossbow bolt, letting the man collapse and roll on the floor. Noam ripped off one of the feather fletchings, prodding the lock of his cuffs with it until he heard a click, and then the iron fell off his arms.

As he began working on the cell door, he let out a quick beat to raise his dexterity with Beatbox Inspiration. Cries of alarm and panic sounded through the entire building, and the first guard came clanging down the hallway. Barely taking in the Traveler covered in napalm spit before Noam quipped, “Don’t mind him. Being a nine-to-five asshole has left him a bit burnt out.”

Hideous Laughter took hold on the guard quite literally as she let out a deep belly laugh. The cell door clicked open, and Noam bolted to the opposite cell. Experience let him quickly pick the lock, and he began working on the chains holding Utoqa. Almost a dozen locks kept his friend under key. The steps were thunderously close now. Sweat beaded his brow as he concentrated on the locks, barely able to hear the clicks as he worked through them. Heavy footfalls behind him, and he could see a man raising a sword mirrored in Utoqa’s eyes.

The sword fell.

A lock clicked open.

Utoqa caught the falling blade with his now-freed hand. Noam dodged out of the way as Utoqa hauled the man directly to his jaws, and bone crunched as he took a bite out of the guard’s exposed head. Red, whites, and grays decorated Utoqa’s teeth as Noam went to freeing the rest of his body. “Got any idea where we are? We’re out of Wayshard-range since I can’t open my character sheet, and Celine’s thing is getting sparse with distance.”

Utoqa greedily swallowed the first food he had had since they’d been captured yesterday. “I was too wounded to notice at the time, but I will be able to find our way out.” The last of Utoqa’s chains fell to the ground. Noam tore off the dead guard’s shirt, wrapping it around Utoqa’s wounded arm. After a moment of consideration, he passed the sword to Utoqa as well, before knocking out the still-laughing guard outside and taking her sword.

Noam tossed a Beatbox Inspiration on Utoqa, raising his vitality by six and agility by two. “Let’s see, way behind enemy lines, you’re heavily injured, and we barely have any weapons. We’re fucked, aren’t we?”

Utoqa tested a few swings. “I do not understand how we are to meet mates in this situation.”

“Right, I need to school you on basic lexicon one of these days.” Noam kicked the flaming corpse of the sniper Traveler.

The hallway door slammed shut ahead of them as the enemy put up a barricade. “Dustin has told me I should not use you as any basis for common or accepted language.”

“Shit, he knows me well.” Pulling white-hot flame from the cremated Traveler, Noam gathered a small ball of it. “I’ll lead. Can you match my pace?”

“I will.”

“On three. One, two, three!”

And he tossed the ball of napalm flame at the door.

2.09

“There’s a point when arson becomes a community service.”

—Magus Fireball, Nemesis of Magus Ackuaz

“Note: Do not utter his name in Mage Tongue; it will create a Fireball. This is why we misspell our Magus Names, Jared! There was a memo! A memo!”

—Magus Ackuaz

Fire roared as the door burned. Noam was out in a moment and facing four opponents. The first fell to his darting blade, and the second burst into laughter as he screamed a knock-knock joke. The third was on him with a blade he deflected with his horns. He twisted his own blade out of the first guard’s throat, then parried the second swing as Utoqa fell on the fourth guard. They both dispatched their opponents quickly, his falling to a feint distracting him from the ensuing finger jab to his throat.

Noam grabbed the laughing guard, locking both of their hands behind their back before dispelling Hideous Laughter. The guard came back to see a blade held to their neck. “I’m gonna need directions. I hope you know what the drill is, for your own sake.”

Speed was of the essence. Pushing the hostage in front, they moved further into a dimly lit hallway. Their steps echoed on cobblestones as they passed by numerous empty jail cells and reached a flight of stairs leading upwards to a wooden trapdoor.

“There’s gotta be an ambush up there,” Noam muttered as he glared at their hostage. “You’ll go first. Open the door, and do try to throw off your clothes quickly.”

“Wha-AAAAH!” The guard’s voice rose in panic as Noam spat on their armor. Corralled by his and Utoqa’s swords, they rushed upstairs and tossed open the trapdoor.

“It’s Harldson!” a voice yelled above as the flaming guard rushed out in a mad dash to remove their clothes.

Noam activated Breathless and I’m Lit! As he leapt out, he saw a large, open hallway with a second floor overlooking it, with ten enemies, six guards, and four Travelers. He recognized the mage and rogue he had fought before. “Fancy meeting you—”

“Silence!”

Panicked screams, the clank of armor, and the thudding of boots on wood—all disappeared in that instant. The familiar mage held her staff pointed directly at him. Three rays of white-hot fire exploded towards him. Twisting, he just barely dodged the first, the second singed off his sleeve, and the third blasted him in the belly. The fire was mitigated by the fact he was already on fire, but the mage had begun to tear a spell scroll. Chains silently erupted from the ground towards him.

Utoqa moved, tearing the chains to pieces, then rushing towards the mage. She swapped places with the rogue, appearing on the second floor. The rogue left another piece of clothing as he swapped with a heavily armored man swinging a war hammer.

His burned sleeve landed on the ground.

Utoqa dodged the war hammer, but four guards quickly surrounded him. The other two moved in on Noam, as well as another rogue he didn’t recognize. Noam parried a dagger, elbowed a sword arm into missing, then wrestled that arm into blocking a blade from behind. All three of his opponents caught fire due to proximity, backing off, and he found himself back-to-back with Utoqa as they were surrounded.

They weren’t attacking, simply circling them. Then, Noam gasped in silence as he jerked towards the mage. She was outside of the silence bubble, and casting.

Sound failed him, so Noam elbowed Utoqa and pointed at the mage with his sword. Their enemies took that as a signal to move in. Utoqa glanced at him, and Noam nodded back. The lizardfolk then raised his sword with his good arm and beheaded himself.

Noam grabbed his head before it could drop and punted the severed thing towards the mage. Utoqa Survived the beheading, regrowing a new body in midair, and bowled over the mage.

Noam saw a spray of blood before he engaged in his own battle, activating CtH. Its buff was minuscule with this few enemies, but it gave him the edge to dodge and weave between the weapons. A frantic eternity of near-hits and small cuts, but as the seconds moved on, his opponents gradually caught fire from his aura. Their movements slowed or grew more panicked, and Noam’s only improved as I’m Lit!’s awareness allowed him to track the flames on their bodies. The rogue slipped up, a moment of inexperience that Noam capitalized on with a glob of napalm spit. A second opening, and a guard fell.

A downpour of water slammed into them, extinguishing the flames. The mage wasn’t dead. Noam slowed for a fraction of a second as he adjusted to the sudden explosion of steam and the loss of his I’m Lit! sense.

The war hammer crashed into his thigh; he felt it break, and he began to collapse. The armored Traveler was already rearing the weapon back for another hit. A dead body was thrown into the raised weapon, the swapping rogue already breaking into light particles.

Sound returned: the crackling of fire, pained grunts, and the clank of metal. The mage was dead.

“You are all a hundred years too early to take me on!” Noam screamed.

Vicious Mockery, empowered by both CtH and I’m Lit!, roared out and sparked the remaining fighters aflame once again. The armored Traveler ignored the flames as he rushed to finish him off.

“Stop!” Noam yelled, a mana headache already forming. “It’s Hammer Time!”

The Traveler only paused to laugh for a moment—a moment too long as Noam’s blade darted out. But Noam misjudged it from his lower angle, and the blade bounced off the Traveler’s neck piece. The enemy collected himself and kneed Noam in the stomach. Noam spat blood as he flew. The man took a single step before the line of blood and napalm flared to life.

Chains erupted around the enemy Traveler, as Utoqa Scavenged the corpse of the mage, yelling, “Chain—”

“—ed Fireballs,” Noam OttoCorrected.

The chains disappeared, and instead numerous fireballs exploded on the Traveler, each snowballing into each other. The large man fell, body charred black.

Utoqa leapt down from the second floor, his injured arm remaining injured. It was a weakness of Survive that, even though Utoqa could direct it to regenerate his entire body, he couldn’t undo damage from a killing blow. Noam saw Celine’s threads sowing themselves into a workable cast, however. Then he deactivated I’m Lit! and Utoqa helped him up, one of his legs hanging uselessly between them, and they opened the front door. Fresh air blew in. “Celine? Can you hear me?”

The response was patchy and full of static. “Noam! I—only some—Dustin—the sun—”

Utoqa raised his head to the sky. “The sun is northeast of us, at an angle of …”

Fenkai’s secret worked overtime as I calculated the location of my allies. The angle of sun they were seeing compared to mine meant, “Westward!” The swamp elemental kicked up its speed.

Celine patched Noam’s leg. It wasn’t as agile as he was used to, but at least he could stand. They were in a woodland manor, surrounded by forests. Dustin knew their direction but not the specifics.

A few well-placed globs of spit and fire bolts lit the manor aflame; its smoke could be seen for miles.

“Hide now.” Utoqa took him, and they disappeared.

“Will she be alright?” Melinda asked Tai. Behind them in the alley, Celine was furiously working on Noam’s and Utoqa’s dolls. Droplets of sweat glinted on her brow in the little light they had; the distance her magic was having to traverse was taking a clear toll on her.

“I don’t know.” Tai looked around the dark alleyway. “Are we sure we’re safe here?”

“We’re well in alley space,” the bubbly woman answered. “Johnny don’t stray from Mr. Peterson.”

The boy paused, nodding as he came closer to a ghost that Tai couldn’t see.

“I never asked why you’re helping us,” Tai asked the mortician.

“Hmm?” She turned to her with that eternally cheerful smile. “I want to. Johnny looks like he needs help, and we share a curse. I have made mine into a gift and want to share that method. What about you?”

Tai shrugged in return. “Mostly happenstance. I saved him with these idiots and it would suck if all that work went to waste.”

She stiffened as Melinda suddenly patted her on the shoulder. “It’s ok! Not everyone wants to open up. So long as you know you’re a good person, then that’s all that matters!”

Tai pushed the hand off. “You’re weird, you know?”

“Thank you!” The woman beamed at her.

“I don’t mean it as—”

“Okay!” Celine gasped, wiping sweat off her forehead as she stood back up. “They should be fine now. Dustin’s on the way to them.”

She quickly downed a mana potion, then a leaf which Tai recognized as headache medicine—there was fairly significant overlap between mundane and magical headaches—before setting the dolls back into her cloak, whose frayed strings reached out and accepted them, hiding them out of sight. “I’ve done what I can from here.” She pumped her fists. “Ha! A long-range casting without the support of a magic circle. Baba would be proud!”

“Congratulations!” Melinda cheered. “I operated on a mage once. He died doing what you just did, so I know it’s really difficult!”

Silence.

Johnny laughed, and Tai felt inclined to join in, if only to make it less awkward.

“Let’s continue, then!” Melinda either hadn’t noticed or chose not to. She strolled ahead in the abnormally long alleyway. Tai knew of this place. Rumors claimed that all alleyways were connected and that one could travel down them from any city to any other so long as one had sufficient knowledge.

“Yellow!” Celine called out as the wisp landed in her hood. She held out an arm as it clambered out. It had grown much larger since the last time she’d seen it, Tai noted.

It gestured upwards to the shadowy rim of the roof. The sky above the alley was something Tai had been studiously trying to ignore, because it simply defied all logic. It was just stacks upon stacks of different alleyways all the way up into darkness. The sun apparently was only allowed to exist at the edges. Yellow’s siblings were in one such stack, jumping down to join them. “Squeak! Squeak!”

Celine nodded seriously in response. “We’ll be fine. Act as Dustin requested.”

Yellow leapt up to pat Johnny, then they disappeared back into alley-space. Celine talked as they walked. Yellow and Greenie were apparently familiar with the place, and Dustin had sent them from another city to shadow their journey. The ghost they were following clearly had a similar level of mastery, since a few minutes of trekking later, they emerged from a street just a few streets from the orphanage.

“This is as far as I can get you,” Melinda said, hiding just out of sight. Tai could tell she was using the ghost to direct her hiding spot. Her movements were too awkward, following the spirit—heh—of the idea, rather than any lived experience. Noam did it instinctively with his footwork.

Tai leaned out to catch a glance of the empty street. “That’s as far as you need to come. We’re expecting a fight.”

Celine panicked. “We are!?”

The swordswoman rolled her eyes. “I am, at least. I didn’t know how you missed that part of the planning.”

Celine let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, we have a plan, thank god.” She wiped her forehead. “I thought we were going in blind for a second.”

Tai pointed her sheathed sword at the orphanage. “It’s called, ‘Run Until We Reach the Orphanage.’” She pretended she didn’t notice Celine silently freaking out. “Don’t worry. Yellow scouted it out. We’ll be fine unless there are lookouts good enough to avoid it.”

Johnny stepped forward. “How can I help?”

“Nuh uh.” Tai barred the way with her sheathed sword. “You figured out you can control your ghost curse only a day ago. You’re not ready for this.”

“But I want to help!” the boy yelled.

Tai winced, then poked her head out to make sure no hostiles had heard that. After seeing no movement, she poked her head back in. “Want isn’t a factor, Jojo. You’re a child.”

“I have seen death.” The boy blankly stared at her. And, by gods, those empty pools of darkness alone showed the truth.

But Tai didn’t budge. “Death doesn’t make an adult. If a child works an adult’s job in a tavern, that doesn’t make them an adult. A child suffers an adult’s pain, that doesn’t make them an adult. A child fights an adult’s war, that doesn’t make them an adult, either.”

“But I can do this! What the monster did to Utoqa’s clone—that shows we’re strong! We can help!”

“You disproved yourself in that sentence. If you can’t even rein your emotions in, you’ll be nothing but a liability?”

“Tai, you’re being too hard on—” Celine’s sputters were silenced by a raised hand from Melinda.

Tai briefly acknowledged her help with a nod, before she dropped her sword on the ground. It clattered lightly on the cobblestone. “You want to prove you’re an adult? Then pick that sword up.”

Johnny looked up at her defiantly, then silently turned to kneel by the blade. He put his too-small hands on the hilt and tried to pull.

It didn’t budge. “I said, pick it up.”

He grunted with effort, shoes scraping the ground as he tugged on the immovable thing. He adjusted his angle and where he held it. “Ghost! Help me!”

Melinda’s eyes followed the thing that only she and Johnny could see.

The sword didn’t move.

With a single hand, Tai picked up the blade. Johnny reached towards it with desperation in his eyes as she raised it above his reach. “Until you can do this, go with Melinda. You’ll be safer.”

Melinda patted Johnny on the shoulder. “It’s alright. You can help me with my work.”

“It won’t be as important,” Johnny spat.

The mortician shrugged. “Maybe, but you’re the only one who can help me.”

Johnny blinked, trying to feign disinterest as Melinda continued. “You saw how many ghosts were around my house. They aren’t old spirits. All of them are recent. Something happening in this city is killing people in strange and unusual ways, and I need someone else who can talk to them. Not a disinterested mage dabbling with being a medium, but someone who can truly understand.” The woman gave Johnny a solemn look. “Can you help me with that?”

He nodded, and holding his hand, Melinda smiled at Celine and Tai. “We will depart for now. I wish you luck in your battles.”

“And I in yours.” Tai nodded.

They disappeared back into the alley as Celine and Tai both stepped out. Her hand was on her hilt, silently prepared as Celine followed behind her, silver threads at the ready. They made it safely to the orphanage, and Sister Glascoin worriedly ushered them in. Both Celine and Tai were now trapped in the siege.

“So that’s your situation,” I muttered. The swamp elemental’s back was rough, but as a myconid, I was hardy so didn’t find it that uncomfortable.

Their choice made sense. I asked Celine to flee the orphanage and meet up with Tai during the opening I had created. I couldn’t guarantee her safety while I wasn’t there. Some part of me felt I was being callous for writing off the children and Sister Glascoin, but it was the analytical rather than the kind part of me. I ultimately didn’t care about those people as much as I did Celine who I’d spent more time with. Even then, I didn’t think I would be all that upset if Celine died, given my reaction to Naukoth’s death, although it would be unpleasant. Now, the both of them bolstered the Hearth Home’s defenses, and while I wasn’t sure if we could trust this Melinda character, the idea of leaving Johnny in an unknown safe location made sense in theory. There was little I could do to affect that battle, so instead I turned to the skies, where a black smoke column was rising in the distance. The wisps were running covertly throughout the city. Hopefully together they could affect the situation. They only had to hold until we got back.

2.10

“I love the darker heroes; they are just like me.”

—The Revenant King, who once called genocide
“whole demographic conscription.”

Johnny Joymoon sat with a notebook, chewing his pen as he looked at the ghost before him.

“No luck?” Melinda leaned over.

He shook his head, tilting it like Dustin did sometimes. “He only says one thing.”

“Mud …” the spirit groaned.

Melinda tilted her own head, biting a biscuit as she mimicked Johnny’s stance. “That’s a strange thing for a ghost to say. Sometimes people don’t keep all their facilities when they die, but most can talk at least.”

She offered the ghost a cookie.

Johnny turned to her. “What did you get from his body?”

The woman seemed down as the ghost ignored her cookie. Somber and silent for a moment, Johnny asked again, “Ms. Melinda? His body?”

“There wasn’t a lot left.”

“Huh?”

She held her arm, looking away. “It had to be a closed-casket funeral. I did what I could to make him look presentable, but I wasn’t able to fix his body for his family.”

Johnny nodded before walking away and talking to the next ghost.

“Suffocating …”

Looking at this ghost, he winced. The previous ghost’s body was left in shambles, but this one’s spirit was damaged as well. He gulped. There was no blood, only gaping gashes and the scent of burned fat.

“Johnny!” Melinda rushed up to him. “I can take him if you’re uncomfortable.”

He shook his head. “No, I can handle this, I’m strong.” He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince with that, but, still, drawing in a deep breath, he asked, “What killed you?”

The man gaped, as if gasping for breath. “Dirt …”

Nothing. Well, nothing that they hadn’t heard before. It seemed like many of them were buried alive, but what caused their wounds, then? Only Utoqa could have survived those injuries long enough to be buried. Johnny kept chewing his pen, grinding it down with his teeth until he tasted the ink. This was a mistake; it was pointless; he wasn’t doing anything that mattered!

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. A ghost, hidden amongst the myriad crowd of all others. He was whole, a grown man, built large like a bear and wearing a blacksmith’s apron. His calloused hands were clutching his head as he shook, whimpering. Johnny pushed aside the numerous ghosts near him, a sea of spirits parting as he arrived beside the lonesome one. Still whole, still conscious.

Still able to communicate.

“What killed you?”

The ghost looked at him with hollow eyes. They were haunting things, brown orbs of the once-living, ripped from hope and buried in an abyss of despair. Johnny did not flinch, for he saw similar eyes in the mirror.

“Clay. Clay killed me!” the ghost began to shout, waving his arms madly. “I WAS COVERED! COULDN’T MOVE AS FIRE BAKED ME AND ATE MY SOUL! I CRACKED AS ALL POTS DO!”

Johnny flinched back now, something telling him this ghost was dangerous. An intuition for spirits he wasn’t sure he had always had. For not all ghosts were ephemeral, benign things. Some could affect the physical world; some would haunt a place for centuries, lashing out at the living in inexplicable ways. Johnny knew this was one such ghost. He turned to the monster he knew, that monstrous thing made of arms and the dead spirit of lies. “Ghost! Kill it!”

It began to move, unfurling in a mass of violence as it approached them. The blacksmith ghost beside him roared. His own ghost wouldn’t make it in time. He had put it too far away, for it still reminded him of the past. The blacksmith ghost grabbed his shoulder. Melinda raised two hands, one at the ghost of lies and another at the ghost of the blacksmith. “Mr. Hauerdian, he is trying to help you.”

Both ghosts stopped, like twin candles sputtering out to darkness.

“Remember your wife’s pies? She leaves them out to cool by the window. The smell is divine.” She smiled, sitting beside the ghost as if reminiscing with a friend. “I suspect she does it intentionally. She’s quite mischievous, isn’t she? She leaves them out just to make other people jealous.”

Melinda gently rested a comforting hand on him. “The kids from the Hearth Home always steal her pies. She scolds up a storm worthy of an imperial tutor, but she always leaves the pies in the same spot for them.”

Mr. Hauerdian blinked, as if having woken from a long dream. He looked at Melinda, then Johnny. For a moment, sanity and recognition flitted through his eyes, and with it, Johnny saw a pained man. But it was gone as quickly as the warmth from a blown candle. The ghost turned around, held his head, and continued to mutter and shake, leaving Johnny frozen, and Melinda looking sad.

Johnny shuffled a cautious step back. “Ms. Melinda, he’s still dangerous.”

“I know.” Her arms gently wrapped around Johnny. He stiffened, but the embrace felt right. Like a warm bed after a long winter’s day. “But you have to remember that the ghosts you talk to were once people and still are, in many cases.” She nodded towards the door, where Mr. Peterson kept watch outside.

“But not all of them are,” Johnny whispered back. His own eyes avoided hers, drawn to the silent grotesque thing that had returned to its corner. His hand went to the ragged doll, tightening around it in a stranglehold. “Why did he give that thing to me?”

“Because he, too, is suffering. He, too, doesn’t know how to do things right.” She patted his head and stood up. “Now then, there are a lot more people to interview, and they’re all counting on us to pass on!”

“You look like shit,” I told Noam as he rested by Utoqa. His wounds were closed, but Celine could only do so much at this great distance. With the new contract, I wasn’t in a position to waste mana; even if my regeneration was great, I was still drained from signing on the toad. There would be little point. Noam was depleted as well, having spent most of his abilities and mana. Given his stats, he wouldn’t be greatly useful if I were to heal him. I would be losing myself as a combat asset for little gain. Despite that, I knelt beside him and started casting Balm Spores.

He raised an eyebrow, then grinned. “You too? What’s the new ride?”

Utoqa was silently sizing up the swamp elemental. “It would be a tiresome hunt.”

“Glad to see you approve of it.” Coming from him, it was high praise, indeed. Maybe I did luck out with the elemental.

Balm Spores healed the minor bits Celine didn’t have the power to prioritize or fix. I freshened Utoqa up as well; he was built tougher than Noam, but his arm was still raw. “Pain, pain, go away, Rain, leave for next day, Now feel the numbness, Bring Fix-Up-Fungus!” I got a bit woozy as I lost the mana and the healing shroom sprouted between us. The mana sickness was now, in hindsight, a terrible thing to have to get used to, like getting used to growing boils when plague comes, but what could you do?

“That’s the stuff,” Noam moaned, hugging the Fix-Up Fungus as it spewed healing spores on him.

I did the thing all good friends do when their friends are in distress. I said, “The mushroom is rather phallic, isn’t it?”

Noam choked and fell off of the healing shroom. “Hey, I’m injured here!”

“Clearly not injured enough.” I chuckled.

He rolled his eyes. “If I were less tired, I would be eviscerating you right now.”

Utoqa raised an eyebrow. “When you say that, you imply with weapons, but you mean with words, correct?”

Noam grinned. “With words, right? Dustin is our protector. It would be poor form to wound him.”

His grin widened.

Utoqa tilted his head. “Baring teeth is a threat, but amongst the softskins, it is supposed to be reassurance?”

I bonked Noam with my staff. “Cut it out. Don’t confuse the terminator lizard.”

Noam laughed as he rolled over. “Softskins, indeed! After seeing what you can do with your teeth, I think you deserve to call us Squishy Meatbags.”

“Dustin is not made of meat,” Utoqa said. “His flesh is tougher and more plant-like.”

“Trust him, he’s tried,” I agreed.

Noam laughed at that. Utoqa perked up, afraid that the noise would attract something, but he sensed nothing, and sat back down, eyes closed as he focused on resting.

After a while, he opened his eyes. “I am recovered. What shall be our next course of action?”

“Returning to the city, the Hearth Home, it seems we are in for an extended fight.”

“Dusts—” Noam sat up. “—the plan?”

“Working on it.” I bit my thumb. The enemy was a guild of Travelers and the city guard. The simple fact was that we were outnumbered, and though Utoqa by himself was worth almost a dozen of them, all it took was a single mistake. Did they still think he was a Traveler? With magic being so free, there must be a way to keep a Traveler in permanent stasis so that they could not respawn elsewhere. My eyes lingered on the ashes. The use of a prison implied they did not have the capability, but how much longer would that hold true? Travelers apparently haven’t been a part of this world for a long time, only returning recently with our wave, but if I were a resident of this world, I might’ve set up a service for detaining them. A magical prison that induced comas, kept threats off the board for a subscription. Of course, the real problem would then be dealing with their pissed Traveler friends, but then I could just sell their freedom back and get paid twice—I was getting off track again. The simplest solution would be to just kill them and spawn-camp the Wayshards. It wouldn’t stop them from entering the city by normal means, but it would theoretically keep a Traveler off the board for a while.

If we discounted alleyspace, that is. I wasn’t entirely convinced Yellow and Greenie were serious about the place, but given that Celine sent a message of their meetup, it was another ace up our sleeves.

Noam stretched, reminding me of a cat. “Right, I’m physically recovered.”

“Good.” As I stood, a mushroom appeared in my palm. “Let’s set up my second ace in the hole.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t question it. It was something I realized I should appreciate more about him. Though it sounded obvious, my thoughts happened in the privacy of my mind, yet I always expected others to follow a similar chain of logic, arrive at the same conclusion, and work together on the same plan. Noam didn’t know what I was thinking, nor did he think in a similar way. He simply trusted me and offered his help.

I pressed the Stamp of Symbiosis on the back of his hand.

Mr. Hauerdian felt pain.

“We know they all died the same way,” Johnny said, tapping his head with his pen. “But none of them remembered who or what killed them. Mr. Hauerdian remembered the most, but …”

Mr. Hauerdian felt pain.

Recalling that memory hurt him. Johnny could ask, press for more details, learn more about the monster who had killed so many people, but he would just be hurting someone else in the process. After that realization, he wondered if he was even capable of asking, even if it was in service of the greater good. If he simply didn’t know that the ghosts felt pain, he might’ve caught the killer already. He wasn’t doing the best he could; he wasn’t trying his hardest. Johnny was lacking, and he couldn’t bring himself to fix it.

So they had to try another route. Melinda and Johnny double-checked their notes, and Johnny read Melinda’s prior investigation notes—most of the same stuff, only older. There were ghosts decades older than he was, all similar causes of death, but the number increased greatly in recent years. Most of the ghosts around them occurred within the past year alone.

The rest degenerated, years of never resting in peace. Melinda did what she had to, and her notes on those people were covered in tear stains. He wished he could forget seeing those tears as well. It was when Johnny threw down a stack of notes with an audible thud that Melinda stopped him, placing a tray of tea and snacks onto the table. “Let’s have tea!”

Johnny brushed away the snacks that she placed by his hand. “I can keep working.”

“You can work anytime you want, but resting you can’t always do,” she said, pushing the snacks back towards him.

“But you said it yourself, they’re relying on us,” Johnny pointed out as he pushed the cookie back.

“You think they want to be sent to the afterlife by someone who looks half-dead from exhaustion?” she asked. This time she didn’t push the snacks closer; she simply waved them, allowing their scent to waft towards him.

They were buttery cookies and scones, with sugar and jam.

“It’s irresponsible,” he said again.

“You have a responsibility to your health.” She gestured at her mortician’s apron, pointing out crumbs of cookies over the dried blood. “Look! I’ve been snacking whenever I can. You should, too!”

The cookie smelled of warmth and home.

Johnny slammed his palm into the table, spilling tea on the ground. “I DON’T WANT TO!”

He stood up, fists shaking. “I don’t want to rest, or have cookies or tea, or whatever you want to give me! I don’t want to be treated like a kid! I want to help someone! I want to be able to save people! I want to …” His eyes widened. “I want to be a hero. I want to be the farmer who slays the giant monster, the good king who overthrows the tyrant, the knight who slays the dark lord. I want to be someone who can save others.”

Johnny raised the doll of the Weeping Child, staring into its button eyes. “That’s why he picked me. That’s why you sought me out.” He looked at Melinda, really seeing her. “You can use your powers, your … ‘blessing’ so freely. I can learn to be a hero from you.”

Johnny could be the farm boy who slays dragons.

Melinda knelt down and wiped up the spilled tea. “Do you know of Astrologer Joseph?”

Johnny paused in surprise. “The slayer of the last True Vampires? The Hero of Bright Days?”

She chuckled. “Yes, him. He definitely did those things.” She set the cups back onto the table. “He also loved tea … and his wife’s cookies.” Melinda looked mischievously conspiratorial, like a girl revealing she was the one who had eaten the sugar cubes from the pantry. “She taught me how to make them, you know? Would never tell Joseph, but he wouldn’t know how to bake them even if she had. He could navigate the stars from memory but couldn’t get around a kitchen, even with instruction.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“Not all heroes are as large as you think they are.” She poured another cup of tea. “Some of them are just like you or me—”

“Or Dustin or Noam or Tai or Celine or Utoqa …” he said. “The Weeping Child said the same thing.”

“You can be a hero, Johnny, the greatest the realm has ever seen.” She offered him the snacks again. “Just don’t forget the taste of sweetness.”

2.11

“You cannot defeat us, Revenant King! For we healthily worked through our issues with good communication!”

“I wish you had just said ‘the power of friendship.’”

—Interaction between Imamu the Lone Swordsmen and the Revenant King during their final battle

Utoqa was flexing his injured hand when my familiar noticed something. The toad ambled towards the smoldering ruins of the manor. My hand rested on its back. “What do you see?”

Rotten. Scent. Brimstone. Demon.

“The rotten smell of brimstone and demons?” I muttered.

“That would be me, dawg,” Noam called out, scratching the back of his hand. “Damn, this thing is itchy.”

“He’s right.” I thumbed towards Noam. “It’s probably him,”

Half-Blood. Fake. Imitation. Scent. Pure. True.

“I need to mana-bond with that thing. One-sided conversations just aren’t interesting to listen to,” Noam said behind me.

Utoqa stepped up beside me, flexed his arm, and ripped off his cast—what frightening recovery speed. “The woodskin senses danger. An old scent of predators.”

I gestured at the toad. “You understood it?”

“I understand the look of prey in fear,” Utoqa answered.

“He doesn’t mean offense with that.” Noam stumbled forward. “He’s just blunt like that, Mr. Toad.”

My familiar was silent; instead, it started towards the manor ruins.

I shared a look with Noam, then Utoqa. Noam grinned, and I shook my head. He was still recovering. Not even mentioning his skills, his body was just burned out. Pouting, he went back to the camp and laid on a log, snores following soon after. Utoqa nodded and I nodded back. He walked forward with me, flexing his arm and checking his range of motion. He drew a sword. “They stole Gift. I require it back.”

“Think it survived Noam’s napalm?”

“Fire will not destroy it,” the lizardfolk replied simply.

“Then, let’s hurry, our window is closing.” The Travelers would have respawned by now and had had time to drum up a party to this location. Only distance separated us.

Seeing fire up close made me … nervous. It took me a while to recognize the emotion, but not long to realize it wasn’t mine but that of the body I inhabited. The heat was scorching, and part of my body demanded I seek moisture and cooler pastures. The swamp elemental pushed forward, shoving away debris. It, too, was nervous, but it was an elemental of the hot and humid. Its reservations weren’t as strong as the instincts of my myconid body.

Utoqa found his tomahawk quickly in the rubble, tossing the sword aside for the much-more familiar weapon. Gift was still sharp. What little blackening on it was quickly dusted off, revealing pristine ivory-white.

“What bone is that made from?” I stopped to ask as the toad continued forward, sniffing the ground like a bloodhound.

“Dragon,” he answered.

My half-formed reply was cut short by a loud, guttural croak. The toad was violently shoving aside debris. Utoqa and I rushed to it, coming just in time to see it reveal a great stone slab set in the ground. The toad’s tongue shot out, a long sinuous thing made from thick lengths of rope. It stuck to the door, and with a great heave it moved the stone slab to reveal a passage underneath.

“This isn’t the burrow Noam and I escaped from.”

“Cellar or dungeon,” I corrected. “Trapdoor could also be correct, though you would be referring to the door in that case.”

Utoqa nodded, holding Gift in a guarded position. He didn’t have a chance to take point, though, as the toad rushed forward, squeezing itself into the tight corridor. I gestured at Utoqa to take the back. “We’re going to need to work on communication, Elemental. Do you have a name?” I asked as I followed behind it.

It sent back a concept too complex to really be contained by a single word. Names were important to beings of its type. Most didn’t have one, and it was part of the majority.

“Want a name, then?”

The toad paused, and it turned awkwardly within the cramped space to look at me. Bargain? it asked.

Its tongue flicked out and tasted me. Dustin the Thrice-Blinded.

My name—and it speaking it—somehow encompassed the entirety of me. I shoved the tongue off my face. “No, you can’t have that one. I’m still using it. I’m offering something new.” It turned around, continuing down the stairs, but there was a thoughtful glint to its eyes now. The next concept it sent back took a second to parse. “You prefer earning a name naturally through deeds accomplished in this realm, but you don’t mind someone with my title naming you?” Another concept, this time a ritual. It looked like a serious one as well, much more complex than my Summon Wisps. “And you want me to do it properly through a big important ritual.”

Affirmation. Deal.

And depending on how well I did the naming ritual and the “quality” of the name provided, it would be willing to work for free? “I’ll take it into serious consideration.”

We reached the end before long, the toad familiar letting out a threatening rumbling as it surveyed the room. It was a chamber. Walls of rough-hewn stone blocks carved with intricate scripts glowed softly with pale golden light. The glyphs were beyond me, but I kept a mental note to discuss it with Celine later. They ran the length of the walls and led to the center of the room where they climbed up onto a raised altar like intricate circuitry.

There lay a bloody tooth—a molar the size of my head, its roots buried in pink flesh. It was covered in the same script, but even as I watched it, I saw the script eroding. The glyphs were disappearing a chunk at a time, as if something were taking bites out of it.

I noticed my Secret give a warning. The Secret of Fenkai gave me knowledge of directions, time, and weather when the world was ordered, but those senses were slipping; instead, new magics were filling me. Undecided like a flipped coin still spinning in midair.

Utoqa gestured to a spot on the wall where a droplet of melted slag had dripped down from above and ruined one of the glyph lines.

“Utoqa, Elemental, we are leaving.”

The last glyph on the tooth disappeared.

There was a force, an indent on my cap. I saw it on Utoqa and the elemental as well. A tracing of a circle, pushing down on our skin like a maw of teeth. Utoqa’s Gift swung out, but it hit nothing.

And I felt something bite. A chunk was ripped from my cap, same as Utoqa and the elemental. Our flesh went flying, and the flesh on the molar grew.

Utoqa was already running, leaping off the elemental to gain greater distance. I followed close behind. A Misty Step teleported me beside the molar just as Utoqa reached it. He slammed down with Gift, carving a deep chunk as bone proved tougher than enamel. Tracing my staff, I cast Shillelagh and threw my own blow. Enhanced by magic, I widened the gap.

It wasn’t enough, I felt another indent on my arm as phantom teeth prepared to Bite. Rot Spores putrefied what flesh the tooth had; it sloughed off in great blackened oozes. A mana headache had me staggering backwards. Utoqa delivered the final blow, his axe splitting the black miasma to reach the tooth underneath. Striking the carved channel, he broke the tooth in two.

It unleashed what was within.

Phantasmal teeth spilled out, tearing at us and the ground beneath. Lashing out in hunger and rage. Like a swarm of piranhas, they tore through my bark-skin armor. An ivory whirlwind that stripped and tore. Utoqa disappeared under the blinding assault, buried under teeth much like I was. A long tongue pierced through the enamel walls, sticking to my back as the elemental pulled me out. I landed with a thud, ichor bleeding through my wounds and already congealing. The elemental had pulled me out first. “Get Utoqa, you idiot!”

It quickly complied, fishing the battered lizardfolk out. “Next, prioritize my non-Traveler allies. I’ll be fine if I have to die a few times.”

The attack slowly petered out, leaving only a bowl-shaped hole where the altar had once stood. Other than the split tooth, everything else had been ground to dust or covered in teeth marks.

“Something strange has happened,” Utoqa said.

“Tell me about it,” I scoffed.

The lizardfolk took me literally and pointed behind us, where the light from outside filtered through the stone doorframe. The staircase was gone; instead, only three steps led to the outside.

“Oh, you meant that.” I knelt down, feeling the first step. “Some kind of space fuckery? Explains how the slag got down here.”

The glyphs had ceased glowing now. I took three short steps and found myself back on the surface. “The basement must’ve been directly under the manor. The magic made the staircase unnaturally long. When Noam burned the mansion down, he melted some magma that dripped down and ruined the magic circle. Leading to whatever-that-tooth-was breaking free.”

The toad hopped up beside me. Demon. Fragment.

“If that’s the case, we’re withdrawing,” I answered. “We’ll get Johnny, Celine, and Tai and leave this city.”

“Why?” Utoqa asked.

“I read about demons in books.” One of the first things I had done upon entering Indiri was absorb every piece of information I reasonably could from a library. “Thought most of what was said about them had been exaggerated. After I met that hydra monster in Lake Bayt, however, I began to think differently. Even a weak lower-circle demon would be beyond our ability to fight. Let’s just run. Our lives aren’t worth risking.”

“Noam would disagree.”

I paused in surprise as I turned to Utoqa. “You disagree also?”

“No.”

He didn’t elaborate, so I pressed. “Then why did you say that?”

“Because Noam would disagree,” he answered in his characteristically literal way.

“Only if we tell him.”

Utoqa stared at me with his blank, reptilian eyes. “I will tell him.”

I clutched my staff tighter. “Why? And give me a good reason. Don’t just repeat yourself.”

He tilted his head, a habit he’d picked up recently. After a moment of thought, he answered, “I trust Noam more than I do you.”

I paused. His increasing skill in conversation almost made me forget how blunt he was. “For what reason?”

Utoqa thrust a finger towards my chest, the gesture forcing me back a step. Then he pointed at himself. “We’re both …” He paused in thought. “… hardskins. We would both betray the other to protect our own lives. Noam would not. He is similar to Naukoth. Softskin. He cares about the pack.”

“What I am suggesting is to ensure the survival of the party.” I stepped forward, standing as tall as I could even though he still dwarfed me by a good few feet. “Are you suggesting I don’t care?”

“No, you care about just two of them,” he answered, shrugging. “You would’ve abandoned me in the stomach of the memory eater, even when you suspected I was there, because it risked you. It was Noam who made you save me.” Curiously, it didn’t actually seem to bother him at all. He just accepted it as a fact of life. After all, he would’ve done the same thing in my position. It’s why I couldn’t even muster false anger against him; he was just too reasonable.

The swamp elemental moved to stand behind me, glowering at the lizardfolk. The distance between us was close—dangerously close. I would not win a melee against him. “Did you think telling me this would lead to a good result for you?”

My grip tightened on my staff.

Utoqa’s hand fell to his axe.

I blinked first. Sighing, I collapsed on a nearby stone. “Go and tell him, then. You are being a fool. You think telling Noam would ensure your own survival because he cares about you, but he is not a creature of rationality like you or I. I’ll tell you how this will go: you will only invite greater battles relying on Noam.”

“I left my nest to depart from this rationality,” Utoqa answered as he strode off.

“Then you may be the smarter of us two.” I sighed, stroking the swamp elemental’s back as I watched him go, disappearing past the smoldering ruins and back into Noam’s clearing.

“Am I a bastard?” I asked the elemental. I shook my head. “No, don’t answer that. I lost in ethics to a cannibalistic psychopathic lizard, whose only priorities in life are survival and scavenging. He might even be better than me on the basis that he’s at least honest about his psychopathy.”

When I followed back, Utoqa even had the decency to pretend the confrontation never happened, or maybe it genuinely never occurred to him to tell Noam I briefly thought of murdering him.

“And that’s about it.” Sat inside a circle of mushrooms, I filled Noam in on the situation. Utoqa ate silently beside us, not interrupting because I didn’t miss a single detail. By the end, we were left in thoughtful silence. Only the buzz of the night forest could be heard. Noam’s eyes flitted from silent Utoqa, then to me. I could tell he had realized something then, though it didn’t show on his face. How odd that I could notice that now. Looking back, even a few months ago, I would’ve completely missed it. I knew so very little of my friend; willful ignorance had made me ignorant of other things as well.

Noam threaded his fingers together. “So, what do you suggest?”

“I’d say this entire city isn’t worth it anymore.” Since he’d realized my disagreement with Utoqa, there was no harm in letting it be known now. “Johnny wants to stay at the orphanage, but the situation has become untenable.”

“Where did that demon piece come from?” Noam asked, glancing towards the toad, who sadly also had no answer.

I shrugged. “It matters little to me, the presence of even a fragment makes me want to run for the hills. It appeared to be sealed, but that could go either way. It could be that it was done like that to keep people safe, or to save it as a weapon to be used.” Gripping my staff, I sighed. “We can deal with a guild of Travelers, but the problem is they’re not just that. We’ve killed guards and regular people now.”

I glanced towards Utoqa, and still speaking to Noam, I continued, “At the tavern, it was you who threw the first blow, correct? We’ve simply escalated the conflict. I won’t be surprised if we have “Wanted” posters against us now. Whatever move we take next, it must be with great consideration.”

Noam was silent, brow furrowed in thought. After a moment, he said, “We need to regroup.”

I nodded, glancing towards the stars. We rested the night, then traveled on foot towards the city. Once we were a certain distance away where Celine’s magic would not dissipate as easily, we started another conference, bringing Celine and Tai up to date with our situation.

“… The primary offenders are Noam, Utoqa, and me. Given the escalation, and the fact we’ve already killed several people, most of whom are guards and militia men, we will be wanted. However, you two should be relatively unknown or considered innocent. An investigation will link us together as a party, but neither of you directly participated in the battles.”

“That’s right, Yellow came by and told us the guards are searching for you three. Though we were mentioned, they don’t know what we look like beyond some vague descriptions,” Celine said.

“We are a new party. That is to our advantage. Our composition is not common knowledge. Though the Mercenary Guild will have our details, it should be similarly sparse and show that we have not been together for more than a few weeks.” Despite things going south, you two are still capable of pulling out of this situation. Leaving is an option for you guys. In fact I suggest it, since you two can safely pull Johnny out while the three of us sort this mess out ourselves.”

Noam frowned, glimpsing what I was thinking.

“If they seek you out, you two can give us up. We are a new party formed out of traveling convenience. We do not know each very well and you certainly couldn’t have expected the three of us to defy a local authority. These things are all true and should pass something like a Zone of Truth spell.”

“I … I can’t give you guys up!” Celine cried. I felt her fingers tighten around the doll as if shaking me in surprise.

“Both Noam and I are Travelers. If worst comes to worst, we can discard our current bodies and return in new ones. As for Utoqa, he can just flee the continent. The ones at greatest risk are you two and Johnny. I would not ask you three to risk yourselves like this.”

“Tai! Tell him we can’t do that! We’re friends!”

There was a moment’s pause before Tai answered. “Dustin is right. He can’t expect us to fight with them. The punishment for killing a city guard is execution. But more than our lives, we’d be risking our right to be in any city at all. Taebut’s governor will have us blacklisted from every city, township, and backwater hovel they share connections with.” They heard a table slam through the connection. “That being said! There is something extremely odd about the situation. Why would Governor Hye commit so many resources to retrieving a child? Why does she have a demon fragment locked in a basement? There are too many mysteries here, and I want to be able to see this through.”

“Yeah, same here.” Noam stroked his chin. “I feel like I just joined a bar fight and I don’t know the argument that started it or who threw the first punch.”

“You should be well-acquainted with that feeling,” I couldn’t help but quip.

Noam helplessly threw up his arms. “Guilty, but all the same, I want to know this time. Dustin, you met Hye. What’s your take on her?”

“Careful.” I paused. “Considerate and conservative in her actions. She’s working with Travelers, but she doesn’t have good control of them. I was able to rope the monk into a contract and seal his stats. I had the feeling she really didn’t want to start a fight, either because she knew my capabilities as a mass chemical weapon or because of proximity to the Hearth Church. She seems to have a good grasp on the law, perhaps due to her occupation. However, she feared my contract magic was rigged.”

There was a potential link there, now that I knew there was a connection with the Hells. However, devils were the ones who made contracts. Demons were a different matter. You couldn’t exactly bargain with natural disasters. Though I suppose doomsday viruses hellbent on the destruction of the virtual world would be more accurate.

Noam tilted his head in thought and raised an eyebrow. “Do you think she’s the type to shake down an orphanage?”

“What are you insinuating?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But there are too many strange things happening in this city, and your description doesn’t seem to match. I was half expecting a cartoonishly evil dictator we could just beat up and be done with.”

“What’s a cartoon?” Celine asked.

Tai sighed. “You turn to violence a bit too quickly, Noam.”

Noam mimed throwing a few punches, since they could see our dolls. “Like I said, bar fight.”

“And she very well could be,” I cut in, keeping us on track. “Both can be true. Not to mention my own grasp on people is biased and flawed.” Utoqa was a silent testament to that. I sighed. “If we’re all in favor of pursuing this, please be aware of the risks. Even if you disagree with my plan, I would like you two to keep the option of betraying us open for yourselves.”

Celine sputtered out a few words of disagreement but grew quiet as Tai said, “Dustin, I am not that self-serving. You had my back at Lake Bayt, and so did Utoqa and Noam. That’s worth something.”

My brows deepened to a frown. “We remember Lake Bayt very differently. As far as I recall, I was prepared to leave all of you for dead and run.”

Noam slapped my cap. “And now you’re telling them to do the same thing to you in order to save their own hides. God, you’re such an idiot sometimes.” “Sorry for my friend,” he said to the girls. “It really isn’t personal. He just expects everyone to think the same as him.”

“I can tell.”

What did they mean by that? I shrugged. “We’re getting off-track again. If we’re all in favor of remaining, we need a plan of attack. Let me confirm again, is Johnny safe?”

“Melinda is an odd woman, but she didn’t seem malicious. Quite the opposite, in fact.” Tai’s tone turned solemn. “That being said, I was the one who made the call to leave him with her.”

Meaning she’d take responsibility if something went wrong. It was a risk, certainly, however one I was inclined to leave be—not because I trusted this stranger, but because Johnny meeting a woman who shared his powers and deific blessing seemed too coincidental. Given what I knew about the Scales and the balance of fortune and karma, Johnny should be due a good turn or twenty-seven. I would honestly be more worried about the people who went after him. Grim as they were, the Weeping Child was a god of orphans, despite its indiscriminate protection. Utoqa’s clone lacked his Path, but even it couldn’t have died easily without a trace. Worst-case scenario, the entire city would get leveled by a gestalt of ghosts, which Johnny and the children would survive.

“Then let us make plans with peace of mind,” I said.

2.12

“Two-hundred and eighty-six. Believe in luck. I would not be alive without it.”

—Excerpt from Edwin’s Enchiridion of Encounters

Johnny Joymoon woke up well-rested. He had not fallen asleep in the warm cot; instead, he had dozed off in front of the impromptu snack table. For a moment, that feeling stayed with him. A bit of magic only a child could experience, falling asleep one place and waking up in bed. Something lost as a person grew older and was expected to manage their own care. For a moment, he knew to appreciate that feeling.

It was still late at night and Melinda snored loudly on her own operating table, having left her cot for Johnny. The mortuary was admittedly a very messy place. Yet it was an organized chaos—that of a professional who knew her workplace and tools better than her own hands. It was in this environment that Johnny contemplated their problem, discarding his expectations to be the hero, to obtain results at any personal cost, for the moment. A child of loss and death wrapped in blankets that smelled faintly of embalming concoctions.

How would they solve this? he wondered.

They would do what he and Melinda had been doing. They would keep reviewing all existing evidence, trying to find the one unifying clue. Dustin would have helped at first, but when no results showed, he would’ve asked Mr. Hauerdian and been done with it. It was a simple calculation; pain over the dead couldn’t justify putting the living at risk. It was a coldness that Dustin was easily capable of projecting onto others and himself.

And Johnny realized he did not want to be cold.

So he crept to their worktable covered in notes and read them for the eleventh time, but for the first time he came to the slow realization of a pattern. It was not some sudden epiphany—merely the natural end-result of many repetitions being processed by a well-rested mind. Johnny Joymoon, not yet knowing fully what it meant, found a map of the city, and began marking it with the location of every death, every restless dead with a corpse too broken to investigate. They were scattered all over, yet every time he marked a new spot, he could see that they were each slithering out of a specific place like the heads of a hydra. For he knew that monsters still followed convenience.

At the center of hundreds of dots was the Hearth Church.

The halls of the Hearth Church were lit by warm orange fire. Despite magical sources of lighting, the more-convenient and cheaper glow crystals, small candles, wicks, and lanterns were dominant here. To Tai, it spoke to what seemed to almost be a flame fetish. Combined with the well-worn wooden floorboards, it created the obstinate image of conserving a traditional homey vibe.

“Each frame is a still picture, the eye can only see around twenty-four frames per second, and if you change these pictures fast enough in a sequence, it gives the illusion of movement …” Noam’s voice, transmitted through Celine’s magic, whispered irritatingly close to her ear.

“Like a flip book?” she asked.

“Yes! Like a flip book.”

“Celine, do you really have enough mana to be keeping this conversation up?” Tai whispered with no small amount of annoyance.

“Sorry!” Celine yelped before cutting the connection with Noam. Tai tapped her ear a few times, as if trying to get the sound out, after confirming silence on her doll’s end. She took a few steps forward, confidently, and without skulking. In the end, that was what decided which of them would be going. Celine could hide surprisingly well, but her anxious demeanor and gait could give something away should she be caught. Strange suspicions aside, they were supposed to be here. Soon, they reached their goal.

She turned slightly to her shoulder and whispered, “This is the pantry?”

Yellow squeaked an affirmative.

The Hearth Church was a surprisingly large building with the main dining hall in its left wing, and the kitchen and pantry attached to it, along with the private tearoom they had been greeted in. She tried the pantry door. Locked. Yellow hopped off her shoulder and squeezed through the gap underneath the door, after which she went down on all fours herself, eyes peering through after it. Her view was restricted, but Yellow’s glow helped her make out the little she could see.

Tai confirmed what the wisp had previously stated: a filled pantry but lean stock, more for filling bellies than anything luxurious. Surprisingly high-quality pots, though. One of her exes was a potter and she had picked up a few things from him. They had kept in touch even after he aged out of her, being a human and all. The pots were colorfully glazed in a way that reflected well off Yellow’s light. Some were unglazed and more amateurish; by the small fingerprints, it seemed some of the kids partook in arts and crafts. She saw the mismatched tea set Sister Glascoin had used to serve them before, the kettle expertly crafted but the cups simple and childish.

“What are you doing?” a childish voice asked from behind her.

Tai turned around. Casting a shadow by candlelight was a little human girl with brown ponytails and skin so pale she almost glowed in the dark. Her eyes were wide, with large dark pupils that almost obscured the white of her eyes.

Sill on the floor, Tai awkwardly scratched the back of her head. “I, uh … dropped a copper and it rolled under the door, so I was trying to look for it.” Tai couldn’t hear Yellow hiding, which thankfully meant neither could the girl.

“Sister Glascoin has the keys. We can get her to help,” the girl said.

“It’s late. We can get the coin in the morning, little girl,” Tai replied as she got up and dusted herself off.

“It’s Prea, and Sister is awake now,” Prea pressed as she took a step forward, getting unnervingly close, till Tai could feel the warmth of her breath.

Mustering the same instructive voice of her grandmother, Tai spoke, “But you should be sleeping right now, young lady.”

She took the girl’s hand and started walking to the right wing where the sleeping quarters were, dragging her along.

“But I don’t feel sleepy!”

“Then should I tell you a bedtime story?” Tai asked, keeping a close eye to the girl. Am I just being paranoid? she asked herself.

Either way, it gave her a good excuse to take stock of their living situation. They passed through the dining hall and neared the sound of the whispers of children not quite tired enough to sleep. “Which is your room?”

Prea pointed towards an open door to their left, where bright candlelight was casting long shadows through the doorway. Their rooms were nothing special. There was a bunk bed with blankets still faintly smelling of laundry and sunshine. On the bottom bunk, another girl was reading a book. A twin. “Both of you ought to sleep,” Tai said with a voice that had been passed down from parent to child since the dawn of time. Both of course grumbled and quibbled over their curfew, but Tai saw them off to their beds.

When she closed the door, she came face-to-face with Sister Glascoin.

The sister smiled—a sweet, velvety thing that made any suspicions seem trivial. “Those kids love you.”

“They certainly didn’t look like they do.”

“I know!” She leapt over to Tai and clasped her hands. “They’re a delight, aren’t they?”

Tai looked down, slowly peeling the priestess’s hands off her own. “I don’t really have a lot of experience with kids.”

“Could’ve have fooled me,” she replied. “Would you join me for tea? We may be safe within the church, but I would still like to keep watch.”

Without a good reason to refuse, Tai simply nodded and found herself waiting in the tearoom once again. Sister Glascoin brought over a tray and poured her a cup, before nestling into her own seat. Both of their cups were well-made. Tai watched her take a sip of her tea before she picked up her own teacup.

“Do you believe in luck, Tai?” Sister Glascoin asked.

Tai sipped her tea; it tasted sweet. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Good begets good,” Sister Glascoin began. “Do unto others what you want done to you, and it will happen. There are many ways to describe it, but perhaps that is the easiest. Be generous and kind, and the world will treat you kindly in return.”

Tai’s chair felt especially plush that moment, as if she were sinking into it. “It sounds nice, yeah. I assume you don’t mean it as a simple platitude but something the Elder Pantheon enforces?”

Sister Glascoin smiled. “This is older than Lorn and Gwaina and their Hearthfire. It was something I learned as a young child: generosity provably improves your own luck. I think that is why you’re here. You and the Toy Dragons came here in my moment of need, because I have done good all my life.”

Tai blinked and found her eyelids heavy and hard to open. The teacup fell out of her loosening hand and was caught in midair by Sister Glascoin. She tried to speak, but her muscles refused to respond.

The Hearth exploded with fire, crackling and screaming with an enraged howl, before it solidified into a face—one so ancient he had already been old when men were still figuring out agriculture. Lorn’s voice was calm—the calm certainty of a cold death in winter, for that was all that awaited those who abandoned Hearth and Home. “What are you doing?”

Glascoin simply took the kettle and put out the fire with its contents. “It’s a shame, though. I really did enjoy being a priestess. But Lorn and Gwaina have grown old and senile. They can sense hospitality being broken but can’t do anything about it.” Without looking, she threw the ceramic tea kettle, which melted in midair and hit the hidden Yellow like a glob of goo before reshaping itself into a sealed jar around the wisp, trapping it. On the table, the ceramic tea set melted like ice under the summer sun, turning into base clay. Glascoin stretched out her arm and the clay flowed like streams around it, before she pointed a finger to Tai. The clay followed her direction, locking the elf’s paralyzed limbs to the chair before hardening as if it had been fired up.

“Mold,” Glascoin whispered. “The Path I chose. A mere cantrip compared to what you and seasoned warriors like your party could do, but it has served me well.” She turned to the door. “And now, your friend.”

There was a knock on Celine’s door.

“Tai?” she called out. Celine, out of habit, first turned to the doll rather than the door, and her introversion was her only warning. Tai’s doll was limp.

“May I come in?” Glascoin’s voice asked. When no voice answered her, she cracked open the door, peeking into the quiet room. Glascoin put down a tray of tea and biscuits on a cabinet by the door and stepped inside. “Hello?” she called out again. The beds were empty but messy and warm in one spot as if someone had recently been sitting there. The clay washbasin was filled with water but still. She glanced around, pushed open the curtains, and found that the window was solidly locked from the inside.

Behind her, Celine’s cloaked figure rose up from under the bed frame. She moved without hurry and with catlike footsteps, a silent ghost that passed the table and the cabinet by the door, when Glascoin’s tea set leapt at her like a snake.

The witch yelped as the liquid clay slithered up her neck, onto her mouth and nose, and solidified. Celine fell to the ground, clawing at the mask as it blocked her air passages and words. “You’re not the first mage I’ve killed,” Glascoin said. “Nor the first sneak either.”

The clay molded itself around Celine’s hands, trapping them as well. Her living cloak, Nappy, exploded into motion, wrapping around her limbs and pulling her to stand and run as if she were a marionette. Ragged black threads wrapped around the clay, trying to wrench the mask off as Celine ran out the door.

To a hallway filled with ceramic plates, bowls, and cups.

Celine could only watch as Ni Kakoph’s gift pulled her limbs to dodge the incoming globs of clay. Nappy was fast, but one lucky shot of clay clipped the hem of the cloak, clung to it, and weighed it down, slowing her down enough to allow a second ball of clay to hit her, each one further weighing her down until eventually she collapsed onto the floor, barely a few steps away from the door. Behind her, Glascoin’s footsteps rang out against the floor like an executioner’s bell. Her lungs screamed desperately for air but only received clay dust. The mask was molded perfectly around her, so she shifted herself. Her skin and hair turned albino-white as she condensed herself, shrinking just a few feet in height, and the mask loosened enough for her to breathe through the new gaps and free her hands.

However, Celine remained on the ground, covered under hardening clay and formless cloak, until Glascoin stepped close enough for Celine to lob a green alchemy vial at her. At that same moment, Glascoin tripped on a piece of upturned floorboard, falling onto the ground as the vial sailed over her head.

The former priestess easily caught herself with her clay, and from her new perspective caught Celine’s freed form. “A changeling, huh?”

Celine reached for her alchemy bandolier, but a fast blob of clay severed the belt and it fell harmlessly to the ground. Silver threads flashed into existence as Celine Stitched the clay tendrils to the wall, but the amorphous clay simply moved around the thread.

“Do you believe in luck, Celine?” Glascoin asked as the tidal wave of clay slammed into Celine and wrapped tightly around her, so that not even her desperate shapeshifting could free her. Yet a single doll fell onto the floor, the plush, scaled effigy of Utoqa.

Glascoin picked up the doll. “I tripped and avoided your flask. Tai had tea with me, because I could not defeat her in a straight fight. This doll fell on the floor because it is the best hostage I could take. That is luck.”

The clay filled Celine’s mouth and trapped her tongue, holding her helpless as Glascoin’s clay tendrils ripped the other dolls of her friends from underneath her cloak. “That the party that helped me had a sympathetic mage with all of her friends cursed, is also luck. All this happened, because I have cared, genuinely, for many orphans over my life. These outcomes have gone from chance to inevitability.”

“I should ask you where the myconid’s other familiars are, but a mage with a working tongue is too dangerous to keep,” Glascoin whispered into her ear.

The clay around Celine’s tongue tightened like a vice.

The woman suddenly frowned as she saw a shadow behind Celine. With a casual flick of the wrist, she threw Celine and all of the clay into a closet.

“Sister Glascoin?” Celine heard a girl, Prea call out. “Lea wants a candle to read her books by.”

Glascoin replied, and Celine could almost hear her smile, “It’s late, but we’ll make an exception tonight.”

Footsteps as Glascoin stepped towards the kid.

“Where are the nice ladies?” Prea asked.

“They’re keeping us safe,” Glascoin replied, leaving Celine trapped in a clay cocoon.

2.13

“I’m not fireproof, just very determined!”

—Alexander the Dragon Slayer, while on fire

Governor Hye and the entirety of the Scarlet Samsara Guild were waiting for us at the front gates of Taebut. We didn’t bother with any attempts to hide, as only Noam and Utoqa could reasonably pull off such an attempt. I stood out like a glowing thumb under the night sky. So we approached on foot under stars and flickering mage lights, until Hye raised a hand. “That’s far enough.”

Noam’s hand, still at his side, flicked a finger outward. A tiny gesture, one I followed to the hidden crossbow user on the walls—Mist, I believed his name was. The mage was proudly standing beside Hye along with their frontliners, though she seemed to flinch when Utoqa came into view.

Within their range, but not ours.

I raised a hand, and they all tensed. They were disappointed as I merely opened it in the universal gesture of wanting something. “I would like my messenger back.” The swapping rogue stepped forward with an iron cage, Lime trapped inside. He walked towards us, stopped in the middle, and let Lime out. The wisp waddled the remaining distance and hopped back onto my hand.

“You wanted a talk,” the mage spat. “Talk then, before we take you in.”

“Discussion under a temporary truce,” Hye added more diplomatically, “for the chance to work out the conflict peacefully.”

“They killed Elirian, Jaquaks, Kadrian, and Lathel!” she yelled, staff raised.

They must be the guards Noam and Utoqa had killed while breaking out.

Hye slapped the staff away, and for a moment I appreciated her shrewdness. Even with her superior force, she had noticed one very simple thing: none of the three of us had flinched.

“Eleanor,” Hye whispered to the mage, “I need you to be calm and silent for the next few minutes.”

The woman sulked but stayed quiet as Governor Hye turned to us.

“I would like to know why exactly you are in conflict with the Hearth Church,” I began, “for what reason you sought out a client under our escort, and why it was important enough to escalate to such a degree.”

“That boy is cursed by the Weeping Child,” Hye said neutrally.

“Distraction. She’s probing us for information,” Noam whispered to me, and I quickly came to the same conclusion he had.

“All the more reason for us to seek out a Hearth Church for him to be safe at. Not to mention you clearly weren’t aware of the fact until after the fight. You would’ve sent far more people,” I replied.

“We suspect that Heather Glascoin, Sister of the Hearth Church, is a demonic cultist in disguise who has been sacrificing people for decades.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That is a very bold accusation, especially since the only demonic thing I’ve seen recently was in your basement.”

“Nine generations ago, my family slew and divided up the corpse of a demon, sealing each fragment away,” Hye explained. “This generation, one of those pieces went missing, and has been missing now for thirty years.”

Noam crossed his arms. “Still a stretch to place the blame on a Hearth Sister.”

“If your claims are true,” I asked, “when did you become suspicious? I would think something like a demon fragment would warrant immediate action.”

Unlike how you’ve interacted with Glascoin so far, I left unsaid. Then I saw at that moment a very familiar expression on Governor Hye’s face: caution. Care and consideration, held to such excess that it became indecision and cowardliness.

Almost a mirror to myself.

Noam noticed it too, faster than I, since he had been complaining about the same thing for far longer than I’d noticed that flaw in myself.

“She was clever,” Hye said. “Only took a handful of people every year. The disappearances constant but few enough to be overlooked within a vast metropolis.”

“I hope it doesn’t need to be said that we are not on the side of the Hells,” I said. “But consider, please, our position. We come into this city, the local Hearth Church speaks of your oppression, our charge is almost kidnapped by armed men, and then a demon fragment is found inside your basement after you took two of ours prisoner. If anything, you guys look like the demon cultists.”

“We need more than words, is what he’s saying,” Noam clarified.

She hesitated, and I frowned. “Judging by your conservative actions, you don’t have any proof, do you? Only suspicions.”

“She is far too lucky.” Hye seethed with some emotion halfway between annoyance and horror. “It is unnatural. I have investigated hundreds of dead ends, and yet, in this entire city of twelve hundred names, hers is the cleanest. There is absolutely no evidence against her, let alone motive or means.”

“So your point,” Noam began with a tone of incredulity, “is that she is too innocent?”

My mind latched onto one word: Lucky. I tried to recall my interactions with Glascoin. Everything we saw about her was exactly as she had presented it. Regardless of whether I believed Governor Hye or not, my mind entertained the idea.

Did I ever see her Balance? No.

I never saw the Scales of her karma. I must’ve had the opportunity—at least two—but it had just slipped my mind, as if there were more pressing things to consider. Would I have ever let it slip my mind under normal circumstances?

“Noam,” I whispered, “am I paranoid?”

He didn’t reply with some platitude, for he knew me better than that. When I asked in this tone, I wanted the honest answer. “Very.”

Knowing what I did about the Scales, generosity and charity were surefire ways to build it up, for the world wanted to keep you in Balance. Weakening yourself in any way demanded the world make it up to you by some other means.

And she was a Hearth Priest.

Thought of another way, an evil person could do whatever they wanted, so long as they did enough right that the world still considered them a net positive.

It clicked then. “Celine.”

It didn’t matter whether I believed it, the concept was feasible, and that alone warranted confirmation. Noam’s head jerked towards me. He recognized my face instantly and knew I had pieced something together. He held his hand to his ear. “Celine, come in.”

Celine’s voice answered him. “Yes Noam?”

I frowned, and my gaze towards Hye and Scarlet Samsara turned guarded. The mage, Eleanor, noticed, and she held her staff slightly tighter.

“We’re checking up again,” Noam said. “How’s your side going?”

“Ms. Tai is out handling the investigation, but she’s turned up nothing so far.”

Utoqa’s hand rested on Gift’s handle; on the other side, a man in heavy armor was doing the same with his war hammer. Then Noam gave me a sign, miming spearing a ball with a toothpick, then eating it.

Takoyaki, I recognized. Our code for “fake.”

I signaled Utoqa to stand down, and my guarded face turned away from Scarlet Samsara to Noam.

“How’s Johnny doing?” he asked casually.

“He’s still hiding in the safehouse.”

“I see.” Noam nodded. “We’ll check up later.”

He turned to me, tracing words on his arm with a finger: Celine doesn’t call Tai “Ms.”

The person who talked in Celine’s voice was someone who knew our names, and that Johnny wasn’t with Tai and Celine, and our suspicions about Glascoin grew, not to mention the fact that she was close enough to disable Celine. Only a very short list of people otherwise fit that description. I nodded and turned back to Hye. Her, perhaps? She could’ve sent men to attack, but neither Tai nor Celine would leave the Hearth Church. That left the other option—that the Hearth Church had left them. Noam had been talking with the real Celine just a few moments ago, so the Hearth Church must’ve been destroyed in that same time frame. Hye did not have the capacity, which meant the Hearth Church had to have been destroyed from within. “I find your claims extremely doubtful, though not without merit.”

At my feet, glowing mycelium grew into words, a contract created by Mediation of Mutualism: Our words are being overheard.

My voice continued, “We will return to Gestrand Forest and contact the Platinum Protectorate. If your claims have any merit, then they’ll be the ones to deal with it.” The contract continued growing: Our sympathetic mage has been taken hostage. If Glascoin made such a move, then her goals must be nearing completion.

Hye squinted to read the words on the contract, then gestured at someone to bring her paper. “Yes, perhaps that is for the best—”

Eleanor interrupted, shoving Hye aside, “And we’re just going to let them go!?” As she spoke, her fingers danced and weaved flames in the air, flames that formed words: She’s almost done then?

“Eleanor,” Hye said, with an expression that belied her deception, “I told you not to interrupt.”

I don’t know what she’s done. I returned with the glowing mycelium words. She must have the capacity to overwhelm a swordswoman of the Gnari style and a hag-taught witch. To do such a thing at such a time implies confidence.

“They’re murderers!” Eleanor yelled even as she wove more words of fire above her head. Fake a fight?

“We were fighting in self-defense,” Noam shot back, while I wrote, No, that would require us to take damage to sell it, and she is incapable of healing us. That would naturally make us suspicious and give the lie away.

Then I said out loud, “You are welcome to give it a go, but consider if you have the requisite force to carry such a thing through.”

They looked annoyed, because even if we were outnumbered, they were not confident they could take us. We were banking on that bit of truth to sell it.

Hye spoke with an authoritative voice. “Eleanor, stand down, this isn’t the time to be wasting our forces.” On a piece of paper she wrote, “We’ll need all the help we can get, but we can’t trust you either.”

Neither could we, really. It was deception that had led us to this mess, and the distrust born from it could not be surmounted.

So a leap of faith was needed.

Upon the contract I wrote, “I agree to release The World’s contract, with no strings or conditions attached. He simply needs to agree to it as well.”

“I think they’re onto me,” Glascoin murmured beside her, a clay bust of Celine dissolving along with its fake voice. Trailing behind her, clay tendrils carried the four dolls and dragged over two coffins. “One way to check.” She took out a coin. “Heads, they’ve realized, tails, I still have time.” With one casual gesture, she tossed up a coin and caught it on the back of her hand. “Heads, huh? I really thought I had mimicked your voice pretty well.”

Glascoin flipped the coin again. “Heads, I kill the hostages, tails, I don’t.”

The coin revealed tails. “Interesting. I suppose it wants me to save the dolls for a more opportune moment. I am curious, though—” She turned to one of the clay coffins. “—if your dolls would survive you.”

Another coin flip, and Glascoin smirked. “They will. You are a pretty good mage, then.”

Celine’s scream was muffled, trapped within a prison of clay, something halfway between drowning and being buried alive. Glascoin’s steps were undeterred as she walked farther down the circular staircase. Dug, covered, and reinforced in clay, the stairwell was the result of years of labor. At the bottom of it all was an ivory tooth protruding out of bulbous pink pulsing flesh—almost the size of a house. Glascoin bowed towards it. “Your breakfast will be prepared soon.”

Clay hands lit up the fire, bathing the room with orange flame from an opening halfway between a kiln and an oven. Thick strands of drool dripped from the tooth. The demon’s hunger was so great that it even sucked away the smoke, savoring its scent in anticipation for what it knew was coming. It was with a smile that Glascoin threw both Tai and Celine into it.

“The contract nears completion, Demon,” Glascoin said, watching the crackle of fire lick the clay coffins. The room grew hotter, and sweat beaded down her face. “When you are restored, you shall grant me immortality.”

The heat in the room kept increasing, and Glascoin blinked, fanning herself. Yet she only felt hotter, until the warmth became searing. Until she smelled her own flesh cooking. Glascoin screamed as her body burned. She was being attacked—nay, cursed. Clay tendrils whipped out, dragging Celine’s coffin out of the furnace and slamming her into the wall. Glascoin felt that same slam impact her side. As she collapsed, the coffin shattered, revealing Celine with a hacking dry cough, her burned body and face shifting to an exact mirror of Glascoin’s own.

“Baba said I wasn’t good with curses,” Celine croaked out. “My heart was too kind, unfit for a witch. So she only taught me the very best one: a death curse that’ll take you down with me. Now release Tai.”

“Changeling,” Glascoin hacked from her own cooked dry throat. Her face covered in burns, she spat, “You think that trick will save you?”

“It’ll at least kill you.” Celine exhaled all her breath, then held her mouth shut.

Glascoin’s eyes went wide as she began to suffocate with her. The former priestess staggered back and relented. Another clay tendril dragged Tai out and shattered her coffin. Celine breathed and rushed to Tai, pulling out half burned and cooked herbs and salves from her pockets.

“What poison did you use!?” Celine yelled.

“Dayroot and monkeybane!” Glascoin responded.

“Liar!” Celine slapped her own face, and the blow resounded on Glascoin. “The eye dilation isn’t right, not to mention her breathing isn’t irregular.”

“It was Moonrest!” Glascoin answered.

Celine felt Tai’s pulse and quickly crushed a paste of her herbs and salves in her palm, which she immediately fed the elf. After a moment, Tai’s eyes fluttered open. “Tai!”

The swordswoman blinked blearily, choking as she suddenly felt the searing pain of the burns that covered her body. But Tai was made of sterner stuff. She righted herself on all four limbs and vomited out the remnants of the poison. Celine was right beside her, helping her heave. “It’s alright, I’ve got you—”

Tai’s arm shot out and grabbed Celine’s neck. “You!”

“No! It’s me!” Celine hurriedly shifted out of Glascoin’s form. “Celine!”

A clay tendril speared through Celine’s stomach.

“I misread my fortune,” Glascoin muttered. “I thought it meant for me to not kill the dolls, but it was you who it meant.”

Tai let go of Celine, smashing the clay spear with an elbow before she rushed to Glascoin.

“But this changes nothing!” Glascoin screamed and the floor turned to mud that lapped and gripped Tai’s legs. “The smoke! The smell of cooked flesh! The screams! This is merely a trial! ONE IMPOSED BY MY LUCK TO SEE IF I AM WORTHY! MOLEATH, DEMON OF MOUTHS WAKES!”

Toothmarks drew themselves around the whole basement, like the manifold tracks of a wheel on a busy road. Tai turned to the bleeding Celine, then back to Glascoin limping up the steps of the stairs.

She chose Celine.

2.14

“… and know when you slay me that you do not slay one empress but also many—much?—myriad!—the myriad souls who follow me! Damn, I screwed it up. Assassin! Stab me again! My last words need to be memorable!”

—the last recorded words of Madelyn the Conqueror, later found with over seventy-nine stab wounds

A whirlwind of teeth erupted from the earth, ripped apart the cobblestone road, and tore away the facade of the Hearth Church along with its several neighbors as the demon chewed its way out of the earth. The scene at which the Toy Dragons and Scarlet Samsara arrived was one of chaos.

“Set down the barrier!” Dustin yelled out as he threw out his Sporages. Beside him, Noam and Utoqa sprinted in opposite directions, dropping more Sporages as they circled the affected area.

The World clapped his palms. “No need to tell me twice! See my Path, the way of Hospitality! Be our Honored Guest!”

Golden barriers slammed down around them as Eleanor screamed commands to the rest of Scarlet Samsara. Noam and Utoqa closed the circle and Dustin brought down his staff. “Fairy Circle! Justice Domain!”

Blinding light lit the floor, burning the demon’s flesh as it screamed a sound akin to teeth on chalkboard. The light moved like a living thing, forming chains that trapped the demon under its burning Domain. They rushed to attack it while it was weakened—

—only for a giant needle the color of tarnished silver flecked with rust to stab through Dustin’s chest.

Noam tried to dodge—a futile effort as a needle shot through his throat, followed shortly by a third that disabled Utoqa’s leg.

The Fairy Circle broke, the light receded, and the demon was freed.

Blood soaked into the hand Tai used to apply pressure to Celine’s wound. Glascoin got her in the gut, and though the girl had applied her own silvery stitches, her pained lack of concentration meant the effect was minimal. She could barely walk while leaning on Tai. So the swordswoman instead focused on the path ahead. Past the circular stairwell were pitch-black, perfectly tubular passageways, which her elven eyes could see were an unused part of the city’s sewers. They lost Glascoin in this maze, though Tai wasn’t sure they could confront her. Her darkvision couldn’t discern color, though texture told her the walls were clay bricks.

There was a rumble, like a giant eating stone. The sound emanated from the wall to their left and ambled upwards towards the surface in a slanted fashion. They briefly froze at the noise, but lacking options, Tai threw Celine into a piggyback. “I’m going to be a bit rough.”

Celine couldn’t protest. Her face had gone pale, and not healthy changeling pale but bleeding-to-death pale. Tai steeled herself and stomped her foot into the brick floor, cracking it as they shot forward. The path blurred beneath her feet, for though Tai didn’t have Utoqa’s freakish constitution, nor Noam’s quick reactions and overall speed, she made up for it in strength and muscle. Each step was a leap that left her footprint in brick. Tai followed the sound of the demon’s chewing, a desperate gamble through myriad identical turns and crossroads, and one that paid off, as the chewing noise led them to a section of wall that was smooth clay as opposed to brick. She punched through the several-inches-thick barrier and found a stairwell leading upwards.

Tai rushed up, painfully aware of the blood soaking into the back of her burned shirt. She kicked open the secret door, finding a room with half of the walls and ceiling ripped off. “Dustin!”

Only golden barriers answered her, locking down the street ahead in a house-shaped box. She briefly saw Dustin’s distinct silhouette slamming down his staff as Utoqa and Noam rushed to engage the same horror she had seen beneath. Her head darted around. “Healer! Anyone! I have injured!”

“Here!” A woman in white robes waved at her, then beckoned a pair of guards carrying a stretcher. All around them, the city guards were mustering up an evacuation effort. Tai went with them, staying beside Celine as her wounds began to close under the healing light. The witch, fluttering between awake and unconsciousness, grabbed Tai’s arm and pulled her close. Celine’s face morphed into an exact copy of Tai’s, just as needles the color of tarnished silver speared the changeling’s arm and chest.

The healer panicked, pouring more mana in to heal the new wounds. Tai barely noticed as she glanced at her sword arm, completely unharmed. Celine whispered with a hoarse breath, “My magic … it just activated …”

Glascoin was still loose.

Tai gently put down Celine’s hand to rest before she rushed off. The Hearth Church was in ruins, and the destruction had reached even here. The roof had completely caved in; somewhere, a fallen candle had lit parts of it aflame, washing the place in an eerie light that seemed … cold. Despite it all, Tai found a clear circle. At its center was Glascoin, gently hugging the many orphans of the Hearth. The cold fire seemed to cast them in a holy warmth. Tai reached for her sword, but it wasn’t there. She instead balled up her hands into fists. “Glascoin!”

The woman looked up at her with a slight smile. The flames around them howled in cold rage until Glascoin placed her hand on the small of a child’s back, and the fire quieted, for it was of the Hearth, though it still seethed with impotent wrath.

“Children!” Tai yelled. “You have to get away from her! Glascoin is a bad person!”

They turned to her, hearing her words, yet Glascoin’s smile only turned more smug.

“She’s been lying to you!” Tai yelled. “She’s been hurting a lot of people!”

“Sister?” one of the children, Prea, asked. “Is what she is saying true?”

Glascoin wrapped the girl in a warm embrace. “Of course not! I don’t know what she’s saying!” The former sister’s face was one of innocence. “We need to get out of here. It isn’t safe.”

Tai stepped forward as Glascoin rose, yet paused as the woman dusted herself off, dropping shards of clay around the orphans.

Glascoin raised her hand, her face one of practiced calm. “Hold hands, form a line!”

A child grabbed Glascoin’s hand, then another, until the children had all formed a line around her. Glascoin took a step forward, but the child holding her hand did not move an inch. Her smile wavered, as she turned to look at the boy holding a doll.

A doll of the Weeping Child.

“You never bothered to do a head count,” Johnny Joymoon said.

“Jojo, I hope you don’t believe what she is saying?” Glascoin said. “Tai speaks nonsense. She is injured and delirious. This is a dangerous place; we must all move.”

Johnny tilted his head. “Only my friends get to call me Jojo.”

A shard of clay shot towards Johnny’s head, only to be caught in midair by an invisible hand. Glascoin threw off Johnny’s hand, a shield of clay forming around her before it was instantly covered with handprints.

“Please,” Johnny whispered. “Melinda told me to ask nicely, so please, save us from the danger.”

And just like that, the ghost that had haunted him in life and death, obediently and gently raised the children of the Hearth Church, carrying them away even as they kicked and screamed. Jojo’s small smile only lasted for a moment as Tai roughly grabbed his shoulder and pulled him out of the way of an incoming clay spear.

“See them to safety!” Tai ordered. “I’ll handle her!”

The boy nodded and Tai leapt into a spinning kick, shattering an impromptu clay shield and missing Glascoin’s nose by a hair. The clay didn’t fall. Instead it clung to her leg, weighing down her step, so Tai smashed it with a fist. Yet the shattered shards sharpened in midair. Dozens of spikes speared into her leg, trapping her foot to the ground like a bear trap. Glascoin clapped her hands, forming them into a cone pointed towards Tai as clay compressed within her fingers. Yet as she stepped back to aim, her foot hit a piece of loose rubble, and she tripped and fell, narrowly avoiding a crossbow bolt aimed where her head had been and a blade that slashed near her. Tai recognized Yone and Mist, the Travelers of Scarlet Samsara who had defeated Noam and Utoqa respectively. She tried to move her foot, yet the clay spikes only dug deeper into her calf. She couldn’t pull them out so instead smashed the hardened clay at their base.

Ahead, Glascoin flipped a coin in midair just as Yone sheathed his sword. The coin fell, Yone moved, and Glascoin dodged, avoiding Yone’s slash dash entirely.

Tai stepped forward, suppressing a wince as the movement agitated the clay shrapnel in her calf.

Glascoin and Yone repeated their dance—a flipped coin, a sheathed sword. Yone missed again, slashing through nothing. He turned to try again, yet as he did so his sheath hit a pile of rubble, knocking down a burning plank which hit his head and knocked him out. Glascoin threw her coin again; this time, the flying coin hit the incoming crossbow bolt in midair, pushing it just the slightest amount so that it missed Glascoin by a centimeter. The bolt ricocheted off a stone wall and into the air. As Mist reloaded his crossbow in his hidden position, the bolt fell and pierced the back of his neck, killing him instantly.

Tai arrived fists swinging, but the weakness in her leg threw off her punch. Glascoin didn’t even need to dodge. She kicked Tai in her bad leg, knocked her down, then shot the gathered clay in her hand like a pressurized water jet through Tai’s liver. Tai fell amongst the burning rubble, clutching her stomach as the clay spear hardened within her, teeth grating against each other in pain.

“This result was an inevitability,” Glascoin said, a ball of clay gathering above her palm. “The remnants of the poison I used on you, your wounds, being disarmed. All these little coincidences, each a lever for my luck to push. Each of you three alone would’ve easily been able to kill me, yet all three together couldn’t. This is proof of my hard work.”

“Don’t compare me to those third-rates,” Tai spat. “That idiot didn’t even know how to use a sword.”

Glascoin blinked, too late realizing that the flames surrounding them had obscured a very simple thing: the light of a dead Traveler dissipating as they died. A light that was right where Tai had fallen.

Glascoin flipped a coin.

Tai grabbed Yone’s sheathed katana.

The coin fell.

Tai moved.

Glascoin dodged perfectly out of the way. Yet as the blade missed her neck by a hair, Tai twisted her wrists, lowered the blade, and stabbed. Glascoin looked down to see the blade protruding from her, its hilt guard pressed against her stomach. Tai’s hands tightened around the hilt and twisted the katana in as red spread from the wound.

“I learned that draw technique when I was thirty-five, barely a stupid teen,” Tai spat. “Learning to draw your sword is the most important stepping stone for any swordsmen, yet that idiot didn’t know what to do with it once it was out! He just kept putting it back in!” Tai tore the blade out, taking a good chunk of Glascoin’s stomach with it as she did so. The woman staggered back, clutching feebly at the air where her side once was. “Same spot where you got me and Celine.” Tai chuckled as she stepped forward. She raised the sword for the coup de grâce, blade slick and shining crimson under the Hearth fire.

Yet a still standing frame of the burning building finally gave out at that moment, crashing down between Glascoin and Tai. Tai instinctively shielded herself, yet as she opened her eyes again, Glascoin was gone.

“FUCK!”

Elsewhere, as Johnny tried to comfort the orphan children, Prea crouched down in a ball. Stuck on her back, a single piece of clay began to move.

2.15

“Whenever I have to judge a domestic dispute, I find it easiest to simply divide whatever is being disputed. This has worked for land, furniture, and even people!”

—Tyrant Cornelius the Uncrowned, best known for killing every ambidextrous person, ending slavery as well as unjust social hierarchies, and dying a slow death of gangrene after getting scratched by his pet kitten Zoe

Wind howled like a great beast, yet it failed to drown out a rhythmic tapping on stone.

Until the tapping stopped, surrounded by burning ruins and rubble, right in the clearing where Glascoin’s coin had fallen.

A hand picked it up.

Tai moved as fast as she could hobble on her lame leg. Aided by the sword sheath as a walking stick, she made far better time than she expected but not good enough.

Far away, a clay tendril formed around Prea, plucked her like a flower out of a garden. The ghost’s reaction was immediate even as Johnny’s mind lagged behind. Its ethereal hand grabbed onto Prea’s leg, and the two forces yanked at her, holding her taut in midair like a bowstring. Prea screamed.

“Let go, Johnny.” Rivulets of blood flowed out of Glascoin and down the trail that Tai was running over.

The clay pulled even harder, Johnny’s ghost not relenting, their tug of war intensifying with Prea’s screeching. Johnny was frozen; his eyes darted down the street, where Tai was still a ways away. The wind screamed in his ear, nearly as strong as Prea’s screams of pain, as she was stretched far further than her spine could reasonably tolerate. Yet Johnny knew, just a single moment longer, and Tai would arrive. Big sister Tai, who was wielding a blade and was a single move from ending Glascoin.

A teardrop splashed onto the cobblestoned road, as Prea wept tears turned crimson red under the flames of the burning Hearth Church. Before he even knew it, Johnny was screaming, “GHOST, LET GO OF HER!”

The handprint on Prea’s leg disappeared, and she was solely in Glascoin’s embrace. Tai stopped dead in her tracks, and the tapping of her sheath cane on the cobblestone ceased, as she was now a single step from unleashing the killing blow. Glascoin held the girl towards her like a shield. The clay morphed, clamping onto her wound like a makeshift bandage.

“You do not seem to understand,” Glascoin gloated, “you are a minor setback on my road to eternity. It was always destined to end this way.”

But the tapping on stone did not stop. A lone tongue, wooden and swampy, darted in from out of sight, wrapped around Prea, and pulled her out of Glascoin’s hand. “There is a tale from my world, of a king presiding over two women who both claimed a baby as theirs.”

Cobblestone exploded as Tai leapt.

“To solve the issue, the king decided that the baby would be split in half. One woman agreed; the other objected. The latter said she would rather the babe go to her rival than to see them harmed.”

The tongue had pulled Glascoin off-balance so that Tai’s lethal slash missed; the elf, however, had accounted for this and brutally kneed Glascoin in the face.

“The king thus knew that this was the one who cared for the baby and was therefore the mother. That is the Judgement of Solomon,” Dustin said over the roaring wind. “You made the correct choice, Jojo.”

Glascoin fell to the stone with a thud, and Tai stabbed her sword through the woman’s chest, pinning her like a bug on display. Dustin was there in a single cast of Misty Step.

“You …” Glascoin gritted her teeth. “How are you here? I stabbed you in the heart!”

Dustin tapped his chest, where ichor had scabbed over a gaping hole. “You need to learn more about biology. That isn’t where a myconid’s heart is.”

To the side, Prea grabbed onto Johnny, hugging him like a blanket. Tai gestured to them, and he nodded, pulling Prea away. “Come on, let’s go.” Soon they were out of sight.

“Moleath … Where is he?” Glascoin sputtered.

“Is that the demon’s name?” Dustin took out a bandolier of potions—Celine’s, in fact. Of eight potions, he randomly selected one and poured it over Glascoin. The healing was immediate. Tai raised an eyebrow but only twisted the blade further in, eliciting a further groan of pain. “The demon was terribly malnourished,” Dustin said as Glascoin’s flesh reknit itself. “Whatever you were feeding it, you didn’t do so with enough frequency to keep it more than barely surviving. It tore and chewed but, in the end, it starved to death soon after breaching the surface.”

Glascoin’s eyes went wide as discs. “That is … impossible! My luck! It shouldn’t have run out!”

“Oh, you are most certainly still lucky,” Dustin said, stoppering the flask only after he had poured out its entire contents. “The wind prevents me from casting my most deadly spells, Tai did not end you because Jojo was watching, and my hand selected the one healing potion of a bandolier of poisons. A Russian Roulette against your favor, yet you still won. Your karma must still be in the vast positives.”

“You know it too, then?” Glascoin suddenly grinned. “You are like me, then! That is why you decided to escort such a dangerous thing for no reward. You know the mechanics of fortune!” At that, Dustin roughly grabbed her by the hair and dragged her upwards, leaving a bloody trail on the bottom half of the blade pinning her. Yet her smile did not waver. “You know how luck works, so you must know that killing me will be greatly unfortunate for you.”

“And why is that?” Dustin asked in a voice as still as a grave.

“Because I am a net positive on the world.” She laughed. “Because so long as I do more good than harm, the world will keep finding excuses to keep me around. That is why you are the one to undo me! For we are alike! Go then, turn me in! Collect your just rewards for defeating me!”

“I cannot deny that,” Dustin admitted. “When I first learned of the Scales, I sought to exploit them in much the same way you have, to obtain luck through time and charity.”

Tai frowned.

“And I must thank you,” Dustin continued, “for demonstrating the end result of where that leads. You have truly helped me. You showed me that, after years of hard work, scheming, denial of just rewards for great deeds, you … are merely lucky.”

Dustin shoved his other hand through Glascoin’s mouth and cast Rot Spores. Unaffected by the wind, it flowed through the path of least resistance, down her throat and into her lungs, a black blight eating away at her from the inside. Tai beheaded the corpse, and the body fell to the ground with a thud, leaking Rot Spores. The head soon disintegrated in Dustin’s hand.

“She was too dangerous to keep alive,” Dustin said.

Tai leaned on her sheath, barely able to stand. “I know. She would’ve wormed her way out of a cell before anyone could have had a chance to execute her.”

“Her luck made it so that we, the most likely to let her live, were the ones who found her,” Dustin said—Tai, who abided by laws and rules; Dustin, who knew the forces at work here. “But we chose not to. The Scales determine chance, but people determine choice. She may have mastered the Scales but not people.”

Tai kicked the body right before it disintegrated. “You’re starting to sound like Celine with her mystic mumbo jumbo.”

“I am a wizard.” Dustin chuckled. He offered his arm to Tai, which she gratefully took. “Come on, let’s get those wounds looked at.”

“Man, I didn’t do anything cool this adventure,” Noam complained. “Didn’t even get paid for it.”

“Just be glad we’re getting off scot-free,” Tai muttered. “A day we don’t go to jail is a good day.”

“That is agreeable,” Utoqa said as he loaded the cart. “Imprisonment is detrimental to health, though the provided accommodations are not …” The lizardfolk thought for a moment. “… terrible.”

Noam slapped his friend on the back. “Hey! You’re getting sarcasm!”

“No, Utoqa meant exactly what he said.” I chuckled, rolling a coin between my fingers. No doubt he found the concept of free food and shelter worth the lack of freedom. “And I wouldn’t say we didn’t get rewarded.”

“Where is he by the way?” Noam scanned the streets, which only had a few wary guards and Scarlet Samsara members to see them off.

Celine pushed the curtains of the cart away and stepped outside. “He was holding back tears. He must be sad to be seeing us leave.”

Noam rolled his eyes. “Well, he shouldn’t be! What makes him think we won’t visit?” He tapped Utoqa’s shoulder. “Hey, don’t load the cart so fast.”

“Why?” the lizardfolk asked.

“He wants to wait for Jojo,” I told him.

Tai grabbed Noam in a chokehold and noogied him. “Aren’t you a big softie, huh?”

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Noam tapped out, taking a deep breath as Tai released him. “That really hurt!”

“Huh,” Tai exclaimed, genuinely surprised. “Oh, I’m really sorry about that—” But she couldn’t finish before Noam got her with a roadhouse kick. “Ow! That’s it!”

Noam danced away from her and stuck his tongue out as she tried to return the favor. Leaving them to their fight-bonding, I sat down next to Utoqa, who had stopped filling the cart. “There is a pattern with you. Your people don’t feel emotions as we do, yet you still rescued us. Why?”

Celine sat down beside us as well, also curious of the answer. The image of him covering her from the Accumulation of White Lies’ digestive fluids was still fresh in both of our minds, not to mention his risking his life to save Jojo. Utoqa answered blandly and expectedly, “Maintaining this pack is beneficial to my long-term survival.”

Celine looked a bit disappointed at that, but I chuckled. “Isn’t that strange? Pure utilitarian logic, and that logic tells you to be good and kind.” That was a perspective I had never really considered before.

Tai and Noam’s fight slowed down as footsteps neared us. Governor Hye had come to see us off. She nodded to us. “I’m having the children moved to various orphanages or finding households nearby who will take them in.”

She didn’t thank us. After all, we were still responsible for the deaths of many of her men, but our help had gotten us that much, at least.

Noam nodded. “That is good to hear.”

After that, we waited until noon, but Jojo still hadn’t shown up, and we were forced to call it. Together, we left the city.

However, suddenly floating in midair in the path ahead of us, held by a ghost none of us could see, was a letter.

From Johnny Joymoon.

We read it.

“So, where to next?” Noam grinned as he tucked the letter away.

I rolled a burned coin between my fingers. “Heads or tails?”

“Neither of those two are options,” Tai retorted. “I need to get back to my hometown and report the news of my brother’s death. How about you guys?”

Noam and I shrugged, while Utoqa shook his head. Celine thought for a moment. “I wish to keep traveling to find some people, but I don’t know where they are.”

“Then heads for Tai, tails for Celine.” I flipped the coin and caught it on the back of my hand. “Heads! My vote is for Tai.”

“We’re not leaving this to chance,” Tai murmured.

Grinning, I raised the coin and showed them that both sides had been charred black by flame and that neither side was recognizable from under the soot. Tai frowned slightly in recognition but didn’t comment.

“I also vote for Tai,” Celine said. “Yours seems more urgent, but since I don’t know where to look, I’m just trying to cover a wide area. Maybe the people I’m looking for are at your hometown.”

“That’s majority.” Noam scooted out of the driver’s seat. “Lead the way, brave leader of ours.”

Tai hmphed. “Well, I’m glad somebody is finally acknowledging it.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to see them off?” Melinda asked Johnny for the eighth time that hour.

Johnny wiped his wet eyes. “I’m just gonna be a crybaby if I do. I don’t want them to see me like that.”

“It’s alright to be a crybaby. In fact, I know plenty of ghosts who kept their tears holed up and ended up dying with regrets,” Melinda encouraged.

He shook his head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that …” From the distance, Johnny could see them open the letter. “If I cried while saying goodbye, it would be very awkward when we met again.”

2.16

“There is no point where I ever need to stop writing.”

—The Historian

My mum wouldn’t stop sobbing.

“Ma—” I sighed. “—you’ve been crying since you picked us up at the station.”

The slightly chubby woman wiped her eyes, an effort as futile as Sisyphus’s. “It’s just … I can’t remember the last time you decided to go outside.” She sobbed some more, then wrapped Matt into a hug. “Thank you for being Declan’s friend.”

Matt patted her back. “Where would he be without me?”

“Probably home, where it’s air-conditioned.” Unlike the unyielding dry heat of home, the heat here was more akin to a wet weighted blanket. Heavy and humid in a way that wrung the sweat out of your pores. Only a few minutes outside and it looked like I had just stepped out of a shower. I passed Ma a napkin. “Anyways, how is the will reading going?”

She dabbed her eyes with it, then brushed her hair back in a gesture I’ve long learned meant she was going into “gossip mode.” “Oh, terrible. Tiff—that’s your third aunt—keeps trying to dispute it and won’t let the rest of us leave until she gets what she wants.”

Matt, ever in tune with regular human conversation, asked, “She thinks she didn’t get enough?”

“Oh, no.” Ma chuckled. “They gave her a manor.”

“Why doesn’t she want it, then?” I asked.

Ma showed us a picture of the property, which looked like a combination of a haunted house and something that would give a safety inspector a heart attack. “Get this, the house is so old it actually has asbestos and lead paint! She can’t renovate it because it’s a historically protected site and can’t do tours because of the health-code violations.”

“Well, that’s one way to say who’s your least favorite child.”

“Matt, you can’t say those thoughts out loud,” Ma admonished. “You have to think privately that Tiff is an idiot for falling for a pyramid scheme and losing custody of her kids after she got caught smuggling endangered animals.”

Knowing Ma, she was more pissed at the fact my aunt had been caught rather than the actual morality of the action. She gossiped some more about my extended family as we arrived at the ClaireBNB she was staying in. I was sure I’d met them at some point, and would be meeting them again soon, but it was all a blur of names and half-remembered faces. Strangers in all but name, I had put them out of my mind when I was young and had realized I wouldn’t be interacting with them on a regular basis.

After dinner, Matt went to bed first, tuckered out after our long journey, leaving Ma and me alone for a while. She opened a pack of chips and emptied it into a bowl between us at the dinner table, and I was reminded—no, I realized—that Matt wasn’t the only person who knew me well.

“So, what is this about?” she began.

“Mom, what should I do if I realize I’m a terrible person?”

She mulled over the question for a while, eventually asking, “Which part?”

Before I could answer, she continued in a deadpan voice much like my own, “That you are fat, kinda ugly, have no regard for your own health, lack empathy, would almost certainly be a misanthrope if Matt didn’t find you, won’t do anything you find annoying unless someone forces you into it, are kind of a coward, now that I think about it, and most importantly—” Her voice rose slightly, going from an analytic monotone to genuinely slightly miffed. “—you don’t have a girlfriend and probably won’t give me grandkids.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “You were taking notes?”

“I realized that if you were anything like me then this conversation was long in coming.” She idly chewed a chip. “You took a lot more from my side of the family, unfortunately. So, which is it?”

“I am not a good person.” I told her everything: about Eve and her dead father, about Gaia and the game, about Indiri and its inhabitants. “I have learned that I do not particularly care for people unless they benefit me or those close to me. I would leave people to die and would not feel guilty if they died due to my actions.” It was not introspection that brought me to this point but experience, from condemning a town to die at the hands of the Accumulation of White Lies because I feared for my life, and from killing people both in combat and carelessness.

The discovery that there was an entirely realized digital world caused Ma a moment’s pause, but once she’d acclimated to the situation, she mulled over my question and, in response, posed one of her own. “Why didn’t you kill that encampment of goblins?”

“Because I saw that they were people.” I paused. That was true, but it was also misleading. That wasn’t the reason I’d decided not to kill all those goblins. “Because I was curious. Even if the diplomatic route failed, I still had the option. I simply wanted to try out all outcomes.”

“And the boy, Johnny Joymoon?”

“I felt bad, so I brought him along, but I didn’t feel terrible enough that I wouldn’t have left him there. I knew I could handle the threat his haunting came with, so it was curiosity that brought me there.”

Ma posed her final question. “And why do you want to be a decent person?”

This was something that I once would’ve spent a long time thinking about. However, my mind went to Utoqa and found that this question had already been asked and answered. “Because that is what everyone around me is. Everyone I know tries to help people, and to not be …” I imagined myself an evil, terrible person, or just continuing as I had been. “Uninspired.” A nihilism that drifted with the river current to the waterfall. Doing nothing new or different, like a dead leaf in the face of entropy.

Ma patted my back. “You’ll be fine, Declan. If you have one point in your favor, it’s that you won’t stop until a task is done. No, the far more important thing would be getting a girlfriend.”

I groaned. “Mom, I’m seventeen, that’s too early to be considering this stuff.”

“I caught your dad when I was younger than that,” she retorted.

“Don’t talk about Ba like he’s a fish.”

The party had stopped to rest by another shrine to Bundriroc. Common stones surrounded their cart and beasts of burden in a protective circle, ringed by another circle of mushrooms. Dustin rested within the shade of the carriage at the center. While Noam and Utoqa were out hunting for game, Tai was practicing sword katas when Celine laid out her cloak as a cushion over a nearby stone and sat to watch her friend. “You alright, Tai?”

The elf replied, blade never ceasing in motion, “I’m fine.”

“You know what race I am, Tai.” Celine pointed to her skin, and her hair shifted to a pale white to illustrate her point. “I can sense you aren’t doing well.”

The sword whistled as it tore roughly through the air, and the branch of a nearby tree fell, neatly cut off at its base. She sighed, sheathed her sword, and took a long drink from her water skin before pouring the rest over her head to cool off. “I forgot about that. You are too … normal. I’m re-examining biases I didn’t know I had for people like you.”

Celine didn’t judge; she of all people understood how a changeling could be unnerving to people. Shapeshifting, the ability to sense emotions, even more so when wielded by a curse witch who held the elf’s life in a small doll. That power, that trust, had already been perverted.

Tai collapsed beside her, grunting in satisfaction as she did so. “You rely on your innate ability to read emotions too much. The good old-fashioned method works just as well.” Tai offered Celine her waterskin. “I don’t blame you for what happened with Glascoin. You took the hit for me, which more than proves your heart.”

Celine took a small sip, more out of solidarity than thirst. “But your mind has been troubled.”

This Tai could not deny. “My brother is dead.” She unsheathed the sword and laid it on her lap. It was old, yet well-maintained, the grip molded by a century of use to perfectly fit the hand that wielded it, with countless decades of practice by her side as family and mentor. None of which Tai remembered. Neither face nor form, art nor artist. All that was left was this orphan sword and the name writ on its blade.

“I lost someone and experienced both of his deaths. We were all affected by the Accumulation of White Lies, so none of us remember him. Maybe my family still does.” She sheathed the blade. “I refuse to believe that monster was so powerful as to affect them half a continent away.”

Somewhere beyond the skies, there was a place that once was a library. Within was a figure. He sat at a desk older than years could count. His singular eye appeared pure black and never stopped staring at the world above. He never blinked, and a fresh coat of dust had long settled around him, masking his body in a veil of gray.

The sound of his pen never stopped, for the Historian never stopped writing. Never stopped recording what he saw.

It is the end of the year 2856 of the Third Age. Dustin Thrice-Blinded travels with his newly formed party, the Toy Dragons. They seek to bring news of Kai Gnari’s death to his hometown.

Yet now, there was the sound of two pens, as the Historian’s other hand wrote on the other page:

It is the end of the year 2129 on Earth. Declan Lu carries the shell of the God Explorer through the world’s equator, and through him makes a deal with Eve.

The two pens joined together in the middle, writing a single sentence spread between the two pages:

Eve can no longer halt the convergence of our worlds, but she can slow it. The Gate will remain sealed for a year longer so that Declan/Dustin may gather power and wisdom and become worthy as the Guardian of the Gate.

Interlude: Revenant

“We have finally and permanently killed the Revenant King! For good this time!”

—Imamu the Lone Swordsmen, who should have taken lessons on prophecy from Zephyr the First Seer

Amon the Healer knew the importance of maintaining a healthy mind.

He was learned in many ways of magic—some from his time in the Black Council, more from the time after when he was on the run for betraying them. It had been many years since the Black Council had sent the last assassin after him. He stayed forgotten in a small village in the Western Kingdoms and had grown comfortable healing minor sprains and back pains.

He thought he would never have to use his necromantic talents.

Amon knew himself a liar when Mary the baker and her husband John of the Mill brought the broken body of their daughter to him.

Her name was Tiffania, a name Amon had chosen because Mary and John knew he was learned and could read letters. She had died at the hands of a stray spell from the warring armies of the petty kings and warlords of the Western Kingdoms. Those kings would say this was an undertaking of glory, that by claiming an inch of conquered land with the blood of a thousand peasants, they would be the ones to manifest their destiny and carve their name eternal into the history of the world.

Their names were the last thing on his mind as he shook his head, devastating Mary and John. They begged him to do something, anything. Yet Amon could do nothing. Resurrection spells required a diamond, and those were hoarded in vaults by kings, dwarves, and dragons who wished to maintain their scarcity. Still, Amon knew grief, for he spoke to the ghosts of those who couldn’t pass on and knew Mary and John would never find peace if he couldn’t do anything to help them.

It was a simple trick, just a few cosmetic spells to preserve the appearance of flesh and a spell woven into the spine to animate the skeleton.

That was it.

Amon told Mary and John that this was merely a puppet, the appearance of their daughter, but with no soul. It was barely necromancy—more a golem than anything, but they didn’t care. They spent days weeping tears of joy and many more thanking him.

The kings continued their wars, and soon many more brought their loved ones to him. He told each and every one of them the same as he told Mary and John.

None cared.

He raised sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, wives and husbands, friends and family. Every time, he held hope that this would allow these people to grieve and heal.

That time never came.

He was out on his weekly herb-gathering when he returned to find the village in flames. Mary the baker and John of the Mill were the first he found crucified upon the bloodstained banners of the Inquisition.

They had been sent by the Church of Light to kill a necromancer and instead had executed the entire village—murdered men and women whose only crime was their desire for closure. In the village square, they had raised a blinding pyre to desecrate the corpses he had raised.

Mary the baker twitched.

Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, wives and husbands, friends and family—all deaths which they could have been recovered from had they not hoarded all the diamonds in the world.

John of the Mill tore his arms from their sockets, left them hanging on the crucifix. The corpses of every man, woman, and child each savaged themselves and their bindings until they were free.

Amon the Healer, traitor to the Black Council, and Necromancer Supreme, killed twenty-seven Priests and Paladins of Light that day. He would kill many more, for the petty kings and warlords of the Western Kingdoms left many corpses in their wake.

For that, he decided they, too, had to go.

Seven regicides he committed; seven crowns he collected and brought to the depths of the Deadlands, where the black fortress of the Revenant King still stood guarded by his undead armies.

At the heart of that fortress, he laid the seven crowns before the black iron throne of the Revenant King, each encrusted with diamonds and jewels.

“Six decrees you spoke,” he chanted in mage tongue. “Six marks you left on the world.

“I present to you seven crowns.” He slammed his staff down; magic runes, each intricately carved by his necromantic constructs, glowed with sickly green light as they lit up the entire stone hall. “So, answer me: how do I kill even Death?”

The seven crowns crumbled to dust, and he heard mocking laughter that echoed through the stone halls.

“You seek to defeat Death by killing?”

That was all the Revenant King said—all Amon had gotten after murdering countless priests and paladins, petty heroes and kings, and throwing the entire Western Kingdoms into chaos.

Seven crowns for seven words and a laugh.

His undead hordes stirred as he turned eastward. The Revenant King knew how to end Death, but a mere seven crowns were not enough for him to teach Amon.

So he needed something better: a way to permanently revive the Revenant King.

In his pocket, he had a singular card, an omen in the form of a tarot. It depicted a man with one arm stretched to the heavens, the other to the earth below; he had a sickly appearance, hairless for he had allowed Death to seep deeply into his body. Before him lay five tools. Of them, only four were colored: a wand, a filled goblet, a crowned skull, and a noose. The last, in stark contrast to the colorful artwork, was a mere white outline, yet the outline was enough to show that it was a deck of cards.

It was the Magician, and Amon, who was learned of many things, knew which deck it depicted. An Age of Wonders Revenant King deck, crafted by Wundall himself, and it held the key to resurrecting the Revenant King.

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Character Sheets

Name: Dustin

Race: Magic Myconid Level 1

Classes: Fungalmancer Level 5, Keeper of Secrets Level 1

Body:

Strength: 8

Agility: 7

Dexterity: 6

Constitution: 19

Stamina: 10

Vitality: 12

Mind:

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 21

Charisma: 6

Soul:

Will: 10

Psyche: 10

Perception: 10

Available SP: 0

Racials:

Manavision, Fungal Body, Sun Sickness, Mana Dependency, Pacifying Spores, Strong Innate Magic, Age-Type Heteromorph

Class Skills:

Fungalmancer

Path: Symbiosis

- Grow Sporage (Visual) [Active]: You may create a mushroom capable of storing a Spore-based spell. These Sporages can be activated on visual contact. They glow faintly and last your myconid level in hours.

- Grow Sporage (Proximity) [Active]: Upgrade to Grow Sporage. You obtain the option to grow Sporages with a different activation type. The sporage lets out a thin layer of mycelium around it that acts as a pressure detector. When sufficient weight is applied to any part of the fungus, the Sporage will explode. You and targets of Symbiosis do not detonate these Sporages.

- Sporage Wisp Symbiosis [Active]: Wisps have lived comfortably in your cap and have created a wonderful home there. Now, to teach them the wonders of rent! You may create pygmy myconid bodies for your non-corporeal Wisps to inhabit. They are tiny creatures and are capable of following simple commands. They possess all the qualities of Sporage. However, they can choose to self-detonate.

- Bracken Polypores (Passive) [Active]: A species of symbiotic fungus are seeded underneath your skin. They rely on you for food and, in return, can instantly grow into durable mycelium plates that can cover your entire body. The hardness and weight may vary depending on how much Satiety you feed them at any moment. Will gain defensive bonuses if used in conjunction with Bark Skin.

Level 6:

- Fairy Circle (Persistent) [Active]: You can demarcate any complete circle of mushrooms to become a Fairy Circle, turning it into a pseudo-gateway to an adjacent plane of your choosing. This Fairy Circle will remain active as long as you are within it and the mushroom circle is not disturbed. Different dimensional laws and effects will occur within the circle, and other dimensional entities may appear, though nothing of the other plane can leave the Fairy Circle, nor can anything of the original plane enter the adjacent plane, unless an exchange occurs.

- Mediation of Mutualism (Persistent) [Active]: You can create an agreement that may involve two or more parties. This agreement may facilitate the exchange of anything each party is willing to offer but must require, at minimum, three witnesses which may include yourself and the parties, and all parties willing to consent and agree to the agreement without duress. The agreement will only take effect once all conditions are met. Should a party violate the agreement, a percentage of their Body, Mind, or Soul stats will be damaged, increasing with the combined level of the witnesses.

- Stamp of Symbiosis (Persistent) [Active]: You may choose to greatly empower up to 3 (Fungalmancer and Magic Myconid Combined Level / 2) entities that you are in a deep symbiotic relationship with. Their level will be raised by 2 (Fungalmancer and Magic Myconid Combined Level / 3) levels, with up to an additional 200% (Fungalmancer and Magic Myconid Combined Level / 3 x 100%) additional levels based on the level of shared symbiosis. They do not gain new skills, abilities, or spell slots associated with the level increase, nor is Experience gain affected for Travelers, but for the purposes of level-scaling and distributed stats, their raised level will be their effective level. You gain additional bonuses depending on the target of the Stamp. Once a Stamp has been set, it cannot be changed for a month. Current abilities which establish a Symbiotic relationship: Sporage Wisp Symbiosis, Bracken Polypores, Mediation of Mutualism, Stamp of Symbiosis.

- Stamp of Symbiosis Bonus (Bracken Polypores): It has been a part of you. It was your bulwark, your second skin. When you cast Bark Skins, you do not require material components or concentration, and you can cast it on a willing creature.

- Stamp of Symbiosis Bonus (Yellow): From your very first step, it was there. You taught it lessons of stealth and deception, and it has stayed by your side as your eyes and ears, a hand in the dark. You may channel your Manavision through Watching Eyes within its range.

- Stamp of Symbiosis Bonus (Noam)

Keeper of Secrets:

Path: Keep

- Keeper of Secrets: You know several world-shattering revelations that, if revealed, may change the course of the world. While you hold them secret, you may put one in an active state to gain certain benefits. The less well-known the knowledge, the greater its potential impact on the world, and the deeper your own knowledge of it, the greater the benefit you have in Keeping it.

Greater Secrets:

- A Blank Page in History, the Next Voyage of Discovery: You become difficult to be remembered or perceived. Others will not notice your presence without a high stat check or you choosing to reveal yourself, though evidence of your passing will remain, e.g. footprints, reflections, recordings, scents. Whilst in this state, you have True Sight.

- The Balance: You can see the Balance Scales of yourself and others.

- The World Eater of the 7th Hell: You may store consumables within your stomach that you may, at any time, digest. Anything you consume in this manner has its effects, both positive and negative amplified by 700%.

- The One-Order Fenkai and the Clockwork Chaos Osshiven’Kai: When things are Ordered: You are passively aware of the location of the sun and stars, the weather and the cardinal directions. When things are Chaotic: You randomly gain 2 T0 and 1 T1 spells. These spells cost no mana but can only be cast once each. Upon using all three, you gain another random set of 2 T0 and 1 T1 spells.

Lesser Secrets:

- The Shattered Crown of the Revenant King

- Songs of the Fallen

- Et Non-Dissent: This class was not sourced from the system, thus it does not benefit from the system either.

- Progress in this class does not rely on Traveler XP but on your own proficiency.

- You may not invest levels in this class.

- This class and its progress will not be displayed on your Traveler character sheet.

Feats:

Dimensional Gate (9 SP): You gain +3 to INT. You select from the Interweaved Dimensions Spell List and learn 2 Tier 2 and 1 Tier 1 Conjuration Spells of your choice. They do not take up existing spell slots.

Spells:

Magic Myconid Spells:

T0: Sneezing Spores, Acid Spit, Watching Eye

Fungalmancer Spells:

T0: Balm Spores, Light Spores, Shillelagh

T1: Mushroom Meal, Poison Spores, Euphoria Spray

T2: Bark Skin, Fix-Up Fungus, Rot Spores

Dimensional Gate Feat Spells:

T2: Misty Step, Summon Wisps

T3: Create Wisps

Available Spell Slots:

T0: 1

T1: 1

T2: 1

T3: 2

Languages:

Common

Undercommon

Name: Noam

Classes: Skald Level 6 / Dustin Stamp of Symbiosis Level ?

Body:

Strength: 15

Agility: 16 (?)

Dexterity: 13 (?)

Constitution: 9

Stamina: 13 (?)

Vitality: 8

Mind:

Intelligence: 14 (?)

Wisdom: 10

Charisma: 16 (?)

Soul:

Will: 10

Psyche: 10

Perception: 10

Racials:

Darkvision, Hellish Resistance

Class Skills:

Skald:

Path: Spitfire

- Breathless: Your body no longer needs to breathe, but you retain maximal efficiency of aerobic respiration. This is at the cellular level, thus your body will never produce lactic acid, and you experience effects similar to oxygen-doping. All stats have a +10%.

- Beatbox: You gain knowledge of how to beatbox alongside proficiency. You may, as a free action, lock up to 5 seconds of beatboxing in a loop, where it’ll continuously emanate from you at the original volume at a negligible mana cost per second.

- Fire: When verbal-based attacks land a critical hit, the target is set alight by non-magical flame.

- Catch These Hands!: Once per day, gain bonus stats to AGI, DEX and CHA for every creature around you currently irritated, angered, generally pissed, and/or displaying active hostility towards you. Stats disappear when the cooldown has ended or when hostile individuals leave your range or cease being hostile to you.

Level 6:

- Beatbox (Inspiration): You have a pool of additional stats (CHA / 2 rounded down) that you may add through your Beatbox skill, up to a maximum equal to your Skald Level (6) per stat. You may now use your Beatbox on others so long as at least one stat is allocated to them in the process.

- I’M LIT!: Once per day, you may use a verbal based attack on yourself and light yourself on Fire, gain a temporary +3 (Skald Level / 2, rounded down) in every stat, and emanate magical fire. All of your attacks will deal magical fire damage. While in this state, you can magically sense all fires caused by your skills so long as they are within the same plane and within a large-enough distance of you. This lasts until you dispel it or perish from the damaging fire.

- Spitfire, but with a space in between: You can turn your spit into an incendiary gel that is difficult to remove and burns magical fire that cannot be put out by mundane means. Creatures damaged by the fire have their Fire Resistance lowered by a level until the burn wounds are healed. The crackling fire can repeat short phrases in Infernal, and you may cast verbal-based attacks through this method.

Feats:

Mobile (3 SP): You gain a +2 to AGI. You instinctively know how to traverse difficult terrain, and you may completely ignore non-magical difficult terrain when running.

Proficiencies:

Polearms: Novice

Beatboxing: Novice

Martial Arts:

Swift Strike, Swift Coating

Spells:

T0: Vicious Mockery, Control Flame, Firebolt

T1: Hideous Laughter

T2: Otto’s Irresistible Correction

Available Spell Slots:

T0: 1

T1: 1

Languages:

Common

Infernal

Name: Utoqa the Tribeless

Race: Variant Lizardfolk Level 1

Classes: Artificer Level 1, Survivalist Level 4

Body:

Strength: 14

Agility: 14

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 19

Stamina: 18

Vitality: 18

Mind:

Intelligence: 11

Wisdom: 13

Charisma: 5

Soul:

Will: 8

Psyche: 8

Perception: 22

Racials:

Natural Armor and Weapons, Hold Breath, Magical Darkvision, Variant Biology

Class Skills:

Artificer:

Path: Scavenge

- Scavenge: A trick that allows him to craft magical items out of the corpses of creatures. They are imbued with aspects of the creature’s power but tend to be one-use only unless the creature was very strong.

Survivalist:

Path: Survive

- Survive: Three charges, at the cost of one charge, Utoqa can ignore one instance of lethal damage and is brought back to consciousness. If Utoqa were to die, this automatically activates if he has the appropriate charges. This ability does not heal existing wounds or ailments, save for those causing death.

Notable Scavenge Creations:

- Gift: An extremely sharp and durable tomahawk made from a bone gifted by the explorer he saved. Can easily cleave through flesh and bone.

- Finger of Dustin: One of Dustin’s severed fingers; when used, will spray Pacifying Spores in a 5-meter radius.

- Goblin Fire Mage Tongue: Allows the user to briefly cast the spells of a mage.

Notable Items:

Trick Pouches: Belt pouches that appear normal. However, each contains a small subspace that can store several times their perceived capacity. Items stored inside cannot exceed the size of the opening of the pouch.

Languages:

Tequalan

Draconic

Common (Chanter)

Name: Celine Kakoph

Race: Changeling Level 1

Classes: Witch Level 4, Herbalist Level 1

Body:

Strength: 9

Agility: 10

Dexterity: 13

Constitution: 9

Stamina: 11

Vitality: 8

Mind:

Intelligence: 20

Wisdom: 15

Charisma: 18

Soul:

Will: 12

Psyche: 12

Perception: 14

Racials:

Change Appearance, Sense Emotions

Class Skills:

Witch:

Ritual Casting

Path: Stitch

- Stitch: Create a silver stitch.

- The Friends We Made Along the Way: She may create sympathetic dolls with a variety of functions. They last until she dispels them.

Magic Schools:

Sympathetic Hagcraft: Major Mastery

Trizian School of Primal Material Transmutation: Middling Mastery

Gimetris School of Eluding Equivalence Transmutation: Minor Mastery

Spells:

T0: Prestidigitation, Magic Stones, Mending, Magic Rope, Dancing Lights

T1: Goodberry, Lesser Restoration, Create Water

Sympathetic Spells:

T0: Fumbletongue, Bless

T1: Catapult, False Life, Cure Wounds

T2: Curse

Notable Items:

- Nappy: An animated cloak that protects her.

Languages:

Common (Chanter)

Elf Common (Dai)

Old Common (Swiddian)

Under Common (Kantant)

Witch Tongue (Wynnken)

Name: Tai Gnari

Race: Wood Elf´Quarter Human

Classes: Fighter Level 4

Body:

Strength: 19

Agility: 15

Dexterity: 14

Constitution: 15

Stamina: 16

Vitality: 18

Mind:

Intelligence: 11

Wisdom: 13

Charisma: 12

Soul:

Will: 14

Psyche: 11

Perception: 10

Racials:

Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, Fleet of Foot, Mark of the Wild

Class Skills:

Path: Discipline

Gnari Family Style, Art of the First Breath

- Discipline: A Path passed from mother to daughter, father to son; with continued mastery, the Path of Discipline may become the Path of the Master.

Notable Items:

- Blade of Proving: A blade that can only be lifted if the person has proven capable of adult responsibilities

- Blade of Nao Ri Tai: Tai Gnari’s sword.

- Blade of Nao Ri Kai: Kai Gnari, her brother’s sword.

Languages:

Common (Chanter)

Elf Common (Dai)

Low Elvish (Noi Na)

Boss Sheets

Heather Glascoin

Sister of the Hearth Church

Chosen of the Demon Moleath

Classes:

Priest (Home Domain) Level 8

Warlock (Demon Patron) Level 3

Body:

Strength: 7

Agility: 10

Dexterity: 12

Constitution: 8

Stamina: 9

Vitality: 8

Mind:

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 9

Charisma: 18

Soul:

Will: 12

Psyche: 10

Perception: 8

Traits:

- Non-Combatant: This creature is a non-combatant.

- Faith: This creature is a servant of a God that may participate in the fight.

- Faithful: This creature is a servant of a God that is actively participating in the fight.

- Faithless: This creature is a former servant of a God that is actively hindering it in the fight.

Hidden:

- Deception: This creature is not what it seems.

- Poison User: This creature utilizes poisons.

- Morale Breaker: This creature has significant disabling and restrictive abilities.

- Lucky: This creature is supernaturally lucky.

- Blessed by the World: This creature has committed many good deeds, and random events will conspire to keep it alive.

Basic Combat:

- Weighted Scales: Creation seeks balance. For her lifetime of charity and asceticism, Heather Glascoin will receive continuous blessings and lucky breaks.

- Alchemical Novice: Heather Glascoin has some dabbling in alchemical poisons.

- Pact: Heather Glascoin has a pact with the demon Moleath.

- Wrath of Hearth and Home: Heather Glascoin broke the sanctity of Hearth and Home. Lorn will actively attempt to hinder her.

- Hostages: Heather Glascoin will actively use hostages to her advantage.

Home:

- Disciple of the Home (Passive): This ability was destroyed by Heather Glascoin’s actions.

- Channel Divinity, The Hearth Eternal (Active): This ability was destroyed by Heather Glascoin’s actions.

Mold:

- The Mask She Made as Child: This ability was never identified or used in combat.

- The Lies She Told to Fit In: This ability was never identified or used in combat.

- Ceramic Savant, Thousand Shapes (Actives): Heather Glascoin senses and manipulates all nearby forms of clay.

Pact:

- A Pact with the Demon of Mouths: This ability was never identified or used in combat.

Hidden:

- Fortune’s Eye: This effect was never identified but was used.

- Tarot Card Aspirant: This effect was never identified or used.

Weaknesses:

- Non-Combatant: Heather Glascoin hunts primarily the weak and defenseless with planned attacks that instantly restrict and disable the target. She has no experience battling equal nor superior opponents, nor situations where she does not have the advantage.

- Hubristic: Heather Glascoin believes that the Scales of Karma is all there is to fate and destiny. She forgets choice.

About the Author

Sir Nil is an Australian author who got really bored one afternoon in high school and decided to vomit out a piece of brain-melting word soup he called a “story,” dragging the poor netizens of a certain webnovel site through a truly horrific experience. He didn’t even compose it on a typewriter, but on a smartphone—the absolute gall! Some say he’s gotten better as a writer since then, having started multiple highly rated webnovels, one of which you may be reading as a published series, but he personally denies such allegations.

Sir Nil studies biotechnology, though is not particularly good at it, and his personal writing motto is: “The secret to being original is copying so many people that your detractors give up pointing it out,” which he encourages everyone to shamelessly steal without crediting him.

If ever you may face Sir Nil in battle or debate, simply bring up his first webnovel and he will shrivel up like an embarrassed prune, guaranteeing your victory through tried-and-true ad hominem attacks.

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